What i mean by standard is open land maps that are somewhat similar to Arabia.
Example: Cenotes, Ghost Lake.
I think the problem with the map pools is not the maps themselves, but the number of these non-“standard” maps. These maps can be fun, but become boring very fast if played multiple times in a short period.
If there were always 3 standard maps in the pool (Arabia + 2 other maps), then after the 4 bans, players would be left with 3 standard and 2 special maps. This way, around 60% - 70% of games will be on open land maps, and the rest is on a variety of different maps to keep things interesting.
It’s essentially what we had in the last couple of patches (arabia + four lakes + serengeti/acropolis).It’s a start but honestly it’s not enough.
No one should have to play a “strange” map at any point. There is enough room for variety within the confines of a balanced semi-open land map, which is what people want to play (and the stats clearly prove this). If you can’t make varied maps with these qualities just let people play arabia.
I dont know why we need multiple kind of clones in the map pool. Not 100% clones, every other map has just a little twist, but they mostly play the same. I really have no clue why maps like Continental and Hill fort are considered as special and strange. So please define special and strange.
To me it looks like: A map you dont like, is special and strange to you.
Continental and Hill Fort are closed maps. Closed maps results in fast castle strategies thereby removing or greatly limiting Dark and Feudal Age aggression, this makes them special and niche. It’s fine if you’re into that but it shouldn’t be mandatory to have to play closed maps.
It will continue until the devs start listening to the community. Either that or see a decline in the playerbase. Pretty much every streamer and caster has voiced their dislike for the map pools and we can see that 25% of games are consistently played on arabia while a lot of other maps sits on 5%. The great majority wants balanced, open land maps and forcing them to play bad maps is really bad for the future of the game.
Just cause you think different than open maps are bad, doesn’t make them so.
Listen, go to aoestats.io and see for yourself that 25% of games are played on Arabia followed by the other open land maps with 15-20% and then you have a huge gap to Arena on 8% and the rest on 5%. If players were able to choose freely we would logically see the preferred maps being chosen even more often.
What do you think it means for the future of the game if you force people to play in ways they don’t like? I can tell you, it will make them discontent and they will make threads like this in a hope to change things. If they are ignored they will be less inclined to play the game and the playerbase will shrink making it more difficult to find games for everyone, causing a further decline in the popularity of the game.
I don’t think the problem with a map pool is having too many “non-standard” maps.
I would say that the problem is specific maps themselves, not matter if they are standard.
For teamgame mappool:
Hill Fort, WolfHill are non standard and 1 strategy on a competitive level.
Black Forest, Scandinavia, Hill Fort, Lombardia are standard and 1 strategy on a competitive level.
You see the same civs on these maps.
A non-standard map that would not fit your way of defining a boring, one trick map would be the Golden Swamp.
I would say a countable way to judge how bad the map is would be to measure how much elo you gain on average (how much higher rated are the players you beat) when you select one of the top civs (or literally the top civ) and your enemy goes random civ (again - on average).
Right now team mappool is in my opinion the worst one yet:
2 open maps (Arabia, Wolf Hill)
5 closed maps (BF, Arena Nomad, Scandinavia, Hill Fort, Lombardia
2 joke maps - not competitive (Nomad - too much random factor, MegaRandom - maps divided by thin layers of water or forests or both / too many herdable or huntable animals, random buildings and so on).
From which the worst one (from this way of measuring -> 1.) are Black Forest, Scandinavia, Hill Fort, Lombardia) based on mine and my teammates’ experience.
No, you don’t realise that people been demanding to be able to play only arabia since day 1, and nothings been done or even implied that will be done to address it.
Also, you clearly don’t understand what I was even saying. The maps aren’t bad. You might not like them, there might be many people who might not like them, but they still aren’t bad.
And why you think the popularity of the game is declining?
Maps that are not open are strange and not standard. I dont that at all. The game is more than just Arabia and its brothers (serengeti, kilimanjaro, Cenotes, …).
Some maps are open and closed maps. You have pure land maps, you have hybrid maps, you have full water maps. There are maps where it is just about defending your base. There are also maps about controlling the middle (most likely water (Example: Medi) or Gold (Example: Golden pit) or both (Example: Golden swamp).
The current maps in the map pool arent really non standard or strange. That you only like open land maps is something completely different.
We had in the past already multiple discussions about the map in the maps pool and about having more control about the maps in the map pool you can play. See above threads for a selection.
No, you don’t realise that people been demanding to be able to play only arabia since day 1, and nothings been done or even implied that will be done to address it.
I understand this perfectly and I think this is a very shameful fact for the devs.
Also, you clearly don’t understand what I was even saying. The maps aren’t bad . You might not like them, there might be many people who might not like them, but they still aren’t bad .
No, again, I fully understand what you are saying and you don’t have to repeat yourself. There is obviously no God given objective way to measure the quality of a map but we have the opinion of the players. Who cares if you think Bog Islands is great. What the majority of players think is however very important for the longevity of the game.
And why you think the popularity of the game is declining?
I didn’t say it was declining, the player base may very well still be growing despite the poor map pool since it is such a popular game.
Or, maybe because the diverse map pool is actually a good thing? Who knows.
If that was so players would play those maps. It’s silly to argue that the current map pool is popular with the players when the stats are available and crystal clear.
I never said the “special” maps are bad or that i dislike them, i actually enjoyed most of them at first.
They simply become boring faster than other maps, mainly for 2 reasons :
They often limit the variety of strategies used.
They can have many fixed elements.
For example, in Hill fort, you always have the same amount of resources safe and near your TC, and there’s always good wood-lines and small stones and golds on each side of the map, and little to no space behind your base.
I tried Hill Fort against the AI, and one thing I didn’t like is you can have a very unfair map. I had no space behind my base whereas the AI had, I think, at least a 4 square strip at the back with significant gold in the middle. It would have been very easy for someone with that map to wall both sides back from the base to the trees either side of the gold and have a nice free extra protected gold.
I guess that’s not especially surpirsing since after the release it didn’t matter all that much. But now it seems to do so which you can see by the steadily increasing number of top players and casters to demand for an arabia queue or something with a similar effect. There simply aren’t enough good maps in the game to both have 9 maps in the pool and rotation each month. And honestly, instead of including some less balanced ara clones, why not straight up give the option to play more ara?
This point is already discussed multiple time at this forum. Have a look at my previous post to found some urls to those thread. No need to start this discussion again in this thread.
