I just heard a rant of T90 of the lobby browser. It is totally not clear what the meaning is from noob, noobish, beginner, semi noob, … Can someone please explain the differences between these? It really sounds like the wild west. Is there someone that can make sense of these names? When are you able to join certain lobbies without being kicked?
Just listen to the current rant of T90 atm:
im not sure what rants like his are supposed to achieve. people aren’t going to change their behaviour unless there is a system in place encouraging it. but i dont see what kind of system would do that
I seriously doubt there is any overarching logic these description follow.
ultra Noob = <500 elo
Noob = 500 - 900 elo
Semi-Noob = 900 - 1100 elo
Noobish = 1100 - 1300 elo
In my head this is how i see it 
However there are no guarantees that you won’t get kicked anyway no matter what your elo is, depends on who created the lobby.
If someone says something like that, most likely it’s a trap laid by smurfs.
1v1 ratings:
Noob is anything under 1200.
Beginner: under 1000.
Semi noob: 1100-1300.
Noobish: 1000-1400.
Noob is everybody performing worse than me 
(and ofc everybody performing better is cheater…)
i think all of these attempts to correlate these lobby names with 1v1 elo are missing an essential part: many of those playing in lobbies are doing so because they don’t want to play ranked. therefore they don’t even have ranked elo
I’ve always seen “noobish” as being lower in ranking than Semi-noob (with Semi-Noob often being understood as near average and even as high as 1400-1800 Elo). That said, unless people put a rank range in the title, everyone’s gonna have different ideas of what each particular category means.
This problem exists because there is no form of relevant lobby specific ELO shown in the lobby system unlike that which was present for HD and Voobly players in the past. The lobby system shows ranked 1v1 and TG elo but many if not most lobby players do not play ranked or play it only rarely. Because of this, ranked elo is not an accurate reflection of skill in lobbies and cannot be used to balance teams. It really sucks for those people who have been excluded from the matchmaking system because they want to play specific maps.
I’ve seen you comment that unranked elo is useless, that ranked lobbies would be dumb, but at the same time I commonly see it suggested that people who want to play a specific map should go play in the custom lobbies. T90’s rant perfectly encapsulates the problem with just suggesting people should go play in the custom lobbies. I’m not trying to call you out specifically rather just the general failure of folks on one side of the debate to realize that the lobby system is a mess without some form of elo (call it unranked or unofficial elo) and without a better browser. If the lobby system was improved it would solve the problem of having map specific players alt+f4ing and afk’ing in the ranked system and everyone would be better off.
I missed the rant, what timestamp is the rant at to get an understanding of T90’s point? I skimmed through and only saw BoA3 games being casted? It’s 4-5 hours long so might’ve easily missed the rant.
However, to answer the question myself, I’d say it depends. There are several factors that go into it. When I host lobbies, I usually say ‘average’ and for me, as I only host a specific map, I look at all the ratings combined - unranked (which I can see from aoe2 net lobby, though this is pretty annoying), 1v1, and ranked TG rating. For me, who is average is typically someone who is either 2k+ unranked, or 1700-1800 TG, or 1200-ish 1v1. I would also try to balance by what I gauge are the two best players being split, for example.
However, I believe that if someone hasn’t played a particular ranked game before (e.g. no 1v1 games at all) and only plays teamgames, then their first 1v1 game is played at around their TG rating, so someone could have a pretty bad winrate but still be 2k+ TG, play a 1v1 game and jump straight into 2k 1v1 rating as well. So I also look at games played at the particular ratings, and someone who has a 0% winrate but is 2k+ might not be as good as someone who is 1.4k 1v1, and is not going to be split with anyone who’d be near 2k 1v1 - though they are generally not joining an ‘average’ game anyway.
This is a lot of words just to explain how I look at the ratings, and what I determine to be ‘average’. I don’t really have an elo cap, whoever meets my minimums can play despite very likely also outclassing myself. I’d just be happy to get to play with stronger players in that case.
What someone else thinks is ‘average’ is personal. The same goes for noob, noobish, beginner, semi noob, etcetera. *Personally, I’d say beginner is just someone who does not have any games played. If you check them on aoe2 net, their profiles are either blank (aoe2 net doesn’t track unranked games any more - but somehow still does when you look from lobby browser - and won’t show up on your profiles, whereas ranked games require at least 10 to be played to be seen), or have very few games played.
Noob, noobish, semi noob are all vague descriptors for someone who may have a ton of games played, but for whatever reason is simply bad. Some hosts look at ratings to determine whether they are noob, but there is no set standard for this. It’s up to the hosts to determine who joins what. Sometimes, I’ve joined noob lobbies and get kicked because I’m 2k+ unranked and I observe the lobby afterwards and indeed see that everyone in the lobby is what I would also call a noob - the hosts passed my test.
However, sometimes I see ‘noob’ lobbies propping up and when you watch them from aoe2 net, noob players do join in, but the host is 2.7k+ unranked (no ranked games). Those are cases where the host just wants to stomp noobs. In those cases, you might also be 2k+ and join thinking to put up a fight against the host, but get kicked because the host doesn’t want a challenge.
Unfortunately, unranked elo by itself is very unreliable. I’ve seen 3k+ unranked players be worse than some 2k-ish unranked players. But it’s the best thing we’ve got, especially when it comes to specific maps being hosted. I think some players also manage to inflate their rating through playing against AI in lobbies, but I’m not sure if that works. I know TG ratings are also often inflated, and not everybody plays 1v1s. And not everyone who is good at 1v1s will be good in those specific maps either. I’ve also seen players who are 1.5k 1v1 get owned by someone who is 1.1k, because their skills don’t always translate over perfectly to those specific maps.
I don’t know why I made an essay over this, but TL;DR: there is no certain ELO bracket for ‘noobs’ or ‘semi-noobs’, it’s up to the hosts to determine who meet their criteria. It’s better to host yourself, so you have control over who joins (or find a trusted host who knows how to balance). Especially for specific maps, naively looking at only one set of ratings will not produce a balanced game.
you can literally see the opponents elo even before entering the lobby, so you know what you’re getting into
Based on all the reactions: There isnt a good definition for everything. Everything has its own and in the end it all depends on the hosts. This naming isnt new. The same happened when there was unranked elo and you could see the unranked elo. I have seen people with 2.5k unranked elo and a win rate of 90+% hosting noob only lobbies. That just doesnt make sense at all. This behavior just shows how bad the lobby is in balancing teams, even in the time you had unranked elo.
I wish they had renamed ranked to something that doesnt sound scary for weaker players, since playin ranked is no doubt the best experience you can get for balanced games.
This was something from the past. Nowadays there is no connection anymore. So if you only played ranked team games and you are 2k on the TG ladder, then you will still start at 1k on the 1v1 ladder. This change is made around the time they started with EW.
Above example is kinda being a smurf, so i agree with this. It is mostly done by hosts to get easy wins in my opinion. I also notice that some people just ban you if you already have a ranked rating, because someone with a 800 1v1 rating is clearly no noob, according to the host, because you play in ranked.
2h40min-ish
Between the different BoA3 games it also kinda goes back to this. But this was the main rant.
I love the moment at which T90 joins a 1400++ lobby, just to see if he can play. The host responded with ‘I am AFK for some minutes’. That really sounds to me as the perfect lobby experience to me. Host being AFK, host just randomly kick players because they dont like something about your, … Last time i tried i was trying to get into a game for 30 minutes and still wasnt able to play. Then i finally got into a game and it was for some reason on Giant and totally unbalanced at all. That is how the lobby always has worked for me.
They are much dumber then ranked. Above examples describe that pretty well. There isnt really a difference between now and with unranked elo. The lobby functions pretty much still the same. Elo in a lobby is far less reiable then elo in match making. Also match making is doing a good job at balancing games, while unranked elo or whatever other elo you pick in the lobby isnt.
Pretty sure it still exists if someone hasn’t played 1v1s since, right? Cuz I pretty recently (within the last month or so?) saw someone with 2k 1v1 with a 0-3 win/loss.
Yeah, saw that moment, and I think I’ve seen that person also host funny lobbies like these. Honestly though, like T90 wondered, some players do become known in particular communities, hence why ELOs can be all over the place. If I play a specific map and I know other players who perform well on the same map, even if they are lower elo I can still let them play.
And similarly you’ll get to know hosts who also force bad teams / don’t care about balancing. I’ve seen no ranked games played, and 900 unranked players joining ‘no noobs’ lobbies, and they’re allowed to play because the host didn’t care to check. You just gotta get to know people if you want balanced games. Then you know which host’s lobbies to join as well.