Display Rating/ELO/UnrankedELO In Lobby

It’s basically impossible to have a balanced “casual” game with the current system because rank/ELO isn’t displayed in the lobby, so we can’t make fair teams. Anyone who has played a few casual 3v3s or 4v4s will know exactly what I’m talking about: You don’t know if your teammates and opponents will be supernoobs or super pro until the game starts and by that point it’s already too late.

Please display some sort of rank or ELO or “unranked ELO” in the lobby so we can have balanced games!
Or is it the developer’s intention to force all players to queue for ranked if they want a balanced game?

24 Likes

Even a 1v1 casual is hurt by the lack of visibility of opponent rating. This is absolutely a must-fix issue.

I get the desire to want to push players to matchmaking, but the devs are gambling hard with this idea. If the pool of players isn’t big enough for quick matchmaking then people will revert to casual and if the casual experience is poor due to being unable to have fair games then players will be lost altogether. AOE3 fan base just isn’t as large as AOE2, and while Supremacy might be able to succeed with this gamble, I guarantee TR and DM will not.

A secondary but also important thing to be able to see in a lobby is other player’s decks. Decks help others to see if the player is competent because of accepted metas. Also, it’s helpful if you want to copy someone else’s deck to be able to see it. Please bring this feature back as well!

6 Likes

They added feature to aoe2:de after couple months so maybe next year we get it to aoe3?

The fact they added it in DE acknowledges it was a popular/needed feature. It kind of begs the question why didn’t they build it into AOE3:DE since:

  1. AOE3 player base is already used to the feature in ESO.
  2. AOE2:DE player base had enough feedback to add it retroactively.

It’s obviously a non-negotiable feature, why go through the same pain twice? :confused:

7 Likes

Intuitively, I would agree with the argument made here. It will be impossible to play a fun team game like this in casual, skill gaps are just too big.

In the current Aoe3, non-ranked team games were not popular and I would argue its right that way.
I don’t see the point in “training” in a casual mode just to then play fewer ranked games. If you are a casual gamer, then what’s wrong with just playing ranked all the time as you don’t care about rank anyway.

For me what’s important is:

  1. As many people to play with as possible
  2. Fair games in terms of ranks
  3. Fair and fun games in terms of civ matchups

So for 1. and 2. it would probably be best if the “casual” mode stays useless for people who play somewhat competitively (meaning 2lt upwards) and everyone plays ranked. This would make the matchmaking efficient and leads to fun games. I also like it when there are some stakes so there are less trolls in my own team.

Number 3. won’t be possible with the ranked games. But maybe as we now have balanced maps and balance changes you won’t face unbeatable teams like sioux + otto + india.

So to be honest even though I think a very valid point is made here I am not sure if fixing this could make the overall experience worse.

For 1v1 I think the current setting is ok as there is no reason not to just play ranked. Would be nice to know after a game which ELO the player had just out of interest.

2 Likes

Very good points made @solaire1120. I agree with all three of your priorities.

Fact: The bigger the ranked pool of players, the better.
BUT: I’m not sure if the pool is going to be big enough for every game mode and every skill level. I suppose the devs are planning to see what happens after launch and adjust from there. I’m not sure it’s the best idea, though I’ll be excited to be proven wrong here. Everybody tends to play ranked games in casual lobbies in AOE3, so maybe they’ll transition to ranked matchmaking in DE. I just think even a 4-7 min wait time could be a detriment to player retention, and that’s a very real possibility for certain game modes/ranks/times of day. It also may be less of an issue when the game launches than when things settle down after a few months due to hype.

I tend to believe that having the feature to show rank in a casual game shouldn’t drastically alter the success of ranked matchmaking, since like you said: people don’t like to play for nothing. It it doesn’t hurt anything and it’s a popular feature, why not bring it back?

Your last sentence brings up an excellent point about being able to review ELO. I’d even take it a step further and say that when loading into your ranked matchmaking game you should be able to see your opponents’ rating along with name and civ.

Great discourse!

People confuse casual games with “noob” games, thats a huge issue. It was the same in aoe2, a new player is scared of playing rated then goes into casual, and gets demolished 5 times in a row, and have no idea whats going on… We MUST have visible rankings for fair games to be possible.

Imagine current/old eso, if I host a game “mid tier players only” how is someone supposed to know what the skill level of players in there? A master sargent might think he is mid tier because he is way better then begginers, and a lieutenant colonel might also think he is a mid tier because he doest stand a chance vs top players. Both are right, but a MS vs LtCol game will be awefull for everyone involved, as one team will just stomp the other.

5 Likes

Thanks for mentioning this. I assumed this would be fixed by release. it’s a massive problem.

I went into full detail here: (feel free to add your own thoughts here too!!)

The developers look like the noobs who thought hc rating was how you judged someone’s ability.

Hey guys.

I really love this game, but the missing of rankings in online lobbys is fun breaking for me. How am i supposed to see how good my enemys are? To many match ups are uneven. I even got flamed for noob bashing.

What do u guys say about this?

10 Likes

the score given on matchmaking could be shown on lobby.
But would take soooooooo loooooong to start a match, because people want to play with people of the same level, host would kick you, and would be imposible to find an unranked game
if they want to play with people of the same level, thats where matchmaking ranked does the work.
lobby is just to explore civs and learn

3 Likes

There are a lot of players, which are only playing in lobby. (had to wait like 10 Minutes for a 3v3 ranked game). It would be nice if we get some kind of a rank also.
AoE 3 vanilla also had Quicksearch, but nobody used it. It is the same again x.x

I personally would not want to see ranks of any type in a lobby match. Its just that a lobby. It should remain unranked and a place to try out new civs, custom games and set up matches with friends and clans. This is the exact isssue with aoe 3 origional and trying to get a game going was a nightmare.

2 Likes

I heard that people don’t use quickmatch because of the cheaters and lacking of players. Now the sitiation is quite different.

From my experience last weakend, it took less than 3 minutes to find a 3v3 or 4v4 game. I believe 1v1 would be way faster.

2 Likes

I saw the “ranked” system and immediately thought it would go the way of the quick match. We might end up with only an unranked lobby.

If it stays that way I’ll take it. It took 10 mins to get a lobby together in the old system anyway.

There should be an option to choose to see and not to see the ranks and then pls, you can choose not to see the ranks from the others.
I, personally, have enough of smurfs and trollers which their only happiness is to bash the begginers. More than that, their beloved words are “noobs/beginners only” in the game Title.

You say, that the waiting is the problem?! I say that is even worse to beginn a game and after 5-10-20 min. someone goes out because the game is too uneven/unfair and you have to start from the beginning.
This is much worse with nr40/nr60 treaty games!

So, pls, Devs, put the option to see the ranks in the Lobby! And give the smurfs the option not to see the ranks , because, why not?!, everyone should be happy!

1 Like

Well, everyone should have fun with the game, isn’t it!? If you are playing against “noobs”, you will be the only one who have the fun, don’t you?! Or you think the beginner will share your joy by losing clearly and withouth any chance to win, against to a much much better player?!
Go, and play with your ~ ranks, whatever they are. Noone says, you have to be exacly the same level. But pls, don’t put a private against a liutenant or even a captain.

its ok, but u can go to a discord channel find noob people xD, or just tittle the hosted game “3vs3 noobs”.

im ok that ranked score is shown on lobby

the problem is that sometimes when high score is shown, and we are “noob” using a civilization, people will think that we will play very good, but we wont, because its not our main civilization, then to try new civs playing with people unranked become very difficult because they kick you because of high ranked score.
but i think that adding viewable ranked score on lobby would be good because, all matches would be unranked anyways. So people wont get upset because the “expert guy” was not using his main civ, because they wont lose ranking score

The game can’t work if there’s no rank showing in normal lobbys.

If players played this game online since 2005 it’s thanks to that special thing in the multiplayer. You can make lobby with people ur lvl, and not waste ur time being bashed by pro or winning vs a casual everytime without fun…

People saying the way multiplayer works in DE is good just don’t understand it will not work anymore in some times, maybe before christmas, once the casuals will leave for another game.

You will just fall forever with pro players and loose all ur games… and you will have no way to know before you waste 20 minutes of ur day

2 Likes