lobbygames
I tell you i dont understand why i still have 1200 global rank as i didnt play a team game for at least 3 years. I cannot join a game without ruining it for someone else(which i wont).
proposed SOLUTION = rank decay, or hard rank reset on inactive accounts

ladder
think about how much time does a new player need to be properly prepared, to know all the races, maps and tech thats in ladder?
new player is thrown into a pool just after 5 games or so and then they get demolished.

• losing a game because its the first time you encountered a zthuee, or didnt know about 1k reclaim, or didnt have a proper BO for that map, or didnt know the map is fucked and the terrain behaves differently from what you expect from when zoomed out, or lose otherwise won game because of enemy guncom... i imagine it can demotivate

I know there already is a limit on maps in the ladder pool, based on players rank, but i think its not enough.
proposed SOLUTION = for the first 100-200 games, there should be different approach to matchmaking. Less races, less tech, small maps(carefully selected with intention to ) only.

Something like:
#gamesPlayed
1-5 only 1 5x10 map in the pool, only UEF ACU available
6-10 + 1 Map 5x5
11-15 + cybran enabled
16-30 + water map
31-60 + map 10x10 that is good for hover + Aeon enabled
.. you get the idea. slowly adding things to learn about the game, not overwhelming anybody. and smurfs would maybe get bored
for this league, there should be a page reflecting each of the steps (level-1,level-5,level-11) with description of newly unlocked things, and tips and tricks about them, BOs for unlocked maps, common tactics, tricky things about new tech...

and promotion in the client. the first tab opened should be one with matchmaking 1 button away from a game. new players should play ladder, thats the place where they can learn how to play.

• problem with guncom is that its not easy to see it is a guncom. i imagine new people are quite surprised what killed them. not everyone is methodical and watch their own replays, not everyone zooms in to check for the gun, some even might not know how it looks like.

• t2 timing most of the time depends on the map right? hence the low map pool i proposed, and new maps only with guide

• define a new player. i might be one, i lost games because of this in combination with new map. i wont provide any replays as i dont really thing such a replay would prove my our yours point. i think most of the people imagine what kind of shit zthuee can do on maps with water and clifs

• i think there is difference between people. you are talking about map diversity yet most of the people in the lobby play 1 or 2 maps
  yes some people will never be happy with even 100 maps but if you play competitively and ladder is such place, then i believe you want to know the map you are going to play on. now since you cannot choose which one that will be, nor you can ban any map, you must learn them which takes time and not everyone is willing to invest it into a game. i imagine they want to play as soon as possible. then they get to learn the hard way. losing the match and maybe, i say it again, get frustrated

• and i didnt propose to limit the rank under 500 with X maps only. i proposed to base the map pool size on number of the games played, and THEN on the rank. how many maps do the 500 rank access to right now? its certainly not 15 or 20 anyway

@FtXCommando i think its not about losing itself, its about the reason of losing

have you ever played a board game where you have lost because of some special rule nobody told you about? and later again, you played well but you lost because there is a special rule you didnt know about...now you know, but the game is already lost. and you would ask why didnt you tell me before? well because there is just too many of these little things so we just cant tell you all of them, you will have to learn as you go. but many people wont. they leave

i agree the players want big shit stuff, but ladder is not the place where you get it.

and the baby ladder how @arma473 calls it, could exist next to normal ladder so you wouldnt be forced to play it. but new players should be encouraged to

i think the rank has many faces. cybran vs cybran, cybran vs UEF, UEF vs sera....on small map, map with water or without..

of course the number of games you played matters. if you played only 10 games i can guarantee you didnt play every map. you want to tell me that when there is a tournament, nobody prepares for specific maps? that it doesnt matter because they already played more than 10 games?

and the number of race vs race combinations is exactly 10 so in the best scenario you played every variant only once. did you learn all the sera tricks after you played 1 game against them? or is there a chance that people get better to certain degree after simply playing on the same map vs same enemy again and again? and then, some later, they hit their maximum rank.

we dont need to differ between 10 and 30.000 games. i proposed to differ between 0,5,10,15,30,60,100+. and they are not the same skill level.

how many hours, days, maybe weeks did you invest into this game? how many hours? maybe 1000? thats 25 weeks 8 hours a day.

its all about new people. they need to learn everything, everything they didnt see in some youtube video that attracted them here. i only propose to teach them bit by bit.

its not like you go to math class and they want to teach you all the tricks at once, is it?

• problem with guncom is that its not easy to see it is a guncom. i imagine new people are quite surprised what killed them. not everyone is methodical and watch their own replays, not everyone zooms in to check for the gun, some even might not know how it looks like.

• t2 timing most of the time depends on the map right? hence the low map pool i proposed, and new maps only with guide

• define a new player. i might be one, i lost games because of this in combination with new map. i wont provide any replays as i dont really thing such a replay would prove my our yours point. i think most of the people imagine what kind of shit zthuee can do on maps with water and clifs

• i think there is difference between people. you are talking about map diversity yet most of the people in the lobby play 1 or 2 maps
  yes some people will never be happy with even 100 maps but if you play competitively and ladder is such place, then i believe you want to know the map you are going to play on. now since you cannot choose which one that will be, nor you can ban any map, you must learn them which takes time and not everyone is willing to invest it into a game. i imagine they want to play as soon as possible. then they get to learn the hard way. losing the match and maybe, i say it again, get frustrated

• and i didnt propose to limit the rank under 500 with X maps only. i proposed to base the map pool size on number of the games played, and THEN on the rank. how many maps do the 500 rank access to right now? its certainly not 15 or 20 anyway

i will list some of the reasons why people lose their games (my opinion only, no research done apart from playing the game myself

• not aware of guncom strength and cost (could be solved with nice 10x5 map with chokepoint)
• special units from aeon and seraphim such as aurora and zthuee with floating capabilities
• too big map (20x20) too many things to do
• new map, no idea what to build, where to go
• bad T2 timing

i dont think its about small differences between units as you mentioned. i think you mentioned T3 bombers to partly disqualify my point

but maybe you are right about ACU movement and mass overflow. on small map, they would learn better that ACU must be used, and they wouldnt get easily overwhelmed by the size of the map

now your talk about 1000 rank i cannot take it seriously but you can prove me wrong, you play rank under 1k and win with mass sky slammer spam

the point of the baby league is to keep the player long enough in the game to teach him the basics. as it is now, ladder will teach them the same, but only if they wont get frustrated before. and that might be the case why people are leaving.

@FtXCommando i think its not about losing itself, its about the reason of losing

have you ever played a board game where you have lost because of some special rule nobody told you about? and later again, you played well but you lost because there is a special rule you didnt know about...now you know, but the game is already lost. and you would ask why didnt you tell me before? well because there is just too many of these little things so we just cant tell you all of them, you will have to learn as you go. but many people wont. they leave

@arma473 said in Why would you have left FAF?:

There are people who come back to FAF after a few years or a decade's absence, we don't need to force them to play 30 matches before they can unlock the real ladder. And there are people with 1700+ global rating who barely play the ladder, we don't need to make obstacles for them.

one half of me wants to agree with you, making it optional, to play the baby ladder only if you want. the other half has this feeling, that most of the players will want to play with all the toys immediately, they get crush, frustrated and they leave the FAF for good.

as long as there would be enough of new content so the player wont get bored, it should be fine to force it (not on players with 100+ games) (and lets face it, standard supcom had 3 races and you get access to all the stuff after how many hours of gameplay? 30 games on small map might be 5 hours of gameplay)

@FtXCommando call it ladder or not, it wont change a thing. and why map pool, and why 50 games? dont you think player can have fun in first 5 games with 1 race and 1 map? and next 10 games with 2 races and 2 maps? how fast can they finish those 5 games? 1 hour? many modern games limit players before they let them play the real stuff. and its for their own good

i agree the players want big shit stuff, but ladder is not the place where you get it.

and the baby ladder how @arma473 calls it, could exist next to normal ladder so you wouldnt be forced to play it. but new players should be encouraged to

so you are one of the new players, saying that?

@FtXCommando said in Why would you have left FAF?:

@kokoryba said in Why would you have left FAF?:

ladder
think about how much time does a new player need to be properly prepared, to know all the races, maps and tech thats in ladder?

Zero.

0 time needed to get to know all the maps, races, tech...? doesnt sound right, sorry

@FtXCommando said in Why would you have left FAF?:

Why do you guys think that new people in ladder are facing 1600s?

why do you think "we guys" think that new people in ladder are facing 1600s?

lobbygames
I tell you i dont understand why i still have 1200 global rank as i didnt play a team game for at least 3 years. I cannot join a game without ruining it for someone else(which i wont).
proposed SOLUTION = rank decay, or hard rank reset on inactive accounts

ladder
think about how much time does a new player need to be properly prepared, to know all the races, maps and tech thats in ladder?
new player is thrown into a pool just after 5 games or so and then they get demolished.

• losing a game because its the first time you encountered a zthuee, or didnt know about 1k reclaim, or didnt have a proper BO for that map, or didnt know the map is fucked and the terrain behaves differently from what you expect from when zoomed out, or lose otherwise won game because of enemy guncom... i imagine it can demotivate

I know there already is a limit on maps in the ladder pool, based on players rank, but i think its not enough.
proposed SOLUTION = for the first 100-200 games, there should be different approach to matchmaking. Less races, less tech, small maps(carefully selected with intention to ) only.

Something like:
#gamesPlayed
1-5 only 1 5x10 map in the pool, only UEF ACU available
6-10 + 1 Map 5x5
11-15 + cybran enabled
16-30 + water map
31-60 + map 10x10 that is good for hover + Aeon enabled
.. you get the idea. slowly adding things to learn about the game, not overwhelming anybody. and smurfs would maybe get bored
for this league, there should be a page reflecting each of the steps (level-1,level-5,level-11) with description of newly unlocked things, and tips and tricks about them, BOs for unlocked maps, common tactics, tricky things about new tech...

and promotion in the client. the first tab opened should be one with matchmaking 1 button away from a game. new players should play ladder, thats the place where they can learn how to play.