Beginners FML FFA Guide

[FML|WorpeX]

Dear aspirant,

The FML community welcomes anyone interested in the free-for-all gametype. FFA is probably the most difficult but most rewarding gametype in Warcraft 3. Anyone can play, but it takes skill to master. The nuances of strategy, the diversity of gameplay, the infinitely unique endings, the incredible armies and heroes, and the satisfaction of winning against multiple opponents – these factors and more create a gameplay experience that is unmatched by any other gametype. FML takes FFA seriously, and we are always looking for new talent. Come and play with us, observe some games, watch replays, perhaps read a guide if you are serious. We promise you will have fun, but we won’t promise you will win.

What is FFA Masters League (FML)?

A very active free-for-all community and league of free-for-all that was founded in 2005 by WorpeX. While FML seasons and other events are distributed over the year, inhouse FFA matches are played regularly every day. The number of players peaks usually between 5 pm and 2 am CET. Visit our Discord group to find games and chat about FFA: https://discord.gg/BtY2pVm.

What is special about FFA in this community?

You will soon learn that FFA is not about “killing whatever I see and hope I’m going to win”, at least within the FML community. It’s about playing for victory and for that, getting into the most advantageous position, where micro is not your only tool. Diplomacy, strategy, economy, subterfuge, 2v1’s, rebuilding, and much more are tactics you can use to achieve victory. Therefore, temporary peace between two players is a legit approach (not to be confused with pre-teaming, which is illegal). In a perfect world, players begin FFA matches by quickly establishing their economy, before engaging in combat with one other player. After one player is out, the three remaining players try to balance power until the winner has been decided. But in reality, FFAs tend to be more chaotic and anything can happen.

Small FFA Glossary

Peace: Temporary agreement of two players to not attack each other
Backstab Breaking peace or falling into another player’s back is called backstabbing
Manip: Players trying to manipulate each other by chat, be it by lying or psychological tricks
Suicide: If one player stops playing for victory and tunnelvisions another to death without caring for anything else, this is called suicide. It’s often announced to threat someone.
Dead: As “gg”, this is a relative term in FFA. It either means a player has nothing left and is almost defeated or he just wants to appear weak to get help and be left alone.
Hoarding: If a player stays passive to gather a lot of gold, this is called hoarding, particularly if he stays on 50 supply.
Tome: The weakest players in the game are considered "Tomes of Experience" since you'll have to feed experience off them if you want to be able to compete with the stronger player.
CW: On many maps, players agree on taking second expos in clock-wise (= cw) direction

General FFA Tips

- You will not win every FFA game. An average FFA winning percentage is 25%, while 50% is considered extremely good. Keep that in mind anytime you lose a rough game. The more mistakes you make and learn from the better player you'll be.

- Whenever you lose a game, try to figure out why you lost and think about what you could have done to prevent it, even if it seems out of your control. If you lose because two players teamed you, try to figure out why you got teamed and what you could have done to prevent it. Maybe eliminating one of them earlier would net you the win. Maybe you were too aggressive, maybe you weren't aggressive enough.

- Creeping is like Thanksgiving dinner. Take what everyone wants first and then your own stuff.

- Always fast expand. Other players, if they're playing smart, will be more concerned with expanding themselves than taking down your expo. No matter what map you're on, or what race you're using, you should have an expansion up and running within the first 10 minutes. Always try to have at least two mines running at all times.

- Never harass. Harassment works in solo because you keep your opponent's hero levels low and damage their economy. It doesn't work in FFA because there are two other players who are creeping and expanding.

- Pay close attention to your food count. You should always be at exactly 50, 80 or 100 food or trying to reach that number as quickly as possible unless it's very early in the game. If you don't have enough mines running for the food count you're at then you'll usually run out of money and lose.

- Never sit at 100 food. You lose 200 gold a minute from each mine you have if you're at 100 as opposed to 80. If you plan on being out of combat for more than a couple minutes, kill off your units and go down to 80 food.

- Don't lose your temper. Suiciding someone because they're harassing you with Bats or Chimaeras may make you feel better but you'll still lose the game. If you play smart you can win the game instead.

- When you're surrounded you have two options. The first is to play defensively, put up a few towers and try to stay at a low food count for as long as possible while trying to expand on the other side of the map. The second is to break free by taking out one of the players next to you and taking over their mines. However, if all the players are next to each other (two players are surrounded) then you should take out the person who's not surrounded instead of the other surrounded player. Otherwise, you'll still be surrounded (see figure below).

Code: [Select]

OPPONENT         OPPONENT         YOU   --->       OPPONENT
- In three way games, win fast or lie low. Unless you play very aggressively and take everyone out quickly try not to look like the dominant player. This will decrease your chances of being teamed. This can be done by staying at a lower food count for longer and therefore having more gold from fewer mines. Also, don't take a mine everyone is fighting over unless you're prepared to defend it. The same goes for expanding in the middle on maps like Bloodstone Mesa and Battleground. If someone suggests teaming you come up with reasons why another player is more eligible. The number of mines they've had and how much gold is in them, their hero levels or even their start position can convince other players that they are a bigger threat than you. This doesn't mean sit in your base and do nothing though. You'll need to fight someone to gain experience and you'll need to expand quite a bit to pull off a win.

- It's important to know how to hide buildings well if you're facing a strategy such as mass Tanks or Bats. Sometimes you'll have to lose your main base to take down theirs.

- Don't leave if someone takes you out. You can usually rebuild in a distant corner of the map and take out the dominant player when he's weak. Conversely, never leave a player for dead. It's amazing how people can come back if they're left alone for long enough.

- If someone cries for help when they're being attacked go to their base instead of the person who's attacking them. This way you can weaken the person who's attacking them and eliminate the person who's crying for help. You'll often get a significant amount of experience from doing this.

- The sooner you go above 80 food the larger advantage you'll have early game. The longer you stay under 50 food the bigger advantage you'll have late game. Staying at 50 is risky because a larger army can take you out rather easily but try not to exceed 50 food too early. You will need the resources later in the game. Good scouting can let you know what other players are doing so you know when you'll have to go up to 80 or even 100. Generally, it's good to go above 50 a little after all the creeps are gone because that's the point in the game where you'll have to attack someone if you want to keep up with your opponents in hero levels. It's also the point in the game where your opponents are most likely to attack you.

- Make sure you have enough production buildings to quickly rebuild or adjust your army. A good guideline is to have one production building for every 4 units that you'll have in your army from that building. For example, if you plan on having 12 Hippos in your general army you would want 3 Ancients of Wind. Obviously slight adjustments have to be made depending on how fast the particular unit builds.

(These Tips are an Excerpt from Nooblex's FFA Guide)

Additional FFA Guides

Comprehensive FFA Guide by Nooblex

Seksi's Guide to Free For All

(FML intro Written by HighTac & Eshan)

[2008top1]

very beautiful guide

register me for this season please

[Dovekie]

Rules are made to be broken.

[Peregrine]

Hey i wrote that first paragraph! 😌 You can tell because its sassy

[FML|HighTac]

You are right, sorry for missing your name in this :)

[Dovekie]

FFA is probably the most difficult but most rewarding gametype in Warcraft 3.

FALSO

[FML|HighTac]

On paper, I would say it's most difficult to win in FFA, simply because win rates are lower

Obviously, it's more difficult for a decent FFA player to become a good solo player than vice versa

[Peregrine]

Lol FFA is the most difficult gametype

Unless ofcourse youre dovekie and you only play noobstomps on bot ladder

[ZsSuperCumulo]

Solo is far more difficult than ffa, no doubt about it. If you think otherwise you are just trying to convince yourself that the game type you play deserves as much merit as the solo scene which it doesn't.
In solo you either win or lose within the first 10 to 20 mins max while in ffa you are just playing against the computer during that time (creeping). Even if you think that the game type becomes more challenging than solo after the 20 min mark, by that time you have everything in excess, that is levels, items, gold, expos, infraestructure hence making it much easier than solo where you can barely get anything you want.
The one aspect where ffa and solo overlap is in the frustation you get when losing and satisfaction of winning, but the level of difficulty to achieve victory in both game types are lightyears away apart.

[Peregrine]

everything you just said about ffa is also true for your opponents

difficulty is defined by how difficult it is to WIN

and ffa is more difficult to win than solo. in a game with evenly skilled players, your win % in ffa is 25%, solo is 50%.

[Dovekie]

(click to show/hide)

nothing against any of these players, but this is the hardest game mode? really? Your chances of winning this are 10% if you are good, +/- some percentage points based on a bunch of arbitrary variables out of your control.

Does this even remotely compare to a prestigious solo tournament, that requires years and years of practice, study, talent & skill (both of which you need in considerably lower amounts in ffa)? No, it doesn't even compare. It is magnitudes easier in FFA. Even a bad player can have a great shot at winning an FFA game.

It's still impressive and they should feel awesome for accomplishing league victories, and while it may not always have taken an incredible amount of mechanical skill, it took a large amount of different types of skills nonetheless, and it is impressive—but it isn't anywhere near solo level.

[FML|HighTac]

not sure what we are talking about here and why you seem to feel offended by that introduction. It's all a matter of perspective. You can hardly deny that the win rate in FFA tends to be lower than in solo, no matter how skilled you are. That makes it a valid statement.

No one ever said that it's more difficult to achieve a victory in FFA than it is to become a 70% solo player. The skill ceiling in FFA is way lower than the one in solo. However, FFA offers more ways to compensate for the lack of a skill.

[Peregrine]

yes this is the hardest game mode. just because its less popular and has less skilled players, doesn't change the difficulty of the game mode. you guys are confusing gametype with competition

as a GAMETYPE, ffa is more difficult

if the SAME players played FFA and SOLO - their win % in FFA would be lower.

You're talking about the level of competition of solo vs ffa. Obviously solo is far more popular and the level of competition and skill is far higher. If you filled FML with happy, lawliet, foggy, grubby, all those guys - or if you filled it with a bunch of noobs, it doesn't change the nature of the gametype.

As a gametype, FFA is a more difficult game. Maybe if it were more simple, it would be more popular.

Also if FML is so easy i'm surprised you still dodge ;)

[ObserveAndLearn]

4v4 RT is the hardest mode. you've got 3 noobs dragging you down vs 4 opponents.

[xA-iZamatish4]

yes this is the hardest game mode. just because its less popular and has less skilled players, doesn't change the difficulty of the game mode. you guys are confusing gametype with competition

as a GAMETYPE, ffa is more difficult

if the SAME players played FFA and SOLO - their win % in FFA would be lower.

You're talking about the level of competition of solo vs ffa. Obviously solo is far more popular and the level of competition and skill is far higher. If you filled FML with happy, lawliet, foggy, grubby, all those guys - or if you filled it with a bunch of noobs, it doesn't change the nature of the gametype.

As a gametype, FFA is a more difficult game. Maybe if it were more simple, it would be more popular.

Also if FML is so easy i'm surprised you still dodge ;)

I highly agree here. FFA brings in other dimensions and variables in War3 that otherwise don't exist in SOLO matches. For example, the concept of diplomacy: this is the human element. In SOLO matches, you're only concerned with defeating the other opponent. In FFA, you need to be the last man standing.

Grubby himself gave a great commentary recently on Back2Warcraft where he explained some diplomacy fundamentals and even gave some tips that wouldn't exist in SOLO matches (his examples were on not killing off a base's buildings and farming the pillage off it, managing supply, and honorable players rewarding another player with leaving the game and allowing them to farm their live heroes)

I myself have played against some really great strategic players who have awful micro, but win purely off their execution of strategy.

The FFA game type is truly a great example of The Art of War.

To the comment about 10% win percentages - that's false.  Statistically, blending in all skill levels, your win percentage should be 25%. Just like in SOLO it should be 50%. The reason win percentages are higher on BNet are because skilled players are playing less-skilled competition. FML provides a great platform where everyone's skills are relatively on the same level - thus, giving all of us an approximate win chance of 25%.