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Now that TLMC is taking over map selection, we have a bit more transparency and communication which is great. In light of this, I think we should look at map vetoes which give a pretty good insight as to whether players are enjoying maps or not.
https://nonapa.com/maps
First and foremost we can see that Last Fantasy is dead last and is heavily vetoed on the ladder (we exclude maps from the last rotation). After that, Torches and Persephone are the most vetoed-the maps, the ones with healing shrines. This is a significant global trend that is seen in EU, KR, and US.
This evidence clearly destroys the myth that 'everybody likes random bs maps, it's just the evil pros that oppress them'. It makes sense-for a game so late in development, such an old game such as sc2-in my opinion-we should cater to the audience we have, not the one we want, lest lose our playerbase. People play SC2 after all these years because they want a game that's balanced.
One might say similar in fashion to SSBM, where maps with RNG or disruptive map mechanics have been banned. The game released in 2001 is thriving despite no support. I think that similarly to SSBM, SC2 is an incredible game that can stand on it's own merit without needing to add game changing map mechanics, and it looks like the player base agrees.
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well
season #63 started 2025-04-01
~3 months elapsed, ~1 more to go
at about t+1 month there were a map rotation leaving 2 maps (ley lines, ultralove) and replacing all others
you take stats for the whole season (~3 months so far), ignore the removed maps
ignore (unknown) player race distribution, and race dependent vetos (because of map imbalances)
ignore (unknown) games played by unique players distribution
ignore the fact that last fantasy mining balance is broken (top position is a bad one, became well known about ~1 month ago i guess?, probably wasn't as vetoed before as it is now)
you don't try to compensate the 2 older maps used longer
and try to prove your bias
let me multiply the rates for the 2 old maps for eu by 2/3, which might or might not be a somewhat good approximation for the last ~2 months (of ~3 elapsed),
using numbers for the other maps, we get
8.67 tokamak
8.42 ley lines
8.41 incorporeal
8.39 pylon
8.10 magganatha
7.68 persephone
7.39 ultralove
6.43 torches
5.16 last fantasy
so we have 7 of the 9 maps between 7.39 and 8.67 (a ~15% range), persephone overtaking the lovely ultralove
and even the bugged evil hated-by-everyone last fantasy is at 5.16 which is 60% of the first one
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On July 03 2025 12:05 sidasf wrote:Now that TLMC is taking over map selection, we have a bit more transparency and communication which is great. In light of this, I think we should look at map vetoes which give a pretty good insight as to whether players are enjoying maps or not. https://nonapa.com/mapsFirst and foremost we can see that Last Fantasy is dead last and is heavily vetoed on the ladder (we exclude maps from the last rotation). After that, Torches and Persephone are the most vetoed-the maps, the ones with healing shrines. This is a significant global trend that is seen in EU, KR, and US. This evidence clearly destroys the myth that 'everybody likes random bs maps, it's just the evil pros that oppress them'. It makes sense-for a game so late in development, such an old game such as sc2-in my opinion-we should cater to the audience we have, not the one we want, lest lose our playerbase. People play SC2 after all these years because they want a game that's balanced. One might say similar in fashion to SSBM, where maps with RNG or disruptive map mechanics have been banned. The game released in 2001 is thriving despite no support. I think that similarly to SSBM, SC2 is an incredible game that can stand on it's own merit without needing to add game changing map mechanics, and it looks like the player base agrees.
Don't do analyses like these!
The map making community will get angry and produce even sillier maps!
All joking aside, the poster above is right. I don't think there's much to draw from these numbers.
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On July 03 2025 13:16 bela.mervado wrote:
well
season #63 started 2025-04-01
~3 months elapsed, ~1 more to go
at about t+1 month there were a map rotation leaving 2 maps (ley lines, ultralove) and replacing all others
you take stats for the whole season (~3 months so far), ignore the removed maps
ignore (unknown) player race distribution, and race dependent vetos (because of map imbalances)
ignore (unknown) games played by unique players distribution
ignore the fact that last fantasy mining balance is broken (top position is a bad one, became well known about ~1 month ago i guess?, probably wasn't as vetoed before as it is now)
you don't try to compensate the 2 older maps used longer
and try to prove your bias
let me multiply the rates for the 2 old maps for eu by 2/3, which might or might not be a somewhat good approximation for the last ~2 months (of ~3 elapsed),
using numbers for the other maps, we get
8.67 tokamak
8.42 ley lines
8.41 incorporeal
8.39 pylon
8.10 magganatha
7.68 persephone
7.39 ultralove
6.43 torches
5.16 last fantasy
so we have 7 of the 9 maps between 7.39 and 8.67 (a ~15% range), persephone overtaking the lovely ultralove
and even the bugged evil hated-by-everyone last fantasy is at 5.16 which is 60% of the first one
I think you raise a good point regarding the maps that were in the previous pool, I should have accounted for that.
Your multiplication by 2/3 however is quite frankly bollocks. We can still see very clearly that Persephone Torches and Last Fantasy are below all of the standard maps, and you yourself also don't account for the fact that a lot of people just vetoed the old maps.
Last Fantasy's mineral problem is absolutely irrelevant. 99.9% of the playerbase doesn't know or care about this issue.
ignore (unknown) player race distribution, and race dependent vetos (because of map imbalances)
Race distribution doesn't matter. The bottom line is people are vetoing these maps a lot. It turns out having the ability to heal units in the middle of the map throws off balance completely when you can do things like heal tanky adepts 3mins in and harass the zerg again or heal battlecruisers and TP them back in, of course people are going to want to veto them.
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On July 05 2025 05:53 sidasf wrote:
I think you raise a good point regarding the maps that were in the previous pool, I should have accounted for that.
Your multiplication by 2/3 however is quite frankly bollocks.
the old maps have accumulated games for 3 months, the rest for 2 months. hence the 2/3 correction.
the correct multiplier would depend on vetoes. well.. it's an approximation, we don't have detailed data.
We can still see very clearly that Persephone Torches and Last Fantasy are below all of the standard maps, and you yourself also don't account for the fact that a lot of people just vetoed the old maps.
we can reasonably assume that persephone is near the median and seem to be above ultralove, not that it matters a lot.
and we can clearly see that these maps are not vetoed that much as you try to suggest.
Last Fantasy's mineral problem is absolutely irrelevant. 99.9% of the playerbase doesn't know or care about this issue.
that is you assumption.
anyone following recent tournaments should be well aware.
my anecdotal evidence is that i have heard it 3+ times in weekly or higher cup casts in the past few weeks.
and bad news for you if the active players do care about this imbalance (i have no idea if they do, and don't care if they do or not) and vetoed it lately because of this very reason, then a bugfixed version would have performed better than the 5.whatever score.
Race distribution doesn't matter.
.. yes it does.
maps are imbalanced, well informed players will try to veto maps that are worst for their race (or veto the ones with low winrates).
let me show you an example.
let's have 2 races, T and P.
let's assume map A is bad for P, so all P players veto it.
let's assume map B is bad for T, so all T players veto it.
let's have more P (~70%) players than T (~30%) players,
let's say we see ~50% PvP, ~40% TvP and ~10%TvT games in the logs.
in this example poor map A will not be considered in 90% of games (PvP+TvP) because ~70% of players vetoed it.
do you understand now?
The bottom line is people are vetoing these maps a lot. It turns out having the ability to heal units in the middle of the map throws off balance completely when you can do things like heal tanky adepts 3mins in and harass the zerg again or heal battlecruisers and TP them back in, of course people are going to want to veto them.
nope
the bottom line is the data is not detailed enough to draw such a conclusion.
what you can say is torches and especially last fantasy is likely vetoed more than the other maps, but clearly not vetoed by the overwhelming majority (as in everyone and their mother)
you can say you hate these maps, it's all right, you don't have to try to bend the data
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A 100% vetoed map on ladder can still be great if it produce great sc2 pro games. And, if every zerg and terran veto a map, it might look like the protoss also vetoes that map, since they'd play it a lot less due to the other players preferences.
For tournaments, I would love to see them try a format where first map is random and from there it goes losers pick. There could also be vetoes mid series, or something like this. Just, so we actually get to see them in play, and it might produce upsets which are hard to come by these days. Not everything have to be so secure, like double elimination and vetoes for every series.
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Northern Ireland26499 Posts
We feel trapped in this endless circle of people complaining about samey maps, but then vetoing maps that do something different.
Presumably these aren’t always the same people, and people who primarily watch versus those who play actively will have differing tastes. Still, feels like a kind of difficult issue to resolve
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Last Fantasy would be great without the speed zones.
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Most Pros want the game to be as stable as possible to maximize their chances of winning, which is understandable and somewhat fair.
But what it does for me, and I guess for a lot of others, is that every game feels the same, we see the stable tactics over and over again. And players on the more creative side of things (SoS, Bly, TLO, Has) have (or had) a hard time because of this. But to some extend especially those kind of players produce(d) some of the most exciting games.
That is the reason why, in my eyes, the players should be in some way forced to play some wild maps, for example the way ejozl suggested.
That would lead to a point where not always the "best" player wins, in a sense of mechanical skills, but I think tactics and outthinking your opponent is a skill as well, which I feel is underrepresented nowadays.
All that said, that is the reason why I think ladder map statistics should not be considered too much, because every player will always try to maximize his win%.
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On July 03 2025 12:05 sidasf wrote:
First and foremost we can see that Last Fantasy is dead last and is heavily vetoed on the ladder (we exclude maps from the last rotation).
I hope we never see another 3-4+ player map in 1v1 again UNLESS spawns are known at the start of a match. RNG is not fun in my competitive video game.
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On July 06 2025 13:25 Rob-Zero wrote:
Most Pros want the game to be as stable as possible to maximize their chances of winning, which is understandable and somewhat fair.
But what it does for me, and I guess for a lot of others, is that every game feels the same, we see the stable tactics over and over again. And players on the more creative side of things (SoS, Bly, TLO, Has) have (or had) a hard time because of this. But to some extend especially those kind of players produce(d) some of the most exciting games.
That is the reason why, in my eyes, the players should be in some way forced to play some wild maps, for example the way ejozl suggested.
That would lead to a point where not always the "best" player wins, in a sense of mechanical skills, but I think tactics and outthinking your opponent is a skill as well, which I feel is underrepresented nowadays.
All that said, that is the reason why I think ladder map statistics should not be considered too much, because every player will always try to maximize his win%.
Unfortunately, mechanical skill being overemphasised was a LotV design decision.
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EPT
