Excited to try out the maps and have a productive and constructive event. We need as many things like this as possible to promote change in the community. Thanks for putting in the work to organize everything, luc.

Should be a great event :)

Absolutely love this. Thank you so much for setting this up to everyone involved! There are plenty of great up-and-coming maps and I think this will be a fantastic way to introduce them to the broader community. I've gone through each map in the list and they're all great - certainly good fits for our map pool. Would love to see how we can create a positive change in our next season!

Again - huge thanks to everyone involved for getting this set up. Can't wait!

Was part of play testing for alamosa and prop and have to thank the map makers here. We'd bring up problems, ideas, etc, and the next version would be out sometimes in the same night. These maps play really well, and propaganda in particular looks really polished.

There's also something to be said for playing a map that you haven't already played thousands of times already.. you can invent meta and gameplay is generally more forgiving.

Seems like a great idea, hope we get some proper feedback out of this!

Thanks for hosting this and thanks to all the teams taking the time to test the maps out! I'll try but not sure if I'll be able to attend the panel because timezones. Lets also hope this strives to change the attitude towards new and especially in-dev maps (when the feedback is most crucial).

hopefully we can get one or two of these maps into regular league play (and maybe even pugchamp for further testing? granted that relies on people not instabanning these maps)

I also helped playtest most of these maps, and I have to say I'm excited. The thing about these maps is that they really stand on their own--they aren't just novel and gimmicky and only fun the first couple times. They already flow well from my experience, and I think the last bit of insight from top level players will be enough to push these maps into legitimate ESEA viability.

Especially excited for alamosa, probably the most aggression-friendly map I've played in a while. Really a big breath of fresh air.

etf2l take notes

I've played logjam, alamosa, and propaganda; really enjoying all 3. Logjam is one of the older ones and I honestly hoped that it would have gotten into the ESEA map rotation earlier. Alamosa was really fun to play and promotes a lot of aggression and tons of flank plays. Propaganda is huge and might take some getting used to, but was also really enjoyable to test. Hope we can get at least one of these maps in the rotation!

wheres koth_isla

gotta be honest, I'm a bit wary looking at these maps because all 4 of them appear to, to one extent or another, have a lot of the flaws that I associate with custom maps (too big, too many entrances to each point, weird geometry)

hopefully I'm proven wrong

It shouldn't matter if you're proven wrong or not - the point of this is to get solid feedback and testing on the maps and if we run into issues like these then move to fix them.

You genuinely can't come up with the best version of a map without actually getting good testing on it. You can theory craft and design on paper and in hammer all you want and then have people try pickups on it, but until you've gotten more of a strategy based team on team setting you won't really find a lot of the more detailed issues, in my experience.

That said, I disagree. I think that "too big, too many entrances to each point" is something that anyone ends up thinking when they load up a new map and don't see how it all lines up right away. I only say that because I've heard it hundreds of times before people play the map, but once they get familiar with it their tune changes.

appreciate the feedback as always mustard :)

I will say these maps weren't just picked out of a hat, these maps got play-tested pretty heavily by pug groups and groups i've organized from low-high IM level and had tons of positive feedback, enjoyment and people who commented on the maps having great flow and seeming really playable. Try to reserve judgement and theories until you see the maps undergo some high level play, which is what this tournament is for :)

equally this showcase is to see if the maps are not good enough as well, we haven't picked these maps with the intention of ignoring the players who say they don't like them, I openly asked teams to participate who were against map changes because that opinion is equally as important as the people that do like the maps, and they denied to play regardless.

Is there a list of the rosters and the matches somewhere ? Thanks for organizing this !

small update, botmodes team has dropped out and has been replaced by Stoned to Death, Captained by Mason

everything but propaganda blows

*

aside from maps being unfinished heres the consensus most of my team + bear came to

logjam is doomed/still too big/reminds me of how coldfront and yukon play in that theres just annoying long sightlines and a really big slow mid that has all the drawbacks of sunshine w/o any of the positives (really big and u just counter-rotate until u find a kill) i dont know how u fix that map without just starting a new because outside of a few fights on second the map just seems like its better suited for a pub server with 32 players not 12

alamosa has flow issues and the amount of routes/rooms in between 2 and last is bizarrely overdone. a lot of the props/walls are deceiving but thats probably more the map being a work in progress. maybe once textures are added it will become easier to differentiate routes and parts of the map but this one really hurts to look at

kalinkas mid probably the best part of the map, the transitions are definitely better and the map looks alright but theres nothing about it that would ever make me consider playing it over the lesser maps in our pool (including cardinal) i dont think theres a quick fix or feedback i can give that will really help it at this point. fights are still segmented and 2 and last are both awkward fights

propaganda plays like a mix between sunshine and process and it seems like the only viable option to include in our map pool this year. its polished, the routes make sense and its intuitive as to how you can see fights playing out. last might be a little too easy to push and healtpacks might need to be more accessible on mid/last while harder to grab on 2nd but we definitely enjoyed messing around on this map more than the others

hope this was helpful, thank you luc for putting this cup together

here is my vod from last night, the panel discussion starts at around 2 hours, 57 minutes https://www.twitch.tv/videos/352015952 and lasts about an hour and a half, some really positive things and good feedback overall and we even got some discussion in at the end with tri about the map formats etc.