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Mods - I'm not sure what the policy is for posting maps made by others, note sure to use [M] or [D] tags?
Alterzim Stronghold was released by Blizzard recently as a new balance test map.
"Alterzim Stronghold (we’re pronouncing it ‘ahl-ter-zeem’) is a four-player map, designed with the specific goal in mind that all combinations of 1v1 spawn locations are viable and don’t offer an advantage to any one player. Please make sure to test this component of the map and let us know what you think. We also worked with our eSports partners to incorporate their knowledge and feedback into the creation of this map. However, we need to be extra sure that it’s tournament viable, because we’d really love to have this sort of macro map in the WCS pool next year. Therefore, we’ll be looking to make necessary tweaks not only before the release of the map, but potentially throughout the remainder of this year as we prepare for the WCS in 2014." - battle.net
So I downloaded it from Battle.net and ran it through the analyser. Here are some pics of the results.
Playable 192x192.
Main-to-main pathing is 216 units (cross) or 173 units (close).
Angled + Show Spoiler +
Overview + Show Spoiler +
Analyser + Show Spoiler +
Size comparison with other maps + Show Spoiler +
Photon Overcharge + Show Spoiler +
Bases + Show Spoiler +
Pathing Close nat-nat + Show Spoiler +
Pathing Cross nat-nat + Show Spoiler +
Pathing Close main-main + Show Spoiler +
Pathing Cross main-main + Show Spoiler +
Blink Range + Show Spoiler +
Siege Range + Show Spoiler +
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nr20 much? Based on their recent map releases it seems like Blizzard has no clue that variations in strategy make for an interesting game and assumes that everyone wants macro macro macro 200 food deathballs omg so many explosions.
At least a map this damn enormous might avoid the whole snowballing victory problem, since if you lose a fight on their side of the map you can pretty much build an entire new 200 food army by the time they get to your base lol.
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On October 24 2013 15:12 -NegativeZero- wrote: nr20 much? Based on their recent map releases it seems like Blizzard has no clue that variations in strategy make for an interesting game and assumes that everyone wants macro macro macro 200 food deathballs omg so many explosions.
At least a map this damn enormous might avoid the whole snowballing victory problem, since if you lose a fight on their side of the map you can pretty much build an entire new 200 food army by the time they get to your base lol. right? like, in the hands of koreans this could be fun to watch as long as you don't mind a 10 minute loading phase.
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United Kingdom12022 Posts
On October 24 2013 15:12 -NegativeZero- wrote: nr20 much? Based on their recent map releases it seems like Blizzard has no clue that variations in strategy make for an interesting game and assumes that everyone wants macro macro macro 200 food deathballs omg so many explosions.
At least a map this damn enormous might avoid the whole snowballing victory problem, since if you lose a fight on their side of the map you can pretty much build an entire new 200 food army by the time they get to your base lol.
Actually if anything this promotes more interesting games.
It means you can actually have a game where you don't insta lose to a base race purely because they got to your bases quicker than you got to theirs and there's no point turning around since they'll be able to kill all your bases by the time you get back.
It also means styles like mech are better purely because the enemy once again can't just insta counter attack you and there's nothing you can do about it since you have no mobility. It means even if you lose a bunch of units too you can actually rebuild and claw what little defenders advantage you can get to defend your production rather than just insta lose.
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Eh, I don't know about this map. I'm excited to have another map with an in-base natural, but 192x192 is absolutely huge. This beast is larger than Tal'Darim Altar was back when it was in the map pool.
I do think it's important to have a large macro map in the pool though, so let's see how it does.
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As a player who likes to all in: fuck. But in all seriousness this looks very interesting, we have never seen such a huge map that has so easy bases, I wonder how it will turn out. I predict lower level games might suck, many silver players will have 2 hour long games here, but pro games should be pretty good.
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Well at least its not as bad as condemned ridge...
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Russian Federation40190 Posts
On October 24 2013 20:03 moskonia wrote: As a player who likes to all in: fuck. But in all seriousness this looks very interesting, we have never seen such a huge map that has so easy bases, I wonder how it will turn out. I predict lower level games might suck, many silver players will have 2 hour long games here, but pro games should be pretty good. It's not like warp gates cares about rush distance.
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In my opinion easy to take bases and large map will promote very greedy plays, so there will be still potential to allin/presure and it will turn out not to be a very campy map. Because of that we could see a lot of new builds. I can see potential to mech with "close spots" on this map, not very much with cross spots becuse the middle is so open, therefore it wil promote very mobile army composition for example: mutaling bane, zelot archon, bio mine. The distances in cross spots could weaken the death ball just becuse it takes so long to get to the other side of the map, and you could just counter attack very easily.
Those are my thoughts
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Russian Federation40190 Posts
On October 24 2013 19:43 Antares777 wrote: I do think it's important to have a large macro map in the pool though, so let's see how it does. We have 2 already actually though /s
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if this will be cross only it'll be intereseting I'd like to test greedy builds as protoss, but if it's all spawns fuck it srsly.
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On October 24 2013 23:23 Extenz wrote: if this will be cross only it'll be intereseting I'd like to test greedy builds as protoss, but if it's all spawns fuck it srsly. Why fuck it? in close spawns or not you still have easy 3 bases. I would open phoenixes first though since mutas would be imba as shit on this map. Anyways after inspecting it a bit you can see that on close spawns you got an easy choked passage to the enemy which means immortal sentry all in would be pretty good here.
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On October 24 2013 23:23 Extenz wrote: if this will be cross only it'll be intereseting I'd like to test greedy builds as protoss, but if it's all spawns fuck it srsly.
They've stated it's all spawns. I've love to see this map overlaid to scale with a current average sized ladder map to show ppl the true massiveness of it. I don't think most people (in the regular announcement thread) realize it.
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Russian Federation40190 Posts
On October 24 2013 23:23 Extenz wrote: if this will be cross only it'll be intereseting I'd like to test greedy builds as protoss, but if it's all spawns fuck it srsly. Why fuck it? This map will play out as same expand-fest on any spawn. It is THAT large. Also, mind you, it is already published, just not on ladder. Yet. EDIT: TIL that Taldarim was 176x176 against 192x192 here. Ehem, 16 difference on each side. Not that much, is it?
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i wonder which "esport" partner told them to make such a giant map to fit 20 bases. and with a full inbase expo.
literally the safest 4 base expo ive ever seen in a map.
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wow, this map looks really awful. I thought we would go away from this bullshit and back to interesting stuff like Yeonsu and Frost where you can't just take a free 3rd base but instead have to first of all correctly choose which base to take and then have to be in a game position where you can actually take it. Like having an army advantage or having harassing options so your opponent can't just push out. Instead we get this: free 3 bases, easy 4th and 5th. And they didn't design the middle of the map at all. There's just nothing there. No cliffs, ramps, watch towers, rocks, just nothing. No reason to ever walk out and take map control. No possibilities of ever having an interesting positional battle anywhere.
I just don't get it. Why would you design a map like this? Blizzard map developers have to be really lazy.
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On October 24 2013 17:44 Semmo wrote: Turtlefest4ever
It is very turtly, however the air distance between third mineral line and inbase natural mineral line is extremely short, in stark contrast to the ground distance, so it definitely better for harrass than akilon.
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Russian Federation40190 Posts
On October 25 2013 00:11 JustPassingBy wrote:It is very turtly, however the air distance between third mineral line and inbase natural mineral line is extremely short, in stark contrast to the ground distance, so it definitely better for harrass than akilon. This map is like the best muta map ever actually. Muta turtle FTW.
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btw, I think this map will be very strong for Protoss against Zerg in the midgame, since there is no speedling allin possible to punish stupidly greedy gateway expands. And gateway expands with 3Nexus of 1gate should be incredibly safe. So you should easily get up a brutal 2 or 3base timing. Should be interesting.
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Big map is... big. I don't like it, not even a little.
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On October 25 2013 01:03 eTcetRa wrote: Big map is... big. I don't like it, not even a little.
I see what you did there!
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I think, along with every other 4 player map, it'd be better if it was cross spawn only. I have yet to play on it, but Akilon Wastes looks like a much easier 4 base. However the map is huge...takes a reaper a whole minute to cross the map, and its 7-8 minutes before your first overlord can get a peek, depending on how risky you're feeling.
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So many gimicky weird stuff on this map ... How come blizzard can't make a normal map with some interesting/new/cool features instead of making a pile of shit and then saying that it's cool and new ?
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I have never liked the idea of "free" naturals. Also, more maps should have unramped naturals.
Disregarding balance, I miss Metalopolis. Need more open naturals ><
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On October 25 2013 03:28 Unsane wrote: I think, along with every other 4 player map, it'd be better if it was cross spawn only. I have yet to play on it, but Akilon Wastes looks like a much easier 4 base. However the map is huge...takes a reaper a whole minute to cross the map, and its 7-8 minutes before your first overlord can get a peek, depending on how risky you're feeling.
If you're going to force cross spawn you might as well just make a 2 player map in the first place. They mentioned that this map is supposed to be balanced in close positions which is kinda the whole point of it. Although it's not going to be because one player gets a highground 4th and another gets a lowground.
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United Kingdom12022 Posts
On October 25 2013 03:43 TheFish7 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2013 03:28 Unsane wrote: I think, along with every other 4 player map, it'd be better if it was cross spawn only. I have yet to play on it, but Akilon Wastes looks like a much easier 4 base. However the map is huge...takes a reaper a whole minute to cross the map, and its 7-8 minutes before your first overlord can get a peek, depending on how risky you're feeling. If you're going to force cross spawn you might as well just make a 2 player map in the first place. They mentioned that this map is supposed to be balanced in close positions which is kinda the whole point of it. Although it's not going to be because one player gets a highground 4th and another gets a lowground.
Which makes zero difference in this game. That is far from anything that causes a balance issue.
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On October 25 2013 03:50 Qikz wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2013 03:43 TheFish7 wrote:On October 25 2013 03:28 Unsane wrote: I think, along with every other 4 player map, it'd be better if it was cross spawn only. I have yet to play on it, but Akilon Wastes looks like a much easier 4 base. However the map is huge...takes a reaper a whole minute to cross the map, and its 7-8 minutes before your first overlord can get a peek, depending on how risky you're feeling. If you're going to force cross spawn you might as well just make a 2 player map in the first place. They mentioned that this map is supposed to be balanced in close positions which is kinda the whole point of it. Although it's not going to be because one player gets a highground 4th and another gets a lowground. Which makes zero difference in this game. That is far from anything that causes a balance issue.
One natural is more easily droppable than the other as well. The point is that it's not "perfect" balance, there is always going to be some positional imbalance and there are plenty of other maps out there that have minimized positional imbalance a lot better than this one.
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Russian Federation40190 Posts
On October 25 2013 03:28 Unsane wrote: I think, along with every other 4 player map, it'd be better if it was cross spawn only. I have yet to play on it, but Akilon Wastes looks like a much easier 4 base. However the map is huge...takes a reaper a whole minute to cross the map, and its 7-8 minutes before your first overlord can get a peek, depending on how risky you're feeling. 4 player cross only makes sense only for maps like Korhal island.
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Huge 4 players-map, would be an instant veto for me. The aesthetics are interesting, but God, 192x192 ? There's no way you'll make me play on that.
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I won't make any judgments on it until I play it a few times. I feel like people will play so greedy that I can win every time with a 2 base blink all in. Fortunately this is only for balance testing so if it leads to only long boring games blizzard will wise up and not put it into the map pool.
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Russian Federation40190 Posts
On October 25 2013 04:32 [PkF] Wire wrote: Huge 4 players-map, would be an instant veto for me. The aesthetics are interesting, but God, 192x192 ? There's no way you'll make me play on that. Tastes are strange thing. Either way, muta ling bane against bio mine can end up being outright imba for Z here IMO.
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On October 24 2013 15:12 -NegativeZero- wrote: nr20 much? Based on their recent map releases it seems like Blizzard has no clue that variations in strategy make for an interesting game and assumes that everyone wants macro macro macro 200 food deathballs omg so many explosions.
At least a map this damn enormous might avoid the whole snowballing victory problem, since if you lose a fight on their side of the map you can pretty much build an entire new 200 food army by the time they get to your base lol.
I think they wanted a huge macromap to give different balance input, in contrast to the small maps yeonsu and bel shir vestige.
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On October 24 2013 23:59 a176 wrote: i wonder which "esport" partner told them to make such a giant map to fit 20 bases. and with a full inbase expo.
literally the safest 4 base expo ive ever seen in a map. Probably one that begins with a G and ends with a tv.
Calm Before the Storm comes to mind with this in-base expo stuff, though Crevasse also experimented with it too.
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On October 25 2013 03:43 TheFish7 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2013 03:28 Unsane wrote: I think, along with every other 4 player map, it'd be better if it was cross spawn only. I have yet to play on it, but Akilon Wastes looks like a much easier 4 base. However the map is huge...takes a reaper a whole minute to cross the map, and its 7-8 minutes before your first overlord can get a peek, depending on how risky you're feeling. If you're going to force cross spawn you might as well just make a 2 player map in the first place. They mentioned that this map is supposed to be balanced in close positions which is kinda the whole point of it. Although it's not going to be because one player gets a highground 4th and another gets a lowground.
The first gripe I have against 4 player maps is that only 25% of the terrain is unique even though there is often extra playing 'space', whether it is balanced for close spawns or not. Nothing is gained by making a 4 player map for 1v1. You only create R.N.G. in the case of scouting and a potential positional imbalance for the duration of a single game, which is my second gripe. We're playing essentially a giant Bo1 tournament when we ladder, a terrible place for little tiny random advantages to effect the outcome of a match.
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Just how big is this map anyway? Take a look at this handy chart that compares various maps to scale:
+ Show Spoiler +
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Nice chart meatpudding. Thanks!
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United Kingdom1381 Posts
Cool chart! So basically Alterzim has 2.5 times the area of Xel'naga.
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Frankly I wouldn't be surprised if we see a lot of hidden cheese behind the rocks at the various 5ths. It would be extremely easy to hide a factory+starport and fly in with a medivac full of hellions or widow mines. Likewise Protoss players could easily pool a few Oracles.
Kinda wish they'd bring back Calm before the Storm before this lol
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We played an FFA with my teammates on this map, that was awesome.
Dunno how it'll be played out in 1v1, but I already like this map :p
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Honestly I'm waiting for a proxy nexus offensive recall
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Russian Federation40190 Posts
On October 25 2013 21:00 meatpudding wrote:Honestly I'm waiting for a proxy nexus offensive recall  This map honestly needs something like this for deathball to not die.
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On October 24 2013 18:53 Qikz wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2013 15:12 -NegativeZero- wrote: nr20 much? Based on their recent map releases it seems like Blizzard has no clue that variations in strategy make for an interesting game and assumes that everyone wants macro macro macro 200 food deathballs omg so many explosions.
At least a map this damn enormous might avoid the whole snowballing victory problem, since if you lose a fight on their side of the map you can pretty much build an entire new 200 food army by the time they get to your base lol. Actually if anything this promotes more interesting games. It means you can actually have a game where you don't insta lose to a base race purely because they got to your bases quicker than you got to theirs and there's no point turning around since they'll be able to kill all your bases by the time you get back. It also means styles like mech are better purely because the enemy once again can't just insta counter attack you and there's nothing you can do about it since you have no mobility. It means even if you lose a bunch of units too you can actually rebuild and claw what little defenders advantage you can get to defend your production rather than just insta lose. ... Are you sure you play this game?
Mech completely lacks viability on this map. As a map gets larger, mobility becomes more powerful. I'll explain with a few bullet points:
- Large, open areas favour faster, more supply-efficient armies (Zerg, Terran bio) that can flank and out-maneuver slower, supply-inefficient armies (Mech, Protoss death ball).
- Longer rush distances favour cheaper, more supply-efficient armies as they can trade inefficiently against slower armies without fear of punishment before they can quickly rebuild what was lost.
- Cheaper, more supply-efficient armies are more ideal at splitting up and performing multi-pronged attacks -- a style which flourishes on larger maps.
- Mobile armies have a better chance of defending spread out locations on time. With slower armies, if you move out for an attack and get back-stabbed on a larger map, it's do or die: you're forced into initiating a base trade while praying your army remains stronger after the dust clears to force a win.
Your arguments in favour of the map are backwards; you assume counter attacks aren't possible vs. mech -- something that makes me feel you don't actually play mech Terran -- but the reality is mech will never be able to move out on such a large map vs. mobile compositions. It's already difficult enough on a map like Whirlwind for TvT (although possible, thanks to a design that kind of lets mech still zone areas of the map). With Alterzim, such area zoning is out the window due to both its terrain design and sheer size. If we even see mech in TvT on this map (forget the other matchups), I'll be stunned. If we see the meching player win, I'll be flabbergasted.
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United Kingdom12022 Posts
On October 26 2013 04:44 iamcaustic wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2013 18:53 Qikz wrote:On October 24 2013 15:12 -NegativeZero- wrote: nr20 much? Based on their recent map releases it seems like Blizzard has no clue that variations in strategy make for an interesting game and assumes that everyone wants macro macro macro 200 food deathballs omg so many explosions.
At least a map this damn enormous might avoid the whole snowballing victory problem, since if you lose a fight on their side of the map you can pretty much build an entire new 200 food army by the time they get to your base lol. Actually if anything this promotes more interesting games. It means you can actually have a game where you don't insta lose to a base race purely because they got to your bases quicker than you got to theirs and there's no point turning around since they'll be able to kill all your bases by the time you get back. It also means styles like mech are better purely because the enemy once again can't just insta counter attack you and there's nothing you can do about it since you have no mobility. It means even if you lose a bunch of units too you can actually rebuild and claw what little defenders advantage you can get to defend your production rather than just insta lose. ... Are you sure you play this game? Mech completely lacks viability on this map. As a map gets larger, mobility becomes more powerful. I'll explain with a few bullet points: - Large, open areas favour faster, more supply-efficient armies (Zerg, Terran bio) that can flank and out-maneuver slower, supply-inefficient armies (Mech, Protoss death ball).
- Longer rush distances favour cheaper, more supply-efficient armies as they can trade inefficiently against slower armies without fear of punishment before they can quickly rebuild what was lost.
- Cheaper, more supply-efficient armies are more ideal at splitting up and performing multi-pronged attacks -- a style which flourishes on larger maps.
- Mobile armies have a better chance of defending spread out locations on time. With slower armies, if you move out for an attack and get back-stabbed on a larger map, it's do or die: you're forced into initiating a base trade while praying your army remains stronger after the dust clears to force a win.
Your arguments in favour of the map are backwards; you assume counter attacks aren't possible vs. mech -- something that makes me feel you don't actually play mech Terran -- but the reality is mech will never be able to move out on such a large map vs. mobile compositions. It's already difficult enough on a map like Whirlwind for TvT (although possible, thanks to a design that kind of lets mech still zone areas of the map). With Alterzim, such area zoning is out the window due to both its terrain design and sheer size. If we even see mech in TvT on this map (forget the other matchups), I'll be stunned. If we see the meching player win, I'll be flabbergasted.
I don't play SC2 anymore, I only stopped last month to go back to BW where I don't feel like I'm instantly at a disadvantage for going mech every game and I actually enjoy the maps and game a hell of a lot more. Ever since the WoL beta I played mech in every single matchup in every single game since I found bio to be boring to watch so presumed I'd find it boring to play. If you read into my points and look at the map layout you'll see I'm not actually wrong. There's chokes, albeit rather big ones but you have three very easily defended bases and drops are no issue with good turret rings (which you can afford with mech). Their bases are more spread out after the third base so you can use hellions a hell of a lot more efficiently unless they want to cannon/spine crawler every single part of the map and Thor drops should be incredibly good on a map where it's harder for them to be everywhere at once.
My main point regarding counter attacks is that since the bases are so spread, if they actually go to counter attack you it means they may kill one base, but unlike other smaller, terrible maps, you'll have chance to either get back or actually get units out of your factory to defend your main, which is something that isn't possible on smaller maps. That makes mech function a lot more like BW where you actually had time to retreat if they ran past you and get reinforcements from your factories, where in SC2 if you lose one base on the majority of maps you lose the game since all the bases are so damn close that they just run from base to base within seconds without needing to think about their actions.
Combined with a decent buff to tanks, this map could actually be the saving grace for mech. It's better, but compared to a hell of a lot of BW maps it's awful, it's very standard and there's no highground advantage so that's always going to be an issue, but adding chokes to get into bases and chokes to defend makes mech more viable on a map than bio. Think of a map where bio can't spread against collosus, then think about a protoss that can't lol a-move into a mech army with 0 issues since they can't spread and your tanks rain death on them, then, then you'll have a mech map. This is certainly a step in the right direction.
If you want to "check my credentials" you can pretty much just look through my post history in the SC2 forums here where I've been pretty much barracking for Mech to be better since the start of the game as well as the amount of posts saying how I got it to work for me and how it could be improved.
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protoss that can't lol a-move into a mech army with 0 issues since they can't spread That statement kinda contrast itself.
Anyways I feel that mech is like Protoss, it gains advantages from the same map features. Normal Terran (Bio) gains advantage from lots of airspace, Zerg gains a lot from open areas and Protoss gains a lot from chokes. Mech still gains a bit from airspace since drops are an integral part of the race, but less than bio. Of course mech has very different forms, since it includes so many units and is not a figured out style, but I can see why mech might be good on this map. Mech can easily get a lot of bases fast on this map, and has a very fast unit that allows it to do some pressure.
I think that Protoss will have a hard time on this map because of mutas, but mech doesn't have problems with mutas, which means that unless somehow dying to counter attacks, mech will be very powerful. I think in PvT it still wouldn't be viable though, that is because when mech is played the roles somewhat reverse and the Protoss can do a lot of damage with drops, and even with the map not having a lot of airspace, the sheer size of it will make it very hard to push out.
Would love to see Flash play on this map, maybe he could make it work, but until then I doubt many people will try mech because of this map.
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Well I think it's awesome they are putting out new maps for the balance testing. Balance is so important to this game it only makes sense that they go as far as they can while testing. The more data they get on balance should help them make better decisions when implementing those changes.
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On October 26 2013 22:00 Axxis wrote: Well I think it's awesome they are putting out new maps for the balance testing. Balance is so important to this game it only makes sense that they go as far as they can while testing. The more data they get on balance should help them make better decisions when implementing those changes. Except if you test new balance changes on a new map, you don't know if any gameplay differences are due to the balance changes or due to the new map. It's a basic principle of science - only examine one variable at a time.
At least if they're going to do the test on a new map, make it a standard one instead of something so retardedly unusual like this one.
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On October 27 2013 08:23 -NegativeZero- wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2013 22:00 Axxis wrote: Well I think it's awesome they are putting out new maps for the balance testing. Balance is so important to this game it only makes sense that they go as far as they can while testing. The more data they get on balance should help them make better decisions when implementing those changes. Except if you test new balance changes on a new map, you don't know if any gameplay differences are due to the balance changes or due to the new map. It's a basic principle of science - only examine one variable at a time. At least if they're going to do the test on a new map, make it a standard one instead of something so retardedly unusual like this one.
That is why they have multible maps for testing. Besides the data from this balancetest is useless. There is no matchmaking. You will see Bronze vs Platinium. This is really so people can get a feel for what the new balance and map is like, and come up with subjective feedback. And for that purpose, this method is fine.
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On October 24 2013 20:03 moskonia wrote: As a player who likes to all in: fuck. But in all seriousness this looks very interesting, we have never seen such a huge map that has so easy bases, I wonder how it will turn out. I predict lower level games might suck, many silver players will have 2 hour long games here, but pro games should be pretty good. Seems like a super good 4gate map though.
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