How come you don't play ladder?

@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)

I stopped playing because most of the people I know don't play ladder. I play for the social experience.

On top of that my hands shake and I can not really accurately click on a lot of stuff. I will still play some of the Co-Op stuff with people since it is not as demanding with the attention span or speed and you can pause the game if you really need to take a break for a minuet. Not really interested in the competitive side of the game.

This is for when I did play.
I did not really care for everything being a choke point map for custom games. Its like everything needs to be a tower defense with no thought for strategy of how the game will flow or flank maneuvers. That's not what makes RTS games fun for me.

I don't play ladder because I am too old. I did the ladder thing over 20 years ago with StarCraft I and WarCraft 3. For folks such as myself, no amount of begging, pleading, or luring will get us to jump in. To play ladder properly simply requires too much dedication with regards to time that we may no longer wish to spend. Sixteen hour days nonstop is gruelling.

Maps can be a demotivating factor, you get some good maps, you get maps that your f***ed on that doesn't suit your style, it always boils down to T1 land spam for 10 minutes straight until the first player gets a T2 gun upgrade or accidentally upgrades a mex and wins on eco... not many naval maps and the ones that are naval are usually the default maps, maybe add some maps that discourage T1 land spam early on and say focus on air or naval (COUGH COUGH profile stats of units built COUGH COUGH).

Maybe a map preference option before you enter the queue, but also have to consider that if someone has played a map before multiple times and has a set build order then it can ruin the fun of other players.

Someone asked me in Discord why I don’t play ladder as the HintHunter. So to be fair to everyone, I’ll explain my reasons for not wanting to play it.

• I don't want anyone knowing how much or how little I am playing.
  -People like to dig into other people's profiles and I am not a fan of that. I like to play when I feel like it without someone's judgment.

• I don't like knowing who I am playing against or how much better he is or how much worse (i.e., rating).
  -Rating, in my opinion, is for my own self-improvement. I gain nothing by knowing who I am playing against. It just makes me nervous and it forces me to play into or against his habits if I have played against him before or not.

• Stress.
  -All RTS games are stressful because they require quick decision-making, multitasking and constant attention. SupCom FAF is no different. I want to be able to play for fun without a single care in the world. However, as soon as I lose to a worse player (a player who has a lower rating than mine), it just feels demotivating because it feels like I should have an easy time winning that.

• Time versus skill versus talent.
  -I lack time more often than not to play the game consistently. I always have extended pauses of not playing and then when I do come back, I am just not performing as well as I hope or as well as I was capable before.
  -Better players can shake off rust in no time. I cannot.
  -"Talented" players can pick up the game and do pretty well in 30~40 games. For instance, some players can reach 1600+ rating after only a few months of playing. I cannot.

So in short, these are my main reasons for not playing ladder…
-Not enough time to become good at the game via playing
-Seeing enemy rating/name discourages me from playing
-Games are increasingly more stressful if losing versus lower rated player thinking i should be playing better; not having such info would be better for me

I am liking the idea more and more of having anonymous ladder, like you don't know who you are playing and they don't know who they are playing. Takes away me knowing I "should be" winning/losing against opponent, just allows me to focus on the game.

@ArkAngel_

I am liking the idea more and more of having anonymous ladder, like you don't know who you are playing and they don't know who they are playing. Takes away me knowing I "should be" winning/losing against opponent, just allows me to focus on the game.

I put forward a proposal for it, but it got turned down. They have something different in plan, but it's not nearly as effective. It's just a separate 1v1 unranked queue with maybe, or maybe not, map-generated only maps. These changes are not sufficient or impactful enough for me to start playing.

Also, I was not invited in any of the talks about it, and that alone made me a bit salty because I put forth a lot of effort and evidence on how and why it would be beneficial. They agreed to decline it behind closed doors, and it was frustrating to deal with because I had no say in it whatsoever to defend my case or propose compromises where they could be made.

i dont play 1 vs 1 ladder because the only person i can blame for losing is me and thats scary

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

Also, I was not invited in any of the talks about it, and that alone made me a bit salty because I put forth a lot of effort and evidence on how and why it would be beneficial. They agreed to decline it behind closed doors, and it was frustrating to deal with because I had no say in it whatsoever to defend my case or propose compromises where they could be made.

This isn't really a fair assessment imo. You talked with multiple matchmaker team members about this individually, and it was suggested that you could make a thread in the FAF Discord and discuss with the whole team there. You chose not to, which is fine, but it's not like the team wasn't willing to discuss with you.

Due to low player count every time I get a game I'm matched with someone I have no chance against and there isn't enough time for me to ever start to learn/improve so I just end up getting wiped out feeling like I was watching rather then playing.

I've already made a post and I wanted to come back and add one more point. A big reason I don't play as much ladder is because the queue is totally dead at some times of the day for me. Like there is only an 8 hour range where I can find games consistently at my rating level, and this is during the middle of the day for me, where it is really difficult for me to find time to play.

we need a 3v3 ranked
i wish a no rush ranked too

i just start playing ranked no too crazy about maps

to many ranks we need more people for the program to start the game.

this are only few thing to improve the game experience

specialy for players with less experince a no rush rank will be more fun for them

20 min no rush with a good map selection

@assassin 20 minutes is too much time to rush to T3... maybe a 10 minute rush timer would work

Map pool is too big, should be 5-7.

I agree with the inclusion of new maps in the pool, but I think shrinking the size of the pool would go a long way for alot of players, as it would give people the chance to attain some semblence of how to approach these newer maps, apposed to the current state of being perpetually thrown into a map you might play 1-10 times in a month, then the pool changes back to another host of new maps you've never seen. My own personal predicament is that I dont't have lots of time to be playing, working full time, hobbies, social and family stuff, the usual rigmarole, so when I do sit down to play, I am left feeling hollow with what I am faced with in terms of map gen, maps I have never seen and a huge selection of maps that I can be potentially put into when I click ladder, I drastically improved under smaller map pools because I actually played maps enough to make up a semi coherent build and find out what works for me on the maps in the pool. If this is the view of a player who has played for over ten years, I think newer players will feel even more lost. Repetition in this game I think will help alot of 1v1 players find their feet, I hope this resonates with some other players.

I do play ladder, but I must say that 1 vs 1, the same 4-5 maps ALL the time gets old really fast.

Having random maps / map gen would really spice things up.