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United States4883 Posts
On March 31 2014 16:28 SiskosGoatee wrote:Show nested quote +but I still couldn't look at a map i've never seen before and make any valid observations about how balanced it is, or whether it would be interesting to play on. You somehow expect that hundreds of random people voting would be better, when people would just vote for weird, gimmicky stuff, then entire final would be maps that have no place in competitive play because they are fun, crazy maps or there would be absolutely no zany maps in the final nbecause all these "high level" master players pick maps just like the current crop of "safe" map designs. Thusfar your argument relies on the implicit assumption that those members of TL Strategy are capable of doing all that well. I urge you to reconsider that axiom because it blatantly isn't true. Did they not praise Yeonsu? One of the most imbalanced maps in a long time? Hell, in Yeonsu's own map topic there was a very hefty discussion about its balance. A lot of people there said it was a very bad map for Zerg against Terran and to a lesser extend Protoss and these 'famous mappers' would come there and debuke that with shallow arguments. Well, the people who called it imbalanced were right, the numbers are indisputable. 65% TvZ, are you kidding me? Yeonsu is more imbalanced than Daedalus point. [
I just want to make sure you realize it's not just TL Strategy that plays through these maps. We're just volunteers among different branches of TL that test them. TL Strategy is just a group of people who enjoy analysis and put out an article every once and a while...we're not like the arbiters of strategy lol. Then again, it makes sense to trust people with game analysis who do purely game analysis.
Also, within TL Strategy, we've always had a problem with the "blink ridge" on Yeonsu. Teoita literally bitches about it every time we see a blink all-in on that map. Same on Frost.
EDIT: Also, don't link yourself to the debunked "false impressions on maps" thread, it doesn't look so good.
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On March 31 2014 16:55 SC2John wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2014 16:28 SiskosGoatee wrote:but I still couldn't look at a map i've never seen before and make any valid observations about how balanced it is, or whether it would be interesting to play on. You somehow expect that hundreds of random people voting would be better, when people would just vote for weird, gimmicky stuff, then entire final would be maps that have no place in competitive play because they are fun, crazy maps or there would be absolutely no zany maps in the final nbecause all these "high level" master players pick maps just like the current crop of "safe" map designs. Thusfar your argument relies on the implicit assumption that those members of TL Strategy are capable of doing all that well. I urge you to reconsider that axiom because it blatantly isn't true. Did they not praise Yeonsu? One of the most imbalanced maps in a long time? Hell, in Yeonsu's own map topic there was a very hefty discussion about its balance. A lot of people there said it was a very bad map for Zerg against Terran and to a lesser extend Protoss and these 'famous mappers' would come there and debuke that with shallow arguments. Well, the people who called it imbalanced were right, the numbers are indisputable. 65% TvZ, are you kidding me? Yeonsu is more imbalanced than Daedalus point. I just want to make sure you realize it's not just TL Strategy that plays through these maps. We're just volunteers among different branches of TL that test them. TL Strategy is just a group of people who enjoy analysis and put out an article every once and a while...we're not like the arbiters of strategy lol. Then again, it makes sense to trust people with game analysis who do purely game analysis. It would make sense if their analysis has been proven accurate in the past, but the inverse is true.
Also, within TL Strategy, we've always had a problem with the "blink ridge" on Yeonsu. Teoita literally bitches about it every time we see a blink all-in on that map. Same on Frost.
Maybe, but the map isn't bad for Terran, it's bad for Zerg, I'm not sure what blink ridges have to do with TvZ, the main problem of the map is TvZ, to a lesser extent PvZ, the most balanced matchup, PvZ, is 56% in Protoss' favour, the old maxim is that anything within 45-55 is acceptable.
EDIT: Also, don't link yourself to the debunked "false impressions on maps" thread, it doesn't look so good. How is it debunked?
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Which jury do you think would do a better job?
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Like I said, I don't believe in juries. Ultimately someone is going to select the jury and what that will come down to is that whoever selects it will just put likeminded people in it. Juries are a pretty laughable concept in my opinion in any place. That there are even Olympic games of ice skating where who wins and loses is decided by a jury is beyond me how someone can take that seriously. You're the Olympic champion, because the jury rated you the most highly!
It's not that I don't agree with this particular jury in that I don't agree with the concept of one, especially when it's this small.
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United States7483 Posts
On March 31 2014 17:47 SiskosGoatee wrote:
Like I said, I don't believe in juries. Ultimately someone is going to select the jury and what that will come down to is that whoever selects it will just put likeminded people in it. Juries are a pretty laughable concept in my opinion in any place. That there are even Olympic games of ice skating where who wins and loses is decided by a jury is beyond me how someone can take that seriously. You're the Olympic champion, because the jury rated you the most highly!
It's not that I don't agree with this particular jury in that I don't agree with the concept of one, especially when it's this small.
What other possible method would you use for evaluating a winner?
Would you rather not have map contests at all and thus less support for mapmakers?
Surely you'd agree that some people are more likely to have a better opinion about certain things than others.
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Fighting an opinion-based battle is really just a war of attrition that you won't win. SG's first reason for not playing makes sense, but isn't really worth a blog by itself. The reasons he gives for why he believes the TLMC is a sham seem kind of petty, but not "invalid" and you're not working with something that can be concretely quantified to form a legitimate rebuttal.
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On April 01 2014 03:22 Whitewing wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2014 17:47 SiskosGoatee wrote:
Like I said, I don't believe in juries. Ultimately someone is going to select the jury and what that will come down to is that whoever selects it will just put likeminded people in it. Juries are a pretty laughable concept in my opinion in any place. That there are even Olympic games of ice skating where who wins and loses is decided by a jury is beyond me how someone can take that seriously. You're the Olympic champion, because the jury rated you the most highly!
It's not that I don't agree with this particular jury in that I don't agree with the concept of one, especially when it's this small. What other possible method would you use for evaluating a winner? Would you rather not have map contests at all and thus less support for mapmakers? Like I said, just let everyone who can prove they have an account of diamond or higher vote.
Surely you'd agree that some people are more likely to have a better opinion about certain things than others. Nope, not really, I don't buy that concept at all. All people mean when they say "You have a good opinion" is "I agree with your opinion".
People will also say what they are expected to say. The Mona Lisa was originally not considered that remarkable, then it got stolen twice and featured in the news and suddenly every art critic was all over how amazing it was. Why? Because people often confuse fame with excellence.
On April 01 2014 05:57 ninazerg wrote:
Fighting an opinion-based battle is really just a war of attrition that you won't win. SG's first reason for not playing makes sense, but isn't really worth a blog by itself. The reasons he gives for why he believes the TLMC is a sham seem kind of petty, but not "invalid" and you're not working with something that can be concretely quantified to form a legitimate rebuttal. You can argue against the jury part, but arguing against the criticism of first past the post, I really don't see how. There is no excuse for making the eventual poll first past the post, there's just no reason for it at all.
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United States7483 Posts
On April 01 2014 08:19 SiskosGoatee wrote:Show nested quote +On April 01 2014 03:22 Whitewing wrote:On March 31 2014 17:47 SiskosGoatee wrote:
Like I said, I don't believe in juries. Ultimately someone is going to select the jury and what that will come down to is that whoever selects it will just put likeminded people in it. Juries are a pretty laughable concept in my opinion in any place. That there are even Olympic games of ice skating where who wins and loses is decided by a jury is beyond me how someone can take that seriously. You're the Olympic champion, because the jury rated you the most highly!
It's not that I don't agree with this particular jury in that I don't agree with the concept of one, especially when it's this small. What other possible method would you use for evaluating a winner? Would you rather not have map contests at all and thus less support for mapmakers? Like I said, just let everyone who can prove they have an account of diamond or higher vote. Show nested quote +Surely you'd agree that some people are more likely to have a better opinion about certain things than others. Nope, not really, I don't buy that concept at all. All people mean when they say "You have a good opinion" is "I agree with your opinion". People will also say what they are expected to say. The Mona Lisa was originally not considered that remarkable, then it got stolen twice and featured in the news and suddenly every art critic was all over how amazing it was. Why? Because people often confuse fame with excellence. Show nested quote +On April 01 2014 05:57 ninazerg wrote:
Fighting an opinion-based battle is really just a war of attrition that you won't win. SG's first reason for not playing makes sense, but isn't really worth a blog by itself. The reasons he gives for why he believes the TLMC is a sham seem kind of petty, but not "invalid" and you're not working with something that can be concretely quantified to form a legitimate rebuttal. You can argue against the jury part, but arguing against the criticism of first past the post, I really don't see how. There is no excuse for making the eventual poll first past the post, there's just no reason for it at all.
Diamond is insufficient. I know people who got into GM doing nothing but six pool or proxy 2 gate who couldn't tell you anything at all about map balance. The people who get asked for their opinion are generally people who have demonstrated some level of knowledge about the game, and even their opinions are not sacred. There's a lot of discussion and disagreements going on before the final decisions are made. Sometimes you just have to accept that letting a few more qualified people make decisions is superior to letting a far larger group of substantially less qualified people make the decision.
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I usually understand your critics on a fundamental level, but you lost me with your third point.
Of course you can manipulate the voting to some degree as a judge, I'd say that is even your job. Yes, New Polaris Rhapsody won because it had a feature that was so catching that many felt like "it was more unorthodox". But I don't see your point, it is not that we had a bunch of Whirlwind and Daybreak clones and New Polaris Rhapsody. There were some really experimental things around. And I don't see how the judges influenced that. Compared to the amount of standard maps around for the TLMC, they picked the most unorthodox.
Anyways, this is something I rather understand:
1. - I won't win, let's be honest.
2. - I don't make a lot of non 2 player maps and if I make them the spawn positions tend to be locked cross. I don't like spawn and scouting randomness.
Yup, probably noone that isn't on a mapmaking team will win, for one reason or another.
And yes, I see your point about scouting on 4player maps. Also, they tend to always be the exact same: 3-4 bases tucked in the 4corners on a massive plane to create the needed rushdistance. And half of the time they still get turned into 2player maps.
Kudos to Frost for making it work with mirror symmetry (which was the obvious challenge left for 4p maps).
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On April 01 2014 16:51 Whitewing wrote:Show nested quote +On April 01 2014 08:19 SiskosGoatee wrote:On April 01 2014 03:22 Whitewing wrote:On March 31 2014 17:47 SiskosGoatee wrote:
Like I said, I don't believe in juries. Ultimately someone is going to select the jury and what that will come down to is that whoever selects it will just put likeminded people in it. Juries are a pretty laughable concept in my opinion in any place. That there are even Olympic games of ice skating where who wins and loses is decided by a jury is beyond me how someone can take that seriously. You're the Olympic champion, because the jury rated you the most highly!
It's not that I don't agree with this particular jury in that I don't agree with the concept of one, especially when it's this small. What other possible method would you use for evaluating a winner? Would you rather not have map contests at all and thus less support for mapmakers? Like I said, just let everyone who can prove they have an account of diamond or higher vote. Surely you'd agree that some people are more likely to have a better opinion about certain things than others. Nope, not really, I don't buy that concept at all. All people mean when they say "You have a good opinion" is "I agree with your opinion". People will also say what they are expected to say. The Mona Lisa was originally not considered that remarkable, then it got stolen twice and featured in the news and suddenly every art critic was all over how amazing it was. Why? Because people often confuse fame with excellence. On April 01 2014 05:57 ninazerg wrote:
Fighting an opinion-based battle is really just a war of attrition that you won't win. SG's first reason for not playing makes sense, but isn't really worth a blog by itself. The reasons he gives for why he believes the TLMC is a sham seem kind of petty, but not "invalid" and you're not working with something that can be concretely quantified to form a legitimate rebuttal. You can argue against the jury part, but arguing against the criticism of first past the post, I really don't see how. There is no excuse for making the eventual poll first past the post, there's just no reason for it at all. Diamond is insufficient. I know people who got into GM doing nothing but six pool or proxy 2 gate who couldn't tell you anything at all about map balance. There are also people who got to GM doing nothing but CC first, cheesing in the other direction. In fact, I know many people who got to GM playing only one race and don't know shit about the other 6 matchups, and have a biased perspective on 2 of the 3 they do play. But hey, that's why others can vote to, to hopefully cancel this out.
I think it's a bigger problem that people who only play one race vote than that people in lower leagues vote honestly. Bias is a bigger problem than playing skill. Would you want Avilo to be a member of a 3 man jury?
The people who get asked for their opinion are generally people who have demonstrated some level of knowledge about the game, and even their opinions are not sacred. There's a lot of discussion and disagreements going on before the final decisions are made. Sometimes you just have to accept that letting a few more qualified people make decisions is superior to letting a far larger group of substantially less qualified people make the decision. I don't think their opinion is any better than that of a random master league player in the end. The fact that they debate amongst each other shows they aren't experts. The thing with experts is that experts tend to agree. You can't both be experts on something and disagree with each other. That makes no sense. If it's anything more than subjective (which it isn't) and two experts disagree, then one (or both) of the experts is wrong and you can't really call it an expert any more can you?
The point is, there is nothing objective about it which what people seem to think, it's purely subjective. A good map is in the eye of the beholder, nothing more. Winrates are objective, and you can argue maps should be around 45-55 in all matchups, but that's about it.
On April 01 2014 17:15 Big J wrote:
I usually understand your critics on a fundamental level, but you lost me with your third point.
Of course you can manipulate the voting to some degree as a judge, I'd say that is even your job. Yes, New Polaris Rhapsody won because it had a feature that was so catching that many felt like "it was more unorthodox". But I don't see your point, it is not that we had a bunch of Whirlwind and Daybreak clones and New Polaris Rhapsody. There were some really experimental things around. And I don't see how the judges influenced that. Compared to the amount of standard maps around for the TLMC, they picked the most unorthodox. I don't see how you can argue in favour of first past-the-post there's really no argument in favour of this election system, it's flawed in every way and a Borda Count is better in every single way.
Anyways, this is something I rather understand: Show nested quote +1. - I won't win, let's be honest.
2. - I don't make a lot of non 2 player maps and if I make them the spawn positions tend to be locked cross. I don't like spawn and scouting randomness. Yup, probably noone that isn't on a mapmaking team will win, for one reason or another.
- Aggression disallowed
- Super easy natural and third
- PvP as a mirror will be considered.
- ZvZ and TvT as a mirror won't be (TvT doesn't really need to be because unlike PvP and ZvZ it doesn't depend on particular natural/main layouts)
And yes, I see your point about scouting on 4player maps. Also, they tend to always be the exact same: 3-4 bases tucked in the 4corners on a massive plane to create the needed rushdistance. And half of the time they still get turned into 2player maps.
Kudos to Frost for making it work with mirror symmetry (which was the obvious challenge left for 4p maps). Yap, they're all alike, and they're also simply assymetric maps with spawn favouratism in play, one player will get to expand away from the opponent, the other towards the opponent. I like axial 4 player maps more because at least they are fair, I like locked spawn maps which are 2-in-1 the most though and I made a fair bunch of those.
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On April 01 2014 18:05 SiskosGoatee wrote:Show nested quote +On April 01 2014 17:15 Big J wrote:
I usually understand your critics on a fundamental level, but you lost me with your third point.
Of course you can manipulate the voting to some degree as a judge, I'd say that is even your job. Yes, New Polaris Rhapsody won because it had a feature that was so catching that many felt like "it was more unorthodox". But I don't see your point, it is not that we had a bunch of Whirlwind and Daybreak clones and New Polaris Rhapsody. There were some really experimental things around. And I don't see how the judges influenced that. Compared to the amount of standard maps around for the TLMC, they picked the most unorthodox. I don't see how you can argue in favour of first past-the-post there's really no argument in favour of this election system, it's flawed in every way and a Borda Count is better in every single way.
It makes sense to have a jury preselect maps to vote upon, because the average voter will only look at the maps in the thread for a max of 1-2 minutes (if even) before deciding. They won't think through every possible gamebreaking situation. They read "raising lava" get excited and click it, not thinking about how boring it is too watch players wait for the lava to disappear again.
It's a good way to get a large amount of the community into the discussion
Show nested quote +Anyways, this is something I rather understand: 1. - I won't win, let's be honest.
2. - I don't make a lot of non 2 player maps and if I make them the spawn positions tend to be locked cross. I don't like spawn and scouting randomness. Yup, probably noone that isn't on a mapmaking team will win, for one reason or another. I don't know about that, I think someone not on a team will stand a chance of getting in the finals but it would still have to be a map that is bog standard and appeals to the jury with its typical rules of: - Aggression disallowed - Super easy natural and third - PvP as a mirror will be considered. - ZvZ and TvT as a mirror won't be (TvT doesn't really need to be because unlike PvP and ZvZ it doesn't depend on particular natural/main layouts)
Maybe not on a team, but I think you have to be quite respected for your previous works to be considered. There is probably not going to be a "first time map" in the finals, no matter how good it might be.
And then you lose me again:
Also, if you want to watch aggression... just tune into the proleague games these days. I don't know what more aggression you want, most of the games today were terribly enough already. Lots of aggression possible - on the "super easy natural and third" bases we have and the "aggression dissallowed" setups.
And I'm sure all mirrors are considered. But if you consider PvP, and the nonmirrors, all the other mirror's problems will be dealt with partly as well. (and of course TvT depends on particular layouts too. You are not going to stop a 1-1-1 push with an expansion build if you get some amazing siege locations. Or get up a far away fas expansion against banshees)
Show nested quote +And yes, I see your point about scouting on 4player maps. Also, they tend to always be the exact same: 3-4 bases tucked in the 4corners on a massive plane to create the needed rushdistance. And half of the time they still get turned into 2player maps.
Kudos to Frost for making it work with mirror symmetry (which was the obvious challenge left for 4p maps). Yap, they're all alike, and they're also simply assymetric maps with spawn favouratism in play, one player will get to expand away from the opponent, the other towards the opponent. I like axial 4 player maps more because at least they are fair, I like locked spawn maps which are 2-in-1 the most though and I made a fair bunch of those.
My main beef with 4player maps is that - as you say - the rotational symmetric maps are just "imbalanced" and the imbalance simply gets made up by making the distances so long that it doesn't matter. So in the end you just have lots of dead space on those maps. And you could have made the exact same spawn setup with a 2player map, but with interesting 4th, 5th and 6th bases instead of having players eventually put a base into another corner.
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On April 01 2014 20:58 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On April 01 2014 18:05 SiskosGoatee wrote:On April 01 2014 17:15 Big J wrote:
I usually understand your critics on a fundamental level, but you lost me with your third point.
Of course you can manipulate the voting to some degree as a judge, I'd say that is even your job. Yes, New Polaris Rhapsody won because it had a feature that was so catching that many felt like "it was more unorthodox". But I don't see your point, it is not that we had a bunch of Whirlwind and Daybreak clones and New Polaris Rhapsody. There were some really experimental things around. And I don't see how the judges influenced that. Compared to the amount of standard maps around for the TLMC, they picked the most unorthodox. I don't see how you can argue in favour of first past-the-post there's really no argument in favour of this election system, it's flawed in every way and a Borda Count is better in every single way. It makes sense to have a jury preselect maps to vote upon, because the average voter will only look at the maps in the thread for a max of 1-2 minutes (if even) before deciding. They won't think through every possible gamebreaking situation. They read "raising lava" get excited and click it, not thinking about how boring it is too watch players wait for the lava to disappear again. It's a good way to get a large amount of the community into the discussion You know this has nothing to do with first-past-the-post right? Do you even know what first-past-the-post means?
Maybe not on a team, but I think you have to be quite respected for your previous works to be considered. There is probably not going to be a "first time map" in the finals, no matter how good it might be.
I don't know, there have been cases of very unknown mappers breaking out with these tournaments. But yeah, it probably helps that you have friends.
And then you lose me again:
Also, if you want to watch aggression... just tune into the proleague games these days. I don't know what more aggression you want, most of the games today were terribly enough already. Lots of aggression possible - on the "super easy natural and third" bases we have and the "aggression dissallowed" setups. I really don't see it. I remember the days when speedling expand was a staple build, when Terran would apply 2rax marauder pressure on protoss as a staple and protoss would go 2-3 gate pressure in response, the naturals of the time and lack of photon overcharge allowed that, not any more sadly.
And I'm sure all mirrors are considered. But if you consider PvP, and the nonmirrors, all the other mirror's problems will be dealt with partly as well. (and of course TvT depends on particular layouts too. You are not going to stop a 1-1-1 push with an expansion build if you get some amazing siege locations. Or get up a far away fas expansion against banshees) I'm fairly certain they aren't. The complete lack of knowledge about ZvZ in most of the mapping community is evident. Because no mapper plays Zerg for some reason, the majority of them plays Protoss, some Terran, never met one playing Zerg and this bias does show. The only thing they seem to know about Zerg is the typical stuff of chokes and rusn/distance which isn't nearly as important in for instance allowing certain walloffs against hellions to be constructed with evo chambers but that stuff isn't considered. You see mappers be heavily invested into making the natural wallable for Protoss in PvZ but neglecting that Zerg needs creep to wall against hellions with evo chambers and the choke is often too far removed from the hatch to allow this. Mappers also quite often completely neglect the amount of creep tumours that are needed to connect main and natural.
My main beef with 4player maps is that - as you say - the rotational symmetric maps are just "imbalanced" and the imbalance simply gets made up by making the distances so long that it doesn't matter. So in the end you just have lots of dead space on those maps. And you could have made the exact same spawn setup with a 2player map, but with interesting 4th, 5th and 6th bases instead of having players eventually put a base into another corner.
I don't think making distance longer makes the imbalance not matter. I mean, like in TvT even in Alterzim, you want to spawn so that you can easily drop the natural of your opponent from your main, not in reverse, being able to drop the main from your natural. The opopnent's army is typically situated at the third and can easily defend the main if you drop there, there is also typically less space to drop that spot and it's easier to shield it with turrets. All these things do matter a lot.
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United States7483 Posts
On April 01 2014 18:05 SiskosGoatee wrote:Show nested quote +On April 01 2014 16:51 Whitewing wrote:On April 01 2014 08:19 SiskosGoatee wrote:On April 01 2014 03:22 Whitewing wrote:On March 31 2014 17:47 SiskosGoatee wrote:
Like I said, I don't believe in juries. Ultimately someone is going to select the jury and what that will come down to is that whoever selects it will just put likeminded people in it. Juries are a pretty laughable concept in my opinion in any place. That there are even Olympic games of ice skating where who wins and loses is decided by a jury is beyond me how someone can take that seriously. You're the Olympic champion, because the jury rated you the most highly!
It's not that I don't agree with this particular jury in that I don't agree with the concept of one, especially when it's this small. What other possible method would you use for evaluating a winner? Would you rather not have map contests at all and thus less support for mapmakers? Like I said, just let everyone who can prove they have an account of diamond or higher vote. Surely you'd agree that some people are more likely to have a better opinion about certain things than others. Nope, not really, I don't buy that concept at all. All people mean when they say "You have a good opinion" is "I agree with your opinion". People will also say what they are expected to say. The Mona Lisa was originally not considered that remarkable, then it got stolen twice and featured in the news and suddenly every art critic was all over how amazing it was. Why? Because people often confuse fame with excellence. On April 01 2014 05:57 ninazerg wrote:
Fighting an opinion-based battle is really just a war of attrition that you won't win. SG's first reason for not playing makes sense, but isn't really worth a blog by itself. The reasons he gives for why he believes the TLMC is a sham seem kind of petty, but not "invalid" and you're not working with something that can be concretely quantified to form a legitimate rebuttal. You can argue against the jury part, but arguing against the criticism of first past the post, I really don't see how. There is no excuse for making the eventual poll first past the post, there's just no reason for it at all. Diamond is insufficient. I know people who got into GM doing nothing but six pool or proxy 2 gate who couldn't tell you anything at all about map balance. There are also people who got to GM doing nothing but CC first, cheesing in the other direction. In fact, I know many people who got to GM playing only one race and don't know shit about the other 6 matchups, and have a biased perspective on 2 of the 3 they do play. But hey, that's why others can vote to, to hopefully cancel this out. I think it's a bigger problem that people who only play one race vote than that people in lower leagues vote honestly. Bias is a bigger problem than playing skill. Would you want Avilo to be a member of a 3 man jury? Show nested quote +The people who get asked for their opinion are generally people who have demonstrated some level of knowledge about the game, and even their opinions are not sacred. There's a lot of discussion and disagreements going on before the final decisions are made. Sometimes you just have to accept that letting a few more qualified people make decisions is superior to letting a far larger group of substantially less qualified people make the decision. I don't think their opinion is any better than that of a random master league player in the end. The fact that they debate amongst each other shows they aren't experts. The thing with experts is that experts tend to agree. You can't both be experts on something and disagree with each other. That makes no sense. If it's anything more than subjective (which it isn't) and two experts disagree, then one (or both) of the experts is wrong and you can't really call it an expert any more can you? The point is, there is nothing objective about it which what people seem to think, it's purely subjective. A good map is in the eye of the beholder, nothing more. Winrates are objective, and you can argue maps should be around 45-55 in all matchups, but that's about it. Show nested quote +On April 01 2014 17:15 Big J wrote:
I usually understand your critics on a fundamental level, but you lost me with your third point.
Of course you can manipulate the voting to some degree as a judge, I'd say that is even your job. Yes, New Polaris Rhapsody won because it had a feature that was so catching that many felt like "it was more unorthodox". But I don't see your point, it is not that we had a bunch of Whirlwind and Daybreak clones and New Polaris Rhapsody. There were some really experimental things around. And I don't see how the judges influenced that. Compared to the amount of standard maps around for the TLMC, they picked the most unorthodox. I don't see how you can argue in favour of first past-the-post there's really no argument in favour of this election system, it's flawed in every way and a Borda Count is better in every single way. Show nested quote +Anyways, this is something I rather understand: 1. - I won't win, let's be honest.
2. - I don't make a lot of non 2 player maps and if I make them the spawn positions tend to be locked cross. I don't like spawn and scouting randomness. Yup, probably noone that isn't on a mapmaking team will win, for one reason or another. I don't know about that, I think someone not on a team will stand a chance of getting in the finals but it would still have to be a map that is bog standard and appeals to the jury with its typical rules of: - Aggression disallowed - Super easy natural and third - PvP as a mirror will be considered. - ZvZ and TvT as a mirror won't be (TvT doesn't really need to be because unlike PvP and ZvZ it doesn't depend on particular natural/main layouts) Show nested quote +And yes, I see your point about scouting on 4player maps. Also, they tend to always be the exact same: 3-4 bases tucked in the 4corners on a massive plane to create the needed rushdistance. And half of the time they still get turned into 2player maps.
Kudos to Frost for making it work with mirror symmetry (which was the obvious challenge left for 4p maps). Yap, they're all alike, and they're also simply assymetric maps with spawn favouratism in play, one player will get to expand away from the opponent, the other towards the opponent. I like axial 4 player maps more because at least they are fair, I like locked spawn maps which are 2-in-1 the most though and I made a fair bunch of those.
You lost me when you called CC first cheese, it's quite standard and very safe much of the time. I've seen CC first builds hold early aggression easily from zerg and protoss no problem, including 6 pools.
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Italy12246 Posts
On April 01 2014 18:05 SiskosGoatee wrote:
The thing with experts is that experts tend to agree. You can't both be experts on something and disagree with each other. That makes no sense.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_quantum_mechanics
The people cited there are among the brightest physicists of the 20th century.
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On April 02 2014 02:45 SiskosGoatee wrote:Show nested quote +On April 01 2014 20:58 Big J wrote:On April 01 2014 18:05 SiskosGoatee wrote:On April 01 2014 17:15 Big J wrote:
I usually understand your critics on a fundamental level, but you lost me with your third point.
Of course you can manipulate the voting to some degree as a judge, I'd say that is even your job. Yes, New Polaris Rhapsody won because it had a feature that was so catching that many felt like "it was more unorthodox". But I don't see your point, it is not that we had a bunch of Whirlwind and Daybreak clones and New Polaris Rhapsody. There were some really experimental things around. And I don't see how the judges influenced that. Compared to the amount of standard maps around for the TLMC, they picked the most unorthodox. I don't see how you can argue in favour of first past-the-post there's really no argument in favour of this election system, it's flawed in every way and a Borda Count is better in every single way. It makes sense to have a jury preselect maps to vote upon, because the average voter will only look at the maps in the thread for a max of 1-2 minutes (if even) before deciding. They won't think through every possible gamebreaking situation. They read "raising lava" get excited and click it, not thinking about how boring it is too watch players wait for the lava to disappear again. It's a good way to get a large amount of the community into the discussion You know this has nothing to do with first-past-the-post right? Do you even know what first-past-the-post means?
Sorry, didn't read it too carefully. yeah, other voting systems should always be considered. Though, in my opinion this is rather a philosophical question.
Show nested quote +
Maybe not on a team, but I think you have to be quite respected for your previous works to be considered. There is probably not going to be a "first time map" in the finals, no matter how good it might be.
I don't know, there have been cases of very unknown mappers breaking out with these tournaments. But yeah, it probably helps that you have friends. Show nested quote +And then you lose me again:
Also, if you want to watch aggression... just tune into the proleague games these days. I don't know what more aggression you want, most of the games today were terribly enough already. Lots of aggression possible - on the "super easy natural and third" bases we have and the "aggression dissallowed" setups. I really don't see it. I remember the days when speedling expand was a staple build, when Terran would apply 2rax marauder pressure on protoss as a staple and protoss would go 2-3 gate pressure in response, the naturals of the time and lack of photon overcharge allowed that, not any more sadly.
Well, if you don't see the aggression when Maru does a 1-1-1 drop into expand, a proxy 2rax and a 1-1-1 drop into cloak banshee until he loses to a proxy oracle rush, then I don't know what sort of aggression you expect.
You are not going to get speedling expands back. Speedling expands in PvZ were mostly defensive builds, setting you up to hold a 1base 4gate. When those rushes died, the speedling expands weren't necessary anymore and died soon after. Also speedling expand is basically an autoloss these days when the Protoss goes FFE and scouts the gas, because he can just react with a fast Immortal/Sentry build and (on the highest level where hardly FF mistakes happen) you are not going to get enough economy up to hold it.
Maps have something to do with such builds not being viable anymore. But more than that, the game got figured out and patched too.
Show nested quote +And I'm sure all mirrors are considered. But if you consider PvP, and the nonmirrors, all the other mirror's problems will be dealt with partly as well. (and of course TvT depends on particular layouts too. You are not going to stop a 1-1-1 push with an expansion build if you get some amazing siege locations. Or get up a far away fas expansion against banshees) I'm fairly certain they aren't. The complete lack of knowledge about ZvZ in most of the mapping community is evident. Because no mapper plays Zerg for some reason, the majority of them plays Protoss, some Terran, never met one playing Zerg and this bias does show. The only thing they seem to know about Zerg is the typical stuff of chokes and rusn/distance which isn't nearly as important in for instance allowing certain walloffs against hellions to be constructed with evo chambers but that stuff isn't considered. You see mappers be heavily invested into making the natural wallable for Protoss in PvZ but neglecting that Zerg needs creep to wall against hellions with evo chambers and the choke is often too far removed from the hatch to allow this. Mappers also quite often completely neglect the amount of creep tumours that are needed to connect main and natural.
You don't need those walls as zerg. I main zerg. It's nice if you can wall, but you don't need to and most of the time you want to spend your money on a third before the wall is up, so at the most crucial time you are not going to have it anyways.
Though it's great in ZvZ, I agree, and I wish mapmakers would consider that more, so that those speedling gambles on first or second inject can be dealt with easier.
My main beef with 4player maps is that - as you say - the rotational symmetric maps are just "imbalanced" and the imbalance simply gets made up by making the distances so long that it doesn't matter. So in the end you just have lots of dead space on those maps. And you could have made the exact same spawn setup with a 2player map, but with interesting 4th, 5th and 6th bases instead of having players eventually put a base into another corner.
I don't think making distance longer makes the imbalance not matter. I mean, like in TvT even in Alterzim, you want to spawn so that you can easily drop the natural of your opponent from your main, not in reverse, being able to drop the main from your natural. The opopnent's army is typically situated at the third and can easily defend the main if you drop there, there is also typically less space to drop that spot and it's easier to shield it with turrets. All these things do matter a lot.
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True, but it's tiny compared to imbalances like having half the rush distance from the main/natural production to the enemy third than vis verca.
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No one is then again an "expert" on interpretations of quantum mechanics. It has nothing to do with physics. Physics = mathematics, interpretations of said mathematics is just trying to give numbers, and vector fields a "picture" and it goes beyond the domain of physics. It's appropriately called metaphysics and really not that interesting. No paper has ever been accepted in a peer reviewed journal that handles 'interpretations of quantum mechanics" because it's simply put aesthetic reasoning. People have opinions about it, nothing more. Hell, I have my own opinion about it, I side with Feynman in the "shut up and calculate" camp, that I'm far less of an expert than all those people in fact does not make my opinion less invalid, because that's all it is, an opinion. It's like saying "what is your favourite boson?", everyone with a rudimentary education in quantum physics can answer that and how much of an expert you are in it hardly validates or invalidates your opinion.
On April 02 2014 03:51 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2014 02:45 SiskosGoatee wrote:On April 01 2014 20:58 Big J wrote:On April 01 2014 18:05 SiskosGoatee wrote:On April 01 2014 17:15 Big J wrote:
I usually understand your critics on a fundamental level, but you lost me with your third point.
Of course you can manipulate the voting to some degree as a judge, I'd say that is even your job. Yes, New Polaris Rhapsody won because it had a feature that was so catching that many felt like "it was more unorthodox". But I don't see your point, it is not that we had a bunch of Whirlwind and Daybreak clones and New Polaris Rhapsody. There were some really experimental things around. And I don't see how the judges influenced that. Compared to the amount of standard maps around for the TLMC, they picked the most unorthodox. I don't see how you can argue in favour of first past-the-post there's really no argument in favour of this election system, it's flawed in every way and a Borda Count is better in every single way. It makes sense to have a jury preselect maps to vote upon, because the average voter will only look at the maps in the thread for a max of 1-2 minutes (if even) before deciding. They won't think through every possible gamebreaking situation. They read "raising lava" get excited and click it, not thinking about how boring it is too watch players wait for the lava to disappear again. It's a good way to get a large amount of the community into the discussion You know this has nothing to do with first-past-the-post right? Do you even know what first-past-the-post means? Sorry, didn't read it too carefully. yeah, other voting systems should always be considered. Though, in my opinion this is rather a philosophical question. Show nested quote +
Maybe not on a team, but I think you have to be quite respected for your previous works to be considered. There is probably not going to be a "first time map" in the finals, no matter how good it might be.
I don't know, there have been cases of very unknown mappers breaking out with these tournaments. But yeah, it probably helps that you have friends. And then you lose me again:
Also, if you want to watch aggression... just tune into the proleague games these days. I don't know what more aggression you want, most of the games today were terribly enough already. Lots of aggression possible - on the "super easy natural and third" bases we have and the "aggression dissallowed" setups. I really don't see it. I remember the days when speedling expand was a staple build, when Terran would apply 2rax marauder pressure on protoss as a staple and protoss would go 2-3 gate pressure in response, the naturals of the time and lack of photon overcharge allowed that, not any more sadly. Well, if you don't see the aggression when Maru does a 1-1-1 drop into expand, a proxy 2rax and a 1-1-1 drop into cloak banshee until he loses to a proxy oracle rush, then I don't know what sort of aggression you expect. Something that doesn't require Artosis and Tasteless to discuss their favourite films for the first 6 minutes of the game would be a start. The reason they talk about this stuff is because quite veritably nothing is going on.
You are not going to get speedling expands back. Speedling expands in PvZ were mostly defensive builds, setting you up to hold a 1base 4gate. I disagree, speedling expands were a way to delay the protoss expand as well and put pressure on that. On those old naturals you can't just do a 1 gate expand if Zerg has speed, you can't wall it off in time. Back in the days you would scout at 9 against Zerg, both against 7pools and to know if gas was taken, because you needed to react to that. The game was much more reactionary and your gameplan unfolded as a reaction to what your opponent did, nowadays people have their stuff planned up to 30 supply or something, it's boring to play, and boring to play against. If I want that I might as well play against the AI.
When those rushes died, the speedling expands weren't necessary anymore and died soon after. I disagree, they died once you could wall a natural with 3 buildings and forge expands became common since they served no use any more in delaying the protoss expand.
Also speedling expand is basically an autoloss these days when the Protoss goes FFE and scouts the gas, because he can just react with a fast Immortal/Sentry build and (on the highest level where hardly FF mistakes happen) you are not going to get enough economy up to hold it. Yes, they are now that a natural can be easily walled completely tight. If you're forced to wall with a nexus wall against a speedling expand it becomes a different story.
Consider that speedling expands came back again on deadalus point, you could delay your opponent's expand so extremely long with a speedling expand. In fact, you still can with the new wall but now it's a gamble. If your opponent FFE's and hard walls at the front immediately speedling expand is a waste. If your opponent plans for a 1gate expand and you speedling expand you make 12 lings and you cancel the natural, the wall can't be put up in time at the front. As it stands a hard wall FFE at the front is rare so I always speedling expand on Daedalus.
[quote
You don't need those walls as zerg. I main zerg. It's nice if you can wall, but you don't need to and most of the time you want to spend your money on a third before the wall is up, so at the most crucial time you are not going to have it anyways.
Though it's great in ZvZ, I agree, and I wish mapmakers would consider that more, so that those speedling gambles on first or second inject can be dealt with easier.[/quote]You don't per se need them no, and you don't need them in TvZ, or PvZ as a hard rule either. But mapmakers aren't even considering it while they are considering all the luxuries of Protoss for some reason. The reason is obvious, they play protoss, and not Zerg so they don't have experience with creep tumour locations and all that stuff, you really don't think about that until you've played it.
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Yes, deadalus point. That's exactly the issue. It was a broken map because it wasn't tight. Protoss got a few wins with cheeses, but the stats were pretty onesided.
What you want is aggressive openings that can't fall behind but can also win the game if the opponent makes a tiny mistake to be viable. We already have PvP (and to a certain extend early ZvZ) for that. It's bad enough.
And to talk a bit history:
Gateway expands fell out of style because they weren't good enough anymore. People 3gate expanded with tight and not so tight naturals back in 2010/early 2011. But for some reasons (like roach/ling; like just better zerg defense in general; like the extra 20seconds on warp gate...) they started to go FFE instead. They still could have 3gate expanded, but they didn't because the build wasn't good enough. And that's when speedling expands started dying as well.
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On April 02 2014 04:48 Big J wrote:
Yes, deadalus point. That's exactly the issue. It was a broken map because it wasn't tight. Protoss got a few wins with cheeses, but the stats were pretty onesided. Nonense, there were a plethora of reasons, also let us not fail to consider that both TvP and TvZ had worse numbers on that map than PvZ. PvZ was actually the most balanced matchup on that map. TvP was the biggest offender,I think it was 80% at one point.
However, it's hardly fair to say the imbalance of deadalus point is because of the natural, given that there were so many other things weird about that map. The rush distance was extremely short, the map was needlessly open, the third was needlessly open, so was the fourth. Also note that PvZ winrates on the old incarnation of that map were comparable to derelict watcher which did have a closed natural.
What you want is aggressive openings that can't fall behind but can also win the game if the opponent makes a tiny mistake to be viable. We already have PvP (and to a certain extend early ZvZ) for that. It's bad enough. Yeah, mistakes being punished. ZvZ is the only matchup in the game currently for me which has any sembalance of strategy in the early game going on. All other matchups are just blind build order poker. ZvZ forces you to react to your opponent because if you don't, you die. If you just blindly do your build in ZvZ you don't die vs 'some builds' like it's in all the other matchups, you die vs almost any build. The margins of error are so tight that you are forced to play reactively.
And to talk a bit history:
Gateway expands fell out of style because they weren't good enough anymore. People 3gate expanded with tight and not so tight naturals back in 2010/early 2011. But for some reasons (like roach/ling; like just better zerg defense in general; like the extra 20seconds on warp gate...) they started to go FFE instead. They still could have 3gate expanded, but they didn't because the build wasn't good enough. And that's when speedling expands started dying as well. They weren't good because they had no advantage any more, they weren't needed to secure a natural so why would you? It's obvious that forge FE gives you a greater macro setup than 2-3gate sentry expand so why would you do the latter if the former is also safe? Zerg in response went gasless because speedling expand became useless and the pace of the game was significantly slowed down. This was at its height during certain times in WoL where the standard PvZ was Forge FE vs gasless 3hatch, tasteless and artosis spent 12 minutes talking about their favourite films and then eventually it got followed up by a 2base all in from protoss and the game was over.
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On April 02 2014 14:25 SiskosGoatee wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2014 04:48 Big J wrote:
Yes, deadalus point. That's exactly the issue. It was a broken map because it wasn't tight. Protoss got a few wins with cheeses, but the stats were pretty onesided. Nonense, there were a plethora of reasons, also let us not fail to consider that both TvP and TvZ had worse numbers on that map than PvZ. PvZ was actually the most balanced matchup on that map. TvP was the biggest offender,I think it was 80% at one point. However, it's hardly fair to say the imbalance of deadalus point is because of the natural, given that there were so many other things weird about that map. The rush distance was extremely short, the map was needlessly open, the third was needlessly open, so was the fourth. Also note that PvZ winrates on the old incarnation of that map were comparable to derelict watcher which did have a closed natural.
Yes, the stats were like:
65% ZvT
65% ZvP
80% TvP
After they patched it they are roughly:
40% ZvT
50% ZvP
60% TvP
The rush distance is fairly normal. Without checking, I'd say Yeonsu and Heavy Rain are shorter. The map is not "needlessly open". A map does not have to be "needlessly closed" apart from some bases. It's probably going to end up with Protoss having small disadavantages in the midgame, but nothing as big like not being able to FFE/1gate expand.
To your comparison: Derelicted wasn't Protoss-friendly, but 55:45 (in both matchups according to TLPD) is by far better than the 65% of DP.
Show nested quote +What you want is aggressive openings that can't fall behind but can also win the game if the opponent makes a tiny mistake to be viable. We already have PvP (and to a certain extend early ZvZ) for that. It's bad enough. Yeah, mistakes being punished. ZvZ is the only matchup in the game currently for me which has any sembalance of strategy in the early game going on. All other matchups are just blind build order poker. ZvZ forces you to react to your opponent because if you don't, you die. If you just blindly do your build in ZvZ you don't die vs 'some builds' like it's in all the other matchups, you die vs almost any build. The margins of error are so tight that you are forced to play reactively.
OK; I really need to know how you play reactive in early ZvZ, because me and all other Zergs in the world like Soulkey have been struggling there to see inside eggs before they have even been queued. Like, a very common rush in ZvZ is to make only speed zerglings on your first or second inject. Meanwhile the opponent has to build units as well (or he is losing way too much larva spawn time/mining time). But how does he know what he has to react to, when at best he sees a bunch of eggs and that his opponent has mined 100gas or more and it could be all drones.
You can't play reactive to that kind of stuff, because you have to make decisions before you know what the opponent is doing. You either prepare blindly for such a rush after scouting a gas and you get ahead if you do, or you don't and you fall behind/die when he is commiting. And similarily with baneling rushes.
Show nested quote +And to talk a bit history:
Gateway expands fell out of style because they weren't good enough anymore. People 3gate expanded with tight and not so tight naturals back in 2010/early 2011. But for some reasons (like roach/ling; like just better zerg defense in general; like the extra 20seconds on warp gate...) they started to go FFE instead. They still could have 3gate expanded, but they didn't because the build wasn't good enough. And that's when speedling expands started dying as well. They weren't good because they had no advantage any more, they weren't needed to secure a natural so why would you? It's obvious that forge FE gives you a greater macro setup than 2-3gate sentry expand so why would you do the latter if the former is also safe? Zerg in response went gasless because speedling expand became useless and the pace of the game was significantly slowed down. This was at its height during certain times in WoL where the standard PvZ was Forge FE vs gasless 3hatch, tasteless and artosis spent 12 minutes talking about their favourite films and then eventually it got followed up by a 2base all in from protoss and the game was over.
Yes, exactly. Protoss didn't 3gate expand anymore. Because the build had gotten figured out and Protoss were struggling with Zerg builds of that time. That's why they FFE'd whenever possible and the maps got changed so that Protoss could do so on every map, because without it they were in trouble - since, as I already said, gateway expands had been figured out.
Yes, WoL PvZ was a boring matchup, but I don't know why you bring that up, that lies far in the past now. HotS PvZ has gateway expands again with a variety of offensive builds, ranging from light pressure builds (like MsC/Stalker/Zealot pokes), up to plain 7min 4gate semiallins. And unlike ZvZ, in ZvP the Protoss builds are actually scoutable and you don't have to plainly gamble on what your opponent is doing.
The only HotS matchup that you can be somewhat certain off what your opponent is doing is ZvT. Seeing how it is considered quite great and still features a lot of interaction (reapers/hellions; possibly banshees from the Terrans side; queens/zerglings, possibly roaches from the Zergs side) I'd even go as far as to say that in general people prefer to see somewhat generic, easily scoutable aggression, than having to react to things that can be easily missed in the early game.
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On April 02 2014 16:00 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +What you want is aggressive openings that can't fall behind but can also win the game if the opponent makes a tiny mistake to be viable. We already have PvP (and to a certain extend early ZvZ) for that. It's bad enough. Yeah, mistakes being punished. ZvZ is the only matchup in the game currently for me which has any sembalance of strategy in the early game going on. All other matchups are just blind build order poker. ZvZ forces you to react to your opponent because if you don't, you die. If you just blindly do your build in ZvZ you don't die vs 'some builds' like it's in all the other matchups, you die vs almost any build. The margins of error are so tight that you are forced to play reactively.
OK; I really need to know how you play reactive in early ZvZ, because me and all other Zergs in the world like Soulkey have been struggling there to see inside eggs before they have even been queued. Like, a very common rush in ZvZ is to make only speed zerglings on your first or second inject. Meanwhile the opponent has to build units as well (or he is losing way too much larva spawn time/mining time). But how does he know what he has to react to, when at best he sees a bunch of eggs and that his opponent has mined 100gas or more and it could be all drones.
You can't play reactive to that kind of stuff, because you have to make decisions before you know what the opponent is doing. You either prepare blindly for such a rush after scouting a gas and you get ahead if you do, or you don't and you fall behind/die when he is commiting. And similarily with baneling rushes.
I don't think Soulkey plays ZvZ blindly, or most pro Zergs. But the point is that casters do a really bad job at explaning what goes through the mind of players in ZvZ. Bitter is the only one who makes an attempt really but neither the casters nor the observers focus on explanation the logic behind ZvZ. Basic rules of ZvZ:
- Always keep an overlord in vision of the natural mineral line and check if your opponent is droning it up. Casters and observers completely fail to highlight that in ZvZ both players are constantly monitoring the drone count of their opponent at the natural to either punish excessive greed or get ready for a defensive stance if an attack comes.
- If your opponent takes gas, see if he or she continues to mine with 3 donres after 100 is mined and how much gas is mined by clicking on it.
- Obviously always put overlords between you and your opponent to see army movements
- Check queen count and if your opponent has a defensive spine. High queen count and a spine indicates that no aggression is coming and if it's coming it'll be pretty bad aggression that should be easily stopped. Low queen count and no spine means you should make units, even if your opponent is not making units your opponent will be hard pressed to hold your offensive.
Yes, exactly. Protoss didn't 3gate expand anymore. Because the build had gotten figured out and Protoss were struggling with Zerg builds of that time. That's why they FFE'd whenever possible and the maps got changed so that Protoss could do so on every map, because without it they were in trouble - since, as I already said, gateway expands had been figured out.
FFE came as a response to map changes, not in reverse. It started on Shakuras Plateau simply because you could do it there. Which is honestly fine if only a few maps in the pool allow it because it allows for variety.
Yes, WoL PvZ was a boring matchup, but I don't know why you bring that up, that lies far in the past now. Because during that time in WoL it was the height of defensive maps.
HotS PvZ has gateway expands again with a variety of offensive builds, ranging from light pressure builds (like MsC/Stalker/Zealot pokes), up to plain 7min 4gate semiallins. And unlike ZvZ, in ZvP the Protoss builds are actually scoutable and you don't have to plainly gamble on what your opponent is doing. If ZvZ was a gamble I don't see how excellent ZvZ players like Jaedong, Soulkey, Hyun and Leenock can have it as their best matchup by far. They all have very high ZvZ winrates. You can't have a high winrate in a coinflip. ZvZ is far from a gamble. It's a very sophisticated matchup where every action needs to be a reaction. It's just a case of reacting wrongly results into instant death. TvT is far more a gamble in my oppinion where you actually do blindly play against each other, the difference is that making a wrong blind guess doesn't result into instant death, just being slightly behind.
The only HotS matchup that you can be somewhat certain off what your opponent is doing is ZvT. Seeing how it is considered quite great and still features a lot of interaction (reapers/hellions; possibly banshees from the Terrans side; queens/zerglings, possibly roaches from the Zergs side) I'd even go as far as to say that in general people prefer to see somewhat generic, easily scoutable aggression, than having to react to things that can be easily missed in the early game. I'd say that currently Protoss in all matchups has the easiest time to know what their opponent is doing now that hallucination is innate and no longer costs any resource.
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