State of the 1v1 Ranked Ladder for Top Players

[IYIyTh]

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.

It's hard to tell. We have to remember that there was a time when hunt killed by military units didn't expire immediately and it was initially billed as a feature. Same with not being able to attack behind building foundations and now in order to prioritize units behind building structures and obtain the same gameplay it held for 20 years, you have to click an additional button!

 

[LowEloNobody]

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

Don't bait him. If we nerf arabia anymore we won't even have woodlines anymore. Just 3 stragglers

 

[Willbm]

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 mean if you're talking about making 3 maa on Arena, then clearly that's going to be a bad idea. Maybe other players like the more defensive and strategic play rather than just playing one map, one style, and relying on apm to win games.
Personally I think the arena 1v1 game is good right now, so many different strategies from trush, monk rush, castle drop UU, scouts into boom, fast imp are all viable. Whereas on arabia it seems it's just maa into archers the whole time.
Finally, be grateful you can play your map 80% of the time. Imagine if you were an arena player, and at best you get it 1/3 of the time when you're queueing. The moaning is laughable

 

[LowEloNobody]

I mean if you're talking about making 3 maa on Arena, then clearly that's going to be a bad idea. Maybe other players like the more defensive and strategic play rather than just playing one map, one style, and relying on apm to win games.
Personally I think the arena 1v1 game is good right now, so many different strategies from trush, monk rush, castle drop UU, scouts into boom, fast imp are all viable. Whereas on arabia it seems it's just maa into archers the whole time.
Finally, be grateful you can play your map 80% of the time. Imagine if you were an arena player, and at best you get it 1/3 of the time when you're queueing. The moaning is laughable

Or just look at Vinchester who MAA / Trushed almost every single game on Arena in the last tournament

 

[rmcoo]

I mean if you're talking about making 3 maa on Arena, then clearly that's going to be a bad idea. Maybe other players like the more defensive and strategic play rather than just playing one map, one style, and relying on apm to win games.
Personally I think the arena 1v1 game is good right now, so many different strategies from trush, monk rush, castle drop UU, scouts into boom, fast imp are all viable. Whereas on arabia it seems it's just maa into archers the whole time.
Finally, be grateful you can play your map 80% of the time. Imagine if you were an arena player, and at best you get it 1/3 of the time when you're queueing. The moaning is laughable

Which is the ironic thing, as arabia only players complain how arena is boring boom map, and when you watch them play arena, they all just afk boom 3tcs and die to any rush, as they do not realize arena players go all in like half of the games (exception would be players like Modri or Darknoob) or in more extreme cases like myself, I do not build a second tc in probably 80-90% of my arena games unless im absolutely forced to by the matchup.

Because people don't realize, despite starting with stone walls, arena is a very small map surrounded by massive woodlines leading no where to run or rewall

 

[NKamayuk]

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.

The problem is that a lack of top top level competition on the ladder discourages other top top level players from the game (which ends up being somewhat self-fulfilling in a way; but anyways). That's a big part of what had Hera leaving the game, for example, and he's not the only one to have expressed the concern (MBL). Having a healthy and motivated top level scene is good for the game.

 

[IYIyTh]

The problem is that a lack of top top level competition on the ladder discourages other top top level players from the game (which ends up being somewhat self-fulfilling in a way; but anyways). That's a big part of what had Hera leaving the game, for example, and he's not the only one to have expressed the concern (MBL). Having a healthy and motivated top level scene is good for the game.

Sounds like a "them," problem tbh about being bored playing the same game constantly for content.

People have risen/fallen in rankings over the past decade. Some try to come back and succeed, others don't. This time period is unlikely to be different.

 

[Rayne]

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.

Don’t know what the game is like these days, but that doesn’t sound like anything new Spring. It was always a select few that enjoyed playing with bravado (even then you have to adhere to things). Everyone else always had the same boring playstyle.

But what do you expect? Foresee danger, take care of your weak spots in general, or get slaughtered really. I’m sure you know what happens when a weak area is controlled by a good player.

 

[Memeluke]

 

[zShades]

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.

You could choose any language, but you decided to speak the truth

 

[zShades]

View attachment 198091

this was a misslick, you should not just judge by this picture

 

[DracKeN]

While I generally disagree with Spring, I do agree with some of his points here. To simplify things - 1v1 ladder on high level = Arabia. The issue isn't that Arabia has basically 1 superior meta in the first 20 mins, Arabia always used to be like that and people were always generally mirroring each other. I follow the game for more than a decade and personally Arabia never felt as boring to play/watch as now (not connected with my passion for the game, as I enjoy others maps the same or more than in the past). I think the issue is that people learned to play defensive, it's easier to play this way than in the past and that results in far less mistakes. Which in the end makes the game less interesting.

I understand the reasoning about meta evolution, but personally I would prefer more decision making in games (aka xbow nerf), more open games - (further woodlines, tougher to wall), more aggresion (less walls, less housewalls/quickwalls) and more mistakes.

 

[Snizl]

(aka xbow nerf)

The problem with that is, that it is something that will only improve play at the very top and make the game worse for anyone else. 95% of players, me including (no this number is not overexaggerated) already cant play with archers and will lose vs knights in the vast majority of games.
And this is where the problems REALLY start imo. As you are saying, people got better at playing defensive, leading to less mistakes and stale matches. Imo this is not the case at lower levels, because people just are not that good there, and defensive play works out much less well.
So any change to make walling even weaker, xbows worse, or Arabia more open will effectively make the game worse for at least 95% of the player base.

I think, this is indeed just a "them" problem and not a problem with the game. As you said: 1v1 ladder at the top is equal to Arabia. Well, we are having haboob now in the map pool, we are having atacama quite frequently in the map pool, there is almost always one more open variant than Arabia in it. If the pro players are fed up with walls, please go ahead and play the more open maps and stop playing Arabia, if it bores you so much. Don't change the game, because of their inability to left click on a different map than Arabia.

 

[HongeyKong]

View attachment 198091

 

[felix.feroc]

Update of graphs including the last two months (that is, before JorDan's Medieval Brawl changes our world).

I should highlight a couple changes that make the graphs different than the earlier ones:
First, I added Empire Wars, which corrected a dip last summer when players were prepping for Red Bull.
Second, the algorithm for ROBO-ATP has changed, which moved some players around, thus it is a little different.

 

[AttilaTheHun]

Covid is over, people start doing other things then AoE2.
Also some change to AoE4 (but went back to AoE2).

I am not surprised over the decline in numbers.

 

[felix.feroc]

And things are looking even better!

 

[felix.feroc]

May is looking outrageously good.

The only difference in the top ten between Robo-ATP and AoE-Elo is that ACCM is in Robo-ATP's top ten and Nicov is in AoE-Elo's. Nicov played 207 1v1 ranked ladder games in May, whereas ACCM played only 69, so the overall possibility of matching was much higher for AoE-Elo than Robo-ATP.

 

[LowEloNobody]

Need a separate line for Dauts Bo21s