Why would you have left FAF?

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

@jip Hearthstone solved that with 6 standard messages, especially if it is just text it shouldn't be to hard to develop, write and mod in.

1. List the required messages. (Example: Prepare to attack soon, Scale up Eco & Tech, I take your lead, Follow my instructions, No / you idiot, Yes / good idea - to be accompanied with pings and general understanding)
2. Get nationals to write it in every language.
3. Mod in under hot menu

Tbh I might use this sometimes even without a language barrier...

Same shit in dota, chat-wheel has like 10 translated commands and its enought for a game. Somethling like attack/fallback/don't go here/look. Basically same as 3 existing pings but more different texts

If someone can open up a different topic and discuss what type of messages they'd like to have, then I'll think about a way to implement it intuitively.

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

If someone can open up a different topic and discuss what type of messages they'd like to have, then I'll think about a way to implement it intuitively.

https://forum.faforever.com/topic/2738/overcome-language-barriers-with-a-chat-wheel-with-standard-messages

Ctrl+click on "small guy" icon on scoreboard asks for engi already. The same with asking power and mass. Shift+click gives unit, or in case of power/mass, gives 25%.

Most of on screen messages I have seen are easy to understand/universel: ACU, nuke, antinuke, mavor, tml, eco, yellow ping for assist, blue for move and red for attack... People use multiple pings for more precision: Blue ping on unit (group) you want to be moved, followed by blue ping in place you want it to be moved to.

Official FAF language is english. I am not native english speaker, but as most players I respect to use of english ingame. Even when there are players from my nationality ingame, I speak english. As almost all other players (ecxept russians somtimes). And I dont use my langauage to make worst teams for other nationalitys. Or to bully them. Or to insult them.

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

Ctrl+click on "small guy" icon on scoreboard asks for engi already. The same with asking power and mass. Shift+click gives unit, or in case of power/mass, gives 25%.

I did not know that! This is so counter-intuitive, imagine a noob figuring this out on his own.

Other case, if information like this was added to the loading screen tips.

@fiercelv I don't disagree, but if you happen to hover on the icons, it will tell you.

Inverted response... why I don't leave FAF now that Age of Empires 4 is out.

I like Age of Empires 4 more overall, the resource gathering is less punishing and seeing that I am behind or understanding why I lost is much more intuitive.

I'm still here though because:

1. We consider FAF suitable for young kids watching unlike AoE4 (melee combat, people dying), So between 0700 and 2000 FAF is only RTS I play.
2. Ladder 1v1 game length is more reliable and shorter than AoE4. Also I can force an ending to the game without just throwing it with an all-in snipe.
3. I can't leave before I can play 10 games in a row without ruining my own game through power stall or whatever...

Im 32 years old and i´ve discoreved FAF last year
I´ve been playing strategy games all my life, shogun total war, civ2/3/4/5/6, red alert a (bunch of them), age of empires 2/3, knights of honor, rome total war (and a bunch of total wars), dungeon keeper, empire earth, rise of nations, europa universalis 1/2/3/4 etc. etc. and when i found this game is was dumbstruck this is the best game ever and who disagrees with me can fight me 1v1 in real life.

New player here, I love RTS games but never get into online play because I'm not very good and get destroyed instantly, I at least like to stretch my legs before getting steam rolled. The FAF client is amazing though for mods and maps and letting me set up custom games against AI with all the new balance changes and what not. AAAAND I just realized this is a year old thread ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Keep the thread going forever

@aaronmorgan1989 said in Why would you have left FAF?:

New player here, I love RTS games but never get into online play because I'm not very good and get destroyed instantly, I at least like to stretch my legs before getting steam rolled. The FAF client is amazing though for mods and maps and letting me set up custom games against AI with all the new balance changes and what not. AAAAND I just realized this is a year old thread ¯_(ツ)_/¯

The campaigns are a good warm up to online play. You'll get a feel of the units. From there on try beating hard ai's and watch some casts. This should be enough to not get stomped in low rated online games. And then just play and improve. I wouldn't play gap though, as it's not representative of maps where you can't turtle.

Been playing for 3 years now. Dropped off for a bit...... Boy this game is ruthless if that muscle memory slips.

The 3v3s are amazing and have been the best addition since i have started. I wouldn't be on as much if it wasn't for the quick games i get from it.

Theres nothing else like faf! Pls stop balancing too! the latest aeon navy balance.. feels bad. If you come back and all of a sudden units are to different its confusing and frustrating

Players losing connections with each other and devs are not seeing that issue.

I play maybe 2 games a week, and the only disconnect I can recall that had nothing to do with one of the players internet was one where the player NEXT to me, on the same LAN was desynced from myself and the rest of the group who were not local. that was odd.

@sonofibis

The balance patches really are way too frequent. The game is decades old. It should have been balanced years ago. Don't know why there are constant changes. Is it to try and force a personal preference on meta?

I stopped playing for a few years, then came back and everyone was spamming SACU'S and mass fabs. The change in meta to encouraging and rewarding endless ecoing was weird and a bad choice, and this is coming from a player who only plays survival and large two team camping maps. Honestly, a team that has lost map control shouldn't be able to win.

Why are you surprised your games are eco sims if you’re playing “two team camping maps.” There are zero restrictions on what maps people can play and unit balance goes hand in hand with maps. Means for maps you need to self select a reliable pool to serve as a control for games. For balance concerns that tends to be focused on maps in the matchmakers.

Balance was hardly solved “years ago.” There are less noob trap units in the game than there ever were. Example in terms of Aeon roster:
Units made useful that were useless years ago:

• blaze
• obsidian
• chrono
• second shield,
• gunship
• frig
• battleship
• czar (beyond being a guided crash nuke)
• snipers

Many of these units had longstanding problems solved which in turn made Aeon extremely overtuned because they got their shit units resolved while keeping their S tier units (or gained new ones) and so that calls for balance patches to deal with lowering their ceiling after raising the floor of the faction.

These days the only “noob trap units” in Aeon roster are probably their ACU teleport upgrade and maybe mercy, no idea where they fall after the rework.

It's extremely stupid to think a game is completely "balanced" at some point. Also meta changes over time even in games where the balance doesn't change. All good games that have lasted for many years have updates and balance changes, it's what keeps them interesting; stagnation kills them off.

Uef used to be the noob faction for years. Really the only thing about the balence team is they tend to over balence then draw it back, they be better at it then before but the game seems better every time.

Right now it's kinda hard to get a game at my play time, too much gap games going on. I've been playing bar a little bit.

I think "getting matched against 1300 rated players etc" is miles less annoying that getting matched against the person that beat you last game, personally!

I'm pretty new to FaF, and for me, the number one thing that would have made me more likely to stay is the 'must have' list of controls and UI mods.
I think having all the important controls bound to sensible hotkeys (build pgen, build factory, build MEX, cancel all but current build, select closest idle T1 MEX, and many, many more), plus perhaps a bunch of basic build queues for each faction's t1/t2/t3 spam, maybe even some templates for T1 PD surrounded by walls, or pgens that don't all become adjacent when spammed.

And perhaps more importantly, useful mods. I currently run:
Build range preview
Engineer alt selection
Range tester
Spread move
Specific target priorities
subtle strategic icons
transport hotkey
UI mod tools
ECO UI tools

While they're certainly not all necessary (I understand spread move will be unnecessary very soon), a bunch of them seem to really be important enough to be 'standard' for new players.

I feel a bit sorry for a new player that has to figure out all these little advantages that they can get outside of the game itself.