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

[Valki]

In the ladder topic, I came across this post which was inspiring. So I thought I would share why I sometimes play FAF, and sometimes play Starcraft 2, how I failed to get other people to play this, and a reference to a suggestion that I think would help a lot.

Honestly I think the real solution to getting the ladder to be more popular is making the game itself more popular.

*snip*

Spoiler: show

Blackheart (and you can correct me here) and some others don't really play much because they have been seeing the same 15-20-ish people all the time on the ladder for a long, long time. It's probably gotten so redundant seeing the same play styles that it's sickening to do it anymore. When is the last time Yharma_Dharma played against Voodoo or someone? I joined the community a year-ish ago and was seeing all these great 1v1 casts by Gyle of these players. Back then it was pretty light on he top ranks and it's only gotten worse since then.

I myself am seeing the same people on ladder all the time now and that's bad... if we can't afford 1200-1600 range players then the game has lost too much popularity.

The ladder would be far more popular if there was a better variety of players in my opinion; not a map cycle, ladder reset, prizes, etc. People seem to be plenty motivated-enough to get that AWESOME, SHINY high-number rating. The better the number the better the game is as you'll encounter more interesting opponents. I wish LAME didn't get himself banned because his ridiculous comm rushes were a painful and annoying thing to play, but it was entertaining and added some variety to the play styles.

Now, that's a lot of complaining so I have to ask everyone to chime in: how can we go above and beyond what visionik, Sheeo et al are doing? They have a lot of work on their hands and unless we become php-coding gurus to help sort the server code we probably can't hustle the advertisement phase of FaF on the high-level.

Well, how about we organize a list of strategy message boards and etc to promote FaF? Back in the day I would say go to website like totalannihlation.gamespy.com, but those are all dead.

I personally have to finish rewriting the WWPC this weekend, but after I'm going to search for every strategy-game enthusiast message board or website and share some FaF casts and try to motivate people to join the community.

In the meantime, I ask that the players keep playing and casters keep casting to make the club seem "alive." Nothing is more disheartening then hearing about something great and finding that it's all just tell without any show. If we stop competing then people stop caring.

So, maybe just get into the ladder or make some custom games a few times a week (1-3 hrs of your time) and keep things as interesting as possible until the Council Of Setons is at a point where they can move onto the next phase.

Maybe we create a separate thread without any arguing or input that just lists some other strat communities?

Bottom line: We need more people.

Deciding to play Starcraft or FAF
On my serious gaming days in the past 2 months I have played Starcraft 2 and/or Forged Alliance Forever. I play twice as much Starcraft 2 as FAF, which, considering game length, means I decide to play SC2 about four times as often as I decide to play FAF.

Reasons for playing FAF over Starcraft 2:

• Epic scale strategy
• Unit choice-strategy, slow paced: build artillery to target PD
• Sieging, with artillery, missiles, ships
• Strategic zoom
• Easy to play on multiple fronts
• Naval warfare done well

Reasons for playing Starcraft 2 over FAF:

• I am assured of having fun!(1)
• Predictable game length
• I don't want to bother with FAF's eco
• Starcraft 2 units are comparatively intelligent(2)
• I don't want to get frustrated and lose because of a stupid mistake

(1): Every game of Starcraft I get to do achieve small things without failing miserably, even if I am losing. Such as winning engagements, executing plans, building expansions, researching key upgrades.
(2): Starcraft 2 units automatically chase units that come into their range, and automatically flee when they cannot fight back. Drop ships reliably drop units exactly where you want, and their dropoff time is reliable. Units don't get stuck in traffic.

Note that these points are not necessarily criticism of the game, many of these things are simply a part of the game. I am just sharing my reasons for often playing Starcraft instead of FAF, and maybe some of these reasons apply to other people as well. Understanding this might allow for improvements to draw more people to this game.


Tried to introduce game to 7 or so people
The grand scale and strategic zoom were generally very appealing, however, the brick-wall difficulty and slowness of the game were the biggest problems. I was honest about the economy and upgrading and that discouraged half from even trying. Those that tried simply didn't manage to have any fun games before their patience ran out.


Let the game help the players more
One thing that ruins your fun is for instance your mexes suddenly exploding without understanding why. Or finding that a single unit has been sneaking around your base destroying mexes for 5 minutes without you noticing. I have never played a game with worse audio messages, suggestion: viewtopic.php?f=42&t=10200.

[Blodir]

Reasons for playing Starcraft 2 over FAF:

• I am assured of having fun!(1)
• Predictable game length
• I don't want to bother with FAF's eco
• Starcraft 2 units are comparatively intelligent(2)
• I don't want to get frustrated and lose because of a stupid mistake

3/5 of these can be fixed with a good map pool.

TA4Life's map pool is a good first step (when it finally gets implemented), but I would not stop there. To be able to play even 15 maps consistently you require a vast amount of map knowledge or an even more massive depth of game knowledge. I don't care if you play good or bad, but the important part is that it's consistent. Instead of plunging head first into the unknown you should feel like you are prepared for the fight, you should know more or less what to expect.

Spoiler: show

My suggestion for 1v1 map pool if anyone's interested:

Code: Select all

1   Loki
2   Regor VI
3   White Fire
4   Syrtis Major
5   Forbidden Pass
6   Twin Rivers
7   Open Palms
8   Eye of the Storm

Though you could do a similar map pool of 5x5 maps or 20x20 maps too, but I believe 10x10 is a good size in terms of game length & strategic diversity

[JaggedAppliance]

I don't really understand this:

I am assured of having fun!(1)
(1): Every game of Starcraft I get to do achieve small things without failing miserably, even if I am losing. Such as winning engagements, executing plans, building expansions, researching key upgrades.

[Valki]

I don't really understand this:

I am assured of having fun!(1)
(1): Every game of Starcraft I get to do achieve small things without failing miserably, even if I am losing. Such as winning engagements, executing plans, building expansions, researching key upgrades.

Having build an expansion is something you managed to do, as it is a big investment in Starcraft. The same would apply for rushing out an Oracle or Banshee (harass units), or finishing +1 attack and +1 armor upgrades before the first battle. Even if that battle goes horribly and you lost, you did achieve fast +1/+1 upgrades, oh yeah.

In FAF an early bomber does kind of compare to that, a good com rush might, maybe rushing T2 such as a fast cruiser sieging the enemy... but even then the damage doesn't speak for itself. If you kill 4 engineers with your early bomber then you can calculate that it was worth it, but it doesn't show or feel in the same way. Even then, these moments are few and far between, whereas in Starcraft every game has these moments.

[Flexable]

My suggestion for 1v1 map pool if anyone's interested:

Code: Select all

1   Loki
2   Regor VI
3   White Fire
4   Syrtis Major
5   Forbidden Pass
6   Twin Rivers
7   Open Palms
8   Eye of the Storm

Though you could do a similar map pool of 5x5 maps or 20x20 maps too, but I believe 10x10 is a good size in terms of game length & strategic diversity

I have to disagree, I believe it is important to keep a fair amount of 5x5, 10x10 and 20x20 maps in ladder.

One of the reason is that every player have a different view of the game. One of them is a quick game. There I can bounce back on the following point from Valki's post:

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.

Keep that in mind. Not everyone wants to spend hours in a game, especially in ladder.

I speak of ladder only because when you start a team game, you have a good idea of the game length. Not in ladder, you don't know the map in advance.

[Vee]

The coop missions are a good way to introduce people to FAF. Have you tried that?

What kind of games do you play? 1v1 or team games?

I am assured of having fun!(1)

What about an achievements feature with a sexy Gyle voice? "Triple kill bomber" etc.

Predictable game length

Map choices could help with this, but @Blodir: it's nice to have a small set of maps that you like, the problem is that this set is different for everyone.

I don't want to bother with FAF's eco

This is a central feature of the game. Perhaps an 'unlimited energy mode' for new players could help with this, or maybe notifications when stalling/overflowing are enough.

Starcraft 2 units are comparatively intelligent(2)

This is being addressed to some degree, but in general it's a hard problem. Can you give some more examples of how you think units should behave?

I don't want to get frustrated and lose because of a stupid mistake

I don't know how to change that except to make sniping harder.

[speed2]

The coop missions are a good way to introduce people to FAF. Have you tried that?

except mine

[CodingSquirrel]

The coop missions are a good way to introduce people to FAF. Have you tried that?

I started with that when I introduced a friend to the game a couple days ago. Unfortunately the third mission of UEF vanilla bugged on us and after the second wave of attacks they stopped coming. Even at +10 speed we waited for a sim time of 40 minutes and nothing came. This happened twice in a row, so we quit and just did a few fights against AI on Fields of Isis.

[Mad`Mozart]

When starting a ladder game, you have no idea how long it will last. From 10mn to 1h30.

No idea where are you getting those numbers from.

Ladder is main game mode i play and long games usually take between 30-40 mins. It can be both 20km and 10km maps. Games 1 hour long and more are very rare to happen

[Valki]

@Vee: First off, let me stress that not every problem can/must be solved. I sometimes take my bicycle to the supermarket instead of my car, because it saves fuel and parking. This doesn't mean cars need to become more fuel efficient, or there need to be more parking spaces. - sometimes, the car simply cannot beat a bicycle.

The coop missions are a good way to introduce people to FAF. Have you tried that?

I will try on my next victim

What kind of games do you play? 1v1 or team games?

Mostly 1v1 ladder (in both SC2 and FAF ) - and small team games (both SC2 and FAF )

I don't want to bother with FAF's eco

This is a central feature of the game. Perhaps an 'unlimited energy mode' for new players could help with this, or maybe notifications when stalling/overflowing are enough.

I think notifications should suffice

Starcraft 2 units are comparatively intelligent(2)

This is being addressed to some degree, but in general it's a hard problem. Can you give some more examples of how you think units should behave?

I hate it when a few enemy units run past my army into my base, and my units shoot while they pass but then do nothing when they are out of range pillaging and massacring my lands. They should pursue and engage them. It makes no sense that 3 surviving mantis can destroy my base when it is defended by 20 strikers. Also, defenseless units (tanks vs. gunships, engineers vs. tanks, mobile AA vs. tanks) should flee from their attacker.
Drop ships should drop units exactly where ordered and do so quickly and reliably.
Units should not get stuck in traffic jams.