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I extensively used the Warcraft III world editor and frequently found myself thinking "Dam, this would make an awesome BW map." Now that people have begun exploring the full potential of the Starcraft II world editor, I'm extremely excited to see the map features people will design. Of course, some people will be resistant to these types of features, but I'm sure the first time someone stacked temples to make the backdoor on Medusa people probably freaked out. Without further adieu, here are some of my ideas:
Xel'naga Watchtowers.
When the Xel'naga watchtowers were introduced, make people initially thought they were gimmicky and distracted from the true essence of Starcraft. As we've seen, high level games extensively use the towers to help track enemy army movement. I think this isn't making full use of the towers. What if you created a four player map with very long land distances, but let you see partially into each main with a centrally placed watchtower? You could identify which base the other player was in without having to scout all the way into each main. This would allow for long rush distances without creating a pseudo-luck factor with who scouts who first, that can sometimes happen on large maps.
Forcefeild Locked High-Yeilds
As of yet, maps have either had unblocked gold expansions or rock-blocked gold expansions. Both of these have their uses, but other possibilities exist. My idea, is that you create an additional forcefeild object that lasts, for example, ten minutes. Make one spawn in the high yeild at the beginning of the game, and then it's sort of "time locked". You can then map that expansion at a very easily dependable location, and avoid map imbalances. Then, in games where one base play dominates, at the ten minute mark, both economies would sort of get revitalized, right as their mains would get mined out. Of course, the forcefeilds could be squashed by massive units anyway, but that just adds another dynamic to the game.
Rock Walled High Yeilds
Another variant on the standard expansion could be the slightly delayed high yeild expansion. These would be placed probably as the natural expansion. It initially would be a small boost to your expansion, but once you get sufficient army to break down the rocks, you get a larger boost to your economy.
Anyway, these are just the ideas I had off the top of my head. While we are on topic, remember the double assimilator thing on battle royale? Where you could kill the assimilators and close the choke? Has that been replicated in sc2 yet? If so, I would be very interested in using it on some of my maps.
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I like these suggestions, and I'm sure they, or something akin to them will be implemented in later maps. I think it's fair to say that people will eventually get a little bored of the standard style of map and these kinds of things will add a welcome variance.
Along the same lines I've been thinking, (and this thought doesn't come from the feeling that xel-naga towers are gimmicky, I like them) are we likely to see any official maps released that don't have towers? it seems kind of peculiar to me that blizzard have made them a standard, as opposed to merely an optional addition in their approach to their design of the official maps.
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I like the force field idea, never heard or seen of that before. Could definitely add some sweet new timings into the game.
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I really like the rock-walled high yield, or for any extra-rich expansion, cool idea.
On June 08 2010 17:23 Panoptic wrote: are we likely to see any official maps released that don't have towers? it seems kind of peculiar to me that blizzard have made them a standard, as opposed to merely an optional addition in their approach to their design of the official maps.
I think you have to consider that for beta, Blizzard is more concerned with getting people to test the game rather than have the best possible map pool. Maybe they have a watchtower and gold expansions and destructible rocks somewhere on every map just to test stuff like how often do players use these things? Then when they've gathered a mountain of data they can use all these new map elements judiciously in a map pool that doesn't have everything crammed onto every map. Maybe?
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I think the "time locked" idea is by far the best thing. I had similiar thoughts about rising lava on multiplayermaps (as indicator for example a volcano that starts smoke short before the lava rises and ends spitting lava short before it goes away), Avalanches (destructible rocks the other way round... for example locking the middle path on blistering sands after some time. You could then figure out if you want them destructible or to cut some ways permanently) and heavier impact of weather perhaps even decreasing the sightrange ("real dense fog of war" or "heavy rain").
Of course all those ideas can be very bad for competitive play because they add a certain factor of luck....but i think they would be freaking awesome to watch!
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There's really so much more than that you could do with the new sc2 map editor. It's mind boggling. For example, block off access to a third geyser at an expansion. Making a very weak destructible rock that can't be repaired and force it to be part of the wall. Yes, the troy thing can be done. The list continues.
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DESTRUCTIBLE BRIDGES
That basically serve the same purposes as the twin assimilator entrances on troy and battle royal
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Terran would benefit the most from a time-locked gold expansion, with zerg second and protoss last, so it would be bad for balance.
A terran could build his cc by the forcefield, begin mining early (with the scvs making a longer trip), and then at 10 minutes simply lifting it over a bit (first off giving him full access as the game ticks 10:00, and allowing him to mine beforehand without 'wasting' a building). A zerg could hatch by the forcefield, and at 10 mins place a second hatch at the optimal location . This is slightly less optimal, but added hatches are usually in demand. Tosses on the other hand do not benefit from additional Nexuses (Nexii?), and it would just be a loss for them to attempt to take it a bit early by building a nexus nearby for 400.
I don't really like the idea of a Xel'Naga tower that grants vision of the opponents main, but the one with the rocks blocking the high yield minerals is pretty good.
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If you can make forcefield objects on timer, can you make storms and other stuff?
Areas of the map that are under constant psistorm on a timer could be really fun.
Permanent guardian shields would be neat too.
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I'm working on a map that uses lava in some unique and non-annoying ways. Hoping I'll have something to show in the next few days.
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Very cool. The forcefield thing is pretty creative. Could be used in walling off areas of the map too. Also modifying the watchtower could allow for it to give bonus damage to nearby units or somthing.
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forcefield idea would be very anti zerg since ultras alot harder to get than thors or collosi
one idea ive been messing with is one gold mineral patch at spawning location(with 5-7 other normal mineral patchs) did this on one of my maps
psi storm idea sob3k suggested I tried this but if you use triggers on the map you are unable to save it as a melee map. I don't know if any1 knows a way around this?
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On June 08 2010 21:53 monkh wrote:I tried this but if you use triggers on the map you are unable to save it as a melee map. I don't know if any1 knows a way around this?
You don't actually need them to be melee maps. I assume blizzard wont really ever put user maps into the ladder. I'm guessing the game will end up with people playing melee maps in the custom section. They don't have to be melee for that.
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On June 08 2010 18:37 moopie wrote: Terran would benefit the most from a time-locked gold expansion, with zerg second and protoss last, so it would be bad for balance.
A terran could build his cc by the forcefield, begin mining early (with the scvs making a longer trip), and then at 10 minutes simply lifting it over a bit (first off giving him full access as the game ticks 10:00, and allowing him to mine beforehand without 'wasting' a building). A zerg could hatch by the forcefield, and at 10 mins place a second hatch at the optimal location . This is slightly less optimal, but added hatches are usually in demand. Tosses on the other hand do not benefit from additional Nexuses (Nexii?), and it would just be a loss for them to attempt to take it a bit early by building a nexus nearby for 400.
I don't really like the idea of a Xel'Naga tower that grants vision of the opponents main, but the one with the rocks blocking the high yield minerals is pretty good. Longer distance mining the high-yield probably evens out as a regular. It probably wouldn't effect the balance too much.
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the timed force fields could work better as block to the only path to an enemy base for a "no rush (x amount of time)" map, but there's a fatal flaw to it there and on the high yield, protoss can hallucinate collosi to smash it early.
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I would like to see a map that uses cliffs surrounding a geyser with one destructible rocks blocking it off, so your main has one regular geyser and another regular geyser walled off by the rocks.
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I think the idea of the watchtowers peeking into mains is really cool. It allows for mind games by intentionally revealing tech and makes a section of the main to be less desirable to build in
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On June 09 2010 06:41 Anon06 wrote: the timed force fields could work better as block to the only path to an enemy base for a "no rush (x amount of time)" map, but there's a fatal flaw to it there and on the high yield, protoss can hallucinate collosi to smash it early.
halucinated colosi can smash!!?? can someone confirm? it dosn't queit seem balanced but protoss are the more advanced race.
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The time locked force field would be terran favored since they can prebuild CC and lift.
btw, the walled double expansion thing s actually a really good idea and it could actually be implemented in bw.
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Put a high-yield geyser in the main base blocked by a force-field mechanism that locks for 2 minutes every 4 minutes but can be constructed and mined from the rest of the time. I think this would create a really interesting mechanism and allow people to construct builds based on when they can use the high yield gas.
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