New player with questions + replay

[kimsession]

Hi all,

New here, after playing quite a few AI games and reading some multiplayer guides from the stickied thread I decided to give multiplayer a go.

First game was a 2v2 last night, but after some early sparring, quite happy my score was at a similar level to the other players, the game froze. Could still talk to everyone, click around etc., one of the guys said it was my connection and that I should quit - how do you check that in game? (not saying he was wrong, I've got a decent 30mb connection but it can pick up some bad packet loss + ping at peak times when it feels like it). Learnt to check pingtest before starting a game, it's fairly obvious on there when the connection goes wrong.

This gave me a negative 2 hundred and something ranking - I take it this will go if I play on and complete some matches?


Second game, another 2v2, the host was dubious of my negative ranking but started anyway. Ran smoothly, spammed t1 land and my teammate (highest rank) quickly got up towards the top of the scores. If anyone is feeling kind and can be bothered, replays attached and I'd appreciate any advice.

120253-kimsession.fafreplay

2v2

(140.36 KiB) Downloaded 79 times

I can see lots of mistakes myself, there's a bad moment where a land force gets decimated by bombers whilst my interceptors chill out on the other side of the map. Also feel that I should have committed more land forces to the bottom so that my teammate who had gone t3 air didn't die. Once he did die, he stayed on giving my some advice in the chat, and t3 gunships + t3 assault bots w/ my t1 land blobs managed to get the job done. Thing is I really thought I was losing control of it towards the end, I know there were massive errors with my eco, but what should I be doing differently? More engineers + should I be reclaiming my t1 factories once I move on?

Edit - also if someone does watch this - how come yellows in game score gets so high?

Sorry for the rambling post, thanks in advance for any help!

[Zock]

I watched this. You aren't playing bad, your score should get up easily as you play more games. Yellows score did jump because he killed a commander what leads do a massive points increase. I try to list some things i noticed, not everything, but the major mistakes.

-Arround Minute 7, you continue making a lot of factories, even if you got no mass for that.

-You need to scout more often (or scout at all)

-At minute 9 you atack his base with your t1 army. If you plan to atack where the enemy commander is, you should have either enough units to kill (if he is alone arround 20 tanks, but he got units with him, so more like 40+) him or support your army with your own commander aswell. Your enemy is reacting poorly, but against a good player you would've wasted all the atacking units. Having your commander offensive is dangerous (especially without scouting) though.

-While T1 spam is an option, you should consider do a bit less and eco more. The map is very eco friendly.

-Arround minute 10 you really should help your mate instead of sending your army into the dark where no scouting or radar is. The first parts happens again, with known result, but also the second part happens more often. All the units you send mostly die with doing more or less demage, but you gift your opponents all the wreckages of your units.If you can't kill something important, it's better not to atack. To see if you can, you need the scouting.

-Your Radar got killed and you should rebuilt it asap.

-when you have t2, you should consider reclaiming some t1 factorys since you made too many and still stall mass. (reclaim like 3-4, you can pause the others if you still stall mass when you assist your t2 fac with more engys)

-Later, when you see he got lots of point defences, plus the two commanders and units, producing (and later suiciding) all the t1 stuff should be stopped and switched to more higher tech units and eco. You should make a lot of engineers and assist either the t3 aifactory to focus on making the t3 gunships or the t3 landfactory. You stall massive mass at this point, so before that, you should pause factorys until you have even mass. You can still produce t1, but not so much, and as they have mostly defence structures and the t1 arty is still usefull against structures later ingame, only t1 arty.

-If you atack you shouldnt use the formation atack with ctrl, that slows the group of units down, but you want to get fast into your range. Against units with splash, use normal right click, else your units will stack and die easy. Against other units use either normal right click or atack move with alt.

So your main two mistakes are not to scout and to waste a lot of units by sending them into their death. No direct mistake, but i'd also recommend to make less units and to eco more on that map, especially in midgame.

For your second game, you did very well though.


For anyone expect you: This could be like what expects you as replay reviews when the replay vault is done. :p

[kimsession]

Thanks for the advice, makes sense - I did have a feeling I was sending swarms of units to their deaths without really accomplishing anything in the game. Will try to take the things you've pointed out on board for the next one!

What is the ctrl click formation useful for? I can see what you're saying, especially getting round the mountain at the bottom took forever.

[Tressor]

hi Im new too but ill throw few things ive picked from my mistakes
When u attacked blue's base with t3 gunships u should kill t1 antiair first as it will give u free kills since u will thereafter kill all kind of aa threats and destroy all of blue base

Not sure about you but all the rest even green power stall big time and its last thing you want as nothing works w/o power
Yellow decided to make asf with t1 power and hydro
Also somewhere from min 5 -10 not sure tho you were at +10 mass and full storage (see after replay how much mass u wasted and aim for it to be 0) it is when u upgrade ur mexxes i know it sounds easy but i have that problem too not checking top left corner often enough leads to mass waste or mass/power stall

All i can say is to go for 1v1 ladder as you learn the most. In games like isis thermo you learn very slow and tend to learn turtle playstyle what is wrong imo as once you get to an open map you will get overwhelmed but i may be wrong in new too
Also often in teamgames you will get carried by good teammates thus giving you false idea of improving

All in all i thought i was improving by doing team games but once i started 1v1 i realized how bad i was i mean it i was awful but thats the place where u really learn imo but yet again i may be wrong since im new
Gl with your progress and hope to see you in some 1v1 games soon:)

[kimsession]

hi Im new too but ill throw few things ive picked from my mistakes
When u attacked blue's base with t3 gunships u should kill t1 antiair first as it will give u free kills since u will thereafter kill all kind of aa threats and destroy all of blue base

Not sure about you but all the rest even green power stall big time and its last thing you want as nothing works w/o power
Yellow decided to make asf with t1 power and hydro
Also somewhere from min 5 -10 not sure tho you were at +10 mass and full storage (see after replay how much mass u wasted and aim for it to be 0) it is when u upgrade ur mexxes i know it sounds easy but i have that problem too not checking top left corner often enough leads to mass waste or mass/power stall

All i can say is to go for 1v1 ladder as you learn the most. In games like isis thermo you learn very slow and tend to learn turtle playstyle what is wrong imo as once you get to an open map you will get overwhelmed but i may be wrong in new too
Also often in teamgames you will get carried by good teammates thus giving you false idea of improving

All in all i thought i was improving by doing team games but once i started 1v1 i realized how bad i was i mean it i was awful but thats the place where u really learn imo but yet again i may be wrong since im new
Gl with your progress and hope to see you in some 1v1 games soon:)

Yeah I think you're right, the other team manages power badly - killing the newly built t2 pgen was probably more effective than I realised. And yes I've definitely got to work on keeping an eye on those resources more and upgrading at the right times. I wish you could click on the resources in game and see whats using them up, sometimes I have way more or less than I would expect and I'm not really sure why.

Have been playing some 1v1s, TA4Life casted one of my better ones: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W02Mt9ZVNWQ&feature=plcp
Feel comfortable on 5x5 maps 1v1, had them go both ways.

On bigger water maps 1v1, my first ranked I got demolished, the other guy took most of the map and I never got enough production going. Second time I actually took most of the map and managed to drop and build t1 factories behind and rush into his base, but then as the game went on I went t3 air he built a lot of defenses and I struggled to make any impact and gave up my advantage. Didn't get to finish that game, frustrating since I probably should have pushed on and won but I lost all momentum then had to forfeit as something came up real life.

TA4life also did another team game I was in - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjX-SPBsfWg&feature=plcp Is quite an interesting game overall, but as you say I get carried by team mates in the end.

I think you're right about 1v1, will try to work on that more. Ranked is tough, tend to get put against much higher ranked guys, and I really need to work on not getting overwhelmed on the larger maps. If more of the ranked pool was smaller I'd probably stick with it more!

[uberge3k]

I wish you could click on the resources in game and see whats using them up, sometimes I have way more or less than I would expect and I'm not really sure why.

You can.

http://sites.google.com/site/supecono/

[Armmagedon]

I wish you could click on the resources in game and see whats using them up, sometimes I have way more or less than I would expect and I'm not really sure why.

You can.

http://sites.google.com/site/supecono/

zomg man without that mod im a mega noob sure lol

[kimsession]

I wish you could click on the resources in game and see whats using them up, sometimes I have way more or less than I would expect and I'm not really sure why.

You can.

http://sites.google.com/site/supecono/

Thanks, works nicely!

[Vicarian]

Looks like TA4Life covered another couple games of yours on his YouTube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjX-SPBs ... plpp_video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W02Mt9ZV ... plpp_video

He does mention some tips in the videos. All of his videos are worth watching.

[Tressor]

Looks like TA4Life covered another couple games of yours on his YouTube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjX-SPBs ... plpp_video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W02Mt9ZV ... plpp_video

He does mention some tips in the videos. All of his videos are worth watching.

Yes they are.
I watched all of his videos and they are extremely valuable, he covers what to do what not to do tips and tricks and loads of things that help a lot for new player
Gale's vids are good too but he doesnt have that many

Im only few weeks on FAF but it seems like it is a great community helping new players get better- there are always few ppl that want to pray on the weak and make noob life a hell but they are in every game although i personally havent met them on FAF yet

And most of all after playing games like world of warcraft im super happy that FAF it retard free community