Arabia/Arena Are the Most Popular Maps Among Top Players: Other Maps Lack Popularity (Source: AoERecs)
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Well, I love to watch the tournament maps a lot.
As an causal player, I don’t have the time and the motivation to learn all metas of all those exiting maps.
A couple of days ago, I realized, that with 42 civs there are 861 different combinations in 1v1 possible…
So aoe2 ist hard to learn and harder too master….
So, I can understand the competitive players that the would like to stick with their favorite maps.
On the hand kind of sad, because there a lot of fun maps around.
It is a strong snowball effect too.
If you choose another map, there’ll be fewer people to pkay against, leadin both in longer waiting times, and possibly a worse match, so the opponent is too easy/too hard.
So then even if you want a different map, you might go back to the popular ones because it’s quicker and finds you a more fair opponent.
Ok so if one was the compromise and offer a win-win (low queue times, low dodge rates, and wide availability of options) the system would look like this – basically my spin on the programmatic “playlist” systems used in COD Warzone / CSGO, etc.
Get rid of Quickplay and get rid of 2v2s and 3v3s*, then have the following queues available:
ARABIA | 1v1 | 2v2/3v3 (rotating)* | 4v4
ARENA | 1v1 | 2v2/3v3 (rotating)* | 4v4
BF | 4v4
Nomad | 1v1 | 4v4 |
CURATED TOURNAMENT PLAYLIST (maps curated by Chrazini or Nili or Memb or T90 that rotates every few months/new patch)
| 1v1 | 2v2/3v3 (rotating) | 4v4 |
CURATED ISLANDS ROTATION
| 1v1 | 4v4 |
* offer 3v3 or 2v2 for each category on a monthly rotating basis instead (in March 3v3 Arabia is available, but in April 2v2 Arabia is available instead, etc)
In regards to DM and Empire Wars – make these game modes specific seasonal offerings.
These modes are already “dead” space in the queue—but giving them seasonal availability would actually inject new appeal into the game modes and make them more robust.
In short – the ranked pool is more *custom lobby light* currently than a ranked queue.
Reduce the “options” but vastly increase the appeal of the variety that is offered.
Make sure the core remains available – 1v1 nomad might not be a huge segment in the community but 4v4 nomad is an absolute must, etc.—but make the options rotate and then use data to optimize the programmatic spread.
Reduce being able to customize every single feature of the game with a set of holistic yet “diverse” playlist options.
Lastly have a ‘quick queue’ button that randomly matches you against someone of similar strength regardless of game mode.
Once the system is in play ratchet up the punishment for queue dodging and crashing.
In regard to Elo aggregate the specific categories – so for example if you win an arabia 1v1 it is weighed based on the other games you’ve played (if you haven’t played or won an arabia game in a while your Elo gets a nice jump but if you play every day you get a trickle, etc.).
Arabia has always been the gem of aoe2, that tiny little fish in the middle of palms, I salute you.
If an Arabia player meets an arena player on any map other than a walled map, the arena player stands absolutely no chance.
Most of the time the arena player will dodge
I’ve only ever played 1800+ arena players on arena, they never play open maps because they can’t.
I wish they would use maps from tournaments in the rotation.
So many cool ones available
Should add tournament maps to the pool instead.
Tournament balanced maps that aren’t Arabia or Arena would be better.
As a noob, I would bet that it’s because people who play competitively like the repetitive maps because they have a process
The situation is more complicated than you may have thought.
The fact that 83.7% of the games are on Arabia and 13.4% on Arena DOES NOT imply that the same percentage of player base is an Arabia picker or Arena picker.
For example, let’s assume a simple split of 80%/20% for Arabia/Arena picker.
The map distribution would actually turn out to be 64% Arabia, 4% Arena and 32% other maps.
Therefore, under your hypothesis, the % of other maps should have been even higher!
Does it mean that map dodging is actually an even more serious problem than you assumed?
No, an easier explanation is that your hypothesis (a simple split of 2 archetypes of Arabia/Arena pickers) is wrong.
Two possible explanations are: 1) High-level players that leave both maps open are not insignificant; and 2) Clowns do not always ban Arabia.
If you check the play history of Arena players like JonSlow and Ganji, they are on Arabia in at least some of the games.
Why so?
If you think about it, banning Arabia actually does not get them more Arena games, because most Arabia players ban Arena anyway.
So in effect they’re choosing between: 1) hope for Arena, otherwise play Arabia; and 2) hope for Arena, otherwise play other maps.
For them, other than the obvious choice of Arena, they (at least sometimes) do favor Arabia over other maps.
Another reason is that these two maps are the only constant maps in the pool.
If Nomad or Islands were always available, maybe they would see more love?
Archipelago gang rise 😎
unwanted maps are unwanted for a reason
It’s worth mentioning that there is a bit of a selection bias that always comes with ladder play rates.
Arabia and Arena are always in the map rotation, so you would expect them to account for around 30% of games, if all matches were randomly selected for the map pool.
In your example of Mediterranean at 0.4% play rate, if it was a pure random pick, you’d expect it to be played 14% of the time it’s in the map pool.
However, if it’s only in the map pool for 10% of the year, then a 14% play rate is simply impossible, and you would expect 1.4% play rate.
I agree with the overall sentiment that Arabia and Arena dominate the overall play rate, particularly at the higher level, but the only real fair to figure to work with is the 2.9% of all other maps (since there are always 5 other maps in the pool, we just don’t know which specific ones).
Even then, it’s the average figure of all other maps, some of which will be more popular in relative terms, and others which aren’t.
To get a better idea of what individual maps are popular, you need to normalize the data by dividing the maps yearly play rate, by the % of the year it was available to be played (selectable in the map pool rotation).
I suspect you still find most none-Arabia/Arena maps are fairly unpopular at the top level, but you might find a few maps that are approaching an Arena level of popularity.
I want WEIRD AND FUN maps, that force you to adapt, but keeps the game feel balanced on the ladder.
None of these except nomad fit this criteria, as for balanced?
Usually Arabia or clown map, thus that.
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