Atostic and Headkef ruining FFA games

So to start this off I will be the first to admit that I am no saint when it comes to zero-k conduct. I love trash talking and using whacky tactics that can backfire in my face. However, I do not understand why high ranking players who have played this game for years just dunk on new players and crash lobbies.

Headkef and Atostic spent the majority of an entire day in the FFA server (1 of the 3 servers that ever has any players in it). And all they did was teamup every game and kill all other players in the game, before having their 1v1. Why? I do not understand the logic in this. You have 5k plus hours in a dying low population game and you decide to do this?

I know that there's nothing in the rules about teaming in a FFA, and that it happens often, but this is taken to the extreme. This is not two players teaming to take care of a stronger opponent, or a one or two time occurrence. This happens every time I see them in a FFA game. This is also not just silent ignorance of each other. No, they communicate openly in the lobby about where their going and territory they allow each other.


Overall its just really shitty behavior that reflects poorly on the community. This is a free to play game that struggles for player count, and two very high level players are just teaming in FFA games against noobs. I know if I was a new player I would be turned off from the game.

Galamesh I am getting the impression you need to read the OP more carefully, the allegation is about Hedkeaf not HistidineStar.

Right, sorry. I don't know where my head was when I read this.

Not commenting on how fun or good to play this is gameplay wise , i assume why someone would play this way is to win the FFA game.

Yes you can mess around and just enjoy the chaos of an FFA match, but if your goal is to actually win it there are some steps that seem logical. Id say a low or high variance gap FFA play very differently in this case its a high skill variance game, the best strategy for a stronger player in the game is to quickly spot the easiest player to take out and increase own share(eco) of the map while avoding fighting other strong players at all cost, the reason for that is in FFA you need to expand your eco as quickly as possible that means going the way of lowest resistance to snowball, fighting a strong player means high resistance eco stall and probably heavy losses on either side.

The best strategy for a "weaker" player in the match is to form as many alliances with other weaker players to team up on the stronger ones, and eventually spot a player even weaker than them to take over their eco.

In general both "sides" are aware of that dynamic, so strong players avoiding each other taking everyone out before facing each other is unfortunately the natural pathing of an high skill variance FFA game.

FFA isn't something that can be balanced. ganging up on the "best" player is always the rational strategy. FFA is more about diplomacy than game knowledge. this is true of basically any RTS. see T90's community games in AOE2. if anything, it might be worth building some first-class diplo features directly into the game.

There isn't a moderator action that can be taken here where the cure won't be worse than the disease.

That said, here are a couple of ideas that might help that you can do:

1. When joining the FFA room, say that Hedkeaf and ATOSTIC are always avoiding attacking each other and just attacking single weak players and that this makes the game unfun and that you'll only play if they aren't going to do that this time. You'll likely get agreement from the other non-Ato/Hed players too. This will put pressure on them to change their ways if they want any games at all.

2. Have attacking you be a poisoned chalice. Use heavy defences, cloaked snitches, etc. and if attacked, provide detailed information on the forces of the player attacking you. This will give the other purple (@ATOSTIC or Hedkeaf) a good opportunity to attack their rival while their forces are occupied elsewhere.

3. Try to coordinate. Go to the aid of any player who states he is being attacked by those two and encourage everyone to speak out if they are attacked.


One more thing:

quote: I know if I was a new player I would be turned off from the game.

This really isn't a thing that a brand new player will even notice. FFA is a very deep game mode, a black or red is just a free spot to even orange rank player, they're going to die almost immediately regardless unless the other players coordinate not to kill them, in which case they'll ineffectively simcity in a corner until killed once everyone else is dead.

FFA with extremely divergent skills is not something that works in an RTS with an economy system.

For clarification,

I am not calling for some action to be taken from the administration/developers. While I don't think that would be a bad conclusion, I don't personally see anything in the code of conduct aside from MAYBE the bit about promoting a non toxic learning environment for new players.

I would like to see a change in the code of conduct that dictates some specifics on conduct for other game modes. Clearly the game is geared more toward team games, so the code of conduct is a lot more specific on team games and interactions with teammates. But overall, I don't know what could realistically be done, maybe i'm just venting. Maybe enough players could call out their actions to make them stop crashing FFA lobbies.

I just think the behavior is really toxic and can cause players to leave the game, who otherwise, could breathe some life into the player base and bring their friends. And once again, this teaming of Headkef and Atostic was not opportunistic or for a specific purpose to take down a more powerful foe. They were the two highest elo players in the game, and agreed to team at the start of the match.


Here are links for the games I had the displeasure of being in them with:

https://zero-k.info/Battles/Detail/1896962

https://zero-k.info/Battles/Detail/1897158

You can watch the first 10 minutes of each game and see everything you need to.

Quick description of battles:

B1896962 8 on Violet Rampart Generator v1.4

Hedkeaf and ATOSTIC are neighbors and openly declare a truce at Hedkeaf's request.
Anir is on the opposite side and is surrounded by lower ranked players.

Nanouf, neighbor of Anir, attacks him and fails, which results in Anir invading and conquering a second spawn location.
Anir then continues north and conquers a third location, held by another lower ranked player.

Meanwhile, Hedkeaf conquers his neighbor, deleting the buffer between Anir and himself. Hedkeaf is now sandwiched between Anir and ATOSTIC, holding 2 spots.

During that, two players at north/northeast fight each other and the north player walls himself in after a defeat. ATOSTIC passes over the north player and conquers the northeast one, then backtracks and conquers the north one.

ATOSTIC and Anir are now neighbors. At approximately half way through the match, the top players have conquered all the spots, ATOSTIC and Anir each hold 3 and Hedkeaf holds 2.

It is now a classic 3way high ranked standoff.



I can't currently watch the second battle. The replay loads, gets stuck at 0% progress and the game crashes. Not sure why.

Huh how about getting input from the players being stomped on? A perspective from somone who's actually affected by this would be better than all other parties speculating no?

nah he's specifically pointing out how it may affect NEW players so...reds and bronzes. If a larger majority of those players express discontent then yeah maybe changes will be needed. But if the lobs don't even register the loss and leave the game instantly to join some other match or play the campaign without any thoughts then it's really not a problem.