EPTSeason 3 Ladder Pool Updates - Page 46
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oGs420
Canada46 Posts
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ihasaKAROT
Netherlands4730 Posts
On June 21 2011 19:53 [F_]aths wrote: If I understood David Kim right, Blizzard likes to keep some rules for their maps. Innovative ideas often break those rules. On the other hand, Blizzard seems to be obsessed with destructible rocks. But this is probably the only way to force their usage. Since destructible rocks are no official BW feature (sometimes neutral buildings were used for third-party maps) they would probably be considered unnecessary by most mappers. I think that destructible rocks add a nice strategic element since you need to plan ahead to take such bases or to open certain paths. This adds depth to the game. The rocks also provide a more realistic feeling in the sense of "my actions have consequences" as they allow some changes of the map layout. Blizzard maps don't seem exactly what the players want, but to a certain point I like that Blizzard does not follow too much the wishes of the players because they often want to have an easy way to play. Blizzard divided their maps into three categories, this don't leave much room for innovation. If a map is too innovative, that map will require a very special play style just for that map. I also like to say that tournaments require different skills anyway. It is reasonable to have special tournament maps but the ladder should offer more maps for the rest of us. They have rules for maps yes, but the basic foundation is the melee requirement. Look at xelnaga fortress for example, a different watchtower, with a timer that selfdestructs... Still its a Meleemap. Its within the rules but Blizzard never puts forward any of these things. Theres hardly any risk-reward situations and alot of the maps are only encouraging 2base allins. Look at slag pits for example, that map would have never made it in a players poll. Even if they want to use destructible rocks, theres other things you can do with it. They are behind on maptrends even there with making the 'easy' 3rd accessible thru rocks. Look on the forums, really, theres so much more stuff that can be done with rocks (or anything destructable). The blizzardmaps are just another list of maps that people will thumb down, theres nothing new, nothing special and nothing innovative. Its the same old thing over and over, but with rocks in different places. whooptidoo. Making an easy way to play is not only done with making the maps as straightforward as you can. There are maps posted here that you can make as simple and as complicated as you want, depending on your aggresion, tactics and speed. Personally , the maps are boring and old. But thats just me, altho looking at the comments, its pretty much the general opinion. | ||
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Razakel
Ireland466 Posts
I'm hoping slag pits will be replaced at the very least, I really hate that (& scrap station). Although I agree the large number of rocks could be toned down, it seems a bit excessive. Map one seems like a godsend to Terran players, lots of elevated areas to place Siege tanks, several narrow chokes to prevent rushes and the third being a high-yield. And we all know how much people love the PF'd third on Xel'naga :p. Before anyone jumps on me, yes, I'm a Terran player and no I'm not very good (Gold). Just my opinion that we should keep an open mind and at least test the maps before we dismiss them completely. At the very least the pro-tournaments should be fine, they will always have their pick of which maps to include and why, so even if all these get into the map cycle, we'll still have MLG Metal/Shakurus etc to keep us entertained tournament-wise  . | ||
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sleepingdog
Austria6145 Posts
On June 21 2011 19:53 [F_]aths wrote: If I understood David Kim right, Blizzard likes to keep some rules for their maps. Innovative ideas often break those rules. On the other hand, Blizzard seems to be obsessed with destructible rocks. But this is probably the only way to force their usage. Since destructible rocks are no official BW feature (sometimes neutral buildings were used for third-party maps) they would probably be considered unnecessary by most mappers. I think that destructible rocks add a nice strategic element since you need to plan ahead to take such bases or to open certain paths. This adds depth to the game. The rocks also provide a more realistic feeling in the sense of "my actions have consequences" as they allow some changes of the map layout. Blizzard maps don't seem exactly what the players want, but to a certain point I like that Blizzard does not follow too much the wishes of the players because they often want to have an easy way to play. Blizzard divided their maps into three categories, this don't leave much room for innovation. If a map is too innovative, that map will require a very special play style just for that map. I also like to say that tournaments require different skills anyway. It is reasonable to have special tournament maps but the ladder should offer more maps for the rest of us. There's really no reason to plant destructible rocks ON expansions, it just plainly favours terran without there being any justification - don't have time to destroy rocks right now? Just build the CC anywhere you want and then fly it over. The mere ability of being able to construct CCs inbase is strong as it is, no need to punish toss/zerg even further by forcing them to destroy the rocks before they throw down a nexus/hatch. Rocks could (and in my opinion, yes, should) be used to modify the layout of maps. The best example is probably new shakuras where the rocks allow for additional entrances to expansions. Also I like the way some ICCUP-maps are designed where rocks cover xel naga towers. This means no early zerg rofl-mapcontrol with all towers being controlled with single lings, at the same time you can grant yourself tower-mapcontrol by taking the time to destroy the rocks. I wouldn't even mind rocks that create shorter rush-distances, like on scrap station - if it were done in a non-imbalanced way. | ||
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Bagi
Germany6799 Posts
These maps look like a big improvement over the likes of slag pits and delta quadrant. The only complaint I have to make is that they seem pretty generic, with really no new ideas present. Same old okayish ladder maps with the Blizzard trademark rocks and symmetry. | ||
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ChickenLips
2912 Posts
On June 21 2011 15:30 DaemonX wrote: Maybe you didn't read my other posts. I'll spell out my argument again: Huge maps with lots of expansion make for long games. This is less evident early in the SC2's lifespan, but as people work out timings and learn to defend pressure stable fast expand builds are worked out for every matchup. Fast expanding with short tech trees like in SC2 leads to skipping tiers, and less emphasis on openings. I have never seen a nexus-first opening end up on zealot-stalker pressure. Medium maps make for shorter games on average, but if both players play well, you end up with a macro game which both players have 'earned' through having a solid and closely matched opening and mid-game. Huge maps artificially create a 'macro game' by making fast-expand, high tech games be the correct default for engaging in. I could be Flash himself, but on a 256x256 brood war map the game would still take 20+ minutes against anyone who knows how to defend his FE. Large maps therefore make most every game have a long, draining and intimidating turn-around. Say I have an hour to play after work. On current blizzard map pool I can expect 3-4 games in that time. If every map was GSL, I MIGHT get 2 in that time, but I probably would be too drained if the first one was 30 mins to play another. I might think twice before I sit down to another 1v1 session after not playing for a week. I don't think I'm up to a 30 minute macrofest. So I play comps or 2v2 or something instead. Eventually I stop playing 1v1. Large maps make it harder to practice openings for casual players, since 75%+ of games end in long games, practicing my early reaper harass gets awful hard. Computers are useless to practice openings against - I can ALWAYS bunker out a zerg computer, if expands...but he won't even expand most of the time because the AI 1-bases. Useless for practice. Finally, the game is not correctly balanced around massive maps. Blizzards assumptions about how the economics and racial interaction break down on very large and very small maps. Introduction of GSL maps has meant zerg suddenly has balance issues LATE GAME. Balance issues early game are extremely easy to corecct for blizzard - 50 minerals more on this cost, 20 seconds on this upgrade. But late game balance is nearly impossible to solve on the fly. Blizzard knows all these facts and is thinking about keeping the game alive and popular amongst the average player for at least another 2 expansions. I'm the average player (even though technically by league I'm in the top 1% of players), and they want to keep me. That's why they're doing what they're doing. And it's smart. This might all be true, but there's no denying that Zerg is royally screwed on these tiny maps. If there were some viable rushes for Zerg that are an actual challenge to hold off instead of "oh yeah i put these buildings there and those FFs there and I win", I'd be all for rush maps, but at high level play, Zerg rushes suck gigantic dick. You never see cheesy Zergs make it far in tournaments, but cheesy Protoss and Terrans do that all the time, (and even gain notoriety like Rain, choya, TheBest, BitByBit, etc.etc.) because they can beat high-level opponents abusing their race's early game. If Zerg had any viable early game aggression, I might think twice about these maps, but just the current balance of the game combined with Blizzards obsession with "Rush" maps and chokes and rocks fucking everywhere depresses me .. to say it nicely. | ||
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CrumpetGuvnor
Australia302 Posts
On June 21 2011 20:41 sleepingdog wrote: There's really no reason to plant destructible rocks ON expansions, it just plainly favours terran without there being any justification - don't have time to destroy rocks right now? Just build the CC anywhere you want and then fly it over. The mere ability of being able to construct CCs inbase is strong as it is, no need to punish toss/zerg even further by forcing them to destroy the rocks before they throw down a nexus/hatch. Rocks could (and in my opinion, yes, should) be used to modify the layout of maps. The best example is probably new shakuras where the rocks allow for additional entrances to expansions. Also I like the way some ICCUP-maps are designed where rocks cover xel naga towers. This means no early zerg rofl-mapcontrol with all towers being controlled with single lings, at the same time you can grant yourself tower-mapcontrol by taking the time to destroy the rocks. I wouldn't even mind rocks that create shorter rush-distances, like on scrap station - if it were done in a non-imbalanced way. Agreed. If blizzard are going to put destructible rocks on expansions, they should at least do it the way ICCup Testbug does it, which is to cover the minerals, rather than where the nexus/hatch/CC goes. It's just a flat out map imbalance for Terran which also happens to be an easy fix. | ||
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Bactrian
Australia176 Posts
Map 3 I'll probably try out a counterattacking/mobility abuse style of play, TD if that doesn't work (looks extremely difficult to hold any third). Map 4 looks ok. Lots of nooks a terran or protoss can hide in, but they're dead ends so banelings can really punish attempts to abuse low surface area. The random ledge jutting off from main base is pretty weird. | ||
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Benga
Korea (South)471 Posts
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Primal666
Slovenia418 Posts
-all maps from mlg and gsl and dreamhack go to map pool, you get 1less veto than there are maps, so you can basicly pick if you want to only play 1 map or more. Also testbug is rock heaven and i didn't hear anybody complaining.Rocks can sometimes be fun too:D.(not blocking your 3rd tho).Maybe blizzard should consider putting 3rd base rocks the way they are on testbug gold bases! /endrant | ||
The_Templar
your Country52797 Posts
Blizzard maps have more obvious and severe flaws, so they're noticed more often. | ||
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Markwerf
Netherlands3728 Posts
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Stiluz
Norway688 Posts
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Krampus
United States14 Posts
: \. Why gold bases? Why rocks? Why are thirds hard to get/right outside of your opponent's base? Same old same old blizzard letting us down with the map pool. | ||
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KinQuh
Finland810 Posts
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ZeromuS
Canada13407 Posts
On June 21 2011 20:41 sleepingdog wrote: There's really no reason to plant destructible rocks ON expansions, it just plainly favours terran without there being any justification - don't have time to destroy rocks right now? Just build the CC anywhere you want and then fly it over. The mere ability of being able to construct CCs inbase is strong as it is, no need to punish toss/zerg even further by forcing them to destroy the rocks before they throw down a nexus/hatch. Rocks could (and in my opinion, yes, should) be used to modify the layout of maps. The best example is probably new shakuras where the rocks allow for additional entrances to expansions. Also I like the way some ICCUP-maps are designed where rocks cover xel naga towers. This means no early zerg rofl-mapcontrol with all towers being controlled with single lings, at the same time you can grant yourself tower-mapcontrol by taking the time to destroy the rocks. I wouldn't even mind rocks that create shorter rush-distances, like on scrap station - if it were done in a non-imbalanced way. I agree completely the rocks really do favour terrans since they can build their CC and then float it over all while destroying rocks. They also kill rocks faster than any other race in the early game. DQ is so bad because the back door expo is impossible to take early as any race other than terran. | ||
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Giantt
Bulgaria82 Posts
-Rocks... ? -Gold 3rd bases ... ? -Gold 3rd bases with rocks... (~Blistering sands?)? -Close positions ... ? We do not want that. We want GSL and ICCup maps or at least maps that have similar structure. | ||
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sleepingdog
Austria6145 Posts
On June 21 2011 21:35 ZeromuS wrote: DQ is so bad because the back door expo is impossible to take early as any race other than terran. There are still people who haven't downvoted DQ?  On a more serious note: I don't quite get why Blizz thinks that rocks ON expansions add anything positive to the gameplay. True, you have to take destroying them into account while planning ahead...but both from a players-view AND from a spectators view it's far more entertaining if there's the theoretical possibility of throwing down expansions literally everywhere from the beginning. Also - me being toss - on some maps/positions it simply becomes plainly imbalanced towards zerg. When I forgeFE the natural response should be a super-early third from zerg unless he plans to all-in me. Especially on Tal darim there was a frickin reason why the original designers of the map did NOT put rocks onto the third. | ||
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Giantt
Bulgaria82 Posts
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AimlessAmoeba
Canada704 Posts
I mean, would it really hurt to just throw one weird map in the mix? You could always just pull it if it doesn't work out. | ||
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