ffa strategies

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Re: ffa strategies

Post by scarm »

There will usually be more than 1 boomy player left. Yes, ofc. But if people could actually hold rushes that easily no one would complain about it. The only reason why the FFA meta in reality is a booming is, because it tends to be a gamemode played by low level players, which tend to be quite bad at and versus rushes. All your points might hold true at the hghest level, which for FFA just does not exist. A theory that fails to exert explanatory force over the empirical fact should be reconsidered and adjusted to fit reality. Otherwise you are just trying to frame reality in the way you think it should be according to your theory.
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Re: ffa strategies

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

You don't understand that booming doesn't mean going treaty with eco theory/wood card 20v age up. Booming is more like 3v/eco theory/4v and you have 5 huss at 6min which is totally enough to defend some pressure.
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Re: ffa strategies

Post by RefluxSemantic »

[Armag] diarouga wrote:
scarm wrote:Because the people booming are a way larger threat to you in the lategame. You can't win vs a player opting for a greedy approach later, but you can vs another player opting for an aggressive approach. So you would maybe try to kill a few vills of the other aggressive players but focus your effort on delaying or stopping the inevitability of the greedy players.
Well, you know that the rusher will kill the boomy player, so just boom while sending 5 huss to his base and he's super dead.
Furthermore, assuming the guy getting rushed is playing France, you probably underestimate the amount of shit 5huss+cdb+mm can hold. In fact, you probably need to have 15 bows during all the rush, else the cdb will just kill your pikes xD.
Same with like Japan and yumi/wall
I mostly addressed rushing versus treaty booming! Indeed there's a third style which is a somewhat sup like boom where you probably ship vills and get some units out. I'd say Treaty boom > Supremacy boom > rush > treaty boom. I think you'd agree with that statement. Isn't it then impossible to say what the perfect strategy is, because the perfect strategy changes entirely on what others consider the perfect strategy; If one player rushes and two players treaty boom, it's probably best to just kill the treaty boomer. If two players are rushing treaty booming is probably bad, but defensive booming seems good. If many players are doing a defensive boom, a treaty boom is probably the best choice. However then once again when people mostly are treaty booming rushing becomes an attractive option once again. There is objectively no best style. FFA is basically like a slightly more complicated group rock paper scissors, and I feel like goodspeed is literally angry at people choosing to pick scissors because it beats his paper.
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Re: ffa strategies

Post by RefluxSemantic »

Goodspeed wrote:Have you guys heard of defender's advantage? Your argument is like claiming that an all in rush is viable in a French mirror based solely on the assumption that both players do it.

In a scenario where everyone all in rushes, the player who doesn't attack anyone else and just invests in a decent defensive force will come out on top because his eco is superior. Do you see how this would logically lead to players trying to get away with as much eco investment as possible? If you all in rush, the odds are 100% that there is another player who invested more into eco than you did. And even if you're attacking that player, if they invested in defense at all they are still going to win. Therefore by rushing you unequivocally worsened your chances of victory.

Again, there is a lot between all in rush and treaty boom.
Yet when everybody is treaty booming all in rushing becomes strong. It's not always bad. Sometimes it is great.
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Re: ffa strategies

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

RefluxSemantic wrote:
[Armag] diarouga wrote:
scarm wrote:Because the people booming are a way larger threat to you in the lategame. You can't win vs a player opting for a greedy approach later, but you can vs another player opting for an aggressive approach. So you would maybe try to kill a few vills of the other aggressive players but focus your effort on delaying or stopping the inevitability of the greedy players.
Well, you know that the rusher will kill the boomy player, so just boom while sending 5 huss to his base and he's super dead.
Furthermore, assuming the guy getting rushed is playing France, you probably underestimate the amount of shit 5huss+cdb+mm can hold. In fact, you probably need to have 15 bows during all the rush, else the cdb will just kill your pikes xD.
Same with like Japan and yumi/wall
I mostly addressed rushing versus treaty booming! Indeed there's a third style which is a somewhat sup like boom where you probably ship vills and get some units out. I'd say Treaty boom > Supremacy boom > rush > treaty boom. I think you'd agree with that statement. Isn't it then impossible to say what the perfect strategy is, because the perfect strategy changes entirely on what others consider the perfect strategy; If one player rushes and two players treaty boom, it's probably best to just kill the treaty boomer. If two players are rushing treaty booming is probably bad, but defensive booming seems good. If many players are doing a defensive boom, a treaty boom is probably the best choice. However then once again when people mostly are treaty booming rushing becomes an attractive option once again. There is objectively no best style. FFA is basically like a slightly more complicated group rock paper scissors, and I feel like goodspeed is literally angry at people choosing to pick scissors because it beats his paper.
Treaty booming is bad. Not really because of rush (because no decent player will rush anyway) but because of hussar raids.

GS and I were arguing that the best way to play was too boom while making some units to raid/defend raids, then you joined the discussion and claimed that all in rushing was good lol.
Can you stop with your non sense and agree that treaty booming and rush are both bad compared to the optimal way to play?
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Re: ffa strategies

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

RefluxSemantic wrote:
Goodspeed wrote:Have you guys heard of defender's advantage? Your argument is like claiming that an all in rush is viable in a French mirror based solely on the assumption that both players do it.

In a scenario where everyone all in rushes, the player who doesn't attack anyone else and just invests in a decent defensive force will come out on top because his eco is superior. Do you see how this would logically lead to players trying to get away with as much eco investment as possible? If you all in rush, the odds are 100% that there is another player who invested more into eco than you did. And even if you're attacking that player, if they invested in defense at all they are still going to win. Therefore by rushing you unequivocally worsened your chances of victory.

Again, there is a lot between all in rush and treaty boom.
Yet when everybody is treaty booming all in rushing becomes strong. It's not always bad. Sometimes it is great.
When everybody is treaty booming, all in rushing is super bad because you'll kill one player and the others will outboom.
All in rushing always puts you behind tbh.
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Re: ffa strategies

Post by RefluxSemantic »

[Armag] diarouga wrote:
RefluxSemantic wrote:
Show hidden quotes
I mostly addressed rushing versus treaty booming! Indeed there's a third style which is a somewhat sup like boom where you probably ship vills and get some units out. I'd say Treaty boom > Supremacy boom > rush > treaty boom. I think you'd agree with that statement. Isn't it then impossible to say what the perfect strategy is, because the perfect strategy changes entirely on what others consider the perfect strategy; If one player rushes and two players treaty boom, it's probably best to just kill the treaty boomer. If two players are rushing treaty booming is probably bad, but defensive booming seems good. If many players are doing a defensive boom, a treaty boom is probably the best choice. However then once again when people mostly are treaty booming rushing becomes an attractive option once again. There is objectively no best style. FFA is basically like a slightly more complicated group rock paper scissors, and I feel like goodspeed is literally angry at people choosing to pick scissors because it beats his paper.
Treaty booming is bad. Not really because of rush (because no decent player will rush anyway) but because of hussar raids.

GS and I were arguing that the best way to play was too boom while making some units to raid/defend raids, then you joined the discussion and claimed that all in rushing was good lol.
Can you stop with your non sense and agree that treaty booming and rush are both bad compared to the optimal way to play?
hmm, I was replying to this:
Goodspeed wrote:FFAs should always turn to late game, treaty-like fights where differences in civ strength and player strength are somewhat mitigated by diplomacy. I don't mind 'em.
What I dislike about them is players like @deleted_user4 who feel the need to join the game just to ruin it by pike rushing people. Leave the game mode to people who actually enjoy it, maybe :huh:
Don't know where you and gs were arguing about stuff before I chimed in because I just responded to that statement.
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Re: ffa strategies

Post by Goodspeed »

treaty-like fights
Fights, not booms. You don't need to do a treaty boom in order to eventually get to FU late game treaty-like fights. Frankly I'm not sure why I'm even replying to you because you're clearly not reading my posts. I said this in the first post on page 2:
There's a lot between mutual destruction and full boom. Early raids to punish full booms are strong, for example, and early coordinated efforts can be a good way to mitigate differences in player strength and civ strength.
And clarified many times after that I don't think full boom is the best strategy.
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Re: ffa strategies

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

It's different in that you don't have to invest a lot in a cav or musk force to raid, but you do have to invest a lot in an army that can potentially kill someone outright. For example the investment of 10 hussars in colonial (let's say an eco cav semi-FF) doesn't put you behind other booming players that much and it allows you to damage one full boomer enough so that you can finish him in early imp. It also serves as defense against pressure from other players. Your point about the deck doesn't apply because you don't actually need any shipments you wouldn't otherwise have in your deck to make this work. For French, 3v 4v 700w will do fine. Another great time to make some army is in fortress after getting 3 TCs up. You can either go IV or delay it a bit to make some raiding units. People who went straight FI will be very sad to see cav in their base.
That was the point. The best way to play is to go like cav semi (with one or two vill shipments) into TC boom and then only send eco cards.
Going treaty is shit because raids will kill you and all in rush is even worse because you will have no eco.
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Re: ffa strategies

Post by gamevideo113 »

scarm wrote:Again, how would you judge me laming with nats then? The result is literally the same. I used a strategy undesireable by the other player, denied him the chance to actually play the gamemode, and ruined it for them. Yet i had the intent to win.
1. Nat treasures are part of the gamemode. You played the gamemode, the opponent didn’t have fun because he was outplayed, not because you intentionally ruined the fun for him. You tried to win, it was completely legitimate and it should have been expected as both I and diarouga have already said. Especially since you get a notice about what treasures are being picked up during the game. As GS said, nothing wrong with being bad, but you either accept the consequences (losing to stupid strats) or you get gud.
2. Yes, you had the intent to win and this doesn’t mean it will prevent others from not having fun (it’s not what we’ve been arguing!). You’re making wrong logical implications. I bolded your “Yet” because that’s where you’re wrong, imo. We aren’t arguing that playing to win automatically makes the game fun for everyone. Fun isn’t necessarily embedded with the good intentions of the players. We are arguing that not playing to win makes the game unfun for others, most of the times, which are two very different arguments.
You seem to assume that, since we are saying that playing to win in FFA makes the gamemode more enjoyable for everyone, this has to be equally true in different contexts and with any other logical implication.
Playing to win in FFA means you won’t do stupid suicide strats that kill both you and the opponent, who was probably trying to get a good game.
Playing to win in 1v1 means almost exactly the same thing: you won’t do silly stuff that make the game a waste of time for your opponent who was probably looking for a serious game.
The fact that winning is more fun than losing is an inherent characteristic of any game and does not depend on what happens in the game.
It doesn’t make any sense to say “i ruined his fun because i won”. That’s how games work. You didn’t do anything wrong.
What does make sense in a FFA, on the other hand, is saying “i ruined his fun because i wasn’t even playing the gamemode i was supposed to be playing and i went for a strategy that damaged myself as much as the victim. I didn’t care about winning, therefore i decided to spend my time ruining the fun someone else could have had”. That’s why we are saying it’s a douche move. On top of that, the victim will feel even more frustrated because not only he lost, but he also lost because someone else decided to make him lose without even gaining a benefit for himself.
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Re: ffa strategies

Post by Kawapasaka »

8 players selecting French, making 5 cav then booming sounds like an incredibly boring game of FFA. I think I'd take the chaotic reality of actually joining a FFA lobby hosted on ESO over this hypothetical optimal play style.
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Re: ffa strategies

Post by edeholland »

Kawapasaka wrote:8 players selecting French, making 5 cav then booming sounds like an incredibly boring game of FFA. I think I'd take the chaotic reality of actually joining a FFA lobby hosted of ESO over this hypothetical optimal play style.
We need a "Random civ" option for situations like that.
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Re: ffa strategies

Post by gamevideo113 »

Rush beats boom
Boom beats turtle
Turtle beats rush

Ez, learned on the AoE3 Collector’s edition manual :grin:
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Re: ffa strategies

Post by gamevideo113 »

Btw, true meta is selecting ports instead of french. Your opponent will never know if you’re going for NR85 boom or doing supremacy stuff since there are no vill shipments.
Also, keep CM in deck for mind games, ofc :maniac: :uglylol: :salt:
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Re: ffa strategies

Post by Kawapasaka »

gamevideo113 wrote:Btw, true meta is selecting ports instead of french. Your opponent will never know if you’re going for NR85 boom or doing supremacy stuff since there are no vill shipments.
Also, keep CM in deck for mind games, ofc :maniac: :uglylol: :salt:
True meta is selecting German and sitting happily on 140 vill pop for an hour ;)
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Re: ffa strategies

Post by Goodspeed »

Yeah, gotta keep the German busy
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Re: ffa strategies

Post by agrondergermane »

gamevideo113 wrote:
scarm wrote:Again, how would you judge me laming with nats then? The result is literally the same. I used a strategy undesireable by the other player, denied him the chance to actually play the gamemode, and ruined it for them. Yet i had the intent to win.
1. Nat treasures are part of the gamemode. You played the gamemode, the opponent didn’t have fun because he was outplayed, not because you intentionally ruined the fun for him. You tried to win, it was completely legitimate and it should have been expected as both I and diarouga have already said. Especially since you get a notice about what treasures are being picked up during the game. As GS said, nothing wrong with being bad, but you either accept the consequences (losing to stupid strats) or you get gud.
2. Yes, you had the intent to win and this doesn’t mean it will prevent others from not having fun (it’s not what we’ve been arguing!). You’re making wrong logical implications. I bolded your “Yet” because that’s where you’re wrong, imo. We aren’t arguing that playing to win automatically makes the game fun for everyone. Fun isn’t necessarily embedded with the good intentions of the players. We are arguing that not playing to win makes the game unfun for others, most of the times, which are two very different arguments.
You seem to assume that, since we are saying that playing to win in FFA makes the gamemode more enjoyable for everyone, this has to be equally true in different contexts and with any other logical implication.
Playing to win in FFA means you won’t do stupid suicide strats that kill both you and the opponent, who was probably trying to get a good game.
Playing to win in 1v1 means almost exactly the same thing: you won’t do silly stuff that make the game a waste of time for your opponent who was probably looking for a serious game.
The fact that winning is more fun than losing is an inherent characteristic of any game and does not depend on what happens in the game.
It doesn’t make any sense to say “i ruined his fun because i won”. That’s how games work. You didn’t do anything wrong.
What does make sense in a FFA, on the other hand, is saying “i ruined his fun because i wasn’t even playing the gamemode i was supposed to be playing and i went for a strategy that damaged myself as much as the victim. I didn’t care about winning, therefore i decided to spend my time ruining the fun someone else could have had”. That’s why we are saying it’s a douche move. On top of that, the victim will feel even more frustrated because not only he lost, but he also lost because someone else decided to make him lose without even gaining a benefit for himself.
nice... 7 pages deep and still trying to explain this? :devil:
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Re: ffa strategies

Post by scarm »

Just because i am interested: How would you guys judge the practice of invading someone elses world in Dark Souls to literally obliterate their game progress then?
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Re: ffa strategies

Post by gamevideo113 »

scarm wrote:Just because i am interested: How would you guys judge the practice of invading someone elses world in Dark Souls to literally obliterate their game progress then?
Hmmm well in general i think it’s not a very fair mechanic because there isn’t a rating or something that can match you with similarly skilled players, so sometimes it just feels like noob-bashing and isn’t that much fun, for both players. I don’t think it’s a “morally bad” thing to do, though. You get rewards and souls, so it’s not like you are doing it for the sake of griefing (some people might, but still, my point is that it’s justifiable). Also i don’t think it obliterates someone else’s progression in the game that bad. If you really don’t want to be invaded just play offline and you won’t have any problems. I wouldn’t do it anyway in most souls games because PvP sucks in all of them except Bloodborne and DS2. Playing PvP in DS1 is just pure masochism.
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Re: ffa strategies

Post by Cometk »

This convo is stupid when I know I would bash every single one of you noobs in a FFA any time
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Re: ffa strategies

Post by scarm »

No one invades for souls. You dont need/Can't use them after a certain soullevel anyways, and the rewards are abysmal. People invade purely for the thrill of the hunt so to speak.
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Re: ffa strategies

Post by gamevideo113 »

Playing FFA with CometK is the typical situation where the right thing to do from an ethical point of view would actually be all-in rushing him
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Re: ffa strategies

Post by gamevideo113 »

scarm wrote:No one invades for souls. You dont need/Can't use them after a certain soullevel anyways, and the rewards are abysmal. People invade purely for the thrill of the hunt so to speak.
Back in the day, i did invade for souls as well actually xD.
Well, sometimes there are covenant rewards or stuff like that. I still used to prefer playing PvP with the chalk sign you put on the ground, or in the arena.
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Re: ffa strategies

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Post by Goodspeed »

gamevideo113 wrote:Playing FFA with CometK is the typical situation where the right thing to do from an ethical point of view would actually be all-in rushing him
Just team up against him, ez. That's what you get for being good
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Re: ffa strategies

Post by howlingwolfpaw »

Cometk wrote:I played a “high level” free for all once and bashed Veni_Vidi_Vici with Port Industrial 20 range goons

Was a good strat

You make port goons seem more OP than Gendarmes.... Seriously though, Cometk is one of the top 1-2 FFA players of all time. Likely the best and most versatile. I've never really beat him. I don't count that time on new England with you as otto. Its always a pleasure to lose to you though.

There was this one guy who played germans like a pro I think his name was Lord_borei, ran the room with dopples and uhlans every time. Never saw him lose. I was pretty booby then and in awe.

There was another brit player who could do the same but not quite as effective.

We could speak the name of an unmentionable france player who was once respected and mastered France lameness, but he has since become a cheater and lost all respect. Once though I held him in high regards.

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