Let me tell you why your map sucks - Page 4

On May 07 2016 18:50 Plexa wrote:

This looks like a teamplay map? You should show start positions; otherwise its hard for judges to read the map overview quickly which pisses them off.

On May 07 2016 18:50 Plexa wrote:

This looks like a teamplay map? You should show start positions; otherwise its hard for judges to read the map overview quickly which pisses them off.

This map is huge. (I'm assuming start positions are the corners). I like the restricted space in the main - you could take this a step further and decrease it even further (like Forte from BW). That could make the unique twist of the map more obvious and maybe even making the map more interesting. The islands are a little questionable; they just seem to fill up space rather than be useful, but I don't see anything else you can do with that space so mayaswell leave them. I think horizontal and cross spawn are the most interesting spawn locations, vertical spawn feels a little awkward.

I don't know where the spawn locations are bottom right/top left? If so, then this is a complex map that has me interested. Probably going to be a balancing nightmare but could be a very interesting map to see get game time to help the communtiy understand the limits of mapping. I like it.

I have no idea where the spawn locations are top left/bottom right would be my guess. Again your doing really experimental things with your first few bases which is pretty cool. If my spawn location guess is right, then I don't think you need the rocks in bottom left/top right. The map would be better with those gone to make the late game more dynamic. Not a fan of the central gold bases on this map since they strike me as 'win more' bases rather than something you'd take to gain an advantage. The map would be good without them imo. Another good map, but I prefer the previous one to this one if you're deciding between them (I like them both more than the macro map).

I really want to like this map, but I think the concept needs more refinement. I wish the side paths were more important throughout all phases of the game. Right now they're only useful sometimes (mostly the enemy using them to drop). There's so much potential with this concept then I think you can do more to make them more impactful. I would think really hard about changing the bottom right/top left in ways that make the side paths more interesting since I think those areas are the weakest on the map. If those corners are improved then this could go very deep into the contest imo.

The problem with these kinds of maps is that its so annoying to move between each side of the map. That means these maps tends to end up more frustrating than fun to play on. Of the maps you've posed this one is by far the weakest. I like what you've tried to do here (safe blues, dangerous golds) but there are better ways to execute this concept,

On May 07 2016 15:23 Plexa wrote:

There's a lot of interesting ideas here but I feel like you need to show more restraint because there's so much going on that you have to wonder how much of it is actually necessary/beneficial to the map. So for instance, the high ground in the main doesn't seem to serve a useful purpose (I can only think it's useful to hide a drop; LOS blockers ala early WOL era maps could achieve the same thing in a less radical way). I'd remove those. The high ground XNT seem to only be usable by Terran, and provide questionable benefit in any eventuality (best case scenario; tanks holding that position but that's pretty unlikely IMO)

Next you have features that are in tension. I really like the destrucible rocks that need to be broken to reveal an exposed mineral line but let's think about that feature in the context of the map. The gold base is almost always going to be as a first or second expansion, meaning you're likely to have buildings/units in that area controlling the vulnerable side of the mineral line. That base might be taken then as a 4th or 5th base (more likely 5th since the high ground base near the gold is so safe) which means that destructible rock-vulnerable mineral line feature isn't really contributing much.

If I were you, I'd push for a gold base = risky base, blue base = safe base theme (which also helps to increase the validity of it being a gold base map). A starting point for this idea would be something like
+ Show Spoiler +
And then you can iterate upon that until you are satisfied. You don't have to go this way obviously, but it really makes the theme of the map clear and removes the unnecessary features leading to a better experience.

Looks solid. My concerns would be about the gold mineral wall near the natural. Can that be mined from the natural side efficiently? I think there's likely to be a lot of awkwardness around that area so maybe some test games would be really beneficial.