I think it's well agreed on with anyone that can play at a high level that course maps are plain boring. They offer no gameplay except mindlessly following a parkour course to reach the end. The whole premise of this is trying to stay ahead of a zombie. Not only is this insanely easy, but for a lot of players it's a complete waste of time.
I wish there would be more support for the players on here that actually play at a high level with more new maps that taylor to competitive gameplay that requires some level on intellect to play around the map. There's no reason a map should have like a 60% win chance or higher.
Nowdays it seems like we lack any real players here. Most of them got bored and I understand the bordem and burnout. Not only that but we seem to have a lack of interest from any of the new players on trying to improve.
Course maps and easy giant prorun maps ruin the game. They kill off large populations of the server as nobody wants to wait around on a long round like that. Not only that, most of these people voting these maps cause they are easier end up dead anyways. When they realize they can't kill anyone they just leave causing even more population drops.
I agree with your point about the giant pro-run maps. They only work when we have a lot of players online. As for parkour maps, they have been a part of the zombie survival culture for as long as I can remember. They are popular because players enjoy the challenge of having to get every jump correct and one wrong jump can cost the player their human status. Of course, parkour is not everyone's cup of tea and everyone is entitled to their opinion on it. Some players enjoy it, others dislike it and some don't mind it. This opinion can be shared on all types of maps including the smaller pro run maps.
I appreciate that the community has many different types of maps that suit all types of players. As you said yourself, the giant pro run maps are not the best. The smaller to medium-sized pro run maps are much more fun and challenge players to get better at the pro running aspect of the game. However, I think there is plenty of support for players who enjoy pro running on small and medium-sized pro-run maps as combining the maps count there are currently 85 of these maps in rotation. To put that into perspective, parkour course plus open course (which includes an element of pro run) plus large open maps plus spleef maps (which also include an element of pro run) are also 85 maps combined. So when it comes to active maps, it is slightly one-sided to the small and medium pro run maps.
If a player feels that parkour course maps are being voted too many times, any player is welcome to ask a staff member to run a poll for a map to be queued (as long as it is not too often) or the player can purchase a queue level from the store. The vote level update was an interesting addition to support players' choices of maps. It is much more affordable than queue level and guarantees the map you want to play to be in the next map vote when the round ends. Of course, if the player base predominantly enjoys parkour course maps then it has the risk of not being voted as the other two maps could be chosen.
You mentioned the win percentage, we have some maps that are much easier to survive on than others and when I play, they seem to be picked relatively equally. I notice we have a few maps that are more difficult to survive than others, however, I think the easier maps are selected just as often. However, that's what I noticed (I don't play 24/7 to track it). Perhaps if it is a common occurrence that easier maps are voted the majority of the time we could think of a way to balance it better to support the players that want more of a challenge. Although, we would need to organise a study to see what the rates are over a sustained period of time. Perhaps even running it multiple times to see if there are any patterns. That would be a long term project to see if the algorithm for selecting maps to vote could be improved to make it balanced in selecting harder and easier maps.
My only real gripe with your post is calling players "real players". Personally, I don't like this because it can easily start a most elite mentality on the server and this typically is a catalyst for toxic traits to start on a game. We have to appreciate that not everyone plays the game to be the best possible player every round. The zombie survival game mode is a simple yet enjoyable game mode. With the right community of players, it can become a social hub for people globally. Some people don't want to spend time improving their skills but enjoy talking to other players and making friends. We have seen this on Classicube and Minecraft Classic over the years. The main communities were Blocktopia, Minemaniacs, Caznowl and Ablockz. Each community provided an enjoyable game, and great friendships. I have rambled a bit too much on this point but what I'm saying is, that a "real player" is someone who respects the rules of the community and does not go out of their way to cause trouble if they disagree, but instead makes a suggestion that could lead to change.
I think you definitely have a solid point with the easier and harder maps, and the giant pro run maps as they are not liable for the player count and I think this could be a good opening to see what the community thinks about it too.
Never apologise for a rant, all you did was raise some concerns you noticed in the right place for this type of conversation. Some points I agreed with, others I didn't agree with but we can have a mature conversation about it and potentially make a suggestion.
That rant was a little arrogant looking back at it. I used to be a casual player and an avid course lover. I was kind of shitted on and bullied a little back then which drove me to play at a higher level. I realize that it's just a game not everyone cares about that kind of thing.
To be honest, I think I enjoyed being on here a lot more back when I wasn't as good. Being a B tier player on here isn't all that it's meant to be. You see things from an elitest view and you get frustrated when the majority doesn't understand you.
I think there needs to be a balance and a way to make the server fun for everyone. One thing that almost all players can agree on are getting big prorun maps off rotation. I think we could also increase the rewards for being zombie so more people would be inclined to play that.
I do agree with the big pro-runs and I also believe the rewards for being zombies should be a little bit better, which is something I suggested around the discussion and implementation of the XP system, but nothing more happened with it. One of the suggestions being that infections gives 2 XP rather than 1 XP, as it's the main award other than bloodbags.
Leicestercity touched on all the things I disagree with as well, so not going to bother mentioning those things other than mentioning that having multiple categories i.e prorun and course maps offers a lot more variety than having just one. If you remove one of the main big categories, it'll be unbalanced and you'll see more and more players leaving because their preferable type of maps aren't around anymore.
I do however disagree with your statement saying that just because you're a "B tier player" you have elitist views. Your ranking doesn't matter, either you have elitist views or you don't, it's really as simple as that. I'm someone who've been ranked as a B tier player and I'd say I don't have an elitist view on things, would also say that some ranked higher than the both of us don't have elitist views, it varies from player to player.
I think the majority of my views have already been said. I personally like course maps, but I also like pro run so I'm pretty neutral on what style of map I like to play. I don't agree with removing course maps as a category, there are plenty of players who enjoy these style of maps so I don't think that would be the best way to go. However I do agree with the big pro-runs. To me a pro run map should be more of a challenge, whereas the large pro runs are really easy to survive on and take away from that challenge aspect.
Also feel free to rant as long as it's respectful ranting. If everyone bottled up their feelings on certain subjects then there would never be room to discuss and make this game even better!
I think it's well agreed on with anyone that can play at a high level that course maps are plain boring. They offer no gameplay except mindlessly following a parkour course to reach the end. The whole premise of this is trying to stay ahead of a zombie. Not only is this insanely easy, but for a lot of players it's a complete waste of time.
I wish there would be more support for the players on here that actually play at a high level with more new maps that taylor to competitive gameplay that requires some level on intellect to play around the map. There's no reason a map should have like a 60% win chance or higher.
Nowdays it seems like we lack any real players here. Most of them got bored and I understand the bordem and burnout. Not only that but we seem to have a lack of interest from any of the new players on trying to improve.
Course maps and easy giant prorun maps ruin the game. They kill off large populations of the server as nobody wants to wait around on a long round like that. Not only that, most of these people voting these maps cause they are easier end up dead anyways. When they realize they can't kill anyone they just leave causing even more population drops.
Sorry for another rant
The server is bound to die out slowly as far as the majority of this staff team is concerned. They'll face the consequences one way or another