Refined Map Project - Page 3

On December 02 2010 09:13 tgFringe wrote:
I just discussed this with a friend, but instead of changing the wall-in to favor the right hand side, why not revert the ramp movement, and move the entire mineral/gas node and start location CLOSER to the ramp, solving the issues it has with creep spread and Spine Crawler placement.

On December 03 2010 18:56 Ketara wrote:
That's actually really cool Stevo.

Is it published? I'll totally romp around on it tomorrow.

On December 04 2010 02:32 Ketara wrote:
Okay so, Mr. BoomStevo

I played around on the mirrored Scrap this morning. These are my thoughts:

In terms of making it symmetrical and positionally balanced, it is obviously a severe improvement. The only two errors that I found were the ground level being a little bit messed up at the 2-gateway choke on the right hand side, and the island being very very slightly offcenter to the right. If you liftoff 2 CCs and send them to the island at the same time, the one on the right gets there about 1-2 seconds faster. The island is exactly centered in the Blizz version. It probably only needs to be shifted 1 square to the left.

It's definitely a good map with the changes you did. Likely better than the changes I made.


However, from the purposes of this Refined Map Project, I have two issues with it, which I will explain.

The first issue is that the mirroring change would inevitably change gameplay on the map. It does make the air distance between the two mains larger. You've also done it so there is much less air distance behind the back of the mains than in the original version, and both of these changes directly alter the effectiveness of air harass, which is generally a key feature of this maps strategy. The latter issue can be fixed by resizing the airspace, but the former likely cannot. The travel distance for the choke covered by rocks has been increased as well it seems, making the rocks less important.

These alterations may very well make it a better map, I don't know. But what I'm trying to do with this project is fix the spawn problems without altering the strategy of the map at all, so that players can jump right into it without requiring extra practice time, and tournaments can change to it without any sort of worry. Mirroring it in this way doesn't achieve that result.


The second issue I have with it is just in regards to the concept of an asymmetrical map in general. The Blizzard maps are likely asymmetrical for a reason. It's clearly much easier to copy paste and rotate than it is to create an entire map that looks symmetrical but really isn't. Blizzard had to make them the way they did for a reason, although I'm sure some people here will disagree with me on that.

And I think the reason for that is largely in terms of the maps visual appeal. Gameplay is always more important, but SC2 is a spectator sport, and the visual appeal of the map for the spectator is important too. When the exact same features and doodads are present on both halves of the map, it is pretty clear to the viewer. Even though it's identical architecture, when I jumped into the Mirrored Scrap I instantly became aware that it's just not as pretty as the Blizzard map.

You could mitigate that a lot by having the doodads on the opposite side be different shapes but the same sizes, to keep their gameplay factor the same but change their visual look. But I think at the end of the day it still wouldn't look as good, and Blizzard having spent time to create an asymmetrical map that looks fantastic and is ALMOST perfectly balanced positionally (with a few edits) is a worthwhile thing, and something that should be maintained.

Just my 2 cents.