Downhill Gramada

[stan0033]

You forgot to this -->

It's important

 

[Remixer]

Review - Downhill Gramada
(Version September 5th 2022)
Description: Downhill Gramada is a 4v4 melee map featuring an icy tile set and a large twin river running across the map, splitting the two teams. The map is large and features plenty of open areas for fighting.
Terrain: The terrain is lacking, with nearly no tile variation present over large areas, leading to a boring look. The shadowed edges of the map are also very present as no visual barriers are placed in front of them, which gives a very artificial feel to the gameplay. At times the cliffs and larger shapes in the map look unnatural due to their blocky shape and lack of tile variation that does not look organic.
Layout: The layout divides the two teams in a straightforward manner, leaving 3 openings in the middle of the map for crossing the icy land. While this sort of layout works, it leaves very little room for strategic plays and relies heavily on two (or more) armies clashing against one another with no tactical play affecting the outcome too much. The expansions are placed very close to these choke points, making their strategic purpose quite small as well: crossing the map will give you information on everything you could know, as everything is placed along those pathways. The amount of Mercenary Camps is absurd and I can see entire armies being quickly replaced by strong creatures from more rare Mercenary Camps you have chosen to use here. This is made even more drastic as the mercenary camps are close to one another at a central location. Overall I don't see much uniqueness in the layout, which is not so desirable for a simple layout such as this.
Creeps: Creeps are a mixture between Outlands and Icecrown, which follows the logic of the Mercenary Camps used. Still, the combination of creeps looks weird, with Draenei posing next to Ice Trolls and Furbolgs. There seem to be no environmental factors supporting this decision either, leaving players confused. Creeps' item drop need to be checked, you can use a tutorial that includes item drops to see what kind of creep camps should drop which kind of items. Bear in mind that the level-item correlations are not set in stone, but they give you a guideline to work with. A lot of the creeps are also placed in a way that they will attack bypassing players since they are placed very close to pathways and are not set to Camp mode. Some of the camps are also extremely strong, but this is acceptable for a map so large. You should however avoid placing creep camps directly on top of hills as it creates very awkward game behavior. Weirdly enough, the right side of the map is larger and offers a lot more building space and room to play with for example near the central expansions which is unfair to the other team. Similarly, that side has more room to avoid the creeps in the river as well, allowing bypassing them without issues.
Gameplay: The Mercenary Camps can play a big role here, a little too big, perhaps. The open areas are needed for large fights occurring between 8 players, but one does wish the areas were more visually pleasing. The creeps are somewhat of a nuisance as they attack the players who try to navigate across the map. Due to the flawed mirroring, the gameplay is unfair.

Recommendations:
I would recommend reading the feedback from your other maps and checking some tutorials. Take a look especially at terraining and creep strength levels in correlation to item drops to improve this and your other maps. You might also want to check Melee Map specifically tutorials for layout and creep camp placement. Please also fix the map's file name: include the number of players in parentheses, also capitalize the letters. I would also like to know what the map's name stands for.

The map's author name does not match your name, please clarify this.

 

[Remixer]

Setting to Awaiting Update, see previous review for comments.