The End of FAF

@thewreck said in The End of FAF:

@maudlin27 do not reword what i wrote. I said that high level players do not care about base ctrl k.i said higher level players do not care about the use of these words.this was an extremely dishonest response to what I wrote.

I thought you were arguing base ctrlk should be fine; re-reading though I agree I misread it as it seems you’re just saying it should be fine for higher rated players only and are against removing the rule altogether, so I’ve edited my summation accordingly.

I can’t see where you say only high rated players should be allowed to use insults like retard and nazi though; you complain about mods taking action against their usage and say the community should be able to enforce this on their own. Later on in your post in a separate heading you talk about how FAF rules shouldn’t apply to high level and senior (presumably including high rated) players with lots of games bar some exceptions, but I read this to mean bans for most rule breaches not just bans for insults. I missed this point in my summation though so will also add

While I do think those words should be universally allowed I am not aware of anyone in the high level community or in the medium rank community that takes issue with it.

@Evildrew i have actually talked with a lot of players before I wrote this. And I know because I have been here for years and no one ever took issue with it and this is a sentiment shared by the half dozen players I have spoken with and they have also been here for many years.

@evildrew said in The End of FAF:

So you are under the delusion to think you have a right to change your username on a database you do not own but willingly registered yourself to at any time and that the entity offering you the service under its terms of service cannot change the terms of service even though it is stated in them that they can.

Clearly your dillusion is bigger than i expected.

Yes, as the rename feature exists (since the beginning?), which is a normal feature to have in ANY online community, i do expect my right to rename to exist.
Even talking about ownership is absolutly insane. Just because i do now own something, does not mean i can't be expected to interact with it how the community wishes. Yes, i know "the community" is a term a single person can't really use, but unless one has lost all common sense, i believe everyone knows that a rename feature is a good and expected feature.

You can ask to be removed, that right is granted to you under GDPR but no where is it mentioned that you have a right to change your username.

You made a real fool out of yourself by grandstanding, saying I have no clue what I am talking about. Maybe try being more lowkey when adults are speaking.

Wow, got me there! Just claiming the fact that my opinion is childish is the worst argument ever. Its the last thing to say when you can't think of a counter.
I said that you do not know what you are talking about, because you legitimatly do now know why it has come to the descision the other high ranks have made (talking about the posts, leaving faf and so on..). You just said "to vent dissatisfaction". Typical take to "say something bad -> you are just flaming, no complaints allowed"

I suggest the mod team should let you change your username in return for paying $25 like on PlanetSide 2. I highly recommend they do that, then you have what you want and they know you will not be changing your name every week, easy.

I know (or also hope) you wrote this in jest. As comparing a company that stands behind planetside 2 to faf is just not possible (do i need to mention common sense?).

You still did not post an actual argument why the moderator descision is legitimate.
If you are saying "they own it, they can do whatever they want"; you are first of all, not even completly correct, and second of all, imagine how ANY company / online community would crash if they do not react to feedback.

@evildrew said in The End of FAF:

@thewreck said in The End of FAF:

The most clown take ever. Bro is completely unaware no one had any issues with frequent name changes for over 10 years.

No one? How do you know this to be true, you just state that like it is fact but you got no proof and even a 7 year old could see how stupid it is for you to claim you know what everyone thought...

I like how you claim that Wreck has no idea, meanwhile we have actually asked moderators for this information, and the lack of response kind of says it all.
Also, are you saying you know more than us on this?

@thewreck wow 6 people. That’s a massive sample size. Stellar! They should have co-signed then…
So what about the argument then, since we can just proclaim to have rights that are not enumerated anywhere, that if other players know who I am, I should have the right to know who they are, because knowing someones play style gives you an advantage…

No you don't have that right

@nuggets said in The End of FAF:

@evildrew said in The End of FAF:

So you are under the delusion to think you have a right to change your username on a database you do not own but willingly registered yourself to at any time and that the entity offering you the service under its terms of service cannot change the terms of service even though it is stated in them that they can.

Clearly your dillusion is bigger than i expected.

Yes, as the rename feature exists (since the beginning?), which is a normal feature to have in ANY online community, i do expect my right to rename to exist.
Even talking about ownership is absolutly insane. Just because i do now own something, does not mean i can't be expected to interact with it how the community wishes. Yes, i know "the community" is a term a single person can't really use, but unless one has lost all common sense, i believe everyone knows that a rename feature is a good and expected feature.

You can ask to be removed, that right is granted to you under GDPR but no where is it mentioned that you have a right to change your username.

You made a real fool out of yourself by grandstanding, saying I have no clue what I am talking about. Maybe try being more lowkey when adults are speaking.

Wow, got me there! Just claiming the fact that my opinion is childish is the worst argument ever. Its the last thing to say when you can't think of a counter.
I said that you do not know what you are talking about, because you legitimatly do now know why it has come to the descision the other high ranks have made (talking about the posts, leaving faf and so on..). You just said "to vent dissatisfaction". Typical take to "say something bad -> you are just flaming, no complaints allowed"

I suggest the mod team should let you change your username in return for paying $25 like on PlanetSide 2. I highly recommend they do that, then you have what you want and they know you will not be changing your name every week, easy.

I know (or also hope) you wrote this in jest. As comparing a company that stands behind planetside 2 to faf is just not possible (do i need to mention common sense?).

You still did not post an actual argument why the moderator descision is legitimate.
If you are saying "they own it, they can do whatever they want"; you are first of all, not even completly correct, and second of all, imagine how ANY company / online community would crash if they do not react to feedback.

Again, read the terms of service. No where is the right to rename guaranteed and the terms may be changed at any time. You agreed to those terms so your whole argumentation is ridiculous. Now stop making a fool out of yourself. If you feel wronged, sue them about it and see what happens…
Unless you can point to something binding in the terms of service that underpins your argument, stop posting nonsensical arguments.
This level of reasoning is the same level applied by the balance team and the reason why the FAF mod is such trash.

@thewreck said in The End of FAF:

No you don't have that right

Ok I get no special rights but you get the right to speak for everyone including myself when you claim no one ever had an issue with people constantly renaming though you say you only speak for 6 people. Very interesting…

@thewheelienoob said in The End of FAF:

@ftxcommando xDDDD do you mean the game where my acu exploded in ur base when u were preparing a comdrop?

It's funny because with your perspective a mod might actually ban me for it. In reality, while demotivated, i tried to drop my acu in ur base so that u could help me go t3 and i would comdrop with you. Im guessing a few asf shot me down, i wasnt really looking

If it wasnt that game then i'd like to know which it was

Oh I didn’t know you got shot down I just thought you walked in because the recall failed

@evildrew said in The End of FAF:

Again, read the terms of service. No where is the right to rename guaranteed and the terms may be changed at any time. You agreed to those terms so your whole argumentation is ridiculous. Now stop making a fool out of yourself. If you feel wronged, sue them about it and see what happens…
Unless you can point to something binding in the terms of service that underpins your argument, stop posting nonsensical arguments.
This level of reasoning is the same level applied by the balance team and the reason why the FAF mod is such trash.

Can someone explain to this man that this is not about the terms of service?
EVERYONE knows they can theoretically change that feature. That is not what is being discussed (as i said, you have no clue as to what is going on). I wonder why you do not post this in the rename thread? Please go ahead to farm some more downvotes.
Sorry, but i geniuenly can't be bothered to continue to try to explain the situtaion to someone, who i know will not understand even after 20 more pages of text.

@maudlin27 said in The End of FAF:

Also while we have you saying FAF is dying because (amongst other reasons) the mods have cracked down on insults, we have the most active thread on the Supcom steam discussion pages prompted by someone saying people should stay away from FAF because (amongst other reasons) the mods do nothing about insults.

You realize that whole thread is people calling the dude a troll and toxic and they're glad FAF isn't following the trends of modern gaming right?

@Evildrew I will not disclose who helped me with creating the grievances in my post unless they want to.

@thewreck said in The End of FAF:

@Evildrew I will not disclose who helped me with creating the grievances in my post unless they want to.

I totally get that you are not making that decision for them, you clearly respect their rights to anonymity and to make that decision of outing themselves. Would be nice if you respected other people's rights in the same manner and not speak for the community, which you and these 6 people clearly do not represent when making your claims.
Good luck though with getting your grievances resolved.

@ftxcommando your base would be the last i'd blow myself up in ️

@thewheeler said in The End of FAF:

@blackyps said in The End of FAF:

I frequently see "there are no other high level players to play against, so it dries up" but when the game was new, nobody was good at all. How did these people manage to push the level of play to heights that nobody had played on before? Why is it not working now?

Honestly, it feels like your skill at games is decided by your genetics.
Some people get to 2k+ level or its equivalent in other games in less than a few years, some players get hardstuck in elo hell at <1500 for literally tens of thousands of games, like they just perform a script, without ever changing it or improving.
we should introduce gaming skill-based eugenics

That's not necessarily true. I understand the game far better than I can play it and a lot of that comes down to me not being able to use a mouse and keyboard so well because of the state my hands are physically in.

I never got the feeling that Wreck was trying to speak for me or for the community at large here. By that logic, no one could post any topics of concern anywhere on the forums ever which is obviously something that would be horrible for the community.

Anyway, there are some spectacularly bad takes in this thread now, but there are one or two related points that are interesting to me. Those being: why are there fewer active high rated players, and the related why are the newer high rated players worse than the OGs.

I'll try to tackle both at the same time since they're, imo, closely related. I feel like I've been high rated adjacent for a while now, hovering 1900-2k in both mapgen and setons, and I'm sure I'd get to about the same in 3v3 and 4v4 tmm if I actually played them. My personal top two blockers for improving are: it takes far more effort for me at this point than I'm willing to put in and even when I was more active I could barely play with top players due to my timezone. The latter is getting worse as fewer and fewer top players are active, and due to rating inflation there are arguably worse players at 2k now than in the past. Some might even argue I'm one of them

It's hard for me to say, but imo the last point is slightly overblown outside of a few niche areas. Not going to name names, but I can think of more than one person who has massive rating inflation because they have one or two troll strategies that consistently win vs the 1300s they play vs but get wrecked vs competent 1800+ rated players. This is more of a thing in burger Setons or presumably gap as well rather than mapgen though, where there are few if any high rated players keeping this in check. For example, when Yudi was active in these games this rating inflation was much less severe. Due to that last bit, I don't think I see this quite as much in more generic team games. Granted, I also haven't played in 6 months, but I'd be surprised if the average 2k in those games are very noticeably worse than 2ks from 5 years ago. It might just be rose tinted glasses for the past making it feel that way.

Back to the first point about fewer top players, I just think most 2ks are like myself - don't have the interest or drive to keep improving at this point because there's so little competition and then there are a tiny amount of people like Farms who are far above the random 2ks. Imo it's hard to improve when you're already the best in most of the lobbies that you play in unless you put in a lot of work outside of it, so those who aren't playing with the handful of top players right now are going to be pretty stuck.

How to fix this? Honestly I don't have great ideas there, only two things come to mind and both are related to 1v1 ladder, since I think the death of higher rated ladder play is a very large part of this.

1. Bring back the feature from the python client that tells you when someone your rank is queuing ladder. People have been asking for this forever, and it feels like such an uncontroversial and low hanging fruit to achieve.
2. Throw even more money at it. Top active ladder players get a cash prize each season if eligible. More tournaments. Even bigger LoTS prizes, though iirc last years was quite large so probably not much can be done there. Let former top players know that these prizes exist and that there's more competition. I think the ship has sailed with most of them, but who knows? This also might incentives some current ~1800+ players to improve.

Again, particularly the 2nd idea, isn't the best idea. It's just what I have off the cuff.

Hopefully my stream of consciousness rambling makes at least some amount of sense and people don't think I'm way off

Yes I was not expecting everyone to agree with what I wrote but I know for a fact that a lot of people are not happy right now and they are leaving this game. I emphasized the community in my post because the people who are quitting are essential members of the community in my opinion so I tried to voice their grievances and mine to the best of my ability and what they and myself believe needs to change to stop more elite players and community members from quitting.

@maudlin27 said in The End of FAF:

Also while we have you saying FAF is dying because (amongst other reasons) the mods have cracked down on insults, we have the most active thread on the Supcom steam discussion pages prompted by someone saying people should stay away from FAF because (amongst other reasons) the mods do nothing about insults.

Sone excerpts from the OP of said post.

"Stay away from FAF
It used to be a great thing. As it is now, developers are completely incompetent: the real developers left long ago and what's left only add more bugs with every patch they release, not knowing the first thing about programming, and the moderation and community is, for the most part, just a bunch of mindless fascists.

It's still one of the best RTS games ever made. Just don't fall for FAF. The people involved are toxic, rightist simpletons. Moderation is openly leading the persecution of people who are different in some way. It's just one big circle jerk of rednecks you wouldn't want to get involved with, if you're remotely right in the head.

I'm not one of those LGBTQ+ radicals, but I did witness how sexual orientation was brought into the "discussion" on discord for no other reason than a profile pic and a person got ganged up on by these pitiful creatures, attacked for what they are and then banned for trying to defend themselves.

Stay away from this filth. They are not worth the air they are breathing."

"Just from the top of my head:

• They broke the connection loss recovery (the most important part of the game). It used to be that you could still reconnect after a minute of silence or more. That hasn't been working in years now. A few seconds of silence and you're gone.

• Connection losses between 2 people in a match have become significantly more frequent at some point, not that long ago.

• Moderation doesn't give a about griefers and abusers or flamers/harassers. The report system is still in place from the time when people who were actually competent were still working on the FAF client, but there are only clowns dealing with reports now. I had times when a player lost connection to 3 or more others, but instead of leaving, so the rest can go on, they just went silent and sat it all out until, half an hour later, all the others had finally given up and left. And they don't ban these or other griefers. They don't give a .

• Factory queues often don't respond anymore. They just broke it and never fixed it again.

• Artillery stopped firing uphill at some point for no apparent reason. Never got fixed either.

• The player score/rating system is an absolute joke. It's made for 1v1 matches, win or lose, nothing else matters - except nobody plays 1v1. Most people play 6v6 or other team vs team setups. As a result, ratings are just completely random and lobby hosts stack their games, instead of using opti (auto-balance), to ensure they don't drop to a 400 where they can't join any serious games anymore. Most games are decided by who has fewer disconnects anyway.

• The game still constantly freezes and crashes, usually on starting. Maybe 1 in 4 games started can actually continue at all, and that's a generous estimate. Rarely any of those also finish without several disconnects, though. When it's not the crashes, then it's lag from bad p2p connections beyond playability. I'm sure it would be possible to do a stress test while still in the lobby before starting and figuring out first-hand that the match is an unplayable lag-fest...

And on top of that, you can't even properly report an issue with bugs or balance without getting swarmed by the local redneck trolls on discord. It's mostly a place where idiots hang out, circle jerk, post funny gif memes or gang up on "woke" people."

"Everything I posted is factually right. Some fanboys jumping in trying to undermine someone's credibility without actually having a point - that can actually be considered trolling and adds to internet toxicity. You fit in nicely on their discord. You can howl and circle jerk with the other trolls there in mutual confirmation, if you aren't already.
"You can play something else", lol. I am... You can bring up that kindergarten-level argument whenever someone critcises anything. Only shows where you are coming from."

That's some parts of the post in question. Makes you really wonder how genuine it is. Considering the man behind it seems pretty butthurt due to his own lack of understanding.

Honestly, just go read it: https://steamcommunity.com/app/9420/discussions/0/4336474207081809919/

It makes it pretty clear dude is a bad actor.

I keep saying the fact I hit 2k says more about the state of the community than my ability. There's a definite drop in quality of players at the higher end, it's contributing to the rating inflation. And as Excelsior said, why try to get better when you're already near the top, even if the current top is far worse than it used to be. FAF desperately needs start making %1 improvements rather than -1% setbacks that are slowly but surely driving people away.

The only improvements I can really think about are on the actual development side:

• Jip improving sim speed so much over the last few years (You're a god for this tbh, easily FAF Hall of Fame)
• (Sorry I can't remember your name right now) trying to rebuild the ICE adapter in the face of all the recent issues

The list of -1% setbacks have already been listed elsewhere here & in the other thread. But it continues to grow, and we continue to lose valuable talent in the community. I mean shit, talk about a -0.5% setback, the maplist in the client no longer autoselected the latest mapgen but defaulting to the top of the list, something I made a thread about and got no attention for. Losing a player such as Sladow who is actually a high rated (not inflated) player AND someone willing to contribute back and train new players should frankly be a massive wake up call that shit is wrong.