Small maps wrapped on a small sphere is not a planet

This game is being advertised as big, huge, EPIC. There are many more RTS games which have smaller maps, these are galaxies and yet still its not enough?

.......so?

Gameplay will be different on different sized maps, why restrict ourselves to the largest of the large? Imagine SupCom with only 40 and 80 km maps, those play out VERY differently form 5 and 10 km maps.

Fact remains that even if a map is small, I'd still rather play them in PA as opposed to say Starcraft, fact is regardless of the map size, the gameplay are incredibly different.

Mike

I too am concerned about the risk of having extremely small "planets" which are a small SupCom square map converted onto a sphere. In order for spherical maps to work, the map size needs to be MUCH larger than the flat maps from TA and SupCom. PA should be designed from the ground up with the assumption that a planet is going to be very large compared to a SupCom map.

A spherical map with a 20km circumference means it is mathematically impossible to be more than 10km away from any point on the surface. And furthermore, it is possible to approach that opposite point from a wide variety of routes over the surface of a sphere. Maps of similar size mapped onto a sphere are going to be extremely cramped because of the properties of spheres.

In my opinion PA's large planets should be at least hundreds of kilometers in circumference, and thousands of kilometers should be possible and interesting in terms of gameplay. Ideally, tens of thousands of kilometers (Earth is 40,000 km circumference) should be both possible and planned for in the game design, even if they are nonstandard at game launch.

When I first saw the metal planet concept art, this is what I thought:

I expect no less.

I'm having trouble seeing the problem here. If a certain size of map doesn't work properly for some reason, then people will just not play those maps.

e.g. SupCom's 40k+ maps are pretty much unplayable because the pathfinding breaks down and the lag quickly gets unbearable. Even 20k maps tend to be too big for the way the scale of the balance is designed for in a lot of cases. So people don't play them.

I think that there is a very good chance that Uber will fix these issues with great finesse and playing Betrayal Ocean on one planet and Seven Islands on another, whilst there are a couple of Crag Dunes and Fields of Isis going on should be enjoyably playable, assuming your brain doesn't explode.

Betrayal Ocean (81km Supcom map):



Seven Islands (vast TA map):



Crag Dunes (5km Supcom map, very intense, 400 times smaller than Betrayal Ocean)



Fields of Isis (5km x 10km Supcom map, turtley but still very enjoyable)



If the concern is that it will be too hard to defend a small, 5k equivalent planet from all angles, then I say bring it on! That will be ridiculously exciting against an equal opponent.

I hope the lower limit on planet size is as low as they can possibly make it.

Ha ha, that is amazing. Needs to be concept art xD

That would be an asteroid, no? Can't get much smaller than that...

On the smallest planet, I expect a stone throw to go around the planet and hit you in the back of the head. On the largest planet, I expect the longest range artillery to cover about 1/10 of the distance to the opposite side of the planet.

Or even 1/100. Maybe someone wants to play a 40 person game ON ONE PLANET. How sick would that be? Pretty sick... Good sick.

As someone said, I can't foresee a problem here at all. They are pushing for customization in all aspects of the game. Just want one huge planet? You got it! Want many small planets with mini-moons and asteroids? You got that too!

I can't see them taking a step back and limiting map sizes. They know some people like small maps, especially for players who like short 1v1s so no doubt they will provide the ability to make them.

I am more interested in trying out the huge ones I have to say. The biggest up till now has been 80x80 but I am expecting this game to allow much bigger ones than that. Massive maps and playing against 39 other players? I could live with that (shame I have recently moved to China and my internet sucks). Too big may end up tedious or too complex to manage but it will be fun to find out.

People will find map sizes that fit them and go with them, no one is forced into any size; that is a great thing and as it should be.

these people should just play big maps and not play the small ones ... problem solved