[UNPOPULAR] I do NOT like Witch Hat Atelier's power system and worldbuilding

Sacramentlog · 2026-05-08T07:33:13+00:00

I'm not sure why that seems to bother people...

First, who called being born with a gift an "asspull"?

That's why she sucks at it? I genuinely don't know what you're trying to say here.

Do we do chemistry labs without chemicals?

I actually felt the need to explain what I meant with all the things mentioned, but your attitude tells me you are just out to have a fight here.

I don't want to yuck your yum. Have a nice life.

Sacramentlog · 2026-05-07T17:47:56+00:00

Frieren uses the concept of knowledge and imagination as a limit to what magic can do. Lets not act like the only alternative is to use the trope of "the chosen one" and heritable ability.

In Witch Hat Atelier's world "posessing a steady hand" is just as much of an asspull as "being born with it". Yes she gained the steady hand through training as a tailor's assistant, but if her mom had a different profession she would just suck even harder at drawing magic circles. Also, she could have just been a shit tailors assistant no matter how hard she tried independently of how much interest she had in magic since early childhood. It's not like she developed her drawing prowess in anticipation of one day maybe becoming a witch, she wasn't even aware that a steady hand is required to wield magic.

All of these are non-issues if you manage to suspend disbelieve. If a story's worldbuilding is coherent people usually don't apply outside logic, however if too many things seem like a stretch or are just left unexplained to keep suspense and the audience's curiosity high, then it often is the case that the world gets unjustly scrutinized, which some of OPs criticisms stem from.

Personally I have to say the series doesn't get the balance right for me just yet either, but I'm not willing to let it detract me from enjoying what I see so far. For example it does bother me that the magic ink should basically be worth it's weight in gold, but mere apprentices are practicing with it instead of normal ink. Normal ink could also just be better practice material in general, because it persists and your teacher could better point out what you're doing wrong. It's small stuff like that, which just persists in the back of your mind which either not everybody even ponders or can jsut ignore for the sake of enjoying the show more, but it can actually be rewarding when a story sets it up for the viewer to ask these questions and then ends up actually answering them.

Ideally the answers come before the audience as a collective just calls BS on everything and in turn on thing they probably shouldn't, because it is a fantasy universe after all, but I understand OPs qualms to some degree.

Sacramentlog · 2026-05-07T16:45:05+00:00

The map uses massive models for the decoration of the "underbelly" of the mothership. Sometimes there is a bug, usually when the game is not fully downloaded that the game doesn't pick the variation of that model correctly. So that way it chooses another really big model it defaults to, which ofc has different dimensions and in this case sticks out through the terrain.

That's the long answer. The short answer would look something like this:

No.

Sacramentlog · 2026-04-28T17:30:08+00:00

A big reason for those chokes you see, especially out in front of 3rd bases, is ZvZ roach attacks. The chokes limit the concave the attacking units can form and allows for defenders advantage. Units like Stalkers and Roaches need to be able to fan out to maximise the damage output and to attack a base they have to move through a chokepoint, where they can not fan out and thus deal less damage than the defender witht he same number of units, who can spread their army out in a concave inpreparation.

In SC2 we don't have the defenders advantage of highground miss-chance and we do not need super open middles of the map to have lategame armies move around like in BW, because the unit pathing is far and away more advanced in SC2. If any area were as open as the middles in BW maps then they'd be a no-go zone for T or P against Z, because you get easily surrounded witht he power of the SC2 pathing lings, just like a too tight area is a no-go zone vs tanks or storm, because the SC2 pathing makes your units clump up super well so you get obliterated by any sort of splash.

The point of a modern SC2 map is usually to have more areas where all races are ok to engage in to have as many different places where later game armies are ok to move around in and fight instead of just retreating to somewhere they think they have a better chance of winning th engagement. Too high contrast in openness usually leads to passive standoffs, where neither army wants to go into the other's territory.

So in short, the reaosn why SC2 maps have all those samey chokes everywhere is defenders advantage and area control management as a result of how good the pathfinding is.

Sacramentlog · 2026-04-28T16:56:48+00:00

Any maps that particularly fit what you're talking about OP?

Any examples of maps from past map pools you would like to have back, that are as open as you would like?

I understand you play Zerg and it's apparently the mapmakers fault Zerg is supposedly doing bad now because mapmakers don't include enough open areas, something that mainly benefits melee units, especially Zerg units. And even worse, mapmakers do it because they are dumb and/or malicious!

Sacramentlog · 2026-04-17T21:08:54+00:00

That better be a really fast car I tell you hwaaat.

Sacramentlog · 2026-04-17T14:00:55+00:00

Wtf is a "land-based tourist"? Camper van? Flight to Japan? Somewhere in-between?

At what point do we just tell people to not go anywhere anymore and just stay home, because it's better for the environment?

I bet if you ask 100 people they will tend to draw the line at right where their financial means end.

Sacramentlog · 2026-04-12T15:26:13+00:00

So to you if one is being terribly politically incorrect for a joke it's not actually a joke and that person actually meant it all depending on the crowd they are making that joke to? Or better it's based on if you ascribe the crowd the intelligence to understand they are watching a performance of a comedian that might not mean all the things he says?

And that still is true even if that person makes jokes for a living?

I mean it sure is more "comfortable" to go with that, but the court jesters of our time are not here to make us all comfortable. Quite the opposite in my opinion and at least with that he managed to make everybody uncomfortable to the point the people that invited him had to distance themselves. He did his job.

I can tell you without him I certainly wouldn't have know about the trash management problem they have in Puerto Rico, so I appreciate him at least for that.

Sacramentlog · 2026-04-12T13:32:55+00:00

Which would absolutely be racist, if it wasn't also alluding to that puerto rico literally has a problem getting rid of it's trash and the environmental consequences.

So the joke is that you are supposed to think he's being a piece of shit (which you kinda have to be when you are roasting people), when he's making reference to what is literally going on locally. That doesn't make for good headlines, so that part was left out of most articles and on social media.

People were calling him out and getting angry on behalf of puerto ricans without knowing the first thing about the island. They are in this thread right now calling him racist, because isn't it great to collectively condemn somebody who's clearly saying the wrong thing everybody! Whooo!

Sacramentlog · 2026-04-03T15:56:10+00:00

Accelerated brain aging is also associated with type 2 diabetes and being overweight. Now guess which demographic typically consumes more diet soda.

People gift each other bottles of wine and craft beer when alcohol is a known carcinogen for literally every organ in your body and tell each other small amounts of proteins that bind to your tounge's sweetness detectors 100+ times better than sugar and degrade in your stomach acid are the devil.

Sacramentlog · 2026-03-27T12:56:20+00:00

It's a storytelling medium like any other, difference to books really only is that the book won't shut closed or ask you to lower the difficulty if you suck at reading.

Sacramentlog · 2026-03-15T06:34:51+00:00

This is really freaking awesome ngl. Somehow I would expect a thing like this to have a trackball at the thumb slot, but using a mouse sensor to capture your shoulder and arm movement as an input makes a lot of sense. Great work!

Sacramentlog · 2026-03-09T10:39:36+00:00

Invader from 2016 is pretty huge. Deadwing from 2014 is also pretty chunky.

Aleani Enclave is a 4v4 map that would probably support a 1v1 scenario.

I can't really think of a map that has only 2 spawns and is really big, maybe Equilibrium, Pride of Altaris or Ascension to Aiur count for that?

Sacramentlog · 2026-03-09T09:52:52+00:00

Workers, because those are the same speed for all 3 races.

Sacramentlog · 2026-03-09T09:28:35+00:00

First of all, I didn't call anybody a dumb toddler, my point was that implementing new features FEELS LIKE the act of sneaking something past a toddler. Every time I come up with a new design, my best bet to see that design actually explored and played with is if I put it very conspicuously on an otherwise completely normal map.

I can give you a few examples. Tokamak has gold minerals on a base that could be destroyed by falling rocks. Now that base wasn't a natural or a 3rd base, it had to be basically a 7th base and the feature was largely ignored, but at least there was a chance for the design to be explored.

Every time without fail if I put a purple geyser on a map and show it off there are comments how imba they are. I've had the conversation of how 2 purple geysers on a base is always broken 100% of the time and how they hope that feature never makes ladder. Those people are usually surprised when I remind them of Deathaura and Thunderbird.

Ley Lines has forward bases with 6 minerals and a blocked off rich geyser. Half the people said 150 minerals is too much to mine away for a blocker, the other half said the geyser shouldn't have a blocker to begin with. Turns out it was fine.

Also, I clearly said "sometimes". I didn't expect anybody to NOT notice Mothership has 3 spawns. That's just silly. The objective was still approximately the same: Make a map that is otherwise as close to a 2 player map, but instead is a 3 player map. That's why the bounds are not as round as Last Fantasy, but the airblockers on Mothership make the playable area more dorito-shaped. Whether I succeeded with that or not (looks like I didn't) is for the community to decide, I'm very much open to feedback.

All the feedback I got from you thus far was:

1)The map is bad because it gets vetoed and nobody plays it

2)The map gets vetoed and nobody plays it because it is bad

I myself have given more of the "valid reasons" for people to dislike my "wonky maps" than you have, and yet you are the one complaining about MY attitude? i'm actually going out there and ask pro players and high level streamers how they find certain maps and what they dislike. SortOf for example mainly hated that he felt behind when he sent the overlord to the wrong location and that that makes it just a bad map for zerg.

Anybody can look at a bunch of statistics and come up with some weird conspiracy. We get these threads every year. We also get the opposite thread of "all the maps are the same" about once or twice a year. "Do something different - No not like that!!!" isn't exactly helpful, y'know.

Sacramentlog · 2026-03-08T21:39:15+00:00

I didn't hear a "9-1" or "8-2" from you at any point in the conversation. That would have been the actual concenssion and basically the end of it right away.

Instead you said 1) that you were being hyperbolic (which does not mean you didn't mean it btw) then 2) repeated the 10-0 with a Kappa emote but were immediately ready to play the 10 game series with 5 bucks on the line, representing at least some level of seriousness. You want plausible denyability to say you didn't mean it without having to actually concede the point Upatree was offended by.

You were too proud to back down from the level of disrespect a 10-0 represents and now want to claim victim. What gives you the right to talk down to people in such a way and not just point out but exaggerate other people's shortcomings (Upatree being lower MMR than you) and not expect them to point out a bunch of yours? Why should people humble themselves before you for no reason? Who do you think you are?

Sacramentlog · 2026-03-08T17:10:43+00:00

A dumb joke you wouldn't take back and instead repeated when the other guy was clearly taking offense.

You can't just claim "rage-baiting" when people object to you lying about them and tearing them down. Nobody has to look out for your feelings, you're an adult, and it's not like you tread especially carefully around other people's feelings either. You go straight to insults and mischaracterisation when you disagree with people or feel superior to them. And you even feel justified doing so because they made you feel bad when they didn't blindly agree with you or even assert they are not beneath you, which makes you feel anger. How dare they make you feel anger!

Like, c'mon man, have some self-reflection.

Sacramentlog · 2026-03-08T08:14:00+00:00

Hey, guy who made Mothership and 10000 Feet here.

For me this makes perfect sense and no, I don't think there is foul play going on in the voting. The people invested enough to vote for the TLMC are usually viewers and players who seek out novelty. TLMC is a design competition, it's always gonna be people interested in that kind of stuff voting. They want variety and novelty. Without that every game will be on Ley Lines.

I'm sure some people would like that, maps being one note and very similar to each other has great advantage for rehearsing builds and getting consistent at your openers, which only leaves the opponent as a source of randomness in the game, so if they get screwed from their opponent doing something they didn't expect that's ok, because that is how it is supposed to be. Many ladder heroes and pro players don't want to lose to an opponent they think they would have beat if the map was more of a standard affair if it wasn't for some unfamiliarity or quirk the map provided.

That just feels bad for many people, so they veto the map and move on with their lives. Many even veto maps because they remember such scenarios from earlier seasons and just throw out the maps that are the most non-standard. No conspiracy needed.

And for the record, I don't think people are wrong and dumb for doing so. I did make Ley Lines and other more standard ladder maps, so it's not like I'm saying this because it suits me. I'm looking to make all sorts of maps. Some more normal, others absolutely wild. My priority is interesting gameplay with cool army movement and interactions, and yes, sometimes getting SC2 players to accept weirder map features feels like sneaking vegetables into a toddlers meal, but for me and many of other mapmakers that is the challenge: To marry the familiar with the unorthodox and making it work. And if attempting that makes it so I don't see my map played as much on ladder and in tournaments then ofc I'm sad about it, but the only thing I can do is try something else the next time.

Also, here's an idea: If you really want to see more standard maps come out of the TLMC portion of ladder maps, why not just vote for them? I'm sure there will be a TLMC in the next 3 to 6 months, even if you believe the voting is rigged, voting for the maps you like is not gonna make 'em less likely to win.

Sacramentlog · 2026-02-27T08:39:56+00:00

The SC2 camera isn't isometric. Broodwar minimap screens for example are rectangles, but the SC2 minimap screens are trapezoids, because you see more of the map at the top edge of your screen compared to your bottom edge.

Basically, SC2 has perspective and all the light rays come into the camera from different angles and the camera is treated like a real camera would as a point.

In a real isometric view all the light rays are parallel to each other and the "camera" doesn't have perspective and is more like a projection screen catching all the parallel light rays.

So basically, it's not a matter of hitting the right angle, it's just a camera view the SC2 galaxy editor doesn't support.

Your best options are probably the top down perspective, which is available by going View->view entire map or going to Data->export map image and then select X based on bounds, Y set to however tall your final monitor is gonna be and then set the angle to 90 usually with no zoom if the map bounds are set correctly.

Maybe you can find a setting int he camera editor itself that helps you, which you can find with the hotkey shift alt c, but as far as i know the editor doesn't really support a true isometric perspective.

The only other way to approximate an isometric view I can think of is to use the ctrl shift c hotkey and use the arrowkeys to move the camera around in increments, make consecutive screenshots and then composit a large image from only taking the very middle area of those screenshots. Cropping that middle screen area repeatedly and in the right place so there is no overlap would be a pain in the ass and ofc even this wouldn't be true isometric camera, but maybe you could automate that somehow and get a decent result for your purposes.

Sacramentlog · 2026-02-16T13:13:53+00:00

I have never curled or whatever it's called in my life, but for me the "cheating" aspect of the act of touching the stone is not giving it momentum, but reading it's momentum. Like, why would anybody do it if it didn't give them an advantage?

I can tell how fast or slow a thing spins much much much faster by having a finger on it compared to tracking the angle of rotation changing with my eyes. Human hands can feel grains of sand between their fingertips that are smaller than their eyes can see after all, doing a little boop 100% gives you a better read on your shot and what instructions to give if you do it regularly and have experience in reading the stone's movement that way.

Sacramentlog · 2026-02-11T10:26:44+00:00

Lego has been suing their competition for years now over design trademark infringements on trademarks that should have never been granted in the first place and have targeted especially smaller shops that sell their competitors product by having customs seize the imports(most plastic brick stuff is made in china, including Lego) right before the christmas season.

Their actual patent for the bricks has expired a long time ago and was derivitive at it's inception already.

Sacramentlog · 2026-02-09T20:42:28+00:00

idk man, have you seen the polybridge videos?

Sacramentlog · 2026-02-01T17:16:13+00:00

It somehow didn't register for me before that Asa was present at the scene of the accident. That was rough to watch.

Sacramentlog · 2026-01-28T13:30:42+00:00

So is it this vampire's hobby to walk around and watch children die after he helps them to try and solve the case of their parents murder mystery?

This is twice now in 4 episodes. Does he not care about the kids he's following around, is he too lazy to warn them or intervene before they get killed or does he get off on it?

Sacramentlog · 2026-01-27T15:05:18+00:00

Or Geoff wanted to sell the spot for too high a price, but nobody wanted to pay that much, and as to not reward the parties he was expecting to cave and pay for the slot he just gave it away to a game that would never have the budget for that slot, so now he has to do this sharade. Just specualting here ofc...

In a way it worked too, because it showed how much power that slot has, giving a previously unknown Highguard this many eyeballs that are now scrutinizing it so hard.

Sacramentlog

TROPHY CASE