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Browder's Basin by Fatam version 1.0 [NA]
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/WRmHb.jpg)
Backstory!: + Show Spoiler +Dustin Browder was murdered by an angry Terran over the state of Ravens (fitting, eh?) and the state of TvZ in general. The Terran tried to shoot David Kim and Matt Cooper, too! But he only was able to hit David Kim on the upper arm. (that's why you never see David Kim wearing wife-beaters, it's to hide the wound) The Terran must have been stutter-stepping in order to make sure he could get out of the building safely instead of focus-firing correctly. Focus David Kim, you n00b! Anyway, Blizzard covered the murder up and replaced Dustin Browder with one of their janitors using facial reconstruction to avoid mass-panic and more people leaving SC2 for LoL. This may or may not explain some of "Dustin"'s questionable remarks lately concerning game balance. I can make no comment there. Anyhow, his vengeful spirit + Show Spoiler +(well, I told him he was coming off rather vengefully, but he said he "felt like his attitude was in a good place right now.") inhabited me about a week ago in order to make a MAP. In his honor, he told me ("It has to have my name in the title!"). He chose ME to make the map since I am -clearly- the best mapmaker and hence the most appropriate choice for the job (I tell myself it's not because I have a blow-up doll modeled after Kerrigan with a shrine around it that I pray beneath every night, and that I mess around with Ouija boards.) This map, as he carefully instructed me, was to show that destructible rocks and other underused map features -CAN- in fact be great for maps, even in bulk! And that with my help, he could punish those who thought otherwise for being such close-minded fools! (his words.. not mine) He also said it had to have water in it. He wanted to put the old wives' tale that "too much water makes the game laggy" to rest. I had heard this as well, so I tried it and turns out he's right! It doesn't lag the game at all, even on my several year-old comp with a dated video card. I was delighted to find a little bit of that Warcraft 3 feeling where I waded through water to kill murlocs. The ghost of Dustin promised me 3 starcraft-related wishes if I made a successful map with these criteria, so I tried my very, very best to make the map great. (..if you're curious what my wishes were (of course you are), I told him I wanted to win the GSL at least twice (obviously), have one of my maps get on the ladder, and have smix as my gf (best starcraft chick.. on earth anyway. Kerrigan is too many light-years away  I can't do long-distance relationships) So playtest the map! You might help my wishes come true! (..also I'm scared my apartment will still be haunted by Browder if I fail)
Statistics: + Show Spoiler +Playable area: 172x128 Rush distance (nat to nat) - cross positions: 132 vertical: 100 + Show Spoiler +(horizontal spawns are disabled) # of bases: 16 8m2g # of rocks: Too many to count! jk 12 # of watchtowers: 2
Map Features: + Show Spoiler +Let's see, where to start.. the map has a normal main, with a fairly normal natural (like Ohana, except one of the entrances does not go up a ramp). The optional thirds are where it gets different. One is close to you, but towards the middle of the map and pretty damn vulnerable. You have rocks blocking a unique back entrance into the base. + Show Spoiler +These rocks can either help OR harm the defender, depending on what he's up against. (for instance, the defender will almost certainly want those rocks destroyed if he's vs. Terran, as tanks with medivac/vikings giving vision over the LOS blockers or via scans will be able to harass the mineral line. Considering the T has to either spend money on scans or put his air units far enough forward that they can be sniped in order to execute this harass, I feel that it isn't overpowered and could create some interesting micro situations. The mineral line has been split in two so defenders can come through. The other third is a little farther away and a little bit safer, but is fairly open with a large ramp nearby. I think it will depend a lot on the race, matchup, and spawn positions as to which third is taken. Vertical spawn game: There is a long rock formation which separates the players in the middle (you can shoot at things on the other side of the wall where there are gaps). There is a cliffwalking spot marked by tarsonis arrows. You should be able to expand to 5+ bases if the game goes that long by expanding horizontally without too much trouble. Even though vertical is the shortest rush distance of the 3 spawn possibilities, I think it has the greatest chance to create long macro games. Cross spawn: It's a little more likely that you'll see harass of the thirds here due to the angle of attacking. Horizontal spawns are now disabled. The middle is a completely open lowground, broken up only by 2 destructible rocks. Dustin's spirit made me put the Blizzard sign.
Aesthetics: + Show Spoiler +
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Needs more rocks
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I think the natural is too easy. You should block it with a rock.
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Your map feels incomplete
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Someone made a browder map before me??! I feel like the rebound girl, he didn't tell me I was the second choice.
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Seriously though, the rocks are not enough... you need more rocks.
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an angle of 56 is approximate to the ingame camera
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I actually really like this map 
I think LOSB behind mineral lines is kind of cool, sorta forces you to defend the minerals with units, though horizontal positions would be kind of imba in T favor against Z (of course maybe he wants you to get revenge on those who killed him...)
You could add some more rocks in the middle wall in order to enable some alternate attack paths, because right now you could sit on 8 bases and just have one large area to cover, most of which you can see with the XNT.
Can you put the lowered supply depot on the other side of the ramp so that protoss can potentially ffe to the nexus, and how wide is that natural choke without the rocks? Perhaps shortening it with some rocks?
EDIT: Also islands with nothing on them?
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I don't mind this map actually, but it definitely needs more rocks. Maybe add rocks at the main so you can't mine at the start until your workers kill them?
Also, definitely need rocks at the natural and the third bases.
Also I would possibly consider filling up the main bases with rocks completely?
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ALLEYCAT BLUES50218 Posts
On September 11 2012 18:00 Superouman wrote:Your map feels incomplete ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/FjBbZ.jpg)
lame, no rocks on the main ramp.
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Am I the only one getting a certain feel of Brood War (plus rocks) from this map? It's got a very BW esque profile to it.
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I actually think this map looks pretty good. (though i do feel a bit guilty for thinking that)
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You have map with Browder's name it on and there isn't rocks on the third?
Try again.
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On September 11 2012 21:29 BLinD-RawR wrote:lame, no rocks on the main ramp. perhaps put a few in his head? though then I suppose we will get angry spam from the people who claim to know for fact. There is nothing in his head. I suppose we could clogg his ears. That should be metaphorically and symbolically correct.
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you need more terrible damage...
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On September 11 2012 18:00 Superouman wrote:Your map feels incomplete ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/FjBbZ.jpg)
This should be in the ladder pool
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56 degrees! I had no idea. That angled overview pic I took is 45 degrees because I had to switch it back from 90 and didn't know the angle.. wasn't even close :-O Might also explain why someone thought it had a BW feel to it (I think BW was closer to 45).. Maybe we should all use this tactic with every map we make to get "oh cool, it has a BW feel to it" responses 
The nat choke is pretty standard 3-building-block fare I believe, similar to daybreak (I think it's actually a square narrower than daybreak). ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/fz17t.jpg)
You could add some more rocks in the middle wall in order to enable some alternate attack paths, because right now you could sit on 8 bases and just have one large area to cover, most of which you can see with the XNT.
That is one very large area to cover (actual width - 44 squares!), easier said than done covering it (especially if the rocks haven't been killed and get in your way). But I sorta see your point with the XNT. I feel like the XNTs are in a mostly good spot (they see -part- of the middle, but not the whole breadth, and they can see if the rocks are being killed inbetween the horizontal spawns, without seeing much else). If I move them apart a square or two in each direction it could make them cover a little less of the middle (the space inbetween the rock wall and the XNT coverage would increase from 7.5 to 8.5 squares, which is ample for even a large army to move through without being detected) without affecting anything else too much, so I'll think on that. Oh and yeah I need to change those depots.
I know it's a tongue-in-cheek name with a silly backstory, but it is also a serious effort to be a good map. Anyone else w/ balance or aesthetic suggestions? Cheers.
edit: @ the islands with no expos on them. They are kind of a niche thing that won't be used too often. For drops when you need to unload cuz your medivac/prism is getting killed by a viking, or when you need somewhere safe to unload your marines that need healing. OR for building a starport and floating it over there for ultimate proxy-ness. I was thinking about doing this for an alternate attack route
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ig9ZF.jpg)
which would have the little island see more use. I'm not sure how balance or imbalanced such a path would be. It would be a pretty short rush once all 3 rocks are down (~50 nat-nat). But I think it might be ok, considering that rush distance only applies for vertical spawns and you have to kill THREE rocks and go through what is basically a very long/extended and narrow choke (sounds dirty somehow :-s) which is quite a risk.
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United States10176 Posts
needs more rocks.
until then, i give map 0/5.
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On September 12 2012 07:52 FlaShFTW wrote:needs more rocks. until then, i give map 0/5. 
cold brother, cold.
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This map has too much open space, fill in everything past the naturals with rocks
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On September 12 2012 08:04 Praetorial wrote: This map has too much open space, fill in everything past the naturals with rocks Seriously, the name promises a huge sink filled with rocks.
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I know, how dare I make an attempt at an actual map.
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why are there no rocks at the third
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United States10176 Posts
On September 12 2012 08:04 Fatam wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2012 07:52 FlaShFTW wrote:needs more rocks. until then, i give map 0/5.  cold brother, cold. i apologize. your map name is misleading.
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He told me to, but I talked him down. I told him I would put 2 rocks in the middle with his precious blizzard sign and that made him happy.
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Updated. Fixed a couple little things like moving the supply depots, but most importantly added an alternate attack path for vertical spawns on the outer ends of the middle walls. Updated the overviews.
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The map should be Shakuras Plateau—style spawns (rotated 90°)
Horizontal spawns just seems to be way too much of a problem.
Also is that rock wall in the middle solid aside from the ends which are destructible, or are there some holes? I'd say there should be holes. The overall look of the center just seems really weird, and the distance of the rock wall before destructible rocks seems a bit too long.
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China6329 Posts
The amount of rocks holy crap...
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On September 12 2012 19:00 Xapti wrote: The map should be Shakuras Plateau—style spawns (rotated 90°)
Horizontal spawns just seems to be way too much of a problem.
Also is that rock wall in the middle solid aside from the ends which are destructible, or are there some holes? I'd say there should be holes. The overall look of the center just seems really weird, and the distance of the rock wall before destructible rocks seems a bit too long.
Thanks for the comments. I am ok with making it just 2 out of the 3 possible spawns allowed a la shakura's or tourney version entombed. As long as 2 of the 3 are balanced, I'm happy (ofc I'd like it to be all 3, but -no one- seems to be able to pull that off just yet, despite attempts by all skill-levels of mapmakers). When you have a 4 player map where only cross-spawn works, there's no longer any point, since at that point it is just a less-interesting 2 player map.
The walls - there are holes that you can see and shoot through, but not any that you can -walk- through. It is a unique thing, no doubt, and maybe it looks a little weird from an overview perspective, but gameplay-wise I'm not convinced there needs to be any pathable holes made. a) It's really not that far to go around the wall on either side. It's similar to Entombed Valley in this respect, except that the path around is actually shorter here, just the width of it makes it look long. b) if you were to make pathable holes in the wall the rush distance for vert. spawns would be too short.
I think I -will- get rid of the rocks on the outside path though. It's probably unnecessary punishment, i.e. players should be rewarded not punished for using the sneaky attack route.
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Got rid of the outside rocks like I was talking about and made a couple other changes to that area. Also moved the towers to the N and S respectively 1 square to slightly widen the distance between the edge of XNT vision and the middle wall.
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This map looks like it could be really good, despite the excessive use of rocks, the one problem I have right now is horizontal spawns.
If you get a TvZ with horizontal spawns, I don't see how zerg can possible stop a 2base marine/siege tank/medivac all in, because you can lift your units in medivacs and abuse the hell out of the high ground, (You don't kill your natural's rocks). And if the colossus/reaper path is able to get siege tanks up on via a medivac, it get's even harder and zerg will mostly be forced into mutalisk with those spawn positions.
I would suggest maybe moving the naturals a little further back for those spawns.
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On September 13 2012 18:22 Hiea wrote: This map looks like it could be really good, despite the excessive use of rocks, the one problem I have right now is horizontal spawns.
If you get a TvZ with horizontal spawns, I don't see how zerg can possible stop a 2base marine/siege tank/medivac all in, because you can lift your units in medivacs and abuse the hell out of the high ground, (You don't kill your natural's rocks). And if the colossus/reaper path is able to get siege tanks up on via a medivac, it get's even harder and zerg will mostly be forced into mutalisk with those spawn positions.
I would suggest maybe moving the naturals a little further back for those spawns.
Thanks for the input. I'm not exactly sure which highground you mean. The highground inbetween the nat and the 3rd is unpathable - it's just there to create chokes and be an overlord spot. Maybe I need to put some doodads (rocks/trees/w.e) there to make that more clear. About the other side of the natural, I'm not 100% clear what you meant by the abuse of the reaper/colossus spot with tanks but I'll make a drawing with some distances and maybe that will clarify things. Hopefully I'm not missing what you're saying here.
+ Show Spoiler +
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So I just updated this to 1.0. I had been putting off polishing up the aesthetics (because aesthetics can be boring and I really prefer to work on strategy-related things) but I think this should be an improvement over how it was. (the OP is fully updated to reflect all changes, or you can be lazy and click the spoiler below cuz I'm nice and copy pasted for you).
Aesthetics: + Show Spoiler +
I also disabled horizontal spawns, which addressed the main balance issue of the map.
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On September 11 2012 18:00 Superouman wrote:Your map feels incomplete ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/FjBbZ.jpg) ME GUSTA!!
No really, I would like to see a more macro-oriented version of this in the ESV Koreanvoice Weekly's map pool.
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i thnk its pretty cool. but the rock jokes are pretty funny too
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thanks. And yeah they are, I think I might have shot myself in the foot calling it that though (even though I love the rock humor) because it's hard to get actual comments about the balance of the map lol everyone just wants to make rock jokes (which I can';t totally blame them)
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Wow! The aesthetics of this map feels like good old BW maps. I love! How is the balance? I'll have to try it out!
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