14.04.2019 - 11:00
Hello, Some of you may remember me, I registered in early 2012 and played pretty frequently up until 2015 and then quit once I found the game rather stale and ongoing with lack of direction. I very recently came back via curiosity after Nero asked me to, to find that the game has not changed that much in those 3 years with shockingly almost 0 new maps or scenarios being made and that the map making community was almost entirely dead and many, if not most of the old guard, like me, had quit. I have since then discussed with some old players both on here whom have stayed and on my steam friend list who have quit and have since compiled a short list of what seems to be the largest problems facing atwar and theorised solutions to these problems. Once the list was compiled i reached out to the groups whom are most applicable to the problems such as map makers. I will preface this with a number of things: A) I have had discussions with numerous players across all the gameplay types i.e scenario/3v3/competitive players aswell are map makers so these are not all my stand alone ideas and thoughts but rather a compiling and sifting through of the most popular and or voiced opinions and thought. B) These do not have to be the only or the best solutions C) iv'e been away for three years, so apologies if anything I state is wrong or already suggested and that ears are open to anyone willing to voice anything else. This short list consists of: 1) No New Maps And Scenarios 2) Garbage Map Editor 3) No One Plays New Maps 4) Ranks Are Meaningless 5) Rankism 6) Strategies only work in Europe+ 7) Competitive / 3v3 is dead or dying or at the least, not growing. 1) No New Scenarios And Maps Its been brought to my attention the grand autistic Nazis such as Tik-tok and Aetius are no longer around along with a large portion of casual map makers and such. Therefore it would be logical to incentivize map makers to create new maps and scenarios. Examples of such could be: Milestones of play e.g. 25,50,100 are rewarded with Protocoins/Small time frames of premium with the number of plays scaling with required players i.e. 20 players scenarios requiring significantly less plays than 1v1 scenarios Map Makers whose maps/scenarios reach a degree of "fame" gain map Maker symbol/badge and possibly access to a separate chatroom, allowing established map makers to pool ideas and such and or another map maker channel that all has access to similar to help. Map Contests driven by the community/mods/dev to further incentivize new maps/scenarios Another Idea I have floated to generally favourable opinions is to remove Map maker from premium only, premium is largely wanted for combat advantage it offers with the general, upgrades and strategies with other perks such as hosting and global chat with map making being very insignificant for a very large amount of premium members, opening to all players with it perhaps being locked behind a rank restriction (5/4+) or something would open map making to a much larger audience. I For one stopped making maps once my premium ran out, despite the fact I both enjoyed it and made half decent maps that i never got around to finishing entirely or balancing due to this (Siege of Minas Tirith & Another few unreleased maps with original scenarios that were almost complete, one being Africa and the other being Kings Landing) The final idea would be to fix the map maker, which links to the next point. Garbage Map Editor Even in 2015 when I quit, the map editor was... less than ideal to say the least and after asking a number of map makers the conclusion i have come to, is its still a buggy mess. First and foremost it seems the borders themselves are the most fraught with bugs with borders not being able to be copied with bugging, not saving whatsoever then corrupting the map and also disappearing under the map to name a few of the bugs told to me. Also being unable to clone own maps for use being an issue. A few players whom had had an interest in map making in the past stated that the whole HUD could be more user friendly and an in maker tutorial/tips would be welcomed as not everyone visits the forums and so it would open it up to an otherwise more casual or just ignorant portion of the community whom do not want to or just dont visit the forums with the basics of map maker being explained to them inside the tool itself. One person i spoke to stated they didn't know their friends could help them make their map, back in 2015 this option was available and so I assume it still is so, so clarity may also be an issue concerning some features of the map maker. Another few people wanted some form of communication channel where they could ask mods/informed members concerning historical accuracy's in their own maps/ scenarios to make sure they were not mistaken and or to confirm what they have done. Im not sure how they could/would be implemented but its worth thinking about. Buildings currently are not implemented within the map maker, adding these with the functionality of buildings unlocking other buildings and or units adds a large degree of strategy to any scenarios and maps that can be created, effectively allowing for tech levels, creating a more economy based scenario where the best method of winning may no longer be trying to spam units to attack or defend and instead focusing on tech in a similar vein to star-craft. No One Plays New Maps/Scenarios Another strong opinion I faced was that even when new maps and scenarios are created that are worth of playing, they simply are not hosted or seen by players. Im not entirely aware of how maps are currently featured but possibly picking up on new maps/scenarios and featuring them if they pass through criteria by "judges" so they are featured for x days/weeks would help get light to these otherwise diamonds in the rough. Another idea would be map makers can request their map be judged and if passed on quality etc by a chosen panel of judges, the map would give increased sp gains for the first 10/25/50/100 plays etc of the map, to help gather the following for the map in the first place. These two ideas are very tentative as they would require a decent amount of engagement by whomever the judge team is but I believe it is very important for map makers good maps to both be recognised and played, which unfortunately right now, is not happening. Rankism And Ranks Meaning Nothing Rankism has always been an issue in atwar with higher ranks preferring other high ranks as they would usually be assumed to have increased skill expression making for more competitive scenarios/ 3v3's etc and avoiding straight stomps. I personally do not see this ever changing as a lot of high ranking players whom are too set in their ways will just not change. This leaves it to others to both be welcoming and helpful to newer players. Back before i quit the adopt a noob programme had been started where high ranking players would effectively become mentors for a specific low ranked player who signed up. Im not sure what happened to this programme but bringing it back alongside similar initiatives could really help lower ranked players both feel more included and improve at a significantly faster rate. As for ranks meaning nothing these days its been brought to my attention that a lot of people have become higher ranked 8,9,10+ etc while not improving that much as would be expected back in 2014-2013 etc which has lead to the perception of ranks becoming more and more meaningless as an indication of skill within the community, I personally cannot come up with a solution and could find no one to voice any to me that would not involve a total overhaul of the ranking system or a changing of the ranking/elo system so i will not discuss this further in the interest of trying to keep the post on topic. Strategies Only Work On EU+ I Will be the first to admit I am relatively ignorant on this topic but that strats like GW/NC Etc only get any use whatsoever on EU+ and the like because thats what they are balanced around. For mapmakers to try to balance their maps around these niche strategies is extremely obnoxious and honest to god, not worth it almost ever and as such they get left at the way side for other strats such as IMP/PD/Blitz/IF etc. Usually i would advocate for changes in these strategies to make them more applicable to scenarios but iv'e been told that custom strategies for scenarios and maps are in the works so this problem will hopefully be almost fully resolved upon release of this. The Competitive 3v3 Scene I Was going to talk a decent amount about how the competitive scene player base is effectively dead with it being the same small group of players playing but after reading njabs thread ( https://atwar-game.com/forum/topic.php?topic_id=40278&topicsearch=&page=1 ) and also talking to a number of 3v3/competitive players there is seemingly three groups. Group A) Want modified EU+/ME/Africa etc to make them more balanced and change up the EU+ Meta slightly Group B) Want map makers to make custom scenarios/maps that are balanced to allow for play. Group C) Competitive is fine not expanding its player base and nothing is wrong As for group A and B i believe there is some overlap some from one group wanting the same as the other and or both. The two seemingly larger groups A and B just want some diversity in the maps available that are accepted to play as playing EU+ for 7 years is rather... stale. Group C seems incredibly stubborn and unwilling to change their position so I will not even attempt to talk about them in this post as it seems incredibly fruitless. To hash out solutions for groups A and B I will leave to other more experienced competitive players since that never was and never will be my scene but still care about it as a healthy competitive scene is just better for the games health overall. To conclude, I personally, as well as a number of people iv'e talked decently in depth with this about, believe that fixing the map maker and improving it is the first step in fixing a large portion of these problems and then coupled with community engagement within the specific communities (Map Makers, Scenario players and competitive players) to find the best solutions, not necessarily any listed here, to these problems can be a strong step forward for atwar as a whole and can revitalise both the map making community and finally get some good bloody maps and scenarios made as there is TONNES of untapped potential that deserves to be explored such as Warhammer Fantasy/40k, specific Seiges/battles across many fantasy universes and even a lot of established fantasy itself and i'm sure a lot more i'm not thinking of currently within our own human history. Thank you for reading, Morgan ^.^
---- Soni Gets All The Hot Chicks :^)
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14.04.2019 - 11:05
Message deleted by Columna Durruti. Reason: This is not OT; so add to the topic.
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14.04.2019 - 11:09
Message deleted by Columna Durruti. Reason: This is not OT; so add to the topic.
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14.04.2019 - 11:10 Beast Conta apagada
Message deleted by Columna Durruti. Reason: This is not OT; so add to the topic.
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14.04.2019 - 11:19
Nice to see you again Morgan! I cannot comment much on the Scenario/Cartography community, however I can state that Trystane is currently hosting a mapmaking contest to bring some relatively forgotten maps and some entirely new ones to public prominence, hopefully some of these start getting played more. Tunder's War of the Diadochi is relatively new and is seeing a good amount of play, so there is hope. Fixing the map editor is an absolute must, I'm still using the Silverlight version right now just to avoid the server disconnects, border deletion bugs, etc, just like most everyone else. The Ranking system is currently being discussed amonst staff members and solutions will become publicly available in the future; Please, if anyone has ideas how they would like to see it, I always implore people to make threads about it. In my opinion, most strategies work the best in Europe+ for two primary reasons: A) Europe is an extremely diverse and varied map setting, and B) Clovis, Laochra, and other competitive players have balanced the game around that map for years up until Dave bought the game. I think the issue is not that strategies are balanced around EU+ however, I feel a lack of skill and craftmansship in the mapmaking community is to blame. Certain maps are designed only for certain strategies; You're not going to play Sky Menace in a 5k Africa free for all, it just isn't feasible. I can't take a lot of cartographers seriously when they boast how great they are (*cough* TUNDER) yet they/he cannot understand how to balance a map properly. Something like Aetius' War to End all Wars works (in a sort-of elementary way) because it's very streamlined in map design and bottlenecks many parts of the map to allow a certain linear flow of gameplay to occur, hence how you can use a wide variety of strategies on it compared to many other maps. EU++/Wider EU+/Neuropa have been spoken about for years, and the North Africa + Fertile Crescent idea has been proven to change the gameplay harshly; Is it good, or bad? No idea yet. Turkey becomes irrelevant if the opposing team has something like Egypt/Ukraine going on, and Spain/Italy become more economically viable but more vulnerable due to the inclusion of North Africa. I think in eventuality, North Africa and the Fertile crescent becoming a mainstay in a new Europe map is inevitable, but perhaps a 4v4 scene would be what necessitates it. For right now, I think buffing Turkey/Italy's Reinforcements and nerfing Ukraine's income is the best change we can make to the base map, perhaps changing the status of places like Kosovo and Crimea to allow more East options as well. Otherwise, the map is very much fine, albeit it stale like you said, though I blame this on the lack of innovation in the current competitive generation; They either Rush everything or create big kankerwalls all over the place. Perhaps the dreaded 1-stack TB and Flower Power need to come back as Strategies to spice things up? Either way, great points on your part overall.
You do nothing with your life? Is that really all youre doing?
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14.04.2019 - 12:03
Hi again Morgan, long time no see, seems like real life has spared your life for now. 1. I'm not sure we really need new maps/scenarios when most of the new ones are still not used and forgotten in time. Also: 2. Editor is still being worked on. 3. People lack imagination, lack premium or lack time. Or whatever other reason people may have as to not play other maps. 4. Strats do not only work in Eu+, although people basically only play Eu+ or world map, so it's hard to say if they're useful outside of that map for most maps XD each map has its niche strats, often. 5. Fuck Eu+, it's not bad, but it's become boring of so much seeing it
---- Don't ever look down on someone unless you're helping him up. Don't ever treat someone else the way you wouldn't want others to treat you. We're all people.
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14.04.2019 - 12:07
Iv had enumerable amounts of my maps get claimed by this editor by this point. I litterally have a Lord of the Rings map that is 100% done and is unhostable because the borders are hidden under the map, and it crashes if i try to reupload the image to fix the bug.
---- We are not the same- I am a Martian.
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14.04.2019 - 12:09
If you have nothing constructive or positive to add, don't comment at all, Its childish and unneeded. Especially from random players whom I do not know.
Always good to encourage map making but I believe more can be done to incentivize, although its nice to see people have not entirely given up on it. Guess Ill wait and see what they come up with concerning ranks then. This is why custom strategies I think will work wonders on the scenario community as it allows for a diverse range of play-styles to flourish within a scenario with many strategies being available without being gated by the base strategies and having to work the map around them instead of the strategies around the map. It may have unforeseen consequences but i believe it to be a step forward. And as for EU+ And the 3v3 scene i'm not versed in it so I will leave that to those players and their community, I merely pooled together some of the voiced thoughts and opinions I received from said community
Heyo ^.^ back now for the time being, all that matters aye?
Hiya Raul, one of the few people on my friends-list who haven't disappeared, good to see you >:) 1) I for one disagree, like I would love to do a series of maps concerning war-hammer 40k universe such as a series concerning the seige of Cadia that I know I could make both enjoyable and interesting but its not really feasible with the current constraints of the map maker As there is very little diversity outside of colonial/WW1/WW2 Scenarios at the moment and since the conception of Map making. 2) Aye will have to wait and see how that develops. 3) those may be compounding factors, but I dont see the point focusing on why/how and more so how to alleviate the problem in the first place 4) poor phrasing on my part more than anything but its more so if you are making a map, niche strategies can be balanced around. If you are making a scenario it would take a disgusting amount of time to balance around niche strategies so 99% of the time they just end up ignored. 5) 7 years of EU sounds fun to me On an unrelated note, do you know what happened to Creyente? Cant find him on my friend-list and he was one of the best of us, sad if hes gone to the wind
---- Soni Gets All The Hot Chicks :^)
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14.04.2019 - 13:03
1. There are new maps and scenarios being made, not as many as a lot of us would like to admit but there has been a flow of maps and scenarios continuously growing. The problem is people would rather play something like ww1 by Aetius because it requires literally no skill to be any decent at it and is an easy SP grab, I compare it to Tempted's original RP in that regard. How we could combat this I believe is having a weekly rotation of featured maps/scenarios that are free to host, this also gives non-premiums a chance to try these maps and might even be a reason for them to buy premium so they can host them when the rotation happens. 2. The Map Editor is still very much in development however it does actually work and is entirely possible to make maps/scenarios in it. I honestly think most people who complain about it actually have never used it or even made maps before because they usually dont actually have much of an argument. I myself have messed around with the editor a lot and know a lot of tips and tricks that could help players however they don't usually ask for help. 3. Again there needs to be more of a push from the game itself to make players want to play these maps, if non-premiums could host featured maps that are on a weekly or monthly rotation this could help introduce the newer maps to the masses, otherwise the premium players are probably only going to host their own favourite maps and nothing else. 4. Ranks are pretty much useless after rank 10 as you get basically all the upgrades, I've chatted a lot about introducing more things to spend your SP on which might make ranking up more inviting. Things such as profile customization to playercards and even skins... so many ideas really. 5. A big issue I have with scenarios in general is there are all these rules that go beyond the regular atwar standards that kind of make it impossible for newer players to play these maps as you constantly need only experienced players in them. I honestly think if we merged beginners lobby and main then the newer players would be introduced more to these regular standards and in return probably grow some skill from it. 6. I wouldn't say strategies only work on EU+ it's more that the most popular scenarios are built with only 1 specific way on how to play them which in return makes you only pick 1 strategy. When it comes to things like Strategies its the map maker who has total control over how he wants his map to be played or which general direction at least. 7. Competitive is largely dying mainly because of the competitive players themselves. It's defiantly the most toxic area of this game, I've done everything from custom maps to scenarios to RP and then competitive and I've never experienced such scum before than in the comp scene. Most players are driven away by the same people who are saying the competitive scene is dying because of how nasty they are. If I didn't have the mentality of treat others how they treat you then I probably would have given up too(so if i am a dick to you then you should probably think about yourself a bit). Just recently I was interested in getting into the duel scene again so off playing with some clan mates and other friends who are inactive comp players...etc but as soon as I refused to play one of these I dare say Pro players who have nothing better to do than duel 24/7 which i then obviously have no chance of winning against. He goes into a fit of rage and starts abusing me for over an hour straight and then even attacks me outside of the game in a discord server. Once these kinds of players leave then maybe the Comp scene will return, until then they will be killing it.
---- Lest we forget Moja Bosna Ponosna
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14.04.2019 - 13:30
Wow, I'm excited! I'm thrilled! I was legit wondering if you'd remind about me or not! Anyway, knowing I'm in your friendlist is enough of a day dream for me I'm not disappeared yet, but you could say I'm close to that, I'm barely active anymore 1. The reason behind the little diversity, in my humble opinion, is the lack of interest by the comunity to play anything outside their comfort zone, with little other reasons which are not even important to mention. 2. It's still at 99.99% done 3. Welp, delete the main map for a day or two and see how them noobs handle themselves in new fresh maps without any previous knowledge about them! Show them what fun really means the hard way! 4. True. But there's no way to avoid that... unless the mapmaker invests a ton amount of time making brand new strategies only applicable to his map, right? 5. YAAAAAAY FUN!!! No wonder people feel like grabing a gun and start killing people randomly There you go my love, crey's profile: https://es.atwar-game.com/users/profile.php?user_id=32590 Anyway, he ain't that active either
---- Don't ever look down on someone unless you're helping him up. Don't ever treat someone else the way you wouldn't want others to treat you. We're all people.
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14.04.2019 - 16:00
lol you don't even play competitive so what would you know about why competitive is dead
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14.04.2019 - 17:07
Message deleted by Columna Durruti. Reason: This is not OT; so add to the topic.
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14.04.2019 - 17:07
Message deleted by Columna Durruti. Reason: This is not OT; so add to the topic.
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14.04.2019 - 18:33
Message deleted by Columna Durruti. Reason: This is not OT; so add to the topic.
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14.04.2019 - 18:44
Message deleted by Columna Durruti. Reason: This is not OT; so add to the topic.
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14.04.2019 - 19:21
To improve the game get rid of supporter role it is basically nothing
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14.04.2019 - 22:16
Oh look, the 20 millionth thread about how to make atwar great again......
TL;DR Sadly you just recently came back only about two months into Dave joining as our new admin so though you are correct in noticing that very little has changed since 2015 in all the areas you presented, I have to disagree with you though over the past few months. Since his joining Dave has been 20x more active than Amok or Ivan ever were, and has made it his mission to fix the toxic trolling in the community, multiple bugs, and clean up the platform (if you want to see a log of everything he's done so far, check out his update log here). In the two months he's been here, he's put in ridiculous amounts of work, so if you don't stick around, I'm willing to bet in a year this game will be a whole lot different than how it was just 3 months ago
----
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15.04.2019 - 08:12
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15.04.2019 - 14:19
Great to see you again after all this time. One thing that I will add is that I think that the length in which the map editor was down/buggy has really deterred a lot of map makers from ever working on big projects again. So many of the older map makers have left the game or are simply uninterested in map making anymore, even though the new editor is for the most part fixed. I think part of the problem now is that there are so few playable maps, due to player size in part, but also because some maps have been broken throughout the years and the lack of interest from original map makers in fixing the maps has become an issue. Even if we had enough people to constantly play ww2 or older big aetius/pyrrhus maps most are broken/taken down because of bugs and they aren't really here anymore to fix the issue. I think for atwar going forward, the game should grow to exist beyond the old and embrace a new, whatever it may be. Map making will need to take time to become something different because I believe the old model is no longer going to work.
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15.04.2019 - 16:52
What do you even define as competitive at this point man? You people move the goal posts every thread.
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15.04.2019 - 17:40
duel 3v3 2v2 and cw the goal post has never been moved
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15.04.2019 - 17:44
He plays all of those...?
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15.04.2019 - 18:43
i havent seen him consistently playing duels and i dont really consider casual 3v3 to be competitive also the fact that he is using toxicity as an excuse to talk about his stupid beef with wd makes him look like a clown i am sick of bums who keep saying toxicity killed competitive when it was this bullshit war on toxicity that killed off many new and old competitive players
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15.04.2019 - 19:44
Go look at his history; If that isn't consistent, then you're too dedicated to be making these judgments of other players who don't have as much time or caring to be playing all day every day. You literally listed 3v3s as a means of being competitive, but nonetheless: There is literally no difference between a CW and a 3v3 sans the stakes, which are typically arbitrary for the majority of players to begin with. His beef with WD is a great example of tryhard surpremacism; WD was in the wrong for targetting another player like that. Even so, they still speak in a friendly manner in VC, as all arguments on this website are largely superficial. The fact remains that this instance turned him off from the dying dueling community as well. No, toxicity didn't kill competitive, you're right; It was the pure unadulterated Autismus Maximus shown by many tryhards, ELO cheating and CW squatting, a lack of loyalty to clans/friendgroups, and mercclans running rampant.
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15.04.2019 - 21:05
ok, i'll rephrase what i said. trystane plays occasional 3v3 but i dont think that gives you any insight on why comp is dead. really, tryhard supremacism? i was there and trystane dodged wd in a duel plain and simple i don't see how you can defend trystane while condemning elo cheating and i disagree with you on why comp died lack of loyalty and merc clans have nothing to do with it comp was bound to die because of the stagnant meta and repetitive gameplay, but the new but few competitive players we get every year were slowing this process the toxicity ban nonsense killed off many these new players from 2018 who were albeit toxic but good for the revitalization of the comp community not only that but chasing out old timers like laochra sped up this process comp is pretty much dead now but i guess it was fun while it lasted
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15.04.2019 - 21:19
Again, you're only proving that the expectations of tryhard competitive players are exceedingly high, and a sustainable community cannot operate like this. He plays "competitive" gametypes at least a few times a week. What is so wrong with saying you don't want to duel someone? Why would he want to duel someone who had his friends donate their ELO to him to try and combat 4nic a few seasons ago (despite him losing, anyways)? Muh magic orange juice points, amirite? Merc Clans have more to do with it than Potatolord being driven off due to anti-toxicity measures. When speaking about revitalizing this community, why do none of you ever discuss training new people? I'm not the best person to really get into this, but nonetheless look at Orca for instance: Who are you training besides Derikk? Otherwise, it's just another merc clan. It's dead because we've had autistic individuals ruining it for normal people for a few years now. This will change eventually, however. Let the comp community die so we can rebuild it back into what 2011 - 2016 was.
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