What is your opinion on the Map Rotation / Selection of the maps

Hello all,

With this thread I wanted to start a general discussion about the Map Rotation and the selection of the maps in it. I thought, if maybe some people agree with me and devs take note of this topic, things might change in the future. Obviously you are also allowed to disagree or make your own suggestions.
First of all I want to emphasize, that I am a huge fan of the Map Rotation ifself - it is a very nice feature and it is great, that we as a community get involved in the voting process.

But there are also several things, which I don’t like at all: mainly the map-pool you can choose from is often boring (e.g. one time you get gold rush, next time golden pit, who cares?), very repetitive (see example before or also: there are so many interesting maps, still we have to choose between Lombardia (which is just an annoying version of Arabia) and hillfort (I actually like that map, even if a lot of people will disagree) the 20th time in a row), and also contains maps, which are not really good to be played competitive (e.g. Wolf’s Hill, maybe MR). Beside of that, there are some maps, which just feel weird to play (Bog Islands, Mountain Pass, Mongolia) and sometimes have much better alternatives: e.g. I get the idea of Mountain Ridge with all the ponds of fish, but why not let us play on Beduins instead (see map below)?

Budapest was a nice attempt to try something new, but in my eyes it was not the right choice to spice things up, so the overall pool still remains boring. Socotra on the other hand was a lot of fun in my opinion and beside of the classics - Arabia and Arena - the best map so far.

Long introduction - My main suggestions would be:

  • add a plenty of new maps to the games standard map pool. There are so many great, intense and competive maps, which have been played in big tournaments over the last 10 years. At the moment those maps are only accessable through custom-maps in unranked lobbys. Why not let us play those maps in ranked? Is there any reason in not officially implementing those maps?

  • reduce the devs picks to only two maps in 1x1 (Arabia and Arena) and three maps in TGs (Arabia, Arena, Black Forest) - or abolish them at all
 I get the idea behind this, but some people might feel restricted.

  • Give us more votes and a bigger variety to choose from.


Maps that could be implemented - only some examples, feel free to complete (credits at this point to the Map creators, beautiful stuff :)) :

What do you think?

Best regards :slight_smile:

8 Likes

More maps = more people asking for more bans so they can still only play arabia.

I would like more maps but seems majority of people just ban everything and prefer arabia anyway

2 Likes

Arabia is an okay’ish map. I rather play Arabia then Lombardia or Mountain Ridge :stuck_out_tongue: This thread is not meant to be Anti-Arabia in any way, but if it is not Arabia, it should be at least something other enjoyable. Still I get your point and agree, that Arabia might be to dominant.

Maybe you find it boring, but I prefer maps suited for competitive play instead in a ranked pool

Because in their maps there are not many who are suited for competitive play

I mean, Socotra might be fun at low elo, but it’s just frustating from a certain level onwards: pick incas and go tower rush. That’s it, literally every game in socotra relies around towers, to make the map kinda playable in tournaments they had to remove the stone from it.

Some maps should be fixed. Arabia and arena are the most played maps out there, why would you take them away since they are also the two most competitives maps.

Indians wars always. With that much shore fish either you go Indians or you lose

This is kinda fine I guess, you could just pick flexible civ and, if you like hybrid maps, it could be a fun map

Didn’t like very much this map from HC3, it felt like going for the fish was most of the time the wrong decision and that going mongols was always the best option

no reason to play a map where you can’t even build a tc at the start imho

This is a fun one, I’d love to have this map in the pool

There many maps fron tournaments that could be implemented in ranked (like land madness), but the devs seems to prefer their own maps

3 Likes
  1. Don’t get me wrong. I like golden pit and I like golden rush and I agree, that they are both competitive and much better then many other maps. I just don’t get why they let us choose between them or switch them all the time; in my opinion this is only creating the illusion of having a choice/change, since the map is basically the same.

  2. There are a lot of maps suited for competitive play, e.g. a lot of the tournament-maps; that is one of the things I criticized --> why don’t just add those maps to the game, instead of forcing us to play on really uncompetitive maps like Wolf Hill.

  3. I don’t know on which level you are playing, but I would consider myself as an experienced player, playing around rank #600 in TGs and rank #2000 in 1x1. Towerrush on Socotra can be strong, but can also easily be countered. I won the most maps in 1x1 on that map without towering at all - I would not say, that it is the only viable strat.

  4. I agree here with you - I also like Arabia and Arena and I am totally fine with having it in the mappool. I just wanted to put it there, since there are some people for sure, who feel restricted with the devs picks.

  5. I Agree, Indians are very strong on that map (I mainly played it before Indians were implemented) - you got a valid point here. But the map is still fun to play :frowning: And the Indian-arguement can also be used for Mountain Ridge.

  6. I love this map, because of the players positions - only 1 flank and 3 pockets in 4x4 would be a lot of fun :slight_smile:

  7. Maybe a bit more fish should be added to make the water more important, but beside of that the map is a very good alternative to Four Lakes (for example); Mongols are often dominant – > same goes for Scandinavia or “Steppe”, but this is not avoidable with their civ bonus.

  8. Valid point, maybe it’s a map which would feel “weird to play”, just to quote myself.

  9. Thanks! :slight_smile:

Yes, and that is the point, which I don’t get - why they prefer their own maps, if there are much better and more competitive maps already out there, just waiting to be implemented.

3 Likes

Tbh this is the biggest concern I have with the map pool, they could just select a couple of maps from HC3, NAC3, BOA2 and maybe give us the last versione of the KOTD3 arabia and most of the competitive community would be happy

nice to see someone with a good elo writing here!
I wasn’t trying to lesse your skills, but most of the times at my level (14++) and in streams I saw trush (with the exception of some nice niche strat like sara archers). I just feel like socotra usually leads to incas mirror

Another of my concern, since it’s not guaranteed that people willi go random, is that they put maps where going for a certain civ is the only viable options. I really don’t like the idea of “pick X or die in 20 mins”

1 Like

We definitely need Chaos Pit and Boa2 maps to make TGs interesting.

2 Likes

Yea, that is one of the biggest problems. But to be honest - civpicking is also a problem on non-competitive maps, so this doesn’t change anything
 I miss the good old “random civ”-times. On voobly no one would have ever tried to pick a civ in lobby. It was very frowned upon. It was either full random or mirror random civs.

1 Like

Thanks Sir :slight_smile:

Chaos Pit is such a fun map, I wanna throw in Kawasan, Sunburn and Canyon Lake for some more conventional and interesting tournament maps.

Sure some Chrazini maps are a bit unbalanced in the first draft because of certain eco bonuses, but that’s not hard to fix with either a global civ ban for each player or with rebalancing the ressources or with turning these bonuses off on these maps, if that is possible. If we had more tournament maps in the pool it would also be much easier to rebalance these maps.

The real problem is that the devs are not interested in having competitive maps in the pool. I remember T90 saying he wants to get HC3 maps in the pool, never happened. Same with BoA2 maps. Even a more competitive Arabia seems too much to ask for, Memb on aoezone: “is a game done for casuals, do not expect the maps will be done for any competitive purpose, i tried so hard to get KOTD3 map into the matchmaking so it help the tournament feedback and we get some more open map”

2 Likes

As OP said, I like the idea of the pool map, yet It’s boring we get the same maps all the time due to the vote options being quite repetitive. I think o ly 3 maps should be fixed in both pools (arabia, arena, a water/hybrid map) and thennomad and BF should be an option always. Then, maps should be different from time to time.
Other option could be include a different map from month to month, like thet did with mountain pass
 Except thar map was a civ win for aztecs, Britons and magyars

Long story short, I like the idea, but I would lime more diversity. Tons of maps can be competitive. Just maybe “not meta” competitive or not “britons flank indians pocket” competitive

I agree with the OP it would be nice to have more diverse maps in the pool, and to have tournament maps in the pool.
However, if they’re going to increases the number of maps in the standard maps selection, they have to improve the map picker menu. It has very bad performance. If the number of maps was doubled my computer would refuse to run it.

I agree with the OP that having 9 maps in the pool would be preferable.

I disagree with the OP about reducing the number of devices picks, and about wanting ‘competitive’ maps.

If mirror matchups would be a problem on a certain map, to me the ideal fix would be to change the civ selection on those maps. You could have forced-random, you could have pick-your-opponents-civ, there are other options too. Anything you could see in a tournament.

The Dev picks are a bodge fix for a problem with the voting. Maps rarely get more than 40% of the votes, yet some maps which consistently get >30% never end up in the top 3. MR, water maps, and nomad maps are examples. I like these maps. Until this problem is fixed we need Dev picks.

Personally I tend to agree but the problem with that would be a probably permanent exclusion of maps that are really popular with some players but not with the majority like nomad, mega random, water maps. As the votings have shown so far the majority seems to constantly opt for certain map types. If the devs have 1 or 2 more picks than the fixed arabia and arena (which should stay fixed) they could include precisely those kinds of maps that frequently got 20-30% in the votings but haven’t made it to the top. Just as they did with megarandom this patch. However, I wouldn’t mind switching the numbers, e.g. 3 maps as devs picks and 4 maps by community vote.

Imo it would be interesting how that works out now that we have the favorite map option. You’re certainly right in that previous to that feature the map number was a huge problem for a lot of players but atm, at least in 1v1, people that want to play arabia can comfortably do so. I’d expect that this would still hold with more maps in the pool although with a rotation frequency of 2 weeks 7 maps should be fine.

I think socotra can be a really cool map at all levels. There can happen so much even in dark age that Incas isn’t the only option. Also since bases are so close to each other and very tight that it’s pretty easy to pull vils defensively (this is way before Incas can get armor).

Still, I agree that having stone available on this map isn’t exactly great. Not sure, but hasn’t there a previous version without stone? Anyways, removing the stone would be really good, imo. If players want to go overly aggressive or defensive they still can get one tower up and potentially more by using the market.

1 Like

I don’t like the tournaments maps because they usually look too artificial and not aesthetically appealing. They need lots of polishment before being officially brought to the game.

And you can usually find some alternative maps which have already existed in the standard map category. You can play Serengetti if Arabia is not open enough, play Coastal if you want a hybrid map with open land surrounded by water, and play Crater lake if you want a island full of resources on the middle of the water. These old maps might need somd kind of balance and fairness adjustments though, but we are never short of various types of maps.

The problem is never the lack of diversity of existed maps in the achieve, but currently the majority only play Arabia. It is futile no matter how many new maps are added in the pool, if the preferred map button is still there and you can’t change the mind of majority.

And some wierd maps like BF, MR and those 0 TC or 2TCs maps should not be in the standard map category.

Every time Hideout and 4 Lakes can be voted in people do so. They are the most played maps after Arabia and Arena.
-> I believe they should be permanently in the mappool.

I think it would be great if they let us vote on the following:

  1. One map from the standard rotation (like it is now)
  2. One map from the standard mappool that has never been in the ranked rotation (for more variety).
  3. One competitive map from one of the last big tournaments (afterwards it will be added to the game in a new map selection tab (tournament maps).

I think this would make people more happy as everyone gets at least something they like but the Devs keep a little bit of control by choosing what maps we can vote on.

1 Like

I agree with several things but you fail tremendously in suggesting maps, because everyone has different likes.

  • reduce the devs picks to only two maps in 1x1 (Arabia and Arena) and three maps in TGs (Arabia, Arena, Black Forest) - or abolish them at all
 I get the idea behind this, but some people might feel restricted.

I support this idea

this game is play 90% of the time arabia. arabia is a good map but just playing arabia is boring.

2 Likes

Yes and when there are only variation of arabia like Runestones

1 Like

Yes it is practically arabia, because it seems that the developers like arabia so much that it is arabia or variations of arabia 92% of the time

2 Likes

In 1v1s the map pool for voting is decent a lot of times. The problem is maps like Acclivity, Nomad or Fortress are more familiar and most people end up voting for those. So we end up with repetitions a lot. Maybe one of the rotations devs tried to exclude those and the number of games played reduced drastically and they decided to not do that later.

Bedouins also known as African clearing keeps showing up quite often in ranked pool.

Cape of storms was there in last rotation called coast to mountain I think. In those 2 weeks I never got one match of this even though I didn’t ban it.

Decentring looks like a good addition but other than that the rest of the maps have either showed up in the past rotations with a different name or have a similar gameplay to existing maps. I think its a good idea to include tournament maps like Bay, Mudflow ##### ## Koala, Ring of reeds, low tide (from RMSC 2) in the ranked map pool every once in a while without having the usually voted ones. This way devs can gather some data regarding which get voted and how often those are played

I usually like hybrid maps, , baltics, scandinavia, nomad etc. Especially if maps are balanced towards water/land equally so you see so many different units in the game. In teamgames you see different UU-s especially in nomad. When I play runestones/arabia , its often britons flank ,frank pocket or similar, where you see max 3 units in feudal/castle age(sometimes m@a, archer and scout every game), maybe sometimes few spears too.
I miss water nomad, where you could demo boom land military, water military or eco.
T90 titans league had some cool maps, wish to see them in 1v1, but I would cry if I had to play that transport ship map 11. Map with many outposts looks cool, a lot res in different areas. Hidden cup had map “cup”, was cool, similar to golden swamp, but 2 different water bonds.

1 Like