Lock has some really big problems related to the placement of ramps and platforms, causing heavy bias towards the attacker who makes cheesy like decisions with no downside. The problem has mostly to do with the ramp layouts in combination with the metal layout of 6 mex on the wings and 8 in the middle. 40% of the players metal expansion comes from the very hard to defend wings. Having one more occupied wing than your opponent is very big advantage The attacker (red) has a significant bias against the defender (blue) with respect to each players travel time to their respective attack and counter(defense) positions. There is also significant positional advantage simply due to 'threat of attack'. The attacker at each waypoint has a valuable option to change the attack vector depending on how blue is moving their units in response. For example, changing to 1a causes blue to be stuck on the platform and needing to move down the ramp to defend the center, which is a positional disadvantage for blue. The defender adapts to this positional disadvantage by always having their commander expanding forward into the middle. But exposing commander like this is predictable, obvious, yet generally the only viable move. A timed boombot snipe will develop to specifically counter this, as it is the only move the blue player can make. Also note that because 1a can always make blues units chase, red can also switch sides completely to the other wing. Building turrets helps, but this goes back to what i meant by Lock rewarding heavily the person who cheeses and takes big gambles. If you build a turret and walls very early on before taking the 3 mex spots in your wings, then you will be very very far behind the other person who did not take this precaution. Building turrets simultaneously on both wings at early enough timing to defend is also extremely unfeasible with the eco timings on this map. You will be metal choked for a long time, and needing to build a 2nd turret to cover the ramp at the back of the wing as well will cause you to metal choke for so long as to fall behind and not be competitive at claiming metal at the back of the map as well as the t2 timing. *Note also that it is very hard to both scout the opponents attack vector (which wing) as well as defend your wings from bomber snipe. Sometimes you can get lucky, but sometimes you won't. Which means you need to build an aa turret as well on the wings and spend even more time not claim those metal. And if you lose the fabricator on the wing, you won't be able to build turrets at all for a long long time which is super bad. We see even more problems with the difficulty for the defender to come back from losing a wing. Not only does red have the positional advantage when it comes to travel times between positions of attack and defense, but red also has defensive advantage in occupying the wing and preventing blue from expanding. Blue has no choice but to keep units at position 2, whereas red can again switch between. Because of the defensive advantage, it also means blue needs more units than red in order to push red out of that occupied wing and come back into the game. Which means blue not only has less units to defend the wing on the other side from an attack, but his reinforcement units are even more out of position (not in the center but uselessly milling over at position 2). All the while, red has a quick and clear path to reinforce the occupied wing, forcing blue to keep more units uselessly at position 2. I've also marked with green triangles the metal spots vulnerable to early dox harass (basically 30% of your metal income at that point in the game). Note how it is very hard to defend both simultaneously from either a concentrated dox rush or 2 separate dox forces, as well as have enough units to defend your middle expansion cluster of 4 metal. The 2 contested metal spots in the middle are also a problem because tall units there can get shot but cannot shoot back (e.g. commander) Possible suggestion Change 1 of the ramps position and direction. Add more metal to the back of the planet Add metal to 'position 2' (back of the ramps/platforms)
I don't know why all the metal spots are on the edge of the high ground. It is very easy to harass by attacking the metal spot from below. And the edge of high ground just makes the defender very difficult to trace the enemy. Currently, I feel there is no advantage to be on the high ground. How about the vision buff or weapon range buff for units and building on the high ground?
Great analysis, but that's why I like this map, it's a very skilled map. When I was practicing this for one tournament I used a radar defense method. Basically, you choose a radar position and rally your factories there. This allows your units to be able to react in time to defend your expansions. Choosing to attack is not cheesing, if you scout/ get lucky / enemy is not prepared you should be rewarded. This map is so easy to lock down to the point were cost effective raiding should be impossible after 7 minutes ( most damage you can do is kill a wing expansion for a bit). There is never the opportunity to build your own mex when you kill the wings. Expanding beyond your means should be punished too. If you can't properly defend an area don't complain when it gets attacked and you are unable to defend.
Well, i think it's a horrible map that is hardly skill based because of the huge positional disadvantage to the player who does not have the initiative. Radar does not particularly help because of the mentioned defender travel times and positions. 7 minutes is also a long time. You generally have built 10 factories or so at this point, overall draining about 140 metal (17 mex spots), and will have been metal choked for a long time if you have not secured your wing metals much earlier. Don't forget that you need to defend the back ramps as well. The quickest, best, and only real way to secure your wings is simply to attack your opponent first, which is just silly because now you are both just throwing units randomly at each other. You know something is wrong when your best move 90% of the time on this map is to ignore their units and counter attack instead of defend.
I find kinda stupid that the enemy has an easier time getting to your natural expansion point than you. Heck, I even sometimes expand into my enemies' wings if I have an advantadge. Or just expand to the back of the planet because trying to defend is a pain. I think removing one ramp should do the trick. Something like this.
I never really liked this map and i think it is because of some of the points you make here. I find it to be very gambley and if your opponent manages to win a gamble it seems like the game will easily snowball against you. Snowballing seems to be a problem on of one of the other new maps too (i think its lock? I don't even know the names of the new maps *the other moon map*) I like your idea of changing the ramp placement to be more accessible by the defender (but how about we just bring back berg or duat eh? )
I dont find it an issue to play on Lock in ranked. Yes it is a hard map to play on, that may not favour the sort of gameplay we generally want in PA. I just find it challenging and I like challenges, that you can bet on To me the issue is that the Lock, an alternative (out of the box) map, is one out of a few maps that we have to play over and over again in ranked. You see my point here? If the roster was expanded with lets say for example 5 rotating community maps and lock wasn't lock, maps with a weird tweek, like lock, could be voted in instead of bugging us for years (god I am indeed turning into Stuert lol). Then the tweeky maps would be a challenge for some time before packing its language and take an oneway flight to Mexico (no rasism here, didn't mean it that way) Feel like I lost the red line here, but I hope you didn't Point being that Uber should provide standardised maps to the map pool, like forge not lock, while community vote and provide whatever they find challenging and want to sew on the ladder for a period of time = Every one is happy and the ladder becomes interesting again (with a heart)
