Before i start explaining, i’d like to apologize if something similar has already been suggested/discussed → my topic search was not that thorough, but i haven’t really found much about that.
As we have discussed frequently, the community is divided on whether we need more civs (e.g. some single player players and history enthusiasts) or whether we already have too many civs (e.g. some pro players and some ranked matches & meta enthusiasts).
More civs are generally a great idea to keep the game supported and offer new content for players, whereas it creates the game more complex and leaves more and more civs not being picked in pro matches/tournaments, because different civs have better offers. I understand both points of view and I also agree that some civs really need a bit of rebalance (especially the two new civs and some unique technologies - more specifically those with 1 time only usage) to be more viable/entertaining to play.
There is, however, a solution to consolidate both parties, and that is:
Reworked matchking
In matchmaking, you would be able to choose civilizations to be banned (either with some proper cap or infinite number of them) and to choose civilizations that cannot be banned - e.g. if one player chooses 10 civs to be banned and the other player doesn’t choose anything as banned, they would match together and random selection as well as civ picks would not allow these civs to be picked. On the other hand, if player A bans 10 civs and player B has 1 of those civs as “ALWAYS ALLOWED”, they would not match together even if the other 9 civs would be banned by player B as well. Of course, if player A bans 10 civs and player B bans 10 other civs, with neither one of them choosing “always allowed” civs, the matchmaking would ban all those 20 civs. This would, on the other hand, prolong matchmaking the more civs are banned/always allowed.
In addition to civ pick, random selection, total random selection and mirror selection, there would be an additional “random from selected” selection that would allow players to choose civs to be randomly selected for matchmaking, so if someone hates playing cumans, burgundians and sicilians, yet they still want to be surprised by matchmaking nonetheless, they would be able to get any other civ by this random option (provided that the civ is not banned as in the point above)
These 2 additions would therefore let multiplayer players ignore new/redundant civs, whereas the rest of the playerbase could receive more civilizations (my personal favourites like Bohemians, Poles, Dutch, Wlachs, Zimbabweans etc…) through DLCs and enjoy their time!
You’re cherry picking examples. And I don’t believe maps and civs are ruled by the same principle. And btw, so seem also kinda angry/disrespectful. Chill a bit
And what else should i cherry pick from? Some random 1400 elo guy noone watches or from the most watched streamers? Additionally, check out new civs polls and opinions and you’ll have half the community voting for fewer civs and the other half for more civs.
As a mathematician/statistic/computer engineering person, i checked more the examples to see correlations, and thus i presented them in the beginning.
To be fair, you’re the one who started being disrespectful and relating, so i stated mere objective facts & quality of life ideas. Besides, there’s nothing angry coming from me, and if you get insulted so easily, then there’s something wrong with your oversensitivity.
EDIT: my previous post was removed for hurting someone’s feelings.
It said that it doesn’t take much to understand i meant correlation, not absolute “true”/“false” satements and that most of the top pros (Viper, Liereyy, Hera, Nili…) said that we already have too many civs and would be in favor of removing some.
i, personally, would not - and i hope neither would most of the other players. Some players might think that a civ is too op/up/different and don’t like it, so they ban it → same principle with maps:)
The option being there does not necessarily mean you have to use it;)
I see the point of view from both camps.
I’d rather see more and more civs being added, but allowing me to ban many civs for myself. I love to play random civ, but there are just a handful of civs that are too hard for me, or don’t match my style, or I haven’t studied enough. So definitely allow me to ban some number of civs for myself.
But you also need a way to ban certain civs for the opponent. A new civ might come out to be way OP, and I don’t want to be playing against this civ.
If I can list my bans for myself, and my bans for opponent, then “random from selected” would be the same as as “random civ”. It is just the matchmaking system randomizes from a list of common civs left in the pool by both players.
e.g. I ban 9 for my opponent, he bans 10 for himself, assuming they are all different, then a game is possible with “random” selection from remaining 18 civs for my opponent. Same would apply for the otherway.
We might want to limit the number of bans to ensure a game is always possible between 2 players of the same ELO range.
the correct solution is to duplicate economic bonuses so that more civs can play without autolosing in the first 15 minutes due to lack of speed. the biggest problem is that too many civs are awful on real RM maps (maps like FR maps, not maps like arena/BF)
the alternate solution is to let divide the civilizations into 3 or 4 different tiers (per map size) based on power level for each particular map. then random vs random first chooses a tier randomly and gives all players civilizations within that tier. so you either play strong vs strong or weak vs weak, but never weak vs strong
the banning thing is too complicated when you consider that civs have completely different levels of oppressiveness on different maps. if the game was just about a single map that was also a random map, then maybe it would work. but they chose to make the matchmaking about just forcing whatever civ is the best on each map instead of letting players play the civs they like and getting a random unknown map to use it on
The way you split the sections of opinion was loaded:
As if someone who wants more civs couldn’t also be a seasoned veteran who wants something new to spice up the meta.
As if some players who aren’t the dedicated grinders / regulars couldn’t prefer focusing on what’s already here for the fleshing out of more bland civ designs and/or game stability.
The parenthetical, hypothetical groupings you’ve devised could easily be construed as to provide weight to the positions. Casual players might very well have a less constructive point to make in the eyes of a forum user. I honestly don’t think that was intentional on your part, but if that’s what he’s getting at I totally understand his discontent with it. If I had to guess, removing the supposed groupings from each side of the debate in your outline would solve his quarrel.
That being said not reading the entire post and then making a comment to the direction of an expected bias unrelated to the subject isn’t what I’d consider a meaningful contribution to the discussion and I’d hope for better even when someone disagrees with your framing.
The reason i wanted to include “random from selected” is because i myself want to play as e.g (teutons, magyars, lithuanians and slavs), but i also want to be a bit surprised with the pick, without restricting the other civs for the opponent - i’ve seen numerous posts and opinions that people wished they would have never bought the lords of the west DLC, because they didn’t want the “random” option to choose burgundians or sicilians for them:)
I see why the presented settings might be too complicated, but better make more available optional options than none:)
The reason i gave examples is because i am used to do that, with relation to my job. Whenever you go to a bank with the intention to borrow some money, they always act biased based on similar people from your “group” - or better - your cluster, and that’s why banking works so well -they mitigate risks.
I am occasionally target of this “bias” (or, better said, statistics) and i completely understand that and even agree that in most cases, the other party would be right about me.
However, I did not expect someone to be so oversensitive and relating as to act like he did, because the absolute majority would have no problem with the examples (after all, if i don’t give examples, then my points could be easily disputed) - and if he is like that, he shouldn’t expect everyone to act in order not to be even remotely “disrespectful” towards him → that way, not a single post/meme/opinion could be made/said without “insulting” someone.
I’d understand if i put specifically his name to the examples (hence why i refrained from naming anyone up until a few posts later) - and truth be told, you can virtually never claim absolute “true” or “false” statements about a group of people, especially about quite a large community of thousands of AoE2 players/enthusiasts, because you’d almost ALWAYS find exceptions (“almost” because, as i said, you can virtually never be certain about a “fact” regarding a large group of people) - and if someone is an exception, they can either claim to be the exception, or understand the correlation and move on.
I Agree with more customization in order to give the most users the best game experience, but I think it should has an impact in the scoring calculation, because if not, the ELO don’t will reflects the real overall skills of players if they just scores in maps and matchups that they are confortable in.
So, I propose full customization but as more filters you use, the less points you earn by winning a game and the more points you loose if you loose it.
I will refrain from properly replying to this comment - it’s entirely flawed, and you’re comparing an opinion about game elements that not only is harmless to sane people, but also had no evil intentions, to religion and personal lives of others as well as to violence. Bad idea.
that is a good idea, though kinda difficult for elo calculation - elo is basically a “transfer” system - with the idea of yours, elo would either be lost, or someone would gain way too many points even though i kinda dislike hoang’s playstyle and he might have a big elo due to his abilities with celts, he nonetheless loses all (or nearly all) tournament games he plays;) - after all, having big elo does not mean you earn money for that or that you automatically qualify for tournaments (even though it helps)
Yes, they were, but to what end. Suppose a segment is loaded that has nothing to do with the position or supposition of the author, and that’s the part someone is critical of. An honest reading of the OP’s suggestion shows that this segment being pulled out for “bias” is practically fluff. The *very next paragraph makes this clear:
Which is why I informed the OP as to why someone would object but further…
It’d be different if OP was using a loaded proposition to push a specific point (ex. Italians underperforming in Overall winrate and should be buffed, is a loaded proposition pushing towards an end, it’s loaded because not all maps are played an equal amount of time and two of the most common maps [arena, arabia] do not support the Italian Gameplan in a meaningful way ) and I think you’d agree in a general sense that this was not the purpose of loading these sides to the OP, it was simply to generalize.
It’s better to address the framing you disagree with, and then if that prevents you from properly addressing the OP, make it known. I could see a problem with the way OP’s framed it but it’s not unduly restricting my capability to address the premise. I don’t actually have a strong opinion on this subject at all but I’m chiming in to clean up some very poor discussion and/or debate tactics. Could OP have refrained from categorizing and siding the dispute hypothetically? Absolutely. Does it mean anything to the overall discussion OP wanted to have? Doesn’t seem like it. It’s weird but I do not see the rub here.
The only thing I have for contributing to the discussion is that i don’t consider our playerbase big enough to allow further restrictions on game matchings. Some high elo players already have to wait for several minutes to find a game. Sometimes even myself (1100-1200 elo) have to wait for 5 minutes to find a game.
Even more, we don’t know how many player will migrate to AoE4 once it’s released. So, I don’t see that proposal as a feasible option.
Nevertheless I appreciate you’re trying to find a middle ground between both groups of players.
Civs could be skins of currently implemented ones. I am all in for new looking units and buildings, more history and campaigns… But we already have too many bonuses, UUs, and mechanics to memorize and learn. Its overwhelming.
Now if you they will add a 25th Infantary civ, just re-skin one that we have but keep the same bonus, techs, etc.
even though i kinda dislike hoang’s playstyle and he might have a big elo due to his abilities with celts, he nonetheless loses all (or nearly all) tournament games he plays;) - after all, having big elo does not mean you earn money for that or that you automatically qualify for tournaments (even though it helps)