I just played most uncompetitive two arena games in a row on ranked ladder. Two different guys who have no idea about the arena meta (which is not their fault for one bit), they were up to castle age around 18 min sth, and insta resign after they first saw a forward castle and forward siege monk push. After all, it seems devs are making the quality of the ranked ladder just like the quality of current lobbies regarding competitive games, while they should do other way around.
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Honest feedback here.
I never alt-F4, yet I am getting timed out frequently for two reasons:
1- if someones drops/resigns in the first ~5 mins of game (team games), I resign too: thereās no point in continuing, I prefer to just re-queue. Turns out this penalizes me with a timeout. I think this is very unfair.
2- my game crashes (during match creation or during first mins of game). This one is particularly annoying, since thereās nothing I can do about it. Considering how frequent crashes are in AoE2DE, this needs to be addressed.
I appreciate devs taking care of queue dodging, but the current implementation does more harm than good. A more robust system is required before releasing it to production massively.
I donāt want to sound imperative and I want my feedback to be useful, but I strongly believe this should be rolledback and revisited.
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I canāt help but laugh when people mention getting hour long bans for disconnecting. The only way you could get a ban that long is my previously quitting more than 10 games early.
I donāt want to test it myself, but does anyone know if thereās a decay on the accumulated ban times? If not, there probably should be, but that would be my only critique of the system.
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What are you talking about? You can still play the game you loved 20 years ago on any map you like with any team you like without wasting your precious time - just use the lobby. It is that simple.
Think about players who don`t want to waste their precious time playing the same map every time. It will take ages to find opponents in a lobby if i wanna play, say archipelago or team islands.
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Would it be worth pushing for a ranked lobby system then? At the moment you can still make a lobby and wait for the game that you want. A ranked lobby system will allow you to organise fairer games, rather than just trusting people when they say they are noob/pro.
There was not a solution to match making where everyone got to pick their map as match making is new.
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Actully it is not that simple. Crurrent lobby is disfuncitonal, has too many flaws so the lobby is the reason that push people to play on the ranked ladder to have close match-ups which are fun to play. Probably they try lobby and cant find anything good, already. If you are genuine about your suggestion to the dodgers to go to the lobby, there is good chance you donāt understand what is the cause of current problems.
Why do you think it takes ages to play archipelago or team islands in a lobby? Can it be because, I donāt know, maybe people donāt want to play on those maps? So, isnāt there a problem to force them to play on those maps in ranked ladder, which they do not have enough bans to avoid those maps? And also what about to think players who donāt want to waste their time playing other than one map? I donāt know, maybe we should all go and play against AI?
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What is your elo? Me and my buddies are 3k2+ and lobby system used to be amazing back on HD and Voobly but not hereā¦ We tried it no one joined. And no pro plays lobby browser. Unless they put proper rating into lobby then yes we would love it and wont even care about ranked stuff.
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I agree with you. At least you got the right idea here.
I feel like these are the conversations we should be having, letās make the lobby work.
^The demand is there, Iām still waiting on Ranked DM lobby.
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Exactly! You can always find an opponent and a balanced team for Arabia games in the lobby! So leave the ranked matchmaking for players who can play all and every maps that are in the game. If you just want to have fun - why not the lobby?
Leave the stress and excitement of ranked matchmaking to real ranked players and pros. If you "dont wanna waste my precious time after work" then you dont belong to the ladder. No offense
Hello Devs,
In the last few days i experienced a lot of problems with the new timeout-system. There were a lot of players who just instantly resign or delete everything. This leads to even more time wasting than the alt-f4-ing. I have to admit that i prefer playing Arabia and I dont unterstand why people are forced to play maps they dont like. Playing water or gimmicky maps is just a whole different gameplay. The lobby is no alternative since it is impossible to get a fair matchup especially for teamgames. I think if we give the timeout-system a chance we should try other possible solutions aswell like a system where you can ban more maps and evaluate the results.
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As I said you donāt seem to understand what the problem is. You can find opponents but you cannot find balanced matches on the lobby. There are various reasons, no rank on the lobby, no real time changes you have to refresh tim to tim so if you want to check elos of the players the room might run out of open slots, host goes afk frequently, too many smurf accounts, ping might become very problematic and list might go on and onā¦This is why not lobby. This offer makes no sense to a person who actually knows what a lobby should work.
Secondly, I played this game for more than 20 years, I am used to play a variety of maps on a mediocre degree which is fine for me, but also I am used to know how a functional lobby works, and last of all I can understand the problems without scapegoating people and making useful recommendations to fix the problems. Ignoring problems and just to cheer for making people go or penalised at every level will just make things worse.
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just implement a ranked option in lobby at this point. #bring DM back again
the biggest problem I experienced is there is no reset so far on the altf4/drop/early resign and that should be fixed as soon as possible, if you do this once per day u get to a 24 ban sooner then u expect. nutty. The problem with dropping/alt f4 came from team games and i understand their frustration but the 1v1s seemed ok to me? maybe separate them and their que times? seems ridiculous to punish a 1v1 for early resign but theirs loop hole like mass suicideā¦ but then in team games how u solve early mass suicide? how far we taken this?
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Itās great that Arabia is the most popular map and all, and youāre totally convinced that everyone plays it strictly as a result of liking it, and thatās cool. Iām certain youāre, as a result, terrified about all the people weāve lost as a result of not letting players cheat the system to always play on the one true mapā¦ 25%, you said?
However, the last time I checked:
Weāve either lost nobody or gained an equal amount back. So much for that.
Nobody has claimed that we have already lost players, why do you keep bringing that up? I for one expect absolutely no change in player count, because devs have not fixed Alt-F4 at all, and the system is roughly the same as before. The only difference is for people who donāt know how to exploit the system, aka people who donāt regularly Alt-F4, but I assume they wonāt leave just for that reason.
Not to mention, I have a hard time seeing what you would deduce from Steam player charts at all when 90% of them are probably playing BF lobbies, AI, or single player.
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You didnāt claim that we have. You claimed that we would. So the updated charts are just to indicate to everyone that, yes, drama aside, the game isnāt actually hemorrhaging players as the result of a system reducing the abuse of the matchmaking system.
I mean, unless you were pulling those numbers out of thin air as an exaggeration so as to try to make your point seem more important than it isā¦ it kinda seems like you expected an adverse player response in playrate which has not occured. Go ahead and clarify if Iāve somehow interpreted you entirely wrong. 
Yes, I claim that we will lose players when devs fix Alt-F4s. Devs havenāt fixed Alt-F4, so we have not lost players. As mentioned in my 3 previous replies to you.
You know I agree with the principle of playing literally any map you want, so long as your rating reflects what map you actually play. Resetting that and starting from scratch is clearly a very difficult, near impossible task, or else they would have taken that route.
Beyond that, your āalternativeā to solve the problem, unlimited map bans, does not work. Itād absolutely obliterate MM even if it could properly be implemented because of natural laws. Water diverts to the path of least resistance. As the water diverts down the easiest path, erosion makes the easier path easier and that increases the percentage of the water that diverts that way, until the only path that does work is the easiest path.
If youāve played any game ever you know this is the case with every matchmaking system ever. As the game ages, queue choice initially trends towards a popular option, then players wanting to get a game migrate to the popular opinion as the least patient players ditch the slower, but more enjoyable experience for an earlier game, and the rest soon follow (or, oftentimes, quit). Eventually you have Dust ****ing 2.
Thereās nothing comparative to this analogue. Unlimited map bans would be the only meaningful mistake DE would ever make. I donāt have a problem with finding a different solution. I have a problem with people being angry with the best possible stopgap fix because they think they have a proper answer. That proper answer being copypaste.
Iām going to rain on your parade every time you say āunlimitedā in this thread because itās viral, and itās contagious. Forget about the train of people who will then complain a year down the line about how bad the Portuguese and Turks are with their sub 45% winrate and how they badly need a buff because the only map that gets played, and therefore matters for balance, is Arabia. Thatās a story from the dark alternate timeline where they did as you asked and I quit trying to help.
Seriously, get rid of preferential maps while you have a chance.
Edit: I agree after a moment that some aspects of my post were a bit much. Iāve retracted some extraneous bits.
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