|
Imo a zerg map consists of:
- Many big open areas (like in the new map Delta Quadrant). I dont think i need to explain why.
- Many easily taken aswell as easily defended expansions (like the second and third on metalopolis). No explanation needed.
- No or few cliffs or droppable areas. No explanation needed.
- If its a 2 start locations map then id say the close air distance like on scrap station also is something favouring zerg cos of the fast overlord scouting (however this ofc also means the zerg is more vurneble to drops and air harassing later in the game, but then again that goes for muta harass vs the t/p aswell. All in all i still think the close air distance is something favouring zerg due to the very fast overlord scouting).
- Alot of air room outside of the main and natural (like on scrap station) also favours zerg imo, so you can place your overlords outside of range from marines/stalkers etc. I dont even think its intentional that some maps dont have much or any air room at some areas surrounding the mains/naturals. Hopefully the standard for future mapmaking will always be with alot of air room surrounding the mains/naturals.
- In general long distances between start locations favours zerg. It makes a zerg able to FE safer/drone more etc. However, imo short distance also works well for a zerg if the map has all of the features mentioned above. This because of the fact that the zerg can get creep all over the map and closer to the opponent faster with the short distance. If the zerg relies on sunkens early game this is absolutley the case, making zerg able to uproot those sunkens and use them offensively or to gain mapcontrol. If the zerg goes for hydra this is also the case (creep all the way to the opponent base when playing hydras is a good thing).
|
On August 04 2010 21:22 Vorla wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2010 14:05 Rabiator wrote:
At 100 minerals I would not consider Photon cannons to be very expensive
They cost 150 minerals.
Sorry about that, my bad. Its still a lot less expensive than 550/150 for ONE planetary Fortress which wont shoot air (shuttles) and which will never fit into a mineral line (unless that command center is a PF, but you generally start with an OC at your main and natural). So you can cover a lot more ground with the less resources while getting somewhat necessary detection at the same time.
Zerg players need to stop thinking in their "tank mode" where they hope to outmass the opponent's army and roll over him or outproduce him with the second wave after having two maxed armies eliminating each other. That doesn't work and Day[9] daily #159 easily shows how Zerg can screw up and lose an advantage. Zergs are simply NOT HARRASSING and this is required to abuse an enemys weakness (immobile armies). It is primarily those immobile things which we get complaints about.
@Raelcun
Do you really think a "safe expo" will help you? It does provide a safe expo for your opponent as well and early Zerg units (Zerglings and Roaches) are melee range, which allows a defending player free shots while you are getting into range. The more safe bases a Protoss / Terran has the harder it gets for a Zerg however, because the Zerg units are at a disadvantage due to their mainly melee type. This is true unless you harrass and abuse their immobility, but that is very very rarely seen.
I think I already covered the Xel'Naga watchtowers and especially Zerg can use them as an early warning system as to get a warning when the opponent is moving out / through the middle. You do have the cheapest unit to control them, so there is no excuse not to control them. If you see your opponent moving his army out you know it is time to go harrassing.
Large main bases are a requirement for good harrass, because they mean the opponent has to cover A LOT of ground with his defenses and the immobile armies of Terran and Protoss really give you an edge here. Do you really want to stick with that "Nydus worms are expensive" argument, especially when Zerg have the fastest growing economy in the game? Is that really true or is it just inflexibility / laziness on Zerg players behalf?
Every map feature has pros and cons for all races and I would really think that it should be obvious. Every race has different attack styles and even Zerg is able to adapt to that. The question is: Are the players willing to change?
Thinking about maps objectively ... an example
Sure, Incineration Zone was very small and had lots of small choke points where you could use sieged tanks to assault enemy bases from relative safety, but if you blow up the map to four times the size with the same width for the choke points it would not be so bad, simply because these small alleys make it harder for an immobile army to move.
Conclusion
So the main "bad part" is not the terrain features, but the size of the map. A really small map practically negates the disadvantage of an immobile army, because it is fast enough to respond to threats everywhere and you can reinforce your army at the front fast enough. It is the size and not the features which make maps bad. Blizzard has published mainly very small maps, because they want to have lots of fancy battles and flashy engagements in the shortest amount of time for more better advertisement of their game. Sadly the one small map with long distances (Desert Oasis) got hyped as really bad instantly, without the players thinking about the pros and cons of it all.
|
United States47024 Posts
On August 05 2010 17:36 Rabiator wrote:
Do you really think a "safe expo" will help you? It does provide a safe expo for your opponent as well and early Zerg units (Zerglings and Roaches) are melee range, which allows a defending player free shots while you are getting into range. The more safe bases a Protoss / Terran has the harder it gets for a Zerg however, because the Zerg units are at a disadvantage due to their mainly melee type. This is true unless you harrass and abuse their immobility, but that is very very rarely seen.
As I said before, safe expos are much better for zerg because of how many more bases they have to take. Unsafe bases only hurt Terran slightly because they can reasonably play late game off 3 bases, so even if one of his bases is hard to hold, it's reasonable for him to hold it. Late game, when Zerg needs to go up to 5-6 bases that are spread out around the map, having 2-3 of those be unsafe and hard to defend makes keeping up exceedingly difficult.
An unsafe natural hurts everyone in the early game, but you eventually reach the stage of the game where you're macroing enough units into your choke to cover it. The thing is, zerg gets hurt by unsafe naturals past that stage because they have to go take naturals at other mains.
|
On August 05 2010 17:40 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2010 17:36 Rabiator wrote:
Do you really think a "safe expo" will help you? It does provide a safe expo for your opponent as well and early Zerg units (Zerglings and Roaches) are melee range, which allows a defending player free shots while you are getting into range. The more safe bases a Protoss / Terran has the harder it gets for a Zerg however, because the Zerg units are at a disadvantage due to their mainly melee type. This is true unless you harrass and abuse their immobility, but that is very very rarely seen. As I said before, safe expos are much better for zerg because of how many more bases they have to take. Unsafe bases only hurt Terran slightly because they can reasonably play late game off 3 bases, so even if one of his bases is hard to hold, it's reasonable for him to hold it. Late game, when Zerg needs to go up to 5-6 bases that are spread out around the map, having 2-3 of those be unsafe and hard to defend makes keeping up exceedingly difficult. An unsafe natural hurts everyone in the early game, but you eventually reach the stage of the game where you're macroing enough units into your choke to cover it. The thing is, zerg gets hurt by unsafe naturals past that stage because they have to go take naturals at other mains.
The thing is that "enough number of units in your choke" will not work in the late game and it works MUCH better for Terran, because they can more easily wall off than the Zerg and one sieged Tank / bunker with marines can more easily defend that choke than a bunch of Spine Crawlers could for Zerg. Are you willing to spread out part of your army to defend your bases at all times? All this whining about Terrans being IMBA and people still havent started thinking about the pros and cons fully. The only real disadvantage for Zerg and an open natural is the fact that it makes them much more susceptible to Hellion harrass. A choke at all naturals simply means that you either a) have to funnel all your troops through a tight spot and be easily killed by sieged tanks, Psi storm or Colossi, b) resort to drop tactics / Nydus worms to get into your opponents base OR c) get an army of air units only. I think all of these are simply limiting the Zergs options too much.
If you dont like having an open natural you might want to try doing the "not so obvious thing" and take your first expansion somewhere else. Sure that is a risk, but it keeps the enemy away from your main base AND it keeps the enemies army out of the path between your own base and his base and thus opens the possibility for YOU to run past his troops and assault his base. The way to win this game isnt really killing your opponents army, but rather killing his economy and his tech, so while he is busy killing your - at 300 minerals relatively cheap - expo somewhere else your bane-/speedlings could kill his base or his workers. Sure a base somewhere else is not as efficient as one at your natural, where you can do the drone transfer, but it a) either gets left alone and you can defend at your main base easier (because it has a choke) or b) it gets assaulted and you get a chance for a run-by attack on the "truly important stuff". Just look at a lot of replays and check out how many players actually check out all the bases. That figure must be around the 5% mark IMO.
|
it would be really nice to see teams or clans use more user created maps when they play each other, and also have the pros who do show match series to agree to do all user created or iccup created maps and have them casted. i have only seen like 1 casted game on a user created map, id like to see more so the community could see what was out there
|
United States47024 Posts
On August 05 2010 18:03 Rabiator wrote:
The thing is that "enough number of units in your choke" will not work in the late game and it works MUCH better for Terran, because they can more easily wall off than the Zerg and one sieged Tank / bunker with marines can more easily defend that choke than a bunch of Spine Crawlers could for Zerg. Are you willing to spread out part of your army to defend your bases at all times? All this whining about Terrans being IMBA and people still havent started thinking about the pros and cons fully. The only real disadvantage for Zerg and an open natural is the fact that it makes them much more susceptible to Hellion harrass. A choke at all naturals simply means that you either a) have to funnel all your troops through a tight spot and be easily killed by sieged tanks, Psi storm or Colossi, b) resort to drop tactics / Nydus worms to get into your opponents base OR c) get an army of air units only. I think all of these are simply limiting the Zergs options too much.
I didn't just mean "safe expansions" in the sense of expansions that are open. I was more referring to the amount of ground you have to cover to reach your bases, and how easily it is for an opponent to reach the base without worrying about a counter. An example of "unsafe" bases is on Steppes of War. You can cover 3 bases reasonably, but from there, the 2 gold 4ths are hard to take--you either take the one on the same side as your 3rd--which is both extremely harass-able by air and is extremely close to your opponent (meaning he can pressure it without even straying too far from the defense of his base), or you take the 4th on the opposite side, which gives you an absurdly large amount of ground to cover. By comparison, the naturals on Lost Temple are much safer 4th bases because the Xel'naga watch tower lets you cover ground attacks toward all 4 of your bases, and the air distance between a nat and your opponent's base is long enough that you can get reasonable warning from good overlord placement.
|
|
|
Read through the thread and I noticed an absence of the LOS smoke/plant blockers on some maps. These seem to be anti-terran since all terran units are ranged, maybe in the future we can get some maps that use them more extensively, especially if they are located in areas that make it harder to spot incoming zergling flanks. As was said earlier, protoss do very well with chokes with their force-field denial, and Collossus/High Templar AOE; the problem is terran will do just as well in those small chokes.
|
rabiator taking an expo somewhere just hoping it doesnt get scouted is bullshit.
every good player notices that something is missing and will search for it..
you are making the matchup sound so easy...its not like that. "im expoing and when he takes out the expo im taking out his main" "oh damn there are two tanks behind a wall...i cant do shit"
i totally agree with the OP. new maps would be awesome
|
On August 05 2010 19:06 TRAP[yoo] wrote:
rabiator taking an expo somewhere just hoping it doesnt get scouted is bullshit.
every good player notices that something is missing and will search for it..
you are making the matchup sound so easy...its not like that. "im expoing and when he takes out the expo im taking out his main" "oh damn there are two tanks behind a wall...i cant do shit"
Are there usually two tanks behind the wall when the Terran moves out? If he has two tanks to spare you are already in late-mid game and at that time you are wayyy past the "just built my first expo" phase. At that time even the Terran has more than one base and your own options as Zerg *should* already include a form of harrassment (Overlord shuttles, Nydus Network and/or Mutalisk). The Mutalisk is the weakest form IMO, because it is the most expensive harrassment. Especially against Terrans - who only have static defenses against air - it is weak and some other method should be preferred. You dont need to invest everything into harrass (or else it would be an all-in attack) to make it successful and the goal of harrass isnt to kill the opponent, but rather to screw up his tech and economy. For this some sneakyness (dropping two Infestors with burrow under the cover of fog of war into the enemys base) is required, but that sneakyness is missing from Zerg players pool of tactics.
On August 05 2010 19:06 TRAP[yoo] wrote:
i totally agree with the OP. new maps would be awesome
I have to agree with you here, but not with the reasoning of the OP. We simply need LARGER maps where Zerg can use their mobility more to an advantage against relatively immobile Terran and Protoss armies. Larger maps also make early expanding much safer, because it will take more time for those harrassing Hellions to get to the Zerg base and give more time to the Zerg to prepare defenses (i.e. build drones). Cliffs, choke points, elevations, ramps and so on do not matter much if the map is so large that you can choose where you want to fight as the most mobile army on the map.
|
My ideal zerg map-
-Long push distance
-vast open spaces in center of map
-no cliffs by natural exp
-wide ramp at entrance and no narrow chokes in general
-fewer mineral patches per base
Delta Quadrant and that new big blue map (name?) is way better than Metalopolis imo... the push distance is still a bit short on Delta but I love the open space in the middle and wider entrance to expo
|
OP raises some good points, especially about the Watch Towers and Siege Tanks. How ever I do think one important aspect of competitive mapping maybe:
On August 06 2010 00:26 tskarzyn wrote:
-fewer mineral patches per base
|
A map with no chokes is needed.
I'd like that 8 players map from SC1 on installation terrans with 2 players in the middle with the chokes and the rest had no chokes at all :D.
|
Do you guys think that giving Tunneling Claws on Roaches the ability to clif walk would still be balanced?
They are stronger than reapers, but would get their clif walk later than you can get a reaper. They are weaker than Collosus, but you can get a large cliff walking force earlier than collosus. Would give Zerg a cliff walking unit that makes sense, I mean is there some kind of impenetrable rock outlining cliffs that prevent my burrowed units from moving through the ground?
Would give Zerg another option against wall offs that would not come before a P or T could build up enough forces to defend it. Would be a great alternative to a Baneling Bust. Tunnel some Roaches in, unborrow and draw fire away from the wall and then break down the wall with lings.
Edit: I know this is a map balance discussion, but this would change the idea of a zerg favorable map away from "It's gotta have big wide open spaces!" to allow for some interesting cliff placements.
|
A super zerg favored map is easy. open main, or multiple entrances 3+ into the main available at the start. I remember when I first started playing BW on the maps blizzard shipped with the game. Most of them were open main and it made walling off and sim city practically useless. Not saying this a good idea, but something along the lines to make early terran/toss wall-ins less impenetrable to early harass would be a step in the right direction.
|
Bumping the thread because it needs attention: this is the real why there are threads about MU imbalances.
In C&C maps were pretty open,though You had walls that You could build. In Sc2 You could just wall off the most important place for the moment (early - mineral line)
|
You can only fix so much with maps. It's not a problem one race has an advantage at the 8-9 minute mark. If they have an advantage at the 7-20 minute mark it's not a map problem.
|
So, I was thinking of the perfect Zerg map.
I came up with a modification of Desert Oasis.
----
All bases have 6 mineral fields and 2 gas.
The Cliffs for the main base are below the standard level instead of above (such that the ramp leaving your base is going up instead of down) with a triple wide ramp leading to your natural (zerg can't block a ramp, make it 4x as costly for the other 2 races), main bases are 1/2 the size and have destructible rocks on triple-wide ramps on the N & E and S & W ends of your base respectively with grass in your base blocking vision of the rocks and a large square of grass outside the rocks again blocking vision (3 entrances, 2 blocked off to prevent early game noobness, overlords can see over all the grass).
Your natural should have the cliff edge hugging your minerals tightly, extractors should be touching the edge with no room for a hellion to squeeze through (2 entrances into natural with no room for hellion harass). 2 lines of Grass between your main base cliff and the edge of the map, plenty of room in between, so as to make them hard to defend.
The middle xel'naga tower is removed and the outer ones are moved closer to the corner bases. You could possibly have a giant hole in the middle if you want, this gives play to air units though, which is mostly anti-zerg. The islands expos are gone, the other 4 expos can remain the same.
Everything else is a flat, wide open area with possible grass to reduce the effectiveness of ranged units.
----
I tried to put it together in the map editor, but I couldn't even find out how to remove the Xel'Naga tower.
If somebody else would like to put together this variation I think we might finally have a Zerg-favored map.
|
Bump, because this thread is awesome.
|
"Right now most of Blizzard maps seem to be constructed with the same couple of building blocks, and as a whole this has lead to the same types of maps over and over with different faces." say what you want balance wise about blizzards maps, but all of there maps in the pool are completely unique, design and look. Blistering Sands/Scrap Station/Desert Oasis all look and play very differently from each other.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
