W3A RUINED RAINBOW V1.05

Except testing the maps I've been improving I haven't been playing much lately. To be honest, I don't think I played competitive/ ladder game for over a month and all that because all the time I spare to enjoy the game I spend in editor where I try to make the better maps for W3Arena ladder. Today I will share W3A Ruined Rainbow v1.05 with adequate item distribution.

The original map was made by MBoHeRo and it won Replayers map contest while ago. It is also used by in current W3Arena ladder map pool and I saw that some event hosts used it for their map pools as well. 

As you can see, RR is two player map, small and round type. By round type I mean that the map has one major place of interest - healing fountain in the middle and two side places of interest - expansions around which whole action is supposed to be made. Shops are in the line with the the expansions and the Gob's lab is very near the players base. 

The biggest problem of original RR is that places of interest interfere. That means that the race or the META strategy that offers easy control of one place of interest also controls the other places with no additional effort. Practically, we would witness thousands of Night Elf mirrors in here and the only race that would have any chance to give Night Elf any troubles is Orc because Orc's biggest place of interest on this map is fountain and Orc is able, among all races, to take it with the smallest efforts. Also, in other match ups like Human versus Undead, we would see Human having high domination because of  such placements. Fast expand and then well controlled pressure on Undeads base, combined with partial army heal in the middle would lead to a very safe victory for Human and very annoying game for Undead. On the left side is a picture of the map and places of interest I've marked. As you can see, the space between them is very small and one path connects them well. Truth is, path that connects them is the only line of pressure which can weaken one of these spots.

Another big problem of RR was the unplayable ground and low tension level because of small number of walking paths. By unplayable ground I refer to space that is there but hasn't been well used for the sake of the play. If you look at the picture on the left and the blue circles I've made you will see that without the ground that is under circles we basically have the playable ground only around the places of interest. And when the map offers only this sort of play - where the only action happens around places of interest and when some races have easy time owning these spots we get pretty unequal and imbalanced maps which leads to unequal and imbalanced match ups. In this case of RR, lack of walking paths lowers the tension level to the maximum. Even tho map is pretty small the level of tension does not exist because the pressure that one is supposed to make on certain place of interest is impossible to be made mostly because the other has easy time defending this spot.  Practically, Undead cannot pressure Night Elf or harass his fast expand because Night Elf is always between his two places of interest and those are expansion and fountain and has easy time defending each one of them.

Another big flaw or RR which affects the tension level is that players are forced to go for certain starting strategies. And when players are forced to play certain start strategies this often leads into certain META games and leaves no room for improvisation which is great part of skill and talent that can't be neglected. Looking at the picture on the left you are probably thinking - how the hell two when he can go right as well? Truth is, nobody will go right because there is no place of interest at right side. Going right on such a small map where every second is calculated and losing time for taking one place of interest is not an option. Also, if you played old RR you know that Gob's lab is guarded by creeps that can be taken down with middle game army at best. Truth is, these green arrows are pointing at the only two playable choices. 

This map configuration, in a over ten year old game in which every aspect has been exploited, is not good. It is not good because instead of improving the game, by making it more demanding to play and more hard to adapt, it lowers it's quality. It not only kills the current META games for some races but also kills the future META strategies.

After I played several games on original RR and after several replays I've watched of different match ups I went in editor to completely change the map. I wanted to change 3 major mistakes that map had - places of interest that interfere, low tension level and no room for game improvement and improvisation. Basically, I wanted to change the map so it becomes the battlefiend on which warriors have to adapt to their enemies in every battle they do. After  many testing games and the feedback that these players gave, their suggestions in first place, I think I successfully improved the map in every aspect I mentioned. I will not go in deep analysis of this I've done or I haven't done because it would take crazy time to write every single thought on certain spot. Along with these changes I made great add-on which will be used on all the maps I am editing. It is called adequate item distribution. More about that in some future articles.

ORIGINAL RUINED RAINBOW

W3A RUINED RAINBOW V1.05

Map is still in testing phase and it will remain like that for now. You are free to come on W3Arena and to try the map out, download it or something else.