Season 2 Map Pool Revealed, Season begins May 21st

On May 08 2019 05:49 Elentos wrote:
Interesting they keep Cyber Forest. I don't think any map in years comes any close to it in terms of how terribly imbalanced its tournament winrates are.

I am kind of disappointed they left the slowing fields on turbo cruise... Just makes the map awkward and gimmicky. Same thing could be argued for thunderbird but having terrain you can alter through removal isn't a new concept (Destructable rocks) these inhibitor field zones are indestructible and placed in very annoying spots. It is the wrong way to stop rushes as you can leave mines in the middle of them and then any unit that walks through is just screwed, I am also surprised they kept Cyber forest over Port Aleksander. The rich gas geysers are exciting though I like that feature.

On May 08 2019 10:50 ZigguratOfUr wrote:
Pretty awful choices from Blizzard.

Cyber Forest and New Repugnancy don't deserve another season in the pool.

On May 08 2019 12:48 Cyro wrote:


Agree on Cyber Forest

There's a 2.0 of New Repugnancy which is much improved, presumably they're using that.

Having looked into it a bit now, it seems that Blizzad's ladder edition of New Repugnancy 1.0 is actually substantially worse than the original. They made some key changes like moving the gas on the natural to the other end of the mineral line which makes it harder to scout.

On May 08 2019 14:04 NinjaNight wrote:
Lol looks like a very fun season ahead of us. I'll definitely play this season.

This seriously looks like a really fun map pool =). Nice job!

And despite the korean pro complaints about the Turbo Cruise map I think it will produce some very crazy, interesting games.

On May 08 2019 13:07 ZigguratOfUr wrote:


The original mapmaker did made a new version of New Repugnancy called New Rotterdam, but I'd be extremely surprised if Blizzard was going to use it. It would be unprecedented afaik. Invader was an awful map, the mapmaker made a less awful 2.0 version of Invader, but Blizzard never used it.

On May 08 2019 12:19 zell901 wrote:
The pro's will always veto anything that isn't standard if they can, regardless of how well designed. They don't care about how interesting the game is, any changes shake up their formula for winning.

Unfortunately for them, boring map pools and stagnant gameplay leads to less viewers and directly impacts the prize pools and viewership. New maps and interesting map pools are a huge benefit to Starcraft, especially if team leagues continue to pick up steam like they have been.

I'm all for forcing enough weird maps so they cannot all be vetoed. The only caveat being they can't literally be busted, perhaps avoiding that risk is reason enough to stray closer to standard maps...but I think it will be good for Starcraft int he long run.

Getting new blood and keeping viewers interested is how the scene will continue to be grown. A lot of my fond memories of watching brood war was crazy maps and interesting strategies.The last couple map pools has been meaningless, every map could be substituted for every other map, except maybe one per season but even then it has a 100% veto rate.

On May 09 2019 17:25 Morbidius wrote:

Can't agree more, remember when GSL decided to allow the pros to choose the map pool for GSL? All we were seeing was Daybreak and Overgrowth. They are clearly trying to help Terran with this map pool, since they kept Terran's best maps.

On May 08 2019 12:19 zell901 wrote:
The pro's will always veto anything that isn't standard if they can, regardless of how well designed. They don't care about how interesting the game is, any changes shake up their formula for winning.

Unfortunately for them, boring map pools and stagnant gameplay leads to less viewers and directly impacts the prize pools and viewership. New maps and interesting map pools are a huge benefit to Starcraft, especially if team leagues continue to pick up steam like they have been.

I'm all for forcing enough weird maps so they cannot all be vetoed. The only caveat being they can't literally be busted, perhaps avoiding that risk is reason enough to stray closer to standard maps...but I think it will be good for Starcraft int he long run.

Getting new blood and keeping viewers interested is how the scene will continue to be grown. A lot of my fond memories of watching brood war was crazy maps and interesting strategies.The last couple map pools has been meaningless, every map could be substituted for every other map, except maybe one per season but even then it has a 100% veto rate.

On May 12 2019 23:19 Valyrian wrote:

Couldn't agree more.

Pros and the usual conservative suspects on TL who like to parrot pro opinions on maps will always disagree but recent developments have shown that trying new things are good for the game in terms of viewership. It's just a narrow minority in extremely niche sections of the viewership who think that their few dissenting views disprove this.

Of course it is concerning that Turbo Cruise is probably going to be vetoed into oblivion in most games, so we won't ever get to see how these new concepts would actually play out (and naysayers will of course immediately use that as proof that they don't work), but at least it means that slightly less weird maps have a chance to be played more often.

On May 12 2019 23:19 Valyrian wrote:

Couldn't agree more.

Pros and the usual conservative suspects on TL who like to parrot pro opinions on maps will always disagree but recent developments have shown that trying new things are good for the game in terms of viewership. It's just a narrow minority in extremely niche sections of the viewership who think that their few dissenting views disprove this.

Of course it is concerning that Turbo Cruise is probably going to be vetoed into oblivion in most games, so we won't ever get to see how these new concepts would actually play out (and naysayers will of course immediately use that as proof that they don't work), but at least it means that slightly less weird maps have a chance to be played more often.

On May 13 2019 06:15 deacon.frost wrote:

Maybe because the more unstandard the map is the more imbalanced it is? Have you though about that?

Maybe because the more unstandard the map is the more imbalanced it is? Have you though about that?

On May 13 2019 06:35 ZigguratOfUr wrote:


Eh obviously non-standard maps are more likely to be imbalanced since they are less predictable. Saying that the more non-standard a map is the more imbalanced it is is still false. The problem with Turbo Cruise is not that it's non-standard. The problem is that Turbo Cruise's execution of Inhibitor Zones just seems way worse than Winter's Gate's.

On May 13 2019 06:54 zell901 wrote:


Imbalance isn't necessarily bad, terran could probably use an imbalanced map pool right now. The definition of standard will never change if no one is ever forced to change it.

If you define balance by 50%vs50%vs50% then I don't care about balance at all, that would be positively boring like it was late WOL broodlord infestor era. Entire Eras of brood war were defined by certain races having an epiphany in the meta and going on an absolute tear of domination, it has happened many times over without a single patch, other than through the maps themselves.


I also happen to agree that Turbo is a relatively poor use of the fields, however for a brand new mechanic being introduced to many players who never so much as keep up with the custom map scenes/contests etc, it's by far the most straight forward introduction possible.

On May 13 2019 17:02 Highrock1 wrote:
So as zerg we have:

Acropolis - Free third base for Protoss
Thunderbird - Defend drop in your third, main, third, main
Turbo Cruise- hahahah, haaa

Oh well, time to perfect some one base shenanigans.
And veto Turbo Cruise.

The issue is you don't know which way it goes until it's played enough. And then Blizzard really tends to fix only the biggest upsets, otherwise they don't care. see the god damn Cyber Forest with its winrates (TvZ 41.1 %, PvT 60.5 %, ZvP 46.4 % (Wiki)Cyber Forest LE ). No matter the numbers this map is still in the map pool and it's certainly not favorable for Terrans.

And again, I can't stress that enough, Blizzard is so fucking slow on patching bad maps it's not even funny. In the end this is the company that brought us one of the most open naturals of all times and thought it was fine.

I'm not saying all the maps have to be super standard(especially not for ladder, but since ladder = tournament maps... this isn't right either), but considering Blizzard history and the present it's better to ask for standard maps which are less prone to be imbalanced when we are facing possible balance issues which is Blizzard not even commenting(!).

FFS nobody here remember Daedalus Point fiasco? And this was obvious from the start to everyone playing the game

On May 14 2019 01:18 zell901 wrote:


One season isn't enough for an entire meta to shift, generally speaking. The pros tend to ram a triangle shaped piece into a circle hole while veto'ing said circle as much as possible and then complain about it until blizzard goes back to standard. Doesn't mean the map is bad, nor do I blame the pros, but they are doing damage to the game in the long run. Perhaps next season will see terran changes and maybe the overall map pool favors terran. Cyber being in as a balancing force would be perfectly fine in such a hypothetical scenario. Which isn't all that far fetched. There is no formula, just go with the flow and make the best of it.

If the games are good, entertaining, and bringing advertisers and viewers to support the scene that's all that matters. The pros don't make their living off of first place, it's all of the ancillary support they receive, first place is the goal and would likely make a career worth it, but not required. If it was then Serral alone would have retired a huge group of talent last year.



It's far more important for the scene to be healthy than for every player to have an even playing field from season to season. Entire matchups in brood war have been +-10% for extended periods of domination (relatively speaking SC2 would lose their collective minds if this was the case), but they still made it work and people still loved to watch it. Cool maps and strategies are one of the biggest drivers for casual viewers, at least that seems to be the case in my extended circles, like it or not the casual viewer is by far the majority. I'd even venture to guess the VAST majority of watchers don't even so much as play multiplayer!

IMO Bo5/7 is too abundant to keep variety/risk taking high enough right now. High impact low repetition is generally the way to go in RTS games from a viewership perspective. Proleague was an amazing format for this very reason, the players got ample time to prepare for a specific matchup and single game, and the teams could field whichever race they wanted on a map (which allowed mapmakers to go crazy, as races could avoid matchups). It avoided all the pitfalls of constant weekend style tournaments, and really allows the RTS genre to shine. I hope team leagues continue to crop up as they seem to be doing now.

When the game becomes stale to play and watch and viewers are no longer interested, then you have big problems that need to be fixed ASAP, even if the game balance itself is considered reasonable at the time.



Edit: Here's a few years of TvZ history in SC2's predecessor with brief trend analysis and such, this much variation even in a game with zero patches (map balance only) shows the depth of the Starcraft series.

https://tl.net/forum/brood-war/94254-a-history-of-terran-vs-zerg

On May 14 2019 05:24 VriskaT wrote:
I'm hoping Turbo Cruise will actually work out, but even tho it's a cool concept I can only see it being the #1 map veto for every player.

On May 15 2019 16:49 Superouman wrote:

Who reported performance issues? Do you know where they occur on the map?

On May 09 2019 06:03 LHK wrote:
Something about the inhibitor fields gives me horrible, horrible FPS on Turbo Cruise. I usually sit around 180-200 FPS in SC2. I get about 70 on that map even with nothing happening. Really hope they can optimize that map a bit better before it hits ladder.

+ Show Spoiler +.

On May 12 2019 23:19 Valyrian wrote:
Pros and the usual conservative suspects on TL who like to parrot pro opinions on maps will always disagree but recent developments have shown that trying new things are good for the game in terms of viewership. It's just a narrow minority in extremely niche sections of the viewership who think that their few dissenting views disprove this.

On May 15 2019 20:57 deacon.frost wrote:
The question is who's the target audience. Viewers and casuals? Well, lot of games catered to those and they didn't exactly survived when the HC audience left the game. While HC audience shouldn't be the primary target, it's wise to not piss them too much if you want longevity of the game. If the "viewers want crazy stuff" would be true, we can end up in a situation where almost none plays the game and everyone is watching and I don't think this is desired state for Blizzard's monies.

On May 15 2019 21:27 insitelol wrote:

And my question is: do viewers actually like wierd stuff like that? If it is so, what is the percentage? Any stats or numbers to back it up? Who exactly is the SC audience? Is it dominated by hardcore longtime fans who play the game themselves or does it mostly consist of non-player base? Like, we don't actually have the numbers and i doubt blizzard has/care. They just keep throwing stuff at the wall to see if something sticks, and it kinda suits the situation but it should already be obvious by now that map tweaks direction is a deadend. They tried it numerous times and it NEVER ever worked.

I'm no expert but common sense tells me viewers generally prefer dynamic, fast paced games with lots of action, with clear, simple rules and gameplay that are easy to grasp. How exactly does slowing field or other wierd counter intuitive mechanics like 5 minerals patches blocking paths contribute to that, i have no clue.

If you want me to discribe the most attractive interaction in SC2 that is both interesting to play and watch i would definitely say it's ling/bane muta vs mmm. For me this is the epitome of dynamic/fast-paced and which is most important - clear and simple gameplay. I would rather focus on improving other aspects of the game for them to look like that. But blizzard, as it seems, chose the other path. They, for some reason, think that it's about diversity. Both in playstyles and maps. They keep promoting imbecile unorthodox playstyles like mech and tempests, revamping units from scratch every year (cyclone), keep "innovating" maps and so on.

On May 22 2019 13:05 BerserkSword wrote:


everything looking like ling bane muta vs mmm gets old real fast.

i find mech and tempest death balls enjoyable. i can appreciate the positioning, precision, decision making, and macro those styles entail. the best games of the year, for me, all entailed either mech and/or a protoss death ball.

starcraft is a strategy game first and foremost. action junkies can look somewhere else

On May 15 2019 21:27 insitelol wrote:

And my question is: do viewers actually like wierd stuff like that? If it is so, what is the percentage? Any stats or numbers to back it up? Who exactly is the SC audience? Is it dominated by hardcore longtime fans who play the game themselves or does it mostly consist of non-player base? Like, we don't actually have the numbers and i doubt blizzard has/care. They just keep throwing stuff at the wall to see if something sticks, and it kinda suits the situation but it should already be obvious by now that map tweaks direction is a deadend. They tried it numerous times and it NEVER ever worked.

I'm no expert but common sense tells me viewers generally prefer dynamic, fast paced games with lots of action, with clear, simple rules and gameplay that are easy to grasp. How exactly does slowing field or other wierd counter intuitive mechanics like 5 minerals patches blocking paths contribute to that, i have no clue.

If you want me to discribe the most attractive interaction in SC2 that is both interesting to play and watch i would definitely say it's ling/bane muta vs mmm. For me this is the epitome of dynamic/fast-paced and which is most important - clear and simple gameplay. I would rather focus on improving other aspects of the game for them to look like that. But blizzard, as it seems, chose the other path. They, for some reason, think that it's about diversity. Both in playstyles and maps. They keep promoting imbecile unorthodox playstyles like mech and tempests, revamping units from scratch every year (cyclone), keep "innovating" maps and so on.

On May 22 2019 23:32 General_Winter wrote:
So performance issues aside, the concept of inhibitor fields isn’t too crazy. It just means that instead of having three attack paths where 2 are long and 1 is short they have three attack paths that are all the same length.

On May 22 2019 15:37 Wombat_NI wrote:
I’ve always wanted a few more maps in the pool each season, with more vetoes. It gives more variety and at lesst a few more shots to mapmakers to get their maps used.

Personal preferences aside I think the pool is too small so they play it too safe, on the other side of that coin there’s usually one decent/classic map that gets removed almost every season to shake it up.

Have a slightly bigger pool and have both solid and well-rested balanced maps, with some more interesting curveballs and more vetoes you get basically all the boxes ticked no?

On May 22 2019 14:18 NinjaNight wrote:


Funny you say that because I think this is the most action packed fast paced RTS ever and is relatively low on strategy for a strategy game.

On May 22 2019 23:49 BerserkSword wrote:


I never said starcraft is not action packed and fast paced.

All I said was that it is a strategy game, first and foremost. You think that diversifying strategies should take a back seat to making everything look "clear and simple" like action packed mmm vs ling bane muta

On May 22 2019 23:49 BerserkSword wrote:


I never said starcraft is not action packed and fast paced.

All I said was that it is a strategy game, first and foremost. You think that diversifying strategies should take a back seat to making everything look "clear and simple" like action packed mmm vs ling bane muta

On May 23 2019 22:48 deacon.frost wrote:
Banned Turbo Cruise, either I have low hw or the game hates me, having lag issues there without ping changes

Edit> Anyone having similar issues? Maybe I got lucky into my ISP bad time.

On May 23 2019 20:48 insitelol wrote:

"Strategy" is just a label on a box. It also has that "R" in it. But the game shouldn't be a hostage of its name or label or some other artificial tag. It should be a game. And the game is all about gameplay. As i said i can only share my personal view on gameplay, i don't know about everyone else, and you can keep that opinion of yours about tempest deathballs being fun and all, but it looks like obvious trolling to me.

What's more important, the term "strategy" itself is generally overcomplicated on purpose by people who want to look more intellegent/do not clearly understand it. Strategy is literally every decision you make, good/bad, simple/complicated w/e, everything is strategy. Claiming that mech death balls involve more positioning and decision making is plain wrong, as operating slow death balls is identical to operating fast death balls with one exeption. You actually need to be faster than your opponent. That's just another layer in your skill. People who defend these playstyles are just slowpokes. Sure thing, they try to justify that with something like "i prefer to think not to spam keys mindlessly" backing it up with "its a strategy game after all". But that's a misconception. Starcraft is not that demanding in terms of actual "thinking", don't try to fool yourselves. It's not quantum physics or rocket science. You do not "think" about anything during a match, you just react to what you see according to your game knowledge/game sense/experience you name it. Nothing wrong with adding a speed requirement to that. That's what makes gameplay (in many sports, even in chess that is starcraft often compared to). Like, you don't need to be a new Einstein to spam planetaries all over the map and camp behind them only to move out when you are 200/200 on tanks. Oh look, opponent is trying to flank you! Siege up! He flees! Unsiege! Definitely some 50000 iq gaming here. And that is all that your "strategy" is about.

On May 24 2019 00:03 Ben... wrote:

As I mentioned a few posts back, I had the same thing. I played a couple more games on that map and they were all the same.

It's the map. I had played games on all the other maps without issue before and after I played the games on Turbo Cruise so it wasn't my internet or hardware acting up. There's a fairly substantial performance hit when playing that map versus the other maps.

It's too bad because I actually think it's a really neat map.

On May 24 2019 02:47 Cyro wrote:


Getting less performance than other maps in general but not as bad as i expected (1.3, 1.5x worse)

noticeable FPS drops scrolling past the inhibitor fields though, even with only 12 workers on the map. The performance limit is still CPU as expected.

On May 24 2019 05:55 deacon.frost wrote:

I don't see FPS issues per se, from time to time i can see something that could be called as input lag, but pings were fine(from 3k 40 loss) and i didn't see any fps drops. It may be because of my PC. Don't know

On May 24 2019 05:55 deacon.frost wrote:

I don't see FPS issues per se, from time to time i can see something that could be called as input lag, but pings were fine(from 3k 40 loss) and i didn't see any fps drops. It may be because of my PC. Don't know