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I love Forged Alliance. Husband of Jop.
This is my guide on how to improve in FA. Most of its points are also applicable to other games. Some notes about this:
With that out of the way, let's begin!
Step 1. Setup.
The beginning of every improvement journey is to set up your game and environment in a way that supports long term growth. This includes multiple things:
Install useful UI mods. See my other guide for this (https://forum.faforever.com/topic/1186/ui-mod-guide-for-the-improving-player?_=1613225992111).
Set up your hotkeys in an efficient way. This is especially important because you will memorize a hotkey layout quite quickly and burn it into your brain. If you learn an inefficient setup, it will be hard to break bad habits that were instilled over hundreds of games (I suffer from this problem, and you should not repeat my mistake). Now you might ask, what is an efficient hotkey setup? Well, the default hotbuild setup isn't too bad - an important adjustment i would make to it nowadays is changing the massfab hotkey away from the premium key it occupies, and put something more useful on it. Apart from that setup, there are a few extra keys I would suggest you to bind to some relatively easy to access position:
It is normal that you will change your hotkey setup over time, but it's useful to start out with a decent layout.
Step 2. Decisions.
I would suggest deciding on a few things to streamline your improvement process as a new/weak player (<1300 rating):
Decide on the game mode. Do you want to become good at teamgames or 1v1? Make up your mind and play accordingly (e.g. using teamgames only as a tool to test out uncommon units, if your goal is 1v1 improvement, playing the game mode the most that you are interested in improving at, etc.)
Pick out a specific rating goal, that is not massively far away, but will take some time to reach. Be happy once you reach it. Repeat this process for motivation. Pick a faction, and stick to it. Supcom gameplay is extremely similar throughout the factions, so you cut down on confusion by learning a single faction first.
Decide on a certain strategy and the corresponding build order before every game, and try to get a feel on how it works. Change it up only after you think you can execute it reasonably well or if it doesn't work at all on a map (Example: T1 spam on literally every map, T2 air gunship snipe on every map, etc. Of course you will adapt during the game, but the general game plan should be fixed).
Find a good player and stream to follow and copy what they do. You will not know the correct decisions in game situations at this stage in your improvement career, and any player above 2000 will do for this (Jagged, Tagada, Farms, as examples of currently active streamers). Use this to find answers to common questions like “When to upgrade a mex”, “How many factories on x map”, etc.
Step 3. Mindset.
There are certain patterns of thought that will help you keep an improving mindset. Those can sound a bit uncomfortable and harsh, but this is in your best interest! I will humbly call them Blackhearts Laws.
1) It is your fault. Remember that scene from Good Will Hunting, where Will is told that he is not at fault for his childhood (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQht2yOX9Js)? Well, I am telling you the opposite. It is your fault. You are responsible if you lose the game. You played bad, and you have to change that. Even if it is a teamgame, there is something you could have done better to get a mildly better winning chance, regardless if every team member failed. Do not spend time making up excuses why you lost (cheese that I didn't scout, bad concentration because of bad sleep, etc) but make sure to find causes and try to remove them.
2) Never compromise long term gains for short term improvement. If you want to improve further and further, there is no excuse for taking shortcuts in your gameplay. Shying away from the correct play, even if it's something that will lose you points until you learn how to do it, will slow you down long term. Examples of this include:
3) Fix your time usage. Your time playing should not make up the big majority of your time spent on FA. Spamming 10 ladder games in a row is massively less useful than playing 5 and then critically analyzing those 5 to find your mistakes and trying to think of ways to not make them again. Playing 5 games and analyzing them is again less useful than doing that but also watching high lvl gameplay/learning data about the game. View playing games as a mere tool to supply data to do the actual improvement work on. Watching high level gameplay will also give you more data to memorize - try to analyze the way a good player treats a certain matchup, a certain map, etc and implement it actively the next time you encounter a comparable situation in your own games.
4) Accept plateaus and frustration. It is completely normal to not improve your rating for a month or so, and it is also normal to get tilted once in a while when on a losing streak. Do not let that discourage you: Rating is not a direct equivalent of your skill, but merely an approximative tool that will over time follow your skill. It is completely normal and common to not improve your rating for 1-2-3 months and then suddenly jump 100-200 points. When down in spirit, think of law 2 and remember that you are in for the long term improvement and not the short term rating gain. You want to play better, not have more rating. As long as you feel that your gameplay is improving, all is probably fine. Learning this game takes time.
5) Realize that FA is a continuous game. One of the best aspects about this game is that small mistakes result in small punishment, and large mistakes result in large punishment. A rough ordering of magnitudes of mistakes would be (starting from the most severe mistake):
If you watch a replay, or play the game, you should always keep this in mind. If your acu is in a horrible position, your attention should be spent removing it from that horrible position instead of fixing your eco. If your eco is in shambles, you should fix your eco instead of winning a tank battle somewhere on the map.
6) Use others for advice, rely and trust on yourself to improve. Improving to a good level takes a good amount of time. The reality of the situation is that there won't be someone to guide you all the time, you have to learn to improve on your own. That is why trainers are not a magical aid that will make you jump hundreds of points, but rather an advice dispenser. Use streams to ask the streamer why he is doing something he is doing, ask a trainer to help you find mistakes, but always try to do it on your own as well. Similarly, in teamgames, do what you think is the best move instead of asking others on your team for advice during the game (for analysis, do it!). If it doesn't work, you learned something, if it does work, you didn't need the advice in the first place. Again, this is about learning and long term improvement, not short term more game wins.
Step 4. Start doing it and keep doing it!
This gets its own step, because even if you follow every single thing in this guide, it will be useless if you don't actually start spending time and implementing all of those funny pieces of advice. Good players are good because they did that, they spent hundreds of hours eliminating mistakes, reading guides, watching streams. If you don't consistently spend something around 5-10 productive hours per week, don't expect to become a very good player (2000+ ladder). Those hours are preferably spread out, so the time spent is quality time with good concentration.
Good luck!
Day after day I see questions about which UI mods are useful, essential, important, and worse, misinformation or outright wrong recommendations. In this guide I will provide you with my evaluation of common UI mods. As the title of this post will already tell you, my focus will be the importance and the impact of those mods on your improvement in 1v1. My list will have no particular order. If you are above 2000 1v1 rating you can draw your own conclusions.
ecomanager: Not recommended. The autopausing features will hinder the development of your eco balancing ability and instill bad habits. The only use cases for this mod are very specific scenarios like large scale teamgames in controlled scenarios.
Selection Deprioritizer: Not relevant / rather not recommended. The apm/brain energy this drains is not worth the minor payoff for better unit control. Having to switch selection priority in specific scenarios takes time/attention and teaches you bad unit positioning habits. Can be more useful in teamgame scenario.
Advanced target priorities: Recommended. This mod does not directly influence anything, so you can start using it at any point. Useful for stuff like t1 arty drops killing the right stuff.
UI Party: Recommended/not relevant. Not a specific feature of this, but it being not intrusive makes it at least not harmful.
Spread Move: Recommended/not relevant. Small use case, but not intrusive. OK mod.
Idle engineers: Not recommended. Clutters the screen and the default game already supplies plenty methods of dealing/recognizing idle engies.
Supreme score board: Recommended. Just a nicer scoreboard especially for teamgames with no downside.
Better reclaim view: Recommended. Great improvement over the generic reclaim view.
Additional Camera Stuff: Recommended. Adds stuff like functional camera positions and similar. Depending on your playstyle it can be nice. Not a must though.
NoShake: Recommended. Shake is annoying.
Selection Cost UI: Not relevant.
Advanced Strategic Icons: Extremely strong NOT recommended. I would go as far as saying that this mod will completely destroy your ability to improve past a certain level. The reasoning is the incredible clutter, completely filling your screen and taking your overview/ability to select things away. I would suggest you finding a version that only changes SMD/SML if that is your reason for using it, but thats where it ends. You wont be able to develop the gamesense you need if you blind out half of the information the game offers to you. No top player uses this mod.
Disperse Move: Recommended/not relevant. Small use case but not negative impact. Essentially the same as spread move afaik.
Zep_MiniMapZoom: Recommended/Not relevant. I personally dont use it due to not liking stuff disappearing and appearing all the time, but it is a solid idea and I can see people getting a small benefit from it.
Sequentially upgrading mex: Not recommended. Basically a worse version of ecomanager, which I already didnt recommend.
That should cover most common UI mods - if I forgot some let me know.
I also enjoyed the showmatch vs Petric even though it had some bugs for the unexplored mode. In general I do absolutely think that mapgen should become the standard in future tournaments and in general the standard for competition. It takes the game back to economic and strategic decisions and does not allow you to patch up bad on-the-fly decisions with studying 25 replays and spending hours creating 25 BOs.
Ok, FtX is mean. Do you have any other points as well, or is this some last ditch attempt to bad PR him?
Wonder why he is mean?
Maybe because:
There is a guy running the show here who is perma-afk and who has failed to supply what he demands of FtX for the FAFlive channel, which FtX already supplied (financial overview and a sheet detailing where the FAF patreon money goes, for the past years). If you do the math, there should be a lot of money, and in best case it has been mismanaged, in worst case - draw your own conclusions.
There appears to be a conflict of interest on your end with the weird Sanctuary thing and the interests of FAF
There is in general complete apathy and 0 will from your end to move matters forward, its natural to get annoyed when your attempts to do something get locked by afk people who arent willing to do more than set up 1 meeting per 6 months
If you and your buddy big S wouldnt hide behind closed doors and also try to work on stuff more than 1 talk per half year FtX toxcity would disappear (yes yes, Ftx is impossible to work with, etc. - because he actually works).
100% agree - Proper casting and coverage of tourneys is essential, including promo etc. Cultivating the twitch channel is paramount for this. As written in the showmatch thread, I am willing to participate in a showmatch.
@tex said in Age vs Skill:
In regards to the conversation for skill changing over time, the other day I took a look at my POV replays from 2012. No hotkeys, no UI mods... I was either +200E or -200E for the first 10 minutes of the game. No eco skills or any sort of plan/direction visible in my gameplay. Reclaim was hardly prioritized. Efficiency wasnt discovered yet. Micro was poor. Multitasking/prioritizing was out of balance. Builds were non-existent. All I knew how to do was drag a line of factories down the map and win at t1 stage. And somehow that was good enough for 2k 1v1 ladder. Times have changed for sure. 2021 Tex could play a BO99 with 2012 Tex and do a clean sweep in 50 games. Overall average FAF skill is much higher now then it was in the old days.
If you play your BO99 on random maps, the result will probably be somewhat even.
Whenever people go on about how the level nowadays is "much higher", they dont understand that this is driven by repetition of maps and BO specification, and potentially better UI mods. Those improvements can be easily learned (and as easily forgotten during a break).
The decision making, the efficiency, the game understanding et al has not increased whatsoever (at the highest lvl this game has to offer). This is plainly illustrated by fully inactive briefly returning players. When I look at my POVs from 2013, I see a superior player, faster, more efficient, more aware. Its nice that you have gotten better, I havent. I dont even know how to cloak a selen anymore because it got changed and I'm too old and soft to adapt to it.
You especially, as evidenced from your comments on streams, seem to think that the old players are some kind of inferior species. While I do share this arrogance (just the other way around), it is not correct. The level of a game generally is set by a few select of driving individuals defining the meta and the quality of play. Others will catch up and try to match them, but as long as no incredibly dominant new force emerges, the level of play does not significantly rise.
FAF still has the oldass circuit of pros. There is no player that has played less than 2 years and is good, and the "absolute top" is still composed of the same people from 5-10 years ago. Do you think they have gotten much better? I dont think so.
If you read my guide, you will see how low manual reclaim is prioritized (https://forum.faforever.com/topic/1222/how-to-improve-forever-6-laws?_=1625729785733). The difference between manual reclaim and attack move is probably in favor of the attack-moving player at levels below ~2000, due the manual reclaiming guy fucking up more important things. Then, after 2000ish, the difference will probably be like 30 points or something. Its always a tradeoff thats only worth it in specific scenarios, and its usually max 1 min spent in game, and requires no skill - only apm to spare which comes naturally at later stages. Just no need to worry about it.
I think what plenty people get wrong with "my performance is better with those mods" is that while maybe for their current state the mods add, lets say +100 rating, they hinder long term improvement. And that is the point here. They hinder the development of game sense, they hinder the adaption in your brain that is necessary to read an entire map from icons alone, etc. When you learn to ride a bike, eventually the training wheels have to come off - there is no way around it. As another example you could perfectly learn Sentons only, air slot only, seraphim only, perfect 15 min build order, strat rush only, and jump easily to probably around 1700 rating (or even more). That would have the same problem: You dont develop the skills and adaptive abilities necessary to perform in ladder/tourney settings (where different maps are enforced, faction bans, people will know your replays, etc).
Maybe I should write a guide on how to improve in games in general.
Now the only thing left for my wet dream to come into existence is Blind mapgen mode + unexplored mode ingame. If anyone manages that, ill host a doubleblind tourney
The general underlying idea isnt bad - but I have one major issue with this:
What is the point of making lets say, the top 4 from last lots (or scored like Swkolls invite points system), perform in a circus to qualify? There are 3 scenarios that can happen:
Nexus, Petric, me, etc play the majority/all of those. We place 1-4 every single tournament, because thats what would happen. The rest will be very random cause it depends who plays us in early rounds, and you will have beatdowns every single tourney and people qualifying only by seeding luck.
We dont play the tourneys. This leads to 10 (!) slots given out to extremely weak players and a majorly stacked last qualifier/last 2 qualifiers. Those then have a decent chance of a very competent player not qualifying, cause he met someone strong early by bad luck.
Only a small portion plays the tourneys. This is probably the optimal case, but hinges on people not playing + still has tons of randomness. Again, my goal is that the strongest players end up in lots, not the ones that grind the most ladder or whatever.
Then on top of that, we have the scoring system which isnt very top-heavy. Means that you have to play a ton of tourneys if you really want to be sure to qualify. Why does a good player like the ones I mentioned have to prove themselves in 10 pre-tourneys if they have been a top5 player for literally the past 10 years? Why is participation and time investment valued more than actual playing ability?
What other sport has this system? Does Magnus Carlsen have to beat up 2500 rated players in 10 different tourneys so he is allowed to defend his title? Does Ronaldo have to beat up granny football leagues until he is allowed to play in a world cup? Does Khabib have to choke out 10 toddlers to be allowed to defend his UFC titles? Makes zero sense to me - people want to see the strongest people play, so just let them.
If you want to push ladder activity, you will have to increase the pro player count, which is the only relevant variable. You dont increase it by punishing you once you got there. Why not cut down the tourneys and put some bucks into showmatches (like the BO15 we had at various points in time, maybe a BO15 ladder showmatch?), which would attract loads of attention?
Nice one
@Sheeo Nobody is interested in the 2021 patreon data (that one will obviously be "correct"). We are talking about the years roughly 2017-2020, and you know perfectly well that we are, no need to play dumb or divert attention to "ill release 2021 data". Since you have surely separated faf patreon and private money and therefore directed the patreon to not-your-main bank account (...surely?), this shouldnt take you more than a couple minutes in the balance history of that account.
The reason this is even demanded is that the patreon has been chilling at a solid 300-500 bucks a month (as of writing, 588) for a long time, while the server + tourneys should not remotely use it all up (if it does, sad, but we would like to see the facts). From what I have heard about server costs & the tourney contributions from official FAF, it appears that there should be thousands saved up.
Sadly those elo stats are completely useless, the distribution is way too tight - this list says things like bennis vs nexus is only like 65-70% winrate for nexus.
Your best clue to see who is good is asking the top players, we have nothing else. It also varies a ton depending on form/rust/maps/etc.
So let me get this straight: You have an issue with ftx having a goal of getting ~20% more viewers on faflive? You are demanding "real data and metrics" about the future growth of the channel because he put a 20% viewer increase goal?
Where is your real data and your metrics about all the fancy goals you put in your post?
Do you even read what you are writing before posting it?
Should also include permabanning everyone who dares to play a non map gen game
The thing with 70+ ppl signing up is absolutely insane even if Ftx wants to ignore it. Remember back then FAF had like what, 1/5 of the users? And yet you get over 70 ppl interested in competing in a tourney vs nowadays 25?
Doesnt matter if 50 of them never had a chance, they still signed up and played, there was a will maybe even honor to play in tourneys and try to perform in them. The interest in playing good isnt there to a degree it was during those times. We were all young and sitting in aeolus 24/7 actually caring who is king of ladder.