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Keep our forum clean! PLEASE post your WIP melee maps in this thread for initial feedback. -Barrin |
On February 19 2013 10:59 TheFish7 wrote:
^ That is quite cool, I like the use of non standard terrain, especially the positioning of the mineral lines. Although I am afraid that the 12 and 6 o clock bases might bug out the worker AI, I suppose you have you tested them?
I like it although I was picturing top v bottom only spawns at first, close by ground seems pretty close.
Yeah, it's pretty close but it is only 1/3 of the time. And it's nothing like the old days of close Metalopolis. Still, very open to ideas to help that.
I did test worker AI, which a few of you smart people have pointed out to me, and luckily it works the way it's supposed to! They don't get stuck trying to go to backside patches or all the way around or anything like that, they stay on the side where the town hall is, even when highly oversaturated. ;D
[edit] Actually it's smaller than I thought when I was estimating with the path measure tool in the editor. It's more like 38 seconds nat2nat in horizontal spawns... that seems borderline.
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I don't know, I feel all spawn enabled maps thus far have only worked if you can't expand towards your opponent that easily. I never felt close position metal and shattered was bad because of the distance, rather it was bad because of how easily you could expand towards your opponent. That it's a reduced resource base does help though, but still it's very hard to properly pressure.
Been working on this concept:
![[image loading]](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-hRQGoTw8e-Q/USO2B7tD2yI/AAAAAAAABNc/AKrNp6ztPmc/s600/)
- Very reduced resource count on the map, 5 bases in total, 1 of which is as 6m1g and another is a 4m2hm1hg.
- Natural is an icarus base
- Another inbase third which is blocked by rocks and very harassable
- the other full base is very forward and very much in the open
- very short rush distnace and easy to attack natural.
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Looks like this now:
![[image loading]](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-lVoaX0k0eZw/USUaY3YY_xI/AAAAAAAABOM/8yLp4NnVOHk/s720/.jpg)
- Neutral blinding clouds for supreme defenders advantage in that area to compensate for the very short rush distance
- the forward thirds which are the best bases on the map are guarded by hostile spine crawlers and creep
- - you can kill the single crawler in range of your townhall very quickly with ranged uniots, you just cannot put 4 lings on it so it dies eventually
- - until you kill the creep tumours that support the crawlers, you cannot wall of that area
- very low amount of resources on the map, Icarus has 57000 minerals and 22500 gas per player. This map has 51000 minerals and 17500 gas.
- You'd have probably killed each other before the resources are mined out on this map, it's a rush map and it's very hard to turtle on it.
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Going to finish this one I think. http://imgur.com/RYPHhe8,UyGKyd6
The map:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/RYPHhe8.jpg)
The mechanism:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/UyGKyd6.jpg)
Rocks only allow tiny units. Minerals allow for easier mineral walking through the eggs. This makes it easy for workers to pass but difficult for any army. It is possible to open up the attack route in lategame by killing the eggs and rocks but it isn't practical before a 2 or 3 base army (for p/t). I don't want them attacking zerg's natural early in the game when Z spawns clockwise.
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@monitor - I don't know what to think. What a crazy map! Original concepts are very cool. Because of small chokes and tucked-away bases in general on this map, air is going to be strong. However, there isnt much air-only space so it can be countered.
How many HP for the eggs? And what about the pathing issue eggs make?
talking about crazy maps .. I'm experimenting some and would like to know what ppl think.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/e0qJBr4.jpg)
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Some sick looking stuff in development, guys. Great work.
@Siskos: Seems kinda awkward since with the short rush distance and very open nat it's pretty hard to expand. I think the rush distance is probably too short even for one-base plays unless you put blinding cloud at the bottom of the main ramp (push the ramp back maybe so there's room for one without blocking part of the nat and then expand the main out in another direction perhaps.) It might be interesting to see the nat be pure gold, which favors Terran a bit but the blinding clouds might make up for it.
Maybe it's fine as a rush map, anyways.
@monitor: Looking good. I'm concerned about defending those geysers from attacks since they're right up against the cliff. You can't get a unit between the gas and the cliff so it's very easy to deny it, even with ground units from the high ground. I think some of the geysers are too far from the main building as well.
@Meltage: I like that a lot. It seems really interesting with the way it changes as the rocks/towers are broken down. Maybe it's a little hard to take the side expos... Should the ramp sizes be decreased to 2x maybe? They seem a little open for contested bases which are so close to the middle.
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Here's something I'm working on... It's pretty tricky.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/f29JmX8.jpg)
It's got a sort of Bifrost-style hallway behind the nat and main... not sure if that works at all. Also the amount of patches which can be hit from there is a bit different from position to position in the case of 5-6 range units, so the positional balance isn't perfect either.
Still working on the middle. I tried this but idk about it:
+ Show Spoiler +
Not sure how useful it is but I allowed using pylon power in this way:
+ Show Spoiler +
It's 160x160, close position nat2nat is 35 seconds and cross is 42. This is with the middle concept I showed above, and is subject to change.
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I would make that "swastika" bigger/wider Gfire and add a low ground in the middle of it, with ramps leading to it in a similar fashion as katrina has (the bw map), i would reduce that open area near the highground pod outside the natural by making that highground pod bigger and add LoS blockers, i add a small rock blocked bridge that leads to the counter clockwise forth base, that way the area would open more in the late game.
+ Show Spoiler +
Meltage, i like it alot, i would reduce the low ground natural quite a bit, and make it closer to the main (supposing that the players spawn at 11 and 5 bases), maybe add a ramp to the islands blocked by doble stacked rocks, that way players could still hold the semi islands with ease but if a player is really commited to it he can still break in. Oh and i would make that half base closer to the natural/third base, that way it would flow better (for my liking  )
I'm not sure if that concept is gonna work monitor, espetially in TvZ where terran can still do a elevator push with marines and siege tanks and caugh zerg in that choke point that separates the natural from the third, i wouldn't be so fatalist to say that the map would work at all, i think it can work still with that "issue"and if it does i would to see it in action like that old BW lava map that had a similar layout (i dont remember the name atm but i guess you know what map i mean).
Oh i don't think that you need to hear it but i will tell you anyways, i love you for porting the egg walls into sc2 ♥
Siskos, that's gonna be a fun map to play on. There's not much i can say about the layout and stuff since you are the renegate and enemy of all beatifull and pure, so be a good quality nemesis and make that lava map pretty ;D
Here is one of the maps i have been working on, i hope you guys like it, i sadly i haven't played that much on it so im not completelly sure of how it will play out, it's ~154x154, yeah it's big, but the layout gets rid of lots of imbalances that the size may generate.
+ Show Spoiler +![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/xxXUzhA.jpg) The far third bases are blocked by unbuildable plates (without HP change) There are two big diagonal rocks blocking the center path and another 4x4 rock stacked in between, so that path it's not going down easelly (not until the lategame). The area with the big ass crystals at 1 hrs is a no fly zone I'm not worried by mutas or oracles, im worried about speed medivacs ~.~
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On the image where it says "block this area" are you just referring to the high ground wall which doesn't have any doodads on it?
Your map looks quite good.
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On February 22 2013 09:12 Gfire wrote:
On the image where it says "block this area" are you just referring to the high ground wall which doesn't have any doodads on it?
Your map looks quite good.
Indeed, i forgot to write about it, i think it could be problematic to say the least to have tanks and marines dropped there while you are getting attacked in other place, i know that you created the map having in account that, but i think it's worth mentioning since it can lead to the good old Lost Temple Thor drop to natural highground pod with mules to repair it syndrome.
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That section was always going to be blocked. Just no doodads yet
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Oh i see, one thing i forgot to add too, is that the cyan lines are supposed to be LoS blockers, i guess that it can be "discovered" but i prefer to leave it clear ^^
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On February 21 2013 21:19 Meltage wrote:@monitor - I don't know what to think. What a crazy map! Original concepts are very cool. Because of small chokes and tucked-away bases in general on this map, air is going to be strong. However, there isnt much air-only space so it can be countered. How many HP for the eggs? And what about the pathing issue eggs make? talking about crazy maps .. I'm experimenting some and would like to know what ppl think. I feel in ZvT and maybe ZvP the enemy can get a really strong position on the other side of that little wall and push both the inbase nat and the third. Basically you can control both the ramp leading in and out of the natural with a single tank.
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This is my first map. I've just got the layout down right now. There's a slight difference in the shape of the two mains in this image, which happened when I was correcting the edges of the cliffs. I've fixed that. There are four attack paths. Two of them are blocked by rocks. A watchtower watches the primary and one of the rock-blocked attack paths. I'm worried the low ground base near the main (which I think will probably be a standard third for protoss and terran against zerg) might be slightly too difficult to hold, and I may need to narrow the secondary attack path between the cliff area and the rocks to fix that. I'm also considering adding a destructible there instead. The unpathable area is to prevent armies from sitting there above the third, which would be pretty imbalanced. The map has 12 bases total.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/LSoTbbR.jpg)
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![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/YZP7p8m.jpg)
@Sisko - you might be right, I opneed up the area some. Also removed half base (it was a bit redundant, plus it empatized an unwanted map split) and changed the 3 and 9 oclock bases a lot .. to make them viable 4ths. Now the map split shouldnt be straight horizontal late-game.
Lots of minor changes as well. You can warp-in into the main via proxy pylon right by the main wall, but only at two spots along the wall. I just can't leave out the possibility .. there is some tension in knowing it MAY happen if you're not ready for it. If it's an issue it can be fixed easily.
When adding ramps to the 3 and 9 bases, it allowed me to remvoe on ramp as well on the oposite side right by the tower.. so I made a gap there instead, further promoting airplay a bit - and demoting total tanks siege control .. and making the tower quite contested.
I added a small ramp to the island base. I think it suits the idea of how the map plays out, now that I removed the half-base.
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@Flyingbeer: Not too bad! That low ground 3rd is okay, the tough part is that the reinforce path goes by the huge open area. The lowground entrance is narrow enough. You may or may not want to shorten the reinforce distance from the natural, or provide some kind of positional cover on the way to that ramp.
The main base should be bigger, which you can probably do just by moving the natural over a little bit. The half base near the rocks should be rearranged a little I think, move it slightly further from the other low ground base and tuck it into the cliff more. You can also move the high ground cliffside base a little. Try to use some of that space in the NW/SE corners.
If you want a large area to be unpathable, it's easy to make that clear (even for wip pictures) to just spam some rocks or trees doodads. Or you could make it airspace with level 0 terrain as well.
@uvantak; Good call on the air blocker for speed medivacs. 
Even though you have a lot of rocks, I'm still kinda worried about TvZ. So close once they're gone. And it's chokey too. I think you can take out all those little holes and ledges on either side of the rock'd bridge. The expansion against the cliff of the main is going to make it easy for terran to just hold the bridge, threaten an attack at a moment's notice, and have 4 bases, with drops to the main base 5 seconds away too. Maybe there should just be one neutral base between the main bases instead so it's a little harder to get your 4th there?
There's also a ton of surface area for blink, which may be a problem with MScore blink strategies.
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As i said i haven´t played on the map that much, but yeah as you say i think i will have to remove and reduce the small holes in the map, since it would make pretty hard to stop a protoss or a terran attacking in that area as a zerg.
I actually have another older version of the map with just one base on between the players as you say to avoid exactly what you say ^^, but then the problem is that i can´t really block or narrow the path between the players so no big armies can pass throw it, to do so i would need to cut the base and minerals in right in half with stacked high HP and zero armor rocks or something like that and that would create more problems than the ones it would solve.
http://i.imgur.com/3IQkuZB.jpg
Other thing i thought is to just remove that optional third base, but then the map would become just too linear for my taste. One thing that came to my mind is to make that base a half base or something long these lines (~6m a gasless base maybe) it's hard to tell, atm i just know that i will have to test this map alot.
And about the Blink stalkers, yeah they can become pretty dangerous in the map when i tested it, but i think that by adding crystals with LoS blockers to that gorge in the middle of the bases would solve it or at least make harder to pull off, since they wouldn't be able to cross it (even with the MsC coz distance), and they would need to pass all the way down south to the next open bridge or try to blink chunk at a time through the destructible towers (that by that moment should have been destroyed).
But yeah dunno what else i can do to reduce the perimeter of the main base that can be blinked without making extreme changes
@Flyingbeer: that's a nice map man, i would add something to that plateau outside the natural, since i feel that's just way too open, i would add a highground pod or something along these lines, unlike Eat i think the main base is fine, but i would torn the minerals and geiser 45º counter clockwise so the space in the main is more efficiently used.
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![[image loading]](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-CQsM6ZPEE8Q/USglLJolaCI/AAAAAAAABPg/3hJv4aEhWkI/s840/.jpg)
Neutral 4 radius storm standing on a (droppable) pillar in dead space, flying drops or mutas through that area heavily damages them.
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On February 23 2013 11:15 SiskosGoatee wrote:Neutral 4 radius storm standing on a (droppable) pillar in dead space, flying drops or mutas through that area heavily damages them.
Hmm, is there a reason for putting that thing there, or is this just for testing the constant storm thing? Since if its not for testing the data then besides being able to drop a worker and build something there / lift a building and land it there or making someone's drop accidentally die because he did not notice I see no actual reason for that platform.
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It' s actually there because I put a platform under it because it looks better honestly, my original plan was to put it in dead space. I' m thinking of including a radius 8 storm into the dependency as well, this does look kind of to small.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/H8kaFJo.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/yMH6t4O.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/47b1V2H.jpg)
