Balance. The most important aspect of a melee map. In this guide I will show you how to balance ALL matchups, such as PvT, TvZ, PvZ and so on. While the other guide is good, it doesnt give out specifics which is the main cause for imbalances in most people's maps.













Still adding stuff to this. Stay tuned
The matchups I didnt list dont require any sort of balancing.

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Feb 5 2010, 1:19 am by Ciara.

This would be useful if I could get some confirmation. I mean, does Excalibur agree with all this? What about the other melee balance gurus around here?

Yeah, this means I don't respect you as much as I respect them. Sorry if that offends you, Ciara.

1. Who the hell builds more than 1 Barracks in TvP in a non-bionic build?
2. If they turtle you should just expand. The PvT balance section just looks like it'll make TvP exceedingly difficult for the terran.
3. You never mentioned distribution of cliffs or high ground in any of the balance sections.
NO.
4. Some of your sections contradict each other. Lots and lots of open ground will necessarily make Mutalisk play a lot more difficult.
5. If there is cannon/turret room, then there will be room for lurker drops...
6. Why the hell are you defending with 2 sunkens when speedlots are out?

WTF?! You have DTs, Mutas, Reavers, Zeal/DT bombs, Psi storm, mine drags, 2base Carriers, regenerating shields/HP, transports that don't cost 100 gas to make, armies that are actually MOBILE, gas steal, your zealots have 160 HP and 1 armor taking at least 31 rine shots or 4 tank shots to kill and has almost triple the attack of our marines, your pylons don't take up 6 matrices per 8 food and sit uselessly thereafter, your buildings don't freaking burn down after reaching the red zone, your units aren't rendered almost useless by dark swarm, your observers aren't giant targets unable to hide efficiently from scourge/plague, your corsairs have disruption web breaking our mech line in about 5 seconds, you don't have to constantly micro workers to make production buildings, almost all of your staple units are made from a single building (gateway/hatch) while we have to build factories and add machine shops to 2/3 of them before we can begin production, our weapons upgrades come from a tier 3 building (armory) and take forever, your upgrades come from tier 1 that you'd have anyways for cannons, you aren't vulnerable to a 4probe rush due to the fact your worker isn't exposed during building production, you have freaking Recall, Stasis, Plague, Swarm, MC/Feedback/Maelstrom, etc., we don't get a flying detector until tier 4 tech (and it costs 255 gas as opposed to 75 and 0), we don't have to build turrets everywhere and pull SCVs for a long time to do it, your workers mine faster than the SCV in almost all situations, and UGH, you STILL want to nerf terran more?

GTFO.

I agree with all statements made in the above post.

INCLUDING the GTFO.

I was saying you should make the choke two barracks wide for reference. I was trying to explain how big the choke should be.

Terran needs to be nerfed a lot in melee. Are you saying that I shouldnt make it difficult for terran? In that case, Terran will stomp all over protoss (and maybe zerg).

I still said I was adding stuff.

Mutalisks are mostly used to snipe High templar, do some harass etc. If you are saying I should change it to say "Make a LOT of tight area and minimize open ground" then terran wins.

My god...
So you are saying there should be NO cannon room? If you place cannons at your mineral line, then the cannons can just kill the lurkers. For terrans, they would just place some mines (Not close to the mineral line, of course).
Besides, whats wrong with lurker drops?

No idea. Ill fix this.

Really? Did you ever consider that terran has the cheapest anti-air weapons, the goliath and wraith? Ever stop to think they have, arguably, the most imbalanced unit in the game, the siege tank? Ever think about Vultures, how they are so cheap but very effective? With their mines, the ability to abuse cliffs in melee maps to twist the war in their favor, of COURSE they need to be nerfed in melee! If you bothered to read any other thread, you would see how much Excalibur stressed that terran must be weakened in melee.

This whole entire post seemed as if you were trolling, and I wouldnt be surprised if you were. Gain melee experience before posting and read this:
Its very evident you have no idea what you are talking about.
Like I said, you could be a troll because not only are you a new member, but you COMPLETELY attacked me. No, it wasnt being blunt, it was an outright attack.

Oh puh-lease, you're just saying that because I attacked your maps

Excuse me? I have no idea what I'm talking about? What is your iCCup rank, if you don't mind me asking?


Siege tank is imbalanced? Are you serious?

Your min-only unit has 160 HP and 1 armor. Marines have 40 and zerglings have 35.
Your reaver splash doesn't hurt allied units. Siege tank splash does.
Reavers can be dropped and picked up immediately for 1 shot, and kills every single worker unit in 1 hit. Tanks can't.
You have 1a2a3a. Or rather, 1a2a3a4a5a6a7a8a9a0a.
You have the most OP spellcasters in the game: High Templar/DA. (Granted, you don't see much DA in early/mid game...)
You have Psionic storm (112 damage in 4 seconds) to use against mutalisks. We have... Missile turret. Which does 10 non-splash damage.
You have Dweb, Stasis, and Maelstrom. We have...lockdown. From a unit that is almost never used.
Your dragoons have 180 HP/1 armor. Tanks have 150/0.
Your goons cost 50 gas. Tanks cost 100 and die to pretty much everything.
You have so many strategies to completely screw over the Terran's BO. We have... Siege Expand and 2/3/4/5/6 factory pushes. Yeah.

Every two goliaths we build costs one tank in our mech army, and 1 turret = 1 fewer vulture. Not to mention how helpless our missile turrets are against ground units. Our turrets don't come out unless we suspect/scout a drop, DTs, etc, since it requires us to pull SCVs.

Spider mines are not as overpowered as you make them out to be, since they are mainly used to force detectors or to slow down the ground army. Mines do more actual damage to us than they do to the P army since they are so easily killed/defused by themselves, and mines near the tank line just create potential for DT mine drags.


Irrelevant. Just because Excalibur is an established member doesn't mean you can just attach the name to your own post and suddenly seem almighty. Mind citing his/her reasons that terran must be nerfed in general? Don't cite specific maps for this unless you are making a point with a certain design element.

Saying "Cliffs on Katrina make 2 base carriers OP for Protoss" is okay. Saying "OMG TROY IZ A PROTOZ M4P GOONS R THEREFORE IMBA" is not.


So let me get this straight: New Member = Troll. What infallible logic.

I suggest you take your own advice and make sure your "balancing" is actually, oh I don't know, BALANCED?!

EDIT> And no self-respecting person will put "REQUESTING STICKY" in all caps at the beginning of a post that's not even finished. Get off the high horse please.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Feb 2 2010, 9:22 pm by doomedrusher.

C+, about 300 points away from B-
Oh god...
I said the siege tank was a bit imbalanced! However, you probably couldnt comprehend that and you had to go on about some crap about high templar, psi storm and Statis. I never claimed that protoss was balanced either, I just said that the siege tank has its imbalances.

What?
I never even mentioned 2base carriers or anything, unless you are implying something else, because then you kinda have to be more specific because I cant "eye" the hidden message.

I was saying that almost 90% of the trolls are new members. Now, before you misread (again) and go on about how you think I said all new members are trolls, I was stating that if a troll joins the forum, then its most likely going to be a a new member because trolls usually get banned before their 40th post.*
*After reading these 2 statements, it seems like I AM saying all new members are trolls. If you can quote me and show me where I directly said new member = troll, then I will shut up.

Im so sorry for trying to contribute to SEN and trying to also help the melee community. Because, frankly, the melee community at SEN isint that good. When I say "REQUESTING STICKY" I am wanting all the beginners at melee to incorporate my basic advice into their map. This isint me saying "Do what I say". Notice how I said "REQUESTING", rather than "MAKE THIS A STICKY". If an admin/mod didnt want to make this a sticky, fine by me.

Ciara, your intentions were great, but you aren't an expert. Neither am I, and I don't claim to be, but an expert is who should be writing this, not people like us.

Exactly. One "imbalanced" unit does not justify nerfing the game for an entire race, and no race is really "balanced" anyways. The entire point of all of my posts is that the races are unique and they all have their own "overpowered" units, so saying Terran is OP for having siege tanks is simply... ludicrous. Taking all the advice you have will probably result in another skewed map like Medusa or Luna, and focuses should instead shift to more emergent gameplay elements.

Also, making lots of narrow locations would just make that atrocious Goon AI move the P army that much slower.

(For that "no cannon space" comment you made a bit back, I'm just saying that worrying about lurkers being dropped on top of cliffs is quite unreasonable. If they can drop anyways, then the cannon space already allows it, with much closer proximity and thus effectiveness. )

Because of one unit, you have to incorporate (difficult) things into your map to prevent the abuse of siege tanks. No cliffs is a big bummer, since it would be very fun to have cliffs throughout your map. However, because of one unit, lots of cliffs cant be places.
You have to consider tank holes. This is a pain when it comes to making the tessellated high ground. You have to constantly CTRL+Z to fix the tank holes, and even then you cant see them all as you go along.
You have to make it so almost NOTHING is tankable. Since siege tanks can easily destroy building from afar with their incredibly long range, you have to fix this and make everything in a smart location.
Nothing can be tight. This can be difficult to fix as well. Like I said before, it would be fun to have some narrow pathways or mini-mazes in a map or something, but the siege tank just ruins this idea.
For every ramp or bridge you make, you are only helping siege tanks. (Unless the ramp or bridge is the choke or the way to the third or something. By the way, im not talking about extended ramps, those are fine).

All of this because of one unit.

@Excalibur
Out of all the responses, I expected one like that the most.

Tau Cross has a crapton of bridges and the natural can be utterly destroyed by a tank drop (whereas on some other maps with tankable expos, the tanks can only disable one/three out of 7/8 mineral patches from high ground). The win ratios for Terran on that map are lower than 50% for both non-mirrored MUs according to TLPD. Othello, even worse than Tau Cross in terms of number of cliffs, still only give Terrans a 54% win against Protoss. Wuthering Heights, which is littered with cliffs everywhere and thought to be T imba, has Terrans at 47% win against P.

Heck, Medusa has a tankable main. T statistics on that map are dismal due to the open center.

While the presence of siege tanks can affect decisions such as choke length and presence of cliffs, remember that terrans don't just build a 200 army of pure tanks and push out. Other map design elements can significantly alter matchups involving terran even if a significant tank advantage remains. Robotically following a set of rules when making a map just makes the end product uninteresting and lacking in variance.

P.S.

Tau Cross:


Othello:


Wuthering H:

Rules are meant to be bent and broken. But more importantly, nobody is fit to make rules in the first place.
I am more convinced by doomedrusher's arguments in presentation of specific statistics and data.
And most pro-mappers I've seen are easily A rank players- without any doubt. What makes a good map comes not only through
a set rules, but wit and experience of a seasoned player and mapper.

Anyone with an average intelligence, and with a properly developed arm, and anyone who can play 10 to 20 games daily- following strategies and reviewing pro tactics and tips for a few months can easily reach C+. Beyond that, in my opinion, would take more effort, or more talent.

If you've been a Starcraft fan for a few years, then you should know that Starcraft has no rules. It was always crushed, bent, and distorted over time. I strongly disapprove of a universal all-race match up balance. Because frankly, that's just stupid. They say a little bit of risk is more exciting then none at all. Of course I am not telling people here to start placing minerals in retarded order though.

This would require 3 gas in main, and 2 gas on nat- with mineral expo. But I'd love to see this in action.

Unless your opponent is smart and has an airforce of any size AT ALL...

@Tau Cross
Because the map is so much Z or P favored (mostly Z), either the map maker of it was thinking "Hmm, I should help the Terran some and make the nats tankable". Of course they are tankable, but they are also open to storm drops and the like. Land a HT on the high outpost, storm, keep the ht there, wait until the energy gets back up and storm again. However, if you think tankability is okay, then you are wrong. However, you are not saying that, right?

One imbalance for another imbalance is like an eye for an eye. Protoss is favored so much on that map that terran needs to have imbalances on their side to compete with the protoss player. Of course, this doesnt completely balance it out. I think tankable mains is one of the main problems for Neo Medusa.

I never see protoss build air to ground units besides Carriers. Maybe 1 scout to force early turrets, but that's it.

If P goes Carriers, theres a chance P getting eliminated before being to kill all the tanks. 200 army of pure tanks? That's just rape. Its an impossible army.

@DoomedRusher
...Arbiters?
For the record, 300 speedlots > 200 tanks.

Of course! How did I forget about the fact that everyone stacks arbiters and micros their 10 damage cannon for massive rape against mech balls. Remind me to use those instead of goons from now on.

Some of doomedrushers points are not that great. Terran doesn't need a freeze unit, because they have EMP. I like how he left that out.

What about nukes? You know, getting nukes for terran is not much more difficult than getting carriers for protoss...

If you die to a 2 base carrier rush thats your own fault. Templars don't even have a melee attack and vultures pick them off before our units can even respond. What about the need to have observers with our forces becuase you can hide mines wherever the fuck you want? Abusable cliffs for dropships which weren't nerfed they were improved because the dropship gained more speed during a patch a while back. You are also forgetting how easily most terran attacks rape protoss shields and 90% of zerg units. You stim and you micro, if zerg doesn't do it correctly and they have alot of gas units, they lose them all. The majority of your TvZ forces are mineral only units. If I try to stasis you just emp all my units, rendering templars and everything else useless. Do NOT get me started on dragoon AI.

Man, you honestly think terran have it worse than other races?........

Last time I checked an imobile but effective army is less multitasking. This should make up for scv microing. If seige tanks weren't so powerful maybe you would get easier upgrades.

We can';t just run in with our zealots and attack your workers becuase all you do is build your first two buildings infront of your ramp and park a seige tank until your shits ready to unleash.

Goliath > carrier

I guess he forgot to mention that marines and zerglings build faster according to their HP

Also, 4-6 goliaths can destroy a carrier. How much is a carrier? 350 mins, 250 gas.
How much is a goliath?
100 minerals, 50 gas.
100 x 5 = 500.
50 x 5 = 250.

So 5 goliaths = 500 minerals and 250 gas.
AND goliaths build faster, not to mention a terran will have more factories than the protoss has starports.
So technically, not only do 5 goliaths almost cost the same as a carrier, they also build faster and pop out in lots of numbers.