Hi devs
The better treaty players are currently all facing a similar issue. It’s really hard to tell the skill level of a player in the lobby if they haven’t played a lot of ranked games.
Why is this a problem?
We all want even and fair games that lead to great battles. There is no point in hosting a 3v3 nr60, booming for a full hour only to crush a player that joined with a supremacy deck or didn’t know how to max our vills. It’s time wasted for that one player and it’s in particular time wasted for the other five players that would have been on a similar level. Beginners can learn the game by playing with other beginners and experienced players get the games they want. You can check your opponent’s/mate’s deck in the game Yes of course but first of all you don’t want to get six players into a game only to rehost after five minutes and secondly, deck screenshots from good players are easy to find (eg. on Discord). A good deck itself doesn’t yet mean that a player knows that game well.
So what do you suggest?
I suggest two possible ways to address this.
- Back in the days the game had a great feature that would allow you to check your mate’s/opponent’s decks while in the lobby. We are desperately missing this feature as it allowed experienced players to figure out whether the other players in the lobby had a similar skill level. As indicated above, it doesn’t always hold true but it’s at least a solid indication.
- My other and acutally preferred suggestion would be to have every game count as a ranked one (as was the case in the old days). That would quickly lead to the elo score being a fair representation of a player’s skill level and you could host for example “1400+ elo” or “Max 1200 elo” games.
Don’t we have the badges/ribbons for that?
Indeed but they are not very telling. Most players don’t understand what they mean and whether or not someone has won their 100 games against only beginners or only pros isn’t reflected although that’s arguably the most important information.
Wouldn’t that discriminate beginners?
I don’t think so. Most beginners don’t find it fun to play good players and getting wiped out in a matter of minutes. Most experienced players don’t find it fun to boom for 40 or 60 minutes only to crush their opponent in a matter of minutes. It’s a win win and it doesn’t mean that beginners can’t play pros but both would transparently know what they are up to and be able to decide whether they want to play this game or not.
Lastly, most online RTS games work that way. You usually know what you’re up to for a good reason.
Thanks for a feedback