It's simply astouding. Most of the 1v1 10x10 maps generated with the "tournament" setting are better than most ladder maps. It feels a lot like AoE2. Definitely wouldn't mind seeing generated maps on ladder.
Would it be possible to have some 10% chance of getting a brand new mapgen map on ladder?
Hello, I’m a long term supcom player having started in January 2013 with some breaks inbetween. I started by playing only teamgames, many of them in such glorious maps as the original Gap of Rohan and Senton. Eventually my interest shifted and I became primarily a 1v1 player. You could say that I’ve been through all the phases of fafdom, from a beginner teamgame player to #1 ladder. As such I’ve developed an understanding and appreciation for a variety of different styles of enjoying the game and am uniquely positioned to represent the playerbase. This is my application for the 2021 player councilor (PC) race. If you read carefully you might not only learn something about me, but also about the other candidates.
In the spirit of keeping the post short enough for most faffers to not tldr through, I have omitted some important responsibilities of the PC such as:
I will also try hard to represent players' voice when it comes to opinion about the balance. If you are interested and want to read more, other applicants have gone into much more detail about how these reponsibilities relate to the PC role.
Tournaments have historically been one of the main responsibilities of the PC. Previously we have seen a focus on giving the community big high level tournaments that the people who the PC represent strive to have the skill to participate in. In the current PC race we have seen a more grounded approach as candidates have proposed tournament scenes around the 1671 ladder rating range. While the spirit of hosting more mid-tier tournaments is wonderful, I don’t see why we’d stop around that specific rating range.
As PC I will be promoting tournaments for average joes that are able to reach the most people. While there will still be some beginner players that may not be able to participate, higher rating players have historically not had too much trouble getting in. Overall we’ll have a tournament scene that reaches as many players as possible.
I will also take a closer look at the sometimes contentious relationship between tournament directors (TDs) and players. Specifically I will ensure that all prize money is given out and that all players are treated fairly regardless of their relationship with TDs.
As the PC I will have direct responsibility over many things, including promotions. Social media has always been underutilized in FAF promotion and I think we are missing a great opportunity. I will be looking to bolster our social media presence with the addition of the official FAF TikTok channel. This will increase traction with especially the younger audience.
I will look to increase the faflive viewership to about 2500-3500 concurrent viwers for this year’s LotS. I will also establish the Russian, German and Finnish language faflive streams for the event.
Moderation is a subject that is near and dear to my heart since - as all of you surely know - I have a bit of a troubled past. It is imperative that each PC applicant discloses the extent of their respective criminal backgrounds. I was temporarily muted in 2013 by our rightful leader Ze_PilOt, I have been repeatedly accused of smurfing (my original account was permabanned, but everyone knows who’s behind the wheel!) and there have even been rumors of rating manipulation on Dual Gap. I know my record is not quite as impressive as the other applicants, but I hope to still qualify.
In the “Why would you have left FAF?” thread we saw just how many people feel uncomfortable with the amount of toxicity in the community. Clearly the current arrangement is not working. I pledge to take the weight off moderator’s shoulders and fire the entire moderator team. Instead I will be surveying FAF activities like a hawk over aeolus and dual gap games.
Recently we have seen a great boom in FAF developers and are in risk of having exhausted all meaningful work. As PC I will have a tremendous responsibility to make sure all of my underlings have excellent work opportunities. I will make sure such opportunities are provided in the continued development of the Python Client.
A particular issue that has haunted our community, and most players have undoubtedly suffered from, is cancer. It comes in many forms: astro, dual gap, phantomx, the list goes on. I will divert some of our development resources to launch a cancer research initiative. I’m confident that with my guidance we will surely crack this persistent group of diseases. Talks with major players in the pharmaceutical industry have already commenced. We will of course limit the supply of our cancer cure in order to maximize profits (as is customary in the industry), which will be promptly pumped into mid-tier supcom tournaments. Unfortunately many of our patients, such as astro players, may not be able to afford the treatment, but this way we will finally be able to afford tournaments for players around the 1671 ladder rating range.
The birth of FAF association will be a threat to the current balance of power in the council of Seton’s. I will prioritize cementing the lawful position of the PC as the ruler of FAF by any means necessary. If it comes down to it together with my supporters we will perform a storming of the FAF association. FAF will officially go back to being a just monarchy, ruled by the rightful heir of zep. He ruled firmly but fairly and was gone too soon. Together we will do what is right by his memory.
In the new order council seats will be determined by trial by combat performed by the applicants. Once the application period ends we will hold a series of showmatches (watch live on faflive) between the applicants. Applicants may choose a champion to fight in their stead. This arrangement will ensure the strength and stability of the FAF organization.
Thank you for reading and voting. I am looking forward to my 80 hour workweeks! Just to check that you could hear me properly I have to ask: is it loud over there?
I would like to thank my right hand man Swonkoll for his help in writing this application. I would also like to thank my left hand man ArchDemon for reviewing an earlier version of this application. Thirdly I would like to thank my third hand man Tex for existing. Therefore the application has been moderator-approved. So back off.
^Title
Example situation: if you assist a damaged t2 mex to t3 and forget to take assist engies off after mex is finished, you have to pay a big repair tax.
That's not the only case, just in general repair is almost never worth doing. The only case where I've found it useful is sometimes repairing a damaged transport after inty tried to kill it at the opening. But that's literally the only case I can think of.
Problem:
Fix: detailed below.
T1 engis should live with low hp from one bomber pass. Some combination of the following:
Bombers should be capable of economic damage (other than t1 engineers)
Make up for reduction in damage if necessary
Note that all changes should apply in all faction matchups
Side effects
Exact values can (should) be played around with to find a good balance.
@judahx said in Calling for nine2 to resign as Promotions Councillor:
Pretty sure FAF has some toxicity.
Just a little follow up to this: searching for the n-word on the FAF discord server brings up 23 pages of results 
Most occurrences are from select few users (yes, including ftx).
Obviously the amount of messages in each server is different, but I searched for the n-word on a few other
loosely similar discord servers for reference.
FAF: 568 occurrences
Sanctuary: 0 occurrences
Immortal: Gates of Pyre: 0 occurrences
Godot Engine: 30 occurrences (note that this is a very big server)
Pocketwatch Games: 11 occurrences
BRNK: 3 occurrences
A Year of Rain: 0 occurrences
RTS Games Lovers: 1 occurrence
Bannermen: 0 occurrences
Now it's not exactly a secret that this word is generally frowned upon and racials slurs are forbidden in virtually any public space, at least in western society. It does not matter how you feel about this word personally. Do you think it's silly that people are upset by a mere word? Do you think that people should grow a thicker skin? Do you find it cringe that people are getting mad by proxy even though the word does not relate to them directly? Again, it does not matter what you think. The community will be judged regardless of how silly you think it might be. Even the people who do not care about the n-word in the slightest take it as a massive warning sign "toxic community ahead, steer clear".
And why is it that you feel it necessary to use problematic language?
Let's be honest it's really fucking childish. Also moderators need to get their shit together.
And no, this is obviously not the only form of problematic communication in FAF, but this fruit is hanging so low that it's undeground in Onkalo, the world's first permanent residence of nuclear waste.
There used to be a ground decal mod, where some custom decal would appear at your spawn location. I think it might be this one https://forums.faforever.com/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=12450 but not sure. Anyways, spawn decals would be a cool reward.
RAS SCUs aren't strong, lategame aggression is just super weak. Same thing for t3 arty. It's a massive mass investment, but it's not like you can just mount a land attack lategame. Navy situation is a bit better, but it's a bit too slow paced too imo. Balance team might want to consider playing around with some stat changes for all of t2+ (scale change magnitude by tech level) to provide more mid/lategame aggression opportunities
@blackyps said in Allow us to pick rating brackets for TMM:
It seems to me the root problem is a lack of activity in the highest bracket. Not sure if there is a good technical solution
This is not entirely true. It seems to be generally true that there's a high rating discrepancy at top level.
aoe2: 450 rating difference between #1 and #100 https://www.aoezone.net/deladder/?ladderid=3
aoe4: 400 rating difference between #1 and #43 https://aoe4world.com/leaderboard/rm_1v1
sc2: 1400 rating difference between #1 and #100 (7.4k vs 6k) https://nonapa.com/ladder?4&season=52®ion=2&mode=1
The examples are all 1v1 since teamgames are broken/dead in those games, but there's a similar trend in team based ladders too.
Yes having more players helps a little bit, but in general the top few players will still have issues finding games, because of the huge rating discrepancy.
In my case there's been 3 hours and 15 minutes since my last tmm game (rating 2316). It is pretty much prime time: 18-21 finnish time (1-2 hours earlier for most of europe). During this time there's been numerous games with many 1700-1900 players which I didn't get into (often the system matched them with 1200-1400s instead).
I don't know exactly how the system currently works, but I'd like to see players that have been in queue for a long time get some kind of extra priority if it doesn't do that already. Or strengthen it if it does exist. Alternatively there could be some system to favor higher rating players as it seems that generally most players prefer playing with higher rated players (1700 would rather play with a 2000 than a 1400). If those games in above pictures were custom games I doubt I would have any trouble getting into the lobby.
In its current state it's pretty unfeasible for higher rating players to play tmm, which only exacerbates the problem (making it even harder for high rating players to get games since there's fewer of them searching).
@sheeo said in Aulex's Player Councilor Application:
While I appreciate a joke; why not put this energy towards something productive?
I love u Sheeo, but not a fan of this attitude.
Reminds me of when a colleague told me about how they had a bit of a pokemon go club at coffee breaks. The big boss of the org came by it and said he thought it was dumb and a waste of time. She was not very happy about that.
The truth is we all spend most of our time suboptimally. Some play games, others watch reality tv. Making people laugh is hardly the worst thing you could procrastinate with.
Besides while you could argue that contributing code is more valuable than humor from a pure utilitarian standpoint, you could also argue that nobody should be working on FAF in the first place. We got plenty of bigger problems in the real world we should be tackling instead.
But yet we work on FAF anyway, because for some reason that is what inspires us and motivates us. And yes, sometimes we are inspired to write satire, or long winded forum posts. And that's all right.
Hello it is me.
I've said since the beginning that EcoManager is an obvious cheatmod and the opinion has not changed.
@zeldafanboy said in FAF Beta - Feedback:
Invoking rating can augment an argument, but not replace it.
I just want to note that pulling out the rating card is totally legit when you are replying to a post like this:
What are you talking about? His english is totally legible, it's the extreme cybran bias that's hard to understand. If you can't cope with the fact that Cybran ACU and PD are intentionally weaker in combat for balance reasons then I don't think you have an involved understanding of the game balance. Who the hell thinks Corsairs are bad lmao.
There's no argument here besides anecdote. "Corsairs aren't bad, just trust me". Higher rating players have stronger anecdotes when it comes to balance in the specific form of "in my experience x is good and y is bad".
As a sidenote you also insult pepsi for absolutely no reason. If it was up to me u would be warned/banned for that.
Idk, but extremely low priority change either way
Idk probably ok for titans although I'm unsure. Loyas feel underwhelming to begin with kinda strange that they don't get any compensation. Also, it looks really weird and indecisive that u are reverting a change. Like there's a lot of numbers you could have chosen (for buildtime, and for other stats) and you just decided that the original was the absolute optimal?
Titan nerf is good in principle.
Looks like an overnerf and in general increasing cost seems a weird direction since getting to a large mass of t3 units is already difficult. Also small amount of snips is easier to shield than a large mass, so promoting a smaller amount is a strange direction. Like why not do the total opposite and make it ez to mass a large amount of weak snips which are hard to cover with shields?
Snip nerf is good in principle tho.
Good change. Also very high priority
Good change, but might be overnerf. U are allowed to change multiple stats at once to compensate
Again good, but mega overnerf since ripper is pretty worthless to begin with
Idk, low priority change.
Good
Idk probs good. Pretty high prio for the gappers among us
Nuke nerf is probs good, but this direction indirectly buffs hive farms which are a favorite of the gapsters. Would be more interesting if it would be actually worth building multiple launchers.
Idk, low priority
Addresses some problems that are in line with current gameplay trends. Would be ok if this was like a bi monthly iterative patch i guess. But seeing as it has been actually forever since last patch it's pretty disappointing. Could be tackling bigger design issues and actually making significant changes, but yea this is still better than nothing.
@genos said in Caster UI design:
@Blodir what do factory icons stand for?
@maudlin27 said in Caster UI design:
Are they showing each player's highest tech level of each factory type? If so I'd suggest adding a number over the icon indicating the tech level to make it easier to tell at a glance.
Yes, the idea is to show the tech levels and the progress toward the next tech level. Probably should add a number yeah.
@accidental_aeon said in Increase vision & radar ranges of all units by some 10-20%:
I oppose this change.
Scouting is already overpowered in FAF. Take a game like Age of Empires 2. There are no air scouts. If your opponent walls you can't even see what he is doing. You get only 1 scout for the early game and if you lose it then you are shit out of luck.
The only change I would make is to increase the water vision on t1 and t3 scouts. I sometimes fly a spy plane directly over a nuke sub/sub/commander and the plane doesn't even scout them. For some reason the water vision on scout planes is pathetic.
If scouting is overpowered, then nerf scouts, not vision.
A little blast from the past: do you know why we have blackops units in the game? Because zep got so tired of people complaining about strat rushes that he decided to integrate t3maa.
It appears that it was not enough seeing as we still see these threads regularly almost 10 years later. Maybe air really is fundamentally broken. Who'd have thought?
Any balance argument that amounts to "play better" or "play different games" is just a huge cop out. At best you are helping the reader work around an aspect of the game that they don't like, while offering no systematic solution for anyone else.
People complaining about t3 air on the forums have popped up consistently, like clockwork, since I joined in 2013. One more chorus of questionable gameplay advice and recommendations for different maps or team sizes is not going to do anything.
This is the fulcrum of it. You have mistake “the point of global rating” with “what I use global rating for.”
At no point in time was global defined as teamgame rating. At no point in time was global defined as map gen rating. At no point in time was global defined as 5v5 rating. That’s the way you use it.
This is really dishonest. You know as well as everyone else that everyone uses global for teamgames (not just mapgen like me of course, but astro seton gap and whatever of course...). It's not just the way I use it, it's the way you use it too, as well as just about everyone else. So you start from this premise that "hey theoretically you could think of global as a representation of your 1v1 performance", but literally nobody does and you know it as well as anyone else. Ladder and tournys are used for 1v1 instead. And no matter how many tournys are rated, or how much u shout at gappers to play 1v1, that isn't going to change.
Your next point is something I've already responded to. 1v1 performance simply does not reflect teamgame performance. Playing lots of 5v5 mapgens will get you the best representation of your 5v5 mapgen skill. Playing lots of Setons will get you the best representation of your Setons skill. That's just how it is. This 1v1 argument is starting to get reminiscent of League of Legends players complaining about their teams being bad and being stuck in "Elo hell". "Ahh I'm such a good 1v1 player, but my teams suck they are just bringing me down every time!". Or the reverse "That guy is such a bad 1v1 player, but his team always carries him!". If you're playing opti, chances are the teams are fair when aggregated over a large number of games.
Btw you are clearly targeting me with these "hide a 2600 with 1600s" example etc. but it's pretty silly since I go out of my way to play the highest "integrity" games possible. Like 90% of my games are 1. random teams (opti) 2. random map (mapgen) 3. 1800+ (with very few exceptions), which is the highest rating range that is generally available. How could my rating possibly be more representative of my mapgen teamgame performance? Certainly would not be improved if I ranked the unrusting 1v1 games that I've played recently.
And while we are on the personal anecdotes, need I remind you that I've been on both sides of this? There have been times where my ladder rating has been higher than my global, and there have been times where I've gained outrageous amounts of points from 1v1 tournaments (and times where I've lost about 300 points in an FFA tournament for that matter). Yes I'm talking about this issue because it's relevant to me, but no, I'm not "just" some high rated teamgamer crying because I want to keep my rating high. I just want to keep my rating tied to my 300 mapgen games or w.e instead of completely randomizing it ocassionally with 1v1 tournys.
@ftxcommando said in In the current system, rating 1v1 games is borderline rating manipulation:
That’s how it always goes. I will absurdly dominate Foley in normal teamgames. Foley will absurdly dominate me in sentons. Which one of us wins the 1v1 tourney? Who knows? Which one of these three deserves to be unranked? There is no rational reason for any, really.
I don't want to make this about you vs Foley so I won't say any more, but I definitely do not agree with your assesment.
@ftxcommando said in In the current system, rating 1v1 games is borderline rating manipulation:
@blodir said in In the current system, rating 1v1 games is borderline rating manipulation:
I don't want to throw anyone under the bus so I won't give any names, but I have heard from multiple (other) people that they don't want to play tournaments, because of the impact on their global rating it has. This is especially true for players who are not 2k+ and rating is actually super relevant for them to even get into games. If you think rating doesn't matter, then I guess you might want to try playing all welcome games? Or perhaps you'd like to give the random unbalanced setting a shot?
You can literally entirely reverse this logic. Anybody that is currently 1600 or higher in skill level can immediately become 2200 by farming all welcome games if they care that much about getting into lobbies.
People should take the games as learning experiences, when mid tier players try to actually get better and learn and lose rating from it they don’t get kicked much at all unless it’s an intentionally smaller game and better players joined. In which case, their rating is kinda irrelevant since in those high rated lobbies, everyone knows who can hold their rating and who can’t already.
The way I always operated with tournies is that default is ranked, if both players want to play unranked then by all means. But we got four groups:
- The guys that want to unrank because they enjoy being low ranked in global even though they got decent ladder/2v2/whatever
- The guys that want to unrank because they want to be 2600 even though they are 2200 in ladder/2v2/whatever
- The guys that want to rank because they want to lose global rating and have more chill games
- The guys that want to rank because they see it as a way to get into the lobbies you describe/prestige/whatever.
Why is group B the most important?
I described the reasons in the original post. Global is used for teamgames (including balancing them), not 1v1. While 1v1 and teamgames are related, they are not at all the same. We have no shortage of great teamgames players who aren't as experienced in 1v1 and do not perform at their rating level in 1v1. There are 45 1800+ players online right now, out of these players only swkoll, harzer, blast, dro, pepsi, banani and shen have a comparable 1v1 rating to their global rating (within about 150 rating points). That's 7/45. And yes, I've been in the remaining group of 38 teamgamer champions so far in 2022 too. Seriously, it's ok to be a teamgame player. It's ok to be a gapper or astro enjoyer too.
--> any reason that has to do with "I want to raise/lower my rating through tournaments" is the very definition of rating manipulation. Seeing as their tournament performance doesn't reflect their performance in the games that global rating is used for. This response also goes for maudlin's reply. I get that there's a problem with returning players, but trying to "fix" rating through manipulation is not the way.
I don't know what exactly is the best way to fix the system (no small amount due to not having read the paper on trueskill), so I can only talk about the problems, not really on how to fix them. That being said, it seems like there's an assumption in the system that 1v1 and teamgames are comparable ie. 1v1 performance gives a good description of teamgame performance, which might be true for shooter games (idk I don't play them), but it is not true for supcom.
Just to give you an example, can you imagine Foley (2400 global, 1500 ladder) playing a series of 1v1 matches vs a 2k ladder player. Then you get that newly birthed 2400 ladder guy in a teamgame air spot and he gets brutally dominated by now 2k rated Foley. Maybe you feel like it's justified that finally the ladder champions get the recognition they deserve or whatever, but in reality nobody's experience is improved.
I mean I'm sorry to say this guys, but I'd take Foley in a 5v5 mapgen any day over you guys (swkoll 2.2k ladder, noc 1.8k ladder, ftx, srry idk your rating), so I'm really glad he hasn't got any bright ideas about playing any 1v1 tournys recently.
As for making TD job harder (or any replay viewer for that matter), I think this is the only solid argument. The only real fix is that there should be win/loss/draw indicator. However:
