How does the community here feel about natural shorts and surpluses in the 1v1 quick match system? While I find that they put the market in interesting places in multiplayer games, I find them sometimes a bit too influential in the 1v1 matchup.
I guess the case I found most recently was a 1v1 where I founded, expanded to level 2, and put down farms as my HQ level 2 production as scientific. My opponent made an intelligent play to make glass with the higher prices. Up to this point everything in the game was determined by either the speed we uncovered our founding location (which is luck I personally choose to avoid in custom games where reveal map is an option) and the play and counter play between each other.
Then suddenly, a dust storm hit at the same time as a glass shortage. I found my production cut in half while his skyrocketed in value. In mere minutes after that he had an HQ level 5 to my HQ level 3 and bought me out. I agree that he made a smart play countering my farms with glass production, but the combination of random events really took its toll in that game.
In most competitive video games, randomness is kept to a minimum. Strategy games, MOBAs, and fighting games usually try to focus on the player's skills, strategies, and their mechanics as what determines a win. (With the noteable exception of hearthstone, which has developed its own "meme" where players and commentators sarcastically call "esports" as they gamble with a random feature). So how does the OTC community feel about the randomness in this game?
Personally I dont mind it in the non-competitive, 'for the spirit of fun' custom games. But with the addition of the (admittedly informal) 1v1 ladder, OTC's quick match system has taken a competitive turn. Do the random events have a place in that competitive environment? I understand that good players will adapt to new circumstances, and being flexible with ones strategy is another element of being the best, but as shown in the case above, he already had down glass, and I already had down farms, yet the random elements gave him a massive boost. I could have transitioned, I could have bought black market attacks, I get that, but it still didn't change that a massive element to the my victory or defeat was completely taken from my hands. Similarly I remember a game against YerAnd, one of the top players on the ladder, where I won almost completely on the back of a shortage at a critical point in the game. It was a close game the whole time, then suddenly a random event just threw me a free victory, one I was not sure I deserved.
How do you all feel about the random events, shorts, surpluses, dust storms, solar flares, etc? (I do not count the auctions as part of the randomness, as you still get a say in the price tag during the random auctions.)
