EPTAnalyses of the remaining 1.22 ladder maps, New Heartbreak Ridge and Neo Aztec, can be found here.
Analyses of the ASL6 map candidates Autobahn, Sylphide, Neo Transistor and Labyrinth can be found here.
Fighting Spirit 1.3
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+ Show Spoiler [show image] +![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/wTURo6w.jpg)
So the most devastating bug, that definitely needs to be fixed, is the infamous ramp vortex (red circle). There are also various low ground holes on the reversed ramps (green circles), which are quite problematic (they make units go blind and randomly miss shots, obviously)
These aren't all the bugs the map has, there are definitely some mining problems at some of the expansions (most notably the 4 o'clock and 10 o'clock naturals), but they make for a good starting point.
There are also some aesthetical issues with the bridges when playing with HD graphics, some of the tiles would need to be swapped out.
So the most devastating bug, that definitely needs to be fixed, is the infamous ramp vortex (red circle). There are also various low ground holes on the reversed ramps (green circles), which are quite problematic (they make units go blind and randomly miss shots, obviously)
These aren't all the bugs the map has, there are definitely some mining problems at some of the expansions (most notably the 4 o'clock and 10 o'clock naturals), but they make for a good starting point.
There are also some aesthetical issues with the bridges when playing with HD graphics, some of the tiles would need to be swapped out.
Circuit Breakers 1.0
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+ Show Spoiler [show image] +![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/z6oabpF.jpg)
If Fighting Spirit has some mild terrain level issues with its ramps, Circuit Breakers certainly suffers from rather disastrous editing. The reverse ramps are a total mess as you can see.
Various mining problems are a given, but again these are secondary issues that can only be addressed one editing step further.
Looking closely you can even spot a Reaver jam in the top centre.
If Fighting Spirit has some mild terrain level issues with its ramps, Circuit Breakers certainly suffers from rather disastrous editing. The reverse ramps are a total mess as you can see.
Various mining problems are a given, but again these are secondary issues that can only be addressed one editing step further.
Looking closely you can even spot a Reaver jam in the top centre.
Blue Storm 1.2
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+ Show Spoiler [show image] +![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/ZjNZvqF.jpg)
Blue Storm is even worse. It's not only the ramps that have erratic terrain levels, there are lower ground holes all over the place. These should be regarded as serious issues as the "random" miss chance that in spots where it is totally unexpected for players can easily cost a player a fight and subsequently the game. This is just absolutely shoddy terrain editing, although to be fair to the map maker, Blizzard are actually (at least partially) to blame for a fair share of these issues.
Not to forget a couple of very relevant vortices, however solving the atrocious terrain level mess will most likely get rid of these as well.
Blue Storm is even worse. It's not only the ramps that have erratic terrain levels, there are lower ground holes all over the place. These should be regarded as serious issues as the "random" miss chance that in spots where it is totally unexpected for players can easily cost a player a fight and subsequently the game. This is just absolutely shoddy terrain editing, although to be fair to the map maker, Blizzard are actually (at least partially) to blame for a fair share of these issues.
Not to forget a couple of very relevant vortices, however solving the atrocious terrain level mess will most likely get rid of these as well.
Polaris Rhapsody 1.0
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![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/vqvPhPY.jpg)
Gladiator 1.1
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+ Show Spoiler [show image] +![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/P4YLYvL.jpg)
Well, there is that one out-of place high ground tile, but that's not much of an issue. So this is actually a pretty decent map to play on in its given state.
There are some mining issues (look at the 7 o'clock base, for example), but at least there is nothing absolutely terrible going on here.
Well, there is that one out-of place high ground tile, but that's not much of an issue. So this is actually a pretty decent map to play on in its given state.
There are some mining issues (look at the 7 o'clock base, for example), but at least there is nothing absolutely terrible going on here.
The Fortress 2.0
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+ Show Spoiler [show image] +![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/oV6cCaO.jpg)
Due to the simplistic terrain design, there's really nothing fundamentally wrong here. There are some spots where units can get stuck on terrain (vortex bugs – see red circles), but at least they are not near any chokes, so game-breaking calamities are very unlikely to happen (maybe some Protoss can use these spots for some insane stacked recalls
). So this map is basically in a good basic state to do some final bug-fixing on, so I'll use it as an example to demonstrate some pathfinding related issues (these kind of things apply to all the other maps as well, mind, it's just that they have other issues that need to be addressed first).
First of, the magenta circle marks a spot that causes Reaver jamming (Reavers not being able to fire Scarabs). the cause is the pathfinding region marked in red that's jammed in a wedge-like manner between the two magenta regions, completely separating them. The magenta regions are spatially close together, but due to this layout much farther apart as far as the pathfinding engine is concerned. Since Scarabs are units and have to move like units and Reaves therefore use pathfinding distance instead of linear distance to determine whether a target is in range, this completely throws of their attack. A Reaver in one of the magenta Regions can simply not attack anything in the other magenta region. This is a very problematic issues as pathfinding is mostly hidden from the player and thus this behaviour comes unpredictable to players and can easily cost them a Reaver, a fight or subsequently the game. It's doubly bad here, as this spot is actually within 8 tiles range of the mineral line, so in a spot where Reaver harassment is likely to occur.
Furthermore I highlighted some regions that cause aberrant pathfinding for mining workers. Yellow marks the regions, resource depots are placed in, regions with critical resources are marked in cyan. I
outlined the expected mining paths in cyan. Red paths mark aberrations from that standard. These do not necessarily affect all races, due to differences in the collision sizes of their respective resource depots, mostly they apply to Zerg, which are also most affected by low saturation mining deficits caused by inefficient worker pathing.
If resource depot and resources are placed in different regions, the workers' behaviour is determined by long-range pathfinding, so they try to find the "shortest" path from their location to their destination (in this case the the location being the location at the worker position while mining or when returning resources to the resource depot and the destination being the region where the resource node or resource depot is located), avoiding all "detours" through other regions where possible. This can lead to all kinds of unwanted results. Of the problematic spots outlined here, only the ones in the top main and at the top right pseudo-island expansion have significant impact in-game, which is amazingly good, statistically, compared to most other maps, although mining bugs in mains are of course doubly bad.
There is also another problem that can be seen in the top main: As yo can see, two of the recessed mineral fields are placed in a region that is located completely behind the mineral line and is directly connected to the region above it, where the top three patches of the mineral line are located and workers are mining. This means that workers, following the "shortest" path between the regions will migrate from the top patches through the gap in the mineral behind the mineral line to reach one of the other two patches. This can slow mining at medium to high saturations quite a bit (savvy player would probably just block the gap with a building).
There are some other optimizations to resource formations that could further improve mining smoothness and balance for one or all races which are not region related for this map and any other.
Another interesting aspect can be seen in the left main, where, as you may notice, the mineral line is basically build in a way to avoid all potential issues with the problematic region layout (the old school solution to such issues: Just juggle your minerals around until all buggy ones are eliminated)
Due to the simplistic terrain design, there's really nothing fundamentally wrong here. There are some spots where units can get stuck on terrain (vortex bugs – see red circles), but at least they are not near any chokes, so game-breaking calamities are very unlikely to happen (maybe some Protoss can use these spots for some insane stacked recalls
). So this map is basically in a good basic state to do some final bug-fixing on, so I'll use it as an example to demonstrate some pathfinding related issues (these kind of things apply to all the other maps as well, mind, it's just that they have other issues that need to be addressed first).First of, the magenta circle marks a spot that causes Reaver jamming (Reavers not being able to fire Scarabs). the cause is the pathfinding region marked in red that's jammed in a wedge-like manner between the two magenta regions, completely separating them. The magenta regions are spatially close together, but due to this layout much farther apart as far as the pathfinding engine is concerned. Since Scarabs are units and have to move like units and Reaves therefore use pathfinding distance instead of linear distance to determine whether a target is in range, this completely throws of their attack. A Reaver in one of the magenta Regions can simply not attack anything in the other magenta region. This is a very problematic issues as pathfinding is mostly hidden from the player and thus this behaviour comes unpredictable to players and can easily cost them a Reaver, a fight or subsequently the game. It's doubly bad here, as this spot is actually within 8 tiles range of the mineral line, so in a spot where Reaver harassment is likely to occur.
Furthermore I highlighted some regions that cause aberrant pathfinding for mining workers. Yellow marks the regions, resource depots are placed in, regions with critical resources are marked in cyan. I
outlined the expected mining paths in cyan. Red paths mark aberrations from that standard. These do not necessarily affect all races, due to differences in the collision sizes of their respective resource depots, mostly they apply to Zerg, which are also most affected by low saturation mining deficits caused by inefficient worker pathing.
If resource depot and resources are placed in different regions, the workers' behaviour is determined by long-range pathfinding, so they try to find the "shortest" path from their location to their destination (in this case the the location being the location at the worker position while mining or when returning resources to the resource depot and the destination being the region where the resource node or resource depot is located), avoiding all "detours" through other regions where possible. This can lead to all kinds of unwanted results. Of the problematic spots outlined here, only the ones in the top main and at the top right pseudo-island expansion have significant impact in-game, which is amazingly good, statistically, compared to most other maps, although mining bugs in mains are of course doubly bad.
There is also another problem that can be seen in the top main: As yo can see, two of the recessed mineral fields are placed in a region that is located completely behind the mineral line and is directly connected to the region above it, where the top three patches of the mineral line are located and workers are mining. This means that workers, following the "shortest" path between the regions will migrate from the top patches through the gap in the mineral behind the mineral line to reach one of the other two patches. This can slow mining at medium to high saturations quite a bit (savvy player would probably just block the gap with a building).
There are some other optimizations to resource formations that could further improve mining smoothness and balance for one or all races which are not region related for this map and any other.
Another interesting aspect can be seen in the left main, where, as you may notice, the mineral line is basically build in a way to avoid all potential issues with the problematic region layout (the old school solution to such issues: Just juggle your minerals around until all buggy ones are eliminated)
I hope some of the information provided here is useful for players who want to abuse or work around some map bugs and of course for map makers struggling to debug their maps. Although most of all I hope that this raises awareness and understanding of the problems of the current map pool with players, tournament hosts and developers. We have all the tools to fix these and it is not really understandable why a game should be played competitively on maps that have the potential to screw players over in various "unpredictable" ways. It's a lot of work to actually update a map to a proper standard, though, because BW pathfinding is such a mindscrew. It's just way too much work for me or any map maker to do alone without much incentive for the updated maps to actually be used widely (and I guess most map makers are like me and would much rather work on their own maps if they find the time). So what we would need is better communication with tournament hosts (especially the big ones like Blizzard and afreeca), proper prioritization and ample planning ahead to make meaningful progress. So any concrete idea how that could be achieved is welcome. It should also be mentioned that Blizzard's promissed, but not yet delivered, support of new adaptable ramps puts most map projects, be it new map or updates, into a perpetual limbo until those additional assets, which would make some things somewhat easier (or at least more eye-pleasing), at least as far just SC:R (not 1.16-compatible updates) is concerned.
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/mhT1HWV.jpg)
