Seems like someone is mad and loves SCREAMING!!! He probably things the devs would listen better if you go ALL CAPS!!!
Like discussed in many other threads: I would love to the feature to know your opponent before the game starts. Give us time to chat in the minute before the game launches. Let us see if he goes random or pick (i would say hidden picks). We can even go as far as an option in the match making where you can say i will play only random civs.
guys no fighting please we are only here to have discussions. Treat each other with respect.
I think you missed the point. I really donât care what a proâs opinion is at this juncture anymore as it all feels like lip-service and they donât pick or play as if itâs balanced from what Iâve seen. I donât think the game is balanced enough currently and donât believe itâs balanced well. Viper, I love his stream and play, but he has always had a relatively distorted view on balance in my opinion due to his abnormal skill. I disagree, but respect your opinion.
TheViper is just one example from all the points i made. I think that you missed the point rather. And you are incorrect, he picks civs that are far from top tier because he wants to. But thatâs only one player. And only one point made out there. As i said several times above, nobody claims perfect balance and itâll never be perfectly balanced. Itâs not possible. There are 35 civs and an infinite amount of possible maps so unless you make every map 100% fair and make every civ identical, therefore boring, youâll never have perfect balance. Balanced enough or not that can be discussed indeed, but my point is that to say that it was more balanced before is incorrect. There was only 1 viable civ per map on 1v1. Not the case anymore.
To forbid people to pick civs that they love and want to have fun with is not good for the game. Would you force someone to pick a character in any other game ? I donât think so. Hidden pick civs has been adopted in tournaments, even in AoC or WK on voobly for a reason (or several ones), even with a way more unbalanced game than the one that we play with now.
Did you not read this part of my argument?
Hidden pick was a thing, but trying to assert that it was a main convention outside of tournaments prior to DE is silly. Youâd be lucky to find many games with it used. And again, in my opinion the game is more so what you describe the game prior: one civ is always heavily favored now. It feels more like the old AOK or original AOC days in terms of balance now to me. Thatâs my opinion from my playing. And I worry that this will exacerbate over time from how the balance changes were implemented from the last patch. Just look at the Teutons. A civ that wasnât even the lowest is now picked more and has a higher win rate because of a developer change. Thatâs emphatically not a good thing for the health of the gameâs balance long term.
Itâd be a neverending back and forth if you tend to forget what i say each time you reply to me bro. I already said that i agreed upon the idea of informing about if the player had picked or not.
Iâm not for any ban though, as long as every match-up is winnable. If something is out of proportion broken then yes obviously. I also agree regarding the new Teutons. This civ has never been bad. In fact, they already had one of (if not the) best booming potential in the game with 33% cheaper farms. Now that they have 40% which is too much in any closed map, itâs bad. They also never have been bad on open maps either. Itâs not just a playstyle that suits everyoneâs. Though they nerfed their early trush potential which was broken yet not used so often in AoC. Yes, Teutons were broken. PyC_Hawk managed to climb 2K+ back in the days using only this strategy, even vs skilled opponents which knew what was coming.
Picking a Civ is always better than Random civ. Every civ has different military at barracks, archery range, Stables and Monks.
When a player pick a civ, he think for their Strength and Weakness before the game begin. So the players are better prepared for the game.
There are 35 civs, and the players can NOT know absolutely every strength and weakness, if they NOT see the list of the civs.
Picking a civ is better for Ranked games. If you want to play only for fun, Unranked, you may play Random civs.
At water maps, it is normally if both players pick- Vikings.
Sure random civ is only for âunranked funâ. We only play random because we have no strategy and weâre just sheep that follow rng 
Who do you think is better, a random civ player of 1600 elo or a civ picker of 1600 elo? 
Time to wake up to reality and understand that those players are willing to step out of their comfort zone to be good with all civs, regardless of their own preference.
You donât need to trash how others enjoy to play the game, let everyone play how they like to. Stop being toxic.
Absolutely. Let people pick civs if they want to, or go random if they want to. Just like it is right now. Freedom is key 
You are missing the nuance, both can play their preferred setting. Pick or random, however random players should not be forced against civ pickers if they believe it is unfair.
Letâs say my opponent is 100 elo lower than me, then I might not care. But if he is equal or better than me, then I consider it unfair.
Imo it is logical that after the possibillity to communicate you get the option to skip a civ picker.
Everyone gets to play what they want, but your opponent needs to agree on the settings before the game can start.
If it worked the way it is right now, you wouldnât have so many people quitting games early and wouldnât see play rates that are heavily skewed toward 30% of the civs.
Itâs not working the way that it is right now. Failure to see that is being as blind as the civ picking screen itself is.
Thatâs the problem, you want your freedom to go random but not the freedom for your opponent to play what they like. Im for freedom, not dictatorship.
Pick civs is great. You can play whatever civ you want. It is the work of the devs to balance the civs. Just play with wathever civ you want and play. Its just a game
I may be blind, but what i see is someone that would like to force their style on others (playing random) because of the threat of, maybe, losing a game. If you go random then embrass the risk you take and enjoy it instead of complaining. When you improve, youâll know the civs and matchups better and win more. That is the reward youâll get by this. Or, start learning each civ one by one, by⊠picking ?
Dont people get tired of playing the same civilizations every game? Team game ladder is plagued with try harding, what a surprise? I think its out of control and I see there must me achieved some sort of middle point, like players agreeing to play random civ before game start. I dont care about my ELO, but is sad to see so few civs, at least I got my random pick.
Iâm pretty sure the idea of a ladder encourages people to âtryhardâ right? If you have a ranking system, and a ladder, then people will want to try to move up the ladder and increase their rating/ranking.
I donât understand why people including T90 are so against other people trying to do well in the ladder. Also making a second account in T90âs case to play random civ is basically a form or tryharding - because you donât want to lose rating on a main account.
It seems like the more choice you give people against the type of opponents they play the less the matchmaking elo really means. In trying to avoid people who want to rank up by picking civs theyâre good with, you might as well split the ladder into random civ vs picked civ, and split the ratings too.
Freedom is when both players can choose their preferred setting, fairness means boths parties need to agree on the settings. Not only you.
We are both free to play our preferred setting, however you need to find an opponent who agrees on them.
I wonât say Iâm fundamentally opposed to playing civ pickers, personally I will accept it if they are ranked below me. So the game can be more fair.
It is people like you who downplay the benefits of picking civs and even expect a lower rated random player to play a higher rated picker, that is a selfish and unfair perspective.
For me the meta of multiplayers games was mostly random civ. There were always some few lobbies with pick civ, but it was mostly random civ. I would like to know what my opponent does. I enjoyed the random civ, because you see every civ once in a while. Now with pick civ, you only see some civs on most maps. I love more variance in the civs i see.
If you go random and your enemy pick civ, you have a disadvantage. Therefore i would like to see what civ enemy pick. It also can be random or hidden what you see. It would be nice if you know your opponent and you can chat with him. Just saying things like gl hf before the game. I miss that part on DE.
Yes the problem is that if you see the civ of your enemy, you would probably choose a counter civ for example:
enemy picks mayans oo nice i pick goths then
Enemy picks huns
Oo nice i go berebers then
I actually like the hidden system personally, but we all should have the freedom to make a ranked lobby (like it has always been in voobly or hd) and put in title â1v1 random civsâ. Or in case you like pick civs then â1v1 hidden pick civsâ. Those as ranked games and not just trolling games (like now).
DE has forced a lot of us to play with settings we donât like, maps we donât like and civs we donât like.
Is it really a surprise that a ranked matchmaking ladder is full of people playing to win?