Nobody here is suggesting that votes should be mandatory. OP’s suggestion still leaves the option of whether to vote or not entirely up to the players.
I always miss the poll because the time frame when it’s open is just too short. It would be an easy fix to let it open for a week or so
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Normally the poll is open for 3-5 days. The poll is made at wednesday and will be closed at sunday. That seems to be more then enough time for most people.
Honestamente este foro me parece horrible, deberían mejorarlo o que la votación sea en el juego.
I have AOE as a shortcut on my desktop, and that is how I start the game. I almost never log into Steam with my browser. Literally almost never. It makes a lot of sense to put the map pool voting in the game, and I do not think it would be that difficult for the Devs to implement.
I must say–this month’s map pool is especially bad. I like nomad and African clearing, and now there is neither on team games. I am now forced to put Yucatan as the favorite map, just because its the least bad out of the bad maps.
The fact that you have to log into these forums to vote is barrier enough to keep everyone away. You should be able to vote either in game or directly via Steam. Logging into yet another system just to cast your vote to choose 3-4 maps when other 5-6 are decided by the devs… it is too much hard work nowadays. In less clicks I can buy and sell stocks. I will only end up only playing Arabia anyway.
If you bear in mind that the average player is around 1000-1100 ELO, half of the ladder isnt skilled enough to properly learn, adapt and enjoy wacky maps that are on a rotation every few weeks… Why should they care? This game is complex enough for half of the ladder that they dont even know what to do on a standard map where they can follow build orders… You can find 800 ELO people researching Heated Arrows on Arena or Arabia. It gets super confusing in hybrid maps.
In game voting would probably improve the altf4 issue, but allowing more bans is really whats needed. Especially when crap like Wolf Hill is added to the rotation without going through the voting system. Cant wait to face Lithuanians +10 cavs for the next 30 days. ZzzZzzz…
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yes because it takes so long to log into these forums that its such a hindrance.
first of all maps only last 2 weeks, not 30 days so nice try there. second of all the bonus caps at +4. thirdly i don’t see you complaining that other maps out there favor other civs the same way wolf hill favors Lithuanians. me thinks you’re just biased and looking for reasons to complain after all in this very post you’ve already make it sound like logging into a forum is such a huge hindrance, that the map pool changes every month instead of every 2 weeks, and then chose to complain about 1 map that is rarely seen that favors 1 civ (neverminded that two other civs that get benefits on that map too).
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While I can understand that it doesn’t seem like a big issue for people like us who visit this forum on a daily basis the statistics just obviously state that it is.
There are about 80.000 people who played ranked teamgames in the last month.
There are about 500 people who voted on the maps for the next rotation.
That means only about 0.6% of all active ranked teamgame players voted on the map rotation.
There is absolutely no way that 99.4% of ranked players don’t care what maps are in the mappool…
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no, it really isn’t. statistically, and not just this game or forum, but most people don’t use the forums.
aoe2 DE has sales somewhere between 2 and 5 million copies. how many people do you see on the forums between here, aoezone, and reddit? no where close to that.
and yet you don’t see them posting on these forums making a fuss about it do you? or complaining about balance? do you?
whats that tell you - most don’t care.
this is true in most every game - go check sc2 even. same thing with there forums.
Now that is the thing. I have a large group of AoE friends and teammates. All of them do want to vote on the mappool. None of them has ever posted something in this forum and is generally not interested in it.
They only visit this forum every two weeks to vote if they remember to do so.
Many of them also start the game from the desktop and regret they didn’t remember to vote when a new rotation starts on a regular basis…
----> this is why this is an issue that should be addressed!
so taking a whole 1 minute to sign in and vote is too much? clearly they don’t want to vote that badly.
i agree the issue should be addressed but your argument is terrible and full of holes. saying “well its too hard to log in” is unfounded. it takes a few minutes to setup an account and after that logging in takes less then a minute, heck my pc at home auto logs me in so i don’t even have to do anything. they could do the same th ing. just click the forums, find the thread, vote, and boom.
Of course people dont want to vote that bad. It is a map rotation on an online game that has very little impact on someones life. Unless its easy to vote, people wont. Why are you defending such a bad system? You dont think if the voting took place within the game or at least at Steam it would have way more votes ?
Having to click on the Steam announcement, to then register at the forums if a first time user, to then find the pool and vote IS a barrier. I have clicked the announcement myself and then closed the web browser when it poped up a few times because I dont care enough. If it was in-game I would have participated every rotation when I opened up the game.
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It is easy to vote.
i’m not defending it. i’m saying your arguments are bad. “its too hard to log into vote” please. it takes about a minute to log into these forums and vote. that isn’t hard.
a barrier once. and if you then just save the forum page all you have to do is boot it up every two weeks, throw in your vote and be done. that “barrier” you’re talking about for making a new account is something like 3 minutes long tops.
It can be as easy as 3 minutes, its still a barrier to vote on a map pool of an online game. Only 2% of ranked players vote and if it was easier, as in 5 clicks on the application that you are already running, perhaps a tab next to Leaderboard or Clan, it would receive WAY more votes. I dont know what else to tell you, lol. It would be right there, infront of peoples face. A little tab that you are staring at as you waiting in queue. No sign-in. No password. No e-mail to register and receive spam.
You can google about user experience (UX) psychology and login walls yourself if you dont think it is a barrier. Even if it takes 3 minutes once and then 1 minute every 15 days.
Not that logging into this forum is extremelly difficult or anything, but this is the internet and everytime a log-in pops up people close that website and find something easier to do. Its why you only log-in on checkout, its part of the reason why apps that do not require login on first access have more success.
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umm people only log in to checkout the first time. after that its much easier. i’m sorry your so inconvenienced by a 3 minutes 1 time and then 1 minute every 14 days but its still a crap reason. calling that a barrier is a joke. there are plenty of reasons to change it but this is just sad.
there are plenty of reasons that are good for this to change, but time is hardly one of them.
It is not a crap reason just because you say so. The psychological effect of a login barrier is a very valid reason and you are over simplifying it by calling it 1 minute every 14 days. Its the (mild) inconvenience of having to DO things. To work (as little as it is) for something that has very little influence over your life.
Someone posted the same thread at aoezone and asked why people dont vote. Out of 13 comments, 3 said the login into this forum was a reason for not voting. 1 asked where the voting took place as they never found it in-game. Other reason raised is that the impact of the pool is borderline irrelevant, as Arabia and Arena are guaranteed in every rotation…
So would you go through the (very mild) inconvenience of a login screen for the borderline irrelevant benefit of casting your vote? Apparently for most people the answer is no. The relevance of voting would perhaps change if maps like Arabia / Arena / BF were not fixed in the rotation, a change that to me would be a mistake, as they are infact the bread and butter of AoE… So you might as well remove the (mild) inconvenience, put it in-game and I believe 5 or 10x more people would vote.
if anything 1 minute every 14 days is about right. i’m auto logged onto the forums at home. bookmark the aoe2 discussion page.
open up the browser once every 2 weeks, click the bookmark your on the correct page. click 1v1/team game. vote and done.
ooh wow. 13 comments. yeah thats totally an accurate sample size to determine what the issue is.
and that is a good reason to change it. convenience. because it reaches more people then just the forum goer crowd.
but time? that’s a terrible excuse. i work 72 hours a week and still find time to vote.
Forums are dead. Almost nobody use them today, and most important, almost nobody knows the existence of this forums, and don’t care. And the people don’t want to make a microsoft acocunt to vote.
The ingame vote MUST BE implemented, the only reason they don’t do it already is a mix between the inability of the developrs to make things work coff coff pathfinding coff coff and that they want to keep the forums alive in any way possible.
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I 100% agree that the map voting should be in-game especially because it is so easy to implement. There isn’t really any argument against it. The poll should be restricted in some kind of way so people who do not play ranked are not able to troll vote.
Here’s my question, whether logging into a forum is convenient or a roadblock, what’s the harm of having the map rotation voting system in the game?
Maybe feasibly it would be difficult to code or implement? But if that’s relatively simply done, then why not have the vote pop up when you are qued for a ladder game? That way we are actually reaching the audience of those who play ranked ladder games, and might be interested in sharing their opinion.
Here’s the thing, we want AOE2 to be as accessible to the casual playerbase as possible without comprising the game, so if this makes it more accessible for that group to feel they have a say, and that causes them to play the game more and be a larger part of the community, that’s a good thing.
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