Work In Progress Melee Maps - Page 153

Keep our forum clean! PLEASE post your WIP melee maps in this thread for initial feedback. -Barrin

OtherWorld

France17333 Posts

February 02 2015 14:30 GMT

#3041

@Khala : Looks good to me, although I would maybe rotate the gold mineral lines so that the gas geyser isn't in the middle like that.

@Ninja : looks better. It still feels a bit chokey to me but it would have to be tested to see if it's my tendency to like very open maps or not.

@Jared : That's a... bold design, to say the least.

@Berstuk : cardinal ramps are usually considered bad because they're harder to see than angled ramps. Depending on your tileset/aesthetics style that might be a non-issue or a big issue.

NinjaDuckBob

175 Posts

February 02 2015 15:50 GMT

#3042

Hmmm I tested it with friends. The close 3rd and the area in front seem reaaaally open, I thought about putting rocks at the big ramp but I figured since it was high ground and easily accessable that the player could choose the open but close base or the choked but farther away one. I widened a few chokes since my last post (farther 3rd now takes 2 Bunkers and Supply Depot to wall, enterance to the right-side watchtower is a little wider). I did tighten the alternative choke to the backdoor some to give incentive to break the rocks. I'll post pics later and if it looks good I'll start decorating.

I will note something about cardinal ramps, they also make walls weird.

TheSkunk

82 Posts

February 02 2015 17:33 GMT

#3043

Antares777: No idea how it looks in game, but that map (visually) looks stunning from that overview pic. Love it. Do you expect Zergs to bust down the rocks to take a third? It might take them too long to spread creep if you expect them to take the other one.

Antares777

United States1971 Posts

February 02 2015 18:43 GMT

#3044

On February 03 2015 02:33 TheSkunk wrote:
Antares777: No idea how it looks in game, but that map (visually) looks stunning from that overview pic. Love it. Do you expect Zergs to bust down the rocks to take a third? It might take them too long to spread creep if you expect them to take the other one.

They are both two tumors away from the natural, though the low ground one is slightly closer.

And G

Germany491 Posts

February 02 2015 20:56 GMT

#3045

Some new shit, 136x136:

Good enough for TLMC?

Antares777

United States1971 Posts

February 02 2015 21:18 GMT

#3046

@And G

Air play looks really strong. There's one island, and five mineral lines are exposed. I also think that three high yield expansions is too many, but I suppose it could be done correctly. Here it isn't that bad, but having one of them being a semi-island is a problem. In this particular map, that central high yield expansion should be removed. It is a win-more expansion; basically if you can hold that expansion, you've already won.

NinjaDuckBob

175 Posts

February 03 2015 00:04 GMT

#3047

Okay, latest version of my map. How is it?

[image loading]

The_Templar

your Country52797 Posts

February 03 2015 01:46 GMT

#3048

I know I'm not allowed to participate in TLMC

, but I still want to submit something for Mapximum and Spaceship Station might be too large for them.

The rocks outside the natural expansion prevent medium/large units from going through that ramp, so you can take the gold early but to defend it properly you have to break the rocks.
You can hide a 3x3 building in the smoke at the main to allow for hidden tech.

Aesthetics as well as design are WIP. Size is 144^2.

Xenotolerance

United States464 Posts

February 03 2015 03:18 GMT

#3049

The layout is so cool, and I'm enjoying how you've made the proportions work despite being pretty non-standard. The 4-base game is really interesting though I see danger in ZvT. It's hard to defend either 3rd against a push - the gold because it's closer, the blue because it's got that high ground next to it. I don't mean to suggest that it wouldn't work, after all there's lots of open space so it's probably possible to defend. Also, gold plateau lets protoss have a powerful forward pylon location that's hard to get to, so it's good that the natural is easy to defend. also tanks.

Overall it's probs a hard map to get a couple expansions on, even though it's got 14 bases and rush looks pretty long

EatThePath

United States3943 Posts

February 03 2015 03:25 GMT

#3050

@templar: Colossus can walk through 1x1 tiles / cliffs, so I'm not sure the rocks are working how you want in all situations.

Maybe a rock tower there instead? Or just rocks on the ramp? If we weren't still in the melee requirements stone age, I'd say this is a perfect opportunity for a "slow area" like a marsh or sludgepit in that spot.

@ninjaduck: That 3rd base looks pretty hard imo. Is that intended?

NinjaDuckBob

175 Posts

February 03 2015 03:50 GMT

#3051

@EatThePath

For which race? The intent was for it to be extra accessible and high-ground in exchange for being open (opening of Natural leads straight into the entrance), while the 4th base is a farther away alternative but with an easily defended entrance until the center rocks are taken down (or the rocks on the 8/10 base ramps for the backdoor to it). Naturally, Zerg will probably take the high-ground base due to it being closer and open.

I'm thinking army placement between the large ramp of the high-ground base and the entrance to the low-ground base would help defend both at a slightly later stage of the game. I still want good positioning and strategic decisions to play a role, though, so I added alternate attack paths and expansion paths to allow versatility in playstyles -- choosing which angle(s) to attack from, expanding passively or aggressively, choosing which areas to defend, which rocks to open up, etc.

Do you think it would benefit from rocks at the large ramp? I thought about it but was hesitant to do so as there wouldn't really be any drawback to taking that base over the other one.

The_Templar

your Country52797 Posts

February 03 2015 03:57 GMT

#3052

On February 03 2015 12:25 EatThePath wrote:
@templar: Colossus can walk through 1x1 tiles / cliffs, so I'm not sure the rocks are working how you want in all situations.

Colossi can walk over the cliffs anyway

The point of the rocks is just to make it a lot harder to get units there to defend if you do take it.

NinjaDuckBob

175 Posts

February 03 2015 04:02 GMT

#3053

@The_Templar,

What if you made the ramp from the area outside of the natural into the Gold wider, and then put rocks on that? Might look a little bit neater, I don't know if you had a reason for not doing it, though.

The_Templar

your Country52797 Posts

February 03 2015 04:12 GMT

#3054

On February 03 2015 13:02 NinjaDuckBob wrote:
@The_Templar,

What if you made the ramp from the area outside of the natural into the Gold wider, and then put rocks on that? Might look a little bit neater, I don't know if you had a reason for not doing it, though.

This is so you don't have to break the rocks to take the gold, but it helps to do so (and it's still not a viable attack path until the rocks are broken).

NinjaDuckBob

175 Posts

February 03 2015 04:17 GMT

#3055

On February 03 2015 13:12 The_Templar wrote:

Show nested quote +

This is so you don't have to break the rocks to take the gold, but it helps to do so (and it's still not a viable attack path until the rocks are broken).

Sorry, I don't think I communicated well in my post. I meant making the ramp big enough to hold the rocks and still have a little bit left over so it's still accessible by a narrow choke, so partially walled by rocks but not completely.

That might be redundant with the already small ramp into it, though. However, speaking of which, could the small ramp accomplish the same goal as the narrow path with the rocks on it? And if so, would breaking the rocks actually make it easier to defend?

If that was the case, maybe widening the ramp leftwards might help a larger army get into it to defend while still leaving the rocks-choke for earlier in the game, if you didn't want to put rocks on a larger ramp and leave a choke as I first mentioned. I don't have a ton of mapmaking experience, though, so I could be missing something.

Antares777

United States1971 Posts

February 03 2015 04:18 GMT

#3056

124 x 140

Thoughts?

The_Templar

your Country52797 Posts

February 03 2015 04:34 GMT

#3057

@NinjaDuck Oh, I see. Maybe, I don't really see why that would help though.
Breaking the rocks makes it much easier to get units there to defend. Right now they have to filter through very slowly, and most units can't even fit.
I'll mess around with it a bit more.

@Antares Looks really, really difficult to expand. For non-zerg the gold base looks almost easier.

EatThePath

United States3943 Posts

February 03 2015 06:07 GMT

#3058

@ninjaduck: I don't think the other base is a real alternative to the obvious highground 3rd base. It just seems like you have a lot of vulnerabilities there with no counterbalancing feature(s), which is fine if you want to emphasize midgame timing push type play or generally promote aggression but it didn't seem like that was the aim. The map looks like it's meant to be more of a macro map. Consider that the first 4 bases (99% of the time it'll be the same expansions progression) all use the same attack path which is straight down the middle directly from one main ramp to the other. The branchings-off around the 3rd base and nat side door are just tactical details. The first opportunity for a real divergence is the rocks outside the 4th base. To me, this says that the 3rd base should be relatively easy to promote the game getting to the 4th base stage and beyond, to use the extent of the map. Not every map has to maximize every inch but maybe you can adjust some things to expand the gameplay in the early-mid stages. Hope this is helpful!

@templar: I like the rocks as-is, don't get me wrong. It just seems like not much of an impediment to a protoss gold 3rd while it might hamper zerg and terran a little. It might be more effective to have a long narrow hallway, even a permanent one. I think the gold would still be at the edge of viable but the dynamic would be that much more apparent.

@antares: I like it. Is the gold base droppable? It looks too strong as a forward expansion to jump off and attack the default 3rd/4th base of the opposing player.

JaredStarr

Canada115 Posts

February 03 2015 14:22 GMT

#3059

@Antares: I think the Golds need to be further away, Zerg naturally needs to stay one base up. P and T can get up to 2 bases easily but jumping to a third hurts your production pretty bad. Where Z doesn't feel it as much as P and T - and the gold is pretty safe IMO. Maybe if that highland pod was accessable.

TheSkunk

82 Posts

February 03 2015 16:16 GMT

#3060

Back with some updates to my map. I moved the watch tower back to its original position for several reasons:

1. Play testers of every race were enthusiastic about the old position and wanted me to change it back.
2. Additional changes and continued testing has still failed to turn up anything abusive or overpowered, despite how scary the idea seems at first.

I know that will be an unpopular change with some here, but most players seem to really like it and I'm pretty confident it can work out.

Album of Images: http://imgur.com/a/MNyQb

In addition to layout criticisms, does anyone feel the map needs more visual work? Does it feel ugly or bland?

Thanks for all the feedback!

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