The player base and community of SC1 custom maps has become smaller and smaller. Back in early 2000s, you could host almost any custom map and the lobby would fill instantly. SC1 was an oasis for super interesting custom games (I'd argue we've been replaced by Steam more or less)--the bar to make new maps is super low, so we'd always get awesome new content. In 2021, it can take an hour or longer to fill even a popular game. While there are many fewer players, those who still play custom games are generally higher quality players--more patient and willing to try new ideas. Nevertheless, given that filling a lobby takes a long time, I'd like mappers to consider design principles that help deal with the drastically reduced size of the community. This applies to both new maps and old maps being reworked.
The goal of these designs is to keep players in the game which means keeping them happy and engaged. It means not punishing people severely for mistakes (e.g. misclick and lose an important hero unit forever). It means games work well even if you're missing one or two players. It means not forcing players to leave the game even if they've "lost".
1. No elimination/defeat/kicking player triggers. This means if a player loses, they should not be forced to leave the game. This is a massive flaw in most maps, because it means everyone trickles out one by one and you lose your whole group. Instead, at minimum, allow losing players to observe. For more creative play, allow losing players a 2nd chance, or to play as an adversary to the existing players in the game (e.g. in a Zombie map they'd become infected instead of just eliminated). This gives players an incentive to stay in the game and keep your lobby/group together, so when the game ends you don't have to wait an hour to play another game. Players are forced to leave once another play gets victory.
1. No permanent death of heroes/key units, etc. Number one rage quitting is if a player loses a hero and they can't revive them. Instead, provide a way for a player to revive their dead heroes. Can be done by making it expensive (but not impossible) or take a long time. Personally I like a timer approach, hero revives automatically (for very low cost) but is out for maybe 2 minutes. This still punishes players for losing their hero but doesn't punish them enough to make them lose the game or have a massive disadvantage.
2. No more "required" slots. Many games have "required" slots, if they aren't filled the game usually ends immediately. Or, if the required player leaves, the game ends, ruining it for everyone. There are many design patterns to deal with required slots without ending the game. E.g. designing triggers that detect when a player leaves, and if possible gives units their ally.
3. When placing units for all players, place units only for computers or extended players, then use triggers (location + give units) to give each human player their assign units. This allows you to build trigger systems that respond well if there is a missing player (e.g. simply split their units among the remaining players, etc.).
4. Build maps that have fewer human slots (4-5) and more PvE interactions. 8 lobby games are pretty much dead unless you have a fanatic group of friends. I recommend making new maps only to suit 4-5 human players max and make up with it by having more CPU/environment interactions. This makes lobbies easier to fill.
5. No maps with absurd victory time limits like 1 hour. I'm talking about defense maps like Helms Deep, Minas Tirith, etc. Nobody is going to play these maps for 1 hour just to sit out a timer. If you have a map where time is a victory condition, I'd aim for no longer than 30 minutes.
6. For PvE maps, consider publishing 2 versions: one where it's just PvE and another where the computer slots are now human slots. This greatly improved replayability. Of course you need to add triggers/balance when a human is controlling the environment.
I'll edit and add more design considerations as needed.
Thoughts? Any other ideas?
Happy mapping!
None.