Aoe2's online starting elo should be lowered to 600-800

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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The starting elo should be somewhere between 600-800.

Let’s say at 1000 ELO, from now on we make 800 the starting elo. The average will go down, but very slowly. There are 40.000 ranked players currently in AoE2. After the new elo is 800, it will take another 40.000 players to lower the starting elo by half the difference (so new average will be 900). So you would need 80.000 players to reach an average elo of 900, and the starting elo is still 800.

It’s like buildings, it’s not a permanent solution, but the time buildings will be destroyed (unless you use Roman concrete) is so far in the future that for the sake of our purposes it’s permanent. The fact we have words such as “an 1000 elo player” and “a TRUE 1000 elo player” shows the system is broken. Is lowering the elo to 800 going to be perfect? no, but it’s much better than what we have.

Another option would be:

As for the placement. You could have the 10 placement games like this: Start your 1st ranked match as if you had 500 elo (the system treats you as if you had 500 elo), if you win, play next as if you had 600, if you win again play next as if you had 700. Maximum is 1200, minimum is 300. But for each win you “gain” +100 fake elo, and for each loss you “lose” -100 fake elo.

The final score after those 10 games is going to be your elo. If you lose all, you get 300. This will also have the side effect of increasing the average elo since if you lose you opponent gets points out of nowhere (good), but you don’t really lose anything, and I doubt there would be many new players to end up with 1000 or 1200 elo at the end.

Why should the starting elo 1000 be changed?

All the negative fallout from changing the system (inflating/deflating average ELO, putting lower rated players up against tougher “new” opponents) is much less problematic than what I am seeing now: players starting and leaving because they’re losing 8-20 games in a row.

Considering the real risk of the game dying from a lack of new blood/sponsorship, I would think that the top priority should be making the game more accessible for new players, rather than worrying about the established players’ numbers next to their profile.

It’s a miserable time trying to introduce the ranked system to friends since it really does just boil down to “yeah, you’re going to lose - probably 5, 10, 15 times in a row before you get to your fledgling level”. It’s suuuuuper rough trying to get people to basically just roll with the punch only with the hopeful promise of (maybe) it being a better time at a lower ELO for them, if only they can “get there”.

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When the starting ELO puts you in top 40% of players. You know the game has big issues.

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In League of Legends, most people go in Bronze or Silver after their first 10 games. In AoE2 they go Platinum and then have to lose 5, 10, 15 games to get to their true elo and actually have fun experience in ranked.

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Two solutions to this:

  1. New players play against AI on Arabia in a series of up to four games at Standard, Medium, Hard and Extreme difficulty. Whichever AI beats them will determine their ELO level.

  2. New players select their own difficulty level from Beginner to Experienced, with descriptions of each level. Beginner would be 500 and below. No knowledge of build orders or keyboard shortcuts. Then a few more levels in between. Experienced would be 1000 ELO.

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  1. Better than what we have but once you know the AI you can beat the extreme AI even if you’re not that great of a player, the AI is full of exploits that you will never be able to pull off against a player.

  2. No way 2 is going to work, each players’ view of his own skill is subjective, that’s why we have elo in the first place. Also the Dunnking Kruger effect.

Better have 10 placement games, starting from fake elo 500, and gaining/losing 100 fake elo for each victory defeat (your opponent who is not in placement wins or loses elo like he was playing the real thing), you can get to a minimum of 300 elo and maximum of 1200 elo. Where you stand after 10 games will be your starting elo.

Or simply lower the new players starting elo to something like 700.

Not saying this is perfect, but hey, capitalism is not perfect but is better than fascism (not saying current system is fascism, just much much worse than many other imperfect alternatives)

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YES I agree to this really

5

I lile the idea of offering a lower starting Elo, but we have to update the Elo formula and see whether it doesnt promote smurfing too much.

I think this is a good idea. Newcomers who want PvP will probably rather have a few starting games vs AI than getting stomped for tens of games, and the other newcomers wont be bothered by that.

I dont like that. As @Player870583437 said, the level is subjective and too dependend on ladder players (increasing over the years). And I would rather add the small hurdle for smurfs by having them spend a couple if hours per new account (Assuming the winning speed against AI impacts the starting Elo).

This shouldnt matter. Most exploits need “concent” from the player. So players who use them know that they are laming.

I expect most new players to only desire getting to their Elo, the lamers will get stomped on the ladder, so it is not a problem for everyone else .

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Like I said in another topic:

New players could then have an evaluation based on the difficulty of the AI they beat, so that they could have assigned a supposed ELO.
This ELO would be hidden and the system could use it to make easier for the player to reach it with the proper ELO within the first games. For example by finding matches with player with the supposed ELO, or by increasing the point loss in the first matches until the player reaches the supposed ELO.

So e.g. a newbie player can beat the Standard and Average AI, but not the Hard
The system rates him at 800 elo
He starts anyway with 1000 elo points, but the matching system for the firts games will work as he’s a 800 elo player, so he will match with opponent that level.
Winning will increase both real and supposed elo. Losing will decrease both real and supposed elo.
Real elo will increase less and decrease more as the difference with the opponent would be higher.
The system could use the supposed elo to find the opponent for the first 20 matches, then switch to the real elo.
Beating the Hard, Hardest or Extreme AI meanwhile would update the supposed elo to an higher level.

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Well. you could increase the Elo loss in that case if you choose to have a higher starting rating.
Also, if I’m not mistaken, online chess uses this kind of self assessment.

As for starting rating - I actually think it’s already 800. AoE2Inisghts luckily shows the rating at the beginning of each match and when I checked the Microsoft account I used to play on the console ladder, it says the rating of both me and my opponent at the beginning of our first game is 800:

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I like the placements idea. I suck so I want to play around people my rank.

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That’s what I recall when I started Chess. Worked well enough for me. Some people would pick inaccurately, but that would be on them. You could also have an expert level that starts above 1000 (for smurf accounts and pro players from other RTS games)

Huh. So it seems.