54 replies to this topic

[MrMadguy]

Some players say, that there is a system, that increases chance of appearance in voting for those maps, that aren't being chosen. Via doing so PGI tries to force you to play terrible maps. And as nobody picks them anyway, then map rotations slowly coming to complete mess. Enjoy your Therma/Alpine/Polar-fest. This aren't cherry picked screenshots - it's real map rotation:






Least popular maps appear most often, as you can see. "Democracy" and "freedom of choice" in action!

Edited by MrMadguy, 12 March 2016 - 01:55 PM.

[BearFlag]

It's not wholly random. When voting first started last fall, and before 'weighting', I kept a few stats. After all the contradicting talk in the forums, I was curious as to which maps really were popular/unpopular. From the beginning it was clear the offered maps were not randomly selected.

It may seem upside down to force unpopular maps on players, but that's exactly what they do in a roundabout way. Russ has since confirmed this in Town Hall. The least popular (least selected) are offered more. Most popular offered less. So Caustic, Therma, Viridian, Forest appear often. HPG, Valley Network, Mining appear less.

EDIT: Russ reasoned that if the popular maps won voting all the time it might get stale.

Edited by BearFlag, 12 March 2016 - 02:05 PM.

[Roughneck Cobra]

Thankyou for the tested posts, its appreciated over the forum warriors

[MrMadguy]

King Alen, on 12 March 2016 - 01:56 PM, said:

No such thing as a terrible map, just ones you have yet to learn to play.

No. There are balanced maps and Meta-biased. And players are divided into two camps: those, who use Meta, and those, who don't. First ones are happy, second - are not. I can use Meta and be happy too. But I'm one of those players, who played Enh Shaman back in WotLK, instead of leveling OP Paladin or DK, purely out of principle. Principle of honesty.

[MrMadguy]

King Alen, on 12 March 2016 - 02:22 PM, said:

Well I dont run Meta but I can play all the maps. And I am Happy

Let me guess. You're playing Light/Medium or Gauss/ER-LL(including ER-MDL in Clan's case)/LRM boat?

Edited by MrMadguy, 12 March 2016 - 02:27 PM.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

King Alen, on 12 March 2016 - 02:22 PM, said:

Well I dont run Meta but I can play all the maps. And I am Happy

You have to understand MrMadguy, is only capable of playing short range brawlers, so only likes the maps he can rush across a small space to go pew pew before he's dead.

[MrMadguy]

Oderint dum Metuant, on 12 March 2016 - 02:27 PM, said:

You have to understand MrMadguy, is only capable of playing short range brawlers, so only likes the maps he can rush across a small space to go pew pew before he's dead.

No. I just want to be able to play short range brawlers on the par with all other 'Mechs - Meta bias just makes my brawlers useless and literally forces me to throw them out of the window, which is wrong. Small maps don't gimp fast/long range 'Mechs the way, large maps gimp slow/short range ones - obvious imbalance. And majority of players agrees with me and my map rating, as you can see from statistics of maps, that are offered for voting most often, so they're most unpopular ones.

Edited by MrMadguy, 12 March 2016 - 02:32 PM.

[MrMadguy]

King Alen, on 12 March 2016 - 02:34 PM, said:

Nope I play every class of Mech, and I never use LRMs, they are too boring

Example of your average build, please.

[jss78]

My hunch is that they've indeed changed the map weighting formula.

I used to get HPG quite a lot. But despite being able to play it quite a lot today, I haven't seen it once.

[MrMadguy]

King Alen, on 12 March 2016 - 02:44 PM, said:

Well 2 lbx10 with 4 med lazers on my MAD-3R

HBK-llc 2 Uac5s and LPL

HBKHBK-IIC-IIC

You should understand, that everybody and their grannies currently play either Gauss boats, LRM boats or Clan ER-LL+ER-MDL 600m range pinpoint instant kill laser vomit boats. Players choose something more short ranged (like IS SML/MDL laser vomit) only in case of fast agile overquirked Mediums or invulnerable hitreg-shielded Lights. And if you're short ranged - you can't do anything against them. I don't know, may be it's due to aiming problems, but I prefer brawlers. I always preferred melee classes in RPG games. It's nothing bad in it, cuz everybody is entitled to have his preferred playstyle. And it's Assault/Heavy 'Mechs, that are intended to be brawlers in this game, due to large amounts of armor. Bad thing: Assault/Heavy brawlers - are most gimped 'Mechs in this game. And this is just wrong. So, my advice. Before making any conclusions, try to play Assault brawler.

Edited by MrMadguy, 12 March 2016 - 02:55 PM.

[ExplicitContent]

So I logged every Map selection screen for 25 matches and also logged the map selected. The following are the results.


Map % its an option % chosen when an option %overall of times played
Canyon 28% 42.9% 12%
Caustic 64% 18.8% 12%
Tourmaline 12% 66.7% 8%
River 48% 8.3% 4%
Alpine 16% 25% 4%
Therma 36% 11.1% 4%
Polar 72% 11.1% 8%
Frozen 16% 50% 8%
Forrest 36% 22.2% 8%
Viridian 36% 33.3% 12%
HPG 12% 66.7% 8%
Mining 16% 25% 4%
Crimson 8% 100% 8%


Despite the small sample size, I am dumbfounded at the frequency of Polar and Caustic showing up on the vote screen. I can only guess that this is perhaps part of an attempt for the game to balance the map selection? The end results of what was played is actually quite evenly distributed.

Edited by ExplicitContent, 12 March 2016 - 03:34 PM.

[Volthorne]

MrMadguy, on 12 March 2016 - 02:54 PM, said:

Before making any conclusions, try to play Assault brawler.

Haven't played my SplatterMaster in a while - on account of eliting/mastering other chassis - but I built it as a pure brawler. Hella fun too. I think the longest range weapon it has is an MPL. The trick is to abuse terrain to negate longer-ranged weapons. If that means sitting back and making the enemy come to you, that's what you have to do.

Edited by Volthorne, 12 March 2016 - 03:37 PM.

[GeoFalke]

ExplicitContent, on 12 March 2016 - 03:32 PM, said:

So I logged every Map selection screen for 25 matches and also logged the map selected. The following are the results.


Map % its an option % chosen when an option %overall of times played
Canyon 28% 42.9% 12%
Caustic 64% 18.8% 12%
Tourmaline 12% 66.7% 8%
River 48% 8.3% 4%
Alpine 16% 25% 4%
Therma 36% 11.1% 4%
Polar 72% 11.1% 8%
Frozen 16% 50% 8%
Forrest 36% 22.2% 8%
Viridian 36% 33.3% 12%
HPG 12% 66.7% 8%
Mining 16% 25% 4%
Crimson 8% 100% 8%


Despite the small sample size, I am dumbfounded at the frequency of Polar and Caustic showing up on the vote screen. I can only guess that this is perhaps part of an attempt for the game to balance the map selection? The end results of what was played is actually quite evenly distributed.

it's a pretty small sample base, but it's a start

[Roughneck Cobra]

ExplicitContent, on 12 March 2016 - 03:32 PM, said:

So I logged every Map selection screen for 25 matches and also logged the map selected. The following are the results.


Map % its an option % chosen when an option %overall of times played
Canyon 28% 42.9% 12%
Caustic 64% 18.8% 12%
Tourmaline 12% 66.7% 8%
River 48% 8.3% 4%
Alpine 16% 25% 4%
Therma 36% 11.1% 4%
Polar 72% 11.1% 8%
Frozen 16% 50% 8%
Forrest 36% 22.2% 8%
Viridian 36% 33.3% 12%
HPG 12% 66.7% 8%
Mining 16% 25% 4%
Crimson 8% 100% 8%


Despite the small sample size, I am dumbfounded at the frequency of Polar and Caustic showing up on the vote screen. I can only guess that this is perhaps part of an attempt for the game to balance the map selection? The end results of what was played is actually quite evenly distributed.

Thankyou for this Sir

[Zerberus]

You ask "Where´s It gone", while I ask "When will i finally get to play something else?"

RNG at its finest, not much anyone can do about it

Edited by Zerberus, 12 March 2016 - 04:03 PM.

[Tezcatli]

Twice in a row last night. And a third time to finish it off. It must be different for you.

[Damia Savon]

Stryker Ezekiel, on 12 March 2016 - 09:11 AM, said:

Im noticing this Map seems to be dropped off the radar as much as possible.

This is over the past week I have noticed that HPG isnt up for selection as much as other older maps, example being I see Alpine available for selection more or Canyon, or even Crimson.

Polar is obviously on nearly EVERY map selection out of 4, almost always.

I love HPG, isnt there some ideal fix coming soon, Gyrok mentioned a good idea to lockout game modes, well, I wanna lockout some maps, so throw that one out!

Or just simply turn the Percentage of HPG showing up for selection back up.

Boiled down to simplicity, All maps should be on level percentages to be brought up for selection, having Polar shoved down my throat for LRM boats before the Archer is even out, Christ.

Or even Select out of 6 Maps, instead of 4, because if Dominations being added, wont we need a triple select bar there or will we get horrible traps like Conquest or Domination mode, no Skirmish or Assault available?

Sorry to blabber on, overall I just wanna see more of HPG, 1-2 times available for selection (Not play due to LRMs wanting Polar) out of Approx 30 games isnt acceptable to my mind.

I didnt read anything in the patch notes for increasing the map selection screen or game modes, so I do worry a bit if we are now going to end up with people leaving simply because they get fedup of map repeats, Ive honestlt had my fill of Polar already for a crumpled up piece of paper that was stretched back out across a desk and called a map.

I would rather play Tera Therma in a LPL vomit Direwolf without speed tweak and no Heat sinks, that should say all.

More Map selectivity to the players!

I see HPG and play on it more than Polar. It come up all the time. Plus Polar is an awesome map.

[Damia Savon]

MrMadguy, on 12 March 2016 - 01:53 PM, said:

Some players say, that there is a system, that increases chance of appearance in voting for those maps, that aren't being chosen. Via doing so PGI tries to force you to play terrible maps. And as nobody picks them anyway, then map rotations slowly coming to complete mess. Enjoy your Therma/Alpine/Polar-fest. This aren't cherry picked screenshots - it's real map rotation:






Least popular maps appear most often, as you can see. "Democracy" and "freedom of choice" in action!

Funny how the supposed "list of maps" (must have missed the voting) has the ones best suited for high alpha, laser vomit, skirmish fiends at the top and the ones least suited at the bottom. I'm sure there is no bias going on at all.

[Krivvan]

From what I remember from a town hall, there is a system where the most picked maps get offered as a choice less.

[FalconerGray]

SMH at Polar Highlands being labelled as "Terrible" and "Unplayable".....