Why is SFA Standard Now?

This past year, I like many others hardly played Solo and chose to play FFA instead. 

If Solo was dead before the merger, who thought it was a good idea to turn high-rated FFA games into Solo games?  More than one player has complained of the fact that their FFA Rating is now a Solo rating, and you have a 3 in 4 chance of losing rating every game you play, in a brand new position that is mediocre at best. 

If the goal is to attract new players, these changes are only driving players away. 

Make Omatamix its own Variant, Old Standard the Main Standard, leave our FFA Ratings alone, then we can put this nightmare behind us and get back to enjoying the game.

Here's my take on this: I feel like they are trying to shake things up a little because before, all you had to do is get 2nd place to prevent your rating from going down. They obviously aren't going to want that to happen if matches have high-rated players only. But I'll agree that the new setup for the rating system is awkward and kind of bad. 

Your game is only as good as random chance? If that's the case, I can see why this would drive you batty. For the rest of us who hate getting points stolen by children who think playing for 2nd is an honourable strategy, it's a much needed improvement.

That is why there was solo for those who felt that. Clearly not many were feeling so and preferred FFA.

Ya this solo also protects from fourth place if you get God gifted opposites who attack you from the start in 4 player stage. Then its just triple attack and no hope is left......

If the archive wasn't broken and timing out ALL the time, I'd bring up a game where I won a game against you during the New Standard Arena.  This issue doesn't affect 2000 rated FFA players like yourself, as much as it does 2400+ players like myself.

Solo was dead before the merger, If I wanted to play a Solo game, I would create a Solo game, but if I want to play FFA games, I no longer can.  It's not just me that has an issue with this, much higher-rated players have said the exact same thing, this won't affect you until you're 2200+. 

Have you noticed that there are no 2400+, 2500+, 2600+ games being played regularly anymore?  New Standard + SFA have everything to do with that. 

And those "children" will always be there deciding games and so forth, regardless of the rating system. We have ONLY lost the most popular and my favorite game mode with this, most unfortunately

I get that a bunch of ratings were cleared, but you have to know that I had an average FFA rating of 2700 in the months leading up to the merge. I peaked at 2900+ bullet, 2700+ blitz and 3150+ hyper. I may be crap at standard, but only because I don't have interest in playing/practicing it. Given that your rating is 2400, I would argue the issue affects you far less than I.

I only brought up ratings since you implied "my game is only as good as random chance"

You can still play standard FFA games, all my games are Solo games now.  I mainly played FFA & Teams, and didn't care for Solo so this change is not welcomed at all. 

High-rated FFA games are hardly being played anymore is what admins should be focused on. 

then why not make 2nd place just lose like 0.3 losses or like 0.5?

1 loss or 0.9 loss is too brutal.

Nice flex of completely irrelevant ratings given this argument is literally regarding standard.

I prefer Solo.

I don't think most people have that strong of an opinion, FFA was just more popular because it was the original and default game mode. Which would you rather play, Solo with maybe 1-2 decent opponents, or FFA with 3 guaranteed high rated opponents? For serious players, it was a no-brainer. I think it would have been the same way if Solo had been the original game mode.

Also, how does it drive away new players? Their games are still FFA, not Solo.

-1.3 was too brutal (which was on before the merge in Solo for 2nd, 3rd and 4th) If it's -1 now, that means it got back the way it was before (I mean for 2nd being 2nd being -1, the absolute minimum loss being so high for some ppl, but the point is this rating calculation system makes you not play for 2nd, but most importantly makes you play for the 1st place, taking less risks or puts you in doubt before you decide to make a risky move that could cost you the game or just a piece sacrifice) therefore, back in 2018 there was a system called WTA winner takes all which was +3  0 -0.75 -2.25 and it was applied only in games 1550+ (back the beginners rating was 1200 and high rated players were 1700 and higher, so 1600+ was considered a decent elo game while a 1700+ was a high elo game and one waited the whole day to just start the game) we also had WTM winner takes most (later on) which went +3 +0.5 -1 -1.5 sth like that the point is 2nd gained very little, close to nothing and kinda felt like you're playing the whole game for nothing so that was not so popular  (also in WTM ppl were teaming like crazy unlike WTA which was like Solo) So, later on they came with changit to Solo and 2nd to 4th all lose equally +4 -1.33 -1.33 -1.33, but that was much of a rating loss so -1.0 makes more sense

I think something like +2, +1, -1, -2 would be my preferred for FFA. I've lost almost 100 rating points in rapid since the update after climbing up to 2700. It makes me not want to play that time control anymore, and it used to be my favorite

If FFA was more popular, why did they make Solo the default format at 2200+?

I've only been playing a year, I'm kinda looking at this from a new Player's perspective.  Given the choice between Solo and FFA, I chose FFA every time and was looking forward to playing higher rated queues.  I played Teams in order to be able to work well with my opposite. 

I don't see The New Standard and this format attracting new players, since their games will eventually become Solo, and they're gonna be playing a repetitive boring position climbing their way up.  If 4pc is no longer fun for a lot of existing players, I can't see this being fun for new players either.  Radon's streams are no longer the same since the merger happened. 

Is anyone even streaming 4pc anymore?

Radon's last stream was 4PC... and Variants, being generous enough to try half the stuff added

If admins actually listened for once we wouldn't have to make so many pointless topics. 

I'm trying to understand the reasoning behind the changes.  Admins don't get involved in these topics, they just make changes they think are best, neglecting the community's input. 

I'm not convinced that Omatamix is a better position, while there are better more balanced positions available, so why was Omatamix chosen?

They think they know what's best, but in reality, they don't know what's best because they keep neglecting the community as a whole.

Imagine if they took the community's feedback, and implemented the changes we actually wanted.  How hard would that be?