Suggestions on how to improve FAF Ladder

[HopeAndWonder]

Hey Guys, I just returned to FAF after around 2 years of absense.
After my first login i realized that there are around 1000 people online, that was great to see on the one side, because the game clearly hasnt died in the last two years, however it also didnt had much of a growth aswell. I am not a high rated player by any means, just an avarage joe. So I read a bit of the forum threads to see what was going on, especially this one from Petricpwnz
cought my attention /viewtopic.php?f=2&t=15548 . So, like two years ago people are still trying to figure out how to make ladder more appealing to new players.

Two biggest issues in my opinion are:

To me it seems pretty obvious that FAF is lacking a proper ranking system. It would be really nice to see an implementation of rank, like for example LoL does it(Bronze, Silver. Gold, Plat...etc.) and make your rank really visible to yourself and others(for example a badge in aeloes chat or lobby). So when you are in the lobby to a custom game u can clearly tell, who is a gold rated player and who is bronze... This seems to be really underrated, as visiable improvement is what keeps new players. Therefore make visble how many ranking points you gain after winning, lose after a loss and how many you require to advance to a higher division.

Also it seems like there are actually quite some new people registering to FAF every day(around 100 if I remember correctly), but most of them dont even play a game after registration for some reason. I think this is because of visial apperance of the client and because of the lack of simplicity. Client apperance hasnt changed really since the beginning of FAF or even GPGNet.
Creating a sexy new look would help a lot, also adding a big PLAY button to launch a 1v1 ladder search would be nice.
In my opinon the current League of Legends client does a really good job of doing that.

This are to two biggest points which need to be adressed first, in my opinion.
Just after this is fixed all the other stuff like balance, map pool and map design become relevant.

As for attracting new players, balance is pretty much irrelevant as it will only be noticed at higher ranks anyway. It also is no problem for a game to have a changing meta/balance every few patches(LoL has balance changes every two weeks).

Ladder Map pool also seems to be a issue for some time now. My suggestion would be a voting system in pre game lobby of every single game between the two players. Every player selects 5 maps of which ultimatly one will be chosen at random. Also some bans can be included. Obviously a map chosen my both players will have double the chance of getting selected. For new players just suggest 5 classic maps until they determine which maps they like.

Would be nice to hear what you guys think and what issues are currently adressed by the developers.
Thanks for reading

[PhilipJFry]

welcome back to FAF!

Divisions are broken and we don't have anyone who is going to fix it on the python server.
Divisions should work once we use the java server but we need the ice adapter for that first which is basically being done by one or two people.
The python client can be modded to look different.
The java client does look different.

[FtXCommando]

Around 50% of games on FAF are against AI according to softly stats so you're gonna want to cut that number of daily players down. I imagine it's way easier to fill games with bots so wouldn't even be surprised if like you get a max of 20 or 30 players a month.

[HopeAndWonder]

Well I see every new registered member as a potential ladder player, they just need to be attracted, so thats why i think a fresh sexy look might help.
Also is reworking the division system intended or will be as before?

[Sheeo]

welcome back to FAF!

Divisions are broken and we don't have anyone who is going to fix it on the python server.
Divisions should work once we use the java server but we need the ice adapter for that first which is basically being done by one or two people.
The python client can be modded to look different.
The java client does look different.

A rework of the division system is barely related to the main server -- the only thing that needs to happen is an update of it post-end-game unless it also involves different matchmaking rules.

ICE implementation does not preclude work on a division system.

[HopeAndWonder]

welcome back to FAF!

Divisions are broken and we don't have anyone who is going to fix it on the python server.
Divisions should work once we use the java server but we need the ice adapter for that first which is basically being done by one or two people.
The python client can be modded to look different.
The java client does look different.

A rework of the division system is barely related to the main server -- the only thing that needs to happen is an update of it post-end-game unless it also involves different matchmaking rules.

ICE implementation does not preclude work on a division system.

My question is, if it is even a priority to bring a proper ranking system to FAF, or if the community thinks other things are more important in order to attract new/old players?

[ckitching]

My question is, if it is even a priority to bring a proper ranking system to FAF, or if the community thinks other things are more important in order to attract new/old players?

Projects like this one are moved forward by random people choosing to give up their free time to work on something.

That's all very admirable and all, but it has a downside: it means people work on what they want to work on, regardless of what long-term plans "the community" may or may not have. We can try to encourage people to work on things that further our long-term goals, but often contributors contribute because they want to do a specific thing, or because they find some kind of work interesting.

It's also worth noting that certain tasks are particularly ill-suited to this kind of process. A task that doesn't lend itself to being done incrementally as a pile of small pieces by different people, instead needing to be worked on consistently for a longish period, is very problematic. Many long-awaited features (like ICE) are in this category. Sometimes a contributor appears, starts work on one of these tasks to much fanfare, and then a few weeks later reality bites and they drift away. It's just how things are on volunteer-run open source projects.

Lastly - and perhaps most importantly - it's really difficult to maintain enthusiasm for contributing your free time to a project when you're being constantly yelled at. Sometimes there have been less than delightful interactions on these forums/slack, and that can be problematic for contributors who are already being pulled in a thousand different directions by various commitments.

If you want things to move faster, see how you can contribute, or encourage those who do. Those involved are entirely aware that some issues have been unresolved for years, but we also have to eat. There's a limit to how much time any of us can contribute to this project, and when push comes to shove, the work that pays the bills takes priority over the one that just increases the blood pressure.

[Sheeo]

My question is, if it is even a priority to bring a proper ranking system to FAF, or if the community thinks other things are more important in order to attract new/old players?

I can't speak for the full community, but I personally think it's important to get a new ladder ranking system up and running. I don't think the one that was in place 4 years ago was worthwhile or helpful in attracting new players, though.

We're having a dev conference call soon, where I'm sure this will be brought up -- we discussed it in passing during the most recent calls, but I'd like to try and push some progress on it.

My point in the first reply was mostly that it's orthogonal to the choice of server technology. What we're missing is a design for a proper ladder ranking system that's fun and rewarding to participate in. Once the design is in place, we can talk about lack of willingness to implement it.

[FtXCommando]

My question is, if it is even a priority to bring a proper ranking system to FAF, or if the community thinks other things are more important in order to attract new/old players?

I can't speak for the full community, but I personally think it's important to get a new ladder ranking system up and running. I don't think the one that was in place 4 years ago was worthwhile or helpful in attracting new players, though.

We're having a dev conference call soon, where I'm sure this will be brought up -- we discussed it in passing during the most recent calls, but I'd like to try and push some progress on it.

My point in the first reply was mostly that it's orthogonal to the choice of server technology. What we're missing is a design for a proper ladder ranking system that's fun and rewarding to participate in. Once the design is in place, we can talk about lack of willingness to implement it.

Pls team matchmaker

[Sheeo]

My question is, if it is even a priority to bring a proper ranking system to FAF, or if the community thinks other things are more important in order to attract new/old players?

I can't speak for the full community, but I personally think it's important to get a new ladder ranking system up and running. I don't think the one that was in place 4 years ago was worthwhile or helpful in attracting new players, though.

We're having a dev conference call soon, where I'm sure this will be brought up -- we discussed it in passing during the most recent calls, but I'd like to try and push some progress on it.

My point in the first reply was mostly that it's orthogonal to the choice of server technology. What we're missing is a design for a proper ladder ranking system that's fun and rewarding to participate in. Once the design is in place, we can talk about lack of willingness to implement it.

Pls team matchmaker

That would be a natural extension of expanding the ladder as a whole, yep.