Hello. Is it possible that the map/ban system gets changed in the future? Right now i am just quitting half of the games before they start because i don’t like the maps. I rather restart my game than playing these absolutely no-fun maps. Is there anybody with me?
There are already some ideas posted on the forum about this point. Do you have any better ideas?
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i think it would be the best to just make more maps available (like 20) and give infinite bans. So nobody is “forced” to play maps he doesn’t like. I mean even now you are not even forced to play because you can just quit before, so it’s kinda pointless how it is atm.
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Problem with infinite maps is long waiting times if you only select some non popular maps. You can even be the only one who queue up for that map. It also can result in more one sided maps. If you are rated 500 and the only other person is rated 1500, you both wait for example 15 minutes and than have to play each other, which will be a very easy win for the 1500 player. In the current situation you already have maps with a play rate of 5% or less. With 20 maps there will be for sure maps with a play rate below 1%. If you want to play some less popular maps, you better off with unranked in the lobby and host your own maps.
I think with 9 maps you can cover almost every type of map and with monthly rotating there will be almost always some maps you like. I dont think we really need more maps in the map pool. I dont think it solves any issues.
I mean ofc you have to wait longer when you want to play non popular maps, so these players may be forced to play more popular maps. But they still have the choice. Right now you they have force all players to play non popular maps, so thats’s not an argument to me.
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Have a look in here also if you’re interested in discussing this topic :
I think one of the most interesting ideas proposed there, is to have an interactive map bans phase. (think of it like the pick and ban phase of a League of Legends game)
When 2 players are matched together, they are presented with the 9 maps and they each ban one map in turn until they run out of bans (4 bans each).
When someone is ok with the maps left, he can skip the bans he has left. This way you end up with more than one map and the systems randomly picks between those (as it is already the case currently).
If both players use their 4 bans, you end up with only the map that they both agreed to play on.
Of course, another possible change would be to keep the current system but simply increase the number of bans or give unlimited bans.
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I personally would like this system, but i can understand that people who actually like maps like Kilimandscharo or Megerandom would be very upset, because they would probably never be abled to play them.
Arabia, Arena, Hideout, Serengeti, Acropolis, Land Madness, Graveyard, Islands, Gold Rush would be a cool map pool, but the best would be Arabia only.
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I think they should just include all or most of the maps in the mappool, then let us ban 49% of them and set some favourites. If 2 players match the map is randomly chosen out of the matching favourites, if there are non they play a random map no player banned. Also include the “chose random civ if all players checked this” checkbox.
That’s interesting, but I see one downside to this system.
If there are too many maps, then you may reduce the probability of matching on your favorite map if the other player doesn’t have the same favorites as you.
For example, let’s say there are 30 maps in the pool. Your opponent hasn’t picked any maps as favorite.
Let’s suppose you use your 14 bans. In the worst case scenario, there will be 16 maps still open. That is 1/16th chance of playing on your favorite map, as opposed to 1/5th (worst case scenario) in the current system. You’d also have more chances to be matched on maps that you are completely clueless about.
I think there is potential to the “favorites” feature, but we should stick to a limited map pool of 7 to 11 maps, with rotations every month for the least popular of them (the most banned). Also, they should consider player feedback for the choices of new maps every month, and not choose the maps randomly as seems to be the case currently.
This would already be a big improvement to the current system :
• 9 maps
• 4 bans
• favorites feature : the system prioritizes the maps chosen as favorites by both players which are common to both.
• player feedback every month for the choice of new maps
• the least played maps (AKA most banned maps, or least popular maps) are the ones chosen for map rotation every month.
I love the map pool - the worst thing on Voobly was the always-arabia feature - I like arabia as well, but it was really boring to see only this map over and over again.
But I have to agree, that a favorite-system or something like that would be great.
Also infinite bans are okay in my eyes… you can decide yourself then: the more maps you ban, the longer you have to wait in average - but I can already see all the complaints about long waiting times. Some people are just to irrational and not self-reflected enough for this and will always search the fault at the game, not in their own preferences.
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It will be probably be more like if you ban popular maps, thann your waiting time will increase. It will be mostly around popular maps. If you look at voobly and you ban Arabia, BF, Nomad and Arena, you already banned most played maps. Banning other maps dont really matter if you look at Voobly.
Also having all maps always just let players go to only their favorite, if you have monthly rotating, you can fresh maps every month. Than players will explore those maps.
I dont think this is a good idea. For example: Let’s have 25 maps. You can ban 12. This means 13 maps cant be banned. Already there is the complaint of having to much bad maps in the map pool from people who only wanna play 1 map. You solution makes the complaints even bigger, not smaller.
This could be fixed by giving maps that have been set as favourite by one player a higher chance to be chosen. Also if your favourite map is not in the mappool your chances of getting it are 0%.
True but this happens whenever a new map is introduced to the mappool it would just be the same problem at a bigger scale. I think getting to play your favourite map is worth it and after 2-3 weeks everyone knows the maps they have not banned and everything is fine.
I dont think this is a good idea. For example: Let’s have 25 maps. You can ban 12. This means 13 maps cant be banned. Already there is the complaint of having to much bad maps in the map pool from people who only wanna play 1 map. You solution makes the complaints even bigger, not smaller.
Well my system gives you way more bans so all the bad maps can actually be banned. For example say someone only wants to play Arabia they set it as there only favourite and don’t ban the maps that are the most “Arabia like” Cenotes, Valley, Ghost Lake, Lombardia and so on they will end up playing way more Arabia or “arabia like” games then with the currant system.
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I’m pretty sure more than 50% of all the maps in AoE could be considered “bad maps”. I’d go as far as say more than 75% are bad maps, in terms of being competitive and balanced, without being obnoxious.
Even currently, they have trouble designing a map pool where 50% or more are actually decent.
I’m not against having a bigger map pool, but I would put a limit at say 11 or 13 maps, and they’d have to be chosen by the community by level of popularity, and be balanced and competitive.
For example, I wouldn’t consider MegaRandom or Nomad to be balanced and competitive maps. Way too much RNG. They are fun maps at best, but shouldn’t be in a ranked map pool unless you have unlimited bans.
Realistically, Arabia and “Arabia-like” maps are the most popular. In a map pool of 9 maps, there should be at least 5 maps that are “arabia-like”, Arabia included.
Well, knowing the map and knowing how to play it correctly, are two different things. If you have 15 extra maps to learn, that’s a lot. Not to mention that people might just not want to spend time learning so many new maps.
If we extend the map pool, we would need unlimited bans so that people just pick the maps they want to play on.
However, if the favourite feature is implemented, to a certain degree it wouldn’t matter much because most players starting from 1100+ ELO will have at least Arabia as favourite, in common, so they technically wouldn’t have to play any other maps than the ones they select as favourites. That would be even more the case are really high ELOs where a lot of people would just prefer to play Arabia anyways.
In that sense, your system could work.
I agree that there are a lot of bad maps but not everyone agrees on what these bad maps are. For example I actually like MegaRandom and Bog Islands and hate the currant version of Arabia (to many walls) they need to update the maps and include more maps based of tournament maps like they did with 4 Lakes and Golden Swamp. But there are a lot of good maps not currently in the mappool for example Islands, Acropolis, Ghost Lake, Migration, Lombardia and Gold Rush.
I don’t think every map in ranked has to be super competitive, ranked is in the end also just for fun and not a tournament.
I tend to agree with that. But if you think about it, if that was really the case, unlimited bans would be the way to go, as I discussed in the other topic I created.
If fun is the main purpose, let people choose exactly which maps they want to play on so that they can have the most fun. Don’t force them to play on maps they don’t like or don’t want to know/learn. If someone only has fun when he plays Arabia, or only Arena, or only Islands : let him have his fun.
If to this player, we argue that playing only one map is not competitive and that he should be able to play correctly on other maps as well. Then he has the right to respond : “Ok but give me competitive and balanced maps to choose from, not Megarandom or other funky maps”.
So my conclusion is : either make a decent map pool and allow favourites, OR give people unlimited bans.
Don’t make a laughable map pool and force people to play on those randomly chosen maps 
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The problem is that you force one of 2 things to non Arabia only players with unlimited bans
- Wait a long time.
- Play Arabia 70%+ of the time.
That is true.
However, as I said in my other topic, that is only fair. If the majority has more fun playing Arabia rather than the other maps in the pool, it makes sense that most games will be played on Arabia, if fun is the purpose here. Those who don’t want to play on Arabia will be the minority, and that is actually fair that they have to wait a bit longer to find games on unpopular maps if they strictly do not want Arabia.
At least, that added waiting time for the minority, is more fair than forcing other people (the majority) to play on maps they dislike.
Now, that was if we considered the fun factor only. If we consider the more competitive factor, it makes sense that there needs to be a bit more map variety. But those maps will have to be decent in terms of balance, player base interest, and competitiveness. And also limited in number. Those people who would play mostly Arabia for the fun factor, should be able to have at least 33% chance to tag on Arabia in a more competitive map variety setup, in my opinion.
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We know you only want to play Arabia, but it is not true everyone just want to play only Arabia and Arabia lookalikes. I do disagree and i know for sure the devs too. I heard Cysion had said the ranking is meant to reflect the average rank of players over all maps. Not just your rating on Arabia and its lookalikes.
5 Arabia lookalike in a map pool of 9 will never happen. I am sure about that. It is also not true that Arabia is the only competative map in the map pool. You dont like other maps, but that is something different than non competative.
I do not want to play only Arabia. And I do not want to play only one map.
That is not the first time you are using that strawman argument with me, in multiple topics. It’s starting to feel like you are obsessed with me or something.
Focus on the arguments, not the personal attacks.
The idea I am promoting is more freedom over the choice of maps. Those who like Arabia and Arabia-like maps should be able to choose to play them more often if they desire so. Those who like islands maps and water maps should be able to play them more often if they desire so. Those who prefer closed maps like Arena, Hillfort, Hideout, should also be able to play them more often if they desire so.
Arabia only queue often comes to the discussion because it is something that has been requested by many people, including many top ELO players/streamers, so it’s kind of a popular demand. If it is created, no one will be forced to play it. Those who do not want to do so can play the regular 9 map pool queue. A lot of people might play both queues, myself included.
For now, I haven’t seen any popular demand for an Islands only queue.