Fantastic thread.
@moses_the_red said in Understanding team maps:
There's an absurd notion in the community that maps that get played are terrible maps.
No, the notion is that (dual) gap and astro maps are bad. This opinion would be the same regardless of playcount. There are plenty of good maps on the the top plays list, and they're not bad because they're played. Don't minimalise the opinion of people that you do not agree with.
@moses_the_red said in Understanding team maps:
Everyone hates Astro, and everyone also seems to play Astro. Why is Astro a great map?
Why is Dust2 my favorite counterstrike map even though every other map has more depth and variety in it's gameplay?
It's my favorite map because I run to a certain doorway every round and abuse my knowledge of meetpoints to get quick kills, inflating my MMR with one easy trick and no actual understanding of the game. Astro works the same way, you refine your one build order trick to farm rating. You're no longer comfortable playing a balanced game against someone with your new MMR on a map that doesn't involve your trick, so you stay on the same map to keep that rating.
This is how it goes for every map (on every game) that a player will farm out for rating, be it setons, gap, etc. Don't lie to yourself and fit arbitrary design prinicples to your case to justify it. We all know that they are played due to this reason. This is the fallacy of global rating and why it will be "removed" soon.
@moses_the_red said in Understanding team maps:
"Moses' third law of team map design"
Where are the first two rules, Isaac Asimov?
@moses_the_red said in Understanding team maps:
Your map should be designed to ensure a tightly balanced game up to the middle game for all players of all skill levels that your map targets.
You make maps that allow players to make no mistakes or contest eachother, delaying any actual ability to win the game until you're able to completly basekill or snipe an ACU regardless of balance. Your maps do not abide by this principle, and you likely made this rule up as you wrote the post.
@moses_the_red said in Understanding team maps:
look up "Pathogen". It looks sane on the surface and has some interesting features, but it permits players to quickly rush each other which causes early game com deaths
No, it's because half of the players on the map start with 9 mexes instead of 11. And you have no ability to compensate for that for the entirety of the game because the map has nothing inbetween the two bases. You all in before the 11 mex player can use that mass to snowball or you lose the game. There is no other outcome. I know you're trying to imitate setons-esque rotational balance with this honestly: stupid design choice. But you need to consider "why" beach can handle being a few mexes down, instead of putting a mex count on a poorly textured flat pane.
@moses_the_red said in Understanding team maps:
you cannot fill games on that map. No one wants to wait for 30 minutes for a room to fill so they can play a map where the victor is decided at the 5 minute mark.
The outcome of that map is decided in the lobby. You got in enough players that didn't notice the gamebreaking imbalance and then they don't play it again. done.
@moses_the_red said in Understanding team maps:
You could have a map where there are central mexes that must be fought over early, don't do that, your map won't fill.
Huh?
@moses_the_red said in Understanding team maps:
You may not like the idea that this law of map design is real, but it is. If you think its not real, find a map that violates this principal and try to fill games on it. You'll find that its real enough.
This statement doesnt align with reality. The most played maps in the vault violate this rule of intentionally forcing a stalemate. This fake design prinicple is one of the most innane things that I have heard from the mapping "community" thus far. Why bother trying to overjustify your creations when they look terrible, are gap clones with even less depth, and don't get played unless you host them? I would like to hope that anyone aspiring to be a "good mapper" on FAF would stop trying to focus on making false gospel, and focus on making their maps better instead. After all, you don't need to stretch this hard to justify good maps.
I wonder what lion or omni would think of this? A round for all you lost souls.