Custom Ranked lobbies are a mistake

The latest patch Update 58259 introduces custom ranked lobbies for deathmatch, which could be a subtle experiment to test ranked lobbies.

It is a mistake, and will ruin the game.

I live in the oceanic region, and my ELO is top 10%-20% of players. What does this mean? It means matchmaking is harder for the system to find people to play with.

When I queue ranked, the system needs to find a player with similar ELO range within the same region, in an appropriate time (5-10 minutes). Matchmaking needs to balance all of these factors. ELO, latency, and wait time. Which is also the reason Infinite Bans is a bad idea, because it adds an additional factor to balance.

Sometimes it’s too hard for matchmaking to do that. Sometimes I am against players in America (200+ ping), or Europe (300+ ping). Sometimes I get players 500 ELO above, or below me. Sometimes I am waiting 20+ minutes.

Now add in custom ranked lobbies.

Players from less populated regions will be forced to play on America or Europe servers (we almost are at the moment anyway).

Custom ranked lobbies allow the host to choose the settings

Now on Voobly this was an issue, because the hosts would always ensure they got the advantage with the settings, and could kick any player they didn’t want to go against. Basically rigging the odds.

The most popular map is Arabia, and on Voobly this was always the map played on. For those who argue “well if they want to play the map, they can wait longer” - on voobly players were reportedly waiting for 2+ hours to play anything not Arabia. It will kill map diversity either way including Arena and Nomad.

So, to summarize:

  • Custom Ranked Lobbies for deathmatch could later be used as an experiment to test ranked lobbies
  • Ranked lobbies are rigged in favor of the host who chooses the server, settings and players
  • Ranked lobbies will kill map diversity, as the most popular map is Arabia so it will become Arabia only
  • The unfairness will destroy competitiveness, especially for less populated regions such as Oceania

Do not implement ranked random map lobbies. It is a mistake. Most of the people who want this are the same type of people who would rig Voobly lobbies in their favor to ensure a win.

Thank you for listening,
I will now enjoy any comments, especially from people who never bothered to read anything so I can bring up the same points again in a reply.

3 Likes

Can’t you just host a ranked lobby yourself instead of waiting for a game? For example, if I want to play a ranked BF lobby, I’m currently looking at all three ratings when creating the lobby, but with Unranked rating being weird atm, I can’t in the future trust the unranked rating (or no rating at all if they remove it altogether) at all.

You might question where’s the problem, but several players have no ranked games and play BF only, and their Unranked rating reflects that somewhat accurately for pretty balanced games overall.

1 Like

Ranked lobbies are the future of this game, your post doesn’t have the same weight as the hundreds of complains in the last months about how broken and unfair the MM is for team games.

Also you are not telling the whole story, current system only works for premade teams aka stackers, solo players who are probably the majority have to be dragged to games with 0 possibilities to win cause of teams like yours with high rank, just like you just said after you have waited with your beloved friends 7 mins it will drag any player close to your ranks and fill the spots with anyone in the queue, in other words, you will be facing a solo player teaming players several tiers below the necessary level to get a fair match, YIKES!.

And if you want to talk about unfair pings, well the MM doesn’t do it better, if me on mexico NA and my team mate sin the same location are facing a team of australians like yours, we will be playing on your server! why?? i don’t know the same happens vs south americans, it always chooses south brasil server, there is no fun playing 250 ping vs guys at 50 ping…

3 Likes

I am for implementing ranked lobbies for many different modes, thank you.

And you can always choose to host in a preferred server or middle-ground server.

Regicide, Nomad, Death Match, Empire Wars, CBA, Battle Royale, King of the Hill, FFA, Wonder Race, and many possible fun modes.

Beyond that, remember; This is not Call of Duty, it’s a RTS game that you may easily account for the lag and click in advance. If you can lure a boar with a scout with lag, then it’s not laggy enough to complain.

Ranked lobbies are a death sentence for this game. They are a thing of the past, and very outdated. I don’t know what other games you play, but I can tell you, ranked matchmaking is a basic demand for a modern PvP game, no-one wants to have to go through a lobby system like Voobly.

What, so it’s not ok to assemble a team before a match, but it is ok to have a lobby with whatever screwed up settings the player wants, and they can still team? Really not logical. Also, TG elo is already pretty bad, but doing this will only make it worse.

This is blatantly false. I don’t recall hundreds of complaints, and most of them are just reposts from people like you who live in a dreamworld based on the past. If ranked lobbies are added for 1v1, then elo becomes meaningless, and the game will die. Players like Fatslob are the reason for that. People can choose whatever messed up settings they are good at, and get a really high winrate, and get a heap of elo. Put them on any other map or reasonable settings, and they will be a heap worse. The actual better starting solution for TGs might just be to split it into teams and solo queued players.

1 Like

How does ranked lobbies even solve having stacked teams. If anything it makes it worse.

If you can lure a boar with a scout with lag, then it’s not laggy enough to complain.

I can lure boars using the TC with 600 ping. If the latency is consistent you can time it right. A bigger problem is micromanagement against other players in battles. A 6 second input lag is not fun or competitive.

A dark age scout attacking your lumberjacks with loom? I guess you just lose all the villagers… seems fair.

At that point, I’d get your internet fixed; A stable connection to the server is much more important that having less than 200 ping, and 300 ping with a stable connection is well and able to be played.

If it’s 6 seconds of input lag then that’s a solid 6000 ping, which shouldn’t be a thing. Perhaps your wifi hardware is going bad and needs to be replaced - either your router or your computer’s wifi adapter.

If you’re plugged in via the cord for direct internet then I don’t know, maybe a new cord or calling in an expert to diagnose it.

You may be able to temporarily boost the signal using tin foil though.

1 Like

At that point, I’d get your internet fixed

I mean I already said this, but I am in Oceania…

I have around 50 ping to Australia servers, 140 ping to Asia, 250 ping to America, 300 ping to Europe

Internet is fine.

If it’s team games, it may be the lag each individual player puts into it. It only takes one red clock to make the game run badly for all players.

As for servers, host in your own server, and then if it’s too slow host on a middle-ground server.

That being said, don’t be shy of the 300 ping servers, it’s mostly the players, not the server, that increases lag.

I disagree with your arguments. The current system is already broken, and I welcome attempts to fix it. I think its possible to make a hybrid system that uses automatic matchmaking to fill lobbies.

Also, who cares about “map diversity”? If people want to play Arabia, let them play Arabia. If there aren’t enough people wanting to play Arena, that shouldn’t mean that someone is forced to play it. I disagree with this too anyway, and I think we would see more maps played if MS finally lets us pick from the entire map pool.

3 Likes

A yes, this is totally not happening in a matchmaking system and parties of 4’s being in voice chat…
Also, people just wouldn’t join FMT (Friends may team) rooms and avoid them. Furthermore we have a “Balance Team” Option in these Ranked Lobbies which is essential Matchmaking in Lobbies when pressed.

Yeah, no - Try harder if you want to troll. There was always a BF, Nomad, Arabia, LN FFA and Arena TG on Voobly - and we only had less 3000 players at peak.

Ranked Lobbies will come and I can’t wait for it to finally happen. WIth persistent Lobbies you can additionally restore and rematch to your hearts content.

Smurfs → get removed
Hacker → banned from Rooms
Quitter/Insulter/Salty player → banned from Rooms
Civ picking gets finally nerfed with being able to counter pick or most games will be random civ finally ending the stale meta and truly making ranked depending on Skill, not who knows his Build order better.

??? It makes it VISIBLE in the lobby and you can willingly DODGE it if you think it is unbalanced? How is this worse than matchmaking where you literally have no clue if you are against 4 Voice chat players and don’t even see their elo?

Yes, Yes it is. Because these settings (250 pop, Random Civ, Medium starting resources) whatever applies to all player? I mean you are desperately trying to convince us that all of a sudden players will play 75 pop Feudal Start Castle Age Ending, Random Resource King of the Hill 2v2v2v2 on Pacific Island and don’t deserve points if they win it - The competitiveness will stay the same as most rooms will have the default settings we have in MM now. How do I know? - watch Voobly for the past 13 years (except maybe the one and the other 225 or 250 pop BF game).

Ranked Lobbies are, and will always be, the best option for AoE2

2 Likes

Counter picking is anti sportsmanship, hidden civ pick is the way of the future, and I love the idea of maining my civs rather than being forced into random civs or being counter picked purposefully.

1 Like

How often do I need to debunk the “don’t force me to play the maps I don’t want to play”

FACT: You are playing with another person

If in your example, there is one person who wants to play Arena, and one person who wants to play Arabia, then one person is always going to miss out. So the current system with bans and preferences makes it fair

I am tired of this illogical argument

One person is always “forced” to play what another person prefers. The difference with this system is that it decides this without bias and gives reasonable control to both parties.

1 Like

You can already setup lobbies with hidden civilizations…

I agree that making people play random in lobbies is not good.

I mean you blatantly admitted to counter picking civilization

and you can willingly DODGE it if you think it is unbalanced?

What you mean to say is “if you don’t think you’ll win”

Case and point.

I dont understand - many ranked lobbies supporter assumes that the host will create a fair game, but isnt it the case where most voobly games are laggy af for clients in vobbly? (cannot do good micro, e.g dodge ballistics because of that)

In hd and probably voobly as well, the host and everyone had the ability to see who generally had good stable ping or not before the game was even started, which helped then, would be nice to have now.

That being said too many people see 300 ping and think it’s suddenly game breaking, it’s not. Ping stability is much more important, so I’d suggest the clocks appearing instead in the lobby instead of ping listings.

FACT: You didn’t debunk anything, you just gave your opinion.

FACT: No one should be forced to play a map they don’t want to play. Keep pushing this nonsense, I’ll alt-f4 or resign.

I agree nobody should be forced to play a map they don’t want, which is why we have the current matchmaking system and it’s never going to change :slight_smile:

FACT: There are two players in a game. It may come as a shock. The earth also rotates around the sun. The sun doesn’t revolve around you

I don’t want to completely blow your mind, so that should be enough information for now.