You know what i'm not going to cry over the removal of Shakuras i had no problems with it, im just more happy about the removal of Steppes, blistering and LT. Alot of people are complaining and not everyone will ever be happy. so im just glad blizzard is at least listening to some of the communities complaints. I doubt they will ever take just the communities opinions cause it would probably just be terrible.

Frenzy175

Australia42 Posts

March 03 2011 04:44 GMT

#43

On March 03 2011 12:45 Wolf wrote:
(4) Arid Wastes
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 makes me sad, pretty much killing off the whole concept of early map control and good team work and army control.

Seems they just want you to be able to sit in your base until you want to move out with your army together with no danger or effort.

LilClinkin

Australia667 Posts

March 03 2011 04:46 GMT

#44

lol slag-pits macro heavy? When I first saw it, I thought of Blood Bath from sc1.

SeeDLiNg

United States690 Posts

March 03 2011 04:48 GMT

#45

I wasn't very peeved about shakuras until reading their reasoning. That is complete garbage. they say they're listening but that's obviously bullshit or they'd know the lack of rocks at every damn expo isn't bland, its smart map design. Seriously disappointed.

Ribbon

United States5278 Posts

March 03 2011 04:50 GMT

#46

On March 03 2011 13:33 universalwill wrote:
of all the problems they mention in lost temple, they conveniently left out the cliff issue

i almost think that they don't want to admit that they're such bad mapmakers that they made a map that was literally impossible for zerg to win on

and then they call islands "expansions that never got attacked, and we didn't want that" and proceed to not remove the planetary fortress from the game

Lost Temple GSL Map Statistics

PvT: 28.6%
PvZ: 42.9%
TvZ: 57.9%

Jeez, look at those 100% win rates for P and T against Z. Literally impossible ;_;

Let's tone down the hyperbole, please. Just a little?

That said, it is interesting they didn't mention the cliff, no? They clearly knew about it, because I don't think they accidentally removed one of the biggest balance complaints of the map. I wonder why they didn't bring it up. I guess it would raise some interesting questions about Delta Quadrant, and they don't want to say or imply Delta is a bad map until they remove it. I imagine Delta'll be the one to get replaced with the GSL map, though. It's the least popular map in the pool on battle net polls, and no major tourney uses it now.

Amui

Canada10567 Posts

March 03 2011 04:59 GMT

#47

We took out Shakuras Plateau, which was a very plain macro map, and added this map instead

uhhhh WHAT? What is wrong with pure unadulterated macro once in a while? This game was by no means boring as if you look at GSL, out of all the great games, probably half or more have occured on this map.

Backwater Gulch has a familiar main to first expansion layout. Early gameplay on this map should feel familiar, and there probably aren't too many early-game threats or difficulties in terms of gimmicky strategies you need to worry about.

So... 3x attack paths into nat, can't defend nat while defending main, and without a mobile/very defense oriented army, almost impossible to take the natural in the first place.

Out of the 4 new maps, the only map I think is actually an improvement is typhon peaks.

hidiliho

Canada685 Posts

March 03 2011 05:28 GMT

#48

At least they explained it

GagnarTheUnruly

United States655 Posts

March 03 2011 05:31 GMT

#49

1 GSL map is better than none. Give them positive feedback on it and it's the start of something beautiful.

Saracen

United States5139 Posts

March 03 2011 05:33 GMT

#50

This is very nice information

ixi.genocide

United States981 Posts

March 03 2011 05:35 GMT

#51

TP is a sweet map, hopefully it will be a welcome addition to tournaments and we won't see too much abuse on it.

Slag pits should be cross pos imo. atm this map has a really wide open nat and is very hard to take a third which makes it almost as bad as bs

Backwater gulch will be interesting. At first sight it is a bad map but we will see how that plays out.

Shattered temple is gonna be much better than lt. The only thing that I would do to improve st is removing the rocks at the gold and making the gold normal mineral patches.

CortoMontez

Australia608 Posts

March 03 2011 05:36 GMT

#52

Frankly, I'm most annoyed that Quicksand has remained in the FFA map pool, the positional imbalance on that map is almost as bad as ProdiG's Labrynth of Wonders....

bkrow

Australia8532 Posts

March 03 2011 05:40 GMT

#53

Good OP it's a bit strange to see this much transparency from Blizzard; actually explaining the reasoning behind their map choices..

It's nice to see them taking steps to please the community.. improved maps are better for all

Awesome.

Ichabod

United States1659 Posts

March 03 2011 05:42 GMT

#54

Some of their reasoning seems suspect but it's really nice to see them giving us some insight on their thought patterns, even if they think Slag Pits is a macro map and Backwater Gulch has a defendable expansion.
I suppose they thought it was too easy to fast expand on LT, so they made the natural less defendable, but traded that for a nice 3rd and a pretty easy expanding path. Close positions on that map certainly will be interesting in the late game, similar to shakuras.

Yoshi Kirishima

United States10372 Posts

March 03 2011 05:46 GMT

#55

Couldn't find one. This is their official post from today about the maps, why they were removed/added. The other post just showed the new maps.

I can't find it anymore either o.o

Yeah strange, their post IS new, but the information seems old o.o the map changes and the explanations... unless they edited it a few details and reposted or something.

infinity21

Canada6683 Posts

March 03 2011 05:56 GMT

#56

I would've liked to know why they decided to keep DQ lol
Their justification of removing Shakuras makes it sound like they had no better maps to remove, i.e. DQ was a somewhat balanced map with less cheese than blistering sands or steppes.

Elwar

953 Posts

March 03 2011 06:07 GMT

#57

I would be shocked if Shakuras wasn't in actuality removed because of oft-mentioned imbalances in the closer-spawn positions, and that they didn't want to make it cross-map only.

Edit: Also I think Typhon is the only new map thats encourages macro-based games more than the maps they're replacing. I'll echo everyone elses sentiments than Slag Pits (in particular) and Backwater Gulch are ridiculous maps to try and defend expansions on.

slipperymess

14 Posts

March 03 2011 06:13 GMT

#58

Good that Blizzard is changing their maps up, but I really don't like their reasoning for Shakuras. Even if it was kind of bland it still produced some of the most exciting games I've seen in so far (The IdrA v MVP game that Artosis casted for example).

Well, I guess we'll just see how the replacement maps fare as substitutes for it.... Hopefully will bring us games on the same caliber.

dcemuser

United States3248 Posts

March 03 2011 06:16 GMT

#59

On March 03 2011 14:46 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:

Show nested quote +

You're probably getting it confused with the thread a day or two ago about a Blizzard interview discussing maps, where the developer talked about adding GSL maps.

As for all of the Shakuras complaints... I'm fine with it. The game gets stale and boring if they use the same maps for a long time, and Blizzard is right in this case - Shakuras was really boring in terms of limited attack paths. There were interesting games on it, sure, but I think there are better maps (most of the new GSL ones are better than Shakuras).

Didn't they change maps really frequently in Brood War for the same reason... to add variety (and for balance reasons)?

Edit: Before I get bashed on... I'm not agreeing with everything Blizzard did here. Delta Quadrant should be removed too, and Slag Pits isn't the greatest map ever. That said, I don't see why they shouldn't remove Shakuras.

Sein

United States1811 Posts

March 03 2011 06:18 GMT

#60

On March 03 2011 13:44 Frenzy175 wrote:

Show nested quote +

Yea, I'm really sad about this as well.