The Mirror Problem

[TheKoopa]

Ppl talking about playing only 1 faction as if there isn't only 4 in the game

[keyser]

Also why not add a option to the lobby that allowes to hide the selected faction from all other players in the lobby?

I'd like to see this, it prevents most of the forced mirroring while not really interfering with player choice. Bonus points if we could get Random to appear as Random in the in-game scoreboard.

well that's what i proposed without having to code anything.

[MrTBSC]

You need to learn only two. You can have one main and one backup faction. There is only one veto.

this still needs to be a choice, i should not have to fully learn 2 factions .. it´s already a steeb learningcurve to use 1 knowing how to counter the other 3 ..

opponent veto´s the players chosen mainfaction, he basicaly veto´s the players Identity

This is such a stupid argument. Do high level players have no identity as pro FAF players? Why should it be only bound to the faction?
Previously in the thread people only managed to name no more than two players that are known for playing one faction only. This whole argument about fans identifying with their favourite pro because he mains a specific faction seems pretty made up to me. Have never really heard of this in a FAF context before.

wonder why that is ... maybe because the factions themselves still lack the level of diversaty for that to matter aside from cosmetical differences .. you can´t however deny that viewers do easier find an identity to a player/pro who plays a specific faction in a rts .... i mean personaly i liked to watch ZLO matches were he primarily played cybran back then, and i startet to watch brnk (i know he´s not a pro) for the same reason ... that´s however me personaly ...
i just dont´find players who play random factions and play about the same rushstrategy on any of them all that intresting ..

if you play UEF i would love to see you make good use of sparkies for some intresting firebaseplay f.e. or mongooseplay
cybran obviously deciever and beatleplay (the latter of which is pretty dead imo unless the recent stealthpatch reignited cybranplayers to use them more instead of being another shortterm noveltyeffect), hoplites are pretty cool
Aeon kitting and mercies, heck maybe some absolveruse ..
phim .... ..... ..... .... uhhh .... .... assassineplay ... i guess ....

how many players do that on average? ... very few ...

Aeon styling or Phimbeatsticking

so what should these playstyles be? Aeon having the roundest units?

yes

that´s like asking a fightingame player or a Moba player to learn 8 different Characters

You do realize that mobas have a veto system for champions right?

difference is in a moba there are a lot more characters divided into classes to chose from, still rather few mobas do have a vetosystem .... were as fightinggames do not have a vetosystem at all, wasn´t the point at all why i brought up fighting games and mobas though ...

The skill of the current top players is not so high that these details matter. We still have top players with really low apm which shows, that we are not even close to the skill ceiling in this game yet.

skillceiling doesn´t have to be tied to just high APM .. not at all .. also the game still has areas were it has unnessary APM requirements that may be or are crucial to the player but unintresting to the viewer ..

Ppl talking about playing only 1 faction as if there isn't only 4 in the game

right, it´s not like you would just veto 25% of potential content out of the match

[Bullydozer]

It's really not that hard to "learn a new faction" lol. the differences aren't too big. instead of 100 mantis 20 medusa u make 90 thaam 30 zthuee hurr durr impossible
only one that's obviously different to play from the other factions is aeon

[FemtoZetta]

Yeah, this game isn't Star Craft with actually very different factions. You can easily learn all factions and play them mostly as well as the others. Watching the same factions play against each other is still a bit boring, even if normally the differences aren't that big anyway lol
I think that's actually one of the things Sup Com is missing, a bit more faction diversity.

[ThomasHiatt]

The point is that it is cool to have players like Silene and Swkoll who choose to play with a single faction all of the time. Obviously, they are capable of playing other factions and learning how to do well with them, but that destroys all of the fun and uniqueness of their shtick. It would be a nice achievement to go through a tournament playing only your faction and win, but this would remove that achievement from the game. If players are allowed to have their faction vetoed in tournaments they are forced to give up their personality or not participate.

Factions also have unique tools so having them vetoed means you are forced to play with a playstyle you do not want to, it isn't as simple as making less mobile arty. If you are going to play in some fun atypical way, maybe with an all-in attempt, you need to be able to know what faction you are playing in order to plan it out. If your faction gets vetoed in the lobby then you are just screwed. Everyone will have to play the safe and generic way, which can often be boring to watch.

It is already quite rare for these things to happen in tournaments but I don't think that is a good reason to extinguish them completely for the possibility of having fewer mirror matches. If I were to come back and play in LotS at the end of the year I would want to be able to prepare some cheese strategies offline so it would actually be fun, but if I prepare my cheese BO just to have my faction vetoed in the lobby I wouldn't be interested in participating.

[MrTBSC]

f*** it why not raise the skillceiling even further so the same 8 people can be seen EVERY tournameant ...

LOTS is the end of year tournament that is supposed to showcase the highest level of gameplay on FAF.
Please explain why making the skill ceiling higher for this tournament is bad.

cause that way you are not just raising the skillceiling but the skillfloor, too .. which both should be set naturaly by the game itself, not by some arbitrary decision ... and let´s not forget supcom has already a steeb learningcurve just for the economy where tryhards start sweating by just the simple mention of making things a bit simplier to understand or easier to control ..

i have to agree with @keyser that if the goal is to decrease the ammount of mirrormatches than just hide the chosen factions until the match starts ..

now you may argue that experienced players may even pick the same faction cause they played a map often enough to know which faction might be best on it so that may make hiding them redundant, but on the other hand it may allow for a bit of a suprise when a player picks a faction he might be good at the opponent did not expect to be chosen ...

forcing players to not chose the faction they want to play imho will not realy do much .... both players may veto the same faction and still chose the same faction simply because they know that way they have the same advantages and disadvantages still, so it again comes down pure playerskill ...

let me ask this:
what exactly is it you want to see out of the set skillceiling?

by principal personaly i want a player to be the best he can be with his prefered faction/s where he is capable to use said faction to its fullest extend making for some intresting play or tactics other factions do not allow or other players may have not thought of or lack the execution to do so...
have that prefered faction vetoed and this aspect is thrown out of the window but now you primarily blur how all factions are played more on avarage for the more intresting tactics to happen less ..

people may argue that factions by themselves are not all that diverse to begin with .. which will make it all the worse to have a players main faction be vetoed .. especialy since the factions still seem to not be well ballanced to one another .. or is it more of a meme to call cybran OP?

i mean i said it many times before ... this comunity, be it willingly or not, failed to expand the factions divercaty to were it may make sense for a game that is what now? 13 years old?
"but this is not starcraft" who the f*** ever said it needs to when another spiritual successor even with just one unitpool (and a much higher challange on awareness) allows the use of "micro"units (no active abilities) even when there are like 300 to 400 units running around already ..

compare that to a MUCH smaller community that went and took a 24/25 years old game, and not only went to diversefy said game´s factions but made also said game MUCH more playable on a level with the most modern RTS games ...

which makes it all the more laughable you now want to have more factionrepresentation/variety BY LIMITING the use of factions ..