Do you like new DOTF?

Do you like new DOTF?

  • Yes

    Votes: 50 39.4%
  • No

    Votes: 50 39.4%
  • Not sure yet

    Votes: 27 21.3%

  • Total voters
    127
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180
The removal and replacement of old Dotf has increased the variety of maps i got to play in the last month. It also removed my Dotf fatigue. Saying i wouldn't be happy how this decision turned out for me personally would be a lie.

I can only see 2 ways from here which could satisfy all Mb2 players:
1. Put old Dotf back in and try to convince old Dotf-only players to compromise on map choice more often (the past shows this is an unrealistic scenario)
2. Working on compromises for the new version which are tolerable for most of the community even if it means making it more like the old version.

I can't really feel too much empathy for people having to play maps they don't want to play for 2 months now, after having to play dotf only for like 90% of the time whenever i wanted to play mb2 in the last 5 years. And now some do not even show the tiniest bit of cooperation to find compromises.
I'm honestly surprised there isn't more outrage about the removal tho.
 

MaceMadunusus

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Adding onto this... If some of the suggestions are decent would the Level Design team consider them and be willing to at least try them out?

I am working on ways to implement some of the suggestions. I implemented quite a few of them in the patch last week. The other ones take a bit longer to do and cannot be done in a day. Working on it though.

I also agree with Noob, the frank door should be available because it's pretty difficult to defend the obj right now, making it somewhat reb-sided.

Okay I'm confused. Which door are we talking about now? Every locked door (except hangar -> fed) has the Teamallow 2 flag on it, which allows imperials through all of them.

But the position of "this map is superior, why would you ever want to play the previous one?" is not correct when there's a pretty clear split between the players.

Not what I said. I have said several times that new DOTF has issues and they need to be worked out and I need the communities help and feedback doing so. Playing old DOTF does nothing to help that cause.

...what is this then?

I'm not sure how pointing out that someone who plays an old version of the map for 10 years suddenly knows this map just as well as the old one in 4 weeks just isn't possible. You can claim all you want that you do, but it isn't physically possible to. And the idea of the old dotf not being flawed or broken that was mentioned. I am not sure how that is equivalent to not caring that you like the old dotf. You can like the old dotf all you want. It isn't being added back at the moment because of the reasons both I and viserys mentioned. We could have easily made the classic version that was put together not at all playable but we didn't. I mentioned that it could be a possibility in the future that we add it back, but not right now.

After reading through (most of) the replies I never got that from what Mace was saying rip

Does this help?
How am I supposed to get enough information about something new that comes out quickly in order to improve it when people just play what they are comfortable with? This has literally been a problem level designers have faced in MB2 because people don't bother to play something they aren't comfortable with from playing all the damn time. Historically the community has been horrible at giving us information for level design in a quick and easy manner and this is because of all the dotf 24/7 crap. I wouldn't have been able to get the information for the patch last week AND do that work AND test it in 3 weeks if it wasn't put live in the manner it was. It would have taken 2-3 times longer if the path followed every other map release in history. Sometimes the community needs to actually participate in something rather than running away into their safe space.

I CANNOT rapidly iterate on the new DOTF to make it better with the old one in place. It simply is not possible. I said I needed the communities help on making it better and I cannot do that when every time in history everyone retreats to their safe space within 24 hours after a release happens..

...

I am thinking of ways I can possibly make this better but again I cannot do that with having the 6-8 beta testers playing the map. We can only get so far doing that and I mentioned that is why I wanted to release earlier than I normally would want to.
At the very least it will not be re-added for a few months while the issues are ironed out for the reasons said above. Comm Towers classic was not added initially either for the same reason. Same with JT and Tantive.
Community Assistance
Like with everything we have ever made, nothing is perfect. Duel of the Fates Version 2 is no different. There are some things I would still like to work on or change but at this point I need to see how things play on live servers before I make more adjustments. Definitely expect changes to be made in the weeks and months after release based off of your feedback.

Not said as elegantly due to frustration but it is definitely there.
 
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Viserys

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I'm not saying the new map is bad, i just prefer old dotf. There is no reason to not bring it back (except if mace doesnt want it, we wont get it)

Look here: Do you like new DOTF?
Look here: Do you like new DOTF?

Honestly, what is the point of being given the reason 4 posts above and in several posts within the thread and then post once again "there is no reason except this guy doesn't like it"?

You either:

1) don't read this thread, in which case you shouldn't post out of ignorance, or
2) you do read it and choose to repeat yourself aimlessly to promote flaming.

Which is it?
 

eezstreet

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I am working on ways to implement some of the suggestions. I implemented quite a few of them in the patch last week. The other ones take a bit longer to do and cannot be done in a day. Working on it though.
Thank you for considering community opinion and adjusting the map, even if a lot of the feedback given on the map is not especially helpful.

Not what I said. I have said several times that new DOTF has issues and they need to be worked out and I need the communities help and feedback doing so. Playing old DOTF does nothing to help that cause.
Ok, fair enough. :) I am just mentioning that some people would like to play the old one still. Although I understand that you need feedback on the map, I don't think this is the best way to get feedback from players (maybe in a RTV server it can get good opinions and feedback)

I'm not sure how pointing out that someone who plays an old version of the map for 10 years suddenly knows this map just as well as the old one in 4 weeks just isn't possible. You can claim all you want that you do, but it isn't physically possible to. And the idea of the old dotf not being flawed or broken that was mentioned. I am not sure how that is equivalent to not caring that you like the old dotf. You can like the old dotf all you want. It isn't being added back at the moment because of the reasons both I and viserys mentioned. We could have easily made the classic version that was put together not at all playable but we didn't. I mentioned that it could be a possibility in the future that we add it back, but not right now.
No, but someone who has loved that map for 10 years will probably be sad that they can't play it anymore.

Look here: Do you like new DOTF?
Look here: Do you like new DOTF?

Honestly, what is the point of being given the reason 4 posts above and in several posts within the thread and then post once again "there is no reason except this guy doesn't like it"?

You either:

1) don't read this thread, in which case you shouldn't post out of ignorance, or
2) you do read it and choose to repeat yourself aimlessly to promote flaming.

Which is it?
I have to disagree with your approach here Vis, the guy was just giving his feedback. From the past interactions in this thread I would've made the same conclusion that he did. Saying "you shouldn't post out of ignorance" is a bad look.
 

Noob

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Okay I'm confused. Which door are we talking about now?
idk wat luna is talking about. the door right across from the fed to main door towards right corr. unlocked for rebs. also are people that lazy they cant manually host the old version of dotf under a new name. im sure theres enuff cult following of that map for it to work. hell you could even go through this and find the first iteration available of mb2_dotf
 

Smee

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Look here: Do you like new DOTF?
Look here: Do you like new DOTF?

Honestly, what is the point of being given the reason 4 posts above and in several posts within the thread and then post once again "there is no reason except this guy doesn't like it"?

You either:

1) don't read this thread, in which case you shouldn't post out of ignorance, or
2) you do read it and choose to repeat yourself aimlessly to promote flaming.

Which is it?

No, removing a good map so a bad map gets played isn't a valid reason. If the map was able to stand on its own (i.e was good), DOTF would still be in the game.
 

MaceMadunusus

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No, removing a good map so a bad map gets played isn't a valid reason. If the map was able to stand on its own (i.e was good), DOTF would still be in the game.

This is incorrect. If we were 100% sure the new DOTF is better in every single way possible you would never see the old one again similar to Cloud City.
 

Hessu

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Look here: Do you like new DOTF?
Look here: Do you like new DOTF?

Honestly, what is the point of being given the reason 4 posts above and in several posts within the thread and then post once again "there is no reason except this guy doesn't like it"?

You either:

1) don't read this thread, in which case you shouldn't post out of ignorance, or
2) you do read it and choose to repeat yourself aimlessly to promote flaming.

Which is it?
These "reasons" are silly, of course people would still play the new dotf and give feedback so it can be improved. It's not like old dotf would replace the new one
 

Plasma

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These "reasons" are silly, of course people would still play the new dotf and give feedback so it can be improved. It's not like old dotf would replace the new one
Judging from some of the visceral reactions that's completely not true.

Mace has been working on this for a long time I think the very least people could do is give it a go and give some constructive feedback. I've known him a long time he won't just ignore feedback he takes it on board and will implement changes to make his maps better.
 

MaceMadunusus

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Mace needs to quit being so salty and getting so mad. People just want old DOTF. Nothing wrong with that. He keeps feeding the trolls by replying to the trolls.

Same could be said of them too. They're really not willing to give things a chance.
 

Hessu

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Judging from some of the visceral reactions that's completely not true.

Mace has been working on this for a long time I think the very least people could do is give it a go and give some constructive feedback. I've known him a long time he won't just ignore feedback he takes it on board and will implement changes to make his maps better.
I'm sure the people who want the old dotf back, have played the new one and have given it a chance. At least i have. The map is NOT bad, but old dotf was better.
 

MaceMadunusus

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have played the new one and have given it a chance.

< 1 month of live time, with people playing a few hours a day max and probably not every day isn't really "giving the map a chance".

Regardless, you aren't getting the map back for months at minimum and even that is still a maybe. So the discussion on that topic stops now.
 

eezstreet

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< 1 month of live time, with people playing a few hours a day max and probably not every day isn't really "giving the map a chance".

Regardless, you aren't getting the map back for months at minimum and even that is still a maybe. So the discussion on that topic stops now.
Hm but that does raise an interesting point: How long is "long enough" to determine whether or not a map is better than another map? I can tell you within an hour or two of playing a game whether or not it's going to be good. What makes a map different?
 

MaceMadunusus

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Hm but that does raise an interesting point: How long is "long enough" to determine whether or not a map is better than another map? I can tell you within an hour or two of playing a game whether or not it's going to be good. What makes a map different?

I don't think you can genuinely. I feel like if you only play an hour or two of the game and it isn't disastrously bad I don't really think you can judge it as a good or bad game overall at that point. Levels, progression, story, or whatever could entirely change after those two hours depending on the type of game. Multiplayer games in general take quite a bit longer in general because of a lot of intricacies in the balance that no one understands in 2 hours let alone 10 hours of play. MB2 has always been one of those games on the higher end of the spectrum where it takes longer to understand a lot of those things than your average shooter. Now, you can certainly make a judgement that the "game isn't for me" in a pretty short time period but I really don't believe you can call any game genuinely bad with such a short time period unless it is one of those ez asset flips on the steam store that took 0 care or effort... that is a bit different.

However, I believe determining whether you like gameplay in general is much easier simply because you're using a majority of it the entire time you're playing. You're directly using the gun mechanics, movement mechanics, aiming, abilities, the list goes on constantly when you are in a match. You aren't standing in the same spot of a map getting to know it just as well as the gun in your hand for anywhere near the same amount of time. Certainly, the design of the maps themselves also play a large part in that. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind about how much the level design impacts the enjoyment of that core gameplay loop. You could have an amazing core gameplay loop but the worst level design in existence and the game would be crap. That isn't exactly what I am going to be talking about here though.

Now in much bigger games I focus on the level design more than others for obvious reasons. Not only to learn and grow myself but to see what they did wrong, or to see how people are reacting and changing to certain things. I have found that the way people react to level design and changes to level design is actually one of the slower processes because a lot of the usage and interaction of the map is more in the back of their mind rather than the forefront. Someone is almost always going to notice obvious issues but there are always a lot of subtleties. Companies like Valve go into this greatly in their in game commentaries and other sources about how just changing little aspects of a map without changing the layout, cover, etc, can have drastic differences on how people move or utilize the level. I am going to use something I did on Republic Cruiser as an example of this. The side route on RC was being under utilized in beta sessions. Now how did I fix that? I didn't change the layout at all I will tell you that. I changed the lighting. Just changing that one little thing caused people to slowly shift that direction more but it was far from instant. Took about 3 weeks for that one change to be utilized even though there were some initial results of that change that made it obvious. Beta is a little slower than live though for obvious reasons though is also with a bunch of people who listen to focus testing changes and read changelogs, etc so in other ways it is also faster than live because the players themselves have a duty to read and understand changelogs. The majority of a player base does not do that.

God this is hard saying in any kind of short manner. Anyway, because a lot of things with level design are in the back of someones mind it takes a much longer time for people to develop a full understanding of a level (in EVERY game). It is pretty easy to develop quick feelings about something but to truly understand it and how it works takes a long time, even sometimes months. It takes months for a proper meta to develop around a level where as it can take weeks for a meta to develop around character changes. There are people that to this day even though they have thousands of hours in Dota for example, do not know everything about the map they play on every day and some of those revelations could have changed several games they played to the point of turning them around entirely but because they are so small in the grand scheme of things they go largely unnoticed. This is in games with thousands of players playing a game at any one moment of time, which means people simply experience a vast majority of different types of players requiring them to adjust and update their strategies more often. This isn't the case with a lot of people in MB2. They have been playing so long that they aren't challenged to change their strategies very often anymore which results in players needing more time to adapt to certain changes.

So now if we look at DOTF we have another problem. Most of the things above allow a good majority of players to understand a majority (but not all) of a map within a few months time period but a lot of the more nuanced back of the mind things with a level that could have made or broken a lot of rounds goes unnoticed for even years depending on the person/game/community. There are so many variables that make it hard. With DOTFv2 we have another variable that a lot of games do not have do deal with. That is the previous map and its sub versions being ingrained in the community for years. This means a VERY solidified meta is in place, even for players that haven't played in a long time. They know every nook and cranny, every spot to jump on someone, they know how far away they can be from the obj and still defend it, they know how far they can push forward without over extending, etc. Since people are used to certain spots existing, certain timings existing for so many years, a simple change is going to throw them off way more drastically because of that. In a way it is almost like getting stuck in a rut that a lot of pro players do in many games where the meta has been unchanged for so long that they literally forget something else is viable or how to think outside the box and when someone new comes in and throws a wrench in the works it causes chaos for weeks in those pro scenes.

That same line of thought, in a way, can be used for DOTF as well. DOTF has to fight that other variable that is the old DOTF, that old ingrained set of "rules" that were present to the point of essentially being habit/muscle memory for a large majority of the player base. Then we just threw a wrench into things. So people have to not adjust to a map like they would in a new game, but also throw a lot of their old habits out of the window. Breaking habits getting through those barriers for the average human takes ~90 days. With some people being really quick (21 days being the minimum found so far) and some being much higher and it really depends on the person and how much time they spend. That number of course doesn't take into account positive or negative factors that impact how fast or how slow players to adjust to a map but just let me note that it has never been a fast process. It takes a lot of information, a lot of time, and being challenged, for players to fully adjust to a level. If players aren't being challenged by other players then there isn't much reason for them to learn and grown in a new environment. And this also applies to other areas in every day life as well.

Over the past few weeks I have been sitting and observing a lot more than I usually do, and also playing. I have said to many people in development that I am seeing a lot of the community, even as recently as yesterday, using tactics that I knew before release would not work on the new map anymore. A significant amount of people have adjusted to some things already but not entirely and not a majority of the population.

Anyway this is a thing that is kind of hard to put into words so I hope this at least gets part of the message across. There will always be blatantly wrong problems will a level that should be fixed quickly that everyone can identify pretty quickly. Like the changes I did last week to DOTF but a lot of those changes were also because I predicted possibly needing to do some of those changes based on my own experience and I just needed more information to "hit the button". Bigger things take quite a long time for the majority of a player base to adjust to regardless of whether or not a couple of them have. As a result you aren't just waiting for you yourself to adjust to the map, but others as well and that takes time. There is kind of a back and forth with this as well, where a group of players learn something but it isn't used against them, then others learn it, then they have to adjust their strategy, etc. So to answer you with an actual number I am going to say 4-6 months from the last significant (ie non minor glitch fix) changes made and I feel that is a little generous because sometimes it takes much less complicated map changes with much larger communities even longer to adjust than that but it really depends on the game and the amount of people playing. There are a lot more factors here than many realize. People have to break old habits, make new ones while also adjusting to a lot of players doing the exact same thing.
 
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Smee

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Regardless, you aren't getting the map back for months at minimum and even that is still a maybe. So the discussion on that topic stops now.

This is just spite, plain and simple. No wonder mb2 has been dying with devs like this
 

Stassin

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No wonder mb2 has been dying with devs like this
This is just spite, false information and personal frustration made apparent, plain and simple, because the size of the active mb2 community has remained about the same for at least the past 6 years (with a x4 peak during the months around the release of ep VII). No wonder this community is sometimes deemed toxic when a vocal 5 people supported by a less vocal 20 people keep on bashing others at almost every possible opportunity while the remaining few hundreds of more or less unconcerned people are satisfied with happily enjoying the mod and won't bother taking sides or defending against the bashing, even though they are aware that it makes the community as a whole look worse.

EDIT: ok i admit i am angry today and just randomly felt like writing the above which rather concerns general behaviour on the forums for years than this thread specifically, and so i am also raising the toxicity levels. My bad.
 
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Stassin, this is coming from someone who likes new DOTF, but since it's release I noticed a player drop, when with the release of 8 we should be at our peak for the year. And also those saying NO ONE like it, look at poll above.
 
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