EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/12LS2nJ.jpg)
(textures are for clarity only)
the bounds are 172x148
main to main is 67 seconds
nat to nat is 54 seconds.
Work In Progress Melee Maps - Page 64
| Forum Index > SC2 Maps & Custom Games |
Keep our forum clean! PLEASE post your WIP melee maps in this thread for initial feedback. -Barrin | ||
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Dellron
United States69 Posts
(textures are for clarity only) the bounds are 172x148 main to main is 67 seconds nat to nat is 54 seconds. | ||
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InfCereal
Canada1756 Posts
I'm absolutely horrid with textures, so I don't know how this will go xP ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/fIwOxza.png) | ||
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Coppermantis
United States845 Posts
Are the islands above/below the third pathable? It could make for interesting tank harassment on the third if they are. Aesthetically, make sure to keep natural and man-made cliffs separated with doodads or something. It looks very awkward when you have the two cliff types, especially the specific ones you've chosen, together with no form of merging. There's also something weird going on with your main ramps. Since no one commented on my revisions of my last map and I'm on summer vacation with little else to do, I submit this new one for feedback. ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/aWDFZ8m.jpg) The top-right player start is off-position, but that's of little consequence right now. My main concern is that Blink stalker all-ins are going to be too strong since you can assault the main from almost all sides. Additionally, with the bridges being as thin as they are, it might be too easy to turtle on four bases with some chokepoint control. | ||
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RFDaemoniac
United States544 Posts
On July 02 2013 03:15 Coppermantis wrote:+ Show Spoiler + The fourth looks like it might be a little too far away to be viable. Perhaps it should be moved a little closer. Also, the middle bases don't seem particularly viable either. The natural choke seems a little thin, actually. Are the islands above/below the third pathable? It could make for interesting tank harassment on the third if they are. Aesthetically, make sure to keep natural and man-made cliffs separated with doodads or something. It looks very awkward when you have the two cliff types, especially the specific ones you've chosen, together with no form of merging. There's also something weird going on with your main ramps. Since no one commented on my revisions of my last map and I'm on summer vacation with little else to do, I submit this new one for feedback. The top-right player start is off-position, but that's of little consequence right now. My main concern is that Blink stalker all-ins are going to be too strong since you can assault the main from almost all sides. Additionally, with the bridges being as thin as they are, it might be too easy to turtle on four bases with some chokepoint control. I think you can just rotate the mains a bit so that there isn't as much blinkable area. I'm a little unsure of what areas are pathable. I'm assuming that under the bridges is not, but those ramps down use the lowground. Does it become unpathable at the road? That's a little counter-intuitive. I would add some doodad structure walls to help clarify. If the road is currently pathable then there is definitely a blink problem and I would suggest making it not pathable. I think it'd be nice if the space between the third and main were a little bit bigger just before the bridge (while still maintaining a standard nat choke farther back) so that swarm armies (zerg, zealot/archon, bio, etc) can have some successful positioning. | ||
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Meavis
Netherlands1298 Posts
On July 02 2013 03:15 Coppermantis wrote: + Show Spoiler + The fourth looks like it might be a little too far away to be viable. Perhaps it should be moved a little closer. Also, the middle bases don't seem particularly viable either. The natural choke seems a little thin, actually. Are the islands above/below the third pathable? It could make for interesting tank harassment on the third if they are. Aesthetically, make sure to keep natural and man-made cliffs separated with doodads or something. It looks very awkward when you have the two cliff types, especially the specific ones you've chosen, together with no form of merging. There's also something weird going on with your main ramps. Since no one commented on my revisions of my last map and I'm on summer vacation with little else to do, I submit this new one for feedback. The top-right player start is off-position, but that's of little consequence right now. My main concern is that Blink stalker all-ins are going to be too strong since you can assault the main from almost all sides. Additionally, with the bridges being as thin as they are, it might be too easy to turtle on four bases with some chokepoint control. beautiful, but I think the expansions are a little to easy to take. | ||
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Coppermantis
United States845 Posts
The roads are currently pathable, yes, which is a shame because I really think that having them be so was very cool, but the main being so vulnerable to Blink isn't really worth it, alas. I added a fence to keep stuff away. | ||
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aband0ned
South Africa6 Posts
After spending countless hours planning, designing and developing an idea I had for a map, I would like to introduce, Frostbite Canyon (now available for beta testing from the EU servers). The concept for this map was to combine the best concepts from the most popular tournament maps, and create a map that would test a players flexibility, tactics, strategies and decision making. Most of the ideas come from maps like Akilon Wastes, Bel'Shir Vestige and Neo Planet S. The goals of this map are very ambitious: 1. To become part of the Blizzard ladder pool and a popular choice during tournaments. 2. To be balanced across all races. 3. To reward high levels of skill, tactics, planning and flexibility. 4. 2 cross spawning enforced starting location variations, each providing a slightly unique experience. 5. Both cross spawn variations remain symmetrical and balanced. 6. Your choice of 3rd expansions will affect the outcome of longer macro games. You have 2 options for your 3rd expansion, one that is closer but slightly more difficult to defend, or one that is slightly further away but more defensible. 7. To enhance spectator value by creating interesting combat scenarios, and rewarding creative engagements. Todo: There is still a lot of work to be done on the central area, with regards to doodads, aesthetics and texturing. I don't want to commit the time to improving looks if I have to redo it because of a redesign. As it stands, I already have plans to make several changes to central area which will affect doodad placement etc. What I would like to get feedback on are the following: 1. Any obvious racial imbalances, especially with regards to starting locations and natural expansions. 2. Any other ideas or comments on the central area and paths. 3. General constructive feedback. 4. Anything else I should keep in mind when developing a balanced tournament ready map. Please see the preview image here as I cannot use the "img" tag: Frostbite Canyon Your feedback will be appreciated! | ||
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Lt_Hargrove
Poland15 Posts
On July 02 2013 03:15 Coppermantis wrote: The fourth looks like it might be a little too far away to be viable. Perhaps it should be moved a little closer. Also, the middle bases don't seem particularly viable either. The natural choke seems a little thin, actually. Are the islands above/below the third pathable? It could make for interesting tank harassment on the third if they are. Aesthetically, make sure to keep natural and man-made cliffs separated with doodads or something. It looks very awkward when you have the two cliff types, especially the specific ones you've chosen, together with no form of merging. There's also something weird going on with your main ramps. Since no one commented on my revisions of my last map and I'm on summer vacation with little else to do, I submit this new one for feedback. http://i.imgur.com/aWDFZ8m.jpg The top-right player start is off-position, but that's of little consequence right now. My main concern is that Blink stalker all-ins are going to be too strong since you can assault the main from almost all sides. Additionally, with the bridges being as thin as they are, it might be too easy to turtle on four bases with some chokepoint control. Yeah, it's really turtleable map. Maybe you could try connecting fourth with that base on the other side of the road with a wide cliff. That gives an opportunity to expand beyond the bridges and better attack angle at the fourth. + Show Spoiler + On July 02 2013 14:50 aband0ned wrote: Hi everyone, After spending countless hours planning, designing and developing an idea I had for a map, I would like to introduce, Frostbite Canyon (now available for beta testing from the EU servers). The concept for this map was to combine the best concepts from the most popular tournament maps, and create a map that would test a players flexibility, tactics, strategies and decision making. Most of the ideas come from maps like Akilon Wastes, Bel'Shir Vestige and Neo Planet S. The goals of this map are very ambitious: 1. To become part of the Blizzard ladder pool and a popular choice during tournaments. 2. To be balanced across all races. 3. To reward high levels of skill, tactics, planning and flexibility. 4. 2 cross spawning enforced starting location variations, each providing a slightly unique experience. 5. Both cross spawn variations remain symmetrical and balanced. 6. Your choice of 3rd expansions will affect the outcome of longer macro games. You have 2 options for your 3rd expansion, one that is closer but slightly more difficult to defend, or one that is slightly further away but more defensible. 7. To enhance spectator value by creating interesting combat scenarios, and rewarding creative engagements. Todo: There is still a lot of work to be done on the central area, with regards to doodads, aesthetics and texturing. I don't want to commit the time to improving looks if I have to redo it because of a redesign. As it stands, I already have plans to make several changes to central area which will affect doodad placement etc. What I would like to get feedback on are the following: 1. Any obvious racial imbalances, especially with regards to starting locations and natural expansions. 2. Any other ideas or comments on the central area and paths. 3. General constructive feedback. 4. Anything else I should keep in mind when developing a balanced tournament ready map. Please see the preview image here as I cannot use the "img" tag: Frostbite Canyon Your feedback will be appreciated! First, I wouldn't be so ambitious. Even proffesional mapping teams have a hard time pushing their maps into the pool. Second, natural ramps at 10 and 4 spawn positions aren't diagonal. That messes up walling. Third, that little path between nat and third at 10 and 4 spawn positions may seem a neat idea, but reapers and blink stalkers would be hell to fight on such a large area. This also applies in a lesser extend to 2 and 8 spawn pos. Fourth, the third base of 2 and 8 spawn pos is little too far away from natural IMO. I would move the ramp a bit. I can't say much about the middle, becouse texture work makes it hard to see cliff boundaries for me. By the way, I have just got into mapping. Here is my first map ever layout: http://s1184.photobucket.com/user/Lt_Hargrove/media/Palombo outpost/Palombo_overview_alpha01.png.html My goal was to make additional expansions hard to secure, but I am afraid I overkilled it a little. | ||
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sdair
United Kingdom25 Posts
and yeah it is quite chokey at points, however there are many flanking paths so i was thinking that would be a fair compromise also most of the areas are quite wide not flat and open but around 6-8 ff wide at most | ||
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Coppermantis
United States845 Posts
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/sVjS2dg.jpg) Might be too hard to take a fifth now, but at least the fourth a little less easy. | ||
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EatThePath
United States3943 Posts
What are the map dimensions copper? It looks huge. The 5th is fine, that point in the game the expansions shouldn't be easy. Big improvement from before, but I think the scale of this map is a little large, and I think it'd be fine/better at 80% the scale. That represents a lot of work of course, and maybe this is okay. @abandoned: That overview is really hard to read. Can you get more pictures of the map, possibly one that is much bigger so we can zoom in? It's also nice to have a tilted overview picture so you can make out the cliff levels more easily, if only to reference to the top down view. Regarding ambitions for maps, welcome to mapping. Before you worry about succeeding, practice practice practice. @hargrove: Generally bland design but relatively the right idea/shape/proportions. However the map is too open with no real strategic positional purpose for the openness, it's just empty space that's more friendly to zerg. The 3rd base is also really open which will make pvz a nightmare. I recommend doing more thinking about what it means to have hard to take expansions and how you can achieve that without being imbalanced. Also think about what the layout of the map is meant to do. Are hard expansions supposed to be secured by map control? By good timing on tech and walloffs? Is scouting army movements supposed to be the key? Splitting up your defensive forces? @inf: The scale is kind of large and that 3rd base is horribly open and forward. Can you say more about the map concept/what it's trying to achieve? @dellron: That map looks more or less okay, as in it would be playable and has no glaring problems, but I am saying that sort of lumping it in with Blizzard quality ladder maps. It looks like there's nothing to it except to play a standard game, cover your timings, and just throw armies against each other. There's not a lot of reason to do anything special around the map, if you get me. The really wide routes into the 3rd (big ramp) and 4th will promote defensive and deathball type play, although the harass options in HotS will keep it from being totally stale. It's just that any regular map can show these things anyway. @RFD: (circle map) Really cool, I like the rocks on the ramps in the middle a lot. CC float to gold or island positions seems imba. Also it has the same problem as all mineral wall maps in that terran drops are really strong, and in ZvT zerg either has to play mutas or super counterattacky to match the damage they can't stop. That said, nothing to be done about it and I'd love to see it tried anyway. | ||
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Coppermantis
United States845 Posts
Main to main is 69 seconds. | ||
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Dellron
United States69 Posts
On July 03 2013 06:52 EatThePath wrote: @dellron: That map looks more or less okay, as in it would be playable and has no glaring problems, but I am saying that sort of lumping it in with Blizzard quality ladder maps. It looks like there's nothing to it except to play a standard game, cover your timings, and just throw armies against each other. There's not a lot of reason to do anything special around the map, if you get me. The really wide routes into the 3rd (big ramp) and 4th will promote defensive and deathball type play, although the harass options in HotS will keep it from being totally stale. It's just that any regular map can show these things anyway. Awesome, i just wanted to try and make a basic balanced map. i am working on improving so i wanted to make sure i could do a regular map. thanks a lot for providing feedback. | ||
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Dellron
United States69 Posts
On July 03 2013 05:05 sdair wrote: @Dellron close by air and cross spawns and yeah it is quite chokey at points, however there are many flanking paths so i was thinking that would be a fair compromise also most of the areas are quite wide not flat and open but around 6-8 ff wide at most the middle might be a little problematic since the left side has twice as many ramps, which means that one player has an easier time flanking than the other. protoss might be a little powerful on this map with it being so chokey, might lead to a lot of base races. but remember to take what i say with a grain of salt, as i am not the best map maker out there. | ||
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RFDaemoniac
United States544 Posts
On July 03 2013 06:52 EatThePath wrote: @RFD: (circle map) Really cool, I like the rocks on the ramps in the middle a lot. CC float to gold or island positions seems imba. Also it has the same problem as all mineral wall maps in that terran drops are really strong, and in ZvT zerg either has to play mutas or super counterattacky to match the damage they can't stop. That said, nothing to be done about it and I'd love to see it tried anyway. For the gold bases, I think I'm okay with a terran building a cc inbase and then floating it there. It's only a 2/3 base even though it's high yield, so it might make for some interesting dependent strategies. The area around each gold is also pretty open, though you might be able to defend it quite easily with tanks. For helping zerg to defend against drops, what about putting a hole for only workers in each mineral wall (i.e. indestructible eggs)? It would help level out the island position racially, and allow zerg to build static defense behind the mineral line. This would also make the worker scouting distance very short, while keeping the rush distance more reasonable. Of course it could also be used for probes to sneak pylons or proxy stargates, which might be too obnoxious in which case you could block the hole of indestructible eggs with rocks. This of course might be too much all in the same map/area, but I still think it'd be interesting to try. I like this idea enough that I've changed the map to incorporate it for now. It also allows burrowed roaches and infestors to get by, which helps zerg out considerably. An unfortunate side effect is that every unit thinks they can move through the space, and thus just move-commanding to your opponents base causes your units to be stuck in a mineral line behind your base. You can stop this from happening by queuing a command through the middle, but it might still be unacceptable. I've also considered having some of the minerals have fewer minerals in them, so you could make an attempt to mine them out faster and create a small hole. This could also be done by putting a couple gold mineral patches in each of the expansions, Icarus style, but then there'd be no standard bases aside from the mains. All in all there's just a lot of room to play with. At the moment I'm most concerned about how choked the middle is. It definitely helps to encourage air play/drops, but that is already likely dominant since you can be on 3 bases behind a single choke otherwise. To this end I'm considering making the main ramp even larger and blocking it with more than just a supply depot so that it's still wallable early game. Here is an overview of the current version ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/YNjlYl1l.jpg) I've done some proportion work, cleaned up the mineral lines on the outside circle, added in the mineral-walkable and burrow-moveable egg holes in those mineral walls, widened all of the ramps down into the center, and re-instated the rock spokes so as to make the rush time 58 seconds from choke to choke. Remember that because of the egg holes the scout time is only 90 seconds to get to both of the bases on the outside with a single worker. Published on NA and EU as Mercurian Amphitheatre | ||
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sCnDiamond
Germany340 Posts
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/8fpzibI.jpg) | ||
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Timetwister22
United States538 Posts
On July 06 2013 00:15 sCnDiamond wrote: another layout i just stitched together: It's too big. It is clear that you are improving and getting a nice understanding of how things should stitch together. At the same time though, it seems you aren't executing your ideas as well as you want, or you are poorly executing multiple ideas. As of right now, the map seems to be a large, random assortment of bases and map features that don't really flow well together. I suggest picking a general concept for a map, but nothing too complicated, for now. Some general concepts such as a standard macro map, air play and harass, or a smaller aggressive map. Picking a general concept, and then working every feature, base, and choke point toward that concept will give the map a nice flow and overall better execution. Of course, being able to identify and follow certain features that pertain toward a certain concept can be difficult, but that's what practice is for. With the map itself though, it seems interesting. I do like the idea behind the third and fourth design, but not much of a fan of how the middle or later bases work out. Also, allow for a ffe wall at the natural choke. Where an ffe can be done via nexus now with the msc, we're now starting to see protoss using that choke for gateway expands. Where it is not necessary to promote gateway expands, I personally think the more viable options a map has to offer, the better. Overall, good work and keep it up! | ||
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aband0ned
South Africa6 Posts
My map "Frostbite Canyon" is ready for testing by anyone interested. I've uploaded the map to the NA, EU and KR servers, you can find it with a simple search for "frostbite". So you are welcome to start a custom game and put 2-4 AI players on the map, set yourself as observer and watch the AI play. Granted it's not like the real thing, but it should give you some idea of how it plays! The map has cross spawning active for 2 players, because the 4 sides are not 100% equal like Whirlwind, it's more like Korhal City, where diagonal spawns are equal. However, unlike Korhal City, where one of the diagonal spawns is usually disabled during tournaments because it's not balanced, on Frostbite Canyon, all spawns provide enough balance to be used in tournaments (or at least that is the goal)! The map is the culmination of about 1 weeks work, granted it could have been done faster, but testing and balancing the map was as important as aesthetics. I would like to get some more comments and ideas on the map! The main area of concern is probably the central area might not have enough space for large armies, but ... it is a canyon after all, and my idea was to create areas where it wasn't easy to move a large army in formation, this layout makes it possible that large armies can be caught out of formation, or flanked easier. I'm not sure if that is desirable in tournaments, but keep in mind that most combats happen near the bases and choke points. Keep in mind that there are destructible rocks near the 3rd and/or 4th bases, depending on your spawn position! ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/bplgRaQ.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/lzVa303.jpg) Starting location type 1 ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/fefa7YX.jpg) Starting location type 2 ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/16aaC0T.jpg) Base area type 1, with destructible rocks on the right side of natural leading to 3rd/4th expansion ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/izF1I5O.jpg) Base area type 2, with destructible rocks on the left side of natural expansion leading to 3rd/4th expansion ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/W5vkTkv.jpg) Central "canyon" area ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ixBH20V.jpg) | ||
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sCnDiamond
Germany340 Posts
Thank you for your detailed feedback. I reduced the map in size quite a bit, but the later bases are still somewhat boring. But in overall i still like it better now. My idea is that i want a map that feels cramped, because i want to give it a overgrown city / jungle theme. I am also streaming right now and will try different ideas about the last two bases. You can find my stream here. ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/4tv5qnT.jpg) | ||
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Timetwister22
United States538 Posts
On July 06 2013 06:44 sCnDiamond wrote: @Timetwister: Thank you for your detailed feedback. I reduced the map in size quite a bit, but the later bases are still somewhat boring. But in overall i still like it better now. My idea is that i want a map that feels cramped, because i want to give it a overgrown city / jungle theme. I am also streaming right now and will try different ideas about the last two bases. You can find my stream here. Erm, never design a map around aesthetic ideas. Aesthetics do not contribute toward the concept, as the concept is all about how you want the map to play out. Gameplay first, then looks. Always. | ||
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