The State Of Atwar

Hello, Some of you may remember me, I registered in early 2012 and played pretty frequently up until 2015 and then quit once I found the game rather stale and ongoing with lack of direction. I very recently came back via curiosity after Nero asked me to, to find that the game has not changed that much in those 3 years with shockingly almost 0 new maps or scenarios being made and that the map making community was almost entirely dead and many, if not most of the old guard, like me, had quit.

I have since then discussed with some old players both on here whom have stayed and on my steam friend list who have quit and have since compiled a short list of what seems to be the largest problems facing atwar and theorised solutions to these problems. Once the list was compiled i reached out to the groups whom are most applicable to the problems such as map makers.

I will preface this with a number of things:
A) I have had discussions with numerous players across all the gameplay types i.e scenario/3v3/competitive players aswell are map makers so these are not all my stand alone ideas and thoughts but rather a compiling and sifting through of the most popular and or voiced opinions and thought.
B) These do not have to be the only or the best solutions
C) iv'e been away for three years, so apologies if anything I state is wrong or already suggested and that ears are open to anyone willing to voice anything else.

This short list consists of:
1) No New Maps And Scenarios
2) Garbage Map Editor
3) No One Plays New Maps
4) Ranks Are Meaningless
5) Rankism
6) Strategies only work in Europe+
7) Competitive / 3v3 is dead or dying or at the least, not growing.

1) No New Scenarios And Maps

Its been brought to my attention the grand autistic Nazis such as Tik-tok and Aetius are no longer around along with a large portion of casual map makers and such.

Therefore it would be logical to incentivize map makers to create new maps and scenarios.
Examples of such could be:

Milestones of play e.g. 25,50,100 are rewarded with Protocoins/Small time frames of premium with the number of plays scaling with required players i.e. 20 players scenarios requiring significantly less plays than 1v1 scenarios

Map Makers whose maps/scenarios reach a degree of "fame" gain map Maker symbol/badge and possibly access to a separate chatroom, allowing established map makers to pool ideas and such and or another map maker channel that all has access to similar to help.

Map Contests driven by the community/mods/dev to further incentivize new maps/scenarios

Another Idea I have floated to generally favourable opinions is to remove Map maker from premium only, premium is largely wanted for combat advantage it offers with the general, upgrades and strategies with other perks such as hosting and global chat with map making being very insignificant for a very large amount of premium members, opening to all players with it perhaps being locked behind a rank restriction (5/4+) or something would open map making to a much larger audience. I For one stopped making maps once my premium ran out, despite the fact I both enjoyed it and made half decent maps that i never got around to finishing entirely or balancing due to this (Siege of Minas Tirith & Another few unreleased maps with original scenarios that were almost complete, one being Africa and the other being Kings Landing)

The final idea would be to fix the map maker, which links to the next point.

Garbage Map Editor

Even in 2015 when I quit, the map editor was... less than ideal to say the least and after asking a number of map makers the conclusion i have come to, is its still a buggy mess.

First and foremost it seems the borders themselves are the most fraught with bugs with borders not being able to be copied with bugging, not saving whatsoever then corrupting the map and also disappearing under the map to name a few of the bugs told to me.
Also being unable to clone own maps for use being an issue.

A few players whom had had an interest in map making in the past stated that the whole HUD could be more user friendly and an in maker tutorial/tips would be welcomed as not everyone visits the forums and so it would open it up to an otherwise more casual or just ignorant portion of the community whom do not want to or just dont visit the forums with the basics of map maker being explained to them inside the tool itself.

One person i spoke to stated they didn't know their friends could help them make their map, back in 2015 this option was available and so I assume it still is so, so clarity may also be an issue concerning some features of the map maker.

Another few people wanted some form of communication channel where they could ask mods/informed members concerning historical accuracy's in their own maps/ scenarios to make sure they were not mistaken and or to confirm what they have done. Im not sure how they could/would be implemented but its worth thinking about.

Buildings currently are not implemented within the map maker, adding these with the functionality of buildings unlocking other buildings and or units adds a large degree of strategy to any scenarios and maps that can be created, effectively allowing for tech levels, creating a more economy based scenario where the best method of winning may no longer be trying to spam units to attack or defend and instead focusing on tech in a similar vein to star-craft.

No One Plays New Maps/Scenarios

Another strong opinion I faced was that even when new maps and scenarios are created that are worth of playing, they simply are not hosted or seen by players.

Im not entirely aware of how maps are currently featured but possibly picking up on new maps/scenarios and featuring them if they pass through criteria by "judges" so they are featured for x days/weeks would help get light to these otherwise diamonds in the rough.

Another idea would be map makers can request their map be judged and if passed on quality etc by a chosen panel of judges, the map would give increased sp gains for the first 10/25/50/100 plays etc of the map, to help gather the following for the map in the first place.

These two ideas are very tentative as they would require a decent amount of engagement by whomever the judge team is but I believe it is very important for map makers good maps to both be recognised and played, which unfortunately right now, is not happening.

Rankism And Ranks Meaning Nothing

Rankism has always been an issue in atwar with higher ranks preferring other high ranks as they would usually be assumed to have increased skill expression making for more competitive scenarios/ 3v3's etc and avoiding straight stomps. I personally do not see this ever changing as a lot of high ranking players whom are too set in their ways will just not change. This leaves it to others to both be welcoming and helpful to newer players. Back before i quit the adopt a noob programme had been started where high ranking players would effectively become mentors for a specific low ranked player who signed up. Im not sure what happened to this programme but bringing it back alongside similar initiatives could really help lower ranked players both feel more included and improve at a significantly faster rate.

As for ranks meaning nothing these days its been brought to my attention that a lot of people have become higher ranked 8,9,10+ etc while not improving that much as would be expected back in 2014-2013 etc which has lead to the perception of ranks becoming more and more meaningless as an indication of skill within the community, I personally cannot come up with a solution and could find no one to voice any to me that would not involve a total overhaul of the ranking system or a changing of the ranking/elo system so i will not discuss this further in the interest of trying to keep the post on topic.

Strategies Only Work On EU+

I Will be the first to admit I am relatively ignorant on this topic but that strats like GW/NC Etc only get any use whatsoever on EU+ and the like because thats what they are balanced around. For mapmakers to try to balance their maps around these niche strategies is extremely obnoxious and honest to god, not worth it almost ever and as such they get left at the way side for other strats such as IMP/PD/Blitz/IF etc. Usually i would advocate for changes in these strategies to make them more applicable to scenarios but iv'e been told that custom strategies for scenarios and maps are in the works so this problem will hopefully be almost fully resolved upon release of this.

The Competitive 3v3 Scene

I Was going to talk a decent amount about how the competitive scene player base is effectively dead with it being the same small group of players playing but after reading njabs thread ( https://atwar-game.com/forum/topic.php?topic_id=40278&topicsearch=&page=1 ) and also talking to a number of 3v3/competitive players there is seemingly three groups.

Group A) Want modified EU+/ME/Africa etc to make them more balanced and change up the EU+ Meta slightly
Group B) Want map makers to make custom scenarios/maps that are balanced to allow for play.
Group C) Competitive is fine not expanding its player base and nothing is wrong

As for group A and B i believe there is some overlap some from one group wanting the same as the other and or both.
The two seemingly larger groups A and B just want some diversity in the maps available that are accepted to play as playing EU+ for 7 years is rather... stale.
Group C seems incredibly stubborn and unwilling to change their position so I will not even attempt to talk about them in this post as it seems incredibly fruitless.
To hash out solutions for groups A and B I will leave to other more experienced competitive players since that never was and never will be my scene but still care about it as a healthy competitive scene is just better for the games health overall.

To conclude, I personally, as well as a number of people iv'e talked decently in depth with this about, believe that fixing the map maker and improving it is the first step in fixing a large portion of these problems and then coupled with community engagement within the specific communities (Map Makers, Scenario players and competitive players) to find the best solutions, not necessarily any listed here, to these problems can be a strong step forward for atwar as a whole and can revitalise both the map making community and finally get some good bloody maps and scenarios made as there is TONNES of untapped potential that deserves to be explored such as Warhammer Fantasy/40k, specific Seiges/battles across many fantasy universes and even a lot of established fantasy itself and i'm sure a lot more i'm not thinking of currently within our own human history.

Thank you for reading,
Morgan ^.^