Symmetric Planets

If I remember correctly, PA doesn't have different unit rosters for different factions. Even in SC2 all factions use the same ressources and balanced starting conditions.
So no, it's not the same. And I believe that Zaphod's post already summed it up nicely.

Edit: Yes you have to buy Magic cards, I hope you don't expect the same in PA.

Saying that the players have the same starting conditions in Magic the gathering is misleading.
You can only claim that if you think that all players have the exact same ability to chose cards into their deck and you consider the pregame, the deck building an actual part of the game.
I don't want pregame choices to dictate if I win a game of PA. I want to play a fairly balanced game against my opponent without blind RPS and a chance to scout all my opponents moves and countering them.

Player skill has nothing to do with starting conditions provided by the game/ruleset.
And if you want a fair and balanced game, then we're on the same side.

I have this vague sense that once we have the Egg, it may also be possible for us to be freed up from the current limitations of the spawn point system.

Picture a 1v1 (or team) where each player's Eggs starts at exactly opposing sides of the solar system. Choice of Egg landing points are completely up to the players, but they will want to factor in the time from the Egg's entrance into the solar system, to their chosen surface point. Note there are several axis possibilities, some of which make early game confrontations very unlikely.

a) Split the solar system into top/down
- could restrict players to drop their Egg on a single planet to guarantee early-game interactions, and players could each still independently decide to go for their N or S pole and have guaranteed early distance, or go closer to the equator for a better shot at a rush, etc.
- OPs request in this case amounts to perfectly symmetrical planets, each halved at their equators (not my preference)

b) Split the solar system into two sides
- this has minimal potential for early game interaction. some folks will love that, and others will hate it, I'm sure.
- OPs request could be satisfied by a randomly generated "half" solar system, which is then copied exactly so each player/team has identical start conditions.

Note that I don't think either case requires symmetry for fairness, but I list the possibilities anyway, in the spirit of demonstrating to the OP that 3D randomly generated maps aren't necessarily incompatible with fairness.

Keep in mind, all. That the entire solar system is effectively the map. It's a far more complex map than anything prior. If we were to try to depict it in two dimensional space, it'd look a lot like a set of islands that are constantly in motion relative to each other, with strange warped distances between all objects as they rotate and move relative to each other.


Edit, corrected procedural vs random, and missing text

SC2 is forced to use a very strict map formula in order to maintain balance.
If you created an open symmetric map without chokepoints, Zerg would dominate all other races as their Zerglings would be able to contain the enemy while expanding uncontested.

PA will not have that limitation.
With enough tools and units it can be possible to adapt to any situation and it will be much easier to keep the game balanced even when there are asymmetrical starting conditions.

We're talking about ressources here. The thing you need to actually build those tools and units. If you get a serious disadvantage in ressources from the get-go then it's not so much a question of how to adapt to your situation, but rather if your enemy is bad enough for you to catch up.

As long as you can avoid "serious disadvantage" and keep the game fairly balanced I think it's good enough.

So what's your alternative?

The initial conditions of the game are currently balanced. Each landing zone has 5 metal points. Each team has 1 commander. For each minute into the game you force balance, you limit the choices of the players for the sake of that balance.

Symmetrical maps, while "balanced" are predictable. It reduces the conflict to an optimized build order for the given map. You lose the unknown factor of your opponents location, and the game becomes just another rock-paper-scissors game where there are a handful of approaches to the map. I am not saying there is no room for symmetrical maps, but the suggestion that there can be no valid competition on an asymmetrical map is simply inaccurate.

IMHO

I'm tired of repeating myself, so I'll just quote it.

And I still heard no alternative.

Symmetrical maps are terrible. Best part of PA is the asymmetry in map design. I for one have played enough LAZY rts games that use symmetrical maps to achieve some form of 'balance'. Yawn. I hope that ranked 1v1 is all asymmetrical maps. The people who think one little variance in positioning is the determination of game outcome are players who lack creativity and on the fly decision making.

How about fixing the resource distribution in the planet generator?

I would be perfectly comfortable with a perfectly consistent metal spacing planet wide. Of course even with perfectly spaced metal points there will still be those that say something like, "Well he was closer to the water and he got his first blue bottle out 1 minute before I did."

Balance is an illusion unless something is grossly unbalanced. Any player who comes up against a tactic that they can not find a way to overcome will often cry "Nerf!"

I am particularly weak against an early pelter creep. I know it can be beat, I have seen many players overcome it. But for some reason I have difficulty executing a response effectively. It would be really easy for me to say weaken pelters and absolve myself of my lack of skill. But that is counter productive. It is much better for me to simply learn how to cope.

Of course balance is possible with asymmetry, but it often doesn't happen spontaneously, and often doesn't happen without great difficulty. In the case of SC2, the amount of resources invested in optimizing game balance are quite substantial, and people still complain that it is somewhat imbalanced after years of work. In the case of PA, it seems that very little has been done to optimize the balance of maps. I totally understand that there are greater priorities, but, in the meantime, symmetric maps would be nice. Also, keep in mind that symmetric can still be randomly generated. I don't think the game will lose too much of its current flavor by having symmetric maps, so long as they are still random.

A game that is played competitively a lot despite having asymmetric starting positions is the game 'Binding of Isaac'. Tons and tons of people race this game even though you'll go through completely different dungeons, find completely different items and bosses and so on, and more often than not the better play leads to the win.

Don't count out a game's competitiveness just because it's asymmetric.

It could be done so that the egg will artificially add mexes to areas where there is less metal, should you choose to spawn there.

Having symmetrical maps, random or not, does have pretty far-reaching consequences.. scouting becomes somewhat less important, when you know by default where your opponent has spawned, for example.

SC2 just shows that some people will keep complaining about imbalance when they lose, no matter what. Asymmetry is a question of balancing fun, diverse gameplay with the fairness factor.

The only reason you don't need symmetrical maps but can do with randomized planets (outside of the concession of having similar number of metal spots) is that the terrain doesn't matter to begin with. So people that talk about reducing the flavor of the game by switching to 'balanced' maps are right, but I don't think they should want to be right. After all, in virtually every good competitive game in history you had symmetrical maps, and that's because it's not fun to just randomly have a disadvantage that you have no control over. Because PA is foremost a game, not a realistic war simulation or whatever the people here are saying.

The requirement for symmetrical maps comes from not being able to choose your starting position.. I think the ideal solution is to allow players choose their own spawn point.

The more I think about it, the current system of having a collection of starting points is actually pretty good.. gives the players some freedom of choice while making sure everyone doesn't spawn at the same point. It's almost like somebody making this game has already put thought into this.

I don't know about other people, but to me the fun from playing video games like PA does come foremost from the fact that it is a war simulation, and not a way to feel superior over other people.

It's like someone said in this thread regarding fairness, that without symmetrical maps the game is just "child's play" and not competitive. I personally of course value so called imaginative child's play highly over any competitive behavior, but I would argue it is just a difference in attitude towards gaming. In short, I play games for fun.. I leave proving myself for real life. Not to say that competition can't be fun.. just not at the expense of other things.