caring about lower division players' opinions on maps is usually irrelevant as the vast majority of players have no clue what makes a map good or even fun, not that all invite or adv players do but its certainly a higher percentage than in main/IM

for divs with weekly maps you can't have more than 8 maps, otherwise u either skip a map or add another week. so bagel only for invite with pick/ban

So we disgregard all opinions from low-end people because they simple lack the knowledge of how to play tf2? Selfish.
Granted many lower end people don't know what to look at, but some may have opinions that higher level people don't - or vice versa. Just because we know more than people doesn't mean that they can have wisdom we don't.

yeah but it's also a bad thing that the ruleset is so different between invite and all the other divs imo

as for whether or not to let open players weigh in, I understand both sides of the argument, but at the very least they should have a chance to play a map a bit more- have it in pugchamp and nut city, maybe make some tf2centers on it- before it goes in the pool

also personal opinion- what's wrong with reckoner? I think it's easily the best of the 5cp options (and please don't say "the developer isn't working on it anymore"- I highly doubt that had an effect on how the invite players were rating it 1-5 right after the map cup, that would almost certainly be based on their experience playing it right then and there)

Adding a ninth map to invite brings up something that's bugged me about pick/bans in TF2 for these past few seasons: Why do we do alternating pick/bans for playoffs with an 8 map pool?

Right now, with our 8 map pool, this is how we're doing things:

A Bans | B Bans | A Picks Map 1 | B Picks Map 2 | A Bans | B Bans | A Picks Map 3

The way it is right now, the higher seeded team gets both advantages in the draft: they get to choose how to kick off the series, and where the series will end. This just strikes me as strange coming from CS, where there's a 7 map pool, so for playoffs deciders there's actually a choice to be made on whether you want to go for the throat, or take the safety pick and make sure you can take map 3 if it goes that far. That means there's an actual decision to be made for whether you want to be A or B. But in TF2 with the draft the way it is and an 8 map pool, your choices are to make both of the most important decisions for the draft, or make neither.

And the solution is really easy: Just have B do both of the final bans, so that it looks like this:

A Bans | B Bans | A Picks Map 1 | B Picks Map 2 | A Bans | B Bans | B Picks Map 3

I guess the question comes down to how much value you should get out of a higher seed. Seeding in TF2 is more valuable than in other games with similar playoffs structures (CS is the only game I have experience with this in, but my understanding is that MOBAs and fighting games use a similar system for hero / stage drafts). It just strikes me as strange and possibly an oversight, since when I looked back at my RGL S1 playoffs pages, (and I just checked my ESEA playoffs pages, they also had the same issue) the instructions had the teams banning 6 of the 8 maps. If we've decided that the seeding should be worth more, that's one thing, but if the system is the way it is just because nobody's ever thought about it, I think that this is something worth talking about.

Or you could just add one more map (or take away one) and not have to worry about it.

ESEA had 3 bans for each team with a 9 map pool and it worked a lot better for regular season imo, should probably have an invite meeting and talk about that system versus current home/away system (which will now basically allow home to pick whichever out of 7 maps that they want unless they added a third ban to the away team)

Villa has already received thorough testing from players of different skill levels. The majority of testing and feedback has come from the Testco discord server, which I would say has an average skill level in the RGL Open to IM range. An earlier version received testing and feedback in RGL’s Map Cup in November, another later version received testing and feedback in a league-wide event in Ozfortress, and the most recent version before the RGL Invite tests was played in S2 of No Restriction Sixes (yes I know NR6s is not a good comparison to traditional sixes at all, but it still gave teams an opportunity to get a feel for the map). Finally, lucrative has been supporting this map since its early stages by hosting pugs on it with higher level players. There have already been many opportunities for people to evaluate the map, it’s not like it just appeared from nowhere.

THIS THIS THIS THISTHITSHISTHISHTISHITSI

also reckoner should 100% be in the pool, that map has been played for ages by a whole ass continent, plus I don't think anyone in the map cup disliked it particularly. now what it should be replacing is entirely subjective, I for one miss badlands lol (but we should play badlands pro that fixes mid forward spawn times that make pushing out of last so difficult!!)

I think you misunderstood what I was saying here, I wasn't focusing specifically on whether or not the community writ large likes this version of villa/has had enough time to suggest changes to it (though that is important). I was saying that, if the map goes in the pool without a large enough percentage of players having gotten used to it enough to know how it plays in very basic ways (the rollouts, where all the common flank routes are, etc), everyone will just permaban it and it'll be a massive lose-lose.

If the only goal is to get map feedback then yeah the new map pugs are a great place, but that's self-selecting for people who WANT to play new maps. The average competitive player in like IM or Main has probably never even seen villa let alone played it, and I think a map needs to be more ubiquitous in a pug setting before it's added (I was around when process was first added, for instance, and it was pugged HEAVILY beforehand, and not just in new map places).

I really disliked reckoner a lot
way too easy to defend every point and the flow from mid to second is kinda meh because of spawn timers the midpoint location and the distance between the flanks (and the geometry of them both i guess)

fast cap badlands is really fun once you learn it imo (except if you are medic on mid that shit is sad)

edit: just wanted to point out that process, sunshine, snakewater and gullywash were all very different when they were first added to leagues and that a lot of people hated them at first. people need to be more open about maps in general, you're allowed to dislike or even hate maps (fuck snakewater) but a lot more often than people would expect even invite players are totally wrong about how certain things on certain maps work, which can drastically change the flow of a map sometimes

I can see ur points on reckoner, although when playing it genuinely it felt as fun as any of the other big 3 (or4 if u include sunshine).

the fast cap was never really my gripe (although it was annoying sometimes, it felt necessary when playing pro lol), it was how u always get a <11 second spawn time when you have 2nd cap and you spawn like a jump or 2 seconds of running away from choke. Fighting for spire is practically always doable but in the pro version that is remedied just by the spawn timer extension alone.