New Player Councilor Discussion + Removal Announcements

Let's be honest the majority of you guys who are applying for this position have been out of touch with the community for years. A lot of people who have obtained their ranks have done so with the assistance from Clans or friends in high ranks. FTX and MORAX are using Clans and their Connections to get votes

The majority of the FAF player base may not vote for these issues like PC. To be honest they probably don't even know a vote is it going on. I fear this makes the community stuck in stagnation.

If you really care about votes from the entire community, 80% of the news page would mention up-and-coming votes. I Understand changing this will take time.

I feel that the only person who is able to represent all levels of the player base fairly at this time is Emperor penguin. He is not an elitist, he is not stagnant and he isn't self-absorbed like many of the applicants.

This is all my personal opinion, but I believe it to be the truth. I am not quoting a bunch of 2000 Rated players who think they represent the entire community. I truly hope we get the entire Community involved for the voting and not just some microcosm of elitist.

Judahx

@judahx as someone who is mot a 2k rated player (1200) i think ftx is has done alot to make faf fun. For instance just today i spent a while watching the faf live show matches, tomorrow i am playing in a scta tourny that is in his domain, and whenever i look at the discord ftx is contributing. I dont know emperor and i am not against him, i just think it is unfair to say that ftx only caters to 2ks.

If anyone is out of touch with the community it is all the people arguing here. This is just a video game, and nobody needs to represent anyone. Normal people just play the game because they want to, and do not want to be involved in all of this stupid drama. Stagnation is actually the goal of FAF. The point is to keep this 14 year old game around so people can keep playing it like they always have.

@thomashiatt said in New Player Councilor Discussion + Removal Announcements:

If anyone is out of touch with the community it is all the people arguing here. This is just a video game, and nobody needs to represent anyone. Normal people just play the game because they want to, and do not want to be involved in all of this stupid drama. Stagnation is actually the goal of FAF. The point is to keep this 14 year old game around so people can keep playing it like they always have.

And order to keep this 14 year old game around we need to support new players.
We need New blood who understands old a new players. The same PC will only promote stagnation and lack of new ideas. A PC who primarily reaches out to the the high rank player base will not keep this game going.

The player base is getting older. People have kids. WE need outreach. Stagnation will just kill us off slowly. People will get tired spend time with family's. At the end of the day, lack of change will see us playing on the the steam client.

Whoever is left....

Holding on isn't enough..

@emperor_penguin said in New Player Councilor Discussion + Removal Announcements:

@dragun101
FTX delaying the availability of map gen on ladder/TMM isn't why it has improved so much. It was being improved a lot regardless.

However, I absolutely do take strong stances on certain things and am not afraid to say "No" when the situation warrants it. For example, when FTX expressed that he wanted to and actively planned to remove Global Rating from FAF and make all normal (non-TMM) games be unrated, I took a strong stance against that, which I still stand by, as I strongly believe that that is not in the best interests of FAF, and that is supported by a myriad of conversations I've had with numerous FAF players. So, as PC, I would strongly oppose removing global rating and would say "No" to removing it.
Frankly, FTX's plan to remove Global Rating would be a major negative for a very large portion of active FAF players, and hiding or removing it would undoubtedly cause countless FAF players to quit FAF entirely. My approach, as outlined in my PC application, is to get more people playing ladder/TMM by making them better for everyone, while keeping Global Rating, but making it easier for new players to get started.
I took a similarly strong stance when Morax wanted to remove the 'most recent' section of the FAF client, which would've catered to the desires of some 'elite' mappers at the expense of the majority of map-makers for FAF. In short, I am not afraid to take strong oppositional stances or say "No." I try to act in the best interests of FAF, period.

I’ll make this brief cause adhd powers ACTIVATED. But your missing the point. Ftx making MapGen good or bad personally is irrelevant, its not his job.

His job is curation so only quality, enters the ladder pool or gets hosted as tournaments. Now you can debate that granted.

Or the best quality of FAF is presented for the player experience. The power of no, is not just saying this is idea is bad. It is also “Is at moment in time this (x) is not up to standards desired for the enviroment”.

@judahx That makes no sense, new things are being added such as TMM, balance patches are going out, live streaming and content is gaining alot of traction. Just because u think things are stagnating does not mean it is. You speak of players having kids but i and a bunch of others i play with are around 16 yo, we are not leaving anytime soon to have kids. I dont understand why u are going through so much trouble to discredit ftx and tbh reading ur posts has made me more inclined to support ftx.

@dragun101 said in New Player Councilor Discussion + Removal Announcements:

Ftx making MapGen good or bad personally is irrelevant, its not his job.

THAT DON'T STOP ME

I worked with Sheikah, did several review sessions of map gen and talked through each and every generation with him in order for him to get a stronger understanding of what kind of factors need to exist in order for decent gameplay.

I gave him access to ladder team map documents and all the work we have done there in order for him to gather a list of curated maps that can be used as a basis for the map gen.

I explained to him "rules" on mex distribution such as the notion of group "bodies" with loose mex "arms and legs" that promote map control without converting games into pure snowball. As well as general rules on things like reclaim and other gameplay elements.

I worked with him on some of the terrain aspects of map gen, like talking about the purpose of terrain in the middle of the map as well as how to utilize things like hills.

I also think I'm the driving force that pushed for him to develop asymmetric FFA rather than entirely symmetric FFA, because the former leads to a healthier FFA environment in what is fundamentally a game built on scale.

@judahx said in New Player Councilor Discussion + Removal Announcements:

.

We don't need another elitist in power!

This is kind of a bit of a truncated conversation. You want to elaborate a bit more on what the context is?

Judahx bro I realise you want to help your friend penguin get in but don’t self sabotage lmao

@judahx said in New Player Councilor Discussion + Removal Announcements:

And order to keep this 14 year old game around we need to support new players.

@ThomasHiatt can can singlehandedly play enough ladder to keep the community alive

Thomas is nothing but a gnat on the back of a giant called coca

@biass said in New Player Councilor Discussion + Removal Announcements:

Judahx bro I realise you want to help your friend penguin get in but don’t self sabotage lmao

Biass bro I realise you want to help your friend ftx get in but don't sabotage lmao

Maybe we should set up a veto poll and stop feeding the troll?

@shape-of-bennis said in New Player Councilor Discussion + Removal Announcements:

@biass said in New Player Councilor Discussion + Removal Announcements:

Judahx bro I realise you want to help your friend penguin get in but don’t self sabotage lmao

Biass bro I realise you want to help your friend ftx get in but don't sabotage lmao

lmaoo.
What a dumpster fire, was funny reading through it though. Also a lot of Biass going on that I saw, we should get rid of everyone and start fresh.

It was tough to get a prolonged period to discuss platforms, I doubt we could do anything else to the election as of now.

This one has been typically weak though, I guess that’s what happens when you call a vote “just because”

@aulex said in New Player Councilor Discussion + Removal Announcements:

I’m convinced we should separate PC into two positions. Product manager (basically what FTX is doing now) and an actual PC who tries to create an inclusive environment and focuses on what the players want.

I think this is best done by the newly elected PC, even if it is not official, the new PC can just delegate some responsibilities. @FtXCommando was agreeable to such a suggestion by me for new player interaction.

@Valki said in player councilor election 2021:

[...]
Or what would you think about having 1 or more "deputy councilors" who act as spokepersons between you and new players?

@FtXCommando said in player councilor election 2021:

[...]
Don't mind having people that want to act as "PC delegates" or whatever they would be called. Such a duty carries quite vague responsibilities that would need to be worked out with said interested parties. [...]

I would encourage any PC to delegate things or call upon assistance for areas where they are weaker.

If some of those delegations work out really well the new PC can later suggest to the council to permanently change the PC position responsibilities.

So, i dont know that to say first. But I would start with it.
All here know that i'm collecting a petition, it still did not complete. Every day i hear new comments about Ftx, hear incidents abusing his PC status. About communication, promotion of player ideas.
We already saw this situation with Sladow, his comment. He is my colleague, i know him, and i know that he did a great job as a personal trainer. And after this work he deserves such oppression? I think that it's unacceptable behavior for the councillor. In any case, your target is to improve faf and such actions only slowing down the progress. The councillor must put personal problems with players below the faf interests.
Also the incident with abusing - GCW galaxy clan war. When the initiative had been suppressed because ftx is law here...
I’m lazy to continue the list of this content and generally I dislike discussing toxic things. But ultimately, ftx's words don't pay any trust for me.

= = = = = =
I commit to:

Communicating with as many FAF players as is possible to gather, represent, and promote their ideas and interests.

I will work to accomplish the interests of the FAF general userbase and FAF contributor to the best of my ability. When interests of the various userbases collide or the userbase clashes with contributors, I will work to create a compromise that best serves all involved. I will maximize the interests of FAF.
I will act as the voice for players across all levels of FAF while also acting as their ears and eyes.
= = = = =

About tournaments:
It's a well-known fact that newbies don't stay in faf. Newbies prefer play gap, crater instead good maps or ladder. So, new tournaments for 1000-1500/1500-1900 will increase interest to improve the skill of playing for average and new players, increase the wish to stay in faf, increase the interest to play good maps. Their trying hard willn't look like wasting time. For example, after “Road To Glory” I see a high activity in my clan from low rated players. They started to prepare to the next tourney, play ladder, duels with each other. Although, most of them almost left from faf. Participants of the tourney said that it was cool and that they are waiting and preparing for the next tournament.

The morax's ideas looks better. We see that his priority will work. Because the player activity on the RoadToGlory is confirmation of this. Plus, a closed tournament from apofenas showed a high interest of low rated players (<1200). I can even say that this is the first step to create a pleasant atmosphere in faf for all players.

The current point system idea looks strange. There are not a lot of players who can play every tournament. And that will be difficult to participate for new stars of faf because in the future it requires years to get points to enter lots.

Divisions and rating system:
Trueskill method works well for all except new players. And your idea looks strange if consider that this system works only with very big online as it exists in starcraft 2.
Although, probably rating and divisions should exist separately. The leaderboard should be joined with divisions and the rating system shouldn't be changed or reseted. Just mini calibration to come back in the leaderboard list.

Btw, @biass could you change the link with text of morax on https://forum.faforever.com/topic/1589/player-councilor-election-2021/3
Because current link is wrong.

Let’s go through this point by point.

Sladow was removed because I’m the only PC in FAF’s history to give enough of a damn to actually maintain the lists of people under them. I had trainers that hadn’t logged in since 2014 and TDs that hadn’t hosted tournaments since 2013 back when I got the post. Which gets into why Sladow was pruned.

Sladow was entirely inactive on Discord. I did not see him on the forums, nor did I see him helping anybody out at all in aeolus. If someone is not present in public channels in any capacity, then I remove them for inactivity. Could I have been wrong and Sladow is a PM God that contacts a dozen dudes a week for private lessons? Sure. All he would have to do is PM me anywhere on FAF asking what was up with his removal and I’d explain it to him and even give the role back if he has been active. If he didn’t care enough to do that, then I just consider it another justification for the decision. If he was such a active private PM trainer, it also makes zero sense why he would not be able to cross the barrier of PM’ing me anywhere. If I removed the role from biass, Javi, or HintHunter, they’d ping me and ask what was up.

I also see he claims he contacted me and that I ignored his PMs. That’s entirely false. He has contacted me a sum of two times in 3 years. The first in 2018 to ask to be made a trainer. The second in 2020 when he got upset I called him overrated on Farm’s stream after playing a game. Both PMs involved me responding to him.

In fact, I would be interested if any dude on FAF could give an example of a PM I ignored. Maybe when it was 3 AM my time and someone pm’d me on FAF and then my PC went into sleep mode so I never saw it?

GCW is a good one to bring up. It was a clan war tournament hosted by several players that were in a clan that was participating. This tournament offered no avatar rewards during the initial post. Suddenly, at the end, when the clan that was hosting the tournament got 2nd, the TDs decides to give 1st through 3rd unique avatars.

This is unprecedented in FAF, LotS doesn’t even do it. None of the TDs consulted me about effectively doubling the unique avatar count on FAF in a single tournament. Nor the pretty evident conflict of interest here. I halted the absurd quantity of unique avatars and gave out the standard FAF avatar policy. 1st can get unique avatars, 2nd can get faction face avatars, and 3rd can get faction icons. These avatars would be given out to a player if they had contributed to the team’s win by playing in the tournament.

About low level tournaments, once again, no one says they are a bad idea. This was repeated several times. What people doubt is Morax explaining how he will do 2.5x my current TD’ing when the last tournament he hosted was in 2019 and from like 2017-2019 he was hosting 2 tournaments a year.

You don’t understand how the LotS system works. Points get reset each year. The point is to find the FAF champion of that year by rewarding participation for major events throughout the year as well as general FAF activity.

Finally, divisions do not replace TrueSkill as a matchmaking tool. It replaces it as a visual indicator of your progression as a player. TrueSkill is also NOT inefficient for new players. The whole point of the system’s design is to be as efficient as possible in placing new players at their level of play in as few games as possible. I also have zero clue why you think divisions only work in highly populated games.

@morax said in New Player Councilor Discussion + Removal Announcements:

Yes, I do "train" and help people as much as possible, albeit not through your official system. I talked to a few of your trainers such as @Sladow and @RandomWheelchair , found that none of them really have much going on.

What we really need to get training going is something like an initial broadcast message to first-time logins describing how complex the game is and linking some "getting started" material rather expecting the individual themselves to be "motivated to find it." The layers and complexity of the community can sometimes be so engrossing that even the most motivated person can be clueless as to how to begin. I do not believe you have addressed this issue well.

As for training all the time, if you do it this frequently, and over the course of a few years, YOU MUST have some people that made it to a decent level and thanked you for your help. Could you have a few individuals support this by posting here about how you helped them to show what you do for them?

Your story about "pinging all the <300s" kind of conflicts your accomplishment here.

Tbh morax if you were to ask anybody else you would get little bit different answers. Cuz the 2 you brought up aren't the best when it comes to properly judging how the system works.

First of, Sladow is basically non existent in english public space. He might be doing work in PM's or in non-english parts of the community. But the reality is that you can't see him anywhere in aeolus or discord. If you go through his discord you will see that he never spoke with any of the players seeking help there. So I'm afraid that he's just not into public work as much as the others or he simply operates in non-english discords which honestly I'm not part of.

As for me I joined the trainer team to go and help out people who are interested learning how to one-up their setons game play level and that's the people who I tend to spend more time with and explaining more stuff than basics. Otherwise I tend to go and answer simple questions in the discord which tend to happen quite often.

But ask hinthunter about how much people he's working with and he will answer with ten times the number of people that I and sladow have worked as he's out there helping out everyone he can, especially new players who have no clue what supcom basically is as they just played their first game.
Honestly even Biass would give you different answer than us 2.

As for your idea to make initial broadcast or anything I don't think it's good one as we already provided lot's of opportunities for people to get better with a set of trainers available at basically all times not to mention revamped basic guides(courtesy of FTX -https://docs.google.com/document/d/13S4nBDfcBK4WmFtykXGKNmvIPe9L2nbiriISpHNgE4U/edit) and even a brand new channel in faf client for newbies that have few trainers frequenting there to help out, and also basic information relevant to them.

If people want to get better at the game they have all the opportunities they need, and let's be honest we want people to take at least the first step in asking us how to get better as that at least shows that they are actually interested in getting better.
Unfortunately or maybe fortunately most people that join faf are interested in nothing but fun and as such they aren't interested in getting that much better by going over their replays together with trainers or by reading comprehensive guides or implementing six laws of BH into their gaming routine.

They just want to join lobby and see big robots go boom, which is quite evident especially in newbie channel which is a nothing more than a ghost field of no questions asked. And believe me it's a surprise to see someone actually needing help as nearly all of them are just gonna join random lobby and have fun no questions asked.

People like seven are few and far in between which also makes your point about FTX needing a high rated players come from his tutelage quite stupid, why must he and us have a high rated player come out from our wings? Why can't we consider few smaller random guys going up 200-300 points in ladder an achievement? Is it that bad that instead of putting all the time into getting new ladder god we help out buncha random folks rise their rating by 250 points by explaining them basics and showing how into supcom?

And coming back to the system message, I don't think it's warranted to be spamming all new players with messages. It seems intrusive and I myself wouldn't want this kind of treatment where I'm expected to git gud by my first day of faf.
Just let me play some games and enjoy new game before you throw tutorials in my face expecting me to get better. Most people who wanna git gud will find a way to forums, discord or even ask in aeolus or newbie channel. As such I don't think it's necessary.

If anything the only option I see for getting closer to all of the new faf players is revamping the tutorial tab in client into something better as currently it seems little bit lackluster. But I have no clue what that would entail so I think that devs would have to come out and speak on this topic as to what is possible.