Lack of "Playable" maps

[Gargos]

Here is my opinion from an ex server owner:

If you ask me, one of the biggest problems is the ego(s) of the server owners. This game is small. Server hosters have a lot of power. If you manage to make your server known, ppl are bound to join it and populate it. Hardly matters is it 24/7 or rtv, what matters is which servers the players are used to play in. In the empty server list once 1-4 guys join a server then that one server is going to get all the rest of the players there too. And those 1-4 pick that server because they always play there.

Now one might say that ”so what if a 24/7 map is the only one with population, join rtv if you feel like it”. We all know aint nobody got time for that. If you join alone on some rtv server and there is a 24/7 server with 26/32 players, peeps will pick the 24/7 no matter the map preference. Eventually it is 32/32 and people are literally in line while those same ppl could populate another server. But players wont bother. Players cant help themselves. They cannot coordinate it so that everyone played what they would actually want to play and be happy. The community is too small for that. This is where the server owners have power. To me it is an ridiculous idea that you have to uphold a 24/7 map just for the sake of snatching players. My question is WHAT DOES IT MATTER if there are players or not on your server? If some other server takes over in popularity then so what? This is not a competition. Forget the ego.

I used to host some popular servers years ago when rtv didnt yet exist (cf aka, corruption force server and also DC server) both used to be top servers in europe as 5-6 map rotation servers. Everytime some other rotation server came on and took over in popularity I simply just stopped upholding my own server and played on that new popular server. If that server quit then I just simply starting hosting my own again. I was only hosting a server to a need. A need of playing smth else than 24/7 dotf for myself and the others who wanted other maps to be played too. I didnt give a shit if it didnt happen to be my server that was popular, I just wanted to play other maps than dotf.

I do understand that it isnt easy. As qwerty said, eu had this same problem too. Atm US is stuck with two types of 24/7: dotf and ds servers. It would take some effort from the clans and server owners to coordinate and start populating rtv servers and remove their 24/7 servers. Some other 24/7 servers would rise surely and players being so used to playin only dotf and ds might be tempted to populate those. Still, if aod and tr were to do rtv only, their server names and reputation alone should be able to sway people to populate them more often, at least in due time.

 

[Liniyka_xddd]

So I'm reading all this, and I only have 1 question to ask:

Why exactly is it a "problem"?

 

[MoonmanMoonman]

delete smuggler
each and every time smuggler wins in rtv the server goes from 32/32 to 8/32 or less
not to mention the map is fucking shit

 

[Faux]

So I'm reading all this, and I only have 1 question to ask:

Why exactly is it a "problem"?

because if people dont play the game the exact way the dev team envisions, and the exact same way EU does, then there is a problem. allowing players to determine their favorite servers is bad.

when deathstar is full, people would rather join our empty deathstar 2 server instead of joining other servers. you can actually see this on the graph I linked earlier, at the times our second deathstar server started getting population, there was an NA RTV server with population, and an NA rotation server with population. players still chose to populate an empty deathstar.

deathstar isnt going anywhere. AoD's pandemonium isn't going amywhere, either. NA has more players than EU, not sure why devs have convinced themselves there is a "problem" simply because there is a vocal minority on the forums and discord. as i stated previously, when we have had threads where mass amounts complaints were posted on the forums about topics like 1.5 or DotF, or similisr events in the MB2 riscord, the dev's tune has always been that the discord and forums arent an accurate reflection of what the community wants, since they are such a small sample size of players. interesting now that a few forum posts agree with the devs stance on this, they have confirmed the existence of this "problem".

at the time of posting this, it is 0500 in NA, and Deathstar has 18/32 people, and there is an NA RTV server with 11 people. Casual Corner, which is rotstion, was also populated for a large part of the day, yesterday. almost as if there is... variety... hmm..

this entire thread is a joke

 

[RenegadeGaming]

Though I respect you Frenzy, and even as an avid duel frequenter, I still enjoy a good dose of a one map server on open,

I am firmly against forcing the community to play on rotational servers only, as those for such examples as:

-They are never Populated
-Fear of trolls spamming the rtv command, and spamming out the server to force another rtv when mods arent there.
-Half the maps that are in rotation arent as great as said maps that are being used for one map servers.

In conclusion, RTV servers would do more harm than good to the community’s frequent population. At this point, I think this thread is just a Player-grab to just snatch population off of one map servers such as deathstar 24/7 simply because the EW server is most of the time empty, or lightly populated. I just dont understand why this is all of a sudden an issue when it never was throughout all the years MB2 has been in existence.

 

[Foba Bett]

let me leave a comment before the thread gets closed

 

[GeneralDogFood]

i'd just like to add that there has been plenty of times where an admin changes the map on deathstar to something else for a meme or change of scenery and generally the majority of players on want the map changed back or are just really confused

tr is just doing what the community wants and it's pretty obvious that the majority of the community wants 24/7 servers

 

[BenSwolo]

people will play whatever they want, this is not china, devs should refrain from trying to enforce their views on the community and focus on developing the game

 

[Fluffy |>]

You didn't know? All the devs are chinese

 

[cheese]

The thread boils down to:

- Force players to adhere to own personal preference and cite contrived and false pragmatic reasons

OR

- Give players the choice to join whatever server they want, ignoring own preference.

I wonder which group the "devs" fall into??? 🤔🤔🤔

 

[LanceOfLonginus]

people will play what they want which tends to be deathstar and jedi/sith 3/4th of the time

 

[Gargos]

I am also against enforcing rtv servers only or anything the likes of that. Even if I hate jedi spams neither would I put class limitations. The more restrictions the more it will frustrate players. I only hope the server owners use their power responsibly.

 

[Rhonin]

I only hope the server owners use their power responsibly.

 

[GoodOl'Ben]

as of right now NA has more population than EU, from what I can tell (no actual data on that, I just check the server list multiple times per day and there seem to more NA servers populated than EU most of the time)

EU peak number of players for past 6 months is 207. NA peak number of players for pas 6 months is 204.
EU average median for past 6 months is 38 players. NA average median for past 6 months is 45 players.
The current landscape for the past 30 days indicates a higher average of US players (EU 68, US 86).

i'd just like to add that there has been plenty of times where an admin changes the map on deathstar to something else for a meme or change of scenery and generally the majority of players on want the map changed back or are just really confused

tr is just doing what the community wants and it's pretty obvious that the majority of the community wants 24/7 servers

Generally players seek comfort. They will pick their favorite build, favorite skin and not explore alternatives until something makes them do so. Most often than not players want to have fun and the easiest way to have fun is through doing something you know. This is also why reboots and movie franchises are a thing. It's because humans gravitate towards the familiar. It is a far bigger investment to experience something new.

This is a common dilemma for game designers. You create this new content and you want players to enjoy it, but if you give them too much autonomy, they will most likely stick with what they know. Just think of any of your gaming habits. I'm sure we all have "mains". You can fool yourself that you don't have a main, but yes you bloody do. Just because you played Deka that one time for the lulz when you were bored doesn't mean you don't play 3-nade QT Lobot 90% of the time.

A while back I watched a good documentary on the making of Transistor. They developed this amazing game system that allowed players to combine various power-ups to create unique attacks with their own special properties. Early on in development they had a problem. Players stuck with the abilities they had early on and only upgraded those. There was little to no exploration happening despite this amazing intricate system in place. Players were stagnant and reporting low levels of enjoyment. The game felt monotone. Then the developers had a stroke of genius. They tied player health and their amazing power-up system together. Players who died were forced to play without their maxed out power-up. This forced players to explore new avenues. The developers intentionally nudged players out of their comfort zones and they found increase in enjoyment and retention. Players were less likely to get bored and there was novelty to be had for multiple playthroughs.

Another good example of this is the design behind of Breath of the Wild's weapons. A key design philosophy for the BotW was exploration. They attempted to utilize this in as much of their design as possible. By having the weapons permanently break and disappear from your inventory after being worn out forces the players to go out of their staple weapons and really enjoy the full breadth of what the game has to offer.

I'm not here to say that we should force map rotation, but treating a human hivemind like "The Community" as a self-conscious being that knows exactly what it wants is equally malarkey.

Especially when dealing with new players, it would be important to establish a rapport of variety and change early on. This is what Transistor and BotW did and managed to break the monotony players gravitated towards in their games. I believe this is also why EU has a wide variety of maps. The userbase is accustomed to maps being a changing modifier.

From a designer perspective, maps are very important for MB2. They allow for different styles of play to be brought out when done right. The best example of this is Smuggler. It's so vastly different from every other map that the strategies players use tend to be built around that specific map. Less snipers and more multi-lifers and classes that excel in tight spaces. By contrast to DOTF's sniper/jedi meta, it's a breath of fresh air and forces players to come up with new strategies to win.

Forced RTV would be an interesting idea for servers as this would give choice to the player as opposed to the server owner. The main drawback to this in my books is that then you go against the freedom of server owners being able to tailor their own experiences, which is at the heart of all things modding and curated fun when done right.

A perfect solution would be to incentivize players to pick RTV servers over a "special" unorthodox server. A good approach to this would be to create a lightweight competitive leaderboard for players to showcase their skill and dedication on. Score for this leaderboard should only be gained in a "competitive" setting, so it should be done on competitive RTV servers.

This way player choice is not restricted. It is simply encouraged.

 

[2Gen]

Imagine your maps not getting used, so you want to enforce communism on MB2 to force the player base to play the game the way you want them to play it.

The community wants to play on a server where they can say and for the most part, do what they want. Thats why we pop 2 ds’s and the other ds Servers, rotating or not, cannot.

Ill never understand why any of the devs cant just say “yep, tR did it right and thats why they hold all of our pop for NA”. its always gotta be something.
“TR is so toxic and cancerous”
“TR has no morals”
“TR picks one map guys, thats gotta be it”
Which as Dog Food said, isnt even 100% true.
Whats the next excuse?

The fact that some of the devs are making sly suggestions to some how kill the ds map in direct response to the community having a good time on certain maps is pathetic and cuts your teams legitimacy in half. You seen how that went with dotf.
Learn.

Why is it when the community speaks up Against something like this, its almost like we went from majority to minority? The proof is in the numbers. If the numbers fall, THEN we can have this non-current-problem conversation. Till then, focus on things that matter. Please?

 

[Fluffy |>]

The community wants

The community speaks up

Keep in mind that all of us here, on both sides of the argument, are only the vocal minority of the 'community'

 

[2Gen]

🤦🏿

 

[Faux]

Keep in mind that all of us here, on both sides of the argument, are only the vocal minority of the 'community'

i mentioned this earlier. that is a logical take, and is what the dev team also said multiple times when they were facing massive criticism in the past for things such as their mishandling of DotF. which is why i struggle to see what the perceived "problem" is. other than a small minority of players on the forums and discord, there is nothing to suggest that the NA community as a whole is not perfectly happy with the way things are on the NA side of things.

as Ben and I already pointed out, NA has more players than EU at the current time, why do they want the NA community to model themselves after the EU community? if there is no statistical evidence to back up that 24/7 maps are hurting the playerbase, and the only detractors are part of a "small vocal minority", who are not a true representation of the community as a whole, then what is the "problem?"

 

[GeneralDogFood]

EU peak number of players for past 6 months is 207. NA peak number of players for pas 6 months is 204.
EU average median for past 6 months is 38 players. NA average median for past 6 months is 45 players.
The current landscape for the past 30 days indicates a higher average of US players (EU 68, US 86).


Generally players seek comfort. They will pick their favorite build, favorite skin and not explore alternatives until something makes them do so. Most often than not players want to have fun and the easiest way to have fun is through doing something you know. This is also why reboots and movie franchises are a thing. It's because humans gravitate towards the familiar. It is a far bigger investment to experience something new.

This is a common dilemma for game designers. You create this new content and you want players to enjoy it, but if you give them too much autonomy, they will most likely stick with what they know. Just think of any of your gaming habits. I'm sure we all have "mains". You can fool yourself that you don't have a main, but yes you bloody do. Just because you played Deka that one time for the lulz when you were bored doesn't mean you don't play 3-nade QT Lobot 90% of the time.

A while back I watched a good documentary on the making of Transistor. They developed this amazing game system that allowed players to combine various power-ups to create unique attacks with their own special properties. Early on in development they had a problem. Players stuck with the abilities they had early on and only upgraded those. There was little to no exploration happening despite this amazing intricate system in place. Players were stagnant and reporting low levels of enjoyment. The game felt monotone. Then the developers had a stroke of genius. They tied player health and their amazing power-up system together. Players who died were forced to play without their maxed out power-up. This forced players to explore new avenues. The developers intentionally nudged players out of their comfort zones and they found increase in enjoyment and retention. Players were less likely to get bored and there was novelty to be had for multiple playthroughs.

Another good example of this is the design behind of Breath of the Wild's weapons. A key design philosophy for the BotW was exploration. They attempted to utilize this in as much of their design as possible. By having the weapons permanently break and disappear from your inventory after being worn out forces the players to go out of their staple weapons and really enjoy the full breadth of what the game has to offer.

that's a good point, but transistor and botw are both completely different from mb2. players choose what server they want to join, class they want to play, and what map they want to play on.

it is true that players like to pick favorites, but in a game like mb2 there's nothing wrong with that. people do the same thing with tf2, there's 9 classes to choose from and plenty of official and community made maps, but a lot of players just like to chill on one or two maps and only play one class. it's just what they want to do.

not to mention a lot of players have jobs, they don't have time to learn every class and every inch of a map, they just want to stick with a class and map they like and turn their brain off.

I'm not here to say that we should force map rotation, but treating a human hivemind like "The Community" as a self-conscious being that knows exactly what it wants is equally malarkey.

Especially when dealing with new players, it would be important to establish a rapport of variety and change early on. This is what Transistor and BotW did and managed to break the monotony players gravitated towards in their games. I believe this is also why EU has a wide variety of maps. The userbase is accustomed to maps being a changing modifier.

From a designer perspective, maps are very important for MB2. They allow for different styles of play to be brought out when done right. The best example of this is Smuggler. It's so vastly different from every other map that the strategies players use tend to be built around that specific map. Less snipers and more multi-lifers and classes that excel in tight spaces. By contrast to DOTF's sniper/jedi meta, it's a breath of fresh air and forces players to come up with new strategies to win.

Forced RTV would be an interesting idea for servers as this would give choice to the player as opposed to the server owner. The main drawback to this in my books is that then you go against the freedom of server owners being able to tailor their own experiences, which is at the heart of all things modding and curated fun when done right.

A perfect solution would be to incentivize players to pick RTV servers over a "special" unorthodox server. A good approach to this would be to create a lightweight competitive leaderboard for players to showcase their skill and dedication on. Score for this leaderboard should only be gained in a "competitive" setting, so it should be done on competitive RTV servers.

you don't need to be a psychologist to host servers, if players want to play on the same map over and over because they find it fun, let them. if they want to complain about not enough map variety, let them. there's an empty rtv server waiting for them to pop it.

coercing players to play on different maps with an empty game mechanic is just dumb, let them join whatever server they want.

 

[qwerty]

communism

yes, giving players the ability to vote the map they want is literally communism. server owners should decide what map gets played at all times, they are the final arbiter. all these ridiculous arguments in the thread against controlling what maps people play and yet instead of actually giving the community the power to change the map when it suits them you are forcing a single map meta with your server, as it was demonstrated with the EU situation years ago: people played on dotf servers out of habit. the community is small, some players are on dotf, more players join. most of them are new and/or unwilling to learn new maps so they keep playing dotf. the circle continues not because of a conscious decision of the 'community' hivemind as you seem to think, but because of the dynamic of how games' communities work - MBII is not the first nor the last this has happened in. cs 1.6 used to have only dust2 servers. back when tribes ascend had dedicated servers people would only play katabatic. these maps were good, accessible to new players and around from the start - not necessarily the best, most fun or even most liked by the community who actually had experienced the entire map pool. the same happened in EU with dotf, things changed when certain servers went down and we never looked back. people vote dotf when they wanna play it, then they vote it off when it inevitably gets boring and it's much healthier meta and i think you would struggle to find people who disagree with that

as Ben and I already pointed out, NA has more players than EU at the current time

i see this said a lot but i don't think it's true. as ben already quoted from stats.moviebattles.org, EU and NA servers have roughly the same numbers over the last year, but I believe the website doesn't actually collect player IPs, so it doesn't take into account the fact that NA servers are often populated at least in part by EU players. every time I look at the server list and open the top NA servers around 30% of players have 150-190 ping (4 out of 16 on the tR DS server as of writing this), while on EU servers I hardly ever see more than a single NA player online at a time. at most EU and NA players are around equal in number, but i suspect due to the fact EU players play on NA servers for whatever reason the stats website's data is a little skewed and there are actually more EU players