Hi.
I think it shouldn’t be possible to re-elect map for a second period in the pool map. That would give the players fresh air every two weeks. Otherwise, we could end with the same maps over and over again.
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I totally agree with you!
Agreed! Also get rid of “fixed” fixed maps and just don’t rotated the 2 most played maps every 2 weeks. Players are voting on the mappool all the time by not banning maps so just use that data to select the maps that stay for another 2 weeks. (it will always be Arabia +1)
Arena is not even among the top 3 most played maps most of the time and is still fixed for some reason.
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Good luck with telling this message to those who wanna play Arabia only: Half of the time no Arabia in the map pool 
I think 2 weeks is pretty short. I have played this week some team games. Nomad and Migration seem fun maps to play as team games. I never run into this maps. 2 weeks is very quickly to me. Why not 3-4 for each pool? I cant play all different maps in 2 weeks or some maps only once. I want to play the maps some times before the change. Not everyone just played the game 10h a day for 7 days a week like the pros.
But i agree we dont want the same maps for ever in the map pool as choosen maps. I would even go as far as getting rid of all fixed maps, like GrischaOwnzAll says. A system were the most played maps will stay in the map pool, while the others will be replaced, seems a great system to me.
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Well, arabia should be the only fixed map, since virtually every player like it.
And yes, maybe maps shouls have a maximum of two periods, IDK. It could be regulated in several ways, but the thing is we should besure about a regular rotation of maps.
In addition,and in my humble opinion, we should also get a fixed spot for an hybrid / water map
But isn’t the idea (at least now with the voting system) to play the maps that people actually want to play? I think it’s way better to have solid maps that repeat themselves throughout different rotations than to constantly play bad maps. That was why I liked the reduction in the previous pool to 7 maps. I don’t see how there are enough good maps (unless new ones are being created) to rotate every 2 weeks without repeating.
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Arabia and arena are fixed because they are tournament maps. Major tournaments are arabia-only, arena-only, and then those with mappools.
“Fresh air” will be secured by devs’ map choices and within the options for polls.
Hybrid maps are not standard but I am almost sure you will have at least one of this kind every rotation through the fixed map by the devs, who are able to regulate the mappool this way. Now it is Baltic.
Btw, this kind of maps was the reason for the “hatred” towards the mappools by the community so I really wouldn’t expect more than one each rotation.
Source?
This is not true.
https://aoestats.io/maps/RM_1v1
Stats seems to run untill the 2 week map rotation and voting was announced. Something like that moment. Arena is top 3.
There were indeed this kind of tournaments, but there are also other maps used in tournaments. Maps we didnt seen once untill now. So part of major tournament seems like not a requirement.
What I meant was serious and regular tournaments, otherwise there was a lot of fun stuff going on. I made it sound like a fact, instead, it’s just one of possible explanations as to why arena is fixed.
However, I think we could objectively agree that arena is probably the second most standard map in both solo and tg and both high level and casual play.
BF would be the third, but only tg and casual, which is reflected by the fact that it is fixed only in tg mappool.
Based on the stats at Voobly of the past, we also have Nomad as an option to consider. But yeah, based on the past years before DE, Arabia, Arena, Black Forest and Nomad where the 4 most iconic maps of the games with the highest play rate. Other maps where played very rarely. Those 4 are the big four of the game. Arabia will be the number 1 for sure, but the order of other maps is pretty much debatable. But those four maps are the big four of AoE II. I think no one can disagree with this.
Still disagree with the fact that tournaments without those maps are not serious tournament. Just have a look at DE. What are the biggest tournaments? I think of Hidden Cup, Redbull Empire Wars, Battle of Africa, … So lots of big tournaments are not arabia-only or arena-only.
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My point about arena was that the map is suitable for both competitive and casual play as well as both solo and tg. This is not true about BF and Nomad. They are popular, yes, but mostly among lower level TG players. Even though casual players represent the majority of AoE2 playerbase, in ranked play, the competitive aspect of the game plays a big role and map stats clearly show that Nomad and BF get banned most of the time.
Those are not one-map tournaments, there was a mixed mappool for each one.
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Even if that is the case (which it doesn’t seem to be from the stats) I’m sure people would play it a lot more if there was an opt-in system.
Actually I think it’s a fair point to disagree with this. On voobly 1v1 arabia was the standard setting and indeed is either favored or at least liked by most people. A lof of people who didn’t like arabia (for different reasons, usually its openness or its standardness/meta orientation) played nomad or bf. Arena seems a bit of mixed bag to me, shares some similarities with bf and some with arabia. Most others maps didn’t really matter because the choice was either the standard setting (ara) or the alternative for people who didn’t like ara or wanted to play water.
On DE you don’t chose the map but only ban some. So if 70% (just a fictitious number to illustrate my point) of the players prefer ara for instance, those 70% are more likely to prefer acropolis, gold rush or whatever open/semi-open map over bf.
So, yes, these 4 may be the most iconic maps (because they represent certain map-types best) but in times of playing with a ranked map pool bf and nomad do not count as part of “the big four” anymore, imo. My expectation is that if they get included in future 1v1 map rotation votings they won’t be voted in just as mega random has been voted for. Of course, it’s silly to claim to know that for sure und we’ll have to see about it. Just my thought why nomad and bf will never be as “popular” as they have been before DE.
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It is now because #1 it’s a fixed map and #2 they introduced the favourite system.