36 replies to this topic

[Josef Nader]

Some of us remember Closed Beta, where all maps were close quarters knife fights and the only ranged build that was worth a damn thing was the Gaussapult, and that was only because it could brawl like a champ (this is before gauss rifles exploded, they had no charge time, and they had the same health as any other component). I'd like to not return to the day where everything was Splat Cats, Streakapults, 2x AC/20 mechs, Cent Bombers, and Atlai, because that was the only thing that could survive grinding their faces together at point blank range. Inversely, I also don't miss the days of extreme range poptarting on Alpine being the only valid strategy.

If you allow people to choose which maps they play on, they're going to build for the maps they are playing on. Plain and simple. Why would anyone bring a purely LRM boat to River City? It's obviously completely sub-optimal for the map and only useful if the enemy makes a severe mistake. Why would anyone bring an AC20 hunchback to Alpine? It doesn't stand a chance against a sniper mech in a good position with all the open ground.

Random maps force diversity. They force people to be prepared for anything, and they allow specialists to sometimes shine, sometimes suffer, as they should be.

[CDLord HHGD]

Yeah, no. If anything we need more randomness in the rotation. Never a map removed!

[-Natural Selection-]

Augustus Martelus II, on 30 September 2014 - 08:30 PM, said:

OR they could make a filtering limit...let say 2-3 maps MAX.

Was going to say the same. Maybe 2 map exclusion max.

[Helsbane]

If we could do something like this, I'd never see River City Night again. Trouble is, there just aren't enough maps to begin with. While I hope that changes to the point where an exclusion function would work, currently it just wouldn't fly.

[MrMadguy]

Mal, on 30 September 2014 - 08:32 PM, said:

Don't forget that any additional filtering on matches would lengthen our time in queue.

50% of the people in queue won't play on Alpine... the other 50% only want to play Alpine...

Adding "ban map" feature = admit, that some maps have design problems. Even Wow, whose developers mind themselves as "best" game designers in a world, has "ban BG" feature, So, "ban 3 maps" feature will be just right. At least you won't be able to force 100500 "waste of time", "unbalanced" or "worst map for your build" maps in a row. I'd certainly ban Therma and Alpine in a first place. I'm not sure about 3rd map: Turmaline, Crimson and new map are currently almost equally terrible. And I know, why you don't want to implement this feature. Cuz that will turn some maps into waste of disk space, cuz most players will ban them, unless you'll fix them.

[Foxfire]

UnsafePilot, on 01 October 2014 - 06:58 AM, said:

Player voting leads to abandoned maps. MWO doesn't have enough maps to support that IMO.

People abandoning maps might actually force PGI to properly evaluate these maps to see why people don't like playing them.

That, to me, isn't a bad thing.

[Mawai]

The biggest issue would queue splitting and the resultant starvation.

The matchmaker already has enough trouble with matching selections on just 3 game modes that PGI wants to make this a soft constraint ... a weighted vote with a random number would decide the match type.

They could apply the same system to map selection.

.. but hard constraints split queues and result in longer times to form matches and lower quality matches overall ... so, no, I can't see them ever doing this.

However, PGI was proposing deciding the game mode based on vote preference ... i.e. each mode gets 1+ votes from each player ... work out a weighted probability and decide game mode. This means that if every player chose only skirmish there would be a 1/27 chance of conquest, a 1/27 chance of assault and a 25/27 chance for skirmish.

A similar scheme could be applied to map selection ... each map gets one vote so that there is a chance of every map in every match. Player preference is then applied on top of this. It might be better to allow a player to specific 3 maps they do NOT want to play on though since the system could be gamed by large teams that all select only one map ... when they are matched up they stand a much better chance of getting the map they want of they come up against a team made up of smaller groups.

[WarHippy]

Under no circumstances should map exclusion ever be allowed. It is poison to every game that does it, and this player base does not have the numbers or the constitution to survive it.

[Hillslam]

Make less sucky maps then.

[Kjudoon]

Mal, on 30 September 2014 - 08:32 PM, said:

Don't forget that any additional filtering on matches would lengthen our time in queue.

50% of the people in queue won't play on Alpine... the other 50% only want to play Alpine...

And Mal shows why that will never happen. Russ went over this in the last town hall podcast and there are also examples on here as to why it will never happen illustrated with the concept of blocking people from your play queue.

Soon, you're left with nobody to play with. If it really is that bad for you, bite the bullet and start playing private match only. I'm not trying to be glib here, because I've been told that by people regarding some issues I have, but when I am honest with myself, really that is the choice to fix my issues... if I must do something about it.

[Scratx]

Russ made it clear this could be possible... if the matchmaking took preferences as votes instead of hardlock decisions. So, if you don't like skirmish and prefer assault, you'd place votes on assault and not skirmish. But you'd sometimes still drop skirmish anyway.

Same idea would apply to maps. Hard locking maps out based on player preferences make matchmaking all that much harder. I'm honestly not sure it'd be viable.

So, do you want to get a voting system instead to get some control over which map you drop into?

[Tezcatli]

We have enough problems with the queue and elo matchmaker.

[Zerberus]

Duncan Jr Fischer, on 30 September 2014 - 08:21 PM, said:

To imagine how it will be with the filter, just double or triple the amount of specialized builds on these maps.
Random map is a price you have to pay for specialized builds. And moreover, specialized builds for one defined map make you lose your skill, as it makes your task much easier and you stop finding new ways with your mech and weapons. The real skill is to get to an unfitting map in the unfitting mech and outperform everyone))

Like ending up with a brawler D-DC on alpine peaks, and finishing with 6 kills,4 assists, 1500 dmg.

I agree that filtering is a bad idea, for numerous reasons.

1. build /map tuning: for example Alpine becomes all gauss, all the time. Similar things happen for other maps. Game loses tactical depth, and with that appeal for many. Everyone loses but the fine tuned specialists.

2. Certain maps will almost completely die out of rotation. Matchmaking becomes a horror because out of the 4 people that you want to use to fill your 8 man up to 12 one refuses RC /RCN / FrC, one refuses TT, TD, CV, one refuses FC, FCS, and FrCN, and one refuses AP, CS and HPG. Wait times tank, one sided matches skyrocket due to 1., and everyone loses that not a specialist

People refusing to take balanced builds and /or learn how to properly play their one sided builds is the the actual problem, not maps being too hot/ too cold /too open / too confined /too blahblahyaddayaddayyadda.

I understand not likeing a map. But having played many many games over the years, the one thing that was eventually universally detrimental was allowing the players to cherry pick maps that they had fine tuned their playstyle to. MW3 and 4 being notable examples from this specific franchise.

And I won my first ESL title by absolutely demolishing someone on a map that I knew they hated and rarely played, in fact almost everybody did, except me. Which is essentially why soon after that map choice for that ladder and a few others was no longer left up to the players and was drawn randomly.

Edited by Zerberus, 01 October 2014 - 08:06 PM.

[MrMadguy]

Yeah. You should clearly understand, that we just don't enjoy playing in some modes and on some maps. I don't play conquest and assault, cuz I want to play MechWarrior, not capwarrior. And I don't like some maps, cuz every single game on this map looks like "you spawned -> you walked somewhere -> you died -> you wasted your time". So it's not only unenjoyable for me, but also puts other players, who may enjoy this map, into bad situation. So wont it be better for me and them, if I will be able to filter this modes and maps? Cuz it's better to wait in a queue a little bit longer, then waste your time in match, you don't enjoy.

[Appogee]

Nup. There are neither enough players nor maps to make to divide the player base in this way.

[XxXAbsolutZeroXxX]

Filtering maps would dilute the number of candidates available to fill team queues, resulting in teams more uneven than normal. It would break the matchmaker in new & "exciting" ways. And increase search times to get into a game.

Map selection is available in private matches, btw

[Sadist Cain]

I really really don't get peoples problems with Terra Therma. If everyone's charging for the middle, then don't, try to pull the team back and play it smarter then just standard repetitive insanity.
Too hot? bad build or bad pilot.

Outside of actual bugs & glitches I can't see any reason to dislike any map, even if it's totally lopsided, maps are what you make of them.

So what's the problem with any of them??
So far all I've got is dynamics on highly frequented areas to push stubborn players into playing differently (Volcanic eruption on TT for example) and the invisible walls on things like tourmaline, where shooting around the knobbly bits is a pain.

Outside of that a map's a map, it's just another battlefield and you rarely get to have a say in those...

MrMadguy, on 02 October 2014 - 01:40 AM, said:

"you spawned -> you walked somewhere different -> don't die as fast-> you now haven't wasted your time".

Honestly, you want to skip maps that you're bad at?? and you want the rest of the playerbase to take the hit in the matchmaker and the game diversity all because you can't learn how to play a map without dying immediately??
It's really not the maps fault that you die, nor is it everyone elses, why's it so hard to figure out why you always die on the same map?

Edited by Sadist Cain, 02 October 2014 - 02:34 AM.