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All i can say is really... Really Blizzard?
Not only did Blizzard not include a GSL map into the Ladder map pool... they still make horrible new maps.
Many GSL maps are now tested for months! They look good and most of them are considered pretty balanced, so i can't see a reason why Blizzard is strictly not using them.
Yes i know, Blizzard thinks big maps are not liked by lower league players, but i call BS on that one. I never saw a statistic, survey or anything else that prooved that claim. Its just a stupid myth that somebody invented and everybody else thinks it sounds logical
So Blizzard makes it's own maps. Three of the four new maps are "small", only one is medium. That alone shows in which direction Blizzard is going with their maps. But i would not write this rant if the only problem with the maps were their size. No, they are actually terrible designed.
Just lets take a closer look at two of them, shall we?
Antiga Shipyard
This map is rotational symmetric. Also Blizzard thinks elimating certain spawn positions is too limiting for their maps. (Which leaves the question why they allowed it on Shakuras).
So because every spawn position is allowed you can end up being left of your enemy. Lets see what are the consequences of that.
In this picture i numbered the typical order of the expansions of both players. This means the typical third of your opponent could be right next to your main with only a small gap dividing the plateau.
I guess everybody knows how this is abuseable.
Not only can you siege right into your opponents main. You can even hit the gas! This combined with a lot of turrets and a planetary fortress and you have an almost untouchable third with access to the enemy's main. Let the drop action begin...
I mean..... Really? REALLY? Which mapmaker looked at that and said: Yeah this is right what we want. Who came up with that idea? Didn't anybody see any problem with that? ARE THEY F**** STUPID?!?!?
I mean you don't even have to attack the enemy. Just let your tanks annoy them and take the gold below. The ramp is leading right to it. Destroy the rocks and you are directly at the gold. So you are not only threatening the main, you can also defend your gold base with it. And with defending the gold base you are also defending the only other attack path into your main/natural.
You can easily secure 4 bases (one of them the gold) as terran and there is no real 4th for the opponent....
Did nobody test this? Couldn't anyone foresee the problems with these positions? Or does Blizzard just don't give a crap, releases some maps and if the backlash is too huge they will just remove them next season? Seems like they like this Trial & Error approach (Slag Pits anyone?)
Searing Crater
When i saw this map i really couldn't believe it. I really couldn't. Blizzard finally managed to make a map EVEN WORSE than Delta Quadrant and Steppes of War. I didn't thought this was possible... This map sucks so hard it is not even funny. Really!
Its like they took the most annoying features of the worst maps to date and combined them to create a whole new level of stupid. This map has the forward naturals and general layout of Delta Quadrant, including rocks and gold bases everywhere with the addition of narrow chokes and the easily siegable natural from Steppes. As an extra they added the super small Natural to Natural distance from the incredible bad map Incineration Zone and managed to make it even smaller.
Lets look at it a little more closely
As on Antiga Shipyard every spawn location is possible. Including the one i marked in the picture above. As you can see marked by the orange arrow, the distance between the naturals is not very big. Actually it is super small... It is so small you can shoot with a tank or colossi from one ramp onto the other. Blizzard really outdid themselves here.
So with this great map layout there exists an almost idiot proof strategy to always win in these positions.
Defend your natural with tanks. Take the gold with a planetary. You can secure it with tanks, bunkers and turrets. The best part is you can easily afford all this because it is not only for defense, you are actually attacking with it.
If you put your tanks a little bit away from your gold base you can actually siege the opponent's natural.
By pushing this way you have exactly one attack path to your base not covered, which is so narrow that you can just build a planetary there and you are safe. I marked the position with an X
This map is sooo bad. I really can't say more to it because i am at a loss of words... Just create a custom game and see for yourself...
Conclusion
All the problems i pointed out above are gamebreaking and easy to find problems. I don't know how the QA works at Blizzard, but it is plain obviously by now that there are some fundamental problems with Blizzard's handling of the map pool.
I really don't know what Blizzard is thinking. You would think they would learn from their mistakes and produce better maps or finally start to import more than one.
The community (e.g. iCCup) and industry (e.g. GSL) made a lot of good maps. Many of them are tested a lot, are played by progamers and are considered balanced. I just don't get why Blizzard forces us to play on these shitty maps. Is it so hard to create a good ladder map pool?
*sigh*
Sidenotes- No i dont hate terran and i think on a good map all three races are pretty balanced
- Antiga is not that bad. I just don't understand why the gap is so small and the gas hittable. Also in the positions i talked about, i think its too easy for a terran to control the map, but thats only my guess and therefore could be wrong
- Searing Crater is really an abomination
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Searing Crater is the most horrible map since delta quadrant.
Antiga is really nice IMO, the only concern I have is that tanks can hit your third from there main.
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searing crater is the worst map, even worst than backwater gulch
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Lol I totally agree with you. It's like they purposely want to make life tough on Zerg. I'm Terran btw
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I agree, the new maps a poorly designed. May I add that there is no where to put overlords other than the initial 3 overlords?
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Another thing I'd like to mention. The ICCUP maps are simply amazing, easily my fave maps. I would do anything to play with them on the ladder, would be so much better.
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Go watch the Catz interview of Dustin.
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The main problem with your analysis is that you are forgetting these maps are designed to really only get to 2 base play, because they are the small "rush" maps. That means in Blizzard's eyes, the lack of anything sensible beyond 2 bases (e.g stupid third bases) isn't a problem, because they're simply not meant to be taken!
First step you take before questioning Blizzard's map is to get into the Blizzard mindset, which requires not thinking beyond 2 bases.
Yes, the maps are dumb and stupid, but because Blizzard want's 2 base rush maps, they don't think these problems exist.
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You never played BW did you? Lost Temple, arguably the most popular map in the game, had the exact same issues as Antiga Shipyard where Terran could place tanks in specific positions and shell your main/gas from outside. It's not a big deal, there are plenty of ways to deal with it.
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That's an absolutely absurd distance on Searing...you'd have thought they'd do something about that. I feel like when the natural rush distance is viewable on one screen, they'd think about removing those spawn positions...
That's one thing i don't particularly like about the blizz map selection, they seem to be taking 2v2 maps, where the two on one side dump into a similar spot, and then making them 1v1, where no spawns are disabled...
Edit: Shipyard i don't really have a whole lot of beef against yet though
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INB4: "You zergs can just downvote it". Sure, but why whould they make a map that is so biased towards a race that it needs to be vetoed?
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Taldarim altar : 60% of win toward zergs, balanced, really? Metalopolis (used in every tournament): 60% win toward zergs WITH the close pose included (meaning a 75-80% win without it).
Blizzard is making not too big maps because terran players would have as bad results as in tournaments in ladder with bigger maps.
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On July 30 2011 22:00 chadissilent wrote: You never played BW did you? Lost Temple, arguably the most popular map in the game, had the exact same issues as Antiga Shipyard where Terran could place tanks in specific positions and shell your main/gas from outside. It's not a big deal, there are plenty of ways to deal with it.
It is widely agreed in the BW community that Lost Temple is imbalanced so i don't really know what you want.
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On July 30 2011 22:05 Cosmos wrote: Taldarim altar : 60% of win toward zergs, balanced, really? Metalopolis (used in every tournament): 60% win toward zergs WITH the close pose included (meaning a 75-80% win without it).
Blizzard is making not too big maps because terran players would have as bad results as in tournaments in ladder with bigger maps.
Just because some huge maps are possibly favored to zerg (in non-pro-play !) doesn't make every large map favored to zerg or makes the new ladder maps any better.
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On July 30 2011 22:05 Cosmos wrote: Taldarim altar : 60% of win toward zergs, balanced, really? Metalopolis (used in every tournament): 60% win toward zergs WITH the close pose included (meaning a 75-80% win without it).
Blizzard is making not too big maps because terran players would have as bad results as in tournaments in ladder with bigger maps.
I'm sorry. But I tought close-pos was the hardest for zergs?
According to your data if I haven't misinterpreted it; a zerg will actually lose more often are the close positions excluded.
Are you sure this is correct? Where do you get this data btw?
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On July 30 2011 22:00 chadissilent wrote: You never played BW did you? Lost Temple, arguably the most popular map in the game, had the exact same issues as Antiga Shipyard where Terran could place tanks in specific positions and shell your main/gas from outside. It's not a big deal, there are plenty of ways to deal with it.
I agree every time a new map is released we have these same stupid screen shots of siege tanks in X position where they can hit some expansion and suddenly the map is completely imbalanced! It gets really tiresome, if there is a problem it will become evident in actual ladder play not your stupid screenshots and theory crafting.
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On July 30 2011 22:05 Cosmos wrote: Taldarim altar : 60% of win toward zergs, balanced, really? Metalopolis (used in every tournament): 60% win toward zergs WITH the close pose included (meaning a 75-80% win without it).
Blizzard is making not too big maps because terran players would have as bad results as in tournaments in ladder with bigger maps.
yes thats why no terran ever wins a series in the gsl where the maps are bigger. haven't we learned from early seasons of the gsl that overly small maps=cheese=horrible? the natural to natural distance is so insanely small on searing its rediculous. I cannot believe my eyes seeing that
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On July 30 2011 22:16 sirkyan wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2011 22:05 Cosmos wrote: Taldarim altar : 60% of win toward zergs, balanced, really? Metalopolis (used in every tournament): 60% win toward zergs WITH the close pose included (meaning a 75-80% win without it).
Blizzard is making not too big maps because terran players would have as bad results as in tournaments in ladder with bigger maps. I'm sorry. But I tought close-pos was the hardest for zergs? According to your data if I haven't misinterpreted it; a zerg will actually lose more often are the close positions excluded. Are you sure this is correct? Where do you get this data btw?
You misinterpreted. He is saying zerg wins 75-80% without close pos and 60% with it.
EDIT: Got it wrong while writing.
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If the 60% on ladder are correct, thats simply because all other maps are terran favoured, so when you actually get a balanced map, the zerg wins, because he is simply better. (the matchmaking causes the average of all maps to be 50%, so imagine a pool with steppes, delta and xel´naga --> obviously xel´naga would look completely zerg favoured)
(No I am not Zerg, Terran actually....
... and I am pissed at the pool too, because the game develops completely different then in all major tournament maps. Playing Searing Crater on ladder really helps you train for testbug, terminus etc. in leagues...
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