Era single spar/Normal gangspar has no covers, and is a square-ish arena, however they do understand that the gst shouldn't be like that, its too common/easy?
2 years, they've used amazing arena's, so yes, take it from someone with experience, the MAP<- should be bigger/more conq/showdown style (the way these levels are made) get the difference between saying "make showdown the sst arena" and "The way the levels are made"
Look at my original post, iEra gst map, players loved it, it was big, it had covers, it had 3 ways to acces your opponents area, and I can assure you it wasn't a spam contest, it was an heavy dodge and patientce duel.
Of course, if you want it easy, square-ish, empty levels, where it'd take 2 seconds for a team to win-then we're not on the same wavelength.
Sparring, does not mean fighting in a square, sparring itself, the word or , well like planets=planets, they're a game-mode, so is showdown its a LMS, sparring is a dual between 2 players or a group of players.
Only thing you've got right, but still not get it fully, is that sparring, unlike other game modes, takes place in a limited, closed area. Planets are enormous, compared to what 'spar' or 'showdown' are.
Plus, zone is 360° shooting, so you're problems with "covers" about "hiding/spamming" don't affect anything, since you can still somehow get a hit on your opponent.
Idk why you're tying so much to keep it simple, when you can make something really nice? And I find the normal ss arena, good, whitout the covers it wouldn't be anything.
Skill=Dodging, I totally agree with you and gracey, but you can't just say, that there's a more skilled team if we'd vs in an empty level, it'd be more like luck, instead, a nice arena, where we can actually fight, build up tactics, the more intelligent, and the best will definitely stand out of the crowd.
Whereas if we do it like you say, we're going to be warped in a level, that we won't be able to see anymore as soon as it starts due to the fact that it is an empty square, each team will choose their corner and use the 360° to get the other team down, in this map both movement and tactic are useless, and unless you delay/lag in such a situation, you'd instantly die, I am 100% against such a type of arena for a major event like the SST (and by major event I mean that this is an exclusive tournament with prizes and stuff, so it should be professional).
Tl:dr, skill,complexity,tactic over simple stuff, empty and useless levels