TeamLiquid Map Contest Finalists

On May 21 2013 20:00 Nightmarjoo wrote:
Electric circuit is pretty good; I like how he makes an ostensibly "easy" expo layout relatively dynamic-- the 3rd and 4th are only superficially near, and paths leading to the nat and 3rd are distinctly different, and positioning of the expos makes each one uniquely vulnerable to different forms and from different directions of harassment. So a combination of simple and familiar elements has created a map which should play out differently than any other.

The pathing seems good and varied, but I'm concerned that the paths may be too tight. I think the middle is needlessly choked, and that the tower is detrimental to gameplay by giving the player who already has enough map control to hold the tower too much additional map control. I don't like devices which strongly favour the player who already holds the advantage. Especially with the middle being so choked-- the middle is basically inaccessible to the player who doesn't hold the tower, since he can't possibly get a positional advantage. I may be exagerating how impactful this will actually be in most games, but I just see that as compared to the options of either not choking the mid or not having the tower or both (if I had to pick one of those options and not both I would favour removing the tower), this is inferior.

Additionally, and especially in conjunction with the tightness of and with the presence of the tower in the middle, I think the side paths that run through the 4th bases might be a little tight too. They might be fine though; I can't tell from the picture alone.



I would have preferred Frost to be rotationally symmetrical (I think this layout could be done that way); this symmetry really limits the pathing. I think the author could've done more with highground-lowground variance. I look at plateau leading out of the nat that dips into a valley which contains the 3rd directly up into another plateau, and I like that a lot. I would have liked for the layout to have more of that; e.g. something similar off the other ramp from the nat. I think it would have made for a much more interesting middle, without compromising the expo layout, which was done well I think.

I don't see that the towers help gameplay at all; the pathing is already linear, why do players need help watching those paths? Strikes me as being sc2-mapping syndrome, where towers (rocks, not so much here at least) and other "features" are just arbitrarily added to the maps without any consideration for their effect on gameplay. I'm not saying these towers necessarily hurts gameplay, I just find them to be utterly uninteresting and not beneficial. If they aren't helping gameplay, why add them? Maps should be centered around an idea, a concept, not an assortment of features.

The map is of course not bad (assuming the mains have enough building space, which is my only real concern) however. Certainly this is one of the better x + y symmetrical maps; I just abhor this kind of symmetry because of what it does to the pathing.



I don't like Insidious. I think most of the rocks and the tower definitely hurt gameplay, and that the map just isn't very interesting. The expos are just way too easy for the kind of distances and pathing present. I don't see that the expos convey any strategic or positional value, which prevents some of the neat pathing intricacies from actually being relevant. It's just "oh hey, an expo; oh hey, another expo; oh cool, just what I wanted: yet another expo". I see the map as being a messy version of Chupung-Ryeung. I dunno if the nat is sufficiently secure-- looks vulnerable to some all-ins, like some 2base nydus play or something, which doesn't seem to reflect the gameplay the rest of the map drives. If I were to edit the map, I think I would remove the 5ths, move the main/nat/3rd/4th around to fill the new space in a way that makes the 3rd and 4th more different from each other (positionally and/or strategically), and remove all the rocks and the tower, redesigning the nats so they don't need the "backdoor" rock.



Keru is great. I don't care for the weird hots rocks at 12/6, but whatever. I love the pathing, and think that the expo layout, count, distances, vulnerabilities, the map's size, and the position/rammifications of the middle rocks all sync up, complementing each other perfectly to create exactly one concept/kind of gameplay. The map's features are all consistent in this regard, creating a a distinct gameplay experience. Everything is concise, without any conflicting/contradicting elements which can confuse things and lead to messy gameplay. My one concern is that there may be too much space allocated to the area between the 3rd, 4th, and 5th bases. Despite this location between between and connected to via the pathing all three of those expos, I just don't see it being frequently occupied by two armies, the only thing which could warrant that much space despite there not actually being an expo (at that particular spot). I'm not however aware of any simple way to redistribute some of that space, and it's almost certainly not worth that much trouble even if I am right (and I may not be). By the way, are the nat cliffs pathable?



Khalim's will is absolutely bizarre, and I love it for that. I don't mind the towers here (though removing them probably wouldn't be detrimental anyway!). Assuming the lowground nat's cliffs are pathable, I like the dynamic between that and the backdoor to the highground nat which forces players to decide which to actually take first. I like how there's some expo ambiguity additionally: players could can to expo in the direction of both "nats", depending on a myriad of choices/conditions. I kind of wish the 4th nearer to the lowground nat was a little closer to it, reinforcing the idea of expo ambiguity, but perhaps I'm misreading the author's intentions here. If I understand how gameplay will work here correctly, then I further like how the significance of each path can vary between games/points in time. I like the pathing in general.

My concern with the map is with the pathing through the highground nat. I dislike how the expansion blocks the army pathing, which would be necessary for defending the expos in that direction. It's just needlessly messy. I don't see why the mineral formation isn't just made into a single line (instead of two lines) at the map edge, with the ramps flipped to allow pathing through the expo nearer to the belly of the map, and with the anti-tanking clutter being removed to facilitate this change (and it no longer being necessary with the expo hugging the map-edge instead of being half-edge half-belly facing). That would fix the pathing problem and make better use out of the space at the same time. Additionally I'm concerned with the pathing from the main production facilities towards that direction. This may be a nonissue, I can't tell, but if it is a problem it's also easily fixed: by removing the map-edge decoration which prevents the main mineral formations from being aligned with the lowground nat mineral formations, which would make the main building space easier to make use of.



Koprulu is pretty good, but I think the middle is weak. Firstly, I think the backdoor/side expos are great and have a lot of potential for interesting gameplay. That being said, I'm not sure the rest of the map fits that aspect/those features. The very center is pointlessly choked. There's no reason for there to be any more space past those chokes than in through the chokes themselves, since your army isn't going to just expand after it passes through the choke, since in being bottlenecked it'll be in some relatively rigid formation at some set speed from choke to choke. Also it's not like a significant battle will ever occur there, because there's nothing to fight over. It's dead-end real-estate: no expo, and it's not an essential path to secure/use. By comparison, the areas outside the nats are positively vacuous. Rather than being a balance of tight and open, it just strikes me as being unpolished/not-well-thought-out. The pathing through the lowground expos is a bit awkward as well: I don't like the angle of the unblocked ramp that runs from the area outside the nat through the lowground expos, it seems a bit sharp/choked-by-the-expo. The rocks make no sense to me at all. I'm not even sure the map needs those expos (I'm leaning towards suggesting to remove them). In addition to making the key feature of the map more impactful/significant on/to gameplay, removing them would enable the mid to be completely redone, as they're the root of its current awkwardness. That way the mid could be made useful/interesting, instead of the garbled mess it is currently. I however don't currently have any ideas on how to best replace/change the mid. I'm not sure what the layout/concept need from the middle.

At anyrate, while I dislike the map's middle currently, it doesn't hold the map back from being good and interesting. I think the middle ought to be changed/redone so that the map can be as good as possible, but the map is probably fine to play on in its current condition. The gameplay is likely to be a bit messy/scrappy given the layout/concept anyway, with a messy middle or not.



Ravage is entirely uninteresting. I have absolutely nothing good to say about it. I have no idea what the judges see in it. The pathing is extremely linear, the distances are unwieldy, and the expos have no real positional/strategic value (I mentioned this in an earlier map-- it matters in two-player maps). The concept of having somewhat side-oriented gameplay/layout which later changes into a center-focused king-of-the-hill of sorts is not a bad idea, but I just don't think it was executed well. The 4ths and 5ths are obnoxiously far from each other and are fairly indefensible. This matters a great deal for the player who doesn't control mid (e.g. the tower), and can't secure his highground expo as a 5th instead. Throw in the complex of having to deal additionally with relatively short reinforcement distances once the rocks are gone, and it just becomes a nightmare to try to defend anything.

The reason why this is a problem rather than just being something that players will adapt their tactics/builds to is that the builds and tactics best suited for those kind of conditions are entirely unsuited for the map during the time period when those builds are most effective. To restate: the problems with gameplay that I foresee lie in the distance between expos and from the main to various hot-points on the map in conjunction with the indefensibility of the expos (the distances are part of that, but it's mostly the openness that creates that problem). And I feel that the nat2nat distance once the rocks are down in the lategame (it likely won't be a problem as soon as you can break the rocks, only later when economies support certain reinforcement) exacerbates these problems. The distance between paths accentuates its linearity additionally. I just view the map's gameplay as being a mess of accidental and desperation base races with no hope for stability. While this gameplay is different than the norm-- difference which might normally be good for making a map stand out among all the other maps, I just think there isn't enough strategic variety supported by the layout and the concept's execution, and that the layout and the map's features don't fully support the concept (if I'm identifying it correctly).



I dunno what to make of Strangewood mire. It's a weird blend of rotational and x/y symmetry aspects. I think the pathing is too linear, the rocks are messy, and don't like the distance between the nat and the far 3rd for horizontal positions. I don't like how the race/player(build dependent) with the midgame advantage who can take the close 3rd in horizontal positions, simultaneously making it hard for his opponent to expo and giving him an easy 4th. I think it just compounds the advantaged player's advantage needlessly (to the detriment of gameplay). Harass potential seems to be a little lacking in general as well, if I understand the map correctly (I could be wrong in that regard, but the pathing seems a bit linear). I don't really have any more to say about it. Maybe I just don't get this map, but at anyrate I don't think I like it. Also, the tower is unnecessary.



I'm also not a fan of Yeonsu. I don't see what the map has going for it relative to any other map. I don't see any succinct or distinct concept. I don't see that gameplay is different here than on any other map. The pathing seems uninteresting. The rocks and towers seem poorly used. The islands aren't especially or cleverly useful to the expo layout, concept, or gameplay. The mains might not have enough building space, not sure.



I don't like Drifas Throne-- it's big and boring. It's like a more linear team-version of Ravage. Now don't get me wrong, I don't inherently hate large maps-- in fact my favourite maps are Rockdarim and Whirlwind. I just see a lot of space and not a whole lot conceptually going on.



Emrel Coast is interesting, but I'm concerned the map's size combined with its intense bilinearity could backfire and make too turtley of a map. I think it would be improved by either making the pathing less linear or by making the map less tall. I'm inclined to like it even as it is though.



I don't like Mystic because I don't like its symmetry (or anything else about the map besides the boringly-executed-concept itself, but that's what stands out to me).



Sandlands is pretty straight-up, so I don't have a whole lot to say about it. It's not bad, and straight-up, not-bad maps are exactly what the ladder pool could use right now. I think the tower should be removed though, because the paths are so tight.



I like the nat arrangement of Mooniacs. I don't like the even-pathing, but maybe it's not so bad in a 3v3. I think the map's features are consistent to its concept, so it's probably okay in spite of its overall tightness.



Believe it or not, but Blizzard's fewer-than-one-nat-and/or-third-per-player bullshit is actually utterly unenjoyable to play with. I like Rimfrost's layout, but not that aspect of its expo layout.



Breeze is great. Its layout and features are all consistent with its concept. The layout is neat in general. That the map is so poor in resources is well-offset by the pathing and relative tightness I think, just as Hunters was.



Retribution hurts my eyes; I dunno what's going on in it. But the judge's description says it's standard and has 1 nat and 3rd per player, so it sounds perfectly acceptable. Maybe give it a paint-job?



So my top3 for 1v1 and team respectively are in descending order: Keru, Khalim's Will, Electric Circuit; and Breeze, Emrel Coast, Sandlands.