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Map Reviewer
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- Feb 19, 2011
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Review - On the broken shores
(Version November 15th 2023)
Synopsis: On the broken shores is an asymmetrical melee map for a 2v2 or 1v1 matchup. The map's layout splits the two teams across the map and a narrow passageway in the north is the only pathway across - unless you are willing to challenge the sea and take a voyage across.
Map Aesthetics: The tile usage is nice and gives a vibrant, overgrown, and natural-looking surface for the map. The decorative objects also give depth to the visual aesthetics but their placement is not good for melee gameplay: more often than not, there's space behind or between the doodads, allowing units to path behind them awkwardly.
Map Layout: The asymmetrical layout also helps keep the look of the map natural, though, on the other hand, it impacts balance. As a 2v2 map, the asymmetry is not as critical as on 1v1 matches, but still, there are some clear discrepancies: the right-hand side of the map seems to have larger shallow-water areas, allowing for easier boarding of boats, similarly the right-hand side has the expansion gold mine considerably further away from the water line and left-hand side must clear creeps to access the Shipyard. Try to fix these (and other) clear balance points that may be unfair. The layout itself is quite interesting, with the narrow passage on the top side and the requirement for boats if you desire to cross the water. The bridges are most likely even too narrow, making navigating larger armies a pain in the neck and I'd recommend changing them at least to the extra wide variant, if not just replacing them with shallow water passages. The limited amount of expansion sites forces the teams to compete for resources and will cause clashing quite early in the game, whilst overtaking the enemy side of the map remains difficult due to the rather long distances.
Neutral Objectives: Overall I like the placement of neutral buildings - the fountain seems quite distant, but it is neatly positioned on the axis with the Shipyards, bringing up its value upon a possible retreat scenario. The creeps are mostly placed in positions out of the players' way, with a few exceptions (top-left ogre camp, crabs on the left shipyard, right-hand side expansion mine ogres). I'd say you could take a look at the positioning of the creep camps and give tiny nudges where possible and needed. Fighting against creeps on tiny islands can also be quite frustrating, and I'd recommend scaling up the smaller islands with creeps. The expansion gold mines could have more variation in the creeps/item drops - perhaps make the top/central gold mines accessible earlier by weakening the creeps - the same applies to the water elemental camps (four of the same camps is kind of boring). Overall the creep camps fit the map thematically and their macro-positioning looks nice. The item drops also seem to correspond to their strength (apart from the red camps - they could have their item drops nudged up slightly). Overall quite a nice job.
Map Gameplay: The gameplay revolves mostly around the team-team division of the map. I like the way of including ships, without forcing their usage. They bring a strategic point to the map, without really giving them a huge amount of emphasis. The gameplay is however not as healthy as I'd like due to the unfair elements in the layout as well as an improper placement of trees and other objects (a lot of gaps, once again).
Recommendations:
Fix the tree lines and placement of decorative props (this is a common issue in your maps that you should fix across them all).
Fix the unfair elements in mirroring: creeps, neutral objectives and the distance to them.
Fix the micro-positioning of creep camps: nudge them out of the pathways where needed - there are a few cases on the map.
Also, check the Ally Priorities Properties so that the players/teams start locations are set correctly. I think there's a small chance now for a matchup where the players are not split properly across the map.
Note that its usually also a bad idea to have open and empty islands or areas placed in remote corners of the map as it allows players to route there and make a secondary base (even heavily guarded one) and its just not melee play anyone wants to see or deal with, so I'd recommend removing distant bottom islands or at least make them unbuildable if not unwalkable.
(Version November 15th 2023)
Synopsis: On the broken shores is an asymmetrical melee map for a 2v2 or 1v1 matchup. The map's layout splits the two teams across the map and a narrow passageway in the north is the only pathway across - unless you are willing to challenge the sea and take a voyage across.
Map Aesthetics: The tile usage is nice and gives a vibrant, overgrown, and natural-looking surface for the map. The decorative objects also give depth to the visual aesthetics but their placement is not good for melee gameplay: more often than not, there's space behind or between the doodads, allowing units to path behind them awkwardly.
Map Layout: The asymmetrical layout also helps keep the look of the map natural, though, on the other hand, it impacts balance. As a 2v2 map, the asymmetry is not as critical as on 1v1 matches, but still, there are some clear discrepancies: the right-hand side of the map seems to have larger shallow-water areas, allowing for easier boarding of boats, similarly the right-hand side has the expansion gold mine considerably further away from the water line and left-hand side must clear creeps to access the Shipyard. Try to fix these (and other) clear balance points that may be unfair. The layout itself is quite interesting, with the narrow passage on the top side and the requirement for boats if you desire to cross the water. The bridges are most likely even too narrow, making navigating larger armies a pain in the neck and I'd recommend changing them at least to the extra wide variant, if not just replacing them with shallow water passages. The limited amount of expansion sites forces the teams to compete for resources and will cause clashing quite early in the game, whilst overtaking the enemy side of the map remains difficult due to the rather long distances.
Neutral Objectives: Overall I like the placement of neutral buildings - the fountain seems quite distant, but it is neatly positioned on the axis with the Shipyards, bringing up its value upon a possible retreat scenario. The creeps are mostly placed in positions out of the players' way, with a few exceptions (top-left ogre camp, crabs on the left shipyard, right-hand side expansion mine ogres). I'd say you could take a look at the positioning of the creep camps and give tiny nudges where possible and needed. Fighting against creeps on tiny islands can also be quite frustrating, and I'd recommend scaling up the smaller islands with creeps. The expansion gold mines could have more variation in the creeps/item drops - perhaps make the top/central gold mines accessible earlier by weakening the creeps - the same applies to the water elemental camps (four of the same camps is kind of boring). Overall the creep camps fit the map thematically and their macro-positioning looks nice. The item drops also seem to correspond to their strength (apart from the red camps - they could have their item drops nudged up slightly). Overall quite a nice job.
Map Gameplay: The gameplay revolves mostly around the team-team division of the map. I like the way of including ships, without forcing their usage. They bring a strategic point to the map, without really giving them a huge amount of emphasis. The gameplay is however not as healthy as I'd like due to the unfair elements in the layout as well as an improper placement of trees and other objects (a lot of gaps, once again).
Recommendations:
Fix the tree lines and placement of decorative props (this is a common issue in your maps that you should fix across them all).
Fix the unfair elements in mirroring: creeps, neutral objectives and the distance to them.
Fix the micro-positioning of creep camps: nudge them out of the pathways where needed - there are a few cases on the map.
Also, check the Ally Priorities Properties so that the players/teams start locations are set correctly. I think there's a small chance now for a matchup where the players are not split properly across the map.
Note that its usually also a bad idea to have open and empty islands or areas placed in remote corners of the map as it allows players to route there and make a secondary base (even heavily guarded one) and its just not melee play anyone wants to see or deal with, so I'd recommend removing distant bottom islands or at least make them unbuildable if not unwalkable.
