Symmetrical planets are getting there...

I hope uber doesn't approach ladder maps with this same philosophy.

Basic translation: I like beating players who don't know the game as well as i do, AND i would like to keep the information advantage that is allowing me to do so. You know, instead of full disclosure in order to provide an even playing field.

If this is so good for strategy, we should test this by replacing the sc2 pool with a large set of entirely randomly generated, but symmetrical maps. Gee, that'll go down well.

Please remember that these are skill based matchups. Not cheese based matchups.
Cheese = lack of information

You harp on about how you need to be good at adapting to new situations. Well, adapt to learning maps.

Hm.. I can see both sides of the argument.

It sort of eliminates a bit of the skill of the game though, it boiling down instead to memorization.

In SC2 a symmetrical map can still be OP for Zerg but awful for Protoss. We don't have to worry about that here.

That is not a true statement. Memorising build orders is not considered a skill? Muscle memorising actions to be quicker at the game? Memorising counters to certain builds? Memorising how units interact with each other? Memorising hotkeys? Memorising timings? Memorising unit stats like fabber consumption? Memorising building costs?

You cannot possibly be saying that skill based = two amnesiacs playing each other. We might as well just roll the dice and be done with it.

There's a reason why the 'map' in soccer and basically any other sport is well defined in advance and disclosed.

I think you missed the point of this not being about balance (not everything is about balance btw). This is about the negative effect of too much random chance.

Random symmetrical maps might occasionally have issues, but they'll play fine overall. Random symetrical mps might very well be used in Starcraft if it only had one race. The comparison was poor because there were additional conditions causing the result for one example to be what it was that did not apply to the item that you were making your argument on.

So sentence. Much structure. Wow.

I don't understand this. If we were to play on randomly generated, but perfectly balanced, maps we'd play about being good at making up a good build from the map we are put in front of.
I don't understand how a particular player can have an "information advantage" apart from knowing the game better, in which case they should be better at the game indeed.

Personally I like to have a set of well known ranked maps, but that kind of map pool actually offers players the chance to have an information advantage. If we play on random maps all the time then the "map knowledge" information advantage is non existent. Unless you happen to know all generated maps. Or you played so much that you start to make out patterns in map generation.

Then you might tend towards being good within a tight set of restrictions based on optimum strategy for particular systems. Apart from specific build orders, can't you do all these things with symmetrical maps? Perhaps you are a better overall player if you can dynamically create excellent strategies on the fly no matter what the situation is.

+1

At the end of the day the skill that elodea's map preferences measure is different to the skill that mered's preference measures. And the question is, which type of skill do our Uber gaming overlords prefer their ranked matches to measure? Or is it possible, and preferable, to find a way to mix and measure both?

An added question, which I think very few, if any, top players will care about, is which solution ties better with the game's setting and lore? And this is the main question for me, because this is a videogame and not a real war, and hence immersion in the setting will always trump the measurement of a skill level that's more or less useless in the real world.

Take two players who know the game as well as each other. Yet one player is better at overcoming randomness or gets lucky more often as to what the dominant strategy on the map terrain is. It is in his favour to play on a random map - this is what i mean by information advantage (a relative advantage). This skill is not easily accessible.

The dominant chaos factor should not be in the non-player environment. It should be in how players adapt and respond to each other, not how players respond to their inanimate environment. This again comes down to player interaction, which has always been historically PA's weak spot.

All i'll say is, if we want to see high level of strategic play, we must allow map preparation. This kind of information advantage is accessibly practicable. It is stable enough to allow ranked matchmaking to provide good matching between players. Full disclosure of information in advance is important. Imagine playing games where your units were randomised but symmetrical.

Being a soccer player, this is one of the first points i disagree with you on. In IRL there is no option to change the map setup of a soccer field to make it better, the stadium and everything else is structured around it like a rectangle. Which is essentially boring, so why not have different shapes? because that's impossible. But, in this game it's not.

If there was some kind of magical way to procedural generate an IRL field, i don't think soccer would be the same. I wish that was the case.

Assuming the map is WYSIWYG I can't see the issue. It's not like in SupCom:FA were some tiny rock in some hidden corner gave a HUGE metal bonus. Learning to quickly make out how to play a given map is a valid skill to have imho. If the map is perfectly balanced and has no hidden quirks there is no randomness about it.

Sorry but "gets lucky more often" is simply something I don't care about if we have symetric maps. Anybody can always get more lucky. That has nothing to do with an information advantage. An information advantage is about knowing something ahead of time. Like knowing the map ahead of time. Which is impossible with random maps.
If one player is better at quickly adapting to an unknown map then that's a very valid skill imho.

A well designed map does not have a tight set of restrictions or suffer from dominant strategy, and there is a limit to how good on the fly strategies can be. They become gambles, and people are risk averse. It might tickle the gamblers fun receptor, but it is in no way healthy for seeing great high level strategic games between players. I may prepare for a map by guessing my opponent is likely to do this. My opponent may then respond to counter this counter. This is what map information allows players to do, instead of yoloing.

Also, the issue is not with symmetrical maps, but with random maps as mered additionally brought up in this thread. I have nothing against symmetrical maps, and it is a good feature that i'm glad uber is implementing.

Colin, I can know that a 2 sided coin is weighted such that it will always flip 60% heads. Now i go to flip it 100 times. I am lucky if it flips 60 heads. It could also have flipped 0 heads, but that would be unlucky.

The nature of random chance is that it is purely random when you go to observe it so you can have an information advantage, and as a result be more lucky.

@elodea

Like I said, I was half and half, I'd be alright either way.

After thinking about it, I'm not even sure what an information advantage would give you considering symmetry, and the WYSIWYG nature of the game.
like the knowing spawns argument isn't valid because so would a person playing for the first time, as he'd see his spawns, then just me tally mirror them.

It isn't about making something 'better'. It is simply about the effect of uncertainty. The size of the rectangle is important whether you play a narrower, shorter field, or a wider, longer field. It becomes a factor in pre-meditating and preparing for how you want to play. The beautiful thing about it is that this information becomes less relevant the lower the skill level matchups you go.

As does map knowledge in PA.

@squishypon3
Well, imagine now that each player has 3 spawns. Each of his spawns are not symmetrical with each other on his half of the map. I may know his spawns due to symmetry, but i have no idea the interaction between different pairs of spawns.

Cool. Neither does your opponent.

Both can be played competitively, it's just a different test of who can devise the best and most efficient ways to play on a specific system, or who can adapt and out-strategise on any random playing field.

Map generates, each person selects there best spawn based off what there looking at for there playstyle, but the thing is, each player has the exact same spawns!! now each player will immediately know the other players spawn locations and that's fine. The major thing is you have two minutes before the game starts by default to look at the map and develop what your going to do. That in my opinion is skill, being able to in two minutes decide your playstyle for the random symmetrical maps. With knowing the spawns of you and your opponent and knowing the game at a level that will be diamond in skill i don't see any problems. Any top level player should be able to find all gameplay factors of the terrain in two minutes. Choke points, metal clumps that will be contested, areas that are good for each type of strategy. Heck i think if you cant see a symmetrical map and in two minutes with already knowing all spawns on it of you and your opponent then you don't deserve to be a diamond level player. i think nothing about a set map pool will change anything.

Jables you are one of the greatest people alive. Thank you so much for clarifying that naval is being worked on.

I didn't think it needed further explanation, but you're not understanding the point here.

Not all spawn pairs will be balanced. Some will favour one over the other. Now you ask players to randomly pick one of their 3 options without knowing in advance with some certainty which pairs have favoured spawns. You will get players put at a disadvantage without the ability for the player to mitigate or control against these circumstances.

With map information, the player is now able to make an educated guess as to where the opponent might spawn GIVEN which pairs are favourable. The player can now control for risk, and any disadvantage that results is due to player interaction, not player to environment interaction.

We are talking about each game mattering. Not some long run average where we hope randomness will 'balance out'. I really don't get it this love for random maps. Map knowledge is a scaleable skillset that ties in perfectly with ranked matchmaking. You get two low skill ranked players against each other on a fully disclosed map, and they might as well be playing on a randomly generated one.

There is no need for map randomness to act as a chaos factor.