Maps generally get to the ladder and tournaments in the following way. Every so often a TLMC is announced, and mapmakers submit to it. A panel of judges consisting of pro players and community members narrow the submissions down to 16 finalists which play in a map contest tournament and are voted on publicly. Then Blizzard picks from among the maps from the contest to put them on ladder.
This process is terrible. Most mapmakers hate it. There are so many problems with the contest to the point where it's little more than a lottery that leans towards standard and pretty maps. There's no feedback from the judges, scores for maps aren't revealed to the mapmaker which keeps them guessing as to what they should submit next time. The entire process is non-transparent. Mapmakers have no idea if their maps even reached the judges or got cut earlier, no idea why a map succeeded or not. Judges give a single number from 1 to 5 per map, they average them and that's that. And because no one has any visibility, and judges are unwilling to bother with spending the time to give feedback into what's happening people don't have the info to complain.
There's endless problems to discuss with the TLMC which have mostly been hidden away from the community as a whole (TLMC 6, 8 and 11 in particular had some awful problems that are beyond the scope of this. TLMC 15 has had some scheduling and QA issues but nothing out of the ordinary awfulness). The one thing that I'll focus on here is the judging, particularly the judging from pro players. One of the judges, a professional Terran player, went over some of his judging on stream recently, and it was so bad that I decided to make this post. I'm not going to mention him by name (though I'm sure some of you know or can figure it out), because this post is not about him. The problems with TLMC judging have been going on for years, and this is just symptomatic of that. In fact I'm grateful to him for showing some transparency which is the number one thing that's entirely lacking in TLMCs.
The first reason why pro players judging maps is a problem is that:
They don't give a shit about judging maps.
Here's a direct quote from our judge:
I didn't take, like a, deep look into that though, always keep that in mind. It's not like I took like a deep look at the maps I just look at the picture and then I just looked at the base layout basically. So my points that I gave may not be that great.
Judging is a thankless task. It's an unrewarding chore to look at ~120 submissions and score them. However if you're going to half-ass things like that then you should just not judge things. No one's forcing you, and it would be better for everyone if you didn't judge.
In terms of effort put in, no one's expecting a judge to open up every map in the editor, or play on every single one of them. But if you're always only just glancing at overview pictures, you're going to get terrible results. In particular proportions and sizes are very hard to tell from just an overview pictures and that's one of the reasons why rush maps are almost always terrible (more on that later).
But this particular judge went beyond just not putting in a lot of effort. He also showed a complete disregard to the parameters of the judging. He likes standard maps (as most pros do), so he just scored the most standard maps in the freestyle category highly which defeats the purpose of the category (as seen by the fact that only one of the freestyle maps in TLMC 15 is in any way creative). He thinks 4p players map don't work, so he scored multi-spawn maps low (and given that he doesn't seem to know decimal points exist that means most 4p maps got scored basically the same). Now, I'm not the biggest fan of 4p maps personally, but regardless of the merits of multi-spawn maps, that's what ESL asked for, so as a judge he should have done his best to select from them the best of them. But no he didn't, so it's no surprise that we ended up with a bunch of not so great 4p rotational maps as finalists.
In general his reasoning was very arbitrary. He gave the following map (Misophist) a low score because "he likes maps that don't have all their bases on the edges", which is not a gameplay justification for anything.
Now what he may have been driving at is that bases on the edges result in this rush map being quite open which is bad for terran which leads us to the second reason why pros should not be judging maps.
They're biased and self-interested.
There's a very obvious conflict of interest in pros picking maps that affect their chances in future tournaments. And while I'm sure some of the judges attempt to be somewhat objective, many, including the one I'm using as an example aren't.
Giving credit for honesty, he wasn't hiding the fact that he was picking maps that are good for terran rather than maps that are good for the playing or viewing experience. He was just picking out features that are good from his point of view. This judge likes it when there's airspace behind the linear third so he scored those maps highly. There's nothing inherently wrong with airspace behind a linear third--sometimes a map needs that to help terran. However if a map is already good for terran, then a more objective judge wouldn't want that airspace. But that judge would score the map higher regardless. If a map that's imbalanced for terran makes ladder that's bad for the game, but it's fine for him.
Now you might say that having a bunch of self-interested pros pick maps that favor their race balances out in the end, but it doesn't always. Guess why a couple years ago the map pool was bad for terran, all the maps had overlord pillars and no reaper jump up spots? Yup, back then there were fewer terran judges so you got a zerg map pool.
But even if the number of judges of each race does balance out, you don't get the best maps making it to ladder. You get very standard maps that resemble those on ladder currently, or pretty maps, since that's the lowest common denominator among pros. Which leads me to the next point:
They (and the system) are awful at picking anything non-standard.
The format of the TLMC is set up to produce standard maps. Maps that deviate from the standard are usually cut even before they reach the judges (and no mapmakers aren't told if their map got cut) and this whole averaging of points from biased judges usually results in some safe boring maps that don't offend any one judge too much. And the TLMC is mostly successful at choosing not too bad standard maps (though admittedly the quality of standard maps is generally high (see https://imgur.com/a/HANtd46), so you can't go too wrong with your picks).
On the other hand the TLMC sucks at producing good non-standard maps. In particular the rush category (which isn't even that non-standard as it goes) has been an unmitigated disaster over the years.
The rush category has had maybe two successes (Dreamcatcher and Blackburn) and a long series of terrible maps. Submarine, Battle on the Boardwalk, Defender's Landing, Paladino Terminal... Kairos Junction was a standard map (since it had too many bases for rush), but was a better rush map than the lot of them.
To see how bad exactly these rush maps are we can get the winrates for all 90 LotV ladder maps from Liquipedia, calculate an imbalance score based on the square root of the sum of the squares for each match-up, and see how they stack up to maps from other categories. The higher the imbalance score, the worse the map. These are the results (data here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qQ4uyCJzUwsojDFLJc9jzEISkVIi3Ko3Emk17o-fHvc ):
So on average a standard map is in the top third of LotV maps, while the average rush map is less balanced than 2/3rd of the maps in LotV. This is worse than the average map produced by Blizzard (most of which were made in early LotV where things were pretty crazy).
The reasons for why are rather complex (and this post is way too long already), and involves rush maps being harder to design for (though it's been done in the past and could be done again), and the TLMC categories being poorly defined, but mostly it's because the judges blindly cling to the current standards (no matter how bad they are because it's what they know). I'm not sure they even know there's a problem, and also many of the judges might like that status quo. Submarine and Oxide being broken maps for terran might be bad for the community and bad for the contest, but a terran judge might only see it as a good thing.
The rush map shown above? It could be broken. It could be a mistake. But at least it would be a new mistake that teaches us something. But terran judges are incentivized to have us keep making the same old mistakes with rush maps, so a rush map with an open middle like this is not on the menu, while Submarine 2.0 might be. For another example, a map like Promanus Grounds learns from successful maps like Dreamcatcher, but doesn't have too much of a chance in a TLMC where it's considered too rush for standard, too standard for rush and where judges cling to the status quo.
Likewise this results in freestyle/new/challenge maps rarely being good unless they're extremely standard (e.g. Deathaura was fine, but the speedzones barely mattered), and makes stuff like trying to get good multi-spawn maps out of a contest hopeless.
Note that the only reason we got Golden Wall as a finalist and thus on ladder was that the judging composition of TLMC13 was a bit different--there was a mapmaker in the judging panel, and he chose Golden Wall for his judge pick. We have him alone to thank for it. It wouldn't have made it based on the point average of the player judges.
But anyhow to end things here's one of the most egregious mistakes made in the TLMC 15 judging:
They don't give a shit about judging maps.
Here's one of the few map that got a 1 out of 5 from our judge:
It got this score because "the horizontal spawns are imbalanced". The problem? Horizontal spawns are obviously not enabled on the map. And the judge, if he had cared, would have known that. Apparently there was some sort of a mess-up on the admin side and not all the descriptions were given to the judges (this is another problem I haven't mentioned yet. Mapmakers are told to write long descriptions that rarely make it to the judges). But leaving the frequent administrative gaffes of the TLMC aside, the judge should have known the spawn restrictions even without that information if he had put in a modicum of effort. It's obvious from the layout. And even if it wasn't obvious to him, he could have easily checked. The map files are provided. But he didn't open that map or any other map. Because he didn't give a shit.
Conclusion/TL;DR
TL;DR The TLMC is how we get ladder maps, and it has a lot of problems with transparency and judging. One of the problems with judging is that a lot of pro judges half-ass their judging, and just pick maps that are good for their race. It's bad to the point where they miss-score maps because they can't be bothered to figure out the spawn restrictions of a map. This results in standard maps being boring, and non-standard maps being poorly balanced ultimately resulting in bad maps on ladder.
This type of awful judging from the pros, and all the other problems with the TLMC have been going on for years behind the scenes. Mapmakers have certainly been aware of how bad things are, and nothing that I've written should be new to them, but the community as a whole not so much. People don't truly understand (or particularly care about) how maps are sourced, so when maps are bad they blame various things, but not the source of problems which is how the TLMC is organized or judged. The TLMC doesn't serve the community or tournament organizers as well as it should, and I see no reason to expect it would change in the future. The system should be completely restructured and the judges changed, but it won't be. Mapmakers have been unhappy about the state of things and asking for changes for years, but nothing has changed. This post is just to get mapmaking off my chest and out of my life. And if you're one of the pro judges who did their due diligence, and truly put in the time and effort, I apologize. But there clearly haven't been enough of you, and given the complete lack of visibility into the TLMC I can't assume there are any of you at all.
It must have been hard to write this without the anger seeping through in your words. You've done a great job at that, addressing the most pressing issues while staying (more or less) calm and collected.
I, like many, enjoy the TLMC as a creative effort. I never before thought about the process that determines the final winners. Having read your post, it sounds like something definitely needs to change. I hope it will.
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.
A while ago, we had Dasan Station in the pool. It was arguably not a really good map, but i felt like, as a zerg player, it had a bunch of interesting ways to play that were completely different from the normal meta. At the same time, since everybody vetoed the map, it was never fleshed out.
How would you go about the problem of the maps simply not being played? Would you just put a bunch of maps with cool / interesting ideas, and risk them being unbalanced? Or is there a better approach? I would really love if we had innovation in the map side of things, but as things currently stand that does, indeed, seem really hard.
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.
Balanced around pro play != pros judging while putting in little effort and just angling to get good maps for their race on ladder with no regard for map quality.
And the non-standard maps they pick in TLMC often simply aren't balanced, so it's not as though a good job at picking balanced maps.
Good post, makes a lot of sense. I was unaware of how Golden Wall made it to the pool, that little detail really was illustrative.
And at least at a tournament level that was a great, great non-standard map. I was wondering why we didn’t get more like it and your post does rather explain that.
Respect to the map makers, aside from a lack of creativity and competence I don’t think I could mentally do it. It’s such a constrained process creatively, like being a decent musician who’s stuck making advertising jingles.
I’m not sure what a theoretical balanced process of picking maps in such a contest would look like. Mapmakers want to do neat creative things, I’d guess more casual players and viewers want more diversity and variety, and serious ladder players/pros seem to want stock standard reskins of the same map, ideally that favours their race.
Whatever way the ideal balance does look, and the general process, it seems way too weighted to the latter camps currently.
It’s a particularly critical thing to have good maps to keep the game fresh and interesting when the likelihood of much balance tweaks creating meta disruption is quite low.
While the issues you put out there certainly means good maps are getting thrown aside, at least the opposite isn't true where bad maps make it through. So it sucks for map makers, but at least it doesn't suck for players.
An issue I see is that we need more funky unique maps, especially in this new era where there is a lack of frequent balance updates to keep the game fresh. A funky map will never have the broad appeal needed to get selected, as many people would just look at it and downvote because "this isn't what I'm used to seeing".
On July 12 2021 01:39 Ketroc wrote: While the issues you put out there certainly means good maps are getting thrown aside, at least the opposite isn't true where bad maps make it through. So it sucks for map makers, but at least it doesn't suck for players.
An issue I see is that we need more funky unique maps, especially in this new era where there is a lack of frequent balance updates to keep the game fresh. A funky map will never have the broad appeal needed to get selected, as many people would just look at it and downvote because "this isn't what I'm used to seeing".
It does result in bad maps making it through though. The standard map category does still produce decent maps, but those aren't the only ones ending up on ladder. Stuff like virtually every rush made that made it to ladder being imbalanced is just as much a product of the system.
The part about not even realizing horizontal spawns were disabled is pretty embarrassing. That is historically a very normal thing on 4 player maps, we have had other 4 player maps with horiz disabled. The fact that someone was more willing to assume the mapmaker is a moron than spend 2 minutes checking whether the mapmaker thought of that speaks volumes about how little that judge cared.
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.
On July 12 2021 01:58 Andi_Goldberger wrote: great post, thank you. I have a lot of respect for the mapmakers of our game, especially as they dont get nearly as much attention as they deserve.
themusic246 got quite a bit of attention for Oblivion
On July 12 2021 01:58 Andi_Goldberger wrote: great post, thank you. I have a lot of respect for the mapmakers of our game, especially as they dont get nearly as much attention as they deserve.
themusic246 got quite a bit of attention for Oblivion
which is absurd as thats on the tournament organizer to test, not on him or am I wrong?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 ...
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.
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)
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
I'm gonna use another post to point out a blatant hypocrisy in how the map design is treated. An iteration phase is reserved for maps which make the finalists, so that minor tweaks can be made if there were small features that needed to be added or removed after seeing it in play. A key part of this phase is that minor changes are all they really want to see, and that large changes that alter the original design of the map are more dangerous and generally harder to get away with. The takeaway here, if you assume positive intent, is that the design and inspiration for the map both matter, and that finalists are chosen in part because they like the vision that's present in the map.
Now I'm going to point out the problem with that. If you have a panel of pro-player judges who are single-handedly dismissing large swathes of submitted maps because of this choke size or that amount of air space or this overlord pillar or whatever it may be, you're throwing away a huge amount of maps not based on whether they were inspired or interesting or had a compelling vision behind them, you're rejecting them because of features that can easily be added or taken away. Why did NegativeZero's 4-spawn map get rejected out of hand, because of a spawn position that wasn't even enabled? Completely ignoring for a minute that if the judge gave it any amount of thought they would have realized those spawns were probably not enabled, how hard would it have been to request them to be disabled if they're not?
I feel like the judging panel has the whole process backwards, when they try to find maps that already satisfy little things like which overlord pillars are in the right place or how much airspace the third base has, when that's something that literally any map can have changed in the iteration phase. Find other reasons to rate a map highly, they exist.
On July 12 2021 01:51 DrDevice wrote: The part about not even realizing horizontal spawns were disabled is pretty embarrassing. That is historically a very normal thing on 4 player maps, we have had other 4 player maps with horiz disabled. The fact that someone was more willing to assume the mapmaker is a moron than spend 2 minutes checking whether the mapmaker thought of that speaks volumes about how little that judge cared.
if you would have seen all the maps they had to judge ...... well lets just say there are maps that are that bad
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?
Step 1 is having a bigger map pool. I’ve been banging on about this for years and probably still will be when I’m on my deathbed.
There’s such a limited room for error with such a small, locked-in pool so it’s always, always played safe.
On July 12 2021 01:51 DrDevice wrote: The part about not even realizing horizontal spawns were disabled is pretty embarrassing. That is historically a very normal thing on 4 player maps, we have had other 4 player maps with horiz disabled. The fact that someone was more willing to assume the mapmaker is a moron than spend 2 minutes checking whether the mapmaker thought of that speaks volumes about how little that judge cared.
if you would have seen all the maps they had to judge ...... well lets just say there are maps that are that bad
Let's also say that's a terrible excuse. Assuming a spawn setup exists when it doesn't and refusing to judge the map otherwise, or even bother to ask if that's the case, is incredibly lazy, and there's no other word for it. We submitted maps to have them judged, not to have them shit on for actually no reason.
On July 12 2021 01:51 DrDevice wrote: The part about not even realizing horizontal spawns were disabled is pretty embarrassing. That is historically a very normal thing on 4 player maps, we have had other 4 player maps with horiz disabled. The fact that someone was more willing to assume the mapmaker is a moron than spend 2 minutes checking whether the mapmaker thought of that speaks volumes about how little that judge cared.
if you would have seen all the maps they had to judge ...... well lets just say there are maps that are that bad
Let's also say that's a terrible excuse. Assuming a spawn setup exists when it doesn't and refusing to judge the map otherwise, or even bother to ask if that's the case, is incredibly lazy, and there's no other word for it. We submitted maps to have them judged, not to have them shit on for actually no reason.
In the Spreadsheet they got there were comments for almost every 4 player map that had selective spawn patterns. For this map there wasn't .... if you trust the admins to some degree that implicates that you have to assume that this map has no such restrictions, hence it would be utterly imbalanced (apart from several other issues this map has)
On July 12 2021 01:51 DrDevice wrote: The part about not even realizing horizontal spawns were disabled is pretty embarrassing. That is historically a very normal thing on 4 player maps, we have had other 4 player maps with horiz disabled. The fact that someone was more willing to assume the mapmaker is a moron than spend 2 minutes checking whether the mapmaker thought of that speaks volumes about how little that judge cared.
if you would have seen all the maps they had to judge ...... well lets just say there are maps that are that bad
Let's also say that's a terrible excuse. Assuming a spawn setup exists when it doesn't and refusing to judge the map otherwise, or even bother to ask if that's the case, is incredibly lazy, and there's no other word for it. We submitted maps to have them judged, not to have them shit on for actually no reason.
100%, must be absolutely infuriating.
I hadn’t realised until relatively recently how many familiar TL regulars also make some pretty damn tasty maps. Much respect to you guys, even if I was a good mapmaker I don’t think I’d bother given the issues outlined by this thread and the general lack of love given to the mapmaking community
On July 12 2021 04:04 NewSunshine wrote: Let's also say that's a terrible excuse. Assuming a spawn setup exists when it doesn't and refusing to judge the map otherwise, or even bother to ask if that's the case, is incredibly lazy, and there's no other word for it. We submitted maps to have them judged, not to have them shit on for actually no reason.
Just reacting on that part, first glance feelings often colours a lot the final judgment even if it shouldn't/whether the targeted party likes it or not.
100% kudos for starting this conversation. Hopefully a kick-off for discussing other issues which apparently lie behind-the-scenes in the mapmaking community. There should be a pylon show episode on this - you should reach out to the admins of that.
On July 12 2021 01:51 DrDevice wrote: The part about not even realizing horizontal spawns were disabled is pretty embarrassing. That is historically a very normal thing on 4 player maps, we have had other 4 player maps with horiz disabled. The fact that someone was more willing to assume the mapmaker is a moron than spend 2 minutes checking whether the mapmaker thought of that speaks volumes about how little that judge cared.
if you would have seen all the maps they had to judge ...... well lets just say there are maps that are that bad
Let's also say that's a terrible excuse. Assuming a spawn setup exists when it doesn't and refusing to judge the map otherwise, or even bother to ask if that's the case, is incredibly lazy, and there's no other word for it. We submitted maps to have them judged, not to have them shit on for actually no reason.
In the Spreadsheet they got there were comments for almost every 4 player map that had selective spawn patterns. For this map there wasn't .... if you trust the admins to some degree that implicates that you have to assume that this map has no such restrictions, hence it would be utterly imbalanced (apart from several other issues this map has)
Whether or not Biosphere IV in particular got a fully fair shake is something that upsets me, but is also kind of just scratching the surface. For instance, you point out that for whatever reason that map didn't have a comment describing its spawn limitations. Why not? And how hard would it have been for the group of judges to talk about the map and realize what happened? There's trusting the admins, and then there's using your head. But if they only looked at the map for about 30 seconds, assumed it was all spawns enabled and thus imbalanced and tossed it aside, that's illustrative of a lot of the problems we're trying to point out. It's not just about that one map, even though it absolutely should've been judged on its actual merits. That's unacceptable to me as it is.
The fact that Biosphere IV would've been trashed along with every other 4P map even if its spawns were correctly understood is indicative of my other problems with this contest. I can go into those further if I must.
The core issue is rather simple, there is almost no need to change/create maps if the new maps don't play meaningfully different from the ones in the current map pool (and really also to maps of the past). Pro players in general will counteract this, change is not what they are looking for, all it means is uncertainty for their professional career. This conflict of interest alone makes it questionable to rely so heavily on pro players as judges, it just doesn't make any sense.
The fact that Biosphere IV would've been trashed along with every other 4P map even if its spawns were correctly understood is indicative of my other problems with this contest. I can go into those further if I must.
Why? That map has several other issues apart from the spawns and it being a 4player map ...
The fact that Biosphere IV would've been trashed along with every other 4P map even if its spawns were correctly understood is indicative of my other problems with this contest. I can go into those further if I must.
Why? That map has several other issues apart from the spawns and it being a 4player map ...
imo it should not make it to ladder
There you go. The whole premise of the contest was misleading from the start. If 4 player maps were going to be tacked on as an afterthought and judged terribly then you shouldn't have bothered. I wasted my time personally trying to cater to that part of the competition, as did others, and we were universally punished for it.
The fact that Biosphere IV would've been trashed along with every other 4P map even if its spawns were correctly understood is indicative of my other problems with this contest. I can go into those further if I must.
Why? That map has several other issues apart from the spawns and it being a 4player map ...
imo it should not make it to ladder
Which is fine.
There’s a difference between it being discounted for what it actually is, and being dismissed out of hand for having imbalanced horizontal spawns that aren’t an actual feature of the map.
Not to put too fine a point on things or whatever, but all of these complaints should be treated as valid, listened to, and considered, not explained away with a justification of "well this map in particular wouldn't have been ladder-worthy even if we didn't mess up". We're starting this discussion so that if there's any interest whatsoever in making future contests better then you have an idea of where to begin. We're 100% not interested in hearing why everything is fine the way it is.
I see that there are several issues with TLMC, a major one being the missing transparency.
Most of the OP rant comes down to ripping quotes out of context, misunderstanding stuff and not realising that in streams people often shorten their reasoning quite drastically because it bores viewers if it takes too long ...
I think it is utterly stupid to argue against pros judging the maps (to exaggerated it a bit: "everyone but the pros should judge maps but then they have to play on them")
Imo if maps are clearly bad at a first glance it is a waste of time to look into them further, concentrating on the better ones and giving them more attention seems the better way to me. If you see clear imbalanced spots on the overview image already it is a bad map hence no further looking into it is necessary. Like if you see a map where everything is open af, no chokes, easy to secure gold, overlord spots everywhere, no reaper ramp, no air spaces behind bases it clearly is a bad map, because it is unbalanced AF (another example example: you have extreme short rush distance, lots of chokes, op liberator spots, .. is bad too, because it too is imbalanced AF)
If you look at the maps they got to judge you will see that there are several maps that full fill such criteria, hence are just bad and should get a low rating without testing them. (There also were really stupid maps where you could see at first glance it is total bs.)
The whole TLMC15 was pretty rushed and the timeframe was bad.
Imo ESL should scrap their (pretty stupid and) crazy idea about 4 player maps. They mostly are pretty bad (luck dependent and somewhat imbalanced), pros do not like them and they get vetoed a lot (if there were some in the map pools).
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.
It should be indicated with the map that horizontal spawns would be disabled though lol. Seems weird that you have to open the map yourself especially if there are ton of them -> that’s a problem from people giving map / info rather than the one receiving it. It’s not obvious that spawns are disabled, otherwise why not only show the spawns that aren’t disabled?
I agree though that it sucks for map makers if the process is not transparent, maybe reviewers / judge should write meaningful 3-4 lines for each map with arguments?
Just wanna mention that the staleness of the game caught me and i stopped playing. While I get that Blizz won't patch SC2, fancier map pool would do the trick. But we always get the one map painted with 4 different colors. So I actually dislike the fact pros judge the maps.* The maps are for the players on the ladder and there's plenty more of them than pros.
Also never understood why the map pool isn't bigger with more vetoes... but that's for another thread
_____ *as was mentioned gazillion times, pros will pick the "1 map 4 colors" solution as then they have to learn less and basically every map is the same which resolves in less ugly surprises
I don't think the problem is that pros have a say, the problem is that the only counterbalance to a pro judge who plays Terran is a pro judge who plays Protoss or Zerg, because all of the judges are apparently pro players. There's no other perspective, and there seems to be no allowance for any map that might offend anyone or try something genuinely different.
I can agree with points like the timeframe and the transparency issues, those are pretty bad. In general, if ladder seasons are as long as they are, I honestly don't understand why these contests always have to be so rushed. I also agree that if no one is going to give 4-spawn maps the time of day then I don't think we should give ourselves any illusions about trying to bring them back. I have my personal frustrations with the game being simply unable to accommodate 4-spawn maps like it used to, but if it just isn't going to happen then let's not act like it.
Of course pro players care about the maps going into the game they make a living from.
Also important to note that the judge panel is not comprised entirely of Pro-players, and that guidelines provided by TL / the contest itself are heavily biased towards "standard" maps by default.
To speak only for myself, I gave this feedback during the judging phase on the TLMC discord:
I have a question on the grading criteria Seems like if the criteria we have to use is the map being ready or not for competitive play it heavily biases the judging towards maps that look like current competitive maps Since those are obviously competitive ready, where as if there is a map that's even just slightly different, saying it's ready for competitive is more of a question mark regardless of how good/cool the map is in the judge's eyes (we'd have less data vs any map that looks like the 3000th version of cloud kingdom) And yet I feel boxed into rating cloud kingdom maps as 5 cause they're tried and tested plenty
TLMC admin agreed to a degree (Winter also agreed), but also emphasized that the guidelines were carried over from previous TLMCs with Blizzard devs at the helm.
I've had my own criticisms of Blizzard devs policies, especially post David Kim. Having worked with them closely I believe that as a team, their relative inexperience and the game's seemingly inevitable path towards 'stability' (lack of budget and Blizzard's unwillingness to invest into the game / development further) always led them to make 'safer' choices when it came to balance and by extension things like maps, that was something I was always trying to off-set while consulting at Blizzard.
Also important to note as I've said alluded to more than once in the Pylon show; pro players in this day and age are generally iterators by excellence. Specially because the game hasn't changed radically it constantly rewards those who grind and do the same thing over and over vs other design alternatives seen in most games today that heavily reward adaptation and creativity because their games actively change radically, Dota and TeamFight Tactics come to mind for me, as I love both of those games also. This is a byproduct of the design philosophy (this time stemming from David Kim) to trend towards mastery and can be tracked back to unavoidable pitfalls like the very nature of StarCraft 2's economic model as a game (originally boxed product) vs self-sustaining / renewing f2p with in-game sales / content as a the primary driver, which offers devs the ability to continue to reliably work on the game and make active / big change. Tim Morten / LOTV did good to try and turn things around in the 'right' direction and keep things afloat, at least from my perspective, but it's difficult to change the foundations and re-wire people's perception of a then 7-or-so(?) year old game.
Regardless of all this, it's important to note that the invited Judging panel was comprised of 3 Pro players, 2 casters and 2 streamers, rather than something like all pro players as it's soft implied here. Some pro players may have actively tried to vote down 4 player maps and creative maps, but personally, and after this discussion above on grading criteria - I tended to grade creative maps that seemed fun to play and my favorite 4 player maps higher than the great majority of "standard" maps. I think I would've done the same thing in my time as a pro. All to the point that while this post seems well intentioned it's not really giving a very comprehensive picture of what's going on behind the scenes for the contest.
It's not so grim or as black and white as op makes it seem and I think everyone is doing the best that they can to push their own idea of what game / ecosystem they want to inhabit; at this, I think TL / admins did a good job of allowing diverse opinions to influence the map contest this time around.
I greatly appreciate this bit of insight, it definitely feels like the judging was dictated by what already looks like a competitively acceptable map. Yeah, that explains a lot.
On July 12 2021 04:58 NewSunshine wrote: I don't think the problem is that pros have a say, the problem is that the only counterbalance to a pro judge who plays Terran is a pro judge who plays Protoss or Zerg, because all of the judges are apparently pro players. There's no other perspective, and there seems to be no allowance for any map that might offend anyone or try something genuinely different.
I can agree with points like the timeframe and the transparency issues, those are pretty bad. In general, if ladder seasons are as long as they are, I honestly don't understand why these contests always have to be so rushed. I also agree that if no one is going to give 4-spawn maps the time of day then I don't think we should give ourselves any illusions about trying to bring them back. I have my personal frustrations with the game being simply unable to accommodate 4-spawn maps like it used to, but if it just isn't going to happen then let's not act like it.
Imo having non pro judges (map makers, former map makers, independents)* too would be good.
How about having one pool the pros "pick" via their votes and one pool the "other" judges pick via their votes. as a first stage (if you do not want to do the tournament with all maps)
Then in the tournament let them play on those 2 pools.
After that do another voting phase (with more detail) where pros are weighted more (because there probably are more pro judges than non-pro judges). This 2nd phase results (with details) maybe should be made publicly available.
This would imo resolve lots of the issues with the current system.
Of course this would mean that the whole contest would take way way longer, but imo it would be worth it.
* the map makers naturally would not be allowed to judge their own maps.
[*] I think it is utterly stupid to argue against pros judging the maps (to exaggerated it a bit: "everyone but the pros should judge maps but then they have to play on them")
In a tlmc, pro-players act as a jury and not as a player. As such, they should seek impartiality. Of course perfect impartiality is utopic but being mostly impartial is possible.
Acting in their self-interest is unprofessional. If they are unable to act in that manner, they cannot be judge.
Example in another industry: song contests that are so popular on tv. How would people react if one judge would give a low score to a good rock music performance because he only likes hip-hop and want to promote it for his own interest ?
It's the case here, giving a lower score to a map because it doesn't have X feature that favors him is not acceptable.
[*] I think it is utterly stupid to argue against pros judging the maps (to exaggerated it a bit: "everyone but the pros should judge maps but then they have to play on them")
In a tlmc, pro-players act as a jury and not as a player. As such, they should seek impartiality. Of course perfect impartiality is utopic but being mostly impartial is possible.
Acting in their self-interest is unprofessional. If they are unable to act in that manner, they cannot be judge.
Example in another industry: song contests that are so popular on tv. How would people react if one judge would give a low score to a good rock music performance because he only likes hip-hop and want to promote it for his own interest ?
It's the case here, giving a lower score to a map because it doesn't have X feature that favors him is not acceptable.
No it isn't ... as said before the quotes are ripped from context and the reasoning on stream is very much shortened so viewers get not bored ... It was a combination of reasons that led to the score, but if you mention them all on stream viewers get annoyed after the first 2 ... the no air space was just the easiest to show and in combination with the other reasons making it a bad map (btw. i agree with the assessment of that map not being great, i already see at least 3 other issues with it at first flance)
[*] I think it is utterly stupid to argue against pros judging the maps (to exaggerated it a bit: "everyone but the pros should judge maps but then they have to play on them")
In a tlmc, pro-players act as a jury and not as a player. As such, they should seek impartiality. Of course perfect impartiality is utopic but being mostly impartial is possible.
Acting in their self-interest is unprofessional. If they are unable to act in that manner, they cannot be judge.
Example in another industry: song contests that are so popular on tv. How would people react if one judge would give a low score to a good rock music performance because he only likes hip-hop and want to promote it for his own interest ?
It's the case here, giving a lower score to a map because it doesn't have X feature that favors him is not acceptable.
No it isn't ... as said before the quotes are ripped from context and the reasoning on stream is very much shortened so viewers get not bored ....
What is the context though?
If a streamer is giving their rationale for judging, as a fan of Starcraft watching I’d be happy for them to take some time to properly explain, but hey that’s just me speaking about my own tastes, I’d find that interesting.
It seems entirely consistent to me that a person who doesn’t fully explain their rationale to a stream for their positions would also not extend a huge amount of time to judge maps.
On July 12 2021 01:51 DrDevice wrote: The part about not even realizing horizontal spawns were disabled is pretty embarrassing. That is historically a very normal thing on 4 player maps, we have had other 4 player maps with horiz disabled. The fact that someone was more willing to assume the mapmaker is a moron than spend 2 minutes checking whether the mapmaker thought of that speaks volumes about how little that judge cared.
if you would have seen all the maps they had to judge ...... well lets just say there are maps that are that bad
The fact that Biosphere IV would've been trashed along with every other 4P map even if its spawns were correctly understood is indicative of my other problems with this contest. I can go into those further if I must.
Why? That map has several other issues apart from the spawns and it being a 4player map ...
imo it should not make it to ladder
Arguing that it's fine that a map was completely mis-judged through the incompetence of the judge just because you don't think it's a good map is the argument of a fanboy. Why should anyone have confidence that other maps were judged properly?
On July 12 2021 04:58 ROOTCatZ wrote: Of course pro players care about the maps going into the game they make a living from.
Also important to note that the judge panel is not comprised entirely of Pro-players, and that guidelines provided by TL / the contest itself are heavily biased towards "standard" maps by default.
To speak only for myself, I gave this feedback during the judging phase on the TLMC discord:
I have a question on the grading criteria Seems like if the criteria we have to use is the map being ready or not for competitive play it heavily biases the judging towards maps that look like current competitive maps Since those are obviously competitive ready, where as if there is a map that's even just slightly different, saying it's ready for competitive is more of a question mark regardless of how good/cool the map is in the judge's eyes (we'd have less data vs any map that looks like the 3000th version of cloud kingdom) And yet I feel boxed into rating cloud kingdom maps as 5 cause they're tried and tested plenty
TLMC admin agreed to a degree (Winter also agreed), but also emphasized that the guidelines were carried over from previous TLMCs with Blizzard devs at the helm.
I've had my own criticisms of Blizzard devs policies, especially post David Kim. Having worked with them closely I believe that as a team, their relative inexperience and the game's seemingly inevitable path towards 'stability' (lack of budget and Blizzard's unwillingness to invest into the game / development further) always led them to make 'safer' choices when it came to balance and by extension things like maps, that was something I was always trying to off-set while consulting at Blizzard.
Also important to note as I've said alluded to more than once in the Pylon show; pro players in this day and age are generally iterators by excellence. Specially because the game hasn't changed radically it constantly rewards those who grind and do the same thing over and over vs other design alternatives seen in most games today that heavily reward adaptation and creativity because their games actively change radically, Dota and TeamFight Tactics come to mind for me, as I love both of those games also. This is a byproduct of the design philosophy (this time stemming from David Kim) to trend towards mastery and can be tracked back to unavoidable pitfalls like the very nature of StarCraft 2's economic model as a game (originally boxed product) vs self-sustaining / renewing f2p with in-game sales / content as a the primary driver, which offers devs the ability to continue to reliably work on the game and make active / big change.
Regardless of all this, it's important to note that the invited Judging panel was comprised of 3 Pro players, 2 casters and 2 streamers, rather than something like all pro players as it's soft implied here. Some pro players may have actively tried to vote down 4 player maps and creative maps, but personally, and after this discussion above on grading criteria - I tended to grade creative maps that seemed fun to play and my favorite 4 player maps higher than the great majority of "standard" maps. I think I would've done the same thing in my time as a pro. All to the point that while this post seems well intentioned it's not really giving a very comprehensive picture of what's going on behind the scenes for the contest.
It's not so grim or as black and white as op makes it seem and I think everyone is doing the best that they can to push their own idea of what game / ecosystem they want to inhabit; at this, I think TL / admins did a good job of allowing diverse opinions to influence the map contest this time around.
I mean yeah of course the guidelines are also bad, and the complete lack of transparency is also bad. But these are not new arguments. This is stuff that I and other people have argued for, and asked Kantuva for for years. But of course there's never been any improvements.
[*] I think it is utterly stupid to argue against pros judging the maps (to exaggerated it a bit: "everyone but the pros should judge maps but then they have to play on them")
In a tlmc, pro-players act as a jury and not as a player. As such, they should seek impartiality. Of course perfect impartiality is utopic but being mostly impartial is possible.
Acting in their self-interest is unprofessional. If they are unable to act in that manner, they cannot be judge.
Example in another industry: song contests that are so popular on tv. How would people react if one judge would give a low score to a good rock music performance because he only likes hip-hop and want to promote it for his own interest ?
It's the case here, giving a lower score to a map because it doesn't have X feature that favors him is not acceptable.
No it isn't ... as said before the quotes are ripped from context and the reasoning on stream is very much shortened so viewers get not bored ....
What is the context though?
If a streamer is giving their rationale for judging, as a fan of Starcraft watching I’d be happy for them to take some time to properly explain, but hey that’s just me speaking about my own tastes, I’d find that interesting.
It seems entirely consistent to me that a person who doesn’t fully explain their rationale to a stream for their positions would also not extend a huge amount of time to judge maps.
If you only want to see the bad things in pro judges go on ahead ...
I detest the kinda circle jerking of the mappers in this thread trying to discredit pros
On July 12 2021 05:22 ZigguratOfUr wrote: Arguing that it's fine that a map was completely mis-judged through the incompetence of the judge just because you don't think it's a good map is the argument of a fanboy. Why should anyone have confidence that other maps were judged properly?
why is the judge incompetent if they trust the admins?
i think you are a hypocrite, you want mappers to get recognition and their mistakes all are minor to you, but if a pro judges on the criteria they have and the information provided you bash on them ...
also who says that the judge didn't also consider other reasons for their score? (which actually was the case here)
again on stream people tend to shorten their arguments quite a lot ...
I mean yeah of course the guidelines are also bad, and the complete lack of transparency is also bad. But these are not new arguments. This is stuff that I and other people have argued for, and asked Kantuva for for years. But of course there's never been any improvements.
Maybe with blizz now basically being out of the picture and enough time to set up the next TLMC properly instead of this rushed version the chances are good that some things can change
I just want to say you make very compelling arguments, OP.
Also about the topic of rush maps sucking, I couldn't agree more. We have macro and standard map categories, and the multi spawn/rush should be something different, something special.
Cloud Kingdom was a great map, but I don't want to play on Cloudest Kingdom #6. Let's have more creativity alongside our standard maps.
On July 12 2021 05:22 ZigguratOfUr wrote: Arguing that it's fine that a map was completely mis-judged through the incompetence of the judge just because you don't think it's a good map is the argument of a fanboy. Why should anyone have confidence that other maps were judged properly?
why is the judge incompetent if they trust the admins?
i think you are a hypocrite, you want mappers to get recognition and their mistakes all are minor to you, but if a pro judges on the criteria they have and the information provided you bash on them ...
also who says that the judge didn't also consider other reasons for their score? (which actually was the case here)
again on stream people tend to shorten their arguments quite a lot ...
I mean yeah of course the guidelines are also bad, and the complete lack of transparency is also bad. But these are not new arguments. This is stuff that I and other people have argued for, and asked Kantuva for for years. But of course there's never been any improvements.
Maybe with blizz now basically being out of the picture and enough time to set up the next TLMC properly instead of this rushed version the chances are good that some things can change
Because it's obvious? Sure it's a mistake from the admins, but if the judge had done his due diligence he would of course have noticed the spawn issue. And it's not just a matter of shortening arguments--the judge was not even claiming to be entirely objective, unbiased, or anything of the sort. He was simply picking maps that he personally likes.
And I'm not claiming that mapmakers never make mistakes or anything like that. And the idea that mapmakers get any recognition at all is laughable. I'm not even claiming that these maps that were misjudged are necessarily good. But they were misjudged nonetheless.
Maybe they should have different judges for different categories?
It's understandable pro players will want the most standard maps, and that even some of the rules favor certain maps over others.
Also reading some other comments here...it's clear there are some big bias against 4 spawn maps for example, of that's the case what's the point? Four spawn maps aren't even bad. We have had some great games in four spawn maps.
Even maps that would never fly this day that were 4 spawn maps were great in their time.
On July 12 2021 05:22 ZigguratOfUr wrote: Arguing that it's fine that a map was completely mis-judged through the incompetence of the judge just because you don't think it's a good map is the argument of a fanboy. Why should anyone have confidence that other maps were judged properly?
why is the judge incompetent if they trust the admins?
i think you are a hypocrite, you want mappers to get recognition and their mistakes all are minor to you, but if a pro judges on the criteria they have and the information provided you bash on them ...
also who says that the judge didn't also consider other reasons for their score? (which actually was the case here)
again on stream people tend to shorten their arguments quite a lot ...
I mean yeah of course the guidelines are also bad, and the complete lack of transparency is also bad. But these are not new arguments. This is stuff that I and other people have argued for, and asked Kantuva for for years. But of course there's never been any improvements.
Maybe with blizz now basically being out of the picture and enough time to set up the next TLMC properly instead of this rushed version the chances are good that some things can change
Because it's obvious?
Not really. You (again) ignore the possibility that mapmakers can do mistakes too and actually allow such spawns sometimes.
Sure it's a mistake from the admins, but if the judge had done his due diligence he would of course have noticed the spawn issue. And it's not just a matter of shortening arguments--the judge was not even claiming to be entirely objective, unbiased, or anything of the sort. He was simply picking maps that he personally likes.
He actually said that he judged maps on his personal likes regarding design and on their usability for pro play. Not that he picked them because he liked them for them being advantageous to him.
Stop trying to rip stuff from context and using it for your agenda ...
And I'm not claiming that mapmakers never make mistakes or anything like that. And the idea that mapmakers get any recognition at all is laughable.
So should i remove the map maker pages on LP now? ...
I'm not even claiming that these maps that were misjudged are necessarily good. But they were misjudged nonetheless.
No they were not ... The argumentation during stream could have been better, but as was said on stream the argumentation on stream was based on a quick look at the maps during the stream.
On July 12 2021 05:22 ZigguratOfUr wrote: Arguing that it's fine that a map was completely mis-judged through the incompetence of the judge just because you don't think it's a good map is the argument of a fanboy. Why should anyone have confidence that other maps were judged properly?
why is the judge incompetent if they trust the admins?
i think you are a hypocrite, you want mappers to get recognition and their mistakes all are minor to you, but if a pro judges on the criteria they have and the information provided you bash on them ...
also who says that the judge didn't also consider other reasons for their score? (which actually was the case here)
again on stream people tend to shorten their arguments quite a lot ...
I mean yeah of course the guidelines are also bad, and the complete lack of transparency is also bad. But these are not new arguments. This is stuff that I and other people have argued for, and asked Kantuva for for years. But of course there's never been any improvements.
Maybe with blizz now basically being out of the picture and enough time to set up the next TLMC properly instead of this rushed version the chances are good that some things can change
Because it's obvious?
Not really. You (again) ignore the possibility that mapmakers can do mistakes too and actually allow such spawns sometimes.
Sure it's a mistake from the admins, but if the judge had done his due diligence he would of course have noticed the spawn issue. And it's not just a matter of shortening arguments--the judge was not even claiming to be entirely objective, unbiased, or anything of the sort. He was simply picking maps that he personally likes.
He actually said that he judged maps on his personal likes regarding design and on their usability for pro play. Not that he picked them because he liked them for them being advantageous to him.
Stop trying to rip stuff from context and using it for your agenda ...
I'm not even claiming that these maps that were misjudged are necessarily good. But they were misjudged nonetheless.
No they were not ... The argumentation during stream could have been better, but as was said on stream the argumentation on stream was based on a quick look at the maps during the stream.
Sure the mapmaker could have made a mistake. But then a judge who actually cared would have confirmed that.
[*] I think it is utterly stupid to argue against pros judging the maps (to exaggerated it a bit: "everyone but the pros should judge maps but then they have to play on them")
In a tlmc, pro-players act as a jury and not as a player. As such, they should seek impartiality. Of course perfect impartiality is utopic but being mostly impartial is possible.
Acting in their self-interest is unprofessional. If they are unable to act in that manner, they cannot be judge.
Example in another industry: song contests that are so popular on tv. How would people react if one judge would give a low score to a good rock music performance because he only likes hip-hop and want to promote it for his own interest ?
It's the case here, giving a lower score to a map because it doesn't have X feature that favors him is not acceptable.
No it isn't ... as said before the quotes are ripped from context and the reasoning on stream is very much shortened so viewers get not bored ....
What is the context though?
If a streamer is giving their rationale for judging, as a fan of Starcraft watching I’d be happy for them to take some time to properly explain, but hey that’s just me speaking about my own tastes, I’d find that interesting.
It seems entirely consistent to me that a person who doesn’t fully explain their rationale to a stream for their positions would also not extend a huge amount of time to judge maps.
If you only want to see the bad things in pro judges go on ahead ...
I detest the kinda circle jerking of the mappers in this thread trying to discredit pros
Ah yes, the mappers that earn loads of money from the game and get loads of love from the community.
I absolutely don’t want to see only the negatives that pros bring, whatsoever. They have an incredible insight into the game and are an extremely valuable resource in the map-making process.
If pros are judging maps that they don’t play, to the extent they disregard a map for imbalanced 4 player spawning patterns when it’s not a 4 player map, then yes I’ll be critical of the pro judges.
Main reason I don't play anymore is because the maps are incredibly boring and samey. I've always attributed this to pros wanting the game to be a certain way so they don't have to think / adapt at all. I dont mind playing on 'terrible maps'. i enjoy thinking about the game / strategy for the map specifically, or at least i used to. golden wall was the best map in years imo because it was a breath of fresh air.
On July 12 2021 06:22 LHK wrote: Main reason I don't play anymore is because the maps are incredibly boring and samey. I've always attributed this to pros wanting the game to be a certain way so they don't have to think / adapt at all. I dont mind playing on 'terrible maps'. i enjoy thinking about the game / strategy for the map specifically, or at least i used to. golden wall was the best map in years imo because it was a breath of fresh air.
Maybe adding 2 "bad" maps to the ladder map pool (as 8th/9th map) and granting 2 extra vetoes on ladder would be good.
For tournaments one could just kick them again. This way the casual players can have their weird maps for the fresh air and pros still can just veto them and do not have to play them in tournaments.
On July 12 2021 06:38 ReachTheSky wrote: Pros should never be involved in any map making decisions or map pool decisions or balance decisions because it is a CONFLICT OF INTEREST.
ROFL, so the people who have by far the best knowledge and by far the best argumentations should not be asked?
You need a proper pool of pros with at best case an equal quota for all races to counteract the conflict of interest, but removing the best input you can get is just a bad idea.
On July 12 2021 06:38 ReachTheSky wrote: Pros should never be involved in any map making decisions or map pool decisions or balance decisions because it is a CONFLICT OF INTEREST.
ROFL, so the people who have by far the best knowledge and by far the best argumentations should not be asked?
You need a proper pool of pros with at best case an equal quota for all races to counteract the conflict of interest, but removing the best input you can get is just a bad idea.
It's still a conflict of interest. Find a better way.
I just want to know why for example maps like Enchanted Isle & Sanguinite got picked in the macro finalists over maps like Gresvan & Hardwire?
The current system is not working well to pick the absolutely best, most well designed maps on a consistent basis. This is not the first map contest where the results were a mixed bag and the more interesting and well made maps were skipped over for less impressive maps. I think the OP highlights why this seems to be the case, and that something needs to change if the game is going to continue forward instead of stagnating.
ZigguratOfUr - While I appreciate you brining up issues with how TLMC is conducted - the rest of your post is a cesspool of player/judge bashing. A lot of people (me included) aren't willing to discuss improvements to TLMC in this kind of environment.
I recommend starting a new thread, articulating your thoughts without the emotional baggage, and preferably including some of the background information missing from your original post (as pointed out by Catz).
TLMC is key to the continued success of Starcraft 2, and it's important that we get it right.
On July 12 2021 04:58 ROOTCatZ wrote: Of course pro players care about the maps going into the game they make a living from.
Also important to note that the judge panel is not comprised entirely of Pro-players, and that guidelines provided by TL / the contest itself are heavily biased towards "standard" maps by default.
To speak only for myself, I gave this feedback during the judging phase on the TLMC discord:
I have a question on the grading criteria Seems like if the criteria we have to use is the map being ready or not for competitive play it heavily biases the judging towards maps that look like current competitive maps Since those are obviously competitive ready, where as if there is a map that's even just slightly different, saying it's ready for competitive is more of a question mark regardless of how good/cool the map is in the judge's eyes (we'd have less data vs any map that looks like the 3000th version of cloud kingdom) And yet I feel boxed into rating cloud kingdom maps as 5 cause they're tried and tested plenty
TLMC admin agreed to a degree (Winter also agreed), but also emphasized that the guidelines were carried over from previous TLMCs with Blizzard devs at the helm.
I've had my own criticisms of Blizzard devs policies, especially post David Kim. Having worked with them closely I believe that as a team, their relative inexperience and the game's seemingly inevitable path towards 'stability' (lack of budget and Blizzard's unwillingness to invest into the game / development further) always led them to make 'safer' choices when it came to balance and by extension things like maps, that was something I was always trying to off-set while consulting at Blizzard.
Also important to note as I've said alluded to more than once in the Pylon show; pro players in this day and age are generally iterators by excellence. Specially because the game hasn't changed radically it constantly rewards those who grind and do the same thing over and over vs other design alternatives seen in most games today that heavily reward adaptation and creativity because their games actively change radically, Dota and TeamFight Tactics come to mind for me, as I love both of those games also. This is a byproduct of the design philosophy (this time stemming from David Kim) to trend towards mastery and can be tracked back to unavoidable pitfalls like the very nature of StarCraft 2's economic model as a game (originally boxed product) vs self-sustaining / renewing f2p with in-game sales / content as a the primary driver, which offers devs the ability to continue to reliably work on the game and make active / big change. Tim Morten / LOTV did good to try and turn things around in the 'right' direction and keep things afloat, at least from my perspective, but it's difficult to change the foundations and re-wire people's perception of a then 7-or-so(?) year old game.
Regardless of all this, it's important to note that the invited Judging panel was comprised of 3 Pro players, 2 casters and 2 streamers, rather than something like all pro players as it's soft implied here. Some pro players may have actively tried to vote down 4 player maps and creative maps, but personally, and after this discussion above on grading criteria - I tended to grade creative maps that seemed fun to play and my favorite 4 player maps higher than the great majority of "standard" maps. I think I would've done the same thing in my time as a pro. All to the point that while this post seems well intentioned it's not really giving a very comprehensive picture of what's going on behind the scenes for the contest.
It's not so grim or as black and white as op makes it seem and I think everyone is doing the best that they can to push their own idea of what game / ecosystem they want to inhabit; at this, I think TL / admins did a good job of allowing diverse opinions to influence the map contest this time around.
I greatly appreciate this piece of insight into the process and that you recognise the flaws of incentivising voting for "tried(or should I say tired) and true" map archetypes.
I feel with more feedback and reasoning bridging the gap between players and mapmakers this post could have been avoided. - The judges not being forced to read the description provided by the mapmaker is unacceptable. - The judges not having to provide at least a handful of comments for maps they look at that can find their way back to the mapmaker is a massive missed opportunity to educate especially newer mapmakers.
On July 12 2021 04:58 ROOTCatZ wrote: Of course pro players care about the maps going into the game they make a living from.
Also important to note that the judge panel is not comprised entirely of Pro-players, and that guidelines provided by TL / the contest itself are heavily biased towards "standard" maps by default.
To speak only for myself, I gave this feedback during the judging phase on the TLMC discord:
I have a question on the grading criteria Seems like if the criteria we have to use is the map being ready or not for competitive play it heavily biases the judging towards maps that look like current competitive maps Since those are obviously competitive ready, where as if there is a map that's even just slightly different, saying it's ready for competitive is more of a question mark regardless of how good/cool the map is in the judge's eyes (we'd have less data vs any map that looks like the 3000th version of cloud kingdom) And yet I feel boxed into rating cloud kingdom maps as 5 cause they're tried and tested plenty
TLMC admin agreed to a degree (Winter also agreed), but also emphasized that the guidelines were carried over from previous TLMCs with Blizzard devs at the helm.
I've had my own criticisms of Blizzard devs policies, especially post David Kim. Having worked with them closely I believe that as a team, their relative inexperience and the game's seemingly inevitable path towards 'stability' (lack of budget and Blizzard's unwillingness to invest into the game / development further) always led them to make 'safer' choices when it came to balance and by extension things like maps, that was something I was always trying to off-set while consulting at Blizzard.
Also important to note as I've said alluded to more than once in the Pylon show; pro players in this day and age are generally iterators by excellence. Specially because the game hasn't changed radically it constantly rewards those who grind and do the same thing over and over vs other design alternatives seen in most games today that heavily reward adaptation and creativity because their games actively change radically, Dota and TeamFight Tactics come to mind for me, as I love both of those games also. This is a byproduct of the design philosophy (this time stemming from David Kim) to trend towards mastery and can be tracked back to unavoidable pitfalls like the very nature of StarCraft 2's economic model as a game (originally boxed product) vs self-sustaining / renewing f2p with in-game sales / content as a the primary driver, which offers devs the ability to continue to reliably work on the game and make active / big change. Tim Morten / LOTV did good to try and turn things around in the 'right' direction and keep things afloat, at least from my perspective, but it's difficult to change the foundations and re-wire people's perception of a then 7-or-so(?) year old game.
Regardless of all this, it's important to note that the invited Judging panel was comprised of 3 Pro players, 2 casters and 2 streamers, rather than something like all pro players as it's soft implied here. Some pro players may have actively tried to vote down 4 player maps and creative maps, but personally, and after this discussion above on grading criteria - I tended to grade creative maps that seemed fun to play and my favorite 4 player maps higher than the great majority of "standard" maps. I think I would've done the same thing in my time as a pro. All to the point that while this post seems well intentioned it's not really giving a very comprehensive picture of what's going on behind the scenes for the contest.
It's not so grim or as black and white as op makes it seem and I think everyone is doing the best that they can to push their own idea of what game / ecosystem they want to inhabit; at this, I think TL / admins did a good job of allowing diverse opinions to influence the map contest this time around.
I greatly appreciate this piece of insight into the process and that you recognise the flaws of incentivising voting for "tried(or should I say tired) and true" map archetypes.
I feel with more feedback and reasoning bridging the gap between players and mapmakers this post could have been avoided. - The judges not being forced to read the description provided by the mapmaker is unacceptable. - The judges not having to provide at least a handful of comments for maps they look at that can find their way back to the mapmaker is a massive missed opportunity to educate especially newer mapmakers.
TLMC is not intended as a way to give feedback to the map makers. It happens once or twice per year, and that is too long of a time frame for mapmakers to iterate on. Week-long workshops between mapmakers and pro players/judges are a better way of incorporating feedback.
Not only pros want to play on standard maps, I for my part don't want to play on a new Secret Spring ever again. Sure for spectactors and Gold league heroes it's "cool" and "interesting" but I don't think we should design the game for those people over the people who invest their life into the game.
On July 12 2021 04:58 ROOTCatZ wrote: Of course pro players care about the maps going into the game they make a living from.
Also important to note that the judge panel is not comprised entirely of Pro-players, and that guidelines provided by TL / the contest itself are heavily biased towards "standard" maps by default.
To speak only for myself, I gave this feedback during the judging phase on the TLMC discord:
I have a question on the grading criteria Seems like if the criteria we have to use is the map being ready or not for competitive play it heavily biases the judging towards maps that look like current competitive maps Since those are obviously competitive ready, where as if there is a map that's even just slightly different, saying it's ready for competitive is more of a question mark regardless of how good/cool the map is in the judge's eyes (we'd have less data vs any map that looks like the 3000th version of cloud kingdom) And yet I feel boxed into rating cloud kingdom maps as 5 cause they're tried and tested plenty
TLMC admin agreed to a degree (Winter also agreed), but also emphasized that the guidelines were carried over from previous TLMCs with Blizzard devs at the helm.
I've had my own criticisms of Blizzard devs policies, especially post David Kim. Having worked with them closely I believe that as a team, their relative inexperience and the game's seemingly inevitable path towards 'stability' (lack of budget and Blizzard's unwillingness to invest into the game / development further) always led them to make 'safer' choices when it came to balance and by extension things like maps, that was something I was always trying to off-set while consulting at Blizzard.
Also important to note as I've said alluded to more than once in the Pylon show; pro players in this day and age are generally iterators by excellence. Specially because the game hasn't changed radically it constantly rewards those who grind and do the same thing over and over vs other design alternatives seen in most games today that heavily reward adaptation and creativity because their games actively change radically, Dota and TeamFight Tactics come to mind for me, as I love both of those games also. This is a byproduct of the design philosophy (this time stemming from David Kim) to trend towards mastery and can be tracked back to unavoidable pitfalls like the very nature of StarCraft 2's economic model as a game (originally boxed product) vs self-sustaining / renewing f2p with in-game sales / content as a the primary driver, which offers devs the ability to continue to reliably work on the game and make active / big change. Tim Morten / LOTV did good to try and turn things around in the 'right' direction and keep things afloat, at least from my perspective, but it's difficult to change the foundations and re-wire people's perception of a then 7-or-so(?) year old game.
Regardless of all this, it's important to note that the invited Judging panel was comprised of 3 Pro players, 2 casters and 2 streamers, rather than something like all pro players as it's soft implied here. Some pro players may have actively tried to vote down 4 player maps and creative maps, but personally, and after this discussion above on grading criteria - I tended to grade creative maps that seemed fun to play and my favorite 4 player maps higher than the great majority of "standard" maps. I think I would've done the same thing in my time as a pro. All to the point that while this post seems well intentioned it's not really giving a very comprehensive picture of what's going on behind the scenes for the contest.
It's not so grim or as black and white as op makes it seem and I think everyone is doing the best that they can to push their own idea of what game / ecosystem they want to inhabit; at this, I think TL / admins did a good job of allowing diverse opinions to influence the map contest this time around.
I greatly appreciate this piece of insight into the process and that you recognise the flaws of incentivising voting for "tried(or should I say tired) and true" map archetypes.
I feel with more feedback and reasoning bridging the gap between players and mapmakers this post could have been avoided. - The judges not being forced to read the description provided by the mapmaker is unacceptable. - The judges not having to provide at least a handful of comments for maps they look at that can find their way back to the mapmaker is a massive missed opportunity to educate especially newer mapmakers.
TLMC is not intended as a way to give feedback to the map makers. It happens once or twice per year, and that is too long of a time frame for mapmakers to iterate on. Week-long workshops between mapmakers and pro players/judges are a better way of incorporating feedback.
I've heard that sorry excuse before. And it's just that. I do not care for the initial intention of the contest.
So the contest gets to pick the maps they want and all the unsuccessful mappers get what exactly? Not even a clammy handshake, just a "better luck next time".
"What aspect of my map made it unsuitable for competitive play?" - "we'll tell you in a few weeks when nobody cares anymore because the contest is over and the pro players no longer remember even having looked at your map and most likely will ignore any approach to give feedback"
I think it's high time to rethink the "intentions" of the contest in this regard if you don't want your mapmakers to be frustrated to the point of making justified threads like this one.
It's very hard to stay motivated to compete in something that feels like throwing darts at a wall blindfolded and not even get told afterwards where the dartboard was or if the throws were even close. Apparently I'm pretty good at dart throwing with 2 finalists, but are my maps actually good or was I just lucky with my dartboardguessing?
On July 12 2021 04:58 ROOTCatZ wrote: Of course pro players care about the maps going into the game they make a living from.
Also important to note that the judge panel is not comprised entirely of Pro-players, and that guidelines provided by TL / the contest itself are heavily biased towards "standard" maps by default.
To speak only for myself, I gave this feedback during the judging phase on the TLMC discord:
I have a question on the grading criteria Seems like if the criteria we have to use is the map being ready or not for competitive play it heavily biases the judging towards maps that look like current competitive maps Since those are obviously competitive ready, where as if there is a map that's even just slightly different, saying it's ready for competitive is more of a question mark regardless of how good/cool the map is in the judge's eyes (we'd have less data vs any map that looks like the 3000th version of cloud kingdom) And yet I feel boxed into rating cloud kingdom maps as 5 cause they're tried and tested plenty
TLMC admin agreed to a degree (Winter also agreed), but also emphasized that the guidelines were carried over from previous TLMCs with Blizzard devs at the helm.
I've had my own criticisms of Blizzard devs policies, especially post David Kim. Having worked with them closely I believe that as a team, their relative inexperience and the game's seemingly inevitable path towards 'stability' (lack of budget and Blizzard's unwillingness to invest into the game / development further) always led them to make 'safer' choices when it came to balance and by extension things like maps, that was something I was always trying to off-set while consulting at Blizzard.
Also important to note as I've said alluded to more than once in the Pylon show; pro players in this day and age are generally iterators by excellence. Specially because the game hasn't changed radically it constantly rewards those who grind and do the same thing over and over vs other design alternatives seen in most games today that heavily reward adaptation and creativity because their games actively change radically, Dota and TeamFight Tactics come to mind for me, as I love both of those games also. This is a byproduct of the design philosophy (this time stemming from David Kim) to trend towards mastery and can be tracked back to unavoidable pitfalls like the very nature of StarCraft 2's economic model as a game (originally boxed product) vs self-sustaining / renewing f2p with in-game sales / content as a the primary driver, which offers devs the ability to continue to reliably work on the game and make active / big change. Tim Morten / LOTV did good to try and turn things around in the 'right' direction and keep things afloat, at least from my perspective, but it's difficult to change the foundations and re-wire people's perception of a then 7-or-so(?) year old game.
Regardless of all this, it's important to note that the invited Judging panel was comprised of 3 Pro players, 2 casters and 2 streamers, rather than something like all pro players as it's soft implied here. Some pro players may have actively tried to vote down 4 player maps and creative maps, but personally, and after this discussion above on grading criteria - I tended to grade creative maps that seemed fun to play and my favorite 4 player maps higher than the great majority of "standard" maps. I think I would've done the same thing in my time as a pro. All to the point that while this post seems well intentioned it's not really giving a very comprehensive picture of what's going on behind the scenes for the contest.
It's not so grim or as black and white as op makes it seem and I think everyone is doing the best that they can to push their own idea of what game / ecosystem they want to inhabit; at this, I think TL / admins did a good job of allowing diverse opinions to influence the map contest this time around.
I greatly appreciate this piece of insight into the process and that you recognise the flaws of incentivising voting for "tried(or should I say tired) and true" map archetypes.
I feel with more feedback and reasoning bridging the gap between players and mapmakers this post could have been avoided. - The judges not being forced to read the description provided by the mapmaker is unacceptable. - The judges not having to provide at least a handful of comments for maps they look at that can find their way back to the mapmaker is a massive missed opportunity to educate especially newer mapmakers.
TLMC is not intended as a way to give feedback to the map makers. It happens once or twice per year, and that is too long of a time frame for mapmakers to iterate on. Week-long workshops between mapmakers and pro players/judges are a better way of incorporating feedback.
Maybe the middle ground could be good. Like split the vote into several subscores. Each from 5 to 0 points. Such subscores could be given for design, balance / competitive fairness, bugs (and maybe more). Judges do not have to give every subscore, so e.g. if a map is extremely bad due to balance the bugs subscore would be omitted because irrelevant. Or e.g. if they just do not have an opinion about the design. If a subscore is below 2 (or maybe 3) a reason could be added at he judges discretion. If then the results would be made available to the map makers (or even public) this would work as a good feedback and you get improved transparency. (Even without the reasons the map maker at least gets a bit of feedback as to which categories were responsible for his worse score.)
Of course that keeps the issue that between submission and results (and feedbacks) quite some time passes.
Optimal would be if mappers asked pros for their opinions directly. I know that at least several of them reply to such requests on their discord servers and point out problems they see. (Which btw has happened only 3 times in total during the last year on the discord servers i am on ...)
Without reading everything the feedback forever has been 'please dont design 4 player maps' . 4 player maps do not work for so many reasons. Once again I am casting a tournament with 4 player maps. Obviously players will not bother to take a deeper look.
Not saying the system isn't flawed but certainly not only judges are to blame
On July 12 2021 07:31 KillerSmile wrote: So the contest gets to pick the maps they want and all the unsuccessful mappers get what exactly? Not even a clammy handshake, just a "better luck next time".
That is in general how voluntary stuff works. Do you think Liquipedia contributors get anything out of editing hours and hours every week? What we get is the satisfaction to help the community, document the (competitive) history of the game, the fun wile editing (be it writing lua modules, templates, creating player/team/tournament (and even mapmaker) pages, updating scores, ...) and of course the cool community we have on the Liquipedia discord (across the games/wikis).
You on the other hand even have a contest with prize money. Yeah there for sure is room for improvement, but this crying about everything the whole time (and bashing players/judges while at it) is annoying af in my opinion.
On July 12 2021 08:02 TaKeTV wrote: Without reading everything the feedback forever has been 'please dont design 4 player maps' . 4 player maps do not work for so many reasons. Once again I am casting a tournament with 4 player maps. Obviously players will not bother to take a deeper look.
Not saying the system isn't flawed but certainly not only judges are to blame
Pros even gave somewhat high points for some rare 4 player maps. Most 4 player maps are pretty bad but every once in a while there is the one out of thousand 4player map which is actually okay ...
On July 12 2021 08:02 TaKeTV wrote: Without reading everything the feedback forever has been 'please dont design 4 player maps' . 4 player maps do not work for so many reasons. Once again I am casting a tournament with 4 player maps. Obviously players will not bother to take a deeper look.
Not saying the system isn't flawed but certainly not only judges are to blame
The contest rules specified that there were going to be at least 4 multi-spawn finalists. Lots of mapmakers don't think 4p maps are a good idea either - but knowing that several of them were guaranteed to be selected no matter what, everyone involved (mappers and judges) should do their part to make sure the ones chosen suck as little as possible, instead of just mentally checking out and saying "they all suck anyway so why bother".
On July 12 2021 08:02 TaKeTV wrote: Without reading everything the feedback forever has been 'please dont design 4 player maps' . 4 player maps do not work for so many reasons. Once again I am casting a tournament with 4 player maps. Obviously players will not bother to take a deeper look.
Not saying the system isn't flawed but certainly not only judges are to blame
Pros even gave somewhat high points for some rare 4 player maps. Most 4 player maps are pretty bad but every once in a while there is the one out of thousand 4player map which is actually okay ...
Yeah he did give a good score to Tidehunter which coincidentally is a map with loads of airspace and where zerg legitimately can't take a third when spawning counter-clockwise to terran.
I wonder why our very objective terran judge liked that particular 4p map.
On July 12 2021 08:02 TaKeTV wrote: Without reading everything the feedback forever has been 'please dont design 4 player maps' . 4 player maps do not work for so many reasons. Once again I am casting a tournament with 4 player maps. Obviously players will not bother to take a deeper look.
Not saying the system isn't flawed but certainly not only judges are to blame
The issue here IMO is that SC2 has so many restrictions on maps that making more spawns makes the map more... variable. Otherwise we would end with clones.
Don't get me wrong, I hate 4-player maps in LOTV and didn't like them in WOL/HOTS, but I can see why they exist considering the other required restrictions.
I appreciate this thread a lot because it brings up a lot of issues and frustrations that map makers have about TLMC. These issues aren’t well known in the general community.
For context of how serious the situation is, 5 to 10 map makers have either directly said or implied that they may leave if things don’t change. These map makers are the ones that make good solid maps that can easily compete for finalists. They are also the ones that can most likely innovate with solid implementation. Because they have been active longer, they are also more likely to use all of their submission slots compared to newcomers that have just started because of the contest. With 5 slots per submitter this means about 25-50 maps out of all ~150-170 maps submitted to the contest are from these map makers.
These map makers also don’t just make maps but also give feedback to newcomers. Check the Work In Progress Melee Maps thread to see how active ZigguratOfUr has been in giving feedback to beginners over the years. Also I’m pretty sure that most of the new finalists can tell how they have gotten a lot of feedback from older map makers in the map maker discord.
On a brighter side of things possible solutions have also been discussed in the map maker discord. For example, the idea that pro players should judge only standard and macro categories, and other judges would judge freestyle, multi-spawn and rush categories, has come up multiple times.
On July 12 2021 08:02 TaKeTV wrote: Without reading everything the feedback forever has been 'please dont design 4 player maps' . 4 player maps do not work for so many reasons. Once again I am casting a tournament with 4 player maps. Obviously players will not bother to take a deeper look.
Not saying the system isn't flawed but certainly not only judges are to blame
The issue here IMO is that SC2 has so many restrictions on maps that making more spawns makes the map more... variable. Otherwise we would end with clones.
Don't get me wrong, I hate 4-player maps in LOTV and didn't like them in WOL/HOTS, but I can see why they exist considering the other required restrictions.
I agree with you. There are a lot of aspects of why 4 player maps most of the time don't work. Starcraft 2 is faster , especially in LOTV. Different spawn enable different strategies which isn't bad but sometimes come with insane balance issues. Banning spawns usually results in the map still being too big.
There's just so much stuff. I can absolutely see your point in seeing clones becoming an issue but - this is personal opinion and not neutral - I'd rather see clones than maps that could make or break a game based on spawns.
Edit: a bit unrelated but I wanna try to push SAHSC to 9 or 11 maps as pool too for example. That would allow some strategic depth and more choices.
if only we could get AlphaStar to do initial balance testing, like an automated test suite
do map makers have an automated test suite? I could start working on one as an extension mod and I'd share it on github, but it would be really tough to do many useful tests, people who have experience writing SC2 AIs could help
On July 12 2021 08:02 TaKeTV wrote: Without reading everything the feedback forever has been 'please dont design 4 player maps' . 4 player maps do not work for so many reasons. Once again I am casting a tournament with 4 player maps. Obviously players will not bother to take a deeper look.
Not saying the system isn't flawed but certainly not only judges are to blame
The issue here IMO is that SC2 has so many restrictions on maps that making more spawns makes the map more... variable. Otherwise we would end with clones.
Don't get me wrong, I hate 4-player maps in LOTV and didn't like them in WOL/HOTS, but I can see why they exist considering the other required restrictions.
I agree with you. There are a lot of aspects of why 4 player maps most of the time don't work. Starcraft 2 is faster , especially in LOTV. Different spawn enable different strategies which isn't bad but sometimes come with insane balance issues. Banning spawns usually results in the map still being too big.
There's just so much stuff. I can absolutely see your point in seeing clones becoming an issue but - this is personal opinion and not neutral - I'd rather see clones than maps that could make or break a game based on spawns.
Edit: a bit unrelated but I wanna try to push SAHSC to 9 or 11 maps as pool too for example. That would allow some strategic depth and more choices.
I would love to see to having some restrictions relieved. Not for all the maps, but for some. And having more maps.
e.g. having 11 maps, giving more vetoes on ladder. 2 Terran maps, 2 Zerg maps, 2 Protoss maps and 5 balanced/neutral maps. Zerg map = open and easy third(e.g.), hard to wall natural, big ramp to main, or no ramp to main at all. And so on for other races/maps. This way players can veto the racial maps until BO7 without issues Or they can surprise. And I am not talking Protoss map - 55 % win rate. No, something like 70 % winrate because the map is bonkers.
Ultimately I think it simply takes too much time to playtest these maps. If you had a pro-level player who is paid to grind through them with all the races (David Kim??!), you'd probably be able to select some more interesting but balanced maps.
But I think the real solution is to simply offer a large variety of maps and let players veto through them (in tournament / online). This would also allow for variety between matchups, where some maps are well-liked by Terran and Protoss, but not Zerg, and so TvP, TvT, PvP occur on the map, but never TvZ, PvZ. In addition, by offering enough options, you allow players to create interesting builds for maps that might be unconventional. I think there's a lot of potential strategy here, and reminds me more of what we used to see from BW Proleague, where some players prep a very specific build for an odd map.
Judging just sucks - it's thankless work and it takes hours to look at every map properly. Don't really know a good way to fix this - not sure how much judges get paid but I think paying 2-3 people some serious money instead of more people a little would help.
I think it's super apparent in the four player maps we have in the TLMC - I absolutely refuse to believe there were no better alternatives than some of the finalists for four players. Multiple maps have severe issues with taking third bases on close spawns, it's one of the core issues of four player maps and to have some that haven't addressed this at all as finalists just feels like a way to doom any chance of getting love for an actual good four player map in the future.
Maybe less submissions per map maker or something? A system to phase out some maps before it goes to final judging? I don't know what the solution is, but I think there are some very good maps that miss out on the finalists every time and it's sad that great maps don't even get a chance.
On July 12 2021 00:39 CicadaSC wrote: 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 game should be balanced around pro play, but that doesn't mean the pro judges are good at guessing balance (look at the statistics in the original post).
On July 12 2021 01:53 Poopi wrote: 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.
Different judges treat the process differently. Some try a good faith attempt at picking the best maps for ladder. Others clearly favor their own play-style. If the later leverages their scores enough, they get disproportionate influence in the final results.
Example: Judge A likes extra airspace, but Judge B does not. If A penalizes a map 2 points for a lack of airspace, but B only deducts half a point, the map pool will be tilted heavily in favor of A.
On July 12 2021 03:08 hjpalpha wrote: 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?
Airspace isn't required for the map to be balanced, especially for smaller maps.
On July 12 2021 03:12 hjpalpha wrote: (but i think the map wouldn't have gotten a good score either way, it has several other issues)
No one is saying the map should have been a finalist, but it's clearly better than a 1.
On July 12 2021 03:14 hjpalpha wrote: 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.
I would love to see games on every map, but the logistics aren't there. We don't have the money and support to get that many games on every map. Wardi's last TLMC tournament had 142 games, enough to get some exposure to the finalists, but not enough for even one game on all the submissions.
On July 12 2021 04:49 hjpalpha wrote: [*] Imo if maps are clearly bad at a first glance it is a waste of time to look into them further, concentrating on the better ones and giving them more attention seems the better way to me. If you see clear imbalanced spots on the overview image already it is a bad map hence no further looking into it is necessary. Like if you see a map where everything is open af, no chokes, easy to secure gold, overlord spots everywhere, no reaper ramp, no air spaces behind bases it clearly is a bad map, because it is unbalanced AF (another example example: you have extreme short rush distance, lots of chokes, op liberator spots, .. is bad too, because it too is imbalanced AF)
Making balanced maps requires making smart tradeoffs. Some maps are clearly bad, but some of the features you mentioned can be compensated for in a good map. As I mentioned before, airspace should not be treated as a requirement for standard maps.
On July 12 2021 04:54 Poopi wrote: I agree though that it sucks for map makers if the process is not transparent, maybe reviewers / judge should write meaningful 3-4 lines for each map with arguments?
This would be an increase on the burden of judges, and I'm not convinced it's worth doing compared to other changes mentioned in this thread.
On July 12 2021 04:58 NewSunshine wrote: There's no other perspective, and there seems to be no allowance for any map that might offend anyone or try something genuinely different.
This is my biggest issue with player judging. We're not getting the best maps, the most creative maps, or the most balanced maps. We're getting the least offensive maps, based on a cursory glance at overview images.
On July 12 2021 06:05 hjpalpha wrote: So should i remove the map maker pages on LP now? ...
Please, don't take away my LP page!
On July 12 2021 07:15 Charoisaur wrote: Not only pros want to play on standard maps, I for my part don't want to play on a new Secret Spring ever again. Sure for spectactors and Gold league heroes it's "cool" and "interesting" but I don't think we should design the game for those people over the people who invest their life into the game.
Secret Spring is a Blizzard map. No one asked for it, and no one wanted it.
On July 12 2021 08:42 Wardi wrote: I think it's super apparent in the four player maps we have in the TLMC - I absolutely refuse to believe there were no better alternatives than some of the finalists for four players. Multiple maps have severe issues with taking third bases on close spawns, it's one of the core issues of four player maps and to have some that haven't addressed this at all as finalists just feels like a way to doom any chance of getting love for an actual good four player map in the future.
This is an incredible post. It seems absolutely absurd to me that mapmakers themselves don't have more of a say when it comes to the Map Contest - I had no idea! Let me repeat that for those in the back - the mapmaking community has next to no say in judging maps - not even for those esteemed mapmakers who aren't entering maps?
These artists who keep our game going have no horse in the race of attempting to put a thumb on balance, in fact mapmakers are usually held in highest esteem for creating maps that are balanced or offer unique gameplay. It's shocking to me that there aren't accomplished mapmakers involved in judging.
Edit: Honestly having spent so much time on Reddit, I'm frustrated I can't upvote or down-vote posts. I think the status quo is unacceptable long-term and it will harm the game if we keep seeing standard and unexciting maps. Pros have their vetoes and I want to see more Golden Walls, in the world - period. And I'm willing to pay for it, if I have to. And I think others likely agree with me. If I can't vote with upvotes, I'll vote with my eyeballs and with my wallet if I need to. Let the mapmakers dazzle us, they're an arguably under-tapped creative resource and since Blizzard isn't keeping the game dynamic anymore, they're the lone resource left to give this game periodic jolts of adrenaline.
As a judge in one of the Red Bull TLMCs, I generally agree with these criticisms and it's good you put these up for discussion so we can make TLMC the best it can be.
It takes a long time to look through all the maps, sometimes it's easy to spot big issues with some and cross them off, but usually it's a lot of theorizing since you don't have time to play on all the maps yourself.
I think it'd be good if maybe there were enough limits to submissions so that it's more realistic for maps to be given a fair chance. Maps play a huge part in the quality and longevity of the game. There are some elements that I wish were present in modern maps that I've posted about in a couple threads, and some elements I feel would be healthy but have been forgotten or are being avoided due to some unjustified stigma. It's a real shame if judges lean towards maps that look standard and pretty. We don't want pro players to be too stressed, but we should think of what maps make for fun and epic games to spectate to bring out the best of SC2.
Asking pro-gamers to judge map is just like asking the pro-football player how to make the game more interesting. Striker would ask the goal to be bigger to easier to score, goalies will ask for it to be smaller to easier to defend, defender will ask to eliminate the PK call, ect... Thats a clear conflict of interest and bias if you get different groups of players getting into the process of making the rule or setting codition of the sport. Can you make it more "objective" by forming a committee where all sides of the player pool is heard from? Yes, but they need to be transparent and comments made PUBLIC to the whole community. Then that input should be treated as the suggestion to the judges, who decide the pro and cons and finalize the voting. I just dont think we should give the player the power of rejection or down-voting new idea if it clearly interfere with their own career intesrest, just relieve them of that burdern would be nice.
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.
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.
LOTV made them much less fun and balanced because there isn't enough time to scout multiple spawns any more
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.
The problem with not factoring in any pro feedback is that you end up with maps where a single pylon lets you cannon rush a zerg, where a reaper can't scout the main base, where overlords can't scout at the start of the game, where BCs and liberators safely get free reign on mineral lines, and where rush distances are way too short (particularly 3rd to 3rd). And when there are no standards set to avoid those problems and consistent QA done you just have to hope that heavily invested players will make the difference.
Pro-players should be used in the latest phase of the judging and mainly used as a tool to improve playability/balance. We should suggest small changes like overlord pillars, reaper jump paths, dead space removal w/e and then the mapmaker can decide to act on those suggestions or not.
On July 12 2021 15:36 oOOoOphidian wrote: The problem with not factoring in any pro feedback is that you end up with maps where a single pylon lets you cannon rush a zerg,
Pros let Oblivion* be a finalist.
No one is arguing against pro feedback. The problem is many of us are not confident in the process of choosing maps, and the incentives don't always line up for pro judges to pick the best maps.
*Oblivion's ramp would have been a minor bug no one remembered if it went through TLMC first before GSL picked it.
On July 12 2021 15:58 Harstem wrote: Pro-players should be used in the latest phase of the judging and mainly used as a tool to improve playability/balance. We should suggest small changes like overlord pillars, reaper jump paths, dead space removal w/e and then the mapmaker can decide to act on those suggestions or not.
A very good take, though I'm not sure every player is on the same page with what features are okay. I agree with your opinion on dead space (you talked about it on stream a few days ago), but others seemed to deduct points for a lack of airspace. As a mapmaker, it's hard to guess what features will get penalized and which ones will pass.
On July 12 2021 15:58 Harstem wrote: Pro-players should be used in the latest phase of the judging and mainly used as a tool to improve playability/balance. We should suggest small changes like overlord pillars, reaper jump paths, dead space removal w/e and then the mapmaker can decide to act on those suggestions or not.
I like this idea a lot, it still keeps progamers involved in the process and puts their knowledge to use but in a way that doesn't make them the sole arbiter of map design.
A very good take, though I'm not sure every player is on the same page with what features are okay. I agree with your opinion on dead space (you talked about it on stream a few days ago), but others seemed to deduct points for a lack of airspace. As a mapmaker, it's hard to guess what features will get penalized and which ones will pass.
Let it be a co-operative effort rather than part of the judging stage and let it be conversational.
While I disagree with the Initial Statement that pros shouldn t be involved in the map picking process At all, I still want to thank OP for bringing awareness to the topic. Harstems and Cats insight and idears where great on this as well, so let s hope that with Blizzard now out of the process, that map makers, shopify, esl and the Players can figure something out together for the next tlmc.
I think we need to stress this out, as many people smarter than me mentioned, letting some bias in the judging phase in favour of the most bland and repetitive maps is going to be very very bad for the longevity of the game.
We need more "golden walls" type of maps to keep SC2 fresh. We are not going to get any more major updates nor new units, the only source of innovation has to come from maps.
On July 12 2021 06:38 ReachTheSky wrote: Pros should never be involved in any map making decisions or map pool decisions or balance decisions because it is a CONFLICT OF INTEREST.
ROFL, so the people who have by far the best knowledge and by far the best argumentations should not be asked?
You need a proper pool of pros with at best case an equal quota for all races to counteract the conflict of interest, but removing the best input you can get is just a bad idea.
Of course they can have a say, but their involvement should be limited. They are only PROs because there is enough people who care about this game, want to watch it and support it. That is why they make money. With the same maps over and over, game becomes stale and boring.
The PROs are the ones who supply, we are the ones who make the demand, and we all know how supply/demand works, its the same with any other sport.
Moreover the maps are not only for the PROs, lets not discount the other 95% of players.
Even though I agree with the author, this is not only a problem on ladder. GSL trying exclusive maps is a great idea introducing other new maps, however + Show Spoiler +
Parting beating Solar with a one pylon ramp block just took the cake in not testing maps
On July 12 2021 17:10 Argonauta wrote: I think we need to stress this out, as many people smarter than me mentioned, letting some bias in the judging phase in favour of the most bland and repetitive maps is going to be very very bad for the longevity of the game.
We need more "golden walls" type of maps to keep SC2 fresh. We are not going to get any more major updates nor new units, the only source of innovation has to come from maps.
Idk, Golden Wall was kind of an horrendous map both to play and spectate, I'd rather have standard maps. Having weird maps won't rise viewership or anything, it will just be annoying for players and vetoed
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)
On July 12 2021 07:31 KillerSmile wrote: So the contest gets to pick the maps they want and all the unsuccessful mappers get what exactly? Not even a clammy handshake, just a "better luck next time".
That is in general how voluntary stuff works. Do you think Liquipedia contributors get anything out of editing hours and hours every week? What we get is the satisfaction to help the community, document the (competitive) history of the game, the fun wile editing (be it writing lua modules, templates, creating player/team/tournament (and even mapmaker) pages, updating scores, ...) and of course the cool community we have on the Liquipedia discord (across the games/wikis).
You on the other hand even have a contest with prize money. Yeah there for sure is room for improvement, but this crying about everything the whole time (and bashing players/judges while at it) is annoying af in my opinion.
If you are being resentful because of the money I can assure you mapmaking is not cost-efficient. When I tell my non-SC2 friends that I won some money from something that I spend so much time getting good at they're literally making fun of me. It's definitely not enough money for having to deal with death threats over a misplaced doodad that produced a cannon spot.
It's good that you mention satisfaction, because that's what I'm in for it as well, but any behavioural psychologist will tell you that feedback is a big part of staying motivated. Without it participating in the tlmc will sooner or later feel like Sisyphus rolling his boulder up a hill only to see it roll back down with no apparent cause or reason.
Maybe so you don't see this as whining and playerbashing I'll condense it into 2 easy to understand points as to why proper comments and feedback are the solution.
- with comments attached to the maps the judges would have to show the working out of their score, which protects them from being accused of acting in bad faith
- the comments or even the just the scores can communicate to the mapmakers whether they are on the right track or not and they wouldn't have to rely on feedback from other mapmakers that have gotten good at guessing what pro players want over the years
You could argue the pro players have the right to be subjective/arbitrary and don't have to show their working out just on the basis on being authority figures by virtue of their playing proficiency. You could argue that mapmakers should just get good at mapmaking and create a pool of submissions that is as diverse as possible for the judges to choose from.
You can keep arguing. I'm not gonna be here for it. I'm not gonna submit another map until I get feedback on what I create, be it some notes or a video that was to be released by one of the judges.
And if you think you guys can do without me, fine, I'm just one guy. But if you think I'm the only one thinking like this and thoroughly fed up with the contest you're gravely mistaken.
A very good take, though I'm not sure every player is on the same page with what features are okay. I agree with your opinion on dead space (you talked about it on stream a few days ago), but others seemed to deduct points for a lack of airspace. As a mapmaker, it's hard to guess what features will get penalized and which ones will pass.
Let it be a co-operative effort rather than part of the judging stage and let it be conversational.
I am all for this. The judges should be able to check each other in the making of the scores. Looking at the maps should not be a lonely slog, but a lively conversation where the participants are still allowed to have differeing opinions and scores.
I actually watched the stream where the referred Pro explained a little his reasoning behind his scores. There seems to some points that the OP intentionally left out.
Regarding the 4 player maps, there was actually a couple of 4 players maps to which HeroMarine gave a high score of 4 if I remember correctly. He even mentioned that he would like to see more 3 player maps, because they create some variety in the game by keeping low the coin-flipping aspect of not knowing your opponent's spawn position.
Regarding the maps with the edge bases layout, he actually explained why he don't like them, but apparently the OP thought convenient to left out this fact. He said that he felt games would be uninteresting, as there could be little or no action in the middle where there are no bases to be fought for.
He clearly judged the maps based on some of his PERSONAL preferences, which might not necessarily coincide with yours, mine, ops's, and the mapmaker's. When you give no clear criteria to judge, or not demand any sort of justification, how do you expect them to be thorough, and judge objectively?. It seems to me this is a problem with the organization of the event, not with the judges
On July 12 2021 07:31 KillerSmile wrote: So the contest gets to pick the maps they want and all the unsuccessful mappers get what exactly? Not even a clammy handshake, just a "better luck next time".
Do you think Liquipedia contributors get anything out of editing hours and hours every week? What we get is the satisfaction to help the community, document the (competitive) history of the game, the fun wile editing (be it writing lua modules, templates, creating player/team/tournament (and even mapmaker) pages, updating scores, ...) and of course the cool community we have on the Liquipedia discord (across the games/wikis).
You on the other hand even have a contest with prize money. Yeah there for sure is room for improvement, but this crying about everything the whole time (and bashing players/judges while at it) is annoying af in my opinion.
Do pro players know they can refuse if they don't want to do this properly? I am lazy and that's why I don't do any voluntary work. And if anybody asks me I refuse it. It really isn't that hard to say - nope, I won't judge any maps for you. There!
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.
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?
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 why I always liked BW maps much better - because tournament organizers always liked taking risks and mixing standard with non-standard and "crazy" maps.
Would be cool if SC2 orgas tried the same approach at least from time to time..
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
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?
On July 12 2021 18:45 bubunuh wrote: Regarding the 4 player maps, there was actually a couple of 4 players maps to which HeroMarine gave a high score of 4 if I remember correctly. He even mentioned that he would like to see more 3 player maps, because they create some variety in the game by keeping low the coin-flipping aspect of not knowing your opponent's spawn position
3 player maps have been submitted. Many 4 player maps with spawn restrictions shakuras-plateau, that are technically 3 player maps, were submitted. Like the one good map that he gave a 1.
On July 12 2021 21:11 Shuffleblade wrote: 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.
Sounds good to me Whoever decides on the next tlmc, pls take this idear into consideration
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?
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
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.
Balanced around pro play != pros judging while putting in little effort and just angling to get good maps for their race on ladder with no regard for map quality.
And the non-standard maps they pick in TLMC often simply aren't balanced, so it's not as though a good job at picking balanced maps.
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.
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 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.
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).
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.
Cross Spawns are too far and close spawns are too close: 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.
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)
Spawn randomness breaks the game. 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.
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.
It's bad to have an expansion that only has a 1x entrance. . 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.
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 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.
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.
ok well then if you are biased get an equal number of terran protoss and zerg judging then they can cancel eachother out with their biases also non pros arent exempt by youre logic and literally no one is objective.
Written reasoning for scores from judges. Really need to happen so that map makers can act on the issues and learn, or just drop the map.
1.0-10.0 scoring instead of 1.0-5.0 as people tend to forget fractions.1-10 helps to differentiate between okay and good maps better than 1-5.
Have pro players judge only standard and macro categories. Other categories are judged by others. Lessens the over standardization.
Have a contest every 3-6 months. This allows limiting amount of submissions further as there isn't maps from last 12 months. Also older map makers are more likely to judge when they know that next contest isn't too far away instead of current one contest per year.
Compensate judges better.
Group judging. 2 or more judges go through the maps together and discuss, while still giving separate scores. Preferably each group has one of each race and maybe a map maker or other that knows the editor and can show the map better than overview or the restricted in-game view.
Rework the guidelines and categories. Maybe merge some and just drop some.This is not really about this current topic of how the judging happens.
Even if we accept that the best 4p rotational map is one of the finalists (I doubt it), the complete lack of other types is appalling. There was a choice of 3p maps, multiple mirrored 4p maps, and a couple of weird 4p maps with spawns not in the corners. That none of these contestants made it to the finals, as instead we got nothing but 4p rotational with obvious rotational imabalances in most cases, is a disgrace on the judging process.
The freestyle category providing only one map with real "freestylish" features is also problematic, but we can say that one in three is at least better than zero in four.
All of that comes down to extreme conservatism on the judges and/or the instructions they received (Catz makes valid points on this). In addition, having active pro players in the jury clearly can not help on advancing map making - only stalling it. Hopefully the next contest learns from this.
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.
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 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.
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.
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
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.
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).
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.
Cross Spawns are too far and close spawns are too close: 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.
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)
Spawn randomness breaks the game. 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.
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.
It's bad to have an expansion that only has a 1x entrance. . 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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
I will also second my eternal love for what SC2 proleague tried to do. They were all in on trying out all kinds of crazy, experimental maps, and asking the world's best players to devise new strategies for their specific matchup and map. It was my favorite Starcraft 2 stream. They tried all kinds of shit, including some that made it to ladder like Planet S, King Sejong Station and Korhal Sky Island. They also ended up with maps that bombed in terms of balance, but they fucking tried it anyway. Naro Station, Arkanoid remake, Anaconda, Gwangalli Beach, Outboxer, Maze, and the list goes on. If we can come even kinda close to what they did with Proleague, I would be ecstatic.
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?
I disagree. Pokebunny's idea works regardless of what's in the map pool - if the maps are standard, little is changed, if they are not, then we get to explore crazy ideas while mitigating side effects. It seems reasonable to me to start with what we can be confident is a good idea (changing map vetos), rather than with what can backfire horribly (radically different maps)
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.
True, but only to some extent. Some maps backfired spectacularly and ended up being mirror match fests, but indeed, it did work at times, provided the format was designed to account for these things. Which again is why I would emphasize re-looking at formats.
Now that I think about it, imo the way forward is to try these new map formats in the TLMC Opens, and possibly see if we can get them in TSL or something (which would work well with its BW heritage anyway).
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?
I disagree. Pokebunny's idea works regardless of what's in the map pool - if the maps are standard, little is changed, if they are not, then we get to explore crazy ideas while mitigating side effects. It seems reasonable to me to start with what we can be confident is a good idea (changing map vetos), rather than with what can backfire horribly (radically different maps)
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.
True, but only to some extent. Some maps backfired spectacularly and ended up being mirror match fests, but indeed, it did work at times, provided the format was designed to account for these things. Which again is why I would emphasize re-looking at formats.
Now that I think about it, imo the way forward is to try these new map formats in the TLMC Opens, and possibly see if we can get them in TSL or something (which would work well with its BW heritage anyway).
And yes, Proleague was amazing.
If you want radical change, you need to make what some might refer to as radical decisions such as putting radically different maps into the map pool.
Your suggestion doesn't address what the majority of the player base wants, change on ladder. Instead it aims to compromise what the pros want and what the playerbase wants BUT only from a viewer perspective for tournaments, not as a non-pro who plays starcraft 2 on ladder. We want change where the majority of the playerbase plays, on ladder. If it's not gonna be typical balance changes via tweaking unit numbers/abilities/costs then the only alternative is to include multiple radically different or unorthodox maps on the ladder, if someone doesn't want to play them, they can just veto them. But in order to do this we actually need the different style maps put on the ladder. Other wise it's just more of the same.
Yeah, other games can manage all sorts of different map pools, given how SC2 matchmaking works and that it’s a singular ladder I think it’s critical to get change to the actual ladder maps.
Even helping run and casting local tournaments I’ve suggested for years bringing back some off-ladder maps (Golden Wall most recently) and got roundly voted down every time.
Not because they hate these maps, but especially with us being increasingly busy these days it’s just easier to practice the ladder instead of finding practice partners (and we have a pretty incestuous scene so, you’d be practicing with your potential opponents).
SC2 lacks a lot in making a wider map pool that’s widely played. Not many maps to start with, you can’t queue certain matchups, and there’s no kind of non-ladder matchmaking with custom parameters either.
On July 14 2021 09:22 NewSunshine wrote: I will also second my eternal love for what SC2 proleague tried to do. They were all in on trying out all kinds of crazy, experimental maps, and asking the world's best players to devise new strategies for their specific matchup and map. It was my favorite Starcraft 2 stream. They tried all kinds of shit, including some that made it to ladder like Planet S, King Sejong Station and Korhal Sky Island. They also ended up with maps that bombed in terms of balance, but they fucking tried it anyway. Naro Station, Arkanoid remake, Anaconda, Gwangalli Beach, Outboxer, Maze, and the list goes on. If we can come even kinda close to what they did with Proleague, I would be ecstatic.
Man, Jacky’s proleague maps were the shit for sure. Would love to see similar balls to the walls maps. I think the proleague’s format definitely allowed for some more crazy maps though.
I'm super late to the party with a block of stuff that I know I talked about years ago, somewhere, at some point, but... anyway.
This is just a quick and dirty, late night example of how I would pitch a new mapmaking contest, or approach redesigning TLMC, thought up long before seeing this thread:
Splitting the workload between groups of judges and separate phases allows each judge to spend more time and attention on each submission they review. Panels of contest/tournament administrators and moderators ensure the first pool of maps is free of issues, and that the final pool of maps retains a greater degree of creativity and uniqueness (gameplay-wise) than past competitions.
⦁Stage 1: Filtering. Maps are reorganized by type (standard and creative, standard and rush, and by number of players), and unplayable (not unfinished) maps are filtered out of the entire submission pool, then maps and judges are automatically distributed into groups. Maps without textures and doodads are not removed yet. + Show Spoiler +
E.g., a panel of moderators/admins and/or public users looks at the entire submission pool, with each moderator or user being assigned an equal-sized pool/share of submissions to view; in this round, no scores are assigned, submisisons in incorrect or unclear categories are resorted into more accurate categories, and maps are only removed if they are unplayable (which could be automated using AI and bot matchmaking). Then submissions are split into pools (with a fair distribution of categories based on how many submissions are present in each category; i.e., the number of submissions of each category are proportionate within each pool) and those pools (with some overlap in submissions between pools) are assigned to each group/panel of judges.
⦁Stage 2: Judging Round 1. Each panel judges their pool (with each panelist judging and scoring independently from other judges in their panel). Low-scoring maps are then separated again and reviewed by the moderators for flaws or harsh criticism, then either removed from further judging or randomly assigned to a different panel to be scored again (then removed if they still score low). Panelists in this and each following stage are encouraged/instructed to give notes for at least half the submissions they judge.
⦁Stage 3: Judging Round 2. New panels and pools are generated and assigned to each other, then each panelist judges and scores each submission in their pool. Judges are instructed to tag their favorite maps and give comments on them. Submitters/mapmakers are notified when their submissions pass this stage.
⦁Stage 4: Judging Round 3. Each panel (as a group) reviews favorites from among all panels (including or excluding their own favorites), and scores submissions in their pool and the global favorites pool. Scoring in this stage is done categorically across multiple factors, and panels are encouraged to playtest a variety of submissions and favorites. Submitters/mapmakers are notified when their submissions do not pass this stage, and given comments on those submissions.
⦁Stage 5: Review. Scores are averaged and moderators review the surviving submissions and are tasked with breaking ties, forming the final pool and collecting notes from submitters/mapmakers and panelists/judges. The end of this round of judging also coincides with the deadline for aesthetic changes to submissions. + Show Spoiler +
The panel of moderators during this stage can include mapmakers and pro players.
⦁Stage 6: Public Playtest. The final pool (and final aesthetics and creator descriptions for all submissions) is presented for public playtesting in a tournament with professional players. + Show Spoiler +
Creators are encouraged to watch playtests and tournament matches, and are allowed to change their maps before the final round of public voting. However, they are also discouraged from making major changes that affect gameplay in any other way besides fixing significant flaws. Major changes to any maps during and after this stage should be reserved for after the maps have been played for weeks to months—if not a year—in order to make the map better for ladder and/or tournament play.
⦁Stage 7: Public Voting. The final round of judging is completed via public voting, determining the ranked winners of the mapmaking tournament.
Take some workload off the judges by splitting the work into chunks, and getting more judges if possible. Use the audience to do some of the work wherever possible. Keep it interesting. Give feedback. Be transparent.
On July 12 2021 01:51 DrDevice wrote: The part about not even realizing horizontal spawns were disabled is pretty embarrassing. That is historically a very normal thing on 4 player maps, we have had other 4 player maps with horiz disabled. The fact that someone was more willing to assume the mapmaker is a moron than spend 2 minutes checking whether the mapmaker thought of that speaks volumes about how little that judge cared.
if you would have seen all the maps they had to judge ...... well lets just say there are maps that are that bad
As someone who has accidentally saved over the wrong file countless times, and who has submitted the entirely wrong file to the TLMC, I would say it's safe to say that a lot of submissions can be almost immediately handwaived away.
However, this misses the point: many maps get handwaived away and thrown aside that are not completely unplayable, and deserve much more than a few seconds of attention and next to zero critical thought. I fumbled between bronze and gold league for years during Wings of Liberty and still understood the concept of vertical and horizontal spawn restrictions (and even understood that concept years and years before that from playing and watching Brood War, Warcraft 3, and even Halo and tabletop Dungeons & Dragons when I was ten...). Judges should be expected to understand these concepts, and be expected to respect submissions enough to not rate perfectly playable, average maps a 1/5. They should also be given enough time to do their job so they don't have to rush these decisions.
On July 12 2021 07:15 Charoisaur wrote: Not only pros want to play on standard maps, I for my part don't want to play on a new Secret Spring ever again. Sure for spectactors and Gold league heroes it's "cool" and "interesting" but I don't think we should design the game for those people over the people who invest their life into the game.
"Those people" do also invest their lives in the game, and comprise the majority of viewers, as far as I understand. If you ignore or actively disengage with them (in my experience), you'll turn the event into something only five old, lonely guys think they enjoy just because thinking about it doesn't infuriate them. It's supposed to involve some good, tested game design and structure and strategy, but not only that. It's also supposed to be fun, so let it be fun, and encourage the fun-ness when/where you can because otherwise nobody will care since there are so many other events that are better structured and more fun and engaging, and that produce excellent/interesting/engaging results more often than not.
I have more thoughts in a blog post here, discussing my experience as a participant and judge in other competitions, along with much rambling, as is my style. This post might make more sense with the context of that blog post, but isn't required by any means, I don't think. I guess look at my blog if you're bored waiting for more replies in this thread?
I noticed that Xibalba, a map that was made by the OP, received a 1 from the judge that he was talking about.
I've played on that map with friends and we all have enjoyed it quite a bit, so I don't really understand what makes that map a 1 in the judge's eyes exactly.
There were others that I feel like he didn't give the correct score for, mainly I guess because he didn't really look at the maps with any kind of depth. I noticed that he didn't really have any notes for most of the maps as to why they received the score they did either. I guess if you're not really going to look at the maps in any kind of detail, there won't be any real detailed explanation as to why the map did or didn't do so well on the scoring system being used. I wonder if the other judges did this as well. Would explain why a lot of the more well designed maps didn't get a finalist spot.
On July 14 2021 08:51 ReachTheSky wrote: 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.
I have been quite on the sidelines when it came to this discussion on TL, and far more active on the snuggly MapCave Discord Server. But I just need to note:
It is not this.
TLMC#15 was set up on the current way, with the current inertia of previous TLMC's in order to ensure map-pool stability from "Active Blizz DevTeam" era into "ESL taking some more of the reigns" era
Scheduling a TLMC is quite a process, which needs to be telegraphed carefully to mapmakers with anticipation, the categories very much work on this favor, and that's what was done for the 4p map judge pickings, to telegraph to mapmakers that we would be doing things, so they, after many years of not doing so, would start producing +3p maps, the issue came from the natural clash of a system which was more or less meant for status quo into another to seek out outsiders, and this, per se "is kind of the point".
TLMC15 was supposed from a macro perspective to not produce seismic changes because doing so would throw a wrench on balance and gameplay stability, but at the same time, it also, through the OP TLMC#15 itself set the strong expectations that it would bring about change and a breakage of inertia
These from my perspective are the core of the conflict, but, I dont see people being dissapointed on how "non-nonstandard" the maps were as a bad thing, because again, there are bigger forces at stake here, DevTeam taking a step aside, and ESL with the community taking a step on carrying the weight, and that step forward needs to be stable. So I see the overall selection of more standard type maps as a net positive, where a net negative would have been increasing the risk of unbalance without an active devteam or a mature community-ESL-Blizz relationship to handle potential persistent map related problems.
Now. Certainly, pro-players as influencers carry a huge amount of weight on both the collective mind of the public, and on the minds of tournament administrators, but it needs to be noted that TLMC is a process to get maps from the community into the ladder, and as Teoita mentioned, there have been different ways of setting up the TLMC and judging, and going forward we, on the mapmaking side of things, will be experimenting with a novel process to manage at least the early initial cut of +200 -> 40, 50 maps which can then be sampled by invited guests composed of casters, streamers, proplayers, tournament organizers, etc to create map pools out of. As an alternative to needing to parse ~180 maps at a time on a single week by a small amount of judges
But to recap, this is a matter of the process, not of 100 or so "top people" holding the status quo. Now, I am certain that once the new process is in place, there will be riots from extremists whom dont want to play on anything other than a re-skinned version of Catalyst , but even they understand that the macro perspective and SC2 as E-Sports and Entertainment takes precedence, which is how the entire "thing" even began, as a Reality TV Show, as a spectacle
On July 14 2021 08:51 ReachTheSky wrote: 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.
I have been quite on the sidelines when it came to this discussion on TL, and far more active on the snuggly MapCave Discord Server. But I just need to note:
It is not this.
TLMC#15 was set up on the current way, with the current inertia of previous TLMC's in order to ensure map-pool stability from "Active Blizz DevTeam" era into "ESL taking some more of the reigns" era
Scheduling a TLMC is quite a process, which needs to be telegraphed carefully to mapmakers with anticipation, the categories very much work on this favor, and that's what was done for the 4p map judge pickings, to telegraph to mapmakers that we would be doing things, so they, after many years of not doing so, would start producing +3p maps, the issue came from the natural clash of a system which was more or less meant for status quo into another to seek out outsiders, and this, per se "is kind of the point".
TLMC15 was supposed from a macro perspective to not produce seismic changes because doing so would throw a wrench on balance and gameplay stability, but at the same time, it also, through the OP TLMC#15 itself set the strong expectations that it would bring about change and a breakage of inertia
These from my perspective are the core of the conflict, but, I dont see people being dissapointed on how "non-nonstandard" the maps were as a bad thing, because again, there are bigger forces at stake here, DevTeam taking a step aside, and ESL with the community taking a step on carrying the weight, and that step forward needs to be stable. So I see the overall selection of more standard type maps as a net positive, where a net negative would have been increasing the risk of unbalance without an active devteam or a mature community-ESL-Blizz relationship to handle potential persistent map related problems.
Now. Certainly, pro-players as influencers carry a huge amount of weight on both the collective mind of the public, and on the minds of tournament administrators, but it needs to be noted that TLMC is a process to get maps from the community into the ladder, and as Teoita mentioned, there have been different ways of setting up the TLMC and judging, and going forward we, on the mapmaking side of things, will be experimenting with a novel process to manage at least the early initial cut of +200 -> 40, 50 maps which can then be sampled by invited guests composed of casters, streamers, proplayers, tournament organizers, etc to create map pools out of. As an alternative to needing to parse ~180 maps at a time on a single week by a small amount of judges
But to recap, this is a matter of the process, not of 100 or so "top people" holding the status quo. Now, I am certain that once the new process is in place, there will be riots from extremists whom dont want to play on anything other than a re-skinned version of Catalyst , but even they understand that the macro perspective and SC2 as E-Sports and Entertainment takes precedence, which is how the entire "thing" even began, as a Reality TV Show, as a spectacle
I would like to double down on a lot of the difficulties facing map contest judges Kantu mentioned, as well as my own. I've never been a part of the 1v1 contest, but from experience I can tell you that every judge has pretty much an insurmountable task when it comes to pleasing every element of the player base.
Just like you we want maps that are fun and interesting, but we also need to value stability above all (for 1v1 judges it's the fact that players livelihoods are determined by the maps that make it to ladder, for team judges it's that we need to weed out as much as the cheesiness as possible so people don't just get ling flood/phoenix or cannon rushed every game).
But, as much as judging a team contest is difficult because of how cancerous the early game cheeses and late game comps are, the 1v1 judges are given a far more challenging task. They have to look at 100s of entries, most of which you simply have to dismiss at first site because you simply don't have the time to play games or do a really, really thorough examination on every map.
People can whine about why the end products are often stale (I would prefer to say safe), but they aren't taking into account how difficult everything is, and how personal preference can alter judges scores significantly. I personally would never put the first three bases behind one choke, but maybe there's another judge that really values having one or two such maps in the pool. We don't have hundreds of judges to aggregate out a proper scoring, instead we're looking at a smile sample size where one person can completely skew what the end product is as far as rating.
Then there's the fact that sometimes the judges are just wrong. Artic Dream and Efflorescence have no business being in the 2v2 pool, but given the limited time and resources available to judges the initial impression was that they would be great maps.
Ultimately, it's sort of like this for pretty much every line of work. Judges cannot please everyone. Judges do not have enough time to give every map the review you think they deserve. Judges are not being compensated for their time. Judges cannot play test game and test game until they have hundreds of games worth of data and experience to go on. People especially need to give those involved in the organizational roles who have to communicate between Blizzard (or ESL) and judges, mapmakers and whoever else is involved in the process. The simple fact is with the resources available you're never going to get the perfect contest or the perfect judging.
My final plea is this—please try to be understanding. Everyone involved in the contest wants to get the best possible maps on ladder, but it's simply an impossible task, especially when resources are less and less plentiful with each passing year.
imo the value a pro can contribute to a new map pool is for curing stale tournament gameplay. is a particular strategy or composition too common in any of the matchups? ask pro players of the other race (who have to face this strategy -- or in a mirror matchup the players who prefer to play something else) to explain why this strategy is so common and what map changes could be done to make this strategy worse or discourage it. and then keep that in mind for selecting the new map pool as a whole, with the goal of reducing the frequency of that strategy in tournament play for next season.
for example, maybe a strategy is well suited for 5 or 6 of the current maps, but on 1 or 2 of the maps it doesn't work that well. for the next season, design the map pool to swap those numbers.
i think the game balance right now is such that map pools can counter the most egregious common strats without matchup balance violating the "within 5% of 50/50" rule. if you target a strat that is often used by a race winning 53% right now and you nerf that strat via the map pool, that matchup is unlikely to dip below 45%, so it's fine.
if you gather this data from pros before the mapmakers start making maps then you can give them guidelines on the features that the forthcoming map pool is designed to have.
edit: i think having crazy maps for a proleague where a team works together to decide what player is going to get sent on that map (and therefore get to choose which race they're sending on the map), and then is informed ahead of time what player the opposing team is sending on that map, and as a group they brainstorm a strat, that's awesome. for a 1v1 tournament with bo5's and bo7's, especially if the map is being used for a tournament that happens all in one weekend, the zany maps are bad for the game.
generally speaking the idea that "to break up stale tournament gameplay, we have to throw wildcards in there" is just low effort and dumb and ruins an otherwise good game. use targeted changes in the map pool as a whole to discourage players from playing the same strats on every map for season after season. if you dont know what changes those are, then ask a pro.
On July 20 2021 01:20 NonY wrote: edit: i think having crazy maps for a proleague where a team works together to decide what player is going to get sent on that map (and therefore get to choose which race they're sending on the map), and then is informed ahead of time what player the opposing team is sending on that map, and as a group they brainstorm a strat, that's awesome. for a 1v1 tournament with bo5's and bo7's, especially if the map is being used for a tournament that happens all in one weekend, the zany maps are bad for the game.
Just wondering, what if we announced the map pool for each round of a tournament a few weeks in advance? E.g., in the ro8 the maps will be in order X, in the ro4 in order Y, and in the final in order Z? You could then throw in maybe one non-standard (whatever that means) map at the start of the series, but otherwise mitigate the effects of more experimental/potentially broken stuff.
Even with weekend tournaments that may help players plan their way around weird/possibly annoying maps, and for e.g. GSL (which doesn't do this afaik?) it might definitely bring the format a bit closer to the hyper-preparation style of Proleague.
On July 20 2021 01:20 NonY wrote: edit: i think having crazy maps for a proleague where a team works together to decide what player is going to get sent on that map (and therefore get to choose which race they're sending on the map), and then is informed ahead of time what player the opposing team is sending on that map, and as a group they brainstorm a strat, that's awesome. for a 1v1 tournament with bo5's and bo7's, especially if the map is being used for a tournament that happens all in one weekend, the zany maps are bad for the game.
Just wondering, what if we announced the map pool for each round of a tournament a few weeks in advance? E.g., in the ro8 the maps will be in order X, in the ro4 in order Y, and in the final in order Z? You could then throw in maybe one non-standard (whatever that means) map at the start of the series, but otherwise mitigate the effects of more experimental/potentially broken stuff.
Even with weekend tournaments that may help players plan their way around weird/possibly annoying maps, and for e.g. GSL (which doesn't do this afaik?) it might definitely bring the format a bit closer to the hyper-preparation style of Proleague.
In case you didn't know, players who participate in Code S finals pick the map order a day or two after the semifinals so they have about a week to prepare map specific builds.
On July 14 2021 08:51 ReachTheSky wrote: 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.
I have been quite on the sidelines when it came to this discussion on TL, and far more active on the snuggly MapCave Discord Server. But I just need to note:
It is not this.
TLMC#15 was set up on the current way, with the current inertia of previous TLMC's in order to ensure map-pool stability from "Active Blizz DevTeam" era into "ESL taking some more of the reigns" era
Scheduling a TLMC is quite a process, which needs to be telegraphed carefully to mapmakers with anticipation, the categories very much work on this favor, and that's what was done for the 4p map judge pickings, to telegraph to mapmakers that we would be doing things, so they, after many years of not doing so, would start producing +3p maps, the issue came from the natural clash of a system which was more or less meant for status quo into another to seek out outsiders, and this, per se "is kind of the point".
TLMC15 was supposed from a macro perspective to not produce seismic changes because doing so would throw a wrench on balance and gameplay stability, but at the same time, it also, through the OP TLMC#15 itself set the strong expectations that it would bring about change and a breakage of inertia
These from my perspective are the core of the conflict, but, I dont see people being dissapointed on how "non-nonstandard" the maps were as a bad thing, because again, there are bigger forces at stake here, DevTeam taking a step aside, and ESL with the community taking a step on carrying the weight, and that step forward needs to be stable. So I see the overall selection of more standard type maps as a net positive, where a net negative would have been increasing the risk of unbalance without an active devteam or a mature community-ESL-Blizz relationship to handle potential persistent map related problems.
Now. Certainly, pro-players as influencers carry a huge amount of weight on both the collective mind of the public, and on the minds of tournament administrators, but it needs to be noted that TLMC is a process to get maps from the community into the ladder, and as Teoita mentioned, there have been different ways of setting up the TLMC and judging, and going forward we, on the mapmaking side of things, will be experimenting with a novel process to manage at least the early initial cut of +200 -> 40, 50 maps which can then be sampled by invited guests composed of casters, streamers, proplayers, tournament organizers, etc to create map pools out of. As an alternative to needing to parse ~180 maps at a time on a single week by a small amount of judges
But to recap, this is a matter of the process, not of 100 or so "top people" holding the status quo. Now, I am certain that once the new process is in place, there will be riots from extremists whom dont want to play on anything other than a re-skinned version of Catalyst , but even they understand that the macro perspective and SC2 as E-Sports and Entertainment takes precedence, which is how the entire "thing" even began, as a Reality TV Show, as a spectacle
I would like to double down on a lot of the difficulties facing map contest judges Kantu mentioned, as well as my own. I've never been a part of the 1v1 contest, but from experience I can tell you that every judge has pretty much an insurmountable task when it comes to pleasing every element of the player base.
Just like you we want maps that are fun and interesting, but we also need to value stability above all (for 1v1 judges it's the fact that players livelihoods are determined by the maps that make it to ladder, for team judges it's that we need to weed out as much as the cheesiness as possible so people don't just get ling flood/phoenix or cannon rushed every game).
But, as much as judging a team contest is difficult because of how cancerous the early game cheeses and late game comps are, the 1v1 judges are given a far more challenging task. They have to look at 100s of entries, most of which you simply have to dismiss at first site because you simply don't have the time to play games or do a really, really thorough examination on every map.
People can whine about why the end products are often stale (I would prefer to say safe), but they aren't taking into account how difficult everything is, and how personal preference can alter judges scores significantly. I personally would never put the first three bases behind one choke, but maybe there's another judge that really values having one or two such maps in the pool. We don't have hundreds of judges to aggregate out a proper scoring, instead we're looking at a smile sample size where one person can completely skew what the end product is as far as rating.
Then there's the fact that sometimes the judges are just wrong. Artic Dream and Efflorescence have no business being in the 2v2 pool, but given the limited time and resources available to judges the initial impression was that they would be great maps.
Ultimately, it's sort of like this for pretty much every line of work. Judges cannot please everyone. Judges do not have enough time to give every map the review you think they deserve. Judges are not being compensated for their time. Judges cannot play test game and test game until they have hundreds of games worth of data and experience to go on. People especially need to give those involved in the organizational roles who have to communicate between Blizzard (or ESL) and judges, mapmakers and whoever else is involved in the process. The simple fact is with the resources available you're never going to get the perfect contest or the perfect judging.
My final plea is this—please try to be understanding. Everyone involved in the contest wants to get the best possible maps on ladder, but it's simply an impossible task, especially when resources are less and less plentiful with each passing year.
Which is why there has been talk about improving the process to make sure the very best and most well designed maps make it to the ladder pool instead of the same boring "standard" stuff that, for the most part, we've been seeing for quite a while now. Instead of making excuses for the process, improve the process. Staying safe but having a stale product means less people stick around as opposed to when you take risks and try to make the product more interesting and engaging.
I think myself and the map makers especially would also like to know why certain maps didn't make the cut and other maps did. When I take a look at the macro category finalists for example, I see mostly solid decent, albeit very standard maps. In other words, very boring maps that don't really bring anything new or refreshing to the table. That's a shame considering how many great macro maps were submitted for this tournament.
I know Kantuva mentioned on the Pylon show how much he loved Agaton's maps for example. Yet his truly outstanding maps in Electron and Hardwire didn't make the cut over maps like Enchanted Isle and Sanguinite. Why is that? My guess is because the latter maps are much more "standard and safe" than Agaton's maps are. I think the game needs to start thinking about drifting away from what is considered "standard" and start thinking about maps that truly make the game more interesting to play.
EPT![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/AVKf5Bd.jpeg)
![[image loading]](https://imgur.com/d5n8Rq2.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/dV8O4wx.png)
Or they can surprise. And I am not talking Protoss map - 55 % win rate. No, something like 70 % winrate because the map is bonkers.![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/9b0ScW0.png)
