RANKED MATCHMAKING The Alt+F4 Multiplayer Problem and Civ/Map balance

Hey Guys

Ranked Matchmaking is competitive, civs should not be chosen according to a map like AOE2 but instead, like AOE3 and SC2 The player shouldn’t be able to choose his Civ after seeing the Map he going to play.

  • The player should be able to Veto X Map in the current Map Pool in both 1v1 or Team games.
  • Dev should balance/give tools/mechanics to every civs to be able to fight on every map (Water map, Land map, Hybrid map ).
  • You must choose your civ without knowing the map on modern RTS it would be better for competitive Ranked Match.
  • if it remains as it is currently It will lead to a problem like:
  1. Alt+F4 Multiplayer Problem ( well know problem AOE2 community know The Alt+F4 Multiplayer Problem ) players cancel the game because they don’t like the map or want to play only one civ/map combo.
  2. It skews balance data and future balance change.
  3. In a Team, game Players can exploit the fact they don’t like playing with X players or Map.
  • In a random Ranked Team game - the player will see what His team Civs is and have time to change but not the Map.
  • You should have a strategy on every map playing RankedMatchmaking and not focusing only on one Map or You should play in no Ranked or Custom Map to practice.
6 Likes

I know u guys dont love examples from aoe2. But here we go. Imagine pick Vikings, but recieve BlackForest. → insta GG.
Unlike SC2, civs have different purpose and some civ can be good for certain map. And unlike SC2 aoe have very different maps.

Or example for aoe4:
Mongols will be very weak on BlackForest or Arena. (The main purpose of civ to be aggressive will be missing on closed maps). Should player resign instantly? either way he will lose

PS +100000% for alt+f4.

6 Likes

I coming from AOE2 this is not because AOE2 play like this AOE4 should.

Currently, every civs have every tool they need to play every map I don’t see why you are able to see the map before choosing your civ it will lead the player to play only the most Imbalance civs per map or otherwise good players will just try to counter civ depending on the civ or map and will screw big data for balancing civ.

4 Likes

contradiction in these statements

3 Likes

Loss on alt f4 should be standard.

16 Likes

No, every civs have its own mechanics Dev can tweak and try to balance civs on each Map (Water, land, Hybrid) by balancing map and civs
Currently, civs are not balancing for example but are not means they don’t have tools (they all have boats, they all have, anti archer, anti-cavalry, anti, etc) where we can modify Stats or trying to tweak some map

1 Like

Also yes it should be, but is not mean you should be able to see the map before choosing your civ.
Good players will just try to counter civ depending on the civ or map.

impossible, even aoe2 did not manage to “solve it”. But some people are referencing that aoe2 have only one civ.

Devs stated that Some civ have defensive and turtle design. How these civs should be doing good on open maps?

Devs should balance civs, but should not force to play “civs with bad balance” against:

Uniqueness and balance always will come with compromise.

PS persian have +50 food and +50 wood, and on nomad it’s the best civ.
If these kind of change gives huge advantage, what are about assymetric civs.

And what about after DLC ? change rate system, cause even if (devs can balance 8 civs) they wont be able to balance 16 civ and make them unique.

2 Likes

You have a Veto for that and Dev can balance Civs using IA Caping APM and Camera scroll to every human condition then tweak it they have access to Microsoft IA as they said.

I disagre, one should be able to pick based on the map.
Since both players can do so it is a very fair approach.

AoE was always about playing the map and picking a civ which favours certain maps.

You simply can not balance all civs so they are equally strong on land / water and walled maps.
And if one could do so, it would end up in a boring mix of similar civilizations

2 Likes

Just implement a system like league of legends. 1 alt f4 and you have to wait 5 mins before queuing up again, 2 and it is 15 mins, 3 and it’s an hour and so on. Resets every 24 hours.

There is no need to make sweeping changes to fix alt f4s.

8 Likes

That would work, but only if they also add the opportunity to reconnect to games (which is quite unbelievable that we don’t have that in 2021)

While it isn’t a thing in singleplayer, since you lost anyways if you drop and reconnect 3mins later, in teamgames it would be nice.

Reconnects need to be implemented but I think the altf4 system works without them provided the loading screen is reasonably stable. In aoe4 there’s also a backup system in custom lobbies so it isn’t unreasonable to ask players that experince frequent crashes to play custom games along with those who don’t like random map.

1 Like

it’s not AOE2 and will not be, it does not stop the player from choosing the civ he wants to play, but he has to adapt with the one he chooses in competitive Ranked matchmaking in every modern RTS its the same

it’s not sc2 and neve will be.

No modern RTS have random map generation, and maps so important unlike in other RTS.

2 Likes

It skews balance as i said is not make any sense now we are in 2021 Dev should try to balance civs on every type of map

I’m afraid only that wouldn’t be enough, tho. I don’t know to what point, but I’m absolutely sure some players would just take that loss and alt f4 anyway, not only ruining the queue, but also ladder balance. A temporary ban is warranted imo.

1 Like

Overall this is coming from a really reasonable point that I totally share.

Age 4 doesn’t seem to be a 20+ civ game with civs that are clearly better on land and on water than others.
It seems to me like civ differences in Age4 are very fair and nothing big is getting locked for any faction here.

Some maps for competitive 1v1 are absolutely terrible and I’d like to veto that in quickmatch.
Black forest is the lamest **** ***** I’ve had to endure and I am willing to Alt F4 every single qm lobby I am getting forced into.

1 Like

i agree

except if a civ cannot compete on a map, that map should be adjusted and/or the map should be unranked and/or the civ should be adjusted. playing games where you basically lose from minute 0 isn’t fun

there’s no problem with having imbalanced maps in the game, but they can be for custom lobbies or singleplayer

also people keep misrepresenting aoe2, and it’s not only irrelevant (aoe4 is not aoe2) but also wrong. referencing aoe2 black forest and aoe2 arena doesn’t really matter because those are not even part of the standard aoe2 map pool. ensemble left them out of it for a reason. it would be like talking about big game hunters to figure out what starcraft matchmaking should look like.

the reality is that letting people see the map before they pick their civs is the second most egregious balance mistake of aoe2DE (the biggest one is letting people pick what position they spawn in). that is what creates the situation where most civs can’t compete most of the time. it’s okay (and also inevitable) for civs to have some slight map preferences, but when you will only play against civs with a map advantage, the only way to keep up is to do the same thing (and that usually results in mirror matches or close to it). and that’s exactly what happens, especially in teamgames, which are aoe2’s most popular mode

3 Likes

We did not have build, we did not have experience of “strong” and “weak”.
But we have words from devs, that some civs played like “turtle”.
How it can be “balanced” if mongols are “fast” civs against “turtle” civ.
Obviously (at least) for me, that one civ would get advantage on open maps, while other will be great on closed map.

How? slow vs fast pace civ, obviously one will be better against other based on environment around.
Playable? - Yes. But start match with disadvantage seems unreasonable

what? what pool they are part?

I dont know ur rating, but u understand nothing in aoe2.
May be it can be designed in other ways. But in current design to restrict position Picking will kill the game. Archer civ cant play in Pocket.
Again, may be it can be designed like sc2… but…wait…sc2 have poor TGs, and aoe2 Have more TG players than 1vs1. At least numbers should speak for themselves.

90% of players want to relax, and play as expected. Boom, build army. etc.
Without voice chat it’s impossible to play otherwise.

What seems to you as bad design can be the reason why TGs popular, and balanced.
Want different “experience” - play Nomad or Megarandom… there are always options…

I did not reference play as 0 chance to win, but even 35% vs 65% a big disadvantage. And i want to pick civ with the most chances or easier to play.

PS as i know Protos from sc2 can do A-click, while other struggle with APM. And a lot of sc2 players are whining about it.