Meet Your Map: Beater's Competitive Mapmaking Challenge!

[Kingorcoc]

is there going to group where we can maybe test these maps i would love to try some

 

[Yrr]

Is there a whitelist for the testing these maps will get?

Specifically will the pyros have the jetpack available. And will scouts have access to the FAN or Atomizer.

id just assume whatever the current whitelist is for now

 

[EArkham]

To be clear, it doesn't matter how old a map is as long as it hasn't been played in one of the leagues mentioned, correct?

 

[Beater]

I somewhat answered why I didn't allow A/D already, and I don't feel like going super in-depth about it is really going to achieve much since there's no way I am changing my opinion or the rules. Long story short: A/D isn't a very dynamic game mode and I have no faith in it.

I'll make a steam group for testing maps. I have 2 weeks off for Christmas and New years starting this Thursday, so that's when I'll start to truly put in some work.

The whitelist is the etf2l whitelist, so no need to keep wranglers, for example, in mind when making your map. I don't know how much the whitelist will change this off-season, but I wouldn't surprised to see the jetpack and dragon's fury unbanned.

The age of the map does not matter.

 

[Kingorcoc]

To be clear, it doesn't matter how old a map is as long as it hasn't been played in one of the leagues mentioned, correct?

are we going to see antiquity then?

 

[EArkham]

are we going to see antiquity then?

Maaaaaaaaaybeeeeeeeee.

 

[Kingorcoc]

Maaaaaaaaaybeeeeeeeee.

nice its a cool map hope i get to test it in 6s

 

[Yrr]

Something I wanna bring up actually is that I hope this contest deals with the major issue previous competitive map cups have had, which is that nobody bothers to learn the maps

In TFTV's new map cup, almost none of the teams competing played the maps at all until their matches, which gives a terrible impression of the maps. The most egregious example being that the payload map got thrown live on stream because the teams didnt even know how the changes that had been made to the mode worked - they hadn't even looked at the map thread. The other maps (mine included) were generally just played in whatever the most obvious way was, with no attempts to counter or strategise.
That combined with the players attacking the maps and their creators openly put a lot of mappers off trying to create competitive maps.

If you can somehow encourage teams to learn the maps this time, and try out new strategies, the results of this contest will probably be a lot better.
(That and getting them to give feedback more useful than "this map is cancer and the creator should kill themselves")

 

[bobotype]

Long story short: A/D isn't a very dynamic game mode and I have no faith in it.

It's your competition I guess, but A/D has plenty of potential to be very dynamic, especially with Gravelpit-style and Steel-style designs. Only the design flaws of existing maps is what's holding them back, and I think it's very unwise to write off the mode because of correctable flaws in the maps.

Basically you're saying "this mode is undynamic because of these flaws on these maps, so it's not worth making more dynamic maps;" and "I'm looking for something fresh, but not willing to experiment." It isn't logical at all.

 

[Beater]

We will be testing the maps submitted so far tonight at 20 CET on Essentials's stream

Tune in to get some feedback, or simply to watch supposedly good players run into walls!

 

[b1gl4ke]

Thank you very much for running the first event Beater! I will take notes from the demo.

 

[hutty]

Yeah, the feedback from this is invaluable, thanks a lot.

 

[Kingorcoc]

We will be testing the maps submitted so far tonight at 20 CET on Essentials's stream

Tune in to get some feedback, or simply to watch supposedly good players run into walls!

will there be any place for worse players also to test the maps

 

[Mess About]

will there be any place for worse players also to test the maps

idk if you're being sarcasm or not, but you can test your map right on tf2maps servers, people come to play everyday

 

[Beater]

will there be any place for worse players also to test the maps

I've made a steam group meant to test these maps. If you know how to play 6v6, you're invited!

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/BeaterMapTestGroup

I'll try to get a mix going tonight at 19:00 CET, in about half an hour

 

[Kingorcoc]

idk if you're being sarcasm or not, but you can test your map right on tf2maps servers, people come to play everyday

no u got the wrong idea sorry i don't make maps i just like playing them

 

[Aron Times]

Something I wanna bring up actually is that I hope this contest deals with the major issue previous competitive map cups have had, which is that nobody bothers to learn the maps

In TFTV's new map cup, almost none of the teams competing played the maps at all until their matches, which gives a terrible impression of the maps. The most egregious example being that the payload map got thrown live on stream because the teams didnt even know how the changes that had been made to the mode worked - they hadn't even looked at the map thread. The other maps (mine included) were generally just played in whatever the most obvious way was, with no attempts to counter or strategise.
That combined with the players attacking the maps and their creators openly put a lot of mappers off trying to create competitive maps.

If you can somehow encourage teams to learn the maps this time, and try out new strategies, the results of this contest will probably be a lot better.
(That and getting them to give feedback more useful than "this map is cancer and the creator should kill themselves")

I would like to echo Yrr's concerns about this. 70 EUR (83 USD) for the best map with no guarantee of it being played, after countless hours of work? You have to get actual 6s players to participate in this because the maps are being made for them.

I played in one of the contender maps (I think it was called Mist) and while we provided a lot of feedback, the type of feedback I personally provide is for 12v12 games.I asked in alltalk why people were bothering to make maps for 6s when the 6s community has historically been very resistant to change, and why we of all people were the ones doing the testing when none of us there play 6s as our primary format.

Are we going to end up with another map that gets trashed on stream and its creator harassed and flamed by ignorant people?

https://twitter.com/UEAKCrash/status/943347198540075008

I will confess that the mention of Essentials.tf piqued my interest. Half of the people involved hate the other half. Still, there is hope that something good will come out of this. I mean, you have Wiethoofd on staff. He's a good man, and one I am confident would handle this well.

 

[hutty]

Yo @Aron Times author of cp_mist here. the maps in this cup are getting tested with competitive players (there was a test last week and will be another one on Thursday as I can gather). Beater and the Essentials.tf community are doing a good job at providing quality feedback and getting the maps tested, from what I've seen so far. So this isn't just a make-post-and-dash type of contest.

Feedback on the TF2maps.net tests isn't without value, even though its not the same demographic that my map is targeting. They are great for making sure fight spaces play out well, as well as catching bugs and other issues.

 

[b1gl4ke]

the 6s community has historically been very resistant to change

The competitive community likes quality, they just suck at articulating it.

Judging by the first challenge day most of what they voiced on the stream was worthless or insignificant for an in-development map. There's going to be only a few valid criticisms but try to make the most of those.

 

[Aron Times]

Well to respond to his point, the core of the reason why it isn't popular is because the maps are bad! A map competition designed to create good competitive maps could really help. I appreciate your detailed response summing up his response though.

"6s A/D had been discussed alot, the reason is just simply people don't like to play the mode"

The first con of the first discussion you linked was: "-There aren't any Attack/Defend maps currently that I would call able to be played in 6v6 comfortably. Gravelpit is probably the closest we've got, and it did work for many seasons, but there's reasons why it hasn't been played in years."

That reason of course being that 1/3 of Gravelpit is almost useless, and even then, quite a few people said they enjoyed playing Gravelpit.

The problem is the maps, not the mode. If we had a competition where good A/D maps were made with comp in mind, that could change.

This just in, 6s players don't like change. Details at 11.

I'm going to predict that anything that stands out is going to be ground down to conform to the 6s meta, and it will still not be good enough for the community. Nothing will ever be good enough. It's an unpleasable fanbase.