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On February 06 2011 17:47 NineteeN wrote:
I confess, I was really excited about new maps. However, I'm growing more and more aggravated at Blizzards hatred of easy-to-defend naturals and obvious thirds. In this sense, Lost Temple is what I like to see (cross positions/ close by air only). None of these maps have easy-to-defend naturals, and that makes me sad.
My guess is that it's for the zerg players. Zerg players want more attack area to surround and flank. But it makes it harder for T or P to FE. Basically tells me to 4 gate on these maps first before expanding. But let me tell you, it is much easier to 4 gate a zerg natural if it's wide open. Metal or Xel'Naga is great to 4 gate on because you can attack from any angle to avoid any crawlers or tuck yourself in behind the minerals (every zerg will get pissed at you if you do that, it's impossible for them to dig you out). Or even worse in the case of XN, you can just walk right into their main and FF the ramp.
On February 06 2011 22:03 Mooncat wrote:
Man I really wish Blizzard would finally let go of their stupid rocks & watch towers. A few well placed rocks with maybe double their current HP similar to BW would be nice and maybe one watch tower per map max., but they're totally overdoing it imho.
Edit: Apart from that, at first glance the new maps do seem better than the current ones.
What's wrong with rocks and towers? In the case of gold, it has to be there or zerg will just FE to it. And when taking a third they fall down easily enough that it's trivial.
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On February 09 2011 07:32 Ownos wrote:Show nested quote +On February 06 2011 17:47 NineteeN wrote:
I confess, I was really excited about new maps. However, I'm growing more and more aggravated at Blizzards hatred of easy-to-defend naturals and obvious thirds. In this sense, Lost Temple is what I like to see (cross positions/ close by air only). None of these maps have easy-to-defend naturals, and that makes me sad. My guess is that it's for the zerg players. Zerg players want more attack area to surround and flank. But it makes it harder for T or P to FE. Basically tells me to 4 gate on these maps first before expanding. But let me tell you, it is much easier to 4 gate a zerg natural if it's wide open. Metal or Xel'Naga is great to 4 gate on because you can attack from any angle to avoid any crawlers or tuck yourself in behind the minerals (every zerg will get pissed at you if you do that, it's impossible for them to dig you out). Or even worse in the case of XN, you can just walk right into their main and FF the ramp. Show nested quote +On February 06 2011 22:03 Mooncat wrote:
Man I really wish Blizzard would finally let go of their stupid rocks & watch towers. A few well placed rocks with maybe double their current HP similar to BW would be nice and maybe one watch tower per map max., but they're totally overdoing it imho.
Edit: Apart from that, at first glance the new maps do seem better than the current ones. What's wrong with rocks and towers? In the case of gold, it has to be there or zerg will just FE to it. And when taking a third they fall down easily enough that it's trivial.
If the benefit of taking a base such as the gold is high enough, it should be in a place where it is at increased risk of being scouted and killed. The fact you need to cover for shoddy mapmaking by saying "shit, they can take and hold this too easily, I know, ROCKS" is really really bad.
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The maps... they burn my eyes... Imagine yourselves this image macro:
Make big maps
*trollface*
Same number of bases as Steppes of War
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#5 is the worst map I've ever had to play. Good luck defending a push through the rocks in close air positions as Zerg.
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Russian Federation125 Posts
Played some ZvT on this map.
![[image loading]](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4781217/Maps/testmap3.jpg)
And it's awful for zerg. If it's not crossrespawn than this map is just like steps of war, because your naturals are ridiculously close may be even closer then on steps of war.
But that's not the end - there is highground right in the middle between your bases.
So what will be the common scenario in ZvT on this map? Let's suppose Zerg spawn on topright and terran on bottomright.
Terran either allin with marrins + scv because rush distance is very(i mean VERY) close or terran takes his natural and tank push. T can just place some tanks on highground on the way to your base and may be bunker with marines. This highground will defend shortest way to terran base and allow him to easily threat zerg. Then terran destroy rocks and push right into your base - nice.
All what zerg can do in such situation is try to allin from 1 base and over game before any tanks, or try to take long way through the center(because shortest way is blocked by tanks on highground) and base trade with terran, but 1 plan fortress o some well placed tanks will make it almost impossible.
In any case i'm not surprised that we won't see this map on gsl. Imho even steps of war is better for tvz then this map.
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I don't really like the new maps as zerg, even after playing them all weekend. The wide open naturals kind of suck, you can't cover your natural + your ramp with one spine crawler and it takes longer to link them with creep so I would either die to 2rax pressure or have to expand way late, not sure how zergs will adjust to these if they go live. Then to make it worse if you spawn close position you get REALLY close positions on some maps.
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Russian Federation125 Posts
I think if blizzard makes so that you spawn ALLWAYS on cross respawns(like they limited it on shacuras plato) then this maps will be rather ok.
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Blizzard should quit it and just buy the maps from the iccup mapmakers, I'm pretty sure they will be happy to get 1k a piece for a well done, depurated map.
I guess the reason they don't want to support the iccup map makers is because iccup basically encouraged piracy during all the time it existed, it just does not make sense from a business ethics standpoint...
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On February 10 2011 02:33 TheBlueMeaner wrote:
Blizzard should quit it and just buy the maps from the iccup mapmakers, I'm pretty sure they will be happy to get 1k a piece for a well done, depurated map.
I guess the reason they don't want to support the iccup map makers is because iccup basically encouraged piracy during all the time it existed, it just does not make sense from a business ethics standpoint...
They dont have to buy iccups maps, they already own them. Theyre just to ignorant to use them.
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I tend to think a more open natural is better for Zerg. The chokepoint doesn't benefit you as much as it does the other races (unless you like getting a bunch of Spine Crawlers). Ok, it'll help against Hellion harass and the like, but you'll also have a much harder time punishing T/P FE builds and I don't think it really helps you at all against the majority of attacks.
These maps don't actually look too bad. Its definitely about time they started expanding the map pool and these look a whole lot better than the previous offerings.
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On February 10 2011 05:27 KissKiss wrote:
I tend to think a more open natural is better for Zerg. The chokepoint doesn't benefit you as much as it does the other races (unless you like getting a bunch of Spine Crawlers). Ok, it'll help against Hellion harass and the like, but you'll also have a much harder time punishing T/P FE builds and I don't think it really helps you at all against the majority of attacks.
These maps don't actually look too bad. Its definitely about time they started expanding the map pool and these look a whole lot better than the previous offerings.
Yeah but current zerg strategy depends on the ability to defend a FE, not on the ability to punish a P/T FE. I don't think it's as big a deal in ZvP but in ZvT it is pretty horrid, other than hellion harass 2rax pressure also becomes very difficult to deal with because you already have so little time to prepare a defense, zergs really depend on having one spine crawler to assist with defense but it doesn't seem viable with the new maps. Then at the same time P/T will just sim city their natural so the choke is almost irrelevant, I see this hurting zerg play far more than it helps it. It would be different if the maps had longer rush distances to offset this but some of them can be stupidly close.
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There a so many new maps out right now, I feel like I can only learn so many maps at once. As well, there is no guarantee any of these maps will be in the next patch, so I'd rather not fall in love with(play 40 times in a row) a map only to have it not make it into the next patch, just my feelings.
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Did anybody put these new maps on the tool for analysing maps where you get rush distances and build area?
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Blizzard should quit it and just buy the maps from the iccup mapmakers, I'm pretty sure they will be happy to get 1k a piece for a well done, depurated map.
I guess the reason they don't want to support the iccup map makers is because iccup basically encouraged piracy during all the time it existed, it just does not make sense from a business ethics standpoint...
Yup. Also, there is still hope. Although they probably won't put iCCup maps in, it's possible they'll put in a couple GSL maps (especially Crossfire SE since it's so close to a Blizzard map, and if not I hope they put in the non-GOM-edited Crossfire at least).
We'll just have to wait til the ladder reset/new season. If you see the interview recently of Dustin Browder, he says the new season has been pushed much later than he wanted; he wanted seasons of about 3-4 months.
Hope hope hope! :D
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On February 10 2011 14:19 fenixdown wrote:
Did anybody put these new maps on the tool for analysing maps where you get rush distances and build area?
Page 16.
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So, on a scale of 1 to 10, how do you rank these maps?
Test Map 1: 8/10. Are there any Zergs who would be sad if Lost Temple was replaced by this? No cliff shenanigans and the more open center are reasons enough to approve. I'm still not a fan of close spots, but in no way is this anything but an improvement.
Test Map 2: 9/10. On far positions, this map is fantastic. It's basically a 4-player Xelnaga caverns with the main/natural/third setup, except with an easier to take and hold third. The worst positions for Zerg are vertical, but that short nat-to-nat distance can't be rushed early due to the rocks (which means, incidentally, that this map uses rocks in the same way the GSL map Crevasse does), and the rocks going to the side of your nat are easier to defend than the rocks going into your main on Shakuras. Vertical positions TestMap2 is far better for Zerg than close Metal or close LT (or close Shakuras?), and far distances are great. I think this is the best map Blizzard's ever made (though you can argue if that's a low bar or not).
Test Map 3: 5/10. I don't hate it....but I don't really like it either. The ramp placement actually makes SCV all-ins hard to beat again. If the ramp were moved to be closer to the expansion...close positions would still be pretty damn close.
Test Map 4: 2/10. This map has no defining features that aren't both terrible and well-qqued over.
Test Map 5: 1/10. If they disabled close spawns, this map would be merely mediocre.
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So is the PTR Matchmaking system just not working? I tried last night to play a map and was waiting for 40 mins, lol.
I even had one of my friends get on and try to join a map hoping we could play each other on B.net but apparently there wasn't anyone online, lol.
Would be nice if Blizzard would let us know when stuff breaks or whatever.
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EPT
