My discussion topic is: don’t allow 4 person parties in ranked play
This happened to me - played the same team 3 times in a row - every time they did the exact same move - also pre-planned civs they did a 4 v 1 rush - using God Powers as pre-planned to basically kill off one person easily very quickly.
The reason I think this is wrong is not because we should discourage pre-planning or planned tactics - don’t even mind the teaming up - it’s just that this game was not built to withstand 4 v 1 teaming up with pre-plan usage of certain God powers and tactics.
This is fine with 3 v 1 pre-planned tactics because the HP of buildings and units can withstand it - it is almost possible to fend off 4 and so fending off 3 is quite easy for a capable player - as your teammates send help
So that is my suggestion - shouldn’t allow teams of 4 on 4 v 4 ranked - it can be abused by groups using pre-planned methods to simply get wins and go up the ranked score - it doesn’t really prove they are good players - in fact the ones who did this to me weren’t even that good - on the third time playing them I welcomed them to choose me as their victim - and I, with the help of my teammates, fought them off - and we actually made a good come back - but the damage was done - and I only knew how to fight them as I had just played them twice already
Simply, there should be an option in the lobby to prevent playing against premade teams. Those players you mention are troll players who only enter the game to annoy; they aren’t even interested in playing, they are only interested in harassing you by attacking you 3 vs 1 until you quit the match. These premade teams are what prevent all random players from ever being able to level up in the team ranked games. At most, random players will be able to climb to approximately 1350 Elo, but that is the maximum cap for random players, while the top of the ranked ladder is all premade teams of troll players
Theres several solo Q 1600+ tg players, so this is false.
It is howeer significantly harder to climb solo than as a team. Thou again, teaming up is the whole purpose of TEAM game.
Having no filter against this hurts the solo queuing random team players. Every team who sits together in a voice chat and has time to plan a strategy beforehand has an advantage over the solo player teams, who need to do this all in game without voice chat. There should be an option to only have solo player teams against solo player teams and preset teams against preset teams.
I have an idea why we don’t have this in any Age of game. In the long run, this will scare off all these preset team players who just want a win. Sadly, these toxic players are very active and the management surely wants to keep them. They buy all the DLCs, play all the time and don’t complain about balancing, which takes a lot of development resources. Microsoft announced its 30% profit goal this year for all companies under their umbrella, there is no escape.
People wanna play with their friends. Like in any game. Besides the advantage people Just brand it anything and forget you want to play games with people you like to paky games with. This be it people you know in person or people you met online in a game community.
Why would you erase the posibility of people playing the game with who they want because other players dont wanna do social work and find people to play with.
Competitive players are the ones that complain about balance the most so thet part isnt really there. I get the deal to vent after having a frustating game but dont Just brand all people that play with friends as this evil doers. Not all people have this hidden agenda to come after you.
The game doesnt have a high player count to start, and half the solo Q teamates you can get will either ignore you or leave Just because so. Its far more enjoy able to play with allies you know you can rely on.
Funny how you ignore the part where I say this should be a filter/option. I’m not against playing preset teams, I’m against preset teams against solo player teams. Furthermore, you prove my argument that you want to play as preset team against solo team players and not against other preset teams. It’s always interesting to see how people pick only parts of my arguments, where they can insert their own agenda and ignore the surrounding context of these arguments.
i didnt, but fair, i could have responded to it directly. The game has a low player base as is, subdividing will lead into more uneven games and longer waiting time.
Not really, i dont care about what my opponent is. I dont dodge matches when i get premade teams in a row, neither when i get better players in 1 vs 1. Im not that type of player, but it seems that those that you resent are, and fair, to each their own. Theres all types of players, players that want a “free win” as you call it, players that just wanna have fun, players that will play whaever is in front of them, players that want the game to cater to their limitations, etc.
I mean you are telling lies about having no way to voice chat in game and you simply move away when proven wrong. Also, usually the people that have premade teams and play together frequently tend to me more competitive and they are on average more involved in the game balancing aspect than people who casual game solo from time to time, so you are also wrong on that statement.
I did say premade teams have an advantage, on that we agree, but i also added that…. thats the whole point. Its always been, most games that have a function of playing as a team have the chance of teaming up with people. specially if theres a “raiting” involved in it. Even games like MOBA´s like LOL that subdivide their queue have solo/duo together.
You seem to be angry at specific groups of people, which all the power to you but that doesnt mean it makes you right for other´s pov.
Lies? Only because there is an option to voice chat does not mean solo team players are using it or want to use it. I stated only the difference between preset teams and solo player teams. One of them is using voice chat to coordinate. I could read your statement as it is the solo players fault for not using the in-game option. That strongly ignores the possibility that they don’t want to use it or can’t. Therefore, they have to live with that disadvantage, right?
You may be OK with that, but others are not, so they properly stop playing, because the game is not for them. This will make preset teams the norm in the long run, if it not already is. In my opinion, all Age of Games lost a lot of these solo team players because of that already and that for the short-lived benefit of having shorter wait times for a while until these players left for good.
Note: AoE2 may always be the exception here, but I would claim it is because of the open lobby culture there, which allows you to make your own rules and settings. Something I don’s see much in other Age of Games.
Yes, the option does exist. and the playerbase behavior is different to what you say
Theres also premades that arent in a voice chat, you can just play with friends and chat, and not have this set up strategy but just play random things or fun stuff, the different exceptions dont branch out only for the group you advocate for.
Yea, part of playing solo in a game where you can team up with people is to know you are playing against odds. As in all games. A random team of football players are at a disavantage against a team that plays together. Nothing is stopping anyone from finding people to play with.
For sure, nevery said otherwise.
If they dont play because they game doesnt cater to their every want i dont thinks theres games for that. I have yet to see a game where you can play its competitive mode and cater to being able to play solo and forbid duos or other people from playing.
You can just create a lobby and cater to any standard you want, you can play the maps you want, force random teams, ban gods, etc, etc.
On that we agree, theres def a lot of QoL aspects that should be improved with the games UI. To make finding peopel easier, findding lobbies easier. That used to be how aom was as well, both in EE and in voobly, ranked play was mostly dead or didnt exist and you would have ranked lobbies or everyone just play unranked and you had a system of knowing the other players
The main point was that the game itself isn’t really designed to deal with 4 v 1 rush. HP of buildings and units is fixed for example the Town Centre. If 3 attack it early on, you can usually defend against the rush. If 4 attack then it is almost impossible.
Also, with 4 people planning their 4 v 1 rush, they choose certain god powers which help this 4 v 1 rush even more - for example, using Deconstruction several times on one player
With random play then this is very unlikely that people will choose complementary gods even if they do discuss a 4 v 1 attack at the start of the game
This is true, game isnt balanced around team games for the most part.
Not really, you aint surviving 2v1 even less a 3v1 or more. Talking about even skilled people. The only answer is to get help from allies, which i get is a barrier by itself some times.
While true, with forcing random play you also negate the posibility of people to enjoy ranked games with friends. And if its just 3 man Q in a 4 man group you will run into that random player being ignored, which is the reason why games like MOBAs allow groups of 2-3-5 people but not 4. Being the odd one out isnt fun.
This is the main issue. It is funny that they allow 2v2,3v3 and 4v4 in the ranked. So you are telling me that the game is balanced in all of them to an extent they are all competitively viable? impossible. They should choose one and have a seperate balance (in an ideal world) for it.
But non the less the game does actually perform quite well even in 4v4s balance wise. The only problem is that the already small player base is being split in so many directions that it has now led to all having bad experience.
What you are proposing is a good option, But the game can’t afford to have it now. They can take the route that DotA took, DotA also didn’t have this option but after having enough players they did add it. (don’t know if it still has it).
And I believe LoL with all of its player base still doesn’t have it. It just precludes 4 players from matching together. (I might be wrong though would like to be corrected on this, I haven’t played league in a very long time).
With that being said. I haven’t been really subject of rush even though I play a lot of solo team games. I just got rushed 3 times and I lost all 3 of them but after reviewing the replays I saw that it wasn’t the rush that caused the rush it was that my teammates were so mismatched (they were very low elo).
If you are 3 v 3 and 3 opposition all do a quick rush on one player - I’m talking like a very early rush.. maybe 4 or 5 units each plus a couple god powers - then your TC’s HP plus a few defensive actions can easily beat off that rush - if your team mates wake up and send a few things then it’s absolutely fine.
For example a little trick you can do is run villagers around the TC or garrison them, pop them out the other side for some repair (and repeat), etc. This is also how I beat off a 4 v 1 quick rush (whilst teammates sent help). The point is, the TC’s HP and attack can kill off quite a few things - add in your Classical Age myth unit, upgraded towers, or whatever else you might choose to use depending on your civ, and ‘fending off’ 3 v 1 is perfectly possible and actually very beneficial. If they fail their quick rush it usually drains some of their resources, units and time.
With a 4 v 1 quick rush, the TC (with same HP and attack) struggles to fend off those 4 or 5 units from each team mate.. if you don’t have resources for tower upgrade.. and team mates are a bit slow to send help, then you are basically done for. This is why I am proposing not allowing parties of 4 in ranked play. Even if they have a party of 3 and try to chat to their fourth team mate at the start of the game, that player will likely not respond in the way they had hoped for, and most likely won’t have a god that complements their 4 v 1 rush.
I dont raelly agree with the situation you describe. You aint holding a 3vs1 or 2 vs 1 either if the players know how to play, its not like 4vs1 is the only viable one that works. If you get allies help its no longer a 4 vs 1 then.
All team games are ‘balanced’ in the sense that the better team overall usually wins. Of course there is a range in which certain gods and certain play styles can basically make winning against another team much more difficult.. The devs spend a lot of time balancing the team play - which is probably a bigger part of the game than 1 v 1 play.
I’m not saying 4 v 4 doesn’t perform well in general. I have had lots of fun 4 v 4 games. The game by its nature is not ‘unbalanced’ except for in cases where teams (skill wise) are unbalanced.. and possibly in certain cases where certain civs work better together than other ones. (Obviously that was nothing to do with the original Discussion topic here).
The discussion topic was about restricting party sizes to 3 in ranked play. If 4 people want to have fun and do a regular non-ranked game then that’s fine. Ranked play is about competitive (and fun) play which results in some determination of who is better at the game than other players.
My ‘argument’ is very simple: parties of 4 can exploit the game (owing to the nature of fixed parameters like TC HP, etc.) in order to win games which undermines ‘Ranked’ play and makes Ranked play less fun for regular players. I am not saying we should never play team games or that all team games are perfect, etc. Of course there is a spectrum/range. If you want to test your skill as an individual then you go for 1 v 1. The whole point of teams is that you enjoy being put with different people and play a team of different people - which is enjoyable at the end of the day.
It’s just simple maths. If it takes let’s say one min for team mates to send help, then the opposition on a quick rush has one min to attack you. If they have 5 units each then that’s 15 units for 3 v 1 on a quick rush. That’s not enough to kill a TC. If it’s 4 v 1 on a quick rush then that’s 20 units attacking a TC with the same HP and attack. If they single out who they feel is the weakest player, and have pre-planned strategy and god powers then it makes the job even easier.
Not really, its far and between that changes are made for team play. 1 vs 1 is the main mode.
Dunno where you get to this conclusion. To you that might be, to others its to have a comp, clan or friends to play with. Like its in all games. Team games are made to play as a team.
I see where our difference in pov steams from. I dont need to destroy a tc to remove you from the game. Doing plenty of damage by picking of vilalgers and preventing you from gathering resources. After that the game can basically become a 4 vs 3 and you snowball from there.
Even then you can def take a tc solo, a lot more in 2 vs 1 and even more 3 vs 1, all you need is the right units.
Well I can’t say about the Devs - I got the impression they obviously balanced units and gods based on team play as well as 1 v 1 play. Or are you suggesting they only balance with 1 v 1 play?
Okay so that ‘conclusion’ about ranked team play was from my own experience - I play ranked team because I enjoy being in a team (similar to what you say), and I play ranked because I like the competitive nature and it tends to reduce quitters and stuff like that