Instead of adding sily open maps like the new Arabian Desert, just make walling more costly (but more durable).
It doesn’t even change the meta to make the res out that far. We have a low-commitment strat meta that includes walling up at a later stage, as the priority is to just get some units out as early as possible.
Summary
Make walling on Arabia a commitment again and we can hopefully finally return to a stage with commited feudal play. Players need to decide wether they want their early aggression or being defensively set up well. Generally speaking also Arabia should always slightly favor aggressive play, but like 60-40, not 80-20. When wallin is more of a commitment, then it allows also for stuff like full scouts to return to the meta, something we don’t see these days.
Araibia was in the past the map with the biggest variety, yet the hamster meta made it repetitive, as there is a clear pattern of: Get the rush out, try to get an advantage. Wall Up + set up your eco. Get Up, Get the rush out. Ofc wall changes alone won’t completely break that, but if walls were more costly but durable, this would nerf that pattern, as it wouldn’t allow the hamsters to get their ridicilous castle timings as they do currently.
It would also nerf stuff like Phosphoru who is relying on being able to scrap up some defensive walls when under pressure. If that costs more wood, then any form of early aggression can do more damage just by forcing him to invest more in the defense. Especially as his builds are designed super tight, this would actually be a big hit to those strats.
Generally speaking, I see map designers struggling witth the current walls for years now. If they want maps to be aggressive they need absurd stuff like unbuildable terrain and whatelse. This should be just able by basic map layout. When the woodlines are further away, it should just make them aggressive. And we shouldn’t need to put them on Narnia for that. And for a map like Arabia it’s ridicilous how far res sometimes spawn. Especially noticable was the Arabia in the League tournament. Where almost all the woodlines had to spawn in the center or outside because they couldn’t be closer to the players starting positions.
Just freaking make walls more expensive but durable in compensation and we finally can get nice maps and a healthy meta on those maps again. With commitment strats rather than this “I don’t commit to anything, there is a timing for everything and my focus is on getting macro advantages” hamstering we currently have.