Q&A #25 – “Are the popular maps holding us back?”

The community has constant debates on whether or not maps that are played so often (forge, reissen, redemption, turbine, complex, etc) makes sauerbraten more or less boring. So the question that I asked is: “Do you think these maps are holding us back from exploring other maps that are really fun? If so, what are some maps that are not played very often that you think should be played more?” Lets see what people had to say about this:

 

swatllama – “Yes, they are holding us back. A few months ago, no one would even play abbey until SSL threw it into the pool. Now, people play it in their common mixes, but if they hadn’t been forced to play it, they wouldn’t have discovered they liked it.

For eCTF, one map that I think is fun and definitely underplayed is turbulence. You can do some pretty complicated flag runs that are tough to chase in eCTF.

I think almost every map can play an insta duel well. You might have to adjust your style a lot, but most decent-sized maps accommodate insta duels. I don’t go out seeking them so much, but you COULD do an insta duel on something as exotic as tumwalk. I have done it a few times. It was a lot different than the standard insta duel style.

Even in ffa, I think some of the older players like Honzik1 and degrave have been held back. They have more experience in ffa than new players like the active North Americans, but they still clutch their older maps like metl3, hades, academy, douze. They don’t want to explore the newer ones as much. Unless they can go out and really get into the newer ones, they’ll never realize how fun they are.

 

Lokio – “Yeah, I think that’s fair to say. A lot of people would rather stick to the proven favorites than take a risk with something new, especially in a mix (this is true for me as well). I think that the SSL map pools are a good place to look for fun maps that aren’t played often. I remember having fun in the SSL ectf mix tournament on that mbtX map (can’t check which one, on my laptop right now) which I had never played in ectf before. However, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with playing forge, reissen, and the rest like I know some people who I play with often do; they’re fun maps, that’s why people love them! A bigger focus should be put on trying new modes (ctf, teamplay, capture, ffa, hold modes) than new maps in my opinion.”

 

Frosty – “I dont know if its that big of a deal cause i only think there are about 25-30 maps worth playing in sauer total but i do get bored sometimes, what i think the problem is with this is that the majority repeatedly plays ectf forge and and either run in a straight line toward the flag or rocket spam and run into death which is the formula for not improving skill-wise. To me sauer skills is similar to lifting weights, you can only do certain exercises for so long until you plateau and need to change your workout. If I had to pick something I think is fun but not played often are effic simplicity (the weapons have a really nice balance here) and any mode with pickups and capture/regen. also a big fuck you symphony to whoever wont try a mode or map and yell “shitmode/shitmap” your like that 5 year old that wont try his food.”

 

Skillz –  “I think the fact that we only play the same few maps can subtract from the enjoyment and even exploration of the game. There’s countless times people have said, ‘this is a map? 0.o’ So either they shouldn’t be included in the game which is true of some, or we need to stop doing the same thing and experiment.”

 

Fatality – “I think the fact that whenever a new release of Sauer comes around, none of the previous maps are removed to make room for new ones. As a result, the maps that people are so used to for many releases of the game are still continuously played. So yea, of course this makes new maps less frequently played. I also think that because Sauer relies on maps made by players of the game and not professional game developers like other games, the quality of maps is very low. I personally don’t blame anyone for picking Forge, Reissen, and Turbine over and over. Why? Because they are simply the best maps in the game. There have been some other decent maps like Catch22, Abbey, Nucleus, Forgotten, etc., but all of them have serious flow issues which steer players back to the originals. I could go on and on about how the flow and layout of these maps are just superior to any competition, but I’ll leave that to further debate.”

 

Feel free to comment your opinion down below!

9 Comments

  1. swatllama

    Fatality raised a good point about player-made maps. I disagree that it being just player made harms us, since most of us do know more about gameplay than our lovely developer. Most of the mappers don’t frag. http://quadropolis.us/ Here and http://cubeengine.com/forum.php here, you can find many idiots talking about shit they don’t actually understand. That’s what I love about Fatality and Redon – they’re our link between the mapping and fragging communities. THEY ACTUALLY PLAY THE GAME, FUCKING QUADROPOLIS PEOPLE.

    Reply
  2. notas

    “Even in ffa, I think some of the older players like Honzik1 and degrave have been held back. They have more experience in ffa than new players like the active North Americans, but they still clutch their older maps like metl3, hades, academy, douze”

    FWIW, this goes both ways. I don’t know about honzik1, but I used to play degrave on maps like phosgene, ruby nmp8 and more – maps that are old but would be new to the majority of people playing today.

    Also abbey kind of sucks imo, i didn’t really enjoy playing it in whatever tournament that was that i showed up for, and turbulence has so many annoying dead ends, and spawns facing the wrong way… I think it could use just a few fixes, then it would be great – definitely some cool flagruns.

    Reply
  3. Suicizer

    Playing the common maps frequently makes you skilled on those maps and on Sauerbraten itself, but it doesn’t help a lot on less common maps.

    Those common maps may have a lesser flow and gameplay, but that shouldn’t matter.

    Rather should be observed that what the servers offer is just very limited.

    Having servers that have a lot of maps excluded from the mappool won’t help players explore those maps; neither other modes.

    Back in the days when Sauerbraten was an upcoming game; there was no option to exclude certain maps from the mappool and it was great. Why? Because that kept diversity in the default map rotation. There might appear a map which was horrible to play, but then you just voted with a lot of people for another map or moved on to the next server; as they had a limit of 16 to 18 players and due that there were more servers that host the same mode.

    Personally I would like to see a server-option where there also is a “modepool” which switches next to the map after intermission.

    So in other words, blame the damn server hosters for messing up the amount of players and the map rotation. It’s unrealistic to play on a map with 10vs10 while 3vs3 happens on the very same map. 

    Reply
    1. notas

      I like the modepool idea. Wonder how many people would rage and how many people would have more fun… But as you say, if there were more populated servers with fewer slots, it might not matter.

      Reply
  4. Agalloch

    No.

    Mentioned maps are the only one we play every day. We like them because they are the best and other maps are pretty shit an unplayable. YOu can say what u want. We still we play forge,, reissen, dust2, complex and turbine (also legazzo and ot).

    But id say its problem of mappers. They do not listen community.

    Reply
    1. Suicizer

      Mappers aren’t in the community to serve the players and provide good quality maps. It’s up to the mapper to decide which choices he makes for his map. This may be influenced by input from other people like commonly, other mappers. But this doesn’t mean the mapper should blindly follow their demands as it is his project.
      From personal experience, I’ve noticed someone who plays the game yet has little to no mapping experience can be harsh in his feedback while not constructing it also.

      Last but not least,
      I’m afraid to say so, but in the ladder of hierarchy; the player is standing lower than the mapper (while the coder stands first of course).
      Why? As a player just plays the game and should be glad there actually are maps to play on. The mapper perhaps is happy to see his map being played, but can continue mapping without any need of the player. If the player still wants better maps, he starts to map and becomes a mapper also.

      Nevertheless, it’s not the fault of mappers. They are just artists which put their creativity into a map which you can play.

      Reply
  5. Fear

    For SSL we are always trying to pick a mappool which has included custom maps as well as popular maps. Sadly the participants often don’t even want to try the custom ones, which is quite sad. In mix games custom maps won’t get played at all, it’s always the same procedure: forge, reissen, forgotten, haste..
    I’m not a fan of mixed games anyway, but i would recommend to the people who keep playing mix games to try more custom maps. 1. We (SSL) will keep using custom maps for our tourney, so you will have an advantadge against other people, because you are used to the maps although they are custom. 2. More fun because you DON’T just play forge,reissen,…
    Conclusion: Yes i think they are holding us back!

    Reply
  6. Jawer

    I havent managed to get through with suggesting killcore3 so far. A map that was in the public rotation in the trooper edition but even there it disappeared since justice. That’s just an example of an alternative map that needs a lot of teamwork and alteration in gameplay to score a flag which would be a good way to improve.

    playing the same maps over and over again doesn’t “hold us back” from what we want actually but it changes our view on the game in a way. We become experts and learn movemental tricks on certain maps that slightly improve your performance. We like these little feelings of safety and profession and i can speak for at least myself when i say that it has become a routine to play duels on turbine in particular (not complex or legazzo yet) because you repeat your movement that you found out is the most effective.
    I belong to the ones who suprise people with picks like tactics guacamole and sometimes get my pick rejected. That is indeed an attitude that makes you small minded and also unprofessional if you refuse to play your opponents pick.
    for teamgames i’d like to see variatian and experimentation but i see no point at all in completely rejecting our loved reissen/forge/dust2… because it makes it gives you a break from maps you are learning on (learning sucks).

    tl;dr: yes and no

    Reply

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