New maps for Season 3 map pool

[Ghetto-blasteR]

it's funny tychus but you should really be the audience of everything you're saying.

saying i'm the illogical one doesn't actually make me the illogical one, just like saying i haven't been providing evidence doesn't actually make that the case. if anything, i would say most of the valid points being ignored are mine.

and when it comes to who's showing any sign of emotion at all in the writing, tychus, well i think it's funny that you should bring that up. ask any neutral party to decide that. don't take my word for it.

that being said, while there's little debate over who's "more qualified" or whatever, that doesn't make your word gospel. you're basically acting like the wright brothers being the authority on flight but saying we can never make it to space. (i don't know if they actually thought that but that's not the point.) the only thing you guys have managed to show is that creating a balanced asymm map is hard, and that a lot of people on TL forums are dismissive of the idea (while ignoring the posts of those in the very same forum who think it's a worthwhile pursuit). that's it. you haven't made a single step of progress toward showing that it can never be done. then on top of that, you add that even if it could be done, it wouldn't be worth it. well, that's your opinion, and you don't speak on behalf of everybody else in the community.

^ if i have misrepresented your contributions thus far in the above paragraph, please demonstrate that.

aside from that, i've already shown you how i haven't broken any of the standard debate rules, but you fail to see my point, and instead fell right into what i predicted you would say. i'm not going to go over this again. whoever disagrees can refer to my previous post. if you still see it that way, well that's your privilege.

but whatever. none of that matters. at this point you've really brought nothing new to the table, and i've also brought nothing new to the table, therefore everything's already out in the open, so i'm done.

of course, if you have anything new to add feel free. other people can read it.

EDIT: @gradius: again, some of the links you posted are great and fairly instructive. people should definitely check them out

[TheEconomist]

that doesn't make your word gospel

Never said my word was gospel. I only said it had infinitely more credibility than yours because it was based in reality; not a land of fairies and unicorns ... and Santa.

if anything, i would say most of the valid points being ignored are mine.

That's because you don't understand the fundamentals of debate. If you did, you would know that you haven't made a single acceptable point. I'm not event talking about a stupid, illogical, or wrong point. I'm talking about you not even making a point that would be accepted in a basic middle school debate class. A point has to have a basis; not, as it was called in the link, "proof by negative claim." All you've given are "proofs by negative claim" and that's so nooooot a point that you'd get thrown out of a debate class for using it. Understand?

when it comes to who's showing any sign of emotion at all in the writing

Having a stern tone isn't an emotion. It's what I have found to be necessary to break through thick-headed skulls over the years I've been on this forum. Like I said before, I could tip-toe around and be nicer, but that's doing either of us a favor. It wastes both of our time and you're only going to ignore the point anyways. Therefore, I am direct. Direct means cutting through the bullshit .. and that necessitates a stern tone.

Didn't your father speak to you in such a way? Surely, as a teenager, you were doing some stupid shit and your father had to give you a stern talking to. Basically, I'm sonin' you.

Either way, I'm not talking about having an emotion; I'm talking about basing your debate and the reason you are arguing based on an emotion. I'm talking about people who keep arguing because they won't admit they're wrong (Emotion: embarassment) or making an argument because they feel a certain way, like you.

you're basically acting like the wright brothers being the authority on flight but saying we can never make it to space.

....

Seriously? More non-StarCraft strawman examples? Come on, bro. Can't you do better?

Give me ONE StarCraft non-strawman example and then you can talk about having valid points. But, you see, you can't create one, or else you would've already given it. You're just as lost as we are to the solution. The only difference is that we're map makers and we know better than to believe in leprechauns and a pile of Gold at the end of a rainbow. To devolve my argument to your level (hopefully, you can understand fuzzy emotion-logic) What you're talking about isn't like making x = y, it's like making x =/= x. It's illogical. You only hold to your claim because you want to believe with all your heart that x =/= x and you've never put the equation to the test. Hence, the "relgious zealot" comparison.

i've already shown you how i haven't broken any of the standard debate rules

LOL.

Not.

Even.

Close.

Try it on someone else. You have no argument. You know you're guilty of this. Just admit it so you don't make the same mistakes in the future. Don't be like the others and deny it to yourself when you could take this as a lesson and learn from it.

[RODTHEGOD]

What league are you?

Well technically I'm in diamond, but I really should be in gold, I won few games in diamond and it's disappointing. Sure I put up a good fight but I always seem to find my enemy has this huge army and I can't spend fast enough.

Clearly, you don't play StarCraft for the competition, therefore, ladder isn't for you, therefore, custom games is your best bet and, there, you can find all the imbalanced asymmetrical fun you want. Why even start this debate to begin with?

Huh I wasn't aware I was talking about the ladder I thought I was just talking about a way in which you could have a bit more fun (more like ffa games) but with different maps/players.

That's what custom maps are for.

Ladder is for . . . laddering. i.e. serious competition.

Yes, I got that. Please point to where I was suggesting changing the ladder.

99.999% of the population would hate your idea if implemented. I played SCBW for thirteen years and I had the misfortune of experiencing what you propose. I hated it, when I wanted to be serious. It was something that bothered pretty much everyone. There's a reason they invented match making to improve upon SCBW.

99.999% of people eh? For some reason I doubt that. For some reason I suspect you pulled that number right out of your ass. Perhaps I didn't explain myself enough but 99.999%? Ok that’s statistically impossible.

And what the hell do you mean you experienced what I'm proposing? There was nothing in brood war that resembles what I'm proposing.

Again I'm not suggesting the ladder be butchered, or even touched. I'm suggesting there be a little side map option that you could go into and be handicapped against a weaker player or play against someone who knows what their doing but is handicapped in a way where you stand a chance.

Again, however, sometimes I wanted to play Blizz maps for fun. Yes, they were more fun, but, that really has nothing to do with serious competition. When you want to be serious, ladder. When you want to have fun, play custom games. Simple as fuck. Your whole stance is completely unnecessary.

I want asymmetrical maps to play on, for fun and/or competitively. I think it's possible for them to be balanced. You don't.

(On a side note, your belief that being at an advantage/disadvantage is training for anyone screams bronzer from you. The only way to train is to have everything as close to balanced as possible and have the opponent be the variable; not the map.)

How is that not training? If playing against someone who know how to macro/micro a lot better then you. You can see how it's done and develop your own technique more. Playing against someone who has a map advantage, shows that you can fight back even when the odds are against you. How is that not training?

Consider what else they could have done with that time. Now, kick yourself in the ass.

Right because making maps 1. Takes so much time, 2. Is at the top of things to do and 3. Takes away from what the developers could be doing... Your logic is fucking fantastic... I wish I could have some of it... maybe in a pipe or some brownies.

They have already tried. They tried for years. Were you even around during SCBW's early days? That's even ignoring that Blizzard didn't experiment with asymmetry in the early builds. In addition, 100000000s of other map makers, probably more skilled than them, tried. They failed. Blizzard would fail. Anyone would fail.

You seem to like to exaggerate. Most maps competitively were symmetrical in brood war and asymmetrical ones had some great replays. and if 100000000s of map makers tried and failed, surely you can point to 100000000s of failed asymmetrical maps that were miserable failures but I'll go easy on you, just list say.... 20? 15? 10? that were miserable failures. Show me a bunch of sites that say they were miserable failures and I'll agree with you the asymmetrical maps a practically unbalance able

Think what you say through or else its the equivalent of a childish outburst and it serves no purpose other than to make asses of everyone. Your whole post is laughable. It's got desperation written all over it. I can't even find the words to express how i*something* it is at the moment. Maybe, when I come back later, I can be a bit more eloquent. But, honestly, nothing annoys me more than emotional, illogical bullshit, and I've been overloaded with it in this thread.

lol. Please sir, can I have some more?
Please?
Pretty please?
Pretty please with cherries on top?

But seriously, that would have made me angry when I was 10 years younger so congratulations on that. I honestly did think it was funny though so don't think i'm being sarcastic because I'm not.

[TheEconomist]

Huh I wasn't aware I was talking about the ladder I thought I was just talking about a way in which you could have a bit more fun (more like ffa games) but with different maps/players.

I assumed you were because:
1) This is a topic about the LADDER POOL.
2) What you ask for is already in custom games.
3) Blizzard doesn’t make melee maps specifically for customs.

And what the hell do you mean you experienced what I'm proposing? There was nothing in brood war that resembles what I'm proposing.

Imbalanced maps with imbalanced teams. Yeah, SCBW had NOTHING like that

I think it's possible for them to be balanced. You don't.

Damn my experience, knowledge, and need for logic.

How is that not training?

You don’t train for something so far beyond what you will find in competition. Get used to having more minerals/gas, having more allies than the other, or having map advantages, or whatever, will get you used to something far beyond what you’ll find in competition. Have you never trained for anything before? It’s like that with pretty much everything. The only exceptions I can think of off the top of my head are sports where you need to do difference exercises to train your muscles.

In this case, the best thing you can do is practice the basics such as micro/macro or performing under pressure. But, really, that's very minor. I know, I've tried it before. When I was young, I tried all of the custom hard AIs. I'm almost certain it actually made my melee skills worse with human opponents. Again, *sigh*, argument from ignorance.

Right because making maps 1. Takes so much time

You’ve never made a map, have you? Don’t answer. I already know.
If you had made a map, you would know that its hard enough to make a balanced symmetrical map. It’s much harder even to make a balanced symmetrical map which promotes varying styles of gameplay. It’s muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch harder to do these things in asymmetry, even to a far lower standard than symmetry.

Even if such a mythical thing existed, you could probably get 50 symmetrical maps in its place or something else SP or MP related. Which would you rather have? Don’t answer. I already know. You’d bitch about whatever Blizzard went with.

You seem to like to exaggerate.

No, I literally meant that 100 billion map makers have tried and failed. Sure, there may only be 6 billion people on this planet but you can’t prove that there are not alternative dimensions where other map makers exist. You can’t prove this wrong so its undeniable right. I dare you to prove that there’s not some alternate dimension where I rule the fucking world.

Show me a bunch of sites that say they were miserable failures

Ahhhhh, yes. More “I’m right until you prove me wrong.” Don’t see ya’ll saying anything about anything easy to prove. The problem with this is that:

1) Such sites died long, long, long ago.
2) Even if they were still around, I doubt they’d have maps from a decade ago. For one, they’re fucking old and probably don’t run on current patches. Next, they’re asymmetrical, that’s basically suicide in the community that SCBW became.
3) Miserable failures don’t get commented on much. I mean, why would they? Still, there’s tons of maps that were failures, although probably simply because of mapper incompetence. So, I guess the best you can get is the original Blizzard maps that came on the disc.
4) Who the fuck cares what the internets thinks about anything?

*sigh*

Honestly, this entire thread is filled with arguments based on ignorance. Either its ignorance from not even attempting to test your hypotheses or ignorance from not being around in the community when these ideas were new. To you all, the question of asymmetry is new. You've got all of these hopeful ideas and assumptions that keep you going. We had those too. We tested them for years, trying to make them work. We failed. Unfortunately for us, no one around knew any better. Today, you have those who know better. Sadly, the internet is far more thick-headed than it was back then. So, the cycle begins a new.

*sigh*

[Peanutbutter]

Really looking forward to playing on these maps, once they get released. Even though there is a large debate, about whether these maps favor certain races, spawn positions etc. I still see them as a refreshing alternative to some of the maps in the current pool that i dislike. Mainly Slag Pits and Delta Quadrant.

There's a new PTR patch coming up, where players on the NA servers will be able to test these maps out. No new balance changes so far.

[Todie]

idk why they wouldntjust releasethese maps ascustom maps allover asapthough. have they?

[Peanutbutter]

idk why they wouldntjust releasethese maps ascustom maps allover asapthough. have they?

I guess they need a separate ladder, so they can match people of equal skill against each other, thereby gaining accurate statistical data.

It would make sense to release the maps as custom maps, since that would allow people from other regions than NA to try them out as well.

[Gifted]

@Tychus/Ghetto: I'm going to try and keep this short and to the point. Tychus, as I believe you know me more than Ghetto does, this should say something... (No offense intended Ghetto, I am known for my walls of text)

Tychus has expirience creating maps and from his and the experience of an incredible mass of map makers creating maps for solid competitive play, they've found so far that the sheer difficulty in such a task as an asymmetrical map that's balanced has not been achieved yet. This shouldn't downplay the amount of attempts and work put into doing such a thing, it has been tried over the course of 13 years by some of the best minds in the industry. While Tychus has mentioned the slew of people passionate and skilled in the community, let's not forget the sheer amount of talent in Korea who also attempted to do so.

With all that's said, Ghetto does have one valid point going for him, even if it's an overshadowed one. "Even though it's not been done, this doesn't mean it's not achievable and that the community should stop trying." The sheer difficulty of it is phenominal, it should always still be considered and attempted. I agree with that but that's about as far as his point should go in my opinion. This is the moment where the point is at it's the strongest. The moment you take it further and include things like "by Blizzard" is where the power of the point significantly declines. I ALMOST think that if the point were presented in this form, Tychus would even agree with some stipulation of how the word "phenominal" might not be fitting enough to show how difficult it is. Tychus, I'm curious if I'm right about this one.

Yes, it's frustrating that there are no asymetrical maps in competitive play and that they would create "variety". But when you create a ladder pool that is supposed to be at the core of a competition, the goal is functionality, not fun. People earn thousands of dollars based on the pixel by pixel composition of these maps. This is a point that going by a set of fundamental rules that have been evolved over the years needs to be exercised for the most efficient and solid results. Sure, asymmetrical maps may exist in the future that are balanced, but Blizzard is still a business that has to make decisions based on proven feedback in an efficient manner for a solid result for the money invested in the task. It would be dreadfully inefficient to "try" and go assemetrical when minds better at the task than they have at their disposal have brainstormed for literally one third of their life trying to achieve the goal.

To put it in perspective, imagine changing the classic fields of basketball, football, soccer, rugby, etc. Change it so one side is "flat" and the other half of the field is "curved". It's not a perfect example.. but shows that while there may be a fair way to set it up with a LOT of effort, the results of the game will probably be better competition if you kept to symmetry.

ADDITIONAL POINT / ADVICE

With all that said, I believe one point should go above all. On the opinion of me as a human being, NOT a moderator, I believe your back and forth has no purpose. You both have points, your trying to make the other acknowledge the point. And honestly, it won't happen because in both of your stances, acknowledgement of the other's point may be perceived as a blow to your personal egos and your own stances in some form. This isn't a debate anymore.. it has gotten personal where you two have crafted some rather backwards ways of insulting each other without it being direct enough to be a "flame". Might I encourage that you guys drop your previous argument and build from this post if you want to salvage the debate's direction? If not, I also advise a digital handshake of simply "Agree to not agree/argue". Up to you guys. I'm saying this as a hopeful middle ground, not as a moderator.

I've done the best to acknowledge each of your strongest points as a third party. I hope that says something... even if you don't like the particular parts of your points that I'm acknowledging.

[TheEconomist]

To reiterate my point: creating an asymmetrical map as balanced as a symmetrical map is impossible, even if you create perfect versions of each. StarCraft is not a game where such a thing is possible. The best you can hope for is (yes, to pull a number completely from my ass) is something like 75%-80%. That may be fine for some people, but, since StarCraft 2 is an eSport, that's not possible.

Gradius' example is a good demonstration of this. But, to hastily come up with some other examples, you can't have one base have a cliff and another have a bridge and one base have two easy-to-expand naturals but have one closed off and easier to protect. They aren't even enough. x =/= x no matter how hard you try. There will always be a way to exploit the differences. One of them will always have a better advantage simply because of how the game is designed. Even if StarCraft 2 were perfectly balanced, there are inherent imbalances in the differences between, say, tech vs macro or closed off natural vs easy to expand to naturals. It'll probably have vastly different statistics for each level of play too. The more defensive spot will probably fair better in bronze since they defense up anyways and bronzers aren't as capable of breaking a strong defense, especially a Terran one. There's just too much that comes from the human element for such a thing to be possible, even if that person performed to the best of their abilties, which again, isn't possible. Only under fairy-tale conditions is such a thing possible. The game would have to be redesigned from the ground up to accommodate these things, and even then it's unnecessarily difficult and even you two would be demanding Blizzard just return to symmetrical maps. Not only would they have to perfectly balance the units, they'd have to redesign the tech tree and unit roles to make, say, a base with a cliff still have the same chance of winning as one with a bridge. But, then that's probably impossible to do without having different unit roles and stats for each variation in Terrain.

To give a non-strawman StarCraft example, you CANNOT in ANY way balance different player counts. When you balance something for 1v1, you imbalance it for team games. Likewise, if you balance something for 4v4, you break it for 2v2. Same with 3s. Et cetera. And, that's just number of players. Varying terrain would be even more difficult because that would increase the combinations. Bridge vs cliff, closed off natural vs easy to expand naturals, etc. Even worse, what if the combination is bridge/closesd off natural vs easy to expand natural vs cliff or any combination of that. Add in multiple possible starting locations and player counts and you start to get into combinations that are in the thousands if not millions. That's not only hard to do for balancing, IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO DO WITH ONE SET OF UNIT ROLES/STATISTICS. And, asking Blizzard to make different unit roles/statistics is like asking Blizzard to make who knows how many games. It took them 6 years of straight balancing to come up with one. Imagine more than one.

The only way to even begin to approach balancing asymmetrical maps is to have different "games" for each player count, (1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 4v4,) and then have different maps/games for each league (Maps for bronze, maps for masters, etc.) and then have different units/games for each of these differences (Different units/roles/stats for different leagues, maps, player count). All of these things are beyond our control, therefore, there will never be a balanced asymmetrical map up to snuff for competition even if we were map making Gods. Like I said, you can have non-symmetrical maps that have small differences but nothing on the level of meaning as something like the old Blizzard maps, with the current way StarCraft is designed. And, to change that design, is to assume we were Gods with infinite time, capabilities, and patience, i.e. fairy-tale bullshit, and were capable of creating enough "games" to accomodate the thousands/millions of variables.

So, as you can see my argument isn't like "the wright brothers saying you can't go into space", it's more like being "a mathematician that says, until God changes the rules of the universe, 23 =/= 46, no matter how much you want it to be so." The difference, of course, is that the question isn't as simple as math, therefore, it takes more intelligence and wisdom to be able to understand the levels and rules that you are constrained by. Spend five hours trying to make a map, and, during that time, you'll understand the factors that limit you as much as God limits the universe when it comes to 23 =/= 46. You cannot make a unit/tech tree/terrain be something in a certain situation and then expect it to behave different in a different circumstance without making it something different entirely. Hence, you cannot make x =/= x. 10 will ALWAYS equal 10. 10 won't become 15 just because a 7 comes along.

I shouldn't have had to spell this out for you, since, if you had made a map, you would have already thought about these things. It's like explaining to someone what the sky looks like, just go outside. If you don't agree with me but now, then, well, go try to make a map, until, then, we'll "agree to disagree" even though I know your argument has no basis or factuality, because, well, this isn't a fairy-tale world with Santa and numbers that change with the whims of Blizzard fans.

[Gifted]

I shouldn't have had to spell this out for you, since, if you had made a map, you would have already thought about these things. Frazzlewah you both for wasting my time.

I assume when you were referencing two people, I wasn't one of them? *blinks*