Sharicasmi here, I'm here with a few prepared responses to hopefully clear things up about my intentions on my map 24 FFA Eastern Kingdoms. We obviously have a few conflicting ideas and I want to know what players think when it comes to classifying a 24man map as 'melee' or 'altered melee.' I don't really agree with calling it a 'tweaked melee' either.
-"Slight changes like a custom item or creep that would 100% fit in an unaltered map are fine in melee because they don't actually change the gameplay to a fault, they're just little variances. "
* No actually, having tome of knowledge/power set to drop off of the SAME 6 mobs in any melee map is UNACCEPTABLE. I don't like set drop items, and I've seen this ruin several maps. I don't want some BM clown running around sneaking away with all the good drops. Minus a healing potion or a glyph here or there, 95% of drops should be randomized. And you better be picky about your loot table. Part of what makes FFA matches fun is that they are unpredictable.
-A strictly competitive melee map is a 1v1 map that's balanced for all races and positions.
* Absolutely. I think all players & races should be equally at a disadvantage.
-A melee map in technicality is one with no edited or custom content.
* A melee map is also one that WORKS BY DEFAULT. Unfortunately, Undead blight is broken on maps larger than 256x256, so some changes had to be made.
[General] - Blight Bug - Can't build Undead Structures in Blight
https://us.battle.net/forums/en/bnet/topic/20762227119
Like all maps over 256x256, it becomes UNVIEWABLE with creep camp, neutral building, AND gold mine displays on. Siphon Mana can not target friendly heroes like it does in ladder games EVEN THOUGH it is set to use latest patch data. The game is broken, I am simply making things work more similar to how they would in a melee-ladder environment.
-Altered melee is anything that significantly changes melee gameplay while keeping the core "build base, gold mines and trees, destroy enemy base." They don't have to only be new races or have flurry of triggers, they can bear other significant tweaks to the gameplay like many custom items and creeps, huge changes to the resources, etc. Sure, that could mean they're not as special as the fancy altered melee maps but it's still approvable unless there are rules broken.
* Okay so aside from making things work where they didn't (Undead buildings, mobs loot table), I don't see how this is applicable to 24 Eastern Kingdoms.
-Trees should not have more HP than in the normal melee etc.
* Eastern Kingdoms is indeed a SMALL map for a 24 FFA, and it's been mentioned before that there would not be enough resources on the map for 24 players if the trees weren't providing at least 500 lumber each.
-I'm sorry but this conflicts with the substandard category. I am not to approve any mere alteration just because that's what you (the author or some other people) say altered melee is. the tag descriptions have to be made public and set as rules
* We just got the biggest patch since TFT. Did you honestly expect that people aren't going to want to run 24 player games? I think JSRG said it best when he said 'You're interpreting the rules of the Hive by the letter, not by the spirit of the rules. Which is a mark of poor moderation and reviewing."