Suggestion for a New Multiplayer System

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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First of all, I would like to mention something. This suggestion won’t be about a cliche suggestion of bringing unlimited bans. Why? Simple, because it wouldn’t be a productive discussion. One side will blabber to go lobbies, and another side will just continue with this suggestion. We’ve seen this movie already.

My suggestion is simple: division of two elos. One of them will be casual elos for the lobbies. Ofc, when this is launched first, it will be chaos, and it will take some time for people to get their elos. However, after that, players will see casual elos and only casual elos for the lobbies. This way, people can play in the lobbies without worrying about the elo differences. Ofc, there will be smurfs but is the ranked system a solution for that? No. At least people may see each other’s elos, can create rooms for those specific elos, and can kick the others. Imo, this presents a better system for the lobbies than the one we got. Moreover, the map dodgers can relocate them to lobbies easily. However, if u think otherwise, please comment below and share some of your opinions and critiques.

The other elo is actually the ranked elo, but I propose a name change, the competitive elo. You may say that ranked is a competitive battleground, but the name still indicates ranking, in other words, matching players with similar levels. That’s the impression this name gives. So instead of calling this side ranked, the name should be competitive. That way, players should understand that this is competitive matchmaking, and you should just be grateful that you can even ban three maps or two maps dependent on the mode. Some problematic elos like team elos should be resetted as well. Sure, this just presents the same system but isn’t this the people who say go to lobbies want anyway? I just make sure that this name will indicate a competitive arena (not the map :smiley: ) as they wish. Ofc, this might be scary for the newcomers, so I’m open to criticism.

I was thinking about the multiplayer problems and trying to find a middleground between two vicious sides. I know these discussions might be boring for some, and I can guess some even don’t wanna see these threads, but I have just wanted to share my opinions on a common problem we experience. That’s all. Let me know below your comments what do u think and what should be done, and I thank you for all reading my suggestion. I wish a nice day for all of the AoE2 fanbase.

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Casual players should move to ranked, not the other way around. Ranked should be the best way to get into games against equally rated players, which includes casual players. Currently ranked is already the best way to play the game, even for casual players. The devs should lower the barriers to join ranked. Your suggestion is adding another barrier, since it suggest casual players should not play in ranked. That suggestion is clearly false.

We also have seen how terrible a ranked lobby is. We have had Voobly, we have HD. The current ranked environment is much, much better then the old skool lobby. We even have seen this on DE. For a while we had unranked elo. This elo was used in the lobby. It was the most meaningless elo i have ever seen. The devs have removed that unranked elo. Just adding this back (under the name of casual elo) doesnt improve it at all.

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This is the best solution in my opinion, as it gives both sides a way to play the way they want while solving the problem of map dodgers in ranked and hard to balance teams in the lobby.

I played in Voobly and HD lobbies for close to 10 years, both were a better experience than the current DE lobby or ranked team games. 1v1 the current matchmaking system is the best but for team games i would take the Voobly lobby system or even HD every time.

This is false, “unranked elo” is still visible on the lobbies page of aoe2.net. It shows up under “rating” next to the players name. It works well and is still being updated, it changes every day that I play. It is also still used by myself and other lobby hosts to balance games. The only problems with it is that 1) it is not built into the game so you have to alt+tab and refresh aoe2.net constantly and 2) newer players and hosts don’t know it exists and so don’t know how to use it which is why you end up with silly titles like “seminoob+++”. Having it built into the game like OP suggests would solve both these problems.

The “barrier” for casual players is that there are insufficient number of bans for players to get to play the map they want. That is literally the barrier for casual players and the only reason why casual players like myself play in the lobby instead of ranked. The only way for the devs to “lower the barrier” would be to give more bans which many people seem absolutely opposed to.

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The image shows where you can view the “unranked elo” that is still being updated. On this page you can also type in a keyword in the search bar to make it easier to find your lobby, in this example I typed “black” which will show all black forest maps.

unranked elo
unranked elo1426×1435 205 KB

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I got a completely different experience. Lobbies were (and still are) terrible. AFK hosts, random kicks, … You just didnt get a game within 30 minutes. Really terrible. Oh, and if you got into a game, it was much more onesided compared to ranked. I wont claim that ranked it the perfect system, but it is very much an improvement over the old lobby system.

How you read the following thread at Reddit:

The unranked leaderboard is gone since it isnt updated anymore. Claimed by the owner of aoe2.net. So i am pretty sure unranked isnt updated anymore.

I disagree with this. Have you ever seen LEL from T90 at youtube? Many lower rated players are still enjoying it and getting good games. The main reason to me is the name. Ranked sounds scary. I would even advocate for deleting quick play (since it sucks and it useless) and rename ranked to quick play. But that would be confusing. But i wish they did something like that when they launched the game. Ranked is just the most easy way to get into a great balance game.

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I disagree. If this system was perfect like you claimed to be, then, there wouldn’t be any issues like map dodging. Moreover, “casual players should move to ranked” is a disgusting phrase. Sorry, nobody has to do anything just because you think this way. Who do you think you are to say things like this? How can you see that right in yourself to blubber stuff like that? My proposed system may not be perfect either and I am open to valid criticism but how you phrase your ideas is totally disgusting. Forcing players who want to play this game casually into a competitive environment will cause problems. Players should be able to play this game in a casual way without worrying about the maps or competition that much but the same goes for the competitive players who wish to challenge and improve their game styles all the time too. Otherwise, problems will remain.

In addition, lobby games’ problems should be addressed as well. Just because you think a ranked system is a better way of playing the game doesn’t mean lobbies don’t deserve some new improvements to make them better for lobby players. This system will also let ranked the same with a name change, and it will just improve the lobbies. You don’t have to play in the lobbies you know. You are complaining about your previous experiences but my proposal doesn’t suggest returning to the Voobly system completely anyway, so, it’s an invalid argument to make.

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The unranked leaderboard which was a separate part of aoe2.net’s website is gone and maybe the devs had something to do with that I honestly don’t know and I never claimed anything about the leaderboards, I’m only talking about the unranked elo “ratings” on the lobby page which I showed you an image of how to find and are very much still updated and are the same as “unranked elo”. If you don’t believe me I encourage you to play a few lobby games and look at how your rating changes based on whether you win or lose those lobby games only. I have no reason to make it up, especially when the proof is right there and you can see the numbers changing for yourself.

I’m not disagreeing that low elo people have fun in ranked nor implying that no casual players have fun in ranked. You said there was a barrier keeping lobby (casual) players out of ranked. I’m telling you that in my case and in the case of everyone I play with in the lobbies we would gladly switch to ranked if we could pick our map, so the one and only barrier for us is map choice.

Maybe ranked sounds scary for some people, I have no idea, but I don’t know of anyone personally that is afraid to play ranked. You can rename it whatever you want and it won’t make a difference to me or the others I play with, we’ll use it if it lets us pick our map and we won’t use it if we can’t pick our map. I’ve grinded in Arabia 1v1’s for years, I went through a nomad phase, I was a proud arena clown for a while and right now I only want to play BF because I’m enjoying the meta. I’m not afraid of maps and the name of the matchmaking system doesn’t scare me but I do have only a limited number of games I can play a week and I only want to play BF at this time. If ranked/quickplay whatever lets me do that great, but if not, I’m not going to use it so that is the barrier for me.

I cannot speak for everyone else but I play with a ton of lobby players on a regular basis and I feel comfortable speaking for almost all of those players when I say the only reason we do not play in ranked is because we cannot pick the map and it has nothing to do with the naming of the system.

When the current lobby does not have the functionality that Voobly and even HD had, of course the experience is going to be terrible. We’re all saying that the current DE lobby experience sucks and that’s why we want basic improvements (i.e. visible “unranked” elo and a better lobby browser for starters) so that it is not such a crappy experience.

You mentioned “random kicks”. The only reason people were typically kicked in Voobly and HD lobbies was if their elo was not in the right stipulated range or they were being toxic and at least you knew if it was because of your elo. In the current DE system you have no idea.

You mentioned “afk host”. It happens sometimes and when it does we just go join a different lobby, I’ve never considered it to be a significant issue or to delay getting a game going by more than a few extra seconds because you have to move to a new lobby but yes, it does happen. At the same time at least in the lobby everyone has to ready-up before the game can start and the host can reset the ready up by changing a setting and changing it back; the ranked system starts the game when the timer runs out regardless of if a player is readied up or afk, which really sucks if that afk player happens to be on your team.

You mentioned “onesided games”. My experience was that Voobly and HD team games were just as balanced as DE ranked team games if not more so. In the current DE lobby system of course you get more onesided games because there is no visible “unranked” lobby based elo shown in the game for hosts to use to balance and most hosts, especially in lower skilled lobbies and newer player hosts don’t know that aoe2.net even exists or that “unranked” elo is a thing. Making the changes that OP suggests would solve this.