There’s been several threads about map veto. But there draw backs of a map veto have also been pointed out.
Instead of blocking bad maps started this thread to discuss changes you would make to make “bad” maps to make them less bad.
I find Part and Parcel enjoyable since the change to the opening timer.
For Cradle of Death 3 things I think would help.
Don’t have constructs so close to top of ramps. Don’t have 2 constructs too close together .
The fortifications in CoD going up ramps aren’t too much different than on VP except for the constructs. If there was a bit more space at the top of the ramp and the constructs.
Also if your ally is temporary AFK, and you’re truck can only occupy one construct at a time, sometimes you get wrecked when there are 2 constructs are close together.
Tweak the attack waves spawn locations. Currently all attack waves come from the opposite / semi opposite direction as the objection. Meaning you need a mobile commander, build strong defenses, or turn around a lot .
This is different than other maps where some waves come from opposite direction, but some also come from same direction as objective, giving you possibility to intercept.
Alternating 1 attack coming from direction of objective, with 1 attack coming from opposite direction would help with mobility issues.
Stop the attacks that spawn right on top of your truck.
Other than Cradle. I’m not a fan of the first bonus location on Malware.
The problem is incompetent ally. It is impossible to win on Cradle of Death if your ally does not move the truck.
You can tweak the map all you want, but if ally does not move, you lose. Or if they go for bonus when you are running out of time for main objective, you also lose.
This is why I don’t play maps where the win depends on ally - I’m not spending 20 minutes of my time just to lose because of said people.
He does highlight some good points about CoD’s shortcomings. I see no reason why 2 giant army has to move at once, while fitting 2 bulky slow trucks with high push priority, just to kill said constructs only to bottle neck through. While some of these are natural part of terrains, it really serves little purpose.
make the attack waves vs base and vs truck rarer, its just too often
reduce the number of needles large constructs inside the big enemy bases
Scythe of Amon:
move the expansions to the closest sliver or weaken the expansion AI guardians
the attack waves vs bases are insane especially early on with hybrid spam, reduce their strength
do something about that idiotic optional objective, its annoying as hell and often just not worth it
Chains of Ascension:
the first hybrid spawn is way too strong
the first few waves that spawn are often hilariously overtuned, spawning multiple Carriers or whatever other nonsense
The expansions are too annoying to secure and clear
The god damn elementals are also annoying AF
Since Amon spawns hybrid waves and waves to attack base and waves to attack our Ascendant and also has stationary army/defenses its all kinda too much.
Mist Opportunities:
Speed up the whole map, make the drones faster and the enemies spawn faster and whatever else is needed so this map does not take soooo loooong.
Vermillion Problem:
speed up the map, perhaps reduce how many crystals are needed or something
Part and Parcel:
remove that enemy encampment directly in the path between player base and the expansion platform so that faster expanding is possible.
Dead of Night:
reduce the range and power of the choker, spotter, hunterling and kaboomer… they are annoying AF and have some of the most infuriating abilities in the game.
Honestly i think a good compromise would be, having both players caps a point at normal speed, but if a single commander is capping, the lock still can get capped at 1/3rd the speed. This would allow people to leave probes behind and quickly cap with allies, or making the group capping more instanteous so that players could quickly get it together instead of splitting.
For gradle of death, i think a precursor warning to the constructs for new players like red blinking eyes 2-3 seconds before it attacks could really help. Also yeah constantly moving from side to side is annoying and the bases are mostly mirrored. I think the bonus should have the truck requirement removed or make so doing the bonus also could explode their corresponding side’s constructs as a compensation. Some maps have a bad bonus but Cradles is a completely wasted design since the time limit and lack of time pushing means you can’t even do it on the side while you’re waiting for something to explode.
I’d rework it by giving the truck a lower aggro priority in combat, maybe +3 armor to help it from zerglings waves as the constructs go by, and maybe put some afterburners on it with a 120 second cd so that after doing a bonus or dying you could have the truck be able to quickly zip back.
For mist opportunities, i like a long map but i would like to be compensated for 12 minute maps vs 30 minute maps, maybe having a speed up button and also maybe a way to regenerate maybe 1 life every 10 minutes. (For when a ally skips their side to do bonus and you can only defend 2-3 of the 3-4 waves. Not anything crazy just when a ally gets distracted by bonus over def, it can be easy for 1 sci vessel to slip by if you’ve just defended 3-4 only to watch the 5th get sniped in all the chaos. Even if it was say a medium harsh penalty, like say, 1000/200 for a extra sci vessel life it could help with bonus tunnel vision teammates when you play a commander that runs out of mobility to defend all 5 points. Otherwise it’s pretty chill, maybe a button to speed up the waves and a extended duration on bonus’s so they could be more flexibly done during the large amounts of deadtimes Mists can have.
Having activation circle like on Evacuation map would resolve this. If players cleared the area and are ready, activate locations by standing on them and send bots on their way.
This will let new players do this in 30 min, and more experienced can do in 20.
I would increase the number. Dehaka is out at 1 min, I can go and clear nearby crystal spawn location , but it will not have crystals on it for another 10 min.
Would be better to spawn more crystals, and if people are capable of clearing areas - they get those 20 crystals faster. If players need to take their time they can play the usual way.
Extra crystals can be offset with a timer on them, a crystal disappears after two minutes. This way you will not get random 20 crystals right outside your main ramp.
Honestly some commanders like Zeratul and Nova, and maybe zagara can have minor issue with spare drone/worker supply where 50 supply of workers leaves em with like 50 supply for units. Something as small as needing 5-10 extra scvs to cap all the extra crystals in Vermillion + extras might reduce a army supply down by a quarter. I would rather honestly just reduce the crystals or adjust the triple crystal areas to maybe a single golden crystal worth the same combined points but only neeidng 1 scv to cap. Maybe you could even put them as bonuses too in harder to reach areas to speed up the game a bit.
Was not expecting half the responses to just “nerf maps”. Kind of pointless if we make the maps even easier. The point is improve upon them. Many of these are just “I’m poorly prepared, so let’s nerf wave x, y, and z”.
We should focus on things like:
Bonuses on maps like SoA, CoA, DoN, RtK, etc. to give full exp when you finish earlier than their triggers. Plot wise, if everything’s saved, then why in the world would the bonus not be saved/completed, so to speak.
Aura-like suppression for CoD. The material in the truck is to suppress the constructs, the announcer even says this, so 1 truck should be able to suppress all constructs as long as they are within that range. This whole 1 to 1 business is more tedious for players than anything.
CoA Bonus, the Elementals, are ridiculously powerful - most notably the 2nd one. I know this has been addressed over time but that circle should be smaller. Between its frequency of cast and the limited space, most people often to just opt to skip it (which again should be given if CoA was completed prior to 16min).
DoN player 2 gets some real bad ends, which I see often of those inexperienced and unprepared. This can be addressed in a number of ways, but the point is it needs addressing…
Zergling ignoring units on MO. This is a bit rare and more of a bug. Quite often the zerglings will ignore all units even right next to it to target down the bots. These kind of behavior shouldn’t be happening imo. It’s one thing when shadowtech is at a bot/Aurana that targets it down cuz you’re an idiot and didn’t protect it. It’s entirely different when you’re right there but they just ignore u and mow it down anyway
Those are the kind of things I think we should be focusing on.
Sort of related, but besides directly changing the maps, I’d like to see normalization on the XP earned for different maps. More XP for the harder, longer (i.e. unable to rush) maps, less XP for easier and rushable maps. That’d certainly make MO more tolerable for me.
My personal maps that I don’t always enjoy is Scythe, Cradle, and I guess Chain. Not in any particular order.
Scythe: Death Grip Crystals and bonus objective AI. Both of these are just… Why?
Cradle: I just hate having to drag the trucks around and babysit them. Makes microing just that much more tedious. That and the constant application of Aggressive Deployment is annoying.
Chain: My only complaint about this map is that the second wave is a max power wave. Well before most, if not all, Commanders can hit half capacity, and a Hybrid push immediately after it. It’s just a whole bunch of non-sense all at once.
The annoying thing in CoD for me is alternating selecting my army and selecting the truck. Other than that I think this map is fine. However, your suggestion does make things easier.
Sure this will at least let you army clear the entrance to the enemy bases.
It is hard to tell whether your partner is afk or not. Sometimes they are focus on building and not aware of the surroundings.
Have a smaller wave attack your truck? I feel this part of the map is necessary. It makes sure you take care of your truck.
Good suggestions overall.
I don’t think it’s 4 min mark, it is the wave after the 4 minute mark (3rd or 4th wave). But yes those waves are incredibly strong for early game. They made the change sometime last year because people on forums were asking to increase difficulty in brutal (I think this was how it happened).
Yeah i was wondering about that. We were doing a wave once and we poked the hybrid on a Fleet of the Atrazim wave when you’re normally dealing with like small t1 marines and zerglings and marauders and some crap. Well it turns out the attack wave was a pack of 7 carriers at the 4 minute mark, and it just immediately beelined to both of our mains just destorying anything before the ally raynor could even use any of his air to air cooldowns or build anything past 7 marines that all got shredded in instant in one game of thousands. Normally it’s still a toughie but still doable, But i wasn’t really sure how on earth you were supposed to deal with a giant hybrid + 7 carrier attack wave at 4 minutes in without some hard cooldowns.
As that was all happening the hyperion cooled down enough to finally deploy after it had cleared out Raynor and half of our bases, and then the AI sent 2 attack waves with 6 more carriers each to our expo. Game just really ended without much counterplay that early on. It’s normally pretty chill with most expos, but if you get a super lategame power comp or aren’t expecting it, opening a game with a hybrid + carrier rush can really screw you up.
Then it just never happened again. I think it might be triggered earlier if you expand earlier (which we kinda did), but it’s still was kinda ridic. At least the rest of the map is pretty dealable with after that ridic first wave though.
And if they could make bonuses a bit tiny better to at least be worth the time like +10% xp to 20%, that could be nice too. Or add in challenge bonuses just to let longer maps compensate by giving you more to do during the dead time.
I honestly it be a big quality of life improvement to just put the artifact truck in Cradle of Death under the all army hot key.
Yes, I know you’re not supposed to use all army hot key. Well you know what? You elitist out there should know I use the all army hot key sometimes! Doesn’t mean I don’t also use control groups, but all army hot key is useful in a pinch.
Sometimes I get lag pushing into these cluttered bases on Cradle. I end up having a hard time having the best control and I do an all army a-click or move click, but then have to micro the truck separately.
