I enjoy ranked team games with random people, especially 3v3, but more and more often i encounter completely imbalanced enemy teams. I am around 1650 and always get matched with team mates around ± 150 of my ELO, no outliers so far. But ~ 20 % of my games in the last 4 weeks i played against high variability groups:
Either
1 player was (relatively seen to my level) very strong (2100+) and the others low (~1300/1400) or (rarer):
1 player was strong (1900+) and there was at least 1 other player with no rating yet who also performed better than all others
On AoE2.net it can be seen that these are fixed groups. I know that the teams’ strengths are balanced on average, but this doesn’t help much, when being unprepared, because these groups always come with a well coordinated plan. And a 1300/1400 already knows some build orders and can buy the strong player quite some time.
The only strategy that i found to be useful is: Always check the enemy players’ ratings at the beginning of the game to immediately identify the strong player and counter the danger as a group from the start. If no other enemy is a sandbagger/strong “new” player then this strategy works well very often, but still: These games are not really fun. Yes, it is great to see what people with a significantly higher rating can do, and i want to improve to their level, but in ladder games i would like to play with players around my ELO to have fair and balanced fights. I don’t know if this is a problem for you as well, but i would really enjoy the game more with
an optional separated pool for random team matches only or
an ELO deviation limit in team games
If not possible, maybe same conditions for everyone and
match teams on average and variability
no deviation limit/elo preference when creating a random team
well it is kinda unbalanced, but what would be better in your opinion (i will give you my last 2 games that I played with my friend that got back to the game)
4v4
Me -> 1,7K
Friend1 -> 1,8K
Friend2 -> 1K
Random guy + enemy -> 1,4 / 1,5 K
4v4 (game2)
Me -> 1,7K
Friend1 -> 1,8K
Friend2 -> 1,1K
Random guy + enemy -> 1,4 / 1,5 K
(if we played against 1.7K, that 1,0 / 1,1K would not have fun at all … and you are supposed to play to have fun)
in my opinion it counts the average rating … which is good … I know it might be really unbalanced if 2K guy matches up with 1K guy and they will get enemy team full of 1.5K … but still … you are playing agains 1 good and 1 bad player … you should win 2v1 really easily and kill that low elo player easily too … I think that the problem is that you check out ranks and start to make from 2k player a god that you will never defeat and you kinda forfeit the match right at the beginning of it …
I personally never look at ratings until the end of a game (even on unranked games) … and mostly when we get to play against a high elo player the game is a way more interesting, than just playing against the players that just run away from their base when you knock with archer on his gate …
Take it this way: Yes, you get matched up against better players, but you should still be able to beat them, if you take them as equal … (also i recommend to dont take rank too seriously … i have a friend that knows only fast castle and he is 1,6K rating … and mamy people are scared to play against him … and when they do, they just roll through him)
StyleZ8442 it seems like you didn’t really understand my argument:
Yes, exactly, that’s why i suggested what would be better in my opinion.
So why is using only the average good, if it leads to less fun?
I play mostly 3v3 and when there is one extremely good player in the other team he crushes us much faster than we can do damage to the enemy team. Because they have a plan! They come prepared and wall so he can kill! Not knowing the ELO imbalance is deadly!
You completely missed my point and turned my argument around! I said that not looking up the enemy’s ELO at the beginning showed to be deadly in my games when such an imbalance is present. This is because the strong player then can cause too much damage, while the weak ones wall super early. And yes, at this level weak players can already defend quite well! Looking up their ratings at the beginning and knowing who the strong and who the weak players are, usually end with a win. My point was that these kind of games aren’t any fun and in a ladder i expect teams without outliers to ensure balanced fights.
Yes, i agree! Team ratings are unreliable and inflated at the moment. One reason why the team ELO system doesn’t work well is because of these imbalanced teams.
… and mamy people are scared to play against him … and when they do, they just roll through him)