Forged Alliance Forever

Re: Why is FAF losing it's competitive players? Also, map p

2018-12-31T05:29:44+02:00

Thanks Gordon, I'm just over emotional about it. I understand the legal issues. I was away for a few months, and saw and felt the requirement as a community going in the wrong direction.

Statistics: Posted by noSteamKeys — 31 Dec 2018, 05:29

Re: Why is FAF losing it's competitive players? Also, map p

2018-12-31T00:39:01+02:00

noSteamKeys wrote:
Side note: Stop putting layers of entry back into FAF like adopting STEAM. Competitive players (just me it seems) don’t want to go through hoops to be able to play a game. People stop playing for months to years before coming back. Its a bummer to find out after installing a game you have to wait another day (old FAF rule). By that time the desire to play the game is gone (and posting forum threads seems more fun). Its barriers to game play that competitive players are not able to come back to train new players and a broken game doesn’t help either with competitive play.

Steam is required because of worry about legal issues. FAF has no desire to be killed over this, and I am sure you and other players can agree on that. If the underlying issues (distribution of assets) was solved, there would be no need for this to be implemented. If anyone would like to help, please join the team on slack and github.

Thankfully you do not require a steam install or even to use steam more than just owning the game. If you have retail version, just input the cd key into steam and you'll get the game, link, and then you never have to deal with it again.
Other users have steam already, so they can just link.

Statistics: Posted by Gorton — 31 Dec 2018, 00:39

Re: Why is FAF losing it's competitive players? Also, map p

2018-12-30T21:38:52+02:00

R_Charger: I am big fan of Chris Taylor and RTS games like many of us who play Supreme Commander on FAF. I have been playing Supreme Commander on and off since day 1 of the game release. And played Total Annihilation on day 1 of its release.

Why assume I can't play the game or have not played the game in the last year or two? I said the game has been broken and has been continuously and slowly being broken. Just that each broken state is too minuscule for new players to know that "something" is broken.

And no!!! Zooes do not stop firing because of slope, they are specifically made to defeat slop angles like on hill tops and to out range T1 PDs. I'm saying that specific instance you noticed and referenced was a bug (again how would new players know that – back to my point). And path finding was never 'pretty bad', it only got bad after some FAF patch, and slowly got worse (again how is a new player to know that?). Only old timers would notice.

No one is playing vanilla because when the game first moved from GPG (you can also look up what GPG was) to FAF there was not much of a difference between the two. When I say FAF I am referencing the game version, not the FAF client or community, that's a different topic. The notable difference on that first move from GPG to FAF was that you had to build E-Storage for the OC on the ACU. Units still worked as expected, path finding, attacks, patrols, etc. Hence a majority of players play on the FAF mod. Bring that a few years forward and few if any plays on vanilla.

Question: Why is FAF losing it’s competitive players?
Answer: To play competitively, the game has to work correctly. The game is broken and few people (if any) know the game well enough to fix it or and worse few players know the game well enough to know what is broken.

Food for thought: Have you ever won a game by 1 hit point on your ACU? I have. Literately 1 hit point. That’s a game (competitive-skill, and a little luck) high. Have you ever lost a game because when you click left, the ACU path finds RIGHT and starts moving right? I have. What a low. For all players to play competitively, the game has to work correctly or winning and loosing IS BAKED in with random luck on how and when which units decide to work correctly. In competitive games the game is determined by 1 unit, a scout, a bomber, 1K extra mass reclaimed etc. (new players would not know this). And if that 1 bomber did not drop that bomb as expected that competitive edge is lost and the game is lost.

And yes, hats off to Pilot and all developers who has kept this game alive. As an old timer, I wish everyone on FAF could really enjoy this game for all the enjoyment I know possible which new players could not fully experience as I have.

Side note: Stop putting layers of entry back into FAF like adopting STEAM. Competitive players (just me it seems) don’t want to go through hoops to be able to play a game. People stop playing for months to years before coming back. Its a bummer to find out after installing a game you have to wait another day (old FAF rule). By that time the desire to play the game is gone (and posting forum threads seems more fun). Its barriers to game play that competitive players are not able to come back to train new players and a broken game doesn’t help either with competitive play.

Statistics: Posted by noSteamKeys — 30 Dec 2018, 21:38

Re: Why is FAF losing it's competitive players? Also, map p

2018-12-29T09:12:26+02:00

Nosteamkeys: How does an old pro who can't play the game know its broken? I'm certainly no pro but never had an engineer wander half way round map to come back to the same spot to build (unless I held down shift and put a load of move commands around the map!). If FAF had all these issues how come all these pros aren't paying vanilla instead? The path finding has always been pretty bad as far as I can remember. I have had units (zooes) stop firing before. Think this was due to slope of terrain i.e. map specific.

For a game that's over 10 years old the fact that anyone ('pro' or not) is playing at all is remarkable and shows how little RTS games have progressed. For new players (off topic I know) buggy client with non functioning tabs or options looks bad. This is less of a problem with Java client.

Statistics: Posted by R_Charger — 29 Dec 2018, 09:12

Re: Why is FAF losing it's competitive players? Also, map p

2018-12-29T14:20:59+02:00

Personally, I would not identify myself as a competitive player, but I have played my fair share of competitive games, and they all had one quality in common: Seasons.

Examples for popular games with a healthy competitive scene would be: League of Legends, Overwatch, Rainbow Six Siege, Star Craft II and even some mobile games.
Of course there are also games which use other systems, CS:GO for example. In CS the rank system is not divided into different seasons, but there is still a system in place which makes you lose your rank, if you stopped playing. You have to play if you want to keep your rank.

Interestingly enough, in third party competitive systems which ESEA and some others provide (the actual Pros play over there), there are also seasons.
Well now you might ask yourself, why those big bois are all using that system or at least something that is functionally similar, and well there are many advantages it provides.

1. It might sound obvious at first but organising the ranks/rating in seasons gives the player a sense of structure.

You can plan ahead, when exactly you should play the game, when the most players will play and if it is worth it to come back. The viewers on twitch will know exactly who the top Pro is this season, why this season is special and why the next season might also be special. This is not a major advantage, but it is definitely something to keep in mind when discussing my next points.

2. It is best to implement major (balance) changes right when a new season starts.

Not only does this give the players an idea of when certain changes are coming, it also makes the ratings of someone between the different seasons more comparable, because some changes will mess up the current ranks of the established players no matter what. This also gives the competitive scene some time to get used to new balance changes, without the fear of losing rating, because balance changes should happen off-season and thereby give everyone a couple of days to adjust to the new changes and play at a high level right when the new season starts.
If this concept of an off-season would get implemented into FAF I would say, that there is a one-week period, where all games count as 50% rating wise, so the new changes get tested out while reducing the fear of losing too many points due to balance changes.

3. The rating system how it currently is, is just bad.

You can leave the game for 2 years and still have the same rating. Imagine you are 2000 rated, and after your absence you might be 1500. Good luck losing those points without hindering the balance in team games. Same with ladder. You will just lose for the next 20 games, and I can’t imagine that being fun or motivating. All in all, it just keeps old players from coming back, because they know that they will lose 24/7.
With seasons in place, you will be able to start fresh and be able to relearn the game. Said player would be a smurf for the first couple of games if he starts mid-season, but since ranking up happens much more quickly than losing 500 points on the top level, it is still a better solution than what we currently have.

4. Changes to the rating system itself are easily done between seasons.

If you think that there are too many people with a rating of 400 and you believe that is demotivating for those players (which is a fair point), you have the option to change it between the seasons, without messing with the established ratings of other players by making them pretty much meaningless.
In CS:GO this happened once. Before the change a very large portion of the player base had an insanely high rank, and almost nobody was in the lower ranks. The system was pretty bad overall. But because CS:GO had a system that removed the ranks of inactive players, there was no one that had an inflated rating even if someone didn’t play in the time period where the change happened. All in all, it worked out quite well.

Lets say you want to try out “rating decay” in FAF ladder like its mentioned here: viewtopic.php?f=42&t=17010
Why not try it for a season? It will be possible to properly analyse the data, since it happened in a set timeline, and if you want to ask the players for feedback personally, it is easier to remember SEASON X instead of some random date.

5. Take a look at the current leaderboard.

How many of the top guys are still playing? Some of them simply left, while others just don’t play anymore to not lose their rating (no offense I would do the same if I had a ladder rating of 2000 lol). In order to keep someone playing, this problem has to be solved, and having seasons would definitely help with that. In order to consistently show up on the leaderboards, you will have to play well consistently. And if there is a range of established players at the top of the leaderboard, it is usually near the end of the season, so it will not result in a semi-permanent lock-down of the top of the leaderboard, which we currently have.
However: Top players in a season need to be rewarded at the end of the season. ACU skins or an avatar with the achieved rating would be an option.

Just an idea though.

Statistics: Posted by ____ — 29 Dec 2018, 08:46

Re: Why is FAF losing it's competitive players? Also, map p

2018-12-29T07:06:47+02:00

Its quite simple why pro players are dropping like flies. Dumb rules, cry babies who do now know the units cry to admins, and more importantly: THE GAME IS BROKEN.

The community has done a great job keeping the game up and alive. I do not know if most new players can really truly appreciate the game in its fully functional state a year or two back. And I know seasoned players have noticed that units are not as responsive as before (not lag). Units do not move right, path finding is 'working' at best but not working correctly. Engineers walk half way around the map to just come back to the same spot to built, units get stuck, an attack command for all units causes all units to just STOP, the list goes on.

And tonight I got a new computer and I decide to come back to play, and what happens. A STEAM requirement. COME ON!!! old pros can't rejoin without accepting STEAM.

-old pro, signing out and uninstalling AGAIN.

Have fun FAF, Thanks for this great game Chris Taylor.

Statistics: Posted by noSteamKeys — 29 Dec 2018, 07:06

Re: Why is FAF losing it's competitive players? Also, map p

2018-12-26T05:28:03+02:00

This is a common topic in maps and mods. "Why are people spamming astro crater/gap instead of playing what i made/wonder/canis/hilly" And for the first time it was pushed onto the opinion that too many russians were on the client and making and playing bad maps. It was then suggested the "council" do something about it (aka bans for the fans my guy)

I feel like the problem has been obvious to me for a while but apparently not to anyone else.
This is my response to the topic at 4am xmas morning because i could not sleep. I censored it to align with your workplace policy.

Ask yourself, why play? and then ask yourself, why not play?

Viba wrote:
Maybe we don't have to repeat everything once more?

How much of what has been spoken about changed or been fixed?

Statistics: Posted by biass — 26 Dec 2018, 05:28

Re: Why is FAF losing it's competitive players? Also, map p

2018-12-25T16:18:03+02:00

I am down for playing on some specific dates for "high level teamgames" or custom 1v1 if there are others who are interested.

Statistics: Posted by Blodir — 25 Dec 2018, 16:18

Re: Why is FAF losing it's competitive players? Also, map p

2018-12-25T16:10:43+02:00

Ratings have inflated and given the appearance of more "high level" games, but that's just because there's not many good players to slap around the clowns.

The number means nothing more than ever and team game play is now 100% who gets dealt a better hand (random players, that is).

Statistics: Posted by Morax — 25 Dec 2018, 16:10

Re: Why is FAF losing it's competitive players? Also, map p

2018-12-25T15:24:14+02:00

Pretty sure there are more high level team games being played. More "high level" Crater/Gap team games to be specific.

Statistics: Posted by Apofenas — 25 Dec 2018, 15:24

Re: Why is FAF losing it's competitive players? Also, map p

2018-12-25T14:49:16+02:00

I'm intrigued. Should I leave this up as it is? It's pretty good it could be almost me. Thanks for great entertainment though.

Statistics: Posted by epic-bennis — 25 Dec 2018, 14:49

Re: Why is FAF losing it's competitive players? Also, map p

2018-12-24T22:06:06+02:00

Mountain wrote:
Tbh it feels like more team games are being played for me, just what I noticed personally. Might just be my timezone in particular

Statistics: Posted by epic-bennis — 24 Dec 2018, 22:06

Re: Why is FAF losing it's competitive players? Also, map p

2018-12-24T22:04:33+02:00

Tbh it feels like more team games are being played for me, just what I noticed personally. Might just be my timezone in particular

Statistics: Posted by Mountain — 24 Dec 2018, 22:04

Re: Why is FAF losing it's competitive players? Also, map p

2018-12-24T21:56:54+02:00

Team games and sentons tend to be spoken about separately. The pool of competitive team game players is about the usual 3 dudes willing to play high rated 2v2s it always was.

Sentons dunno. Not really a major focus for me.

A good way, at least to me, to judge how stagnate the top level of FAF is would be looking at the LotS players that qualify and seeing how much it differs each year. Then find out if the old qualifiers failed to qualify because they don’t like FAF and didn’t bother playing or if they got beat because new, good players are around.

As far as I can tell, we got around 4 dudes this year that recently became “noticed” players on FAF that qualified. That sounds pretty good, at least to me.

Other than that, I can only hope I can shill for no veto/no repeat code to devs to reenergize ladder somewhat.

Statistics: Posted by FtXCommando — 24 Dec 2018, 21:56

Re: Why is FAF losing it's competitive players? Also, map p

2018-12-24T21:33:22+02:00

Not really the same, that thread is more about 1v1 activity. Now to add unto it we have a declining high skill pool of players for team games. 1v1 is generally an anti-social activity, having team games and the pinnacle of faf(setons) lose the top players is far more concerning.

Setons started dying around the time contributors killed the setons tourney by banning players/changing dates. I think people were disheartened by the tourney getting cancelled because they wanted to see the clash of the feather and gala teams. It probably would have probably been the greatest setons battle in faf history. I know hal left faf for this specific reason at least, so that is one person.

I also think brnk is really killing the community in terms of skill as he gains more popularity. It is like feeding a child high carb soda over lean proteins.

In terms of 1v1, I would actually like you to re add fractal water maps so people are forced to play in seton team games.

Statistics: Posted by epic-bennis — 24 Dec 2018, 21:33