Adaptability, Creativity, and Randomnized Map Generator

[supersonic]

For sure this is a cool idea, although I do agree with the only reason the game has lasted this long is because of the balanced of the maps and the races.

Now the reason this would not work for SC2 is because there is no longer "black fog of war". Just in case people didn't know this yet the whole map is already "explored" for you. Personally I LOVE this change and I hope they keep it just it basically for sure shuts down your idea, and I don't think Blizzard would add map randomization in anyways so I'm sure it doesn't even come into relevance for them..

[PosImpos]

As a person who played a lot of Age of Empires over the years, I can say that randomized maps have a lot of pros and cons.

The pros, at least in theory, are as you implied - because things are not static and expected, the player is forced to adapt.

The problem is that having things be totally random presents a very difficult balancing challenge. Even if things are random, they have to be mostly even for all players involved in order for a map to be fair and balanced. This requirement reduces the randomness that a map can possibly have, because no matter what resources and points of advantage have to be evenly distributed.

What I found in Age of Empires is that because of these limitations, although maps were randomized, they were not randomized to a truly significant degree. There were lots of little details in the map that changed from game to game, but not any really big ones. Players could always count on having a certain amount of resources within a certain area near their base, and they could count on their opponent being a certain distance away from them in roughly the same place on the map.

Furthermore, I found that when I compared the maps in Starcraft or Warcraft 3 to those in the Age of Empires games, the developer-created maps in the Blizzard games tended to be much more intricate and detailed because they were created purposefully, whereas maps in Age of Empires games tended to be a lot less interesting. Although once you play Starcraft and Warcraft 3 for a long time you become very familiar with all of the maps, there are a great deal of maps in both games (far more than the selection of random-generated maps in the Age games).

I'm not saying that randomization could not work in a competitive game, but the engine for generating the random maps would have to be very powerful so that it could create many different maps with lots of significant variations that are nonetheless balanced for all players.

I have a feeling it would take Blizzard a long time to create and polish such an engine. Maybe for Starcraft 3.

[Benthum]

Edit: On Balance of randomly generated maps:

Something to keep in mind is that maps we already have are imbalanced and they're made by PEOPLE. So nothing less should be expected from randomly generated maps.

In non-mirrior matchups, it's inevitable that some imba will occur. But ultimately this is a problem of small sample size. In a best of, the players will get lucky or unlucky equally.

Imba can also add excitement to the game. It’s admirable when a player wins, but much more so (and more entertaining to watch) if he wins despite the odds.

[Islandsnake]

I see this being a interesting option when creating a game kinda like with WAR3 where you could make random hero, reveal map.

Its fun, and interesting but certainly not for mainstream ladder play, however if it catches on and is fun to play I would be fine with it having its own ladder, like the casual league.

Though there are several problems with the idea as well, depending on how good the randomization is would depend on how much it changes the game, for instance if it was very random and creative with its randomness it would make for unique and insane play..but that also might result and lots of build order losses...and if it wasn't random enough it would become not so different from normal play. Also I think this sort of randomization favors races that can have tons of vision of the map the quickest ( zerg).


On a slightly offtopic note, I would love to see some non mirrored maps in play, but theres obvious issues with that, though could be interesting to add onto the random map thing.

[warrior6]

t's about a boy military genius, Ender, and his struggle to win simulated battles.

simulated??? who cares.

[warrior6]

If you're one of the two people who has never read or heard of "Ender's Game" (read it), it's about a boy military genius, Ender, and his struggle to win simulated battles. Even when the odds were unfavorable, Ender beat his fellow trainees through adaptability and creativity...

if it was real battles, i mighta gave it a shot. but since the battles are simulated, thats sucks and now i really don't care.

double post ffs

[Rogueleader89]

A random map generator, done correctly, could never hurt the game, I fully support it. As for tournament play on random maps unknown to the players beforehand, I have my doubts about getting a map generator to consistently generate well balanced maps on a regular basis at this point in time; however, I do not see what would stop one from preparing carefully balanced human-made maps (or even randomly generating maps then checking them for balance prior to playing) without showing them to the players. In fact, it could be done right now with sc1 if we had a good backing and some fine map makers around.

[Benthum]

A random map generator, done correctly, could never hurt the game, I fully support it. As for tournament play on random maps unknown to the players beforehand, I have my doubts about getting a map generator to consistently generate well balanced maps on a regular basis at this point in time; however, I do not see what would stop one from preparing carefully balanced human-made maps (or even randomly generating maps then checking them for balance prior to playing) without showing them to the players. In fact, it could be done right now with sc1 if we had a good backing and some fine map makers around.

This is a great point, but there are some problems.

1. Who would create the maps? When it comes to the pro-scene, legitimacy comes with large profit seeking organizations. Creating new maps cost money, and it's unlikely that these organizations would throw away maps after one use when the current system is already drawing enough audience. Without solid proof that unique maps can draw a larger crowd, status quo prevails.

2. The amount of maps that needs to be created requires a lot of time to test and develop. Much easier if algorithms churn out a maps, and humans adjust or get rid of the blatantly imba maps afterwords.

3. What about non-professional players like ourselves? What's better than watching Starcraft is playing it. If unique maps are only available in a tournament setting, casual players will be left out a majority of the time.

[Rizhall]

I 100% support this idea. I would have never thought of something like this, even though in hindsight, it would obviously add so much to the game.
It doesn't have to support ladder matches and strong competition. It's meant as something players can casually do for fun with others. Nothing stops organizations from locking maps to a specific set and skipping the random aspect completely. I'd definitely use the random feature a lot.

[MattII]

The problem with random maps in SC2 is the competition and balance. SC wouldn't be nearly as popular today if maps couldn't be certified balanced.

Who says they can't be balanced, I mean, if you generate a map that takes up 1/4 of the normal map, then mirror it you get a map that's perfectly symmetrical.