@moses_the_red said in Understanding team maps:

@Stealth9 said in Understanding team maps:

Hey Moses, I have played mostly gap games up until this point. Why is it important ,to you, for 'astro/dualgap' type maps to be recognised as 'good' or even 'excellent'?

I think it informs map design. I think there are lessons to be learned from a lot of the popular maps that just aren't being learned.
...
I think a lot of people don't realize how large a factor lobby times are in what types of maps people are willing to play.

I do absolutely agree with you on lobby wait times, getting team maps that do not look like astro or dual gap to fill has proven to be a real game of patience.
I have the impression that this is more of a problem with the way team games are currently hosted.

I really do not think there is much for 'mappers' to be learned from astro/dualgap. there are some variations, true. there are limited options to change anything without altering the 'distance & player safety' balance.

Maybe we could use the old Supreme Commander icon for the final tier?

My entry for this tournament.

The original TA map, Wretched Ridges :

This is my reimagined map for F A :
Adaptive Wretched Ridges 10 x 10

Key features:

• Trees
• Ridges
• Hydrocarbon Deposits
• Mass
• Allows for 12 Players

Vault ID = #16965

Contact me if you have troubles with this map.

@moses_the_red said in Understanding team maps:

@Stealth9 Take a look at Fossil and Rohai if you haven't seen them.

There is room for innovation in the team map space. I think more people just need to understand what the boundaries are within that space, and what cool things you can do within it.

I will agree there is probably room for improvement, there always is.
I like your maps.

The idea behind this post was really to identify the commonalities you find in team maps - including but not limited to Astro and Dual gap, and define them to give people a better idea of what types of maps are more likely to have a chance at filling.

Its also intended to fight the perspective that team maps that will fill are all shit. Why bother working on a team map if its pre-defined by some ladder snob to be a shit map?

The community would be better off if we didn't essentially define maps that can be filled in lobby as shit maps - and to various degrees, that is exactly what people are doing.

I don't think the Astro/Gap is a shit map. I think it is the most simple and easy to grasp battleground. Being less negative towards these maps and players may be good for all.

If you go to the M&M team picks list you will find a variety of interesting looking team maps. When I look at that list I get the feeling that there were people involved who:

1. dedicated a lot of time
2. thought about their map design

Then I look at the authors, I see some high-rated players & long-time forum members. This tells me that they understand, to some extend/more than me, the game, it's possibilities and it's shortcomings.

To say these people should learn from Astro/Gap for their map design? I feel going to such an extend is a real disservice to those who have put so much time & effort into this FAF project.

@GGhost272 Like a sequentially upgrading mask, very cool!

Nice work, the menu is really shaping up to something special..

That is a great background. Top/bottom fade ins remind me of the scroll effect on this website monokai.nl — which, pretty sweet imo.

Can we consider the placement of "Next"/"Previous" buttons? Both on the top and the bottom of the page. I'd like to switch around both the buttons and the position on the page.

Current

To enable easy navigation, position the navigation centered and consider the following layout:
"Previous"/"<Page Number>"/"Next"

And... in an ideal world <page number> obviously can recieve user-input .

+ for sticking with Electrolize.

T1 air really is subtle.
Solid outline on ACU.
Funky engineer

What about?

• Mass extractors
• Power generators
• Support commanders

That is a great background. Top/bottom fade ins remind me of the scroll effect on this website monokai.nl — which, pretty sweet imo.

Can we consider the placement of "Next"/"Previous" buttons? Both on the top and the bottom of the page. I'd like to switch around both the buttons and the position on the page.

Current

To enable easy navigation, position the navigation centered and consider the following layout:
"Previous"/"<Page Number>"/"Next"

And... in an ideal world <page number> obviously can recieve user-input .

+ for sticking with Electrolize.

Nice work, the menu is really shaping up to something special..

@franzibald said in Reclaim orders getting lost:

I get that my clicking might not be super accurate and some of the orders have missed the reclaim, but having 19 orders cancelled out of 20 makes it seem like there is something else going on.

See this mod - courtesy of strogo. This mod includes a special reclaim order which only issues if the order is placed on actual reclaim. See the linked post for further details.

After minimal testing I have to conclude that the <Zoom Pop Distance> does nothing for the desired result, wether at 0 or 160 it does not seem to actually effect the zoom height.

Instead what you can do is use <Select Your ACU>

Comma == zoom to & select your ACU
Spacebar == select your ACU

Possibly disable audio enhancements?

@kitenoob said in The "Nightmare" Tournament:

You can deceive the enemy using the army of scouts

Fantastic sentence.

Hi Wingflier, are you using the 'Advanced Target Priorities' mod?

I experienced a similar problem with unresponsive hotkey functions.

Congratulations to Madmad, Degulum & Boom for taking the leaderboard.

You know I am not experienced,

with that out of the way
I would like to explain my thoughts on some of the decisions I made for the map "Adaptive Wretched Ridges" following the bullet points presented by Biass. I would first like to present the things I agree with:

• No Decals - I will experiment more with decals.
• Mountains... - Something I did not consider. Lessons to be learned...
• Lighting... - The lighting is not stock. Not a good balance it seems. I will try to improve this.
• Sloped outer areas - I had this in my first version, I guess I deleted that layer or messed this up another way.

Now I would like to discuss some statements which may have some truth to them but which I am not willing to accept right away. // accepted

• Reclaim

First, the reclaim placement is not sporadic. There are a lot of tree groups on this map. Now, this does mean players have to "lawnmower it all down" but this also provides opportunity for those who are good at that.

Second, the map is meant to be situated in a 'forest' area. You should be turning those trees into units. The reclaim in this case is part of the personality of the map.

Third, I would agree the stones may be scattered somewhat linearly but it makes sense for those rocks to be there since the may have come down / broken from the ridges. How would you improve this?

• Gameplay

"Mexes appear randomly distributed and sporadic, and slots 3 and 4 start with 2 mexes and not a single mex close to them."

I did try to create some logical distribution, I will reconsider and rebalance. I do want to mention that I intentionally only added 2 mexes to a starting location. I did this because I want the player to move. There is a lot of energy of overcharges on this map.

"You have SEVERELY crippled your score by trying to submit a 12 player abomination into a 2v2 tournament."

I might have misunderstood the 'Adaptive' script. I made this map as a 2 v 2 map, I only added the extra slots later just in case I or someone else would want to play it with 12 people. All other spawn mexes should be disabled when only slots 1 - 4 are filled.

Conclusion

Biass, thank you for your feedback & for including me as 6th. Even though I came in last it still is great seeing my map on the list.

@MadMax I am in no way discouraged. Thanks for the encouraging words :).

I would also like to thank @Dragun101 for providing the stakes for this tournament.

@FtXCommando said in Understanding team maps:

The wait argument is fundamentally flawed regardless. You do not have a set price of time that is paid at every repeated host. If I spent 40 minutes waiting for a game to fill and the game is dead in 10 minutes, it takes me mere minutes to get the game going again. The fact this is NOT a major factor is evidenced by the popularity of both maps like wonder and maps like badlands in custom games.

Real humans have an allotted quantity of freetime they wish to spend. If they were already entrapped into playing FAF, then more likely than not they will continue wanting to play FAF.

I don't understand what this means, could you explain?

The wait time argument seems like a thing that holds some truth to me.. I know I have changed maps sometimes because I had to wait so long for my lobby to fill.