Rehome Chiller's Door Maze (and potentially the other primary guess maps)

[MeddleLyn]

Hi! Currently, Chiller's Door Maze (ckd) is located in the search hub alongside the other green searches and is indistinguishable from the other maps. The map is primary guess and secondary maze. There are three other FFA primary guess maps: Pandemonium (pan; primary guess; secondary maze, puzzle), Soar's Door Maze (sdm; primary guess; secondary maze, search), and Trick or Treat (trick; pure guess). To my knowledge, Pandemonium and Soar's Door Maze are located in the maze hub and Trick or Treat is located in the adventure hub.

My primary concern is that I believe that Chiller's Door Maze does not belong in the search hub. It is confusing to new players who expect the maps in the search hub (especially given that there has no distinction between pure and mixed searches due to using the smaller hub) and is inconsistent with the organization system of other maps. I recognize that the rarity of guess maps is a large factor in how these maps are sorted, so I have a few ideas of solutions:

• Remove Chiller's Door Maze from the search hub and place it in the maze hub under mixed maze.
  • This would make ckd consistent with pan and sdm, but would leave trick as an outlier in the adventure category. This is likely one of the simplest solutions. However, it does not truly address the issue of what happens to new guess maps published in the future. While some maps can be sorted by secondary category, others are pure guess and are unable to be sorted that way.
• Allocate a specific area or board within a larger hub (search, adventure, maze, etc.) as a board for primary guess maps and move all four maps there.
  • This would function similarly to the race board in the co-op section, a section set aside from the traditional difficulties board which serves to identify these maps as different from the other maps in the hub. However, the difficulty here lies within determining which hub to place it in. Search may be appropriate as guessing is close enough, but the search hub lacks the space to fit a new board for these maps. Maze would be appropriate, although trick does not have the secondary maze tag. My personal preference would be the adventure hub, as it serves as a kind of catch-all for map types and I am sure there could be a space carved out for this (though I acknowledge that adventure is its own, unique category).
  • The downsides of this solution is that if/when more FFA guess maps are published, this becomes less and less feasible of a solution as maps are added to both the primary hub (eg. search) and the guess board. This limits the allocated space for the intended maps and may also be confusing for new players looking within the hubs.
• Create a new small hub (eg. search, dropper, co-op) for primary guess maps.
  • While this is a solution I find silly not to propose, I do not personally believe that there are enough primary guess maps to justify its own hub at this time. Additionally, the question then becomes where we place the hub. I find it difficult to say I would like any of the spawn portals to be removed. Challenges, Hardcore, ???, Legacy, and Events are all things I think it is important to put in front of players, as they all represent important parts of Minr history and/or culture. To replace any of these with a guess category seems a shame. The argument can be made that one of these things (Legacy is best for this in my opinion) can be moved to one of the four corners of spawn (similarly to the artifacts hub and spawn credits) and still be accessible without being moved far away.
• Place a sign above each primary guess map that identifies it at such, similar to the FFA+ or "Also in Co-Op" signs.
  • This is not my favorite solution, as I believe it does not address the root of the issue here, but it is undeniably the easiest to implement that will reduce much of the confusion currently present. This method does also become less tenable if/when more guess maps are published and we fall back into previously mentioned issues.

It is worth noting that none of these solutions are mutually exclusive and may be able to be implemented and swapped out at the appropriate time, as need demands. As it stands, I believe that the current organization of primary guess maps is not ideal and is worth rectifying; I think that guess maps deserve their own distinctions as members of their category that have been published into FFA. Trick or Treat is a fun map! But, it is a guess map that deserves a distinction separate from the adventure category. These are just the ideas I have been thinking of, but I would love to hear what other people have to say. I mostly just would like Chiller's Door Maze to not be in the search hub please. Thank you!!!

 

[steppy]

I would agree with moving the map to the maze hub and including a sign specifying that it is a primary guess map. I believe there aren't enough guess maps to warrant its own hub, but at least this one certainly shouldn't be kept in search. It doesn't have any as far as I remember while it does have a maze which takes up the second half of the map.

 

[Half_Liquid]

These are good ideas. But guess is weird and it get very tricky very fast, as you've already explained.

Given the small number of relevant maps, it seems best to place these culprits in the most closely related hubs, and (possibly) include disclaimer signs that label the map as having significant guess elements. The only map on the list I haven't played and completed is Trick or Treat, and I would maybe include Telepads in the conversation, although I believe it's primary maze, secondary guess, and already in the maze hub.

Chiller's Door Maze in particular belongs in the maze hub. Yes, the first section is just a raw guess, but the second section is effectively a maze with guess elements, and the third section literally is a maze. It does not belong in the search hub.

Now, I say *possibly* include disclaimer signs because deciding how much guess elements factor into a map is very ambiguous, especially in regards to maze maps. Fundamentally, all mazes, searches, and guesses are solved in the same way: check everything you haven't checked until you find what you need.

However:

• Mazes often provide you a sense of direction, and there are many techniques that allow you to eliminate paths without taking them.
• Searches, also, can be streamlined by having a sense of where or how something might be hidden.
• Guesses, we all understand, have no shortcuts or techniques that allow you to reach the solution quicker than pure chance.
  • According to the Wiki, they also correlate with significant wastes of time, loss of large chunks of progress, or high death potential.

This is straightforward enough, but gets messy very quickly when guess is included as a secondary type. How much guess qualifies a map to earn a secondary tag? After all, every maze and search map at least start out with guess elements. But how come, say, Pistomatic is pure maze and Soar's is primary guess when they both solve very similarly? Is it because of the softlock potential on Soar's? There's no softlocks on Chiller's and it's primary guess. Sure, Chiller's wastes your time, but so do long loopbacks in mazes. Effectively, what's the difference between a softlock and route that sends you back to the start? Pistomatic and Pandemonium will both send you back to the start, but the former is a pure maze and the latter is primary guess. Is it because one uses teleports? Pandemonium is primary guess and Telepads is primary maze even though there's very little difference in their gameplay. Of the two, I'd even say that Telepads is more deserving of being primary guess over Pandemonium.

All this is to say I don't think guess map deserve their own hub, their own spot in say the maze hub, or maybe even disclaimer signs or other special treatment at all. The tag is just too arbitrary and rare to merit any level of distinction outside the tag itself. Yes, keep the tag for particularly egregious cases, like the first section of Chiller's or special cases like Harder Hat frog and bee. But in its present state, guess is simply implemented too loosely to merit any sort of special treatment in my mind.

Tl;dr, get Chiller's out of search and don't put too much weight into the goofy ahh guess tag. The Venn diagram between maze, search, and guess is too weird to disambiguate, and it's not implemented very consistently at the present moment. Also, Elusion is a pure guess map, change my mind.

 

[MeddleLyn]

All this is to say I don't think guess map deserve their own hub, their own spot in say the maze hub, or maybe even disclaimer signs or other special treatment at all. The tag is just too arbitrary and rare to merit any level of distinction outside the tag itself. Yes, keep the tag for particularly egregious cases, like the first section of Chiller's or special cases like Harder Hat frog and bee. But in its present state, guess is simply implemented too loosely to merit any sort of special treatment in my mind.

Tl;dr, get Chiller's out of search and don't put too much weight into the goofy ahh guess tag. The Venn diagram between maze, search, and guess is too weird to disambiguate, and it's not implemented very consistently at the present moment.

Oh yeah, I agree that having a guess hub would just be silly for sure and I don't even think I need an entire separate board for it, though it could be helpful for some. I also mostly suggested the sign that says "This Is Guess" for if they don't move ckd, which I hope they at least do (to the maze section); though, I think this suggestion depends on the map and how much guess it is. It satisfies me to know that other people understand where I'm coming from. I think the distinction between search, maze, and guess is undeniably there, but is difficult to define in a way that allows for easy organization. Though, as someone who has just been through the arduous venture of Elusion, I will disagree with you on it being a pure guess map, I will certainly admit it has guess elements. Thank you for your thoughts!