EPT[TLMC4] Finalists and Voting - Page 6
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jamesapjoyce
61 Posts
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ThomasjServo
15244 Posts
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Destructicon
4713 Posts
Foxtrot No major vulnerability to all-ins on the main and nat layouts of both spawn possibilities. You have two choice of third bases, on the bottom left and top right spawns, both reasonably close to the nats and both harassable from the high grounds above the mineral lines. The other spawn locations present a more linear layout. The major point of interest will be the middle, dominated by the two cliffs. There are multiple small paths between those. My worry here is that, in a lot of MU's, if one or both players can stabilize at some point in the mid game then they can split the map. In TvT its easy to dominate the cliffs with siege tanks, sensor towers and air control and it wouldn't be hard for it to happen in TvZ or for Zerg to abuse SH on it vs Toss. Now in my humble opinion if you wanted to break such a defensive line you'd go about it in one of two ways, you harass enough to pull the defending units out of position or you setup a large flank. I'm not sure if the arhitecture of the map allows enough room to harass efficiently or to maneuver around enough to pull out of position or flank the enemy. The early to mid game should play out with both players trying to setup that defensive line while trying to prevent the enemy from doing the same via harass. If however they stabilize they will turtle. Thus this map gets a no from me for potentially promoting a way too defensive gameplay. Deadwing Straight forward base layout for the first 4 bases. There are a couple of annoying vulnerabilities if both players spawn top or both. The high ground 3rds can be sieged from the other mineral line, the 4th mineral line can also be sieged from the high ground ridge. I get a feeling that close spawns will have to be disabled unless the bases are moved a bit. The map seems to lead itself to being split up somewhat, with both players taking the bottom or top sides. But it doesn't feel as easy to do as say Shakuras or Newkirk, it looks like there are more angles you can attack from to draw the opponent out of position and its harder to cover as much space with limited units as you could on Newkirk. TvT would be mech favored in close positions and bio favored far or cross, TvZ would be terran favored close positions and probably zerg favored cross and far. PvZ should be very P favored with some really strong FF based all-ins able to abuse the bridge going in between nat and 3rd and it should be about even in cross or long. I'm interested to see how it will play out, given that you can potentially secure a lot of bases easily but you might have a harder time defending them due to most of the mineral lines oriented towards the attacker and being somewhat close to cliffs. My only worry is that it might be a tad too big in cross spawns. Overall this would get my vote if horizontal spawns where disabled. CJ Biome The main, nat and 3rd layouts look secure initially. However there are a lot of features that I hate about the map. First you can easily siege both 3rds from another 3rd location. I dislike this because the risk, reward ratio to this feels very wrong to that of attacking a base directly. You commit less units and they are far safer by sending them around to the side to siege a 3rd mineral line, you also need to dedicate a slightly smaller force to dislodge it form the siege position, meaning potentially more of your army can be caught out of position and killed. Second problem is the huge amount of air vulnerability, Mutalisks in particular are already extremely strong in this state of the game and I'm not sure it would be a good idea making them even more powerful, especially given that they are already strong due to the architecture of the map, being able to ping pong between bases and such. Last problem I have with the map is that you can potentially split it by setting up a defensive line with static defense + tanks/SH in the middle. I must admit, I'm a fan of the concept, but I don't believe its correctly executed here so I'll give this map a pass. Catallena The mains look kind of vulnerable to both blink all-ins and siege ups right next to them, so that worries me a bit. The nats look very secure though. For obvious reasons 3 player maps are unexplored. It looks like this tries to address having 3rds close to the enemy by providing you with two high ground 3rds, both quite defensible. I like this approach, I'm a fan of small and incremental design steps, working with known concepts. That being said, because its 3 spawn its still hard to completely expand away from the enemy, so the 3rd might still be hard to secure, but I like the direction its going and I'm interested in seeing it play out. Overall we have so little experience with 3 player maps that I want to give this map my vote just so we can learn more about the game. Kamala Park Looks like a 2 in 1 map with a secure main and nat and a close 3rd, good base flow, should be easy for all races to get up to a 3rd base. My big worry is that, with most of the bases being concentrated at the top or bottom of the map that the map lends itself very easily to a turtle style. Despite there being numerous attack paths into the high ground plateau where the bases are, it doesn't matter as much since the paths lead more or less to the same area, thus some well placed static defense and a army could hold those positions really well. If some of the bases or paths where re-worked so you couldn't split the map as easily then it might be better, but with how they bases are clustered I doubt it. The map gets a nay from me because I've had enough of seeing turtle mech games or SH games, never mind playing them. | ||
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Greendotz
United Kingdom2053 Posts
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Babru
196 Posts
On April 30 2014 16:16 Ragoo wrote: Also no offense to NemRaC (I think you're relatively new) but if you think Biome looks good think again. In every area there is basically only 2 textures being used which greatly limits how well you can texture it. Also the texture work isn't even particularly good, the doodads are almost non-existant and the way textures come together in the middle..... Are you saying the middle of Biome looks like a giant anus hole? Biome just struck me as real ugly looking at first. After having looked at it some more I seem to appreciate its simple looks a bit more though. Gameplay-wise I like the concept of the map and I dont think the map has severe turtle issues given the short distance from player to player and given the huge open space around the middle and right outside the 3rd and the 4th (although that cliff area separating the entrance from the 3rd and the 4th could be made a little smaller to make for even more open space). I kind of want to play it, it looks real fun. I think it could use a bit more work (or a complete redo?) when it comes to the tilsets/textures though. | ||
Waxangel
United States33581 Posts
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LockeTazeline
2390 Posts
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Quateras
Germany867 Posts
However I'm a little disappointed with the chosen maps though. Felt there were a lot more unusual and new exciting ways to play in the maps that got cut :-( | ||
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Zenbrez
Canada5973 Posts
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SoniC_eu
Denmark1008 Posts
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Corazon
United States3230 Posts
1. Maps with 2 ramps into the main don't really work unless there is a good use of rocks. 2. Maps without a standard ramp don't work at all (PvP) We received a variety of new and interesting ideas, but most of them were way too out there in order to make it to the playtesting process. | ||
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EatThePath
United States3943 Posts
we knew balance was going to be something that would need to be carefully examined before being considered by Blizzard oh the irony | ||
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FlopTurnReaver
Switzerland1980 Posts
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Sogetsu
514 Posts
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lorestarcraft
United States1049 Posts
On May 01 2014 06:31 FlopTurnReaver wrote: I'm glad at least the "old" mapmaking community shares the same opinion. Also I'm glad I didn't put myself through the stress of pushing 2 maps in short time for this. Waiting for another Red Bull Contest or w/e that was. Not sure if I qualify for that group or not but yeah, pretty much in agreement. I don't understand only 5 finalists either. | ||
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EatThePath
United States3943 Posts
[edit] Of course congrats to the finalists! Forgot to say that yet.  | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On May 01 2014 04:38 Corazon wrote: For those complaining about lack of variety in the maps: 1. Maps with 2 ramps into the main don't really work unless there is a good use of rocks. 2. Maps without a standard ramp don't work at all (PvP) We received a variety of new and interesting ideas, but most of them were way too out there in order to make it to the playtesting process. What are you talking about with PvP. It's always gping to be balanced. It's pretty shitty that you keep on making up excuses for PvP, meanwhile I have never heard anyone consider that you need a choke coverable by 3.5 large buildings without planting a creeptumor first to not have shitty ZvZ mass zergling gameplay. | ||
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Corazon
United States3230 Posts
On May 01 2014 08:13 Big J wrote: What are you talking about with PvP. It's always gping to be balanced. It's pretty shitty that you keep on making up excuses for PvP, meanwhile I have never heard anyone consider that you need a choke coverable by 3.5 large buildings without planting a creeptumor first to not have shitty ZvZ mass zergling gameplay. Do you play Protoss? | ||
EsportsJohn
United States4883 Posts
On May 01 2014 08:13 Big J wrote: What are you talking about with PvP. It's always gping to be balanced. It's pretty shitty that you keep on making up excuses for PvP, meanwhile I have never heard anyone consider that you need a choke coverable by 3.5 large buildings without planting a creeptumor first to not have shitty ZvZ mass zergling gameplay. Without the ability to hold a main ramp with forcefield, it's practically impossible to hold a lot of PvP all-ins. There has been extensive testing on this in previous map contests, and we've come to the conclusion pretty unanimously that it's just not possible to play PvP with a large ramp. Also, we do also spend a lot of time thinking about the distances between main and natural, the size of the main ramp, the size of the natural ramp, the distance of the main ramp to the hatchery, and the distance of natural ramp from the hatchery into account when playing these maps. It just so happens that 90% of the time, these problems happen to coincide with Protoss problems as well. Daedalus Point was a failed map not only for Zerg versus Protoss and Terran, but also for ZvZ, where it was near impossible to get past the ling/bling phase safely because you couldn't wall (and also, your spine crawler didn't quite cover your mineral line AND ramp, which was a pain in the ass). Trust me, we've talked about Zerg as well, TL Strategy isn't actually as biased as some people might think. | ||
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Mistakes
United States1102 Posts
No other choice. :D | ||
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