EPTI hope it works out, because I'm getting tired of the cookie-cutter 3-bases-in-the-corner map style (Antiga Shipyard, Narazim Crypt, et al). I'm not a map maker, so farbeit for me to criticize those who consider themselves "pro". But, there have got to be some more creative methods for helping games go macro without resorting to this tired, overused tactic.
TL Map Contest Results - Page 16
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Nemireck
Canada1875 Posts
I hope it works out, because I'm getting tired of the cookie-cutter 3-bases-in-the-corner map style (Antiga Shipyard, Narazim Crypt, et al). I'm not a map maker, so farbeit for me to criticize those who consider themselves "pro". But, there have got to be some more creative methods for helping games go macro without resorting to this tired, overused tactic. | ||
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Nemireck
Canada1875 Posts
On November 10 2011 09:24 SidianTheBard wrote: I have a feeling so many people are saying they like Lagoon because it is pretty much the only top down image that people can read. You actually can see where the bases are and the paths to and from them. Mainly due to the poor aesthetics. Ohana for instance, if I haven't seen the analyzer for it before I'd have no fucking clue what was going on because it's just so "busy" looking. This is a good point. Too many in the map making community churn out maps that look like abstract paintings, then complain when a cleaner, simpler looking map with a great layout becomes popular, because it has "horrible aesthetics". | ||
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a176
Canada6688 Posts
On November 10 2011 08:44 Jibba wrote: How is this any different from the current pool of map makers? Aside from GSL's maps, only Testbug has gone anywhere. And you crown yourselves experts and talk down other peoples' work and opinions? Where is your balance pedigree? Even being GM doesn't necessitate an understanding of balance or playing the game. Almost no maps, including the maps featured in MotM or the previous iCCup tournaments, have received extensive testing for balance. I don't see where this arrogance of understanding map balance is coming from. Some of the comments here have been pretty personal. But behind the passion, there is merit in their opinion. Most of the mappers here have been making maps nonstop since way back in beta. We've seen thousands of games played and understand how the game has evolved and the requirements to make a map interesting, original, and balanced. All of our maps build on that; we just don't randomly place down minerals and add some ramps here or there and call ourselves awesome. Please. 'Extensive testing' is not a requirement for a map. If every map had 'extensive testing', players would never have to adapt to the originalities found in them and the game would never evolve. You'd end up with a million versions of maps that all look like metal, shattered, shakuras, and antiga, because that's what blizzard's bare minimum of balancing is based on. Instead, we rely on things like the timings, distances, and spacing found in these maps in order to create our own original maps. And even then, blizzard's maps have been notoriously unbalanced, yet SC2's community refuses to drop them from their pools, instead opting to fix blizzard's mistakes for them. And, instead of reaching out to the community and the literally hundreds maps already available. If blizzard's maps can be considered 'tournament quality', then the majority of maps released by us are well within that definition as well. To downplay the mappers who have genuinely put in the time to learn about mapping, timings, builds, etc, in order to create maps worthy of notice, is a very uninformed opinion. | ||
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SidianTheBard
United States2474 Posts
On November 10 2011 09:35 Nemireck wrote: This is a good point. Too many in the map making community churn out maps that look like abstract paintings, then complain when a cleaner, simpler looking map with a great layout becomes popular, because it has "horrible aesthetics". Well, don't get my quote wrong, Lagoon, imo, should not be in the top 7. But just looking at top down images of maps and trying to read the map is a tough thing to do. Even tougher if you've never used the sc2 map editor before. Lagoon on the other hand, has poor aesthetics and therefore is much easier to read the top down image then the other maps. My saying about Ohana was that if that was the first time seeing that map, it'd be hard to figure out where the mains are, where watchtowers are, where LoS blockers are, because it blends together nice. I mean, hell, I wonder how many people posting here even know what all those orangish glowy things are on Cloud Kingdom? They block pathing....right?  + Show Spoiler +/facepalm | ||
Zelniq
United States7166 Posts
On November 10 2011 08:22 Antares777 wrote: It's too open. Protoss cannot get a third against Zerg or even expand aggressively. That is what I, and many others, think about the map. I certainly read the OP. In fact, the "facts" that are listed for Haven's Lagoon are filled with bullshit. - Map increases in height as more and more expansions are taken (to be honest I'm not even sure what this means) - Map emphasises exploiting the height differences to gain an advantage (hardly; the advantage is practically nonexistent because of the huge ramps) - Rewards players for controlling their units well and taking slightly longer paths for better position (hardly, again for the same reason) - Allows for a variety of playstyles including air and harass based play due to the large space between mains (cool, you can do air harass, you can do that on any map. This map does not allow a lot of aggressive builds due to the size and symmetry, with the expansions being placed away from your opponent) - One of the most enjoyed maps by playtesters (I can't argue this; that is the opinion of the playtesters. I may disagree with it, but that's it) first point is straightforward, how are you not sure what this means. in general, as more expos are taken, the map terrain is higher. 1/2 base play is on the lowest level, 3rd/4th is another level up, 5th+ is yet another. I disagree, the ramps are fairly wide but that doesn't make the height advantage "non existent." Even with wider ramps, a noticeable advantage goes to the player above. Definitely disagree, in fact if you had smaller ramps it'd be worse for the player flanking from the higher ground as they'd be funneled through a choke when engaging the enemy. ?? Obviously air/harass play is stronger on some maps than others? And this map is one of those that it's stronger on? as for the far 3rd complaint, that was likely an accidental/unfortunate consequence when the map was edited to have a smaller choke to the natural, it was too wide before, but now the distance to 3rd has increased substantially. It's being discussed, I'd like to see it changed as well. | ||
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Jibba
United States22883 Posts
On November 10 2011 09:40 a176 wrote: I don't doubt that and a great deal of this website derides Blizzard's maps. But that doesn't mean there's a science to how the game is played, and many of the players, including very good SC2 players like Ares and Zelniq, put effort into learning timings and builds for specific maps. There are no professional map makers in SC2 (besides Blizzard's,) and while the communities are obviously more talented than most people at building them, that doesn't mean they actually understand the balance or the way they'll be played any better than other people do. This isn't the Matrix. There's no grand secret to seeing these things.If blizzard's maps can be considered 'tournament quality', then the majority of maps released by us are well within that definition as well. | ||
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Bobster
Germany3075 Posts
On November 10 2011 01:36 MorroW wrote: hahaha :D have to admit it was fun to sit down and spend some time with the good ol melee mapmaking i dare say my map was too much of a wildcard to make it and the judges didnt have the balls to advance it LOL Haha, now I'm curious. Do show your map, Morrow! :D | ||
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Apom
France655 Posts
On November 10 2011 09:46 Zelniq wrote: first point is straightforward, how are you not sure what this means. in general, as more expos are taken, the map terrain is higher. 1/2 base play is on the lowest level, 3rd/4th is another level up, 5th+ is yet another. ... I think Antares expected "cliff level" rather than "height". That would be the correct map-making term. I assume that's why he didn't understand. // edit : can't type, going to bed | ||
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Brotatolol
United States1742 Posts
The other maps seem cool as well. | ||
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Noxie
United States2227 Posts
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Zelniq
United States7166 Posts
On November 10 2011 01:36 MorroW wrote: hahaha :D have to admit it was fun to sit down and spend some time with the good ol melee mapmaking i dare say my map was too much of a wildcard to make it and the judges didnt have the balls to advance it LOL we discussed your map, it was denied mostly by me iirc. The 3rd is stupidly close to the natural, and anyone can easily defend both nat + 3rd simultaneously. it's the most extreme "free 3rd" i've ever seen. and as in sc2 all you need is 3 bases to get a near maxed econ (gas excluded) and to easily max, free 3rds that are tough to attack are kinda dumb. Plus the choke from middle to that area outside nat/3rd is too narrow, yet again making attacks very tough. Then you have basically the free 4th, which is not only a gold base but also like right next to the 3rd and nestled within that aforementioned area outside nat/3rd. Sure the mineral line is exposed on the other side..but in some matchups this would be retardedly unfair, most noticeably TvZ where a tank or 2 easily defends that problem, whereas zerg has no such equivalent. Then you take the other free 4th, from the backdoor in main, yet another TvZ imbalance..map is the definition of a ZvT nightmare. There's really only 1 small area terran needs to defend their main/nat/3rd/4th-gold bases from ground assaults here's a pic of said map, named Firestorm. ![[image loading]](http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/2726/firestormlarge.jpg) | ||
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Sassymcgee
United States24 Posts
Haven especially idk its one of the most unique looking maps and moreso than strife, I feel it escapes the sc2 standards of map making and more leans on 'what would make a good map'. | ||
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Madera
Sweden2672 Posts
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Phried
Canada147 Posts
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Namrufus
United States396 Posts
I'm disappointed I didn't get in of course, (not that I had much of a chance vs the big mapping teams  )I hope it works out, because I'm getting tired of the cookie-cutter 3-bases-in-the-corner map style (Antiga Shipyard, Narazim Crypt, et al). I'm not a map maker, so farbeit for me to criticize those who consider themselves "pro". But, there have got to be some more creative methods for helping games go macro without resorting to this tired, overused tactic. I don't understand this really, Haven Lagoon's main-nat-third setup (in terms of location) is very similar to many other maps, including some of the other finalists (particularly Daggoth Crater), And haven's main is in the corner. There are really only a couple of ways to arrange the first three bases without using weird gimmicks like backdoor rocks. Calling a certain arrangement "tired and overused" is similar to calling a standard build order tired and overused: yeah, you see the same set of builds all the time, that doesn't mean we should never use build orders. this is all imo, of course. edit: grammer | ||
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GhandiEAGLE
United States20754 Posts
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Zelniq
United States7166 Posts
On November 10 2011 10:17 Phried wrote: Not going to lie, I really want to play MorroW's Firestorm now. Really cool concept. i assume you're mostly thinking about those gold expos, exposed on the other side. for me, the novelty of that wore off years ago from BW's pretty cool Outsider SE ![[image loading]](https://tl.net/tlpd/images/maps/241_Outsider%20SE.jpg) however the major distinction is that the 'exposed mineral line' expos were all on the outskirts of the map, and unreachable by ground | ||
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TissTuss
Sweden33 Posts
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mrtomjones
Canada4020 Posts
On November 10 2011 09:46 Zelniq wrote: first point is straightforward, how are you not sure what this means. in general, as more expos are taken, the map terrain is higher. 1/2 base play is on the lowest level, 3rd/4th is another level up, 5th+ is yet another. I disagree, the ramps are fairly wide but that doesn't make the height advantage "non existent." Even with wider ramps, a noticeable advantage goes to the player above. Definitely disagree, in fact if you had smaller ramps it'd be worse for the player flanking from the higher ground as they'd be funneled through a choke when engaging the enemy. ?? Obviously air/harass play is stronger on some maps than others? And this map is one of those that it's stronger on? as for the far 3rd complaint, that was likely an accidental/unfortunate consequence when the map was edited to have a smaller choke to the natural, it was too wide before, but now the distance to 3rd has increased substantially. It's being discussed, I'd like to see it changed as well. haha damn.... I for some reason interpreted it as the terrain actually rises when expos are taken... I thought it might be like the Watchtower on that one map blowing up type of terrain change. Boy do I feel disapointed that would be pretty gimicky but entertaining nonetheless... | ||
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Shana
Indonesia1814 Posts
Especially Haven's Lagoon. | ||
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