Starcraft: Remastered, Potential for mapmaking? - Page 2

On March 26 2017 19:33 duke91 wrote:


Or snowmaps which are not too bright

On March 29 2017 16:57 JungleTerrain wrote:


I could be wrong about this, but I always saw Nmjoo's argument about wasted space as this:

All portions of the map should serve some purpose, and even empty space can serve a purpose. However there is useful empty space and then merely wasteful empty space. The reason why wasteful space is bad is not because it is inherently bad to waste space, but the fact that it is "potentially useful" space that is not being used. Like... a map is at 80% of what it could actually be, because part of it is being wasted, but if you just used all the space in the map, it would be a 100% use of space, and the map will be the best that it could potentially be. It's that the map is bad relative to what it can be. Does that make sense?

It's like pointing out that an almost full glass of water is missing water at the top and should be filled instead of saying that the glass is almost at the top.
Or kinetic and potential energy. What you see in action is kinetic energy, while potential energy is dormant and cannot be seen because it is not being used. You should use all of it.
Hopefully I don't sound like a fool here.

If the map has a lot of useless wasted space, then this is the grand conclusion: It is a poorly designed map. The mapmaker did not make a good use of the space they were given, and the map is not what it could have been.

The counter-arguments to this is that what if you design a map that is 128x128 or something like that, but it is really stretched out, has a lot of wasted space that serves no purpose (it isn't a buffer between areas, doesn't hold strategic importance, is just there because the design of the map didn't take it into consideration how to make it useful)? What if the map was designed to waste this space?

From Nmjoo's point of view, he would just say that the map is poorly designed. Here's a picture of a map that was deemed as such (I won't say who made it, out of respect for our fallen comrade):


The corners are wasted, there is no reason to have that much space between the middle and the mains, etc. etc.
That is empty wasted space. Another form of wasted space could be overly large open areas that are just too big and take up too much space in proportion to a map, or w/e.

In either case, the problem is a design issue. Even the map above doesn't "look" that bad. But there's a lot of wasted space and it could have been used to make the map better. Overall the map is tight and linear, etc. and these could have been solved by using the space that was wasted.

Nmjoo said that he came up with this conclusion after seeing similar mistakes being made by mapmakers over and over again. He noticed that at the core of the map's flaws was a design issue, not an execution issue (unless execution was lacking obviously), and the evidence for the flawed design was the wasted space. So the question is "If your map has flaws, why didn't you use that wasted space efficiently to solve them?"

So if your map has wasted space built into its design, there is no reason for that, and you should have just started with a map with smaller dimensions.

I'm talking like Nmjoo is dead here, I just haven't had contact with him recently. Obviously he could come in and say that I have his argument all wrong. However, I think there were a lot of people that flamed him and didn't think about what he said more critically. Seems like he got discouraged that so many people didn't take his words seriously and he just moved on to other interests. But I think it's a good way to think about map theory.

If I had to summarize, I would say the main point of the argument is that wasted space is evidence of a bad map design.

On March 29 2017 17:49 Piste wrote:

I could argue about the "wasted" space. This "wasted" space effects the air distances between mains and expansions, which effects game A LOT. Drop play, mutalisk, carrier, guardian games changes very much when there's space around your main, and the change is not a small one.
Also if the empty corners on upper left and bottom right would filled with exp / island exp, the gameplay would change once again, giving a slight boost for protoss.

I would not say empty space is "waste" but more like a map feature in this case.

on how high level did Nmjoo play?

On March 29 2017 19:14 JungleTerrain wrote:


I think he was like a B- Zerg or something back when ICCup first came around in like 06-07?

And I think you are thinking a bit too small in terms of the changes to the sample map. I'm not talking about merely adding islands or other expos or other features to a map, but fundamental design flaws that happen at the pen-and-paper stage (or MS paint, w/e you may use) of map conception. That the mapmaker didn't do a good job at that stage of the map's creation and it led to a poor usage of space, thus a subpar map. And the solution would most likely be to go back to the drawing board.

On the actual map thread for that map, other people, including nmjoo, offered a list of things to change that would make the map "playable" (like widening areas, fixing some minor details, moving the islands to 1 and 7, etc.) before moving on to more ways to help the map out. But the guy refused to update it or something lol so that's that.

I mean in reality this sort of stuff has no right or wrong, we just try to go off what we know and past experiences of what makes a map have good as opposed to bad gameplay.

On March 26 2017 14:31 thezanursic wrote:
This is a call-out to mapmakers like Freakling on TL, what are the implications for Mapmaking now that the restrictions on map size will probably be lifted?

What kind of maps are you capable of making for 1v1 if the map size is increased?

I'm being totally serious here, assuming the gameplay is 100% identical, what could mapmakers do with a 1v1 map if the upper limits were 256x256 instead of 128x128 or anything inbetween for that matter.

On March 29 2017 15:37 thezanursic wrote:Or maybe more asymmetrical maps, I hear 3 player maps are already difficult to make, but maybe with a bit more size you could experiment with a 5 player size.

+ Show Spoiler +

Maybe this map could work for legitimate 1v1 play, if you had 140x140 or 145x145 to play with.

On March 29 2017 16:57 JungleTerrain wrote:


I could be wrong about this, but I always saw Nmjoo's argument about wasted space as this:

All portions of the map should serve some purpose, and even empty space can serve a purpose. However there is useful empty space and then merely wasteful empty space. The reason why wasteful space is bad is not because it is inherently bad to waste space, but the fact that it is "potentially useful" space that is not being used. Like... a map is at 80% of what it could actually be, because part of it is being wasted, but if you just used all the space in the map, it would be a 100% use of space, and the map will be the best that it could potentially be. It's that the map is bad relative to what it can be. Does that make sense?

It's like pointing out that an almost full glass of water is missing water at the top and should be filled instead of saying that the glass is almost at the top.
Or kinetic and potential energy. What you see in action is kinetic energy, while potential energy is dormant and cannot be seen because it is not being used. You should use all of it.
Hopefully I don't sound like a fool here.

If the map has a lot of useless wasted space, then this is the grand conclusion: It is a poorly designed map. The mapmaker did not make a good use of the space they were given, and the map is not what it could have been.

On March 30 2017 00:51 neobowman wrote:

I mean, I'm remembering all this from like almost 10 years ago so I'm probably remembering everything wrong and you're probably right. But I do think that 128x128 is a bit of an artificial limit for 4 player maps in particular. 2 player maps I think have a good size in 96x128 or 112x128 but I do think there's a bit more room for playing around with a bigger 4 player map. I know I had ideas for 4 player maps that just didn't quite fit in 128x128 (though I was never a particularly good mapmaker to be fair).

It is true that modern map balance has sort of been balanced around the current map sizes. But I think that's extra incentive to try to play around with map sizes more now than ever. Especially with current balance trends.