I am 100% with the OP. If maps are the main reason for fresh games, which kept me watching. After 7 month of daybreak, ohana and other maps, I am tired of watching every game play out the same way. I am tired of playing on them on the ladder. I need some new, broken, dumb maps to spice up my life.
Pro Players will whine about new maps, balanced or not. But professional baseball, football(American and others) and basketball teams would play all home games if they could. They would also cancel games if it was to cold, or raining or to hot. But they arn't allowed to, because you play on the field that is given to you. Some american football teams have stadiums with domes, while others pratice and play in the rain and snow. That means that sometimes the team that plays outside all the time has an advantage some games. It is just the way it is and should be accepted.
The initial complains of professional players should be ignored(but noted for future reference) until it is proven that the map is totally busted. Until then, bring on the new fields of battle, terrible and great!
On January 04 2013 02:51 archonOOid wrote: But wasn't IPL flamed for their own new cool maps during the 2012 tour?
IPL's three new maps were:
Atlantis Spaceship, which they are still using.
Sanshore Mist, which was used for a few seasons and other tournaments even used it for a little while. A lot of people compared it to Dual Sight and since the 3rd was too hard to take it slowly got phased out.
Darkness Falls, which was actually my map, which was used for 1 season then replaced because it was apparently imbalanced for terran. (At least that's what many pro players told me when I asked them) Which at the time terran was already dominating so it makes sense why they'd get rid of it.
IPL should have kept trying out new maps, especially in their team league, instead they got rid of the unique maps and picked up GSL maps because they are what "work" apparently.
Yeah please for God's sake change maps more often. Just like I have >5 songs on my iPod - I would really like to watch something new once in a while. Doesn't have to be every 2 seconds, just enough to prevent monotony.
Competitive SC2 is getting stale to me for the exact reason OP mentioned. Only thing I tune into now are either finals, top 8 of major LANs, or Proleague. Proleague is without a doubt my favorite atm, although it suffers from large amounts of mirrors due to the quirkyness of the maps (map features tend to favor certain races, leading to those races being sent out by both sides).
Even with the quirkyness, Proleague is the best thus far. GSL has been doing a great job. And while I used to be super annoyed with NASL for different maps, it's very possible that I will start watching again for this exact reason.
well i agree with you to a certain extent but imagine if they took in a map that is on the level of some of the ladder maps we have seen (let me remind you of backwater gulch, blistering sands, and imo also condemned ridge eventhough some people will argue that this map is acutally ok) they have no real way of knowing how good a map is if it hasn't really been tested and especially for foreign tournaments with korean invites it is important not to take non-ladder maps that aren't in gsl/pl into their mappool since koreans most likely won't have played any games on those maps... so in my opinion it is up to gsl / pl to bring out new maps that the foreign scene can then adopt
IMO ladder maps should completely rotate after a year (fresh map pool year to year) and tournaments should be making some maps of there own, or adopting other, new more popular maps. Even if it provides imbalance, it would still be more entertaining then watching the same builds on maps that have been figured out for most of WOL.
Agreed on all points. The map pool should be a continually evolving thing. Both on the ladder as well as in the tournament scene. But if both are shit, things are going to get stale.
I wish the community would click on the "custom maps" button more. It is pretty fun to see the new maps the community are making. Ok, so IronManSC and Superouman have both retired, which sucks, because Ohana and Cloud kingdom were pretty good maps. I know the community is tired of them because maps like this are used over and over again, but that is because they are closest to balanced. I know Ohana is kind of toss favored, which is probably why it is time for Ohana to reitre. Cloud Kingdom has been pretty interesting so far, but people are getting bored, and I think everyone can understand that. What I think people need to start doing is to have a few showmatches or tourneys (small ones) to show some games in the PUBLIC of the new maps. the Team Liquid Map contest was a magnificent idea! The only bad thing that happened was that that...korhal compound or something. THe point is, the community itself needs to be less afraid to use different maps, like whirlwind, abyssal caverns (both, which have been revealed by gsl and other larger tournaments now) I think it is pretty much up to us to change the map pool. Posts like this, I think, are a pretty good idea in general because it lets the public know that the community needs new maps. and of course, I think the map pool for ladder needs to change x.x Its hard though because pro's need ladder to help them practice for tournaments, but if the tourney pool keeps changing, blizzard is in a tight position
I think that every tournament should try and bring 2 new maps in minimum per season, assuming a 4 season/year. While other tournaments like IPL should minimum bring 3-4 maps, since they only do 2 a year (atleast so far).
Daybreak is cool, but it's boring and old, we know how a daybreak game plays out unless some wierd scenario happens, which could happen on any map, not just Daybreak.
Another thing I think would just spice it up a little bit is change the look of the maps.
Make Daybreak a jungle, Antiga a desert, Entombed a city, etc.
I've been away from the scene for about 6 months now, playing some Dota2 and other games, but from time to time I like to tune back in to watch some of my favorite players and favorite tournaments. I can't tell you how little I care to watch when I see these maps STILL in the pool that were already old 6 months ago when I quit playing. I still love SC2, but the lack of changes in maps only helps to stagnate the meta. Seeing the same styles played on the same maps from 6 months ago is not very attractive!
On January 03 2013 09:47 BretZ wrote: Thank you so damn much for this post. I will continue to bump and upvote every post I see on this topic. The map pool is holding starcraft 2. Because of Kespa's new maps (well, remakes) I actually payed to watch Proleague despite not having much time for it, just to show I support new maps. Though TDA and Ohana are a pain, I suppose they wanted to include one or two ladder maps to add some familiarity.
Also: Small is not bad.
+1
Also you'll be happy to hear Proleague is replacing TDA with Entombed for Round 2.
On January 04 2013 06:16 iMrising wrote: I think it is pretty much up to us to change the map pool. Posts like this, I think, are a pretty good idea in general because it lets the public know that the community needs new maps. and of course, I think the map pool for ladder needs to change x.x Its hard though because pro's need ladder to help them practice for tournaments, but if the tourney pool keeps changing, blizzard is in a tight position
This isn't that true though. Pretty much 99% of professional players are on teams which means they are able to practice with their teams on specific tournament maps. Most of them probably just use ladder to "warm up" or keep their overall mechanics up to date.
I've actually PM'd quite a few professional players on TL asking for their feedback, I'm hoping some of them might respond here with their thoughts. Even if you get a giant influx of new maps, if professional teams sit down all together and glance over the map, or watch each other play on it, it really won't take too long to at least figure most of the map out.
I have a hunch that when most pros say they don't want new maps that it's mainly because they are lazy and would rather just practice their build orders over and over again on the current map pool.
I suppose if that was the case, then it's more of a bad relationship between Pro's and Viewers then? Pros want: simplicity in the maps more consistency less changes viewers want: more diversity interesting maps, less consistency
You're missing the point that there needs to be a standard set that most tournaments can use, with maybe a few different maps here and there. And the only tournament that everyone is going to follow is GSL. So basically, GSL needs to be the ones who make the drastic changes. Everyone will just follow them.
EPT
