I have an idea regarding the map pool which could satisfy both people who only want to play a certain map all the time and people who never want to play some maps.
Instead of having a selection of maps enabled by default unless you ban them, we could have a selection of maps which by default are disabled. Switch the bans for picks and now you pick your map pool instead of ban your map pool.
Alternatively, since ~60% of games are only Arabia, introduce a new rating called “1v1 Arabia” which only has Arabia and then “1v1 Random Map” rating would actually mean the rating for players who play 1v1 Random Map instead of mostly players who only play Arabia and maybe even just alt-f4 any other map.
I like this idea a lot. We could also have an in-game voting system for the map pool, so it is decided by the majority of players and not only a handful of forum readers.
I agree on changing the MM system and many have been asking for an opt-in system for a long time, it’s the same as max bans but it’s more intuitive.
As an arabia player and even though arabia is most played I don’t agree on a seperate ladder for it, if elo accuracy is really an issue I’d rather support open/closed/hybrid ladders since this is more considerate of all maps. But the main problem is the MM system itself.
A seperate ladder does not mean having to queue alone for arabia. You could queue for arabia and arena simultaniously but once the map gets decided elo gets calculated from the relevant ladder.
No need for a separate Arabia ladder, since skill level is correlative among maps. Just keep things as is and allow players to pick the maps they want to play.
Rank fidelity is not more important than people enjoying the game. The purpose of the ranking system is first and foremost matching players of a similar skill level. Bragging rights is not an important consideration.
Why complex when we can just have a lobby system that worked perfectly on Voobly with 2000 players, and will work even better with x10 those players and even faster games starting
Voobly system was terrible compared to the current match making. This idea seems to be a step back to the voobly system. It doesnt seem like a step forward.
In the recent Viper vs Vivi HC4 map game, Viper talked how when he first started to play age2 he was only playing land nomad, and in the first tournament he played he got destroyed on arabia, he then saw that being good at one map alone DOES NOT correlate to being good at the game in general.
Maps do matter, that’s why almost all tournaments that are not specific setting tournaments have map drafts along with civ drafts.
As some players accel at certain types of maps, that’s why players can be good on Land Nomad but heavily struggle on regular Nomad as they can’t focus on water and land at the same time.
Do you know what “correlation” means? Being good at football correlates with being a fast runner. It doesn’t mean that all football players are fast or that they wouldn’t be obliterated if they went to a running competition. All it means is that if you took football players, they would on average be much faster than the average person.
You took the worst example imaginable to make your point because pro tournaments are the highest level of play. Of course someone who has no experience on Arabia will lose to pro experienced players on Arabia. However, if you are a top player on Land Nomad, you’d still beat the vast majority of players on any other map due to raw skill. It’s the same game, after all.
If you’re 2k+ on Arabia, chances are you wouldn’t lose to 16xx and below players on pretty much any map, unless you’re specifically inexperienced in that particular map vs someone who is experienced.
I don’t categorically oppose separate ladders but they create an unnecessary complexity in match making. If I had to implement it, I’d add a simple “map experience” modifier for each map which adds up to 200 Elo for match making purposes.