Weighted random and bad maps

[Muffindrake]

And some admin butthurt in there, too, I guess.

I get that you want to force bad maps like Birdshot, Northstar, or Icebox, such that we have some variety, but mald overriding admins for it after the station populus decided to flush them down the toilet, where they belong, is iffy.

Weighted random voting is a not so great tool to do this without admin intervention. When I see a map with 6.2% likelihood pass, I turn dreamseeker off. The maps are that bad. Really.

[Scriptis]

look i used to think the problem was that not enough people gave northstar/birdshot a chance, so there wasn't enough feedback

i have since changed my mind. there is enough feedback, and the feedback is as follows:

- birdshot looks like a crack den and i don't like looking at it. this is a state-of-the-art research facility
- northstar should not be enabled below 70 pop (otherwise it's quite nice)

disable the weighted random voting. also bring back pubbystation

[Muffindrake]

That was the literal next vote, after Northstar was essentially forced after the Birdshot fiasco. Real ALT-F4 hours.

[dendydoom]

admins pushing buttons is nothing new. we do it all the time. usually without you noticing. changing threat for the next round, changing possible antags that will roll, changing maps, whatever we feel like, really.

this was a change enacted by MSO personally it's a very short list of people you need to convince to revert this.

i understand the frustration at not being able to choose the map but frankly the amount of abuse we uncovered at the hands of players trying to game the system was absurd, so i am ultimately not surprised something was done about it.

[CMDR_Gungnir]

Weighted Random is good because cretins think anything that isn't MUH METADELTA is bad and will never play on anything else, and I like the idea of seeing an Actually Good Map from time to time. If the price is that sometimes I have to play on Birdshot, then so be it.

[conrad]

look i used to think the problem was that not enough people gave northstar/birdshot a chance, so there wasn't enough feedback

i have since changed my mind. there is enough feedback, and the feedback is as follows:

- birdshot looks like a crack den and i don't like looking at it. this is a state-of-the-art research facility
- northstar should not be enabled below 70 pop (otherwise it's quite nice)

disable the weighted random voting. also bring back pubbystation

I agree with everything said here. We're past the point of "hurr durr people hate change", and this criticism is pretty accurate to the general feel methinks.

And some admin butthurt in there, too, I guess.

lmao so were you

[PapaMichael]

Snip

Like I'm taking a map opinion from someone who uses a font that bad

[EmpressMaia]

Learning to map is free BTW San made An amazing starters guide

[feaster]

i understand the frustration at not being able to choose the map but frankly the amount of abuse we uncovered at the hands of players trying to game the system was absurd, so i am ultimately not surprised something was done about it.

Can you rephrase this or elaborate? I'm not understanding.

[Cheshify]

Can you rephrase this or elaborate? I'm not understanding.

The short of it is that people would either abuse mapvote by running the vote while people were busy with the round, or people would only vote meta/delta because they were familiar and change bad. There were a few other methods to abuse mapvote that I don't know off the top of my head but it all resulted in our large map pool being far smaller.

[dendydoom]

i understand the frustration at not being able to choose the map but frankly the amount of abuse we uncovered at the hands of players trying to game the system was absurd, so i am ultimately not surprised something was done about it.

Can you rephrase this or elaborate? I'm not understanding.

sure.

obviously it's not nice to have choice taken away from you. i'm sure lots of players don't like this change because they feel like they're having agency stripped away from them in choosing how their rounds are run.

however, behind the scenes on the admin side of things we would quite often uncover anywhere from general bad practices to full-on elaborate schemes to fix the vote and get a certain result without respecting the single vote that every player gets.

a couple of examples that spring to mind were anything from players getting groups of friends to quickly join to tip the vote then quit again, or doing the same to force a restart vote, or purposefully sabotaging a round so they can quickly get to play the map they want, all the way to little things like people spitefully choosing maps they know will upset others because they know they're logging off for the night and won't be around for the next round.

i commonly hear "nobody likes this map," but maps are a contentious topic and many people are very vocal about how much they don't like a certain map, to the point of yelling at people who dare say they do like it and want to vote for it, or even yelling at the map contributors themselves while they're just trying to play the game. it was creating an aggressive atmosphere and at times could, to be perfectly honest, border on the abusive.

the culture this was creating around maps in general was becoming concerning. we want players to be able to experience the full rotation of maps. we want the mapping community to try new things and feel like they can experiment with the game to create new, as-yet-unexplored avenues of gameplay and design. we want contributors to be able to create maps and not receive abuse and hate for their hard work. it's vital to the health of the project as a whole. with the voting system it did not feel this way.

in the end, this shows that the voting system was not fit for purpose if it was regularly misused, because the votes and thus the results were not fair.

[EmpressMaia]

Goon has like 15 station maps why can't we be like them

[Rageguy505]

I love playing the game when nonstandard maps are being run and that's what I like to usually do. I think the game is just incredibly boring if it's the same maps every so often.
Also I enjoy the birdshot rundown feel.

[EmpressMaia]

I miss kilo station

[TheFinalPotato]

Goon has like 15 station maps why can't we be like them

because I said so (the goons are crazy man)

[MrStonedOne]

I will also point out that this was how map rotation was originally setup. You could set a preference for your favorite map in the game settings, and it would just randomly pick maps while biasing it towards the favorite ones.

If 69% love 2 maps combined and 31% combined love the 3 other maps, than shouldn't that mean the two most popular maps get played 100% of the time, but instead that they get played 69% of the time.

Weighted random (roughly) ensures that.

[PapaMichael]

How about if you vote for a map but don't log in for the next round, you lose the ability to vote on future maps for a week.

Hahaha just kidding... Unless......................

[Timonk]

which one would you choose?

[Justice12354]

If I notice there have been multiple non-metadelta rounds and I think it's time for some metadelta, I will make a general map vote and run that one. We don't have to force players to play icebox/northstar/tram/birdshot for 5 rounds straight if metadelta are the preferred by a large portion of the playerbase. I obv won't do this at the first sight of the icebox/northstar/tram/birdshot, but I'll do it at my own discretion if I believe weighted random is getting too heavy for the day

[Timonk]

which one would you choose?

Pretend like tram is included in blue removed maps
I totally didn't forget tram haha

[TypicalRig]

Players just need to learn to go outside and touch grass when a map they don't like is rolled. I hate tram and icebox, but you don't see me throwing a fit and trying to speedrun the round end every time it rolls. The other week a person was reported delamming the SM and ended up dead over it. When reported to the HoS they went "ehhh but they were doing us a favour by ending this since it's Birdshot though" and were about to get him revived up until I made sure the body stayed gone. I thought it was just confirmation bias where crew gets suspiciously incompetent with the SM on these specific maps, but it's clearly intentional and downright immature.

[Muffindrake]

I will also point out that this was how map rotation was originally setup. You could set a preference for your favorite map in the game settings, and it would just randomly pick maps while biasing it towards the favorite ones.

If 69% love 2 maps combined and 31% combined love the 3 other maps, than shouldn't that mean the two most popular maps get played 100% of the time, but instead that they get played 69% of the time.

Weighted random (roughly) ensures that.

That only holds for the law of large numbers. You don't have that many rounds in a high pop evening. Instead, the disappointment is maximum when a terrible map gets picked at single digit percentages. We don't have 15 or so maps to choose from, we have _six_, and at least half of them are no good.

[PapaMichael]

Why do people act like certain maps are unplayable? I have my preferences too (although they deviate from the echo-chamber "non-metadelta bad" majority take) buuut

• every map is completely playable
• the map that's running has an almost negligible impact on how much I enjoy a given round; this is almost entirely determined by, you know, the round
• I'd always rather variety over playing the same map over and over, I personally value variety over my preferences, to a certain extent
• the people bitching about the map in OOC are also bitching about every single code change. They're idiots. If we listened to them, we'd still have intents or something

If I were czar, the only things I'd change about the current system are:

• make the vote non-callable by players and only executed at round-end. this would capture more of the players who actually intend to play the next round compared to, say, a vote called before the game even starts
• MAYBE divide the votes so that mass-voting isn't more powerful than single voting. e.g. voting for 1 map gives that map one vote, but voting for two maps gives each map 0.5 votes.

But in general I like the weighted random more than the old system, and I like the variety in maps.

[Scriptis]

Players just need to learn to go outside and touch grass when a map they don't like is rolled.

this is old ground we've been over a million times. people have finite time and rounds on tg typically last for an hour. people will still play the game but they've got every right in the world to complain that they don't like the map and would rather be spending their precious time on a different map

[Scriptis]

also player poll this

[Jacquerel]

we should just only run tramstation

[Scriptis]

we should just only run tramstation

tgstation 24/7 cp_orange 100% crits with rtd (instant respawn)

[TypicalRig]

Players just need to learn to go outside and touch grass when a map they don't like is rolled.

this is old ground we've been over a million times. people have finite time and rounds on tg typically last for an hour. people will still play the game but they've got every right in the world to complain that they don't like the map and would rather be spending their precious time on a different map

i don't really have an issue with them whining over it but actively sabotaging rounds over it is a bit much dontcha think

[Vekter]

I will continue supporting Birdshot being on the server as long as it makes people like Muffindrake big mad.

The map is fine, it makes sense that there would be at least one station in Nanotrasen's fleet that's old and run-down and forgotten, the only valid criticism I've heard about it that isn't vibes/appearance-based is "it's small" (fair, I think it's locked behind population and if it's not it probably should be), "it doesn't have a holodeck" (I fixed that), and "The engine is weird" (The person who created the map is working on an Engineering rework).

I'm sorry if you don't like how it looks, but maptainers don't remove maps because there's people who don't like how they look. Your options are either to grin and bear it, go play on another one of our servers until the round rotates, or work with the people making new maps and try and convince the maptainers to swap Birdshot for another map.

[BonChoi]

I would rather have a computer with no intentions make me play a bad map than a person with bad intentions. Always.

[Blacklist897]

look i used to think the problem was that not enough people gave northstar/birdshot a chance, so there wasn't enough feedback

i have since changed my mind. there is enough feedback, and the feedback is as follows:

- birdshot looks like a crack den and i don't like looking at it. this is a state-of-the-art research facility
- northstar should not be enabled below 70 pop (otherwise it's quite nice)

disable the weighted random voting. also bring back pubbystation

exactly this

[dendydoom]

Players just need to learn to go outside and touch grass when a map they don't like is rolled.

this is old ground we've been over a million times. people have finite time and rounds on tg typically last for an hour. people will still play the game but they've got every right in the world to complain that they don't like the map and would rather be spending their precious time on a different map

i have 0 issue with people complaining. there is a thread up for feedback on birdshot and it's full of gold dust. the person maintaining the map would be foolish to ignore all of that. what i don't like is people turning the server into a shithole under the justification "map bad." it isn't fair to the other people trying to play.

i'd also have no complaints about increasing the base weight for a vanilla map like meta to be a little higher than the rest so we get on average more "standard" rounds. i think something like this would be a reasonable compromise, if there isn't something like this in place already.

i don't agree with the finite time argument though. we all have finite time. no one person's round is more important than anyone else's. we have 4 (technically 5 but we would have to unchain the basement to get to campbell) servers all running different maps. the source files can be downloaded and run where you can host a game for your friends or on your own and you can pick whatever map your heart desires for as long as you want. there are also eleventy bajillion tg downstreams.

users need to be 18 to play here, making them adults. if an adult can't bear to be away from the game for around an hour, but equally can't bear to play a map that isn't their personal favourite so they're sent into a tantrum spiral, then i'm genuinely concerned for that player's wellbeing. it is a multiplayer video game. we need to share the space and understand not everything is going to be fine tuned to our personal preferences.

[BONERMASTER]

Who said that birdshot is small? It's freaking enormous and built like a labyrinth, all of my time there is spent being lost. If somebody is shouting into the radio "HELP! Technical storage!" or any location on the station for that matter, good luck - I will NEVER find you in a million years. That's my biggest gripe with these overambitious maps that want to reinvent the wheel.

With disoriented regards
-BONERMASTER

[Scriptis]

what i don't like is people turning the server into a shithole under the justification "map bad"

users need to be 18 to play here, making them adults. if an adult can't bear to be away from the game for around an hour, but equally can't bear to play a map that isn't their personal favourite so they're sent into a tantrum spiral, then i'm genuinely concerned for that player's wellbeing.

can you introduce me to this strawman i'd love to meet them

no one person's round is more important than anyone else's.

when almost everybody participating in the round wants to play a different map it's probably reasonable to play a different map. this is not a matter of opinion of one person who thinks the map is bad, this is the vast majority of online players wanting to change the map

this is not narcissism. this is literally democracy

[dendydoom]

what i don't like is people turning the server into a shithole under the justification "map bad"

users need to be 18 to play here, making them adults. if an adult can't bear to be away from the game for around an hour, but equally can't bear to play a map that isn't their personal favourite so they're sent into a tantrum spiral, then i'm genuinely concerned for that player's wellbeing.

can you introduce me to this strawman i'd love to meet them

no one person's round is more important than anyone else's.

when almost everybody participating in the round wants to play a different map it's probably reasonable to play a different map. this is not a matter of opinion of one person who thinks the map is bad, this is the vast majority of online players wanting to change the map

this is not narcissism. this is literally democracy

sorry but this whole post is putting words in my mouth and i will not be entertaining it.

[Scriptis]

sorry but this whole post is putting words in my mouth and i will not be entertaining it.

i feel the same way about your post. maybe you're targeting the _one_ guy who blew up birdshot's engine that one time but when i read the OP i see a vote of 23 people saying "we want to play a different map because we don't feel like playing this one" and that's something worth defending

it's not a matter of some asshole wanting to blow up the map every time it's birdshot or northstar. these are people that want to play with each other in a spaceman simulator, for the love of god just let them choose what map to play on

[iwishforducks]

i honestly just wish we had more "standard" maps rather than "gimmicky" maps. it's why i love meta and delta. i simply don't want to play a gimmick map.

[Vekter]

sorry but this whole post is putting words in my mouth and i will not be entertaining it.

i feel the same way about your post. maybe you're targeting the _one_ guy who blew up birdshot's engine that one time but when i read the OP i see a vote of 23 people saying "we want to play a different map because we don't feel like playing this one" and that's something worth defending

it's not a matter of some asshole wanting to blow up the map every time it's birdshot or northstar. these are people that want to play with each other in a spaceman simulator, for the love of god just let them choose what map to play on

Scriptis, I can safely say that we have a bit more insight on whether or not people are intentionally griefing to speedrun Birdshot rounds. I can promise you that it is a thing that's happened more than a couple of times, though it usually takes the form of trying to get the shuttle called as quickly as possible. Dendy is not inventing a strawman here, this is actually A Thing that Has Happened More Than Once.

[Scriptis]

Scriptis, I can safely say that we have a bit more insight on whether or not people are intentionally griefing to speedrun Birdshot rounds. I can promise you that it is a thing that's happened more than a couple of times, though it usually takes the form of trying to get the shuttle called as quickly as possible. Dendy is not inventing a strawman here, this is actually A Thing that Has Happened More Than Once.

i'll take your word for it

problem is that even with that the weighted random voting really rubs me the wrong way. it's a disjoint issue, at least to me; players griefing ought to be banned, but the lot shouldn't have to suffer for it. people still just want to _not play birdshot_

[dendydoom]

i feel the same way about your post.

that's fair enough. apologies, i did not intend for it to be taken that way.

maybe you're targeting the _one_ guy who blew up birdshot's engine that one time but when i read the OP i see a vote of 23 people saying "we want to play a different map because we don't feel like playing this one" and that's something worth defending

it's not a matter of some asshole wanting to blow up the map every time it's birdshot or northstar. these are people that want to play with each other in a spaceman simulator, for the love of god just let them choose what map to play on

i think that admins stewarding rounds and setting things up from player votes like what's happening in the OP is fantastic. imo admins should do this whenever possible.

but the position that some maps should never see the light of day is untenable, and this is the situation the automated voting system was creating, whether it's what players want or not. this is not an easy pill to swallow, but i don't believe it's healthy in the long term for the game at all.

this was not my decision in the first place, but i do understand why it was done and agree with it in quite a lot of ways. but i agree with you that there are aspects worth discussing so we can find some level of compromise if possible. we have been in the dark with maps for a long time, and i would love nothing more than to see more thought put into how we categorize them and design them, because ultimately it'll help us create better maps in the future and have a diverse selection that are fun to experience.

perhaps they could have categories like "meta-like/vanilla" "experimental" etc, with the idea being that different genres are selected so there is diversity but also steady palate cleansers of safe, vanilla maps inbetween. idk. i'm rambling at this point.

[Scriptis]

the position that some maps should never see the light of day is untenable

why? we have map_depot for this exact purpose. we have test merges to test and iterate on maps, and birdshot clearly needs a lot of iteration to satisfy the players we have.

it's like koth_viaduct versus koth_product_final. sometimes you just need to iterate or you fall out of style. birdshot is out of style. it needs work to better appeal to the masses. it needs development to reach that goal. that's just a consequence of developing for a multiplayer game--especially when you're working on something that everybody has to deal with, like the entire map they're going to be playing for an hour.

it's a hell of an uphill battle to compete with meta, delta, box, and (this one got the iterative treatment to become real good) tram. jesus fuck, i'm glad it's not me making the maps--but i do not vibe with forcing players to play a map they don't feel like playing. if these are adults, please remember that you don't get to tell them to eat their vegetables!

i'm not going to die on this hill but i'd also like to avoid death by a thousand papercuts

alternatively we could just put the entire map_depot into rotation. that'd be blessed

[dendydoom]

if maps are in rotation then there is a level of QA that has happened to ensure that it's functional, polished and (perhaps) unique enough that it provides a stable foundation for the game to take place in. you'll never please everyone and in my honest opinion this feels like a long winded way to end up at the same conclusion where we are playing "box but rotated" and anything that steps outside of this comfort zone is a sign of the end times.

if there needs to be more standards for when the development of a map is considered inactive and needs to be pruned, then this is a separate conversation.

you're absolutely right with the rest of your points. the amount of work and dedication that goes into creating a working and stable map is ridiculous, and if they reach a level of quality that someone in a decisionmaking role goes "hey, this should be on the server", then it should make a regular appearance.

you're also right that i nor anyone else should be forcing players to do anything. it's why we have multiple servers running different maps. it's why the source is openly available for people to do whatever they want with. it's why i'm totally not standing behind them at their desk with a gun pointed at them forcing them to play...

[Scriptis]

it's a multiplayer game! don't make people play it alone, and don't alienate people from the community--and, in this case, don't drive the better part of the community insane...

look, tram is a success story. it sucked and then they did some component rotation and a bit of polish and optimized the tram code and BAM! good map. birdshot needs that. the crack den aesthetic needs cleaned up and realistically you're already halfway there. between then and now there's absolutely no reason to force it into rotation with monkey patches like the weighted voting

[Timonk]

riddle me this: why would i want to play on a station that is both a labyrinth and everything is trashed on (except if i am a very dedicated janitor player)

[BonChoi]

riddle me this: why would i want to play on a station that is both a labyrinth and everything is trashed on (except if i am a very dedicated janitor player)

Not to mention it is tiny (departmental wise) and giant at the same time on top of being a labyrinth.

[TheFinalPotato]

the position that some maps should never see the light of day is untenable

why? we have map_depot for this exact purpose. we have test merges to test and iterate on maps, and birdshot clearly needs a lot of iteration to satisfy the players we have.

This post seems like it misunderstands like, how mapping works?
We have the map depot as a record of what came before, to retain and upkeep out of rotation maps.
It isn't like a testing ground, or a holding space. The testing ground is testmerged prs, and once the maptainers are happy, live.

it's a hell of an uphill battle to compete with meta, delta, box, and (this one got the iterative treatment to become real good) tram. jesus fuck, i'm glad it's not me making the maps--but i do not vibe with forcing players to play a map they don't feel like playing. if these are adults, please remember that you don't get to tell them to eat their vegetables!

Maps need to be played at least an amount of the time because otherwise people have no damn idea what they are, and will just vote for what they know and are comfortable with.
This is a significant part of the hill that needs to be overcome to get people to accept a map, literally just time. Not all u right tho.
Live is our test server. Eat your veggies or go to the eatery with better food. That's how things work and have always worked.

alternatively we could just put the entire map_depot into rotation. that'd be blessed

I realize you say this without knowing the context behind this idea but taken to conclusion this is essentially sentencing mappers to fuck off and die.
As a codebase we cannot maintain more then the amount of maps in rotation rn (honestly we're already over that threshold a bit). Many changes require editing say, all the stations to add a new machine, new job area, new "thing".
The weight of that work increases as the map count does.

There has been talk of doing basically what you describe, pulling maps that are "up to date" from out of repo and using them. This would absolutely murder the barely holding on mapping scene we have now.
Mapping, especially station mapping is an insane time investment, and results in at minimum a year of background harassment and constant criticism towards the thing you spent hours and hours on. See also, the first post in this thread, FUCK TRAM FUCK ICEBOX FUCK NORTHSTAR, birdshot -> birdshit, roundstart suicide hop line, etc.
That's just like, how it works. We can't moderate that harassment or criticism without harming the freedom of people to talk, so it's just like, the vibe.

Taking even the finish line from them by forcing them to constantly maintain the thing they built or see it wither and die is a killing blow.

TL;DR: No.

I would respond to your more recent post but I will NEVER DOUBLE POST so this is all you get.

[Scriptis]

-snip-

towerstation and sokoban, both in the depot, have never, to my knowledge, actually been in regular rotation?

i really, truly do believe that (with the exception of the exceptionally loud voices screaming "birdshit" &c) we're past the "people need to spend time on this map to generate feedback" phase. especially the "we are going to force people to spend time on this map to generate feedback" phase

otherwise you're right--you've got less mappers now than we had sybil admins a year ago

[Timonk]

when will donut and pubby be back in rotation
i also want birdbox back even though i never got to experience it more than once

[Scriptis]

yknow what fuck it. i'm going to put my money where my mouth is, be productive, and see about contributing to birdshot

was going to roll virtual list rendering this week anyway after nearly crashing to an air alarm in a room with 60 scrubbers

[TheFinalPotato]

towerstation and sokoban, both in the depot, have never, to my knowledge, actually been in regular rotation?

Yeah I think I did a lie there. The map depot is like an archive, maps that either were in repo, or were made outside it but we want to hold onto.
It really isn't a staging ground but I misrepresented it some here.

i really, truly do believe that (with the exception of the exceptionally loud voices screaming "birdshit" &c) we're past the "people need to spend time on this map to generate feedback" phase. especially the "we are going to force people to spend time on this map to generate feedback" phase

I mean honestly the forcing is nothing new, we force people to do stuff just by how we write code and make changes. It's not that they're forced to be on the map to generate feedback it's just if they play here sometimes they'll have to play on it, cause the maptainers decided it should be in rotation.

yknow what fuck it. i'm going to put my money where my mouth is, be productive, and see about contributing to birdshot

Vibes