|
1. - I won't win, let's be honest.
2. - I don't make a lot of non 2 player maps and if I make them the spawn positions tend to be locked cross. I don't like spawn and scouting randomness.
3. - Oh shit, brace for it:
I don't really agree on a fundamental level with the selection process
Let's face it, "good map" is as much in the eye of the beholder as "good song", sure, there are some quasi-objective things to songs which make almost anyone hate it, just like with maps. But once you got a song out only a fool is lured into debates of whose musical taste is "better", but hey, you have awards for songs too. In the end, it's ulitarianistic. You want to get a map which is liked, subjectively, by as many people as possible into the ladder to please those people the most. The needs of the many outweigh those of the few. You can talk all about how those people who disagree with you don't understand the game and many people do. But in the end, they still have to play on those maps and if you want this game to grow it's best to get maps into the ladder which people overall like to play on.
The initial selection panel is hardly a cross section of the community
How many people is this panel going to be? It tends to be around 3-4 people, likeminded people because they get selected via a similar process each time who have their own specific idea of what maps they like. You may agree with it or not but it's hard to deny that there will be many people who disagree. These people have the power to select the however-many finalists and every time the finalists get selected enough people voice their dissaproval. People tend to be angry when they felt like they didn't have any influence. Let them vote and they shut up earlier, and for good reason. You can say that they don't have the knowledge to vote. Okay, I can see that argument, so why not limit it to people who have an account in master or diamond league? I don't necessarily agree with it since bronze people have to play this game too but it's a step in the right direction from 3-4 people getting the absolute vote. And really, even those 3-4 people completely disagree which shows that it's extremely subjective, a totally different selection of finalists would come out of it if a single jury member was another person. Meh.
The final voting process is an even bigger flaw.
It's what's called first-past-the-post, the highest amounts of votes wins the competition. Sounds fair no? Well, no, it's an extremely flawed system that should never be used. Last Red bull TLMC showed what was wrong with it. New Polaris Rhapsody won by a landslide. Why? Because it was the only genuinely unorthodox map. All people who wanted an unorthodox map had only one choice to vote for, and so they did. The other 7 maps ate into each other's votes. If the situation was reversed and there was only 1 orthodox map and 7 unorthodox maps, the orthodox map would have won by a landslide.
And this again goes back to the small jury. I'm not accusing anyone, but I will note that they absolutely have the power, would they want, to completely manipulate the system with this. If they want an unorthodox map tow in, all they have to ensure is that 7 maps are orthodox. If they want the reverse they do the reverse. This can go in every direction. If they want a big macro map to win? just select 7 rush maps and 1 macro map. If they want a rush map to win? do the inverse again. I'm not saying they will, I'm saying they can and subconsciously they might be influenced by this.
And even if they don't do it on purpose, even if it naturally just ends up like this, it still influences it. The map which is the most unlike all the others is the most likely to win because the others eat into each other's votes. A first past the post voting system is fundamentally flawed. A better alternative is simply asking people to rank each finalist from 1 to 8 and give 1 point for rank 8 and 8 points for rank 1 and just see which one gets the most points. It cancels this eating into other thing out.
  
|
You're missing the point.
This is promoting map making. It doesn't matter who wins, or what wins. Whenever a map making contest pops up, we get a LOT of solid, quality maps. These are maps I use on a regular basis, regardless of whether or not they "won". Just because they're not picked to on the ladder, doesn't mean they just suddenly disappear. You should be making maps because you want to, because you like to do it and think you can make a map worth someone's time. Only a certain amount can win, even if all entries are god damn flawless.
I don't even understand the purpose of this post. It reads like a child giving up because competition is too hard, and throwing excuses out at every corner.
|
On March 30 2014 01:13 InfCereal wrote:
You're missing the point.
This is promoting map making. It doesn't matter who wins, or what wins. Whenever a map making contest pops up, we get a LOT of solid, quality maps. These are maps I use on a regular basis, regardless of whether or not they "won". Just because they're not picked to on the ladder, doesn't mean they just suddenly disappear. You should be making maps because you want to, because you like to do it and think you can make a map worth someone's time. Only a certain amount can win, even if all entries are god damn flawless. No, this is perpetuating something people have been complaining about since forever. That the map pool is stale and every map is the same, and this will continue to be the case so long as only 3-4 people select the 8 finalists.
I don't even understand the purpose of this post. It reads like a child giving up because competition is too hard, and throwing excuses out at every corner. This is simply an ad hominem based on silly assumptions. Besides, you just said it wasn't about competition and it didn't matter who won. If it's about encouraging mapping, I still make my maps and continue to do so, competition I agree with or not.
|
SiskosGoatee, AKA Jaedolf (I still remember that thing about your comment on reddit about how it is a good thing people die from terrorist attacks), has been trolling since the dawn of time. Please don't feed him.
And it's not like you actually get into constructive arguments, you're always about semantics and other pseudo-intellectual bullshit. Maybe you should make good maps? I have never seen you improve your map or change it from feedback, or fix your lighting, or anything like that. You don't seem to want to improve?
I agree with the voting thing, everyone kind of does. But if you actually make a map that's revolutionary, say a 4p 12 bases map that WORKS, or a 4p map that deviates from the whirlwind layout but still allows for macro games, regardless of who you are, your map will be chosen. So why not quit whining and try to make the revolutionary map? Noone's stopping you.
|
On March 30 2014 01:13 InfCereal wrote:
You're missing the point.
This is promoting map making. It doesn't matter who wins, or what wins. Whenever a map making contest pops up, we get a LOT of solid, quality maps. These are maps I use on a regular basis, regardless of whether or not they "won". Just because they're not picked to on the ladder, doesn't mean they just suddenly disappear. You should be making maps because you want to, because you like to do it and think you can make a map worth someone's time. Only a certain amount can win, even if all entries are god damn flawless.
No, this is not true at all from the mapmaking community's perspective. Actually it's the complete opposite. Only the winning maps that actually end up in ladder matter, everything else pretty much disappears because no tournament is willing to pick them up. The amount of people who play these others maps is almost non-existant and irrelevant.
Regarding OP: I disagree fundamentally that TLMC is about ladder players first and foremost. Ladder map pool is WCS map pool which is the map pool for every other tournament as well pretty much. To just neglect this and just care about the short term goal of pleasing players playing ladder is wrong imo.
Ofc you might see the system itself as flawed which I would agree with. Tournament map pools and ladder have different requirements and shouldn't all be treated the same.
But that's the system we get from Blizzard and thus we have to deal with it. The spectator aspect of Starcraft is immensly important, the spectator vs player ratio in Starcraft is abnormally skewed at this point. And most mapmakers basically only care about the esport element when making their maps, designing and balancing with pro play in mind.
Ofc if ladder and tournament map pools would be seperate this would be very different. If mapmakers had a chance to get their maps played elsewhere (like the Koreans with GSL/Proleague) then this would probably be treated much more like a competition to make the best ladder maps purely.
So because mapmakers focus on the high level aspect of play and the system being the way it is (basically a semi-selection of WCS maps) there is no way you can let a Bronze player judge the finalists. And just because someone may have the mechanics to be in master league doesn't mean he has the understanding and experience with maps and map design to judge the layout, origininality and how it plays out in every matchup.
There is a fundamental difference between what a high level mapmaker like Mereel or Timetwister understands about maps compared to some random player who hasn't put in the time to make, discuss, theorycraft and come up with dozens of maps over the years.
That isn't to say that a non-mapmaker couldn't have a similar level of understanding of he put in the time into thinking about SC2 tho. I greatly appreciated monk's and Plexa's analysis of maps when I judges with them and neither of them is a mapmaker and I'm sure this year's judges can do fine as well.
Regarding your last point about the final voting system I have to agree this system is flawed in so many ways and I have never been in favor of it. The community despises or loves maps for the stupidest reasons and your points about maps taking votes from each other in that manner is probably true as well.
I mean basically New Polaris Rhapsody was a perfectly fine map as it was. Mereel just put in the lava mechanic as a little gimmick on top knowing that people would get hyped about it and then people voted the shit out of it, not understanding that maybe it's just one shallow but very flashy feature.
But again my solution would look much different from yours. I'd just not have a public poll or at least heavily decrease its importance.
|
On March 30 2014 02:27 Ragoo wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2014 01:13 InfCereal wrote:
You're missing the point.
This is promoting map making. It doesn't matter who wins, or what wins. Whenever a map making contest pops up, we get a LOT of solid, quality maps. These are maps I use on a regular basis, regardless of whether or not they "won". Just because they're not picked to on the ladder, doesn't mean they just suddenly disappear. You should be making maps because you want to, because you like to do it and think you can make a map worth someone's time. Only a certain amount can win, even if all entries are god damn flawless.
Regarding OP: I disagree fundamentally that TLMC is about ladder players first and foremost. Ladder map pool is WCS map pool which is the map pool for every other tournament as well pretty much. To just neglect this and just care about the short term goal of pleasing players playing ladder is wrong imo. Ofc you might see the system itself as flawed which I would agree with. Tournament map pools and ladder have different requirements and shouldn't all be treated the same. But that's the system we get from Blizzard and thus we have to deal with it. The spectator aspect of Starcraft is immensly important, the spectator vs player ratio in Starcraft is abnormally skewed at this point. And most mapmakers basically only care about the esport element when making their maps, designing and balancing with pro play in mind. Ofc if ladder and tournament map pools would be seperate this would be very different. If mapmakers had a chance to get their maps played elsewhere (like the Koreans with GSL/Proleague) then this would probably be treated much more like a competition to make the best ladder maps purely. So because mapmakers focus on the high level aspect of play and the system being the way it is (basically a semi-selection of WCS maps) there is no way you can let a Bronze player judge the finalists. And just because someone may have the mechanics to be in master league doesn't mean he has the understanding and experience with maps and map design to judge the layout, origininality and how it plays out in every matchup. Maybe, but the ultimate goal of this is slated to have the maps considered for later. Blizzard can't put a map into the ladder which would confuse the fuck out of new players. They, like most people, want this game to grow and new players leaving the game because they get confused is the last thing they want to see.
There is a fundamental difference between what a high level mapmaker like Mereel or Timetwister understands about maps compared to some random player who hasn't put in the time to make, discuss, theorycraft and come up with dozens of maps over the years. Maybe, but I don't agree with their vision either. It's well known that Timetwister likes defensive maps and I like aggressive maps. The difference is that I don't act like someone disagreeing with me on that "doesn't understand the game" (or maps), it's a subjective difference of opinion.
That isn't to say that a non-mapmaker couldn't have a similar level of understanding of he put in the time into thinking about SC2 tho. I greatly appreciated monk's and Plexa's analysis of maps when I judges with them and neither of them is a mapmaker and I'm sure this year's judges can do fine as well. And I don't agree with their vision either.
Regarding your last point about the final voting system I have to agree this system is flawed in so many ways and I have never been in favor of it. The community despises or loves maps for the stupidest reasons and your points about maps taking votes from each other in that manner is probably true as well.
I mean basically New Polaris Rhapsody was a perfectly fine map as it was. Mereel just put in the lava mechanic as a little gimmick on top knowing that people would get hyped about it and then people voted the shit out of it, not understand that maybe it's just one shallow but very flashy feature. I agree, when I first made that claim of the shirt I did not mean that, but hey, who am I to alter the terms after I made the claim. The lava mechanic is a total gimmick and one that arguably makes the map belong in some kind of fun type of custom game, maybe an extension mod but it's hardly something that'll work in a serious tournament. But yeah, sure, it's original. Just like wandering minerals, not a good idea though.
|
On March 30 2014 00:01 SiskosGoatee wrote:
1. - I won't win, let's be honest.
Beat the odds. If you want to enter a competition with the intention of winning you should believe that regardless of how much the world is conspiring against you that you will prevail.
|
On March 30 2014 04:18 Thaniri wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2014 00:01 SiskosGoatee wrote:
1. - I won't win, let's be honest.
Beat the odds. If you want to enter a competition with the intention of winning you should believe that regardless of how much the world is conspiring against you that you will prevail.
Did you want him to beat the odds now, or should he do that later?
|
sisk has done interesting maps, and is also bm and self indulgent/involved
he is right to put a blog up
you are right to "try" to make him submit a map
tlmc is what is here
|
United States4883 Posts
Hmm. I'm sorry you don't approve of Team Liquid's free contest to sponsor your name and map.
The judging process receives a lot of input from various sources in Team Liquid. Most of the maps are not so great for competitive play (as tested by several masters players with several different strategies), which is why they're ruled out. It's quite possible that, from time to time, we miss an "unorthodox gem", but what can be done about it? There can only be one winner. New Polaris Rhapsody was a weird paradox of voting (it was like BARELY let it); the public voted hugely in favor of it, but most of us in TL Strategy hated it. And to be fair, it was a terrible map for serious games, which is why it was NEVER used after RBB.
If you'd rather continue to make maps that will probably never see competitive use, that's fine. I don't understand what your issues are with a contest that freely sponsors maps. Does all of this post just go to say that you'd rather have a contest that picks more abstract maps? Or are you just bitching about how you don't like the way we do things? I mean, what are your actual suggestions?
|
I don't understand how you could possibly get around the jury requirement. Obviously a jury is imperfect and has biases, but that comes with the territory. Your concerns about the contest are so general no jury could satisfy you. It just seems like an admission of defeat: I'm never going to win this contest, no matter the jury, so why bother?
|
On March 30 2014 06:33 SC2John wrote:
Hmm. I'm sorry you don't approve of Team Liquid's free contest to sponsor your name and map.
The judging process receives a lot of input from various sources in Team Liquid. Most of the maps are not so great for competitive play (as tested by several masters players with several different strategies), which is why they're ruled out. It's quite possible that, from time to time, we miss an "unorthodox gem", but what can be done about it? There can only be one winner. New Polaris Rhapsody was a weird paradox of voting (it was like BARELY let it); the public voted hugely in favor of it, but most of us in TL Strategy hated it. And to be fair, it was a terrible map for serious games, which is why it was NEVER used after RBB. It was bad, it was a total gimmick, but again, this is the point I am making, people massively voted in favour of it because it was the only unorthodox map in the final 8. The one map that stands the most away from all the others will always win with a first past the post system, which is my point.
If you'd rather continue to make maps that will probably never see competitive use, that's fine. I don't understand what your issues are with a contest that freely sponsors maps. Does all of this post just go to say that you'd rather have a contest that picks more abstract maps? Or are you just bitching about how you don't like the way we do things? I mean, what are your actual suggestions?
My actual suggestion is contained at the end of my blog:
"A better alternative is simply asking people to rank each finalist from 1 to 8 and give 1 point for rank 8 and 8 points for rank 1 and just see which one gets the most points. It cancels this eating into other thing out."
First-past-the-post is a horribly flawed voting system for the reasons I gave in my post and everyone should know it, it should quite frankly never be used for anything and I'm surprised that so many voting systems and even democracies are still based around it.
|
I also won't participate
1. - I won't win, let's be honest.
2. - I don't make a lot of non 2 player maps and if I make them the spawn positions tend to be locked cross. I don't like spawn and scouting randomness.
3. - Oh shit, brace for it:
Really are you ready for the truth?
I don't even know how to make a map
Bam
|
United States4883 Posts
On March 30 2014 17:20 SiskosGoatee wrote:Show nested quote +If you'd rather continue to make maps that will probably never see competitive use, that's fine. I don't understand what your issues are with a contest that freely sponsors maps. Does all of this post just go to say that you'd rather have a contest that picks more abstract maps? Or are you just bitching about how you don't like the way we do things? I mean, what are your actual suggestions? My actual suggestion is contained at the end of my blog: "A better alternative is simply asking people to rank each finalist from 1 to 8 and give 1 point for rank 8 and 8 points for rank 1 and just see which one gets the most points. It cancels this eating into other thing out." First-past-the-post is a horribly flawed voting system for the reasons I gave in my post and everyone should know it, it should quite frankly never be used for anything and I'm surprised that so many voting systems and even democracies are still based around it.
That's a valid suggestion which applies to the actual voting process. I like it. But how do you propose we "fix" the initial judging process to narrow down the maps to ~8? Like I said, that part actually has a lot of input from several different areas of TL (including the 6-8 of us from TL Strategy that play around on the maps), so in conjunction with a couple of set guidelines (such as no geysers on ramps, neutral burrowed ultralisks, etc.) I think we have a pretty fair and thoughtful way to initially judge. There aren't just 3-4 "TLMC overseers" that just decide everything. There's a lot of work and input involved before the finalists are chosen.
|
On March 31 2014 02:49 SC2John wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2014 17:20 SiskosGoatee wrote:If you'd rather continue to make maps that will probably never see competitive use, that's fine. I don't understand what your issues are with a contest that freely sponsors maps. Does all of this post just go to say that you'd rather have a contest that picks more abstract maps? Or are you just bitching about how you don't like the way we do things? I mean, what are your actual suggestions? My actual suggestion is contained at the end of my blog: "A better alternative is simply asking people to rank each finalist from 1 to 8 and give 1 point for rank 8 and 8 points for rank 1 and just see which one gets the most points. It cancels this eating into other thing out." First-past-the-post is a horribly flawed voting system for the reasons I gave in my post and everyone should know it, it should quite frankly never be used for anything and I'm surprised that so many voting systems and even democracies are still based around it. That's a valid suggestion which applies to the actual voting process. I like it. But how do you propose we "fix" the initial judging process to narrow down the maps to ~8? Like I said, that part actually has a lot of input from several different areas of TL (including the 6-8 of us from TL Strategy that play around on the maps), so in conjunction with a couple of set guidelines (such as no geysers on ramps, neutral burrowed ultralisks, etc.) I think we have a pretty fair and thoughtful way to initially judge. There aren't just 3-4 "TLMC overseers" that just decide everything. There's a lot of work and input involved before the finalists are chosen.
The reason first past the post is used is for simplicity, in political elections you want simplicity, to make it as easy as possible to vote. Ranking systems are confusing for many people and would lead to thousands of invalid votes, that is why ranking systems haven't been implemented, the average citizen is an idiot.
Thankfully that doesn't apply to the TL community! I think a ranking system would greatly improve the TLMC, however I can not see a more effective way to do the initial judging either. You need some small group of people with the right knowledge either about map design, game balance or high level playing ability to weed out the bad maps and whittle it down the best 20 or so. I'm sure TL have a diverse enough group of people that they make good choices, i've always been happy with their choices for finalists.
|
On March 31 2014 02:49 SC2John wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2014 17:20 SiskosGoatee wrote:If you'd rather continue to make maps that will probably never see competitive use, that's fine. I don't understand what your issues are with a contest that freely sponsors maps. Does all of this post just go to say that you'd rather have a contest that picks more abstract maps? Or are you just bitching about how you don't like the way we do things? I mean, what are your actual suggestions? My actual suggestion is contained at the end of my blog: "A better alternative is simply asking people to rank each finalist from 1 to 8 and give 1 point for rank 8 and 8 points for rank 1 and just see which one gets the most points. It cancels this eating into other thing out." First-past-the-post is a horribly flawed voting system for the reasons I gave in my post and everyone should know it, it should quite frankly never be used for anything and I'm surprised that so many voting systems and even democracies are still based around it. That's a valid suggestion which applies to the actual voting process. I like it. But how do you propose we "fix" the initial judging process to narrow down the maps to ~8? Like I said, that part actually has a lot of input from several different areas of TL (including the 6-8 of us from TL Strategy that play around on the maps), so in conjunction with a couple of set guidelines (such as no geysers on ramps, neutral burrowed ultralisks, etc.) I think we have a pretty fair and thoughtful way to initially judge. There aren't just 3-4 "TLMC overseers" that just decide everything. There's a lot of work and input involved before the finalists are chosen. Like I said, you can make the initial 8 finalists be an initial similar poll where only people who have a verified account of master or higher can vote, after the final eight are selected that can be open to everyone.
On March 31 2014 03:46 emythrel wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2014 02:49 SC2John wrote:On March 30 2014 17:20 SiskosGoatee wrote:If you'd rather continue to make maps that will probably never see competitive use, that's fine. I don't understand what your issues are with a contest that freely sponsors maps. Does all of this post just go to say that you'd rather have a contest that picks more abstract maps? Or are you just bitching about how you don't like the way we do things? I mean, what are your actual suggestions? My actual suggestion is contained at the end of my blog: "A better alternative is simply asking people to rank each finalist from 1 to 8 and give 1 point for rank 8 and 8 points for rank 1 and just see which one gets the most points. It cancels this eating into other thing out." First-past-the-post is a horribly flawed voting system for the reasons I gave in my post and everyone should know it, it should quite frankly never be used for anything and I'm surprised that so many voting systems and even democracies are still based around it. That's a valid suggestion which applies to the actual voting process. I like it. But how do you propose we "fix" the initial judging process to narrow down the maps to ~8? Like I said, that part actually has a lot of input from several different areas of TL (including the 6-8 of us from TL Strategy that play around on the maps), so in conjunction with a couple of set guidelines (such as no geysers on ramps, neutral burrowed ultralisks, etc.) I think we have a pretty fair and thoughtful way to initially judge. There aren't just 3-4 "TLMC overseers" that just decide everything. There's a lot of work and input involved before the finalists are chosen. The reason first past the post is used is for simplicity, in political elections you want simplicity, to make it as easy as possible to vote. Ranking systems are confusing for many people and would lead to thousands of invalid votes, that is why ranking systems haven't been implemented, the average citizen is an idiot. There are many democracies that do not have a first past the post system, in fact, the amount of democracies that do are rare. I don't live in a country where you have a first past the post system. And our system is in fact so extremely mind bogglingly simple compared to the US system which is districts after districts after districts. It's super simple here, x percent of the votes is x percents of the seats in parliament and the executive branch needs to enjoy majority confidence of the lower house. It's that simple.
Thankfully that doesn't apply to the TL community! I think a ranking system would greatly improve the TLMC, however I can not see a more effective way to do the initial judging either. You need some small group of people with the right knowledge either about map design, game balance or high level playing ability to weed out the bad maps and whittle it down the best 20 or so. I'm sure TL have a diverse enough group of people that they make good choices, i've always been happy with their choices for finalists. And who's going to say that the TL strategy group has that? They basically decide of themselves that they do. I'm sorry but these are the people who will tell you that a certain strategy is completely unviable in their guides and 3 months later that very strat appears in proleague. There is no doubt in my mind that many of the people on TL strategy would have dismissed a crazy suggestion like hatch first blocking a Terran expansion if it didn't come from Catz. I've debated some of these people, they assumed I was in Bronze or something for asserting that back in WoL pure MMM TvZ was viable. Come 1 month later and MKP popularizes the strategy. Which is exactly the problem with a lot of people who think themselves authoritative on strategy, they are too easy to dismiss the unorthodox as not working, and this includes progamers, make no mistake. Progamers are very quick to say that just because something isn't orthodox it can't work. In fact, Destiny goes on and on about how MajOr for instance believes that a strat can't work if the Koreans aren't doing it. And that's basically what greatly limits TLMC and why all the maps are so bog standard, people's continued belief that just because something is unorthodox it can't work.
These are the people that said Yeonsu was worthy of being a finalist, we now know that Yeonsu is horribly imbalanced, something that many people already said and discussed in Yeonsu's own map thread by the way. I don't hold them quite as knowledgeable as they do themselves.
|
On March 31 2014 04:12 SiskosGoatee wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2014 02:49 SC2John wrote:On March 30 2014 17:20 SiskosGoatee wrote:If you'd rather continue to make maps that will probably never see competitive use, that's fine. I don't understand what your issues are with a contest that freely sponsors maps. Does all of this post just go to say that you'd rather have a contest that picks more abstract maps? Or are you just bitching about how you don't like the way we do things? I mean, what are your actual suggestions? My actual suggestion is contained at the end of my blog: "A better alternative is simply asking people to rank each finalist from 1 to 8 and give 1 point for rank 8 and 8 points for rank 1 and just see which one gets the most points. It cancels this eating into other thing out." First-past-the-post is a horribly flawed voting system for the reasons I gave in my post and everyone should know it, it should quite frankly never be used for anything and I'm surprised that so many voting systems and even democracies are still based around it. That's a valid suggestion which applies to the actual voting process. I like it. But how do you propose we "fix" the initial judging process to narrow down the maps to ~8? Like I said, that part actually has a lot of input from several different areas of TL (including the 6-8 of us from TL Strategy that play around on the maps), so in conjunction with a couple of set guidelines (such as no geysers on ramps, neutral burrowed ultralisks, etc.) I think we have a pretty fair and thoughtful way to initially judge. There aren't just 3-4 "TLMC overseers" that just decide everything. There's a lot of work and input involved before the finalists are chosen. Like I said, you can make the initial 8 finalists be an initial similar poll where only people who have a verified account of master or higher can vote, after the final eight are selected that can be open to everyone. Show nested quote +On March 31 2014 03:46 emythrel wrote:On March 31 2014 02:49 SC2John wrote:On March 30 2014 17:20 SiskosGoatee wrote:If you'd rather continue to make maps that will probably never see competitive use, that's fine. I don't understand what your issues are with a contest that freely sponsors maps. Does all of this post just go to say that you'd rather have a contest that picks more abstract maps? Or are you just bitching about how you don't like the way we do things? I mean, what are your actual suggestions? My actual suggestion is contained at the end of my blog: "A better alternative is simply asking people to rank each finalist from 1 to 8 and give 1 point for rank 8 and 8 points for rank 1 and just see which one gets the most points. It cancels this eating into other thing out." First-past-the-post is a horribly flawed voting system for the reasons I gave in my post and everyone should know it, it should quite frankly never be used for anything and I'm surprised that so many voting systems and even democracies are still based around it. That's a valid suggestion which applies to the actual voting process. I like it. But how do you propose we "fix" the initial judging process to narrow down the maps to ~8? Like I said, that part actually has a lot of input from several different areas of TL (including the 6-8 of us from TL Strategy that play around on the maps), so in conjunction with a couple of set guidelines (such as no geysers on ramps, neutral burrowed ultralisks, etc.) I think we have a pretty fair and thoughtful way to initially judge. There aren't just 3-4 "TLMC overseers" that just decide everything. There's a lot of work and input involved before the finalists are chosen. The reason first past the post is used is for simplicity, in political elections you want simplicity, to make it as easy as possible to vote. Ranking systems are confusing for many people and would lead to thousands of invalid votes, that is why ranking systems haven't been implemented, the average citizen is an idiot. There are many democracies that do not have a first past the post system, in fact, the amount of democracies that do are rare. I don't live in a country where you have a first past the post system. And our system is in fact so extremely mind bogglingly simple compared to the US system which is districts after districts after districts. It's super simple here, x percent of the votes is x percents of the seats in parliament and the executive branch needs to enjoy majority confidence of the lower house. It's that simple. Show nested quote +Thankfully that doesn't apply to the TL community! I think a ranking system would greatly improve the TLMC, however I can not see a more effective way to do the initial judging either. You need some small group of people with the right knowledge either about map design, game balance or high level playing ability to weed out the bad maps and whittle it down the best 20 or so. I'm sure TL have a diverse enough group of people that they make good choices, i've always been happy with their choices for finalists. And who's going to say that the TL strategy group has that? They basically decide of themselves that they do. I'm sorry but these are the people who will tell you that a certain strategy is completely unviable in their guides and 3 months later that very strat appears in proleague. There is no doubt in my mind that many of the people on TL strategy would have dismissed a crazy suggestion like hatch first blocking a Terran expansion if it didn't come from Catz. I've debated some of these people, they assumed I was in Bronze or something for asserting that back in WoL pure MMM TvZ was viable. Come 1 month later and MKP popularizes the strategy. Which is exactly the problem with a lot of people who think themselves authoritative on strategy, they are too easy to dismiss the unorthodox as not working, and this includes progamers, make no mistake. Progamers are very quick to say that just because something isn't orthodox it can't work. In fact, Destiny goes on and on about how MajOr for instance believes that a strat can't work if the Koreans aren't doing it. And that's basically what greatly limits TLMC and why all the maps are so bog standard, people's continued belief that just because something is unorthodox it can't work. These are the people that said Yeonsu was worthy of being a finalist, we now know that Yeonsu is horribly imbalanced, something that many people already said and discussed in Yeonsu's own map thread by the way. I don't hold them quite as knowledgeable as they do themselves.
Who says Master League players know shit about map balance? Its simply not feasible to do what you suggest. Most Map maker probably aren't Master league players, so basically they don't qualify to vote under your system. So now you have to add that verified map makers can vote too, but what qualifies you as a knowledgeable mapmaker? Just like being a master league player doesn't mean you know shit about maps, or necessarily what makes a balanced game or what plays well, being a map maker does not of itself mean you know jack shit about how to make a competitive map. So basically you would have hundreds of random people voting, many of whom don't have the knowledge to make an informed decision.
Just like the general populace of TL don't have a fucking clue what they are voting for in the finals of the TLMC. I certainly don't, I vote for maps that look cool, have something interesting about them etc etc. I can't tell a balanced map from an unbalanced one, I rely on people who know more than I for that information. When I played SC2 a lot, I bounced from Diamond to Master a few times, so I know a decent amount about how to play the game, I know what maps I like and what I don't, but thats just personal preference, usually based on what maps I can play my favourite strats, have the best winrate on etc etc.
I've been following starcraft and had stuff explained to me many times about what makes a map a "zerg" map or a "terran" map, but I still couldn't look at a map i've never seen before and make any valid observations about how balanced it is, or whether it would be interesting to play on. You somehow expect that hundreds of random people voting would be better, when people would just vote for weird, gimmicky stuff, then entire final would be maps that have no place in competitive play because they are fun, crazy maps or there would be absolutely no zany maps in the final nbecause all these "high level" master players pick maps just like the current crop of "safe" map designs.
You trust the populace far too much and attribute them with abilities they do not posess. The initial jury is the most sensible way to do things, perhaps they could recruit people from further afield than TL staff and contributors, but I'd bet even if they asked you to judge, you'd still be unhappy with the results.
|
United States4883 Posts
On March 31 2014 05:11 emythrel wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2014 04:12 SiskosGoatee wrote:On March 31 2014 02:49 SC2John wrote:On March 30 2014 17:20 SiskosGoatee wrote:If you'd rather continue to make maps that will probably never see competitive use, that's fine. I don't understand what your issues are with a contest that freely sponsors maps. Does all of this post just go to say that you'd rather have a contest that picks more abstract maps? Or are you just bitching about how you don't like the way we do things? I mean, what are your actual suggestions? My actual suggestion is contained at the end of my blog: "A better alternative is simply asking people to rank each finalist from 1 to 8 and give 1 point for rank 8 and 8 points for rank 1 and just see which one gets the most points. It cancels this eating into other thing out." First-past-the-post is a horribly flawed voting system for the reasons I gave in my post and everyone should know it, it should quite frankly never be used for anything and I'm surprised that so many voting systems and even democracies are still based around it. That's a valid suggestion which applies to the actual voting process. I like it. But how do you propose we "fix" the initial judging process to narrow down the maps to ~8? Like I said, that part actually has a lot of input from several different areas of TL (including the 6-8 of us from TL Strategy that play around on the maps), so in conjunction with a couple of set guidelines (such as no geysers on ramps, neutral burrowed ultralisks, etc.) I think we have a pretty fair and thoughtful way to initially judge. There aren't just 3-4 "TLMC overseers" that just decide everything. There's a lot of work and input involved before the finalists are chosen. Like I said, you can make the initial 8 finalists be an initial similar poll where only people who have a verified account of master or higher can vote, after the final eight are selected that can be open to everyone. On March 31 2014 03:46 emythrel wrote:On March 31 2014 02:49 SC2John wrote:On March 30 2014 17:20 SiskosGoatee wrote:If you'd rather continue to make maps that will probably never see competitive use, that's fine. I don't understand what your issues are with a contest that freely sponsors maps. Does all of this post just go to say that you'd rather have a contest that picks more abstract maps? Or are you just bitching about how you don't like the way we do things? I mean, what are your actual suggestions? My actual suggestion is contained at the end of my blog: "A better alternative is simply asking people to rank each finalist from 1 to 8 and give 1 point for rank 8 and 8 points for rank 1 and just see which one gets the most points. It cancels this eating into other thing out." First-past-the-post is a horribly flawed voting system for the reasons I gave in my post and everyone should know it, it should quite frankly never be used for anything and I'm surprised that so many voting systems and even democracies are still based around it. That's a valid suggestion which applies to the actual voting process. I like it. But how do you propose we "fix" the initial judging process to narrow down the maps to ~8? Like I said, that part actually has a lot of input from several different areas of TL (including the 6-8 of us from TL Strategy that play around on the maps), so in conjunction with a couple of set guidelines (such as no geysers on ramps, neutral burrowed ultralisks, etc.) I think we have a pretty fair and thoughtful way to initially judge. There aren't just 3-4 "TLMC overseers" that just decide everything. There's a lot of work and input involved before the finalists are chosen. The reason first past the post is used is for simplicity, in political elections you want simplicity, to make it as easy as possible to vote. Ranking systems are confusing for many people and would lead to thousands of invalid votes, that is why ranking systems haven't been implemented, the average citizen is an idiot. There are many democracies that do not have a first past the post system, in fact, the amount of democracies that do are rare. I don't live in a country where you have a first past the post system. And our system is in fact so extremely mind bogglingly simple compared to the US system which is districts after districts after districts. It's super simple here, x percent of the votes is x percents of the seats in parliament and the executive branch needs to enjoy majority confidence of the lower house. It's that simple. Thankfully that doesn't apply to the TL community! I think a ranking system would greatly improve the TLMC, however I can not see a more effective way to do the initial judging either. You need some small group of people with the right knowledge either about map design, game balance or high level playing ability to weed out the bad maps and whittle it down the best 20 or so. I'm sure TL have a diverse enough group of people that they make good choices, i've always been happy with their choices for finalists. And who's going to say that the TL strategy group has that? They basically decide of themselves that they do. I'm sorry but these are the people who will tell you that a certain strategy is completely unviable in their guides and 3 months later that very strat appears in proleague. There is no doubt in my mind that many of the people on TL strategy would have dismissed a crazy suggestion like hatch first blocking a Terran expansion if it didn't come from Catz. I've debated some of these people, they assumed I was in Bronze or something for asserting that back in WoL pure MMM TvZ was viable. Come 1 month later and MKP popularizes the strategy. Which is exactly the problem with a lot of people who think themselves authoritative on strategy, they are too easy to dismiss the unorthodox as not working, and this includes progamers, make no mistake. Progamers are very quick to say that just because something isn't orthodox it can't work. In fact, Destiny goes on and on about how MajOr for instance believes that a strat can't work if the Koreans aren't doing it. And that's basically what greatly limits TLMC and why all the maps are so bog standard, people's continued belief that just because something is unorthodox it can't work. These are the people that said Yeonsu was worthy of being a finalist, we now know that Yeonsu is horribly imbalanced, something that many people already said and discussed in Yeonsu's own map thread by the way. I don't hold them quite as knowledgeable as they do themselves. Who says Master League players know shit about map balance? Its simply not feasible to do what you suggest. Most Map maker probably aren't Master league players, so basically they don't qualify to vote under your system. So now you have to add that verified map makers can vote too, but what qualifies you as a knowledgeable mapmaker? Just like being a master league player doesn't mean you know shit about maps, or necessarily what makes a balanced game or what plays well, being a map maker does not of itself mean you know jack shit about how to make a competitive map. So basically you would have hundreds of random people voting, many of whom don't have the knowledge to make an informed decision. Just like the general populace of TL don't have a fucking clue what they are voting for in the finals of the TLMC. I certainly don't, I vote for maps that look cool, have something interesting about them etc etc. I can't tell a balanced map from an unbalanced one, I rely on people who know more than I for that information. When I played SC2 a lot, I bounced from Diamond to Master a few times, so I know a decent amount about how to play the game, I know what maps I like and what I don't, but thats just personal preference, usually based on what maps I can play my favourite strats, have the best winrate on etc etc. I've been following starcraft and had stuff explained to me many times about what makes a map a "zerg" map or a "terran" map, but I still couldn't look at a map i've never seen before and make any valid observations about how balanced it is, or whether it would be interesting to play on. You somehow expect that hundreds of random people voting would be better, when people would just vote for weird, gimmicky stuff, then entire final would be maps that have no place in competitive play because they are fun, crazy maps or there would be absolutely no zany maps in the final nbecause all these "high level" master players pick maps just like the current crop of "safe" map designs. You trust the populace far too much and attribute them with abilities they do not posess. The initial jury is the most sensible way to do things, perhaps they could recruit people from further afield than TL staff and contributors, but I'd bet even if they asked you to judge, you'd still be unhappy with the results.
I believe the ultimate goal of siskosgoatee is to:
1) Raise hell, post controversial topics, then waffle around and fail to do anything actually productive with his time.
2) Fail at all map/game analysis by insisting that we just don't understand "unorthodox" strategies.
3) and to be able to control the TLMC as he wishes because his ideas are obviously the best.
These blogs are simply the reflection of someone who enjoys bitching, debating, philosophizing, and being "right".
EDIT: Also, didn't we debunk that hatch steal a long time ago? Even with CC first, you end up ahead as long as you scout it.
|
|
|
On March 31 2014 05:11 emythrel wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2014 04:12 SiskosGoatee wrote:On March 31 2014 02:49 SC2John wrote:On March 30 2014 17:20 SiskosGoatee wrote:If you'd rather continue to make maps that will probably never see competitive use, that's fine. I don't understand what your issues are with a contest that freely sponsors maps. Does all of this post just go to say that you'd rather have a contest that picks more abstract maps? Or are you just bitching about how you don't like the way we do things? I mean, what are your actual suggestions? My actual suggestion is contained at the end of my blog: "A better alternative is simply asking people to rank each finalist from 1 to 8 and give 1 point for rank 8 and 8 points for rank 1 and just see which one gets the most points. It cancels this eating into other thing out." First-past-the-post is a horribly flawed voting system for the reasons I gave in my post and everyone should know it, it should quite frankly never be used for anything and I'm surprised that so many voting systems and even democracies are still based around it. That's a valid suggestion which applies to the actual voting process. I like it. But how do you propose we "fix" the initial judging process to narrow down the maps to ~8? Like I said, that part actually has a lot of input from several different areas of TL (including the 6-8 of us from TL Strategy that play around on the maps), so in conjunction with a couple of set guidelines (such as no geysers on ramps, neutral burrowed ultralisks, etc.) I think we have a pretty fair and thoughtful way to initially judge. There aren't just 3-4 "TLMC overseers" that just decide everything. There's a lot of work and input involved before the finalists are chosen. Like I said, you can make the initial 8 finalists be an initial similar poll where only people who have a verified account of master or higher can vote, after the final eight are selected that can be open to everyone. On March 31 2014 03:46 emythrel wrote:On March 31 2014 02:49 SC2John wrote:On March 30 2014 17:20 SiskosGoatee wrote:If you'd rather continue to make maps that will probably never see competitive use, that's fine. I don't understand what your issues are with a contest that freely sponsors maps. Does all of this post just go to say that you'd rather have a contest that picks more abstract maps? Or are you just bitching about how you don't like the way we do things? I mean, what are your actual suggestions? My actual suggestion is contained at the end of my blog: "A better alternative is simply asking people to rank each finalist from 1 to 8 and give 1 point for rank 8 and 8 points for rank 1 and just see which one gets the most points. It cancels this eating into other thing out." First-past-the-post is a horribly flawed voting system for the reasons I gave in my post and everyone should know it, it should quite frankly never be used for anything and I'm surprised that so many voting systems and even democracies are still based around it. That's a valid suggestion which applies to the actual voting process. I like it. But how do you propose we "fix" the initial judging process to narrow down the maps to ~8? Like I said, that part actually has a lot of input from several different areas of TL (including the 6-8 of us from TL Strategy that play around on the maps), so in conjunction with a couple of set guidelines (such as no geysers on ramps, neutral burrowed ultralisks, etc.) I think we have a pretty fair and thoughtful way to initially judge. There aren't just 3-4 "TLMC overseers" that just decide everything. There's a lot of work and input involved before the finalists are chosen. The reason first past the post is used is for simplicity, in political elections you want simplicity, to make it as easy as possible to vote. Ranking systems are confusing for many people and would lead to thousands of invalid votes, that is why ranking systems haven't been implemented, the average citizen is an idiot. There are many democracies that do not have a first past the post system, in fact, the amount of democracies that do are rare. I don't live in a country where you have a first past the post system. And our system is in fact so extremely mind bogglingly simple compared to the US system which is districts after districts after districts. It's super simple here, x percent of the votes is x percents of the seats in parliament and the executive branch needs to enjoy majority confidence of the lower house. It's that simple. Thankfully that doesn't apply to the TL community! I think a ranking system would greatly improve the TLMC, however I can not see a more effective way to do the initial judging either. You need some small group of people with the right knowledge either about map design, game balance or high level playing ability to weed out the bad maps and whittle it down the best 20 or so. I'm sure TL have a diverse enough group of people that they make good choices, i've always been happy with their choices for finalists. And who's going to say that the TL strategy group has that? They basically decide of themselves that they do. I'm sorry but these are the people who will tell you that a certain strategy is completely unviable in their guides and 3 months later that very strat appears in proleague. There is no doubt in my mind that many of the people on TL strategy would have dismissed a crazy suggestion like hatch first blocking a Terran expansion if it didn't come from Catz. I've debated some of these people, they assumed I was in Bronze or something for asserting that back in WoL pure MMM TvZ was viable. Come 1 month later and MKP popularizes the strategy. Which is exactly the problem with a lot of people who think themselves authoritative on strategy, they are too easy to dismiss the unorthodox as not working, and this includes progamers, make no mistake. Progamers are very quick to say that just because something isn't orthodox it can't work. In fact, Destiny goes on and on about how MajOr for instance believes that a strat can't work if the Koreans aren't doing it. And that's basically what greatly limits TLMC and why all the maps are so bog standard, people's continued belief that just because something is unorthodox it can't work. These are the people that said Yeonsu was worthy of being a finalist, we now know that Yeonsu is horribly imbalanced, something that many people already said and discussed in Yeonsu's own map thread by the way. I don't hold them quite as knowledgeable as they do themselves. Who says Master League players know shit about map balance? Who says 3 random members of TL strategy do? I rather put my faith in a thousand master league players than 3 random members from TL strategy.
Its simply not feasible to do what you suggest. Most Map maker probably aren't Master league players, so basically they don't qualify to vote under your system. Most map makers then again have a pretty bad understanding of the game and try to wash this away with the typical "My understanding is master league, my mechanics just hold me back.".
So now you have to add that verified map makers can vote too, but what qualifies you as a knowledgeable mapmaker? Just like being a master league player doesn't mean you know shit about maps, or necessarily what makes a balanced game or what plays well, being a map maker does not of itself mean you know jack shit about how to make a competitive map. So basically you would have hundreds of random people voting, many of whom don't have the knowledge to make an informed decision. We have to add that? Map makers who are master, or maybe diamond+master can vote.
Just like the general populace of TL don't have a fucking clue what they are voting for in the finals of the TLMC. I certainly don't, I vote for maps that look cool, have something interesting about them etc etc. I can't tell a balanced map from an unbalanced one, I rely on people who know more than I for that information. When I played SC2 a lot, I bounced from Diamond to Master a few times, so I know a decent amount about how to play the game, I know what maps I like and what I don't, but thats just personal preference, usually based on what maps I can play my favourite strats, have the best winrate on etc etc. I wouldn't say they do either, but hey, neither do I feel that the judges each year have a clue, and I'd rather if people aren't going to have a clue that the no clue is democratic. I'm sceptical of democracy because people are idiots, but I'd rather that every idiot can vote than that only a select few of them can.
I've been following starcraft and had stuff explained to me many times about what makes a map a "zerg" map or a "terran" map I've made a blog post in the past which comes with a lot of examples of what people said were 'Zerg' or 'Terran' maps has been blatantly, blatantly wrong. Which is why I don't trust the so called expertise on maps of these people. All these so called good map makers with such a good understanding were all hammering about how say entombed valley or Akilon were Protoss maps or how Antiga was a Terran map but if you just look at the numbers then that's not true at all, I don't hold their ability to judge what race a map is going to favour in as much regard as they do themselves.
http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/441941-theorycraft-and-map-balance
but I still couldn't look at a map i've never seen before and make any valid observations about how balanced it is, or whether it would be interesting to play on. You somehow expect that hundreds of random people voting would be better, when people would just vote for weird, gimmicky stuff, then entire final would be maps that have no place in competitive play because they are fun, crazy maps or there would be absolutely no zany maps in the final nbecause all these "high level" master players pick maps just like the current crop of "safe" map designs. Thusfar your argument relies on the implicit assumption that those members of TL Strategy are capable of doing all that well. I urge you to reconsider that axiom because it blatantly isn't true. Did they not praise Yeonsu? One of the most imbalanced maps in a long time? Hell, in Yeonsu's own map topic there was a very hefty discussion about its balance. A lot of people there said it was a very bad map for Zerg against Terran and to a lesser extend Protoss and these 'famous mappers' would come there and debuke that with shallow arguments. Well, the people who called it imbalanced were right, the numbers are indisputable. 65% TvZ, are you kidding me? Yeonsu is more imbalanced than Daedalus point.
You trust the populace far too much and attribute them with abilities they do not posess. The initial jury is the most sensible way to do things, perhaps they could recruit people from further afield than TL staff and contributors, but I'd bet even if they asked you to judge, you'd still be unhappy with the results.
No, you trust the jury too much. I don't trust the populace all that much but like I said, better a thousand idiots than 3 idiots making up the final 8.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
