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Keep our forum clean! PLEASE post your WIP melee maps in this thread for initial feedback. -Barrin |
Updated map album
Main changes: -Small ramp added towards centre just outside the natural choke. -North/south bounds widened slightly, consequently main base elongated -Third made slight larger by making the ridge slightly narrower and reducing the deadspace to the side, ramps altered too. -Centre completely changed, gold and rocks removed, 'open fourths' moved towards centre -New north/south bases, extra path added also
To do: -Need to make an alternative fourth to the corner base more viable to give players more choice (still figuring out how though) -Still need to sort out the specific mineral placements -Textures/doodads/aesthetics
EDIT: While trying to make a better alternative fourth; came up with this general concept which changes the map quite a bit though as it is probably won't work - it would be too easy to siege up on the high ground over the first three bases:
+ Show Spoiler +
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I like the third like this. If you want to defend it by swinging units through the low ground base itself, you'll be at a disadvantage, so you're encouraged to control the whole high ground section.
BTW, the blue lines are the pathing boundaries so it looks like you could trim off some of the air space on the sides.
One thing I'd recommend is double-high cliffs with pathable space behind them. This allows units to stand in that space but be hard to see from the camera. It's good to have sort of a step down in those sections so it doesn't block the view so much.
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At the moment, this is only a concept, but I'd like to make a melee map that I feel is unique in setup.
2 player map, where both players' mains start in the center of either the top or bottom of the map.
The main has two ramps on opposite sides of the base, leading to an expansion on each side. One expansion has rocks, but has a double wide ramp, while the other expansion has no rocks, but two double wide ramps are in the opposite direction; the non-rock natural is surrounded by high ground.
Player 1's 4th's and Player 2's 5th's are in very close proximity, with the same setup on the opposite end of the map, with high ground + vision blockers halfway between them. A Xel'naga tower sits on top of each high ground division on 4th and 5th. Also considered adding a single 6th base, but unsure where to put it at this point.
The centre-top and centre-bottom are open (considering vision blockers), but the centre of the map is choked with cliffs.
This is my first attempt at making a map so suggestions are always appreciated. Thanks.
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Could you do a drawing or something? You're description is kinda hard to decipher.
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On December 24 2012 05:03 Gfire wrote: BTW, the blue lines are the pathing boundaries so it looks like you could trim off some of the air space on the sides.
Ah ok, what do the yellow lines show? I was working to those
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On December 24 2012 06:55 BlindSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 24 2012 05:03 Gfire wrote: BTW, the blue lines are the pathing boundaries so it looks like you could trim off some of the air space on the sides.
Ah ok, what do the yellow lines show? I was working to those Camera bounds, if I understand correctly.
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On December 24 2012 06:14 Gfire wrote: Could you do a drawing or something? You're description is kinda hard to decipher.
Tried to sketch it out real quick with the map editor. Sizes of main, naturals, ramp sizes, etc. aren't what I want them to be, but this is just to give the general idea of what my description had said.
http://minus.com/mUwP6Rp7siHqC/
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So I'm a little new to the map making community, but after hours of research, and some thinking, I decided to see if I could do something about the 2v2 map pool. Since I started to think that the major issues revolving around most 2v2 play are solvable with the maps. With this, I decided to modify an existing 2v2 map in the ladder pool today. The outcome was the following "IvD Desolate Stronghold RE", it's the only option as of now, if you look up "IvD" in the custom games section (not Arcade).
It's the standard Desolate Stronghold size (168 x 160; 140 x 140 playable). I will make spoiler alert section to talk about everything else regarding it. Here are pictures.
Changes made: + Show Spoiler + 1. shrunk the size of the original ramp to the main, and added a second one on the other side. 2. removed all gold expansions, and replaced them with normal mineral expansions. 3. removed the rocks leading down to what used to be the gold base on the side. 4. removed terrain between where the gold on the side used to be, and the expansion directly above or below it. 5. Moved the Xel'Naga towers more inward to allow for better sight of the center, and move vision away from the edge. 6. Slight texture change to better fit the extra ramp, and more direct expansion feel.
Images of original map (for reference) + Show Spoiler +
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Your changes are actually bad, you made the rush distance shorter and the only path to the opponent is through the middle. While there are 3 valid bases for each player, which is a good thing, the map is a rush map, it does not have to have many expansions in order to be good. Gold expansions are not bad, they are there so you can saturate expansions without many workers, that is the nature of the map.
I think you should focus on making new maps rather than changing Blizzard maps, even though its easier to start like this.
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your Country52796 Posts
I don't like it either, it's really, really boring.
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Devolution
This probably won't be its final version. I am thinking that I want it to look like a desert city. This photo gave me the art idea: + Show Spoiler [Dubai] +
So, what do you guys think about the design so far? This is it's third version, technically. I plan on finishing it in a few weeks.
EDIT: Map is 140x144.
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@Antares777 I'm a total map making newb so don't mind me, but yea it looks pretty good to me. The xelnaga towers are placed really well relative to the ramps and although it took me a while to figure out their purpose, the rocks are fairly decent too. Although I see the point of the little path leading to the cliff at the back of the main, aesthetically I don't really like how it sits in relation to the resources there. Perhaps rotate those resources anti-clockwise a bit and fill out the path a little?
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So I started messing around with textures and stuff today, was wondering what you guys thought. Any tips on the texturing technique itself or the actual style? I'm not set on it yet, but generally 'abandoned industrial' was the theme I was eventually heading towards (using the Castanar set), though when I first started I was just doing random things trying to practice with textures in general, so I may start over with a different theme later. Ignore beyond the natural choke and the grey low-grounds, I haven't touched those yet.
http://imgur.com/a/Izh4O#0
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I'm a masters league zerg player who is interested in helping people test their maps. If anybody needs a volunteer PM me or whatever.
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I hope you manage to achieve the feeling of a desert city Antares it seems very promishing, and for the map itself i can't really see any mayor flaw the only thing it's that the third may be a bit hard to hold, but other than that i don't see any mayor problem and i really like the position of the Xelnagas.
So i have been working on this map just recently, and i think it's quite a solid map even tho i haven't tested yet but i have some problems, the first one the map it's too plain on the texturing even when the map is supposed to be white, do you guys have any ideas or tricks to make the map look less monotonus? well i think that's mostly it, the xel'nagas on the map are destructible and have 500shield/1000hp even tho im not sure if i will keep them, since since the map is relativelly small and i think the xel'nagas give way too much vision for a map of this size (134x121)
+ Show Spoiler [70º] +
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Latest version of
(4) Rimfrost
Older version for comparision: + Show Spoiler +
Published on EU WoL as Rimfrost, and on HotS beta (soon).
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your Country52796 Posts
What exactly did you change? They look the same to me.
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On December 29 2012 06:39 The_Templar wrote: What exactly did you change? They look the same to me. They are almost the same, the only thing that changed is a small patch of terrain that used to be on highground and some slight changes in some cliffs
(open both and switch between the tabs quick) http://imgur.com/s7nw6 http://imgur.com/QQuZk
sorry for not giving feedback but i don't really have experience in XvX player maps :/ (Or i don't have experinece yet)
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I highly disagree with any base size less than a 8/2 normal base. I already rage pretty hard at some 1gas bases you see sometimes on GSL maps.
The Golds in proleague maps are a fun experiment i guess, which at least arent as bad because a 6 gold mineral patch provides as much minerals as your mainbase and natural
Base sizes of less than 8 mineral patches per base highly benefits zerg compared to the other races. I wont bother with my math but after lots of testing it seems the 8 mineral patches per base is somehow the perfect amount to balance terran/protoss in line with zerg.
I feel blizzard probably didnt calculate 8 to be the perfect amount before they used it, instead blizzard likely decided in alpha design that 8 mineral patches was a good number to go with and then they balanced zerg through internal testing to have a production rate that seemed to produce balance games.
So in the end it worked out for blizzard and 8 mineral patch mains/naturals is our standard
If the main/natural had 12 mineral patches for example (instead of 8) zerg would be extremely underpowered compared to terran and toss. I know this is an extreme example but im just saying it goes both ways (zerg can be either overpowered or underpowered due to patches per base), and the reason its imbalanced is because given hatchery/larva production mechanics for zerg they benefit MORE from bases having less mineral patches because each new base means way more production for the zerg, and for zerg to get more production without it being at a new base means the zerg makes another hatchery which if that hatchery is NOT at another mineral mining location then that hatchery has a much less rate of power-return for the zerg. Where as for terran/toss if the new bases have 4 mineral patches and they make a new expansion there, their new expansion has a very low power-return while the zerg has a high power-return
In the end 8 mineral patches is around the perfect amount most master+ players would agree with this
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Of course you could try having a map that has smaller bases but then tip the scales against zerg in some other way (chokey perhaps)
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On December 29 2012 06:39 The_Templar wrote: What exactly did you change? They look the same to me.
Sorry the old version pic was too new The wrong pic. When I first posted Rimfrost herel though, it looked like this:
Since this is a fast moveing thread, latest version for comparision:
+ Show Spoiler +
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