It isn't easy to review unpopular maps because you can't hardly find enough people to play them. That's why there is a lack of feedback about those maps. In order to give some feedback about those unpopular maps in bnet, I've decided to make these ratings/reviews about the maps from the Fun or Not map pool.
These ratings are meant to show the strong and weak points of each map, so mappers can detect which areas they should improve on their maps. At the end of the post I provide some tips to help them improving those areas of their games.
Fun or Not ratings:
Name
Mode
FF
PI
De
Rw
Rp
At
UI
Ap
Ba
BF
La
TF
Total
RG
[Official] Unit Tester Online
Custom
0
0
0
0
0
0
6
3
10
2
0
4
1,23
2
·SAT· Control
Defense
5
3
6
0
3
7
5
6
0
10
10
6,67
4,82
2
A Lava Runs Through It
Hero vs AI
4
2
3
0
1,67
7
4
5,5
6
10
10
8,67
4,46
1
A Zerg Shotgun and You
Melee
1
1
4
0
1,67
1
3
2
7
10
5
7,33
2,8
1
AI-Control
Custom
7
6
4
0
3,33
5
3
4
6
8
10
8
5,71
3
Alien versus Predator
Hero
6
6
2
0
2,67
9
10
9,5
8
10
10
9,33
6,02
2
Amira Tower Defence
TD
8
2
3
8
4,33
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
7,44
5
Apocalypse Zombie
Hero
0
0
0
5
1,67
2
2
2
0
0
10
3,33
1,53
1*
Assassins
Custom
8
8
2
0
3,33
7
4
5,5
10
10
10
10
6,66
2
Baneling Run!
Custom
4
1
2
7
3,33
4
4
4
10
10
5
8,33
4,79
1
Battle Suit
Hero vs AI
3
3
3
0
2
6
4
5
2
8
4
4,67
3,26
1
Beast Commanders
Hero
6
5
3
0
2,67
5
3
4
10
10
10
10
5,62
5
Blood Marathon: New Edition
Custom
7
7
3
0
3,33
5
4
4,5
1
10
10
7
5,53
2
Blood Marathon: Race of Doom
Custom
7
7
6
0
4,33
6
4
5
4
10
10
8
6,14
1
BomberBot
Custom
7
9
9
1
6,33
9
10
9,5
6
10
10
8,67
7,42
12
Bunny TD
TD
4
3
3
0
2
3
3
3
7
6
8
7
3,93
1
C.T City of Tempest
DotA
2
2
8
0
3,33
8
6
7
0
10
10
6,67
4,03
1
Cascade TD
TD
0
0
0
0
0
5
0
2,5
0
0
10
3,33
1,03
1*
Cat N Mouse WW
Vampirism
7
6
5
7
6
6
7
6,5
1
10
10
7
6,62
1
Cat vs Mouse
Vampirism
3
2
3
0
1,67
5
2
3,5
0
10
10
6,67
3,46
2
Catalyst: Cityscape
DotA
10
10
8
1
6,33
8
7
7,5
5
9
8
7,33
7,91
2
Catalyst: War Machines BETA
DotA
8
9
9
1
6,33
7
4
5,5
2
3
10
5
6,49
2
Catch 'n' Run
Vampirism
7
6
5
10
7
10
9
9,5
8
10
10
9,33
7,79
3
Chaos Sybil Tower Defense
TD
6
5
6
4
5
7
6
6,5
10
10
10
10
6,65
1
Cortex Roleplay - Antediluvian Vale
Custom
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1*
Cortex Roleplay - Caldera
Custom
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1*
Cortex Roleplay - Él Nício Forest
Custom
0
0
0
0
0
6
0
3
0
0
10
3,33
1,08
2
Cortex Roleplay - Mutagen
Custom
0
0
0
0
0
8
0
4
0
0
6
2
0,87
1
Cortex Roleplay - Swamp (Delirium + 2.0)
Custom
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
10
3,33
0,78
1*
Cortex Roleplay - Xil
Custom
0
0
0
0
0
7
0
3,5
0
0
3
1
0,58
1
Counter Zone
Custom
4
4
6
0
3,33
7
3
5
1
10
10
7
4,58
1
Critter Wars
Custom
5
4
2
0
2
5
5
5
3
10
10
7,67
4,62
1
Death Sport
Custom
5
8
6
0
4,67
9
3
6
8
10
9
9
5,92
1
Desert Strike Hero 2
Tug of War
6
7
7
0
4,67
5
6
5,5
3
10
8
7
5,74
3
Dia blo - Mortal Shround
RPG
3
5
6
5
5,33
1
4
2,5
7
10
10
9
5,13
1
Dixel's TD
TD
7
4
1
4
3
6
8
7
8
5
10
7,67
5,82
1
Doodads and Seekers
Custom
5
4
3
0
2,33
6
2
4
10
10
3
7,67
4,63
1
DotA: Reload
DotA
6
7
6
0
4,33
7
6
6,5
6
3
5
4,67
5,18
1
Edge TD
TD
6
2
8
0
3,33
9
8
8,5
4
4
4
4
4,89
2
Extinction (Team Monobattles)
Melee
7
10
2
0
4
8
5
6,5
4
10
10
8
6,18
1
Fall of the Dark Lord
Custom
1
3
0
7
3,33
3
0
1,5
3
5
7
5
2,76
1
Fatty Fight
Hero
7
8
2
1
3,67
4
4
4
10
4
8
7,33
5,67
8
Final Stand
Shooter
6
7
4
0
3,67
2
4
3
7
8
9
8
5,39
1
Fleet Assault
Star Battle
9
10
10
5
8,33
7
4
5,5
4
10
10
8
8,19
10
Freax Tower Wars
TD
7
8
7
3
6
1
3
2
4
5
4
4,33
5,54
3
Frontline EU
Hero vs AI
5
7
4
8
6,33
10
10
10
3
6
0
3
5,48
2
Fury under the Stars
DotA
7
9
8
0
5,67
6
7
6,5
5
10
10
8,33
6,82
1
Galaxy Vampirism
Vampirism
7
9
7
9
8,33
10
6
8
0
10
10
6,67
7,47
4
Game of Drones
Melee
6
6
4
0
3,33
8
6
7
8
10
7
8,33
5,76
1
Genetic Lab Wars
Tug of War
8
6
6
3
5
6
7
6,5
7
10
10
9
7,08
6
Genetic Wars
Custom
6
7
6
0
4,33
8
6
7
9
10
7
8,67
6,17
1
Ghost Tournament - Jungle
Shooter
6
7
4
1
4
5
6
5,5
7
10
0
5,67
5,21
1
Golem Madness Ultra II
Footmen
6
7
5
0
4
3
3
3
8
9
10
9
5,73
1
Green TD
TD
7
4
3
0
2,33
9
2
5,5
9
4
3
5,33
4,91
1
Hero Attack
DotA
8
9
8
4
7
5
6
5,5
3
8
8
6,33
7,03
10
Hero Line Wars
Defense
1
6
7
3
5,33
5
10
7,5
4
0
7
3,67
3,72
1
Heroes of Might and Magic
Custom
5
3
9
0
4
6
6
6
8
10
10
9,33
5,78
1
Hide'n Seek
Custom
6
3
2
8
4,33
8
6
7
7
7
10
8
6,01
2
Hobrows Zerg Defense 2
Defense
6
6
7
4
5,67
10
9
9,5
10
10
0
6,67
6,39
1
Hybrid Evolution
The Thing
7
9
5
0
4,67
9
6
7,5
8
8
9
8,33
6,58
1
Icecrusher TD 2
TD
5
4
4
4
4
2
7
4,5
3
10
8
7
5,08
1
Invokers - Card Game
Tug of War
9
7
6
0
4,33
6
8
7
7
10
10
9
7,24
1
Island Defense
Vampirism
5
3
8
5
5,33
9
6
7,5
2
10
10
7,33
5,91
1
Island TD
TD
6
7
4
0
3,67
3
5
4
8
10
5
7,67
5,41
1
Knights and Merchants
Melee
2
7
8
0
5
1
3
2
3
10
10
7,67
4,32
1
Landing
Melee vs AI
2
2
2
0
1,33
7
3
5
4
10
2
5,33
2,86
1
Lane TD
TD
4
2
2
0
1,33
1
4
2,5
10
2
10
7,33
3,74
1
Leo's Survival Arena
Hero
2
0
1
0
0,33
3
3
3
1
10
10
7
2,71
1*
LevelUp Tower Defense [Beta]
TD
2
2
2
0
1,33
2
2
2
5
10
10
8,33
3,26
1
MageCraft
DotA
5
7
7
7
7
3
4
3,5
3
10
10
7,67
6,14
1
Malum Ruina
The Thing
4
4
4
0
2,67
9
4
6,5
2
7
8
5,67
4,19
3
Marine Arena v2.0 Latest Version
Footmen
5
6
9
0
5
4
7
5,5
1
10
10
7
5,52
1
Marines split challenge: Split your marines vs banelings!
Micro
1
1
0
0
0,33
1
1
1
4
10
10
8
2,41
1
Mastery of War
Tug of War
9
9
3
1
4,33
2
5
3,5
7
8
10
8,33
6,74
10
Me vs AI 2
Melee
1
1
2
0
1
0
3
1,5
0
4
0
1,33
1,13
1
Megato (Team Monobattles)
Melee
5
5
1
0
2
5
6
5,5
1
10
5
5,33
4,13
1*
Micro Race
Micro
0
0
0
0
0
1
1
1
0
10
10
6,67
1,66
1
Moonlords
Hero vs AI
3
4
3
0
2,33
4
3
3,5
3
6
8
5,67
3,45
1
Nexus Wars - Next Level
Tug of War
6
8
5
0
4,33
1
3
2
2
2
0
1,33
3,96
1
No Man's Land Survival
Hero
8
4
7
4
5
5
10
7,5
1
10
2
4,33
6,09
1
opuszzczona platforma
Melee
0
3
6
0
3
5
0
2,5
2
10
2
4,67
2,34
1
Ostrov TD
TD
5
6
3
0
3
3
3
3
10
4
9
7,67
4,76
4
Overrun
Defense
4
2
7
0
3
8
5
6,5
0
8
10
6
4,38
1
Parasite EU
The Thing
1
0
2
0
0,67
2
2
2
0
0
10
3,33
1,53
1*
Peepmode Antiga Shipyard [OBS KOTH 1v1]
Melee
1
1
2
6
3
6
8
7
10
2
8
6,67
3,59
4
Peepmode Boneyard [OBS KOTH 2v2]
Melee
2
1
2
6
3
6
8
7
10
2
8
6,67
3,92
2
Peepmode Cloud Kingdom [OBS KOTH 1v1]
Melee
1
1
2
6
3
7
8
7,5
10
2
8
6,67
3,64
2
Peepmode Shakuras Plateau [OBS KOTH 1v1]
Melee
0
0
0
0
0
0
5
2,5
0
0
5
1,67
0,64
1*
Photon Cycles
Custom
6
5
6
4
5
7
10
8,5
10
10
7
9
6,62
1
Photon Discs
Shooter
4
4
3
1
2,67
3
9
6
9
10
6
8,33
4,77
1
Pictionary
Custom
4
7
1
0
2,67
5
4
4,5
10
5
4
6,33
4,15
1
Pimp My Footman!
Footmen
8
8
7
9
8
8
10
9
7
6
10
7,67
8,02
10
Pimp My Micro
Micro
5
7
2
7
5,33
8
5
6,5
5
2
10
5,67
5,42
1
Plan C
Hero vs AI
4
6
5
0
3,67
10
4
7
2
10
5
5,67
4,58
1
Poker Defense - Full Deck!
Defense
3
1
3
0
1,33
3
5
4
5
8
10
7,67
3,63
1
Project Factions ORPG
RPG
2
3
3
0
2
4
4
4
10
2
10
7,33
3,44
1
Propecy of the Void (Demo)
Melee vs AI
8
2
2
0
1,33
10
9
9,5
6
4
6
5,33
5,31
2
Racing Tower Defense
Defense
6
6
8
0
4,67
2
3
2,5
6
6
5
5,67
5,13
3
Raynor's Party
Mini Games
6
8
2
0
3,33
10
4
7
10
0
10
6,67
5,37
1
Red Circle TD
TD
4
6
2
0
2,67
1
6
3,5
7
10
6
7,67
4,36
1
Red vs Blue
Tug of War
3
5
5
0
3,33
5
1
3
0
3
3
2
2,88
1
Rising Nations Under God
Melee
3
1
1
0
0,67
4
3
3,5
0
10
10
6,67
3,13
2
Risk: Rise of Empires
Risk
6
7
3
0
3,33
10
3
6,5
3
9
3
5
4,93
1
RiverClash
Melee
1
1
1
0
0,67
5
4
4,5
3
10
7
6,67
2,56
1
Run Viking Run
Custom
5
4
3
0
2,33
3
1
2
10
6
9
8,33
4,59
1
Runecraft
Tug of War
8
8
10
10
9,33
9
4
6,5
5
8
3
5,33
7,67
11
Seismic Battle!
Tug of War
9
8
7
3
6
10
4
7
8
3
0
3,67
6,56
8
SmashCraft
Hero
5
4
6
5
5
10
10
10
3
10
4
5,67
5,66
3
Space Station Defense
TD
6
7
5
9
7
3
6
4,5
4
6
8
6
6,18
3
Sparta Special Forces Preloaded
Hero vs AI
3
3
1
0
1,33
3
4
3,5
4
10
0
4,67
2,88
1
Spine Crawler Madness
Custom
6
8
3
0
3,67
0
4
2
9
10
7
8,67
5,44
1
Squad Support DeP
Hero vs AI
1
2
1
0
1
7
7
7
0
10
1
3,67
2,22
1
SquadCraft
Turn Based
4
7
7
9
7,67
8
7
7,5
5
7
10
7,33
6,35
1
Squadron Tower Defense
Defense
6
6
8
7
7
3
6
4,5
3
10
1
4,67
5,87
2
Star Evolution
Hero
6
6
3
0
3
10
3
6,5
6
9
10
8,33
5,59
1
Star Strikers
Custom
10
10
9
5
8
6
6
6
7
10
8
8,33
8,54
3
StarHammer 40k - Burning Chapel
Melee
4
5
6
0
3,67
7
4
5,5
0
10
0
3,33
3,88
2
Starhammer 40k - Treade Thunder
Melee
5
6
6
0
4
7
6
6,5
0
10
10
6,67
5,21
2
STIstand TD
TD
4
2
4
0
2
1
3
2
3
2
7
4
3,13
1
SunTzu: The Art of War
Risk
5
6
6
0
4
7
4
5,5
2
10
10
7,33
5,26
1
Swarm TD Battle!
Defense
7
8
5
0
4,33
3
6
4,5
2
8
0
3,33
5,01
3
tc's Power Towers
TD
5
0
6
0
2
3
4
3,5
4
0
7
3,67
3,54
2
Temple Arena BETA
Footmen
5
4
9
9
7,33
6
5
5,5
0
10
10
6,67
6,22
4
The Final Frontier
Custom
3
6
10
1
5,67
8
7
7,5
0
10
10
6,67
5,19
2
The Great Swarm Attacks
Melee vs AI
7
2
3
8
4,33
10
8
9
3
10
3
5,33
5,92
1
The Urban Thing
The Thing
7
8
2
5
5
7
5
6
7
10
10
9
6,7
3
The X-Wars
Tug of War
5
5
4
1
3,33
6
3
4,5
2
10
0
4
4,16
2
The Zealot Wars
Footmen
5
5
3
0
2,67
3
3
3
1
10
10
7
4,49
1
Trapped In Hell Bervut3
Melee
4
2
4
1
2,33
4
7
5,5
3
7
6
5,33
3,91
1
Tree Tag
Vampirism
4
1
3
0
1,33
8
1
4,5
0
10
5
5
3,39
1
Trollobattles Prototype
Melee
4
4
4
0
2,67
5
0
2,5
3
3
7
4,33
3,48
6
Troops Defence (Original) beta
Defense
2
3
2
0
1,67
3
7
5
0
10
10
6,67
3,28
1
Unit Test Map Beta
Custom
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
10
3,33
0,78
1
VoidCraft
Star Battle
9
6
4
0
3,33
10
7
8,5
2
4
9
5
6,13
1
Warships
Hero
9
9
7
0
5,33
4
3
3,5
7
9
3
6,33
6,61
11
Winter Wars
Tug of War
6
7
7
0
4,67
7
2
4,5
1
10
6
5,67
5,33
2
Wintermaul: The Remake
TD
4
6
6
0
4
2
2
2
4
3
9
5,33
4,11
6
X Hero Siege
Hero vs AI
1
3
2
0
1,67
0
2
1
0
0
7
2,33
1,53
1
XelNaga Yabot 1.4.1
Melee
0
0
0
0
0
8
0
4
0
0
0
0
0,4
1
Xtreme Nexus Evolution
Tug of War
4
6
4
0
3,33
2
0
1
1
2
3
2
3,01
2
Zealot Frenzy
Footmen
5
7
7
0
4,67
8
3
5,5
4
8
1
4,33
4,78
2
Zealots vs Zerglings
Footmen
6
6
2
1
3
5
3
4
5
4
10
6,33
4,88
2
Zenith - Random Team Monobattles
Melee
5
5
1
0
2
4
4
4
1
9
10
6,67
4,29
1
Zerg Contamination
Melee vs AI
3
4
7
0
3,67
7
6
6,5
0
10
0
3,33
3,65
1
Zerg Invasion
Hero vs AI
2
3
1
0
1,33
7
2
4,5
2
3
9
4,67
2,65
1
Zerg Waves
Melee vs AI
0
0
2
0
0,67
3
0
1,5
0
10
10
6,67
1,93
2
Zombie Master
Hero
5
6
3
0
3
7
5
6
5
10
10
8,33
5,21
1
ZombiePröject 306
Hero vs AI
3
2
3
0
1,67
7
4
5,5
1
8
10
6,33
3,58
2
Zone Control
Footmen
3
6
4
2
4
8
6
7
3
10
8
7
4,67
3
How reliable are these scores?
These scores are meant to measure the overall quality of a map. Reliability of reviews is always subject to the number of times the reviewer plays the map. I’ve added a RG (Rated Games) column to the table indicating the number of times I’ve played the map. The more times I played the map, the more reliable and consistent their results will be.
However, as I'll only be reviewing maps from the Fun or Not list, I won’t be able to play those maps as many times as I would like. That’s why these scores should be better understood as a measure of the overall quality of a map from a newbie player’s perspective.
In some cases, some technical problems while reviewing the map may prevent me from properly evaluating it. (map crashed, map didn't start, we lose the game on the 1st round...) In these cases, I’ll add a * mark in the RG column, indicating I wasn't able to complete my rating.
How to interpret these scores?
Scores are calculated considering different aspects of the game. Obviously, not all the factors involved have the same importance to determine the quality of a map, and so, they shouldn’t have the same weight in the final score. I’ve used Saaty’s scale to assign some proper weights for each considered factor.
Final score = 1/3 • Fun Factor + 1/3 • Replayability + 1/10 • Appearance + 7/30 • Technical Factor
Below I explain each of the rated factors, giving some useful tips for mappers who are interested in improving the score of their maps.
Fun Factor: (FF)
Whether the game is fun to play or players get bored while playing it.
As a mapper, in order to improve the score of your map:
- You should go through your game’s mechanics, consider them from a player’s point of view and ask yourself how you could improve them.
- Avoid players waiting during long periods of time while doing nothing.
- Avoid tedious and repetitive game mechanics.
- Let players find their own style to play your game.
Replayability: (Rp)
How addictive the game is. There are several factors that can affect the replayability of a game:
Whether players can interact and take different strategies, making every game feel like a brand new challenge.
As a mapper, in order to improve the score of your map:
- Make sure players’ actions will play a decisive role to determine their game progress.
- Make sure there is a gradual progression in the game. Players shouldn’t lose the game suddenly, without even knowing what they did wrong.
- Players shouldn't feel like they are playing alone. Make them interact with their team mates and opponents.
- Implement a decent AI. Players shouldn't give up the game when some of their team mates leave it.
Depth: (De)
The amount of different and unprecedented playable content in the map. After playing many games, the player still feels there’s more content he hasn’t met yet.
As a mapper, in order to improve the score of your map:
- Add new playable content to the map: additional races, units, heroes, abilities, items...
- Create your own races, units, heroes, abilities, items… different from Blizzard’s ones.
Rewards: (Rw)
How the player is rewarded for playing the map.
As a mapper, in order to improve the score of your map:
- You may want to add some player statistics, achievements, unlockable content and global rankings to your map.
Appearance: (Ap)
Visual aspects of the game. I consider several factors that can affect the visual appearance of a game:
Appearance = 1/2 • Atmosphere + 1/2 • UI
Atmosphere: (At)
Having a cool terrain, adding some custom music, spawning some critters and weather effects… How much players get immersed into the game’s atmosphere.
As a mapper, in order to improve the score of your map:
- Doodads are a nice addition to your terrain.
- Don’t just use plain textures. Try to mix them up.
- Custom lighting can make your map look much better.
- Add some critters and dynamic weather effects to your map.
- You may want to watch some Terraining Thursdays at SC2Streamster to learn how to create a better terrain for your map. Also try some Weekly Terraining Exercises.
UI: (UI)
Having a nice looking and user friendly game interface.
As a mapper, in order to improve the score of your map:
- Create some custom interface in order to make your game more user friendly.
- Create some score board, settings menu…
- Write useful tooltips for your abilities, items and units.
- Customize your help panel giving some useful tips related to the game.
- Make sure hotkeys are the same for all regions.
- Make sure your interface isn’t too intrusive.
- Create nice looking dialogs, don’t just use the default ones.
Technical Factor: (TF)
It measures the following technical aspects of the game:
As a mapper, in order to improve the score of your map:
- Localize and fix possible imbalances in the game.
- Make sure all possible strategies in your game are equally worthwhile.
- Balance the difficulty level of your game so it won’t seem an impossible task for newbie players and it won’t be too easy for experienced players.
Bug Free: (BF)
The game apparently doesn’t contain any bugs.
As a mapper, in order to improve the score of your map:
- Fix bugs in your map.
Laggless: (La)
You can play the game without experiencing noticeable lag.
As a mapper, in order to improve the score of your map:
- Localize the cause of the lag and try to fix it.
- Make sure all your actors are destroyed when orphaned.
- Avoid using too many behaviors in your units.
- Avoid heavy triggers executing many times during the game. (Any unit takes damage, Any unit issues order, 0.1 seconds periodic events, …)
- Avoid spawning thousand units in your map.
- If your map uses too many different units, change their death model to a generic one.
- Remove some of the doodads in your map for players with low settings.
I mean no offense to anyone, But I wish there was an option in the galaxy editor, to simply choose weather or not to use your map in the Fun or not System, Because these cortex maps, and these melee maps Are kinda EH, you know?, I mean its the same game, but different terrain, Plus people who play on someone else's Cortex, they usually Already plan on playing with the maker Anyways.
Or am I wrong?
I'm not trying to be mean to anyone or call their map crap, but I think theres more Unique maps out there.
I mean no offense to anyone, But I wish there was an option in the galaxy editor, to simply choose weather or not to use your map in the Fun or not System, Because these cortex maps, and these melee maps Are kinda EH, you know?, I mean its the same game, but different terrain, Plus people who play on someone else's Cortex, they usually Already plan on playing with the maker Anyways.
Or am I wrong?
I'm not trying to be mean to anyone or call their map crap, but I think theres more Unique maps out there.
I agree, I'd love there would be an option to submit your maps for the fun or not system. The problem with Cortex maps is that they don't even work. I got dropped from two of them and the 3rd one was just a black map. PeepMode maps, although they are common melee maps, they are really well done. But I don't understand why they added 10 player slots for a 1v1 map, nor why they selected 2v2v2v2 terrains for 1v1 games.
Is it possible to ask for a rating/review? If so, I'd love to get Amira Tower Defence rated/reviewed.
+ Amira Tower Defence.
Nice map. Very polished one. I used to play Plants and Zombies, and I loved this one. :)
Some comments:
- You could consider making it multiplayer. I'd love to fight against other players in this game. You would have to add some spawning buildings to train zerg units and order them to attack at your enemies' base. Did you play that minigame in Plants and Zombies where you take the role of the zombies?
- You could also add some unlockable content, so the player can choose the towers he wants to beat the levels.
- It seemed too easy for me at the end of the game. I played at 100% difficulty. The beggining was much difficult than the end of the game. Killing brutalisk wasn't a big deal. Tomorrow I'll try some more difficult level.
I actually never played Plants vs. Zombies, but I have had some of the same thoughts. Changes will be made in the next version, maybe there will be some unlockable towers. I'll need to find the best way to implement it. I also thought about the difficulty myself, and that will be increased too. Thanks for your feedback, I appreciate it.
Hmm, if you still take requests, could you possibly review my map Last Stand Alpha? Only if you can review NA maps, though. I haven't managed to get it published on the EU server simply because I update it far too often for it to remain convenient.
This is a good idea but I feel like the criteria are a bit arbitrary. Depth, for example, is too general a term whereas Rewards seems to measure something too specific.
My main concern with this is that "Technical" is 7/30 and "Balance" is 1/3 of that. That makes balance only 2.3% of the overall gameplay of a map. Realistically, my opinion of your placement of a tree holds about as much weight. "Bug free" is also only 2.3%.
Is a well balanced, bug free game really that unimportant?
This is a good idea but I feel like the criteria are a bit arbitrary. Depth, for example, is too general a term whereas Rewards seems to measure something too specific.
Should I decrease the weight of Rewards score?
Quote:
I just noticed that you shorten Rewards by Rw in the schema, but Re in the description. You should change it to avoid any confusion.
Fixed.
Quote:
My main concern with this is that "Technical" is 7/30 and "Balance" is 1/3 of that. That makes balance only 2.3% of the overall gameplay of a map. Realistically, my opinion of your placement of a tree holds about as much weight. "Bug free" is also only 2.3%.
Is a well balanced, bug free game really that unimportant?
I consider Fun Factor and Replayability slightly more important in a map than the Technical Factor. Let's think of a person who just opens the editor, creates a new map, places some balanced units on it for each player and publishes it. This map would have a 10 on the Technical factor, but it shouldn't be better than a map which is really fun but is quite imbalanced.
That said, maybe we could find some better weights for the formulas. What do you suggest? Maybe am I overrating Fun Factor as it counts for a 33.3% of the final score? What about adding some non-linear scale to penalize maps with a too low score in some of the factors?
Anyway, I don't think the final score of a map is that important. Each of the factors can have a different importance on the quality of a map depending on their game mode. That's why I haven't ordered the maps in the global ranking by their total score. The important thing is to show what aspects of the game I think their creators should improve.
Fun factor and replayability are definetly the most important facts. Bugs and such can sometimes affects the games, but you rarely see a map so bugged that it would break the game itself....so formula seems quite fine.
Certainly its rather impossible to use that formula for all maps (like campaigns), but I would say its rather good formula and atleast you can somewhat see why the map got what it got.
And some reviews for the maps we played at the EU Map Nights:
+ Bomberbot
+ Run Viking Run
+ RuneCraft:
As I told you ingame, income ruins Tug of War games. I remember when I played CastleFight in wc3, they removed the income option by default because of it. You may think about removing it.
I didn't like the UI at all. It's too big and very intrusive. You should also add a close buttons to all the dialogs.
The tutorial is anoying, it takes up all your screen, and don't allow you to play until you have completed it.
Units seem to be starcraft default ones, at least so were their tooltips. You should create your own units with their own spells. You may want to introduce some rock-paper-scisor like attributes.
I don't play melee maps, so I have no idea how to counter units. You should add some extended information in their tooltips.
The game seems very imbalanced.
I don't think synchronizing units is a good feature for a tug of war game. It brings more lag to the game, as there will be more units at once together in the map. If you synchro all your units, there won't be a constant and progressive battle in the lines, but the armies of both teams will just bounce from one base to the other one, until there are enough units to kill the stone zealot and come into the enemy base.
+ StarHammer 40k:
The game lacks of different strategies. Everytime I play it, it seems to me like the only strategy to win the game is to capture the largest number of income structure at the beggining of the game. After all the income points are captured, the game is decided. You won't be able to counterattack your enemies if they already have a large number of income structures.
Introduction:
It isn't easy to review unpopular maps because you can't hardly find enough people to play them. That's why there is a lack of feedback about those maps. In order to give some feedback about those unpopular maps in bnet, I've decided to make these ratings/reviews about the maps from the Fun or Not map pool.
These ratings are meant to show the strong and weak points of each map, so mappers can detect which areas they should improve on their maps. At the end of the post I provide some tips to help them improving those areas of their games.
Fun or Not ratings:
How reliable are these scores?
These scores are meant to measure the overall quality of a map. Reliability of reviews is always subject to the number of times the reviewer plays the map. I’ve added a RG (Rated Games) column to the table indicating the number of times I’ve played the map. The more times I played the map, the more reliable and consistent their results will be.
However, as I'll only be reviewing maps from the Fun or Not list, I won’t be able to play those maps as many times as I would like. That’s why these scores should be better understood as a measure of the overall quality of a map from a newbie player’s perspective.
In some cases, some technical problems while reviewing the map may prevent me from properly evaluating it. (map crashed, map didn't start, we lose the game on the 1st round...) In these cases, I’ll add a * mark in the RG column, indicating I wasn't able to complete my rating.
How to interpret these scores?
Scores are calculated considering different aspects of the game. Obviously, not all the factors involved have the same importance to determine the quality of a map, and so, they shouldn’t have the same weight in the final score. I’ve used Saaty’s scale to assign some proper weights for each considered factor.
Final score = 1/3 • Fun Factor + 1/3 • Replayability + 1/10 • Appearance + 7/30 • Technical Factor
Below I explain each of the rated factors, giving some useful tips for mappers who are interested in improving the score of their maps.
Fun Factor: (FF)
Whether the game is fun to play or players get bored while playing it.
As a mapper, in order to improve the score of your map:
- You should go through your game’s mechanics, consider them from a player’s point of view and ask yourself how you could improve them.
- Avoid players waiting during long periods of time while doing nothing.
- Avoid tedious and repetitive game mechanics.
- Let players find their own style to play your game.
Replayability: (Rp)
How addictive the game is. There are several factors that can affect the replayability of a game:
Replayability = 1/3 • Player Interaction + 1/3 • Depth + 1/3 • Rewards
Player Interaction: (PI)
Whether players can interact and take different strategies, making every game feel like a brand new challenge.
As a mapper, in order to improve the score of your map:
- Make sure players’ actions will play a decisive role to determine their game progress.
- Make sure there is a gradual progression in the game. Players shouldn’t lose the game suddenly, without even knowing what they did wrong.
- Players shouldn't feel like they are playing alone. Make them interact with their team mates and opponents.
- Implement a decent AI. Players shouldn't give up the game when some of their team mates leave it.
Depth: (De)
The amount of different and unprecedented playable content in the map. After playing many games, the player still feels there’s more content he hasn’t met yet.
As a mapper, in order to improve the score of your map:
- Add new playable content to the map: additional races, units, heroes, abilities, items...
- Create your own races, units, heroes, abilities, items… different from Blizzard’s ones.
Rewards: (Rw)
How the player is rewarded for playing the map.
As a mapper, in order to improve the score of your map:
- You may want to add some player statistics, achievements, unlockable content and global rankings to your map.
Appearance: (Ap)
Visual aspects of the game. I consider several factors that can affect the visual appearance of a game:
Appearance = 1/2 • Atmosphere + 1/2 • UI
Atmosphere: (At)
Having a cool terrain, adding some custom music, spawning some critters and weather effects… How much players get immersed into the game’s atmosphere.
As a mapper, in order to improve the score of your map:
- Doodads are a nice addition to your terrain.
- Don’t just use plain textures. Try to mix them up.
- Custom lighting can make your map look much better.
- Add some critters and dynamic weather effects to your map.
- You may want to watch some Terraining Thursdays at SC2Streamster to learn how to create a better terrain for your map. Also try some Weekly Terraining Exercises.
UI: (UI)
Having a nice looking and user friendly game interface.
As a mapper, in order to improve the score of your map:
- Create some custom interface in order to make your game more user friendly.
- Create some score board, settings menu…
- Write useful tooltips for your abilities, items and units.
- Customize your help panel giving some useful tips related to the game.
- Make sure hotkeys are the same for all regions.
- Make sure your interface isn’t too intrusive.
- Create nice looking dialogs, don’t just use the default ones.
Technical Factor: (TF)
It measures the following technical aspects of the game:
Technical Factor = 1/3 • Balance + 1/3 • Bug Free + 1/3 • Lagless
Balance: (Ba)
Whether content in the game is properly balanced.
As a mapper, in order to improve the score of your map:
- Localize and fix possible imbalances in the game.
- Make sure all possible strategies in your game are equally worthwhile.
- Balance the difficulty level of your game so it won’t seem an impossible task for newbie players and it won’t be too easy for experienced players.
Bug Free: (BF)
The game apparently doesn’t contain any bugs.
As a mapper, in order to improve the score of your map:
- Fix bugs in your map.
Laggless: (La)
You can play the game without experiencing noticeable lag.
As a mapper, in order to improve the score of your map:
- Localize the cause of the lag and try to fix it.
- Make sure all your actors are destroyed when orphaned.
- Avoid using too many behaviors in your units.
- Avoid heavy triggers executing many times during the game. (Any unit takes damage, Any unit issues order, 0.1 seconds periodic events, …)
- Avoid spawning thousand units in your map.
- If your map uses too many different units, change their death model to a generic one.
- Remove some of the doodads in your map for players with low settings.
I mean no offense to anyone, But I wish there was an option in the galaxy editor, to simply choose weather or not to use your map in the Fun or not System, Because these cortex maps, and these melee maps Are kinda EH, you know?, I mean its the same game, but different terrain, Plus people who play on someone else's Cortex, they usually Already plan on playing with the maker Anyways.
Or am I wrong?
I'm not trying to be mean to anyone or call their map crap, but I think theres more Unique maps out there.
I agree, I'd love there would be an option to submit your maps for the fun or not system. The problem with Cortex maps is that they don't even work. I got dropped from two of them and the 3rd one was just a black map. PeepMode maps, although they are common melee maps, they are really well done. But I don't understand why they added 10 player slots for a 1v1 map, nor why they selected 2v2v2v2 terrains for 1v1 games.
Added some new ratings:
+ Wintermaul: The remake
+ PeepMode Boneyard [OBS KOTH 2v2]
+ FrontLine EU
+ The Final Frontier
+ Xtreme Nexus Evolution
And updated Temple Arena's ones:
+ Temple Arena BETA
+ PeepMode Antiga Shipyard [OBS KOTH 1v1]
+ Pimp My Footman [OBS KOTH 1v1]
Is it possible to ask for a rating/review? If so, I'd love to get Amira Tower Defence rated/reviewed.
+ Amira Tower Defence.
Nice map. Very polished one. I used to play Plants and Zombies, and I loved this one. :)
Some comments:
- You could consider making it multiplayer. I'd love to fight against other players in this game. You would have to add some spawning buildings to train zerg units and order them to attack at your enemies' base. Did you play that minigame in Plants and Zombies where you take the role of the zombies?
- You could also add some unlockable content, so the player can choose the towers he wants to beat the levels.
- It seemed too easy for me at the end of the game. I played at 100% difficulty. The beggining was much difficult than the end of the game. Killing brutalisk wasn't a big deal. Tomorrow I'll try some more difficult level.
@IliIilI: Go
Thanks for the sweet words.
I actually never played Plants vs. Zombies, but I have had some of the same thoughts. Changes will be made in the next version, maybe there will be some unlockable towers. I'll need to find the best way to implement it. I also thought about the difficulty myself, and that will be increased too. Thanks for your feedback, I appreciate it.
Hmm, if you still take requests, could you possibly review my map Last Stand Alpha? Only if you can review NA maps, though. I haven't managed to get it published on the EU server simply because I update it far too often for it to remain convenient.
Sorry, I play in EU servers.
+ opuszczona platforma
+ VoidCraft
+ Cortex Roleplay - Xil
+ Sparta Special Forces Preloaded
+ Pictionary
+ The X-Wars
+ [Official] Unit Tester Online
+ PeepMode Antiga Shipyard [OBS KOTH 1v1]
This is a good idea but I feel like the criteria are a bit arbitrary. Depth, for example, is too general a term whereas Rewards seems to measure something too specific.
I just noticed that you shorten Rewards by Rw in the schema, but Re in the description. You should change it to avoid any confusion.
My main concern with this is that "Technical" is 7/30 and "Balance" is 1/3 of that. That makes balance only 2.3% of the overall gameplay of a map. Realistically, my opinion of your placement of a tree holds about as much weight. "Bug free" is also only 2.3%.
Is a well balanced, bug free game really that unimportant?
Skype: [email protected] Current Project: Custom Hero Arena! US: battlenet:://starcraft/map/1/263274 EU: battlenet:://starcraft/map/2/186418
Should I decrease the weight of Rewards score?
Fixed.
I consider Fun Factor and Replayability slightly more important in a map than the Technical Factor. Let's think of a person who just opens the editor, creates a new map, places some balanced units on it for each player and publishes it. This map would have a 10 on the Technical factor, but it shouldn't be better than a map which is really fun but is quite imbalanced.
That said, maybe we could find some better weights for the formulas. What do you suggest? Maybe am I overrating Fun Factor as it counts for a 33.3% of the final score? What about adding some non-linear scale to penalize maps with a too low score in some of the factors?
Anyway, I don't think the final score of a map is that important. Each of the factors can have a different importance on the quality of a map depending on their game mode. That's why I haven't ordered the maps in the global ranking by their total score. The important thing is to show what aspects of the game I think their creators should improve.
Fun factor and replayability are definetly the most important facts. Bugs and such can sometimes affects the games, but you rarely see a map so bugged that it would break the game itself....so formula seems quite fine.
Certainly its rather impossible to use that formula for all maps (like campaigns), but I would say its rather good formula and atleast you can somewhat see why the map got what it got.
It is really great that you are doing such an effort in testing other peoples maps!
I have recently released Infested Mothership in EU and I want you to review it for me, if you could?
I have wrote about it in this post: http://www.sc2mapster.com/forums/player-zone/map-feedback/31504-infested-mothership/
Thanksalot! :)
I'll be rating the maps we play at the EU Map Nights, so if you want your maps to be reviewed, join now!!!
+ Assassins
+ Starhammer 40k - Treade Thunder
PD: Unfortunately, we weren't able to play many maps. :( Hope next week there will be more people.
I can't review your map since I can't get enough players to fill the lobby. Maybe you could join us next Friday at EU Map Nights and suggest your map to be played. ;) www.sc2mapster.com/forums/general/general-chat/18556-eu-map-night/
+ Zerg Invasion
+ Poker Defense - Full Deck!
+ Cortex Roleplay - Él Nício Forest
+ Fleet Assault
+ Assassins
+ Amira Tower Defence
+ Unit Test Map Beta
+ Cortex Roleplay - Mutagen
+ Zombie Pröject 306
+ XelNaga Yabot 1.4.1
+ Knights and Merchants
+ Peepmode Boneyard [OBS KOTH 2v2]
+ Level Up Tower Defense [Beta]
+ Zone control
+ Seismic Battle
+ Trollobattles Prototype
+ Me vs AI 2
+ STIsland TD
+ Green TD
+ Freax Tower Wars
And some reviews for the maps we played at the EU Map Nights:
+ Bomberbot
+ Run Viking Run
+ RuneCraft:
+ StarHammer 40k: