FAF Berserk Penalties

So I’m interested in using a matchmaker queue to host periodic weekend events that can be more casual but at the same time serve as a way to have some fun in different ways.

The queue would, rather than use trueskill, have a system similar to the league points where you gain 1 point for winning, gain an additional point for winning in a streak, and double your points if you won with a berserk penalty.

What is a berserk penalty? Well it’s something I want to steal from chess that high rated players will take to gain extra points against players they outclass by a decent margin. In chess, this is simple. You lose half the time the event gives you by going berserk.

In FAF that’s a bit different. You can’t really do something where a person cant input commands for 30 seconds because a person can’t decide to go berserk until the game has launched and introducing some sort of pause menu at the start would be awkward. It’s also super map dependent for 30 seconds of idle time to just totally lose you a game vs hardly do anything. I also don’t really think it’s very fun to ask a guy to sit around and do nothing for 30 seconds.

Instead I’d rather do a couple more proactive penalties:

• no e storage
• no stationary radar
• no acu upgrades
• reduce the fuel of all units to a quarter capacity
• no acu death nuke
• reduce all bp costs by 10%, reduce all income sources by 10%
• vet makes units lose hp by their new regen rate rather than gain it (ACU unaffected)

I’m not really sure what a decent combination of penalties would be but these were the ones I could collect that seemed pretty reasonable to me.

I think the reduction in bp and income is the one that can most easily be applied across maps and games (1v1-4v4) without feeling particularly oppressive in any set area. However, I also think some combination like no radar or e storage could lead to some interesting situations with a lack of radar really hurting in big maps and no e storage hurting on small ones especially.

I would imagine this would function as a button near your scoreboard ui that you have a 30 second period to click once the game starts. Should give enough time to check out opponent, map, and get a feeling for if you are up to the challenge.

Feel free to talk about any other penalty ideas or the concept in general.

Also any sort of restrictions need to be kept strictly to unit/simulation matters. Stuff like hiding resource bars or disabling certain hotkeys (while possible) would be pretty much impossible to police.

No engie production first 2-4 minutes

No lab/tank/arty/bomber production first 2-4 minutes

You can't build hydrocarbon power plants

/thread

I think this can definitely add alot to the game, specially for streamers or casters. Can have people taunting others with berserk mode, specially when you get the 200-300+ rating difference in a 1v1 match. Plus I'm sure it would be interesting seeing matches of high level players with handicaps

Could we code a mod which throttles build rate, energy, or mass in proportion to rating?

No, too easy to misreport to the server.

Gain reverse AiX bonus: Build rate and resource generation are at 90% of normal.

A build cost and build time penalty of 10 percent is probably enough by itself to compensate for a 300 rating disparity.

I suspect, however, that you could get the "berserk" theme better by setting a time limit to the match, with the non-berserk player winning if he's still alive at that point

Perhaps the time limit would not be set in stone but would be random. That way, it's not as simple as "always turtle." If you know the match will never go past 20 minutes, it's pretty obvious when (as the lower-rated player) you should shift everything into turtling and you don't care if you lose 80% of the map by 19:30

On the other hand, if there's a 20% chance the game ends at minute 20, and a 20% chance it ends at minute 24, and a 20% chance it ends at 28, and a 20% chance it ends at 32, and it definitely ends by minute 36, and the players don't know which it is (20/24/28/32/36) until the game ends, the defensive player has to work harder to balance being defensive vs playing the long game. While still giving them a "free" win if they can hold out.