Why I stopped playing 1v1

When I play I use almost all units. Obviously not in a single game, that would be just weird. (If it were viable to use all units in one game, there would not be a single critical decision to make, composition-wise) The only units that are really a waste of resources imho are levelers, hornets and stingrays. And orbital maybe...

But I think it is not the balance, but the maps and the player base. with the practice I had lately on the bigger maps for Big Bang I noticed that there is indeed a very good chance of seeing T2 and on these maps I find it incredibly interesting how certain unit compositions work and how I need to change my composition when the enemy changes syles/strats/compositions. Even if that happens in one game.

The ladder maps lack diversity, because you always have defensive csg everywhere, it makes the games dull because there is little to worry about.
Amplus for example would be a really interesting map if the spawn point wasn't so cramped with unpathable csg stuff.
Berg, Forge and Duat all have such a defendable base that the game becomes this mindless contest who can build more, which almost everyone dislikes. (personally I kinda like them too, its an optimization problem^^) There should be a way that you can get into the enemies base with smaller pushes, maybe killing a factory and run away.

At first I was really skeptical about the size of the Big Bang finals maps, but I must say they are great! more open space, so you cant defend so easily and to prevent silly rushes the maps are bigger. I think these are the maps we should have on the ladder^^

And of course as clopse said, the skill difference between the individual players is too big, simply because there are not many people playing. This is not a reason to stop, but to fix things and start playing again

What would be nice is a way in-game to have a way of socializing. If you know many players of your skill level you will play more fun games. Also, mindlessly getting an auto match does not feel like playing vs people you know (or think to know). It is the extra bit of meaning to a match that spices things up.
Maybe a vanilla chat room system with some rooms to be in would be good. you know like beginners/coaching - intermediate - highlevel - cheesyfungames

Oh interesting. I didn't track what was going on with the big bang tournament? How big were the maps they used?

remember who always asked for bigger maps? scnr

I totally agree with your opinion about maps. I always criticized map size and available space. Amplus especially would be a much better map if the field of **** pathing (over crowded csg next to spawns) was cleaned up.

Well, ranked 2v2 for the win then...
...Oh, wait!

And it obviously doesn´t really fit in here, but I still give you a like. It´s simply so true!

- A more addictive ladder
the way the ladder works now with people moving up and down, disagreeing and appearing it is just not satisfying. Back in the days when we had the pa stats ladder (yes we still have it but people doesn't play by it) people did everything in their power to make that ranking number go up. It was satisfying to move from 50 to 30 and many inn to top 10. That feeling is gone in the official ladder. To not see a result after hard work (even though it is) is demotivating

- Bigger player base
Manny has mentioned this already. A perfect 1v1 for me is one with two players who are in the same skill level and the whole game is just fort and back dragging out. I played one of those yesterday against burntcustard, and after 30 min on a small planet fighting for every mex and every inch of map control I was exhausted. One of the funniest 1v1 I've played and that is due to playing someone roughly on the same skill level. And to get this we need of corse ^

-more counters to grenadiers
It is clearer and clearer to me now. Late game grenadiers beats everything (not t2) If there is a few spinners close (or air control) there is nothing to do for the ant loving player. We need something that can kind off do something about that so every game don't end up the same (no I don't approve of a green nerf, it would just take it away again)

(A stupid suggestion from me is that spinners can shoot down the grenadiers projectiles in the air (or another unit) just a stupid idea though)

I'll echo that T1 balance is pretty good. Perhaps Dox lack any good means to work in conjunction with other units, but that's about it.

To me though that is the problem, there's no chance to create an opportunity to work T2 into your strategy. Now, this isn't the case on naval where the T2 rush can work all too well, but on land it's not at all viable. Half the roster is out of reach, and I think it's T2 eco that made it this way. As Kiwi doesn't want to make it a balance thread I won't go down that route again, but suffice to say the way to make 1v1 more interesting is to examine the viability of T2 in a 1v1 on the sort of ladder maps we have now or whether it's those maps that are the issue.

Disclaimer: I think TA suffered from the exact same problem. Probably moreso since so many Core units were totally useless.

I will be interested to see how 1v1s work out on some of the larger maps in Big Bang and whether T2 enters the game or it just becomes about air. The ranked map pool doesn't exactly give us the widest of system sample sizes.

The wider issue is the lack of reasons to continuously play on the ladder which I have talked about before. The meta is defined by only a few people on a few maps and there isn't enough happening at the top of the ladder between them to really stress their ideas.

He's referring to the maps for the finals this Saturday. There's a map pack at the bottom of the page. These are the maps being used.

I basically agree with everything that has been said in this thread. Especially noting the shitty drop-off-in-1-week ladder system, wreckages, ridiculous CSG spam (I miss moons), and lack of T2 in competitive games.

I think balance right now is really good, but unit variety/fun is lacking. Like I've mentioned before, I'd really like another unit I could send raiding with dox (like Quitch said, you can't use Dox effectively with any other units) , and I think units need more personality (e.g. right now the single, double, triple laser towers all feel very samey, Grenadiers weapons spinning doesn't match their fire rate, there aren't many "yes, sir!" type sounds when issuing commands, and of course boom bots don't jump ). Also bombers and combat fabs are still a massive pain in the arse to use correctly, especially for inexperienced players who can't spam click or target individual dox.

I don't "get" the whole Asteroids thing, and would rather Uber spent more time on the unit roster and unit interactions. We don't need another 100 units, but slight modifications (maybe only visual/audible) to the existing ones, and a handful of extras to spice up our unit blobs.

Just as a complete aside: @startege1 just made a mod that appears to do exactly that if you want to see what it feels like. I'm not sure if it has been released yet, but the video looks impressive: https://forums.uberent.com/threads/mod-with-an-anti-dox-grenadier-and-nuke-unit.69266/

The shot must be given life. and in physics somewhat adjusted. so it would look in a ammo file. .

"max_health": 1, "physics": {"add_to_spatial_db": true}

the brackets in must be set to true.

Next, you need a unit that catches the shots in the tool Wapon you need:

,"auto_task_type":"anti_entity","anti_entity_targets":["/pa/units/land/assault_bot/assault_bot_ammo.json","/pa/units/land/tank_light_laser/tank_light_laser_ammo.json","/pa/units/land/bot_grenadier/bot_grenadier_ammo.json","/pa/units/land/nuke_launcher/nuke_launcher_ammo.json"],

which is in the sniper beam tool already exists. because you write then the ammo file.

Yea, wonder how many times we got to mention that... The 1v1 scene used to be who was best on a moon with just craters and it was much better then every map we got now. The CSG spam realy is bad for gameplay (on official and unofficial 1v1 maps) it fcks building placement, pathfinding and because of the bottlenecks EVERYWHERE it can make games pretty stale. Also, on unofficial maps (like the current BB tournament maps) its totaly out of control, full of bugs, bullshit balance (grenadiers can't fire onto highground) units getting stuck or keep walking in circles constandly. Open paths look like blockades, blockades look open and all the unbuildable spaces.....

Seriously i would love to see the planets more open and accessible again almost as much as i would love to see a GOOD 1v1 moon, like we always used from alpha till gamma.

At some point it was decided that Uber had "promised" asteroids, and that was somehow a thing distinct from creating small rock planets. I'm not sure what caused this. The word asteroid in the trailer? Jon Mavor said asteroid in a livestream? Anyway, that silliness is probably why they've felt it's something they have to deliver a feature around.

Well now that promise has been fulfilled. What's the next silly promise on the list? My list is mostly empty, if you cross out "40 player games" and "multiplayer galactic war" from it because those are just completely insane to do for technical reasons.

Yup they delivered on almost everything that was promised. Time for a big polish pass!!

Moons with nothing but crater were awesome to play - it definitely doesn't look good when you spam csg's from other biomes on a moon. But i can understand that people got bored of playing and watching them 24/7.

There are some really nice and well thought out maps in BB finals i hope become mainstream though.

- The reef is the reef enough said.
- Dorne is incredible
- Roc is pretty good (minor metal count issues but nothing big)
- Diadem possibly a bit too radical for competitive, but great in terms of the innovative 3 lanes gameplay and high ground control.

It would be nice if uber considered adding some of these to the 1v1 ladder, or atleast took some of the ideas as 'inspiration' for new maps. More maps = less chance of getting styx at the least.

!!!

Styx with the new planet smash rules might be more interesting.... Holding the small planet is now stronger than the metal planet due to cost difference between 1 halley and 5 catalysts.

Well the small planet still has less metal or not? So once the asteroid is there you are running for it and the player on the smaller planet has less metal than the player on the metal planet.

The small planet is a 1 Halley smashable itself....

Ah right. Still a weird setup

Nah it'll still be really silly if not more. Instead of one player using astreus with his commander, it will be both players using astreus ending in draw or who knows what. You can't self destruct your commander while he's in orbital flight, so my guess is you'll have never ending game.

Someone should test that on pte.