What would make ladder less stressful, intense, or scary?

I think that for lower rated players who dont want to get crushed 10 times in a row till their MMR settles, some AI opponents might be an easy, friendly way into ladder 1v1. Could bake them into initial soft MMR placement the same way other multiplayer games do with ranked matchmaking or something.

There aren't many sub 500 rated players queueing so from their perspective they get nothing for 30 mins in queue and then match vs a 1000 rated player and get crushed which doesn't seem like a fun experience.

I'll let the wrinkly brained people decide on implementation viability and whether 'padding' ladder at a low MMR with some AIs is the direction FAF might want to take to increase low rated ladder activity.

@melanol said in What would make ladder less stressful, intense, or scary?:

There is a thing in Starcraft Brood War when players hide their identity so that the opponent does not know what to expect. I wouldn't mind having it in FAF, but mostly to get less stress, as anonymity in fights means there will be no consequences no matter what happens in the game.

Ladder should definitely be anonymous.

@thomashiatt said in What would make ladder less stressful, intense, or scary?:

Maybe it would be okay to allow for 1 practice ladder game a day where you don't lose rating.

I like this idea more the more I think about it. Anyone afraid of the ladder button can get 1 free game a day to get used to pressing it and get used to playing ladder. It would work for high rated players that have been inactive as well. They can play some free warm-up games that contribute to overall ladder activity. It could also encourage more interesting and risky strategies in the risk-free game for the normal active players. If you can get people into the habit of playing 1 ladder a game a day they are likely to continue and become active ladder players. Some other type of incentive to play 1 or more games per day/week would also help to build this habit.

Of course the big downside is that it breaks the integrity of the rating system, but it is not really any worse than people playing unranked custom 1v1 games, which is the current situation for many high rated players. The integrity of the system is also irrelevant if ladder is dead, which it pretty much is currently.

@thomashiatt said in What would make ladder less stressful, intense, or scary?:

Ladder should definitely be anonymous.

If so, to what extent?

Another pointless thread. I went to a forum for moms where they share how their tomboy pooped. Or a game? Power is open to people, there is no desire to receive it? - Go gap, tmm, and spoil people's games with your clumsiness in actions. If you want to develop - play. Exactly the same as in that topic, we need a reward system. Where people would get even in the launcher some kind of golden statuses or something. How the system is made with grandmaster and so on. too ordinary and not catchy, because no one sees it. Everyone enters the lobby equally, and your achieved rating by the system is not displayed to people, but only prevents satisfaction in games where weak 2k players are shoved at you, in relation to 1600 giga-children in the enemy.

The only option that helped me develop even before FAF was settons with x2 resources, where you could understand the importance of technology, they gave you resources. And here you just can't afford it. Add people the ability to play unrated ladder - story 4-4 no fullsher. Add 10000 t1 to engineer? - I'm done, I saw the rest of the messages.

If you want to encourage - motivate with a reward system (again, this is not just money, we are talking about the system as a whole). People love to avoid the difficulties of nature and go the easy way, having the desire - they achieve success, without having - they remain a gray mass of those who spend the resources of the planet.

Personally, in my case, I have a temperament everywhere to be the first, always be the first and achieve something. I didn't run into issues with not wanting to play ladder. But at the moment I have reached the limit of the system in this department, next comes the championship in tournaments, and this is just honing the weak points. And if we talk about rivalry with Tagada Nexus Yudi, it's the nerdiness of builds and the total abuse of meta or counter-meta.

map gen maps always

I like ladder. Any 1v1 is going to be stressful since you can't work with somebody else. Often times, both players are stressed out and you can get some good sportsmanship as a result.

(Says the 300-level casual 1v1 ladder player)

not an issue with ladder but an issue with the players. i was scared of ladder so i started playing it and now im not scared anymore

@derpfaf said in What would make ladder less stressful, intense, or scary?:

I think that for lower rated players who dont want to get crushed 10 times in a row till their MMR settles, some AI opponents might be an easy, friendly way into ladder 1v1.

Please show me evidence of these people getting crushed 10 times in a row. People match with around 500 rated players in the beginning and last I checked the win rate for the first ever ladder game of players was a bit under 50%

When I started playing ladder....at the very beginning...

I got crushed, but not 10 times in a row. Lots of both players flailing. Yes, I lost a lot, but I can't say it was super expert players on the other end, and winning was within reach. Usually

1. I don't mind @ThomasHiatt idea of 1 unranked game a day. I don't really get the mindset, because I don't value my rating as much as I used to, but it might help some people play more ladder.

2. I also don't think there is much to do other than highlight good ladder players and give them some non-monetary reward that makes them look important to the community. The nature of ladder makes people not want to play it, and since not many people play it, it is hard to get games and less people play it because it is hard to get games.

3. Although it is kind of hard to understand what Espiranto says due to the language gap, I agree with some of what he says. Most people don't want to get better, not at the cost of losing and having to self-improve. No way to change that.

Comparing 1v1 to 4v4, the main difference is for me that I have less things I HAVE to do in a set amount of time to be somewhat competitive in a team game. The stress of 1v1 is simply due to having to do too much.
It becomes (partially) about being the best at doing the most, instead of being the best at the core aspects of a strategy game - I have to compromise/prioritize so much that I just get annoyed that I know what I should do, but cannot. Of course, I have very low APM, so I might be more affected than most, but I think it is still valid as a principle - less things that require fast and continuous clicking means less stress:

-Maps with no mex-clumping: Much more to react to and having to constantly micro units, meaning more stress to do that while also scaling
-Fully open/large maps: Same reason as above
-Navy, land + air all at once is stressful (more so for lower ratings because they generally are lacking the right hotkeys to deal with it)
-a COM is much more valuable in a 1v1 and yet, you basically cannot play without risking it (and micro-ing it) causing more stress and intensity (because of the fear of snipes or mis-micro). I dont really love this suggestion myself, but it might be a solution to make the com do less damage but have much more health in 1v1's. Gives more time to react, without it becoming OP.
-Small, manual reclaim chains: Huge APM drain from the very beginning so that when other things take more micro later, one is already getting somewhat fatigued

@penguin_
I would love a mapgen only ladder queue. It would certainly remove the idea from newer players that they need map specific B.Os to play, and people wouldn't be focused on trying to rote learn maps off by heart, and start to actually learn the game itself instead!

you do not need map specific build orders, you just need to get better at improvising them. nobody in the lower rankings has a good build order, otherwise they wouldn't be lower ranking. nobody in the higher rankings has a good build order either, they all just got good at improvising them

only map that i can think of that actually has a commonly used build order across the playerbase is loki

I would like to propose a potential solution, albeit not necessarily the most optimal one.

In order to better accommodate players with sub-1k ratings, it may be worth considering the implementation of a restriction whereby they are only able to access land maps of dimensions 10X10 km that are randomly generated without pre-existing mass.

Furthermore, I suggest that we remove maps featuring pre-existing reclaim from the map pool for all ratings. Doing so has the potential to simplify the gameplay experience by reducing the complexity, meta-knowledge, and initial game pace.

@waffelznoob I do agree 100%, however newbies are in general terrible at improvising build orders, and thus gravitate towards rote learning instead in order to compensate. By removing their ability to rote learn, this lowers stress and will make them actually start improvising, because they know the other player has to do the same and therefore feel that the game is 'fair' (which makes them more likely to queue ladder). Perception shapes reality in this case and all that.

P.S And yes trees on Loki are fun to get out early bombers when you're lower ranked

Build orders are part of the game. I realy like it to see a map were I have a good build order. Also build orders are counterable. If I know what my opponent is doing then I can try to thwart his plans.

I'm not playing 1vs1 anymore as I simply don't like the maps. I would prefer 5x5 km land maps. The other maps are stressfull as you have to trop islands or you have a disadvantage against hover factions.

@mach said in What would make ladder less stressful, intense, or scary?:

imo only mapgen ladder would be close to "fixing" it because it removes the map knowledge advantage, but it will always be "scarier" than other modes because 1v1 of any kind is hard

This would make me stop playing 100% because after awhile you realize Map Gen is not all that random and it becomes business as usual.

Not to mention a lot of the biomes are really awful to look at…

@waffelznoob said in What would make ladder less stressful, intense, or scary?:

you do not need map specific build orders, you just need to get better at improvising them. nobody in the lower rankings has a good build order, otherwise they wouldn't be lower ranking. nobody in the higher rankings has a good build order either, they all just got good at improvising them

only map that i can think of that actually has a commonly used build order across the playerbase is loki

Crossfire canal, point of reach, the ditch (you be damned if you don’t know how to manage that unique amount of reclaim), tag craftious, ronoake, sera glaciers, theta passage, open palms, and tons more have unique openings.

You just don’t feel it anymore as you’re so used to it…

Also this thread title is leading people to believe something that is not true: reason Ladder is low in play at a decent level is because everyone is tired of it, and 4v4 tmm is the new, fun, social thing.

@cetea then do something that counters their build order. any disruption in their build order will force them to return back to their true level of gameplay. even something as crazy as first bomber can completely crush all the preparation they did

@Morax i dont have a bo for crossfire canal, its always improvised and always shit
i treat PoR, roanoke and sera glaciers as basic intie/trans rush BOs, ditch is the same as any other insane high reclaim map (which mapgen can be too), theta is unique i agree, and my tag/open palms build orders dont extend beyond land fac (pgen) 4 mex hydro

All this and im still able to sit somewhat comfortably around the 2k rating range. That is proof enough that lack of build order knowledge is not a valid excuse. Work on your general gameplay skills and you'll be able to work around it. Starting with a disadvantage never means an immediate loss even at the top tier of ladder play, let alone in a lower rated game