Beta is childsplay compared to alpha

Many people click lots of times for a single move command out of habit.

If total war was able to provide enough things to do during a battle, so that the apm was raised into the 100s, then it would be the same. But from what i remember, total war battles have always been far slower. I personally consider the total war games as a mix between grand strategy and RTT, not RTS.

I think a good reason to keep on reduced mexes number is to avoid lags for borderline computers.

Hello, pre-alpha stalker and first time poster here.

I was reading about the concerns on the number of metal spots, and I just wanted to give my thoughts on this:
Haven't Uber said they would find a way to have replacement of basic mex by advanced mex automated, or at least less troublesome? If so even the current way mass is distributed shouldn't be a problem in the long run as instead of having fields and fields of basic mex, you would replace the one you have with advanced ones. I know in both TA and Supcom having Moho/T2 mass extractor was always my top priority; I watched videos of the alpha and found strange that you could run so many advanced factories with just basic mex/pgen economy.

Also, If Uber is reading, I wanted to know if you had considered the following: mutli-mex metal spots: What I mean is on a metal spot you could have the choice to build a basic, an advanced or BOTH, as in the two structure would combine to give a very efficient mex, which in return would be a good target to strike due to its value to one's economy. I'm not proposing this as a turtler in disguise, but it's just that I always felt mex were to easy to get/replace and were not that important until they were moho/tech 2-3. I haven't played the game yet, just watched videos, but I can already tell that in the current state of things, if I want to cripple an economy I will target pgen over mex anytime, as power also affect weapons efficiency as of Beta.

I was also wondering is it normal that metal planets have metal spots? The whole planet is made of metal, is it not going to be like TA?

I hate build orders, predetermined outcomes and first order optimal strategies. They do nothing but detract from a game.

I mean yes, build orders are a necessary evil and there are always going to be predetermined outcomes in a strategy game, but players should be able to predict the occurance of a "predetermined outcome", and adapt their armies to deal with it and possibly even circumvent it.

Mess with gameplay because of some lowend rigs? No. Just no.
Why not make it wireframe so lowend computers can render it better? And forbid planets larger than size 2.

Seriously, there are arguments for reducing metal, but thats a bad one.

Let's just first wait until the game has been optimised before complaining about lag. Resources are infinite, you can not avoid getting large numbers up, you can only slow down the rate at which those numbers are produced.

From watching the Beta Livestream, it seems that Uber is looking into the amount of metal spots. It's possible we will see more metal spot rebalances before we hit the final one.

In general, i think this isn't something we can discuss as a theoretically ideal situation: the best course is to simply try a few ways and see if it works and implement the best one.

Doing things rapidly is not the same as making decisions rapidly. If you planned out everything carefully you might not make any decisions at all. You are just acting according to your plan. Likewise reactionary decisions might be trivial choices. If you see your units running into enemy defenses they can't beat the obvious decision is to pull them back. The speed at which you can make and perform such decisions can obviously affect how well you can raid an enemy base or how many individual Leveler groups you kite the enemy Ants with. I don't think a strategy game have to be mainly about how fast you can make such decisions nor do I think that PA should be mainly about such fast paced decisions.

I'm still not seeing why so many people want more mex sites xD i've not had a metal problem in ages usually running +metal and I've won 90% of my games played... the thing that would be nice to be fixed is a longer wait time for us to spawn so we can pick our spots and also allowed everyone to start at the same time, I've seen many games that ether myself or others enter the game already spawned in and a minute or two behind everyone else.

the other thing is of course not being able to build on some metal spots and path finding getting units stuck and unable to continue their build orders or move orders

I would say watch high caliber replays from alpha. Like games from colin. In many he shows harassment and multi pronged attacks are all possible and effective with a game that gets on its feet quicker. Slowing the pace of the game limits how much these great players can showcase their skill and control potential which I think is bad for the game.

No it doesn't?

First of all balancing a game around how good somebody is at showing of their skill is a weird idea.

Secondly, a more limited metal economy doesn't mean that you can't harass and attack multiple targets at once. It arguably makes it even more important to harass as each killed extractor means a percentage wise larger loss to the enemy.

If all metal spots can be built on, its sufficient in the moment. If you have a mountain planet its not only pathfinding that sucks, but also metal is rare, because you cant build 50% of them xD

When the metal sliders are in place, I dont see a problem with metal...

I would consider myself one of the better alpha players, and I really like the current metal distribution. As smallcpu said each attack to an enemy's mass extractors really slows them down whereas before, the best strategy was just to build a bigger army, keep them together and attack when you have the upper hand.

In my opinion, going from 1 units to 1'000 units feel way more epic than going from 100 units to 10'000.
Take Starcraft 2, triple the number of ressources ... it does not make it more epic..
I think that the assumption that more ressources = more epic does lead the conversation in a dead-end.

clopse therefore your arguing you want a bigger lead late game from a small raid early game, with less chance for player skill to make come backs because the larger percent of income lost from less extractors available. I like to see the sustained skill of a player v.s. the player who picks an opening that yeilds results at 7:30 then coasts on that lead for the rest of a 37 min game ^^. Dont get me wrong ill LOVE PA both ways. Im game for timming attacks. I just think were sliding into territory to similar to SC2 with this mind set of less less smaller smaller.

No it's stopping people from getting greedy. It used to pay off spamming 3 labs with fabbers. Now the economy can't sustain that so it leads to earlier attacks and raids. I like the number of mass spots but as neutrino said he wants to try get them into better clusters. Then it will justify building a pd at these clusters as opposed to one beside every mex on the map. This will help the guys that arnt so micro orientated.

I'm sure like in TA there will a lot of players playing 15minute build time games or whatever. Maybe this will suit your style more.

hum, i was top 5 with you on the gentlmens ladder and didn't see anyone have 3 labs making fabbers in the early game. Having 2 labs making fabbers was a risk, not a given. Many of the top players didn't even have 2 labs making fabbers untill after air factory. On a further note 15 min build up is what we are trying to avoid. In alpha by 15 min you would have 40 t 1 facs and 2-3 t 2 facs now in beta at 15 youll have hardly half? You can name any attack, and it could come sooner and harder with the old economy. Any multi front play would have 2-3 more fronts with the old economy. The level of skill is higher with more to control. More skill, and a higher ceiling makes for a more entertaining game for players and SPECTATORS.

The same goes for planet destruction, it will come quicker with the old eco. More explosions more ANNIHILATION more entertainment = more spectators. I really think this game could thrive in E-Sport scene and reducing skill and eco COULD not guaranteed but COULD steal from the excitement and the subsequent viewer count.

That's a subjective opinion, you could argue that previously it was merely who could spam the most efficiently.