MotM February Results - Page 2

On March 14 2012 12:59 SidianTheBard wrote:
Sidewinder:
At first glance through out this map I didn't like it at all. I thought the setup was too gimmicky & that there was too much positional imbalances. Yet after looking over it more and more I'm starting to like it that much better. Main & Natural are perfectly setup, then you have your option of a 3rd. I think a really neat feature is the choke right out from your natural that appears to take about 2 3x3 buildings to wall off. You could easily wall off there and take the 3rd, bringing your army to the high ground to easily defend your third, but then be vulnerable to air harass.

My biggest concern is the amount of chokes. (Although I have yet to play on the map so it could just be the overview playing tricks on me) but it feels that everywhere on the map is super choked off that a 200 supply terran or protoss army will just absolutely crush anything zerg related unless they can get Brood lords out or can mass mutas up. It seems that you just can't be "caught out of place" on this map because there is always corners or cliffs to back yourself into.

Also it's worrisome about how close by air you'll be if you spawn in close positions and if they take the high ground third.

Cross positions on this map will be godlike. Close positions, while still good, might be a little boring/imbalanced depending on which race spawns where.

Rusty Cage:
"Hey Johanaz, are you going to submit a map for MoTM?"
"Yes I am! Although I'm worried because I don't think it's that good."
"No worries, we won't even look at it but still give you a winning spot!"

It seems that Johanaz can submit a map and it wins even though, in my opinion, the gameplay isn't going to be that great. But it doesn't matter because:

A) It's Johanaz
B) It's Pretty and
C) It's Johanaz

Did I also mention that it's pretty?

Let me start off by saying the 4 bases in the middle are almost never going to get used. They are too close to your opponent. These are meant to be your 4th base but you're much better off taking the natural of another base so then you get a "free" 5th in the other main. The only way they will ever get used is once again by a terran that can get a pfort up and a couple of tanks and that's only because of how choked off it is. Protoss are never going to get off 2 base on this map, terran will have a tough time as well. (against zerg that is).

I do like the middle and the watchtower placement. I do like the main & natural setups. I think Close & Cross positions will definitely say who wins. Close positions the zerg loses, cross positions the zerg wins. Natural to natural in close positions looks like what, steppes of war rush distance, yet cross positions the rush distance seems long enough that most 2 base pressure will be easily thwarted, yet as I've said, 3rds are tough to take, which only favors the zerg that much more.

Titanis:
I really question the judges on the reasons why they picked this map. I'm wondering if they are trolling us or something. They spend well over a month playing over maps and the 5th winning map is Metropolis Clone 2.0. The 4 middle bases are useless and would only be used by Terran, yet Terran are still better off taking their 5 bases along the edges of the map. Only reason I could see a forward third being taken is if the Terran is going to all-in on 3 base and has no plan for expanding again. Protoss will never take it and Zerg don't want to be expanding towards their opponent so once again they'll be forced to take those bases as their 6th or 7th.

The natural is less secure then Metropolis but the 3rd is easier to defend since it's on high ground. The middle is so wide open that we can expect to see many base trades on this map if both armies push out at the same time. Especially since you can move thru the middle without being in range of the watchtowers. Think of all the bigger maps where watchtowers can see almost everything in the middle and look at all the base trades we still see because both armies are pushed across the map.

I just completely don't understand the reason for picking up Metropolis 2.0. Aren't we already seeing enough of that map? And yes, this map isn't going to play out any different. I'd like to know why Plexa feels this is Metropolis on steroids because Honestly I just feel it's a sub-par version of it. No hard feelings toward Lefix at all because he can make amazing maps (Odyssey, Vulture) but because Metropolis is already popular, why do we need a clone of it?

On March 14 2012 15:32 Astro-Penguin wrote:
From a Protoss prospective I really have to ask why are all of these maps so inaccessible for FFE openings against zergs? If these were ever used in pro play this could pose a huge problem considering the current meta-game of PvZ is almost completely reliant on FFE.

IMO the natural chokes should require 4 buildings to completely block and thats at max, I haven't tested them each out specifically but most of the chokes seem absurdly wide.

On a side note I think Titanis is probably the best out of these maps and even better then Metropolis, it has my vote.

On March 14 2012 11:19 SigmaFiE wrote:
Great choices! I'm excited to try The Grid and Odin in particular.

As a followup: I am not disagreeing with the judging, looking at all the submissions going into it, it was obvious just how strong the competition for this series was. I do have a couple questions though.

1) Will any of the judges be taking time, as they did for last month's (January 2012) competition, to write to submitters about the critiques of their maps if a mapper asks for those?

and

2) I'll start with my observation, and that is that all the maps chosen were created by mappers that are on mapping teams. I know a similar case could have been made for last month as well. I do not dispute the quality of these maps, as they are all very good. But I would like to ask would the MotM panel would consider a non-affiliated "bracket" for us mappers who are not on teams or do not have access to teams?

On March 14 2012 15:32 Astro-Penguin wrote:
From a Protoss prospective I really have to ask why are all of these maps so inaccessible for FFE openings against zergs? If these were ever used in pro play this could pose a huge problem considering the current meta-game of PvZ is almost completely reliant on FFE.

IMO the natural chokes should require 4 buildings to completely block and thats at max, I haven't tested them each out specifically but most of the chokes seem absurdly wide.

On a side note I think Titanis is probably the best out of these maps and even better then Metropolis, it has my vote.

On March 14 2012 18:04 Johanaz wrote:
Each map represents 40+ hours of work. So the list translates into 2 months of full time. I like to think that I learned something from all that work.

As for you non-team mappers, make your own damn team, that´s what we did. During the first year of SC2 map making there was only one team, iCCup (now ESV), and then we founded TPW of what we thought were the best non-team map makers at the time. Maybe now is the time for you guys to do the same. Pm each other, make a Skype channel, make a website, work harder, help each other.
- sounds like a lot of time and effort? sure, but it´s definitely worth it.