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On November 30 2014 23:25 SatedSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 30 2014 23:24 Incognoto wrote:
Well maps don't matter anymore given the state of the dreampool, or should I say Blizzard's troll pool. That's funny because Dreampool actually has less retarded maps than last season's map-pool did (at least in my opinion); not that Dreampool actually matters in this context because tournaments haven't been using it.
Indeed, to be fair I don't mind maps like Cloud Kingdom, Daybreak and so on. However XelNaga caverns? Metalopolis? Naaaaha come on Blizzard why.
I also find it distasteful that professional players can no longer use the ladder to practice for upcoming tournaments. Blizzard is basically saying, blizzcon is over, wcs is over, nothing else matters.
I find it silly at best, I suppose.
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On December 01 2014 00:47 Maniak_ wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2014 00:29 Nebuchad wrote:
The thread is doing better than expected, honestly. Most people recognize that the path that makes sense involves doing nothing and changing the maps. You would think that's obvious, but history tells us it's not. It would have been the thing to do in july instead of doing both. Doing only one now may not be enough to fix this mistake. Still it'd be a start and we'll see what happens afterwards. No need to rush things, we're already seeing what that accomplishes.
In Blizzard's defense, they picked some HUGE maps for last season, which are traditionally the bane of a Terran's existence. I wouldn't be surprised if they thought the open spaces on Catallena and MGR were just balancing out the fact that they're bigger than Whirlwind.
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On December 01 2014 01:08 pure.Wasted wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2014 00:47 Maniak_ wrote:On December 01 2014 00:29 Nebuchad wrote:
The thread is doing better than expected, honestly. Most people recognize that the path that makes sense involves doing nothing and changing the maps. You would think that's obvious, but history tells us it's not. It would have been the thing to do in july instead of doing both. Doing only one now may not be enough to fix this mistake. Still it'd be a start and we'll see what happens afterwards. No need to rush things, we're already seeing what that accomplishes. In Blizzard's defense, they picked some HUGE maps for last season, which are traditionally the bane of a Terran's existence. I wouldn't be surprised if they thought the open spaces on Catallena and MGR were just balancing out the fact that they're bigger than Whirlwind.
I don't think that this statement really holds anymore. The statment was true when we were talking about the difference between Metalopolis Short Distance or Metalopolis Cross Distance in 2010-11. But bigger maps like Frost, Deadwing, Alterzim, Whirlwind, Star Station, Newkirk were all balanced or even Terran favored, unless some form of Terran nerfs were involved. (like Frost stats severely suffered in TvZ after the mine nerf; before that they were were balanced).
I think this has mainly to do with Speedmedivacs in HotS.
The distance of a map is not much more impactful than the layout of the main, natural or third base imo.
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On November 30 2014 23:13 SoulmaN__ wrote:Show nested quote +On November 30 2014 23:07 bypLy wrote:
some great research there, how was the stats before the patch? I didn't collect those, but I think they're both very much in Zerg's and Protoss' favor, if you include Ro32 onwards. However these stats kinda confirm what many people already suspected, that Protoss needs massive help against Terran.
lmao protoss doesn't need any help. there OP as fuck,
User was warned for this post
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On December 01 2014 01:08 pure.Wasted wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2014 00:47 Maniak_ wrote:On December 01 2014 00:29 Nebuchad wrote:
The thread is doing better than expected, honestly. Most people recognize that the path that makes sense involves doing nothing and changing the maps. You would think that's obvious, but history tells us it's not. It would have been the thing to do in july instead of doing both. Doing only one now may not be enough to fix this mistake. Still it'd be a start and we'll see what happens afterwards. No need to rush things, we're already seeing what that accomplishes. In Blizzard's defense, they picked some HUGE maps for last season, which are traditionally the bane of a Terran's existence.
They were, but since that time medivacs got a new free ability that allows them to zoom through any map pretty quickly 
They should maybe look at opening up the options of everyone else too.
You can't have maps with too many chokes because of force fields, small maps are too easy to rush/proxy on, you must make sure siege tanks can't reach mineral lines from unbreakable positions, big air spaces around bases and big open areas used to be advantageous for zergs but now it's more useful for terrans, ...
That's quite a lot of constraints, and the advantages given when they're not applied are not very well spread out over the various races.
I'd rather see the number of constraints getting lower than numbers being tweaked to try to balance out their impact. But there's only a chance for that in LotV, so until then, having a map pool that's not so terran favored would be a nice start. Even if it means having similar standard and boring maps. And then, try to address the map design issues with LotV.
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On December 01 2014 01:24 DreamR wrote:Show nested quote +On November 30 2014 23:13 SoulmaN__ wrote:On November 30 2014 23:07 bypLy wrote:
some great research there, how was the stats before the patch? I didn't collect those, but I think they're both very much in Zerg's and Protoss' favor, if you include Ro32 onwards. However these stats kinda confirm what many people already suspected, that Protoss needs massive help against Terran. lmao protoss doesn't need any help. there OP as fuck,
Nope. Check the OP. There you can find out if they're OP.
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They should have never given the WM the +shield damage. It does more than enough damage since it was returned to it's original value. This buff seemed necessary at the time because the maps were so blink favored, but in reality it has killed zealot ht openings completely, which were some of the most fun and dynamic games for both sides of the mathup; reducing TvP to a predictable bio vs colossus play, with the occasional proxy stargate or blink based all in.
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Its mostly the maps though combined with the widow mine change it seems to have added a mind block to most protoss, so it will take them a bit longer to adapt, but then they will strike back double as hard.
But widow mines do decide a few games, because of their probe killing capabilities. They should nerf probes to 25 hp 15 shield heh.
But it is a tough topic, because maps that don't play standard usually get sorted out, so people have no idea what to do if a map breaks away from the norm and don't even want to try. Which really blocks evolution of maps and its usually up to Blizzard to force changes to maps, because they have the power.
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On December 01 2014 01:42 FeyFey wrote:
Its mostly the maps though combined with the widow mine change it seems to have added a mind block to most protoss, so it will take them a bit longer to adapt, but then they will strike back double as hard.
But widow mines do decide a few games, because of their probe killing capabilities. They should nerf probes to 25 hp 15 shield heh.
But it is a tough topic, because maps that don't play standard usually get sorted out, so people have no idea what to do if a map breaks away from the norm and don't even want to try. Which really blocks evolution of maps and its usually up to Blizzard to force changes to maps, because they have the power.
i really dont think its got much to do with adapting, protoss prettymuch has to go collossus because chargelot/Ht struggles vs mines ( tho honestly alotugh it was harder it was much more fun to watch than collosus)
the problem with this is protoss has to wait aages to get a third because while you can hold the natural with just 1 collossus+ some gateway units you cant hold a third till you have a sizeable army
its not protss has much options since you need someform of splash vs Terran unless your allining and really the two options are collosus or HT, so its not even like they can try stargate etc
tbh the thing thats screwing mosts zerg over is that you used to be able t play greedy then fight equal fotting vs bio mine ( or wait till he ran outa steam to take a 4th ) or you built up too many muta for him to deal with
niether style works particularly well anymore because you have to get banenest or roaches to defend possible hellbats shenanigans which means later ups later 4th etc
they also have hellion banshee to be wary about but tbh when dealt with properly hellion banshee sets both zerg and terran back equal ammounts (banshee delays his ups since he needs 2 banshees +cloak etc whereas the hellbatpushes just need an armory in terms of investment) , not to mention banshees are much easier to scout
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On December 01 2014 01:42 FeyFey wrote:
Its mostly the maps though combined with the widow mine change it seems to have added a mind block to most protoss, so it will take them a bit longer to adapt, but then they will strike back double as hard.
But widow mines do decide a few games, because of their probe killing capabilities. They should nerf probes to 25 hp 15 shield heh.
But it is a tough topic, because maps that don't play standard usually get sorted out, so people have no idea what to do if a map breaks away from the norm and don't even want to try. Which really blocks evolution of maps and its usually up to Blizzard to force changes to maps, because they have the power.
In which way do the maps in the current tournament-mappool break away from the norm?
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On December 01 2014 01:53 Enigmasc wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2014 01:42 FeyFey wrote:
Its mostly the maps though combined with the widow mine change it seems to have added a mind block to most protoss, so it will take them a bit longer to adapt, but then they will strike back double as hard.
But widow mines do decide a few games, because of their probe killing capabilities. They should nerf probes to 25 hp 15 shield heh.
But it is a tough topic, because maps that don't play standard usually get sorted out, so people have no idea what to do if a map breaks away from the norm and don't even want to try. Which really blocks evolution of maps and its usually up to Blizzard to force changes to maps, because they have the power. tbh the thing thats screwing mosts zerg over is that you used to be able t play greedy then fight equal fotting vs bio mine ( or wait till he ran outa steam to take a 4th ) or you built up too many muta for him to deal with niether style works particularly well anymore because you have to get banenest or roaches to defend possible hellbats shenanigans which means later ups later 4th etc they also have hellion banshee to be wary about but tbh when dealt with properly hellion banshee sets both zerg and terran back equal ammounts (banshee delays his ups since he needs 2 banshees +cloak etc whereas the hellbatpushes just need an armory in terms of investment) , not to mention banshees are much easier to scout
Exactly, which is why you don't see Zergs go for the standard macro game anymore.
The most prominent example of this is Life, sure, he did win Blizzcon and we're all grateful for it, but he did cheese and all in his way towards it.
soO on the other hand tried to macro but eventually couldn't fight back even if he's easily the best macro Zerg out there.
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I'd like to throw out some different results I got doing something very similar earlier this month.
Across MSI Beat It, Blizzcon, Hot6ix Qualifiers, and HSC V, counting only Korean vs Korean games (this impacted MSI and HSC V), TvZ was 51.3% in favor of Zerg from a score of 56-53.
Since then, parts of Hot6ix and HSC V and all of DH:W were completed, for an additional 4-4 from Hot6ix, 7-6 from HSC V, and 23-21 from DH:W, both favoring Zerg, which brings my earlier total to 51.7% in favor of Zerg from a score of 90-84.
I question the OP's methodology in using all games after the patch, because that suggests that all games after the patch fall under the same umbrella, that the situation today is the same as it was two months ago, and that simply isn't true. It takes time for responses to certain strategies to be figured out. Take the Hellbat push that Flash had such monstrous success with in Code S, yesterday ForGG tried it at least three times against Life over two series and failed EVERY SINGLE TIME. This despite Life's propensity to skip Roaches in defending early pressure.
My post isn't, strictly speaking, necessary, because everybody is being quite level headed about results that are much worse than the reality today. But the aims of the OP are suspect. Nowhere does he suggest that ZvT winrate has gone up consistently and considerably the longer the patch has been out.
On December 01 2014 01:27 Maniak_ wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2014 01:08 pure.Wasted wrote:On December 01 2014 00:47 Maniak_ wrote:On December 01 2014 00:29 Nebuchad wrote:
The thread is doing better than expected, honestly. Most people recognize that the path that makes sense involves doing nothing and changing the maps. You would think that's obvious, but history tells us it's not. It would have been the thing to do in july instead of doing both. Doing only one now may not be enough to fix this mistake. Still it'd be a start and we'll see what happens afterwards. No need to rush things, we're already seeing what that accomplishes. In Blizzard's defense, they picked some HUGE maps for last season, which are traditionally the bane of a Terran's existence. They were, but since that time medivacs got a new free ability that allows them to zoom through any map pretty quickly They should maybe look at opening up the options of everyone else too.
Whirlwind Innovation vs DRG had speedy Medivacs, and that was smaller than Deadwing and Catallena. I'm very glad that the community is willing to look at the maps first in this situation, I just don't think the mistake Blizzard made was a rookie one. As you go on to say, there are very many things to factor into map design.
edit: updated with full HSC V results.
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Canada13406 Posts
On December 01 2014 01:08 pure.Wasted wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2014 00:47 Maniak_ wrote:On December 01 2014 00:29 Nebuchad wrote:
The thread is doing better than expected, honestly. Most people recognize that the path that makes sense involves doing nothing and changing the maps. You would think that's obvious, but history tells us it's not. It would have been the thing to do in july instead of doing both. Doing only one now may not be enough to fix this mistake. Still it'd be a start and we'll see what happens afterwards. No need to rush things, we're already seeing what that accomplishes. In Blizzard's defense, they picked some HUGE maps for last season, which are traditionally the bane of a Terran's existence. I wouldn't be surprised if they thought the open spaces on Catallena and MGR were just balancing out the fact that they're bigger than Whirlwind.
No.
Maps were chosen that were less "standard" than the maps in Season 2 and offered a little more variation.
Here is some insight: TLMC lead to the current map pool through community maps. What TL strat chose for final voting were very much - break away from the norm maps that didn't emphasize blink or easy split map swarmhost strategies. Both of which were big problems in the first half of 2014.
I also put an emphasis on maps that would be a little bit terran favoured in TvP when vetting the maps and creating a shortlist from which the finalists were chosen.
the shortlist has a ton of maps I think it was around 30 or so? We had a LOT of entries into the contest afterall
Some of my favourites didnt make the finalists because we did a consensus vote for top 5 or w/e it was.
Blizz got the shortlist not the top 5 list and from it they looked at the maps and picked what they did and didnt like and ran with em. We got some great maps this season. There were some innovative and interesting builds this season as well which I am really glad for.
At the same time however we discovered another map concern - how much droppable space is too much? Catallena and Nimbus were tough before the mine patch for toss, and I think this was okay. Before that patch terrans were losing a LOT and Cata was good for SCV pulls, Nimbus less so, but Nimbus's rotational symmetry lead to a couple of good positions for Terran to spawn in and due to the 4p nature lessened the impact of very early proxy oracles - which meant more in base stargate openers than on the season 2 2p maps.
I think part of the reason toss might be having such a low win rate might be due to the fact that there simply are more 3-4player maps, making proxy oracle play and 10 gate play much weaker which we saw a LOT of is season 2 of 2014.
I for one think if we do change the maps and hope for a fix, it might work. It might not. I am not sure to be honest. I think the maps did a good job in season 3 but for reasons that differ from "making mines weaker". I think the aggressive options for P and all ins were really hurt with the map pool alone and by strengthening the mines on top of it and the drop space it became an issue.
However all this being said I really wish that templar openers were still viable, and that the next season map pool does make a difference.
I wish they had also never buffed the mine to begin with because I felt the maps were evening out TvP just fine! I don't play TvZ so I can't say how the maps did or didn't hurt them. I do know that nimbus used to be even more T favoured before some minor changes were made, where you could PF a third and then attack into the Z in 2/3 spawn positions on the map.
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On December 01 2014 02:19 ZeromuS wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2014 01:08 pure.Wasted wrote:On December 01 2014 00:47 Maniak_ wrote:On December 01 2014 00:29 Nebuchad wrote:
The thread is doing better than expected, honestly. Most people recognize that the path that makes sense involves doing nothing and changing the maps. You would think that's obvious, but history tells us it's not. It would have been the thing to do in july instead of doing both. Doing only one now may not be enough to fix this mistake. Still it'd be a start and we'll see what happens afterwards. No need to rush things, we're already seeing what that accomplishes. In Blizzard's defense, they picked some HUGE maps for last season, which are traditionally the bane of a Terran's existence. I wouldn't be surprised if they thought the open spaces on Catallena and MGR were just balancing out the fact that they're bigger than Whirlwind. No. Maps were chosen that were less "standard" than the maps in Season 2 and offered a little more variation. Here is some insight: TLMC lead to the current map pool through community maps. What TL strat chose for final voting were very much - break away from the norm maps that didn't emphasize blink or easy split map swarmhost strategies. Both of which were big problems in the first half of 2014. I also put an emphasis on maps that would be a little bit terran favoured in TvP when vetting the maps and creating a shortlist from which the finalists were chosen.
Thanks for the elaboration. However, I'm not sure what you were saying "no" to. Your point that "we found out how much air space is too much" just furthers mine that Blizzard can't shoulder all the blame for not foreseeing this situation.
Agreed about Templar openers.
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ForGG tried it five or six times against Life over two series and failed EVERY SINGLE TIME. This despite Life's propensity to skip Roaches in defending early pressure.
Well, and how did the games end? Just because the rushes did not outright win doesn't mean they failed.
Though personally I think it has less to do with forgg doing hellbat pushes, but with Life playing very bad builds against them that can hold but fall behind by default, even against such commited allins.
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On December 01 2014 02:36 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +ForGG tried it five or six times against Life over two series and failed EVERY SINGLE TIME. This despite Life's propensity to skip Roaches in defending early pressure. Well, and how did the games end? Just because the rushes did not outright win doesn't mean they failed. Though personally I think it has less to do with forgg doing hellbat pushes, but with Life playing very bad builds against them that can hold but fall behind by default, even against such commited allins.
My point is specifically that the Hellbat push is nowhere near as scary as it used to be. I never implied that Terran is unable to transition from it into a macro game. Although in g5 of their second series, ForGG was in fact not able to transition from it into a macro game, because Life's immediate Roach counter pressure killed him dead.
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This stats saves eSports 
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Tournaments are also responsible for this.
I mean once Blizzcon was finished why did they stick to the old map pool.
If DH had replaced Nimbus and Foxtrot by Frost and Habitation Station, we would have got a much better tournament in terms of equality of win rates. For the record Nimbus has 35% win rate in PvT, Foxtrot has 42% (raw aligulac stats).
Hot6ix cup and IEM should also get rid of the most broken maps.
I also hope that in 2015 WCS system won't be so conservative in terms of map pool and let GSL/OSL add their own maps.
It is very hard to know what the meta will evolve to on each map, tournaments should always be allowed to remove maps that ends up being broken.
Last, why just 7 maps each season? it locks the map pool for all finals which are usually bo7, we should ahve 10 maps or so to work with. Moreover, it would allow to test some non-standard maps without breaking the balance in every tournament for the next 4 monthes....
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On December 01 2014 02:45 pure.Wasted wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2014 02:36 Big J wrote:ForGG tried it five or six times against Life over two series and failed EVERY SINGLE TIME. This despite Life's propensity to skip Roaches in defending early pressure. Well, and how did the games end? Just because the rushes did not outright win doesn't mean they failed. Though personally I think it has less to do with forgg doing hellbat pushes, but with Life playing very bad builds against them that can hold but fall behind by default, even against such commited allins. My point is specifically that the Hellbat push is nowhere near as scary as it used to be. I never implied that Terran is unable to transition from it into a macro game. Although in g5 of their second series, ForGG was in fact not able to transition from it into a macro game, because Life's immediate Roach counter pressure killed him dead.
My point is that if you defend them in ways that still make you lose the game then they are still as scary as ever. So despite agreeing that the hellbat pushes aren't as scary anymore, the chosen examples do not show that at all. Despite the g5 you pointed out.
(though the hellbat/banshee is just not a good hellbat push to begin with; it's like a zerg that goes for a roach/ling allin at the time he could do roach/bane)
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On December 01 2014 02:19 ZeromuS wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2014 01:08 pure.Wasted wrote:On December 01 2014 00:47 Maniak_ wrote:On December 01 2014 00:29 Nebuchad wrote:
The thread is doing better than expected, honestly. Most people recognize that the path that makes sense involves doing nothing and changing the maps. You would think that's obvious, but history tells us it's not. It would have been the thing to do in july instead of doing both. Doing only one now may not be enough to fix this mistake. Still it'd be a start and we'll see what happens afterwards. No need to rush things, we're already seeing what that accomplishes. In Blizzard's defense, they picked some HUGE maps for last season, which are traditionally the bane of a Terran's existence. I wouldn't be surprised if they thought the open spaces on Catallena and MGR were just balancing out the fact that they're bigger than Whirlwind. No. Maps were chosen that were less "standard" than the maps in Season 2 and offered a little more variation. Here is some insight: TLMC lead to the current map pool through community maps. What TL strat chose for final voting were very much - break away from the norm maps that didn't emphasize blink or easy split map swarmhost strategies. Both of which were big problems in the first half of 2014. I also put an emphasis on maps that would be a little bit terran favoured in TvP when vetting the maps and creating a shortlist from which the finalists were chosen. the shortlist has a ton of maps I think it was around 30 or so? We had a LOT of entries into the contest afterall Some of my favourites didnt make the finalists because we did a consensus vote for top 5 or w/e it was. Blizz got the shortlist not the top 5 list and from it they looked at the maps and picked what they did and didnt like and ran with em. We got some great maps this season. There were some innovative and interesting builds this season as well which I am really glad for. At the same time however we discovered another map concern - how much droppable space is too much? Catallena and Nimbus were tough before the mine patch for toss, and I think this was okay. Before that patch terrans were losing a LOT and Cata was good for SCV pulls, Nimbus less so, but Nimbus's rotational symmetry lead to a couple of good positions for Terran to spawn in and due to the 4p nature lessened the impact of very early proxy oracles - which meant more in base stargate openers than on the season 2 2p maps. I think part of the reason toss might be having such a low win rate might be due to the fact that there simply are more 3-4player maps, making proxy oracle play and 10 gate play much weaker which we saw a LOT of is season 2 of 2014. I for one think if we do change the maps and hope for a fix, it might work. It might not. I am not sure to be honest. I think the maps did a good job in season 3 but for reasons that differ from "making mines weaker". I think the aggressive options for P and all ins were really hurt with the map pool alone and by strengthening the mines on top of it and the drop space it became an issue. However all this being said I really wish that templar openers were still viable, and that the next season map pool does make a difference. I wish they had also never buffed the mine to begin with because I felt the maps were evening out TvP just fine! I don't play TvZ so I can't say how the maps did or didn't hurt them. I do know that nimbus used to be even more T favoured before some minor changes were made, where you could PF a third and then attack into the Z in 2/3 spawn positions on the map.
honestly its not that the maps are bad or ridiculously broken per se, moreso that the maps + terran buffs pushed them a little too far
i actually quite liked some of the maps such as merrygo-round for play etc its just they caused problems along with the buffs
(and merry could be tough PvZ too aswell tbh)
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EPT
