New iCCup Map Pack

On August 03 2014 07:00 ninazerg wrote:
I veto Oxide as an official map.

On August 03 2014 05:48 amazingxkcd wrote:
It's better to use a straw poll since we can only vote once

On August 03 2014 07:32 WhiteKnight.US wrote:
It seems face has forgotten the terrible map nostalgia.

On August 03 2014 06:12 SynC[gm] wrote:
Where's the option to remove Fighting Spirit?

On August 03 2014 07:48 iCCup.Face wrote:

I haven't found the multiple vote option


TL poll allows "only" 21 options, so I've put the less used maps

On August 03 2014 06:04 -NegativeZero- wrote:
You should use Oxide, made by Freakling of broodwarmaps.net - it's a foreign made map but it has already received the highest quality of testing, and it's been used in the SBWI Team League. Layout's extremely good too.

Image:
+ Show Spoiler +

Downloads:
Melee
Obs

On August 03 2014 15:09 Piste wrote:
Nooo removing LT would be like removing the childhood from your history

On August 03 2014 06:04 -NegativeZero- wrote:
You should use Oxide, made by Freakling of broodwarmaps.net - it's a foreign made map but it has already received the highest quality of testing, and it's been used in the SBWI Team League. Layout's extremely good too.

Image:
+ Show Spoiler +

Downloads:
Melee
Obs

on fish u can play maps like fastest on ladder and no one cares. let the players play the maps they want, no need to remove any.

On August 03 2014 22:06 iFU.pauline wrote:
Wouldn't it be better to make a pool about what map need to be added instead of removed. Why don't you keep the maps anyway, it doesn't take a lot of space on a hd. What's the point of removing map, I don't understand. Even if there is just one person playing a map, i think it's a good enough reason to keep it. It doesn't bother anybody.

On August 03 2014 23:44 SnowFantasy wrote:
I would play the shit out of these lesser played maps but you need a second person for that. Wish more people played something like Benzene

On August 03 2014 23:54 BigFan wrote:
^ sounds like you need to join DRTL

I honestly don't have the most experience with maps though I've heard that Ride of Valkyries can be a rather unbalanced map.

On August 04 2014 02:58 WhiteKnight.US wrote:
face how many maps are you going to remove? there are many bad maps.

On August 04 2014 05:58 Qikz wrote:


We shouldn't remove stuff for the sake of removing it.

It's better when there's a variety of MOTW maps. Sadly that doesn't happen currently.

On August 04 2014 06:05 xboi209 wrote:

Well what I'm trying to say is that we shouldn't keep unbalanced, unplayed maps just because we can't find another map to replace it

On August 04 2014 02:10 SnowFantasy wrote:


I totally would join DRTL but unfortunately I exceed the rank requirements by a little bit.

On August 03 2014 14:24 xboi209 wrote:
IMO, we should add a few untested maps...to get them tested

On August 04 2014 08:41 ninazerg wrote:


I agree with this; but only partially. If the map was modified, it might be quite a bit better. My favorite map from the mapmaker tournament was Gemlong.

On August 04 2014 14:02 fearthequeen wrote:
I for one am confused by some (most) people in this thread wanting to remove maps just because they know (think) they are imbalanced or simply don't like them. Just because a map is MOTW doesn't "force" you to play it. Also, getting rid of maps because they don't support modern gameplay doesn't make sense either. Why give players less variety before you have good replacement map versions? Using Mist to replace 1 map is probably the best thing that could come of this initiative.

On August 04 2014 16:40 GeckoXp wrote:

Aside from that, you would need to have regulars reporting in what they thought about the map and more than just two or three really good foreigners write their suggestions.

Then you need a mapmaker willing to update his map and the new map has to be re-added to the pack as well, in turns new maps have to be downloaded again and again by the users, else they'd start to wonder why the older version doesn't work.

On August 05 2014 00:22 Freakling wrote:

Actually having one really good player of each race analyse/test a map is worth more than some hundred unqualified opinions of people who do not really know what they are even talking about.


We should really talk some time. You are vastly overestimating some problems here, mostly because you are probably underestimating the level of competence that we mappers have reached nowadays. The only thing that cannot be guaranteed on any new map nowadays is racial balance, and that's probably not a reason to make changes to a map during a running season...
Besides, you aren't updating FS or Dante's Peak, despite the fucked up unit stack bugs on some ramps, you aren't updating Jade (and, arguably, a lot of other maps) despite the significant positional imbalances due to unequal mining rates, you haven't updated Wind and Cloud although it has a lot of bad problems and newer versions are available, and as far as I know the current version of Medusa in the ICCup map pack is still 2.1. although 2.2 has been available for years...

On August 05 2014 04:01 GeckoXp wrote:
I am not an admin at ICCup anymore and I haven't been involved in any executive decision in the past twelve months. You might confuse my status as person with narrowly limited admin rights, if you have seen me announcing streams on the server. That's almost all I do nowadays.

Aside from that, I don't think you have an idea how ICCup internally works. The decision and the access to change maps is limited to a few positions, not even the Senior/Super Admins can do that. This needs mainly the developers to do stuff for you. We all know by now that, even if the Brood War staff does everything they can with neglecting other things (e.g. Clan League, Ladder), developers are not the BW staff. It might take up to one week for them to apply changes, and only if it's urgent. I'm not sure if changing a new, untested map would be "urgent" to them. That's the sad truth.

That being said, my personal experience with high level players is that most of them are not perfectly unbiased and I don't see how they could be. Compare Skzlime's comments about Oxide with the ones of other players from the STL coverage. You need at least two players per race to get a good overview.
And you need them to type more than just one or maybe two sentences about each match up. And here's one thing the few could do better, describe in detail why something's bad instead of just saying "it's bad". Hence, somtimes the masses give you a better overview if the overall criticism goes in one way or another.

Either two opposing parties critize the opposite (indicator it's balanced for me if toss whines about z imba, and z whines about toss imba), or everyone's fine. Personally speaking again here, to me the voices of the majority of 'scrubs' often mattered more in decision making, as the majority made up most games, not the minority of the best players. Even if maps are slightly biased on top level play, it's still better than an overcomplicated map no newb likes. Be that as it may, it's just a detail along the road and I think I agree with you that any kind of feedback would be nice. I'm not sure if the mapmakers got any of that in the past without having to annoy dozens of people in the first place.

Well, seeing as the progress of testing a map needs people and quick solutions from the administrative site, I don't see how that will work out in the current state of any server.

Fish, quite frankly, doesn't give two shits about foreigners, ICCup overall doesn't care enough about BW anymore. Then, if the admins start a testing phase, it might very well make the mapmakers and the BW staff look like morons, if they can't fix bugs right away. And both can't, regardless of their abilities

- I do not doubt that the mapmakers are good (I liked the STL maps a lot and tried to add them back when I was admin), nor do I doubt the BW staff would appreciate help, but neither are the developers with the much needed access.

Also, nobody is fine with a somewhat broken testing phase. Not even 10% of the users on the server will read this discussion, or the one at ICCup. All they'll see is an unknown map in the midst of time proven MOTWs. Not sure if anyone would just play it and give feedback or know where to put it.

Hence, my other suggestion. If the commuity itself would host regular fun tours on unknown maps, the sample size, the feedback, the overall fun, anything related to this topic, would help out a lot more. It would generate the data needed, the stuff can still be advertised as fun third party tour with everything on ICCup. The only thing changing would be that the map would be added as already improved or in a best case scenario final version. A limited amount of publicity is doable for ICCup admins, delivering constant updates is not.

On August 05 2014 23:15 Freakling wrote:


I am familiar with the problems on ICCup, at lest to some degree. But if there is really no one to talk to on ICCup, at least no one who really cares or has the power to get anything done (which is the feeling that I always get whenever I talk to some one somehow involved with ICCup), what is the point in even discussing, what is the point of this thread? (I mean, as "fun" as bashing LT and Luna is, it's just kicking a dead horse, which has been done countless times for years...)

And if the people who actually run ICCup have no strong interest in BW any more, lack expertise and don't really want to deal with it, why don't they delegate more of that to the people who do?



More opinions are always good.
But 100 people saying stuff like "too tight, tank imba" tell you nothing at all.
Basically what you need is people with a thorough understanding of the metagame and the will and ability to actually talk about it to others. Unfortunately this is rare and you have to know whom to ask or bug people a lot (which doesn't always make them more interested or friendly towards yourself or the maps you are bugging them about...). It may also be that at higher levels players aren't actually very prone to sharing any bugs/imbalances they find with any one else. After all, a known imbalance (that you can potentially get an advantage off of) is better than an unknown balance...

On the other hand, take any (more or less) basic 4 player macro map. They're all more or less variations of the same old and proven basic idea, you do not really need any one to tell you that it will not have any major balance concerns, neither will it really take much off any player to adapt to it as a new map (there's an open middle and all the expos are at the same spots as on dozens of other maps before, duh!...).


See above... And a lot of of people always wine about imbalance. If they cannot actually explain why something is imbalanced, that doesn't help you at all.


Let's start with establishing some simple facts: What standard does the ICCup administrtion aply to a map before they consider it "tested enough"?


When has ICC ever fixed any bug on any map? They are just like any one else, not touching anything as if it were the holy grail... Or, most likely, they simply do not have any one who would know how to fix them, anyway.
I can fix you any bug, at least if it is a generally fixable one...


This is hard to discuss when the people who actually make decisions and have doubts are not joining the discussion.
What do you mean by the last paragraph?


Meh... this post is already turning into a jubled mess... The problem is that as long as there are no clear objective criteria for what makes a map worth considering for ICCup, there is no point in even suggesting, discussing or testing any map or in continuing this whole discussion or making this thread in the frst place...

On August 06 2014 00:06 Falling wrote:
...some of you are just voting for FS out of spite. In LoL, you'd probably ban Summoner's Rift and Super Smash Brothers Melee, Battlefield.

Weird bug on the text suggestion, just kept on saying text was too short despite the paragraphs I wound up writing to be able to post.

On August 03 2014 06:04 -NegativeZero- wrote:
You should use Oxide, made by Freakling of broodwarmaps.net - it's a foreign made map but it has already received the highest quality of testing, and it's been used in the SBWI Team League. Layout's extremely good too, and the aesthetic theme is pretty unique.

Image:
+ Show Spoiler +

Downloads:
Melee
Obs

On August 05 2014 00:05 Freakling wrote:

LT being generally considered the prototype of all "modern" 4 player/open middle/macro maps (these three concepts basically being synonymous...). All it has to offer that a few dozen other maps (and that's only counting former korean pro maps!) haven't is terible imbalances of all sorts, a lot ot awkward spots and tremendous room for abuse. That's not more variety, that's really bad limitation.
LT is not and has never been a good map, even back when it was argualbly without any real alternative. It's infamous for positional lottery and spawn location wins... That neither fun nor fair nor competitive and the metagame would have never nearly reached the level it has today if mapmaking hadn't come a long way since then.

@Nina: Yeah, Luna should go, too. It's not as bad as LT balance wise, but has the added "bonus" of being incredibly more boring....

t's an awful map and everyone hates it. Thats what the testing showed.

On September 01 2014 00:40 vanatir wrote:
make a mappack with mapnames, where the iccup tag is not in front of the map name. would be way easier to find the right map.

On March 30 2016 19:25 LTMLSkorpion wrote:
Hello guys , (I play under LTMLSkorpion)

I hope it is the right place for this post. I am Starcraft 2 ladder map maker , i want show you my maps ,if is possible for play and tested it . This are balanced /symetrie maps , middle / big size of maps .
You will find them under "custom game" .

1v1 Maps :

-> The Wild Valley LE
-> Destered Bay LE
-> Water Station LE
-> Ice Fortress LE
-> Aboretum LE
-> Deadly Airport LE

The pictures about "Destered Bay" arent in the pictures to see.
I hope to hear anything about your sides .
Friendly Greetings

LTMLSkorpion // Dave