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.

Exactly. Reclaim batching helps you to assess the total value of reclaim in an area better. But then when you try to collect it in an efficient way you realize how dysfunctional the batching actually is.

Maybe an option to decide up to which zoom level the batching is applied would help. I could see that batching is useful at max zoom out, but for anything below that, I would much prefer clickable reclaim indicators.

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?

@waffelznoob said in 4v4 TMM January 2023 Map Pool Tier List:

Every 20km water S+ but setons is in "would rather draw" solely because 5% of the TMM players is gonna be better at it?

I rate the maps similar to javi, and for me this comes down to:

If I win navy on those S rated maps, I can destroy all/most enemy bases and win the game. This feels rewarding and I like it.

If I win navy on my half of setons, the game will often drag out for another 30+ min, and my team might lose anyway. It's a real struggle to close out a setons game. Now, some setons experts will probably immediately reply that I'm just bad at setons if I can't snowball a win on my lane into a quick and easy game win. But that doesn't change the fact that I don't like the map and would rather draw than play.

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.

While this proposed change might shake things up a little for the 1800+ lobbies, I don't think incentivizing subs over frigs for the other 90% of players is a good idea.

I am also taking issue with the realism of subs detecting land and air-based units better than frigs. A strong sonar would be ok, but a submerged unit providing intel on land-based units and buildings is just silly. And this argument is not just about "but muh realism, reeee", it also helps accessibility and makes the game more new player friendly when units behave according to expectations.

Don't support on 2 grounds:

• When I'm signing up for TMM queue, I don't want to commit to a potential 60-90min game (maybe not ingame time, but certainly wall-clock). Some of us have wives and families that also need attention, and an uninterrupted+unplanned gaming session of that length is sadly not a luxury I have anymore.
• Very map-specific meta. Same argument goes for asto and dualgap. If you like a single map that much, just play it in customs. No need to have it in tmm.

On the Soul Ripper:

The Problem:
Currently, it feels like an air experimental without purpose. We have the ahwasser for massive AoE, and the czar for great single target damage. The soulripper is an awkward middle-of-the road. If you want to snipe a com or land exp, czar is better. If you want to flatten a base or t3 army, ahwasser is better. The soul ripper doesn't excel at any of these tasks, and especially as cybran you are better off just building t3 bombers or gunships to fill these roles. Additionally, the strategic capabilities of the Soul Ripper don't feel special at all. In most regards, it feels and performs like a group of T3 gunships.

On raw combat power, the soul ripper is not as cost-effective as T3 gunships. Having less efficient T4 is not a problem on land or navy, as you get a higher concentration of combat power compared to building more T3 units. But in the air, packing lots of units close together is not nearly as much of a problem. Thus if a T4 air unit isn't as resource efficient as T3, it has to offer other capabilities to compensate. Both the ahwasser and czar do this sufficiently by offering unique abilities not achievable with T3 air, while the soul ripper does not.

Proposed solution:
One way to give the Soul Ripper a more distinctive role and feel could be to make it a long-range bombardment unit. For example, what would happen if we give it a range of 62? This would enable it to hover on the edge of a battle or hostile base (conveniently just outranging SAMs, being able to avoid them with good micro), poking away at the enemy and drifting in and out of vision with it's stealth. Kind of like a lategame air version of cybran stealth com or hoplites, or tempests in starcraft2. In combination with the stealthed ASF it can be used to deceive the enemy and bait air fights, fitting the general cybran philosophy well. Due to being an air unit it can attack from unique angles unlike any other long-range unit in the game today (just think of the possibilities on mountainous maps like gap!). This would add a new micro-intensive strategic dimension to the game.

If it proves too oppressive, values like range, dps, hp and speed could of course be tuned. But I would love to see a new angle being explored with the bug, instead of its current existence as a strictly bigger gunship.

After getting mercy sniped twice today while being surrounded by (cybran) maa and having inties close by, I have to ask:

Can we finally balance mercies, instead of the current reliance on the honor-bound approach of looking down on the low lifers that use this disgusting tool?

The aurora is the single reason why I feel like my Aeon rating is 300 points lower than all other factions.

It can't raid, can't defend against raids on even slightly open maps, and commits suicide the moment a bomber shows up.
This disadvantage in the t1 stage snowballs into less mapcontrol, less mexes, and eventually weaker at all following tech stages.

I feel like particulary aeon vs cybran on something like a 15x15 land map is an impossible task.

I hate the aurora.

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.

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.

Don't troll the man for his English. An actually good player raised some valid points about the current balance.

Hilly Plateu in 4v4 TMM inqueue has non-mirrored spawn positions. See replay https://replay.faforever.com/18651860

I got nuked just yesterday after a corsair hit-squad suicided on my smd. That nuke killed 56k mass, without leaving any reclaim. The nuke still has great value. Just instead of trying to overwhelm the opponents ability to defend with SMDs by rushing more nukes quicker, you now have to integrate this strategy with other tools.

Aeon frig felt great the first time I used it. But I am afraid with some micro practice this might get very oppressive.

My favorite 4v4 TMM maps:

• Mangrove Delta
• Forgotten Archipelago
• Maridia
• Metir

Basically, I love navy maps with an emphasis on frigate raids, t2 navy, and torps. These maps in particular are very much the sweet spot for me in terms of aggressiveness. Other navy maps like Headland, Lena River, Lost Archipelago or Saskiya are a bit too large/turtely for me. Still ok maps, but not great.

Good 4v4 land maps:

• Monument Valley
• Plateau of arracis (haven't played it much, but I enjoyed the 4v4 on it so far)

Here I like asymmetry, larger than 10x10 so TML and firebases arent too dominant, not some kind of winner-takes-it-all mex or reclaim distribution.

My least favorite 4v4 TMM maps:

• Seraphim Glaziers (usually decided after 2 minutes by bomber vs transport)
• Winding river (so much wrong here. River too long and narrow. Corners 100% contestable winner-takes-it-all. After winning mapcontrol and having 3x the eco the game drags out for another 30 minutes because you cant actually attack bases with land/navy)
• Adaptive Kusoge (bottom 2 slots too open. 20x20 diagonal is just too big for a pure land map)
• Sands of Ablicka (<2km rush distance on top lane and very contestable reclaim)
• Syrtis Major (just awkward middle relcaim and lots of chockes)
• Sirgis (too spread out, fucked side slots)
• any very linear/lane-oriented and symmetric 10x10 land map
• Seraphim outpost (basically 4 1v1s next to each other, with whoever wins his lane first then just dominating all other slots with air)
• Delta river (too turtely)
• Strife of Titan (you spwan like 1km away from an enemy in 4v4)

While compiling this list I came across a couple maps that should be considered for 4v4 tmm:

• Turtle Beach
• Adaptive Ocean Crater
• Skadi
• Krakens Nest
• Madness -8-

Mangrove Delta and Frozen Firefight are some of my favorite maps in the TMM map pool. Thanks for making these awesome creations!

My only tiny suggestion of improvement: I find it often hard to read which parts of the map are passable, and which ones aren't (I hate Adaptive Moon for this reason). Frozen Firefight suffers a similar issue with a hill-like looking texture on one of the islands. It can be seen in the top left of this image:

To me, this visually looks like a mountain, particularly when only glossed over from a top-down perspective in the heat of a hectic battle. It doesn't help that the actual mountains on this map have the same color theme as this spot. However, contrary to the visual communication, this area is transversable by units. I think I'm not the only one who is confused, as I observe many players circumventing/avoiding this spot with their raids.

Maybe the communication could be improved by making it a wind-blown snow hill texture instead? Or alternatively, make it a proper mountain.

Adaptive Moon - this map must have been made by someone who hates aeon. On the side lanes, the terrain is about 80% hilly. And the worst kind of hilliness: unpredictable small hills scattered absolutely everywhere. Iirc the height map was made with some real-world data, but it's really not good for gameplay.

Example: park some tanks here and the entire side becomes an absolute no-go zone for aeon. This is an issue on a lane thats all about t1 spam to secure reclaim. From this spot you can then also raid in any direction you want, even straight into the back mexes.

Currently, when the leader of a TMM party has to go, the party has to dissolve and reform with a new leader.

Can we instead have a "Transfer party leader" button to make this process easier?