BW General Discussion - Page 139

On April 18 2016 11:10 BLinD-RawR wrote:

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/bw-tournaments/497918-r-and-s-amateur-teamleague

it just recently ended.

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/bw-tournaments/504007-iccup-nation-league-esbp

currently running, but not low level

On April 16 2016 15:52 konadora wrote:
man, that sucks. i have iterated time and time again that what made starcraft great was the evolution of strategies that came with the changes and evolution of maps... and after a while (post-sc2), i felt the games were quite stagnant. there's only so many games you can watch on fighting spirit and circuit breaker...

On April 19 2016 00:54 Jealous wrote:

I think the main issue is that their practice environment is different. In the past, a league would state what maps would be in use, and the teams would be forced to practice them, no questions asked. They would prepare strategies, develop timings, learn pathing and mineral efficiencies, building placement, proxy locations through hundreds of games played simultaneously by multiple top-level players.

The current practice environment in Fish contrasts greatly with this, for multiple reasons:

1. Players are playing with other ex-progamer friends, many of whom are likely to end up being your opponent in an upcoming tour.

2. Players are playing publicly with stream on to make money.

3. Players are forced to play FS and CB ad infinitum because of the Fish scene.

4. Players don't have the support of an entire team + coaching staff when analyzing new maps and creating/testing build orders and strategies. This means that even if there are new maps, we are probably more likely to see the same strategies we're familiar with being shoehorned into new maps instead of new play styles being used.

Another added and speculative point is that while we have seen some Korean map makers post on TeamLiquid recently, from what I recall most of the maps are either a. old unused maps being published, b. novelty maps like that 3v3 map, or c. not thoroughly play tested and were changed based on feedback in thread and after a little testing from the map maker, all of which suggest that there perhaps aren't that many new Korean maps that are viable or readily available in this era. I can't claim to have any authority on this matter and I am just judging from what I've seen on TeamLiquid, perhaps there are more developments elsewhere that we as a community are not aware of. However, I imagine there was some incentive for mapmakers in the past during the KeSPA era that does not exist now. That could be changed, though.

It's also possible that the desire for new maps is simply not a popular demand, possibly due to aforementioned points. I think we can all agree that FS and CB are the most balanced maps available, in no small part due to their blandness. This presents a relatively even playing fields for players of any race, or at least the most even we have now. They are well-practiced, well-known, well-understood, and therefore the chances of flukey wins and dumb decisions based on the map diminishes at the top level. This has its own appeal to viewers who on average, like the ex-pros, are more familiar with these maps than any other.

All of these factors lead me to think that the current state of Brood War is simply not conducive to new maps being introduced. I'm not necessarily arguing against it, I'm just saying that I understand why it's not happening.

On April 20 2016 06:04 Jealous wrote:

From what I recall from an earlier thread on ICCup maps, for whatever reason the ICCup ladder map pack cannot contain more than 25 maps. They chose to replace Lost Temple with Heartbeat before the start of this season IIRC.