More non-Standard Maps will make EP Better

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Great Britain TheNameDaniel
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Re: More non-Standard Maps will make EP Better

Post by TheNameDaniel »

WickedCossack wrote:ISLANDS MAP IN TOURNY!

MAKE IT HAPPEN!
with kynesie banned this would be really interesting to watch tbh
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Re: More non-Standard Maps will make EP Better

Post by RefluxSemantic »

I think people romanticize non-standard, weird maps. RE has tons of non-standard maps, but I rarely see people hosting on them. In the end, standard is standard because it's what is best and generally the most fun. We can hype up these different maps in our heads, but in the end they're very likely to lead to very one dimensional and poorly balanced play patterns.

What I actually think is the problem, the driving force behind this outcry for weird maps and why so many have an overly romantic expectation of them, is that the current map standard is suboptimal. I believe games would be more fun on maps with slightly fewer inbase resources and that thisbl should be the new standard. So more maps like Fertile Crescent (this is truly an awesome map to play on) and fewer maps like Arkansas. Balance will suffer and require some adjustments (endless russia mirrors are indeed boring), but overall I believe this will be a nett positive for gameplay and will make people realize that this is what they wanted (and not weird island maps or high crate spawns or no TP maps or maps where the pathfinding is terrible).
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Re: More non-Standard Maps will make EP Better

Post by Rikikipu »

[Armag] diarouga wrote:
Rikikipu wrote:
[Armag] diarouga wrote:The issue is that "non standard" means "less resources" or "no TP" for map makers, and it just makes the map less interesting.
Wrong.

@Darwin_ thing is:
Whenever you try something a little unstandard you get bullied quite hard as map makers. I personally do maps in my spare time for having fun and giving some new maps to the community. But when you get harassed on twitch chats or receive free nasty comments such as "bonnie shit" or "parallel shitters" doing this work become really unpleasant. The NR10 Arkansas lobby is so biased and powerful that at the end the only way to be in peace is making tp maps + a shit load of hunts and mines at base.
In any cases, I've planned to release in the next ep a set called ESOC Random Arkansas. Basically, it will be a set that spawns only Arkansas, but with different textures/brightness everytime so people will feel like those are brand new maps but with all the awesome comfort of playing our great Arkansas. The trick here is that you don't need to learn new BO, neither adapt to the map. I bet this will be the most liked ESOC map set ever
I didn't mean to be offensive but in the past, almost all the non standard maps were either low resource or no TP.

I also understand that it is frustrating to spend a lot of time making map and getting hate for that but you also have to understand that we are forced to play on these maps then. So although you do that for free, to help people, it does affect the players.
Yes sorry, although my response were sarcastic, I've noticed you answered politely, which I really appreciate. To dig into my response, I consider making unstandard maps when I think in terms of layout or high disproportional resource repartition. Personally, I don't think of tp/no tp or heavy resource/low resource as a way to judge if a map is standard or not. Just a question of semantic, but I'd like to clarify that my goal is not to claim that I make unstandard maps when I reduce resources at base.
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Re: More non-Standard Maps will make EP Better

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Post by Mitoe »

RefluxSemantic wrote:I think people romanticize non-standard, weird maps. RE has tons of non-standard maps, but I rarely see people hosting on them. In the end, standard is standard because it's what is best and generally the most fun. We can hype up these different maps in our heads, but in the end they're very likely to lead to very one dimensional and poorly balanced play patterns.

What I actually think is the problem, the driving force behind this outcry for weird maps and why so many have an overly romantic expectation of them, is that the current map standard is suboptimal. I believe games would be more fun on maps with slightly fewer inbase resources and that thisbl should be the new standard. So more maps like Fertile Crescent (this is truly an awesome map to play on) and fewer maps like Arkansas. Balance will suffer and require some adjustments (endless russia mirrors are indeed boring), but overall I believe this will be a nett positive for gameplay and will make people realize that this is what they wanted (and not weird island maps or high crate spawns or no TP maps or maps where the pathfinding is terrible).
Nah, it's more so just fear of the unknown driving people to dislike the map or play something more familiar instead.

RE maps have lots of great design concepts, but they're not balanced. I don't mean that they're non-standard, I mean that your opponent can get 4 mines while you get 1, or no starting hunt, etc. If RE maps had reliable resource spawns I would happily play them.
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Re: More non-Standard Maps will make EP Better

Post by dansil92 »

Mitoe wrote:
RefluxSemantic wrote:I think people romanticize non-standard, weird maps. RE has tons of non-standard maps, but I rarely see people hosting on them. In the end, standard is standard because it's what is best and generally the most fun. We can hype up these different maps in our heads, but in the end they're very likely to lead to very one dimensional and poorly balanced play patterns.

What I actually think is the problem, the driving force behind this outcry for weird maps and why so many have an overly romantic expectation of them, is that the current map standard is suboptimal. I believe games would be more fun on maps with slightly fewer inbase resources and that thisbl should be the new standard. So more maps like Fertile Crescent (this is truly an awesome map to play on) and fewer maps like Arkansas. Balance will suffer and require some adjustments (endless russia mirrors are indeed boring), but overall I believe this will be a nett positive for gameplay and will make people realize that this is what they wanted (and not weird island maps or high crate spawns or no TP maps or maps where the pathfinding is terrible).
Nah, it's more so just fear of the unknown driving people to dislike the map or play something more familiar instead.

RE maps have lots of great design concepts, but they're not balanced. I don't mean that they're non-standard, I mean that your opponent can get 4 mines while you get 1, or no starting hunt, etc. If RE maps had reliable resource spawns I would happily play them.

I think new england will always be the perfect example of this. Phenomenal map from a design perspective, tp, a little water, lake, beautiful textures on everything. Gorgeous map. But you usually dont have a start hunt, usually dont have a remotely reasonable second mine and those stone walls can stack with trees for one mishmash of pathing screwups.
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Re: More non-Standard Maps will make EP Better

Post by helln00 »

I think instead of non-standard maps, we could try something like unknown maps, where you don't know the nature of map but where the distribution of resources are roughly balanced.

They also tend to have funky features, such as massive resource piles in the middle or unpassable terrains. Like these can be unbalanced but since players don't know the map layout until they scout it, it does offer fun dynamics.
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Re: More non-Standard Maps will make EP Better

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Post by [Armag] diarouga »

Le Hussard sur le toit wrote:
[Armag] diarouga wrote:
Le Hussard sur le toit wrote:Non-standard maps are probably more difficult for competitive players but they make watching much more interesting.
It depends on the map. I'm quite sure the 50th Russian mirror on a no TP map is not very interesting to watch.
e NWC...

Thar desert was getting rather boring at the end of the NWC... But for the first few games it was nice to see ! The problem may be more with the limited map-pool for such a long tournament than with the map itself.

Besides if I understand correctly the problem is when the map is both low ress and no-TP right ? On a high ress no-TP map civs like Brits, Japan, Russia, Aztec, Dutch and India should be viable, so that means six civs out of 14, sounds acceptable.
High resource no TP maps are better than no resource no TP maps of course. Still, some civs become unplayable.
That being said, I enjoy playing on Pampas Sierras from time to time but what's the point of the making another Pampas Sierras map ? It wouldn't be "unique" anymore.

I don't have a lot of ideas but imo, a good way to make an unstandard map would be use the sea and the TP line(s?) smartly.
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Re: More non-Standard Maps will make EP Better

Post by RefluxSemantic »

Mitoe wrote:
RefluxSemantic wrote:I think people romanticize non-standard, weird maps. RE has tons of non-standard maps, but I rarely see people hosting on them. In the end, standard is standard because it's what is best and generally the most fun. We can hype up these different maps in our heads, but in the end they're very likely to lead to very one dimensional and poorly balanced play patterns.

What I actually think is the problem, the driving force behind this outcry for weird maps and why so many have an overly romantic expectation of them, is that the current map standard is suboptimal. I believe games would be more fun on maps with slightly fewer inbase resources and that thisbl should be the new standard. So more maps like Fertile Crescent (this is truly an awesome map to play on) and fewer maps like Arkansas. Balance will suffer and require some adjustments (endless russia mirrors are indeed boring), but overall I believe this will be a nett positive for gameplay and will make people realize that this is what they wanted (and not weird island maps or high crate spawns or no TP maps or maps where the pathfinding is terrible).
Nah, it's more so just fear of the unknown driving people to dislike the map or play something more familiar instead.

RE maps have lots of great design concepts, but they're not balanced. I don't mean that they're non-standard, I mean that your opponent can get 4 mines while you get 1, or no starting hunt, etc. If RE maps had reliable resource spawns I would happily play them.
This is just straight up false. All RE maps have very shitty spawns, GP too. Yet I see people hosting GP all the time. I dont see people hosting Honshu, Amazonia, Hispaniola, Indochina, Texas, Borneo, Silk Road, Ceylon, Caribbean or Unknown. For every time a player hosts on one of those maps, I see a bunch of games hosted on GP - which is possibly more inconsistent in hunt spawns than many of these maps that pretty consistently give you no hunts.

So your argument is just demonstrably false. If you look at the facts it turns out that the vast majority of people prefer standard maps.
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Re: More non-Standard Maps will make EP Better

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?
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Re: More non-Standard Maps will make EP Better

Post by Cometk »

i think it follows that people would rather play a (standard) map that will give you inconsistent hunts than an (unstandard) map that gives you no hunts

so the information gained there, with regards to people's preference for standard or unstandard maps, doesn't mean much?

which might still be in-line with the assertion that there are good concepts among the RE maps, just terrible execution...
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Re: More non-Standard Maps will make EP Better

Post by princeofcarthage »

Indochina by far has one of the most consistent and fair spawns on RE lol
Fine line to something great is a strange change.
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Re: More non-Standard Maps will make EP Better

Post by princeofcarthage »

Actually only Amazonia and Carribean aren't played among the maps you mentioned. Rest while not specifically hosted are played in rotation on RE where most people host "Standard maps"
Fine line to something great is a strange change.
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Re: More non-Standard Maps will make EP Better

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

Cometk wrote:i think it follows that people would rather play a (standard) map that will give you inconsistent hunts than an (unstandard) map that gives you no hunts

so the information gained there, with regards to people's preference for standard or unstandard maps, doesn't mean much?

which might still be in-line with the assertion that there are good concepts among the RE maps, just terrible execution...
There are good concepts but bad execution AND no hunts.
No resource is an issue as it forces one play style. It's not just about fairness.
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Re: More non-Standard Maps will make EP Better

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Re: More non-Standard Maps will make EP Better

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

Outpost wagon would be interesting but no gold, only berries etc just sucks.
It's going to be the same MUs all the time.
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Re: More non-Standard Maps will make EP Better

Post by Goodspeed »

Yeah those weren't great ideas, I'm sure the community can collectively come up with better ones. The point is you don't have to limit yourself to messing with layout and resource amounts. You can make really special maps as long as they aren't in the standard map pool. In tournaments players know what the map is beforehand and can pick civs accordingly.
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Re: More non-Standard Maps will make EP Better

Post by chronique »

[Armag] diarouga wrote:Outpost wagon would be interesting but no gold, only berries etc just sucks.
It's going to be the same MUs all the time.
Tbf its depends of how the map is designe. For exemple the native tiger claw (dont remember there name) have un upg that increase your berries gather by 40%.
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Re: More non-Standard Maps will make EP Better

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

chronique wrote:
[Armag] diarouga wrote:Outpost wagon would be interesting but no gold, only berries etc just sucks.
It's going to be the same MUs all the time.
Tbf its depends of how the map is designe. For exemple the native tiger claw (dont remember there name) have un upg that increase your berries gather by 40%.
Still, it won't be balanced.
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Re: More non-Standard Maps will make EP Better

Post by Hawk_Girl »

Mitoe wrote:
RefluxSemantic wrote:I think people romanticize non-standard, weird maps. RE has tons of non-standard maps, but I rarely see people hosting on them. In the end, standard is standard because it's what is best and generally the most fun. We can hype up these different maps in our heads, but in the end they're very likely to lead to very one dimensional and poorly balanced play patterns.

What I actually think is the problem, the driving force behind this outcry for weird maps and why so many have an overly romantic expectation of them, is that the current map standard is suboptimal. I believe games would be more fun on maps with slightly fewer inbase resources and that thisbl should be the new standard. So more maps like Fertile Crescent (this is truly an awesome map to play on) and fewer maps like Arkansas. Balance will suffer and require some adjustments (endless russia mirrors are indeed boring), but overall I believe this will be a nett positive for gameplay and will make people realize that this is what they wanted (and not weird island maps or high crate spawns or no TP maps or maps where the pathfinding is terrible).
Nah, it's more so just fear of the unknown driving people to dislike the map or play something more familiar instead.

RE maps have lots of great design concepts, but they're not balanced. I don't mean that they're non-standard, I mean that your opponent can get 4 mines while you get 1, or no starting hunt, etc. If RE maps had reliable resource spawns I would happily play them.
ye i agree, but then you get yukon and yup its balanced in so that neither have any hunt but whoops the other guy is russia so gg no re
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Re: More non-Standard Maps will make EP Better

Post by dansil92 »

With native tps now providing xp trickles i do believe it to be possible for a map without a trade route to be much more standard now. In any case, i agree with riki, map making is both challenging and comes with a great deal of criticism.
I dont, however, think a map with no hunts, no coin, etc. Can ever be a good design. No hunts would just be a slugfest between dutch india and possibly japan, no coin is gonna be iro mirrors. Creative maps need to change up map shapes, and have, you know, not 2 mines and 5 hunts under a tc
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Re: More non-Standard Maps will make EP Better

Post by Mitoe »

Hawk_Girl wrote:
Mitoe wrote:
RefluxSemantic wrote:I think people romanticize non-standard, weird maps. RE has tons of non-standard maps, but I rarely see people hosting on them. In the end, standard is standard because it's what is best and generally the most fun. We can hype up these different maps in our heads, but in the end they're very likely to lead to very one dimensional and poorly balanced play patterns.

What I actually think is the problem, the driving force behind this outcry for weird maps and why so many have an overly romantic expectation of them, is that the current map standard is suboptimal. I believe games would be more fun on maps with slightly fewer inbase resources and that thisbl should be the new standard. So more maps like Fertile Crescent (this is truly an awesome map to play on) and fewer maps like Arkansas. Balance will suffer and require some adjustments (endless russia mirrors are indeed boring), but overall I believe this will be a nett positive for gameplay and will make people realize that this is what they wanted (and not weird island maps or high crate spawns or no TP maps or maps where the pathfinding is terrible).
Nah, it's more so just fear of the unknown driving people to dislike the map or play something more familiar instead.

RE maps have lots of great design concepts, but they're not balanced. I don't mean that they're non-standard, I mean that your opponent can get 4 mines while you get 1, or no starting hunt, etc. If RE maps had reliable resource spawns I would happily play them.
ye i agree, but then you get yukon and yup its balanced in so that neither have any hunt but whoops the other guy is russia so gg no re
I’m not disputing that. Yukon could use some more easily accessible resources (not too many, mind you), but the core design concept is still pretty cool.
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Re: More non-Standard Maps will make EP Better

Post by princeofcarthage »

Dynamic maps would definitely help with balance :cheers:
Fine line to something great is a strange change.
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Re: More non-Standard Maps will make EP Better

Post by Le Hussard sur le toit »

[Armag] diarouga wrote:Outpost wagon would be interesting but no gold, only berries etc just sucks.
It's going to be the same MUs all the time.
What about a map with a lot of hunts/ress and a standard TP line, but you can not herd the hunts (like the first hunt in the Asian maps in TAD).
You start with two hunts very near your base and an outpost wagon to help secure the third one.
(as a design you could take Thar desert, add in a few water points and place two hunts next to each water point).

An other non standard map that might be interesting is a kynesie-style map with lots of resources in base, lot of water with fish and whales, and a TP line so you can boom hard in base... but there is a twist : you can not build walls.
I don't know if this is technically possible though.

Creating a map that makes livestock booming an option would be interesting too...
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Re: More non-Standard Maps will make EP Better

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Post by I_HaRRiiSoN_I »

My map design would likely frustrate a lot player but each player has access to a 2 TP trade route, 1 safe in base and 1 towards mid map however the traded route goes from the edge of the map to near the centre and back again in a loop with the trade route touching both the top-left and bottom right of the starting towncentre. this allows the oppenent a straight line path to the oppnents TC which cant be walled off. Maybe start with an outpost wagon for balance. A high resource sea/ocean would be interesting aswell given that it will be impossible to fully wall off your starting base.

The trade route blocking building placement directly on the TC will be highly annoying for players and will need to edit their play style to ensure that semi-ff styles or fish eco does not get heavily punished due to easy access to other players TC's

thoughts people? I will draw an example and attach later.
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Re: More non-Standard Maps will make EP Better

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

I_HaRRiiSoN_I wrote:My map design would likely frustrate a lot player but each player has access to a 2 TP trade route, 1 safe in base and 1 towards mid map however the traded route goes from the edge of the map to near the centre and back again in a loop with the trade route touching both the top-left and bottom right of the starting towncentre. this allows the oppenent a straight line path to the oppnents TC which cant be walled off. Maybe start with an outpost wagon for balance. A high resource sea/ocean would be interesting aswell given that it will be impossible to fully wall off your starting base.

The trade route blocking building placement directly on the TC will be highly annoying for players and will need to edit their play style to ensure that semi-ff styles or fish eco does not get heavily punished due to easy access to other players TC's

thoughts people? I will draw an example and attach later.
I like it.

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