I can’t define your “better playing experience” for you so that’s fine, but SoA is one of the more efficient maps for Exp farming even without cheesing.
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How though? the waves are insane, the timer is Super-short to destroy the shards, the bonus is suicidal and takes off way too early (still). The crystal on the bottom left is plain overpowered.
I cannot think of a reason to actually play the map. It feels more efficient to just quit out of it, after politely informing my partner that i will not be playing the map ofcourse.
I mean, I don’t know how well you play and if you don’t macro and/or push effectively, some of the waves are definitely punishing.
However, assuming you play proficiently, it is very reasonable to finish SoA in 15-17 minutes without cheesing, which is just a little bit slower than Void Thrashing, and is way faster than any of the “auto-scrolling” levels.
I kinda feel like slow ramp up commanders sucks a lot here if they don’t have a partner to back them up early on.
Yes, as is with any maps that forces you to not turtle. Cradle and Parts and Parcel are also similar.
OE and VL are the “more forgiving” kind where you can fail 1 wave and still be fine.
What do you do if you are two slow rampers, then? I think this is the situation that frustrates some people.
You expand first. Then use your calldowns very carefully should you attempt bonus.
It sounds like you’ve set the difficulty above what you can handle. Try turning it down. When I was first playing I found this map hard, but as my skill improved the map got easier… hmm…
Are you thinking of someone in particular? I’m sure between us we can find/offer tips to help you expand and keep the bonus with any commander.
Karax most of all. He is my all time worst commander in ramp up.
After that, Swann, then Artanis probably.
Sythe of Amon used to be my worse map but I think it’s Malware or Cradle of Death now, probably Cradle.
I think part of this development is in my 9 months of playing I didn’t play much on brutal my first 7 months just hard. And for me Sythe of Amon doesn’t have as big of a hard to brutal jump as some maps.
Like for instance, Oblivion Express though it is still easier I feel has a bigger jump in difficulty from hard to brutal . Sythe of Amon on hard to me doesn’t feel too far off Sythe of Amon I on brutal.
Trickier for SoA definitely since he’s not got an easy fast expand. Have you tried cannon-rush with solar lance to take out void rift? I think you can also sneak around the mini-bases with all enemy comps. That way you can go for the top expand with easy access to the void rift.
For Swann it’s usually something like turret for first wave, tanks + ARES for clearing expo and beam for 2nd shard / bonus/ 2nd wave. I’m not good enough to solo but I’m sure you can find some good solo videos out there that demonstrate the best ways to play early Swann and use those to improve your ramp up.
I know I can always get better and sticking to one commander for a while along with watching and learning from others has majorly improved my gameplay.
The absurd difficulty of the bonus is my only issue with the map, if they want much harder bonus’s then others depending on the map thats fine, but you better be giving me more exp as compensation for it. The fact you always get the same exp for the bonus on every map is stupid when some like void launch are barely any extra effort at all, but others like this one feel like they almost double the difficulty of the map.
As a result I simply cant be bothered with it, especially for a pitiful extra few 1000s exp. SoA is the one and only map I have that attitude with in terms of the bonus.
But that doesn’t solve the issue entirely though. I’m by no means a super great player, I can usually solo brutal relatively comfortably if I’m playing one of my best commanders. but if I’m not, I’m going to need my ally to contribute on some level, and what will usually happen on SoA is i just ignore the bonus, but my ally will then end up throwing stupid amounts of their resources at it, often losing most or entire army in the process, only to still fail it, but with them offering zero help on attack waves, main objective etc. It ends up failing the whole mission.
This happens at least one out of every 2 or 3 AoE missions I play and its infuriating. Stop botching the entire mission on some hell bent mission to complete some broken bonus objective worth 2k exp.
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In my opinion the Malware bonus is worse because of the resource cost.
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Karax has these known problems.
That said, P3 can rush Mirage and Spear and blast down the first shard. I pick expansion shard. Probably Purifier Beam will be online to clear bonus in time after that.
Send Mirage for spotting so you won’t be delayed by fighting through everything
I will play more Karax this week and sort it out.
If you’re having issue getting bonus, then you can do one of two things to improved:
- Move out faster. This is the most common issue. People sit idly in their base until wave 1 shows up then chill for another 2 dawdling towards expansion… guess what? That’s now the wrong sliver to take if you want bonus 1.
- Moved to the wrong sliver. This ties in both to timing and dawdling. If you didn’t twiddle your thumb but have a sub15 and subpar gameplay, then your only option here is to take main sliver then bonus 1. Circle back to expansion after because you simply don’t know the ins and outs well enough yet. No shame but it’s a tactical error.
For other prestiges, take a cue from leveling them and go gateway Karax. Research Sentinel Reconstruction early obviously. Probably you shouldn’t be going P1.
Later in the game progress to Immortal Mirage against Zerg, and if against Terran and Protoss simply reclamate behind your wall of Sentinels. Yes, make a lot of Energizers in that case, like 10+, and reclamate air before they decimate yours, and don’t let them sit in bad
Have you ever heard of Cradle of Death?
Routing is always going to be an issue with a random partner. After all, the most basic routing issue is getting to agree on whether to do a regular clear or a reverse clear. (Almost all reverse clears require you to go on one base and forego the bonuses immediately.)
I believe the intended route if you want to 100% is to go for the #1 sliver, then the first bonus, then the expansion sliver, then the bottom left bonus, then up the left side to the top sliver and the top bonus, which should generally ensure that your army is under the warp prism most of the time. The problem with that is that it conflicts with the fact that both players are better off taking the expansion sliver first, which would cause the warp prism to suicide into the first sliver’s defenders.
That said, if you ignore the bonuses, you’ll find that people enjoy SoA more because you can cheese and develop unconventional strategies (like mutation-proof reverse clears) much easier.
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Or you can ignore the bonuses or do them as second priority and enjoy the game without cheesing.