Blizzard has announced the new ladder maps for 2014's Season 2. They are available in Battle.net for testing in custom games, while feedback threads have been opened on the battle.net forums. Season 2 will begin on Monday, Apr 14 7:01am GMT (GMT+00:00).
"Our direction for the 1v1 map pool in Season 2 is to continue to find interesting, unique maps that will help provide variety in our map pool. We want more maps that show creative use of existing mechanics and provide different gameplay options from other maps already in the ladder pool. Habitation Station is a great example of a map that achieved this goal in Ladder Season 1 and we believe this was the best map addition in a really long time. Going forward, we’ll look to continue adding new maps that offer diverse gameplay.
For the 1v1 maps that we’ll be removing in Season 2, our goal is to reduce the amount of maps that heavily favor Blink all-in strategies. Other than that, we’re also looking to remove older maps that have been in the map pool for a while. Here are the maps we will be removing in Season 2."
1v1 Removals Polar Night Yeonsu Daedalus Point Heavy Rain
1v1 Additions
King Sejong Station LE
King Sejong Station is a 1v1 map that is currently being used in Proleague. This map has proven to be quite interesting as it offers a variety of timings and strategies, which we feel are due to how the natural and the third expansions are set up. We have high confidence in this map both in terms of balance and the potential for diverse strategies based on the games we’ve been seeing in Proleague.
Overgrowth LE
This is a new two-player map created by GSL, with a fairly standard natural and third base set up. Overgrowth also features High Yield bases in the middle of the map with watchtowers nearby. We feel these features, combined with a more familiar expansion path, will create some exciting games.
Merry Go Round LE
Merry Go Round is another new GSL map, and also the first three-player map to join the ladder. While the weakness of three-player maps in general is that they’re naturally not symmetric, we believe any start location advantage on Merry Go Round is minimized by how late this asymmetric advantage kicks in. We’ll definitely be watching to see if this works as we hope, and any feedback from games played on this map will be helpful prior to heading into Season 2.
Waystation
Waystation is a four-player map where you and your opponent can only spawn diagonal from one another. With this map, we are hoping to see players have to adapt based on the different strategic options offered by the different start locations. The top left and bottom right start locations will offer a more macro oriented game, while the top right and bottom left start locations will play quite differently. When starting in the top right and bottom left, the combination of a more normal rush distance, an open center path to your opponent, a slightly more difficult to defend third base, and island bases behind your main base will make this start location feel a lot more unique.
As with recent ladder seasons, the maps used in 2014 Ladder Season 2 will also reflect the map pool used in WCS 2014 Season 2. Below is a compiled list of the complete map pool for both 2014 Ladder Season 2, and WCS 2014 Season 2.
Complete 1v1 Map Pool for 2014 Season 2 Alterzim Stronghold TE Frost LE Habitation Station LE King Sejong Station LE Overgrowth LE Merry Go Round LE Waystation
3 player map? I don't know how well that's gonna work. Seems like a map that won't please many people. I'm all for trying, though. At least it's different.
The 4 player asymetrical map seems cool. As long as the games on that map are okay no matter which spawn locations you get, I think it might be popular.
Kind Sejong looks okay from proleague, we'll see how well it works on ladder.
Overgrowth looks... whatever. Basically a 2011 map.
Overgrowth and Merry-Go-Round both have interesting features (mid-map gold/odd number of spawn locations) that intrigue me. But I do have to say that they both have one small thing that annoys me greatly on a superficial level: Their names and tilesets don't match up at ALL.
As for the maps cut, they were the smart choices. Polar Night, while interesting, has been around for a while, and every other map had a tendency to favor one race in particular (Zerg for Daedalus, Protoss for Yeonsu and Heavy Rain).
Edit:
On March 27 2014 06:33 Darkdwarf wrote: Merry Go Round is the worst map name I've seen in a long time.
C'mon, every time I heard someone talk about Heavy Rain I instinctively yelled out "JASON!".
On March 27 2014 06:36 Greendotz wrote: No polls for peoples opinions? Not that it means anything but I still find it interesting to see the populous first impressions.
I'll make some polls for TL, give me a minute
Poll: First Impressions of the addition of King Sejong Station LE?
Approve (192)
72%
Disapprove (48)
18%
Neutral (27)
10%
267 total votes
Your vote: First Impressions of the addition of King Sejong Station LE?
Not a fan of how Merry-Go-Round lets the player who is counterclockwise expand+push into his opponent. Feels like it could potentially give a big adv to the counterclockwise player in certain match-ups, maybe TvZ the most troublesome.
I am still annoyed by seeing GSL maps becoming the ladder while other maps made by the community are being overlooked. Merry go round is being released for ladder really early (it had a drastic change a month ago) so this is more of an experimental release for a map, to see if 3 player maps are viable? I guess we will see. I will need to see the maps in higher detail to be able to judge them.
On March 27 2014 06:39 Waxangel wrote: Not a fan of how Merry-Go-Round lets the player who is counterclockwise expand+push into his opponent. Feels like it could potentially give a big adv to the counterclockwise player in certain match-ups, maybe TvZ the most troublesome.
This.
I like all of them except Merry go round and Alterzim.
WTF Altezim is still in the map pool ? I prefered old Daedalus to Altezim, very sad. I would also have liked to see Outboxer in the map pool but I like all the new maps, especially Merry go round, I also kinda like Waystation.
On March 27 2014 06:41 Pursuit_ wrote: I know they tried to make these maps bad for blink, but I think in effect they just ended up making them bad for reapers and still decent for blink.
Might help Protoss out a bit since TvP is worse than BL/Infestor atm.
I actually think they're not that great for Blink. The key thing is that the path the Stalkers have to take when they Blink out is longer than the route the bio has to take to defend the other attack location.
I just compared the pictures, the "merry go round" they plan to release is an outdated version. Edit: You can see difference in textures and the ramp angle of the bottom left *inner* high ground pod.
Will this be the second season for Alterzim to be in the map pool? I don't think Blizzard should remove it yet, because historically it's always been good to have one larger map (Whirlwind) for gameplay diversity purposes, and there are more pressing ocncerns to deal with and Blizzard can't replace all maps. I'd rather want Yeonsu and Daedalus gone.
Am I the only one here that dont like any of them? They removed all of the short distance ones, and came with a lot of bigger ones with hard to take 3º bases and with a weirdo layout.
On March 27 2014 06:36 Circumstance wrote: Overgrowth and Merry-Go-Round both have interesting features (mid-map gold/odd number of spawn locations) that intrigue me. But I do have to say that they both have one small thing that annoys me greatly on a superficial level: Their names and tilesets don't match up at ALL.
As for the maps cut, they were the smart choices. Polar Night, while interesting, has been around for a while, and every other map had a tendency to favor one race in particular (Zerg for Daedalus, Protoss for Yeonsu and Heavy Rain).
On March 27 2014 06:41 Pursuit_ wrote: I know they tried to make these maps bad for blink, but I think in effect they just ended up making them bad for reapers and still decent for blink.
Might help Protoss out a bit since TvP is worse than BL/Infestor atm.
I actually think they're not that great for Blink. The key thing is that the path the Stalkers have to take when they Blink out is longer than the route the bio has to take to defend the other attack location.
Yeah, taking a second look only King Sejong and potentially Merry Go Round are going to be good for blink, Overgrowth it will be pretty much impossible and Way Station very risky (maybe strong in close positions though). They all look like pretty bad reaper maps though, might start experimenting with some different openings.
edit: That being said I like all the maps but Way Station at first glance, I feel like close position Way Station TvZ is going to be really weird.
On March 27 2014 06:53 Myusen wrote: Alterzim should really go... it doesn't make for very interesting games at all and seems a bit too strong for Zerg in ZvP
You realize that's a map where Korean terran lost to carriers, right?
I just tested a quick 3rd CC (with lift to island) on Waystation. I think you can get really fast and really save 3 bases if you spawn top right - bottom left as Terran (against Zerg).
Overgrowth might end up being too good for passive playstyles too, SH vs Mech / Toss gives the defender high ground advantage at 5 of 6 bases on their side of the map, and every attack path into those 5 bases is a choke. Might be able to deny mining at the gold and secure the base behind it? Guess we'll have to see how it plays out.
Sick. King Sejong Station is a really fun map to play. Top right and bottom left spawns on Waystation look interesting. Not a fan of how it looks for the other two spawns.
These new maps are all awesome! I love Sejong Station, imo its produced some great games in proleague. I'm glad HR, Yeonsu and Daedalus are all going those were pretty shitty. 3rds look difficult to maintain on the 3 player map... and for the 4 player one with the 10-5 spawns the 3rd looks uncontestable... but it still should be interesting to see how these play out.
New Maps sorry they are just bad for balance. Waystation i was Ingame when you take as Toss a 3rd the Open area between the 3rd and nd is even bigger then daedalus lol. Then Overwright when you cant fight at the Cliffs you need so much FF's like its insane and walk distance from 3rd to 2nd so big too and the 3rd must be walled of like in the old WOL fashion or you eco dies to few roaches. Merry is so weird, 3rd wide open again :/ i don't like any new maps of Gsl/Blizz T_T
- King Sejong Station reminds me of a slightly different Korhol Sky Island...which I hated - Overgrowth reminds me of a reverse path Cloud Kingdom...which was good but stuck around way too long - Merry Go Round could be interesting but meh, I dunno...Test Bug - I guess that leaves Waystation...which could be good but don't forget to...SCAN THE ISLAND
Cant believe players (Hasu) is complaining about the gold base on Overgrowth. Thats a 4th base at best and highly abusable from the lowground, aswell as 3 Daedalus ramps leading to it.
On March 27 2014 07:37 NovaMB wrote: Cant believe players (Hasu) is complaining about the gold base on Overgrowth. Thats a 4th base at best and highly abusable from the lowground, aswell as 3 Daedalus ramps leading to it.
Probably upset he can't freely take it as natural like on Habitation then.
So they've nerfed blink and boosted mines to address blink allins on blink friendly maps, and now there are probably 0 blink maps. Also, all new maps are just big fuck u to protoss players, with 3rd layouts. Well I'm an protoss myself so maybe I wear dark glasses, but anything I can see here is comeback of 2base allins. Mark my words. Protoss will be the weakest race at the end of season 2. Blizzard should really let the community map makers do the job for them. Offer some prizes, give support and voilà - you have the best map pool ever.
Finally, I've wanted a 3 spawn 1 vs 1 map in competitive play and the ladder pool since forever. It only took 3 years to make it happen...
Disappointed that Alterzim is still in, however I'm happy with Frost and Habitation and extremely excited for the new additions bar King Sejong. I have a strong feeling King Sejong station will lead to very long and very boring PvZ games. Good thing I play terran.
ohh wow! I wonder how King Sejong will play out! I love the map in Proleague, the rocks leading towards the natural can play a vital role. I am all up for that! Merry go round seems very interesting as the thirds are very open and the difference between expanding aggresive or defensive will feel a lot like Yeonsu Overgrowth is really a no-brainer. Think taking thirds and basetrade scenario's will be horrific because the amount of pathways from base to base... I disapprove Waystation because the instability of your spawning positions and the flying bases can really screw up races who can't fly bases... Also, it is yet another very strong blinkplay map if you spawn close positions (2/8clock).
Critical note. We went from 2 4player maps and 5 2player maps to 3 4player maps, 1 3player map and 3 2player maps. Not really sure if I totally agree on that.
Sad to see Heavy Rain get removed so early, map has not been played to its full potential yet by rocks in the middlepathway and rocks on the sides. Sad to see Polar Night get removed so early, haven't seen enough backdoor bases yet.
For me the ladderpool should have been Alterzim Stronghold TE Frost LE Habitation Station LE King Sejong Station LE Merry Go Round LE Polar Night Heavy Rain
On March 27 2014 06:53 Myusen wrote: Alterzim should really go... it doesn't make for very interesting games at all and seems a bit too strong for Zerg in ZvP
You realize that's a map where Korean terran lost to carriers, right?
King Sejong Station is a GREAT addition, the SPL games on it are always really fun and diverse. The rest looks somewhat like a mixed bag, I think we'll have to see some high level games played on it to get a feel for it.
On March 27 2014 07:49 Taronar wrote: Critical note. We went from 2 4player maps and 5 2player maps to 3 4player maps, 1 3player map and 3 2player maps. Not really sure if I totally agree on that.
Sad to see Heavy Rain get removed so early, map has not been played to its full potential yet by rocks in the middlepathway and rocks on the sides. Sad to see Polar Night get removed so early, haven't seen enough backdoor bases yet.
Firstly, I think we may consider Waystation a 2 player map, given you are always spawning accross from each other, like Korhal Floating Island IIRC.
AS for Heavy Rain, it probably was too problematic in both Blink vs Terran and Swarmhost vs Protoss to try to fix it. It caused really bad games in 2/6 matchups without being paticularly exciting in other matchups.
Polar Night served 3 seasons, and given half the map pool changed, it has had it's time. It isn't -that- good of a map.
Still sad about Alterzim. Out Boxer is way better!
When Blizzard writes "created by GSL" we all know it's the Crux mapmaking team. Who are they trying to fool? Crux have an unreasonable privilege compared to all other mapdesigners and a free ticket into the mappool. I wish they were treated as everyone else and we could have a more democratic selection process. As for the maps, they're really bland and puts me to sleep to be honest. Nothing we havn't seen. I agree with adding King Sejong Station LE since it's been played in PL with good results, except for the occasionally SH-Tempets stalements. The worst map is ofcourse Waystation because it's made by Blizzard and 10-4 o'clock spawns give you 5 bases in your own corner. Prepare for snoozefests.
Haven't looked that closely, but real happy to see that blizzard is moving ahead with some new kinds of maps. Cool with a 3-player map and cool with the map with island bases behind the main!
On March 27 2014 07:43 Tosster wrote: So they've nerfed blink and boosted mines to address blink allins on blink friendly maps, and now there are probably 0 blink maps. Also, all new maps are just big fuck u to protoss players, with 3rd layouts. Well I'm an protoss myself so maybe I wear dark glasses, but anything I can see here is comeback of 2base allins. Mark my words. Protoss will be the weakest race at the end of season 2. Blizzard should really let the community map makers do the job for them. Offer some prizes, give support and voilà - you have the best map pool ever.
On March 27 2014 07:43 Tosster wrote: So they've nerfed blink and boosted mines to address blink allins on blink friendly maps, and now there are probably 0 blink maps. Also, all new maps are just big fuck u to protoss players, with 3rd layouts. Well I'm an protoss myself so maybe I wear dark glasses, but anything I can see here is comeback of 2base allins. Mark my words. Protoss will be the weakest race at the end of season 2. Blizzard should really let the community map makers do the job for them. Offer some prizes, give support and voilà - you have the best map pool ever.
Alterziem is kind of a blink map, and Frost and Waystation are definitely. Possibly Merry too, but I'm not sure about the distance.
Welp, that makes 3 of the 4 maps I actually played on ladder nothing more than a memory. My Terran perspective:
Overgrowth looks like a map one can jump into right away, so that's nice. I'll be avoiding Waystation like the plague unless Blizzard intends for some Zerg nerfs to be coming through the pipeline, which I think is unlikely. Merry Go Round looks like a nightmare for third bases, but the map design overall might make things reasonable for 2-base styles (which I can't hate), so I'll probably give it a whirl to see how it plays out. King Sejong Station... never liked it. Scouting the map is a nightmare, which is why there have been so many proxy-style strategies on the map in Proleague. I guess it'll be fun if you like rock paper scissors.
Leaves my (tentative) choices as:
Habitation Station Overgrowth Merry Go Round ???
I'm stuck with (IMO) sucky maps for my fourth pick. Time for brainstorming...
Waystation and Alterzim are completely off the table for massive amounts of suck, so it comes down to the lesser of two evils: Frost or King Sejong Station. In Frost we have the benefit of familiarity (and therefore more refined builds), but all the problems of high-economy quadrants, huge map size, and vast open spaces to generate extremely bland game play. In King Sejong Station we have lack of familiarity and high early game instability, but huge opportunity for interesting game play and the potential for scouting patterns to get figured out well enough to mitigate some of the problems I mentioned.
I think I'll probably go for King Sejong Station, at least to start. The rock paper scissors aspect can also lean in Terran's favour and I play this game to enjoy myself, not to be bored to death. May as well try it out and hope to be pleasantly surprised -- at the very least I won't have to worry so much about boring 3 base turtling.
really excited , as a zerg i like most of these maps, and better yet it frees up some vetoes :D ( like yeonsu and heavy rain) the 3 player map seems like a ncie idea for some variety , though disappointed that alterzim is still in the map pool though, just eugh
so can we finally address the minimap representation of sc2 maps. i have such a hard time deciphering anything from those pictures. i can't be the only one, right? i stared at that Overgrowth picture for like 2 minutes after reading the text that said there's "high yield expansions with watchtowers nearby" and i cannot make out a high yield base or a watchtower.
On March 27 2014 08:45 Schelim wrote: so can we finally address the minimap representation of sc2 maps. i have such a hard time deciphering anything from those pictures. i can't be the only one, right? i stared at that Overgrowth picture for like 2 minutes after reading the text that said there's "high yield expansions with watchtowers nearby" and i cannot make out a high yield base or a watchtower.
I don't recommend you try the Where's Waldo/Wally books. It did take me a moment to find the watchtowers though, but only because the text kind of threw me off in terms of where I should have been looking.
On March 27 2014 07:43 Tosster wrote: So they've nerfed blink and boosted mines to address blink allins on blink friendly maps, and now there are probably 0 blink maps. Also, all new maps are just big fuck u to protoss players, with 3rd layouts. Well I'm an protoss myself so maybe I wear dark glasses, but anything I can see here is comeback of 2base allins. Mark my words. Protoss will be the weakest race at the end of season 2. Blizzard should really let the community map makers do the job for them. Offer some prizes, give support and voilà - you have the best map pool ever.
mines weren't buffed (for) vs blink...
Yeah they were nerfed because every terran died to oracles and no one adapt their strategies.. right?
On March 27 2014 07:03 Pursuit_ wrote: Overgrowth might end up being too good for passive playstyles too, SH vs Mech / Toss gives the defender high ground advantage at 5 of 6 bases on their side of the map, and every attack path into those 5 bases is a choke. Might be able to deny mining at the gold and secure the base behind it? Guess we'll have to see how it plays out.
I thought this too when I saw the layout of Overgrowth. We may see some games rival the Reality/Soulkey one.
On March 27 2014 07:43 Tosster wrote: So they've nerfed blink and boosted mines to address blink allins on blink friendly maps, and now there are probably 0 blink maps. Also, all new maps are just big fuck u to protoss players, with 3rd layouts. Well I'm an protoss myself so maybe I wear dark glasses, but anything I can see here is comeback of 2base allins. Mark my words. Protoss will be the weakest race at the end of season 2. Blizzard should really let the community map makers do the job for them. Offer some prizes, give support and voilà - you have the best map pool ever.
Alterziem is kind of a blink map, and Frost and Waystation are definitely. Possibly Merry too, but I'm not sure about the distance.
Alterzim isnt blink map, blink map is map when you can freely harass natural and main without concerns that you'll be cornered. Waystation isn't blink map... I really have to discuss that? On Frost - yeah i kinda forgot about Frost, this is good map for blink and overall best map in the map pool now after changes.
fucking awesome maps, to be honest. i don't mind alterzim and all the new ones are interesting visually and unique. within a few days of the new ladder season i'm sure we will be hearing various races complain about how easy/hard it is to take a third base (since that's all some people seem to care about, ZZZ SNORE STANDARD PLAY EVERY GAME), but as for first impressions i'm psyched.
On March 27 2014 08:45 Schelim wrote: so can we finally address the minimap representation of sc2 maps. i have such a hard time deciphering anything from those pictures. i can't be the only one, right? i stared at that Overgrowth picture for like 2 minutes after reading the text that said there's "high yield expansions with watchtowers nearby" and i cannot make out a high yield base or a watchtower.
they aren't minimaps?? as far as i can tell they're images of the actual maps as they appear in game, just zoomed out. click the images for full size!
edit: on second thought i agree with you about the watchtowers, they are a little hard to spot. here they are in case anyone still can't see them
I just wish there was a sc2 remake of medusa, would be pretty interesting to have a 3 player map without ramps from the main to natural, still plenty of space for a protoss wall at the natural though vs zerg.
All of these maps are totally crap for reaper as expected they couldn't make them less blink friendly while keeping them somehow reaper friendly so we will be back to guessing on which deadly thing is the protoss doing in his base.
I kinda feel that Merry go round will end up not being a really good map with most ppl vetoing it and the rest playing it because of special tactics it might be allowing.
Waystation: PvZ and TvZ will be a nightmare to take a 3rd with 7 and 1 o'clock positions and looking at the rush distance to the enemy base it will be all in heaven.
I cant see a protoss taking a 3rd on any of the new maps apart from KSS, hell it will be hard as terran too (both vs Z)
They wanted to fix blink with new maps but I kinda feel like they will skew the stats with other strats. PS does any1 else experience performance issues on Overgrowth? I have gtx 770s in SLI and damn I get crazy stutters and incredibly low fps
These maps look good. Like this season, I won't be vetoing any maps. I also like the update to the 2v2 map pool (indeed all the team play map pool). As someone who plays team games with IRL friends, this is welcome.
DK indicated a greater focus on team games and on maps this year. Good to see them following through.
On March 27 2014 06:33 The_Templar wrote: YESSSSSSS!!! Perfect map pool now.
alterzim.
Alterzim is an awesome map.
We often get feedback of both types on this map. I just posted a more detailed explanation on our thought process for keeping Alterzim Stronghold in the map pool.
On March 27 2014 06:33 The_Templar wrote: YESSSSSSS!!! Perfect map pool now.
alterzim.
Alterzim is an awesome map.
We often get feedback of both types on this map. I just posted a more detailed explanation on our thought process for keeping Alterzim Stronghold in the map pool.
On March 27 2014 06:33 The_Templar wrote: YESSSSSSS!!! Perfect map pool now.
alterzim.
Alterzim is an awesome map.
We often get feedback of both types on this map. I just posted a more detailed explanation on our thought process for keeping Alterzim Stronghold in the map pool.
If only outboxer replaced altezerim+a community map... also, if Polar night has been in the map pool for too long, why is frost still there, I'm sure there's plenty of good 4p maps that could replace it?
But I can't complain too much, these new maps look really good! (I especially like Sejong)
lol keeping the only two maps i veto lol looks fun and i could try out frost its not that bad for mech just a little bit harder. cant wait will be fun to play on new maps.
now thats gj by Blizzard. I like that all four 2p maps with similar 3-base setup are gone. Overgrowth comes across as super standard but theres only one of them this time so it's fine. Merry-Go-Round is extremely welcomed. King Sejon rocks. We needs more innovation in map design really
On March 27 2014 06:33 The_Templar wrote: YESSSSSSS!!! Perfect map pool now.
alterzim.
Alterzim is an awesome map.
We often get feedback of both types on this map. I just posted a more detailed explanation on our thought process for keeping Alterzim Stronghold in the map pool.
I really like this map pool. I can see people vetoing one or two, but not running out of vetoes. Maps need more interesting features, and if they won't do like Shoutcraft clan wars (which might be a bit much for ladder), I want some variety while playing and fewer Daybreak clones.
That said, Polar Night was "interesting" and I'm glad it's gone. I liked Yeonsu though. I had to veto Daedalus. The ramp was just too far from the command center--a complete nightmare. Once things start to fall apart, it felt nearly impossible to stabilize.
Very interesting to see a 3 player map finally added. I think they made some good choices with the map pool and I agree with the people that are happy to see a lot of blink friendly maps removed. Hopefully it will also help facilitate some differences in game play in the pro scene too
I just looked at these in game. King Sejong Station, Merry Go Round LE, and Waystation --> Helloooooooooooo Protoss 2 base timings. Honestly, these all look like very very Terran favored maps(in regards to all MU not just TvP). scrappy battles, efficient trading and dropping seem to be the essence of these maps.
I really like the base progression on overgrowth, this is much closer to an ideal map imo.
Still though, I cannot believe after this many years these are the maps we end up with. It's like they want silly builds in these leagues or something O.o And just so my point is clear: this isn't a balance whine, but rather, a prediction of other races/random noobs complaining about the builds Protoss players will do in the near future. Of course, they'll neglect to actually examine the maps in the pool first >.>!
I really can't imagine anything else in this next season other than new, innovative all ins/aggressive openers on these above maps @_@;; (for toss)
On March 27 2014 14:44 Zerg.Zilla wrote: Only 7 maps :/ Good changes,but only 7 maps...i feel like we need more maps.Make it 10 god damn it!
IMO we only need 7 for ladder and 5 for individual leagues. Less maps mean better preparation, much refined strategy. Whats the point of so many maps when half of the them look pretty much the same with few ramp/cliff/high ground changes and whatnot?
Hell, Starleagues used to have only 3 maps back in the day. Im all for a much smaller pool with quality, interesting, non-repetitive, non-cloned maps
Blizzard is really targeting TOURNAMENT meta here with Waystation. It could be a long-distance heavy macro or a very short-distance rush/blink cheesefest. But its NEVER an insta-win based on map choices. Which is very interesting.
On March 27 2014 15:58 -Kyo- wrote: I just looked at these in game. King Sejong Station, Merry Go Round LE, and Waystation --> Helloooooooooooo Protoss 2 base timings. Honestly, these all look like very very Terran favored maps(in regards to all MU not just TvP). scrappy battles, efficient trading and dropping seem to be the essence of these maps.
I really like the base progression on overgrowth, this is much closer to an ideal map imo.
Still though, I cannot believe after this many years these are the maps we end up with. It's like they want silly builds in these leagues or something O.o And just so my point is clear: this isn't a balance whine, but rather, a prediction of other races/random noobs complaining about the builds Protoss players will do in the near future. Of course, they'll neglect to actually examine the maps in the pool first >.>!
I really can't imagine anything else in this next season other than new, innovative all ins/aggressive openers on these above maps @_@;; (for toss)
Doesn't that make Waystation a great Toss map? On short distance, very fast one-base blink. There's a large area in the front of the main to blink into, while still threatening the natural. On long distance, taking a third wont be too hard. (I think the base next to natural will be a more common third than the one next to main.) So its win-win, right?
Overgrowth - looks uber for turtling. Waystation - I'm always against island expansion, but let's try it out. Alterzim still in - wtf? It's banned by players whenever possible. Why would you keep it in pool?
On March 27 2014 17:43 ReMinD_ wrote: Overgrowth - looks uber for turtling. Waystation - I'm always against island expansion, but let's try it out. Alterzim still in - wtf? It's banned by players whenever possible. Why would you keep it in pool?
Maybe its exactly because its banned so often. Leaving it in will give us more games on the new maps or more games on alterzim which we havent seen that many games on.
So thanks WCS for forcing them to give us all GSL maps every season. And thanks blizzard for putting Sejong Station in.
However, fuck them so hard for still producing these awful maps. They removed korhal floating island only to copy it's main feature a few months later and create one of the most awful maps I have ever seen. I seriously wish they would use their map making team to add features to their games like tournament support rather than continuing to waste their time with map making as they are obviously some of the worst map makers on the planet. Even the best blizzard maps like antiga and entombed were pretty meh compared to daybreak/cloud kingdom etc. I just wish Blizzard would realize that they have a community full of people who are constantly making maps for free and a bunch of Koreans who have been professional map makers for forever...
I dont like Alterzim, it makes games last forever and I feel like we need to change the biggest maps way more often (bring back Whilrwind?)
King Sejong station is kinda ify for me, I have the feeling that without protoss going for skytoss the map is very zerg favorite, Boxer should be added as well, the rest is just fine
Looking good overall, but I think it is a shame that they removed Heavy Rain.
I actually liked that map - it was a small map without towers and where the rocks could be used strategically. It was also interesting that you mined less minerals vs. gas
I would personally have removed Alterzim, which is stupidly diceroll in PvP and way too big overall.
It is also interesting with a 3 player map in the map pool!
And King sejong station is just retarded if you think about TvP. Yeah guys lets have some cliff that cant be jumped by reapers but by blink in all the flank sides of the base. This will banned by every single terran out there
On March 27 2014 20:18 YyapSsap wrote: Why no outboxer??
Guess? Blizzard made Waystation in house, for map-selection meta-game reasons - perhaps they wanted more maps that are not "just the rush map" or "just the blink map". But Waystation has island bases, and they didn't want islands in two new maps this season, so no Outboxer.
On March 27 2014 20:18 YyapSsap wrote: Why no outboxer??
Guess? Blizzard made Waystation in house, for map-selection meta-game reasons - perhaps they wanted more maps that are not "just the rush map" or "just the blink map". But Waystation has island bases, and they didn't want islands in two new maps this season, so no Outboxer.
So you are telling me we should be ok with not having an amazing PL map because blizzard felt like doing what they do worst: making maps. Well good thing there are 3 vetos and I don't really need any of them... I seriously hope that they come to their senses and replace Waystation with Out boxer or another community made map before the start of season 2. I am so sick of having to deal with these awful Blizzard maps because they feel like they have to keep making maps.
waystation seems favored for terran (especially mech) in the 2' and 8' o'clock spawns... theyre always gonna have a free quick third base that cannot be attacked by ground, while for p and z that island base is practically worthless
Really big changes to the 2v2, 3v3, and 4v4 map pools as well!
I believe this is only the second time in SC2 history where all 4 map pools have been changed at the same time, the first being the release of HotS.
I have a feeling King Sejong and Waystation will get really stale quickly. Both sets of spawns on Waystation seem highly Terran favored at first glance.
On March 27 2014 21:44 immanentblue wrote: waystation seems favored for terran (especially mech) in the 2' and 8' o'clock spawns... theyre always gonna have a free quick third base that cannot be attacked by ground, while for p and z that island base is practically worthless
A map favoured for mech in SC2? I never thought I'd see the day.
I don't really like the focus on "macro fortress maps" in team games... "Fucking boring turtle maps for mech-SH-voidrays" is how I understand them. I think the right formula for 2v2 maps is ONE expand easy to take, but not TWO. Two makes it easy to craft some random 4 base all-in with resource feed bullshit and whatnot, really dislike that. Only one available expand makes the other one a risk to take, which is interesting.
In 2v2 they removed Greystone Ravine which I found really good (although having these free double expands ;D) and having a lot of cool interactions at the top and bottom (but the middle of the map was a little bland, I have to admit). Hunting Grounds needed to go, insta veto'd for non-Zerg teams.
On March 27 2014 22:32 TheFish7 wrote: Really big changes to the 2v2, 3v3, and 4v4 map pools as well!
Everytime I think they can't make the 2v2 maps worse than they already are, Blizzard teaches me better... "Crystal Pools" looks like they took a few minutes before making the news on bnet to create a map for 2v2 just to have a new one. Man I love 2v2 but the maps give me a headache....
On March 27 2014 22:32 TheFish7 wrote: Really big changes to the 2v2, 3v3, and 4v4 map pools as well!
Everytime I think they can't make the 2v2 maps worse than they already are, Blizzard teaches me better... "Crystal Pools" looks like they took a few minutes before making the news on bnet to create a map for 2v2 just to have a new one. Man I love 2v2 but the maps give me a headache....
Agreed, although I will say that the 3v3 and 4v4 map pools have gotten exponentially better since early WoL. (And they are actually making new ones which is a nice change). As someone who is a map maker and was top25 masters random in 4v4 and 3v3 for several seasons in WoL here are my thoughts on the team map pools:
2v2 I'm not sad to see Greystone Ravine and Hunting Grounds go, although I had a lot of fun games on hunting grounds. Greystone always felt like a half assed map with an odd expansion pattern, no flow and some really weird blink/proxy spots. Hunting Grounds i liked but I'll bet mutas and blink stalkers were way too strong, the expansion pattern had players with a huge ground distance between bases meaning air and fast units like ling/bling were strong.
Crystal Pools ZT / ZP teams will find creep spread a miserable exercise here. Some of the map features like the island and central gold bases just feel random. The small ramp at the natural is an odd choice to me. The main's surface area is too great. Expect to see blink air and drop play here. There is little to no reward for venturing out onto the map for map control. Expect a lot of 2/4 base all ins. Nothing about this map inspires me.
Katherine Square Blizzard is trying to encourage controlling the central highgrounds on this map, but then makes the wacky decision to include pocket expansions for both players. What could have been a great positional map is ruined by one gimmicky feature. I'd also point out that the size of many of the choke points makes no sense whatsoever.
3v3 I'm sad to see Queen's Nest go, it was one of the better separated base 3v3 maps imo. Vault of Secrets has outlived its useful life at this point having devolved into a muta/void ray map.
Forbidden Sanctuary It's not clear to me where the start locations are on this map. Regardless, this is another map with a straight path to the enemy with a long back way around to a better attack path. None of the maps that have had this feature in the past have worked out very well. I forsee another devolution into air play as ground troops will be impossible to position. The strangest part of this map is that your own 4th base seems to be closer to the enemy than to you, which is rarely a good feature.
Frozen Fields I actually like this map quite a bit, although I am worried the small size will prove problematic. The map basically forces players to expand along the top or bottom of the map turning the mid game into a very positional conflict. One problem however is that the distance between attack points for the attacker is shorter than the defender's distance. This means a well coordinated team can pressure at one end and then turn around and hit the other before the defending team can properly reposition. If this map were morphed so that it was long instead of wide it would be much better. This is another map where creep spread will be near impossible for non all-Z teams.
4v4 I never liked Celestial Bastion all that much so I'm fine with it going. I think megaton was a better map with all players sharing a spawn. Volcanic Ridge I liked but it was a tremendous Swarm Host map, so it had to go.
Conduit Conduit is very interesting but I think its main attack paths are too skinny for 4v4 games. I do not feel that the 12 o clock high ground should be high ground as it serves as both a staging point for attacks and expansions. That said it does have the effect of making armies move around on the map for positioning, which is good.
Sundered Isle This is my favorite new map out of all the new maps. The concept behind it was actually explored (discovered?) here on TL during one of our Map Jam contests. Here we have a mixed shared and separated main base map, where you have 2x1x1 spawns. One problem with this map is that the main bases have huge surface area, making blink play very strong. There is also not much in the way of attack paths just one middle and a few very out of the way expansions. I think it works very well overall but you might see some cheap strategies pop up here.
Wow, these maps all look really interesting. Waystation particularly so - plus, the texturing on its islands remind me of Antiga Shipyard, a map I really liked.
I'd really like to know how Blizzard decides on maps they wanna use. Have these maps been played anywhere? If not, what makes those maps better than other maps that have not been tested but look solid at first glance? I mean, that Proleague map has been played in Proleague, ok. What about Overgrowth LE? I have never seen this being played before anywhere. Is it cuz it's made by Crux?
They say "XYZ is a new GSL map..." So GSL creates its maps and uses it at least a whole season without a huge test (at least I don't know anything about) There are plenty other nice maps that don't get the tiniest attention... Only maybe through TLMC...
King Sejong Station: cool, Swarmhost heaven though
Merry Go Round: annoying to take a third in some spawning scenarios, probably SUPER annoying to take a third in ZvT
Waystation: godawful, the natural can only be walled with nexus walls, taking a third is impossible because of how Daedalusly open it is. Instant veto for me.
Overgrowth: really fun map, really hard for zergs to hold a 3rd against well executed 2base protoss though.
This looks...not bad tbh. Alterzim is still aids in pixel form, but all the other garbage maps are gone and the new ones actually looks pretty cool/interesting. Merry go round could have some issues, but I'm willing to give it a shot.
Edit: I like how Olli thought the map where protoss had a hard time expanding was godawful, but the map where zerg is in the same situation is really fun.
Aside from holding the third on Overgrowth vs 2 base protoss I don't see an issue and the map seems just fine for ZvNonProtoss2BaseAllin. Whereas you can't expand vs terran on Waystation either as protoss, or take a 4th, etc. etc. You're gonna see nothing but 2base all ins from protoss on that map and you're gonna see them fail because of how open everything is.
So we have a map where you basically cannot succeed with a 2 base all in, directly on the heels of a map where you basically could not fail with one? Interesting.
I mean, one might say if one strat breaks a MU on a map, that the map is broken as a whole.
On March 27 2014 12:07 lichter wrote: Merry-go-round would be better if the map suddenly spins every 5 minutes so that players need to reorient themselves with directions
Yes, Mr. Heavensbee. Let's see them tell time now!
Waystation looks to be the most interesting of the new maps, but holy crap did they fuck up with the name for Merry Go Round. I just can't imagine any caster or player being able to say that name during a tournament without cracking up. I mean, you call the map after a carnival ride for little children, of all things? Maybe it somehow sounds not as ridiculous in Korean, but it's not like there aren't any decent names for circular maps. Wheel of War from BW is a good example.
On March 28 2014 01:15 Phaenoman wrote: I'd really like to know how Blizzard decides on maps they wanna use. Have these maps been played anywhere? If not, what makes those maps better than other maps that have not been tested but look solid at first glance? I mean, that Proleague map has been played in Proleague, ok. What about Overgrowth LE? I have never seen this being played before anywhere. Is it cuz it's made by Crux?
They say "XYZ is a new GSL map..." So GSL creates its maps and uses it at least a whole season without a huge test (at least I don't know anything about) There are plenty other nice maps that don't get the tiniest attention... Only maybe through TLMC...
Seriously you bitch about them using maps who are made by Koreans with years of experience who have created some of the best maps in SC2 history, which are tested in Korea before hand and yet it's fine to you that fucking Blizzard keeps making god awful maps and forces them on us?
On March 28 2014 01:15 Phaenoman wrote: I'd really like to know how Blizzard decides on maps they wanna use. Have these maps been played anywhere? If not, what makes those maps better than other maps that have not been tested but look solid at first glance? I mean, that Proleague map has been played in Proleague, ok. What about Overgrowth LE? I have never seen this being played before anywhere. Is it cuz it's made by Crux?
They say "XYZ is a new GSL map..." So GSL creates its maps and uses it at least a whole season without a huge test (at least I don't know anything about) There are plenty other nice maps that don't get the tiniest attention... Only maybe through TLMC...
Seriously you bitch about them using maps who are made by Koreans with years of experience who have created some of the best maps in SC2 history, which are tested in Korea before hand and yet it's fine to you that fucking Blizzard keeps making god awful maps and forces them on us?
How can you say that Crux maps are tested beforehand when one of them is Metropolis (also Calm before the Storm)? And about the "best maps in SC2 history" part, it's more the case of: when you don't accept any map not made by Crux, it's a given that their maps will be "the best", because there aren't any others. At one point, Xel'Naga Caverns was the best SC2 map.
On March 28 2014 01:15 Phaenoman wrote: I'd really like to know how Blizzard decides on maps they wanna use. Have these maps been played anywhere? If not, what makes those maps better than other maps that have not been tested but look solid at first glance? I mean, that Proleague map has been played in Proleague, ok. What about Overgrowth LE? I have never seen this being played before anywhere. Is it cuz it's made by Crux?
They say "XYZ is a new GSL map..." So GSL creates its maps and uses it at least a whole season without a huge test (at least I don't know anything about) There are plenty other nice maps that don't get the tiniest attention... Only maybe through TLMC...
Seriously you bitch about them using maps who are made by Koreans with years of experience who have created some of the best maps in SC2 history, which are tested in Korea before hand and yet it's fine to you that fucking Blizzard keeps making god awful maps and forces them on us?
How can you say that Crux maps are tested beforehand when one of them is Metropolis (also Calm before the Storm)? And about the "best maps in SC2 history" part, it's more the case of: when you don't accept any map not made by Crux, it's a given that their maps will be "the best", because there aren't any others.
This about nails it. I'm happy for the Crux guys, but the mapping community in general is still getting snubbed by Blizzard. Habitation Station was a happy accident thanks to the awesome Redbull guys willing to try something different. Total Biscuit also deserves a lot of credit with his current ShoutCraft series, though most of those maps are intentionally not meant for general ladder play.
On March 28 2014 01:15 Phaenoman wrote: I'd really like to know how Blizzard decides on maps they wanna use. Have these maps been played anywhere? If not, what makes those maps better than other maps that have not been tested but look solid at first glance? I mean, that Proleague map has been played in Proleague, ok. What about Overgrowth LE? I have never seen this being played before anywhere. Is it cuz it's made by Crux?
They say "XYZ is a new GSL map..." So GSL creates its maps and uses it at least a whole season without a huge test (at least I don't know anything about) There are plenty other nice maps that don't get the tiniest attention... Only maybe through TLMC...
Seriously you bitch about them using maps who are made by Koreans with years of experience who have created some of the best maps in SC2 history, which are tested in Korea before hand and yet it's fine to you that fucking Blizzard keeps making god awful maps and forces them on us?
How can you say that Crux maps are tested beforehand when one of them is Metropolis (also Calm before the Storm)? And about the "best maps in SC2 history" part, it's more the case of: when you don't accept any map not made by Crux, it's a given that their maps will be "the best", because there aren't any others. At one point, Xel'Naga Caverns was the best SC2 map.
There are Blizzard maps which are still god awful and keep being forced on us. And I would take both Crux maps you named over 95% of all maps Blizzard ever mad. Of course I'd much rather see them use community maps from outside of Korea, my point was just that rather than wanting to have foreign made maps over Crux maps I'd say we should replace Blizzard maps with foreign community maps. Obviously, if Blizzard was the company it should be we'd see them pay foreign community as well as Koreans to regularly make maps that would be play tested in a seperate Ladder and then, after taking community and pro gamer feedback into account, implemented into regular ladder. Sadly, Blizzard doesn't give a fuck about any map maker on the planet, including Koreans. The only reason the GSL maps got in is because Blizzard wants all WCS regions to have the same map pool and GOM wants to keep making maps. The PL map is probably in because enough Korean pros complained to them about not being able to practice PL maps on ladder. I'm just saying that we should be glad that they are atleast putting maps in that were not made by Blizzard and that we should push for Blizzard to stop making maps and replacing those with ones made from our community rather than hating on the fact that Korean map makers get to have their maps in.
On March 28 2014 01:15 Phaenoman wrote: I'd really like to know how Blizzard decides on maps they wanna use. Have these maps been played anywhere? If not, what makes those maps better than other maps that have not been tested but look solid at first glance? I mean, that Proleague map has been played in Proleague, ok. What about Overgrowth LE? I have never seen this being played before anywhere. Is it cuz it's made by Crux?
They say "XYZ is a new GSL map..." So GSL creates its maps and uses it at least a whole season without a huge test (at least I don't know anything about) There are plenty other nice maps that don't get the tiniest attention... Only maybe through TLMC...
Seriously you bitch about them using maps who are made by Koreans with years of experience who have created some of the best maps in SC2 history, which are tested in Korea before hand and yet it's fine to you that fucking Blizzard keeps making god awful maps and forces them on us?
Calm down and put a bridle on your tongue. Like u and most of the community here I hate Blizzard maps. There are so many good maps posted that haven't been touched even once by Blizzard. Even tho Crux and other Korean map makers do a pretty good job, there are so much more maps that deserve to get noticed and tried out. Definitly. My point was: Why are GSL maps good before testing, but we need to have a TLMC to have one map that stands out that is made by the community. The maps here are not worse. They deserve the same attention. Blizzard needs to fix this whole map politics. BUT: They have improved quite a lot in past since we see more non-Blizzard maps. Nevertheless there are still aspects that I don't understand. Blizzard should definitly stop making maps or ask if they wanna include them. Or they should start making maps that are useful...
Waystation will have rocks added to the island bases soon. It's way too easy for a Terran to secure 3 bases on that map almost immediately in the short spawn.
So people want a diverse map pool, we get it, and now people complain? Typical. This FORCES people to try something new so we don't see the same early to mid game.
On March 28 2014 09:32 geokilla wrote: So people want a diverse map pool, we get it, and now people complain? Typical. This FORCES people to try something new so we don't see the same early to mid game.
everyone likes new and unique maps until they play on them and realize the same build they use every single game in diamond is marginally weaker or stronger on a given map and they need to adjust their playstyle
happens every time
On March 28 2014 09:32 geokilla wrote: Because it's not implemented, we can't change it. Wtf.
? i don't understand. that wasn't the given reason. he said "we like outboxer, but we preferred to use other maps this season." the point about it being too late to change the map pool was just an afterthought because the person he was replying to was asking for them to make a change to what they already announced... it would be stupid to announce the pool and then change it
On March 28 2014 09:32 geokilla wrote: Because it's not implemented, we can't change it. Wtf.
? i don't understand. that wasn't the given reason. he said "we like outboxer, but we preferred to use other maps this season." the point about it being too late to change the map pool was just an afterthought because the person he was replying to was asking for them to make a change to what they already announced...
Correct. Changing portions of an existing map due to feedback is feasible at this point if needed, but adding an entirely new map would take longer and would likely not be ready in time for Season 2. However, as mentioned, we like Outboxer but chose not to use it this season, so we are happy with the current pool as is.
? i don't understand. that wasn't the given reason. he said "we like outboxer, but we preferred to use other maps this season." the point about it being too late to change the map pool was just an afterthought because the person he was replying to was asking for them to make a change to what they already announced...
Correct. Changing portions of an existing map due to feedback is feasible at this point if needed, but adding an entirely new map would take longer and would likely not be ready in time for Season 2. However, as mentioned, we like Outboxer but chose not to use it this season, so we are happy with the current pool as is.
I think you should get a blizzard badge so people can notice you are a blue.
Also is blizzard ever thinking to bring back rush maps etc?
I think for some of us, we would appreciate some fun maps on maybe unranked ladder. There are a lot of interesting maps that aren't the highest competition qualified but extremely fun like those lava maps.
it is too hard to create a custom map and expect similar skills player (no custom lobby name)
I think creative and entertaining for fun map currently is what's most lacking even though there is a demand for it
? i don't understand. that wasn't the given reason. he said "we like outboxer, but we preferred to use other maps this season." the point about it being too late to change the map pool was just an afterthought because the person he was replying to was asking for them to make a change to what they already announced...
Correct. Changing portions of an existing map due to feedback is feasible at this point if needed, but adding an entirely new map would take longer and would likely not be ready in time for Season 2. However, as mentioned, we like Outboxer but chose not to use it this season, so we are happy with the current pool as is.
Wait... so why not just add it to the pool without removing anything else? Is there something wrong with 8 maps in the pool?
On March 28 2014 02:16 sigm wrote: Waystation looks to be the most interesting of the new maps, but holy crap did they fuck up with the name for Merry Go Round. I just can't imagine any caster or player being able to say that name during a tournament without cracking up. I mean, you call the map after a carnival ride for little children, of all things? Maybe it somehow sounds not as ridiculous in Korean, but it's not like there aren't any decent names for circular maps. Wheel of War from BW is a good example.
"Carousel" would have been much better. "Carousel Station" or "Carousel Platform" or something. "Merry Go Round" is the name Crux gave it, but still...
On March 28 2014 09:34 Waise wrote: ? i don't understand. that wasn't the given reason. he said "we like outboxer, but we preferred to use other maps this season."
Island expands strongly favor Terran. Blizzard wanted Waystation, so no Outboxer. Two island maps would be too many.
On March 28 2014 05:52 Killmouse wrote: playd on waystation, pretty horrible map imo , the others are quite decent
I give you credit for even bothering to play it.
Played Waystation also, on far spawns. (from perspective of SE spawn)
The natural ramp is really wide, but taking third next to natural (3) is much better than third next to main (5) - makes defending easy because it keeps the front line short. Its okay, but taking the side third gets you mid-map quickly and makes split-map seem very likely.
Drops will be very strong in early-mid game. Although there's lots of attack paths down the side into the third (3), main, and natural, expect lots of static D, and swarm hosts by late game. The sunken plazas in the middle are bad for attackers, and coming up out of the S base against the main is hard.
On March 28 2014 05:52 Killmouse wrote: playd on waystation, pretty horrible map imo , the others are quite decent
I give you credit for even bothering to play it.
I decided to take a moment to look at it, you have no high ground areas to place overlords anywhere, at all, not the nat, not 3rd, nowhere on the map. Protoss needs to wall to their nexus at the top left/bottom right positions to expand, need a full 3 3x3 buildings to wall off the naturals, I see this map vetoed by zergs and protosses because zerg cant have vision control at all and protoss is too open to early aggression and cheese. Terrans might have only mirror matches on that map, I will check the map for terran later.
King Sejong: I didn't watch Pro League lately so I don't know how it will play, but it seems to me that blink play will be strong here, perhaps too strong. The natural seems very open to me, so it will be tough playing vs Zerg for both Terran and Protoss. Also the orientation of the nat seems very prone to drop play.
Overgrowth: Seems like a decent map at 1st glance, reminds me of that grass 1v1 from beginning of HotS, forgot how it is called.
Merry go round: The 3rd here is very tough to take. Or it is separated from the base flows, or it is blastable from high ground, or it is too open, also, it seems pretty tough to defend drop play with that much airspace.
Waystation: Island expansions near main? Really Blizzard? Looks too 1st half WoL for me.
For everyone who can understand german, I talked to aTnKnowMe, ESCShoWTimE and VegaPrimeLoT - three german Protoss GM-players - about their first impression of the maps. http://homerj.de/index.php?read_news=2344 If I find the time I will translate it later (or maybe someone else finds the time).
? i don't understand. that wasn't the given reason. he said "we like outboxer, but we preferred to use other maps this season." the point about it being too late to change the map pool was just an afterthought because the person he was replying to was asking for them to make a change to what they already announced...
Correct. Changing portions of an existing map due to feedback is feasible at this point if needed, but adding an entirely new map would take longer and would likely not be ready in time for Season 2. However, as mentioned, we like Outboxer but chose not to use it this season, so we are happy with the current pool as is.
So you announce it ahead of time so nothing can be changed anymore? I guess it was way too important to throw in the crap you guys created yourself to even look at TL community maps or throw in a far superior PL map that has actually been played on by Progamers. But you guys also claim to have made an eSports game while never using Pros for design/play testing during alpha...
You guys were also "happy" with the current map pool when it was full of your shitty blizzard maps and tal'darim altar (thanks for keeping that in for like a year, was so much fun for PvP). Please for the love of god just let tournament organizers and progamers decide these pools and stop making your own maps. Alkterzim and Daedalus are easily the most hated maps of the current map pool and I doubt many people will like Wayland (which honestly is such a diss on Korhal Floating Island). But hey as long as you can have your map makers waste their time on creating these crap maps rather than have then working on features that people have been requesting since WOL Beta...
You know you could just make it 10 maps so pros could veto 3 and have the WCS map pool on ladder while the rest of us could test lots of community maps.
You guys were also "happy" with the current map pool when it was full of your shitty blizzard maps and tal'darim altar (thanks for keeping that in for like a year, was so much fun for PvP). Please for the love of god just let tournament organizers and progamers decide these pools and stop making your own maps. Alkterzim and Daedalus are easily the most hated maps of the current map pool and I doubt many people will like Wayland (which honestly is such a diss on Korhal Floating Island). But hey as long as you can have your map makers waste their time on creating these crap maps rather than have then working on features that people have been requesting since WOL Beta...
You know you could just make it 10 maps so pros could veto 3 and have the WCS map pool on ladder while the rest of us could test lots of community maps.
Why do so many players complain about Blizzard maps and so few players take a little time to check out the custom maps forum now and then to play and give feedback on new community maps? There's lots of great maps floating around there, but for some reason it seems that most players prefer to bitch about Blizzard maps instead of playing other great maps that are right under their noses.
That being said, I agree with some posters here that it would be a significant improvement if there was a separate map pool for unranked games. You could have as many as 20 maps there with unlimited vetoes, with half of the pool consisting of maps like Outboxer that are good but didn't fit into the ladder pool, and the other half consisting of "fun" maps with unusual features like rising lava or complete asymmetry. Balance wouldn't be a problem (if you don't like it, veto it) and Blizzard could monitor which maps are the most popular (and balanced) ones. This would be the perfect testing ground for unusual/extreme maps like Alterzim, Habitation Station, King Sejong Station, MGR and so on.
On March 29 2014 00:02 And G wrote: Why do so many players complain about Blizzard maps and so few players take a little time to check out the custom maps forum now and then to play and give feedback on new community maps? There's lots of great maps floating around there, but for some reason it seems that most players prefer to bitch about Blizzard maps instead of playing other great maps that are right under their noses.
That being said, I agree with some posters here that it would be a significant improvement if there was a separate map pool for unranked games. You could have as many as 20 maps there with unlimited vetoes, with half of the pool consisting of maps like Outboxer that are good but didn't fit into the ladder pool, and the other half consisting of "fun" maps with unusual features like rising lava or complete asymmetry. Balance wouldn't be a problem (if you don't like it, veto it) and Blizzard could monitor which maps are the most popular (and balanced) ones. This would be the perfect testing ground for unusual/extreme maps like Alterzim, Habitation Station, King Sejong Station, MGR and so on.
Those community maps are "only" available on custom games. Everyone can play which map he desires to, but not so on ladder. Blizzard has the final say in that regard. And since WCS and ladder share the same pool, ppl want the ladder pool to contain solid community maps as well. That unranked test-mappool sounds great.
Back in the BW days, people would just play whichever maps were the most fun. I think it's kind of sad that this culture seems to have completely disappeared.
Map #5 looks like crap despite not even trying a game on it. I just don't like the look of it. It sneers at me.
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I do like the idea of Unranked having a large map pool to choose from. Pick your top 5 prefered maps. Get a game hopefully close to your MMR. You could not have vetos since matchmaking might get fragmented to much. I like to try Custom maps against friends and random people. But the quality of random people you get in the game with no matchmaking is such hit and miss and you can not get a good feel of the map. Better off playing vs AI.
Whenever I see these "increase the ladder map pool!" comments, I can't help but wonder if people even bothered thinking for a moment about matchmaking wait times. If you like the idea of sitting around for 10+ minutes before the matchmaker finds another player who happens to be online, searching for a game, and has a matching map pick as you, that's your own prerogative. Blizzard isn't going to deliberately hinder the matchmaking experience for you; you can do your waiting in the custom games section.
I say this as both a ladder player and mapmaker. That all being said, though, the goal should be to build communities and play custom games together -- it's a more social experience yo. Ladder for bragging rights and when none of your community friends are on.
I dont understand the addition of Merry Go Round... And i dont understand the staying of Alterzim... I feel like they could have kept one of the other maps or added the Pro League map Outboxer... But owell we will see how it goes!! <3
On March 29 2014 06:31 Wraithdagger12 wrote: Waystation. Terran will lift to the island base and go for cloakshees. ZvT will be unplayable on that map. Veto.
It's almost like a couple of spore crawlers, fast triple hatch, and mutas would completely destroy the Terran.
You guys were also "happy" with the current map pool when it was full of your shitty blizzard maps and tal'darim altar (thanks for keeping that in for like a year, was so much fun for PvP). Please for the love of god just let tournament organizers and progamers decide these pools and stop making your own maps. Alkterzim and Daedalus are easily the most hated maps of the current map pool and I doubt many people will like Wayland (which honestly is such a diss on Korhal Floating Island). But hey as long as you can have your map makers waste their time on creating these crap maps rather than have then working on features that people have been requesting since WOL Beta...
You know you could just make it 10 maps so pros could veto 3 and have the WCS map pool on ladder while the rest of us could test lots of community maps.
Dude why are you so angry about new maps TT
Just need to calm down a bit, me thinks.
I'm not angry about new maps, I'm angry about them wasting their own time and mine in making maps. To me, it has become obvious that no one at Blizzard is even remotely talented at making maps and I just feel like sc2 would be way better off with those people actually using their time to do something worthwhile rather than forcing me to either use vetoes or play on awful maps which I have been forced to do for 4 years now. I've had to play customs with friends for so long even though I only want to play on maps that were made by the community/koreans and I just wish they would start to integrate their community by using our maps and not produce these pieces of garbage.
I really don't get how you read emotion/anger out of a piece of written text. I just feel like I need to post in these kind of threads knowing that someone at Blizz reads them so hopefully they will finally stop making maps.
On March 29 2014 00:20 And G wrote: Back in the BW days, people would just play whichever maps were the most fun. I think it's kind of sad that this culture seems to have completely disappeared.
Back in the BW days when you could make a lobby with whatever map you liked, call it something appropriate so as to find an opponent, and then just play, even if that particular map wasn't in the top 10 most popular.
Lobbies were king back then. The SC2 system, although improved compared to release, is still pretty terrible in that respect. I'd wager most players don't really bother to check out the custom maps / arcade at all, they just ladder, and the few who do mostly stick to UMS stuff (micro wars, Raynor's party, dota clones, tower defense etc) rather than Melee I'd imagine. So community-made Melee maps get barely any exposure whatsoever, so people don't play them, because either they don't know about them, or because there are no *other* players. It's very much a vicious cycle and has been for the longest time in SC2.
One solution would be, as numerous posters have been saying for years now, for Blizzard to stop making maps and simply implement community-made ones into the ladder. The other, more along your line of thinking, would be for them to yet again overhaul their Arcade into something more akin to what we used to have with BW/WC3. But most likely, at least from the point of view of Melee maps, the former seems to be much better than the latter, simply because most people don't go into the Arcade at all, or only do so for some extremely casual UMS with their friends every once in a while.
If Blizzard openly communicates with you (thanks, Psione!), you start bashing them and telling them they're retarded and stupid and their maps suck and they're butthurt because their own maps are bad. If they do not respond, They're not open, and not willing to communicate and a terrible company and David Kim should be fired and the company of old was way better and they only want money and ded gaem.
This community is silly at times. God bless internet anonymity.
There's a noticeable difference between giving feedback, outing your opinion, and being a dick.
make a cool sc2 map pool one map at a time, while leaving blizz all the space it can have = a decent map pool in a year
thank you for this
all the melee mapmakers and more than half of the players involved = + Show Spoiler +
rotate map pool (one map swapped every month so as to get to a quick "decent" pool, then only ever swap out for the least decent = a cool map pool in less than a year
when are sc2 players all going to +1 a post on battlenet asking for this i would +1 proffusively
I generally like it. I just wish they added 1 more new map instead of Alterzim... I wouldn't be surprised if 90% of players have that map vetoed...
On March 27 2014 09:19 Scoobers wrote: All of these maps are totally crap for reaper as expected they couldn't make them less blink friendly while keeping them somehow reaper friendly so we will be back to guessing on which deadly thing is the protoss doing in his base.
A lot of people (including myself) said that on bnet forums when they announced that they will affect blink by changing the map pool about 2 weeks ago. Blizzard ignored it....
Overgrowth looks like an excellent Swarm Host map for Zerg. Just park SH's at the gold, with the extra expansion behind it safely while just rallying locusts to the opponents gold shutting it down completely. That map is guna suck ass and I wouldn't be surprised to see Protoss all-in every game in PvZ just to avoid that.
All-in-all the maps are OK I guess, but won't know until we see games played on them for awhile. I have pretty much given up on SC2 for the moment, it's not enjoyable to play anymore and it's way too frustrating to watch. I hope it gets better but right now I'm not so sure it will. DotA 2 has given me something more enjoyable to care about recently.
I really like overgrowth, will probably veto merry-go-round which is fine I don't mind a few maps in the pool that aren't my favorite. The other maps are perfectly fine by me.
On March 31 2014 07:36 Slydie wrote: Alterzim does have good games played on it in WCS, Hyun vs Snute comes to my mind, but there are others.
However, cross spawns can be a pain for terran, and drops are very strong...
Here I thought there actually existed a good game on Alterzim... watched Snute vs. HyuN to check it out. Literally 10 minutes of no action, just droning 3 bases. The next 5 minutes consisted of roach balls slamming into one another until Infestors came into play, at which point it was just HyuN losing every head-to-head 200/200 engagement against Snute until he got overwhelmed.
Only interesting part of the game was HyuN trying to split off small groups of roaches to do some harassment damage in the mid game, but Snute deflected everything by turtling in his little corner of the map. Ugh.
Edit: even the casters were talking about how it's not beneficial to attack in ZvZ on Alterzim until you're maxed out with maximum infestor energy... one of, if not the most fundamental aspect of the game is attacking and defeating your opponent. If it's not beneficial to do so until there's literally nothing else left to deal with, that's a map design problem through and through.
On March 29 2014 00:20 And G wrote: Back in the BW days, people would just play whichever maps were the most fun. I think it's kind of sad that this culture seems to have completely disappeared.
not sure what you mean by this blizz gives us a set off maps that we can and some ppl like them and will play them and others wont so they will veto them. and most blizz maps are not amazing but if you want to ladder you have to play cause you only get so many vetos. so again not sure what you mean. are you saying forget ladder and just play maps that you like then ok but if you want to ladder again you have to play the one that are given to you.
It's big of Blizzard to remove Daedalus right away, even after the fix. I like that they're doing what's best for the scene and not just insisting on staying with it for a few seasons to justify its original inclusion. I'm not shocked (or unhappy) they kept Altzerim, There have been some good games on it. Seed vs Rogue from Code A immediately comes to mind. It's different, I don't hate it.
I am tired of Alterzim and i dont think it offers more good games than other maps on the pool. Also heavy rain should stay for another season at least.
Just because people don't veto Alterzim doesn't mean the map is good, Blizzard. The rest of the maps just sucked more...
As for the new maps... - I do not particularly care for Merry Go Round as it provides a heavy advantage to certain races and positions. - Waystation is decent in the long-cross spawns and terrible in the short-cross spawns. In addition, it's just stupid having bases not reachable by ground because Terrans can just fly a CC over there and have a perfectly safe expansion. - The other two are fine.
I'm a bit curious how much Korean pros practiced on these maps before they concluded it was good to add to the map-pools. I know a lot of the Korean map-makers had people test their maps at some point.
A word about Waystation; I thought it looked really short in close spawns, but I loaded it up in the editor and the nat2nat distance is actually 39 seconds which is pretty much exactly the same distance as on Yeonsu. I think if the islands were removed this might actually be a half decent map when spawning close, at least up to ~4 bases each.
On March 27 2014 07:19 darkness wrote: Is it me or are all maps with a harder third base to take? If that's the case, then bye-bye Protoss.
Not to worry, Protoss still has that dazzling array of 2base timings/all-ins that are almost impossible to stop even if you scout them five minutes in advance.
A piece of feedback we hear from time to time is that the community would like to hear about what we are discussing behind the scenes prior to making changes. Since we recently previewed the Season 2 ladder maps and have been gathering and reviewing feedback on the maps, we thought we’d offer some information on specific points that we’ve been discussing.
General 1v1 Map Feedback Overall, we've been seeing mostly positive feedback on the new maps. Within the discussion of these maps there have been a few general points of feedback that we’ve been reviewing. This includes discussion on scouting options for each race (Reapers, Overlords, etc), and the layout of the third bases on many of the maps . So far we're seeing mixed opinions on these topics, and we haven’t seen anything that we feel warrants a change at this time. We’ll continue to monitor these topics of discussion.
As for map specific feedback, we have a couple of points we’ve been discussing.
Waystation We’ve seen the most discussion on Waystation. Considering that the map has unique gameplay options depending on which location you start in, we expected that players would enjoy discussing the various possibilities within the map.
Add rocks to the island base We’ve heard that some players feel that rocks should be added to the island bases to make expansion to these bases more difficult. We’ve discussed this topic, and we’d really like to see how the island bases play out without rocks. This is a topic we are still discussing, but we’d like to push to keep these bases without rocks.
Make the top and bottom positions easier to wall off your natural expansion Some players have suggested that Waystation could benefit from making it easier to wall off your natural in the top and bottom start locations. We’ve looked at a few ways we achieve this, but we aren’t certain this is a change we want to make yet. We will be continuing to discuss this topic in more detail.
Merry Go Round We’ve seen a lot of discussion on this map due to it being the first 3-player map on the ladder. Among the discussion were reports of a few minor bugs. We’ve looked into these reports and passed the information along to our QA team.
Thank you to everyone who has provided feedback so far. Please keep sharing your thoughts, as we will continue to discuss the feedback we are receiving.
So I got nostalgic of Blizzard's April's fool patch in 2011, and went back to read it. And what do you know, hello Alter'zim
"Two new maps have been introduced to support macro-play! Both maps include 30 expansions, and it will take approximately 5 minutes for a scouting unit to reach an opponent's starting base."
I'm looking at these largely in therms of being able to defend against blink and I find that Waystation could be (most) problematic when spawned in the close together position.
On April 03 2014 18:13 Talack wrote: I dunno, damage might have already been done to the community. Only hardcores have stuck around now.
Even if we needed four new maps per season all from the community, we still get that now.
I think you overestimate the needed size of the mapping community (for ladder maps). Custom maps/the arcade are much more likely to suffer from a smaller mapping community than the ladder or tournaments. Those things just don't really require very many maps or a high rate of content creation.
At first glance the team maps seem to favour longer games, with more common start locations, more easily defended naturals (without rocks!), and more bases per player in general. Nice, looking forward to play on them!
I feel like PvZ is going to be tough on some of these. The distant 3rds and large chokes at the nats mean FF will not be as good both on offense or defense. TvP may also be rough with how weak blink will be, and trying to defend drops. I foresee a lot of 2 base all ins from toss. Taking a 3rd will not go well for toss on these maps. I'm curious as to the thoughts of zerg and terrans on this, as well as better protoss's (I am bad at this game XD )
Correct me if I'm wrong but it looks like all the mains are almost surrounded by impassable terrain (unless by air).
Personally I've always disliked Frost and dont know why they've kept it in for so long. It's kind of dull too, actually. Overall as a Z player I'm pretty happy, considering the previous seasons havent been very kind to zerg recently. Waystation seems like a challenging but interesting map to play and i just love the aesthetic of Overgrowth.
On April 14 2014 23:44 vult wrote: Yeah I don't see how they kept alterzim and got rid of Heavy Rain. We saw more great games on that map than on Alterzim.
Whatever, can't wait to get home today and lose on all the new maps!
Yeah, I totally agree. I loved Heavy Rain altough I´m playing terran. They probably only got rid of it because of the blink-all in whining.
Add rocks to the island base We’ve heard that some players feel that rocks should be added to the island bases to make expansion to these bases more difficult. We’ve discussed this topic, and we’d really like to see how the island bases play out without rocks. This is a topic we are still discussing, but we’d like to push to keep these bases without rocks.
Blizzard is fighting to keep rocks out of a map that the community wants to add? What planet are we on? What century is it?
Add rocks to the island base We’ve heard that some players feel that rocks should be added to the island bases to make expansion to these bases more difficult. We’ve discussed this topic, and we’d really like to see how the island bases play out without rocks. This is a topic we are still discussing, but we’d like to push to keep these bases without rocks.
Blizzard is fighting to keep rocks out of a map that the community wants to add? What planet are we on? What century is it?
Whats next? Blizzard thinks Blink Openers are too strong and the community thinks it needs a buff?!
Add rocks to the island base We’ve heard that some players feel that rocks should be added to the island bases to make expansion to these bases more difficult. We’ve discussed this topic, and we’d really like to see how the island bases play out without rocks. This is a topic we are still discussing, but we’d like to push to keep these bases without rocks.
Blizzard is fighting to keep rocks out of a map that the community wants to add? What planet are we on? What century is it?
They didn't necessarily say they were against the idea. They just said they wanted to see how the map would play out before adding to the map. There is a difference.
On March 27 2014 07:19 darkness wrote: Is it me or are all maps with a harder third base to take? If that's the case, then bye-bye Protoss.
Not to worry, Protoss still has that dazzling array of 2base timings/all-ins that are almost impossible to stop even if you scout them five minutes in advance.
On March 27 2014 07:19 darkness wrote: Is it me or are all maps with a harder third base to take? If that's the case, then bye-bye Protoss.
Not to worry, Protoss still has that dazzling array of 2base timings/all-ins that are almost impossible to stop even if you scout them five minutes in advance.
Do people actually think this?
Yeah. You only have to check WCS for being convinced.
On April 15 2014 00:32 Thalandros wrote: Personally I've always disliked Frost and dont know why they've kept it in for so long. It's kind of dull too, actually. Overall as a Z player I'm pretty happy, considering the previous seasons havent been very kind to zerg recently. Waystation seems like a challenging but interesting map to play and i just love the aesthetic of Overgrowth.
For a while I felt like I was the only person who felt that way about Frost. Makes me feel like less of an outcast to see other people say the same thing.
On March 27 2014 07:19 darkness wrote: Is it me or are all maps with a harder third base to take? If that's the case, then bye-bye Protoss.
Not to worry, Protoss still has that dazzling array of 2base timings/all-ins that are almost impossible to stop even if you scout them five minutes in advance.
Do people actually think this?
Yeah. You only have to check WCS for being convinced.
MC has been oracle expanding, into 2 base all in like the boss that he is. You know he's going to probably do it before the game starts, you scout and confirm it, he still kills you.
On March 27 2014 07:19 darkness wrote: Is it me or are all maps with a harder third base to take? If that's the case, then bye-bye Protoss.
Not to worry, Protoss still has that dazzling array of 2base timings/all-ins that are almost impossible to stop even if you scout them five minutes in advance.
Do people actually think this?
Yeah. You only have to check WCS for being convinced.
MC has been oracle expanding, into 2 base all in like the boss that he is. You know he's going to probably do it before the game starts, you scout and confirm it, he still kills you.
And he's been doing it more or less since HotS came out. And it keeps getting buffed :D
On March 27 2014 07:19 darkness wrote: Is it me or are all maps with a harder third base to take? If that's the case, then bye-bye Protoss.
Not to worry, Protoss still has that dazzling array of 2base timings/all-ins that are almost impossible to stop even if you scout them five minutes in advance.
Do people actually think this?
Yeah. You only have to check WCS for being convinced.
MC has been oracle expanding, into 2 base all in like the boss that he is. You know he's going to probably do it before the game starts, you scout and confirm it, he still kills you.
You can check Has, Alicia, Crank or Arthur games. They didn't bother taking a 3rd.
On April 15 2014 05:56 sage_francis wrote: Also, i have no clue why all the maps have huge ramps at natural when this was rectified on daedalus.... May somebody enligth me?
All the ramps are 3x at most. Daedalus had a 4x before the patch, that was the main problem.
Can someone enligthen me how I can take a third on Waystation against reaper/hellion/banshee? While the Terran gets a close third with the island...
How to wall of on Waystation? (Toss, Far spawns) Was just about to close the wall with 1 forge, 2 gates and 2 pylons when 6 Zerglings slipped through. And that guy played Hatch first -.- Somehow I feel like on Daedalous....dunno why
On April 15 2014 05:56 sage_francis wrote: Also, i have no clue why all the maps have huge ramps at natural when this was rectified on daedalus.... May somebody enligth me?
All the ramps are 3x at most. Daedalus had a 4x before the patch, that was the main problem.
Can someone enligthen me how I can take a third on Waystation against reaper/hellion/banshee? While the Terran gets a close third with the island...
Why not take a far away base and set up a nydus ala bw?
On April 15 2014 05:56 sage_francis wrote: Also, i have no clue why all the maps have huge ramps at natural when this was rectified on daedalus.... May somebody enligth me?
All the ramps are 3x at most. Daedalus had a 4x before the patch, that was the main problem.
Can someone enligthen me how I can take a third on Waystation against reaper/hellion/banshee? While the Terran gets a close third with the island...
Why not take a far away base and set up a nydus ala bw?
It's not worth to take bases with nydus. You spend 300/300, let opponent know you have it and can't defend it with ground units.
Anyway in all those maps it's pretty hard to take 3rd against helion/reaper/banshee.
terrible mappool maps like waystation to me feels like it was left in middle of creation and put into the mappool so empty and plain boring it is even without talknig about balanse and 3rd placement
king sejong is also terrible map
and 2 of the worst maps of the last season aka alterzim and frost are left
so far after playing a bunch on these maps i am very disappointed in all of them, the ones they kept and the new ones.
waystation is just really long on the macro side takes forever to cross the map and only allins with the other spawn.which is what they want i guess.
marry go round can still go blink and cant go reaper since there no place to jump unless you want to lose the reaper right away and not get the scout. and hard to hold third as zerg and toss and mech terran so far.
king sejong station isnt terribe but has crazy spots for tanks to shell your main if you let them get it which isnt hard to stop but still. i guess besides that i guess its ok so far
and last overgrowth im just not sure where to take a third on this map still. also a sick crazy spot for tanks to shell the nat from the base behind that natural, and with drops it can be a bitch to brake but also very sick to use not sure if i like it or not very abusive.
also every map has a hard to take third or some what hard to take there all just very poorly made maps IMO seem just too long. i feel they rush to pick the maps or they just dont care and did eeny meeny miny moe.
sadly this might be the season i take a break/stop playing sc2 none of these maps are any fun IMO leads to boring play with SH, very turtle mech since everything is so big, protoss silliness in general is still very good. w/e. i hope someone can show me so sick games on these map to change my mind but im just not digging these maps at all.
King sejong station : how to make a map where reaper is useless but blink still amazing! It's like the past few month we saw so many reaper abuse OPness leading to quick GG it was the right decision to design map with double height cliff everywhere to promote blink usage and prohibit any reaper play because blink was UP tactic that was absolutely not viable .
Not a single new map has actually a backdoor entrance that can be jumped using reaper. ALL fucking naturals are reaper proof . You can count jumpable cliffs with a single hand for most of these maps.
Where is the reaper love? This unit is not OP why the hell making anti reaper maps. It has begun with Polar night with stupid new concept of cliffs with ice blocks that can't be jumped and now it continues for every new blizzard map. It is very bad design to kill completely tactics that are not even OP. Playing with small reaper squad was ton of fun, Blizzard killed it.
Conclusion : there is not a single friendly reaper map on the mappool. NOT A SINGLE ONE ! Heavy rain ---> removed Yeonsu----> removed
RIP the reaper. Now it's just a hero unit you make after orbital to scout and then that fall to oblivion. Too bad for one of the most well redesigned unit of sc2
On April 15 2014 16:24 klup wrote: King sejong station : how to make a map where reaper is useless but blink still amazing! It's like the past few month we saw so many reaper abuse OPness leading to quick GG it was the right decision to design map with double height cliff everywhere to promote blink usage and prohibit any reaper play because blink was UP tactic that was absolutely not viable .
Not a single new map has actually a backdoor entrance that can be jumped using reaper. ALL fucking naturals are reaper proof . You can count jumpable cliffs with a single hand for most of these maps.
Where is the reaper love? This unit is not OP why the hell making anti reaper maps. It has begun with Polar night with stupid new concept of cliffs with ice blocks that can't be jumped and now it continues for every new blizzard map. It is very bad design to kill completely tactics that are not even OP. Playing with small reaper squad was ton of fun, Blizzard killed it.
Conclusion : there is not a single friendly reaper map on the mappool. NOT A SINGLE ONE ! Heavy rain ---> removed Yeonsu----> removed
RIP the reaper. Now it's just a hero unit you make after orbital to scout and then that fall to oblivion. Too bad for one of the most well redesigned unit of sc2
I don't know if that was a conscious decision, might just be a coincidence since alot of these maps were used in this season in professional games already.
On April 15 2014 16:24 klup wrote: King sejong station : how to make a map where reaper is useless but blink still amazing! It's like the past few month we saw so many reaper abuse OPness leading to quick GG it was the right decision to design map with double height cliff everywhere to promote blink usage and prohibit any reaper play because blink was UP tactic that was absolutely not viable .
Not a single new map has actually a backdoor entrance that can be jumped using reaper. ALL fucking naturals are reaper proof . You can count jumpable cliffs with a single hand for most of these maps.
Where is the reaper love? This unit is not OP why the hell making anti reaper maps. It has begun with Polar night with stupid new concept of cliffs with ice blocks that can't be jumped and now it continues for every new blizzard map. It is very bad design to kill completely tactics that are not even OP. Playing with small reaper squad was ton of fun, Blizzard killed it.
Conclusion : there is not a single friendly reaper map on the mappool. NOT A SINGLE ONE ! Heavy rain ---> removed Yeonsu----> removed
RIP the reaper. Now it's just a hero unit you make after orbital to scout and then that fall to oblivion. Too bad for one of the most well redesigned unit of sc2
It's what happens when you try to avoid make real changes and instead just dismember the map making when a strat or unit is problematic, blink all in being the case right now. It's been a recurring theme since 2011, contorting maps to fit them around bad gameplay and design.
Two years from now we'll probably be playing Frost on five different tilesets because it will be only map that is not broken.
On April 15 2014 16:24 klup wrote: King sejong station : how to make a map where reaper is useless but blink still amazing! It's like the past few month we saw so many reaper abuse OPness leading to quick GG it was the right decision to design map with double height cliff everywhere to promote blink usage and prohibit any reaper play because blink was UP tactic that was absolutely not viable .
Not a single new map has actually a backdoor entrance that can be jumped using reaper. ALL fucking naturals are reaper proof . You can count jumpable cliffs with a single hand for most of these maps.
Where is the reaper love? This unit is not OP why the hell making anti reaper maps. It has begun with Polar night with stupid new concept of cliffs with ice blocks that can't be jumped and now it continues for every new blizzard map. It is very bad design to kill completely tactics that are not even OP. Playing with small reaper squad was ton of fun, Blizzard killed it.
Conclusion : there is not a single friendly reaper map on the mappool. NOT A SINGLE ONE ! Heavy rain ---> removed Yeonsu----> removed
RIP the reaper. Now it's just a hero unit you make after orbital to scout and then that fall to oblivion. Too bad for one of the most well redesigned unit of sc2
I don't know if that was a conscious decision, might just be a coincidence since alot of these maps were used in this season in professional games already.
It's just a byproduct of tryinh to reduce blinkplay. Less cliffs in general, and the ones that are left often have doodads in between so that the blinking distance becomes longer. Or straight up holes instead of cliffs.
On April 15 2014 16:02 starslayer wrote: so far after playing a bunch on these maps i am very disappointed in all of them, the ones they kept and the new ones.
waystation is just really long on the macro side takes forever to cross the map and only allins with the other spawn.which is what they want i guess.
marry go round can still go blink and cant go reaper since there no place to jump unless you want to lose the reaper right away and not get the scout. and hard to hold third as zerg and toss and mech terran so far.
king sejong station isnt terribe but has crazy spots for tanks to shell your main if you let them get it which isnt hard to stop but still. i guess besides that i guess its ok so far
and last overgrowth im just not sure where to take a third on this map still. also a sick crazy spot for tanks to shell the nat from the base behind that natural, and with drops it can be a bitch to brake but also very sick to use not sure if i like it or not very abusive.
also every map has a hard to take third or some what hard to take there all just very poorly made maps IMO seem just too long. i feel they rush to pick the maps or they just dont care and did eeny meeny miny moe.
sadly this might be the season i take a break/stop playing sc2 none of these maps are any fun IMO leads to boring play with SH, very turtle mech since everything is so big, protoss silliness in general is still very good. w/e. i hope someone can show me so sick games on these map to change my mind but im just not digging these maps at all.
It's been a day since the season started. Give it some time. Generally, players, when faced with something unfamiliar, will either cheese/aggressive or turtle. So, at least for the start of the season, I think we will see a lot of either of these play styles as they are "safe" ways to play in unfamiliar circumstances (i.e. don't demand much in the way of adaptation). SC2 players are a bit of a coddled lot - we are used to playing the way we have always played. Inertia is easy.
Maybe this map pool will turn out to be bad; but, at this stage it is far too soon to tell either way. (Certainly the Code A game between Ruin and Reality on MGR looked very interesting, IMO.) Give it a month at least, keep playing and see how you go. You may end up liking some or all of the maps after all. GG HF.
Ugh, I don't have enough vetoes. I'm stuck having to play on Frost because King Sejong Station is joker town. Thanks to that, I'm enjoying a 10% TvZ this season. I think I'm done with ladder until the map pool improves, and it's only the first day. I can't bring myself to play a game I can't enjoy.
I freaking love the new maps, I'm enjoying playing ladder currently way more than in all of the other seasons recently. Really happy we got them in, although i woulda loved to add outboxer instead of king sejong, still a cool map tho.
On April 15 2014 16:02 starslayer wrote: so far after playing a bunch on these maps i am very disappointed in all of them, the ones they kept and the new ones.
waystation is just really long on the macro side takes forever to cross the map and only allins with the other spawn.which is what they want i guess.
marry go round can still go blink and cant go reaper since there no place to jump unless you want to lose the reaper right away and not get the scout. and hard to hold third as zerg and toss and mech terran so far.
king sejong station isnt terribe but has crazy spots for tanks to shell your main if you let them get it which isnt hard to stop but still. i guess besides that i guess its ok so far
and last overgrowth im just not sure where to take a third on this map still. also a sick crazy spot for tanks to shell the nat from the base behind that natural, and with drops it can be a bitch to brake but also very sick to use not sure if i like it or not very abusive.
also every map has a hard to take third or some what hard to take there all just very poorly made maps IMO seem just too long. i feel they rush to pick the maps or they just dont care and did eeny meeny miny moe.
sadly this might be the season i take a break/stop playing sc2 none of these maps are any fun IMO leads to boring play with SH, very turtle mech since everything is so big, protoss silliness in general is still very good. w/e. i hope someone can show me so sick games on these map to change my mind but im just not digging these maps at all.
It's been a day since the season started. Give it some time. Generally, players, when faced with something unfamiliar, will either cheese/aggressive or turtle. So, at least for the start of the season, I think we will see a lot of either of these play styles as they are "safe" ways to play in unfamiliar circumstances (i.e. don't demand much in the way of adaptation). SC2 players are a bit of a coddled lot - we are used to playing the way we have always played. Inertia is easy.
Maybe this map pool will turn out to be bad; but, at this stage it is far too soon to tell either way. (Certainly the Code A game between Ruin and Reality on MGR looked very interesting, IMO.) Give it a month at least, keep playing and see how you go. You may end up liking some or all of the maps after all. GG HF.
This mappool isn't that bad: Habitation Station has always been ok. The little bit of shannenigans around the gold base isn't that bad for the game. King Sejong Station has looked good in proplay, but maybe slightly zergfavored. Overgrowth looks pretty standard. Merry Go Round looks pretty standard, just with 3spawns instead of 4. Alterzim Stronghold, still a bit gambly early on and probably slightly anti-zerg, but prolevel has shown it's an OK map. Frost is still one of the best and best balanced maps SC2 ever had. Waystation is the one that looks/feels really bad.
Gnaaaa I just hate new maps in generell T_T I am way more passive and dont know really what to do than on maps I played a lot. I have like 4-15 on the new maps but positiv stats and the old ones lol
I'm relatively okay with most of the maps except Waystation. As a Zerg player, the spawns in both locations are actually really infuriating as I can't get the scouting info I need in time and/or can't take bases the way I would want to. Waystation is just really flawed, I'm not sure how Blizzard can justify this one.
Waystation seems so incredibly Terran favoured. I just had a PvT on it, on the furthest spawn positions. The manoeuvrability a Terran gets with Medivacs is insane compared to a slow Protoss push by ground, if you hold off a drop in the main they can just pick up and go to your third and take it out easily.
Then there's the fact they can scan your tech and by the time your army has made it to their base they've got it countered.
For the first time in many seasons I'm actually excited to try these new maps, I don't care if they are "imbalanced" when theorycrafting or after playing 2 games, they are different and it's something we should cherish.
This community is weird, complaining about stale map pools and the moment maps are different now complain about that? I'm sorry but the fact that maps are "blink friendly" or "imba for Terrans" or whatever IS NOT the reason why you keep losing, almost 100% of the time people complain they could've done something that would have won the game, you're not even near the level of pro gamers and if one of them manage to get a win on that specific map you can do it with no problems at all.
And I'm sorry, but to have a diverse map pool you need to have maps that favor different things, otherwise we're playing the same boring maps with a different tileset.
I haven't played any of these maps, overgrowth look hellauva lot of fun though, the only map I'm skeptical towards is merry go round. As a zerg, I mean seriously all these highground places. Like where tanks/colossi can just reach your third from the high ground(at least it looks like that) and the nice expansions you can take on a high ground perch just seems to favour terran mech so much. Feels hard to fight a terran mech on this map without SH which is what I prefer.
Overgrowth is nice to make a wall at main, not too wide, only played PvZ on it so far and I get the greedy zergs who get three bases really quickly before doing large roach/hydra pushes. It's kinda hard to position possible warp prism harrassments but it feels much more playable than Waystation. Still not had the chance to play on Sejong or Merry Go Round but I only have 1 veto left so I hope they're doable.
Just out of curiosity, what are other P players thoughts on Waystation for each match-up?
On April 16 2014 02:21 Uvantak wrote: Guys, here are the inefficient vespene geysers for the new maps, this can be discussed further on the thread dedicated to vespene inefficiency here
I love how the Blizzard map is the worst when it comes to gas mining. That kinda shows that the worst map makers do produce the worst map, I just wish they would stop wasting their employee's time of making maps when they are so untalented for it. It getting praises for being "innovative" with the different spawns kinda makes me sick as Korhal Floating Island (among other community maps) has done this some time ago. Long spawns feel very Zerg favored and closer spawns are just broken as it gives terran a free 3rd/4th. I'd atleast put a creep tumor/rocks on those islands and redesign the awful middle of the map (plus the god awful 3rd base possibilities for T/P in long spawns).
The other maps are pretty fun though, I really like Merry Go Round as I have been looking forward to playing on a 3 player map on Ladder since Testbug.
On April 16 2014 23:46 JanDe wrote: I must say that new maps suck as hell. Even newkirk was better.
Way to blow your 1000th post :b
Nah but in all seriousness why do you think the maps are bad? What do you consider to be a good map? (Don't give examples of good maps i know all the maps, i'm a mapmaker, talk about the features)
On April 16 2014 02:21 Uvantak wrote: Guys, here are the inefficient vespene geysers for the new maps, this can be discussed further on the thread dedicated to vespene inefficiency here
On April 16 2014 23:46 JanDe wrote: I must say that new maps suck as hell. Even newkirk was better.
Way to blow your 1000th post :b
Nah but in all seriousness why do you think the maps are bad? What do you consider to be a good map? (Don't give examples of good maps i know all the maps, i'm a mapmaker, talk about the features) [/QUOTE]
Why are you offended? I am sorry if you made some of these maps, it wasn't my intention to shit on your work at all.
First, new maps are kinda made "urgent, blink allin omfg!11!1". And it sucks. (i am not protoss btw)
King Sejong > I mean, wtf is this. So much alike Korhal, close expansions and wide open area for sieging opponent. Overgrowth is good! waystation>also, wtf, so weird designed map, 3rd is hard to take, easy to harras.
Plus removals of decent maps like Yeonsu or Polar night (decent in comparison to this ones).
On April 17 2014 01:48 JanDe wrote: Why are you offended? I am sorry if you made some of these maps, it wasn't my intention to shit on your work at all.
First, new maps are kinda made "urgent, blink allin omfg!11!1". And it sucks. (i am not protoss btw)
King Sejong > I mean, wtf is this. So much alike Korhal, close expansions and wide open area for sieging opponent. Overgrowth is good! waystation>also, wtf, so weird designed map, 3rd is hard to take, easy to harras.
Plus removals of decent maps like Yeonsu or Polar night (decent in comparison to this ones).
Way to uncourage someone to ladder.
He wasn't offended; he's a mapmaker looking for information as to what players feel makes for a "good" map. Very useful info for us mapmakers.
I definitely agree with your overall assessment, though. King Sejong was NOT designed for ladder play; it was designed for a team league where specific player/race match-up preparation is key. Throwing two completely random players of unknown racial match-up on the map makes for utterly terrible games. Everything ends up a coin flip. I feel bad for the map's creator, since it's going to get labelled as a terrible map (I've even said it out of frustration) for being placed in an environment it wasn't meant to be used in.
Waystation is just a continued demonstration on how Blizzard has zero clue how to make a decent competitive map, and probably never will figure it out. They couldn't get it right in SC:BW, WC:TFT, and now even in SC2.
Yeonsu and Polar Night were (surprise) community-made maps that were (surprise again) designed specifically for ladder/singles-bracket tournament play. As a result, their only flaws were their susceptibility to blink, something which wasn't known to be excessively powerful at the time of their creation.
Nah but in all seriousness why do you think the maps are bad? What do you consider to be a good map? (Don't give examples of good maps i know all the maps, i'm a mapmaker, talk about the features)
Why are you offended? I am sorry if you made some of these maps, it wasn't my intention to shit on your work at all.
First, new maps are kinda made "urgent, blink allin omfg!11!1". And it sucks. (i am not protoss btw)
King Sejong > I mean, wtf is this. So much alike Korhal, close expansions and wide open area for sieging opponent. Overgrowth is good! waystation>also, wtf, so weird designed map, 3rd is hard to take, easy to harras.
Plus removals of decent maps like Yeonsu or Polar night (decent in comparison to this ones).
Way to uncourage someone to ladder.
Offended? No. As our lovely Caustic said i'm searching for feedback and ways to improve my own maps and give feedback to other mapmakers to improve theirs, that's why i asked about the features of the maps and not comparisons between maps like you just did between Sejong and Korhal District/Precinct, because a vertically symmetric map will be designed in a very different fashion than a rotational symmetric 2 players map even if they end up playing the same (That's the objective you want to achieve).
Absolutes are no good, in mapmaking you can't really say that X is good or bad, because mapmaking is not a hard science, that's why it's useless for you to say X map is bad or Y is good, i have maps with lowground main bases and those maps are not inherently bad, in the same fashion i have other maps that are built around standard features and they are not good either, that's why i was asking you about what features you think are problematic for the new maps.
Why can we not have a bigger map pool? I mean rotating 4/5 maps in and out of a small pool to me is worse than just having a slightly bigger pool to play around with.
Vetos exist after all, and we've seen actual good maps being taken out time and time again for no apparent reason other than variety for its own sake.
On April 17 2014 01:48 JanDe wrote: Why are you offended? I am sorry if you made some of these maps, it wasn't my intention to shit on your work at all.
First, new maps are kinda made "urgent, blink allin omfg!11!1". And it sucks. (i am not protoss btw)
King Sejong > I mean, wtf is this. So much alike Korhal, close expansions and wide open area for sieging opponent. Overgrowth is good! waystation>also, wtf, so weird designed map, 3rd is hard to take, easy to harras.
Plus removals of decent maps like Yeonsu or Polar night (decent in comparison to this ones).
Way to uncourage someone to ladder.
He wasn't offended; he's a mapmaker looking for information as to what players feel makes for a "good" map. Very useful info for us mapmakers.
I definitely agree with your overall assessment, though. King Sejong was NOT designed for ladder play; it was designed for a team league where specific player/race match-up preparation is key. Throwing two completely random players of unknown racial match-up on the map makes for utterly terrible games. Everything ends up a coin flip. I feel bad for the map's creator, since it's going to get labelled as a terrible map (I've even said it out of frustration) for being placed in an environment it wasn't meant to be used in.
Waystation is just a continued demonstration on how Blizzard has zero clue how to make a decent competitive map, and probably never will figure it out. They couldn't get it right in SC:BW, WC:TFT, and now even in SC2.
Yeonsu and Polar Night were (surprise) community-made maps that were (surprise again) designed specifically for ladder/singles-bracket tournament play. As a result, their only flaws were their susceptibility to blink, something which wasn't known to be excessively powerful at the time of their creation.
I don't know what's so wrong about King Sejong. It's a little too easy to get 3,4,5 bases imo, but there is no feature that would be out of the ordinary in any way... Don't know what you say is a coinflip on it. In comparison to ANY 3-5 spawn map, scouting is way better and the ease of expansions rather makes it too predictable.
Waystation looks bad, but I gotta say that blizzard at least tries stuff and sometimes it works out decently (Alterzim; imbalanced but at least also different in this case). They have shown more than once that they are very capable of making your standard 08/15 maps (Antiga, Entombed, Derelicted, Newkirk...). They just don't want to, I guess. So despite all the justified shit they get for making maps like Waystation and (original) Daedalus, at least they still experiment with stuff.
And for Yeonsu and Polar Night, blink allins were said to be extremely powerful since the HotS beta. That's not because maps are to blame, but yes, that's the reason why they now had to go. And Yeonsu on top of that proved to be extremly imbalanced (with 60% winrates of T and P against Z).
On April 17 2014 04:39 Big J wrote: I don't know what's so wrong about King Sejong. It's a little too easy to get 3,4,5 bases imo, but there is no feature that would be out of the ordinary in any way... Don't know what you say is a coinflip on it. In comparison to ANY 3-5 spawn map, scouting is way better and the ease of expansions rather makes it too predictable.
TvT, PvP, and TvP are what I'm looking at when I talk about coin flips. It is painfully hard to reliably scout for proxies, and the layout of the main/natural makes holding certain all-ins quite difficult, especially if you're not able to fully scout what your opponent is doing and keep an eye on their army. Terrans can elevator siege the main, with the only way to break it from multiple angles requiring you to take down the rocks, or walk around forever (I say this as a Terran). It's also just an insanely good Zerg map for TvZ.
In a nutshell, all three Terran match-ups are a gong show on that map.
On April 17 2014 04:39 Big J wrote: Waystation looks bad, but I gotta say that blizzard at least tries stuff and sometimes it works out decently (Alterzim; imbalanced but at least also different in this case). They have shown more than once that they are very capable of making your standard 08/15 maps (Antiga, Entombed, Derelicted, Newkirk...). They just don't want to, I guess. So despite all the justified shit they get for making maps like Waystation and (original) Daedalus, at least they still experiment with stuff.
Every one of those map examples you gave had major design/balance issues. They managed to salvage Antiga and Entombed by disabling certain spawns (in the case of Antiga, even making it cross-only, so it was effectively a 2-spawn map). Blizzard is simply not good at making maps. Sure they experiment, but so do all of the community mapmakers. Waystation being a 2-in-1? That's been done by the community a number of times before (and even had such a map used in Proleague in the form of Korhal Sky Island). Blizzard's "experimentation" is creating poorly executed versions of community ideas.
On April 17 2014 04:39 Big J wrote: And for Yeonsu and Polar Night, blink allins were said to be extremely powerful since the HotS beta. That's not because maps are to blame, but yes, that's the reason why they now had to go. And Yeonsu on top of that proved to be extremly imbalanced (with 60% winrates of T and P against Z).
Blink was known to be strong since early HotS, yes, but not in the dominating form we've seen since then. Back then it was 1-base blink, which could (and still can) be held and punished. Yeonsu was published on January 24th, 2013.
As for Yeonsu's ZvX balance, for TvZ in particular when you break down the stats to see who's winning against who, you'll find a lot of games consisting of Korean Terrans beating non-Korean Zergs. Considering how Yeonsu was actually a more balanced TvZ map, you'd expect to see this kind of trend thanks to numerous Korean Terrans populating WCS EU and WCS AM.
I can't speak for PvZ, however. I'm not as knowledgeable regarding the professional level of that match up, since it's entirely irrelevant to the race I play. Any and all knowledge I have of the match-up is to help with my mapmaking.
I can't speak for PvZ, however. I'm not as knowledgeable regarding the professional level of that match up, since it's entirely irrelevant to the race I play. Any and all knowledge I have of the match-up is to help with my mapmaking.
It's flat out broken for ZvP, it's probably as bad as the early WoL blizzard maps. Which really is a shame, because it has some interesting things going for it. Honestly, trying to design fun, creative maps around the huge and ever increasing restrictions seems almost impossible.
I just realize that main is blinkable also on overgrowth... To sum up, king sejong (from the 2 sides), merry go round, overgrowth and way station on close positions are blinkable in the main... Anyone can confirm?
My first impressions: 1. King Sejong Station LE (I always love snowtheme and there's lot of room for cheesy proxyplay) 2. Overgrowth LE (Simple with a nice tileset and the option to go for gold and a good hard-to-take 3rd) 3. Merry Go Round LE (Cool with a 3 player map, and a very nice tileset as always when Team Crux making a map) 4. Waystation (I think it's cool and unique map that can either be a 2 or 4player map, since opponent always spawn diagonally, also this tilset is nice)
If you wanted to kill the meching Terran even more, these maps do a great job doing it! Not only is blink still a viable option (maybe not as much on previous maps like Heavy Rain) but, mark my words, Zergs will start to dominate this map pool vs Terran. All these new chokes are ridiculously large; not to mention the thirds are so far away (overgrowth, waystation, merry-go-round). I find im walling off with 4-5 depots and a bunker, lol? These maps should become a UMS map called "depot wars" - don't build any units, just depots! Oh look you failed to make your 5th depot against the 1a of lings! You lose! Better luck next time, try another race...you're an idiot for playing Terran in this STOG (and I'm one of them).
Oh, and by the way, after you make your 10th depot wall-off, you should start the turret ring for mutas - try a turret ring on King Sejon ahahahahah. I figure you're about 2k in minerals down trying to secure your natural and main...
I'm 100 games into ladder this season so this hate has been building slowly. I'm not one to "unload" on maps unless i try them for a good period of time.
Started laddering again for the past two days. I just want to say, these new maps suck. Especially Merry Go Round. 0% win rate against Zerg on that map at the moment. And I've been winning a lot because I didn't play for a while so I got demoted.
Maybe this isn't a "good" reason to bump this thread, but has no one else noticed that the minerals on Conduit are arranged to look like a Space Invader?
EPT
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