The Drowned Kingdom

[Moderator]

[TD]

Moderator: StoPCampinGn00b version 1 The Drowned Kingdom by Erkan RATINGS [COLOR=white [COLOR=white Scores[/COLOR]] Melee Components: 28/30 Terrain & Aesthetics: 20/20 Total Score: 48.5/50 Explanation[/COLOR]]5 Stars: 48+ 4 Stars: 40-48 3 Stars: 25-39 2 Stars: 10-24 1 Stars: 1-9 CRITIQUE Melee Components: The map features 100% melee gameplay, even if the amount of players indicator is not crossing swords. All of the races are balanced, perhaps a little unforgiving for rushing styles but all races have a clear chance to win. That being said, this isn't a campy map. The starting gold mines aren't incredibly high so expanding is the way to go. The map is symmetrical, so the layout doesn't favor any side geographically by having recourses, neutral buildings, and pathways equal distances from starting points. Pathways are widened enough for positioning strategies to take place unlike a few other maps where it's all about the chokepoints. There are more minor things that are checked up to show this map to be a competitive melee map, but those are minor things such as having critters present. A few players may annoyed though as the first go to green camp is considerably farther to starting points than most other melee maps (night elf uproot and militia creeping strategy weakened). The item drops are fair, but orange camps are a little more generous (they aren't notably on the harder side of orange camps) since I get an unholy aura item for one, and a tomb and periapt of vitality in another. Those two items are both used for the stats of the hero, adding a little variety is recommended for the same drops in the same camp. I get an unholy aura for orange, but I get a mana regeneration aura for red, those two are quite similar in usefulness. These things aren't problems, rather recommended things to ensure the map is more professional. 28/30​ Terrain & Aesthetics: The tiles are placed wonderfully, not many sunken ruin maps are terrained this way. Height leveling wasn't too lumpy but it is very noticeable and looks great. The imported content complemented the theme of the map, as well as the default doodads (which many are edited). Visually, they look plain awesome. The colors aren't too vibrant, but they surely stand out. The site of fish swimming and a few bubbles are lovely to see. Other effects like the vision near the edge along with the sea colored tint made the visuals special in this map. Fantastic and creative job decorating! 20/20 ​ VERDICT The only way a map can be approved is if it follows the map submission rules that apply to the map type. - All rules that apply to melee maps are followed, map approved! ​ NOTES Why does this map deserve a 5/5? In different aspects of the map, it excels in every one of them besides a minor mishaps regarding creep camps. The map is on-par and in some cases better than other moderated 5 star melee maps as listed here: http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/maps.php?t=51&mmr=5&r=20&d=list . Feel free to contact me about this review on this map page OR message me about anything. (+2) reputation points for taking your time to upload this map to Hive.

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[bear_369]

I like the terrain but how did the other races can manage to live in underwater?!

 

[Deleted member 237964]

This is really good melee map.

 

[Erkan]

how did the other races can manage to live in underwater?!

Well... uh... I would say, with a lot of magic, everything is possible

 

[Dark-Zalor]

For footman it's easy to stay under the water.
Good map

 

[StoPCampinGn00b]

Review finished!

[TD]

Moderator: StoPCampinGn00b version 1 The Drowned Kingdom by Erkan RATINGS Scores Explanation Melee Components: 28/30 Terrain & Aesthetics: 20/20 Total Score: 48.5/50 5 Stars: 48+ 4 Stars: 40-48 3 Stars: 25-39 2 Stars: 10-24 1 Stars: 1-9 CRITIQUE Melee Components: The map features 100% melee gameplay, even if the amount of players indicator is not crossing swords. All of the races are balanced, perhaps a little unforgiving for rushing styles but all races have a clear chance to win. That being said, this isn't a campy map. The starting gold mines aren't incredibly high so expanding is the way to go. The map is symmetrical, so the layout doesn't favor any side geographically by having recourses, neutral buildings, and pathways equal distances from starting points. Pathways are widened enough for positioning strategies to take place unlike a few other maps where it's all about the chokepoints. There are more minor things that are checked up to show this map to be a competitive melee map, but those are minor things such as having critters present. A few players may annoyed though as the first go to green camp is considerably farther to starting points than most other melee maps (night elf uproot and militia creeping strategy weakened). The item drops are fair, but orange camps are a little more generous (they aren't notably on the harder side of orange camps) since I get an unholy aura item for one, and a tomb and periapt of vitality in another. Those two items are both used for the stats of the hero, adding a little variety is recommended for the same drops in the same camp. I get an unholy aura for orange, but I get a mana regeneration aura for red, those two are quite similar in usefulness. These things aren't problems, rather recommended things to ensure the map is more professional. 28/30​ Terrain & Aesthetics: The tiles are placed wonderfully, not many sunken ruin maps are terrained this way. Height leveling wasn't too lumpy but it is very noticeable and looks great. The imported content complemented the theme of the map, as well as the default doodads (which many are edited). Visually, they look plain awesome. The colors aren't too vibrant, but they surely stand out. The site of fish swimming and a few bubbles are lovely to see. Other effects like the vision near the edge along with the sea colored tint made the visuals special in this map. Fantastic and creative job decorating! 20/20 ​ VERDICT The only way a map can be approved is if it follows the map submission rules that apply to the map type. - All rules that apply to melee maps are followed, map approved! ​ NOTES Why does this map deserve a 5/5? In different aspects of the map, it excels in every one of them besides a minor mishaps regarding creep camps. The map is on-par and in some cases better than other moderated 5 star melee maps as listed here: http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/maps.php?t=51&mmr=5&r=20&d=list . Feel free to contact me about this review on this map page OR message me about anything. (+2) reputation points for taking your time to upload this map to Hive.

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[jonbon29]

I like the terrain but how did the other races can manage to live in underwater?!

They have gills but you can't see them cuz they're small and some are wearing helmets. I like this melee map of yours, I think you should put fishes into it.

 

[Erkan]

Review finished!

5/5 ! I wasn't expecting this, thank you for the review. Hope you had a fun experience with this map

About the creeps, well... I'm not really a big melee player so i didn't know what was too much loot and what was not enough. I will correct that in my future maps.

They have gills but you can't see them cuz they're small and some are wearing helmets. I like this melee map of yours, I think you should put fishes into it.

Actually, there are fishes in this map. Look near the tavern if you want an example

 

[Filmting]

There are many things I like about this map, but I won't really go too much into details on those. Generally you seem to struck a very nice balance with the layout of the map.

I do however want to raise a concern regarding balance in this map. As it stands currently it seems to heavily favour Orcs and Undeads. Many of the creep camps located around the map are of relatively low health and drop a high level item. This means a Blademaster would be able to easily snipe off the creep dropping the item and take the item while leaving the camp. This is most notable in the water elemental orange camp, that i highly suggest drop a level 2 item instead of a level 3, and the waygate camp hydra, which is too easily killed off for a level 4 item. Normally this thing wouldn't be such a major concern, but given the imbalances for the other races like humans, such as an inaccessible expansion for fast expand purposes due to both it's distance from the main base and the level of the camp located there, this gives Orcs an unfair advantage while leaving none for the other races. Undeads inherently don't have a distinct advantage but given the disadvantages to other factions, Undeads don't have much disadvantages either. The amount of creep camps and the distance between each camp, ensures a relatively fast and easy creeping route for the Undead player. This also goes for other factions, but Undead benefit most from this, as they tend to be the slowest but strongest at creeping camps in succession. All of this is just from my initial expression though and there could be other factors to take into consideration. I haven't done any thorough testing. Take all this as my opinion.

What I would suggest is to take a second look at the item drops and creep camps. Ensure that there is a high health, hard to kill creep in the camps to make it harder to snipe off the camps. That, or lower the level of the item dropped there, by adding multiple lower level items or level 1 or 2 tomes. I'd highly suggest having the creeps at the expansion at a lower level, highest 15. The expansion itself seems to be easily defendable due to its one narrow entrance, which should make up for the distance. Also by having a mercenary camp located where the Water Elemental's currently are, you would increase the balance of the map a lot, by giving both Night Elves and Humans the possibility for mercenaries, which they benefit more from then other races. In my opinion these relatively minor changes would help balance out all the races much more.

 

[Erkan]

Thanks for the feedbacks! I edited the map by following the advice of StoPCampinGn00b and Filmting. Now the creeps's loots are less generous and you can find two mercenary camps near the middle of the map.

 

[SweeTw3]

Hey Erkan, this is a decent map i'd give it a 6.5/10.

+ Positives +

- I love the eccentric doodads/trees terrain
- The overall theme is quite nice
- The paths are very good. You have a clear base opening and direct path through the middle and then two alternate routes either side. This is something that FIlmting's maps sometimes lack, I'm glad you got it right here.
-The space between the openings are gorgeous
-Overall atmosphere and feel is good.

- Negative -

-Despite all this, the execution of the map is quite poor. This map has potential to be a 8/10. I know you're not a melee player so I'll give you some slack. But there is a few balance problems are crucial creep/creep camp positioning errors

- You should't have a Way Gate guarded by creeps. Im all for Way Gate's in maps - I think they bring something extra and can make the map more interesting but they should never be guarded.

- The position of the Way Gate should be in a different location. There isn't much point in taking the way gate if its just going to teleport you to a location with little benefit. Way Gate's should be there to benefit one of the players by moving them to a more favourable position in the map more quickly.

- This brings me to my next point which is the GOld Mines (Expansions) should be in the position where the current Way Gate's are instead. This is because expanding is a HUGE part of the Human races game plan. It is very hard for a human to win vs a good Undead or Night elf without tier 1 expanding or possibly tier 2 expanding. In short, the Expansion needs to be a little closer towards the main bases.

-There is a huge space of just tree area above each players main base (In between the main base and the way gate). There should be a orange/brown camp here instead so its possible for each race to have multiple options for their creep routes. Currently there is only 1 immediate creep route which is the green camp, which is adjacent to each players main base. This is a problem for ALL races. Night elf need a juicy camp to Ancient of War creep. Human needs a camp to miltita creep, undead need multiple options to creep with fiends and orc need to creep too of course.

-The merchant shop and the Merc camp should swap positions. The merc camp should be closer to the main base and the Merchant shop should be closer to the middle. But there is still a problem if you swap them. The merc camp needs to be even closer, so I would swap it with the small green camp. So it would go like this: Merc Camp, Green Camp, Red Gold mine, and the Merchant shop in the middle (where the current merc camp is)

-Also the only expansion option should never be a red camp! THere needs to be 1 expansion as an orange camp. You only have 1 expand option for each player which means they both have to be an orange camp. If you had 4 possible expansions, then you could have 2 orange and 2 red.

I don't think i've covered everything but I might add to this later. Overall i like the idea, just needs some more melee map elements and better execution

 

[Ujimasa Hojo]

Interesting concept. I love how corals serve as the tree counterpart.

 

[Ken-E]

Contest Review

Summary

The map is just pure creativity, the effort that’s put up to make this an ‘underwater’ map theme is astounding! The use of custom doodads are genius, coral trees are doesn’t prove to be an overtone for the map and pretty much edited generic doodads are made larger or created to fit the overall environment. The description shines with originality and novelty stating; ‘Far beneath the sea, in the eerie silence of the deeps, lies a once mighty kingdom, full of dangers and treasure. You must claim these artifacts before your enemy, or you might never see the sky again.’ Er… What more to say?
This may look like too gimmicky, but it never forgets it plays like a professional melee map. It’s symmetric and terrain is well executed in the melee authenticity, so short to say; even without the custom import materials used, it’s still a gorgeous piece. While the absence of Blizzard cliffs may be something to consider for tactical advantage and the map does feel like a bit too big for a 1v1 map, it could’ve been a 2v2 map for all we know.
Neutral buildings are modest in population, there are no Market Places and Goblin Laboratory. The highest tier of neutral buildings are the Mercenary Camps but other than that, it’s too tame. And much like the buildings, creeps are really tame and the items drops are one of the low points of the map, Level 3 Permanent for most of the orange camps when it could’ve been more random of Level 4 item.
Other than a minor flaws, this is a must try for melee players who are seeking something new yet not to extravagant for their taste.

Map originality – 28/30

Terrain/Layout- 24/25

Creep camp and neutral buildings – 15/20

Item drops – 11/15

Map presentation – 9/10

Total of 87/100