The first 15 villagers are pretty much the same, but I dont see that as a problem, I dont see that as a synonym of a boring game, as long as the game open space for other options after that.
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arabia on DE is the most boring it has ever been in team games
the game just doesnāt have enough real counterplay to xbow + heavy cavalry. the team positions nonsense letās people force the exactly same game every single time.
i can tell who is going to win before the game even starts. thereās no suspense. thereās no variety. thereās no excitement. itās just repetitive.
arabia random civ might be interesting. what we have now is not
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Play unranked or play HD or voobly.
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I love AOE2, for a long time I wasnāt a fan of Arabia, since I didnāt enjoy the pressure. Now hat Iām spending time trying to perfect my game, itās something I do enjoy, and i sometimes get annoyed by closed maps. But the reality is the game is a game of strategy and counter strategies, and more map pools make for more strategies and varied play. If all we did was ranked Arabia it would get stale very fast. Example, letās say youāre playing and your enemy is huns, you instantly know what their doing. Closed maps allow for varied strats like, castle drop, tower push, fast imp, siege push etc. To be successful in the current map pool you have to be able to execute a variety of strategies of a myriad of maps. So while Iām not really a fan of Arena or mountain pass, the bottom line is it keeps us from just developing and executing the same 2 or 3 rush builds over and over again, because thatās not what age is about. So in a couple days we will have our new map pool, and then we will be forced to develop new strats. And thatās what keeps the game fresh for everyone.
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I donāt think I would enjoy Arabia onlyā¦ but this monthās map pool is awful.
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I donāt like BF and arena but there are players who somehow love those maps and were only playing those maps all their lives. Those guys have always been minority among the nomad and forest nothing players, but arabia and its variances(ga) have been the most played map in age of empires 2 history in all competitive platforms, saying things like it is boring i mean it might be for some people but you have to respect and acknowledge that Arabia is the best map of this game according to the playerās preference.
Obviously arabia is the only map that allows you to pick 20 civs or more and still have chances to win it vs similar skilled players, unlike maps like TI,arena, gold rush and its variances (golden pit and swamp), islands, continental, nomad, hillfort and i can keep saying maps that can only be played with less than 5 civs and the execution is almost the same on every single map, whereas in arabia you have more strategies to choose.
At this point the devs should have enough data to see if their MM and map options have been effective or been positive to the community, i dare to say that this month has had less games played in 1x1 due the map options(i hated them) and you could see players complaining on their streams, instead of using alt f4 i havenāt played this month more than 4 1x1, but i donāt blame players using it, it might be their only option instead of being forced to play something they donāt want, would you punish someone for not wanting to play a map? are you serious? what is next banning ppl for not typing GG? banning players who dropped in team games? i am curios to read more.
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I totally agree with uneasierfrog173. I also have stopped playing ranked, because for me the thing i enjoy by far the most in aoe2 is playing Arabia. I have played quite a lot on voobly back in the days and Arabia is the map i love. For me it is the perfect balance between early aggression with the possibility to still somehow secure your ressources. It is the map where the game for me has by far the most depth. Where i know what my opponent could have or could go for. I am sure there are people who feel like that for multiple maps in the map pool, but this is not the case for me (and believe i tried to like them). But to get a competitive match on arabia i am now forced to play a bunch of maps i donāt like to play and that is just to enjoyable for me. I donāt need an arabia only queue. Just give me the opportunity to just play arabia ranked (for example with unlimited bans).
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Had a really fun match in bog islands; mongols vs goths, i made a base on the right side of the lake halfway between me and the opponent, started harassing with cav archers and mangudai, noticed he started spamming huskarls; i kept harassing with ranged units while i was secretly producing light cav and 3 demos. When i saw his base had no longer huskarls defending i assumed he went the other side of the lake. 3 demo hits on an army of huskarls followed by a charge of ussars when he was at the entrance of my base. I really enjoy the variety the terrain has to offer.
Sure golden pit is monotonous in strategy, but itās not monotonous in map shape. You have different portions of the map that require a different treatment. In such maps strategy and game awareness matter a bit more than sheer apm compared to Arabia. Thatās what i enjoy.
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we need the old arabia back for death match players back from MSN gaming zone AOK!!
I am sorry but any player who willingly ruins the game for another player is not someone who should be welcomed in the community. I am talking about you saying that using Alt-F4 is okay. This is not okay. You are wasting the time of the other person. You willingly chose to play ranked, and you know that it is possible it wont be Arabia. If you do not like that, do not play ranked. Go make an unranked Arabia lobby.
The sum of the matter is: promoting that closing the game when you dont like the map is an okay thing to do is equivalent to promoting toxic behavior. Anyone who is caught using Alt-F4 to exit should be banned in my opinion.
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Speaking for myself, Iām more than happy if opponent ALT-F4s the queue when hill fort/bog islands/mountain pass cancer appears again, so I donāt have to suffer playing a 
map as well.
Might be different for lower rated players, but the maps are so stale and figured out that at a higher level people far prefer arabia over anything else. It shows in play rate of the past pools as well, arabia and arabia look-a-likes are much more popular than other maps.
Then it obviously isnāt ranked, and there are only noobs atm playing unranked. Going back to Voobly is no option either since despite the increase in playerbase, pretty much all 1800+ rated players on Voobly are gone.
3 Likes
see my other comment
You can still find very good players on unranked lobbies. Again, personally you may be okay with someone using Alt-F4, but in general I think it is just bad practice and definitely not something to be encouraged.
It is especially troublesome in team games, where one can leave their teammates hanging. And I have seen it happen and it is very frustrating. If this is the direction players are going to take then it will result in a lot of wasted time and not-fun experience.
You may not like the way ranked is setup right now, and I dont like it either. But potentially ruining the experience for other players is not a solution.
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Itās definitely not the solution @OutlaWoftOrN, it is a way to point it out the problem with the current system. The solution would be to give the players what the want so they donāt have to alt f4.
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this is false. Not a single higher rated player plays unranked. (fyi, being 2k+ unranked does not necessarily translate to 1600+ 1v1).
thatās fair, but I much prefer players alt-F4 maps they donāt even want to play than being forced to play a map against their will. Or worse, having players alt F4 when the game has already started.
I think we both agree on this. I think the solution is fairly simple, give people more freedom to choose their maps. If it ends up being arabia 90% of the rated games (like it has been for the past 20 years), then so be it.
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Its not false by any means. I said you can find very good players, and your interpretation of what is āvery goodā may be different. They might not be frequent, but they do play there.
In any case, I think its a better to encourage behavior that creates a good experience for all, rather than being disruptive and robbing people of the time they spend to get a game when they realize that their opponent or team mate quit just because they dont like the map.
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Higher rated = 1600+ 1v1 to me. anyway, itās a waste of time trying to host a public unranked game, since the unranked elo is completely meaningless. the only time higher rated players play unranked is when they play vs friends.
I would agree, and argue that you cannot force players to ālike a mapā. The current matchmaking system as it is does not work.
Id encourage people to leave during matchmaking if they get a map they very much dislike (and cannot get their teammates/opponent to ban the map for them). Once the game already started id agree, then quitting is too late and ruins the game for opponent/team mates.
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I strongly encourage the Alt-F4/closing the game down etc. system when a clown map pops up.
Why potentially waste another hour of your time playing a map you hate just so someone who enjoys playing 90% water maps where you start with a monastery, no town centre, and 10 zebras can play that??? Itās completely riduclous
League of Legends has one map, basically, and that has not affected its popularity.
My suggestion would be splitting the maps into Core Maps and Rotational Maps:
Core Maps would be Arabia, Arena, Black Forest etc., i.e. maps which have dedicated fan bases who are happy to play just that map over and over again. Core Maps can have unlimited bans so you only play the map you want.
Rotational Maps would include all the clown fiesta maps which get put into ranked rotation every month as well as MegaRandom. You would only be able to ban a certain number of Rotational Maps, since this map pool is for those who enjoy āadaptingā to random situations, rather than mastering something.
So queueing for ranked you would have to select at least one of the core maps or the rotational map system. Winning matches in either would increase your ranked rating. Or alternatively you could have a rotational map ranked mode and one where you have a very small but consistent map pool that has unlimited bans iā¦e play only the maps you want.
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You know you can exclude a map from the map pool by just clicking on it on Multiplayer page? No need to ALT+F4.
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With the one ban I get on 4v4ā¦right.
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