Matchmaker Team Sentons 4v4 TMM Inclusion

A resurgence in discussion regarding Ssntons Clutch in 4v4 TMM has arisen among the matchmaker team.

If you could, please state whether you support toss or not, with a few reasons why.

Sentons was originally included in the matchmaking pool but received some controversy which led to the team deciding to remove it.

Here is a reference to a portion of feedback that originated in the matchmaker thread: https://forum.faforever.com/topic/3410/matchmaker-pool-feedback-thread/2

Thank you, all, just trying to ensure the community enjoys the content while keeping it as competitive and fun as possible without too much adverse reaction.

Dont support - the main reason is I think it will lead to an increased likelihood of 'toxic' type behaviour.
People who are familiar with Setons will expect teammates to play a very specific way and seem more likely to get angry if they dont (vs some random 20km map that few people have played).

I'm not in favor either - the rating system can't properly represent the skill of players on that specific map.

A work of art is never finished, merely abandoned

Don't support - the reasons I wrote under the original feedback post are still up-to-date and I don't think something could change my or CheeseBerry's opinion on that one (Naming Cheese here since he's a Setoner and also made a statement below the original post).

Required rating for participation in balance talks when?

I understand that I will write nonsense. I don't support it, because I have a weak laptop.

i like setons in a 4v4 MM

it's not like there're a lot of maps out there, but seton's is just a nice map that gives you different ways of playing it through, it's literally one of the most balanced maps on FAF so far, yes there're tons of bo's and it slowly became a 40 mins build order but it doesn't change the fact it's diverse.

i can't see a solid argument against it either

even from an aesthethic point, you can see that the map is some sort of "brand", it occurs in trailers, casts, got replicated in any ta game like, as well.

map is great, i would like to see it being played in tmm, in any tmm's acutally, 4v4/2v2s

queuing with a newbie to show him the beauty of tmm and meeting tagada be like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLcRpdZ0Xb0&ab_channel=Tomoko

@rezy-noob As addressed in the original post, I completely agree with you. But that's exactly the reason a Seton's-lobby is always open which you can just join if you want to play that map.
TMM is used (especially among Setoners like Cheese mentioned) to get a break and getting a Seton's there as well while the same lobbies are open (but with more cancer due to some people not knowing how to exactly play the map) is everything but a break.

Feel free to link any reply which solves the problems / counters the arguments made in the original post. Maybe I just can't find them anymore but I don't remember anyone bringing valid pro-Seton's point there.

Required rating for participation in balance talks when?

how the replay is going to solve any issues?
yes, it might a map where people get a "break" from other maps, but from this POV, we can consider any map being the same, starting from mapgens, ending up with canis and dual gap.
does this affect the game quality? no
does that affect the map quality? no
The "open lobby" is also not really a valid point since those two use different rating and forces you to be more "competitive" and win, rather than doing some random "chill" stuff as a normal seton game.
Speaking from a statistic POV, you'll get more people into trying seton's as an actual map if you keep it there and the players that want to play it as a regular "chill" map, can play in the opened lobbies.
A low percentage of players liking/disliking shouldn't have a considerable impact on a dicision like this since it's a subjective opinion, and as to me, pools are more of an objective trend.

queuing with a newbie to show him the beauty of tmm and meeting tagada be like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLcRpdZ0Xb0&ab_channel=Tomoko

IT'S NOT

GODDAMN

CALLED

SENTONS

No would be an auto draw every time 🙂 As sladow said before there are tons of setons games hosted already don’t need to have more in tmm. 🙂

Not in favour.

Since seton's has a super evolved meta, players' relative performance on seton's can vary quite a lot from their 4v4 TMM rating. Therefore, games with normal players & setons players mixed in will be unbalanced, and being forced to learn setons if you want to not autolose on a map in tmm for a month (for every spot, too) isn't fun.

And then there's the other fact; people who haven't played setons much have avoided it for a reason.
Also seton's games go on a while which exacerbates everything else.

In contrast to many other people's opinions here. I will say to add it (Yes I am a setoner)

  1. You do not need to know how to play setons at a high level to play the map. The majority of 4v4 tmm games hit a max rating of 1800. I dont know many setoners that even play 4v4 tmm so it is rare you will even get them in your lobby.
    You do not require build orders or expert knowledge of the map.
    Its quite simple when you look at it from any skill level. There is water you make navy, there is a land area you make land, there is a back slot with not much else so air and eco.

  2. Even though there are lots of setons games hosted we host these are nobody else does. I host a fair few 2000+ setons if there are enough high level people online as the map is not featured anywhere else.

  3. Setons is fucking great at teaching you shit. Yes you can learn how to eco in dual gap however setons teaches tree reclaim and the value of it, teaches you to eco while still maintaining a sizeable army equal to your opponent, and includes all aspects to large respect to each other. You need early land mid, you need navy and you need air, it teaches a vast amount of unit experiance and allows you to experiment and see what works well where.
    In the interest that atleast 60% of this community does not understand tree reclaim or proper unit combinations it would be great to help them learn that.

  4. This can be played as a chill map, a cancer map or as anything it holds soo many options its dumb to exclude it. The vast majority of 4v4 is maps that you can only win playing a certain way. Setons is not like that.

  5. In relation to what @Jip said - the rating system can't properly represent the skill of players on that specific map. WHEN THE FUCK CAN RATING SYSTEM REPRESENT THE RIGHT SKILL. Take Tagada for example, he will hate me for it but its fact he is currently 2600 global. On setons he is 2200 at best. Other maps he is probably easy 2400. Take a 2000 dual gapper and put him on metir and he will be useless. The rating system cannot predict any correctly to be honest on any map so why bother with this argument on setons.

  6. Yes setons can last long. This is good though. You have to learn how to properly end the game. Whether that be Paragon, Mavor, Nuke Subs, TML bases, Land invasion, air domination. Half the players especially low level can get to 500 mass income but they dont know how to actually end the game. Setons teaches that.

  7. Yes it can lag sometimes if you get 2 large navy fights and 500 asf each team on the map. That is no different however to metir, meridia, dual gap.

  8. The map is one of the few maps not featured anywhere else.

  9. In relation to @maudlin27 comment: Dont support - the main reason is I think it will lead to an increased likelihood of 'toxic' type behaviour.
    People who are familiar with Setons will expect teammates to play a very specific way and seem more likely to get angry if they dont (vs some random 20km map that few people have played).

Some setoners I will happily admit can be a bit insulting sometimes. That is because were often use to 1800 + only lobbies with other people who know the map and understand it. So we insult each other when we play shit.
In no way can you say adding setons to 4v4 tmm will increase toxicity.
There are maybe 4 setoners I know who regularly play tmm and these guys if we get you in setons we will play and advise.
And I mean advise. We will ping saying what to do, make some navy, attack where, get this reclaim.
How is this any different to dual gappers doing the same pinging who is doing what and where to do shit to other players.

In no way will adding Setons to 4v4 tmm increase toxicity. If anything we will love it. More people learn the map, some like it some dont. The ones that do like it will play it more, learn more, grow more then we have more setoners to fill our lobbies.
We will literally help you learn the map so we can have better games.

  1. The greatest casts and clips of FAF have come from 1v1 games and Setons games. Because thats where the good shit happens. Add it to 4v4 tmm and you will be giving more content to the casters, reviewers, streamers all of them.

  2. We I think are the only FAF community to have a guy over 60 years old playing and still better than the majority of FAF.
    What more evidence do you need of its greatness.
    God Bless Mizer.

I rest my case.

Ras Boi's save lives.

i am in favour of setons being in tmm

profile picture credits to petric

Me and Yudi have won sentons with:

  1. double t3 acu thru mid
  2. janus spam
  3. arty drops

and iirc these all took place on teams with 2 or more high level sentons players. Honestly if anything it’s WAY easier to figure out what the plan is on sentons because as soon as I see the names I know what will work and what won’t because trying to play for late game t3 navy fights against dudes with 1000 games of experience is just asking to die. I don’t get removing the map because it’s a high quality 4v4 map that has a huge amount of potential tactics.

If low rated players are babies about it then put it into the highest rated pool, having a high 4v4 tmm rating with zero experience on the penultimate 4v4 map is hilariously sad to me, and I don’t even play custom sentons.

The BO stuff is whack, it’s just dudes mad they can’t scale better than others. If you are worse in a stable game scenario then destabilize the game. I don’t get mad that Ditch is in 2v2 pool even though I am horrendous at properly scaling on Ditch, especially against the guys that farmed the map for 1v1. Find your advantage and maximize it or refine your toolkit, that’s what rating is.

Blackheart famously had a sentons bo that consisted of:

  • demand rock slot in lobby
  • build land fac (already a mistake according to generic high level rock bo btw)
  • inshallah

and he’s still gonna be better than everyone but like 8 or so dudes because he learned what tree reclaim and timed unit scaling is, which half the 20x20s in tmm already teach you.

Farm has shit macro on sentons. In generic teamgames he is one of the best at scaling but in sentons he is strictly average for his level. Does he sit there and wait until his inefficiency balloons to a 200 mass per second disadvantage? No, he plays with extreme massive cancer and disrupts the enemy team. He doesn’t sit there and let Nexus or Thau boom in peace while he’s doing what they do but worse and then cry about BO advantage in game chat while blaming his air and rock.

I believe that ladder, and by extension TMM, are supposed to provide the canonical 1v1-4v4 experiences for FAF. Consisting of maps that provide the 'correct' style of gameplay and put the type of skills a player is 'supposed to have' to the test. External factors, like the fact that some people play a map a lot in custom games, or some mapper wants to force people to test their map, should not be given any consideration. Setons is the ultimate canonical 4v4 map that tests pretty much all the 4v4 skills players should have, so it obviously should be a potential pick for map pools.

If you instead view matchmakers more casually, as a replacement for custom games, then Setons should still be in the pool. It would be pathetic and defeatist to exclude the maps people play in custom games from matchmakers. Then you are forcing players into custom games if they want to experience Setons, the most canonical FAF experience. The reason other popular maps, like gap and astro, should be excluded from matchmaking is that the gameplay they encourage is not 'proper' according to FAF culture. They are not excluded just because they are popular in custom games.

Setons is the iconic map for this game and adding to the TMM would be great exposure for newer players to encourage them to join dedicated lobbies.

Experienced Setoners could have a gentleman's agreement to a handicap, say by not using their hydro.

@Lord_Asmodeus / @FtXCommando I'd like to see you enjoy a game of about 1200 average rating where the air players are equally rated, yet one air player is a 'setoner' and manages to make an escorted strat before the other air player even has a single ASF.

The game is essentially over at that point. As beach / rock / mid player you didn't even participate yet. How is that fun for anyone involved but the air player with the strat?

edit: and how does that not result in a relatively toxic game, as Maudlin mentions?

In both your posts you use examples of high rated players (Tagada, Farms, BlackHeart, Yudi, and yourselves), or refer to the higher brackets (1800+). I'd be fine if the map is available in the highest bracket - those people are supposed to be good. But for any other bracket it would on average be a bad and likely frustrating experience.

A work of art is never finished, merely abandoned

@jip said in Matchmaker Team Sentons 4v4 TMM Inclusion:

@Lord_Asmodeus / @FtXCommando I'd like to see you enjoy a game of about 1200 average rating where the air players are equally rated, yet one air player is a 'setoner' and manages to make an escorted strat before the other air player even has a single ASF.

The game is essentially over at that point. As beach / rock / mid player you didn't even participate yet. How is that fun for anyone involved but the air player with the strat?

edit: and how does that not result in a relatively toxic game, as Maudlin mentions?

In both your posts you use examples of high rated players (Tagada, Farms, BlackHeart, Yudi, and yourselves), or refer to the higher brackets (1800+). I'd be fine if the map is available in the highest bracket - those people are supposed to be good. But for any other bracket it would on average be a bad and likely frustrating experience.

I would have zero faith in anybody 1200 rated to do anything and would work to win the game either myself via the things I mentioned or some timing attack with anybody else I trust on my team. Or I go t3 air myself, people have gone t3 air on front slot even.

The logic for how to win games reliably doesn’t stop extending downwards, the difference is that you’re more likely to have somebody to properly coordinate with at higher ratings.

I also don’t understand how this is a senton problem, air bos are pretty much identical regardless of map and the problem you’re describing would fit basically every other 20x20 replacement of sentons. Metir and no late game air bo? Immediate loss. Beetles and no late game air bo? Immediate loss. If air is bad, don’t make t3 mex and get shocked when game is over.

I also don’t understand how this is a senton problem, air bos are pretty much identical regardless of map and the problem you’re describing would fit basically every other 20x20 replacement of sentons. Metir and no late game air bo? Immediate loss. Beetles and no late game air bo? Immediate loss. If air is bad, don’t make t3 mex and get shocked when game is over.

If you can't see this issue, then I think there's not much more to say for me and we will simply not agree on the matter. Which is fine too.

A work of art is never finished, merely abandoned

@jip said in Matchmaker Team Sentons 4v4 TMM Inclusion:

@Lord_Asmodeus / @FtXCommando I'd like to see you enjoy a game of about 1200 average rating where the air players are equally rated, yet one air player is a 'setoner' and manages to make an escorted strat before the other air player even has a single ASF.

The game is essentially over at that point. As beach / rock / mid player you didn't even participate yet. How is that fun for anyone involved but the air player with the strat?

While this doesn't invalidate your point given the current state of things, I'd just like to point out that this is a balance issue and things don't have to be this way despite the game having existed in such a state of air balance ever since the beginning.

On another note, I think it's sad that perhaps the best map in the entire game is so hated due to it being so good that it has developed a dedicated community around it. It seems to me that most (if not all) of the prejudice against this map is based on people not wanting to play against sentoneers rather than intrinsic qualities of the map itself.