Rage forest success and why we need TG ranked lobbies

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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As many of you have seen in the last few weeks there has been a wild phenomena around BLACK FOREST, by the initiative of a discord channel a lot of pro players have increased their activity 300% or 400% playing team games, take slam as the best example, in the last few weeks he has played more games than all his games in the last year, hes not alone several pro players and teams are now playing together(like they used to do back at voobly).

If the pro players can enjoy the game again by playing team games at their level under their own rules, imagine all the POTENTIAL for the rest of the player base that have lost their will or any desire to play ranked team games, given their experience by the punishments, awful matches, point trading/smurfing, bad maps, noob bashing, etc.

If the Developers finally implement TG ranked lobbies, a lot of the current issues will be solved, random civ matches would be the norm again, better matches will be generated at the cost of losing the unfair matches the MM generates all day long(which nobody is going to miss).

There is not a single logical reason to deny TG ranked lobbies, cause the people who will use the ranked lobbies would be competitive players and communities around certain maps, the vast majority of users at lower ranks are not going to suffer by the lack of players cause there is where the big numbers are, the only fraction of players moving to the ranked lobbies would be the higher levels that already suffer a lot to find good and fair games, contrary to the lower ranks that can find games around their levels all day, this is probably the best way of improving and fixing things, MM can coexist with a ranked tg ladder in the same way quick match does.

This is fair petition, DM ranked lobbies are coming, they were less than 1k active players back then while there are over 60k players playing team games actively every month, if the guy who is in charge of the numbers read this there is no way to ignore how positive the change will be, there is already enough evidence of PRO players activity just coming back to play the map they always wanted, it can’t be that a discord group is better to find equal matches rather than the game itself, cause that would remove all the essence of the elo system.

I am not suggesting ranked lobbies for 1x1, so please do not start a war or a discussion about one map players or the imaginary fantasy that the game was invented to play all maps rather than play what you want and you enjoy, cause that isn’t relevant for team games where there are up to 8 players agreeing on playing the same map and settings unlike the MM that can’t find the best map possible for everyone and chooses the least option no one wanted.

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Maybe because if people are just allowed to use whatever settings they like, like for example how Fatslob plays, then the elo from teamgames becomes meaningless, because it can come from literally any settings, even if you are the only person in the world actually good at that.

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I personally find that hidden pick civs will be the norm - random civs is just not to my taste at all and so is counter picking. Thank goodness we can finally have hidden picks as a thing; because, I’ve always avoided random civ lobbies like the plague since well before de came out.

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Do you realize that hidden civs is just about the same, britons,mayans, franks and indians for open maps? the same civs for bf,nomad etc, hidden civs was designed for tournaments settings, not for random matches as it removes civ diversity.

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I don’t believe that’s as important as you seem to think it does.

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Well TG ELO is already completely meaningless

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Yes, but even more so.

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I have to agree, but it would probably need to be a different TG elo than the queue ranked one due to abuse (on second thought, there are people with 4k+ TG rating from playing with smurfs of the same 4k+ rates, so it probably won’t change much, sadly). Regardless, the Unranked elo stat already exists, you just can view it only in aoe2.net.

I don’t think the elo is what is stopping people, especially the amigos 2.8k+ bf players, from doing the lobbies they want- it should be the fact it’s super long and bothersome to set up lobbies in DE, and you can’t view what lobbies your steam friends currently are in.

Hence this type of consecutive games on the same settings is something very particular to the RF discord where there are people in the voice all the time and scheduling is easy.

Anyhow, I don’t take it as a good sign that it’s happening- not because I hate bf, but because it’s evidence of the fact the 2k+ ladder is dead due to pros moving to aoe4. When Slam, Villese and others play BF it’s because they can’t find 1v1 games, but also because there are enough people for the BF lobby. Not that I blame Villiams and Somero for playing lobbies instead of the broken Ranked, but it also means even less people are in Ranked.

You get the point. Elo wouldn’t matter all that much, considering on that level and settings everyone knows eachother, what would matter is a more fluid, QoL-oriented lobby and friends system.

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I wouldn’t care if there were separate fields for e.g. normal random map TG elo and then ranked TG lobby elo. I personally just want a way to ensure the lobbies I join or host specifically for Black Forest are balanced, and it was mostly doable through aoe2 net, even with just unranked elo.

I don’t understand why the devs felt the need to discontinue unranked elo, but perhaps it’s a sign of ranked TG lobbies coming?

However, I’d just give people options to play what they want rather than forcing them to play random map TG instead - not everyone has to play Arabia or whatever map constantly, if people want to play Arena or Black Forest only, why not? Perhaps Arabia purists can also find a function for ranked TG lobbies.

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The reason people play BF all of a sudden is because developers killed ladder Team Games:

  1. Civ pickers/abusers (Britons Franks etc)
  2. Being able to choose your position based on your color
  3. 4v4 Arabia is a graveyard kind of a map generation
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Nah lets just keep this current system where 1100’s can team up with 2k+, coz its perfectly fine and balanced system , which devs approve :slight_smile:

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TG Elo is and always has been meaningless. Let the people have fun with what they enjoy, ffs

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And also the steady nerfing of Arabia’s map design has made closed maps, like BF, the most dynamic maps in the game. I think it’s telling when several pros have come full circle back to their roots of slower paced yet more strategic maps, despite DE’s best attempts at making AoE II “faster” and more “aggressive.”