EPT[Interview] MorroW on SC2 Maps - Page 6
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Zhul
Czech Republic430 Posts
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DoubleReed
United States4130 Posts
It makes me wonder what kind of massive changes will occur in the upcoming expansions. I like Morrow's insight on the maps, and the difficulty of making something that's actually reasonably balanced. | ||
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Ownos
United States2147 Posts
On January 14 2011 17:07 Alpina wrote: He didn't seem biased at all and said his opinion on map effects for all races. It may seem like that because zerg actually depends on map most of all races. Balance aside, it's important to get the BASICS right as Morrow mentioned. So sick of seeing these customs with all sorts of gimmicks to them and also way too much love for neutral expansions. | ||
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bgx
Poland6595 Posts
btw [Eternal]Phoenix u hit the nail | ||
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Spekulatius
Germany2413 Posts
On January 16 2011 09:17 DoubleReed wrote: It seems the main reason zerg has no ability to use chokes is directly because of the lack of lurker. This makes me wonder how zerg's can use burrowed banelings to abuse chokes. Of course, that's FAR more limited than lurkers. It makes me wonder what kind of massive changes will occur in the upcoming expansions. I like Morrow's insight on the maps, and the difficulty of making something that's actually reasonably balanced. I absolutely agree. I strongly miss lurkers (or an equivalent unit). Plus, zerg as the only race has basically no possibility to block a ramp (to prevent scouting or general penetration by an enemy army) with buildings, a queen to block hellions normally isn't on time because the creep isn't spread to the choke until the scouting hellion arrives (plus reaction time) and for later preventing the enemy army from entering the base, the 175 HP simply aren't enough. | ||
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Spekulatius
Germany2413 Posts
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? (Man i would have liked to cut a part of this quote to not blow up my post, but every sentence is just full of truth...) Having played brood war way more than SC2, I feel the lack of versatility of the races poses a big problem for all map creation process. As he mentioned, every race wants - or rather needs - one special kind of terrain to be successful in a certain matchup. The reason behind this is that most of the players only feel confident with one single unit combination, and even if they mix that up, it still works the same. Protoss getting some or no immortals at all, doesn't matter for the functioning of their army - they don't play without either Colossi or HTs, both having maximum efficiency in chokes due to their aoe. Zerg needs surrounds, because that maximizes the efficiency of their melee units (zerglings, banelings, theoretically ultras), lets the short ranged roaches catch up to the enemy's longer ranged army and ultimately prevents them from being kited (by stalkers, marauders). In BW, mutalisks could have profited from marine/medic groups getting in a choke, unable to stim-chase the mutas, but I don't see the muta micro being an efficient counter (yea, hate on me, Day9  ) to mass marine balls anymore.(Leaving out terran, cause I'm tired, and because I feel they might have the biggest versatility of the 3 races, and I even think we might see big only-air-mixes with banshees/vikings being viable in future) As a consequence, a certain terrain disposition directly favors the one or the other race, other than in BW, where it usually forced a rethink of strategy from a race, a process of adaption rather than an immediate disadvantage. I might be wrong about the situation being that severe, and maybe the game will develop and become more flexible, but that is in my eyes the status quo. Let's hope people with Morrow's insight will influence the evolution of this game. | ||
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United_Strafes
United States10 Posts
On January 16 2011 16:41 Ownos wrote: Hit the nail right on the head. There is the inherit problem is no one is motivated enough to make a map no one will play. Yeah, there's MOTM, but there needs to be ways to motivate mappers AND players to play them. Ultimately, IMO the goal is to hopefully get the most popular and best maps on ladder. Otherwise, outside of tournaments these maps are destined for the custom games graveyard. Balance aside, it's important to get the BASICS right as Morrow mentioned. So sick of seeing these customs with all sorts of gimmicks to them and also way too much love for neutral expansions. Very true, but the custom game system will need alot of work. Right now there is no forum for finding melee maps at all, everything is just jumbled together, I would love to see the custom games system fixed first. Then maybe some of the popular maps under melee maps can become ladder maps for a few months. I think the maps are working their way up to the B.net Map Market, what that's gonna be is still a mystery, but they'll be releasing a pay service at some point you can bet on it. | ||
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smegged
Australia213 Posts
On January 16 2011 09:17 DoubleReed wrote: It seems the main reason zerg has no ability to use chokes is directly because of the lack of lurker. This makes me wonder how zerg's can use burrowed banelings to abuse chokes. Of course, that's FAR more limited than lurkers. It makes me wonder what kind of massive changes will occur in the upcoming expansions. I like Morrow's insight on the maps, and the difficulty of making something that's actually reasonably balanced. I am not sure that lurkers would be as effective at that job as they were in BW for several reasons: 1) Armies are far more fluid and responsive, so even at the most basic level there is better control. This means that armies can avoid lurkers much easier. 2) No high ground advantage means that with detection, a good marine (for example) ark is really easy to form to kill the lurkers with minimal loss. 3) Units do not move in single file (related to issue #1). 4) No dark swarm means that they become a lot more useless in the late game. New advantages: 1) No irradiate (hells yeah!) Zerg do need something to defend chokes with for the game to be balanced. Unfortunately I don't think that lurkers can do the job well enough without some severe changes. Also they would be difficult to balance in team games - zerg player builds lurkers and protoss player forcefielding on top of them would make them insanely strong. Besides, what zerg needs is the ability to change the terrain (like colossi, reapers, sentries etc...) and a better mineral dump than zerglings. Really as zerg, unless you go roach/ling the entire game you are always gas limited. This means that gold minerals are less useful than for other races. Zealots and marines are far more useful in the late game than lings. | ||
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Zyban
United States54 Posts
on the "zerg needs lurker" thing I agree with the post above. I think they would be much worse in sc2, for some examples: ZvT: Scans are almost always gonna be available, Drops are MUCH easier to mass, Ravens are arguably stronger than science vessels in killing them directly. ZvP: stalkers would perform much much better against lurkers than dragoons, the reason is obvious BLINK. Along with the fact observers, immortals, and colo's all units that would absolutely own lukers are in the best tech path for them. ZvZ: Nice lurkers! {researchs tunneling claws, drops a nydus in your main, techs muta, etc.} its just that all races have ways of just busting or ignoring entrenched defensive positions that I think the lurker is nigh useless defensively. Offensively however, banelings get our marine ownage check check'd, fuck buildings and workers up checked, and are easier and faster to get. Ill pass | ||
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iGrok
United States5142 Posts
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Euronyme
Sweden3804 Posts
On January 16 2011 09:17 DoubleReed wrote: It seems the main reason zerg has no ability to use chokes is directly because of the lack of lurker. This makes me wonder how zerg's can use burrowed banelings to abuse chokes. Of course, that's FAR more limited than lurkers. It makes me wonder what kind of massive changes will occur in the upcoming expansions. I like Morrow's insight on the maps, and the difficulty of making something that's actually reasonably balanced. It's a new game. Zergs are good in open terrain, whereas terran and protoss have an advantage in the matchup in choke points. In PvT protoss (so far) has advantage in choke points, whereas terran wants open terrain to get his MM spread out. (With a meching terran it's a different story ofcourse.) Just don't engage in choke points with siege tanks and collosi in them. | ||
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drcatellino
Canada346 Posts
The opinions expressed in this interview seem to opt for option 1. I tend to not agree, I think each map should bring a different playstyle. Morrow point seems to be that every map should be favoring long macro play with long rush distances. I mean that is because it is his playstyle: Macro player that likes long games. I personnally think there should be more variety of maps. I really liked Desert Oasis: everybody complained about it, but every game I played on this map was epic. People complaint because they don't want to spend the time adapting. By the way, anyone knows when we are going to see any new ladder maps ? | ||
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xciLe
Norway213 Posts
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Hound
United States7 Posts
On January 17 2011 11:08 Spekulatius wrote: I absolutely agree. I strongly miss lurkers (or an equivalent unit). Plus, zerg as the only race has basically no possibility to block a ramp (to prevent scouting or general penetration by an enemy army) with buildings, a queen to block hellions normally isn't on time because the creep isn't spread to the choke until the scouting hellion arrives (plus reaction time) and for later preventing the enemy army from entering the base, the 175 HP simply aren't enough. Zerg players should seriously stop whining about being unable to block with buildings. It's been that way since BW. If you're complaining about not being able to block with buildings, you're playing the wrong race. | ||
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Fungal Growth
United States434 Posts
The big thing to consider when making maps is to ask if the races are rush balanced, macro balanced and mid-game balanced. Just think that SC2 unlike SC1 is not 'time balanced' in that the longer the game goes on the more skewed the balance gets. Long games favor zerg because of creep, overall unit speed (especially the muta), and production capacity is so cheap that units are easily massed. Protoss are IMO the best rush race but the weakest macro race because of the cost of their units, slow unit speed, production capacity and lack of mules/queens (CB is way overrated). So toss have maybe a nice window in the 6-9 minute range and brief window later when they have colossi but the opponent doesn't have AA yet...but as soon as the opponent gets AA, toss'es macro can't keep up with terran and zerg. Toss in late game has to scramble for AOE because basic economics of the races says they will get outgunned straight up with no AOE units on either side. If we have large maps we have to nerf muta speed, queen cost (inject larvae is too OP in late game) and do something perhaps about dropship and banshee speed as well else protoss will get trounced. All in all, I do think the big problem is race balance as opposed to map balance. A lot of zergs feel they have to play macro or bust Idra style which is sooo boring. Would much rather see a buffed zerg early game and nerfed zerg late game so we don't see mindless overdroning, oodles of expansions and creep everywhere and the zerg simple a-moving their super macro army to victory. A nice solution also might be to nerf rauders so zerg can go roaches vs terrain as opposed to muta/ling/bling (which is getting so old) and for the colossi range to be nerfed which would open up options as well. | ||
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sylverfyre
United States8298 Posts
On January 21 2011 02:04 Euronyme wrote: It's a new game. Zergs are good in open terrain, whereas terran and protoss have an advantage in the matchup in choke points. In PvT protoss (so far) has advantage in choke points, whereas terran wants open terrain to get his MM spread out. (With a meching terran it's a different story ofcourse.) Just don't engage in choke points with siege tanks and collosi in them. Which leads us back to the map creation problem Morrow was talking about if zerg can't do much with enclosed spaces and protoss/terran can't do well in open spaces? | ||
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BoomStevo
United States332 Posts
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anyuta34i
Albania9 Posts
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Chicane
United States7875 Posts
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Panicc
Germany163 Posts
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