Shared bases in team games

On March 02 2011 11:18 carbon_based wrote:
here's the problem with split base tho, my friend, cheese.

On March 02 2011 11:29 Chicane wrote:
I really dislike biased posts like this. You drew each individual player as their own color for the first one to look like there was even more action, and you drew across water all the time, which I suppose would be drops, but didn't draw all the drop locations on the second one. Instead you drew it as one big blob and still didn't even draw out the 2 locations to go to.

While I agree there aren't many options for the second map, you should at least be fair to both sides if you want your argument to seem valid. Saying "WOW Look at all these different paths!!!!!!" for the first one and then saying "meh... there is only like 1 spot... I *guess* you could do a small drop over here if you wanted..." clearly shows the side you are taking. Instead you should present the information and leave the opinion up to other people (while also including your own if you'd like... but NOT as you present the facts).

On March 02 2011 11:09 intrigue wrote:
"Balance" was something to be overcome by strategy, befitting an RTS.

On March 02 2011 11:35 Cider wrote:


i think this is the best sentence i've read on the forums here ever. And very insightful points overall.

On March 02 2011 11:33 101toss wrote:

Are you defending blizzard's shitty map pool?

The reason he drew it as one color is because the armies (if well coordinated) become 1 massive deathball/army in shared base/non-random spawn maps. Compare this to BGH, where people end up fighting for themselves.

On March 02 2011 11:35 orotoss wrote:
Non-shared base maps make cheesy rush builds even more viable, specifically in 2v2s. 1 player can never take on 2 players in the early game. Builds like speedling/hellion or speedling/zealot are very hard to stop if one of you is zerg and you don't share chokes. In 1v1, zvz it is already hard to stop mass speedling/baneling rushes (10/11 pool) and adding in zealots/hellions makes it nearly impossible. If your teammate leaves his wall to come help you, he leaves his base completely vulnerable. And if your ally is terran, his marines are completely exposed while they run to your base.

I think the more interesting 2v2 games always occur on the shared base maps, like twilight fortress. The real problem comes down to zerg's inability to wall off, which is perfectly balanced in 1v1s, but easily exploitable in 2v2s.

On March 02 2011 11:45 DSun wrote:
the problem with cheesing on a split base map is that the cheeser's weakened economy leaves him vulnerable to counter-attacks by the teammates that werent cheesed. if all 3 players cut workers and lose a bunch of their units just to kill one player from the other team, the remaining two players on that team will simply crush the cheesers. this will be helped out by the fact that as long as the cheesed player keeps a worker alive he will always still be in the game.

On March 02 2011 11:55 sushiman wrote:
They should at least mix it up and make some hunters-style maps - if people are so worried about rushing, make the paths between bases longer. Or just force people to scout and react. Actually, it should cut down on cheesing since countering would be way way stronger.

On December 01 2010 05:41 Sein wrote:

I was wondering if there are many other people who would like more variety in 2v2 ladder maps, or if I was in a small minority wanting this. Currently, almost every single 2v2 map is "shared base" type.

I personally prefer maps where the four players are about equally distanced from one another, because it makes counterattacking your opponent bases while your ally is under attack a much more potent option than in shared base maps. "Shared base" maps make either helping your ally or sitting in your base building up an army while your ally is dying almost always better choices than trying to attack your enemy bases at the same time.

Why? Your ally's base is 5 steps away, so why not just help him when your enemy bases are so far away? Chances are the opponent players will have a good number of reinforcement units by the time you get to their bases, and since the two enemy bases are very close to each other, you are basically attacking two players instead of one, which put you at a disadvantage. It also puts your own base in a very vulnerable position because if the opponent units are attacking your ally, that means they are also right in front of your own base. Quick air units like mutas and banshees are a few exceptions.

Of course, people have different preferences. Some of my friends really like these shared base maps, and I respect their opinions. However, I would just like to see more variety, as in a good mix of shared base and non-shared base type (where the four players are about equally distanced from one another) maps. I liked LT and Metalopolis when they were in the 2v2 map pool, and I don't really understand why they were taken out.

On March 02 2011 11:29 Chicane wrote:
I really dislike biased posts like this. You drew each individual player as their own color for the first one to look like there was even more action, and you drew across water all the time, which I suppose would be drops, but didn't draw all the drop locations on the second one. Instead you drew it as one big blob and still didn't even draw out the 2 locations to go to.

While I agree there aren't many options for the second map, you should at least be fair to both sides if you want your argument to seem valid. Saying "WOW Look at all these different paths!!!!!!" for the first one and then saying "meh... there is only like 1 spot... I *guess* you could do a small drop over here if you wanted..." clearly shows the side you are taking. Instead you should present the information and leave the opinion up to other people (while also including your own if you'd like... but NOT as you present the facts).

On March 02 2011 11:32 Mercury- wrote:
How many team games did you play in SC2? Non-shared bases means you lose people instantly to any kind of mass t1 allin + lings. Outpost is actually a great map btw since you can still rush but it's still defendable and later on the expo positions can lead to the game being spli into 2 seperate 2v2s.

Also the poll is biased, non-shared bases wouldn't be "too difficult", it would just dumb 4v4 down into mass lings + x, kinda like 2v2 and 3v3 mostly already is.

On March 02 2011 12:20 Whitewing wrote:
BGH wasn't on a ladder system.

On March 02 2011 12:20 Whitewing wrote:
BGH wasn't on a ladder system.

On March 02 2011 12:25 Rotodyne wrote:
I have fond memories of playing 3v3 @ Hunters in SC:BW. Anyone who played with a set team in pubbies may remember the glorious horrors of attempting to join and host games. Most people couldn't host games, battle.net seemed finicky in this regard. Although most of these people probably didn't understand basic port forwarding. This lack of hosts sometimes caused the classic 3 man join maneuver. Attempting to join a pub game and beg the host to put you on the same team as your buddies. It was annoying for the host, and a big hassle for players trying to play on the same team.

For teams that could host games, it was easier, but there were still hardships. Constantly people will join and instantly quit your games. They either realized you were a set team about to crush 3 pub players, or they were too impatient to wait more than 3 seconds for more players to join. Every attempt to play a 3v3 was a journey, a mission, a battle of Man vs. Battle.net
The glory of the first battle in the middle of the map was unmatched. It was a beautiful thing, and I hope it shall continue in SC2. Everyone sent out their first zealot or lings. The problem is that the maps in sc2 team games just straight up suck for early game micro games. I don't know, I'm sure they are just trying to be noob friendly -_-

Thanks to the excellent matchmaker, we no longer have the joining and hosting problems but they introduced a whole new problem with the map pool.

I actually wrote that thing about joining and hosting games a while ago, I just thought it was too stupid to actually make a blog or thread based on that.

That being said, I completely and fully agree with intrigue

On March 02 2011 12:31 Kyadytim wrote:
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.

On March 02 2011 12:35 Highways wrote:
It much more better having allies on the same side as you.

BGH was massively lucked based depending where everybody spwans.

On March 02 2011 11:29 Chicane wrote:
I really dislike biased posts like this. You drew each individual player as their own color for the first one to look like there was even more action, and you drew across water all the time, which I suppose would be drops, but didn't draw all the drop locations on the second one. Instead you drew it as one big blob and still didn't even draw out the 2 locations to go to.

While I agree there aren't many options for the second map, you should at least be fair to both sides if you want your argument to seem valid. Saying "WOW Look at all these different paths!!!!!!" for the first one and then saying "meh... there is only like 1 spot... I *guess* you could do a small drop over here if you wanted..." clearly shows the side you are taking. Instead you should present the information and leave the opinion up to other people (while also including your own if you'd like... but NOT as you present the facts).

Totally agree. Blizzard doesn't realize how much more fun it is when bases are seperate

On March 02 2011 12:47 Lunchador wrote:


They're really not, unless if all you love is cheesing and T1 aggression every single time.

There's a reason I have almost every split base map possible veto'd from my map selection, especially since 80% of my team games played are random team: It's just way too simple to cheese and outright kill one player before your allies can even react. Surely you've run into PZ teams that do 8-10 pool to force your team to block off, only to find that they used a spotter overlord to warp in zealots at the back of your base, killing off your workers while keeping you occupied in the front. Surely you've run into pre-patch reaperling BS. That stuff really only works because no way in hell can one stop two.

And SC1, 1vx defense was possible because terrans didn't have marauders and zerg didn't have roaches. Also, hydras with no upgrades were terrible. And the old high ground advantage really does scare away any early attacks.

On March 02 2011 12:50 Rotodyne wrote:


I love split bases. I like T1.5 aggression every single game.

On March 02 2011 12:47 Lunchador wrote:
And SC1, 1vx defense was possible because terrans didn't have marauders and zerg didn't have roaches. Also, hydras with no upgrades were terrible. And the old high ground advantage really does scare away any early attacks.

On March 02 2011 12:39 intrigue wrote:
i don't think it's as bad as you say, certainly not at the casual gamer level. the # of zergs per team determining the entire early game dynamic is a bit different in sc2, too, because spine crawlers and banelings both offer a much earlier defense to mass ling. how viable this is has yet to be determined, but i dare say it is definitely easier on the lone z in sc2 than in brood war.

even if this were not the case, i think shared bases are still too drastic of a "solution". i strongly doubt these were blizzard's considerations in the current map pool.

On March 02 2011 12:47 Lunchador wrote:


They're really not, unless if all you love is cheesing and T1 aggression every single time.

There's a reason I have almost every split base map possible veto'd from my map selection, especially since 80% of my team games played are random team: It's just way too simple to cheese and outright kill one player before your allies can even react. Surely you've run into PZ teams that do 8-10 pool to force your team to block off, only to find that they used a spotter overlord to warp in zealots at the back of your base, killing off your workers while keeping you occupied in the front. Surely you've run into pre-patch reaperling BS. That stuff really only works because no way in hell can one stop two.

And SC1, 1vx defense was possible because terrans didn't have marauders and zerg didn't have roaches. Also, hydras with no upgrades were terrible. And the old high ground advantage really does scare away any early attacks.

On March 02 2011 12:57 Sein wrote:


People aren't suggesting that every map on the pool should be non-shared base. You have your preferences. Fair enough. We also have ours and we'd like to have a more diverse map pool.

On March 02 2011 12:31 Kyadytim wrote:
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.

On March 02 2011 12:39 Manifesto7 wrote:


The point of an essay is to argue a point.

On March 02 2011 13:19 Chicane wrote:


I'll quote myself. "Instead you should present the information and leave the opinion up to other people (while also including your own if you'd like... but NOT as you present the facts)."

Facts should be presented as facts, and opinions should be separate, even if they are along side them. Do you disagree?

Either way I am not looking to get into an argument over it, but drawing out all the possible paths with the same criteria seems most logical to me. It allows for people to draw their own conclusions based on facts and to also read the opinion of the original poster. Also just in case you feel like going there... no I don't think the "facts" need to be perfect, but I don't think anyone would deny that there is obvious bias in the diagrams that tries to push people in one direction.

On March 02 2011 13:34 intrigue wrote:

i already addressed this. are you trying to say you don't understand what a map looks like unless i draw out every possible drop path? be constructive or get out.

On March 02 2011 13:34 intrigue wrote:

i already addressed this. are you trying to say you don't understand what a map looks like unless i draw out every possible drop path? be constructive or get out.


excellent post. teamgames revolve more around lower tech units though, where hard counters don't factor as heavily (except for the marauder, the stupidest unit in any game i've ever played). i think the maps i want may end up playing out like you've described, but we haven't even had the option to move beyond theorycraft. 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 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.

On March 02 2011 14:03 Chicane wrote:


I am being constructive. Notice I am not flaming you and I never even said I disagreed with your statement. My comments are completely valid and I feel I am being fair about it. It is alright that you don't like my input, but that doesn't mean you have to claim it is not constructive. Most people would agree that being fair to both view points (whether needed or not) is perfectly acceptable to bring up as criticism.

I was hoping to bring this up for you to consider in future posts so that they seem more valid... it is simply how arguments are traditionally supposed to go. My intention was not to get people upset over it.

On March 02 2011 14:23 RyuChus wrote:



Dear God, his OP wasn't biased what so ever jeezus. You should get over it. Be constructive, saying that he's biased isn't constructive at all. You're also quietly flaming him by saying he's biased.

What are you trying to say anyways with your post? Besides him being "biased".

The reason he presented his information like that, is because oh i dunno it actually is like that?

On March 02 2011 14:03 Kyadytim wrote:
First, I think the point that Chicane was making was that the BGH image might have looked something like this:

while the Outpost image might looked like this:


Suddenly, the Outpost game looks a whole lot more interesting than the BGH game.

Think about it first. BGH was crazy. Ridiculously crazy. Units everywhere, and depending on where the people were on the map they were attacked.

Now Outpost. There's like, 3 attack paths, but everyone uses that one in the middle, because its the easiest, direct path to the base, the others just are not really necessary, because they are around the outside of the bases, and natural.

Also, if you haven't noticed its Intrigue, he has like 20k posts, I think he knows what are good posts and what aren't.

On March 02 2011 14:36 Chicane wrote:

What? Well then can you please inform me how I am supposed to claim someone is biased without "quietly flaming them"?



That's about it. I clearly stated that I am not even disagreeing, but in order to make an argument look more valid to everyone (especially those who disagree but may be convinced by this kind of post) he may want to change some things. I really didn't think so many people would get so pissed about it... my god.




Alright, I really didn't want to get this literal, but do you really think that there is only one path to go on that map for all 4 players who don't even spawn in the same section of the map? Do you really think that there is only 1 place to do a drop? No. More importantly, do you think every single path was used in BGH for battles? No. Often they were controlled by a team.

I am not saying he should draw every single path, but he should be more fair with both the maps. It really is easy to see, someone else on the previous page even drew out a good picture of what I am saying.

On March 02 2011 11:29 Chicane wrote:
You drew each individual player as their own color for the first one to look like there was even more action, and you drew across water all the time, which I suppose would be drops, but didn't draw all the drop locations on the second one. Instead you drew it as one big blob and still didn't even draw out the 2 locations to go to.

While I agree there aren't many options for the second map, you should at least be fair to both sides if you want your argument to seem valid. Saying "WOW Look at all these different paths!!!!!!" for the first one and then saying "meh... there is only like 1 spot... I *guess* you could do a small drop over here if you wanted..." clearly shows the side you are taking. Instead you should present the information and leave the opinion up to other people (while also including your own if you'd like... but NOT as you present the facts).

On March 02 2011 14:56 Kyadytim wrote:
I agree with Chicane here. There is a relevant discussion here, but I think it's being overshadowed by shared base vs separate base. Manicshock did mention, it, though, when he mentioned that there's a lack of thirds.
The problem isn't shared base or not, it's map design. Compared to 1v1 maps, there is a real lack of expansions per player in the 4v4 maps. The fewest bases per player any single player map currently in the ladder map pool has is 5, on Slag Pits. Outpost doesn't even have 4 per player. A good number of the problems with 4v4 maps would probably be alleviated if they had similar complexity to maps like Xel'Naga Caverns or Typhon Peaks.

Yes, Warshop, those images were drawn in a few minutes total, but I did assign races, builds, and strategies to each of the players in both fictitious games.

On March 02 2011 12:31 Kyadytim wrote:
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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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*

On March 02 2011 12:20 Whitewing wrote:
BGH wasn't on a ladder system.

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..

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..

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.

On March 04 2011 01:37 MichaelJLowell wrote:
You're assuming that the way units operate in Starcraft is balanced for team games.