Forged Alliance Forever

Re: FYI: Why I decide to play and decide not to play FAF.

2015-07-07T19:25:50+02:00

been said many times. Game is a mess for new players(developers mess). And for all those years no one has made a good guide

Statistics: Posted by justmakenewgame — 07 Jul 2015, 19:25

Re: FYI: Why I decide to play and decide not to play FAF.

2015-07-07T15:04:02+02:00

So what you need is a rotation of slow game maps and longer game maps and the option to choose between when selecting automatch?

Statistics: Posted by KD7BCH — 07 Jul 2015, 15:04

Re: FYI: Why I decide to play and decide not to play FAF.

2015-07-07T08:34:23+02:00

PA got me back to FA which got me to FAF.
I knew of FAF only because I was a gpg FA player when gpg stopped (and I did the same thing) and I knew a few noob - like Luxy - still playing.

Statistics: Posted by Flexable — 07 Jul 2015, 08:34

Re: FYI: Why I decide to play and decide not to play FAF.

2015-07-06T19:42:46+02:00

If the point of this thread was "How to get more people to play FAF," you should rename it accordingly.

I will answer as if it is.

I would be very curious to see a graph of active player count over time. I think if we could associate spikes in player count with x activity we did (return of Gyle, $500 tournament, AMA on reddit), we could figure out what is effective at bringing people in and what is not. You can try everything under the sun, but if you don't know if it works or not you are wasting your time (IMO).

Statistics: Posted by codepants — 06 Jul 2015, 19:42

Re: FYI: Why I decide to play and decide not to play FAF.

2015-07-06T12:36:41+02:00

This topic hits me, cause I am thinking the same thing now, to play, or not to play FAF, and it has been years since I last played FAF.

I am at work, but iirc, you simply select faction, and off you go to find your 1v1 opponent right? Maybe you can vote down or up a few maps, I'm not sure.
Anyway, would be neat if as a new player could pick just 1 map that is recommended for beginners to get a hold off. To be thrown into a map pool and suddenly you are on a map you know little to nothing about is not a good feeling, this throws me off at SC2 as well, when new season maps are available and I start mid-season.
The only option is to suck it up, or go play skirmish on those maps, but that's so boring tbh.

Suggestion:
- A tiny map-pool for beginners first 5-10 games.

Statistics: Posted by crippen — 06 Jul 2015, 12:36

Re: FYI: Why I decide to play and decide not to play FAF.

2015-07-05T09:45:09+02:00

Why i personally don't play starcraft 2:
1) most of things are much more manually done, like building or producieng units.
For example as terran you can only queue one building or one unit at a time, and you have to wait unti you have enought resourses before queuig...
(Same for protoss stargate and robo and probes)

Even in warhammer 40k you could right click an icon of unit and it would be build as soon as you have enought resourses
2) harder to see what commands you made when you hold shift (not matter much cause it is not very usefull anyway...while in faf shift is used extremely often, with shows how much you plan ahead each time so you do not have to mash hotkeys that select buildings army and all that stuff all the time)
3)game not designed for low resolution or something. I play on 1024x1280 monitor and everything is just extremely big, command center is literraly 1/5 or 1/6 of a screen. While when i watch starcraft casts, they seem to be MUCH more zoomed out.
4) and i can't zoom out ofc.
5) hate useing hotkeys for moveing around map
6) have to use minimap =/
7) attack move is done via clicking "a" then clicking somwhere. That is just dumb, maybe i could rebind that so i do not have to use 2 apm for simple attackmove. Imagine holding shift, mashing a, then clicking, then click on minimap then click a-> click again, all that while holding shift just to send unit on attack move to scout around map...
8) maybe i wrong but build orders feel much more determinated, and kinda less variaty
9) all maps have same looking bases, same natural expansions, and same ramps everywhere and stuff like that... All same mineral arcks with 2 gases
10) units don't shoot while move so you have to babysit every fight or use attack move.
11) economy is just produsing workers manually and some times adding and saturating gases, and you just build money-mix depending on how many gas/mins ratio you have ( ofc you can plan your ratio ahead if you want to make interesting early tech build, but i am not a pro, and even pros seem to just try to achive maximum saturation)
No reclaim, gold bases instead of hydrocarbons is not satisfying enought.
12) often hard to scout
13) no terrain makes game look silly, as well as shells that dissapear if unit enables cloak or worker enters gas refinery. Shots are binded to ground and it looks silly to see marauder to shoot to highground
Siege tank shots are instant...

All that mostly just my opinion.

Edit: honestly game is kinda hard, and i lost about 8 games out of 10... Maybe even 9, cause winning with void rays (3 proxy stargates xD) against guy who does not know what is orbital command does not really counts as win

Statistics: Posted by ZLO_RD — 05 Jul 2015, 09:45

Re: FYI: Why I decide to play and decide not to play FAF.

2015-07-05T08:34:18+02:00

I think a small and carefully selected map pool would help me a fair bit with having fun and less frustration, being able to execute a plan would help to make fewer mistakes and get 'achieve' moments.
I think a small map pool of 6-10 maps would be good

vongratz wrote:
About the economy, for unpatient people, somebody could do a Mod to be named Instantaneous Economy , something like one of the options of Phantom games. Its easy to do.The main goal is to atract people that normally not plays

The streaming resources are okay, my main 'problems' with the economy are:

Upgrading mexes is very important, but pacing it correctly is very difficult - fall behind and you will lose on all fronts
"Boobytraps" with power stalls. You can set a power stall in motion that will happen many minutes after you effectively caused it, at which point you might have forgotten what you did to cause it. Example:
- (T2) air factory, I queue "3 engineers, 5 swiftwinds" - it will consume 40 energy for a while, and then jump to 160

vongratz wrote:
The idea of our unities or AI enemies flying from chase is, of course, very complicated to do, but , IMHO would be very interesting if possible.

Chasing is simple, unit should be issued attack order by game whenever enemy comes into range.
Fleeing from attacker is more difficult, it would need to know where to go.

Statistics: Posted by Valki — 05 Jul 2015, 08:34

Re: FYI: Why I decide to play and decide not to play FAF.

2015-07-05T05:26:04+02:00

Mad`Mozart wrote:
PS would be cool if someone with access to db posted some neat stats on average game length vs rating

You would also have to check map preferences.

My own opinion on the ladder would be to split it into three ladders: 5x5, 10x10 and 20x20. This is obviously unreasonable, as we don't have a large enough playerbase to do this.

Statistics: Posted by ZenTractor — 05 Jul 2015, 05:26

Re: FYI: Why I decide to play and decide not to play FAF.

2015-07-04T23:32:40+02:00

About the economy, for unpatient people, somebody could do a Mod to be named Instantaneous Economy , something like one of the options of Phantom games. Its easy to do.The main goal is to atract people that normally not plays
The idea of our unities or AI enemies flying from chase is, of course, very complicated to do, but , IMHO would be very interesting if possible.

Statistics: Posted by vongratz — 04 Jul 2015, 23:32

Re: FYI: Why I decide to play and decide not to play FAF.

2015-07-04T21:41:09+02:00

Blodir wrote:
With choice, you sacrifice competitiveness. You'll have the same problem as with custom games - someone who only plays one map can be ranked much higher than other vastly superior players. This is not such a big problem in custom games, because they are more casual by nature, however it is a problem in a competitive ladder environment. Besides, like I said, there is custom games if you want to choose what map you want to play.

I agree.
But I want the adrenaline of a ladder game, with the unknown map choice and unknown opponent.

Custom games are different. Good for training, if you can afford it (in time, havng a sparing partner, etc).

Statistics: Posted by Flexable — 04 Jul 2015, 21:41

Re: FYI: Why I decide to play and decide not to play FAF.

2015-07-04T21:24:54+02:00

Flexable wrote:
I prefer a system that allows any kind of player to have a good probability to play a size of map he likes. It means every (reasonable) map size have to be present. Then the thumb up/down kind of system will help you play with a good probability on the kind of map you like.

2 players "uping" a big map will have a great chance to play a big map.
2 players "uping" a small map too.
When you end up with 2 players liking very different kind of maps, you should have a 50% chance to play your kind of map.

The current system is ok with that (selecting a few maps), just the map pool is ridiculously big. Especially for new comers (like me).

With choice, you sacrifice competitiveness. You'll have the same problem as with custom games - someone who only plays one map can be ranked much higher than other vastly superior players. This is not such a big problem in custom games, because they are more casual by nature, however it is a problem in a competitive ladder environment. Besides, like I said, there is custom games if you want to choose what map you want to play.

Statistics: Posted by Blodir — 04 Jul 2015, 21:24

Re: FYI: Why I decide to play and decide not to play FAF.

2015-07-04T21:22:06+02:00

Mad`Mozart wrote:
Yeah, your original point was
Flexable wrote: I was just pointing to the fact that you have no idea how long it will last, and by a great extend.

which was proven wrong.
Also this was one of OP's points too.

I, too, like to have the last word. So I think we'll have to quote ourselves endlessly.

My original point was:

Flexable wrote:
Predictable game length

This is a big problem. When starting a ladder game, you have no idea how long it will last. From 10mn to 1h30. That's a serious problem. I do not have time for a 1h30 game most of the time. If we start to have only mid/big maps, I'm pretty sure I won't play anymore because the risk to have a long game would be too high.

ladder : no idea how long it will last.
Can be from 10mn to 1h30.

You rarely play 1h+ games in ladder.
Good.

I'll defy you in a 1v1 game to close that discussion. You should win easily. I hope in less than 1h

Statistics: Posted by Flexable — 04 Jul 2015, 21:22

Re: FYI: Why I decide to play and decide not to play FAF.

2015-07-04T21:16:24+02:00

Blodir wrote:
You stated that the unpredictability of game length is bad - I agreed, the best (and only?) solution to this is picking maps which are fairly similar in average game length, and picking so few of them that everyone can quickly learn to perform on them consistently.

Ok, I better see your point.
I agree.

But the drawback here is to end up with a compromise of some players preference (either that only enjoy looooong game on laaarge maps, or the opposite).

If you want to go in North Pole, and your friend wants to go in South Pole, I'm not sure being at the equator is a good compromise.

I prefer a system that allows any kind of player to have a good probability to play a size of map he likes. It means every (reasonable) map size have to be present. Then the thumb up/down kind of system will help you play with a good probability on the kind of map you like.

2 players "uping" a big map will have a great chance to play a big map.
2 players "uping" a small map too.
When you end up with 2 players liking very different kind of maps, you should have a 50% chance to play your kind of map.

The current system is ok with that (selecting a few maps), just the map pool is ridiculously big. Especially for new comers (like me).

Statistics: Posted by Flexable — 04 Jul 2015, 21:16

Re: FYI: Why I decide to play and decide not to play FAF.

2015-07-04T21:02:38+02:00

Flexable wrote:
I think we have a misunderstanding here.

I was not saying 1h+ ladder game is common. And you weren't as well, I know. But I was saying such a game can happen, so the range I mentioned.

I'm happy to see we agree, now, on that point.

A ladder game can be between 10mn and 1h30.

Yeah, your original point was

Flexable wrote:
I was just pointing to the fact that you have no idea how long it will last, and by a great extend.

which was proven wrong.
Also this was one of OP's points too.

Right now all the lower rated games are pretty much 5km maps every time with rare exception, so average game time should be 10-20 min. The higher you go, the less 5km maps you get, and for all other maps its 20-30 min. You can just stick to this number and be happy if you get a fast 5km game.

Pretty much clear idea of game time if you ask me, and no great extent at all.

Statistics: Posted by Mad`Mozart — 04 Jul 2015, 21:02

Re: FYI: Why I decide to play and decide not to play FAF.

2015-07-04T21:02:03+02:00

First of all ladder is meant to be competitive - we already have custom games if one wants to decide what he map he wants to play. That being said, the ladder pool also defines what we consider competitive - if there was only 5x5 maps, 20x20 would be considered casual fun, just like 40x40 is now. You could use it as an argument to include all kinds of maps, from crazyrush to debris, in the ladder pool, but that is unreasonable. There needs to be a balance between competition and actually having fun. I don't consider one sided games which are decided by a buildorder mistake in 5minutes particularly fun. That is currently ladder for most people, most of the time games are decided very shortly, the rest of it is just routine to kill your opponent. Obviously this does not concern players who have played thousands of ladder games as much.

Flexable wrote:
Blodir wrote:First you said that consistent map size is not good, then next sentence you introduce the biggest argument for it.

I'm not sure to follow you.
I do agree on a "limited" map pool, I just want to point out that not all players enjoy the same kind of games. We may be enjoying different kind of games (I'm not a big fan of your map pool). But I do respect the fact that other players may like big maps, long games, different maps than me. So my point is to remind some kind of players (nothing bad intended here) that the actual community is also made of players not in this forum, and enjoying different kind of games/maps.

I'm not judging. Just let every aspect possible.

You stated that the unpredictability of game length is bad - I agreed, the best (and only?) solution to this is picking maps which are fairly similar in average game length, and picking so few of them that everyone can quickly learn to perform on them consistently.

Statistics: Posted by Blodir — 04 Jul 2015, 21:02