Spring RTS Engine

I would love to see more FFA maps being made. I play FFA quite frequently, and the current map cycle is starting to feel a bit dull to me. Although the maps we already have are awesome, it wouldn't hurt to have a few more for the sake of variation. I think making new FFA maps could be a good way for new mappers to get noticed. Does anyone have any good ideas for new maps that could be made? I'm taking ideas, and if nobody else is up to it, I might give it a try myself.

As long as you don't go for the simplistic design of two opposing flat areas linked by a battlefield, the same map can be good for both FFA and team vs team. Even more so with chooseable start points. Maybe details what are you expecting of a good FFA map. Also, how many people? 3? 4? 5? 19?

Jobjol has 1337 Spring maps. Even if half of them are rubbish, are you really certain you tried them all already?

there are a few FFA maps that are pretty good..
Which ones have you played?
Are you talking about strictly 16 player ffa maps?
There is a very good map called Kolmogorov made by Beherith which gets too little play(10 player FFA)...
Did you try the several small FFA maps?
There is "Ternion", "TheColdPlace", "Arctic Inferno", FataMorgana V2, "The hunters V3", DeltaSiege_Island_8_Way" ...

Random maps off jobjol really can't compare to maps specifically designed for ffa... But yes there are several proper ffa maps too that don't really get played.

There is also Speed balls 10x10...Can be very fun sometimes.

hmmm

maybe there arent quite enough "big game" FFA maps. certainly there arent as many as there are for teamgames.

maybe i'll give it some consideration; i'd love to make something of a similar concept to knockout

There are a few...Neurope...Mearth, Dworld...

It's a bigger pain to make gigantic maps and you need a strong system.

we'll see... i can handle about 22x22 on this PC using my current methods, i would think it would be more than enough

What we really need are ffa maps that don't exhibit the typical metal layout of Beherith's ffa maps - 3 metal spots at each start position, 2 metal spots close to each other between two neighboring start positions, and a few, if any, scattered single metal spots. The heightmaps on those maps are sound, but metal layouts really need some innovation.

zwzsg wrote:As long as you don't go for the simplistic design of two opposing flat areas linked by a battlefield, the same map can be good for both FFA and team vs team. Even more so with chooseable start points. Maybe details what are you expecting of a good FFA map. Also, how many people? 3? 4? 5? 19?

Jobjol has 1337 Spring maps. Even if half of them are rubbish, are you really certain you tried them all already?

There are a lot of old maps out there that don't get the attention they deserve, and some could very well make good FFA maps. I'm not disagreeing with you on that.

But let's look at Spring as a product. To attract new players, I think we need to keep developing better content. Just like commercial game developers release sequels and expansion packs, we need to put out new content that is better than the old content.

Let's face it some of these new maps just blow older maps out of the water, they look and play so much better. The mappers who have stayed around are more skilled and can make a lot better maps than they could five years ago. Personally I think the majority of old maps don't quite measure up to the standard of quality we have today. For example even if Altored Divide is still a fun map, its looks and gameplay is outdated compared to new maps like FolsomDamRedux.

Furthermore, I think niche game modes is the way forward. Each game mode attracts a different type of player. If we want to attract a broader spectrum of gamers, we should try to diversify more, find successful concepts and keep improving on them. It's not wrong to discard old content if we have better new content to replace it. Players decide for themselves what they want to play.

And although I might be wrong, I think most of the FFA maps in rotation were created with that mode in mind, and that is why they are so fun to play.

It has also been shown that FFA maps don't need to be equally fair to all players to become popular. A few years back nobody made unfair maps because most mappers(there are exceptions of course) don't make maps they think will become unpopular. But things changed. Development is all about keeping up with the players' new expectations.

FFA is unfair by its nature, so differences between start locations aren't a problem like in other games. You can always gang on the guy with good spot.

What new maps play better?
Visually no doubt newer maps outdo older ones by far but gameplay wise most actually play worse than some of the older maps...
Not only do they play worse but they don't even attempt to introduce any new concepts..

Johannes wrote:FFA is unfair by its nature, so differences between start locations aren't a problem like in other games. You can always gang on the guy with good spot.

If you want an ffa map that does this on purpose you can try this;
http://www.springfiles.com/show_file.php?id=2058

FFA gameplay is usually so random(especially with a bigger player count) that it doesn't even matter if one start is much worse than another.

Making a new map is a waste of time. I bet you have not played 1 of the seven new maps I posted cheesecan. Not only do they push on what spring is currently capable of but visually they are a FAR cry from >90% of what is out there. Yet people like yam won't play them because they lack visual metal spots.

Cheesecan explain to me, why anyone with the talent, tools and time should devote >20 hours making something that you will ignore?

smoth wrote:Making a new map is a waste of time. I bet you have not played 1 of the seven new maps I posted cheesecan. Not only do they push on what spring is currently capable of but visually they are a FAR cry from >90% of what is out there. Yet people like yam won't play them because they lack visual metal spots.

Cheesecan explain to me, why anyone with the talent, tools and time should devote >20 hours making something that you will ignore?

Oh cry me a river,what a baby.
when will you Stop posting nonsense?
You still expect everyone to align to what your doing and kiss your feet cause you made a nice looking map?
Guess what most players don't even know they exist cause they dont surf these forums and you dont host your maps online.

Do not ask or expect players to play your maps just cause you bothered making them.Harsh but thats how it is,for you for me and even for behe who constantly makes maps with all the latest visual features.

I gave you the exact reasons why your maps have a somewhat lower chance of getting played with TA mods and it had nothing to do with metal spots...
What I wrote is based on my own preference when palying ta mods and what i have seen people say when they play different maps.

Maybe ill make a soup fork and than cry why soup lovers don't use it to eat their soup, I mean, hey! i made a f*cking soup fork!use it and don't ask me to make you a spoon you ingrate-full asses..

Want your great looking maps to be played, host them.
Dont wanna host them so people get to know them than dont expect them to be played.
small community with some maps around which entire mod balanced are based by now will have a hard time playing a gazillion different maps.
If you want your maps to be played more than maps that everyone is used to and maps that fit played mods perfectly than you need ot host it and you need to attempt to fit it to the games you want it to be played with.

If you have a cool FFA map idea, Draw it. I'll make it. Though you probably won't like the texture.

smoth wrote:Making a new map is a waste of time. I bet you have not played 1 of the seven new maps I posted cheesecan. Not only do they push on what spring is currently capable of but visually they are a FAR cry from >90% of what is out there. Yet people like yam won't play them because they lack visual metal spots.

because they are big (both filesize & mapsize) and do not have good gameplay, even in gundam.

i'd love to make something of a similar concept to knockout

imo knockouts concept is not good for ffa:
-needs an excact numbers of players
-small, narrow paths
-games take somewhat long to finish but many players die in the beginning
->i think in ffa most players should be able to stay ingame as long as possible, then eveybody except the winner dies "at once"
-you battle the same player until one of you is dead, then move on to the next one.
->hard to team up on the currently strongest player

Make this:

http://xkcd.com/802/

smoth has a point there. Making a map is a lot of work for so little play time. Now, Im lucky that most of my maps has somewhat relatively higher attention than the majority from the huge mass.

However, So many hundreds of hours spent...

Again theres a lot of talk and bark but not much action.

Start drawing your sketches, concepts and heightmaps and you will see that it isn't as easy you think. Especially making a heightmap that is worth to run through a texture generator.

Im not sure why smoths maps are not played. Ive played some of them and I've liked them really much. I think they would fit very well for *A games. But as pointed out, lack of visible metal patches really can cause problems in playability.

Gota wrote:What new maps play better?
Visually no doubt newer maps outdo older ones by far but gameplay wise most actually play worse than some of the older maps...
Not only do they play worse but they don't even attempt to introduce any new concepts..

I can name several new maps which I think exemplify my argument that new maps look and play better. FolsomDamRedux has better gameplay than FolsomDamFinal. DeltaSiegeDry(imho the spiritual successor of Altored Divide) has better gameplay. Titan has better gameplay than early mars maps(don't even remember their names). TMA-0 is maybe the best looking map I have seen so far, and the gameplay is so good that I wish it was played more often on hosts. Smoth's new map Rocky Glacier is another good example of progress on all fronts imho.

smoth wrote:Making a new map is a waste of time. I bet you have not played 1 of the seven new maps I posted cheesecan. Not only do they push on what spring is currently capable of but visually they are a FAR cry from >90% of what is out there. Yet people like yam won't play them because they lack visual metal spots.

Cheesecan explain to me, why anyone with the talent, tools and time should devote >20 hours making something that you will ignore?

Well smoth I could understand some of your frustration. I haven't contributed even a fraction of what you have, although I have made more maps than you, you also made a whole mod by yourself and plenty of other stuff too. The only one of my maps that is ever played, is the one I put the least amount of labor into. That doesn't make much sense. So I could understand your frustration a little bit.

But on the other hand if you know that something you do is not appreciated, and keep going anyway, that means you are doing it for yourself, so you don't need recognition anymore. Is the journey more important than the result? As you have pointed out in some thread before, having made the Gundam mod is a pretty good thing to put on a CV if you are looking to land a job as say, a game developer. I played Rocky Glacier a few times with lots of other people. I actually liked it, although I think the gameplay could be made even better. For what it's worth I also have Northern Mountains on my harddrive, but never played it.

If you make a good FFA map, I can promise you I will try my best to get it played on autohosts. Also bear in mind that although most maps are not hits, the ones that are, get played an awful lot. In that way map making is no different from any other type of art or craft. A lot of artists died humiliated and in poverty only to have their work discovered long after they died.