Cold is the Void is a recent challenging mutation. Part of its difficulty
came from not being able to take expansions because of Blizzard mutator.
That is not inherently a bad thing. I enjoyed the change of not having two
bases. However, the way Blizzard mutator is set up has some issues, and so
I tried to come up with some improvements. My goal was to prevent
blizzards from coming through expansions, and to get rid of the safe zones
in front and behind the main base region. As it is, blizzards come from an
angle specific to the map, check if the path intersects main base region,
and if it's not the case, blizzards are spawned. No blizzard will come
straight towards the main base and all travel in the same direction. This
leads to no blizzards being in front and behind the main base.
The first iteration
At first I tried adjusting
the angle in which blizzards come. I managed to make expansions safe and
minimize safe zones, but it wasn't perfect.
The second iteration
The next version was
a lot better. Blizzards spawn all along the left border of the map, but
when they enter regions of the main base and expansion they became
harmless. Their appearance changes, indicating they are not posing any
threat.
The video
is demonstrating this change in action. Safe zones in front and behind
main bases are no more, and expansions are safe. It's easy to add any
additional regions that are supposed to be safe or remove them (e.g. deny
expansions again).
Here is the battlenet thread and the map file. Additionally, it would be a good
idea to properly set up safe regions for expansions on all maps. There are
problems with other environmental mutators on The Vermillion Problem,
Miners Evacuation, Scythe of Amon, Chain of Ascension and Oblivion
Express. Also, on Lock and Load the safe region doesn't cover
the top-most expansion gas.
This change could significantly improve Blizzard mutator. Similar but easier solutions could work for other mutators that prevent players from expanding. I'm not against forcing players to stay on one base. But not all environmental mutators have to do that.
This change could significantly improve Blizzard mutator. Similar but easier solutions could work for other mutators that prevent players from expanding. I'm not against forcing players to stay on one base. But not all environmental mutators have to do that.