How come you don't play ladder?

@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.

@magge It looks like he's had 30 ladder games, with the 4 highest rated opponents having ladder ratings of 994 (roger), 678 (newcomer), 580 (TTTTTTT) and 509 (coca).

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

Ladder always puts me against 1500-2500 players.

@hakkapeliitta Why say that?

The ratings of your opponents that I saw in the 1v1 ladder data from the most recent to the oldest had ladder ratings of: 36, 70, 123, 509, -1, 110, 264, 678, 204, 370, 580, 138, 281, 301, 124, 301, 348, 287, 261, -153, 144, 201, -156, -110, 994, 170, -65

1. The rank being visible to myself puts pressure on me to keep it. Thus I don't boot up ladder for a quick casual game.
2. Maps that are very build order dependent aren't enjoyable.
3. Not enough map-gen. Although map-gen these days is a bit same-same with what it outputs. Earlier iterations of map gen gave more diversity.
4. Too many rude individuals. Had to make my own mod to disable chat and shared it with friends before a similar mod became available in the vault. Having chat disabled by default in 1v1's should be implemented.
5. Changing the name might take a lot of the mental stress away and make it seem less competitive. Perhaps this is why some games have "ranked" and "unranked". All that's different is what's displayed and what they are called. Perception of what you are playing makes a big difference.

@arran I suggest the Scoreboard-mod from 4z0t then. You can enable "Show league instead of rating" which might help a bit

@hinthunter

• What made you stop playing ladder?
  I have not stopped playing ladder.

• Have you tried a ladder game? If so, what has the experience been to date?
  I just recently started ladder. It has been very good. My global rank has improved and balanced out as a result.

• How much often did you play it before?
  I did not know it existed until a few months ago. Now, I play it more than customs.

• What would motivate you to play ladder once more or try it out.
  Promote ladder more in case people don't know about it. (weirdos like me exist for some reason)

• What you find uninviting about it since you have not tried it?
  The only reason I had not tried it was because I didn't even know it was an option.

I know I'm late to the party but since I'm mainly a ladder player I thought it would be good to give my opinions on this.
I'm about 1700 ladder 1600 global.

As far as BOs go, I strongly agree with @ThomasHiatt and @FtXCommando that BOs aren't the problem in ladder, and are mainly used as an excuse. I've never made a BO for ladder and most other players, even higher level than me, aren't sweating over them except for tournaments. We just know when to build a few more pgens when there's reclaim, ect. and how the maps play out.

Some things that keep me from playing ladder more are:
The obvious 1 on 1 aspect, I only have myself to blame. (Not Fixable)

The extreme mental taxation of managing everything after a tiring day. (Not Fixable)

Biggest Issue I always get the same player when searching multiple games in a row, I assume this is just because they are the only one in my range searching. Can be very discouraging when losing 5+ games in a row because they are around 200-300 points higher and I usually quit playing after 1-3 losses in a row to clearly better players. (Maybe fixable?)

The lack of players on queue and extreme wait times, I can’t see if they are in my rating range (Somewhat Fixable) (Implement Thomas Hiatt’s Python Client Suggestion)