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Netherlands4994 Posts
I'm very interested in bringing island maps back into BW as well. I'd would pretty much encourage anything but another FS clone, anything that might help BW move forward and strengthen its roots.
As a viewer I'd like to see new maps more often. Yes, FS and CB are awesome, but let's be honest; they're incredibly overplayed. Bring creativity back, it's what made Boxer so big. Pre Flash/JD era there would be way fewer games per week and it allowed players to really prepare maps well. While in Flash/JD era, macro really took the overhand because players simply didn't get as much time to prepare maps because of the busy schedule.
I'd love the idea of bringing back Island maps. Maybe even maps with 8 or 10 mineral fields at their main, or 2 gas expo's, etc. I bet few would argue one of the most entertaining/exciting games near the end of KeSPA would be Hiya vs Free on Triathlon. I don't even need to provide arguments why that was such an amazing game.
I want to see unexpected strategies, daring strategies, creativity! Not the same old rax expand, 12 hatch, FFE.
It would likely be best to have introducing new maps to the scene at (very) slow pace, to avoid silly rush games and endless of whining by our top foreigner players, they need some time to adapt.
Nearly everyone will agree BW requires no further patches, so map making is essential for the future of BW.
There is so much yet to discover!
Ultimately - I believe - on going development will spike the interest of new/younger players.
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Japan11286 Posts
I don't watch pro streams that much because I'm incredibly bored of the maps (or rather the map, cough FS cough) they play in. I want more novel maps but people will cry imbalance and all that stuff if you use it. In short, it probably won't happen.
+ Show Spoiler +Destination is nice addition though, good job sir 2pac!
edit - also since money is involved, it will exacerbate the imbalance factor even more lol.
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The problem is not at all about actual balance or imbalance (FS actually has quite a few imbalances, and if pro players don't know them all inside out, I can only wonder what they spend all that time on, playing but one map time and time again...)
The problem is that far too many players prefer known imbalances over unknown balance.
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On July 27 2015 20:33 Qikz wrote:Show nested quote +On July 27 2015 17:56 dRaW wrote:
Yeah, new maps won't create upsets... Just worse quality games as NOBODY will prepare them T_T... PA is ugly, you can play maps like eon suggested that were at least in STL/SBWI leagues. Why should everyone else get stuck watching FS style maps 24/7 rather than actually having an interesting map pool? The fact the players won't bother preparing for the maps shouldn't be the problem of the viewers. If anything preparing for specific maps will be beneficial in that case since the person who prepares map specific plays will probably win the tournament and rightfully so. I'm not sure going with a full map pool from the OP would be the best choice either, but there's no reason to not put old SPL maps in like Empire of the Sun, Grand Line SE, Neo Aztec, Benzene etc. etc.
Regardless, it will be a problem of the viewers, since the games will suck... It's not that players "won't bother" to prepare, it's that there are 24 hours in a day, and playing ladder games on Fish (which happen to 99% of the time be on FS) is the most efficient way to prepare. Searching all day to find a B rank iccup friend who will play a couple of games on a new map ends up being a waste of time.
The only real solution I see to this is...make all of the maps for each upcoming TLC/TLS MOTW Otherwise its not realistic to expect players to prepare for specific maps.
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I am just curious: What would you see as minimal requirements (as a to-do list) for a player to sufficiently "figure out" any new map, assuming that they have solid general mechanics and build orders already?
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On July 30 2015 17:28 Freakling wrote:
I am just curious: What would you see as minimal requirements (as a to-do list) for a player to sufficiently "figure out" any new map, assuming that they have solid general mechanics and build orders already?
Figure out any BO based on the map... any proxy timing/locations... any abusable locations... many things
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locations (and building placement): that's like 5 to 10 minutes of opening the map in a map editor... (same for other basic stuff like wallins, efficient building placement in general...)
timing: mostly not map-specific (unless the map has some very weird distribution of resources in main/nat) (mostly boils down to when to best send out your scout/proxy workers) that's like maybe another 15 minutes of fiddling about in single player.
So that's maybe half an hour of preparation so far, if you generally know how to do any of this stuff, that is. Doesn't even require a practice partner so far.
I am not even saying that this is sufficient preparation to actually play a map in a tourney. Of course you'd want some actual practice games played.
But wasting those precious test games just to figure out the basic stuff seems like a highly inefficient way of wasting one's valuable and limited practice time.
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I have a question regarding how to check walls with the map editor. Is there some easier possibility to check for ling tightness than to just look if you can place a ling inbetween the gaps? Because that is prone to errors while checking the wall ingame with a ling is unambiguous.
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Maybe I should write a guide about this some time...
Knowing which kinds of walls are generally tight against what helps of course (gives you a good starting point at least).
The best, and most failsafe method is to use SCMDraft and do the following (after opening the map, of course):
- check debug/enable debug
- check debug/show unit collision sizes (this will display the collision boxes of all units as red rectangles)
- select your buildings from the units selection menu on the left side and place the wall you want to examine
- select the zergling from the same menu. The terrain will be automatically displayed with pathing overlay and your mouse cursor will have a zergling sprite and its collision box attached to it. Now just look whether you can fit it anywhere in a gap without overlapping any unpathable terrain or building collision boxes. If you can, your wall's not ling-tight
additional tips:
* same method can be used with any other unit, of course
* you can zoom in to up to 400% with ctrl-mouse-scroll or the zoom dialogue on the top to get a better look at the details.
* you can also uncheck options/units/place units anywhere for easier terrain collision detection
* should also make sure that options/units/buildings snap to tile is checked and options/units/units snap to grid is unchecked (which they should normally already be by default, though)
* Another option that you may want to check is options/units/allow stack, for otherwise you will not be able to actually place down units right next to a building's collision box if you wish to do so.
* options/grid offers you a whole plethora of customizable grid settings to overlay the map with. The normal and ultra fine settings are probably the most helpful standard options, displaying a tile or sub-tile grid respectively. You may want to change the grid colour (via the custom option) to something more visible (depending on tileset/terrain type than the standard setting, though.
* you don't need to do all of these steps every time, as all your latest settings, except for the debug options, will be automatically saved by SCMDraft between sessions.
This is what it should look like when properly set up:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/lciL4gy.jpg)
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To really get comfortable with a new map takes time; repeat play to gain familiarity. However, map makers can speed up the whole process.
Walling and building placement in general is a part of it.
-We can make the entrance to naturals have consistent tight edges all the way along rather than just in one magic spot.
-We can make the mains shaped in such a way that you can easily place 9 factories or gateways. (We can make Horang2 happy basically)
-We can make the nats feel spacious for building placement in general and for things like turret placement to be quick and easy, multiple viable options rather than have to get pixel perfect spot.
-We can put building markers to make walling easy.
-We can shape terrain to subtly aid placement.
-We can make it so creep spreads properly even if a hatchery is misplaced due to haste (allowing sunkens to still be built in good spots).
-We can make it so marines pop out on the inside of walls in the main even when they wouldn’t normally.
-We can make it so larvae pop out on the inside of walls even when they wouldn’t normally.
-We can playtest for hours to make sure it all works.
Those are some of the things that can help to get players feeling comfortable quickly with their own builds.
But there are other things too. Things that concern a player feeling comfortable in terms of gameplay and balance;
-how easily do strategies from previous maps transfer over, what adaptations are needed etc
-how easy it is to defend certain attacks,
-how easy it is to progress to the next stage of the game,
-how easy it is to recover if things don’t go perfectly.
These all work both ways. We want certain things to not be too easy either ofcourse.
The 7 maps I suggested are a good mix of familiar mixed with progressive. Overall they are conservative enough to be able to get to grips with them comfortably and quickly, but they also push things forward too.
-------------------------EDIT added alternative wall test method-------------------------
If you look at Freaklings picture you can see that he is able to hover a zergling inside the depot border without it turning red. I am not able to do this and others too, so incase you arent either here is another way to test walling in SCM Draft editor.
Each tile is 32x32 pixels. Every tile is divided into subtiles, and each of these is 8x8. Subtiles can be walkable or not as can see here:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/B3ADDqx.jpg)
Open the map you want to test and turn on the grid (alt+g)
Click Units, click a race, then Ground Units, and click a unit. This will give you the walkable overlay. It makes unwalkable subtiles blacked out, like in the pic above.
Look at the location you want to place the building. You want to place the building tight to a cliff. Is this cliff tile fully unwalkable? Or are there subtiles that are not blacked out?
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/fRHtxdD.png)
In this picture you can see the barracks on the right hand side is touching fully unwalkable cliff tiles so it has a gap of zero. The bottom edge of a barracks has a gap of 15 pixels. You can get this info from here: :
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/List_of_Unit_and_Building_Sizes
Now add the two gaps to see how big the total gap is. A zergling is 16x16 pixels.
0 + 15 < 16 so it IS zergling tight
However the barracks on the left hand side is touching cliff tiles that are not fully unwalkable. Infact the whole row of subtiles on the top edge of the cliff tiles are Walkable. So this means that there is a gap of 8 pixels.
Again, add this to the gap of the barracks bottom edge.
8 + 15 > 16 so it is NOT zergling tight
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On August 02 2015 05:06 CardinalAllin wrote:
If you look at Freaklings picture you can see that he is able to hover a zergling inside the depot border without it turning red. I am not able to do this and others too, so incase you arent either here is another way to test walling in SCM Draft editor.
That's just your options/units/allow stack option not being set...
It's not a particularly helpful options for this matter, though. I'd personally enable it so you can place units freely...
And why would you not use collision boxes?
The bigger issue for most people would probably be map protection, though...
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Oh you had just turned allow stack on. Well like you say its not a helpful option for testing walling. Your method is still useful though, but only if you can zoom in, and cryoc is crashing when he zooms. So there we have it, 2 methods, I use both.
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This is a poll to compare the current tlc map pack with the foreign iccup maps.
Vote 1 if you really DO NOT want the map in the map pack.
Vote 4 if you don’t mind either way.
Vote 7 if you really DO want the map in the map pack.
Neo Jade
New Bloody Ridge
Neo Moon Glaive
Polaris Rhapsody
New Sniper Ridge
Vote 1 if you really DO NOT want the map in the map pack.
Vote 4 if you don’t mind either way.
Vote 7 if you really DO want the map in the map pack.
Neo Overwatch
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/4HNSDgI.png)
The Latin Quarter
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/fQmw97J.jpg)
Roadkill
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/guQdPER.jpg)
Toad Stone
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/9ryNyXb.jpg)
Eddy
![[image loading]](http://www.panschk.de/mappage/pics/4674.jpg)
Queensbridge
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/paV62Yk.jpg)
Cross Game
![[image loading]](http://www.panschk.de/mappage/pics/4580.jpg)
Heartbeat
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/mkQkfn7.jpg)
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Remember guys that the TLS Championship is yet to come with its $2000 prize pool on January 9th 2016. So its still definitely worth voting on map selection.
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We need at least 1, 2 foreign maps, we got only 2 preparation tourneys left, so my advice is to change that outdated map pool since from 9th edition and add some of these.
But hey, actually who listens us? Nobody. KK.
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imo just add overwatch from foreigner maps,rest should me actually good maps from the progamer days like groundzero outlier longinus ^^ also add f*cking fighting spirit ,is the map all of us train on fish server and the one we can actually show our best games -.-
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outscar I dont agree with your comment. The word 'need' is a bit strong for my liking. There are ofcourse excellent korean maps and you can have a great tour with just them if you pick the right ones. However, it is a foreign tour and I think it would be nice to use foreign maps if there are maps that are good enough.
Personally I believe that some of the foreign maps are better than korean maps and lead to more exciting and more balanced gameplay. Some people will agree with that. Others may simply want to see foreign maps used just for diversity or the enjoyment of something new to them. I hope the polls will let the community have its say.
Next you say the map pool is outdated as it has been used since tlc #9. Well thats only 2 months, and I dont consider that old. The second point is that old isnt necessarily a problem by itself.
Lastly, you say nobody is listening. Well I think the tour organisers are listening closely. Hopefully these polls will yield useful stats. I encourage everyone reading to participate in the polls so that the results are fruitful.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Fn3ZUCM.jpg)
