Hey folks, One of my favorite things to do in PA is to play an unranked 1v1 and then go over the chronocam afterword to discuss the match with the other player. In normal ranked being matched against a much lower ranked player doesn't do anything except cement my glicko score, but going over a game to discuss with the other player why we made the decisions we did and how certain strategies worked or didn't work helps both the winner and loser better understand the game. Lately, unfortunately, I have had a pretty difficult time finding players who want to participate in that though. I used to do this a lot with MonkeySoldier but I haven't seen him around lately. I've had a few games with @xankar that I've learned a lot from, but his tendency to finish the game by reclaiming me with combat fabbers doesn't lend itself to serious analysis If there are other players who are interested in playing a bunch of 1v1s and doing a deep dive analysis after each, let me know.
The biggest issue is that there are very few competitive players out there right now. As clopse said in an earlier post "the skill level of PA is quite low at the minute." Really, the current skill level that surrounds PA can be organized in three groups: those that just stick around and play (aka the cheesy), the rusty, and the noob. When you've got something like that going on, there's no one to compete against and no motivation to obtain a higher skill level. Sure reaching a higher level of play is great, but once that's all done who are you going to fight? (Elodea? pfft) There's a handful of people who still play PA to be good at the game: Qzpico, tehannihilaterer, AsZeal, and maybe a couple others? However, Qzipco just cheeses 24/7, tehannihilaterer seems to slowly be putting PA behind him, AsZeal has kind of always just been there as a decent player, and OxideIon has put PA down in favor of FA. Those that stick around (but aren't necessarily players that only cheese) primarily mess around in team games and FFA since they have no interest in 1v1. These guys are pretty much entirely encompassed by guys in the realm. In short, no one beyond a noob is really interested in playing 1v1. Even when someone remotely skilled is interested in doing some 1v1 it usually comes down to cheesing and/or stomping. As for the thread on "the game is still unexplored." The truth is that the game has been fully explored but there is no motivation to use what has been explored. Despite that, there is no changing the fact that there are units and strategies used in the game that aren't used because they never worked to begin with or weren't worth using 90% of the time. However, I will say that some great strategies aren't used but that's because of how players aren't interested in being the best anymore and thus aren't interested in deploying these "great strategies."
Just hit me up if you're interested. I don't do it often and a lot of times I'll be busy with something else but you just never know.
Heh don't pay attention to xankar imo I'll give you some games sometime. Issue will be time zones as I'm in UK. I could be around tomorrow from 6pm utc. Pm on forum if your around. @xankar feel free to join in. As for the community, you worry too much. I've been through all this before with TA 2 decades ago and that's by no means dead even now.
I'm not worried about the community. I was pointing out and elaborating on two things only, not that the community was dead: 1. That the 1v1 community is very very small. 2. That PA's skill level is at an all-time low. Both of these are true and there's no denying it. Also, it's quite annoying to see someone pass off a fact as "Heh don't pay attention to xankar imo." Especially when your "opinion" isn't what is actually going on.
This makes life quite difficult for me because I enjoy 1v1s but I also enjoy being challenged and having agency over my losses. I absolutely hate playing team games with randoms, because the average skill level is so incredibly low. When, as is often the case, the team hosting team games is on VOIP and skilled it is extremely frustrating being on the team with players spamming air fabbers and then rushing T2 bots and air at the same time. I have done the play/analysis cycle that I described in the original post with about half a dozen bronze or low silver players and was able to bring them up to probably low gold, but interest in that seems to be dying out and I no longer have a skilled player that I can learn from in turn (thank you folks who have offered to, I'll message you if I have time and see you online.)
Lol there are plenty of skilled players left, even if inactive right now. You are being rather negative, wasn't meaning to offend you.
The game really has been figured out. Execution is key at this point. PA at its core is extremely simple. Watch a game with oide in it and you already know the game winning build. I've actually been thinking about writing up a guide for steam. The best are bored because we are lucky to ever get a good match. OP i hope you can find some one, having some one to scrim with is quite satisfying and a good way to get consistently better. You can more than likely get on the realm teamspeak and find some one to play. We're always overjoyed to find others with interest. But let me tell you briefly how simple PA is. Don't let your commander walk for as long as possible, take metal and enough energy. Don't stall your eco, it makes everything build slower. Simply by having more units, you can attack and defend easier, making the entire game easy mode once your surpass your opponent. Good luck
Regarding PA being fully explored, I'd say that's true for most of the established maps. There's still some fun to be had playing on the wackier custom built maps. The most fun I've had with PA in a while was a 2v2v2 on a ridiculous map. The surface was covered with randomly dropped CSGs that stopped dox patrols, we had an intense battle with a nearby enemy with single laser turrets on the high ground and grenadiers on the low hiding behind a factory. Showed the importance of knowing the units rather than sticking to a cookie cutter build order. But the current skill level is low. It's one of the things that's stopping me putting more time into PA again. I took a break for a while and I can really see how badly I'm playing compared to where I used to be (not that I was ever amazing), but it's difficult to improve because I don't need to to win. Most random team games are pub stomps that are over in <10 mins, so there's no pressure to force you to concentrate.
