Posts made by Strydxr

Hello Everyone,
I think it's time we formalized Community Game Night as a permanent event within the FAF Community, and in my opinion that includes centralization of information and resources, as well as sharing a bit more of my vision for this project.

What is Community Game Night?
Community Game Night is self explanatory as a concept, it's a bi-weekly event ran by @Deribus and myself typically, this event is a series of games in which the community simply plays together, although I have a grander theme for this idea, and I want to make it a reality.
This event typically has a theme, such as Common Armies Union Control, 4v4v4v4, SACU Madness, SACU Rebalance Testing (UEF) etc, and these all bring us together as a community, where 2ks can come to chill, and new players can get themselves acquainted with regular faces. Overall it's a win win for everyone, and I can say with full confidence that they're very fun to be at for all ratings, if you haven't already participated I recommend you partake at least once, you don't know what you're missing!

How do I partake in Community Game Night?
We have a dedicated channel on the main FAF Discord which is now viewable by everyone, but only those with the Game Nights role can type within it. You can show interest there, or simply pop into the Community Game Night VC, as people in VC do get priority when we have games! There is no requirement other than showing up and playing, other than no toxicity, it won't be tolerated at all.

Where can I go for additional resources with this project?
For additional resources, this forum post will be continually maintained by myself and any other contributors to the project, you may also go to the Community Game Night channel on the main FAF discord, or get in contact with me directly any way you'd prefer, all three methods will catch you up to date, and may give you the insights you need!

My Vision for CGN
I always wanted CGN to be integral to FAF, and since it's return it's seen a resounding success within the community. I think this is a good opportunity to not only build upon that community spirit, but that we can use it as a way to make FAF better in terms of how it operates, bare with me for a second.
If you've attended a CGN before, You will likely have heard me say "We're doing x y z for Game Dev team" or "We're testing a b c for the Balance Team", and typically people are more than okay to contribute, making this an efficient way for contributor teams in FAF to get something useful out of it, and allowing players to see a more transparent insight into what we do behind the scenes.
Community Game Night is the stepping stone to a more cooperative community, and it helps everyone, I genuinely believe it will only get better, and that the more support it receives from players, the more it benefits them.

Can I contribute to this project?
Yes you can! We're always looking for more hosts, particularly within the EST timezone, as this will expand the amount of players who can reasonably partake, If you don't wish to host or help organize, just playing or promoting the project is more than enough, it helps more than you guys realize!!

That's about it, if there's anything I missed, or if there's any questions I'll reply to this post, feel free to get in contact with me about anything CGN related, I'm active on the discord and semi active on forums, you'll also see me on the client semi often.

Thank you guys for supporting my vision for this project!

@TheCrimsonKnight under, so u1100 is under 1100, u 1500 under 1500 etc etc

@FunkOff Some people are looking at Galatic War repos rn

Hello Everyone, following the success of the u1500 tournament, we're now hosting a u1100 tournament!

All u1100 1v1 players are allowed to participate, although those who are exceedingly higher in other ratings may be asked to queue some 1v1 games to certify they're within the right rating bracket. This tournament will be Double Elimination and Best of 3

See you there : )
https://discord.gg/XkkVSyDeft

Hello Everyone, with the first tournament now concluded within the collective project of Bully, Paradox Vindex and I now completed with a resounding success, I feel its time we looked a bit more outward.

We'd like to make this project as public as we can, and incentivize active participation for both enjoyment and improvement.
Currently, we have a u1100 bracket and a u1500 bracket, with the latter having finished it's first tournament, and our winner being Razana.

So without further ado, feel free to come and play in these tournaments, we plan to have these regularly and welcome casters and players alike.

As for u1900 1v1 players, is there interest in having a bracket made for you? I feel like the numbers dwindle massively due to lack of organized play and therefore loss of motivation, perhaps this will help?

If there's any questions or feedback regarding the project, feel free to approach me about it, any insights are good insights : )

Discord: https://discord.gg/XkkVSyDeft

@TheVVheelboy Do you think there's an available incentive to casters that FAF can offer? Or is it simply a case of waiting for the newer generation of casters to grow and find their feet a bit?

Eh, fuck it. I'll sign up, put me in coach

It's been a few months since we've discussed the state of FAF, and as a community I do genuinely think that insights and data can lead us to an actual community consensus, rather than whispers of people using opinions as objective reality.

I think a bit has changed in regards to how people feel about FAF, and honestly I see a lot more positivity and willingness to contribute than I did walking into the community, or even back during several issues like the rename issue or the area reclaim issue. Although, not everyone will see massive change I suppose.

Feel free to give insight into how you feel FAF is, I think with the addition of CGN and other community centric projects (some of which are still in works : 3), we could work towards a common goal, even if it's small.

Thank you guys so much for your interest in EU vs USA (+ the Americas)! It means a lot to know people are interested in a project that I intend to bring to life. Although, I do have a question for everyone,

Why are tournaments much more rare these days? I've heard so much about the good old days of FAF when tournaments were regular and fun, what exactly changed? Can this be brought back?

When I talk to people of all ratings about this issue, the common answer is always that there's no fun tournaments to sign up to and play in, although there's seasonal invitationals, Rainbow Cup, the occasional SainseRow tournament etc etc. I wish to help bring some sort of semi regular tournaments to all ratings, but mostly catering to the 1500+ scene. Would this be of interest to you guys?

It wouldn't be just me hosting tournaments either, if I can get enough interest, feedback etc I know a few people who have genuinely fun tournament ideas that they'd love to host, maybe this could be the first step to preserving some sort of competitiveness in FAF? who knows really.

Feel free to let me know, maybe a monthly or bimonthly tournament to start us off?

@Swatoslav Eastern Europe is entirely fine! We've had players from all over Europe contribute to the Europe team last time, hope to see you there!

@waffelzNoob The USA actually won last time, although it was more a coalition of the Americas, which may happen again depending on attendance and such.

Glad to see you're looking forward to it, perhaps closer to the time I'll ask for some suggestions and feedback from previous tournaments to make this one smooth and enjoyable.

A little while agile, the FC clan and the remnants of T3 hosted a tournament of where the EU and USA were against each other, playing a series of maps, and the attendance was so great we had to draft an A team and a B team to make sure as many people could play as possible. Once asked about the tournament, people had positive reviews, and there were always talks of another being possible, I'd like to make that happen.

The last one was during the summer, as this is when the most people had a common period of free time. I would like to organize one for the start of Summer '25, in the hopes of giving FAF players from Europe and USA something to look forward to besides Summer Invitationals.

I'm unsure what would work best for everyone in regards to format, rules, and management in regards to the tournament, some suggestions or even feedback from the last one would be helpful.

Is this of interest to people? I think it'd be fun to reintroduce fun based seasonal tournaments besides Rainbow Cup.

As long as they do the pings for CGN when I ask em and don't abuse their power idgaf, hopefully things between mods and players become more civil and transparent.

@yew Community Game Night is an organised event that started two years ago when Deribus wanted to have more community interaction as the Community Manager. It was stopped due to lack of interest, however it was pushed back into a trial period that is doing quite well.

Essentially, it's just a night of where there's anywhere from 2-6 lobbies of a certain theme, we've done 4v4v4v4, FAF Beta (technical difficulties iirc) and Multiple Armies Union Control, with many more planned : )

All are welcome, people who are int he CGN VC do get priority, and those who are toxic and such can be removed to make space for those who can genuinely enjoy the event people put effort into hosting.

Overall just good times i suppose.

Hello CGN attendees past present and future! I require some insights from you,

As we make these standardized within the community, I wish to keep it fresh each week, with new challenges and twists. These create new ways to make FAF appealing in these CGNs.

I would like to ask for suggestions or feedback, both of these will make the CGN's much better, and hopefully make planning them even more streamlined.

Also, if anyone wishes to become an organiser of this event, I'd be open to bringing a few more people on board should this continue to be successful.

Thank you for your attendance and your feedback, it means a lot.

@indexlibrorum I am aware of the EST folk also having difficulty getting to the Europe central games, and I believe we'll be doing an EST run of the CGN as well as the European one as well, although I'm not involved in planning for the 28th September event.

I would consult @Terminal about if he's still planning to do the EST CGN, and what times. If all goes well for a testing period and go from there : )

Unsure if these times will help you or the AUS players, but all i can really put forward for now, apologies boss.

@willowisppsi Could you elaborate? I'm unsure of any FFA maps or how it'd work logistically, but it does sound promising!

Two years ago we had Community Game Nights run by our old Community Manager (CM) Deribus, after some time these lost interest and died down. Although, we have recently brought them back and are on our way to have our 3rd CGN on Saturday 28th of September, 2024 (Current projection as of this post being written). Although the progression of attendance has been constant full lobbies (or even overflow), the feedback given to these events this far seems to be rather sparse or outright not said at all, which is fine to operate under, but how can we improve this Biweekly event if we don't know the good, the bad, and the ugly?

I'd like to use this Forum post as a way to gather insights on this event, hopefully if this continually goes on and on the insights gathered can be used to make adjustments, improvements and to help other aspects of FAF.

Please feel free to make any comments you'd like in regards to the Community Game Night, I'd prefer you'd have been there for at least 3 of the games since we've started them back, but I know a few of those who have been in vc only may have some insights and concerns as well.

P.S. If you have any suggestions for themes as well, we'd love to hear those as well.

@jip

Honestly, I'm not sure what is the correct answer, as FAF operates on a decentralised communication aspect. I'm not sure how the other teams have handled it, but here's how we handled it when I joined the Personal Trainer Team:

1. We drafted worthwhile topics.
2. We had a meeting (with nearly 100% Trainer Attendance + Babel & OGW_PR_Outreach)
3. We discussed these topics, verifying that the problem is commonplace and began to provide solutions and feedback (everyone contributed to each problem in some way, making sure we had every insight we possibly could have acquired)
4. We narrowed it down to two insights that would work best for the problem, and then had a vote
5. We documented this meeting, including all important notes and changes to start the shift for a slightly more centralised approach to keep each other up to date.

Now this won't work in larger scales, as this was meant to address several issues within the Trainer Team, although I think this is where Team Leads could possibly have a bit more impact within their respective teams.
I'd propose for most major changes to have a representative of most if not all teams to keep everyone up to date, as this should then allow everyone to keep up to date due to the flow of information from the teams to the community, or for the Team Leads to just be informed and then they forward it to us, and then we follow the same step in keeping everyone up to date.
This may have some flaws I cannot foresee due to conditional bias, and I think teams could have some pretty qualitive and quantitively varying insights to changes before it's published, hopefully lessening the impact of issues like this in the future.

Another solution I'd like to put forward is newsletters or pings for discussions in this matter, as I think they already exist (correct me if I am wrong) in FAF development, but for changes regarding moderation changes and stuff like that, I think the outward communication before publishes may have a similar effect, and it may solve the communication on the moderation game dev or whoever's end, leaving it to the players to then keep their end of the deal of promising better two way communication.

Perhaps you'll disagree, and that's fine. But this is my opinion of someone who's seen this before and realistically the more insights that are provided the better.

Honestly, FAF isn't even that beyond saving, it's just that there's no idealist way to progress and therefore splinters are beginning to form.

What I want to know is, what even if the vision for FAF? The reason I ask this is because every older FAF player I speak to keeps saying FAF isn't what it used to be, client used to be more optimised and there was actually a pro scene. What changes caused this? Can an agreement be made to try and bring some of these older players back and rebuild one of the fundamentals of what makes an RTS great?

Also with the new RTS games out there, I feel like they'll lose their appeal over time, stuff like BAR, PA and Sanctuary will all thrive for a while and slowly lose the feeling of being new to people. This might cause a few people to come back to the old reliable RTS they once thrived on, just a thought.

All in all, I don't really have a massive stance in each direction, I feel a lot of newer policies could've been handled better, and maybe better communication between moderation game dev team etc and the general populace of faf and the remnants of the pro scene, overall it just seems like no one really knows what the fuck is going on and therefore leaves a lot of frustration over smaller things instead of how to make the game enjoyable again.

I suspect some new insights in the next 2-4 months will give us a bigger picture for us all to work with, as it is a community effort after all.