Cant Believe the Random Map Pool Rotation is So Bad *bait*

[zanzabaarr7244]

Let me start by describing the average ranked AoE player.
As a consequence of developing a game with decades of history under its belt, many “elite” veteran players have come out of their “elite” voobly caves where they were playing the “elite” version of the game to try out this new iteration of the game.

Unfortunately, it was not brought up how absolutely toxic these players are.
It wasn’t long until toxic aoe behavior began to appear. Let’s keep one thing clear, sure you might have better technical skills in certain scenarios that benefit you… but that is not a mark of a skilled player. That’s the mark of a player that refuses to partake in competition unless he can assure himself that the odds are in HIS favor. Furthermore, this child-like behavior doesn’t resonate skill, but insecurity at said skill since the insecurity arises from playing things your not used to, not comfortable with or simply don’t like which goes against any notion of skill.

Now let’s analyze some comments from one of the larger posts on the AoE2:DE forum.
note that black forest was included in the vanilla version of the game and nomad was released in the conqueror’s expansion.

"Black forest? Nomad?? In ranked play?
Are you kidding me?"
Two of the most iconic maps found in OG AoE2 yet you say “Are you kidding me”.
What does this tell me… that you’re not good with defensive civs that benefit from black forest nor that you are good with early aggression civs that benefit from nomad… so what are you good at?

“Anyone who suggest unranked (as if it is possible to play a balanced game there) is a hypocrite. I be leaving the game too. My complete freedom of choice is my Valve Index and retro games but not AoE anymore.”
Your request to control the selection of maps is inherently a request to remove balance in favor of your personal preference within ranked so it’s ridiculous to even mention both those things in the same sentence. Also… is there even any competitive scenarios that give you “complete freedom of choice”?
Teams don’t get to choose what arena they play or who they are going to face and it makes this sound even more ridiculous.

They really have to keep bans for team games. Forcing people to play tg arena, nomad, and BF is ridiculous.
Forcing? No one is forcing you to do anything. Ranked just expects you to be good at the game, including maps that have been there since vanilla. If you haven’t gotten to practice those maps since OG AoE2 then right now is a good time to start.

So for now, I’ll only play Arabia and Black forest (and is so horrible play only 2 maps) and i’ll insta leave the others one.
Heres a comment that repeats the same pattern the previous comments expressed, one being the intent to complain about settings that don’t directly benefit them as well as general toxicity that is expressed on average from these players (that being the rage-quitting and insta quitting)

What’s the point in adjusting the game to confirm these players’ beliefs that they are good? because they clearly are not and it shows when they rig the game to their favor by leaving unfavorable lobbies and complain about the game on the forums which include threatening to leave to play other stuff?

Let’s be real guys, 80% of the aoe2 player base ONLY plays aoe2 and even if voobly is nice and all, it will stagnate alongside AoE2:DE and its full-time team of devs. It’s an insult to even complain like this, and id rather know that your not playing DE cause id rather not play with or against players that disrespectful. I hope you enjoy your voobly version, together, alone, in your echo chamber.

But what am I saying… why should I try and explain some sense to this scenario when it all comes down to who can complain the most? I’d rather let all those players that fall within the pattern of behavior explained in this post to hang out in voobly so they can go and sustain their own little clique and hang out and think they are skilled while refusing to admit why they have sissy panic attacks at the sight of maps and settings they don’t like.

Please, just get good. This is the same behavior picky eaters and spoiled children display. Be better than that.

Also, I can’t believe I have to clarify this but, no I’m not mad. There are people out there that think they are Nostradamus or something and jump on the “ha your mad” boat and the toxic players I describe are that exact demographic. Just remember, I held a massive grin on my face while writing this. I want to get on your nerves so you can snap out of that selfish state of mind and realize that BAM you just need some mf practice on nomad and bf. GET GOOD. Your making yourself look bad.

[ferchalurch]

I would normally agree with you.

However…

The game is meant to be fun. Period. End of story.

There are a handful of people out of the thousands that play online regularly that have other vested interests in the game beyond their own enjoyment. For the rest of us, it’s something we do in our limited free time to enjoy ourselves.

I’m also all for more maps being played and love that we see that now.

However…

The new map pool made some mistakes in going off of the most popularly played maps, in my opinion. This would be partially solved if you could still ban maps and queue for all match sizes. But the dislike of the map pool has some valid concerns if you look beyond the rather antagonistic quotes that you have curated for your post (ignoring some of the more rational arguments, I see ;P)

For example, ask yourself if there is a reason why any time these maps have been made for a competitive event that they do not use the Vanilla map script. Oftentimes, these maps are not very balanced between players. Before the suggestion is to simply ‘get good,’ these considerations are actually important, because it leads to map bias. Not to mention it’s why Arabia became the ‘base’ map for AoE2 over 20 years. Because it was the most balanced map for most civs. Not really for many other reasons.

And ask yourself why nomad is played by a very devoted following that is much smaller than the total group. Everyone plays nomad on occasion, sure. But it’s been generally accepted by players who do not play it regularly that they are not going into it with a regular ranked game mentality. It’s pretty accepted that a lower Elo player is more likely to win on Nomad than on Arabia or any more standard map. When you play maybe 1 out of 20 maps nomad (if even that much), but the rest on more balanced starts, your Elo remains about where it should and you get balanced matches in all games. When you make it more frequent alongside regular start games, you start to see player’s Elos fluctuate more wildly, leading to less fun matches that are very one-sided.

And ask yourself why almost all Black Forest games are team games, aside from a few outliers. Black Forest is the ultimate late game map (aside from maybe Oasis, which is like a close cousin). In a team game, the ability to push with more on a single front and the sheer map size leads to incredibly interesting games. In a 1v1, honestly, right now it feels like it’s just whoever gets bored and taps out first. Because an evenly matched Black Forest game can literally take hours to finish. Which can be fun, especially in a large team game. But in a 1v1, it just starts to feel stale after a while.

And then finally, ask yourself why random civilization was the standard in most games for so long. There are so many civilizations in the game. Surely you would argue that it should be random as well, given your passion for the argument of ‘get good’? That also plays into the maps. I know I’m not alone in being sick of seeing Mongols and Chinese on Steppe. Chinese and Mayans on nomad. Vikings and Italians on Team Islands. Mayans and Lithuanians on Arena. I bet that if the stats page worked on this site that the civilizations played percentages would be laughable at best.

So, in summary, all of these factors lead to less fun. Fun being the primary motive for most people playing the game. What is really needed is a better ban system, or a better queue system. There have been numerous suggestions on how to do this. But I don’t think taking a critical lens to players who don’t enjoy the map pool is the correct solution, or helpful for that matter. Again, this is all just my opinion, so please take it with whatever heaping of salt that you would like.

[Kuoting]

Play “Full random map” and check what maps you get. Black Forest, Nomad, Steppe, Mega random and Arena have NEVER been considered as regular maps since the time of the former Ensemble Studio.

In the later DLC, the Forgotten team added Acropolis, Cenote, Valley, City of lakes in the “Full random map” pool. They are all good maps IMO. Good job!

This is why I want the previous ranked map pool back! Because It is basically the “Random land map” pool. If you add a few water/hybrid maps and it will become a perfect map pool reflect the essence and every strategic aspect of Age of Empires II!

Why the devs suddenly lost their mind and adopted the current cancerous pool filled with these industrial wastes now is the biggest mystery to me.

If the current map pool is not the devs’ original intention, then they should be more confident in the very first decisions they made.