State of the 1v1 Ranked Ladder for Top Players

[felix.feroc]

After the Hera announcement, I got curious about the state of the ranked ladder, so I ran some numbers and made some graphs.

I used both aoe-elo and robo-atp algorithms to determine who the top 10/20 were for each month, then I counted the number of 1v1 matches between two players in the list.

So for both cases, Winter and Spring of 2021 really was a golden time, and it has been in a decline since then. The release of AoE IV knocked it down again.

So nothing surprising at all given the existing narrative. I just wanted to see how real it was, and it is pretty bad.

 

[Halleju]

well people also thirst for teamgames and since ladder team games are pretty bad, many top players play in lobbies right now.

 

[LeoMontero]

last 2 years were 1-1, this year is TG, its not dificult to understand

 

[SouFire]

The 1x1 ladder has lost many active players overtime ain't it only a thing for pro players or exclusively for 1x1 also the tg ladder is now beyond broken, all my games as solo have had guys 2k elo below me and yet some smart guys claim MM is the best thing for aoe2 while clearly with low numbers it is only delivering low quality games, even if the average number of users remain similar to other months anyone can notice the lack of active players from mid to high levels.

Such pattern started before aoe4, it got way worse since the punishment patch and aoe4 peak, but now that we can exclude aoe4 the tendency aims to keep losing active players and something needs to be done and NO, big tournaments for 16 players are not going to revert the tendency, we need hard changes to the MM to make the environment more competitive without silly restrictions that only pushes players away.

 

[SuperskinnyBLS]

The 1x1 ladder has lost many active players overtime ain't it only a thing for pro players or exclusively for 1x1 also the tg ladder is now beyond broken, all my games as solo have had guys 2k elo below me and yet some smart guys claim MM is the best thing for aoe2 while clearly with low numbers it is only delivering low quality games, even if the average number of users remain similar to other months anyone can notice the lack of active players from mid to high levels.

Such pattern started before aoe4, it got way worse since the punishment patch and aoe4 peak, but now that we can exclude aoe4 the tendency aims to keep losing active players and something needs to be done and NO, big tournaments for 16 players are not going to revert the tendency, we need hard changes to the MM to make the environment more competitive without silly restrictions that only pushes players away.

I think unlimited map bans would solve the issue + perhaps let's say 3 civ bans, let's be honest, who in the world would like to play vs Mayans only on Arabia?

 

[LowEloNobody]

I think unlimited map bans would solve the issue + perhaps let's say 3 civ bans, let's be honest, who in the world would like to play vs Mayans only on Arabia?

Most of the pros that are complaining about the 1v1 ladder almost always play random civ, so I don't think civ bans would make any difference. And most of the players that are complaining also only play Arabia, so don't think they would be complaining there either.
The non-pro 1v1 ladder is still quite healthy judging by the number of active players on the leader board

 

[SouFire]

I think unlimited map bans would solve the issue + perhaps let's say 3 civ bans, let's be honest, who in the world would like to play vs Mayans only on Arabia?

I am ok with playing whatever you want as long as both players are agreeing into it, there is always that hypothetical situation where one player only wants to play 20 arabias in a row sort like hoang, but there are also plenty adults who can only spend 1-2 hours max of their time for their playing, being denied to play what they want was never the answer in order to retain and keep players.

But the current issue is the lack of enough players on certain levels, what would you prefer wait longer or get matched vs + or -1k elo player? the quality has decreased a lot for both 1x1 and tg.

About rdm civ, well i guess for strategy development it might be fine to pick civs with the alternative to play random when both want to, but certainly for team games i would prefer only random civs option.

 

[Shakal]

I am kinda surprised, the graph shows the decline 2-3 months sooner than I thought.

 

[Lord Bolton]

I am kinda surprised, the graph shows the decline 2-3 months sooner than I thought.

yea. the ladder died waaay before aoe4... its easy some trolls in aoezone and notable community members shift the blame on existence of aoe4 when aoe4 was not needed for aoe2 pro player ladder death. When that shitty new arabia was out there for months with stale balance, thats what happens. People lose interest if all games in arabia play out in similar fashion when center is blasted open and all woodlines are thin and behind base.

 

[TopperHarley]

Does that statistic include EW ranked games? I suppose a lot of pros played that ladder when RedBull tournaments were still going on.

Also: In the months leading up to RBW5, top players were probably mainly playing a lot in private lobbies to hide strategies (considering the huge importance of that tourney, huge prestige and pricepool)

 

[King_Marv]

Dunno how you guys think that the activity on the 1v1 ladder is measurable by the top20 accounts.

Is not a single chance that this is significant in any way.

First of all some players have/had multiple accounts in top 20 (dogao/Vivi/mbl) then some individuals were playing all day every day while many other top players didn’t. So obviously if those 3 individuals stop the activity in total goes dramatically down.

another reason is that some players are excellent players like modri for example but they prefer playing tg and just go for a 1v1 here and there now to avoid decay in case there are tournaments. But before they had to play to get their rating.

another reason is that some tournaments were not seeded with the ladder so it got unimportant to grind. And then the same people who got into those tournaments later complained about getting seeded by the ladder in other tournaments. Calling that bad seeding when the reason was that they just refused to play the ladder because **** map, **** civ pickers, **** this, **** that

and I also don’t understand how anyone can be surprised that you don’t have too many opponents when you are at the very top. Lol that’s the definition of beeing there.

 

[Spring_]

1: The ladder system disincentives and even sometimes stops players from playing on it. The map pool being forced on everyone means that no one can consistently start a game and play something they enjoy and want to play. Not only can you not consistently have your preferred version of fun, but now you have to deal with the time consequence of you and/or one of your potentially 7 other players deciding to dodge resulting in lost time for all parties. This can be catastrophic on a players experience and was certainly made worse by the penalty system.

In my opinion ELO should be used to match players of equal skill on a selected map. Right now its been changed to figure out what players when forced to play all versions of maps (which usually have 1-2 civ viability + the most boring meta's) will win the majority of the time.

2: The new meta of defenders advantage being so over powered has made games feel much less about RTS principles and much more about cookie cutter builds and using as many defensive tools as possible to stop the game from naturally progressing if both players were in an open position (as all other RTS games) For example, a defenders advantage in starcraft would be that with the defenders production being in their base the enemy would have to have 4+ more unit creation time just to have the same unit created + walked across the field. This is good! but if you start adding walls, houses, hills, castles, mangonels, monks, tc's.. the game becomes a joke where you can't even engage your enemy anymore in a consistent and fun way because the aggressive tools are far to costly in terms of what you would need to produce vs what they can clean off the map. This is why the games become small attacks, walls and tech / eco as the priority and it doesn't really create an exciting meta for players when games fell more like two people playing farmvill waiting to see who had a better base and efficient build rather than a dynamic understanding of macro, micro, map control, civ interactions ect.


In my opinion the game should be re-balanced in a way that allows a defenders advantage but not so much as it stalls out the flow of the game.

 

[King_Marv]

1: The ladder system disincentives and even sometimes stops players from playing on it. The map pool being forced on everyone means that no one can consistently start a game and play something they enjoy and want to play. Not only can you not consistently have your preferred version of fun, but now you have to deal with the time consequence of you and/or one of your potentially 7 other players deciding to dodge resulting in lost time for all parties. This can be catastrophic on a players experience and was certainly made worse by the penalty system.

In my opinion ELO should be used to match players of equal skill on a selected map. Right now its been changed to figure out what players when forced to play all versions of maps (which usually have 1-2 civ viability + the most boring meta's) will win the majority of the time.

2: The new meta of defenders advantage being so over powered has made games feel much less about RTS principles and much more about cookie cutter builds and using as many defensive tools as possible to stop the game from naturally progressing if both players were in an open position (as all other RTS games) For example, a defenders advantage in starcraft would be that with the defenders production being in their base the enemy would have to have 4+ more unit creation time just to have the same unit created + walked across the field. This is good! but if you start adding walls, houses, hills, castles, mangonels, monks, tc's.. the game becomes a joke where you can't even engage your enemy anymore in a consistent and fun way because the aggressive tools are far to costly in terms of what you would need to produce vs what they can clean off the map. This is why the games become small attacks, walls and tech / eco as the priority and it doesn't really create an exciting meta for players when games fell more like two people playing farmvill waiting to see who had a better base and efficient build rather than a dynamic understanding of macro, micro, map control, civ interactions ect.


In my opinion the game should be re-balanced in a way that allows a defenders advantage but not so much as it stalls out the flow of the game.

defender advantage is not too big imo. Walls are weak towers are weak houses are weak.
I’m a defensive player and I win about 50% of games vs equal skilled players. Also the game was much better for defense some years ago. They nerved defensive play a lot. Seems like you do something wrong in your gameplay if you have big problems vs this playstyle

 

[SuperskinnyBLS]

defender advantage is not too big imo. Walls are weak towers are weak houses are weak.
I’m a defensive player and I win about 50% of games vs equal skilled players. Also the game was much better for defense some years ago. They nerved defensive play a lot. Seems like you do something wrong in your gameplay if you have big problems vs this playstyle

In my opinion the biggest advantage of being a defender is the fact that you have the whole game on your screen while the attacker has to switch to the other side of the map in order to control the economy. + the mango bullshit meaning that you do not have to look after your defensive siege because it's almost impossible to dodge the shot of "deleted/destroyed" catapult.

 

[IYIyTh]

In my opinion the biggest advantage of being a defender is the fact that you have the whole game on your screen while the attacker has to switch to the other side of the map in order to control the economy. + the mango bullshit meaning that you do not have to look after your defensive siege because it's almost impossible to dodge the shot of "deleted/destroyed" catapult.

Defensive play has been nerfed into oblivion. In no world should you be rewarded for spamming military at an enemy if they have invested in defenses and have set them adequately. Some believe a Drush or m@a should be able to not only chew through several times worth its gold value in wood, but that it should be able to end the game within 10 minutes. Some things that are bugs (like not being able to attack a repairing villager behind a mangonel,) and some that are not related to individual elements of defensive paly (nerfed tower hp, clunkiness of building in DE,) have also contributed to this watering down of defensive play. This type of play is often necessary to avoid cookie cutter dark age and feudal order aggression where civs like Mayans, Magyars, Lith, Bulgarians, Franks, Huns, Mongols et al already hold an economic/military advantage.

Most military strategists avoid fighting their opponents at their strengths. Not sure why a civ like Saracens, Turks, et al should not play defensively against them when their bonuses are more suited for feudal and above.

 

[Spring_]

IMO you can tell how bad it is when its like "aggressive player" vs "defensive player" a person playing RTS should have to use both principles in the game and have to be able to juggle all the problems that can occure. If you have walls / houses that stop unit creation to dmg potential it can infinitely change how the game is balanced. For example. If we are on arena and I make 3 m@a at 9.30. The arena player who just went 23vill FC will dominate me. because the balance built into the cost of the units has been nullified by an over powered defensive tool. Alot of maps are based around how the resource distribution can be defended. If the map was open it would mean that regions of control are important and that armies will find dmg or need an equal or greater response, this creates infinite variety potential in the number of units, production structures, eco to support structures, apm, focus, non stop potential action. this is why we used to have 50 minute feudal games because the units required to up changed from game to game. Now a days you can calculate the units you need, farm count, house count, exact macro progression of your vills, tc, mango timing, castle timing, imp timing because you know that with palisades, houses, mango's, castles you can stop a significant amount of potential dmg from any army the enemy creates for little to no apm or thinking cost other than laying out the walled zones. This is great to have some maps like this that create a whole new meta because some people might like what that style brings. The problem is the whole base game has become this defender style. It used to be arabia was a wide open baron wasteland of bodies and now even that is little more than Xbow and wall timings.

 

[tia]

2: The new meta of defenders advantage being so over powered has made games feel much less about RTS principles and much more about cookie cutter builds and using as many defensive tools as possible to stop the game from naturally progressing if both players were in an open position (as all other RTS games) For example, a defenders advantage in starcraft would be that with the defenders production being in their base the enemy would have to have 4+ more unit creation time just to have the same unit created + walked across the field. This is good! but if you start adding walls, houses, hills, castles, mangonels, monks, tc's.. the game becomes a joke where you can't even engage your enemy anymore in a consistent and fun way because the aggressive tools are far to costly in terms of what you would need to produce vs what they can clean off the map. This is why the games become small attacks, walls and tech / eco as the priority and it doesn't really create an exciting meta for players when games fell more like two people playing farmvill waiting to see who had a better base and efficient build rather than a dynamic understanding of macro, micro, map control, civ interactions ect.


In my opinion the game should be re-balanced in a way that allows a defenders advantage but not so much as it stalls out the flow of the game.

Please stop sharing your thoughts as if you have any resemblence of game knowledge. Years have passed, everyone has improved and gone forward while you are stuck in your little bubble of eternal excuses for your incompetence.

 

[King_Marv]

IMO you can tell how bad it is when its like "aggressive player" vs "defensive player" a person playing RTS should have to use both principles in the game and have to be able to juggle all the problems that can occure. If you have walls / houses that stop unit creation to dmg potential it can infinitely change how the game is balanced. For example. If we are on arena and I make 3 m@a at 9.30. The arena player who just went 23vill FC will dominate me. because the balance built into the cost of the units has been nullified by an over powered defensive tool. Alot of maps are based around how the resource distribution can be defended. If the map was open it would mean that regions of control are important and that armies will find dmg or need an equal or greater response, this creates infinite variety potential in the number of units, production structures, eco to support structures, apm, focus, non stop potential action. this is why we used to have 50 minute feudal games because the units required to up changed from game to game. Now a days you can calculate the units you need, farm count, house count, exact macro progression of your vills, tc, mango timing, castle timing, imp timing because you know that with palisades, houses, mango's, castles you can stop a significant amount of potential dmg from any army the enemy creates for little to no apm or thinking cost other than laying out the walled zones. This is great to have some maps like this that create a whole new meta because some people might like what that style brings. The problem is the whole base game has become this defender style. It used to be arabia was a wide open baron wasteland of bodies and now even that is little more than Xbow and wall timings.

I’m playing this game now for 10 years and I never saw this gameplay live. So it’s gone. People improved and have now better understanding how the game works

 

[Spring_]

Please stop sharing your thoughts as if you have any resemblence of game knowledge. Years have passed, everyone has improved and gone forward while you are stuck in your little bubble of eternal excuses for your incompetence.

I like how you jump in with logical fallacies and insults without even attempting to engage with the subject matter, it makes it really easy for people to see how blind and toxic your biases have made you and how weak your communication skills are that you would rather attack someone then have a civil discussion with them.

 

[klavskisLV]

IMO you can tell how bad it is when its like "aggressive player" vs "defensive player" a person playing RTS should have to use both principles in the game and have to be able to juggle all the problems that can occure. If you have walls / houses that stop unit creation to dmg potential it can infinitely change how the game is balanced. For example. If we are on arena and I make 3 m@a at 9.30. The arena player who just went 23vill FC will dominate me. because the balance built into the cost of the units has been nullified by an over powered defensive tool. Alot of maps are based around how the resource distribution can be defended. If the map was open it would mean that regions of control are important and that armies will find dmg or need an equal or greater response, this creates infinite variety potential in the number of units, production structures, eco to support structures, apm, focus, non stop potential action. this is why we used to have 50 minute feudal games because the units required to up changed from game to game. Now a days you can calculate the units you need, farm count, house count, exact macro progression of your vills, tc, mango timing, castle timing, imp timing because you know that with palisades, houses, mango's, castles you can stop a significant amount of potential dmg from any army the enemy creates for little to no apm or thinking cost other than laying out the walled zones. This is great to have some maps like this that create a whole new meta because some people might like what that style brings. The problem is the whole base game has become this defender style. It used to be arabia was a wide open baron wasteland of bodies and now even that is little more than Xbow and wall timings.

I don't really see how this is different from any other esport type game really. MinMaxing + playing relatively safe and with various win conditions is quite common in most games (League, Dota, CS go, Apex legends etc.) Where at max level you see quite differnt gameplay than from lower level. Or even from random high level ranked matches and tournament matches, completely different games.
I'd say for Aoe2 it is also the evolution of the game as well as various other things (DE coming out, less lag, servers, macro keys etc etc.) So again things you see in most other games are similar in Aoe2 and the meta has developed and narrowed down to what seems like the best way to win. If you compare KOTD tourneys from first to last you will see similarities across the boards as people even then played quite safe if they knew they could etc.

 

[Spring_]

I don't really see how this is different from any other esport type game really. MinMaxing + playing relatively safe and with various win conditions is quite common in most games (League, Dota, CS go, Apex legends etc.) Where at max level you see quite differnt gameplay than from lower level. Or even from random high level ranked matches and tournament matches, completely different games.
I'd say for Aoe2 it is also the evolution of the game as well as various other things (DE coming out, less lag, servers, macro keys etc etc.) So again things you see in most other games are similar in Aoe2 and the meta has developed and narrowed down to what seems like the best way to win. If you compare KOTD tourneys from first to last you will see similarities across the boards as people even then played quite safe if they knew they could etc.

I agree I think the difference would be the degree of it has gotten to far toward defense to where it makes the game stale in a way. So if defending means you stand 40 military units that required planning of both eco but timing than having an advantage over the area makes sense and using this in a smart way is a way to get a lead over an opponent. But, it requires a certain level of knowledge in the game and means that the enemy has probably a very similar force which could create non stop interactions throughout the game attacking or defending the right locations. so the interactions become infinite meaning that 600 apm player will probably always beat a 3 apm player because both are growing at the fastest rate their apm allows. When walls, hills, defense structures are in the game it makes it so that players can choose when to not have to interact with the opponent for x number of time both in resource but also their apm and focus. It becomes more of a cat and mouse instead of a dog vs dog fight. The game pace is slowed because the disincentive for aggressors means that the players are both playing more PVE actions like macroing ect than PVP interactions like forcing micro which forces an imbalance which forces reactions on mass scale and throughout the game. Like to me it would be if like dota or lol had timers where the jungle was locked only to one teams side. that would create interesting build paths because its consistent calculable gold and different than having to defend the jungle and spend all that extra resource and positioning but... thats what were here for right? the engagement. I mean obviously this is my opinion and some people probably like the direction the game goes but regardless i think it drives some people away at a certain point if they are looking for a more fast paced experience. Less about defender advantage being bad and more about what the severity of that means in terms of the in game experience.

 

[derpina276]

I think people are jumping to conclusions a bit too much tbh. Sometimes people just loose interest for a while, its a rough game to play at top level so interest goes up and down especially for not full time players. On top of that we have a ridicilous pricepool for aoe4 so people will obviously try to get their hands on that and we currently have a revival of BF tgs (which was also considered dead for 1.5 years btw!). Especially when you keep in mind all of these factors reinforce each other i think we should just chill and enjoy the game. I started playing when the game was basically at an all time low so i will always compare it with that and we are more then fine all things considered.

 

[King_Marv]

I agree I think the difference would be the degree of it has gotten to far toward defense to where it makes the game stale in a way. So if defending means you stand 40 military units that required planning of both eco but timing than having an advantage over the area makes sense and using this in a smart way is a way to get a lead over an opponent. But, it requires a certain level of knowledge in the game and means that the enemy has probably a very similar force which could create non stop interactions throughout the game attacking or defending the right locations. so the interactions become infinite meaning that 600 apm player will probably always beat a 3 apm player because both are growing at the fastest rate their apm allows. When walls, hills, defense structures are in the game it makes it so that players can choose when to not have to interact with the opponent for x number of time both in resource but also their apm and focus. It becomes more of a cat and mouse instead of a dog vs dog fight. The game pace is slowed because the disincentive for aggressors means that the players are both playing more PVE actions like macroing ect than PVP interactions like forcing micro which forces an imbalance which forces reactions on mass scale and throughout the game. Like to me it would be if like dota or lol had timers where the jungle was locked only to one teams side. that would create interesting build paths because its consistent calculable gold and different than having to defend the jungle and spend all that extra resource and positioning but... thats what were here for right? the engagement. I mean obviously this is my opinion and some people probably like the direction the game goes but regardless i think it drives some people away at a certain point if they are looking for a more fast paced experience. Less about defender advantage being bad and more about what the severity of that means in terms of the in game experience.

it’s so weird reading same argument from you over the past 5 years when everything what happens is that Arabia is now so open that you have one wood line sometimes and if your enemy get a tower on that you are dead. Even a counter tower is not helping since you cannot take wood for the time being. Your Ressources spawn forward and sometimes on hills which makes it impossible to wall and even if you manage to wall you need like 3-4 vills start walling min 5 to be finished in min 9. Then you need again 1-2 vills for constant repair and rewall until the First archer comes out.
Because of your investment in walls you will not be able to Match army numbers.

also your farms are delayed which result in a slower Uptime.

either there is a skill difference between the players, some massive map advantage or your gameplay is wrong like said above

 

[Snizl]

bugs (like not being able to attack a repairing villager behind a mangonel,

I very much doubt this one is a bug. It is a very deliberate attribute of the mangonel unit, that could easily be removed with, as far as i understand, no other consequences but making units behind it targetable.

 

[SuperskinnyBLS]

@LowEloNoOne How come you haven't posted a pic of Spring's stonewalling yet?