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.
@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.
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
@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.
APM should naturally arise from the breadth and pace of decisionmaking opportunities. Any action that does not amount to making a choice between at least two relevant alternatives tends to feel unnecessary and superfluous, and imo is a cheap way to make the game "harder".
As an easy example in early sc2 betas (iirc, don't quote me) many players complained that the game was too easy. The developers ended up adding some additional mechanics to artificially raise the skillcap. One of these mechanics was larva inject. Zerg players need to periodically use the "inject larva" ability with their queens in order to spawn larva that can be used to construct units. Without larva you can't make units. There are some edge cases where players skip injecting larva to save queen energy, but in the vast majority of cases injecting does not include a choice from the player and is just a mechanical task that players have to perform periodically. Furthermore the few edge cases where you'd skip injecting are only relevant for high level players and as such have no effect on how an averge player perceives the game.
In my view, pausing massfabs is an entirely mechanical task as there's no situation where you wouldn't want to pause your massfabs when running low on energy. That's why automating massfab pause is fine (as long as everyone has access to it). For the same reason automating pausing buildpower is not fine -- there's compelling decisionmaking in which engis to pause etc.
@blodir said in Council of Setons EXPOSED - Part 1:
@ftxcommando said in Council of Setons EXPOSED - Part 1:
@tatsu said in Council of Setons EXPOSED - Part 1:
@ftxcommando said in Council of Setons EXPOSED - Part 1:
going around the Council to get people to everyone ping about your game on official FAF Discords with no actual oversight from FAF management.
that is quite the ...interesting way to put it.
this is just some more ad hominem so. since you didn't bother to formulate it truthfully. I'll let the truth come back to nag you when it does come out.
In the meantime you can correct yourself on your own if you feel like it.
I know won't and that you much prefer falsehoods and leading others on. I won't play your game.
...
Far as I'm concerned it's a bannable offense for you and as nine is project manager of this game, he should be held responsible for failing to communicate to his team what the line in the sand was for FAF after he was told this was off the table.
Yea this kind of advertising is completely unacceptable.
Tatsu messaged me with a clarification to this situation. Apparently these screenshots are from the FAF-RU server that is not officially associated with FAF, which of course changes everything. It is the FAF-RU server administration's business whether they want to allow this kind of advertisement or not. So I retract my earlier statement.
With the advent of tmm drawing near, changing the ingame loading screen to include the following information should be considered:
The reason this is relevant now (and wasn't before) is that in custom games you know all these things beforehand since you went through the arduous lobby process. With tmm this is no longer the case and often I find myself wishing I had a little bit of time to consider whether I'm going first bomber or not B)
I know most people load in pretty fast so it's not an incredibly high priority change, but it would be nice to have even if only in simple text form.
Control groups in this game are nearly useless, because of their strange behavior. Imo the control groups should work the same way as they do in sc2 and aoe2 among others. I would like to eg. use control groups for factories so that I can easily set rally points, find engi factories, etc.
That should be about it, though I'll add more if I can think of anything.
APM should naturally arise from the breadth and pace of decisionmaking opportunities. Any action that does not amount to making a choice between at least two relevant alternatives tends to feel unnecessary and superfluous, and imo is a cheap way to make the game "harder".
As an easy example in early sc2 betas (iirc, don't quote me) many players complained that the game was too easy. The developers ended up adding some additional mechanics to artificially raise the skillcap. One of these mechanics was larva inject. Zerg players need to periodically use the "inject larva" ability with their queens in order to spawn larva that can be used to construct units. Without larva you can't make units. There are some edge cases where players skip injecting larva to save queen energy, but in the vast majority of cases injecting does not include a choice from the player and is just a mechanical task that players have to perform periodically. Furthermore the few edge cases where you'd skip injecting are only relevant for high level players and as such have no effect on how an averge player perceives the game.
In my view, pausing massfabs is an entirely mechanical task as there's no situation where you wouldn't want to pause your massfabs when running low on energy. That's why automating massfab pause is fine (as long as everyone has access to it). For the same reason automating pausing buildpower is not fine -- there's compelling decisionmaking in which engis to pause etc.
@maudlin27 said in Ban EcoManager & Similar Mods:
I can see a valid argument for allowing mods like this if the desire is for FAF to be primarily about what decisions you make
Yes, it would be nice if players had to make decisions about how to distribute their buildpower rather than build 20 hives and switch assist targets with impunity. Eg. you built 20 hives lategame and are stalling -500 mass. Then enemy team provides a nice exp massdump. With ecomanager you won't stall as u start reclaiming. If you don't have a cheatmod you have to be a little more careful with planning out your buildpower rather than brainafk switching 20 hives between projects. Ie. ecomanager reduces decisionmaking.
Hello it is me.
I've said since the beginning that EcoManager is an obvious cheatmod and the opinion has not changed.
While snipers are kinda busted, nerf would make no difference in almost all cases since u shouldn't be attacking in a tg anyway.
That guy is taking !smurfcheck (or whatever the command was) a little too seriously mby?
Thanks, this is pretty promising! However it's not perfect 
Control groups in this game are nearly useless, because of their strange behavior. Imo the control groups should work the same way as they do in sc2 and aoe2 among others. I would like to eg. use control groups for factories so that I can easily set rally points, find engi factories, etc.
That should be about it, though I'll add more if I can think of anything.
As an advocate for a reasonable amount of privacy and anonymity it is my duty to inform you of replay breaking methods.
@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.
@jaggedappliance said in Council of Setons EXPOSED - Part 1:
What do people define as toxic? I've seen this word so often that it is losing its meaning. In many cases people seem to see it as simply saying swear words. If this is the metric then I am as toxic as the next.
Disclaimer: I know this may come across as preachy so I just want to say that I am aware that I'm not exactly an angel either.
Toxicity is down to individual perspective, things are toxic when people claim them to be toxic. People claim things to be toxic when they are offended. Despite the subjectiveness of the matter we can still infer some general rules to how we should interact with other human beings without offending them.
First I want to convince you that even if you are sociopathic and ignore all ethics it is still in your best interests to not offend people.
I've only scratched the surface with this list. I would also list the pros of offending people, but I genuinely can't think of any.
I hope you see that it is strategically of vital importance that you do your best to avoid offending people. Now comes the hard part. Anyone may be offended by anything you say! But if you were to always stay quiet in order to not offend anybody, that would kinda defeat the point of communication in the first place wouldn't it?
This is where social skills come in. You have to balance the likelihood of someone being offended with the honesty of your communication. If you can say your piece without offending anybody, you should seek to do so, but if that is impossible you should at least dampen the blow as much as possible to minimize the amount of offense taken. Socially adept people are able to talk about offensive topics without offending anybody.
The social machinery is extremely complex. I have good news for you though: your brain is designed to deal with problems like this. Better than any machine learning algorithm we have come up with. So use it.
TLDR; There is no hard definition for toxicity since any behavior can be construed as toxic as long as someone was offended by it. It is in your best interests to minimize the amount of offense you dish out. Your brain was designed to solve social problems like this. Use it.
