Author: Wise Old Dog

Contents:

• Restriction Affliction 1v1 Tournament
• Mapping Tournament #4 (20×20)
• Third Season of FAF Ladder League (RESULTS)

Restriction Affliction 1v1 Tournament

Bothered by 1v1 games with tons of spam, or you feel like being hard on yourself? Sign up for this unique 1v1 tournament, where all is a standard affair, except you have a 125 max unit cap in total. There will be separate brackets for above and below 1700 (this may change in the future.) If you feel up to the task, take part of a much tighter, and challenging competition!

Tournament Date: February 15th at 16:00 UTC.

To Sign Up: https://forums.faforever.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=18741

Mapping Tournament #4 (20×20)

The next mapping tournament arrives with FtXCommando taking charge, but following biass’ structure and rules from his previous series of mapping tournies. This one will feature maps created on 20x20km sizes, and there will be a panel to provide judgement on the quality of the submissions.

It is advised you carefully read through the forum OP to understand the rules, to know when the deadline arrives, and to heed the advice provided on what kind of map you should be making.

Submission Deadline: April 1st at 12:00 UTC.

You must submit with the name of the map, and are welcome to include any other information that you find critical for its admission.

Forum OP: https://forums.faforever.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=18762

Third Season of FAF Ladder League (RESULTS)

Season 3 of the ladder league has finally concluded, leaving us with our ladder champions as well as our faction kings and princes! Congratulations to our winners:

The Champions of Each League:

• 1800+: ThomasHiatt with a total score of 43!
• 1300-1800: Shade- with a total score of 101!
• 800-1300: dickdawkins with a total score of 196!
• 300-800: coca with a total score of 124!
• <300: CrazyChaos with a total score of 50!

The Kings of Each Faction:

• Aeon: ThomasHiatt with a 97% Aeon pick rate and a score of 43.
• Cybran: concuniorNoob with a 77% Cybran pick rate and a score of 20.
• UEF: silentNoob with a 53% UEF pick rate and a score of 35.
• Seraphim: No one lol.

The Princes of Each Faction:

• Aeon: Achiraaz with a 100% Aeon pick rate and a score of 41.
• Cybran: JeanLu with a 100% Cybran pick rate and a score of 92.
• UEF: Swkoll with a 100% UEF pick rate and a score of 48.
• Seraphim: CRISPYISARETARD with a 76% Seraphim pick rate and a score of 72.

We look forward to seeing you for next season! Next Season will begin in March

Forum OP: https://forums.faforever.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=18042&start=20#p181598

Welcome to the first of the official newsletter for FAF in 2020! We intend to have this article cover multiple topics relevant to the date posted: future, present, and/or past. We will post the newsletter biweekly, though this may change to be weekly if there are a lot of events going on.

If you have skimmed through the forums, you may have come across TMM, or Team Matchmaker, a major planned feature in the making that will add a whole new game mode on the client. TMM is a 2v2 matchmaking system, ideally setting either a single person or two people in a party, to play against another team, functioning as an automated custom matchmaker with its own map pools incorporated.

As for the reason for implementing this new feature, there has been two major points raised for the importance of TMM. The current custom game environment has created a sub-par experience for both the new and the old players in our community. The new player experience on FAF is defined by one word in this system: restriction. FAF has had an immense issue with player retention for years due to the reality of new players both finding team games preferable yet having no simple matchmaking tool. This has forced the new player experience on FAF to be at the mercy of the custom game system in which they are often kicked as they joined a lobby with a rating restriction, kicked because they joined a private game, and even kicked from all welcome games because of their lack of rating. On the other hand, experienced players suffer from global rating both encouraging the exploitation of maps and alienating the community into subsections that rarely engage one another. 

A Team Matchmaker will enable entry-level players to access novice team games easily and reliably, minimizing all current barriers from the start. Alongside this, introducing a new rating category tied to matchmaking will allow players to branch out from being rooted on single maps or positions and experience other aspects of FAF.

Regarding its current status, TMM is nearly complete on the server front; there is work to do on finding out ways to party with uneven teams, as well as figuring out how to set game spawns and conditions through the matchmaker. The larger issues remain with debugging, and more importantly applying a user-friendly interface. Once TMM reaches a state of maintaining a highly functional system, we intend to expand matchmaking up to 4v4, and make the experience as comfortable as possible with right adjustments to the UI.

When it becomes releasable, we will have a lot of work spent on fixing bugs. If you would like to help test for these, sign up for the discord tester role (“!subscribe Tester” in #faf-testing channel) on the official server. If you have experience utilizing java/python, you can contact Askaholic (server-side handling) and Geosearchef (UI Implementation). Otherwise, feel free to contact a moderator if you would like to get in touch with our Zulip development chat.

Happy belated New Years to everyone! This edition was delayed some, but we do have a few maps here to show for this package! If you have a map that would be great to show off, contact Ze Dogfather to have added to the next bundle.

ADAPTIVE SKADI 20x20km by svenni_badbwoi

Zordam Xolix 5x5km by MikZZ

Highway To Hell 5x5km by Couchwolf

You can find all of these maps in the vault; if you encounter any potential issues with the product, in terms of performance or bugs, contact the creator.

Another packet of maps has just entered the fray! Returning from a long departure away from FAF, biass has returned to show off three new maps for us all to play with.

WILDPATH 10x10km

HYMN AND BONE 10x10km

CHOIR AND FLAGELLANT 15x20km

Creator(s): biass

If you want your maps advertised, contact the Promotions Councilor (Ze Dogfather) and we can arrange another bundle.

You can find all of these maps in the vault; if you encounter any potential issues with the product, in terms of performance or bugs, contact the creator.

Forum threads for these maps: https://forums.faforever.com/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=18520

Everyone’s favorite infinite tournament is coming back to life! Hosted by yours truly, with a few extra twists to make things a little more interesting.

There are 4 potential titles to win, in 4 different rating brackets, so everyone from all levels of FAF gets a chance to win a fancy schmancy avatar! Check the thread below for all the details.

Hosted by: Gently

Sign up Requirements: Ladder rating is counted for your bracket (will be adjusted depending on discrepancy of global and ladder.)

Tournament Date: Mondays, starting and ending every week.

For further details about this tournament, contact the TDs and check out the Forum OP: https://forums.faforever.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=18418