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On July 21 2012 05:37 SiskosGoatee wrote:Show nested quote +On July 21 2012 05:12 Gfire wrote:On July 21 2012 04:55 SiskosGoatee wrote:
While the GSL mapmakers have multiple maps used. Let's face it, a lot of people agree there are a lot of problems with these maps and the only reason they are used is because the GSL heavily promotes them. I doubt metropolis and terminus and TDA and Crevasse or Bel'Shir beach would've seen much use without the GSL basically forcing them to be popular, most people agree that they are pretty bad maps. The GSL basically commissioned from these guys only for some reason for a long while and forced maps which are controversial at best to be used in the tournament scene by it, I doubt these maps would've become popular on their own because they aren't that good, Daybreak stands out contrasting strongly as a map without major flaws.
I don't think this is true. At the time they came out, those maps were the best we had ever seen. We didn't know they were bad, and we used them because they were "good" at the time. The GSL mappers were the first to really try to make good maps, as they were the first to have the ability to use them in actual pools. However, I think now things have changed and everyone else has been trying to make good maps as well, now that we have a more solid set of standards. I don't think that all these maps are really all that good, but I feel maps in the future (those which are currently in progress) will be far better, but these are still a step up from some of the really old ladder maps. The problem is maps aren't rotated quickly enough. We just don't see quite enough maps in total, which also means we don't want to use a map unless we are super sure that it's really good, cause it will probably be around for a long time. edited for clarity. I don't know, I'd like to think that people made good maps before that already, they just weren't promoted and didn't get out because tournaments made ladder maps. I also don't think that Terminus is better or worse than Steppes of War, they are both awful, in completely opposite ways. Metalopolis is a better map Terminus was and has been used in tournaments far longer. The maps a lot of GSL mapmakers currently make also continue to baffle me sometimes. I think most people agree that metropolis needs to go. I'd also rather just have a much larger mappool with an extensive veto system, say you have a 20 map pool and let each player veto 7 maps and draw the maps to be used for the match in the GSL from that. They still have their week of time to study and prepare for the choice. Bigger map pools for tournaments means more exposure for new maps. They can also throw like one or two radical maps into that, if players don't like them, they will be vetoed, if they do like them, they won't be.
Not a fan of the big map pool idea, as it'd become impossible for pros to adequately practice and prepare for a match. Even if you apply the idea of "only practice 4-5 maps and veto all others", there's no guarantee that your opponent wouldn't veto the maps you've been practicing. Makes games with well planned out strategies impossible to do, which IMO isn't a good thing for competition.
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On July 21 2012 05:57 stormfoxSC wrote:
Not a fan of the big map pool idea, as it'd become impossible for pros to adequately practice and prepare for a match. Even if you apply the idea of "only practice 4-5 maps and veto all others", there's no guarantee that your opponent wouldn't veto the maps you've been practicing. Makes games with well planned out strategies impossible to do, which IMO isn't a good thing for competition. GSL still gives you a week to prepare, that should be more than enough. You're basically arguing against introducing new maps at all for tournaments, even with a small map pool. I mean, GSL gives you a week before each match or something. Dreamhack gives you 2 hours and they sometimes put a new map in the map pool.
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On July 21 2012 05:37 SiskosGoatee wrote:
I also don't think that Terminus is better or worse than Steppes of War, they are both awful, in completely opposite ways.
At this point I would rate your map judging skills 0.
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On July 21 2012 15:27 Sea_Food wrote:Show nested quote +On July 21 2012 05:37 SiskosGoatee wrote:
I also don't think that Terminus is better or worse than Steppes of War, they are both awful, in completely opposite ways.
At this point I would rate your map judging skills 0. Thanks for taking the time to inform me, nättinen. Means a lot to me.
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On July 21 2012 10:58 SiskosGoatee wrote:Show nested quote +On July 21 2012 05:57 stormfoxSC wrote:
Not a fan of the big map pool idea, as it'd become impossible for pros to adequately practice and prepare for a match. Even if you apply the idea of "only practice 4-5 maps and veto all others", there's no guarantee that your opponent wouldn't veto the maps you've been practicing. Makes games with well planned out strategies impossible to do, which IMO isn't a good thing for competition. GSL still gives you a week to prepare, that should be more than enough. You're basically arguing against introducing new maps at all for tournaments, even with a small map pool. I mean, GSL gives you a week before each match or something. Dreamhack gives you 2 hours and they sometimes put a new map in the map pool.
That's not what I'm arguing at all, why would you say that? A GSL season only lasts about 2 months. Even with a map pool of 4-5 maps (if GSL were to ever cut it down that low), swapping out even just half of them (i.e. 2-3) for new ones each season is more than enough for fresh, new maps to constantly enter the tournament limelight without making it unnecessarily difficult for professional players. That would basically give maps a 4 tournament-month lifespan:
Season 1: Maps A,B,C,D
Season 2: Maps C,D,E,F
Season 3: Maps E,F,G,H
So on and so forth. This kind of format for map rotation is completely theoretical, and wouldn't have to be implemented verbatim. Just trying to get my point across. It also doesn't take into account what to do in the event a completely imbalanced map is introduced; probably do something like get rid of that map and leave in a more balanced one for an extra season, or introduce additional new maps in the following season to compensate for the extra removal.
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On July 22 2012 05:26 stormfoxSC wrote:Show nested quote +On July 21 2012 10:58 SiskosGoatee wrote:On July 21 2012 05:57 stormfoxSC wrote:
Not a fan of the big map pool idea, as it'd become impossible for pros to adequately practice and prepare for a match. Even if you apply the idea of "only practice 4-5 maps and veto all others", there's no guarantee that your opponent wouldn't veto the maps you've been practicing. Makes games with well planned out strategies impossible to do, which IMO isn't a good thing for competition. GSL still gives you a week to prepare, that should be more than enough. You're basically arguing against introducing new maps at all for tournaments, even with a small map pool. I mean, GSL gives you a week before each match or something. Dreamhack gives you 2 hours and they sometimes put a new map in the map pool. That's not what I'm arguing at all, why would you say that? What I mean is that your argument can be used to justify exactly that. You say a big map pool with a lot of vetos gives pros not enough time to prepare themselves, but in the GSL format, you will veto your maps and pick them a week in advance anyway. Which is exactly what would happen with DreamHack, MLG, and the lot basically every weekend these days, if they all had a small map pool and introduced new maps with each iteration, players would have exactly the same time to prepare for those maps.
A GSL season only lasts about 2 months. Even with a map pool of 4-5 maps (if GSL were to ever cut it down that low), swapping out even just half of them (i.e. 2-3) for new ones each season is more than enough for fresh, new maps to constantly enter the tournament limelight without making it unnecessarily difficult for professional players. That would basically give maps a 4 tournament-month lifespan:
Season 1: Maps A,B,C,D
Season 2: Maps C,D,E,F
Season 3: Maps E,F,G,H
So on and so forth. This kind of format for map rotation is completely theoretical, and wouldn't have to be implemented verbatim. Just trying to get my point across. It also doesn't take into account what to do in the event a completely imbalanced map is introduced; Indeed, this is exactly the problem the OSL has in BW, 4 maps, and one of them is bound to be imbalanced, and you're just supposed to swallow it. People like to complain about map imbalance in SC2, but they have no idea what it's like in BW, BW maps, as a rule, are simply ridiculously imbalanced by SC2 standards. The 45-55% winrates people have come to demand in SC2 are virtually unheard of in BW.
This system introduces 2 new maps per season, if you have a 20 map pool size but allow a lot of vetos, you can easily swap 4-8 maps per season. If maps are imbalanced people will just veto it, it will also give you a clear indication of which maps the pros like to play upon and which don't allowing you to simply cycle out maps that get vetoed a lot. You still know which maps you are going to play on 1 week in advance, it gives exposure to a lot more new maps per GSL season, it combats the repetitiveness of seeing the same maps over again. (only 4 maps in a Bo5 is tedious enough, in a Bo7 it starts to become troublesome) and it no longer screws a certain race over if one map is particularly imbalance in one matchup.
The only downside is that people have to prepare for different maps and players every week, instead of only for different players, but on the same map, but honestly I find that adding a lot of freshness to the game.
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On July 22 2012 06:30 SiskosGoatee wrote:Show nested quote +On July 22 2012 05:26 stormfoxSC wrote:On July 21 2012 10:58 SiskosGoatee wrote:On July 21 2012 05:57 stormfoxSC wrote:
Not a fan of the big map pool idea, as it'd become impossible for pros to adequately practice and prepare for a match. Even if you apply the idea of "only practice 4-5 maps and veto all others", there's no guarantee that your opponent wouldn't veto the maps you've been practicing. Makes games with well planned out strategies impossible to do, which IMO isn't a good thing for competition. GSL still gives you a week to prepare, that should be more than enough. You're basically arguing against introducing new maps at all for tournaments, even with a small map pool. I mean, GSL gives you a week before each match or something. Dreamhack gives you 2 hours and they sometimes put a new map in the map pool. That's not what I'm arguing at all, why would you say that? What I mean is that your argument can be used to justify exactly that. You say a big map pool with a lot of vetos gives pros not enough time to prepare themselves, but in the GSL format, you will veto your maps and pick them a week in advance anyway. Which is exactly what would happen with DreamHack, MLG, and the lot basically every weekend these days, if they all had a small map pool and introduced new maps with each iteration, players would have exactly the same time to prepare for those maps.
Er, no, one week isn't enough time to learn the ins and outs of 4-5 maps (I'm assuming the amount of maps remaining after vetos in a 20-map pool). I'm sorry to say, but you have no idea the kind of preparation that goes into tournaments like the GSL and OSL if you think this is the case. That 1 week of preparation time is to prepare specifically for the opponent -- not to learn how to play the map.
It's also completely unreasonable to expect pros to know every detail of 20 maps in advance, so that they can prepare for their opponent on whichever 4-5 maps will be used. That sort of thing takes a lot of time.
What's the best way to FFE? Can it be done? How about 1-rax FE? Can Zerg take a fast 3rd in response and be safe? How does one punish these kinds of builds with early timings? Can they be punished? These kind of questions must be re-asked and re-answered every single time a new map enters the pool, and that's only the really basic, early-game stuff. The questions become a lot more difficult to answer for later stages of the game until there's been enough play time on them. With a map pool of 20, there simply isn't enough time, mathematically speaking. The likely thing to happen is that the GSL pros would just come together and agree to not play certain maps (if you think pros don't collaborate on topics like this, then you really don't know what you're talking about), so that they never even have to be considered. As you can imagine, that defeats the entire purpose of having a large pool.
On July 22 2012 06:30 SiskosGoatee wrote:Show nested quote +A GSL season only lasts about 2 months. Even with a map pool of 4-5 maps (if GSL were to ever cut it down that low), swapping out even just half of them (i.e. 2-3) for new ones each season is more than enough for fresh, new maps to constantly enter the tournament limelight without making it unnecessarily difficult for professional players. That would basically give maps a 4 tournament-month lifespan:
Season 1: Maps A,B,C,D
Season 2: Maps C,D,E,F
Season 3: Maps E,F,G,H
So on and so forth. This kind of format for map rotation is completely theoretical, and wouldn't have to be implemented verbatim. Just trying to get my point across. It also doesn't take into account what to do in the event a completely imbalanced map is introduced; Indeed, this is exactly the problem the OSL has in BW, 4 maps, and one of them is bound to be imbalanced, and you're just supposed to swallow it. People like to complain about map imbalance in SC2, but they have no idea what it's like in BW, BW maps, as a rule, are simply ridiculously imbalanced by SC2 standards. The 45-55% winrates people have come to demand in SC2 are virtually unheard of in BW. This system introduces 2 new maps per season, if you have a 20 map pool size but allow a lot of vetos, you can easily swap 4-8 maps per season. If maps are imbalanced people will just veto it, it will also give you a clear indication of which maps the pros like to play upon and which don't allowing you to simply cycle out maps that get vetoed a lot. You still know which maps you are going to play on 1 week in advance, it gives exposure to a lot more new maps per GSL season, it combats the repetitiveness of seeing the same maps over again. (only 4 maps in a Bo5 is tedious enough, in a Bo7 it starts to become troublesome) and it no longer screws a certain race over if one map is particularly imbalance in one matchup. The only downside is that people have to prepare for different maps and players every week, instead of only for different players, but on the same map, but honestly I find that adding a lot of freshness to the game.
You do realize that in BW, maps have been known to get patched mid-season to remove imbalances, yes? That's something unheard of in SC2, where patches and changes only get applied between seasons. The one good exception to this is the ESV Korean Weekly, where they have no problem adding and removing maps from week to week, though it'd be even better if they took a more subtle approach of patching maps that only need some tweaking to fix. Of course, they might have additional reasons as well, such as simply wanting to get some initial play testing in on more maps.
Like I mentioned before, having more maps isn't a solution. What's the point of swapping out 4-8 maps when it's likely none of those will have gotten played in the first place? It's a waste, and an unnecessary one. It's also why it was a good thing that GSL moved away from the veto system -- when there were vetos, we saw maps that never got played in certain matchups, and that was a pool much smaller than 20.
There's also nothing wrong with seeing maps used again in a BoX -- OSL Bo5 matches have the first map played again in the final game, which gives precedence in StarCraft competition. Also, do you get tired of seeing hockey rinks? Football fields? Basketball courts?
The idea of getting "only" a couple of fresh maps every 2 months isn't exactly all that bad. That's a pretty high turnover rate, especially given current SC2 standards. For example, how many seasons did that awful map Crossfire stay in the GSL for?
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Er, no, one week isn't enough time to learn the ins and outs of 4-5 maps (I'm assuming the amount of maps remaining after vetos in a 20-map pool).
Then you just argued against say Dreamhack introducing new maps, because that's exactly what they did with ESV vicious, or what MLG did with Testbug, you had about a week to get accustomed to that new map, and then you went with it. Also, you don't have to learn 4-5 every week. You veto out the same 8 maps every time as a player obviously, or you do it per matchup, I don't know, which leaves you with as 12 player map pool for the entire GSL. You can also assume that there are some unpopular maps which everyone vetos out, so that gives you 10, that's your 'personal map pool' for the GSL under this system essentially, is that really that much more than the 8 map pool GSL has now?
The major difference is that this system establishes a personal map pool essentially for each player. It could even be so far to demand players to stick with the same vetos for the entire GSL if so need be. The system in place now gives you 8 maps to consider for the entire GSL, this gives you 10 in practice, is that really such a difference in preparation time and demand for players in order to achieve A: Many more maps in rotation. B: Many more different maps for the fans. C: A much, much higher refresh rate for maps. D: A clear statistic on which maps the pros favour to play on.
I'm sorry to say, but you have no idea the kind of preparation that goes into tournaments like the GSL and OSL if you think this is the case. That 1 week of preparation time is to prepare specifically for the opponent -- not to learn how to play the map. I don't, see the above part, you make an error in your mathematical reasoning behind what this system pans out to. As I detailed above, this system leads to each player having a personal map pool of 10 or so maps to consider for the tournament, the old system leads to 8, except that every player shares the map pool whereas in this case they are with respect to certain players.
It's also completely unreasonable to expect pros to know every detail of 20 maps in advance, so that they can prepare for their opponent on whichever 4-5 maps will be used. That sort of thing takes a lot of time. They don't, because you veto out 8 maps, so it's 12 maps you have to know the details of, furthermore you can assume that if you are a T player and there is a certain highly T favoured map that every P and Z player is going to veto that map out against you, which leaves you realistically with about 10 maps, which is quite reasonable.
What's the best way to FFE? Can it be done? How about 1-rax FE? Can Zerg take a fast 3rd in response and be safe? How does one punish these kinds of builds with early timings? Can they be punished? These kind of questions must be re-asked and re-answered every single time a new map enters the pool, and that's only the really basic, early-game stuff. The questions become a lot more difficult to answer for later stages of the game until there's been enough play time on them. With a map pool of 20, there simply isn't enough time, mathematically speaking. The likely thing to happen is that the GSL pros would just come together and agree to not play certain maps (if you think pros don't collaborate on topics like this, then you really don't know what you're talking about), so that they never even have to be considered. As you can imagine, that defeats the entire purpose of having a large pool. Again, see above, you make a mathematical mistake in your reasoning. It's 10 maps versus 8, not 20 versus 8.
You do realize that in BW, maps have been known to get patched mid-season to remove imbalances, yes? That's something unheard of in SC2, where patches and changes only get applied between seasons.
Indeed, but an OSL season is far longer than a GSL season. SC2 is still statistically a far more balanced game than BW ever was despite some people not wanting to admit that and SC2 maps are more balanced. No doubt because the SC2 player pool is far larger than the BW player pool ever was allowing for more detailed information about map statistics. And because BW mapmakers are not afraid to radically experiment while in SC2 that mentality has been largely diminished over the course of the game.
The one good exception to this is the ESV Korean Weekly, where they have no problem adding and removing maps from week to week, though it'd be even better if they took a more subtle approach of patching maps that only need some tweaking to fix. Of course, they might have additional reasons as well, such as simply wanting to get some initial play testing in on more maps. Indeed, and they most certainly don't give you weeks to analyze, players just go with it, which is sort of the charm of the tournament honestly, you see a lot of new fresh maps and players improvising.
Like I mentioned before, having more maps isn't a solution. What's the point of swapping out 4-8 maps when it's likely none of those will have gotten played in the first place? It's a waste, and an unnecessary one. It's also why it was a good thing that GSL moved away from the veto system -- when there were vetos, we saw maps that never got played in certain matchups, and that was a pool much smaller than 20. Exactly! and if maps are never played then this is a clear, clear indication that they need to go. Not a shred of doubt in my mind exists that pretty much every P player would veto crossfire or Dual Sight if they could, yet they were forced to play on these very imbalanced maps for PvZ and PvT for a very long time.
If maps are constantly vetoed and never played, remove them, the best indication you can honestly have that a map isn't good.
There's also nothing wrong with seeing maps used again in a BoX -- OSL Bo5 matches have the first map played again in the final game, which gives precedence in StarCraft competition. There isn't, but seeing the same 4 maps used for an entire OSL tournaments starts to get boring, especially because what people often do is just re-use the same strategy on the same map the entire time. It gets boring. Variety is the spice of life, the star that shines barely is all the brighter for its brevity. Or putting this metaphor in a more contemporary context, Zero Punctuation has been going on forever and it's been getting boring.
Also, do you get tired of seeing hockey rinks? Football fields? Basketball courts? As silly as this analogy is, I do, football and hockey and what not are extremely repetitive sports compared to say StarCraft or chess.
The idea of getting "only" a couple of fresh maps every 2 months isn't exactly all that bad. That's a pretty high turnover rate, especially given current SC2 standards. For example, how many seasons did that awful map Crossfire stay in the GSL for? Indeed, and it would be out of there long ago with my system, every single P player vetoing it is a clear sign of its badness, despite Artosis' insisting it's a good PvZ map.
The point is, mapmakers like to complain that their new maps aren't getting exposure, big map pools give exposure, throw a couple of radical maps in there, maps from unknown mapmakers, if they are good and/or interesting, then progamers will not veto them and they get a shot, if they are bad, they will be vetoed.
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On July 22 2012 09:45 SiskosGoatee wrote:Show nested quote +
Er, no, one week isn't enough time to learn the ins and outs of 4-5 maps (I'm assuming the amount of maps remaining after vetos in a 20-map pool).
Then you just argued against say Dreamhack introducing new maps, because that's exactly what they did with ESV vicious [...]
Uhm, you realize that Dreamhack completely failed with that? They introduced 2 completely new maps (Vicious and Frigid Pass) that nobody else used in their winter event and they had a 9 map map pool.
Needless to say they were barely played and nobody could say they feel comfortable on them...
That's why now Dreamhack had 5 maps in their map pool without any new map.
If you're going to have a short tournament without any preparation time for matches (so unlike GSL or TSL) AND you want to introduce at least 1 new map then you can't have more than 5 maps imo.
Regardless of new maps I think 7 maps in the map pool is the absolute maximum and I would still think that the quality of games/strategy/mindgames involved would benefit from a smaller map pool.
If we could just go back to BW system in terms of map pool size, map rotation, map choice and map innovation I would love to do that immediately.
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On July 22 2012 21:09 Ragoo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 22 2012 09:45 SiskosGoatee wrote:
Er, no, one week isn't enough time to learn the ins and outs of 4-5 maps (I'm assuming the amount of maps remaining after vetos in a 20-map pool).
Then you just argued against say Dreamhack introducing new maps, because that's exactly what they did with ESV vicious [...] Uhm, you realize that Dreamhack completely failed with that? They introduced 2 completely new maps (Vicious and Frigid Pass) that nobody else used in their winter event and they had a 9 map map pool. Needless to say they were barely played and nobody could say they feel comfortable on them... That's why now Dreamhack had 5 maps in their map pool without any new map. If you're going to have a short tournament without any preparation time for matches (so unlike GSL or TSL) AND you want to introduce at least 1 new map then you can't have more than 5 maps imo. Regardless of new maps I think 7 maps in the map pool is the absolute maximum and I would still think that the quality of games/strategy/mindgames involved would benefit from a smaller map pool. If we could just go back to BW system in terms of map pool size, map rotation, map choice and map innovation I would love to do that immediately. May be, but you ignored the mathematical logic which leads to this conclusion:
The system in place now gives you 8 maps to consider for the entire GSL, this gives you 10 in practice, is that really such a difference in preparation time and demand for players in order to achieve A: Many more maps in rotation. B: Many more different maps for the fans. C: A much, much higher refresh rate for maps. D: A clear statistic on which maps the pros favour to play on.
Along with the fact that a pro is never forced to play on an imbalanced map again? Is having to study for but 2 extra maps in the GSL really not worth all this? Especially the statistic on which map is favoured by the pros cannot be ignored. For all we know all the pros for instance hate to play on Atlantis Spaceship but we don't have a statistic on that.
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Good call, I completely forgot about that thread. 
Edit: My response, posted in that thread.
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how is everyone gotten along with there editing and stuff? my pro' keep getting annoyed at how slow i am 
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On July 24 2012 05:46 TibblesEvilCat wrote:how is everyone gotten along with there editing and stuff? my pro' keep getting annoyed at how slow i am
The best pro-am interactions are often "constructive bickering", as sunshine would put it :p
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On July 24 2012 05:46 TibblesEvilCat wrote:how is everyone gotten along with there editing and stuff? my pro' keep getting annoyed at how slow i am
No you just kept scrolling through each model of every doodad for like 10 minutes and im like "wtf stop -___-"
and you just kept on going D:
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On July 24 2012 05:52 iGrok wrote:Show nested quote +On July 24 2012 05:46 TibblesEvilCat wrote:how is everyone gotten along with there editing and stuff? my pro' keep getting annoyed at how slow i am The best pro-am interactions are often "constructive bickering", as sunshine would put it :p
I would put it that way
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On July 24 2012 05:55 IronManSC wrote:Show nested quote +On July 24 2012 05:46 TibblesEvilCat wrote:how is everyone gotten along with there editing and stuff? my pro' keep getting annoyed at how slow i am No you just kept scrolling through each model of every doodad for like 10 minutes and im like "wtf stop -___-" and you just kept on going D:
IronMan hatin' on doodad appreciation. 
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On July 24 2012 05:46 TibblesEvilCat wrote:how is everyone gotten along with there editing and stuff? my pro' keep getting annoyed at how slow i am
Monitor and I basically agreed on everything we wanted to change. It's boring, but it works.
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yea same, mine feels empty now :/
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Sadly it seems like I won't be participating as I have been unable to contact Broodie about working on his map. I guess it would be possible to get it done in time if we start now, but it seems unlikely that we would have the time to reach a satisfactory result.
And before someone asks, I am not willing to work on a map by myself as that would not help Broodie in any way, which the purpose of the ProAm is; helping other mapmakers. If I would continue Broodie's work on this map it would also be unfair to both Broodie and the other participants as I can adjust the map as I see fit myself, and not having to compromise with the original mapmaker. If I have to work on a map myself, then I can just as well help any TPW member or make a new map myself.
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EPT
