T2 - What's really going on here?

Not a fan, I presume? Want your dinner to magically be ready to eat every time you come home from work?

Yes. Can you also magically get rid of the dirty plates afterwards? And where do I enter what food I want on what day? Where can I buy that magic?
I fail to see the relation though.

If the map isn't random, you can hone a build order.

If it is random, you are forced to improvise upon spawning. You can't anticipate every possibility. You have to solve each problem as it comes to you.

Getting back on topic, I have yet to see a balance mod that provides the same level of variety and balance that also uses an upgrade-based T2.

Statera, CUBM, and RCBM all use a flat T2. They all are better balanced than vanilla.

Mine too.

Bro, I don't even know the name of it.

Can you call it by it's name so I can maybe go play it?

I've been super busy and out of the loop as of late.

Has Uber said anything about considering re-working T2? Or is 1v1s going to stay with just T1 spam?

One of my biggest frustrations with T1 is how much it comes down to a numbers game. The larger blob of units tends to win. (yes, Bolos beat the Dox, but any competent player doesn't let their Dox engage Bolos) When (properly balanced) T2 gets introduced into the battlefield, many more options open up. There's a lot more counters and variety which makes the game a lot more interesting.

I've stopped casting as of late because casting got pretty boring. Everything was too repetitive.

I haven't dove into the PTE balance changes yet since I've been so busy. But I tend to think that the changes aren't yet enough, mainly because we need more T2.

But not the T2 balance we had back in Gamma. That was terrible.

I agree with pretty much everything here - I've been staying away from PA (mostly) because it bores me.

The PTE updates have kept me interested, but more needs to happen to fix the balance. It's not near done yet.

For t2 air, we could have peregrine- not totally op to hummingbird tho. Maybe barely better. Only difference? Peregrine can shoot at ground.

IgnWarzone of course!

The T2 balance back in Gamma may not have been well balanced in relation to T1 but at least it was interesting and fun, unlike PA in its current state.

@tvinita said that he wanted to find a way to make T2 viable in 1v1s but we haven't heard anything other than that.

Oh my god NO. Please no.

FTFY.

I think you mean:

I wouldn't mind seeing a long-range T2 AA missile turret like the Screamer from Balanced Annihilation. They were expensive, but they helped bring the pain early on those nasty air raids trying to nail your commander.

The problem, of course, is getting to T2 at all. A player can gain air supremacy with fighters and then build a commander-sniping bomber force rather quickly, from what I've seen.

Even in Starcraft build orders are a big part of the meta. In higher leagues if you mess up your build order even a tad you're done, the game is over. That logic applies to most RTS games. I can't really think of any that have been able to stray away from that. Perfection is key in any RTS game, strategy or build order, as impossible as that may sound.

Build order is only a big part of PA in the beginning, which is the most I'd like in PA.

Start raft players had game plans for the whole game, such huge build orders for exactly the same thing. Supcom had the same problem due to having a set amount of maps that players memorized.

I'd enjoy it if PA had some more random symmetrical maps, but I understand why people could apposed it. @cola_colin :3

I'm sure PA could work out in a similar fashion. While I was playing the game I almost always followed a strict formula(build order if you'd like to call it that) even into the late game so I'm not really sure if you just play more casually or you haven't played any super competitive stuff. I may be wrong. I've been out of the loop for a while. Just my two cents.

The idea of random maps bugs me. I've addressed it before. No. pls go

Why do random maps bug you when they're perfectly equal/symmetrical?

Edit: I haven't played competitively since late alpha due to interest issues, but watching game play and tournaments (especially team tournaments) build orders stop being a thing after a small amount of time. Especially now that players can go facfactory first, there are just too many factors early game to keep a real build order that works all the time outside the first couple minutes.

Because ... you do realize that human mapmakers are kinda better than computers? Making maps is a complex process that involves a lot of creativity. Computers are pretty bad at that.
So to make a generator that creates good looking maps (so not those generic flat maps the current generator throws outt) you actually will need to massively help it by inserting certain patterns into it that are then "randomly" combined to the point where a player with enough experience will have a prepared answer to any output the generator generates. So all you do is increase the skill ceiling: Knowing the generated maps is harder than knowing a fixed mappool, but players still can do it if they feel pressured enough to win.

Now that I think about it random symmetry is fine. I just don't like anything involving rng. That stuff ruins games. Keep it away from 1v1s.

Now the whole build order thing is really interesting in PA. Compared to other games there's less emphasis on upgrading or anything so later game build orders don't really matter it's just a sort of "Hey I need to get this many factories per this many egens and mex". It's more like a guideline really but I still think that counts as a build order. Although late game PA is nothing but factory spam in terms of macro which I don't really care for and is why I haven't been playing lately. Although the unit cannon seems super cool and I'd love to start playing again once that's in vanilla.

Another note: maybe once T2 becomes a viable option build orders will become a thing again?