I started playing FAF 2 months ago, so I consider myself still somewhat of a new player. What I found/still find very challenging and frustrating:

• Joining a community and finding players to play with is HARD. There is a clan system in place, but actually finding and joining one of those clans is very difficult, as nearly all clans do not post contact/recruitment data publicly. Even a recruitment section here on the forum would go a long way of fixing this issue.
• 1v1 ladder is punishing and winning offers a lot less rewards than other RTS games. The gamification of the ladder rating system is basically non-existent. Other games (starcraft 2, LoL) do a better job here at motivating you to play by pitching you against similarly ranked players in a division.
• initial setup of hotkeys and mods could be even more 'out of the box' than it currently is. I remember I had to spend a couple hours at the start setting up /refining hotkey assignments. Things like this should just be set to sensible defaults in my oppinion.
• Teamgames, astro crater, survival maps and dual gap are all great fun for a beginner, as it feels like a lot less punishing environment, and more like a place where you can explore and have a good time. But getting into a game is frustrating, as lobby hosts will happily have you sit around for 20 minutes to fill their game up, only to kick you in the last second because gray=gay.

Will this be affecting all matchmaker queues?

In general, please be more specific for all "Matchmaker"/"Ladder"-like announcements, it is often very hard to see which queues these affect. The information could also be more consolidated. For example, why is the 1v1 pool in this forum under "Home > Announcements > January 2022 Ladder Map Pool", the 2v2 pool under "Home > General Discussion > 2v2 TMM Matchmaker Pool", and the 4v4 pools not posted at all? Can't we have one neatly organized section where the information for all matchmaker queues is consolidated?

Have you considered supporting the experimental with an army?

As far as I'm concerned, it's good that there is some counterplay to most experimentals. This allows for differentiation in player skill, and broadens the strategic depth of the game.

I think this is a great initiative, and it might make some people who like to play mapgen in customs games take another look at ladder.

@archsimkat said in Introducing Mapgen Week on Ladder:

I may make it an event only for particular rating brackets only, e.g. 1300+ or 1800+. Feel free to post any feedback here or message me on discord/FAF.

pls no. Don't get everyone hyped up for mapgen with news and promotions, only for 50% of the players to realize that they can't participate.
If anything I think mapgen is especially good for the lower rating brackets, as it forces players to adapt on the fly instead of doing the same turtle BO they always do.

Mayble limit 20x20 map to higher rating bracket.

I agree that changing mex values should only be done with extreme care. It's such a fundamental building block of supreme commander that it will affect everything else. But one thing that always struck me as very strange is the lack of diminishing retuns when upgrading from T2 to T3 mexes. Consider:

Upgrading from T1 to T2 mex pays off for itself in 3min 45s
Upgrading from T2 to T3 and ringing it with mass storage pays off in 4min 17s
Cntr-k of a t2 mex, building a T3 mex and ringing it pays off in 3min 42s, faster than the T2 upgrade!

This contrasts massively with the very strong diminishing return of going from T1 to T2 mexes, or going from T3 mexes to Massfabs/RASboys. As a result, when being behind on the T3 eco upgrade, the window for punishing your opponent in the T2 phase is very slim, especially on the ever popular 20x20 team game maps.

Reclaim is a mechanic I think that has to be seriously looked at. It for sure increases the depth of the game in the T1 stage, but it is punishing the attacker increasingly as the game progresses. More often than not, a non-game ending land or navy push in the later stages of the game just ends up being a giant mass donation.

Feature request to @FtXCommando: can you not just link the FAF replay, but also a link to the twitch stream VOD + timestamp? I think most casual players would be more interested in the recorded cast.

The problem with your current strategy is that any "high level player" will see what you are doing and counter it. The way air works is that your opponent can just rush out a T3 strat bomber by minute 9-10, and then kill all your teams mexes. All the while you only have T1 air, which is too slow to ever kill a decently microed strat bomber. Many games in the 800-1200 rating bracket end by one air player getting his first strat out before the opposing player can build his first ASF. The sad reality is that the only counter to a T3 air rush on a map like sentons is to rush T3 air yourself. Any mass spent on T1 air is just delaying you from getting to T3.

If you like to play more aggressive, try smaller maps.

If you want quick and aggressive playstyle, pick a faction that does that. If you like building sandcastles, pick UEF.

"The King of Dualgap", no one fucking cared.
"The King of Setons", the community goes raaarg.

fucking hilarious scrolling through these comments.

@Lenkin don't be discouraged by all the hate. I really like the format you chose. Taking a more creative and fun spin on the usual tournament settings is great. The 2v2 format on very popular team maps and the small but not insignificant prize pool match it well.

If anything I feel like a 4500 rating cap is still on the generous side. Was there a single team in the dual gap tournament that was above 4.5k total? This could easily be reduced by another couple hundred points.

In case you can't get enough players/interest for a tournament, you could make it a showmatch.

As I see it there is a lot of interest/anticipation in seeing a high-quality casted match on a 40x40 map, as many people hope it will be an epic clash between battleships and other big toys we rarely see.

But in my experience (as a 1600 global), it will be an eco sim-city snipefest. When any attack takes hours just to get to the enemy base, overinvesting into a mobile army is often just a bad idea. I would love to be shown that I'm wrong, but I have never seen an interesting or engaging match on a 40x40 map.

I question if this is really a top priority.

I do agree that being a premade team and on voice does improve the overall team strength quite a lot. But then it also seems to me like it's always the same people that play together (at least in my 1600-1800ish rating bracket), thus their rating naturally represents them being pre-made already. I have found this to be no issue for me in TMM.

A factor that I think causes way more problems to the quality of games is a premade team with a very large rank disparity. Like 2200+600 queuing together, and getting matched against a pair of 1400s. These games I always find very non-enjoyable, and the outcome is also very volatile depending on the size of map. On big maps, the even-ranked team has basically no chance, as the higher rated player has time to take some of the lower rated player's resources and outscale. On smaller maps, the team with the large rating disparity still has a very large advantage if on voice, as in my experience the coaching/help on major strategy calls from the better player can make a large difference.

While the fatboy might be a bit underwhelming due to easily being countable, I don't think UEF struggle in the late-game stage. The land experimental category might be just about the only category where the uef isn't near-best or outright best. And they have much to compensate this weakness (great t3 land, t3 gunships, great turtle options).

If the consensus is that UEF falls too far behind in this gamestage, I would rather look at the GCs and Ythothas ability to slaughter T3 land, than change the fatty much.

Yes, please! Nothing more frustrating than playing random, getting aeon, and then forgetting to never attack-move your armies once you hit t3. I've lost some games in the past when my harbs started reclaiming random stuff in the backline of a hectic battle while their support units get massacred just in front of them.

The suggested solution of them behaving like SACUs would be perfect.

I disagree with the premise that global rating is any better of a proxy for true skill than TMM rating. Any format where the player is able to influence the circumstances of the games he is rated on is prone to have outliers.

In TMM you can, well, team up to achieve a higher rating. Team up with some lower-rated friends and the effect is increased.

In global you have even more influence on customizing the set of games you are rated on. Be a one-trick pony and only play Pass of valhallah. Or farm 800 avg rating lobbies to get your 2700 rating. Both very real examples of inflated rating on global.

If you want quick and aggressive playstyle, pick a faction that does that. If you like building sandcastles, pick UEF.

Ever since playing on Ubuntu, I have some visual effects missing. While most are merely cosmetic, the one that gets me killed every time is that I don't see the com upgrade animation.

Is this a known bug? Is there a fix?

Hell, if anyone has a mod to add some text to upgrading coms, even that would be super helpful.

Add loading bars and charge count (smd, nuke) to it while at it.

I would suggest accompanying this with a positive attitude, welcoming, non-toxic voice chat on discord.

I just had half my team cntr+K once we loaded into Setons (replay 16422008). If this ends up being the standard modus operandi on that map, better remove it from the pool.

Adaptive Kusoge is another map I could do without. Its just too open and spread out.

I can see how this could be popular on certain maps, and with certain players. "I get to eco-sim city turtle base without having to worry about getting sniped? Great!"

But as many said, on more aggressive maps it will just exacerbate the worst problems of full share. And even on turtle maps (gap, sentons to some extend) it will lead to more comdrops or comrushes. It just opens up the game to a lot of cheesy tactics.