(4)Seaside Hills - melee map

Here is the map I made for the Blizzard's melee map contest. It is intended for 2v2 play.

It most likely won't interest anyone around here, but I'm posting it anyway, just in case.

Oh, I entered with 2 maps (more like one and a half, since one map isn't finished) too. Or at least I hope so, I got like a million error messages when I tried to send the mail and it was 3 o'clock at night so I'm not sure if the mail even reached Blizzard. TT


About the map:
My units were able to walk in the water. o.O First I thought my Wacraft was bugging, but other maps worked just fine.
Is anyone else having the same problem? I haven't found anything suspicious in WE.

I guess you haven't read Blizzard's Melee Map "tutorial"?
http://battle.net/mod/dev/melee.shtml

Because you made a few mistakes with the creeps.
All creeps, besides those at a goldmine, should be in camp mode. There are also too many red creep camps and the item tables are a little off.

The expansion islands are so small and trees have to be besides every goldmine.

I like the layout, the unguarded laboratory fits to the map, not sure if Blizz wants something like that for a ladder map though. I tried to be "conservative" with my maps lol.

Thanks for the link, I wish I had read that earlier. Silly of me to forget about the camp mode toggle.

As for the item drops, what's posted in that tutorial are more like guidelines anyway. ;) I wanted to avoid random level 3 powerups (imba tome of experience) and random level 4 charged (imba healing wards), so this affected my item drop choices.

Didn't notice anything in that tutorial about lumber being needed at every expansion, heck, StarCraft had mineral-only expansions too. I just wanted to do a bit of innovation with those island expansions.

Well, the creep camp modes are a problem, shame about that, it's something that's really easy for Blizz to fix but I'm sure the map will loose points for it regardless. Serves me right for forgetting that tutorial existed. :)

I've checked your map and I have the following comments:

Pros:

• Good space for your towns, something important
• Asymmetric look of the map
• I love the river <3<3

Cons:

• Moving from north to south takes more time than moving from west to east.
• you have creeps blocking the paths to move from west to east and opposite, that's usually something undesirable in melee maps.
• Critical IMO: The east west paths are too narrow, complicating a battle in those places This should be solved.
• Too much level 3 items and too much red camps, a good proportion of creep camps are usually 33% green camps, 34% yellow camps and 33% red camps.
• Green camps don't offer items :(
• Having a globin laboratory alone is not good, remember that it's the most "powerful" neutral building (offers transportation, lumber harvester, vision) This building usually deserves a red camp protecting it.

Your map is good for ranged flying battles, if the players uses melee units, it has too much chances of lose by the terrain IMO.

About 2-P comments, if you check the creeps in the gold mines in Blizzard maps, most of the time they are set in normal mode. The reason is simple, in camp mode they have a 200 range reaction which means that you can put a building at 300 range (very near) and they won't react. Camp mode is very good when you have creeps near to the paths and/or neutral buildings.

I hope this helps you to improve the map Ani :) please keep the good work.

EDIT: Attached I did an AMAI game with your map, so you can see how a "normal game" would be. As you can see, the best AI were the ones which used mass air units, taking advantage of the narrow paths to defeat the enemies.

It's a 2v2 map, it's intended to be a South vs North game, like for example Turtle Rock. The east-west passages are there so that allies can quickly come to each other's aid, but only if they creep there first.

That's exactly what 2-P said.

Well, I already submitted the darn thing, now it's out of my hands. If it somehow manages to win, which I doubt, then Blizz will fix it up.

I see... but you must remember that the players are set randomly, so a game could have the allied players in diagonal.

Pics, maybe?

Regardless, Melee isn't my thing. Altered Melee is, what with trigger innovations and such.

Not with properly set ally priority settings. Ever seen a diagonal melee on Turtle Rock?