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Pro Players Should Not Judge Maps - Page 2

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CHEONSOYUN
Profile Joined August 2017
562 Posts
July 11 2021 17:17 GMT
#21
players should always be playtesting, either incentivized or voluntarily. but players themselves naturally gravitate towards what is comfortable versus what is different. this is all assuming they are appraising potential maps in good faith rather than what the OP describes

fighting spirit was virtually the only map played on ladder for a long time until remastered came along with a map pool. everyone was bitching about getting rid of it in the pool, then everyone was bitching that it, and circuit breaker, was out of the pool.
JAEDONG...!!! EFFORT IS ANGRY. ZERG...?!
MarianoSC2
Profile Joined June 2015
Slovakia1855 Posts
July 11 2021 17:26 GMT
#22
Great post. I never liked pros involvement in judging or picking maps. In the end they play for the viewers as with any other sport. No viewers would mean a lot less, or even no money. So we should try to pick maps which are interesting to watch and can give us good games from the viewer experience.
Not saying we have to cut the pros completely from providing feedback, but they should not play the pivotal role due to all the issues you already highlighted in your post.
Top 11: Rogue, Maru, Inno, Zest, Life, sOs, Stats, Dark, soO, Mvp, Classic/Trap/MC/Rain
sneakyfox
Profile Joined January 2017
8216 Posts
July 11 2021 17:28 GMT
#23
On July 12 2021 02:14 The_Red_Viper wrote:
You are definitely spot on with your reasoning here, i don't think i ever looked at a TLMC candidates post and was excited when looking at the maps one can now vote on either.
This raises the question though, who should judge the maps which participate in the contest? On the one hand we all want balanced maps, on the other we (hopefully) want maps which are interesting and bring fresh impulses into the scene. These two goals are almost impossible to juggle at the same time with the limited information one has by only looking at the map and maybe playing (a non meaningful amount of games) on it.
With how unflexible map pools are handled it's about priorities, personally i'd rather have more interesting maps, but i obviously understand players needing it to be as fair as possible.

So what is the solution?


Since TLMC tournament is a thing, the pro players could give their input to the judges after having played the maps. And the judges themselves could be a mix of interested (in the double sense of both giving a shit and having a stake) parties.
"I saw what sneakyfox wrote on TL.net and it made me furious" - PartinG
Cyro
Profile Blog Joined June 2011
United Kingdom20323 Posts
Last Edited: 2021-07-11 17:55:45
July 11 2021 17:29 GMT
#24
Great points, thanks. I agree quite strongly with all.

Being a pro player alone shouldn't be a free pass to be a judge forever if you're doing it in a way that's terrible for everybody else who is playing and watching the game.
"oh my god my overclock... I got a single WHEA error on the 23rd hour, 9 minutes" -Belial88
ElMakac
Profile Joined February 2021
20 Posts
July 11 2021 17:35 GMT
#25
Nobody Cares About The Author's Opinion.

User was warned for this post
esReveR
Profile Joined February 2010
United States567 Posts
July 11 2021 17:44 GMT
#26
This is a pretty hot take and should be in the blog section. The crux of your argument is that pros don't judge maps the way you think maps should be judged. They have money on the line if weird maps are in the pool, of course they would tend to pick standard maps that work for their race/playstyle. But, that is not inherently a bad thing for judging maps.
Skill is relative.
ejozl
Profile Joined October 2010
Denmark3470 Posts
July 11 2021 17:49 GMT
#27
golden wall <3
SC2 Archon needs "Terrible, terrible damage" as one of it's quotes.
ZigguratOfUr
Profile Blog Joined April 2012
Iraq16955 Posts
July 11 2021 17:56 GMT
#28
On July 12 2021 02:44 esReveR wrote:
This is a pretty hot take and should be in the blog section. The crux of your argument is that pros don't judge maps the way you think maps should be judged. They have money on the line if weird maps are in the pool, of course they would tend to pick standard maps that work for their race/playstyle. But, that is not inherently a bad thing for judging maps.


A pro not caring enough to figure out what the possible spawns are on a map goes a bit beyond not judging maps the way I like.
SamirDuran
Profile Joined May 2012
Philippines895 Posts
July 11 2021 18:06 GMT
#29
On July 12 2021 01:53 Poopi wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 12 2021 00:28 SamirDuran wrote:
Is the pro player youre talking about is BG aka HM? Coz this is what i heard from his stream lol.

If it’s HeroMarine I kinda trust his judgement, the other pros probably used similar heuristics but just didn’t talk about it openly.
And isn’t it obvious that pros from different races will try to have good maps for their race? Hence why ideally you have the same amount of T/Z/P pros voting.

Well the problem is he is also the one who scored that 4p map a 1 not knowing that horizontal spawns are disabled.
Don't practice until you can get it right, practice until you can't get it wrong.
hjpalpha
Profile Joined August 2017
Germany339 Posts
Last Edited: 2021-07-11 18:22:35
July 11 2021 18:08 GMT
#30
On July 12 2021 02:56 ZigguratOfUr wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 12 2021 02:44 esReveR wrote:
This is a pretty hot take and should be in the blog section. The crux of your argument is that pros don't judge maps the way you think maps should be judged. They have money on the line if weird maps are in the pool, of course they would tend to pick standard maps that work for their race/playstyle. But, that is not inherently a bad thing for judging maps.


A pro not caring enough to figure out what the possible spawns are on a map goes a bit beyond not judging maps the way I like.


And you take that all from a stream?

In streams people often shorten their reasoning quite drastically because it bores viewers if it takes too long ...

E.g. for Misophist it certainly has lots of issues that make it pretty bad for terran (the missing airspace being one of many here), maybe it was just the one reason that the player wanted to single out?

Also pros going against 4player maps* and against crazy stuff is completely to be expected. They depend on a balanced map pool (at least not balanced against their race), so they will naturally give low scores to maps that would be bad for them.

Also you might know that 120 maps is quite a lot to judge in a limited amount of time, so doing a first selective run and only testing/looking into the better ones seems logical to me.

*Yeah ESL has that crazy stupid idea about the stupid 4player shit, but it still is a bad idea and i can understand any pro not wanting them

Btw. great job at puting quotes out of context in the orig post ...
LiquipediaSCV ready | SC2-Liquipedia Admin, reviewer and editor | Wax called me a Liquipedia wizard in one of his articles for 2019 WCS Standings
NicolasJohnson
Profile Joined April 2016
30 Posts
Last Edited: 2021-07-11 18:10:14
July 11 2021 18:08 GMT
#31
I would like a pro to weigh-in on this, since I strongly disagree with the OP but my opinion doesn't bear enough weight. To me pros should really be listened to in this process, since they are the ones understanding the game the best on average (and, as an added point, since they try to make a living out of playing on these maps). What is more, the issue here corresponds more to "we should pay more attention as a community to the judging of the maps" (which I agree 100% with), than "pros don't pay enough attention". A few map testing tournaments (no cross server, BO3s only) with debriefing by experts afterwards could really help figure things out, as would special episodes of The Pylon Show for example.
hjpalpha
Profile Joined August 2017
Germany339 Posts
July 11 2021 18:12 GMT
#32
On July 12 2021 03:06 SamirDuran wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 12 2021 01:53 Poopi wrote:
On July 12 2021 00:28 SamirDuran wrote:
Is the pro player youre talking about is BG aka HM? Coz this is what i heard from his stream lol.

If it’s HeroMarine I kinda trust his judgement, the other pros probably used similar heuristics but just didn’t talk about it openly.
And isn’t it obvious that pros from different races will try to have good maps for their race? Hence why ideally you have the same amount of T/Z/P pros voting.

Well the problem is he is also the one who scored that 4p map a 1 not knowing that horizontal spawns are disabled.


well if the admins mess up and do not give that info (on HMs stream you could see that several maps had such info as a comment besides them, while this particular map did not) imo it is not the players fault but the admins

(but i think the map wouldn't have gotten a good score either way, it has several other issues)
LiquipediaSCV ready | SC2-Liquipedia Admin, reviewer and editor | Wax called me a Liquipedia wizard in one of his articles for 2019 WCS Standings
hjpalpha
Profile Joined August 2017
Germany339 Posts
Last Edited: 2021-07-11 18:15:34
July 11 2021 18:14 GMT
#33
On July 12 2021 03:08 NicolasJohnson wrote:
I would like a pro to weigh-in on this, since I strongly disagree with the OP but my opinion doesn't bear enough weight. To me pros should really be listened to in this process, since they are the ones understanding the game the best on average (and, as an added point, since they try to make a living out of playing on these maps). What is more, the issue here corresponds more to "we should pay more attention as a community to the judging of the maps" (which I agree 100% with), than "pros don't pay enough attention". A few map testing tournaments (no cross server, BO3s only) with debriefing by experts afterwards could really help figure things out, as would special episodes of The Pylon Show for example.


I agree.

I would even go one step further and would let them play a tournament on ALL submitted maps.

You can see from the vetoes and statistics which are good and which are not.

In addition you would get additional input from the players that played on them.

After that let the judges (INCLUDING PROS!!!) have a look into it and decide their scores.
LiquipediaSCV ready | SC2-Liquipedia Admin, reviewer and editor | Wax called me a Liquipedia wizard in one of his articles for 2019 WCS Standings
InfCereal
Profile Joined December 2011
Canada1759 Posts
July 11 2021 18:20 GMT
#34
On July 12 2021 03:14 hjpalpha wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 12 2021 03:08 NicolasJohnson wrote:
I would like a pro to weigh-in on this, since I strongly disagree with the OP but my opinion doesn't bear enough weight. To me pros should really be listened to in this process, since they are the ones understanding the game the best on average (and, as an added point, since they try to make a living out of playing on these maps). What is more, the issue here corresponds more to "we should pay more attention as a community to the judging of the maps" (which I agree 100% with), than "pros don't pay enough attention". A few map testing tournaments (no cross server, BO3s only) with debriefing by experts afterwards could really help figure things out, as would special episodes of The Pylon Show for example.


I agree.

I would even go one step further and would let them play a tournament on ALL submitted maps.

You can see from the vetoes and statistics which are good and which are not.

In addition you would get additional input from the players that played on them.

After that let the judges (INCLUDING PROS!!!) have a look into it and decide their scores.


A pro vetoing a map has no bearing on the quality of the map. No professional player will vote for a map that they need specialized builds for. They're going to pick the maps that require the least amount of change on their end to play on.

Cereal
Nakajin
Profile Blog Joined September 2014
Canada8989 Posts
July 11 2021 18:21 GMT
#35
Really interesting and insightfull read thanks, hopefully the whole process can be improved.
Writerhttp://i.imgur.com/9p6ufcB.jpg
NewSunshine
Profile Joined July 2011
United States5938 Posts
Last Edited: 2021-07-11 18:51:46
July 11 2021 18:24 GMT
#36
On July 12 2021 01:53 Poopi wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 12 2021 00:28 SamirDuran wrote:
Is the pro player youre talking about is BG aka HM? Coz this is what i heard from his stream lol.

If it’s HeroMarine I kinda trust his judgement, the other pros probably used similar heuristics but just didn’t talk about it openly.
And isn’t it obvious that pros from different races will try to have good maps for their race? Hence why ideally you have the same amount of T/Z/P pros voting.

The problem with only listening to pro players who are angling to have maps that are good/not-bad for their race is as the OP pointed out: instead of ending up with any maps that try new things, you end up with a list of maps that are as inoffensive as possible. And a map not being offensive to a pro player's sensibilities has absolutely nothing to do with seeking out interesting new maps to help shake up the game, it's literally the opposite. Pro opinions a valuable to a degree, but they cannot be the only thing you listen to, the bias and angle on their part is obvious.

Overall, a very nice post that goes in hand with a lot of my critiques for the contest over the years. We don't even really get to know who the judges are, and I'm loathe to assume they just don't care, but it's patently obvious in your examples. Having a pro player on the judges panel who's only interested in finding maps that favor their race, that's worse than nothing at all IMO. There used to be, and really needs to be, a panel of judges and admins that have a discussion about the maps from the perspective of the game as a whole, and how they can make it more exciting in opportunities like these. I am incredibly disappointed with how things have been going because they just don't seem interested in seizing the opportunity the TLMC presents. If you want the game to stay the same you literally don't have to do anything, so if you're here and you're putting in the time then just act like it matters. We used to have judges that included mapmakers and figures from the mapmaking community, who offered a valuable perspective, and it seems like that's long-gone. You can feel it.

I could go on and on about the shitty 1-5 point scoring system, too. It's literally a system of judging that demands the least possible effort from judges who literally stand on the precipice of a major decision for the future of SC2. You're telling them it's ok if they don't give a shit because they can look at a few thumbnails and type in 1,2,3,4, or 5. It's disgraceful, and insulting to the work we all put in. I didn't hone my efforts in mapmaking for 10 years, and submit maps I've made over the last 18 months, to have my work dismissed offhand, and if I'm lucky maybe my map gets a 2 or 3-point rating because I submitted the 4-spawn maps they literally asked for, and get punished for it. It's crap, top to bottom. There was no direction, no coordination, no objectivity, no transparency, and no respect for the game at large or the work we do to try to keep it interesting. The mapmakers do that work for you guys.

I want to know why we should bother anymore. At least talk about the maps that you think are the best and why, but they can't even do that. Leaving it up to a system that averages incredibly reductive numerical ratings is insulting, it only favors standard maps because of how number ratings work statistically, and gives every individual judge an excuse because no one had a direct say in which ones were rated the highest. It's shit, and shows absolutely no passion or care, or respect for the power they hold in that moment.
"If you find yourself feeling lost, take pride in the accuracy of your feelings." - Night Vale
hjpalpha
Profile Joined August 2017
Germany339 Posts
July 11 2021 18:26 GMT
#37
On July 12 2021 00:30 deacon.frost wrote:
Is there any reward for the pro player judges?

nope
LiquipediaSCV ready | SC2-Liquipedia Admin, reviewer and editor | Wax called me a Liquipedia wizard in one of his articles for 2019 WCS Standings
hjpalpha
Profile Joined August 2017
Germany339 Posts
July 11 2021 18:27 GMT
#38
On July 12 2021 00:39 CicadaSC wrote:
Pros should definitely judge maps when ladder maps coincide with tournament maps. Showtime for example took the time during his stream and went on custom maps and played every map by himself and then also played in maptest tournament. His opinion definitely matters, pro opinions matter, this is an age old question and the community has come to the consensus that starcraft is simply a game that needs to be balanced around pro play.


the test tournament is via invite there are several players that would gladly have played but were never asked
LiquipediaSCV ready | SC2-Liquipedia Admin, reviewer and editor | Wax called me a Liquipedia wizard in one of his articles for 2019 WCS Standings
jpg06051992
Profile Joined July 2015
United States580 Posts
July 11 2021 19:01 GMT
#39
Strongly disagree with the OP but I respect his opinion and the effort he put into his post. Also illuminated a thing or two that I was ignorant about.
"SO MANY BANELINGS!"
WombaT
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Northern Ireland26225 Posts
July 11 2021 19:01 GMT
#40
On July 12 2021 02:44 esReveR wrote:
This is a pretty hot take and should be in the blog section. The crux of your argument is that pros don't judge maps the way you think maps should be judged. They have money on the line if weird maps are in the pool, of course they would tend to pick standard maps that work for their race/playstyle. But, that is not inherently a bad thing for judging maps.

I don’t think anyone blames pros for judging the maps in this way, it only makes sense.

There needs to be input from pros, but which pros and what other input are we getting from other stakeholders to balance things out?

There’s a big variation in how pros think about the game too, it really runs the full gamut. Some are able to detach themselves and view the state of the game in a genuinely holistic way, some are absurdly, absurdly biased and their suggestions to improve the game are frequently terrible.

Be it on balance, or maps pros can have terrible ideas too, just as lower level players or more abstract theorycrafters on TL may have genuinely good ideas that never get a look in.

And if you are judging, put the effort in. I don’t blame any pro for saying ‘fuck that, I don’t have the time to go through these maps I have to practice’ but if you do agree to be a judge you should take it seriously.
'You'll always be the cuddly marsupial of my heart, despite the inherent flaws of your ancestry' - Squat
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