Hey folks, i am not into mapping these times, but there is an idea i've kept for quite a while now and i want to describe it now. if i am not willing to do it, maybe someone else has the guts to pull it off decently.
it is a mapconcept which alters gameplay heavily, and i dont know if you can even balance it out at all. the idea actually preceeded DMZ:
I want(ed) to create a map which is covered by dark swarms nearly everywhere. besides the mains, the nats and maybe 1 or two small paths/areas (and maybe expos ;p), everything is supposed to be under the swarm.
the clue is to heavily switch army and troop consistency in all matchups. i dont know if you can put the concept on a 2on2map.
i havent gone deeply into balancing questions to this moment, but here are some thoughts:
TvT: hella fun. goliaths become mostly useless, tanks are the most obvious choice as they still deal splash damage, but well, they aint as effective as you'd think. siege-frontlines lose much of their power. i personally expect very fast and raid-intensive vulture gameplay! mines trigger normally under the swarm, but you cannot kill them (unless you siege for every single mine^^)! so if your enemy is using the common tanks, you gain an incredible advantage in mobility: being faster, getting less damge (massvults passing tanklines?) by tanks and making him unable to move around. on the other hand, vultures dont trigger adversary mines. i think it will be massive vulture battles here!
ZvZ: May either not change at all (so if all players stick to muta harass), or get drastically different - because every groundunit is shielded against mutalisk damage. hydras may become a strong option then, i could even imagine ultraling zvz again :o.
PvP: will probably come out as a zealot/ht or zealot/rvr battle. we surely wont see the goons we are used to in PvP.
ZvT: cant say much about this matchup. lurk and ultras and lings will be a pain in the ass. on the other hand, muta loses all danger. this might be the hardest part to balance, if even possible (mass vessels? :o). i think we'd need a way to help terran without making zerg stronger.
PvZ: Mutas will rarely show up, which means reavertech instead of psi first becomes quite an option. zeal/ht/dt/rvr vs ultra/lurk/ling. reaverplay is my bet, cors/rvr will be strong i guess.
PvT: interesting! goons cant clear mines, so protoss will rely on shuttles and zealot/ht forces. sounds deadly for protoss, but on the other hand, those zeals only get splashdamage by tanks and vults dont do a thing! so they might be able just to take out mines in sufficient numbers and drag them to the tanks.
What do you think? can this concept work out? what needs to be done to grant a fairly balanced gameplay? high ressource-main to help terran? should expos be covered with swarms, be clean of it, or both types of expos?
tell me your thoughts, esp. how and if you'd try to balance this kind of map. modified by flothefreak modified by flothefreak modified by flothefreak
Terran is just completely fucked as not even SCVs do damage under the swarm and their only melee unit is the Firebat. You could disable lurkers or something but Terran would still stand no chance.
since firebat+medic are really good vs zerglings but not vs lurkers. it would work in a no-gass map. or just few few gass (enought for furebats and medics) mutalisk won't work under dark swarm
now, sunken colonies and photon cannons won't work, but bunkered firebats will. so protoss can't FE and marines will kill sunken colonies.
what will terran do vs zealots, psionic storm, archons, dark templar and scarabs? i guess spider mines will be must-have
Careful with the expos, I once tried this (dwebs or swarms covering the expos, can't remember which) and the CC could not produce SCVs.
As to units, I agree ZvT will be a nightmare for terran if ALL space is covered with swarms. Now what you can try is something like what I did in my map Caissa. Make a chessboard pattern but with swarms, maybe this will give terran a fighting chance.
4 pool? even in 256x256 maps it's ridiculous. You'd need to make it a semi-island map at the least. But i simply think that the concept wouldn't work other than on an UMS map.
well why not make a little bit of it ums. it wont hurt to have a few things in a map be modified, right? like mebbe downgrade lurkers or something. something so that its still a melee game, but with a few things changes
Not only that, but the game would visibly lag a lot I think. On my map (2)Twisted Passion, when the screen is over the mass of dwebs in the middle, the game slows down dramatically.