About Neroxis map generator...

Yes, they revolve around the same concept but so do most of the generic hand crafted ladder maps, I think that right now MapGen maps are good enough (probably 3.5 score on average in terms of gameplay + Variety) and occasionally we get a really good one. On the other hand I have to agree with Biass as well, the aesthetics have come a long way but we are not there yet ( What I mean is that hand crafted maps just look better and it will stay like this probably, there is nothing wrong with it). I can tell you right now that when I will be able to come back to FAF hopefully soon I am really eager to un rust on MapGen maps instead of playing the same decent map out of the 75 ish we have right now over and over again.

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

Yes, they revolve around the same concept but so do most of the generic hand crafted ladder maps,

I put a third of the maps in the 10x10 pool in the current ladder in "send acu with spam and snowball into win" category. And a lot of those still play with the concept and allow some unusual plays ie Darkfall with massive e reclaim allowing for quite a lot of upgrade rushes. I've also seen plenty of Arctic Refuge games that do not get decided by a failure in mid but rather intense side raids delaying expansions and tree reclaim.

Right now these maps play like it's land wilderness with slight terrain variation.

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

I think that right now MapGen maps are good enough (probably 3.5 score on average in terms of gameplay + Variety) and occasionally we get a really good one.

Playing hollow once is ok. Playing hollow 20 times in a row is not.

The beauty of map gen is that even if the map is similar concept wise it will still play out differently so you don't get to play Hollow 20 times in a row.

I wish the players in the tournament knew that.

If anything it's playing a map with pure constant land spam meta that is more likely to play differently as you can build upon the expectations of meta instead of "damn I spawned in, lemme just do the tactic that I can think on impulse will work when I see wide open map with easy access to the enemy and all expansions on the map"

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

here's the replay link : https://replay.faforever.com/13909802 it generates the right map. I just want to be able to host it.

@tatsu
Flying engi is this working as intended ?)
@Sheikah take a look as well)

Alright I was able to get a version that should increase the variation of the maps a bit. So if you end up playing it let me know how it goes.

@arma473 said in About Neroxis map generator...:

I'll bet there's no real difference, in terms of how long it takes to find an opponent, between the mapgen maps and the handmade maps.

that's not true. there's a big difference and that's that there's a big blue dice instead of the map preview picture.

this will disfavor the mapgen in such an experiment. We would need for the preview to show up for others in the game list first, for this to have good results.

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

@tatsu there is a place to insert the name of a mapgen in the generate map ui.

here?

when I fill that field in and hit generate I get this :

doesn't matter what value I put.

the name should be a generated map name like neroxis_map_generator_1.3.5_ie5pi2ly4cy44_aiea_

if you put that in do you get the error?

(yes neroxis_map_generator_1.3.5_ie5pi2ly4cy44_aiea_ works for me)

oh ok I didn't understand that that's how it worked. but then how can I copy a name? FAF doesn't allow copying from any of the places it shows up after the fact

ah goddamit there it is:

I Hope this interaction serves to proove that this is less than intuitive.

I'm still wondering how one would recover a mapname from a replay?

EDIT :

well running FAF from console helps with that

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

@tatsu

cannot reproduce :

that's water you should be seeing (in fact in your shot you can already tell : the engie's wheels are folded)

Here's as close as I could get in terms of camera angle and time :

It shows up that way for me (and I presume everyone else)

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

I'm still wondering how one would recover a mapname from a replay?

Yeah I still need to add a way to get the info from the replay. Only issue is that the name is not stored in the database so you ahve to download the replay to get it.

Yeap, something wrong with water rendering. Dunno how to debug this.

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

(yes neroxis_map_generator_1.3.5_ie5pi2ly4cy44_aiea_ works for me)

I'm still wondering how one would recover a mapname from a replay?

Checking c:\ProgramData\FAForever\logs\map-generator.logs is probably the easiest way)

Replay is just json it seems:
If y have cygwin/linux:

C:\ProgramData\FAForever\replays>cat SOMENAME.fafreplay | grep -o 'mapname":"[a-z0-9A-Z_\\.]*"'

mapname":"astro_crater_battles_4x4_overmap.v0001"

you can also get the map name for an online replay directly from the java client. click on the replay in question, then click the "download more information" button at the bottom. map name is then displayed in the left panel as "ScenarioFile". Depending on monitor resolution you might need to drag the separator between the columns at the top of this panel to see the full name (hover your mouse to the left of "value" to find this separator). unfortunately there's no easy copy paste.

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

If these generated maps were user made, the community wouldn't even be giving them a chance.

The community has been enjoying custom games on random maps for a while now. The product is already more than good enough for me and a lot of other players, regardless of whatever unforgivable flaws you might find with it. A quick search in the replay vault shows around 30 daily MapGen games. Compare that with ~7 games/day on Adaptive Step Forward, one of M&M Team's Top Picks. Whether or not random maps would be played if they were handmade is not really a constructive hypothetical @biass, the reality is that they are being played more than the vast majority of maps released in the last few years and their popularity continues to grow. All the more reason for veteran map makers like you to bring your experience to bear and help make them even better.

query:
featuredMod.displayName=="faf";mapVersion=isnull=true;validity=="VALID"

If you really wanted to set up some equivalent comparison for what the "community" wants, you would look at how often the median person plays map gen vs authored maps.

Not how often one, singular map compares to map gen.

I think that is a flawed argument ftx, you can't compare the playtime of every faf map in existence vs map gen which has not seen wide popularity until recently. You should be comparing the average relative quality/enjoyment of playing map gen vs playing a 'standard' map. Playtime=/= fun. Look at dual gap

The point of map gen isn't to have a 'perfect' map, its to have a NEW map, and that is the point I think you are missing. Its really really fun to play something that you and your opponent are completely unfamiliar with, and actually try and figure shit out on the fly. Its not like clicking ladder and finding yourself on daroza's and knowing the first 6 minutes of gameplay require a hard wired build, with at least 10-15 minutes going by before any meaningful player interaction outside of the initial drop to secure expo. At that point it doesn't even feel like playing.

I have played more map gen then ladder this last month, although admittedly it is partly due to the 'look, new!' effect of it. That being said, I would absolutely love for it to be incorporated into ladder. I have had more then 80% of my matches on map gen end up being very enjoyable, which is more then I can say for ladder. And I personally do not see the over-emphasis on map 'aesthetics' to be such a high metric for map quality. But I guess seeing as how you don't actually play ladder maps, you need to evaluate them somehow...

My only complaints with map gen are the following: Terrain isn't always obvious (quick camera angle viewing fixes it) and that after a while (20+ games), some of the maps can seem to be fairly similar. That being said, even for some of the 'similar' maps, I could make the same complaints for a few of the maps I have seen in ladder pool. There is only so much variation you can have imo.

I would really like to see 10-20% of ladder games be map gen for a month, gauge reception then. Its really nice to have something new to play on, rather then the same old same old, and the no build order whoring aspect is amazing.

It gets considered for a matchmaker queue when it meets matchmaker queue standards. This is what I told Sheikah years ago when I started helping him out and it's the standard now. There is no reception to gauge when it doesn't meet the standards of matchmaker.

Flawed argument:

1. We can compare it over just today. 95-98% of maps will still be authored maps.
2. I never made this argument, the dude I responded to did. I'm the one trying to showcase that it is a stupid argument, so why you think I'm unaware of this is beyond me.
3. I gauge relative quality by the matchmaker criteria I have.

Map Gen & BO:
The BO impact is overstated. The thing map gen stops is precise builds built around certain maps where you can quickly snowball into a victory. This means that the people most likely to see an impact from map gen in halting BO gameplay are those at the absolute highest tier of ladder. One could even argue that true BO gameplay is barely even seen outside of tournaments. There are people like Blackheart that just go and play a game on ladder, get Regor, go all in spam down mid, and beat 2200 rated players. Yeah, great BO gameplay there.

Everyone else? Their version of BO gameplay is recognizing where it's important to send engies. Or whether quicker air or more land is more impactful. Or including tree groups in their build. These will all exist in both map gen and in authored maps. Top players themselves barely play ladder enough to recognize the new maps that were in it for 6 months and that I then put into LotS. It's only then that they actually make a BO for it, and then they proceed to forget it after.

Even paradoxically, the dudes complaining about BO gameplay fail to see that map gen maps tend to be the exact sort of setup of BO maps in ladder where you secure middle through efficient early trades and then snowball into victory later. It's just new feature rose glasses.

Aesthetics:

1. I don't rate aesthetics for ladder maps, try again.
2. Aesthetics aren't what holds map gen back from being implemented.

In sum:
Make better posts.