I suggest the following changes, for rotation 2 ;-
to if numclients > 6 rotation2
Replace one of the ATCS with UTCS and another with Nano. Maybe add fort 5 instead of UTCS or replace another ATCS/HD
For rotation 3 ;
Replace one ATCS with Karith and another with nexus 6. Replace a ATCS HD with atcszalpha.
Rotation 4 implies we have 10+ a side, ATCS is NOT an option.
I recommend removing the 2 ATCS HD and replacing them with procryon and the other with gloom/pulse/watah/transit/rotcannonb11 (large qwerky maps, NOT TREECANNON), a callvote can still be called.
Just so people are aware, ATCS HD and ATCS are the exact same maps game-play wise. Playing them 3 times in a row is just too tedious. Nano and UTCS are similar size and gameplay and give a nice change.
Another suggestion :-
Every 2 weeks we should have a community vote to replace 1 map from each rotation (You would vote which map you want gone and which map you want to take it’s place)
This keeps the community happy and stops the rotation getting too stale.
Actually, I extremely dislike atcs, I wrote this rotation file as a temporary test to see if it would help get pub to be used as a pub again, instead of club being used as a pub.
ATCS is a very popular map for obvious reasons, although I think once it reaches 8+ a side the majority will agree it’s time to move away from it. As long as ATCS is encountered frequently when <10 players it won’t kill the server populous.
Additionally large maps like procryon don’t necessarily cause a decline in players. It’s the large AND troll maps that cause a problem such as treecannon and epic.
I’m not against playing on procryon for large games, it was just annoying to play so repeatedly when we hit that rotation previously. Any map will feel tedious if it is played too much (cough. cough, atcs, caugh). We will probably include procryon in a high player count rotation again, however, there will be other good large maps there as well.
Regarding Treecannon, I like that map and don’t consider it a troll map. It has never been in the rotation on GrangerPub, however it does seem to be called relatively often when there are a lot of players, and the population doesn’t seem to radically drop during the course of the match.
As for the map Epic, I find it very interesting to play, especially with higher speeds, however, I don’t think it is a map for GrangerPub that the majority of the current player base would appreciate, that is why it is on GrangerClub,. Besides the fact that a clan match could start on GrangerClub at anytime, resulting in players that are not participating in the match to be put to the spec team, GrangerClub is also meant to include maps that a non-majority of players enjoy.
Remove volcano and Mission_one_b7 from the rotation. As much as I love mission_one, it’s not a good map to have in the regular rotation, and volcano is just awful for gameplay.
Also increase the player numbers for rotation 3 to start to be 17, and rotation 4 to start to be 25+, imo.
Why is mission one not a good map to have in the regular rotation? It is extremely popular among both 1.1 & gpp players, and since it has been available, it is already called semi-regularly.
I have found the game play of volcano to be very interesting and fairly balanced. There are many good locations to build both good human and good alien bases. There are many way bother humans & aliens can navigate the map. It seems that the map isn’t biased between neither team. It has a hilarious anti-jetcamp mechanism. It also seems that each game progresses differently.
The only area on the human side where you are suppose to die at least once is that water area in the end. However, you can cheat death if you glitch through the death wall with the rc, but that is not how that obstacle was meant to be played.
“Standard” is very subjective. Tremulous has had many popular game plays over the years, and many popular maps with diverse game plays. Besides the fact that mission one is very popular among Tremulous players in general and will be callvoted often any ways if it wasn’t in the rotation, it is good for training parkour, as well as for encouraging players to solve problems as a team. Then when you get to the end, “traditional” Tremulous game play kicks in. “Non-standard” is not a bad thing to through into the mix.
On mission_one_b7, you can’t physically complete it solo without dying at least twice. You have to jump down to press the button at the end of Area 1, and at the end of Area 3. The rest of the map is possible to get through without dying, though.
I am a big fan of mission_one, but I don’t think that it’s a good map to have in the rotation. Maps with standard trem gameplay should be in the rotation; let people vote on whether they want to play mission maps or not.