Why would you have left FAF?

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.

The problem with the game right now is not balance and most of the people that will argue that are not skilled enough to have the changes effect how they play the game.on that note while it has taken some time I do like the majority of the changes that have been made recently.Of course everyone will always want something to be adjusted myself included it is by far not the worst problem with game right now which in my opinion is the large amount of client related bugs regarding in game connections and the overall sluggish speed of recent clients.

My biggest issue will always be UI mods. In other competitive games, you are not allowed to have mods your opponents doesn't have, especially if they automate things.

@melanol There isn't really much automation going on in UI mods. And the things that are automated often hurt you more than they help.
To me the existence of UI mods makes this game more of a challenge against your opponent using the game's mechanics, instead of a fight against terrible controls and bad UI.

I left FAF over a wishy-washy or at least vague response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Particularly I did not want to "provide comfort to the enemy" by playing a game with them.

Later this seemed resolved, but I didn't return over community toxicity.

I am back lurking on forums because of the new balance patch, I like changes in general and the patch does tempt me to return. Though forums do suggest I wait on some polishing if I really want to.

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

I left FAF over a wishy-washy or at least vague response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Particularly I did not want to "provide comfort to the enemy" by playing a game with them.

Out of curiosity, why would you expect a response or a stand from a community such as FAForever?

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

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

I left FAF over a wishy-washy or at least vague response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Particularly I did not want to "provide comfort to the enemy" by playing a game with them.

Out of curiosity, why would you expect a response or a stand from a community such as FAForever?

Not in principle. I would expect them to make the best determination for their self-interest.
I personally could not play the game in the situation that arose which is my problem; if the FAF team determines that it was also their problem then they should consider what to do in a similar situation in the future.