Yet Another Matchmaking Suggestion Thread

There’s been lots of threads about matchmaking, many of them voicing valid concerns. I personally see matchmaking as an improvement but also see areas in which it can be improved. I’m not much of an online player, I’m mostly a viewer, so naturally my opinion has next to no weight but I figured I’ll throw it out onto the internet anyways.

  1. Replace MegaRandom with Regicide Fortress.
    MegaRandom is a fun map, it’s a go to map for games with friends. You don’t see it much in pro games since it can be unbalanced with resources, land, etc. The DE version seems to be better at this, but still Regicide Fortress is pretty commonplace in pro games. Seems a better fit.
  2. Reduce civ pool. After a map has been selected, randomly pick a handful of civs that players can choose from. Random and Full Random select from this pool.
    Being allowed to pick from all civs will lead to the same games over and over, players have no incentive to pick random or a non top tier civ. A very small civ pool can lead to some interesting match ups. Say 4 civs for 1v1 increasing up to 10 for 4v4.
  3. Balance Team Islands for wood and island size.
    I’m iffy on this one. Team Islands is a stalemate heavy map, I’ve seen lots of games come down to one team simply not having as much wood on their island, or having an island that’s not as long so trade is much worse. Balancing the islands may add to the stalemate, but leaving inbalance can lead to teams who are slowly pushing to just fizzle out, sorta unfair for ranked play.

+1 for suggestions 1 and 3.

It’s nice to be able to play with any civ you want, so suggestion 2 wouldn’t be popular. I would suggest instead that the game somehow would encourage choosing random civ.

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I’m not a fan of regicide, but that’s what map bans are for lol.
Some sort of reward for players going random in ranked matches, like @TearyLotus94045 said, would be perfect. I miss the good ol’ days of 1v1 arabia where both players go random - last year, tbh. Perhaps cool profile pictures? No one cares for those, but it’s better than nothing.
I agree with the balance to team islands. I’m almost inclined to play as mongols in there, considering the amount of hunt avaliable.

I would suggest instead that the game somehow would encourage choosing random civ.

That’s that I tried to address, to some extent, though not directly incentivizing random civ. I like the idea of civ picking in general, it displays knowledge of the maps, civs, playstyles and so on – I see #2 as a good test of skill for the game overall, which is what I see as the point of ranked play.

If you have ideas, I’d like to hear them! :slight_smile:

Fortress for arena, not both 11