Ladder Rotation/System Comments

[Mountain]

Can anyone come up with something compelling instead of it plays bad or looks bad or something that isn't said literally every rotation since beginning of faf?

If a map has egregious pathfinding issues certainly it should be removed. If the map does have such a fault then report it or refer to the map. So far only complaints I see are vague, unspecific or not about anything game breaking.

Terrain and projectiles and mountains is a feature of most every map. If you use that as a disqualifying feature then it can only be logical to reevaluate every map with terrain or hills. Is there anything you can bring up that doesn't disqualify most maps?

It's hard not to suspect that the complaints about maps are just the usual reactions that any other map pool would arouse. I've played thousands of games on ladder and know that I hate some maps and feel like quitting. But there isn't any logical basis to it and often my opponent is perfectly fine with the map.

It would be cool to receive feedback that doesn't sound so directly from heated passion rather than at least a semi deep understanding of how the map lessens playability and ladder competition.

[biass]

Maps for example, to further illustrate my position:

Spoiler: show

Decent Experimental maps:
Dragon River 1v1 - fairly unknown, has an interesting navy option, otherwise pretty standard.
Hammada - new map, has a unique layout for a 5x5 map.
Asteria - new map, unique 20x20 land gameplay with Roanoke style expansions and a possibility for missile cruisers.
Virimire - new map, not so unique in layout, but still experimental.
Owly Cliffs - a bit controversial, but technically a well made map with unique gameplay. textbook experimental (while still being decent).
Haven Reef - same as above
The Ganges Chasma - new map, unique layout.
Durfait Isles - new and unique map.
Polar Depression - new and unique map... I have more maps in mind but I think you get the point.

Utter shitmaps which may or may not be experimental in nature:
All the Zorg maps - terrible terrain.
Aperture Laboratories - completely breaks what makes supcom what it is, and not in a good way. Radar means nothing when 20 tanks can just teleport behind your back at any moment.
Crazyrush - completely removes mass as a resource, no terrain features at all, expansion matters f*** all. vastly limits the strategic potential of the game.
Moonlight Mesas - far too dark, can get hard to see things, terrain makes it hard to place buildings in many places, gameplay isn't too exceptional.
Winter Duel - the astro crater of 1v1 maps, a bad meme.
Sentry Point - if it weren't for the open 1 km between the spawns and the anti-aurora hills it'd be a decent map.
Devils Landings - boring map, hard to deal efficient damage and raid your opponent, barely any expansions, travel times are nuts, each game is guaranteed to take at least 30 minutes unless of course a player quits of boredom before that.
Fractal Cancer - literally has cancer in the title... if frigs could actually hit anything on the islands the map might be playable.
Balvery Mountains - its just crap alright?

I know you have to make a point but your wording is very cute, you could have written "Haven Reef: literally unplayable unbalanced reclaim that resulted in 95 percent of games using first bomber" or "Asteria: a generic ffa map". You could sit here and argue quality of maps all day, which frankly the ladder team is doing already.

I wanted to reply properly to this thread but it's just "well I like this map more" which just falls apart when you realise life is not just all about you. That made up pool is a bit of a meme too, for example why have badlands over fancylands? One is clearly "better made" then the other, but you "like" badlands more, yes? And i dont believe for a second anyone is going to go around testing out new ladder maps in sandbox, I was born at night but it wasn't last night...

Ladder is a tourney is a meme on itself but I have limited reply time so later..

Also finally: Aperture, you know where the teleporters go man, if suddenly units are "behind you" then I fault you for not consciously playing around them..

[Mountain]

Spoiler: show

The other part of what makes a map bad is gameplay, and that is a bit more subjective, but I'd like to meet a serious person who thinks Sludge is worthy of being in the same pool with maps such as Loki.

Sludge would be in the pool so that people can play on sludge on ladder (it's not but good idea)

[Blodir]

So where do you want to draw the line?

It's not that hard to draw the line on a reasonable position so that minimal amount of people are upset. Like how many people are gonna quit laddering because they think loki is a shitmap? Maybe theres like 3 old timer veterans who are bored of it, but even those dudes are fine with it even if it's not their preference. Then compare that to a map like Ditch which triggers half of the playerbase.

Ladder is not a place for experimentation. It's the only place u can compete in faf (do u remember that thread complaining about lack of competition in faf lol). Yeah tournaments exist, but only once per month or less and even so they only target a tiny minority of the playerbase.

Also I don't personally feel like u have to test a map to know if it's garbage, but maybe that's some incredible talent u mortals dont have access to

[Mountain]

Alright, if you can come up with some stats that show ladder activity dropped after some recent map pool (controlled for time of year, events, other faf changes etc) then it will be clear that recent maps are reducing competition.

[Blodir]

Alright, if you can come up with some stats that show ladder activity dropped after some recent map pool (controlled for time of year, events, other faf changes etc) then it will be clear that recent maps are reducing competition.

Where's ur stats about why the new map pool is better than picking only decent maps hmmmm?

Btw tokyto pool sucked too most of the time he put in some random weird maps

[Mountain]

The purpose of ladder is obviously not experimentation. The map pool has mostly tried and true maps that have been included in pools over and over again. The small allotment of so called experimental maps is necessary to bring new, promising maps into competition as quickly as possible. It encourages mapmakers to create maps to begin with knowing that their maps may be used in ladder relatively soon rather than sit in limbo forever until someone with infinite appeal to faf playerbase tests it and decrees that the map is worthy.

Any implementation of any combination of maps offers valuable information (mostly in the form of complaints it seems).

[Farmsletje]

It's not that hard to draw the line on a reasonable position so that minimal amount of people are upset.

So please explain how we are supposed to do that. Should we hold a poll so that the entire community can vote for each map whether they want to have it in the ladder pool or not? And what should the percentage be to allow the maps to be put into the pool? Where would you put the line? Cause you just gave a very vague definition.

Ladder is not a place for experimentation. It's the only place u can compete in faf (do u remember that thread complaining about lack of competition in faf lol). Yeah tournaments exist, but only once per month or less and even so they only target a tiny minority of the playerbase.

So what do you suggest? NEVER have any new maps in any 1v1 tourney ever because they can't be playtested? (and don't start with custom 1v1's because we both know those barely exist).

[Blodir]

Btw the reason I'm passionate about this issue is that every now and then I want to get back into supcom again, but then I look at the map pool and get really sad. Supcom is basically removed from my list of playable games aside from a few meme teamgames and it makes me very sad considering it's my favorite game of all time. Obv personal sob story like this is just anecdotal, but maybe someone else has had a similar experience.

[Mountain]

Alright, if you can come up with some stats that show ladder activity dropped after some recent map pool (controlled for time of year, events, other faf changes etc) then it will be clear that recent maps are reducing competition.

Where's ur stats about why the new map pool is better than picking only decent maps hmmmm?

Btw tokyto pool sucked too most of the time he put in some random weird maps

No stats unfortunately, just relative certainty that, in lieu of such stats a map pool crafted following painstaking review of the quality of each map based on multiple parameters is more likely to produce a favorable outcome than one pro dude deciding which maps are better like his favorite flavor of icecream