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![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/rXgTxRq.jpg)
by SeinGalton
Published: [AM] [EU] [KR] [SEA]
Overview:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/9e8qguo.jpg)
High res: http://i.imgur.com/Q2GLhV1.jpg
Map Info:
+ Show Spoiler +Playable Bounds: 116x140
Full Bounds: 136x160
Bases: 8(8m2g) + 2(6g2hyg) + 2(6g2g1hyg)/dual expos
XNT: 0
Main to Main: ~50 sec
Placed Objects: 500 Doodads, 2 Spawns, 122 Units
Hospital Gown:
+ Show Spoiler +Hello,
This is my first HoTS map, and for it I have hijacked the name and aesthetic theme of my last attempt. I've basically only played Zerg since release but recently picked up Terran thanks entirely to the performances to Maru and TY, especially in Proleague. Sucked to see them both drop out of the GSL earlier than they had been expected to, but then so that's what made me decide to try and make a map that would play to their playstyle.
I kinda wanna create this effect, for each of the players, of wearing one of those hospital gowns where your ass is all exposed, hence the main mineral lines mooning midfield, just begging to get doom-dropped. On top of that I tried to add as many proxy building sites, hidden tech blind spots in the main and nat, backdoor entrances, drop pods, abusable terrain (including one or two ridiculous siege tank placement locations) and gold bases as I could manage. (Aside: I really stayed away from the backdoor into the main for a very long time, keeping that expansion as a pseudo-island expo that could be ninja'd, but it seemed to me that the map was really asking for it (the backdoor).)
It's not my aim to create an outright broken map, but I suspect I failed, and that there are good reasons unknown to me for why most maps don't look like this -- I dunno, I haven't actually had time to playtest it very thoroughly. In fact, its publication is a little premature but I'd like some feedback on it. I've uploaded it to the EU, AM and KR servers.
It is still a WIP, so any feedback will definitely be appreciated and I'd love to hear what you guys make of whatever this passes for.
Bases:
+ Show Spoiler +Main: ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/u5MveJu.jpg) Natural: ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/P92bSDY.jpg) Clockwise Third: ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/oNn3oI1.jpg) Backdoor Third: ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Et8LHp6.jpg) Gold Third: ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/NSTZTgb.jpg) Shared Gold: ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/HybHMKC.jpg)
Aesthetics:
+ Show Spoiler +
Change Log:
+ Show Spoiler + v0.4
- Reduced total doodad count to a crisp 500
- Subtle tweaks to the texturing to hopefully help with readability
v0.5
- Brightened up the terrain lighting a tad and fixed a variations bug
- Additional texture tweaks focused on increasing clarity
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I'm torn. On one hand this is an incredibly beautiful map aesthetic, while on the other hand the visual implementation makes it really hard to read the map clearly. It's superb map art to the detriment of clarity in game play.
It's clear you've put a lot of work into this, however. Well done.
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That map looks both beautiful and fun to play on, but the lightning (or at least I guess that's the lightning) makes it way too difficult to read (and probably to play on too)
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On September 24 2014 02:24 OtherWorld wrote:
That map looks both beautiful and fun to play on, but the lightning (or at least I guess that's the lightning) makes it way too difficult to read (and probably to play on too)
Not lighting, but the fact that the texture work, albeit beautiful, makes it incredibly difficult to tell where the cliff edges and ramps are.
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I love all of the innovative things in this map.
Two golds per spawn making being in the middle of the map more important, a base that is reasonble to take from BOTH SIDES, a novel take on the backdoor expo.
Edit: nvm, I need to read things first.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
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Super cool , and layout is extremely well thought !
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Really nice looking map with a really awesome name.
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Is the main mineral line siegeable?
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your Country52797 Posts
On September 25 2014 01:56 zelevin wrote:
Is the main mineral line siegeable?
Looks like it isn't. That would usually be a terrible map feature.
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On September 25 2014 01:56 zelevin wrote:
Is the main mineral line siegeable?
At best you're looking at 1 or 2 mineral patches from sieging against the main cliff just outside the nat. If you let an opponent get a siege position right there, you're probably doing something wrong with your positioning and/or strategy vs. siege styles. The bigger issue you'd be facing would be your ramp being denied, though.
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Hello
Thanks guys, I'm really glad that the overall response is more or less positive. Just a few replies:
@iamcaustic: Do you think this is a problem in the game or just on the overview? -- cuz I agree that the overview is a bit of a mess, but while in-game it's not the clearest map ever made I didn't find playing it particularly frustrating. That might just be the map creator speaking though.... I did try to position the lights and tweak the lighting on units+doodads vs terrain so that readability is maximized. Anycase, I have made some really subtle texture tweaks, which should help with the readability mid-map and a little with the minimap too.
@Shkudde, Plexa, leZaeL, SGTK: Thanks guys!
@zelevin, Templar, iamcaustic: You bet -- this is the ridiculous tank placement I was talking about, though as iamcaustic points out, if you fuck it all up and allow siegetanks to get into a good position you still only lose mining on like 2, max 3 patches. The best position for this is right at the base of the ramp, closest to the cliff. To siege up the main ramp, however, a siege tank will at least need to be at the top of that ramp outside that nat. Hopefully this is a feature that will make for the odd unorthodox build but isn't outright broken? I really wanted tanks to be amazing offensive units on this map.
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i love the aesthetics 
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On September 25 2014 16:48 SeinGalton wrote:
@iamcaustic: Do you think this is a problem in the game or just on the overview? -- cuz I agree that the overview is a bit of a mess, but while in-game it's not the clearest map ever made I didn't find playing it particularly frustrating. That might just be the map creator speaking though.... I did try to position the lights and tweak the lighting on units+doodads vs terrain so that readability is maximized. Anycase, I have made some really subtle texture tweaks, which should help with the readability mid-map and a little with the minimap too.
Depends on the individual's hardware/settings and other outside factors. People that have their gamma pumped up and in ideal lighting might not get as confused about cliff locations through fog of war and such, but say if there's a slight glare or something, it starts to become difficult to determine where a cliff might be when you're sending units off to un-scouted positions. This is just a quick example, but one even I've experienced on some maps that don't have clear visual differentiation between terrain levels.
At worst, you're looking at a real detriment to game play, while at best it becomes a slight inconvenience that breaks the player's concentration now and again.
EDIT: To talk more about this map in particular, I think you do a pretty solid job with doodads to help clarify cliff edging in a large number of cases where it'd otherwise be difficult to see what's going on (though there's still difficulty in quickly reading which cliff level you're looking at). There are still some spots, however, that are fully impacted by this difficulty.
A quick litmus test for visual clarity would be to step back into the eyes of someone watching a pro game on the map and asking yourself, "if the observer were to jump around a lot (as they always do), would I be able to quickly tell approximately where we're looking on the map without the mini map's assistance?"
Two most obvious areas:
1. Main/Nat/Backdoor all look identical, despite there being different cliff levels and the brick texture usage between main and nat obscure the actual location of the cliff, requiring dedicated focus to determine where exactly the cliff is.
2. Mid map has the brick texture span two cliff levels, merging the two cliff levels together visually while obscuring where the ramps start/end.
I have the exact same problem in one of my older maps, Khalani Sanctuary. You could even argue it's worse on Khalani. I'm currently in the middle of making an update to the map to fix the issues with visual clarity, so I figured I'd share this info with you for this map.
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I was going to make a first post but i couldn't quite put what I wanted to say about this map into words, I think the aesthetics are beautiful and I love how the doodads contrast the terrain. In the end I think because the map is so far from standard it is kid of hard to read how the expo flow goes. As far as I can tell the most optimal way would be to grab the nat and break the backdoor rocks and take the base there; idk about taking a fourth on this map but it looks tough, not to mention a 5th, 6th, 7th, etc. In the end i have no clue how this map would play out besides doing an aggressive 3base timing for each race.
EDIT: shit missed the gold around the arch area between backdoor 3rd and nat. Now I really like this map and want to see how it would play out in the map pool.
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Thanks a ton guys.
@iamcaustic: Real good feedback, much obliged. I was hoping to remedy the disorienting effects of observing with some subtler cues, like splitting the map red vs blue with the crystal formations and the combs, having the naturals' and backdoor thirds' mineral lines all face different directions, etc., and I think those are all good things but yeah, they don't quite do it by themselves, do they. I've changed the texturing in the mains, which will hopefully help, and I screwed around a little with the texturing in the backdoor thirds to make them feel different to the nats. I've also messed a little bit with the texturing mid-map, but I don't think it quite cuts it and I'm going to revisit it over the weekend, see how I can bring out some more clarity in a way that makes sense aesthetically. Big thanks for the feedback, I feel it's really helping me here. EDIT: I see what you mean with Khalani Sanctuary but I really wanna see how you update it. It actually looks promising to me, like a compressed Whirlwind.
@Kazahk: Oh yeah, I don't really see players getting to like the supreme late game on here either, and if the games go long they will probably be really scrappy I guess. But it's something that I, being but a middling mapper, am kinda okay with -- I'm not on the level of designing the next Frost or Cloud Kingdom. Just wanted to do something that'll look cool and be really fun and frantic to play. I've only played a couple of test games on here but I've actually been pleasantly surprised so far, so I'm tentatively optimistic about it. Thanks for your thoughts, I'm glad to hear you like it.
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The visual updates you've done here are a huge improvement IMO. Two thumbs up! On a side note, my own aesthetic work for my map has stalled because Destiny. *cough* Gotta get dat legendary armour... I can shoot you a PM when I've updated the map if you wish.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/01EXqII.jpg)
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