In short, decapitation means you get to keep your stuff after your commander dies, but if all commanders on your team die, it's game over. Decapitation is currently an unrated mod.

I think it should be rated, or even better, just integrated into the game as an alternate victory condition - that would mean games using it don't show up as modded, and since the option to show modded games is off by default, the games would have higher visibility. As long , of course, as there are no glaring balance issues (discuss), and as long as that's not too much work for the Game development team.

Why should it be rated? It's a better option than fullshare for casual team games with wide rating distributions, and it's a better option overall than Annihilation or Supremacy, because the cleanup required with those is tedious and meaningless. Right now, in fullshare, people have to actively avoid killing an 800 if they've got a 1600 on their team ready to take over their economy. It might, although this remains to be seen, also encourage new players to be a bit more adventurous with their commanders, which is, in my opinion, a good thing, since making best use of their com is something they learn pretty slowly, with experimentation being very expensive (you die).

As far as I can tell, the benefits outweigh potential problems with this game mode, one of which might be com bombing by high rated players. I believe this is so rarely encountered that people haven't figured out how to mitigate it at the t1 stage, when t2 transports aren't available yet. It's also not something I think is that easy to abuse in order to farm rating. A decision to make it rated could also be reversed at any time, should com bombing or anything else prove to be a big enough problem.

I'm looking for ways to make life easier for new players, in the hope that this will prolong this game's life in the long run.

@Deribus said in the Q&A Thread that noobs are often confronted with the following problems:

• Getting kicked from custom lobbies
• Long queue times in matchmaking, and very imbalanced matches for the first 10 or so
• Few similarly ranked players willing to play anything but dual gap and astro
• Very steep learning curve

The #gameplay-and-training discord channel is focused on helping with that last bullet point, and I commend everyone there for their effort and success, but upon talking to the members, I got the feeling that the other issues are not really part of their mandate (which, upon reflection, is reasonable)

So could a similar community effort help make those critical first few games more straightforward to get, and also a pleasant experience? How did #gameplay-and-training get started? How were the trainers recruited and how are trainees finding their way there? How do big clans like ANZ or CpC organize so well to fill lobbies so fast? Does anyone have any thoughts on what such a community might do to help? Are you interested in taking part?

I'm thinking a good starting point would be finding people willing to host around the clock, build enough reputation to fill lobbies reasonably fast, and compete with the endless gap/astro lobbies for noob attention, with a focus on making a good first impression, but I'm kind of lost when it comes to the organizational part.

Percies? Bricks? What are those? I thought you were only supposed to make titans and loyalists

After having hosted countless all welcome games on randomly generated maps I can attest to the fact full share makes the games more fun to play, for both sides. Without it, games end at around 10 minutes, after the first player death, with no chance of recovery for their teammates, after some 2v1 or unfortunate first engagement. This drastic, game-ending outcome often comes as a result of rock-paper-scissors dynamics in the build orders (much more prevalent on random maps), not some grand masterminded strategy that could potentially be scouted and countered in time.

I am, however, dumbfounded by the amount of people that join only to immediately throw a tantrum because they see full share on, then begin to educate me on its shortcomings. Very few games have ended in victory for the team down a player, so the oft repeated argument that full share makes snipes meaningless just doesn't ring true to me. Being down a com and placing more burden on another player does not make the game easier for the losing team, and, at least around my level, it takes time for the the unified economy to compensate for these disadvantages.

I really hope more people give it a chance, and, as funk said, learn to adapt their decision making to this change in rules. Snipe economy, and press the attack once you get a kill instead of zoning out and going sim city.

Everyone responding to players expressing their reasons for leaving with "you're wrong" should just shut up. Your arguments will not convince someone to keep playing once they decided to leave and you're only discouraging others from speaking out. Doesn't matter if you're right, you're just shitting up a rare, useful feedback thread for no reason.

The ddos is a pain in the ass but I'm still having loads of fun with this game. I'm really excited to try out the new mapgen, and I started playing tmm a bit more and I think it's great.

People that are generally happy with faf or don't agree that things "suck so much" are generally not going to seek those conversations out to share their thoughts, so you disproportionately have to deal with negativity in such interactions although this doesn't necessarily reflect the general attitude.

I'm sure you already know this though, and still, it's hard not to let it affect you. What helped me in this situation, at work, was getting my managers to do most of this emotional labor so i could focus on technical stuff, although I realize it's not a pleasant task to dump on someone, but some people actually enjoy arguing on forums. I have no idea if this is an option for you, but I hope it is since I wouldn't want to lose such a contributor to petty bullshit.

If it isn't, I would personally be happier if you and people that feel the same kept doing what you do without having or trying to explain yourselves, even as some people will start bitching that nobody's communicating with them to the extent they feel entitled to.

I generate random map. Looks like it might be good, but the preview, it's the size of a stamp. A tiny stamp because I made 12.5km and it's got a big black border. There's this black gradient over the bottom that ensures the very interesting map name spanning 2 lines is readable so I squint harder than Clint Eastwood. No use, can't see shit. My old man vision can't even pick out the spawns if the map is of the darker kind. So I click create game. I zoom into the map using the NEW BIG LENS BUTTON and notice something I don't like. Close lobby. Go back to host dialog.

I realize this host dialog was never designed to nitpick generated maps, count mexes per spawn, see the difference between cliff and ramp and all that stuff. We didn't have mapgen back when it was made. But maybe it's possible to add the NEW BIG LENS BUTTON in the game creation dialog thus fixing it?

Generally I think a turtle style feels way more comfortable for new players, and this is reinforced by a bias towards safer maps like gap or astro when it comes to the games they play.

For them to become ladder players, if they ever do, they have to go through a phase where they unlearn some bad turtle habits, and try out and succeed at being aggressive. They tend to do this by playing more open maps in custom lobbies, the lower the skill and confidence, the more players.

There's already a big cost in attention needed to use the ACU offensively, as compared to just making some obscene firebase with a t2 com, a very, very common noob trap. And attention, specifically, is a beginner's most scarce resource. They often forget radar, tmd, scouting in general, they may idle their first high tech engies for minutes if they get distracted, or attack then look away from the fight, because doing these things right is not yet second nature to them. They spend more time doing any one thing and often get tunnel-vision on some random task because they have to think about it and it's not just busywork as it is to a veteran. This makes multi-taksing harder.

I'm worried about the nerfs you suggested because they make the climb from astro noob to ladder player steeper. I'm sure, FTX, you're very familiar with all the things I described, with all your mentoring experience on discord, and with that in mind, maybe I shouldn't be worried, but I'm still hoping you can think of another way of solving the problem.

I think the recent speed boost to t2 is a welcome change, and in general, I think I'd prefer some solution (which i don't claim to have) that emphasizes decision-making. The same way an air player rushing t3 air might conclude he has a window of opportunity and a need to do damage with a very early strat if he sees his counterpart making t2 bombers, and the same way a less skilled air player like myself decides to pay a mass tax and always shield their t2 pgens, even as i know some better players skip this sometimes, by scouting better and being able to determine if they're far enough behind that a shield is needed.

There's another point to be made regarding player experience.

Since without full share, you are usually punished with an agonizing and inevitable defeat when your teammate dies, sometimes through no fault of your own, player deaths are often followed by toxic interactions between teammates, "moron" tags peppered around the map and stuff like that. Full share helps a lot with this problem.

It also seems to me that people more often stay in the game instead of leaving immediately when full share is on, maybe partly because they want to see their stuff put to use. For one thing, this means defeat feels less bitter since fewer rage quit. But it also increases the chance that dead high rated players instruct lower rated players on their team, and that dead low rated players stick around to learn from their teammates. These are the only times casual players get to see high level play and actually pay attention to it, since very few of them spectate games or watch replays, and actually incentivizes high rated players to teach, since they can salvage their rating if they guide their teammates to victory.

These are not minor concerns. This community is plagued by the unreasonable popularity of maps like astro craters or thermo or gap. If a lobby features some other map, it's almost always rating limited. New players end up joining the only lobbies that will have them, the aforementioned shit map trifecta. Some never leave this comfort zone even after gaining a white rating.

TMM is one of the few developments in years that has a chance to change this, and, if I'm not mistaken, it's whole purpose is specifically remedying this situation. We should not overlook player experience when deciding how to structure team play. Even if it turns out full share is not the best option, TMM should arguably use it at launch to be more noob friendly.

@askaholic said in Introducing Mapgen Week on Ladder:

Let’s rename it to "Neroxis and Sheikah Map Generator". And while we’re at it let’s rename the faf client to "Downlords and Axels and Brutus’ and Sheikahs and All those other guys FAF Client"

Praise Neroxis when mapgen is good, blame Sheikah when something is wrong with it. This is the way

@logic9867 I'm sorry to hear you're facing this problem. If you're willing to give it another go at some point, I can say what worked for me to reduce the number of connection problems: the faf ICE web telemetry UI

The tool lets you see, during the lobby phase, which connections are direct and which are via proxy servers. You can then ask the affected players to rejoin the lobby until all the connections are direct, which will help a lot.

The faf ICE web telemetry UI is available via the system tray once you are in lobby.

I'm not advocating one way or the other, just wanted to point out that TML is one of the potential rewards when going for an early t2 com, and since it threatens such a large circle, it is the primary threat if one manages to gain mid map control early on ~10km maps or to do a t2 drop on 20km.

It's worth noting that TMD is one of the very few defensive buildings you usually see built preemptively by veterans, only other I can think of that comes close is a shield over your t2 power. All other threats in the game are better countered by units, not static emplacements, or afford defenders enough time to respond if the scouting is on point.

What would change if they were removed? I think, in some team games, guncom + spam would get a relative buff compared to t2com + fire base. I also agree with your premise, noobs would have an easier time overall, and while this can be said of any simplification brought to the game, this change would make a bigger difference than most for noobs

About saving maps: yes you can.

The map name is what you need to regenerate it. Put a saved map name into the map generator input field at the top and you can make it again.

Conveniently, you can right click > copy the map name pretty much everwhere it shows up in the faf client.

If you're trying to remake a map from a replay, you might have to start watching the replay but once you do you should be able to copy the map name from the replay tab in faf, and the map in question should be available to you in the host game dialog until you close faf.

Is it possible to add a slight snap when building stuff if there are benefits to be had from adjacency? Same as mexes have but maybe less range.

I think it would be a very intuitive way to teach the benefits of adjacency and could help with sim city generally, like when building an air grid to avoid off-by-one bad placement (don't know if it's possible to add snap-to-unbuilt-blueprint but would be nice).

Another benefit might be that this snapping could nudge blueprints out of overlap with existing or planned units, this making base building less fiddly.

Maybe it could be off when adjusting queued blueprint positions to allow players to override this snap if desired.

What do you think?

I think progress since the mapmaker was publicly released has been huge. I'm hoping experienced mapmakers and high level players get a bit more involved with this project now that it's been brought back into the spotlight by the recent tournament. If I'm not mistaken, Sheikah had put out a call to mapmakers for help with the look and feel months ago, but I'm not sure how much attention it got.

I understand that inclusion in the ladder might pose some technical issues but I think they're worth investigating. Random maps are very noob friendly compared to regular maps: no meta, no specific builds - a level playing field. If the long-term goal is to encourage people to shift to ladder rather than custom games, ignoring the map generator's potential to help in this regard would be foolish; it's common knowledge already that many people stay away from ladder because they feel it's too tryhard.

I can't even reject percies, I just make those instead of fattys and then cry when a GC shows up. Probably why I'm still so shit at the game.

I upvoted the OP because I thought the UI icons were nice and well done and then I kept scrolling and saw the new unit models and my jaw just dropped.

I have no idea if it's possible, or easy, but I think I'd like to see an increase to the size of the TML yellow dot (only for the high damage ones, ACU tactical missile and the structure launched one). I suggest this because I think that, by this game's own standards, there is a mismatch between the threat it poses and the way the threat is presented to the players.

If the launch and explosion use distinct sound effects, I also wouldn't mind those sounds be made louder or somehow distinct from lesser missiles. It would help a lot to alert otherwise distracted players that measures might need to be taken (same way a the sound of strat bomb's release serves brilliantly to draw players' attention right now) and reward scouting (or punish ill-chosen times to strike), since the launch is only audible to players that have vision of it.

I'd also like it if the billy missile showed the bigger yellow circle to opponents as well, the same way it's presented to the player that launches it. I think this change would make dodging it more feasible, and that's the right kind of interactive gameplay to nurture. Picking out the billy projectile is too tedious with a hale of T3 mmls also firing everywhere, and as a consequence, dealing with a billy is a bit too taxing on focus and micro, since the minimap or UI doesn't clearly communicate the occasionally greatly increased threat. It's now partly a struggle not with the opponent, but with the interface, which makes failing at it feel more like falling prey to bad pathfinding, for example, than being outplayed.

Such a change would lower the skill floor at which billy works as I think is currently intended without upsetting the balance too much, in my opinion. I'm not suggesting this because I think the billy is too strong, just think this change could emphasize an interesting dynamic that is sometimes not in play currently because of UI clutter. That being said, I'm no expert on balance, and if a bigger visual indicator and louder swoosh decrease billy's effectiveness, I wouldn't mind any buffs the balance team think are appropriate to it as compensation.

What does everyone else think?

Edit: mentioned sounds as well.

Apologies if this has already been considered @Jip but can the original texture be replaced with a higher resolution one that makes room in UV space for new HQ geometry? For example, take a 512 texture and place it top left in a 1024 canvas, divide base model UV coordinates by 2, allocate new UVs in the 0.5 - 1 range that is now available for use in the 1024 canvas. Of course that still leaves the problem of actually authoring these additional textures and my instinct is that it would involve reusing repeated patterns from the original. The problem of albedo being mixed in with the baked GI could be solved in principle with a high/low pass filter as a starting point, making a plausible albedo texture without GI contribution available for copy-paste over the new geometry, and blender can be used to provide the GI for these new elements.

Basically I'm asking if this sort of solution is acceptable from your developer perspective, fully aware that it creates work on the art side but ready to contribute. I know it doesn't address animations but could be part of the answer if you decide to iterate on HQs further.

Hear me out: UEF sniper-tanks. Problem solved.