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The question seems kind of silly, it seems very easy. It’s supposed to be balanced, look nice and have nice games on them. Well, it's not quite that easy. In fact most of the maps that have been released through-out Starcraft 2 have been considered bad by the majority. There are a few exceptions of course and I will attempt to explain why it is so difficult to create a great map in Starcraft.
Creating a balanced map that’s not new in any way is very simple. All you need to do is create a basic layout of map of the past that we already know works and call it new. This is what the community used to call “Daybreak-clones”. Of course most people enjoyed playing on Daybreak and there is nothing bad about a map that's standard and balanced. So at the end of it this kind of map is “good” but not great. The reason Daybreak was great however was simply because it was new for its time.
To create a map that's new-thinking or “creative” is also very simple. All you have to do is create things that haven't been done or used before in promaps and disregard any imbalance it might have. A map like this doesn’t qualify as “good” however like a standard balanced map is. Also a “creative” map might not mean the same thing for you and me, but I’ll go into that later.
The reason why a standard balanced map is considered good and why an imbalanced creative map is considered bad is quite simple. Players and spectators want to believe that both parties have an equally fair shot of winning.
This is where some people disagree. Some people say the players have a fair shot of winning because they will play a best-of-5 which means they will play two maps that favor one race and two games that favor the other then one pretty balanced map.
If you are the kind of person to think in such a way this also means you could consider creative imbalanced maps great. Because you don’t judge a map by its balance instead you judge the whole map pool itself.
For me however a great map requires all the non-mirror matchups to be pretty close to balanced. It needs to be unique enough that it plays or feels a little bit different from maps in the past or it could simply be the old concepts done a little bit better.
Regardless of which method of balance approach you take (looking at maps individually or the map pool as a whole) everybody wants the same thing. We want to be playing on different maps and we want the better players to win.
So going back to “creative maps” I will assure you that this does not mean the same thing to everybody.
Some might look at Expedition Lost and say that is a creative map, although the statement itself might be true that doesn’t necessarily mean the games or players will be creative and this is a huge misstep many people take.
On Expedition Lost we saw strategies we never saw during that meta. We saw proxy hatches behind Protoss and Terran main bases doing Spine Crawler rushes. We saw Marine Tank two base play against Zerg that we hadn't seen in years. We saw two base immortal allins against Terran that we normally wouldn't. This seemed to be the creativity we wanted at the time.
But then weeks later, we still saw those things I mentioned, same builds still being used. We saw skewed win ratios and to be frank - predictable strategies. These kind of “Expedition Lost” builds were so great in fact that we would only see these build orders all the time.
When the game was in the countdown I already knew as an observer what both players would do. The map itself was creative but it encouraged the players themselves to be the opposite. The spectators wanted to see new things and they did. But it wasn’t balanced and later on wasn’t exciting anymore. At the end of it Expedition Lost brought us the same short-term excitement Pylon rushing did in early LotV.
To me a creative map is a map that encourages unorthodox strategies but not to such a degree that everybody would be forced to do them. In this way a player will have options to play the exciting “creative” builds that only work on that map or stick to the old guns. I can not for the life of me think of a better example than King Sejong Station right now.
On that map as a we were re-introduced to Tank Marine on two base against Protoss. But there were ways for Protoss to defend these. We still had the options of playing “normal” but so could Protoss. This to me is what a creative map is supposed to deliver. Months gone by on King Sejong Station and the meta on this map itself shifted multiple times and back and forth. Eventually the map got shifted out of the map pool but still to this day I could not tell you the perfect way to play on that map in Terran vs Protoss.
Was King Sejong Station the perfect map though? Many Protosses would argue that it wasn’t but not because of Terran but because of Swarm Host and this is where it becomes messy. I described how to create a balanced map earlier and I’ve described what a creative map is supposed to be like. Yet my prime example of a stellar map was only truly balanced in one match-up. I hope this paints you a picture of how hard it actually is to create the perfect map.
So where does that leave us? Should we be aiming to create as many new-thinking maps as possible and simply hope one of them become the perfect map we always wanted at the risk of getting stuck playing one dimensional maps like Expedition Lost for a few months? Or should we be pushing out more “Daybreak-clones” which we are guaranteed to have balanced yet fleshed out meta on?
As for myself I think pushing maps that are somewhere in between like King Sejong Station where playing standard on was fully possible at the same time encouraging underdog builds would be the best. And if we're lucky - one of these maps might actually end up as beautifully in every match-up as King Sejong Station was in Terran vs Protoss. Then we would have finally produced “the perfect map”.
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Here's my suggestion: Integrate the PTR (public test realm), matchmaking, and experimental mapmaking together. Call it "Uncharted Space." Basically, matchmaking would fall into three categories, each with their own lore names:
Safe Space/Green Zone - Unranked
Contested Space/Yellow Zone - Ranked
Uncharted Space/Red Zone - PTR (all the crazy maps and balance changes that David Kim wants to test, with the benefit of matchmaking to find willing Guinea Pigs).
Unranked and Ranked would work the same way as it does now. A combination of old and proven maps and new and experimental maps.
The PTR would now have its own matchmaking queue, with the warning that the commander/executor/broodmother is entering uncharted space with unpredictable results blah blah blah. The point is that the PTR/Uncharted Space/Red Zone queue would be updated far more regularly than normal queue, and would have more nonstandard maps and other crazy balance changes that can be tested by a large number of players.
Abandon all MMR, all ye who enter.
You could reward them something similar to the tournament portraits of Warcraft 3. IIRC, you got portraits for tournament wins separate from race wins and random wins in WC3. In SC2, you'd get portraits for venturing forth into dangerous territory in the name of Valerian/Artanis/Zagara.
The current system of voluntary balance testing just isn't working. There's no reward for participating in the balance maps, and there's not enough people who are even aware of them, let alone how to play on them with people at their level. I hope that an integrated matchmaking queue for balance testing would be more useful.
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I really agree with everything you said about "creativity" in maps. It's always good to hear more from a progamer's view of maps.
What's your opinion on Ulrena? I like how you can still play late-game but different early game rushes are still viable. The only problem I have with it is that it gets tiring seeing Tempests every game vs Terran.
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Perfection goal that changes. Never stops moving. Can chase cannot catch.
I agree with the message overall though, and I'm pretty sure everyone does, but it doesn't really solve the problem of how to achieve the perfect map. That's where the disagreement lies.
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It seems wrong to conclude Expedition Lost type creative maps as failures when maps cycle through play so quickly. I mean look how long it took for BW/melee/any other game with no patches took to fully explore the meta and strategies involved. Who's to say the dominant strategies on Expedition Lost just came from progamers choosing not to innovate the recent established status quo on the maps because they felt their practice time is better devoted elsewhere?
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On April 09 2016 06:01 ZigguratOfUr wrote:
Perfection goal that changes. Never stops moving. Can chase cannot catch.
I agree with the message overall though, and I'm pretty sure everyone does, but it doesn't really solve the problem of how to achieve the perfect map. That's where the disagreement lies.
I believe that we can determine this through playtesting. However, the current system isn't very useful for this because there is no incentive to do so, and there aren't enough players willing or even aware of the balance test maps in the first place to gather enough data.
That's why I suggested that they add a matchmaking queue for balance testing (see the reply just below Morrow's). Unranked and ranked would still exist, but the PTR queue would allow willing players the chance to test stuff in a convenient manner (one click instead of having to search for balance test maps in the Arcade). People who are into roleplaying get to see themselves as exploring new territory for the Dominion/Daelaam/Swarm. People who want hats get unique portraits or even just an "I participated!" badge or achievement. People who want to help playtest get a larger pool of people to playtest with.
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Here's my suggestion: Integrate the PTR (public test realm), matchmaking, and experimental mapmaking together. Call it "Uncharted Space." Basically, matchmaking would fall into three categories, each with their own lore names:
Safe Space/Green Zone - Unranked
Contested Space/Yellow Zone - Ranked
Uncharted Space/Red Zone - PTR (all the crazy maps and balance changes that David Kim wants to test, with the benefit of matchmaking to find willing Guinea Pigs).
Unranked and Ranked would work the same way as it does now. A combination of old and proven maps and new and experimental maps.
The PTR would now have its own matchmaking queue, with the warning that the commander/executor/broodmother is entering uncharted space with unpredictable results blah blah blah. The point is that the PTR/Uncharted Space/Red Zone queue would be updated far more regularly than normal queue, and would have more nonstandard maps and other crazy balance changes that can be tested by a large number of players.
Abandon all MMR, all ye who enter.
You could reward them something similar to the tournament portraits of Warcraft 3. IIRC, you got portraits for tournament wins separate from race wins and random wins in WC3. In SC2, you'd get portraits for venturing forth into dangerous territory in the name of Valerian/Artanis/Zagara.
The current system of voluntary balance testing just isn't working. There's no reward for participating in the balance maps, and there's not enough people who are even aware of them, let alone how to play on them with people at their level. I hope that an integrated matchmaking queue for balance testing would be more useful.
This sounds really really really really REALLY awesome.
Did I say this sounds awesome?
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Funny how a single player can give us a very clear, concise explanation of what he considers a "standard map" and why it should be considered standard.
Yet Blizzard can only tell us they "don't agree that 3 of the top 4 maps are standard, so let's not put labels on them" and wants no sort of standardization at all.
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On April 09 2016 07:37 Spyridon wrote:
Funny how a single player can give us a very clear, concise explanation of what he considers a "standard map" and why it should be considered standard.
Yet Blizzard can only tell us they "don't agree that 3 of the top 4 maps are standard, so let's not put labels on them" and wants no sort of standardization at all.
Blizzard's right about there being no consensus as to what standard is. Morrow's uses King Sejong Station as an example of a creative map, while other players have used it as an example of a standard map. Moreover standard vs creative isn't a very productive or accurate label.
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I actually agree with Dayvie's use of "proven" vs. "unproven." King Sejong Station is an example of a proven map in that almost everyone loves it. Slag Pits (if anyone remembers it) would be an unproven map because almost everyone hated it, and it was tilted towards Terran.
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Another interesting article on maps, but "standard maps" is still not defined. I swear we need someone to write an essay on what a standard map is before that discussion becomes useful.
On April 09 2016 06:01 ZigguratOfUr wrote:
Perfection goal that changes. Never stops moving. Can chase cannot catch.
I agree with the message overall though, and I'm pretty sure everyone does, but it doesn't really solve the problem of how to achieve the perfect map. That's where the disagreement lies.
Testing, testing, testing, and acknowledging that there's no "perfect map", the perfection of a map lies hand in hand with its limited playtime. Thus non-WCS tournaments using non-ladder maps is the solution to the disagreement.
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On April 09 2016 07:40 ZigguratOfUr wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2016 07:37 Spyridon wrote:
Funny how a single player can give us a very clear, concise explanation of what he considers a "standard map" and why it should be considered standard.
Yet Blizzard can only tell us they "don't agree that 3 of the top 4 maps are standard, so let's not put labels on them" and wants no sort of standardization at all. Blizzard's right about there being no consensus as to what standard is. Morrow's uses King Sejong Station as an example of a creative map, while other players have used it as an example of a standard map. Moreover standard vs creative isn't a very productive or accurate label.
There's no consensus as to what standard is, but my point was, Morrow clearly made a statement of what standard was in his opinion. It would be easy for Blizzard to lay down a specific path in the same method. They could take a little bit of time and develop a solid definition of standard, and use it as a blueprint moving forth as a plan of how they intend to improve the game.
But instead, they throw some even more arbitrary labels of "experimental" in the mix, while they supposedly try to "avoid labels"... effectively justifying their choice to continue doing what they have been doing that players have been expressing being upset with.
Players expressed for months they want a standard. Then they somehow tricked a bunch of people when they used their community update to disarm those complaints, while at the same time making it look like anything has changed, when in the end what they actually said they gave us is 1-3 "experimental maps" and the rest of the maps with "all different play styles from each other"... Which is basically what we already have. But they presented it in such a way that people now are thinking "oh, only 1-3 experimental, that's great!". Do they not notice they also said they only want to include "1 map of each type" other than that? What do they think that really means?
It would be much more constructive if they did come to a conclusion of what makes a map standard, which will give all of us a clear idea of what all maps should have, and where the experimentation should take place, as well as wehn changes are too little or too much between maps. Same as Morrow did here - but considering Blizzard supposedly has (according to Browder) "80+ game developers" on the team, they should be able to come up with a much better, more descriptive definition. Yet the design they have provided us has been nothing but extremely weak at best...
On April 09 2016 08:05 OtherWorld wrote:Another interesting article on maps, but "standard maps" is still not defined. I swear we need someone to write an essay on what a standard map is before that discussion becomes useful. Show nested quote +On April 09 2016 06:01 ZigguratOfUr wrote:
Perfection goal that changes. Never stops moving. Can chase cannot catch.
I agree with the message overall though, and I'm pretty sure everyone does, but it doesn't really solve the problem of how to achieve the perfect map. That's where the disagreement lies. Testing, testing, testing, and acknowledging that there's no "perfect map", the perfection of a map lies hand in hand with its limited playtime. Thus non-WCS tournaments using non-ladder maps is the solution to the disagreement.
Your first paragraph is completely on point. It's just a shame that Blizzard won't do that. Posts like this do a better job than Blizzard, and they don't even get incentive for it aside from the desire to better the game they love.
I just wish we had developers that would really do their job. They should be actual leaders, directing the game in a solid direction, and giving it what it needs. The developers should be writing posts like this!! Yet members of the community put in so much more work, and care so much more. So upsetting and unfortunate, what is happening to the game.
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creating maps that may favor 1 race over another, just doesnt seem acceptable if this game is to be considered a legitimate eSport. In real sports, you want an equal playing field so both teams have a fair chance. What if you made a soccer field where 1 sides goalnet was half the size of the other teams? Yeah sure its CreativeTM but is that how we'd want the game to be decided?
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On April 09 2016 06:06 t3tsubo wrote:
It seems wrong to conclude Expedition Lost type creative maps as failures when maps cycle through play so quickly. I mean look how long it took for BW/melee/any other game with no patches took to fully explore the meta and strategies involved. Who's to say the dominant strategies on Expedition Lost just came from progamers choosing not to innovate the recent established status quo on the maps because they felt their practice time is better devoted elsewhere?
rofl, you think sc2 maps cycle quickly? many sc2 maps actually HAVE been played long enough to be essentially "figured out" - this should never be allowed to happen.
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Neo Planet S - Godliest 'Creative' map ever created.
EVERY player felt equally uncomfortable if they weren't the type of player eager to exploit the map features.
#NeoPlanetSHYPE
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I think best map were Daybreak with a wall in a middle, no rock there.
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I like some of the maps in the newer map pool, however at my level of play such maps don't really influence balance all that much.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/commons/images/thumb/4/42/Daybreak.jpg/400px-Daybreak.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/commons/images/thumb/6/6f/Expedition_Lost.jpg/400px-Expedition_Lost.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/commons/images/thumb/7/74/King_Sejong_Station_LE.jpg/400px-King_Sejong_Station_LE.jpg)
