First off I want to say that TLMC4 had more "almost there" entries than any other TLMC. There were a lot interesting ideas that were put forward that had issues in one way or another. We think that if you take the time to revise those maps in accordance with the feedback below then those maps would be viable tournament picks. Of course we didn't have time to do a mass feedback/revision week in this contest, so we had to judge maps more or less as is.
The feedback provided here is essentially a summary of the collective feedback that TL Strategy had on the maps. Before you come asking questions about your map specifically, make sure you've read and thought about whether these things applied to your map or now.
Firstly, let's talk about some general things that everyone should be doing in the contest.
90 Degree Overviews Yes, slanted overviews look cooler. But for the purposes of judging distances properly we really need 90 degree overviews. I know that if I put this in the ruleset that people will still submit slanted overviews (because there were multiple people submitting 2p maps this time around...) so I'm not going to make it a hard rule. But it does greatly assist the judging team in being able to quickly assess your map and gives it the best possible chance to be considered. It's worth pointing out that by submitting slanted overviews you're not penalised (e.g. Uvantak's submissions both were slightly slanted) but it may have meant that some of our initial assessment was misguided -- don't let that happen to your map!
Including Spawn Positions Often it's really easy to tell where the spawn locations are on a map, but if you're doing something nonstandard it doesn't hurt to include the position of the spawns. The reason is simple and I'll explain it through example. Take Providence by IeZaeL, there's no way the judges would have known where the bottom left and upper right spawns except for the fact that he included the location of the spawns. Another example, Into the Wilds has not totally clear spawn positions -- sure we assume that the spawns are in the corners, but that information is 100% clear. tldr; to give you map the best shot include spawn positions.
Why did my map get cut early? Two main reasons. First, the proportions are off. By this I mean that your allocation of space is not at the standard we expect for the competition. Vast open blank areas, ridiculously inaccessible naturals/thirds, huge distances between bases etc. are all proportion issues which are things to be worked on for future seasons. This doesn't mean we hate innovation, its just one of those things that amateur map makers are highly inexperienced in and need more practice. Many top mappers started off making those mistakes too, over time you'll get a better grasp of appropriate distances.
The second main reason is that the map is obviously imbalanced. This was less of an issue this time around but is still one of the reasons maps get cut early. If your going to introduce an obvious imbalance into your map (i.e. double entrance naturals, multiple entrance mains, thirds a long distance away) then you need to have really thought through the implications of that concept and made adjustments to your map to reflect that. The maps that are cut early clearly didn't make those adjustments and hence were cut.
Rule of thumb: if you're still an inexperienced mapper adhere to the rules and try to understand what maps standard maps standard. Understand all the rules first, then you can create maps which break them. Breaking the rules first is a recipe for failure. Uvantak is a great example of this, he's someone who has progressively improved over many seasons of TLMC and he's done this through executing standard-ish maps at an increasingly high level. Do the same and maybe one day you'll get a double placing in a TLMC!
The following issues relate more to the maps that were up for finalist consideration but did not make it for one reason or another.
Nat2Nat distances By now it should be well established that less than 40s for a nat2nat distance isn't going to work. I appreciate that with 4p maps that this is difficult (close spawns often end up breaking this rule), but you should be designing around this restriction. The reason why 40s is the minimum we'll accept (and even then, ideally its 43s+) is because the rush distance becomes too short making 2 base play stronger and making it more difficult to secure later bases. Remember: most attacks are going to travel from the natural to the natural or third to the natural so that is the effective attack distance -- the main2main distance is mostly for scouting purposes (unless you did a in-base natural, of course).
Some maps which failed to do this include Fragments of Time (close spawn), Nature Spirit (horizontal spawn) and Into the Wilds (all spawn). You'll know if your map fell into this trap since you needed to submit that information in your application.
Reasonable Naturals One question everyone should be asking upon creating a map is "can Protoss FFE here?". If the answer is yes, the the natural design is reasonable. While not solely a Protoss issue (all races like standard naturals for a variety of reasons) this question is sufficient to resolve all difficulties races might encounter. This is a more common mistake in maps cut early, but also persisted in some of the maps which were trying to make the concept work. Unfortunately, adding collapsible rocks is not sufficient to make a two sided natural work (as there's no real way for a Protoss to collapse one side, thus failing the FFE test).
Maps which tried to make this concept work include Dominion Rose, Cactus Valley and Dragon's Nest. We feel that if you're going to make this concept work, more considerations of the difficulties that the double entrance nat to be reflected in the design of the map.
Blink Stalkers Yeonsu proved that Blink Stalkers are mighty powerful. Future maps need to learn the lessons that we learned on Yeonsu and not repeat those mistakes. If a main (or main/nat) is given too much exposure to Blink Stalkers then bad things are going to happen. As such you should be limiting the Blink Stalker accessible ground in each main to limit their strength. Additionally main/nat need to be positioned so that the defenders travel time (to defend blink stalkers) is shorter than the attackers, else the attack gains too much of an edge.
1FF Ramp Mains PvP and ZvZ rely on ramps having one forcefield width -- in ZvZ this means that the ramp can be blocked with 2 Queens which means that some of the strength of ling/bane is mitigated. Additionally, same height main-naturals can also cause many problems if they are not treated with extreme care. While this kind of feature alone would not disqualify a map (since ramps can easily be changed) it's sad that this basic element of gameplay is still overlooked by mappers.
Low ground spawns don't work, ever. Not so much of an issue this season. But was a reason why some maps got cut early. The concept just doesn't work. This concept was extensively tested when we were considering the original version of Keru. We found that it gave aggressive strategies far too much power and once a player lost control of the ramp the game was over. In addition warp in was incredibly strong in addition to bunker contains.
High ground can be very powerful, careful where you put it High ground is often undervalued as a strategic point on the map. I assume this is largely due to people thinking that the lack of a high ground mechanic (aside from vision) isn't actually that big of a deal. Well, unfortunately it is. High ground can be a very powerful strategic position -- the old IPL map Darkness Falls hinted at the strength of high ground when the fourth bases could be taken by a Terran and with PF support secure a strong position against Zergs. This would offer protection for their rally point and provide a strong staging ground for future attacks.
Two maps which had high ground that was too strong were Nimbus (which suffered from the issues described above when Terrans spawned counter clockwise to a Zerg) and Nature Spirit. Let's talk a little more about Nature Spirit since that's something that we discovered during testing that we hadn't encountered before.
The high ground at 12 and 6 proved to be much to powerful in testing. While we knew that high ground over looking a natural such as in Lost Temple was broken, it turns out the same thing is true with third bases (at least in this instance). This is unintuitive, since you'd expect Zergs (or Protoss) to be able to defend against Terran drops controlling the high ground by the time the game has progressed to a third base. But as Medivacs are such a staple of Terran armies it means that Terrans aren't deviating from their normal strategies in a significant way while Zergs and Protoss need to do something quite radical (like 2 base mutalisks or rushing spire after three base leaving them open to a host of other Terran attacks). Ultimately because the medivac is so core to the Terran army and that around 8 supply of units can shut down a full mining base with little counter play this feature used around thirds is broken.
Accessibility of thirds This is already somewhat covered by map proportions, but this is still used at a high level for no good reason. At this point in SC2's life we're at a point where the game revolves around third bases in the Zerg matchups. Often this means Zerg players defending off two base plays from Protoss and defending from Terran harass while doing what they can to limit Terran expanding. Moreover if Zergs are allowed free thirds on these maps, then the pendulum swings the other way and makes it incredibly difficult for Protoss/Terran to take thirds; which in turn just encourages players to play off of two base. If you have a reason to break this metagame then you need to have an exceptionally good reason and to be able to execute this idea at the highest level. Extreme care needs to be taken to ensure that Zerg players are not unfairly disadvantaged, which in most cases is just ignored.
I appreciate that the mapping community wants to try an innovate, but your innovations should be focusing on the map between the two players and not the first three bases. Play with fourths, play with the center, see what can and can't work there... but only extremely well executed maps which have made calculated decisions to compensate can break the standard three base mold.
Maps which fell into this trap include Exodus and Coriolis (which did at least try to mitigate some of the issues by using a gold base, but not to an extent sufficient enough for the strategy team be sure it wasn't broken).
Rotational imbalances This more often than not relates to the previous issue in terms of making thirds accessible. Another issue which makes them inaccessible is a lack of appreciation for rotational spawn imbalances. But rotational imbalances extend beyond that to include differences in medivac vulnerability, fourth accessibility and blink surface areas. To some extent we're happy to accept some degree of rotational imbalance, so long as the advantage isn't overwhelming.
The great chasm of nothing This also ties in with the third base discussion, it feels like map makers have become so fixated on the layout of the first three bases that the rest of the map feels like it is thrown together as an afterthought. Large expanses of "empty" space don't really do anything good for the game. Alterzim at the moment has large expanses of open ground in the center of the map and I don't need to tell you what impact that has on the game as games go long. The point of this is that the best maps go beyond just designing for the first three bases and continue to design the map to ensure play on the map continues to be interesting as the game goes long. Best example of this is Cloud Kingdom which not only had an interesting three base setup, but after that the 4th/5th base encouraged interesting troop movement and continued to make the game interesting (well, as interesting as BL/infestor can be).
2-in-1 maps trying too hard We saw a lot of 2-in-1 maps do the following in this contest. One set of spawns would be very standard and normally very playable. The other set of spawns would be some ungodly mess doing things that break the game. If the other set of spawns were standardarised these maps would have easily been up for contention. You don't need to be doing crazy things with the first three bases to make a map interesting!! Stop invalidating all your hard work in crafting a map by slapping on two spawns which are unplayable.
Don't make your map too chokey/restricted in movement Chokepoints are map features which we're all accustomed to because of forcefield. The strength of forcefield in small chokes is such that the best maps must account for this. This typically means sparring use of small chokes to create strategic areas of the map to do battle, as opposed to putting them everywhere without too much thought. Yet still we see maps which over use small chokes and make forcefield way too strong amongst other issues (notably making the life of Zergs hell).
Swarm Hosts Swarm hosts add a new dimension of difficulty to designing maps. After a certain point in ZvZ/ZvP (and ZvT against mech) swam hosts become one of the stronger strategies in the Zerg arsenal (that probably goes without saying). One of the strengths of swam hosts (as a siege unit) is their ability to control space. Thinking about where swarm hosts might position themselves once you're at a four/five base stage will give you insight as to the strength of the unit.
Take Colonial Province where in horizontal or vertical positions the power of swarm hosts is quite formidable. They're able to control key locations behind two chokes which basically locks out the opposition from doing any direct engages (unless they're very far ahead). Making mapping decisions which allow players counterplay against swarm hosts is something that more maps should be thinking about.
Reasonable Naturals One question everyone should be asking upon creating a map is "can Protoss FFE here?". If the answer is yes, the the natural design is reasonable. While not solely a Protoss issue (all races like standard naturals for a variety of reasons) this question is sufficient to resolve all difficulties races might encounter. This is a more common mistake in maps cut early, but also persisted in some of the maps which were trying to make the concept work. Unfortunately, adding collapsible rocks is not sufficient to make a two sided natural work (as there's no real way for a Protoss to collapse one side, thus failing the FFE test).
This is such a horrible requirement in my opinion. I don't understand why not give open naturals a chance? Even Blizzard did so with Daedalus Point, only they did it pretty badly and went to the extreme very fast. I believe a well done open nat map can be exactly what the game needs.
Overall most of the balance requirements are pretty silly and deny innovation. How can progress be made if no risks are taken? Unless new and unique concepts are tried, the game will eventually become stale and one dimensional. Shoutcraft Clan Wars is one tournament where actual different maps are tried, and it works! New Pompeii laughs at your one entrance natural requirement with a double entrance main, and it produced some of the more exciting games I have seen.
We've had many maps on the ladder which would fail your requirements, do you dare to claim Korhal Floating Island was a bad map? Unless you radically change your thought process, or let someone else take the role to someone who is not afraid of introducing new and different maps to the ladder, I don't see how the TLMC will bring any big changes as it once have.
What is really sad about the whole thing is the list of constraints on map makers grows, because of imbalances... (Blink Stalkers, Swarmhosts, Forcefields ect...)
On May 09 2014 10:09 BronzeKnee wrote: What is really sad about the whole thing is the list of constraints on map makers grows, because of imbalances... (Blink Stalkers, Swarmhosts, Forcefields ect...)
Constraints are wrong, even if something is strong on a map it doesn't make it bad. A map is not good if it is balanced, it is good if it is interesting. I don't think Plexa agrees with me at all, but when I watch a game, I don't care if a race or a strategy is stronger than normal on it, I care if it produces interesting games. Of course even a map with odd features can actually be balanced, by combining opposite features, but it is very based of chance if a map is balanced, while making a Daybreak close is almost guaranteed to be balanced, even if it will not produce new strategies.
Of course it is different to play on an unusual map, it is harder since you actually need to think, and most SC2 players just copy from the pros. I personally like to play on odd maps, I did not veto Daedalus even though it was bad for Protoss, because it was interesting. A game on Daedalus is different than a game on Overgrowth, while a game on Overgrowth is not that different from a game on Frost, Ohana or w/e.
I say again, forget about imbalances, focus on gameplay. By forcing the players to find new strategies based on maps, the game will be more varied, and even though some maps will favor a race, it is better than having a stale game.
Well said Plexa, even though you took the time to bash no only Into the Wilds but also Darkness Falls, screw you.
Only part I disagree with quite a bit is on the whole nat2nat "has" to be 40+ (43 ideally) seconds. I believe even if the nat2nat is short if you make bases that are safer to expand to or actually make you want to expand to them (watchtower/high yield/high ground etc) that even with a short nat2nat distance you will still get many players wanting to go off 2 base play.
I actually think having a 4p map with shorter rush distances for nat2nat could actually be quite interesting. Assuming there aren't any major positional imbalances I believe just haven't a short rush distance wouldn't be that terrible.
Thanks for writing this up! I'd love to hear some of the other judges thoughts as well, if they care to take the time to type up their thoughts / how they looked at the maps / etc etc.
Reasonable Naturals One question everyone should be asking upon creating a map is "can Protoss FFE here?". If the answer is yes, the the natural design is reasonable. While not solely a Protoss issue (all races like standard naturals for a variety of reasons) this question is sufficient to resolve all difficulties races might encounter. This is a more common mistake in maps cut early, but also persisted in some of the maps which were trying to make the concept work. Unfortunately, adding collapsible rocks is not sufficient to make a two sided natural work (as there's no real way for a Protoss to collapse one side, thus failing the FFE test).
This is such a horrible requirement in my opinion. I don't understand why not give open naturals a chance? Even Blizzard did so with Daedalus Point, only they did it pretty badly and went to the extreme very fast. I believe a well done open nat map can be exactly what the game needs.
Overall most of the balance requirements are pretty silly and deny innovation. How can progress be made if no risks are taken? Unless new and unique concepts are tried, the game will eventually become stale and one dimensional. Shoutcraft Clan Wars is one tournament where actual different maps are tried, and it works! New Pompeii laughs at your one entrance natural requirement with a double entrance main, and it produced some of the more exciting games I have seen.
We've had many maps on the ladder which would fail your requirements, do you dare to claim Korhal Floating Island was a bad map? Unless you radically change your thought process, or let someone else take the role to someone who is not afraid of introducing new and different maps to the ladder, I don't see how the TLMC will bring any big changes as it once have.
Daedalus was a failure of a map, not sure why you'd bring that up as an example to support your opinion? Open naturals aren't necessarily ruled out -- Metalopolis was a map that (at least in some spawn positions) where you could FFE. There are other balance issues around open naturals but it doesn't necessarily rule them out. When you have two distinct entrances, however, FFE becomes impossible and you introduce issues for all races. Floating island was a map designed for proleague which is the best testing ground for maps -- let's not forget that the 'unorthodox' spawns were disabled for MLG.
Just because the double entrance main works in New Pompeii doesn't mean you can slap a second entrance to every map. Careful decisions need to be made to compensate for the fact that you have two entrances to defend. In New Pompeii's case that comes in the form of the restriction of army movement to the out skirts of the map. I'm not sold that it would be viable on the ladder but it wouldn't have instantly disqualified the map if it had been entered.
On May 09 2014 10:08 Quidios wrote: So the judges don't even open up and look at all the maps in the editor? Do maps get cut based of the overview?
Yes. Opening everything in the editor takes an extremely long time. It is far quicker to use overviews to give an initial assessment of the maps. Moreover the editor doesn't really reveal more than a good overview does. Once we've decided on a shortlist of maps we think have potential they get extensively playtested.
On May 09 2014 10:19 The_Templar wrote: Both my maps were cut early, it seems? Why?
team play: didn't offer anything that other maps didn't do better 1v1: some symmetry/spawn related issues (not quite rotational imbalance, but the type of symmetry used), some blink stalker/warp in issues and some tank issues. The concepts are interesting just required a higher level of execution.
On May 09 2014 10:09 BronzeKnee wrote: What is really sad about the whole thing is the list of constraints on map makers grows, because of imbalances... (Blink Stalkers, Swarmhosts, Forcefields ect...)
Constraints are wrong, even if something is strong on a map it doesn't make it bad. A map is not good if it is balanced, it is good if it is interesting. I don't think Plexa agrees with me at all, but when I watch a game, I don't care if a race or a strategy is stronger than normal on it, I care if it produces interesting games. Of course even a map with odd features can actually be balanced, by combining opposite features, but it is very based of chance if a map is balanced, while making a Daybreak close is almost guaranteed to be balanced, even if it will not produce new strategies.
Of course it is different to play on an unusual map, it is harder since you actually need to think, and most SC2 players just copy from the pros. I personally like to play on odd maps, I did not veto Daedalus even though it was bad for Protoss, because it was interesting. A game on Daedalus is different than a game on Overgrowth, while a game on Overgrowth is not that different from a game on Frost, Ohana or w/e.
I say again, forget about imbalances, focus on gameplay. By forcing the players to find new strategies based on maps, the game will be more varied, and even though some maps will favor a race, it is better than having a stale game.
Here's the problem with your logic. (a) We've tested these things before in a variety of forms and we know they're broken. Suggesting the same broken ideas again isn't creating strategic diversity, it's holding mapping back in an early-hots release mindset. That's not the way to push the ideas in mapping forward. (b) BW continues to creating interesting maps but also has a bunch of rules which maps need to follow else the map gets broken. This is no different to the situation in SC2, but you need to look at innovating in other ways. Yes, that's harder than changing the spawns in some way -- and that's why true innovation is a trait of the very best mappers. (c) These things are not hard rules. However, it takes an extremely skilled mapper to treat these issues with the appropriate care - the bulk of the TL mapping community isn't at that level. For the majority of people reading this they should consider these hard rules as its more than likely that their submissions will be flat out unplayable as opposed to doing anything innovative. (d) Interesting maps do more than innovate the first three bases. Just because the first few bases are reasonably standard doesn't mean the map is boring -- look at cloud kingdom which does amazing things with the terrain after three bases. More needs to be done to innovate between the two spawn locations as opposed to being stuck in the mindset that innovation = weird spawns.
On May 09 2014 10:34 SidianTheBard wrote: Well said Plexa, even though you took the time to bash no only Into the Wilds but also Darkness Falls, screw you.
Only part I disagree with quite a bit is on the whole nat2nat "has" to be 40+ (43 ideally) seconds. I believe even if the nat2nat is short if you make bases that are safer to expand to or actually make you want to expand to them (watchtower/high yield/high ground etc) that even with a short nat2nat distance you will still get many players wanting to go off 2 base play.
I actually think having a 4p map with shorter rush distances for nat2nat could actually be quite interesting. Assuming there aren't any major positional imbalances I believe just haven't a short rush distance wouldn't be that terrible.
Thanks for writing this up! I'd love to hear some of the other judges thoughts as well, if they care to take the time to type up their thoughts / how they looked at the maps / etc etc.
Well Darkness Falls was unfortunately the map that told us that those features were very powerful. Some map had to go there! See (c) above for my reply regarding N2N rush distance.
Any maps that have giant racial imbalances or mirror match-up imbalances (such as no ramp from main) will not be able to support innovation in those matchups because players will continue to use strategies already in the meta in order to win. You won't see any PvP innovation in a map with no main ramp because it will just become a 4-gate fest. If there was a way to hold off a 4-gate without using FF (without going 4g yourself), we would have found it out by now.
There's a difference between killing innovation and avoiding things that are completely imbalanced.
Also Daedalus was ridiculously bad and anyone using that as a reference for their point is essentially digging themselves a hole.
And we did not know any authors (besides who posted in the TLMC thread) before we picked our finalists. There was no bias towards any mapmakers whatsoever.
On May 09 2014 09:23 Plexa wrote: only extremely well executed maps which have made calculated decisions to compensate can break the standard three base mold.
I think this is a key point that people need to understand. Most people who use gimmicky or bad features in a map do so without having a valid reason. Don't whine about rules if you refuse to put effort into breaking them.
On May 09 2014 10:19 The_Templar wrote: Both my maps were cut early, it seems? Why?
In addition to other problems mentioned earlier, Moon Lab allows a player to hold six bases with only two narrow entrances. Ashcrest looks like a map someone would make after opening the editor for the first time in April 2010.
On May 09 2014 10:33 moskonia wrote: I don't care if a race or a strategy is stronger than normal on it, I care if it produces interesting games.
If a certain strategy becomes too strong on a map, then the map ceases to produce interesting games.
Thanks for this Plexa & TL strategy team; I really like how this TLMC is more "transparent" than the previous ones. I really appreciate it.
I've noticed I kind of make that kind of "mistake" in my own maps, try to shoehorn in nonstandard or gimmicky stuff just for the heck of it, though I don't have the kind of game knowledge needed to really back it up.
(context: I made the arcadia clone) I was going to change the main entrance to either a smaller size or just a normal ramp before submitting it, but decided not to... for some reason (really shows I'm not an expert mapper of any kind haha) . Reeeeeeeggggrrrrret
EDIT: I really agree on your "show spawn points" point. It's actually pretty easy to do: in the "Export Map Image" dialog, there is a "view options" area. Select the "custom" radio button. Press the "Copy Game" button, then, in the list below, ensure that both the "Points" and "Points - Start Locations Only" checkboxes are checked.
On May 09 2014 11:16 Namrufus wrote: Thanks for this Plexa & TL strategy team; I really like how this TLMC is more "transparent" than the previous ones. I really appreciate it.
I've noticed I kind of make that kind of "mistake" in my own maps, try to shoehorn in nonstandard or gimmicky stuff just for the heck of it, though I don't have the kind of game knowledge needed to really back it up.
(context: I made the arcadia clone) I was going to change the main entrance to either a smaller size or just a normal ramp before submitting it, but decided not to... (really shows I'm not an expert mapper of any kind haha) . Reeeeeeeggggrrrrret
Arcadia and Samus both have really interesting concepts, but just lacked considerations for how to compensate for the unusual layouts. Let's take Arcadia for a moment. It was an interesting idea to make the third base your natural base and I think that concept has a lot of merit and warrants some additional exploration. But there were so many other things going on that made it impossible to get an accurate picture of the implications of this -- the lack of 1FF main was an issue, the lack of a natural 4th base was an issue, the high vulnerability of the third base lacked compensation and so on. Take Samus; obviously there's no way to expand properly here. Perhaps removing the exterior ramp from the high ground base so that you could do a wall off at the bottom where the two ramps meet could have been an interesting idea to make the natural viable. The rest of the map has issues since it's basically a BW clone, but there are ways to do interesting things there if you really think about it.
Also, I'm just rephrasing what the strategy team expressed while judging so they deserve the bulk of the credit!!
In general, maps that don't allow for a reasonable 3rd base and reasonable natural base for all races limit gameplay.
A map without a reasonable 3rd will provoke 2 base all-ins. Those all-ins might be very clever for the first few weeks of play, but the map will quickly run out of interesting new builds and the map will become stale and boring well before a season ends.
Without a reasonable 3rd base, players cannot reliably threaten macro games, meaning opponents need only prepare for 2 base all-ins and scout appropriately. If a third goes down, then you simply all-in and win due to the difficulty of holding that 3rd. If the bases are too far apart, drops and mutas get too strong.
Maps simply must have a reasonable natural and 3rd for all races. If you're going to do something about the openness of the natural, there must be a compensating feature somewhere to make up for it.
There's a huge section on how balance/distance of 3rds basically needs to remain constant and you gave a bunch of examples where 3rds are too far/difficult - but for a long time maps have been pushing the envelope with how easy the 3rd bases are. How come experimenting in the opposite direction has been deemed unacceptable?
On May 09 2014 11:39 -NegativeZero- wrote: There's a huge section on how balance/distance of 3rds basically needs to remain constant and you gave a bunch of examples where 3rds are too far/difficult - but for a long time maps have been pushing the envelope with how easy the 3rd bases are. How come experimenting in the opposite direction has been deemed unacceptable?
It isn't, but the maps we saw didn't do it well.
For the record, Catalenna had a difficult to take 3rd and we made it a finalist.
On May 09 2014 11:39 -NegativeZero- wrote: There's a huge section on how balance/distance of 3rds basically needs to remain constant and you gave a bunch of examples where 3rds are too far/difficult - but for a long time maps have been pushing the envelope with how easy the 3rd bases are. How come experimenting in the opposite direction has been deemed unacceptable?
tldr; daybreak.
The long version is that daybreak basically set the standard for main-nat-third distances and the game has been more or less balanced around that. If you do want to experiment with thirds a long distance away then you obviously need to be treating the strength of two base play -- you can't give both players a free natural and difficult third because that disproportionately favours non-zerg races and the net result is a ton of stupid two base play which no one really likes. Coriolis gave an solid attempt at making the concept work, but the benefits of the gold base served to accentuate issues rather than fix them -- by that I mean that (for instance) in ZvP the third base is quite difficult for protoss to secure (let alone zerg) so if the protoss allows the zerg to secure the gold base he is basically lost -- since the gold gives an even greater advantage than blue bases making it easier for zergs to shut down the protoss third. Hence it actually encourages protoss even more to play off of two base to prevent this from happening.
One solution I see for this (that I would advise most people to not even bother with because they wouldn't be able to execute it properly) is making the natural more difficult to take so that the free two base issue is circumvented. This introduces a bunch of other issues which need to be properly balanced/assessed but could conceivably work. The key here is making it work, because its very easy to break thinks when you're operating outside of the meta the game has been balanced for. Moreover some would argue that we're regressing into early WoL territory (which is true) and that that isn't a good thing (but who knows, early WoL style maps haven't really been tested and a well executed one would definitely pique our interests).
I entirely agree with just about 90% of this. I think the disappointing results of this TLMC were a result nothing more than a disappointing submissions. Some maps, despite how cool or neat the ideas are, were bound to just fail for the various reasons listed. So, I can't really complain about how the judges picked the finalists.
Yet, there stands that one thing I don't agree with. The Swarmhost thing is kinda BS in my opinion. Since when did engaging swarmhosts head on be the only approach? Since when did the use of multi-prong attacks with warp prisms, proxy pylons, drops, and air play just disappear? As far as I'm concerned, there is not enough to justify the necessity of multiple ground paths vs swarmhosts, as we haven't had a recent map that has really driven that point home. Even if we have, maybe that map could have just had more features, such as those that straighten air play, to fix the issue. Simply theory crafting that something won't work without giving time for players to adapt is silly in my eyes.
On May 09 2014 10:49 Plexa wrote: Yes. Opening everything in the editor takes an extremely long time. It is far quicker to use overviews to give an initial assessment of the maps. Moreover the editor doesn't really reveal more than a good overview does. Once we've decided on a shortlist of maps we think have potential they get extensively playtested.
Well this is disappointing. "Extremely long time" is a great exaggeration especially considering the judging period. Taking a closer look at a map in detail is done in 3 minutes easily. With the amount of maps that was submitted it could be done in 2 days by one person.
Moreover "the editor doesn't really reveal more than a good overview does" is a blatantly ignorant statement.
If there's another TLMC I will remember to colorcode my overviews, for unbuildable areas for example, and type out all the information that's not visible in a 90 degrees overview.
On May 09 2014 10:49 Plexa wrote: Yes. Opening everything in the editor takes an extremely long time. It is far quicker to use overviews to give an initial assessment of the maps. Moreover the editor doesn't really reveal more than a good overview does. Once we've decided on a shortlist of maps we think have potential they get extensively playtested.
Well this is disappointing. "Extremely long time" is a great exaggeration especially considering the judging period. Taking a closer look at a map in detail is done in 3 minutes easily. With the amount of maps that was submitted it could be done in 2 days by one person.
Moreover "the editor doesn't really reveal more than a good overview does" is a blatantly ignorant statement.
If there's another TLMC I will remember to colorcode my overviews, for unbuildable areas for example, and type out all the information that's not visible in a 90 degrees overview.
When there are ambiguities in a map we'll open the editor to clarify those (which we did a few times before the playtesting stage); in general we're pretty good at understanding the ideas behind the map to a sufficient degree to decide whether or not we want those play tested or not. To have a quick turn around in the judging period this is just how things are. Remember there isn't just one person judging, you have an entire team of people judging and this is the most efficient way to do this. Moreover, this is standard practice for all the mapping contests i know of.
EPT
