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[M] (2) Aurora(click to enlarge) Size: 132×152 Spawns: Top Left, Bottom Right Published to: AM, EU, KR (as [ZoU] Aurora) Rush distances:Main to main: 48 Top of main ramp to top of main ramp: 41 Natural to natural: 37 (The rush distance shrinks by ~4-5 seconds if you mine out a patch on the second ramp to the right when exiting the natural and the equivalent patch on the other side of the map)
Description:
Aurora uses mineral walls pretty heavily--the mineral nodes used around the map to wall have 5 minerals, and the walls formed are single-layered when found at the bottom of ramps and double-layered elsewhere. The base layout itself is pretty standard, but since many parts of the map are initially walled-off you have to mine nodes to get to places (for example to your third).
The mineral walls are used to form temporary chokes, limit army movements early on and all the usual jazz, but also have some extra uses here. Proxies are just worse than usual on this map due to the mineral wall coverage though you can still do some creative stuff like proxying at the triangle third and mining the minerals at the bottom of that ramp to open up a path through. The watchtowers covers the entirety of the ramp adjacent to it and closer to the centre and reaches the town hall of the base with the minerals on the ramp, but you can go through the middle of the map without going into range, and can also go around the watchtower on the outside edge of the map if you break down a set of rocks. The mineral wall straight across from the natural is right on top of LOS blockers which means you either need air units or to hold the watchtower to mine it.
The mineral wall/destructible rock combo works a bit interestingly (though I doubt it'll often be relevant). Looking at the following image, and the highlighted minerals: + Show Spoiler +
Assuming the rocks are still up, if you mine only the middle node, small and medium units can go through. If you mine only the right node, only small units can go through. If you mine the left and centre nodes, small, medium and large units can go through. If you mine the right and centre nodes, all units can go through.*
*+ Show Spoiler +I loosely use the terms small/medium/large in relation to the inner radius of units (i.e size of unit-terrain/unit-building collisions). By this metric here are the units:
Small: Workers, Changeling, Locust, Broodling, Zergling, Baneling, Hydralisk, Ghost, Reaper, Marine, Marauder, Viking, Sentry, Zealot, Adept, DT, High Templar
Medium: Roach, Infestor, Swarm host, Ravager, Lurker, Queen, Widow Mine, Hellion, Hellbat, Cyclone, Widow Mine, Stalker, Colossus, Disruptor, Immortal
Large: Archon, Ultra
Very large: Tank, Thor
If you don't like the fact that vikings are somehow smaller than widow mines or that tanks are fatter than ultras, blame Blizzard not me.
Given that it's easier to mine the mineral walls closer to home, I hope there'll be some choices revolving around choosing/prioritizing to mine the mineral walls or not depending on how much they are an offensive or defensive asset in the match-up.
Changelog + Show Spoiler +- 21 June 2019: Updated for TLMC13
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I like the layout, but I think you went too far with the mineral walls. While I'm happy that they are accepted and being used on maps, they can become problematic when they're overused. They are pretty neat for a couple chokes here and there, but this is too much. The amount of value you get from mining out and opening up pathways is simply too low for players to consider for the majority of the pathways here, even with it only taking one trip. Proxying will be too easy, and scouting for proxies too difficult.
I'd honestly remove almost all of the mineral walls, leaving up only the center ones and the ones inbetween the rocks since that seems like a cool, unique feature.
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I think it's a cool map, I think putting the mineral nodes to more use is good either way since they seemed underused in the map contest, even if there is still a happy medium to find. Blocking the third definitely seems a bit harsh on further thought, you could be putting workers at pretty high risk out in the open that could be easily harassed that might not be nice for certain match-ups. I don't think I've really considered how much of a sacrifice even just needing to send one out to do this stuff could be at a high level, BO wise.
As an aside: I can't make maps lol but I've had this idea about mineral nodes I'm wondering if anyone might think is usable. Basically, using them to possibly 'balance' the idea of more than one natural>main entrance, like a pocket natural that had a ramp up to it that was walled by mineral nodes, where only one had 5 and the other had more? I don't know if it could make for any interesting design choices, despite the distant memories of them generally just being unworkable in the past.
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On March 12 2019 23:04 Antares777 wrote: I like the layout, but I think you went too far with the mineral walls. While I'm happy that they are accepted and being used on maps, they can become problematic when they're overused. They are pretty neat for a couple chokes here and there, but this is too much. The amount of value you get from mining out and opening up pathways is simply too low for players to consider for the majority of the pathways here, even with it only taking one trip. Proxying will be too easy, and scouting for proxies too difficult.
I'd honestly remove almost all of the mineral walls, leaving up only the center ones and the ones inbetween the rocks since that seems like a cool, unique feature.
Why do you think proxies will be easier? If anything early proxies are harder since you're working with a limited amount of area to proxy.
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On March 12 2019 23:38 ZigguratOfUr wrote:Show nested quote +On March 12 2019 23:04 Antares777 wrote: I like the layout, but I think you went too far with the mineral walls. While I'm happy that they are accepted and being used on maps, they can become problematic when they're overused. They are pretty neat for a couple chokes here and there, but this is too much. The amount of value you get from mining out and opening up pathways is simply too low for players to consider for the majority of the pathways here, even with it only taking one trip. Proxying will be too easy, and scouting for proxies too difficult.
I'd honestly remove almost all of the mineral walls, leaving up only the center ones and the ones inbetween the rocks since that seems like a cool, unique feature. Why do you think proxies will be easier? If anything early proxies are harder since you're working with a limited amount of area to proxy.
For example, someone could proxy at the triangle third in front of their opponent's main. That player would not be able to spot it easily even though it's so close (except Zerg will likely spot it with an Overlord). It's still an all-in strategy, it's just difficult to see coming.
I understand what you're saying about less space available to proxy. That is correct, but I think the ability to scout a proxy is more significant than locations you can place them. An all-in proxy build, if unscouted, usually wins the game. If scouted, the defending player usually wins the game. Scouting proxies can be difficult on maps even without mineral walls (or other features that create similar layouts) since you will have to move your worker in the right place. I don't think the mineral walls would work defensively against proxies since it only requires a single worker to create a gap. I'm not saying that the walls should have more minerals though. I may be off about the effectiveness of proxies though, since you should be able to tell if your opponent is proxying you when you scout his/her base, even if you don't see the proxy. Or perhaps for the metagame on this map, each initial scout mines a patch at that ramp and then travels through the center to get to your opponent's side of the map.
Proxies are not the main reason why I disagree with using mineral walls this liberally. Sending out workers to open up different paths is expensive, not just because they are not mining long distance mining, but because it taxes your APM and can distract you from doing more important things. That is the main issue with having this amount of mineral walls present. I think it over-complicates the map.
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Sick layout, don't like the minerals. I never liked it, doesn't feel like clean design.
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On March 13 2019 00:45 Antares777 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 12 2019 23:38 ZigguratOfUr wrote:On March 12 2019 23:04 Antares777 wrote: I like the layout, but I think you went too far with the mineral walls. While I'm happy that they are accepted and being used on maps, they can become problematic when they're overused. They are pretty neat for a couple chokes here and there, but this is too much. The amount of value you get from mining out and opening up pathways is simply too low for players to consider for the majority of the pathways here, even with it only taking one trip. Proxying will be too easy, and scouting for proxies too difficult.
I'd honestly remove almost all of the mineral walls, leaving up only the center ones and the ones inbetween the rocks since that seems like a cool, unique feature. Why do you think proxies will be easier? If anything early proxies are harder since you're working with a limited amount of area to proxy. For example, someone could proxy at the triangle third in front of their opponent's main. That player would not be able to spot it easily even though it's so close (except Zerg will likely spot it with an Overlord). It's still an all-in strategy, it's just difficult to see coming. I understand what you're saying about less space available to proxy. That is correct, but I think the ability to scout a proxy is more significant than locations you can place them. An all-in proxy build, if unscouted, usually wins the game. If scouted, the defending player usually wins the game. Scouting proxies can be difficult on maps even without mineral walls (or other features that create similar layouts) since you will have to move your worker in the right place. I don't think the mineral walls would work defensively against proxies since it only requires a single worker to create a gap. I'm not saying that the walls should have more minerals though. I may be off about the effectiveness of proxies though, since you should be able to tell if your opponent is proxying you when you scout his/her base, even if you don't see the proxy. Or perhaps for the metagame on this map, each initial scout mines a patch at that ramp and then travels through the center to get to your opponent's side of the map. Proxies are not the main reason why I disagree with using mineral walls this liberally. Sending out workers to open up different paths is expensive, not just because they are not mining long distance mining, but because it taxes your APM and can distract you from doing more important things. That is the main issue with having this amount of mineral walls present. I think it over-complicates the map.
I did try out having fewer walls (at least getting rid of the walls leading to either third option, and a few more so that the map would be at least wholly connected from the start). But I couldn't find anything I was happy with.
Sending one worker out to open a hole in a wall or two isn't all that taxing I think (and I'm not sure if taxing someone's APM is inherently a bad thing). And you can leave the worker long distance mining the wall. But maybe I'm wrong and players will just repeatedly die to siege-tanks or similar due to not mining the minerals around their third. Certainly during the map contest tournament players didn't seem to mine the minerals even when it was really advantageous for them to do so (like in the middle on Thunderbird). It's hard to say. You want to reward players for knowing to play the map, but playing the map wrong resulting in an immediate loss isn't fun either.
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