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As I've been playing SC2 for the past 7 months now (wow it's been that long already), I've noticed that most of the "Terran is OP", "ZvT is retarded" etc. is not due to the races and units themselves. It's the terrible ladder maps we are forced to play on.
I play zerg and I feel like zergs should get more vetos to even it out  . I could list a couple things from every single ladder map which are terrible for zerg, but I won't go into that at the moment (maybe later I will) and just say that even the 'most balanced' map, 'Metalopolis', has glaring positional imbalances. If you take a look at my list you will see some of these problems in all the ladder maps, and why we have imbalances in the game.
It's not from the specific units or races that makes a matchup imbalanced, its the maps, and the specific strategies they allow to be abused on them. And by the way, please if you have any input, if you disagree with something here, or feel something else should be added to the list- post it.
The ultimate goal here is to inform the public how to make a good balanced map, so we can start using these maps for tournies and hopefully Blizzard will pick up some of these maps for the ladder and get rid of their maps. Since I feel that most of the ZvT imba strictly comes from the maps, this will be a little biased towards zerg. But I feel that if these were considered when creating maps, then zerg wouldn't have as many problems and we would have less QQ from zerg players. And I by no means are any of these game breaking for zerg in the opposite side of the coin.
Considerations:
- Main bases should have equal ramp walling opportunities.
Mainly for Terran and Protoss, make sure that all bases use an equal cost in structures for walls, and have equal exposure for tech labs and such
- Equal cliff walk space
Reaper options need to be controlled for the early game. Your map may be pro-reaper, if that is how you want to do it. But just remember that zerg basically needs ooze to defend vs reapers or they are screwed. So too many ways in from too many different angles is very bad. Which brings me to my next point:
- Short Main to Natural distance
This is very important for early game zerg (maybe protoss as well). Zerg should optimally only need one or two creep tumors to reach from main to nat otherwise it's difficult in the early game. Zerg really needs their creep in the early game to defend vs early game strategies. Especially since a terran could scan and kill the tumors at a very early stage in the game if he was inclined to do so.
- Equal Nat wallabilty
Protoss often open with forward gates/forge/core to semi or even fully wall their 2 bases in, in an effort to expand quickly. So make sure you have the right amount of space for this if your map is allowing it, and that it is equal if you do. Also, It should probably not be so tight that 1 building walls or so wide that your expansion is completely open. Which leads to another point:
- Equal ramp placement from Main to Nat
The position of the ramp is very important in relation to the natural. The closer to the minerals it is, the safer it is. As well as the ease of pseudo walling by using the HQ bldg (nexus,hatch,cc). Early on, static defense needs to protect 3 things. The ramp, the HQ, and the resources. If it can't do all these things then the base is less safe. early/mid game strategies can really take advantage of wide open naturals by looping around behind minerals with hellions or other ranged units while your static de is busy protecting the ramp.
- Equal territory
This one almost goes without saying, but your bases need to have equal space to build, equal ranges minerals to edges, equal scouting opportunities (overlords), etc. The major key here is that it should not be too big because zerg suffers (ooze factor) and not too small because terran suffers (mass bldg placement factor). A bad example of this is Scrapstation, where the left base is much closer to the ramp than the right. Because of the awkward distance this forces zerg to place not 1 but 2 tumors to get down the cliff with creep on the right base.
- Equal range expansions
This is such an important overlooked issue in almost all maps. As I'm sure most of you know (courtesy of day9) Zerg likes to expand away from opponents, Terran (and Protoss to a lesser extent) don't mind/like to expand closer to their opponent. Don't place gold bases in riskier places for zerg, don't leave positional imbalances where zerg is force to take a 3rd base all the way across the map (ooze/creep highway factor). You can argue that zergs should use nydus in this case, but it still remains that if the 'natural' 3rd is too close to the opponent, then he can fortify it on his push on the way to your main and give you lots of problems. We saw things avoided like this in TvP Broodwar as well. Since positions can often dictate which way you will take your 3rd base, it is probably a good idea to give 2 options for a 3rd base in either direction of toward/away from opponent. This continues into:
- Gold bases
For the same reasons as the above tip, gold bases should not be placed in unsafe places where zerg would have trouble expanding to them, and other races are more inclined to take them. So just because you placed two possible 3rd base options where one is gold and the other is normal, doesn't mean it's still fair. The gold bases should more or less be in a place where you will always take it for an expansion safely with every race, almost every game. Or in a place where it's totally indifferent and out of the way of every possible positional matchup on the map.
- Tumor Distances
The "Creep Highway" as it has been coined. This is zerg's extra resource in sc2, this resource is exclusive to this race. And should definitely not be overlooked in maps. The amount of tumors from main to nat needs should be small (1-3 maximum imo). the amount from mains to mains needs to be accounted for. The amount of tumors required from nat to 3rd needs to be accounted for (especially when considering the two 3rd base option).
- Air high ground equality
In BW we had unpathable ridges around nats, or little speck of high ground outside of the main path that was completely safe from ground sight. Basically what this was used for, is air harass units to have some advantages for harassment ofc. As well as have a place to take a break while we go macro without having to fly home. Additionally, zerg likes to have their first couple of overlords in key places to see army movement because they are mostly a responsive race. Besides this fact, zerg has the benefit of being able to scout with their overlord at a very early stage in the game. With no place to run to when scouting a terran, the overlords are doomed. This can be a very positional thing as well. If we look at Metalopolis close air positions, it is difficult to find a place to send the first and second overlords because the paths they take are unsafe and have no where to park at if they fly straight on through (with exception to top left).
- Equal mineral harassability
This goes for all bases actually, but mostly to be considered for main and nats for the early and mid game. Even if the bases are all setup equally and can wall equally etc, you still need the minerals/gas to be equal distance from the entrance/cliff as the other bases are. If one base has their gas more exposed than another this just leads to positional imbalances. Raids should be equally powerful/weak to every natural and main. Sim cities should be considered. Take Steppes of War for example. The natural base can be shelled by tanks from the gold base at the bottom position, but not the top. Which leads me to yet another point:
- Tank ranges/Cliffing
This has always been an essential factor in every broodwar map ever. And it probably matters even more in sc2. Tanks have 13 range, so any cliff has huge potential of being too powerful early on in the game, especially in ZvT. Additionally, we have units like blink stalkers, thors, reapers, and collosus which either have 9 range and/or cliff walking abilities. There is a tool in the editor which allows you to see ranges of all units placed on the map. So test out things like Tanks, XWT (xel naga watch towers), pylon ranges, etc. Typically maps with cliffs over the natural bases are problematic for zerg in general (see KR and LT).
- Rush distances
This one is still up in the air for debate imho. But it feels like zerg struggles on smaller maps because early game mass marine/zeal, proxies, bunker/pylon/canon cheese, or just slower moving unit timing attacks are just that much more powerful. Responsive zerg with 50second crawler build time, or must wait for creep to spread slowly, it can be very difficult to defend. Especially when you can't get a ling or lord into the main to see what they are up to. When making more than two player maps, you should make sure that if some of the positions are chosen to be closer by ground that they do not give other imbalanced options as well. Such as highground/ramp/edge abuse/narrow choke to the aggressor. I believe that the defender's advantage should be considered.
- Narrow/Tight paths
Many of the maps in blizzards map pool suffer from this. They are just too tight. There is no room for masses of units to flank effectively. Which is why mech units like tanks are so strong currently. I'm not saying that all maps need to be completely devoid of terrain like python from bw (although that would be nice! :D ), but ideally they should have at least a few places where there is a huge space for maneuvering and micro to shine through. I think a good balance of this would be tight main, which widens into a semi tight nat, which widens out greatly and then possibly tightens back up towards the 3rd bases.
So these are all the things I have considered so far when map designing, and I honestly feel that if we had some maps that followed this advice there would be little to no QQ-ing about terran imbalance all over the place. Again, if anyone disagrees with any of this please explain why. And if anyone has anything else to add that I missed or append to any of these please do that as well.
Hope to see your maps on ladder soon 
PS- I'm not the best descriptive writer, so if anyone doesn't quite understand something in this huge post it's probably because I failed to explain it properly. Ask for elaboration if you feel it needs it and I will try and fix it.
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Pretty obvious for anyone who mapped from brood war but a great guide for those getting started. I'm pretty sure most of these (minus the main base cliff length) would be solved by adding brood war maps into the mix. Also, Protoss4ever's maps are great too.
Also, Python, AKA Shameless plug.
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Nice Post.
But shouldnt the terrain euality be given through mirroring the sides of the map? (copy terrain doodads etc. switch them to 180° and paste)
Regarding the "Tumor Distances" from main to nat. Which number would be ok? (like 3 tumors on a 1v1 map and maybe up to 6 on a 4v4 map ) ?
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On August 27 2010 23:59 Thaddaeus wrote:
Nice Post.
But shouldnt the terrain euality be given through mirroring the sides of the map? (copy terrain doodads etc. switch them to 180° and paste)
Regarding the "Tumor Distances" from main to nat. Which number would be ok? (like 3 tumors on a 1v1 map and maybe up to 6 on a 4v4 map ) ?
The standard is 2-3 tumors from main to natural on blizzard maps, and that seems to work well.
In regards to the OP:
I feel that proper symmetry covers a lot of these things. I personally check all of the distances in each base once I've pasted that section of terrain to make sure I have everything the same distance relative to various points such as the command center or geyser or ramp or whatever. I have to say that all of these things are important to consider, but important to also switch up form map to map. (If I make 10 maps that can all be walled with an identical simcity, they might as well be the same maps. That's boring as hell :/ ) Symmetry is key, one player should not have an inherent advantage over another player because he spawned on a stacked base
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I agree with most of what you're saying except this:
Gold bases
For the same reasons as the above tip, gold bases should not be placed in unsafe places where zerg would have trouble expanding to them, and other races are more inclined to take them. So just because you placed two possible 3rd base options where one is gold and the other is normal, doesn't mean it's still fair. The gold bases should more or less be in a place where you will always take it for an expansion safely with every race, almost every game. Or in a place where it's totally indifferent and out of the way of every possible positional matchup on the map.
I don't think all gold bases should be free or safe. It's risk vs. reward. By taking the gold base, you're going to have a much higher income than a regular base. In order to offset this advantage, there needs to be some disadvantage. The disadvantage is usually either positional (making it harder to defend) or having a barrier to entry (having to destroy destructible rocks to get to it).
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On August 28 2010 03:13 BoomStevo wrote:I agree with most of what you're saying except this: Show nested quote +Gold bases
For the same reasons as the above tip, gold bases should not be placed in unsafe places where zerg would have trouble expanding to them, and other races are more inclined to take them. So just because you placed two possible 3rd base options where one is gold and the other is normal, doesn't mean it's still fair. The gold bases should more or less be in a place where you will always take it for an expansion safely with every race, almost every game. Or in a place where it's totally indifferent and out of the way of every possible positional matchup on the map. I don't think all gold bases should be free or safe. It's risk vs. reward. By taking the gold base, you're going to have a much higher income than a regular base. In order to offset this advantage, there needs to be some disadvantage. The disadvantage is usually either positional (making it harder to defend) or having a barrier to entry (having to destroy destructible rocks to get to it).
you're missing the point.
What I meant by this is that.. well take LT for example. If you spawn close ground positions you have no natural 3rd base. In a ZvT though, the terran can easily still go for that gold base and fortify with basically just a pfort.
Another example would be Metalopolis, the gold bases are slightly off the beaten path from any positional matchup. But since they are so exposed from any direction they are really accessible. The only exception is if you spawn close ground positions, then you could take the further gold base. But the problem is that they are so close together that they can be tanked/collosussed from the other gold base, from the XWT, etc. And once your base/workers get owned they can take the other gold base themselves. So you can basically never ever expand here vs a good player who scouts.
So, I'm not saying that the gold bases should be 100% safe, I'm saying you should at least place them in a spot where all races can have a decent chance of defending them. And not on the way to the opponents base, and not part of your 'pseudo-manditory' linear base progression where a positional imbalance is present. In a nutshell, Gold base 'advantage' != map imbalance .
btw, I'm mostly against the use of DRocks to block off bases. In a fast paced back and forth game there is often no time to kill them, and races have advantages on killing structures over other races. It's almost like war3 where you have to kill the creeps before you can expand. It's really lame, I wanna fight the opponent not the map. That's not to say they don't have their place and uses, but every single map does not need DRocks or gimmicks like that.
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On August 28 2010 02:58 prodiG wrote:Show nested quote +On August 27 2010 23:59 Thaddaeus wrote:
Nice Post.
But shouldnt the terrain euality be given through mirroring the sides of the map? (copy terrain doodads etc. switch them to 180° and paste)
Regarding the "Tumor Distances" from main to nat. Which number would be ok? (like 3 tumors on a 1v1 map and maybe up to 6 on a 4v4 map ) ? The standard is 2-3 tumors from main to natural on blizzard maps, and that seems to work well. In regards to the OP: I feel that proper symmetry covers a lot of these things. I personally check all of the distances in each base once I've pasted that section of terrain to make sure I have everything the same distance relative to various points such as the command center or geyser or ramp or whatever. I have to say that all of these things are important to consider, but important to also switch up form map to map. (If I make 10 maps that can all be walled with an identical simcity, they might as well be the same maps. That's boring as hell :/ ) Symmetry is key, one player should not have an inherent advantage over another player because he spawned on a stacked base
I listed this a couple times in the OP, 1-2 tumors is better imho. The creep takes so long to spread and a rushing opponent will be all in your grill much before the 3rd one goes down. But yea I wouldn't ever go more than 3, if I were to make a map and that's making it very difficult for Z. But definitely 4 maximum. Any more than that is just horrible.
I'm not saying all maps should be 100% symmetrical and bases shapes should all be 100% the same. Only, that when you make a map, that you consider the positional matchups and balance any imbalances in every one.
Say you make a 3 player map where 2 bases are close by ground, 2 are close by air, and 2 are far by ground and/or air. If you make the close positions tighter wall ins requiring less buildings then you should also give the far base something additional, or take something away from the close positions to kind of balance it out when you get close air position or far position.
(maybe retarded exmaple, but you get my point)
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You're missing a really important one I think at least important to me. On any map, especially a 2 player map, the time it takes for an overlord to reach the ramp or more importantly the natural should be longer than the rush distance of the map main to ramp. Proxy stuff is way too strong if a probe vs zerg can sneak up the ramp before possibly being detected (at least until zealot nerf). When that's the case the player, to be protected from proxy cheese, has to scout his entire base with a overlords AND the entire natural AND any other area close enough to make proxy cheese viable which slows down scouting significantly.
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Gold mineral bases have a lot of problems in Blizzard maps. They're typically very tiny, difficult to defend, and placed bizarrely between bases (which can lead to imbalances), and their overall value is questionable.
Have you ever compared the rate of income from a normal 8B base to a 6G base? Those 6G mineral patches also contain the same amount of minerals as 6B overall, so they don't support you in the long run like 3 blue bases will. When it comes down to income rate, 6G is effectively 9B. Gold, however, takes less workers to saturate. This saves you costs in setting up the base, but it doesn't increase actual income rate much. Only 1B patches worth. Add in the normal harassability of the gold and it's less appealing. Now add in the fact that it may lie directly between opposing bases and you may be better of letting your opponent waste resources on it while you safe expand to a long term blue base and harass his gold thoroughly.
I think that proper management of the gold bases can lead to very entertaining and interesting map control and map design dynamics.
For example, if you want to make a risky (aggressive) gold base for the players to fight over and aggressively expand with you should add in more gold mineral patches. You should also make sure the base is distinctly difficult to defend and placed in a position that isn't easy to tie down, like putting it inside of a crater (little low terrain zone for the expo specifically). Make the reward distinctly worth the risk and make the risk sharp and noticeable. They may have to spread their defenses to protect both the gold and their main/natural, but the gold has 8G patches in it. 8G patches is definitely something that should call to the players and demand their attention on the map. Also, don't make more than one and be conscientious of it's placement relative to bases.
Then there's the defensive gold expansion. If it's going to be an easy to defend or grab expo, all starting positions on the map should have access to one (minimum 2 for 1v1's). The defensive expo should not have as many mineral patches as an aggressive one since it's not hard to take and defend. It's naturally useful defensively simply because it's cheaper to set up. You may want to consider making the expo only have 5G patches. Defensive gold bases should have more room to build around them, as well.
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Here are some neat gimmicky notes, btw.
I think people should look into making maps that utilize the gold mineral concept on a general scale as well. It can really change build orders drastically and make for some good fun maps. Here's an example. Replace all the minerals on Lost Temple with gold ones, but decrease all the main mineral patch counts to 6 and all expo patch counts to 5. Now it takes less workers to saturate, saturation comes faster, and bases empty of minerals MUCH, MUCH faster. Remember, there are fewer minerals overall in every base on the map and they mine those patches 50% faster than normal. One basing gets hit very hard by this. The game fast forwards into a very aggressive state where players have similar incomes as the regular LT, but their expenduture on setting up/saturating bases is considerably cheaper and mineral line harassment hits harder as well as making the taking of expansions very important.
Another thing to look into is geyser counts. Consider making a map with 3 or 4 geysers at a location and fewer minerals or no minerals. Also, consider using just 1 geyser in some locations. I know a lot of people probably have thought about this stuff, but they probably haven't thought about how it might affect BO's, metagame, and general balance much. I suggest putting out a few test maps to see how it works. I guarantee that they would at least be flavorful maps, at least.
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There's my 25 cents.
EDIT: Also, just to chime on this. Fuck destructable rocks. It's fine to use them on some maps, but Blizzard is going overboard with this whole gimmicky "strategical maps" bullshit. All I see are chokes, cliffs, line of sight blockers, and rocks everywhere. Seriously? What the hell?
These do not cater to strategy. They are tactical scenarios that bend the value of strategy, and with their over-implementation they're drastically skewing strategy and allowing tactics to take on an equal role as strategy and occasionally even surpass it. It's just ridiculous.
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Quite a list you got there. I'd have to agree.
It seems Zerg is always getting the short end of the map pool. My theory is that this is because Zerg has the least amount of "abusable" terrain features. I actually have a problem thinking up one right which is not just a direct negative: ie. Small chokes are good for the other races, don't do this for Zerg. It seems like we never get anything postive 
Quite a few important ones on there. One of my biggest "peeves" is the rush distance. Or the crawler build time, whichever way you want to look at it. In fact it's the relative factor between the 2 that's important...
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@ Niji: You get ~12% more minerals per second from the LT gold expos (with 2 workers per patch) compared to the LT not-gold expos (also 2 workers per patch) because the gold has 4/6 mineral patches close to the CC whereas the regular bases have 4/8 close.
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On September 02 2010 20:03 Niji87 wrote:
Gold mineral bases have a lot of problems in Blizzard maps. They're typically very tiny, difficult to defend, and placed bizarrely between bases (which can lead to imbalances), and their overall value is questionable.
Your whole post is on the money, in my opinion, no pun intended. At the very least we should get rid of destructibles blocking a Blizzard-standard 6-patch gold base, because as you said there are already plenty of drawbacks/risks.
Also, I like the comment about too much gimmickery per map. While we're discussing a guide to mapping (thanks CharlieMurphy for this--and weren't you at Green forest cafe? message me next time there's a local tourney so we can chat maps) this is a good rule of thumb that I probably should pay more attention to myself. Players won't digest all the cool ideas in a map if there are so many its bewildering. Scale it back, make a solid map around a real idea, then the new map elements aren't gimmicks, they're features.
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That 12% sounds right.
A regular blue base has 8 mineral patches. Therefore, each patch is worth 12.5% of your total income per second (100% divided by 8 patches). A gold base uses 6 patches, but grants about 50% increased income from each patch. So, 6 patches times 1.5 income rate equals 9 blue patches worth of income. 9 x 12.5% = 112.5%. So the 12% gain you found makes sense.
I don't believe the proximities are drastic enough to cause a difference in income rates unless you fully saturate the patches, though. I believe you would have to use 3 workers per patch to notice differences in income rate from distance traveled when the distances are that small.
Anyway, I think management of expansions is pretty important. The amount of minerals available, the minerals per minute they can get, geyser count, defendabiltiy, and positioning are all pretty important. Also, please don't try to make every expansion siegeable. It's neat to make them siegeable from certain angles, but that should be kept in check. There is only one race that can use siege tanks, yah?
I agree with dimfish, btw. I suppose that was kind of a given, though!
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I think examples of the maps with these considerations should also be brought up. The least Terran favored maps I can think of are Devotion and Fighting Spirit. I have played on those maps with a friend of mine who was clearly more skilled than I was (I'm high plat he's diamond), and I came extremely close to defeating him. It came down to me not being able to destroy his bases because of planetary fortresses with SCVs repairing it, and he can just drop at my expansions and kill them before my army gets there. Anyway, best maps for Zerg in ZvT.
Devotion by prodiG
Fighting Spirit by prodiG
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On September 02 2010 20:03 Niji87 wrote:
Gold mineral bases have a lot of problems in Blizzard maps. They're typically very tiny, difficult to defend, and placed bizarrely between bases (which can lead to imbalances), and their overall value is questionable.
Here are some neat gimmicky notes, btw.
I think people should look into making maps that utilize the gold mineral concept on a general scale as well. It can really change build orders drastically and make for some good fun maps. Here's an example. Replace all the minerals on Lost Temple with gold ones, but decrease all the main mineral patch counts to 6 and all expo patch counts to 5. Now it takes less workers to saturate, saturation comes faster, and bases empty of minerals MUCH, MUCH faster. Remember, there are fewer minerals overall in every base on the map and they mine those patches 50% faster than normal. One basing gets hit very hard by this. The game fast forwards into a very aggressive state where players have similar incomes as the regular LT, but their expenduture on setting up/saturating bases is considerably cheaper and mineral line harassment hits harder as well as making the taking of expansions very important.
Another thing to look into is geyser counts. Consider making a map with 3 or 4 geysers at a location and fewer minerals or no minerals. Also, consider using just 1 geyser in some locations. I know a lot of people probably have thought about this stuff, but they probably haven't thought about how it might affect BO's, metagame, and general balance much. I suggest putting out a few test maps to see how it works. I guarantee that they would at least be flavorful maps, at least.
one rich geyser that provides 8/trip, buff gold minerals to 8 instead of 7, and follow this posts advice
+ Show Spoiler +thats how SC+BW were in the beginning
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rich geysers are bugged atm, that is, unit pathing is wonky involving them
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@Niji: There is a noticeable difference between 2 workers per patch and 3 workers per patch over a timespan of about 10 game-minutes (when you mine out a base).
There is a noticeable difference between close and not-quite-close distance over the same timespan.
You can read a bit more here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=120605
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On August 27 2010 16:59 CharlieMurphy wrote:
[*]Air high ground equality
In BW we had unpathable ridges around nats, or little speck of high ground outside of the main path that was completely safe from ground sight. Basically what this was used for, is air harass units to have some advantages for harassment ofc. As well as have a place to take a break while we go macro without having to fly home. Additionally, zerg likes to have their first couple of overlords in key places to see army movement because they are mostly a responsive race. Besides this fact, zerg has the benefit of being able to scout with their overlord at a very early stage in the game. With no place to run to when scouting a terran, the overlords are doomed. This can be a very positional thing as well. If we look at Metalopolis close air positions, it is difficult to find a place to send the first and second overlords because the paths they take are unsafe and have no where to park at if they fly straight on through (with exception to top left).
I recommend you to change the the title of this point into "Blocked highground and overlord spot"
Air highground is really unclear. :s
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On September 11 2010 02:48 Superouman wrote:Show nested quote +On August 27 2010 16:59 CharlieMurphy wrote:
[*]Air high ground equality
In BW we had unpathable ridges around nats, or little speck of high ground outside of the main path that was completely safe from ground sight. Basically what this was used for, is air harass units to have some advantages for harassment ofc. As well as have a place to take a break while we go macro without having to fly home. Additionally, zerg likes to have their first couple of overlords in key places to see army movement because they are mostly a responsive race. Besides this fact, zerg has the benefit of being able to scout with their overlord at a very early stage in the game. With no place to run to when scouting a terran, the overlords are doomed. This can be a very positional thing as well. If we look at Metalopolis close air positions, it is difficult to find a place to send the first and second overlords because the paths they take are unsafe and have no where to park at if they fly straight on through (with exception to top left). I recommend you to change the the title of this point into "Blocked highground and overlord spot" Air highground is really unclear. :s
well it caught your attention, and then I'm sure you went "What the hell is that, let me read the description..."
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EPT
