How exactly do we expect low rated players to play the game?

cool, thanks for that take. Definitely improves the quality of this thread and shows how nice and non-toxic the FAF-community is.

The game is already a pain in the ass to try and play with high ranks, you couldn't pay me to try hosting all welcome. It'd be 3 hours of trying to just get a damn game started.

@sladow-noob Your sarcasm is similarly appreciated.

@funkoff If someone asks how low ranks should play the game since it's difficult with the timezone and you go like "lol look at those <1000 noobs! so funny!", what do you expect how ppl will react? Only reason you don't get more replies is because the downvote button exists as you might have noticed. For real, think twice before making those comments because neither are they happy to read such a thing nor does it help solving the problem.

And I'm not even trying to be toxic, iirc you're even on my friendlist on FAF; However those type of comments are just unnecessary and shouldn't just be ignored since it'll deliver the image of "ah nice, ppl laugh about low ranks and noone says anything against it"

@snoog

How does the ranking of a player affect how long it takes to get a game started?

@sladow-noob said in How exactly do we expect low rated players to play the game?:

If someone asks how low ranks should play the game since it's difficult with the timezone and

Can you ellaborate on why these players can't use the matchmaker functionality?
From my experience it's a really good way to get games, and it honestly seems to be MORE populated at the lower levels than it is at higher ratings.

(This isn't meant to be a hypothetical, nor a 'gotcha' question btw... I myself think of at least 2 reasons why new players might not use that option, I just wanted to be sure everyone was on the same page before I started spitting out ideas.)

@maudlin27 said in How exactly do we expect low rated players to play the game?:

5 options from that screenshot:
1 - Join the All welcome setons game (although given my own experience joining a setons game when I first started custom games after gaining a base level of skill at 1v1 it's not something I would recommend)
2 - Host their own all welcome game
3 - Join matchmaker queues
4 - Play the campaign or a custom game against the AI (intended as a temporary solution if there arent any players in matchmaker and they just want to play some FAF, and they may find other players joining them if they host a lobby)
5 - Post on FAF discord to see if someone will play them in a 1v1 custom game

Speaking only for myself as I used to host all welcome lobbies when I'd play custom games (which wasn't that often admittedly), I've switched to the team matchmaker which is a sort of all welcome lobby

1 - The setons game never started iirc.
2 - Sure, they're going to be waiting a long time and probably be discouraged if that's how their experience is day after day.
3 - Matchmaker, as I said before, is totally dead in US TZ.
4 and 5 are viable, although playing against AI isn't really the same thing and won't help their rating either.

@jip said in How exactly do we expect low rated players to play the game?:

Alternative reality

The magic of not living in America and/or not working a day job I guess.

@redx Adjust that sleeping cycle!
Or what, you're gonna say you have a life?!

@sylph_ said in How exactly do we expect low rated players to play the game?:

@sladow-noob said in How exactly do we expect low rated players to play the game?:

If someone asks how low ranks should play the game since it's difficult with the timezone and

Can you ellaborate on why these players can't use the matchmaker functionality?
From my experience it's a really good way to get games, and it honestly seems to be MORE populated at the lower levels than it is at higher ratings.

(This isn't meant to be a hypothetical, nor a 'gotcha' question btw... I myself think of at least 2 reasons why new players might not use that option, I just wanted to be sure everyone was on the same page before I started spitting out ideas.)

Have you ever looked at how many people are in the matchmaking queue during US evenings? Hint: It's 0. You might, MIGHT be able to get a 1v1 game, if you don't mind getting absolutely shitstomped by somebody who has 2k games of only 1v1.

@sylph_ said in How exactly do we expect low rated players to play the game?:

@redx Adjust that sleeping cycle!
Or what, you're gonna say you have a life?!

Trust me, if I could play FAF during the day I would. I don't think my boss would appreciate it though.

Should be said you are talking about peak time in terms of the west coast, 3 hours before you posted there were plenty of games because that was peak time for east coast. When you posted, most of east coast is done playing. You're gravitating into Oceania peak time, not US peak time at that timezone.

@ftxcommando said in How exactly do we expect low rated players to play the game?:

Should be said you are talking about peak time in terms of the west coast, 3 hours before you posted there were plenty of games because that was peak time for east coast. When you posted, most of east coast is done playing. You're gravitating into Oceania peak time, not US peak time at that timezone.

Then I guess the question is, why do FAF gamers go to bed so early? In any other game, 9PM central on a Friday is when it starts getting busy.

Not really going to bed so early so much as PC games in general being less popular in NA and RTS on top of that being less popular in NA. West Coast gets none of the overflow from Europe staying up late that East Coast gets, so US prime time is centered more on East Coast 4-6pm aka your 1pm.

@redx I totally appreciate the problem.
I myself adjust my waking hours when I want to play, but appreciate that it's a bad solution.

FWIW, I often start queueing when I see 'zero' players currently in queue. I have a feeling that people don't want to queue unless they see another player already waiting!

I wish I had better advice than just clicking that 'Play forged alliance forever' button. I know how poor that advice is, considering that you're likely already doing it (and nobody else is).
But I give that advice having seen it work even when I'm playing on american times.

@redx said in How exactly do we expect low rated players to play the game?:

why do FAF gamers go to bed so early? In any other game, 9PM central on a Friday is when it starts getting busy.

This might well be a 'blizzard entertainment' thing, given the genre and the popularity of the titles.

@sylph_ said in How exactly do we expect low rated players to play the game?:

FWIW, I often start queueing when I see 'zero' players currently in queue. I have a feeling that people don't want to queue unless they see another player already waiting!

That's why I think having an option to be matched vs an AI in 1v1 (say M27) or having your game filled up with 1-2 AIs in teamgames (M28) and have those games still rated (to a certain degree) ofc would be a nice Idea to get people to queue up even when the queues are rather empty.

I think having this as an option on the queue page would be great, so people that don't want any AI in their games can turn it off and it should only grant to rating to a certain limit, so you can't "farm" the AI (M27/28 is often reffered to as roughly 700 rated so around that level would be the limit).
So having the guarantee that after <5 Minutes you will play a game be it a real player or an ai (while always getting a chance to push your rating) will get more people to actually queue up.

@nex said in How exactly do we expect low rated players to play the game?:

I think having this as an option on the queue page would be great, so people that don't want any AI in their games can turn it off

But still get AI in their games?! Ewwww

This is all feeling a lot like 'players are scared of fighting humans'.

I honestly don't know how much worse it is for the US, but it's hard to imagine that you HAVE to fight AIs because there are no humans (wanting to play) online.

It feels more like this 'I'm not ready for ranked yet, I need to do 28 months more practice vs AI before I'm ready' stuff is the culprit.
(I say stuff - honestly, folks, I understand. I've been gaming online for decades, I get it. The cure, and it's a beautiful, comprehensive, joyful, hand-across-the-ocean, happy cure - is just losing some games vs people, ditching the fear, and joining the community! The more we lose, the easier games get!)

I'm in no way sure, but it really sounds like making people fight AI when they're finally queueing to fight humans is counter productive. You might be right though, maybe forcing that line to be blurred is the answer. If THAT is what it really takes to make these people start playing vs humans, then maybe some trickery is in order!

I personally wish I could help overcome the whole mindset that prompts people to think 'I'm not 'ready' to fight humans, but I want an AI that doesn't cheat, but that performs on a human expert level to 'practice' against.
Like, really, WHAT is the problem with fighting people similar to themselves?
I don't know whether it's people convinced that they are trash, or whether it's people obsessed with ONLY winning ~100% of games against humans!
Either way, it really feels like the 'problem' comes down to convincing people that playing against people is fun, rather than pandering to these weird mental blocks.

I say that, I don't fully understand all the nuances at play. I only know 'ladder anxiety', and what a HUGE proportion of gamers that it prevents from joining in and having fun with the rest of us.
This game seems like one of the very worst for 'ladder anxiety' ruining the experience of so many, and I wonder whether it's because FaF doesn't create a load of game modes (like the 'fake' unranked ladders that loads of other games implement!)

All that being said, I'm only offering my feelings. I could be massively wrong. I just really want people to play games - there are SO many of us that are kinda trash at the game, and so many great games in store if we just played one another instead of fighting the AI!

@sylph_ said in How exactly do we expect low rated players to play the game?:

@sladow-noob said in How exactly do we expect low rated players to play the game?:

If someone asks how low ranks should play the game since it's difficult with the timezone and

Can you ellaborate on why these players can't use the matchmaker functionality?
From my experience it's a really good way to get games, and it honestly seems to be MORE populated at the lower levels than it is at higher ratings.

(This isn't meant to be a hypothetical, nor a 'gotcha' question btw... I myself think of at least 2 reasons why new players might not use that option, I just wanted to be sure everyone was on the same page before I started spitting out ideas.)

Cuz it was mentioned that the Matchmaker is dead around their time in a previous post

@sylph_ said in How exactly do we expect low rated players to play the game?:

I'm in no way sure, but it really sounds like making people fight AI when they're finally queueing to fight humans is counter productive

What do you mean?
That's why I said it should be an option you can turn off, so that you never will face an AI if you don't want that to happen.

@sylph_ said in How exactly do we expect low rated players to play the game?:

Either way, it really feels like the 'problem' comes down to convincing people that playing against people is fun, rather than pandering to these weird mental blocks.

You can't really do much to get people that don't want to play against humans to do so and this option isn't aimed at doing that.
It's aimed at people that want to play vs humans, but want to play first and foremost. Currently they are forced to either start a custom game vs AI or wait for an undefined amount of time in queue or lobby hoping they get a game.

Like people have these options

@maudlin27 said in How exactly do we expect low rated players to play the game?:

1 - Join the All welcome setons game (although given my own experience joining a setons game when I first started custom games after gaining a base level of skill at 1v1 it's not something I would recommend)
2 - Host their own all welcome game
3 - Join matchmaker queues
4 - Play the campaign or a custom game against the AI (intended as a temporary solution if there arent any players in matchmaker and they just want to play some FAF, and they may find other players joining them if they host a lobby)
5 - Post on FAF discord to see if someone will play them in a 1v1 custom game

and now you have 6 people that want to play, but all indepentently roll on this table to choose their option to get a game and they will most likely not get a game together. The more of these options fall together (by combining queuing up and fighting vs ai or, but probably more difficult, to let players play campaign missions while in queue and pause them when a match is found) the more people will choose the same option thus making a match more likely.

The idea here would be that people that want to play (ideally vs a human) but see 0 people in queue don't go into a custom game vs AI, but instead queue up.

@nex From memory when having matchmaking AI was last discussed in detail (https://discord.com/channels/197033481883222026/1069766221140074626) while there were strong views both for and against the main hurdle was someone with the time and ability to implement an 'AI in matchmaker' solution (although an agreement would also be needed on what form it would take as there are a number of options).

As a very brief note of some of the arguments I can recall, a potential benefit might be increasing the player base and TMM activity since people are more likely to find a game which is likely to be more interesting than watching the timer tick down. A potential risk (which would depend on how it was implemented) is that people who would've waited in the queue and then matched with another player both end up fighting against an AI instead, with this being less preferable to both players than if they fought each other.

However, the pros and cons were discussed at length before and are largely academic if it's not feasible to implement in the first place (and it is not straightforward to implement even if there was a general consensus that AI in matchmaker could be a good thing)