It has been almost 2 years already and we are still stuck with this barely useable lobby system that is ported from the older (HD) version.
How is this not getting enough attention from the devs ? If they really care about the game growing this should be step 1 to achieve that. Preserving the current community by making sure everyone easily find games (either ranked or unranked) and not splitting the community into smaller chunks
All what is required is
- Make it ranked (Ranked Lobbies)
- Better Layout
- Auto-updating and accurate display
I am no designer, but here is an example of how the layout could be changed
If the developers are too busy for this, just open source that part of the code and let the community help for free !
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Ranked lobbies would solve a lot of problems for the majority, but with current system if they allow players to play what they want, then their so called map diversity(noob bashing) would come to an end cause niche players would have to wait longer and longer to get players willing to play the same maps than them.
So what we have is a toxic environment that forces noob bashing on unpleasant and non competitive maps in order to keep games going around 8 mins of waiting queue, everything about the current system has failed for most of the players(tg), only 1x1 MM works better cause of a simple reason, its easier to find a middle map option between 2 players rather than 8, but from mid to high levels due the lack of players bad matches happen a lot cause instead of waiting more(which is reasonable for higher levels)the system pairs them with way lower players if they don’t reset the queue, so even if the 1x1 MM works it has it’s flaws.
Lobbies are half baked, my theory is that during development they actually never finished the proper coding because they focused their efforts on the match making system, the game is now 2 years old and it can’t display more than 100 rooms, so most of the lobby games are not visible, you need to use aoe2-net to find the rooms, even if it has been reported multiple times, their efforts trying to fix it have been null.
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Well maybe there aren’t enough people complaining about it … most of the stuff I see here is either new civ suggestion (which we really don’t need more of) or some random balance change.
No one is talking about the state of the game and how the queues are taking much longer now (as expected) and how broken the path finding is which can sometimes even make u lose a game because a villager decides to run the opposite way into
I wonder if this ignorance towards the issues is intentional to force people to go to the new AOE-4
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Going back to ranked lobbies like HD and Voobly sound terrible. I really hated these lobbies.
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Why though … What ELO bracket do you happen to play in ?
The game is already dead when it comes to community life. Back then we had such a higher degree of human interaction, the social component was great as a result of a functioning Lobby System.
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I think you can have both ranked lobbies and the current system working togheter tbh
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I think having matchmaking like we do now is way, way better than ranked lobbies.
They should definitely fix not all lobbies showing though.
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why … it doesnt account for all skill levels / play modes … only certain people are able to find games fast … its not good nor scalable and mostly ends up in bad matchups for team games
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No. I don’t think lobbies are the answer. It’s definitely not an easy concept for a new player to get their head around. I agree that current matchmaking needs some changes, but lobbies are not the solution. My view is literally: If they go back to ranked lobbies, I will likely no longer play ranked. That’s my take on it.
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Please enlight us, what elo you are?, which maps do you play?, which game mode do you play? if playing team games, playing with friends or solo player?
During all this time we have had this newer issue i have found out that there is a tendency for those players who reject the lobby system, they are not new to the game, they usually play low play rate maps and pick civ 100% of the time, for team games they usually stack with their friends and they enjoy getting a game after another despite the quality of it and lastly low elo players find games faster and balanced most of their time ignoring the whole spectrum above them, where the system forces noob bashing.
If the ranked lobbies would go back, picking civs wouldn’t be a thing anymore, cause of the other player counter it or denying to play both the user or the civ, low play rate players would have to wait longer(despite being logical), noob bashing would drastically reduce but stackers would get angry cause most people will refuse to play vs them.
As far as i can tell, those rejecting the lobby system are just being selfish thinking on what they enjoy, ironically ignoring what others enjoy, despite being a majority.
And both systems can co-exist, MM for 1x1 and ranked lobbies for team games, believe me a ranked lobby for team games would improve the quality of the matches 1000% since working around the MM doesn’t fit everyone’s taste.
Or you just can keep current system and pretend that things are okay until the unattended problem finally catch the lower ranks.
I rarely play ranked games, but I have about 1100 elo (11 ranked games I think), because I don’t normally have the time for ranked due to other things. I play largely Arabia, but I’m not against playing other maps and tend to ban weird things like mega-random in the map pool. I only really play solo games, for the most part. I wholeheartedly support efforts to end smurfing and Alt-f4, but I don’t like the idea of ranked lobbies as the way to do it.
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So you barely play and yet you have a strong opinion about stuff that would fix things for most other players who actually play the game way more
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I didn’t say I barely played. I said I rarely played ranked. To me it sounds a bit like you are trying to discriminate against players who have restrictions on the amount of time they have available to play ranked for whatever reason. I literally play AoE2 daily almost. I’d also like to see someone prove that the majority of the playerbase would benefit from ranked lobbies. You seem to have a strong opinion about stuff as well though. Seeing as I’ve giving some stuff about me, mind giving the same information about you?
Easy, go to aoe2-net then browse ongoing matches, watch all the games going, the majority are playing team games vs humans or vs bots, 1x1 players are the minority in the whole spectrum, after that search for the matches and you will find things like this:
And after that you can browse among different nicks just to find out, there are matches like that going all day long, ergo if the majority plays team games and the majority has experienced such unfair matches, then you got the answer right in front you all the time.
I can’t defend or accept a system that generates those unfair encounters all the time, no matter on which side you are, its boring and not fair and right now you get punished for quitting a match like that, the devs really hate their playerbase.
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I agree that teamgame matchmaking is very messed up, but ranked lobbies aren’t a hugely user friendly solution I don’t think. The entire matchmaking system needs an overhaul, at least for teamgames, but if ranked lobbies are added, finding games gets harder for most people, as far as I can see. I don’t really see how having this makes matchmaking easier or better, but I never used Voobly or anything like that, so maybe one of you can enlighten me?
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I think the lobby system in Voobly back then has some issues:
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It was not obvious how to use; most new players start in MM nowadays (consider War3, SC2, LoL…)
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Initially when I play in lobby with one friend, we have to wait for a long time since noone wants to play 2v2 and with new players
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Noone wants to play niche map (or even more generic one like water map)
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Have to advertise my lobby if I want anymore to join, that is the worst part about my experience and why I quitted Voobly TG
Would be nice to see them addressed if lobby system are improved (or at least, let us SEARCH for a lobby in game, and sort by elo if possible - I have to rely on AOE.net for now, its so bad)
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Also, as of right now, I’m working on building a scenario which takes up most if not all of my time, so I can’t really play ranked right now anyway, or I probably would.
Yes, the lobby system should and could be improved massively.
- You should see all lobbies.
- You should have the option to create ranked lobbies.
- For every possible setting, you should be able to search for lobbies with that specific setting only.
That being said, even if the lobby gets improved, I won’t play in it unless I find that I can find a game of my liking very quickly. This will likely only be the case if the game continues to grow significantly. One possibility that would make me use the lobby more, though, is the following change:
- It should be possible to queue for ranked games and browse lobby games at the same time.
Since @SouMexican is so interested in people’s Elo and way of playing: I am now almost 1500 Elo 1v1. I play 1v1 infrequently. I play ranked team games frequently with friends. (We have a team win rate of around 50% since the advantage of better coordination in a premade team causes a bit of an inflated rating, which in turn causes fair matches again - the matchmaking system is working in this regards.) I am best on hybrid maps and worst on open land maps, though the skill difference is not huge, and I play all types of maps at least on occasion, and have never Alt F4d.
Yeah, how to complain about the system when you have a team and control the maps with more bans at your disposal, also knowing ur allies, you are in the right group of people not complaining about unfair matches but people about dodging, don’t you see the problem?..please just take a look to the latest screen capture i upload up here to see how the games are for solo players, stackers have full team so it is less likely for you to get an ally 1k elo below yours, and not the problem is not having friends, the problem is the system designed for your kind, ignoring the rest.
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