Ideas for the upcoming CTF Map Wave

This particular idea has been brought up and we have discussed it recently. We also thought that testing new maps in PPMs were a great idea, especially for competitive gameplay. However, we also thought that we should not just limit the testing phase to PPMs (the competitive side of CTF) because not everyone plays in PPMs or enjoys PPMs, so testing new maps both in casual and competitive gameplay would be a good idea. This is so map makers can gain feedback from both casual and competitive players. Overall, I like this idea a lot, but we shouldn't limit the testing phase to just PPMs.

From reading this, you are suggesting that we should do a different method of voting for reworks, which would provide a different insight of how a map will be voted, such as 'Comparing this rework to the original version of the map, do you prefer this rework or the original version?' (two options). I completely agree that the current method of voting for reworks does not work well, and it only works well with original maps. But what do you think of this different approach for map reworks? This will obviously require the person voting to know the original version of the rotation to be able to judge properly, but if you have a different suggestion for a method of voting, fire away. Overall, +1 for this idea.

Another idea in regards to reworks is that we only allow one rework of a map to be in the testing phase of the map, which proved to be a problem in the previous wave as there were three reworks of Metro (if I recall) and Beaver Creek, as you have mentioned.

I also like this idea; perhaps an in-game tag can be awarded to the map creators of the maps that successfully got into the rotation for each map wave. The mention of player biased voting can be a problem, but could you expand in what you mean by that? This could possibly be solved by hiding names of map creators during the testing phase, which was an idea mentioned in this recent thread, so players do not spam /y or /n because they do not like the creator or whatever reason. However, this idea may not be viable either, as players are able to view the map creators in the Map Submissions section on the forums. Overall, +0 on this idea, as it may have an issue in regards to player bias.

I'm not too sure on this idea personally. If I recall, there are 48 maps in the current map rotation, and I would say that having more maps (100 or so) would introduce more variety, which is good. The problem in this is that during the testing phase of a map wave, we remove some map submissions from the list as they are extremely unviable for gameplay. Furthermore, more maps get removed later on before the map wave rolls out, due to the popularity of them during the testing phase. As a result, we get a reduced number of maps in the rotation. I believe that your suggestion to fix this is to add maps that are no longer in rotation, such as Woodcastle Arena I and Tank. While I do like this, I don't believe it would be favoured much as those maps were removed for a reason (e.g. popularity, aesthetics or whatever reason in why they were removed from rotation). Overall, +0 on this idea.

I am assuming newer players like Beaver Creek for whatever reason, which may be why Beaver Creek is not a low-rated map.

Why should we test new maps individually? I am curious as to what benefits that will bring as I can't think of anything at the moment.

 

1. Has been discussed and we might be trying out something in that direction, yeah (check out reds new thread if you haven't already). It is crucial though that it does not involve any direct voting, as we would lose the casual player vote which usually differs greatly from the regular players vote.

2. The two Beaver Creek maps that were tested last testing phase (307394 and 404518) received 53.7% and 58.3% of the votes, while the cutoff was set to 63%. The cutoff was chosen based on how many maps would make it into rotation and we are already accomodating the difference in favorability by giving reworks and new maps different cutoffs (63% and 58%). That way there isn't a majority of reworks added to the wave. It is indeed disappointing for the mapmakers, though adding a Beaver Creek regardless would seem unfair to the other map makers who got better voting results but were still below cutoff. Additionally, Beaver Creek somehow was still one of the top rated maps, looking only at the month before wave release. It's understandable you feel differently about original beaver creek as do many others, but I currently cannot see a better way of telling favorability using a combination of ingame votes and forum votes, other than picking them ourselves, which was done before but led to accusations of bias.

3. Agreed with a better incentive to create maps. We already have such a forum medal that is awarded to anyone submitting a map that gets put into rotation. An ingame tag could also be done. We had a reward of giving out ranks for a limited time before, perhaps we can pick up on that again.

4. We are currently at around 45 maps in rotation and we did bring back some old maps a while ago, so we could do something like that again, sure.

 

I think map testing should be incorporated into PPMs. It's a great way to see how the map works with competitive aspects. Map makers will get better feedback on how to improve the maps to tailor to the competitive scene, and perhaps we'll shift away from Blackout, OCV, and Airlock I

A poll sent through the CTF community discord should take place in addition to the in-game voting system. I don't think the in-game voting system is used very much, and only a handful of members check the forums regularly. A poll similar to what happened with chemist/pyro/scout/engineer2 testing is a more accurate way to see how the community actually feels about the reworks/new maps.

I'm glad somebody said it. The "current rotation" seems to be limited to the same 6-7 maps. It gets monotonous, and I see no reason why maps that were in rotations previously should be excluded.

 

I was actually going to suggest this but having it include all the maps that are being tested and the ones in the current rotation to help get further opinions on each map. The problem with the /y & /n votes are that not many people use them and you have to be on that particular map to vote for or against it, you can't vote on it if you aren't there. If a poll is created it should be posted to the discord as well as a link in game so that community members outside of discord and some newer players can have an input on every map up for consideration rather than the few that they may happen to play whilst online.