Ok seriously people. At first I though "oh well that's just a short phase because Shakuras Plateau is on of the few more or less balanced maps, it's just gonna be a couple of maps". But now I've been seeing this "phenomen" over and over and over again.
Let's say in the past 3-4 weeks it was a part of about 70% of Melee Maps. I mean come on.. is this really the only thing people can think of these days when creating a main and natural setup? I don't wanna say it's bad, it just gets reeeeally boring after a certain time. There are many different ways you can place main and natural. They can even be on the same cliff level.
Think that I am exaggerating? Don't take my word for it. Do you know the gif's that feature people with the same facial expression on every picture? Well I did kinda the same here. Had to make 2 of those to cover all the maps of the last 2 weeks:
So please stop using the same exact features on every single of your maps. I know that there are a lot of fantastic mappers on TL. Don't go with this stupid trend and at least vary it a bit.
Single Cliff into Ground which is what we see in 100% of the maps before shakuras.
Or....
You could put Main and Nat both on the ground level but then you'd have to have a small 3x3 choke at one corner of your base which would look bad as well as not give the defender any advantages and therefore make all-ins / timing attacks more viable.
You can't have the nat on a level higher then the main because that would favor the attacker rather than the defender.
To give the defender the advantage (which is what they need to have or else all-ins / timing attacks would be even more powerful then they are now) you have to either have the double into single cliff or a single cliff into ground level for the Main to Nat.
That's ridiculous Sid, there are infinity ways to make a main/natural setup with defender's advantage (edit: yeah, like Flower ^), and not every map should be equally defensive anyway. Infinity!
Applaud flop for calling out the emperor, but... yeah, its one cool setup and don't skip over a map with double cliff main/ single cliff nat that might have other new and interesting features, either. MotM february is shaping up to have some awesome entries
In my humble and uneducated opinion, if your main isn't on the high ground with a ramp small enough for a single forcefield, it's probably going to lead to strange games and lots of cheese. Just look at scrap station in any protoss matchup.
Interesting observation. I think people just like giving the defender the advantage so there are longer games. Will try to come up with some different layouts though.