EPTI would not be suprised to see this in tournaments in the future, or on the ladder, there may be some slight modifications needed, related to balance, but no way to find out.. cause I am to busy looking at the map to actually go and play it
[M] (2) AEM Ion - Page 2
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Kiaph
112 Posts
I would not be suprised to see this in tournaments in the future, or on the ladder, there may be some slight modifications needed, related to balance, but no way to find out.. cause I am to busy looking at the map to actually go and play it | ||
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Zax19
Czech Republic1136 Posts
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Antares777
United States1971 Posts
Most maps with in-base expansions tend to lean towards macro games, since the natural is easy to expand to and defend. Here, that isn't the case. The mineral line is right on the edge of a direct path to your base. This makes it so that the opposing army doesn't have to split forces to harass your natural, they can straight up harass it with their main force. On February 11 2014 23:58 TheFish7 wrote: I like the natural a lot because you set up a situation where players need to move down their main ramp to defend it. The nail has been hit on the head. This is an interesting feature. To add to its vulnerability, the main-nat ramp is 3x once the rocks go down. The natural is deceptively difficult to defend. It looks like an in-base expansion, but plays out like a regular natural expansion. So cool dude! I honestly don't really know what to think of the rest of the layout. The expansions are ambiguous and spread out, yet there are many choke points as well. I can't really comment on much else.  | ||
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Timetwister22
United States538 Posts
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EatThePath
United States3943 Posts
The forward nat choke is pretty rough for any tight build orders, being so far. But it will make for interesting games for sure. I really think you'd see people put their infrastructure on the lowground to make a 2nd wall/simcity in case the rocks are broken to help defend the nat cliff. It's funny to me that this map of all things could be the first successful map to promote building outside the main. I agree with fish that the 3oclock should be more towards 2oclock. I understand the motivation to keep it far and I assumed this was the intention, but I think it's going to force a basetradey mapsplit, not the harass / poke / multiprong you're looking for. In fact, I think the best thing for this map would be embrace the awkwardness of that area and make them gold bases so they function more the way you want. Or overhaul that area (possibly removing a pathway and creating a cliff vulnerability instead). The focus of the map will be the unique nat design, so I really don't think it's a huge problem overall. Would like to see this map get used! Below I try and explain why the 2/3oclock area is awkward / not contributing to the map the way I think it's intended to. + Show Spoiler [long] + If a player takes it as a 4th, they need their army to defend it because it's an open-face base location, and the army will need to camp there without constant knowledge of opponent's movements, since the enemy reinforce with the rocks down is so short and the defender travel path from center of mass is long and narrow. In the situation both players expand this way, it creates a very unstable basetrade favored positioning. It's like if your 4th on Daybreak was the base outside their main by air. If you want to avoid this, you break the rocks to take the righthand 4th, which leads much more naturally to a 5th base anyway (the 3oclock, maybe the center base in some cases). Now you have a much more stable situation where the better player can make better movements than their opponent without being forced into a trade scenario (due to travel distances). This also brings the middle into play nicely. However the problem reemerges at the 5th base, because it bring you so close again (to the opponent's 3rd) and a defensive stance from both players results in a trade scenario again. These issues are especially bad for zerg because the map doesn't offer a viable secondary location to put an alternate base site, which can be very important in a tight game where they have to sacrifice one of the two recent expansions because they'd be gg to engaging a timing. Pushing the 3oclock to 2oclock alleviates many of the problems due to short distance and preserves it main vulnerability as an open-facing base, and also maintains the superior defensive position of forward army placement without mandating it. Because of the clever design of the 3rd base's back entrance (which I love), it wouldn't even make it much worse when they belong to opposing players. Redesigning the pathways here could help it along even more. | ||
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Timetwister22
United States538 Posts
However, I should add that when both players are on four bases, this is when bases trades are most likely to happen since this is when armies are furthest. As for tthe aesthetics, let's just say it's super shinny in the pictures. After pictures were taken, I dropped the bloom, gamma, "glory settings", and saturation by just a bit to make it playable in game. Not to say it looks entirely different, just less strain on the eyes. Just had to make it look good for public view since I posted it on reddit. | ||
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Timetwister22
United States538 Posts
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L3monsta
New Zealand149 Posts
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Timetwister22
United States538 Posts
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Timetwister22
United States538 Posts
Update to V1.2 Changed large diagonal rocks to collapse rocks. This will have that third path initially open, so Zerg can more easily take a quick third. Yet, the path can still be closed to secure the low ground or cut of forces from third. | ||
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vult
United States9400 Posts
I like the inbase natural design, could make for some interesting plays! | ||
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Zax19
Czech Republic1136 Posts
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Existor
Russian Federation4295 Posts
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