Randomness in early game

That's the way I would like them to try.

You know what Pilot, I can beef with the puzzle using big puzzle pieces, as the terrain props when have already kinda do that.

So bigger piecess with more complex details, made to fit a number of cases and even biomes, I am OK with that.

But my biggest pet peeve with maps, is that the most competitive and well designed ones are good areas. But are not maps, they are not terrain, they are not indicative of a location, fictional or of the real world and are what really kills any attempt at immersion into the game.

And you will know the ones I mean, FAF is filled with them, flat boring symmetrical arenas, all with standardised points on the map to play over, and most of them didn't even bother to put down more then a single texture.

Most are entirely flat apart from when the designer specifically needs a higher area and thus builds what I can only describe is a series of myian prymids in the middle of an open field, with 90 dagree cliff faces.

And that, is unacceptable, compeditive play be damned if that is the future of map design.

That's because those maps are build to offer good gameplay. That's what a game is about. Good gameplay.

The blunt way mos FAF map do it are so jarring, that id rather have bad gameplay then suffer a monochrome map.

I like when a RTS have both Symmetrical and Asymmetrycal maps,
Symmetrycal are easier to balance, and play...
Asymmetrycall are harder to balance and Play, but some are more cool than Symmetrycal ones...

I would like that Metal Planets get Metal Symmetric

I've just played mattrmunson in practice. We didn't know our spawns. They appeared to be relatively close. My build was basically identical to him. He sent his initial 4 engineers to his closest 2 expansions and made some doxes afterwards to harrass. I did exactly the same. I've sent my 4 engineers to my closes expansions. Unfortunately one of my closest expansion was not far away from him. He was trying to find me and he sent doxes to this area while i sent doxes around somewhere else and I was trying to find him. His doxes killed my 2 enginners while performing exactly the same action as my doxes. My doxes didn't find him so easily and it resulted in situation where he had 2 expansions while I had one expansion. He got such a big advantage that I got so behind that I couldn't catch up and lost the game eventually.
This is example of how randomness can affect the game very convincingly to the point where its almost instaloss.

I always scout out every nearby cluster of metal points before sending my engineers there for a few reasons: 1 to give my economy a little time to grow before pumping out engineers; 2 to have a quick response team of 5 or so Doxen; 3 to use them to branch out and check all the nearest clusters so that I can make a decision on where to expand before actually doing it. Poor planning=/=unfair. You just planned poorly and received the sour end of a complicated game-state.

How are you supposed to scout out 1 dox incoming to your engineers when you have just 1-2 doxes yourself? I obvously scouted those positions but I didn't find him there so I went ahead. The map is so big that if scout doxes meet each other pretty rarely. So I'd have to guard all my engineers but then again I wouldn't be able to scout with them. He did exactly the same but his doxes killed mine because they found them randomly while mine didn't find his.

It wasn't randomly. He sent doxes to metal patches where sometimes players send unguarded fabbers. It worked. Random? Somewhat. Unfair? Absolutely not.

So it is fair that one player blindly hits while the other blindly misses?

Absolutely. Trying to make it work otherwise is futile.

How do you propose to stop that situation from happening?
It even happens in SCII: And the drone JUST missed vision of the 4 incoming zealots! Random chance. Considered fair.

If a player doesn't scout, that is their fault.

Reconnaissance, Reconnaissance, Reconnaissance.....

This is humanly impossible to scout such thing. Seriously you guys just theorize out of your ***

Its impossible to scout around your base?

That isn't theorising, that is basically essential.

Finding initial doxes around your base

Uhh, yes, finding enemy forces near your base is basically the first thing you should do.

Go read my post. I explained what I do in most situations when I play (and start on land). I don't have the problem that you did, and when I do I don't complain about it happening because it was my fault for sending undefended fabbers out into the fray.

Strategy games are about balancing risk/reward decisions and gaining the upper hand over your opponent. If you make a high risk decision that is trounced (even by blind luck on the enemy's part), it was your fault for making that decision that had a high risk.
Next time wait a little longer and have a 2 dox defense squad that follows your fabbers around.

One of the first things I do after I have a factory up is scout. You need information to make smart decisions.

It is normal to scout the direction you are going to expand and then send the dox onwards. Maybe he should protect his expanding bots you say. Problem is that this strategy won't work 90% of the time. And you also have 0% chance of these protecting dox harassing the enemy early game.

In the few cases where these dox walk straight into 3 fabbers the repercussions are huge. If you knew that he knew where you were going to expand this game would be so much different. I have often thought I was so luck if an early dox walks straight into the commander than your 3 fabbers on the opposite side if the base.

Don't think maps need to be symmetrical. But it sure helps. A simple ping of where your opponent starts would suffice for me. Then proper tactics can be made. Like ah he needs that spot so I will try my best not to let him take it. Etc. as opposed to playing roulette until you find him. Which is also a luck factor.