MM8BDM v4 What maps do you feel need work?

[Max]

Wave Man

I really dislike the new Wave Man. To me, it is one of the worst maps in the game and incredibly clunky and difficult to play on or enjoy.

The map's layout and flow are inherently flawed due to the narrowness of the playing space and the mostly flat triple area design. This results in a map that has no flow. Moving between any of the available areas is clunky, due to the necessity to use Wave Bikes, incredibly slow bubbles, or U-shaped slopes. In addition, the clunkiness of the detached area design means that very little fighting can be done cross-map. The areas are almost entirely segregated, the two inside areas cannot interact at all except by teleport pipe which removes all potential for fighting. The outside can fight poorly with either of the two other sides, but it is difficult and foolish to do so as your dodging area on the small platform is completely limited.

Examining each of the areas in turn, the water area is by far the biggest offender as it is simply impossible to fight properly in it. Any combat that could occur on the wavebikes is severely gimped due to the crampedness of the water area and the weapon selection, which does not lend itself well to the stage's gimmick like the old Wave Man did. It is also incredibly difficult to engage an opponent on the central platform, as the height difference tends to block shots and the surrounding water means that there is no room to dodge or escape a fight. The two other platforms are useless except for picking up weaponry due to their size, you would quite plainly die if you tried to fight on them.

Moving on to the Snake Man-styled single layer room. This room lends itself to combat more readily than the other two areas, but it is still difficult for the offensive attacker due to all the jumping that must be done to traverse the winding pipes. This favours defensive players, as they are able to confuse attackers by seeking refuge behind pipes and making escapes out the front or back of the area. This means that frags are not achieved and thus the map lasts longer. In addition, the Ballade Cracker placed in the middle of the room interrupts gameplay by providing unneeded height variation between the floor and the pillar, and the Cracker is difficult to gain in the first place due to the focus the room places on it which means anyone can easily see if you're trying to grab it. The U-shaped slopes in this room provide nothing to the flow, only serving to house a teleporter to the other room. Related to this, the exit for the teleporter from the other side is placed in a bad position where anyone can corner you in the small square area.

The other inside area is arguably more difficult for players to fight in, due to the two raised areas inside making it hard to get a lead on other players and often leading to camping behind cover waiting for the other person to give up their own. In addition, combat is further discouraged by the slow moving bubbles, which have the ability to block shots and lift players where they don't want to go. The room also features a hastily-implemented dual layer gimmick, but this does not work well due to the pointless ceilings limiting interaction between floors and the limited options to reach the second floor in the first place. This makes the second floor essentially worthless except for reaching extra weaponry or for chasing opponents, who can easily escape out the front or drop down to the other level to escape behind cover. This room features the same U-shaped corridor as the other room, which does not lend itself well to gameplay here either as the speed in climbing the slope cannot compare to the speed of the two ladders, which in turn are too spread out to make travelling between floors easy.

In addition to all of this, the map features an incredibly bloated weapon selection consisting of
-Two Buster Upgrades
-SIX long range weapons
-Three rapid fire weapons
-Three close range weapons
-Three power weapons
-Theoretically infinite items due to the party ball
This makes it even more difficult to score frags as weapons are spread out due to the number of them present in the map. A newly-spawned player will be unable to reach a good all-rounder weapon in time to prevent their death, as such weapons are only spawned in certain places. This also creates a problem for players who have not died in a while, as their inventory becomes problematic to sort through and it is made more difficult to select the appropriate weapon for the fighting. In addition to both of these points, it is obvious that some weapons simply do not need to be on the map. The amount of long-range weapons could easily be cut down to simply Thunder Bolt and Blizzard Attack, which would give newly-spawned players reliable weapons to grab and would not detract from the map too much. Weapons such as Gyro Attack or Dive Missile are simply useless on the map (the map also contains both Dive and Magnet) due to the narrow layout and cramped interiors.

My final point is that Water Wave is not given its proper time to shine on the map due to the flawed layout. It is blocked by the pipes and the Ballade pillar in the Snake Man room, it cannot be used cross area due to the water, it is difficult to use in the two-floored room due to the ceilings and its inability to travel upwards. The fact that the map also contains much better replacements for Water Wave such as Water Balloon and Yamato Spear makes me think that Water Wave was only included because it had to be and not because it was a useful weapon for the map (which it should be, given that it's Wave Man).

What should be done about Wave Man? I would say a complete overhaul as the map is fundamentally flawed, but due to it being added in V3 I don't see that happening, unfortunately. I would say cut down on the amount of weapons, flatten and expand the inside areas, provide 3D floors outside to increase fighting potential.

And change those fucking rails, they use a flag that makes you jump over them when you touch them (so you jump too far and die) which is unlike every other railing in the game!

[Linnie]

I'm going to more strongly pursue keeping MM1CUT.

I really don't want it changed. The old map is perfect, it's incredibly compact and makes for very simple gameplay. I'm against the trend of trying to make everything bigger. I had a Duel on MM1CUT the other day and it was fun. You don't have to spend five minutes chasing down your opponent, it's simple and to the point. The average map size seems to get bigger and bigger, and I think it was Kapus that said V4 isn't going to buck that trend, and I feel strongly against doing it to old maps as well. With making Heat bigger, making Plant bigger, making Wind bigger, making Skull bigger (though that one in fairness does need to be changed) it feels like small maps are going to die out entirely, and changing the smallest map to fit that scheme is something I feel I need to call out and fight. There are some big maps that are horrible due to their size. I can't stand MM8DW1 because it's so large. I think making maps larger is detrimental to the playstyle of MM8BDM as a whole. It's going to cause more camping and more running away, magnifying what is already a problem.


Right now I feel I should ask anyone else who feels similarly to speak out, because I was told that I'm the only person against this and that there isn't any support for retaining the old MM1CUT. This is something we need to band together to fight if we want it to stay the same.

[Ceridran]

From what I can see, it doesn't get all that much bigger.

[Ivory]

Linnie,
Cut Man went from being a tiny sized map to a small map. It's not any more complex, you don't spend 5 minutes chasing down your opponent. You are complaining about Cut Man like it was turned into a Knight Man sized map. It wasn't. I tell you this, but you don't listen. All I did to Drill Man was punch a hole in the wall, but it didn't get any bigger. Even considering the recent revisions I did to Heat Man based on recent feedback, it's still the same size as the old map. Dust Man was widen up a tad, the crushers were revised and an entirely new section of the map got added so you could bypass the deadly as heck junk shield crusher. Gemini Man got space, but it needed it. Magnet Man has almost the same dimensions, Quick Man only added some new routes over lasers, Toad Man was to add a new way to the top section of the map that didn't cross in the same congested part of the map, etc, etc, etc.

TL;DR/Linnie doesn't listen: You are over-thinking map size increases like small maps turned into knight man sized maps.

[*Alice]

Riiiiight, Wave Man.
Wave Man is a bad DM map. And it is a gigantic jump in difficulty in the Singleplayer campaign.

The really bad thing is that Wave Man had no legitimately good map in the competition (which I even stated back then).
Honestly, I feel like someone should create a new one from scratch. I don't think I would want a slightly adjusted version of Beed's, nor a remixed version of YD's or Knux's entry. There has to be a good way to handle Wave Man, somehow.

And yes, I did vote for Beed28 back then, but I explicitly stated that his map was not all that good, yet disliked it less than the other ones. Now that we are about to hit a new major version number I feel like the time has come to finally replace that stop-gap solution with something that's actually good.

[Tengu]

I swear I'm the only person that actually likes current Waveman.

[Messatsu]

No, I rather enjoy it too.  I was talking with YD, and I don't see the same faults he sees on the map.  I do agree with some points in that the weaponset being a bit too diverse, but that's minor imo.  I highly doubt the map would get overhauled at this point, but if a bunch of similar points get brought up repeatedly, it's worth it for the dev team to look at. (Ex. crushers in Dust Man).

[Gumballtoid]

I personally like new Waveman. Wavebike chases can be pretty fun, but they're also not too forced on you unless you just really want that party ball.

[Knux]

Response to Alice's comment on Wave Man maps. Everyone else, move on.

(click to show/hide)

The really bad thing is that Wave Man had no legitimately good map in the competition (which I even stated back then).

I kind of resent that, you know? Not only because you don't know how much effort goes into mapping in the first place, but that you ignored the strategy potential in it and just skipped to saying it was bad. I'll explain for the billionth time, though.

In my Wave map, I was aiming to have wavebikes used mostly as straight, fast travel to a point in the map because there were a lot of (justified) complaints about wavebike abuse in the original core map. Even so, turning was very possible with little practice. Not only that, but Water Wave was useful in nearly all of the map due to flat ground. If there's one thing there probably wasn't enough of in the map, I'd say it was cover. So yes, my map had some flaws that could easily be fixed (not so good bubble and support items placement), but it wasn't a bad map by any means.

This isn't defending my work blindly like it was the fucking shit, it's about being logical and rather angry that after efforts of trying to make a better thing, some people piss on it and say it's bad without providing any useful feedback. I could just tell said people to go fuck themselves, but what's the use in that? I'm tired of arguing with unreasonable folks, anyway, but here you go.

I also kind of agree with YD about flow in the current Wave Man map. If you ask me though, I'd say one teleporting chute isn't enough. Think of this as you would with Wave Bike tubes, and you might see what I mean.

[Ceridran]

YD's "map submission" for WaveMan's stage back then felt fairly fresh and interesting, if you ask me.

[*Alice]

I did not know that disliking a map is such a bad thing to do, Knux. I mean, not being allowed to say "hey this map is bad or not fun, and here are some reasons" would basically make this thread not possible.

Well, have some useless credit for trying, Beed28, Knux and Max. I still don't really like either of your Wave Man maps.

<Something was written here. It isn't here anymore.>

[Tengu]

Well I don't think Alice/YD/Whoever else is meaning to sound blatantly rude.

Although, instead of just saying "This map is bad, and here's why" you could say "This map is bad, here's why, and here's what I think you could do to fix it."

[Ivory]

Although, instead of just saying "This map is bad, and here's why" you could say "This map is bad, here's why, and here's what I think you could do to fix it."

This is the main point to this topic existing.

[Megaman94]

Woah woah woah, I thought Cutman Mike said he wasn't going to change Cut Man's map....

Anyways, I hate how in MM7SLA how the bots get stuck in the at the end of the rivers. They can't fall over the edge of the waterfall. That makes it way too easy to frag them with water wave, scorch wheel, and rain flush. I find that most of the time, I use that to my advantage and end up winning.

EDIT: Also, as mentioned in another topic, MM8AQU is too boring. The stage had a bunch of gimmicks you can use. The water that rises when you destroy the ceiling with Astro crush, water currents, and the vertical hallway with the Count Bomb GEO and Count Bomb CD

[GameAndWatcher]

Woah woah woah, I thought Cutman Mike said he wasn't going to change Cut Man's map....

He isn't, Ivory is.