Not playing the same maps over and over.

[Captain Colon]

There REALLY needs to be some way to keep a map off of votes if it's one of the last 5 or so maps that's been played. Apparently people have fun playing boatescape and jurassicpark over and over and over and over again, but I think it sucks that we can't even get to the 10-minute mark on another map without it getting RTV'd.

Or maybe raise the RTV threshold to 75% or add some kind of confirmation vote after an RTV? As it is right now it always ends up like this with 30 people:

-18 people hate map and RTV...for the sake of argument let's assume the other 12 are having fun and don't want to change map.
-Now mapvote comes up...let's say that they're:
1. mumbo jumbo
2. jurassicpark
3. blackmesa
4. island

What usually ends up happening is you'll get a couple votes for mumbo, maybe 5 or 6 for island, and the rest will be split between blackmesa and jurassicpark, one of them ends up winning by 2 or 3 votes, but most of the time less than half the server actually voted for that map (with 30 players the winning map usually has around 10 votes unless the other 3 choices are really bad), so after 10 minutes you have people RTVing the next map because only a few people really wanted to play it. The only maps that tend to get played all the way through are boatescape, helicopter and jurassicpark. Helicopter I don't mind so much cause there's a lot of ways you can play it, but the other two are just incredibly boring now. Yesterday we played jurassic park literally every other map for a while.

[Jaffa]

just get your nominations in quick, get the rtv possible maps filled up

[Captain Colon]

I always make sure to nominate the maps as soon as the round starts...but nobody wants to vote for maps where 2 humans can't hold off an entire horde of zombies...I mean I like to do that SOMETIMES, but that's when I go and play on napalm. We actually came up with a decent idea: nominate all maps that everyone hates so nobody will rtv. Even then though, people STILL don't vote for "keep current map," they'll still change it and then after 5 minutes go "THIS MAP SUCKS RTV GUYS" Tested and proven in the game

I have a special place in my bowels for jurassicpark because there's only one way to play it. Unless the zombies get lucky and manage to get at least 7-10 humans (which usually only happens when someone shoots the planks out), it's impossible to win. One person guarding generator room can hold off almost any number of zombies long enough for everyone else to escape, and while zombies can get over the gate with the power on, it only takes one person there to just knock them back until the gate kills them. I've seen two humans win the map before, and it wasn't because the zombies sucked. With a couple tweaks (the gate doing a little less damage and maybe another path) I think it'd be a fun map that also manages to stay interesting. I like maps like rooftop...ignoring the jumping part of it, it's not frustratingly hard for the zombies to win, but humans can hold nearly anywhere on the map so you have to work for it. Arctic is actually good like this too, but the way the boats and lifts trigger makes it incredibly difficult for humans because a lot of people just don't know that jumping into the boat will trigger it.

I know I have different taste in maps than most people (I actually like mumbojumbo >_>) but I also know that a lot of people are sick of playing the same maps repeatedly. If most of the players really wanted to play nothing but these maps then I wouldn't mind as much, but when the server used manimod and you could see how many votes each option had, you could see that the winning map rarely even had a majority vote, let alone an overwhelming majority. I think it helps contribute to a lot of annoying behavior too, because people are mad that they have to play a map they don't like and decide to not necessarily purposely screw people over, but play more selfishly so that they can maximize their fun level (everyone knows it's no fun to lose :P). Then that tends to start a cascade of "well you fucked me [over] so I'm gonna fuck you [over]" and just really ruins the game for everyone.

[Suri]

I agree on allot of what you are saying. I like Mumbo Jumbo Too. We have allot of maps that never get played. I also get annoyed when a map changes and in the first 5 mins people are screaming over the mic RTV RTV RTV!!! Drives me crazy. Just play the MAP!

[Shadowex3]

He's got a point, I was playing with him the other day and we literally did not finish a round on any one map before an RTV had started. 18 people out of 30 is a little over half the server, if RTV took something closer to 25 people to trigger and only after at least 2 rounds had been played it might be used more sparingly.

[Captain Colon]

If there was just a way to be better able to choose a map that most of the people really want to play...what would be awesome is if we could have an instant-runoff vote (if you don't know what that is you can just read this). I have no idea if some kind of plugin exists that would allow it, or how hard one would be to code (the code to actually calculate the vote isn't complicated at all, it's pretty much just a single loop) but it would be great.

Even if we could just change the RTV system so that the winning map needs at least decent majority vote to actually change (maybe run a second vote like some servers do when two maps get the same number of votes) then I think everyone would be a lot happier.

[Shadowex3]

What about the mapvotes altering the map progression so in a case of no clear majority the next and third map are changed to the top 2 vote choices?

[vinhex]

I guess theres not much you can do, except nominate a lot of maps so that it fills up the bill. Otherwise, its just popular vote, and in a semi-democratic community, the popular vote wins.....so it is inevitible that jurassicpark, heli, mesa, and boatescape5 will be played the most.

[November Terra]

Almost every time an RTV is successful, a group of people large enough to start an rtv vote don't like the map that the server changed to and so rtv themselves. And then the same happens over and over with each rtv until there's only a minority of people that want it. Usually the maps last 30 minutes before a successful rtv can be called.

So why not remove rtv, or at least increase the time till the first vote can be cast, and then decrease map time down to 30 minutes from 50 minutes?

[Decesus]

I have to agree with this. I find myself playing Jurrasic Park five times in a sitting. Maybe a time limit between the same map or something. I'm just sick of running the same map for 30 rounds.