Battle.net

We’ve recently made several updates to the 1v1 and 2v2 ladder map pools. A list of those changes is included below, as well as a bit of insight into why they were made.

1v1

• (4) Backwater Gulch ramps have been re-positioned so that expanding to your natural is now slightly easier. We believe this will promote more mid/late gameplay on this map.
• (4) The Shattered Temple has had an issue corrected that was previously allowing stalkers to blink from one main base to another using the center high ground.
• (4) Shakuras Plateau has been added back into the 1v1 ladder map pool, but several changes have been made to its design to address previous balance concerns (detailed further below).
• (4) Tal’darim Altar has been added, but several adjustments have been made to its original design (detailed further below).

Player feedback is incredibly important to us, so we decided to bring back Shakuras Plateau due in large part to popular demand by the community. There were two issues with this map, however, that we wanted to address before adding it back into the ladder pool (issues that we felt were severe enough to merit the removal of the map in the first place). The first issue was that the horizontal starting locations were extremely unfair in TvZ matchups (in favor of terran), and the second issue was that players only had one path to navigate around the map’s center.

To help correct these balance issues, we’ve made the following changes to its layout:

• The backdoor ramp and rocks leading into main base have been removed to address the horizontal start location issue.
• Two rocked-off ramps have been added leading from the 6 o’clock and 12 o’clock expansions towards the middle to create an alternate path in the mid/late game to navigate around the center of the map.
• The rocks by the center Xel’Naga Towers have been removed. We were noticing that if these rocks were there, it became very difficult to utilize the new rocked off-paths in the middle of the map (due to how difficult it was to clear out the Xel’Naga Tower area).

We feel the changes we’ve made will allow this player favorite to return as a strong ladder map and are looking forward to seeing new strategies develop.

Addition: Tal'darim Altar

Back in February, we put up several new maps on the PTR for testing, during which time we explored their strengths and weaknesses. In addition to making improvements to some of the test maps before putting them on the live ladder rotation, we also decided to explore adding user-made GSL maps to our own ladder. Tal’darim Altar stood out due to its macro-heavy layout, well-protected natural, solid Xel’Naga Tower placements, and variety of harassment options. We had some concerns about certain aspects of the map’s design, though, and have therefore made the following changes:

• The high ground area near the center Xel’Naga Tower is now larger. This makes it easier to tell if units on the lower ground can see up.
• The size of the area around the second expansion has been increased. We noticed that a lot of fights tend to occur in this area of the map, but that the area itself was just too narrow to allow for decent mid-sized battles.
• Added a path for cliff walking units just outside of the natural expansion leading into the starting base. With this addition, we believe that players will be less likely to just sit back and defend their natural.
• The size of the ramps leading to the natural and second expansions has been increased, as they were a bit too narrow and easy to defend previously.
• Several short line-of-sight blockers have been removed. We felt that many of these LoS blockers were just too short and exposed to be effective.
• The second expansion has been changed to include full minerals, but destructible rocks have been added to compensate for this base's increased value. We want players to be able to plan their strategy on an expansion-per-expansion level, not on a mineral patch-for-mineral patch level. We also feel that partial resources can be a confusing way to balance maps for many players and, in general, it's not something we want to do for normal ladder play.
• The shrub area around the third expansion has been extended. The original area suffered from the same issue as most of the short LoS blockers, but we also thought it would be cool to extend it so that attacking this expansion becomes slightly more difficult when air units are not in play.

2v2

• (4) Omega Sector has been removed from the 2v2 ladder map pool.
• (4) Discord IV has been added back into the 2v2 ladder map pool to replace Omega Sector.
• (4) Khaydarin Depths starting bases have been slightly redesigned. The ramps leading out from the bases have been repositioned to face the nearby natural high-yield expansion, and the nearby shrubs have been removed.

We keep a close eye on the strategies our players use in each of the ladders pools and, lately, we’ve seen fast speedling + hellion strategies becoming extremely popular in 2v2. While we feel this strategy is legitimate, we’re concerned that it’s being used too frequently and starting to dominate the bracket. The changes we’ve made should help tone down the use of this particular strategy on certain maps, and players not playing a terran/zerg composition will now also be able to veto the remaining three maps where this sort of strategy can still be really effective.

In the meantime, we’re going to continue watching 2v2 matches closely to see how these changes play out. While we’re confident that the updates will help improve 2v2 ladder games overall, we’re not opposed to making additional balance changes in the future to keep ladder play fair and challenging.