EPTMy and some friends edit maps and remove the shared positions on maps to get the randomized feel to it. I also enjoy playing some RT off race when I'm bored. Both are really fun.
Shared bases in team games - Page 5
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Stiver
Canada285 Posts
My and some friends edit maps and remove the shared positions on maps to get the randomized feel to it. I also enjoy playing some RT off race when I'm bored. Both are really fun. | ||
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sushiman
Sweden2691 Posts
On March 02 2011 18:48 flodeskum wrote: The SC2 team game maps in general are a bit of a mess. Every single 2v2 map (I haven't tried the new ones tbf) is terrible and 2v2 is pretty messed up anyway. There's only one good 3v3 map (uulan deeps) but at least that map is fantastic and fairly common on ladder. Most of the team maps that are tolerable are 4v4 maps and mostly the shared base ones. For reasons that have already been stated multiple times, the only way to get a team game to go into the late-game is by having shared bases. And team games that get to that stage are usually quite epic. Then again, maps like Toxic Slums can lead to long games as well, and there's no shared bases on that map. If the layout is good you don't need shared bases to defend all-ins, and still have the option to counterattack. Quicksand is also quite interesting in that aspect - it's ridiculously small, but you can counter and help your allies very quickly. If you could actually go to late game on that map, e.g. if it were larger, it would actually be a decent map without needing shared bases. It could also be possible to go for a middle route, such as introducing Tempest or similar maps in 4v4, maps where you're close to one of your allies, but the other half of the team is on another part of the map. Some 4v4 maps have something similar, like High Ground, but you're still closer to your allies than enemies. If shared bases is necessary, having the players in clusters of 2 on the opposite sides of the map would spice up games a bit at least. | ||
intrigue
Washington, D.C9933 Posts
On March 02 2011 16:45 Liquid`Jinro wrote: I think all the 2v2+ maps in SC2 are a joke, but I also dont know how you would ever survive being 2on1ed in SC2 with things like warpgates or baneling busts coming so low tech. my primary concern also. i think increased map size and smaller individual chokes could address this though. On March 02 2011 17:19 DarthXX wrote: The problem with the current team maps is a serious lack of expos and just a general tiny-ness. Like all 3v3/4v4 maps have a complete lack of a 3rd base, which is extremely detrimental to certain races (read: Zerg) On almost every single map the 3rd base is a high-yield mineral patch located in the centre of the map, wide open to attack by 3/4 enemy players. As for myself, I prefer non-shared maps, anyone who played on Twilight Fortress knows just how shit that gets, I think players should be close, but not sharing a base. Or alternatively if they are far away, you can't have a map like Arid Wastes where the bases are too far to reinforce your ally, and you're so far away from your enemies that you can't counter attack. That's what made BGH so awesome, if someone was attacking somewhere, you could hit them right away assuming they were ur neighbour. That new 4v4 map is a step in the right direction, it's a lot larger and you can actually expo more than once, unfortunately it is still shared base. I think a lot of the problems in team games could be solved by simply increasing the map size. It's incredibly risky to cheese on massive maps, a combined rush from 4 players can be fended off by 2-3 players since reinforcement is so slow, and by the time you run across the map with your initial rush, a minute later, its not nearly as menacing. Right now the maps are so small its possible to sustain a rush with reinforcements running acorss the map, larger map = bigger defender's advantage, as it should be. yeah! i like the new map a LOT, i think it's easily far better than all the other ones. agree with your conclusions on map size. here is the map we are talking about, if you have not seen it: ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/TNaIo.jpg) what i like about this map is how large it feels, and the terrain gives you ample room to maneuver well. On March 02 2011 16:49 Befree wrote: I may have missed it, but I didn't see anywhere where you gave a conclusion on what you actually want done, but for the purposes of my response I will assume your suggestion is for Blizzard to implement these types of maps into league games (edit: I also make the assumption by shared bases you mean the team is placed on one side of the map that is designed to be for a team, and that you don't specifically mean games where your bases are placed in such a way that two or more players would share a single ramp.) I disagree. I don't think that having maps that result in "crazy" scenarios for the purpose of fun are a reasonable thing to implement into a competitive ladder system. Ideas like that should be reserved for playing custom games with your friends where you're fooling around. I imagine in 1v1 we could make maps with large amounts of randomness and positional imbalances that could result in games where players would have to think on the fly and be creative, but such a map isn't fair and it certainly would never be implemented in the 1v1 map pool. Perhaps you find team games to be on a less serious level and therefore have less serious standards for fairness, but I believe Blizzard as well as many players will continue to view team games as still being competitive rather than on the level of custom games. And as long Blizzard and a portion of the community continue to believe in some level of normalcy and fairness in their team games, I don't think it is okay to implement maps that would heavily take away from that. I understand the nostalgic roots of your suggestion, craziness certainly did ensue in many BGH's. I can see how this would cause you to believe you'd rather have new maps in the league like this for more fun. But you have to appreciate the need for competitiveness and fairness in a ladder system. BW has many fun maps like BGH, but these maps just cannot be taken seriously in a competitive environment. When you really look back on many of the maps from BW, it is almost silly how imbalanced and poorly made so many of them were. Fun then? Ya. Fun now? Maybe in the custom games section. judging from their 1v1 map pool, blizzard certainly does make errors in gauging what kind of maps work and what don't. it can't possibly hurt to introduce some new-styled maps. people concerned about the "purity" of the ladder [this early in SC2s life] have to keep in mind the blatantly imbalanced maps that were in circulation long before this. do people care more about team-game ladder rank more or having a variety of maps to have a good time on? the fixation on rank and balance shouldn't apply as much to non-1v1 formats. my point also is that this could raise the skill ceiling, making it more competitive in the long run. as for fairness, spawns on an imbalanced map become less and less important the more players you have. it won't be as bad as 1v1. you could also thumbs down the map before you queue. also, there is one bgh map in the custom games section. nobody plays it. | ||
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Thrombozyt
Germany1269 Posts
On March 02 2011 12:31 Kyadytim wrote:+ Show Spoiler + The problem with split base maps is that they actually kills creativity. In Brood War, pro 2v2 died because there was a single strategy for PZ which dominated every possible strategy for every other race combination. Thus, more or less every 2v2 was PZvPZ, with both Zergs opening 9-pool speed into 1-hatch muta with no further drones pumped, while the Protoss both opened 2-gate into 3-gate Dragoon into Templar tech. There were a few TZ teams that tried, but Mutalisks force the Terran to play MM + Vessels, and Templar + Dark Archons shut that down hard. There was one 2v2 map, however, that didn't follow this pattern. Hunters. Hunters was even worse. Whichever team had a player that tried to tech past Zerglings, Zealots, or Marines first, lost. The principles which caused this problem exist in SC2, as well. Mass speedling yields map control. This prevents players on the other team from moving out without being immediately faced with a 2v1 situation. They can't join armies and fight together. The only unit that can match the threat and mobility of Zerglings is Zerglings of your own. Furthermore, Mutalisks force every player to be able to defend against Mutalisks, unless that team has an equal air force. Their are some units that could match the mobility of the mutalisk (corsair, phoenix), but they don't match the threat, so the Mutalisks were always the aggressive group, which gives them the advantage. As an addendum, proleague rules didn't allow teams to have both players select Zerg. There were some teams that played Zerg Random in hopes of getting two Zergs, because two Zerg far and away dominated 2v2, for the principles described above. In general, these principles apply to 3v3 and 4v4 as well. A team with 1 Zerg will almost always have that Zerg killed by early aggression of 2 Zergs on the other team, and from there, that team is down a player and down map control, and the non-zerg on the team that has map control can essentially have opened Nexus or CC first (in fact, in BW 2v2, PZ against TT, if the Zerg opened 9-pool speed, the Protoss could open Nexus first and then tech right to Dragoons, because of the map control provided by the mass speedling), or tech rapidly to something which will crush players forced to play against mass ling, such as cloaked Banshees, DTs, or Colossi. This works because every player on the team with less Zerg players is forced to have enough units to defend against Speedlings, while the players on the team with more Zergs can often cut units for econ or tech. Shared bases alleviates more or less all of these problems, allowing a variety of strategies to be effective, and making the game more about player skill and decision making than ability to execute the one superior strategy. TL;DR Shared base maps allow for more varied play because of the mechanics of pressure and map control. Also, the poll sucks. There's no option for non-shared base maps are worse than shared base maps. He is spot on. I am playing 2on2 competitively (topping out at rank 7 on sc2rank.com global diamond) as a ZT team. With the recent change in the map pool, the number of maps with shared bases is lowered significantly (I think 2 are remaining). This leads to a situation, that we see the map and a PZ opponent and we know we will lose. Split base and speed ling inbase zealot warp-in will kill you every time. Even if you mass marines and speedlings as a counter, you lose. Terran cannot defend the ramp against speedlings and the back of the base from a 5 zealot warpin except by coiling up and making bunkers at the mineral line and that leaves your teammate 1on2 with speedlings vs spling/lot combo. Also stalker/bling/sling combo is incredibly hard to hold without a shared choke. So we are currently trying out wierd shit in the hope that we might get the counter to the proxy pylon + overlord strat on split bases, but I'm afraid that's barely possible. Shared bases (e.g. Tempest) allow for multiple options such as tech (e.g. fast muta feed), quicker expansion or aggression. Split bases neccesitates early aggression, because early 1 army is inferior to 2 armies. Less options = less interesting game. I agree, that for a chaos and mayhem fun games (=custom games) BGH is better than shared base matches, I believe that for competitive team games (= ladder games) shared bases are better. Also note, that you never mentioned 2on2 on BGH type maps, but only 3on3 and 4on4. | ||
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aeoliant
Canada361 Posts
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MichaelJLowell
United States610 Posts
On March 03 2011 00:07 intrigue wrote: my point also is that this could raise the skill ceiling, making it more competitive in the long run. as for fairness, spawns on an imbalanced map become less and less important the more players you have. it won't be as bad as 1v1. you could also thumbs down the map before you queue. That's like saying a poorly-designed game will become more competitive in the long run than a well-balanced game because players will have to struggle harder to deal with its limitations. *cue Brood War comparisons* | ||
Zelniq
United States7166 Posts
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Neo.NEt
United States785 Posts
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Sein
United States1811 Posts
On March 03 2011 09:15 Neo.NEt wrote: If the bases aren't shared and both of the other guys 7 pool the same person that guy just dies. If it's Twilight Fortress... you have a fighting chance. Pretty much seems like whoever attacks first wins if the bases aren't shared.. am I wrong here? Sac your ally and try to take them on before they have enough time to recover their economy from doing 7pool. I believe Day9 has a daily about this. Non-shared base maps honestly aren't a 7pool fest a lot of people here seem to be worrying about. It does turn out to be a Tier 1 unit fest most of the time though, but it's fun to play those every once in a while rather than the turtle-up-and-advance-with-deathball type of game that occurs pretty often in shared base maps. What's wrong with having to play different styles in 2v2 games especially as a pretty good number of people do really like non-shared base maps? I also have another suggestion. How about those island maps like Snowbound? It'd be fun to mix in just one island map into the map pool and see how it turns out. | ||
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intrigue
Washington, D.C9933 Posts
On March 03 2011 06:00 MichaelJLowell wrote: That's like saying a poorly-designed game will become more competitive in the long run than a well-balanced game because players will have to struggle harder to deal with its limitations. *cue Brood War comparisons* no, i am saying a map that gives rise to more complex situations will raise the skill level. i don't see how that is similar at all. | ||
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sluggaslamoo
Australia4494 Posts
On March 02 2011 12:20 Whitewing wrote: BGH wasn't on a ladder system. It was in ICCUP. | ||
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Sein
United States1811 Posts
This is Blizzard's official stance. I'm really going to miss those non-stop high aggression games..  | ||
bkrow
Australia8532 Posts
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oxxo
988 Posts
On March 03 2011 14:31 Sein wrote: "Team play maps where your base is too far from your ally tend to favor race compositions that can use mobile armies. This is the reason why we will avoid having maps like Arid Wastes in the team play ladder in the future." This is Blizzard's official stance. I'm really going to miss those non-stop high aggression games.. That's good. Z + makes it impossible to win unless you also have a Z. | ||
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Thrombozyt
Germany1269 Posts
On March 03 2011 14:31 Sein wrote: "Team play maps where your base is too far from your ally tend to favor race compositions that can use mobile armies. This is the reason why we will avoid having maps like Arid Wastes in the team play ladder in the future." This is Blizzard's official stance. I'm really going to miss those non-stop high aggression games.. That's ironic, as the latest change in the map pool increased the number of split base maps and drastically reduced the number of shared base maps. | ||
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manicshock
Canada741 Posts
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Kralic
Canada2628 Posts
We will have to see what they do in the future, they could have made the map pool like this to get people used to team games. Or have it so Arranged teams play against arranged teams with a map pool conisting of less shared bases and more open maps. Kulas Ravine was my favourite 2v2 map in the Beta. Random (solo) 2v2 queuers can get a similar map pool but more heavy on shared bases and only play against other solo queuers. Have to wait and see what happens in the future. | ||
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MichaelJLowell
United States610 Posts
On March 03 2011 11:23 intrigue wrote: no, i am saying a map that gives rise to more complex situations will raise the skill level. i don't see how that is similar at all. You're assuming that the way units operate in Starcraft is balanced for team games. They are not. And as long as one race has a significant advantage in early-game mobility (as Zerg does), there needs to be a way for players to assist their teammates without risk. As far as I can tell, you're making the assumption that irregular starting points (with their own imbalances) will make for a more complicated map because the rotation of starting points from game-to-game will make sure teams will have to adapt on a game-to-game basis. But until Blizzard rectifies the issue of early-game all-ins and early-game Speedlings, that can't happen. | ||
MasterOfChaos
Germany2896 Posts
On March 04 2011 01:37 MichaelJLowell wrote: You're assuming that the way units operate in Starcraft is balanced for team games. Up until high foreigner level team games work pretty well in Starcraft, perhaps a not so well at pro level, but that might be related to map pool issues too. In particular high ground advantage with small chokes makes holding a 2on1 possible for long enough to have the ally support or counter. In Starcraft 2 that might be different. | ||
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TimeSpiral
United States1010 Posts
========================================= Team games are good fun, but it does seem impossible sometimes. Split rock maps, that also include destructible rocks create a near guaranteed kill with certain unit combos. Some of the game design features create scenarios that are virtually impossible to deal with. For instance, the ling+zealot double rush. There is just not enough mobility and DPS to deal with that. Random Idea ============== Since the game is primarily designed/balanced around competitive 1v1, but Blizzard still ranks team games and LOTS of people play them, maybe they should expand the unit availability for each race just for team games. This could help in reducing the amount of "perfect strats." Might be a terrible, terrible idea, but maybe not. One thing is for sure, they MUST reconsider destructable rocks in split-base maps. It is impossible to defend some all-ins. | ||
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