After having hosted countless all welcome games on randomly generated maps I can attest to the fact full share makes the games more fun to play, for both sides. Without it, games end at around 10 minutes, after the first player death, with no chance of recovery for their teammates, after some 2v1 or unfortunate first engagement. This drastic, game-ending outcome often comes as a result of rock-paper-scissors dynamics in the build orders (much more prevalent on random maps), not some grand masterminded strategy that could potentially be scouted and countered in time.

I am, however, dumbfounded by the amount of people that join only to immediately throw a tantrum because they see full share on, then begin to educate me on its shortcomings. Very few games have ended in victory for the team down a player, so the oft repeated argument that full share makes snipes meaningless just doesn't ring true to me. Being down a com and placing more burden on another player does not make the game easier for the losing team, and, at least around my level, it takes time for the the unified economy to compensate for these disadvantages.

I really hope more people give it a chance, and, as funk said, learn to adapt their decision making to this change in rules. Snipe economy, and press the attack once you get a kill instead of zoning out and going sim city.

There's another point to be made regarding player experience.

Since without full share, you are usually punished with an agonizing and inevitable defeat when your teammate dies, sometimes through no fault of your own, player deaths are often followed by toxic interactions between teammates, "moron" tags peppered around the map and stuff like that. Full share helps a lot with this problem.

It also seems to me that people more often stay in the game instead of leaving immediately when full share is on, maybe partly because they want to see their stuff put to use. For one thing, this means defeat feels less bitter since fewer rage quit. But it also increases the chance that dead high rated players instruct lower rated players on their team, and that dead low rated players stick around to learn from their teammates. These are the only times casual players get to see high level play and actually pay attention to it, since very few of them spectate games or watch replays, and actually incentivizes high rated players to teach, since they can salvage their rating if they guide their teammates to victory.

These are not minor concerns. This community is plagued by the unreasonable popularity of maps like astro craters or thermo or gap. If a lobby features some other map, it's almost always rating limited. New players end up joining the only lobbies that will have them, the aforementioned shit map trifecta. Some never leave this comfort zone even after gaining a white rating.

TMM is one of the few developments in years that has a chance to change this, and, if I'm not mistaken, it's whole purpose is specifically remedying this situation. We should not overlook player experience when deciding how to structure team play. Even if it turns out full share is not the best option, TMM should arguably use it at launch to be more noob friendly.

@askaholic said in Introducing Mapgen Week on Ladder:

Let’s rename it to "Neroxis and Sheikah Map Generator". And while we’re at it let’s rename the faf client to "Downlords and Axels and Brutus’ and Sheikahs and All those other guys FAF Client"

Praise Neroxis when mapgen is good, blame Sheikah when something is wrong with it. This is the way

I think progress since the mapmaker was publicly released has been huge. I'm hoping experienced mapmakers and high level players get a bit more involved with this project now that it's been brought back into the spotlight by the recent tournament. If I'm not mistaken, Sheikah had put out a call to mapmakers for help with the look and feel months ago, but I'm not sure how much attention it got.

I understand that inclusion in the ladder might pose some technical issues but I think they're worth investigating. Random maps are very noob friendly compared to regular maps: no meta, no specific builds - a level playing field. If the long-term goal is to encourage people to shift to ladder rather than custom games, ignoring the map generator's potential to help in this regard would be foolish; it's common knowledge already that many people stay away from ladder because they feel it's too tryhard.

10 games were launched by it last Sunday, 17 players with less than 500 rating participated. I think AutoHost is off to a great start.

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.

Maybe I should clarify: what I find nice about random maps is they enable spammy, active gameplay as opposed to turtle eco play. As the player count goes up, handmade maps quickly develop metas where you are expected to focus on air or eco or turtle in certain slots. It's true that for both 1v1 and 2v2, there are a lot of handmade maps that do this as well, so this aspect is not really relevant to any decision about including generated maps in ladder. I suppose what I'm getting at is that mapgen games serve me better than handmade maps when hosting all welcome games, especially in 4v4+ format, if the goal is to get new players to play actively.

Regarding contributions I'd love to see mapmakers make, one particular one is more diverse biomes / looks. If I remember correctly, Sheikah said coding experience is not needed help in this regard, but I don't know the details.

Biass is just salty people like random maps more than his and now he's gatekeeping ladder because of it "YOU'RE ALL HAVING FUN WRONG!!! LOOK THE SHITTY DECALS!!111". Thankfully it's up to more reasonable individuals whether mapgen comes to ladder or not. Hope they decide it's worth their coding efforts, knowing their work is appreciated.

@askaholic said in Introducing Mapgen Week on Ladder:

Let’s rename it to "Neroxis and Sheikah Map Generator". And while we’re at it let’s rename the faf client to "Downlords and Axels and Brutus’ and Sheikahs and All those other guys FAF Client"

Praise Neroxis when mapgen is good, blame Sheikah when something is wrong with it. This is the way

Biass is just salty people like random maps more than his and now he's gatekeeping ladder because of it "YOU'RE ALL HAVING FUN WRONG!!! LOOK THE SHITTY DECALS!!111". Thankfully it's up to more reasonable individuals whether mapgen comes to ladder or not. Hope they decide it's worth their coding efforts, knowing their work is appreciated.

10 games were launched by it last Sunday, 17 players with less than 500 rating participated. I think AutoHost is off to a great start.

Maybe I should clarify: what I find nice about random maps is they enable spammy, active gameplay as opposed to turtle eco play. As the player count goes up, handmade maps quickly develop metas where you are expected to focus on air or eco or turtle in certain slots. It's true that for both 1v1 and 2v2, there are a lot of handmade maps that do this as well, so this aspect is not really relevant to any decision about including generated maps in ladder. I suppose what I'm getting at is that mapgen games serve me better than handmade maps when hosting all welcome games, especially in 4v4+ format, if the goal is to get new players to play actively.

Regarding contributions I'd love to see mapmakers make, one particular one is more diverse biomes / looks. If I remember correctly, Sheikah said coding experience is not needed help in this regard, but I don't know the details.

@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"

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.

I think progress since the mapmaker was publicly released has been huge. I'm hoping experienced mapmakers and high level players get a bit more involved with this project now that it's been brought back into the spotlight by the recent tournament. If I'm not mistaken, Sheikah had put out a call to mapmakers for help with the look and feel months ago, but I'm not sure how much attention it got.

I understand that inclusion in the ladder might pose some technical issues but I think they're worth investigating. Random maps are very noob friendly compared to regular maps: no meta, no specific builds - a level playing field. If the long-term goal is to encourage people to shift to ladder rather than custom games, ignoring the map generator's potential to help in this regard would be foolish; it's common knowledge already that many people stay away from ladder because they feel it's too tryhard.

@Rotdog it is likely a bug affecting the custom games list, preventing it from displaying any games. I have experienced it myself although rarely. Try restarting the client.

If it happens consistently for you, check the client log files for any unusual errors and consider filing a bug report on GitHub

There's another point to be made regarding player experience.

Since without full share, you are usually punished with an agonizing and inevitable defeat when your teammate dies, sometimes through no fault of your own, player deaths are often followed by toxic interactions between teammates, "moron" tags peppered around the map and stuff like that. Full share helps a lot with this problem.

It also seems to me that people more often stay in the game instead of leaving immediately when full share is on, maybe partly because they want to see their stuff put to use. For one thing, this means defeat feels less bitter since fewer rage quit. But it also increases the chance that dead high rated players instruct lower rated players on their team, and that dead low rated players stick around to learn from their teammates. These are the only times casual players get to see high level play and actually pay attention to it, since very few of them spectate games or watch replays, and actually incentivizes high rated players to teach, since they can salvage their rating if they guide their teammates to victory.

These are not minor concerns. This community is plagued by the unreasonable popularity of maps like astro craters or thermo or gap. If a lobby features some other map, it's almost always rating limited. New players end up joining the only lobbies that will have them, the aforementioned shit map trifecta. Some never leave this comfort zone even after gaining a white rating.

TMM is one of the few developments in years that has a chance to change this, and, if I'm not mistaken, it's whole purpose is specifically remedying this situation. We should not overlook player experience when deciding how to structure team play. Even if it turns out full share is not the best option, TMM should arguably use it at launch to be more noob friendly.

After having hosted countless all welcome games on randomly generated maps I can attest to the fact full share makes the games more fun to play, for both sides. Without it, games end at around 10 minutes, after the first player death, with no chance of recovery for their teammates, after some 2v1 or unfortunate first engagement. This drastic, game-ending outcome often comes as a result of rock-paper-scissors dynamics in the build orders (much more prevalent on random maps), not some grand masterminded strategy that could potentially be scouted and countered in time.

I am, however, dumbfounded by the amount of people that join only to immediately throw a tantrum because they see full share on, then begin to educate me on its shortcomings. Very few games have ended in victory for the team down a player, so the oft repeated argument that full share makes snipes meaningless just doesn't ring true to me. Being down a com and placing more burden on another player does not make the game easier for the losing team, and, at least around my level, it takes time for the the unified economy to compensate for these disadvantages.

I really hope more people give it a chance, and, as funk said, learn to adapt their decision making to this change in rules. Snipe economy, and press the attack once you get a kill instead of zoning out and going sim city.