Regular Season Wrap Up

[Slythe]

Season soon comes to an end and it´s time to look back and sum up a little bit.
One of the longest seasons it´ll be and a unique one for sure.

Season´s System:

The team aspect brought a fresh approach and was a nice hybrid between more classic fml and TBR. It definitely was good to have the 25% share points, since othwerwise there wouldn´t really been a teamfactor, besides fighting for your favourites maps.

This brings me to the next point. The map choices and decisions about who´s playing on which map. At first, with the original format, i´d expected to have much cherry picking and hard discussions about the maps in the teams.
Atleast for my team i can say, that it went really smoothly all along. Partly due Wreck´s more laissez-faire style of captaining, aswell as my rare map-vetoing or favorizing. With Dinamo being basically the only one, that liked to play a certain map almost every round, it was most of the time just a logical development of finding the maps for each player.

Also there were mostly a nice varitey and mix of maps each rounds, with probably just a few bigger maps missing. With the overall opportunity to pick maps, it was a lot more player friendly imo, than just giving maps for each round (of course there were ways of more diplomatic map choices via veto or similar in the past fml season).

Of course the concept of the season helped some players to quailfy for the post season, aswell as it denied some the access to the playoffs. But that´s how it goes. Shoulda thought about it beforehand joining the season and not waiting until the end and then complain  .

Overall i felt there was some drama, but surely not as much as in some previous seasons. No clue how intense it was in some teams internally, but overall there were just the standard bad blood in few matches, plus maybe Trunkz´ complaints, Shave´s trolling and a few unfortunate player exits from the competetion during the season. But all in all, those were the common things, that occur every season.


Besides the little troubles there were a lot of players that surprised with their play and results, both in positive and negative way. Together with those performances, the teams turned out to be kinda balanced, atleast most of them and in certain scales.

Here we have big differences though, how those teams were formed. Some were founded via friendship, symphaty and love ´n´hate like rage quitters. Others were formed by captains due to player´s strengths and past good experiences together like the Zig Zag´s. And few just were created out of nowhere or picked by admins, like the free agent squad.

Apropos Admins. Big thanks especially to the ones who made this season work so smoothly and well. Worpex ofc, Mog, Renaud from the official side and of course the amazing helpers of those like Hightac, Ponty, Aarni,Wreck, Cumulo and many more. Either with hosting, results, replays, sheets, Streams & Casts. Besides the need of willed players  , those who are motivated, qualified and able to help are such an important part of the success and joy of this FFA/FML we got rolling here for quite some time now!


Continuing with a look to player´s performances. Note that i did not watch every game, but maybe  around 75% of them, either via replay, stream or obs.
I´d like to begin with my team,
Bad Manneroths :

Wreck had an truly memorable run this regular season. He won 4 out of 6, with having the chance of winning in the two losses aswell. He played especially well in that deadlock game and also on anarchy castle. Some casts were not that hard and he could use the opportunities that were there really well with nice decisionmaking and strong use of the elfish race.

Peanut had a pretty neat showing the first 3 rounds. R1 i remember him countering alien rly well, but then struggling a bit with making the right calls.
But he made that up with a very strong r2 and r3 performance. Especially that epic silverpine game, where he had to raze the island lame by Shave almost alone and then going into a long 1v1 against Junkerzam were impressive.
Unfortunately he missed the two last games. Also he abandoned the human race for undead, which i can partly understand  .

Dinamo had a terrific R1 game, where he outmaneuvered the other players and made perfect choices to win vs Soso in the and made him leave the court like a broken man.

After that strong start he struggled due to vodka and bad shape. Had good chances in the final round to win, but seemingly lost his cool. But that can happen with fetta and trunkz being in your game.

My own season was resultwise disappointing. Since i calculated with atleast 2 wins.
I put some time into practicing creeproutes and thinking about combos, strats, but it rarely paid off, together with some mistakes, that turned out to be costful.
I still had fun in most of the games, especially 2nd half of the season.
Except R2, where i knowlingly used a strat, that would been very hard to end up winning with (orc ground tc/alch on greenville, but somehow i had the itch making it work ), i played stuff i´d expected to have a higher chance of winning with than using standard cheese, even though they maybe looked pure fun.

Now to the other teams:

Zig Zag: On paper the strongest team with 2 fml champs, and 2 multiple finalists.
They had a strong first half and choked a bit in the 2nd.

Mog: Pretty strong season. Did not expect him to perform so well. Prolly put some time into getting in shape. Used power of elf and his experience nicely. Cannot recall a specific game, except our´s, where he got my heroes in the end thanks to double speed aura, found at creeps  .

Tyrant: R1 stole the win from Renaud with nasty manips and ugly play. R2 was stronger. He seemingly lost some motivation afterwards, or mb after r3, where he lost to wreck and alien, who focused more on him and had limited timeframe.
Rough r4/5 games with some mutual love between him and Cumulo. Showed a strong last round, except the big throw in the very end. Still hits the semis, but have not been seen in 2 weeks. Let´s see if he shows up ^^.

Junkerzam: A few good games and some where he seemed to be kinda sloppy and making questionable calls. I appreciate he plays random most of the time, but from my POV undead/elf fits his style way better. Rough R 5/6 games.

Eshan: Strong start, but struggled then with some bad calls and unfortunate outcomes. Seemed to be prepared and very motivated throughout the season and had some really good openings and starts. Picked mostly instead of randoming and sticked maybe a bit too much on passive play instead of taking his chances a bit more offensively.

Suicide Squad:

Ponty: Tried hard in first 4 rounds, trolled in 5th and no showed in 6th. Was close to winning atleast 2 games. Showed some good ffa meta and improved overall play. Shoulda been awarded with atleast 1 win, imo.

Noexx: everything below 50% is not acceptable. Rather weak season. Can happen. Due to rl obligations missed 1 game and was not able getting into good shape.

Shave: HE WON A GAME. Some nice tryharding, and some garbage time.

Alien: Got a well deserved win last round. Ended up top score a couple of times, w/o winning. Seemed to be a bit distracted, not in mood to tryhard or right shape in few of his games. Was expected by many to win much more.

Rage Critters:

Aarnikratti: Just like Ponty he showed some good games, without being able to net more than one win. Seemed not to be as active as before. Kinda made some bad decisions, like in R1 vs Karfal. Overall also improved and performancewise a really good season.

Hightac: Won several games, also as obs and was close with a few others. Strong showing. Obviously fell in a love with manipping aswell and some good scouting in a couple of games.

Airenikus: Pretty good season. Very good decision making  throughout the season. Had just 1 bad game and even with sometimes questionable gamestyle he brought home many points for himself and his team.

LssL: New to fml and being in many really monstrous casts. Did not lose motivation over a couple of 4th place finishes and showed some good riflemen action and overall potentional for upcoming seasons.

Free Ena:

Trunkz: Very strong r1/2 games where he overcame teaming and did few mistakes.
Some tough games in mid of season and closed the season with a big freewin and a hard fought r6 game with a lot of support by fetta. Had some rather easy casts and not hard initial 1v1, but definitely showed improvements in decisionmaking, adjusting style to his ever good creeping and micro.

QQs: One of the biggest surprises this season. Showed some really good resilience and played his cards really well.

Tom: Also much improved and came close to finish a few games in stronger fashion. Some wrong decisions cost him 1-2 games. Still needs some practice controlling big armies, but nice ffa meta already.

Jaod: Many topscore games. Performed a bit low resultwise. Showed a bit too much aggression in some of his games. With a more diplomatic and patient approach he might end up winning 1-2 more and being a worthy semifinalist.

Fetta Inc:

Betoon: Kinda new to FFA/FML, but showed 1-2 nice games. With some more experiences a nice addition to team orc and the community. Seems like a relaxed guy and has potential.

Fetta: It was not fettas season.

IWantWC4: Oldschool come back smurfing. Had tremendous success the first two rounds, but then somehow lost his groove. Not sure if he got focused more, was not in shape or just suffered from the sometimes very random ingame events ffa offers 

MrSweets: Being a good orc abuser with decent amount of experience and good micro, he lacked some luck and better overall decision making. Will do better next time.


Free Agent Squad:

Gradient: Beat the odds various times. Really memorable games with nice hustling, staying in game and making the right calls, with being a dangerous player trying to take out and to let in the game  . Not many expected that he´d end the season with 505 winrate. Was always very game.

Supremo: Gave some players a hard time fighting him midgame, me included but suffered from not talking enough or being diplomatic enough, combined with bad ping and sometimes just underpowered hero & unitcombo. Focused more on goldmanagement later rounds, but was not enough to get away with a win. Showed to all games and is a unique addition to the FFA scene.


Tox: Entered late in the season and had some good games, showing his strong micro and also improved manipping and overall awareness. Missed to secure some more points, but is always a threat and can do much better next season.

Joggel: Seems like an experience ffaer, but rather new to fml format. Had some nice fighting games, but being stuck in tough casts, not allowing him to grab more points. Has good potential to increase his amount of better results in upcoming fml seasons.


Church of Renaud:

Renaud: Strong first round, w/o being able to finish as winner. Struggled in midseason, but had a good win in the final round. Still has left a lot in the tank and is a force to reckon with.

Cumulo: Brought home 3 wins. A bit surprising to me to be honest. He used the advantages of human on certain maps especially well i guess, and did not mess around with naga/beastmaster too much. Had a very strong game on Twisted meadows.

Ep123: Late replacement for seksi, who made a mysterious exit from the league and the team. Showed good performances, also in inhouse matches, but still has not seen too much of him. Looks like a overall strong ffa player, who is a worthy opponent afaik.

Valefort: Not sure if he started from r1. But with his good understanding of the human race, combined with strong micro, he had some good games without ending up on top, due to some tough casts and maybe a bit lack of tryhard ffa mentality. Seemed hard to manip and scouts rather well.


Miscellaneous:

That you could face the same players two or even three times in a row, can be fun or annoying, but spices things up for sure.

Hopefully we won´t have to long of a break until next season to keep especially the newer guys attracted and use the success of the season for the next one immediately.

Peace out.

[FML|WorpeX]

Its posts like this that keep me loving this community. <3 Great write-up Slythe!

[zTsoso]

Slythe you did well! just not in your games

U need to learn from a little tryhard nerd. See you next inhouse ;) 

[FML|HighTac]

Amazing wrap-up Slythe!

Format

Although some people have pointed at me as a huge supporter of the team factor during the season, I had the idea of lowering the team impact from 100% to around 30%. In a community full of weird lone wolves, I expected the majority to be done with team stuff for at least half a year.

In retrospective, I enjoyed to be part of a team again. It's always nice if you can cheer for others and assigning maps was super easy for us.

Since the top teams were amazingly close (6 point difference only) in the end, team impact wasn't that big of a factor within the top 7. But if all ZigZagZigguracians would have continued to shine, the team factor would've distorted the rankings too much for my taste. It may have been more fair with a draft or another measure to avoid super teams.

What I did not like as much was how replacements were handled and how no-show affected team scores. I think it should've been the sole responsibility of each team to get themselves a replacement if someone left. This would've been less work for admins also. On the other hand, I think teams by default should've gotten at least 10 points for each game, even with their player not showing.

Maps

My taste for uncommon maps is no secret. I was really satisfied with the map picks and think there was something in the pool for everyone (apart from round 5 maybe).

Players

In my eyes, it's awesome to see so many different player types. Contrary to solo, FFA offers so many more ways to shine and viable strategies. Furthermore, it's possible to outweigh bad micro or macro with FFA sense and manip. Since this community has definitely capacity for some additional players, I think we should encourage newcomers and provide useful feedback, rather than talking them down. The school of FML is rough and illiberal enough anyways. 

Apart from Wreck playing so dominantly, I was most surprised by QQs', Airenikus' and Gradi's performances. It's amazing how Gradient stepped up his game all of a sudden. Better micro, better decision-making, better English and still the same tryhard.

It was (and still is) a blast to be part of all this.
Have fun!

[Ponty]

« fetta : it was not fetta’s season »

LOL

[FML|Mog]

Thanks for the awesome write up Slythe! There were many frustrating moments for me this season, both as an admin, and as a player, but overall I think it was a successful season that got to feature a very unique format in a (mostly) successful way. Looking forward to seeing who comes out on top after this long season

[Peregrine]

Great write up slythe, bravo

Really good analysis

I enjoyed this season and the team aspect was fun. Zig zag was a great team to be a captain, all of our players were kind, flexible, and offered advice and support to teammates. Maps and scheduling was 0 issue. We had a strong start but then had some games where we got rly badly teamed/suicided in rds 4 and 5. Round 6 was just a bad round for all of us where we didnt play as good as we could, me especially.

Congrats to trunkz, Qqs, and ofc King Wreck for reaching finals, gluck to my two teammates in semis!

And thanks admins for a fun season and all their effort

And special thanks to hightac for his stats, and him and QQs for letting me cast with them

Before next season, it might be nice to have an event like KOFFA or TBR to get all the new coming players involved.

And then for next season I think we should return to an old format where admins choose 20 or so players to make the league, and the rest fight for spots in qualies. And then eliminate the lowest point players after round 2 and 4. That will raise the quality of the league, and also ensure there are less trolls/quitters. There was a lot of hate and trolling this season, more than ever before, and it really created a toxic environment at times and reduced the fun of playing FFA. It seemed more action was taking place on discord than in WC3 sometimes. So next season I hope some changes can be made to help that

[SosoHasRedHair]

cumulos fml season summarized in one vid:

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[IWANTWC4]

Ya like I heard worpex say before the top teams focussed maps more.  It's why they had success.


Not everyone had a liberal Nazi named fetta who took his number 1 choice every week.  Just to get what 5 4th place finishes?  Some people don't belong in fml. 


But the team aspect was fun.  The only change I would make is have the admins pick the top 8 players in their opinion.  Then have those 8 do a draft to pick teams.  Hopefully more balanced then.



Also I wanna say wreck was laid bad with his picks and got shit maps.  But he got some easy match up from it, so his start worked.   Lol. :)

[FML|WorpeX]

Ya like I heard worpex say before the top teams focussed maps more.  It's why they had success.


Not everyone had a liberal Nazi named fetta who took his number 1 choice every week.  Just to get what 5 4th place finishes?  Some people don't belong in fml. 


But the team aspect was fun.  The only change I would make is have the admins pick the top 8 players in their opinion.  Then have those 8 do a draft to pick teams.  Hopefully more balanced then.



Also I wanna say wreck was laid bad with his picks and got shit maps.  But he got some easy match up from it, so his start worked.   Lol. :)

I really liked watching how the teams all interacted. Bad Manneroths and Zig Zag both had different strategies for how they decided their players on their maps but both I think were very viable.

Wreck took whatever map that his teammates didn't want each week. Since he felt like he was the strongest player overall, he felt like even though he might get a map he wasn't familiar with or very strong on, he could still have a strong chance of winning. His teammates on the other hand all were on maps they were great on.

Zig Zag Zigguraut was very fluid with their map choices. They would take a guess each week as to what players they expected to see on each map and then decide where best to play their team. The first few weeks they were off but somewhere around week 3 or 4 they started to hit on almost all their guesses. Allowed them to have the optimal player for each opponent rather then each map!

[FML|Mog]

Which is ironic because we performed better in rounds 1-3 compared to 4-6 haha

[betoon]

Was a huge amount of fun and I managed to fill all my goals in this season, which were to play a whole season and to win at least 1 match. Support from pretty much everyone was overwhelming and I would say it's very welcoming to join as a new player. Probably too busy to keep it up though. Check out Circle Empires indie rts, I'm the developer. [/shameless advertising]

[FML|Mog]

Noooooo @betoon don't leave us! You showed so much improvement this season!

[Jaod]

Gj slythe - not bad work - but must said - Gradient still bad .... : (

I am congrats all semi plyers and finalists !

This season had some good and funny moments as always - and i proud cuz we get new good players like Joggel, IwantWc4, TomToast, HighTac, ep123, supremo and i hope they don't stop their FML carier ! : )

There was much debates about format of that season....

I try be honest and must said - i respected our admins for trying get new players into FML and saved old players - but rly - i dislike this format :D and i think i n't alone ....

I propose to consider my personal model of the FML format - who know ? Maybe that seems very interesting for admins and players !

My model let us :

1) Watch more interesting and ballanced games .
2) Reach : less tunnelvision and " teamed for name ".
3) Chances raise FML experience every player ( cuz all players play every round with equal skill experience opponents )
4) Less chances - weak player feed another one player

For example : Players who sign up for next season :

1 wreck

2 trunkz

3 qqs

4 cumulo

5 mog

6 airen

7 tyrant

8 eshan

9 gradient

10 Jaod

11 junkerz

12 dinamo

13 slythe

14 aarni-

15 alien-

16 iwantwc4

17 peanut

18 HT

19 Noe

20 Renaud

21 shave

22 ponty

23 valefort

24 betoon


In round 1 all opponents can be picked randomly - with random junkerzam system - BEST !

Round 1 for example : randomly

M1                M2             M3                M4            M5               M6

Wreck           cumulo       Valefort         qqs           Eshan           Mog
iwantwc4       slythe        Noexxx          tyrant       junkerz         gradient
shave            Jaod           airenikus       dinamo      aarni-          alien-
betoon           ponty        Trunkzzz        peanut      renaud         HighTac

[Jaod]

Round 1 results :

M1                M2              M3                  M4              M5               M6

Wreck(22)     cumulo(22)  Valefort(12)    qqs(10)        Eshan(20)    Mog(20)
iwantwc4(12) slythe(12)   Noexxx(20)     tyrant(22)    junkerz(14)  gradient(10)
shave(12)     Jaod(10)      Airenikus(10)   dinamo(12)  aarni-(12)    alien-(14)
betoon(10)    ponty(12)    Trunkzzz(14)   peanut(12)   renaud(10)   HighTac(12)

1  wreck        22

2  cumulo       22 

3  Tyrant       22

4  Noexxx       20

5  Eshan        20

6  Mog          20

7  Trunkzzz     14

8  Junkerz      14

9  Alien-       14

10 Iwantwc4     12

11 Slythe       12

12 Valefort     12

13 Dinamo       12

14 aarni-       12

15 HighTac      12

16 shave        12

17 ponty        12

18 peanut       12

19 betoon       10

20 Jaod         10

21 Airenikus    10

22 qqs          10

23 renaud       10

24 gradient     10

 

Round 2 and results :

M7              M8                M9                 M10               M11              M12
Wreck(10)   Eshan(10)     alien-(22)       dinamo(12)     ponty(12)     airenikus(14)
Cumulo(20)  Mog(12)       iwantwc4(12)  aarni-(20)      peanut(20)      qqs(12)   
Tyrant(12)  Trunkzzz(22)  slythe(10)      hightac(10)     betoon(10)     renaud(10)
Noexxx(14)  junkerz(12)   valefort(12)  shave(14)        jaod(14)         gradient(20)



1  cumulo       22      20  =  42

2  Trunkzzz     14      22  =  36

3  Junkerz      14      12  =  36

4  Alien-       14      22  =  36

5  Tyrant       22      12  =  34
                   
6  Noexxx       20      14  =  34

7  wreck        22      10  =  32

8  Mog          20      12  =  32

9  aarni-       12      20  =  32

10 peanut       12      20  =  32

11 Eshan        20      10  =  30

12 gradient     10      20  =  30

13 shave        12      14  =  26

14 Iwantwc4     12      12  =  24

15 Valefort     12      12  =  24

16 Dinamo       12      12  =  24

17 ponty        12      12  =  24

18 Jaod         10      14  =  24

19 Airenikus    10      14  =  24

20 Slythe       12      10  =  22

21 HighTac      12      10  =  22

22 qqs          10      12  =  22

23 betoon       10      10  =  20

24 renaud       10      10  =  20