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Great map. urashimakt, I really appreciate the time and effort you put into this project. I have played hundreds of games and seen many unit compositions, strategies, cheeses, trolls etc. I just wanted to give my thoughts on this monobattle map.
-Blind Random
Some people might disagree, but blind random is what makes a monobattle enjoyable in my opinion. It was so lame to see some people pick useful units like marine, stalker etc. during Megaton days. Monobattle shouldn't be about everyone picking a useful unit and win. Yeah, it sucks to have relatively worse unit composition, but trying to overcome the disadvantage is a part of monobattle play. At the end of the day, monobattle is naturally "imbalanced" anyways. As long as veto options remain decent like it is now, blind random as the default mode makes a lot of sense. With vetos, I never reroll these days even when I get a "bad" unit. Figuring out the way to win a seemingly auto-loss game is so much more fun than outright destroying opponents with superior units.
-Veto(random optional)
As much as I enjoy playing "bad" units, some units are just too terrible to play. Veto is a must for blind random. Personally, I play corruptor no matter what my teammates have and medivac if at least one of my teammates' units is biological. Some people might also enjoy cannon/spine rushing, feeding, trolling etc. with overseer/warpprism/mothership, so veto is a nice way to give players choices. As pointed out before, the only downside right now is that all those units are enabled by default. I'm glad to hear that you fixed this for HotS. New players don't have to leave any more as soon as they get overseer ^^
-Map
Current modified Sand Canyon is a good map. I like it for several reasons.
1. shared base with shared ramp
Original Sand Canyon has a seperate starting base with seperate ramp for each player. Helping teammates who are vulnerable early on is so much more important in monobattle than normal 4v4. Modified version allows teammates work together in survival vs rush strategies. I feel 2 shared ramps should be the standard for any monobattle because having Zerg players who can't help wall the front doesn't automatically result in zerglings running into everyone's base which can happen on 4v4 map Extinction style 4 seperate ramps. Current ramp size that can be walled with two 2x2 and two 3x3 buildings also helps.
2. rush distance
6pool zergling or reaper doesn't auto win because rush distance is long enough. At the same time, tier 1 units can still punish tier 2~3 units with current rush distance. It is ok to be slightly longer or shorter, but I find current distance almost ideal. Also, I like how one of six initial workers sent immediately can sneak into enemy base without being scouted if opponents are not careful at checking ramp at 9pylon/10depot/sending initial ovie timings. (0:50 or so)
3. number/layout of bases
Two bases per player is guaranteed, but 3rd base isn't available for everyone. Establishing 3rd is often the focal point of the game. Tier 1 units are generally weak in late game, but they provide map control that allows your team to establish 3rd way earlier than opponents. Safe natural + risky 3rd map design is the way to go.
-Cannon Rush
It should be viable. From time to time, that's the only way to win for a team. It might be frustrating to deal with, but it is always preventable, especially on modified Sand Canyon. (maybe 4 player cannon rush all-in is not) Monobattle is still a melee type game. Removing all stress to dumb down is boring.
-No Anti Air Games
Challenging, but fun. "We gotta kill that muta guy fast with our marauder banshee immortal ultralisk" often ends up in chaos, but monobattle is not just about no-rush-15-min 200/200.
-Incentive
It would be nice if there is an additional incentive to play monobattle than just win/loss. The most frustrating thing in monobattle is not cannon rush or no AA game but rather teammates leaving. Some people leave the moment they smell even the slightest unit composition disadvantage at 10 sec into game or so. "wtf, I got queen. gg" or "#$%&, we have no AA. gg." is not so uncommon. This really ruins the game for the rest of players. Maybe introducing some kind of achievement system like "Win a game with queen etc. 10/20/50/100 times" or "Win a game without AA vs single/multiple air to ground attacking units" might motivate players to stay. Giving more incentive to play bad situations would provide better monobattle experience for all.
-Blizzard's problem(?)
I want to see
1. teammate's supply count once he/she leaves so that I can macro better or even completely transition into using that unit if mine is worse.
2. hotkeys for "share resource" and "share control" so that I don't need to click those small icons at top right.
3. terran interface/voice when I play terran units. Same for Zerg/Protoss.
-Draft
I don't have HotS beta or expert map editor knowledge, so forgive me for some of my ignorance. The most interesting draft at least for me would be blind random into drafting. First, people blind random like we do today. For example, let's say 8 people get void ray, baneling, sentry, mutalisk, immortal, marauder, hydralisk, thor, respectively. Then 2 random guys are chosen as team leaders for Team A and B. For the sake of discussion, Team A leader is marauder, and Team B leader is void ray. Team A leader picks one of the six players left for drafting. Knowing AA is necessary vs void ray, marauder guy picks thor. Then, Team B leader picks one of the remaining five. Immortal is good vs both marauder and thor, so void ray picks immortal. To be fairer, Team B sub-leader immortal picks another unit for Team B beofore Team A. Immortal picks hydralisk. Now, Team A sub-leader thor picks baneling to counter hydralisk. Finally, hydralisk player picks last unit zealot for Team A. Poor corruptor guy goes to Team B. Now the rosters are
Team A: [marauder - thor - baneling - zealot]
Team B: [void ray - immortal - hydralisk - corruptor]
General flow in this case is
Blind random
Random team leader selection
A: marauder picks thor
B: void ray picks immortal
B: immortal picks hydralisk
A: thor picks baneling
A: baneling picks zealot
B: corruptor is automatically added
Play
This drafting method prevents useful units always picked or banned while naturally balancing the game by players' choices. With those 8 units, not many people find [void ray - hydralisk - thor - corruptor] vs [marauder - immortal - baneling - zealot] no AA game fun in current WoL version, but this drafting system would give players opportunity to choose a better unit composition for both sides.
1 obstacle might be coding all those triggers for unset alliance at the start of the game. Unlike other drafting, team members themselves are not predetermined. It's not simple 4v4 but rather 1v1v1v1v1v1v1v1 turning into 1+1+1+1 v 1+1+1+1 with drafting. I'm pretty sure it's possible, but I don't exactly know how to T_T
-Unit Strength
It would be interesting to know the overall winrates for all units. Queen players must have lower winrate than marine players over the course of thousands of games played on battlenet. Doesn't mafia custom map collect data for role strength based on win/loss? It would be more satisfying to win with queen knowing the winrate is 42% or something. Conbined with incentive idea, giving achievements for all bad units with low winrates would be nice.
...easier said than done. I'm like one of those bosses who say things without actually knowing how hard it is to make it happen. As a player who have played I don't know maybe 500(?) games, and enjoyed every single one of them, this is my feedback for you. Thank you again for this great custom map.
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That is a quite a read. I appreciate the praise stuff but I'll just directly address what wasn't praise:
Incentive
Incentive has been on my agenda for a long time. The one rule I have is that the incentive must be worthwhile yet maintain absolutely zero net effect on gameplay. Achievements might be the way to go about it, but I'd have to make sure it's implemented in a way that's satisfying and I won't be promising that by Heart of the Swarm.
Blizzard's problems?
The only one of those that I have any interest in addressing is the racial UI/sound mismatch. The racial assets loaded are dictated by your lobby-chosen race. I could attempt to hide the built-in UI and recreate a false UI to mimic the correct race, but that'd entail a large amount of effort for a small (probably buggy) payoff. I'm always on the look out for any new tools from Blizzard to correct that issue.
Draft
The draft system I've implemented refers to drafting units and not players. Drafting players is certainly possible. I'm hesitant to approach drafting that way because drafting is most suited for predetermined team play. As you've noted, Blind Random is the natural order for public play. Everyone is forced to honor the rule yet every player gets the satisfaction of pressing their own button. The suggestion did make me think, however, of a draft that reduces the unit pool to just 8 units at random and each player on each team gets a turn picking a unit exclusively for their team. It would accomplish the same balancing effect you're shooting for without the team jumbling (although I can understand why team jumbling could be fun under specific circumstances).
Unit Strength
Comparing yourself to the universal, or even rough, average would be fun. Tracking correct averages over hundreds of games with thousands of players might be impossible, though. Bank files do have limits and tracking correct averages is a very different beast to tracking top statistics (which is easy). I'd love to consider allowing you to see how you stack against the average of the other players in your specific game.
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12/17/2012
Gameplay- While drafting, the random button can no longer choose Warp Prism, Medivac, Mothership or Overseer while Picking. It can still choose to ban these units.
- New draft mode: Random Draft
- All units are banned except for 9 selected at random. Warp Prism, Medivac, Mothership and Overseer are always banned. The remaining units can only be picked once.
- The Captain's Hat of Choosing is automatically passed to each player on each team so that each is offered a chance to pick. Players may still opt to give the captain's hat to another player during their turn.
- Players still select the unit that they will play after the drafting process is finished.
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The following change will be applied to the HotS beta version shortly.
12/22/2012
Interface- The unit display dialog now lists the average win ratio of all other players in the current game while using your current unit
- The stats used to obtain the ratio average are anonymous
- The average does not consider your wins and losses
- If no other player in the current game has played with your unit the average will be undefined
- The stats command has been improved
- Typing stats will give you information on your current unit as shown in the unit display
- Typing stats unitName will give you information on the specified unit
I'm also looking to improve the aesthetics of Bx Monobattle. None of the Bluefrex group are particularly talented graphic designers, so I'd thought I'd see if there's any interested talent out there. I'm most interested in a background screen to replace the pitch blackness during unit selection, but custom dialog frames would also be neat. Feel free to PM me if you're interested.
And here are some rough notes on possible achievements. Feedback appreciated.
+ Show Spoiler [Achievements] +Brawler - win a legitimate Blind Pick/Random Bx Monobattle
Reporting for Duty - win a legitimate Draft mode Bx Monobattle
Toasting Teamwork - witness an ally obtain a unit-specific achievement 5 times
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Marathon Runner - charge 20 times with a single Zealot
Uphill Battle - blink 25 stalkers from low ground to high ground in a single game
Poker Face - hallucinate a unit that your team cannot make
Stimulus Package - stim your marines 1000 times in a single game
Avon Calling - using marauders, destroy an enemy building before X seconds
Grim Reaper - kill 25 units with a single Reaper
Invasive Species - control over 300 zerglings at once
Scare Tactics - morph 50 banelings at once
Pest Problem - unburrow 50 distinct roaches near enemy buildings in a single game
We Will Rock You - place 10 creep tumors near enemy buildings in a single game
Silently Into the Night - kill 20 workers with a single Dark Templar
Stormy Weather - using Psi Storm, kill 100 enemies in a single game
All Power to Shields - research level 3 shields with Archons
The Immortal - reduce 50 large attacks with a single immortal's shields
Outlying Station - power at least 3 buildings with a Warp Prism
U Gotta Sk8 - kill 20 enemy units without losing a single Phoenix
Insider Trading - kill 50 enemy workers with Oracles
Was That Important? - kill 5 enemy tech structures with Void Rays
Manhattan Project - launch a nuke before X seconds
Fast Food - kill 25 workers before X seconds with Hellions
Tread Lightly - kill a detected cloaked or burrowed unit with a Widow Mine
Helen of Char - lay siege to an enemy for 2 consecutive minutes with sieged tanks
Mengsk Care - heal 2000 damage with Medivacs in a single game
Royal Ground Force - kill 50 enemy units with landed Vikings in a single game
Wail of a Time - kill 25 enemy units with a single Banshee
Quoth the Raven - kill 20 enemy units with Seeker Missiles in a single game
No Fly Zone - kill 50 enemy air units with Hydralisks in a single game
Cloudy With a Chance of Toads - control 50 locusts at once
Body Snatcher - neural parasite an enemy worker
Spare Change - control 100 disguised changelings at once
Just a Flesh Wound - sustain 1000 damage to your Mutalisks without losing a single one
Political Animal - cast Corruption on 50 enemy units in a single game
Most Wanted - Abduct 25 enemy units in a single game
Laser Light Show - attack with 15 Colossi at once
Downtown - using Tempests, kill 25 enemy units from a distance of at least 13 in a single game
Outsourcing - construct 100 Interceptors in a single game
Wait Until Your Father Gets Home - kill 25 enemy units with a single Mothership
Unbreakable - sustain 1500 damage with a single Thor
That's No Moon - kill 25 enemy units with Yamato Cannon in a single game
Mess With the Bull - kill 25 enemy units with a single Ultralisk
Who Lords the Brood Lords? - control 30 Brood Lords at once
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![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/DGZY5.png)
Achievements are in (Heart of the Swarm version only). If you think they're a stupid idea and an annoyance, you can toggle them off with the checkbox in the achievement window and forget they ever existed. Good monobattling.
12/28/2012
Gameplay- Players can now use the stats command supplied with a unit name before they have picked a unit
- Players who have picked Medivac or Warp Prism can now load allied units.
- Players who do not pick either of these units can still build their own but may not pick up allies or use their abilities
Achievements- Achievements have been implemented
- There are currently 58 unlockable achievements (more can and will be added)
- Each player's obtained achievements and total points are only visible to that player for now
- The achievement window for viewing all achievements is accessible via the achievement button in the upper left-hand corner of the screen (which conveniently fades when not in focus)
- Achievements the player has obtained are floated to the top of the list
- When a player obtains an achievement, all players will see a chat message. The player who obtained the achievement may see an optional toast which can be toggled on/off via the achievement window
- Invalid games, games with a detected leaver and games that have ended will not award achievements. You can stick around after a game is over or join a game privately on your own to view your achievements without harming your record
- Achievements have absolutely zero impact on gameplay. There are no rewards for accruing X points. There may be rewards in the future, but they'd be personal rewards that only you could notice and not use as a benefit in terms of gameplay
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maybe its me as I'm a greedy bastard in SC (3+ bases are necessary), but I'm not terribly enamored of Sand Canyon as a map, but moreso bc especially as it's the only map. You should look at the original mod for pointers on this. People started to hate playing on Megaton so no one plays that mod anymore (well, very few). Idk as I don't have HotS, but I think a must have feature is do what 1v1 obs maps do, have a featured map a week to change the lineup. Sure it's not going to be as varied, but it allows you to implement a multi-map pool initiative that I'm sure everyone would appreciate.
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On December 29 2012 07:54 wo1fwood wrote:
maybe its me as I'm a greedy bastard in SC (3+ bases are necessary), but I'm not terribly enamored of Sand Canyon as a map, but moreso bc especially as it's the only map. You should look at the original mod for pointers on this. People started to hate playing on Megaton so no one plays that mod anymore (well, very few). Idk as I don't have HotS, but I think a must have feature is do what 1v1 obs maps do, have a featured map a week to change the lineup. Sure it's not going to be as varied, but it allows you to implement a multi-map pool initiative that I'm sure everyone would appreciate.
When Heart of the Swarm launches there will be a map of the week.
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I noticed that queens don't rally; they always just sit by the base they're built from.
When your selected unit is the queen, it would make sense for the queens to rally to the rally point?
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On February 06 2013 20:46 ToastyKen wrote:
I noticed that queens don't rally; they always just sit by the base they're built from.
When your selected unit is the queen, it would make sense for the queens to rally to the rally point?
Queens don't have a rally point on ladder either, so I think it's fine as it is. Somewhat annoying for sure, but most things are in monobattle ^^
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On February 06 2013 20:46 ToastyKen wrote:
I noticed that queens don't rally; they always just sit by the base they're built from.
When your selected unit is the queen, it would make sense for the queens to rally to the rally point?
I will look into forcing Queens to obey the rally command only when Queens are your unit. I think it's a nice convenience idea.
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Hey for Heart of the Swarm can you make your workers auto split? Would be great.
Also I want to say that I ported a monobattle map to HoTS before you did (it was called "[HoTS Monobattles]"), so I could play monobattles until a proper port was made. After I have learnt that you have published a monobattles map to HoTS I unpublished the map so people can play yours. Your map should be the most popular monobattle map now, as the only other monobattle map is buggy and has a lot of issues. I hope you continue updating!
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On February 20 2013 00:50 Giacom wrote:
Hey for Heart of the Swarm can you make your workers auto split? Would be great.
Also I want to say that I ported a monobattle map to HoTS before you did (it was called "[HoTS Monobattles]"), so I could play monobattles until a proper port was made. After I have learnt that you have published a monobattles map to HoTS I unpublished the map so people can play yours. Your map should be the most popular monobattle map now, as the only other monobattle map is buggy and has a lot of issues. I hope you continue updating!
That's very sweet of you. I never stop updating, though, I just wait for feedback. If I can determine a player's autosplit setting from the map editor tools, I will attempt to force an autosplit when appropriate.
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Bug Report: "pause-quit"
On Bx Monobattles Sand Canyon (fix) on WoL Arcade:
If you pause, and then leave the game, then when the remaining players unpause, the UI is frozen. The AI still goes on mining or whatnot, but you can no longer click on any units or even scroll the screen.
Tonight, one player (Cubed) repeatedly did this just to annoy everyone else and prevent people from playing the game. :\
Please look into fixing this bug, thanks!
UPDATE OOPS nvm looks like this is actually a StarCraft main client issue, not a BxMonobattles one. Seen in Known Issues here: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/2267599524 My bad. 
P.S.: Thanks for looking into the queen rallying issue!
I played some non-Bx monobattles on HOTS, and it only made me realize how much better Bx is! :D
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No worries. The majority of bug reports received are either problems with the SC2 client in general or user error. The mod actually changes very little of the engine under the hood. Glad you enjoy it.
As an update, I've not forgotten the Queen rally and auto-split suggestions. I will be looking into those as soon as I install the official, finalized HotS client (launch day).
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Welcome to the Heart of the Swarm!
The following maps are available on NA with HotS changes enabled:
- Bx Monobattle - Sand Canyon (Fix)
- Bx Monobattle - Map of the Week
The map of the week is currently set to Extinction. All Bx Monobattle maps announce that the map of the week version is available once they've been updated to HotS. Both of the aforementioned maps have Referee Mode disabled. The rest of the Bx Monobattles library will be updated to HotS very soon (with Referee Mode enabled).
As a reminder, the following changes are included in the HotS update:
- Heart of the Swarm units added
- Achievements added (button can be found in the upper left of screen, it hides until hovered over)
- Several draft modes added (set the mode before creating the game, or create a referee game and set it through the lobby)
Wings of Liberty owners will no longer be able to access Bx Monobattle maps once they've been updated. I fully expect to have introduced some bugs and look forward to your reports (please remember to include a replay if it's not incredibly obvious).
Update
The following maps are now HotS-friendly on NA:
- District 10
- Extinction
- Fossil Quarry
- High Ground
- Map of the Week
- Megaton
- Outpost
- Sand Canyon (Fix)
- Sand Canyon (Original)
- Toxic Slums
- Zenith
The following Heart of the Swarm maps have also joined the map pool:
- Celestial Bastion
- Atlas Station
- Fallout Zone
- Sky Harvester
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i'm continually finding that it would be awesome if we could un-ally people in case are idiots, but also in the hilarity of backstabbing potential from changing alliances that BGH had so much of.
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On March 18 2013 00:58 wo1fwood wrote:
i'm continually finding that it would be awesome if we could un-ally people in case are idiots, but also in the hilarity of backstabbing potential from changing alliances that BGH had so much of.
Backstabbing is fun sometimes, but I don't think it'd be a good idea to make BxM the game to do it in. Already plenty of grief to go around with leavers.
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is there a hots monobattle map for the EU, if so, whats its name exactly, thx.
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I was very excited about the new draft modes in HOTS, but I haven't been able to get a game in because everyone just plays blind random.
I was thinking that one way around it might be to allow us to pick which mode to play AFTER we enter the game. Many other arcade games use this method, where players will vote on which mode to play once they've entered the game. To do this well, you might need to reduce the number of choices (having like 8 different modes makes it likely that nothing will get at least 4 votes, so most people wont get what they want).
The one problem I could forsee with this is if people dont get the mode that they wanted they might leave. But given that everyone plays blind random right now, I don't see how doing a draft when you intended to play random would really bother you much.
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On March 22 2013 04:43 SlayerS_BoxxY wrote:
I was very excited about the new draft modes in HOTS, but I haven't been able to get a game in because everyone just plays blind random.
I was thinking that one way around it might be to allow us to pick which mode to play AFTER we enter the game. Many other arcade games use this method, where players will vote on which mode to play once they've entered the game. To do this well, you might need to reduce the number of choices (having like 8 different modes makes it likely that nothing will get at least 4 votes, so most people wont get what they want).
The one problem I could forsee with this is if people dont get the mode that they wanted they might leave. But given that everyone plays blind random right now, I don't see how doing a draft when you intended to play random would really bother you much.
Blind random is the default because it's puts "the power" of picking unit in the hands of the individual while maintaining some semblance of fairness, so it's hard to get mad at your teammates or opponents for choices made. I agree with you, though, I'm excited about the draft modes. You want to play them, I want to play them and I made them. They're actually a lot more balanced than blind random as you get some kind of cohesiveness and strategy out of a draft selection.
If I were to change the default mode from blind random it would be to a new mode that quickly forces players to vote on one of the existing modes to use. The existing modes will always exist as part of the pre-lobby dropdown menu, though. I'll spend time seriously thinking on it.
On March 22 2013 04:05 Jack Project wrote:
is there a hots monobattle map for the EU, if so, whats its name exactly, thx.
I'm not sure whether or not my EU uploader has gotten around to making the update since release. Eventually, though, I'll upload them myself to EU. I've been a bit lazy about it since it's not popular over there as far as I know.
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EPT
