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On March 18 2017 06:21 blunderfulguy wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Edit: this is stupidly long for a simple question and suggestion I wanted to pose.
The big issues I've had for the last handful of these are the map requirements and the map categories for the contest, either the category requirements feel off, the maps in the categories feel off, or the judging of the categories felt off. And then what Blizzard adds to the ladder map pool can feel off too. So, why have a single contest with all of these categories to decide maps for ladder if the categories don't work? Is there a better way to do map making contests that focus on individual aspects of map making instead of trying to cover everything all at once on a short notice?
I used to participate in a lot of traditional art contests and I follow several artists who submit to or judge very large, prestigious art contests or head art design teams. Many smaller art contests are hyper focused on a single type of medium, art style, or subject matter (like Macro, Rush, Ramps, Rocks, etc.), which works extremely well for the artists, the judges, and people viewing or voting in the contests and function similarly to how art design happens for a game like Magic: the Gathering set. Clear guidelines, exploring a specific idea together, and ending up with a phenomenal set of Gothic Horror paintings, abstract sculpture, or, perhaps for SC2, an in-depth analysis of how Double Ramps can be used in 1v1 map design. Large contests such as the Spectrum Art Contest happen annually and an incredible number of masterpieces get submitted each year and the best of the best get collected in each edition of the Spectrum art book, and in some ways it feels similar to what TLMC tries to do but I don't believe it's the best way to go about it for StarCraft 2, especially for choosing new ladder maps. For Spectrum, it's a large collection of awesome fantasy art and it works great. For TLMC, however, it's a large collection of maps that are all supposed be ladder viable but also explore new ideas but also fit into gameplay categories which sometimes don't make sense and... Ew.
What if there was a TLMC Season consisting of multiple contests each individually focused on exploring map design instead? As an example: TLMC 2017 Summer Contest announced at the end of Spring with judging taking place the last two weeks of Summer, two small tournaments scheduled for the last weekend of Summer, and winners announced the first weekend of Autumn. The contest theme is Air Blockers. Map makers will use the new Air Unit AI and new editor tools to explore Large and Small maps showcasing Air Blockers with a two submission limit per map maker. Judges for this contest are three past TLMC judges along with Artosis and Jacky.
Obviously just an very loose idea of what I mean. Something that focuses itself and doesn't cram its way into and confuse the ladder map decisions as much and over time could explore everything from art design in maps, multiplayer AI, terrain features, specific strategies or armies, and so on, providing a smorgasbord of information for Blizzard and map makers which everyone can use to make the best map pool possible and not restricting new ladder maps to be exclusively from the TLMC while letting people loose a little to have fun with it instead of stressing everyone to no end. A winning map could see ladder play of course, but I think another option is to pick parts of a contest map as the foundation for a new map intended from the very start to be used on ladder.
The way it is now is... Well, for me it doesn't seem like the TLMC is doing what it's intended to do and it's confusing and upsetting a lot of map makers, players, and I'm sure developers when a lot of these things in this thread happen, and I'm also not a fan of the process from a personal standpoint. I want to see map makers shine in contests focused on something they're good at and also be inspired to do something outside their comfort zone without the stress of possibly failing the only TLMC in the whole year. And with some dang time to make a cool map. Last TLMC I had so many tech and irl issues when TLMC7 was announced I couldn't get anything right then this time it was "oh hey surprise TLMC8 is happening!" and everyone who didn't already have something was kinda screwed. Going back to the Art Contest comparison, for the annual Spectrum Art Contest everyone has all year to pick their best art they've made and submit it and everyone knows it will be chock full of masterpieces, but for smaller ones everyone starts off with an even playing field and focused guidelines and in both they have a team of judges considered experts in general or are connoisseurs and pioneers of a specific medium or subject matter.
It's very unlike what the TLMC does now and goes away from what I've heard other map makers or fans suggest for future contests, but I think there are a lot of things that could be done that would make TLMCs better for map makers, TL, viewers, players, developers, and the game overall and other contest "formats" have shown a lot of success, even other games (Dota 2 comes to mind now) have success following seasons and themes for their player created content. In my eyes there has to be some better way to look at and design maps for the game that get played not just in ladder but in front of massive crowds in major events with gigantic prize pools too.
Something like this could also be used from a purely aesthetic design perspective and let players and map makers have an influence on, say, what the next set of Spring/Summer Grassland maps will look like or what the next iteration of City Maps should look like and give either the team or new map makers a guide to follow for not only 1v1 melee maps but 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, and even Co-op maps, turning players into art directors in a way.
Imagine Namaste in a Spring Tileset contest and the aesthetic used for a 2v2 map the dev team made. Friggin sick.
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more things change the more they stay the same
+ Show Spoiler [idc] +
the map pool is blizz"s toy,
tournaments were suppose to care and be bold and make new maps enter the pool by showcasing them in their tournament (never happened)
people networking get ahead and there are such "new maps" tournaments
and the selection is done, tournament has no hype nor exposure, observing is sh it, analysis real time of the maps is nowhere to be found
same thing as 6 years ago only with 6 years worth of waiting
feels sad and lamebruh? so what ch u gonna do about it? yes YOU!
Until someone makes mapmakers work together for real, we wont get 3 or 4 maps in the pool at once, and until we can co op more than half of the map pool with maps that DELIVER good games EVERY game .. then there will be no map pool.. just blizz's toy
sad
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Avex, you make some great maps. But seriously please stop this. This public spat isn't doing much favours for you or Rifkin.
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On March 18 2017 03:59 SidianTheBard wrote:
As mizenhauer said earlier in the thread he could just play on Overgrowth 24/7. It makes me wonder if you just re-textured Overgrowth 7 different times so basically you had the same map just 7 different looks to it, if the pro player base would really even notice much.
This is so wrong I don't know what makes you think that. A map doesn't need some crazy gimmicky features to be different from other maps.
Pros want standard maps but standard maps can be vastly different, do you really think there's no difference between Polar Night, Echo, King Sejong Station, Abyssal Reef and Hwangsan to name a few?
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On March 18 2017 06:53 Hoofit wrote:
Avex, you make some great maps. But seriously please stop this. This public spat isn't doing much favours for you or Rifkin.
This post wasn't maent to be an attack on Rifkin. It's to shed light on the multitude of issues TLMC faced this year.
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On March 18 2017 08:12 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On March 18 2017 03:59 SidianTheBard wrote:
As mizenhauer said earlier in the thread he could just play on Overgrowth 24/7. It makes me wonder if you just re-textured Overgrowth 7 different times so basically you had the same map just 7 different looks to it, if the pro player base would really even notice much.
This is so wrong I don't know what makes you think that. A map doesn't need some crazy gimmicky features to be different from other maps. Pros want standard maps but standard maps can be vastly different, do you really think there's no difference between Polar Night, Echo, King Sejong Station, Abyssal Reef and Hwangsan to name a few?
Polar Night and King Sejong Station weren't standard maps at all when they were released.
And some pros probably wouldn't mind playing on a map pool of 7 Overgrowth variants. Though the majority would want a little more diversity than that.
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United States1764 Posts
On March 18 2017 11:18 ZigguratOfUr wrote:Show nested quote +On March 18 2017 08:12 Charoisaur wrote:On March 18 2017 03:59 SidianTheBard wrote:
As mizenhauer said earlier in the thread he could just play on Overgrowth 24/7. It makes me wonder if you just re-textured Overgrowth 7 different times so basically you had the same map just 7 different looks to it, if the pro player base would really even notice much.
This is so wrong I don't know what makes you think that. A map doesn't need some crazy gimmicky features to be different from other maps. Pros want standard maps but standard maps can be vastly different, do you really think there's no difference between Polar Night, Echo, King Sejong Station, Abyssal Reef and Hwangsan to name a few? Polar Night and King Sejong Station weren't standard maps at all when they were released. And some pros probably wouldn't mind playing on a map pool of 7 Overgrowth variants. Though the majority would want a little more diversity than that.
If there was one map to practice for instead of seven practice would be so much more effective and efficient. I bet a lot more people than you think would rather have that be the case instead of practicing for all the maps in a map pool, many of which are terrible (this is why GSL did a map pool including maps from last season as well. They simply couldn't have games on paladino or honorgrounds).
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On March 18 2017 11:35 mizenhauer wrote:Show nested quote +On March 18 2017 11:18 ZigguratOfUr wrote:On March 18 2017 08:12 Charoisaur wrote:On March 18 2017 03:59 SidianTheBard wrote:
As mizenhauer said earlier in the thread he could just play on Overgrowth 24/7. It makes me wonder if you just re-textured Overgrowth 7 different times so basically you had the same map just 7 different looks to it, if the pro player base would really even notice much.
This is so wrong I don't know what makes you think that. A map doesn't need some crazy gimmicky features to be different from other maps. Pros want standard maps but standard maps can be vastly different, do you really think there's no difference between Polar Night, Echo, King Sejong Station, Abyssal Reef and Hwangsan to name a few? Polar Night and King Sejong Station weren't standard maps at all when they were released. And some pros probably wouldn't mind playing on a map pool of 7 Overgrowth variants. Though the majority would want a little more diversity than that. If there was one map to practice for instead of seven practice would be so much more effective and efficient. I bet a lot more people than you think would rather have that be the case instead of practicing for all the maps in a map pool, many of which are terrible (this is why GSL did a map pool including maps from last season as well. They simply couldn't have games on paladino or honorgrounds).
By effective and efficient you mean stale and repetitive. Players knowing absolutely everything about a map doesn't make for better games. By always playing on the same map all the time you avoid awful maps in the same way as you can avoid car accidents by not getting on a car. There aren't any risks, but there isn't any progress either.
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Re-reading through and thinking back to all the problems with this TLMC, almost all of them stem from either the timeline or the categories. With more time mapmakers can make better maps, the changing requirements for the categories get sorted out faster, the judges get more time to pick, and all the problems with incorrect map versions, locked google docs etc get avoided.
As to the categories, here's what I think they should be:
- 2 slots for "rush maps" (though they don't have to be quite as rushy as those this time)
- 3 slots for "middle-of-the-road" standard maps neither big nor small, a category that has sorely been lacking these past two TLMCs due to the categories. Despite being the most represented type of map throughout Starcraft history of all 30 finalists during the last two TLMCs only Hwangsan and Annihilation Station fall into it.
- 3 slots for "macro maps". Definition essentially unchanged for what they ended up settling with this time
- 4 slots for "experimental maps". Like the rush category, this category suffers from the judges going for the rush-iest or most experimental maps rather than going for the best maps that are rush maps or experimental maps, but I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with the category.
- 3 "judges pick maps" to level out differences in category strength
As for experimental resources, I don't think they should be a category, since every map that's a resource map also happens to fall into another one of the categories. However to encourage mapmakers to experiment with resources, I would guarantee that two of the fifteen finalists would feature experimental resources.
Similarly I would guarantee that two of the fifteen finalists would not be two player maps. Most players like two player maps better due to scouting RNG. Most mapmakers like two player maps better since they are easier to get right. And the TLMC judges also like two player maps better. However non two player maps do have some points in their favour and some fans, so I'd try to persuade mapmakers to work on them this way.
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United States1764 Posts
On March 18 2017 11:56 ZigguratOfUr wrote:Show nested quote +On March 18 2017 11:35 mizenhauer wrote:On March 18 2017 11:18 ZigguratOfUr wrote:On March 18 2017 08:12 Charoisaur wrote:On March 18 2017 03:59 SidianTheBard wrote:
As mizenhauer said earlier in the thread he could just play on Overgrowth 24/7. It makes me wonder if you just re-textured Overgrowth 7 different times so basically you had the same map just 7 different looks to it, if the pro player base would really even notice much.
This is so wrong I don't know what makes you think that. A map doesn't need some crazy gimmicky features to be different from other maps. Pros want standard maps but standard maps can be vastly different, do you really think there's no difference between Polar Night, Echo, King Sejong Station, Abyssal Reef and Hwangsan to name a few? Polar Night and King Sejong Station weren't standard maps at all when they were released. And some pros probably wouldn't mind playing on a map pool of 7 Overgrowth variants. Though the majority would want a little more diversity than that. If there was one map to practice for instead of seven practice would be so much more effective and efficient. I bet a lot more people than you think would rather have that be the case instead of practicing for all the maps in a map pool, many of which are terrible (this is why GSL did a map pool including maps from last season as well. They simply couldn't have games on paladino or honorgrounds). By effective and efficient you mean stale and repetitive. Players knowing absolutely everything about a map doesn't make for better games. By always playing on the same map all the time you avoid awful maps in the same way as you can avoid car accidents by not getting on a car. There aren't any risks, but there isn't any progress either.
No, I meant effective and efficient. If you play 1000 games in practice with the map pool the way it is you play 1000 games on seven maps. If there is only one map - well use your imagination. And I wasn't talking about viewers, I was talking about players. And I still don't understand why maps get stale. Do you watch SC to look at pretty maps or see the best players playing at their best? I know which one I prefer.
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On March 18 2017 12:18 mizenhauer wrote:Show nested quote +On March 18 2017 11:56 ZigguratOfUr wrote:On March 18 2017 11:35 mizenhauer wrote:On March 18 2017 11:18 ZigguratOfUr wrote:On March 18 2017 08:12 Charoisaur wrote:On March 18 2017 03:59 SidianTheBard wrote:
As mizenhauer said earlier in the thread he could just play on Overgrowth 24/7. It makes me wonder if you just re-textured Overgrowth 7 different times so basically you had the same map just 7 different looks to it, if the pro player base would really even notice much.
This is so wrong I don't know what makes you think that. A map doesn't need some crazy gimmicky features to be different from other maps. Pros want standard maps but standard maps can be vastly different, do you really think there's no difference between Polar Night, Echo, King Sejong Station, Abyssal Reef and Hwangsan to name a few? Polar Night and King Sejong Station weren't standard maps at all when they were released. And some pros probably wouldn't mind playing on a map pool of 7 Overgrowth variants. Though the majority would want a little more diversity than that. If there was one map to practice for instead of seven practice would be so much more effective and efficient. I bet a lot more people than you think would rather have that be the case instead of practicing for all the maps in a map pool, many of which are terrible (this is why GSL did a map pool including maps from last season as well. They simply couldn't have games on paladino or honorgrounds). By effective and efficient you mean stale and repetitive. Players knowing absolutely everything about a map doesn't make for better games. By always playing on the same map all the time you avoid awful maps in the same way as you can avoid car accidents by not getting on a car. There aren't any risks, but there isn't any progress either. No, I meant effective and efficient. If you play 1000 games in practice with the map pool the way it is you play 1000 games on seven maps. If there is only one map - well use your imagination. And I wasn't talking about viewers, I was talking about fans. And I still don't understand why maps get stale. Do you watch SC to look at pretty maps or see the best players playing at their best? I know which one I prefer.
Being the best almost means being able to adapt and innovate and being able to play well on a range of maps. Every map reaches a point where there's nothing to learn from it, and everything that can be done on it has been done. It happens faster with gimmick maps, but it happens to all maps given enough time.
Did you watch SSL season 2 challenge last year? It was Dusk Towers every other game, and game after game that I'd seen before already. And don't even get me started on Fighting Spirit.
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It boils down to which aspect of Starcraft 2 you "respect" more: the mechanical or the strategical.
The person who favors mechanical skill / finger speed / perfecting the same builds will want the same map (or similar) always.
The person who values strategic thinking will want varied maps as that will typically favor the player with the higher intellect/creativity (assuming roughly equal skill).
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On March 18 2017 06:53 Hoofit wrote:
Avex, you make some great maps. But seriously please stop this. This public spat isn't doing much favours for you or Rifkin.
Also let's please stop trying to create a big thing out of this. At least if there will be drama in SC2 let there be drama for good reason where something might get accomplished out of it.
Avex/Rifkin had a small understanding and it's behind us. I doubt either of them even cares anything about it anymore. Let's focus on the actual discussions here.
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On March 18 2017 12:08 ZigguratOfUr wrote:Re-reading through and thinking back to all the problems with this TLMC, almost all of them stem from either the timeline or the categories. With more time mapmakers can make better maps, the changing requirements for the categories get sorted out faster, the judges get more time to pick, and all the problems with incorrect map versions, locked google docs etc get avoided. As to the categories, here's what I think they should be: - 2 slots for "rush maps" (though they don't have to be quite as rushy as those this time)
- 3 slots for "middle-of-the-road" standard maps neither big nor small, a category that has sorely been lacking these past two TLMCs due to the categories. Despite being the most represented type of map throughout Starcraft history of all 30 finalists during the last two TLMCs only Hwangsan and Annihilation Station fall into it.
- 3 slots for "macro maps". Definition essentially unchanged for what they ended up settling with this time
- 4 slots for "experimental maps". Like the rush category, this category suffers from the judges going for the rush-iest or most experimental maps rather than going for the best maps that are rush maps or experimental maps, but I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with the category.
- 3 "judges pick maps" to level out differences in category strength
As for experimental resources, I don't think they should be a category, since every map that's a resource map also happens to fall into another one of the categories. However to encourage mapmakers to experiment with resources, I would guarantee that two of the fifteen finalists would feature experimental resources. Similarly I would guarantee that two of the fifteen finalists would not be two player maps. Most players like two player maps better due to scouting RNG. Most mapmakers like two player maps better since they are easier to get right. And the TLMC judges also like two player maps better. However non two player maps do have some points in their favour and some fans, so I'd try to persuade mapmakers to work on them this way.
Yeah if we had to have categories that sounds pretty good. Personally I've been proposing simply having "standard" and "non-standard" as our 2 categories for about a year now. It avoids us having dumb categories and gives the judges plenty of latitude for picking since there's only 2 categories. Of course your "3 judges' pick maps" also does this.
Conversely I think blunderfulguy's idea is interesting - having the mapping community attack a specific idea hard and we'll probably get a few great maps and really fully "figure out" an idea that way. The only thing with that direction is you better make damn sure the contest's theme/idea is a good one.
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On March 18 2017 13:30 Fatam wrote:Show nested quote +On March 18 2017 12:08 ZigguratOfUr wrote:Re-reading through and thinking back to all the problems with this TLMC, almost all of them stem from either the timeline or the categories. With more time mapmakers can make better maps, the changing requirements for the categories get sorted out faster, the judges get more time to pick, and all the problems with incorrect map versions, locked google docs etc get avoided. As to the categories, here's what I think they should be: - 2 slots for "rush maps" (though they don't have to be quite as rushy as those this time)
- 3 slots for "middle-of-the-road" standard maps neither big nor small, a category that has sorely been lacking these past two TLMCs due to the categories. Despite being the most represented type of map throughout Starcraft history of all 30 finalists during the last two TLMCs only Hwangsan and Annihilation Station fall into it.
- 3 slots for "macro maps". Definition essentially unchanged for what they ended up settling with this time
- 4 slots for "experimental maps". Like the rush category, this category suffers from the judges going for the rush-iest or most experimental maps rather than going for the best maps that are rush maps or experimental maps, but I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with the category.
- 3 "judges pick maps" to level out differences in category strength
As for experimental resources, I don't think they should be a category, since every map that's a resource map also happens to fall into another one of the categories. However to encourage mapmakers to experiment with resources, I would guarantee that two of the fifteen finalists would feature experimental resources. Similarly I would guarantee that two of the fifteen finalists would not be two player maps. Most players like two player maps better due to scouting RNG. Most mapmakers like two player maps better since they are easier to get right. And the TLMC judges also like two player maps better. However non two player maps do have some points in their favour and some fans, so I'd try to persuade mapmakers to work on them this way. Yeah if we had to have categories that sounds pretty good. Personally I've been proposing simply having "standard" and "non-standard" as our 2 categories for about a year now. It avoids us having dumb categories and gives the judges plenty of latitude for picking since there's only 2 categories. Of course your "3 judges' pick maps" also does this. Conversely I think blunderfulguy's idea is interesting - having the mapping community attack a specific idea hard and we'll probably get a few great maps and really fully "figure out" an idea that way. The only thing with that direction is you better make damn sure the contest's theme/idea is a good one.
blunderfulguy's idea is interesting, but I don't think it aligns well with the goals of the TLMC. You might get some good maps along that narrow theme, but you won't get diverse enough maps to populate a map pool.
Also from a mapmaking perspective it feels rather restrictive. For art contests it works because they exist in an ecosystem of other contests, so it's possible to hyper-focus on a single topic. But there's only one or two TLMCs a year.
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On March 18 2017 06:53 Hoofit wrote:
Avex, you make some great maps. But seriously please stop this. This public spat isn't doing much favours for you or Rifkin.
I made a public spat, this however was a pretty on-the-level post outlining the issues this contest faced, which should be acknowledged if next time is going to be better. The only posts making any drama out of this are ones like yours, frankly.
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On March 18 2017 11:18 ZigguratOfUr wrote:Show nested quote +On March 18 2017 08:12 Charoisaur wrote:On March 18 2017 03:59 SidianTheBard wrote:
As mizenhauer said earlier in the thread he could just play on Overgrowth 24/7. It makes me wonder if you just re-textured Overgrowth 7 different times so basically you had the same map just 7 different looks to it, if the pro player base would really even notice much.
This is so wrong I don't know what makes you think that. A map doesn't need some crazy gimmicky features to be different from other maps. Pros want standard maps but standard maps can be vastly different, do you really think there's no difference between Polar Night, Echo, King Sejong Station, Abyssal Reef and Hwangsan to name a few? Polar Night and King Sejong Station weren't standard maps at all when they were released.
Maybe standard map was the wrong word, macro map would be more fitting. Point is that almost no pro had a problem with those maps despite them being very different from Overgrowth so no, pros don't want to play on Overgrowth every game.
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On March 18 2017 13:45 ZigguratOfUr wrote:Show nested quote +On March 18 2017 13:30 Fatam wrote:On March 18 2017 12:08 ZigguratOfUr wrote:Re-reading through and thinking back to all the problems with this TLMC, almost all of them stem from either the timeline or the categories. With more time mapmakers can make better maps, the changing requirements for the categories get sorted out faster, the judges get more time to pick, and all the problems with incorrect map versions, locked google docs etc get avoided. As to the categories, here's what I think they should be: - 2 slots for "rush maps" (though they don't have to be quite as rushy as those this time)
- 3 slots for "middle-of-the-road" standard maps neither big nor small, a category that has sorely been lacking these past two TLMCs due to the categories. Despite being the most represented type of map throughout Starcraft history of all 30 finalists during the last two TLMCs only Hwangsan and Annihilation Station fall into it.
- 3 slots for "macro maps". Definition essentially unchanged for what they ended up settling with this time
- 4 slots for "experimental maps". Like the rush category, this category suffers from the judges going for the rush-iest or most experimental maps rather than going for the best maps that are rush maps or experimental maps, but I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with the category.
- 3 "judges pick maps" to level out differences in category strength
As for experimental resources, I don't think they should be a category, since every map that's a resource map also happens to fall into another one of the categories. However to encourage mapmakers to experiment with resources, I would guarantee that two of the fifteen finalists would feature experimental resources. Similarly I would guarantee that two of the fifteen finalists would not be two player maps. Most players like two player maps better due to scouting RNG. Most mapmakers like two player maps better since they are easier to get right. And the TLMC judges also like two player maps better. However non two player maps do have some points in their favour and some fans, so I'd try to persuade mapmakers to work on them this way. Yeah if we had to have categories that sounds pretty good. Personally I've been proposing simply having "standard" and "non-standard" as our 2 categories for about a year now. It avoids us having dumb categories and gives the judges plenty of latitude for picking since there's only 2 categories. Of course your "3 judges' pick maps" also does this. Conversely I think blunderfulguy's idea is interesting - having the mapping community attack a specific idea hard and we'll probably get a few great maps and really fully "figure out" an idea that way. The only thing with that direction is you better make damn sure the contest's theme/idea is a good one. blunderfulguy's idea is interesting, but I don't think it aligns well with the goals of the TLMC. You might get some good maps along that narrow theme, but you won't get diverse enough maps to populate a map pool. Also from a mapmaking perspective it feels rather restrictive. For art contests it works because they exist in an ecosystem of other contests, so it's possible to hyper-focus on a single topic. But there's only one or two TLMCs a year.
With something like what I suggested it would make TLMC's more frequent (seasonal at the least) instead of only one or two TLMC per year, and the point of the "New TLMC" would not be to put winning maps onto ladder but to act as community-driven research and development for 1v1 ladder maps first and foremost. If I had my way with it I'd also like the judging process to go more smoothly and be more focused instead of trying to look at every aspect of all of the maps in several categories, which could also make the judging go by quicker, allowing more time and energy to be put into multiple TLMCs throughout the year. It definitely isn't something I thought through 100% of course, but I wanted to put it out there and get more brains than just my own thinking about it. I expect a lot of map makers to not like the idea, but a lot of people have a lot of problems with the way TLMC works now and it simply isn't yielding results that anyone is very happy with lately.
Addition for clarity: Judging example with 3 TL judges and 2 "Guest" judges (such as Artosis and Jacky in my Air Blocker example): Weed out maps with objective flaws (something that happens early on in TLMC already), decide on which maps best explore the subject of the tournament and are interesting and well made, not waste time on deciding which maps really fit into which categories and avoid causing confusion about Macro or Rush or Experimental map categories within the judging phase or the viewer voting phase, hold the tournament (if it's two phases have a map pool >7 in the first phase then reduce it to 7 in the second), then hold the voting. And with the two to three months map makers would have I don't think it's unreasonable to skip the "map iteration phase" along with another judging phase in something like what I proposed, especially if it would serve as RnD instead of directly affecting the ladder map pool.
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Appreciate this blog AVEX. I've worked closely on maps with you on and off over the years and it is indeed frustrating to go from 2nd place in both TLMC1 and 2, to watching how this year's TLMC was handled. It's a night and day difference. I really hope TLMC9 improves, especially the time frame. My map Broken Earth couldn't even be finished in time for submission in this contest because it was so incredibly rushed.
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Can we talk about maps for a second?"
 Gone in 60 seconds
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EPT
