EPTRegarding the map, lez, I think it's unnecessarily too big, you could easily shrink by 10-20%. Why not make the middle bases gold with the geysers under the center cliff and minerals walling or semi-walling? Or keep the orientation and use 4hym1hyg bases. I like the collapse rocks on the way to the 3rd, I think that's a great mechanic. The 3rd is absurdly open, which is probably fine given the current rush distance but not fine if you decrease map size which I think you should a bit. I would suggest extending the impassable terrain at the corner of the wide ramp further in towards that base to make more of two hallways: one from the wide ramp, and one coming from the corner 4th. I would also recommend more of a hallway en route from the natural, or maybe some hole / doodads occupying space there because that's also absurdly open and a deathtrap for protoss. While it has potential for good fights, 90+% of the time it's just incentive for protoss to turtle that much harder and a reasonable forcefieldable location is somewhat counterintuitively more open-ended for the types of fights players can have there. Alternatively, if you want to preserve the huge open areas, you should provide tight chokepoints at the entrances to that area so good positioning to head off attackers can still control the space at the chokepoints.
Work In Progress Melee Maps - Page 83
| Forum Index > SC2 Maps & Custom Games |
Keep our forum clean! PLEASE post your WIP melee maps in this thread for initial feedback. -Barrin | ||
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EatThePath
United States3943 Posts
Regarding the map, lez, I think it's unnecessarily too big, you could easily shrink by 10-20%. Why not make the middle bases gold with the geysers under the center cliff and minerals walling or semi-walling? Or keep the orientation and use 4hym1hyg bases. I like the collapse rocks on the way to the 3rd, I think that's a great mechanic. The 3rd is absurdly open, which is probably fine given the current rush distance but not fine if you decrease map size which I think you should a bit. I would suggest extending the impassable terrain at the corner of the wide ramp further in towards that base to make more of two hallways: one from the wide ramp, and one coming from the corner 4th. I would also recommend more of a hallway en route from the natural, or maybe some hole / doodads occupying space there because that's also absurdly open and a deathtrap for protoss. While it has potential for good fights, 90+% of the time it's just incentive for protoss to turtle that much harder and a reasonable forcefieldable location is somewhat counterintuitively more open-ended for the types of fights players can have there. Alternatively, if you want to preserve the huge open areas, you should provide tight chokepoints at the entrances to that area so good positioning to head off attackers can still control the space at the chokepoints. | ||
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Meavis
Netherlands1300 Posts
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/hs4WFOd.jpg) what would the effect of bases like this be? | ||
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ConCentrate405
Brazil71 Posts
 I've been working on this map. It can be found on custom games with the name "Five Levels of Fun". It failed on other regions, I will try again later. Its non standard features are: 1- rich geyser at main base (blocked by a mineral patch). May reduce the resources at that patch just to grab the gas faster. 2- only one gas at natural to compensate the rich one at main. 3- a little experiment on simulating more than 3 levels of terrain. One is higher ground for the rich geyser at main, the other is an even lower ground for the 12 oclock expo. (hence the name) . Both simulate high ground vision and blocking path + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](http://oi42.tinypic.com/2qmnreq.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://oi43.tinypic.com/1zv8l94.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://oi42.tinypic.com/k1rond.jpg) It's playable but I didn't like the size of the bases when testing and the overall layout seems weird, the closest map would be Newkirk but I'm not sure if it's a good layout to follow... probably won't finish. Has anyone an opinion? What about the extra terrain? A mega turtle map could end up looking like this O.o + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](http://oi40.tinypic.com/1089sll.jpg) PS. all spikes are cosmetical. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
[M] (2) Frozen Islands ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/fgIkfUm.jpg) + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/nRsjPFm.jpg) The concept: Since you cannot take a third very quickly and the middle is easily sealed off (only one attack path!), you should be encouraged to find other ways to attack or expand. Nydus the rich island, fly a CC to the Island 3rd or try to control the skies to prevent your opponent from doing just that. Or maybe your techbased ground style (Mech, Robo, Swarmhosts) does not need to do take the third as quickly and will still try to bruteforce its way through a wall of bunkers/spines/tanks/mines/canons to victory. Things to test/work on: - evaluate/make gold island impossible to blink on - evaluate/make main base unblinkable from the 3rd - everything else | ||
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a176
Canada6688 Posts
On November 06 2013 22:20 Big J wrote: Since you cannot take a third very quickly and the middle is easily sealed off (only one attack path!), you should be encouraged to find other ways to attack or expand. Nydus the rich island, fly a CC to the Island 3rd or try to control the skies to prevent your opponent from doing just that. Or maybe your techbased ground style (Mech, Robo, Swarmhosts) does not need to do take the third as quickly and will still try to bruteforce its way through a wall of bunkers/spines/tanks/mines/canons to victory. Or two-base all-in every game? | ||
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moskonia
Israel1448 Posts
I would say open up the natural, make early aggression much stronger and therefore make it so that when you can get a 3rd you have many units, which will mean the rocks are not that important as they are in the current nat design. EDIT: @ConCentrate405, are these extra cliffs working like normal ones? Looks like a cool idea if they do. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
There is no 2base rush that cannot be stopped from 2bases or 2bases while building a third. And the "only one path" setup makes this even easier, since you can blindly spine up if anything cheesy is going on. On November 07 2013 02:05 moskonia wrote: Yep, it's going to be only 2base all ins if the zerg tries to take a 3rd. I see no way for Zerg to play vs Protoss here if Protoss opens SG so it has map control and denies possible 3rd, only options for zerg would be to kill the rocked 3rd or build a macro hatch and there and then buildings a 4th hatchery closer. Zerg can't really fight an air war with Protoss unless on more bases. I would say open up the natural, make early aggression much stronger and therefore make it so that when you can get a 3rd you have many units, which will mean the rocks are not that important as they are in the current nat design. If I make it possible to take a fast third, matches on this map will just devolve into standard 3base clustering. The whole setup makes no sense without the rocked third, as it would just be a very bad macro map with only one attack path. | ||
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EatThePath
United States3943 Posts
@Concentrate: Sort of normal looking map, I like the choice of 3rds. The 4th base in the corner is too easy, and it's protected by the 3rd you'd take first anyway. (or vice versa). The extra gas main / 1 gas nat is kind of random, I think it'd be stronger as a standard 2gas nat and an extra gas at main or nat to create a high gas metagame. Otherwise it's just a wrench in things that sort of balances overall, seemingly pointless. The "additional cliff levels" it really just sight blockers with an aesthetic illusion. This is not a bad thing but again, seemingly pointless. Not that I'm trying to bash your ideas, just giving honest critique. I think the base at 12 should have a wider opening, and why not put a base at 6 as well? The space there is sort of unused. I do like how early game you cross the map at the highground pass and then later you start using the other lowground pass as a natural progression. @BigJ: No matter how you slice it this map is bad for zerg because there is a much higher burden on them to deal with a) rocks on their 3rd base, b) island bases. I won't really comment on the concept because it's just theorycrafting and I don't think it'd be a successful map concept. But I will point out that the extra ramps in the middle with rocks are weird because you can still just defend the single path at the middle if the rocks are down. I would do this to provide alternate paths and also incentivize the islands since it makes the ground 3rds more vulnerable: ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/V47SIYM.jpg) | ||
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a176
Canada6688 Posts
On November 07 2013 02:48 Big J wrote: There is no 2base rush that cannot be stopped from 2bases or 2bases while building a third. And the "only one path" setup makes this even easier, since you can blindly spine up if anything cheesy is going on. If I make it possible to take a fast third, matches on this map will just devolve into standard 3base clustering. The whole setup makes no sense without the rocked third, as it would just be a very bad macro map with only one attack path. you dont give players an option here. the rock'd third forces zerg players to make an early army to kill it. instead of wasting that time killing the rocks and trying to setup a base there, and combined with a smaller rush distance, zergs are far more likely to just attack into the enemy. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
No matter how you slice it this map is bad for zerg because there is a much higher burden on them to deal with a) rocks on their 3rd base, b) island bases. I won't really comment on the concept because it's just theorycrafting and I don't think it'd be a successful map concept. But I will point out that the extra ramps in the middle with rocks are weird because you can still just defend the single path at the middle if the rocks are down. I would do this to provide alternate paths and also incentivize the islands since it makes the ground 3rds more vulnerable. If there are multiple paths allins become much stronger since you cannot use statics then. So then I don't think the rocks can stay. The point is that I don't want multiple paths all over the map and force a normal scenario in which you are busy holding the 3bases you built early. It's theorycrafting, yeah. Point is, if mapmakers don't theorycraft, maps can't be innovative. On November 07 2013 03:38 a176 wrote: you dont give players an option here. the rock'd third forces zerg players to make an early army to kill it. instead of wasting that time killing the rocks and trying to setup a base there, and combined with a smaller rush distance, zergs are far more likely to just attack into the enemy. Or an early nyuds/drop upgrade to take an island base (or two) while putting on pressure. Hm, what if I remove the rocks but change the mineral setup? Like to 5mineral/1gas? And just not to be mistaken, I really appreciate your feedback guys. Thing is that I don't want to make a standard map here to begin with, so pushing certain concepts into the map that I explicitly want to have removed is not what I'm looking for, that's why I defend them. Even if they probably make for a shit map. | ||
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ConCentrate405
Brazil71 Posts
![[image loading]](http://oi44.tinypic.com/el8u54.jpg) @EatThePath, thx, I'm remaking some things you said. As for the aesthetic illusion part, it will have to be an illusion anyway, but if you manage to make it work like a real cliff would, blocking pathing and vision (only) on the lower side, it becomes a real cliff, situational I agree, but doable on a melee map. My issue with the overall mapmaking is that we can barely have an open natural at low ground, and the main must be higher than it, so we are already using 2 cliffs. Today the game is played at the one height that is left, with one eventual high/low ground that must be levelled way before it reaches the natural. If this fake cliff works reasonably well we may see an extra element for positional play, attack and counterattack. | ||
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EatThePath
United States3943 Posts
@concentrate: yeah, the trick is getting one-sided vision blocking, which isn't directly supported in the editor and you have to do a lot of complex machinations to create properly, if it's even possible in a smooth playable implementation. how are those doodads only blocking vision from one direction? | ||
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TheFish7
United States2824 Posts
On November 06 2013 01:01 19Meavis93 wrote: not as much of a map, but I'm working on this. + Show Spoiler + what would the effect of bases like this be? Have you tested this out at all? I am curious. I have a feeling that worker AI won't be smart enough to start going after the distant patches once the initial gold patches mine out. The setup intrigues me however because a design like that could in theory provide diminishing returns, in a way that is similar to BW depleted geysers. | ||
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EatThePath
United States3943 Posts
On November 07 2013 07:03 TheFish7 wrote: Have you tested this out at all? I am curious. I have a feeling that worker AI won't be smart enough to start going after the distant patches once the initial gold patches mine out. The setup intrigues me however because a design like that could in theory provide diminishing returns, in a way that is similar to BW depleted geysers. The AI should, patches have to be something like more than 8 or 9 squares away before they are "invisible" to the workers looking for nearby patches. | ||
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ConCentrate405
Brazil71 Posts
There are others changes in the tower like acquisition and release range, footprint, properties and maybe more stuff that I'm not sure about. Most of what I do on the editor is by trial and error. You also need sight and pathing blockers for the whole edge of the cliff, except for the ramps that should have only sight blockers. Ah, before I forget it again, put some building blockers especialy at the base of the ramp because a building will mess up the cliff modelling. Tomorrow I will make a thread for future reference and better discussion, but there's not much to add that I know. | ||
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-NegativeZero-
United States2142 Posts
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Syphon8
Canada298 Posts
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/90XbXak.jpg) | ||
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EatThePath
United States3943 Posts
On November 07 2013 09:10 -NegativeZero- wrote: iGrok explained the infinite cliff level thing in this thread from a couple years ago. I've always wondered why more people didn't try it - probably because it's time consuming, which is completely understandable, but I don't even remember seeing 1 map which used it. Yeah, I thought the ultimate conclusion was that it wasn't worth it (height levels is just vision which is mostly irrelevant later in the game) and causes a performance hit. | ||
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EatThePath
United States3943 Posts
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/T58Ez9S.jpg) Result of a brainstorm tonight on open naturals and forward defendability at narrow areas. And tries to have spread out bases... after the first three and a half. | ||
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ConCentrate405
Brazil71 Posts
On the brightside, having a lava map on the pool for RedBull/TLMC is a tell that maybe now some triggers and regions are acceptable on melee maps, as long as you don't make some crazy arcade stuff and only emulate the basic game mechanics. Hmmm horizons are expanding... time for a slightly different aproach on my map. | ||
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