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.

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.

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.

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.

"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.

"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.

Cool stuff. Looking at the people in my division, a couple of divisions higher and a couple of divisions lower, I think the system represents individual player skill very well.

However, understanding the system is much harder. I think the team could do a better job at integrating the system into the client. For example:

• clicking on the division icon on the matchmaker page should open the division leaderboard
• The replay screen could also display the players divisions.
• Texts in the client to explain the system. I had no clue what the "score" is until I found this forum post. I still don't understand how much score is gained/lost per game, or when I am promoted. The system seems very opague at the moment, and some simple texts on the Leaderboard page might fix this.
• The Leaderboard page could contain additional stats like each player's win/loss record.

Was für ein Rating ist eure Gruppe?

In team games, you tend to have teammates that can lend you their tech.

On top of that sera adds a lot of other good late-game tools that make them a valuable addition to any team in the super late-game stages (Best shields, T4 bomber).

View it as a little bit of faction diversity flavor.

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.

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.

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.

Great mod. How do I install it?

Isn't patrol/attack move engis basically a reclaim area order? As long as you are lacking mass, the engis will prioritize reclaim over other tasks.

Making the mercy behave more like a tactical missle, but one we can control during flight... I like it! Overall very good ideas.

One thing I find particularly frustrating about the current mercy is the large range of the weapon. Often you only have a split second between seeing the mercy in vision, and it dissolving into its invincible weapon blast. From that point onwards you can only watch, no counter possible. I think decreasing the range of the weapon would remove much of the frustration and allow for more counter-micro. HP can be compensated.