I feel like every once in a while an argument flairs up about ranked lobbies vs ranked matchmaking. For purposes of this poll, in an ideal world, with a perfectly functioning system, would you rather have ranked matchmaking, or ranked lobbies? In a perfect system for example: smurfing won’t be a problem, no-one will want to drop, people enjoy playing ranked, the system gives fairly quick matches, the matches are pretty much entirely balanced, and elo is a true represenation of a player’s skill, amongst other things. This is also just for standard map rotations, not like DM or anything With that in mind, even if it is unattainable, which would you prefer?
In an ideal and functioning system, which is better for the game?
Confirmation bias on this forum will spoil the poll result. Most of the Pre-DE era had a ranked lobby system and everyone was fine with it… but DE lobby browser is just worse than what Voobly had.
For a start, I think saying everyone was fine with it is misleading. There was no alternative. It was either play using the lobbies, or don’t play multiplayer. And it led to people like Fatslob being able to do their thing. Elo in those circumstances becomes meaningless.
In what way do you think it will be biased? Pro lobby because of how rose tinted all the old voobly players remeber lobbies as, or tainted, because of how DE lobbies work?
Also, how does no-one ever think about how meaningless elo will become with ranked lobbies? You can literally create an extra account, fight your main account, resign early, and increase your main account elo. Repeat further to push elo up. If there is a max elo difference, use family share to create more accounts, and repeat the process until you can bump the main account again. It’s just a really dated idea I think. Matchmaking is a modern standard.
Cool. And what does this bring you? at some point you will get 0 Elo for a win. And if you are top idk 1000 you get a permaban - that what happened on Voobly.
Elo is always meaningless, it is literally just a 4 digit number. Who cares if you boost your elo, of what use it is? So you can play with the Pro’s on Rage Forest only to be completely stomped? If you get top 200 then cool, you get the attention that your account is assesed and banned for win trading. Hours of work for a permaban. Ranked Lobbies solves the smurf issue as you simply removes these players from your room.
There is less need to moderate the scene too because lamers, insulters and quitters are banned from lobbies and it becomes a self enforcing community
I’d prefer ranked lobbies anytime cause that gives us more control over the settings and you can actually balance the teams,going random civ instead of the same top 4-5 civs for each map, it creates a more friendly environment, it increases the activity on those old map communities(bf,nomad,ara,etc), but DE has larger population, MM can co-exists with ranked lobbies for the average low elo players, but the players with higher ranks can only depend on ranked lobbies to find fair and competitive games, so i think if they add ranked lobbies and keep the MM as it is, it will work 100% better than now.
Quickplay has been there all this time without affecting MM, so yeah there is plenty evidence that ranked lobbies wouldn’t kill MM as some stackers are suggesting, they just want to keep getting low quality games every 7 mins.
And who was responsible for giving out Permabans? If it is the devs, considering the amount of time it can take them to do anything about cheaters and stuff, do you think they are going to be checking this?
For a start, I care if you boost your elo. The entire purpose is to represent your skill as a player, which is why ranked lobbies, with their weird settings are not a good solution. It isn’t meaningless right now in 1v1 ranked, you can judge how good someone will be based on their elo.
I think that as of right now, we are just going to go round in circles, and neither of us want to shift their position. I know I don’t. Would you say that is correct? Now, I’m just assuming here, but it sounds like you play a lot of TGs. How often would you typically play 1v1s? Or just do you play them lots, occasionally, less than TGs, or something else? In the case of 1v1s, which is what I typically play, hackers/smurfers aside, how do you feel DE 1v1 ranked matchmaking performs?
Just imagine - if you are hoang (or some “ugly” strate users) and you are playing ranked lobbies, you will be kicked by those who dont want to face hoang strategy. How is that friendly to everyone? In the end everyone in 1v1 would just play Hun war 1v1 just as what happened in voobly
Honestly if ranked lobby elo is created it must be separated from MM elo - I do care a lot about a fair game, thus I care a lot of my opponent elo being similar to me, not random opponent that inflate / deflate using ranked lobbies and claim that they don’t care about elo
^This guy just wrote two posts contradicting himself so bad, the lack of arguments is impressive.
Hoang is the best example of having an inflated elo, picking the same civ and dodging other maps/stream sniping other players, if anyone would know they are facing hoang they will counter pick his civ, but playing hoang is annoying and repetitive, probably at your elo you will never face him, but not a SINGLE expert wants to play vs him cause the experience is awful, hoang real elo in tournaments is like 1800.
Disgusting strategies should be avoided, that is the best friendly thing to other users, the devs take decades to balance things, so having the alternative to stop playing vs such players is better for everyone, if hoang stops using his no eco market abuse pushes he will be a better a player, instead of a 2300-2400 that has never performed well in official events.
lobbies don’t work for ranked. we already saw this in zone/voobly
you just sit there waiting forever because nobody wants to play a game unless they are favored. and both sides cannot be favored. it’s mathematically impossible
blind matchmaking is what makes the system function
they could add ranked lobbies too, but it will be multi-hour wait times instead of 5-minute wait times
better to fix the matchmaking. it should be adjusted to increase game fairness instead of trying for the fastest pairings. i would rather wait longer and play a game that is actually close instead of playing a game that just ends in feudal age. 15 minute wait + 40 minute game is a better use of my time than 5 minute wait + 10 minute game.
lobbies are okay for unranked though. most of zone games were unrated, and basically all the teamgames were
there should be more unranked play for DE teamgames. the team elo ranking is kind of useless anyways. i see so much whining about maps/civs from people who don’t even know how to play the game. most games should be unrated so that people can learn and improve instead of just playing the same unbalanced maps/civs because their rating is too inflated to do anything else. there’s so much more to the game than the repetitive xbow+knight garbage with 4v4s ending in 10-15 minutes, but ranked is awful
Biz man you need to move one, on DE there are 3-4 times the number of active players compared to voobly, the waiting times with more users will be less mathematically, so there is no need to talk about hypothetical situations where you just sit for hours and don’t find a game, if you want to play migration or any other map no one really wants to play the waiting time should be more, it can’t be the other way around forcing other players to play low playrate maps.
MM has worked for 1x1 cause it is easier to find neutral maps to play, but at my noob level i have faced 2300 players in 1x1 cause of the MM and i am not the only one, there aren’t enough players at the higher levels, those players will do better on ranked lobbies, while the players below can still enjoy the MM system facing similar skilled players.
Things are so bad at team games that i don’t even need to talk about it, the best fix for them are ranked lobbies and let the players choose or host their own games.
You keep complaining at every single post about arch+knight meta, but somehow you say nothing about the nomad disgusting castle drop meta, you are forgetting the game is not new and the players will always abuse the most effective strategies, you should correct your rants to balance design rather than bring it on at every single topic.
How is it disgusting? It is interesting to have different strats. Also, your position is now logically a bit strange. You condemn strats like the Hoang rush or Nomad Castle drops, yet advocate for ranked lobbies, where people can create lobbies with settings best suited for those strategies.
How?
I feel that ranked lobbies are a thing in the past
The MP nowadays is what the ranked matchmaking is
I really think that the matchmaking system is what keeps DE in a really good spot
It is what AoE4 lacks badly
The smurfs is what is hurting the ranked right now, if you manage to fix (somehow) that the matchmaking will be good
No need of lobbies (IMO)
