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On February 23 2013 17:28 Unsane wrote: I'm going to go ahead keep wondering how these layouts aren't boring yet. This map is just another on top of the heap of maps that only feature nodes around the perimeter of the map. This is almost different but nothing new is going to occur on this map that hasn't already on others similar to it. Id be rather disappointed if this map hit any tournament map pool, waste of a spot for a new map. Sure, this might do it a bit better than whirlwind but the concepts are still already old. Its supposed to be 'out with the old and in with the new', not 'out with the old and in with the same'. It's simply unrealistic to have a good competitive experience on only radical map concepts; a good map pool requires a healthy mix of innovation and stability. I encourage you to look back at Brood War to see just how many maps featuring "standard" design continued to be implemented even up to and after the release of StarCraft II.
This map isn't meant to fill the role of an Arkanoid or Icarus. It's meant to provide a counter-balance to such unique maps -- and that's just as important. While I understand your disdain for how boring and stale the competitive map pools had been for a very long time (and therefore have a higher desire for radical concepts), I think Plexa put it best on the first page:
On October 16 2012 19:36 Plexa wrote:I like this map. I think you've done a really good job at creating a very playable map. I will try and get some games in on it over the next few days. Show nested quote +On October 16 2012 15:14 a176 wrote: i would have liked to see some bases scattered more inwards of the map rather than everything on the perimeter, to create a sense of increasing map control for the player. im assuming that youre assuming that people will expand past the rocks to get their fourth, but because the 2 bases after the nat are so close, theres really very little risk in taking all 4 bases in the corner. I disagree. This map isn't about interesting expansion dynamics, it's just about solid strong standard play. This is more like an Ohana rather than a Cloud Kingdom, if you catch my drift. Not every map needs to have interesting expansion layouts, and this is one case where it isn't necessary for good and interesting gameplay. With that said, if every map was safe and boring then the map scene would be very very stale but there is a place for well made 'boring' maps.
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Yet, 'standard' in BW was a looser definition. 'standard' in SC2 means:
- main base, containing 8m2g - single ramp leading down to a natural, containing 8m2g - single choke that can be walled with 2-3 forcefields leading to a common area - that leads to a third containing 8m2g.
'standard' maps in BW at the least sometimes featured the main on even ground as the natural or had varying mineral layouts. I feel varying mineral layouts are essential to not see the same build on every single map and should be used more. Icarus-style bases of 4m2rm1rg seem to work very well in practice.
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On February 23 2013 18:35 SiskosGoatee wrote: Yet, 'standard' in BW was a looser definition. 'standard' in SC2 means:
- main base, containing 8m2g - single ramp leading down to a natural, containing 8m2g - single choke that can be walled with 2-3 forcefields leading to a common area - that leads to a third containing 8m2g.
'standard' maps in BW at the least sometimes featured the main on even ground as the natural or had varying mineral layouts. I feel varying mineral layouts are essential to not see the same build on every single map and should be used more. Icarus-style bases of 4m2rm1rg seem to work very well in practice. In Brood War, there were also standard resource counts. Sure it wasn't a uniform amount for every base like in SC2, but every main featured 9m1g, every natural was 7m1g, and the standard expansion resource count beyond that was usually 7m1g as well. The one grand exception is mineral-only bases for the third, but even that was a heavily re-used and mapped-out concept. This standard came through years of experimentation because -- unlike SC2 -- BW was never designed to be an eSport and Blizzard never designed the game to utilize specific resource amounts for the sake of balance and clarity.
The fact that a standard was even developed for Brood War exemplifies the desire for there to be stability when it comes to resource gathering, for the sake of mapping out and perfecting builds and strategies -- which rely heavily on timings. Blizzard recognized this and gave us the 8m2g standard in their eSports-oriented sequel. The mapmaking community went further and developed the "half-base" concept of 6m1g, comparable to how BW developed the mineral-only third, as a variant -- yet still standard -- resource amount.
The standard of a single FF choke to the natural was simply a necessity borne from the game's design; we had things like the 4-gate and other such early all-ins that made things incredibly difficult to balance otherwise (we saw this issue full-blown on maps like Tal'Darim Altar, a nightmare map for PvP). Besides, single-width ramp to a natural was a staple design even going all the way back to Brood War. Just take a look for yourself. If your argument revolves purely around the idea of the main and nat being the same cliff level on the occasional BW map, we have a number of those as well in the SC2 mapmaking world.
The defensible natural is also a continuation of Brood War standard map design, carried over to its successor. It's not that maps with open naturals weren't even tried, but that we did try them (maps like Metalopolis and Dual Sight immediately come to mind) and found how the combination of that and many design aspects of SC2 led to an imbalance favouring the person who performed an all-in instead of expanding themselves. I know you've had difficulty grasping the concept of defender's advantage in the past, but it doesn't make for a good game. All-ins have their place, but it's as a counter-measure to greedy play, not as a free win against any kind of economic play. There's a reason BW map design generally moved toward a more defensible natural, and there's a reason the same thing happened in SC2.
These are mapmaking lessons learned from over a decade of competitive StarCraft, spanning multiple titles of the same franchise; sometimes re-learned due to the justified desire to experiment with a new game with new design. I'm not even sure what your point is except perhaps vaguely complaining that BW took longer to find a 'standard' because there was no precedent to it, nor did it have the kind of eSports support from Blizzard that SC2 receives. There's also nothing wrong with the Icarus-style resource layout; it's great innovation. Please read my previous post about innovation vs. standard, and what this map tries to accomplish.
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On February 23 2013 19:32 iamcaustic wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2013 18:35 SiskosGoatee wrote: Yet, 'standard' in BW was a looser definition. 'standard' in SC2 means:
- main base, containing 8m2g - single ramp leading down to a natural, containing 8m2g - single choke that can be walled with 2-3 forcefields leading to a common area - that leads to a third containing 8m2g.
'standard' maps in BW at the least sometimes featured the main on even ground as the natural or had varying mineral layouts. I feel varying mineral layouts are essential to not see the same build on every single map and should be used more. Icarus-style bases of 4m2rm1rg seem to work very well in practice. In Brood War, there were also standard resource counts. Sure it wasn't a uniform amount for every base like in SC2, but every main featured 9m1g, every natural was 7m1g, and the standard expansion resource count beyond that was usually 7m1g as well. The one grand exception is mineral-only bases for the third, but even that was a heavily re-used and mapped-out concept. This standard came through years of experimentation because -- unlike SC2 -- BW was never designed to be an eSport and Blizzard never designed the game to utilize specific resource amounts for the sake of balance and clarity. So indeed, mineral only thirds were part of the standard and very mapped out. Like I said, what falls under a 'standard' map in BW allowed for much greater variety.
You can very well in SC2 have half of your maps have Icarus type naturals, which then becomes a standard, a standard which allows for more variety.
The fact that a standard was even developed for Brood War exemplifies the desire for there to be stability when it comes to resource gathering, for the sake of mapping out and perfecting builds and strategies -- which rely heavily on timings. Blizzard recognized this and gave us the 8m2g standard in their eSports-oriented sequel. The mapmaking community went further and developed the "half-base" concept of 6m1g, comparable to how BW developed the mineral-only third, as a variant -- yet still standard -- resource amount. And 2/3 bases are in almost no competitive map at the moment and if they are they are fourths or fifths.
The standard of a single FF choke to the natural was simply a necessity borne from the game's design; we had things like the 4-gate and other such early all-ins that made things incredibly difficult to balance otherwise (we saw this issue full-blown on maps like Tal'Darim Altar, a nightmare map for PvP). Besides, single-width ramp to a natural was a staple design even going all the way back to Brood War. Just take a look for yourself. If your argument revolves purely around the idea of the main and nat being the same cliff level on the occasional BW map, we have a number of those as well in the SC2 mapmaking world. Oh yes. Let's sacrifice 5 matchups for 1 matchup which is also a mirror because PvP is almighty even though no one on this forum gives a damn to even start considering ZvZ because 90% of people here play Protoss. Many maps posted here have a natural which makes ZvZ lingbling all ins versus lingbling all ins but no one cares about that but to stop PvP from becoming 4gate vs 4gate, that's holy.
The defensible natural is also a continuation of Brood War standard map design, carried over to its successor. It's not that maps with open naturals weren't even tried, but that we did try them (maps like Metalopolis and Dual Sight immediately come to mind) and found how the combination of that and many design aspects of SC2 led to an imbalance favouring the person who performed an all-in instead of expanding themselves. And yet metalopolis was one of the most celebrated maps out there which gave us some of the most memorable games of its time, and they weren't nearly all al in. No the new demand on naturals is again to satisfy the protoss-infested mapping community which demands to have an as easy as possible time forge expanding,
I know you've had difficulty grasping the concept of defender's advantage in the past, but it doesn't make for a good game. All-ins have their place, but it's as a counter-measure to greedy play, not as a free win against any kind of economic play. There's a reason BW map design generally moved toward a more defensible natural, and there's a reason the same thing happened in SC2. I grasp it just fine, I just don't like it.
And that it happens leads to basically almost everyone complaining that almost any game now is a NR10 game where both players turtle like mad before anything happens because any attempt at aggression is shut down easily. Thank god more and more voices start to be heard about this issue and more new features in maps are tried.
These are mapmaking lessons learned from over a decade of competitive StarCraft, spanning multiple titles of the same franchise; sometimes re-learned due to the justified desire to experiment with a new game with new design. I'm not even sure what your point is except perhaps vaguely complaining that BW took longer to find a 'standard' because there was no precedent to it, nor did it have the kind of eSports support from Blizzard that SC2 receives. There's also nothing wrong with the Icarus-style resource layout; it's great innovation. Please read my previous post about innovation vs. standard, and what this map tries to accomplish. No, these aren't "lessons", this is your own personal opinion on what makes a good map. I happen to like 4gate vs 4gate. That doesn't make me wrong, that makes we differ on opinions. I also don't like the defensive nature of BW games in hindsight, sure, I like BW back in the days when it was all we had but even then ZvZ was by far my favourite matchup to watch and TvT was always my least favourite. I personally just don't like the fact that it is even possible to do a planned strategy, I hate planned strats and like reactionary play. The fact that you can just wall of your natural and do your planned strat behind closed doors, I don't like that.
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Oh for Christ's sake Siskos. Can I ask that you not shit up at least one mapmaking thread in this sub-forum, especially mine? I'm going to respond just this once publicly, so that this post at least has a bit more substance than a 1-line "Ugh, another Siskos post" gripe. After that, we can continue in PM if you seriously want to continue this "discussion".
On February 23 2013 19:50 SiskosGoatee wrote: So indeed, mineral only thirds were part of the standard and very mapped out. Like I said, what falls under a 'standard' map in BW allowed for much greater variety.
You can very well in SC2 have half of your maps have Icarus type naturals, which then becomes a standard, a standard which allows for more variety. So I go about explaining the community's creation of 6m1g, and you post this garbage. Then, you follow it up with this:
On February 23 2013 19:50 SiskosGoatee wrote: And 2/3 bases are in almost no competitive map at the moment and if they are they are fourths or fifths. Daybreak originally featured a 6m1g 3rd/4th option; Blizzard transformed it to a full 8m2g base in the LE edition, and tournaments picked up the LE for ease of player practice. Feel free to complain to Blizzard about that one, not to the community. Bel'Shir Vestige has a 6m1g 3rd/4th option. Icarus features its unique resource layout at the natural. Planet S features rich mineral expansions in the centre. These three are completely variant resource bases, all for different stages of the game, featured in current map pools. What, exactly, are you complaining about? That SC2 has a solid standard to fall back on? OH dear god, not that.
On February 23 2013 19:50 SiskosGoatee wrote: Oh yes. Let's sacrifice 5 matchups for 1 matchup which is also a mirror because PvP is almighty even though no one on this forum gives a damn to even start considering ZvZ because 90% of people here play Protoss. Many maps posted here have a natural which makes ZvZ lingbling all ins versus lingbling all ins but no one cares about that but to stop PvP from becoming 4gate vs 4gate, that's holy. First pants-on-head remark: that the other match-ups are somehow "sacrificed" for the sake of making PvP playable with these current mapmaking standards. Yet you have the audacity to accuse me of stating opinion as fact, because you like to sit in your tower and pretend there isn't over a decade of competitive StarCraft data to work with? Your arrogance knows no bounds, Siskos.
Second pants-on-head remark: that we shouldn't care about PvP because not enough people pay attention to ZvZ. Add to this that you personally don't mind 4-gate vs 4-gate anyway, even after years of both the SC2 community and professional players saying how shit it makes the matchup.
On February 23 2013 19:50 SiskosGoatee wrote: And yet metalopolis was one of the most celebrated maps out there which gave us some of the most memorable games of its time, and they weren't nearly all al in. No the new demand on naturals is again to satisfy the protoss-infested mapping community which demands to have an as easy as possible time forge expanding, It was celebrated as being the least terrible Wings of Liberty beta map, and even then that was only after Blizzard finally disabled close-position spawns. That's not exactly a high bar, Siskos, with competition like Steppes of War, Blistering Sands, and Scrap Station. You want a real most celebrated map? Take a look at Cloud Kingdom, the Team Liquid 2012 Map of the Year. That's what a celebrated community map looks like.
On February 23 2013 19:50 SiskosGoatee wrote: I grasp it just fine, I just don't like it.
And that it happens leads to basically almost everyone complaining that almost any game now is a NR10 game where both players turtle like mad before anything happens because any attempt at aggression is shut down easily. Thank god more and more voices start to be heard about this issue and more new features in maps are tried. Anyone who gripes about defender's advantage inherently doesn't get it, and saying you do doesn't magically make it so. Defender's advantage isn't "well I can never attack this guy until I hit a 200 supply cap". That's just bad design, either via the map or the game. Defender's advantage is necessary for there to be any opportunity for long-term play, and is the idea that someone with a slight army disadvantage should be able to compensate for this when in a defensive role. Allow me to explain why:
Say we have Player A and Player B. They've both gathered exactly 2400 resources. Let's say Player A invests 400 of that into an expansion and the rest on army, while Player B invests all of it into army. This means Player A will have an army value of 2000 while Player B will have an army value of 2400. Without any way for Player A to compensate for this difference, Player B would simply win 100% of the time. We can also conclude that taking an expansion is an impossibility, and the game devolves to only ever seeing 1-base play. The game is very shallow, not just strategically but also in entertainment value, and has no longevity to it as a competitive title.
This was the state of PvP back during the prevalence of the 4gate all-in, as the warp gate mechanic eliminates the inherent defender's advantage of production cycle rally time that is common in RTS games. The high-ground main and single-width ramp became a necessity to create a new PvP defender's advantage based on the defender retaining high-ground control while the attacker could not get vision to do any damage. Nowadays, there have been a number of balance patches that allow us to experiment more with main base chokes (and in HotS, the 4gate is effectively dead as a game-ending move outside of getting lucky), but hopefully the point made it across. On the note of production cycle rally times, maps that are too big -- or even just maps designed to have long rush distances, really -- cause the defender's advantage to be too strong for anything outside of early warp gate timings (since warp gate circumvents rally time). This is the issue we see on maps like Whirlwind, which boasts a playable area of 160x160.
Is it a problem? Yeah. Are we seeing a heavy trend toward smaller map dimensions to help counter-act this issue? You bet.
On February 23 2013 19:50 SiskosGoatee wrote: No, these aren't "lessons", this is your own personal opinion on what makes a good map. I happen to like 4gate vs 4gate. That doesn't make me wrong, that makes we differ on opinions. I also don't like the defensive nature of BW games in hindsight, sure, I like BW back in the days when it was all we had but even then ZvZ was by far my favourite matchup to watch and TvT was always my least favourite. I personally just don't like the fact that it is even possible to do a planned strategy, I hate planned strats and like reactionary play. The fact that you can just wall of your natural and do your planned strat behind closed doors, I don't like that. I'm not surprised your favourite BW and SC2 match-ups are the most strategically shallow and disliked. You're free to like whatever you want, but if lack of strategic depth, rock-paper-scissors build wins, and an over-saturation of abruptly short games is what you prefer, I think you should really ask yourself if StarCraft -- or RTS in general -- is actually your kind of thing.
I've already talked about your arrogance in completely ignoring over a decade of hard work from mapmakers for both Brood War and StarCraft II and degrading it as "personal opinion" -- not just in this thread, but all across these sub-forums, on Reddit, and elsewhere. You need an attitude check, Siskos, and learn a bit of respect while you're at it.
Like I said before, if you want to continue, please PM me. I'd rather keep this thread on topic with Khalani Sanctuary, its goals and overall progress, rather than having to deal with you.
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On February 23 2013 18:05 iamcaustic wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2013 17:28 Unsane wrote: I'm going to go ahead keep wondering how these layouts aren't boring yet. This map is just another on top of the heap of maps that only feature nodes around the perimeter of the map. This is almost different but nothing new is going to occur on this map that hasn't already on others similar to it. Id be rather disappointed if this map hit any tournament map pool, waste of a spot for a new map. Sure, this might do it a bit better than whirlwind but the concepts are still already old. Its supposed to be 'out with the old and in with the new', not 'out with the old and in with the same'. It's simply unrealistic to have a good competitive experience on only radical map concepts; a good map pool requires a healthy mix of innovation and stability. I encourage you to look back at Brood War to see just how many maps featuring "standard" design continued to be implemented even up to and after the release of StarCraft II. This map isn't meant to fill the role of an Arkanoid or Icarus. It's meant to provide a counter-balance to such unique maps -- and that's just as important. While I understand your disdain for how boring and stale the competitive map pools had been for a very long time (and therefore have a higher desire for radical concepts), I think Plexa put it best on the first page: + Show Spoiler +On October 16 2012 19:36 Plexa wrote:I like this map. I think you've done a really good job at creating a very playable map. I will try and get some games in on it over the next few days. Show nested quote +On October 16 2012 15:14 a176 wrote: i would have liked to see some bases scattered more inwards of the map rather than everything on the perimeter, to create a sense of increasing map control for the player. im assuming that youre assuming that people will expand past the rocks to get their fourth, but because the 2 bases after the nat are so close, theres really very little risk in taking all 4 bases in the corner. I disagree. This map isn't about interesting expansion dynamics, it's just about solid strong standard play. This is more like an Ohana rather than a Cloud Kingdom, if you catch my drift. Not every map needs to have interesting expansion layouts, and this is one case where it isn't necessary for good and interesting gameplay. With that said, if every map was safe and boring then the map scene would be very very stale but there is a place for well made 'boring' maps.
I'm not saying there isn't a place for normal or standard maps, whatever those may be. But this is almost identical to whirlwind. Describing things with just words, the only real difference is that some thirds are not on high ground. People will be executing the exact same builds/techniques/tricks as on whirlwind, none more and none less. If you were to pull out a 'top tier' map list that a tourny would look at to fill out its map pool, Whirlwind would rank much 'higher' than Khalani Sanctuary. Whirlwind and this fill the same spot and people know whirlwind. Seems like a lot of time to spend on another whirlwind. Is that the same tile set too?
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Well, I just want to say that as I play this map more, the thing that strikes me is that I can play almost any style in any position, which really gives me the ability to play re-actively and pro-actively. This is the strength of a good, standard map. To have this feature in an all spawns 4 player map, is just great.
This map does what it wants to do!
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On February 23 2013 21:03 iamcaustic wrote: Oh for Christ's sake Siskos. Can I ask that you not shit up at least one mapmaking thread in this sub-forum, especially mine? I'm going to respond just this once publicly, so that this post at least has a bit more substance than a 1-line "Ugh, another Siskos post" gripe. After that, we can continue in PM if you seriously want to continue this "discussion". It's completely on topic, it concerns your map and the question whether or not it's just another carbon copy of the same formula.
So I go about explaining the community's creation of 6m1g, and you post this garbage. Then, you follow it up with this: And how many maps are there in circulation currently which have 6m1rg bases as a third or natural? It sometimes occurs as a fourth or a fifth but that's it. It's not a standard.
Daybreak originally featured a 6m1g 3rd/4th option; Blizzard transformed it to a full 8m2g base in the LE edition, and tournaments picked up the LE for ease of player practice. Feel free to complain to Blizzard about that one, not to the community. Who caused it is irrelevant, I'm not "complaining" to anyone causing it. I'm complaining about that it's happening.
Bel'Shir Vestige has a 6m1g 3rd/4th option. Oh please, give me a game where that base was ever secured as a third. It's a fourth and often a fifth.
Icarus features its unique resource layout at the natural. Icarus is very much a nonstandard map/.
Planet S features rich mineral expansions in the centre. Which is also pretty standard and probably a bad idea anyway.
These three are completely variant resource bases, all for different stages of the game, featured in current map pools. What, exactly, are you complaining about? That SC2 has a solid standard to fall back on? OH dear god, not that. No one is denying that maps have some variation concerning the fourth or fifth or what-not. As I said in my original post, I'm concerned with that almost any map features a completely identical main/nat/third topology.
And I'm complaining that that standard is A: not solid there are imbalanced maps that use it and B: Not necessary: There are balanced maps that don't use it. Compared to BW, the standard is far more constrictive and limited.
First pants-on-head remark: that the other match-ups are somehow "sacrificed" for the sake of making PvP playable with these current mapmaking standards. Yet you have the audacity to accuse me of stating opinion as fact, because you like to sit in your tower and pretend there isn't over a decade of competitive StarCraft data to work with? Your arrogance knows no bounds, Siskos. Yes, the only concern people here ever raise with the necessity of the ramp connecting the main and natural is PvP. Which funnily enough isn't the only reason, it also has ZvZ and ZvT uses in regards to queen blocking against banes and hellions.
Second pants-on-head remark: that we shouldn't care about PvP because not enough people pay attention to ZvZ. Add to this that you personally don't mind 4-gate vs 4-gate anyway, even after years of both the SC2 community and professional players saying how shit it makes the matchup. I'm saying it shows the ripe bias and inconsistently of the mapping community which coincidentally play protoss for the vast majority and makes maps for a large portion which have a slant towards making the life of protoss players easier while not considering Terrans as much and Zergs not at all. I don't know any Zerg player that frequents these boards. The only representation Zerg gets here is a random player with bad ZvP it seems.
It was celebrated as being the least terrible Wings of Liberty beta map, and even then that was only after Blizzard finally disabled close-position spawns. That's not exactly a high bar, Siskos, with competition like Steppes of War, Blistering Sands, and Scrap Station. You want a real most celebrated map? Take a look at Cloud Kingdom, the Team Liquid 2012 Map of the Year. That's what a celebrated community map looks like. Oh please, I doubt anyone rather has metropolis than metalopolis these days. In fact, CK has been in the pool so long at this point I'd take metal back for a few months in place of it again for some variety of spice. It's a good map, just not a map where you can play the turtly defensive zero interaction game on you love to play so much.
Anyone who gripes about defender's advantage inherently doesn't get it, and saying you do doesn't magically make it so. Oh, anyone who doesn't agree with you of course doesn't get it. Silly me.
Defender's advantage isn't "well I can never attack this guy until I hit a 200 supply cap". It is assuming perfect play, as long as there is defender's advantage attacking someone assumes they made some mistake, they would always be able to hold of whatever you do cost efficiently.
That's just bad design, either via the map or the game. Defender's advantage is necessary for there to be any opportunity for long-term play, and is the idea that someone with a slight army disadvantage should be able to compensate for this when in a defensive role. Allow me to explain why
Say we have Player A and Player B. They've both gathered exactly 2400 resources. Let's say Player A invests 400 of that into an expansion and the rest on army, while Player B invests all of it into army. This means Player A will have an army value of 2000 while Player B will have an army value of 2400. Without any way for Player A to compensate for this difference, Player B would simply win 100% of the time. We can also conclude that taking an expansion is an impossibility, and the game devolves to only ever seeing 1-base play. The game is very shallow, not just strategically but also in entertainment value, and has no longevity to it as a competitive title. Great, you just defined the same passive silly style I so loathe and you so love which people are getting tired of, we make expand and then defend it. Passive expansions, expanding and sitting back on it, that's what defenders advantage leads to. What offenders advantage leads to is that you must attack and expand behind it to expand because you have a disadvantage if you expand. This means that both want to attac and meet in the middle, whoever outmicroes the opponent there gets to be the offender, has the advantage, and can expand.
This was the state of PvP back during the prevalence of the 4gate all-in, as the warp gate mechanic eliminates the inherent defender's advantage of production cycle rally time that is common in RTS games. Yes, this was the state of a matchup which was purely about skill and yet still saw people go beyond 1 base play. This was the state of a amtchup where expand was, I kid you not, an actual decision rather than a blind build order, you'd correctly read your opponent after you entered a 4gate vs 4gate stalemate and decided if you could expand or not because you gained a minor advantage from outmicroing but not enough to kill your opponent.
But I guess your 'understanding' of the game likes it to be easy for you and not have to make a decision on when to expand by reading your opponent, just do it blindly, who cares about reactionary play meassuring brains vs brains if you can just do blind build orders with defenders advantage making up for lack of unit control and micro right?
Defenders advantage removes skill ceiling from the game, it enables a lesser player to just defend against a better player.
The high-ground main and single-width ramp became a necessity to create a new PvP defender's advantage based on the defender retaining high-ground control while the attacker could not get vision to do any damage. Nowadays, there have been a number of balance patches that allow us to experiment more with main base chokes (and in HotS, the 4gate is effectively dead as a game-ending move outside of getting lucky), but hopefully the point made it across. On the note of production cycle rally times, maps that are too big -- or even just maps designed to have long rush distances, really -- cause the defender's advantage to be too strong for anything outside of early warp gate timings (since warp gate circumvents rally time). This is the issue we see on maps like Whirlwind, which boasts a playable area of 160x160. Only for PvP though, nothing to do with ZvZ and ZvT because hey, no one plays Zerg here and every map is judged by a bunch of protoss-centric biased people.
I'm not surprised your favourite BW and SC2 match-ups are the most strategically shallow and disliked. You're free to like whatever you want, but if lack of strategic depth, rock-paper-scissors build wins, and an over-saturation of abruptly short games is what you prefer, I think you should really ask yourself if StarCraft -- or RTS in general -- is actually your kind of thing. ZvZ strategically shallow? You're out of your mind. It was the most strategically and mechanially demanding matchup in BW with the highest skill ceiling as evidenced by JvZ and it still is in SC2. ZvZ is a compete reactionary game where you are constantly anticipating and adjusting to your opponents move, one wrong read or not paying attention and you're dead. If you call ZvZ rock paper scissors you don't understand it whatsoever. There's a reason that Professor Tea's ZvZ winrate still exceeds Mvp's TvT winrate even though Nestea is obviously a weaker player. ZvZ is all about correct decisions and reactions, there is very little luck in ZvZ compared to TvT. Of course, that's not something lower level players understand because it's a difficult matchup where you actually have to know what you are doing instead of trying to copy one of creator's builds.
I've already talked about your arrogance in completely ignoring over a decade of hard work from mapmakers for both Brood War and StarCraft II and degrading it as "personal opinion" -- not just in this thread, but all across these sub-forums, on Reddit, and elsewhere. You need an attitude check, Siskos, and learn a bit of respect while you're at it Yeh, my arrogance, so ehh, did you not just accuse a level 90 master league player about 'not understanding the game' while you claim ZvZ is a coin flip because you don't understand at all what is going on in it.
Like I said before, if you want to continue, please PM me. I'd rather keep this thread on topic with Khalani Sanctuary, its goals and overall progress, rather than having to deal with you. No, it's relevant and directly concerns your map, if you make a map thread there will be praise alongside criticism.
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On February 24 2013 02:44 Unsane wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2013 18:05 iamcaustic wrote:On February 23 2013 17:28 Unsane wrote: I'm going to go ahead keep wondering how these layouts aren't boring yet. This map is just another on top of the heap of maps that only feature nodes around the perimeter of the map. This is almost different but nothing new is going to occur on this map that hasn't already on others similar to it. Id be rather disappointed if this map hit any tournament map pool, waste of a spot for a new map. Sure, this might do it a bit better than whirlwind but the concepts are still already old. Its supposed to be 'out with the old and in with the new', not 'out with the old and in with the same'. It's simply unrealistic to have a good competitive experience on only radical map concepts; a good map pool requires a healthy mix of innovation and stability. I encourage you to look back at Brood War to see just how many maps featuring "standard" design continued to be implemented even up to and after the release of StarCraft II. This map isn't meant to fill the role of an Arkanoid or Icarus. It's meant to provide a counter-balance to such unique maps -- and that's just as important. While I understand your disdain for how boring and stale the competitive map pools had been for a very long time (and therefore have a higher desire for radical concepts), I think Plexa put it best on the first page: + Show Spoiler +On October 16 2012 19:36 Plexa wrote:I like this map. I think you've done a really good job at creating a very playable map. I will try and get some games in on it over the next few days. Show nested quote +On October 16 2012 15:14 a176 wrote: i would have liked to see some bases scattered more inwards of the map rather than everything on the perimeter, to create a sense of increasing map control for the player. im assuming that youre assuming that people will expand past the rocks to get their fourth, but because the 2 bases after the nat are so close, theres really very little risk in taking all 4 bases in the corner. I disagree. This map isn't about interesting expansion dynamics, it's just about solid strong standard play. This is more like an Ohana rather than a Cloud Kingdom, if you catch my drift. Not every map needs to have interesting expansion layouts, and this is one case where it isn't necessary for good and interesting gameplay. With that said, if every map was safe and boring then the map scene would be very very stale but there is a place for well made 'boring' maps. I'm not saying there isn't a place for normal or standard maps, whatever those may be. But this is almost identical to whirlwind. Describing things with just words, the only real difference is that some thirds are not on high ground. People will be executing the exact same builds/techniques/tricks as on whirlwind, none more and none less. If you were to pull out a 'top tier' map list that a tourny would look at to fill out its map pool, Whirlwind would rank much 'higher' than Khalani Sanctuary. Whirlwind and this fill the same spot and people know whirlwind. Seems like a lot of time to spend on another whirlwind. Is that the same tile set too? Speaking details, there are a lot of differences between this map and Whirlwind that affect how it plays out, not the least of which is the rush distances. Getting to your opponent is much less time consuming on this map, which opens up much more possibility with early aggression and makes greedy economic builds far less safe. To give an extreme, relevant example, I ask you consider how comfortable you'd be doing an expansion-first build on Whirlwind vs. doing it on a map like Ohana.
The centre area of this map is also much more positional than Whirlwind by virtue of its design; Whirlwind is nothing more than a flat, open space, and you feel more vulnerable sitting out there than even on a similar centre map like Entombed Valley. There's no strategic gain for taking a position out there, short of watchtower control. This is why you see players either sit at home or push along the outer expansion lanes if spawn locations allow it. On Khalani Sanctuary, there are many advantageous positions in the centre to take control of thanks to a relatively unique terrain design.
Saying this map is practically identical to Whirlwind is, I feel, a dis-service to both mapmaking and the game in general. It's on par with how people accuse Bel'Shir Vestige as being a Daybreak clone turned 90 degrees. Sure Vestige has similar base placements relative to the map bounds (including matching a half-base in the same general spot as the original Daybreak, pre-LE), but all the minor differences add up to cause games to play out very differently. That's the nature of StarCraft; people will take advantage of anything the map has to offer in order to get a win, which means seeing different play styles is an inevitability for even subtle changes -- and the differences between Khalani Sanctuary and Whirlwind are certainly not subtle.
To conclude my point, I leave you with some Brood War examples of similar base layout-yet-different design, all of which were played in KeSPA-sanctioned tournaments.
+ Show Spoiler [Fighting Spirit] + + Show Spoiler [La Mancha] +
+ Show Spoiler [Grand Line] + + Show Spoiler [Circuit Breaker] +
+ Show Spoiler [Dante's Peak] + + Show Spoiler [Ultimatum] +
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EDIT: Siskos, exactly how do you manage to fail to comprehend something as simple as "PM me"? Hell, if you're that interested to discuss a topic that is tangential at best to this thread in an open-discussion environment, write a blog about it. I'd be more than happy to continue demonstrating there why nearly the entirety of the TL mapmaking community can't stand you. Now stop shitting up my map thread, please.
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By the way, for the record, I think this map is a better version of whirlwind and an excellent map in and of itself. It's just another map following this template:
- main base, containing 8m2g - single ramp leading down to a natural, containing 8m2g - single choke that can be walled with 2-3 forcefields leading to a common area - that leads to a third containing 8m2g.
Which I think is an overused formula that is also not needed, Icarus thusfar indicates that a widely varying topology can be balanced.
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On February 24 2013 06:14 SiskosGoatee wrote:By the way, for the record, I think this map is a better version of whirlwind and an excellent map in and of itself. It's just another map following this template: Show nested quote +- main base, containing 8m2g - single ramp leading down to a natural, containing 8m2g - single choke that can be walled with 2-3 forcefields leading to a common area - that leads to a third containing 8m2g. Which I think is an overused formula that is also not needed, Icarus thusfar indicates that a widely varying topology can be balanced. This is a post I'd be willing to respond to (and not because of the praise thrown into the first sentence), so I will.
The problem, Siskos, is that nobody in this thread is arguing that maps like Icarus are imbalanced or otherwise bad. Furthermore, just as there's always a place and a need for standard map design to provide a stable backbone to a map pool, there's also a place and a need for forward-thinking innovation to provide unique and non-standard play to a map pool. When I say your topic is tangential at best to the thread, this is what I'm talking about. This thread isn't for an open discussion on the vices and virtues of standard vs. non-standard mapmaking; it's to discuss Khalani Sanctuary.
Since you're really passionate about it, like I recommended before, you should start your own blog or discussion thread to move the topic further, instead of hijacking others' threads to serve the purpose.
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On February 24 2013 05:29 iamcaustic wrote:Show nested quote +On February 24 2013 02:44 Unsane wrote:On February 23 2013 18:05 iamcaustic wrote:On February 23 2013 17:28 Unsane wrote:+ Show Spoiler +I'm going to go ahead keep wondering how these layouts aren't boring yet. This map is just another on top of the heap of maps that only feature nodes around the perimeter of the map. This is almost different but nothing new is going to occur on this map that hasn't already on others similar to it. Id be rather disappointed if this map hit any tournament map pool, waste of a spot for a new map. Sure, this might do it a bit better than whirlwind but the concepts are still already old. Its supposed to be 'out with the old and in with the new', not 'out with the old and in with the same'. It's simply unrealistic to have a good competitive experience on only radical map concepts; a good map pool requires a healthy mix of innovation and stability. I encourage you to look back at Brood War to see just how many maps featuring "standard" design continued to be implemented even up to and after the release of StarCraft II. This map isn't meant to fill the role of an Arkanoid or Icarus. It's meant to provide a counter-balance to such unique maps -- and that's just as important. While I understand your disdain for how boring and stale the competitive map pools had been for a very long time (and therefore have a higher desire for radical concepts), I think Plexa put it best on the first page: + Show Spoiler +On October 16 2012 19:36 Plexa wrote:I like this map. I think you've done a really good job at creating a very playable map. I will try and get some games in on it over the next few days. Show nested quote +On October 16 2012 15:14 a176 wrote: i would have liked to see some bases scattered more inwards of the map rather than everything on the perimeter, to create a sense of increasing map control for the player. im assuming that youre assuming that people will expand past the rocks to get their fourth, but because the 2 bases after the nat are so close, theres really very little risk in taking all 4 bases in the corner. I disagree. This map isn't about interesting expansion dynamics, it's just about solid strong standard play. This is more like an Ohana rather than a Cloud Kingdom, if you catch my drift. Not every map needs to have interesting expansion layouts, and this is one case where it isn't necessary for good and interesting gameplay. With that said, if every map was safe and boring then the map scene would be very very stale but there is a place for well made 'boring' maps. I'm not saying there isn't a place for normal or standard maps, whatever those may be. But this is almost identical to whirlwind. Describing things with just words, the only real difference is that some thirds are not on high ground. People will be executing the exact same builds/techniques/tricks as on whirlwind, none more and none less. If you were to pull out a 'top tier' map list that a tourny would look at to fill out its map pool, Whirlwind would rank much 'higher' than Khalani Sanctuary. Whirlwind and this fill the same spot and people know whirlwind. Seems like a lot of time to spend on another whirlwind. Is that the same tile set too? Speaking details, there are a lot of differences between this map and Whirlwind that affect how it plays out, not the least of which is the rush distances. Getting to your opponent is much less time consuming on this map, which opens up much more possibility with early aggression and makes greedy economic builds far less safe. To give an extreme, relevant example, I ask you consider how comfortable you'd be doing an expansion-first build on Whirlwind vs. doing it on a map like Ohana. The centre area of this map is also much more positional than Whirlwind by virtue of its design; Whirlwind is nothing more than a flat, open space, and you feel more vulnerable sitting out there than even on a similar centre map like Entombed Valley. There's no strategic gain for taking a position out there, short of watchtower control. This is why you see players either sit at home or push along the outer expansion lanes if spawn locations allow it. On Khalani Sanctuary, there are many advantageous positions in the centre to take control of thanks to a relatively unique terrain design. Saying this map is practically identical to Whirlwind is, I feel, a dis-service to both mapmaking and the game in general. It's on par with how people accuse Bel'Shir Vestige as being a Daybreak clone turned 90 degrees. Sure Vestige has similar base placements relative to the map bounds (including matching a half-base in the same general spot as the original Daybreak, pre-LE), but all the minor differences add up to cause games to play out very differently. That's the nature of StarCraft; people will take advantage of anything the map has to offer in order to get a win, which means seeing different play styles is an inevitability for even subtle changes -- and the differences between Khalani Sanctuary and Whirlwind are certainly not subtle. + Show Spoiler +----------------- + Show Spoiler +EDIT: Siskos, exactly how do you manage to fail to comprehend something as simple as "PM me"? Hell, if you're that interested to discuss a topic that is tangential at best to this thread in an open-discussion environment, write a blog about it. I'd be more than happy to continue demonstrating there why nearly the entirety of the TL mapmaking community can't stand you. Now stop shitting up my map thread, please.
One map is a 4p and the other a 2p so this is a terrible example, regardless, approximately just as safe. Its just as easy to deny scouting information on both of those maps given the point in the game anyone would be fast expanding. Im also mostly talking about unit comps, you expand relative to your opponent in most cases so this isn't relevant. You would see robo play used to the same effectiveness on both maps. You'd see stargate play used to the same effectiveness on both maps. You'd see mutas or drops be just as effective, on both maps. Early aggression and distance is mostly a myth, it effects things like sub10 pools, just thinking the map is safer for FE'ing means early aggression is still viable. Each 'zone' of the map is worth just as much as on Whirlwind. Even the middle has the most typical boring XNT location. I also dont see what sort of fear being out in the middle of the map is. If you're out of position you're out of position, you only need a single unit to hold the XNT, you only need your whole army to hold it if his whole army is trying to take it.
On both this map and whirlwind you need to watch 1 'ling/hellion' run by path, 2 if you're cross spawned. If you also examine attack paths, the descriptions of both are identical. There may be some scaling percentage wise, but you will not see different games unfold. Your opponent can hold onto an aggressive position a bit easier with the high ground in the middle but I tend to lol at high ground advantage, air sight is easy to acquire in this game, the XNT and the chokes help you hold the middle more than the high ground contributes.
BS vestige and daybreak are different enough, but while there are not many changes, the changes are important, daybreak has a ZvT imbalance in favour of zerg 62-38. Relatively speaking this is one of the worst imbalances in tournament map pools. We'll have to let time tell us if its better than daybreak.
Nice manners btw
Saying this map is practically identical to Whirlwind is, I feel, a dis-service to both mapmaking and the game in general. Careful though, your monocle almost fell off when you turned your nose up...
+ Show Spoiler +On February 24 2013 06:14 SiskosGoatee wrote:By the way, for the record, I think this map is a better version of whirlwind and an excellent map in and of itself. It's just another map following this template: - main base, containing 8m2g - single ramp leading down to a natural, containing 8m2g - single choke that can be walled with 2-3 forcefields leading to a common area - that leads to a third containing 8m2g. Which I think is an overused formula that is also not needed, Icarus thusfar indicates that a widely varying topology can be balanced. Perhaps I've also forgotten to say i'd probably like this map more than whirlwind but its just a bit surprising that someone wouldn't look at this map in the editor and say to themselves "Jeez this looks a lot like whirlwind, maybe i should atleast admit I'm going for a whirlwind 2.0."
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On February 24 2013 06:41 iamcaustic wrote:Show nested quote +On February 24 2013 06:14 SiskosGoatee wrote:By the way, for the record, I think this map is a better version of whirlwind and an excellent map in and of itself. It's just another map following this template: - main base, containing 8m2g - single ramp leading down to a natural, containing 8m2g - single choke that can be walled with 2-3 forcefields leading to a common area - that leads to a third containing 8m2g. Which I think is an overused formula that is also not needed, Icarus thusfar indicates that a widely varying topology can be balanced. This is a post I'd be willing to respond to (and not because of the praise thrown into the first sentence), so I will. The problem, Siskos, is that nobody in this thread is arguing that maps like Icarus are imbalanced or otherwise bad. Furthermore, just as there's always a place and a need for standard map design to provide a stable backbone to a map pool, there's also a place and a need for forward-thinking innovation to provide unique and non-standard play to a map pool. When I say your topic is tangential at best to the thread, this is what I'm talking about. This thread isn't for an open discussion on the vices and virtues of standard vs. non-standard mapmaking; it's to discuss Khalani Sanctuary. But it partains to Khalani because Khalani is a standard map. The argument I and many have put forward is that this map, while being a solid map on itself does the same thing that has been done a thousand times before.
Which is how the argument started in the first place. When I see this map, it's a solid map, do I get all tingly to play on it like I had with Fortune Plango, Icarus, Abyssal City or Dual Site? not really because I don't feel it gives me a new experience, that's a black mark on this map that I'm outing here. I see no reason to play on this map and not on CK which is more easily accessible.
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On February 24 2013 07:01 Unsane wrote: One map is a 4p and the other a 2p so this is a terrible example, regardless, approximately just as safe. I was just making an example to demonstrate the impact rush distances provide on how people play a map, not to give an apple-to-apple comparison between Khalani Sanctuary vs. Whirlwind and Whirlwind vs. another map. If I was doing that, I'd agree it'd be a terrible example.
On February 24 2013 07:01 Unsane wrote: Its just as easy to deny scouting information on both of those maps given the point in the game anyone would be fast expanding. Im also mostly talking about unit comps, you expand relative to your opponent in most cases so this isn't relevant. You would see robo play used to the same effectiveness on both maps. You'd see stargate play used to the same effectiveness on both maps. You'd see mutas or drops be just as effective, on both maps. Early aggression and distance is mostly a myth, it effects things like sub10 pools, just thinking the map is safer for FE'ing means early aggression is still viable. Each 'zone' of the map is worth just as much as on Whirlwind. Even the middle has the most typical boring XNT location. I also dont see what sort of fear being out in the middle of the map is. If you're out of position you're out of position, you only need a single unit to hold the XNT, you only need your whole army to hold it if his whole army is trying to take it. Those are a lot of assertive statements. Just how many hours did you have to put into playing on both Whirlwind and Khalani Sanctuary to confirm all this? Frankly, I'm glad to see someone be so diligent on testing non-ladder maps to discover this sort of information; there aren't enough people out there willing to do so on their own time.
On February 24 2013 07:01 Unsane wrote: On both this map and whirlwind you need to watch 1 'ling/hellion' run by path, 2 if you're cross spawned. If you also examine attack paths, the descriptions of both are identical. There may be some scaling percentage wise, but you will not see different games unfold. Your opponent can hold onto an aggressive position a bit easier with the high ground in the middle but I tend to lol at high ground advantage, air sight is easy to acquire in this game, the XNT and the chokes help you hold the middle more than the high ground contributes. Wait, what do you mean, the "descriptions" of attack paths? You.. you did actually play the maps, right?
On February 24 2013 07:01 Unsane wrote: BS vestige and daybreak are different enough, but while there are not many changes, the changes are important, daybreak has a ZvT imbalance in favour of zerg 62-38. Relatively speaking this is one of the worst imbalances in tournament map pools. We'll have to let time tell us if its better than daybreak. This is exactly my point; even small changes can significantly impact how games play out on a map.
On February 24 2013 07:01 Unsane wrote:Nice manners btw Show nested quote +Saying this map is practically identical to Whirlwind is, I feel, a dis-service to both mapmaking and the game in general. Careful though, your monocle almost fell off when you turned your nose up... Dear me, let me fix my top hat while I'm at it, good chap. + Show Spoiler +
On February 24 2013 07:01 Unsane wrote: Perhaps I've also forgotten to say i'd probably like this map more than whirlwind but its just a bit surprising that someone wouldn't look at this map in the editor and say to themselves "Jeez this looks a lot like whirlwind, maybe i should atleast admit I'm going for a whirlwind 2.0." No, I'm not expecting praise from every single post. It's just that the arguments provided are questionable at best, and frankly when we take a look at even just the map overviews and ignore all the technical details:
+ Show Spoiler [Whirlwind] + + Show Spoiler [Khalani Sanctuary] +
There's really only three concrete similarities:
- General base locations relative to map bounds and consequential flow of taking a third base
- Watchtower in the centre
- Common mapmaking method of breaking up open spaces via small spots of lowered terrain
Saying this makes the maps basically identical is why I said it felt like a dis-service to both mapmaking and the game in general. Remember, this is ignoring technical details as well, such as map bounds, rush distances, rotational direction, LOS blocker usage, etc.
EDIT: And don't even get me started on high ground and the tension of air control it creates.
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On February 24 2013 07:03 SiskosGoatee wrote: But it partains to Khalani because Khalani is a standard map. Please take a moment to look up the word "tangential", Siskos. What you're doing is a textbook case of it. I'll ask you again: stop trying to hijack the thread.
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Well, Im happy to see you have a good sense of humour.
iamcaustic wrote: I was just making an example to demonstrate the impact rush distances provide on how people play a map, not to give an apple-to-apple comparison between Khalani Sanctuary vs. Whirlwind and Whirlwind vs. another map. If I was doing that, I'd agree it'd be a terrible example.
Fair enough.
iamcaustic wrote: Those are a lot of assertive statements. Just how many hours did you have to put into playing on both Whirlwind and Khalani Sanctuary to confirm all this? Frankly, I'm glad to see someone be so diligent on testing non-ladder maps to discover this sort of information; there aren't enough people out there willing to do so on their own time.
Between professional streams and personal experience I am quite familiar with Whirlwind, I can't say the same about your map, my practice partner is on vacation but honestly somewhere between strong theory crafting skills and rather detailed map information the same builds will be just as effective on both maps. I prefer to play mech, I've given everything a shot from every race and prefer mech. I even like the long drawn out games where you see 5th's and 6th's; where you see all parts of the map utilized. If there is one build that pays the closest attention to the map's layout its mech. That does not mean its the only comp that pays attention to the map's layout, they all do to some extent.
iamcaustic wrote: Wait, what do you mean, my "descriptions" of attack paths? You.. you did actually play the map, right?
No I have not. I also do not think you correctly interpreted what I meant. If you were to describe the attack paths of any spawns on both Whirlwind and this map you wouldn't be able to tell them apart. On X bases doing Y build, I have Z routes of attack, and he has (Z-1) routes of counterattack. He will have his army situated most likely at location A and it will take him B seconds to respond to my drop in his main while i frontal push location A. Drops have the same number of paths, etc.etc.
iamcaustic wrote: This is exactly my point; even small changes can significantly impact how games play out on a map.
I feel the changes are few yet significant. I do not feel there is the same difference between Khalani and Whirlwind.
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On February 24 2013 08:32 Unsane wrote: Between professional streams and personal experience I am quite familiar with Whirlwind, I can't say the same about your map, my practice partner is on vacation but honestly somewhere between strong theory crafting skills and rather detailed map information the same builds will be just as effective on both maps. I prefer to play mech, I've given everything a shot from every race and prefer mech. I even like the long drawn out games where you see 5th's and 6th's; where you see all parts of the map utilized. If there is one build that pays the closest attention to the map's layout its mech. That does not mean its the only comp that pays attention to the map's layout, they all do to some extent. I tend to do a mix of mech, bio-mech, and bio compositions myself. I feel it gives me greater clarity of the different needs and difficulties each style faces when it comes to maps. I've mostly resorted to bio-only comps against Protoss, though; I found heavily diminishing returns on marine/tank timings, 1-1-1, and Thor/banshee styles in TvP. I never had much success with straight-up hellion/tank against P to begin with. That said, I'm thinking of picking it up again in HotS, given all the mech changes.
Mech in particular helped inspire the centre map design on Khalani Sanctuary. Having air control really makes those high ground pods invaluable as a foothold along a push path. At the same time, I wanted there to be some dynamic with more mobile army compositions, hence the connection of the pods with the centre platform, making flank opportunities a viable threat with potential equal-ground vision. Vice versa is also true for a mech player holding the central platform and controlling the choke leading up to it.
On February 24 2013 08:32 Unsane wrote: No I have not. I also do not think you correctly interpreted what I meant. If you were to describe the attack paths of any spawns on both Whirlwind and this map you wouldn't be able to tell them apart. On X bases doing Y build, I have Z routes of attack, and he has (Z-1) routes of counterattack. He will have his army situated most likely at location A and it will take him B seconds to respond to my drop in his main while i frontal push location A. Drops have the same number of paths, etc.etc. Ah, I did misunderstand, but I feel that's a rather over-simplification of map layout. Simply stating a raw number of attack/counter-attack paths doesn't even begin to delve into the viability of each in certain spawns, the impact they have on positioning, rush distances, etc.
On February 24 2013 08:32 Unsane wrote: I feel the changes are few yet significant. I do not feel there is the same difference between Khalani and Whirlwind.
Fair enough, I can accept that this is your hypothesis. I would appreciate a bit of play testing/experience before asserting the map is nothing more than "Whirlwind 2.0" however. I can't imagine that's too much to ask. I make it a point to play test the hell out of my maps to make sure they have the kind of feel I'm looking for, and I have to say that I haven't encountered the same feeling as you have. I also always highly encourage others to try out the map themselves and provide feedback, because frankly it'd be silly to assume one person -- particularly with a huge bias, being the mapmaker and all -- can foresee everything in their own play experience. I just think it's common courtesy to play the map first before reaching conclusions.
Cheers.
EDIT: Okay, so I felt a desire to illustrate my point about the general design and flow of both Khalani Sanctuary vs. Whirlwind.
+ Show Spoiler [Layout flow of Khalani vs. Whirlwind] +
When you look at that, you'll see some significant differences. While Whirlwind's flow looks similar to a whirlwind (hence the naming of the map), Khalani Sanctuary looks like a complicated bulls-eye. Also to take into consideration is how Whirlwind's paths tend to be relatively universal in width, while Khalani features many dynamic chokes along its paths, creating more positionally-based play. Not to mention the sheer size difference of the central open areas -- Whirlwind's ends up being bigger on the equally-resized overviews, which doesn't take into consideration how that map is 160x160 compared to the 148x148 of Khalani Sanctuary, so the difference is even greater than it appears. This only touches on the kind of thought and detail that mapmakers put into their maps, which get over-simplified or outright overlooked when people only respond to a map overview and emphasize only the broad similarities.
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On February 24 2013 03:21 lorestarcraft wrote: Well, I just want to say that as I play this map more, the thing that strikes me is that I can play almost any style in any position, which really gives me the ability to play re-actively and pro-actively. This is the strength of a good, standard map. To have this feature in an all spawns 4 player map, is just great.
This map does what it wants to do!
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Khalani Sanctuary Version 1.3 has been released! The map has been updated to take advantage of Heart of the Swarm dependencies.
v1.3 Patch Notes
Terrain
- Increased width of natural ramps
- Updated cliffs and assets to use Heart of the Swarm aesthetics
General
- Updated map to use Heart of the Swarm dependencies
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