Moses’ tips for team map design

Ladder maps are not more difficult to make than teamgame maps. Over 7 years I’ve seen top mappers make good maps for both types of games. Some can even make maps that are good for ladder and teamgames.

Getting maps played in ladder is certainly something that attracts mappers. Not only was your map recognized as good and interesting by the ladder team but it also very quickly lets you see your work played.

These are ultimately the feedback mechanisms that encourage people to make new maps in mind for ladder and improve their craft as mappers. It’s why I get two dozen decent ladder maps before I get a single new, decent 2v2+ map currently.

I would absolutely say the veteran mappers on FAF tend to gravitate towards ladder.

It’s actually hilarious how few good 4v4s exist when 4v4 is one of the most played game modes. When I made my list of maps I’d even be willing to consider for 4v4 tmm, I didn’t even get over 40. Meanwhile my 1v1 list has nearly 300.

@moses_the_red said in Moses’ tips for team map design:

Or perhaps I'm attacking the problem from the wrong angle. Map makers have no decent means to showcase team maps to the team map community, and thus there's no incentive to make new innovative team maps.

Physically cannot believe you actually managed to hit a nail on the head.

Consider the following:

As everyone has been trying to tell you, The popularity of Astro is not because it is "good" but because of outside factors. Those factors of course being inertia, Promotion, comfort zones, etc.

Flip this around now:

if you make a teamgame map that is "inherently good" it still might not get played, due to those same outside factors.

I always preferred making 1v1 maps because ranked ladder was my "thing". But for getting a decent run as a mapper, you were rewarded for making your maps better by having them appear more often, a higher score, and having them actually recognised by "FAF" as a system.

Not wanting to make teamgame maps (Or at times, more ladder maps) because there was not enough incentive to do so is something i've always believed was a problem.

TMM sort of solves this by applying the same incentives as ladder to teamgames. But it's now my job to work on providing you incentives as well. You can read about all of that in that election proposal document I posted recently.

If you have some insight on what might incentive you as a "teamgame mapper" to actually bother making your maps better I would love to hear it, but leave your hero complex at the door, thanks.

@biass said in Moses’ tips for team map design:

  @moses_the_red said in Moses’ tips for team map design:

Or perhaps I'm attacking the problem from the wrong angle. Map makers have no decent means to showcase team maps to the team map community, and thus there's no incentive to make new innovative team maps.

Physically cannot believe you actually managed to hit a nail on the head.
Consider the following:
As everyone has been trying to tell you, The popularity of Astro is not because it is "good" but because of outside factors. Those factors of course being inertia, Promotion, comfort zones, etc.
Flip this around now:
if you make a teamgame map that is "inherently good" it still might not get played, due to those same outside factors.
I always preferred making 1v1 maps because ranked ladder was my "thing". But for getting a decent run as a mapper, you were rewarded for making your maps better by having them appear more often, a higher score, and having them actually recognised by "FAF" as a system.
Not wanting to make teamgame maps (Or at times, more ladder maps) because there was not enough incentive to do so is something i've always believed was a problem.
TMM sort of solves this by applying the same incentives as ladder to teamgames. But it's now my job to work on providing you incentives as well. You can read about all of that in that election proposal document I posted recently.
If you have some insight on what might incentive you as a "teamgame mapper" to actually bother making your maps better I would love to hear it, but leave your hero complex at the door, thanks.

Yeah, I think the issue now is the artificial influence of frankly you and FTX on map promotion.

I'm looking through the "M&M Team Top Picks", and while those maps are absolutely gorgeous, well made and obviously done by people with great talent, I don't think I'd host any of them, or join a game on any of those maps.

And the reason is that I can look at a map and tell whether its the kind of map I want to play, and the maps I want to play are team maps that work well in a pickup game setting where you spend significant time in the lobby sim.

And it would be silly and spiteful for me to pretend that there isn't a more to it than that, you're a minor factor in the stagnation of the team map scene, but I tend to think your part of the problem. We have a toxic community culture that disparages maps people enjoy playing - where we refuse simple things like an objective scoring system because an astro variant might make the cut and god forbid we make some Astro players happy by introducing them to a variant of that map they might enjoy.

And all this is just making the game shittier than it has to be.

I think more should be done to try to push good team maps into the spotlight, but the first step is for the people responsible for handling that to stop intentionally pushing away maps that don't look like they were originally intended for ladder.

I hope you consider implementing an objective measure of map quality for use in promoting maps to people, because if your goal is to get people to play ladder maps in pickup games you're just going to fail and leave the custom team game scene with an even harder time innovating.

@moses_the_red said in Moses’ tips for team map design:

Yeah, I think the issue now is the artificial influence of frankly you and FTX on map promotion.

lol, funny that.

The current list in the client was made by Morax, i had no say in it.

@moses_the_red said in Moses’ tips for team map design:

where we refuse simple things like an objective scoring system

Please feel free to explain why the ladder scoring system, when applied to teamgame maps, is bad. It's what is being used for TMM and your maps will score poorly on it.

This inability to recognize the conflict of interest - that being artificially inflating your map playcount and then asking for playcount to be more significant - is borderline psychopathic. I'm not introducing a system that benefits you when you are the person abusing it. 300 more posts of a circular argument is not changing this stance. It is not "objective scoring" and you are living proof of why it is not.

If you want your maps put in the spotlight. you need to make maps that are not garbage. Lots of semi-decent maps for teamgames appear every week and don't get featured. You will never be able to justify why your clone of another map, that barely passed over the old gatekeeping rule for low quality content, should be featured.

You can claim for an eternity that you're an outsider fighting against some kind of ladder elitist group, but pretty much everyone in the thread is just a much of - and a better - teamgame player than you. I don't think that anything else needs to be discussed here if you're unable to grasp that. Think of better suggestions instead of claiming you're some kind of victim.

@biass said in Moses’ tips for team map design:

@moses_the_red said in Moses’ tips for team map design:

Yeah, I think the issue now is the artificial influence of frankly you and FTX on map promotion.

lol, funny that.

The current list in the client was made by Morax, i had no say in it.

@moses_the_red said in Moses’ tips for team map design:

where we refuse simple things like an objective scoring system

Please feel free to explain why the ladder scoring system, when applied to teamgame maps, is bad. It's what is being used for TMM and your maps will score poorly on it.

This inability to recognize the conflict of interest - that being artificially inflating your map playcount and then asking for playcount to be more significant - is borderline psychopathic. I'm not introducing a system that benefits you when you are the person abusing it. 300 more posts of a circular argument is not changing this stance. It is not "objective scoring" and you are living proof of why it is not.

If you want your maps put in the spotlight. you need to make maps that are not garbage. Lots of semi-decent maps for teamgames appear every week and don't get featured. You will never be able to justify why your clone of another map, that barely passed over the old gatekeeping rule for low quality content, should be featured.

You can claim for an eternity that you're an outsider fighting against some kind of ladder elitist group, but pretty much everyone in the thread is just a much of - and a better - teamgame player than you. I don't think that anything else needs to be discussed here if you're unable to grasp that. Think of better suggestions instead of claiming you're some kind of victim.

Buddy, my maps don't need recognition. They get played. I have regulars, I don't have to wait long for them to fill. I don't know what the unique player count is for Rohai, but I imagine its in the hundreds. People know about it, have seen it, and are happy to join it whenever its hosted.

The problem is we can't get more maps like my maps, we can't encourage maps of the type that people actually play in custom team games, because of the elitist bullshit attitude you and others possess.

You are putting your hands on the scale and discouraging maps of the type that people might actually want to play in a custom team game setting. Perhaps before you weren't knowingly doing it, but now you're definitely knowingly doing it. Its why you don't want any kind of objective measure to determine map quality. Such a thing would allow maps of the kind you do not like to receive recognition, and you're too much of an asshole to allow such a thing.

You're like a country music musician that wants to stop his local bar from putting Nirvana songs on the jukebox. Its not good music, they only use three chords, that's the kind of bullshit arguments you use to justify keeping your foot on the scale when it comes to map design.

The map leadership's current take on map design is "Build the maps the way we like, or don't expect to see them featured" and its asinine childish bullshit.

Its in large part why the custom map scene is so stagnant. If you make a 1v1 map, you might get it in rotation and receive some degree of recognition. If you make a custom team map of the type that people choose to play then map elitists will ensure that it doesn't get recognition of any type. Its highly likely to disappear into the vault.

What a broken fucking community.

People voted for you (I assume) so that you could attempt to fix this.

@biass said in Moses’ tips for team map design:

If you want your maps put in the spotlight. you need to make maps that are not garbage.

I want to make this clear.

I don't give one shit about whether my maps get featured.

So here's the deal I'll make with you.

I 100% give you permission to blackball any and all of my maps from any kind of featured section that currently exists for showcasing maps, or that ever will exist - aside from having it turn up in search results of course.

I give you permission to hard code that into the feature maps section, IF you'll implement an objective "Featured Maps" showcase.

This isn't about me or my maps. If there were more team maps of the type that people play being produced, I wouldn't have to bother making them myself.

I checked your maps and I have to say, just from the previews they look like trash. Made in 10 minutes with 0 effort or ideas.

This isn't about me or my maps. If there were more team maps of the type that people play being produced, I wouldn't have to bother making them myself.

Barely anybody plays your maps though?

@FemtoZetta

This post is about getting more support for the kinds of maps you are playing. Warzone, Dual Gap... maps in the style of popular team maps.

Take a look at the current M&M Team Picks. The style of map showcased there is not the style of map that you are actually playing in team games. The types of maps that you're actually playing in team games likely wouldn't make it into that section, they would be blackballed. Aside from one Dual Gap remaster, I didn't see a lot that looked like the kind of team maps that get played.

I'm trying to help guys like you by ensuring that the types of maps that you actually play might get a shot at being supported by the community.

But by all means, come in and throw stones. Perhaps you just want to continue playing Dual Gap and Warzone until the end of time. I have nothing against that, but I'd like to see a greater variety of team maps entering circulation myself - and whatever impediments have been set up to prevent that should be removed - meaning moving towards an objective maps showcase.

NOTE: The maps in the M&M team picks page are gorgeous and well thought out maps. My intention here isn't to disparage anyone's maps, its just to give the kind of maps that people tend to pick in team games an even playing field. If your map is on that page, congratulations, it means you have a gorgeous and interesting map. I just think its maybe not well targeted at the peculiarities of the pickup team game scene - which doesn't mean it isn't a fantastic map.

I think the majority of the community are more casual players, rather than competitive players. Including me . Take for example the original GPG maps: they do not meet your definitions of what a map can be either but that is how the makers intended maps to both play and look like.

With that said: the majority of maps in the featured section are aimed at competitive players. Including my maps, I make my maps for the competitive scene because there is nothing better than seeing high-ladder players beat each other to dust through various angles, smaller and larger skirmishes and more advanced tactics. And then imagine it is on your map !

I don't think calling the list artificial is fair in that aspect. There are maps that are more interesting to play for players with higher rating. And that is what we want to feature as a community - take for example the tournament at the end of the year. The maps played there are generally more competitive maps too. If you'd want to prepare for that tourney then you have better chances with the featured maps than maps like Gap as your training grounds. Without judging on either side.

just have maps that reward thinking and interacting i dont understand why this is so hard to comprehend

I'm only playing Dual Gap because the people I play with basically only play this map... I'd prefer maps that aren't so boring but it's still better than having to play alone. Also Dual Gap at least fills fast. I play Wartime for the same reason, but I think it can be quite fun sometimes, at least there's actual action on it most of the time.
The M&M picks look a lot more interesting in general, gameplay wise, not just regarding visuals. Too bad my mates prefer boring maps.

@FtXCommando said in Moses’ tips for team map design:

just have maps that reward thinking and interacting i dont understand why this is so hard to comprehend

What about maps where a com dies at the 12 minute mark?

Again, team maps that are popular are popular for a reason.

@FemtoZetta You should play them, introduce them to your friends. Maybe you'll have some great games...

But I envision a lot of early com deaths and lopsided play.

lmao

another 300 words all essentially saying "my map is good because it is played" and still unable to realise the moral quandry
intentionally ignoring comments about map quality is also pretty funny, "buddy"

rerouting your call to the cringe department so their customer service team can handle your request, please stay on the line

@moses_the_red said in Moses’ tips for team map design:

So here's the deal I'll make with you.

you are not in any position to bargain

I feel ignored in this discussion

@Jip said in Moses’ tips for team map design:

I feel ignored in this discussion

Sorry, here we go.

Your post essentially missed the purpose of the team picks page, at least in my opinion.

Ladder players have new interesting ladder maps shown off to them all the time... through the ladder pool. There is a continuous cycle of interesting maps pushed through that pool, that ensures that ladder players get to see new ladder maps.

There is a lot of diversity in the ladder map scene.

I don't think we also need a page intended to display more ladder maps in case one of those ladder players decides to host a custom game using a ladder-style map and needs to pick out a map that he or she doesn't already know through his/her experiences in the ladder pool.

It doesn't make sense to exclude team games from such a page.

And I simply don't trust the guys running the show to put team maps people actually want to play on display. They've made their thoughts about team maps clear - they should look like ladder maps. turtley maps, maps that emphasize early game com safety, maps that don't include lots of expansions but instead emphasize base cracking - those maps aren't going on display. They won't be promoted.

And those ARE the maps that work best in team games, whatever delusions people might hold. Its why those are the types of maps that are generally played in the team game scene.

This discussion went from "Here's how to make a map that might fly in the team game scene" to "Why aren't map makers willing to attempt to make maps catering to the team game scene" to "Why are we intentionally keeping maps that might appeal to the team game scene from ever being promoted through FAF's map promotion mechanics".

Very much a broken community. The deeper you dig into this the more it becomes clear that the situation we have is at least partly created by the community. There is no incentive to make team maps, and no willingness to address that either - outside of team match maker (that had better have really short wait times... or its going to outright fail as a feature given the views expressed by the people in charge of it). Any map that seriously attempts to cater to the team game scene will be defined as a shit map for having done so, and filtered out by a team of biased little FAF chiefs that believe it is their job to protect the community from the map types that the community enjoys.

Try to fix it, and you get the guy in charge of maps telling you "You're in no position to bargain".

That's where we are.

Really enjoy this narrative of some top-down dictatorship as though these conclusions weren’t reached through collaboration amongst top players and top mappers.

The REAL story is that FtX got his Council seat and got mad at gap one day and decided it was no good and so he created false reasons why it’s bad. This is even though FtX has played like 700 gap games. Everyone else in the mapping and curation community on FAF is chaffing under his totalitarian reign. They are simply yearning for the hero of the masses that will break their chains and set then free!

Unfortunately if you have a problem with me, you’re also going to have a problem with the mapping community I work with to help improve both FAF and new mappers. Better collect your late night burger gap dudes or whatever your legion of unheard players are and start changing the culture of the supportive structures of FAF. Otherwise you’ll just keep chaffing in those cuffs you imagined for yourself.

Nothing is going to change about how these things are decided or looked at, really. I don’t think a single dude in this segment of the community has had their mind changed by anything you wrote here. If you want to cry about the injustice of this stuff feel free, I don’t really plan on responding in this thread anymore because it’s just become one gigantic joke.

@FtXCommando said in Moses’ tips for team map design:

Really enjoy this narrative of some top-down dictatorship as though these conclusions weren’t reached through collaboration amongst top players and top mappers.

How many of them are regulars out there playing custom games?

Well, I disagree: I still think that I am pretty spot on with the casual vs competitive maps. And with regard to the featured list: there is a gap map in there. And given that all other gap maps are only variations on that one version from one perspective to another, it is sufficient to just have one in there in my opinion.

And don't forget that making high-quality team maps is quite difficult. I just made the map Adaptive Archsimkats Valley in collaboration with a high-ranked ladder player + feedback from the majority of the people in this thread and that map is a 2v2. Let alone a 3v3 or 4v4 which is up next .To make it fun to play (which is still to be seen, but so far everyone I played it with enjoyed it a lot) is actually quite hard because you want it to remain interesting and yes - in my opinion - allow for early mistakes to have consequences because that is how the competitive scene works.

And in response to @FtXCommando: I think what I learned from this topic is that not all players are alike. And that you can hone your map to a specific audience. And that by doing so, your map may be played more or less depending on the availability of that audience .