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My standpoint of the contest basically boils down to two points.
aesthetics:
I agree on that they make a map stand out, but in my opinion also some finalist maps are terrible in that regard. Don't get me wrong, it's not about the handicraft, it's more about stylistic choices. Let's take Electric Circuit for example. I know exactly how much work it is to make the textues like this. But in the end it's still very brown in brown with some grey overall, which makes it hard to instantly recognize what part of the map you're currently looking at - even though lefix very likely spent 10+ hours doing the textures on this one. Koprulu does much better in this regard imo, you see right away what's a high ground, what's a low ground and all colors work very well together.
It should also always be crystal clear where your units can move and where they cannot. For example when i first played Khalim's Will, i was sure my units could walk here. But they cannot, so doodads & change of texture should indicate that. To me, that's where aesthetics and layout go hand in hand.
My personal guideline can be summarized like this: your aesthetics should always support gameplay. Your lightning and color choices should be in a way that units stick out from the terrain, use textures in a way that they accentuate cliffs and high grounds make them more recognizeable. And rocks, textures, lightning, doodads should blend together really nicely. If it looks agitated, tone it down. If your aesthetics hinder gameplay, tone it down as well.
non-standard maps:
I feel this has been discussed to death. I think you just can't force it. If your map differs to radically, players will just veto it, no matter how cool your map's features are in theory (we'll never know how they turn out in practice without at least 1.000 games on it). That's why imo you have to bend well established concepts as far as possible without breaking them. Cloud Kingdom did a good job in that regard in terms of chokes. Details already matter so much in map making, so use them to create interesting concepts, so go for innovation in details. I know it's hard but it's the only way we can approach it without our maps getting discarded right away.
@SigmaFiE:
thanks for the writeup, i couldn't agree more.
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United States8476 Posts
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On June 25 2013 02:08 sCnDiamond wrote:My standpoint of the contest basically boils down to two points. aesthetics:I agree on that they make a map stand out, but in my opinion also some finalist maps are terrible in that regard. Don't get me wrong, it's not about the handicraft, it's more about stylistic choices. Let's take Electric Circuit for example. I know exactly how much work it is to make the textues like this. But in the end it's still very brown in brown with some grey overall, which makes it hard to instantly recognize what part of the map you're currently looking at - even though lefix very likely spent 10+ hours doing the textures on this one. Koprulu does much better in this regard imo, you see right away what's a high ground, what's a low ground and all colors work very well together. It should also always be crystal clear where your units can move and where they cannot. For example when i first played Khalim's Will, i was sure my units could walk here. But they cannot, so doodads & change of texture should indicate that. To me, that's where aesthetics and layout go hand in hand. My personal guideline can be summarized like this: your aesthetics should always support gameplay. Your lightning and color choices should be in a way that units stick out from the terrain, use textures in a way that they accentuate cliffs and high grounds make them more recognizeable. And rocks, textures, lightning, doodads should blend together really nicely. If it looks agitated, tone it down. If your aesthetics hinder gameplay, tone it down as well. non-standard maps:I feel this has been discussed to death. I think you just can't force it. If your map differs to radically, players will just veto it, no matter how cool your map's features are in theory (we'll never know how they turn out in practice without at least 1.000 games on it). That's why imo you have to bend well established concepts as far as possible without breaking them. Cloud Kingdom did a good job in that regard in terms of chokes. Details already matter so much in map making, so use them to create interesting concepts, so go for innovation in details. I know it's hard but it's the only way we can approach it without our maps getting discarded right away. @SigmaFiE: thanks for the writeup, i couldn't agree more.
+1000 these thoughts are exactly in line with my opinions.
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On June 25 2013 02:08 sCnDiamond wrote:
My standpoint of the contest basically boils down to two points.
non-standard maps:
I feel this has been discussed to death. I think you just can't force it. If your map differs to radically, players will just veto it, no matter how cool your map's features are in theory (we'll never know how they turn out in practice without at least 1.000 games on it). That's why imo you have to bend well established concepts as far as possible without breaking them. Cloud Kingdom did a good job in that regard in terms of chokes. Details already matter so much in map making, so use them to create interesting concepts, so go for innovation in details. I know it's hard but it's the only way we can approach it without our maps getting discarded right away.
No, you can't force it, and that you can't force it is our criticism, that the collective mentality works as such as that people are too lazy to try to deal with nonstandard features and instead just use their old strategies, conclude they don't work, and blame the map. These of course being the same people that complain about the staleness of the game.
Like I said before, ask yourself of any of the TLMC winners? Are you truly excited to see how they will play out? What advantage does Frost offer over any of of the other maps in the pool except not having been played yet? Nothing at all I can't bring myself to be excited about new maps if every single map is the same. You might as well just let a Bo9 be played on the same map 9 sets in a row. It doesn't really matter in any way whatsoever which map is used. Every strategy you can use on one map you can use on another.
At least in BW, almost every map pool had a micro map, macro map, in between map and weird map. The map pool circulation currently is practically filled with reskins. There's zero variety, you can use every strat on every single map. I've raced switched from R to T for a while and I am literally going MMM every TvZ, MMM+mines every TvT and MMM+ghost+viking every TvP, why? Because the maps allow me for it. I also pretty much only have 2 openers vs every race depending on how good reapers are because the maps allow me. It's extremely boring. If one of the many maps maybe had a more open natural I'd try some funky hellion openers on it, but every single map has a natural that is almost completely closed off and hellions have no chance of getting in.
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On June 29 2013 15:15 SiskosGoatee wrote:Show nested quote +On June 25 2013 02:08 sCnDiamond wrote:
My standpoint of the contest basically boils down to two points.
non-standard maps:
I feel this has been discussed to death. I think you just can't force it. If your map differs to radically, players will just veto it, no matter how cool your map's features are in theory (we'll never know how they turn out in practice without at least 1.000 games on it). That's why imo you have to bend well established concepts as far as possible without breaking them. Cloud Kingdom did a good job in that regard in terms of chokes. Details already matter so much in map making, so use them to create interesting concepts, so go for innovation in details. I know it's hard but it's the only way we can approach it without our maps getting discarded right away.
No, you can't force it, and that you can't force it is our criticism, that the collective mentality works as such as that people are too lazy to try to deal with nonstandard features and instead just use their old strategies, conclude they don't work, and blame the map. These of course being the same people that complain about the staleness of the game.
This part.
There is of course very legitimate concern about balance but you have to leave that aside while you experiment, to give time for counter strategies to arise and handle the obvious first-pass abusive strategies that are provided for by the map. This sort of alternate metagame evolution is not provided for by the current competition timeline.
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On June 29 2013 15:49 EatThePath wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2013 15:15 SiskosGoatee wrote:On June 25 2013 02:08 sCnDiamond wrote:
My standpoint of the contest basically boils down to two points.
non-standard maps:
I feel this has been discussed to death. I think you just can't force it. If your map differs to radically, players will just veto it, no matter how cool your map's features are in theory (we'll never know how they turn out in practice without at least 1.000 games on it). That's why imo you have to bend well established concepts as far as possible without breaking them. Cloud Kingdom did a good job in that regard in terms of chokes. Details already matter so much in map making, so use them to create interesting concepts, so go for innovation in details. I know it's hard but it's the only way we can approach it without our maps getting discarded right away.
No, you can't force it, and that you can't force it is our criticism, that the collective mentality works as such as that people are too lazy to try to deal with nonstandard features and instead just use their old strategies, conclude they don't work, and blame the map. These of course being the same people that complain about the staleness of the game. This part. There is of course very legitimate concern about balance but you have to leave that aside while you experiment, to give time for counter strategies to arise and handle the obvious first-pass abusive strategies that are provided for by the map. This sort of alternate metagame evolution is not provided for by the current competition timeline. Yap, and atop of that, standard is no guarantee for balance whatsoever. There are some seriously imbalanced standard maps which were in the circulation for quite a while.
I also feel vetos need to be seriously considered more. I'd not mined in a Bo7 if there were 11 maps and each player got 2 vetos to take out any maps which that player really doesn't like or are seriously imbalanced.
Right now, maps need to be balanced for 6 matchups, that's quite a lot. Proleague in its format doesn't really care for this. Say you have a map which gives us excellent, TvP, TvZ, PvP, ZvZ and TvT but is just imbalanced in ZvP. Fine, every Zerg player will just veto it in that matchup and move on.
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On June 29 2013 02:05 monk wrote:
What is there to update?
Well.. at the top of my head:
Has your opinion on tlmc evolved since the beginning? Going through half of the process of tlmc2 must have brought epiphanies galore .. no ?
How do you feel about the response of the tl mapmakers? Has it made your opinions evolve?
How many of the preselected maps do you think tl will showcase to blizzard (this would be "your opinion at this point in time", nothing more) ?
Did the "change" (between "more" or "less" conservative maps being picked (all blizzard's doing)) make any difference in tl "discussions" with blizzard or within tlmc organization?
Did you like my map?
What lasting thoughts keep bugging you about this whole wonderful deal (presenting "community" maps to blizzard) ?
Does the "limited" investment of tl members (in tlmc threads) dissapoint you at all?
How huge do you think the end vote will get (within tl, with blizzard representatives and on the ladder at large) ?
Since you did decide to put yourself in the limelight .. and are still "cracking on it" .. are you still happy you did?
Was i tiresome/helpful?
In any case, glhf
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I also think it's safe to say that at this point TLMC2 is not yet the success TLMC1 was. CK and Ohana got pretty much infused into tournament life. Frost was at MLG I hear but apparently every player vetoed it or something.
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On July 09 2013 02:07 SiskosGoatee wrote:
I also think it's safe to say that at this point TLMC2 is not yet the success TLMC1 was. CK and Ohana got pretty much infused into tournament life. Frost was at MLG I hear but apparently every player vetoed it or something.
I think we're all waiting for ladder next season. If any TLMC maps make it in the pool then they'll become popular.
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United States8476 Posts
On July 09 2013 01:41 jon osterman wrote:Well.. at the top of my head: Has your opinion on tlmc evolved since the beginning? Going through half of the process of tlmc2 must have brought epiphanies galore .. no ?
I wasn't involved in TLMC1. All my "epiphanies" were in the OP of this post and subsequent responses.
How do you feel about the response of the tl mapmakers? Has it made your opinions evolve?
Many mapmakers are very weird. Also, many are very opinionated.
How many of the preselected maps do you think tl will showcase to blizzard (this would be "your opinion at this point in time", nothing more) ?
Blizzard will look at the results and decide on their own which maps they like.
Did the "change" (between "more" or "less" conservative maps being picked (all blizzard's doing)) make any difference in tl "discussions" with blizzard or within tlmc organization?
Don't understand this question.
Did you like my map?
I have no idea who made what map except for the winners and people who directly messaged me for advance.
What lasting thoughts keep bugging you about this whole wonderful deal (presenting "community" maps to blizzard) ?
My main lessons from this ordeal are about mapmakers rather than maps.
Does the "limited" investment of tl members (in tlmc threads) dissapoint you at all?
A bit, but you get used to it after working on many TL projects.
How huge do you think the end vote will get (within tl, with blizzard representatives and on the ladder at large) ?
Don't understand this question either.
Since you did decide to put yourself in the limelight .. and are still "cracking on it" .. are you still happy you did?
Don't understand what you mean by cracking on it.
Was i tiresome/helpful?
Not especially/sure
On July 09 2013 02:07 SiskosGoatee wrote:
I also think it's safe to say that at this point TLMC2 is not yet the success TLMC1 was. CK and Ohana got pretty much infused into tournament life. Frost was at MLG I hear but apparently every player vetoed it or something.
Just wait for next ladder season. It was just unfortunate that the end of the contest and the end of the ladder seasons didn't line up.
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On July 09 2013 02:07 SiskosGoatee wrote:
I also think it's safe to say that at this point TLMC2 is not yet the success TLMC1 was. CK and Ohana got pretty much infused into tournament life. Frost was at MLG I hear but apparently every player vetoed it or something.
Fairly ironically, I think you could argue that even though CK and Ohana are considered "boring" these days, they were more different than the current maps at the time they were first introduced, compared to the TLMC2 winner and the current maps being played right now. Frost is a solid map so no real jab there, I just think it's funny it turned out that way given the spirit of the contest this time around (looking for "different" maps and such).
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Well, CK and Daybreak were so good at the time that every map after it cloned it.
I said it before, but I still think that both CK and Daybreak are better maps than anything having come out of TLMC 2. Sure they're completely played to death at this point but I don't see Frost quite becoming the golden standard that CK was which arguably by popular opinion is the best map ever made.
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Thank you monk for the nice insight into the inner workings of TLMC 
My thoughts on more non-standard maps:
I really like non-standard maps, that play out nice. But to be able to say whether a map is still balanced, if it plays out very differently than the current meta game, more testing is required than it is realistic to provide.
So I guess we are left with two ways to go:
1) Very small steps. And I think TLMC does a good job of this!
2) More freaky maps in Teamleagues, where the teams can have one player practice a certain map or send out the race that proves most powerful on a certain map. Sadly only Proleague only really goes all out with this.
My thoughts on aesthetics and imbalances:
I don't like that aesthetics are part of the jugging progress at all, as they could easily be fixed up later. (I would gladly hand over my map to any more professional map maker to touch up, and just have a "based on a concept of corak" remain.)
But I see that it is completely unrealistic not to judge aesthetics and understand the point of using them to judge the general experience of a map maker.
A map with a gross imbalance, like electric circuit, should not make it far. A fix to such big issues results in a different and new map. But again in reality it does not work like that. I would have dismissed Neo Planet S at first sight. And by now I like the map. And just one paragraph ago I said I was in favor of innovating.
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I don't quite know about you jon osterman, sir 
Thanks monk, pretty enlightening. Though not all of us are that opinionated 
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On July 10 2013 01:54 eTcetRa wrote:Though not all of us are that opinionated 'Tis a pity.
![[image loading]](http://www.behindthevoiceactors.com/_img/chars/char_31654.jpg)
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I think that aesthetics are the shallowest, poorest criteria to judge a map on.
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aesthetics are a first impression for a map. They are incredibly important to viewers and therefore discounting a map with poor aesthetics is entirely reasonable.
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EPT
nice wording
