Staredit Network

I know I know, "There was already a topic about this!"

But you know what? Mine is going to be more intellegent than the stupid rantings of "Sir Fela the Wise" (More like Fela the Pleonasm. If you don't know what that means, look it up on dictionary.com)

Anyways, I personally believe that Melee is way more complicated to create because of how balanced you have to make it. Like Wesmic stated in the other topic, you have to balance out the 9 different ways the races can be put together.

In UMS, you create your terrain, you do your units, you create your triggers, and you're done. Sure, it may take longer, but is it more complex than a melee? Some UMSs are, but most aren't.

I have to disagree with that, being that i'm UMS creator. though yes you're right about most UMS maps on battle.net; being that they are rigged and mostly madness and defense maps. Some maps are way mroe complicated than melee however. Melee is just balancing and terrain. You still have to balance your units in UMS anyway. and trigger can get extremely complex. Making UMS is alot more complicated then Melee in some cases. Either way you look at it it's realative since your left this so open and broad. If you maybe narrowed it to a type of UMS map. to me it's uncomparable cause you have to different things. Apples and oranges.

P.S. It's not as easy as terrain and triggers and units and you're done.

You have to balance everything you do in UMS, but you don't have to balance unit stats in melee. I mean, you have to balance the 9 variations for race combinations, but you have to do that and the following in UMS: Unit Statistics, Abilities, and Triggering. Terrain is a universal balancing issue for any map (except a select few). Maps like bounds are easy to balance because, well, need I say more? I'd say the next hardest are melees, because since everyone (meaning wesmic and ihatett alone) have been bashing me with, you have to balance with every strategy. That's fine and dandy. If anything, that takes a while, but it's not difficult. Next I'd say are maps like diplomacies because of the terrain and spawn set-ups. Diplomacies are very much like melee maps in that there have to be terrain advantages and disadvantages, balanced beginning bases, and expo bases to grow into. However, they are often situated in real world locations, giving that mapper much less maneuverability in balancing the terrain. Next are RPGs, due to a whole host of issues. Needless to say, most RPGs aren't properly balanced (they're either too fast and easy or just plain too hard), but when done correctly (which takes a Hell of a lot of work), the results are magnificent. The hardest group of maps to balance would be strategy maps, like Psi's Generals map or my very own Battle for Middle-Earth. You think I boast of my map just to boast, but I'm really not. I'm balancing essentially several maps in one, and I have to make them all balanced or else a very large part of the map will suck. Firstly I have to make all the starting bases for both versions of the game balanced, which would be where you have both starting bases + expos and all bases given to players. Not only that, I have to balance all the spawns to make sure the players are balanced against their three opponents, and the forces are balanced against each other. Lastly, I have to balance the expos defensively and spawn-wise (among other things) so that they will not give a definitive advantage. So don't you tell me that melees are harder to balance than UMS maps. Sure, most UMS maps aren't properly balanced. But they should be, and it takes a Helluva lot more work to properly balance a UMS map than a melee map.

True, but Melee is just so much harder to make. I tried it once, and it blew. UMS is easy to make, you just have to put a lot of thought into it.

I dunno. It's all opinions anyways... "The world may never know" - Tootsie Pop commercial, lol

And since you have no reason to call me that, I want you to take that statement back now.

Uh.... Not really.



Again, that is a no. You don't need to balance triggers? Wtf?



I agree with that.





Uh..... Melee is hard to make cause people bash you? WTF does that have to do with making maps? Seems to me, you have an insecurity problem....



I agree with that, too.



I didn't quote the rest of your post, cause it was useless. You got waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy off topic and started posting about certian genres of UMS. We aren't talking about genres you dolt.

And I guess... You're.... Right? It does take more time, but if you know wtf you're doing, it isn't hard to balance a UMS. It is just time consuming.

ADDITION:


And I have every right to call you that, cause you proved it in the last thread about this stuff. And again, you have shown you are a Pleonasmist by posting that loooooooooooooooooooooooooooong ass reply, and without propper grammer usage, too.

So don't make asumptions you can't back up.

I meant that you have to balance with every strategy, but its 3:15 in the morning, so I guess it came out slightly garbled. I'm sorry. And there are so many genres of UMS maps, you can't generalize. They are each characterized so differently that you can't throw them all together.

*Edit* You do have to balance triggers by making modifications to them.

In normal broodwar, you REALLY have to balance. The game has been around for 7 years, and good players can tell. In your little UMS game, not anywhere near the scrutiny.

Seriously though, look at my topic where I was arguing with devilesk (who now agrees normal Broodwar is better ), it has every possible argument for both sides.

edit: 321234 typos

It's really hard to compare UMS to Melee Mapmaking. Felagund, if you're going to bring up that RPG's have to be balanced to be any good, then why wouldn't you say the same about melee. Melee maps are way harder to balance than UMS maps. I actually give you some credit, because you're not a complete 100% dumbass here like krazydrunking saying that you can just throw minerals on a map with terrain and it's a perfect melee map. The way some of you talk about how easy it would be to make a good melee map, I dare you to go and make a melee map, it's much harder to make a good melee map than you think, but post it here at SEN in the melee forums, of course it won't be perfect, but that's why we are here to help. There's even a lot more than balancing. Terraining a map can be extremely difficult, too many bridges make for balancing issues favoring terran, too much open space can favor zerg, even mineral and gas placement is an issue, along with nat's and expos, cliffs highland vs lowland, and doodads too. You have to test the map and check for not only what you would think of as race balances, but you almost have to balance it to the units, such as cliffs behind mains that are reachable by tanks and whatnot. Not only do you have to make sure that it is balanced for all 9 possible matchups, which is much harder than it sounds, you also have to balance each spot out too. You want everyones base to be the same size, you want to make it so everything is reachable by the same amount, it's really difficult. Also consider the fact that making melee maps is somewhat limited, especially compared to that of UMS, which makes it much harder in the perspective. You also have to limit sprite usage, something that isn't even a problem in UMS. Now I'm not going to come out and say that making melee maps is so hard and UMS is so easy, even if it sounds like I'm saying that, I'm not. I just think that before you go bashing how easy melee mapmaking is, you should try to make a melee map, show us and prove us wrong that melee mapmaking is such an easy task. And if you can prove me wrong, and whip up a good melee map in no time, I will apologize and state that UMS is more difficult than that of melee.

You're right, the same freaking game has been around for seven years, and some people haven't moved on in those seven years. However, UMS is constantly changing, as this site has proven time and again. But, I'd like to say, there is a good deal of scrutiny (and I mean a good deal) for UMS maps. And don't call my map little, you piece of monkey poo.

People "haven't moved on"? Can you be more of a dumbass?

I've had this discussion before, too. Broodwar is very balanced, and a huge range of possible play styles, and has matured strategies. This has attracted a tremendous fanbase. Why would they change?

UMS, on the other hand, has never and will never reach the popularity of the normal game because it isn't anywhere near as refined or fun to watch.

I agree with you. I have been playing since it came out, and there were no UMS back then.

Normal BW is alot better than Melee. But since Map making has turned into total gayness (Fastest Map Ever can suck my *alls. only *ussy newbies play that gay shit. And bounds are even queerer) most new players to it will never realize how bad ass BW used to be back in the day...

Are you saying that "melee" maps go under less balance scrutiny that UMS? Yes/No

Wtf are you babbeling about? Some people haven't moved on? You're a newb to BW. Back in the day before hacks, before SCXE, or even StarForge, there was The Star Craft Campaign Editor. And that, completely rules these new map makers that are comming out.

It's like the Sayjins, when they "ascend" they are really "regressing". That is what SC and BW are doing, regressing. It will never be as leet as it was seven years ago....

Edit: The reason it will never be as leet as it was in the day, is because the Old School, will always rule the New School. That goes with everything. Music, Games, EVERYTHING.

So before you start bashing on how much BW sucked back in the day, if you're an elite (Master, Goshu, whatever you want to call them) player from back in the day, you will totally understand wtf I am talking about.

Sure, I suck ass at melee now, because I don't play as much as I used to. And there has been so many new strategies since back in the day (All ghosts was the kind of strats from back in the day) I can't keep up.

The elite players have moved on, but the newbs (such as yourself) still sit and dawtle while grabbing your **ck and wagging it around calling yourself "Leet MapMakers"

Your maps will never be as high quality as the Old School maps......

Maybe not melee, but I think UMS has an indirect relation with melee.

Yeah, it's not as 1337 now because there are actually other games in the world beside it. Please don't twist that into meaning I don't think BW is a good game. It's a part of my life, but I play other games too. I open myself to new realms.

New games, but nothing comes close to touching broodwar.

Wtf are you babbeling abou this time?

Seriously, why do you always change the subject, and argue about shit you don't even know?

I have "moved into different realms", too. Just cause SC was the first game I ever played on the comp, doesn't mean I will quit playing it.

The only thing that pisses me off about BW, is the *ucking newbs like you.

I guess I have to find more leet players like Wesmic and Ihatett.

? I apologized to wesmic again, mainly because he showed that he was willing to be cool. I take back everything that I ever said negatively about him.

It's only 12:40 where you are, so it's not that late. It's 3:40 here, so you know, if I can understand what I wrote, you should be able to as well. If you pay attention to what I write, you'll realize that it's all in response to what you write, so I am not, as you falsely claimed, changing the subject. You are.

I'm not even going to make a comment about your grammar, even though you took it upon yourself to "correct" mine.



Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't that... well... not help, to say the least, your claims that melee requires so much balancing?

In this thread I've defended my every step, but you've offered nothing more than empty statements, often changing the subject and pointing fingers as to who did, and giving nothing in support of mapping, which is what this thread is about. Or am I in the wrong thread? I must be, because I've gotten so very little concerning the topic I thought was going to be discussed.

When you compare UMS to Melee you either are comparing which one requires more skill to play, or the mapmaking aspect of it. I'll assume it's mapmaking, which when you use the term BALANCING, has nothing to do with the units being balanced to eachother, it has to do with the terrain for the melee map being balanced for all three races.

Terrain needs balancing

I think melee mapmaking takes as much skill as UMS mapmaking, and even if it didn't playing melee beats playing UMS all the time. No UMS map requires as much skill and strategy as playing melee does. Sure UMS can be fun once in a while, but the maps are just simple and don't require as much skill as melee.

Also when you talk about UMS it has MANY types of UMS maps within it all with different gameplay, you can't pick and choose certain good qualities in one aspect of a UMS map and another quality from another UMS map and then compare it to just melee. You have to take one type of UMS map and compare it to melee, and then once you do, playing melee will be more fun than that one UMS Map.

Also, none of you can make decisions on which is harder to play if you don't even know all the intricate balancing issues you need to worry about when making a melee map. You can't just say oh it's terrain UMS needs triggers and terrain. In UMS you never see people pay as much attention to terrain as melee does.

But in the end no matter how "complicated" a UMS map is, it is eventually does not have as much depth in gameplay as melee does.

You make claim that UMS mapmaking is more complicated, because you are trying to create a new type of game, when Melee IS already it's own, and has been perfected. You can't say UMS mapmaking is harder just because in melee mapmaking you don't have to trigger. You just can't compare that. Melee mapmaking is really just the "terraining" part of UMS, but even so if it's just one part of UMS mapmaking, it requires as much thought as the triggering aspect of UMS as well.

You can however compare it AFTER you have triggered, and look at which map has more balanced terrain and detail, but most UMS maps you can't even compare with melee that way, because most UMS maps are just about triggers and not terrain.

The process of UMS mapmaking may be longer, but it's not harder. You are trying to compare UMS mapmaking including it's triggering AND terraining, you can't do that because meleemapmaking just includes terraining. Heh try comparing only UMS terraining with melee mapmaking. The triggering part of UMS can then be compared with the actual game of SC

you JUST have to put a lot of thought into it? Did you not notice that you just basically said, Ums takes more planning to make. Ums involves math and new system ideas, as well as dozens or hundreds of triggers.

Melee maps are just terrain, starting locations, and minerals. That's it folks. That's all. Evening out the strategies and all that so called "Hard to do" stuff, falls under the catagory of terrain.

UMS has terrain, starting locations, and UNITS (Not JUST minerals). And not only does it have those 3, it ALSO has triggers. You know, triggers. The hardest thing to learn in the sc editor. Something that melee doesn't really have. You know, the thing that when a lot of people first get into map making, most of them quit because triggers are too COMPLICATED/HARD TO LEARN. I never see that happening with melee:

Some guy - "Melee map making was way too hard to learn! I was like, how do I place that terrain!? And where do I put the starting locations and minerals? It blew my mind. I saw the other great melee maps, and I was like, blown away on how even they were. I mean, wow. They were sooooooo evened out, it like blew my mind."

To this day, I've never seen any one ever say something like that. And the sad thing is, I think I'm about to right now.

Since UMS is so much harder to make and the triggering involved is the equivalent to how the game works in SC then let's see someone trigger a map that has as much depth as the actual game. Then you can compare both maps terrain and see which is more balanced to each gameplay.

Saying which is harder to make really makes no difference because melee gameplay beats UMS gameplay. Also you can't just say learning terrain is easy but learning UMS triggers is hard because making GOOD melee terrain balanced to actual melee gameplay is hard.

People say oh you have to do that in UMS too, but it has to be balanced to what you've created with triggers! Well most of the time the game they've created with triggers sucks so the terrain sucks. In melee mapmaking you have to balance terrain to a well done game, and not a crappy triggered game.



That's just ignorant, because it doesn't take into account that it actually matters how you make the terrain.

Melee is no different then ums. It's exactly the same as a ums map, except for 1 little thing.

The triggers are already programmed into the map.

That's it. All you're doing, is just the terrain. And we're not argueing on which one is better or worse, cause if we were, I would just simply say, it's all about opinions. 100%.
But we're not. We're argueing on something a little bit more concrete.

Like 2 average guys painting, and they each only have a short amount of time to work.

Guy 1 - already had his picture drawn for him. All he had to do was color it in.

Guy 2 - Didn't have his picture drawn for him, and so he had to drawn it in himself AS WELL as color it.

Guy 1's picture Looks better in the end, because he focused only on the coloring. While guy 2 had to learn how to draw as well as learn how to color.

Now tell me, which guy had a harder time? The guy coloring a neatly drawn black and white picture, or the guy having to try to make his own black and white picture, as well as try to color it.

(Guy 1 represents melee, guy 2 represents ums)
(The black and white picture represents programming)
(Coloring represents terrain/strategies)

UMS maps should be balanced out, just as much as melee should be too. Melee maps are usually just balanced out more often than UMS maps, but proper balancing is equally challenging for both types of maps.

I think that the appeal of UMS maps are that people starting out in mapping can say, "Well, melee would just be the same old game we've been playing for years, but with UMS we have the opportunity to start something completely new and awesome!"

I mean, you can only get as creative with melee as you can with terrain, but you probably won't see any of TH's terraining skills put to use in melee because it would probably take up too much room for those melee maps.

Wait, are we talking about MAKING UMS vs. Melee or PLAYING UMS vs. Melee. Very, very, very rarely do you find a UMS game which requires more skill, thought, and technique to play than a melee map. But I'd say around 70% of the time, UMS is harder to MAKE.

BTW: you honestly should have made this a poll topic.

No. Because the races are very balanced, the only thing that can (and does) tip the balance is maps. In other words, the units have all been balanced as well as they can, so the only barrier to balanced games are the maps they are played on.