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On March 04 2011 03:18 Sm3agol wrote:Show nested quote +On March 04 2011 02:42 theqat wrote:On March 04 2011 02:21 Bagi wrote:On March 04 2011 00:21 Sm3agol wrote:On March 03 2011 19:18 unSpeake wrote:
Getting really tired of these natural bases with 2-3 wide ass entrances. Makes it really hard to get a legitimate game on them THAT IS A GOOD THING. Why are you assuming you should get a worry free expansion on every single map? Forge FE should not be completely viable on every single map. Those maps mean that economic cheese can be punished, and things like 1 rax FE and 1 gate FE are economic cheese. I like big macro games as much has anyone, but I also hate that the trend amongst the pro maps definitely going towards NO rushes or all-ins. On maps like Shakuras, there was basically no threat of an all-in, because you can block off your nat ramp with a building and a defensive structure, and the rush distance was so long, your only real option was a proxy anyways. On some of the GSL maps, if you scout the wrong base twice, you can't cheese, simple as that. Not even the option for cheese. They'll have a rax or two and an expo on the way already by the time you get there. That is NOT good for gameplay. I've seen plenty of people go CC/nexus first on these maps, without even scouting, which is just ludicrous, imo. Heck, zergs can go 3 hatch before pool sometimes. That is somewhat cool for now because it's so novel, but that gets old fast too. There needs to be threat of pressure keeping people from just pure power macroing for the first 20 minutes of a "game". Power turtle macro into 200/200 death ball for 20 minutes, one 15 second engagement, and a GG. That's the trend these big "macro maps" is going toward, and that is even less fun than 2 rax all-ins. That's just sim-city with a happy ending. Imo, Blizzard has the right idea, although I admit they don't have amazing execution with some of their ideas, and they seem quite blind to basic map abuse strategies. But just look at maps like Xel'naga. It has all the "broken features" that many of you whine about, yet it plays extremely solid, and leads to both exciting macro games and great 1 base all-ins. Lets see, no easy third, wide open natural, rocks blocking both the gold and third, dominant xel'naga towers, holding a 4th and 5th base is basically impossible, and it's hard to scout the main. It is so fun to watch because as a player you have so many options, many of them equally viable. This is such a good post, and something I've been trying to express for a while now. People are blindly demanding big maps just because thats the way BW was, but forget that 1) its a different game and 2) huge maps will also lead into a smaller variety in strategies and games. Happy mediums like Xel'naga is where its at right now, imo. They demand bigger maps precisely because SC2 is a different game--cheese and all-ins are much more effective than they were in BW, thanks to scouting being more difficult while Chronoboost and MULEs make more units come out faster. We need the bigger maps for the game to be interesting at all. Otherwise it's just "welp, small map/close positions, better one-base it!" for T/P or "welp, small map/close positions, autolose" for Z. Those games are boring. No one likes to lose or win based on map position and games that stay on one/two bases lead to the biggest complaint spectators have about SC2, which is "the players just build their balls and then the balls smash and the game is over." Every map should allow for the possibility of 3+ base play every game. XNC is not a happy medium. If you look at the current crop of BW maps, even the smallest have twelve bases. XNC has ten. It's too small and the natural positioning/open-ness is stupid. It might be one of the best maps we have but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have drastically better. How? It's pretty much the most popular map in SC2 right now. What contributes to this? Imo, its the long rush distance alone that contributes. whining about having wide open nats and rocks covering future expos is meaningless when you have time to see and defend the threats to your base. At the same time, you can't do stupid crap like nexus first, because it's wide open enough so that you can punish blatant eco cheese if you scout it. I will agree it could use 2 more bases, but saying it blows because BW maps have at least 12 expos and XC has 10 is the quite possibly the stupidest possible argument I've seen in this thread to date. Aka, its not the same as BW therefore it sucks. Wtf dude? XC easily has an option for 3 base play every game, with 4 bases being quite common to see. Imo, Slag Pits is fine (backwater gulch isn't an option to consider yet.....LOL nat) if you disable close ground spawns. Typhoon and ST are completely fine, period. I'm worried about the two biggest GSL maps..........they don't belong on ladder. 99% of the player base will never have good games on those maps. I don't even like them so far for GSL....you have zero options for all-ins. And that's just as bad as all-ins every game. Imo, it's an overreaction to the excessively small ladder maps like Steppes and Blistering. Going from all-ins every game to possibly not even scouting which base your opponent is at until 4 minutes in.....is not necessarily a change for the better. Sure, it makes your games macro games, but at the expense of almost ALL early game pressure and cheese. You could lose a 7 pool to a CC first build if you scout the two wrong bases first, and that is fundamentally wrong. Cheese and all-ins is just as much part of SC as big macro games. It shouldn't be the focus, but there HAS to be that pressure and nervousness that your opponent could be doing something cheesy, otherwise the first 15 minutes of the game are meaningless and we should just start with two bases and a pool/gate/rax alreayd built just to save time.
You talk like cheese and all ins are non existant on big map, but that's not true. Especially with mechanics like warpin toss does not really suffer from distance penalty. In BW maps were huge and you want to say there weren't any cheese/allins?
And what do you mean 99% players won't have good games? Are you kidding? So you mean that those people have good games on crappy maps like steppes or delta? Most people hate those small allinish maps and everyone want bigger maps. I seriously doubt that someone will downvote map like Tal'Darim Altar, I mean what would be the point of downvoting such map?
And even if there is a part of people who hates huge maps (those people who can't macro), then you can always downvote them. I don't see the reason why we can't have several GSL maps in the ladder.
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i'm glad they're starting to remove gold mineral patches in the map
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I don't really know what people's problem with backwater gulch is. Those 2 small funnels are not good places for a couple of marines to be attacking a natural early when there are drones and zerglings spawning on two hatches, one of which leading to each entrance of the funnel.
Likewise there are a ton of interesting ways for the other races to constrain access here and maximizing the defender's advantage while not outright being able to wall of the main and nat with 2-3 buildings.
Depending on positions it also has well acessible thirds for each spawning constellation.
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On March 04 2011 03:29 Alpina wrote:Show nested quote +On March 04 2011 03:18 Sm3agol wrote:On March 04 2011 02:42 theqat wrote:On March 04 2011 02:21 Bagi wrote:On March 04 2011 00:21 Sm3agol wrote:On March 03 2011 19:18 unSpeake wrote:
Getting really tired of these natural bases with 2-3 wide ass entrances. Makes it really hard to get a legitimate game on them THAT IS A GOOD THING. Why are you assuming you should get a worry free expansion on every single map? Forge FE should not be completely viable on every single map. Those maps mean that economic cheese can be punished, and things like 1 rax FE and 1 gate FE are economic cheese. I like big macro games as much has anyone, but I also hate that the trend amongst the pro maps definitely going towards NO rushes or all-ins. On maps like Shakuras, there was basically no threat of an all-in, because you can block off your nat ramp with a building and a defensive structure, and the rush distance was so long, your only real option was a proxy anyways. On some of the GSL maps, if you scout the wrong base twice, you can't cheese, simple as that. Not even the option for cheese. They'll have a rax or two and an expo on the way already by the time you get there. That is NOT good for gameplay. I've seen plenty of people go CC/nexus first on these maps, without even scouting, which is just ludicrous, imo. Heck, zergs can go 3 hatch before pool sometimes. That is somewhat cool for now because it's so novel, but that gets old fast too. There needs to be threat of pressure keeping people from just pure power macroing for the first 20 minutes of a "game". Power turtle macro into 200/200 death ball for 20 minutes, one 15 second engagement, and a GG. That's the trend these big "macro maps" is going toward, and that is even less fun than 2 rax all-ins. That's just sim-city with a happy ending. Imo, Blizzard has the right idea, although I admit they don't have amazing execution with some of their ideas, and they seem quite blind to basic map abuse strategies. But just look at maps like Xel'naga. It has all the "broken features" that many of you whine about, yet it plays extremely solid, and leads to both exciting macro games and great 1 base all-ins. Lets see, no easy third, wide open natural, rocks blocking both the gold and third, dominant xel'naga towers, holding a 4th and 5th base is basically impossible, and it's hard to scout the main. It is so fun to watch because as a player you have so many options, many of them equally viable. This is such a good post, and something I've been trying to express for a while now. People are blindly demanding big maps just because thats the way BW was, but forget that 1) its a different game and 2) huge maps will also lead into a smaller variety in strategies and games. Happy mediums like Xel'naga is where its at right now, imo. They demand bigger maps precisely because SC2 is a different game--cheese and all-ins are much more effective than they were in BW, thanks to scouting being more difficult while Chronoboost and MULEs make more units come out faster. We need the bigger maps for the game to be interesting at all. Otherwise it's just "welp, small map/close positions, better one-base it!" for T/P or "welp, small map/close positions, autolose" for Z. Those games are boring. No one likes to lose or win based on map position and games that stay on one/two bases lead to the biggest complaint spectators have about SC2, which is "the players just build their balls and then the balls smash and the game is over." Every map should allow for the possibility of 3+ base play every game. XNC is not a happy medium. If you look at the current crop of BW maps, even the smallest have twelve bases. XNC has ten. It's too small and the natural positioning/open-ness is stupid. It might be one of the best maps we have but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have drastically better. How? It's pretty much the most popular map in SC2 right now. What contributes to this? Imo, its the long rush distance alone that contributes. whining about having wide open nats and rocks covering future expos is meaningless when you have time to see and defend the threats to your base. At the same time, you can't do stupid crap like nexus first, because it's wide open enough so that you can punish blatant eco cheese if you scout it. I will agree it could use 2 more bases, but saying it blows because BW maps have at least 12 expos and XC has 10 is the quite possibly the stupidest possible argument I've seen in this thread to date. Aka, its not the same as BW therefore it sucks. Wtf dude? XC easily has an option for 3 base play every game, with 4 bases being quite common to see. Imo, Slag Pits is fine (backwater gulch isn't an option to consider yet.....LOL nat) if you disable close ground spawns. Typhoon and ST are completely fine, period. I'm worried about the two biggest GSL maps..........they don't belong on ladder. 99% of the player base will never have good games on those maps. I don't even like them so far for GSL....you have zero options for all-ins. And that's just as bad as all-ins every game. Imo, it's an overreaction to the excessively small ladder maps like Steppes and Blistering. Going from all-ins every game to possibly not even scouting which base your opponent is at until 4 minutes in.....is not necessarily a change for the better. Sure, it makes your games macro games, but at the expense of almost ALL early game pressure and cheese. You could lose a 7 pool to a CC first build if you scout the two wrong bases first, and that is fundamentally wrong. Cheese and all-ins is just as much part of SC as big macro games. It shouldn't be the focus, but there HAS to be that pressure and nervousness that your opponent could be doing something cheesy, otherwise the first 15 minutes of the game are meaningless and we should just start with two bases and a pool/gate/rax alreayd built just to save time. You talk like cheese and all ins are non existant on big map, but that's not true. Especially with mechanics like warpin toss does not really suffer from distance penalty. In BW maps were huge and you want to say there weren't any cheese/allins? And what do you mean 99% players won't have good games? Are you kidding? So you mean that those people have good games on crappy maps like steppes or delta? Most people hate those small allinish maps and everyone want bigger maps. I seriously doubt that someone will downvote map like Tal'Darim Altar, I mean what would be the point of downvoting such map? And even if there is a part of people who hates huge maps (those people who can't macro), then you can always downvote them. I don't see the reason why we can't have several GSL maps in the ladder.
Ignoring the first paragraph since, again, this isn't BW.
And by 99% I mean 99% of SC2 players, not 99% of TL. Typical silver/bronze/gold nubs don't ever want to expand past 1 base, much less have to walk over 9000 miles across the map to their opponents base. In the future? Maybe, but moving directly from Steppes to Tal'Darim is not the correct transition. Baby steps, this is ladder we're talking about. The first season of ladder. I'm guessing you're diamond/masters, probably play at a very high level, and watch professional matches all the time. You have no problem with huge macro maps. Your typical "wtf do you mean expand before 15 minutes" silver player is going to downvote Tal'Darim the first time he has to play it vs a macro player. It's too much, too soon.
Sure, but there needs to be enough downvotes to keep them off. Put simply there are still too many map problems in the pool to start putting very n00b unfriendly maps out there. Save most of them for the next map pool. Put one, MAYBE two GSL maps in. They are massively bigger than the current ladder maps. And your "(those people who can't macro)" comment. You realize that is 90% of ladder right? If they could macro....they'd be >diamond, and would be all in favor of bigger maps.
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On March 04 2011 03:46 Sm3agol wrote:Show nested quote +On March 04 2011 03:29 Alpina wrote:On March 04 2011 03:18 Sm3agol wrote:On March 04 2011 02:42 theqat wrote:On March 04 2011 02:21 Bagi wrote:On March 04 2011 00:21 Sm3agol wrote:On March 03 2011 19:18 unSpeake wrote:
Getting really tired of these natural bases with 2-3 wide ass entrances. Makes it really hard to get a legitimate game on them THAT IS A GOOD THING. Why are you assuming you should get a worry free expansion on every single map? Forge FE should not be completely viable on every single map. Those maps mean that economic cheese can be punished, and things like 1 rax FE and 1 gate FE are economic cheese. I like big macro games as much has anyone, but I also hate that the trend amongst the pro maps definitely going towards NO rushes or all-ins. On maps like Shakuras, there was basically no threat of an all-in, because you can block off your nat ramp with a building and a defensive structure, and the rush distance was so long, your only real option was a proxy anyways. On some of the GSL maps, if you scout the wrong base twice, you can't cheese, simple as that. Not even the option for cheese. They'll have a rax or two and an expo on the way already by the time you get there. That is NOT good for gameplay. I've seen plenty of people go CC/nexus first on these maps, without even scouting, which is just ludicrous, imo. Heck, zergs can go 3 hatch before pool sometimes. That is somewhat cool for now because it's so novel, but that gets old fast too. There needs to be threat of pressure keeping people from just pure power macroing for the first 20 minutes of a "game". Power turtle macro into 200/200 death ball for 20 minutes, one 15 second engagement, and a GG. That's the trend these big "macro maps" is going toward, and that is even less fun than 2 rax all-ins. That's just sim-city with a happy ending. Imo, Blizzard has the right idea, although I admit they don't have amazing execution with some of their ideas, and they seem quite blind to basic map abuse strategies. But just look at maps like Xel'naga. It has all the "broken features" that many of you whine about, yet it plays extremely solid, and leads to both exciting macro games and great 1 base all-ins. Lets see, no easy third, wide open natural, rocks blocking both the gold and third, dominant xel'naga towers, holding a 4th and 5th base is basically impossible, and it's hard to scout the main. It is so fun to watch because as a player you have so many options, many of them equally viable. This is such a good post, and something I've been trying to express for a while now. People are blindly demanding big maps just because thats the way BW was, but forget that 1) its a different game and 2) huge maps will also lead into a smaller variety in strategies and games. Happy mediums like Xel'naga is where its at right now, imo. They demand bigger maps precisely because SC2 is a different game--cheese and all-ins are much more effective than they were in BW, thanks to scouting being more difficult while Chronoboost and MULEs make more units come out faster. We need the bigger maps for the game to be interesting at all. Otherwise it's just "welp, small map/close positions, better one-base it!" for T/P or "welp, small map/close positions, autolose" for Z. Those games are boring. No one likes to lose or win based on map position and games that stay on one/two bases lead to the biggest complaint spectators have about SC2, which is "the players just build their balls and then the balls smash and the game is over." Every map should allow for the possibility of 3+ base play every game. XNC is not a happy medium. If you look at the current crop of BW maps, even the smallest have twelve bases. XNC has ten. It's too small and the natural positioning/open-ness is stupid. It might be one of the best maps we have but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have drastically better. How? It's pretty much the most popular map in SC2 right now. What contributes to this? Imo, its the long rush distance alone that contributes. whining about having wide open nats and rocks covering future expos is meaningless when you have time to see and defend the threats to your base. At the same time, you can't do stupid crap like nexus first, because it's wide open enough so that you can punish blatant eco cheese if you scout it. I will agree it could use 2 more bases, but saying it blows because BW maps have at least 12 expos and XC has 10 is the quite possibly the stupidest possible argument I've seen in this thread to date. Aka, its not the same as BW therefore it sucks. Wtf dude? XC easily has an option for 3 base play every game, with 4 bases being quite common to see. Imo, Slag Pits is fine (backwater gulch isn't an option to consider yet.....LOL nat) if you disable close ground spawns. Typhoon and ST are completely fine, period. I'm worried about the two biggest GSL maps..........they don't belong on ladder. 99% of the player base will never have good games on those maps. I don't even like them so far for GSL....you have zero options for all-ins. And that's just as bad as all-ins every game. Imo, it's an overreaction to the excessively small ladder maps like Steppes and Blistering. Going from all-ins every game to possibly not even scouting which base your opponent is at until 4 minutes in.....is not necessarily a change for the better. Sure, it makes your games macro games, but at the expense of almost ALL early game pressure and cheese. You could lose a 7 pool to a CC first build if you scout the two wrong bases first, and that is fundamentally wrong. Cheese and all-ins is just as much part of SC as big macro games. It shouldn't be the focus, but there HAS to be that pressure and nervousness that your opponent could be doing something cheesy, otherwise the first 15 minutes of the game are meaningless and we should just start with two bases and a pool/gate/rax alreayd built just to save time. You talk like cheese and all ins are non existant on big map, but that's not true. Especially with mechanics like warpin toss does not really suffer from distance penalty. In BW maps were huge and you want to say there weren't any cheese/allins? And what do you mean 99% players won't have good games? Are you kidding? So you mean that those people have good games on crappy maps like steppes or delta? Most people hate those small allinish maps and everyone want bigger maps. I seriously doubt that someone will downvote map like Tal'Darim Altar, I mean what would be the point of downvoting such map? And even if there is a part of people who hates huge maps (those people who can't macro), then you can always downvote them. I don't see the reason why we can't have several GSL maps in the ladder. Ignoring the first paragraph since, again, this isn't BW. And by 99% I mean 99% of SC2 players, not 99% of TL. Typical silver/bronze/gold nubs don't ever want to expand past 1 base, much less have to walk over 9000 miles across the map to their opponents base. In the future? Maybe, but moving directly from Steppes to Tal'Darim is not the correct transition. Baby steps, this is ladder we're talking about. The first season of ladder. I'm guessing you're diamond/masters, probably play at a very high level, and watch professional matches all the time. You have no problem with huge macro maps. Your typical "wtf do you mean expand before 15 minutes" silver player is going to downvote Tal'Darim the first time he has to play it vs a macro player. It's too much, too soon. Sure, but there needs to be enough downvotes to keep them off. Put simply there are still too many map problems in the pool to start putting very n00b unfriendly maps out there. Save most of them for the next map pool. Put one, MAYBE two GSL maps in. They are massively bigger than the current ladder maps. And your "(those people who can't macro)" comment. You realize that is 90% of ladder right? If they could macro....they'd be >diamond, and would be all in favor of bigger maps.
Typical silver/bronze/gold nubs don't ever want to expand past 1 base
It's not like they don't want, they just can't or don't know how to take advantage of expanding etc.
You know I would really like to see opinion of those low level players about big maps. I doubt that they like being rushed in every second game. I remember when I was big noob in RTS I loved huge maps so much because you have a lot of free time and you can play relaxed, max your huge army and just enjoy playing. Bronze players loves turtling and maxing 200/200 of carriers.
much less have to walk over 9000 miles across
Well those your 9000 miles are just 10-15 seconds longer attack path than any other standart ladder map, it's not like you can't attack until 20mins into the game.
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I've linked the "Blizzard explanation on map changes" in several threads with map discussion, I thought everyone was aware of their point of view on what is "interesting" and "fun".
Nice too see there are so many people who don't like their views and find many of the points made on the Blizzard blog invalid and on the verge of trolling.
While GSL and MLG blatantly ignore the bad maps created by Blizzard in their tournaments (or even modify them to produce better games) the company almost intentionally ignores the signals given to them.
The new maps are bad and the explanation Blizzard gives makes them even worse, demoralizing and hurting the player's faith in them.
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On March 04 2011 03:57 Alpina wrote:Show nested quote +On March 04 2011 03:46 Sm3agol wrote:On March 04 2011 03:29 Alpina wrote:On March 04 2011 03:18 Sm3agol wrote:On March 04 2011 02:42 theqat wrote:On March 04 2011 02:21 Bagi wrote:On March 04 2011 00:21 Sm3agol wrote:On March 03 2011 19:18 unSpeake wrote:
Getting really tired of these natural bases with 2-3 wide ass entrances. Makes it really hard to get a legitimate game on them THAT IS A GOOD THING. Why are you assuming you should get a worry free expansion on every single map? Forge FE should not be completely viable on every single map. Those maps mean that economic cheese can be punished, and things like 1 rax FE and 1 gate FE are economic cheese. I like big macro games as much has anyone, but I also hate that the trend amongst the pro maps definitely going towards NO rushes or all-ins. On maps like Shakuras, there was basically no threat of an all-in, because you can block off your nat ramp with a building and a defensive structure, and the rush distance was so long, your only real option was a proxy anyways. On some of the GSL maps, if you scout the wrong base twice, you can't cheese, simple as that. Not even the option for cheese. They'll have a rax or two and an expo on the way already by the time you get there. That is NOT good for gameplay. I've seen plenty of people go CC/nexus first on these maps, without even scouting, which is just ludicrous, imo. Heck, zergs can go 3 hatch before pool sometimes. That is somewhat cool for now because it's so novel, but that gets old fast too. There needs to be threat of pressure keeping people from just pure power macroing for the first 20 minutes of a "game". Power turtle macro into 200/200 death ball for 20 minutes, one 15 second engagement, and a GG. That's the trend these big "macro maps" is going toward, and that is even less fun than 2 rax all-ins. That's just sim-city with a happy ending. Imo, Blizzard has the right idea, although I admit they don't have amazing execution with some of their ideas, and they seem quite blind to basic map abuse strategies. But just look at maps like Xel'naga. It has all the "broken features" that many of you whine about, yet it plays extremely solid, and leads to both exciting macro games and great 1 base all-ins. Lets see, no easy third, wide open natural, rocks blocking both the gold and third, dominant xel'naga towers, holding a 4th and 5th base is basically impossible, and it's hard to scout the main. It is so fun to watch because as a player you have so many options, many of them equally viable. This is such a good post, and something I've been trying to express for a while now. People are blindly demanding big maps just because thats the way BW was, but forget that 1) its a different game and 2) huge maps will also lead into a smaller variety in strategies and games. Happy mediums like Xel'naga is where its at right now, imo. They demand bigger maps precisely because SC2 is a different game--cheese and all-ins are much more effective than they were in BW, thanks to scouting being more difficult while Chronoboost and MULEs make more units come out faster. We need the bigger maps for the game to be interesting at all. Otherwise it's just "welp, small map/close positions, better one-base it!" for T/P or "welp, small map/close positions, autolose" for Z. Those games are boring. No one likes to lose or win based on map position and games that stay on one/two bases lead to the biggest complaint spectators have about SC2, which is "the players just build their balls and then the balls smash and the game is over." Every map should allow for the possibility of 3+ base play every game. XNC is not a happy medium. If you look at the current crop of BW maps, even the smallest have twelve bases. XNC has ten. It's too small and the natural positioning/open-ness is stupid. It might be one of the best maps we have but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have drastically better. How? It's pretty much the most popular map in SC2 right now. What contributes to this? Imo, its the long rush distance alone that contributes. whining about having wide open nats and rocks covering future expos is meaningless when you have time to see and defend the threats to your base. At the same time, you can't do stupid crap like nexus first, because it's wide open enough so that you can punish blatant eco cheese if you scout it. I will agree it could use 2 more bases, but saying it blows because BW maps have at least 12 expos and XC has 10 is the quite possibly the stupidest possible argument I've seen in this thread to date. Aka, its not the same as BW therefore it sucks. Wtf dude? XC easily has an option for 3 base play every game, with 4 bases being quite common to see. Imo, Slag Pits is fine (backwater gulch isn't an option to consider yet.....LOL nat) if you disable close ground spawns. Typhoon and ST are completely fine, period. I'm worried about the two biggest GSL maps..........they don't belong on ladder. 99% of the player base will never have good games on those maps. I don't even like them so far for GSL....you have zero options for all-ins. And that's just as bad as all-ins every game. Imo, it's an overreaction to the excessively small ladder maps like Steppes and Blistering. Going from all-ins every game to possibly not even scouting which base your opponent is at until 4 minutes in.....is not necessarily a change for the better. Sure, it makes your games macro games, but at the expense of almost ALL early game pressure and cheese. You could lose a 7 pool to a CC first build if you scout the two wrong bases first, and that is fundamentally wrong. Cheese and all-ins is just as much part of SC as big macro games. It shouldn't be the focus, but there HAS to be that pressure and nervousness that your opponent could be doing something cheesy, otherwise the first 15 minutes of the game are meaningless and we should just start with two bases and a pool/gate/rax alreayd built just to save time. You talk like cheese and all ins are non existant on big map, but that's not true. Especially with mechanics like warpin toss does not really suffer from distance penalty. In BW maps were huge and you want to say there weren't any cheese/allins? And what do you mean 99% players won't have good games? Are you kidding? So you mean that those people have good games on crappy maps like steppes or delta? Most people hate those small allinish maps and everyone want bigger maps. I seriously doubt that someone will downvote map like Tal'Darim Altar, I mean what would be the point of downvoting such map? And even if there is a part of people who hates huge maps (those people who can't macro), then you can always downvote them. I don't see the reason why we can't have several GSL maps in the ladder. Ignoring the first paragraph since, again, this isn't BW. And by 99% I mean 99% of SC2 players, not 99% of TL. Typical silver/bronze/gold nubs don't ever want to expand past 1 base, much less have to walk over 9000 miles across the map to their opponents base. In the future? Maybe, but moving directly from Steppes to Tal'Darim is not the correct transition. Baby steps, this is ladder we're talking about. The first season of ladder. I'm guessing you're diamond/masters, probably play at a very high level, and watch professional matches all the time. You have no problem with huge macro maps. Your typical "wtf do you mean expand before 15 minutes" silver player is going to downvote Tal'Darim the first time he has to play it vs a macro player. It's too much, too soon. Sure, but there needs to be enough downvotes to keep them off. Put simply there are still too many map problems in the pool to start putting very n00b unfriendly maps out there. Save most of them for the next map pool. Put one, MAYBE two GSL maps in. They are massively bigger than the current ladder maps. And your "(those people who can't macro)" comment. You realize that is 90% of ladder right? If they could macro....they'd be >diamond, and would be all in favor of bigger maps. It's not like they don't want, they just can't or don't know how to take advantage of expanding etc. You know I would really like to see opinion of those low level players about big maps. I doubt that they like being rushed in every second game. I remember when I was big noob in RTS I loved huge maps so much because you have a lot of free time and you can play relaxed, max your huge army and just enjoy playing. Bronze players loves turtling and maxing 200/200 of carriers. Well those your 9000 miles are just 10-15 seconds longer attack path than any other standart ladder map, it's not like you can't attack until 20mins into the game.
Try walking across Tal'Darim. I agree we need big macro maps, but just dumping these HUGE maps on people when the farthest rush distance is probably cross-position metal is a little drastic. As i said baby steps. Sure, eliminate the 5 second rush distance maps, and start transitioning to macro maps. But don't jump from Steppes to Tal'Darim. That's not a logical transition.
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Try walking across Tal'Darim. I agree we need big macro maps, but just dumping these HUGE maps on people when the farthest rush distance is probably cross-position metal is a little drastic. As i said baby steps. Sure, eliminate the 5 second rush distance maps, and start transitioning to macro maps. But don't jump from Steppes to Tal'Darim. That's not a logical transition.
While I don't agree with your earlier statements about macro games being 20 minute ball clashes (at least at higher levels) I do sort of agree with this. I think in all the games I played on GSL maps/BW remakes my opponents were TL members in the highest league. I would not be surprised at all to see a huge thumbs down % for lower level players on those maps because they are pretty intimidating. I think more maps like Xel'Naga or Destination (Easy nat but 2 player macro) would be a good intermediate.
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i'm still waiting for hunters. make it happen blizzard.
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Any reason why they still keep Delta Quadran ?
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I'm glad steppes and blistering sands are gone, but I am going to kind of miss lost temple.... I'm sure it'll be back, though. It's lost temple!
In any case, I haven't played all of the new maps yet. Backwater gulch is not bad though...
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I'm so glad they removed the maps they did, they promoted gimmicky play, what i don't understand is why they left delta quadrant in, mby they are going to replace it with something else next map add-in.
As for the new maps;
[4] Backwater Gulch
-i like this one the most, the xel naga towers dont give you a lot of vision except for the center so you can sneak drops by and armies if you dont have mapcontrol, 3rds are easy to take yet also accessible to attack.
[4] Slag Pits
- i dont really like this map, its supposed to be a new metalopolis but its nowhere close. Side expos are gold and in a depression which makes them a bit harder to defend and the 3rd is not close for the defending race and also its almost always accessible to attack ( even in cross positions it seems like you are expanding towards you opponent in a weird way. I think over time we will see a lot of 2 base pushes and allins against the map controling 3rd.
[4] Typhon
- i feel like the main is to constrained and doesnt give you a lot of building space, bases are cramped and a few times i didnt have room for my production buildings in longer games, could be just a bit bigger. other than that this is the map i played the least so i cant really cast judgement.
Overall i like that they are bigger, they eliminate some coinflip allins, and it feels nicer playing on them. We will see more macro games and in a few patches even some balance changes, i think, to even out the late game that is a bit 'unexplored'.
+ Show Spoiler + w00t new maps finally!!!!1!!! ^^
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GSL maps on ladder? Oh god oh god yes! Please please please!
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On March 04 2011 03:32 HaruHaru wrote:
i'm glad they're starting to remove gold mineral patches in the map
I think you are dreaming man.
They are more likely to add more rocks, sneaky backdoor paths, golds and towers in the future maps if the current trend keeps on.
If things keep like they are, I think SC2 ladder will be a huge fail and die in the long term.
Were not for MLG, GSL, GSTL, TSL and so many other events that use custom map pools, I would've lost all the will to watch a game of SC2 by now.
And I'm growing everyday more tired of playing this game that, for me, the main competitive enviroment is the goddamn blizzard ladder., and occasionally some CW that unfortunately use the stupid ladder maps... and I'm region locked.
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Remember everyone, Steppes was a popular map. TL != The Starcraft Community as a whole.
Tal'Darim would be bad as a ladder map. Even at the pro level, it's hard for a Zerg to beat a turtling toss who just builds a deathball. How are Mid-Masters and below (i.e., literally 99% of players) going to deal with that? Contrary to popular belief on TL, Bronze and Silver players watch the GSL.
Do you guys really want the standard Zerg experience to be "I can't multitask well, so I sit on my ass for 40-odd minutes until my Silver opponent macros a deathball and kills me"? As least Steppes was over quick.
And don't tell me "Well, they should be in Masters". A game shouldn't require a degree in Starcraftology just to be fun at a basic level. Tal'Darim is a tournament map and does well there.
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On March 03 2011 13:10 SiegeFlank wrote:Show nested quote +(4) Shakuras Plateau
This map we decided to remove for a different reason. There isn't a huge problem with this map, but we feel there aren't enough interesting features. The natural expansion is easy to take and defend; there are only two possible attack paths, only one of which is generally used, and main bases aren’t easy to harass. For a change, we wanted to replace this relatively plain map with something new. Clearly not enough destructible rocks and gold bases, eh Blizzard? Despite not having the most interesting features by blizzard's definition, this map has brought out some of the most exciting macro games we've seen so far. Considering how much the community loves this map, it's really doing them a disservice to remove it. Still don't understand what they were thinking when they removed this map, can only hope it gets undone (again).
Not saying I don't like SP, I fucking loved it. But me and you are just 2 votes. Not everybody liked SP I know a lot of people from every race that despised it.
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The game cannot be balanced around two players sitting in their bases until they have 200/200 armies and then pushing out to see which one is better, the game simply doesn't work like that, and if that's how low level players play, then too bad. This is, of course, assuming that bronze level deathballs are actually deathballs, which is doubtful.
The ladder should contain fun, competitive maps.If this is "unfair" for low level players, change the low level map pool. They can play on novice steppes and shit.
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Why do they think maps have to have 'features'? I think it's kind of funny ideas like breakable rocks are taken from KeSPA mapmakers using stacked temples, now they are apparently essential to Blizzards maps.
Also i don't understand peoples reactions that its a good thing... the core of SC2's race balance is similar to BW, and from 11 years of pro BW we can determine that having easily defendable naturals is pretty essential. There's been plenty of experiments changing that up and by and large they made it unfair. Protoss especially had a tough time with certain maps and Zerg always has a tough time with certain 3rd base positions. Just because SC2 is new doesn't mean some of the same principles don't apply, infact maybe they do even moreso than before. Zerg is fundamentally designed to need an early expansion for a start, that much is clear. So their map pool having maps where it's extremely difficult to defend natural is ridiculous, considering they have designed the races so 1base Zerg is clearly weaker. If they want 1 base to always be viable they need to change unit balance, but i think we'd all agree it's better to fix maps before unit stats.
Plus, keep in mind the most popular BW maps were playable by any level of players and still were fun. Saying that less bases possible is better because low level players can't macro is very silly, especially considering macro is much easier in SC2.
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I know everyone loves to talk mostly about 1v1 but what about this little gem?
(4) Ruins of Tarsonis
Ruins of Tarsonis is a more balanced version of War Zone, which is being removed from the map pool. The biggest downside of War Zone was that it was nearly impossible to assist your ally if you didn't have a mobile army. However, with the shared choke points on this map, it's now possible to play as any race combination without obvious disadvantages. In the mid/late game, however, there are back-door attack paths leading to your second expansion areas, so be sure to defend those locations as well.
I have no idea how to describe how many things are wrong with this. War Zone was probably one of the most defensive-minded maps in the entire map pool. Rush-distance was long, and you had a good setup of bases (including a free 3rd expansion for one of you). The only time it would be hard to defend is if you were trying to turtle on one base. Yes there were two backdoors into your naturals, but by they were easy to defend and allowed for more attack paths. What the hell are they talking about?
Ruins of Tarsonis is a "balanced version of War Zone"??!! Ruins of Tarsonis is the craziest map in the map pool by far. The rush distance is shorter than Steppes. I think tanks can actually shoot from the base of the naturals to the base of the other naturals as long as they have vision. The ramps are huuuuuge, begging people to attack you. It has backdoors into both the naturals AND the main, not that you would ever use them because the rush distance is so tiny. Zerg nightmare.
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Yeah the obsession with multiple entrances to the base is weird; It's also at odds with people saying they are trying to make it better for lower level players, because really it just makes it harder for everyone. If anything a simple straight-forward map design is better all around for difficultly. I'm guessing they believe it creates more opportunities for 'strategy' by simply adding a choice of routes into the opponents base.
Edit: just saw this post
On March 03 2011 17:04 WhiteDog wrote:
Do you play 2v2 at a good level? Seriously when you have PTvsXX it's 4gatemarine rush, when you have PZvsXX it's 4gatespeedling rush, when you have TZvsXX it's marinespeedling rush. You get that almost 75% of the games. Having spread out bases heavily favor attack on defense and that's silly (not the mention the defensor advantage is already so thin in this game). In fact 2vs2 as a whole is completly broken, like PvP, mainly because of warpgate technology being so easy to research, so low on the tech tree and so easy to execute.
I think it should be noted the same was true for BW. It would take significant re-design of the game to change that high level 2v2 amounts to all low level units, because there's always the possibility of pushing the game to a 1v2 situation if someone techs or expands. I suppose having backdoor bases and very tight chokes would somewhat help but as you said, when you have an ability to move units around immediately regardless of map size; It's not possible to balance for 2v2 to allow games to progress to mid-late game with many bases.
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EPT
