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On March 09 2013 23:33 Bagi wrote:
I find Cloud Kingdom to be extremely overrated, and medivac boosters are already making it extremely imbalanced for HOTS. Good riddance to that map.
I won't criticize the actual list, its just one guys opinion. Cut down the "terrible terrible damage" jokes though, its not funny.
Oh, don't bring HotS here, thats a new game and obvoiusly have balance issues on any map at this time. And topic is about WoL maps.
Cloud Kingdom is realy a very very good map (still I dont like it as zerg but many zergs like but I like it a lot as terran and toss). In most times it's a macro games in all matchups.
And it's an old map. To have this map by that time when it was created - its a blessing. And even now its a good map to play on.
I'd very much agree with topic starter that Cloud Kingdom (as an older map) and Daybreak are best maps in WoL.
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On March 09 2013 22:42 Sea_Food wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2013 21:19 Fatam wrote:
List is pretty solid to be honest.
Most people here criticizing are going off of personal bias/anecdotal evidence .. rather than using facts like winrate #s, etc.
Barrin is more qualified than most here to make such a list. And his list is at least partially based on facts, rather than garbage like "Well I always hated playing TvP on Cloud Kingdom, therefore it's an average map and shouldn't be #1". Yeah because this is TL, and the longer someones avrage post length is, the more qualified he is.
He's qualified because he's a very experienced map maker and analyst, not because he has 4000 posts and just made a really long one. Also your 1600 post count doesn't qualify you to criticize anyone. Get on my level.
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Antiga on the worst list, but Shakuras on the best? da fuck :S
Overall quite a good read though
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No KeSPA-PL maps? No Bifrost? What!
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127 Posts
I agree, but... On March 09 2013 08:14 Enel wrote:
Surprising to see Crossfire in top 5 best maps. I saw one good game on it, out of like 20 games. ZvP was also imbalanced as fuck on it.
And with the top 2 maps, i love cloud kingdom, but it was a bit choked up, and a protoss/roach ball would camp the high ground and force a game into the lategame. And zerg kinda had to go infestor/BL since a well positioned toss army would just sit there and shit on the zerg the entire game. That being said, I love the map, but daybreak would be first in my book. Its not really a special map, but not every map has to be innovative. It is a super-solid, standard-gameplay map with lots of possibilities. Daybreak is perfect in that aspect, even if its a bit boring.
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On March 09 2013 23:51 gylka wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2013 23:33 Bagi wrote:
I find Cloud Kingdom to be extremely overrated, and medivac boosters are already making it extremely imbalanced for HOTS. Good riddance to that map.
I won't criticize the actual list, its just one guys opinion. Cut down the "terrible terrible damage" jokes though, its not funny. Oh, don't bring HotS here, thats a new game and obvoiusly have balance issues on any map at this time. And topic is about WoL maps.
That was just addressing the OPs comment about CK potentially being a good map well into LotV. Its not, its in fact already quite broken.
Also, balance issues and maps go hand in hand.
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You seem to like maps that are easily split in half, with rank 2-5 of your top5 perfectly fitting in that area. Is this really, what we want to see? hour long games with not much going on for 20-30 minute periods? Is this what makes RTS good? (remember the realtime aspect!)
You put positioning over every other strategic decision in the game and I cannot agree with that. And games on Shakuras and Metalopolis where much more often than on other maps boring up to being unwatchable.
EDIT1: Cloud Kingdom though is a pretty good choice for being the best map. It's very fair for all races, allows multiple playstyles and makes for action packed games.
EDIT2: I miss Calm before the Storm in your extreme hitlist. Maybe you just forgot it? ^^
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hated crossfire, thought it was absolutely terrible. mostly because 1/1/1 in TvP at the time had almost a 100% winrate.. dark times
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Cloud Kingdom and Daybreak are some of the worst maps of all time. They promote the boring macro games with easy 3rds and deathball play, which is why I couldn't even watch SC2 over the past 3 years. Maps that provided the most entertainment in my eyes:
-Metalopolis
-Crossfire
-Shakuras Plateau
-Xel'naga Caverns
These maps provided constant action and left me with the most SC2 memories. I can't even look at the current map pool in WoL because it just brings back terrible memories of deathballs, infestors, and a single battle deciding the game.
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Interesting read, though I disagree with a lot of it, haha. 
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Most community map makers just go off the desires of the community meaning:
- maps became ridiculously oversized
- easy to defend thirds
- zerg friendly
If you take a genuinely analytical view of the situation (you realise that the bulk of aggressive play should be centred around either denying or securing a third) then Metalopolis and Shakuras should really be the model to follow. Both maps had plenty of room for both attacking and defending a third. When forced to cross positions, the attack routes made it hard to stop harassment but easy to defend if you were aware. There were very few obvious choke points but there were positions which if taken allowed for very strategic play.
A lot of the balance issues for the past nine months have been sourced from the fact that it was absurdly easy for zerg in particular to take a third. Making a third more difficult to defend would have solved a lot of problems. Instead we got a map that made a taken third base almost completely impregnable to harass with any preparation at all.
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I absolutely hate Daybreak. One of the worst maps in the current map pool imo. Games easily become split map and takes forever to finish since it is easy to turtle here. The map also feels super zerg favoured because of the long distance between players and all the spots for overlords to cover for absolute map vision.
As a protoss and terran player, whenever i get a zerg here i cry, or so it was in WoL atleast. Maybe Daybreak is slightly better for HotS when infestor+broodlord isn´t as deadly.
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Thanks for the compilation, made me relive a lot of memorable matches on the older maps (I think I'll even go back and pull up some vods while waiting for HotS ), though I don't agree with all your assessments (for example, I'd place Crossfire in worst maps for example, all it did is encourage base trading) and you seem to sport a slight anti-SC2 bias, you give some very nice insights. Thank you very much for the excellent post!
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Thank you for making this thread! I had almost forgotten about some of them, but just looking at them made me remember some memorable matches and now I'm nostalgic :D
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On March 10 2013 01:58 Evangelist wrote:
Most community map makers just go off the desires of the community meaning:
- maps became ridiculously oversized
- easy to defend thirds
- zerg friendly
If you take a genuinely analytical view of the situation (you realise that the bulk of aggressive play should be centred around either denying or securing a third) then Metalopolis and Shakuras should really be the model to follow. Both maps had plenty of room for both attacking and defending a third. When forced to cross positions, the attack routes made it hard to stop harassment but easy to defend if you were aware. There were very few obvious choke points but there were positions which if taken allowed for very strategic play.
A lot of the balance issues for the past nine months have been sourced from the fact that it was absurdly easy for zerg in particular to take a third. Making a third more difficult to defend would have solved a lot of problems. Instead we got a map that made a taken third base almost completely impregnable to harass with any preparation at all.
I agree with your general points about map design, but Shakuras and Meta had glaring problems in various matchups which not only made it difficult to take a third but also pretty much forced some particular races into 2 base all-inning. How many Blink all-ins did we see on Shakuras? How many all-ins did we see on close air Meta?
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On March 10 2013 02:39 Shiori wrote:Show nested quote +On March 10 2013 01:58 Evangelist wrote:
Most community map makers just go off the desires of the community meaning:
- maps became ridiculously oversized
- easy to defend thirds
- zerg friendly
If you take a genuinely analytical view of the situation (you realise that the bulk of aggressive play should be centred around either denying or securing a third) then Metalopolis and Shakuras should really be the model to follow. Both maps had plenty of room for both attacking and defending a third. When forced to cross positions, the attack routes made it hard to stop harassment but easy to defend if you were aware. There were very few obvious choke points but there were positions which if taken allowed for very strategic play.
A lot of the balance issues for the past nine months have been sourced from the fact that it was absurdly easy for zerg in particular to take a third. Making a third more difficult to defend would have solved a lot of problems. Instead we got a map that made a taken third base almost completely impregnable to harass with any preparation at all. I agree with your general points about map design, but Shakuras and Meta had glaring problems in various matchups which not only made it difficult to take a third but also pretty much forced some particular races into 2 base all-inning. How many Blink all-ins did we see on Shakuras? How many all-ins did we see on close air Meta?
What's your point? At least we saw games other than free 3 base play
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Guys, when you say you dont like Daybreak for splitmap-megalate hour-long scenario with no action in early game you should not blame the map for it. Possibility of going to lategame is a sign of a good map. Because late game encourages more multitasking, more army control, bigger variety of decisions to make etc so thats the place where realy better player should win (yeah, i know that its in ideal RTS and WoL is not 100% ideal but still..). No-action early game in those macro games is not because map is bad, but because game is designed that way. In PvZ ANY 2-base preasure is an all-in if it at least not killing 3rd and 15 drones, and on other side if zerg is doing units before 3rd base thats all-in too because no way he'll defend counter-attack. Same with ither matchups where the action usualy begins after 9-min mark. Except for TvZ where early preasure builds been used, just the matchup is a bit... you know...
Races dont have the utility to do early action and transition into mid- and then late-game, it's usualy semi- or full all-ins. That's how the game is designed. It's not the map's fault. Good map gives the ability to go on macro game and bad map forces early all-in with 1-2 strategies..
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Seeing the Feb 2010 maps again gave me a feeling of nostalgia. The game was still brand new back then. Those maps may not have been perfect competitively, but they did lead to very interesting games.
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never played inci zone so i cant tell but other then that i sort of agree with the op. there are some more maps that need mentioned
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EPT
