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First off I'd like to state this is mostly likely not what you think it is going to be. I'm going to start off by stating my experience here. My name is Raelcun and I like to watch starcraft. Playing starcraft is fun but I love love love to watch good players play it. This is partially why I am a commentator, I want to share this excitement with others and help them enjoy the games more.
I have watched hundreds of games of Starcraft 2 in and out of tournaments, games with something on the line and just practice games between two good players. I have seen A LOT of games in Starcraft 2 and over this time I have come to a conclusion.
The balance in Starcraft 2 seems good, but the maps suck
Let me clarify this before people rage endlessly. Brood War maps were imbalanced too but there was a good selection of maps that were imbalanced towards the different races so that as a whole the map pools were mostly balanced. 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.
Right now theres a lot of whining about Terran imbalance and I think this isn't really anything to do with Terran imbalance as a race, but the fact that the majority of the maps in the map pool are very easily exploited by Terrans. These are the conclusions I've come to.
- Unsafe expansions which have multiple entrances make it hard for zerg and protoss to expand quickly against terrans.
There is no real safe expansion in the map pool, Blistering sands itself is safe but if you are guarding that your backdoor is open. Steppes of War has a side entrance by the rocks which you have to expend extra effort to cover. The two new maps have horrendously open exapansions, and a back expansion that is easily punished by cliffs.
LT is one of the safest expansions out there but can be taken down by thor/tank drops easily. Terrans on the current map pool with the use of hellions, reapers, thor/tank drops are able to punish the other races the most for taking early expansions while they delay their expansion until siege or merely expand while you are defending their harassment.
- Xel'Naga watch towers that are anywhere near central locations or major chokepoints on the map will favor Terran. The ability to grant siege tanks their full range by sitting next to a watch tower is very powerful. We've seen this proven many many times on Lost Temple and Metalopolis, what makes it worse are the fact that these watch towers are in defensible locations as well. There are chokepoints nearby that will force an army to constrict while hitting them the 4 walls on LT, the small cliff on Metal and Kulas ravine. Central watch towers make the middle of the map if it is not completely open a tank playground.
Xel'Naga watch towers as a whole are an interesting feature and I would not like to see them go even though map makers are experimenting with making maps that do not include them I think they have a lot of potential. But placing them in key locations next to choke points really has to stop, if they're near key map chokepoints make them vulnerable and hard to hold. Not like, Metal, Kulas, Blistering, but more like the watch towers on Desert Oasis.
- Large main bases many times with a lot of area for reapers to jump up in are good for terrans as well. They have sensor towers and are not bothered by HUGE main bases as they can be forewarned before a drop comes in, but a simple 4 marauder drop into one of the barren corners of your base can result in losing important buildings. The large size of the bases on most maps means reapers can get in easily and in order to defend against drops stupid amounts of static anti air are needed. This can also be beneficial to Zerg but that brings me around to the next point.
- We've figured out a lot about what makes a map a terran map, but we still have not figured out solidly what makes a map a protoss map or a zerg map. Until we can figure out what map features that solidly favor a zerg or a protoss it's hard to balance out the terran features on a map by giving it protoss and zerg features.
That brings me to my major point, I believe the balance as in racial balance is at a good point right now players are able to overcome the maps by extreme levels of play but overall we're seeing high Terran statistics because the maps are favoring Terran and the play level on the Ladder isnt quite as high.
My proposal on how to fix this is we need the map making community to try and do their best to purposely make zerg and protoss favored maps and have good players play on them.
"Wait doesn't this make it worse?" You are prone to ask, in the short term yes but in the long term it will allow us to figure out what map features will make a map good for zerg and protoss and when we are able to combine these features with the terran features that we already know then maybe we can come up with some more truly all around balanced maps.
Map making is still in it's infancy and I believe Starcraft 2 will not continue to grow as a whole until we can fix this and get better maps out for the community, we run the danger of hitting stagnation if the maps never evolve and change. That was one of the key features of Brood War was a constantly changing and evolving map pool, the map makers constantly pushing the bounds of what is balanced and what is not. There were some pretty famous examples ie Gorky Park, Demon Forest. But we learned from those mistakes so right now I propose we intentionally try and create some of those disaster maps so we can learn from them.
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Agree on the maps criticisms.
However, why does everything have to be an open letter? 
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Cuz it makes a good title and I'm not completely set on my ideas where people are free to add to it and make it better.
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I'm surprised someone had to write this! Haha. It's pretty clear that the game will explode with more depth and undiscovered "overpowered" strategies once the maps get a bit more technical and large. It looks like Blizzard doesn't want large technical maps for the official ladder, but I can't wait to see some great large maps in tournaments.
EDIT:
Also you have to look at what each race excels at to find how to make maps more imbalanced for them.
Protoss - Warp Gates
Zerg - Easily defendable expansions and large spaces where creep can be spread for easy surrounds.
I'd bet Protoss would be really good on Island maps with Warp Prisms allowing for easy reinforcements and quick movements.
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Pretty interesting insight on the situation. I wish Blizzard was more open to player made maps for ladder, but they seem to want to keep the maps from being "too sophisticated".
Hopefully Blizzard will think up some good ideas. I really want some diversity though. They seem to be making even more open natural maps, which are absolutely impossible to defend for zerg, or for a protoss in a FE situation. (without 5 cannons)
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Things that are Terran friendly:
-chokes,
-small ramps,
-high ground over choke or an expo,
-small maps. (tanks can cover more playable area)
I think Terrans should have some desert(chokes,high grounds are RARE) maps to deal with... They'd need to adapt too.
They can already. Put depots over mineral line so Zerglings can't come it,burrow(depots) them when out of danger,done. Making Bunkers in crucial positions would be more rewarding and not only for one attack. (chokes,on high ground,near ramps)
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Very interesting take on the whole balance debate. As always you explain your ideas well. I definitely think we need to explore new features for maps and I hope the map making community can do that and the rest of us can help in any way possible.
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On August 03 2010 06:16 Takkara wrote:
I'm surprised someone had to write this! Haha. It's pretty clear that the game will explode with more depth and undiscovered "overpowered" strategies once the maps get a bit more technical and large. It looks like Blizzard doesn't want large technical maps for the official ladder, but I can't wait to see some great large maps in tournaments.
the current maps are just as "technical and large" as the majority of brood war pro maps
that is not the problem imo
what i don't like is the patterns in maps that blizzard has forced upon the community. the game has been balanced around these gimmicky, mediocre maps, and now the patterns that they follow have consequently become the standard
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Personally, I think Zerg does okay in some of the wide-open maps, while Protoss gets the short stick. For example, the new map, Delta Quadrant and Desert Oasis are next to unplayable for Protoss in a PvZ because all-in speedlings are just too ridiculously powerful. It is impossible for Protoss to expand against any competent Zerg who just keeps sending in speedlings into the mineral line. Protoss is forced to defend (usually unsuccessfully) while Zerg can mass expand everywhere.
I really don't care about having large macro maps anymore. I just want non-bullshit maps that aren't horribly imbalanced.
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Definitely going to agree with you here Raelcun.
Terran unit structure makes it relatively easy to abuse. Reapers are an early cliff walking unit so towers can easily be defended with them / provide vision where other races wouldn't be able to see til later in the game (kulas and some others). Many times I feel like I have to get Templars so quickly against terran and drop pylons all over "my side of the map" just so I can get vision in time for a warpin and feedback / stalker. I figure losing randomly placed 100 mineral pylons is better than losing a important tech building or possible drone / nexus stim death in 4 seconds.
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Yeah, I actually agree, most things can already be beaten in theoretical situations overcoming any slight imbalances, but the maps do stack it up a bit.
That being said, the game is still in a pretty good place right now, people claim T is the strongest, and Z the weakest, but
+ Show Spoiler +Idra won the final vs Tester
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i agree with this and i think as maps begin to get larger (to BW sized maps) people will actually be able to abuse terran immobility more. right now on most ladder maps a mid-game mech army can seige and clamp down half the map which is probably the ONLY reason why it's viable.
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BTW. This thread is:
HOW TO BALANCE SC2 AND NOT TO MAKE CHANGES IN RACES.
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I would like to see map statistics, any way of doing so?
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Low ground main, with easy to defend naturals could screw with the 1 basing turtle terrans that eventually expand when they got a handful of tanks. However, this could backfire with early reaper plays(unless they aren't attached). ><. Larger maps with more open spaces and less landable cliffs every bloody place where there are minerals would be nice too.
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Blizzard has the statistics locked away in a secure vault somewhere in an unspecified location so that they may choose to release them randomly when it suits whatever purpose they like.
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Agree with this - though as a Protoss player I still think Terran have the coolest units. (Reapers and Hellions are just too awesome, seriously). But I don't think the game is unbalanced and I definitely agree with you that the maps seem to be more of an issue than actual game balance.
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On August 03 2010 06:37 iCCup.Raelcun wrote:
Blizzard has the statistics locked away in a secure vault somewhere in an unspecified location so that they may choose to release them randomly when it suits whatever purpose they like.
You're wrong. Zeratul locked them in his crystal... That's why Raynor is so shocked.
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On August 03 2010 06:40 Kurumi wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 06:37 iCCup.Raelcun wrote:
Blizzard has the statistics locked away in a secure vault somewhere in an unspecified location so that they may choose to release them randomly when it suits whatever purpose they like. You're wrong. Zeratul locked them in his crystal... That's why Raynor is so shocked.
I loled nice one, but anyways the problem with statistics is you can make them suit whatever purpose you like as I said. If you see that terran is winning a majority on every map there are two conclusions:
1) Terran is fucking imba
2) The maps are bad
and people are just as likely to come to both conclusions which causes ragestorms while people argue about it endlessly.
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I choose 2)
When playing beta I always was like:
Why the maps are so small... I watched some BW games and there were a LOT of expos.. maps were big.. sometimes there were even THREE routes to one base. Look now.. Blistering Sands. Small,2 ways to go to Your enemy. North and South.
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Very well written post, I really hope it gets brought to the attention of Blizzard. Even BW wasn't perfectly balanced until the mapmakers figured out the strengths and weaknesses of all the races. I think that a lot of the maps in this map pool at least have the potential to be balanced, if they received minor changes (i.e. make it so that a Thor can't reach the natural hatchery on LT if it gets dropped on the cliff; make the naturals on Metalopolis nestled further back, disallowing so many angles of attack; etc).
Agreed about the new maps as well. I laughed when I saw Delta Quadrant's potential for the most evil reaper play to ever exist.
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From the second i played beta i thought hte compact size of terran bio balls could really be a frustration in many maps. Not sure if that's true or not but it did cross my mind.
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I definitely agree with this, Blizzard made the terran expansion first, so I would assume that the maps are made to favor terran (big high ground bases and chokes). That isn't to say that terran is imba, just that the maps are. WE NEED NEW ONES COMMUNITY!!
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On August 03 2010 06:25 Ryuu314 wrote:
Personally, I think Zerg does okay in some of the wide-open maps, while Protoss gets the short stick. For example, the new map, Delta Quadrant and Desert Oasis are next to unplayable for Protoss in a PvZ because all-in speedlings are just too ridiculously powerful. It is impossible for Protoss to expand against any competent Zerg who just keeps sending in speedlings into the mineral line. Protoss is forced to defend (usually unsuccessfully) while Zerg can mass expand everywhere.
I really don't care about having large macro maps anymore. I just want non-bullshit maps that aren't horribly imbalanced.
That is simply not true, Desert Oasis is one of the best maps for Protoss...havent played other one as i opted out of it, didnt like it
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I still believe races are imbalanced.
You cannot get rid of chokes ramps xel nagas, these are important features of the game.
races have to be revised.
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Choke points are what make Protoss stronger.
In PvZ, tight choke points in front of the natural make it relatively easy to fast expand through blocking it with buildings and deploying cannons, since Zergs early units include Banelings, Roaches and Zerglings, which make busting the wall difficult.
In PvT, and PvP, a single force-fieldable choke-point in front of the natural would be PERFECT for Protoss since you could fast expand and use Force Field to keep them at bay, but not a single map allows this, which I think is the primary cause of the general volativity of two matchups. Some maps have 2FF chokes, like Blistering Sands (Lost Temple is about 3FFs), but then they have those damned destructible rocks, too.
It really all boils down to ease of expansion and it has a dramatic effect because a fully saturated expansions gives you 100% more income...that's nothing to laugh at. Protoss only EVER have an easy time expanding in PvZ, and only when there's a tight choke in front of the natural, which isn't common. In PvT you can't expand without full knowledge of what the Terran's build is (Hallucination, Observers, Void Rays, whatever it is, it takes time to discover their intent and respond and half the time you see they've already got an expansion going) and in PvP I dare say expanding is literally impossible. He who expands first, loses.
I can't think of a map, besides Desert Oasis (natural is miles away from the ramp) where Zerg has trouble expanding in ZvP, and there definitely isn't a map on this earth that Terrans have trouble expanding in, in PvT. Hello Bunkers and the strength of Bio against Gateway.
Can't make any claims on ZvT, but I presume that Zerg have a hell of a time in that matchup, because Terran harassment makes short work of their economy because Hellions can bust in through the many wide entrances we see in front of naturals.
Compare how easy it is to expand in SC2, compared to what you'd see in the enormous maps in BW. Its obvious many of the balancing problems can be diluted when map size is enlarged. If both sides can safely expand, then the first guy to get the next expansion is only going to give them a 50% increase, not a 100% increase.
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On August 03 2010 06:54 bokeevboke wrote:
I still believe races are imbalanced.
You cannot get rid of chokes ramps xel nagas, these are important features of the game.
We aren't getting rid of them, just getting less of them. And you really don't need Watch Towers in EVERY map anyway...only where they would be useful.
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On August 03 2010 06:24 alphafuzard wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 06:16 Takkara wrote:
I'm surprised someone had to write this! Haha. It's pretty clear that the game will explode with more depth and undiscovered "overpowered" strategies once the maps get a bit more technical and large. It looks like Blizzard doesn't want large technical maps for the official ladder, but I can't wait to see some great large maps in tournaments. the current maps are just as "technical and large" as the majority of brood war pro maps that is not the problem imo what i don't like is the patterns in maps that blizzard has forced upon the community. the game has been balanced around these gimmicky, mediocre maps, and now the patterns that they follow have consequently become the standard
I don't see how these maps even come close in the technical level to some of the BW pro maps (i.e sin chupung ryeong, heartbreak ridge, match point). LT, Metalopolis, and Steppes (the most popular sc2 maps) are all pretty straightforward.
I think that if Blizzard wants maps that are easier to understand, they should really only need them in the lower leagues. They should at least allow for more interesting maps in Diamond.
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these wide open expansions and 2 pathways into mains and expos are just ridiculous. it doesnt make anything simple and doesnt make anything interesting. it just makes it a PAIN to defend for races and it makes it hell against all in strats where you have to defend at chokes. all this 'lol you built static defense at your natural, ill just break in from the other choke' is kind of ridiculous.
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The main problem with maps is that most people play ladder, which only includes poorly-designed Blizzard maps, or practice for ladder/tournaments on the same maps. To get a map into the ladder pool we need Blizzard to put it there. Unfortunately, they probably plan on charging users for new maps, so it will be even more complicated.
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as a protoss player i dislike having to build 23 gateways to wall of my natural...seriously wtf at xel naga caverns..I really like delta quadrant though, that map really opens up play for new build orders.
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I guarantee that we will have half of these maps in the ladder 4 years from now. Blizz did a horrible job with updating the map pool on the latter in WC3 and I expect is to be the same in SC2. I pray to god I am wrong. Because the always changing map pool in Brood War made things SO MUCH more interesting.
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Yea I really hope that in a months time we won't still be playing this horrible horrible map pool.
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I'm not sure what is with ur crusade to prove to every1 that Zerg is somehow balanced with the other races now since u somehow have not seen any of the statistics about the top placements of players in each region nor the statistics on what people feel about in the different race match ups. In every tournament u see these days there r almost no Z players that make it far at all except for maybe IdrA and MaMoN or something as they usually always end up gettin roflstomped by some Terran like last night from "Silver".
Yes, of course the maps are clearly favored, especially in maps like Kulas Ravine etc. And yes, the reason for this map problem is that the race itself is too powerful and creates these map issues. If the thor's or siege tanks weren't so freakin powerful, people wouldn't be dropping them all over the place where Zerg has such extreme difficulty defending ie: cliffs behind the expos on Kulas and LT.
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On August 03 2010 07:25 Numy wrote:
Yea I really hope that in a months time we won't still be playing this horrible horrible map pool.
A month? Unless a map gets pulled due to massive imbalance, I can't imagine the map pool changing in just a month. Most of these maps made it all the way through Beta, there's no way they'd change them so fast after release.
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On August 03 2010 07:18 xtfftc wrote:
The main problem with maps is that most people play ladder, which only includes poorly-designed Blizzard maps, or practice for ladder/tournaments on the same maps. To get a map into the ladder pool we need Blizzard to put it there. Unfortunately, they probably plan on charging users for new maps, so it will be even more complicated.
thats why the iccup mapmaker league thingy is so needed, and it needs to get out to the masses so they know how to find the maps and then it will skyrocket from there.
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On August 03 2010 07:18 xtfftc wrote:
The main problem with maps is that most people play ladder, which only includes poorly-designed Blizzard maps, or practice for ladder/tournaments on the same maps. To get a map into the ladder pool we need Blizzard to put it there. Unfortunately, they probably plan on charging users for new maps, so it will be even more complicated.
I highly doubt that they'll charge users for new ladder maps. Not only has there been no mention of it in the past, but if they actually did decide to charge for it, the amount of backlash they would receive from the community would be so large that they'd basically be forced to make it free. Maps are much easier to design in SC2 than they are in other games (with regards to the tools they provide you).
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I'm not really sure what you are trying to accomplish here. You want blizzard to make zerg/protoss favored maps? I mean, the game is still evolving and as you said noone really knows how to make a balanced map, or a zerg/protoss favored one for that matter.
Blizzard's map makers are doing the best they can to cmoe up with some good and balanced maps, I´m sure. They might not always succeed, but there'll be new maps, and if they can't get it right the community will.
So really.. what is the message to Blizzard again?
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Don't really agree with this at all. OP your logic is flawed.
Let me come at it from a different angle.
"The maps are the maps. The reason Terran are winning more often than not on these maps is because Terran are too strong."
Let me also address the part of your post where you call on SC2 mapmakers to make more Protoss and Zerg favoured maps. Not that there is anything wrong with this idea, but this idea will take time and quite frankly SC2 needs care and attention from Blizzard not a bunch of amateur map makers.
What you should be doing rather than making topics like this is writing "An Open Letter to Blizzard" with the explicit instruction of 2 words. The first one being nerf and the second one being Terran.
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Blizzard have shown to be far worse at making maps than these "amateur map makers". One of the most dynamic things about a good RTS is that maps change the game. BW without custom maps is horribly imbalanced.
So his actual message is "Let people who can make better maps use them on ladder."
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On August 03 2010 07:31 Necrosjef wrote:
Don't really agree with this at all. OP your logic is flawed.
Let me come at it from a different angle.
"The maps are the maps. The reason Terran are winning more often than not on these maps is because Terran are too strong."
Let me also address the part of your post where you call on SC2 mapmakers to make more Protoss and Zerg favoured maps. Not that there is anything wrong with this idea, but this idea will take time and quite frankly SC2 needs care and attention from Blizzard not a bunch of amateur map makers.
What you should be doing rather than making topics like this is writing "An Open Letter to Blizzard" with the explicit instruction of 2 words. The first one being nerf and the second one being Terran.
Excuse me but when have blizzard shown prowess in making good maps that are balanced throughout a games lifetime? I have no idea why people think that blizz are Gods at everything and refuse to admit that the community can do some things better than them. Also assuming that amateur is always worse than professional is really quite close minded.
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On August 03 2010 07:35 Numy wrote:
Blizzard have shown to be far worse at making maps than these "amateur map makers". One of the most dynamic things about a good RTS is that maps change the game. BW without custom maps is horribly imbalanced.
So his actual message is "Let people who can make better maps use them on ladder."
I agree with you. I'm not saying that amateur map makers won't/can't do a better job than Blizzard I'm sure they can.
What I am saying is that it will take time. SC2 needs attention now.
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On August 03 2010 07:40 Necrosjef wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 07:35 Numy wrote:
Blizzard have shown to be far worse at making maps than these "amateur map makers". One of the most dynamic things about a good RTS is that maps change the game. BW without custom maps is horribly imbalanced.
So his actual message is "Let people who can make better maps use them on ladder." What I am saying is that it will take time. SC2 needs attention now.
What do you mean by SC2 needing attention?
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On August 03 2010 07:40 Crabman123 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 07:31 Necrosjef wrote:
Don't really agree with this at all. OP your logic is flawed.
Let me come at it from a different angle.
"The maps are the maps. The reason Terran are winning more often than not on these maps is because Terran are too strong."
Let me also address the part of your post where you call on SC2 mapmakers to make more Protoss and Zerg favoured maps. Not that there is anything wrong with this idea, but this idea will take time and quite frankly SC2 needs care and attention from Blizzard not a bunch of amateur map makers.
What you should be doing rather than making topics like this is writing "An Open Letter to Blizzard" with the explicit instruction of 2 words. The first one being nerf and the second one being Terran. Excuse me but when have blizzard shown prowess in making good maps that are balanced throughout a games lifetime? I have no idea why people think that blizz are Gods at everything and refuse to admit that the community can do some things better than them. Also assuming that amateur is always worse than professional is really quite close minded.
Not really closed minded at all to think that a professional is better than an amateur. I'm a professional engineer and I'd be pretty upset if someone told me that an amateur guy messing about in his garage knows more than me.
Also nothing wrong with asking Blizzard to balance a game they made. I'm pretty upset that after waiting for SC2 for 12 years that this is the best Blizzard have managed to come up with. I don't think I'm alone and I don't think it is wrong to ask Blizzard to improve on something which is quite frankly much worse than the original.
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if you dont FE everytime, Terran wont be able to snipe your expo so easily
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blizzard saying their map pool is simple is simply bs
just look at blistering sands, you have to put an overlord/depot/pylon behind some bushes in order to watch out for the backdoor to be destroyed.
and compare that to destination(which is sweet in sc2 btw) and fighting spirit
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On August 03 2010 07:41 Crabman123 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 07:40 Necrosjef wrote:On August 03 2010 07:35 Numy wrote:
Blizzard have shown to be far worse at making maps than these "amateur map makers". One of the most dynamic things about a good RTS is that maps change the game. BW without custom maps is horribly imbalanced.
So his actual message is "Let people who can make better maps use them on ladder." What I am saying is that it will take time. SC2 needs attention now. What do you mean by SC2 needing attention?
1. Battlenet 2.0 - been tons of threads about how bad this system is. Not gonna go into it here.
2. Balance - see the 10million other threads about the state of balance.
3. Maps - again see this thread.
4. Performance - not such a publicized issue here but for what SC2 does it uses alot of system resources it shouldn't be. The software isn't efficient for something that has below average graphics and does nothing more complicated than BW does.
Those are really the 4 main problems with SC2 at present in my mind. Not necessarily in that order. Unfortunately the community can't do anything about most of those problems. Which is a shame but its a sad fact of life - we (the community) rely on someone else to sort these problems out. Thats why we all paid this someone else (Blizzard) to do it for us. As customers we have a right to complain when they aren't doing what we pay em for.
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On August 03 2010 07:44 Necrosjef wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 07:40 Crabman123 wrote:On August 03 2010 07:31 Necrosjef wrote:
Don't really agree with this at all. OP your logic is flawed.
Let me come at it from a different angle.
"The maps are the maps. The reason Terran are winning more often than not on these maps is because Terran are too strong."
Let me also address the part of your post where you call on SC2 mapmakers to make more Protoss and Zerg favoured maps. Not that there is anything wrong with this idea, but this idea will take time and quite frankly SC2 needs care and attention from Blizzard not a bunch of amateur map makers.
What you should be doing rather than making topics like this is writing "An Open Letter to Blizzard" with the explicit instruction of 2 words. The first one being nerf and the second one being Terran. Excuse me but when have blizzard shown prowess in making good maps that are balanced throughout a games lifetime? I have no idea why people think that blizz are Gods at everything and refuse to admit that the community can do some things better than them. Also assuming that amateur is always worse than professional is really quite close minded. Not really closed minded at all to think that a professional is better than an amateur. I'm a professional engineer and I'd be pretty upset if someone told me that an amateur guy messing about in his garage knows more than me.
Well, if you were a blizzard mapmaker, that someone would probably be right. Doesn't matter if it's upsetting, it's true, blizz maps are not tournament quality.
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good thread... i cannot veto out all the anti-zerg maps anymore. .thats how many there are.
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You're wrong. The races are not balanced. All maps have cliffs all maps have chokes. All maps have blah blah. And one race has all the tricks to exploit any map features at any stage in the game. And the other races (ZP) have very few.
The races are not balanced. One race has most of their useful upgrades at 50/50.
On the whole map thing. sure give it a shot. But laugh when we can finally all agree that maps arent the problem.
Maps are just maps people. If you make a game with maps and races. In a fairly balanced game, all races should have a decently fair fight on any maps. IF you have to adjust the maps to fix a balance within the races then obviously there is an imbalance. OR? do you really think blizzard just said "ok we got it perfectly balanced! yes!, Now lets make some horribly imba Terran maps!" ?
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On August 03 2010 07:28 SiegeFlank wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 07:18 xtfftc wrote:
The main problem with maps is that most people play ladder, which only includes poorly-designed Blizzard maps, or practice for ladder/tournaments on the same maps. To get a map into the ladder pool we need Blizzard to put it there. Unfortunately, they probably plan on charging users for new maps, so it will be even more complicated. I highly doubt that they'll charge users for new ladder maps. Not only has there been no mention of it in the past, but if they actually did decide to charge for it, the amount of backlash they would receive from the community would be so large that they'd basically be forced to make it free. Maps are much easier to design in SC2 than they are in other games (with regards to the tools they provide you).
They have shown time after time that they do not care about the community anymore. The backlash about RealID was outside of the community as well because privacy is a serious issue. However, I can't see BBC reporting on gamers being charged for maps.
On August 03 2010 07:44 Necrosjef wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 07:40 Crabman123 wrote:On August 03 2010 07:31 Necrosjef wrote:
Don't really agree with this at all. OP your logic is flawed.
Let me come at it from a different angle.
"The maps are the maps. The reason Terran are winning more often than not on these maps is because Terran are too strong."
Let me also address the part of your post where you call on SC2 mapmakers to make more Protoss and Zerg favoured maps. Not that there is anything wrong with this idea, but this idea will take time and quite frankly SC2 needs care and attention from Blizzard not a bunch of amateur map makers.
What you should be doing rather than making topics like this is writing "An Open Letter to Blizzard" with the explicit instruction of 2 words. The first one being nerf and the second one being Terran. Excuse me but when have blizzard shown prowess in making good maps that are balanced throughout a games lifetime? I have no idea why people think that blizz are Gods at everything and refuse to admit that the community can do some things better than them. Also assuming that amateur is always worse than professional is really quite close minded. Not really closed minded at all to think that a professional is better than an amateur. I'm a professional engineer and I'd be pretty upset if someone told me that an amateur guy messing about in his garage knows more than me.
Professionals have limited hours and deadlines. Amateurs are likely to spend much more time working on something like a map until it is good enough.
Also, Blizzard's mapmakers are a limited number of people, while the amateurs are hundreds, even thousands if we count community input. This is why communities such as TL are so awesome - hundreds of people provide content.
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I doubt they'll charge for ladder maps, but you can expect them to charge for tournament maps... by proxy. The mapmaker will put it on their marketplace and they'll take a cut off the top.
Although idk if anyone will bother trying that, the custom map system is so awful.
On August 03 2010 08:02 sacrificetheory wrote:In a fairly balanced game, all races should have a decently fair fight on any maps. IF you have to adjust the maps to fix a balance within the races then obviously there is an imbalance.
that's
just
wrong.
I don't know how you can possibly imagine this is true. Island maps are not race balanced in bw, does this mean bw is imbalanced?
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On August 03 2010 06:08 iCCup.Raelcun wrote:
The balance in Starcraft 2 seems good, but the maps suck
Signed.
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On August 03 2010 08:02 sacrificetheory wrote:
You're wrong. The races are not balanced. All maps have cliffs all maps have chokes. All maps have blah blah. And one race has all the tricks to exploit any map features at any stage in the game. And the other races (ZP) have very few.
The races are not balanced. One race has most of their useful upgrades at 50/50.
On the whole map thing. sure give it a shot. But laugh when we can finally all agree that maps arent the problem.
Maps are just maps people. If you make a game with maps and races. In a fairly balanced game, all races should have a decently fair fight on any maps. IF you have to adjust the maps to fix a balance within the races then obviously there is an imbalance. OR? do you really think blizzard just said "ok we got it perfectly balanced! yes!, Now lets make some horribly imba Terran maps!" ?
There are these things called air units zerg and protoss have them too, if you dont like drops on cliffs get anti-air and scout if they have a starport air units are coming soon...
One person says the maps are too open map imba terran, the next says the maps have chokes imba terran???
Zerg can macro like a beast and so can protoss with chronoboost, terran has to stop building scvs to get orbital command... every race is different stop complaining as if you didnt know that coming into starcraft.
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Completely agree with OP.
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i agree we need bigger maps
blizzard gulp this
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Necrosjef: People complaining about something doesn't prove that there¨s a problem. people always complain - did you ever visit the strategy section of brood war here on tl.net? Even 6-7 years after the latest balance changes people had all sorts of opinions on the "imbalances" between races, units, and maps. Some were warranted of course, but in time bad maps get wheated out.
Numy: The balance of the original starcraft was more or less worked out from the blizzard made lost temple. Sure, it was revisited numerous times, but it was still the foundation of the game we know today. In the later stages of the game that map was agreed to be terran favored, but as you might know noone would have suggested that originally (terran was once considered very weak). Map designers cannot be expected to foresee the future. To answer your question: yes, blizzard has made balanced maps in the sense that the game we came to know evolved from those maps. So it can happen again.
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On August 03 2010 08:04 xtfftc wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 07:28 SiegeFlank wrote:On August 03 2010 07:18 xtfftc wrote:
The main problem with maps is that most people play ladder, which only includes poorly-designed Blizzard maps, or practice for ladder/tournaments on the same maps. To get a map into the ladder pool we need Blizzard to put it there. Unfortunately, they probably plan on charging users for new maps, so it will be even more complicated. I highly doubt that they'll charge users for new ladder maps. Not only has there been no mention of it in the past, but if they actually did decide to charge for it, the amount of backlash they would receive from the community would be so large that they'd basically be forced to make it free. Maps are much easier to design in SC2 than they are in other games (with regards to the tools they provide you). They have shown time after time that they do not care about the community anymore. The backlash about RealID was outside of the community as well because privacy is a serious issue. However, I can't see BBC reporting on gamers being charged for maps.
So this is suddenly evidence that Blizzard will charge for future maps? I don't buy it. And it's not like the whole RealID idea was withdrawn purely because BBC reported on it, the large amount of gaming websites that reported on it contributed to this as well.
On August 03 2010 08:02 sacrificetheory wrote:
Maps are just maps people. If you make a game with maps and races. In a fairly balanced game, all races should have a decently fair fight on any maps. IF you have to adjust the maps to fix a balance within the races then obviously there is an imbalance.
Brood War is a game which was balanced by mapmakers. You can't just say that because all maps have chokes and cliffs, a race is imbalanced on all maps. There are countless numbers of factors aside from simply having chokes and cliffs which factor into a map's level of balance.
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Okay, seriously, just because the races are not balanced at the moment that does not mean that we don't have to start thinking of the maps already. The game will change again and again, especially with the two expansions. However, the adjustments will gradually become smaller and smaller.
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Ive noticed this a lot during tournaments where there are multiple matches (bo7 etc.) and the loser chooses map. It seems like whoever wins the initial map (usually picked by the organizer) wins the series, as they just alternate wins/losses based on map choice. Take Idra ZvP for example, loss on LT, then choose scrap station, win there opponent chooses steps, etc. It reminds me of tennis, where the "server" has a huge advantage.
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Very good article! Hoping for some better maps in the future.
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On August 03 2010 08:19 xtfftc wrote:
Okay, seriously, just because the races are not balanced at the moment that does not mean that we don't have to start thinking of the maps already. The game will change again and again, especially with the two expansions. However, the adjustments will gradually become smaller and smaller.
But who gets to decide when the races are balanced? I mean if we JUST look at win/loss and points leaders on ladder then the races ARE balanced and thus maps ARE balanced. The thing is, statistics are deceiving. (maybe not balanced but Terran aren't OP by those stats)
The map pools have been rather similiar thus far and I'd be more willing to test new maps rather than new unit nerfs/buffs. If you change a map it isn't seen as a direct nerf to a race, so players accept it easier then if you alter a units ability or stats.
Changing maps couldn't hurt at this point, and would have a much smaller cascading impact on the overall game then more unit changes.
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Someone not bawwwing their eyes out on the forums because they 1ad hydras into a tank line? say it aint so
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Just wait till the good (read: not blizz) map makers get going and we get a proper pro scene then things will start rolling! I think your point about what features actually favouring who being unclear ATM has alot to do with the imba maps, but that will change. But seriously what is up with all the "open letter" to blah blah threads? It's not as if a letter sent to blizz will do anything if you even send it, and it makes it harder to see what a thread is about + it gives off the impression that the op is a pompous self lover (not saying you are, open letters just resonate with some pompous vibes)
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Will user-made maps be introduced to the ladder?
Blizzard will invariably adjust balance based on statistics they see from their own ladder, so it doesn't matter how many great, balanced maps you make if they never see them played. In fact, it seems as though they might have no option but to nerf terran, and then we'll see zerg/protoss imbalance on the truly balanced maps you describe.
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On August 03 2010 08:15 hefty wrote:
Necrosjef: People complaining about something doesn't prove that there¨s a problem. people always complain - did you ever visit the strategy section of brood war here on tl.net? Even 6-7 years after the latest balance changes people had all sorts of opinions on the "imbalances" between races, units, and maps. Some were warranted of course, but in time bad maps get wheated out.
Of course people complaining about things doesn't prove anything. No one said that.
Everything I said is based on hard facts and statistics with the addition of top player testimonials backing up my argument. Tester and IdrA both on record saying Terran is OP being a good example of that.
Besides in a situation like this you don't need a unanimous verdict to render your point of view correct you only need more than 50% of people to agree with you and I'm pretty sure more than 50% of people agree with me.
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Except the whole point of this thread is that things might change with different maps. Just because adding different maps 'might take months' doesn't mean that we need reactionary changes to race balance now. If they did that with BW it would be a whole different game, and probably a worse one. RTS balance is not the same as RPS balance, there are many factors involved lol.
yeah sorry for that last line I'm ashamed of myself
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United States47024 Posts
Anyone who disagrees with this thread clearly did not play BW--and did not watch what a huge effect good map making had on its balance.
On August 03 2010 07:40 Necrosjef wrote:
I agree with you. I'm not saying that amateur map makers won't/can't do a better job than Blizzard I'm sure they can.
What I am saying is that it will take time. SC2 needs attention now.
You're overstating the immediacy required for balance changes. I'd much rather changes be made too late than too soon. Changing things too late just ends up with people being a little disgruntled. Changing things too soon has the potential to lock out legitimately interesting new strategies before people have time to solve them.
On August 03 2010 07:44 Necrosjef wrote:
Also nothing wrong with asking Blizzard to balance a game they made. I'm pretty upset that after waiting for SC2 for 12 years that this is the best Blizzard have managed to come up with. I don't think I'm alone and I don't think it is wrong to ask Blizzard to improve on something which is quite frankly much worse than the original.
Blizzard's map makers are hardy more "professionals" than the community map makers. They put out a map pool once per game, whereas community map makers work on various projects week after week.
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On August 03 2010 06:54 jtgizmo wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 06:25 Ryuu314 wrote:
Personally, I think Zerg does okay in some of the wide-open maps, while Protoss gets the short stick. For example, the new map, Delta Quadrant and Desert Oasis are next to unplayable for Protoss in a PvZ because all-in speedlings are just too ridiculously powerful. It is impossible for Protoss to expand against any competent Zerg who just keeps sending in speedlings into the mineral line. Protoss is forced to defend (usually unsuccessfully) while Zerg can mass expand everywhere.
I really don't care about having large macro maps anymore. I just want non-bullshit maps that aren't horribly imbalanced. That is simply not true, Desert Oasis is one of the best maps for Protoss...havent played other one as i opted out of it, didnt like it
Are you serious? Explain a bit more please?
Void rays are pretty strong on DO, but any competent Zerg will scout that a mile away and just get multiple queens to fend it off. Besides, fazing doesn't work anymore so VRs aren't as strong as they were pre-release.
Protoss essentially has to win the game on one base when they're playing PvZ on DO. Expanding is ridiculous as it's so easy for Zerg to just 1a a bunch of speedlings straight into you natural expo's mineral line and wreck complete havoc. Additionally, the really long ground rush distance means that 2gate aggressive openings aren't nearly as strong as they need to be. A Zerg can 14pool 15 hatch and be safe with enough spine crawlers against almost any early Protoss aggression and receive minimal losses to their economy.
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On August 03 2010 06:08 iCCup.Raelcun wrote:
The balance in Starcraft 2 seems good, but the maps suck
ROFL. Really! Trying to put the blame on something - ONE thing - other than the limited playing skills (adaptability / flexibility) of the players? Apparently whining about the racial balance is out and whining about the maps is in now, so lets focus on that thing now, eh? Not a good idea! You need to look at the whole picture and not one color / corner of it to be able to judge it. Its not that playing Terran is easy and gives you an auto-win button.
The whole following arguments really sound like you think that Terran is only one strategy and that maps designed in different ways will stop benefitting Terran in general. Well that is wrong in so many ways as I will try to show below. More or less the whole OP is a disguised "Terran is OP" thread again, but the arguments have shifted from the units to the maps and still are one-sided. Just for reference here are the other threads "in the series":
How to fix TvZ Mech
Why Zerg is good
On August 03 2010 06:08 iCCup.Raelcun wrote:- Unsafe expansions which have multiple entrances make it hard for zerg and protoss to expand quickly against terrans.
There is no real safe expansion in the map pool, Blistering sands itself is safe but if you are guarding that your backdoor is open. Steppes of War has a side entrance by the rocks which you have to expend extra effort to cover. The two new maps have horrendously open exapansions, and a back expansion that is easily punished by cliffs.
LT is one of the safest expansions out there but can be taken down by thor/tank drops easily. Terrans on the current map pool with the use of hellions, reapers, thor/tank drops are able to punish the other races the most for taking early expansions while they delay their expansion until siege or merely expand while you are defending their harassment.
Terrans are the ones which suffer most from unsafe expansions, because they dont even have a cheap (~100 minerals) static defense to help defend against ground forces. Thus they are REQUIRED to sacrifice part of their army as base defense OR spend huge amounts of cash on a Planetary Fortresses which dont cover a whole lot of ground. The range of a PF is rather short with 7 (if you decide to upgrade) and that covers only slightly more ground (due to the size) than a Protoss / Zerg static ground defense IF the range is counted from the edge of the model and not the center!
On August 03 2010 06:08 iCCup.Raelcun wrote:- Xel'Naga watch towers that are anywhere near central locations or major chokepoints on the map will favor Terran. The ability to grant siege tanks their full range by sitting next to a watch tower is very powerful. We've seen this proven many many times on Lost Temple and Metalopolis, what makes it worse are the fact that these watch towers are in defensible locations as well. There are chokepoints nearby that will force an army to constrict while hitting them the 4 walls on LT, the small cliff on Metal and Kulas ravine. Central watch towers make the middle of the map if it is not completely open a tank playground.
Xel'Naga watch towers as a whole are an interesting feature and I would not like to see them go even though map makers are experimenting with making maps that do not include them I think they have a lot of potential. But placing them in key locations next to choke points really has to stop, if they're near key map chokepoints make them vulnerable and hard to hold. Not like, Metal, Kulas, Blistering, but more like the watch towers on Desert Oasis.
Every race benefits from an expanded vision range, not just Terrans. They simply react differently to it. Terrans have the least dependance upon it, because they can always build a sensor tower and "need" to have aerial spotters anyways for the tanks, since you will be out of range of the Xel'Naga tower eventually.
On August 03 2010 06:08 iCCup.Raelcun wrote:- Large main bases many times with a lot of area for reapers to jump up in are good for terrans as well. They have sensor towers and are not bothered by HUGE main bases as they can be forewarned before a drop comes in, but a simple 4 marauder drop into one of the barren corners of your base can result in losing important buildings. The large size of the bases on most maps means reapers can get in easily and in order to defend against drops stupid amounts of static anti air are needed. This can also be beneficial to Zerg but that brings me around to the next point.
Large main bases give you space to use Nydus worms or Warp Prisms to make "warp drops", its just that those races have apparently become too lazy to use these tactics. Small and tight bases really really hurt Terrans, because they need LOTS of buildings (more than any other race) and their army is immobile. Just imagine a Thor trying to get through a crowded base to defend against Mutas. Almost impossible unless you use a Medivac, which is relatively easily shot down.
On August 03 2010 06:08 iCCup.Raelcun wrote:- We've figured out a lot about what makes a map a terran map, but we still have not figured out solidly what makes a map a protoss map or a zerg map. Until we can figure out what map features that solidly favor a zerg or a protoss it's hard to balance out the terran features on a map by giving it protoss and zerg features.
There is no one tactic for a race and thus it is close to impossible to make a map which is good for one race and bad for another. I hope this one example will show that most discussions are not taking everything into account and that most of the times it is the PLAYERS who dont want to adapt to the maps. If I want to go to the extreme I sometimes feel like many non-Terrans (especially Zerg) would be building a massive ground army on a pure island map and then whine about the other races being imbalanced or the map being bad.
Even Kulas Ravine is not only "Terran favored", because Stalkers with Blink and Colosssi can abuse those ledges too. The thing which makes the map "bad" is the ledges which overlook the naturals and which are closed off by destructible rocks AND which have a Xel'Naga tower on them. Remove both of these things and make the ramp up there easier to reach from the natural and you have the major pain for Zerg removed. The mobility of Zerg and Protoss give them an edge over Terrans on this map as well, since there are several points of entrance into the main base, so the whining about it being Terran favored is not totally true and is simply focusing on one detail of the map.
On August 03 2010 06:08 iCCup.Raelcun wrote:
That brings me to my major point, I believe the balance as in racial balance is at a good point right now players are able to overcome the maps by extreme levels of play but overall we're seeing high Terran statistics because the maps are favoring Terran and the play level on the Ladder isnt quite as high.
My proposal on how to fix this is we need the map making community to try and do their best to purposely make zerg and protoss favored maps and have good players play on them.
"Wait doesn't this make it worse?" You are prone to ask, in the short term yes but in the long term it will allow us to figure out what map features will make a map good for zerg and protoss and when we are able to combine these features with the terran features that we already know then maybe we can come up with some more truly all around balanced maps.
Map making is still in it's infancy and I believe Starcraft 2 will not continue to grow as a whole until we can fix this and get better maps out for the community, we run the danger of hitting stagnation if the maps never evolve and change. That was one of the key features of Brood War was a constantly changing and evolving map pool, the map makers constantly pushing the bounds of what is balanced and what is not. There were some pretty famous examples ie Gorky Park, Demon Forest. But we learned from those mistakes so right now I propose we intentionally try and create some of those disaster maps so we can learn from them.
The solution doesn't rely on map making alone, but rather on the players to get used to many different ways to play their race. That is the true reason why Zerg sucks, because there "usually" is a standard tactic in a ZvZ matchup (Zergling/Baneling now? and mass Roaches sometime in the beta?), while Terrans can practically do anything from pure infantry to mech to air in a TvT matchup and win. That's why Terran is so overpowered ... because the Terran players NEED TO get used to all their units while Zerg (and to some lesser degree Protoss as well) players are lazy and stick to "what unit works best" ... until some new best tactic comes up to be used exclusively. It is the PLAYERS which need to change and most importantly the "leaders of the whine" which need to keep a low profile. The game is in its infancy and people should try to make it work before starting to whine.
Whenever anyone claims to have "tried everything" I really really dont believe them, because no one is smart enough to see everything and to figure out everything. Everyone has his favorite color of sunglasses and is looking at it from his own - more or less biased - point of view. Threads like these which seem to have a lot of thought behind them arent really good, because they only give an illusion of that as I have shown with my counter-arguments which Raelcun did not give in his OP. Sure the maps made by Blizzard seem imbalanced, but that is only due to the fact that once you dislike something it is hard to "un-dislike" it and try to get used to it on a professional and neutral level.
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On August 03 2010 06:27 mahnini wrote:
i agree with this and i think as maps begin to get larger (to BW sized maps) people will actually be able to abuse terran immobility more. right now on most ladder maps a mid-game mech army can seige and clamp down half the map which is probably the ONLY reason why it's viable.
I really think this has some merit and I am dying for a map pool that is larger on average... I feel so cramped on almost every map.
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On August 03 2010 06:37 FuriousJodo wrote:
Agree with this - though as a Protoss player I still think Terran have the coolest units. (Reapers and Hellions are just too awesome, seriously). But I don't think the game is unbalanced and I definitely agree with you that the maps seem to be more of an issue than actual game balance.
If you like Terran units more, why are you playing Protoss? Not trying to be a jerk, I just think you might be happier with Terran.
/End Dr. Phill moment
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On August 03 2010 10:12 Rabiator wrote:
Terrans are the ones which suffer most from unsafe expansions, because they dont even have a cheap (~100 minerals) static defense to help defend against ground forces. Thus they are REQUIRED to sacrifice part of their army as base defense OR spend huge amounts of cash on a Planetary Fortresses which dont cover a whole lot of ground. The range of a PF is rather short with 7 (if you decide to upgrade) and that covers only slightly more ground (due to the size) than a Protoss / Zerg static ground defense IF the range is counted from the edge of the model and not the center!
If you're expanding, you've either got your army standing in front of it, ready to defend, or you're applying pressure and preventing him from putting pressure on you. The idea of 'poor mistreated terrans' having to plop some bunkers down is nonsense. Bunkers mean you can expand easily by investing some minerals (temporarily, thanks to Salvage) to protect what would be a weak bio force and repair the things when you do get attacked. You can completely crush a much stronger force, just by building some bunkers. Nobody is busting in there without the big guns like Immortals or a full-blown all-in gateway/baneling bust. Meanwhile, a Protoss or Zerg who invests a bunch of minerals on Cannons or Spine Crawlers can get easily stomped by a bog-standard bio ball. Those things aren't cheap and they really do suck if they're not positioned on high-ground where they can get some free shots off. But, then you just COMSAT and rape the thing with your range 5/6 units anyway. The joys of not depending on melee units.
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On August 03 2010 10:24 Bibdy wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 10:12 Rabiator wrote:
Terrans are the ones which suffer most from unsafe expansions, because they dont even have a cheap (~100 minerals) static defense to help defend against ground forces. Thus they are REQUIRED to sacrifice part of their army as base defense OR spend huge amounts of cash on a Planetary Fortresses which dont cover a whole lot of ground. The range of a PF is rather short with 7 (if you decide to upgrade) and that covers only slightly more ground (due to the size) than a Protoss / Zerg static ground defense IF the range is counted from the edge of the model and not the center! If you're expanding, you've either got your army standing in front of it, ready to defend, or you're applying pressure and preventing him from putting pressure on you. The idea of 'poor mistreated terrans' having to plop some bunkers down is nonsense. Bunkers mean you can expand easily by investing some minerals (temporarily, thanks to Salvage) to protect what would be a weak bio force and repair the things when you do get attacked. You can completely crush a much stronger force, just by building some bunkers. Nobody is busting in there without the big guns like Immortals or a full-blown all-in gateway/baneling bust. Meanwhile, a Protoss or Zerg who invests a bunch of minerals on Cannons or Spine Crawlers can get easily stomped by a bog-standard bio ball. Those things aren't cheap and they really do suck if they're not positioned on high-ground where they can get some free shots off. But, then you just COMSAT and rape the thing with your range 5/6 units anyway. The joys of not depending on melee units.
Not to mention that Terrans can lift their buildings to reposition them for a better wall.
And they got seige tanks.
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I agree that TvZ would be much more balanced if the maps were different.
1. Needs much longer rush distances.
2. No natural cliff. Needs less cliffable areas in general.
3. The main-natural choke needs to be close to the natural.
4. Needs less narrow pathways.
An example of an "ideal" map would be Desert Oasis if the natural was closer to the ramp and more defendable, and Lost Temple if there was no natural cliff and the map as a whole was bigger.
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On August 03 2010 06:42 iCCup.Raelcun wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 06:40 Kurumi wrote:On August 03 2010 06:37 iCCup.Raelcun wrote:
Blizzard has the statistics locked away in a secure vault somewhere in an unspecified location so that they may choose to release them randomly when it suits whatever purpose they like. You're wrong. Zeratul locked them in his crystal... That's why Raynor is so shocked. I loled nice one, but anyways the problem with statistics is you can make them suit whatever purpose you like as I said. If you see that terran is winning a majority on every map there are two conclusions: 1) Terran is fucking imba 2) The maps are bad and people are just as likely to come to both conclusions which causes ragestorms while people argue about it endlessly.
there is also
3) people play wrong
just the same point people made in phase1 regarding terran being weak P:
maps r not balanced for certain matchups, thats no secret but i am getting headaches when i see so much whining everywhere about anything from people who just play awfull. but its always easy to blame anything but himself for being chobo
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Interesting read. The very first thing I want to see done on a map is heavily increase rush times between mains. It will greatly help zergs since you have more time to react to all the options an opponent can throw at you. You also have more points to battle at since the center can't be just one massive choke (kulas). I will love it if blizzard implements a map like luna with a desert oasis rush distance. Luna was boring to play in brood war but it gave you a good picture of what standard games were supposed to play like.
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On August 03 2010 10:31 Ryuu314 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 10:24 Bibdy wrote:On August 03 2010 10:12 Rabiator wrote:
Terrans are the ones which suffer most from unsafe expansions, because they dont even have a cheap (~100 minerals) static defense to help defend against ground forces. Thus they are REQUIRED to sacrifice part of their army as base defense OR spend huge amounts of cash on a Planetary Fortresses which dont cover a whole lot of ground. The range of a PF is rather short with 7 (if you decide to upgrade) and that covers only slightly more ground (due to the size) than a Protoss / Zerg static ground defense IF the range is counted from the edge of the model and not the center! If you're expanding, you've either got your army standing in front of it, ready to defend, or you're applying pressure and preventing him from putting pressure on you. The idea of 'poor mistreated terrans' having to plop some bunkers down is nonsense. Bunkers mean you can expand easily by investing some minerals (temporarily, thanks to Salvage) to protect what would be a weak bio force and repair the things when you do get attacked. You can completely crush a much stronger force, just by building some bunkers. Nobody is busting in there without the big guns like Immortals or a full-blown all-in gateway/baneling bust. Meanwhile, a Protoss or Zerg who invests a bunch of minerals on Cannons or Spine Crawlers can get easily stomped by a bog-standard bio ball. Those things aren't cheap and they really do suck if they're not positioned on high-ground where they can get some free shots off. But, then you just COMSAT and rape the thing with your range 5/6 units anyway. The joys of not depending on melee units. Not to mention that Terrans can lift their buildings to reposition them for a better wall. And they got seige tanks.
Suuure ... and Terrans can always put the Tech Labs and Reactors on the inside of the wall of buildings and once you built these it is totally ok to lift off the main building just to make a wall somewhere else.
@Bibdy (the quote from Ryuu)
Bunkers are NOT FREE or only a temporary investment, because you always need to defend your bases / entrances. There is always the possibility of harrass. Saying that they are only a temporary investment is kidding yourself. That statement is only true for the "advancing with bunkers" strategy, but defensive structures at your base need to stay. Saying you dont need them when you move out is just plain stupid, because there is ALWAYS more than one way to get to your base and if your army is out you have no defenses. One or two units could sneak in and wreak havoc in your mineral line for almost no cost. If you have no troops at your front a turret wont help you defending against some sneaky burrowing Roaches or cloaked Dark Templars heading into your base.
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United States47024 Posts
On August 03 2010 10:24 Bibdy wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 10:12 Rabiator wrote:
Terrans are the ones which suffer most from unsafe expansions, because they dont even have a cheap (~100 minerals) static defense to help defend against ground forces. Thus they are REQUIRED to sacrifice part of their army as base defense OR spend huge amounts of cash on a Planetary Fortresses which dont cover a whole lot of ground. The range of a PF is rather short with 7 (if you decide to upgrade) and that covers only slightly more ground (due to the size) than a Protoss / Zerg static ground defense IF the range is counted from the edge of the model and not the center! If you're expanding, you've either got your army standing in front of it, ready to defend, or you're applying pressure and preventing him from putting pressure on you. The idea of 'poor mistreated terrans' having to plop some bunkers down is nonsense. Bunkers mean you can expand easily by investing some minerals (temporarily, thanks to Salvage) to protect what would be a weak bio force and repair the things when you do get attacked. You can completely crush a much stronger force, just by building some bunkers. Nobody is busting in there without the big guns like Immortals or a full-blown all-in gateway/baneling bust. Meanwhile, a Protoss or Zerg who invests a bunch of minerals on Cannons or Spine Crawlers can get easily stomped by a bog-standard bio ball. Those things aren't cheap and they really do suck if they're not positioned on high-ground where they can get some free shots off. But, then you just COMSAT and rape the thing with your range 5/6 units anyway. The joys of not depending on melee units.
Its also worth noting that since BW, Protoss and Zerg have always required a base advantage in order to properly combat Terran. This has carried over in SC2, at the very least, in TvZ. Unsafe expansions hurt zerg and protoss because they have to take more of them. An example of this is Steppes of War--you can reasonably hold 3 games in the midgame, but taking a logical 4th base is nearly impossible because every potential 4th base is both open and far away from your other 3 bases. Terran can be content to sit on 3 bases, but against 3 base Terran, Zerg NEEDS access to 4+ bases. On a map like Steppes, holding that many bases is exceedingly difficult.
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Bunkers need to stay? You are just making shit up to suit your argument now.
I agree that virtually every map is flawed in some way
No one knows how far map balance can go to fix the game before we're stuck with the identical map over and over because there are no other viable map designs that will keep the game 'balanced'
So while the maps are terrible, to blame them entirely isn't necessarily good for the game. Ideally you would want a lot of variety in map design and for the game to still be balanced/enjoyable.
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On August 03 2010 10:43 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 10:31 Ryuu314 wrote:On August 03 2010 10:24 Bibdy wrote:On August 03 2010 10:12 Rabiator wrote:
Terrans are the ones which suffer most from unsafe expansions, because they dont even have a cheap (~100 minerals) static defense to help defend against ground forces. Thus they are REQUIRED to sacrifice part of their army as base defense OR spend huge amounts of cash on a Planetary Fortresses which dont cover a whole lot of ground. The range of a PF is rather short with 7 (if you decide to upgrade) and that covers only slightly more ground (due to the size) than a Protoss / Zerg static ground defense IF the range is counted from the edge of the model and not the center! If you're expanding, you've either got your army standing in front of it, ready to defend, or you're applying pressure and preventing him from putting pressure on you. The idea of 'poor mistreated terrans' having to plop some bunkers down is nonsense. Bunkers mean you can expand easily by investing some minerals (temporarily, thanks to Salvage) to protect what would be a weak bio force and repair the things when you do get attacked. You can completely crush a much stronger force, just by building some bunkers. Nobody is busting in there without the big guns like Immortals or a full-blown all-in gateway/baneling bust. Meanwhile, a Protoss or Zerg who invests a bunch of minerals on Cannons or Spine Crawlers can get easily stomped by a bog-standard bio ball. Those things aren't cheap and they really do suck if they're not positioned on high-ground where they can get some free shots off. But, then you just COMSAT and rape the thing with your range 5/6 units anyway. The joys of not depending on melee units. Not to mention that Terrans can lift their buildings to reposition them for a better wall. And they got seige tanks. Suuure ... and Terrans can always put the Tech Labs and Reactors on the inside of the wall of buildings and once you built these it is totally ok to lift off the main building just to make a wall somewhere else.
Yes, yes they can. Totally worth it if it contributes to defense.
On August 03 2010 10:43 Rabiator wrote:
@Bibdy (the quote from Ryuu)
Bunkers are NOT FREE or only a temporary investment, because you always need to defend your bases / entrances. There is always the possibility of harrass. Saying that they are only a temporary investment is kidding yourself. That statement is only true for the "advancing with bunkers" strategy, but defensive structures at your base need to stay. Saying you dont need them when you move out is just plain stupid, because there is ALWAYS more than one way to get to your base and if your army is out you have no defenses. One or two units could sneak in and wreak havoc in your mineral line for almost no cost. If you have no troops at your front a turret wont help you defending against some sneaky burrowing Roaches or cloaked Dark Templars heading into your base.
You really don't need to rely on a bunker for defense when you move out. You should constantly be producing units, and by time you're moving out a large army to go on the offensive, you should have enough unit producing structures to replenish easily. Bunkers are a useful investment early on, but they can indeed be considered a temporary investment as they're not required to defend in the later stages of the game. Moreover, Terran has always been the race with the units best suited for holding down a position for as long as possible (primarily due to siege tanks and so many other ranged units).
On August 03 2010 10:38 kNyTTyM wrote:
Interesting read. The very first thing I want to see done on a map is heavily increase rush times between mains. It will greatly help zergs since you have more time to react to all the options an opponent can throw at you. You also have more points to battle at since the center can't be just one massive choke (kulas). I will love it if blizzard implements a map like luna with a desert oasis rush distance. Luna was boring to play in brood war but it gave you a good picture of what standard games were supposed to play like.
I think that Luna would be an awesome map to have in SC2. It's large, not overly complicated, but still allows for many interesting variations in play.
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Maps are fine, fix banelings they are soooo strong.
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Baa?21242 Posts
Completely agreed; the small map sizes are probably the biggest issue right now. It's currently impossible to flank a Terran mech army on the maps, which tends to be the standard way to combat it, since charging head on is just a tragedy. Bigger maps please ~_~
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I know I'm repeating a lot of earlier posts, but I really like the ideas presented in the OP. Map selection is very bland as it is, and there's lots of complaints that Metalopolis is the only decent ZvT map.
In addition tot he Xel'Naga watchtower changes mentioned in the OP, I think more strategic placement of brush would help as well. Brush benefits more mobile, short-range armies than it benefits slow, long-range armies (AKA helps Z, hurts T) in a way exactly inverse to watchtowers.
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On August 03 2010 10:55 floor exercise wrote:
Bunkers need to stay? You are just making shit up to suit your argument now.
I agree that virtually every map is flawed in some way
No one knows how far map balance can go to fix the game before we're stuck with the identical map over and over because there are no other viable map designs that will keep the game 'balanced'
So while the maps are terrible, to blame them entirely isn't necessarily good for the game. Ideally you would want a lot of variety in map design and for the game to still be balanced/enjoyable.
How are you going to defend your bases as Terran against anything that attacks them with ground forces until your army arrives to defend? Wall offs dont really work everywhere and Day[9] always repeats his mantra about not wanting to make turrets, because the resources could be spent elsewhere. Well the same should hold true for wall-offs. So how do you put up at least a minimal defense as Terran to delay an enemy and - more importantly - to deny a scout? Just hoping that an enemy will not find / attack the base doesnt really work IMO. Protoss have their warp gates to instantly get reinforcements and Zerg have at least one Queen usually to defend, but what does Terran have? Sure the Queen is 2 food, BUT she serves a useful function for economy at any base. So what does Terran have to defend? Nothing really, because the command center doesnt defend the worker line from harrass if the harrass has the potential to outrange it.
I would not say that every map is flawed, but rather that every race has tactics that work better on some maps than on others and it is the fault of the players not to realize that and adapt appropriately. Take Desert Oasis for example. Massive ground force armies seem pretty bad, because of the really long way, but still most battles are fought with almost exclusively using them in big clumps. This map seems built to teach players two- or three-pronged attacks and especially against Terrans this should work well ... divide and conquer is always good against an immobile army.
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On August 03 2010 13:58 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 10:55 floor exercise wrote:
Bunkers need to stay? You are just making shit up to suit your argument now.
I agree that virtually every map is flawed in some way
No one knows how far map balance can go to fix the game before we're stuck with the identical map over and over because there are no other viable map designs that will keep the game 'balanced'
So while the maps are terrible, to blame them entirely isn't necessarily good for the game. Ideally you would want a lot of variety in map design and for the game to still be balanced/enjoyable. How are you going to defend your bases as Terran against anything that attacks them with ground forces until your army arrives to defend? Wall offs dont really work everywhere and Day[9] always repeats his mantra about not wanting to make turrets, because the resources could be spent elsewhere. Well the same should hold true for wall-offs. So how do you put up at least a minimal defense as Terran to delay an enemy and - more importantly - to deny a scout? Just hoping that an enemy will not find / attack the base doesnt really work IMO. Protoss have their warp gates to instantly get reinforcements and Zerg have at least one Queen usually to defend, but what does Terran have? Sure the Queen is 2 food, BUT she serves a useful function for economy at any base. So what does Terran have to defend? Nothing really, because the command center doesnt defend the worker line from harrass if the harrass has the potential to outrange it.
a queen could do something against a harass if the only unit involved in that harass was a marine, but even 1 marauder will have no problem to kill a queen
i dont see how a queen could defend you from harass. even 2 crawlers dont do anything against a drop of 4 or even 8 marauders
at the same time zerg doesnt have a unit to effectively harass the terrans expansions, or what unit are you thinking of? as a zerg i would like to have hellions and reapers, especially hellions melt down everything if you dont kill them immediately
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Yeah, I've been ranting about map balance ever since the first "Terran is broken zvt" threads first popped up, ><.
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Been out for most of the day here this thread seems to have degenerated slightly but mostly a lot of agreements with some corrections here and there.
This part is at too many people to list, if you think this OP is whining read it again. I'm not saying Blizzard fix it because Blizzard doesn't know how to fix it. Blizzard is notorious for having bad map making teams in every RTS they release. I'm not telling Blizzard to fix it I'm asking the community to go out of their way to figure out how to make imbalanced maps for zerg and protoss so we can make better maps as a whole.
I saw a problem I thought about it for quite a long time and posted how I think -we- can solve it not Blizzard. This is not whining this is trying to get something done. The problem with the normal course of map making is that players always try to make a balanced map and try new features while trying to make it balanced. Meanwhile people in the map threads about every post will be "this (feature) is imba for (race)" many of them wind up being wrong because they don't actually play it but it's useful to know these features that are imba for what race. It is nearly impossible to make a truly balanced map you can merely hope for a map whose imbalances even eachother out over the course of a game.
So instead of map makers trying to make balanced maps because they want to make a great map and have people play on it, if people were to make the worst maps they can possibly think of in favor of Zerg and Protoss we can adapt some of the small features from those maps and integrate them into current maps to make them better.
To anyone who thinks that maps are not important to balance, you obviously didn't play Brood War. Someone said that above and I couldn't have said it better so thanks.
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The races are not balanced, there is nothing here to discuss you are merely trying to take attention from Terrans to the maps, its the exact same way WoW Arena was ruined when players refused to admit the imbalances and screwed the developers minds up, saying "healing was too high".
They "fixed" this by increasing damage to insane mounts in WotLK and killed the pro scene.
The problem is clear and its right infront of us, derailing it would be bad for this game, stop trying to protect your own interests and be honest, its the only proper way forward.
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United States47024 Posts
As there has been some discussion of zerg's defensive capability and their ability to deflect harassment, I will say that map balance factors hugely into this as well. Look at SC1 ZvP and vs mech ZvT: the ability to deflect early/mid-game attacks and harassment is hugely intuned with the ability to simcity at various positions. In particular, zerg's ability to defend otherwise out-of-the-way and indefensible expansions is directly connected with their ability to set up a simcity at those bases.
As of right now, its very clear that defensive structure placement in SC2 is following the trend that it did in SC1--Terran is the first to develop wall-ins, followed by some rudimentary wall-ins for Protoss (eventually leading to the simcities that are used for forge-FE builds), and zerg is last. In part, this may contribute to why the other races seem so defensively weak at the moment--bunker and depot setups are fairly straightforward, due to the ability to salvage bunkers and lower depots. Equivalent setups for zerg and protoss are harder, but will most likely develop in time.
This of course, will obfuscate map design--SC1 map makers must be keenly aware of what wall-ins and simcities are possible on their maps, but in SC2, without standard patterns for those setups that exist in SC1, this is extremely awkward.
On August 03 2010 19:09 Raevin wrote:
The races are not balanced, there is nothing here to discuss you are merely trying to take attention from Terrans to the maps, its the exact same way WoW Arena was ruined when players refused to admit the imbalances and screwed the developers minds up, saying "healing was too high".
They "fixed" this by increasing damage to insane mounts in WotLK and killed the pro scene.
The problem is clear and its right infront of us, derailing it would be bad for this game, stop trying to protect your own interests and be honest, its the only proper way forward.
What interests? Raelcun is a commentator before a player. If he has vested interests in anything, it's in the long term success of this game, and not petty gains for one race. You don't even know if he plays Terran (and judging by his race icon, it's probably a safe bet that he doesn't).
As I said before, anyone who doesn't believe that race balance and map balance are deeply tied with one another either did not have experience with SC1, or is willfully ignoring that experience. Because there are maps that are less overtly imbalanced than the current SC2 map pool in SC1 that resulted in win percentages on the order of 65% for one race.
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Not so sure about the map criticism - for instance I, as Protoss, like more open naturals against Terran players (flanking tanks) but not against Zerg propably.
What I agree 100% on is that Blizzard needs to establish a map maker community that makes maps also accessable for laddergames.
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YES, i totally agree with everything. I've been repeating those things from the start of the beta till now, every time someone touched ladder maps. We need new maps, not some bullshit as it is now, but something different, BW-like.
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The Blizzard maps are horrible, they're so damn small.
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On August 03 2010 19:20 Dia wrote:
YES, i totally agree with everything. I've been repeating those things from the start of the beta till now, every time someone touched ladder maps. We need new maps, not some bullshit as it is now, but something different, BW-like.
Without units like Defilers and Arbiters, how can you be that sure about statemens like this? I mean, we absolutely dont know, how would the current metagame (I dont give a shit if you like this word or not lol) shift and you suppose that being a definite balance improvement we need?
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On August 03 2010 19:34 Everlong wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 19:20 Dia wrote:
YES, i totally agree with everything. I've been repeating those things from the start of the beta till now, every time someone touched ladder maps. We need new maps, not some bullshit as it is now, but something different, BW-like. Without units like Defilers and Arbiters, how can you be that sure about statemens like this? I mean, we absolutely dont know, how would the current metagame (I dont give a shit if you like this word or not lol) shift and you suppose that being a definite balance improvement we need?
I played 2 custom maps, that were on ESL tournament, they were a lot more BW like, 3 games, totally different gameplay. Don't have replays tho. And, i don't think they have to be like in BW, sure, there are not those units in SCII that you say, and i totally agree with you. So the point is, that map makers have to study current "metagame" and make maps that fit to it.
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On August 03 2010 19:40 Dia wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 19:34 Everlong wrote:On August 03 2010 19:20 Dia wrote:
YES, i totally agree with everything. I've been repeating those things from the start of the beta till now, every time someone touched ladder maps. We need new maps, not some bullshit as it is now, but something different, BW-like. Without units like Defilers and Arbiters, how can you be that sure about statemens like this? I mean, we absolutely dont know, how would the current metagame (I dont give a shit if you like this word or not lol) shift and you suppose that being a definite balance improvement we need? I played 2 custom maps, that were on ESL tournament, they were a lot more BW like, 3 games, totally different gameplay. Don't have replays tho. And, i don't think they have to be like in BW, sure, there are not those units in SCII that you say, and i totally agree with you. So the point is, that map makers have to study current "metagame" and make maps that fit to it.
Definitely agreed.
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On August 03 2010 07:44 Necrosjef wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 07:40 Crabman123 wrote:On August 03 2010 07:31 Necrosjef wrote:
Don't really agree with this at all. OP your logic is flawed.
Let me come at it from a different angle.
"The maps are the maps. The reason Terran are winning more often than not on these maps is because Terran are too strong."
Let me also address the part of your post where you call on SC2 mapmakers to make more Protoss and Zerg favoured maps. Not that there is anything wrong with this idea, but this idea will take time and quite frankly SC2 needs care and attention from Blizzard not a bunch of amateur map makers.
What you should be doing rather than making topics like this is writing "An Open Letter to Blizzard" with the explicit instruction of 2 words. The first one being nerf and the second one being Terran. Excuse me but when have blizzard shown prowess in making good maps that are balanced throughout a games lifetime? I have no idea why people think that blizz are Gods at everything and refuse to admit that the community can do some things better than them. Also assuming that amateur is always worse than professional is really quite close minded. Not really closed minded at all to think that a professional is better than an amateur. I'm a professional engineer and I'd be pretty upset if someone told me that an amateur guy messing about in his garage knows more than me. Also nothing wrong with asking Blizzard to balance a game they made. I'm pretty upset that after waiting for SC2 for 12 years that this is the best Blizzard have managed to come up with. I don't think I'm alone and I don't think it is wrong to ask Blizzard to improve on something which is quite frankly much worse than the original.
Your assuming that since they get paid they are good at what they do and that they know more than the people who play the game. Its not the same as engineering. People play this game on higher levels than blizzard can hope to get to and this game is successful because of the people who play it not the developers talent. SC1 was perfect because of it flaws and bad controls. The community developed the game to where it became great, Blizzard got lucky. In BW the maps were imba and people who spent more time and effort playing the game saw what needed to be done to make them balanced. In other words Blizzard is the amateur who doesn't understand and the players are the professionals and we have to try to tell Blizzard how to do things right because they are not capable of making the game great by themselves.
Look at WoW, that game sucks but the community makes mods and adjustments in order for it to be "good" and then WoW take a popular mod and make a shitty generic version.
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On August 03 2010 13:58 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 10:55 floor exercise wrote:
Bunkers need to stay? You are just making shit up to suit your argument now.
I agree that virtually every map is flawed in some way
No one knows how far map balance can go to fix the game before we're stuck with the identical map over and over because there are no other viable map designs that will keep the game 'balanced'
So while the maps are terrible, to blame them entirely isn't necessarily good for the game. Ideally you would want a lot of variety in map design and for the game to still be balanced/enjoyable. How are you going to defend your bases as Terran against anything that attacks them with ground forces until your army arrives to defend? Wall offs dont really work everywhere and Day[9] always repeats his mantra about not wanting to make turrets, because the resources could be spent elsewhere. Well the same should hold true for wall-offs. So how do you put up at least a minimal defense as Terran to delay an enemy and - more importantly - to deny a scout? Just hoping that an enemy will not find / attack the base doesnt really work IMO. Protoss have their warp gates to instantly get reinforcements and Zerg have at least one Queen usually to defend, but what does Terran have? Sure the Queen is 2 food, BUT she serves a useful function for economy at any base. So what does Terran have to defend? Nothing really, because the command center doesnt defend the worker line from harrass if the harrass has the potential to outrange it. I would not say that every map is flawed, but rather that every race has tactics that work better on some maps than on others and it is the fault of the players not to realize that and adapt appropriately. Take Desert Oasis for example. Massive ground force armies seem pretty bad, because of the really long way, but still most battles are fought with almost exclusively using them in big clumps. This map seems built to teach players two- or three-pronged attacks and especially against Terrans this should work well ... divide and conquer is always good against an immobile army.
How will you defend your base until your army arrives. This is done with map awareness and knowing that your base is being attacked? Or floating your structure, ensuring half the units in the game can't even hit it anymore and running your scvs away? I'm not sure why you think this is an issue. If you play a harassment style player you can build a bunker. But then you'll say "oh well that's wasting minerals on defense and terran shouldn't do that!!" while you are arguing in the same breath how much better other races are cause of their non-salvageable static defense structures like you've been doing so far. That makes no sense
Not spending money on turrets falls under the same category as not spending money on any static defense. It's always better spent elsewhere. Again you are selectively arguing points that apply to all races to make what is a really stupid point to begin with.
Money being better spent on something other than wall is an absurd suggestion as well. Do you realize that walls are comprised on critical buildings that you would be building anyway? There is virtually no downside. What are you going on about? And do you live in a world where planetary fortress doesn't exist? Terran has nothing to defend their workers? They've got the single most powerful defensive structure in the game, turrets are insanely cost effective against every air unit, not even day9 will argue that, he will just say repeat a very true well known statement that an active defense is always better than a static one because you can do other things with it. That doesn't change the effectiveness of using turrets when you scout something like muta and don't have a thor coming.
I hate to start being an asshole, but I'm beginning to get the sense that you don't even play SC2. when you suggest Terran has no defensive capabilities or that theirs are somehow flawed and have huge downsides that the other races don't have.
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They could add neutral Sensor Towers on some maps instead of Xel'naga Towers.
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I love you Raelcun. Every time you make a thread you hit the nail on the head.
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On August 03 2010 19:09 Raevin wrote:
The races are not balanced, there is nothing here to discuss you are merely trying to take attention from Terrans to the maps, its the exact same way WoW Arena was ruined when players refused to admit the imbalances and screwed the developers minds up, saying "healing was too high".
They "fixed" this by increasing damage to insane mounts in WotLK and killed the pro scene.
The problem is clear and its right infront of us, derailing it would be bad for this game, stop trying to protect your own interests and be honest, its the only proper way forward.
Except that, you know, Raelcun is Zerg. XDDDDD
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On August 03 2010 10:43 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 10:31 Ryuu314 wrote:On August 03 2010 10:24 Bibdy wrote:On August 03 2010 10:12 Rabiator wrote:
Terrans are the ones which suffer most from unsafe expansions, because they dont even have a cheap (~100 minerals) static defense to help defend against ground forces. Thus they are REQUIRED to sacrifice part of their army as base defense OR spend huge amounts of cash on a Planetary Fortresses which dont cover a whole lot of ground. The range of a PF is rather short with 7 (if you decide to upgrade) and that covers only slightly more ground (due to the size) than a Protoss / Zerg static ground defense IF the range is counted from the edge of the model and not the center! If you're expanding, you've either got your army standing in front of it, ready to defend, or you're applying pressure and preventing him from putting pressure on you. The idea of 'poor mistreated terrans' having to plop some bunkers down is nonsense. Bunkers mean you can expand easily by investing some minerals (temporarily, thanks to Salvage) to protect what would be a weak bio force and repair the things when you do get attacked. You can completely crush a much stronger force, just by building some bunkers. Nobody is busting in there without the big guns like Immortals or a full-blown all-in gateway/baneling bust. Meanwhile, a Protoss or Zerg who invests a bunch of minerals on Cannons or Spine Crawlers can get easily stomped by a bog-standard bio ball. Those things aren't cheap and they really do suck if they're not positioned on high-ground where they can get some free shots off. But, then you just COMSAT and rape the thing with your range 5/6 units anyway. The joys of not depending on melee units. Not to mention that Terrans can lift their buildings to reposition them for a better wall. And they got seige tanks. Suuure ... and Terrans can always put the Tech Labs and Reactors on the inside of the wall of buildings and once you built these it is totally ok to lift off the main building just to make a wall somewhere else. @Bibdy (the quote from Ryuu) Bunkers are NOT FREE or only a temporary investment, because you always need to defend your bases / entrances. There is always the possibility of harrass. Saying that they are only a temporary investment is kidding yourself. That statement is only true for the "advancing with bunkers" strategy, but defensive structures at your base need to stay. Saying you dont need them when you move out is just plain stupid, because there is ALWAYS more than one way to get to your base and if your army is out you have no defenses. One or two units could sneak in and wreak havoc in your mineral line for almost no cost. If you have no troops at your front a turret wont help you defending against some sneaky burrowing Roaches or cloaked Dark Templars heading into your base.
Do you have any idea how many Photon Cannons it takes to build around your Nexus to prevent a single Medivac full of troops Stimming and raping the thing?
You have Sensor towers to spot harass attempts with ease and get your army in position. We have to plant Observers on your army and be paying attention at all times so we can position an army in its path. If the things unload, goodbye Nexus.
You're utterly blind if you can't see how easy Terrans have it.
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AT Rabiator and the others, the difference between a marauder drop and a warp prism warpin and nydus worms is the 4 marauder stim drop is CHEAP. It's comprised of units you have already and you don't have to spend anything extra except for APM to send it into your opponents base while they're distracted.
A protoss has to spend the money on a warp prism + the cost of the units to warp them in and if they're currently producing colossi that's lost time on another colossi.
A zerg has to spend 300/300 mins/gas for one nydus worm the marauder drop is powerful because it can be anywhere at any time and you can't be forewarned that it's coming unless you have observers/overlords all over the map. If you scout the nydus network or scout the warp prism coming out of the robo facility you know the other two are coming. This is why I'm saying HUGE main bases while they can favor the other races tends to be more terran favored. And by Huge I mean lategame having 10+ barracks and still not being full and having empty parts of your base that you have no vision on. It's a bit silly how large some of the main bases are and by shrinking that a bit it would help out protoss and zerg very slightly in lategame against terran which is what we're trying to figure out.
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One of the problems i've noticed is the hard to protect naturals for every race on most maps. It is probably the easiest for zerg since they don't mind large open natural chokes as much as T and P. The only problem they have is the cliffs that right next to a lot of naturals. This leaves the natural vulnerable to all types of harass.
For T and P, speedling is just ridicolous to deal with unless you put 3-5 buildings to wall off the natural. But when you do that, most of the time the zerg just takes a 3rd and be up 1 base. Basically T and P just can't put an expansion up on the fly w/o dealing with speedlings. Terran can deal with this a bit easier if they just put down 2-3 bunker until they have a large enough army to push out off 2 bases. Toss can't do that since 2-3 cannons wont stop speedlings from running by that well.
This is also part of the reason why many games end off 1 base pushes. IMO more maps should have safer naturals. This allows for more late game play. A good model would be LT w/o the natural cliffs.
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I agree with you.... that maps are part of the problem...
but I would say that the MAIN problem of TvX is Hellions and Tanks. Hellions are just TOOOOOOOOO good at taking the mineral line out. You need to be SUPER DOOPER on your guard not to let one in. Cause only 1 hellion is devastating now imagine the usual 4. You really need to go out of your way to be sure they're not getting in yuor base as zerg. Than tanks... I would perosnaly say that mutas are the answer.... but.... Thors is just SUCH A GOOD counter against them and let's be honest... as soon as the terran scouts (erhh scans) and see a spire you randomly see LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS of thors spawning (3-4)... Leaving zergs with no proper answer to tanks.
Than I would say that the lack of zerg early air defense (please don't tell me that spamming queen is valid as it is valid till a CERTAIN point) makes it vulnerable to most air cheese/drops but I guess that it's only a small part to add to the big picture.
So yah...
Maps and the lack of early answers to tanks and hellions and finaly early air disadvantage.... makes the TvZ almost unfun to play. I've had great games with terrans that played the game without hellions and cheep strats(hellions/clocked banshee/drop hellion....) and those were actualy fun games where I lost some and won some but lets face it... almost no terrans are playing that way.
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On August 04 2010 05:02 Konsume wrote:
Than I would say that the lack of zerg early air defense (please don't tell me that spamming queen is valid as it is valid till a CERTAIN point) makes it vulnerable to most air cheese/drops but I guess that it's only a small part to add to the big picture.
4 + queens can defend most any early(you said early) air pushes, especially when coupled with spore colonies.
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Some weird map making ideas to follow, maybe some will have use.
1. Xel'Naga watch tower that will not allow tank use. How? Make it on a tiny cliff that is too skinny to walk/drop a tank on. Make outerspace (abyss?)/unwalkable terrain surrounding the cliff in a way so that tanks can't siege right next to it with a friendly spotter.
2. Better scouting early. I mentioned this ages ago, but here it goes again. Xel'Naga towers near main base to help scout for tech and/or worker count. Use in conjunction with #1 to avoid siege harass... also might be able to avoid stalker/reaper harass if done right. Put it on higher higher ground (level 2 cliffs?) to avoid it getting sniped by defending units maybe. Although floating building + siege tank = deny.
2.5 #2 would also allow for easier stalker and warp-in harass.
3. Worse scouting early. Nah... idea scrapped. I can't imagine worse worker scouting could lead to anything good.
4. Anti-creep ground. Does it exist? Would obviously be worse for zerg if it existed.
5. More starting mineral spots or 4 gas starts. Who would it benefit? The guy with more workers I'd guess, which would mean Protoss in the early stages and Zerg in the mid stages.
6. Gold mineral starts. Who would it benefit? At first I'd say the guy with more workers... but perhaps more importantly the guy who benefits more from early minerals. I'd guess all rax/marine/bunker into expo or zerg hatch/queen/spine/ling into expo or FE into defense mode would benefit.
Other observations:
- I think destructible rock expos favor zerg since zerglings are the safest high damage per cost unit to move out and kill rocks with. Think about it... do you feel safe moving out 12 speedlings to kill a rock or 4 zealots/6 marines early game?
- Chokes (small early game, medium-large OK mid-game plus) are probably needed PvZ, but chokes often hurt PvT and ZvT. How do you balance this? Long alternate paths (with destructible rocks?)? Chokes that start small and become larger by killing rocks?
- Lower ground start spots would allow for stalker blink (whoa, if I typed blinker anywhere else in the post I mean stalker+blink) harass with no spotter (leave a probe or stalker on high ground for escape). Would also allow for better reaper and siege harass.
- Start spots/expos in the middle of a map, on higher ground, but surrounded by ground and not water/space would allow for more reaper, stalker blink, and siege harass. Note if ground escape routes are reduced then stalkers especially and reapers are much less effective. Compare reaper harass on Desert Oasis to Steppes.
- It seems closer start spots (Steppes of War) favor P over Z early. Easier dual gate harass to slow the Z expo. While the bigger choke at the natural favors Z due to speedlings and baneling busts.
AND
those same bigger natural chokes favor hellion harass TvZ.
EDIT BELOW
Oh, and one more
- Extra xel'naga towers to help spot drops/mutas would seemingly benefit Protoss since they don't have overlords or sensor towers. Kulas Ravine would almost be a good example but not sure.
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I wouldn't say terran is OP so much as zerg feels UP and with the way blizzard wants the maps to be designed they really didn't allow zerg to give itself a chance to become overpowered.
Another issue is that back doors come into play way too early. Think about a back door with 2, or 3 times the amount of HP to punch through. Late game it could seem like a cool add since it's not messing with how this game is designed to go in the same steps every time for expo.
I'd say a zerg favoring map has a safe third with one entrance with two gas no matter what the mineral count, yellow or blue, as long as it is to have the gas its worth going for. A natural with a small entrance so spines can be used super effectively. A short distance between the player start and the natural so one does not have to do more than 1-2 jumps with creep to get to the nat.
Flat open areas for that wide arc. with at least one side to pincer the enemy from.
Also minerals very close to a cliff side naturally help muta.
Rock expos where lings can get a 360 on the rocks good. Blocked off rocks, not so good.
If a map has flavor beyond a middle with interesting wide ramps something cheesey kills the map.
Zerg mobility issues?
Drop upgrade takes forever and the gas cost is pretty high too. To be useful it requires ovie speed. So that's pretty late.
And nydus is more like a super weapon than a mechanic that should be for attacking a couple of angles or flanking and awareness (*cough other dustin browder game cough*) in order to get around some of that whole 1 shot where are my lings stuff.
It's radical to say but I think zerg needs a cliff walker to not get totally screwed by tanks sitting on cliffs and that cliff walking should come from a combo of unit speed, AND burrow
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You go to war with the maps you've got. The game needs to be balanced around what we have, not what we had in BW.
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On August 04 2010 06:31 brain_ wrote:
You go to war with the maps you've got. The game needs to be balanced around what we have, not what we had in BW.
Except soon we'll have whatever we want.
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On August 03 2010 18:23 iCCup.Raelcun wrote:
This part is at too many people to list, if you think this OP is whining read it again.
The thing with your argumentation which always ticks me off is that you only list one side of the argument to a certain topic and that is incomplete argumentation similar to whining. If you really thought about it for a long time you should be able to list all sides of the medal and thus not list some arguments. By not giving both sides of the argument you are implying that "doing it the other way round is the solution" which it isnt ... and that makes it seem whinish like the other threads I mentioned above.
Example:
Unsafe expansions which have multiple entrances make it hard for zerg and protoss to expand quickly against terrans.
Unsafe expansions also offer possibilities for harrass to Zerg, thus Terran / Protoss do not want to expand out in the open either.
Another one:
Large main bases many times with a lot of area for reapers to jump up in are good for terrans as well.
Sure the early reapers are an annoyance, but (1) a large base offers the possibility of harrass for all races (2) both other races actually need to build a lot of buildings and cant just get all tech on one screen.
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On August 04 2010 04:05 iCCup.Raelcun wrote:
AT Rabiator and the others, the difference between a marauder drop and a warp prism warpin and nydus worms is the 4 marauder stim drop is CHEAP. It's comprised of units you have already and you don't have to spend anything extra except for APM to send it into your opponents base while they're distracted.
A protoss has to spend the money on a warp prism + the cost of the units to warp them in and if they're currently producing colossi that's lost time on another colossi.
A zerg has to spend 300/300 mins/gas for one nydus worm the marauder drop is powerful because it can be anywhere at any time and you can't be forewarned that it's coming unless you have observers/overlords all over the map. If you scout the nydus network or scout the warp prism coming out of the robo facility you know the other two are coming. This is why I'm saying HUGE main bases while they can favor the other races tends to be more terran favored. And by Huge I mean lategame having 10+ barracks and still not being full and having empty parts of your base that you have no vision on. It's a bit silly how large some of the main bases are and by shrinking that a bit it would help out protoss and zerg very slightly in lategame against terran which is what we're trying to figure out.
I am sorry, but you cant really compare the Marauder drop with a Warp Prism or Nydus worm. The Protoss and Zerg versions are both "reinforcable" and thus offer the possibility of a basewipe if the defending forces take too long. The Nydus worm especially offers the possibility to retreat instantly and not lose anything except the worm. Protoss might get several rounds of warp-ins if they manage to find a hidden corner in a large base and get a pretty sizeable force going and if you intercept the warp-prism before it can do the drop the Protoss only loses the warp-prism.
Adding the cost for the base Nydus worm is just bad argumenting and for Terrans / Protoss you should add the cost for the Starport/-gate to the drop cost. If you argue like that you just want to build one worm over the time of the match and that is just bad tactics. If you get a tech you need to use it and threatening the backsides of an opponents base is simply unnerving and will be ever more effective the more the opponent is spread out (see your own "large main base argument" and think about this) the more dangerous this becomes. This is especially true for Terrans with their largely immobile army which needs to move around all theose tons of buildings (or stop producing and lifting them?). Just watch Day[9] daily #157 and agree with him that there are TONS of opportunities lost for the Zerg to attack the turlting terran with Nydus worms and keep his units from the front. The cost is the usual argument for Zerg players to not build anything, but 100/100 is not that much for a possibility to harrass. If you use Ultralisks you dont even need a lot of units to wreck a Command Center in seconds. In the beginning of the beta every player on Metalopolis was disciplined enough to plant a building behind the smokescreen, but recently that discipline has been lacking ... but at the same time Zerg have stopped (never really started) to use the Nydus worm. Dont blame the Terrans or the maps for lost opportunities (as the Day[9] daily should show).
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On August 04 2010 00:24 Bibdy wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 10:43 Rabiator wrote:On August 03 2010 10:31 Ryuu314 wrote:On August 03 2010 10:24 Bibdy wrote:On August 03 2010 10:12 Rabiator wrote:
Terrans are the ones which suffer most from unsafe expansions, because they dont even have a cheap (~100 minerals) static defense to help defend against ground forces. Thus they are REQUIRED to sacrifice part of their army as base defense OR spend huge amounts of cash on a Planetary Fortresses which dont cover a whole lot of ground. The range of a PF is rather short with 7 (if you decide to upgrade) and that covers only slightly more ground (due to the size) than a Protoss / Zerg static ground defense IF the range is counted from the edge of the model and not the center! If you're expanding, you've either got your army standing in front of it, ready to defend, or you're applying pressure and preventing him from putting pressure on you. The idea of 'poor mistreated terrans' having to plop some bunkers down is nonsense. Bunkers mean you can expand easily by investing some minerals (temporarily, thanks to Salvage) to protect what would be a weak bio force and repair the things when you do get attacked. You can completely crush a much stronger force, just by building some bunkers. Nobody is busting in there without the big guns like Immortals or a full-blown all-in gateway/baneling bust. Meanwhile, a Protoss or Zerg who invests a bunch of minerals on Cannons or Spine Crawlers can get easily stomped by a bog-standard bio ball. Those things aren't cheap and they really do suck if they're not positioned on high-ground where they can get some free shots off. But, then you just COMSAT and rape the thing with your range 5/6 units anyway. The joys of not depending on melee units. Not to mention that Terrans can lift their buildings to reposition them for a better wall. And they got seige tanks. Suuure ... and Terrans can always put the Tech Labs and Reactors on the inside of the wall of buildings and once you built these it is totally ok to lift off the main building just to make a wall somewhere else. @Bibdy (the quote from Ryuu) Bunkers are NOT FREE or only a temporary investment, because you always need to defend your bases / entrances. There is always the possibility of harrass. Saying that they are only a temporary investment is kidding yourself. That statement is only true for the "advancing with bunkers" strategy, but defensive structures at your base need to stay. Saying you dont need them when you move out is just plain stupid, because there is ALWAYS more than one way to get to your base and if your army is out you have no defenses. One or two units could sneak in and wreak havoc in your mineral line for almost no cost. If you have no troops at your front a turret wont help you defending against some sneaky burrowing Roaches or cloaked Dark Templars heading into your base. Do you have any idea how many Photon Cannons it takes to build around your Nexus to prevent a single Medivac full of troops Stimming and raping the thing? You have Sensor towers to spot harass attempts with ease and get your army in position. We have to plant Observers on your army and be paying attention at all times so we can position an army in its path. If the things unload, goodbye Nexus. You're utterly blind if you can't see how easy Terrans have it.
1. At least Protoss CAN cover their base in static defenses which shoot ground. Terrans can not.
2. I fail to see what your "drop argument" has to do with my "bunkers are necessary at the entrance to a base argument". One Medivac of stimmed troops doing a drop and raping everything? Well you sound as if I had said that static defenses are there to kill harrassing units on their own and survive the job. Well they arent, but they are needed to slow down the destruction of the base until you can get some troops there and Protoss can warp in reinforcements pretty fast. At 100 minerals I would not consider Photon cannons to be very expensive, just think of them as a hp boost for your other buildings. You need them against Terran anyways in order to defend against cloaked Banshees (Observer costs GAS and is wayy more expensive), so why complain about it?
3. Since you agree with me that Sensor towers are good you might agree with me that Raelcun's argument about the Xel'Naga towers in the middle of the map make it easy for Terrans is a bit flawed? For Terrans it is NOT the spotting of enemies which is the problem, but rather the "getting the army in postion" and both Zerg and Protoss fail to abuse that atm, because in most matches I see it is only the Terrans who do any kind of harrass at the backside of a base at all. Nydus worms especially offer the ability to retreat with all surviving units for a rather low cost of 100/100. Even if you only kill one terran Factory and retreat instantly you have gained more than you invested, because you took out a chunk of his production capacity for a time (well unless the Factory is unused).
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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.
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On August 04 2010 12:06 UniversalSnip wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2010 06:31 brain_ wrote:
You go to war with the maps you've got. The game needs to be balanced around what we have, not what we had in BW. Except soon we'll have whatever we want.
In ladder that remains to be seen.
I have seen some very nice map concepts on these forums (notably large macro maps that still had some good terrain). Xel Naga towers in the middle of an open space I think are a good idea, they cause fewer problems with tanks when the tanks need to be far from chokes to use them.
What I am really hoping for is that Blizzard will a) accept user made maps slowly and add the best ones to the ladder pool and b) put in some form of ladder rotation so the maps aren't always the same but cycle in and out.
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Zerg is freaking hard to play in the current map pool. Oh my god. I have two accounts, I play zerg as my main, did throughout the beta. And i'm higher ranked on my protoss and terran account. Dealing with all these obnoxious builds terran and protoss have would be much easier if the maps were designed with zerg in mind. Zerg really needs help right now.
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I dont agree its the maps fault as well - siege mode smart ai and 13 range and aoe dmg ,isnt map imbalance - just saying -
also asking for the imposible wont rly help , is much easier to buff overlord speed for example to make scouting much easier for zerg than changing the whole map system
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The cliff walking unit idea for Zerg seems pretty fair actually, considering the other 2 races have one. Say it's because they have Nydus Worm, but that thing goes down so fast...
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Absolutely agree with the OP. Blizzard chose not to acknowledge years of good Starcraft mapmaking principles as established by the Korean mapmaking groups and we're all worse off for it. There are still major balance issues above and beyond the maps, but if ladder is to have any significance, the maps have to be fixed!
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OP is basically right, some of the open as hell expos are ridiculous.
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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).
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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)
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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.
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So, I was thinking of the perfect Zerg map.
I came up with a modification of Desert Oasis.
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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.
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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.
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Bump, because this thread is awesome.
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"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.
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On August 03 2010 06:42 iCCup.Raelcun wrote:
I loled nice one, but anyways the problem with statistics is you can make them suit whatever purpose you like as I said. If you see that terran is winning a majority on every map there are two conclusions:
1) Terran is fucking imba
2) The maps are bad
and people are just as likely to come to both conclusions which causes ragestorms while people argue about it endlessly.
On August 03 2010 06:08 iCCup.Raelcun wrote:
The balance in Starcraft 2 seems good, but the maps suck
Hi Raelcun:
You seem pretty confident on your words, and to be honest, If you got a clear idea of how must be a perfect balanced map, why not just try to make one, invite some good players, same level, and make a tourney or something to try to prove your words?
I'm not saying you're wrong, but If you see the problem so clear, I bet you can design or tell someone to build a map following your instructions, that seems pretty balance, and as a commentator, I also bet you know tons of good players that gladly join the tournament if you ask them.
IMHO that will be more practical than create another balance teorycraft thread, and people will quit arguing endlessly, just my two cents.
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On August 03 2010 06:26 Catch]22 wrote:.... + Show Spoiler +Idra won the final vs Tester
and tester plays protoss, sorry to burst your bubble :/
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I actually disagree. I think some of the problems with the game are map independent. I do believe further balance is necessary and actually that more balanced maps will illuminate the true balance issues in the game.
That being said, the maps REALLY REALLY SUCK. I can't argue with that. Every map is completely horrible for zerg which is why zerg never can win anything ever without being 3x better than the T or P player.
Just do your best to promote play on the iccup maps and aim for very neutral maps. These will show best what the real balance issues are.
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On August 27 2010 11:53 Aborash wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 06:42 iCCup.Raelcun wrote:
I loled nice one, but anyways the problem with statistics is you can make them suit whatever purpose you like as I said. If you see that terran is winning a majority on every map there are two conclusions:
1) Terran is fucking imba
2) The maps are bad
and people are just as likely to come to both conclusions which causes ragestorms while people argue about it endlessly. Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 06:08 iCCup.Raelcun wrote:
The balance in Starcraft 2 seems good, but the maps suck
Hi Raelcun: You seem pretty confident on your words, and to be honest, If you got a clear idea of how must be a perfect balanced map, why not just try to make one, invite some good players, same level, and make a tourney or something to try to prove your words? I'm not saying you're wrong, but If you see the problem so clear, I bet you can design or tell someone to build a map following your instructions, that seems pretty balance, and as a commentator, I also bet you know tons of good players that gladly join the tournament if you ask them. IMHO that will be more practical than create another balance teorycraft thread, and people will quit arguing endlessly, just my two cents.
You know the guy casts like a bazillion hours a week? There is sort of a custom map thing. Search TL for IMS.
On August 27 2010 12:04 Floophead_III wrote:
I actually disagree. I think some of the problems with the game are map independent. I do believe further balance is necessary and actually that more balanced maps will illuminate the true balance issues in the game.
That being said, the maps REALLY REALLY SUCK. I can't argue with that. Every map is completely horrible for zerg which is why zerg never can win anything ever without being 3x better than the T or P player.
Just do your best to promote play on the iccup maps and aim for very neutral maps. These will show best what the real balance issues are.
I believe there is small issues with the game balance here or there. Nothing crazy and game breaking like has been accused lately. In that same token I believe there is a very large problem with the maps. Metal is the closest to being balanced but the middle is totally screwed against the ole' tank/sensor tower but other than that it's not bad.
Fixing the map pool will be a major step in the right direction. Can you imagine BW if we were still playing on LT??  . While I am sure our current map pool is not perfect by any means it is steps in the right direction. It would be different if blizz was making a bunch of new maps non stop. But they are not. Thus the community has to step up.
This is the thing about SC. As much control as Blizz (read: activision) takes away from us we will still find new and innovative ways to move the community forward. Others are doing it in their own way. Day9 is helping the average gamer how to become a more solid player. HDH is helping introduce a wide variety of new fans to the game and make it understandable via Youtube. Gosucoaching is helping bring a new, useful and viable business into e-sports. We are doing it through helping regulate and promote ultra competitive play in ways such as this. With Starcraft 2 the community really showed up and force and was 10x more successful at promoting Starcraft 2 than Blizzard imo. If it had not happened like it did I strongly believe Starcraft 2 would have been a much smaller success than it is now.
Remember the first cash prize Starcraft II tournaments (don't know if Blizzcon was but that really does not count since only they had access to it than) was the Hello Goodbye Tournament than HDH. But as a community we need to keep moving forward and pushing new boundaries. A map team is a small part of this but I have a feeling we will all look back and wonder how we played on maps like Steppes of War or Desert Oasis.
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I'm really worried this game is going to still be using shitty ladder maps in a year. Look at wc3, they're still using the ladder pool, god knows why.
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never liked the idea of watch towers, its just like scouting, only it gives less of a chance for the other player to be sneaky.
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On August 27 2010 13:02 Raz0r wrote:
never liked the idea of watch towers, its just like scouting, only it gives less of a chance for the other player to be sneaky.
I think on larger maps its a good idea. They present a unique twist to SC2 that I have come to love after hating it with a passion at first. It also makes map control even more important. One minor slip up and they might see your whole army moving in. I now know all the size of the watchtowers ranges and now always send out something to clear the watch tower of probes or w/e b4 my army gets there.
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Someone really needs to get the balls and run with some custom/iccup maps.
They aren't any worse then the crap we're already playing on.
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On August 27 2010 12:06 iCCup.Diamond wrote:Show nested quote +On August 27 2010 11:53 Aborash wrote:On August 03 2010 06:42 iCCup.Raelcun wrote:
I loled nice one, but anyways the problem with statistics is you can make them suit whatever purpose you like as I said. If you see that terran is winning a majority on every map there are two conclusions:
1) Terran is fucking imba
2) The maps are bad
and people are just as likely to come to both conclusions which causes ragestorms while people argue about it endlessly. On August 03 2010 06:08 iCCup.Raelcun wrote:
The balance in Starcraft 2 seems good, but the maps suck
Hi Raelcun: You seem pretty confident on your words, and to be honest, If you got a clear idea of how must be a perfect balanced map, why not just try to make one, invite some good players, same level, and make a tourney or something to try to prove your words? I'm not saying you're wrong, but If you see the problem so clear, I bet you can design or tell someone to build a map following your instructions, that seems pretty balance, and as a commentator, I also bet you know tons of good players that gladly join the tournament if you ask them. IMHO that will be more practical than create another balance teorycraft thread, and people will quit arguing endlessly, just my two cents. You know the guy casts like a bazillion hours a week? There is sort of a custom map thing. Search TL for IMS. Show nested quote +On August 27 2010 12:04 Floophead_III wrote:
I actually disagree. I think some of the problems with the game are map independent. I do believe further balance is necessary and actually that more balanced maps will illuminate the true balance issues in the game.
That being said, the maps REALLY REALLY SUCK. I can't argue with that. Every map is completely horrible for zerg which is why zerg never can win anything ever without being 3x better than the T or P player.
Just do your best to promote play on the iccup maps and aim for very neutral maps. These will show best what the real balance issues are. I believe there is small issues with the game balance here or there. Nothing crazy and game breaking like has been accused lately.
I don't know dude. I don't lose TvZ's anywhere, even on iccup maps in CGs. It's like a 90-95% winrate for me and I'm honestly not half as good as someone like Gretorp or Morrow. Maybe someone like Machine or Sheth could beat me consistently, but anyone below that skill level, doubtful.
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On August 03 2010 10:12 Rabiator wrote:
Terrans are the ones which suffer most from unsafe expansions, because they dont even have a cheap (~100 minerals) static defense to help defend against ground forces. Thus they are REQUIRED to sacrifice part of their army as base defense OR spend huge amounts of cash on a Planetary Fortresses which dont cover a whole lot of ground. The range of a PF is rather short with 7 (if you decide to upgrade) and that covers only slightly more ground (due to the size) than a Protoss / Zerg static ground defense IF the range is counted from the edge of the model and not the center!
I tend to see the situation from an other angle, terran have cheap defense (bunker) that can be
salvaged when its time to push or when the battle front move elsewhere, so its practicly free.
PF is a bitch to deal with you know it will kill allot of ground unit if you try to destroy it, hell some terran use them a pure defense beside a normal command centre because its so damn efficient at destroying anything on the ground that isnt a seige tank or an upgraded collosi. Also unlike other static defense it can even hit more than 1 units.
On August 03 2010 10:12 Rabiator wrote:
Large main bases give you space to use Nydus worms or Warp Prisms to make "warp drops", its just that those races have apparently become too lazy to use these tactics. Small and tight bases really really hurt Terrans, because they need LOTS of buildings (more than any other race) and their army is immobile. Just imagine a Thor trying to get through a crowded base to defend against Mutas. Almost impossible unless you use a Medivac, which is relatively easily shot down.
Well drops are different for other races. Zerg and protoss dropship dont actually bolster the army you drop in, medevac do. Lets say i make i make 2 warp prism, that 400 minerals thats not shooting down stuff, thats quite alot. After a drop take place terran can use the medevac has part of their regular army, for zerg its just food for protoss its an expensive pylon that actualy take food not give it.
Also, zerg and protoss are much more vulnerable to a counter attack. In a recent game i played, im protoss facing a terran. After we both expand, i see his drop coming because of my observer - sweet i move my army to welcome them, i win the skirmish with ease. i clearly have an avantage now, so i counter attack. When i get there there is 2 tank behind a wall raining down fire so i cannot break in. If your safer from counterattack its much easier to actually do drops like that.
Also, consider what you are dropping. Terrans have the best units for the job i think. Stim make realy good drops, hit and run bio to snipe stuff, Hellions make good drops too when upgraded
and they are fast so you can save some of them sometime, and they just eat mineral line in seconds, and if the other player make em run away in one group, that bunch em up and you can still fry a ton of em. Protoss have templar drop, very good in the mineral line, zerg, i dont know, i dont think i ever got dropped even once by a zerg, I did saw a baneling drop on a stream tho that was sweet. Consider cost now, marine, hellion and marauder are prety cheap.
Also consider the target, terran can fly allot of buildings, this can sometime help, i will admit not often but it can be helpfull. If once in a while your not losing a command center because you your army was out of position by just lifting it, well that prety nice, those are expensive!
I think zerg/protoss avoid to do drop for economic reason, they need all the units we they get to fight the cost effective terran army, spending money on fluff will get you overrun.
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On August 04 2010 13:20 Rabiator wrote:
I am sorry, but you cant really compare the Marauder drop with a Warp Prism or Nydus worm. The Protoss and Zerg versions are both "reinforcable" and thus offer the possibility of a basewipe if the defending forces take too long. The Nydus worm especially offers the possibility to retreat instantly and not lose anything except the worm. Protoss might get several rounds of warp-ins if they manage to find a hidden corner in a large base and get a pretty sizeable force going and if you intercept the warp-prism before it can do the drop the Protoss only loses the warp-prism.
That is true warp-in and nydus are in theory way stronger, except for one thing. terran have built in map hack. Sensor tower in your base will cover it and getting sneaky on the terran is quite hard when he see that something move in the fog of war. An other thing that favor terran drops, is scan. You can see where are the static defense and where is the army is, easier to get a good drop spot.
Observer can do that too but sometime they run into things like turrets or ravens or even ghost, man i hate when ghost emp and kill my obs because they can see the blurry trail!
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All of the Blizzard maps are completely terrible, I agree. I don't know how much of an impact it will actually have on the balance of the game, but regardless of that I think that it does completely change the way the game is played, for the worse. All of the maps encourage one (two maximum) base play, and discourage early teching and early expanding.
Look at the differences between, say, Fighting Spirit, and Metalopolis.
First of all, on FS, the starting locations are in the actual corners, making the distance between mains a maximum distance. On Metalopolis (and LT) the starting locations are on a diagonal that makes them a lot closer to each other in terms of both ground and flying distance.
Expansions are so much easier to defend on FS as well, and your natural is actually able to be defended because of how tucked away it is, making fast expansion builds a lot easier to pull off. Metalopolis on the other hand, the natural is completely wide open, there's no way to defend it from any kind of early push if you are fast expanding.
Then take the third expansions on Fighting Spirit. They are a bit more in the open, but they are up on high ground and any attackers going into it are going to be fighting on low ground to kill it (with the miss % in BW, this makes it a lot easier to defend). The only safe third expansion on Metalopolis, while to give it credit is further away from your opponent generally than closer, has two huge ramps on either side of it, completely separate from each other. There's no way that you can easily defend it unless you have a dominating control of the map already.
I tried using examples of a generally good BW map compared to a generally good SC2 map, and I think I'm barely even scratching the surface of the differences between how they are played on. I won't even get into the fact that the vast majority of SC2 maps on ladder currently have either a breakable 2nd entrance to the main, or a completely wide open natural that is impossible to defend early on.
I worry that the way BNet 2.0 is set up and the direction that Blizzard is headed with it, that better maps that custom mapmakers will eventually make (like how all good BW maps come out of professional Korean mapmakers) will never see the light of day in competitive play, let alone on an actual ladder.
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Even based on the few ICCup custom maps they've showcased, it seems more balance maps equals more brood-war like maps, with more open areas for zerg, and a little bit larger.
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Yea I can agree to this to a certain extent, I think blizz should use all the iccup maps BW -> sc2 port maps , they all bring amazing gameplay like fighting spirit, python, heartbreak ridge, ect.
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Sadly Raelcun complains only about the map features and not about the size of the maps ...
Zerg map = LARGE-HUGE map with a big center where you can outflank the enemy and actually use your mobility advantage. I have seen one Korean Zerg use a Nydus worm to simply go around the Terran army camped in the middle of the map on Metalopolis (he did NOT put the worm into the Terrans base, simply somewhere secret behind his army). This will force Terrans to use more "Bunker and Turret play" when they advance, just like we have seen in BW. Protoss probably need to be accompanied by a Warp Prism probably to have a mobile reinforcement pylon for their army (plus Warp Prisms to ferry the slow Immortals and Colossi to the front); also a defensive Mothership will be used to call back the army when their base is threatened.
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Well, thanks to this thread, I've started making an island map slightly favoring protoss. I think a lot of people are missing the point of this thread. He's saying that we aren't sure how to make well balanced maps yet, so we need more radically different maps to play and examine.
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On August 27 2010 15:52 TedJustice wrote:
Well, thanks to this thread, I've started making an island map slightly favoring protoss. I think a lot of people are missing the point of this thread. He's saying that we aren't sure how to make well balanced maps yet, so we need more radically different maps to play and examine.
People have downvoted Desert Oasis because it is radically different and because you need to have special builds for this map ... so good luck with your suggestion.
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On August 27 2010 16:15 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On August 27 2010 15:52 TedJustice wrote:
Well, thanks to this thread, I've started making an island map slightly favoring protoss. I think a lot of people are missing the point of this thread. He's saying that we aren't sure how to make well balanced maps yet, so we need more radically different maps to play and examine. People have downvoted Desert Oasis because it is radically different and because you need to have special builds for this map ... so good luck with your suggestion.
Bad example. DO is one of the dumbest maps ever. It's a perfect storm of bad ideas that migth be fine if not all grouped together in one map. Open nat, long run distance, short air distance, unusable 3rd bases, watchtowers that are easier than sin to control, etc...
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Russian Federation82 Posts
they need to add some maps with new structures like health fountains to help zerg 
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if you send this to Blizzard(hope you do) remember to say that your from ICCUP, and not just "herro im copper, fix T plz)
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I haven't read anything in this thread besides the OP but here's what would make a balanced map:
- Fairly large. You don't want rush distance to be short like steppes of war but you don't want it to be huge like desert oasis.
- Natural expansions close to main ramp - This is important for Zerg early game because
- Make the choke between the middle section of the map and your natural expo wide.
- Fairly wide ramps will make it SLIGHTLY harder for Terrans to turtle
- Never put a choke in the middle.
- When creating main bases, you can separate cliff heights with ravines to make reapers less effective early on.
- No cliffs near natural or third expansion
- Destructible rocks in the back of your main allows for more aggresive play styles and favors, in my opinion, no race more than another.
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On August 28 2010 00:37 Nightbiscuit wrote:
I haven't read anything in this thread besides the OP but here's what would make a balanced map:
- Fairly large. You don't want rush distance to be short like steppes of war but you don't want it to be huge like desert oasis.
- Natural expansions close to main ramp - This is important for Zerg early game because
- Make the choke between the middle section of the map and your natural expo wide.
- Fairly wide ramps will make it SLIGHTLY harder for Terrans to turtle
- Never put a choke in the middle.
- When creating main bases, you can separate cliff heights with ravines to make reapers less effective early on.
- No cliffs near natural or third expansion
- Destructible rocks in the back of your main allows for more aggresive play styles and favors, in my opinion, no race more than another.
Large distances are good. I'd say a good metric is the time of static defense to go up, which means you should be able to put down cannons/crawlers when you see units leave a base and have them up or almost up in time for the attack. This is REALLY important for zerg.
Close naturals favor zerg most of all for many reasons, T because of tanks, and not P much at all cept vs air harass.
Ramps should be standard ramps when from main to natural. Ramps around the map - it varies, but avoid having them be essential ramps if they're small. That's very T bias.
Chokes in the middle are fine as long as there's alternate open attack paths. You just don't want Destination syndrome where it's all chokes =P
Reaper-proof cliffs/ledges are SO important to take into consideration. Other things to take into consideration are stalker blinkable areas, colossus abusable areas, and any place that can be dropped on is a recipe for tank abuse (the middle ledges on LT for example). Mains should not have more than 1 cliff-walkable backdoor IMO. Maps like LT with a ton of cliff for reapers to abuse are just too... abusable.
Cliffs near 3rds are fine, as long as there's an alternative 3rd for zergs. Cliffs over natural should be at least accessible from the main, and preferably not be big enough to drop tanks in range of the natural without being in range from below. Thin cliffs which are still accessible by the defender are fine.
Lastly, NO DESTRUCTIBLE ROCKS TO THE MAIN! It's very very very protoss favored and anti zerg. It promotes cheese and really adds nothing to play. Don't have them!
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EPT
