FFA Masters League

Map will be Fountain of Manip
Go this Thursday April 15 at 15 EST | 21 CET?

Map will be Dragon Island.

Go Tuesday April 20th at 14 EST | 20 CET?

Go play on April 18 at 14 EST | 20 CET?

I'll check later if anyone else has posted their map vote and select the map

I flipped a coin and map will be Market Square

So go this Wednesday April 14 at 13 EST | 19 CET?

Dear community,

It's time for FML Season 32. You can sign up from now on, until April 10 in this thread. The first of four rounds is going to take place from April 12 to May 2. The season will have an oldschool structure without fancy gimmicks.

While I will assist mostly in setting up the season, our new admin NoMercy is going to play a key role in managing the event. We will be looking into implementing the zoom trigger into further map files, but no promises.

We hope for numerous sign ups. As usual, admins reserve the right to reject players that lack FFA experience, reliability or manners.

Cheers,
HighTac


Signed up (27)

Voxius
qwest
Leluaami
Punpun
Aarnikratti

5te1n
Tukimkim
SeeKer
Enjoi
D2sTRUCT8

Gradient
Nightwing
MoonAndino
Fetta_ook
Trunkz

Neytpoh
M00se
rulaZ
supremo
ostone

Junkerzam
iOwnedU
Shave
Sheik
SyDe

Peanut
Airenikus

I wanted to take some time to take a look back at this turbulent year 2020 from an FFA perspective.

Reforged and W3Champions

Many of us saw the disaster coming well before the actual release, when Blizzard dropped their Reforged beta around October 2019. Still, there was some hope that what we played on the PTR would not resemble the release version. As we know now, it did. In retrospect, I’m still quite certain that Warcraft 3 wouldn’t be more alive today without Reforged. Sure, we would have preferred a better game and positive buzz, but it is what it is. The FML community was always able to adapt and survive in their niche.

Maybe it was naive of me to think that this niche could blend flawlessly into the broader Warcraft 3 environment. When Pad first created W3Champions I realized that this would be our only chance to ever implement a maintained FFA ladder again. While mostly before my time, so many players embraced FFArena as the gold standard of FFA ladder history. On one hand, the hype around a custom W3Champions ladder was great for Warcraft 3 as a whole, but on the other, FFA not really a priority for the development team at the time.

Around the mid of May, Pad decided to ask by poll again what W3Champions features people would be most interested in. And while FFA sneakily found its way into the poll, I was doubtful if it could make it to the top of the rankings. The following days were proof of the dedication of the FML community and I was very proud that we pulled this through and raised 800 €. And not even a month later, we had what we wanted. After 1vs1 and 2vs2, FFA became the third available mode on W3champions and much more players than I anticipated were willing to give it a try.

Sure, FFA is not for everyone and probably never has been. I was pleased to see the attention for our beloved game mode, but also disappointed how quickly some people made their judgement. What wouldn’t have been an issue a decade ago, was now amplified significantly via Twitch, Reddit and Twitter. Of course, it is much more difficult to take wins on the highest solo level than winning an FFA match with whatever players. But that doesn’t mean every skillful Warcraft 3 player grasps FFA at first glance. Ironically, ToD was referencing the Dunning-Kruger effect on his stream back then, in the context of backseat gaming. I guess we can conclude that FFA does not work for people without a certain level of frustration tolerance to cope with teaming and manip. Also, if you stream for many viewers without a delay, you summon sad stream-sniping creatures that show up and try to ruin your game.

On the flipside, I was disappointed how short-sighted many FML community members behaved in ladder games and on the W3Champions Discord server. Sure, it’s very annoying if new players pretend to know it all and spread bullshit about FFA, but we all started at some point. Who should serve as an ambassador for FFA if not us? To this very day, community members try to get each other banned on a ladder that is already dead. I’m sure that it could have survived longer without being sabotaged from our very own people. I guess we just can’t have nice things.

Events and Outlook    

In some ways, the FML year 2020 was a full success. Unlike with some of the seasons before, I had a lot of fun with FML Season 31. Interesting players, exciting games and a much greater reach. In total, our semi-finals and the final got more than 50k views on the Back2warcraft YouTube channel. For a brief moment in time, it felt as if FFA had arrived in the Warcraft 3 mainstream. Not sure if that was ever someone’s goal, but it felt good to see that many more people could appreciate FFA as we do.

While we only had one FML season, there was a smooth Team Battle Royale 5 this summer, the Quarantine Cup, Ugri’s FFA Challenge, a map contest and we are ending the year with the Team Battle Deluxe.

As I learned early in my three years of admining FML, there is no perfect way to run this league. Sometimes there are unsolvable dilemmas, but even if the decision is obvious, endless discussions are always mandatory. I guess that’s predictable of a bunch of players that is willing to play 3- or 4- or even 5-hour matches. It might be annoying, but I never expected to be appreciated or liked for what I do, as long as I felt the necessary respect to run this thing. I still do from most people, but my joy of FFA games has declined. Maybe it’s just a phase, maybe it’s not.

In my eyes, the quality of games always depended on three player-dependent factors. The skill, the level of “tryhardness” and the willingness to invest gold and play aggressively. No one wants to watch or participate in games were all players are only sitting and chatting for two hours. Sure, it’s an easy way to win games, even for good players, if they pretend to be broke with a 20k gold bank. Maybe it’s just a general lack of skill that prevents it from being punished more often. Either way, I wish there were fewer useless chat battles in games, especially from players that are capable to win without them. When I started to play FFA, manip was my best bet to take a win here and there. But I was fortunate to play and watch FFA with enough skilled players to realize that less chat means more fun for everyone. And in a small scene like this, everyone can influence the way FFA is played and perceived.

The same applies to the community in general. There has always been some sort of toxicity and trolling in FFA, but it is almost all there is in our Discord chat nowadays. Not sure if that is a welcoming or interesting environment for anyone but the handful of active chatters. As long as it is no hate speech or racist stuff, I won’t spend my spare time any longer to moderate it.

What will 2021 bring? I don’t know. While I still love FFA, there are private reasons that may prevent me from being overly active, at least in the first half of the year. Time will show who steps up or how active the inhouse scene is going to be during that period of time. I want to thank all of you that participated and supported FML in 2020. Have a good transition to 2021 and good luck, have fun!

While the number of players is a bit lower than expected, this shouldn't prevent us from having a fun TBD throughout December. Four teams, 28 FFAs and 10 points per victory. From Dec 3, 20 CET is FFA time.

The general structure is similar to TBR, but without designated captains and special modes (except random hero). So it's up to each player to be on time and to stick to the rules.

GL HF!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1M9x7f5y-BF9G4huc3z1FBi7x33ksERaCatOH4IIi9Sk/edit?usp=sharing

Update (Dec 31, 2020): Congratulations to team HS Squad for winning Team Battle Deluxe 1. Thanks to all participants for making this event happen.

Dear FFAnthusiasts,
 
Winter is coming, pandemic still pandemicing and the community chat still annoying as fuck. But I don’t want to let this year come to an end, without a third FML event. Let’s try something new!

Team Battle Deluxe #1

• Dec 1 - Dec 30 (starting times vary from 19 to 22 CET)
• Fixed schedule with 20-30 matches (up to one per day)
• Mostly normal FFAs, potentially some random hero and other stuff
• All matches will be played with up to 8 players and anonymous accounts
• We need up to eight teams with up to four players each
• Players can sign up in teams or individually (and I assign them to teams)
• Matches will start no later than five minutes after the scheduled time
• We try to fill up with subs to an even player number, but may also consider to start as 7- or 5-way

I want to keep FFA alive, but don’t want to spend my entire December dealing with drama, scheduling or chasing players. If there is something you don’t like about it, don’t sign up for it! The details above may get adjusted before Dec 1, depending on the number of players and teams that signed up.

If you are open for something new and want to spend some fun hours throughout December with FFA, post your name into this thread by Nov 29. Due to the shared accounts, registration is only open to known members of the community.

Regards,
HighTac

GL HF

Update (Nov 25): I guess it makes sense to decrease the number of teams to four if we don't see much more sign ups. In that case, we may use subs to get some 6-way going.