Recently, some people have shown an interest in competitive map testing, and I, too, have interest in this.
After some deliberation and planning, I have some ideas as to how this would work, but it all depends on how many people are interested.
I have written up some of the potential ideas for these competitive tests, but keep in mind it is all hypothetical until I can set this up on the servers and of course, organise teams.
Formats
6v6:
This would be the easiest to set up and organise for regular playtests, and is the most popular competitive format, but comes with several drawbacks for a testing environment. In particular, the meta of 6v6 is well-established, being 2 scouts, 2 soldiers, 1 demo and 1 medic. This is a composition that has proven to work excellently in a competitive environment, but does not provide the mapper with good data, as it restricts classes being played on the map to only those that are viable. This would possibly create the best 6v6 map ever made, but only if it is being played with those four classes.
7v7 (prolander):
This is the next step up from 6v6, with the major change being that there is a class limit of 1. This opens up a wide range of class composition options allowing for a lot more useful data for the mapper. The downside is that if a single team member is doing poorly it often brings down the performance of the team as a whole by a large margin, swaying the data.
9v9 (highlander):
This would be the ideal competitive format to use for testing, as it guarantees that all classes are being played, and if one team member is not doing particularly well, the rest of the team can often make up for it.
Of course, this requires two organised teams of 9 players who are available to play for at least an hour, uninterrupted. This is quite hard to organise, particularly so in a small community like this.
Rules:
Weapon bans:
Weapon bans are likely to be similar to most major leagues, with some changes to better suit the testing environment. We will go through the weapon whitelist as a group, choosing to ban/unban certain weapons.
Taunt bans:
All non-stock taunts are banned. Competitive leagues often ban looping taunts as it allows players to look around corners with little repercussion, but it's easier to just ban them all.
Gamemode-specific rules:
Tournament mode will be enabled for the duration of the test, which also means stopwatch mode will be enabled on Payload and A/D maps. Two games will be played for each asymmetrical map (4 rounds total), scrambling after each game. For symmetrical gamemodes, we will be playing best of three, for two games (6 maximum rounds total), and scrambling teams after each game.
Teams:
Teams do not need to be organised prior to a test, as there will be scrambles, however all players will need to be able to communicate with their team through voice, through either discord or in-game voicechat.
Players:
Here at tf2maps, we don't exactly have any kind of skill rating system in place for our servers, so it should be expected that teams will be made up of many players of varying skill levels in order to be inclusive. However, if a player is shown to be performing particularly poorly and repeatedly in competitive tests, they may have to be asked to leave, as they are not contributing to the test positively. I don't hope or expect this to ever happen, but it may be necessary. On the other side of the scale, if a player is seen to be performing too well on a regular basis, they may have to be asked to 'tone it down' or switch roles.
That's pretty much all I've got for now, if you have any suggestions, please post them in the thread below.
If you are interested in participating in these competitive map tests, please let me know, either on this thread or on discord! Once I know that enough people are interested, I can start getting this organised for real.
After some deliberation and planning, I have some ideas as to how this would work, but it all depends on how many people are interested.
I have written up some of the potential ideas for these competitive tests, but keep in mind it is all hypothetical until I can set this up on the servers and of course, organise teams.
Formats
6v6:
This would be the easiest to set up and organise for regular playtests, and is the most popular competitive format, but comes with several drawbacks for a testing environment. In particular, the meta of 6v6 is well-established, being 2 scouts, 2 soldiers, 1 demo and 1 medic. This is a composition that has proven to work excellently in a competitive environment, but does not provide the mapper with good data, as it restricts classes being played on the map to only those that are viable. This would possibly create the best 6v6 map ever made, but only if it is being played with those four classes.
7v7 (prolander):
This is the next step up from 6v6, with the major change being that there is a class limit of 1. This opens up a wide range of class composition options allowing for a lot more useful data for the mapper. The downside is that if a single team member is doing poorly it often brings down the performance of the team as a whole by a large margin, swaying the data.
9v9 (highlander):
This would be the ideal competitive format to use for testing, as it guarantees that all classes are being played, and if one team member is not doing particularly well, the rest of the team can often make up for it.
Of course, this requires two organised teams of 9 players who are available to play for at least an hour, uninterrupted. This is quite hard to organise, particularly so in a small community like this.
Rules:
Weapon bans:
Weapon bans are likely to be similar to most major leagues, with some changes to better suit the testing environment. We will go through the weapon whitelist as a group, choosing to ban/unban certain weapons.
Taunt bans:
All non-stock taunts are banned. Competitive leagues often ban looping taunts as it allows players to look around corners with little repercussion, but it's easier to just ban them all.
Gamemode-specific rules:
Tournament mode will be enabled for the duration of the test, which also means stopwatch mode will be enabled on Payload and A/D maps. Two games will be played for each asymmetrical map (4 rounds total), scrambling after each game. For symmetrical gamemodes, we will be playing best of three, for two games (6 maximum rounds total), and scrambling teams after each game.
Teams:
Teams do not need to be organised prior to a test, as there will be scrambles, however all players will need to be able to communicate with their team through voice, through either discord or in-game voicechat.
Players:
Here at tf2maps, we don't exactly have any kind of skill rating system in place for our servers, so it should be expected that teams will be made up of many players of varying skill levels in order to be inclusive. However, if a player is shown to be performing particularly poorly and repeatedly in competitive tests, they may have to be asked to leave, as they are not contributing to the test positively. I don't hope or expect this to ever happen, but it may be necessary. On the other side of the scale, if a player is seen to be performing too well on a regular basis, they may have to be asked to 'tone it down' or switch roles.
That's pretty much all I've got for now, if you have any suggestions, please post them in the thread below.
If you are interested in participating in these competitive map tests, please let me know, either on this thread or on discord! Once I know that enough people are interested, I can start getting this organised for real.
