Player Councillor pledges

[JJ173]

Hello all,

Due to recent events, this position has reopened. I'm sure most of you have read the announcement about this. We are now looking for a new member of the FAF community to fill this role. If you wish to apply, please leave an application below. We will discuss this position in our next council meeting next weeks.

In the mean time, those of you who wish to apply, I have a few recommendations for your application that may help. These are purely recommendations and do not have to be used. However, these will help. I recommend providing information such as:
- Your FAF Username
- Your interest in the role
- How you will maintain your duties as Player Councillor
- What you will change as the Player Councillor
- Some pledges (You can view ours here: https://wiki.faforever.com/index.php?ti ... _of_Setons).

Please be patient, we will get back to all applicants soon. Thank you for taking the time to read this post, and good luck to all of you that apply.

Kind Regards,
JJ - FAF Promotion Councillor.

[Rowey]

Hi My FAF name is Rowey you may know me from Brnk’s streams or For the amount of tournament I’ve hosted in the past 6 months in my free time. I will be open to all Player suggestions and I would deal with them properly and past them on to the relevant people if I’m not able to assist.

I’m interested in this role as I am active in the community and willing to try something new. I will be able to dedicate time to this position I’m online everyday (Weekday will be after 4pm UK time ). I already put time in to hosing tournaments so this would just merge with me doing that already for the community.

Some of the things I would like to change/ add to the community is to have some more tournaments/competition for new player/average players to have a chance of playing in competitive games, and to try and get higher-toned players to help the new players or average players in some way. I will take feedback on how the ladder pool should be formatted and anything else in FAF.

I'm also willing to take on consideration on how we can make the ladder pool fun and enjoyable for new players while making it a challenge for the more seasonal skilled players to give it ago and for it to not be such a looked past thing.


For me Applying for this post I pledge the following
• I will spend at least 4 hours per week working on These Responsibilities.
• I will be available at least 2 hours every other week for a voice call to discuss these Responsibilities and the responsibilities of other FAF Councilors.
• I will use and be available on the FAF Slack (chat) as much as possible.
• I will do my best to help the other Councilors perform their responsibilities.
• I understand that if I am unable to perform these duties, I will resign or be replaced.

[Picoo]

Helloo, my name is Picoo, I come from germany and I am 15 y/o.

I am interesting in the role of the Players Councillor because I want to do something that helps the players and the game/client improve, because I really love this community and game. Since I am basically online everyday of the week,with some exeptions sometime of course, it would be no problem for me to dedicate time to this "job".

I often see new players complaining about things like the ladder pool,etc. so I want to give them an opportunity to get better and have fun in this game and not quit this awesome community forever. I am open for improvements and feedback on the the ladder pool and the general way that I handle things, but I also expect people that complain about f.e. the ladder pool to come talk to the Player Councillor or other mods and not keep quiet.

I want to change the ladder pool according to feedback I get and like stated above,the way we can get new players to stay in the game.

I pledge the following things for me apllying to this postition:
- I will spend the time that has to be spent to work on the responsibilities that a Player Councillor has
- I understand that if I cant handle those responsibilites I will resign or be replaced
- I will be availabe on the discord for voice calls and available on the FAF chat for questions/meetings, etc.
- I will be open for feedback from both other mods and players

If I have your interest but didnt write everything you wanted me to write here then feel free to just pm me on the FAF Client.

If I am not the type of person you look for then I recommend Rowey for the postition of the Players councillor.

Have a nice day and remember to always farm questions on aelous! ( !question )

[FtXCommando]

Okay boys it's time for the memelord side of FAF to submit a pawn for the role so that we can complain when the application gets denied. But seriously, I'm going to be putting a lot of work into this post as well as potentially the position so I would appreciate at least a cursory glance through my application.

I've gone by many names but most people know me as FtXCommando. At this point I think most people have one view of me or another so I don't really expect there's any point in me explaining myself.

The position of Player Councillor is divided into 3 separate but connected categories in my eyes: Tournaments, Player Communication, and Ladder.

Even though I don't have a Tournament Director avatar, it's mainly due to the fact that I enjoy tournaments for the impossible puzzle that they present you as well as the aspect of thinking of out-of-the-box tournament ideas. I love long-term tournaments such as clan wars and WWPC because I'm a masochist that tries to deal with the inevitable timing issues in as optimal of a way as possible. While there are always problems, being able to craft a set of rules that deal with as many issues as possible beforehand and stopping any sort of problem before it becomes a serious issue is what I pride myself on. I don't really get the same sense of satisfaction from 1-day tournaments. I'm not making the argument that long-term tournaments are superior or anything, in fact I'd argue that it's the short tournaments were FAF really shines because the long-term ones very rarely actually end successfully. However, that's the reason I've always gravitated towards those and why I'm not seen hosting tournaments very often.

When it comes to organizing tournaments, I would first need to take a more in depth look at how Tokyto was operating the current operation. I understand that he has made a document to organize tournaments so that they do not end up being set up on similar dates, but I'm not sure if the guidelines are too clear about the document as it seems the document is more of a suggestion rather than a rulebook. I'd rather have a tournament schedule that operates on a solid set of guidelines so that the schedule can be taken as a definite piece of information for people. It would also make lives easier for casters and organizing information in the community. If someone wished to become a TD and gain access to the document, I would always be available for PM and be able to respond in a day or so to the request.

In addition, I am very interested in the current status of prize money when it comes to tournaments and how much money is available to the community. Before making any long-term promises, I would need access to information about the quantity of money that is available for tournaments. However, I feel like the lack of clarity about the level of funds available to the community is somewhat of a problem and I would like to be as transparent about funding as possible when it comes to what is available for tournaments. I obviously hope to increase the level of competition in FAF both on a higher level as well as a lower level by introducing more regular tournaments with cash prizes to entice putting effort into games.

I also appreciate a lot of the work Yuri has done with bringing back the blitz tournament concept and I would like to work with either him or other community members in opening up blitz tournaments for experimental tournament concepts. This includes ideas like playing with double resources, the mod that allows you to share unit control with another player, as well as other unique ideas that could get people interested in other parts of the community such as modding. It seems like an excellent way to introduce a "mod spotlight" without just creating another What's new page for people to read.

Now when it comes to Player Communication, I don't really think it's possible for anyone in the community barring possibly Blackheart to be more available to talk to. I feel my presence both on the forums, #aeolus, and discord speaks for itself on that part. What I want to do is create another global FAF survey to see what kind of issues people feel are more important. I would condense the results of this survey and present it in a way that is relevant to the needs of the Council so that they can have some solid understanding of what people that are playing FAF are concerned with. In addition, I would always be available for communication in #aeolus and I don't think anyone on FAF is able to doubt whether I can be trusted to relay complaints about the Council in a coherent manner.

While some might not view it as a major point, or they may view it as a detracting factor, I am connected with the part of FAF that is often called out for doing nothing but complaining. In a role based on relaying complaining while also condensing the hot gas complaints into actual reasons, I feel this is not something to look down at me for but rather something to see as a large strength. I'm someone that has seen every reason to not like something in FAF for the last 2 years, and I feel that there is no one that knows how to address the complaints of others better than someone that made just about every possible argument one could make.

People might have a problem with my attitude when it comes to addressing people. While I agree that my way of dealing with people is not something that one would want in a position of power, I also hope that people can understand that I'm mature and reflective enough to separate who I am from who I represent. The way I deal with people outside of a position of power is completely separate from how I deal with people when I have responsibilities. I hope people can see that in the way I operate tournaments where I try to make things as fair as possible and take my responsibilities as seriously as I possibly can. I do not offer people any additional benefit of the doubt just because I know them. I do, believe it or not, try my best to do what is best for the community and while I do not have the coding capability to help out behind the scenes, writing is one of my strengths.

That strength takes me to the last issue, ladder pool decisions. Over the entire period of FAF since I came back from my 2 year break, the ladder pool has been an issue that never could be solved. It's obvious enough that I'm not the sort of individual that has the ladder experience to make proper decisions alone on the matter and I'm also not arrogant enough to believe I know what is best for ladder. When it comes to the creation of a ladder pool, I would utilize two major groups of individuals. I would like to create a group of players that are both capable at higher levels of ladder while also including map authors in order to create ladder pools that are at least satisfactory to several people.

It would be impossible to get a group of 4 or 6 people to meet up on FAF to discuss a new map pool every week, so instead what I hope to do is create 3 different categories of maps that would go into the pool. The first would be "classic" maps that are seen as relatively standard ladder maps that people can agree are either good or generic enough to not be met with broad disapproval. The second would be "experimental" maps that are seen as far more controversial but represent the side of old FAF maps where they have a minority supporting them. An example of an experimental map, in my current opinion, would be Forgotten Facilities. The third would be "new" maps and this would be maps that have been created in a period of around 6 months and they would be selected to both creative a desire for people to make new maps that are up to a proper gameplay standard.

I believe the way I would structure a 30 map pool would be:
22 classic maps
4-8 experimental maps
0-4 new maps

The three pools would be a large google doc list of maps that have been deemed acceptable by the group I have established. I don't think people need to be worried about the standard of debate that I'm looking for when deciding these maps as I'm not the sort of individual to try and ignore a proper (or improper) argument. I would also allow anyone that wished to look at the document to take a look at it while also providing their own input. I would have an autojoin channel established for people to provide their suggestions as well as any reasoning for a map. It would then be looked at by the team I establish as well as myself.

There would be more organization that goes into the document, for example, the quantity of reclaim as well as the size of the map. I would try to make pools as balanced as possible without overloading reclaim intensive maps, spam maps, turtle maps, etc to a degree that they end up dominating the ladder meta. Obviously mistakes will be made and people will always complain but my only wish is to minimize the quantity of issues that people end up having with the ladder pool.

By the way, I understand the ladder pool implementation is possibly the most controversial thing here and while this is my initial thought I in no way am deadset on organizing it in this way. I would maintain the current system and the imperfections with it until I can have a proper conversation and iron out any sort of issues with the team I mentioned above before changing anything with a knee-jerk reaction.

I would also take special care of my personal baby, team match-maker. I understand that the Council is currently holding back on the idea until ICE is implemented, but it is an idea that is very important to me as well as a large part of the community and so you can be sure it is something that would certainly never be forgotten about.

As a nominee for The Players Councillor, I pledge that:
- I will spend at least 4 hours per week working on These Responsibilities.
- I will be available at least 2 hours every other week for a voice call to discuss these Responsibilities and the responsibilities of other FAF Councilors.
- I will use and be available on the FAF Slack (chat) as much as possible.
- I will do my best to help the other Councilors perform their responsibilities.
- I understand that if I am unable to perform these duties, I will resign or be replaced.

I in particular hold an extreme responsibility towards the last bullet point. I plan on creating a system where any general inactivity will not halt any process. However, I have no qualms with removing myself for inadequacies. The only person that can truly hold you responsible for your own actions is yourself and I do not want to be seen as a hypocrite for staying in power when calling out others for their inactivity.

[biass]

I'm putting my name forward once again.
The formatted draft document for my application is here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YKK ... sp=sharing

First: PLEDGES:
I interpreted the application guidelines as to making your own pledges, rather than copying them. Because they’re fundamentally different, I put them first for you to view.

Seeing as my timezone of the shift-work nature of my employment may affect my ability to abide with the copied pledges, mine are different and are expanded upon.

- I will dedicate as much time as possible to see my areas under my responsibility develop.
- I will keep open and monitor communication channels with both user and contributor at all times.
- I will handle the role and it’s official communications with impeccable professionalism.
- I will assist other councilors in their duties to the benefit of FAF undivided.
- I will pass on my position if I am no longer able or willing to continue.

Keep these in mind as you view the other parts of the document.


Second: QUALIFICATIONS:
Most of these are not relevant in a sense that they are not in areas a player councilor would oversee. However, these show a history of active contribution and the quality speaks for themselves.

I’m keeping this very brief compared to past applications, I trust you can find my work regardless.

- Created a large range of mapping content, and supported major mod content in maintenance and release as well.
- Trained a number of players and created guides to support them.
- Hosted a number of tournaments and enabled others to do the same.

I would like to in the future offer web development as a contribution, however that is still something I am actively studying.
While i’m here, many thanks to both JJ and Rackover in the FAF discord, who have taken my knowledge of JS past a useless fundamental and helped me apply it to something of use.

I also bring a thick skin and an open mind to the position, and a deep understanding of FAF’s inner workings. A competent writer and unafraid to challenge that which is seen as unjust or inept. And a strong conviction to see the numerous players which I have established a lasting relationship happy with the environment they choose to spend their free time in, even at times to my own detriment. Since past applications, I have learned a great deal about being a working professional and I hope to also bring that with me to the role. Which I strongly believe is needed for any council slot.


Third: DUTY:
I would like to extend the player councilor role past that of a glorified ladder pool operator, into a few extra points of interest I believe the role should oversee.

Here is what I would oversee as the said councilor. And why.
First, the items the PC already has custody over.

- Continued rotation of maps in the Ladder Map pool, and auditing potential additions to said pool.
I would like to involve the community more into this role, and it would benefit said community more to have people test new maps for issues before they’re included. If the need arises, I would like to tap into the potential use of mapping contests to fill holes in the pool. When the Map and Mod team have their guidelines and structure properly in place, I would be happy to work with them.

- The scheduling of tournaments and tournament directors.
My major point for this area is to improve the information for people looking to host tournaments, in an attempt to gain more directors.

- Gathering of feedback
I understand that this goes beyond a survey once a half-year. I would also like to help transmit information back to the player, rather than from player to dev. Moon already handles this well, props to him.

Now, the additional areas.
- Personal trainer coordination and the training of players.
I feel that this area is neglected, and would like to bring it up to standard. This includes overseeing trainer applications and the auditing of their effectiveness (as well as rewarding who performs in the role) And also improving the access of training information. Last time the idea of reworking the Tutorials tab was brought up, it was mocked. Now that the unit database has proven that it’s possible, I would like to reattempt this, even if it just includes the wiki now, and a more long term solution like it’s own site, later.

- The handling of access to contribution related resources.
A lot of these exist, and are mostly in scattered pockets around FAF, a lot of these are not kept up to date either. I would like to centralize them and help show them off to players, clearly showing off their returns in order to draw more users and also rewarding those users who display exemplary effort. This is very possible with the help of the promotional councilor.


I hope to expand upon these areas in the future, and I hope you enjoyed your read. Feel free to discuss said read below. Even if it’s just straight abuse, I’ll read it. And I expect any PC regardless of election to be able to do the same.

[GFY_DEPONNY]

Hello all,

Its me GFY_Deponny. I am a colorful character that the best of times but i feel i can bring a lot to the player council position and am very much interested in the position. I have plenty of experience in player interaction and have always been friendly and helpful to new players and taken time to show them the ropes as they say.

i am strong willed, divisive, hard working and always willing to listen to others and attempt mistakes. I have many ideas that i feel could help faf grow as a community and am willing to put in the work to do so. I love this community and even if i have ever had a disagreement with anyone on it i never did anything that would damage publicly them or me. I feel gentle approach is always a good option and discord pervales sadly that does not always work out.

i have always been active in clans and given my opinion to people fairly on changes and offered input and suggested anything i say as helpful.

For me Applying for this post I pledge the following
• I will spend well over 4 hours per week working on These Responsibilities.
• I will be available at more than 8 hours every other week for a voice call to discuss these Responsibilities and the responsibilities of other FAF Councilors.
• I will use and be available on the FAF as much as possible.
• I will do my best to help the other Councilors perform their responsibilities.
• I understand that if I am unable to perform these duties, I will resign or be replaced.

I am free here and on Aeolus to answer any questions most of the time, Looking forward to any follow up questions
Kind regards GFY DEPONNY

[FtXCommando]

Should the PC address tutorials, player retention, rating system and overall making the game more suitable for newcomers ? I didn't see lots of you talk about that.

In regards to tutorials, I would spend most of my time updating Sheppy's old tutorial forum posts here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3058
I feel FAF has a significant amount of tutorials already present but I would like to gather all of them into one area with coordination of the people in the community that have made guidelines. I really don't feel like there is any extreme lack of information for people, especially with the introduction of Heaven's tutorials and for the most part people just need to get into lobbies to play games. I might need people to assist me in translating to other languages, however.

Player retention is related to the rating system in many ways and it's difficult to get a plan going without getting a discussion going with people about which solutions are best. The central ones from what I can gather are: allowing people to gain some global rating through playing games against the AI so they do not get kicked from lobbies for being a 0/0, do not let people fall below 0 rating, and possibly allow ladder games to influence your global rating up to a certain point (say 1000 rating). The last one is because the information you utilize to get to that level in ladder will be the same knowledge you will need to utilize in teamgames.

With other regards to the rating system being generally broken, I feel that there should be additional rules to games being unranked with a certain degree of rating variance to prevent the common abuse seen at higher rating levels. This could be that games with over 1000 rating variance will lead to a game being unranked but it would of course require coding so that people can see whether a game is at risk of being unranked in the lobby. Ultimately, any solutions I consider based on the rating system are simply meant to plug the holes in the current system as the only real solution in my eyes is the creation of a team matchmaker.

I would like to gather information on what exactly is ruining the experience of new player's before moving on that issue. This would mainly be done through a survey in the #newbie channel where I will try to get as many players as possible to take a survey on the issue.

[GFY_DEPONNY]

1stly sorry for poor grammar as this was written in a hurry

What will you do with the ladder pool?

The ladder pool has always been a huge issue, and the voices for change for it have always come form the active players in it.
And they are the best voices to head for change however i would fall on the side of caution to any large changes at once as this could isolate, anger and push new and hardcore players form the ladder scene. i would encourage small changes implemented on a time cycle schedule.
also i believe the rating system and map choices are the major issue. looking to the active e sports scene in which i have much experience in i believe an extra classification for players, perhaps based on ranks in the milarty to easier mark experienced players IE ensign to commander as a monthly or tri monthly basis. This i believe would encourage activity as it would be renewed every few months and allowing only people to play with in a range of above or below this classification would encourage competition and a goal to fight for. and after the cycle players who achieved the highest in each classification would receive avatar etc as a reward. now i know implementing something like this requires a lot of work its merely one idea of many that i could see bringing great change

How will you encourage New players to play more and not leave the community?

this is by far the most difficult challenge faf faces its and aging game with a high learning curve. my approach would be trying to give some sense of achievement or showing how epic the game really is scale wise. Many new players come at behest of friends or form watching a video on the game and go hmm that looks great.

There are many approaches to growing the community
We need data on where they heard of faf, how and why they liked the game or why they where interested in it and pushing the core reasons in some type of campaign is the a way to grow our community.

Holding on to them on the other hand. We need to understand what new players look for and feed into that for them. Look at the most played maps for new people and encourage active change here in slight improvements to there overall experience.
Provide them the tools to improve thru a tutorial series tailored to doing and achieving things in these games that a well round payer wouldn't need.
For example showing early game build queues is great for players who want an edge early game and want to enter a competitive scene, showing them how to nuke rush in a thermo or a gap game or something a little more tailored to madness on the entry level is probably better for new players as not all want to be pros they just wanna see stuff go boom.

These are only ideas off top of my head.

How will you deal with tournaments ?

Well i have plenty of experience in this field as i helped host some very large tourneys for e sports games such as dota and cs:go.
To grow and develop a tournament scene you need personality faces. legendary players , great active teams and competitive game play but u also need a pinch of absurdity and madness.

You need an active campaign to get people into the tournament ,a proper reward scheme to justify the effort put in. A means to pull a cowrd to show it off. if players are not talking about a tourney the activity in it will be low. Public awareness in the community is a big thing that faf as a community needs to tackle head on. Casters and players are your only true way to make a tournament scene grow and achieve any success.

[GFY_DEPONNY]

Some questions,

why do you think being divisive is a good trait or was that a typo?

yes was a typo i meant to be decisive. Thank you for the catch

If you had to choose a 5 map pool for ladder what would it be?

firstly i would hate a small pool size for ladder i would much prefer a 20 to 25 map pool with 5 to 6 changing every 2 maybe 3 months.
but if forced to twin rivers, Dark heart fafs version, TAG_Craftious Maximus , fields of isis and owly cliffs. twin rivers is actually a toss up between itself and Forgotten Facilities. i feel they give a rounded maybe 30 mins to 40 mins max game and provide good com combat and unit fighting.

Would you be lenient to people that ignore td decisions or dq them? Players will often whine to sway your decisions for bonus rounds and whatnot for their own personal gain.(i would love an example here to clarify)

i assume this is to do with tournament director decisions. i believe in firm but fair rulings on nearly any happens. if they ignore the directors rulings how is there any fairness to a tournament. how can there be. it would depend on what the decision was ofc and if it just favors a warning or DQ. But if u brake the rules your out. And whining people do not ever sway my judgement.

Do you recognize the problems with rating system for new players and smurfs, or do you think it is fine as is?

I think there is huge room for improvement and there is abuse happening but a full re-haul isn't the way to go implementing some to go with the rating system as i stated in a previous post could root out this problem. I suggested a ranking system to go with rating that sees people but in class dependent on performance in ladder.

for example a class system where people who start off are privates at first and have to win 5 games in there favor to go to private second class and then private 3rd class etc

and each class can only play the class above or below to earn wins, the win ratio in that class has to be in there favor however IE 5 wins and 6 losses u are not going up but your not getting demoted . and every 3 months wipe it clean and give people an avatar of the rank they achieved. i also believe the 4 lowest classes should be able to play each other and it should be split 4 classes 3 classes 2 classes and 1 class so 10 classes in total. i believe this system will help flush the smurfs out to the topper classes and keep them there.

there is holes in this system but its an idea while open to improvement and tinkering.