EPTThe second one kinda reminds me of the very first blizzard maps put on the Stacraft/BW maps as to play multiplayer with, which had no ramps, no tight chokes, like 5 bases total and only long straight corridors.
Maps in the Balance - Page 12
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Salteador Neo
Andorra5591 Posts
The second one kinda reminds me of the very first blizzard maps put on the Stacraft/BW maps as to play multiplayer with, which had no ramps, no tight chokes, like 5 bases total and only long straight corridors. | ||
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Arceus
Vietnam8332 Posts
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d6Mesh
Netherlands445 Posts
I generally really do enjoy TL articles but this one just rubs me the wrong way. :/ | ||
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Deleuze
United Kingdom2102 Posts
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Sated
England4983 Posts
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Ragoo
Germany2773 Posts
On November 15 2011 18:29 Arceus wrote: so far there isnt any map that inherits the creative features of BW maps. For example Outsider, collosseum, Pathfinder or even Alternative.. Even 3-players map is a rarity This has a lot to do with how often the maps change in SC2 so far: There are pretty clear bounds of what people find acceptable and they didn't translate from BW to SC2 cos SC2 has a whole new community. So we as mapmakers have to make maps within these bounds. And every time someone (and by someone I mean GSL mapmakes thus far) gets a map played in tournament that does things slightly different these bounds are pushed and this new feature or concept becomes acceptable or standard. So far new GSL maps gave us the "right" to make half bases (6 minerals and 1 gas), use rich gas, make 3 player maps, self-destroying xel'naga towers (lol) and soon also 3 gas bases plus concepts like huge maps with easy 3 base (Crevasse, Tal'darim, Terminus, Calm) and other stuff, and still be considered quite standard. Things that would have a hard time to be accepted by tournaments for being non standard are stuff like mineral blocks, mineral lines that block pathes, eggs, neutral units or spells (like arbiter in BW or forcefields in sc2), island or semi-island maps etc etc (just look at some more recent BW maps and you'll find a lot of features and concepts that aren't standard in SC2 at all). So as you can see if the maps are changed more, more stuff becomes acceptable and in some years you might see maps that by today's standard would be considered absolutely crazy. If you want to support this process you should support GSL and especially ESV cause they are constantly doing non-standard things and push boundaries. (also go to the NASL semi open thread and say nice things about Damage Inc cos if that map was played in NASL that could make mineral blocks standard : P ) | ||
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Nymbul
United Kingdom127 Posts
PvP called, it wants to know why you think that You can't view maps solely on win percentages, viability of builds is another factor and currently Tal'darim is still 4gate vs 4gate or death every single game | ||
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Delta9-THC
Germany13 Posts
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JOJOsc2news
3000 Posts
1. The community has been vocal about maps from the beginning on! 1.1 SC2 is just over a year old and relating the situation now to the situation back in the days of Steppes of War and Jungle Basin does not work. Of course there will be mistakes, especially at the kick off of SC2. 2. This article has yet again this notion that Blizzard maps are generally not good. I would like to disagree. This is just some kind of trend that everyone seems to need to follow. Blizzard Maps have made for some of the most amazing and diverse matches in SC2 history. (Besides the fact that lowered supply depots kinda destroy the certain feeling a map can convey) 3. All hail the custom maps? No! Custom maps are definitely required if we want to see interesting and balanced eSports in the future but I feel that you are missing out on one important aspect of custom maps. Especially the GSL maps are made for one objective: long games. Custom maps are often not focused on the most diverse play possible but on forcing or strongly supplementing a certain way of playing. 3.1 Custom maps have amazing win/loss percentages. So? I have to agree with a number of posts earlier who complained about Tal'darim. Tal'darim is horrible for PvP (Always 4Gate v 4Gate). Blizzard made a lot of adjustments to the 4 Gate and it is not nearly as widely used as it was before. I am a Protoss player as well and I pretty much never 4Gate anymore, except for when I have to play on Tal'Darim. This is an example where the win/loss percentage is not necessarily the best indicator for a map. 4. Other than that, great article! I would love to see more community maps in Pro Tournaments or even in Amateur Tournaments. | ||
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purecarnagge
719 Posts
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sVnteen
Germany2238 Posts
On November 15 2011 21:19 Nymbul wrote: Tal'darim Altar = Good? PvP called, it wants to know why you think that You can't view maps solely on win percentages, viability of builds is another factor and currently Tal'darim is still 4gate vs 4gate or death every single game this thread (as the title says) is about the balance of a map and (obviously) a map cant be imbalanced in a mirror match so what are you trying to say? nice thread its quite interesting that JB was even worse for z than sow lol | ||
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JOJOsc2news
3000 Posts
this thread (as the title says) is about the balance of a map and (obviously) a map cant be imbalanced in a mirror match so what are you trying to say? nice thread its quite interesting that JB was even worse for z than sow lol A map can force a certain strategy and that is exactly the same for mirror match ups as for other match ups. An imbalanced map usually supplements one kind of play against a certain race. The example of Tal'Darim Altar just shows that win percentages are not necessarily the best indicator for a good map even though it might (obviously) not fall under balance. Also, the last sentence of the article: Start caring about maps, because they can make the difference between a boring mirror-fest of all-ins and the most epic tournament you've ever seen. | ||
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AimlessAmoeba
Canada704 Posts
It took months of horrible games before we managed to organize, beat off and kill the monster that was Steppes of War. There's something slightly gross in this sentence.  | ||
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Koshi
Belgium38797 Posts
On November 15 2011 07:04 acgFork wrote: Why is Jungle Basin ugly?!?!?! Epic first post. My answer: I got 2 bans in my TL post career, 1 was for QQing on Jungle Basin in a Thread that had a mod warning, don't QQ about Jungle Basin. I don't feel bad about it, it is a justified ban, and I was banned by iNcontroL, not many can say that  . | ||
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DailYLeet
Germany827 Posts
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MIsterToto
Argentina47 Posts
Anyway, here are the results, for a Student's t test of two tails and alpha=5%: ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/KEjOk.png) So, one thing is clear. Metalopolis 1.1 and fighting spirit are really balanced maps. But still, even the "terrible" ones like Steppes fare pretty well in every matchup except TvZ. In fact, TvZ appears to be a problem in most maps, while TvP and PvZ arent that much affected. In fact, in none of the maps seems to be a real advantage por either T or P in that matchup. This leads me to a simple question: why do we have to have balanced maps for EVERY matchup? Wouldn't it be a much more balanced game if we used matchup-specific maps? Actually, if you look at the p-values (the highest the p-value, the more balanced the map is, as to say) of the balance test for each matchup in every map, some really cool things happen: ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/3N5X4.jpg) (The green cells indicate the best map for each matchup in both SC:BW and SC2, from the sample) I'll give you that Tal'Darim and both versions of Metalopolis have larger sample sizes, but that's taken into account (at least up to some degree) with the t-distribution. Also, there are much better ways to test how the balance of a single matchup differs from map to map. BUT, if we take the p-value as an (although not perfect) valid measure of the balance of each map, Steppes comes out victorious in the ZvP and PvT categories by far, while Tal Darim would be the best map to play ZvT. Also, Met 1.1 might have solved the TvZ issue, but it's become worse for PvT and ZvP, further proving that it's REALLY hard to balance a map for every matchup. Well, that's about it. I'm not trying to make any definite points here, I'm just writing what came to mind while doing this little analysis. Feel free to bash my statistics and/or analysis all you want, that's the idea. | ||
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Grumbels
Netherlands7028 Posts
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ShotgunMike
Sweden241 Posts
The basic idea of the article is correct, however, the game needs to stabilize for it to be possible. BW had ~10 years for that to happen.. With the expansions coming to SC2 all maps will have to be re-thought and a lot of the mapping experience from these first years will have to be re-evaluated. Balancing in SC2 through maps will always be really difficult because of the huge differences between the races. Maps that are preferred by one race will be discarded by the others. The same goes for the match-ups. Edit: final thoughts and spelling | ||
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MCDayC
United Kingdom14464 Posts
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cmen15
United States1519 Posts
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