How come you don't play ladder?

Someone asked me in Discord why I don’t play ladder as the HintHunter. So to be fair to everyone, I’ll explain my reasons for not wanting to play it.

• I don't want anyone knowing how much or how little I am playing.
  -People like to dig into other people's profiles and I am not a fan of that. I like to play when I feel like it without someone's judgment.

• I don't like knowing who I am playing against or how much better he is or how much worse (i.e., rating).
  -Rating, in my opinion, is for my own self-improvement. I gain nothing by knowing who I am playing against. It just makes me nervous and it forces me to play into or against his habits if I have played against him before or not.

• Stress.
  -All RTS games are stressful because they require quick decision-making, multitasking and constant attention. SupCom FAF is no different. I want to be able to play for fun without a single care in the world. However, as soon as I lose to a worse player (a player who has a lower rating than mine), it just feels demotivating because it feels like I should have an easy time winning that.

• Time versus skill versus talent.
  -I lack time more often than not to play the game consistently. I always have extended pauses of not playing and then when I do come back, I am just not performing as well as I hope or as well as I was capable before.
  -Better players can shake off rust in no time. I cannot.
  -"Talented" players can pick up the game and do pretty well in 30~40 games. For instance, some players can reach 1600+ rating after only a few months of playing. I cannot.

So in short, these are my main reasons for not playing ladder…
-Not enough time to become good at the game via playing
-Seeing enemy rating/name discourages me from playing
-Games are increasingly more stressful if losing versus lower rated player thinking i should be playing better; not having such info would be better for me

I am liking the idea more and more of having anonymous ladder, like you don't know who you are playing and they don't know who they are playing. Takes away me knowing I "should be" winning/losing against opponent, just allows me to focus on the game.

@ArkAngel_

I am liking the idea more and more of having anonymous ladder, like you don't know who you are playing and they don't know who they are playing. Takes away me knowing I "should be" winning/losing against opponent, just allows me to focus on the game.

I put forward a proposal for it, but it got turned down. They have something different in plan, but it's not nearly as effective. It's just a separate 1v1 unranked queue with maybe, or maybe not, map-generated only maps. These changes are not sufficient or impactful enough for me to start playing.

Also, I was not invited in any of the talks about it, and that alone made me a bit salty because I put forth a lot of effort and evidence on how and why it would be beneficial. They agreed to decline it behind closed doors, and it was frustrating to deal with because I had no say in it whatsoever to defend my case or propose compromises where they could be made.

i dont play 1 vs 1 ladder because the only person i can blame for losing is me and thats scary

@hinthunter said in How come you don't play ladder?:

Also, I was not invited in any of the talks about it, and that alone made me a bit salty because I put forth a lot of effort and evidence on how and why it would be beneficial. They agreed to decline it behind closed doors, and it was frustrating to deal with because I had no say in it whatsoever to defend my case or propose compromises where they could be made.

This isn't really a fair assessment imo. You talked with multiple matchmaker team members about this individually, and it was suggested that you could make a thread in the FAF Discord and discuss with the whole team there. You chose not to, which is fine, but it's not like the team wasn't willing to discuss with you.

Due to low player count every time I get a game I'm matched with someone I have no chance against and there isn't enough time for me to ever start to learn/improve so I just end up getting wiped out feeling like I was watching rather then playing.

I've already made a post and I wanted to come back and add one more point. A big reason I don't play as much ladder is because the queue is totally dead at some times of the day for me. Like there is only an 8 hour range where I can find games consistently at my rating level, and this is during the middle of the day for me, where it is really difficult for me to find time to play.

we need a 3v3 ranked
i wish a no rush ranked too

i just start playing ranked no too crazy about maps

to many ranks we need more people for the program to start the game.

this are only few thing to improve the game experience

specialy for players with less experince a no rush rank will be more fun for them

20 min no rush with a good map selection

@assassin 20 minutes is too much time to rush to T3... maybe a 10 minute rush timer would work

Map pool is too big, should be 5-7.

I agree with the inclusion of new maps in the pool, but I think shrinking the size of the pool would go a long way for alot of players, as it would give people the chance to attain some semblence of how to approach these newer maps, apposed to the current state of being perpetually thrown into a map you might play 1-10 times in a month, then the pool changes back to another host of new maps you've never seen. My own personal predicament is that I dont't have lots of time to be playing, working full time, hobbies, social and family stuff, the usual rigmarole, so when I do sit down to play, I am left feeling hollow with what I am faced with in terms of map gen, maps I have never seen and a huge selection of maps that I can be potentially put into when I click ladder, I drastically improved under smaller map pools because I actually played maps enough to make up a semi coherent build and find out what works for me on the maps in the pool. If this is the view of a player who has played for over ten years, I think newer players will feel even more lost. Repetition in this game I think will help alot of 1v1 players find their feet, I hope this resonates with some other players.

I do play ladder, but I must say that 1 vs 1, the same 4-5 maps ALL the time gets old really fast.

Having random maps / map gen would really spice things up.

I'll post this here too since it's easy to miss on discord:

Meanwhile the total number of games has gone way up:

High level ladder is dead.

Doesn't TMM count as Ladder now?

No, it's TMM not 1v1 ladder.

I would love a 1v1 random map gem only with multiple sizes (5x5, 7.5x7.5, 10x10 and so on...)
Also the idea of anonymous ladder sounds very good to me.

@blodir said in How come you don't play ladder?:

I'll post this here too since it's easy to miss on discord:

Meanwhile the total number of games has gone way up:

High level ladder is dead.

LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If mapgen only ladder came back I would play it but the current maps are just no fun because you either lose a transport or a few engies and its completely lost which is not fun.

Losing transports and engineers being game deciding isn't unique to non mapgen maps. It's still an issue on mapgen, because its an issue with 1v1 in general

Yes that is true bullydozer but it's much less sharp and sometimes the stuff you have to drop is much closer to your base which makes the game less sharp and transport rush dependent.