[M] (2) TPW Natural Selection (HotS)

On November 18 2012 10:00 chuky500 wrote:
Also I doubt people will expand to the center expansion before their 5th, so the expansion pattern will be a straight line of the whole map width.

On November 18 2012 12:31 SiskosGoatee wrote:
Theorycraft to me seems to indicate that this map is worse for Zerg than Steppes of War.

On November 19 2012 04:11 RFDaemoniac wrote:
You could also make part of the connection a mineral patch so that zerg can use a few drones to break a hole through it, ala Breaking Point style.

You could also make it close enough to the hatches in the natural and third so that the queens can pick away at it, but I'm not sure how long it takes two queens to kill rocks.

On November 19 2012 11:24 -NegativeZero- wrote:
Why not try out the collapsible rocks at the backdoor? Leave the path initially open so zergs can take the early 3rd, but it can be quickly blocked off for the other 2 races since the rocks only have 500 hp. You could move the ramp closer to the primary nat entrance so that a cannon built at the front for an FFE could kill off the collapsible rocks early.

In any case, a completely and permanently open backdoor is pretty terrible for T and especially P.

On November 18 2012 04:27 SiskosGoatee wrote:
- thirds are actually ridiculously closer together and they can be sieged from the lowground, Zerg is forced to either expand towards Terran or break those rocks because the way around to those rocks is extremely long. T can use their third as a staging point to siege Zerg's third from the lowground a stone's throw away. Same thing with a stalker/colossus push coming from the third, colossi can harass the third which is extremely close (...)

On November 20 2012 00:33 necrimanci wrote:


...so? maybe if zerg is battered in the early game and not allowed to expand safely/freely with no units at all so early in the game, they enter the lategame weaker and infestor/broodlord is easier to handle/actually balanced?

you dont know that, you're just following this community's opinion of 'what sucks in maps' that's based on beta/early stages gameplay, when players sucked balls and no one knew how to deal with certain types of aggression

we will never know unless some good players actually test this. and they cant test this if everyone is like 'hurr durr map imba mega suck'

unitless expands shouldnt exist in this game - they cause most of the imbalance and deathballs. and all maps we see follow into that type of play :S

On November 20 2012 01:06 chuky500 wrote:
Depleted minerals suck too because the attacker can just bring 2 or 3 workers, make a gas and mine the minerals then gas then minerals back and forth and kill the patches faster than rocks.

I agree that zerg being able to double expand before 4 minutes with no units in ZvP is pretty assymetrical and I doubt that it was planned when the game was made and balanced. It's silly to say zergs need 3 expansions to compete with a FFE, because with a FFE you don't have as many units as with a 1 gate expand because you delay everything. Zergs probably need a macro hatch for the production but we never see zergs put down a macro hatch nowadays unless the zerg is in really bad shape. Zergs just take a 3rd which tells it isn't that hard to expand as zerg. And I'm sorry but talking about a unitless expand being "easier" as Protoss is nonsense, in PvT you have bunker rushes which work 100% of times and in PvZ it's kind of doable if the zerg is being greedy but you take a risk, while tbh zergs don't take that much risks by double expanding against protoss.

In my opinon a general issue is a hard to take 3rd unfavors protoss more than zerg, because in PvZ even though the protoss kills the 3rd the zerg can stay for a very long time on 2 bases + macro hatch and keep making roaches and upgrades and win the game, but if a protoss does a regular push and goes back to his base then a hard 3rd is close to impossible to take for the protoss due to immobility. That's what we saw on Dual Sight and maps like that, hard to take 3rd unfavor protoss in PvZ not the other way around. But on this map you can wall the 3rd as protoss so even if it's far it's probably the same kind of difficulty as Taldarim altar so it's kind of ok I guess.

On November 20 2012 02:02 lefix wrote:
just fyi, since i haven't mentioned it before:
unless you have long range units, you will need to move up the ramps to attack the mineral line on the forward base. marines, roaches and stalkers cannot hit workers from the low ground. should make it a little more viable

i also agree with chucky that zergs doesn't neccesarily need a 3rd base, but a third hatchery for lava. the main reason why they usually build their third hatch at the third base is because they're so easy to take.

imho, maps shouldn't be 100% comfortable to play on for every race. there need to be some spots with vulnerabilities, but you shouldn't be prematurely calling a map unbalanced, broken or even "impossible to take a 3rd". i am personally growing very tired of it :D why do players have to be able to apply the exact same build on every map without having to adapt?

On November 20 2012 02:15 SiskosGoatee wrote:
Doesn't that only serve to further it for a good TvZ map? Zerg doesn't have long ranged units before hive.

On November 20 2012 02:38 lefix wrote:


Well, it turns it more into a defenders advantage. while marine/roach/stalkers cannot attack the third from the lowground, they certainly can defend it against siege tanks from the highground. i don't think comparisons to steppes of war or jungle basin are justified either, since there is a longer ground distance between these thirds than the naturals on steppes, and especially the thirds on jungle basin. i feel you are greatly underestimating the map size and proportions of this map.
+ Show Spoiler +

On November 20 2012 02:02 lefix wrote:
just fyi, since i haven't mentioned it before:
unless you have long range units, you will need to move up the ramps to attack the mineral line on the forward base. marines, roaches and stalkers cannot hit workers from the low ground. should make it a little more viable

i also agree with chucky that zergs doesn't neccesarily need a 3rd base, but a third hatchery for lava. the main reason why they usually build their third hatch at the third base is because they're so easy to take.

imho, maps shouldn't be 100% comfortable to play on for every race. there need to be some spots with vulnerabilities, but you shouldn't be prematurely calling a map unbalanced, broken or even "impossible to take a 3rd". i am personally growing very tired of it :D why do players have to be able to apply the exact same build on every map without having to adapt?