Rating ~1300

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

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

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

There is a common problem when it comes to rating - that it often does not accurately reflect how good of a player someone is. While one could discuss the advantages/disadvantages of using our rating system, I'll focus on an issue more unique to FAF - that is, players who only play a single map or type of map tend to get good at that map and nothing else.

There are definitely some egregious offenders in both maps and players, and solutions like making certain maps unrated have been suggested. I however, have a better solution.

FAF would keep track of the list of your recently played maps. If FAF notices that say, you have played the last 6 or 7/10 games on a single map, it will reduce the amount of rating gained from winning a match on said map. There should always be a reward for winning a match, but this would prevent people from boosting their rating by going back to certain maps after a loss.

In terms of mapgen, something similar might be implemented. Maps generated with the same presets could have wins penalized in the same way. (I don't know if this is possible - whether any info about a map can be gained from it after it's generated - perhaps indicators can be written into the map files if they're not already there).

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

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

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

Rating ~1300