Patch 1.3 Map Changes - Page 20

On March 23 2011 11:55 Ribbon wrote:


Considering that the point of the changes was to make horizontal spawns not be bad, I doubt it.

On March 23 2011 17:05 Kaitlin wrote:
Protoss, be very careful if you intend to wall in on Backwater Gulch at the top of the ramps into the main base. You can't have the same wall as ALL the other maps.

On March 23 2011 18:10 GenesisX wrote:


No, you can have horizontal spawns also.

On March 23 2011 15:58 Shooks wrote:


They actually widened the choke point on the new GSL map, so you can't really FE vs Zerg as Protoss, I really wish they said that in the patch notes before I played a match on it :/

On March 24 2011 00:04 Kaitlin wrote:
Here's to hoping somebody with exceptional knowledge and experience (far beyond mine) can screenshot the most appropriate wall-off for Protoss on Backwater Gulch...

Shakuras Plateau
Player feedback is incredibly important to us, so we decided to bring back Shakuras Plateau due in large part to popular demand by the community. There were two issues with this map, however, that we wanted to address before adding it back into the ladder pool (issues that we felt were severe enough to merit the removal of the map in the first place). The first issue was that the horizontal starting locations were extremely unfair in TvZ matchups (in favor of terran), and the second issue was that players only had one path to navigate around the map's center.

To help correct these balance issues, we've made the following changes to its layout:

The backdoor ramp and rocks leading into main base have been removed to address the horizontal start location issue.
Two rocked-off ramps have been added leading from the 6 o'clock and 12 o'clock expansions towards the middle to create an alternate path in the mid/late game to navigate around the center of the map.
The rocks by the center Xel'Naga Towers have been removed. We were noticing that if these rocks were there, it became very difficult to utilize the new rocked off-paths in the middle of the map (due to how difficult it was to clear out the Xel'Naga Tower area).

We feel the changes we've made will allow this player favorite to return as a strong ladder map and are looking forward to seeing new strategies develop.

Tal'darim Altar
Back in February, we put up several new maps on the PTR for testing, during which time we evaluated their overall strengths and weaknesses. In addition to making improvements to some of the test maps before putting them on the live ladder rotation, we also decided to explore adding user-made GSL maps to our own ladder. Tal'darim Altar stood out due to its macro-heavy layout, well-protected natural, solid Xel'Naga Tower placements, and variety of harassment options. We had some concerns about certain aspects of the map's design, though, and have therefore made the following changes:

The high ground area near the center Xel'Naga Tower is now larger. This makes it easier to tell if units on the lower ground can see up.
The size of the area around the second expansion has been increased. We noticed that a lot of fights tend to occur in this area of the map, but that the area itself was just too narrow to allow for decent mid-sized battles.
Added a path for cliff walking units just outside of the natural expansion leading into the starting base. With this addition, we believe that players will be less likely to just sit back and defend their natural.
The size of the ramps leading to the natural and second expansions has been increased, as they were a bit too narrow and easy to defend previously.
Several short line-of-sight blockers have been removed. We felt that many of these LoS blockers were just too short and exposed to be effective.
The second expansion has been changed to include full minerals, but destructible rocks have been added to compensate for this base's increased value. We want players to be able to plan their strategy on an expansion-per-expansion level, not on a mineral patch-for-mineral patch level. We also feel that partial resources can be a confusing way to balance maps for many players and, in general, it's not something we want to do for normal ladder play.
The shrub area around the third expansion has been extended. The original area suffered from the same issue as most of the short LoS blockers, but we also thought it would be cool to extend it so that attacking this expansion becomes slightly more difficult when air units are not in play.

Tal'darim Altar stood out due to its macro-heavy layout, well-protected natural, solid Xel'Naga Tower placements, and variety of harassment options. We had some concerns about certain aspects of the map's design, though, and have therefore made the following changes:

      [...]

• Added a path for cliff walking units just outside of the natural expansion leading into the starting base. With this addition, we believe that players will be less likely to just sit back and defend their natural.
  
  
• The size of the ramps leading to the natural and second expansions has been increased, as they were a bit too narrow and easy to defend previously.
  

The second expansion has been changed to include full minerals, but destructible rocks have been added to compensate for this base's increased value. We want players to be able to plan their strategy on an expansion-per-expansion level, not on a mineral patch-for-mineral patch level. We also feel that partial resources can be a confusing way to balance maps for many players and, in general, it's not something we want to do for normal ladder play.

There isn't a huge problem with this map, but we feel there aren't enough interesting features.

There were two issues with this map, however, that we wanted to address before adding it back into the ladder pool (issues that we felt were severe enough to merit the removal of the map in the first place)