Greetings fellow members of the FAF community,

as you are probably quite aware of, many users experienced several connectivity problems over the past couple of weeks. This was and still is due to only recently diagnosed issues, which made connections unstable for many FAF users. We will go over the event timeline and outline what would be required to get things back to normal.

First and foremost, we apologize for the lack of communication concerning these issues - the cause of problems was unknown initially, and we didn't want to share information we weren't sure was correct. We strongly hope that this rundown will give all users a good overview of what was and still is causing them.

The Disk Issues
The first problem detected and tackled by the DevOps team was the failure of a physical disk on the server that FAF services were hosted on, which occurred on 9th of April. This was a serious issue, so the members with the know-how took immediate action, and the servers were returned to their regular working state in quick order. The services returned to their normal functionality within an hour of the problem being detected.

A month later, on 6th of May, another disk had failed. This time, the disk that failed was the main disk that would allow the restart of services. Due to the type of failure, remote access was unable at the time members were on hand. The schedule of the DevOps team as well as the service provider made it hard to estimate how long it would take for the servers to get back into working order. The service was restored on 7th of May, less than 8 hours after the failure was detected.

In light of the outages, the DevOps team decided to use this chance to make a scheduled migration of service hosting on to a newer, substantially better server. To be exact, the new main server is a machine with doubled performances compared to the old one, which will make any non-game services work that much more smoothly. This was completed in short order on 28th of May with some residual problems that were resolved quickly after the migration.

Upgrading the main server actually didn't help with connection instability experienced by many. Some users were concerned that the issues were either caused by the game updated that happened on the 20th of May, or the most recent client update. We assure you this is not the case, and we hope the next game or client update, or balance patch will be awaited with anticipation, rather than dread. So what is the cause? Let us explain that, now that we actually know with certainty.

In-game connection problems
To understand why connection issues appeared, we need a short crash-course on how FAF servers work. First, there is the "main" server, the one we mentioned was migrated to a new machine, and is currently in pristine state. This server allows for players to connect to all non-game-related services - the forums, FAF website and the client. However, once a game is started, this main server no longer has anything to do with the game. For example, if you already were in the game, and the main server crashed, the game would still play normally.

When the game is started, the last thing the main server does is it establishes connections between players. First, it tries to make peer to peer connections - these are direct connections between players, that allow the most straightforward exchange of data. Sometimes, however, this type of connection can not be established for whatever reason, and that is where another type of server jumps in to help - the coturn servers. These servers effectively work like a middle-man, getting data from one player and sending it to another. Most issues players recently experienced concerning unstable connections had to do with problems on these servers.

Resolving the issues
Originally, there was only 1 cotourn server, but recently 4 more were added. DevOps team hoped that adding additional coturn servers would fix connection instability. While the good news is that additional coturn servers might improve connection health in general for the future games, this in itself did not actually serve to fix the problems people were having. After some investigation, the DevOps team concluded that the issues with both the old and the new coturn servers were caused by unwanted elevated traffic on these servers. In terms some people might be familiar with, the coturn servers are being DOS-ed - not an unheard of occurence in the business of server hosting, but one that FAF managed to avoid until recently.

These kinds of problems have established methods of fixing and prevention. The current issue the DevOps team is facing with implementing these is the amount of work that is required - they are unable to start work until their personal schedules allow for that. This means that, unfortunately, we are currently unable to give an estimate on when these issues will be resolved. We would like to use this opportunity to ask our fellow members of FAF for patience, and for help - if you have experience with Java/Kotlin and server maintenance, please contact us, either via the forums or the discord server.

AI-Swarm

This mod has been in development for about a Year, Now. My Goal was to create a well rounded AI, that would be able to do Navy, Land, and Air. I wanted it to be able to face any challenge from 1v1 to 1v8 Situation. My Goal was also to make an AI, that doesnt depend on Multipler to win the Game. I, Also wanted him to be good in all situations be that on a map with less mass or a map with more mass, and I wanted him to be able to adapt to any situation and be strong in T1 to T4 Stages.
Requires AI-Uveso For The AI Map Marker Generator in the Options

Installation - AI-Swarm is available on the FAF Vault. Search for 'AI-Swarm'.

Swarm plays very good on Open 10km Maps. It can play some 5km maps (Note: I havn't tested him very much on these maps). It, also can play a mean navy on 20km maps or 10km Maps. His land game isnt the best on 20km maps depending on the type of 20km map. He doesn't play very well on "Gap" Maps.

Special Thanks to
Sprouto, and Uveso: For Basically teaching me everything i know about AI, Especially Sprouto, who without him. I'd be not close to where I am today. Uveso, too for helping me fix many bugs, and proving the base for Swarm. Both of these kind fellas gave me motivation to never give up.

Relent0r: For Basically giving me the competitive motivation to improves Swarm 1v1 capability and Relent0r was a good sparring partner! He, also helped me with a few things

Evan and BullydozerNoob: For Being Some High Leveled Players, that 1v1'd Swarm many times and gave me VALUABLE Information and help!

Jammer, Mhad, DFViper, and Clarko: For being long time players and testers of Swarm

Everyone Else Who Made Swarm, what it is today 8-)

3 New Sub AI's:

-AI: Swarm Terror/AIx: Swarm Terror : This is your Standard Swarm AI.
-AIx: Swarm Eternal : This one cheats harder as the game goes on and Cheats harder when its losing. (mostly for Fun)
-AIx: Swarm Test : For Testing Purposes

Map Suggestions

10km:
Adaptive Wonder Open
Adaptive Hilly Platuea
Adaptive Diversity
Miracle
Crash Site
Crash Site - 1v1
Mavys Marsh
Abhor
Adaptive Pyramid
Adaptive Morning Prayer
Adaptive Hansen Gorge
Open Palms
Oracle
Cadmium Green
Hollow

20km:
Adaptive Metir
Adaptive Maridia (Only 1 AI)
Point of Reason
Adaptive Skadi
Seton's Clutch
Seraphim Glaciers
Chiron
Osiris

Updates will be Posted On This Forums and the AI Development Server!!

AI Development Discord Server
https://discord.gg/ChRfhB3

Hello, I am Kazuya more formerly known as Azraeelian Angel.

I am the new Community Manager and look forward to increasing engagement with the Community as well as creating more transparency with the development process.

I am extremely interested in receiving suggestions and feedback on both my ideas stated in my application and potential ideas that people may have.
That being said I am also looking for people willing to assist me in some of my goals! You can dm me at Azraeelian Angel#9240. If you havn't seen my application you can check it out here! https://forum.faforever.com/topic/6040/community-manager-candidates-2023/3

I mostly wanted to post this to get the conversation going and interaction going but also to break the silence since my election!

@FtXCommando said in The Last Thread about RAS SACU Balance:

They aren't "OP" in the sense of being a dominant strategy but they promote inherently toxic gameplay. The only thing that should combine mass + e + flexible BP is the ACU itself. When other units do it, you open up the ability to do things like protecting infinite eco in a single, condensed area. Lategame eco should be about factoring in the risk/reward of additional eco adjacency efficiency and additional risk of exploding mass fabs. Not make boys and forget.

They should just be nerfed into irrelevancy or even removed just for the sake of promoting a healthier game.

100% Agreed.

@thomashiatt said in Game Councilor:

@jip said in Factory models:

There is no 'we' here Thomas, there is just 'you'. Stating I abuse the privilege of being game lead is pretty disgusting when I announced that these were my intentions from the very start.

I think that your constant usage of the word 'immersion' and the changes you make for its sake are misguided. It's just a game industry buzzword. You do not need better graphics for immersion. You can be totally immersed in just a book, or any other simple activity. I assure you that my mind is entirely immersed in the game when I am playing it in its current state. Improvements to graphics, performance, or UI are not going to increase my level of immersion, its at 100% already. Games with horrible graphics are just as immersive as games with good graphics. Performance could actually have an impact on immersion, but 99% of 1v1 to 4v4 games I play never get slowed down, so performance is not at all an issue for me. It kinda feels like a joke to improve the performance of the game after so many years and hardware getting so much faster.

While i agree with your upper sentences. Your last sentence is just lost in ignorance of the game. You can only run so fast because the game is single core and not multi-core. People want to play bigger games. You ain't the only guy playing the game. You don't have performance issues because you dont play bigger games, ok? Cool?

What about the other people who do play 20k+ with AI or 20k+ with 6v6 etc. They have slowdown and thats what the patches are definitely aimed for. Again, you can only run so fast with a 3090 RTX and I9 13k, simple as that you will cap out. Jip's work increases that cap for EVERYONE! Not to mention that the game is slowed down to the slowest person's PC which improves everyone's game when Jip introduces more patches that improve performance.

Let's not get into the memory improvements that Jip has added which does so much for AI Developers on FAF, while you might not like the certain features. That are turned on by default. You could always turn them off it's definitely just a personal negative experience on your part which is fine but i wouldn't make that an arguing point.

Also freeing up performance allows more actual useful code to be running and mods to be slightly more intensive like Total Mayhem for example. It's all around a big improvement for not just gameplay but for modders, more CPU to work with and more Memory to work with.

The game is healthier then ever because of Jip and his ability to not only code this work but to gather an entire team and lead it to make the game better more beautiful more performant. Your arguments are opinions but the facts of his work lay in front of us, so i mean if he's the only guy really doing anything then he should have the most say in all things because hes the only one making the game better in all aspects and single handedly allowing bigger more awesome games which is what SUPCOM was designed for!

Jip not only contributes to the game but he literally makes features at request for example nav generator for AI. He works so hard to modernize the game for Professionals like yourself (I know cringe), Thomas. Thats what his UI work is for, it's too increase the ability to control the units and make everything less tedious. I'm pretty sure Jip's work is making FAF grow too, because FAF looks alive and worked on a lot. The developers are responsive as well.

Game has fundamentals issues and its hard to have retention unless you are dedicated to improving or you play purely for fun and eventually people who play purely for fun go away.

I think a lot of people also play pvp a few times then just quit because toxicity and just generally ass maps/players on global.

I don't think most play ladder Because it's not pushed enough to the front. If anything we need to start making matchmaker more of a focus and push global into a arcade type style like SC2 does.

So paying many to promote FAF is a huge waste of money when nobody is dedicated to actually dealing with core issues that just make players not want to come back.

Everything money wise for tournaments, promotion etc could be a lot more if we had a more dedicated fan base instead of people who just play with 0 interaction. I think that stems from a toxic mentality and an inability to actually change major components of the game and not only the game but how even the client is structured and etc.

Hello! It's nice to meet everyone. I'm not around as much as I used to be (Due to my Military Life). Although I'm looking to get back into the role of things and this is a big thing for me!

Some people may know me for things like

-> Founder of the AI Development Discord for Supreme Commander FA Globally. https://discord.gg/ChRfhB3
-> Creator of AI-Swarm https://github.com/Azraeel/AI-Swarm
-> Developer for the LOUD Project (AI Focused) https://github.com/LOUD-Project/Git-LOUD
-> Developer for FAF
-> Member of FAF Association

My goals are pretty straight forward and are focused on hopefully engaging the players with Content not only in the form of Game Development but also tournaments. I really want the community to be informed of most FAF on goings in the future. I hope as CM I can fulfil these things.

My biggest ideas currently are:

-> Dev Dairies either every month or 2 months to get an insight into the minds of Game Developers & Client Developers.
-> Dev Dairies either every month or 2 months to get an insight into the minds of Balance Developers.
-> Creating Tools & Stuff for Retention Rates & Seeing why players come back and why they dont come back.
-> Encourage the funding and support of more professional tournaments with completely fundraised money.
-> Encourage the funding and support of more game development with completely fundraised money.
-> Promoting Streamers & Casters, who contribute to the retention and gain of players.
-> Promote Personal Trainers to the global FAF Community, who seek to improve players for the future.

I hope some of these interest the community and of course these are not all my ideas and I still have so much thinking to do Especially as this is a new Position in the FAF Structure, it's obviously not cleared defined what the job fully entails and thats certainly something I'll have to adventure into!

Ideas, that are dumb ofc

1. The Othuum is a siege tank correct? Why does this "Siege Tank" have less health than both bricks and pervicals? The classific of this unit makes no sense really. A siege tank is supposed to be extremely beefy, but currently, balance shows this as a glass cannon with lots of DPS and no health.

2. Does anyone use Harbinger Reclaim Ability? (Just a Question)

3. Purposed reduction of Engineering Stations Buildpower to encourage more mobile engineer usage?

4. This is a restated purposal but the Reduction of t3 extractor income to a lower value, maybe 12 with ringed income being 18?

5. T2 Scout Planes? Since I saw a pull request on the GitHub to give Aeon and Seraphim; engineering stations before. I will propose the introduction of T2 Scout Planes.

6. Removal of Veterancy from all units except SACUs, Commanders, and Experimentals If you want the stats; this will increase sim speed by 2 - 4 sim speed. We have tested this in AI Development, many times. I will give data if wanted.

This is a topic of ideas so bring them on, criticism is welcomed

To key in on this performance and development large phase that faf is currently going through. I am working on really improving functionality and performance of ALL core AI code on faf so helpfully for you AI Players you'll get even more benefit once these patches come out.

Very exciting stuff that jip has allowed us to do

Making Reclain like 20% of the original unit cost or even lower will make gameplay 100x better honestly you'll get a lot more action, lot more risk, but overtime you can still lose from reclaim war. This also fights turtling and not only that you dont have to worry about losing the game so fast due to one battle, also slows the pace of the game especially late game where shit tons of reclaim that causes the game to slog.

@HoujouSatoko

Yeah I live in Japan too and it's unplayable so definitely related to that article Jip posted

People need to stop thinking we ain't focusing on stability, we are. That shouldn't however stop other sectors of development or the entire game halts to a grind.

i vote to keep it like it is rn

What I'm getting is that the client/connection tends to be the biggest issue that plagues FAF, however it seems to vary extremely from one user to the other.

@indexlibrorum same, i think it should come back although theres definitely larger priorities sadly

I loved it when it was around.

@thecodemander

So you've spoken to 5 people who havent had any freezes, random times the client has gone all laggy, failed to launch games, randomly disconnected or other lobby jank that has needed a refaf? I have my doubts.

I did it's one of the reasons Sheikah is so confused because he personally doesn't have these issues and neither do I nor Fichom. I can ever ask more outside of that.
Please it was a massive issue then Sheikah would be seeing a lot more reports. You and I both know that. All 3 of us leave our clients on all day

I guess everyone in the clan has faulty PCs then because refaffing is a thing. I guess a lot of people in aoleous too given the number of times I have seen the word refaf in there. Please stop clowning.

I am not I'm sharing my personal experience, I leave my client out and don't refaf all day so it's one of those hard to find issues where it's like "Well it works on my computer lol", which i know is frustrating. It'd be nice if you could maybe potentially live stream your issues and stuff like that visuals might help for example. If client devs ever got time that could help them identify those especially if it is most of T3 Clan experiencing these issues.

Evidently if/when it breaks unusably it will be definition be reproducible. Stop the bad faith clowning please.

Again it doesn't seem to be a large scale issue so that makes it even harder for Devs, I never said it wasnt reproducible all I'm saying is with no communication via logs or anything it's extremely hard if not down right impossible to determine the issues especially if devs themselves aint having these issues. I'm not ignoring your issues and I'm bad faithing you at all.

My issue I'm bringing up here, as I have now written at least dozen times, is not technical. It is with the process and the communication which is lacking which when combined with the trajectory of the issues we're seeing becoming more prevalent, is not a great sign for the future.

From my own pov the client is improving with every update, i havnt personally had bad experiences with it for a few years now, but that isn't saying others aint. Whether or not you are feeling said issues or the trajectory is going up. It's really hard to determine because I don't think Devs are experienced these issues themselves. If they have they would have said so.

The process like jip said doesn't really need to communicated if you are super interested for backend in depth join the Zulip otherwise you won't get a FULL backend explanation upfront that's a lot of information 99% of people don't care to read.

Has it? I think T3 has had a lot of interaction with various FAF teams and is pretty active which means that theres going to be more communication in total which is likely to mean more negative communication as well as positive communication by volume. It also means that even with more contact if people in T3 are getting frustrated with the extra access, I shudder to think what it would be like for people who have less access. I guess they see how this is going and just shut up but thats speculation.

From who i've talked to yes it has, I think you are gaining the "Clown" title because of how you approach things and which a lot of people in the past have approaching things the same way you are and they don't get to far. You are lucky to be getting this kind of feedback and response because 6-7 years ago you would have gotten completely clowned out of the FAF Community and basically shit on to be frank with you. Nobody has done that to you and that's a really good thing. This once again is what im talking FAF is improving and FAF is the best it's ever been in terms of all realms physical and "Toxicity wise" etc.

We are listening I promise you mate

Thats a bit rich considering its coming from the person who came up with the term clown to describe me when trying to calmly and politely raise the issue with me. If you have problems with people using the same language you do on others, then maybe you should get your own ducks in a row first.

It also turned out that being inflammatory was the single most important factor in getting eyes on the issue. While some people may have been offended (for which I did apologise), it has also gotten more attention on the issue in about 72h than I was able to over months/years previously. I do not apologise for its effectiveness and that it was necessary is precisely the issue I am raising here.

That isn't a good thing and I also did call you a "Clown" because of how inflammatory you were talking to me in the first place. Your attitude is very inflammatory even on discord even when people are being nice to from any side of the development community of FAF. I do quote and remember you calling FAF Balance Team a bunch of idiots, Jip has had his experiences with you calling Client & Game Developers idiots as well as a bunch of inflammatory words which is just baiting responses for devs who are in T3 Discord which is why I also left the discord.

While you may find it unfair that I dished back out what I was getting from you in the T3 discord, I personally am not going to be told I'm being a clown and that everything is fine when 75% of my time is spent enjoying a plethora of issues meaning we can't play the game.

Then stop with the inflammatory words & entire paragraphs. It's not helping you.

If we really didnt care or wanted to do harm, spending hours engaging with you here, trying to raise issues, and still making an effort to try and play the game despite the bugs, still making maps, still making mods and still bringing new people to the community is not what we would be doing.

I understand this but please just chill out with the inflammatory stuff, just bring your issues to the Forums or just directly to the right channels on the FAF Discord.
File Issues & Bug reports go through the right channels, The Devs are listening they are there to help to you.

I am still very hopeful that with you as community manager we can see positive change, and I hope that the first week of calling people names in a clan discord will not be representative of your tenure of the role going forward because there is frankly a lot of potential for you to really address a lot of the issues we were trying to discuss while getting abuse in return.

Y'all are one of the reasons, that i made sure the post on server issues got out as fast as It did so you are appreciated for making it a concern and making sure that people should know whats going on.

@thewreck said in Pending Balance Changes Feedback Thread:

The long aa is a component of the czar's utility for sure but one of the main reasons to spam czars is so that if you get 5 of them you can beat large quantities of asf but without the laser, it simply isn't possible for large quantities of czars to beat 500 asf. I cant speak for everyone but spamming lots of czars is a lot of fun and I would be disappointed to see it no longer be viable.

yeah i think czar is really weak if you are looking to use it to win versus air with ASF only time its ok when its equal and you get czar, its ground weapon is good but idk i just feel like im gifting mass but its way better now since its gifting 30% less now so i do use built it a bit more in my beta games.

I've been curious on if these issues are wide spread so i asked a few people because for me personally I havn't experienced these issues and either have atleast 4 other people I asked, i feel like if it was widespread atleast 1 of 5 would have said something. I think its hardware or something. I understand frustration but if its a personal hardware problem or something and you are on a different OS it just makes the situation and communication so much harder.

At this point I regret even speaking out on this and I'm actually willing to accept that sanctuary will cost me money, but when the client breaks in a truly permanent way, I'll have to give them money Id have rather given to FAF.

If it breaks permanently for you and you still cant give us anything then theres not much we can do for you. Again, i mean idk what to tell you. I'm not trying to be toxic or trolling you. I can see care and you want your issues to be fixed but how are client devs supposed to fix them when theres no logs or any information to go off of?

Apart from that, how pro gets or got treated by association members, can be questioned but i don't have the context and I think that image is certainly taken out of context especially since it's from Jip. I also think T3 has earned a bad rep within the development side of FAF that is for sure what i can tell you before anything else. You have engaged in a toxic and unfriendly manner and blatantly have disrespected members who again are not getting paid to take your toxicity.

It is never the point to especially start openly roasting and attacking members in a harassing way even if you feel like no one is listening.

@thewreck said in Pending Balance Changes Feedback Thread:

Main mechanic of czar? lol one of the strongest parts of the czar is its ability to beat asf. especially if you have large numbers of them

i guess but i mean at that point why was the AA long range added with AoE if you are trying to lure ASF into that since its the main weapon in your opinion? also the fast rechargable shield, the czar is designed for skirmishing look at the weapons and utility

@thewreck said in Pending Balance Changes Feedback Thread:

I am also not a fan of the reclaim changes, especially for navy. The czar height change is also too much because the czar relies on the asf being underneath the thing so that it can be groundfired to kill them. Changing the height difference from 5 to 2 massively decreases the value in making czars which is a change I don't like at all. Also, the last balance change introduced a large nerf to the aeon destroyer so why is its frig getting nerfed now? Also simultaneously buffing cruisers and nerfing torps seems like massive overkill to me given that you generally have to win air for torps to be useful in the first place. On a separate note air is already super weak past 30 minutes on pure land maps because of how strong sams are. Typically the only time you see air grids larger than 15 factories are on maps with water because air is actually good against navy. I do like removing the stealth from harms not sure if it needs an hp nerf on top of that. The atlantis buff is definitely a good change in my opinion.Cybran navy definitely needed a buff considering its destroyer is garbage and the nerf to frigs was to strong. the change to mercies will be welcomed by anyone with a brain although I have not actually seen them in use yet.

That is not the main job of the czar tho, that was just a "neat mechanic" of SCFA.
I can't speak on the aeon frigate, but i know it was the best frigate by far due to mass per dps or something like that. Aeon imo is still insanely strong navy wise but thats just me.

I can't think t2 subs are op, i've been playing a crap ton of beta balance and giving replays to Spikey and such. I think torps are actually perfect now they dont instant one pass everything unless its a huge number which is better gives cruisers a chance.

I actually had a chance to use mercies , they are freaking awesome now and i definitely will mix them in even when on t3 air i feel like they do a good job at slowly picking away armies.

I don't have an opinion on the air, because Air being op and then being insanely weak vs sams is too much of a swing.