Gonna post any responses I have here since it feels a little less confining than the poll, I like being verbose. I also like open comms so y'know, anyone wants to comment on this they can.
Priority Testing
I think priority testing is something that's good... in small doses. There's certain times when I'm hosting where I genuinely feel like I'm being suffocated because soooo many people are making requests, and (ik this is probably a me problem) but it's really hard saying no because that could end up in a player being unhappy or just outright leaving, which both have happened to me before when I've
said no about a request. I do think they should be kept available for hosts, though I would appreciate the occasional reminder from staff about how it's
okay to say no to people making requests.
I think as for priority contest testing, I best summarized it in the actual survey but I'll write it here too: "Limited-time event, makes sense to give them limited-time special treatment." I think the reason people got so fatigued with it tbh is that, well, I'll fully admit that the Stack the Deck and Ye Olde Conteste test nights got a little insane.
Personally speaking, I think some of that could have been alleviated if I or the STD team had thought about doing Contest Test Nights before, y'know, the final month of Stack the Deck, but I think that now that that idea is out there that it should be acted on more, maybe as like a once-every-two-weeks thing. YOC kinda, uh, yeah nah there's no defending how many tests that got, I think I did a good job managing how it turned out but man we really should have just had an eliminator round of voting. I'm sorry to all the testers :sadcat:
Scheduled Tests
I
LOVE scheduled tests. They are, ironically, incredibly flexible in how you host and if you host them at good times well guess what, you have a successful test right there in your hands!!! It feels great to host at a time you want, without having to worry about someone hosting later than you can or earlier than you can, either playing or host. It's also great too because it means that you yourself can set aside time for tests and like, actually work with your own schedule in a way? Admittedly this works more for some people than it does others. (Like for me, I can't really host at fantastic times anymore because work is almost always "at that exact time"). Also, y'know, pretty obviously an advocate for scheduled contest testing if you couldn't tell.
Server Settings
I think Class Limits make sense for testing, though I wish there were a way to be more flexible with them. As an example, if our team has three engineers, and yet somehow a tele is being sapped, what am I meant to do? I can't change class in spawn to repair it. That minor kind of thing is what makes restrictions more frustrating than they realistically are to me. Also the new friendlyfire command doesn't seem to work in the admin menu? I've tried it a couple times when doing Afterparties and it just never really works.
Contests
I've made it pretty apparent how unhappy I was with Stack the Deck and I know I've talked about it in depth before so I will instead talk about things that I have differing perspectives on.
I didn't really like what the pseudocontest was. It did not feel like it was about mapping in the slightest, which as a person who cares about maps and wants to be on TF2Maps for the
mapping it does was rather frustrating! I think the theme could have been applicable to a microcontest or something, where you just made a cool gizmo in hammer and submitted it. I don't understand why the pseudocontest was made to be about items, that is much more of a TF2 Emporium task. It didn't even feel like a minor contest to be honest, the timing was so short that it felt way more like microcontest territory. Idk how snippy TFConnect would get at me for saying this but I really think these things need to not be so last minute, I know I've heard from staff publicly how frustrating it is to have these kind of events just essentially "dropped" onto them. And honestly that's especially the case with this one because I think both the 2022 Christmas Contest and the 2023 Double Trouble contest had some really great maps come from them! I just wish they were handled with more care from TFConnect.
Some ideas I had for Major/Minor/Microcontests:
Major - General "Use the Flag / Point / Payload" Contests
Minor - Fixer-Upper Contest (Take an adoptable map, give it the best shot you have)
Microcontest - Community Modes (VSH, ZI, FT, GG, OF, PH, Timer Attack
@Stack Man), Upside-Down (Make a map that is "upside-down" work, like one of those air temples from Avatar), Rule of Two's (Making two concurrent objectives work, like Symm 2CP or Twinvade CTF or Multiple Payload)
This is more for 2026 but I have an idea on how an "event year" could currently be run.
Major | Minor | Micro | 72hr |
|---|
February
March
April
May
June
July | September
October
November | February
May
July
September
December | August |
Random notes now:
- I think Major contests are for maps to have outstanding quality, whereas the minor, micro, and 72hr stuff are more for experimentation. The timing of them reflects that imo, with major having the most time to commit to to making a purely quality map, minor allowing for both some iteration and some experimentation into likely a late alpha or beta map, and microcontest and the jam offering up a purely experimental experience for players. Keeping the goals of each contest different is important imo.
- Major contests, imo, need to be simpler to succeed. They are the standout thing of TF2Maps, they are the epic "starry light" that gets mappers into the game and gets the most exposure and ideally produces the best maps. Having those ones be the long and cumbersome challenges imo just makes mappers and players frustrated.
- Unofficial contests are not really going to be factored into TF2Maps' agenda and it is up to them whether or not they allow them to happen. The only thing I didn't like or eventually resolved with YOC is that Staff never gave it the promotion that it deserved imo. No announcements for it, nothing. That did not feel very fair, especially when taking into note how a contest like the pseudocontest got more exposure than my 'towing the line' minor contest did.
Moderation
I have very strong opinions about some things here more than others. To boil it down though and hopefully not get yelled at though:
- Staff needs to decide whether or not TF2Maps is 18+ or 13+. I see sprays on the server every time I join that are very much yanking at the chain of an 18+ mark, and I also see a lot of talk about sex in the discord that goes either unmoderated (which would be fine if it were 18+) or actively participated in by staff (would also be fine if it were 18+). There is a difference between making occasional jokes about sex and talking about your cock or titties 24/7 (hyperbole here but you get me, hopefully). TF2Maps is a big server with a lot of users, this is something that should be dealt with imo. There is also continual talk of "I hate children" in TF2Maps, which if you hate kids, then get rid of the kids by making it an 18+ server. You can say all you want about how kids will lie about their age but that is not my nor your prerogative, that is a stupid choice that a kid makes and if it's found out then it should be dealt with.
- I feel there are things about the rules that I dislike simply because for some people they feel immune from them, or honestly even personally they feel too easily given. Idk how many people will agree with either of those takes, frankly I don't expect people to, but unfair treatment feels like it's rather commonplace here and it is frustrating every time it comes into play. There's some people I feel this about more than others, and given how much of a problem child I am considered by TF2M I wouldn't be surprised if someone felt that way about me, but I think everyone would universally agree in saying "I don't like feeling treated unfairly."
- This is kind of minor but I don't think the server would suffer if the #off-topic channel in the discord were moved up underneath overflow. There's a lot of random and nonsense things posted in #general and #overflow that are kind of frustrating to be interrupted by, or random topic changes in the middle of another conversation. It's just a thought, try it for like a month or so.
- I think the overtuning on feedback made by players needs to be dialed back a bit. I will always be a proponent of "just because someone's feedback is negatively-driven doesn't make what they say irrelevant," and that does not feel like the prevailing argument on TF2Maps simply because people here don't seem to like negativity. It's not that I don't understand the mindset; I don't think anyone likes negativity, but I think there needs to be more emphasis on why a player would not be having a good time rather than just saying "no, you don't get to say that" and not allowing a mapper to learn to adapt to the more negative thoughts they'll see from casual players if their map ends up going official. (Imo, good to prepare players for reality)
Admin Efforts
- I don't see a reason to not consolidate the rules, it makes things more uniform and not "Oh well you can do this here but not here."
- Trying to regulate off-site behaviour is stupid. Not your job, not your responsibility, not what you're receiving. The absolute most this should be happening is when someone is a criminal (see: pedos/rapists/abusers/groomers/zoophiles). Your responsibility is to YOUR site. If a person is not a problem to users on your site for activity on your site? Not your problem. Nobody works for you except your actual staff members, don't treat every interaction like a background check. It's invasive, and nobody likes it.
- I stated this in my wishlist thread but the VIP / Host splits needs to happen sooner rather than later. Being able to host gamedays with VIP would be a fantastic perk imo, less so scheduled tests since y'know that's still map testing but I can understand why it'd be like that.
- Giving mappers properly dedicated time where they can communicate about when they want and how they want their testing to be done is good imo, and scheduled testing does that better than any imp ever could.
- I don't really follow any TF2m social media so this is not something I really have any input on other than "it's probably fine for publicity but I just don't care about it."
My honest opinion about the "Senior Staff" position is that it is currently holding TF2Maps back from what it needs to do. There are so many things just not happening and imo it is seriously slowing down what can be done in the site,
aside from all the chaos that is inter-staff communcations. I want a staff team to run the place with efficiency, not wait for a billion things under bureaucracy. I seriously wish more staff cared.
Oh also:
throw Server Mods a bone. Really doesn't seem like they're allowed to do anything.
Other Stuff
#KatsuForStaff2025,
read my Wishlist thread.
forms.gle
