First of all, I'm a terran and I want to be constructive in this short post, no bias intended.
After looking over all of the maps, they looked cool, but very gamechanging. I was pleasently suprised blizzard took a risk of new maps breaking some starcraft 2 rules. However. After reviewing them closely and giving some more thoughts into them, it's appearent that many "opening builds" are completely useless, especially vs zergs. I will go into some details of each map and explain why these maps have some serrious balance issues in my opinion. After playing the maps, the positive thoughts i started out with, were soon flipped up side down. I do like some features on some of the new maps, but to make this as short as possible ill only talk about what i feel is a big balance issue for gameplay.
-Dash and Terminal- The map reminds me of a mix of the old map Scrapstation and Habitation Station. It has an Island expo, it has gold bases for terran to land to at gamestart. Well that sounds good for terran no? Well, allthough terran lifting ccs at the beginning might sound cool, the way that the map is formed is a different story. The natural expansion. Has rocks leading to a new attack path which makes it very hard to stop 1 and even 2 base all ins from both zergs and protoss. Not to mention the alley behind your natural. This makes it impossible to have a bunker cover your natural completely. The main has another entrance for blink stalkers, as well as reapers. The problem with this mainbase entrance is that to defend any sort of attacks from the front, you need several bunkers to even stand a chance. The distance between the front and the backdoor in the main is way too large, a theme that repeats itself most of the new maps. The distance between points of defence is way too far apart, and the area to cover is way too large.
-Bridgehead LE- The design of this map is cool. The way the center is formed, the attack paths towards the "normal" third. But it has some major flaws... First of all. The backdoor rocks in ur main, again distance and backdoor rocks really ? The Main ramp has 2 rockpiles with 400 hp each, which can't be repaired, making baneling busts alot stronger. And again, the distance between the backdoor rocks and main ramp is too far apart. Protoss can warp in units by the backdoor rocks by placing a pylon at it... All of this leads to a lot of all-ins beeing a hell of a lot stronger than normal. The layout of the main base also makes it hard to place down buildings as terran, it's too narrow. Since the layout is long and slim, you will have a harder time dealing with mutalisks, because on a normal circle shaped base, you can put turrets on the edges making a "turret ring", but with this layout, you need to make a lot more turrets to cover a smaller areal per turret. This was just 1 example, tvt doom drops will be rough as well.
-Moonlight Madness- Oh my god where do i begin. At first, a cool looking map with cool features and some cool ideas implemented into it. After reviewing it closely, it still seemed like a very cool map, in theory..... After playing it several games, I can't believe it made it to the ladder map pool. The design of 2 backdoor rocks leading to the "inbase third" has made me cry. Collapsable rocks can close the backdoor, but makes terran passive early game, and also makes a lot of builds completely unplayable vs zerg since zerg can break down one of the back door entrances very early due to the smaller size of the map. The main problem with these rock-blockades is the fact that you can not get vision of both as terran early game, making it impossible to "know" about the threat, not to forget the distance between the frontal attack path of the natural expation to the back door attack paths is extreme. For protoss, they can warp in units with a pylon from the other side of the rocks without breaking them.... It's completely broken. Blink stalkers are incredibly strong once terran has to split up their defenses, abusing the early game immobility of terran that relies on bunkers against a bunch of all ins. The Distance between the bases is way too far apart, again empowering 1 or 2 base all ins. I probably forgot some points I wanted to make about this map, but it made a grown-up man cry today, as it was very promising, but is completely broken balance wise.. I'm so sad.
-Terranform- Ending it all with the good stuff. This map is visually appealing, has cool layout for the bases, a bigger than normal main base, which I think is good for terran. It has chokes, it has good counterattack/flanking possibilities for zerg. Lot's of chokes for protoss and terran, and some very cool terrain for drop micro as well as mutalisk micro. It has very easily defendable 2 bases, and a progressive third. The distance between the bases aren't too bad. This map in my book is 9.5/10, when all the other 3 maps are completely utterly broken.
-Races on these maps- If you are zerg, you will enjoy these new ladder maps. Bases are spread and expansions are wide open. Lot's of airspace/high grounds for overlords to scout, a wide variety of all ins beeing close to unstoppable. Enjoy. Terrans will have to adapt like madmen, and probably get used to defending a lot of all-ins. I personally hate all the maps except Terraform, which doesn't break any starcraft map design "rules". As for protoss, you will kill yourself playing these, especially vs zerg. I can imagine a lot of games will lead into more protoss all-ins, and it's unfortunate. This time I can't blame any protoss for going full all-in since the expansions are close to undefendable because of distance between bases, and the wide open area around them.
-Closure- I apologize for any bad grammar. I'm not the best at writing posts, but after playing these maps, and beeing THIS dissapointed, I felt a strong urge to say something about it. The point was not to say Terran is useless now, we're not. The maps allow for very broken things for all races. They make the games less macro oriented, and more about blind luck and positioning, which we all know can be unforgiving and very little fun. If you ask me, this has been a completely failure of a map pool. Now you have to spend all 3 vetoes on maps that are broken as hell, and leaving no room for vetoing maps after personal preference such as 4 player spawn maps.
Hopefully I stayed mostly constructive. Thanks for reading and please leave your thoughts.
At first I thought all the maps looked very aesthetically pleasing mainly bridgehead( didnt notice backdoor rocks smh). Also i had high hopes since they were all maps from TLMC and really thought i would start playing more again.Yet after playing a bunch of games I couldn't agree more, I am not a fan of anyone of the maps in the map pool, and I play all three races around diamond masters level depending on MU.(beside zvt maybe plat LoL)
Last I dont know how much we can blame blizzard for this one, we have been bitching at blizzard for years now to add community maps and we got them, each were highly ranked in the TLMC contests and were chosen. Its funny how you get what you ask for and never like it. Sure they could have done some tweaks but we asked for these map basically and we got em.
I really wish we had frost back best map ever at least IMO
yeah we got community maps this time, but the options we had to choose from in the TLMC finalist voting were already bad. Like every map except 2 had backdoor rocks or any other gimmick like the backdoor alley on dash and terminal.
honestly if they just redid the maps without backdoor rocks this would be a good map pool but they didnt so its not. and that random gap at the nat of dash.wtf
You start by saying no bias intended but to me it looks like you hardly gave any thought of the maps from any other race's perspective. If you look over at the other thread, there are already lengthy posts telling us why zerg or protoss are absolutely unable to play on these map either!
It is true the maps will favor different playstyles for sure than in the past but that goes for every race, not just terran. I think its far too early to tell which races will be favored.
I really wish people tried to adapt and try new stuff for once instead of banging their heads against the wall repeating their same strategies and expecting for blizzard to come and save them.
On July 01 2015 15:24 ArtanisSC2 wrote: yeah we got community maps this time, but the options we had to choose from in the TLMC finalist voting were already bad. Like every map except 2 had backdoor rocks or any other gimmick like the backdoor alley on dash and terminal.
I agree. All tlmc maps were a joke for some reason except for terraform. Now I wouldn't be surprised if blizzard decides to put their own maps in the pool again next season. Still, it's way too early to tell. With hots being out for 2 years the meta is stagnating, so having weird maps might help that at least.
On July 01 2015 16:17 Calthrash wrote: You start by saying no bias intended but to me it looks like you hardly gave any thought of the maps from any other race's perspective. If you look over at the other thread, there are already lengthy posts telling us why zerg or protoss are absolutely unable to play on these map either!
It is true the maps will favor different playstyles for sure than in the past but that goes for every race, not just terran. I think its far too early to tell which races will be favored.
I really wish people tried to adapt and try new stuff for once instead of banging their heads against the wall repeating their same strategies and expecting for blizzard to come and save them.
I'm Terran, so I talk about how I feel about the maps from the Terran's perspective. I'm not "all" Terrans, this is just how i feel about the maps.
First of all, we scrub have not much to fear, it's not like we're pros whose whole career may depend on one game on one of these maps. We have vetos, let's use this luxury.
Second, in 2014 season 1, with Yeonsu and heavy rain, people realized how much balance was affected by maps. SInce then no map pool got a favorable welcome. Each time a new map comes, everybody rants about it, no matter what.
Third, I know it's a cheap shot, but you have exactly the same post in the season 3 map thread, except it says map pool is trash for zergs. That's how consistent that kind of thread can be.
Fourth, 180+ maps have been posted for TLMC6, geniuses from all over the world showed us how superior to blizzard mapmakers they were, then the brightest brains in the community united to select and vote on the best of these maps. And this is the result. That's our work here better act like it's good and we're happy with it because otherwise the only choice left will be to hide under a rock and pray for Blizzard to take over mapmaking and stop lurking on these boards.
Last, people want a change, and this is the only reason these maps exist, each time someone comes up with a standrad designed map, he's disregarded and people are like "omg your shit is so standard, please kill yourself". In fact, when you closely read the motivation of the famous mapmakers, they always want to "change the meta", as if it's the true mark of a good map. problem is changing the meta is far more complex than just putting unsual stuff all over the map, and it's not the map maker that changes the meta, it's the pro gamers. Echo for instance was made to kill the deathball play and 3 base play. In the end 90% of the games played on this map involved deathball, 3base pushes or both.
In the end it's the desire to "change the game" of some map makers and many people in the community that is the real curse of these map pool. Yeah overgowth and King sejong station were old maps, but they achieved a level of perfection in their playability that can't be reached by just randomly putting chokes, ramps and destructible rocks everywhere.
TLMC6 had a few map with standard and ok features that would have made them enjoyable in a basic sc2 way. But that's not what the community wanted to see.
Lots of misinformation regarding the maps that were submitted to the TLMC#6, here is the full list of maps that were publically submitted to the TLMC thread.
As it can be clearly seen there is a good amount of what the average player would think are "good standard maps". What happened this TLMC is that the judges simply choose'd nonstandard maps as finalists. It is also well known that Blizzard was pretty involved in the selection process this time compared to other TLMCs, so it is not a long shot to say that the reason in big part of the TLMC#6 finalists being the maps they are is because of Blizzard views.
On July 01 2015 16:52 Gwavajuice wrote: First of all, we scrub have not much to fear, it's not like we're pros whose whole career may depend on one game on one of these maps. We have vetos, let's use this luxury.
Second, in 2014 season 1, with Yeonsu and heavy rain, people realized how much balance was affected by maps. SInce then no map pool got a favorable welcome. Each time a new map comes, everybody rants about it, no matter what.
Third, I know it's a cheap shot, but you have exactly the same post in the season 3 map thread, except it says map pool is trash for zergs. That's how consistent that kind of thread can be.
Fourth, 180+ maps have been posted for TLMC6, geniuses from all over the world showed us how superior to blizzard mapmakers they were, then the brightest brains in the community united to select and vote on the best of these maps. And this is the result. That's our work here better act like it's good and we're happy with it because otherwise the only choice left will be to hide under a rock and pray for Blizzard to take over mapmaking and stop lurking on these boards.
Last, people want a change, and this is the only reason these maps exist, each time someone comes up with a standrad designed map, he's disregarded and people are like "omg your shit is so standard, please kill yourself". In fact, when you closely read the motivation of the famous mapmakers, they always want to "change the meta", as if it's the true mark of a good map. problem is changing the meta is far more complex than just putting unsual stuff all over the map, and it's not the map maker that changes the meta, it's the pro gamers. Echo for instance was made to kill the deathball play and 3 base play. In the end 90% of the games played on this map involved deathball, 3base pushes or both.
In the end it's the desire to "change the game" of some map makers and many people in the community that is the real curse of these map pool. Yeah overgowth and King sejong station were old maps, but they achieved a level of perfection in their playability that can't be reached by just randomly putting chokes, ramps and destructible rocks everywhere.
TLMC6 had a few map with standard and ok features that would have made them enjoyable in a basic sc2 way. But that's not what the community wanted to see.
Good points. Allthough i disagree on most of them. I love teamliquid map contests as much as the next guy. Blizzard clearly did not do playtest these maps (probably, and probably prioritized lotv, other topics). We all want change on maps. To have refreshing maps, you don't need to mess with the "rules" a map should have. Typically a safe natural, a fairly easy third that can be attacked from multiple paths. Chokes existing, drop possibilites just to mention a few. To make a map refreshing, you can add interresting terrain that does not break the map, interresting usage of textures. A good example of this is the map Overgrowth. If Blizzard wanted to add crazy maps to the pool, they could add 1 at a time to experiment u know.
So the problem wasnt the teamliquid map contest, i think people wanted something cool and new, and blizzarded decided to add all of the crazy maps without playtesting (atleast not playtest enough). Zergs that say that the new maps are bad for them, are just plebs. I Wouldn't write a post about something if I didn't feel qualified to do so. I've played sc2 since season 1 wol, i played some casual broodwar, been multiple season gm on both NA and EU.
Just to quickly say this: Time will show if I'm right about these maps or not. I wouldn't bet against me.
On July 01 2015 16:17 Calthrash wrote: You start by saying no bias intended but to me it looks like you hardly gave any thought of the maps from any other race's perspective. If you look over at the other thread, there are already lengthy posts telling us why zerg or protoss are absolutely unable to play on these map either!
It is true the maps will favor different playstyles for sure than in the past but that goes for every race, not just terran. I think its far too early to tell which races will be favored.
I really wish people tried to adapt and try new stuff for once instead of banging their heads against the wall repeating their same strategies and expecting for blizzard to come and save them.
1 or 2 bases all ins will be the most powerful strategies on every new map except terraform. What a good change to be back in 2010.
I like the maps (well not all of them ), some things might be a bit over the top like the bushes on the rocks, the cliff for tanks and golds should be gone in general, but I still think it's a fun map pool. People will just have to get out of their comfort zone. Rotterdam just streamed for 10 hours on the new maps and did fine as Protoss. He thinks it's cool to have something different.
In tournaments there are still vetoes and in a bo5/bo7 the player who prepared better for a special map should be rewarded anyway. Seeing 7 macro games with the same builds in a bo7 sucks. Maps where you can defend 3 bases by having your whole army in one spot suck.
From what I understood Blizzard veto'd out most of the 'standard' maps from the map contest, so I'm not sure it's the judges fault that the finalist maps ended up being very creative.
On July 01 2015 19:53 Liquid`Ret wrote: From what I understood Blizzard veto'd out most of the 'standard' maps from the map contest, so I'm not sure it's the judges fault that the finalist maps ended up being very creative.
what were u talking about with David Kim and firecake?
Genius move by blizzard. So many flies with one catch: - forcing weird community-made maps makes their own maps look better - making HotS shit makes LotV look better - making the maps imbalanced makes it so they can always blame them and no balance work is needed until HotS is dead - putting in experimental maps makes them look like they are "trying to break the stale meta"
It feels like the maps were created more as pieces of art, which I think they are, rather than having game play as the main objective. That feels quite natural for a map competition though.
So far I have not played enough games to have a definite opinion but the old styles I been using doesn't seem to work anymore. I've been playing Protoss exclusively this season and PvZ just feels really hard.
Maybe this is a good thing, forces us to figure out new ways to play and change things up. Right now though, I feel like I will just revert to 2 base all ins on the maps that feels iffy to play on.
On July 01 2015 19:52 Musicus wrote: I like the maps (well not all of them ), some things might be a bit over the top like the bushes on the rocks, the cliff for tanks and golds should be gone in general, but I still think it's a fun map pool. People will just have to get out of their comfort zone. Rotterdam just streamed for 10 hours on the new maps and did fine as Protoss. He thinks it's cool to have something different.
In tournaments there are still vetoes and in a bo5/bo7 the player who prepared better for a special map should be rewarded anyway. Seeing 7 macro games with the same builds in a bo7 sucks. Maps where you can defend 3 bases by having your whole army in one spot suck.
and game 7 on secret spring to decide the WCS season 1 was worse than everything you stated.
On July 01 2015 16:52 Uvantak wrote: Lots of misinformation regarding the maps that were submitted to the TLMC#6, here is the full list of maps that were publically submitted to the TLMC thread.
As it can be clearly seen there is a good amount of what the average player would think are "good standard maps". What happened this TLMC is that the judges simply choose'd nonstandard maps as finalists. It is also well known that Blizzard was pretty involved in the selection process this time compared to other TLMCs, so it is not a long shot to say that the reason in big part of the TLMC#6 finalists being the maps they are is because of Blizzard views.
This post should be modnoted at the top of this thread and every thread concerning the new maps. Reading some posts here or on Reddit, it looks like a lot of people believe that mapmakers only entered weird/unusual maps in TLMC and/or that the community (the TL community, that is) voted for the maps that are on ladder over more standard maps that were entered in the contest, while neither of these statements are true.
edit : deleted the pics because I feel for people with slow Internet connection lol
On July 01 2015 19:53 Liquid`Ret wrote: From what I understood Blizzard veto'd out most of the 'standard' maps from the map contest, so I'm not sure it's the judges fault that the finalist maps ended up being very creative.
Really? Wow, that's actually pretty sad. Thanks for letting us know.
On July 01 2015 19:53 Liquid`Ret wrote: From what I understood Blizzard veto'd out most of the 'standard' maps from the map contest, so I'm not sure it's the judges fault that the finalist maps ended up being very creative.
Really? Wow, that's actually pretty sad. Thanks for letting us know.
Taken from Battle.net's rules :
This is our game and you are our guests. We will do everything in our power to treat everyone with respect and accommodate everyone's wishes, but this is a private campagny, so when you're here, you abide by our rules. We're not obligated to observe anyone's notions of a good map or a balanced game, but we will try to. Feel free to open a dialogue with community managers or developpers or give suggestions in the Battle.net forum.
I see nothing sad here, it's the rules, don't complain
On July 01 2015 19:53 Liquid`Ret wrote: From what I understood Blizzard veto'd out most of the 'standard' maps from the map contest, so I'm not sure it's the judges fault that the finalist maps ended up being very creative.
Really? Wow, that's actually pretty sad. Thanks for letting us know.
This is our game and you are our guests. We will do everything in our power to treat everyone with respect and accommodate everyone's wishes, but this is a private campagny, so when you're here, you abide by our rules. We're not obligated to observe anyone's notions of a good map or a balanced game, but we will try to. Feel free to open a dialogue with community managers or developpers or give suggestions in the Battle.net forum.
I see nothing sad here, it's the rules, don't complain
are you serious? The rule isn't dumb in itself but the fact that they're willingly trying to do the exact opposite of what they pretend to be doing is quite a sad thing. 1base or 2base blink all ins every PvT on secret spring weren't exactly fun.
On the other hand you made expedition lost so you can be glad that they'll be worst backdoor in the main maps than your.
On July 01 2015 21:54 Beastyqt wrote: We had Blizzard choose maps, they were bad, sometimes good. We now had community vote for maps, they are terrible.
We should have 100 semi pros/pros vote on the maps so we can finally have decent map pool.
FFS we didn't have the community vote for maps, look at Uvantak's and Ret's posts... We had the community vote on maps that were already selected by TLStrat/Blizzard, which is a huge difference (and which had no influence whatsoever on the ladder pool since Blizzard don't give a shit about the TLMC rankings when choosing maps for the map pool).
First of all, I'm a terran and I want to be constructive in this short post, no bias intended.
After looking over all of the maps, they looked cool, but very gamechanging. I was pleasently suprised blizzard took a risk of new maps breaking some starcraft 2 rules. However. After reviewing them closely and giving some more thoughts into them, it's appearent that many "opening builds" are completely useless, especially vs zergs. I will go into some details of each map and explain why these maps have some serrious balance issues in my opinion. After playing the maps, the positive thoughts i started out with, were soon flipped up side down. I do like some features on some of the new maps, but to make this as short as possible ill only talk about what i feel is a big balance issue for gameplay.
-Dash and Terminal- The map reminds me of a mix of the old map Scrapstation and Habitation Station. It has an Island expo, it has gold bases for terran to land to at gamestart. Well that sounds good for terran no? Well, allthough terran lifting ccs at the beginning might sound cool, the way that the map is formed is a different story. The natural expansion. Has rocks leading to a new attack path which makes it very hard to stop 1 and even 2 base all ins from both zergs and protoss. Not to mention the alley behind your natural. This makes it impossible to have a bunker cover your natural completely. The main has another entrance for blink stalkers, as well as reapers. The problem with this mainbase entrance is that to defend any sort of attacks from the front, you need several bunkers to even stand a chance. The distance between the front and the backdoor in the main is way too large, a theme that repeats itself most of the new maps. The distance between points of defence is way too far apart, and the area to cover is way too large.
-Bridgehead LE- The design of this map is cool. The way the center is formed, the attack paths towards the "normal" third. But it has some major flaws... First of all. The backdoor rocks in ur main, again distance and backdoor rocks really ? The Main ramp has 2 rockpiles with 400 hp each, which can't be repaired, making baneling busts alot stronger. And again, the distance between the backdoor rocks and main ramp is too far apart. Protoss can warp in units by the backdoor rocks by placing a pylon at it... All of this leads to a lot of all-ins beeing a hell of a lot stronger than normal. The layout of the main base also makes it hard to place down buildings as terran, it's too narrow. Since the layout is long and slim, you will have a harder time dealing with mutalisks, because on a normal circle shaped base, you can put turrets on the edges making a "turret ring", but with this layout, you need to make a lot more turrets to cover a smaller areal per turret. This was just 1 example, tvt doom drops will be rough as well.
-Moonlight Madness- Oh my god where do i begin. At first, a cool looking map with cool features and some cool ideas implemented into it. After reviewing it closely, it still seemed like a very cool map, in theory..... After playing it several games, I can't believe it made it to the ladder map pool. The design of 2 backdoor rocks leading to the "inbase third" has made me cry. Collapsable rocks can close the backdoor, but makes terran passive early game, and also makes a lot of builds completely unplayable vs zerg since zerg can break down one of the back door entrances very early due to the smaller size of the map. The main problem with these rock-blockades is the fact that you can not get vision of both as terran early game, making it impossible to "know" about the threat, not to forget the distance between the frontal attack path of the natural expation to the back door attack paths is extreme. For protoss, they can warp in units with a pylon from the other side of the rocks without breaking them.... It's completely broken. Blink stalkers are incredibly strong once terran has to split up their defenses, abusing the early game immobility of terran that relies on bunkers against a bunch of all ins. The Distance between the bases is way too far apart, again empowering 1 or 2 base all ins. I probably forgot some points I wanted to make about this map, but it made a grown-up man cry today, as it was very promising, but is completely broken balance wise.. I'm so sad.
-Terranform- Ending it all with the good stuff. This map is visually appealing, has cool layout for the bases, a bigger than normal main base, which I think is good for terran. It has chokes, it has good counterattack/flanking possibilities for zerg. Lot's of chokes for protoss and terran, and some very cool terrain for drop micro as well as mutalisk micro. It has very easily defendable 2 bases, and a progressive third. The distance between the bases aren't too bad. This map in my book is 9.5/10, when all the other 3 maps are completely utterly broken.
-Races on these maps- If you are zerg, you will enjoy these new ladder maps. Bases are spread and expansions are wide open. Lot's of airspace/high grounds for overlords to scout, a wide variety of all ins beeing close to unstoppable. Enjoy. Terrans will have to adapt like madmen, and probably get used to defending a lot of all-ins. I personally hate all the maps except Terraform, which doesn't break any starcraft map design "rules". As for protoss, you will kill yourself playing these, especially vs zerg. I can imagine a lot of games will lead into more protoss all-ins, and it's unfortunate. This time I can't blame any protoss for going full all-in since the expansions are close to undefendable because of distance between bases, and the wide open area around them.
-Closure- I apologize for any bad grammar. I'm not the best at writing posts, but after playing these maps, and beeing THIS dissapointed, I felt a strong urge to say something about it. The point was not to say Terran is useless now, we're not. The maps allow for very broken things for all races. They make the games less macro oriented, and more about blind luck and positioning, which we all know can be unforgiving and very little fun. If you ask me, this has been a completely failure of a map pool. Now you have to spend all 3 vetoes on maps that are broken as hell, and leaving no room for vetoing maps after personal preference such as 4 player spawn maps.
My Post is a retort to your claims that the maps are for "zerg players". Most of your claims are in the assumption that you are going a macro build while trying to defend all-ins. Use these maps to your advantage and where you can't realize where you could get all inned and have enough map awareness and good scouting to know these things are coming.... I'll now post my counter arguments for the maps.
-Dash and Terminal- This map has a crazy crazy crazy fast path to your opponent's base with the reaper. You could 11/11 2 rax reaper on this map and put so much pressure I'm not sure Zerg could even stop it if they went hatch first. If you use the viking variant 2 base build I don't know how zerg could actually #1 see the drops coming in time and #2 move out of their base safely because the mains are so freaking close. Siege tank drops are now looking really really sexy on that map. Also I can see maru doing a bunker behind the natural with a siege tank rush and keep walling off and make the natural a miserable place to be. Opening siege tanks on this map wouldnt be a bad idea just in general because of how the map is designed you could take an EZ EZ 3rd if you set up correctly.
-Bridgehead LE- This map takes me back to BW. The look the feel everything makes me so excited to play on this map from the size of the map to the attack paths. Mark my words the MOST epic Macro games are going to be played here THE MOST. As far as the main back rocks its something you have to keep tabs on 1 Supply depot will give you the information you will need. Information = key. The front section you can wall off with Ebay + bunker EZ PZ and come out ahead with a stunning defense. Again I can't wait to see the epic games Dream is going to play on this map with his macro.
-Moonlight Madness- Being "passive" is your problem on this map. I've gone 3 reaper opening on this map and put severe pressure got out in time once speed finished and watched my back rocks with the elevated section in the back and they act like guardians. until i have 4 hellions or so and push out to regain map control and 2 supply depots save your life on that map seeing how your wall doesn't have to be that big at the front you can spare to put a few in the back to spot for any potential break down of rocks.
-Races on These Maps- If you are a pro-active Terran you will enjoy these maps. Learning how to utilize them to the full is probably going to be the most fun I've had in this game in a long time.
-Closure- I apologize for being so aggressive against your post. I'm thoroughly disappointed that you would think this way about Terran. Terran will never be useless as long as you know how to micro and I'm happy to play on these maps that have such a great success. I would suggest vetoing the old maps because of how fun these 3 maps truly are .
On July 01 2015 19:53 Liquid`Ret wrote: From what I understood Blizzard veto'd out most of the 'standard' maps from the map contest, so I'm not sure it's the judges fault that the finalist maps ended up being very creative.
Really? Wow, that's actually pretty sad. Thanks for letting us know.
Taken from Battle.net's rules :
This is our game and you are our guests. We will do everything in our power to treat everyone with respect and accommodate everyone's wishes, but this is a private campagny, so when you're here, you abide by our rules. We're not obligated to observe anyone's notions of a good map or a balanced game, but we will try to. Feel free to open a dialogue with community managers or developpers or give suggestions in the Battle.net forum.
I see nothing sad here, it's the rules, don't complain
are you serious? The rule isn't dumb in itself but the fact that they're willingly trying to do the exact opposite of what they pretend to be doing is quite a sad thing. 1base or 2base blink all ins every PvT on secret spring weren't exactly fun.
On the other hand you made expedition lost so you can be glad that they'll be worst backdoor in the main maps than your.
As much as people love to complain about Expedition Lost, it still has more balanced stats on TLPD than Vaani, Echo, Cactus Valley, Iron Fortress or Coda. If we had a good mappool EL would probably be an outlier, but at the moment all the maps feel like they have quite some problems in at least one matchup (which for EL is TvZ).
On July 01 2015 21:54 Beastyqt wrote: We had Blizzard choose maps, they were bad, sometimes good. We now had community vote for maps, they are terrible.
We should have 100 semi pros/pros vote on the maps so we can finally have decent map pool.
This post is pretty much just flame bait. So wrong in every way.
1. Community submitted 100 maps for mapping competition 2. Out of those 100 maps blizzard pretty much chose 7 3. Out of those 7 map we had two votings. General community voting which are best, and also pros were asked for their opinion on which of those 7 are best. 4. Blizzard ignored both of those votings, and instead chose 4 maps out the 7 solely by their picks. The votes had absolute 0 meaning of which 4 maps were chosen.
Most of this information is in this thread. All of this information is withing 1minute of research. Why are people allowed to post on things they have absolutely 0 knowledge of, just assume things?
PS. there is 0 reason why this thread even exist, instead of just the OP being another post in the original thread. just extra attention for no reason.
On July 01 2015 19:53 Liquid`Ret wrote: From what I understood Blizzard veto'd out most of the 'standard' maps from the map contest, so I'm not sure it's the judges fault that the finalist maps ended up being very creative.
Really? Wow, that's actually pretty sad. Thanks for letting us know.
Taken from Battle.net's rules :
This is our game and you are our guests. We will do everything in our power to treat everyone with respect and accommodate everyone's wishes, but this is a private campagny, so when you're here, you abide by our rules. We're not obligated to observe anyone's notions of a good map or a balanced game, but we will try to. Feel free to open a dialogue with community managers or developpers or give suggestions in the Battle.net forum.
I see nothing sad here, it's the rules, don't complain
are you serious? The rule isn't dumb in itself but the fact that they're willingly trying to do the exact opposite of what they pretend to be doing is quite a sad thing. 1base or 2base blink all ins every PvT on secret spring weren't exactly fun.
On the other hand you made expedition lost so you can be glad that they'll be worst backdoor in the main maps than your.
What a cheap shot. Dude, a little respect for the mapmaker please ? He probably spent hours working hard on that map. You getting all-in'ed a bunch of times doesn't give you the right to dismiss his work like that.
On July 01 2015 21:54 Beastyqt wrote: We had Blizzard choose maps, they were bad, sometimes good. We now had community vote for maps, they are terrible.
We should have 100 semi pros/pros vote on the maps so we can finally have decent map pool.
And you would end up with a map pool entirely made of nearly identical standard maps because players want to be able to do the same strats on every map. Playing on and learning less standard maps requires tweaking the standard strats and it takes some time.
My Post is a retort to your claims that the maps are for "zerg players". Most of your claims are in the assumption that you are going a macro build while trying to defend all-ins. Use these maps to your advantage and where you can't realize where you could get all inned and have enough map awareness and good scouting to know these things are coming.... I'll now post my counter arguments for the maps.
-Dash and Terminal- This map has a crazy crazy crazy fast path to your opponent's base with the reaper. You could 11/11 2 rax reaper on this map and put so much pressure I'm not sure Zerg could even stop it if they went hatch first. If you use the viking variant 2 base build I don't know how zerg could actually #1 see the drops coming in time and #2 move out of their base safely because the mains are so freaking close. Siege tank drops are now looking really really sexy on that map. Also I can see maru doing a bunker behind the natural with a siege tank rush and keep walling off and make the natural a miserable place to be. Opening siege tanks on this map wouldnt be a bad idea just in general because of how the map is designed you could take an EZ EZ 3rd if you set up correctly.
-Bridgehead LE- This map takes me back to BW. The look the feel everything makes me so excited to play on this map from the size of the map to the attack paths. Mark my words the MOST epic Macro games are going to be played here THE MOST. As far as the main back rocks its something you have to keep tabs on 1 Supply depot will give you the information you will need. Information = key. The front section you can wall off with Ebay + bunker EZ PZ and come out ahead with a stunning defense. Again I can't wait to see the epic games Dream is going to play on this map with his macro.
-Moonlight Madness- Being "passive" is your problem on this map. I've gone 3 reaper opening on this map and put severe pressure got out in time once speed finished and watched my back rocks with the elevated section in the back and they act like guardians. until i have 4 hellions or so and push out to regain map control and 2 supply depots save your life on that map seeing how your wall doesn't have to be that big at the front you can spare to put a few in the back to spot for any potential break down of rocks.
-Races on These Maps- If you are a pro-active Terran you will enjoy these maps. Learning how to utilize them to the full is probably going to be the most fun I've had in this game in a long time.
-Closure- I apologize for being so aggressive against your post. I'm thoroughly disappointed that you would think this way about Terran. Terran will never be useless as long as you know how to micro and I'm happy to play on these maps that have such a great success. I would suggest vetoing the old maps because of how fun these 3 maps truly are .
-Regards Jidoja
Good response. Yes the map can be abusive for all races. I also stated that my point was not about terran beeing useless, because they won't be. And when you say bridgehead will lead to epic macro games, maybe. Allthough this is starcraft 2 not broodwar, all-ins are much stronger and the game is more fast phased. And Protoss is so different from broodwar, map designers have to keep in mind warpgate, tempest, forcefields when making maps (just to name a few).
On July 01 2015 16:17 Calthrash wrote: You start by saying no bias intended but to me it looks like you hardly gave any thought of the maps from any other race's perspective. If you look over at the other thread, there are already lengthy posts telling us why zerg or protoss are absolutely unable to play on these map either!
It is true the maps will favor different playstyles for sure than in the past but that goes for every race, not just terran. I think its far too early to tell which races will be favored.
I really wish people tried to adapt and try new stuff for once instead of banging their heads against the wall repeating their same strategies and expecting for blizzard to come and save them.
1 or 2 bases all ins will be the most powerful strategies on every new map except terraform. What a good change to be back in 2010.
Yes I won't have to fear immortal all ins on Chokeform cause I proxy hatch every game at the 3rd zvp (it only takes 1 creep tumor for the spines to be able to hit the wall off rofl)
On July 01 2015 19:53 Liquid`Ret wrote: From what I understood Blizzard veto'd out most of the 'standard' maps from the map contest, so I'm not sure it's the judges fault that the finalist maps ended up being very creative.
Really? Wow, that's actually pretty sad. Thanks for letting us know.
This is our game and you are our guests. We will do everything in our power to treat everyone with respect and accommodate everyone's wishes, but this is a private campagny, so when you're here, you abide by our rules. We're not obligated to observe anyone's notions of a good map or a balanced game, but we will try to. Feel free to open a dialogue with community managers or developpers or give suggestions in the Battle.net forum.
I see nothing sad here, it's the rules, don't complain
Blizzard veto'd out most of the 'standard' maps
Was what I was referring to and if I like to complain about it (or anything else really) you'll just have to deal with it.
On July 01 2015 20:24 Big J wrote: Genius move by blizzard. So many flies with one catch: - forcing weird community-made maps makes their own maps look better - making HotS shit makes LotV look better - making the maps imbalanced makes it so they can always blame them and no balance work is needed until HotS is dead - putting in experimental maps makes them look like they are "trying to break the stale meta"
I think this might really be the reason we have such a garbage mappool.
Good response. Yes the map can be abusive for all races. I also stated that my point was not about terran beeing useless, because they won't be. And when you say bridgehead will lead to epic macro games, maybe. Allthough this is starcraft 2 not broodwar, all-ins are much stronger and the game is more fast phased. And Protoss is so different from broodwar, map designers have to keep in mind warpgate, tempest, forcefields when making maps (just to name a few)
The statement about Terran's being useless was more of a re-affirmation lol. I agree with this post though I'd say the thing I fear the most out of all the maps is Tempest rush on dash and terminal....
I just hate destructible back rocks. They're such a pain in the ass in PvZ. Otherwise the maps seem fine. A bit wonky but that will lead to some new builds which I'm okay with.
EDIT - Any map where Terrans live in fear of proxy tempests is a map that I like :p
There is one issue here that nobody addressed so far. Real talk: Who, among all of those who voted for the best maps in the TLMC, actually tried PLAYING the maps even ONE time before deciding which were the more suited for competitive play?
I know I didn't, because I'm a lazy bastard, like the rest of us. Sure, we all looked at the imgur album of the maps with the nice hi-res picture. We got to judge the map's aesthetics, the general lay-out of the expansions, but is a 10 seconds look on a .jpg the same thing as trying the map once and realizing after 5 minutes that "wait, this back-door rock is actually completely broken, there is no fucking way I can hold a one base all-in on this map, I'm not giving my vote for this crap"?
On July 01 2015 23:38 fastr wrote: There is one issue here that nobody addressed so far. Real talk: Who, among all of those who voted for the best maps in the TLMC, actually tried PLAYING the maps even ONE time before deciding which were the more suited for competitive play?
I know I didn't, because I'm a lazy bastard, like the rest of us. Sure, we all looked at the imgur album of the maps with the nice hi-res picture. We got to judge the map's aesthetics, the general lay-out of the expansions, but is a 10 seconds look on a .jpg the same thing as trying the map once and realizing after 5 minutes that "wait, this back-door rock is actually completely broken, there is no fucking way I can hold a one base all-in on this map, I'm not giving my vote for this crap"?
The real issue is not with the voting though, since the voting doesn't factor in Blizzard's choice for ladder maps
On July 01 2015 23:17 Liquid`Ret wrote: I wonder if GSL and SSL are just going to keep the same map pool once again..
I think Coda and Terraform are highly likely to be in.
I don't really know why but I can so imagine them adding Bridgehead for at least Proleague.
I dunno, ProLeague to have abandoned their map-laboratory policy this year and it makes me really sad T_T
Bridgehead has this "Well it's basically a Brood War map in SC2" feeling to it, that might make it appealing for the big Korean leagues to some extent.
I very much hope that Proleague gets around to adding something like the next King Sejong Station at some point.
I just hate destructible back rocks. They're such a pain in the ass in PvZ. Otherwise the maps seem fine. A bit wonky but that will lead to some new builds which I'm okay with.
EDIT - Any map where Terrans live in fear of proxy tempests is a map that I like :p
I think we should practice this together TBH. I suck at defending and its a good strat to perfect on that map Just a thought If you are available tonight <3
I just hate destructible back rocks. They're such a pain in the ass in PvZ. Otherwise the maps seem fine. A bit wonky but that will lead to some new builds which I'm okay with.
EDIT - Any map where Terrans live in fear of proxy tempests is a map that I like :p
I think we should practice this together TBH. I suck at defending and its a good strat to perfect on that map Just a thought If you are available tonight <3
Aren't we due for a Bo7? Should be free around 730 Eastern or so.
Well not much we can do about the map pool at this point, unless they do a full "dream pool revert" before the end of the season then we'd better get used to these maps. Our efforts are better spent trying to find ways to adapt to and figure out these maps then to complain about them.
Honestly so far I kinda like the maps lol (except Moonlight Madness that I can't really judge, didn't got a single ladder game on it yet). It's a bit cheese city atm, especially ZvZ, but I mean it's always cheese city when new maps are first introduced. The only thing I really regret is that pros will have to play on them while we don't know yet if they are balanced or not (and also why keep Iron Fortress ffs, it's the most boring 4p map I've played on since HotS' release). I could have lived without the island base on D&T too.
First time I saw those maps immediatly I thought "Man, that's time to do like the pros...you gonna forget F2 ! "
For me, as much as those new maps encourage to use an ultra agressiv kind of play, they force to separate our army and use a lot of sentinels. BridgeHead is the perfect example. As Terran you have to put a marine in front of rocks at the natural, and he has to stay here. Same thing on MoonlightMadness in front of the B3. There are so many paths to attack the opponent that you have to cover the maximum of them. By far, I am not a fan of those maps but I will do with it.
I am just a little Top gold player, stuck in this league since too much time, and I hope it will be the season for me to reach Plat league Go to 2 bases All in and others 11/11 vs Zerg on Dash nd Terminal (Terrans, did you notice this B3 with so many dark corners )
On July 02 2015 01:31 OtherWorld wrote: Honestly so far I kinda like the maps lol (except Moonlight Madness that I can't really judge, didn't got a single ladder game on it yet). It's a bit cheese city atm, especially ZvZ, but I mean it's always cheese city when new maps are first introduced. The only thing I really regret is that pros will have to play on them while we don't know yet if they are balanced or not (and also why keep Iron Fortress ffs, it's the most boring 4p map I've played on since HotS' release). I could have lived without the island base on D&T too.
I could have lived without Dash and Terminal in general. That map is silly.
I'm protoss and don't wanna be constructive at all. Cause i'm so fucking sick of this bullshit. This maps are disgusting in every way possible. Every season i think: ok, this can't be worse, next season will definately be better. But this season is beyond retardiness. You guys who made these maps... if you read this .. you have literally no idea what i think about you. All of you. Hope it's enough for a ban.
Sidian: Hey, look at this map I designed, will anybody give feedback in the team liquid mapping forum? Community: ...
Sidian: Hey, my map got placed under a community spotlight featured by blizzard! Hopefully this gets some more playtime and I get some good feedback! Community: ...
Sidian: Hey, TLMC is going on, would love to hear some thoughts before I submit my map! Community: ...
Sidian: Look, my map got in the top few maps for TLMC, hopefully with that publicity and the TLMC map tournament I'll get even more feedback! Community: ...
Sidian: Sweet, my map randomly got onto ladder! Awesome! Community: FUCK THIS MAP, PIECE OF SHIT IMBALANCED TRASH GARBAGE MAPPER FUCK DIS SHIT DED GAME.
Welcome to the life of a starcraft 2 mapper.
Feel free to stop by the mapping forum and give your feedback, you never know when one of those maps will get on ladder!
On July 02 2015 03:49 SidianTheBard wrote: Sidian: Hey, look at this map I designed, will anybody give feedback in the team liquid mapping forum? Community: ...
Sidian: Hey, my map got placed under a community spotlight featured by blizzard! Hopefully this gets some more playtime and I get some good feedback! Community: ...
Sidian: Hey, TLMC is going on, would love to hear some thoughts before I submit my map! Community: ...
Sidian: Look, my map got in the top few maps for TLMC, hopefully with that publicity and the TLMC map tournament I'll get even more feedback! Community: ...
Sidian: Sweet, my map randomly got onto ladder! Awesome! Community: FUCK THIS MAP, PIECE OF SHIT IMBALANCED TRASH GARBAGE MAPPER FUCK DIS SHIT DED GAME.
Welcome to the life of a starcraft 2 mapper.
Feel free to stop by the mapping forum and give your feedback, you never know when one of those maps will get on ladder!
In what world did you not get any feedback after being chosen as TLMC finalist?
On July 02 2015 03:49 SidianTheBard wrote: Sidian: Hey, look at this map I designed, will anybody give feedback in the team liquid mapping forum? Community: ...
Sidian: Hey, my map got placed under a community spotlight featured by blizzard! Hopefully this gets some more playtime and I get some good feedback! Community: ...
Sidian: Hey, TLMC is going on, would love to hear some thoughts before I submit my map! Community: ...
Sidian: Look, my map got in the top few maps for TLMC, hopefully with that publicity and the TLMC map tournament I'll get even more feedback! Community: ...
Sidian: Sweet, my map randomly got onto ladder! Awesome! Community: FUCK THIS MAP, PIECE OF SHIT IMBALANCED TRASH GARBAGE MAPPER FUCK DIS SHIT DED GAME.
Welcome to the life of a starcraft 2 mapper.
Feel free to stop by the mapping forum and give your feedback, you never know when one of those maps will get on ladder!
In what world did you not get any feedback after being chosen as TLMC finalist?
Look at the map thread. Last comment is from 2014.
On July 02 2015 03:49 SidianTheBard wrote: Sidian: Hey, look at this map I designed, will anybody give feedback in the team liquid mapping forum? Community: ...
Sidian: Hey, my map got placed under a community spotlight featured by blizzard! Hopefully this gets some more playtime and I get some good feedback! Community: ...
Sidian: Hey, TLMC is going on, would love to hear some thoughts before I submit my map! Community: ...
Sidian: Look, my map got in the top few maps for TLMC, hopefully with that publicity and the TLMC map tournament I'll get even more feedback! Community: ...
Sidian: Sweet, my map randomly got onto ladder! Awesome! Community: FUCK THIS MAP, PIECE OF SHIT IMBALANCED TRASH GARBAGE MAPPER FUCK DIS SHIT DED GAME.
Welcome to the life of a starcraft 2 mapper.
Feel free to stop by the mapping forum and give your feedback, you never know when one of those maps will get on ladder!
Despite being near the top of the forum, the map section gets scarcely little attention, and the work you guys do gets taken for granted. I see posts even in this thread that treat the work a mapmaker does like garbage, like something expendable and replaceable, when once the community fought almost unanimously to wrest the control of maps from Blizzard's hand. People are never happy.
On July 02 2015 03:49 SidianTheBard wrote: Sidian: Hey, look at this map I designed, will anybody give feedback in the team liquid mapping forum? Community: ...
Sidian: Hey, my map got placed under a community spotlight featured by blizzard! Hopefully this gets some more playtime and I get some good feedback! Community: ...
Sidian: Hey, TLMC is going on, would love to hear some thoughts before I submit my map! Community: ...
Sidian: Look, my map got in the top few maps for TLMC, hopefully with that publicity and the TLMC map tournament I'll get even more feedback! Community: ...
Sidian: Sweet, my map randomly got onto ladder! Awesome! Community: FUCK THIS MAP, PIECE OF SHIT IMBALANCED TRASH GARBAGE MAPPER FUCK DIS SHIT DED GAME.
Welcome to the life of a starcraft 2 mapper.
Feel free to stop by the mapping forum and give your feedback, you never know when one of those maps will get on ladder!
Please just don't put any more back rocks lol. Otherwise i'll adapt to anything that isn't absurdly obviously broken.
On July 02 2015 03:49 SidianTheBard wrote: Sidian: Hey, look at this map I designed, will anybody give feedback in the team liquid mapping forum? Community: ...
Sidian: Hey, my map got placed under a community spotlight featured by blizzard! Hopefully this gets some more playtime and I get some good feedback! Community: ...
Sidian: Hey, TLMC is going on, would love to hear some thoughts before I submit my map! Community: ...
Sidian: Look, my map got in the top few maps for TLMC, hopefully with that publicity and the TLMC map tournament I'll get even more feedback! Community: ...
Sidian: Sweet, my map randomly got onto ladder! Awesome! Community: FUCK THIS MAP, PIECE OF SHIT IMBALANCED TRASH GARBAGE MAPPER FUCK DIS SHIT DED GAME.
Welcome to the life of a starcraft 2 mapper.
Feel free to stop by the mapping forum and give your feedback, you never know when one of those maps will get on ladder!
Despite being near the top of the forum, the map section gets scarcely little attention, and the work you guys do gets taken for granted. I see posts even in this thread that treat the work a mapmaker does like garbage, like something expendable and replaceable, when once the community fought almost unanimously to wrest the control of maps from Blizzard's hand. People are never happy.
to be fair, even active mappers aren't on the forums as much.
All I wish to play is macro games with the occasional cheese. Now it is non stop cheese and macro is dead. It is not fun, it is just stressful and irritating.
I don't really think Moonlight Madness is all that bad, really. You can break down your destructible rocks pretty easily, and any backdoor rocks push arrives very, very late. And there isn't anything like the problem there was on Expedition Lost where an allining protoss or zerg could bounce between the front and the back because the travel distance is so long. And the base layout is actually quite interesting in my opinion, there is a nice flow to the game and you have interesting choices for expansion paths. Plus the bases are acutally somewhat reasonable size. Bridgehead is terrible for Terran because you can't fit your production anywhere, as is Dash and Terminal. I can't imagine how protosses will handle PvZ on Dash and Terminal, which also has the additional problem that 2 bases are hard to secure but 3 bases are easy, which is very protoss favored in TvP. Plus this map is honestly boring. You just attack across the middle. At least Habitation Station had those cool ridgelines.
I think Terraform is interesting. I could do with a few less line of sight blockers though. It's like that map is made so you can't ever get any map vision.
On July 02 2015 03:49 SidianTheBard wrote: Sidian: Hey, look at this map I designed, will anybody give feedback in the team liquid mapping forum? Community: ...
Sidian: Hey, my map got placed under a community spotlight featured by blizzard! Hopefully this gets some more playtime and I get some good feedback! Community: ...
Sidian: Hey, TLMC is going on, would love to hear some thoughts before I submit my map! Community: ...
Sidian: Look, my map got in the top few maps for TLMC, hopefully with that publicity and the TLMC map tournament I'll get even more feedback! Community: ...
Sidian: Sweet, my map randomly got onto ladder! Awesome! Community: FUCK THIS MAP, PIECE OF SHIT IMBALANCED TRASH GARBAGE MAPPER FUCK DIS SHIT DED GAME.
Welcome to the life of a starcraft 2 mapper.
Feel free to stop by the mapping forum and give your feedback, you never know when one of those maps will get on ladder!
Despite being near the top of the forum, the map section gets scarcely little attention, and the work you guys do gets taken for granted. I see posts even in this thread that treat the work a mapmaker does like garbage, like something expendable and replaceable, when once the community fought almost unanimously to wrest the control of maps from Blizzard's hand. People are never happy.
to be fair, even active mappers aren't on the forums as much.
Even so, the map forum has always gotten relatively little outside attention, and the relationship between the people who make the maps and the players has become toxic. The players feel entitled to an amazing map pool, and anytime a map has a noteworthy flaw players more often than not berate the mapmaker. There's an unreasonable entitlement going on, an unreasonable expectation and lack of appreciation for what mapmakers do. It's small wonder the pool of talented mapmakers is a small fraction of what it was in WoL days.
On July 02 2015 05:36 MockHamill wrote: Yeah this is the worst map pool since early WOL.
All I wish to play is macro games with the occasional cheese. Now it is non stop cheese and macro is dead. It is not fun, it is just stressful and irritating.
That happens every time the map pool changes, I'm not sure why are you surprised, give it time so it settles a bit.
Regarding what NewSunshine and Sidian said I pretty much fully agree, it is very hard to even get your own maps played, but my take is that atm is very hard for anyone that actually wants to play nonladder maps it is very hard for them to find said maps, be it inside the game itself, or find a place outside where they can find nice maps to play with their friends.
On July 02 2015 03:49 SidianTheBard wrote: Sidian: Hey, look at this map I designed, will anybody give feedback in the team liquid mapping forum? Community: ...
Sidian: Hey, my map got placed under a community spotlight featured by blizzard! Hopefully this gets some more playtime and I get some good feedback! Community: ...
Sidian: Hey, TLMC is going on, would love to hear some thoughts before I submit my map! Community: ...
Sidian: Look, my map got in the top few maps for TLMC, hopefully with that publicity and the TLMC map tournament I'll get even more feedback! Community: ...
Sidian: Sweet, my map randomly got onto ladder! Awesome! Community: FUCK THIS MAP, PIECE OF SHIT IMBALANCED TRASH GARBAGE MAPPER FUCK DIS SHIT DED GAME.
Welcome to the life of a starcraft 2 mapper.
Feel free to stop by the mapping forum and give your feedback, you never know when one of those maps will get on ladder!
In what world did you not get any feedback after being chosen as TLMC finalist?
by that point it's literally already too late, the map files have already been sent to blizz for ladder consideration, even if the mapmaker updates their map blizz generally won't accept the edited version since they've already begun testing the original one (see foxtrot labs).
The problem is not that mapmakers fucked up. When I look through the list of community maps there are plenty of amazing maps. The thing is that for some reason blizzard wanted to have as much gimmicks and abusable features in this mappool as possible so they just chose those maps. It's solely blizzards fault so don't blame the mapmakers
I'm still having fun with them, but I'm increasingly getting the sense that mapmakers should be given the freedom to try alternate stats for destructible rocks and collapsible rocks. Some of the attack paths that are opened up by breaking destructible rocks are simply too potent for how little time and dps investment can be put into breaking them. Bridgehead in particular could really use some 6000hp, 1 armor rocks. Currently, Roaches, Immortal, and Marauders chew through them way too quickly.
On July 02 2015 07:25 Pontius Pirate wrote: I'm still having fun with them, but I'm increasingly getting the sense that mapmakers should be given the freedom to try alternate stats for destructible rocks and collapsible rocks. Some of the attack paths that are opened up by breaking destructible rocks are simply too potent for how little time and dps investment can be put into breaking them. Bridgehead in particular could really use some 6000hp, 1 armor rocks. Currently, Roaches, Immortal, and Marauders chew through them way too quickly.
Yeah I fully agree, the limitation on the HP of rocks and other things can really hurt into map layouts and map balance, like check any BW map that had back doors, and you will see that in general it wasn't easy at all to break these walls, they would usually have Destructible Temples stacked on top of each other so only splash damage units could take them down reliably,and maps such as Medusa would also besides the temples have mineral walls to avoid even more players easily being able to take down the back doors.
map pool is dank. the same people who complained about blizzard maps all the fucking time now complain about a 100% community map pool. and the same people who complain about standard "boring" maps now complain about some experimental details.
Not your fault mapmakers. Blizzard's fault to select too much "gimmicky" maps without enough solid maps to back them up. I'd call Terraform and Coda the only truly solid maps in that map pool. The other ones are really abusable, sometimes to the point of retardedness (Bridgehead). I still can't figure out what went through the mind of the mapmaker (though apparently a reasonable guy since if I remember correctly he's the guy behind Frost too) when he added those line of sight blockers on the rocks.
On July 02 2015 05:36 MockHamill wrote: Yeah this is the worst map pool since early WOL.
All I wish to play is macro games with the occasional cheese. Now it is non stop cheese and macro is dead. It is not fun, it is just stressful and irritating.
That happens every time the map pool changes, I'm not sure why are you surprised, give it time so it settles a bit.
Regarding what NewSunshine and Sidian said I pretty much fully agree, it is very hard to even get your own maps played, but my take is that atm is very hard for anyone that actually wants to play nonladder maps it is very hard for them to find said maps, be it inside the game itself, or find a place outside where they can find nice maps to play with their friends.
It really doesnt, everyone who looked at these maps even once knew they are bad to play on.
I dont know why map makers are saying there was no feedback and acting like this is the first time they heard the maps are bad. When there was TLMC tournament İ wrote whats bad about the maps for each map in TLMC tournament and every map maker gave me the response which was something along the lines of " thanks for sharing your opinion but we have no plans of changing the map". A lot of players that played in that tourney had same opinion as İ did back then.
The worst map pool since 2010 that just allows allins and no macro games.
On July 02 2015 07:44 Paljas wrote: map pool is dank. the same people who complained about blizzard maps all the fucking time now complain about a 100% community map pool. and the same people who complain about standard "boring" maps now complain about some experimental details.
Yeah pretty much.
The community is very divided regarding standard and nonstandard maps and features, and you can clearly see this every time the map pool changes (or when it doesn't). I personally as long as the map pool changes I'm fine with, I enjoy playing on standard and nonstandard maps. Hell I even enjoy playing on early WoL beta maps like incineration zone now and then.
But yeah, my only grief with this TLMC is that all the talk at the end of the TLMC5 was that the TLMC 6 would be focused on standard maps, and I delivered, but at the end it went full 180º and the judges choose nonstandard maps, and I'm okay with that, but I only wish that they had said that they were searching for so I could deliver, because I find very fun making nonstandard maps because they require quite a bit of game knowledge and are very fun to test and debug (yes I enjoy debugging my maps).
@beasty & Wire
As I said, this is a very nice discussion, because there are these two sides where one side really dislikes playing on nonstandard maps, and the other gets tired of the same set of standard maps being played all the time. I really don't see a way how this could be mended specially when you consider the viewers into the equation.
I was talking with Meavis about this a while ago, and yeah, the only way I can see it getting "fixed" may be separating the "competitive" map pool from a more "for funnies" map pool. But there would still be the problem that the progamers will veto any map that gets away from the standard and the E-Sports side of the game would continue to use the same "dull ass maps".
But yeah, if anyone has an idea regarding how we could have everybody, or at least a good part of the population without fucking the other 50% over would be very nice.
As for protoss, you will kill yourself playing these, especially vs zerg. I can imagine a lot of games will lead into more protoss all-ins, and it's unfortunate. This time I can't blame any protoss for going full all-in since the expansions are close to undefendable because of distance between bases, and the wide open area around them.
This is so very true. Protosses are going to have to become more gimmicky if they want to win at the higher level, which means that terrans and zergs can just blindly play defensively and expect a lot of easy wins (this isn't balance whine, sorry if it sounds like it) because the maps make macro pretty much a nonexistent option for Protoss for the most part. Hope some redesign gets thrown onto these maps ASAP to help fix the problems that make some of the mu's so 1-sided.
On July 02 2015 07:44 Paljas wrote: map pool is dank. the same people who complained about blizzard maps all the fucking time now complain about a 100% community map pool. and the same people who complain about standard "boring" maps now complain about some experimental details.
Yeah pretty much.
The community is very divided regarding standard and nonstandard maps and features, and you can clearly see this every time the map pool changes (or when it doesn't). I personally as long as the map pool changes I'm fine with, I enjoy playing on standard and nonstandard maps. Hell I even enjoy playing on early WoL beta maps like incineration zone now and then.
But yeah, my only grief with this TLMC is that all the talk at the end of the TLMC5 was that the TLMC 6 would be focused on standard maps, and I delivered, but at the end it went full 180º and the judges choose nonstandard maps, and I'm okay with that, but I only wish that they had said that they were searching for so I could deliver, because I find very fun making nonstandard maps because they require quite a bit of game knowledge and are very fun to test and debug (yes I enjoy debugging my maps).
@beasty & Wire
As I said, this is a very nice discussion, because there are these two sides where one side really dislikes playing on nonstandard maps, and the other gets tired of the same set of standard maps being played all the time. I really don't see a way how this could be mended specially when you consider the viewers into the equation.
I was talking with Meavis about this a while ago, and yeah, the only way I can see it getting "fixed" may be separating the "competitive" map pool from a more "for funnies" map pool. But there would still be the problem that the progamers will veto any map that gets away from the standard and the E-Sports side of the game would continue to use the same "dull ass maps".
But yeah, if anyone has an idea regarding how we could have everybody, or at least a good part of the population without fucking the other 50% over would be very nice.
Hi Uvantak, First I wonder how it feels to be one of the most celebrated and yet the most robbed mapmaker of all time, since Inferno Pools ("the big macro map") lasted as many seasons as Foxtrot Labs + Echo. Second I think the game itself should be the first factor allowing diverse strategies and openers, not the maps. It's mostly SC2 problem if there is basically only 1-3 viable at the highest level ways to play in each match-up, and we shouldn't have to resort to maps to solve that. Mapmakers shouldn't have to make up for the game lacking design. People get excited every time we see something different (biomech, chargelot archon...) so I'm pretty sure no one would be crying for "meta shaking maps" if ZvZ wasn't roach vs roach or lingbane vs lingbane and like something else 1% of the time, if PvP wasn't colossi wars 99% of the time it goes past 2 bases, if PvT wasn't the sempiternal bio vs colossi with variations that are too subtle for the average viewer (vikingless marauder mine heavy style, standard viking bio, scv pull, viking + ghost into lategame, all that boils down to the same thing for the viewer)... Last I hope mapmakers don't get too disgusted by this thread. Once again, yeah a lot of us are bashing the maps, but because the map pool on a whole is too macro unfriendly, not because maps aren't interesting. We blame Blizzard for incoherent choices (TLMC finalists and this map pool) far more than we blame the mapmakers for their work. I want to mention that as Beastyqt said, we were a lot to be worried by the backdoors mania that happened in TLMC6 and by the fact the maps selected didn't appear to be the most solid ones, and that we wrote about it.
On July 02 2015 05:36 MockHamill wrote: Yeah this is the worst map pool since early WOL.
All I wish to play is macro games with the occasional cheese. Now it is non stop cheese and macro is dead. It is not fun, it is just stressful and irritating.
That happens every time the map pool changes, I'm not sure why are you surprised, give it time so it settles a bit.
Regarding what NewSunshine and Sidian said I pretty much fully agree, it is very hard to even get your own maps played, but my take is that atm is very hard for anyone that actually wants to play nonladder maps it is very hard for them to find said maps, be it inside the game itself, or find a place outside where they can find nice maps to play with their friends.
It really doesnt, everyone who looked at these maps even once knew they are bad to play on.
I dont know why map makers are saying there was no feedback and acting like this is the first time they heard the maps are bad. When there was TLMC tournament İ wrote whats bad about the maps for each map in TLMC tournament and every map maker gave me the response which was something along the lines of " thanks for sharing your opinion but we have no plans of changing the map". A lot of players that played in that tourney had same opinion as İ did back then.
The worst map pool since 2010 that just allows allins and no macro games.
like i mentioned before, once the TLMC has gotten to the stage of the finalist selection and the tournament, there is oftentimes no point for mapmakers to change the maps since at this time the files have typically already been sent to blizz for ladder consideration, and blizz will not accept new/revised ones. so pretty much at the point when the maps are actually getting feedback it is already too late.
also consider that it's often hard for mapmakers to separate legitimate feedback from the masses of people complaining "it's not 100% standard, therefore it automatically sucks" which even includes a good percentage of progamers.
On July 02 2015 05:36 MockHamill wrote: Yeah this is the worst map pool since early WOL.
All I wish to play is macro games with the occasional cheese. Now it is non stop cheese and macro is dead. It is not fun, it is just stressful and irritating.
That happens every time the map pool changes, I'm not sure why are you surprised, give it time so it settles a bit.
Regarding what NewSunshine and Sidian said I pretty much fully agree, it is very hard to even get your own maps played, but my take is that atm is very hard for anyone that actually wants to play nonladder maps it is very hard for them to find said maps, be it inside the game itself, or find a place outside where they can find nice maps to play with their friends.
It really doesnt, everyone who looked at these maps even once knew they are bad to play on.
I dont know why map makers are saying there was no feedback and acting like this is the first time they heard the maps are bad. When there was TLMC tournament İ wrote whats bad about the maps for each map in TLMC tournament and every map maker gave me the response which was something along the lines of " thanks for sharing your opinion but we have no plans of changing the map". A lot of players that played in that tourney had same opinion as İ did back then.
The worst map pool since 2010 that just allows allins and no macro games.
like i mentioned before, once the TLMC has gotten to the stage of the finalist selection and the tournament, there is oftentimes no point for mapmakers to change the maps since at this time the files have typically already been sent to blizz for ladder consideration, and blizz will not accept new/revised ones. so pretty much at the point when the maps are actually getting feedback it is already too late.
also consider that it's often hard for mapmakers to separate legitimate feedback from the masses of people complaining "it's not 100% standard, therefore it automatically sucks" which even includes a good percentage of progamers.
There is a difference between non standard maps and unplayable ones. Vaani wasnt standard map with in base expansion but it didnt force certain kind of playstyles on it. You could allin, hit a timing off 3 base or just camp whole game.
Current map pool forces players to allin due to the map layout. Example of this is the Dash map, in TvP protoss will always chrono boost mothership core and move it across the map due to short air rush distance. Terran cannot go for reaper FE because of this and it forces Terran to either go gas first or float to the gold which is just dumb.
On July 02 2015 07:44 Paljas wrote: map pool is dank. the same people who complained about blizzard maps all the fucking time now complain about a 100% community map pool. and the same people who complain about standard "boring" maps now complain about some experimental details.
Yeah pretty much.
The community is very divided regarding standard and nonstandard maps and features, and you can clearly see this every time the map pool changes (or when it doesn't). I personally as long as the map pool changes I'm fine with, I enjoy playing on standard and nonstandard maps. Hell I even enjoy playing on early WoL beta maps like incineration zone now and then.
But yeah, my only grief with this TLMC is that all the talk at the end of the TLMC5 was that the TLMC 6 would be focused on standard maps, and I delivered, but at the end it went full 180º and the judges choose nonstandard maps, and I'm okay with that, but I only wish that they had said that they were searching for so I could deliver, because I find very fun making nonstandard maps because they require quite a bit of game knowledge and are very fun to test and debug (yes I enjoy debugging my maps).
@beasty & Wire
As I said, this is a very nice discussion, because there are these two sides where one side really dislikes playing on nonstandard maps, and the other gets tired of the same set of standard maps being played all the time. I really don't see a way how this could be mended specially when you consider the viewers into the equation.
I was talking with Meavis about this a while ago, and yeah, the only way I can see it getting "fixed" may be separating the "competitive" map pool from a more "for funnies" map pool. But there would still be the problem that the progamers will veto any map that gets away from the standard and the E-Sports side of the game would continue to use the same "dull ass maps".
But yeah, if anyone has an idea regarding how we could have everybody, or at least a good part of the population without fucking the other 50% over would be very nice.
Hi Uvantak, First I wonder how it feels to be one of the most celebrated and yet the most robbed mapmaker of all time, since Inferno Pools ("the big macro map") lasted as many seasons as Foxtrot Labs + Echo.
It is most of it "meh", I do not make maps for a ego thing, and I actually enjoy quite a bit the maps from the other guys so I'm totally fine with Sidian, Negative and others getting their maps into ladder, also it is nice to rest for a while of all the people saying random criticisms about my maps heh
On July 02 2015 08:35 [PkF] Wire wrote:Second I think the game itself should be the first factor allowing diverse strategies and openers, not the maps. It's mostly SC2 problem if there is basically only 1-3 viable at the highest level ways to play in each match-up, and we shouldn't have to resort to maps to solve that. Mapmakers shouldn't have to make up for the game lacking design. People get excited every time we see something different (biomech, chargelot archon...) so I'm pretty sure no one would be crying for "meta shaking maps" if ZvZ wasn't roach vs roach or lingbane vs lingbane and like something else 1% of the time, if PvP wasn't colossi wars 99% of the time it goes past 2 bases, if PvT wasn't the sempiternal bio vs colossi with variations that are too subtle for the average viewer (vikingless marauder mine heavy style, standard viking bio, scv pull, viking + ghost into lategame, all that boils down to the same thing for the viewer)...
Basically any thing that you change in the game, from UI and user input passing to unit pathing and unit design affects map design and balance. Regarding map variety itself you must remember that the bulk of BW maps were used in team leagues where the map balance is not as important. Also I'm one of the few to say that in general BW was more restricting towards maps than SC2 is. Like just check an accepted good BW map and you will see that the center of the map is very very open and uninteresting from a mapmaking perspective, and in general they tend to use simple general big overarching ideas on the map layout. This is in big part because of the split up unit pathing BW has, and the very strong Tanks. If you add many ramps or lowgrounds the map will start to become quite T favored. Meanwhile here in SC2 you can have maps such as Moonlight Madness, Echo or Foxtrot and they will be much more balanced than they would be in BW.
Regarding things like backdoors and the first 3 bases layouts, I have found out that unit pathing on the 1x sized ramps plays a very very big role, in BW you simply wouldn't be able to do a ling runby if there were two zealots holding a ramp. Here in SC2 you will need more than just 2 zealots because even if you can put them in a nice spot, they won't hold for long because the lings are very smart and many will nibble at the Zeas, meanwhile in BW this wasn't the case.
Other big thing is the standarization of the rock HP, in BW you had the Xel'naga Temples which had 5000 HP and 1 Armor, and the Protoss Temples which had 1500HP and 1 armor. Mapmakers would use several Protoss of Xel'naga temples stacked on top of eachother to block important pathways such as backdoor rocks, that way if a player wanted to take down said Temples he would need to commit a considerable amount of time into taking them down with normal units or he would need to get splash units (because they are stacked). Mapmakers would also use mineral walls to allow things like "pylon glitching" probes over the mineral patches to get scout (heartbreak ridge comes to mind).
But yeah, in my opinion SC2 has more potential than BW for interesting maps and shenanigans, while keeping the dammed thing balanced. But as it is known we atm are not allowed to use these things because they can be very confusing for new players and spectators, but Psione since he became a community manager has done very good work regarding community maps, and I wouldn't be surprised if more custom things were started to be allowed on the WCS Map Pool. specially since we are seeing that Blizzard guys seem to be more or less fine accepting custom textures for doodads and terrain.
On July 02 2015 08:35 [PkF] Wire wrote:Last I hope mapmakers don't get too disgusted by this thread. Once again, yeah a lot of us are bashing the maps, but because the map pool on a whole is too macro unfriendly, not because maps aren't interesting. We blame Blizzard for incoherent choices (TLMC finalists and this map pool) far more than we blame the mapmakers for their work. I want to mention that as Beastyqt said, we were a lot to be worried by the backdoors mania that happened in TLMC6 and by the fact the maps selected didn't appear to be the most solid ones, and that we wrote about it.
The guys are used to all the drama and what not, like every time a new guy gets his map on the ladder he freaks out when he starts receiving all the feedback that his map sucks (go figure), and it is the job of the others to tell him that all is fine and that it is on Blizz's hands now.
Regarding the "macro unfriendlyness", imo you need to wait, specially on maps like Moonlight Madness or Dash (screw you negative, I'm not mentioning yours just b/c I can) because the maps DO allow for macro games, and some pretty sweet ones, but just like at the start of every season it takes a while for people to get used to the new maps, and until they get used to them they will cheese, a lot.
There probably will be some allins that are stronger, and that is completely normal, after all we are talking of nonstandard maps here, but I at the moment doubt that they will be that extra strong.
On July 02 2015 05:36 MockHamill wrote: Yeah this is the worst map pool since early WOL.
All I wish to play is macro games with the occasional cheese. Now it is non stop cheese and macro is dead. It is not fun, it is just stressful and irritating.
That happens every time the map pool changes, I'm not sure why are you surprised, give it time so it settles a bit.
Regarding what NewSunshine and Sidian said I pretty much fully agree, it is very hard to even get your own maps played, but my take is that atm is very hard for anyone that actually wants to play nonladder maps it is very hard for them to find said maps, be it inside the game itself, or find a place outside where they can find nice maps to play with their friends.
It really doesnt, everyone who looked at these maps even once knew they are bad to play on.
I dont know why map makers are saying there was no feedback and acting like this is the first time they heard the maps are bad. When there was TLMC tournament İ wrote whats bad about the maps for each map in TLMC tournament and every map maker gave me the response which was something along the lines of " thanks for sharing your opinion but we have no plans of changing the map". A lot of players that played in that tourney had same opinion as İ did back then.
The worst map pool since 2010 that just allows allins and no macro games.
like i mentioned before, once the TLMC has gotten to the stage of the finalist selection and the tournament, there is oftentimes no point for mapmakers to change the maps since at this time the files have typically already been sent to blizz for ladder consideration, and blizz will not accept new/revised ones. so pretty much at the point when the maps are actually getting feedback it is already too late.
also consider that it's often hard for mapmakers to separate legitimate feedback from the masses of people complaining "it's not 100% standard, therefore it automatically sucks" which even includes a good percentage of progamers.
There is a difference between non standard maps and unplayable ones. Vaani wasnt standard map with in base expansion but it didnt force certain kind of playstyles on it. You could allin, hit a timing off 3 base or just camp whole game.
Current map pool forces players to allin due to the map layout. Example of this is the Dash map, in TvP protoss will always chrono boost mothership core and move it across the map due to short air rush distance. Terran cannot go for reaper FE because of this and it forces Terran to either go gas first or float to the gold which is just dumb.
Yeah, I understand you perfectly, from a competitive player perspective the maps can be pretty bad, but now put yourself on the foots of an average viewer, for them a Terran lifting to the gold because P can harass him with the MsC is pretty dank for lack of a better word. Also the reaper path to the Toss main base is very very short on Dash, so I wouldn't be surprised to see in the next weeks P players complaining of the exact opposite, of how easy is for the T to do silly things like 3 rax reaper directly oto their mains.
And that's what is interesting, yesterday I was talking with a friend and we agreed that RottyTempests rushes could be viable on Dash, if we see that from a viewer perspective you can clearly realize that these nonstandard maps can bring lots of very visible strategies. I'm not saying that I do not enjoy sharp baby ass clean timings like many Korean pros can do, I do very much enjoy them, I'm just saying that from a casual viewer these maps offer a more visible "starcraft experience", without them needing to be at least Platinum league players form them to even grasp how sharp some of the attacks and mind reads they can pulloff.
On July 02 2015 07:44 Paljas wrote: map pool is dank. the same people who complained about blizzard maps all the fucking time now complain about a 100% community map pool. and the same people who complain about standard "boring" maps now complain about some experimental details.
Yeah pretty much.
The community is very divided regarding standard and nonstandard maps and features, and you can clearly see this every time the map pool changes (or when it doesn't). I personally as long as the map pool changes I'm fine with, I enjoy playing on standard and nonstandard maps. Hell I even enjoy playing on early WoL beta maps like incineration zone now and then.
But yeah, my only grief with this TLMC is that all the talk at the end of the TLMC5 was that the TLMC 6 would be focused on standard maps, and I delivered, but at the end it went full 180º and the judges choose nonstandard maps, and I'm okay with that, but I only wish that they had said that they were searching for so I could deliver, because I find very fun making nonstandard maps because they require quite a bit of game knowledge and are very fun to test and debug (yes I enjoy debugging my maps).
@beasty & Wire
As I said, this is a very nice discussion, because there are these two sides where one side really dislikes playing on nonstandard maps, and the other gets tired of the same set of standard maps being played all the time. I really don't see a way how this could be mended specially when you consider the viewers into the equation.
I was talking with Meavis about this a while ago, and yeah, the only way I can see it getting "fixed" may be separating the "competitive" map pool from a more "for funnies" map pool. But there would still be the problem that the progamers will veto any map that gets away from the standard and the E-Sports side of the game would continue to use the same "dull ass maps".
But yeah, if anyone has an idea regarding how we could have everybody, or at least a good part of the population without fucking the other 50% over would be very nice.
There are seven maps in the pool, three vetos on ladder, and the vast majority of tournament games played by pros are Bo3. Here's your solution : have four standard maps (ideally three 2p and one 4p) alongside three more experimental maps (two 2p and one 4p). On the ladder side of things : -The guy who enjoys only standard play because he wants to "play like the pros" (aka hammering the same macro build over and over regardless of the map) can just veto the three experimental maps -The guy who enjoys only weird maps because he doesn't find hammering the same macro build over and over fun can veto three of the four standard maps -The guy who enjoys both is happy :D
On the competitive side of things : -Since most series are Bo3, having only three experimental maps isn't an issue -When it's a Bo5, yes there'll be one map played on an experimental map, but when you reach the Bo5 stage of a tournament it's either (a) a situation where you had a lot of time to prepare (WCS Challenger, Code S quarters), thus it's not an issue, or (b) a situation where you didn't have time to prepare (WCS playoffs, foreign tournaments playoffs) in which case I think that when you're a pro and you reach the later stages of a tournament, you should be good enough (relatively to your opponents) to be able to play efficiently on experimental maps. -When it's a Bo7, well basically same deal as with Bo5
The only downside is that both standard (because there are only four) and nonstandard (because they'll be used in the later stages of the most prestigious tournaments) maps need to be really balanced (no more Yeonsu or Nimbus kind of things), thus we need non-WCS tournaments organizers to use non-ladder maps (or we need a tournament only dedicated to new maps). It's not that hard, O'Gaming does it ffs. (edit : and we need Blizzard to take these into account ofc, because they clearly didn't when doing 2014 WCS S3 map pool, else we'd have had Kamala Park on ladder)
Just wanted to post that I've noticed obnoxious glitching on the back rocks on Bridgehead. My graphics settings are all on low. Pretty annoying, makes it a bit unplayable IMO.
On July 02 2015 15:29 Qwyn wrote: Just wanted to post that I've noticed obnoxious glitching on the back rocks on Bridgehead. My graphics settings are all on low. Pretty annoying, makes it a bit unplayable IMO.
On July 02 2015 08:35 [PkF] Wire wrote: Last I hope mapmakers don't get too disgusted by this thread. Once again, yeah a lot of us are bashing the maps, but because the map pool on a whole is too macro unfriendly, not because maps aren't interesting. We blame Blizzard for incoherent choices (TLMC finalists and this map pool) far more than we blame the mapmakers for their work. I want to mention that as Beastyqt said, we were a lot to be worried by the backdoors mania that happened in TLMC6 and by the fact the maps selected didn't appear to be the most solid ones, and that we wrote about it.
don't know about the others, but I appreciate the spike of feedback over the eerie silence, even if it carries emotional load. and the sillier comments only make for good entertainment.
On July 02 2015 05:36 MockHamill wrote: Yeah this is the worst map pool since early WOL.
All I wish to play is macro games with the occasional cheese. Now it is non stop cheese and macro is dead. It is not fun, it is just stressful and irritating.
That happens every time the map pool changes, I'm not sure why are you surprised, give it time so it settles a bit.
Regarding what NewSunshine and Sidian said I pretty much fully agree, it is very hard to even get your own maps played, but my take is that atm is very hard for anyone that actually wants to play nonladder maps it is very hard for them to find said maps, be it inside the game itself, or find a place outside where they can find nice maps to play with their friends.
It really doesnt, everyone who looked at these maps even once knew they are bad to play on.
I dont know why map makers are saying there was no feedback and acting like this is the first time they heard the maps are bad. When there was TLMC tournament İ wrote whats bad about the maps for each map in TLMC tournament and every map maker gave me the response which was something along the lines of " thanks for sharing your opinion but we have no plans of changing the map". A lot of players that played in that tourney had same opinion as İ did back then.
The worst map pool since 2010 that just allows allins and no macro games.
like i mentioned before, once the TLMC has gotten to the stage of the finalist selection and the tournament, there is oftentimes no point for mapmakers to change the maps since at this time the files have typically already been sent to blizz for ladder consideration, and blizz will not accept new/revised ones. so pretty much at the point when the maps are actually getting feedback it is already too late.
also consider that it's often hard for mapmakers to separate legitimate feedback from the masses of people complaining "it's not 100% standard, therefore it automatically sucks" which even includes a good percentage of progamers.
There is a difference between non standard maps and unplayable ones. Vaani wasnt standard map with in base expansion but it didnt force certain kind of playstyles on it. You could allin, hit a timing off 3 base or just camp whole game.
Current map pool forces players to allin due to the map layout. Example of this is the Dash map, in TvP protoss will always chrono boost mothership core and move it across the map due to short air rush distance. Terran cannot go for reaper FE because of this and it forces Terran to either go gas first or float to the gold which is just dumb.
Yeah, I understand you perfectly, from a competitive player perspective the maps can be pretty bad, but now put yourself on the foots of an average viewer, for them a Terran lifting to the gold because P can harass him with the MsC is pretty dank for lack of a better word. Also the reaper path to the Toss main base is very very short on Dash, so I wouldn't be surprised to see in the next weeks P players complaining of the exact opposite, of how easy is for the T to do silly things like 3 rax reaper directly oto their mains.
And that's what is interesting, yesterday I was talking with a friend and we agreed that RottyTempests rushes could be viable on Dash, if we see that from a viewer perspective you can clearly realize that these nonstandard maps can bring lots of very visible strategies. I'm not saying that I do not enjoy sharp baby ass clean timings like many Korean pros can do, I do very much enjoy them, I'm just saying that from a casual viewer these maps offer a more visible "starcraft experience", without them needing to be at least Platinum league players form them to even grasp how sharp some of the attacks and mind reads they can pulloff.
I can not stress enaugh how much i disagree with this. These maps actually reduce the amout of strategical thinking needed to play the game since they make certain strategys so powerful that there is no choice anymore. For a game to be played professionally you want it to be based around the more skilled player winning and not about entertaining the viewer. Otherwise it is just not worth it for the players to dedicate themselfs to training if skill doesn't pay off.
On July 02 2015 05:36 MockHamill wrote: Yeah this is the worst map pool since early WOL.
All I wish to play is macro games with the occasional cheese. Now it is non stop cheese and macro is dead. It is not fun, it is just stressful and irritating.
That happens every time the map pool changes, I'm not sure why are you surprised, give it time so it settles a bit.
Regarding what NewSunshine and Sidian said I pretty much fully agree, it is very hard to even get your own maps played, but my take is that atm is very hard for anyone that actually wants to play nonladder maps it is very hard for them to find said maps, be it inside the game itself, or find a place outside where they can find nice maps to play with their friends.
It really doesnt, everyone who looked at these maps even once knew they are bad to play on.
I dont know why map makers are saying there was no feedback and acting like this is the first time they heard the maps are bad. When there was TLMC tournament İ wrote whats bad about the maps for each map in TLMC tournament and every map maker gave me the response which was something along the lines of " thanks for sharing your opinion but we have no plans of changing the map". A lot of players that played in that tourney had same opinion as İ did back then.
The worst map pool since 2010 that just allows allins and no macro games.
like i mentioned before, once the TLMC has gotten to the stage of the finalist selection and the tournament, there is oftentimes no point for mapmakers to change the maps since at this time the files have typically already been sent to blizz for ladder consideration, and blizz will not accept new/revised ones. so pretty much at the point when the maps are actually getting feedback it is already too late.
also consider that it's often hard for mapmakers to separate legitimate feedback from the masses of people complaining "it's not 100% standard, therefore it automatically sucks" which even includes a good percentage of progamers.
There is a difference between non standard maps and unplayable ones. Vaani wasnt standard map with in base expansion but it didnt force certain kind of playstyles on it. You could allin, hit a timing off 3 base or just camp whole game.
Current map pool forces players to allin due to the map layout. Example of this is the Dash map, in TvP protoss will always chrono boost mothership core and move it across the map due to short air rush distance. Terran cannot go for reaper FE because of this and it forces Terran to either go gas first or float to the gold which is just dumb.
Yeah, I understand you perfectly, from a competitive player perspective the maps can be pretty bad, but now put yourself on the foots of an average viewer, for them a Terran lifting to the gold because P can harass him with the MsC is pretty dank for lack of a better word. Also the reaper path to the Toss main base is very very short on Dash, so I wouldn't be surprised to see in the next weeks P players complaining of the exact opposite, of how easy is for the T to do silly things like 3 rax reaper directly oto their mains.
And that's what is interesting, yesterday I was talking with a friend and we agreed that RottyTempests rushes could be viable on Dash, if we see that from a viewer perspective you can clearly realize that these nonstandard maps can bring lots of very visible strategies. I'm not saying that I do not enjoy sharp baby ass clean timings like many Korean pros can do, I do very much enjoy them, I'm just saying that from a casual viewer these maps offer a more visible "starcraft experience", without them needing to be at least Platinum league players form them to even grasp how sharp some of the attacks and mind reads they can pulloff.
I can not stress enaugh how much i disagree with this. These maps actually reduce the amout of strategical thinking needed to play the game since they make certain strategys so powerful that there is no choice anymore. For a game to be played professionally you want it to be based around the more skilled player winning and not about entertaining the viewer. Otherwise it is just not worth it for the players to dedicate themselfs to training if skill doesn't pay off.
and I disagree with that, the moment map specific strategies become optimized no-brainers, hard-counter strategies will rise as well, providing a new strategic/decision making high, and this makes these kind of maps very interesting. the downside of this however that it will devolve to coin-flipping, and later on becomes equally stale as standard meta, and why I feel these kinds of maps aren't as suited for a system where 6/7 maps last half a year.
There are seven maps in the pool, three vetos on ladder, and the vast majority of tournament games played by pros are Bo3. Here's your solution : have four standard maps (ideally three 2p and one 4p) alongside three more experimental maps (two 2p and one 4p). On the ladder side of things : -The guy who enjoys only standard play because he wants to "play like the pros" (aka hammering the same macro build over and over regardless of the map) can just veto the three experimental maps -The guy who enjoys only weird maps because he doesn't find hammering the same macro build over and over fun can veto three of the four standard maps -The guy who enjoys both is happy :D
Pretty much this. But that's in blizzard's hands, given how mappools are being handled. And of course it is easier said than done as it depends a lot on opinions what is standard and what is not. And often maps only become standard after being played and as its feature-combination gets firgured out.
On July 02 2015 15:29 Qwyn wrote: Just wanted to post that I've noticed obnoxious glitching on the back rocks on Bridgehead. My graphics settings are all on low. Pretty annoying, makes it a bit unplayable IMO.
looks like those are the LoS blockers, not the rocks.
Ahhhh, you might be right! Looks like it as well.
Yeah I wonder if there are graphics settings I can play on that make it go away? Every time I jump to my natural on Bridgehead I get driven a little bit more insane.
I love the new maps Finally i can think of some new strats instead of doing always the same thing. About the complains don't bother about it. It are always the same people in every thread who starts to shit on blizzard. You know when the maps are only out for 48 hours that most of it is just whining. Everybody have fun on the new maps !!! :D
On July 02 2015 15:29 Qwyn wrote: Just wanted to post that I've noticed obnoxious glitching on the back rocks on Bridgehead. My graphics settings are all on low. Pretty annoying, makes it a bit unplayable IMO.
looks like those are the LoS blockers, not the rocks.
Ahhhh, you might be right! Looks like it as well.
Yeah I wonder if there are graphics settings I can play on that make it go away? Every time I jump to my natural on Bridgehead I get driven a little bit more insane.
Check if your graphic drivers are up to date, the bug that you are experiencing is clearly into the way your graphic card is interpreting the model, and the only way to fix it probably is with the drivers.
On July 02 2015 05:36 MockHamill wrote: Yeah this is the worst map pool since early WOL.
All I wish to play is macro games with the occasional cheese. Now it is non stop cheese and macro is dead. It is not fun, it is just stressful and irritating.
That happens every time the map pool changes, I'm not sure why are you surprised, give it time so it settles a bit.
Regarding what NewSunshine and Sidian said I pretty much fully agree, it is very hard to even get your own maps played, but my take is that atm is very hard for anyone that actually wants to play nonladder maps it is very hard for them to find said maps, be it inside the game itself, or find a place outside where they can find nice maps to play with their friends.
It really doesnt, everyone who looked at these maps even once knew they are bad to play on.
I dont know why map makers are saying there was no feedback and acting like this is the first time they heard the maps are bad. When there was TLMC tournament İ wrote whats bad about the maps for each map in TLMC tournament and every map maker gave me the response which was something along the lines of " thanks for sharing your opinion but we have no plans of changing the map". A lot of players that played in that tourney had same opinion as İ did back then.
The worst map pool since 2010 that just allows allins and no macro games.
like i mentioned before, once the TLMC has gotten to the stage of the finalist selection and the tournament, there is oftentimes no point for mapmakers to change the maps since at this time the files have typically already been sent to blizz for ladder consideration, and blizz will not accept new/revised ones. so pretty much at the point when the maps are actually getting feedback it is already too late.
also consider that it's often hard for mapmakers to separate legitimate feedback from the masses of people complaining "it's not 100% standard, therefore it automatically sucks" which even includes a good percentage of progamers.
There is a difference between non standard maps and unplayable ones. Vaani wasnt standard map with in base expansion but it didnt force certain kind of playstyles on it. You could allin, hit a timing off 3 base or just camp whole game.
Current map pool forces players to allin due to the map layout. Example of this is the Dash map, in TvP protoss will always chrono boost mothership core and move it across the map due to short air rush distance. Terran cannot go for reaper FE because of this and it forces Terran to either go gas first or float to the gold which is just dumb.
Yeah, I understand you perfectly, from a competitive player perspective the maps can be pretty bad, but now put yourself on the foots of an average viewer, for them a Terran lifting to the gold because P can harass him with the MsC is pretty dank for lack of a better word. Also the reaper path to the Toss main base is very very short on Dash, so I wouldn't be surprised to see in the next weeks P players complaining of the exact opposite, of how easy is for the T to do silly things like 3 rax reaper directly oto their mains.
And that's what is interesting, yesterday I was talking with a friend and we agreed that RottyTempests rushes could be viable on Dash, if we see that from a viewer perspective you can clearly realize that these nonstandard maps can bring lots of very visible strategies. I'm not saying that I do not enjoy sharp baby ass clean timings like many Korean pros can do, I do very much enjoy them, I'm just saying that from a casual viewer these maps offer a more visible "starcraft experience", without them needing to be at least Platinum league players form them to even grasp how sharp some of the attacks and mind reads they can pulloff.
I can not stress enaugh how much i disagree with this. These maps actually reduce the amout of strategical thinking needed to play the game since they make certain strategys so powerful that there is no choice anymore. For a game to be played professionally you want it to be based around the more skilled player winning and not about entertaining the viewer. Otherwise it is just not worth it for the players to dedicate themselfs to training if skill doesn't pay off.
That's a main thing that I would discuss, why would their "skill" not payoff? That line shows me that you think that BO's are what you identify as "skill", when sharp BO's are just a part of a good player. Maru will continue to be Maru on steppes of war as he would be on Daybreak and the only difference between how sharp his timings will be is how much time has he spent learning how does the other race behave on X map.
Actually you could even argue that following a single Bo mindlessly on basically any map and winning does not mean that the player is "skillful", but it simply means that he's able to execute the thing nicely, but that's not necessarily a good way to showcase "skill", because being able to do the same thing over and over does not really mean that X player is "skillful". Meanwhile being able to easily adapt and exploit the terrain advantages of a certain map on the fly (or with training) is a better way to showcase skill.
Regarding the "no choice anymore" that only happens very very late on the map's life cycle, and it is not that there will be a single Bo/allin that's very strong, but two or three different very refined bo's that require complete different responses from his opponent, which is what the Blink allin problem was for the most part, the conjunction of Oracle rushes/heavy two blink base allins/economic two base blink plays.
So is it even possible to play mech on this map pool?
The only maps I have positive winrates on is Coda and Dash and Terminal.
Cactus Valley 39% Terraform 35% Iron Fortress 32%
I guess I could unban Bridgehead and Moonlight madness and shift my vetoes around but they seem even worse for mech? Very hard to hold 3rd, even worse 4th.
Is there a single mech player left in this map pool? If so which maps do you ban and how do you play the remaining maps?
On July 29 2015 01:25 MockHamill wrote: So is it even possible to play mech on this map pool?
The only maps I have positive winrates on is Coda and Dash and Terminal.
Cactus Valley 39% Terraform 35% Iron Fortress 32%
I guess I could unban Bridgehead and Moonlight madness and shift my vetoes around but they seem even worse for mech? Very hard to hold 3rd, even worse 4th.
Is there a single mech player left in this map pool? If so which maps do you ban and how do you play the remaining maps?
In my opinion it is impossible to play mech on a map with backdoor rocks because your army is way to immobile to deal with someone who dances between your backdoor and your natural/third with his army. Coda and Terraform are good for mech and cactus/iron fortress okay although it's very hard to attack on iron fortress because of the open middle. I have dash and terminal voted because I just don't like it but it seems to be very good for mech.
On July 29 2015 01:25 MockHamill wrote: So is it even possible to play mech on this map pool?
The only maps I have positive winrates on is Coda and Dash and Terminal.
Cactus Valley 39% Terraform 35% Iron Fortress 32%
I guess I could unban Bridgehead and Moonlight madness and shift my vetoes around but they seem even worse for mech? Very hard to hold 3rd, even worse 4th.
Is there a single mech player left in this map pool? If so which maps do you ban and how do you play the remaining maps?
In my opinion it is impossible to play mech on a map with backdoor rocks because your army is way to immobile to deal with someone who dances between your backdoor and your natural/third with his army. Coda and Terraform are good for mech and cactus/iron fortress okay although it's very hard to attack on iron fortress because of the open middle. I have dash and terminal voted because I just don't like it but it seems to be very good for mech.
How can Terraform be good for mech? It is very hard to have vision of anything and your army can be ambushed at any time. It seems almost impossible to keep track of your opponents army on that map.
why would we not want this over maps like ganymede? who doesnt want the entire sc2 scene to be ruled by gimmicky maps, gimmicky plays and mockery from everyone for months?
On July 29 2015 01:25 MockHamill wrote: So is it even possible to play mech on this map pool?
The only maps I have positive winrates on is Coda and Dash and Terminal.
Cactus Valley 39% Terraform 35% Iron Fortress 32%
I guess I could unban Bridgehead and Moonlight madness and shift my vetoes around but they seem even worse for mech? Very hard to hold 3rd, even worse 4th.
Is there a single mech player left in this map pool? If so which maps do you ban and how do you play the remaining maps?
In my opinion it is impossible to play mech on a map with backdoor rocks because your army is way to immobile to deal with someone who dances between your backdoor and your natural/third with his army. Coda and Terraform are good for mech and cactus/iron fortress okay although it's very hard to attack on iron fortress because of the open middle. I have dash and terminal voted because I just don't like it but it seems to be very good for mech.
How can Terraform be good for mech? It is very hard to have vision of anything and your army can be ambushed at any time. It seems almost impossible to keep track of your opponents army on that map.
It's very hard to flank on that map because it has so many chokes and very little open space. Watch for instance innovation vs rogue from yesterdays PL match.
On July 29 2015 01:25 MockHamill wrote: So is it even possible to play mech on this map pool?
The only maps I have positive winrates on is Coda and Dash and Terminal.
Cactus Valley 39% Terraform 35% Iron Fortress 32%
I guess I could unban Bridgehead and Moonlight madness and shift my vetoes around but they seem even worse for mech? Very hard to hold 3rd, even worse 4th.
Is there a single mech player left in this map pool? If so which maps do you ban and how do you play the remaining maps?
In my opinion it is impossible to play mech on a map with backdoor rocks because your army is way to immobile to deal with someone who dances between your backdoor and your natural/third with his army. Coda and Terraform are good for mech and cactus/iron fortress okay although it's very hard to attack on iron fortress because of the open middle. I have dash and terminal voted because I just don't like it but it seems to be very good for mech.
How can Terraform be good for mech? It is very hard to have vision of anything and your army can be ambushed at any time. It seems almost impossible to keep track of your opponents army on that map.
It's very hard to flank on that map because it has so many chokes and very little open space. Watch for instance innovation vs rogue from yesterdays PL match.
On July 01 2015 15:24 ArtanisSC2 wrote: yeah we got community maps this time, but the options we had to choose from in the TLMC finalist voting were already bad. Like every map except 2 had backdoor rocks or any other gimmick like the backdoor alley on dash and terminal.
I agree. All tlmc maps were a joke for some reason except for terraform. Now I wouldn't be surprised if blizzard decides to put their own maps in the pool again next season. Still, it's way too early to tell. With hots being out for 2 years the meta is stagnating, so having weird maps might help that at least.
I thought this was well know but apparently some people need a reminder : Last TLMC had plenty standard maps submitted but BLIZZARD wanted weird maps to go on the ladder so they only choosed the weird maps. All TLMC maps weren't a joke, it's just BLIZZARD who decided to take the joke maps. Don't blame map makers, blame Blizzard. So don't expect blizzard to put their own map in the pool next season since getting those weird maps on the ladder was part of their plan since the beginning. The only thing you can expect is that next time they'll be wiser and pick more conservative maps
On July 29 2015 01:25 MockHamill wrote: So is it even possible to play mech on this map pool?
The only maps I have positive winrates on is Coda and Dash and Terminal.
Cactus Valley 39% Terraform 35% Iron Fortress 32%
I guess I could unban Bridgehead and Moonlight madness and shift my vetoes around but they seem even worse for mech? Very hard to hold 3rd, even worse 4th.
Is there a single mech player left in this map pool? If so which maps do you ban and how do you play the remaining maps?
In my opinion it is impossible to play mech on a map with backdoor rocks because your army is way to immobile to deal with someone who dances between your backdoor and your natural/third with his army. Coda and Terraform are good for mech and cactus/iron fortress okay although it's very hard to attack on iron fortress because of the open middle. I have dash and terminal voted because I just don't like it but it seems to be very good for mech.
How can Terraform be good for mech? It is very hard to have vision of anything and your army can be ambushed at any time. It seems almost impossible to keep track of your opponents army on that map.
It's very hard to flank on that map because it has so many chokes and very little open space. Watch for instance innovation vs rogue from yesterdays PL match.
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), some things might be a bit over the top like the bushes on the rocks, the cliff for tanks and golds should be gone in general, but I still think it's a fun map pool. People will just have to get out of their comfort zone. Rotterdam just streamed for 10 hours on the new maps and did fine as Protoss. He thinks it's cool to have something different. 
