EPTiCCup Monthly Map Pool - October - Page 17
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Mastermind
Canada7096 Posts
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Donger
United States147 Posts
Thanks! | ||
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Shifft
Canada1085 Posts
Right now, tournaments pretty much just use ladder maps, and that's it. If this continues, we depend on Blizzard to fix the map pool in a timely fashion (which most likely won't happen). Once tournaments move over to custom maps in general, even if only 2-3 out of 8 are good (still a better ratio than ladder maps), it opens the door to just simply STOP USING the bad maps and replace them with better ones. Map makers in the community can quickly respond to complaints about map imbalance in a way that Blizzard just can't do, so the sooner we can get away from using ladder maps and move on to community-designed maps the sooner we can have complete map pools of balanced maps. | ||
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Channel56k
United States413 Posts
On October 02 2010 10:20 Shifft wrote: I personally like most (if not all) of these maps, but really the quality of the maps is pretty irrelevant. Right now, tournaments pretty much just use ladder maps, and that's it. If this continues, we depend on Blizzard to fix the map pool in a timely fashion (which most likely won't happen). Once tournaments move over to custom maps in general, even if only 2-3 out of 8 are good (still a better ratio than ladder maps), it opens the door to just simply STOP USING the bad maps and replace them with better ones. Map makers in the community can quickly respond to complaints about map imbalance in a way that Blizzard just can't do, so the sooner we can get away from using ladder maps and move on to community-designed maps the sooner we can have complete map pools of balanced maps. This is a good point... the reality is only a hand-full of maps made by blizzard or anyone will stand the test of time. The idea that iCCup is operating off of is the more quality maps we bring to the community and the more play the maps recieve, the better they become and the more candidates there are for long term solid solid maps. We know that in a lot of ways Blizzard really has set the bar high on maps. Have they dropped the ball on some aspects, yes, but that is where we and the rest of the community come in. We are here to take what they have started and put in the time they do not to make it better. | ||
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Crushgroove
United States793 Posts
Does anyone have any ideas for ways to make this better? I like mutalisks, but not enough to use them every single game.  | ||
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cocosoft
Sweden1068 Posts
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GagnarTheUnruly
United States655 Posts
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eloist
United States1017 Posts
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Diamond
United States10796 Posts
On October 04 2010 04:20 eloist wrote: I think it will be difficult for people to pick these maps up 8 at a time. I could however see tournaments swapping in single maps in with the ladder maps to give people a chance to actually familiarize themselves with them. Hey any step is a good step in my eyes. Also we will not be replacing all the maps every month, only a couple will swap out. Edit: And to elaborate more on what Kennigit said on WoC, the power is in Blizzard's hands for sure. We test these maps as much as humanly possible but the way the stupid popularity system works in the custom game list is making it hard. But Blizzard has shown recently they will listen to the community, and that's where this movement will start. Also when we are not able to see the real stats played on these games on b.net is another limiting factor. If Blizzard would allow us to view these stats (which I have reached out to them about the custom map thing) it would help us a lot. We do record all the games played on iCCup TV and look at these stats to help us figure out potential problems with the maps. However if more tournaments start picking up these maps we can really start to get a true testing. I'm not saying our maps are the greatest maps int he history of maps and that no one can ever make better maps. All I am saying is that they are better than the current Blizzard map pool. I am well aware that in 2-3 years maybe some professional map making team will be made in Korea and have maps that blow ours out of the water. But until then why should we not help advance the game. I know people are claiming "oh the games only been out 2 months!" and to that I say "odd, I've been playing on Kulas since March..." These maps are approaching a year old and Blizzard has only changed two of them. Of those three changes to the two maps two of them have been "oh throw rocks in here." NO, there are much more deep seeded problems on these maps than rocks. Even with the rocks, DO is STILL a bad map. We are doing this because we love the SC community and want to see it grow. We don't make any $ off map making and are fine with that. As to Chill saying "iCCup stop talking and do stuff." I am frankly confused by this statement. What we are doing here is doing things, not just talking. But we can only do what we can. We HAVE made a system that allows people to know which maps to use, we do have a lot so this should help. We HAVE reached out to Blizzard (thanks Wheat!), but with Blizzcon they are very busy. We HAVE reached out to ESL, who agreed to start using our maps "soon". We HAVE reached out to GOM about this, We HAVE reached out to JP about this. We HAVE been using these maps in our events since Patch 13 in the beta. We HAVE switched our events to iCCup maps only. We HAVE reached out to Day9 about highlighting these maps (which he did), we ARE doing everything we can. At this point it is out of our hands and in the hands of the community and tournaments like TL Open, Wolf Cup, etc to use these maps. But all of them claim they are worried about blow back from the players/fans. I can tell you 100% the only blowback from a player I have ever had over these maps is from HuK. There are players like QXC who LOVE to use these maps and help us balance them, and the fans want them, our polls in previous posts all point to this. Our last comment on our Youtube channel currently is "Want vods with new iCCup maps please". While doing all this still have found time to live broadcast 40+ hours a week, keep a steady stream of Youtube VOD's going, etc etc. There is only so much one org can do. Our map making team listens to what people say and are extremely quick to initiate chance. Look at Orbital Divide. Players were complaining about Zerg having issues spreading creep and the natural being too far away for Protoss to defend. What did they do? They went and redesigned the whole main/natural layout to help with this. As for the lack of practice for the players, well this is not anything we can do much about. We don't control the ladder. But the more tournaments that start using this pool the more players will practice on them. I know of quite a few players that practice the SHIT out of these maps (you know who you are, I know who you are, it would be nice if you came clean and put it out in public) and LOVE them. In short we are doing EVERYTHING we can and then some. It's time for some other people to help us out. | ||
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leecH
Germany385 Posts
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kasumimi
Greece460 Posts
They look much more balanced and interesting that the "counter attack GG" or "my natural is inside his base" horrible blizzard maps. *Edit: However I don't know what kind of impact the map size has on zergs and creep. | ||
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RoKetha
United States211 Posts
On October 03 2010 18:53 Crushgroove wrote: I've recently been playing a lot on the icCup map pool, and I have to say, many of the maps make it very very difficult for zerg ground pushes to work. It takes a really large number of creep tumors to creep the map... and God's Garden makes it even more frustrating because you have to hunt and peck to find squares in the middle where you can actually lay one down. Does anyone have any ideas for ways to make this better? I like mutalisks, but not enough to use them every single game. Zerg is still faster than the other races once you get roach speed out unless you're using hydras. I'd say maybe try forward Nydus worm and spread creep out from there if you want to use hydras to push--this also lets you reinforce faster, jump back to the main, take an island, threaten worm inside base, etc. Nydus play isn't so terrible when you have a stronger early economy and the counterattack distance is longer. Really, I don't think that maps where an early hydra cross-map push is possible need to exist. | ||
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Gont
Germany239 Posts
Msg me Gont.934 ~1500 diamond zerg u should be around the same lvl and no zergs pls  hope to see u soon | ||
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Perscienter
957 Posts
On October 04 2010 05:02 iCCup.Diamond wrote: ... At first sight most of your maps look really amazing. I'd like to see them introduced to some tournaments. There are more cash tournaments in Europe than ESL. There is also Craftcup, Zotac and Competo. Maybe you can contact them, too. The sc2cl might also support your cause. In order to forge these maps further, we definitely need to monitor the matchup statistics. Since Blizzard is too busy and ESL hosts the biggest tournaments, I'd propose that they might introduce such a section to their homepage. That would deliver pretty significant data. Prior to 1.1.1 it was possible to read out certain information from the replays like races, winning player and the map. All you need is a small program which reads this stats out and summarizes them for every tournament round, where the uploading of the replays is mandatory. | ||
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Fianchetto
United States157 Posts
I mean if you want tournaments to start using iccup maps, you shouldn't be throwing 8 untested maps at them, but rather one at a time for players to practice on and see if its truly good or not. | ||
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Diamond
United States10796 Posts
On October 04 2010 06:06 Fianchetto wrote: Don't really like how you guys are doing this TBH. You are introducing way too many maps at one time, and theres really no way players will be able to practice on all of them.. 1-2 at most would be much better imo, and those maps would get a lot of good testing, rather then lackluster testing on 8 maps. In future months we will be scaling down to probably about 5-8 maps per month. But like I said before we will not be rotating out all the maps every month, only a couple at a time. So yes the first month will be much harder than subsequent months. | ||
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Dionyseus
United States2068 Posts
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Gont
Germany239 Posts
hopefully blizzard will implement those atleast 1 or 2 | ||
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Kishkumen
United States650 Posts
I know of quite a few players that practice the SHIT out of these maps (you know who you are, I know who you are, it would be nice if you came clean and put it out in public) and LOVE them. Maybe if you started a list of all the players who would like to see more ICCup maps in tournaments it would help you to convince organizations like Blizzard and MLG. You know, kind of give them something tangible that shows that this won't scare off the players and that it will improve player satisfaction and the level of play. Right now it's easier for them to argue that it isn't player friendly or whatever if you don't have that kind of tangible evidence from the players themselves. I think putting together some sort of list or petition of top players would go a long way towards getting tournaments to accept this. If you add that to the polls you've taken of fans, it'll be hard to argue against ICCup maps from either the player or spectator standpoint. I can tell you 100% the only blowback from a player I have ever had over these maps is from HuK. Hahahahaha. This just supports what IdrA's been saying about him. Also, have you guys tried reaching out to HD and Husky yet? Their fans are quite loyal, so if you would get them to just shoutcast a couple of games on ICCup maps, you'd instantly get a lot of fan support. I know you've already reached out to Day9, which is great for the more TeamLiquid type of person, but if you get HD or Husky's support, you'll also get support from some of the more casual spectators and players. | ||
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Dingotrold
Denmark622 Posts
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