In WC3 and on Bel'Shir Beach, water didn't mark pathable bounds. They were still marked with cliffs, and the water had no impact on whether an area was pathable. In this map it seems like sometimes the edge of the terrain is where the cliffs end, but other places (behind the nat) you can't walk past the water to the edge of the cliff.

Samro225am

Germany982 Posts

January 29 2012 19:14 GMT

#42

On January 30 2012 02:04 Gfire wrote:
Not a fan of water marking the boundaries, since water is typically pathable and doesn't really represent unpathable space very well, and it's all rounded while pathing boundaries and geometric. Otherwise, it looks really great.

we discussed this (NullCurrent made the finishing touches) and in the end making the waterlevel as the pathable-area's boundary was not most logical, but easiest way to read and play.

FlaShFTW

United States10402 Posts

January 29 2012 19:24 GMT

#43

OH MAH GOD ITS LOKIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!

holy crap i love this map.

Gfire

United States1699 Posts

January 29 2012 19:55 GMT

#44

On January 30 2012 04:14 Samro225am wrote:

Show nested quote +

we discussed this (NullCurrent made the finishing touches) and in the end making the waterlevel as the pathable-area's boundary was not most logical, but easiest way to read and play.

You're saying it's easier to read and play using some pathable water and some unpathable water, than it is use cliffs through the whole thing like it is on part? I'm not sure I understand.

Samro225am

Germany982 Posts

January 29 2012 22:57 GMT

#45

On January 30 2012 04:55 Gfire wrote:

Show nested quote +

You're saying it's easier to read and play using some pathable water and some unpathable water, than it is use cliffs through the whole thing like it is on part? I'm not sure I understand.

i am unsure if i understand your question (:

the point is that the visual design uses steep cliffs as well as flat beaches (already before the redesign). The waterlevel and shoreline were quite unnatural looking, so terrain was changed in a few spots.

How could a deign signify where the pathable area begins, when you use flat beaches? Where the surf meets the dry sands is the only clearly readable signal if you are on terrain or not. The only other solution would be to have a flat beach, then the surf (pathable), then a steep shallow that signifies unpathable terrain (below water level). But this leads to oher problems, like visibility of units.

therefore water=unpathable is the most simple solution really that works really well. the fact you could actually walk a few metres in the water is a little bit of realism that we do not need. i rather have it easy to read.

Gfire

United States1699 Posts

January 29 2012 23:32 GMT

#46

Oh. I see your point. Certainly, if you are going for flat beaches, with no cliffs nearby, it makes sense to put edge of pathability right on the waterline, compared to somewhere else. I'd just prefer to have an underwater cliff (dropoff) marking the line. That would be even more clear.

So is all the water on this map unpathable?

RenSC2

United States1090 Posts

January 30 2012 09:04 GMT

#47

Looks quite faithful to the original and very beautifully textured/doodaded.

As for the structure fo the map, I like the way the middle of the map is designed. For future designs, I'd be interested in seeing it taken to an even larger extreme by making outer paths ever longer. As it is, they are only slightly longer than the middle path.

Now for the real crticism, I don't have the experience with the map from BW that you guys have, but I don't like it for SC2 at the current time. The fourth looks to be very difficult to take. Meanwhile, the full backdoor expo + the reasonable to hold natural makes three base play very easy. Why would anyone try to put pressure on a third that is as easy to hold as many nats? Why would anyone risk taking a difficult fourth when they can turtle on three?

This map looks like 15 minutes of buildup followed by one major engagement. I can't imagine too many good SC2 games coming from it.

The full backdoor expo just doesn't seem to work well in SC2 and tends to heavily favor P/T vZ. If I was trying to turn this into a competitive map and not just remake for nostalgia purposes, I'd cut the backdoor to zero or one gas and probably also cut mineral patches down to six. With those changes, it'd have a better chance of being balanced.

NullCurrent

Sweden245 Posts

January 30 2012 10:15 GMT

#48

On January 30 2012 18:04 RenSC2 wrote:
Now for the real crticism, I don't have the experience with the map from BW that you guys have, but I don't like it for SC2 at the current time. The fourth looks to be very difficult to take. Meanwhile, the full backdoor expo + the reasonable to hold natural makes three base play very easy. Why would anyone try to put pressure on a third that is as easy to hold as many nats? Why would anyone risk taking a difficult fourth when they can turtle on three?

This map looks like 15 minutes of buildup followed by one major engagement. I can't imagine too many good SC2 games coming from it.

The full backdoor expo just doesn't seem to work well in SC2 and tends to heavily favor P/T vZ. If I was trying to turn this into a competitive map and not just remake for nostalgia purposes, I'd cut the backdoor to zero or one gas and probably also cut mineral patches down to six. With those changes, it'd have a better chance of being balanced.

Calm Before the Storm also has a layout like that (8 mineral 2 gas inbase expo + relatively safe natural, but also rocks on the potential 4th), so I think that map might be worth looking at to see if it would work or not (as a concept, might be that the rest of the layout is favoring one race over the other).

RenSC2

United States1090 Posts

January 30 2012 10:48 GMT

#49

On January 30 2012 19:15 NullCurrent wrote:

Show nested quote +

Yes, Calm Before the Storm is the primary map I was thinking of when I posted. It was pretty cool that CBtS was accepted into the GSL, but it only lasted one season. From what I understood from Artosis in State of the Game (ep61), the problem was the three-base turtle and 15 minutes of dead-time until the game actually started. Loki looks to have that same problem and possibly even worse with its hard 4th.

In the one season in GSL, CBtS seemed to favor P/T vZ. In Code S+A+U/D combined, PvZ was 3-0 (100%) on CBtS and 23-20 (53.5%) excluding CBtS. TvZ was 4-3 (57.1%) on CBtS and 32-32 (50%) excluding CBtS. Nothing is too conclusive with the small numbers (although it looks like Zerg tended to avoid CBtS), but there is an indication of anti-zerg bias and my guess is the three base formation is the culprit and the reason why I'm pointing it out on Loki II.

Interestingly, PvT was 7-7 (50%) on CBtS, but 29-41 (41.4%) excluding it. Protoss metagame tended to favor 2 or 3 base deathballs during that time and could explain why their win% (balanced, hah!) was higher on that map.

Only thing that I could see making Loki II more likely to not turn into a 3-base turtle than CBtS is that taking the 4th (counter-clockwise) nearly guarantees a 5th, so people may be more willing to take that risk.