Competitive player

Symmetrical maps are quite possibly the most contrived, boring example of what's wrong with the 'Strategic' element of RTS's today.

I hate watching Starcraft livestreams where the player has already decided his over-arching strategy without even having seen the map he's playing on. It's all build-orders and formulas with no reactionary strategic thought when it comes down to Maps.

agreed, memorized mirrored maps are the most boring cases of game scenarios.
Building your base/unit selection based on the encountered terrain conditions and an intelligence game, which actually starts with finding your enemy, are far more interesting use cases.

Then let people know other people's start positions when they are choosing them, so they won't start the game until they get a balance conclusion.

That is likely to end in cycling start positions forever.

Symmetrical maps kinda make both(or more) players of the map equal since nobody has any advantages or disadvantages. Of course someone who played the map 23003428592 times knows it better than someone who played 2 times so then map experience determines the winner unless its pro vs pro.

Having random maps would be awesome but it would need to be controlled. Spawn point should have exact same things on both sides but just for the first 3 minutes of expansion, after that everything is random always.

That would remove the boring but still maintain some sort of balance between players since the initial start would be same for everyone. Afterwards your quick thinking and one-time decisions decide the game and make everything awesomely interesting!

That is pretty much just as applicable to random maps.

Someone who has played 23003428592 Random Maps will know how to take advantage of the terrain that appears compared to someone who has only played one 2 Random Maps.

It shifts the skillset from memorizing the unique features on maps(which is the same amount of 'work' for each new map) to learning how different terrain affects the units, which should be a bit more 'work' upfront, but it drops off very quickly.

Mike

High level players don't decide on a build without knowing the map, at least not if they play
an equal opponent.
Also build-orders and formulas pretty much come down to ALOT of strategic thoughts. In fact really pure strategic stuff.

Someon who has played 23003428592 maps is probably dead cuz he is some million years old.

At least it wouldn't be boring! After playing 23003428592 random maps it would get boring as well of course but it would definitely be better to play and watch for a long time if everything was random. Balance is the only possible issue though

I'm always a proponent for asymmetrical map design in almost all games. I like strategy titles but most of my gaming background is in shooters and by far the "best" and most entertaining maps in Quake 1/2/3, Unreal Tournament, and myriad other competitive shooters are asymmetrical. The CTF maps typically end up as mirror maps but in very nearly every other gametype it's pretty rare to find a fascinating, symmetrical map.

Adaptation and improvisation are primary components of an interesting and replayable game experience. If the players really know their armies and have a good handle on taking down an opponent then the use of variable terrain and the way it forces on-the-fly strategic improvisation will determine victory.

I think there is a huge difference between FPS and RTS in terms of mapdesign. In RTS you usually have something called a base that is located wherever you start. So the game needs to make sure that all starting locations offer identical possibilities to the players, or else the game will be unbalanced, which is poison to any kind of competition.
It may be possible to create asymmetrical maps that are balanced, but it is HARD and I doubt a procedural generator can do it. The only possible solution might be in letting players chose where to start, but that might end with people spawning right next to a big pile of resources and also right next to each other, which is kinda problematic.

But I am certain there will be a solution to this.

To be fair TA and SupCom play 'bases' much more loosely than traditional RTSs like Starcraft. It's far less restrictive.

Mike

If the units/buildings consist of enough variety, which seems to be PA's goal, any location would be defensible enough to make a good starting location. Provided the player uses the appropriate units/base defenses, an open, flat plain can be just as acceptable as a location with natural fortification. It may be slightly tougher to defend initially, but it gives the player a lot more room to expand. (And since the player would be choosing their starting location they would be aware of this beforehand.)

When it comes to resources, it's nearly a non-issue. It's simple enough to generate a fair distribution of metal patches, especially since some of the flow-field techniques can be used to map out how accessible metal is. Early game balance would be offset by spawning an appropriate number of metal patches near the commander.

So really, it's not that hard to balance out, it just relies on a game built around it. Something like Starcraft wouldn't work because the game is built to require a certain map layout for fairness. But a TA style game allows for a lot more freeform balance.

To be honest I think procedurally generated mirror planets would be fine.

In supcom, builds are quite loose, even on regularly played maps.

A procedurally generated planet would give the opportunity to create builds on the fly, while keeping the players on equal footing.

Good builds are in fact quite tight in the first few minutes of the game at least.

I wouldn't say that... I get your point that most of them amount to roughly the same thing though.

The only "tight" build is setons and only then because absolutely no creativity is allowed by the rabid setons playerbase. You can win setons easily without following the "rules" as it were, so the build isn't so tight after all.

Again I feel this kind of thing is antithesis to fun. If you cater to tourney fags and perfect symmetry with absolutely no variation then you get a very boring game where each match plays exactly the same.

Honestly I think dealing with the terrain and the options it gives you is a big part of the strategy. Perfect symmetry kind of removes the impact of the terrain on gameplay. Might as well just play on a perfectly flat field for all the difference it makes.

I guess there can be features for it but if it ever becomes the focus of the game then I will be very saddened.

lol

Have you ever seen an exactly planned out 1v1 build for a common ranked map?
I don't know if players actually care much these days, but at some point I had builds that basically contained things like: place factory at maximum build-range to the south right after acu spawn to reduce travel distance for new units, ..., move 3rd engie 1 cm to the right, so it's build-range can be used better and it is not in the way of the acu that will pass through that area 5s later, make 1 pgen at time X so my energy will reach nearly 0 in store and start to fill up again, etc.
I basically had anything optimized as much as possible for the first 5 to 10 minutes of the game. I had such a BO for each of the 16 ranked maps. Yeah I know I still made terrible mistakes that probably were more important than that 1cm, but I failed (I still do) to see them, so I got beaten by other players.

You might feel that this is boring, but imho it is fun. After all even though I had lots of stuff optimized I still got beaten up by some other people and it is HUGE fun to analyze why their build is better than mine and take the better parts of it to improve my own build.

EDIT:
This all does not mean that I am generally against random maps at all. Given a "fair" mapgeneration, if maps follow certain rules it will be possible to learn how to adapt to common random patterns and how to use them most efficiently.

I think it might be the easiest solution to just try it out: Let the ladder-pool have 4 fixed maps and a 50% chance to generate a random map instead. So it is 50/50 fixed/random. Make a vote after a month or so, asking: Do you want it to stay like this? Do you want only random maps? Do you want only fixed maps?

EDIT 2:
Thinking more about the difference of random maps vs fixed maps in terms of BOs:

On a fixed map I usually had a very fixed bo. This lead to myself playing decent as long as nothing weird happend. In fact I never really cared about calculating how much pgens I currently have and how many I will need to take care of the energy drain of my stuff. I just had the fixed plan in my brain that was planned out to work. Planning happend by trial and error and copying from others. I executed it without thinking about it, therefore I had a free mind to think about the great "strategy"

On random maps I guess it will be more important to actually count how many pgens I have currently and how many I will need in one minute. Since the maps are random this cannot be planned before the game and executed by heart, so instead it needs to calculated within the game. This is definitely an interesting thing, but it might actually somehow makes it more important to think alot about stuff like "how many pgens should I have in 1 Minute" "how many factories should I make, based on the currently available mex". So players will have less time to care about that great "strategy" that many people write about on these forums.

I think I am fine with both concepts, in fact it might help me to get away from my kinda negative behavior of learning full BOs and not even care about stuff like X pgens for Y factories. The "I just learn a ton of BOs-approach" makes it pretty hard to get back into the game after a while of not playing. I basically have forgotten all my builds and learning them anew is too much trouble right now. If I had instead learned the "rules" by which the BOs can be made on the fly I would have less trouble to get back into the game.

EDIT 3:
DAMN all this writing about BOs has made my fingers itchy. I want to play PA Alpha RIGHT NOW. ... gonna play a bit of FA I guess.

In Diablo maps are randomly generated, but I do not get a new experience each time I play it. Random map generation is cool, but so is map design. Map design should arguably have its own major advantages when trying to create unique experiences. I plan to enjoy both. Creating maps is fun. More tools, doodads, features, etc for both please.

So you admit that your perfectionist BO was in fact not essential to your victory? And that a more adaptive approach would have served you better?