How come you don't play ladder?

(i am roughly 400 in 1v1, 850 in 4v4. also sorry for the novel. i have thoughts on this being on the lower end and very interested in growing.)

the map pools, i really like that low ratings have their map pools restricted to prevent overwhelming them but at the same time i think some of the maps put into the lower ratings are straight up "you learn X or lose your rating instantly". which is a practical necessity and i really do appreciate that, but having to play navy heavy/cut up maps at this rating in 1v1 fucking sucks ass. crossfire canal, point of reach, eye of the storm, and seraphim glaciers are all maps that dissuade me from queueing up for 1v1. 4v4 doesnt have this issue as much as i can rely on others for help if need be.

300 customs vs 354 ladder. i strongly prefer matchmaking over customs due to the rampant astrogap. however my experience on 1v1 ladder is mixed. sometimes its a glhf; ggs, and go next. sometimes its silence and gameplay. but sometimes its screaming cyrllic.

at first i played more customs while learning the game, but i've reached a point where if its not a mapgen or standard-ish map, im either incredibly bored or instantly convinced im dead weight and will lose the game. since growing a hatred for astrogap and its fanatics, i've gravitated towards MM heavily. the longer i stay around, the more i stick to MM.

a steadier progression for lower ratings to the real various stuff like 20/15km, navy heavy maps. i know it sounds scrubby as fuck but when i open the map pool and see crossfire canal, theres a real heavy chance i just wait till the next pool. or even a map veto. a map veto would probably make me feel a shit ton better about queueing in. knowing theres a chance that it'd roll a map i just do not want to play and can not begin to give it my all being rerolled would keep me hanging in there, even if it rolls the maps i dont want to play, multiple times.

my ultimate problems with ladder is the map pool stuff. there are maps i have negative fun playing and would genuinely rather crtl+k as soon as i drop into them. take the points, i'd rather keep my time and sanity. maybe spend that time in a lobby waiting 45 minutes for 2 people to join and instantly leave. at first i thought how BOs worked in this game was really cool. how it was so different map to map. having crawled my way through the game a bit, i can safely say that i actually really dislike this. its variable to a degree i cant properly wrap my head around. which compounds with the map pools feeling like the actual gate keeper.

i want to add that i fully understand a majority of what i said is skill issue, but they're skill issues that i have a hard to justifying attempts at too seriously. ideally, i would enjoy 1v1 up to the point where things start to get really slow/schedule-y. then at that point it'd be customs or smurf, one of which is banable. (thankfully i'll never be good enough to get to that point)

What made you stop playing ladder
There is no growth over 2400, everything is dead here, and returning to the previous ratings in order to spend more time returning those times where the rating was the main motivator is pointless for me, it separates me, only 1-2 games from the status of top 1 in ladder rating, and this is not particularly interesting. Also in the days of FTH, we used to have monthly leagues with a prize pool, now we don't, and wasting time training your opponents for LOTS is a stupid decision. It is much more logical to reduce the time due to custom 1v1, between people who are already pillars.
And also Last time I searched ladder "i feel like it was against tex" when I searched around 14 hours from my day to 5 of night to get sniped and Tex out, so I dont want to back this disgusting state.
Have you tried a ladder game? If so, what has the experience been to date?
No. I am 1200.
How much often did you play it before?
Around ~5-10 hours per day.
What would motivate you to play ladder once more or try it out.
Idk about month leagues with a money, there still a issue, with a training somebody or 1800+ is 1.8k guy having many games, at the time of 2.4 maybe get at least 1 game per day.
Here the trend of personal gain persists. If I play, my opponent will become stronger, and it is not profitable for me. Teaching <1800 people something is sensible as they still have a lot to improve. And playing with over 2,200 people is like sticking a stick in a bicycle wheel. From an ethical perspective, people over 2.2k are motivated by monetary rewards. 2k-2.2 Improving skills for tournaments and honing skills. 1k-2k is just afk gameplay between people who don't understand why they even play it.
Also, people who play ladder are prone to self-harm, suicide, and so on. Few people like to be kicked, hit and broken in every game over and over again, which makes you stronger in some way. It's easier to go play a gap, people tend to drink beer after work and go to crush the forest on the gap, than to go on a ladder and strain 1/10 of their possible intelligence, attributing everything to the fact that: - OH THERE IS ONLY SPAM. - He has so many t1 units that it's not even fun to play. - BO is too strong and other things.
You won't see any complicated builds on the ladder, they break. Here it's more about the ability to use units / efficiency / balance and a certain template where you play from reclaim, mexs, and control over territories with a profit.
Do you want to increase your online ladder? Encourage player growth. Do you want to see a quality TMM? Fix team balance. Want to see - work on it, it's an empty message cloud at 104, does nothing. Idea-Work-Success? Failure, such is the cycle. And there is nothing more to discuss here. Hard modes should have a system of growth and rewards. Easy modes, low quality.
What you find uninviting about it since you have not tried it?
I tryed, read up blob.

@tomma for example some ppl are always unprecise and don't immediately notice that they should open a second air factory and transporter immediately to get the mass somewhere.

also, you are 1800 so you know how to counter, recover and most importantly scout your opponent and know what they are doing / .. for ppl around 1k .. they lose immediately if the other guy rushes the gun in under 5 minutes. or they see ppl doing things that don't make any sense unless its a premade plan

I don't want to play ladder

@blast_chilled said in How come you don't play ladder?:

I don't want to play ladder

Could you share what inspired you to make that statement?

@hinthunter This post inspired me

I did play some ladder years back, then went away from the game entirely. Returning now has been painful, mostly because I just can not play at the level I played back then. Actually, I think there has been some rating deflation while I was away. I see players now doing stuff that was reserved for quite a bit higher rated players back then.

Even after trying to shake off the rust for a while, I am still far from my previous level. In custom games, with some many other players involved, my rating does not get easily adjusted, and in many cases people will yell at me for underperforming. In 1v1, which the question was about, I always feel it is hopeless. Judging by how many points I am losing per one ladder game, I will have to try, and lose, a truly depressing amount of games for the system to adapt.

Regarding map size: I am surprised to read that many of you hate the 5km maps. When I was better, I had no problem with them. They were like fast food: pleasurable and quickly consumed. I was somewhat better on larger maps though.

Now, 5km maps are my best chance. I will cap the core mexes, build a couple of factories, set rally points and send the commander straight through the middle. In a few minutes someone is going to explode. By reducing the game to this simplified situation, the effect of the skill gap is minimized. I admit that if I get a larger map, I will be tempted to just press alt+f4.

Reading more of the replies, I remembered one thing that I would like to add:
Get rid the big rocks and wrecks that you should be manually reclaiming. What they do is to make the game more BO dependent.

ur a npc if you don't ctrl k in the first 3min because of e stall or whatever depression and don't forget the new "pro's" who only care about rating and just go for cheesy snipes

@hinthunter I really. deeply. completely hate losing. I hate it 10X as much as I like winning...... so 9 wins and one loss would still feel bad

Better to just smash AI and play with friends to get enjoyment after a week of work.

1. I've run out of a 100-game challenge
3. Not enough, I just somehow decided to play at least 100 games
4. Play 51-100 games in a month and get some funny avatar, regardless of wins /losses, just for playing 51-100 games
5. playing 1 on 1 does not allow you to enjoy the whole range of units that are in the game, this is a competitive mode, "stub"

I mainly try and play the matchmaking systems of 1v1 2v2 and 4v4, since most of the custom games are either locked to super high ratings, or are on terrible maps.

But they queue system is janky and confusing. It takes forever to get a match sometimes, and often the queue will say there's 10 people in there, but when the timer hits zero it'll still say 10 people in the queue and it'll do that 10 times without getting you a match.

I'd much rather actually play a horrifically unbalanced match than sit on the screen for 3 hours because the system is being too anal about skill ratings.

especially since the skill rating system isn't very good anyway and I tend to get steamrolled in "balanced" matches anyway.

• Everytime I look at ladder there are very few people queued and not many people playing

• I played 7 games two year ago when I first started playing FAF and stopped as I felt I needed to get beter before staring again

• The grey +/- 1500 is a lot and was not going downfast enough so I felt I would never got a white, accurate, rating

What made you stop playing ladder

Too much work, got to 1.6k and it feels like I either need to know the BOs or I'm going to get crushed by better players. Too much of a time investment to get better and also not finding players quickly.

Have you tried a ladder game? If so, what has the experience been to date?

Amazing, best FAF game mode. Feels like its the only place where T3 and experimentals are epic strong units and not just your day to day. Love how T1 and T2 have such a huge role and aren't trash after minute 10.

Also love the fact that agression is rewarded and stalling is punished. I absolutely hate with my whole being a match where nothing is happening because attacking is going to put you at a disadvantage.

How much often did you play it before?

everyday 3-6 matches

What would motivate you to play ladder once more or try it out.

mapgen only queue maybe, feel like 1v1 mapgen would be really good than our current state.

What you find uninviting about it since you have not tried it?
Lack of knowing who's playing, I see 5 people in queue, is it 5 800? is there a 1400 in there? Waiting multiple resets is pretty annoying not knowing if Im the odd one or what.

well i dont play ladder because the game maps are trash.. limited mexes... to time consuming. Yall Put noobs against pros.. Custom games have all the best maps to play on which gives you a good amount of mexes for each player . the matchmaking maps be SMall with 8 players for 4 v 4 . and this rating thing like( 700-1000), doesnt give you any bonus to being better. i went from 500-100- -200. all because of didnt understand the build orders lol. (Still don't understand.) But the most reason why is because I don't get excitement from it. Theres no real benefit of playing ladder or "custom games". you win a match go to the next battle. I think ya'll should do a battle pass . or something that would excite the player if he wins a match. SC is Dull Really . i love ScFa . Faf but i will delete this game if i can not enjoy the Thrill of battle.

I still think ladder would be much much better if you were given 3 maps and each person veto'd 1 and go. At least at relatively low levels. It's tough to queue it and never really have any idea what sort of map I'm signing up for, 20x20, 5x5, whatever, and have no control over it. Also not knowing if it will be a map I've never seen before, a map I've played a lot, etc.

I would love to play 2 maps for a month straight, will never be bored 4head

I hate playing ladder since I'm not that good player anyways. Ladder always puts me against 1500-2500 players. Never the same rated as I am. I have played about 35 ladder games, but stopped because there are always "pros" against me.

Yeah, git gut etc.

@hakkapeliitta Mind sharing the replay-IDs of those games? It's quite uncommon that the system puts you against ppl which are by far out your rating range. Yes, the first 10 games are a mess. But after that it stabilises quite fast.

@Hakkapeliitta That is really a concerning and alarming statement, which indicates that something with the whole ladder system is not functioning as intended. Which should be investigated.

Well, unless I checked the wrong player history - which I highly doubt -, your ladder games were back in 2018 (3 games) and 2017 (14 games) against enemies from ~500 to ~ -200 rating players. While you were around ~250.

I know some people are exaggerating their opinions, but can we stay at least at the ground, please.