EPTThis map pool contain 7 maps, each of those 7 (one more than last season) slots or places, every one of this slots has a criteria to be meet. There Is also 3 voting criteria’s that I will explain at the bottom of the thread. Also there is an explanation of how idealy the percentage of maps should be divided based on players 3 Veto votes and the default Veto aspect of each category.
The first 48 hours before season starts are when you visit Map Preference and then players will get the chance to vote for the 7 slots maps, they are actually only 5 slots with 2 of them already taken by default maps like Fighting Spirit or Circuit Breakers. So for instance f you click a map slot that has not yet been voted you will open a sub menu to vote for the map you consider should go in that place from within a numbers of maps. It would be ideal if the DEV team takes some time and creates a map preview system and voting system, so people can check the map and vote like we have already on the game room when we click over the map.
AS I said previously before the start of the season there will be 48 hours of open voting insde remastered in the “Map preference” button, if people press RANK within those 48 hours they will get the same map pool as previous season, because last season isn’t really over yet until the 48 hours end. Then after exactly 48 hours the voting is closed, the voting map option is “greyed out”, and the new Map Pool is loaded. The only thing that is still open for voting is the “MOTW & CONTEST” that I will explain latter in this thread.
As explained above In this system we would have 7 maps in the pool, so there are 7 slots, here are the criteria & name for every slot:
SLOT 1) STATIC MAP 1
Based on most popular map of last season and probably of Broodwar history. Almost always Fighting Spirit. When you open this map slot to vote you get to see only Fighting Spirit, you can down vote if you like so maybe next season this map won’t be there if enough people hate it, but this map needs a lot of negative voting, people will not get to see how this map is voted only the Developers will, this is important to have because let’s say some pro discovers a way to exploit Fighting Spirit in some way, and the map just becomes less and less popular, it would arguably be reflected on the voting of the map, if this happens other maps will start showing in the STATIC map slot 1 to compete with FS. But this will probably NEVER happen while we are alive.
SLOTS 2) STATIC MAP 2
When you click this option the Second best map of the last season will appear, no other map in the list, in this season it would be Circuit Breakers, but it does not mean it should be circuit breaker every season (more of this on the vote criteria at the bottom of the thread). The downvoting works the same as in STATIC MAP 1 with the difference that this map is not as “static” as Static map slot 1, it can be changed from season to season with more ease. The developers check the voting for this map and open the STATIC MAP 2 to others map to compete for next season.
SLOT 3) 3 or 4 sided map
When you click this slot you get to choose from a list of 8 maps or less that are 4 or 3 sided, this maps are popular maps, people that have been playing Broodwar knows them, also arguably this map pool should contain maps from the ASl or any other tournament and just maps that people been playing a lot, maybe some new map got popular in the last week prior to the new season, this is entirely on Blizzard work and research. This maps are considered “balanced” and are widely played by the community, thus no map is always 100 % balanced, not even fighting spirit. Maps from last season can be here also, but I assume nobody will vote the same maps from last season, wouldn’t they?
Examples: Gold Rush, Outsider, Neo Electric Circuit, Gladiator, Tau Cross, Colosseum II, Neo Jade, Neo Medusa, Eye of the storm, Ground zero, Benzene.
SLOT 4) 4 or 3 sided map LESS KNOWN
When you click this slot you get to choose between 3 maps that probably nobody knows. This are Balanced maps that are mostly from the ICCUP map pack, or simply maps that have not been played that much, but they are fine maps created by professionals, they are just not that popular. This maps can have slight reason why people don’t play them, as inverted ramps, places where tanks are strong behind mineral, second bases with open areas, small map tricks here and there etc… nevertheless this are considered “balanced maps”. Is clear to say that some of this maps have been used in ASL and other tournaments, they just been forgotten by time.
In other words this could also be very well popular maps, they are just not as played as they used to be.
Examples: Luna, Roadkill, Overwatch, Katrina, La Mancha, Andromeda, beltway, Dates Peake, Demian, Empire of the sun, Gemlong, Grandline, Othello, Sniper ridge.
SLOT 5) different play style map.
This maps are weird, sometimes second base has no gas, base has wide open doors, distances between bases are unreal, this maps are not necessarily BALANCED. Arguably Blizzard could throw island maps in here, I have NOT placed any island map in my list here because I think they should off the competitive ladder, even though it’s a possibility.
This maps are here to break the “monotony” and to push players to play the game in creative ways. First season came with Python which is a popular map for instance, Arcadia & nostalgia, everyone of this map have very different ways of playing, some have no has in natural, 3 bases fast expand, the entrance is to wide or too narrow, there are islands everywhere, place to put tanks behind mineral lines, some favor Zerg, other favor Terran or Protoss. Python is a map that should be in this category, it has been a very popular map, it just should be taken off the competitive ladder INMO as Lost Temple was also for reasons that I have not enough time to explain. They are simply not balanced maps but anyways fun to play, and they should definably have a spot in the map pool.
Examples: Troy, Fatasy II, Blitz X, Raid assault, Hitchhicker, Mist, Python, Arcadia, Nostalgia, Requiem, Chain reaction, Eddy, hearthbeat, Icarus, Longinus, overwatch, pathfinder, Polaris Raphsody, Wind and cloud, Zodiac,
SLOT 6) MOTW/contest map
This is an idea me and my friend have, in ICCUP we used to have this thing called “MOTW” (Map Of the Week), meaning that ICCUP gave us a map of the week to play, the difference is that in Remastered a “voting system” could be created, so people go to Map Preference and vote a map from a big list, nobody will know the results until the end of the week, that map gets choosen.
Now about the “Contest map” it would be very nice if the people in the Forums would run a contest of map making at least every 2 months, so they will make something similar to the “portrait contest” made before Remastered release. It would be nice if this contest would have different categories like:
- 3 & 4 sided maps.
- 2 sided maps.
- 2v2, 3v3 & 4v4 maps, with shared base and random start base.
- Even UMS map contest.
From now on we are only talking about 1v1 RANK, but if this ever happen the contest should be also open for 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, FFA, UMS maps.
The winner will get chosen by the forum community to be added to the MOTW list, and we will be having its map being played for 1 week from the very moment the contest is closed, just like a regular MOTW map, if the map wins the voting system of MOTW then people will play it another week!. Maps can be voted indefinably until a new map contest arrives.
In the map contest in the forums people will be encourage to download the maps and play them before they vote, so this forum office Thread will have download links to get the map version provided by the contestant.
Ok so this MOTW & CONTEST map should definably not be maps that players play too much, so this maps are VETO by default. At the very Bottom of the thread you will find my idea of “default veto”.
7) 2 sided map BALANCED
2 side maps are hard for new players, they have a different style of play specially vs zerg. Nevertheless they been a corner stone of Broodwar history so far and we should include at least one map 2 sided map that is balanced on every season.
Example: Match point, Crossing Fields Destination, Blue Storm, Peaks of Baekdu, Heartbreak Ridge 2, benzene, Bloody ridge, Resonance.
That’s it for the explanation of the Map Pool. Nevertheless, there is one aspect worth noticing, there is a slight change that with this system that we end up having three 3/4 sided maps, and also three 2 sided maps, how this could happen? it could happen that the Slot 5, slot 6 end up being 2 sided maps, meaning that people in slot 5 (different play style map) would choose a 2 sided map, and people in the slot 6 (MOTW & contest) will choose a 2 sided map also, this added to Slot 7 will leave us with a pool with three 2 sided map pools.
Now I will describe the voting system:
Veto system
this works exactly as it has been working until now, you VETO a map and you will probably see it less, people go to Map Preference and VETO as they been doing until now. The difference is that in my system described in this thread some maps are already down voted by default, like the 2 sided map, or the alternative style map for instance. I will explain the “Map Slot” part of this thread latter, and you will also see how the VETO percentages are for a person that has not used the VETO, as there are some maps veto as default.
Of course one must understand that any VETO is not going to work 100%, meaning that the RANK system will always prioritize whatever person is already searching for games, sometimes making you play a map that you have VETO 5 times in a row or more… the system is just like this, the only way to improve it is so much more people are playing Remastered, but until then well no point on complaining.
Map Voting at the start of the season
As explained above the 48 hours before the new season starts people can go to the “Map Preference” button and vote for a map on each slot. Each slot has a different criteria as explained above.
You can leave your votes in BLANK if you wish to, meaning you simply don’t know the maps being showed to you, once your votes are don’t you can click a button that says “Submit Voting” and then the vote is done. The option Map Preference will not let you vote again, you will still be able to VETO maps as usual, and you also be able to vote for MOTW etc.
MOTW & contest map voting.
It works as you can imagine, each week you go to Map Preferences and vote for the map you would like to play next week, this also includes the Map that won the contest, with the difference that this map was loaded for a week as a reward for winning the contest, you can vote it to play it again for another week indelibly until a new map contest arrives.
Now I explain the VETO default system:
The VETO default system works in hand with the regular VETO system we already have.
You have 3 VETO points you can change at any time in the season.
Some maps are VETO by default to keep the map pool “balanced”.
For this let’s imagine a situation from a player that has not yet used his VETO points, this is how RANK will arguably look for him in terms of percentage, the percentage means how much you will see that map in RANK, but remember that this can’t be an exact science as RANK system prioritizes player waiting times and other factor, yet it does work almost as advertised for what I have seen so far.
This is how a Map Pool would look for someone that has not yet used this 3 VETO votes:
SLOT 1 (STATIC MAP) - 25 %
SLOT 2 (STATIC MAP) - 20 %
SLOT 3 (3/4 SIDED POPULAR MAP) – 15%
SLOT 4 (3/4 SIDED UNKNOWN MAP) – 12%
SLOT 5 (DIFERENT STYLE MAPS) 10%
SLOT 6 (MOTW & CONTEST) 8%
SLOT 7 (2 SIDED MAPS BALANCED) 10%
So let’s say now that a person uses its 3 VETO points for: SLOT 6, SLOT 5 & SLOT 7, it will end up looking like this:
SLOT 1 (STATIC MAP) - 30 %
SLOT 2 (STATIC MAP) - 25 %
SLOT 3 (3/4 SIDED POPULAR MAP) – 18%
SLOT 4 (3/4 SIDED UNKNOWN MAPS) – 13%
SLOT 5 (DIFERENT STYLE MAPS) 5%
SLOT 6 (MOTW & CONTEST) 4%
SLOT 7 (2 SIDED MAPS BALANCED) 5%
AS you can see any VETO point taken from a slot goes into the other map categories to balance the 100%.
So this is my idea of having a working Map Pool system I just share it in hope people can comment on it and maybe arrive to a DEV ear somewhere. I would honestly hate if Blizzard just picks the map in silence, they should create a system that includes the community not saying this one, but then something similar or better, using the official forums for this is a bad idea as many people that speak Korean don’t visit the English forums for instance, using a voting system inside the game makes much more sense, it’s probably hard to program and time consuming, and I know the Classic Dev team (Grant) has his time very much already organized. Having suck a voting map pool opportunity will make some people happy, as the feedback has been very harsh lately, I am sure that after 1.21 release the DEV team will still be looking to answer to features and what not, it does not hurt at all having something similar to this.
