|
Bnet Published Name: [themusic] - Afterlight Playable Size: 134x124 Bases: 12 Blues Main to Main: 38 sec
A smaller map with a good amount of rocks to even out early game. Xel'naga positioned next to the lowground third. Smaller choke in the highground center and a decent amount of 4x ramps so mid/late game doesn't get too clogged up. Feedback appreciated.
Art stuff: + Show Spoiler +
|
Cool aesthetics. I personally like the layout, but feels like maps with such short rush distances are universally hated by pros? No one wants to play Abio right now. What does this map do right that Abio didn't?
|
On April 12 2018 02:10 alephnaut wrote: Cool aesthetics. I personally like the layout, but feels like maps with such short rush distances are universally hated by pros? No one wants to play Abio right now. What does this map do right that Abio didn't?
The natural's safer.
|
The balance seems generally "ok" on abio other than pvz. So probably the most important is safer nat/third option for protoss (a third option on highround and has a smaller choke than abio).
Its overall smaller in size and less "open" with a xelnaga right at the lowground third which should make it play pretty different, not sure if thats too much apples to oranges comparison, but a good point.
|
Nice standard map with beautiful aesthetics as usual. The Xel'Naga Towers provide a bit of a twist, though I wonder how much of the center it reveals...
|
Not the biggest fan of these small maps in general, huge fan of the aesthetics tho
|
|
The aesthetics and the layout are pretty good. I'm a little nervous having the center be high ground on a relatively short rush distance map, but I think that's my personal preferences clouding my judgment a little. I'm not sure how I feel about the towers either, and the fact that I keep thinking "I don't know how I feel about x or y" means that I've been out of the game for too long, and you should not take my criticism too seriously. I can say that I prefer this over Abiogenesis though.
In general, small maps are not popular, but they are a huge part of the game and imo it's extremely important to have one or two small rush maps in a map pool, whether it's for a tournament or for the ladder. People still need to make maps like these.
You used the rocks here very well to help players feel more secure when expanding despite the small size and short rush distances.
|
On April 16 2018 00:02 Antares777 wrote: The aesthetics and the layout are pretty good. I'm a little nervous having the center be high ground on a relatively short rush distance map, but I think that's my personal preferences clouding my judgment a little. I'm not sure how I feel about the towers either, and the fact that I keep thinking "I don't know how I feel about x or y" means that I've been out of the game for too long, and you should not take my criticism too seriously. I can say that I prefer this over Abiogenesis though.
In general, small maps are not popular, but they are a huge part of the game and imo it's extremely important to have one or two small rush maps in a map pool, whether it's for a tournament or for the ladder. People still need to make maps like these.
You used the rocks here very well to help players feel more secure when expanding despite the small size and short rush distances. I don't completely agree. Having smaller maps is important to a map pool, but I'm not convinced there needs to be a true rush map in it. Abiogenesis, Battle on the Boardwalk, Paladino Terminal and basically any rush map we've had, had enough balance problems that they weren't a net positive influence on the map pool.
|
On April 16 2018 01:18 ZigguratOfUr wrote:Show nested quote +On April 16 2018 00:02 Antares777 wrote: The aesthetics and the layout are pretty good. I'm a little nervous having the center be high ground on a relatively short rush distance map, but I think that's my personal preferences clouding my judgment a little. I'm not sure how I feel about the towers either, and the fact that I keep thinking "I don't know how I feel about x or y" means that I've been out of the game for too long, and you should not take my criticism too seriously. I can say that I prefer this over Abiogenesis though.
In general, small maps are not popular, but they are a huge part of the game and imo it's extremely important to have one or two small rush maps in a map pool, whether it's for a tournament or for the ladder. People still need to make maps like these.
You used the rocks here very well to help players feel more secure when expanding despite the small size and short rush distances. I don't completely agree. Having smaller maps is important to a map pool, but I'm not convinced there needs to be a true rush map in it. Abiogenesis, Battle on the Boardwalk, Paladino Terminal and basically any rush map we've had, had enough balance problems that they weren't a net positive influence on the map pool.
I think it's difficult to say for sure, especially since afaik we have never had a map pool without one or two small/rush maps (I was using the terms "rush" and "small" interchangeably, and I realize that they are not always interchangeable). Without a benchmark, how do we know that these maps had balance issues or were disliked because they were small or rush maps? If you're saying that "basically any rush map we've had, had... balance problems" then doesn't that simply mean that small/rush maps will always have balance issues?
I want to clarify my post a bit and ask: is it possible to create a small/rush map that does not have balance issues? I think this is more of a theoretical question than a lot of us are willing to realize. I want to believe that we can, but I'm having a difficult time believing that we've actually ever done so. And you can always point to another variable to explain why these maps have been historically unpopular/unblanaced, like racial balance or the metagame.
Maybe players play differently on small/rush maps because they are small/rush maps and therefore believe that they should play in a more aggressive way, which could affect the overall feel of the maps. I'm just saying there's simply too many moving factors. Even if you cut all small/rush maps from the map pool and any future small/rush maps from the map pool, people will still complain about the weakest map in the pool.
I'm very interested in the efficacy of small maps in the pool and want to try to create small maps that are not also rush maps. They can be difficult to distinguish since the correlation between a map's size and whether or not it is a rush or macro map is very high. I think if we can effectively create small maps that are not also rush maps, maybe we can solve this issue? I don't know for sure. I think this map tries to solve that issue with rock placement in order to make some areas more defensible and increase the security that a player will feel on the map and thus change his/her gameplay behavior, but is it enough?
|
On April 16 2018 01:55 Antares777 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 16 2018 01:18 ZigguratOfUr wrote:On April 16 2018 00:02 Antares777 wrote: The aesthetics and the layout are pretty good. I'm a little nervous having the center be high ground on a relatively short rush distance map, but I think that's my personal preferences clouding my judgment a little. I'm not sure how I feel about the towers either, and the fact that I keep thinking "I don't know how I feel about x or y" means that I've been out of the game for too long, and you should not take my criticism too seriously. I can say that I prefer this over Abiogenesis though.
In general, small maps are not popular, but they are a huge part of the game and imo it's extremely important to have one or two small rush maps in a map pool, whether it's for a tournament or for the ladder. People still need to make maps like these.
You used the rocks here very well to help players feel more secure when expanding despite the small size and short rush distances. I don't completely agree. Having smaller maps is important to a map pool, but I'm not convinced there needs to be a true rush map in it. Abiogenesis, Battle on the Boardwalk, Paladino Terminal and basically any rush map we've had, had enough balance problems that they weren't a net positive influence on the map pool. I think it's difficult to say for sure, especially since afaik we have never had a map pool without one or two small/rush maps (I was using the terms "rush" and "small" interchangeably, and I realize that they are not always interchangeable). Without a benchmark, how do we know that these maps had balance issues or were disliked because they were small or rush maps? If you're saying that "basically any rush map we've had, had... balance problems" then doesn't that simply mean that small/rush maps will always have balance issues? I want to clarify my post a bit and ask: is it possible to create a small/rush map that does not have balance issues? I think this is more of a theoretical question than a lot of us are willing to realize. I want to believe that we can, but I'm having a difficult time believing that we've actually ever done so. And you can always point to another variable to explain why these maps have been historically unpopular/unblanaced, like racial balance or the metagame. Maybe players play differently on small/rush maps because they are small/rush maps and therefore believe that they should play in a more aggressive way, which could affect the overall feel of the maps. I'm just saying there's simply too many moving factors. Even if you cut all small/rush maps from the map pool and any future small/rush maps from the map pool, people will still complain about the weakest map in the pool. I'm very interested in the efficacy of small maps in the pool and want to try to create small maps that are not also rush maps. They can be difficult to distinguish since the correlation between a map's size and whether or not it is a rush or macro map is very high. I think if we can effectively create small maps that are not also rush maps, maybe we can solve this issue? I don't know for sure. I think this map tries to solve that issue with rock placement in order to make some areas more defensible and increase the security that a player will feel on the map and thus change his/her gameplay behavior, but is it enough?
I feel like you're equivocating a bit too much. Map dislike might be a bit ambiguous to measure, but imbalance is usually pretty clear, and rush maps do have a rather poor record balance-wise with moving factors being a minor influence at best. Player behaviour isn't the culprit either imo--players are converging on rushes since those strategies are strongest and not only due to preconceptions. It's not like pros always rush on rush maps. I've seen most strategies tried at least once, including raven-turtle on Abiogenesis which was interesting. But I digress. If other strategies were effective on rush maps the meta would eventually shift towards that despite prior beliefs.
That's not to say that people shouldn't try to make smaller maps, just that I don't think true 'rush' maps (which as you rightly pointed out isn't the same thing as a small map) are a necessity for a map pool. And as a side-note I rather think Backwater is the weakest map in the pool currently, and not Abiogenesis.
|
On April 16 2018 04:05 ZigguratOfUr wrote: That's not to say that people shouldn't try to make smaller maps, just that I don't think true 'rush' maps (which as you rightly pointed out isn't the same thing as a small map) are a necessity for a map pool.
That was the aim here. 38 seconds m2m isnt anything "too crazy". As long as its over something like 35 i think the bigger issue is the balance of chokes and openness at the first couple bases. Definitely proper to separate these two terms though.
|
Hello, I would like to create an amateur tournament for diamond players. I am looking for interesting maps for mappool. I would love to see this map in this list, but it is not published on the EU. Is it possible to publish it?
|
@Adimax1993 sorry about that - published it!
|
|
|
|