Balance Suggestions from a Competitive Player Perspective

If I wanted to play StarCraft I'd play StarCraft. The very thing about PA I like is the lack of micro. Fact is, I think there is too much micro in the game as it is. The Dox are way too good at dodging stuff as it is.

Some of the issues you've identified are real, and adding micro would be one way to fix things. But it would be the wrong way to fix them. I firmly believe that there are better way to fix the issues, ways that don't turn PA into a StarCraft wannabe.

Part of the staleness of the meta in current ranked game has to do with the maps. They are all small, cramped and with a lot of choke points. This lends itself to a certain type of gameplay. That is not to say I don't like the maps, but the current balance plus these sorts of maps leads to very specific strategies, especially amongst better players.

the question about the 1 tank, I was refering to the high ground advantage, 1 tank in high ground should kill 4 tanks imo.

Tiny maps in rank make sense, i like the maps as they are, buuut, they have the same layout, all of them.

Nice drop with vanguards that can happen, and you actually can drop and pick tanks aswell, when you drop they shoot, then pick them up again so that enemy tanks dont hit you.

About the economy balance, you are right. Btw, its not about the level of the opponents, i was refering to a stable meta, where you dont have much options.

A high ground advantage... yeah that would be nice to have, preferably through a physically accurate "you can shooot down much easier than shoot up".

Tiny maps are fine as a part of the mappool. But only having tiny maps all day is rather questionable we need much more map diversity.

I think the "stable meta" feeling comes a lot from the missing expansioon and higher tech play. There is just not a lot you can do with t1 single base.

If I wanted to play starcraft I would be playing sc2 aswell xD thats not the point.
The point is : The game is lacking strategy, even if its based on macro, I actually like pa for the same reason you do, for the macro gameplay. I think you are confusing the meaning of micromanagement, its not about the skills that you use, its about how you move your units so you can get an advantage with them.

I dont agree with PA being "unit skill" based, that would be as you said "who clicks the fastest wins", and thats pretty much sc2 style. But you cant take out micro out of a game. I still have to explore PA more, I know that theres micro involved, still figuring out how to use it, but my point is that as I said before, there are no position advantages, excluding the choke points. The higher ground needs rework. And im watching several times units shooting to my units on the back of the fight, but I wont get into that because I need more experiences.

That's not true, optimal army positing (like having a concave that the enemy is running into) can be quite important to get right.

Exactly. Its map design fault, I agree with the simetric maps, I dont agree with them being like a kaleidoscope in each side. Bases are a circle, you know that desert map? You have that high ground with metal there? Thats what Im refering to, their units cant see me, until he does a radar there and they just shoot! there has to be an advantage. Why would I go into high ground if the advantage can be broken by a simple radar?

Thats a formation advantage, I meant the map design itself.

Macro is not how you move your units, that's micro technically. Macro is telling your units where to go, micro is controlling how they get there. If I tell a unit to go somewhere and an enemy creeps up on them my units will keep going unless I tell them to either avoid or engage the enemies; that's micro, if my units avoided them automatically however (or chose to engage automatically) then that'd be a macro controlled ai.

The problem with micro is that if someone makes their own macro ai they can automate what they'd like, and it wouldn't even technically be cheating!

Height based range advantage breaks WYSIWYG as far as I know.

First off: SCREW WYSIWYG!
Seconds: Actually not, I am sure most people are capable of understand that shooting down is much easier than shooting up.

Height based stuff is pretty damn new to PA though, we'll see if something develops there. I do hope for it. Basically what I'd like to see is that units that are up a cliff can shoot down easier and hit better than units that try to shoot up, by having firing arcs or maybe have the range of units be increased because projectiles fly faster down then up. (Does the simulation currently handle this correctly?)

Please let's not start the endless "let's define micro and macro" discussion again. Let's all just not use those words. xD

I wouldn't mind getting rid of WYSIWYG, but that's what the devs want to go by so... Nothing we can do.

Edit: Units can hit units on the ground from above easier than units firing up at them, that doesn't go against WYSIWYG, that's just because of simulated projectiles. A range advantage would go against WYSIWYG however.

Macromanagement is economy. Comes from macro economics. Production and economy.
Micromanagement is unit control. Micromanagement - Individual or group unit control.

I think that is as much of a myth as the "all t2 will be flat specialized" myth was.

There is a definition for macro and micro. Those are the correct words, but I can use unit control and economy/unit production if that makes if its more obvious idk .-.

There are conflicting definitions, how about we use the terms tactics and strategy instead? So we can avoid semantics.

The definition is very debatable, and we've had many debates on it in the past. I believe micro is the tactics of the game, whilst macro is the strategy.

So just before this can of worms destroys this thread:
There are people we disagree with that (that being the sc2 typical macro/micro definition, I agree with it though)
Those people basically argue something like this:

"macro" means big and thus all actions that are on a larger scale are macro.
"micro" means small so it's about single actions.

An example:
Placing 20 mex 1 by 1 is micro by that definition. Placing 20 mex with a single area command is macro.
By this definition PA is very very very micro heavy as you can imagine.

So let's just accept that these different definitions exist, we've had many hours of life time lost on these discussions in the past xD

Oh no please not. Let's not use words with two spread definitions with words with I-don't-even-know-how-many-definitions-exist words.
Let's just talk of what we actually mean: Economy, Unit movements, etc

Really if I could I would ban these words from the forums:

strategy, tactics, micro, macro

Conflicting definitions uh xD First time i've heard of that, always tought the words micro and macro were pretty well defined. Tactics and strategy? thats even more confusing xD Unit control and Economy, Unit production, thats what I'll use xD

In the sc2 world these words are well defined. A core group of TA(spring) players also thinks of them as well defined.
Turns out those definitions totally conflict.

Thats correct actually, in sc2 when you are playing zerg for example, if you send 100 banelings to the enemy base thats actually macro, not micro. BUT, and a huge but 100 units in sc2 is a large scale army. In PA what do you define as a large scale army? theres no unit cap xD