This has been said before, but it leads to actual confusion and difficulty playing vs Hunters, especially as the Mantis is nearly as fast as a LAB. Is it more difficult than changing the relevant field in a blueprint? Or is there any reason to keep it the same?

@Tagada https://www.twitch.tv/voiceoftex/ is pretty active.

In case there's anyone else out there using hotbuildex, @Dragun101's new mod is called "A Hotkey Keys" in the mod vault and is better than hotbuildex - it's not bugged and obviously has lots of other nice hotkey possibilities. Have just transferred my hotkeys over to it, was easy even for someone who's nearly coding illiterate. Thank you for making this mod.

@Askaholic said in About Neroxis map generator...:

we can throw up a casual/unrated/global rating queue that incorporates some random maps

Why an entirely new ladder and pool? Genuine question, don't wanna sound unappreciative. It's really great to hear this is being worked on and not just shutting down a good idea just because it's work for you btw, thank you and thanks @Sheikah so much for doing this - this idea about creating a whole new queue seems unnecessary on first glance to me.

Bump - Arctic Refuge is imbalanced in favour of the northern spawn(s) due to the trucks on the northern side of the civ base in the middle being worth thousands of mass. The buildings are also slightly weighted to the north as well - when I tested it I got about 3k more mass that was obviously northern in the Civ base than I got out of obviously southern mass. Didn't count stuff in the middle.

Honestly I've never understood the amazing amount of salt that comes out on both sides of the debate around using shift-G to more easily kill an ACU with T1 spam (and for that matter UI modding in general). Compared to now, comblocking required/will again require as little as 2-3 more clicks and being more zoomed in (move order past ACU, box-select first 1-3 tanks that pass ACU, move them to just in front of ACU). This is nearly as effective as shift-G with less risk of brutal overcharges. Maybe it's my out-of-date-1500 game knowledge, but I think people looking forward to being able to take significantly more risks with their ACUs in average and high level play might be in for a rude shock, especially as people are now more aware of the value of comblocking than in 2015. I think I'd prefer it stayed, if cheaters might be/are abusing it then get rid of it.

As a general point, I agree with having a UI that lets you more easily issue the orders you want to and to make more decisions for yourself directly through UI flexibility (UI Party's selection-splitting hotkeys are AMAZING for this, including just about replacing everything lost by removing shift-G) and indirectly through more thinking time. Having this approach seems to be a pretty fundamental design decision for Supcom both before and after FAF started, so it arguably damages the market appeal of FAF to go in the opposite direction. Scaling back UI control should only be done if something is absolutely ruining high level play, or clearly driving players away and endangering the community. I can't think of an example of the latter and I will just take the word of actual good players on things like ATP sniping being completely broken (actual balance decisions shouldn't be made by anyone else as they are, by definition, the people who best understand how to play the game optimally, sorry if that hurts people's feelings). I would quietly suggest that if people are concerned about lowering the FAF skill cap, they should read Tagada's post and then look at the skill cap as a unit/map balance issue. Given this game is meant to be about strategic choice based on all available info, not high-APM mechanics and managing a perma-zoomed in screen, we should be looking at making more unit comps and playstyles viable in various scenarios. If there are more meaningful strategic choices, not just a battle of execution in producing more of the "correct comp" than your opponent and/or taking better fights with it, good strategic players can shine. But again, I'm not good enough at this game to know if the skill cap is a real issue or better balanced units and maps are actually a good solution.

Also sidenote for @Tagada: Take your own advice on comparing FAF and Starcraft when you've only being playing SC2 for a couple of weeks and you're nowhere near the equivalent of even 1k FAF rating (Platinum players are ranked behind 30%-50%/70k-120k of active non-Korean ladder profiles, on FAF leaderboards that is currently 213-456 rating). You would be laughed out of town on any SC2 forum where you tried to argue that "in SC2 unless you are Zerg (Queen injects) the economy is basically Select all Nexus/CC/Hatchery make drones while having the hatchery's waypoint on mineral line/Gas" - that's like saying FAF macro is basically shift-clicking mass points with a couple of engineers. Stick to FAF, you make a lot more sense when you do

@FtXCommando Before @Brutus5000 implements Ladder Pool 41 please get a fix for Emerald Cliffs, it is imbalanced due to one of the Hydros being unbuildable.
https://i.imgur.com/w7F3oIc.png
https://i.imgur.com/Cd7QwcR.jpeg

Would be nice if there was a requirement for maps to be playtested more than 0 times before they were put straight in the pool, not just for this kind of basic bugfixing but you would get less of it.

@Auricocorico said in FAF version (GPG, unknown & inactive author map rework):

I recall that the pgen explosion is stronger the closer you are, right ?

Nah, death weapons have a flat damage cutoff at their max range, unlike nukes which have inner/outer ring. And they were already in range of eachother - just quickly tested it.

How would you balance the ACUs though...? They are already VERY strong against T1 spam aren't they?

Tagada I don't want to derail this thread, especially as I basically agree with everything you're saying about FAF and we have both said this is side point, so I'm deleting my longer reply. Let's just agree to disagree that balancing production/income/supply/correct worker vs army supply for a given situation/injects/chronos/MULEs in SC2 is easy.

Yeah the tone of this thread is kinda depressing.

Anyway, I can't help but notice that the high rated 1v1 players in this thread (and in the mapgen tourney thread) are really interested in seeing this in ladder, perhaps an experimental month of the 1800+ bonus maps being mapgen would be worth it. I can't really see what the risk is to be honest, high level ladder stays dead and people complain about ugly/unfun/bugged/imba maps? What's the change?

I wanted to expand a little on how we might highlight streamers in the client's News tab, but I'd like to seek feedback - I don't have many strong views but I have a feeling we could annoy people or cause drama if we're not careful (I mean it might happen no matter what lol, all due respect to the FAF community, want to minimise the chance though). Again, this is for slow news weeks, or at least when there's not many different news stories.

Ideally we'd be able to be vet for quality*, checking VODs is pretty helpful here but it's also a BIG JOB to do properly. So if there are a bunch of VODs (you need to switch on Store Past Broadcasts if you're using Twitch, it's not on by default) that helps us to have a quick skim - I assume that's how Tagada curates the OP in this thread - but I doubt we can properly vet a stream because there are only so many hours in a day. At times I suspect we will take advantage of the vetting Tagada has done here, but if streamers have met these requirements and aren't on this list we're open to promoting them if they come to us or we can otherwise be confident they're active and have some quality. Would REALLY prefer it came directly from the streamer though.

I think we'd want to see 3+ unique FAF streams with 5+ hours uptime in the last fortnight or so as an absolute bare minimum for activity too, and it probably needs to be a good bit more than this if the streamer goes inactive or plays other games for large periods within a fortnight.

Really open to suggestion on any of this if anyone cares particularly deeply about ensuring only the best stuff gets promoted, or instead thinks this makes it too hard to build a stream for an already tiny game.

*"Quality" - probably is best defined as streams that could add some kind of value to the FAF community. I can only really think of educational focus (including stream chats helping a new, low rated streamer), high-skill play (which obviously has educational value too), or the stream style being able to build a community - I guess this kind of catches "the next BRNK" or "the next Gyle", both are a bit educational but the thing that makes them successful is their personality/colour commentary and the community around that. If people have other kinds of streams they think we should look at it here let us know.

@Sheikah said in Client v1.4.3 Upcoming Features:

Support generated maps in map pools

Heyooooooo

Heads up that we are promoting active streamers in the client News tab, particularly when we're a little short for stories, so if you're streaming regularly (probably 4-5 minimum recent broadcasts and/or not inactive for many days at a time) and want a mention in the client let us know in #news-post-requests in the FAF Promotion sever here https://discord.gg/8vc6z9dN2G. Ideally there's also a clear value to the viewer, e.g. educational for new players, entertaining/interactive streamer, gameplay with high skill and speed. Non-English language streams are VERY welcome.

We have been picking one or two active streamers to promote based on Twitch activity, which is probably fine. But just in case it somehow causes drama, we'd prefer to do it with the streamer's permission or at their request going forward.

@Auricocorico said in FAF version (GPG, unknown & inactive author map rework):

I recall that the pgen explosion is stronger the closer you are, right ?

Nah, death weapons have a flat damage cutoff at their max range, unlike nukes which have inner/outer ring. And they were already in range of eachother - just quickly tested it.

@Auricocorico said in Change Mantis to T1 tank icon:

I'm quite sad noboby took draguns comment seriously, I think it makes perfect sense. Mantis has been like that since SupCom ... i'm sad this feature is removed to satisfy 3-4 people ....
#mantisarebots !!!!

I made a three paragraph reply two posts above yours dude. I took it seriously out of respect for Dragun, as much as anything, cos he's a good guy. I just don't think his perspective makes sense in this case.

I would also be on board with a T1 Percy/Brick icon, I just don't see the point of having two units in the same faction having the same icon when it can absolutely confuse newer/rustier/worse players either using or fighting the Hunter/Mantis, like I said in my last post. It doesn't really matter which gets used, T1 tank is also fine and consistent with Seraphim T1 MAA having a diamond icon.

And yes @veteranashe I made this thread because someone went LAB/Mantis mix against me and it caused minor confusion (if perhaps also being a little inefficient - I wonder if he pushed once or twice when he shouldn't have because he overestimated his forces). It's not confusing when people go Mech Marine/Striker or Flare/Aurora, which also happens. Regardless, you would want this to be addressed either way before it became a solid choice in the meta, not leave it because it doesn't happen often when it's literally one line of code.

Whatever makes your job easiest tbh. I generally don't have strong opinions about how maps play or look, so long as they're balanced, and definitely no preference about the angle of symmetry.

If you want a second opinion that matters I'd doublecheck with arch or ftx as they run the map pools, so it would be best if they like (and therefore use) your version.

@svenni_badbwoi The main issue I can see can be fixed with moving props in the middle. I'm sure balancing the map could be optimised much better, but in the first instance I think making the props in the centre so they are vertically and horizontally symmetrical would make the map acceptable for use in the matchmaker pools. To avoid seriously changing the gameplay by changing mass values in the middle I guess that means four groups of trucks and the T1 MAA in the centre of the base, and the buildings laid out symmetrically.

Might be worth uploading a version 1 like that and working on more finetuning over time?

@Tagada https://www.twitch.tv/voiceoftex/ is pretty active.

I had this recently too and just assumed it was an issue with my buggy laptop having a sticky key on or something. I locked and unlocked my computer with the windows+L key real quick and I didn't have the issue again. Will try and post a recording of it if I see it happen again.

@archsimkat said in 1v1 and 2v2 matchmaker pools for March:

I thought Turtle Rocks would fall into that category to play, at least when compared with a lot of the other options for 1v1s on 20x20s

Just a quick side not that this definitely is a 10km and plays like a 10km. By that I mean transports feel useful but optional, even moreso than other 10km maps like EotS, Vya, Last Oasis, Vulcan's Reach, Twin Rivers. On 20km maps transports are never really optional imo. Also while there should probably be multiple fronts on Turtle Rocks, they're not far from eachother so one can reinforce another one very quickly. On 20km land maps this isn't the case, it's probably their other defining feature. Not that I dislike Turtle Rocks, it's just not a substitute for a 20km if that's what you wanted it for.

Anyway, like I said to you elsewhere I think this is a really good pool overall, that's probably in part because so many of them are well established 1v1 maps, especially in the lower brackets. I think the balance is maybe a little skewed towards high reclaim and mex counts, particularly in the 5km pool, but I think that's mostly a product of the maps that get made.