A plea for the Lack of Events for "2nd Rate" "Common Folk" & The Community

Everyone, I do not have a lot of time these days as my job and family have taken much more of my "gaming spirit" hence why I stepped down from running the M&M council last year, but I wanted to make a short post to discuss a matter with the community: a set of high-visibility events for "common" people or "2nd rate players."

The reason? I personally, and many others, are getting a bit weary of seeing events where it is always Nexus, Petric, blah blah blah coming back out of the crevices only to win it all. I have nothing but respect for these individuals and admire their prowess, but it feels empty that people like myself who cannot play enough - or lack the energy after a long week of work and family time - to play at that level.

In eSports and Sports, there are many levels of leagues where you have divisions 1, 2, 3, 4, etc etc. I played competitive paintball for 15 years and although my team was division 2, we had a blast and just enjoyed playing. Does it get all the publicity and sponsorship that division 1 gets? NO! But who cares? This is just supposed to be for fun, and a little extra goes a long way for dedicated community players.

For me, $ is not really the driving factor of playing the game and that goes for many others as well: we just want to play and have fun, sometimes in an tournament-style setting. The problem is simply that we always end up getting crushed by some super stars and it makes the experience very off-putting. I think for the past 3, maybe 4 years, I have not seen a single 1v1 event that was not catered to top level talent and ONLY them. There are too many "invite only" or "we will let you play if someone is sleeping / not really available" situations for anyone less than the top 20...

For a community with such a loyal following for a game that has been updated to nearly as good as it can, I find this really disturbing.

TMM was the one reason I wanted to keep playing to give this all a chance, but with the recent rating reset, some insanely large rating differential allowance in matchmaking, and a horrible redundancy of maps played, it got quite bad. I can barely get anyone to play without begging, and often there is no match made.

SO, from this point on I sadly have to say unless there is some real creativity put forth to the events system for all levels, I cannot see myself giving my own donations to boost the prize pools further.

Rather leave without saying anything further, I would like to make the following suggestion mostly to discourage rating manipulation:

1600-1900 (give or take maybe 30-50 pts close to event):

1. Minimum of 50 ladder games a month to ensure no manipulation is at hand
2. Check players that deviate more than 150+ points in short time spans and evaluate if there is some kind of issues
3. Minimum of 500 ladder games total to ensure it is not a smurf (common problem with events that are less than "open invite")
4. No prize pool $ other than avatars and maybe some other perks - this is supposed to be for people who simply enjoy playing the game and do not need a monetary motivation
5. DO NOT USE the ladder league system. WHY? Because it does not make sense to allow 0 point hit for a loss. There are people like demonstreamer who have taken first place in the under 1800 league simply because they spam games with more losses than actual wins. This should be a league for people who actually win and get in rather show an absurd playtime. You would think playtime = improvement, but when it does not, there is a problem...
6. No event bracket styles that last longer than one day. Many of us do not have time in our schedules to play for weekend after weekend for 5-7 hours and just want a nice, quick event for fun.

Prizes could be something like the classic "training from so and so" or "choose maps for the LoTS event" etc etc.

I really do not see how it is possible FTX and the rest of the council have not thought of ANYTHING to remedy this severe lack of play in the community for years running now.

A lot of respect to FTX for his work as of late, but if we do not see SOMETHING soon I would like to run for Player Councilor and attempt to try something different, because we as a community need to try different things, iterate, and get better.

Just want to have fun.

Be well, all.

The list of reliable TDs that coordinate with me on tournaments:

• Swkoll
• Dragun

Do note that there are several Russian TDs that host their own tournaments, but these are often more Russian specific events that are often done for their own streaming communities. I appreciate these events as well of course as they are unique and fun, but it didn't seem relevant to what is being brought up here.

Swkoll is a mod, an active player, and already hosts regular, valued tournaments. Dragun is a key developer in one of the few sim mods actively maintained on FAF. I do not expect either of them to shoulder more of a burden for FAF than they already do.

There is no problem with lower rated tournaments, but lower rated players implicitly already have an endpoint to reach a higher level. If I do not have anything around to induce activity at higher levels, then lower rated players both will have no ability to actually attain a higher level and the higher level itself will continue to die out more and more.

If people want to host blitz tournaments for mid level players or weekend events that's fine, nothing stops it. But I can't exactly invent more hours in the week for myself on top of real life responsibilities like work and uni as well as what I already do for FAF.

If you're competitive and want to get good, you now have the route of getting 1800 to ladder, playing ladder regularly during the ladder leagues, and then getting into the smaller scale league tournaments which let you play in a tournament setting against people you should be comfortable playing against. Then, you can take it up a notch by deciding to try out for seasonal tournaments where some of the top players that do not play ladder regularly show up. Then if you performed particularly well, you get an option to participate in the big community event of LotS.

I also don't understand how you can argue that I'm favoring players like Tagada, Nexus, Petric, etc when I had to deal with a lot of pushback just implementing this system in order to reward ladder activity with LotS placement by higher level players that were annoyed at having regular activity being considered. If anything, this is the first time in FAF that any sort of actual systemic reward for the player that just wants to have fun playing the game a lot has existed in terms of both tournament placement and monetary awards.

I'm more than willing to coordinate with new TDs to work out a solid format, a nice reward, and a time period for the tournament that can result in live casting coverage for the event. But again, that requires TDs.

5. DO NOT USE the ladder league system. WHY? Because it does not make sense to allow 0 point hit for a loss. There are people like demonstreamer who have taken first place in the under 1800 league simply because they spam games with more losses than actual wins. This should be a league for people who actually win and get in rather show an absurd playtime. You would think playtime = improvement, but when it does not, there is a problem...

Also just a small nitpick here, but ladder league gives you 2/0/-1 for W/D/L.

It is not necessarily saying you specifically do, but it is just odd that you and others have not offered up something. I am having a hard time believing it is desired by the TDs we do have, which appear to be none; and if that is the case, there is a whole other issue going on.

What has happened to our TD pool? Do they simply no longer care about the game?

yes, good catch on the point system for ladder league. i was wrong on that - apologies.

I can only offer what my resources allow. I can go ahead and promise a tournament every day with a 1k prizepool but it doesn’t make the money nor the time nor the player interest show up.

Most recently someone had asked for a lower level version of the leader league series tournament but the whole issue here is that I need to collect high level players for the 1800+ one like a sheepdog and make sure I have the 8 players that want to play from the ladder league.

I do not have the personal ability to then go and do this for yet another group of 8 people alongside the other logistical issues like finding casters for this new event. If someone else wants to handle that then by all means, we can talk about a lower level tournament like this.

TD pool just has no one that wants to serially host tournaments. People host a one-off and then peace out for months on end or even forever, there are very few regulars. It’s especially a PITA for me because if I make some serial tournament and rely on someone unknown, they could also just decide to flake on me and now I’m held responsible for this event failing.

This is actually why I’m starting to really like the idea of smaller scale showmatches. You have 2-4 players to organize that can all play at a comparable level, easily work out a time for casting and playing, and have stuff spread out so you have lower rated “casual, unpaid” events and then the “big event” that has a prize for top players.

Ftx makes some good points. The regular TDs of myself, dragun, and ftx are kinda at capacity for TDing. Ftx is busy running ladder league and LoTS, I'm busy with seasonal invitationals and other nonsense, and dragun is busy with his showmatches and inter-community events.

There's a handful of secondary TDs who can be drafted to help with major tournaments but I don't know if any of them have expressed interest in hosting their own events.

Lower tier 1v1 and teamgame tourneys are just lower priority for the 3 of us than what we already want to do. It's not like there are 0 events, just not a lot. In the last 6 months we've had SCTA 2v2 1 and 2, 4v4 map gen, holiday tourney, deaf archon, battle of intelligences, rainbow cup, and darkheart tourney (for semi serious and not high level tourneys).

@swkoll said in A plea for the Lack of Events for "2nd Rate" "Common Folk" & The Community:

Lower tier 1v1 and teamgame tourneys are just lower priority for the 3 of us than what we already want to do. .

I mean, right there and that is why myself and others are not happy and you do not see anyone trying. You are admitting to my fears: it is low priority for you 3.

Thanks for clarifying so I will continue to keep my stance that I should not prioritize my caring about you guys then.

@morax You are free to host your own events for the <1800 community. We need more TDs who are interested in that.

Yeah Morax host a tourney that I can win

@swkoll said in A plea for the Lack of Events for "2nd Rate" "Common Folk" & The Community:

@morax You are free to host your own events for the <1800 community. We need more TDs who are interested in that.

Yep, cause I have never hosted tourneys on behalf of others ever before or done anything for this community.

Thanks for your suggestion that I host something and be unable to participate.

And just to note one of the big reasons I really went in on SCTA showmatches is the SCTA 1&2 Tournaments. While SCTA 1 went well. Most of the teams were basically friends of mine.

And the second tournament just didn’t fire. Like if there is an interest, I’ll figure out and host another tournament. But right now? The show matches have been doing amazingly well. And while I have to navigate two communities. To get VIP’s, Casters, and more all lined up. These events ultimately are very casual. The next show match after this upcoming one next Month. I am gonna try and get a 2v2 one going.

And then Packer is gonna be making a couple more of his racing maps. So going to try and host a fun tournament with a Racing Monkeys.

Go yell at developers until they implement automated tourneys. Everyone can just join through the client and get matched according to some internally generated bracket. Automate the tournament direction process.

In addition to all the various tournaments Swkoll mentioned, isn't the League Invitational system FTX is setting up the exact solution for the issue you are raising? It is a tournament-style setting for the second/third rate players; it is based on ladder activity and not invite-only; and it, being casted on faflive, is very high visibility. In sum, it is the exact opposite of the event where Nexus/BH can come out of the woodwork and snatch up the winnings, and is designed specifically for the active "common folk".

Also, sorry, but this:

"A lot of respect to FTX for his work as of late, but if we do not see SOMETHING soon I would like to run for Player Councilor and attempt to try something different..."

seems to contradict this:

"Everyone, I do not have a lot of time these days as my job and family have taken much more of my "gaming spirit" hence why I stepped down from running the M&M council last year"

Morax is looking for tournaments at the 1500+ level, not the leagues. You're operating on a totally different definition of common folk than what he intended through the OP.

Please run for player councillor morax free us from FTx tyrannical reign

@morax said in A plea for the Lack of Events for "2nd Rate" "Common Folk" & The Community:

TMM was the one reason I wanted to keep playing to give this all a chance, but with the recent rating reset, some insanely large rating differential allowance in matchmaking, and a horrible redundancy of maps played, it got quite bad. I can barely get anyone to play without begging, and often there is no match made.

Just wanted to add that the rating reset has put me and a friend I play TMM with on the verge of quitting, if we do not manage to increase our skill level to the new rating that has been imposed on us it is probably over.

I feel like we have had this conversation before, but
If I were to grind up the ladder a little bit so I had the rating requirement...

Minimum of 500 ladder games total to ensure it is not a smurf

I think I have roughly 350 games (my stats are hidden) And i've been here since 2015

Minimum of 50 ladder games a month to ensure no manipulation is at hand

Me attempting to do this is probably impossible at 1450, where games should theoretically be easier to come across.

I agree that creativity in tournaments is lacking. There is no hype, the promotion for tournaments is a joke most of the time, most of the community lack viewer etiquette and RUIN the experience for other people mid stream. etc etc.

Changing the rating bracket doesnt solve this in my opinion. At the end of the day, two people show up and stream a ladder game and someone gets money in the end. There is no continuting narrative, no reason to choose a side or otherwise really be involved. We can go on forever about this.

Having a new PC doesn't change this either, you can host a tournament whenever you want. If you want to play in one, I would just dump that responsibility on FtX by giving him the hosting duty. FtX might be 5'2, but a role like PC should not focus on one issue or it will burn FAF in the end.

What has happened to our TD pool? Do they simply no longer care about the game?

I am a TD and I typically don't have the timezone for FAF. That's why I help out in other areas like the LOTS promotion stuff you saw last year.

You are/were? also a TD.

@biass said in [A plea for the Lack of Events for "2nd Rate"

I am a TD and I typically don't have the timezone for FAF. That's why I help out in other areas like the LOTS promotion stuff you saw last year.

To be a TD you need to have hosted a tournament in the past year, sorry bud

Edit: I have been informed biass hosts mapping tournaments, but sadly I am too wide to go into the mapping goblin dungeon to notice them.

@archsimkat said in A plea for the Lack of Events for "2nd Rate" "Common Folk" & The Community:

In addition to all the various tournaments Swkoll mentioned, isn't the League Invitational system FTX is setting up the exact solution for the issue you are raising? It is a tournament-style setting for the second/third rate players; it is based on ladder activity and not invite-only; and it, being casted on faflive, is very high visibility. In sum, it is the exact opposite of the event where Nexus/BH can come out of the woodwork and snatch up the winnings, and is designed specifically for the active "common folk".

Also, sorry, but this:

"A lot of respect to FTX for his work as of late, but if we do not see SOMETHING soon I would like to run for Player Councilor and attempt to try something different..."

seems to contradict this:

"Everyone, I do not have a lot of time these days as my job and family have taken much more of my "gaming spirit" hence why I stepped down from running the M&M council last year"

As FTX stated: no.

For the "available time" thing, it does, but I don't think I would spend as much time as he making decisions. I stand by my point that resetting the TMM rating was one of the worst and most damaging decisions thus far. We all make mistakes, so I do not singlehandedly hold it against him, but I would never in a million years think this is the right move. If you tried to do this with ladder rating people would be outraged. I think a far more simple: give new players a bit of an easier incoming experience is better than what was done by taking away the rating buildup from EVERYONE.