Map Workshop - pimping maps

[Rigor]

if i wasnt so death tired from just coming home after a cleanup session from work id say something extremely smart and well-thought over, but thinking that i deserve my personal break too, i will just fumble around the topic and support yoyo. for me its not true, ill just blame the map if i feel that way. blaming luck is ok too, but please not before 10 turns have passed. if u risk that much so early already no pity! i believe some players might not want to be a bad sport and dont play the new maps rather than say you won because of the maps insufficiency.

doc, i was thinking about how you dislike unfolding space so much, and why (its not my map, i just liked the general concept of it and modified it to make it more fair). i mean, every map can be a frog at the start. i know that ur in wesnoth for quite some time, and im glad u support the project. however, i think u made the freelands, and i remember a version where gripphs could fly from one flank to the other where mushrooms didnt exist to slow down their speed. in fact, i disliked playing the map because i knew there was this little exploit that made me very unhappy. i can imagine you might feel similar on that map we r discussing for so long already, and if u dont want to solve the matter by directly solving the problem, its ok, i mean, its your time after all. id very much like to prove that you can do something about it, and do it well. i dont believe in unsolvable cases (especially not on this one). the map isnt too small, cant be more unfair than other 1v1s and has to be played a lot (which it fortunately was) by good players to give it the final good appearance. i still feel that CC played against weak players and that i could do better so maybe we could arrange something, right ?

[Velensk]

I don't believe in unsolvable cases

Although strictly true some map concepts can never be made balanced without such radical altering that they might as well be a different map. To cite an extreme example a map concept that requires 80% of the important portions of the map to be mountains pretty much cannot be balanced.

I can't speak for Doc but I know that as long as you keep the basic 'flow concept' of Unfolded space I won't like it no matter how many exploits you fix. Not terribly fond of the thematics either but I'd put up with poor thematics for a more interesting concept.

[Doc Paterson]

i mean, every map can be a frog at the start. i know that ur in wesnoth for quite some time, and im glad u support the project. however, i think u made the freelands, and i remember a version where gripphs could fly from one flank to the other where mushrooms didnt exist to slow down their speed.

I'm guessing you're talking about this: http://media.photobucket.com/image/wesn ... Charge.jpg

-which I did not make. I did turn it into its current form. The main reason why your comparison doesn't work though is that way back then, we didn't have the weight of accumulated balancing knowledge behind us; that was 5-6 years ago, and we were building that understanding practically from scratch. We tried all sorts of crazy solutions to spice up the maps and/or solve problems that were poorly understood. So, you can't just say, "Well, you made this unbalanced thing in the past, so you shouldn't be so harsh or convinced you are right about this modern unbalanced map...." Factional balance, stealable villages, unbalanced terrain combinations....all of these things were very, very poorly understood, unlike now, when we have much clearer and more definitive indicators of unbalanced map properties.

The CC "Campaign of Abuse" had more to do with showing some players the faults in a rating system that is so quick to legalize a brand new map.

i still feel that CC played against weak players

How can you say that? You/we just noted four good players in that list. I think Q and Kolbur were in agreement with me that they all had little chance of winning. (I remember Q saying in one of the games "this was lost for the opponent at turn 1...") What do you make of the fact that they knew CC's faction, knew the tactic ahead of time, that he did not know their faction, and still won?

i dont believe in unsolvable cases (especially not on this one).

I don't either, but as Velensk said above sometimes a map has to be changed so much that it is practically a different map from the original (see the charge/Freelands example). I think in the case of U-Space, it's really simple for me- it's just that I really don't want to help make this map more popular, because I think it has a very plain look to it. Do something distinct with it, like Q did for Astral Port for example, and I'm all in.

[Rigor]

velensk of course such a map can be balanced, just take away those 80% mountains et voila no need to stick to the old design. one thing i didnt quite get was what the flow concept is supposed to be, exactely.

doc no i didnt mean that map, i meant freelands in 1.2 and 1.3. it looks almost the same like today in 1.8, the change was to put those mushrooms into the inpassable peaks 1-hex-paths on the flanks. i dont want to dig it out now, but im sure u will have it somewhere.

So, you can't just say, "Well, you made this unbalanced thing in the past, so you shouldn't be so harsh or convinced you are right about this modern unbalanced map...."

no i didnt mean that, i meant to say that i can understand that u dont like an unfair map design.

a map has to be changed so much that it is practically a different map from the original

no problem, really.

Do something distinct with it, like Q did for Astral Port for example, and I'm all in.

i hope ur not a politician in real life

[Velensk]

You take away all of those mountains and it isn't the same map now is it?

Force flow is the way the terrain forces units to move.

[Doc Paterson]

doc no i didnt mean that map, i meant freelands in 1.2 and 1.3.

Okay, so you were thinking of another version, but what I said above still applies:

The main reason why your comparison doesn't work though is that back then, we didn't have the weight of accumulated balancing knowledge of 5-6 years behind us.

Anyways, no point in arguing about misunderstandings- I think you see where I'm coming from, and I understand where you're coming from; we both are interested in finding fresh maps that can be balanced. I just favor a slower and more cautious approach, and think that the current system messes with the ladder ratings in a way that Eyerouge and company definitely did not intend (and seem to really dislike, now). That's not my problem though, and I'm not really sure why I even started debating about this stuff. (Maybe it began with a few people I ran into who thought I was behind the creation and inclusion of these and asked me to fix these "unbalanced maps." Arg.)

I think that I made a lot of points above that weren't answered, and I don't know if any kind of change at all will come from my posts here, but, I don't think I have to say anything more. I'll do what I do for mainline, and you do what you prefer for the ladder- we both have good intentions I think, so the overall outcome can't be all that bad.

[Rigor]

yeah, peace and prosper...you know the rest

ill worry about ladder and ratings a little later, for now i have found an intriguingly easy solution for the rush part of the discussion. it really helps p2 if he can start at a different position and doesnt have to run zig-zag through the map.

namely: p2 starts in the left keep, has one preflagged vill, and goes streight into the next castle to recruit a bunch of units.

gotta rush now, cya later for a more in-depth discussion

[nani]

I just favor a slower and more cautious approach, and think that the current system messes with the ladder ratings in a way that Eyerouge and company definitely did not intend (and seem to really dislike, now).

/me agrees.

Wouldn't it still be a perfect compromise to add the "1v1 default/old (random map) - set" to the Competitive Addon ?
I actually still believe with the "all" and "new" as the only random options you're forcing players that are willing to play a balanced random map to test imbalanced maps they don't want to play / want to mess with.
I'm not saying discard those two options, I'm just requesting a third. Players that are willing to test and improve those new maps still have the option. Is there anything wrong with that ?

[Yoyobuae]

Or maybe it's because blaming a loss on any external factors (faction balance, luck, etc) instead of your own shortcomings is taboo in Wesnoth. I assume this believe has also been extended to map balance.

(Oh, I didn't realize that players were no longer complaining about luck, factional balance, or external factors of any kind. )

Quite the zero-evidence, negative/pessimistic response you managed there. Cramming that much passive aggression into a mere two sentences is pretty impressive, and I congratulate you for that, but still, these kinds of the-whole-community-sucks comments aren't helping anyone.

I'm sorry.

[Rigor]

newest version of unfolding is out:

[Doc Paterson]

Just wanted to say that I think this new U-Space is way, way better than the previous. Well done, Rigor.

[Rigor]

thx thats what i wanted to hear

and now some other thing that popped right into my mind:

i want to have kvinkunx's map "dungeon creepfest" in the UMC mappack. its a good 1v1 map. runes dont do anything, they r just there for scenario purposes. i dont know which mapshould be preflagged to be honest, take then lower one for starters, plz.

here a screen:



EDIT: large version here:

http://www.wsrsw.org/maps/0000329.jpg

[Caphriel]

Could you maybe shrink that a little or link to it instead of inserting it into your post? My display isn't 2000 pixels wide, and I suspect others will have similar problems with page elements being deformed.

[Rigor]

big update coming up next for the map pack from quetzalcoatl.

scarred foothills have an update as well. fast units no longer have an initial megaadvantage.

[Doc Paterson]

big update coming up next for the map pack from quetzalcoatl.

scarred foothills have an update as well. fast units no longer have an initial megaadvantage.

Aye, I have officially been sucked into this project.

I redid Foothills. It's going to end up looking something like this in the next update:

http://s153.photobucket.com/albums/s230 ... thills.png