I believe to encourage the longevity of CS, as well as take the seriousness out of points, we need to look at potential angles to pursue.

I'll always be pro non-rating since I've enjoyed the luxury of playing with and without ratings over the last decade over various gaming servers (Zone, GamePark, IGZ, Garena, GameRanger, Hamachi, Direct IP). I find it's a lot easier for newer players to integrate into any CS sub-community (like Bloods, RCB or MCB communities as an example), players have nothing to lose in learning, experts have something to gain in teaching. It's a really nice needs-to-wants balance.

However, this kind of approach is difficult to re-introduce into CS since players have become comfortable with ratings in CS, so much so that CBA games are reliant on ratings just to prevent players from auto-resigning if they don't like their civilization or team mates.

My thoughts are we should start slowly weening off ladders every so often (perhaps each month as an example). Bloods ladder is the first logical choice to become non-rated as their community can and always have been able to play without ratings both competitively and casually. It's a no-brainer.

The next ladder to follow would be the Alternate ladder. This ladder was and still is a mess from the start, a home for maps the Map Pack team didn't know how to deal with appropriately. It honestly should have never existed in the first place.

Next you would merge the two CBA ladders. I don't feel that popularity justifies two spin-offs of the same map to warrant a ladder each. If you're good at CBA, you're good at CBA Hero. It goes without saying. Rm don't have an Arabia ladder and Green Arabia ladder.

Next you would remove the CB ladder. RCB runs fine non-rated with 2v2v2v2s and FFAs and the MCB community is fairly exclusive much like the Bloods community. The rest of the maps aren't worth a grain of sand.

CS Overall could become your CBA ladder.

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So with this approach in mind, I will discuss the effects I think it can have.

First of all, it brings more light to the CS League Ladder. As of now, the CS League has to compete with 5 other ladders. The idea of the CS League from my understanding is to promote maps for whatever reason. It's difficult to promote these League maps when they're already competing with 5 other Ladders, and most are already rated on other ladders.

Tournaments would be more enticing to enter. If I'm a competitive player in CS, but only have CBA as a rated option, how can I prove my worth to other gamers over other maps? Through winning tournaments and gaining badges. I know personally, I much prefer having a bronze badge than a 2k+ rating in Bloods.

Introduction of the Clan Lounge for rated play. 3v3 or higher to be rated, map pool to consist of CBA/Hero/MCB/RCB/mainstream bloods. Alternately, have a 5 map pool that rotates every month with ladder reset/decay.

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Over the many years I've played CS, I have never seen a one map variant like CBA hold such a stranglehold in terms of governing what there is to play. It's demoralizing to oldschoolers returning to the game, it's constricting the competitive life from CS ever so slowly each week (as well as the death of Dm which has been partly attributed to CS becoming rated) and it's monopolizing our choices in terms of what to play. It's easier to spend 2 minutes hosting a room for CBA and having a full game than it is to wait 30 minutes in the hope of getting a half decent game for another map.

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On the flip-side, we could say it's too hard to try and improve the situation, with the potential for temporary and situational backlash to be too much to deal with. I'd say now is the best time to trial the kind of change I've outlined, while we still have resources like the oldschool heads full of experience and knowledge, while Voobly remains the best client to play AOC and before AOC2HD starts perfecting their release and gains in popularity again.

You make quite alot of valid points and i do like alot of the ideas purely and simply because they make sense and i would like to see some of it introduced in the long team. However i would lean towards keeping rate especially now purely and simply as pointed out because people have become reliant on rate and having a rating system. The very fact we have rate is one of the biggest things we have in our arsenal over the other servers atm. Plus it would be extremely difficult to introduce

You'd be keeping rating for CBA matches.

CS rating isn't anything to boast, AOK has a bigger following over at GameRanger where it's non-rated and a poorer quality client, I'd imagine because it's a non-rated and more social gaming site for AOKers to enjoy.

There's no reasonable argument for ratings on each ladder besides the "GP had them so we also had to have them".

I totally agree but too many people are caught up in it now and with that mindset its difficult to predict the extent of the backlash. Truth be said the only time ive ever had fun with rate was when i use to race rate backwards and forwards with poke and sam (2 old aok legends). What we generally done was played anyone in anything. But you had to try and win when you where racing backwards. We use to accuse each other of losing on purpose lol, was especially fun when we played each other. The only reason for me to really play in rated room was because thats where most of the better players played. But in general it was always easier to get a game in custom room mostly because there was more players and the fact people generally werent scared to play for fear of losing points.

The really ironic thing was that cbas never made it in rated room and that we're kinda stuck with the opposite now. Where cb's require rate for the reasons you pointed out. With people being so stuck up with rate now and relient on it, the fear would also be they would play bloods less . But as youve pointed out an inferior server is getting blood games played on a regular basis

I'm not sure what the extent of the backlash would be. I dislike most of the things Voobly do, and have treated CS, but I've still forked out for memberships and contributed in my ways. I'm sure there is a trend in this, since people will be thankful for having a cheat-free server with a large community.

That's why I think it's worth whatever backlash is received in order to gain more time + variety in CS.

Continuing the current trends that Voobly has adopted, it can't be too long til people grow sick of CS over here because everything is so serious and rated.

In all honesty, it's feels like no one really cares how CS goes just as long as there's game being played, even if it's only CBA.

One of the really good features on voobly is the ability to check through various different games that have been played for records etc... Not to sure how that would look without rate

The way it used to before ratings?

When i talk with GR players they complain about the rate and all the crash/drop/lag...
But then i go GR and see for myself and i find players that resign/drop because of bad civs...

The thing that makes Voobly different are the ratings, so I don't expect it to ever be un-rated. I do like the idea of 1 Cba ladder and use the empty ladder for another league or a non-rated bloods ladder(like vcom), however Cba and Cba Hero are the 2 biggest ladders in AoC CS, so I really doubt that it happens.

Ratings have positives and negatives, such as people will stack teams and noob bash for points(negative), while on the other side people will not auto resign because of bad civs(positive). I do think there are areas where we can improve the ratings, but I do not believe they will ever be totally removed from Voobly.

The most useful thing we could do is find a middle ground that will produce a better rating system that will be both competitive and newb friendly, certainly not an easy task but I think it's possible to make it better even if only slightly.

People had no issue with 1 ladder before Rambit brought in 5 different ones. I can't see why they would have an issue of reverting back to one ladder devoted to CBA/Hero. If it doesn't work in trial it's not difficult to revert back with a complete reset. Either way people are going to enjoy change, whether it takes them a day or a month to realise it.

CBA and CBA hero must be one ladder

I played a spider blood FFA on steam. The guy hosting said he has played one daily.


I can't get one spider FFA a year here ..

i would have to agree with alot of what ben said. but as it was already stated, many ppl here are addicted to the rating system now. perhaps a first step or potentially better fix, would be to update the maps list as we are doing in another thread, so the rating system cannot be abused so much

As we can see, people are still abusing the system in Bloods ladder. There's no rules set, and there truly is no way to encourage people to play multiple maps in a ladder. I've supported Pine's idea to change because at least it was a step in a positive direction

I'm honestly sick of CS being in an ELO system. So are a majority of the oldschool and expert players. We'll continue to lose the resources these people can provide for CS if there's no change or improvement, as these people will continue to quit.

edit; I mean, experts such as myself and others have been trying to advise Voobly on positive directions since IGZ started. I can't recall any decision they've made that hasn't taken our views into proper consideration. Enlighten me if I am wrong.

What's the use of having people like myself as a Game Adviser if you're happy enough with CS because every tom, **** and harry will play CBA and be content.

Maybe I'm biased because all the experts I grew up playing the game with are dwindling in number.

If you like, I can research among the experts what they like and dislike with Voobly ratings and Voobly itself, and we can work with the data?