A lot of mapmakers were tired, and maybe even a little bit burnt out, after the hectic summer schedule with back to back map contests. At first, we feared that might've scared some of them off but boy were we wrong. For TLMC 14, the mapmaking community was back at full force. Not only did we recieve 163(!!!) submissions, the interest in the contest was insane. During the last two days of the contest alone, we received, and replied to, 150+ PM's that all either contained map updates or new submissions.
While we're ready to announce the results, please note that the maps are not yet uploaded! We are still finishing off QA for the TLnet Map Contest Tournament that will start tomorrow, Tuesday, the 11th of February. Make sure you tune in!
Ok, we've delayed this for long enough. Time to announce the results! Just remember that the order the maps are listed in is not the same as the order they finished in the voting. We took the list of the category finalists and randomized it.
Standard
Category guidelines: Medium sized map. Players tend to have more flexibility on these maps to open with a wider variety of strategies and/or builds. Suggested rush distance: 33-38s
Pillars of Gold
By: AgatonTerran prospectors have reported that they’ve seen structures in the distance that soared up to the sky like pillars of gold. The Protoss settlement consists of 14 bases, where the linear third is further away from the opponent compared to the triangular third but in return, the high grounds surrounding it must be taken into consideration. No matter in which direction you go, there’ll be a fourth waiting for you. The corner bases will prove valuable as vantage points and to help control the base located below it.
2000 Atmospheres
By: themusic246Battle for survival on the seabed of this luminous alien planet.
Lightshade
By: MarrasLightshade is a typical standard map with two third base options and 7 bases per player, and can support a wide variety of playstyles. The destroyable debris and rocks give players a bit of security early on, and destroying them makes it easier to maneuver armies around the map.
Features 14 blue bases in total, line of sight blockers in the middle area and in the corner paths, debris on many of the ramps making them initially smaller until cleared up, also rocks at the direct center path, one set of large debris is dividing the central part of the high ground from the high ground near the corner, basic rake base layout (similar to e.g. Acropolis and Simulacrum), all in all, a very standard map
Hard Rain
By: ATTx The player can secure the base in a stable manner. At 3 and 9, the base is very easy to defend, but since the space with water is impossible to build, it is easy to attempt unit drop or air-to-ground attacks.
Macro
Category guidelines: A map that favors defensive play and encourages players to reach end game unit compositions. Suggested rush distance: 38-43s
Bamboozle
By: ObsidianScabbardLarge armies attacking through the shortest path will ride the struggle bus to the enemy. Outside paths are much more spacious.
A mineral wall protects your 3rd/4th base. Each patch has 10 minerals. If you take the central base by the mineral wall, your workers will automatically mine the wall. This is intentional!
Ice and Chrome
By: themusic246Choose between an open third and safer fourth, or safer third and open fourth.
Romanticide
By: MarrasRomanticide is a macro map with a slightly shorter rush distance than normal. The “maze” of rocks and line of sight blockers in the middle path offer a lot of positional opportunities. The mineral wall node values are at 10.
Features 16 blue bases of which the forward ones have a single rich vespene geyser. There’s a mineral wall between the triangle third and the base with the rich gas and also mineral patches with a rock on the ramp leading from that base towards the opponent. The mineral value in these is 10. There’s also some bridges on the map and plenty of line of sight blockers and rocks.
Ecostation
By: CharactRThe plant life on this space station adds a lot to the atmosphere, and not just the artificial one if you know what I mean. A large map with long routes and various expansion options, make use of the high ground and out-position your opponent.
Features a somewhat open low grounds contrasted by slightly a more constricted high ground that snakes in a reverse s-shape across the map. and various close by expansion options.
Rush
Category guidelines: Map favors early aggression and offensive play. Suggested rush distance: 33s or less
Old Forgotten Temple
By: robengAt one of the many forgotten temples at auir, two armies stand ready to fight. With a rocky highway through mid, armies must be careful and think about other ways to fight.
Oxide
By: themusic246A smaller map with rocks that lengthen attack routes early game. Fast nat to nat timing and map becomes high tension once the rocks are down.
Submarine
By: ZweckRather small and agressive map with fewer bases. Altough small, the layout is still rather standard, so it allows for all kinds of strategies. The short straight forward attack path is choked off by rocks.
Blackburn
By: Insidioussc2 Discover Moebius' gruesome experiments on this abandoned station. Ground and air distances between opponents is relatively short, but inhibitor zones may slow players down. Strong forward positions and risky high yield bases encourage aggressive play.
Inhabitor Zones in the bottom center. Inhabitor Zones around main to slow down air units and possible elevator play. Inhabitor Zones at the 12 o'clock base to easier defend it from ground attacks. Destructible debris in the center, next to high yield base and to the neutral bottom base.
The High Yield Base is risky and vulnerable from the back but close to the natural and if the player can secure their central high ground pod it is possible to defend.
Challenge – “Adrenaline Rush”
Category guidelines: Design a map making use of the “Acceleration Zone Generator” structure. The Acceleration Zone Generator is a neutral indestructible structure that increases the movement speed of units in its area of effect and can be placed anywhere on the map, including ramps.
Impostor
By: insidious_bombardierThis is an aggressive map which uses the new acceleration zone generators to decrease the rush distance, although this path is vulnerable to defenders positioned on the nearby high ground cliff.
Jagannatha
By: Timmay Accelerator Zones are placed in four strategic locations to allow players to quickly change paths. The layout was carefully constructed with the help of Twitch chat.
Large rocks full block paths between the Accelerator Zones. Another path outside a late game expansion is partially blocked by rocks.
Deathaura
By: Marras Deathaura features the new Acceleration Zone Generators that increase the movement speed of units. These zones are situated on the three bridges in the middle. The most forward bases have two rich gas geysers.
14 blue bases in total, of which the forward ones have two rich vespene geysers. The Acceleration Zone Generators are situated on the bridges in the middle. The scouting path goes through these in a zigzag shape. There is also plenty of airspace.
Beckett Industries
By: SuperoumanBeckett Industries feature three Acceleration Zone Generators(AZG) placed on small bridges in the middle area. While being very tight, these choke points are still a valid attack path.
3 AZGs are placed on tight chokes in the middle. These chokes have a higher unit throughput while keeping an easy concave setting for the defender. The line thirds are very close to each other while the triangle third is very far away from each other. The line thirds have a very small chokepoint because of the short distance between them.
None of the finalists look like trainwrecks which is encouraging (especially from the rush category). A lot of these maps are rather boring, and none of them are very interesting but that was to be expected.
Of all the maps I put out Ecostation is probably the last one I was expecting to make finalist especially given how competitive the macro category seemed. This is not to say I'm not happy though, still pretty stoked.
On February 11 2020 05:18 Howard_Kao wrote: Why does all maps look familiar and dull, I thought we're gonna have some crazy maps under the topic of adrenaline rush
Anything not familiar and dull gets vetoed to death. Just look at Zen, only the natural is unusual and the map is barely played.
On February 11 2020 05:18 Howard_Kao wrote: Why does all maps look familiar and dull, I thought we're gonna have some crazy maps under the topic of adrenaline rush
Anything not familiar and dull gets vetoed to death. Just look at Zen, only the natural is unusual and the map is barely played.
That's a bit hyperbolic. Zen does get played less than the other maps of its cohort, but you still see it a reasonable amount and it's not nearly as vetoed as some maps have been.
And if there were fewer maps where the players can do the exact same builds they always do because the first five bases are basically the same the players would be forced to try something unfamiliar.
At second glance it does feel like some weaker maps slipped through because of judges valuing maps with features that favor their race (airspace next to the main for example) over better designed maps, but at least none of them are too egregious.
At a first look Beckett Industries looks pretty good.
The standard/macro maps all look the same as each other and as most of the maps from the last few seasons. I dunno why you guys are obsessed with giving away 5 bases for free, with 7+ bases per player, only 2-players, and worst of all, an even number of paths.
I'm not a fan of Blackburn, but the other rush maps seem ok; though if any make it into the ladder pool I have no idea how good their gameplay will actually turn out.
On February 11 2020 05:18 Howard_Kao wrote: Why does all maps look familiar and dull, I thought we're gonna have some crazy maps under the topic of adrenaline rush
Anything not familiar and dull gets vetoed to death. Just look at Zen, only the natural is unusual and the map is barely played.
You know I'm not terrified of "interesting" features; I loved Turbo Cruise and I liked Winter's Gate for example, but Zen is extremely uncomfortable to play on. The 2nd nat entrance is occasionally annoying, but normally you just block it off and rally to your 3rd and it's almost like the nat is normal. What makes the map hell to play on is the tiny misshapen main bases, especially in conjunction with the cliff face that turns into an expo, annoying pathing due to a thousand different mineral blocks, and how tight the map is as a whole. I think the tightness would be ok without the mineral blocks, and the layout as a whole would be more easily taken in without the cramped main, nat, and 3rd. All together these traits make for a typically unpleasant game, not the "innovative" feature of the 2nd nat entrance.
I want to like the map, it definitely stands out among the mappool of the last few seasons, but after playing a ton of games on the map I found I enjoyed sc2 much more after vetoing it.
However, I promise you can have traits that differentiate a map from its peers without hurting the gameplay.
I like a lot of these maps. My favorite is definitely Blackburn, I love the idea of both players spawning on one side of the map, and wish we had more maps like that! Something like a Redshift 2.0 would be cool too.
Ultimately though I would LOVE to see four player maps come back into popularity, especially if a map pool had a decent mix of small maps, medium maps, and a single four-player random spawn map.
The triangle third base on 2000 atmospheres has 9 mineral patches instead of 8 on both sides. Could be intentional, but two of them are on top of eachother, so it is probably a bug.
Map Contest Tournament starts in a few hours. Will be interesting to see what players instantly veto out. I guess the more extraordinary maps will get most vetos, cause players are unfamiliar with it :/
i don't understand the point of putting accelerators in choke points. choke points are hard to move through, but you made them easier to move through, so it's just a less chokey choke point? pretty uninspired.
At a first look Beckett Industries looks pretty good.
The standard/macro maps all look the same as each other and as most of the maps from the last few seasons. I dunno why you guys are obsessed with giving away 5 bases for free, with 7+ bases per player, only 2-players, and worst of all, an even number of paths.
I'm not a fan of Blackburn, but the other rush maps seem ok; though if any make it into the ladder pool I have no idea how good their gameplay will actually turn out.
On February 11 2020 05:18 Howard_Kao wrote: Why does all maps look familiar and dull, I thought we're gonna have some crazy maps under the topic of adrenaline rush
Anything not familiar and dull gets vetoed to death. Just look at Zen, only the natural is unusual and the map is barely played.
You know I'm not terrified of "interesting" features; I loved Turbo Cruise and I liked Winter's Gate for example, but Zen is extremely uncomfortable to play on. The 2nd nat entrance is occasionally annoying, but normally you just block it off and rally to your 3rd and it's almost like the nat is normal. What makes the map hell to play on is the tiny misshapen main bases, especially in conjunction with the cliff face that turns into an expo, annoying pathing due to a thousand different mineral blocks, and how tight the map is as a whole. I think the tightness would be ok without the mineral blocks, and the layout as a whole would be more easily taken in without the cramped main, nat, and 3rd. All together these traits make for a typically unpleasant game, not the "innovative" feature of the 2nd nat entrance.
I want to like the map, it definitely stands out among the mappool of the last few seasons, but after playing a ton of games on the map I found I enjoyed sc2 much more after vetoing it.
However, I promise you can have traits that differentiate a map from its peers without hurting the gameplay.
Yeah i made too many mistakes on Zen
On February 12 2020 00:49 brickrd wrote: i don't understand the point of putting accelerators in choke points. choke points are hard to move through, but you made them easier to move through, so it's just a less chokey choke point? pretty uninspired.
AZGs on chokes change the properties of the choke. It's more or less desirable depending on the stage of the game.
With a small army, it is only a boost because the army doesn't get spaghettified.
With a large army, the army gets spaghettified but still gets through the choke at a normal pace.
Setting a concave is very easy for battles with medium and large armies. But if the defender's army to too small, the attacker can still break through with a few less hits taken.
So depending on the time of the game, the size of the attacker and the defender's armies will vary and you won't use those chokes the same in the early, mid and late game.
________________
By the way, in this TLMC, there are 5 first time finalists. - Agaton - CharactR - robeng - Insidioussc2 - insidious_bombardier
This amount is crazy. The future of sc2 melee map making is safe.
At a first look Beckett Industries looks pretty good.
The standard/macro maps all look the same as each other and as most of the maps from the last few seasons. I dunno why you guys are obsessed with giving away 5 bases for free, with 7+ bases per player, only 2-players, and worst of all, an even number of paths.
I'm not a fan of Blackburn, but the other rush maps seem ok; though if any make it into the ladder pool I have no idea how good their gameplay will actually turn out.
On February 11 2020 05:18 Howard_Kao wrote: Why does all maps look familiar and dull, I thought we're gonna have some crazy maps under the topic of adrenaline rush
Anything not familiar and dull gets vetoed to death. Just look at Zen, only the natural is unusual and the map is barely played.
You know I'm not terrified of "interesting" features; I loved Turbo Cruise and I liked Winter's Gate for example, but Zen is extremely uncomfortable to play on. The 2nd nat entrance is occasionally annoying, but normally you just block it off and rally to your 3rd and it's almost like the nat is normal. What makes the map hell to play on is the tiny misshapen main bases, especially in conjunction with the cliff face that turns into an expo, annoying pathing due to a thousand different mineral blocks, and how tight the map is as a whole. I think the tightness would be ok without the mineral blocks, and the layout as a whole would be more easily taken in without the cramped main, nat, and 3rd. All together these traits make for a typically unpleasant game, not the "innovative" feature of the 2nd nat entrance.
I want to like the map, it definitely stands out among the mappool of the last few seasons, but after playing a ton of games on the map I found I enjoyed sc2 much more after vetoing it.
However, I promise you can have traits that differentiate a map from its peers without hurting the gameplay.
On February 12 2020 00:49 brickrd wrote: i don't understand the point of putting accelerators in choke points. choke points are hard to move through, but you made them easier to move through, so it's just a less chokey choke point? pretty uninspired.
AZGs on chokes change the properties of the choke. It's more or less desirable depending on the stage of the game.
With a small army, it is only a boost because the army doesn't get spaghettified.
With a large army, the army gets spaghettified but still gets through the choke at a normal pace.
Setting a concave is very easy for battles with medium and large armies. But if the defender's army to too small, the attacker can still break through with a few less hits taken.
So depending on the time of the game, the size of the attacker and the defender's armies will vary and you won't use those chokes the same in the early, mid and late game.
________________
By the way, in this TLMC, there are 5 first time finalists. - Agaton - CharactR - robeng - Insidioussc2 - insidious_bombardier
This amount is crazy. The future of sc2 melee map making is safe.
At a first look Beckett Industries looks pretty good.
The standard/macro maps all look the same as each other and as most of the maps from the last few seasons. I dunno why you guys are obsessed with giving away 5 bases for free, with 7+ bases per player, only 2-players, and worst of all, an even number of paths.
I'm not a fan of Blackburn, but the other rush maps seem ok; though if any make it into the ladder pool I have no idea how good their gameplay will actually turn out.
On February 11 2020 05:18 Howard_Kao wrote: Why does all maps look familiar and dull, I thought we're gonna have some crazy maps under the topic of adrenaline rush
Anything not familiar and dull gets vetoed to death. Just look at Zen, only the natural is unusual and the map is barely played.
You know I'm not terrified of "interesting" features; I loved Turbo Cruise and I liked Winter's Gate for example, but Zen is extremely uncomfortable to play on. The 2nd nat entrance is occasionally annoying, but normally you just block it off and rally to your 3rd and it's almost like the nat is normal. What makes the map hell to play on is the tiny misshapen main bases, especially in conjunction with the cliff face that turns into an expo, annoying pathing due to a thousand different mineral blocks, and how tight the map is as a whole. I think the tightness would be ok without the mineral blocks, and the layout as a whole would be more easily taken in without the cramped main, nat, and 3rd. All together these traits make for a typically unpleasant game, not the "innovative" feature of the 2nd nat entrance.
I want to like the map, it definitely stands out among the mappool of the last few seasons, but after playing a ton of games on the map I found I enjoyed sc2 much more after vetoing it.
However, I promise you can have traits that differentiate a map from its peers without hurting the gameplay.
Yeah i made too many mistakes on Zen
On February 12 2020 00:49 brickrd wrote: i don't understand the point of putting accelerators in choke points. choke points are hard to move through, but you made them easier to move through, so it's just a less chokey choke point? pretty uninspired.
AZGs on chokes change the properties of the choke. It's more or less desirable depending on the stage of the game.
With a small army, it is only a boost because the army doesn't get spaghettified.
With a large army, the army gets spaghettified but still gets through the choke at a normal pace.
Setting a concave is very easy for battles with medium and large armies. But if the defender's army to too small, the attacker can still break through with a few less hits taken.
So depending on the time of the game, the size of the attacker and the defender's armies will vary and you won't use those chokes the same in the early, mid and late game.
________________
By the way, in this TLMC, there are 5 first time finalists. - Agaton - CharactR - robeng - Insidioussc2 - insidious_bombardier
This amount is crazy. The future of sc2 melee map making is safe.
sounds like a bunch of theorycraft you made up
But that’s the beauty of theorycraft!
Personally I think there could be more interesting uses of something like accelerating/slowing fields, namely make a variant that is directional.
Maybe while entering from one side it accelerates you through, decelerates if entering from the other side. Then you could have relatively long chunks of movement modifying fields.
So controlling the entrances could be used more tactically and battle over, you could try to establish a position in front of one and speed up reinforcements from your rear. Or have them controllable and require units on them to active them, like a Xel’Naga tower.
Or a player could be looking to control it to slow a push through a choke.
I mean I’m just spitballing of course. But say a bio-tank parade pushing kind of style could be made strong or weak depending on how the fields would be controlled.
I feel at present they’re just things that make you move faster or slower through chokes at present and that’s about it really.
At a first look Beckett Industries looks pretty good.
The standard/macro maps all look the same as each other and as most of the maps from the last few seasons. I dunno why you guys are obsessed with giving away 5 bases for free, with 7+ bases per player, only 2-players, and worst of all, an even number of paths.
I'm not a fan of Blackburn, but the other rush maps seem ok; though if any make it into the ladder pool I have no idea how good their gameplay will actually turn out.
On February 11 2020 05:18 Howard_Kao wrote: Why does all maps look familiar and dull, I thought we're gonna have some crazy maps under the topic of adrenaline rush
Anything not familiar and dull gets vetoed to death. Just look at Zen, only the natural is unusual and the map is barely played.
You know I'm not terrified of "interesting" features; I loved Turbo Cruise and I liked Winter's Gate for example, but Zen is extremely uncomfortable to play on. The 2nd nat entrance is occasionally annoying, but normally you just block it off and rally to your 3rd and it's almost like the nat is normal. What makes the map hell to play on is the tiny misshapen main bases, especially in conjunction with the cliff face that turns into an expo, annoying pathing due to a thousand different mineral blocks, and how tight the map is as a whole. I think the tightness would be ok without the mineral blocks, and the layout as a whole would be more easily taken in without the cramped main, nat, and 3rd. All together these traits make for a typically unpleasant game, not the "innovative" feature of the 2nd nat entrance.
I want to like the map, it definitely stands out among the mappool of the last few seasons, but after playing a ton of games on the map I found I enjoyed sc2 much more after vetoing it.
However, I promise you can have traits that differentiate a map from its peers without hurting the gameplay.
Yeah i made too many mistakes on Zen
On February 12 2020 00:49 brickrd wrote: i don't understand the point of putting accelerators in choke points. choke points are hard to move through, but you made them easier to move through, so it's just a less chokey choke point? pretty uninspired.
AZGs on chokes change the properties of the choke. It's more or less desirable depending on the stage of the game.
With a small army, it is only a boost because the army doesn't get spaghettified.
With a large army, the army gets spaghettified but still gets through the choke at a normal pace.
Setting a concave is very easy for battles with medium and large armies. But if the defender's army to too small, the attacker can still break through with a few less hits taken.
So depending on the time of the game, the size of the attacker and the defender's armies will vary and you won't use those chokes the same in the early, mid and late game.
________________
By the way, in this TLMC, there are 5 first time finalists. - Agaton - CharactR - robeng - Insidioussc2 - insidious_bombardier
This amount is crazy. The future of sc2 melee map making is safe.
sounds like a bunch of theorycraft you made up
But that’s the beauty of theorycraft!
Personally I think there could be more interesting uses of something like accelerating/slowing fields, namely make a variant that is directional.
Maybe while entering from one side it accelerates you through, decelerates if entering from the other side. Then you could have relatively long chunks of movement modifying fields.
So controlling the entrances could be used more tactically and battle over, you could try to establish a position in front of one and speed up reinforcements from your rear. Or have them controllable and require units on them to active them, like a Xel’Naga tower.
Or a player could be looking to control it to slow a push through a choke.
I mean I’m just spitballing of course. But say a bio-tank parade pushing kind of style could be made strong or weak depending on how the fields would be controlled.
I feel at present they’re just things that make you move faster or slower through chokes at present and that’s about it really.
The directional idea is kinda weird to play I guess, but the "take control" idea is nice!
On February 12 2020 11:19 ThunderJunk wrote: I'm annoyed that every single finalist features spawns in the corners, and similar expansion layouts.
Beautiful maps though.
I agree. There is only one map that has same side spawns to bring a bit of excitement. All the others look a bit boring
At a first look Beckett Industries looks pretty good.
The standard/macro maps all look the same as each other and as most of the maps from the last few seasons. I dunno why you guys are obsessed with giving away 5 bases for free, with 7+ bases per player, only 2-players, and worst of all, an even number of paths.
I'm not a fan of Blackburn, but the other rush maps seem ok; though if any make it into the ladder pool I have no idea how good their gameplay will actually turn out.
On February 11 2020 05:18 Howard_Kao wrote: Why does all maps look familiar and dull, I thought we're gonna have some crazy maps under the topic of adrenaline rush
Anything not familiar and dull gets vetoed to death. Just look at Zen, only the natural is unusual and the map is barely played.
You know I'm not terrified of "interesting" features; I loved Turbo Cruise and I liked Winter's Gate for example, but Zen is extremely uncomfortable to play on. The 2nd nat entrance is occasionally annoying, but normally you just block it off and rally to your 3rd and it's almost like the nat is normal. What makes the map hell to play on is the tiny misshapen main bases, especially in conjunction with the cliff face that turns into an expo, annoying pathing due to a thousand different mineral blocks, and how tight the map is as a whole. I think the tightness would be ok without the mineral blocks, and the layout as a whole would be more easily taken in without the cramped main, nat, and 3rd. All together these traits make for a typically unpleasant game, not the "innovative" feature of the 2nd nat entrance.
I want to like the map, it definitely stands out among the mappool of the last few seasons, but after playing a ton of games on the map I found I enjoyed sc2 much more after vetoing it.
However, I promise you can have traits that differentiate a map from its peers without hurting the gameplay.
Yeah i made too many mistakes on Zen
On February 12 2020 00:49 brickrd wrote: i don't understand the point of putting accelerators in choke points. choke points are hard to move through, but you made them easier to move through, so it's just a less chokey choke point? pretty uninspired.
AZGs on chokes change the properties of the choke. It's more or less desirable depending on the stage of the game.
With a small army, it is only a boost because the army doesn't get spaghettified.
With a large army, the army gets spaghettified but still gets through the choke at a normal pace.
Setting a concave is very easy for battles with medium and large armies. But if the defender's army to too small, the attacker can still break through with a few less hits taken.
So depending on the time of the game, the size of the attacker and the defender's armies will vary and you won't use those chokes the same in the early, mid and late game.
________________
By the way, in this TLMC, there are 5 first time finalists. - Agaton - CharactR - robeng - Insidioussc2 - insidious_bombardier
This amount is crazy. The future of sc2 melee map making is safe.
sounds like a bunch of theorycraft you made up
Ok then next time I won't bother answering you if you don't care about the actual answer.
At a first look Beckett Industries looks pretty good.
The standard/macro maps all look the same as each other and as most of the maps from the last few seasons. I dunno why you guys are obsessed with giving away 5 bases for free, with 7+ bases per player, only 2-players, and worst of all, an even number of paths.
I'm not a fan of Blackburn, but the other rush maps seem ok; though if any make it into the ladder pool I have no idea how good their gameplay will actually turn out.
On February 11 2020 05:18 Howard_Kao wrote: Why does all maps look familiar and dull, I thought we're gonna have some crazy maps under the topic of adrenaline rush
Anything not familiar and dull gets vetoed to death. Just look at Zen, only the natural is unusual and the map is barely played.
You know I'm not terrified of "interesting" features; I loved Turbo Cruise and I liked Winter's Gate for example, but Zen is extremely uncomfortable to play on. The 2nd nat entrance is occasionally annoying, but normally you just block it off and rally to your 3rd and it's almost like the nat is normal. What makes the map hell to play on is the tiny misshapen main bases, especially in conjunction with the cliff face that turns into an expo, annoying pathing due to a thousand different mineral blocks, and how tight the map is as a whole. I think the tightness would be ok without the mineral blocks, and the layout as a whole would be more easily taken in without the cramped main, nat, and 3rd. All together these traits make for a typically unpleasant game, not the "innovative" feature of the 2nd nat entrance.
I want to like the map, it definitely stands out among the mappool of the last few seasons, but after playing a ton of games on the map I found I enjoyed sc2 much more after vetoing it.
However, I promise you can have traits that differentiate a map from its peers without hurting the gameplay.
Yeah i made too many mistakes on Zen
On February 12 2020 00:49 brickrd wrote: i don't understand the point of putting accelerators in choke points. choke points are hard to move through, but you made them easier to move through, so it's just a less chokey choke point? pretty uninspired.
AZGs on chokes change the properties of the choke. It's more or less desirable depending on the stage of the game.
With a small army, it is only a boost because the army doesn't get spaghettified.
With a large army, the army gets spaghettified but still gets through the choke at a normal pace.
Setting a concave is very easy for battles with medium and large armies. But if the defender's army to too small, the attacker can still break through with a few less hits taken.
So depending on the time of the game, the size of the attacker and the defender's armies will vary and you won't use those chokes the same in the early, mid and late game.
________________
By the way, in this TLMC, there are 5 first time finalists. - Agaton - CharactR - robeng - Insidioussc2 - insidious_bombardier
This amount is crazy. The future of sc2 melee map making is safe.
sounds like a bunch of theorycraft you made up
But that’s the beauty of theorycraft!
Personally I think there could be more interesting uses of something like accelerating/slowing fields, namely make a variant that is directional.
Maybe while entering from one side it accelerates you through, decelerates if entering from the other side. Then you could have relatively long chunks of movement modifying fields.
So controlling the entrances could be used more tactically and battle over, you could try to establish a position in front of one and speed up reinforcements from your rear. Or have them controllable and require units on them to active them, like a Xel’Naga tower.
Or a player could be looking to control it to slow a push through a choke.
I mean I’m just spitballing of course. But say a bio-tank parade pushing kind of style could be made strong or weak depending on how the fields would be controlled.
I feel at present they’re just things that make you move faster or slower through chokes at present and that’s about it really.
The directional idea is kinda weird to play I guess, but the "take control" idea is nice!
On February 12 2020 11:19 ThunderJunk wrote: I'm annoyed that every single finalist features spawns in the corners, and similar expansion layouts.
Beautiful maps though.
I agree. There is only one map that has same side spawns to bring a bit of excitement. All the others look a bit boring
There is a fine line between interesting and gimmicky but I quite like the look of that one.
It’s a shame I just never think they really get maps and pools right, and I have long thought ladder and how it works plays into this.
There’s not much room for experimentation and things get a bit same, I’ve long felt the map pool should have more maps full stop, with more vetoes.
Or more maps and a set of vetoes for each of your matchups. As a Protoss player I’ve had to veto many a map that made for great macro PvT matches because it was too Zerg favoured was generally the pattern with me, but I’m sure others have had differing experiences.
Then over a ladder season you can get a sense with ladder data of what the good, balanced maps tend to be for each specific matchup and feed those into tournament matches too.
As it has long been, IMO there aren’t enough maps in the pool, it gets stale and sometimes the interesting maps get rotated out too quickly, ones people are tired of stick around forever and there isn’t a huge amount of room for experimentation in the current pool.
Trying to make every map as close to 50/50 for every single matchup is a thankless task and it inevitably leads to really similar maps. I’d love to see what map makers could do with maps tailored for making the best TvT map possible as their remit, or whatever particular matchup.
There’s other things could be done too, experimental maps could give you special portraits and stuff to encourage people to give them a proper try.
Cool to see familiar names here, and a few I don't recognize.
I know it's not relevant to most, but for me a good map has to have a cool name. And to me, at first glance for the most part, these maps have pretty cool names. In a few cases, way cool.
Looking forward to learning the maps' actual features...
At a first look Beckett Industries looks pretty good.
The standard/macro maps all look the same as each other and as most of the maps from the last few seasons. I dunno why you guys are obsessed with giving away 5 bases for free, with 7+ bases per player, only 2-players, and worst of all, an even number of paths.
I'm not a fan of Blackburn, but the other rush maps seem ok; though if any make it into the ladder pool I have no idea how good their gameplay will actually turn out.
On February 11 2020 05:18 Howard_Kao wrote: Why does all maps look familiar and dull, I thought we're gonna have some crazy maps under the topic of adrenaline rush
Anything not familiar and dull gets vetoed to death. Just look at Zen, only the natural is unusual and the map is barely played.
You know I'm not terrified of "interesting" features; I loved Turbo Cruise and I liked Winter's Gate for example, but Zen is extremely uncomfortable to play on. The 2nd nat entrance is occasionally annoying, but normally you just block it off and rally to your 3rd and it's almost like the nat is normal. What makes the map hell to play on is the tiny misshapen main bases, especially in conjunction with the cliff face that turns into an expo, annoying pathing due to a thousand different mineral blocks, and how tight the map is as a whole. I think the tightness would be ok without the mineral blocks, and the layout as a whole would be more easily taken in without the cramped main, nat, and 3rd. All together these traits make for a typically unpleasant game, not the "innovative" feature of the 2nd nat entrance.
I want to like the map, it definitely stands out among the mappool of the last few seasons, but after playing a ton of games on the map I found I enjoyed sc2 much more after vetoing it.
However, I promise you can have traits that differentiate a map from its peers without hurting the gameplay.
Yeah i made too many mistakes on Zen
On February 12 2020 00:49 brickrd wrote: i don't understand the point of putting accelerators in choke points. choke points are hard to move through, but you made them easier to move through, so it's just a less chokey choke point? pretty uninspired.
AZGs on chokes change the properties of the choke. It's more or less desirable depending on the stage of the game.
With a small army, it is only a boost because the army doesn't get spaghettified.
With a large army, the army gets spaghettified but still gets through the choke at a normal pace.
Setting a concave is very easy for battles with medium and large armies. But if the defender's army to too small, the attacker can still break through with a few less hits taken.
So depending on the time of the game, the size of the attacker and the defender's armies will vary and you won't use those chokes the same in the early, mid and late game.
________________
By the way, in this TLMC, there are 5 first time finalists. - Agaton - CharactR - robeng - Insidioussc2 - insidious_bombardier
This amount is crazy. The future of sc2 melee map making is safe.
sounds like a bunch of theorycraft you made up
But that’s the beauty of theorycraft!
Personally I think there could be more interesting uses of something like accelerating/slowing fields, namely make a variant that is directional.
Maybe while entering from one side it accelerates you through, decelerates if entering from the other side. Then you could have relatively long chunks of movement modifying fields.
So controlling the entrances could be used more tactically and battle over, you could try to establish a position in front of one and speed up reinforcements from your rear. Or have them controllable and require units on them to active them, like a Xel’Naga tower.
Or a player could be looking to control it to slow a push through a choke.
I mean I’m just spitballing of course. But say a bio-tank parade pushing kind of style could be made strong or weak depending on how the fields would be controlled.
I feel at present they’re just things that make you move faster or slower through chokes at present and that’s about it really.
The directional idea is kinda weird to play I guess, but the "take control" idea is nice!
On February 12 2020 11:19 ThunderJunk wrote: I'm annoyed that every single finalist features spawns in the corners, and similar expansion layouts.
Beautiful maps though.
I agree. There is only one map that has same side spawns to bring a bit of excitement. All the others look a bit boring
There is a fine line between interesting and gimmicky but I quite like the look of that one.
It’s a shame I just never think they really get maps and pools right, and I have long thought ladder and how it works plays into this.
There’s not much room for experimentation and things get a bit same, I’ve long felt the map pool should have more maps full stop, with more vetoes.
Or more maps and a set of vetoes for each of your matchups. As a Protoss player I’ve had to veto many a map that made for great macro PvT matches because it was too Zerg favoured was generally the pattern with me, but I’m sure others have had differing experiences.
Then over a ladder season you can get a sense with ladder data of what the good, balanced maps tend to be for each specific matchup and feed those into tournament matches too.
As it has long been, IMO there aren’t enough maps in the pool, it gets stale and sometimes the interesting maps get rotated out too quickly, ones people are tired of stick around forever and there isn’t a huge amount of room for experimentation in the current pool.
Trying to make every map as close to 50/50 for every single matchup is a thankless task and it inevitably leads to really similar maps. I’d love to see what map makers could do with maps tailored for making the best TvT map possible as their remit, or whatever particular matchup.
There’s other things could be done too, experimental maps could give you special portraits and stuff to encourage people to give them a proper try.
I appreciate your thoughts here.
I want more super out-there maps (e.g., Dasan Station, Klontas Mire, etc.) Most of my fun in playing Starcraft2 comes from making my own creative adaptations and unique build orders. I'd much rather have slightly or somewhat imbalanced maps that are fun to discover then a map pool of 7 balanced maps that all look and play basically the same. I know I'm not alone in this. Shoot, if I could have 7 weird maps, I'd take it. I'll compromise with less, but come on, None!? Whaatever...
That said, the mapmakers did a great job making beautiful maps, so congrats to the finalists.
At a first look Beckett Industries looks pretty good.
The standard/macro maps all look the same as each other and as most of the maps from the last few seasons. I dunno why you guys are obsessed with giving away 5 bases for free, with 7+ bases per player, only 2-players, and worst of all, an even number of paths.
I'm not a fan of Blackburn, but the other rush maps seem ok; though if any make it into the ladder pool I have no idea how good their gameplay will actually turn out.
On February 11 2020 05:18 Howard_Kao wrote: Why does all maps look familiar and dull, I thought we're gonna have some crazy maps under the topic of adrenaline rush
Anything not familiar and dull gets vetoed to death. Just look at Zen, only the natural is unusual and the map is barely played.
You know I'm not terrified of "interesting" features; I loved Turbo Cruise and I liked Winter's Gate for example, but Zen is extremely uncomfortable to play on. The 2nd nat entrance is occasionally annoying, but normally you just block it off and rally to your 3rd and it's almost like the nat is normal. What makes the map hell to play on is the tiny misshapen main bases, especially in conjunction with the cliff face that turns into an expo, annoying pathing due to a thousand different mineral blocks, and how tight the map is as a whole. I think the tightness would be ok without the mineral blocks, and the layout as a whole would be more easily taken in without the cramped main, nat, and 3rd. All together these traits make for a typically unpleasant game, not the "innovative" feature of the 2nd nat entrance.
I want to like the map, it definitely stands out among the mappool of the last few seasons, but after playing a ton of games on the map I found I enjoyed sc2 much more after vetoing it.
However, I promise you can have traits that differentiate a map from its peers without hurting the gameplay.
Yeah i made too many mistakes on Zen
On February 12 2020 00:49 brickrd wrote: i don't understand the point of putting accelerators in choke points. choke points are hard to move through, but you made them easier to move through, so it's just a less chokey choke point? pretty uninspired.
AZGs on chokes change the properties of the choke. It's more or less desirable depending on the stage of the game.
With a small army, it is only a boost because the army doesn't get spaghettified.
With a large army, the army gets spaghettified but still gets through the choke at a normal pace.
Setting a concave is very easy for battles with medium and large armies. But if the defender's army to too small, the attacker can still break through with a few less hits taken.
So depending on the time of the game, the size of the attacker and the defender's armies will vary and you won't use those chokes the same in the early, mid and late game.
________________
By the way, in this TLMC, there are 5 first time finalists. - Agaton - CharactR - robeng - Insidioussc2 - insidious_bombardier
This amount is crazy. The future of sc2 melee map making is safe.
sounds like a bunch of theorycraft you made up
But that’s the beauty of theorycraft!
Personally I think there could be more interesting uses of something like accelerating/slowing fields, namely make a variant that is directional.
Maybe while entering from one side it accelerates you through, decelerates if entering from the other side. Then you could have relatively long chunks of movement modifying fields.
So controlling the entrances could be used more tactically and battle over, you could try to establish a position in front of one and speed up reinforcements from your rear. Or have them controllable and require units on them to active them, like a Xel’Naga tower.
Or a player could be looking to control it to slow a push through a choke.
I mean I’m just spitballing of course. But say a bio-tank parade pushing kind of style could be made strong or weak depending on how the fields would be controlled.
I feel at present they’re just things that make you move faster or slower through chokes at present and that’s about it really.
The directional idea is kinda weird to play I guess, but the "take control" idea is nice!
On February 12 2020 11:19 ThunderJunk wrote: I'm annoyed that every single finalist features spawns in the corners, and similar expansion layouts.
Beautiful maps though.
I agree. There is only one map that has same side spawns to bring a bit of excitement. All the others look a bit boring
There is a fine line between interesting and gimmicky but I quite like the look of that one.
It’s a shame I just never think they really get maps and pools right, and I have long thought ladder and how it works plays into this.
There’s not much room for experimentation and things get a bit same, I’ve long felt the map pool should have more maps full stop, with more vetoes.
Or more maps and a set of vetoes for each of your matchups. As a Protoss player I’ve had to veto many a map that made for great macro PvT matches because it was too Zerg favoured was generally the pattern with me, but I’m sure others have had differing experiences.
Then over a ladder season you can get a sense with ladder data of what the good, balanced maps tend to be for each specific matchup and feed those into tournament matches too.
As it has long been, IMO there aren’t enough maps in the pool, it gets stale and sometimes the interesting maps get rotated out too quickly, ones people are tired of stick around forever and there isn’t a huge amount of room for experimentation in the current pool.
Trying to make every map as close to 50/50 for every single matchup is a thankless task and it inevitably leads to really similar maps. I’d love to see what map makers could do with maps tailored for making the best TvT map possible as their remit, or whatever particular matchup.
There’s other things could be done too, experimental maps could give you special portraits and stuff to encourage people to give them a proper try.
I appreciate your thoughts here.
I want more super out-there maps (e.g., Dasan Station, Klontas Mire, etc.) Most of my fun in playing Starcraft2 comes from making my own creative adaptations and unique build orders. I'd much rather have slightly or somewhat imbalanced maps that are fun to discover then a map pool of 7 balanced maps that all look and play basically the same. I know I'm not alone in this. Shoot, if I could have 7 weird maps, I'd take it. I'll compromise with less, but come on, None!? Whaatever...
That said, the mapmakers did a great job making beautiful maps, so congrats to the finalists.
Yeah for sure, I think the map makers do great jobs with the straight jacket they have to operate with, just would be cool if it were loosened a bit.
have to agree that these are just standard maps. I suppose this is what we get got having 3 different races, but im sure we accept that some maps are better for some races. Maybe we could have it IF its deemed map x is better for X race, then you are awarded +10 mmr extra for winning on it as a bonus? Might stop a lot of crying, but i know this may have its issues. i too enjoyed the game when crazy shit was afoot. remember the days of shakuras and that where people found really op places to put units, you kinda played around NOT letting that happen . . .meh i thought it was kinda cool, it was like 2nd objectives and all that shit you scream for these days . . . .they did it back then without knowing.
At a first look Beckett Industries looks pretty good.
The standard/macro maps all look the same as each other and as most of the maps from the last few seasons. I dunno why you guys are obsessed with giving away 5 bases for free, with 7+ bases per player, only 2-players, and worst of all, an even number of paths.
I'm not a fan of Blackburn, but the other rush maps seem ok; though if any make it into the ladder pool I have no idea how good their gameplay will actually turn out.
On February 11 2020 05:18 Howard_Kao wrote: Why does all maps look familiar and dull, I thought we're gonna have some crazy maps under the topic of adrenaline rush
Anything not familiar and dull gets vetoed to death. Just look at Zen, only the natural is unusual and the map is barely played.
You know I'm not terrified of "interesting" features; I loved Turbo Cruise and I liked Winter's Gate for example, but Zen is extremely uncomfortable to play on. The 2nd nat entrance is occasionally annoying, but normally you just block it off and rally to your 3rd and it's almost like the nat is normal. What makes the map hell to play on is the tiny misshapen main bases, especially in conjunction with the cliff face that turns into an expo, annoying pathing due to a thousand different mineral blocks, and how tight the map is as a whole. I think the tightness would be ok without the mineral blocks, and the layout as a whole would be more easily taken in without the cramped main, nat, and 3rd. All together these traits make for a typically unpleasant game, not the "innovative" feature of the 2nd nat entrance.
I want to like the map, it definitely stands out among the mappool of the last few seasons, but after playing a ton of games on the map I found I enjoyed sc2 much more after vetoing it.
However, I promise you can have traits that differentiate a map from its peers without hurting the gameplay.
Yeah i made too many mistakes on Zen
On February 12 2020 00:49 brickrd wrote: i don't understand the point of putting accelerators in choke points. choke points are hard to move through, but you made them easier to move through, so it's just a less chokey choke point? pretty uninspired.
AZGs on chokes change the properties of the choke. It's more or less desirable depending on the stage of the game.
With a small army, it is only a boost because the army doesn't get spaghettified.
With a large army, the army gets spaghettified but still gets through the choke at a normal pace.
Setting a concave is very easy for battles with medium and large armies. But if the defender's army to too small, the attacker can still break through with a few less hits taken.
So depending on the time of the game, the size of the attacker and the defender's armies will vary and you won't use those chokes the same in the early, mid and late game.
________________
By the way, in this TLMC, there are 5 first time finalists. - Agaton - CharactR - robeng - Insidioussc2 - insidious_bombardier
This amount is crazy. The future of sc2 melee map making is safe.
sounds like a bunch of theorycraft you made up
But that’s the beauty of theorycraft!
Personally I think there could be more interesting uses of something like accelerating/slowing fields, namely make a variant that is directional.
Maybe while entering from one side it accelerates you through, decelerates if entering from the other side. Then you could have relatively long chunks of movement modifying fields.
So controlling the entrances could be used more tactically and battle over, you could try to establish a position in front of one and speed up reinforcements from your rear. Or have them controllable and require units on them to active them, like a Xel’Naga tower.
Or a player could be looking to control it to slow a push through a choke.
I mean I’m just spitballing of course. But say a bio-tank parade pushing kind of style could be made strong or weak depending on how the fields would be controlled.
I feel at present they’re just things that make you move faster or slower through chokes at present and that’s about it really.
The directional idea is kinda weird to play I guess, but the "take control" idea is nice!
On February 12 2020 11:19 ThunderJunk wrote: I'm annoyed that every single finalist features spawns in the corners, and similar expansion layouts.
Beautiful maps though.
I agree. There is only one map that has same side spawns to bring a bit of excitement. All the others look a bit boring
There is a fine line between interesting and gimmicky but I quite like the look of that one.
It’s a shame I just never think they really get maps and pools right, and I have long thought ladder and how it works plays into this.
There’s not much room for experimentation and things get a bit same, I’ve long felt the map pool should have more maps full stop, with more vetoes.
Or more maps and a set of vetoes for each of your matchups. As a Protoss player I’ve had to veto many a map that made for great macro PvT matches because it was too Zerg favoured was generally the pattern with me, but I’m sure others have had differing experiences.
Then over a ladder season you can get a sense with ladder data of what the good, balanced maps tend to be for each specific matchup and feed those into tournament matches too.
As it has long been, IMO there aren’t enough maps in the pool, it gets stale and sometimes the interesting maps get rotated out too quickly, ones people are tired of stick around forever and there isn’t a huge amount of room for experimentation in the current pool.
Trying to make every map as close to 50/50 for every single matchup is a thankless task and it inevitably leads to really similar maps. I’d love to see what map makers could do with maps tailored for making the best TvT map possible as their remit, or whatever particular matchup.
There’s other things could be done too, experimental maps could give you special portraits and stuff to encourage people to give them a proper try.
I appreciate your thoughts here.
I want more super out-there maps (e.g., Dasan Station, Klontas Mire, etc.) Most of my fun in playing Starcraft2 comes from making my own creative adaptations and unique build orders. I'd much rather have slightly or somewhat imbalanced maps that are fun to discover then a map pool of 7 balanced maps that all look and play basically the same. I know I'm not alone in this. Shoot, if I could have 7 weird maps, I'd take it. I'll compromise with less, but come on, None!? Whaatever...
That said, the mapmakers did a great job making beautiful maps, so congrats to the finalists.
Yeah for sure, I think the map makers do great jobs with the straight jacket they have to operate with, just would be cool if it were loosened a bit.
My favorite pre-WCS tournament series was SC2 ProLeague, by far. It was a testbed for all kinds of off-the-wall map ideas, impeccably executed by the big Korean mapmakers. That's where Korhal Sky Island, Outboxer, King Sejong Station, and so many more awesome ideas got tested out, and proven to be good or imbalanced. We haven't really gotten anything like that to replace it since.
At a first look Beckett Industries looks pretty good.
The standard/macro maps all look the same as each other and as most of the maps from the last few seasons. I dunno why you guys are obsessed with giving away 5 bases for free, with 7+ bases per player, only 2-players, and worst of all, an even number of paths.
I'm not a fan of Blackburn, but the other rush maps seem ok; though if any make it into the ladder pool I have no idea how good their gameplay will actually turn out.
On February 11 2020 05:18 Howard_Kao wrote: Why does all maps look familiar and dull, I thought we're gonna have some crazy maps under the topic of adrenaline rush
Anything not familiar and dull gets vetoed to death. Just look at Zen, only the natural is unusual and the map is barely played.
You know I'm not terrified of "interesting" features; I loved Turbo Cruise and I liked Winter's Gate for example, but Zen is extremely uncomfortable to play on. The 2nd nat entrance is occasionally annoying, but normally you just block it off and rally to your 3rd and it's almost like the nat is normal. What makes the map hell to play on is the tiny misshapen main bases, especially in conjunction with the cliff face that turns into an expo, annoying pathing due to a thousand different mineral blocks, and how tight the map is as a whole. I think the tightness would be ok without the mineral blocks, and the layout as a whole would be more easily taken in without the cramped main, nat, and 3rd. All together these traits make for a typically unpleasant game, not the "innovative" feature of the 2nd nat entrance.
I want to like the map, it definitely stands out among the mappool of the last few seasons, but after playing a ton of games on the map I found I enjoyed sc2 much more after vetoing it.
However, I promise you can have traits that differentiate a map from its peers without hurting the gameplay.
Yeah i made too many mistakes on Zen
On February 12 2020 00:49 brickrd wrote: i don't understand the point of putting accelerators in choke points. choke points are hard to move through, but you made them easier to move through, so it's just a less chokey choke point? pretty uninspired.
AZGs on chokes change the properties of the choke. It's more or less desirable depending on the stage of the game.
With a small army, it is only a boost because the army doesn't get spaghettified.
With a large army, the army gets spaghettified but still gets through the choke at a normal pace.
Setting a concave is very easy for battles with medium and large armies. But if the defender's army to too small, the attacker can still break through with a few less hits taken.
So depending on the time of the game, the size of the attacker and the defender's armies will vary and you won't use those chokes the same in the early, mid and late game.
________________
By the way, in this TLMC, there are 5 first time finalists. - Agaton - CharactR - robeng - Insidioussc2 - insidious_bombardier
This amount is crazy. The future of sc2 melee map making is safe.
sounds like a bunch of theorycraft you made up
But that’s the beauty of theorycraft!
Personally I think there could be more interesting uses of something like accelerating/slowing fields, namely make a variant that is directional.
Maybe while entering from one side it accelerates you through, decelerates if entering from the other side. Then you could have relatively long chunks of movement modifying fields.
So controlling the entrances could be used more tactically and battle over, you could try to establish a position in front of one and speed up reinforcements from your rear. Or have them controllable and require units on them to active them, like a Xel’Naga tower.
Or a player could be looking to control it to slow a push through a choke.
I mean I’m just spitballing of course. But say a bio-tank parade pushing kind of style could be made strong or weak depending on how the fields would be controlled.
I feel at present they’re just things that make you move faster or slower through chokes at present and that’s about it really.
The directional idea is kinda weird to play I guess, but the "take control" idea is nice!
On February 12 2020 11:19 ThunderJunk wrote: I'm annoyed that every single finalist features spawns in the corners, and similar expansion layouts.
Beautiful maps though.
I agree. There is only one map that has same side spawns to bring a bit of excitement. All the others look a bit boring
There is a fine line between interesting and gimmicky but I quite like the look of that one.
It’s a shame I just never think they really get maps and pools right, and I have long thought ladder and how it works plays into this.
There’s not much room for experimentation and things get a bit same, I’ve long felt the map pool should have more maps full stop, with more vetoes.
Or more maps and a set of vetoes for each of your matchups. As a Protoss player I’ve had to veto many a map that made for great macro PvT matches because it was too Zerg favoured was generally the pattern with me, but I’m sure others have had differing experiences.
Then over a ladder season you can get a sense with ladder data of what the good, balanced maps tend to be for each specific matchup and feed those into tournament matches too.
As it has long been, IMO there aren’t enough maps in the pool, it gets stale and sometimes the interesting maps get rotated out too quickly, ones people are tired of stick around forever and there isn’t a huge amount of room for experimentation in the current pool.
Trying to make every map as close to 50/50 for every single matchup is a thankless task and it inevitably leads to really similar maps. I’d love to see what map makers could do with maps tailored for making the best TvT map possible as their remit, or whatever particular matchup.
There’s other things could be done too, experimental maps could give you special portraits and stuff to encourage people to give them a proper try.
I appreciate your thoughts here.
I want more super out-there maps (e.g., Dasan Station, Klontas Mire, etc.) Most of my fun in playing Starcraft2 comes from making my own creative adaptations and unique build orders. I'd much rather have slightly or somewhat imbalanced maps that are fun to discover then a map pool of 7 balanced maps that all look and play basically the same. I know I'm not alone in this. Shoot, if I could have 7 weird maps, I'd take it. I'll compromise with less, but come on, None!? Whaatever...
That said, the mapmakers did a great job making beautiful maps, so congrats to the finalists.
Yeah for sure, I think the map makers do great jobs with the straight jacket they have to operate with, just would be cool if it were loosened a bit.
My favorite pre-WCS tournament series was SC2 ProLeague, by far. It was a testbed for all kinds of off-the-wall map ideas, impeccably executed by the big Korean mapmakers. That's where Korhal Sky Island, Outboxer, King Sejong Station, and so many more awesome ideas got tested out, and proven to be good or imbalanced. We haven't really gotten anything like that to replace it since.
100% agree the large sample size of competitive games we could get from Proleague was so useful for figuring out map balance as well as what map concepts worked. I do think though there should be a majority of standards maps in a pool and then a couple with unique features that are more geared towards a certain play style or certain build types. By implementing these types of maps you could introduce some variety to the game without having to make overall balance changes.
On February 14 2020 09:07 FBTsingLoong wrote: No more dark map,plz.
Tastes are different, e.g. I really hate bright maps as they put more strain on my eyes. I insta-veto every snowy map, no matter how good it's supposed to be for my race.
@thread: Some of the maps look amazing, especially "Ecostation" has a beautiful balance of colors.
EPT
Terran prospectors have reported that they’ve seen structures in the distance that soared up to the sky like pillars of gold. The Protoss settlement consists of 14 bases, where the linear third is further away from the opponent compared to the triangular third but in return, the high grounds surrounding it must be taken into consideration. No matter in which direction you go, there’ll be a fourth waiting for you. The corner bases will prove valuable as vantage points and to help control the base located below it.
Battle for survival on the seabed of this luminous alien planet.
Lightshade is a typical standard map with two third base options and 7 bases per player, and can support a wide variety of playstyles. The destroyable debris and rocks give players a bit of security early on, and destroying them makes it easier to maneuver armies around the map.
The player can secure the base in a stable manner. At 3 and 9, the base is very easy to defend, but since the space with water is impossible to build, it is easy to attempt unit drop or air-to-ground attacks.
Large armies attacking through the shortest path will ride the struggle bus to the enemy. Outside paths are much more spacious.
Choose between an open third and safer fourth, or safer third and open fourth.
Romanticide is a macro map with a slightly shorter rush distance than normal. The “maze” of rocks and line of sight blockers in the middle path offer a lot of positional opportunities. The mineral wall node values are at 10.
The plant life on this space station adds a lot to the atmosphere, and not just the artificial one if you know what I mean. A large map with long routes and various expansion options, make use of the high ground and out-position your opponent.
At one of the many forgotten temples at auir, two armies stand ready to fight. With a rocky highway through mid, armies must be careful and think about other ways to fight.
A smaller map with rocks that lengthen attack routes early game. Fast nat to nat timing and map becomes high tension once the rocks are down.
Rather small and agressive map with fewer bases. Altough small, the layout is still rather standard, so it allows for all kinds of strategies. The short straight forward attack path is choked off by rocks.
Discover Moebius' gruesome experiments on this abandoned station. Ground and air distances between opponents is relatively short, but inhibitor zones may slow players down. Strong forward positions and risky high yield bases encourage aggressive play.
This is an aggressive map which uses the new acceleration zone generators to decrease the rush distance, although this path is vulnerable to defenders positioned on the nearby high ground cliff.
Accelerator Zones are placed in four strategic locations to allow players to quickly change paths. The layout was carefully constructed with the help of Twitch chat.
Deathaura features the new Acceleration Zone Generators that increase the movement speed of units. These zones are situated on the three bridges in the middle. The most forward bases have two rich gas geysers.
Beckett Industries feature three Acceleration Zone Generators(AZG) placed on small bridges in the middle area. While being very tight, these choke points are still a valid attack path.
