BF3 map rotation in desperate need of a change...again...

[Themaninblack]

I think the BF3 map list needs desperate attention. I know, I know. its a dying game. But thats part of the problem. We are all desperately holding on for BF6 this year.

Back in the good ole days, TBGs BF3 server was just conquest on vanilla maps (at least thats what I remember when I was playing from 2014-present). TBG struggles to stay alive nowadays, between the lackluster players, to the repeated DDOS/crash attacks, to the glitch where only half of players can join before the game starts a queue and then you cant join at all.

But a bigger part of the problem is the map rotation. I get it, diverse maps and game modes to mix it up. But this is now what I can remember the third iteration of this "randomized" playlist and it doesnt seem to be doing so hot and is worse than the previous one. Rush on HORRIBLY unbalanced armored kill maps, TDM on close quarters maps that play better with domination, to name a few. I know that votemap no longer works properly, which is why it has not been on the server for the better part of 2-3 years now.

But PLEASE PLEASE consider reworking the map rotation again. The game is too dead for this map rotation that according to the chat logs and player counts/ participation, not many people like. A lot of times, it becomes a snooze fest. Conquest on Gulf of oman just now for the 3rd time playing it on the server in the last few days, was a cap out. Rush on the armored kill maps, the attackers rarely are able to push up, ESPECIALLY on armored shield where the US side gets no helicopter at first and then noone bothers to play seriously anymore. A lot of players dont really like playing the DLC maps anymore because this game just doesnt have the population to keep the server healthy through them a lot of the time. Add to this, when the rotation gets to a specific spot where its just crappy gamemode on a crappy map followed by ANOTHER crappy map and crappy gamemode, people leave in waves and sometimes the server never recovers, or gets crashed on top of it.

With respect, can you guys consider reworking the rotation? Try just the vanilla maps again and see where that goes? We all know that this server, let alone BF3 as a game wholesale is on life support. But give it a gander!

Respectfully,

Mennoboy_Spare
Currently 110th on server stats board (to show that I play your server daily).

 

[sage]

I am hesitant to weigh in because I know this is a frustrating topic for the admins but I hope to bring something new to the discussion with the below.

Back when votemap was a thing and we had the gameme stats site you could look at percentage of maps played. Given that maps were decided by vote, you could use this to see what maps were the most popular.

Thankfully we can still access the stats via the wayback machine. https://web.archive.org/web/20211023150434/http://tbgclan.gameme.com/maps/bfiii

The most played map (by a considerable amount) was Grand Bazaar. Metro & Seine Crossing were 2nd-3rd and were pretty closely tied. A signifcant drop then gives us Firestorm, Caspian, Damavand & Kharg. Tehran comes in last by a long way (I don't know why, it's a great map).

You have to disqualify Gulf of Oman, Strike and Karkand and Sharqi Peninsuala from the list as they were seeder maps (first map in rotation) as evidenced by the large playtime and almost no kills.

For DLC the top 3 maps were Markaz Monolith, Epicenter & Azadi Palace. These are all medium-sized maps although maybe Epicenter can be considered small. And this is with disqualifying the above 3 because there is no good way to know how they fit in. But anecdotally, I remember Sharqi, Oman and Karkand all being very popular. Sharqi and Karkand are medium-sized maps and Oman a large map.

I think this shows the playerbase in general prefers small to medium sized maps. Large maps are the least popular.

Today I played 16 rounds. 10 of which were what I would call "big maps" (5 of which were Armoured Kill DLC maps... which are actually massive, not just big). I'm not even considering Nosh Canals as a big map despite it having jets and attack helicopters. If I did, it would be 12/16. I even played Bandar Desert 3 times out of these 16 games.

Rush lends itself to poor games, too often. The nature of the game makes it far easier for Rush to be a blow out either way when compared with Conquest. While basecamps do happen in Conquest they are less common. Rush is balanced asymmetrically a lot of the times (1 team has a helicopter, gunship or tanks etc. and the other team has no vehicles) and if their are good vehicle players it ends in a stomp. This is exacerbated by the fact that it is a 64p server and Rush isn't designed for that much and means that people are forced into the two or three lanes where it's incredibly difficult to make any progress allows vehicles to shell and spam crowds far too easily.

I know you said you don't want to change it this late its lifespan. But I'm pretty sure it underwent a massive map rotation change just a few months ago or at least at the start of the year.

I think this server would benefit from going back to Conquest (and Conquest Assault) only. And removing the very small maps (the Close Quarters DLC). Ideally the gigantic maps too (Armoured Kill DLC). And just being Vanilla + Karkand + Aftermath. This gives us a great mix of small(ish), medium and large maps while condensing the maplist significantly, allowing people to play their favourite maps at least once per day if they play for several hours because they will get to go through a full rotation.