I think it's pretty common to tell new or less skilled players that they are stupid and should uninstall the game rather than help them improve. True teamwork is very hard to find around here. I have played with certain people game after game and winning like crazy and playing solid but when I make one mistake and now we lose one game then all a sudden those same mates who were great during wins are telling me I am an idiot and hating on me because we lose one. Watch any replay and read the chat and more often than not it is people yelling at each other telling each other horrible things....people don't know how to lose as a team....this is the greatest team game ever and most people can't understand that. People don't understand that we are lucky to have such a community and such support....there is no love here....everybody hates everyone.

Forgive me if this is the wrong place to post this but I would like to donate to the prize pool so that the prizes are as follows

1st - $200
2nd - $100
3rd - $50

If this is acceptable please let me know how to make this happen. To be clear I am offering to fund the entire prize pool of $350. If the current funding is already in place then I will fund the balance. I don't use discord when I am away for work (near the Arctic circle) so I only use the forum app so please contact me here.

I've been playing this game since 2018 and have logged nearly 4,000 games. A good 2,000 of those are Astro.... Yeah I know I'm pathetic but I like the arcade aspect of it okay.

I played a thousand games of Astro before I ever tried map gen and that's where my bread and butter is now. I've gotten to know the community really well despite not being a discord person. Just playing with different multiplayer map gen games you get exposed to all the different clans and all the high-ranked players and despite a lot of toxicity there is 100x more positivity.

I have been very impressed with how many pro level players, yourself included The Wreck that will play in 1200+ games with professionalism and respect.

One thing that has always shocked me is the makeup of moderation/leadership group. I would fully expect people like yourself and the many other pro level players who have been active over the last 5 years to be a key part in the leadership group of FAF. I don't understand why that isn't the case. I'm sure everyone has different levels of time and effort they can commit to such things but over the past year or so I've started to realize that it's more political than that and it has always had me worry.

As I've said before this game has essentially changed my life. It is the only game I play. It is part of my culture and my way of life. I don't ever want to play a different game. But I'm very worried about the future of FAF.

It seems to me like some moderators don't have the best interest of FAF at heart because they don't understand the game and the community at the level required to have such a role.

I have always wondered what the peak version of FAF is and if we could ever get back there. There are so many updates and changes balance or otherwise I'm just not sure is worth it. I like the changes from a couple years ago that made energy be more important and prevented nukes from being rushed so quickly and slowed the game down a bit because I personally like a more slow and strategic game.

But lately it seems there are so many changes and moderation efforts that seem to go counter to the spirit of the community and the game.

I completely agree with you that there needs to be a standard set for who is in control of this and who makes the decisions all across the board. The pro level players clearly care about this game based on the number of games they play. I'm sure they would play more but as I've noticed it's harder for a 2k player to find a game than it is for a 1200.

I think that the moderators, The balance team, board of directors, every key group that governs this community in this game should be led by the people who play it most not necessarily the people who have certain skill sets. Those people should be under the direction of the people who play it most.

There are a lot of toxic people that play this game a lot so obviously it's not then. But like I said before there are so many pro-level players who log in everyday and play this game and are legitimately good people and treat others well and understand the essence of what this community is because they are immersed in it.

I am not a pro-level player and I went through my stage of being a toxic piece of shit for the first few years of playing but over the past few years I have really chilled out and that's probably because I got a job that has me traveling to the remote places of the world so much where I can't get a good internet signal and now when I get home I appreciate the game so much more.

I feel I understand the game and the community pretty well and if I had more time to commit I would be a great fit on some level. My point is that I'm a great example of the type of person in this community and have played nearly 4,000 games and would be an excellent person to be a moderator if only I had the time.

Take any of my replays from my first few years of playing and you would say the hell with this guy but that doesn't represent who I am now and I'm sure this is the case for many people.

There's probably people that are currently banned that if given another chance they would be excellent community members.

I think there needs to be a complete rethink of how we operate because it's up to us to keep this going. The moderator s that are currently in place need to take a big step back and if you really care then you will support the efforts of the community to keep this thing alive.

Taking this name change rule as an example it is so clear that the community does not want it and your best thing you could have done is revert it and move forward because that's what the community wants but instead you spend however many days or weeks now justifying and defending the decision..... It's low level tyranny...

Give the people what they want... In most cases that is the best way forward for a small gaming.

I'm not familiar with the exact structure of how this is all governed and moderated but again I say there needs to be a serious retrofit of all systems. I've seen so many posts for the balance team makes changes and they are so unpopular but the changes are just defended over and over again rather than reverting them based on the will of the people.

Somehow someway we got to get to a point where the most mature and dedicated players are the ones who make key decisions. I manage hundreds of people in my role at work and the best way to get them to do the job.... The best way for the company I represent to succeed... is to give them what they want.... And all they want when they are at work is to be given the resources they need and the support they need to succeed and they will. Very rarely will I make decisions that go against what the group wants because they care about these projects just as much as I do as their manager. Everyone that works for me is constantly telling me this is the best place they've ever worked and they never want to leave and I take a lot of pride in that because we're not doing things my way we're doing things our way. My senior corporate managers didn't understand it at first but the results speak for themselves. The way of the company has to be the way of the people. I'm lucky enough to have managers that recognize this and they step back and let us do our thing.

If the governing body of FAF needs to have the keys to the kingdom because of legal reasons and irreplaceable skill sets such as coding and all that stuff then so be it but the best thing they can do is take a backseat and let the people who love and care for this and play this the most shape this and build this.

Okay I've said enough. I'm not even going to proofread it.

If you are in a game where anyone builds 8 novax uncontested then you should be very happy when that game ends no matter what team you are on.

@zhanghm18 within the organization I work for we have something in our employee code of conduct called incivility. I'm sure everyone knows what that is but essentially it allows the company to dismiss an individual for disrupting the workforce and bringing down morale. They don't have to actually specifically attack character or be abusive or harassing. Essentially if they are inciting others to have a negative view of the company or are being disruptive in similar fashion then we are allowed to dismiss them for incivility.

I've never been a moderator in any type of online forum but I think a similar clause in the code of conduct should be considered.

In my opinion if certain people only seem to want to be part of this community to tear it down in some way then we don't need them. This would tie back into the topic at hand and would be one less way why certain things suck right now.

With all due respect Aya, Sera wasn't being rude or arrogant he was being straightforward. He's right. Ranking is what matters. You can't say that because you have 12,000 games you can play every faction as good as a 2K rated player. They understand things and are capable of doing things that we can't at level 1400. Rating is what matters. I have 5,000 games which is like twice as much as many of the 2ks I play with but I am a fraction of the player they are.

Reading the deep insights that FTX (and others) outlined in this post basically answered all of your points, you're just not wanting to accept them.

@ganima said in The End of FAF:

This thread is very confusing for me. It's very hard for me to tell who is telling the truth.

Its not really about truth or lies its about differences of opinions in which case everybody is telling the truth.

It is clear that there are so many passionate people who are a part of this community and I trust that such debates will make the community stronger and that people who may have chosen to leave will return and help build it further.

insert - slow clap escalating to standing ovation -

@indexlibrorum said in $350 BigBrain 1x1 Tournament:

@dorset Really cool Dorset! Very kind.

Thank you....but Skrat is putting much more into this than me.

I started my FAF career as a -700 after a half dozen games. It was pretty scary but didn't take long to turn it around. I would argue that people who quit FAF after losing their first half dozen or so games didn't really have their heart in it and were going to quit whether their rank said -700 or 300 after such a stretch.

I had a match a month or so ago, 6v6 custom where I absolutely crushed my side. Mid to late game had three fat boys huge t3 Army everything I needed to basically win the game except for a single Billy Commander and a Fatboy on their team holding me at bay. I admit it was annoying..... So freaking annoying!!!. But I actually like the fact that the enemy was able to hold me off with a billy Commander. I lost a lot of units including fat boys but getting t3 engineers out of the fat boy and creeping TMD and such made for quite the back and forth. I did eventually break through and got to the enemy doorstep but it was too late the mavor was already built and we lost but it was a hell of a fight and I wouldn't have had it any other way. I might have been better off grabbing a cybran engi and making loyalists for myself because that really wouldn't have taken that long and I probably would overcome the Billy earlier but I chose not to because I liked the fight. I think the game is at its best when you have to suffer a bit.

From my low-rank brains perspective I like the changes they made to the Billy not that long ago where it's actually somewhat viable because before it was just basically a useless animation. As FTX said it still costs a lot and that's why it really isn't seen that often if you think about it but I think it's easy and fun to counter and makes for some more dynamic gameplay as it often puts the enemy ACU at risk.

I think FAF needs more meme play rather than always having to have things go perfectly as they should without any real risk or stepping outside the box.

I say keep the Billy as is and don't offer any additional units as a counter.

Not sure if there are bois with TMD upgrades which might be an idea similar to the ones that have AA attachments but that's a pretty expensive TMD when you got a t2 engineer that cost a bit of dirt.

One thing I think gets lost in all this, and I don't even know if it can be considered and addressed but nonetheless I'll mention it.

There is the scientific approach which couples in with common sense but then there's the practical reality of what actually occurs which amounts to very little scientific thought and practically no common sense.

Probably true that it is incredibly inefficient to spam novax but my goodness every time you see one novax coming it seems like there are 3+ not long after. People don't seem to care about the numbers they just know the effect it has on the match. It's often not even the Eco type player that is building them so there's always that positions weaponry that you'll have to deal with as well which is usually your t3 arty spam and or game ender.

It may be a huge reason why there are so many 1300 to 1600 rated players who just don't rank up after thousands of games (myself included) We get into these habits that seem effective to us and give us the false illusion that we're actually good. We blatantly ignore such inefficiencies as Novax spam and no doubt we are ignoring a lot of other things... (Probably not even ignoring them because we don't even know they exist to be able to ignore)

I wonder what the novax usage is in 1.8k+ matches compared to the more typical standard custom match which is a 1.2k+ situation.

If any of this is true then it's kind of a conundrum because we have a weapon that fits fine within the pro-level realm but is out of place anywhere else because of its power and the user's inability to understand or care when they should be deploying it.

What would novax spam people build if they didn't have the novax?

That seems about the same rate of success custom games have lol. I swear it's 1 re for every 3 attempts but we are all FAF crackheads who aren't overly bothered by it

I haven't been huge into ladder over the years but in the last few weeks I played a lot before I left country for work and I felt that ladder had been connecting fairly reliably.

I recommend keeping your spirits up and just sticking with it. A few times when a ladder game didn't reconnect I immediately rejoined que and seemed to get matched with the same group and had some great games.

Imo the tombstones are fun and if it's decided to keep them it doesn't bother me but I'd hate this to be overthought/overdone.

That old adage comes to mind, if it ain't broke don't fix it.

@magge OK so....after a lot of testing I think I have narrowed the issue down to 2 mods. "Rings For All" and "UI mod tools"

The random freezing while zooming in and out would almost happen many times during an average game (even if it didnt completely freeze and crash) and that effect is nowhere present when those two mods are disabled and zero crashes now or anything for many dozens of games.

For my part I have no skills to investigate this further but it does seem like there are a lot of people complaining about mid game crashing so maybe this is related.

I am able to use my favorite icon packs again with zero issue, the only bummer for me is not having Rings For All active because that is an amazing mod but build range preview has been working fine so everything is back to normal in FAF world for me.

Thanks for steering me in the right direction.

If anyone else is crashing mid game and you have either of these 2 mods enabled try disabling them and reassessing.

make sure all logs are outside onedrive. I had this same issue once and didnt change all locations so maybe thats it.

@BlackYps I managed to get into a 1v1 and a 4v4 which now shows 1 of 3 for each. I got another 3v3 and it says 2 of 10 now so seems like the glitch you fixed likely worked. Thanks for helping with this!

@BlackYps FYI, I just played my first ladder game of the new season (3v3) and it still says "The system is still learning you. 1 out of 10 games played." Not the end of the world but it is still annoying lol. I'll just keep grinding . I have gotten slightly better since I made this post so i have higher hopes that I can grind to diamond where I can show that league what a noob I am.

insert - slow clap escalating to standing ovation -

@Jip Well I have zero skills or knowhow to be able to offer any assistance but I am sure happy that we have people who know how and are willing. I looked at a simple log file trying to troubleshoot my crashing and my brain nearly exploded from whatever the hell I read on that notepad lol