EPTGames played on this map pump me up to the same level I have when watching Broodwar games. So why does this map work so well compared to the others? What can be taken away from this map when creating new maps for the scene?
[D] What can be learned from Calm Before the Storm?
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mutantmagnet
United States3789 Posts
Games played on this map pump me up to the same level I have when watching Broodwar games. So why does this map work so well compared to the others? What can be taken away from this map when creating new maps for the scene? | ||
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Sbrubbles
Brazil5776 Posts
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wheelchairs
United States145 Posts
The sheer giant size of it makes for some interesting builds, cc first/nexus first being possible and easily defendable | ||
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Torte de Lini
Germany38463 Posts
On November 25 2011 04:26 Sbrubbles wrote: Can you post pictures of the map and link to some games in it? I have no idea what you're talking about. Pretty much this, I'm not always in the loop with GSL ): | ||
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juicyjames
United States3815 Posts
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/images2/3/39/Calm_Before_the_Storm.jpg)
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EtherealDeath
United States8366 Posts
Also, makes carrier mothership possible :3 | ||
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Canucklehead
Canada5074 Posts
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OnFiRe888
United States629 Posts
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MaV_gGSC
Canada1345 Posts
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Archile
United States403 Posts
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Shrewmy
Australia199 Posts
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Drake
Germany6146 Posts
On November 25 2011 04:37 OnFiRe888 wrote: to be honest, it is pretty pvt favored in the gsl. to be honest, every tvp i saw on this map in gsl the terran throw away a 99% win ... its just a map where bad decisions and good make a DIFFERENCE and thats great | ||
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sabas123
Netherlands3122 Posts
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Arachne
South Africa426 Posts
I mean, ye that sound silly, but if u over scout the wrong way, or ur probe dies and ur doing a FFE and u didnt scout both nat's... whats coming? Did he triple expand? Or is he one basing? It makes scouting more nb AND harder at the same time, and also encourages a wider range of tactics at the same time as its no longer a given that he WILL FFE such like taldarim, where a 1 gate sentry expand is doable coz u can expand behind yourself safely, and things like that  | ||
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stokes17
United States1411 Posts
On November 25 2011 04:40 CoR wrote: to be honest, every tvp i saw on this map in gsl the terran throw away a 99% win ... its just a map where bad decisions and good make a DIFFERENCE and thats great Yea basically this is demonstrated in the sang ho vs happy game Killer just made better decisions throughout the game, and the way this map works, great decisions all game allow you to lose and army or two and still win the game This is something that its extremely uncommon in ladder pool PvT where if you lose an army (for either side) its basically gg regardless of other factors | ||
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SeaSwift
Scotland4486 Posts
On November 25 2011 04:40 sabas123 wrote: how is a protoss able to take a 4th base on the map vs zerg? By controlling the square of high ground near his natural, then walling off his 4th with Gateways and Cannons. Assuming we're talking about standard Roach/Hydra/Infestor into Infestor/BL here. If it's Muta/ling, then don't bother with a 4th for AGES. Just turtle on your 3 easy bases. | ||
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RumbleBadger
322 Posts
 Honestly though, I think it's just the in base nat without rocks. It allows for very early expands for all races (especially helps toss) and then the third is very easy. Thus large armies are built up fast. Then the competition for a fourth comes, as the fourths are harder to hold. This promotes a lot of army movement and therefore engagements as well as rewarding risky play which is always more interesting to see. Just mah $.02 | ||
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KAmaKAsa
Finland210 Posts
User was warned for this post | ||
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Breach_hu
Hungary2431 Posts
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Ragoo
Germany2773 Posts
Wait, I already knew that. | ||
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a176
Canada6688 Posts
that free expos are lame | ||
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PineapplePizza
United States749 Posts
And then they rock the 4ths. I don't want to play against protoss on this map, ever. I don't know if I even want to play on this map at all. | ||
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S_SienZ
1878 Posts
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DrakanSilva
Chile932 Posts
MMA took a really aggressive style and it was very intense from the beginning. It all depends on the match-up (Races + Players) | ||
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lefix
Germany1082 Posts
On November 25 2011 05:08 Ooshmagoosh wrote: Why do they keep making these free-third-insane-forth maps with game-ending one-hit-kill 200/200 fights arrrrgh i have to agree with this. games are easily misinterpreted as epic games, but in fact that's only due to players being able to macro up rather save and not being able to be agressive until later stages of the game. | ||
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monitor
United States2404 Posts
On November 25 2011 05:08 a176 wrote: what can we learn? that free expos are lame Uhh... its the opposite according to the OP. Calm Before the Storm has the most epic games... why come in here and bash just for the sake of bashing? At least provide some sort of reasoning or description of why you think the inbase expos are lame. I think there are a couple factors that contribute to the broodwar-esque feel of Calm Before the Storm: 1) The inbase expansion- games usually start with either heavy macro or punishing expanding with aggression. This leads to the unusual macro openers that you don't see on many other maps. It also means lategame comes early. 2) Large map size (152x152)- you can have a lot of time to react to pushes. This means that timing attacks are less powerful than harass combined with macro play. Then as the game progesses, there are many large scale battles all over the map because of the long distances and reinforce time. 3) Lots of pathways- players can move throughout the map in many ways, around the edges and through the middle. This makes runbys easier than normal and more powerful since the side paths are hard to defend with an army. Also there are a ton of places to engage instead of having every single battle in the center of the map like XelNaga Caverns (with occasional fights in the natural or third). So overall I think the map is pretty good at encouraging epicness, but it could be improved by making harass more powerful. Something like a lowground cliff at the natural or minerals facing the center of the map at the fourth would just make harassment a bit more powerful and give opportunites for even more epic play. | ||
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Yoshi Kirishima
United States10325 Posts
Very very very great map | ||
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undyinglight
United States611 Posts
On November 25 2011 04:37 EtherealDeath wrote: Easy 3rd in conjunction with relatively difficult 4th/5th make for hilariousness. Also, makes carrier mothership possible :3 This is good, let the unexplored units have a chance to shine for once. | ||
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chuky500
France473 Posts
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Sablar
Sweden880 Posts
Most of all I think this is due to the new options that such an easy exp is giving. So lesson would be.. make something different and new and interesting builds will emerge. | ||
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FlopTurnReaver
Switzerland1980 Posts
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monitor
United States2404 Posts
On November 25 2011 08:31 FlopTurnReaver wrote: This is very confusing. 2 weeks ago the general consensus was that 3 base turtle maps without innovation are bad. Now suddenly it's the shit. Also I don't understand why people are saying the map would resemble the feeling of BW maps, when there are almost no BW maps with easy 3 bases. Maybe it's just the size? It resembles BW games because of the mutli-prong harassment throughout the game and many large-scale battles (the easy expansions promote that in SC2). | ||
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Diamond
United States10796 Posts
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zeehar
Korea (South)3804 Posts
On November 25 2011 04:47 KAmaKAsa wrote: hmm mvp only terran in top 16 in mlg providence and now theyre gna fuck up terran in gsl aswell thats more of an indication of how far behind foreign terrans are... | ||
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The Final Boss
United States1839 Posts
On Tal'Darim Altar, you have a big ramp to your natural and you don't even have a ramp from your nat into your main. Then, you have the blatant positional imbalances (so much so that if you spawn directly clockwise of your opponent, your opponent--if they abuse the map properly and attack your natural gas--gets a huge lead. Especially vT, if they siege up on the low ground near your natural, chances are it will die. Also, the rocks make it ridiculously difficult to get a third, whereas on CbtS the third can be taken as soon as they you feel comfortable taking it. It's like Tal'Darim Altar with less obvious map imbalances. Plus, the ability to take hidden expansions is at the same level as Tal'Darim Altar, which I think adds to the game, as it forces players to scout or else they run the risk of losing sense of timing and falling drastically behind. Features like hidden expos make for interesting games, and having gigantic maps such as TDA or CbtS promote hidden expos. That being said, I have a feeling that this map will favor Protoss, just due to the easiness of securing three bases. More than any other race, I feel that if Protoss can secure three bases, macro up, and then push, Protoss is the strongest. Not to mention, just looking at the map it appears as if there are a myriad of tight gaps which Protoss can abuse Forcefields and their AoE damage to decimate armies. I think that the map hasn't been played enough to really make a decisive statement as far as "This is balanced, this is imbalanced." Only time and--hopefully--more epic games will tell. But yeah, so far this map is pretty awesome. Hopefully we'll see more maps like this in the future. | ||
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The Final Boss
United States1839 Posts
On November 25 2011 08:53 zeehar wrote: thats more of an indication of how far behind foreign terrans are... Couldn't the same argument be used for why Korean Protoss players don't do as well as their Terran counterparts? Personally I think that the game is fairly balanced (mainly depending on the level of play), but players like SeleCT, ThorZaIN, winDy (what a stupid name), Strelok, Kas, DeMusliM, SjoW, BRAT_OK or even Jinro (well in TvT at least) all are really good players. I think that all the talk of Terran being OP is absolute nonsense, as everybody points to Korea which had a system that made it impossible to drop out of GSL. I doubt we'll see a massive drop in Terrans in GSL, but I also think that continuing to make maps that seem to favor Protoss is not the correct answer. Also, that guy isn't correct,  MMA placed 9th, PuMa placed 10th, and MarineKing placed 13th, but Mvp was the only Terran in the top 8. | ||
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oOOoOphidian
United States1402 Posts
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Eraserhead
159 Posts
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Zariel
Australia1285 Posts
I wonder if zergs can do some 3 hatch before pool build here | ||
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Ruscour
5233 Posts
On November 25 2011 08:49 Diamond wrote: I would not get too up in arms yet about CBTS. It's a pretty new map, and you remember that Daybreak at first lead to 100% epic games but as more people got used to it it became a normal-ish map with some potential HUGE imbalances. Out of curiosity, what's imbalanced about Daybreak? It seems to be one of the best balanced maps I've seen. | ||
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Apples8u
Canada46 Posts
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Apples8u
Canada46 Posts
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GGPope
Australia367 Posts
I think this map is pretty good, it definitely makes for entertaining games. I don't think the Protoss favour in PvT on this map is something that will last forever as terrans decipher the map architecture a bit better. | ||
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deathzz
669 Posts
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IronManSC
United States2119 Posts
A couple of my maps have 'different' concepts, and I doubted their playability, but when they were constantly tested they produced some interesting games. I don't think the question is "what can we learn from it as map-makers?" because even today map-makers still can't satisfy the general audience, otherwise we would do it on a weekly basis and map-making would get 10x more coverage. Sometimes it can be by chance or a run of luck, or other times it's just purely the originality of the layout (wider paths get narrower toward the center). We just have to look at the facts. JackyPrime designed this map without knowing how it would really play, but that he made it and thought it was unique and had a good concept - and it turned out to play very very well. Originality is probably what struck it the most. | ||
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SolidZeal
United States393 Posts
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mutantmagnet
United States3789 Posts
On November 25 2011 08:31 FlopTurnReaver wrote: This is very confusing. 2 weeks ago the general consensus was that 3 base turtle maps without innovation are bad. Now suddenly it's the shit. Also I don't understand why people are saying the map would resemble the feeling of BW maps, when there are almost no BW maps with easy 3 bases. Maybe it's just the size? Actually they are shit. All of those other maps haven't created the results we've seen in Calm Before the Storm. I think Monitor offers some really good explanations on what makes this easy 3 base work so much better than the others. On November 25 2011 06:07 monitor wrote: I think there are a couple factors that contribute to the broodwar-esque feel of Calm Before the Storm: 1) The inbase expansion- games usually start with either heavy macro or punishing expanding with aggression. This leads to the unusual macro openers that you don't see on many other maps. It also means lategame comes early. 2) Large map size (152x152)- you can have a lot of time to react to pushes. This means that timing attacks are less powerful than harass combined with macro play. Then as the game progesses, there are many large scale battles all over the map because of the long distances and reinforce time. 3) Lots of pathways- players can move throughout the map in many ways, around the edges and through the middle. This makes runbys easier than normal and more powerful since the side paths are hard to defend with an army. Also there are a ton of places to engage instead of having every single battle in the center of the map like XelNaga Caverns (with occasional fights in the natural or third). So overall I think the map is pretty good at encouraging epicness, but it could be improved by making harass more powerful. Something like a lowground cliff at the natural or minerals facing the center of the map at the fourth would just make harassment a bit more powerful and give opportunites for even more epic play. On November 25 2011 08:49 Diamond wrote: I would not get too up in arms yet about CBTS. It's a pretty new map, and you remember that Daybreak at first lead to 100% epic games but as more people got used to it it became a normal-ish map with some potential HUGE imbalances. I guess that happened with other people but I was never fond of Daybreak. The only maps I consistently enjoyed watching others play on was Metalopolis (but those games never reached BW level of hype), the last version of Desert Oasis (mostly because it was so short lived :p) and Shakuras Plateau (this actually was more of a rollercoaster where some of the best games ever played on this map outweighed the mediocre filler games) CBTS is heads and shoulders above these other maps. | ||
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Jessen
Denmark21 Posts
This is because it seems like being a tad toss favored in the PvT match-up. The map description is even: A protoss friendly map. Been looking at the game results from Code A and S from Nov and it seems to be tipping to Protoss´ favor, both in the TvP and ZvP matchup. Nevertheless there may be many factors such a BO, players mistakes etc. that dictates the games more than the map itself. Hence the wish to see more general statistics, though that may take some time since the map is still fairly new. As for the map, I don't really think it is "epic" in itself nor is the games played on it more epic than others. They are long macro games, with more encounters yes. But not epic be default, it just often forces games into a long term because of the large distance between bases. Which means that you can still go back to macro after an all-in, but you will always be behind. So in that matter it often drags a game out that should have been ended and never really got interesting after the all-in. Terrans can even be a real pain when in a long long long term game with half the map in control, T can drag the game for ages with lifting and staying alive. Once again making the game 20min longer than needed and making it boring to watch. Seen some good games on this map, but don't really see the standard of games on this map as better as most of the other maps... | ||
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StarscreamG1
Portugal1653 Posts
Toss player here. | ||
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CaptainCrush
United States785 Posts
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a176
Canada6688 Posts
http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/sc2-korean/maps/497_Calm_Before_the_Storm TvZ: 5-5 (50%) ZvP: 2-7 (22.2%) PvT: 10-5 (66.7%) P favored ... maybe ........... | ||
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WniO
United States2706 Posts
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Zaphid
Czech Republic1860 Posts
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FeyFey
Germany10114 Posts
The middle was made to favor toss with forcefields, while still making tons of ways around so zerg can still flank, just not as easy as on taldarim for example. While the map has alot of things that favor toss, they also have things that favor the other races. Also you can't float drops behind the bases of the opponents. Also its fairly easy to take a 4th and get a 5th for free, just have to defend a ramp for it. if the opponent attacks it you are able to attack thair main. Anyway the reason toss does so damn well on this map is that it favors their playstyle, while the other races current playstyles are really weak on this map and need adjustment. (goody would probably love this map for mech and be unbeatable). Played mech on that map myself against zerg, since mutas suck mech is soooo strong. (needed like half of the turrets i need normally to be save) So terrans and zerg could easily get accustomed to this map and don't get stomped by toss anymore. Anyway that map was made for toss, so it will probably go as soon as there are enough tosses in the codes again. But the map design was done really well. Unlike the maps just favoring zerg because people felt zerg is weak and removed anything that favors another race. This map has different favorable positions for each race. Oh i love this map mostly because i can mech against protoss that normally beat me up badly when i play mech xD. | ||
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