The Future of Compensation for TF2 Mappers: A Community / Valve Discussion

[CommodoreKong]

Steve, the maps in CS:GO are released in Operations, with the most recent being Operation Vanguard. Anyone can play the maps whenever they want for free, both casually and in competitive matchmaking. Those who choose to can buy "Mission Passes" which allow for the owner to complete different missions every day (ex: get x ammount of kills on this map/ gamemode). By completing a mission, the owner of the pass is rewarded with a weapon skin, and with some of the weapon skins being extremely valuable (think $300 plus) many, many people purchase Mission Passes. The funds from the Mssion Passes go to the creators of the maps chosen to be part of the Operation. You will also recieve a virtual token which you can display on your profile, ranked Bronze, Silver, and Gold depending on how many missions you have completed. It is a very good system.

Does the money go towards paying the map developers to make the maps official or are they still just community maps?

I want to make the point that we ourselves can't forget our role as a community of people that both love TF2 and have some influence over the community, especially with some members' ties to competitive. Even if new policy isn't accepted by Valve and put into the game officially, that still doesn't mean a new map-featuring system can't survive and thrive outside of Valve's domain. Let me explain with an example:

The TF2Maps community compiles a list of noteworthy, completed, custom maps monthly. Servers sign up to feature these maps, say, every Friday. Personally, I value the server as a place that many less-experienced players (as well as veterans) may know about and 'favorite' in their server search. I feel as if many players would be willing to try custom maps if a) file sizes are low and b) they can get into a nearly-full server playing the map.

I am beginning to think that the TF2 community is starting to debase the value it has in sheer numbers. Many people seem to think that "TF2 is dying" yet still continue to play (and spread) the game. I think that if, with a few big moves from a couple of big players in the game (popular YouTubers, server owners, even [and especially] Valve), we can brush the dirt off our shoulder and show dose COD fanboys wut tf2 b aboat!

Also, please shut me up if I begin to rant on this thread. I think I deserve to know that I've said enough on the issue, so just tell me when.

I like that idea but the biggest problem is that thanks to Valve's Quickplay policies there are fewer and fewer good community run servers, much less ones that run community maps. It would probably be difficult to find too many community server operators to run something like this.

 

[3Dnj]

Csgo maps in operations are like community maps for a short time. After the end of the operation, everyone can still play them but they are not part of matchmaking on valve servers for those who paid a pass. Missions are for operation vanguard only.

All the money grabbed during the operation go to the devs but it's not for the map to become an official. Only this happenned to cache but I suppose they bought it in an other way to make it official.

 

[Vel0city]

CS:GO's system doesn't really seem like something that would work with TF2, though.

Well, we have killstreak kits and stranges.

How about a similar system to CS:GO, where everybody can play the map and people who have some sort of pass (like the Duck Journal but much better executed) get a reward in the form of Killstreak kits/stranges upon completing certain tasks on said map (like winning a round/do certain things, you know, like achievements) AND the map goes official? Hell, throw in a small chance to get an unusual too.

 

[Vel0city]

I like that idea but the biggest problem is that thanks to Valve's Quickplay policies there are fewer and fewer good community run servers, much less ones that run community maps. It would probably be difficult to find too many community server operators to run something like this.

Even if Quickplay is fixed/removed and you're going to direct people to the server browser you will find a lot of community servers. Saigns.de is also a community. The billion and one trade servers are also communities.

It's enormously difficult to get yourself known to players via the server browser with quality custom maps that involve actual team play if you have only one or two servers. You'll be completely overshadowed by the hundreds of Saigns.de and Skial servers and all those Orange map servers.

Unless there's a system where players can rate their experience per server and the servers with a high rating get a top place in the server browser (and thus get more traffic/better known) you'll always going to have to deal with the big boys out there like Saigns or Skial.

New players don't know what good and bad maps/servers are, they just drop into the first server they see that has players in them. If their first map is something like Mario Kart or Orange they'll think that that's what TF2 is. Rubbishy and dumb maps that have no objective. Or they get dropped into one of those 32-player 2Fort or Dustbowl servers where nobody cares you're the 5th Sniper and think that that's what TF2 is. So any time they get into a server that has a (for us) great map and it involves team play and people DO care about team composition they just leave because that's not what they think Team Fortress 2 is about.

It's really difficult to get that out of their heads and get the idea of team play and team composition into their heads. Quickplay isn't helping with that, but just outright removing it isn't going to help either.

 

[UKCS-Alias]

Unless there's a system where players can rate their experience per server and the servers with a high rating get a top place in the server browser (and thus get more traffic/better known) you'll always going to have to deal with the big boys out there like Saigns or Skial.

cp_verygoodmapfromtf2mapsshowcase - Sniping is hard on this map 1/5
cp_orange - Sniping is easy 5/5
Still wont realy work unless they use it to filter recomendations for each person seperately.

There simply should be a workshop, a few orange and trade maps might get high ranked and beat most regular maps. There still is a higher chance for good maps to get on top as there are a few ways that people rate maps on:
- Does it look decent? Alot will downvote on any orange map, even if that one would have been decent.
- Does it play well? This affects far less in votes as gamebanana already shows. People see a good looking map and go 10/10. Even if its deathmatch map marked as cp map and has broken spawns preventing players to go to each other to begin with. It just happens too often.

But obviously, when such map suddenly gets ingame and people discover it broken. They will downvote the map again. They wont last long. Yet a map that plays well (even if its still on a 32p instaspawn - the gameplay in your map should still be close to that when in the same situation) remains upvoted and can promote even more people to play it.

But yes, valve should promote those maps. Yet with their matchmaking they do the opposite by focusing to valve maps only.

 

[Jigen]

There simply should be a workshop

It baffles me that right now I can grab a custom campaign from the L4D2 workshop, or a custom map for CS:GO, but there is still no map workshop for TF2.

I agree with cubemap that valve's Quickplay isn't necessarily the problem, it's that it leaves custom communities in the dark. Workshop support would be great, but I think they would need to go further and integrate it into Quickplay. Give players an option to search for servers running the top 10, 15, 30, etc. maps in the workshop. Server owners would be encouraged to scout out the best work, and creators would get the exposure they've earned. In order to counteract trade/orange maps filtering in, check a box that searches for only official game modes, or tags so custom game modes like ctf push aren't left out.

Years ago when I helped admin a custom map server for the TF2Newbs community, we would go out and see what the community liked to play, and our rotation would be reflected on that. A system like the above could possibly recreate that kind of word-of-mouth for server owners and map makers. At the very least people wouldn't have to stare at the server browser for hours as the 100th mario kart server scrolls by.

 

[Kube]

This is going to sound treasonous, but if people have genuine fun goofing around (or tryharding) on cp_orange, why seek to ward that off? Of course, we benefit from people staying away from mariokart, orange, trade, and similar maps, but the fun people have on them is just as genuine as the fun people have on Process and Snakewater. Let's ask ourselves, does the benefit of having a new system override the creative liberty of any crucial portion of the TF2 community? If so, how can we amend this concept of approach to give every single party involved in the game, from mappers, to comp players, to traders, to just about anyone who clicks the TF2 icon and boots up the game a better overall experience, while warding off dishonest map tags and the like?

 

[Fruity Snacks]

We shouldn't ward any form of mapping off. Every map has a place, and every mapper has their place. We specifically might not have a community for trade maps, or orange maps or jump maps, but that does not mean they are any-less a part of the TF2 community.

 

[Jigen]

Hopefully what I said didn't come off that way. I just meant having an option, should someone choose, to tailor their search results, like I do right now for 24 players max. The server I mentioned before had a nice variety of traditional maps like Yukon, but also off-the-wall maps like cp_pacman. There were always people who preferred the other, but overall there was a great sense of variety, which I believed was the way to go. Whether it was serious or not, it was something different.

Mario Kart maps and others like it are definitely niche, but obviously people like them, so they'd have to be part of whatever system valve could potentially put in place. I agree with you both, it wouldn't be fair otherwise.

 

[Kube]

Hopefully what I said didn't come off that way. I just meant having an option, should someone choose, to tailor their search results, like I do right now for 24 players max. The server I mentioned before had a nice variety of traditional maps like Yukon, but also off-the-wall maps like cp_pacman. There were always people who preferred the other, but overall there was a great sense of variety, which I believed was the way to go. Whether it was serious or not, it was something different.

Mario Kart maps and others like it are definitely niche, but obviously people like them, so they'd have to be part of whatever system valve could potentially put in place. I agree with you both, it wouldn't be fair otherwise.

Certainly. Let's all agree on one thing - Valve should update the server search UI to make the options clearer and more apparent, if possible. Or is this going to be a source of debate?

 

[UKCS-Alias]

This is going to sound treasonous, but if people have genuine fun goofing around (or tryharding) on cp_orange, why seek to ward that off?

Those who realy want will still find it. Thats why cp_orange just isnt going to die.

Of course, we benefit from people staying away from mariokart, orange, trade, and similar maps, but the fun people have on them is just as genuine as the fun people have on Process and Snakewater.

Except, as developer of a game. Which would you prefer to show others as being custom content? Thats mainly where rating is for. To get good maps on top.

Having content is important to keep a game alive. As soon as l4d2 was released l4d1 died fast. A new campaign just didnt help as instead in l4d2 you had 5 campaigns, more weapons, more enemy types and so on. Content is primary to a game.

Except for visual content. Yes, is milking money (but then again, if you can why shouldnt you?). But visual content can die just as fast as the game itself.

Certainly. Let's all agree on one thing - Valve should update the server search UI to make the options clearer and more apparent, if possible. Or is this going to be a source of debate?

What is more friendly?

• Pick your playing preferences
  Wait, what? I just started this game. i dont know what this means.
• Start playing now!
  Yay, bang bang bang killing time!

The 2nd time they join in, if they found it good. why would they even change the options. It again wont realy help. Unless they initialy would still allow custom maps.

And maybe better would be that the first hour you are allways forced to a valve server to get the general game feel. The 2nd time you will also get custom servers. And maybe after 5 hours it will ask you for preferences or at least show you the option.

NEVER throw a newbie into a list of option. They simply will click accept and continue and the whole menu would become totaly obsolete. Asking and metioning them later on is more helpfull as they have a general feel and might start to experiment

 

[Kube]

What is more friendly?

• Pick your playing preferences
  Wait, what? I just started this game. i dont know what this means.
• Start playing now!
  Yay, bang bang bang killing time!

The 2nd time they join in, if they found it good. why would they even change the options. It again wont realy help. Unless they initialy would still allow custom maps.

And maybe better would be that the first hour you are allways forced to a valve server to get the general game feel. The 2nd time you will also get custom servers. And maybe after 5 hours it will ask you for preferences or at least show you the option.

NEVER throw a newbie into a list of option. They simply will click accept and continue and the whole menu would become totaly obsolete. Asking and metioning them later on is more helpfull as they have a general feel and might start to experiment

I meant more for the server browser (just maybe possibly clarify some things in that bottom bar and with tags). If there are immediate improvements to be made to a UI made in what, 2007? (was it like this when TF2 wa first released?), then I'd like to see them happening. I am a fan of the first menu UI, but I would think something could be done to clean things up a bit afterwards, that's all. I'm just trying to back up a dumb thought.

 

[UKCS-Alias]

I didnt read your post as that way. But the way you say it now makes quite a bit of sense.

People now get either a very fast join method, or a harsh method of trying to grind through 20 servers of 'nonsense' maps. I think the old matchmaking at least did that part better by simply just showing each map once. So yes, an improvement that makes it easier to find custom map while still keeping the matchmaking system on the background. (thats why i still think the older matchmaking was better by simply showing the most popular maps and servers settings combined with it)

 

[CommodoreKong]

Anyone else hope that today's announcement of Valve supporting competitive match making and competitive TF2 means that they'll start buying more community maps that are popular among competitive players?

 

[Crash]

As someone who might have a map getting adopted in to competitive soon, I can only hope.

 

[CommodoreKong]

Well I asked extine on reddit and he said while they were at Valve they didn't talk about them buying any maps popular with comp players or what they would do about Pro versions of maps vs regular versions of maps.

 

[UKCS-Alias]

Well, if they dont accept maps that are popular in comp i already start to wonder how reliable their matchmaking will be then. 1 vital thing is that everyone at least should have the map and be aware. Competetive matchmaking ingame is able to gather random pubs into the comp game. They at least should have the maps that are truly accepted as comp maps.

If they would just accept valve maps the whole feature of competetive matchmaking would be completely useless. Imagine a team only able to play well on valve maps but getting steamrolled on any custom one. How would you even get a decent comp game that way? 1 requirement a comp players should have to me is the ability to quickly learn a new map.

And getting new comp maps would become even a bigger problem as the only way to get them is by testing them in comp games. But when comp only happens on stock maps, how would a new map get tested? Sure it can be done outside of that matchmaking, but that brings you back to using 3rd party tools. And instead of having just 1 tool, you now suddenly get 2 where 1 is heavily promoted but poor.

Maybe with a workshop it already could do fine as that way they can at least flag a workshop entry as suitable for competetive but wouldnt be required to allways instantly pay for a map. But that again is back to where this whole thread started.

For competetive matchmaking 1 thing still is important: new custom maps should be easy to be added in the matchmaking feature. As long as thats not possible the feature fails. And especialy since the tf2 community is alot smaller than the CSGO one. With a huge community the testing part can still easily be arranged (there will allways be a few teams that would be up for the chalenge so you can nearly allways get a test ready). But on a smaller one that quickly could be ignored 'because its too much effort'.

 

[Zed]

Maybe, with a Map Workshop, add Workshop maps into a region's matchmaking queue based on recommendations?

 

[Pocket]

Yeah, I've never really understood why popularity amongst comp is a valid qualification for being integrated into the base game. It's not hard to download a custom map, especially if you're dedicated enough to be playing competitively in the first place, and it's not like you can cheat by using a different version of the map than everyone else. The prospect of built-in competitive matchmaking sort of makes a better case for it than there has been so far, I guess? But if this means the game is going to have like 30 5CP maps, I'm still against it.

 

[CommodoreKong]

Yeah, I've never really understood why popularity amongst comp is a valid qualification for being integrated into the base game. It's not hard to download a custom map, especially if you're dedicated enough to be playing competitively in the first place, and it's not like you can cheat by using a different version of the map than everyone else. The prospect of built-in competitive matchmaking sort of makes a better case for it than there has been so far, I guess? But if this means the game is going to have like 30 5CP maps, I'm still against it.

I do think Valve should be adding maps that are popular in comp play, though honestly they don't seem to be super popular. Snakewater, Process and Standin are all excellent maps, and do feel much more comp focused then pub focused, and honestly they don't seem to be that popular on pub servers.

If Valve had added some maps that were more pub focused instead, maybe some of the decent highly polished payload maps like Boundary or Cashworks or Borneo or Swiftwater I'm sure that they would of seen far more play on pubs, even if they aren't quite as good as a map like Snakewater or Process. I honestly think that Snowplow, while not perfect and not comp focused at all probably would of been more popular then Snakewater/Process/Standin on pubs, especially since it's been so long since any A/D maps and it feels a lot like a payload map, which is popular on pubs.

Honestly Valve should be adding community maps that are popular with comp players as well as maps they think will be popular with pubs. We should be getting a good mix of community maps going official...not the none that we are getting now.

There are some really great comp focused maps I hope Valve makes official when they do the comp update, like Glassworks, Metalworks, Croissant, Arctic and Ashville/Coalplant.