Introducing Mapgen Week on Ladder

Are 800s playing white fire by attack moving first engie and delaying initial mexes for pgen spam or are they doing generic bo and then using the reclaim to boost themselves? Really think people just psyche themselves out of playing by imagining anyone that touches ladder is some god that has refined and memorized every map and put it into a notepad doc they open on their second monitor. Barely any top players have map specific bos when they play ladder. Map gen hasn’t changed any of this.

If these low level players really had these brutal bos, they’s be climbing 400 rating by next month, but I bet that almost never happens. And if you think, for example, taking into account the white fire reclaim counts as “bo” or “map knowledge” then the same lack of map knowledge on your end will still lead to you losing map gen games; it’s just general game sense.

@ftxcommando Not sure if directed at me but I do agree with this. What I meant in what I said is that there might be people who are 700 only because they know some tricks on the ladder map pool maps because they play them all the time kinda like the rating "gatekeepers" who have 1k ladder games at 800 or 1k or whatever amount of points. These tricks are far from optimal or whatever, but at this low level can beat a 700 who doesn't know the map at all. I feel that you can be 700 on some maps and clueless on other maps. Mapgen removes that advantage. They're far from brutal BOs, but they're better than whatever some 700 who has never seen the map might do. They'd still get rolled by a 1300 who has never seen the map.

There are a handful of "generic BOs" that you can apply to mapgen maps. Sometimes you want a normal build, sometimes you want to spam pgens because there's lots of reclaim, sometimes you want to rush a transport. You can learn these builds by learning specific builds for ladder maps, e.g. a transport rush map will teach you the transport rush generic BO. Obviously a "refined" BO would be better than a generic one that you slap together. But there's got to be less than 10 total "generic" BOs that I would draw on:

• Standard fac 2pgen 2mex
• Hydro build fac 4 mex 1 hydro
• near hydro build fac 1-2 pgens 4mex hydro + more mexes before hydro finishes
• first bomber 1 pgen 1 air fac 1 pgen assist fac
• second or third bomber (almost the same thing but make 1-2 engies first)
• first jester 2 pgens air fac
• spam power for transport rush (and/or make inties first to shoot down enemy trans)
• spam power because there's lots of reclaim like on Daroza's
• factory + 1-2 mex + walk ACU, let engies build the pgens, because you need ACU to hoof it, this can be good when there are very few mexes at home and you want to expand ASAP
• spam factories for big tree reclaim early, so you build less power than normal, you'll build the pgens up later

A lot of these are so similar to each other maybe it's silly to count them as separate builds so maybe this is more like 5-6 builds than 10. If you know these 10 generic builds I think you can pick a decent build for 99% of the mapgen maps you might get. It's enough that you probably won't fall behind early against a player of similar skill.

@exselsior

Nah not really directed at you but mostly just the general tone of “oh finally I can play ladder and not lose to dirty bo whores”

Frankly I can’t wait to go and look at some of the 10k game count lower rated players and see that their rating has literally not moved significantly at all due to map gen.

@ftxcommando said in Introducing Mapgen Week on Ladder:

Frankly I can’t wait to go and look at some of the 10k game count lower rated players and see that their rating has literally not moved significantly at all due to map gen.

I'm guessing these 10k game players don't play for rating but entertainment, asking them if they liked it is probably more relevant.

If the 10k game dude at 800 rating doesn’t have a bo and isn’t the one keeping you down as the theoretical 800 with no map experience playing 1 game a day, then who exactly is the phantom bo whore that map gen has slayed here?

Arma has basically said what I feel. There are generic builds that you need to know to get to the game stage where decisionmaking matters. When I read sub 1200 players explain how map gen will finally allow them to blossom like a beautiful butterfly and allow their 1800-tier decisionmaking to get them the rating they truly deserve, it just looks like they are unaware that the exact same generic bos will be getting applied on map gen and they will still lose before min 8 if they don’t know them.

Know generic 3rd air bo with and without hydro and you are fine on 85% of ladder maps, same will hold true on map gen. Beyond that, ctrl+shift and zoom out to see critical map points to fight for. Or just divide the map in half.

@ftxcommando said in Introducing Mapgen Week on Ladder:

Are 800s playing white fire by attack moving first engie and delaying initial mexes for pgen spam or are they doing generic bo and then using the reclaim to boost themselves? Really think people just psyche themselves out of playing by imagining anyone that touches ladder is some god that has refined and memorized every map and put it into a notepad doc they open on their second monitor. Barely any top players have map specific bos when they play ladder. Map gen hasn’t changed any of this.

If these low level players really had these brutal bos, they’s be climbing 400 rating by next month, but I bet that almost never happens. And if you think, for example, taking into account the white fire reclaim counts as “bo” or “map knowledge” then the same lack of map knowledge on your end will still lead to you losing map gen games; it’s just general game sense.

Maybe its true maybe its not, but I WANT TO SEE THAT THE MATCHMAKING IS FAIR and nobody can have even a tiny advantage before game starts

i agree, that’s why i am making a motion to ban anyone that has a tummy ache from playing ladder

also no sleep deprivation

@karlhoffman said in Introducing Mapgen Week on Ladder:

Maybe its true maybe its not, but I WANT TO SEE THAT THE MATCHMAKING IS FAIR and nobody can have even a tiny advantage before game starts

Yes the true measure of who is the better player, keep everything even with no advantage whatsoever. I'll be sure to challenge Tagada to a 1v1 now and tell him that he has to magically play at my 1400 ladder level so we can be even with no advantages. Same factions too, after a good nights rest and some food and coffee.

Knowing that you literally can't BO whore on mapgen does have the significant psychological advantage that you don't need to think about it.

It's not that BO whoring is necessary to get >1k+ but BO whoring is one of the most obvious thing to if you want to win more.
Other, often much more crucial improvements, like eco balance, unit movements, map awareness, are much harder to grasp and implement, while copying and practicing a BO for an hour is conceptually really trivial and will definitely result in you winning games.

So if you go in with a competitive mindset you either have to BO whore to some degree, or convince yourself before every game that intentionally ignoring the low hanging fruit is fine. The latter is annoying and the former takes a couple hours to do as there are like 10+ maps you would need to find and implement a BO for.

Even I, someone that definitely does enjoy the BO whoring aspect of the game, was put off by this.
I did look up BOs for one ladder month, played quite a few games that month, then the map pool changed, I would have 'needed' to do it again and so I was like "Nah too much effort" and then didn't play ladder again until literally this week.

In short: Map gen week is an amazing idea and should definitely be a regular thing! Maybe make it mapgen Sundays or something, so that we don't have to wait for an entire month between mapgen events.

@cheeseberry said in Introducing Mapgen Week on Ladder:

Knowing that you literally can't BO whore on mapgen does have the significant psychological advantage that you don't need to think about it.

True if you think knowing super map specific BOs will help significantly. However, this isn't the case unless you're in a high level tourney or maybe 2k+ ladder. There might be a tiny handful of maps where this is an exception, like The Ditch and Serenity Desert with its weird start, but this doesn't really impact your rating and The Ditch is only played at the highest level.

So if you go in with a competitive mindset you either have to BO whore to some degree, or convince yourself before every game that intentionally ignoring the low hanging fruit is fine. The latter is annoying and the former takes a couple hours to do as there are like 10+ maps you would need to find and implement a BO for.

You don't though. If you have the basic fundamental openings down then you will be perfectly fine. I've been slowly getting better and climbing ladder, and I have to make glaring mistakes to lose. I do this often because I am still learning and improving, but there is no way a slightly more optimal BO outside of generic ones is enough to bridge a skill gap at the 1300ish level where most of my games have been outside of maybe 5x5 maps. Even then just doing good generic stuff should work fine.

In short: Map gen week is an amazing idea and should definitely be a regular thing! Maybe make it mapgen Sundays or something, so that we don't have to wait for an entire month between mapgen events.

All that aside, I do strongly agree with this. Mapgen week has been amazing, and I've finally been able to get ladder games because it seems a lot more popular, at least for the times I can play and rating.

What is the focus on killing BO's by the way?

I personally vary between 2 and 3 similar initial BO's on all random maps and then go from there with what I think works (spoiler: often doesn't).

What I like about random maps is that it allows me to think, without needing to worry about how the map should normally be played. In addition and related I like the surprise of what I get.

@Sheikah as always I'm going to ask you things instead of doing it, but I'm still not a dev xD:

Do you think it will be possible to make a mode in the mapgen creator like the "blind" one but that resembles the same randomness of mapgen week? I mean that map dimension (5x5, 10x10 o 20x20) will be known only when the game starts? I ask this to prepare to host 1v1 games when the mapgen week will end eheh.

@exselsior

Like I said, its not that you must learn a BO for every map on ladder to be successful.

What I said is that it feels like you should learn a BO because it will have a positive impact on your gameplay and is simple to do.

Again, I myself enjoy the BO aspect of the game, but it does represent a certain time commitment I just don't want to invest to play my 5 ladder games a month.

Could I just play on static maps w/o looking at BOs at all? Of course! But I will always have the feeling in the back of my mind that I should have.

Is that dumb? Yes, but so is all of human psychology.

@loxpooig said in Introducing Mapgen Week on Ladder:

@Sheikah as always I'm going to ask you things instead of doing it, but I'm still not a dev xD:

Do you think it will be possible to make a mode in the mapgen creator like the "blind" one but that resembles the same randomness of mapgen week? I mean that map dimension (5x5, 10x10 o 20x20) will be known only when the game starts? I ask this to prepare to host 1v1 games when the mapgen week will end eheh.

It is possible however you will always be able to see the map size when sitting in the custom game lobby though.

maaaaaan.. It's true .

@loxpooig We just need 20x20 maps that are mostly impassable mountains with a little 5x5 in the middle. Or a 6x6, 7x7, etc. Then you wouldn't be able to tell from the lobby how big the map is.

Potentially you could even block out a part of the map completely, like is done on Strife of Titan (technically 20x20 but actually more like 14x14) so the map would show up as 20x20 but the playable area could be much smaller

It is possible however you will always be able to see the map size when sitting in the custom game lobby though.

What about maps with internal borders though? Not that I particularly care for blind maps, but it allows more size options. 5km can have annoying issues with air and lack of build space on the edge; I imagine 8km would alleviate this while still feeling small. (I don't suppose we'll get the map-gen to do the equivalent of Cobalt Valley any time soon though.)

Personally I've enjoyed mapgen week (when I've had the chance to play). It has exposed some of my weaknesses (e.g. big open maps with lots of expansions, where T1 spam can work but travel time is significant).

@arma473 that's a good idea and what can also solve what @Cyborg16 is saying. Btw @Cyborg16 in 20x20 you have to think of nuke as tml, t3 arty as t2 arty, GC as t3 spam and so on... xD t1 tanks are almost useless

@loxpooig That is not true at all ...