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Map Reviewer
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- Feb 19, 2011
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Review - Kal'zal Ruined
(Version September 30th 2023)
Description: Kal'zal Ruined is a visually pretty melee map for up to four players. The autumn thematics are mixed with Sunken Ruins tileset, giving a nice pleasant contrast. Various objects scattered across the land tell a story of a stormy past.
Terrain: The terrain is visually nice and serves melee gameplay very nicely - it is clear and visually pleasing without elements that distract or disturb the players' attention. The theme (of ruins overrun by the forces of the sea) could have an even stronger emphasis, but reaching for that might affect gameplay negatively - good job. The heightened water around the playable area looks slightly disturbing and I wish you could improve it somehow, but it might turn out to be a hard task - perhaps you could place objects like bubbles to enhance the nature of the anomaly? Right now the first impression is that it has not been intended, this is of course very minor detail as the border of the map is not a very apparent element during gameplay.
Layout: The layout is very nice with various pathways and nice creep camp placement. Nice work. The gold mines in the corners are quite safely placed, offering a slower game pace, while the central gold mines are more vulnerable but could open room for contesting. The central gold mines are more heavily guarded, gating them a little compared to the corner gold mines. I take it the idea is to further encourage the players to first go for the safer gold mines to delay the clashing between players.
Creeps: Creeps look appropriate in strength, placement, and item drops. The Level 7 camp (Trolls) drops Level 2 Permanent and Level 1 Power Up, which seems strong. Nice usage of Stonemaul Ogre in the middle to spice up the regular creeps.
Gameplay: The gameplay suits regular melee gameplay very well. The map is mirrored correctly, giving fair gameplay to each player. The radial mirroring also gives each player to option to contest various different objectives on the map between his closest player - there is no clear division on the objectives between players which can lead to very early fighting - this applies especially for the Mercenary Camps and Goblin Laboratories. The central area is quite open and it will be hard to defend those extensions from attacks.
Recommendations:
Think if something can be done to improve the visual look of the water around the map - but this is up to you. It might be a lot of work to improve, especially considering the little gain. Also, check the map's descriptions for typos and grammar - at least I struggled to understand them. Also, I am not sure why the two versions have different names and descriptions - is there a reason for this?
Overall nice work.
(Version September 30th 2023)
Description: Kal'zal Ruined is a visually pretty melee map for up to four players. The autumn thematics are mixed with Sunken Ruins tileset, giving a nice pleasant contrast. Various objects scattered across the land tell a story of a stormy past.
Terrain: The terrain is visually nice and serves melee gameplay very nicely - it is clear and visually pleasing without elements that distract or disturb the players' attention. The theme (of ruins overrun by the forces of the sea) could have an even stronger emphasis, but reaching for that might affect gameplay negatively - good job. The heightened water around the playable area looks slightly disturbing and I wish you could improve it somehow, but it might turn out to be a hard task - perhaps you could place objects like bubbles to enhance the nature of the anomaly? Right now the first impression is that it has not been intended, this is of course very minor detail as the border of the map is not a very apparent element during gameplay.
Layout: The layout is very nice with various pathways and nice creep camp placement. Nice work. The gold mines in the corners are quite safely placed, offering a slower game pace, while the central gold mines are more vulnerable but could open room for contesting. The central gold mines are more heavily guarded, gating them a little compared to the corner gold mines. I take it the idea is to further encourage the players to first go for the safer gold mines to delay the clashing between players.
Creeps: Creeps look appropriate in strength, placement, and item drops. The Level 7 camp (Trolls) drops Level 2 Permanent and Level 1 Power Up, which seems strong. Nice usage of Stonemaul Ogre in the middle to spice up the regular creeps.
Gameplay: The gameplay suits regular melee gameplay very well. The map is mirrored correctly, giving fair gameplay to each player. The radial mirroring also gives each player to option to contest various different objectives on the map between his closest player - there is no clear division on the objectives between players which can lead to very early fighting - this applies especially for the Mercenary Camps and Goblin Laboratories. The central area is quite open and it will be hard to defend those extensions from attacks.
Recommendations:
Think if something can be done to improve the visual look of the water around the map - but this is up to you. It might be a lot of work to improve, especially considering the little gain. Also, check the map's descriptions for typos and grammar - at least I struggled to understand them. Also, I am not sure why the two versions have different names and descriptions - is there a reason for this?
Overall nice work.
