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[Interview] MorroW on SC2 Maps - Page 2

Forum Index > Community News and Headlines
119 CommentsPost a Reply
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m0ck
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
4194 Posts
January 13 2011 11:58 GMT
#21
Huge effort by both involved, much appreciated. And a great read. Thanks!
Samro225am
Profile Joined August 2010
Germany982 Posts
January 13 2011 12:19 GMT
#22
nice interview and some very valid points on problems with the 5 MotM maps. it would really help the mapmaking community to get a lot more input from higher level players.

most important thing for me ist: mapping needs time, because there won't be any map coming out perfectly. it depends on play and how players change their play and maps need to be changed accodingly. in the current stage it is really hard to say (from a map maker's perspective) what will work how, because this game still is quite new.

al that got me really thinking about Decline and the close spawn 'problem' - well: again...
Weavel
Profile Joined January 2010
Finland9223 Posts
January 13 2011 12:23 GMT
#23
Really good interview. Hopefully maps will become bigger concern in 2011. It would be awesome if progamers like morrow would analyze popular custom maps to make them even better!
Life/Seed//Mvp/NaNiwa fighting! ZeNEX forever!
Xxio
Profile Blog Joined July 2009
Canada5565 Posts
January 13 2011 12:23 GMT
#24
Cool, great read. MorroW is such a manner guy.
KTY
Numy
Profile Blog Joined June 2010
South Africa35471 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-01-13 12:30:44
January 13 2011 12:29 GMT
#25
On January 13 2011 20:32 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:
What a look at the true problems with maps indicates is not a problem that is exclusive to maps, but a reflection on race design and versatility, and consequentially balance. If this game cannot be balanced on a single map for all MUs, is it possible that it is not balanced as a game?


I think it's exactly this. Blizzard was too short sighted with Beta and balancing. They focused on balancing around the maps they are forcing down the communities throat instead of balancing around the races themselves. I don't really see them making the sweeping changes they need to know because they wasted so much time nerfing imbalanced rushes due to their map pool.

It's a bit sad but I don't see how custom maps can be implemented in SC2 without help from Blizzard.
dtz
Profile Joined September 2010
5834 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-01-13 12:38:27
January 13 2011 12:37 GMT
#26
Each race wants different terrain out of a map. Zerg needs massive open areas, terran wants tight chokes vs zerg but not protoss, protoss wants as many chokes as possible

If this game cannot be balanced on a single map for all MUs, is it possible that it is not balanced as a game?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Having some maps that favour a certain matchup is fine. In BW, these maps are everywhere and it is still used now. However, they cannot be the majority of the maps.

I believe Morrow has said that the solution is to have maps that incorporate different features like Xelnaga. It has both open areas as well as tiny chokes. Therefore, it became up to the players to take the fight where they have the advantage which means testing their positioning skills and decision making. In a way Shakuras fulfill this criteria because it has wide open areas in the middle but tiny chokes elsewhere especially between the rocks.

Thats why Xelnaga and Shakuras are the best maps nowadays.
wristuzi
Profile Joined July 2010
United Kingdom1168 Posts
January 13 2011 12:40 GMT
#27
Wicked interview, discussion of maps is such an important thing for the SC2 scene, and the community is lucky to have a progamer who is also a mapper. GO MORROW.

Also, his ZvP is incredible.
MarineKingPrime ¯\_(シ)_/¯ // Naniwa ¯\_(シ)_/¯ // Morrow
ejozl
Profile Joined October 2010
Denmark3500 Posts
January 13 2011 12:58 GMT
#28
Awesome interview!
For there to be a real balance, there should never be an equal outcome of a battle.
The maps should have both large flank areas and thin narrow areas and the outcome of the battle should depend on the players picking where to have the battlefield.
SC2 Archon needs "Terrible, terrible damage" as one of it's quotes.
[Eternal]Phoenix
Profile Joined December 2010
United States333 Posts
January 13 2011 13:00 GMT
#29
On January 13 2011 21:37 dtz wrote:
Show nested quote +
Each race wants different terrain out of a map. Zerg needs massive open areas, terran wants tight chokes vs zerg but not protoss, protoss wants as many chokes as possible

If this game cannot be balanced on a single map for all MUs, is it possible that it is not balanced as a game?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Having some maps that favour a certain matchup is fine. In BW, these maps are everywhere and it is still used now. However, they cannot be the majority of the maps.

I believe Morrow has said that the solution is to have maps that incorporate different features like Xelnaga. It has both open areas as well as tiny chokes. Therefore, it became up to the players to take the fight where they have the advantage which means testing their positioning skills and decision making. In a way Shakuras fulfill this criteria because it has wide open areas in the middle but tiny chokes elsewhere especially between the rocks.

Thats why Xelnaga and Shakuras are the best maps nowadays.


Yes but you realize the things that made maps "imbalanced" for one race over another in BW were insignificant compared to the things that make SC2 maps imbalanced. We're talking about locations of the logical 4th in TvP on HBR for example. Remember how they shifted the base positions for those mineral only's?

Compare this to Delta Quadrant, where zerg can't even expand.
'environmental legislation is like cutting scvs to stop an imaginary allin that is never going to come, while your opponent ecos and expands continually'
okrane
Profile Joined April 2010
France265 Posts
January 13 2011 13:07 GMT
#30
On January 13 2011 20:32 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:
Morrow made 1 good point that most people will overlook, so I will restate its significance:

Each race wants different terrain out of a map. Zerg needs massive open areas, terran wants tight chokes vs zerg but not protoss, protoss wants as many chokes as possible.

You cannot design 1 map that suits all the races. Races do not have the versatility that they had in BW.

Remember in BW how a large open area in TvP was death for terran, so T would use mines and hug a wall to turn the attack path into a narrow corridor? Another example: Zerg has a very narrow bridge to one 3rd, and a line of cliffs to another. He'll go for the cliff 3rd if he makes muta or the bridge 3rd if he opens lurker.

Zerg doesn't have a choice of openings in sc2. Terran doesn't have tools for blocking terrain movement. All chokes are protoss favored no matter what because of FF and storm/colossi. The lack of versatility of unit choice, because unit choice is more dependent on what your opponent makes than what you want to do with your expanding, kills map design.

What Morrow is suggesting is that we have separate maps for each MU, but that's ridiculous.

What a look at the true problems with maps indicates is not a problem that is exclusive to maps, but a reflection on race design and versatility, and consequentially balance. If this game cannot be balanced on a single map for all MUs, is it possible that it is not balanced as a game?



What an awesome post. I feel like map imbalance has much to do with the fact that all 3 races are pretty one dimensional. Depending on match-up, some may have multiple builds but pretty much the same core philosophy.

Really disappointed with Starcraft II Zerg! :(
gbglass
Profile Joined December 2009
Sweden29 Posts
January 13 2011 13:10 GMT
#31
Excellent interview this thread should be spotlighted.
God hates Sweden
Ragoo
Profile Joined March 2010
Germany2773 Posts
January 13 2011 13:15 GMT
#32
Wow, excellent interview. I love all the insight in this one.
Hope the map makers get more feedback from the pro gamers in the future, so they can create BW level material.
Member of TPW mapmaking team/// twitter.com/Ragoo_ /// "goody represents border between explainable reason and supernatural" Cloud
Anchen
Profile Joined January 2010
United States31 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-01-13 13:30:15
January 13 2011 13:29 GMT
#33
Nice interview and insights from Morrow. Dunno if Morrow or anyone will read this, but a question in regards to map design I was curious about. I know Morrow said it was too early to be experimenting with things like no gas golds and such but I wondered what he thought of say rich vespenes. Obviously very early game build orders are balanced around 2 gas in the main, so that probably has to be standard. But what if every expand was 1 rich vespene instead of 2 regular? Who would this help? For say zerg, they could more realistically take a bunch of bases and put 3 drones on gas and get a fairly big but not full 2 regular gas boost instead of needing a full 6 to "saturate" the gas. Of course other races could benefit too but was just curious if the needing a few less workers and going more broodwar style in that regard how it would affect starcraft 2 in morrow or a high level player's opinion.
DND_Enkil
Profile Joined September 2010
Sweden598 Posts
January 13 2011 15:09 GMT
#34
Really nice interview, Morrow has some great insights.

His experience as a mapmaker, top level Terran and a top level Zerg really shows when he comments on the maps. Not saying his word is 100% correct but he makes some great points.
"If you write about a sewing needle there is always some one-eyed bastard that gets offended" - Fritiof The Pirate Nilsson
Darpa
Profile Blog Joined March 2010
Canada4413 Posts
January 13 2011 15:16 GMT
#35
Whats funny is if they make these maps part of gsl, terrans will get run over by zerg and protoss (if the maps are to large) because terran works best at close positions. Blizzard will then have to balance over third party maps. I just really dont see that going anywhere.
"losers always whine about their best, Winners go home and fuck the prom queen"
uSnAmplified
Profile Joined October 2010
United States1029 Posts
January 13 2011 15:25 GMT
#36
The big maps worry me when it comes to balance overall, yes things need to change but the ones they are adding are incredibly big for 1v1, and the layouts need to be more neutral so it doesn't cater to one race specifically.

An example would be crossfire, i played a lot on this map the last couple days and i cant see any way a protoss could lose on this map. The expo is easy to grab which is not a bad thing, but then the map is nothing but choke points making it ridiculously easy to abuse fast colossi +FF or HT storms. It doesn't matter if the enemy macros better when you are forced to always attack through a choke getting melted by AOE and cut into pieces by forcefields.
~
hagon
Profile Joined August 2010
United Kingdom556 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-01-13 16:58:27
January 13 2011 16:56 GMT
#37
In Brood War it was possible to create a synergy between the Races and the maps. With SC2 you are trying to align that synergy over the Race, the map and the the racial mechanic. It is additionally complicated by the Protoss dual marco mechanic.

As a Terran player, I personally dont feel playing on open maps vs. Zerg is, or would be, auto loss, Terran's need to evolve a higher quality of technical play. And thats true for Zerg and Protoss as well - but I hardly see that happening on the ladder maps that currently exist - they are constricting the game into a very narrow channel of play: watching pro-level play at the moment too often reminds me of two stone-club wielding Neanderthals fighting in a phonebox.

ps. Remove the centre 4 destructible rocks and replace the main backdoors with cliffs and I will like Shakuras Plateau, feels like its half the map it could be at the moment.
Numy
Profile Blog Joined June 2010
South Africa35471 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-01-13 17:00:02
January 13 2011 16:57 GMT
#38
On January 14 2011 00:16 Darpa wrote:
Whats funny is if they make these maps part of gsl, terrans will get run over by zerg and protoss (if the maps are to large) because terran works best at close positions. Blizzard will then have to balance over third party maps. I just really dont see that going anywhere.


No that's the best case you could possibly have. Terran SHOULDN'T be forced into having to win early game or having to have close positions in order to win. They should have the tools to win regardless of map size if they are skilled enough. The error in Blizzards design is that they are/have balanced for this specific map pool so that's why there are issues.

In BW it wasn't so much the size of the map that favoured the race, it was the terrain and positioning. As others have mentioned Terran didn't want to engage P in the open but sometimes they did so they used mines to limit movement. This is exactly the kind of thing that races should have in SC2. Protoss have Forcefields which creates chokes even if there are none.

If Blizzard however choose to ignore their balance faults then there might be an issue. Saying that Blizzard will then rebalance stuff is an issue is very very wrong. That's a very good thing. Most of the beta was spend fixing imbalanced rushes which would have been easily fixed via a better map pool. They wasted their time because they were too stubborn to fix the real issues.


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

People need to stop thinking that what is perceived as "fact" now is what will always be known as fact. Some things will stay the same but many things change. That's what makes a good RTS game great.
uNiGNoRe
Profile Blog Joined June 2007
Germany1115 Posts
January 13 2011 17:28 GMT
#39
Most interesting interview in a while, thanks for sharing.
Torte de Lini
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
Germany38463 Posts
January 13 2011 18:11 GMT
#40

Another thing I don’t like about the maps is the way they experiment with gold bases that have no Vespene. I think it is actually a terrible idea and I think its almost too early to start experimenting like that. Other than that I think the maps look pretty nice.


Anyone try that 3v3 Beta map that has two really risky gold mineral patches AND NO GAS?
Why the hell would someone put no gas on gold mineral patches. If you can take a gold in 3v3, you deserve the fucking gas.
https://twitter.com/#!/TorteDeLini (@TorteDeLini)
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