EPTDo 'unorthodox' maps make the VIEWING experience for StarC…
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TL.net Bot
TL.net133 Posts
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Waxangel
United States33541 Posts
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starvingbox
United States44 Posts
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The_Templar
your Country52797 Posts
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ZigguratOfUr
Iraq16955 Posts
Unorthodox maps can go wrong and end up playing out very similarly a lot of the time (e.g Battle on the Boardwalk), but so can standard maps (e.g. Nightshade). | ||
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vyzion
308 Posts
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Shuffleblade
Sweden1903 Posts
What is the most enjoyable, a weird ladder like fiesta or a high level standardish straight up mano a mano between the best in the world. Obviously if standard becomes to stale that becomes boring as hell but I think we have a pretty good variation in builds and playstyles for most of lotv. | ||
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nojok
France15845 Posts
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[UoN]Sentinel
United States11320 Posts
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Poopi
France12908 Posts
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Blargh
United States2103 Posts
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antiheromarine
11 Posts
As long as there's at least one small map and maybe one Newkirk/Blackburn style map it's fun, and the mythical game 7s on the map that never gets air time is usually great fare. also ASL heads if you're reading this please bring back Third World. <3 | ||
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Obamarauder
697 Posts
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jomamasophat
2 Posts
You know what made BW popular? Exciting to watch micro oriented gameplay. Action. It also doesn't help that static defense in this game is stronger than it should be, specifically shield battery overcharge or whatever it is called, imo. | ||
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ZigguratOfUr
Iraq16955 Posts
On May 05 2021 09:20 Obamarauder wrote: Just depends on the player to viewer ratio. If a very high percentage of the viewers actually play the game, they would understand how imbalanced some maps are, submarine/backett are great examples, and it might be frustrating watching some of the games. But purely as a viewer, it is more entertaining than something like romanticide/deathaura where turtle games happen more often Personally I wouldn't consider Submarine or Beckett as 'unorthodox'. They don't do anything creative or different layout-wise--they're just rush maps i.e. smaller standard maps. Likewise large macro maps like Ice and Chrome aren't non-standard--they're just larger standard maps. Maps of all sizes can be orthodox/unorthodox. Submarine is an example of an orthodox rush map, and Zen would be an example of an unorthodox rush map. | ||
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Yoshi Kirishima
United States10366 Posts
Not only because the layout is unique, but because it has incorporated many elements that make BW maps great, and also re-incorporated elements that have been phased out of SC2 maps for a while. LotV games too often are ending in 1 push. We get a large variety of games which is great, the early game is dynamic and many games are short, but it's fine as there are many interesting builds and strategies and it's cool to see how they match up against each other. I feel we are not getting many long macro games anymore. Part of what makes BW, and even many early WoL macro games, great is because of being able to take many bases and having that "spread out" feeling where players are trying to keep their shit together and "constantly putting out fires" as Tastosis puts it. Gameplay where the battle is across the map and not just players deciding to go for 1 push after an early advantage that ends the game. This may be a bit off topic as what I'm advocating for isn't really "unorthodox", but rather elements that I think would bring back the kind of epic macro games we had in SC2 as well as the kind of macro game that is representative of BW's gameplay. Elements that have phased out for some reason, perhaps unintentionally as time passed. What I'd like to see is maps with many viable expo paths and viable far away expos. This creates for more dynamic gameplay and positional play. Intercepting attack routes, reinforcing positions or cutting reinforcements off, trying to siege a position, etc. We had this with Tal'darim in WoL for example, even if the sentiment was that games dragged on too long and didn't end easily enough on it. (As a quick example, skip to the 2nd half of this game if you want a refresher of what long drawn out macro games looked like back then. Even though army comps were so boring back then, the amount of back and forth and fighting all over the map made it interesting. Players didn't try to just push and the end the game immediately, because they can't. There was much more room for creative plays and "big plays" and making comebacks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oykq2dyPTak). Golden Wall presented multiple expo paths, but also far away expos had something that has has been super uncommon in SC2 maps, but is so common in BW maps: small chokes and ramps. These make static defense more viable especially in the lategame (think of BW games where you have a base defended by 15 sunkens and there's barely any space to move in there or drop). Making static defense more viable lategame is important because it frees up more army supply to be doing things around the map. Since Golden Wall had far bases with small-ish ramps and chokes (the 2 upper-center expos with the rocks), it was viable to take those as expos whereas normally you would almost always only expo to "connecting" bases. These bases were interesting because they also served as potential forward positions to siege the opponent's bases if they expanded along the top. I'm really curious as to why SC2 maps always have such open areas for large expos. Occasionally you get somewhat of a choke, or a bridge, or a ramp, but it's always a medium size ramp or 2 bridges, etc. Why not a small choke? It's easy enough to move large armies in SC2, and especially in LotV there are so many ways to drop, teleport, etc. into a position to attack it. Part of what made BW slower and less volatile than SC2 is that you had to slowly dismantle those expos with small chokes by picking apart its defenses, which took time and gave the defender time to send reinforcements to counter. It was a back and forth battle, meanwhile the rest of your army would be doing other things. In SC2, usually you just move most of your army and A-click the expo and that's it. It promotes balling up your army because it's so easy to take out expos that way if your opponent is slightly out of position. This also makes it easy to just end the game, especially if there's a base trade situation, which is very common. When a base trade starts, usually the game won't stabilize because all the bases are very easy to take out. Which is a shame, even though LotV has introduced ways to help stabilize a base trade situation (Nexus Recall, etc.) I like the short dynamic games and the variety of builds in the early game, but I feel there is rarely truly great macro games that are 20-30 minutes where there is much fighting all over the map. We get it in TvZ as it's very back and forth and TvT as it's very positional with lots of ways to defend and attack, and recently PvP even as Shield Batter Overcharge has helped open up the lategame. But we rarely get it in the other MUs, and I feel even many TvZs are stale because of the boring expo paths on maps. Each player just takes their half of the map and that's it, there is little interesting variety in expo paths or diversity of attack routes, and if you lose one big fight then the game is over because all your bases are close together and the opponent will wipe them all out right after winning the battle. | ||
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Waxangel
United States33541 Posts
Like, the very unusual, very dramatic Neeb vs Pet game on Dasan Station was only possible because of the map, but it only stuck around for one season for a reason. Obviously Golden Wall is the gold standard (har har) for making a quirky map that actually produces interesting games on a regular basis, but it's pretty hard to predict which maps are going to turn out that way. | ||
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ZigguratOfUr
Iraq16955 Posts
On May 05 2021 12:34 Waxangel wrote: I think I've made several versions of this argument before, but I think our memories are biased to remember the unique/interesting games on unorthodox maps over the bad/one-sided ones. Like, the very unusual, very dramatic Neeb vs Pet game on Dasan Station was only possible because of the map, but it only stuck around for one season for a reason. Obviously Golden Wall is the gold standard (har har) for making a quirky map that actually produces interesting games on a regular basis, but it's pretty hard to predict which maps are going to turn out that way. Yeah there's a host of possible cognitive biases and selective memory at work, because we're really dealing with two fairly fuzzy things: "how non-standard is a map" and "how good was a map". People might perceive good maps are being more standard than they were or conversely perceive maps as being worse for being non-standard. Balance can be measured objectively (if not necessarily very accurately), but even that only loosely correlates with how much people "appreciate" a map. Golden Wall was roughly middle of the pack or slightly worse in terms of how balanced it was. | ||
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playnice
Malaysia302 Posts
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Ben...
Canada3485 Posts
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ZigguratOfUr
Iraq16955 Posts
On May 05 2021 13:57 playnice wrote: Map pools need not to be completely new to be interesting. I think it would be more interesting to have older popular maps tweaked and reintroduced to current pool. The standard bearer WoL and HotS maps can be classified as unorthodox at this point. That and the rich history would really help with the commentary and thus improving viewing experience. A number of HotS and WoL maps were played in LotV though, and mostly weren't very good. And no it did not improve the commentary--there's not a lot of mileage out of relaying old anecdotes and saying "hey there were a lot of brood lord infestors on this map in the good old days". | ||
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Cricketer12
United States13990 Posts
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MineraIs
United States846 Posts
In brood war, Plasma would be considered annoying and Sparkle would be considered fun. | ||
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Weavel
Finland9221 Posts
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Waxangel
United States33541 Posts
On May 05 2021 15:20 Weavel wrote: Yes. Feels like I've been watching same maps for years. Luckily GSL still has that 1 interesting 4 spawn map every now and then. Yeah I can't say I've enjoyed the games where one player lost because radial symmetry worked against their favor | ||
GTR
51531 Posts
definitely shed a tear when ulrena was chopped from proleague after a season. | ||
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Charoisaur
Germany16033 Posts
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AbouSV
Germany1278 Posts
It can definitively lead to awesome viewing content, but it can also terribly fail, either in the first place, or after a bit, once every TvX become preventing T to place a tank and a turret on this specific spot (almost) in range of the B1 (*ahem*) or something similar | ||
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ZigguratOfUr
Iraq16955 Posts
On May 05 2021 16:12 Charoisaur wrote: Blizzard tried adding a lot of "experimental" maps during the end of HotS/beginning of Lotv and it was universally hated. Of course you get the occasional Golden Wall that works really great but most of the time unorthodox maps lead to shit and stale gameplay. and imbalanced Blizzard's standard maps were shit too, so maybe we should stop having standard maps. I wouldn't go off of what Blizzard tried. | ||
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MJG
United Kingdom1391 Posts
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Zerg.Zilla
Hungary5029 Posts
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JustPassingBy
10776 Posts
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Waxangel
United States33541 Posts
On May 05 2021 17:22 JustPassingBy wrote: People are rightfully bringing up balance concerns. What if those maps were only used for mirror matches? I think match-up specific maps is a REALLY interesting idea, but it seems like something that won't happen because fans and players tend to really hate this kind of institutional change (there's a lot of inertia to keep things the way they are, regardless of the actual pros and cons). | ||
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AbouSV
Germany1278 Posts
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Quincel
119 Posts
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deacon.frost
Czech Republic12129 Posts
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Teoita
Italy12246 Posts
If it's something that allows for more preparation, like GSL or especially in team leagues like Proleague, then yeah, it can be pretty fun. | ||
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Slydie
1929 Posts
GW is mentioned many times already, but I remember enjoying games on many older non-standard maps as well, like King Seejong Station and Frost. | ||
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StasisField
United States1086 Posts
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True_Spike
Poland3426 Posts
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ZigguratOfUr
Iraq16955 Posts
I think you need a third bucket for "rush map" as it doesn't make much sense not to group Submarine as a "standard rush map" with Turbo Cruise as a "non-standard rush map". But even that leaves a lot of cases that could go either way (even if you add a semi-standard group). Four and three player maps end up pretty clearly in the non-standard category at this point, but what about reflective symmetry maps? Newkirk Precinct and Year Zero are pretty standard imo despite their symmetry. Or a map like World of Sleepers--the minerals feature barely ever mattered, so the map just played out as a large macro map (where Zerg was favoured, but that's besides the point). I've wanted to do some analysis about how much less balanced non-standard maps are, but the classification part usually tripped me up (note that TLMC categories aren't useful here, as they are really inaccurate), so I didn't bother doing the analysis. | ||
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[UoN]Sentinel
United States11320 Posts
On May 06 2021 01:23 ZigguratOfUr wrote: Can anyone come up with a good way to classify maps as "standard" or "non-standard" without too much subjectivity? It's pretty obvious on the fringes (e.g Dasan and Redshift are non-standard, Catalyst and Blackpink are standard), but it gets pretty ambiguous closer to the middle. I think you need a third bucket for "rush map" as it doesn't make much sense not to group Submarine as a "standard rush map" with Turbo Cruise as a "non-standard rush map". But even that leaves a lot of cases that could go either way (even if you add a semi-standard group). Four and three player maps end up pretty clearly in the non-standard category at this point, but what about reflective symmetry maps? Newkirk Precinct and Year Zero are pretty standard imo despite their symmetry. Or a map like World of Sleepers--the minerals feature barely ever mattered, so the map just played out as a large macro map (where Zerg was favoured, but that's besides the point). I've wanted to do some analysis about how much less balanced non-standard maps are, but the classification part usually tripped me up (note that TLMC categories aren't useful here, as they are really inaccurate), so I didn't bother doing the analysis. When I was thinking about this I went back through the current map pool and realized the choice of thirds is uninspired. I don't believe on any of the 7 maps I give any more thought to where I put my third than "linear or triangular" with no other stipulations. At least Pillars of Gold one was on higher ground that made me think a few seconds on which base I'd rather take, and how best to punish the other player for taking either of the two thirds. I realize the game is built around a relatively narrow set of third timings but I'd really like to see some more ways to experiment with third placement. Even Golden Wall had a third option in the eponymous golden wall. | ||
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M3t4PhYzX
Poland4230 Posts
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BisuDagger
Bisutopia19305 Posts
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Piste
6183 Posts
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CMS_Flash
Hong Kong47 Posts
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ThunderJunk
United States724 Posts
But I also think it's good to have the maps with unorthodox elements to at least sort of fit with the prevalent meta. Golden Wall was an amazing map - but it was also very different from the other maps which were all oppressively standard that season. It stuck out like a sore thumb so people didn't practice on it as much, and so all the vetoes led to it being removed from the pool. If that map had been included in a ladder season that featured other maps that shared some common features (e.g. New Gettysburg), it would have seen more play, but it also wouldn't have been quite as memorable. Ideally, ladder seasons should revolve around a shift in layout with more unorthodox maps pushing the boundaries of otherwise common features. | ||
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ZigguratOfUr
Iraq16955 Posts
On May 07 2021 10:29 ThunderJunk wrote: Generally, yes. But I also think it's good to have the maps with unorthodox elements to at least sort of fit with the prevalent meta. Golden Wall was an amazing map - but it was also very different from the other maps which were all oppressively standard that season. It stuck out like a sore thumb so people didn't practice on it as much, and so all the vetoes led to it being removed from the pool. If that map had been included in a ladder season that featured other maps that shared some common features (e.g. New Gettysburg), it would have seen more play, but it also wouldn't have been quite as memorable. Ideally, ladder seasons should revolve around a shift in layout with more unorthodox maps pushing the boundaries of otherwise common features. That's all factually wrong. Golden Wall got two seasons in the map pool as was usual, was somewhat vetoed but not tremendously, and other maps in the pool were also unorthodox such as Zen, and Purity and Industry. It didn't get removed because of vetoes or anything like that. Purity and Industry did get heavily vetoed and got removed after a season for being really imbalanced. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26235 Posts
Depends on the map too. Unorthodoxy for the sake of it isn’t terribly good either. For example that map whose name I can’t recall that ‘experimented’ with making it borderline impossible for Protoss to wall properly. Some things are orthodox for a reason. I think what made GW a very good tournament map was that you could play in a standard manner as well, and it didn’t have singular gimmicks, you had to plan around exploiting multiple features and there was counterplay to unorthodox play. For example if someone snuck down the bottom to expand you had positions you could snipe their workers from behind mineral patches. | ||
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Drfilip
Sweden592 Posts
That leads to the second part: team leagues, where players prepare strats on 1 map vs 1 opponent. Unorthodox maps are the best for those kinds of matches. But it still follow the rule of standard maps should be the norm. Don't overdo it on the strangeness! | ||
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Ferretfood
Vatican City State2 Posts
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Legan
Finland556 Posts
Edit: One exception to this would probably be features that only affect air units, but those are rare as air units ignore terrain features. Unfortunately with no new content being developed it is unlikely that we would get anything new like acceleration zone. There is also problem of having clear visuals that show that only air units are affected without obscuring vision on ground units. Two ideas about these kind of features are, "trees" that hide ground units from flying units and units on high ground, and some kind of storm that only affects the air units. | ||
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ROOTCatZ
Peru1226 Posts
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algue
France1436 Posts
+ Show Spoiler + Because the pros are sissies Imagine a ladder or even a competition where there are 9 maps in the map pool and 3 of them are replaced each month (meaning a map would have a competitive shelf life of 3 months). You wouldn't even need "unorthodox" maps to bait the viewer into watching, i'm sure an ever changing map pool of mostly standard maps would be enough to throw pro players out of their comfort zone and ultimately that's what makes ann esport insteresting to watch. Also in the current state of the game unorthodox maps are dangerous because if they're terrible we'll be stuck with them for God knows how long. | ||
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algue
France1436 Posts
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ZigguratOfUr
Iraq16955 Posts
On May 10 2021 18:29 algue wrote: Imo the real debate here is "why is the community so averse to frequent map changes?" + Show Spoiler + Because the pros are sissies Imagine a ladder or even a competition where there are 9 maps in the map pool and 3 of them are replaced each month (meaning a map would have a competitive shelf life of 3 months). You wouldn't even need "unorthodox" maps to bait the viewer into watching, i'm sure an ever changing map pool of mostly standard maps would be enough to throw pro players out of their comfort zone and ultimately that's what makes ann esport insteresting to watch. Also in the current state of the game unorthodox maps are dangerous because if they're terrible we'll be stuck with them for God knows how long. I don't think many people would argue against faster/more responsive map rotations, but that's a problem with Blizzard's responsiveness, so it's unlikely to change (unless ESL is happy with foregoing having tournament pools being in lockstep with ladder). The bigger question is whether we want more unorthodox maps given the current rotation process. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26235 Posts
Abuse of proxies on 3/4 player maps is a (correctly) given reason for not having more, but surely there are ways to mitigate it? That aside there are other elements in SC2 in LoTV that play a factor too I suppose. The early thru midgame is now so truncated that not getting an early scout is massive in terms of playing reactively. Getting a late scout on someone playing incredibly greedy and by the time you discover their gambit you may not have the means to punish it. | ||
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ZigguratOfUr
Iraq16955 Posts
On May 12 2021 09:08 WombaT wrote: Would reasonably liberal use of unbuildable terrain in the middle ground of maps facilitate more variety? Abuse of proxies on 3/4 player maps is a (correctly) given reason for not having more, but surely there are ways to mitigate it? That aside there are other elements in SC2 in LoTV that play a factor too I suppose. The early thru midgame is now so truncated that not getting an early scout is massive in terms of playing reactively. Getting a late scout on someone playing incredibly greedy and by the time you discover their gambit you may not have the means to punish it. Unbuildable terrain is interesting in SCII, given proxies are so prevalent. It's a logical thing to have, but there hasn't been any ladder map that has used it to a large extent (some maps have a had a bit of it. Like the pools on Odyssey) mostly because it's a bit hard to represent visually I think? You can try with water of course (e.g this map called Grand Canal by me + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/hhxaPaj.jpg) | ||
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MiTziBisHi1
1 Post
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TheDougler
Canada8306 Posts
Especially these days, I think unorthodox maps are good so that things don't become stagnant. | ||
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InfCereal
Canada1759 Posts
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antimony51122
2 Posts
On the other hand, I don't know why Blizz doesn't use 4-player maps anymore. In my opinion, 4-player maps are a perfect adjustment towards balance since for maps like GSL Nautilus, close spawning points, and far spawning points involve totally different strategic approaches. In pro matches, underdog players can prepare various sets of strats even cheeses on these maps and gamble for the spawning point. The win and lose will depend more on a deeper interpretation of the map rather than pure unit balancing. People will whine less about balance since they lose less due to causes like "SkyToss invincible", they lose more due that opponents have a deeper interpretation of the map and utilise the features better. | ||
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sTYleZerG-eX
Mexico473 Posts
Pros only interested in playing the same game over and over and over.. perfecting little details... but maps that challenge the player and provide unique strategies need to be thrown in the mix | ||
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sTYleZerG-eX
Mexico473 Posts
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