[M] (4) iCCup Neo Enigma by prodiG

dumped anywhere in between 30 and 40 hours

On January 17 2011 20:41 Mereel wrote:
this map is just beautiful

need it on europe asap

On January 17 2011 23:01 prodiG wrote:

It'll be up on EU once I fix the performance issues later today. This damn game won't let me make my maps as pretty as I want them to be! D:

On January 18 2011 00:16 dezi wrote:

How much doodads (effects) are there? ^^

On January 18 2011 03:35 prodiG wrote:
Sf
Just shy of 2500 not counting pathing. I wish this game was better optimized, deleting work because of stuff like this sucks.

On January 18 2011 04:01 NullCurrent wrote:


How do you do pathing? I mean, I don't use doodads for it at all.

Otherwise; a really awesome map with stunning visuals!

On January 18 2011 07:45 dezi wrote:
Ha, nice to see you working in the editor live on the stream ^^
1 question - why you always place those movement blocking doodads. Isn't the movement layer itself not enough to accomplish this?

//has been answered on the stream

On January 18 2011 09:19 WniO wrote:
Yeah, it plays a bit smoother, still 80< fps on low for me . also i dont really like the broken edges around the map. they look slick but its hard to see where you can actually go, especially if your harassing with hellions or w/e.

On January 17 2011 23:31 Samro225am wrote:
this game performs so bad performancewise.

concerning the map: i really like how everything is so compressed, no useless space. think it is more interesting than the original with its rather linear expansions (1-3).
looking forward to play it.

On January 18 2011 13:26 Ownos wrote:
I like the center xelnaga. Watches the primary path between bases. It does however become useless when the rocks go down, then you never ever have to pass the center if it isn't cross-positions. Bad.

7 nodes on thirds and 5 on gold bases? What's with mappers liking to remove 1 node from an expansion? It's like that on shakuras for ALL expansions except mains, but that maps too awesome to discard it for that reason. I see no point at all to it. Not a fan of gimmick expansions.

This map also looks awfully small besides cross-positions and looks really cramp.



Is that why a lot of these maps are nothing but narrow funnels?

Is that why a lot of these maps are nothing but narrow funnels?

7 nodes on thirds and 5 on gold bases? What's with mappers liking to remove 1 node from an expansion? It's like that on shakuras for ALL expansions except mains, but that maps too awesome to discard it for that reason. I see no point at all to it. Not a fan of gimmick expansions.

On January 18 2011 14:31 monitor wrote:


These maps are not narrow funnels in the slightest. If you compare them to standard Blizzard maps, they have more open spaces. The chokes that are existent are placed for specific balance, concept, and expo pattern reasons. If there is a specific map example that you could point out with distinct imbalance by "narrow funnels" please tell, we will take it into consideration.


Adding on to what prodiG said (which is right too): On Neo Enigma, expansions are very compact around the main. You can very easily secure a natural, a 3rd, and a 4th following. The current expansions have less mineral patches to balance the tightness. If expansions had
main: 8
nat: 8
HY: 6
4th: 8
Then it would likely be too easy to turtle. It is standard for 3rd/5ths to have 7 minerals. The high yield is not standard, but with 6 nodes it'd be too easy to saturate in certain spawn postions. If there is any question, we will know it from top-level player feedback in tomorrow's IMS.

On January 18 2011 15:49 Ownos wrote:
I only say that, because he said no "useless" space. Which seems to be most map makers queue to not make any open space. Take it with a grain of salt, it only looks like that.

And it is not standard to have 7 nodes at all. The only maps on ladder that have 7 on a base is LT and Shakuras. LT only has that on the islands. Shakuras has 7 on all non-main bases. I think what the thinking seems to be is that you have 3rd and 4th running while main/nat are still active. 3rd and 4th more serve to replace your main and nat. So it's strange for the game to progress from 2 8 node bases down to 5 and 7 making for late games to regress economically UNLESS you get 3rd and 4th up while main and naturals are still active which would basically punish a mass expanding zerg player by limiting his potential income even if just slightly.

I don't think I need to go over the PAIN it will be to have to maynard over workers and end up being oversaturated. It's inconsistent.

If you want to balance the position of an expansion, you shouldn't mess with the resources and look at other things in terrain. Even then you don't get a choice of expansions most of the time. Players always expand to the nearest expansion and crawl outwards. So it's not like you're making any compelling choices. Just regressing the economic potential of late game play.

And the reality is everyone is theorycrafting. Who has extensive play on new maps like this?

On January 19 2011 15:47 G_Wen wrote:

For the late game regression I cannot say much but it does seem like a legitimate concern. I'll play some more test games when I have access to SC2.

The PAIN for oversaturating when one manyards is not a legitimate concern. It is up to the player to adapt to the map. It is about as much as a pain as flash not being able to 15cc no scout every game. The onus is on the player to play correctly given the map. If you can't manyard over the correct number of probes it's your fault not the maps. Yes this is inconsistent but that is the point. Maps should have variations and one's playstyle should vary in response to the maps as well.

The games I have played on the map have been good so far. I haven't noticed the late game economic regression you've talked about but I'll keep an eye out for it.

On January 18 2011 07:08 MindRush wrote:
prodiG ...... thanks alot, can i play this on EU ?

On January 19 2011 23:24 Obscura.304 wrote:
The gold minerals make this map positionally imbalanced. Spawns at 10 and 2, I'd be praying for 10; I'd be able to take the gold while expanding away from my opponent, whereas at 2, I'd have to take the blue for a similarly defensible position.

On January 19 2011 23:33 prodiG wrote:
that's the idea!

Map will be up in EU later today.

On January 19 2011 23:47 Obscura.304 wrote:

So you want whoever spawns counter-clockwise of their opponent to have an advantage? Why?

On January 19 2011 23:57 prodiG wrote:

You'd have to take the blue and have a more defensible position, while attacking into your opponent's gold as the base is more open and easier to drop onto. I wouldn't call this an imbalance as the gold only has five patches and the options for harassing it or attacking into it are great & testing seems to have proved this.

On January 20 2011 02:02 Antares777 wrote:
I just hosted a game on this map and everyone loved it. My computer didn't lag at all either, and I'm on a Mac. Not a Macbook Pro, just a Macbook, and it ran smoothly.

What everyone in observer chat was saying was that they thought that Terran could get a third easily with a Planetary Fortress. That was their only concern.

Great map prodiG!

On January 20 2011 03:53 Silv.user wrote:
Dude the map didnt get affected at all by your tuning down still very pretty. how many doodads u got now? u told me u had 2230 before. I'm really curious how much u had to remove to make it work properly

Edit: btw the gold minerals, they arent mirrored are they? i saw there was diffrence in them. Reason why u got that?

On January 20 2011 04:07 Silv.user wrote:
The northeast gold and southwest gold is similar, however the west and east is completly diffrent. + the south one idont get the clue of at all. Im aware on how minerals works. but having an advantage if u spawn at one locaiton on ure gold isnt mirrored. wouldnt take alot time to fix tho. + The NE,SW isnt mirrored. Which they should be prob. + if u cant make decent minerals lines wouldnt harm to rotate it a itsy bit?

On January 20 2011 04:56 prodiG wrote:

Like antares said, mineral fields are 2x1 so I can only copy minerals on sectipns of the map that are inverted 90 180 (oops, wrong #) degrees in the symmetry. Simply put, I can have asymmetrical mineral lines on on two corners of the map, but the other two must be tweaked in order to fit. The distance of tether patches is relatively the same to all of the elements around the patches so that while different they are not imbalanced (or if they are, the issue is negligible as I cant rotate minerals to be 1x2 so I am making the best of what I've got.)

Lot of nitpicking today, nice to see my map so heavily under the microscope!

On January 18 2011 09:12 prodiG wrote:

Just to re-post here for context, the reason I don't use the movement layer is because it is straight up broken,. and I don't trust it at all. I've ran into multiple times where players have dropped units or walked up cliffs that they shouldn't have been able to, and the doodad blockers are foolproof in that regard.

On January 20 2011 05:37 Silv.user wrote:



Well acctually whene i was looking at your stream i noticed it, so wasnt like it was under microscope. I really do think its weird tho, correct me if im wrong but can u go thru the minerals at 2 of them but not on the 2 others?

On January 20 2011 09:10 Archmage wrote:
Just so you know, this map is still a little laggy for me. Otherwise, it's a very cool map. Maybe you could have a Neo Enigma and a Neo Enigma Lite which would just have fewer doodads and such.

On January 20 2011 00:39 Obscura.304 wrote:

You really can't say something like this is balanced though, because the fact that there's 3 different races throws a wrench in it. Given spawns at 10 and 2, is the gold for the 10 o'clock player still so harassable if they're T and just drop a Planetary Fortress there? What about Protosses at 2 who aren't going air- how are they going to harass that, given that P has no really good non-air units for harassing? What about ZvP, with the Zerg at 2- since Z can't go mutas safely in that matchup for fear of the 6 gate, how do you consider that balanced?

On January 20 2011 11:04 badcop wrote:
You can charge on the rocks with void rays, without them being hit, seems like a pretty powerful harass if you ask me.

On January 21 2011 12:31 prodiG wrote:
If anyone wants to post replays on this map feel free! I'd upload some of mine but none of the replay sites I try cooperate -_-

On January 21 2011 13:01 Antares777 wrote:


Try Mediafire. I had no trouble uploading replays, the first time I've tried uploading replays actually.

I'll try to host some more games on this map and see what replays I can give you. I hope no one minds pinging

On March 24 2011 00:13 dimfish wrote:
prodiG, can I (or you or somebody) put the images of Enigma and Neo Enigma side-by-side with a short discussion of using space? I always thought you did a great job improving this map and it could be helpful for other mappers to see what you did

edit: "prodiG," not "pordiG"

On March 24 2011 00:13 dimfish wrote:edit: "prodiG," not "pordiG"