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On March 16 2011 04:34 Ncinerate wrote:
Hearing your average game length is 20 minutes is pretty surprising though. MMM with tanks/vikings if bio doesn't cut it is a fine strategy, but I usually find going for this sort of straight aggression usually lets one person get to a wreck-face unit composition that beats it.
I didn't say I did it because it was the best strat :p Games where I camped to carriers I had pretty much 99% winratio, but that takes too long. On avg I get the most wins by averaging 20min games, and as said bio is fun to play - big air isn't. 90% 20min wins is better than 99% 30min games 
Eh, I still say diplomacy is worth utilizing. I'm not saying you need to team up every game, but I've had plenty of games where a few words at the right moment changed the whole course of events  .
Yeah that's bshit. FFA shouldn't have chat enabled even, it can't add anything to fairness, just make it even more imbalanced (and lame).
Anyhow, FFA to be ranked, without games showing players' names would've been nice. There's no sense to have names attached, everyone just team the active good players (if there are any) who any of the players in game know beforehand. Of course people can still abuse the system even if it's WC3-like "Player1, Player2, etc) with voicecoms, friendlists etc. but it helps some.
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To the OP:
Thank you very much for posting this thread. You opened my eyes to the joy of FFA, and I just won my first two FFA games. We FFA fans should work together on posting guides and replays here on TL to encourage more people to play FFA.
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On March 16 2011 03:08 bqzg wrote:
my only problem with ffa is that hordes of low-leaguers play them and not many good players. i've played like 50 ffa's and i'm pretty sure i've won 80-90% of them, just by being way better than the other players.
I remember playing some FFA on LT where I just progressively built a roach army and just attacked everyone while I was doing it and then I just killed one guy at a time. They never engaged anyone but me and I still won...
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On March 16 2011 05:02 Ncinerate wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2011 04:58 KillerPlague wrote:
rushes work well because most players tend to be greedy. best strat as a zerg is actually to 6/8 pool your opponent, hopefully kill him off, and then take as many expos as you can get while the other two hopefully duel.
No no no no no. Well, to a 6 pool at least. A 6 pool puts you massively behind on economy and will get you killed almost every time (even if it does kill your close-opponent). It's nowhere near the ideal strategy for FFA. If you're dead-bent on killing someone super early you'd be better off with a strong early roach rush that leads into a quick expand or two. 6 pool wont give you the cash to expo. An 8 pool would be a bit better, but I'd still say you're better off with a slightly later attack and stronger economy. Even then though, zerg is awful in FFA. The problem isn't their expansions or early strength, it's the fact that when money is no object (late in an FFA with 200/200 armies), zerg can't really compete. As I said, 1.3 might fix this with better fungal growth, hard to say.
i tend to 8 pool, but i notice a lot of people 6 pool. but in my experience the 8 pool works great. you get an early queen, which generates more larva, which generates more cash. the only problem is you're commited to drones more so than tech so you will be behind if an opponent does something cheese like fast dts or banshees :/
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On March 16 2011 14:19 KillerPlague wrote:
i tend to 8 pool, but i notice a lot of people 6 pool. but in my experience the 8 pool works great. you get an early queen, which generates more larva, which generates more cash. the only problem is you're commited to drones more so than tech so you will be behind if an opponent does something cheese like fast dts or banshees :/
Yeah, 8 pool isn't toooooo terrible, if it kills your opponent it's successful, but it's very much a pass/fail in many cases...
That tech rush will get you ever time too . One thing that's really annoying about tech rushes (like a void rush or banshee rush for example) is the enemy almost always hits his close-by-air opponent (who is technically cross-map and -not- his primary enemy). So it makes life a bit more difficult. It's a good reason to try and scout your close-by-air enemy if at all possible.
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Well, I finally hit 700 FFA's played, and I won my last 2, so 350/700 - exactly 50% .
Onward and upward. The slow climb to 800 wins continues. Last game was actually pretty ugly, I was fooling around with mass banshees and -almost- got my rear handed to me by the fourth player who was massing thors. His mistake? He choose to walk through my initial expo/main instead of immediately splitting his forces and wiping out expos etc when he killed my banshee fleet (my ravens had survived, they were at super-low energy because of a battle I had just won to kill the 3rd player). I tossed down a dozen factories and started mass production of tanks at one of my expos, and by the time he finished my main the high ground was littered with siege tanks and better charged ravens in support - game over.
For future knowledge, PDD is very ineffective vs thors (unless you're using it for a quick in-out HSM rush). Not smart to throw 20 banshees into a 15+ thor force even with 15+ PDD's laid out - those thors shoot 4 missiles apiece and will eat through PDD screen almost instantly. Who knew?
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awesome read ! im gonna go play some ffa now
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i personally like protoss over terran in ffa because of the damage carriers do with upgrades
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Yep FFA should be ranked! I would play FFAs much more! An FFA is neither a serious 1v1 or a fun 4v4; you're playing against more than one opponent, but it is serious at the same time.
Thanks for writing this guide xD I guess it's a good thing Blizz doesn't balance regarding FFA (or do they? haha jk).
Also, congratz on 700 FFAs. I'm guessing you've played your 700th by the time I post this.
I wonder about the diplomacy part, however. I like that kind of stuff, diplomacy, where mindgames and social strategy are involved. However there is the downside that it takes away the fun of being completely individual players in a match, and the outcome of the game may be determined too heavily by diplomacy.
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Really cool post; I enjoyed reading it.
I wonder whether you are/would be good at KDice.
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While I agree that FFA is more competitive then 4v4, I do like the fact that it's unranked.
I like to play FFA sometimes for the lulz. And I like that if one person attacks me, I can make him pay for it without caring about my rank.
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I like FFA's to get into the grove before a run of ladder matches, or even to just take a break and have some fun just playing without thinking about stats or numbers. It's excellent build order practice, imo.
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Cool insights. Especially nice to hear from someone who is obviously qualified to speak.
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On March 16 2011 15:54 Widar wrote:
While I agree that FFA is more competitive then 4v4, I do like the fact that it's unranked.
I like to play FFA sometimes for the lulz. And I like that if one person attacks me, I can make him pay for it without caring about my rank.
Kinda this.
I've never played FFA, and I've historically despised the randomness of it in just about every other game, but the OP made me think about playing for the helluvit every now and then.
I probably wouldn't do that if it was ranked; one of the most attractive things about it to me is the freedom. Sure, it's possible that all three bad guys will 4gate me at the same time, but it doesn't count, so who cares?
Feeling like I'm being judged on my performance in 4v4s is the main thing that stops me enjoying such a spastic gametype. Now I well and truly sound like a rank whore, though, and I appreciate that for people who do FFA semi-seriously, a ranking system would be nice.
Genuine question; why does FFA always end up at 200/200?
My instinct always suggested it would be an all-in fest, with people getting smashed left and right by multiple players at once. That's what always seemed to happen in other RTS games I've ventured into ffa for. Is it just because people are scared of the one guy who might get left alone to deathball everything?
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4v4 is mainly ranked so that player which only play 4v4 can fell good for being in diamond/master even if they couldn't get past bronze in 1v1.As for FFA on the other hand, you probably know how to handle yourself in a 1v1 if you win a lot in FFA, so blizzrd didn't felt the need to rank those, even tho i agree thy should be ranked  .
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On March 16 2011 03:08 bqzg wrote:
my only problem with ffa is that hordes of low-leaguers play them and not many good players. i've played like 50 ffa's and i'm pretty sure i've won 80-90% of them, just by being way better than the other players. i agree that some kind of ladder system would make it more fun for everyone involved.
also, i've never had diplomacy work, ever. if you try to make an alliance with someone they assume you're trying to rusht them lol.
When I decided to start playing team games as random, I did a bunch of FFAs just to get used to the hotkeys and whatnot. I had the exact same experience. It's not unusual to enter a FFA and simply roll over 3 other players. I'm not particularly good, but it's pretty unusual to have a single opponent in the game ranked Gold or higher.
On March 16 2011 08:39 Quasimoto3000 wrote:
This was actually a pretty interesting read ^_^
As a terran player, i can see why you would think they are imba in FFA, turtling probably comes in very handy
I think it has more to do with the amount of options Terrans have. You can turtle up, sure, but you can also kill off a couple opponents early with MM and then expand across the whole map.
I think it would be a lot more interesting if there was some sort of ranking system. The number of asymmetric matches in FFA is ridiculous.
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I still don't understand why there are commonly people that leave at the start of the map. (This prompts me to leave also because I am not interested in a 3FFA)
The only reasons I can think of are.. it is a bot chasing some sort of weird achievement, or it is a guy trying to get into a FFA with his buddy so they can be lame and team up. I have seen this happen once in a game before. Either way it can be pretty aggravating.
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On March 16 2011 16:17 Belisarius wrote:
I've never played FFA, and I've historically despised the randomness of it in just about every other game, but the OP made me think about playing for the helluvit every now and then.
Genuine question; why does FFA always end up at 200/200?
My instinct always suggested it would be an all-in fest, with people getting smashed left and right by multiple players at once. That's what always seemed to happen in other RTS games I've ventured into ffa for. Is it just because people are scared of the one guy who might get left alone to deathball everything?
You know, I've found that the "randomness" people perceive is almost always a lack of FFA meta-game ability.
If it was purely random I'd be sitting on a 25% win percentage instead of 50% - and don't even get me started on my win percentages with T or P (hell, look at my recent win/loss history, I think I'm 85-90% over my last 50 games+ just to give you a small sample).
People bring up the idea of 3v1, with everyone attacking you, but in 700 games I could count the amount of times this legitimately happened on two hands (all 3 enemies focusing DIRECTLY on me). All but a couple of those games happened during day9's funday monday week where he told people to kill FFA players alphabetically (as an I, I was often the low man on the totem pole).
Late in a game you might get 3v1, but only if you deserve it (take every expo available, or harass the hell out of all 3 players - you bring it upon yourself). Oh, also, using nukes tends to piss -everyone- off. Don't know why, it's just some fundamental rule that anyone who nukes deserves to be obliterated. Same goes for spreading creep across the map - you're better off as zerg WITHOUT creep spread in an FFA. Don't know why, but there it is.
To answer your second question - FFA almost always ends up at 200/200 death balls. The game is -not- an all-in fest with multiple players attacking you. Because of the map flow and mechanics of FFA, it's more like 2 side-by-side 1v1s, with the wildcard of another extra player or two that you need to keep in mind all the time. This means if you can't crush your gold-sharing opponent early, it's better to hold back and max out/expand - because a drag out knock down battle of attrition with one player will leave you powerless to stop the guy who's built a death ball on the other side of the map. It's something you have to experience I guess. Take a chance, let go of your preconceptions, it's -not- the way you imagine it to be .
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FFA is so garbage anything above 1v1 makes me wanna suck start a shot gun.
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ffa should be ranked. and it is skill. having a background in poker you would understand implicit alliances.
anyways the op is most part right. from the games i've played the 200/200 armies are hard to deal with. infesters should do trick in the new patch.
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EPT
