Bad map rotations

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
1

Imo the map rotations in the last few week and upcoming weeks have some majors flaws.

First of all: Where are the water maps?

Why are the same maps in the rotation again and again? MegaRandom will be the 4h time in a row in the rotation next week? Is it now a standard map like Arabia and Arena? That is so boring.

Also when Coastal is in the map rotation the last few weeks why put it in the poll again for the next weeks? Same for Hideout.

Cenotes also wasnt in the rotation for a year, then it was a month ago, and now already again. What is this logic?

So imo a map rotation needs a water map and the other alternating maps should actually alternate. Also 7 maps is probably a too low number of maps.

Next week will be probably Arabia, Arena, MegaRandom, Hideout, Cenotes, Yucatan, Coastal. How boring.

1 Like
2

Which ends up to be, at least for me, after considering bans, Arabia/Arena/Hideout/Coastal. Same as this rotation… yeah, that’s not really optimal.

Edit: I think it would be reasonable to exclude maps from the current rotation from dev picks or voting options for the next rotation (except Arabia/Arena if they’re supposed to be fixed).
So repetition at most every other rotation.

1 Like
3

I made a seperate post about some changes to the map voting system I would like to see. I hope that more people will respond to this thread as well.

However

I completely disagree with this. As long as we do not get a complete water overhaul, I refuse to see a reason why we should have a water map in the map pool.

4

I made a seperate post about some changes to the map voting system I would like to see. I hope that more people will respond to this thread as well.

One thing about the voting system I dislike is the following:

When some amount of people vote (long term) for a map A and half the amount votes for map B this should actually result in the Map A being played twice as often as map B, not indefinitly more often.

This could be implemented by storing votes for maps that dont get into the pool, and also storing excess votes for the wining maps.

So if in week 1 ap A gets 16% votes, and map B gets 8.1%, then Map A will be played.

The next time map B is in the poll the 8.1% gets added, if it gets 8.1 again, it results in 16.2 and will beat another 16% map. Th 16% for the other map will be stored. This ensures long term that maps who are votes twice as often are also just twice as often in the pool.

But what currently happens is that maps that get votes by 8% never get played, unless the devs decide to place it in the pool. It is nice that the devs add maps like Frigid Lake or Greenland or Enclosed in the pools sometimes, otherwise we would not see them. What isn’t nice is that The other map isn’t a water map like it used to be last year, but always MegaRandom atm.

I completely disagree with this. As long as we do not get a complete water overhaul, I refuse to see a reason why we should have a water map in the map pool.

The reason why a water map should be in the map pool is because water maps are a fundamental map type, and each fundamental type should be played in ranked, if the ranked should represent AoE2 overall, what it should.

AoE2 is an over 20 year old game and there shouldn’t be an complete overhaul of big parts of the game. Just make Aoe5 instead for different overall mechanics.

1 Like
5

This is one of the worst arguments, and sadly, it gets brought up way too often. Why argue in favor of a map type that is the closest to being objectively bad, not wanting to improve it but still wanting it in the map pool? There is a reason why water maps are unpopular, and you can accept that, argue in favor of a water overhaul, or act as if water maps were actually good and then be surprised why the map pool lacks a water map.

1 Like
6

This is one of the worst arguments, and sadly, it gets brought up way too often. Why argue in favor of a map type that is the closest to being objectively bad, not wanting to improve it but still wanting it in the map pool? There is a reason why water maps are unpopular, and you can accept that, argue in favor of a water overhaul, or act as if water maps were actually good and then be surprised why the map pool lacks a water map.

I think the game should still be recognizeable, and work basically in the same way. I made the experience in another game, that the devs completely ruined it. But I am not opposed to light changes. Gambeson-sized changes for example. So it all depends on what kind of changes are supposed.

But I am not convinced that water maps are objectively bad. They can create amazing games. There is one thing I dislike though, that is the low information you have about the opponent. How much fishing ships does the opponent have, does the opponent try to kill your fishing ships in feudal, does the opponent try to land on your island? It is like rock paper scissor: You don’t know what the opponent does, but you can win or lose because of it. But I am not sure how this can be solved. Maybe it would help if the maps were played as explored form the beginning like Black Forest.

But nonetheless I think 40% of the best games I played were on water maps. And if I were a better player there would be probably a solution for my feudal rock-paper-scissor dilema.

I am also not convinced that water maps are in general unpopular. Baltic and Meditarranean count as water maps and are alsways voted into the pool, But imo they are rather hybrid maps, and probably voted more because of there closed nature, like Yucatan, Black Forest and Amazon tunnel, who are also always voted in. Imo Baltic is actually the only water map that is really objectively bad. Had a 5 hour 56 minute game there recently, and and another 4 hour stalemate a bit longer ago there. It tends too much towards a stalemate without a draw being an option.

So since the map voting is in the game we get a lot of Baltic and Mediterranean, but I don’t think it is because these maps are objectively good, and that Baltic is fine as it is. It is a flawed map.

2 Likes
8

Sorry for spamming this everywhere, but this is super important.

1 Like
9

I liked some new and weird maps that were in the pool recently. Coastal, the one with the deep fish right near your tc

Fun games and maps

Devs should just bite the bullet and give like another 5 of those weird maps on the pool. Chuck in 1v1 BF. Chuck in 1v1 highland. Etc

Have like 10 maps plus arena and arabia

1 Like
10

Devs, for the 100000th time, listen…

1 Like