Haxel Mountains

[Moderator]

15:17, 6th Apr 2016
Ardenian: It is very important a melee map offers
same chances for all player equally.
Your gold mines are not following this concept.

You might want to take a look on How to create melee maps and Competitive melee map.

 

[Arad MNK]

You can make your description better with this. It's too empty.

 

[bear_369]

Especially with the terrain and environment.
The terrain is too flat. And the environment doesn't that interesting.
You should make the terrain a little bit jagged and decorate your map even more like adding rocks, shrubs, or etc.

 

[Haxe]

Thanks for the feedback, I added a lot of environmental stuff on the map. Looks a lot better now imo.

Fair enough. Thanks for the in-depth-review. I'll keep working on the map before starting new projects.

Note: Your mention about no expansion gold mines and other creep camps aggroing when you start one are not true. (At least I myself haven't noticed that issue.) Also, I don't understand whats wrong with placing trees on top of the hills around the map. I think it makes them look better, but I think that's a personal preference.

 

[Remixer]

Fair enough. Thanks for the in-depth-review. I'll keep working on the map before starting new projects.

Note: Your mention about no expansion gold mines and other creep camps aggroing when you start one are not true. (At least I myself haven't noticed that issue.) Also, I don't understand whats wrong with placing trees on top of the hills around the map. I think it makes them look better, but I think that's a personal preference.

That's why I said it can cause the issue, not that I am 100% sure it happens. However, you should check it using full 100% vision cheat and check if the creeps on top of the hills move when you attack the small creep camps near the middle part.

Placing trees on top of cliffs is a personal preference, however your cliffs are very monotonic: every tallest spot has a tree. Ever thought of making a tallest spot with no tree? It just makes the map look more repetitive and looks like it was made with some "program" or "code".

About expansion gold mines, how did I miss that? what am I talking about? I have no idea. (I thought they were goblin merchants haha. Sorry my bad.) However now that you mention it they are extremely close to each other and have rather odd placement: they are very easy to target with range but hard with melee. Also, they are very quickly accessed from bases.

 

[Haxe]

Thanks again for feedback. Be sure to check back in with the map in a few days, I think I will work on it a lot during the weekend.

 

[Haxe]

So I just made BIG updates to the map, and the minimap is a lot different now. Do you know how I can change the old minimap to the new one?

 

[bear_369]

I don't know how.
Maybe while you're trying to figure out how to fix the minimap, you could add a screenshot of your entire map into your map description, to make sure how the map actually will look like for any visitors.

This isn't recommended at all, good luck with that.

 

[Remixer]

So I just made BIG updates to the map, and the minimap is a lot different now. Do you know how I can change the old minimap to the new one?

It will change automatically overtime. If you personally want to see it faster click on the preview and "Show Image" and just refresh the new page.

 

[Haxe]

Alright, thanks.

 

[Remixer]

Alright, thanks.

I'd like to ask for a permission to edit your map to show you a couple of changed I would make and overall a few tricks.

But before the reply:
1. The tile use is a lot better now along with the height variation. Maybe you could still do a few tweaks here and there. For example: if you hide the trees and shadows you can see there's 0 tile variation beneath the trees. Also, you could use dirt and rough dirt tiles on the roads. (Your height tool missed the North-East expansion ramp).

2. Now that you moved the small gnoll camp near the exapansions you might want to expand the cliff to the nearby forest for two reasons: firstly the expansions are really small and secondly it would freshen the scene a little bit in my opinion.

3. The "buildings" you placed nearby the taverns look very awkward - they are scattered all around and they do not really look very logical. Move them all around the taverns to form a compact small "villages" or find out alternative solution or just delete them.

4. The Merchants and Laboratories really lifted up the mood but their surroundings are really tight. You might want to loose up things around there - make the camps more accessible, currently only a few units can go there at a time - namely, widen the passage by removing some cliff.


For reference I'd recommend you to check a few of my maps:
1. The Sunken City probably gets closest to Lordaeron Summer tileset so check it out for tile using (I usually mix tiles from different tile sets but you can also somewhat similar result sticking to one only).
2. Steppe Stones is a great example of how to use small space efficiently. It's a 64x64 map for two players with expansion gold mines so check that out for the efficient space usage.
3. The map Unknown Isles contains small villages I was referring to in the comments. Don't make necessarily identically but that gives you a little hint what you could do.

 

[Haxe]

Sure, go for it. Btw, are you finnish as well?

 

[Remixer]

Sure, go for it. Btw, are you finnish as well?

Okay I'll make a quick example, also I updated me previous post.

If you referred to my nationality, Finnish (with capital letter), yes.

https://gyazo.com/a2b622bad6a434b55879479febbe35a2

https://gyazo.com/04dd718e9a4e5986df3bfce44f6785a5

Before and after images. Simple changes made, nothing extremely major and it doesn't look as nearly as pale.

 

[Haxe]

Thanks again with helping me on this. But to get back to the houses I placed, how were they randomly placed? They were all around the taverns, nowhere else.

(Ps. I thought I was the only Finnish person playing this game )

 

[Haxe]

Could I also ask you to update your review sometime since the map has change a ton? I would be really grateful.

 

[Remixer]

Remixer's Quality Control
Terrain
Since the first reviewed version the terrain's height variations and tile usage has improved a lot. However there are still some things sticking out: there's still no tile variation beneath forests and also the roads could still use dirt tiles. Also some details miss: for example a fireplace should remove the grass around or at least under it and thick grass should rarely touch dirt (that creates too big contrast).

Cliff usage is also somewhat lacking: you did improve by also using rocks and other decorative doodads around the cliffs but the cliffs themselves are very similar all around: try to make some random variety by also using +1 cliff brush, don't only stick to +2 brush when you want a high cliff.

You did increase the use of decorative doodads but you sadly fell to the mistake many other mappers fall as well: you spam a bunch here and there instead of smoothly applying the doodads around the map. This image ( https://gyazo.com/cc953eeab1cf8e988d5bfe74b5718c2b ) shows the problem. Blue = No doodads, Red = Lots of doodads. It musn't be neither of those - make it between them.


Neutrals
It seems you did not change the neutral units too much. The merchants and laboratories improve the map's atmosphere and make it more strategical. I see you still didn't add any critters. You might want to specify the creep camps' surroundings. Currently the small gnoll camp near the expansion is just "there" like you ran out of space but had to put somewhere a creep camp. The expansion sites should be a bit larger (you did not add any space there, just made the cliff bigger).


Summary
The major problems have been worked on a little but it does not improve the score too much. However overall the map seems fresher and more appealing. It could be improved however.

Scores:
Terrain: 2/5
Comment: Terrain isn't "poor" anymore but it still does not reach the average level. Fix the minor details (and the ramp bug in north-east expansion. Also improve the tile variation in the forests and the roads as mentioned before, the "buildings" look really awkward around the taverns.

Neutrals: 2/5
Comment: Nothing too major, keeping the score same.

Generally: 3/5
Comment: The map looks more appealing which is good, improving the score by one.

Rating: 7/15 (Bronze)

 

[Haxe]

I don't think I'm gonna add tile variation under the forest because I personally like it as plain grass. I'm also keeping the roads at the sides as they are because I want them to look like they haven't been used that much. But I'm gonna improve everything else.