Will we get perfect metal placement?

Now come on, that is unfair. To point out the impoosibiltiy of perfection.

But seriously, prefection is very subjective. Unless you talk of the 2-16 axis mirrored maps of SupCom wich were kinda bland.

As others pointed out the maps would have to be perfectly symetric. Both ground layer and orbital. The game is inherently asymetric on the interplanetary level.
Generally the best way to make randomness fairer is to make more rolls. What if you halved what MEX bring in and cost, but doubleled the number of Mex spots for planets? That might end up just limiting build and movement space, of course, as well as needing longer engineer area commands.

I think one of the settings for planet creation is "clustering". If they are clustered stronger there is a worse chance for you to have many nearby. Because those clusters might jsut be that far away.

Maybe you are looking at it the wrong way and actually choosing the starting locations so that more mex is nearby will be mroe usefull? It is not that spots are not properly distirbuted, but that the starting points do not allign with the clusters properly.

Cluster determines how many metal sports there are per metal area (about the size of commander drop zone) max cluster gives each zone a high chance of having 5 metal if it was going to have metal in the first place. The other slider sets to how many areas have metal in the first place. IIRC

i personaly rather want to be able to set a fix number of spots and then how clustered and spread they are aswell as a option for stating mexxes ...

One issue with this is it removes the need for scouting, if you have a mirrored planet and you spawn in the same place in your hemisphere, you know where the other is. That's kind of boring.

I get where you're coming from, push maps in TF2 are favoured in competitive play because of the symmetry, and other games i'm sure.

I think with a large enough planet, any disparities are smoothed out by scale.

wrong scouting has nothing to do with the map but with your enemy as such you ALWAYS want to know what he does ... if you only guess what he does because you think you know the map you will have a bad wake up ...
scouting is not only viable at all time but nessesary at all times

As MrTBSC said: People are still in dire need to scout for WHAT the opponent is doing. In doing so however they would not have to deal with the randomness of WHERE their opponent is anymore. Currently the what question (the true aim of scouting) is kinda randomized answered earlier or late, depending on how fast you find your opponent. Though simply knowing the maps you play already helps a lot, as you can directly scout the spawns.

Yeah obviously you still need to scout during the game. I was just pointing out that starting a game knowing exactly where the other person is, is a bit boring.

I simply disagree with that

To be clear, kiwi is talking about highly competitive/ladder play.

In which a lot of cases you can't get "do overs".

Random metal spots on a random spawn map do nothing for consistency in competitiveness.

Especially since games can be own or lost by 1/2 mex spots and the fact on how far they are away/to defend.

Players like to be on equal footing when competing, no one likes to win with a handicap.

If the game is going to have a constant player base AND a competitive atmosphere that EVERYONE can delve into, there HAS to be equal spawns. Whatever the stipulations or answer would be, it's not possible currently.

Either have a metal map layout that covers a sphere symmetrically, or have it to where we can place OR look at metal spots in system generator, it doesn't matter..

+100 for fun competitive play and many viewers to watch said games and want to partake... For the longevity of PA.

It does not have to be a perfect grid of metal spots.

There could be a few clusters for each player to take around their bases at the same distance away. Then, there could be mex fields that they would have to fight for to gain more metal. But all fields should be an equal distance for each player.

Not sure what kind of math would be needed to do this, but i'm sure it's not too hard.

When i say metal grid, it could be clusters or a natural "grid" but just a mapping that is layed out across a planet.

You could then generate seeds of a planet that would match the metal "mapping" and if the seed fits you could use it.

I'd love to see symmetrical maps. Spawning in and having to worry about whether or not the opponent has more terrain advantages over you or even worse, resource advantages isn't really super fun. I feel like removing the randomization, having preselected spawn points, and adding symmetrical map terrain would allow players to develop consistent strategies along with promoting a healthy, consistent competitive environment.

My main problem with competitive play right now is the fact that someone can spawn near a certain obstacle that completely deters me from attacking them or bottlenecks my units to a point where I can't attack them effectively without losing a good portion of my army. Stuff like this should never be a thing in a competitive game and if it were to be a thing both players should have the same bonus

This would really add the icing to the cake for me as I mostly play this game competitively. I'd love it if I had more map options to play on for competitive instead of always having to choose a moon for the best balanced experience. Even then resource imbalances can still be an issue.

...I'm beginning to think competitive players would become much more humble and less egotistical and trash talky if they had to admit there's always a component of randomness to their victories.

Trash talkers will be always be a thing.

Notice where it says "less" and not "never".

Forgive my lazy reading. It's 2 AM.

I believe PA has the option for planetary spawns.. where you can pick anywhere on the planet to spawn. That to me seems to make the perfect symmetry a moot point, if it is enabled. In this case it would be your own fault for picking a bad spot.

War is inherently not fair..

Picking your own spawn isn't symmetrical.

And why in competitive play is symmetry so important, instead of randomness (spawn anywhere)?
Look at any successful competitive game, ESPECIALLY MOBAs, the maps are "boring" with four corners and equal "trash mobs(metal) to farm".

This is so people can (for spectating purposes) watch their favorite players match up against another great player on an EQUAL battlefield.

I played quake1 back in the day, and 95/100 matches were played on DM3 (map) because it was where competitive people played to have a balanced game.

Victories/defeats on random spawns/metal don't bode well for competitive gameplay. Who wants to challenge the best player in the game and beat him when he spawns with 3 less mexes and you obviously had the advantage. Not me.

And if planet wide spawns is the answer you choose, we still have to find a way to create a map that has two equal sides that you can force a comm to land in to create a balanced game.

Make the game more enjoyable to play competitively, it's very simple to do Uber.

And if you don't like the set maps/spawns, DONT PLAY THEM. You can play all the randomly generated maps your mind can fathom 30,000 seeds?

At least give us that option.

Edit: currently what we have is what baseballs hall of fame consists of. Asterisks next to wins/victories **(had an unfair advantage)**

A "don't play them" or "you can turn them off" argument will win you no points here.

Are there actually people here that believe randomness like the metal is good for competing?

I hope not. It's fun for casual games, but not everyone wants be be a filthy casual sometimes.