My issue is the following:

In this thread alone, we have one group of people, such as Blodir, Tex, Box, Tagada, Bennis, and Archsimkat(Head of 1v1 map pool I believe?). These are people who have either played map gen tourney, hosted a large number of mapgen games, are top 1v1 players, or are active on ladder, and these people are ALL in support of map gen and a possible limited inclusion in matchmaker. The people who are the most active in the micro community this change would effect seem to be overwhelmingly in favor of this change. This is not counting Morax, Resistance, Tatsu, and several other individuals who have voiced support for map gen.

This is primarily opposed by people who have not played ladder, played in the tourney, or played on map gen more then 1 or 2 games. These people then get defensive/aggressive when this fact is brought up, and the conversation gets railroaded into inaction. FTX claims that BO-whoring isn't a factor in ladder, (which he hasn't played in over 3 years), when myself, petric (in his map gen tournament forum post), and even biass, all acknowledge BO-whoring as a factor on authored maps. You also have unreasonable standards being set to prevent testing map gen in ladder by saying that "either it’s good enough to replace everything or it isn’t good enough to be in ladder.", or superficial flaws with map gen being blown up to a bigger effect then they rightfully should be (map doesn't look pretty).

And to bring up the point of a depressive tone, most of the negativity in this forum seems to be coming from those very same people. Comments like "Please do not try and be "superior" about it because you "play" ladder maps." "make better posts", or an entire post sarcastically breaking down the word 'assume', are far more antagonistic then myself pointing out that the word 'aesthetic' means something entirely different then what biass was using it for.

And @morax, that feels a little unfair to bring up a separate conversation we had yesterday, out of context, to this post. I was not even aware I was even on the discord channel for ladder team until you told me I was removed from it, how is that my fault? Also, if someone has been voted/appointed to a position of power/authority in this community, such as council of setons, player councilor, or in charge of map pool, I would expect them to not lose their cool when it comes to discussions that are directly under their responsibility as a community appointed member. I agree that these people get an unwarranted amount of hate, but that does not mean that every counter argument or criticism to their argument is an attack on their person.

TLDR: We like map gen. it would be fun to try and implement it into ladder for a month or so to see player reception to it. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work, but from where I am sitting right now, it seems like people want to give it a shot. And I have yet to hear a good argument against including it. If it is too difficult to code, or there are other problems that take priority, that is fine by me. But I dislike the argument that other people who don't ladder/play map gen know better then the people who do.

I think that is a flawed argument ftx, you can't compare the playtime of every faf map in existence vs map gen which has not seen wide popularity until recently. You should be comparing the average relative quality/enjoyment of playing map gen vs playing a 'standard' map. Playtime=/= fun. Look at dual gap

The point of map gen isn't to have a 'perfect' map, its to have a NEW map, and that is the point I think you are missing. Its really really fun to play something that you and your opponent are completely unfamiliar with, and actually try and figure shit out on the fly. Its not like clicking ladder and finding yourself on daroza's and knowing the first 6 minutes of gameplay require a hard wired build, with at least 10-15 minutes going by before any meaningful player interaction outside of the initial drop to secure expo. At that point it doesn't even feel like playing.

I have played more map gen then ladder this last month, although admittedly it is partly due to the 'look, new!' effect of it. That being said, I would absolutely love for it to be incorporated into ladder. I have had more then 80% of my matches on map gen end up being very enjoyable, which is more then I can say for ladder. And I personally do not see the over-emphasis on map 'aesthetics' to be such a high metric for map quality. But I guess seeing as how you don't actually play ladder maps, you need to evaluate them somehow...

My only complaints with map gen are the following: Terrain isn't always obvious (quick camera angle viewing fixes it) and that after a while (20+ games), some of the maps can seem to be fairly similar. That being said, even for some of the 'similar' maps, I could make the same complaints for a few of the maps I have seen in ladder pool. There is only so much variation you can have imo.

I would really like to see 10-20% of ladder games be map gen for a month, gauge reception then. Its really nice to have something new to play on, rather then the same old same old, and the no build order whoring aspect is amazing.

Some points I would like to add to the post:

1. If we can rebalance the entirety of the T3 land stage, I don't see how it would be a problem to look at t3 mex's cost. Arguing that its too big a change and needs years of testing seems pointless considering the scope of balance changes we have done over the years. IIRC T2 land HQ is like 50% more cost then 2012, T3 land HQ is also significantly more expensive, T3 land units are much weaker (except for the campy sniperbots!), T4's have been changed as well with greater buildtime cost. T3 mex has stayed the same. Perhaps its possible that by systematically nerfing land across the board for years, this is making mex is stronger in relation?? Anyone?? Also, Mex adjacency on factories has been buffed since then as well. Another reason to eco.

2. Level of gameplay has improved significantly. Generally speaking, we can eco smarter and harder, and take advantage of mistakes more. Everyone has dozens of engis roaming the map for reclaim. The most effective use of reclaim after a battle is to dump it right into mex upgrades, then scale production/eco appropriately. Pushing into a base is hard because engis can spam walled PD instantly, then reclaim the carnage for more eco. I had a game the other day where I had to pull back 15 loyalists and 30 medusa from raiding a bunch of t2/t3 mex because there were enough engis there to spam T1 PD forcing away loyalists. That sickens me. 2500 Hp on a t3 unit designed to raid can not raid because of instantly spammed PD.

3. The ratio of cost per benefit of the t2 mex upgrade -> storages -> T3 mex is nearly the same, the only difference is how much you need to invest before payout. On a lot of wide open 1v1/2v2 maps its often a smarter move to force a t3 mex in your base then to keep upgrading t1 mex to t2 if it is outside of your base where it can be raided. I do not think that this should be the case that a wrapped t2 -> t3 mex is nearly as cost efficient as t1 -> t2 or t2 -> storages.

My opinion to the main argument brought up by Bennis is that reclaim values should be scaled down, and t3 mex cost increased. Both by a small margin, say, reclaim down 15-20% and t3 mex up by 10-15%. Start from there. See what happens.

edit - I also like everything tagada said above. Very good points.

second edit - Upon giving this some more thought, since FAF released, we have made significant changes to the following: T3 Land, T3 Air, T4's, RAS, T2 Land, Adjacency, Overcharge, Vet, SCU's, and are trying to make changes to SCU-RAS. There is really nothing else left to change at the T3 stage besides T3 mex. I think this is all the more reason that T3 mex should be reviewed due to how much the game has changed, and what the game might need currently to bring it to a better state.

Good morning, evening, whatever. I'm writing this from a 1v1, 2v2 perspective. Setoners, calm your tits.

Cybran frigates are wayyyyyyy too strong.

For example: They can beat a UEF frigate 1v1 with a good amount of HP left over, while costing less mass and having far better AA for killing torp bombers.

Best AA of any frigate.

Cheapest Frigate.

Higest dps Frigate.

Cybran frigates eat other frigates for brunch, then will relax on the beach sipping a mimosa as they fuck up your naval factory engis or exposed mass extractors. This is not cool, and very imba.

Quick and dirty testing replay for those who do not know: https://replay.faforever.com/14205092 If anyone wants to get together with me and do 'real' testing, I'm all ears.

Please nerf.

Closing thoughts, to avoid a few tangents I can see this argument branching off into:

Yes, I think Cybran is really weak. No I don't think they should have an over tuned frigate to counteract this. That is bad game design IMO to have a faction strong on some maps and weak on others, even more so when you are laddering into a blind map. Please fix Cybran weaknesses in other ways. Like give them HP on their structures for fucks sake.

Yes, Cybran does not have hover. Unfortunately, frigate balance is closely related to hover balance, of which this post will be trying to address frigate balance on its own. Hover balance is another terrible issue. IMO, hover should be used to raid and stuff, not be an alternative for navy. If this were the case, frigates could do their own thing instead of being overtuned to counter hover.

Yes, UEF has the best T3 navy. No, I don't think that is a fair tradeoff on maps like Roanoke, PoR, Oracle, where you get A-moved by 500 frigates by minute 12, and your t2 naval factory doesn't live long enough to see the light of day, let alone tech up to t3. I think it is fine to have that balance when their T2 navy is utter dogshit to get up and running, but T1 balance should not be so lopsided when it has such a large impact on the early game development.

So help me if any of you say UEF jamming is OP and that's why its balanced. Maybe if it didn't cost an extra 18 or so mass per frigate in energy cost to run the damn thing. I don't think its a far tradeoff even if it was free.

Discuss:

Small speed buff would be quite interesting. Faster rushes across map, easier to close distance with percies/OC, and you could use it a bit more sneaky with the stealth by mixing up its positioning. Have it be something that lurks on the map like a shark, make it scared for you to move out.

Just dreaming up ideas, don't mind me.

Honestly I hate to be blunt, but I think ML scaling terrain is a horrible idea balance and gameplay wise. 75% of the maps it wont make a difference, and on like 10% of the maps it will be OP as all fuck. It will never be possible to balance properly like that, and its something that is very couther-intuitive gameplay wise.

I like the idea of buffing UEF frigate instead of the Cybran nerf, as a quick band aid fix. It solves the issue of this post, as well as UEF difficult naval game before T3, as well as the cybran hover issue. No major problems with that, and it would help more then it hurts. Also helps them vs hover as well, seeing as how riptides are not as strong as floaty flak, fobos, blazes, floaty shields...

However, without getting too into it (would need another thread for it), I don't want to be buffing frigates any more then they already are. I feel like they are too strong as is, and I would love to see an eventual rework of subs, torp bombers, hover, and frigates. But that is an entirely different issue I don't want to get into at the moment, which I why I proposed cybran nerf rather then UEF Buff.

Either way, as I said before. Moderate UEF buff would be quite nice to even things out, I would support this helping to solve the issue of this post. I do not know very well aeon/sera vs cybran frigates, as I have not tested it/played as much as I have as UEF navy, so someone else should weigh in if UEF frigates are as bad as other factions or not vs cybran. Aeon has their own funky thing going on.

I can get onboard with the mid-tier stealth gen. HP and Regen will keep ACU a little safer on the frontline and the stealth can be nice to help keep flak/hoplites/rhinos safe for some nice kiting. Would also be cool for stealth firebases to spring up if T2 is onboard for silly memes. Would make PD crawl better with their shit PD, and make it easier for fast firebases/hidden TML nonsense in niche scenarios. But mostly its a nice complement to gun. Cybran needs some love ATM and that should help shore up some problems.

I can not get onboard with the gun EMP. That is looking like Chrono all over again. Its a very large AOE zone to have 50% reduced DPS of enemy units. 1 emp lasting 1 second every two seconds from range behind stealth seems horrible to play into. I think the idea is neat, but it would need some serious adjustment. I also think it would be very hard to properly balance without being way OP or completely useless. I would offer counter balance suggestion but I can't think of anything good atm for that without testing.

There is a god.

Not sure if previously stated, I just think the problem is this:

A standard t1 army comp almost always has a few t1 arty in it. This is because t1 arty is good at both PD killing and as a combat unit. This means you almost always have t1 mobile arty available to kill PD that spring up. Its cheap and it works, and it helps to kill army units as well.

A standard t2 army comp usually does NOT include MML, as they are terrible combat units outside if niche situations. 99/100 times, you would rather have a few more t2 tanks to bolster up your forces. This means that once you see a firebase, you need to pause land facility, build 2-5 MML's, haul their ass too the front line, kill the PD, and then advance. By then, whatever reason the enemy built those T2 PD for already fulfilled their task (cover for an upgrade, secure reclaim field, buy time for t3 land). Now you are left with a dead firebase that already fulfilled its purpose, while you have a few MML's that will now do fuck all for your army.

I to fix your problem, I see two solutions: Make MML more of a combat unit (splash increase?) to have it be a standard part of a t2 army. This way you can counter t2 PD quicker/more effectively. Problem is this would wreck havoc with the meta and cause a few problems. Not sure if we want the game to go this way.

Make the missile damage significantly higher. This will mean you could kill t1/t2 PD much faster, with less units. Having a single MML in your army might be useful as a utility piece. Or rushing a pair of MML's out in a transport could actually break a firebase fairly quickly. Also this way, its interaction with TMD will remain unchanged.

Food for thought.

I was under the impression that tinkering with the hitbox was a difficult procedure, which is why I proposed an alternative solution. If a simple hitbox fix does the job I'm all for it.

And also @rico, I know you love your aeon labs. Im not trying to nerf labs into the dust, I rather like labs. I just want consistency in unit interactions. If labs become too weak with a hitbox nerf, but are at least hit consistently, I would be happy to support a buff again to get them to rough parity with where we are now.

...Except aeon labs, those things suck. I watched 4 of them descent on 4 thaams like piranhas and leave unscathed. I vote they go to 4DPS and 8 HP for balance reasons.

I mean, I am contradicting myself a little with this statement, but hear me out: I really love aggressive chaotic play. But IMO it should not be at the expense of unpredictable unit interactions.

My issue stems mostly from the fact that if in the early game, I value an engis life/expansion route so much that I have a tank guard it rather then screen for it, I want to know its safe from a lab. The act of building a tank specifically to defend is hugely important in the early game because I could be raiding elsewhere with the same tank, raiding elsewhere with two labs, or I could simply have another engi expanding in a different direction instead. To have invested in the tank, just to lose the engi regardless, is a huge loss early.

You can't early expand, raid, protect engis, spam reclaim, and spam factories all at once when you start a game. You need to make a choice in how you spend your first units. Sending a tank to defend an engi from a lab you spotted should have a higher chance of success then we have currently IMO. It wont take away from successful LAB raids, because you realistically cant expand everywhere and defend it all at once. Where you choose to defend should matter and not be left to as much chance.

Also, I don't really like the luck factor to it. It wouldn't be too far fetched to say that games could be won or lost even with the same exact opening used both times, just because in one game the lab dodged an extra shot and killed the engi before it made its expansion to the mex group 1.5 minutes away from the main base.

That's just my take on it. Increase aggression to the max all you want, but I just want the early game to be consistent in its unit interactions. The early game can be REALLY snowbally just due to a little bad luck in the early game. I know I have won and lost games due to a single hero lab/tank that had no right to 1v3 because of some fluke of unit targeting.

So, the other day I was having a meltdown because I lost an engi to a lab that was actively being guarded by a tank. Feels bad man. To me, this does not feel right, and the primary reason for this happening was that labs seem to have this hidden superpower of never getting shot if the terrain is a tiny bit bumpy. This lets the lab dance up to the engi with target priority set, and kill the engi before dying a happy lab. Sometimes it even gets away afterwards and takes a small piece of my soul with it.

Now, I don't really know how to fix this without breaking the game. I was thinking about projectile speed increases, hitbox stuff, all things that have some wider balance implications. But that is a conversation for another time. One day I have grand dreams of more predictable interactions early game between tank vs tank, inty vs inty. Stuff with DoT and faster projectiles/turret tracking for predictable fights and less snowball from 50-50 fights with 1 unit each. A man can dream.

But for now, I had the great idea to give the engi a 25-50HP buff, to around 150-175 HP each. This won't change how many shots ACU needs to kill, it wont change bomber interaction (unless you get that strange UEF napalm burn dodge micro going on), and it really won't change the engi dying due to a tank/mechmarine attacking an unguarded engi. 1 more second of DPS wont matter in that case... But it might help engi survivability when a mech marine yolo's its way past your striker and kills your engi with its dying breath.

Any thoughts?

I've only had gotten 2 so far on ladder.(small sample size, obviously. Take with grain of salt) Got a 5x5 and 20x20, both were quite reasonable in terms of how they looked and how they played. Saw a 10k map Swkoll had generated as well, looked fun as well, but snowball potential was high. So far I am impressed with map gen in ladder, but I haven't gotten anything bad yet so YMMV.

The last two games I played that had a control K draw scenario were rated for me as normal draws, so that's why I thought it got fixed.

Does anyone else remember 'Lame'? I fear to think how highly rated that man would have gotten with drawbug and shift G.

But like actually though, I really don't see this as that much of a problem. It sucks sometimes, but at the end of the day your rating will go back to baseline. Swkoll and I used to offer each other draws if we wanted to be nice, I offered a draw to espi one and he told me to pound salt so I went back to control k'ing if I needed to. I think the situation is too ambiguous to need to start looking at bans or warnings. Everyone knows how sometimes you go for a push and it doesnt work out, and your only chance is to take a draw or lose. I have yet to see anyone really try and abuse the system since "Lame' did this back in 2012-2013.

Also, I thought this got fixed a few days/week ago? The last two games I lost to control K, it counted it as an actual draw?

Honestly I hate to be blunt, but I think ML scaling terrain is a horrible idea balance and gameplay wise. 75% of the maps it wont make a difference, and on like 10% of the maps it will be OP as all fuck. It will never be possible to balance properly like that, and its something that is very couther-intuitive gameplay wise.

I hate to say it, but I think FTX is on to something. Giving it absolver-like damage buff would help it with its worst problem. Enemy shield bubbles stacking into Cybran. That's a solid idea.

I can get onboard with the mid-tier stealth gen. HP and Regen will keep ACU a little safer on the frontline and the stealth can be nice to help keep flak/hoplites/rhinos safe for some nice kiting. Would also be cool for stealth firebases to spring up if T2 is onboard for silly memes. Would make PD crawl better with their shit PD, and make it easier for fast firebases/hidden TML nonsense in niche scenarios. But mostly its a nice complement to gun. Cybran needs some love ATM and that should help shore up some problems.

I can not get onboard with the gun EMP. That is looking like Chrono all over again. Its a very large AOE zone to have 50% reduced DPS of enemy units. 1 emp lasting 1 second every two seconds from range behind stealth seems horrible to play into. I think the idea is neat, but it would need some serious adjustment. I also think it would be very hard to properly balance without being way OP or completely useless. I would offer counter balance suggestion but I can't think of anything good atm for that without testing.

You dirty dirty aeon player.