Spawns

foerest · August 9, 2014

elodea said: ↑

Spawn mechanics are really important both for balance and gameplay, and i feel like this issue might otherwise slip past if not brought up. It certainly seems to have taken a nose dive since the last patch anyhow.

The goals or objectives of a decent spawn system should include

parity between a player's spawn options. The choice should be more about where on the map you want to spawn, and not so much where the obvious mex advantage is. A meaningful choice, not a false choice or noob trap. No dumb spawns with 0 mex for instance.

Fairness between spawn strengths for two players on opposite teams. I'm talking about mex within the spawn circle here. This should always be a fixed amount, no less, no more.

Fair distribution of mex expansions outside the spawn circle (both distance to spawns and amount), such that map makers don't have to spend half their mortal life trying to get a balanced map literally via random chance.

Predictability of possible spawn positions of your opponent. That is, the game should signal with high probability of where the opponents spawn choices are so you know where to scout and don't have to go over the entire map with a fine haired comb. In previous builds, this was possible due to players always having a guaranteed 5 mex cluster in their spawn options. This is a very big part for example in balancing the power between firefly and skitters, and eliminating the 'luck factor' of who scouts who first, and who has not been able to find the other player for a long time.

I hate to say it, but not many in this community atm really understand how important choice of spawn is. Being able to make an educated guess where you think the opponent will spawn, and then spawn in a position that would be favorable for you given that he spawned there is a very large determinant of who generally wins matches. Where you send your first tank, dox, skitter, bomber/fighter, is hugely decisive in PA more so than other RTS games. And when you start getting build order equilibrium in an evolved metagame, the spawn system becomes even more of a determinant.

I would go on to suggest things like having a min and max of 3 mex points per spawn option, mirrored metal clusters etc. but these specific suggestions are not really as important as fundamentally making sure the spawn system achieves goals which allow the rest of the game to shine through.

There are many ways you could get a good spawn system, and i am not here to suggest it should be done this way or that. Only that the current spawn system and related mex distribution system is frankly really bad and doesn't achieve certain objectives. I really can't emphasise how important a good spawning system is in providing good gameplay experiences. You certainly don't want hordes of 1.0 players quickly burnt out by losses due to circumstances they cannot avoid or control - those kind of losses tend to leave a bitter taste.]

*It occured to me that this issue is actually even more important because I doubt this is something modders can easily fix.
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take seed, divide planet by two, mirror half the seed = balanced 1v1`s or 2v2`s or any single planet competitive play even ffa is possible to balance sorta ^_^

Spawns

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