Beta is childsplay compared to alpha

If I could like your post twice, I would.

You hear that guys? I think we should reduce the pace of the game to make it more interesting!

This isn't sarcasm, this is another one of those things that made TA glorious.

The pacing is not a thing that remains the same throughout the entire game. It's not a good thing to "just" make it slower. You need to carefully look at how the pacing works in this game, and smooth it out before you make it slower or quicker.

I didn't say there should be a flat reduction to pace, just a reduction of some sort. Pace has a tendency to be, interestingly enough, on a Normal Curve. There's probably a different word for that when talking about time/quantity relations instead of statistics, but my point remains.

Pace starts slow at first, ramps up midgame, and then drops off late game. The only exception to this is that once in a blue moon where you get two teams of equal skill and neither team decides to turtle.

I like turtles

know what is an attempt to remove pace and speed the game up? the egg concept.

My experience of the alpha was more or less this:

You start out pretty slowely, you'll build the obligatory 4 mass, 1 energy and 1 factory to start out. Once you get out roughly 5 to 7 engineers, the pace picks up and you're suddenly able to do a lot. Then you start ramping up production and the pace remains pretty much the same until your base grows beyond the scope of easy control.
You then transition to advanced technology where the pacing suddenly crashes down into slowness. Once you get advanced econ up, the pacing becomes extremely fast that can either mean the end of the game, or it'll turn into a very slow paced stalemate.

The pacing isn't smooth at all and it feels all over the place.

My experience of the beta is more or less like this:

You start out extremely slowely, gamebreakingly slow. This remains so until you manage to get advanced econ up, the pacing picks up again. Then you get to the orbital layer and the pacing is just all over the place again, locally fast and generally very slow. Which is actually worse than the alpha, because early aggression is very very hard to counter.

TA boosted the early game pace with more effective starting storage(most things were 3-5x cheaper TA) and with free range rocks. The Commander's lathe was also proportionally more powerful than what we have in PA.

All of your concerns are nullified when the metal sliders are added. Why create so much drama over such a petty thing.

I would prefer that the game depend on my skill and tactics, not how fast I can click the mouse. So I am all for minimizing (not getting rid of, but minimizing) the micro.

Because extractors aren't the only way to pace the game.

Nor should they be.

The way the metal is distributed also is a pretty major thing to consider.

This is supposed to be a large scale macro game.

So that makes small scale raiding an invalid tactic?

I would still prefer a somewhat slower game still, what with having to manage a 4th unit layer (That are kind hard to spot) and conflicts of different spheres at once.

No. Not in the slightest. That's a big jump and putting words in my mouth. Just because the game is supposed to be large scale macro doesn't mean small raids are invalid. Look at the late tournament matches in the King of Alpha tournament – large armies with lots of macro. The way, as I understand, PA was intended to be. Yet despite the large scale macro gameplay, the upper tier players were always sending small raiding parties to the backside of their opponent's base. The players that didn't send small raids were knocked out at the beginning of the tournament.

The thing I'm most concerned about has been brought up. Standard build order is 4 metal extractors and energy and factory – then things pick up. Everyone agrees that the game is extremely boring until after that initial build gets going.

Something needs to be done so that initial build doesn't take forever. Be it, Commander inherently produces more economy. There's always an egg at the start of a match. There's 3 or 4 metal spots at spawn points. Something to make the opening build queue not drag on.

There are many options.

Presenting the player with an immediate choice might be less boring... but it's certainly a large step to take as your first action, especially if you're new to the game, or we encounter some form of 'counter' based play between the different types of units.

You could effectively lose the game with your first action.

Speeding up the earlygame is not something I'm in favour of.
Increasing the number of meaningful choices you can make during the earlygame however is something I am very passionate about.

I don't disagree that the 'Standard' build order is bad. I don't agree that just dumping the run up to it, is the answer however.

Yea no drama intended, just hoping the lean more towards previous game speed and size

I think you can still think ahead and plan for long term when playing bigger faster stronger.

also won't core balancing issues be based around expected economy.

when ladder is created how much will the rules of engagement be able to be tinkered with.

I love highly flexible rules and game styles for casual play

But would want a more strict narrower set of rules and options for competitive play

Just hope those rules are condusive to big games that don't take an eternity to get on their feet.

That's what I'm concerned of.

I'm all for multiple choices in gameplay. Huge fan of that.

But a strong economy is needed to build armies no matter how the game is built, so that's always going to be the first step.

Hm...

Unless the Commander naturally produces enough metal and energy to power a basic factory. Now that would be an interesting twist.

Think of how many options you would have if the commander has enough metal and energy production to be able to be building a building as well as powering a basic factory that is building a unit.

Now players have the option to build one of any of the basic factories and build units with it and expand their economy or production at the same time.

That gets action going from the very beginning and presents a crap ton of choices to the player.

While I think losing the game by the first action you choose is a bit of an overstatement, but I definitely agree that other options than more starting resources should definitely be open for debate.