About Neroxis map generator...

I guess to try to ease tensions? I also think it being directly in the current ladder pool is fine.

Tbh I don't think I've seen the 1800+ crowd so united behind a ladder idea before, if the 1800+ pool was partly or wholly mapgen for a month I think it would go down very well.

Guess it's not a big deal either way, just might see all the tryhards in the "casual" queue which will be a laugh but people get what they want, that's what matters.

edit - guess the risk is splitting 1v1 player base, especially if the "casual" queue isn't pure mapgen. If it's pure mapgen then the hosting of custom mapgen 1v1s will just move to an automatch feature, which would be an improvement, but if it's not then it might get a bit weird in a three-way split between the two queues and custom games.

I agree with Sir-Prize that it might not be best to separate the ladder, if there are so few player to begin with.

My idea for a solution would be to make it opt-in. E.g. in the matchmaking tab there is Box A you can check, where you would like a 10% probability (or whatever) to play on a mapgen map. Box B would be if you want to always have a mapgen map and none of the ladder pool maps. So two players that select B can always play mapgen on ladder if they are paired, and any player that never wants it will never get it.
Just a suggestion, no idea how difficult this would be to implement.

@Sir-Prize said in About Neroxis map generator...:

Tbh I don't think I've seen the 1800+ crowd so united behind a ladder idea before, if the 1800+ pool was partly or wholly mapgen for a month I think it would go down very well.

take into consideration that usually only the people say something that want change. To get the opinion of the others we would need to introduce it and get feedback then.

people are just used to the same pool which grants most quite some skill boost during games.
not to mention that the bowhoring is one of the main things in big tourneys like LoTs,i wouldn't enforce that change but it's just bad when you look at high ranked players doing the same stuff for about 15 minutes when they have to play seriously and we call that "skilled" gameplay

queuing with a newbie to show him the beauty of tmm and meeting tagada be like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLcRpdZ0Xb0&ab_channel=Tomoko

I think one of the problems that you aren't just willing to look at is the presentation to new players.
This is something that Biass and FtX have to watch out for.
Sure the map gen is great addition for us seasoned players who are all sick of BO whoring and want less competitive enviroment where burden of map knowledge is kept to minimum. We can also live with smaller and bigger mistakes like terrain not being obvious or something, as we are getting the kick out of finding new random map to play on. We are fine with ugly decals as long as we don't get to play the same game of burden of knowledge for the first 10 minutes of the game as to how to expand on certain maps or how to not lose the game at minute 11 by having worse Air BO.

But new players won't be as amazed, they will be pissed for having to fight against game again and again where nothing makes sense to them. Them getting a bad map will be much more impactful compared to us. Them seeing ugly map compared to what they can see on current ladder will also look strange. Why are they playing on ugly maps with pathfinding problems when there are hundreds of great hand crafted maps available to them.
Not to mention the fact that with random maps they will never get to feel at home seeing the same map for 3-4 time and now kinda knowing what to play on that map. Instead they will be faced with the daunting experience of having to play against not only enemy but also against brand new map with each new game.

Not to mention the fact that the newbies will have even harder time getting accustomed to setting economy up and running when they have to learn how to improvise BO each and every time they enter the match. What you all want to do is all nice and dandy if you are seasoned player who already have played the game for a while and is accustomed to it's problems.
But a new player? You are literally inviting living hell upon them and making sure that the ladder experience will become even more daunting to many of them as they get scared of yet another layer of unknown.

@RandomWheelchair
I agree with your points but dont recall anyone proposing to put mapgen into the <300 or 300-800 ladder pool. If blodir or archsimkat talk about how they would love like 10% mapgen in ladder, they clearly talk about their corresponding ladder map pool and not about forcing mapgen onto the low rated ladder brackets. So I dont see a conflict in this regard.

Yah, we already have map pool which changes based on your ladder ranking. The higher you go in ladder, the larger/harder the maps get, and map pool size increases. I would assume you could have map gen be introduced into pool the same way. Have it unlock at 'X' rating, to be determined.

I like the idea of map gen in ladder because it does not allow people who have PhDs in build orders to reign supreme.

I like having actual battles in my games rather thinking about how to survive first bomber and the game going to shit in less then 5 minutes.

@Sir-Prize said in About Neroxis map generator...:

Why an entirely new ladder and pool?

TMM is still lacking the casual element which was a big part of the design. The 2v2 queue we added is still pretty laddery because it has its own rating. I want to see at least one queue that uses global rating so new players can use it to "get out of the grey." Something that has the casual feel of “all welcome” games. It seems that there wouldn’t be as much resistance to adding mapgen to that sort of a queue, so it just feels like a nice way to test out the idea.

Fair enough, a global queue does make some sense when you put it like that. I still slightly worry about splitting player bases and making it harder to fill games overall but in fairness the moment you're not talking about 1v1s I probably should butt out of the conversation due to a total lack of knowledge.

On a (possibly) related note, what's the latest with the ladder divisions/hiding matchmaker ratings?

@harzer99 said in About Neroxis map generator...:

take into consideration that usually only the people say something that want change. To get the opinion of the others we would need to introduce it and get feedback then.

This is exactly what I'm suggesting. I will say that when map pool sizes have changed in the past there's always been some debate among higher level players, although they overwhelmingly preferred larger pools (keyser basically stopped laddering when the pool got big again). The only argument I'm seeing against mapgen is from people who are worried for newbs (rightly, imo) - but no one is suggesting this for newb map pools.

Small map pool = everyone has a build order for all maps => bo no longer has impact on the result of the game

Large map pool = some players have build orders on some maps => better prepped player wins

Mapgen = nobody has a buildorder on any maps => better bo improv wins

@Blodir said in About Neroxis map generator...:

Small map pool = everyone has a build order for all maps => bo no longer has impact on the result of the game
Large map pool = some players have build orders on some maps => better prepped player wins

This was/is why I prefer a small pool, but I'm in a minority and it's obvious small pool kills your level ladder play 💔

let's not forget that 1v1 is already considered a competitive gameplay

queuing with a newbie to show him the beauty of tmm and meeting tagada be like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLcRpdZ0Xb0&ab_channel=Tomoko

I leave the decision for map gen for ladder up to arch. Of course it has development requirements etc but if he wants it for ladder I’ll trust his opinion.

Ultimately I’d rather run a dual queue with map gen and curated ladder maps both operating with the same rating system.

With regards to tmm, I see no need for implementing map gen in those formats. Most reasonings here hold no real sway because:

  1. Tons of new maps that saw near zero competitive play exist for these formats
  2. The format has hardly exists long enough for map fatigue to set in
  3. Map gen itself is a lot less tested for these formats

If the infrastrucutre is being developed anyway we could indroce a feature queue, which would host a smapp mappool/ single map with a theme. One rotation it could be generated maps, next one only setons 4v4 etc. . It should be unranked and balanced by 1v1 or 2v2 rating.
On the one hand it would be great for testing how the playerbase reacts to experimental maps, but also feature certain maps to a broader audience. Also I would suggest a weekly rotation, due to the small size of the pool.

random map generator is the only good thing thats happend to faf in forever

16

The ICE adapter disagrees.

"Nerds have a really complicated relationship with change: Change is awesome when WE'RE the ones doing it. As soon as change is coming from outside of us it becomes untrustworthy and it threatens what we think of is the familiar."
– Benno Rice

that is the only reason I dont play ladder, ppl simply know all ins and outs of maps, and as a new player I cant compete with that

@karlhoffman At lower levels (under 500 rating) people make so many mistakes that you can win even with a bad build order. I played against FLOOD once on Twin Rivers, he was AFK for the first 100 seconds of the match. The match lasted over an hour. I had 700 rating, he had about 1000. I didn't even know that he had been AFK until I saw the score screen.

Lower-rated players make so many mistakes. Big ones, small ones. There is plenty of room for an imperfect player to win lots of games against other low-rated players.