There have been many complains about the online map pool and experience in general. We can probably all agree it needs some improvements, so let’s brainstorm a bit and examine the ongoing problems since the start of DE first, first and foremost the map pool:
- To many closed maps, often at best 1-2 semi-open or open maps
- To many onetrick-pony maps
- Maps with problems that are only being fixed after they rotate out
- Unfair map generation
- Maps that give some civs a big advantage often through unusual starting food sources so you only see the same civs everytime
- Not enough Arabia/standard maps
- DM matchmaking has the same maps as RM
- (Controversial) Pick Civ and Position can be boring (just wanted to mention it, would probably need its own topic)
- No friends list/social features
These complaints have been valid since the release of DE until now. The proposed fixes I have seen so far are:
separate Arabia qeue: would probably make the non-Arabia qeue bad and also a step back in terms of map innovation
Arabia unbannable: We would probably see Arabia in 90% of the games since the chance that you and your opponent unbanned the same other map is small.
Now I like Arabia and I do think that if you master Arabia you will be absolutely decent on any other land map so I don’t see the problem with “wrong” Elo but it’s clear that these two ideas would be a step back in regards to other maps.
All maps bannable: Probably an ok solution but it doesn’t change the fact that many of the ranked maps just aren’t good.
I have seen some more complicated solutions but I don’t think it’s realistic that they will be implemented ever. Thus the changes to MP i propose are:
A remake of the DM matchmaking to a non-RM matchmaking. As of right now, DM players aren’t that many and it honestly doesn’t seem fair how they get their own qeues while other players who like to play on such niche-settings have to go to the lobby. In this qeue the gamemode would be tied to the map, so for example the map pool could look something like this:
Arabia DM, Land Madness DM, Kawasan Empire Wars, Cross Empire Wars, Arena Capture the Relic, Four Lakes KOTH, Atacama Sudden Death, Triple Tech Mod Megarandom, Maximum Age Feudal Not Socotra;
this would incent players to try out different settings in AoE2. The more experimental settings could rotate out each month while DM and maybe EW always stay. Of course DM players wouldn’t like this change, which leads to my next suggestion.
Ranked Lobby: I don’t think there is a way around this if you want to satisfy the majority of players. I guess the fear is that this would hurt matchmaking but most people I know would prefer a good matchmaking to lobby playing. Now there would be 5 different Elos which are much but honestly you could maybe merge TG RM and TG non-RM Elo since the first doesn’t matter much anyways or 1v1 non-RM and TG non-RM. But even if not, 5 Elos are still ok I think. The reason why Ranked Lobby is so good because it would satisfy so many players who care really much about their fav setting and there are so MANY players like that. BF players, DM players, Arena clowns etc. and this would also help matchmaking since you don’t need to cater to these players there anymore and it would help the players who only want to play their fav setting. The Lobby would need to work properly then though, and it would need better filters and the the option of only allowing players of a certain Elo range in a lobby. Maybe there should be settings you can’t change if you want your lobby to be ranked so that it’s not too easy cheat your way to the top on unfair settings, though not sure if that would do more good than harm.
A matchmaking qeue on competitive settings (1v1 and TG): Competitive Settings mean tournament maps. Now the devs have tried their hands on improving the standard maps before but I really think hiring talented mapmakers like Chrazini to make the competitive maps with their input and input from the top players would really help. Or alternatively copied tournament maps would also be good. A criticism of tournament maps in the past were that they weren’t pretty (looking at you HC3 maps) but the TeTe and BoA2 maps have shown that this doesn’t need to be true. Something that should be standard on this qeue are that many of the maps have standard starting food ressources around the tc (1 sheep under Tc, 7 sheep elsewhere, 2 boar, berries, 3-4 deer) and that the map generation is fair. It would also be nice to see more maps that are either trickier to play like Four Lakes or maps that just provide some good unusual competitive gameplay like Land Madness. Something that the current map pool currently lacks is diversity. A diverse map pool could consist of:
2 Open Land Maps (eg Acropolis, Wings), 2-3 Semi-Open Land Maps (eg Arabia random civ, Slopes, Cenotes), 2-3 Hybrid or Water Maps(eg Bay, African Waters, Islands), 1 Map with starting walls (eg Hideout), 1 easy wall map (eg Graveyards) and 1 Gold Rush type of map (eg El Dorado).
I also think it would make sense to have 2 Arabia maps to satisfy those who just want standard gameplay; Dry Arabia which has desert setting, ponds, many hills and is hard to wall and Green Arabia which has a grass setting and is a bit less punishing/obnoxious with the map generation.
The last thing I would improve on Multiplayer are the social features. A friends list is needed and easy to implement. A rematch button would also be nice. A game series option would also be really good, with that I mean an option to play a b0X with friends with civ draft and all that. The lack of social features does have an impact on player behaviour, before DE toxic behaviour was more of an exception I think.
Will probably edit the post later to make it more readable. Let me know what you think of my ideas!