StarCraft II and its players are preparing for the biggest set of changes since the release of Legacy of the Void last year. In just a few more days, the massive gameplay overhaul will hit and we’ll all be playing quite a different version of StarCraft II than we are today. As we move towards this new and unfamiliar territory, we felt it would be appropriate to bring together the old world and the new, if only for a short period of time.
Over the past several weeks, we have been working with the StarCraft II community and its most passionate players to develop a map pool featuring StarCraft II’s greatest and most memorable maps. While team maps will be remaining the same for this shorter season, long-since retired maps like Daybreak, Whirlwind, and Habitation Station are going to be brought back into the Ladder for the 1v1 pool to usher in the new balance patch coming in Patch 3.8.
Below are all of the maps you can expect to see on the Ladder when 2016 Season 6 begins. We’ve included screenshots of the maps, so be sure to click on the images below if any of these maps are unfamiliar to you!
We hope you enjoy this season’s best-of-StarCraft maps, and we’re looking forward to seeing the effects of all the collaborative effort put into this major patch! Thanks for joining us throughout the 2016 seasons, and enjoy this year’s final map pool!
Looks like smaller maps than the previous pool to me, 10 mineral patches less in total, but rush distances seem longer in general. No clue how those maps will play out with the new patch, better or worse balance than on the previous map pool? :>
At least it's not the worst Protoss map pool, for what seems to be the worst Protoss patch. Hopefully White Ra will teach us speshul tactics and we'll learn just how powerful the new Carrier is!
On November 17 2016 04:51 Elentos wrote: I said it in another thread and I'll say it again, if mech doesn't work on this map pool, Blizzard failed that design goal for the patch.
It's gonna be an interesting season for sure. Who knows, maybe one or two of these maps are actually good in LotV.
Agreed. If mech isn't slightly broken on Echo it probably doesn't stand a chance on normal maps.
I was like "meh" when DK announced old TLMC maps on last community feedback but now after seeing they kept their idea I'm pretty hyped! I never played SC2 seriously (being BW elitist) but I watched epic games on those maps so I think it's time to start laddering pretty hard. Next season gonna be really exciting!
daybreak reskin changes are subtle and nice. Echo relighting or whatever they did is :-O :-O hopefully it's just a really bad screenshot and it looks better in-game.
On November 17 2016 05:36 Fatam wrote: daybreak reskin changes are subtle and nice. Echo relighting or whatever they did is :-O :-O hopefully it's just a really bad screenshot and it looks better in-game.
I suppose it depends on graphics settings What changes are you talking about on daybreak?
On November 17 2016 05:22 -IAEVAI-KolosS wrote: NewKirk and Overgrowth veto for me ! Being a 100% mech play in all matchups I'm pretty happy with this new map pool I must say :-)
Overgrowth was one of the best mech split maps of it's time, no clue why you would want to veto it.
I still don't think turtle mech is going to be all that great, not because of units being too weak, because of the new economy. Turtle styles that are very resource intensive are going to just be inherently weaker, especially on these old school maps that were designed for WOL and HOTS.
I'm glad for the nostalgia, but if we really want balance, we really need to get the map makers to crank out some refined and polished LOTV approved maps, which in my opinion need to have far more bases and be much larger with the aggressive expansion economy.
tldr old maps that werent made for LOTV aren't going to be all that great for LOTV balance especially concerning mech
On November 17 2016 05:51 Probe1 wrote: Lord. I'll say it again. These maps weren't designed for LotV economy.
Same thoughts here since they added frost and KSS, but turned out they're still far from the worst maps in the pool so i'm just using the wait and see approach now
I think we are not talking about a map pool made of old maps guys but we are talking about sc2 new erea ! What better to refind some former sc2 players than nostalgia in our favorite game (and removed meditank ofc) Let's get this party started !
happy for Vaani Research Station pissed with Overgrowth being again in pool - can we just finally let it die? I mean, that map literally broke the game
On November 17 2016 07:15 killerm12 wrote: happy for Vaani Research Station pissed with Overgrowth being again in pool - can we just finally let it die? I mean, that map literally broke the game + Show Spoiler +
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yv_gtR_8abg
They are going to nerf the range by 1, and Vipers now got Parasitic Bomb.
Fortunately this season is supposed to be shorter than the other seasons, so any suffering won't be too long. At least we aren't getting Steppes of War (unfortunately).
i for one am looking forward to playing on these maps. It'll be cool not wishing for more vetoes this time around. Some bases will most likely play out better then others given the economy but the nostalgia factor will be fun none the less
wow first time i wont "need" to veto maps but prolly will veto Habitation and echo never liked them. i mean ill give them a chances but bad memories of swarmhost games on habit and echo is just wierd to me.
Why are we getting no new maps is what I can't comprehend... I'd rather play another season on maps like Galactic Process that seem to be slightly imbalanced (favoring terran) than do another iteration of the same map over and over again... What I mean is that a new map pool including actual new maps is an extremely important element of keeping the game fresh as other things of seemingly little importance are (voicepacks, unit outfits, etc.).
God, tears are falling as i scroll through these maps. Clean, well designed, standard, proven maps (ok, ok DB is pretty meh but still). If not the stupid balance changes i could actually enjoy this offseason to the fullest. Blizzard is always there to ruin your fun just after making the right move.
On November 17 2016 05:22 -IAEVAI-KolosS wrote: NewKirk and Overgrowth veto for me ! Being a 100% mech play in all matchups I'm pretty happy with this new map pool I must say :-)
Overgrowth was one of the best mech split maps of it's time, no clue why you would want to veto it.
I still don't think turtle mech is going to be all that great, not because of units being too weak, because of the new economy. Turtle styles that are very resource intensive are going to just be inherently weaker, especially on these old school maps that were designed for WOL and HOTS.
I'm glad for the nostalgia, but if we really want balance, we really need to get the map makers to crank out some refined and polished LOTV approved maps, which in my opinion need to have far more bases and be much larger with the aggressive expansion economy.
tldr old maps that werent made for LOTV aren't going to be all that great for LOTV balance especially concerning mech
Yeah I'm actually just tired of playing Overgrowth ;-). And I never said turtle mech, I'm playing more of an aggressive mech like Nathanias on his stream.
i have a great new idea to raise money for maintaining the SC2 ladder and competitive multiplayer seasons. This is microtransactions at its best.
any one who wins an automated tournament gets a virtual trophy. sell the real version of that trophy and deliver it to the winner.
have 3 price levels have a $100 trophy, a $500 trophy and a $2000 trophy. Actual cost of making the trophies can be $25, $100, and $300. So its a nice profit margin with the money going back to pay for the ladder and multiplayer servers.
just imagine the megalomaniacs lining up to buy a $2000 trophy after a big Silver League automated tourney win.
for an extra $500 they can engrave the players name and race into the side of the trophy. also, if the $2000 trophies sell well.. create a $10,000 trophy that's almost as big as teh Stanley Cup.
On November 18 2016 00:37 JimmyJRaynor wrote: i have a great new idea to raise money for maintaining the SC2 ladder and competitive multiplayer seasons. This is microtransactions at its best.
any one who wins an automated tournament gets a virtual trophy. sell the real version of that trophy and deliver it to the winner.
have 3 price levels have a $100 trophy, a $500 trophy and a $2000 trophy. Actual cost of making the trophies can be $25, $100, and $300. So its a nice profit margin with the money going back to pay for the ladder and multiplayer servers.
just imagine the megalomaniacs lining up to buy a $2000 trophy after a big Silver League automated tourney win.
for an extra $500 they can engrave the players name and race into the side of the trophy. also, if the $2000 trophies sell well.. create a $10,000 trophy that's almost as big as teh Stanley Cup.
If they were to choose that sort of direction, it would be way simpler to just add prize money/B.net account credit money to automated tournaments instead of dealing with fabrication, shipping around the world etc. Plus, they could only put like 10$/tournament since there are severals a day, but they would need some way to verify people aren't smurfing for the prize pool. For instance, a diamond player could on purpose quit his league and like the 30-40 next game on purpose to be ranked silver or gold and place in a tournament there and it wouldn't be fair.
Unless you add prize pool only to masters/GM automated tournaments but then you're not really favoring lower league players to improve competitiveness and improvement (which seems to be part of your goal according to your post).
Anyways, it think it is not an optimal option for "raising money for maintaining SC2 ladder commpetitive multiplayer season". Not sure exactly what is, but I don't feel like this would do it. Plus, I'm pretty sure almost no one would actually buy for a real version of an automated tournament trophy but only a very small percentage which might just not make it worth it.
Id be so happy if Deadwing and Merry go round would also make it in ;D. Though for a new map pool Id love to see a new type of 3 player map. The map design of Deadwing and MerryGoRound were very interesting id love to see more maps like them. Not many 4 player maps with that many expansions close together and with MerryGoRound its just 1 of 3 of the 3 player maps.
On November 18 2016 00:37 JimmyJRaynor wrote: i have a great new idea to raise money for maintaining the SC2 ladder and competitive multiplayer seasons. This is microtransactions at its best.
any one who wins an automated tournament gets a virtual trophy. sell the real version of that trophy and deliver it to the winner.
have 3 price levels have a $100 trophy, a $500 trophy and a $2000 trophy. Actual cost of making the trophies can be $25, $100, and $300. So its a nice profit margin with the money going back to pay for the ladder and multiplayer servers.
just imagine the megalomaniacs lining up to buy a $2000 trophy after a big Silver League automated tourney win.
for an extra $500 they can engrave the players name and race into the side of the trophy. also, if the $2000 trophies sell well.. create a $10,000 trophy that's almost as big as teh Stanley Cup.
If they were to choose that sort of direction, it would be way simpler to just add prize money/B.net account credit money to automated tournaments instead of dealing with fabrication, shipping around the world etc. Plus, they could only put like 10$/tournament since there are severals a day, but they would need some way to verify people aren't smurfing for the prize pool. For instance, a diamond player could on purpose quit his league and like the 30-40 next game on purpose to be ranked silver or gold and place in a tournament there and it wouldn't be fair.
Unless you add prize pool only to masters/GM automated tournaments but then you're not really favoring lower league players to improve competitiveness and improvement (which seems to be part of your goal according to your post).
Anyways, it think it is not an optimal option for "raising money for maintaining SC2 ladder commpetitive multiplayer season". Not sure exactly what is, but I don't feel like this would do it. Plus, I'm pretty sure almost no one would actually buy for a real version of an automated tournament trophy but only a very small percentage which might just not make it worth it.
the player/tourney winner pays for the shipping. and its the CUSTOMER/PLAYER that pays for the trophy. the money goes into Blizzard's pockets after they build a $300 trophy and offer it to the automated tournament winner for $2000.
The "prize" for winning a tournament is the extra special bonus of giving Blizzard $2000 for the physical trophy! Its the GSL in reverse.
On November 17 2016 07:15 killerm12 wrote: happy for Vaani Research Station pissed with Overgrowth being again in pool - can we just finally let it die? I mean, that map literally broke the game https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yv_gtR_8abg
That is not the map breaking the game. That is 2 players who didn't know how to counter anymore and didn't micro at all. There was not much focus or pulling with vipers. And if anything is broken in that situation, its the spamming of free units.
@News: i kinda like the pool, although I am not sure of all maps. Unfortunately, when we had "Dreampool" again, I was on holiday and Blizzard changed it faster then I could play again
On November 17 2016 12:26 billynasty wrote: i for one am looking forward to playing on these maps. It'll be cool not wishing for more vetoes this time around. Some bases will most likely play out better then others given the economy but the nostalgia factor will be fun none the less
I am hoping for one more veto and a race veto since the release of the game (because sometimes I am so pissed at playing against toss or playing mirrors)
On November 18 2016 00:37 JimmyJRaynor wrote: i have a great new idea to raise money for maintaining the SC2 ladder and competitive multiplayer seasons. This is microtransactions at its best.
any one who wins an automated tournament gets a virtual trophy. sell the real version of that trophy and deliver it to the winner.
have 3 price levels have a $100 trophy, a $500 trophy and a $2000 trophy. Actual cost of making the trophies can be $25, $100, and $300. So its a nice profit margin with the money going back to pay for the ladder and multiplayer servers.
just imagine the megalomaniacs lining up to buy a $2000 trophy after a big Silver League automated tourney win.
for an extra $500 they can engrave the players name and race into the side of the trophy. also, if the $2000 trophies sell well.. create a $10,000 trophy that's almost as big as teh Stanley Cup.
If they were to choose that sort of direction, it would be way simpler to just add prize money/B.net account credit money to automated tournaments instead of dealing with fabrication, shipping around the world etc. Plus, they could only put like 10$/tournament since there are severals a day, but they would need some way to verify people aren't smurfing for the prize pool. For instance, a diamond player could on purpose quit his league and like the 30-40 next game on purpose to be ranked silver or gold and place in a tournament there and it wouldn't be fair.
Unless you add prize pool only to masters/GM automated tournaments but then you're not really favoring lower league players to improve competitiveness and improvement (which seems to be part of your goal according to your post).
Anyways, it think it is not an optimal option for "raising money for maintaining SC2 ladder commpetitive multiplayer season". Not sure exactly what is, but I don't feel like this would do it. Plus, I'm pretty sure almost no one would actually buy for a real version of an automated tournament trophy but only a very small percentage which might just not make it worth it.
Price money for won tournaments would be great I guess: - either real money you can use for discount on DLCs and other stuff, or -ingame money, you can use to buy achievements, skins and whatsoever.
Like with steam, where you can sell badges and stuff.
However that would lead to more aggressive competittion- more cheese, more cheat, less "friendly" play. It would definitely help the game getting more intersting again to some point, and on the other hand - more frustrating. Also who prevents me from going down the ladder and play bronze tournaments?
shameless exhumation, but it will still be interesting to see how those timeless classic will play out. Overall not too unhappy with the maps they chose, and I'm curious to play them again.
Wow I think I'm gonna have to come back for this season. Since it's all new balance-wise, I won't feel so behind like I do when I play all the new maps and new units. I can learn how everything works without having to worry about learning all the maps at the same time since I know all these maps like the back of my hand.
On November 21 2016 07:02 MockHamill wrote: This must be the first map pool I have not wished to have 4 vetoes. It may not even be necessary to use all 3.
Whirlwind is the only really bad map in the pool since it extremely anti-mech and pro-zerg due to its size.
On November 21 2016 07:50 Uvantak wrote: Rising are you seriously quoting old WoL/HotS stats for arguing LotV map balance? Is this bait? Or simply a bad, bad meme?
No, you make a good point. I concede to that, but can a map be bad because it's poor for mech?
On November 21 2016 07:50 Uvantak wrote: Rising are you seriously quoting old WoL/HotS stats for arguing LotV map balance? Is this bait? Or simply a bad, bad meme?
No, you make a good point. I concede to that, but can a map be bad because it's poor for mech?
Good question, I would answer that if DevTeam wants to make Mech a dominant style of play over Bio, therefore having a Map that strongly hurts Mech, would ergo also hurt the entire balance stats of the Terran race, and the grand sc2 community considers maps that are unbalanced to be of less quality than otherwise, so yeah, in the eyes of the grand sc2 community having a map that hurts Mech on today's day and age would mean that Whirlwind is "a bad map".
That said, Whirlwind will be one of the maps Mech will be balanced around or at least I would hope so, meaning that players and the metagame on that map will center around exploiting Mech's weaknesses, by doing that DevTeam can then be aware of said weaknesses and buff or nerf in order to achieve a good balance of the Mech comp in the map and others like it.
What I'm saying is that even when Whirlwind might arguably be a bad Mech map for its sheer size, because of this very same thing, it would expose Mech weaknesses which can then be identified and buffed accordingly in order to balance out the composition on other big and historically weak mech maps.
On November 22 2016 00:53 Uvantak wrote: What I'm saying is that even when Whirlwind might arguably be a bad Mech map for its sheer size, because of this very same thing, it would expose Mech weaknesses which can then be identified and buffed accordingly in order to balance out the composition on other big and historically weak mech maps.
I think it's going to be hard to tune mech to the point where it's good or decent on large maps like Whirlwind yet also not OP on smaller maps at the same time.. for the simple reason that tanks have been the cornerstone of mech and clearly Blizzard wants them to continue to be. Tanks are slow, and will be even slower once tankivac is gone. So if a tank mech comp can be good on whirlwind then pssh.
Now if they accept that mech doesn't have to have tanks and they make sure that some non-tank mech comps are viable, then maybe.
I realize this is somewhat oversimplifying the issue but I think that may be what it comes down to ultimately.
On November 22 2016 00:53 Uvantak wrote: What I'm saying is that even when Whirlwind might arguably be a bad Mech map for its sheer size, because of this very same thing, it would expose Mech weaknesses which can then be identified and buffed accordingly in order to balance out the composition on other big and historically weak mech maps.
I think it's going to be hard to tune mech to the point where it's good or decent on large maps like Whirlwind yet also not OP on smaller maps at the same time.. for the simple reason that tanks have been the cornerstone of mech and clearly Blizzard wants them to continue to be. Tanks are slow, and will be even slower once tankivac is gone. So if a tank mech comp can be good on whirlwind then pssh.
Now if they accept that mech doesn't have to have tanks and they make sure that some non-tank mech comps are viable, then maybe.
I realize this is somewhat oversimplifying the issue but I think that may be what it comes down to ultimately.
I consider that that phrase might be a projection on your end of the on the ground situation. DevTeam has stated they want the new Cyclone to be a more or less core option for Factory based compositions, while the community has been clamoring for a stronger tank even before the game was actually released on 2010 (WoL Beta nerf to tanks).
On my eyes, it is the Devteam the ones that are pushing for a less tank focused composition, while community are the ones asking for making Mech a more static comp on the lines of BW Mech, and I can't really blame them, Bio historically has been the composition that is more terrain independent, while mech (and factory units) was the more positional focused comp. And by making Mech a more terrain & tank independent composition it starts to get into overlap with Bio territory.
On November 22 2016 05:44 Ej_ wrote: if mech is ever good on Whirlwind, then it means mech is overpowered
Yeah, I think that might be a decent assessment, not 100% true, but a fair point. Yet, when balancing Mech you can't be tied to thinking on a single map. I'm not vouching for making mech good on whirlwind, but only making sure that mech actually kind of works on bigger more open maps, where Whirlwind is a good archetype of. Not to mention that finding a way to make Mech work, might end up opening new windows into map design and concept. I think that might be something worth exploring.
Really dislike this map pool. I know these maps worked in the past but this is the new econ. They need to add couple more bases to each of these maps. Even being in Gold league most my games where i don't die to something stupid, go to about 5 bases.
..most the time i'm too afraid committing to an attack to finish the game as zerg. So i take literally 7-8 bases, Creep all the vacant ones and wait and trade armies with them till they leave.
Guess i have to figure how to actually take good fights in to defensive positions vs 40 +30 armor dmg tanks.
On November 23 2016 09:25 Cyanocyst wrote: Really dislike this map pool. I know these maps worked in the past but this is the new econ. They need to add couple more bases to each of these maps. Even being in Gold league most my games where i don't die to something stupid, go to about 5 bases.
..most the time i'm too afraid committing to an attack to finish the game as zerg. So i take literally 7-8 bases, Creep all the vacant ones and wait and trade armies with them till they leave.
Guess i have to figure how to actually take good fights in to defensive positions vs 40 +30 armor dmg tanks.
Spread, Vipers, burrowed Infestors, Brood Lords, Swarm Host, lots of new options to explore
This map pool is awesome, first time ever that I don't want to veto any map ! Of course those maps are quite clearly not made for LotV, but every map is beautiful, brings back great memories, so it feels good to play on them even if they're not perfectly balanced.
Interesting map as far as mech goes. Especially Nathanias' TvZ Raven harass into mech games. It's quite a refreshing style. If you guys subscribe to his channel, you can get his replays. Yesterday he played a game where he killed 229 drones :D. I'm getting motivated to play more again because of that map pool ! Except Overgrowth.....this map should've remained dead.
EPT![[image loading]](http://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/blog_header/b3/B38JIG72NB3C1479258645209.jpg)
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(and removed meditank ofc)
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