PA Stats 1v1 ladder map pool

Already knew about this and it isn't actually a problem. I'll keep an eye on it, but it's not so obviously imbalanced that it needs to be removed. You don't need to reload maps btw. All the spawn positions were given to you in the OP.

Think of this as simply first mover advantage, and by that I mean the advantage of determining how the game will play, not some +metal advantage. Lack of build space on the other island is your tradeoff, and overall it does not confer as much advantage as it would seem when you have two informed parties. There is a balanced meta for this map and it'll take time for players to get there.

Long story short, standard fabber first is not compromised and scouting will determine the way you approach the game. There is no build order advantage to knowing you spawned on the other island island unless your opponent does not scout.

Air is a powerhouse on this map, and i would not suggest players skimp on units and go for very macro builds, especially when it is even more tempting to do so on the other island

It's a problem. Intel advantage is obvious and one player gets to determine how the game will play in a way that the other can't, which is bad. Juggle stuff around until there's a spawn on both islands for both players, or remove the map.

like the lava maps. remove them all.

EDIT: the only map I play on is the moon and water planet. They're the only one's close to being even close to being closely balanced.

Asymmetric balance.

It's not a problem untill people start linking to replays and data that are systematically showing build order advantages. Because I don't see where the build order advantage is.

It shouldn't really matter how balanced you think the spawns are, as stuart says, one player has the choice to spawn on the same island where the other does not.

Suppose there are two players equal in skill, but one is better with controlling land armies and the other with air. Every game, one of them is going to be able to choose what kind of game is going to take place and the other is not. Regardless of how balanced you think it is overall, one guy will always be able to choose the way the game is going to unfold AND he has the additional advantage of knowing which island his opponent spawned on. I don't like that.

I see it as being the same as if that 3-planet system had 3 spawns on one of the lava planets and only 1 on the other. One guy could pick whether it's an orbital game or a single planet game. Some people don't like orbital, or aren't good with it, and the same thing goes for air.

I think you probably misunderstood me. I'm not saying that spawns are metal balanced and thats the end of the story. I'm saying very specifically that there is no build order advantage that results. If bombers and air first or second was still a crap option for single land play like days of old, I would agree with you, but it no longer is.

If i get two spawns on the same island, I know the opponent has the choice to go on the other island. This doesn't affect my build order much at all. If i skip air and play land only (a bad idea anyway even on planets with no water or lava), I will have scouted his spawn option on my island very quickly. If he is there, he is there. If he is not there, then by deduction I know pretty dahm quickly where he is and what he is most likely building. If he went air, then he can't invade you because you have land. If he built land, then you are both equal in terms of the air race.

If i play normal and do something like air first, then i can scout either one of the positions in literally 5 seconds and adapt from there. Like i said earlier in the thread, the 'build fabber first' rule isn't compromised from the game of spawn option poker as it might on a very small radius planet. There is not any material information advantage that is gained.

The very very small immaterial advantage that exists is the tradeoff for being unable to build up factories as quickly as you because of the lack of build space on the other island.

This premise doesn't make sense, so the arguement doesn't follow through as a result. You can't say two players are equally skilled in this context, but one is better at air and the other is better at land.

Also, it does matter how balanced I think it is, not because I'm currently managing the map pool, but because of the reasons why i think it is balanced. I would rather hear counter arguements.

Whether or not this map had 3 spawns on one island or 2 spawns on each island, you must be prepared for both island vs island gameplay and single island gameplay. This isn't a single elimination tournament, but a ladder that tests your overall skill over many games.

No it's not like this at all. It takes significantly longer to scout your entire planet and know whether he went on the other planet or not. Here, I won't know untill I've chosen maybe 3 factories already and commited to a certain amount of fabbers.

Taxman 2v2 is not like this at all - scouting spawn positions does not create this build order information advantage because of how quickly you can do it.

*Even with all this, if you are able to provide replays showing any kind of material build order advantage that I may have missed, then I'd be the first to adjust or remove the map.

None of that accounts for the fact that one player knows which island the other is on, and the other does not. You won't see that advantage in the build order, but one guy has the time (including the time taken to spawn) to decide how he is going to play that match (not everyone plays as much as some of us and imbalances affect them too). He also has the choice over whether it's going to be a close land spawn, or on a completely different island. Which does he prefer? You just won't see this kind of stuff in replays.

Also the one spawn on its own has significantly more metal in its immediate vicinity than 2 of the 3 spawns on the other island. Looking at your initial screenshots, the first time I played the map, I had the choice between screens 2 and 3. Screen 3 is a terrible start compared with screens 1 and 4, which meant I had to start screen 2. This still has less initial metal than screen 1 or 4, and I could be basically on top of my opponent who has more initial metal than me, or far away from my opponent who still has more initial metal than me.

I don't know what you want to be shown in replays.

I will add that the other created maps are all excellent and well balanced in my experience, and I have veto'd taxman 2v2, so it's not an issue for me, but would still like it removed. Frankly when I discovered 3 spawns were on one island I assumed that you (like colin) had simply missed that and thought 2 were on each island.

Ok you have a very good point that it'll create imbalance for skill levels that don't scout and such. I'll look to get a 2 spawns on each island, although that might be hard so the map will probably get replaced altogether. *or we'll wait to see how the meta evolves for that map depending on what colin wants.

With the current spawns, in my mind the metagame was maybe going to evolve to something like this, although I could very well have been wrong.
a) If you get spawns 2 and 3, you would pick 2 because if he picks 1 then you have metal behind you to expand to uncontested. And if he picks 4, you can scout/snipe his fabbers very quickly to the north as well as do fabber expansion in two directions (faster than 2 fabbers in one direction).
b) If you get spawn 1 but not spawn 4, then you would not go spawn 1 even if it had more metal because it can potentially get peltered from across the lava. That was the risk tradeoff for the metal.
c) Spawn 4 allows you more metal, but not as much room to build factories to use that metal. More commander walking time, or you build over the metal spots.

In terms of the replays, I was basically looking for if one player is able to systematically get out more economy, more units etc. Like, if the 1 spawn island player can safely macro harder with less risk or has some advantage in the build order metagame.

All of this would be fixed with simple additions to the system editor like symmetrical metal and custom spawn points, etc.

Uber pls

"Simple"

Well, in principle they really are.

Think about it; most of the problems with 1v1 balance could be fixed with a more complex system editor, allowing custom map designs. I hope it's high on the priority list.

yup yup yup yup yup

unfortunately the mex seem to be fubared for these maps right now since the patch.

Honeypot is an excellent map, I've been playing 4-player FFAs on it too with excellent results. Nice one Elodea!

True. I made a really nice Ice planet if anyone would like to play it on shared systems.

It's called "Jikolo Ranked" on the default server. (lol name)

There's some weird flaws i noticed with metal; sometimes 2 get placed very close to each other and one can't be built.

Has the patch messed with spawns at all or just metal?

If it's messed with spawns...

I CAN BRING BACK DUST OF DOOM [AND TAKE OVER THE SYSTEM SHARER]


*cue maniacal laughter*

Sorry I really want to bring back Dust of Doom.

Spawns are the same location but the mex distribution is different

Only metal
EDIT: 11 minutes... this happens when you reply on a 30 minutes old tab

So old news, the latest build has changed metal distributions. I can't be bothered spending the time re-balancing the current map pool. Not when it's possible that metal patterning will be changing again some time soon with future bug fixes, so you guys will just have to make do I guess.

However, if any one of you brave souls wants to metal balance the ladder maps or suggest new balanced maps in the interim, feel free to do so. Basically you'd need to open them up in system editor, save a local copy, then re-iterate the density and cluster values by creating games to see if all spawns are balanced. You would be rendering the pa stats ladder community a huge service not easily forgotten!

Don't waste your time making new planets, you should at least wait for the next build anyway where they add custom-ish spawn locations.