Remixer said:

I think you uploaded a WIP version of the map. The bottom-right part of the map is missing destructibles and doodads and the creeps are facing wrong way. Also, the terrain is completely flat on that part of the map. The orange camps near top-right and bottom-left Gold Mines are also mirrored incorrectly - one is missing a Treant (no space for it due to a cliff).

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A]mun said:

+1 like the theme!
Thus voted for you.

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Remixer said:

Hello Darkfang, I promised a look at the map once I found time, here is my 'review':

Review - Graveblight
(Version August 11th 2023)
Description: Graveblight is a thematically coherent custom melee map. The map features strong creeps, customized item drops as well and neutral hostile buildings that give flavor to the grave-themed map.
Terrain: The map's terrain is visually pleasing and sufficient for a melee game, though at times it can feel slightly empty, especially in the open areas.
Layout: As a mirrored melee map the layout is fair to both players, however, there are various aspects that affect the layout in annoying ways: some creep camps are located at the end (or after) narrow passages (Mercenary Camps, Village Bandits) and the middle area, despite being a thematically nice twist on the map is quite hard to reach: not only is it blocked by creep camps, its also a very narrow pathway for your army to walk through.
Creeps: The creep camps are very strong, starting from the easiest camps (both level 8) with Envenomed Weapons really punishing the players hard. I'd argue a little too hard. Almost every single creep camp features some form of slow, stun, or other crowd control, making the already tough creep camps even tougher and somewhat of a struggle. In my play I never even challenged the hardest creep camps as they are too hard to contest: The middle camp total level is 42 and features 4 creeps that will summon skeletons (8 skeletons) the moment you attack it due to the hostile building, increasing the total level to 50. The narrow entrance to the middle makes it virtually impossible to fall back once you have initiated the fight. The item drops from creeps overall are too numerous: Heroes' inventories quickly fill up with low-tier permanent items which quickly becomes a nuisance.
Gameplay: From a gameplay perspective, the layout is quite straightforward as strong creeps essentially block the middle area of the map. The extensions are wide open for an easy attack. The large scale of the map encourages creeping, but due to the creep camps being so powerful, players will often find their army severely wounded or killed, requiring a fallback to the base, extending the play duration drastically. The unguarded Marketplaces and Merchants are strong spots on the map, however, due to their placement they serve no very interesting gameplay purpose: players are very unlikely to face each other at them. The low gold amount in the starting gold mines further encourage players to take their time expanding their bases and collect force for a final strike, otherwise they will find themselves in a really bad spot that is hard to recover from.

Recommendations:
While I can see universally strong creeps as a feature of the map, I think you have slightly gone over with this. Take another look at the creep camp power levels (especially what abilities the camps have) and make adjustments. The terrain doesn't offer much strategic points - a wild idea would be to move the unguarded triple-shops to the center and make two graveyards (with slightly weaker creeps) on the sides instead). This would make it more likely for the players to clash without a direct attack taking place.

Also, I'd revisit the item drops and make adjustments accordingly - especially considering how strong the creeps are, the item drops feel often quite disappointing.

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Remixer said:

It is completely up to you how you want this map to play and be played. Making any custom configurations such as items combining into different items is very unusual in Melee maps and definitely something I would not recommend. The issue is that it is debatable if it is a melee then - not enough to be an altered melee but custom recipes go against the nature of standard melee.

If you want the creeps to be strong, then, by all means, keep them strong. I just want to make sure you understand how each aspect of the map plays out and affects how the game flows. Specific points such as the high number of creep camps, large playable map area, and a layout that does not promote contesting heavily encourage long, slow-progressing gameplay. But, at the same time on your map, you have other aspects that kind of do the opposite: unguarded shops and the item drops (Killing the 3 closest creep camps to the starting position already drops items that take up the remaining 5 item slots on your hero). The possibility to buy powerful items from the Marketplace and Merchant that are unguarded provides a risk-free pathway to gain power for your hero, without having to fight the very strong creeps.

So, ultimately the decision is yours. In a way, combining the weak items into stronger ones solves the issue with the weak item drops (and lack of inventory space), but at the same time, it pushes the map farther away from being a standard (or competitive) melee map. A number of map makers have flavoured up the standard melee format before (myself included), so doing so is not good or bad by default, its the result that counts.

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1. There's little lumber for non-Night Elf players in the starting base.
2. There are many choke-deadlock points where you might get in to kill creeps but could get caught from behind by the other player. Example: the crop field where the wolf and bandits camp are (or the farm land zones with fences in general); Mercenary Camp zone which also has critters to block pathing; Tavern zone; even the middle.
3. Item drops are much too rich for each camp.
4. Not sure why you'd place 10 HP Haunted Mines. They're confusing and don't really help or spice up the gameplay.
5. I feel having too many neutral passive buildings in one place isn't too balanced, especially shops. A Blademaster could go shopping galore and start killing quite early on.
6. Gold Coins or resource item drops are dangerous. Whoever gets them first might have a real advantage either +1 or 2 units or a tech upgrade.
7. It's OK that tower rush is harder since you have to pay attention where to move the builder not to get killed by creeps however, that also kind of includes having to engage the middle lateral spider camps a necessity to get to the other player with your troops.
8. The Graveyard in the middle is also confusing since it's a player faction building. Maybe you could replace it with some campaign building instead.
9. Overall terrain seems a bit flat.