Am I improving?
(I think theres a bit of empty space...)



I appreciate the criticism.

Attachments:

Wasted space, not enough deco, mineral lines aren't terrible but are still kind of boring. Lots of straight lines.

Suggestions:
Either size it down or incorporate more elements into your spaces.
Add some doodads, more creative ISOM tool action. Do it custom, tile by tile if you have to. Also, way too much buildable space. Lets get some ruins and rocks in there. Everywhere.
Look at pro map mineral formations, copy their designs.
Make things more curved. Re-do the center, and instead of making every cliff a ramp, think about how players are going to be using the mid. Make it strategic, it shouldn't just be a mass of ramps. You also have a lot of lines and rectangles in your high dirt walls, fix that up, make them more curved and gradual. All of your ISOM is pretty bad, your mains are really weird shaped and you'd have to redo a large portion of the map just to fix that.

It isn't the worst map I've ever seen but anything you had to do with the ISOM tool, which is just about everything, came out all wrong.

I see. Well that was fast

Also: My reasoning for making every cliff a ramp in the center was so that T couldn't super turtle the middle and have complete map control.
And: Every map I've posted I have had something wrong with mineral formations. I don't get it! Help!
EDIT: Oh, I was trying to avoid tank holes inside the random cliffs.

http://www.staredit.net/topic/5150/ Check the formations in that topic. Like I said yours aren't terrible, they're just one straight line. Make some holes, do diagonals on corners, stuff like that. Look at pro maps, they'll show you.

The map is reasonably open, and I'm not saying to totally tighten the mid, just make it more strategic.

Tank holes are bad but you can still make nice cliffs without holes in them.

Thanks for the advice!
Now, It's time to head back to the dark recesses of my room without any internet!

That's not really necessarily a problem as much as your personal preference; there are loads of good melee maps with plenty of buildable space. Not as much as there is in his map--but definitely way more buildable space than the maps you've made recently. (Every square that's not a base is unbuildable...wtf? How do Terrans plant offensive turrets? How do people proxy robo? D:)



No.

(j/k)

This map has a lot of problems that can be reasonably foreseen:
-Main-nat distance. WTF. It turns build orders into things like 13Nex and 15CC just because of the travel time.
-Vultures > your third.
-Mains are not the same size.
-Ugly multiple cliffs.
-Way too much open space.
-Some mineral formations have shit pathing.
-Main gas is not optimal. (Follow gas rule)
-Wtfrandomhillinthemiddleofthemapwithnopurposewhatsoever
-Random tree clusters O.o

Fix those. It'll be better.

I think shoving the third/fourth minerals into the middle would make this less bland.

From purely aesthetic standpoint... the 3 and 9 o'clock bases are awkward... it's like some sort of deformed tumor budding out of the poor battlefield, growing minerals and vespene. [/exaggeration]

From a balance standpoint... eehhh the guys above me's got that covered.

It's a problem because proxy = WinRar.
Not 100% of the map will be unbuildable, so you can still proxy robo.

Update soon...