My problem with scouting

[bigcrap757]

In FA, scouting is very important for a variety of reasons. You need to see how advanced your opponents economy is, where their commander is, what type of units they are making, etc. But the biggest reason you, or at least I, scout is to get advanced warning about snipes, experimentals, and nukes. This can be very tricky, especially on large maps, where it can take a spy plane 30-40 seconds just to get over the enemy base. Once it arrives there you have a small window of about 4 seconds to view what units he has and the progress of things like a nuke launcher or artillery piece. This is irritating because often times you cant watch your spy plane go over the enemy base as you are busy managing your units and base. This often results in me missing mercies, fighter-bombers, and experimental units because my plane dies before I can see them. I think this might be a big part of the reason why even pros are vulnerable to snipes, they cant reliably get a clear view of what units the enemy has.

This is a little off topic, but I have problems with the idea of fog of war in the first place. You could justify it by saying that its "realistic", but from a gameplay perspective I'm not sure it makes much sense. Every good strategy game should force the player to make decisions based on what their enemy is doing. Since, logically, decisions need information to be reasonable you should always be scouting no matter what. If the game practically makes you scout if you want to win, that means it is not really a choice and thus not "strategic." In other words, it wastes the player's time by making them spend effort on something that doesn't require thinking.

[keyser]

you cannot afford to have scout all the time.
1st because of the cost of it (until a certain stage of the game)
2nd because you need to spend your attention on producing-sending-analyzing the scouting.

if there was no fog of war, there would be no interest into the game. No surprise, no comeback. FA had also a part of luck especially on BO, and i don't think that's an issue.
You can also have a strategic dimension, by abusing intel. For example sparky, T1 uef frigate and uef sacu have make fake intel so you over estimate the number of unit without direct vision. There is the stealth, especially with ML and stealth drop. There is the fake pd. What part of your army you want to show. What unit you want to hide. What information you want to give on purpose. (make 1 beetle, and then he overbuild defense around his com, doesn't use it at front anymore, constantly think about beetle, waste lost of time to scout for other beetle...)

i think this is the most important part of the game tbh; i can't imagine it without fog of war

[FtXCommando]

In FA, scouting is very important for a variety of reasons. You need to see how advanced your opponents economy is, where their commander is, what type of units they are making, etc. But the biggest reason you, or at least I, scout is to get advanced warning about snipes, experimentals, and nukes. This can be very tricky, especially on large maps, where it can take a spy plane 30-40 seconds just to get over the enemy base. Once it arrives there you have a small window of about 4 seconds to view what units he has and the progress of things like a nuke launcher or artillery piece. This is irritating because often times you cant watch your spy plane go over the enemy base as you are busy managing your units and base. This often results in me missing mercies, fighter-bombers, and experimental units because my plane dies before I can see them. I think this might be a big part of the reason why even pros are vulnerable to snipes, they cant reliably get a clear view of what units the enemy has.

This is a little off topic, but I have problems with the idea of fog of war in the first place. You could justify it by saying that its "realistic", but from a gameplay perspective I'm not sure it makes much sense. Every good strategy game should force the player to make decisions based on what their enemy is doing. Since, logically, decisions need information to be reasonable you should always be scouting no matter what. If the game practically makes you scout if you want to win, that means it is not really a choice and thus not "strategic." In other words, it wastes the player's time by making them spend effort on something that doesn't require thinking.

Short response because on phone.

Fog of War is what makes a recovery possible. If there is no fog of war, the game becomes focused on who can whore t3 mex faster. The person ahead in eco won't overinvest in units as he will see exactly what is a threat. Likewise raids will be pointless as the person being raided can simply queue up a tank later in their build queue. A tank built at 2:10 is way less expensive than a tank at 1:45, so there is no incentive to raid as that this just a mass donation.