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island map Sparkle

One of the maps proposed for the Afreeca Star League season 5 (ASL5) is an island map: Sparkle. In my 2016 post on novelty maps I wondered whether it was possible to balance an island map using modern map-balancing tricks. Sparkle is a serious attempt to do that, and I’m interested. At the moment, the public is voting to help decide which maps will be included in the tournament.

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jtolmar on :

Sparkle includes all the pro-Zerg tricks I've heard of and one that's new to me. There's a low-value expansion in your main (which is free for Zerg), your actual natural is hidden behind neutral units and creep so Zerg can glitch a worker over but other races have to use attacking units to get at it, there are neutral creep patches for nydus canals, mineral blockers stop Terran from floating to expand, and then on top of it all there's an extra gas that can only be harvested by Zerg without extreme micro tricks. I think they might have overshot the mark and made ZvT into a total mutalisk lockdown, but I'm pretty curious about ZvP and ZvZ on this.

Jay Scott on :

I am also worried that the designer may have overshot. It seems hard to balance ZvP and ZvT simultaneously. But I hope to find out.

Jay Scott on :

Sparkle would be awesomely hard for bots to play on. Besides the fact that bots don’t understand islands, the trick gas and the egg block and the neutral buildings would all cause confusion.

Andrey Kurdyumov on :

Would be good to add this map to existing bot tournaments, to see how bots will adapt and how currently implemented strategies generalize on the islands.

Jay Scott on :

It would be too difficult. Bots that I have tested suffer badly on maps with unusual features and fail completely on island maps. Sparkle has both. I have suggested a gentler way to move forward: http://satirist.org/ai/starcraft/blog/archives/101-tournament-map-selection-as-a-prod.html

Dan on :

History has shown that bot authors are generally happy to lose on any map that's even slightly difficult to support, which makes for some pretty sorry competition :) Better, I think, to dangle lots of carrots and let bots take advantage, eg. a pool with tons of maps that have island expansions and play perfectly fine without them.

Antiga / Iruian on :

I agree, there's been a few long chats about this on SSCAIT discord. Generally the feeling is that a map added should allow being played by normal means, but reward more complicated behaviors (mining out blocked areas, islands etc.) Personally I'd like to see the current map pool updated to reflect the current versions of the existing maps (some of the maps in SSCAIT are 2-3 major revisions behind). With the addition of fixed kespa or later versions of Outsider,Lost Temple,and Hunters. I'd love for there to be a 1 gap width map someday like blue storm and a pure island map, but given the current state of the bots it doesn't seem reasonable as the majority of the field will bug out terribly.

Andrey Kurdyumov on :

I agree that such compromise this is a good start, but I think having extra challenge allow solve intermediate solutions faster. There need just single person who open source his approach so idea will spread across community. Right now nobody interested in testing on such maps, so definitely would be no progress

Jay Scott on :

I am interested in testing on maps with special features. As I have mentioned, I want Steamhammer to eventually be able to play on any map that is not too extreme. It’s not a high priority, though....

MicroDK on :

I agree that all maps should be able to be played by normal means, and reward more complicated stuff like mining blocked areas, removing neutral buildings, islands etc.

MicroDK on :

Really a bad idea! Less than half of the current bots on SSCAIT are regularly updated... even if the active developed bots could be updated to cope with this map, over half of all the bots would loose matches and ELO on the ladder.

Marian on :

My honest opinion is that this map is actually atrocious for zerg.
All the tricks used are for nothing.
Both protoss and terran can slide a worker through eggs and go for cheap 14 expansion.
Zerg cannot attack that nor expand to a 3rd until lair+drop is upgraded.
This cannot go well for zerg, especially vs sair + reaver.
If this does not work then ximp style carrier cannon is a easy win.. carriers just cannot be beaten here.
In TvZ I think that mass goliaths + some valkyries should seal the deal as well.

Nick on :

I don't understand how zerg-only gas is achieved and there seems to be no link to download the map to experiment with by myself.

Could you give me some pointers? (you can use hex format if you like :-))

Jay Scott on :

The Naver link is hard to use, isn’t it? broodwarmaps.net has an early version of Sparkle. The claim is that every race can build on the geyser, but only zerg can mine it (without using expensive tricks to push workers through obstacles). A zerg extractor is 128 x 64 pixels, while a terran refinery is 113 x 64 and a protoss assimilator is 97 x 57. The idea is that the large crystal placed on top of the geyser blocks access to the refinery and assimilator but allows access to the extractor because the extractor is larger.

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