1. elodea

    elodea Post Master General

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    Spawn mechanics are really important both for balance and gameplay, and i feel like this issue might otherwise slip past if not brought up. It certainly seems to have taken a nose dive since the last patch anyhow.

    The goals or objectives of a decent spawn system should include
    • parity between a player's spawn options. The choice should be more about where on the map you want to spawn, and not so much where the obvious mex advantage is. A meaningful choice, not a false choice or noob trap. No dumb spawns with 0 mex for instance.
    • Fairness between spawn strengths for two players on opposite teams. I'm talking about mex within the spawn circle here. This should always be a fixed amount, no less, no more.
    • Fair distribution of mex expansions outside the spawn circle (both distance to spawns and amount), such that map makers don't have to spend half their mortal life trying to get a balanced map literally via random chance.
    • Predictability of possible spawn positions of your opponent. That is, the game should signal with high probability of where the opponents spawn choices are so you know where to scout and don't have to go over the entire map with a fine haired comb. In previous builds, this was possible due to players always having a guaranteed 5 mex cluster in their spawn options. This is a very big part for example in balancing the power between firefly and skitters, and eliminating the 'luck factor' of who scouts who first, and who has not been able to find the other player for a long time.

      I hate to say it, but not many in this community atm really understand how important choice of spawn is. Being able to make an educated guess where you think the opponent will spawn, and then spawn in a position that would be favorable for you given that he spawned there is a very large determinant of who generally wins matches. Where you send your first tank, dox, skitter, bomber/fighter, is hugely decisive in PA more so than other RTS games. And when you start getting build order equilibrium in an evolved metagame, the spawn system becomes even more of a determinant.

    I would go on to suggest things like having a min and max of 3 mex points per spawn option, mirrored metal clusters etc. but these specific suggestions are not really as important as fundamentally making sure the spawn system achieves goals which allow the rest of the game to shine through.

    There are many ways you could get a good spawn system, and i am not here to suggest it should be done this way or that. Only that the current spawn system and related mex distribution system is frankly really bad and doesn't achieve certain objectives. I really can't emphasise how important a good spawning system is in providing good gameplay experiences. You certainly don't want hordes of 1.0 players quickly burnt out by losses due to circumstances they cannot avoid or control - those kind of losses tend to leave a bitter taste.]

    *It occured to me that this issue is actually even more important because I doubt this is something modders can easily fix.
    Last edited: August 8, 2014
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  2. Quitch

    Quitch Post Master General

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    Couldn't agree more, disparity in spawns has certainly become a bigger issue since the removal of fixed clusters, and often you might find you start on one while your opponent has five safely tucked in a ring of factories.
    Last edited: August 8, 2014
    elodea likes this.
  3. Shwyx

    Shwyx Well-Known Member

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    I agree on all points, but especially this part would be a wonderful improvement. I lost count of the number of games which were ultimately decided by spawn luck, either through the amount of availabe metal or through the proximity of few or several enemies. And for the fans of blind, high-risk spawns, we always have the "spawn anywhere" option.
    elodea likes this.
  4. mot9001

    mot9001 Well-Known Member

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    This issue is known since alpha and it literally means win or lose more then who the players are or what they do. Asking for a rehost is useless, because usually you wont get it anyway. And there is basicly no chance of winning because of all the advantages you can imagine being for 1 player and not the other. Keeping track of some planets will show you that in basicly all the games the player with 1 particular spawn wins, no matter who he is or who he fights. (we actualy did this for a planet and it looked only slightly in favor of 1 spawn, but the guy that spawned there always won. So actually, if you spawn on the bad spawn, its even a smart move to delete your commander and enter a new game because statisticly you lost by spawning.

    NOW, i got a system called the system could be better system. Its a shitty 1v1 moon with ONLY 1 mex spawns, but opportunities to expand. You find it in realm shared system folder. Try it out, its not 100% fair but its okay.
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  5. zweistein000

    zweistein000 Post Master General

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    Indeed this has always been an issue and the latest changes have only exacerbated the situation. I had a game not too long ago, where I spawned with 30-40% if entire planets worth of mexes in my base, while my enemy only started with one and the game was very boring and one sided.

    I have also been on the the other side of the spectrum, where my enemy started with 70% of planetary mexes near his base and I had to work pretty hard to pull a draw (and that was only because RCBM always loeaves you with at least one ace up your sleeve, in vanilla I would have just been rolled by superior numbers of vanguards and shellers and there would have been nothing I could have done).

    I personally think that the system we had before, while not the best, was better than the current one. The best option currently is to enable planet wide spawns, but those have their own drawbacks, mostly allowing people to spawn on top of each other, but I also seem to suffer form vastly increased (as in taking up to 5 minutes to be able to play) UI load up and planet render times when I choose that option so I cannot play on it. What I would suggest is either
    1. splitting the planet in n fractions, where n is the number of armies, and allowing each army to spawn within its own fraction
    2. Make the spawns always planet wide, but make choosing of the spawn turn based and each spawn is represented by a small red circle a big yellow circle and if a yellow circle overlaps with a red one make each player choose a different spawn.
    3. The third option is to change the way mex are generated by generating them after the players have chosen their spawns. This means that no spawn will be chosen based on the number of mexes, but rather based on what your strategy will be and the mexes just get scattered based on the distance and position of the spawns.
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  6. thefluffybunny

    thefluffybunny Active Member

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    1 I like, split it by latitude so each player has the option of spawning at the poles.
    2 I can see the reasoning but think this overcomplicates the issue slows down the start of a game
    3 - could end up wildly unfair and lead to lots of walking on initial spawn. - maybe alter it so you always get a 5 mex spawned where you choose, and the rest of the mex are randomly generated after.
  7. rivii

    rivii Well-Known Member

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    The problem is with random generated metal spots the game will always be in favor of someone more than another. Only when/If uber allows us and themselves to place metal spots in the system builder we can build balanced maps.

    The randomness ALWAYS makes sure that one player has a better spawn than another.
  8. zweistein000

    zweistein000 Post Master General

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    2. This with a mixture of 3. was done in M.A.X. and it really didn't feel overly complicated. The chances of you spawning on top of the enemy were pretty slim and even then noone had a clear economic advantage.

    3. I don't think you've understood what I was trying to convey here. The mexes are generated fairly and based on the distance from the spawn. That means that each player starts with x number of mexes and they have a very similar number of mexes available at very similar intervals from their spawn. Sure this makes mexes spawn less naturally, but it does make them spawn more fairly.
  9. wondible

    wondible Post Master General

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    I believe @sorian said during Ablegamers that spawn locations will be modable once we get the server.
  10. LmalukoBR

    LmalukoBR Well-Known Member

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    Why not make this a two tiered problem?

    Give the spawns a fixed number of mexes.

    Then draw a wider circle around each spawn (like a donut) and give this area a equal number of mexes with normal clustering. That way a player will always have x amount of mexes around him, and it will be very similar to his opponent's. Further from the spawns they will be randomly placed, but wont matter as much for early balance, and this way we get to keep the game randomness too.
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  11. mered4

    mered4 Post Master General

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    I'm still holding to the idea that good players can adapt to their spawn. Your strategies are different if you have a bad spawn. I agree there should be some sort of mechanic for making it fair, but I just don't think it's that easy. Adapt or die, I say. Give casters the option to rehost, or be nice to your opponent and allow a rehost if things are really that bad.
  12. aevs

    aevs Post Master General

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    I agree with you on everything except a couple points.
    First, that spawn fairness has been hit in this last update. This may seem like the case, since 2 mex vs. 3 mex seems like a bigger difference than 5 mex vs. 6. The commader's new eco generation (around the same as an additional 3 mex compared to before) makes up for the other 3 mex though. The fairness only looks like it's taken a big hit, it really hasn't changed much.
    I also don't think predictability of enemy spawn positions is necessary. It seems uber would rather have unpredictable spawns, and I don't really see a problem with that (except for on custom systems, where it can give one player a 'home-town' advantage). Firefly and skitter balance can always be changed with vision, speed and cost tweaks. I don't agree that it causes too much more of a luck factor either; with predictable spawns, a scout being destroyed will give you a near certain spawn location based on where it was destroyed (e.g. the nearby cluster). With unpredictable spawns, there may still be a fairly large range that needs more scouting in order to get more accurate info. It can be more involved and countering scouting actually becomes useful, so it isn't entirely a one-sided issue.
  13. rivii

    rivii Well-Known Member

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    I very much agree to that good players should be able to adapt and win in such situations. However, when PA grows and tournaments get bigger and bigger with more and more money on the line, you can't afford to lose a game just because someone had a spawn advantage over you.
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  14. liquius

    liquius Well-Known Member

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    A good player can mitigate the effects of a bad spawn, but they are still significantly disadvantaged by something no player has control over.

    I have found the best way to combat this is to use the spawn anywhere system and verbally agree to spawn areas. I usually go with one player on the northern hemisphere and the other on the southern hemisphere. I have yet to run into any spawn issues with this system.
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  15. killerkiwijuice

    killerkiwijuice Post Master General

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    The system builder should show a preview of the mex locations. That is hugely important for a balanced map.

    You should also be able to chose the spawns in the system editor.
    klovian, proeleert, zaphodx and 4 others like this.
  16. ef32

    ef32 Well-Known Member

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    I totally agree with you, I would love to see metal and possible spawn locations in editor, but I found out that metal spots are affected by number of players in game. To be more precise, metal clusters does that. If you set it to 50 and density to 0, you will git 2 metal for every spawn point (say, 8 players on small planet = 8 spawns = 16 metal, 2 players on bigger planet = 4 spawns = 8 metal).
    So editor should account for player count as well. I.e. you make your world and enter number of players you want to test, and then hit preview metal and spawns. That should be as precise as it gets.

    Another thing for balancing you map, if you got a terrain you want, like, perfect terrain for your planet, and then you got perfect metal count for this planet, but the distribution sucks, the only way to change it is to get new seed (aka ruin your perfect planet) or change metal count, which will ruin your perfect metal spot count. So separate seed for metal distribution might get useful.

    But still, I'd vote for possibility to choose between random metal spot generation and organized/balanced metal distribution that I mentioned in my thread a few days ago. If it's not possible, metal preview and separate metal seed would be awesome still, since with enough effort you will be able to get something good.
    killerkiwijuice likes this.
  17. zaphodx

    zaphodx Post Master General

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    Agreed. As we move into the polishing stage I really feel this small addition is incredibly important (And should be relatively easy?).

    I would only add that:

    • Mex should be placeable in the system editor.

    I feel with that we would be in a really good position.

    I can imagine generating some cool planets/systems with some great features and then having multiple different mex distributions that make games utterly different yet entirely entertaining. You could also have different versions specifically tailored to 2v2 /5v5 / FFA etc.
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  18. matizpl

    matizpl Well-Known Member

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    Yes. This patch made things much much worse. Previously if you had 9 mexes and your opponent had 8, the difference wasn't tragic. Although it was obviously unfair and it was making competitive gaming worse in PA, it was something possible to swallow. Right now if you have 1 mex and your opponent 2 mexes and that's pretty common case, the game is almost over because of 50% difference instead of just ~10%.

    In previous patches you could tech to t2 and choose different paths and you could overcome spawn problem with just skill. This patch heavily relies on making a lot of t1 tanks, which makes the game usually a very close mirror with both sides just spamming tanks. In such situation every bit of metal counts, which makes spawn problem even worse.

    Obviously allowing to spawn commander anywhere is just moving from one bad solution to another, instead of unfair spawns, we have commboxing which let's be honest, can be fun, but a couple of times and do we really want tournaments to look like this?

    I'm just very dissapointed. I've been vocal about this issue since January, I've talked in person to Metabolical and he promised me reasonable solutions to the problem. Right now regarding spawns we are definitely moving into wrong direction.
    https://forums.uberent.com/threads/randomness-in-early-game.55996/
    I'm leaving this there, because this problem is still extremely important and arguements that I've made in this topic haven't aged at all nor been listened to.

    People laugh or are weirded out why we kept playing on Tanis all the time. The answer is simple, it was the only REASONABLY balanced map that allowed SOMEWHAT fair gameplay. Most of other maps are terrible in that regard. I really hope progenitor cup tommorrow will have some decent maps...

    That's very true, this problem will lead to burnout of good players for sure. I myself have symptoms of it. I think it's vital for the game to have sizeable competitive player base, we are the guys who remain loyal to the game for long time, we devote the most time to it, we create content like streams and tournaments.
    Last edited: August 8, 2014
  19. Quitch

    Quitch Post Master General

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    Tanis? That's so last patch. Ironsky is where it's at now.
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  20. bluestrike01

    bluestrike01 Active Member

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    I think its impossible to have fair spawns in random generated maps with random spawns :)
    Its also not that big of on issue on larger maps where you play with shared teams.
    But I can see the need for a more balanced mex distribution for ladder games.
    Manual placement of mex and or mirrored half planets may be the only way?
    Or increase the start resources that much so early mex advantages has no meaning, but thats probebly less favorable :)

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