Work In Progress Melee Maps - Page 25

On December 02 2012 07:19 hokeypocus wrote:
Although I'm a fairly experienced sc2 player and noob editor user, I'd like to think I understand some of the melee map conventions (wall-off opportunities for protoss & terran for example), but not all. The convention I have trouble understanding regards melee map size. after reading through the plentiful posts regarding this topic, it seems the accepted convention for a 1v1 melee map is no larger than say 160x160, with 5-6 bases/side (the exception being tal darim altar which is actually a 4 player map @ 172X172 w/ 4 bases/side). Would anyone like to explain why a map larger than this is considered 'too big' for 1v1 play? I'd like to think that it stems from the top level players' desire for some 'regularity' in maps which syncs up with their 'build bag-o-tricks' but I'm not sure. Would a larger style map be considered too 'tricked out' for competitive play or what? Does a larger map just offer too much ground to cover and possibly be 'racially unbalanced' or is this just a style/politics type of issue? What am I missing here? Thanks in advance.

On December 02 2012 07:27 hokeypocus wrote:
anyone know off hand how many tumors it takes to link the first 3 bases for zerg on tal darim altar? i'm assuming it's more than 2, and if so, why isn't this considered 'unconventional' and imba? thanks.

On December 02 2012 07:19 hokeypocus wrote:
Although I'm a fairly experienced sc2 player and noob editor user, I'd like to think I understand some of the melee map conventions (wall-off opportunities for protoss & terran for example), but not all. The convention I have trouble understanding regards melee map size. after reading through the plentiful posts regarding this topic, it seems the accepted convention for a 1v1 melee map is no larger than say 160x160, with 5-6 bases/side (the exception being tal darim altar which is actually a 4 player map @ 172X172 w/ 4 bases/side). Would anyone like to explain why a map larger than this is considered 'too big' for 1v1 play? I'd like to think that it stems from the top level players' desire for some 'regularity' in maps which syncs up with their 'build bag-o-tricks' but I'm not sure. Would a larger style map be considered too 'tricked out' for competitive play or what? Does a larger map just offer too much ground to cover and possibly be 'racially unbalanced' or is this just a style/politics type of issue? What am I missing here? Thanks in advance.

On December 02 2012 14:12 iamcaustic wrote:

You're actually completely incorrect about GSL map sizes. Aside from the introduction of Tal'Darim Altar (which hokeypocus mentions),

no GSL map has ever exceeded 160x160 playable dimensions.

You might also want to consider taking some time and do some research on the effects of longer rush distances.

Can't argue about the scouting issue though; I said the same.

On December 02 2012 14:37 RFDaemoniac wrote:
Siskos I'm really liking this new map. You say nat2nat isn't that large, could you provide a worker travel time?

Please tell me those high ground pods are dropable

Many people don't like unreachable high ground, but that was only because zergs had issues killing units up there. with range 4 roaches, range 5 queens, and infested terrans they really shouldn't be too much of a problem anymore.

I also like that almost all of the entrances are split into two or more smaller paths instead of one large path. Really rewards smart engagements and punishes a-moving.

Third bases are all farther away than I'm comfortable with, but I think this is a good thing considering how easy it is to max off of 3 bases (final game of most recent gsl finals saw 3 maxes on 3 bases!).

I'm a little worried about travel distance by ground between the half base third and the low ground behind it, but can't think of an explicit reason why. It's definitely a buff to marine-tank pushes but I think they could use it. I also like that it's a buff to cliffwalking. Should be fun to see how this pans out.

The fog looks a little heavy, how is visibility?

On December 02 2012 15:26 Fatam wrote:
For instance, Daybreak is hailed as one of the most balanced maps so far in SC2 by pretty much everyone, but its third is actually pretty far, and has a relatively wide opening to it. It's not an easy third at all against Zerg. Antiga's third is also pretty far. If a mapmaker on these forums posts a map w/ thirds that far away - you can take it to the bank - they will get told they need to make it closer.

As far as map sizes go, I really don't see a problem with huge 2p maps so long as the rush distance is still within reason (9/10 scout gets in). If you go a little bigger on a 2p map you can do a lot of really interesting/tactical land formations that you simply can't do on a 136x136 or less template.

On December 02 2012 16:27 a176 wrote:
I've never, ever even bothered to think about how small or big the map size should be. I always start with a 256 blank map and just shrink it after i'm done the layout. Everything revolves around the rush distance metric.

On December 02 2012 14:24 SiskosGoatee wrote:
This is incorrect, although we're talking things like 164x164, not too big of a deal.

On December 02 2012 14:24 SiskosGoatee wrote:
What's there to research, you can never demonstrate causation in this case of anything. You can't take rush distance as a controlled variable because in order to change the rush distance you have to change the map.

As far as map sizes go, I really don't see a problem with huge 2p maps so long as the rush distance is still within reason (9/10 scout gets in). If you go a little bigger on a 2p map you can do a lot of really interesting/tactical land formations that you simply can't do on a 136x136 or less template.

On December 02 2012 21:59 iamcaustic wrote:
It's a simple matter of numbers. Base unit production time is a fixed value (marines are 25, zerglings are 24, and zealots are 38 before things like warp gate and chrono-boost). Rush distance directly affects the ability for a race to aggressively reinforce their army. An adequate rush distance of, say, ~30 seconds means the following:

In a TvT for example, a first round of reinforcements will be produced. By the time the aggressor's reinforcements arrive to continue an attack, a second round of reinforcements will have already been in the game for ~5 seconds (which, naturally, the defender's reinforcements will reach the battle faster). This is known as the defender's advantage.

Zerg's extreme mobility allows reinforcements to arrive much quicker, mitigating the defender's advantage to a degree. Also, Protoss' warp-in mechanic allows them to circumvent the defender's advantage entirely, warping in reinforcements directly to the front line. Terran, however, has no such method of reducing or overcoming the defender's advantage.

As a result, if you increase the rush distance to something much more unreasonable, such as 50 seconds for example, suddenly a Terran will have their first round of reinforcements arrive as the defender's third round of reinforcements comes into play. This is a numbers game, pure and simple. Terran is not able to put on adequate aggression under these circumstances, as the defender's army will always greatly overpower whatever the Terran will be attacking with.

It concerns me that you don't understand these basic concepts of the game, and even more-so that you'd outright reject this kind of knowledge exists even when a fellow mapmaker nudges you in its direction. Like, not even an attempt to figure it out. :\

On December 03 2012 02:49 SiskosGoatee wrote:
This is pure theorycraft with no empirical data to back it up. The actual picture is so much more complicated and depends on so many variables. Such as the fact that Protoss cannot be aggressive without either sentry or robo units or both, which have to walk there because freshly warped in sentries without high energy aren't worth a dime. Terran in general also has the biggest capacity to punish a player who is in the middle of the map with drops for instance.

Again, theorycraft, the same theorycraft can be used to point out why supposedly Crossfire would favour Protoss with the high amount of chokes, it didn't happen. When Terminus/Crevasse/TDA came to the picture, everyone thought they would favour Zerg, it turned out that Terminus and Crevasse were Terran maps. These 'basic concepts' are an oversimplification of the complexity of the game and cold hard statistics show it's far more complicated than that.

On December 03 2012 06:37 iamcaustic wrote:

*Sigh*

First off, Terminus wasn't a "Terran map". It actually was a rather balanced map for its time, in both its forms. Terminus had combined Korean and International win rates of:

TvZ - 52.6% (82-74) on Terminus RE; 49.6% (237-241) on Terminus SE
TvP - 46.6% (69-79) on Terminus RE; 50.1% (219-218) on Terminus SE

It's also important to note that the map featured a more acceptably shorter drop rush distance than it did a ground rush distance. Since Terran is the race of dropping and harassment, it benefits them the most, and Terrans made good use of this fact on Terminus.

I'm willing to acknowledge that this kind of map design could be considered Terran's way of circumventing the defender's advantage

(it's also why close position Antiga is heavily imbalanced for Terran)

but not all large maps are designed the same, and it certainly doesn't relegate the basic principle of defender's advantage into the realm of "unproven theorycraft". You can't label a simple matter of numbers -- basic math -- as such

As for Crevasse, its dimensions were 140x140 and the rocks could be destroyed to shorten the rush distance to a very reasonable level, so it doesn't even come into play when talking about this kind of thing. Of course Terrans could perform perfectly well on that map -- its proportions were good for Terran. It seems like you mistakenly believed the map to be larger than it really was. You should really do some basic research.

Final note: these 'basic concepts' are most certainly not an oversimplification of the game. Just because the defender's advantage is one of many variables doesn't mean you're free to ignore it on whim on the basis of "there are other variables too". It must be taken into consideration when making a good map, along with all other aspects of the game.

On December 03 2012 07:48 SiskosGoatee wrote:
This is Terminus SE, not RE. SE was specifically changed because it was found that T could get a third too easily. RE has 53% TvZ.

Apart from that, it doesn't matter for the argument, because by your logic this map would be hard for Terran because it's large, which no incarnation of Terminus was.