After you read this post, vote what you think at the bottom
Recently there’s been a lot of talk about the dev’s decision on punishing those who alt-f4. For many, this is seen as nothing more than a temporary solution. Many people think there should be unlimited bans, while others actually do like this new change. After you read the entire post, vote below what you think and comment your thoughts as well.
Honestly, whether this change is good or bad really depends on the intent of the ranked queue. Is the ranked queue supposed to be an easy way for people to easily find balanced games to play, or is it meant to show skill?
I’ve always been under the impression that the ranked queue is a show of skill and does this by pairing people with people of equal skill, on a variety of maps. If this is the purpose, I think allowing infinite map bans is the wrong approach.
Take, for example, a player who loves Archipelago or other water maps. We’ll call him Jeff. Jeff bans every map except for water maps. Now let’s say he pair with someone looking for all kinds of maps. We’ll call him Todd. Todd will now face Jeff, who exclusively plays water maps and is highly skilled at this one map type. Because Todd wants to just play a balanced mix of maps, he will get destroyed by this player who only plays water maps. Unless players have to face other players with their exact same skill on the exact same maps, infinite bans will probably not work. Sure, it may work well at pairing Arena lovers with other Arena lovers, or Arabia players with other Arabia players, but because situations like this can happen, I’m not sure it’s the best approach. I think this may force players to feel like they need to specialize in certain maps, and there can be no middle-ground approach.
It can also cause Elo scores to mean completely different things to different people. Assuming situations like I described earlier happen, a player can have a 1800 Elo on water maps, but be 800 in Arabia. Similarly, another player can have 1200 Elo, but they have played on a variety of maps and are competent players at all maps, unlike a player who exclusively plays Black Forest, or someone who exclusively plays Arabia. Those who only player one or two maps will have an inflated Elo because they face other mixed-variety players that aren’t as specialized. Many tournaments also require an amount of Elo, and if players have very high Elo scores because of the few specialized maps they play, this score will, for the most part, only reflect their skill for those maps.
Infinite bans, assuming the ranked queue is meant to reflect competitive skill, forces people to choose and specialize at maybe one or two map types, or risk getting destroyed by players who specialize. It can ruin the game for players who just want to play a mix of maps, and it can cause some serious Elo problems.
One solution could be to have several different Elo scores, such as water map, closed map, open map, etc., but that may be too messy or complicated. Another solution may be to reserve players who want to play only one or two maps to a separate, less competitive queue. Again, though, this depends on what the ranked Queue is for.
If, on the other hand, the ranked queue is meant to just pair people with other people and is not meant to show competitive skill, then unlimited bans seems like a pretty great solution. Players who want only one or two maps can choose to wait longer and play just those maps. Players who want to play a mixed variety can play a mixed variety, banning maps they don’t want and including those they don’t. This way, nobody alt-f4’s because they will always get the map they want.
I understand that, quite often, people just want to have some fun and don’t want to sink an hour and a half into a Black Forest game and instead would rather get some quick action in Arabia or other open maps. It doesn’t seem fair to force people to play maps they don’t want when they don’t want to, hence the initial measures the devs took will not work. People will still hate maps, and will still alt-f4. From what I’ve seen, people will either alt-f4 quite often, or never do it. I don’t think the devs’ current solution is quite the right approach.
As long as all Elo does is help pair you against opponents of equal skill level instead of reflecting competitive skill, I can see the appeal for infinite bans.
Personally, I think the ranked queue should be for those who want a mixed bag of maps and those who want infinite bans should have a separate queue like the Unranked queue, but it will also have the same maps as ranked. This way, those who specialize in very specific maps will queue up with other people who also specialize in those maps, making it much more fair, while those wanting to increase their ranking across a variety of maps can use the main competitive queue.
Hopefully all of this post makes sense, and I don’t mean to start any angry arguments or anything, but just wanted to share my thoughts and ask for yours. The overall idea behind this post is that whether Elo is just for finding opponents of equal skill or whether it’s for showing competitive skill is important. Honestly, both sides make sense to me, but I’m curious what everyone else thinks. Make sure you cast your vote in the poll below.
What do you think the purpose of the ranked queue is?
- It’s to show competitive skill on a variety of maps.
- It’s to put players against those of equal skill level, regardless of the map.
0 voters
What is the solution to the alt-F4 problem?
- Create a separate queue for those who want infinite bans
- Create separate Elo scores for different map types (open, closed, water, etc.) and allow infinite bans
- Allow infinite map bans
- Leave it as it is now (post-October update)
- Revert it to what it was (pre-October update)
- Other (Post idea below)
0 voters