An in-base nat but with a catch: initially it takes a longer than normal to get there from your main. Kill the rocks inbetween to provide easier access/defense to the in-base nat. This also exposes your main slightly more due to the backdoor, but it should usually be worth it.
The in-base nat provides a viable way to take your nat in PvZ.
In other matchups it may be better to take the in-base nat as a 3rd or even 4th/5th and simply ignore it in the meantime. Especially if you are zerg.
Dynamic XNT: encourages players to use the lowground passage, and besides the typical defender's usage the attacker can also use it to set up an offensive foothold.
It's possible to take the 12:30/6:30 o'clock base as a third or fourth and make a kind of backdoor/highground push above the opponent's 11/5 o'clock base.
Thanks for looking, hope you give it a shot. Feedback welcome.
A few things that come to mind: 1) The watchtowers on this map seem pretty powerful. If you capture the towers in the middle you can see almost all attack paths.
2) I would put the rocks from the outside nat to the rush ramp. This will make it easier for zergs to take the third.
3) Maybe put collapsible rock towers on the backdoor entry into the main. This way you can open the short path to your inbase nat by breaking rocks, and closing the long range path by breaking the tower. I think it would be kinda neat.
2-sided XNTs don't add much imo, at high level players will scout the in-base appropriately and don't need it for an attack, and it makes defense too easy for terran for example, free sensor tower basically. It seems thrown in, not integral. Cool but unnecessary and maybe detrimental. If you really want something there put a cliff maybe? idk. The back pathway with 5 6 rocks is awesome though.
The routes at 3/9 oclock should have a rock tower imo. All races should have the option to take the front natural (3rd?) as their first expansion, and closing off the edge pathway gives much more security but with a slight cost of knocking down the rocks. Also the tension of disconnecting the expansion access. And solidifies the "multiple rocks on edge pathways" theme, fwiw.
Alternatively/additionally: I like the idea of moving the rocks to the center ramp, BUT... I think it's a messy and not great route setup, but I love the extra cost it gives to accessing the center lowground XNT. Players use the scouting worker default route 99% of the time, so the outside highground S wouldn't come into play in a relevant exciting way imo. Also, as is I really like the left/right choice of forward ramps, it actually matters and is viable, and while technically two entrances is easily covered by one defensive position that straddles them around the base location. But still with opportunities for the attacker to get value out of pincer type two prong attack positioning. Overall, I'd say don't move the rocks, but it's got its merits.
Maybe stretch the horizontal dimension of the map 2-4 squares to add a little more room to the middle pathway? I think you can afford a bit more openness in the center areas of the map; you have lots of functional chokepoint ramps and narrow areas / hallway effects. I think it'd be nice if the main highground thoroughfare felt more like a battefield and less of a hallway.
I feel strongly (unusually so) that there should be LosB on the center XNT on the lowground approach. This makes them way more dangerous and not so automatic. Players who want to use them for everything in the defensive <---> active-map-control spectrum can't take them for granted nearly as much. And this of course plays up the need to actually fight/control the highground side actively if there's contestors afoot.
I'm not generally fond of mains with two openings, so three openings... That combined with the really open third base make speedlings and runbys in general hell on this map. I like the ideas this map is going for, but defending three bases can be made a bit easier. Maybe add collapsible rock towers on the longer path leading to the backdoor, or close up the natural a little.
As for the middle of the map it's very nice and positional, but might be a tad too choke-filled. And can a siege tank shoot the pocket expo (or at least the mineral patches of the pocket expo) from the other side of the Xel'naga tower? If so I could see it being problematic.
2-sided XNTs don't add much imo, at high level players will scout the in-base appropriately and don't need it for an attack, and it makes defense too easy for terran for example, free sensor tower basically. It seems thrown in, not integral. Cool but unnecessary and maybe detrimental. If you really want something there put a cliff maybe? idk. The back pathway with 5 6 rocks is awesome though.
Thanks for the detailed thoughts. I did the 2-sided XNT as kind of a fun thing that would hopefully provide some intrigue, as well as functionally have a purpose of making stuff like blink not be OP. It was actually one of the first ideas I had for the map although it may be a poor idea or feel thrown in I agree that it's not super necessary so maybe I'll change or remove it.
Maybe stretch the horizontal dimension of the map 2-4 squares to add a little more room to the middle pathway? I think you can afford a bit more openness in the center areas of the map; you have lots of functional chokepoint ramps and narrow areas / hallway effects. I think it'd be nice if the main highground thoroughfare felt more like a battefield and less of a hallway.
I like that idea and it should be an easy thing.. shouldn't really affect the map in any other way.
@ the different entrances/rock stuff, I was thinking that something like this could be another way to approach things. What do you think?
it might still need a rock tower on one of the ramps but it does make the base a little more defensible. Also it makes the lowground path a required thing. You lose the precious complete highground S, but whatever
That ramp arrangement could work, definitely simplifies things a lot, and makes that edge base much more of a pocket. Imo the great thing about the map is the vulnerabilities from all the pathways -- potentially very dangerous if used well for coordinated attacks but in actuality not that hard to handle with good defensive play. So I would keep the S.
To me the 2 ramps leading to middle are almost the same chokepoint from a defensive perspective, they both arrive at the CC and can be defended by an army standing there. Obviously your defensive position improves if you can meet an attack at the ramp but that's a reward for a more active posture and not necessarily obligatory for defense. Also, that is a 3rd base in some games, so it shouldn't be automatic, despite recent trends in macro map design. Imo.
I'd agree with meavis you could tighten up the corner base distribution but I don't think it's ruining anything right now. That extra horizontal space could help differentiate those zones.
[edit] Actually now that I think about it, keep the S, and scoot the 4th base a tad closer to make it very inviting. Put a rock tower to potentially cut off the pathway. And keep the rocks that are already there, so defender can open a big hallway to connect 3rd and 4th if desired, and preempt rock tower closure. Picture the setup, relatively close/"easy" 4th base but can be cut off, and really wants to be defended from the XNT position. Also pulls the focus away from the in-base, creating opportunities for harass there. And makes more space in the corner for the other bases. Eh?
On June 29 2016 00:42 EatThePath wrote:Also, that is a 3rd base in some games, so it shouldn't be automatic, despite recent trends in macro map design. Imo.
Exactly. And besides, I would say there is only 1 MU out of 9 where the player usually HAS to take the in-base as a nat (PvZ).
So I'm looking at this as what 1.1 might look like.
It addresses several of the ideas/concerns in the thread, maybe not always in the most straightforward way but I think this adds some cool gameplay options in ways that playing it safe wouldn't have. Maybe the # of rocks will put off some people.. idk. Thoughts?
I like it, but I don't think Zergs would, as there aren't really any places to put Overlords aside from the natural. The map is very tight in space used where there's really no place for them to safely have vision without risk of snipes in ZvT or ZvP.
Or if there is it's really hard to see, so much brown D:
Yeah i had put an overlord spot (in addition to the one near the 3rd) near where the 2 sided XNT used to be , but then I had to revert to a previous save or something and forgot to add them back in. I think 1 more somewhere in addition to that should be more than sufficient. I think having a few really good spots is fine these days, especially since overlord speed is really in vogue and some zergs are getting it almost automatically every game.
edit: the main reason I was happy about this new setup was the possibility to take your opponent's 6th as your 3rd/4th by breaking the rocks at the edge of the in-base nat. Maybe it wouldn't happen super often, but I could see it, especially in something like TvZ where T taking that base would give nice forward footing for an attack through the highground above the zerg's 4th. Maybe it causes some interesting back and forth, where the zerg is eager to scout which way T expands in order to know whether to expand to the linear 4th or the in-base nat as their 4th.
Yo this map is so cool. Wayyyyy better than my Outlander that never got released. 10 points to Gryffindor.
EDIT: I keep getting WoL beta map vibes. You know, in a good, Kulas Ravine kind of way where part of the map strategy is checking backdoors via XNTs and having multiple expansion options available. The nostalgia is real.
haha thanks. I remember now that you had a prototype w that name (I remember it having a highground above the 3rd, although beyond that I'm fuzzy). I unconsciously stole the name for sure (well, I wanted "Outcast" but it was already taken as you might expect). Oh and according to my gf who is really into that stuff I'm a Ravenclaw :-P
So I just published 1.1 and updated all the OP's stuff for it (new pictures too). Added some more overlord spots, made a lot of small aesthetic additions/changes (most notably I brightened it up a bit), in addition to the major overhaul detailed several posts ago. Cheers + hope you guys like the new version.
On July 02 2016 13:05 Fatam wrote: haha thanks. I remember now that you had a prototype w that name (I remember it having a highground above the 3rd, although beyond that I'm fuzzy). I unconsciously stole the name for sure (well, I wanted "Outcast" but it was already taken as you might expect).
It was actually the exact same tileset too! Glad I had some subconscious influence. :D
Updated this to 1.2, as it never had a proper border. Also improved the lighting and touched up the aesthetics in a few areas. Added one set of LoS blockers. Updated the OP with new pics and such. It's probably my favorite layout that I've come up with, so it seemed wrong to not have it 100% done.
In the face of the recent map news trying to stay positive and keep the #passion alive
I'm not a huge fan of the whole map to be honest, here's my thought process...
A) How it's laid out makes it very prone to harass which means attacking is always going to be better which means you'll see a ton of aggression on the map. You're either going to make a bunch of drops, make units to take down rocks or abuse the long (and clumsy) rotation times of the defender.
B) The out of base natural is waaaaay too open so you're forced to take the pocket expansion which is not only super long to get to and defend (back to point A) but you then need to defend a bunch of rocks (sure one way is double blocked by rocks) but you also need to defend your front entrance. Until you take down your own rocks in your base the rotation time to go from your inbase rocks to your front ramp would be impossible to defend. How would you hold 3 base when the defender can ping pong between your inbase natural & outbase natural in about 5 seconds and it'll take you ~30 (~15 once you take rocks down)?
I believe re-designing the out of base natural to make it more easily obtainable would be the best way to do it. You then don't have to worry about it being a "free easy 3 base map" because you'd still have to ping pong between your inbase & outbase naturals but it would still be a little easier to defend since walling off would be easier.
C) As for the rest of the map, I really feel you need to choke up the middle a bit more but open up all the edges a bit. It looks like an absolute nightmare for zerg because of how choked off it is around every base (also point A & B) which means it should be a veto for zerg the majority of the time and when zergs can't veto it they will get picked apart by bio/tank/lib and/or just the good ol' toss deathball since there isn't really any good places to surround besides the middle.
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I'm sorry that it is basically nothing but negative feedback! There are plenty of maps you've created that I do enjoy, unfortunately, this is not one of them. <3 =)
That's kind of the give and take of the in-base natural. You have a "free" base but until you clear your in-base rocks you may have a hard time defending it, depending on how aggressive the opponent wants to be.
You have 3 options, either a) defend by being very aggressive yourself (i.e. keep him at home) b) spend your army's initial time killing the rocks, which doesn't take too long and makes the nat quite easily defendable, but it does give your opponent some liberty to do whatever in the background c) just YOLO it for a little while until killing the rocks is more convenient and possibly get picked apart or d) in certain matchups it is fine to take the open natural instead of the in-base. But not all, for sure.
Whether this is good design and interesting gameplay or imbalanced is hard to say without some real games on it I think. It's doing things that haven't really been tested in SC2 yet, at least not exactly like this.
I do think it really makes the in-base rocks super important, which is a good thing; they would be a dumb inclusion if they didn't matter. I can't see taking them out because then the whole in-base natural is really questionable, whereas right now I think it's the defining interesting feature of the map.
Also consider some unorthodox expo strategies here, such as (assuming you're bottom left spawn) taking the in-base nat and immediately killing your in-base rocks and backdoor rocks, then taking a third at the 6:30 asap. Especially doable as Terran since you can pre-build your CC. Your travel distance in order to defend all possible attack points isn't too bad, and one of those attack spots is a 1FF ramp that is facing away from the middle. Also expanding that way you're pretty much immune to all air harass which is important with a 3 base turtle-ish strat.
I don't really see the "nowhere to get a surround" comment either, there's plenty of surround spots around the bases that zerg would probably take. i.e. the 10 o'clock base, the open nat. Also it's pretty hard in most cases for a large army to NOT go through the middle, unless they wanna go around the edge and kill multiple rocks.
In general I think zerg could do better than you think here, there've been lots of maps historically that people have initially been like "oh god zerg will veto the shit out of this" and then zerg turned it into a good zerg map. Of course I could be wrong.
Also, I don't think making the out-of-base natural option more closed-off is a good idea since it makes zerg worse which is what you were just concerned about.
I commonly use your feedback but here I think I'll use some restraint, since making those kinds of changes would make it a completely different map with a different philosophy (and obviously this one is trying to break the meta, not conform) and if I want to make that map I'd rather just leave this one and make a new one. But please don't stop giving feedback since I usually agree with it
also sorry for wall of text, I get very far down the rabbit hole as far as rationalizations for how things are laid out in my weird layouts (some of them possibly misguided), and unless you've been staring at the map for tens of hours+ looking at army pathing, etc. then those things may not be obvious. I'm sure it's much the same for other people's maps too. For a lot of my maps the design philosophy is very Brood War, i.e. you have lots of things that are imbalanced in a vacuum but when put together they are hopefully OK. So if you initially only see one of those things then it may scream "imba". Or maybe I'm just pretentious, ha
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/JgSwot0.jpg)
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I agree that it's not super necessary so maybe I'll change or remove it.![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/C4dUVlJ.jpg)
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Kulas Ravine
