floating mex vs underwater mex

[Gota]

IMO sea isn't played much because there aren't enough good sea maps with a nice design and a nice look.

Also,1v1 is not always about ego or whatever.
It's about fun.
If team games are a hike than 1v1s are mountain climbing.

You cant balance correctly by balancing based on big team games.
Team games are usually less intense and dont tend to stress test the game.
You make your con but the enemy players don't bother to play as good as they possibly can so they don't kill your first con with their first attack unit(team maps also tend to be bigger which means you have more chances of starting with con and making it).
In 1v1 your con would get ravaged and you'd lose the initiative and go on the defense.

[JohannesH]

Even if you managed to get a mex up before he killed your con, he will be expanding freely, and he will still have his first vette to contain you. It is not 'useless', first of all because just 2 vettes beat a TL, and secondly because he can kill any con you try to expand with.

Thanks to my vastly superior metal production, it will only take a little while for me to push out a sub or simply outnumber the enemy in the number of corvettes. Building a corvette with just one mex takes 3:20 (when already out of startmetal), so building another one is simply not an option until after he has built a conship (takes 1:46) and some mexes with that - by which time I've had plenty of time to rebuild my base.

If you start sea with 1 mex, you either receive metal from teammates, or have shitty team.


Btw last 2 games i played on SoW, I went con first and won both times.

[1v0ry_k1ng]

that dosnt mean much unless your opponents were of a high skill level

[JohannesH]

I wouldnt mention it if they were not...

[Saktoth]

Btw last 2 games i played on SoW, I went con first and won both times.

Of course you can con start on SoW. Its a 3/4 mex map, all on land with a short walk for com.

Anyway, Tronic, this depends totally on the map, the distances, etc. What are you testing this on?

On a 1 mex start, you will stall, hard, on 35% of your corvette. This is with 3 tidals, you can get the con out faster with more tidals, slower with less, but then you have more e than you need m (Reclaiming your tidals might help here). Once you start stalling your vette, you have to decide if you want your vette or you want to make mexes with your shiny new con, and whether you want to walk your com or not (since the stalling, he might as well walk and get mexes, which leaves your base vulnerable).

But yeah, it depends totally on how fast it takes the vette to get to the enemy base, how far apart the mexes are, etc.

[Hobo Joe]

1v1 is like bunch of basement nerds measuring who got the largest penis where team games are more of a social experience and psychologically much easier.

I'm bad at 1v1 so I'm going to call everyone who plays it a basement nerd because they're better at it than me.


Team games are fun but they're also easy, and there's very little pressure put on you as an individual player, especially if you take the rear, imo 1v1's are much more fun and depend entirely on you, they rely much more on strategy and skill than team games, which usually just come down to whoever spams the most.

[HectorMeyer]

1v1's [...] rely much more on strategy

team games, [...] usually just come down to whoever spams the most.

I beg to differ. It's exactly the other way round.

1v1: jeffy, flash, stumpy, more stumpies
teamgame: hmmm, what am i gonna do this time? tech? air? comdrop? t1 spam? etc..

[JohannesH]

1v1's [...] rely much more on strategy

team games, [...] usually just come down to whoever spams the most.

I beg to differ. It's exactly the other way round.

1v1: jeffy, flash, stumpy, more stumpies
teamgame: hmmm, what am i gonna do this time? tech? air? comdrop? t1 spam? etc..

Cause people in your average teamgame suck balls so you can get away with doing practically anything doesnt mean that its more strategic. Look how people barely scout at all in teamgames - they just try random things mostly, how is that so strategic, compared to a tight game (well any game size with good players and cooperation) where you have to use more optimized builds or get raped. Youre just too bad to see the strategy in the smaller nuances of the game.

Any game really comes down to who makes the most units, theres no refuting that. You just gotta have a good strategy to get to that point.

[Hobo Joe]

1v1's [...] rely much more on strategy

team games, [...] usually just come down to whoever spams the most.

I beg to differ. It's exactly the other way round.

1v1: jeffy, flash, stumpy, more stumpies
teamgame: hmmm, what am i gonna do this time? tech? air? comdrop? t1 spam? etc..

It's not strategy in team games, it's whatever you want to do or think would be the most interesting, not what's most effective. When I play big 8v8 games I do dumb random things just to mix it up, there's nothing 'strategy' about that. Winning move in a good 75% of 8v8 dsd/tabula games come down to whoever spams the most stumpies the fastest. Occasional other winning tactics will come into play but it's still just random.

In a 1v1 you have to play smarter. Not only do you have to practice good build orders, but you alone are responsible for your entire side of the map, which makes expansion/defense much more difficult and risky. You can't just sit back and porc for quick air or T2 while the front line does the dirty work(this is what leads to less common 'strategies', simply because people can porc in the back without risk), you have to balance attack/defend/econ all at once everywhere. Do I try to spread out and take his econ to slow production, or hit his front line and weaken his defense? Do I use my entire force now for the most attack power and risk leaving my base open to attack or do I leave some behind in case he makes an advantageous counter-attack?

You can't just throw units at the front line, you have to think about what you build and think about how to use it. Every unit is valuable, and every wreck is valuable. Johannes has a point that the team with the highest production usually wins, but not always, especially not in smaller games. If you play smarter and have better micro, you can do amazing things with half the units of your opponent.

tl;dr, big games are random brute-force spam fests, while smaller games, specifically 1v1 is where the real skill is.

[hunterw]

It's not strategy in team games, it's whatever you want to do or think would be the most interesting, not what's most effective. When I play big 8v8 games I do dumb random things just to mix it up, there's nothing 'strategy' about that. Winning move in a good 75% of 8v8 dsd/tabula

team games != 8v8 dsd/tabula.
8v8 dsd/tabula is for noobs learning the game.

a 4v4/3v3 team game often involves lots of different unit choices than 1v1s. it's not as skill-dependent as 1v1, but unlike 1v1s which are almost invariably low porc and highly dependent on APM/unitspam/leetness, 3v3s and 4v4s tend to porc up more, which opens up the need for porc breaking units that are not used otherwise. when it gets to 6v6 or higher, the porc is too unbreakable, and offensive players are not rewarded. the game then turns in to econ whore / combomb cesspool which noobs love since they can sit behind other players.

1v1 games go t2 maybe 3% of the time, just a ballpark. that's so many unused units. 4v4 on a map designed for 4v4 will allow the utilization of those units and strats without the impossibly unbreakable porc of 8v8 on a narrow map.

[knorke]

the real point is 4v4 can be as skillfull as 1v1 if all players are serious. but with public games, thats rarely the case. maybe in clan wars, i dont know.
so the team with the sober pros and more unnooby noobs wins over the stoned pro people and nooby noobs that i always find in my team

[Saktoth]

If people played more seriously as a team you would see way more combombing and factory cooping. There are a whole bunch of strategies that would be really effective with a coordinated team with competent players, but they are not very fun so you rarely see them.

[Hobo Joe]

I think that's mainly because there's never any organized team games. In the rare case that you actually get a 3v3/4v4 game, you are either with randoms, which means you can't rely on them, or with friends and against randoms, which means it will be a curbstomp. Nobody wants to take the trouble to organize a game where it's not just randoms vs. randoms. Usually you only have a choice between a 1v1 or 8v8 dsd. I like to play 2v2 games with a friend of mine but it's almost impossible to find people who will play a 2v2, and when we do it's usually just brand-new noobies who haven't found 8v8dsd yet.

[Pxtl]

If people played more seriously as a team you would see way more combombing and factory cooping. There are a whole bunch of strategies that would be really effective with a coordinated team with competent players, but they are not very fun so you rarely see them.

Yup. With 3 comms in 1 place and 3000 metal between them (more if you self-D one), you could do a terrifying rush.

[Gota]

Lab sharing is viable cause we dont have a proper start option.
Ideally Players would choose their spot from the available start points and not use the box in "competetive" team games.
This would solve lab sharing and players starting in the same place.
box start is just asking for trouble and should only be needed when the map itself is borked and has bad start points or not enough start points.

[JohannesH]

If people played more seriously as a team you would see way more combombing and factory cooping. There are a whole bunch of strategies that would be really effective with a coordinated team with competent players, but they are not very fun so you rarely see them.

Yup. With 3 comms in 1 place and 3000 metal between them (more if you self-D one), you could do a terrifying rush.

Umm, thats one of the most unimaginative and useless cheeses I ever heard. What map is that supposed to work on, with what units?

Other team can basically just defend, lose 1/3 bases and still be ahead economically. Not to mention the risk of getting commbombed when all your production is at 1 spot.

[1v0ry_k1ng]

If people played more seriously as a team you would see way more combombing and factory cooping. There are a whole bunch of strategies that would be really effective with a coordinated team with competent players, but they are not very fun so you rarely see them.

Yup. With 3 comms in 1 place and 3000 metal between them (more if you self-D one), you could do a terrifying rush.

Umm, thats one of the most unimaginative and useless cheeses I ever heard. What map is that supposed to work on, with what units?

Other team can basically just defend, lose 1/3 bases and still be ahead economically. Not to mention the risk of getting commbombed when all your production is at 1 spot.

erm, I think you underestimate.

[JohannesH]

Its just that in 3v3 I dont really see any advantage of doing just 1 lab instead of 2. Your units wont really build faster, youre capped more by e than buildpower there. And when you hit stall you have all this energy you cant use.

[Saktoth]

743 metal. x2 (1486) in a 3v3 or x3 (2229) in a 4v4. Thats 7, 14 or 22 extra flashes, respectively. If you do need extra e, its not like you dont have plenty of metal to make it. After you are one com up, you can then just combomb them 1-1 into submission.

Sure, this is theory, but this kind of strategy has a lot of promise, and its rarely ever attempted. I can say with certainty though that the only thing preventing combombing every single game is the unwritten agreement that this isnt very fun.

The point is that team games are simply not played optimally for potential winning strategies, and the multiple commanders thing makes a bunch of crazy strategies that you cant do in 1v1.

Lab sharing is viable cause we dont have a proper start option.

Wow, thats actually really sensible, i've never thought of that. You could probably walk, but it would certainly offer a huge disincentive. Pity most maps are broken.

[Gota]

Its how i think fixed should be...I think that many maps,especially those that are played a lot actually do have proper start points.
In any case there must be such an option for good maps,the broken ones can be played using box starts.