I cri everytim
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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
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Necroposting a diary entry, kewl.
Glad the trainer team is dragging some people out of the gap environment, however.
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I never reached a rating above 1000 and I was there 3000 years ago when the original gap was still played.
To cite the famous Morpheus:
"What is the Gap? Control."FA is ultimately complex. You can be attacked from basically all directions, even water or mountains only protect you so far. Then there are so many ways of attacking v from plain unit rush, artillery bombardment, tactical/strategical missiles, strategic bombers, experimentales
Instead of rating I reached the wisdom that some people need to dumb down the game because the complexity is too high.
People put themselves into a very restricted environment, where there are less things possible (no sneaking behind base, easier turtleing,...).
Actually the modern dual gap is actually an improvement over the original gap. Instead of one central turtling point each team has its own. There is water available. And there is a skirmish area in the center to fight about.
So yes, maybe Dual Gap doesn't help you getting better. But it makes a lot of people happy, that wouldn't play FAF at all if we forced them into a different direction. So who are we to judge?
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@Brutus5000 You're the software god, and as such, an exception. Active people in most teams have a more than decent rating (and usually everyone whose opiniong is taken into consideration).
Also, answer me on disc
(The morpheus quote killed me
)Also, gap surely dumbs the game down (i also rather play 3v3 instead of 1v1 so my attention can be less distributed and i find it more enjoyable), but it dumbs it down to a degree that you don't get to see most of the actual game. I'm bad at apm and multitasking, but having virtually 0 time between techs, entirely skipping from t1 to experimental, removes all sorts of interactions. And that's not even the problem, you can only play (maybe) a single map out of the huge pool.
Again, gap in itself is not the problem, if that's what people enjoy, the best to them, but it could be the only option they have at the start, and they just stick to it because they can't properly get introduced to the game (as i tell in my "diary" XD). My issue is with that being a possibility
