I cri everytim
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@pryanichek said in I cri everytim:
after the first 5-10 defeats in the ladder without a single chance, beginners simply have no desire to play it further
It would be nice if the ladder algorithm didn't assume "there's a big chance this new player might be 1100 rated" and instead always looked for very weak opponents for the first 3 games.
It's a lot less burdensome to ask an 1100 to play against 3 weak opponents when they first join the ladder than it is to ask a 200 to play against 900, 1000, 1100-rated people.
Like we're worried if the next Blodir comes to FAF and gets on the ladder and the first 5 matches are too easy, he might quit. But we're not worried about discouraging hundreds and hundreds of new people who are starting at the bottom. And we're not worried about wasting the time of 1k-rated players by feeding them noobs for no reason.
Telling new players that their first 5 ladder matches are likely to be terrible so just grit your teeth and suffer through it is a meme at this point.
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I play dual gap when I feel like a relaxing match where I don't feel like everything explodes the moment I make 1 mistake.
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@arma473 Let’s please stop blaming the algorithm. It already tries to put new players against new players, and if that fails then it gives them a random opponent because getting any game is better than waiting indefinitely for a better opponent to come by, since this will at least give an opportunity to gain some data. The simple fact is that not enough players play ladder. Most are either 1800+ or in the ~800 rating range. Anyone with that rating will have no trouble crushing a new player. Even someone who has played enough ladder to get a rating of like 400 will probably crush a new player. There simply are not enough players on ladder to get balanced games for new players.
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@askaholic said in I cri everytim:
@arma473 Let’s please stop blaming the algorithm. It already tries to put new players against new players, and if that fails then it gives them a random opponent because getting any game is better than waiting indefinitely for a better opponent to come by, since this will at least give an opportunity to gain some data. The simple fact is that not enough players play ladder. Most are either 1800+ or in the ~800 rating range. Anyone with that rating will have no trouble crushing a new player. Even someone who has played enough ladder to get a rating of like 400 will probably crush a new player. There simply are not enough players on ladder to get balanced games for new players.
Beyond that it's just a totally outdated narrative. When you go and ask people at peak times how their first ladder games went (yes, even entirely new dudes to Supcom itself) you find a pretty nice spread of people that, by their 3rd game, have at least won or came very close to winning a game in their mind.
Just about all the dudes that carry the "sick and tired of matchmaker" attitude come from timezones where there are like 2 or 3 dudes searching at any point in time, which carries the negatives you mentioned here.
Also, you market Supcom (and FAF) as a big boom robot smash game and then dudes get shocked when all the new people want to play big boom robot smash games, especially when some of the more prolific casters in the community feed into it. Not that I blame them, they're taking the most enjoyable part of FAF at first glance and feeding into it.
Want people to not play big boom robot smash game? Then focus on explaining why that isn't as fun as other aspects of the game or make those other aspects more enticing, team matchmaker is just step 1 in doing that where you give people the comfy nature of a social team environment, but there are a variety of additional steps to take if you want to overcome this.
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@valki said in I cri everytim:
@auricocorico said in I cri everytim:
Join the ladder army tatsu, forget about custom games, they are wrong
I think this is a good point, TMM will draw competitive players away from custom where dualgap remains. It is probably not as bad ass it seems.
Though I want to repeat an ironic but good suggestion by FtXCommando to make a Dualgap matchmaker. Back then I only saw the advantages of catering to the needs of a large group, but added to that now:
- Opportunity to at some point have a separate DualGap ranking
- Custom game lobby consists of more original games and is thus more inviting
After 1v1, 2v2, 3v3 and 4v4 I believe there are 2 slots free right?
Half of the dudes that play dual gap are ready to begin an ethnic cleansing campaign against anyone with a CPU getting less than 3.2 GHz, you will never make a dual gap matchmaker appealing (nor any 6v6 matchmaker really) when you have 12 random assortments of potential lag points that can drag the game down.
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Gap popularity is because that's what people like. Chilling and doing sim city for 45 minutes of game time, aka 1.5 hours at an average -3 sim speed. Not everyone wants to play much more challenging and stressful games. They could easily migrate to the common teamgame maps like canis, wonder, hilly, etc. if they wanted a non turtle team map, but it's not what they want. This is also shown by the lack of popularity for FAF itself: it's simply too hard and complicated to be preferable for many people. They would rather play fortnite or league of legends or SC2, etc. instead. FAF has major issues for people like the lag and pathfinding (it's almost 15 years old...), but the issue of network externalities is also massive (the more people that play the game, the more games of your preference you can find and the more you enjoy the game. E.g. I doubt you'd care so much about how many gap games there are as long as there are plenty of games that you want to play available!). But the network externalities issue isn't really solvable...it would require massive, rapid growth in the popularity of the game so that the growth can snowball, which just doesn't seem at all realistic given the market demand. The game is almost 1.5 decades old, and has fairly inferior graphics (albeit not horrible) to anything made in the last decade, and as we all know, a poor game engine leading to the performance issues.
Edit: So is there a solution? Unfortunately, none that I would put any money on. In this case I'm pretty sure pessimism is realism. Maybe you can convince all your friends to start playing, but if they are anything like mine they will try it and then quit for the aforementioned reasons. It's just not going to be many people's favorite game, and if they like it, it won't be too surprising for them to prefer dual gap anyway.
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SC2 is one of the most stressful games out there with 100x FAF’s playerbase and an extremely large percentage focused around the 1v1 mode. To the point that teamgames are basically intentionally gimped because allowing the mixing of faction tech destroys any level of balance there.
The only area of SC2 not 1v1 that got any real official attention was coop, which just accidentally managed to be successful.
I don’t see it having much to do with FAF requiring a mega brain because you don’t need a mega brain to beat bad players, you can perfectly play ladder or dual gap casually with a beer in one hand.
This comes down to player expectation, cultural traditions, and player onboarding on FAF
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@ftxcommando said in I cri everytim:
SC2 is one of the most stressful games out there with 100x FAF’s playerbase and an extremely large percentage focused around the 1v1 mode.
I wouldn't say SC2 is much more stressful than FAF, just much faster paced. Yeah, sure it's more stressful if you're trying to win tournaments for actual money, but that's just because of the money, which is because of the game's popularity, not that it's inherently stressful.
I don’t see it having much to do with FAF requiring a mega brain because you don’t need a mega brain to beat bad players, you can perfectly play ladder or dual gap casually with a beer in one hand.
Yeah, it's universally true of every game ever that it doesn't require a mega brain to beat bad players. Obviously, you just need to be better than your opponent. Good to know you ladder "perfectly" with just one hand. I'm sure that's not trolling at all!
This comes down to player expectation, cultural traditions, and player onboarding on FAF
It comes down to the tiny player base, and RTS style games not being very popular, particularly right now, and even if they were, there are a lot of things about other games that people prefer to FAF. Hell, even IF we assume SC2 is more stressful, you don't have to queue for an hour for a game, or deal with horrible simspeed and pathfinding. I don't think we can claim that FAF is less stressful and easier than SC2 and expect to convert many of those players.
I can't find the quote but long ago I read somewhere that TLO (SC2 pro gamer) said that forged alliance was more complicated and/or harder for most people to grasp than SC2, at least implying that it at least has a significantly steeper learning curve, but I cannot find that right now.EDIT: QUOTE FOUND:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jenoX_FpmNc
"When casting [FA] it's hard, because it's such a complex game compared to SC2...any idiot can understand SC2." -
How is it trolling to say you can find a dude to beat casually on ladder or in dual gap? You can get to 1500 ladder purely making point defense to beat players, people have done it before on smurf accounts. Neither game mode requires “more skill” because the skill level to beat a player is inherently built on the player you are facing. If ladder has 50x more players than dual gap, it’s easier for the casual player to find a dude to play a casual, relaxed game against in that environment. This can be seen in SC2 where the casual environment extends into the 1v1 ladder. This should not be confused with the “skill ceiling” of a game mode, but 0 skill is 0 skill anywhere you quantify it.
I also don’t understand how you extrapolated any of that from that quote. Casting FA is hard because you need to explain a ton of boring macro mechanics, casting SC2 is easy because ooooh look at the marine split micro. Nothing at all about learning curve, how much brainpower the game takes, or any other weird superiority reason you’re imagining.
SC2 absolutely is more stressful because the game can instantly be lost in mere moments. In FAF, if you played better for 80% of the game you’re winning the game. AOE2 is more stressful for a similar reason, just on a lesser scale than SC2.
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@ftxcommando said in I cri everytim:
How is it trolling to say you can find a dude to beat casually on ladder or in dual gap?
As usual, you obviously, deliberately misrepresent what others say and engage in pure trolling.
What I actually said: "Good to know you ladder "perfectly" with just one hand. I'm sure that's not trolling at all!"
You deserve to be banned from the forums for such BLATANT, INTENTIONAL LYING.
The rest of your response is more of the same, so nothing else you said deserves any response. This always has been and always will be how you communicate, so I won't waste any more time with you.
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I find FAF to be a lot less stressful - if you lose one engagement then you haven't immediately lost completely because of the ACU / how easy it is to make defenses or counter produce due to distance.
I think FTX hits it spot on indicating that the expectations of the game are off, as a lot of trailers are about explosions and experimentals - while the game is about creating land / air / naval presence, expanding, understanding when (not) to take a fight, etc. In my typical game I don't even see an experimental walking by.
Gap popularity is because that's what people like. Chilling and doing sim city for 45 minutes of game time, aka 1.5 hours at an average -3 sim speed.
This is actively being worked on and everyone (with the right background) is welcome to join in on the crusade.
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@tatsu
Thats going on in every online game.
People playing same maps over and over. -
Dual gap became what it is due to an audience of people constantly refining something to continue to fit their needs. Willpower, iteration, and time investment.
Meanwhile, people trying to make “good” teamgame maps can’t be fucked to put a modicum of effort into making their maps good. If they even try to make a map at all. If you patrol the vaults you’ll see the result. 5 minute garbage.
And yet, when it’s time to complain on the forums and make cringe statements like:
You deserve to be banned from the forums for such BLATANT, INTENTIONAL LYING.
You all seem pretty motivated, don’t you?
Perhaps if spite wasn’t FAF’s main fuel you would have fixed this problem already. Lord knows you discuss it every second month.
If you want gap to go, make something better.
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I fully support this proposal! - "If you want gap to go, make something better."
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@biass said in I cri everytim:
Dual gap became what it is due to an audience of people constantly refining something to continue to fit their needs. Willpower, iteration, and time investment.
Meanwhile, people trying to make “good” teamgame maps can’t be fucked to put a modicum of effort into making their maps good. If they even try to make a map at all. If you patrol the vaults you’ll see the result. 5 minute garbage.
And yet, when it’s time to complain on the forums and make cringe statements like:
You deserve to be banned from the forums for such BLATANT, INTENTIONAL LYING.
You all seem pretty motivated, don’t you?
Perhaps if spite wasn’t FAF’s main fuel you would have fixed this problem already. Lord knows you discuss it every second month.
If you want gap to go, make something better.
This is an absolutely brilliant observation.
So basically we should look for the most popular competitive map at 500-1300 and refine that one?
Though that HAS been happening with map generator, constant refinement for a competitive experience.
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The most popular map on FAF is sentons, 10% of all FAF games ever were sentons. Yet this is an anomaly and not sure how much can actually be learned about player preferences from it. I think sentons is so popular because it was “the supcom map” used in trailers, which combined with how ancient it is just kept old players playing it. Trying to just make a new sentons map won’t be popular because it lacks all the background surrounding sentons that made it popular and so people will just ignore it. Can’t even get people to use a version of sentons that removes the asymmetry between both sides because that’s apparently considered heretical.
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@ftxcommando said in I cri everytim:
The most popular map on FAF is sentons, 10% of all FAF games ever were sentons. Yet this is an anomaly and not sure how much can actually be learned about player preferences from it. I think sentons is so popular because it was “the supcom map” used in trailers, which combined with how ancient it is just kept old players playing it. Trying to just make a new sentons map won’t be popular because it lacks all the background surrounding sentons that made it popular and so people will just ignore it. Can’t even get people to use a version of sentons that removes the asymmetry between both sides because that’s apparently considered heretical.
Senton
Senton faf version
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adaptive millenium seems to become more popular as of late btw.
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@Fremy_Speeddraw said in I cri everytim:
@ftxcommando said in I cri everytim:
The most popular map on FAF is sentons, 10% of all FAF games ever were sentons. Yet this is an anomaly and not sure how much can actually be learned about player preferences from it. I think sentons is so popular because it was “the supcom map” used in trailers, which combined with how ancient it is just kept old players playing it. Trying to just make a new sentons map won’t be popular because it lacks all the background surrounding sentons that made it popular and so people will just ignore it. Can’t even get people to use a version of sentons that removes the asymmetry between both sides because that’s apparently considered heretical.
Senton
Senton faf version
true
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Bit of a text wall.
TL DR: the experience of a very bad player and how it relates to gap.
Also a bit of disclaimer: i think gap being so played is a real issue. With that said, considering that no association member has ever seriously addressed this the same way that i do, i have to conclude that either:
- current association members may as well have no idea about it, due to being unable to relate, as most of them are seasoned players, or players who usually have displayed some kind of quick grow from the start (potentially due to coming from other RTS games and already being skilled in some way), skipping the "trash noob" phase (to my knowledge no one with a relevant role in FAF is that bad at the game, minimum rating i know about is 1400~)
or
- or the problem is non-existent and i was just very, very, very unlucky in my first FAF period
On to the main story.
Gap being overrated is something i agree with but also comprehend.
Let me tell you my story. I started with FAF 5 years ago. It was probably my first rts multiplayer experience. I've played rts games in the past like some titles from the total war saga, but those are a different type of rts, and half of the gameplay is turn-based. Probably the closest (and coolest) supcom-like thing i've played in my life is metal knight: Mission terminate resistance (1998).
All of this to say that supcom wasn't only my first "true" rts, but also the first multiplayer one. I was totally new to the genre, and had a really hard time at the start, mostly due to me joining ladder games and being trashed (it was SO frustrating, i didn't have any idea on what to do). My ladder experience was very brief, i quickly gave up on it (all losses ofc, like 15-20 in a row at least, possibly more). I tried looking for some tutorials but there was nothing i could seem to do to even get close to victory. I think at the start my global rating was set by default to 800, opponents were a little too tough for me.
I resorted to custom games, most of which were the most popular maps (Gap, Seton's, Ultimate you shall not pass XD). When i joined other maps i was always losing almost automatically, and even on gap if i got one of the eco spots our team would be pretty crippled. Losing more and more games, my rating started realizing i was not an 800, and slowly brought me to my much deserve -400/-500. That, paired with my high cpu rating (slow potato), warranted a kick from almost every non gap lobby, and after a 50 or so games i was so dejected that i abandoned the game. While i recognize that i may be one of the worst starting rts players, i think that some people could somehow relate to my experience. But it doesn't end here.
I came back around one year later, determined to retry, here i started a long series of gap games (the only available map). At the time if i recall correctly i had aronud 70 games, i would be a staple gap player until 400, but not before becoming depressed again around 200 something and quitting again, feeling no purpose in that repetitive and still too difficult for me gameplay (on gap, i either got nuked before i could make an experimental, or t3 arty before i could nuke, or they just had smd, and telemazered before i could t3 arty, it was truly horrible ahahahah).
It follows another year and a half of inactivity, then one day i see the game in my steam library and think "i can't really accept being so disgusting at a videogame, i want to improve". Another 200 gap games and we're at 400 now, not all gap, still some ultimate you shall not pass here and there. I retried ladder at some point with the same exact results as the first times. This is where (i don't remember how exactly) i met my saviour: Cheeseberry. The guy was so kind and spent a lot of time explaining me the basics of the game, and gradually more advanced stuff. There were weeks where he would spend like 5 out of 7 evenings with me on discord, live coaching and reviewing replays.
I had 6 fun months, and although thanks to Berry i got much better at the game (my rating went from -300 to 400 or 500) my skill... well, still trash XD, but less disgusting than before, way less disgusting. What Berry gave tho was knowledge, i started understanding a lot more about the game, even tho i couldn't keep up in game, i could spot mistakes from higher rated players. Guess i'm a slow learner after all. But then, after succesfully getting out of the gap trap, throwing myself into ladder i have to confront the harsh truth once again: i suck badly despite so much time in reviews, tutorials, coaching and playing. Get dejected > quit. Rinse and repeat. I truly felt sorry for Berry after all the effort he put on me, but it was too depressing. This was around 2023 i believe.
In the end i came back once again on march this year, idk why, maybe to challenge myself once again. A friend of mine watching my streams on discord started having some interested in the game and ended up buying it, we played together until july. This time something clicked, and improved a lot compared to the past, getting somewhat close to the average player. I still make stupid mistakes, but can learn and improve with more effectiveness. Currently i'm taking advice from another very good guy (i ended up not pestering Berry anymore because his life was busy at the time and i was too time consuming XD), and my fav mode is 3v3 mapgen. This is yet the most fun period i had on FAF, grinded around 770 games in the last few months, almost double of what i did in the previous 4 years, and i can't say for sure that i won't hit a wall again, get depressed and disappear, but i feel like for now i can finally enjoy the game.
But, i do acknowledge that this might as well not be the case if i wasn't so lucky. I mean, sure my first impact with the game was disastrous (and second, and third), but i might also have quit this game forever if not for berry legit pulling me out of the gap hell. The negative rating kind of forced me to get into that environment, which gives you nothing to use outside of gap, so you either stick to it, or feel so utterly useless on other maps. What could have happened if i didn't meet Berry? I'd probably quit for good, maybe occasionally coming back for a challenge, but i can't imagine enjoying the game in that type of situation.
Gap is truly a hell hole that keeps pulling in new victims due to the harsh environment, low rated people being unwelcome in normal lobbies, and the popularity of the map itself. I think this is possibly a self-sustaining issue, and very harmful to new players. I truly am lucky, would've missed out on such a good game if not for a stroke of luck
