Is it worth returning?

Hi players!

Some might remember me as an arrogant angry old SupCom top 100 player. I also played FAF for like 4 months, until they introduced that master-factory-upgrade thing.

I also tried to play PA, but it was just too boring and unfinished atm.

Would you please answer me honestly.
1. What is the current state of the game? How addictive is it, comparing to FA?
2. Does 1v1 mode has diverse strategies? Or it's always do-one-thing-or-die-no-matter-what-opponent-is-doing, depending on current map only?
3. Is 1v1 mode competitive?
4. How complex the play is in terms of actually using brain instead of just being hectic moving camera around and trying to click in all the places necessary?
5. Would you personally recommend some detached guy to try to play it again?

Please, note that I appreciate all the planet smashing stuff, but I'm a hard fun lover, so gameplay is what's going to matter the most for me, not all the cosmic stuff.

Thanks in advance.

Short Answer: Not quite worth it yet, but its getting there

You can play competitive 1vs1 right now, though the ladder still IS lacking in terms of interesting maps and balance.

However: It's making very promising steps and I am expecting it to become much more interesting than it is currently sonner than later.

Though even in the current state to me personally it's already fun, but I can see that especially 1vs1 ladder right now is kinda well... the maps are small and the balance questionable in many areas. But still fun to play 2-3 games a day to me, waiting for the upcoming patch, that's said to start changing the balance.

So my recommendation is: Try a few games to get a feel for what changed and if you dislike it just stay around this place, maybe play a game once in a while and wait for the december patch while participating in the discussion threads about the changes in that patch.
We just had the november patch though, so "december" probably means rather end of december than beginning of december.

Also I think I think I can remember your name from FA

hard to really answer the competitive stuff yet since it hasn't really matured in the community yet.

You seem to be the kind of guy who depends on balance though, at which point it is not quite there yet. @jables has said that the next big update will contain a balance pass however, so check back in a month or so.

Wow, so many answers, so fast

I suspect, that with proper mods PA is going to be the greatest RTS ever, I just check it from time to time not to miss the moment ^^

I think, I'll try to get rid of piles of work and will try the game once again

Thank you for answering, once again.

Very wise

There are a lot of ui mods and also a couple really good balance mods.

If you wanna check out where molding is right now a mini mods tournament is coming up; you should watch the videos when they come out.

Or watch live!

Yeah, that too.

unfortunatemy engy mod might come in and ruin it for you again : >

PS: engy mod is the tits!

You make competetive sound like a positive thing added to the game. It's WORTHLESS without balance and unit diversity, currently there are 2-3 viable metas? and without using those specific tactics you're pretty much gonna get your *** handed to you.

Competetive should have been of lowest priority, can't believe they wasted resources to satisfy the crybabies instead of actually improving a game with such an immense potential -.-

Currently I'm little by little losing faith in how the game will end up.
Let's just hope Knight can cook up something incredibly awesome like BlackOps for PA or maybe Burnie will visit and make a Total Mayhem for PA.

Knight.. save me plez!

¨~ Chris

Knight is already with the RCBM team, a balance mod. You should check that out, or try out Statera, another balance mod by yours truly and quite a few others that adds a large number of units and from what we've observed is quite balanced.

Can you name those 2 or 3 metas? And then explain why others are not viable?

Don't just guess randomly

Cool! I checked out the sites and it seems like the mods actually moves PA into the direction Uber wanted it to be, I like it. Vanguards without Doomsday Devices? NICE! Will any of the mods include balanced new units and mega-units? or will this be more like a "overhaul" ?

YOU give me 5 strategies that could win every game if the player using them is the better player skill wise, a player should never lose a game to a worse player if he decides to use something out of meta.

¨~ Chris

I just finished up the Megabot, so it'll likely be added to Statera very soon.

Also Statera already has much expanded unit roster, much more units that still stick with the balance, if you want to talk further we can take this to PM as not to derail the thread.

You're the one making the assertion here, not me. Don't be all hostile just because i ask you to back up your words with some evidence.

And why is it suddenly 5 now? I thought you said there was only 2 or 3?

I could list off 5 viable strategies, but that would be pretty meaningless since the meta is something that is constantly shifting. Counters counter counters, which are countered by other counters.

As for better skilled player, you can do almost anything and still win if you are better. Are you playing better than your opponent?

I've played no air and got uber top 10 while clopse goes around telling everybody how epic imba air is.
Yes vs the best of the best I would probably need at least a little air, which is good as playing vehicle only should not be that good (though I am not as sure about the whole "air is undefeatable thing), but you can win most of your games doing whatever you want really if you play vs most ladder people.

Seriously your quote of my statement, read it again: there is a capital IS there. Yes I agree the balance needs work and we need more planets for competitive 1vs1 to be viable over the long run. That's exactly what I meant and I fully agree that hopefully the december patch FINALLY will be about changing the balance, as I think we can all agree there are a lot of things to fix. (though we may not agree what they are and how to fix them xD)

Why competitive first? Because somebody actually has to test your balance and gameplay. You need people dedicated to finding that one "wins always" strategy for you, so you can remove it.
If you don't have them you won't actually be able to tell if you have the game you want "have 5 valid ways to win that are equally powerful" because the players have mostly no idea what they are doing anyway.

I think gameplay is really evolving right now. Balance on random maps is still a bit iffy but to be honest I don't think anyone knows how the gameplay is going to sort out on the new custom maps. If you saw the cast from @ZaphodX on the Fields of Isis-homage map you can see that the kind of gameplay introduced is radically different from the standard randomized or 1v1 map pool. Effective use of terrain and chokes can make a usually 'op' unit like the dox suddenly under-powered and very specialized. I think it is an interesting time to come back as these maps open up a lot of new areas for the macro to expand and I think innovation is going to be key going forward. Most of the balance changes that remain are likely to be tweaks more than massive overhauls.

I have never said it is epic imbalanced, it just needs a small tweak, Half the fighter hp and dps and see how that goes. Ground aa doesnt need to be that slow either. I like the air game, but once two equally skilled people are playing, if you fall behind in the air game you lose 90% of the time. This is the part I dont like.

Yeah, this. Air would still be fun as quick strikes over mex or to defend a front until your army can move in, but right now it is the deciding factor in most games.