Mapcore FACEIT Hubs

    Quote from JimWood

    4 hours ago, JimWood said: The main issue right now for me is the total downtime of the servers, which can become quite frustrating, especially for newcomers.

    I've had a lot of frank conversations with FACEIT about the challenges and issues we've been facing with the HUBs. With the understanding, of course, that we all want the idea to succeed and in order to do so we're going to have to be exchanging feedback and, hopefully, pushing updates to address that feedback.

    There's more to come there, but what I will say is that they do seem genuinely interested in improving the platform. It seems like they're in this for the long haul, so let's try to itemize our feedback.


    Current feedback:

    -Downtime (of course)

    -Need to be able to delete messages as a mod, don't want any egregious posts or out of control spam

    -Warm-up time increase so that games aren't cancelled by map downloading

    -Notification of our map list when you queue (apparently, this is already being worked on!)

    -Trying to reduce the amount of instances where it feels like you go "back to square one" when trying to get into a game, such as when someone doesn't accept a queu

    Long term I'd like to see us have the ability to:

    -Interact with servers in the same way admins with RCON could

    -Workshop map upload option, so that we don't have to route through FACEIT anytime we want to change the map list

    -Deeper engagement with the rest of the FACEIT platform, so that it doesn't feel like we're in an island when there is an ocean of games being played in the "open-market" FACEIT platform

    -Exposing more of the variables that are hidden "behind the scenes" so that we can deeply customize our HUB experience.

    And if we're lucky:

    -Additional incentive to play on our HUB

    -Rewards for those who start a successful queue (to incentivize being the first player to start a successful match)

    -Real ELO rewards/connectivity


    I will say that we've had a good number of games going lately, and that I think the biggest/most frustrating issue (games getting cancelled for no reason) is, seemingly, close to being resolved.

    Nice ideas, agree with all except the ELO part, I don't think this hub have that role and can be counterproductive here (toxic & angry players will appear). People will be happy with incentive for playing or being in the top of the hub. FACEIT is working hard for improving the HUBs, I play in Iberian Pro League since 6 months ago (when they started to encourage) and they have improved a lot. What more needs to improve the platform now is the servers part, they give many problems every month. They need to have more quality and less falls.

    Quote from El_Exodus

    On 26/02/2018 at 6:26 PM, El_Exodus said: Some more feedback:

    - @fabE More like platform related feedback rather than Mapcore Hub related - still applies: The current map pool should be displayed under Match Settings in the Rule Tab. Preferably done automatically through a Steam Workshop Collection from which the Hub automatically grabs the maps/maplist. I reckon this will be needed as a long term solution for Hubs which make use of custom maps.

    Good point, we'll see if we can get this implemented. For now, I've edited the rules on the Hubs to highlight the current map pool by pushing that info to the top. We have a (platform global) Steam Workshop Collection that our servers use to grab the maps, find it here.

    Keep the feedback coming guys!

    Would there be a possibility to see Wingman Mapcore (Playtesting) Hubs in the near future?

    If the per-Hub-collections become a thing, it'd be really easy to manage the map pool by selected Hub managers/mods plus not as many people would be needed to get games going.

    39 matches played in the last week!

    While it may be just a start, I want to commend FACEIT and everyone using the HUB for providing a new platform for community maps to be playtested. Personally, I'm optimistic that if we continue to work hard on this idea we will have a few matches being played everyday consistently. Thank you for playing games on the platform, let's keep it going, and tell your friends!

    Mappers: don't forget that you can pull demos from the FACEIT platform and watch them back to study the gameplay.

    Yesterday, we had a productive discussion on Discord about the future of the Faceit Mapcore Hubs. This is a summary of said one:

    Mapcore 5vs5 Hub concept:

    We aim for a Map pool of 7. The maps in the pool rotate every month. The monthly 2 least played maps get removed from the pool at the end of a month and 2 new maps get added at the beginning of the following month. These new maps are being chosen through a poll which is prepared by Hub moderators and posted on reddit/Twitter/Hub webpage (More on that later). This poll should be under a week away from the next month to stay relevant for the voters.

    The map pool should be managed by the Hub moderators through a specific Steam Workshop Collection (linked to the Hub via Hub settings) to enable some independent managing from the Faceit Staff. ( @fabE )

    Leaderboard winners should receive Faceit points to help growing the Hub. This should be a win-win situation for every party involved. It draws more people towards Faceit as a community map run map pool is rare and players have an incentive to play more games and improve their skill on community maps.

    Events are planned as well. Each event is aimed to be half a month long (starting either on the 1st or 15th of a month) to allow consistency in the time management so players are always able to assume when new events start/maps get added to the pool. An already thought through idea for events are past Operation events. These flashback events allow players to revisit maps from old Operations. These events could be advertised through a special site on the Hub webpage similar to the official Operation webpages (http://www.counter-strike.net/operationwildfire/) and maybe even small trailers which showcase the map pools. After events, the map pool returns to the usual rotation.

    Hub design: The banner and Hub description (/Rules page) should be adjusted to every monthly map rotation/event.

    Hub webpage: If possible we'd like to use a subdomain of Mapcore (Hub.Mapcore.org) to showcase information, statistics about the Hubs and more. ( @Thrik ) This webpage could contain the following content:

    *Linked/embedded polls for new map pool maps *Hype page for certain events *Links to the hubs *View current/past map pools (e.g. images and development graphs) -> link the workshop collection *Infographs of played maps. If possible fully automated demo analyzing ( @Terri ) *Calendar of upcoming events *Players of the month / Leaderboard

    *Video Highlights


    The map rotation should be in place prior to April so we have the first full month of map rotations running by then. (Current plan: Top4 Contest winners, Grind, Subzero, Breach)

    The first poll to swap out maps will then be at the end of April.


    Open questions:

    Are there statistics coming for the Hubs to see e.g. the distribution of played maps?

    Should single maps in the pool be time limited? Discussion allowed!

    Who would be willing to work on a Hub webpage?


    Mapcore 2vs2 Hub concept:

    If possible we'd like to see a Wingman Hub as well. A Hub like this would be relatively easy to run right off the bat due to it being in need of less players to start a game. ( @FMPONE, @fabE )

    This Hub could serve as a playtesting Hub of WIP maps at first, as the supply for these maps is still fairly low.

    It could then later down the line transform into a Hub for finished maps only. Time will tell.

    The map pool can also be larger than on 5vs5 as learning these maps is not as time consuming.

    Quote from Thrik

    On 09/03/2018 at 9:53 AM, Thrik said: Sounds exciting! I'm happy to work with someone to provide a MapCore subdomain. ?

    Awesome plan @El_Exodus, sounds like a really smooth process for players (once you are in Faceit – I haven’t managed playing yet).

    And I’d be happy to help building the page, I discussed a bit with @Thrik in the past about helping out, so I’d be happy to work with you guys to help make this successful.

    Finally I finished the stats of the maps/Hub! I know I'm not professional but I tried my best, I hope this data could be helpful for the mapmakers to improve. Sadly few matchs were played and the sample isn't very large, so the info is not 100% reliable. I wait for feedback (more or other data, better design, etc), gg wp





    I've worked on something a couple of weeks back (https://compassionate-bell-62f5f1.bitballoon.com/) after the topic was discussed in the discord hub chat.

    The main issue to solve is with Face It atm. As @JimWood said in discord:

    Quote

    Quote We're allowed to choose the maps We just can't change what the servers are running ourselves

    I'm not sure if someone is in contact with Faceit about this, but it's something that needs to be resolved to make the whole plan work.

    About my hub page itself:

    • It is linked to these collections for displaying the maps
    • Voting is done by signing in with Faceit, and when voting it checks if a user has joined a Mapcore hub

    The page can use some content (text, images, structure), it's something I would like to handover to someone else or at least collaborate with someone with. For me it was just a fun experiment with the steam and faceit API's, and thus finished my personal goals for the project. That said, I'm open to work some more on it.

    So if @El_Exodus @Thrik or @blackdog need anything, feel free to contact me (discord is the fastest way)

    Awesome work @Ties!

    I have messaged regarding this and was going to contact you as well, I was wondering regarding the state of things and seems it's clear where you are at :) I'm happy to start something, I was just wondering if, being something in collaboration with Faceit, it should recall some of their design as well - I mean if that's a requirement.

    Really need to get in there, never played any of these but Tuscan in particular, so many pros when asked about what map to add to the pool say this name…

    it's going to be a double edged sword for sure. We're going to get a lot of interest in the hubs but I'm still worried we're going to get lots of people *just* wanting that map.

    We're currently building up a new mappool for the next season. if you want to be considered PM myself or one of the other admins, or drop your map ws link here! 'Comp' maps obviously the focus.

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