Looking at the map pool votes and comments, I feel like a majority of players are ‘serious’ gamers who like to play ‘standard’, but there are also a lot of players who like to adapt to the settings. Maybe ‘forcing’ these players to play in the same map pool isn’t perfect, and player satisfaction with ranked play could be improved by introducing a separate pool for players who play ‘serious’ games and players who play for ‘fun’.
There are good reasons to be hesitant about adding ranked ques because they split the player base, but look at the advantages - ‘serious’ players could be left alone without people demanding MegaRandom / Nomad / Islands / Socotra in their que, and people who like MegaRandom & Nomad could play those maps more often.
In addition to choosing different maps, I think it could be fun to play with different settings. Some setting and map proposals are listed below, but to explain the idea, suppose there are 3 maps and 3 settings in the pool: MR, Water, Nomad, and ForcedRandom, NoWallMod, EmpiresWarStart
Then 1 map pool cycle the map pool could look like
- MR (NoWallMod)
- Islands (EmpiresWarStart)
- LandNomad (ForcedRandom)
and the next cycle you could have
- MR (EmpiresWarStart)
- Midration (ForcedRandom)
- Nomads (NoWallMod)
ie, the different modes are tied to the different maps, and you pick/ban particular map-mode combinations.
Some suggested modes:
- ExperimentalBalance - Play with a data-mod with experimental balance changes, which are being considered for implementation
- ForcedRandom - you always go random civ
- NoWallMod - you can’t build walls
- EmpiresWarStart - start in feudal with some buildings
- ForcedMirror - both players pick a civ, and there is a mirror-matchup with one of the picked civs
- OpponentsPick - both players pick their opponent’s civ
- ChoiceOf2 - Player1 picks 2 civs, player2 picks one civ to play and the remaining civ is played by player1
- Regicide - start with a king, lose when the king dies
- KingOfTheHill - there’s a monument in the center, gain resources by controlling it and win if you control it long enough.
- DeathMatch
Some suggested maps:
(decide which maps to go with in each category by community votes, but allow votes to carry over between map cycles)
- Arena: Dry Arena / Normal Arena / HD Arena / Wololo Arena / etc
- Water: any water maps
- Hybrid: any hybrid maps
- MegaRandom / HyperRandom / SuperHyperRandom / any map packs
- Maps with Nomad start
- Tournament maps
- Community-created maps
- ‘Special’ maps (see the ‘Special’ tab in the map picker)
- The most popular map out of all available maps
- This would enrich the multiplayer experience
- I don’t want this to be implemented
- Other
0 voters