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On November 15 2011 10:07 Vasoline73 wrote:
To me a big part of the reason SC2's map scene isn't as interesting is because of SC2's high ground mechanics. Ramps and cliffs for the most part are decoration after the early game.
Would it be horribly inappropriate to do something like use the editor to put broodwar high ground mechanics back in for a map? Or have specially marked areas that give any other bonus or disadvantage you can think of when firing into or out of it?
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I think this is the most interesting approach to SC2 balance I've ever read, to be honest. It's becoming more and more apparent that we can't entrust Blizzard to fully balance the game at every level of play -- which is okay and understandable. The way the community can balance the game is through maps. Makes total sense to me, and I'm excited to see community maps becoming more influential.
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Celestial Terrain.
Written by Mani, this should be a good read for this thread.
Now, there was another thread iirc which discussed the maps in more details and by era. Props to the person who links that thread because I couldn't find it.
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Great writeup! I agree wholeheartedly with the message of this thread, and can say that I run into this a lot myself. Most of the time if I lose a lot I tend to look at where I lost as opposed to who I lost to. Any maps that I notice a particularly abysmal win rate on I will just practice more and study to try and find my weak points in that map, and usually by doing that I can maintain some form of balanced win rate(or at least not completely horrible). When you try, try and try and still can't think of anything, generally the veto button comes into play 
I think a constantly rotating map pool that is closely monitored and tested would be the greatest thing in SC2 atm, but I am ok if it takes some time. I mean as established and organized as Brood War is now we all know it wasn't like that from the very beginning, so as long as we are pusing towards something like this and people are contributing all they can then it will be a reality very shortly.
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Could TL official organization some sort of petition to make a customized map "Ladder"? I don't know how hard this would be but it would be cool if Bliz gave say a board of the community to create a custom "ladder" with community (Tl staff, reddit admins, proteams) selected maps. Maybe use your current ladder MMR as a reference to find people. That way it's as convenient as the ladder, you get the same variety and it will be popular enough to get decent practice out of.
It's certainly not ideal and the MMR issue will cause some buggish problems, but it seems like a simple first step towards a better e-sports/bliz union.
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On November 15 2011 07:58 mbr2321 wrote:
I think it would be extremely interesting to force Pros to prepare for tournaments paying particular attention to the map-pools. I think what OP is trying to say (and I could be wrong) is that GSL-June and MLG Columbus (assuming it's in June again) should have the same map pool, and that the map-pool of GSL-August and MLG Raleigh (again assuming Raleigh is in August) would also be identical, but that the map-pool would be different than that of GSL-MLG-June. I think that is a fantastic idea. It would ask professionals to throw themselves into the depths of ignorance and challenge them to use their wits, their courage, and their intellectual magnanimity to hoist and claw themselves from the pits of ignorance into the light of knowledge and gosu-play. Long story short, it would separate the men from the boys.
There would also be less cheese if players were in the dark about the map.
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I am but an SC2 viewer, I have no idea, really, how the game should be played, but for how the casters tell me how it should be played. I don't know what the difference between Metalopolis and Metalopolis 1.1 is. They look EXACTLY the same to me!!!!
There is a huge difference between the viewership between SC:BW and SC2--and that is people like me, the casual viewership. Those who view SC:BW scene NOW are much more oriented to the skill level of play in that pro scene than those who watch SC2.
You can make that claim, and be heard by all the die-hard Master-league++ players, but that doesn't mean shit to me, because I don't know enough about the game to understand what the differences are, really. I just want to watch a well-played, close-ass game that has me guessing at every turn which player will win. Balanced maps don't always mean I'm going to see an exciting game. It's the quality of the players, playing at their best, that have given me the most entertaining matches to watch--despite what maps they were playing on.
So, I agree with you, yes and no. i want maps that encourage games that go past the 7 minute mark. I don't want games that are macro to macro to macro to... fuck, well that was it, "GG." I think, for the most part, that is the players playing consistently, and we haven't really seen that in SC2 quite yet.
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I would like to see Daybreak in the ladder map pool
Some bw maps I think they should revive: Othello, Gaia, Loki II.... i guess my list goes on :/
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Crossfire is a bad map as well. Dual sight, Belshir Beach, XNC and meta. They're all ugly maps.
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Russian Federation899 Posts
On November 15 2011 10:39 FunnelC4kes wrote:
I am but an SC2 viewer, I have no idea, really, how the game should be played, but for how the casters tell me how it should be played. I don't know what the difference between Metalopolis and Metalopolis 1.1 is. They look EXACTLY the same to me!!!!
There is a huge difference between the viewership between SC:BW and SC2--and that is people like me, the casual viewership. Those who view SC:BW scene NOW are much more oriented to the skill level of play in that pro scene than those who watch SC2.
You can make that claim, and be heard by all the die-hard Master-league++ players, but that doesn't mean shit to me, because I don't know enough about the game to understand what the differences are, really. I just want to watch a well-played, close-ass game that has me guessing at every turn which player will win. Balanced maps don't always mean I'm going to see an exciting game. It's the quality of the players, playing at their best, that have given me the most entertaining matches to watch--despite what maps they were playing on.
So, I agree with you, yes and no. i want maps that encourage games that go past the 7 minute mark. I don't want games that are macro to macro to macro to... fuck, well that was it, "GG." I think, for the most part, that is the players playing consistently, and we haven't really seen that in SC2 quite yet.
1.1 has no close spawns.
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Am I the only one who thinks that Blizzard should remake Fighting Spirit for SC2? With some minro balaance changes, of course.
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Bravo for an outstanding article. This is definitely an issue that too few people bring up. I have seen people mentioning maps in balance threads before and how balance is sought and achieved in BW, but it really is only a handful of people. Thank you for bringing this to the forefront of discussion!
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On November 15 2011 10:51 Conquerer67 wrote:
Am I the only one who thinks that Blizzard should remake Fighting Spirit for SC2? With some minro balaance changes, of course.
Should it be remade for SC2? I think that it'd be a great idea.
Should Blizzard be the one in charge of doing that? Hell no!
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I love jungle basin!!!!! (I'm a terran xD)
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numbers are so interesting never thought jungle basin would be ugly compared to metal
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One thing that the BW did better than SC2 was maps - I definitely agree and I feel that it is important that a central authority (e.g. blizzard) take proactive steps in promoting new maps.
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I LOVED JUNGLE BASIN!!! why does everyone hate on it =[
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Excellent article with insightful visuals.
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United States13896 Posts
On November 15 2011 07:23 TheKefka wrote:Show nested quote +On November 15 2011 07:17 fraktoasters wrote:On November 15 2011 07:08 TheKefka wrote:On November 15 2011 07:06 Ruscour wrote:On November 15 2011 07:04 acgFork wrote:
Why is Jungle Basin ugly?!?!?! Jungle Basin era is the pinnacle of Zerg complaining. I don't see how Jungle Basin is worse than steppes of war.At least you were able to win a ZvP here and there on JB. It's there not because of how you feel about the maps, it's because of the win ratio. ZvP was way more imbalanced on JB than steppes of war, 33.3% vs 46.7% Those stats are garbage.The difference in which the game was played when steppes of war was out is huge compared to how the game worked when Jungle Basin was in the map pool. If ZvP or ZvT would be played on Steppes of war today the win rate of Zergs would be like 20%,not even that. To further elaborate on map/skill level,I present you a masterpiece of grandmaster Artosis: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?id=70545Show nested quote +A map doesn't have to be tested to be played in a tournament. Playing it in a tournament IS testing it, and that's the only way it's going to gain any reputation, good or bad. That's a pretty bad idea buddy.You make it sound like tournaments would be able to just throw in random maps that seem nice to them without consulting the player base.
That blog by Artosis is quite funny. At the time the only games that were in TLPD were the televised games. A large portion of data was missing because preliminaries, and other sources of large numbers of pro-games were not in the database. So at the time, the data was a bit skewed and probably unreliable. So to that extent, he is right, you have to determine the quality of the data you have, and whether it can be used to represent balance at the highest level of play.
But as time went on and the sample size grew as more non-televised games were included the numbers would seem to disagree with Artosis' point. If you look at Nostalgia's stats now, TvZ sits at 57% in favor of Terran. It wasn't just the top-tier legends propping up Nostalgia's TvZ stats, even lower-level pros who played Terran found success on that map. So Artosis was complaining that it was in fact not balanced because Terran wasn't winning enough, when they actually were winning at what is a pretty high rate on that map. One that would actually agree with his definition of balance ironically enough.
Honestly I'd be less inclined to prescribe to Artosis' more than likely biased account in that blog and listen to what the numbers say. Statistics are very useful. If you don't understand the requirements necessary to make assertions, people can use them to be very misleading. They aren't everything, but they sure as hell aren't worthless when you have quality data.
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On November 15 2011 11:07 mrRoflpwn wrote:
I LOVED JUNGLE BASIN!!! why does everyone hate on it =[
Imagine you're a Zerg player. Now try to expand.
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EPT
