I think you need to add more textures and more decoration to the map in general. Otherwise, it looks really, really bland.
Looks decent. You might want to reduce the 100 mineral blocks to something like 40 or 30, just so you can mine them out faster. Xel naga watch towers seem a little poorly placed. Maybe put them behind the line of sight blockers.
Looks interesting, I have no idea if it is balanced enough for tournament play or not. I agree with the above poster that the map needs more textures and things to make it look nicer and the xel'naga towers seem somewhat useless in their current positions.
I do like the setup of the Main and natural.Good work.
^^ I agree that it needs more doo-dads/textures- will work on this
...but the Xel' Nagas prove to be very useful in game. When someone has positioned their army on the high ground, it helps a lot to control the Xel'Naga to avoid being flanked or surrounded.
Ex 1: I played against a Protoss who had his army gaurding the ramp (sentry/zealot/stalk), and because he controlled the Xel'Naga, he saw my speedlings try to run into his army and surround him. If he hadn't controlled the tower, my roaches would have attacked from lower and lings would have surrounded his army.
Ex 2: I also played a late game vs. Terran, and because he didn't control the Xel' Naga, I was able to do a quick roach harass on his 3rd.
About the minerals/choke-
It was less per patch, but when that path becomes easier to unblock it makes an imbalance. The attacker can waltz in with his army (siege tanks in particular), easily destroy his natural, and be in a good position to destroy the main.
Thanks for feedback!! I will be adding more textures and consider moving the Xel' Nagas.
It would take 20 trips of 1 worker to mine out one of those mineral patches. That is a lot of mining and scouting not being done, and takes a long time. Why not replace the mineral patches with destructible rocks, eh? Mineable patches are meant to tempt the player who's base they are next to, for instance on Destination they gave access to the easiest third option (albeit mineral only) and control over the backing of your natural, making it safer. And that was just stacked 0 minerals, so you didn't need to do all the actual REAL mining to do. And in it's curret state, who would want to ruin a perfectly safe natural by wasting valuable mining time? If you replace it with destructible rocks it offers more paths of attack and makes defense harder which rewards aggressive play, a good foil to an easy to take natural. Also, destructible rocks, besides being obnoxious, can change how the map works in interesting ways. For instance, take Blistering Sands, the destructible rocks are the bane of expanders at first, because attackers can bounce from one entrance to another, but if a protoss player for instance 2 gates and walls off the choke to the natural, he can expand and knock down the rocks and use them as his main entrance/exit. A similar option could be presented here offering an alternate expansion pattern, perhaps taking the natural early, knocking down the rocks that (IMO) should replace those impotent mineral chunks, and then take the opponent's fourth as a third. This seems especially suited for terran mech because terran mech's immobility means they generally want to nab expansions as they slowly encroach towards their opponent (Think Kantrina).
[TL/DR]: No person in their right mind would mine out those mineral patches and the easy nat combined with that would, in my view of it (I could be wrong), promote passivity over aggression. It would be folly to try an agressive strategy that sacrifices an economy on a map where the defender holds all the cards. Switch the minerals with destructible rocks, it adds an addendum to the easy natural that adds strategic depth.
[TLDRWTL] (Too Long Didn't Read Was Too Long) Then you too lazy
-Cheers
Also, first post! I have apparently stopped lurking for this. Hurray?
Edit: I just wanted to say that I actually like the map from a design perspective, but it does need to be made more pretty. I remember seeing a recreation of Chupung-Ryeong that was simply gorgeous. I would look for that for insperation. Keep up the good work!
I think it would make more sense to lower the mineral count, because if I added destructible rocks, then nobody would use the main entrance. In the first edition, that pathway was not even there. If I made the minerals have 20, would that be decent?
With 25 minerals, it would take 5-10 harvesters to mine that out (possibly w/out a CC near it).
With 100 minerals, it was only really possible to get out if you had taken the natural expansion.
The map looks cool, I would consider making the mains high(+2) ground although, to reduce the risk of beeing walled in for zerg players. The map also needs work on it's textures and doodads. I would consider adding destructable rocks instead of low mineral patches, although that's mainly because I'm more faimliar with that.
I played the TSI version of Avalanche in a tourney, and it felt mostly comfortable, from what I was able to play of it. The mains might have been a little tight though, maybe you could expand them towards the map edge a bit?
I like Legend. I think it's a cool concept and reminds me of Brood War maps (can't put my finger on why).
Off-topic:
I'm a little curious, what separates competition maps from non competition maps? Are competition maps intended for competitive, submitted to map making competitions, currently played in competitions or something else?
I think this would be cool for Legend. Put the gold on the low ground closer to your main so if you want to be more aggressive you could take that but it would also open you up a lot more. Make the higher ground where the gold is smaller...not sure if you'd want to add anything up on it though?
Also, if you keep it your way make sure you can't get vision into the main from sitting up on that gold high ground.
Heh... I'm actually working on that thread now, going to rewrite some stuff.
I like Legend. I think it's a cool concept and reminds me of Brood War maps (can't put my finger on why).
Off-topic:
I'm a little curious, what separates competition maps from non competition maps? Are competition maps intended for competitive, submitted to map making competitions, currently played in competitions or something else?
Thanks! Non-competition maps are maps that aren't good enough to be played in competitive games- the competition maps are either currently being used, or are intended to be used.
Non-competition often lack in terms of layout (expo) or paths which lead to a dull gameplay or they are experimental maps (style/layout/...).
Yeah, but they are really good for learning and trying out ideas.
On August 11 2011 07:41 SidianTheBard wrote: I think this would be cool for Legend. Put the gold on the low ground closer to your main so if you want to be more aggressive you could take that but it would also open you up a lot more. Make the higher ground where the gold is smaller...not sure if you'd want to add anything up on it though?
Also, if you keep it your way make sure you can't get vision into the main from sitting up on that gold high ground.
That would be cool... my reason I don't want it against the main is because it wouldn't be used as a 5th base leading off of the 4th in the corner. I will move the gold closer to the main so you can take it as an aggressive base, but it can't be quite that close.
Don´t you think this would lead to too many turtle-games? If for example terrans have a few tanks and marines on that highground there is pretty much nothing your opponent can do to do damage. What would you think about making the center a highground to make the defenders advantage smaller?
Don´t you think this would lead to too many turtle-games? If for example terrans have a few tanks and marines on that highground there is pretty much nothing your opponent can do to do damage. What would you think about making the center a highground to make the defenders advantage smaller?
Possibly. I played some test games and they wen't alright, but the cliff above the nat was really annoying and the third is pretty turtley. Right now I'm just going to keep testing and refine it. I'm not happy with the gameplay as it is.