Jman5, on 22 July 2014 - 07:12 AM, said:
What I'm suggesting is nothing as intrusive as a vote option after you drop into a match. That would probably require a good deal of back end work. What I'm suggesting is a pre-launch filter just like we have for game modes. Only you would be restricted to 1 map veto.
A lot of people don't seem to misunderstand what I'm suggesting so I bolded the important parts.
It seems that some people want to force everyone to play a map they hate the most because: reasons. And then vague accusations of call of duty as if that somehow settles things. Why do you guys care if someone pre-filters a map out in derpy pug play? It means nothing to you.
I'ma lay this out for ye one more time.
Say you're a Splatcat pilot. Yeah, Splats are so 2013, but they're a classic example and also pretty simple and easy to understand. Now, as a Splatcat pilot, you just absolutely
hate it any time you drop in a map that isn't River City. Or the upcoming new 'Mech Factory, but still. Anywhere there isn't thick and abundant cover and combat ranges less than a hundred meters, you're pissed off. Enough so that any time Alpine - your bitterest and most hateful foe - shows up, you drop the match rather than play on it.
I get it, I do - you'd rather pre-emptively drop Alpine from your drop queue entirely rather than just auto-ragequit any match in which Alpine turns up. there's something to be said for that...but here's the thing.
1.)
Players Should Not Be Rewarded For Being Bassholes
Giving players a shiny new "F%#@ THIS MAP" button as a thank-you for disconnecting from any match in which their personal most-hated match shows up is kind of a dikk move. If you're going to pull that sort of crap, you deserve losing access to your 'Mech for a time while the rest of us fight it out properly. Sure, it'd forestall the inevitable nine-on-seven matches in Alpine...but I don't really feel like rewarding bad behavior by the player base is a thing we should do.
2.)
Players Should Not Be Rewarded For Being Idjits.
Even on something as derpy as a Splatcat,
it's not that hard to find room for one single LRM launcher so you have something to do when not slinking around looking to bear-trap people (note: I threw that together in, like, thirty seconds as a proof of concept. Not claiming it's anywhere near optimized, simply stating that it's very easily
possible). If you're going to go 100% full-out bonkers in one narrow aspect of the game, a'la Splatcats,
then you deserve to have a hard time. If you're not sufficiently awesome that you can force your preferred engagement range whenever you feel like it, then maybe...just
maybe...you shouldn't build a 'Mech that's completely crippled if it doesn't drop on the one or two maps that you're hoping to see? Allowing players to cut maps out of their rotation so that they don't have to account for the fact that maybe the fight isn't going to go 110% their way in every drop? That sounds a lot like giving players licenses to be complete ***** to me.
3.)
Players Should
Be Rewarded For Versatility
This game is at its best when there's a wide variety of stuff out there and you never know what's going to come around the corner and start shooting you. Matches are more interesting and the game is more engaging when there's a profusion of different builds out there. It's the reason people have been begging PGI to do something
effective to curtail long-distance jump sniping for so long now. Aaaaaand...allowing people to just completely flat ignore the potential of being caught out of their element will kill a
lot of that already sickly and ailing game diversity. You'll end up with a set of pseudo-buckets in which players who like jump sniping have all disabled the short-range maps and thus end up doing nothing but jump-sniping on Alpine or Crimson, players who like Surmbombing or old-school brawling have disabled all the long-range maps and thus end up doing nothing but bearhug matches on River City or Forest Colony, and players who like energy duels have disabled all the hot maps and end up doing nothing but PPC hosing each other on Frozen City or HPG. None of these players'll ever see each other again, and the game will end up a weird, twisted space difficult to balance effectively because it's been broken up into oddly-shaped chunks. Not to mention the inevitable screeching nerdrage when events or tournaments in the future require players to play in maps they thought they'd Seen The Last of Forever.
Much better, on the whole, to make people cope with the fact that they're going to have to face everything the game has to offer at some point, and those players who're most adaptable get to have their chance to shine.