Why would you have left FAF?

Hey

When I first enter FAF i thought it looked very hardshaped, didn't like the UI very much and its old looking. Anyway I started to fall in love with the possible things you could do, lover your gunships below shields etc.

So remembering my first interaction with the game that would be nice to do.

• Update UI to look more modern
• Explain features in the game (example that you could block a nuke with a scout but its very rare and very hard to do)

Playing with some friends with different level of skills, some feeling more newbie like. A tutorial would be good, limit them to do movement, patrol, etc unlocking a feature at the time. Help them zoom out to let them learn why its good to play more macro than micro.

Also people have trouble learning what to do right, for example when playing chess, it can be analyzed to point out errors, that might be hard to do by data but simple things like reclaim when mass stalling or something would help them feel progress about themself.

As you explained earlier, people in learning progress have it hard when playing against experienced players, hopefully the AI tournament can help pointing out which Ai to play against at certain skills to help improving at the game.

To avoid the custom game lobby looking like it does, full with Astro and Dualgaps, maybe a cue to match people on a random map would be good, like you do on most games, more queues for ladder and global games. A map there people don't have the exact build order and can do errors so the low rated players doesn't get too crushed by T3 bomber at min 10 against exeprienced players.

Achievements are good aswell, help them try out new stuff, but you don't feel as awarded like you would in another game. For example league rates players in game and keep progression tracks on you and shows that you are doing some progress (maybe too much which ends up being ignored instead).

Maybe also more resets for player giving them a chance to come back in rating, specially players under a certain rating. For example it wouldn't feel good to have a negative rating. Maybe reset some players around a certain scale. For example rate the bronze, silver, gold. And then you come abobe 1400 rating you could have your rating shown instead, so it doesn't create fear for new players to play 100rated vs 300rated player, call them both bronze instead and they wouldn't know and do their best.
For example I played a player who did very good trying to snipe me with earlie bombers, I managed to survive but were damaged in my expansion, but it was his shot and he quit since he thought it would be impossible to beat me even if I were only like 100-200 rating higher than him.

As for the queue for random game, if low rated players match you could fill with some Ai without them knowing what is what. Flaming a Ai may seem very stupid and hopefully that removes some toxic specially against lower rated players.

And since all games (pretty much all games) are rated games, people find it easy to pray on the weak when losing. So maybe a non-rated queue playing on a random map like playing like crap would be good for new players.

Hope you find a way to introduce new players!
Best of luck!

Not left, i just waiting for better times.

I love FAF and everything about the game and the Great community. Never once have I faced Toxic behavior. I have seen Children bickering lately and it bugs me man. You think the game is too hard as beginner, then you should get good or play Rocket League. lol, it is strategy and not everyone is strategic. Just the way it is. This is a niche game and not everyone will won't to play. Stop taking this so seriously please XD

As a player who really likes the Supreme Commander style of gameplay, there's a couple of reasons that have kept me from really getting into FAF:

x First one I haven't seen mentioned yet: There's a MASSIVE amount of meta that players take for granted, but is next to impossible to find out somewhere. Simple things like knowing which position on a certain map has certain jobs to do, standard movements, less-than-obvious counters to frequent strategies (ie. tele-defence for example). Learning these as you go is a huge timesink, since it requires encountering these specific situations and figuring them out or watching dozens of streams. And not knowing about it can often be instant loss. Which in turn promotes playing the same maps/positions.

x I enjoy the cooperative play of multiplayer not the competitive, so 1v1 ladder has never really been attractive to me. I'm curious to try out the new TMM sometime.

x I've always been surprised that there isn't some pre-start allies-chat/lobby thingy. This is supposed to be a strategy game and being on the same plan really helps. Communication within random teams is already often rather limited and as soon as you jump in the game you're busy with getting that critical first build going. For those who can do their build orders in their sleep this is the perfect time to chat strategy, but this is a high stress moment if you're trying to figure out what to do on this position on this map.

x There isn't much to promote finding a group of like-minded, same-time-online players to play with regularly. Which means that the 'community' you play in as a starting player is the entire FAF community, including its toxic elements.

Typically you always build a factory first, that should give you a little time to chat with your allies to figure done things out.

Having more all welcome lobbies where people help newer plays and don't care if they lose because if it is desired, or having a casual mm

@seaeagle1 said in Why would you have left FAF?:

As a player who really likes the Supreme Commander style of gameplay, there's a couple of reasons that have kept me from really getting into FAF:

x First one I haven't seen mentioned yet: There's a MASSIVE amount of meta that players take for granted, but is next to impossible to find out somewhere. Simple things like knowing which position on a certain map has certain jobs to do, standard movements, less-than-obvious counters to frequent strategies (ie. tele-defence for example). Learning these as you go is a huge timesink, since it requires encountering these specific situations and figuring them out or watching dozens of streams. And not knowing about it can often be instant loss. Which in turn promotes playing the same maps/positions.

x I enjoy the cooperative play of multiplayer not the competitive, so 1v1 ladder has never really been attractive to me. I'm curious to try out the new TMM sometime.

x I've always been surprised that there isn't some pre-start allies-chat/lobby thingy. This is supposed to be a strategy game and being on the same plan really helps. Communication within random teams is already often rather limited and as soon as you jump in the game you're busy with getting that critical first build going. For those who can do their build orders in their sleep this is the perfect time to chat strategy, but this is a high stress moment if you're trying to figure out what to do on this position on this map.

x There isn't much to promote finding a group of like-minded, same-time-online players to play with regularly. Which means that the 'community' you play in as a starting player is the entire FAF community, including its toxic elements.

A lot of your points come down to watching a replay of a given map before you join it. In general, watching a replay of 1.5K+ players playing can't hurt - it will immediately allow you to see what positions require what roles and how they approach it.

With that said, I do agree that there is a lot of hidden meta. Especially on a map-per-map basis. But what can you effectively do about it?

@seaeagle1 said in Why would you have left FAF?:

x There isn't much to promote finding a group of like-minded, same-time-online players to play with regularly.

The FAF discord was recently revamped to make it easier for people to do this. Perhaps it could be promoted a bit harder, although not everyone wants to use discord.

@jip said in Why would you have left FAF?:

@seaeagle1 said in Why would you have left FAF?:

As a player who really likes the Supreme Commander style of gameplay, there's a couple of reasons that have kept me from really getting into FAF:

x First one I haven't seen mentioned yet: There's a MASSIVE amount of meta that players take for granted, but is next to impossible to find out somewhere. Simple things like knowing which position on a certain map has certain jobs to do, standard movements, less-than-obvious counters to frequent strategies (ie. tele-defence for example). Learning these as you go is a huge timesink, since it requires encountering these specific situations and figuring them out or watching dozens of streams. And not knowing about it can often be instant loss. Which in turn promotes playing the same maps/positions.

x I enjoy the cooperative play of multiplayer not the competitive, so 1v1 ladder has never really been attractive to me. I'm curious to try out the new TMM sometime.

x I've always been surprised that there isn't some pre-start allies-chat/lobby thingy. This is supposed to be a strategy game and being on the same plan really helps. Communication within random teams is already often rather limited and as soon as you jump in the game you're busy with getting that critical first build going. For those who can do their build orders in their sleep this is the perfect time to chat strategy, but this is a high stress moment if you're trying to figure out what to do on this position on this map.

x There isn't much to promote finding a group of like-minded, same-time-online players to play with regularly. Which means that the 'community' you play in as a starting player is the entire FAF community, including its toxic elements.

A lot of your points come down to watching a replay of a given map before you join it. In general, watching a replay of 1.5K+ players playing can't hurt - it will immediately allow you to see what positions require what roles and how they approach it.

With that said, I do agree that there is a lot of hidden meta. Especially on a map-per-map basis. But what can you effectively do about it?

apply neroxis mapgen to each map:) Somwthing easy like a script which randomizes reclaim(rcosk/tree) EACH game for map will fuck-up predetermined builds and meta.

And kill a big part of what people love about the game. That is being capable of getting ready for the games before they even start.

Meta and build orders are slightly different concepts. Map gen will still have meta in the sense that some positions will have some obligations based on map layout. You can’t just randomly decide to go air when you have a ton of mexes near you open to frigate raids. People that do that will still get yelled at by teammates in new player games “for not knowing what they’re doing” etc.

Of course, you won’t have 15 minute long sentons build orders.

it is a very hard game,such as 1v1 have a big gap:(

@zukko i think restricting game options or gameplay for beginners just facilitates bad habits which will be hard to overcome later. it will be hard to include reclaim when you are not used to it since day 1.

im still fallen in love with the idea of challenges, that will teach you basic strategies and moves. they can be easy to pass but hard to master. so beginners will understand fast and pass with bronze, but pros will struggle to get platin and compete for the best time / results (like in trackmania) maybe a little 5 mission campaign before you can play ranked. Or thin out the existing campaign to a existential tutorial.

i mean some beginners got friedns who are pretty good in the game and they learn fast. but mine still try to convince me from league of legends and i know no one personally who plays this game.

@zukko yeah, you are just dead wrong my man. I don't mind playing with complete novices who literally just bought the game and have no idea how any of the units work. I don't expect them to play as pro players and refuse to flame them for playing like hot garbage-they are new, that's just how this game works.

But I won't coddle them either and tell them that their gameplay can't improve or trying to break them of their habits if they desire to improve-you act like everyone here desires nothing but to put the new guys down and thats just not true. If a 300 rank player doesn't desire to improve thats ok but the 300 rank player can't turn around and flame the 600 rank player for wanting to win in a game that has other 600 rank players-this is not pro level play but nobody likes getting smashed either. If I'm in a game and I see a questionable decision from the team I'm going to call it out. This game isn't 4 1v1 games in the same map, it a 4v4 map.

You don't need to be a complete boss at this game to enjoy it or to be welcomed in the community-the majority of players in FAF are below 1k rank and that is ok-hell even I don't desire to play pro, that entails a level of effort I'm strictly not interested in providing for a game

But if you are so casual that all you want is to build a giant army and blow stuff up, there is a mode for you-its called campaign and in my opinion its a pretty good one or skirmish with AI

You can't have your cake and eat it too, you don't get to be a bad player and complain when the players you get paired with desire to win in a competitive setting regardless of the rank of your teammates-I promise there are players in low ranking that really REALLY want to win and dominate, they simply lack the skill

We are going slightly of topic now, the question was why would you leave FAF, the answer for me would be that it is not an easy game to just pick up and play, it takes a lot of time to learn the details.

In my original post the idea was so see if it was possible to create a seperate slightly easier eco balance version of faf that you could toggle between that and regular FAF, making it easier to pick up for new players and for regular players that want a more relaxed game experiance similar to supcom 2 without the crappy research tree.

So if your new you can play on easy mode and if you think your good enough and want to play more seriously you can play with the big boys on the harder mode.

@zukko said in Why would you have left FAF?:

the question was why would you leave FAF, the answer for me would be that it is not an easy game to just pick up and play,

Hey, I did a rough poll of the responses in this thread and you are indeed correct. Most of the responses in this thread mention the learning curve of the game as one of the biggest reasons why people leave FAF.

While i'm not going to suggest any massive changes to the game that defy the mission of FAF (to maintain the mutiplayer service of the orIginal game) I would recommend making a second thread to discuss learning-curve ideas seperate from here. I think this thread has served it's purpose.

It is possible to make a balance mod with an "easier" balance. It would be on you to make one though.

I made a guide for doing just that:
https://forum.faforever.com/topic/739/guide-creating-a-basic-balance-mod-with-a-merge-blueprint

@hurtmuch If people were trying to learn how to play this niche game then wouldn't people help each other more? But no its completely the opposite, a gatekeeping community. Plus everything is hard to learn and there's a very low amount of guides (it gets better but still).

@mylaur said in Why would you have left FAF?:

@hurtmuch If people were trying to learn how to play this niche game then wouldn't people help each other more? But no its completely the opposite, a gatekeeping community. Plus everything is hard to learn and there's a very low amount of guides (it gets better but still).

It seems like we have more trainers than students. Or at least, we have more training capacity than there is demand for training (because obviously a trainer can teach more than 1 person at a time).

If you're willing to accept training from people under 1500 rating, there's essentially an unlimited amount of 1-on-1 training available to basically everyone. I know I have no backlog in terms of replays people have asked me to review. Literally you can ask me to review a replay and I can go into voice with you and talk about what I'm seeing, or I can just watch it, take notes, and send you 5-10 sentences of my analysis of what you could do better. It takes people like 3 minutes to submit a request AND read my feedback once I send it, and I do that for free, and I only get about 0-1 people per month asking me to review a few of their replays.

I don't think we're even talking about higher-rated people (like 1200+ at ladder or 1400+ at global) but my impression is that those people can always find some instruction from higher-rated players whenever they want it. (And of course people at any rating can pay Jagged for lessons)

A lot of what people perceive as "gatekeeping" is unwanted advice, which is basically unwanted training.

Training really does work as a good way to grow in skill. But the community over-estimates how much people actually want to participate in training.

Training is not as good as the game being intuitive or at least helpful.

As I said early in this thread, in Starcraft 1, if you had insufficient Vespene Gas the game would say in audio "Insufficient Vespene Gas" and display a message:

Supreme Commander does absolutely nothing to help a player see what he is doing wrong or subtly correct them.
A UI & sim mod that does not affect the high-level experience, but makes the games complexities more intuitive might be a worthwhile project to undertake.

Example for an intuitive power stall.

1. UI-only: let the game say (audio) "Power Stall detected", display text "Not enough power... Pause aircraft production and turn off shields."
2. Sim-too: if a building has too little power let it randomly EMP itself for 30 seconds, now lower rated players experience fewer issues with power stalls as they are self-mitigating, but need to master it to efficiently produce aircraft. High-level play is 90% unaffected.

@biass thankyou for the response.

I have been playing around with my own mods for some time now and realised just how complicated things can get, i will attempt to create an "easy" eco mod for FAF with some subtle changes that aim to reduce the learning curve but it will take me some time and i will probably need some help with the more complicated parts.