Matchmaker Team Sentons 4v4 TMM Inclusion

By the way, it's extremely difficult to find good TMM maps, because the TMM team can't change player distribution (spawn locations), adaptive settings or even mapgen settings. With those choices removed it gets really hard to find decent TMM maps. The old maps that we used to play back in the day like canis, hilly, pyramid, etc. are quite unpopular with high level players these days. Times have changed and people prefer maps that are:

1. more comparable in mex count to 1v1 (12+ per player minimum) or relatively large reclaim amount
2. larger than 10x10
3. rotationally asymmetric (as opposed to pyramid)

Seton's is one of the only maps that satisfies these constraints as well as being good looking etc. It's a bit of wishful thinking, but if there were more good custom made maps (or we could modify adaptive settings to forcibly make them better) senton (and mapgen btw) would look at lot less tempting.

It’s not hard to find one in the custom games lobby at nearly any time, make it its own queue or don’t put it in at all

@blodir said in Matchmaker Team Sentons 4v4 TMM Inclusion:

By the way, it's extremely difficult to find good TMM maps, because the TMM team can't change player distribution (spawn locations), adaptive settings or even mapgen settings.

That is in part true, but with permission from the Creative team I have blanket authority to change some maps that are no longer supported - or unresponsive - authors for the benefit of upkeep and enjoyment of the service.

If you know of a map that has less than ideal spawns which would otherwise be great for tmm please contact me and I can adjust, create a “-FAF Version”

This was granted due to the lack of refined content that works with the matchmaking queue settings and we are happy to add more content if you believe it’s a good fit.

I have done this for a few maps already and have not been asked to revert, so please make requests!

@xayo said in Matchmaker Team Sentons 4v4 TMM Inclusion:

When I'm signing up for TMM queue, I don't want to commit to a potential 60-90min game

This is an important point.

The difference between 1v1 and TMM is huge, but 3v3 or 4v4 wouldn't be so significant. On the other hand, the difference between TMM rush maps and TMM 20k eco maps is big.

Can we maybe have these ladders?

• 1v1
• TMM rush maps (any team size)
• TMM eco maps (teams of 3+ players)

(If people particularly want 2v2, go ahead and argue for it. It appears to be the least popular option.)

Tbh, at this point I'm just wondering why won't all of you just go back to playing custom games if everything is just so bad.
This map bad, this map meh, not enough time, players are bad, the players are filthy tryhards. Like ffs, just remove the stupid global and make it the 4fun option. And leave TMM as the ultimate skill check where you play on a variety of good maps picked by their value as a map not for who bitched more.

@casternumerouno imo TMM should be only random gen B)

Well, I wanted to keep out of this thread - along with other matchmaker team members - to see what the community thinks first, but we seem to have garnered enough talking points to go ahead.

Some observations from myself:

1. I am actually surprised that the time/gameplay style of setons is less of a discussed point over the "skill gap." For me, the skill difference is something that exists on various style maps and is not a valid excuse to not include a map in the pool.

2. If there has been a huge shift in wanting map design to be what Blodir outlined (12+ mexes, lot of reclaim, asymmetric), that is news to me: please provide some info / discussions with others to back this up. I think there should be a variety of maps that have all sorts of ranges of resources / reclaim rather have rules like this. I have not seen a single person write this in the matchmaker feedback thread.

3. Encouraging or wanting maps that are lengthy as NOC suggests is actually the opposite of what we want: sure it teaches the late late game mechanics, but most players are not going to desire this and it is perfectly fine to reduce that event.

4. Many of the maps like Lena River, Adaptive Delta Riva, Lost Archipelago, etc etc tend to go VERY lengthy in game time and see late-stage tactics so to be upset about Setons having that is a bit contradicting.

Given that, I drafted the next 4v4 TMM pool to include Setons. This will be discussed with the matchmaker team to conclusion so please continue to discuss here in aid to our thoughts.

@Morax for what rating bracket?

@jip said in Matchmaker Team Sentons 4v4 TMM Inclusion:

@Morax for what rating bracket?

1500+ of course! The current highest. And trust me, we are listening to feedback as Setons was going to be used for December:

We put the breaks on a bit after some debate but after reviewing think we want to see if it is more accepted this time around.

If we had some better content contribution we would have possibly opted not to consider it, but we are very, very low on maps to use and map authors willing to go to lengths to create high-level content.

I am not in favour of Seton in TMM.
Can see the usual seton players getting angry towards others for not knowing some particular seton BOs or understand how to play Seton in an 'expected' manner.
Seton is a good map. However, I fear the toxicity that comes with it. Same reason why I would never join any custom seton games anymore.

If you include it, its gonna be interesting. I wonder how many instant ctrl-K we will see this time.

Based on my experiences around the 1600-2000 rating tmm games over the last month, i feel like the willingness of players to instantly bail from a match they don't like (currently either because of some abhorrent dualgap like mapgen, or lag, or fields of ISIS) has only increased since the last time we had setons in the pool.

@xayo said in Matchmaker Team Sentons 4v4 TMM Inclusion:

If you include it, its gonna be interesting. I wonder how many instant ctrl-K we will see this time.

Based on my experiences around the 1600-2000 rating tmm games over the last month, i feel like the willingness of players to instantly bail from a match they don't like (currently either because of some abhorrent dualgap like mapgen, or lag, or fields of ISIS) has only increased since the last time we had setons in the pool.

We reviewed several of the maps last month and are adjusting. I’m going to be creating the pools starting again and will ensure there’s a better variety.

I agree that there should be a little as possible turtle / tech maps and continued feedback like this helps support that.

I haven’t played as much map gen in the past month. @Xayo when you say “abhorrent dual gap map gen” could you post a screen shot? There’sa whole set of map Gen types and it would be nice to see if there’s a particular type that needs Adjustment.

Here is a nice thread I made showing all the types of map gens and feedback from the community for reference: https://forum.faforever.com/topic/2526/map-gen-week-feedback-thread?_=1671194825596

Summary,
I am bad at the map compare to the people that play it, hence dont add it to the pool.

@morax said in Matchmaker Team Sentons 4v4 TMM Inclusion:

If there has been a huge shift in wanting map design to be what Blodir outlined (12+ mexes, lot of reclaim, asymmetric), that is news to me: please provide some info / discussions with others to back this up. I think there should be a variety of maps that have all sorts of ranges of resources / reclaim rather have rules like this. I have not seen a single person write this in the matchmaker feedback thread.

mapgen, especially 10km, tends to generate maps with low reclaim and ~6 safe mexes per player. all other mexes are towards the middle. this promotes gun acu gameplay.
Since gun acu is very powerful with a low skill requirement, there's not a whole lot a 2300 player can do to stand out from an 1800 player. this goes for man-made maps too, of course, if they have a similar mex layout

In other words, maps with low mex count per player kinda have a low skill ceiling and it seems odd to have a low skill ceiling (or at least depreciative skill value) in a high rank competitive game. at the very least maps where i dont have much to work with arent very fun, in my opinion.

was a bit short on time, so i'm editing this post now: lot of reclaim is optional, but its nice if theres atleast enough reclaim (~2k) to make decision between t2 mex/t2 land/t2 air (again, maps with barely any mass are usually dominated by gun acus)
asymmetric maps are nice because symmetric maps usually end up in stand-offs. i mean, what else can you expect when two equally skilled players are given an equal amount of resources. symmetric maps aren't bad, but i personally think asymmetric is more interesting

I would assume this stuff is graded on a curve, because in absolute terms every decent 4v4 map is a turtle/tech rush. The fact somebody is always rushing t3 air means everyone is on a time clock of getting t3 tech within a minute or two of that player. If they aren’t doing that, it’s because they went for t3 mexes instead.

Just do it and we will see if it works!

@bulliednoob said in Matchmaker Team Sentons 4v4 TMM Inclusion:

@morax said in Matchmaker Team Sentons 4v4 TMM Inclusion:

If there has been a huge shift in wanting map design to be what Blodir outlined (12+ mexes, lot of reclaim, asymmetric), that is news to me: please provide some info / discussions with others to back this up. I think there should be a variety of maps that have all sorts of ranges of resources / reclaim rather have rules like this. I have not seen a single person write this in the matchmaker feedback thread.

mapgen, especially 10km, tends to generate maps with low reclaim and ~6 safe mexes per player. all other mexes are towards the middle. this promotes gun acu gameplay.
Since gun acu is very powerful with a low skill requirement, there's not a whole lot a 2300 player can do to stand out from an 1800 player. this goes for man-made maps too, of course, if they have a similar mex layout

In other words, maps with low mex count per player kinda have a low skill ceiling and it seems odd to have a low skill ceiling (or at least depreciative skill value) in a high rank competitive game. at the very least maps where i dont have much to work with arent very fun, in my opinion.

was a bit short on time, so i'm editing this post now: lot of reclaim is optional, but its nice if theres atleast enough reclaim (~2k) to make decision between t2 mex/t2 land/t2 air (again, maps with barely any mass are usually dominated by gun acus)
asymmetric maps are nice because symmetric maps usually end up in stand-offs. i mean, what else can you expect when two equally skilled players are given an equal amount of resources. symmetric maps aren't bad, but i personally think asymmetric is more interesting

Great feedback.

I wholeheartedly agree that "gun acu" maps are kind of annoying in that your cannot truly use your skill advantage for almost anything to fight. This is why I love 15x15 map sizes as 10x10 can get to be a little lame; however, they work well for lower-level brackets.

2300 player can do to stand out from an 1800 player

jeeezz haha I was hoping you would say 1800+ vs 1500 less but gotcha. If 2300+ is the bar for creation we need to rethink our pool brackets as we have 1500+ as the top level.

It is funny you mention the "asymmetry" part as a lot of people have complained about going up against a player on the direct "lane" with 1.5 to 2 their own mexes (lot of map gens do this really badly...). Teamwork is needed to get by this and sadly not a lot of coordination happens at times, but it is not a good excuse to refrain from this style.

How do you feel about asymmetric maps like Selkie Isle where there is not a huge amount, but certainly there?

One final consideration: you are likely seeing more of the lower-bracket intended pools, unfortunately, as the current method for selecting a map is based on the queues (both team's) lowest-rated player: https://forum.faforever.com/topic/5170/matchmaker-update/3

We have discussed and pushed this idea to resolve low-level content resulting for higher-rated players for sometime now. The release is dependent on some other factors and hopefully it comes sooner rather later.

@morax said in Matchmaker Team Sentons 4v4 TMM Inclusion:

jeeezz haha I was hoping you would say 1800+ vs 1500 less but gotcha. If 2300+ is the bar for creation we need to rethink our pool brackets as we have 1500+ as the top level.

certainly not impossible for a 1400 to crush an 1800 because he clicked gun upgrade while the 1800 clicked a t2 mex, so the argument still works.

i understand complaints about asymmetrical maps because it can be unfun to be hopelessly crushed, but if you look at the bigger picture, asymmetric maps tend to play out more interestingly than symmetric maps (setons is a great example of this). lack of coordination is the player's fault

i think selkie is a good map, asymmetry matters a bit less there though because i feel it's all a lot more dependant on mid and air performance
prioritizing higher bracket mappools sounds pretty nice, thanks for the work

Nah selkie has pretty important asymmetry. The bottom right/top left slots lose long term due to the insane reclaim available to their opponent. They need to play proactively, I don't see it that much differently than how beach will lose to a rock that is allowed to boom in peace long term.