I have not gotten into a game since the new update where I havent spawned RIGHT next to somebody (I can see them building outside my fog of war within like 2 mins of game start). Thats kind of lame. and last game one of the other player spawned directly inbetween me and another player in the same manner (to force him to move i just sent my com at him, run or die situation, saw the other com as i was chasing him off). It was a super facepalm moment. Needless to say us 3 were at eachothers throats the whole intro of the game while the other guy built up a giant army of super tanks (while were on topic of tanks ima go ahead and say that the a>b>c>d doesnt work with this game as navy is far rarer than all the others and tanks are literally the only viable choice for ground units and they have AA capability). Needless to say I died pretty fast because I was first on blues trail of death. ANYWAYS as a TLDR: fix the spawns. If there are 4 teams make it a big planet and keep the spawn bubbles away from eachother.
I agree, spawns are pretty stupid right now. If you don't know what to do, or you simply are ether bad at dealing with close spawns, or in my case (and I'm sure many other's), you simply dislike all the micro involved with a close spawn. However, when you get two players that have a close spawn with an equal skill level, HOLY SHITE is it fun. The two of you going at eachother's throats, expanding backwards, trying to increase your production as much as possible, with Bombers sniping Enineers and your Comm under constant repair... I like the Alpha way too much. To the point that it actually distracts me from reporting bugs, when I actually plan on reporting bugs.
the problem with spawns also is the extrem random generation of mass-points. if the planet is large enough but the mass is mostly on one side of it, all players choose the spawnpoint with the most mass points in the area -> on one half/quarter of the planet are 3 players, other half 1. so i think this problem will automatically decrease when mass-point generation will get better and the spawn locations will get more equaly.
The sad thing is, most people actually was really hopeful this game would be the furthest from close quarters hero rts. Then again, it won't be once multiplanet is up. Before that happens, they really do need to fix how spawns are so single planet maps are viable. Even if they set a special algorithm up so players spawn bubbles are literally at furthest apart points of a sphere and they only get three whenever three or more players have only one planet to choose from.
Please stop making assumptions about the future of the game based on the current implementation of features. Most things currently in are first-pass, placeholders and not tweaked or optimised at all. Spawn points, distribution of mass points and the like are something that will get tweaked and balanced during beta of the game. They are features that are important to be in but not something that needs to be polished to perfection once they are in as there are still tons of other features that need coding first.
Having a few dense concentrations of metal encourages fighting over the points; if this happens early game it can get fairly bitter, however it does mean people have to interact with other players because they are all fighting over the same area(s). Back before metal points were implemented and you could build metal extractors anywhere, fighting was only once any player had a big enough deathball to steamroller over another base, and they would basically just take a deathball and steamroller someone's base. I'm not saying I think the current implementation is perfect (far from it), however I do think it is encouraging a lot more (and earlier) player interaction than previously. Given the (lack of) difference in power between turrets and units, it's also practically impossible to turtle up without building enough units of your own to be a usable fighting force, so what we have is an environment which promotes early and constant fighting, instead of one which allows easy turtling. Whether this is a good or a bad thing is down to personal preference, of course
hmm..i think you missed the point, fighting over limitet resources is something that should allways be the point of the game, even in early gameplay, but because of the uneven placement only half or even quarter of the whole map is used since all players start there. also the player(s) in the middle who cannot expand because they are more or less suroundet have a massive disadvantage. in fact playing as turtle-player in this scenario is nealry impossible since you get overrolled so fast (ok in general early turtling issnt good in this game because it is limiting your base and with that your resource generation rate, but thats another thing). same counts for fast-tech up to tech2 or aircombat, since someone who builds 10 or more t1 factories will roll you over long before you have enough own troops. so this environment takes out lots of possible strategies from actual gameplay since its ending up in early tank/turret-fights.
only in early game, in lategame you also can turtle offensive by building large amounts of catapults and expanding your base with that by expanding your defence parameter, but you mostly dont get to that stage of gameplay atm.
A turtle strategy is commonly used in real-time strategy video games. When turtling, the player protects their territory, to the exclusion of creating forces for attacking the enemy. -Wikipedia Turtling implies that you simply aren't being aggressive, you can still defend against enemy incursions and you can still expand. It's not stupid because you're giving away map control, it's stupid because you're letting the bad guy have control over you.
very nice said, thats exactly the point but you need some time to turtle, and mostly you dont have it when enemy is too near, making it indeed a bad idea at least in early game.
"Turtling" is a terribly overused term in RTS games. Yes, the paragon turtle who literally only builds a single base, and never expands into secondary resource fields, is an unrealistic tactic for PA. However I see the term bandied about to mean all types of defensive player, including expansionist ones. I will counter your argument with one of my own: "over expansion (eco spamming) is a terrible tactic at all times, since the loss of a mex before it has broken even is just a waste of mass that could have been tanks instead". Just as provably true as turtles "giving away map control", whilst being just as vague You won't get to late game mainly because turrets are currently paper cannons, however balance concerns are something for beta. The current setup encourages offensive play, and TBH that's probably best for testing because you are going to be throwing lots of units at each other, giving the engine lots of opportunity to fall over and also stress testing the server and network code. The game being fun is just a happy by-product, not necessarily the main focus at this point of development Tactical option 1: deliberately pick a start point at (or near) the edge of a resource field, instead of the middle, so you are not the one surrounded Tactical option 2: deliberately pick a start point away from the main massive resource field(s) so you are the lone "player 4" who has time to tech up and make a deathball while eveyone else fights over the rest Tactical option 3: if you realise you are already surrounded, threaten people in chat that you'll commbomb them unless they back off (note: this rarely works because people are greedy, so be prepared to commbomb them) Yes, commbombing is spiteful, however if you are seriously in a position where you know you are doomed anyway, and people are unwilling to give you any quarter due to a wonky start, then I'd say that you are just as justified pushing your disadvantage as they are trying to push their advantage. Note to other players: if you can't handle an incoming commbomb, you probably shouldn't be pushing hard on an enemy commander who is that close to your own base :twisted:
tactical option 1 is er....we have mostly 2 maximum 3 possible locations, you cant pick if you re at the edge or in the middle of the resource field, so this is normaly not possible (only by random luck), and walking to an edge steals you mutch time at the beginning + giving the possibility walking directly in an enemy. tactical option 2 is way better, being the lone player gets you lots of opportunitys, not only to create the deathball of tanks, also to go heavy air to combomb or whatever. tactical option 3 is well...you lose for shure and the one you combomb gets a loss too if you manage to hit his energy or so...but normaly we want some tactics to not lose dont we?
Your base does not need to be founded at your exact drop location... your Commander has legs, y'know? Sacrificing a dozen seconds to move into the most advantageous position is better than staying put in a poor location.
yes basically true, but now in the alpha i'd say it counts...also as mentioned you can walk directly into the enemy or get even closer to him. if units are not made of paper anymore there is no problem with walking.
I'm fairly certain we'll need to move to a automatic placement for normal games. There's too many things that can go weird with a mix of distributed placement plus choosing. :/ I'll see if someone can look at it, and make sure it's still ok. Hopefully with the next build and custom planets, playing on some 800 - 1200 ish planets might also help mitigate placement issues.
I love being able to choose which place I start. It adds a whole extra layer of strategy. I would rather be able to pick my starting with the possibility that I am near another player than to not have any choice at all.
