Work In Progress Melee Maps - Page 136

On November 27 2014 09:22 -NegativeZero- wrote:
@hero_lief: I think I've seen those textures somewhere before. Where did you get them?

On November 26 2014 17:10 hero_lief wrote:

Alright, this is gunna be a lengthy post so let's get to it.

1. "about 35-40 star-seconds" is not a rush distance. If you use the Editor's distance tool, and place each endpoint at the center of the town hall location at each natural, what is the distance it shows, in units? Divide that by 2.81 and you have your worker rush distance.
   
2. That is a huge main. How many CCs?
   
3. There needs to be way more space behind the main's mineral line. A good rule of thumb is space for a couple of Zerg buildings and space for towers.
   
4. The natural has the biggest ramp I think I've ever seen. That would be an absolute nightmare to block off.
   
5. Impossible to defend the ramp to the Main with a single Spine Crawler at the natural, which is always optimal.
   
6. Nearly impossible to get into the third. There's lots of space in the third itself, but there's nowhere to really attack from.
   
7. The entire middle is just a nightmare. There is literally nowhere to move an army through unless you take the time to kill rocks, but even then, you're walking through a small choke. As a Zerg player, I would veto this map immediately.
   
8. Don't use cardinal ramps going up to the 'fourth'.
   
9. NEVER place a Xel'Naga tower inside of a base. That's just asking for trouble. They need to be hotly contested territory, and bases simply are not.
   
10. The fifth base placed behind the natural is incredibly squished. Space it out a little more, with wider paths to get to it.
    
11. None of your doodads are actually from the same tileset. You've got random vespene towers behind the bottom natural, a Bel'Shir Artifact Shrine in the middle, random crystal formations on top of cliffs, and to top it all off, you're using some kind of Agria tileset. You really need to rethink this map.
    

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...

On November 27 2014 10:23 BowlOfMuesli wrote:Hey, thanks for the feedback. I've had a tinkle and have come up with a much better version in my opinion.

Click here to see

There's easily space for a spawning pool behind the natural. I've trimmed the main and natural back to more reasonable sizes, chosen a much nicer tileset (in my opinion) and meddled with the centre in a way that I think could lead to some quite interesting engagements. The 3rd is much more attackable now with the snaky corridor being one of 3 possible engagement angles.

I hope it's a positive improvement. If anything it plays much better in my opinion.

It's on EU and NA as 'Bovine Plateau 2' if you'd like to give it a spin.

EDIT: The rush distance is 200/2.81 = 71.1. Is that ideal?

On November 28 2014 08:37 hero_lief wrote:


The middle is still horrible. You can't put rocks to block off the most direct path, it breaks the flow of gameplay.

The fourth base (raised platform) shouldn't be raised, it should be lowered into the ground. It shouldn't be safer to take the fourth than the third. It can't actually be lowered because SC2 only permits three levels, so you should compensate by lowering the natural to be on the base level and the main to only be elevated by one. This would also allow reapers and colossi to jump into the main in general, which is usually a necessary quality. Harassment is good.

You're using cardinal ramps on your fourth bases and all throughout the middle. Don't do that! Use diagonal ramps. Read the past page if you need an explanation for why this is so.

Watch towers should not be able to see each other. Spread them out further. They also cover almost nothing right now, there needs to be a reason for players to fight for them.

Also, worker rush times need to be around 35-45 seconds optimally in a 2 player map. You're quite a great deal over that.

On November 28 2014 10:43 BowlOfMuesli wrote:Thanks for the advice.

I can't help but, respectfully, disagree with some of these though.

The 4th you mention is meant to be a hard to get 5th, with it being closer to the centre of the map and having rocks on it. I'll scoot what is meant to be the 4th a little closer to the main to emphasize this. I'll also fix the cardinal ramps, but would it really be that bad for a 5th that I don't intend to be safe anyway? Something about not using 4 of the 8 ramp directions irks me.

The watchtowers don't actually quite see each other, or they shouldn't unless I've managed to publish the wrong version. They watch the attack pathways that you can exploit early/mid game before destroying the rocks in the middle. The middle rocks are intended to allow a large army into the gap between the natural and 3rd late game, to break stalemates. I meant for the map to disagree with deathball armies as attack could come from either side. I'll remove the small rocks, as they're a bit dumb, but I don't see why the middle rocks are bad. Removing the small rocks knocks worker rush down to 45 too.

On November 28 2014 15:15 -NegativeZero- wrote:
I think the vertical ramps are fine in this case , there isn't anything wrong with not being able to wall the 4th. Cardinal ramps aren't "bugged" per se, it's really just the walling issue, plus the unit perspective gets distorted a bit with horizontal ramps but that's not an issue here.

Agreed with the rest of hero_lief's analysis though.

On November 27 2014 12:06 SwedenTheKid wrote:
This is one of my really old WIP maps. Has a few of imbalances. Think I can make something out of it? Or should I just totally scrap it? Note low ground areas are mains, not high grounds.

On November 27 2014 12:06 SwedenTheKid wrote:
This is one of my really old WIP maps. Has a few of imbalances. Think I can make something out of it? Or should I just totally scrap it? Note low ground areas are mains, not high grounds.

On December 01 2014 05:57 The_Templar wrote:
Aren't the main bases on the high ground with two ramps?

Either way, there's definitely some cannon rush-abusable spots there.