For months I have anguished over the decision on what color I want to paint my living room... But no more. Thanks to this glorious forum post I have now decided that 'positively pewter' is the color for me. If it weren't for this great sharing of ideas I would still be going to my local hardware store to spend $5 on paint samples.

My issue is the following:

In this thread alone, we have one group of people, such as Blodir, Tex, Box, Tagada, Bennis, and Archsimkat(Head of 1v1 map pool I believe?). These are people who have either played map gen tourney, hosted a large number of mapgen games, are top 1v1 players, or are active on ladder, and these people are ALL in support of map gen and a possible limited inclusion in matchmaker. The people who are the most active in the micro community this change would effect seem to be overwhelmingly in favor of this change. This is not counting Morax, Resistance, Tatsu, and several other individuals who have voiced support for map gen.

This is primarily opposed by people who have not played ladder, played in the tourney, or played on map gen more then 1 or 2 games. These people then get defensive/aggressive when this fact is brought up, and the conversation gets railroaded into inaction. FTX claims that BO-whoring isn't a factor in ladder, (which he hasn't played in over 3 years), when myself, petric (in his map gen tournament forum post), and even biass, all acknowledge BO-whoring as a factor on authored maps. You also have unreasonable standards being set to prevent testing map gen in ladder by saying that "either it’s good enough to replace everything or it isn’t good enough to be in ladder.", or superficial flaws with map gen being blown up to a bigger effect then they rightfully should be (map doesn't look pretty).

And to bring up the point of a depressive tone, most of the negativity in this forum seems to be coming from those very same people. Comments like "Please do not try and be "superior" about it because you "play" ladder maps." "make better posts", or an entire post sarcastically breaking down the word 'assume', are far more antagonistic then myself pointing out that the word 'aesthetic' means something entirely different then what biass was using it for.

And @morax, that feels a little unfair to bring up a separate conversation we had yesterday, out of context, to this post. I was not even aware I was even on the discord channel for ladder team until you told me I was removed from it, how is that my fault? Also, if someone has been voted/appointed to a position of power/authority in this community, such as council of setons, player councilor, or in charge of map pool, I would expect them to not lose their cool when it comes to discussions that are directly under their responsibility as a community appointed member. I agree that these people get an unwarranted amount of hate, but that does not mean that every counter argument or criticism to their argument is an attack on their person.

TLDR: We like map gen. it would be fun to try and implement it into ladder for a month or so to see player reception to it. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work, but from where I am sitting right now, it seems like people want to give it a shot. And I have yet to hear a good argument against including it. If it is too difficult to code, or there are other problems that take priority, that is fine by me. But I dislike the argument that other people who don't ladder/play map gen know better then the people who do.

I blame you directly for this Morax. As the new Player councilor, it is your responsibility to ensure everything works to make the player (me) happy.

I like this series a lot. The self reflection is key to improvement IMO. You seem to be catching some of your mistakes and are working on fixing them which is awesome. Wishing you luck as you continue.

If I may offer some unsolicited advice:

I am not sure if this is a misinterpretation due to language use, but something I noticed is a few of your writeups you will say something like "I lost 'x' because my opponent did 'y', or 'I sent too many engis to location 'x' instead of doing 'y' with them. Where the implication is that 'x' was really bad and not to do it again. This is not always so black and white. The first 3-5 minutes of the game can be really dicey in terms of opening builds on certain maps, and fog of war is a thing even in the later stages. You can't always act on perfect intel and calculated risks are a thing from your opening build to what you do at min 15.

I really don't think you are doing this because your writeups seem like you are giving your gameplay some good thought, but I just wanted to make sure that you are not jumping to conclusions with cause and effect If you made a decision that is good 80% of the time, I want to make sure you are not discounting it because it failed on that 20%, without trying to understand some more context behind things that go wrong at face value. Remember, a good choice will not always yield a good outcome.

The one main piece of advice I want to give you specific from me is for you to ask yourself when you play the following:

What am I doing?
Why am I doing it?
What is my win condition?

I don't have good APM, I have decent micro, I have passable macro, and my late game is garbage. But I know how to find my win condition and exploit it. I highly recommend you try and remember when you analyze (and play) your games to look at the big picture, and not get lost in the weeds with micro/silly mistakes. Find your win condition and commit to it. But try not to get blinded to what is around you as you do so. Its very general advice, but IMO its the most important thing you can do in this game to win. Don't just play on autopilot. Play for a goal, and make it the right one.

You're just jealous you don't get a card.

I thought mapgen week was fun, but would not want to see it done for a period longer then a week. The last day or two was a little tedious. That being said, would be excited to see it kick off the first 5 days of any month.

My two cents on the whole build whoring issue: What most people below 2k ladder think build whoring is, is just the other player having decent macro and a basic opener. That will not change regardless of if you play mapgen or not. I only know builds for a small handful of maps. Palms, badlands, and loki come to mind. The rest i just improvise on the spot.

A good build should make sure that you plan to build only as much power as you need, more mex/reclaim on map means more power, so plan ahead. Engis should expand quickly, and you should have an early tank or two screen for your expanding engis. Thats all there is to it. If you are wasting power (or god forbid, mass) in the first 5 minutes, thats not the result of a bad build, but of poor macro. That will be the same on mapgen or any custom map. Its a skill that needs to be developed.

Buildwhoring would be the tagada/nexus level creations. The secret badlands build, or any other build that requires you to have planned out engi reclaim/pathing to the absolute second, giving you a clear goal of a faster transport, bomber, or getting 2 factories ahead of your opponent by minute 5 due to cutting pgens or skipping mass extractors. It would be map specific, and have 0 power overflow with mass/energy storage at ~10% for the first 5 minutes.

If its something that can be done on any map, its not build whoring, its good macro. If its something that you can plan in the first 15 seconds by pulling up the reclaim field on the map and sending an engi to the nearest rock/wreck, its just good macro. If it truly was a build order whore, the player would be up in the land of 2k.

I say all of this not to antagonize or beat anyone down, but to help people try to understand how to better improve on their end. 90% of the people i train (or used to when i had more time), their biggest issues were their macro decisions. Not micro/gameplan choices. People up to 1600-1700 still spam t1 pgens in a line with 2-3 engis for the first 10 minutes, leaving their power management decided by the gods, regardless of the map. Once you have a decent understanding of the macro in this game, then you can start to learn how to really play it. Its really hard to outsmart people when they have 2-3x the stuff that you do. Its much easier to win when you have more tanks.

At least organize the old colors. The rainbow scheme for organization is niiiiice

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.

Glad I help someone win games. I guide others to a treasure I can’t posses.

No shit. But its a cool thing to look at the relative hierarchy for tournament matches.

@noc_n_o_c_noc said in 2022 Summer Invitational Group Stage:

Well my group could definitely be worse

It got worse xD

Soon^tm

I love you Jip. Both for the explanation and the fixing. But mostly for your dashing good looks and charm. Thanks for the writeup.

I'll keep this short (EDIT too late) because I need to go to sleep soon. Most egregious issue near bottom (marked under page break) relating to PD categorically not shooting at targets in range.

Last few weeks I have noticed a few times playing as cybran that the T2PD will have issues tracking, hitting, switching targets, or even not shooting at all at units in range (radar AND visual). This often causes issues, as PD you expect to be performing at 'x' level are sometimes performing far below what you expect and can set you behind/lose you games. Sidenote: I also don't know at this point if cybran PD missing targets is intentional or not design wise, but its annoying since it is supposed to be a laser beam that doesn't miss, and it misses a lot for the worst T2 PD in the game stats wise.

I just played a mapgen game which shows the targeting issue quite clearly. Please do not judge my terrible gameplay as its late, I was tired, and I wanted to do a meme strat since I thought our team would lose if I played standard.

https://replay.faforever.com/17011311

Watch my ACU drop from min 11 onward. You will notice early on the T2PD seemed to be fine. Near 11:40 onwards you notice a few time the PD wiggles between targets (losing firing time) then seems to settle down to normal behavior. Again at 11:58 the PD stops shooting so it can to turn to the left. Then at 12:10 or so you will see PD randomly stop shooting upwards (at fervors, a good target), rotate 150 degrees down and left to shoot at some aurora, then rotate back up to shoot at the fervors that never left range(while getting crushed by the fervor). Is this targeting behavior intended? Perhaps due to fog of war? it seems glitchy and counter productive.

Cybran PD is also prioritizing t2 flak and t2 MML over fervors

I could honestly look past all this if it were not for what came next (clickbait title I know, but this is the main reason for the post)

The worse offense was at Min 14:30, the T2 PD just... stop shooting. You see this start when an engi enters range and the PD does not fire. It just continues from there. Fervors enter range, no pew pew. Targets are in radar range, power is on, no pew pew. Fervors start to kill my shit... no pew pew.

Min 14:55, A NEW T2 PD I make is freshly built. It kills a fervor, then joins its 5 friends in, you guessed it, NOT SHOOTING. This is now 30 seconds of hold fire. Its looking bad.

Min 15:20, I notice I am getting shot by an enemy PD, and I also notice my dudes are not firing (50 seconds idle). I MANUALLY TARGET THE PD, kill it, and after the PD goes back to not shooting at shit.

I then proceed to lose the firebase, and soon after the game. Total time 5-6 PD were not shooting? Over 60 seconds. That's between 20k and 30k damage not dealt over flat open terrain at targets in range and in radar coverage.

Why my PD not shoot?

Tex takes issue with some of these builds. Tex believes solid fundamentals are more important. Tex treats every map like a mapgen map. But Tex also loses to epic tagada builds. Tex lashes out against people trying to do good with a nice forum post.

Maybe one day if i can find the time I’ll try and link a vod to a replay review of yours if you are fine with it being posted here.

I like this series a lot. The self reflection is key to improvement IMO. You seem to be catching some of your mistakes and are working on fixing them which is awesome. Wishing you luck as you continue.

If I may offer some unsolicited advice:

I am not sure if this is a misinterpretation due to language use, but something I noticed is a few of your writeups you will say something like "I lost 'x' because my opponent did 'y', or 'I sent too many engis to location 'x' instead of doing 'y' with them. Where the implication is that 'x' was really bad and not to do it again. This is not always so black and white. The first 3-5 minutes of the game can be really dicey in terms of opening builds on certain maps, and fog of war is a thing even in the later stages. You can't always act on perfect intel and calculated risks are a thing from your opening build to what you do at min 15.

I really don't think you are doing this because your writeups seem like you are giving your gameplay some good thought, but I just wanted to make sure that you are not jumping to conclusions with cause and effect If you made a decision that is good 80% of the time, I want to make sure you are not discounting it because it failed on that 20%, without trying to understand some more context behind things that go wrong at face value. Remember, a good choice will not always yield a good outcome.

The one main piece of advice I want to give you specific from me is for you to ask yourself when you play the following:

What am I doing?
Why am I doing it?
What is my win condition?

I don't have good APM, I have decent micro, I have passable macro, and my late game is garbage. But I know how to find my win condition and exploit it. I highly recommend you try and remember when you analyze (and play) your games to look at the big picture, and not get lost in the weeds with micro/silly mistakes. Find your win condition and commit to it. But try not to get blinded to what is around you as you do so. Its very general advice, but IMO its the most important thing you can do in this game to win. Don't just play on autopilot. Play for a goal, and make it the right one.

For months I have anguished over the decision on what color I want to paint my living room... But no more. Thanks to this glorious forum post I have now decided that 'positively pewter' is the color for me. If it weren't for this great sharing of ideas I would still be going to my local hardware store to spend $5 on paint samples.

At least organize the old colors. The rainbow scheme for organization is niiiiice

@thewheelie

That 'are you a mod' question feels targeted. #banned