FTA Bonus on Highlevel Games means nearly Autowin

[calmon]

I know the headline may be a bit aggressive but it is my experience. When 2 Top Players play against FTA is mostly the deciding factor!

Personally I can't remember any lost game as P1. There may some, but very very few.

On contrary I lost/lose several games as P2.

High Level play means far less mistakes and very costs-efficient turns compared to lower levels. This means the Bonus Wits are incredible important!

I pled for a solution. At least for the Super Titan League. On lower leagues the FTA bonus exists sure but here the players mistakes/ineffective turns are the BIG factors and so FTA only marginal influences this.

My solution is still, just give P1 2 wits to start. Why 2?

Here is the answer:
the P1 starting wit bonus should be half of Turn-Wit income. The Witincome is only 5 in first turn, but the "usual" wit-income is 6 or 7.

In scenarios with 1 starting bonus field (6 income) you have 2 starting wits + the bonus field wits = ~3 as your FTA. VERY SLIGHTLY (only missing first turn 1 wit) disadvantage for P1.

On maps with 2 bonus fields as starting bonus the P1 is bit more in advantage than the P2 is in 6-income-scenario but its still far far less influencing.

2 Wits starting as P1 would be perfect to cancel out P1 FTA and would make a better/fairer game on top leagues (I think as well on lower one). So please make this happen on STL.
I know a lot of you need official statstics before acting but like said. FTA isn't a big problem in most match ups because other factors rule: high rate of mistakes, inefficiency, skilled-vs-unskilled matches, etc. but it IS on top match ups where the moves are as effective as possible and mistakes are rare.

A solution here would solve other problems: Players fill queue with a lot of games at same time to not play P2-only, which leads to a lot of match ups against the same players. I'm also sure there are exploits/abuses around which let a player be P1 in nearly 100% cases (easiest one comes into my mind is just to have a second high-level account to check/empty the queue with it).

[QuantumApocalypse]

Honestly, almost none of the high level matches use FTA rushes, as there are ways to foil them, and once stopped, leave the attacker very vulnerable. It's hardly autowin.

[awpertunity]

(08-13-2012 07:35 PM)QuantumApocalypse Wrote:  Honestly, almost none of the high level matches use FTA rushes, as there are ways to foil them, and once stopped, leave the attacker very vulnerable. It's hardly autowin.

Actually, this is exactly what the problem has become. Lots of meta-gaming going on in my opinion in the high levels. You are correct, that FTA rushes can quite easily stopped by P2 if P2 knows what he is doing, but this is exactly the issue now. In most games I play as P2 now, P1 does not even do a rush. This means P1 can very obviously build a larger army than P2, and basically there seems to be about a one-turn window in which P2 can attack to be able to win. This is the turn right before P1 tries to attack. Unfortunately, this is a complete guessing game for P2. I can scout for this by building a runner, but if my guess was wrong (i.e., I scout and notice that P1 is still building up an army), it's over. I'm not not behind only the FTA, but an additional turn I took to try to scout this information.


P1 will always have the advantage. There was a period where it seemed even, and that was because (in the high levels) there were only a set number of P1 openings that a majority of the players used. Knowing this, P2 was able to effectively prepare for these. Now that we have all had a lot more time playing the game, there are tons more openings I see, and a lot of them are now adapted to the fact that P2 has a certain set of openings to counter the original set of P1 openings, hence the meta-gaming.


This is just speaking in the most general sense, and I could definitely go into details for each specific map, but I don't think that is necessary... yet.

To sum up, the P2 openings that used to be considered the best possible openings a month ago are no longer useful. Unfortunately, this has made the FTA even larger now in my opinion because P1 has so many more options at the start of the game, and P2 is forced to guess and play reactively as best as possible.

[Skaught2727]

What about giving P2 one wit space already preselected. That way they can move one of their guys freely instead of wasting a space to grab it?

[wonderpug]

(08-13-2012 08:01 PM)Skaught2727 Wrote:  What about giving P2 one wit space already preselected. That way they can move one of their guys freely instead of wasting a space to grab it?

This was my suggestion a bit ago. I'm sure it would need some testing, but I love how it both gives P2 an extra wit to start and gives him more flexibility in responding to a rush, since he doesn't have to tie up a unit claiming that wit space.

As for how FTA affects high level games, I think it's most severe in maps where there is a high risk of starter snipers or medics getting killed on P1's second move ("turn 3" in game terms).

Glitch - P2 immediately has to worry about losing his medic to a runner.
Sharkfood Island - Medic immediately at risk.
Sweetie Plains - Sniper, medic, far wit space all at risk
Foundry - Medic, Sniper, "that rush"
Long Nine - Look out, sniper!
Peekaboo - Look out, medic!

There are ways to defend, of course, but it takes wits to scout and wits to respond. Like awpertunity says, this is where the metagaming mind games happen. If P1 does position himself to threaten the above units, P2 doing a defensive preparation pays off. But if P1 decides to do something completely different, P2 has given himself a lackluster start to fend off an attack that's not coming, giving P1 a stronger start. But P2 can't -not- do the defensive preparation, lest he fall prey to P1 doing the rush attack. Damned if you do, damned if you don't for P2.

[Joggies]

calmon, thanks for the post. Good contribution.

Another observation supporting your erring on the side of 2 rather than 3 starting wit points, is that, economic advantage aside, there is some small advantage having the first opportuntity to spawn a unit. I haven't seen this mentioned before. But on the small maps with only one spawn point in particular, sometimes the ability to pop out new units can be the most scarce resource. All wits and no power!

[mable-ghaban]

One could also accept the p1 advantage and play a match of 2 games(or more), one as p1 and one as p2. ?

[Harti]

Without reading any posts in this thread (lack of time) I'd like to emphasize that I agree with calmon's headline (even though I don't mean it in an aggressive way either)

[swimj]

I think calmon's statement applies to a very very select few of players. FTA certainly does not guarantee a win for most STL players, from my experience. I have at least 5-6 games in recent memory that I've won against top 30 players (according to most recent ranking) going 2nd. When I think about my losses, I don't feel a significant majority are when I go 2nd (except for Foundry). I think the reason is that really good players still make mistakes, at least 1-2 a game. I define a mistake as something that can swing the advantage towards the other side, such as moving a soldier into sniper range, attacking base too early, etc. I've seen very very few games when not a single mistake (by my definition) occurs.

For me, the biggest concern regarding FTA is that it limits strategy a little, as P1 automatically feels like the attacker, while P2 is on defense from the start, waiting for an opportunity to counterattack (usually this seems to be the case).

[nivra0]

For me, the most irritating thing is simply not being able to play without crashing my Hidden Rating.
If I have empty slots, I can either fill them all up by going second against the same player, or I can wait around and retry every few hours, hoping to get FTA at some point.