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Work In Progress Melee Maps - Page 135
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Keep our forum clean! PLEASE post your WIP melee maps in this thread for initial feedback. -Barrin | ||
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SwedenTheKid
567 Posts
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hero_lief
United States53 Posts
Thanks for all the feedback! As a zerg player myself, I can't believe I didn't think about surround opportunities. I'm going to try seriously reworking the middle and edges to allow for surrounds. What's the issue with cardinal ramps? I'm okay changing them, but I'm just curious what's wrong with them. Building placement? Same with resource layouts. I've researched geyser placement and all of my geysers are in optimal spots, and my minerals are spaced out and mostly as close to the center as possible. Why are standard layouts necessary? | ||
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hero_lief
United States53 Posts
Oh man, I just moved all of them clockwise and thought it looked worse and then I realized you said counterclockwise. Anyway, here's what it looks like right now. I'm going to move the main and second counterclockwise a fair bit like you intended. ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/RA0L8DJ.jpg) I keep looking at the high ground expansion and thinking it needs to just disappear or move elsewhere. It's in the way of all flexibility in the middle and it's causing problems. With all of the space that opened up from combining the two expansions in the corners into one, I'm thinking of shifting the corner expansion, third, and the one between them counterclockwise, adding room for this other expo to squeeze in there. It'll still be a bit forward, but not so close to the center, allowing me to actually make other paths for attack routes and surround possibilities. | ||
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TheFish7
United States2824 Posts
On November 22 2014 14:51 hero_lief wrote: @Xeno Thanks for all the feedback! As a zerg player myself, I can't believe I didn't think about surround opportunities. I'm going to try seriously reworking the middle and edges to allow for surrounds. What's the issue with cardinal ramps? I'm okay changing them, but I'm just curious what's wrong with them. Building placement? Same with resource layouts. I've researched geyser placement and all of my geysers are in optimal spots, and my minerals are spaced out and mostly as close to the center as possible. Why are standard layouts necessary? Cardinal ramps can't be walled off as easily. This in itself is only a minor problem, but most players don't realize this and will think they've walled off when they haven't. It's also especially tricky when trying to FFE a cardinal ramp since you're using mostly 3x3 buildings. ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/vge12Mt.png) Mineral placement should be similar to gas placement except you want 4 close patches and 4 farther patches. Even 5 close 3 far has a pretty big impact on mining rates, so its important to have that. Some mineral lines will also split the workers in funny directions at the start of the match causing build order timings to be off by a second or 2. Other mineral lines can have cannon rush spots etc. You don't necessarily have to use the standard mineral lines, but unless you have a really good reason not to you should do so to avoid these things. | ||
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hero_lief
United States53 Posts
Having those two ramps leading up to the side 4th being cardinal is okay, right? They're so large anyway, and a lot would have to change to make them diagonal. Will make sure my mineral lines are okay, and if not, will borrow from other maps. | ||
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Xenotolerance
United States464 Posts
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hero_lief
United States53 Posts
Well, it's irrelevant now. I warped the map a bit, moved the middle expansions, altered rock placement, etc etc. I think it's shaping up to be something now, so here's what it looks like so far. Ignore resource fields right now, they're just being haphazardly thrown together to give an idea of basic layout. I'll tweak them later. ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/bCKPtLq.jpg) The bright terrain is to designate unpathable cliffs. It's not at all what those cliffs will look like, but I don't want them getting mixed up with pathable ones. I think this map is now much better in regards to flank opportunities, third defense, and expansions. I'm considering rotating the resource field in the main so it's facing away from the rest of the map, so that I can remove that empty space and possibly move the expansion down towards the middle on the same level as the naturals, overlooking the valley. Not sure yet. Here's what that looks like, thoughts? | ||
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hero_lief
United States53 Posts
As above, ignore the actual mineral lines. They don't even line up enough for a 5x5 square yet. Some are 5x6, 6x6, sometimes an extra square here or there on the sides too. They're just a rough idea. ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/S3ooQA8.jpg) | ||
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SwedenTheKid
567 Posts
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hero_lief
United States53 Posts
I'll move the last base further out a bit, because I agree that they're too close. | ||
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hero_lief
United States53 Posts
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/07HEIoN.jpg) I feel things are spaced out a little nicer, it's just some general polish overall. Curtains are a total WIP and can easily change. | ||
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SwedenTheKid
567 Posts
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hero_lief
United States53 Posts
On November 24 2014 09:47 SwedenTheKid wrote: I like it. At first I was worried about blink all-ins, but comparing it to CK I don't think it will be a huge problem. I've been running simulations with my friend on it, watching AIs play certain builds against each other. The main issue I'm facing right now is that the slightly weird non-direct angle of the middle ramps causes the AIs to always go to the left and right of the towers at the exact same times, causing base trades. | ||
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SwedenTheKid
567 Posts
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/gdmjq23.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/kLRWPow.jpg) | ||
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BowlOfMuesli
United Kingdom3 Posts
This is a first attempt. I've tried to make it interesting. The spawns are at 1 and 7, with the natural ramp and the main ramp being close together to encourage movement out of the base. To compensate, the Xel-Naga towers cover the main two routes of attack around the centre. Natural-natural worker rush distance is about 35-40 star-seconds. Reapers have to follow the same path as the workers but can hop into the main via a little cliff. The natural 3rd is close to the natural ramp and is reasonably easily defended, however there is a hidden passage around to what is likely to be the enemies 4th, so it's not entirely safe until you can control the passage, tricky if the opponent has established a 4th at the other end. Both the 3rd and 4th have reasonably open spaces, as I figured these places are often where games are won or lost so room to maneuver is key. In the mid-game the rocks towards the centre of the map can be destroyed, cutting 15-30 seconds off the rush distance. This leads you directly into your opponents 3rd, or it's possible to dodge the army using the wall to attack the natural or 4th. In the few games I've played this seems to be the tipping point, controlling the wall outside your 3rd and the watchtower so you know which base your opponent is attacking. I tried to make this map easy to scout and dynamic. The watchtowers are very, very advantageous and have a rock-blocked base there so it can be fortified as a 5th potentially later in the game. I'm tempted to maybe make it a gold base with the rocks in future updates. Images here. I'm new to these forums so I can't do the picture. It's up on EU and NA as 'Bovine Plateau' if you want to give it a try. I'm sure there's room for improvement. | ||
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hero_lief
United States53 Posts
On November 26 2014 16:01 BowlOfMuesli wrote: I present to you all, Bovine Plateau. Complete with 7 whole cows (3 each and you fight for the last one I guess). Alright, this is gunna be a lengthy post so let's get to it.
These are just the most glaring issues. There are many more, but I figured I'd give you a checklist to get started. I also want to add that even though there are a lot of issues, that doesn't make your map bad! If I had a nickel for every revision most ladder maps have received during their development process... | ||
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hero_lief
United States53 Posts
http://imgur.com/a/nBQCb Pardon the weird square artifacts on the minimap image. From what I can tell, those artifacts are caused by bad mipmaps in lower-quality cells (the square chunks). It's probably something to do with the terrain textures I'm using, but I'm not entirely sure what to do to fix it. I would need to look into how SC2 handles mipmaps. The only real gameplay tweaks I've made to the map involve changing the direction of the ramp leading away from the 4th base (in front of the main) from being 135° (NW-SE) to 225° (SW-NE). This was done because all of my macro simulations always involved attacking that 4th base by putting someone on the high ground for vision and then fighting over the wall, rather than going up the ramp because the ramp entrance was in a different direction. Now armies should be able to actually walk up the ramp and attack. I've also added destructible building blockers on the bottoms of the main ramps, and slightly tweaked the placement of a few mineral lines to give more space behind them. Other than that, I think this is about ready gameplay-wise. If you draw a diamond with its top and bottom points at each 4th, the area of that diamond pretty much demonstrates the areas I need to work on regarding terrain, which is the middle, both 4ths, and also both 3rds (which aren't in that diamond). I also need to work on adding trees and such to the outlying cosmetic terrain. Other than these areas though, the rest of the map is pretty much ready for primetime. So... feedback? | ||
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SwedenTheKid
567 Posts
PS any thoughts on my WIP?  | ||
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hero_lief
United States53 Posts
I'm not quite sure how I feel about the rocks next to the natural. I have them on my own map, but the difference is that on my map, the path next to the rocks is actually outside of the wall, where on yours it's forced to be its own attack route. Are there any other maps that do this that have similar rush distances? I would say Xel'Naga Caverns (as 'balanced' as that map is), but even that map causes a huge delay by taking the back door. Really not sure how I feel about the access to the very top layer. You do plan to block most of off with doodads, right? I don't think you should be able to attack those bases from above like that. Really don't like the rocks in the middle, it gives no room for armies to really go through except through the middle two bases, which defeats the purpose of those two bases, since they're contested territory. Similar to the cow map above, even destroying the rocks in the middle means you have only two very divided chokes, rather than open areas. Zerg players will hate this map, and it'll be way too enjoyable for Terran players to drop on cliffs above all of those bases. | ||
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-NegativeZero-
United States2141 Posts
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