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On February 18 2022 07:36 LML wrote:The new built-in map making features surprise me. I mean, we can already achieve all of that, can't we? It would also bind a map to SB, so in that regard it's obviously a good lock-in move 
So some of the examples, sure, but that's not the full breadth of what we have in mind. I also think there's a ton of value in making things more approachable, for players, viewers, and mapmakers. ShieldBattery started largely as an attempt to make BW approachable in an era where even just hosting games or playing the game without color bugs required guides, launchers with a million checkboxes with hard-to-understand functionality. The goal was largely to make a very smooth experience that "just worked" at a very high quality level, that didn't require knowing where to look for guides, having years of understanding and community involvement, etc. just to get started playing the game. Remastered has smoothed over some of those issues, but also added many of its own, and in many cases Blizzard just sidestepped problems rather than solving them outright.
With map features, there's a number of things that experienced mapmakers use a lot that are much less accessible to newer ones (even very subtle things like mineral placement, using certain tiles to influence pathfinding, etc.), and a number of these things end up causing problems even in pretty popular maps. It seems to me that it would be very nice to provide mapmakers with a better set of features that make the common, easy, obvious path the "right" one. We can look at something that's been present on maps for probably 2 decades now: reverse ramps. Tons of maps use reverse ramps, many of them cause pathing or vision/miss-chance issues, and it's a pretty non-obvious thing if you don't know to look for it (and certainly not obvious to players of said maps). Blizzard, rather than attempting to fix this issue, quite literally "papered over" it in Remastered: they made it so maps could use sprites that look more seamless but behave in the exact same (problematic) way. I think that we, as a community, can build much better solutions for these things, that we don't have to live with a million small technicalities that every player and creator needs to be aware of.
There's also a ton of, quite simply, very weird map features that make very little sense unless you've been watching or playing BW for a long time. Take Troy gates, for instance. Yeah, this works, but is it really the ideal viewing and playing experience? Should we really have to have commentators explain every time such a map is played how these things behave, the peculiarities of the BW engine that cause them to behave that way? This kind of stuff is small, but when you stack a ton of these small things up, it makes BW feel way more intimidating than it already is.
Anyway, I wouldn't consider any of the map stuff to be nearby on the horizon, it's definitely a longer term idea. We don't particularly want to break compatibility with the existing game if we can help it, but there are a number of things that, to do what's right for the game, end up requiring it. Even some of our existing exploit fixes, because they are more extensive and fix more than what Blizzard has done, can potentially break replays played on SB if you view them outside of SB. It's definitely a tradeoff we don't take lightly, but I think for things that have the potential to greatly improve the game experience, it can be worthwhile.
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What about being able to see the best players replays? Is that in the works?
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Well didnt read all posts but u should open ladder view for non logged users, if someone only wants check ladder he must register and log-in now. Also ladder could just look better, like + flags etc . I know you have other important things to do, just sayin.
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Any updates if 2x2 will see any new maps especially shared base maps? Would be a refreshment to play a shared base map. I don't think Iccup ever had any.
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On March 09 2022 03:20 Optimate wrote:
Any updates if 2x2 will see any new maps especially shared base maps? Would be a refreshment to play a shared base map. I don't think Iccup ever had any.
iCCup never had it, as it's not possible without UMS to guarantee the spawn points.
So it would require changing something in the game code to make this possible. Something SB certainly can do, but there are probably a few more pressing points on their agenda.
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Hi; I wanted to report my experience trying to install and play on sb on my wife’s computer:
Point 1: with all the windows security I would not have downloaded it and installed it had I not of course know what it was or excatly who is behind it, which in my case I know; is there no way to “validate” it from a “trusted source”?
Point2: it automatically detected that I am in Italy so the first part of the installer is in italian, then it switches to English; seems like some form of google translate though; and here I would like to offer to translate into italian to help, if someone from who is maintaining it is interested in sending me material to translate and follow up; my italian is not as poor as my English, so I can guarantee a grammatically correct translation of the materials into Italian.
Point 3: once I actually installed it, without any particular problem, I realized I actually had to have a copy of bw; now in my stupidity in hindsight I realize this was kinda obvious; but I would suggest making that clear to new users before they go through the installation process;
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I am kinda torn on the fact that you can’t pick your races in 2v2 based on what you see your ally as playing. This could be described as a weakness compared to iccup.
Is there going to he a way I can download top players’ replays? I thought had heard that they would be automatically posted for everyone to watch.
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On March 17 2022 04:13 Optimate wrote:
I am kinda torn on the fact that you can’t pick your races in 2v2 based on what you see your ally as playing. This could be described as a weakness compared to iccup.
Is there going to he a way I can download top players’ replays? I thought had heard that they would be automatically posted for everyone to watch.
on picking races, we've spoken about this in the past but it's too early to do anything here, player base is still too low
on reps, this is coming down the line, if you're patient enough you'll enjoy a lot of the stuff coming
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i have tried to play it a few times but i have not found any player online
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We've pushed a new update that brings in ranked seasons and a new ranked system, for both 1v1 and 2v2. Included with the new seasons are new map pools:
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/382ZKeV.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/QVveP1t.jpg)
We don't have an exact date for the end of this new season, but you can reasonably expect it to last about 3 months. We'll give a more exact date as we solidify our plans and see how things work out. Map pool refreshes will likely happen around the middle of the season to keep things fresh.
New Ranked System
Our major goals for our ranked system are:
- Fast rating convergence - a player's rating should quickly adjust to their actual skill level, without requiring a ton of games to be played beforehand.
- Earned rank - a player's rank should feel "earned" through continued play. The top ranked players should be highly skilled ones, but the system should also encourage active play throughout the season.
- Accurate across seasons - the system should be able to share skill data across seasons, so that players receive close matches even at the beginning of a season.
- Resilient to smurfing - the system should be able to detect smurfing across multiple accounts, and use that to share skill information without boosting smurf accounts to higher rankings.
Our previous system was a modified version of Elo, and worked fairly well at delivering accurate skill rating for very active players. It didn't work so well, however, for users that played only a few games. Additionally, tying our leaderboard directly to this skill rating allowed top players to take and maintain top rankings without playing many more games, and left us very few good options for dealing with smurfing or keeping skill rating data across seasons.
The new system takes a different approach. It splits the ranking system into two parts: matchmaking rating (MMR) and ranked points (RP). MMR will be based on Glicko2, which is more aggressive than our previous system at delivering accurate rankings, so it should converge to your skill level in fewer games. MMR is used for matchmaking, but will not be used for rankings, so we can easily share it across seasons and use it to find accurate matches for smurf accounts.
So you may be wondering, if we're not using MMR for rankings, then how are rankings decided? That's where the points come in.
Point-based Leaderboards
There are two key parts to how Ranked Points work: Point Potential and Bonus Pool.
Your Point Potential is anchored to your MMR. That is, the higher your MMR, the more points you can expect to achieve through continued play. This is set to MMR*2, so a 1500-rated player will earn reduced points after 3000 RP, while a 2000-rated player will earn reduced points after 4000 RP. This also works in the other direction, so the further behind a player's points are from their Point Potential, the more points they will earn for a win.
For example, a 1500-rated player with 500 points will earn 96 points for a win or lose 0 for a loss, while a 1500-rated player with 3000 points will earn 48 points for a win or lose 48 points for a loss. This means that the fastest way to reach your Point Potential is to keep playing and winning games, since your gains will dramatically outweigh your losses until you reach it. It also means that the top ranked players in the system will be the highest skilled players that are also actively playing games, playing enough games to earn their Point Potential.
The Bonus Pool is a growing pool of points that accumulate at a fixed rate over the course of the season. When you have Bonus Pool points available, they'll be used to double any points you gain from wins. The Bonus Pool also absorbs point losses, with any points that would have been lost covered by the Bonus Pool first. So a player with a bonus pool of 100 who earns +96 points for a win would see that increased to +192 and the bonus pool reduced to 4. A player with a bonus pool of 100 who lost a game that would have cost them -30 points would instead see their bonus pool reduced to 70 with no point change.
Together, the Point Potential and Bonus Pool encourage continuous ladder activity, as players who don't achieve their Point Potential or spend their available Bonus Pool will find themselves falling behind on the leaderboard.
Our new season starts right now, we look forwards to seeing you all on the leaderboards! gl hf
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ALLEYCAT BLUES51190 Posts
Updated Public Note and Renamed Thread.
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On June 07 2022 04:51 krooked wrote:
bad 1v1 pool imo.
we decided to go with BSL's map pool so we could hopefully incentivize some players to try the ladder out
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Also, I just want to say that I anxiously await the day that this ladder system affords the opportunity for the following conversation to occur:
Player A: I'm higher ranked than you on ladder scrub.
Player B: Who cares? I have higher MMR. EZ.
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EPT
