Make FAF great again 2018

[Endranii]

He won a meme game against top of FAF, he have all the rights to hold the moral high ground. kappa.
Ps: Are you even on slack or github? As really if someone like me can get there and try to help then why didn't you do it yet?

[FtXCommando]

I remember dual gap games of ONI going against the SQUAD of GOOD PLAYERS like eveklaus, evildrew, and mburgh711. Not only did ONI brutalize you lads, but you got shitposted by your entire team for playing worse than some random 1300 on air slot that was mirroring you or something.

Take your awful attempt at elitism somewhere else. People know you're overrated because you play like a 1300 on 95% of FAF maps. Not sure why people were being generous to you and saying you were only 500 points overrated.

I have read a lot of posts in the last many months and am disappointed with how the game is not progressing.
While we are still at 1k online people at peak times as we were 2 years ago (if I recall correctly) more and more of them are just there to chat with friends, essentially not playing.

Got some statistics there boyo? Exotic_Retard was kind enough to offer data on new players to anyone that had the capability to use excel and create a readable graph. But I bet that's too much work. It's a lot easier to conjure up information that supports your predefined position.

1) Balance team has taken over 1 year to change the game to where it is now and no end is in sight. 1 year to "balance" the game in increments is too slow and it is not apparent what they are aiming for to almost anyone.The impression I have gotten is that with almost every change, players have less options in terms of strategies to play the game. The only viable counter to land spam with OP t1 maa is having more spam with t1 maa. AA turrets on frigates did not get changed when t1 maa received steroid treatment, why?
The whole idea of overhauling a game in its entirety is ridiculous. Some changes that were made were actually good, these mostly involved making units or upgrades that were underused more viable and therefore used more by the player base.
For example:
*Build time reduction on t2 arty
*Landing pods taking on more T3 planes
*UEF Nano was pretty much never used, now it is a viable option

Bad changes such as auto OC, increased tax on RAS, t1 bomber + OP t1 maa and beetles however eliminated a lot of potential options players had to enjoy the game.

auto OC is a good change, RAS was monster and needed a nerf (though I think FAF went too far), beetle change was fine, and I agree on t1 bomber change being bad. Explain why these are bad changes in a coherent manner and maybe people would actually be willing to have a discussion here rather than latching on to your faux elitism.

Also I find it pretty funny that you think "BaLaNcE iS tOo sLoW." You would be the FIRST person on these forums whining and moaning about "BaLaNcE TeAm IsNt TeStInG ThEiR ChANgES" if they pushed things through without support. Funny enough, you do not help in any way with balance. You do ZERO tests for the balance team. You have ZERO discussions with people in balance in order to try and provide an argument that would change their mind. All you do is WHINE.

A lot of these changes just overdid it and made previously used things not used anymore and there was no follow up to say "Ah, we overdid it, no one does this unit/upgrade anymore now which we didnt intend...". Instead more changes were made along the same line destroying the game. The idea of discouraging first bomber shows that it is not about balancing, it is more about dictating what will not work by increasing the risk/reward ratio to insane levels that no sane player can justify, or by making its counter the t1 maa so cheap and strong in comparison it is an OP counter. This is one of the reason a lot of people stopped playing, because they have their playstyle and that is under attack.

Fair enough.

2) A split in the community has arisen due to how FAF is run. People are not happy about the lack of transparency from the developers and councilor people. I do not know Sheeo but I would consider him to be in the CEO position of the game as the owner of the server and everything. From my understanding, he is an IT guy who is a casual player. From my viewpoint, an IT guy running a game is like an accountant running a company. There is no clear vision where to take the product and where to expand, he seems to listen to others in those developer conferences and then approve if he thinks it is technically possible and/or feasible. An entrepreneurial approach is what we need with mission statement and strategy. FAF is not a game in development, it was pretty much a finished game long time ago with its flaws. Do we really want to treat it as Alpha phase without proper protocols (substituted for some players' vague opinions) to evaluate whether what is being done by balance team is good or bad? For the most part the maps that are played is what affects the balance of units, do we really want to change the entire game once different maps become popular? One could argue T1 arty would be OP on a bumpy terrain, whereas tanks are OP on flat terrain. Should this affect how units stats are set?
There is a clear divide in opinions on what the game should be played as, some are proponents of "balancing", whatever that means... As far as I see it, balance means as mentioned, less strategic options in game, stale boring land spam dominated 1v1, less rush options in larger team games. And dont give me the "show me the replay nonsense", balance team doesnt reference any specific series of games when making changes and mainly reasons with the "I think I should not lose to that" bla bla logic.

I agree on the transparency issue. Everything else is your post is total conjecture and kind of insulting to Sheeo. I don't understand your arguments. Prior you were greatly upset because player options were being taken away. But, this is like, your vague player opinion man. So, by your own logic in this statement, the balance team should be ignoring your statements? Oh wait, I bet you don't count as a VAGUE PLAYER OPINION because YOUR OPINION is of HIGHER VALUE that the likes of dumb shitnoobs like petric or mephi.

HOW CAN YOU POSSIBLY COMPLAIN ABOUT LESS RUSH OPTIONS IN TEAM GAMES WHEN YOU PLAY A TERRIBLE THERMO CLONE AND A 40X40 MAP CONSTANTLY! Would you like me to provide you with 1000 replays of pillar spam ending games? All you need to do is open the illustrious vaults of Farmsletje and watch every 3rd replay.

Btw I like your preemptive address of people asking you for proof. "Hey fu kid, I don't need proof. I feel that balance team is kinda gay so you better accept my reasoning or ur also gay"

From what I see I believe there are the following problems.

I've also noticed several problems in this post.

A) An inconsistent game that is changed due to balance team making radical incomprehensible changes at random times with no clear timeline. Each changelog is like another bad diagnosis for a cancer patient being told he has 2 weeks less to live than last time he was checked. At least I saw that Heaven has seen the light and admits that these radical changes is not what we need. We actually need a stable game and changes should only be made if it is apparent that a lot of players are being successful 90% of the time with 1 specific strategy which is almost uncounterable by any other faction and involves next to no skill.

Are you going to sit here and tell me a community managed lobby does not have totally strict deadlines like a corporation? Unacceptable. Fire them all at once. Good work Evildrew! So who else can we get to do their work faster? Surely you have a list somewhere? Surely you thought this far ahead?

Also the only cancer I've gotten so far is from this post.

What strat is winning 90% of games. Ever think it's your shitty map variety that makes you think 90% of games are won my 1 strategy? Ever try expanding your horizons big boy?

B) A player councilor who doesnt do enough to gather community feedback and does not show that he understands what data points to look at. Most of the polls are vague and in the forum or on some random link that most players will never find because most of them only log into the client to play.

Agreed, I would like a reelection of Player Councillor at some point. It has been long enough to see whether people are happy with the current status quo or not.

C) There is still no proper outside promotion, something that we clearly lack to bring in new people. I have seen some people say that we shouldnt promote the game until it is "balanced". We need presence at gaming conventions. We need promotion at universities. The gaming industry is booming as most of us know with arenas filled with fanboys watching asian kids playing teddy bear character in LoL or Dota (whichever it is, I dont know...)

This is a community-based lobby. Volunteer your own time to go spread the word of FAF as a missionary on other RTS forums/subreddits/youtube channels.

D) There is no welcoming party to new players. No "start here" section; watch this amazing promotional video getting people hyped and preparing them for a month long uphill battle to get good enough to compete.

Literally what is trying to be addressed by the community now.

E) Some very aggressive and hateful members towards each other. As in life, it is often ourselves who impose the hardship we experience upon ourselves. Dwindling player numbers and an increase of new maps coming forward has possibly lead to longer times to fill games mainly because we dont have player interaction at the same ranks for the most part. We have each map with its highest level player and a subset of betamales, lets call them, kind of like a pyramid. I dont feel welcome to play setons or any other frequently played maps, because I know from the past that some people will usually hate on a player who plays like a 500 rating points lower than his own. Other 2000 rated players wont play 12 The Pass V6 wv13 when I host it, maybe because they feel the same way towards themselves being seen as an inferior player in such a scenario. Usually the excuse is that it is a shitty map, but why is it bad? I host Strawberry Islands, still the same people dont come... Some say it is 40x40, no it is not, it is 32x32 with 4 of each 32 being water on the outside to avoid off-mapping and not making unnecessary choke points for navy. Players are pretty much in a playing area of maybe 22x22 I would say, so essentially a Setons Clutch size map. Most games took 20-40 mins and it is a nice map is what almost everyone said who played it.

Nice victim complex. You don't deserve a response for any of this.

I saw Petric complained about the competitive scene on FAF dying. It has not died whatsoever. The problem is that a lot of players realize they cannot outplay other superior players, therefore they change the nature of the competition to being something else. Some lobby to change the game to hinder a superior player using his favorite strategy or make their own strategy stronger. Others just are so abusive, calling hosts stackers or cheats, in attempt to make other players leave so they can feel like they are better than the remaining noobs they can crush. There is more than 1 way to climb the ladder.

You aren't competitive, you have no idea what the competitive scene is.

2) Developer's conferences should be split into IT related conference and one game related conference. The GAME Conference should dictate the issues to address by the IT Conference. This would including promotional efforts, game related bugs, etc. I am not a believer in the whole banning of people who are abusive in the lobby. We shouldnt seek to change who people are. However I believe a set of tools that would enable players to mute each other would be fine. Also, the player councilor should be doing regular polls to measure player satisfaction, asking such questions as:
*How often do you play?
*If more or less often than 3 months ago, why is that (gaming experience, more/less free time)?
*Do you think FAF is going in the right direction with balance team changes?
*Do you feel welcome when playing with other players?
*etc
This could come as a pop up when you log into FAF as an option to take the questionnaire or could be put in the What's New tab.

Think it's a nice idea.

3) As mentioned, we need to look to ourselves, do we want to play more with others or do we want to just host our own preferred map and not invite anyone to come play with us because we think they dont deserve their rating?

Team matchmaker to get rid of your rating degeneracy.

4) Align action plan with mission statement. The mission statement for me should be to make available a great and largely consistent game throughout the decades to come to allow future generations to experience this wonderful game (i.e. to serve the many), not to change it all the time as it is being done right now to satisfy a very few players who essentially are dissatisfied or bored with everything because of losing a few games. A product cannot keep changing without slowly losing its consumer base. We can argue that every change makes the product better, but maybe the consumer does not agree, so who are we to decide what is better? Some things make a product better without question, but when not everyone agrees then it is a question of time before the number of changes snowball to the point where you lose almost all your consumers.

Vague platitudes that mean nothing.

[Evildrew]

Thanks you very much for your insults FTX. That is exactly what I needed to make my day.

[Wesmania]

He's right at some points, the most important one being that FAF is not a corporation, it's a community. People volunteer their own free time for free (and sometimes outright fund FAF, like visionik). Talking about an "entrepreneurial" approach, "product", "mission statement" or "strategy" doesn't even sound insulting, it sounds absurd. We're not making money out of this and players are not our clients. We're all on the same side when it comes to supporting and developing stuff for the client, and if you want to help, you can go to slack / github / mods, look for things to be done and start helping out with them.

[biass]

Just as a side note,... you know back in the day, a bunch of jewish children were thrown into furnaces because somebody thought they carried the seed of evil in them and were a cancer to society. Nobody could validate this belief and so many people never had a chance to prove their worth. Cutting off people because you deem them to be overrated is the same logic.

are we gonna gloss over this sentence or no

[Farmsletje]

I am so confused by what you want to achieve here evildrew. You start with a serious openingspost but then you respond to people with some nice meming which makes me think you're just trolling, but why should you be trolling when you wrote a whole essay in your first post?

If you really want people to take you seriously you should try and write a proper response.