Map diversity

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France Rikikipu
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Map diversity

Post by Rikikipu »

Hello everyone !
I'm making this topic in order to gather your feedbacks about map diversity. What do you think is too present or too absent in ESOC maps (resources, size, layout, stat avalaible, etc.) ?
What would you like to see.
Discuss !

@deleted_user5 sorry no polls :/
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Australia wardyb1
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Re: Map diversity

Post by wardyb1 »

Well I'm not really going to answer the question as I don't really have an answer for it*. However what I would want to see like what many others have suggested, is just seeing RE maps just being fixed to be balanced. As someone who doesn't play a lot of the ESOC maps often that when I do, you get in and have no idea what to expect if it's not the most popular maps. And because I don't feel like learning 20+ maps, I then play less of the maps and thus EP. Kinda just spirals out of control.

*I lied. I would like to see more play styles be viable. Right now seems kinda hard to turtle/water boom, its been said before and the wall nerf hurt. But a lot of maps have no chokes, not many res being near TC despite the maps being resource rich.
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France bwinner
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Re: Map diversity

Post by bwinner »

I want to see more water map. The only real water map is Indonesia until now (which is a very good map). Also in my opinion, you should do less totally new map, because that's hard to learn then. I would prefere if you could rebuild the old map from RE (I mean just make them fair) so that we can play on them, because it would be easier for player who don't play a lot on ep. On land map, the diversity (big map/small map/number of TP) is good. The only think which I miss is a map with good nativ.
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France Kynesie
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Re: Map diversity

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Post by Kynesie »

Some fixed RE maps ( like painted yukatan siberia NE ) and some new waters maps . There is already a lot of new land map and like bwinner said, it s hard when you don t pratice ep regularly...
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Italy Garja
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Re: Map diversity

Post by Garja »

The most standard RE maps on EP are alreayd rebalanced. Yukon, NE, Deccan, Mongolia, GP (I think), PD, Siberia Himalaya at least.
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France Aykin Haraka
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Re: Map diversity

Post by Aykin Haraka »

New waters maps would be nice , also play again on N-E, P-D,yucatan for tournaments games would be very op
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Re: Map diversity

Post by Hazza54321 »

Realesing less new maps would be good
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Sweden Gendarme
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Re: Map diversity

Post by Gendarme »

Something tells me you are not serious, Somppu.
Pay more attention to detail.
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Serbia Atomiswave
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Re: Map diversity

Post by Atomiswave »

Firstly, two thumbs up for all map makers, you guys are great.

I would also like to see more water maps. As for land maps, I would take a small break from creating new ones. There are plenty already, which can be further improved I think.
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France Rikikipu
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Re: Map diversity

Post by Rikikipu »

About the amount of new maps, we are planning to release news packs of only 2-3 maps instead of 5-6 as before. But keep in mind that new maps is the way to keep the game fresh and brings new challenges. What if, we just got a tourney on 15 esoc maps ? In this way, you know for sure a big majority of the maps and got to learn only 3 or 4 new maps. Do you think it would be a good compromise ?
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Re: Map diversity

Post by Garja »

Honestly playing seriously (e.g tourney) on RE maps is just bad. ESOC maps are superior in every single aspect except for variability. And variability (randomness call it w/e you want) is something on which I actually put lot of attention.
Also the reason why we make new ESOC maps rather than spending time fixing RE ones is because it is just way more funny for us map makers.
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Re: Map diversity

Post by AOEisLOVE_AOEisLIFE »

are asymetrical balanced maps a possible thing?


Hazza54321 wrote:Realesing less new maps would be good

i understand that for competitive gameplay you want a few balanced map options where you got a solid amount of builds that work.

however, for the viewers pleasure its much more exciting to see players adapt to new maps and figure out new strategies, i guess it could be a lot of fun (for viewers) to let players play competitive on completely random maps where they see the map for the first time and have to adapt to it..
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Re: Map diversity

Post by Atomiswave »

Rikikipu wrote:About the amount of new maps, we are planning to release news packs of only 2-3 maps instead of 5-6 as before. But keep in mind that new maps is the way to keep the game fresh and brings new challenges. What if, we just got a tourney on 15 esoc maps ? In this way, you know for sure a big majority of the maps and got to learn only 3 or 4 new maps. Do you think it would be a good compromise ?


Don't get me wrong, I fully support creation of new maps, but there is a problem with quality consistency. I prefer to have 15 great maps, than 25 maps which greatly vary in terms of quality and balance. Quality over quantity should be right mind set in map creation department.
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Germany aligator92
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Re: Map diversity

Post by aligator92 »

When you ask for balanced RE maps, do you want them to put additional hunts on them or just make them spawn consistently?
Because if NE or Siberia spawn balanced without additional hunts your 3rd hunt will be just as far as on Tassilli, Thar Desert or Bonnie Springs which are the maps you call bad. Not to mention Patagonia
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Re: Map diversity

Post by HUMMAN »

I would like to see natives, + water maps.

Also many people say this civ is strong etc. while i aggree it can be strong in general; but maps can favor a civ significantly. So if you want to balance civs maybe you can make more maps favorable maps towards that civs. Most maps support standart plays like semi-ff etc, different type maps may lead to different tactics.
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Re: Map diversity

Post by NekoBerk »

I think that is fair to say that we need water maps, just like Amazonia, Caribbean, Ceylon, Great Lakes and Hispaniola.
I'm not saying that we need those maps balanced, just maps based on them + more modifications like High Plains with Great Plains, the result was 9999x better than the original one.
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Re: Map diversity

Post by momuuu »

I have a few things to say about the mappool as a whole. There's about three points of small criticism: Some important guidelines that are sometimes off, the consistency of some maps and then the mappool as a whole.

A few guidelines I would establish in terms of hunts and mines: Your 2nd hunt must always be accessible, 100% of the time, Malysia, Tibet and Cascade range come to mind as maps where this just sometimes doesn't happen. This is not a competitive setting really. The first mine must be somewhat protected at least. I think some sort of third hunt is required for the map to be standard, aswell as a decent second mine. I think it's way over the top if you have 4 safe hunts, and I personally think it's a bit too much if you can easily get your third hunt all the way to your TC. This goes into the second point; Some maps are too inconsistent. Arkansas and Kamchatka for example spawn with way too many hunts from time to time while sometimes having normal spawns., Malysia has a really inconsistent spawn right now where the third hunt is just absent or miles away. There's more maps like this which don't really fullfill the parameters or at least not consistently enough. From a competitive point of view, its not good that some maps differ too much in spawn. Some maps sometimes have a terrible third hunt or some maps sometimes have a shitload of hunts. In tournaments that can just be game deciding and theres no way to tell if you're greening up in a good match up on some maps.

This kinda transitions into the next point of the map pool. There are some maps that deviate quite wildly from the standard. Right now I feel like the map pool has way too many non standard maps. A map with a 4 or 5 TP line is just not a nice map to randomly queue into, a map with no TPs is really annoying if you're playing with civs like otto, germany, france, spain or ports. A map that has very few hunts (cascade range, tibet, tassili) is really annoying in some cases too, for example if you're playing a defensive mu against russia or something, and a map like indonesia is not even fun to most people. Right now, I'm disappointed with the map half of the time. I do get the value of these maps, they do provide some extra dimension to the game and surely they're great for a tournament setting, but the mappool as a whole honestly kinda sucks right now. I want to see more standard maps that have an accessible TP line, a third hunt and a second mine.
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Re: Map diversity

Post by Rikikipu »

Haha just would like to point how hard it is to satisfy everyone. In this single topic, look at @NekoBerk saying we want more watermaps and @momuuu saying that indonesia is not even fun. Viewers wanting more new maps and players wanting less new maps. Rushers saying that there is too much food at base, some others saying that there is too few. It's hard and compromise got to be found.

@momuuu I agree with you about your first point, since I did malaysia, it's going to be revamped soon because this criteria of spawn consistency wasn't satisfying.
However I strongly disagree with your second point. Always talking about "standard maps", close TPs and decent hunts in base make the game tasteless. We need to be stick as much as RE diversity because it promotes different stategies which is for the best of this game. That's actually the title and the goal of this topic. What is missing in ESOC maps to stick as much as RE ones.

About water, the current situation is not satisfying. Exacltly 50% of RE maps got water, whereas it's around 25% in esoc maps. I'm currently working with Kynesie to try to release new water maps soon.
@HUMMAN although I dream of natives seeing viable, they are just too bad overall. I dream that the balance team would try to include them in their plan, but it's a bit too far from the EP philosophy it seems. Anyway, I try, in a map like Iowa for instance, but it's hard.

@Atomiswave I totally agree with you, quality > quantity. There is for sure a window to improve some maps, and I probably have been on a rush side in some, that's also why we are slowing down the process of making maps. Although I don't think the quality of the maps is as bad a RE ones.
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Re: Map diversity

Post by Jjtuxtron »

There are plenty of maps which favors different playstyles, but no map favors turtling. it would be interesting to see a closed map.
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Re: Map diversity

Post by momuuu »

Map diversity is okay but honestly the current map pool is unplayable as a random map pool. Its frustrating.
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Re: Map diversity

Post by Darwin_ »

The map poll should be heavily reduced, to maybe 10 or 12 maps. I think the map team should focus more on fixing RE maps instead of creating new maps. Here is my idea for the map set: Arizona, arkansas, adirondacks, colorado, gran chaco, high plains, hudson, kamchatka, mendocino, manchuria, florida, as well as maybe a fixed siberia and andes.
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Re: Map diversity

Post by Garja »

Jerom wrote:I have a few things to say about the mappool as a whole. There's about three points of small criticism: Some important guidelines that are sometimes off, the consistency of some maps and then the mappool as a whole.

A few guidelines I would establish in terms of hunts and mines: Your 2nd hunt must always be accessible, 100% of the time, Malysia, Tibet and Cascade range come to mind as maps where this just sometimes doesn't happen. This is not a competitive setting really. The first mine must be somewhat protected at least. I think some sort of third hunt is required for the map to be standard, aswell as a decent second mine. I think it's way over the top if you have 4 safe hunts, and I personally think it's a bit too much if you can easily get your third hunt all the way to your TC. This goes into the second point; Some maps are too inconsistent. Arkansas and Kamchatka for example spawn with way too many hunts from time to time while sometimes having normal spawns., Malysia has a really inconsistent spawn right now where the third hunt is just absent or miles away. There's more maps like this which don't really fullfill the parameters or at least not consistently enough. From a competitive point of view, its not good that some maps differ too much in spawn. Some maps sometimes have a terrible third hunt or some maps sometimes have a shitload of hunts. In tournaments that can just be game deciding and theres no way to tell if you're greening up in a good match up on some maps.

This kinda transitions into the next point of the map pool. There are some maps that deviate quite wildly from the standard. Right now I feel like the map pool has way too many non standard maps. A map with a 4 or 5 TP line is just not a nice map to randomly queue into, a map with no TPs is really annoying if you're playing with civs like otto, germany, france, spain or ports. A map that has very few hunts (cascade range, tibet, tassili) is really annoying in some cases too, for example if you're playing a defensive mu against russia or something, and a map like indonesia is not even fun to most people. Right now, I'm disappointed with the map half of the time. I do get the value of these maps, they do provide some extra dimension to the game and surely they're great for a tournament setting, but the mappool as a whole honestly kinda sucks right now. I want to see more standard maps that have an accessible TP line, a third hunt and a second mine.


Dunno about Malaysia but CR has a 2nd hunt and on Tibet you're supposed to be hanging outside of TC range. That's the point of having bigger starting hunt + livestock + berries + the pit in the back + the wallable cliff and circular flow overall. Also the 2nd hunt is basically herdable till TC range perimeter which isn't even something extreme at all. On RE most of maps used to have that range of herdability even on maps considered balanced.
I don't see this factor making the map non competitive. Proxy strats play around this factor and they have a place in the game too.

No map of mines has over the top hunts except for Florida and Adirondacks. The first is like the most boomy map and still doesn't have berries to fall back on. The latter sometimes have 2nd and 3rd elk hunts herdable to TC which is basically 20 bisons. I didn't want the map to be that way but people pushed for it.
The intention is in fact to reduce hunt amount and add waterflag for more waterplay. Plus a 3rd bay in the top middle part of the cliff.

Kamchatka has fixed hunts, can't spawn with more or less. It's always 3x7 additional hunts around the TC. And you prob need to kill one animal of each hunt to herd under TC. In general map has just average hunts btw. Check the spreadsheet.

Arkansas has some hunt variance depending on many factors. The main factors are how many extra hunts spawn in the bottom part (supposed to be 8, sometimes it's 7) and most importantly how much proactive you are herding. The sooner you herd the more hunts you will have under TC. Map also has berries.
Variance is not bad by any mean there. Variance makes actions viable. Otherwise with fixed hunts you can't never make a move in colonial for example, cause it's mathematically not possible.
Also the flow of the game becomes much more predictable. With random uncosistent position (within given ranges ofc) you have different flows: vills moving top or bottom, different timings, different cards available at different points in the game (e.g units vs crates), etc.

its not good that some maps differ too much in spawn
I strongly disagree. Ideally every spawn should be somehow different so that the game flows differently. This is ofc not possible because of balance constraints. But it something to actively look for when making maps. Otherwise there is no point in having a random map generator, nor having to scout where resources are, etc.

Also the more you know the maps the less variance you will find. I'd say it takes atleast 20 spawns for each map for the average player to fully recognize how the map is structured in terms of res consistency, size, etc. If you didn't do that it makes little sense to go into details.

There are not many maps that deviate from the standard, circular, 2-mines-in-base, safe hunts map. The only one I can think of is Tibet. Klondike has straight flow and scattered hunts. Still two tin mines in base (3k) and 6k berries. Colorado and Bonnie Springs have kinda exposed 2nd mines, but that's it.

I don't see 4-5 TPs something unstandard. You can always play around that. Most of times you don't even need to care about it since many civs can't even take advantage of that.

Things are also subjective. If you're disappointed with half of maps it certainly has something to do with the civ you main and with the same repetitive play you do most of times. In the same way if I want an element of a map to be somehow viable I need to work on other variables as well, that might make someone unhappy. E.g. Baja California has less secure hunts early on, so that the guy who goes water gets a little edge in that sense (won't have to move 15 vills to next hunts at some point in the game cuz it has 15 boats buffer sitting on fish).


At this point I'd like to throw some points of my own.
Personally my fav maps, in terms of playing on it and in terms of overall quality are: Florida, Klondike, Fertile Crescent, Pampas Sierras and Arkansas. Those are the maps that combine good res placement, alternative styles and are overall quite cured in terms of layout/design/aesthetics.
Kamchatka/Manchuria are good for playtesting since they're basic and almost identical every time. Manchuria would be a better map if it was bigger, which is one of the intentions for the future. Right now if feels a bit like a playtest scenario imo.

Anyway new maps imo should embrace the logic of those maps. In particular allow different strategy combinations, produce different games each time and have something interesting in particular (well Arkansas is pretty standard, that's I guess the interesting thing).

As for water play I'd say it is totally viable on Hudson (both versions), Manchuria, Florida, Adirondacks (you don't need it tho cuz of many hunts), Baja California, Malaysia, Jebel Musa. Indonesia is an outlier, it was made for tourney purposes.
If you (rightfully) find water non viable on those maps it is most likely because your water strat shouldn't work regardless. Water is something like a TP boom, it will succed only under some conditions (e.g doing that vs a non water civ).
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Re: Map diversity

Post by Dsy »

If walls would be removed all the maps would be playable. Even amazonia.
However would be nice just drasticly increase the cost.

We should watch tournament on amazonia no walls.:D
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Italy Garja
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Re: Map diversity

Post by Garja »

I have an idea for an Amazonia remake since like 2 years. No time to make that.
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Re: Map diversity

Post by Dsy »

Thats the map which most of player started to play vs bots i guess. Good old memories.

Its a good loking map btw.

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