How to make Soldat Beta versions successful?

[jrgp]

i really do predict a large amount of players quitting if they keep the current maps of the 1.5.1 beta .........................

And the ones who would quit are the worthless whining, greedy, impatient goof balls who should have left long ago. Useless player evacuation FTW!

Sigh, if you weren't an admin of this place you would be trolling. As it is you are just stupid, or possibly just arrogant to the point of ignorance. I'm not sure which is worse.

I disagree. I'm not arrogant or stupid; I'm eccentric and willing to word things in such a way that breaches the limited attention span of some of the more thicker people here.

[Squakingcow]

I disagree. I'm not arrogant or stupid; I'm eccentric and willing to word things in such a way that breaches the limited attention span of some of the more thicker people here.

If your definition of 'eccentric' is using idiotic close minded and biased opinions to try and make a rather large issue go away, then sure.

If no one 'whined' and just took every change (for better or for worse) like a little bitch then we wouldn't get very far at all. Yet you are labelling anyone who doesn't share your opinion and like the changes to the map lists 'worthless' (hello arrogance).

[jrgp]

I disagree. I'm not arrogant or stupid; I'm eccentric and willing to word things in such a way that breaches the limited attention span of some of the more thicker people here.

If your definition of 'eccentric' is using idiotic close minded and biased opinions to try and make a rather large issue go away, then sure.

If no one 'whined' and just took every change (for better or for worse) like a little b***h then we wouldn't get very far at all. Yet you are labelling anyone who doesn't share your opinion and like the changes to the map lists 'worthless' (hello arrogance).

.. What is the large issue? A large amount of new features put forth by a guy who has very little spare time and wants to make Soldat better? Tell me how that's an issue. Especially when people are mostly being pissed at the new features' existence, and not necessarily bugs in the new features.

And yes, I am labeling people who believe the changes to the maps list worthless. Why? They're not providing constructive criticism. How is "omfg this sucks sooo badly the new maps look terrible even with all the eye candy and took the names etc etc etc change it back noww" helpful at all?

[Dusty]

And yes, I am labeling people who believe the changes to the maps list worthless. Why? They're not providing constructive criticism. How is "omfg this sucks sooo badly the new maps look terrible even with all the eye candy and took the names etc etc etc change it back noww" helpful at all?

Constructive criticism: revert back to old maps.
Whine because: there was no need for replacements nor portal.

One thing I find very amusing is that all the replacements were made by zakath, the person who is in charge of the maps. Of course he though (and probably still thinks) his maps are better than the originals, he never asked the public's opinion of whether or not the maps should be replaced. The only reply that I have seen from him or SuoW on the whole issue is "that's your opinion, not mine". It's seems to me like neither one of them has noticed that the majority of the whole community wants the old maps back. Instead of doing so, they are trying to make the replacements "better" and discuss only with the people who are on their side.

No matter what they do, the general opinion will stay: the old maps are way better than the new ones.

[jrgp]

Actually there is and has been a team of beta testers working on the new maps for months now. None of the maps was just one person's decision or work.

And as for "no need," I really don't see how that's a good enough reason. Yes, maybe before things were fine, but I believe Soldat's newfound sophistication will only lead to more interesting features down the line. And the account system is really MM's idea since all of his future games will have it, btw.

[L[0ne]R]

It's seems to me like neither one of them has noticed that the majority of the whole community wants the old maps back.

Forgive my poor eyesight, but I don't seem to notice that "majority" either. Sure there are a lot of haters, but I've noticed a plenty of people who liked most new maps.
I just had a good few hours on one of the 1.5.1 servers, and not a single person complained about new maps, everybody had a good time. New maps are still well designed and balanced - that I think is most important.

Soldat needs to move on, it can't stick with all same old default maps forever.
For those who like old maps so much - I'm sure there will be servers that have them, so just go and play there. 

[Squakingcow]

.. What is the large issue? A large amount of new features put forth by a guy who has very little spare time and wants to make Soldat better? Tell me how that's an issue. Especially when people are mostly being pissed at the new features' existence, and not necessarily bugs in the new features.

I'm talk about the issue of a large amount of the old maps being replaced (a number of which were popular in the last version), which in case you didn't notice, a very large percent of players disagree with (on both the sctfl forums, and your own soldat forums).

Actually there is and has been a team of beta testers working on the new maps for months now. None of the maps was just one person's decision or work.

From what I have gathered, the beta tester team is rather (very) inactive, so when the change of default maps was suggested only Poop expressed an opinion. From a quick peek around as well, the only active beta testers on this forum are mappers (hey I'll even name them, jgrp, wraithlike, Zakath, SuoW and The Geologist). Sure you could argue that it is partly the other beta testers fault for choosing not to voice their opinion, but that is not the rest of the soldat communities fault (the people who will actually spend their time playing the maps).

And yes, I am labeling people who believe the changes to the maps list worthless. Why? They're not providing constructive criticism. How is "omfg this sucks sooo badly the new maps look terrible even with all the eye candy and took the names etc etc etc change it back noww" helpful at all?

Well for one it tells you that there are a number of people who dislike the changes, people who provide criticism will just help you too see why they share that point of view.

Which brings me to my criticism of the new maps that replace the old ones. First things first, a number of things that apply to all the maps I have played so far (I count 'playing' as a gather in a 3v3 situation) suffer from.

First issue that seemed to plague every map I played so far, the attempts to be 'creative' with health and grenade spawns, which actually just amount to putting them in the most inaccessible place possible (middle of the huts in Laos, low at the back of base on Viet, low on Snakebite), or just in a really really stupid place (hello health kits half way up the 'hill' in Viet). I'm sure this was done with the intention of having a positive effect on the game play of the maps (somehow), but when I played it just resulted in a massive pile of health/grenades in one place that no one could be arsed travelling to.

Another issue that was immediately noticeable on every map I loaded up (let alone played) was how 'busy' and 'overdone' the textures and scenery are in most of the remakes (Snakebite being the only possible exception to this), making it very difficult to concentrate on actually PLAYING soldat. The dark backgrounds that seem to plague all of the new maps also do not help with this cause, and really just make it harder to see what on Earth you are doing. Another note about the scenery and textures is sure, they look pretty from overviews, but no matter how hard you try they will always look bloody awful in game (and unsurprisingly, all the remade maps do, load up the new Viet and check out that diabolical texture).

There is also another point I would like to raise, from a bit of searching there was a remake competition in the mapping subform, and the idea was that you could remake any map you wanted, although in reality only maps that were previously unpopular would be considered as an addition to the next version (or something to that extent). Then WHY ON EARTH did you decide to take 3 very popular maps (Laos, Viet and Dropdown2) and replace them? I come from the 'IRC clanning' community, so I'm going to take the stats that I have to hand from sctfl (also the only real stats I have about the maps played).

First important thing to note is that Division is the tiebreaker map in sctfl, so the number of times that map has been played is irrelevant. ctf_Guardian is the most popular choice with 725 total plays (at this time), ctf_Ash, the second most popular map, which is often idolised by many as being a stupidly popular choice (including the mappers) currently has 523 plays. The maps I mentioned earlier, Laos, Viet and Dropdown2 have, 230, 221, and 380 plays respectively (which also works out as 43%, 42% and 72% of the number of times ctf_Ash has been played).

While these numbers are significantly less than the number of times ash or guardian has been played (ash being played twice the amount as Laos and Viet), they still get played a very significant amount, considering that they are being compared to what is considered the benchmark for very popular maps. If you can't already see what this means, it means the maps REALLY REALLY didn't need changing, as you will never be able to make every map as popular as one another (some game play types are favoured by more people, which evidently the fast paced maps such as Guardian, Ash and Blade are, and the slow types are less popular) without essentially making them all the same, and the chances are they were already as popular as their game play style would allow.

Another thing I would like to address. How much do you actually think these maps improve upon the old ones? I'll use the map comparison wraithlike so kindly posted in another topic to illustrate my point.

First thing you notice upon opening that image is, for all intents and purposes, the 'layout' of the two maps is near as dammit identical, to the point where it almost looks as if one has been traced from the other. The only actual noticeable differences between the two maps are the increased overhang from the spawn point to the flag, and those weird floating boulder things are now bigger than they were previously. I think it is pretty safe to assume this changes will have very little (in my opinion, absolutely none) effect on the actual game play of the map.

There is however one thing that has been done to the map that WILL change the gameplay, and to a negative extent at that, however it is not immediately noticeable. I said previously that the new B2b has essentially been traced from the old B2b. Well imagine tracing a painting, for the sake of it I will say imagine you are tracing the mona-lisa (only because it is the only painting I can think of at this point in time). So you are about to start tracing the mona-lisa, but then you realise you have lost your sharp pencil, but you have a nice blunt crayon to hand, so you use that instead. The result is obviously going to have lost a huge amount of the detail from the original, sure you will be able to recognise it as a tracing of the mona-lisa, but the original will look miles better.

This is EXACTLY the problem that ALL of the remakes suffer from, yeah sure they are easily identifiable as the original, but a huge amount of the detail has been lost. By this I mean that all of the nice little jagged edges and rough surfaces that you would have to learn to navigate around (and often use to your advantage for travelling around) are gone. Look closely at the comparison shot of B2b and you will see it, lots of the original polys have been 'smoothed over'. The Laos remake is an easy one to find the loss of detail in, the low route on it is VERY flat and dull compared to the original, with none of the detail that made the original fun to move around and engage from. Areas of the mid route on Laos are also the same and are very smoothed out.

All the maps I have played on and loaded up suffer from this, they all feel so devoid of life and character that the originals had, and as such are much less fun to play on. I'm not entirely sure why this loss of detail has occurred across all of the maps, but I'm willing to take a fair punt at it and say that it is because all of the remakes were created in polyworks. All of the snap to vertices features etc. prevent the 'creative' types of polygon structure that were present in the original maps resulting in this boring smoothed out look. The other option of course is that the mappers might just not have the ability/creativity to implement the original style polygon structure, but even I don't see that being the case, just that they are simply limited by their tools without realising it.

Of course I do realise that there will be people who like the new smoothed out look, however there are also a large amount of people that love the classic maps BECAUSE they use this style (it is imo why they ARE classic maps). However by replacing the maps you are removing the ability for people to have preference of one style over another, because there is only going to be the 'new style' smoothed out maps if these maps are replaced, in turn pissing off a huge amount of people.

Either way I fail to see how retaining the original size and shape of the original maps (bar Equinox) while removing what made them unique and fun to play for many will make them more popular. I would also like to add that I DO think that some of the maps could be better than the originals that were highly unpopular (such as Maya2, Run etc.) and it could be of benefit to soldat to replace them, however I strongly disagree with the replacement of popular maps (DD2, Viet, Laos), and I'm not sure how you intend to make some maps more popular by keeping them the same and just removing some of what makes it fun, while adding a few arbitrary polys (B2b, allthough ALL maps suffer from the loss of detail).

Either way I hope you see sense and make the changes where it will positively effect the progression of soldat, and revert the maps back where it can only have a negative effect, but I fear I (and many others) will just be ignored.

[jrgp]

I guess it really does take a few posts back and forth of arguments and insults for one to finally post a useful, long, and well thought out post after all. Thanks, Squakingcow!

[SpiltCoffee]

A couple of jagged edges made the maps fun to play? Really? I don't believe that. You're just opposed to the change because it's change.

EDIT: Wait, I take that back... Laos does seem to be lacking some cover low, which the jagged edges in the 1.5.0 version provided.

[L[0ne]R]

Nice post, Squakingcow.
Though I have to say that I haven't noticed that much difference in what you call "detail". Sure some old "jagged edges" are gone, but there are new ones. You just need to get used to them, play some time and see how you can use them to your advantage. But even so, I'll aggree with SpiltCoffee, such small things can't affect gameplay that much. At least they didn't for me. I enjoyed new maps just as much as I enjoyed the old ones (but I'll admit that I miss a few other maps like old Equinox and Mayapan, new versions of which are a lot smaller).

It might be true for competitive players, who have played on same old maps for years and every tiny itty bitty curve matters to them. But IMO it's a bad thing. You should rely on your general skills, not on the map and polygon edges.

I had absolutely no problem with backgrounds and sceneries, I saw everything that was going on just fine. More sceneries isn't a bad thing - it just makes it a bit more challenging. Sometimes you'll need to pay more attention, but same goes for your enemy.

You might be right about the kit placement. I'm not sure if it's just my team eating all of the kits, or maybe spawn placement does fail a bit. I'll take a look at the things you mentioned next time I play.

All the maps I have played on and loaded up suffer from this, they all feel so devoid of life and character that the originals had

Now with that I completely disagree. I think the new looks actually do give maps much more character and atmosphere. Older versions of maps were much more generic and undetailed, while new ones look so much more unique. B2B is just wonderful, especially because there arent many (good) winter maps for Soldat.

[Squakingcow]

I guess it really does take a few posts back and forth of arguments and insults for one to finally post a useful, long, and well thought out post after all. Thanks, Squakingcow!

I await the reply in which you manage to do the same.

A couple of jagged edges made the maps fun to play? Really? I don't believe that. You're just opposed to the change because it's change.

EDIT: Wait, I take that back... Laos does seem to be lacking some cover low, which the jagged edges in the 1.5.0 version provided.

Not just the jagged edges as such, while they add variation and make the map more interesting to navigate it's more that the polygon structures in some of the new maps seem to be completely devoid of any form of shape whatsoever (Viet is a good example, in the new version where there were multiple polys there is often only one now, and where there were jagged edges there are only smooth curves now). It is also worth noting that I don't hate the whole polyworks style map, it does have a time and place (steel for example, which I find very fun), but I am of the opinion that these classic maps isn't the place for it (also the fact that a bit of variation is nice, and since no one makes maps in the old style any more any of the maps you replace will be lost, reducing the variation).

Nice post, Squakingcow.
Though I have to say that I haven't noticed that much difference in what you call "detail". Sure some old "jagged edges" are gone, but there are new ones. You just need to get used to them, play some time and see how you can use them to your advantage. But even so, I'll aggree with SpiltCoffee, such small things can't affect gameplay that much. At least they didn't for me. I enjoyed new maps just as much as I enjoyed the old ones (but I'll admit that I miss a few other maps like old Equinox and Mayapan, new versions of which are a lot smaller).

What I said above applies to this as well.

It might be true for competitive players, who have played on same old maps for years and every tiny itty bitty curve matters to them. But IMO it's a bad thing. You should rely on your general skills, not on the map and polygon edges.

In competitive play being able to aim, move and work as a team effectively plays a major part in how well you do, however knowing a map has always added to how well you do (even in the new style smoothed out maps). The only real advantage you can gain from knowing a map is movement speed (which isn't a huge advantage really), but I just feel it adds that extra depth to the game play, making it that little bit more rewarding.

I had absolutely no problem with backgrounds and sceneries, I saw everything that was going on just fine. More sceneries isn't a bad thing - it just makes it a bit more challenging. Sometimes you'll need to pay more attention, but same goes for your enemy.

To me it just feels unnecessary, I guess it boils down to personal preference but to me soldat is all about simplicity and depth of game play. Trying to make soldat look good just seems like futile crusade to me, and if anything to me the attempts to do so just look tacky and reduce the simplicity. But as I said it is really personal preference, suppose it might look good to some people.

Now with that I completely disagree. I think the new looks actually do give maps much more character and atmosphere. Older versions of maps were much more generic and undetailed, while new ones look so much more unique. B2B is just wonderful, especially because there arent many (good) winter maps for Soldat.

I get the feeling you are talking about the looks (i.e. scenery), when in my post I was referring to the actual structure of the map. Although as I have said before the scenery is really personal taste.

[The Geologist]

i really do predict a large amount of players quitting if they keep the current maps of the 1.5.1 beta .........................

And the ones who would quit are the worthless whining, greedy, impatient goof balls who should have left long ago. Useless player evacuation FTW!

wow do you guys really not care at all? Just look at the maps... most have been made extremely small for 3v3 this will ruin the public scene completely, the overmassed scenaries are actually making Soldat require a decent pc.... alot of players just wont be able to play. The general opinion for these new maps speaks for itself... yet the every beta tester i have spoken to on IRC has given me comments like "#care" "what you talking about?" "this is not my opinion..." It seems quite ridiculous that nobody seems to be listening and just calling the mass of well structured/detailed comments about why these new maps won't work are just "whine."

i think you mapper/beta testers need to close the mapmaker and play the damn game!

We have a mapping forum.  The maps that are in game were up for comments for months prior to this. 

[Crimson Goth]

Isn't there a way you could redownload the old maps and add them to a server?

[Toumaz]

Isn't there a way you could redownload the old maps and add them to a server?

Not across the entire competitive scene, no.


also ilu squakingcow

[Squakingcow]

We have a mapping forum.  The maps that are in game were up for comments for months prior to this. 

First of all, as I am sure you are more than aware only a very small percent of the community actually visit the mapping forum on here, so essentially no one outside of the soldat mappers really had a clue these maps existed, and I have seen any mention of replacing default maps in any other forum outside of the mapping forum before the beta was released.

Looking at the thread you are talking about (which took some searching to find), there is still no mention of actually replacing the defaults, in fact the closest it gets to that is:

It's not a promise, but I believe upcoming Soldat versions have use for remakes.

So essentially you are saying that in a forum, that most of the soldat forums community doesn't visit (let alone the actual entire soldat community), in a thread that said essentially nothing about the maps replacing the defaults (and lets face it, a huge amount of maps get churned out of the mapping forum and virtually none of them make it, so unless you put something saying this is actually going to end up in the game, no one cares), you expect the community to comment on something before they are even aware it will happen. right.

[Suowarrior]

From what I have gathered, the beta tester team is rather (very) inactive, so when the change of default maps was suggested only Poop expressed an opinion. From a quick peek around as well, the only active beta testers on this forum are mappers (hey I'll even name them, jgrp, wraithlike, Zakath, SuoW and The Geologist). Sure you could argue that it is partly the other beta testers fault for choosing not to voice their opinion, but that is not the rest of the soldat communities fault (the people who will actually spend their time playing the maps).

There are basically three persons whose opinions made the beta maplist: Zakath, SuoW (me) and Poop. So you don't need to start crusade against whole mapping community.

Yes it's true that it's abstract to expect someone normal player to comment at our mapping sub forum (as much as we would like that though), before I started mapping (first two years in Soldat), I didn't have even account into soldat forums.

As I've said already, the whole beta team is in charge of maplist. We can't expect that every beta member got knowledge of maps as good as I and zakath (since we test new maps a couple times in week in gather at #soldat.mapping). However we tried to run multiple maptest gathers for beta (wishing that betatesters would arrive), only few arrived. So it didn't made the purpose.

So we decided set maps into default which we thought might be liked in public. I don't support all the maps, actually I got many same conserns that you do Squakingcow. But I also thought that maybe someone else does like them, so okay it's just beta, "we can try it". That way we could give extra time for the rest betatesters to test the maps and make their opinion. Also now we got info about which replacements are the least liked in clan community (thanks to Poop for having poll at SCTFL forum) and much more info related these maps.

So what now? We are waiting for time when every beta member got opinions into maps so that we can sit into table again with larger participation so that we could go through maplist map by map.

Our methods might be questionable, I wish we didn't cause any heartattacks for deep 4-7 years old soldat fans. I see the outcome is the most important, to replace classic old default maps with better remakes and only if they are really better.

Just to keep things open

[pavliko]

Best thing to do for soldat to be a sucess is making the beta team and enesce drinking 12 liters of vodka and make them to work on new ideas about soldat. Eh i'm pooped T_T. No seriosly do it please!

[Squakingcow]

@Suowarrior:

Fair enough, you're the first to actually take some time and explain the situation, rather than just ignoring it, which I appreciate.

I hadn't realised that the beta was viewed as more of an extended testing of the maps (mainly due to a lack of communication I guess).

[p0ppin]

If someone had asked me whether my Dropdown remake deserved to be in the next version of soldat, I probably would have said no   Had I known any of my maps were going to make it into the beta, I probably would have gone back and painstakingly reevaluated every polygon and healthpack - but alas, I had no warning.  Most of the remakes were done as part of a mapping competition to improve the looks and play of the default maps.  I did not redesign dropdown2 with the intent of replacing the old one - I did it simply to add some sort of style to the map, and maybe to add some new play options.  Yes a lot of maps should go back to the old version, like Suow said, that's what the beta was for anyways.  Am I an expert mapper?  No.  Am I an expert soldat player?  No.  I wish I could rely on more experienced players (SCTFL participants for example) to give their input on my maps before they are released, especially before  they are put into soldat as a default map.

I apologize if any of my maps disappointed you.

[Snow]

As long as the next official version keeps the original Snakebite, I'll be happy. The original Snakebite is one of the most balanced and well laid out maps in Soldat. It is well designed for fast travel, open area fighting, neither team has advantage, but is still a challenge to get from one base to the other on all 3 routes.

None the less, as I've said before in another thread. I welcome changes to maps (except Snakebite.. touch it and I'll let a chimpanzee loose on you), as I like both simple 'old' default maps and also new maps that have a theme, aesthetic.. but none the less, well designed layout. Eye-candy doesn't hurt as long as it fits with the map, the designer focused more on layout (which is much more important), and it's not distracting. As a graphic artist, I've been quite impressed and even blown away by some of the designs from very talented map makers within the community. Some mappers deserve to have their maps as default.

But, I too would expect that maps would go through rigorous testing before even being considered for default.. and then more testing again before a final decision is made.