The End of FAF

FtXCommando

Some minor points from me here:
FWIW I quit handling FAF tournaments because of the moderation team issuing a blanket ban on base ctrl+k (specifically my utterly insane rowan base ctrl+k ban) prior to recall being implemented. This was a solution to a problem at high level games back then and moderation team just didn't really care and told us to just deal with it until a dev found a solution because they do not want to have to handle a gray area. I got like a week(?) ban for it too which was even more ridiculous.

I do think a ban on base ctrl+k is fine now, and I even got a ban for it lately. It was a day ban which was a reasonable penalty in my eyes and I had no problem with it. Really I just don't personally trust moderators to handle anything in high level games in general and it's very easy to figure out who actually made a report in lobbies so that person just ends up getting banned from future games for however long feels justified. High level people can police dumb gameplay themselves, really. I remember one time Bully did some completely stupid com bomb in my base when we still had a chance to win and I made a whole stink about it. I'm of course not gonna report him because I can't trust moderation to handle proportionate responses to the offenses at hand.

Which, by the way, the solution to the rowan base ctrl+k ban was just for him to basically be denied into high level games on weekends for several weeks.

How are the rules for civility working out anyway? I'm curious about what the stats on activity in the Discord look like this month compared to 12 months ago.

It's frankly a gigantic problem that moderation "takes into account ban history" because plenty of people that would have been decent high level mods got thrown into the trash. The two that come to my mind are Sladow and Mephi. Funny enough basically every moderator I thought was decent has some history of "moderatable behavior" because on FAF that just requires functioning like a person trying to have a good time. Gieb had about 5 morbillion smurfs. Resistance is a perpetual toxic depression machine. Arch has base ctrl+k'd before.

Some of the mods just seem like dudes completely alien to any actual community culture and it shows in the way moderation has been in the last year. And I unironically think the whole "ban review" thing is a big component of that. You can't actually take part in anything fun to attain the position of moderator so you get a bunch of dudes that barely actually interact with this common, regular, high level in particular (we have all been here for years), community.

It's a bunch of straws that have been breaking my back for a long time because it feels like moderators are just antagonizing people that have been fine for years at this point. The base ctrl+k was a solution, it is no longer needed. It's great that recall exists and it's fine that base ctrl+k is now banned. But that period where it was banned and recall did not exist was basically a middle finger to high level players and one of the major reasons I stopped trusting moderators with any reports.

After that like the dozen or so regular posters in politics in the Discord were basically getting reamed every day for saying something is retarded. My final straw here was when I got like a 2-3 day mute for saying faf has nazi mods and then got to read Index say that nazi is a slur???????? It became such a joke that we just moved off the FAF Discord and now just organize to play games other than FAF with other ppl that are tired of a variety of FAF shit.

The rename thing is another eye roll that fits the same schema.

It doesn't really impact my desire to play FAF much since it's just moderation, but it makes me give way less of a shit in engaging with the FAF community. Whether I want to play FAF is mostly centered around whether the 30ish people I want to play FAF with are playing.

Jip

Thank you @TheWheeler for pointing out the data. I've asked @Sheikah to run some additional queries just the other day and the same applies to 2023 and 2024 - we have about 17K unique players playing on average each month, which is a lot higher than pre-covid which was about 12k - 13k unique players.

The same applies to the number of lobbies:

2018: 870.873
2019: 853.742
2020: 1.362.511
2021: 1.306.360
2022: 1.572.139
2023: 1.452.615

All numbers only take into account players playing on the FAF game type.

Note that in general the gaming industry received a massive and unnatural boost because of covid. It's a miracle that even with the DDOS and other technical issues that we're still at the numbers that we're at right now. Especially when you compare it to similar games such as Planetary Annihiliation and the Titans expansion, or for example Supreme Commander 2.

And thank you @IndexLibrorum for taking the time to write an extensive response.

Based on the data @TheWreck I'd like to ask you to correct your original post. It creates a sentiment that is simply not true, specifically referring to the chapters Is FAF really in decline? and Why is FAF dying?. I also don't think you can speak for the community - nobody can. The rest of your post is subjective, I don't agree with it but we all have our opinions .

@thewheeler said in The End of FAF:

A high level/nolifer player is not worth more than an average level player with normal amount of games played just because he is better at the game and plays it more.
A contributor like sladow/jip/farm/whoever might get some privileges, but not ban evasion.

I appreciate the gesture, but in my opinion nobody should have privileges of any kind. It just doesn't work that way.

FtXCommando

@jip said in The End of FAF:

Based on the data @TheWreck I'd like to ask you to correct your original post. It creates a sentiment that is simply not true, specifically referring to the chapters Is FAF really in decline? and Why is FAF dying?. I also don't think you can speak for the community - nobody can.

Hello Jip. Could you inform the moderators to do the same in the rename thread? I'd hate for you to look extremely partisan in the matter. Thanks in advance.

waffelzNoob

@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

Crusader_Nova

This is a point that wasn't explicitly mentioned in the OP, but I felt it was related to the sentiment that the community isn't being represented. It's about balance, and while this isn't the dedicated balance thread, I still believe it has relevance as it's the topic of balance, not an individual suggestion.

I have never really contributed to balance or forum discussions until now for a simple reason. Every single time I look at the channels in question, I see nothing but ideas being shot down and those suggesting them being called variations of stupid. This went for suggestions I felt were good and bad - the treatment remained the same; just another "ur dumb", "stay mad", "skill issue", or "lmao". Sure, there will be examples touted where suggestions made in these places are given thought or even implemented, but without putting on the nerd glasses I'd guess they are the exception, not the rule.

I am not an expert in video game design, but I am a member of this community. I can say with certainty that as it stands, this crucial line of communication between player and developer is dysfunctional in the extreme. Maybe developers should only listen to the highest level players, maybe the "average" player should get more say. I don't know - but I do know that me and many other players feel nothing but frustration, and then anger when they voice their opinions and get their metaphorical nose broken.

Dorset

As I said I don't do anything with discord but I'm wondering does the forum directly tie to discord in a way that people who don't come to the forum but only go to discord can read these threads?

It seems to me like a lot of people that play this game..... Blindly guessing the vast majority.... Don't use the forum at all but if all of this was made public on the discord then maybe we would have a better sense of where the community really stands on issues.

I was thinking about it last night as I was falling asleep and my guess is that the majority of the community has no idea these discussions are going on and don't care about them whatsoever because they get to log in and play. Maybe they wouldn't even care if they did know they were going on but maybe they would care about certain issues that affected them directly such as balance adjustments and the like.

1.3 to 1.5 million lobbies It's pretty awesome now that I see those numbers... Considering that's just the main FAF app is even more impressive.

I'm never going to stop playing this game that's for sure.

MostLostNoob

@dorset said in The End of FAF:

I'm wondering does the forum directly tie to discord in a way that people who don't come to the forum but only go to discord can read these threads?

No, the FAF Forums do not have a bridge to the FAF Discord, but the forum threads either have similar discussions on Discord &/or are linked in post on Discord.

BlackYps

When the high level scene is declining looking at people quitting is only half the picture. People will inevitably stop playing the game at some point. The other half is: How many new players are emerging? Top players quitting is not a problem if enough new top players are coming in. 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?
Answering these questions might lead us to productive insights. Right now I would guess a lack of promotion is the issue, but that is just a quick guess.

Ganima

@jip I was going to make a post, but since we are already here, can I please get some stats for 1v1 ladder specifically?

Terarii

@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~~

HOSCHMOSCH

@thewreck u nailed it

Jip

@ganima said in The End of FAF:

@jip I was going to make a post, but since we are already here, can I please get some stats for 1v1 ladder specifically?

I don't have those numbers for you at the moment, I'll see what we can do. But that's no promise !

Strydxr

Honestly, FAF isn't even that beyond saving, it's just that there's no idealist way to progress and therefore splinters are beginning to form.

What I want to know is, what even if the vision for FAF? The reason I ask this is because every older FAF player I speak to keeps saying FAF isn't what it used to be, client used to be more optimised and there was actually a pro scene. What changes caused this? Can an agreement be made to try and bring some of these older players back and rebuild one of the fundamentals of what makes an RTS great?

Also with the new RTS games out there, I feel like they'll lose their appeal over time, stuff like BAR, PA and Sanctuary will all thrive for a while and slowly lose the feeling of being new to people. This might cause a few people to come back to the old reliable RTS they once thrived on, just a thought.

All in all, I don't really have a massive stance in each direction, I feel a lot of newer policies could've been handled better, and maybe better communication between moderation game dev team etc and the general populace of faf and the remnants of the pro scene, overall it just seems like no one really knows what the fuck is going on and therefore leaves a lot of frustration over smaller things instead of how to make the game enjoyable again.

I suspect some new insights in the next 2-4 months will give us a bigger picture for us all to work with, as it is a community effort after all.

JaggedAppliance

@blackyps It's very difficult to replace great players, just look at the top of any esport that doesn't have millions of players. You have to hang on to your players.

Jip

@strydxr said in The End of FAF:

All in all, I don't really have a massive stance in each direction, I feel a lot of newer policies could've been handled better, and maybe better communication between moderation game dev team etc and the general populace of faf and the remnants of the pro scene, overall it just seems like no one really knows what the fuck is going on and therefore leaves a lot of frustration over smaller things instead of how to make the game enjoyable again.

You want the communication to be better, but can you try and define what better means practically here?

Evildrew

Lets be real here, the reason people are distracted with renaming limits and other trivial nonsense is they have nothing else to do. They are frustrated that they cant get enough games especially at the higher level (so it is claimed).Therefore they are looking for somewhere to vent that dissatisfaction.

I think the moderation team made a fair argument as to why name changes should be less frequent. If you need something to attack to vent your anger at you should look elsewhere.

The root cause though is that FAForever is unable to attract and retain the more capable players that are out there looking for something to play and excel in and the reason they are choosing other games over SC:FA on FAF is that the FAF mod is such crap in terms of gameplay that they rather play checkers. No one is going to devote their time and effort to become good in a game if they think it is very monotone and boring.

FAF has maintained this stupid policy of letting the balance team leadership decide the direction of the game but not letting the community that FAF is supposedly serving have any input on electing who gets to decide where the game goes from here.
The current Balance Team Leader barely plays (to me it looks like he only plays tournaments) and has not stepped down. His adequacy for the position in my eyes has always been very doubtful and yet the worst part is that in his stead it appears this Wheelie guy seems to be calling the shots and the garbage just keeps coming. Those of us who have eyes to see can tell that these people have nothing of any value to offer in designing the game, they only make it worse. I have conceded that they are very good players due to their fast click speed and willingness to grind but that is not relevant to the task at hand. We just need to look at 2 illustrative examples I remember very clearly.

The disruptor: Tagada claimed it is amazing and super strong. Never seen one being built and used, especially not in the 100+ replays of his I checked back then. In his arrogance he struck down my proposal because he knows best and did not need to prove his point, because he decried it to be so.
The mercy: Wheelie claimed you can deny your opponent advancing, he was told by many people how stupid it was to keep insisting on this when thousands of games later no one can point to any game where it was being used in that way.
Both of these points make it crystal that they do belittle you when they are wrong and more importantly it highlights the low quality of their thought process and capacity to reason are.

Another point to be made here is that no one is calling for the return of previous balance councilors, they were just as bad as the current one.

In conclusion, the best thing for FAF at this stage would be that it collapses since I do not see the people who are responsible for running the quality of the game into the ground ever conceding that they were wrong to think they knew how the game should be played. FAF would be much better off without these people and could start rebuilding from the mess they have made once it is restructured.

@Jip Those stats do not tell the full picture, please provide answers/data for the following to show a clearer picture.
*Are lobbies actually games that are launched or just lobbies that were opened regardless of launching or not?
*How do you account for games that were short and needed rehosting because someone crashed as games of their own.
*How many minutes was the average lobby/game? This may be a better gage for actual activity when multiplied by the number of games.
*Are all the 1 player "testing" games developers like yourself create in the replay vault counted as games in this statistic?
*What is the ratio of how many accounts were created since the Steam link requirement relative to the current daily unique users?

Nuggets

@evildrew said in The End of FAF:

Lets be real here, the reason people are distracted with renaming limits and other trivial nonsense is they have nothing else to do. They are frustrated that they cant get enough games especially at the higher level (so it is claimed).Therefore they are looking for somewhere to vent that dissatisfaction.

Who needs to read more than that to know he has no clue what he is talking about.
I honestly can't be bothered to write full reply because i have no doubt that you will not understand anything about the current situation.

I think the moderation team made a fair argument as to why name changes should be less frequent. If you need something to attack to vent your anger at you should look elsewhere.

Can you please elaborate what the fair argument is? Making the life easier of moderation and (even if in some world you claim this to be trivial) reducing the freedom of players (which was not harmful) is not an argument on any level.

Jip

@evildrew said in The End of FAF:

@Jip Those stats do not tell the full picture, please provide answers/data for the following to show a clearer picture.
*Are lobbies actually games that are launched or just lobbies that were opened regardless of launching or not?

Lobbies that opened, I don't think there was a requirement for game duration or whether it launched.

*How do you account for games that were short and needed rehosting because someone crashed as games of their own.

This current data does not do that, but I posted it to show the trend and not necessarily the absolute counts. Note that in 2022 we had no infra

*How many minutes was the average lobby/game? This may be a better gage for actual activity when multiplied by the number of games.

I don't have those numbers.

*Are all the 1 player "testing" games developers like yourself create in the replay vault counted as games in this statistic?

They probably are, yes - but given we're talking about more than a million lobbies* they are not really relevant in my opinion. Let alone that I don't test via FAF, but locally and is therefore not in the database.

*What is the ratio of how many accounts were created since the Steam link requirement relative to the current daily unique users?

I don't have those numbers.

I also do not see why the steam link requirement is relevant to the discussion.

Ganima

EDIT: This was off-topic to be honest. Ignore please.

maudlin27

So to summarise,
You think FAF is dying (2023 saw the second largest number of games played, in spite of DDOS attacks)

Your ’solutions’ to this problem are:
-Anyone should be able to force a game to end against the wishes of all other players [Edit: if they are high rated]
-People should be allowed to insult and use certain offensive terms
-Names should be changeable monthly instead of every 6 months
-only high rated players with 5 years of activity and 1.5k games should be considered for mods
[Edit-additional point I missed: High level and senior players should be allowed to ignore FAF rules except in the most extreme cases eg exploits)]

Suggestions which I think would lead to many people leaving and difficulty retaining new players. In other words achieving the opposite of what you claim you want.

Why do I think it achieves the opposite? Well in addition to it being common sense (ie that encouraging a toxic environment where you can get insulted and have the game ruined by other players with this both being permitted and there being almost no mods even if it wasn’t permitted will prevent more people having fun than the few people who enjoy such an experience), many people also cited toxic behaviour as a key reason for leaving or considering leaving:

https://forum.faforever.com/topic/1100/why-would-you-have-left-faf?_=1717853309510

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.