SYNC_ Map Feedback

[Ruubenstock]

Re: SY Nations Cup 2017 - Map Feedback

I spectated a decentring game and half of the players had missing stone or gold pile on their main islands.

 

[Toom03]

Re: SY Nations Cup 2017 - Map Feedback

http://www.voobly.com/match/view/15789776

bugged gold in the middle of the map, one of the pockets that were removed hope noone else has posted this so far

 

[SMB360]

Re: SY Nations Cup 2017 - Map Feedback

I spectated a decentring game and half of the players had missing stone or gold pile on their main islands.

Thanks. I had looked at a lot of generations without seeing that myself, but I had added a min_distance_to_players to the gold and stone compared to the nC@ version to theoretically stop the gold and stone piles blocking a potential TC spot, but perhaps that was creating some situations where the mines couldn't spawn at all.

Noticed that the maingold on hideout is either spawning outside the base, leaving the player without any Gold inside his fortress or bugging inside the main forrest. THe best would be to either increase to reduce the distance of the main Gold to the tc. You could also try to increase the size of the walls or the base_size

This is why public testing is so great, I looked at a lot of generations and never once saw what would be considered a trapped gold.

http://www.voobly.com/match/view/15789776

bugged gold in the middle of the map, one of the pockets that were removed hope noone else has posted this so far

Hmmm, just a bit of bad luck with the random generation I think, what can be said is that mines being trapped in inaccessible pockets is now very rare on NC17_Black_Forest compared to being commonplace on standard Black Forest

---------------------------

Going to try and get out v2 maps very soon, maybe tomorrow.

 

[ELQuark]

Re: SY Nations Cup 2017 - Map Feedback

What are the changes to NC17_Arabia?

Doesn't feel like Arabia. Kinda strange woods, a lot more gold/stone in middle? Flanks are further away, even in 3v3?

 

[SMB360]

Re: SY Nations Cup 2017 - Map Feedback

What are the changes to NC17_Arabia?

Doesn't feel like Arabia. Kinda strange woods, a lot more gold/stone in middle? Flanks are further away, even in 3v3?

What is making it feel different is firstly the lack of cosmetic secondary terrain patches (i.e. green dirt and desert on the dirt) and secondly the small clumps of secondary forest aren't in there, and together these things make it look quite different on the minimap as well. But both have been added back in for v2, which feels a lot more familiar whilst retaining some of the small playability changes I implemented.

There's nothing forcing the flanks to be further away as the way the player lands are created is the same. Only change is a +1 tile to base size and player lands forced in 1% of a map edge from the borders to try and very slightly reduce instances of players having their TC almost touching the edge of the map, but if anything this should make players feel imperceptibly closer together, not further away :P

On standard Arabia the main forests are 12% of the map, divided into 10 clumps (number scales with map size). On NC17v2_Arabia the main forests are 11% of the map, divided into 11 clumps. Bear in mind that oases/ponds are smaller so this -1% compensates the increased amount of forest you'd have because of that (on desert Arabia; on green Arabia there was never a problem with forests being too small 11). Increasing the number of clumps has the effect of making wood lines slightly more regular whilst at the same time being slightly smaller so that they can simultaneously be a bit more vulnerable and last for slightly less time.

The extra map golds, stones and relics are forced to spawn at a good distance from any player on the map and also from each other, which leads to them generally spawning in the middle no man's land and in the corners in TG, or just nicely spread across the map in 1v1.

All in all the changes to Arabia are very minimal and when you see v2 it will look a lot more familiar as well

 

[SMB360]

Re: NC17 MAP PACK VERSION 2 - Map Feedback

Version 2 of all individual maps plus the unofficial map pack for practice and testing are now available to download at the bottom of this post. All version 2 maps have the prefix NC17v2_ instead of NC17_. The official map guide thread will be updated by prv_limb soon. Version 2 maps are still not considered final, so there is plenty of opportunity for feedback and testing, and we expect we'll be on at least version 3 as a final release for when the tournament starts. Thanks to everyone for their testing, feedback and help so far!

Version 2's map pool also now includes a version of nC@Valley, NC17v2_Valley, which has been added to the home map pool for the tournament. It also appears in the unofficial map pack.

For a partial version 2 changelog please see the rest of this post and read the discussion in this thread.

 

[Spaden]

Re: NC17 MAP PACK VERSION 2 - Map Feedback

Pretty sure this shouldn't be possible in arabia. Not a huge deal, but as Quark mentioned, the new ara doesnt feel like ara ops:

Spoiler

 

[SMB360]

Re: NC17 MAP PACK VERSION 2 - Map Feedback

Ty, looks like the secondary forest is just missing one spacing command as Tanks also mentioned earlier in the thread.

 

[Spaden]

Re: NC17 MAP PACK VERSION 2 - Map Feedback

Ty, looks like the secondary forest is just missing one spacing command as Tanks also mentioned earlier in the thread.

Ah yea, thanks. Missed Tanks post.

 

[SMB360]

Re: NC17 MAP PACK VERSION 2 - Map Feedback

but as Quark mentioned, the new ara doesnt feel like ara ops:

have a look at this one - it's the new Ara but with all of the cosmetic aspects of the old one - it should feel essentially the same besides the small differences to oases/ponds, wood lines and extra golds etc

this should be effectively what the final NC version for Arabia will be, barring any additional feedback in the interim


----------------------------

edit:

also added 'v2.5' Valley at Teutonic Tanks' request

 

[teutonic_tanks]

Re: NC17 MAP PACK VERSION 2 - Map Feedback

Just noticed one bug on decentring: the Islands of the players can be connected, as it happened here: http://www.voobly.com/match/view/15838211
the reason for this is most likey, that you forgot the "other_zones_avoidance_distance 16" in the create_player_lands, so the Islands dont have a min. distance between eachother to spawn.

 

[SMB360]

Re: NC17 MAP PACK VERSION 2 - Map Feedback

the reason for this is most likey, that you forgot the "other_zones_avoidance_distance 16" in the create_player_lands, so the Islands dont have a min. distance between eachother to spawn.

I had removed this line deliberately as I know the command as 'other_zone_avoidance_distance' (singular) and had never seen another script where it was 'zones' (plural). I'd assumed that what appeared to be a typo in the original nC@Decentring had effectively deactivated that command and rendered it unnecessary to include - does the plural 'zones' actually still work, and work differently to the singular 'zone', which already separates every zone anyway?

--------

Got a few days this week where I'll have plenty of time to finish maps, will aim to get final versions out by Friday latest. At this point I mostly only need to do some cosmetic things, although I am going to take another look at larger map sizes of Islands with regard to adding a couple of extra neutral islands and increasing the amount of wood.

 

[teutonic_tanks]

Re: NC17 MAP PACK VERSION 2 - Map Feedback

Well seems like eru made a typo while making the map 11
If you put other zone avoid distance it has some effect, but then the map looks way way diffrent (and very bugged). Tried it out in Scenario Editor, seems like even the standart Version got this bug, so guess it's fine if you leave it out.

 

[SMB360]

Re: NC17 MAP PACK VERSION 2 - Map Feedback

Well seems like eru made a typo while making the map 11
If you put other zone avoid distance it has some effect, but then the map looks way way diffrent (and very bugged). Yeah better leave it out then.

"fun fact
nc@decentring has a typo in one of the commands in the script that causes it not to execute
without that typo the map would be completely broken
but by happy accident the typo is there and the map works as (un?)intended"

--- me like a month ago in our Nations Cup planning on Skype :lol:

The typo is there in every version of Decentring that has ever been used, even the WiC one :shock:


I am aware that a couple of players can be joined by a thin strip of land on rare occasions but I've only ever seen allies be connected, so I wasn't too concerned. So long as enemies don't get connected, it gives no advantage to allies if they are connected.

 

[dogao]

Re: NC17 MAP PACK VERSION 2 - Map Feedback

Yes it does, you can use the deers or sheeps of your ally to up faster.

 

[teutonic_tanks]

Re: NC17 MAP PACK VERSION 2 - Map Feedback

Well to grush you just need like 3 sheep and the 4 deers, if you place your tc correctly. It can make your Castle age time better though.

 

[SMB360]

Re: NC17 MAP PACK VERSION 2 - Map Feedback

Whether it does or doesn't affect up times and grushing, the possibility of it being done does need to be eliminated if possible. The main goal of this mapping exercise has been to remove bs like this.

So, whilst this bug has existed in every previous version of Decentring used in tournaments such as WiC, I'll do my best to see if I can prevent the bug appearing in the upcoming Nations Cup version of Decentring. Anyone with any ideas on how to do so, please do contribute as I won't be taking a look at it until probably on Wednesday.

If the worst comes to the worst we can add a rule for admin restart in the case of connected islands on Decentring, but the idea with this tournament's rules and the maps has been to minimise the need for admin restarts as much as possible.

 

[nC_eru_]

Re: NC17 MAP PACK VERSION 2 - Map Feedback

I know about the bug, that islands sometimes are connected, but it occurs so rarely (about 1 in 100 cases), I never even tried to fix it.

I didn't know about the typo though 11. Decentring was a hell of a project, it took me about 20 hours to get it in the final form. At some point I started to use things described with "unexpected behavior" in the RMS guide (I remember terrain forest prevent transport ships from spawning, object forest not 11). That was the point I lost any structure and logic and just started to vary some numbers until it worked most times.
Now you tell me about that typo, that might be a source of why it got that strange. Anyways, I'd really recommend not changing anything on that land generation part, as it may have some consequences you would not expect and actually break things like the spawn of the transport ship or spacing between the islands. If you still decide to change it, have some coffee ready. Good luck!

 

[SiFly]

Re: NC17 MAP PACK VERSION 2 - Map Feedback

The water in acropolis is dockable...which it wasn't in previous tournaments/versions of this map. Intended?

 

[teutonic_tanks]

Re: NC17 MAP PACK VERSION 2 - Map Feedback

Well if you take a look at the offical map guide once, you would see that it's part of the description. So it's probably intended. viewtopic.php?f=1536&t=130812

 

[SiFly]

Re: NC17 MAP PACK VERSION 2 - Map Feedback

Well if you take a look at the offical map guide once, you would see that it's part of the description. So it's probably intended. viewtopic.php?f=1536&t=130812

:roll:

 

[Jupe]

Re: NC17 MAP PACK VERSION 2 - Map Feedback

BF has a ton of openings and they are always atleast 5 tiles wide which. The feel for the changed BF is much difrent and completely changes the nature of the map.

 

[SMB360]

Re: NC17 MAP PACK VERSION 2 - Map Feedback

BF has a ton of openings and they are always atleast 5 tiles wide which. The feel for the changed BF is much difrent and completely changes the nature of the map.

This BF map is intended to be very slightly more open, as with lots of other maps in this pool, such as Mongolia, but the differences are small and not at all as dramatic as you are stating.

In standard BF the command to ensure the teams are connected replaces forest with grass. The 'cost' (which affects how likely a connection is to be formed) of replacing forest is 2, and the connection size is 3 with a variance of +/- 1 (so 2-4). This SYNC version of BF has the same cost (likelihood of connections forming) and a size of 4 with a variance of +/-1 (so 3-5).

This means that the average amount of connections that form is the same for both SYNC BF and standard BF, but they are on average just 1 tile wider, with a maximum width of 5 and a minimum of 3, versus a maximum of 4 and a minimum of 2.

Whenever the choke appears wider than this, this is because two parallel and overlapping connections have formed, which tends to happen where there is a low 'cost', but as the value for cost is the same in both standard and SYNC BF, the likelihood of this happening is also the same on both standard and SYNC versions of BF.

The map will also feel slightly more open for some other reasons, but none of these affect the chokepoints themselves, only the open space behind them. The amount of player lands as a percentage of the total surface area of the map has increased from 50% to 52%, creating slightly more open land around player bases and extending towards the chokepoints, but this has zero effect on the size and frequency of the actual chokepoints, because these are, by definition, connections created because the player lands don't join together (there is a command which makes sure flanks are always separated by some forest, through which connections have to form, resulting in the chokepoints). Additionally, the amount of 'free-standing' forest in the open areas (i.e. not the 'main' forests) has reduced from 20% to 16%, again opening up the map a little around the player bases, but having zero effect on the chokepoints themselves. Finally, ponds are removed, which were previously 1% of the map. Taken together, these three changes mean that 7% more of the total surface area of the map can be built on compared to standard BF.

Overall, I think 'completely changes the nature of the map' is highly exaggerated when we are talking about the connections being 1 tile wider on average, and especially as I just ran 10 generations of SYNC_BF and never saw more than 5 openings, whereas the first standard BF I generated to compare had 6 :P

 

[Millo]

Re: NC17 MAP PACK VERSION 2 - Map Feedback

The conti map, as it is right now, is almost a map win in 100% of the cases, some players have unwallable map or too much time/res demanding and will either get defeated in land or in water due to time loss walling to avoid any early attack in land. while other has 2 tiles wall with few pali, also i already played twice with forests 14 tiles away from tc while my direct opponent had it around 8 tiles away, this is too much of an advantage and it occurs way too often(spected similar cases). Should review or eliminate this map, it´s extremely frustrating, there are fairer versions with shwallows(?) that have been played in the past with similar gameplay.

*LN I believe older distribution of res was much better than how it is now, i´ve seen the 4 boars splitted very randomly to triangulation of vills(havent really saw it played much but atleast the couple of games i saw/play), should check that also.

 

[Skittle]

Re: NC17 MAP PACK VERSION 2 - Map Feedback

Feedback: i like the new arabia