The End of FAF

@jip

Honestly, I'm not sure what is the correct answer, as FAF operates on a decentralised communication aspect. I'm not sure how the other teams have handled it, but here's how we handled it when I joined the Personal Trainer Team:

1. We drafted worthwhile topics.
2. We had a meeting (with nearly 100% Trainer Attendance + Babel & OGW_PR_Outreach)
3. We discussed these topics, verifying that the problem is commonplace and began to provide solutions and feedback (everyone contributed to each problem in some way, making sure we had every insight we possibly could have acquired)
4. We narrowed it down to two insights that would work best for the problem, and then had a vote
5. We documented this meeting, including all important notes and changes to start the shift for a slightly more centralised approach to keep each other up to date.

Now this won't work in larger scales, as this was meant to address several issues within the Trainer Team, although I think this is where Team Leads could possibly have a bit more impact within their respective teams.
I'd propose for most major changes to have a representative of most if not all teams to keep everyone up to date, as this should then allow everyone to keep up to date due to the flow of information from the teams to the community, or for the Team Leads to just be informed and then they forward it to us, and then we follow the same step in keeping everyone up to date.
This may have some flaws I cannot foresee due to conditional bias, and I think teams could have some pretty qualitive and quantitively varying insights to changes before it's published, hopefully lessening the impact of issues like this in the future.

Another solution I'd like to put forward is newsletters or pings for discussions in this matter, as I think they already exist (correct me if I am wrong) in FAF development, but for changes regarding moderation changes and stuff like that, I think the outward communication before publishes may have a similar effect, and it may solve the communication on the moderation game dev or whoever's end, leaving it to the players to then keep their end of the deal of promising better two way communication.

Perhaps you'll disagree, and that's fine. But this is my opinion of someone who's seen this before and realistically the more insights that are provided the better.

Thanks @Strydxr , I think the steps (1 through 5) you mention is exactly what the moderators team did. But they can't be as open about what was discussed exactly of course given that they are moderators.

Fun fact: It's also what the game team did yesterday , but about different topics of course.

@strydxr said in The End of FAF:

Another solution I'd like to put forward is newsletters or pings for discussions in this matter, as I think they already exist (correct me if I am wrong) in FAF development

We can create a news post about it. I'll ask Deribus when is the best time to do that.

@plunder I agree and briefly touched on it in one of my posts that there are likely alot of players who are currently banned that deserve the opportunity to return. Take some of my early 1000 games and if people reported me I would probably have been banned because I was toxic.... More so I returned toxicity 10-fold to those who showed it to me which is not the way to go. My last 3,000 games I've been pretty chill and I feel I definitely deserve to be here. It would have been a shame if I got banned during that first stretch and would have never been allowed to experience this game the way I have over the past 3,000 games. I try hard now to contribute to the community as best I can when I can and I'm sure there are a lot of others who would as well if they had the opportunity to return.

Not sure how we communicate with people who have been banned to let them know they are unbanned and they can return but I think it's something that should be considered.

@dorset said in The End of FAF:

I agree and briefly touched on it in one of my posts that there are likely alot of players who are currently banned that deserve the opportunity to return.

General info: perm bans are very rarely handed out. Players that have received temporary bans for particular offenses in the past will notice that new bans will be increasingly longer. At some point this leads to the player being discussed with the moderator team, the whole file being reviewed, and in some cases a perm-ban being issues. However, it almost never happens that a player accumulates enough tempbans that we decide a permban is in order; from the top of my head I can think of maybe 5 instances in the past year.

Bans can be appealed at any time, and we have previously revoked perm-bans in the past. They are seriously considered after some time has passed, but they have to be requested by the player themselves.

Naughty Words:
Nobody should be banned for exercising their free speech rights. If you don't like it then you can block them. It is that simple. JT is one of the most toxic Setoners and several Setoners have responded by refusing to play with him. It is that simple. There is no reason to ban people. It is hard enough as it is to fill a lobby.

Ctrl K base:
There is no reason to ctrl K your base. The proper procedure is to recall first. If the recall falls then you can ctrl k your com. And preferably you ctrl k your com outside of your base or near the enemy units although I have not always done this.

No game is 100% lost. If you understood just how likely FAF is to desync then you would play on as long as possible. The losing team has every right in the world to play on in hope of desync. You may not consider this to be an "honorable" way of fighting but this is the way that FAF awards points. Don't hate the player. Hate the game.

Not to mention jt actively reports people and the moderation team takes him seriously despite being blacklisted among most of the setons community.This is why I troll about the moderation team being consistent because if they were so many more players would be banned and there simply won't be any more games. However games are absolutely lost past a certain point in higher level games and 1 player can refuse to recall and waste everyone's time however the moderation team always comes up with something to ignore this scenario.

Free speech is your right to say whatever you want (within limits, crowded theater & fire) without retaliation from the government, not the right to avoid the consequences for what you say by private entities.

Every online platform has rules surrounding speech, it makes no sense to not have any here. People are here to play a game, not deal with whatever vitriol people want to spew at them. It's not hard to not be a complete asshole. If you go through multiple bans just from saying shit, then you have some serious personal problems and anger management you need to deal with in your real life. But sure if you're worried about losing players due to bans, imagine not just how many you'd lose from an increasingly toxic community, but how many you'd never even gain in the first place.

My main point from the beginning has been that high level players are not toxic to each other nor do they care about when people ctrl k their base yet some still get banned. The moderators have been told this time and time again but they still don't listen even when there are plenty of well known toxic players who are never banned.

@accidental_aeon said in The End of FAF:

Nobody should be banned for exercising their free speech rights. If you don't like it then you can block them. It is that simple. JT is one of the most toxic Setoners and several Setoners have responded by refusing to play with him. It is that simple. There is no reason to ban people. It is hard enough as it is to fill a lobby.

Free speech is for governments to their citizens, not private companies or organizations to members of those organizations. FAF can and should to at least a small degree curtail speech if someone is being toxic, because that makes the community better overall. I have mixed feelings on the vigilante justice that's done to JT. Dude should probably just be banned more, and idk how mod team would take his reports seriously when he's 100% trolling the whole game whenever he gets mad enough to report anyone.

No game is 100% lost. If you understood just how likely FAF is to desync then you would play on as long as possible. The losing team has every right in the world to play on in hope of desync. You may not consider this to be an "honorable" way of fighting but this is the way that FAF awards points. Don't hate the player. Hate the game.

At a high level people know how to end games and if you mess up badly enough early the game is lost 99% of the time. Kinda dumb to stay in a game that's only winnable if the opponent either just quits playing or if they disconnect.

@thewreck said in The End of FAF:

My main point from the beginning has been that high level players are not toxic to each other nor do they care about when people ctrl k their base yet some still get banned. The moderators have been told this time and time again but they still don't listen even when there are plenty of well known toxic players who are never banned.

This is just foundationally wrong. The only reason we action ctrlk bans is because they get reported by your 2k friends. I've seen numerous times where 2k+s get banned for base ctrlk and start accusing the 'obvious' suspect, get commiserations from their 'friends' who would never report anyone for that offence and it was the 'friend' who reported it. Players rarely ctrlk only because its time for the next game, they're primary motivation (from what i've seen) is because they're tilted the game isn't going the way they want and want to punish their 'bad' teammates.

With regard to toxic players not getting banned, are they being reported? We keep a log of every action taken against a user and gradually increase ban lengths for increased number of offences within a time. I've often seen players all agree to report someone or threaten to report each other and only one player actually actions it. In every case we try and look for how the offence occurs (including whether its provoked by the reporter) and act with consistency.

FAF is fairly lenient in our moderation, we don't trawl through replays, so if we take action against a game it means someone cared about the offence enough to report it. If it were the case that 2ks didn't care then there wouldn't be reports to action.

No most of these reports come from when a medium ranked player gets in the lobby ie some 1500 and doesn't know the rules of 2k lobbies. They are also the most likely ones to not know the game is over and refuse to recall. I'm also getting tired of moderators claiming how the 2k community works when not a single moderator is a part of it.

@thewreck said in The End of FAF:

No most of these reports come from when a medium ranked player gets in the lobby ie some 1500 and doesn't know the rules of 2k lobbies. They are also the most likely ones to not know the game is over and refuse to recall. I'm also getting tired of moderators claiming how the 2k community works when not a single moderator is a part of it.

So angel has access to this information and stated that it is the way he said it, yet you without that information say angel is wrong. What are you saying, that angel is not able to read or angel is deliberately misleading us when saying what he said about these high players being tilted when the game didn't go the way they wanted?

I like many others have noticed this for years, across many balance teams, that when games don't go ways certain people (who have way more influence than they should have) want, the game gets changed to the detriment of all other players. Hence people stop playing and then the group who is responsible for kneecapping the community go blame everyone else, but never do they once point the finger at themselves...

What is the definition of toxicity these days?

Ftx

always has been

Tell me evildrew what statistics did he show?what numbers did he present to prove his point? I'm making stuff up lmao.

@thewreck said in The End of FAF:

Tell me evildrew what statistics did he show?what numbers did he present to prove his point? I'm making stuff up lmao.

He is making a statement based on non public material information. As you hopefully know he cannot disclose who posted what exactly when he is generalizing when eluding to it happening.
What he told you is that he has seen the players who you said never report each other report each other.
I do not see what statistics or numbers you would want to see from angel. You said that group never reports each other, he said he has seen it happen. So lets say greater or equal to 1 then to put it in numbers. So if angel has seen it happen at least once, I consider it disproving you point.

If you are not making stuff up, then tell us why is it that you know that most people reporting base ctrl k are 1500. Do you have access to the moderation reports, are you compiling statistics? I presume not since what you say and angel contradicts each other and he has an official moderation team tag and you have, well nothing relevant on display that would make you more credible than angel on this matter...

After playing this game off/on for 10 years I remember peak faf time only having about 700-800 players so there being around 1k always makes me happy to see. Games are less diverse and there is a lack strong ladder warriors compared to back in the day.

I disagree with the statement, "...is almost solely because of selfish moderation."

If FAF is dying and in decline as you posit, I think it's attributable to the dyer connectivity problems and recent insane game lagging by way of drastic FPS loss players are facing.

I for one, having frequented this game like a crackhead in crackden, am becoming pretty tired and fed up not being able to fully satiate my addiction.

I cannot remember the last time I had a full uninterrupted game where someone didn't disconnect or I myself did not lose connection to a player. It is impossible nowadays to have a full smooth game with 0 disconnects.

how do you know if you got banned? chat is down for me after i made a joke about bidencide. it was clearly a joke is chat up? am i banned? or does that mean from faf entirely?