Not sure what you meant with ‘Lets play’. I read this in another post of you as well. I thought you meant the lobby, but that cant be true. But it looks like you meant Quick play. So in my post i assume your ‘Lets play’ is the ingame quick play feature.
I also assume nothing will change for quick play. So i do really think you have to go to the lobby for DM games.
To me the general consensus is that there isnt any elo in quick play. It only match on the preferences. Not on your elo. I have looked at games at aoe2.net and i am pretty sure about this statement. Quick play is also announced as a unranked game mode. It has no ranking. There is no elo. Even aoe2.net doesnt show a seperate elo for quick play. And the games of quick play also doesnt count towards the unranked elo of aoe2.net. The unranked elo of aoe2.net is based on the lobby.
This reason alone is the reason why quick play is terrible by design. For RM and EW (i neglict BR) quick play will be the same as ranked, with only two smaller difference:
- In quick play you arent matched based on ratings, while in ranked you are matched on ratings. So in my opinion you are always better off by playing in ranked, since it will result in more balanced match ups.
- Ranked has conquest as victory condition. In quick play you can also win by a wonder or relic victory. In most games these things doesnt really make any difference in the outcome. So i pretty much neglict this different.
So there isnt really a reason for playing in quick play to me.
Even if DM is added to quick play, then i still dont think you wanna use quick play over the lobby. In the lobby you can set up your own games, so you are able to balance the teams manually, which is impossible in quick play.
I dont think we need to go into a discussion about quick play. I already made another thread about the issues with quick play in its current form:
At least you have some info about quick play not using any elo for balanced teams.
This is really the point. The DM community is pretty old and there arent many new players. Most new players will start to play RM, not DM. This is also because mainly all content is made for RM. What is the last time when T90 casted a DM game? His most recent DM seems to be a final of a previous WC DM in 2019. Also other great streamers or pro players almost only focus on RM or funny community games with weird settings (KOTH, sudden death, …). Only around the time of the WC DM you can see some footage of DM games. TheViiper uploaded yesterday his POV of the DMWC 4 round of 32. He will probably also upload other rounds as well. He will probably also upload the next rounds. But that is all we get from DM in the full year.
There are also DM players on youtube, but these gets much less attention. I was thinking of Jred, but it looks like he stopped uploading DM stuff well before DE was released. So there isnt just really much content out there. And given the fact that the DM community out there is very experienced, then you wont be really able to join. You skills are just way to low, like you descibes.
’
These ideas make sense, but i dont really know if it is enough to save DM. DM is already an old game mode, which didnt get the traction of RM in the recent years. So i dont really know if these things only will really make a change. You now also will get EW as part of the mix, which will get its own players base. Without DM as part of ranked it will be even harder to get the traction to make it popular.
I have to admit, i dont play DM. To me it looks like the first seconds are too much unforgiving, which will will win or lose you many games, which feel cheap to me. That seems to me part of the game mode and will never change. I do feel DM needs to be part of ranked, because of its history. And i like your ideas about a AoW for DM as well. Having events focussed on DM sounds great as well. Maybe it attracks some people.
The best solution is to have some big streamers making the gamemode popular in my opinion. But that is easier said then done.