Mapping competition?

by **homeyduh** » Sun May 31, 2015 10:07 pm

Obviously I'm new to the MP scene. I have yet to play a ladder match and I suck pretty bad overall...but I was thinking that maybe we could hold a monthly or bi-monthly mapping competition to keep maps fresh. I see that maps like Logic, Neptune, and other tried and true maps are most often used, but there's rarely any new maps. If these maps were judged by top level pilots, then the maps are bound to get better, right? In the long history of Descent, I'm sure it's been done before, but with the experienced pilots and community we have, obviously the maps we make now will be optimized to the max for purely 1v1 competitive ladder matches. Idk what we can use as prizes or as an incentive to get people to try, but I think it'd be awesome to compete mapping skills.

by **Jediluke** » Sun May 31, 2015 10:53 pm

It would be interesting to see if someone could dethrone DKH

by **bahamut** » Sun May 31, 2015 11:02 pm

was he "throned"?

EDIT: since I don't want to start a flame war, I'll say that I'm in favor of something like this, and yesterday I started a new map, so it might be interesting.

by **PPski** » Mon Jun 01, 2015 3:01 am

I like the sound of this.
The part that will be hard about ranking new levels is that there needs to be several games to rate them properly, preferably by different people (unless there's a panel of set judges, but that takes effort).

Perhaps the new levels could be submitted to a list (or even its own ladder?!), and when reporting a game you can link the DCL to a map on the list. Then each player in that match can rate it out of 10. This would mean that players could be encouraged to try the new maps, and at the end of the season (or other regular time interval) the top map/player gets a map trophy and the list gets refreshed. If the top maps are equal, they can be ranked on the number of matches played in them. If there are too many submissions, then it could be restricted to one map per player.

If any kind of map competition were to be implemented, then it would be good to have a list somewhere of the most popular levels (new and old), and possibly have some other info on them such as what kind of map they are (ratting, disorientation, dogfighting etc.)

by **homeyduh** » Mon Jun 01, 2015 6:57 am

That sounds super complicated o.o I think maybe maps can first be judged by a small panel of judges to weed out any really really bad ones, then the remaining maps could be played in DCL matches and judged by everyone else. Just give them about a month or so to judge the map. The competition could also be quarter- or tri- annually so it's not too often.

Need prize ideas!

and maybe a scoring rubric might be good too.

by **melvin** » Mon Jun 01, 2015 10:19 am

This sounds like it could be fun and beneficial. Designers would get feedback, maps would get better and there would be a wider variety of levels in play. This might make for a nice Rangers/DCL collaboration.

by **homeyduh** » Mon Jun 01, 2015 10:46 am

I'd thought about that too, but I think they'll be a little different since the DCL focuses on 1v1 and Rangers focus on bigger matches so maps between these two will be significantly different in scope and target audience. Maybe the competition can have 2 different categories for the different communities? Of course the main focus will be competitive viability, but small maps like Ascend that are great for DCL matches aren't so great for 2v2 matches. If a person thinks their map is good for both categories, they can submit into both. I think that if we don't get that many submissions, we could just let people have multiple submissions. Maybe just 2. If there's more than 5 submissions, then only 1 submission per person?

by **Entropy** » Mon Jun 01, 2015 11:16 am

Please just make it a rule that Reactors and Exits are forbidden. Unless the reactor is specifically put in as a stage hazard or in some meaningful way, in every map I've played they just seem to be an inconvenience.

by **homeyduh** » Mon Jun 01, 2015 1:22 pm

Yeah that makes sense. Not sure why people out them in MP maps unless there is a planned stage progression, but even then I don't think it's that fun in an MP match

by **Drakona** » Mon Jun 01, 2015 4:33 pm

Well, exits are nice to have, at least in 3+ player maps. You play to a kill goal, the reactor blows, there's this hilarious race to the exit that is kind of awesome.

But reactors are definitely annoying. I could do with fewer of those in my life.