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On June 20 2010 16:36 TheRabidDeer wrote:
"I will be writing several articles on the balance of various things in SC2 and I decided that the first one would have to be map balance. This will be an objective look at the theory and practice of the balance of the current set of SC2 maps in the Zerg matchups."
At what point should we NOT expect it to be unbiased? He states right off the bat that he wants it to be an objective look at the map balance as it pertains to zerg. Then he ignores some aspects of a particular zerg matchup and seemingly ignores anything that doesnt have a fast expansion or anything beyond the first 6 minutes of the game.
Tch. I missed the word objective, you may have me on a technicality buddy. I'll concede that point, but I do think we're looking at "unbiased" in two different ways. I think when you see "objective" and "map balance", you expect to see both the advantages and disadvantages that the maps allow for Zerg. Perhaps we will see this in later articles. Hell, the expected "Best of the Best" Zerg maps article might even have Desert Oasis as an example as well as in the worst, who knows?
All I know is that when I see an article by a professional Zerg player titles "The Worst of the Worst" pertaining to 'map imbalances', I don't expect to see anything but a highlight of complaints and problems Zerg players deal with. It wouldn't be the "Worst of the Worst" if half the article was about good things Zerg can do on Desert Oasis.
There ARE builds other than 14 pool 15 hatch that can be used to great success.
I agree wholeheartedly. I'm a big fan of the TLO and Sen style play, with lots of aggression. But that really doesn't have anything to do with map balance.
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On June 20 2010 16:45 w_Ender_w wrote:
I agree wholeheartedly. I'm a big fan of the TLO and Sen style play, with lots of aggression. But that really doesn't have anything to do with map balance.
It has to do with the credibility of their arguments. Take a second and just think - "two players that do 14 pool 15 hatch nearly every single match state that a matchup on desert oasis is unbeatable a month before the game is even released and when a small fraction of the game's possibilities have been explored".
If you think that statement or the person saying it has any credibility, you may be interested in an offer from a Nigerian Prince waiting for you in your inbox.
There has literally never been a time in RTS history that a player has said 'x is unbeatable by y' this close to the game's release and it has actually turned out to be true. That alone should give you plenty of insight into how valid these claims are.
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The individual points about the map characteristics, I think, are well made.
If the article simple stated: 'Here are some difficulties presented to Zerg in the current map pool. Top players are finding them difficult to overcome. Discuss in light of the overall game balance and Zerg's current reliance on early (safe) expansion.'
Then it would have been a fine article. However, the arguments and conclusions made from what are valid points, are much more sloppy and biased than they should be. Too bad really, someone should re-write it for him.
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For me all 1vs1 maps are garbage. They remove entirely the searching phase of your opponent.
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On June 20 2010 16:51 iEchoic wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2010 16:45 w_Ender_w wrote:
I agree wholeheartedly. I'm a big fan of the TLO and Sen style play, with lots of aggression. But that really doesn't have anything to do with map balance. It has to do with the credibility of their arguments. Take a second and just think - "two players that do 14 pool 15 hatch nearly every single match state that a matchup on desert oasis is unbeatable a month before the game is even released and when a small fraction of the game's possibilities have been explored". If you think that statement or the person saying it has any credibility, you may be interested in an offer from a Nigerian Prince waiting for you in your inbox. There has literally never been a time in RTS history that a player has said 'x is unbeatable by y' this close to the game's release and it has actually turned out to be true. That alone should give you plenty of insight into how valid these claims are.
Ah yes, you're right. Because they do the same opening most games, they should lose credibility. (On a side note, have you watched a lot of Artosis' replays? He really doesn't just 14 pool/15 hatch every game). That's a much better measure of their credibility then that they are known as some of the top Zerg players in the Beta that have done quite well in nearly every tournament they have been a part of. You're right, doing the same build a lot is much more important.
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On June 20 2010 17:14 w_Ender_w wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2010 16:51 iEchoic wrote:On June 20 2010 16:45 w_Ender_w wrote:
I agree wholeheartedly. I'm a big fan of the TLO and Sen style play, with lots of aggression. But that really doesn't have anything to do with map balance. It has to do with the credibility of their arguments. Take a second and just think - "two players that do 14 pool 15 hatch nearly every single match state that a matchup on desert oasis is unbeatable a month before the game is even released and when a small fraction of the game's possibilities have been explored". If you think that statement or the person saying it has any credibility, you may be interested in an offer from a Nigerian Prince waiting for you in your inbox. There has literally never been a time in RTS history that a player has said 'x is unbeatable by y' this close to the game's release and it has actually turned out to be true. That alone should give you plenty of insight into how valid these claims are. Ah yes, you're right. Because they do the same opening most games, they should lose credibility. (On a side note, have you watched a lot of Artosis' replays? He really doesn't just 14 pool/15 hatch every game). That's a much better measure of their credibility then that they are known as some of the top Zerg players in the Beta that have done quite well in nearly every tournament they have been a part of. You're right, doing the same build a lot is much more important.
I'm going to stop wasting my time arguing with you following this post, it's obvious you either won't read or refuse to listen. The point that they do the same build is to point out that a lot of the possibilities in the game haven't been explored yet, not that they're bad. But thanks for completely and intentionally misconstruing my post.
Anybody who believes an idiotic statement like "Zerg can't beat Terran on Desert Oasis" deserves the misery they're going to feel when they can't enjoy the game because they're too busy being upset over game balance. If I had a dollar for every time I heard "x is unbeatable by y" I'd be a rich man.
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If zerg is allowed to have free expansion on all maps, I think Protoss gateways should act as mineral nodes and allowed to warp in probes after harass fails... you know.. just to "catch up" on macro because i spent all my "warp" on fighting units instead of drones... i mean probes...
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There is a very fundamental reason why zergs dont saturate and have low drone count early game. Protoss and Terran build 1 worker every time one finishes buildling out of the nexus, zerg, however, spends every available larva on forces without committing a single larva to drone.. its like they forget they can do both.. build units and macro.. then later on when they have been busy microing and shit, they have built up 14 larva at base and build it all into drones and instantly have saturation mid-game... so hilarious...
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On June 20 2010 16:45 w_Ender_w wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2010 16:36 TheRabidDeer wrote:
"I will be writing several articles on the balance of various things in SC2 and I decided that the first one would have to be map balance. This will be an objective look at the theory and practice of the balance of the current set of SC2 maps in the Zerg matchups."
At what point should we NOT expect it to be unbiased? He states right off the bat that he wants it to be an objective look at the map balance as it pertains to zerg. Then he ignores some aspects of a particular zerg matchup and seemingly ignores anything that doesnt have a fast expansion or anything beyond the first 6 minutes of the game. Tch. I missed the word objective, you may have me on a technicality buddy. I'll concede that point, but I do think we're looking at "unbiased" in two different ways. I think when you see "objective" and "map balance", you expect to see both the advantages and disadvantages that the maps allow for Zerg. Perhaps we will see this in later articles. Hell, the expected "Best of the Best" Zerg maps article might even have Desert Oasis as an example as well as in the worst, who knows? All I know is that when I see an article by a professional Zerg player titles "The Worst of the Worst" pertaining to 'map imbalances', I don't expect to see anything but a highlight of complaints and problems Zerg players deal with. It wouldn't be the "Worst of the Worst" if half the article was about good things Zerg can do on Desert Oasis. Show nested quote +There ARE builds other than 14 pool 15 hatch that can be used to great success. I agree wholeheartedly. I'm a big fan of the TLO and Sen style play, with lots of aggression. But that really doesn't have anything to do with map balance.
It is fine to have an article that focuses only on the negative aspects, but you shouldnt draw ANY conclusions from that single article (several times you can see a clear conclusion before he even begins detailing the map balance at all). You should have one article that details the negative aspects, another for the positive then a final article for a conclusion.
Many times in the article he has a focus on builds that are used. In fact, builds are almost taking over the article instead of it being an analysis of the map itself. Then he refuses to look at his own builds at all, which gives it an air of bias. A huge example of this is his desert oasis analysis for ZvP:
"Nearly every high-level game consists of Protoss attempting to hit Zerg before Hydralisks come out, force field the ramp and kill the natural."
Oh look, the map in a ZvP where the protoss is forced to all-in because the map isnt balanced well for later game when the zerg gets mutalisks (he notes that it is mutalisk heaven) and what does he do? 14 pool 15 hatch and lose the expansion because thats all he is focusing on. Same thing for kulas, he assumes a fast zerg expansion and ignores all else.
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On June 20 2010 17:17 iEchoic wrote:
I'm going to stop wasting my time arguing with you following this post, it's obvious you either won't read or refuse to listen. The point that they do the same build is to point out that a lot of the possibilities in the game haven't been explored yet, not that they're bad. But thanks for completely and intentionally misconstruing my post.
Anybody who believes an idiotic statement like "Zerg can't beat Terran on Desert Oasis" deserves the misery they're going to feel when they can't enjoy the game because they're too busy being upset over game balance. If I had a dollar for every time I heard "x is unbeatable by y" I'd be a rich man.
Who ever said I thought that was an accurate statement? In my own post I said, "I'm still on the fence about Desert Oasis..."blah blah blah, and then went on to elaborate. You're making a lot of assumptions here, starting apparently with "This article should be x instead of y" and "Artosis only does one build ever". All I'm arguing is that the article should be taken for what it is; an opinion, by two zerg players, about what bothers Zerg players in high level play on a few specific maps.
You're right, a ton of possibilities in this game haven't been explored yet. Artosis certainly can't unlock every secret of the match up in a single article. He can only speak about is own experience and observations.
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On June 20 2010 17:31 w_Ender_w wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2010 17:17 iEchoic wrote:
I'm going to stop wasting my time arguing with you following this post, it's obvious you either won't read or refuse to listen. The point that they do the same build is to point out that a lot of the possibilities in the game haven't been explored yet, not that they're bad. But thanks for completely and intentionally misconstruing my post.
Anybody who believes an idiotic statement like "Zerg can't beat Terran on Desert Oasis" deserves the misery they're going to feel when they can't enjoy the game because they're too busy being upset over game balance. If I had a dollar for every time I heard "x is unbeatable by y" I'd be a rich man. Who ever said I thought that was an accurate statement? In my own post I said, "I'm still on the fence about Desert Oasis..."blah blah blah, and then went on to elaborate. You're making a lot of assumptions here, starting apparently with "This article should be x instead of y" and "Artosis only does one build ever". All I'm arguing is that the article should be taken for what it is; an opinion, by two zerg players, about what bothers Zerg players in high level play on a few specific maps. You're right, a ton of possibilities in this game haven't been explored yet. Artosis certainly can't unlock every secret of the match up in a single article. He can only speak about is own experience and observations.
(highlighted the last part)
And this is the big difference between Artosis and the ones who flame in this thread. He actually has high level experience while the other bluntly state that the game is unexplored. Its like saying "just do something different". pretty laughable...
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On June 20 2010 17:24 TheRabidDeer wrote:
It is fine to have an article that focuses only on the negative aspects, but you shouldnt draw ANY conclusions from that single article (several times you can see a clear conclusion before he even begins detailing the map balance at all). You should have one article that details the negative aspects, another for the positive then a final article for a conclusion.
You're right, he could have changed his wording a bit to be less... conclusive, I suppose? And I do believe that plan from the start was to have this as merely the start of a series of articles (including one outlying pro-Zerg maps).
Many times in the article he has a focus on builds that are used. In fact, builds are almost taking over the article instead of it being an analysis of the map itself. Then he refuses to look at his own builds at all, which gives it an air of bias. A huge example of this is his desert oasis analysis for ZvP:
"Nearly every high-level game consists of Protoss attempting to hit Zerg before Hydralisks come out, force field the ramp and kill the natural."
Oh look, the map in a ZvP where the protoss is forced to all-in because the map isnt balanced well for later game when the zerg gets mutalisks (he notes that it is mutalisk heaven) and what does he do? 14 pool 15 hatch and lose the expansion because thats all he is focusing on. Same thing for kulas, he assumes a fast zerg expansion and ignores all else.
I think people are focusing on the builds he mentions, not so much the article. The builds he mentions in the article, he generally uses to say either "I can't mention this in the map balance article, due to this build (mech is not completely explored)" or "ZvP isn't worth mentioning because the build that is used is the biggest deal, not the map". He's not complaining about the match up, or how it goes, he's just explaining a bit about what the Protoss player is intending with the build (warp-gate all-in). I think, in light of this, the reason he does not examine his own build is because he doesn't want it to about the builds, and I suppose we could guess that he believes the build you do is less important than the terrain.
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I'd like a to throw a different idea out there on map balance:
Is it really a good thing if every map is perfectly even?
That sounds stupid at first, and you're going to be inclined to say "of course, idiot!" But, competition is about overcoming obstacles. In the NBA, for a random example, you don't play on a neutral court. You play on home court. And then you play on away court. Win rates on home court are much higher than win rates on away courts.
And the reason this is actually a good thing is because it comes down to the fact that how well you can handle adversity is one thing that defines your skill as a player.Playing equally-balanced maps in every situation creates gameplay that is vanilla because there are no obstacles to overcome.
I think when we're evaluating map balance we have a predisposition to say that every map should be exactly equal, when that doesn't actually create a good competitive situation or an enjoyable situation for viewers.
Edit, also:
And this is the big difference between Artosis and the ones who flame in this thread. He actually has high level experience while the other bluntly state that the game is unexplored. Its like saying "just do something different". pretty laughable...
I definitely think it's fair that you shouldn't be critiquing things that are reliant on player skill. I think the people who are offering suggestions and saying things like "just make mutas on 1base" probably aren't making convincing arguments. I just want to clear this up before he gets on and calls me garbage because I have less than 300 posts or whatever measure artosis uses to determine the worth of a human being. However there are a lot of fair complaints that have nothing to do with skill level.
For example, even if you're the greatest player in the world, you're a prodigy at SC2, it is stupid to say "Terran cannot beat Zerg on Desert Oasis". This doesn't become a qualified statement just because you're good at the game. At this point, NOBODY is qualified to say that. As I said, never has there been a time in RTS history where someone has said before the game is even released that something is unbeatable and it turns out to be true.
These kind of ridiculous statements completely obliterate any shred of objectivity the article had, and really make it obvious that there is some serious bias involved. I am actually shocked that anyone with RTS experience can say this with a straight face.
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On June 20 2010 17:53 iEchoic wrote:
I'd like a to throw a different idea out there on map balance:
Is it really a good thing if every map is perfectly even?
That sounds stupid at first, and you're going to be inclined to say "of course, idiot!" But, competition is about overcoming obstacles. In the NBA, for a random example, you don't play on a neutral court. You play on home court. And then you play on away court. Win rates on home court are much higher than win rates on away courts.
And the reason this is actually a good thing is because it comes down to the fact that how well you can handle adversity is one thing that defines your skill as a player.Playing equally-balanced maps in every situation creates gameplay that is vanilla because there are no obstacles to overcome.
I think you're definitely on to something there. I'd say that the only "perfectly even" map would be a totally symmetrical map played in a mirror matchup. That would indeed likely lead to some pretty bland gameplay. Adversity breeds excellence; "imbalances" and challenges lead to very interesting new strategies.
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Personally I think this thread should be closed for being an obvious whine-thread by the OP, no matter that his name is Artosis. It is highly biased - even though it tries to give itself the look of being objective - and by that geared to incite a flame war. I think the number of posts here support this.
Only someone who has "no part in it" OR who plays random can be truly objective. Neither IdrA nor Artosis are outsiders of the competitive scene and neither of them plays random. So they are looking at everything from the Zerg side of the fence and this is very obvious at all times.
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On the point of Kulas Ravine being very cramped, i think that's a very common trend in the map circulation, but Blizzard probably won't change those maps, like ever.
(Just look at wc3 ladder maps).
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Don't worry guys, these are beta maps. I'm sure blizzard has map race stats, and they can see what's going on.
I fully expect blizzard to have motw/motm after release. I also expect blizzard to hold map making competitions where the winners get their maps into the ladder map pools. So at the least we will slowly see a shift into balanced maps over a few months.
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Short rush distance, long scout distance
how situation on standard sc1 maps like Blue Storm, Destination (almost all other 2 player maps) is any different from Kulas Ravine?
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EPT
