Meet Your Map: Beater's Competitive Mapmaking Challenge!

[Quantum]

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.

I'd have to completely disagree. While it's not perfect feedback, it's been extremely helpful. They've helped me identify a lot of things that were awkward or just didn't work on my map. You have to remember, any feedback you get from anywhere has to be taken with a grain of salt, and 'silent' feedback (just the way that the players play the map) should be taken into account just as much as voiced feedback. Sifting through feedback is just as much of a skill to learn as mapping itself.

Also, I feel like this goes both ways, give them feedback on what you want feedback on. Not everyone knows what it's like on the development side of a map, after all.

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.

I can't really argue that a large portion of the competitive community can be very hard to please, and some of them will complain about a map being bad when they refused to test it in it's development to make it better. Believe me, I share the frustrations there. But, I believe you're frustrations are being voiced in the wrong place, as Beater is actively encouraging competitive players to help test these map. He's brought valuable feedback that's hard to come by, seeing as there are only so many top level players to get feedback from in the first place. I feel like it's a bit of a shame that people in the mapping community would complain about their maps not being tested in the past, in a thread created by someone looking to bridge that gap.

 

[b1gl4ke]

Also, I feel like this goes both ways, give them feedback on what you want feedback on. Not everyone knows what it's like on the development side of a map, after all.

Ok.

"Confusing," or "not intuitive" is often a product of lack of detailing either through dev textures or just detailing that doesn't follow functionality. Mappers focusing on detailing in the early stages would be a mistake. One of the casters did mention something like this at the end.

What alarms me the most is that the stream seemed to love cardinal, just like they used to love reckoner and sunshine. "This map is beautiful, look at it. This is lovely!" "This should be the most competitive of all the games we watched so far." Over time their opinions changed. To put it bluntly, the only well designed parts of all three of these maps is lobby between sunshine last and second, and second on cardinal. It took the competitive community months to not like the maps instead of bringing up the problems in development. If you want proof of the quality of feedback look at the end result: sunshine and reckoner.
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Cardinal:

Mid is flat. The difference between low ground and high ground is probably around 256hu. A bit low.

Mid uses somewhat flat displacements ramping up to a flat non-displacement. Using fairly flat displacements with a flat non-displacements creates a redundancy in flat surfaces.

The only hidden low ground is right behind the tall shacks which often won't be useful since its lined up with where teams hold. Hidden low ground provides players with unseen alternate routes.

Second is good.

Last is prone to the biggest problem in Phi's maps: they lack relative size difference. Place small objects by big paths and big paths by small objects so the relative size increases. If you don't you end up with sunshine mid which looks like a big field of random props. Horizontal scaling isn't important in the first few versions of a map but it should definitely be honed in before starting detailing.

There's an area you can hold in lobby between second and last which allows you to cover all entrances except the separate flank route. It's too strong of a spot. They actually mentioned this at the end of the game.
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I'm jumping the gun a bit since this was the first time for feedback for some but it just seems like we would have already had this stuff figured out.

 

[Yrr]

Ok.

"Confusing," or "not intuitive" is often a product of lack of detailing either through dev textures or just detailing that doesn't follow functionality. Mappers focusing on detailing in the early stages would be a mistake. One of the casters did mention something like this at the end.

Layouts should be intuitive and understandable even in greybox, geometry is a big part of how your players understand your map.

I'm a big proponent of making sure your map makes sense and guides players instinctively before theres any detailing or signs.

 

[hutty]

they lack relative size difference. Place small objects by big paths and big paths by small objects so the relative size increases. If you don't you end up with sunshine mid which looks like a big field of random props.

... what

I think your diving deep into personal opinion territory now. sunshine's mid doesn't have any more small objects in it than process does.

And sunshine is a very successful comp map, it may be falling out of favor but it was liked long enough to be patched into the base game by valve.

Its impossible to make a map that the entire competitive community will like because the competitive community is made of individuals who main different classes and have different tastes.

 

[phi]

What alarms me the most is that the stream seemed to love cardinal, just like they used to love reckoner and sunshine. "This map is beautiful, look at it. This is lovely!" "This should be the most competitive of all the games we watched so far." Over time their opinions changed. To put it bluntly, the only well designed parts of all three of these maps is lobby between sunshine last and second, and second on cardinal. It took the competitive community months to not like the maps instead of bringing up the problems in development. If you want proof of the quality of feedback look at the end result: sunshine and reckoner.

For the record, I am openly going to soon leave the competitive community due to the incessantly negative mood constantly put forth. You don't seem to understand the process I went through to develop Sunshine and Reckoner. The fact you think it was never changed until they "realised it was awful" is laughable. They always gave feedback. They always "disliked" some part of it. That's how development works. I would constantly fix what didn't work.

Feedback is great and I accept it with open arms. Negative feedback is great, too. But - the way you deride Sunshine and Reckoner, which were maps painstakingly iterated over the course of years with feedback from hundreds of people, is the exact reason why I will not make another competitive map after Cardinal.

You hold an opinion that the maps are bad, and that is fine. What is false is you saying the community did not think they were bad. Plenty did. Everyone did. That's how progressive feedback works. That's what made Sunshine a good map for its time. That's what is making Reckoner a good map. Cardinal isn't special because it "looks pretty".

They're not perfect. But as someone who has developed them for years on end, watching hundreds of demos, spending thousands of hours on them, talking to hundreds of people who gave everything from amazing feedback to straight-up harassment -

You're not special for hating Sunshine and Reckoner. Don't use my maps to make a poorly-sourced argument.

 

[Najesu]

@Beater Send me an email with your Paypal infos, I'd be more than happy to raise the prise pool of 100€. Got some extra money and want to do something for the TF2 Community, if it can help motivate some people or reward an exellent map maker I'm really diggin it.

 

[Mess About]

frag highlights

 

[Beater]

Najesu has been true to his word (and then some!) and has contributed 150€ to the prize pool. 100 of these will go towards the mappers and 50 will be put towards the players participating in the final tournament.

The 100€ will be divided as follows: 60€ added to first place, bringing the total to 130€.
20€ added to 2nd and 3rd place, bringing the total up to 35€ apiece.

Big thanks to Najesu, and his commitment to giving back to the TF2 community!

 

[MegapiemanPHD]

Any idea when the next test will be for this?

 

[Quantum]

Any idea when the next test will be for this?

Looks like he did a pug on your map on his twitch a few days ago. https://www.twitch.tv/videos/232071195 The first round starts about 34 minutes in. I'm curious when the next "official" (casted on essentials.tf) playtest will be, as well.

 

[MegapiemanPHD]

Looks like he did a pug on your map on his twitch a few days ago. https://www.twitch.tv/videos/232071195 The first round starts about 34 minutes in. I'm curious when the next "official" (casted on essentials.tf) playtest will be, as well.

Thanks. If Beater comes across this, would it be possible for you to post these vods on this thread or something?

 

[Beater]

All map tests that I play are streamed and archived here: https://www.twitch.tv/beaterdk/videos/all . I'm making sure to highlight the games and putting the map name in the title. Usually I'm arranging these map tests for Friday nights after I get home from work, so checking my twitch channel Saturday is recommended.

You should also be able to find demos of any game we play on http://demos.tf , although the site has been very unstable as of late. Simply search for my name and you should be able to find the demos quite easily.

I'm hoping to do another official play test with essentials.tf one of the upcoming weekends, but it's still in the planning stage.

 

[Mess About]

Can i update the map even after the deadline?

Because I'm afraid that it would hit 16th March before my map (and also some others) got tested

 

[MegapiemanPHD]

Synthetic's been updated

https://tf2maps.net/downloads/synthetic.5573/download?version=13025

 

[trees]

Relic's also updated
https://tf2maps.net/downloads/relic.5761/

 

[Beater]

Can i update the map even after the deadline?

Because I'm afraid that it would hit 16th March before my map (and also some others) got tested

The maps will be evaluated based on the version that is submitted on the March 16th deadline, so make sure you get any changes you want done before then. You can still update your map after the deadline, however it won't benefit you unless your map is chosen to move on to the final tournament (to be played some time mid April, probably)

I didn't playtest this Friday due to illness, but I managed to get a dmix going yesterday instead. Because I'm an idiot I forgot to turn on sound for the first map, koth_clearcut, but the overall feedback was generally: Map is still too laggy, it is too difficult to get into middle after losing it. The slanted roofs on mid are too tall.

 

[Mess About]

I just updated koth_pain, now in a2
https://tf2maps.net/downloads/pain.5747/download?version=13087

 

[Mess About]

yoohoo, is there anybody still remember this contest?

deadline is pretty close now: 16th March 2018

also koth_pain is in a4 now, just saying

 

[hutty]

I haven't forgotten about it

 

[EArkham]

I'm letting mine ride as is unfortunately. Just too busy with work lately, it's been non-stop. It's a shame, I think I could beat antiquity into really nice shape if I had the time.