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On January 19 2011 12:33 red_b wrote:Show nested quote +On January 19 2011 11:53 Lythox wrote:
I've played one of the big new GSL maps. To be honest, it wasn't even fun playing on it, I hated it. It's so big you just can't organise things in your head and it's not like you're gonna run that many bases either as you need supply for an army. Besides that it's just plain lame to have to keep track of all the hundreds of expansions just to make sure your opponent didn't sneak in a hidden expansion 5 lightyears away from you. In my opinion maps the size of Lost Temple are PERFECT. They have to fix the close position spawning though, it's almost impossible to have a macro game if that happens. have you ever played brood war? btw "big maps are bad because I can't multitask well enough to play them correctly" is an unconvincing reason to forgo testing them for tournaments.
If we're gonna make stupid assumptions I can come up with a few bad arguments too. Playing a basketball match on a field that is 4 times larger than the current one would be balanced too, would give longer lasting matches, but would it be more skillful? Would it be more entertaining?
I agree maps like steppes or Blistering Sands are terrible but there is really no point in playing maps of the size of an 8 player map in a 1v1.
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I think some people are misunderstanding my point with the larva mechanic.
First, question to all of you. Why do you think Zerg players LOVE PLAYING CROSS POSITIONS?
Bang, it's because long distances = more drones.
So for an example, let's say we have a 256x256 map. Who has the advantage? Obviously, Zerg. They can drone for a million years and there's nothing a Protoss or Terran can do about it. Same concept, only on a smaller scale.
On January 19 2011 12:12 AlBundy wrote:Dude, nothing is set in stone, you CANNOT just casually write that kind of things. What will you say when players will come up with BOs and strats which punish Zerg taking advantage of long rush distances? You'll say "I was wrong".
Let's take a look at what exactly a Protoss can do about this, not even looking at the strategy portion but instead looking at the big picture. If a Zerg player overmakes drones, a Protoss player counterattacks to punish the overdroning. Now what if the rush distance is so big that by the time the Protoss arrives at the Zerg's base, he's made both the drones and the units he needs to defend? Can't do anything about that. Same deal with Terran.
The concept with Zerg macro, drone for econ, units to stay alive until your econ kicks in, is completely centred on how big the distances are. Essentially, the entire playstyle of Zerg revolves around the rush distances of the maps.
On January 19 2011 12:12 AlBundy wrote:Show nested quote +Late-game Protoss armies cannot consist entirely of units warped in at the scene of the battle. The army is generally slow and static because you can't warp in 50 units at once, and you can't warp in colossi or immortals. Oh come on... This is quite a peculiar statement. I'm really confused and don't know where you are going. Late game P army is very mobile. You might have heard of Blink Stalkers, cliff-walking Collossus, warp prisms / pylons / warpgate tech, recall? I'm confused by the "can't warp in colossi and immortals". So what? Terran can't warp ANY units except MULES. Does that mean that late game Terran army is slow and static?
I supposed I phrased it badly so I'll clarify after addressing your points. Pylons + warp in. Only warps in a few units at a time for harassment. Effective, but it's just harassment and not an actual attack. The Protoss ball has to move at the pace of its slowest unit or else there's a chance of it being cut off by a more mobile zerg force. There are exceptions like the mothership recall strat that's gained popularity but in general, the Protoss force has to be united to do well, and Zerg units in general are faster than Protoss units. Hell, the slowest unit in the Zerg's army is the off-creep hydra and you're never supposed to attack anyway so why would you be off-creep? Colossi can walk past cliffs but if they're left alone, it's basically giving away free money.
I admit, I'm rather baseless on the orbital command point, but it's mostly through logic and common sense that I arrived at the conclusion. You spend 550 minerals on an in base orbital, I spend 450 on an expansion + queen. Wonder which one's going to benifit more?
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I agree, I don't believe these maps should be so large. They SHOULD be larger than the blizzard maps though. I'm gonna have to agree with Morrow (as noted in that interview) and the OP.
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cross position meta against zerg is very very difficult. At the top level it's going to be magnified because of how much better their macro and creep spread is.
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Very good OP in my opinion. You want large maps, but too large would favor zerg, both Morrow said it, in the interview he gave, and I beleive catz from root gaming said that the iccup maps were too big for it to be balanced (I think it was the first episode of sup doods). I hope the Maps GSL made are turned down due to the fact that they show "Rotational Symmetry." Maps like these, Delta Quadrant that is, makes that game imbalanced when it clearly doesn't need to be that way. The person with the back door cliff away from their opponent will always have an advantage, and if the maps are balanced more like metalpolis or Lost temple, then I just feel it's better for the players (This could be fixed if you could just force the players to spawn in cross positions, but what's the point of it being a 4 player map?). Also, it feels like the GSL maps have too much shrubbery and foliage and stuff that just clutters the map and really doesn't need to be there, although that just might be me.
Just my two cents, I think people saying big maps favor protoss because of warpin are wrong. Protoss teir 1 are the weakest and that's why their teir 3 is so strong, it compenstates for everything, but obviouly, you can't warpin a colossus mid battle.
And I do think that Steppes of war and Delta Quadrant should be removed from that map pool and forgotten and put in their corner where no one will ever find them again.
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I think another big issue is that a lot people overlook the fact that with big maps, there is more likely to be a passive macro game. I honestly believe that is one of the most boring types of game to watch. Especially when it comes to newer viewers, they may not understand much of the strategy behind the macro element of the game. However, the battles are what they enjoy the most and a constant series of engagements helps maintain their interest. Excessively large maps would promote passive macro games, which may hurt viewer-ship, if they become too prevalent (similar to all the close-position, early game all-ins).
For a example, a game like Jinro vs Idra, literally 20 minutes of nothing but macro and a few scouting units dying. If it weren't for the fact that 2 well-known foreigners were duking it out, there would of been no hype to the game. As evident by someone previously posting that the KR community found the Jinro vs Idra match to be boring (cannot find thread, but its somewhere out there).
A micro-intensive + macro games tend to produce better results for entertainment value as seen by Kyrix vs MarineKing in GSL2, G1 and G5, which was well received by both TL and the KR community. These occurred in relatively medium sized maps (relative to the new GSL maps and BLizzard map pool), Shakuras Plateau and Xel Naga Caverns.
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1 - What size is Shakuras? That seems like the perfect size
2 - We can go larger as long as there are enough chokes to balance out the open flanking areas (see BanBan on Junglebasin last night- that was a sexy walloff. Or see boxer's attempt vs nestea. Mech can survive against a mobile zerg army, there just need to be some relative chokes at key places.
3 - To the above poster, long macro games can be amazingly exciting or boring. The game you mention was boring, but many macro games are quite exciting because there is so much happening at once. This is because the maps have room for so much to happen at once. Steppes, on the other hand, rarely permits more than 2-3 things to happen at once because it's so ridiculously small.
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On January 19 2011 13:31 0neder wrote:
1 - What size is Shakuras? That seems like the perfect size
128x128, which I think is what most people who want "macro maps" want. It's certainly what I want. I wouldn't mind some larger ones, though. They could be swapped in and out every 1-2 months or so. That would be awesome for the ladder pool. It wouldn't have to be new maps being swapped in every time, just some different ones. I think Xel'naga should be kind of a minimum size.
Big maps seem to take us back to the beta when people just sat around macroing up and stroking their chin over their unit composition, but that's because we have nooo idea how to play these maps. I think ultimately things like banshees, ling runbys, DTs, drop of all kinds, and maaaaybe even nydus worms(it's still like 250 gas, yuck!) will become really strong on these maps and that's cool to me.
Kinda lolin at the claim that Shakuras is a medium-sized map made above, btw. Cross positions Shakuras is either the longest or second longest rush distance in the game. It also provides some really amazing games.
Also, just to add this to the discussion: Very few people want cheese to go away completely. It probably WON'T go away. Check out Fantasy versus Calm if you don't believe me(lol)
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i hope some of the things i read in this thread are pure troll lines.
zerg OP and would need to be nerfed for bigger maps? increase hatch/queen cost? lul wut.
herp derp zerg can make 50 units at once late game? its almost just as easy with terran and toss, and terran and toss dont have to constantly larva inject every 30 seconds on 4-5 different hatcheries just to match T/P production
Toss will have to run their army to the base on bigger maps thus zerg will have more drones AND more army? really? because it takes an army an extra 5-10 seconds to walk the extra distance? Did someone forget about how powerful toss pushes are against zerg early game due to warp in? With the larger map it would punish zerg even more due to false sense of safety because its a bigger map.
maps too big i cant keep up with all the bases and multitasking? ok ur right this game should be able to be played to the fullest with 30apm and the player can have the mind capacity of a hamster.
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On January 19 2011 11:53 Lythox wrote:
I've played one of the big new GSL maps. To be honest, it wasn't even fun playing on it, I hated it. It's so big you just can't organise things in your head and it's not like you're gonna run that many bases either as you need supply for an army. Besides that it's just plain lame to have to keep track of all the hundreds of expansions just to make sure your opponent didn't sneak in a hidden expansion 5 lightyears away from you. In my opinion maps the size of Lost Temple are PERFECT. They have to fix the close position spawning though, it's almost impossible to have a macro game if that happens.
I mean, you can have your preferences, but stating that big maps make the game too hard is just dumb.
I guess I played BW for years, so I am used to the whole macro thing.
But still, I hardly think making things harder is dumb. It would weed out all the crappy players.
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1. ShakPlat has the perfect size or one the the best map sizes to play on. Therefore 128 x 128 is good.
2. Aiur garden is way too big, but this is only a test map, so yea there will be changes to it hopefully. Making it smaller will help a lot.
3. Long vertical maps like Crossfire is not a bad idea as well, with many chokes and entrances, this map is also fun to play, though it might be a pain for terran..
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Crossfire's neat, but I actually think Zerg's gonna have a hell of a time on it :X But I haven't seen ultra tip top masterclass master league players on it, just dudes around plat-diamond level. Just seemed really hard to stop a good siege push. I think if I went colossus on it it would be easy to snipe them(not necessarily a drawback), though, so that's interesting.
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I dont know how many here watch/have watched brood war, but you can get an idea how you can adapt your play to bigger maps.
How often do we see 5 bases zerg vs toss with 15 gates? 14 CC openings from terran (or whatever is the equivalent in sc2)
Also, the game evolving to multiple bases on both sides would let the better players truly shine, opening up possibilities for those with better multitasking.
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Australia8532 Posts
You would sincerely hope that any drastic changes to the map pool would undergo significant testing as well as input from progamers from all 3 races; they are not just going to replace maps at a whim.. "Maps need to be bigger, but not to big" is a very insightful conclusion, but i imagine hours upon hours of testing will go into this decision..
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There is one glaring reason that I don't think this concern really carries much validity, and that is the the maps are so different that the current meta game simply does not fit in with larger maps, as it has been tailored for the smaller maps of the ladder pool. With the size of the maps increasing so much you really can't make judgments until the new maps become mainstream and vigorously tested, leading to builds that are designed specifically for these larger maps. From your post, I am guessing that you are seeing this "imbalance" due to the maps favoring zerg in the CURRENT meta game, but as I said things will change not only for Zerg, but for the other two races as well.
Personally I think Blizzard needs to take initiative in this problem and either: a) include larger maps like the ones being tested in GSL, in the map pool; or b) make their own maps that are larger and include them in the map pool. Whether they want the maps to be made internally or not, I don't care, but it needs to be tested to determine whether the change would improve the game or not.
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the only issues i see with increasing map sizes would be nydus worms and warp cheese. warping probably less so, as it could prob offset the zerg and terran mobility. but nydus worms would just be ridiculous as they can pretty much spawn anywhere ol's are..
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Kinda lolin at the claim that Shakuras is a medium-sized map made above, btw. Cross positions Shakuras is either the longest or second longest rush distance in the game. It also provides some really amazing games.
Then you haven't seen some of the new GSL maps. Though I should of also added in the ICCUP maps, as some of them are just ridiculously big as well. Shakuras is indeed mid-size relative to those maps (don't recall the name, but simply browsing through should help you realize them). Simply saying 128x128 is insufficient to call it "big". There are plenty of these "void" spaces that make the land smaller. SP has quite a bit of void spaces. DQ is the same size as SP, but do people really call that a large map? Not at all, people whine about the rush distances all the time and that the spawn positions are too close. The void spaces make a difference and "decrease" the size of SP in a sense.
Also depending on how you want to measure the "size" of the maps, such as the surface area, distance between initial spawning points, or simply include them all into the equation. There are still maps that come close to SP.
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I dont think bigger maps are so Zerg favored as people is saying, in fact, I would dare to say thay it favors Protoss playes that tends to macro even more. IIRC, there was a thread about probe/drone production when Guinea Pig's build started floating around, and someone tested it, and protoss with full chrono without cutting probes could make more probes than a zerg just droning, so i think that if protoss start playing nexus firsts builds, that arent that risky, because the longer rush distances, and the wall-ins/artificial chokes that they can make, they can stay at par with Zergs, or even figure out a "new 6 gates" timing push with that economical advantage and the warp-in mechanic, so I think that it will be great to see bigger maps, they wont for sure be more imbalanced than the ones we have currently, and if they are, they will replace them, so let the pros try them at least(they are playing them on gisado's KOTH so if they make into the GSL, they wont be that bad),
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LOL, anyone that says they are too big is just scared to actually have to control multiple armies ya'll are probably just trying to deathball the whole map every-time, played a few games on these maps watched a few games on these maps and they were by far the most entertaining games I've seen action everywhere on the map controlling multiple forces harassing looked like a bw game even, tldr its not like they'll end up in the ladder anyways so what do you all care.
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EPT
