Hey everyone, your RLC Ambassador here with one of the hot topics of the week and what over 100 of the top level competitive scene players and prominent community members have to say about it. 

Earlier this week we got a sneak peak into the upcoming patch, and the NEW MAPS that we'll be seeing with it. The important things we took from this is we're getting 3 new maps: Underpass, Retro Utopia and the aptly named Double Goal. We will also be seeing Wasteland added to the Competitive (previously called Ranked) playlist. 

There as a ton of discussion on this from the community, the streamers, the pro players and ourselves in RLC. We wanted to know what the top competitive players and other notable community members thought about this, so we asked them, and we received a huge response. 107 responses from pros, streamers, platinum players and community heads ranging from Dirkened to Kronovi to Markydooda to CloudFuel.  We asked them 4 quick questions and allowed them to expand on their thoughts about the changes, and received positive, negative and apathetic responses.

Question 1: Do you feel positively or negatively about the new maps for Rocket League?
This was the easy one, everyone's excited. All 107 respondants answered "positive" and the feedback on the addition of the maps to the game was nothing short of estatic.

iBP Kronovi

Maps.... ALL OF THEM.

ECN DistincIsMe

I love the idea of pumping out plain maps and seeing what the community likes the most, and then designing an environment around it.  I think it will ensure that they put out the best content possible without wasting time on full maps that the community will ultimately reject and complain about...

Apo11o Flow

Excited!

Question 2: Do you think the new maps will be a good addition to competitive?
This question is intended to refer to league and tournament formats, not the in game Competitive playlist, but we got a number of responses to them being added to ranked as well. This is where people started to have differing in opinions, though we had a large majority saying "yes" at 80.4% (86/107). The 21 people in opposition were definitely vocal about their reasoning behind keeping the competitive scene on standard maps.

KoU Fireburner

Adding a variety of maps to competitive will be good for the future and it would make picking/banning maps a lot more meaningful in tournaments.

TR Wrong_Way_Woody

Retro Utopia will be an interesting one as it'll either help the ultra aggressive teams like f3, as can get back quicker, meaning less breakaway goals, or it could help the less aggressive teams like TR as they can now be more confident in committing forward, as they know they can quickly get back.Double-goal looks interesting. Not sure if this will help teams that like to keep a man back (ibp with Gibbs) as smaller goal, or hinder them as now two goals to defend. Very interested to see how this map plays out, and looking forward to the teamwork, where teams will make it look like they're attacking one goal, then quickly play the ball to the other side of the pitch to an open net.Underpass seems like a map made for kux, it looks like there may be boost pads on the walls above the goal (unless thats just me) where kux spends a lot of his time, and with mike's strength being in passing can see him knocking it out wide to kux who slams it in from the ramps on the side. I certainly see this being f3's map if it does have boost pads above the goals

SoftGoat previously of Electric Zero and Failure to Qualify

While the new maps are really neat, I feel the variation they add don't really justify adding them to competitive. Personally I think from a skill vs skill standpoint, adding new maps is akin to adding mutators to competitive, as it's adapting to a new set of physics on the map which makes gameplay inconsistent. 

Matt - Turbulence

As a top comp player I think these aren't good for ranked, since thats how most top players practice, but I think they are really good for relaxing now and again in the normal queue. Its cool to see the old sarpbc maps back and refurbished

C&J Paschy90

We do need more different shaped maps. I would say atleast 10. In other esport games, you have different maps to in tournaments. And it would be more interested to see, cause every map would have different strategys to use.  

Question 3: 1 being totally negative, 5 being totally positive - your opinion on Wasteland being added to ranked?
Here's where the biggest controversy lies. There were a number of complaints (as I have myself) about map optimization, but as this is being addressed by Psyonix we will let that slide for now. 42.1% were in favor of the addition, 40.2% were against it, and 17.8% were in the middle. If we pull out the performance issues we'll have about half the respondants being in favor of playing in the desert in ranked, but it's definitely not an overwhelming majority. I love the map personally, but let's hear what everyone else has to say about it.

Insolences - Untethered

Please leave only the maps we use now for ranked. Leave it balanced, if you really want to, create sepreate ranked playlists with only those maps featured.

SweetieGG

I just don't want the player base to get split up by the addition of these new maps. If that isn't an issue, I think the creative maps are a good way to keep people interested and make the game stay fresh/"new".

Corelli22

"So here is the deal. As far as i can see, the new maps are going to be fun. Do all of them belong in competitive? Maybe, maybe not. But wasteland? I don't think so. I know I have been vocal about how I feel about wasteland and I will reiterate it here. The slants in wasteland make the map very uncomfortable to play. I understand that there is a certain amount of getting accustomed. But the game relies on precision hits and precise timing especially near the ball. I can't tell you how many times I have spun myself out because of the assumption that i would land correctly but rather land somewhat sideways. This happens the most when a reflex is needed to front flip to block or gain speed. I feel that a lot of people didn't really give wasteland a chance. I know a lot of pro players never play it. I know it looks like it has made its way into the RLCPL but I look at it like this. Are people picking wasteland because it is a good map? Or are they picking it because it trips people up because of how awkward it is and they think that it might hurt a good teams play? Don't get me wrong new maps are welcomed. I think that ANY other design without slants will be a better start. As of right now I really only see Underpass being a good enough map. But who knows I haven't played any of them.At the end of the day, do we want to put a map like wasteland into a competitive rotation when it feels like half the community hates it? Or maybe put better, do we want to put a map into the rotation where it could hurt high level play? (Kinda like if you forced everyone to play with their least favorite car... could they get used to it? Sure. But why are we going to do that?)

SK X3MW

There should be a button where you can enable and disable maps. In that case i would rate it 10/10. Wasteland in ranked? Yes, if you can disable and enable it just as i said in the sentence above if u cant do that i would rate it 1 instead of 5.

Rizzo

I feel wasteland in ranked is needed, BUT I STRONGLY feel that players should have the ability to pick and choose the maps that they are playing in their ranked que. makes the game less fun for me personally every time I do have to play wasteland, so I would love to be able to disable it.

Question 4: Of the new choices, which map do you like the most from your first impression?
No surprise to me here as my favorite, Underpass, came in with 63.6% of the votes. Retro Utopia took 2nd with 26.2% and Double Goal manages 8 votes for 7.5%. There were 3 people that did not like any of the new maps.
Links:
Questionnaire
Analytics
Responses

Feel free to share your opinions on the new maps and wasteland in ranked!
- CjLink