This is very well done, I really like the use of different tilesets here. Here are a few suggestions:

- Consider getting rid of one of the two drops for the murloc camps. Having 2 drops is a bit too much for such a low level camp. Also it would be better to have at least one visible murloc in that camp
- Kobold camps guarding the Goblin Merchants need stronger drops, at least a level 3 perma instead of a level 2
- I'd advise against having powerups the only drops in high level camps (Gateways)
- The middle red camp may be too strong and not worth taking on in this type of matchup
- Don't be hesitant to use more environmental doodads (shrubs, rocks, flowers, etc)
- Starting areas need more trees. I suggest rising the space behind gold mines to their cliff level so you can use that space
- I like the overall usage of space, but the ramps near the starting areas are a bit problematic. Consider making them wider and lowering the platforms a bit

Seeing as this is a possible mapcontest entry, I will give some comments.

Positives:
-First of all, you clearly know what a melee map should be like.
-The visual concept is also very nice.
-Distances, pathing are mostly nice. Good mix of open and narrow areas. Creeps are well balanced (for items see below).
-Big props for coming up with that murloc creepspot idea.

Nevertheless, there are several issues. In no particular order, here are some I see:
-Your "R3charged" table is not a charged but an arbitrary item. Intention or oversight?
-Dropping arbitrary class item is highly unsual (there are 2 on your tables). Any particular reason?
-At bottom right starting position, nighelft can safely hide several wisps in the corners of the forest edges. These cannot be attacked by melee units afaik. At top left this is not possible. Should be fixed.
-4 possible tome experience drops ("book 2 " table) at low level creeps. Depending if you get a ToE, the hero will be lvl 2 from a single spot. HUGE luck factor. Avoid.
-Same for possible Wand of lightning shield. Can destroy any expansion attemp by humans. Should not be able to found too early in the game (Maybe give it to the murlocs).
-That big centre spot....... If it gets to the point where one player can creep it, this player should have won the game by then (maybe except for the rare occasions where both players go to 80 supply on ones base). Also its position will mean that units will often walk through it and be killed by the creeps.
-Main bases very hard to attack due to ramps, which are even narrower than usual. Encourages defensive play. That might work out in 4v4, but in 1v1 it can lead to boring games.
-Having creeps at portals: If you creep one side and accidentially move a unit through the portal, it might accidentially pull the creeps from the other side (Didnt test so I might be wrng).
-Portal creeps drop too weak items. They also violate the rule that highest lvl creep of a spot should drop the best item.
-I dont like the ghosts being at the goldmines. Might make them awkward to creep. In addition with expansions being very open, the potentially early lightnign shield for the enemy and the goldmines being almost as close to the enemy as to the own main base, this makes expanding a risky business.
-There are several small pathes between doodads all over the map. Some small units can pass through but bigger units (and heroes) cant. Should not happen. Press "P" and "Ctrl + D" to check pathing.
-I personally think that nightelves should have the option to chose between a smaller and a bigger (i.e. the shops on your map) camp for aow creeping. I'm no nightelf player, but they usual creep a green camp, (or at least they should, because if they take too long to creeping, they are vulnerable to harass/towerrush) or will be short on archers for most of the early game.
-Player starting positions are fixed?

Just to clarify: Despite all criticism, if most of these problems are fixed, this will be a very good map.

First of all I really like your map, I like the enviroment, the desing of the micro areas, and the multiple options that offers the game.
I did not check the loot of creeps, I owe you that I focused in this image review
My sugestions maybe I will explain it one by one according to the images.


again I really like your map, study the sugestions and decide which one is usefull for improve

I would wait to see the final version for my final rate, as it is I rate a 3/5
Edit: changes made, I increase my rate to 4/5

see ya

Thank you @Imperator and @mafe for your feedback

Firstly, @Imperator :
- Murloc camp has been revamped; it's still level 9, but consists of 2 small murlocs, 2 Huntsmen and 1 Nightcrawler. Only Nightcrawler drops the item.

- I understand that by Kobolds you meant Bandits since you referred to Goblin Merchant; The Assassin now drops a level 3 Permanent Item
- Fixed the Waygate camp dropping wrong, too weak items (drops level 3 Charged Item now)
- Removed red camp and put more vegetation around the Fountain of Mana
- Added more space in starting locations and increased the number of trees


Now, @mafe :
- Fixed R3Charged issue; it now drops Level 3 Charged Item (it was an oversight)
- Fixed uneven Wisp advantage; now both players can hide their wisps (it's not overpowered, is it?; Blademaster is op anyways and humans can pick them off with Archmage)
- Fixed Tome issue; Book2 only drops stat bonuses now
- I'm kinda confused by the Lightning Shield issue (which creep camp drops it?)
- Red camp removed (I guess it was unnecessary and we can have nice shrub and flower doodads instead)
- Ramp size increased, I hope that helps a bit
- Creeping at Portals (Waygates) doesn't pose an issue in my opinion, as your unit only teleport when you click directly on the Waygate, so I guess it's ok.
- What's wrong with the ghosts? Btw, they don't posse ss militia from what I've checked, they focus Footmen; Again, what's with that Wand of Lightning Shield?
- Fixed pathing issues (near the fountain doodads and the crypt doodads; I guess these were the problem?)
- Extended buildable terrain to the nearest green creep camp, so that Night Elves have a choice between risky orange or safe green

- Player starting positions are no longer fixed (an oversight)

Thank you again for such insightful feedback!

@Ragnaros17 Thank you for the feedback, I will work with your suggestions and see what I managee to fix (I'll definitely add more doodads and think about the Merchant <=> Mercenary Camp change)
Thanks again!

-Lighning Shield is potentially dropped by the 5-2-2 bandits near the murlocs.
-If you remove the red camp, you should also remove the fountain imho. From an undefended fountain, orcs and ud benefit much more than hu/ne early on I think, as the latter usually have natural ways for mana regeneration anyway. As a compromise, it would be possible to keep a weaker non-nightactive creep camp there. These could be killed early on and not be relevant later. Note that the fountain provides an excellent platform to attack the expansion.
-The new AoW spot unfortunately doesnt have any trees nearby for the the AoW to eat.

Now about the ghosts. lightning shields and expansions: It is commonly accepted that humans need an expansions at least vs undeads to be competitive. If you look at EI (balanced but boring map), the following aspects make expandinga legitimate option:
-Relatively weak creeps near the expansion, can be killed quickly.
-Mercs are available.
-Distance from enemy base to expansion is much larger than from own main base: Enemy units will take more time to arrive.
-Lightning shield is not available early on. LS can be devastating vs humans. If you havent seen it,you just gotta believe it. I will just say that blizzard changed most lvl2 charged spots to lvl 2 permanent spots (aka claws+6) years ago, and despite blademaster metagame we have seen ever since, this change has increased overall balance imho.

Now on your map, I see neither of these four aspects working out in the humans favor. The ghosts are a problem as despite the weak level of the creeps, footmen cannot help with creeping or they will be taken over. Of course, all of this is somewhat subjective.

Regarding the pathing, look at the following screenshot. You can find several other areas like the one at the bottom of the screenshot elsewhere on the map.

@mafe
- 5-2-2 Bandit camp still drops Level 2 Charged items, but Lightning Shield has been removed
- Fountain of Mana removed; Broken Pillar doodad instead
- Added a few more trees for AoW near the green creep camp, but I think trees aren't really necessary for creeping a green camp; AoW can always come back for the tree later

- Replaced Ghosts with Giant Skeleton Warriors (also level 3)
- Filled the pathing spaces with rock doodads


I'm still thinking about the middle spot, but having nothing there is the safest choice for now; maybe I'll come up with something more interesting tommorrow

Well done. Now only move the dogs a bit so they dont randomly block the aow

I'm thinking if there should be any neutral hostile units in the middle, maybe even flying ones.

Lovely map.

Approved.

====================================

Always check/recheck the Map Submission Rules! (Map Submission Rules)

A detailed changelog in the first post would be helpful to reviewers and notify fans about the newest implementations to your map.

If you want more reviews, come here:
The Grand Review Exchange!

Next update:
@Ragnaros17
- Swapped Merchant with Mercenary Camp; we'll see if it's more balanced
- Added much more doodads in empty areas (picture below), but I'm not sure if it looks better or not; maybe it's fine without additional vegetation? I don't know

- The early expansion is now on high ground in the alternative version of the map (number 2); I'm worried whether it's tooo clunky, but we'll find out soon enough
- Created a new camp in the middle; 2 level 10 Dragons, each drops a level 5 item + restored Fountain of Mana

@mafe
- Moved the dogs towards the lantern; they won't block AoWs anymore

@deepstrasz
- Added Dragons to the middle (a black one on the Fall Side and a red one on the Summer Side)
- Checked the blocked areas; no units will be able to fit in there anymore, even with a zeppelin which you can't obtain on this map anyway

Thanks again for the feedback!

1) Maybe I can convice you that never " it's fine without" more doodads. just kidding what I mean is that there are tons of options

2) What I mean was to do a wall not to put all in cliff

@Ragnaros17 So it's just a wall, I get it now. The doodad combination you posted in your last post look very nice, I'll make sure that I use it!

I am worry about this.


Really I never saw 2 dragons level 10 as red creep.

@Ragnaros17
I changed the dragon camp, it's now 2 Drakes (each of them drops a Level 4 Charged Item) along with 2 Gnoll Wardens and Brutes; I really wanted to keep both dragons as the red one fitted the summer half of the map and the black one the fall half.

Fixed the walls at the expansion issue, I placed rock doodads there so that it can't be breached from behind and it looks prettier, I suppose.


I hope the map works better now!

Image review, I will use images and some weird theatral action to explain my point about the wall


case 1
Human: blood elf mage fire + mortars, hit them boys
Yellow player, they are hiting us for the distance charge, o wait rocks, turn aroun, turn around.

Night elves: centaur hero, the treant thing + ballistas, similar result

orc: have to wait to level 6 to have earthquake
Undead: me too, we can take more time to hit those trees with our siege weapons.

Yellow player, dont log those trees they are our line of defense

case2

Wall
Orc, undead, human, night elfs,: now things are equally for everybody
Yellow player: we can log happy hurray!!

@Ragnaros17 The problem is that the wall takes up way too much space and doesn't look good. I can remove the rock as they probably won't be useful. However, players almost never use siege units in competitive matchups as they're very fragile and too situational. I'm afraid that even with the wall, Keeper of the Grove (Centaur) can do what he did before as Treants will grant him vision and so ballistas will be able to shoot.

I'm sorry to say that, but I will only remove the rocks, leaving the expansion without the wall - this may actually work as a reward for players who put themselves at a disadvantage by picking Blood Mage instead of Archmage or Keeper of the Grove instead of Demon Hunter as their heroes. Blood Mage, Keeper of the Grove aren't reliable as first heroes and this might make them somewhat useful. Same goes for siege units; they might at least see a bit more play than usual.

This is the final version of the expansion:


+ Added much more grass doodad all around the map

twojstaryjakcie said:

@Ragnaros17 The problem is that the wall takes up way too much space and doesn't look good. I can remove the rock as they probably won't be useful. However, players almost never use siege units in competitive matchups as they're very fragile and too situational. I'm afraid that even with the wall, Keeper of the Grove (Centaur) can do what he did before as Treants will grant him vision and so ballistas will be able to shoot.

I'm sorry to say that, but I will only remove the rocks, leaving the expansion without the wall - this may actually work as a reward for players who put themselves at a disadvantage by picking Blood Mage instead of Archmage or Keeper of the Grove instead of Demon Hunter as their heroes. Blood Mage, Keeper of the Grove aren't reliable as first heroes and this might make them somewhat useful. Same goes for siege units; they might at least see a bit more play than usual.

This is the final version of the expansion:
View attachment 283888 View attachment 283889

+ Added much more grass doodad all around the map

Click to expand...

Your map, you are the boss, if this map was mine, I will do it without doubt, but it is not the case, well have good luck in the contest.

@Ragnaros17
I've been thinking about that wall and finally came up with an idea how to do it in order for it to still look pretty (covered the ugly cliff with grass) and here it is:

Of course, I relocated the gnoll camps and cut some trees nearby so that the is still some space to move and I think it's good now. I'm kind of proud of it, actually. I hope you like it, too.