Arathi Battleground

[NinjaKnyt]

Hey I don't have much to say. My game client isn't working right now so I'm more or less just browsing the maps recently uploaded, but I wanted to let you know that this looks like a lot of fun, I love the theme and thank you for putting this out here into the world.

 

[Jack Trollbane]

Hey I don't have much to say. My game client isn't working right now so I'm more or less just browsing the maps recently uploaded, but I wanted to let you know that this looks like a lot of fun, I love the theme and thank you for putting this out here into the world.

My pleasure, glad to hear from you!

 

[mafe]

Hello new melee mapper!
First of all, this map looks very athmospheric. It reminds me a lot of vanilla wow, maybe this was your inspiration? Of course there is always more that can be done to improve visuals: Here for me in the central abandoned village, maybe fewere ruined building and some adder doodads instead would create a more "authentic" look. In any case, the forest parts of the map are very nice.

However, regarding gameplay there are many issues which are typical when somebody makes a melee map for the first time. The most important ones are:
1. The only creeps not on camp stance (target acquisition range) should be those at gold mines.
2. Starring positions are incorrectly placed, they should be a little further away from the mines. Use the mouseover text of the "melee map: no" in the bottom right of th editor to see when this is no longer the case.
3. Itemdrops: For a balanced map, you should only use the "100% chance for random lvl X item of type Y", with Y being either permanent, charged or powerup. Your custom item tables are generally imbalanced in the sense that one creep can drop items of varying strength (but I've also seen worse before).
4. There should be no gaps between trees. Check with "p" and "ctrl +d" to hide doodads. Then compare with ladder maps. You will see that on standard ladder maps, the forest areas are (nearly) 100% gap-free. To achieve this, place trees only with the size 1/2 circular tool, single clicks only, so that new trees align perfectly with existing trees. Yes this is a lot of work, but it is necessary to achieve balance.
5. The wolves in front of the base drop no item at all, why?
6. Creepspots made up entirely of air units should usually be avoided, as in some matchups some races have very little antiair strength.
7. Most of the creepcamps are on the edge of the map. There isnt much for the players to fight in the middle, until the lategame. This could lead to boring games where players just crep on their side of the map without fighting until much later in the game.
8. If it says "melee map: no" in the bottom right of the editor, the map status must be changed from "default (...)" to "melee (latest patch)". Otherwise the map will use patch 1.07 instead of the current balance patch.
9. Why is there a "melee game" trigger instead of the standard "melee initialization" trigger? Is it because you are using a different language version of the editor.
10. I dont understand what "custom force" are for and why they would be necessary. I dont think I've ever seen this in a melee map, so unless there is a good reason for it, it should be changed back to the normal setting.

There might be more issues, but these are the most important ones I found for now. Of these, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 8 are essentially gamebreaking bugs for melee maps. They should be fixed (with the possible exception of 4, since this is a lot of annoying work). 9 and 10 too unless you have good reasons. The other issues are more like matters of what players would consider "good" gameplay. If you made the map just for fun, then they could be acceptable; but "normal" melee players would be probably irritated by them. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

So there is a lot to be done, but it should be doable. Map set to Awaiting Update.

 

[Jack Trollbane]

Hello new melee mapper!
First of all, this map looks very athmospheric. It reminds me a lot of vanilla wow, maybe this was your inspiration? Of course there is always more that can be done to improve visuals: Here for me in the central abandoned village, maybe fewere ruined building and some adder doodads instead would create a more "authentic" look. In any case, the forest parts of the map are very nice.

However, regarding gameplay there are many issues which are typical when somebody makes a melee map for the first time. The most important ones are:
1. The only creeps not on camp stance (target acquisition range) should be those at gold mines.
2. Starring positions are incorrectly placed, they should be a little further away from the mines. Use the mouseover text of the "melee map: no" in the bottom right of th editor to see when this is no longer the case.
3. Itemdrops: For a balanced map, you should only use the "100% chance for random lvl X item of type Y", with Y being either permanent, charged or powerup. Your custom item tables are generally imbalanced in the sense that one creep can drop items of varying strength (but I've also seen worse before).
4. There should be no gaps between trees. Check with "p" and "ctrl +d" to hide doodads. Then compare with ladder maps. You will see that on standard ladder maps, the forest areas are (nearly) 100% gap-free. To achieve this, place trees only with the size 1/2 circular tool, single clicks only, so that new trees align perfectly with existing trees. Yes this is a lot of work, but it is necessary to achieve balance.
5. The wolves in front of the base drop no item at all, why?
6. Creepspots made up entirely of air units should usually be avoided, as in some matchups some races have very little antiair strength.
7. Most of the creepcamps are on the edge of the map. There isnt much for the players to fight in the middle, until the lategame. This could lead to boring games where players just crep on their side of the map without fighting until much later in the game.
8. If it says "melee map: no" in the bottom right of the editor, the map status must be changed from "default (...)" to "melee (latest patch)". Otherwise the map will use patch 1.07 instead of the current balance patch.
9. Why is there a "melee game" trigger instead of the standard "melee initialization" trigger? Is it because you are using a different language version of the editor.
10. I dont understand what "custom force" are for and why they would be necessary. I dont think I've ever seen this in a melee map, so unless there is a good reason for it, it should be changed back to the normal setting.

There might be more issues, but these are the most important ones I found for now. Of these, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 8 are essentially gamebreaking bugs for melee maps. They should be fixed (with the possible exception of 4, since this is a lot of annoying work). 9 and 10 too unless you have good reasons. The other issues are more like matters of what players would consider "good" gameplay. If you made the map just for fun, then they could be acceptable; but "normal" melee players would be probably irritated by them. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

So there is a lot to be done, but it should be doable. Map set to Awaiting Update.

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this. Your points are great and I will get to work on getting it fixed.

 

[NinjaKnyt]

Hello new melee mapper!
...
...
So there is a lot to be done, but it should be doable. Map set to Awaiting Update.

What an awesome critique! Would you mind telling me how you go about evaluating the map for these sorts of things? Do you open it up in the map editor?
Or maybe start a bot game with a bunch of cheat codes to see it in action? I there a tutorial somewhere that I might find how to better balance a melee map including item spawns and player positioning?

 

[mafe]

What an awesome critique! Would you mind telling me how you go about evaluating the map for these sorts of things? Do you open it up in the map editor?
Or maybe start a bot game with a bunch of cheat codes to see it in action? I there a tutorial somewhere that I might find how to better balance a melee map including item spawns and player positioning?

Thanks!
I dont want to repurpose this thread too much, so just in short:
When reviewing a map, I'm normally mostly looking at it from the editor, as this usually reveals more information compared to only playing the map (for example, you only get single item drops when playing, which wont tell you how the item drop tables are set up, unless you reload and replay the map a lot). Also, I'd like to believe I have a lot of experience from reviewing maps so I know where to look to find the critical stuff quickly.

For tutorials or other resources, I'd recommend the guides linked in my signature (though I didnt check if somebody created a new guide recently). But atm the most active place for melee mapping, where people will happily answer questions, is "the" melee mapping discord which is also lnked in my signature. Yyou, @Jack Trollbane or any other person with interest in melee mapping are very welcome to join.

 

[mafe]

Map not updated in a long time. Therefore set to useful/simple.