Game breaking map issue, and other map stuff

[thehungersite]

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The top left spawn of "Frozen Deeps," the spawn of the hall is bugged, as you can see above. The hall is a country mile away from the mine, so you need at least 6 peons on the mine to get full output. I had 5 and I was wondering why I had like no gold for the longest time. Ruins any build order, where every point of food is crucial, and also is slanted toward UD/Elf whom it doesn't affect. This map also seems to be the only custom map that keeps spawning over and over and not appearing/filling, under the games simply titled "FFA #." I really miss Harvest of Sorrow, Deamonheim, Hell Square, Dalaran, Springwater Harbor, and some of the other really cool maps that used to show up. Not sure if games on those have to be manually made, but it seems like only the Deadlocks/Silverpines/Market Squares/Murguls of the world are coming up in the rotation now with any regularity. I'm not sure if it's just luck of the draw since I've seen about 10 Frozen Deeps in the last week and 0 of any of those other wild, unique maps.

I guess I might as well use this opportunity to mention some maps that could be fun for FFA at times.

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Twisted Meadows (you know you love to hate it, but it makes for a different, interesting brand of FFA not just hinging on mass expoing/hoarding due to the mine constraints. Very fresh change of pace)

Lost Temple (ice/classic)

Emerald Shores

Emerald Gardens (8 man, like how Raging Stream is 10P but has 8 slots)

Last Man Standing

Stone Cold Mountain

Duskwood

Petrified Forest, Riverrun, et al.

Also, what happened to maps like Shamrock Reef, Duststorm, Sunrock Cove, Copper Canyon, et al.? Has anyone played any of these in recent days? I never realized how much I missed Copper Canyon till it's "gone" (just haven't seen it in eons, I was wondering if it got removed or the whole rotation got pared down recently, since they're apparently not showing up). In my opinion the more maps the merrier -- variety was the spice of FFA, but I keep getting the Deadlocks and "standard" Blizzard approved FFA maps repeatedly. It was really fun when it the maps were like a box of chocolates never knowing what you're gonna get and you sometimes had to have a totally unique strategy and creeping approach to each different map (e.g. saw game with ashalar burrow creeping on Harvest of Sorrow -- what other map would that happen on?). 

To me, an FFA map need only require about 2 expos per player and relatively wide, even spacing (that rules out some otherwise interesting 4v4 maps like Deadlands).

Even if some aren't perfectly balanced for "pro" play -- Usually all map balance is thrown out the window in 6-8P bot FFA's because you'll get a guy rushing or something. Seksi said it best:

I've had the most fun in some of these games because it really brings out all the elements of FFA and skill... FML league games are very structured and full of chatting and manipulation as key elements.  Early game peace, shared expos, coordinated teaming etc.  In public FFAs (or ladder in the day) these things were thrown out the window which made it a real free for all, anything goes mentality.  Some games were much less fortunate then others and you had to battle through adversity and crazy circumstances.  That's cool and a big thing that the FML games sorely miss out out now... so I'm glad to see this ladder.  The community will have a lot of fun in these games that fully encompass the skill and strategy of FFA.  =D

There's always a wrench thrown into it and that's the beauty of it. Variety makes it amazingly fun and the same old ladder maps keep coming up. Who's with me?

[FML|WorpeX]

Ok this will be a fun post to respond to! haha. We will have to get ahold of the map maker for frozen deeps about that issue. It clearly needs to be fixed, thank you for bringing this to our attention! Hopefully Ugri cuts it from the map rotation until its fixed up.

This map also seems to be the only custom map that keeps spawning over and over and not appearing/filling, under the games simply titled "FFA #."

It's possible that other people have noticed this issue and don't join Frozen Deep's games, thus, the game lobby is up for a lot longer then most games. This is a question for ugri though.

Not sure if games on those have to be manually made, but it seems like only the Deadlocks/Silverpines/Market Squares/Murguls of the world are coming up in the rotation now with any regularity.

This is because of how games are displayed on battle.net. Bot-Hosted official Blizzard maps are more visible in the game listing then Bot-Hosted custom games are. Ugri has gone into the specifics multiple times in other threads, but thats the simple answer.

So, basically, the bot has more official blizzard maps in the rotation then custom maps. However, in Garena and other servers the visiblity is the same for blizzard maps and custom maps. Ugri is trying to push people into either adding the bot to their friends list or using Garena so that we can host custom maps more often... but it's a work in progress!

I really miss Harvest of Sorrow

I love you. <3 You're a man after my own heart!

Also, what happened to maps like Shamrock Reef, Duststorm, Sunrock Cove, Copper Canyon, et al.? Has anyone played any of these in recent days? I never realized how much I missed Copper Canyon till it's "gone"

I think all of those were removed from the rotation. I don't know for sure why, but I do know that all 4 of those maps are very unpopular around the FFA community.

I don't know what the rotation is right now as I don't think Ugri has kept the "map rotation" thread up to date.

In my opinion the more maps the merrier -- variety was the spice of FFA, but I keep getting the Deadlocks and "standard" Blizzard approved FFA maps repeatedly.

You wont get any argument from anyone here! Like I said before though, its a technical limitation of the bot and not something we have control over. : /

[Ugri2]

This post is interesting and i want to answer in detail but i dont have much time so :

1- frozen deeps : love that map. I will forward those bug issues to the map maker

2- Harvest of Sorrow on rotation 1/60, Deamonheim 1/60, Hell Square removed because ashalar said there is not enough wood, Dalaran 1/60, Springwater Harbor I intend to put it back anytime

3- custom map appears less on custom list on bnet than official map. These maps are played but if you just look into the game listing on bnet you wont find them. You need to /whois fml-host or look on ffamasters.net the running game name.

4- for these maps i made the game name easier to typ (FFA #XX) so it can be joined faster by bnet players. So far it fails, only pvpgn and garena players join those game mostly

5- you have see frozen deeps a lot because i restarted the bot a lot for fixing stuff and frozen deep is map m2 in rotation

6- Shamrock Reef ive been told it was stupid for ffa, Duststorm been told it is a lame boring map, Sunrock Cove i dont like it mass towers on islands, Copper Canyon could put it back

7- the most played map like market are filled faster thab less known maps. Thats why i put them more on rotation

8- you can find the list of maps used before i introduced the custom maps in bot/map rotation

[Persuade]

twisted meadows and emerald are played a lot by the league already, but modified versions.


Frozen deeps has the error at 3 o clock as well, so might want to have the maker check every spawn.

[Ugri2]

edit : btw harvest is on rotation too 1/60

edit 2

mmm, interesting, seems a bug of starting location

for NE and Undead you wont notice, that can be only spoted with humans and orcs

fair enough for an update, thanks

edit

http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/m...3Da%26u%3Dabgm

i updated to 1.5v, 2 starting locations where a bit bad placed, so gold mining for orcs and humans is bad balanced, fixed, give thanks from my part to that user in your site

again thanks

i will put new version when ill get back home

[thehungersite]

Sweet I suggested something useful :D

twisted meadows and emerald are played a lot by the league already, but modified versions.


Frozen deeps has the error at 3 o clock as well, so might want to have the maker check every spawn.

This would be really cool. The bot plebeians want to play the same fun maps as the pros ;)

I thought Hell Square was just a carbon copy of MS other than the creeps/tileset, but that's unfortunate with the wood thing...if only a few trees could be added here and there, that map is really unique thus fun.

I was aware of the Garena/appearing on the list issues, and I added FML-Host as recommended (I play on East), but I hadn't seen any of these maps period, even despite doing that. Maybe just very bad luck (considering I've played 60+ games in the past weeks) if you guys have indeed seen them in the rotation recently. I was just doublechecking it wasn't a glitch where they weren't even showing up, so has anyone found a game on them recently  to confirm? (particularly Harvest of Sorrow, another shout out to my boy Worpex)

IDK what's wrong with Duststorm... Super uniquely shaped/fun map where you can craftily use zeppelins better than on any other map. That uniqueness is pretty fun imo but if it's hated I guess it's hated. Maybe it would be better with 4 players instead of 6 or w/e since the natural expos are kind of exposed?

[Persuade]

Duststorm has a problem where half the people start off with a merc camp, and half get a shop, not very balanced as is.

[Ugri2]

-dustorm : i prefer it with 6. with 4 you always have a guy fast towering entrances of two paths and securing four mines.

- harvest : there is a glitch on bot you all have seen it : it fails to create a game so it skips a number and goes to the next. When it does that it skips the map as well. If it happens when harvest is about to be hosted, you see it once every 119 average. This bug stays a mystery

- i cannot mass custom map because of the bnet issue. FML EMERALD and FML TM are custom as well. I dont want more than 4 or 5/60 custom map so i'd rather soemthing totally different than those.

I plan to change the custom maps regularly so i can include emerald if you guys really want

[FML|WorpeX]

I think a lot of people have gotten the word about the bot issues and we probably can bump up the number of custom maps. :D

[Ugri2]

I think a lot of people have gotten the word about the bot issues and we probably can bump up the number of custom maps. :D

I really want to do that. Frankly playing deadlock and amrket all the time is no more fun to me, I prefer to play on those new maps. But frankly I check the stats on the hosted maps and basically :

roughly
official maps : 40 to 70% composed of bnet players
custom maps : 0 to 25% composed of bnet players

I did my best to make those bent players joins those games :
- multiples alerts from bot
- worpex bot on clan fml aze
- welcome messages on clan fml north / aze
- game name shown on ffa amsters.net
- soon makemehost will show our games hopefully
-... running out of ideas

[thehungersite]

Yeah, the automated message each game about adding FML-Host to friends to always know the game names when they're unlisted helps a lot. For the most part the fill times of custom map games are not that bad even not appearing on the lists.  The more that can be drilled in the more it helps ("Some games won't appear on the LIST! /f add FML-Host!" the phrasing might be key since some people aren't the best at Ingles or following instructions if you just tell them to add it)

[Ugri2]

Yeah, the automated message each game about adding FML-Host to friends to always know the game names when they're unlisted helps a lot. For the most part the fill times of custom map games are not that bad even not appearing on the lists.  The more that can be drilled in the more it helps ("Some games won't appear on the LIST! /f add FML-Host!" the phrasing might be key since some people aren't the best at Ingles or following instructions if you just tell them to add it)

Oh yeah i forgot to say that the bot whispers to every bnet player to add him.

true the phrase is maybe not catching enought, i can change it with the one you suggested.

[ashalar]

I think I would suggest that for Daemonheim that a bit of trees should be added to the mains, there's 2 big chunks of space available at each main

[thehungersite]

There are a whole lot of maps where trees could be added though. Think of how AWFUL Monsoon can be for wood, it even tends to run out a lot anywhere close, which gives elves a huge advantage. But it would be pretty extreme to edit Monsoon in any way. Same goes for removing Hell Square but I think I was elf/UD when I played it (usually pretty solid on wood, wisps/ghoul frenzy!) Some of these shortcomings give maps flavor that you must play around instead of being totally game-breaking like the Frozen Deeps spawn locations.

I wouldn't throw the whole map out with the bathwater especially for visually stunning/creative ones like Hell Square, unless one spawn has like literally a fraction of the lumber

[Ugri2]

I like Hellsquare, its pure fun. The tree comment from ashalar does not mean i wont put it back later ;)

I just change the rotation between custom maps from time to time and then i get interesting feedbacks

id like players to get used to them so we start to play them in league