Make FAF great again 2018

[Evildrew]

Hi guys, long time no post on the forum, however I think it is time to get ready to start 2018 with some ambition of making FAF great again.

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.

There are a few points I would like to mention:

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.

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.

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.

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

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.
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.
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...)
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.
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.

Then there are constant complaints about a game being stacked when at minute 20, someone makes a bad but legitimate mistake which sets in motion a defeat for his team. But why is such a game imbalanced? Do we want a game to go on for 1000 years? I think not. It is totally acceptable to lose a game that was 50-50 for 10-15 mins.

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.

The "Make FAF great again" proposed action plan:

1) I think to go forward we need to mostly revert back to the unit stats to what we had before August 2016. Blackheart has been so gracious to take over the lead with his brand image in promoting this "balance" to having it played with higher level players, something I was unable to achieve when I first made it and the reason I gave up on it. Some of the good changes from the current offical balance I believe we should take over. Original Janus bomber is actually fixed in mine and therefore also in BHEdit mod. Sadly the balance team thinks their's is better because they made it so they havent adopted it.

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.

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?

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.

Anyway... This is what I think. Please only comment in relation to points I made if you agree/disagree or would like to propose some additional points for an action plan to MAKE FAF GREAT AGAIN 2018 to help guide the people in charge of things. Please no TLDR comments or personal attacks on anyone's opinion including my own. We need to get past that childish crap to progress.

[PhilipJFry]

how much do you communicate with devs/try to get an understanding of who does what and what happens when in terms of changing/fixing stuff?

[speed2]

I don't know how I should feel about this post. Since you lost the voting for PC you pretty much disappeared. Back then you were full of ideas of how things should be run and what needs to be done. But after Tokyto got elected as PC I don't remember seeing in contributing anywhere. Joining any of our dev calls or anything. And now you're back telling us how bad decisions were made, Tokyto not doing his job properly, FAF is not being promoted and again telling us what needs to be done and how.

But I want to ask you if you actually want to do something and why you haven't helped with anything yet?

[Exotic_Retard]

just gonna move this over to the suggestion forum since this is a balance/suggestion post.


utterly fantastic content as always, my eyes have been opened.

[Evildrew]

@Speed2
Whereas I did lose the PC election, I do not worry about that, I am happy to let others take charge and do the work just as with how my mod evolved into BHEdit mod and superior setons mod. Dont get me wrong, I do still care about the game but as an honest person, I accept the outcome of that election and do not intend to interfere directly with Tokyto's work in his position. He is in the role and can implement his vision as he deems necessary. I just have the sense that he over-promised and under-delivered on what he campaigned on.
As you said Speed, I put out my ideas, they could have been adopted or not. I put out a suggestion for a website design with a "welcome new people section" however Blodir and some others had already made what became the official website as it is now without such a section. Bad timing maybe but what is done is done. I didnt stalk him or anyone else to put it in there, I put a post out and that is how it is. Player retention stats mentioned by Exotic retard speak for themselves. Somehow we need to address that.

I have never been invited to a dev call nor do I have a clue when they are scheduled or where or if I would even be welcome. How does one participate? Is it a free-for-all?

Anyway as it says, it is a proposed action plan, which you guys can take into consideration, adopt parts of, or ignore, your decision. I only want to get some dialogue going to reevaluate whether FAF is going in the right direction and whether the current user/player numbers meet expectation. This is my opinion which I am sharing after considering a lot of information posted on the forums over the last few months and from my experience in game.
I dont hope to make you feel bad with my words about what has been done in the past speed2, we all need to realize what our limitations are, the most prevalent being time and then skills. We just need to make sure we are heading in the right direction which sometimes means going 1 step back if we dont get the expected result. I have little-to-no IT skills so that is my main limitation to be able to contribute properly. I am not in IT so my chances of being of much use implementing things is very limited.

@PhilipJFry
I used to post on the forums when I saw something buggy or had a suggestion. That is the mean I used in the past before I got the sense that no matter what feedback people give about changes, it doesnt matter much unless you are considered a "cool dude" with the guys in charge.

We have a stable set of lets call them IT guys working on FAF as I see it with Duke, Downlord, Extoic Retard, etc. Why is our game not stable?

[Franck83]

Sadly it's much easier to have visions than achieve them.

[PhilipJFry]

If you want to contribute/change stuff then the easiest way is to ask one of the moderators to join slack (that is where the devs coordinate to some extent) and creating a github account so you can create and comment on issues and Pull Requests.

Posting on the forum does help as well but it requires somebody else to read, pick up, creating an Issue and PR for you so doing that yourself instead tends to be way faster.

Dev calls and the agenda for them will be advertised on slack and the actual call occurs on discord and is being streamed on youtube. Basically everyone with some powers on discord can join the channel and "regular" users can do so as well provided they have something important to say (just pm one of the discord/faf mods on discord and they will allow you to join the call).

You should be slightly more specific with your question of the game being not stable.

[Farmsletje]

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.

Try to be less biassed about your own map ty.

If you really want to know why people won't join: You're known to be about +-500 rating overrated by having gained the rating from the same map and always play with lower rated players. If you switched to some overplayed map like canis maybe a couple of 1600's would join, but you still wouldn't see any 2000's in your game, so it's not only about the map.

"and it is a nice map is what almost everyone said who played it."
Thermo players say thermo is a nice map good argument.

I saw Petric complained about the competitive scene on FAF dying. It has not died whatsoever.

Yes the guy who never plays competitive games has more info about competitive games than one of the most competitive players of faf.

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?

We want to play good games, therefore overrated people often get kicked because they have a high chance to ruin that experience. The proposed rating changes in the other topic will fix this though. As someone who often hosts high rated games i get a lot of kick requests from other players in the lobby if someone joins that is overrated and will probably ruin the game balance.

[Evildrew]

If you really want to know why people won't join: You're known to be about +-500 rating overrated by having gained the rating from the same map and always play with lower rated players.

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I guess I could rest my case, but...

Who are you to tell me I am overrated? Why should this even matter?
How is it "known" that I am +-500 points overrated?
On your point about always playing with lower rated players? - The way I see it is that I take who comes and do my best to keep the game alive.... There are about 10 or so players higher rated in global than I, well maybe it is a given that I can only play with lower rated players, I am sure some I play with are higher rated than I in ladder...

Yes the guy who never plays competitive games has more info about competitive games than one of the most competitive players of faf.

You clearly did not read or understand my point...

We want to play good games, therefore overrated people often get kicked because they have a high chance to ruin that experience.

Who is "we"? - I dont have the number to the hotline to the X-files to ask who "they" who are out there are. Is it some kind of cult?
What do you deem to be "good games"? Some kind of stalemate that takes 1 hour +-5 mins and gets a youtube video on gylecast?
Cant you take 2 "overrated players" who cancel each other out?
"...they have high chance to ruin that experience"... yeah of course, you just make assumptions here... I remember you and a few overrated guys as you would call them on 12 the pass v6 melt like a handful of Parmesan cheese thrown into a hot bowl of spaghetti... You didnt play well and ruined the experience for me according to your logic yet you had no issue with asking to play and I didnt kick you out because I dont judge you the same way you judge others. I appreciated being able to play a game rather than play lobby sim which you obviously enjoy more. I even stacked it in your favor with the game quality but still you melted.

download/file.php?mode=view&id=15333

Maybe you will one day see past your prejudice and see that there is a development phase players go through when playing a new map or after returning from a break. Do you think I rose to 2k by doing the same thing without any improvement along the way when I had 5-10 FPS due to no graphics card? I have a job, family and not 10-14 hrs a day to play FAF like students as yourself, I am happy with my level of play despite not getting as many games anymore as I would like.
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. It is against the rules to go dump all your score and even so, how low should someone drop it without being called a smurf?
If you want to play in your closed circle of people doing the circle jerk with each other that is fine. I guess it is all point of view, even with the facts showing one way or the other... But maybe I am wrong about all this and you can share your Chrystal Ball so we can all decide before launch whether a game is worth our time or not...

[PhilipJFry]

i've also had games where i beat people who probably play a decent bit better than i do that doesn't mean that i am better than them

the question is: how balanced is a game with someone who is severely overrated on a map outside of his comfort zone and especially on seton's where we got too lazy to do manual balance since optimal balance tends to work out well enough someone like you is just a massive liability to the other 7 players cause the game becomes a dice roll for all intents and purposes

if you want to prove that you are good then play ladder but please don't hide behind your 2k global rating farmed on terrible choke point maps and then claim the moral high ground