On July 04 2021 18:11 StarWars1 wrote: Especially the Freestyle category makes me sad. There is only one actual freestyle layout with treadmill and this doesn't even have more layers. There is zero maps that showcase 4 levels (don't even think about 5). OK Pride of Altaris is at least giving the Main its own level. the other maps are just not fulfilling the intention of this category.
Yamatai also has a main on its own level. Still agree on everything
On July 04 2021 18:11 StarWars1 wrote: Especially the Freestyle category makes me sad. There is only one actual freestyle layout with treadmill and this doesn't even have more layers. There is zero maps that showcase 4 levels (don't even think about 5). OK Pride of Altaris is at least giving the Main its own level. the other maps are just not fulfilling the intention of this category.
Yamatai also has a main on its own level. Still agree on everything
Actually it uses also 3rd cliff level at 3 and 9 o'clock bases. This isn't usually done as if it is close to main, then it can create problems with stalkers and tanks for example. The texturing is confusing.
Have to agree with some of the comment, at least on that none of the 3p spawn maps made it. Those are particularly interesting because they are inherently impossible to get a clear map split, which gives more interesting late-game fights as well.
Heart of the Void is one I would have liked to see in for example (and there were others I liked that had 3p rotational).
Ah Yes I see it now. I was confused by the texture. (should have opened it in game before complaining) I have to apologize here, Yamatai looks a bit more interesting now. Let's see in the tournament.
However, this dosn't change my sentiment on the list of finalists and the process behind.
On July 04 2021 18:14 MiloOnFire wrote: I'm not voting before a tournament, but I can already say which maps will be fun to watch:
Fountainhead : a flexible wall off with destructible rocks, interesting high ground areas that will serve for proxying and sieging accompanied by low ground Los blockers that make that area dangerous in the early to mid game. Additionally, the forward bases with geysers pointing towards the enemy don't seem easy to take, which is a plus from me.
Aqueducts: positioning bases forward will make late game more dynamic. Even though the textures aren't convincing, the layout is top notch.
I'm not sure about the others. Curious Minds is a bit more experimental with 2 xel Naga on such a small area and plenty of flanking options, but with both bases exposed to siege tanks at the same time.
I wish the Freestyle category was more varied, because the only innovative map there is Zweck's Treadmill, rest of them look standard.
I lack experience to judge 4p spawns maps, but they might bring assymetries that much needed in competitive play. We will see how they play out.
I'm looking forward to the tournament
Agree with you on Fountainhead and Aqueducts. For me these are probably the two best maps of the finalists, or at least the most intriguing. Also agree with everyone about the freestyle category. I was hoping something like Xibalba or Hexmaster would make the cut.
After you mentioned Hardwire, I looked into the map myself and really enjoyed playing on it. Any thoughts as to why you liked it and maybe why it didn't make the finalists? Hoping it is still a map we might see sometime in the future.
I'm still thinking but for now I'll say I'm disappointed that many mapmakers still insist on having that invisible overlord spot to give zergs free scouts all early game. Such shameless favoring of one race has no place in a competitive map pool. Specially after all the buffs Zerg received through the years to facilitate scouting.
On July 05 2021 00:21 Darpa wrote: Couple i really like.
Lots of these maps seem to just have an obscenely huge number of choke hallways and siegable naturals from a choked off location.
I dont think necessarily just putting more "stuff" (rocks, walls, mineral lines, vision reducers) on every single map is better.
Bulwark is the worst offender from what I've seen. Not sure why it was a finalist considering the handful amount of issues it has, and also the fact that it's considered a macro map, which is a category that probably had the best maps submitted of the contest. None of them outside of maybe Fountainhead were chosen.
On July 04 2021 09:00 NewSunshine wrote: Some good maps that I like, but if I were to condense some of my thoughts I would say:
-In hindsight, confining 4 and 5 level maps to Freestyle makes very little sense. Either maps with more playable levels are worthy design wise, or they're not, but confining them to a single category when extra cliff levels aren't something that make or break map designs, it mostly served to push out anything else in Freestyle that was actually more "out there".
-Likewise, opening up voting now doesn't make very much sense. While players are free to consult the list of finalists and try those maps out themselves, a lot of people won't go to the effort of doing that, and there's still the tournament left to be played. But as it is, the 1st place map will be decided when there's still a chance for players and spectators to find out they actually don't like it that much. The 1st place map turning out to be hated and getting memed on has happened before.
-For a contest that was supposed to emphasize 3+ spawn maps and look to expand the gameplay horizons again, it's pretty disappointing to see only the bare minimum number of 4p maps chosen, and they also seem fairly similar to one another at a glance. This kinda leads to my final point.
-None of the finalists are bad. They're all quite well made, and I would have chosen a few of them myself if I had any say. However, this contest seems to me to be falling into a familiar trap, where not only do very standard maps tend to do better, the entirety of the finalists, taken together, don't have a ton of variety. Like the pre-approved list of map features was decided on, and they looked for a set of maps that pretty much nail that list. It doesn't feel like finalists were chosen with an awareness of what the complete list would look like, they're just all individually solid maps.
Overall, even if I extract myself from the picture, this leaves a pretty sour taste in my mouth. Sure, I committed to the 4 spawn prompt myself, and I'm bummed that I lost out entirely, but some mapmakers like Semmo only submitted 4 spawn maps, and if there was any expectation that 2 spawn maps would pretty much still carry the day I don't know that they would have bothered. And I wouldn't blame them. "Maps with 3+ spawns" ended up being tacked on as another category, since otherwise we didn't see any. It feels like an afterthought, like you had to choose 4 maps but didn't want to.
Maps need to be an avenue that really gets pushed if we want the game to remain interesting, and I would loathe to be silent when I legitimately feel like there are efforts that aren't really being taken. Kinda disappointing overall, again even if I subtract myself from the picture. For all the things this contest was supposed to do differently and improve on, it feels a lot like nothing has changed.
I feel like the 4p maps were just tacked on for the sake of it. Jacaranda is ok, but the other ones I feel like should have never made the finalists especially since there were so many other good 2p or 4p maps submitted. I don't think they chose the best 4p maps of the bunch by any stretch.
On July 05 2021 08:28 [Phantom] wrote: I'm still thinking but for now I'll say I'm disappointed that many mapmakers still insist on having that invisible overlord spot to give zergs free scouts all early game. Such shameless favoring of one race has no place in a competitive map pool. Specially after all the buffs Zerg received through the years to facilitate scouting.
Ah yes, clearly it's malevolence and unfair bias rather than something that is fundamental to how the level design for this 11 year old established multiplayer game works.
Are these the kind of takes I got to have to become a writer on this site?
On July 05 2021 08:28 [Phantom] wrote: I'm still thinking but for now I'll say I'm disappointed that many mapmakers still insist on having that invisible overlord spot to give zergs free scouts all early game. Such shameless favoring of one race has no place in a competitive map pool. Specially after all the buffs Zerg received through the years to facilitate scouting.
Not every map has an overlord pillar in the natural expansion, so it's a bit lazy of you to assume something without paying attention to the layouts. Other than that, it would be nice to hear some positives. I think, that all of the maps need constructive critisicm, not only biased opinions. (Let's reinforce good habits instead of punishing us for making creative, yet still standard layouts).
On July 04 2021 01:45 ZigguratOfUr wrote: It is also quite disappointing that the judges ended up picking a bunch of 4p rotational maps--three of which do similar blocking of the close by ground spawns with minerals or rocks (like Nautilus). It's just too much of the same stuff.
They should have picked some of the reflect symmetry maps, or 3p maps. And some of the reflect symmetry maps were better than the rotational maps anyways. Biosphere in particular was really good (https://i.imgur.com/dV8O4wx.png), but there were others.
I think your White Sands was a good example of what you're talking about as well. Have enjoyed playing on that one and hate to see that none of your submitted maps made the cut. I think all of them would have been interesting to play on the ladder(especially grand canal hehe :D).
On July 04 2021 09:00 NewSunshine wrote: Some good maps that I like, but if I were to condense some of my thoughts I would say:
-In hindsight, confining 4 and 5 level maps to Freestyle makes very little sense. Either maps with more playable levels are worthy design wise, or they're not, but confining them to a single category when extra cliff levels aren't something that make or break map designs, it mostly served to push out anything else in Freestyle that was actually more "out there".
-Likewise, opening up voting now doesn't make very much sense. While players are free to consult the list of finalists and try those maps out themselves, a lot of people won't go to the effort of doing that, and there's still the tournament left to be played. But as it is, the 1st place map will be decided when there's still a chance for players and spectators to find out they actually don't like it that much. The 1st place map turning out to be hated and getting memed on has happened before.
-For a contest that was supposed to emphasize 3+ spawn maps and look to expand the gameplay horizons again, it's pretty disappointing to see only the bare minimum number of 4p maps chosen, and they also seem fairly similar to one another at a glance. This kinda leads to my final point.
-None of the finalists are bad. They're all quite well made, and I would have chosen a few of them myself if I had any say. However, this contest seems to me to be falling into a familiar trap, where not only do very standard maps tend to do better, the entirety of the finalists, taken together, don't have a ton of variety. Like the pre-approved list of map features was decided on, and they looked for a set of maps that pretty much nail that list. It doesn't feel like finalists were chosen with an awareness of what the complete list would look like, they're just all individually solid maps.
Overall, even if I extract myself from the picture, this leaves a pretty sour taste in my mouth. Sure, I committed to the 4 spawn prompt myself, and I'm bummed that I lost out entirely, but some mapmakers like Semmo only submitted 4 spawn maps, and if there was any expectation that 2 spawn maps would pretty much still carry the day I don't know that they would have bothered. And I wouldn't blame them. "Maps with 3+ spawns" ended up being tacked on as another category, since otherwise we didn't see any. It feels like an afterthought, like you had to choose 4 maps but didn't want to.
Maps need to be an avenue that really gets pushed if we want the game to remain interesting, and I would loathe to be silent when I legitimately feel like there are efforts that aren't really being taken. Kinda disappointing overall, again even if I subtract myself from the picture. For all the things this contest was supposed to do differently and improve on, it feels a lot like nothing has changed.
I feel like the 4p maps were just tacked on for the sake of it. Jacaranda is ok, but the other ones I feel like should have never made the finalists especially since there were so many other good 2p or 4p maps submitted. I don't think they chose the best 4p maps of the bunch by any stretch.
From where I'm sitting, the expectations for this contest were not managed well. Bringing 4-spawn maps back should not have been such a selling point to begin with if they weren't going to seriously try to push from that angle. It's not a focus of this competition to bring them back if they're still going to get rated poorly in whatever scoring system was used, and then added on at the end. Like we're lucky to have the 4 maps we got. We have seen some amazing 4-spawn maps in TLMC in the past, even winning contests and reshaping the competitive map scene, when they were actually given a chance. It feels all too much to me like we'd rather pick maps that are already balanced than try to push the issue and ask for the game to change. Even though that's the entire point. That's why new maps get made, end of discussion. If you didn't want new maps to change gameplay you have everything you should ever need already on ladder.
Im not a protoss player so i might be missing something here, but isnt this walloff bad for protoss vs zerg on treadmill? Should the ramp not be smaller?
On July 05 2021 08:28 [Phantom] wrote: I'm still thinking but for now I'll say I'm disappointed that many mapmakers still insist on having that invisible overlord spot to give zergs free scouts all early game. Such shameless favoring of one race has no place in a competitive map pool. Specially after all the buffs Zerg received through the years to facilitate scouting.
How about we remove main ramps, I hear from reliable sources than Terran are shamelessly abusing them by using supply depots to wall off and THEN have the audacity to lower their depots to not get stuck inside, clearly abusing map features with race-exclusive mechanis
On July 05 2021 08:28 [Phantom] wrote: I'm still thinking but for now I'll say I'm disappointed that many mapmakers still insist on having that invisible overlord spot to give zergs free scouts all early game. Such shameless favoring of one race has no place in a competitive map pool. Specially after all the buffs Zerg received through the years to facilitate scouting.
Ah yes, clearly it's malevolence and unfair bias rather than something that is fundamental to how the level design for this 11 year old established multiplayer game works.
Are these the kind of takes I got to have to become a writer on this site?
1.-Not malevolence, but certainly biased, probably subconciously. Those free scouting spots where created years ago when it was very hard to scout for zerg, and very easy to deny scouting. Protoss specially had lots of disgusting cheeses and all-in early options that often looked similar if you didn't scout everything. Since then most protoss early all-ins were nerfed into the ground and delayed, and scouting has been made easier for zerg as they increased the baseline movement speed of the overlords. On top of that map layouts, improved creep spread and the different lotv eco have made it easier for zerg to react to pushes. We have had 3 years of zerg dominance before 2021, and I believe in part decisions in the layout of the maps like this contributed a small ammount to that. Why should zergs get a spot made specifically just for them?
Specially vs Protoss this gives them in plenty of maps full view of the wall, and on some even view of the gas. This makes it very easy for zerg to know when and how to atack if they are planing an all-in, of which they have plenty of options. To the point where now the roles have been reversed and Protoss is the one with trouble scuting early game, relying mostly on an adept to scout. If the adept is killed then you're blind. Other scouting methods have their costs, hallucination tkaes away energy, so if you scout an all-in and they are already coming you don't have forcefields, also you might need a sentry that you might not have. Scans cost mules. Overlords are something you are making anyway, why should you get free early game scout?
We have had maps where there are no insivible pillars outside the base and we see zerg still able to scout, just not for free and for a shorter period of time, just like the other races. Proving that they don't really need this advantage, and if removed it could open other openings for Terran and Protoss that are not viable in those maps.
On July 05 2021 22:43 MiloOnFire wrote:
Not every map has an overlord pillar in the natural expansion, so it's a bit lazy of you to assume something without paying attention to the layouts. Other than that, it would be nice to hear some positives. I think, that all of the maps need constructive critisicm, not only biased opinions. (Let's reinforce good habits instead of punishing us for making creative, yet still standard layouts).
Yeah sorry, I expressed myself incorrectly. Didn't mean to say that every map has that, I'm just dissapointed that at least half the maps do, I thought we could move on from that. Like I said I believe that invisible pilar to be a remnant of the past, that map makers have continued to put there without realizing it's not necessary anymore and it's just giving the zergs a small, but nedless, advantage.
For the guy saying that ramps and depots would be unfair, that's not the same situation, as depots were made specifically by the designers of the game to be able to do that, and ramps were also created with that combination in mind. The very first map you used to play, Xel'Naga caverns, had the ramp in that configuration. Whereas the overlord invisible spot was made specifically by map makers later on (for valid reasons at the time, just not anymore).
Appart from that, I like the maps. I think they are a little bit more standard than I thought, even the weird ones. One of this maps is already played in the GSL right? Why is that? Though I must say I like it.
I only have reservations about Treadmill. I like the concept of the slow and fast zones, I just think it needs a little bit of work. I haven't had the chance to play it, but I can see Terran being very powerful in the base with slow zones on the ramp. How are you supposed to atack there if when the terran has the high ground, slow zones on the ramps and tanks or libs? As for the speed zones, their placement still makes the route to get to the enemy side of the map very slow as the path is curved, so while it will be used as an alternative atack zone/harass zone, I don't feel like the speed zones will meaningfully help there.
It's only 6 out of the 16, so not half of them. Besides why is it that terrans always complain about overlord spots, and insist that unwallable reaper jump up spots are absolutely needed?
EPT
