/tg/Station 13

So, we have modified the map rotation a while back to make it fair. (well, fairer)

As a result, we want to do a vote to identify which maps people like the most and will possibly look to cut one to two of the lowest ranked maps, because we can't keep them maintained to a high standard.


I expect to run this vote sometime in early April and I'll get the headadmins to send a discord notification at that time.

I will run it as an IRV vote, so you can rank the maps in order of your favourite at the top, to your least favourite at the bottom.

Order of which maps are cut first will be those eliminated in the earliest rounds of IRV tallying.

Percentage of time maps chosen for those who are interested

thought kilo wasn't an official map yet, and stopped being developed/maintained entirely over a month ago

seems like it's already been cut for all intents and purposes

(good riddance, caution tape station was an eyesore)

meta = delta > box > all

Fairer? Fairer for whom?
Certainly not for the players.

I like !(meta || donut)

Yenwodyah wrote:Fairer? Fairer for whom?
Certainly not for the players.

Do we really have to reiterate why the dust2 syndrome is a bad thing in every single thread about maps

Oh God dust2 please not dust2

Yenwodyah wrote:Fairer? Fairer for whom?
Certainly not for the players.

please sir, may I have some more

The dust2 effect is described as a psychological tendency for humans to prefer something that they are already familiar with, rarely trying out new things. The name comes from the extremely popular counter strike map called "dust2", which was the most played map in CS. Many players of CS:S played exclusively on dust2. It didn't help that there were a lot of servers that had 24/7 dust2.

To try to counter this effect and get people to try new things is a major part of being a contributor to ss13, be it coder, mapper, or spriter.

it'll be something underappreciated like pubby or donut now that you can tackle from above like spidingman. don't even remember what kilo looks like. i think it's the one with arrivals and escape in the bottom right

meta should be killed because delta is essentially meta but better and then either kilo or pubby should be killed too

The current map rotation method is great. I personally think that meta and delta are on mostly equal footing as excellent maps, box could use a little more love but it still plays very well, and that leaves us with pubby and donut

Honestly, I just don't like pubby. There's nothing special about it, it's just kind of mediocre, bad, even. A massive part of the map is dedicated to a (admittedly awesome) monastery/chapel/library area that NEVER gets appreciated unless you're a blob. So why have it? The main part of the station is lame. The maint complex on it pales in comparison to meta and especially delta's, and the general layout is kind of all over the place. Even after playing on it dozens of times, It still takes me an extra moment to find evac. I just think of pubby as meta's loser cousin.

Donutstation is honestly kind of underrated, in my opinion. It could use a little extra love and care to polish off its problems, but its a solid station, even if it's been memed as the worst station even before kilo's introduction and timely departure (kilo was basically just a worse, cramped, gimmicky, visually loud donutstation). I think it has potential for improvement.

Hot take: How about we use stations that aren't broken in our map rotation?
You know, like how donut station and box stations have functionally broken power nets, and that's why they're not used?
Because engineering has to install solars, and the SM, and that doesn't even ensure that multiple departments will lose power?
Like, for example, how Box Station loses gravity gen at 20 minutes pretty consistently, even if the SM and solars are set up, because an SMES just charges itself like a power sink?

This isn't a Dust 2 phenomena, plenty of these stations are broken.
Moreover, directional signs need to be used way more often to prevent people from getting lost.
The question is, WHY are meta station and delta station used so often?

Because every single junction has directional indicators, and there's multiple sections near arrivals where you can SEE a rough, color coded map of the station.
Pinpointers are a great change to help those unfamiliar with stations to start to find the set up, but it's a band-aid to the original problem: Your average new player should be able to arrive at an intersection and know which route to take for each department. Cargo, Medical, Science, Bridge, Security, Evac, and Probably the HoP line.

if you get lost on box you are too new

For the love of all that’s holy, please spare my precious PubbyStation

Ranked by my favorite to most disliked
Pubby
Delta
Box
Meta
Donut

The dust2 effect is very true. The majority of complaints about maps are just frustration stemming from unfamiliarity. People really dislike change, but more than that, they dislike getting lost. The recent hatred against Box is less about it having a poor layout and more that the current generation of players grew up with Meta as their dust2.

I don't think the average player has a useful opinion regarding map maintainability. Most players can't even tell the maps apart by name. There is good feedback to be had in the player base, but a vote is not how I would go about designing video games.

Regarding map quality, the best case scenario is to have a single mapper do everything. Otherwise it tends to be design by committee, or cases where coders create a mess that has to be cleaned up later. Unfortunately, I don't think any of our maps have dedicated mappers at this time.

Regarding map popularity on the server, it's this:

Meta
Delta
Box
Pubby
Donut

We already know this from the preferences page.

pubby wrote:Unfortunately, I don't think any of our maps have dedicated mappers at this time.

Donut has MMM as its full time mapper. Kilo had okand before that became stale. I thought Pubby had...well, you? Meta/box/delta are more or less community projects at this point.

Relaxe wrote:Hot take: How about we use stations that aren't broken in our map rotation?

sir this is a wendy's?

Delta's gimmick is a large size, and lots of maint content. Engineering in particular is huge, and you have lots of room for projects.

Donut is currently our only multi-Z map and is fun for that reason alone (even if the firelock clusters along the curved parts of the main hall are really ugly).

Meta and Box are pretty much the same map with a slight reshuffle. I guess Box has a "gimmick" that the APCs are in maint where the AI can't access them half the time and people have to track them down when shit breaks. If any map must be removed, I say it be one of these.

Pubby has a charm to it with how odd it is, and it works well as the "low pop" map.

i am going to replace pubbystation with housestation and no one can stop me

The vote has begun as of today, and will run until 2020-04-23 (utc)

raw voting data can be seen here: https://tgstation13.org/tgdb/irvpolltally.php?id=226

The results so far are about what I'd expect, though I'm a little surprised Delta isn't higher.

>>> people literally voting for a map they can't play

y-y-yeah democracy

Armhulen wrote:

Yenwodyah wrote:Fairer? Fairer for whom?
Certainly not for the players.

Do we really have to reiterate why the dust2 syndrome is a bad thing in every single thread about maps

CS:GO tried solving the dust2 issue, but now it has a competitive map pool called Dust 2 which is literally just de_dust2 alone in the pool.

BadSS13Player wrote:

Armhulen wrote:

Yenwodyah wrote:Fairer? Fairer for whom?
Certainly not for the players.

Do we really have to reiterate why the dust2 syndrome is a bad thing in every single thread about maps

CS:GO tried solving the dust2 issue, but now it has a competitive map pool called Dust 2 which is literally just de_dust2 alone in the pool.

Honestly the most ideal solution would be one server per map so you can just play your favorite every time, but in reality that would split the playerbase way too much

The best way is to return it how it was - people voting between ALL the available maps.

E-hall could be a server that just constantly rotates maps. That way people who want to play some obscure maps can line up and play there, instead of preventing most people from playing their favorite map, which hands down is metastation.

no

I think maps should be in the pool based on who maintains them.

MMM only works on donut taking it out of rotation isn't going to magically make him go "hoo whee I'll work on Meta now" he's probably just gonna quit. If he wants to work on one special autistic project does it really hurt to let him? Community maps can get culled if nobody wants to take sole ownership of them and keep them actually workable and it won't really cost you resources.

Besides 'waaah I can't find things', this isn't a professional game it's a dumb space man horizontal simulator.

yeah, there was some work done on out of tree maps so this could be done, but it's stalled for lack of a developer.

Allowing meta to be voted everyone round would result in many new players feeling like meta is the only map. Making them vote for it more. This results in a positive feedback loop that seriously harms future creativity in mapmaking.

Jack7D1 wrote:Allowing meta to be voted everyone round would result in many new players feeling like meta is the only map. Making them vote for it more. This results in a positive feedback loop that seriously harms future creativity in mapmaking.

I mean the current "magnum opus of oranges" is probably hurting the playerbase. The numbers increased because the right thing was done, which was putting some servers on the hub, not because people are prevented from playing Metastation. People who don't care about the maps are usually playing on Event Hall or Manuel, which is why the "magnum opus of oranges" should go there and everywhere else or at least on Terry there should be the option to vote Metastation all the time.

what is the opium mangum of erango/

cacogen wrote:what is the opium mangum of erango/

The vote system that locks out maps, which players prefer. You have to play like 3+ rounds of shitty maps in order to be able to play 2 rounds of metastation. Its retarded.

The current "magnum opus of istoprocent1" is probably hurting the playerbase. The numbers increased because the right thing was done, which was putting some servers on the hub. Not because he plays a bad security officer.

oranges wrote:The current "magnum opus of istoprocent1" is probably hurting the playerbase. The numbers increased because the right thing was done, which was putting some servers on the hub. Not because he plays a bad security officer.

Don't want to make a personal issue out of it, but you need to realize at some point that the social experiment is not going anywhere. The community map vote didn't lie - Metastation was the most voted map. Preventing people from playing their favorite map under the guise of "feedback gonna make other maps better" is moot. At the moment the situation is where the most voted map can only be played 40% or less of the time, since the vote system locks it out. How is it fair to the players who prefer playing the map?

Why is it such a difficult concept to understand that just because one map is a favorite does not mean others should not be played

The map vote follows a generally linear trend, until Metastation with a massive jump from the trend. This is indicative of external influence. R square is calculated to be 0.77, a slight dip can be observed for donut as well.
The data indicates a problem, the problem being dust2.

I am not saying the others should not be played, I am saying that doing it in this fashion is not the way to go in the long run. The most popular map should get the most play time, this is kinda a no brainer.

I'd agree with you, however this effect seriously bogs down mapmakers and general creativity outside of that one map. Especially so since the underlying cause of dust2 effect would make push back of any map changes really large.
If this is not handled mappers will go out of business and will have to live on the street.

Jack7D1 wrote:I'd agree with you, however this effect seriously bogs down mapmakers and general creativity outside of that one map. Especially so since the underlying cause of dust2 effect would make push back of any map changes really large.
If this is not handled mappers will go out of business and will have to live on the street.

Who is playing this game the players or the mappers? If community wants to play Metastation like Dust2, why not let them? Map is good as it is, now the effort can be directed into making the game better and more stable.

Istoprocent1 wrote:I am not saying the others should not be played, I am saying that doing it in this fashion is not the way to go in the long run. The most popular map should get the most play time, this is kinda a no brainer.

It still does????

wesoda25 wrote:

Istoprocent1 wrote:I am not saying the others should not be played, I am saying that doing it in this fashion is not the way to go in the long run. The most popular map should get the most play time, this is kinda a no brainer.

It still does????

Are you trolling or trying to provoke a strong reaction? You cannot be this ignorant.

dude what meta is still played more than any other map. There was some graph i think skog made or something of map playtime before and after map votes. Meta is still the most played but not as much as it once was

Istoprocent1 wrote:

oranges wrote:The current "magnum opus of istoprocent1" is probably hurting the playerbase. The numbers increased because the right thing was done, which was putting some servers on the hub. Not because he plays a bad security officer.

Don't want to make a personal issue out of it, but you need to realize at some point that the social experiment is not going anywhere. The community map vote didn't lie - Metastation was the most voted map. Preventing people from playing their favorite map under the guise of "feedback gonna make other maps better" is moot. At the moment the situation is where the most voted map can only be played 40% or less of the time, since the vote system locks it out. How is it fair to the players who prefer playing the map?

fairness never entered my decision matrix

wesoda25 wrote:dude what meta is still played more than any other map. There was some graph i think skog made or something of map playtime before and after map votes. Meta is still the most played but not as much as it once was

these are the most recent I could find. So if these are still accurate meta is still the most played map by far, just not as much as it previously was.

Istoprocent1 wrote:-snip-

This is the attitude that prevailed over at Paradise, which is why their map is a continuously tweaked Boxstation.

wesoda25 wrote:

wesoda25 wrote:dude what meta is still played more than any other map. There was some graph i think skog made or something of map playtime before and after map votes. Meta is still the most played but not as much as it once was

Spoiler:

these are the most recent I could find. So if these are still accurate meta is still the most played map by far, just not as much as it previously was.

The most recent one including part of march is in the OP

ok im retarded but my point stands meta is in majority

wesoda25 wrote:ok im retarded but my point stands meta is in majority

meta is below 50% dum dum

like i mean it gets played more than other maps

Istoprocent1 wrote:I am not saying the others should not be played, I am saying that doing it in this fashion is not the way to go in the long run. The most popular map should get the most play time, this is kinda a no brainer.

so we're good