Dodging a certain player because your afraid of losing is bad we can all agree to that but!
1: You cannot blame people for dodging cheaters, toxic players.
luca, ertug ill only add these two because they are confirmed hacking or at the very least stream cheating + being toxic. but there are many others that could go on this list.
2: You cannot blame people for dodging in this map pool.
arabia: the most open map and its still turned into arena every game because woods/cliffs are to close together
hideout: you start with a palisade wall so you can be safe like its arena and play stone control civs
arena: wtf you need a stone wall protecting you + denying intel from enemy for the first two ages of a war game?
nomad: squints rng
medi/swamp: basically the same map and they try to doop you like its better cus you can walk over the water a bit.
4 lakes:
omg they took the most hated map out and replaced it with another one you get to wall and then run around docking for 20 mins.
MR: can be fun and interesting but also can have you vs a mongol that starts with a castle+20 boars... basically a pandoras box of pain and extacy.
Acropolis: atleast they tried to put in a decent open map.
Thats not to mention DM: where the maps barely have enough room to place buildings on (completely ****ed by last map pool) the current map pool though DM is a bit better off with cross, acrop, arabia all having open enough layouts to place buildings (lucky lucky dm)
I totally understand wanting a map pool with variety, but you have to be super on top of map balance and rotations so that the pool doesn't get disgustingly stale after 10 games because alot of maps really only have 1-2 viable civs when your playing stone control, wall meta.
Arabia seems like its "boring" and played alot because its the same map. The beauty is that you have 10+ viable civs so the variety comes in being able to play random or have a fair shot vs higher teir civs in alot of situations. Plus, there is more action through out the whole game. you almost never see a map so op that they can sit for 15 mins afk watching great wall documentaries on bbc like arena players.
My suggestion to fix the issue.
Opt in vs Opt out.. meaning, you let players check the boxes of maps they are willing to play instead of forcing them to ban 4 maps they hate and hope they get one they like out of the remaining 5. you will still have variety on the ladder. Some players will training multiple maps while others play 1-2 at the same level. This only makes sense to me when you think about how while learning a new map you want to play that map 100 games in a row.. not once every 20 games. It seems like a win win to me.
1: You cannot blame people for dodging cheaters, toxic players.
luca, ertug ill only add these two because they are confirmed hacking or at the very least stream cheating + being toxic. but there are many others that could go on this list.
2: You cannot blame people for dodging in this map pool.
arabia: the most open map and its still turned into arena every game because woods/cliffs are to close together
hideout: you start with a palisade wall so you can be safe like its arena and play stone control civs
arena: wtf you need a stone wall protecting you + denying intel from enemy for the first two ages of a war game?
nomad: squints rng
medi/swamp: basically the same map and they try to doop you like its better cus you can walk over the water a bit.
4 lakes:
omg they took the most hated map out and replaced it with another one you get to wall and then run around docking for 20 mins.
MR: can be fun and interesting but also can have you vs a mongol that starts with a castle+20 boars... basically a pandoras box of pain and extacy.
Acropolis: atleast they tried to put in a decent open map.
Thats not to mention DM: where the maps barely have enough room to place buildings on (completely ****ed by last map pool) the current map pool though DM is a bit better off with cross, acrop, arabia all having open enough layouts to place buildings (lucky lucky dm)
I totally understand wanting a map pool with variety, but you have to be super on top of map balance and rotations so that the pool doesn't get disgustingly stale after 10 games because alot of maps really only have 1-2 viable civs when your playing stone control, wall meta.
Arabia seems like its "boring" and played alot because its the same map. The beauty is that you have 10+ viable civs so the variety comes in being able to play random or have a fair shot vs higher teir civs in alot of situations. Plus, there is more action through out the whole game. you almost never see a map so op that they can sit for 15 mins afk watching great wall documentaries on bbc like arena players.
My suggestion to fix the issue.
Opt in vs Opt out.. meaning, you let players check the boxes of maps they are willing to play instead of forcing them to ban 4 maps they hate and hope they get one they like out of the remaining 5. you will still have variety on the ladder. Some players will training multiple maps while others play 1-2 at the same level. This only makes sense to me when you think about how while learning a new map you want to play that map 100 games in a row.. not once every 20 games. It seems like a win win to me.
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