What would make ladder less stressful, intense, or scary?

The most common reason people gave in a recent thread for not playing ladder was basically that they find it too stressful, intense, or scary. So, what changes would help reduce those issues? For example, would the option to have a slower game speed help, or would a mapgen-only ladder queue help, or what about increasing engineer hp, or how about something else? What do you think should be changed?

Change the game they play. That's it. There's no going around this problem as long as ladder 1v1s are so mentally taxing imo.

Remove Frithen my stress level will reduce by 9000

Have some 2 lane type 7.5 or 10km maps for lower ranks? In team games one thing that helps reduce stress is you can get away (at lower ranks) with focusing just on ‘your’ lane/opponent, greatly reducing the focus and actions required. Meanwhile your opponent’s base being relatively far away (compared to a 5km 1v1) gives you a bit more time to react to their threats.

I think there is a large number of people that don't understand that global, 1v1, 2v2, and 4v4, are all on separate rating systems, and don't play one because they are worried about the rating of another. That information could be put on the matchmaking page or something I guess.

I don't think there is much you can do to affect players anxiety directly. Maybe it would be okay to allow for 1 practice ladder game a day where you don't lose rating.

1v1 will always be the most stressful, it's just how human psychology works. No one to save you; no one to blame for your loss.

What helps me is thinking that my opponent is an AI, but without pausing, and I like muting them so that they can't rage on me when they lose, and I absolutely do not care about my rating: I just play and try to win, and if I lose, well, the next game will be statistically easier for me.

There is a thing in Starcraft Brood War when players hide their identity so that the opponent does not know what to expect. I wouldn't mind having it in FAF, but mostly to get less stress, as anonymity in fights means there will be no consequences no matter what happens in the game.

If we are talking about team games, I don't get a lot of stress, but raging allies are just too much for me, and I often ALF+F4 when they won't shut up, as we don't have proper mute. Anonymity here would also be nice.

imo only mapgen ladder would be close to "fixing" it because it removes the map knowledge advantage, but it will always be "scarier" than other modes because 1v1 of any kind is hard

How viable would it be to have AI opponents at low mmr levels on ladder?

AI opponents defeat the purpose of ladder. You play ladder if you want to play PvP. If you want to play vs AI you set up an AI game, there is no need for a queue then

@blackyps said in What would make ladder less stressful, intense, or scary?:

AI opponents defeat the purpose of ladder. You play ladder if you want to play PvP. If you want to play vs AI you set up an AI game, there is no need for a queue then

I disagree a bit with the idea that you play ladder only to compete against other players. In my opinion, ladder is a way to gauge your own skill level, regardless of whether you play against others or not.

A point that I would like to draw from is the speedrunning community. Speedrunners often try to beat their own records, rather than solely trying to beat someone else's record.

I just don't want people to jump to the conclusion that ladder is solely played to compete against other players.

@derpfaf said in What would make ladder less stressful, intense, or scary?:

How viable would it be to have AI opponents at low mmr levels on ladder?

why in the world would u have ai's on ladder? in a ladder? the whole existence is to compare yourself with other human beings.

go further and let an ai play for u against an ai. so u have no stress anymore.
welcome to robowars.

that "fear" what ever that is, u have in every competative game. Like someone here said. its an ego thing. uhhh what if i lose? then i am worthless or what. i lost so many games and i just get pissed if did something very stupid.

@hoschmosch said in What would make ladder less stressful, intense, or scary?:

@derpfaf said in What would make ladder less stressful, intense, or scary?:

How viable would it be to have AI opponents at low mmr levels on ladder?

why in the world would u have ai's on ladder? in a ladder? the whole existence is to compare yourself with other human beings.

go further and let an ai play for u against an ai. so u have no stress anymore.
welcome to robowars.

that "fear" what ever that is, u have in every competative game. Like someone here said. its an ego thing. uhhh what if i lose? then i am worthless or what. i lost so many games and i just get pissed if did something very stupid.

Main draw of using ai for ladder is in the case that people can’t get a game at lower levels. You only have so much to make a decent impression and if somebody thinks ladder is super dead they might just give up on the idea of queueing entirely. An ai matchup in such cases would be an additional variable in the everpresent question of “no game” vs “a game.” Since lower rated (500ish) players play about as well as some of the best faf AIs, it doesn’t really seem like a waste of their time if you put yourself in their shoes as a guy looking for a quick, engaging game.

@ftxcommando said in What would make ladder less stressful, intense, or scary?:

Since lower rated (500ish) players play about as well as some of the best faf AIs

tbh, i seen m27 beat up to 1.1k players (and 1.3k rated players globaly rated) that is something to consider.

@maudlin27 has made quite good job of it, as well other AI devs.

@ftxcommando said in What would make ladder less stressful, intense, or scary?:

@hoschmosch said in What would make ladder less stressful, intense, or scary?:

@derpfaf said in What would make ladder less stressful, intense, or scary?:

How viable would it be to have AI opponents at low mmr levels on ladder?

why in the world would u have ai's on ladder? in a ladder? the whole existence is to compare yourself with other human beings.

go further and let an ai play for u against an ai. so u have no stress anymore.
welcome to robowars.

that "fear" what ever that is, u have in every competative game. Like someone here said. its an ego thing. uhhh what if i lose? then i am worthless or what. i lost so many games and i just get pissed if did something very stupid.

Main draw of using ai for ladder is in the case that people can’t get a game at lower levels. You only have so much to make a decent impression and if somebody thinks ladder is super dead they might just give up on the idea of queueing entirely. An ai matchup in such cases would be an additional variable in the everpresent question of “no game” vs “a game.” Since lower rated (500ish) players play about as well as some of the best faf AIs, it doesn’t really seem like a waste of their time if you put yourself in their shoes as a guy looking for a quick, engaging game.

i understand that. but anyway filling the ladder with ai to make it more viable seems the wrong way. there r many reasons above u can work on. mappool. presenting ladder more fun. it has to be places on the startscreen. faf generally is so depressend designed. make it fun, make it futuric. name some ladderplayers. give them avatars. let them archive something. and the most "i quit ladder" rteason is for sure the behavior. no glhf no gg. absolute basic stuff in online gaming.

Would be fun to see how much rating m27 and other ais can get if you throw them into the system.

I think that for lower rated players who dont want to get crushed 10 times in a row till their MMR settles, some AI opponents might be an easy, friendly way into ladder 1v1. Could bake them into initial soft MMR placement the same way other multiplayer games do with ranked matchmaking or something.

There aren't many sub 500 rated players queueing so from their perspective they get nothing for 30 mins in queue and then match vs a 1000 rated player and get crushed which doesn't seem like a fun experience.

I'll let the wrinkly brained people decide on implementation viability and whether 'padding' ladder at a low MMR with some AIs is the direction FAF might want to take to increase low rated ladder activity.

@melanol said in What would make ladder less stressful, intense, or scary?:

There is a thing in Starcraft Brood War when players hide their identity so that the opponent does not know what to expect. I wouldn't mind having it in FAF, but mostly to get less stress, as anonymity in fights means there will be no consequences no matter what happens in the game.

Ladder should definitely be anonymous.

@thomashiatt said in What would make ladder less stressful, intense, or scary?:

Maybe it would be okay to allow for 1 practice ladder game a day where you don't lose rating.

I like this idea more the more I think about it. Anyone afraid of the ladder button can get 1 free game a day to get used to pressing it and get used to playing ladder. It would work for high rated players that have been inactive as well. They can play some free warm-up games that contribute to overall ladder activity. It could also encourage more interesting and risky strategies in the risk-free game for the normal active players. If you can get people into the habit of playing 1 ladder a game a day they are likely to continue and become active ladder players. Some other type of incentive to play 1 or more games per day/week would also help to build this habit.

Of course the big downside is that it breaks the integrity of the rating system, but it is not really any worse than people playing unranked custom 1v1 games, which is the current situation for many high rated players. The integrity of the system is also irrelevant if ladder is dead, which it pretty much is currently.

@thomashiatt said in What would make ladder less stressful, intense, or scary?:

Ladder should definitely be anonymous.

If so, to what extent?

Another pointless thread. I went to a forum for moms where they share how their tomboy pooped. Or a game? Power is open to people, there is no desire to receive it? - Go gap, tmm, and spoil people's games with your clumsiness in actions. If you want to develop - play. Exactly the same as in that topic, we need a reward system. Where people would get even in the launcher some kind of golden statuses or something. How the system is made with grandmaster and so on. too ordinary and not catchy, because no one sees it. Everyone enters the lobby equally, and your achieved rating by the system is not displayed to people, but only prevents satisfaction in games where weak 2k players are shoved at you, in relation to 1600 giga-children in the enemy.

The only option that helped me develop even before FAF was settons with x2 resources, where you could understand the importance of technology, they gave you resources. And here you just can't afford it. Add people the ability to play unrated ladder - story 4-4 no fullsher. Add 10000 t1 to engineer? - I'm done, I saw the rest of the messages.

If you want to encourage - motivate with a reward system (again, this is not just money, we are talking about the system as a whole). People love to avoid the difficulties of nature and go the easy way, having the desire - they achieve success, without having - they remain a gray mass of those who spend the resources of the planet.

Personally, in my case, I have a temperament everywhere to be the first, always be the first and achieve something. I didn't run into issues with not wanting to play ladder. But at the moment I have reached the limit of the system in this department, next comes the championship in tournaments, and this is just honing the weak points. And if we talk about rivalry with Tagada Nexus Yudi, it's the nerdiness of builds and the total abuse of meta or counter-meta.

map gen maps always