Map ballance

I think you're all wrong, and skill is your ability to get 1337 360 noscope headshots.

But seriously now, you guys are kinda over analyzing ATM. You are all implying that mountains would necessarily block artillery, but for all we know "artillery" is a ballistic smart-mortar that could kill a cockroach in its hole and leave the hole intact. Walls would be a joke.

We have to know how the game plays before we can even begrudge Uber with balance suggestions, and last time I checked, everyone who has access to the game is playing it right now.

Did you know that Chasms will randomly spawn inside of mountains? So you can have a mountain range the size of the Alps with snow-topped peaks, and smack in the middle of those peaks is a chasm, dry as a desert. Did you also know that you can place Metal Extractors anywhere on the map and get the same amount of metal, and that the game runs at about 20 FPS on a good day with no units? More importantly, the game will crash. FOR NO REASON AT ALL!

It's an Alpha build, even if Uber does care about your mapping suggestions they don't have the time to take any of them under consideration. Not when Engineering KBots can spread their wings and literally fly into the stratosphere.

I feel that this whole topic can't completely apply to PA, simple because - based of the footage of the alpha I've seen - the starting points aren't determined by what's on the map, they're just random circles that show up on the planet, regardless of what's actually on the planet. Balance issues can - in a way - be avoided that way, because it wasn't the map itself that wasn't balanced, it was literally just how the start point choices were determined for that particular match. The only thing that would determine start options is the size of the planet, that's all. That might change though, since it's alpha and all.

But for the sake of constructive argument, I'll continue.

I do agree that conventional maps with boundaries NEED balance, and the best way to accomplish that is symmetry, you're totally right with that.

However, how would map designers decide if a map is balanced or not without the skill of a player being - at the absolute least - taken into account? They design them based off player skill in mind - unless the map is symmetrical of course. If players didn't know how to actually utilize certain features of a map to their advantage, then there wouldn't be any advantages to being with.

That is true, and if the start points were fixed, that would be an issue, unless there was something to counter it in the map. Then it starts to fall under the category of how we determine balance, or even more-so, what you think is balance. I've seen many-a-arguments about other maps in other games where one guy will say it's horribly unbalanced, and almost everyone disagrees with him, but usually the main reason they disagree is because they either have a different skill set that enables them to work with it, or they have a different view of balance.

This all can go back to the conventional boundaried map though, where start points are fixed, and balance is a necessity.

But come to think of it, has any RTS ever had procedurally generated maps before? I'm not familiar with any....

Although that would eliminate balance issues, it would also require start points to be fixed, which wouldn't be possible with how the maps are created. That was actually one of the selling points of the game, the fact that all planets are procedural.

And this is more of a personal thing but, symmetry on a planet just looks strange, it doesn't really look like a planet if it's a mirror of itself, and it would also go against the whole procedural generation thing.

WhoaWhoa wait a minute. You were talking about the game itself? Can that even happen? I was talking about the players, like, they themselves have the skill level to enable them to deal with situations presented to them. It has nothing to do with if the game lets or not, it's that they themselves have the knowledge to be able to. Hm, I definitely misread something on that one, sorry. >_<

I get your point, but that has almost nothing to do with what were talking about.

Perhaps I should clarify again, I'm only arguing that random maps need to be symmetrical for competitive play (ranked/ladder matches, and tournaments), for authored maps (created/modified by a human) there shouldn't be a problem because the creator can make sure things are fairly balanced even on asymmetrical maps and if they aren't balanced they can improve the map. And for casual play balance isn't really needed anyway I'm fine with anything there, I'm sure there's plenty of fun to be had from trying to win from a poor starting position.
Having unbalanced (or even just poorly balanced) maps such as you would get from an asymmetric randomly generated level would not work well for competitive play where the outcome of a match is used to determine the skill level of a player. Mind you I'm fully aware that Uber aren't even sure if we'll have proper randomly generated maps at all, but I'm hopeful that PA will be the first RTS to have proper randomly generated maps for competitive play (probably as a separate ladder/ranking system to authored maps) because IMO it would be awesome to play on maps that neither player could possibly be familiar with.

Symmetrical maps, on a globe? Hehe, good luck with that.

Players will discover what maps and what land features work better than others. Random maps also have a way of working out over the long term.

The thing is, nobody knows the balance of PA. Even if a map maker would already have figured out what the balance is, it is likely to change. Okey, this is not a good argument for asymmetrical maps but since that you use the term "fairly balanced", which I think is a good enough goal even for ranked/ladders matches. I'd argue that an asymmetrical map can theoretically be perfectly balanced however that is a just theoretical as I'd argue that it is too hard to understand the games balance to that degree under asymmetrical conditions in an RTS.
I think that it is the same with faction/race balance. Even though the map is symmetrical the asymmetry of the factions/races makes it almost impossible to determine if there is "perfect balance".

How much asymmetry on a map/planet there can be while still being fairly balanced is unknown. However by balancing the game carefully together with different starting conditions you can allow there to be huge asymmetries in starting conditions.
When you say that hills would definitely cause unbalance because they block artillery fire, giving an edge to the players with the hills near his base, you are making an unfounded assumption. Balance is much more complex than that. The artillery as we have seen in the alpha even fires with high trajectory so they would fire above the hills regardless, making your analysis completely void.

Now imagine a much more profound map/planet asymmetry.
Let's say that one player starts in the sea while the other player starts on land?
Is it balanced?
It could be but that highly depends on how a sea start and a land start interacts and the balance between using ships against land units. If ships are relatively stronger than than land units then it might even be required that the sea player has less resources in order for the game to be balanced.
In many ways it is similar to having different factions/races and have to be balanced as carefully as that.
However small asymmetries doesn't have the same impact.

As has been said some sort of symmetry needs to be implemented for tourney/ladder games. The maps themselves don't need to be symmetric but mass spots should be spread evenly across the map.

Consider the maps we play now. Each player gets 3 choices which makes 12 possible starting points. Each point could have a small cluster of 3 metal deposits and several other deposits within the green zone. If you choose to start beside a mountain. The deposits that would be there are now unreachable. Other deposits could be spread evenly amongst the remaining available land (ie the land outside the 12 green zones).

The game can take a little time now for players to pick their starting points even though it doesn't really matter. If we need to consider metal deposits in your proximity it will take considerably longer. People (including myself) will be planning tactics even before we click the ready button.

Actually don't, they aren't representative of the true capabilities of the Procedural Generation system......yet.

We also don't know yet how distribution of Metal Spots will be handled either so that's not a good thing to base anything on.....yet.

Mike

With that logic we shouldn't discuss anything until the game is finished. I thought the idea of being a backer was to discuss these things. Was just an idea.

I've been making the assumption that all those metal scars I've been seeing on the ground (and in the seas / puddles) are going to be the metal spots we'll end up having to use.

In that respect, you can load a game up right now and see how the distribution is currently handled. It's irrelevant as regards balance in the current build, but if the next build has mex restrictions in, that's what we'll be getting unless Uber also change the scar distribution algorithm.

I've been deliberately putting mexes on them the last few games I played to see how tight / spread out they feel (and losing because of it, it seems everyone is outright determined to exploit the hell out of the current builds and are playing to win, rather than playing to test ^^; ). I reckon it's good enough for now, until we get more of the units implemented and start properly addressing balance (i.e. hit beta). YMMV of course.

Considering how Metal Spot placement is going to be integral to setting the general pace of the game I think algorithm will change, a lot. Especially as balance becomes a bigger and bigger factor farther down the line.

That is the nature of Uber's Process, they have some basic ideas, they try them, then tweak them and try it again.

Mike