The fact that there is no way to vote in game completely kills the system. You need to boot game via Steam to see a reminder, then you have to register on this forum, then vote on a few selected maps. Why would you go through all of that to choose between Oasis, Islands, Nomad, Lombardia or MegaRandom??
Add a tab for voting the mappool in game, allow people to vote whilst on queue and the number of participants skyrocket.
As for the argument that ranked environment should have rotation… Apparently the majority of the playerbase disagree, as 70% of the games are played on 2 maps… To an extend, even the devs or we would not have fixed maps.
This was the worst part tbh, took me several attempts for it to finally go through. Why can’t you just link your AoE2 account to this forum or smth
This is huge fail from the devs, instead of adjusting game balance every 5 mins, they should put some effort into encouraging players to adopt more and more maps
yes but doesnt fix the issue of people still alt f4ing
also
wrong you just think its 70% but its probably way less
As a secondary thought i would definetly agree to move the vote system on forum and ingame os there is more diversity but well all people should adjust to various maps not only the one who voted but also people who alt f4 because they dont like it
OH and your example of maps that are in the current pool
all chime a different approach for the health of this game in various strategys and possibilties
is it that hard to belive that these maps are actually playable and people actually enjoy them ?
Just tried a 4v4 ranked, after five alt+f4s in a row we decided to unban Arena and wow Arena is selected and no one alt f4s! What are the chances! And what fun that was rejoining a party 5x and queueing for 25 mins to play against arena specialists. I am in favour of a time penalty but any kind of incentive to stop people alt+f4 is also good. But will the developers ever respond about this issue?
Time penalties for quitters is a terrible idea for a game like AOE2. it works for a game like DOTA2 because that game has 500k concurrent players at any given moment, but AOE2 has less than 50k (steam usually between 15 to 25k + MS store/gamepass). it already takes long enough to find a game as it is.
I think what should be done is increasing the number of bans instead of 1 maybe make them 3. I think people usually have like 3-4 maps they don’t like from the rotation and the rest they are fine with. I think people quit when they get a map they don’t like, not when they don’t get the specific map they want. it probably does happen sure, but the more common is the first option. which more map ban options will help mitigate. I don’t think unlimited bans is a good idea, kinda defeats the purpose of the rotation. but I think more than 1 ban is reasonable.
P.S. everything I said above is about team games, it’s different for 1v1.
Well, 3 bans out of 9 maps is reasonable in team games. you are talking about 1v1? in 1v1 its different usually people want a specific map, unlike team games. in team games you can only ban 1 map. (4v4 & 3v3)
You get 1 ban in 4v4 because if they give you 3, there a chance that you’ll get matches that all maps have been banned. I ban the 3 more popular maps, you ban the 3 “worst” maps, someone bans hybrids, other walled etc. What are we going to have, then, force teams play a random map between all 9 because all have been banned, get the least banned or what?
Btw, it’s wrong to assume 70% of MP players want to play Arabia. I don’t ban the map nor fav others, so I will get Arabia every time I play against someone who did fav this map. You can assume that 70% of the player base don’t mind to play Arabia, this is not the same thing as 70% are willing to play it.
What some people seem to be missing here is that no matter your reasoning, alt+f4-ing is immoral. Period. People forget that we are talking about Team games here, most likely an assortment of random players. It is not 1v1, and therefore, it is not all about you and what you want. Ranked matchmaking brings together players that want to play competitively; it should not just be for players who want something very specific, expect everyone who does not play like them to play their way, but deny that courtesy to others.
I hate arena, islands and bf, and usually ban one of them, but if I get placed into a game on one of these maps I will play it because chances are the other players are really looking forward to playing the map, and - since it’s TG - they kind of need multiple other players. I will play maps I don’t like in the hope that others will pay it forward and play maps I like.
I find it unfortunate that this discussion brings out the self-centered egoist in some people. Instead of paying it forward one tries to deny everyone else everything out of fear they will do the same. You have to assume, even when playing popular maps like Arabia, that one or more players are not “one-true-mappers”, and would rather play another map, but will still play the game so that those placed in that particular game can play. That’s what Ranked is all about: not playing a particular map, but playing AoeII, together. If you want specifics, settings, a particular map, that’s what lobbies are for. You can still check the elo of people that join there to balance teams. But don’t go alt+f4 bomb the experience of everyone else because you are too self-important to realize that it’s not always about your needs. Not when you play team games.
It would also eliminate one of the best features of DE: the ranked queue. Sure, the ranked lobby kept the game from dying out for years, but it is an inferior system that leads to longer waits, more imbalanced games, and reduction in map options.
Longer waits: obvious, manual is slower than automated. More imbalanced games: manually searching for close balance is slower and less accurate. Reduction in options: this is the classic problem of choice. In theory, you can play whatever you want. In practice, if arabia/bf/arena are the typical choices, people will pick them not because they want them, but because it leads to faster matches with closer skilled players. So, by having less choice, the ranked queue gives a faster, more even, and varied experience.
Seriously, everyone acts like the old days are the glory days, but lacking this feature made HD era games dissatisfying.
Good night! Let me get this straight, you join an 6-8 player TEAM game without a team, and want to dictate to EVERYONE else what map you play. That’s what the “add friend” button is for.
“But in the good old days…” I played in the “good” old days. Team games were a disaster of waiting forever as people joined and left and team balance was almost nonexistent.
Not having time penalties (would prefer escalating time penalties and elo drop) for quitters increases the game time for everyone else who has to match/unmatch with them.
Any of the other solutions based on that argument is the mindset of “let’s let the toddler get everything he wants so he doesn’t stop playing with us”. If quitters stop playing, GOOD!
If we want to SEPARATELY talk about map bans, no problem. Just remember that more bans than maps in team games means more wait/imbalance as people cannot be matched together at all. Is this worth it? Maybe. But giving it as a concession to quitters is insane.
What? your statement doesn’t make any sense, no one dictates anything for anyone. the matchmaking matches people who have similar map choices.
3 bans out of 9 is more bans than maps? rip math, but seriously if no games found people will just relax their filters/choices. not a big deal. it takes forever already to find a game since every alt f4s. so 1 long queue vs 4 short queues end up equaling the same.
Sounds like if that happens the matchmaking will take longer to find matching players, just like we do right now except it’s manual since every game found someone alt f4s. so instead of 1 long 15 mins queue, it’s 4 mins, stop-requeue, 3 mins, stop-requeue, 5 mins > game loads. a bit similar, also if game is not found because of that scenario you mention, people will realize that there is not enough population at that moment to fit their criteria so they will relax their choices. but at least less altf4s. and if 3 is too much, 2 is better than 1 at the end of the day.
It’s like forgotten empires is promoting the use of alt-f4 to get unlimited bans. This issue has long threads since October, and not even ONCE they have showed here
How about when match is found, provide player with the option to quit in game. However, it should also display information of elo gain/lost when win, lose or quit the matches.
Time ban will not solve this issue, because players can get two accounts and login from the other account after they quit.
Maybe in order to solve this issue the devs could sell us “tokens” which could be used to ban more maps. This way, people whose time is more valuable, can ban more maps and do not do alt-f4 and ruin others’ time. Note that by alt f4ing, this player also loses a lot of time since he also needs to relaunch the game and requeue.
The devs took away our freedom to choose what to play and you guys are angry to other people who genuinely do the only method the devs left available to avoid playing forced settings, the game is not new it has lasted for 20 years with the old obsolete lobbies as some of you refer to them, but this MM implemented barely is going to make another year at this rate.
We can’t save and restore ranked games, we can’t choose our allies so god bless you before queuing alone, we can’t play the maps we want(while some of you say it is always arabia, well for me it is always arena, nomad and a pathetic map like wolf hill), We don’t really vote for the maps, despite it is large minority who votes, the maps are actually fixed and chosen by the devs all the time, we can’t chat during the queue or while spectating one game, the ability to choose positions ruined forever the old but fair random civs games, now it is all about franks and britons.
And for the others who still claiming that playing one map or arabia doesn’t represent the skills of a player, that is a big misunderstanding and ignorance without trying to offend anyone, in the past all arabia top players have won and perform excellent on any random map, while arena, nomad, bf players do not only perform terrible at arabia but at any other map outside their map, the first ARENA tournaments were won by arabia players well only one arena tournament was won by an arena player cause of the absence of top players… the history is the same at any random or custom map, stop pretending and trying to create a false idea that playing other maps is going to increase your overall skills, because all the experts and pro players became strong playing arabia not the other way around.
Will they? Right now, their criteria isn’t relaxing when they find games they don’t want to play and rather wait 4 short queues until they find a match that fits their will
I might be wrong, but the matchmaking system get people based on ELO, not on map choice. It matches you, see what are the favs maps, then bans. If there is one fav map banned, you play one between the others. If all favs maps are banned, you play one between the not-banned.
wrong there is still a choice in the maps that are represented. and honestly if you think we would take away your fun then your egotism accels yourself. there are enough Players who like varity. and as we cant ignore your kind of group you cant ignore our.
allready suggested that a restore should be added and well if you get extremly salty over other players then maybe the game isnt something for you. or you pick lobby games and choose player with equal mmr instead of complaining
not really i mean you can play what is in the map pool and can also affect it but these maps you mentioned are all nieche maps that are ok and you just feel overwhelmed by it probably
well i give you that arabia is one of the strongest repredented maps but nondeless people still want variety and are able to show skill over various maps not just one i think what you did was a oversimplification of a system that worked for you the past years but not for everyone else and …oh yea we are the baddies destroying your bubble fyi variety is a good thing and many people want it stop being egotistical
Not really the mindset a game that is trying to grow will have
I think they either need to remove map selection altogether, and just have it purely random (Merge everything into megarandom and add more maps into the megarandom pool), or stop people from gaining elo if they keep playing the same map too often.
Want to hear something worse? Get thrown into a map you refuse to play, so you go completely AFK (because why not, it’s still better than playing just to get frustrated, and im pretty sure people would do this), so now significantly more time is wasted.
