First off, we wanted to thank everybody who participated in the map contest, as well as Team Liquid for organizing and hosting it. There were lots of great submissions this time around and its always tough to narrow it down, but so far we are leaning towards using the following maps in the upcoming Ladder season:
• Ascension to Aiur by SidianTheBard (Macro Category) • Blood Boil by Avex (Resource Category) • Sequencer by NegativeZero (New Category) • Defender’s Landing by YoungRustler (Rush Category)
Map Cuts Of course we will need to make some room for the new maps, so we think removing some of the older maps would be ideal: • Newkirk Precinct TE • Bel’Shir Vestige LE • Cactus Valley LE • Honorgrounds LE
As always, let us know what you think about either the map picks or map cuts.
What is Defender's Landing? The map submitted by YoungRustler wasn't this one. Considering they're adding a rush map i'd rather remove paladino, but otherwise i'm liking this
Now on to the comments complaining about those maps not being top 4 in the contest.
So even Blizzard decided that the Rush finalists were so bad that they chose another map. Fair enough. I don't think that Defender's Landing is a good map tbf, but it's better than the finalists.
Not a fan of Blood Boil (Keres Passage and Windwaker are both better resource maps, and better maps), or of keeping Paladino and Proxima in the pool.
What kind of mess is that? Do they even check what they post? 2 rush maps in the pool? Both DISGUSTINGLY BAD. Abyssal reef still in the pool w/o lighting fix? I won't even waste my time on further elabarotion. My grandma would do a better job at arranging the mappool. And we are talking about a multi-billion company here.
On March 17 2017 04:32 insitelol wrote: What kind of mess is that? Do they even check what they post? 2 rush maps in the pool? Both DISGUSTINGLY BAD. Abyssal reef still in the pool w/o lighting fix? I won't even waste my time on further elabarotion. My grandma would do a better job at arranging the mappool. And we are talking about a multi-billion company here.
While I agree that Paladino Terminal is awful and should be gone... have you actually taken a look at Defender's Landing layout at all? It's pretty much a macro map outside of having a short rush distance natural to natural. The only thing it does is it makes for rushes to be able to succeed slightly more, without looking as imbalanced or wrong as Paladino does. FFS at least give it a chance.
On March 17 2017 04:32 insitelol wrote: What kind of mess is that? Do they even check what they post? 2 rush maps in the pool? Both DISGUSTINGLY BAD. Abyssal reef still in the pool w/o lighting fix? I won't even waste my time on further elabarotion. My grandma would do a better job at arranging the mappool. And we are talking about a multi-billion company here.
While I agree that Paladino Terminal is awful and should be gone... have you actually taken a look at Defender's Landing layout at all? It's pretty much a macro map outside of having a short rush distance natural to natural. The only thing it does is it makes for rushes to be able to succeed slightly more, without looking as imbalanced or wrong as Paladino does. FFS at least give it a chance.
You must be kidding right? Its awful from start to finish. 20 sec rush dsitance - check. Small size - check. 2-way unwallable natural - check. Badly textured - check. Another clone rush map in the mappool - check. I don't have THAT much time to waste it on trash like this.
Btw i dont get that sequencer hype at all. Everyone is suddenly a choke-layout fan? Or may be it's innovative? Nope. SPL was played on Maze once. Similar concept. NOTHING extraordinary.
On March 17 2017 04:32 insitelol wrote: What kind of mess is that? Do they even check what they post? 2 rush maps in the pool? Both DISGUSTINGLY BAD. Abyssal reef still in the pool w/o lighting fix? I won't even waste my time on further elabarotion. My grandma would do a better job at arranging the mappool. And we are talking about a multi-billion company here.
While I agree that Paladino Terminal is awful and should be gone... have you actually taken a look at Defender's Landing layout at all? It's pretty much a macro map outside of having a short rush distance natural to natural. The only thing it does is it makes for rushes to be able to succeed slightly more, without looking as imbalanced or wrong as Paladino does. FFS at least give it a chance.
You must be kidding right? Its awful from start to finish. 20 sec rush dsitance - check. Small size - check. 2-way unwallable natural - check. Badly textured - check. Another clone rush map in the mappool - check. I don't have THAT much time to waste it on trash like this.
Btw i dont get that sequencer hype at all. Everyone is suddenly a choke-layout fan? Or may be it's innovative? Nope. SPL was played on Maze once. Similar concept. NOTHING extraordinary.
If you watched the Basetrade tournament you'd see why. Sequencer produced the best games imo.
Windwaker AND Hwangsun aren't in this? Oh well, congrats on the money anyway Avex
Anyway, Defender's Landing looks... I can't say anything about it's play until I see it played but it's got the most generic boring tileset ever. Can we at least change that so it doesn't look exaclty like 15 maps that came before it?
Notice that they say they "are leaning towards" the selected maps and "think removing" the other maps. So nothing is final and maybe they don't add Defender's Landing (that makes little sense with such a short rush distance) and remove Palamemo
On March 17 2017 06:10 [PkF] Wire wrote: Notice that they say they "are leaning towards" the selected maps and "think removing" the other maps. So nothing is final and maybe they don't add Defender's Landing (that makes little sense with such a short rush distance) and remove Palamemo
Its almost always like this but people like to bitch about things so its better to pretend its final
im sad to see honor grounds go. I wish they would keep it in the pool another season I love that map. THe choke in the middle +the huge vastness+ the fast 4 base made it play very unusual It realy allowed you to get very extreme macro games that you just dont see on other maps. = ( . as for the rest of the maps out with the stale in with the new!!
So the top mapmakers spend weeks making the maps, Blizzard shells out thousands for prizes for the mapmakers and players, the community votes on which maps they want in the map pool, and in the end none of it matters because Blizzard has a god complex? Do they find joy in being as stupid as possible?
Sequencer made it - that's awesome! Can't wait too see it on ladder and in tournaments.
Ascension to Aiur has a really solid layout and is a good replacement for 4p maps - and someone at Blizzard probably loves SidiantheBard (quite deservingly) so it's not surprising this map was chosen.
Blood Boil - not a fan of 1-2-3 base setup. I still prefer Keres Passage but Blood Boil is fine too. At least it's beautiful.
Defender's Landing - no, just no. You know what, if they insist on having a "rush map" in the pool, I would honestly prefer another season with Paladino Terminal if they add a solid map instead of Defender's Landing (can't stand Newkirk Precinct, Bel'Shir Vestige or Cactus Valley any longer and not a fan of Honorgrounds either). If they really insist on 2 rush maps in the mappool there's always Shiva from TLMC 7. Please send help.
On March 17 2017 06:34 Solar424 wrote: So the top mapmakers spend weeks making the maps, Blizzard shells out thousands for prizes for the mapmakers and players, the community votes on which maps they want in the map pool, and in the end none of it matters because Blizzard has a god complex? Do they find joy in being as stupid as possible?
Man, if Blizzard always listened to the community, collosus would be able to shoot up and HT would spawn with storm.
On March 17 2017 06:34 Solar424 wrote: So the top mapmakers spend weeks making the maps, Blizzard shells out thousands for prizes for the mapmakers and players, the community votes on which maps they want in the map pool, and in the end none of it matters because Blizzard has a god complex? Do they find joy in being as stupid as possible?
Man, if Blizzard always listened to the community, collosus would be able to shoot up and HT would spawn with storm.
The community is definitely not always right.
Blizzard is also not always right. It's give/take.
I personally don't have high faith in their map decisions.
On March 17 2017 06:34 Solar424 wrote: So the top mapmakers spend weeks making the maps, Blizzard shells out thousands for prizes for the mapmakers and players, the community votes on which maps they want in the map pool, and in the end none of it matters because Blizzard has a god complex? Do they find joy in being as stupid as possible?
Man, if Blizzard always listened to the community, collosus would be able to shoot up and HT would spawn with storm.
The community is definitely not always right.
If there's one thing that Blizzard has shown time and time again they have no idea what they are doing, it's maps. The fact that, after 6 years of this game, they thought Ulrena was a good idea, and that they have made maybe 2-3 good maps in the entire history of this game show that.
Every map pool is targeted to be hard to defend to protosses. Z and T can drop everywhere on all maps currently. While the season goes on and protosses learn how to stop these agressive styles (only protoss have cheeses right now coz no strategy is allin anymore thanks to the new eco to T and Z) ,they stop playing. 23% now and dropping.
I think the answer is:
Retain 3 maps for next season New 3 maps 1 Classic map each season/week. SHORTER seasons.
On March 17 2017 06:34 Solar424 wrote: So the top mapmakers spend weeks making the maps, Blizzard shells out thousands for prizes for the mapmakers and players, the community votes on which maps they want in the map pool, and in the end none of it matters because Blizzard has a god complex? Do they find joy in being as stupid as possible?
Man, if Blizzard always listened to the community, collosus would be able to shoot up and HT would spawn with storm.
The community is definitely not always right.
If there's one thing that Blizzard has shown time and time again they have no idea what they are doing, it's maps. The fact that, after 6 years of this game, they thought Ulrena was a good idea, and that they have made maybe 2-3 good maps in the entire history of this game show that.
The community isn't always better. Don't forget that Apotheosis was the highest voted macro map in the last TLMC and it ended up being a disaster balance-wise.
Hwangsan and Windwalker are amazing. Instead we will get Defender's Landing and the 2 maps with only one gas at the 2/3rd base. why we even vote for maps lul
Ascension to Aiur - neutral. it's solid but doesn't really give us too much we haven't seen before. the middle bases/plateus are the only thing interesting here.
Sequencer - big yes
Blood Boil - unsure, I'd still like to see the backdoor to the nat/main be more dangerous, it feels like it will barely be used atm. but I could be wrong. At least it's interesting, unlike some maps.
Defender's Landing - reeeally random choice, if they were going to look through all the non-finalists I'm not sure why they landed on this specific map. It's not too bad overall, but in the past double nat openings have been problematic.
On March 17 2017 08:07 EESCLuna wrote: Every map pool is targeted to be hard to defend to protosses. Z and T can drop everywhere on all maps currently. While the season goes on and protosses learn how to stop these agressive styles (only protoss have cheeses right now coz no strategy is allin anymore thanks to the new eco to T and Z) ,they stop playing. 23% now and dropping.
no strategy is all-in??? i can think of a few... Sure blizzard wouldn't know a good map if it walked up to them but is this real
Btw i dont get that sequencer hype at all. Everyone is suddenly a choke-layout fan? Or may be it's innovative? Nope. SPL was played on Maze once. Similar concept. NOTHING extraordinary.
"choke layout fan"? There are some temporary rocks that close the map up a bit, but you have to realize that once a few of those rocks go down it's pretty much the most open map in SC2 history if it makes ladder. If you removed the rocks it would be super Z favored, so they need to be there. Anyhow as plexa said it consistenly gave great games in the tourney. Of course the tourney can be misleading since it's only a handful of games on each map, but it's all we have to go on.
On one hand I'm happy they want to include Ascension to Aiur, on the other hand I'm sad they want to get rid of Honorgrounds. All the ladder must belong to me!! I'd actually love to do some balance tweaks to Honorgrounds if they were going to keep it in the pool for next season. Although I'm not sure if they'd actually allow that to happen.
I created a map thread for Ascension that has some up to date information as well as some more screenshots if people are interested.
So the community just gets to decide among specificly chosen maps which one of the map makers gets the money? How can they even consider this rush map a potential ladder addition? I don't like Blood Boil one bit.
Paladino is awful, but i gotta say i'm glad honorgrounds is being removed, the xelnaga/brush interaction is the only thing interesting about that map, it is otherwise a free 5 bases map that tends to lead to boring games. At least in my ladder experience, honorgrounds rarely produces good games.
First im glad to get near in time informations about the end results.
What i see is all together AWESOME. RETARDED and what so ever.
First of all, sure the old maps need to go, glad we get rid of them finally.
Acenscion to Aiur, Sequencer as expected did it so far so good. The aweseome thing to me is that blood boil did it, love the layout great job. Aswell glad that paradise lost and hwangsan didnt make it, also good job im proud of blizzard here i need to say.
Now the more nasty decisions to talk about.. Like what is that? Paladino stays?????????? and Honorgrounds goes offline? u wanna kidding me? Paladino to me is unplayable so instant veto and a wasted map to me again this season. This decision i will never understand.
I understand that blizzard wants to have also a short distance map which is macro oriented ok. But to be honest i dont get it to choose a map which isnt even involved in the contest. Thats like the middle finger to the community im sorry. Like someone said the rush maps were trash and blizzard ignored em aswell so far so good....instead of taking another map of the pool, like paradisia or Acolyte (which is clearly my faourite) or windwaker u take this nasty crapy short distance map which should be macro orientied. Blizzard dont you really get it? Thats impossible. Do you even look how close the bases would be in a macro szenario while the rush distance is very short. Sure some interessting games between 3.4 base and that was it maybe 5th. For more this Map is unuseable, maybe only you add as terran everywhere planetarys or as toss pylons then its kind of ok. So this decision is to me the most annoying one of all.
Overall i can live with the results. Im happy blood boil did it. And 2 decision with the new map and honorgrounds i cant understand. I think you want to keep it mixed but to be honest then take hwangsan straight up with 6 bases and dont make like a map where zerg has no chance if this 7 or 8 bases were taken on this short distance new map.
MY LAST CALL: TAKE PALADINO OUT and REPLACE THE NEW MAP with a map IN THE MAPCONTEST OF TLMC 8
i hope my words got heared, gl hf everyone on the new ones......
Glad that windwaker didn't make it in, the layout felt super boring when I played on it.. Dissapointed that Defenders Landing is in the map pool at the same time as Paladino given that they're both rush maps with nat chokes that suck to wall off.
On March 17 2017 09:55 ihatevideogames wrote: Why even hold a map contest with community votes if Blizzard pisses on the community's face again and they go and do their own thing?
The community is awful at choosing maps, and TL polls are a poor way of deciding what the community wants. The only problem with what happened is that Blizzard typically does a poor job judging maps as well.
On March 17 2017 04:53 Charoisaur wrote: Wish they'd replace blood boil or defender's landing with windwaker/Hwangsan. Than the mappool would be perfect.
So much this. I can live with blood boil on ladder but this defender's landing looks awful tbh - instant veto for me.
On March 17 2017 04:53 Charoisaur wrote: Wish they'd replace blood boil or defender's landing with windwaker/Hwangsan. Than the mappool would be perfect.
So much this. I can live with blood boil on ladder but this defender's landing looks awful tbh - instant veto for me.
They also want to keep Paladino. So you run out of vetoes quick next season if they stick with this.
On March 17 2017 04:53 Charoisaur wrote: Wish they'd replace blood boil or defender's landing with windwaker/Hwangsan. Than the mappool would be perfect.
So much this. I can live with blood boil on ladder but this defender's landing looks awful tbh - instant veto for me.
They also want to keep Paladino. So you run out of vetoes quick next season if they stick with this.
Yeah just noticed that :|
The Dream: Ascension to Aiur + Sequencer + Windwaker + Hwangsan + keep 3 best maps from current pool
It's not on topic but someday I was thinking why couldn't we have bigger mappool like 9 or 11 and more vetos? After the season blizzard could check which maps were voted the most and replace them with new ones + add map lifespan of idk 2-3 seasons so after that time I had to be replaced.
I 'd feel so extatic if I had made a map that everybody would be playing. especially if I'd see real pros take a go at it. So, huge congrats to the creators of the picks! I hope you enjoy it
I have never been as exited for a LotV map as I have been for Sequencer, but Blizzard: 1. Please replace Paladino with Hwangsan, Paradisia, Windwaker, Paradise Lost, Acolyte, Asteroid Barricade or Keres Passage. 2. For Defender's Landing please put (preferably above regular health/armor) rocks at natural ramp OR replacing the destructible tower. 3. Check if siege tanks can cover main ramp on Defender's Landing while being behind rocks/tower, and if so please move rocks/tower forward so they cannot. I look forward to the end of the tyranny of old maps. >:3
On March 18 2017 04:01 MockHamill wrote: Proxima station needs to go. That map is horrible.
Honorgrounds is the best of the current maps. There is not need to replace it.
Blizzard please include more macro maps and less rush maps. Most player prefer to play macro games.
I can't agree with you more. Proxima is the bane of my existence. That choke at your outside natural is absolutely unreal.
I honestly don't understand how blizzard goes through and makes their map decisions, considering how they wanted to help sponsor and be involved in the map contest, they then just throw the results away and leave us with the maps that people don't like from the last season, and pick new maps that people don't want (as much) for the new additions.
So nice to see a growing number of people dipping in the pool of "posting" <3 i'm a bit sad that we only get one sc2pro commenting per tlmc threads, but it is to be expected i guess, they take their queue from the people already in.. maybe soon we will have hundreds of posts of casuals and dozens of pro players/commenters
I'd really like to see paladino removed aswell. I've yet to talk to someone who actually really likes to play on that map. Also i don't get why defender's landing should be added since it looks mediocre at best and wasn't even in the tlmc finals so i'd much rather see windwaker or hwangsan be added instead of it
I don't think it's surprising that Blizzard isn't looking to choose the top four maps from the contest. They always seem to choose some maps that weren't winners, even maps that weren't finalists (I believe both Honorgrounds and Paladino were non-finalists from tlmc7), and they clearly say beforehand that they will ultimately choose what they want no matter which maps win. I also think it makes sense for them to consider non-finalists since we didn't get to vote on maps until after the finalists were chosen by the TL judges, and so it's not quite like they're contradicting our votes.
Anyways, Ascension to Aiur is very solid and I'd be surprised if they didn't choose it. I was never crazy about Sequencer, but it's fine. Seems to have produced good games, something which I hope people give higher priority than aesthetics. And rather than the other two, I would love to see Hwangsan and Asteroid Barricade. They definitely both look good.
I think it's clearly right to not include Paradise Lost, as awesome as it might look. I love me some cool beaches, but again, layout over aesthetics. Finally, as far as non-finalists go, I'm not sure why they want Defender's Landing. I don't hate it but there must be plenty of better choices. I mean, why not Battle on the Boardwalk? It's a cool rush map and it's on a beach. But that's just one example.
On April 19 2017 00:41 dbm wrote: Oh great, more dark or ugly maps, can't wait. I guess grass and trees are mapmakers kryptonite.
I won't deny that this is a problem in Starcraft, and it definitely makes the viewer experience significantly worse. However, the only map of this bunch that is a major offender is Defender's Landing. While Sequencer is a space station styled map, it seems to achieve a nice, clean, aesthetic that doesn't look excessively dark or grimy.
EPT
![[image loading]](/staff/Plexa/tlmcascension.jpg)
![[image loading]](/staff/Plexa/tlmcsequencer.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/iAAxTc0.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/GR197fo.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/iAAxTc0.png)
