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I honestly do not understand the concept of map contests / changing map pools, if the goal isn't to bring actual fresh ideas into the game. One could argue that at least the maps look different from a purely visual standpoint, and yeah that is worthwhile to an extent, but if the gameplay itself basically stays stagnant for the most part, there really is no reason for any of this to exist as far as i am concerned.
Balance is important from standpoint of competitive integrity, but then why not just play on maps which we know are balanced? There is no need to make new maps if that is truly the goal.
Especially right now with blizzard most likely not changing units anymore, there is more need than ever to produce maps which fundamentally change gameplay so the game does not get stale, not only from a player perspective, also from a viewer perspective. One can talk about balance all day, but ultimately the competitive scene exists because people are entertained by it, not to find the best player in the world on the fairest maps in the world.
Professional players inherently (yes there are exceptions, but this seems to be the rule) despise elements which make their life harder, this includes slight imbalances which would require a somewhat different style of approaching a map, or completely new elements which one simply cannot be all that confident in in how it'll affect balance and thus their chances to make the most money possible. Are they the best judges to know what's gonna be balanced or not? Maybe, though for how much they disagree with each other i am not sure that arguments really holds either. So not only seems there to be an inherent bias against true map evolution, there also is no great basis to say they're clearly the best (or at least good) at providing us with the most balanced maps, anyone who is engaged with the topic can pick maps which are similar to already proven maps of the past, you don't need to be a proplayer for that.
The only real way to judge maps on balance is have them be played enough for clear trends to appear. Now ofc one doesn't need to test any map, there are obvious elements which won't allow for gameplay to be balanced (it's important to realize that it only has to be balanced 'enough' though), but if there can barely be any interesting new elements at all, the whole concept of a map contest and map changes are completely useless and we'd be better off playing on the same few maps for the rest of time while only appealing to players who cannot think of anything more fun than playing the same buildorder on every map for the rest of their lives.
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On July 12 2021 23:01 Shuffleblade wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2021 21:26 bubunuh wrote:
While I agree that "forcing" pros to be innovative by making them playing in different maps could generate interesting games, how would you fix the problem of "different" maps never being picked/always getting banned in tournaments? How would you fix this asymmetry? Would the solution be to make all the maps extremely different?
I don't think there's a right answer here, just a lot of different opinions and options. One idea is to reduce the standard maps available in the tournament map pools, pretty much forcing pros to play them. I like the idea of making the map pool bigger on ladder, if we do that and add more diverse maps while keeping the map pool size in pro play while removing some of the standard maps. For pros they would hate it since they would be forced to learn to adapt to new maps but maybe that would end with those maps becoming accepted. The problem with none standard maps is that pros have no incentive to play them and since pros don't play them the meta and balance doesn't really get figured out at the highest level. Subsequently we don't even know if the maps are balanced and good because they don't get tested. Every single none standard map that made it into the map pool was disliked and banned in the beginning, before they started to get figured out and then got popular. Some maps doesn't even get the chance because no one plays them even if they were the map pool. Show nested quote +On July 12 2021 22:28 stilt wrote:On July 12 2021 22:13 MarianoSC2 wrote:On July 12 2021 21:26 bubunuh wrote:On July 12 2021 21:11 Shuffleblade wrote:
Great post and the discussion throughout has been interesting to read, especially how polarising its been. Catz post in particular puts a different perspective on things.
On my end I don't understand why current pros are part of this as judges at all. As we all know balance from now on will be done through maps, just like BW. So if sc2 is balanced through the mappool isn't asking current top pros to vote for maps similar to if we say, gather 2 casters, 2 streamers and 3 progamers and ask them to vote if they want the proposed nerf to widow mines to go through?
Catz is great and while I would trust him to be decently objective even back in his pro days I don't think this is the kind of situation were its about trust. I think its fine Catz is part of it, he isn't a current pro player but I don't think the top players should get votes like this.
Think about it, not only does pros have vested self interest in trying to skew the racial balance in their favor it goes further than that. The better a player is doing (the closer to the top he is) the more beneficial it will be for him to keep the meta as stale and uninnovative as possible. Thats the thing about "new" maps, if they really are new it will take a long time to know how to play on it, which builds are viable and often new builds all together. This is things that gives the pro players that are at the bottom a chance to catch up and resets all the effort the top players have put into becoming the best on the standard maps. Not to mention that certain maps, even if they might be balanced can favor certain playstyles. If Gumigod was a judge I believe in general he would favor maps that are good for mech.
There is really no good reason to have current pros given power to "vote" like this. I've read some arguments about how pros knows which maps are "ladder ready" and so on but that is bull. Truely innovative maps no one will know what the meta will involve into until its playtested enough to develop their own builds. No pro can look at a map and accurately predict how the meta would evolve unless they have already played on the same map before for a long time, which would mean a map just like it has been in the laderpool before.
Pros in general don't want the maps to change, they want to keep it standard so why ask them what maps they want when we already know.
Also if pros don't want to put in the effort to judge maps, then don't be a judge. If you choose to be a judge but quite clearly don't put any effort in it that makes it look like you just want the power to effect the mappool (for some reason that I cant understand).
Blizzard continously asked pros for feedback on balance but they didn't get to "vote" on it. Blizzard listened to the pros opinion, on their reasoning behind it and filterered it through their own opinions, maybe did some testing and then Blizzard decided. Why cant the TLMC do the same? I have no idea what would be a good format for this but maybe 2 casters and 2 streamers vote many maps through into like a top 30. After that the 3 pros gets to look at the top 30 and score them, with added comments on why they gave that score. Then the actual judges can filter the pros comments and make the finals scores, this way the pros "opinions" will only carry weight if they have good enough reasons to effect the judges opinion of the maps. The judges can also look at the pros comments (hopefully from different races) and compare. I get this might be too much work to ever be feasible but its once way to get the pros comments without them getting a vote.
Edit: Also in regards to the posts writing that it "balances itself out", bias would balance itself out if it was 20 000 zerg, 20 000 terrans and 20 000 protoss who weighted in. But the smaller the sample size the more skewed it becomes depending on the individuals, imagine three players were of each race votes and decided the zerg player is super biased while the protoss player takes it seriously and is as objective as possible. The result is a monster While I agree that "forcing" pros to be innovative by making them playing in different maps could generate interesting games, how would you fix the problem of "different" maps never being picked/always getting banned in tournaments? How would you fix this asymmetry? Would the solution be to make all the maps extremely different? Thats simple. More map options and less vetos. So less competition for the sake of more show ? That's a shitty idea What does this even mean, does more vetoes equal more competition? Or does more maps equal less competition? Either way it doesn't make sense, competition would increase from players competing to figure out none standard maps. Pros would have to practise more to gain new skills instead of relying on doing the same thing over and over and over again. Maybe you think the pinnacle of competition is a BO7 only on overgrowth but many people disagree, as do I. Show nested quote +On July 12 2021 22:49 CicadaSC wrote:
yeah i agree pros should put in effort thats why i used showtime as an example. you cant blanket statement all pros out of judging. Yes you can, because they are biased. Science say even if you are unaware of it you are always biased. I trust showtime but its not about trust, there's a reason recusals work as they do. If you have personal interest you cant be a judge period, it doesn't matter if you are trustworthy or not that is just arbitrarary and very unreliable.
As Mariano pointed out, "the players play for the spectator", it indicates clearly you approach of sc2 : not a competition but a show in which the top players have to play clown fiestas on totaly imbalanced maps or coin flips one.
Well, I suggest you to create your own full islands maps and plays them on custom game for some refreshing game if you want but don't put them on the ladder or go watch catch, I don't get why you think you have the right to force the ones with a livehood to play on it.
As for the biais that Showtime and HM are biaised, no shits, so are you and I hope that your biais won't carry off because it will kill the game, as for your argument about the majority of people, well, good for you if the majority believes games on purity or redshift were the true pinnacle of sc2 that you never experimented since but it wasn't, actually, they were shits.
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This thread has already more pages than the TLMC and the TLMCT combined.
If only people would have discussed the actual maps as much.
I will not jump into the emotional discussion, but to me its pretty clear the system is flawed and needs to change for the next TLMC if there is one.
Main problem seems to be the conflict of interest for the Pros, and the sheer workload for the judges.
Additional emotional problem is, that creating a map is a huge effort of countless hours. Having that judged by a 5 minute look on the overview is just disrespectful.
So here is my proposal for a possible system:
Judgement Phase is split into 2 stages:
1 QA Stage
-Maps are submitted only with layout (saves a lot of time and art-style for stage 2)
-reasonable limitation of submissions per mapmaker
-increase the number of judges by a lot
-one judge don't have to check all submissions but lets say 20 (or any number he wants; its still charity work)
-maps are not rated but vetoed for specific problems.
-soft veto: map can be updated for stage 2 (e.g. position of overlord pillar)
-hard veto: map does not reach stage 2 (e.g. layout does not provide chokes)
-each veto has to be counter checked by a second judge (giving each judge ~40 maps to check; still much less than 170)
2 rating Stage
-Maps are updated with changes due to soft veto and decoration is added
-Categories are defined with clear intention of outcome (maybe completely different categories than we have now)
-Judges are allocated to categories (again limiting the amount of maps to judge)
-can be discussed which category should be judged by Pros (Standard probably yes; Freestyle probably no)
- each category has a curator who defines the finalists based on the judge rating and category intention to assure good variety of maps.
I have more Ideas but the post is already long enough.
keep calm and have fun
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TLDR: There is nothing wrong with pro players as judges, but we should aim to have a diverse judging pool.
I judged a team TLMC which is not quite the same but I'm at least somewhat familiar with the process etc.
I think this post is a bit too harsh on judges. Every judge has their own style and different things they were looking for. As a player you mostly tend to see it as, what maps would I enjoy playing on? Some of that comes down to balance, some to simply personal preference, etc. I think this is a very important perspective as maps that players don't enjoy playing on will simply get vetoed constantly even if they are interesting from a spectator perspective. It is not that useful to have 1-2 quirky maps in the pool if nobody wants to play them.
I do think there should be stakeholders who are not pro players to judge maps too. To me the ideal are casters that also play the game at a decent (master+) level. While they may not have QUITE same level of intuition to understand what features of maps are problematic from certain races, they understand the game well enough and watch the game enough to know what maps they want to see people play on.
It is also a good point that most pro players will always gravitate towards the maps that require them to change their gameplay the least, and since most pro players play mostly standard, they will pick mostly standard maps. This is how we handle changes in the map pool as well, especially when maps are first introduced - we have no reason to learn to play new types of maps unless we are forced to or we are inspired by some feature of the map to try something different.
Anyway, I think the takeaway imo is at least that we should have diverse judging pools and incentive towards non-standard maps. I'm also personally just against map vetoes being so prevalent in the scene as we don't have players forced to play on all types of maps, you are guaranteed to be able to veto a particular map 90%+ of the time (just bo7 where you can't). I liked the old broodwar format where bo5s were played on only 4 pre-selected maps and one map was played twice (I think vetoes helped determine which map was played twice). I think if we are going to deem a map acceptable for a tournament map pool, all players should have to play it. Players will always resist this though because they want to be able to stick to standard maps but I think it makes the game more interesting. I would rather have a bo5 played on three standard maps and two slightly imbalanced/unique maps (one for each race) than five standard maps, because that enables disadvantaged players to be creative and makes for exciting games.
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Northern Ireland23353 Posts
On July 12 2021 23:24 Semmo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2021 13:41 [Phantom] wrote:
I just want to make one comment and say I think I must have been drinking kool-aid because as far as I remmember 4 player maps were in starcraft for at least 5-6 years, got progressively better and some of the best games of all time were played there. But apparently they can't possibly work. Yeah, so as a lover & maker of 4p maps (don't hate), whilst I understand some of the complaints people have for them, many of these aspects can be mitigated (if only given the chance) or experimented with. And then there are other points which I just don't understand what is the fuss about. Was there some sort of completely-broken 4p map in LotV that made everyone hate it once and for all? Understandable concerns: 'Quadrant Syndrome': In LotV, players expand a lot and need to take 5ths in most games. However, the first four bases needs to be close, because of the changed economics. There are so many ways of trying to fix this. One way is to use mineral walls, like Undercity, to transition between quadrants. (I think the fact that the bases are on the lowground is counteractive to this, but that's besides the point). You can also use 20 bases, since high number of bases is actually not a concern in LotV. The last method is not my favourite, but you could disable one of the spawns, too (I think this is a boring way of going about it though). + Show Spoiler +On July 12 2021 19:04 Wardi wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2021 14:59 StasisField wrote:On July 12 2021 13:41 [Phantom] wrote:
I just want to make one comment and say I think I must have been drinking kool-aid because as far as I remmember 4 player maps were in starcraft for at least 5-6 years, got progressively better and some of the best games of all time were played there. But apparently they can't possibly work. You're right. 4-player maps have had some incredible games played on them, especially Frost. Frost also had very balanced win/loss for each match up with its worst winrate sitting at a 49% winrate for Terran in TvZ. And guess what? All 4 spawns are enabled on Frost too. Frost also saw professional play in HotS and LotV and it produced great games in both. Honestly, if LotV hadn't soured so many people's opinions towards 4-players maps, I think Frost would be SC2's Fighting Spirit. Frost came up in the downtime during the tournament yesterday, with both players saying how they loved it, because at least once you knew the spawn you knew whether it was a free win or a free loss. Frost had a lot of issues and as SC2 has been fine tuned over the years I think these issues would only be more apparent. 50% winrate is nice, but it is not a 50% winrate for each spawn location. I think yesterdays games showed some core issues with four player maps : the power of close by ground air armies, queen walks and the roll the dice 12 pool which can end a game. These games aren’t fun to watch and imo don’t make up for the times a map can provide a great game. We can have maps that provide great games consistently without having an rng factor. : This is definitely a concern, but mapmakers are always trying to innovate on this. I think the AZGs on Nautilus are refreshing, as they make cross-spawns closer than normal. But a well-made 4p map actually goes around the issue of close spawns being too close, where the shortest path is forced through the center to increase rush distance, but there are other, further paths available to take. The map only utilizes half of the map in close spawns: This again I think can be mitigated through design, where if the quadrants are connected together properly, and sufficient defender's advantage is given, the map design should allow for players to explore the rest of the map. Not actually a concern: Rotational imbalance: This is actually not a concern, because you can just make rotational maps that don't have the imbalances. In my opinion, 3 out of 4 of the 4p picks this time around were simply bad picks, because they were rotational maps which made absolutely no attempt at balancing out between the two close spawns. I mean, just look at Bulwark, where the thirds for close spawns are simply disadvantageous for one player. Look at Tidehunter, where one player needs to mine out the mineral walls to take a third while the other doesn't in close spawns. How were these maps approved by the pros, who usually really care about map balance above anything else? You can make rotational maps which reduce this effect, like Whirlwind. Whirlwind obviously has some rotational imbalance but it is far more mitigated then the two maps I've mentioned above. Also, you can just make mirror 4p maps too... Map plays out differently based on spawns - why not make a 2p map instead? Because 4p maps play out differently. Because you don't know where the spawns are, you can't have a premeditated, brainless plan every game, and you have to think more on your feet. The metagame would be completely different from 2p maps because different builds are possible, knowing that you can go for them because it is less likely to be scouted. + Show Spoiler +On July 12 2021 17:56 deacon.frost wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2021 13:41 [Phantom] wrote:
I just want to make one comment and say I think I must have been drinking kool-aid because as far as I remmember 4 player maps were in starcraft for at least 5-6 years, got progressively better and some of the best games of all time were played there. But apparently they can't possibly work. Yeah, like Frost, right? But back at HotS you had the 6-worker start so the only rush that could have killed you was the 6 pool and even that against a greedy opening. But now? If you have a full proper 4p map and you scout your enemy last? Why scout then, you've already chosen your tech and the enemy as well and you have nothing to scout. And if they chose to do some rush it's already way too late. 4p maps work bad at LotV because of the rushed start. You simply don't have the time to do the proper scouting. And once you force spawns it's technically a 4p map but in reality 2p map (3p if you deny horizontal or vertical spawns only) No. I think coin-flipping early games are fine. If 12 pools are really your concern, you can just play safe early game. In fact, this sort of poker-like plays are a mainstay of Brood War, where we see 2 raxes vs zerg all the time in 4p maps. We saw it in the recent ASL finals. It is basically a coinflip. This is fine. The burden is on the players to choose to take risks. Mindgames in the early game are just a natural part of RTS. + Show Spoiler +On July 12 2021 19:32 Legan wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2021 19:13 Gina wrote:
A noob like me would think that just showing where the opponent has spawned, like in ladder games, would help with the randomness of scouting. Why doesn't that work? When you know where you opponent has spawned, the maps becomes just possibly asymmetric big map that has weird corners. For example you can try to visualize what current ladder maps would look if they had another unused main and natural in their corners instead of what they currently have. Paths and flow of map needs to work differently near main and natural compared to corners. The main and natural setup behind one choke makes weird deep pocket that can easily trap both defending and attacking forces that push in. For example you destroy the base at extra natural and move in to destroy the base at extra main while owner of the bases arrives outside of the extra natural to prevent you from leaving. Now you are trapped while opponent can move to destroy your bases outside the extra natural. . This is such a non issue, the further mains are going to be your 6th or 7th. Those bases are not gamebreaking. There's no airspace in 4p maps. I don't think this is a problem. If anything, I think air units are too strong in SC2. Also, a lack of airspace can be accounted for through other features. Not having a single feature doesn't break the map, in the hands of a good mapmaker, imo. ------------------------------------ But mostly, I think there are still so many things that can be tried out in the space of 4p maps. I really wish there were more opportunities to test them out. I don't think that people should count out 4p maps (or any other category of maps for that matter), especially if there has been so few that were seriously played.
Interesting post, learned a lot about things I hadn’t considered. Legacy is a fair bit different yes, but Frost and Whirlwind are two all-time classic maps, but now 4 player maps are totally unplayable?
Are they or was it just decided they were and we haven’t seen many of them since?
As Red Viper said, what’s the point of having new maps at all if they are so, so constricted in what they do?
Personally, I think having a mere 7 maps for a season is a problem. The restriction of having to make maps that are 50/50 in every matchup, or as close to as possible is also a problem.
I don’t blame the pros here specifically, with 7 maps in a season pool, one or two maps being terrible means months of pain, so being conservative makes sense.
On the other hand, there’s so much that could be potentially explored that isn’t. Be it 3/4 player maps for the modern era, and beyond that I’d go as far as we’re missing our on match-specific maps and exploration.
I’d love to see what mapmakers pushing to make the best TvT or TvT map could pull off, alas we’re unlikely to find that out with how relatively small the map pool is, and how it has to be as balanced as possible across all matchups because of this.
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On July 13 2021 03:26 stilt wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2021 23:01 Shuffleblade wrote:On July 12 2021 21:26 bubunuh wrote:
While I agree that "forcing" pros to be innovative by making them playing in different maps could generate interesting games, how would you fix the problem of "different" maps never being picked/always getting banned in tournaments? How would you fix this asymmetry? Would the solution be to make all the maps extremely different?
I don't think there's a right answer here, just a lot of different opinions and options. One idea is to reduce the standard maps available in the tournament map pools, pretty much forcing pros to play them. I like the idea of making the map pool bigger on ladder, if we do that and add more diverse maps while keeping the map pool size in pro play while removing some of the standard maps. For pros they would hate it since they would be forced to learn to adapt to new maps but maybe that would end with those maps becoming accepted. The problem with none standard maps is that pros have no incentive to play them and since pros don't play them the meta and balance doesn't really get figured out at the highest level. Subsequently we don't even know if the maps are balanced and good because they don't get tested. Every single none standard map that made it into the map pool was disliked and banned in the beginning, before they started to get figured out and then got popular. Some maps doesn't even get the chance because no one plays them even if they were the map pool. On July 12 2021 22:28 stilt wrote:On July 12 2021 22:13 MarianoSC2 wrote:On July 12 2021 21:26 bubunuh wrote:On July 12 2021 21:11 Shuffleblade wrote:
Great post and the discussion throughout has been interesting to read, especially how polarising its been. Catz post in particular puts a different perspective on things.
On my end I don't understand why current pros are part of this as judges at all. As we all know balance from now on will be done through maps, just like BW. So if sc2 is balanced through the mappool isn't asking current top pros to vote for maps similar to if we say, gather 2 casters, 2 streamers and 3 progamers and ask them to vote if they want the proposed nerf to widow mines to go through?
Catz is great and while I would trust him to be decently objective even back in his pro days I don't think this is the kind of situation were its about trust. I think its fine Catz is part of it, he isn't a current pro player but I don't think the top players should get votes like this.
Think about it, not only does pros have vested self interest in trying to skew the racial balance in their favor it goes further than that. The better a player is doing (the closer to the top he is) the more beneficial it will be for him to keep the meta as stale and uninnovative as possible. Thats the thing about "new" maps, if they really are new it will take a long time to know how to play on it, which builds are viable and often new builds all together. This is things that gives the pro players that are at the bottom a chance to catch up and resets all the effort the top players have put into becoming the best on the standard maps. Not to mention that certain maps, even if they might be balanced can favor certain playstyles. If Gumigod was a judge I believe in general he would favor maps that are good for mech.
There is really no good reason to have current pros given power to "vote" like this. I've read some arguments about how pros knows which maps are "ladder ready" and so on but that is bull. Truely innovative maps no one will know what the meta will involve into until its playtested enough to develop their own builds. No pro can look at a map and accurately predict how the meta would evolve unless they have already played on the same map before for a long time, which would mean a map just like it has been in the laderpool before.
Pros in general don't want the maps to change, they want to keep it standard so why ask them what maps they want when we already know.
Also if pros don't want to put in the effort to judge maps, then don't be a judge. If you choose to be a judge but quite clearly don't put any effort in it that makes it look like you just want the power to effect the mappool (for some reason that I cant understand).
Blizzard continously asked pros for feedback on balance but they didn't get to "vote" on it. Blizzard listened to the pros opinion, on their reasoning behind it and filterered it through their own opinions, maybe did some testing and then Blizzard decided. Why cant the TLMC do the same? I have no idea what would be a good format for this but maybe 2 casters and 2 streamers vote many maps through into like a top 30. After that the 3 pros gets to look at the top 30 and score them, with added comments on why they gave that score. Then the actual judges can filter the pros comments and make the finals scores, this way the pros "opinions" will only carry weight if they have good enough reasons to effect the judges opinion of the maps. The judges can also look at the pros comments (hopefully from different races) and compare. I get this might be too much work to ever be feasible but its once way to get the pros comments without them getting a vote.
Edit: Also in regards to the posts writing that it "balances itself out", bias would balance itself out if it was 20 000 zerg, 20 000 terrans and 20 000 protoss who weighted in. But the smaller the sample size the more skewed it becomes depending on the individuals, imagine three players were of each race votes and decided the zerg player is super biased while the protoss player takes it seriously and is as objective as possible. The result is a monster While I agree that "forcing" pros to be innovative by making them playing in different maps could generate interesting games, how would you fix the problem of "different" maps never being picked/always getting banned in tournaments? How would you fix this asymmetry? Would the solution be to make all the maps extremely different? Thats simple. More map options and less vetos. So less competition for the sake of more show ? That's a shitty idea What does this even mean, does more vetoes equal more competition? Or does more maps equal less competition? Either way it doesn't make sense, competition would increase from players competing to figure out none standard maps. Pros would have to practise more to gain new skills instead of relying on doing the same thing over and over and over again. Maybe you think the pinnacle of competition is a BO7 only on overgrowth but many people disagree, as do I. On July 12 2021 22:49 CicadaSC wrote:
yeah i agree pros should put in effort thats why i used showtime as an example. you cant blanket statement all pros out of judging. Yes you can, because they are biased. Science say even if you are unaware of it you are always biased. I trust showtime but its not about trust, there's a reason recusals work as they do. If you have personal interest you cant be a judge period, it doesn't matter if you are trustworthy or not that is just arbitrarary and very unreliable. As Mariano pointed out, "the players play for the spectator", it indicates clearly you approach of sc2 : not a competition but a show in which the top players have to play clown fiestas on totaly imbalanced maps or coin flips one. Well, I suggest you to create your own full islands maps and plays them on custom game for some refreshing game if you want but don't put them on the ladder or go watch catch, I don't get why you think you have the right to force the ones with a livehood to play on it. As for the biais that Showtime and HM are biaised, no shits, so are you and I hope that your biais won't carry off because it will kill the game, as for your argument about the majority of people, well, good for you if the majority believes games on purity or redshift were the true pinnacle of sc2 that you never experimented since but it wasn't, actually, they were shits.
So because I want a varied and evolving map pool that means I think starcraft 2 is clown fiestas? Feel free to expand on that argument.
In accordance to your opinions that every none standard map is by definition imbalanced or coin flips and there can be no exceptions? Meaning you would prefer for the map pool to be the same maps forever were the different maps are the same but different skins.
I think I have the right to post my opinions on the forums, I'm not forcing anyone to do anything. You on the other hand seems to believe you have the right to suppress and ridicule my opinion because it is different from yours and therefore bad. Just because you believe you are right and I am wrong doesn't give you the right to supress my opinion and write that I don't have the right to it.
Yes everyone has bias but there is different degrees of bias, read up on recusal and how you are not to be a judge if you have vested personal interest in the outcome. Thats how the law works at least, but maybe you think the law is just dumb too.
Also I never made any argument about "the majority of people" please cite that back to me and stop with your strawmanning.
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When it comes to pros picking vetoes, there's some game theory that goes into their selections on which maps to ban when vetoes are made double-blind - pros must consider which maps their opponents are likely to veto as well. Even just one or two 'unusual' maps in the pool (still with an eye towards balance and careful monitoring) would lead to those maps being chosen at least some of the time just because of this game theory aspect of vetoes.
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I like that someone is speaking out about the issues with the judging, but I don't like the way it's been delivered. All judges were put into one basket and we simply might not get any volunteers who will want to take that responsibility next time (if there's gonna be one) or judges that will be picked won't care enough knowing that we won't be plesed anyway, and results will be even more random. This is basically shooting yourself in a foot. It could work if there were means to do it better, but without Blizzard taking part in the process, we need to make do with limited resources, and start a conversation, not a riot.
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Hi, I've been gone for a while but I've been getting pings about random stuff in past TLMCs. There is some incorrect information. Judge's Picks in older TLMCs were not a specific persons pick like it is in more recent contests.
After the first 12 maps were chosen (3 per category), we would look at maps that were just barely out of voting range to make it into each maps category - and since there were four categories, it would mean there are four judges picks. Golden Wall was very close to beating the map that came before it, and thus was 4th place in the Mineral Node/Wall category, so it became the Judge's Pick for that category.
This "hero mapmaker" nonsense is not how the process works. Also, the article is misinformed, as there were three mapmaker judges, myself included, in this contest.
Thanks.
AVEX
Disclaimer: Just because this is how it worked then does not mean it reflects the process now, and I cannot provide any context on more recent contests due to my absence.
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Hey, I think it's cool that we're finally getting significant insight into who the judges were for this competition. That said, I don't think it's really fair to paint the article as misinformed when no mention of that information was made whatsoever until the OP was made, and that one of the thrusts of the OP - serious lack of transparency to the process - remains wholly intact and upright as a result of that lack of information.
In light of feedback from folks such as Catz, I actually don't think it's that unbelievable that there actually may have been mapmakers on the judge panel. What I'm getting at is that there seem to be deeper, more systemic problems with how the contest is set up, that despite the input of whichever mapmakers participated, it still skews heavily toward maps that are as similar as possible to what we've already seen for the last couple years now. It still feels like the contest attempts to select for maps that are ready for competitive play right out of the box, and that you could theoretically swap them into a tournament map pool mid-bracket and get no complaints. It feels like a process that actively seeks to eliminate any non-standardness from the map pool, and keep things easy. Despite the fact that there is an iteration phase to help maps achieve a finer point of balance, where the insight pro players can offer is actually extremely valuable.
I think this contest has been a fabulous demonstration, from my point of view at least, of a particular statistical phenomenon when it comes to individuals evaluating pieces of art. That is, when a more radical or original piece of work is presented, one that has a clear vision and a confident execution, that can be very polarizing to people that behold it. People tend to either see and appreciate the concept, direction, and willingness to deviate from the norm, and score it a 9 or a 10, or they don't get it, or hate whatever it's trying to do, and give it a 1 or a 2. Contrast this to when a piece of work is presented that follows well-established norms, and adheres to all the conventions without breaking any. What tends to happen in this case is no one is blown away by what they see, but they recognize that it's still well-made and solid, and most people will give it a score of 6, 7, or 8.
Every individual critiquing a piece of art has a distinct vision in their mind of what constitutes a 10/10 piece, and it can and does vary wildly, but most people will have a much closer heuristic to one another of what a 7/10 piece looks like, and so the inoffensive creation that adheres to the already-set standards will get a 7/10 from everyone, whereas the work that tried to break that and do something different will get a much lower average score, regardless of how cool or well-done it is. This illustrates my problems with a map contest that has a 1-5 point scoring system: it actively punishes anything that tries to do something too different, and rewards the maps that adhere strictly to competitive norms that have already been in place for quite a long time. And to me, there couldn't be a worse way to handle things.
If you're looking for maps that already satisfy the current balance of the game and have all the same hallmark features and rush distances and choke sizes and air spaces, there's actually no point at all in spending the time that you do looking at new maps, just as there's no point in mapmakers such as myself from trying to innovate on the game we all love. An opportunity is being wasted like this.
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On July 12 2021 14:59 StasisField wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2021 13:41 [Phantom] wrote:
I just want to make one comment and say I think I must have been drinking kool-aid because as far as I remmember 4 player maps were in starcraft for at least 5-6 years, got progressively better and some of the best games of all time were played there. But apparently they can't possibly work. You're right. 4-player maps have had some incredible games played on them, especially Frost. Frost also had very balanced win/loss for each match up with its worst winrate sitting at a 49% winrate for Terran in TvZ. And guess what? All 4 spawns are enabled on Frost too. Frost also saw professional play in HotS and LotV and it produced great games in both. Honestly, if LotV hadn't soured so many people's opinions towards 4-players maps, I think Frost would be SC2's Fighting Spirit.
Winrates don't mean a lot for 4-player maps because 50% winrate could still mean the map is terran favoured on close spaws and Zerg favoured on cross-spawns (which I think was the case)
edit: Wardi beat me to it
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Every single none standard map that made it into the map pool was disliked and banned in the beginning, before they started to get figured out and then got popular.
must have missed the moment when Secret Spring got popular. or Beckett Industries.
Or 99% of non standard ladder maps for that matter, this statement is just completely wrong, only a tiny fraction of non standard maps ever got somewhat popular.
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On July 13 2021 13:13 NewSunshine wrote:
Hey, I think it's cool that we're finally getting significant insight into who the judges were for this competition. That said, I don't think it's really fair to paint the article as misinformed when no mention of that information was made whatsoever until the OP was made, and that one of the thrusts of the OP - serious lack of transparency to the process - remains wholly intact and upright as a result of that lack of information.
In light of feedback from folks such as Catz, I actually don't think it's that unbelievable that there actually may have been mapmakers on the judge panel. What I'm getting at is that there seem to be deeper, more systemic problems with how the contest is set up, that despite the input of whichever mapmakers participated, it still skews heavily toward maps that are as similar as possible to what we've already seen for the last couple years now. It still feels like the contest attempts to select for maps that are ready for competitive play right out of the box, and that you could theoretically swap them into a tournament map pool mid-bracket and get no complaints. It feels like a process that actively seeks to eliminate any non-standardness from the map pool, and keep things easy. Despite the fact that there is an iteration phase to help maps achieve a finer point of balance, where the insight pro players can offer is actually extremely valuable.
I think this contest has been a fabulous demonstration, from my point of view at least, of a particular statistical phenomenon when it comes to individuals evaluating pieces of art. That is, when a more radical or original piece of work is presented, one that has a clear vision and a confident execution, that can be very polarizing to people that behold it. People tend to either see and appreciate the concept, direction, and willingness to deviate from the norm, and score it a 9 or a 10, or they don't get it, or hate whatever it's trying to do, and give it a 1 or a 2. Contrast this to when a piece of work is presented that follows well-established norms, and adheres to all the conventions without breaking any. What tends to happen in this case is no one is blown away by what they see, but they recognize that it's still well-made and solid, and most people will give it a score of 6, 7, or 8.
Every individual critiquing a piece of art has a distinct vision in their mind of what constitutes a 10/10 piece, and it can and does vary wildly, but most people will have a much closer heuristic to one another of what a 7/10 piece looks like, and so the inoffensive creation that adheres to the already-set standards will get a 7/10 from everyone, whereas the work that tried to break that and do something different will get a much lower average score, regardless of how cool or well-done it is. This illustrates my problems with a map contest that has a 1-5 point scoring system: it actively punishes anything that tries to do something too different, and rewards the maps that adhere strictly to competitive norms that have already been in place for quite a long time. And to me, there couldn't be a worse way to handle things.
If you're looking for maps that already satisfy the current balance of the game and have all the same hallmark features and rush distances and choke sizes and air spaces, there's actually no point at all in spending the time that you do looking at new maps, just as there's no point in mapmakers such as myself from trying to innovate on the game we all love. An opportunity is being wasted like this.
Well articulated, I 100% agree. Your second paragraph is spot on too. It's definitely a wasted opportunity for change.
Also, shuffleblade is spot on in regards to recusal. I mentioned in a couple threads right away that there is a conflict of interest. The pros have a vested interest and expect everything to revolve around them, there are some who think they should have final word on the maps/think their preference should take priority over the rest of the playerbase. It's a bit selfish, there are thousands of other players who play this game too. Not all pros fit this bill, but the majority of them do.
Redviper has a point, the amount of maps on ladder is small. I think it would be nice if every single map since the very first sc2 ladder season was available on ladder. Variety is the spice of life. I don't see any reason at all for players to be limited in map options, we have plenty of maps, lets use them all.
Lastly, i'm too lazy to multiquote.
Also, after re-reading what NewSunshine wrote, I gotta say it looks like this contest/point system is set up in a way that gives the illusion of choice.
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I think *every single map* being back in the pool is both a hot take and also probably technically impossible to implement. If we could just do 4-5 totally fresh maps and 2-3 beloved throwbacks each season with our same vetoes, I think that would be a good compromise. Alternatively, it could be 1-2 of the most balanced maps from the previous season or some combination of the above. But I think no more than 2 maps from the previous season should remain in the new season, if there is a technical requirement of a pool of 7 maps.
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On July 14 2021 05:01 SirKibbleX wrote:
I think *every single map* being back in the pool is both a hot take and also probably technically impossible to implement. If we could just do 4-5 totally fresh maps and 2-3 beloved throwbacks each season with our same vetoes, I think that would be a good compromise. Alternatively, it could be 1-2 of the most balanced maps from the previous season or some combination of the above. But I think no more than 2 maps from the previous season should remain in the new season, if there is a technical requirement of a pool of 7 maps.
It's far from impossible to implement, that's quite a far fetched thing to say. Uploading their own maps back onto a matchmaking server doesn't take much effort at all. If they can put 7 maps in a que, they can put a bunch. It's just expanding the current list. It's entirely possible and probably extremely simple to implement given that the matchmaking server already exists/blizzard already has the hardware/software environment to do it. It's possible the team that is maintaining SC2 might be a bit lazy.
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Italy12246 Posts
I thought I would give a bit of historical perspective. For context, I was involved in TLMC 2 through 7 (I think? It was a lot of them though...) as a judge, playtester, TL-Open admin and general contact person between us and Blizzard. I also played a large role in implementing the current "category" system, which was partially driven by my disappointment in the outcome of TLMC 6. Also, as a heads up, I only skimmed through the thread and looked for the comments from known community figures, so apologies if some of this was already posted, but in general I agree with all of their posts (especially Pokebunny's - the BW format for choosing maps would go a long way).
At the time, many of the judges came from the TL Strategy team. What this did was provide a decent core of people who played and understood the game at a decent but below-pro level. You wouldn't know from the focus of our articles, but we were also fairly diverse in terms of races we played, so we had a good amount of diversity in our opinions. For what it's worth, my main mindset when looking at a map was to always first ask: "how would one defend a natural base against some all-in? how would you defend a third against a soultrain or roach max? Is it too easy to cut the map in half and turtle?". If I felt like something would be impossible to hold well enough, I would give the map a lower ranking. Otherwise, I moved on and looked at the map in more detail, and tried to picture how I would play on it. That mindset generally resulted in me being one of the more conservative voices among us, but others (e.g. monk) were much more open to trying new things. Regardless of our rankings and opinions, however, the final word on the finalists was always 100% down to Blizzard, all we did was provide some advice and our own shortlist of preferred finalists, which we agreed to after discussing together and often play testing the maps ourselves. I remember a few instances in which we identified some balance issue in a map well before it even went on ladder (feel free to guess which one it was...), but nothing was done to it, and others where the map was changed for the better.
I think the OP hit the nail in the head in a few places, despite exaggerating in most of them. The historical reason why the judging has shifted from TL Staff to pro players is just that, unfortunately, the Strategy team is no more for the most part. The natural way to replace us was to go to pro players - you have a larger pool of people to ask to, and they of course know their stuff much better than random nerds writing articles, so that's an appealing solution. I think the downside is not really they are trying to skew balance towards them, but more that it's unlikely they will be as motivated as a TL staff member, and judging these things is a huge effort, as the OP clearly pointed out. In principle you can mitigate that effect with a larger pool of judges, but in practice I think it's unlikely to work out.
The other thing to keep in mind is that non-standard maps are just really, really, really hard to make work in SC2. The TLMC maps may have failed at achieving some sort of balance in that category, but it's not for lack of trying (although I'll accept that we did try harder with standard maps). Multiple different ideas have been tried, and by and large, they just don't seem to work well. Imo, the game is just too fast, volatile and rigid in its structure to allow for crazy things like Dasan Station, so my feeling is that the failure to find anything but good macro maps is less due to TLMC itself (despite its issues), and more with just how SC2 works. But then again I was always the cranky conservative.
On the specific topic of four player maps, what I find odd is that we haven't gone back to a Shakuras Plateau style system where just a few spawns are disabled. It worked well enough in WoL, so how come we haven't tried that again?
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On July 14 2021 08:09 Teoita wrote:
On the specific topic of four player maps, what I find odd is that we haven't gone back to a Shakuras Plateau style system where just a few spawns are disabled. It worked well enough in WoL, so how come we haven't tried that again?
Part of the confusion and frustrations about the finalists is that none of the Judge's picks are reflective symmetry maps like following submissions White Sand, Biosphere IV, Empyrean Realm, HEXMASTER III, and Canis Majoris.Known multi-spawn submissions There was some issues with the information about spawn restrictions not being given properly to judges.
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On July 14 2021 08:09 Teoita wrote:
I thought I would give a bit of historical perspective. For context, I was involved in TLMC 2 through 7 (I think? It was a lot of them though...) as a judge, playtester, TL-Open admin and general contact person between us and Blizzard. I also played a large role in implementing the current "category" system, which was partially driven by my disappointment in the outcome of TLMC 6. Also, as a heads up, I only skimmed through the thread and looked for the comments from known community figures, so apologies if some of this was already posted, but in general I agree with all of their posts (especially Pokebunny's - the BW format for choosing maps would go a long way).
At the time, many of the judges came from the TL Strategy team. What this did was provide a decent core of people who played and understood the game at a decent but below-pro level. You wouldn't know from the focus of our articles, but we were also fairly diverse in terms of races we played, so we had a good amount of diversity in our opinions. For what it's worth, my main mindset when looking at a map was to always first ask: "how would one defend a natural base against some all-in? how would you defend a third against a soultrain or roach max? Is it too easy to cut the map in half and turtle?". If I felt like something would be impossible to hold well enough, I would give the map a lower ranking. Otherwise, I moved on and looked at the map in more detail, and tried to picture how I would play on it. That mindset generally resulted in me being one of the more conservative voices among us, but others (e.g. monk) were much more open to trying new things. Regardless of our rankings and opinions, however, the final word on the finalists was always 100% down to Blizzard, all we did was provide some advice and our own shortlist of preferred finalists, which we agreed to after discussing together and often play testing the maps ourselves. I remember a few instances in which we identified some balance issue in a map well before it even went on ladder (feel free to guess which ones it was...), but nothing was done to it, and others where the map was changed for the better.
I think the OP hit the nail in the head in a few places, despite exaggerating in most of them. The historical reason why the judging has shifted from TL Staff to pro players is just that, unfortunately, the Strategy team is no more for the most part. The natural way to replace us was to go to pro players - you have a larger pool of people to ask to, and they of course know their stuff much better than random nerds writing articles, so that's an appealing solution. I think the downside is not really they are trying to skew balance towards them, but more that it's unlikely they will be as motivated as a TL staff member, and judging these things is a huge effort, as the OP clearly pointed out. In principle you can mitigate that effect with a larger pool of judges, but in practice I think it's unlikely to work out.
The other thing to keep in mind is that non-standard maps are just really, really, really hard to make work in SC2. The TLMC maps may have failed at achieving some sort of balance in that category, but it's not for lack of trying (although I'll accept that we did try harder with standard maps). Multiple different ideas have been tried, and by and large, they just don't seem to work well. Imo, the game is just too fast, volatile and rigid in its structure to allow for crazy things like Dasan Station, so my feeling is that the failure to find anything but good macro maps is less due to TLMC itself (despite its issues), and more with just how SC2 works. But then again I was always the cranky conservative.
On the specific topic of four player maps, what I find odd is that we haven't gone back to a Shakuras Plateau style system where just a few spawns are disabled. It worked well enough in WoL, so how come we haven't tried that again?
So i've read the entire thread as well as the other thread and it basically plays out like this:
1. blizzard isn't going to make balance changes anymore
2. it's time for mapmakers to balance the game through mapmaking, players want new maps
3. this implies that there will be change, change that the majority of the playerbase wants, otherwise no one would be complaining about balance and suggesting that mapmakers balance the game through maps
3. same exact style maps that we've had the past 3 years get arbitrarily chosen by a small select group of people who are a conflict of interest(pros)
4. Because of 1,2 and 3, Nothing changed at all, we just have more of the same.
5. We actually had an opportunity to switch things up, but we can't because a small group of less than 100 people want the game to revolve around their preferences, even though there are thousands and thousands of other players who play this game.
If people continue to do what they've always done, they'll always get what they've always gotten. It's a clear example of pros being entirely complacent. It's a clear example of pros being afraid to get out of the box. Why? Because pros want the easiest route to money as possible, they don't want to have to change anything up. It's a conflict of interest at hand here. The entire playerbase has to play these maps, we wanted change, not more of the same. As another person has stated, the entire ordeal is a wasted opportunity and it's a shame. The playerbase has been rather vocal on social media outlets about balance changes for the better part of the last 6 months, specifically being achieved through new maps and the goal of what this contest was aiming to achieve will not be met. This is the result that you get when you let complacent pros make the decisions.
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Italy12246 Posts
I get what you are saying, but I have some issues with it:
2. it's time for mapmakers to balance the game through mapmaking, players want new maps
3. this implies that there will be change, change that the majority of the playerbase wants, otherwise no one would be complaining about balance and suggesting that mapmakers balance the game through maps
but the game *is* for the most balanced when played current maps, so if the goal is to balance the game through map making, by definition you won't get any change as long as the current meta stays. The reason we aren't switching things isn't some conspiracy by a small group of pros and grumpy old men like me.
What you are asking for is to specifically break that balance state, and then re-build a different one with different maps (under the assumption that the process and final state will be better/more interesting). I can see how that argument would be attractive to some, but frankly, I think it's not worth it, not as long as SC2 tournaments run the way they do.
This is why I vastly prefer Pokebunny's suggestion - experiment with the maps if you want, but also change tournament formats so that pro players (and their opponents) can't just veto away things they don't like, while keeping a relatively balanced overall pool (because, again, SC2 is a very rigid game and you can't go too far across the map pool).
As long as all we do is throw crappy ideas like Dasan Station or Daedalus Point at pros just for the sake of it, without any thought of how you would implement these radical ideas in the pro scene, we'll be having this argument forever, because at the end of the day pros are the most fit to point out imbalances in the map pool. That is also why Proleague was awesome and could get away with crazier maps btw. There are definitely lots of lessons to be learnt there that we aren't picking up on.
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On July 14 2021 09:05 Teoita wrote:I get what you are saying, but I have some issues with it: Show nested quote +2. it's time for mapmakers to balance the game through mapmaking, players want new maps
3. this implies that there will be change, change that the majority of the playerbase wants, otherwise no one would be complaining about balance and suggesting that mapmakers balance the game through maps but the game *is* for the most balanced when played current maps, so if the goal is to balance the game through map making, by definition you won't get any change as long as the current meta stays. The reason we aren't switching things isn't some conspiracy by a small group of pros and grumpy old men like me. What you are asking for is to specifically break that balance state, and then re-build a different one with different maps (under the assumption that the process and final state will be better/more interesting). I can see how that argument would be attractive to some, but frankly, I think it's not worth it, not as long as SC2 tournaments run the way they do. This is why I vastly prefer Pokebunny's suggestion - experiment with the maps if you want, but also change tournament formats so that pro players (and their opponents) can't just veto away things they don't like, while keeping a relatively balanced overall pool (because, again, SC2 is a very rigid game and you can't go too far across the map pool). As long as all we do is throw crappy ideas like Dasan Station or Daedalus Point at pros just for the sake of it, without any thought of how you would implement these radical ideas in the pro scene, we'll be having this argument forever. That is also why Proleague was awesome and could get away with crazier maps btw. There are definitely lots of lessons to be learnt there that we aren't picking up on.
Pokebunny's suggestion is great. But in order to do that, we actually need DIFFERENT types of maps. With pros making the decisions, we aren't going to get different types of maps. All we are getting out of this contest is more of the same because the judges have a conflict of interest in this whole ordeal. Do you see how the way this contest is setup as a double edged sword so it that doesn't actually accomplish what it is set out to?
BW korean pros were forced to play unorthodox maps all the time or what some pros would call ridiculous maps all the time. And you know what, those maps were also fun to play on as a player AND also provided exciting games for the viewers. The BW korean pros accepted it. Why did they accept it? Probably because they were thankful enough that they had an opportunity to make money playing video games in the first place.
It's not like the established pros are going to lose their jobs or anything if they have to play on different kinds of maps. It's not like they aren't gonna make money or anything lol.
It's like everyone wants change, but no one but some of the map makers are actually willing to do what needs to be done in order to achieve it. Lots of people on tl/reddit saying things like "the community should take back control" of running things. Ok they were given the opportunity here with this contest and what was the end result? More of the same. Nothing was accomplished other than making map makers/a portion of the playerbase feeling sleighted. How can the scene expect growth when things are operated in this fashion? From a big picture perspective, The scene is shooting itself in the foot here.
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