A better standard for maps

[dipp]

Hi everyone, we all know that recently Gorge004 has been appointed a Tempus admin and has taken on the role of adding new maps to Tempus. I'm as grateful as everyone else that we can finally play all the new maps we've been waiting for.

However, Tempus has been adding basically every map that is submitted. The issue I want to bring up is that I believe some maps should NOT be added to Tempus. These maps have gimmicks that are really annoying/inconsistent and are just straight up barely even jumping. Why should we allow these kinds of jumps/maps on Tempus, a server that is dedicated to soldier/demo jumping?

Here are some recent examples:

jump_starwars: This map is pretty gimmicky overall. A lot of the prop's collision do not match their appearance and is extremely annoying when you bump into an invisible barrier. The speeder bike jump is extremely frustrating since everytime it turns, you get knocked off of it. Also, if you do not get a good cycle for it, you have to wait for it to come within range. This is completely RNG and is not speedrun-friendly.

jump_skyscraper:  While the majority of the map is jumping, the maze and the "obstacle course" afterwards are not jumping, and it is time consuming to figure out the maze and go through the obstacle course.  Why should this kind of "jump" be allowed when you're not even applying any jumping skill at all? Sure for speedrunners, they have to jump through it to beat it quickly. However, to someone who is going to play it once (which is the majority of Tempus jumpers), this is annoying and a waste of time.

I have no beef with these mappers, I just want to point out that I do not believe these kinds of "jumps" should be allowed on Tempus. I understand that memes/silly stuff can be funny, but there is a point where it just crosses the line and impedes with the jumping experience overall.  I also want to say that I have no problem with gimmick maps overall, it is just that these maps are too carried away. I firmly believe that Tempus should be the golden standard for jumping in TF2, and adding these sorts of "jumps" deviates away from what I believe soldier and demo jumping is.

[reero]

So long as there are people who will seriously speedrun a map and compete, or if there is a really difficult map people will grind to get completion on, the map should be added to tempus. I am fully aware plenty of people do not like star wars and skyscraper, however there are enough people (not 0) who do enjoy those maps and who will run those maps for good times, so they should still stay on tempus to give a place for that type of competition to be held.

Nobody is forcing anyone to play any given map, not to mention starwars and skyscraper aren't even close to t6 in difficulty, I never understood why people cry about: "why is x map on tempus, why am I FORCED to play this map!?!?!?". Just don't play the map then? Airpogo maps are essentially gimmick maps and the latest Dev Texture Airpogo Box map gets added every week too, because there are people who enjoy competing on those maps.

Also just gonna point out that the speeder jump on starwars is trivial (stand on right side of speeder) , and anyone who ran the map more than once figured that out. Also, people have told me that the connectors on that map are fun to speedrun through because it takes actual movement skill to maneuver through them (unlike jurf connectors for soldier or every koi clone we get every 2 months).

Also, for the skyscraper maze, there is reasonable and actual timesave and optimization that can go into maze jumps, which is really easy to do if you use !spray to mark the route. You say 99% of people complete a map once and leave and this "lessens" their experience but you must understand that tempus is about speedrunning, so it doesn't matter what completionists think/ There are people who will learn the route on the maze, and the rest of the map, and they will optimize it and make it good which is cool, so the map should stay.

[hex]

(unlike jurf connectors for soldier or every koi clone we get every 2 months).

‽

[Gorge004]

Tempus is meant to be a server you go on to speedrun a map of your choice.

Who is anyone to judge a map and deem it unspeedrunnable because the vocal majority of the community think a 20sec maze in a 4min map run is trash so it shouldn't get added?

For all 600+ maps currently on Tempus, there is someone who enjoys it and someone who doesn't. There is no exception to that rule. I can tell you from experience, for all 37 maps that I added so far, someone has pm'd me asking why it was added/was trash , and someone else has told me they enjoy running it or think the map is fun.

There is not a single map that will please everyone and there will always be a vocal portion of the community who doesn't like it, while those who like a map usually just spend time on the map without going out of their way to tell everyone they love the map.

The best we can do, and that we actually do, is review every single map and make approriate changes to make them consistent and unbreakable. There have been very very few maps that received 0 updates prior to being added to Tempus. This way, those people who do spend time on a map to judge it by themselves, rather than listening to 4-5 people saying its bad and going in with a bias negative opinion about it, won't have to deal with a door slaming on their face, or a teleport getting enable on them because someone else shot a button or getting their sticky owned by the biggest nonade known to man, or getting softlock, or etc.etc. They can play the map and decide if they like it enough to run it or they don't like it and not play the map again. At least that decision won't be bias from a broken mechanic in the map. Someone thinking a maze in a map is bad shouldn't impact the other thousands players who may enjoy running through it.

The speeder jump on starwars is an example, I had reero change the way they're made twice cause they were getting randomly stuck. Currently, the jump is 100% consistent assuming you stand where you should be. Wich is something you learn by trying the jump.

starwars is a great example of a map with possible optimization everywhere. Every single connector have potential to save time over someone else. Getting perfect connectors in the whole map for a single run would be difficult, making the map quite fun to figure out. Is that everyone's opinion? no. Is that some people's opinion? yes. In the end, the map doesn't break or doesn't make you fail cause someone else was ahead of you on a jump. It's a speedrunnable jump map. Whether someone likes it or not is irrelevant to it being on Tempus.

[Waldo]

jump_starwars was literally a scout intended jam map, stop complaining that unmodified offclass jumps arent perfect

why are you simultaneously crying about starwars having a cycle mechanic (which is only noticeably bad for speedruns) and also that a new map is easy unless you speedrun? the best/most competitive speedrun maps are trivial and the best/most competitive hard maps always have low quality/connectors/long resets/other stuff that makes them suck to run beyond failing less. furthermore, consistent cycle timings are nowhere close to "RNG;" at worst you need to wait for a cycle which is less than 10 seconds on starwars. compare to network (close to 2 minutes), gr8_wite (probably even longer) or the eight slug (~1m).

the garbage but conventional soldier t4/t5 spam is far worse for speedrunning + leaderboards

what you "believe soldier and demo jumping is" is irrelevant, especially since you aren't an active speedrunner at any level on tempus

either way if you dont like it dont play it lol

[UberTaco]

i think we should remove all maps except jump_vape

[Syphilis]

either way if you dont like it dont play it lol

I think the recent wave of complaints that I'm seeing on tempus is insufferable and has no thought put into it most of the time. I've seen complaints about every single map added no matter how gimmicky and half of them are complaining about the offclass run. However, there's a limited amount of servers and if they are occupied by maps that nobody likes then you could argue that it makes tempus overall less fun, which should be the goal probably. The idea that a map you like playing wouldn't get added is very annoying obviously, but overall it could be good policy.

[ondkaja]

Generally, offclass maps (scout, pyro, engineer) should be avoided to be added to tempus. Starwars however provides something that most other maps don't do, which is movement in confined spaces. It is in my opinion much harder to be fast in those kinds of maps than most other maps, which makes it good for speedrunning. It might not be your favourite type of map to speedrun, but it is a valid map to speedrun. Skyscraper is also a decent map for speedrunning, but I can see why most people opt to not do it.

What bothers me is some maps that contain gimmicks that I wouldn't even classify as jumping. I'm not talking about maps like jump_airstrike or even jump_swizzle, but more maps like jump_vertuosic which doesn't even resemble jumping for soldier. I'm not against having them on tempus as it's a fun thing for soldier to run when a demo map is on, but they shouldn't really give any points.

[Waldo]

However, there's a limited amount of servers and if they are occupied by maps that nobody likes then you could argue that it makes tempus overall less fun, which should be the goal probably.

If you find yourself in the situation where every server is on a map that "nobody likes," you may need to rethink your definition of "nobody."

[skinner]

skyscraper feels like it was made in 2008 by someone who had an overall mapping experience of 2 seconds, big respect for adding it lol
looking forward to a map which is just a massive wall with 2 platforms at each end

[Syphilis]

If you find yourself in the situation where every server is on a map that "nobody likes," you may need to rethink your definition of "nobody."

A server with people in it on a certain map could mean that people like that map. It could also mean that it was randomly voted by people who don't know the map or people who want points and then stayed on forever as new people joined to complete the map. That doesn't say anything about its quality. People will try to finish a map regardless. There's many maps that most people don't like that can be on a server all day and the more of those maps get added, the less fun tempus will be. I don't think only the maps that the majority likes should get added. But maybe a map being technically playable shouldn't be the only criteria, and if literally nobody cares about running a 2009 map, then it could stay off tempus.

[cat‎]

just dont play the new maps guys, everyone loves them and if you dont like it then you can simply not play the new maps 

[dipp]

Sorry for bumping this thread randomly, just wanted to throw in my last thoughts before this thread falls into obscurity.

What bothers me is some maps that contain gimmicks that I wouldn't even classify as jumping. I'm not talking about maps like jump_airstrike or even jump_swizzle, but more maps like jump_vertuosic which doesn't even resemble jumping for soldier. I'm not against having them on tempus as it's a fun thing for soldier to run when a demo map is on, but they shouldn't really give any points.

I agree with this completely, it does not even resemble jumping at all.  Unfortunately it has been added a while ago so I don't think anything will be changed about it. Hopefully in the future, Tempus admins will be more strict on these kinds of maps and what kinds of points they will offer.

If you find yourself in the situation where every server is on a map that "nobody likes," you may need to rethink your definition of "nobody."

A server with people in it on a certain map could mean that people like that map. It could also mean that it was randomly voted by people who don't know the map or people who want points and then stayed on forever as new people joined to complete the map. That doesn't say anything about its quality. People will try to finish a map regardless. There's many maps that most people don't like that can be on a server all day and the more of those maps get added, the less fun tempus will be. I don't think only the maps that the majority likes should get added. But maybe a map being technically playable shouldn't be the only criteria, and if literally nobody cares about running a 2009 map, then it could stay off tempus.

Completely agreed. That is usually the situation when a map that "nobody likes" is on for a long time, it's some stubborn jumper who's trying to beat it, or people joining and leaving very frequently, and no one rtvs the map to a different one.

In regards to Gorge and Reero's posts on this thread, I understand that some people like certain maps, and some people don't. I won't deny I am personally complaining about maps that have been recently added, and there are definitely people that will speedrun these maps and enjoy them. These different, unique maps do indeed test different skills that correlate with jumping.

I just want the jumping community, admins , and map makers to be more wary of the kinds of maps that most people do want to play. I want the Tempus admins to be considerate of the entire community, not just a minority of top jumpers who want to play their own gimmicks at the expense of everyone else.

what you "believe soldier and demo jumping is" is irrelevant, especially since you aren't an active speedrunner at any level on tempus

?

[Gorge004]

I just want the jumping community, admins , and map makers to be more wary of the kinds of maps that most people do want to play. I want the Tempus admins to be considerate of the entire community, not just a minority of top jumpers who want to play their own gimmicks at the expense of everyone else.

I think what im trying to say is theres no kind of maps that most people want to play. If I ask myself the question "what does the majority of people enjoy playing", theres no answer. No matter what type of map, tier or gimmick you pick, I can find people who enjoy those kind of maps and some who dont.
As for the majority, if I see 100 completions on a map and 10 people in irc complaining about it, its hard to declare that as the majority.

Pick your favorite map, and tell me youve seen the same amount of compliment to it then there was complaints to what you consider the worst map. It might even have received more vocal complaint then vocal compliments

I find it hard to have opinion on what the majority of people enjoy based on the vocal portion of the community because of those reasons.

If you feel like you're obligated to play a map you don't enjoy, to me that's a point system problem, not a map problem. If the incentive to play a new map for their completion points wasnt so high, and if gimmicks and offclass runs gave different scale/no points at all, I don't think we would have the same discsussion.

[firestabber]

If you feel like you're obligated to play a map you don't enjoy, to me that's a point system problem, not a map problem.

This.  A thousand times, this.  The points system in Tempus is so messed up that having "Dance Dance Revolution" in jump_virtuosic give soldier points is the least of its issues.  I'm feeling this pretty acutely because I'd like to jump on the Echo server because it has the least ping for me out of the Tempus servers, but I need to grind for points to get top 1000 just to play on it.  I know this isn't the Tempus Points thread, I know that thread's been dead a long time, and I know that an update to the Tempus points system is unlikely to happen for another eon, but adding a map that some people want to play shouldn't be a concern.  The concern should be why there are strong incentives for people to nominate or continue playing maps they actively dislike, and issues around servers not being numerous or dynamic enough to house the maps that people want to play. 

As it stands I have next to no incentive to replay a map on Tempus until I reach rank 1000.  Tempus does two things very well - tracking completion and tracking times.  I don't care about points outside of getting me access to servers with better ping.  While I do care about getting good times on maps even if they're not in the top 10, I won't be able to play my best and put in the lowest time I can until I have better ping, or at least not until I get better at playing with ping after being offline for several months.  Replaying a map won't get me any more points since at my current level I won't get into the top 10 unless I put in a ton of practice on a fairly unpopular map.  All of this gives me incentive to play random maps I don't like, and makes replaying maps I enjoy feel pointless. 

This is Tempus' problem, not adding maps that some people enjoy and some people, even many people, complain about.