Back in the first quarter, the Masters Map pool was always identical every month. A particularly unliked map was Canal Row, but the bigger problem was that many active players played 90% of the seasons on the same 5 maps.
Thankfully, Redwood / EA listened to our pleas and started to mix up the Masters Map pool. But the other suggestion wasn't followed: Expanding the Masters Map pool beyond 5 maps. Five maps might be enough if they would be changed monthly, but they are not. So the easiest fix would be to expand the Masters Map pool to 10 maps. That would allow the map diversity to be decent even if no further change will come in the next 3-4 months.
There's also another issue with the current map pool: 3 of the 5 maps are 2 pads. On the one hand, this favors Tech decks, as delaying the nuke is much easier on 2 pads. More on the Tech issue further down this post. On the other hand, it just doesn't reflect the overall map pool very well. Overall distribution is:
- 13 maps have 2 pads (~28%)
- 23 maps have 3 fully disconnected pads that don't touch each other (~49%)
- 5 maps have 3 connected pads that touch each other (~11%)
- 6 maps have 3 pads of which two are connected and one is not (~13%)
Now, I know that connectedness is not the only relevant part of maps. Location of Tiberium, paths, obstactles etc. all also play a role. This is just one way to look at maps to illustrate why the current map pool is lopsided and what we could look at when we construct map pools.
Suggestion for a new 10 map Masters map pool
How we go about constructing it:
- Popularity. It seems wise to chose popular tournament maps, as they seem well-liked and prepare Masters players a bit for the tournament circuit.
- Diversity. One variable is the pad connectedness, but we should also look more closely and try to suit a range of playstyles. E.g. we should have map(s) where it's easy to go double harv, and maps where it's hard.
As a measure for popularity, we have the map picks in the Rivals Team League. Rorschach and Open Water clearly stick out. Both also are considered playable/good for a wide range of decks.
Other than that, we want 2-pad maps in the variants good and bad for 2-range / fortress decks. We can roughly group the 2-pad maps into three groups, and we need about 3 to represent them fairly. For the sake of this post, I'll chose 3 that are not currently in the Tiberium map pool. But if the Tiberium map pool changes, other options might be better. For now, I nominate Neutral Zone from the "distant pads" group, Great Divide from the "in between" group and Scorpion Tail from the "close pads" group.
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Now, we need 5 more 3-pad maps in the variants connected, semi-connected and very disconnected. All that ideally while considering suitability for 2 harv and whether they are rather enclosed or open. Also, some connected maps play more similar to disconnected maps than to other connected maps, so it's key to keep in mind that this high-level categorization can't be the only criterion.
As we have already picked two fully connected maps based on their popularity (Rorschach and Open Water), we can only add one of the semi-connected maps. From these, The Needle seems like a good pick.
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This leaves us to pick 4 maps from the disconnected 3-pad maps. There are many of them, and they are harder to classify. In the below picture, you find one possible way to classify these maps.
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This helps a bit, but isn't enough to make the choice. So I also apply my personal experience of which maps work well, are played in tournament, and are different enough. Plus, not in the current Tiberium map pool. That brings me to Three Lanes as a classic 3-pad map that is comparable to Broken Mesa and Slashed Fields. To Open Praerie as a 2-path map with an interesting Tiberium layout. Tiberium Stripes as a map with many blocked hexes / blocked hex segments. And Eruption as a map with few blockers and lots of open space.
This would bring us to the following proposal of 10 Masters maps:
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Obviously, there are many alternatives. Any large diverse map pool would be good. The above is just one option of many that developers could adopt. What's your view? Here's the discussion on Reddit.
Omeleet's thoughts on the Tech issue
Recently, I published a blog post on why Tech should be nerfed. One option to nerf Tech I didn't go deep into is to change the current system of Tiberium acceleration. Omeleet created an awesome video on this that I recommend to watch. His proposal is to cap the Tiberium acceleration at 90 seconds into the game. I think that would be a great thing to try. Here's the video:
What would also be great is to have true diversity in the maps. There could be maps that do not have a land connection between the bases, or only one small one, like a bridge over troubled water. Or maps that do not have the same amount of resources every single time.
ReplyDeleteThe issue with that would be that it would favor certain decks too much. For tournamnets or events ok, but for ladder, where it's random map, doesn't feel ideal.
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