HAving the option to select a map we dont want to play

I thought of this idea, because until now in ranked, there were volskaya and braxis that I don’t really like but did not mind that much, but I really don’t like Warhead Junction and most of my friend (if not all) don’t like it either.

It would be nice if it was possible to chose a map we dont want to play, and if in group that would be the captain that choose the map that is excluded.

I kid you not that I can shut the game just because I played WHJ. If that was 50% of the time that map I would not play the game at all anymore. Like, I was almost never playing QM or unranked due to this map.

That’s how it is in organized play.

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map bans work in tourneys as there are only a few dozen players and they mostly all ban the same maps over and over (like they did with blackhearts bay, until devs just gave in and removed it completely from competitive)

put those rules in public play and que times will skyrocket with each player banning a map

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Kind of defeats the purpose of multiple maps. Would mean people are their rank only in all but 1 map, as opposed to currently where it is all maps , or at least all maps of that season.

Tournaments are different. Maps like Blackheart Bay were banned due to being bad for viewers, and not bad to play. Everyone spent the entire game avoiding team fights gathering coins the fastest rather than brawling each other. Having both sides not actually fighting in a team vs team game kind of defeats the purpose and so is very poor to watch.

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Argument that queue times will skyrocket is totally invalid. If everybody chooses to opt out a certain map, then obviously something is wrong with that specific map (in comparison to others), not with playerbase. Devs get a clear data on what the community wants and which map to improve or rework next.

If opting even a single map out caues a huge spike in queue time as some argue, then the community is so small that it’s not worthy nor reasonable to prefer it over more populated regions (like south america X EU).

They did the same thing in WOW where you could have select 2 battlegrounds you won’t get into. I couldn’t find anyone who complained about it. PVE oriented people went into Alterac and the normal people went into kotmogu or warsong. Yes the WOW playerbase is larger, but in HOTS EU or NA have decent population as well (i get matched almost instantly in QM or ARAM). If a population is small, then opting out a map or 2 won’t make a difference anyway given large number of maps.

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I mean, the rank is not a serious thing like exams in school, yeah of course in school you can’t decide that a topic is not important just because you don’t like it.

Here it is just a game, and the reason to play ranks is just to have more challenging games. There are already things like smurfing that have a far greater negative impact on the actual rank of someone.

WoT does it in a nice way. u can exclude 1 or 2 maps u do not want to play in qm. mind u WoT has like 30 maps. from there the devs know which maps to fix/balance better. if we could exclude 1 map in qm that would be cool.

There is no argument which says queue times would be immense if everyone would ban the same map. The issue is that everyone would ban a map, not the same all the time.
And then the MM needs to look for 10 players that can play on the same map instead of searching 10 ppl and giving them a map.
Giving more filters, more rules, more limitation always increase queuetimes because it restricts the MM more and more.

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I know well the problem. When everyone bans hanamura as that map is stupid, nobody will care and devs either rework or remove such map. Still that is a problem only on very low population regions, let’s say less than 1000 people.

I play on EU and have no problems at all getting matched <1 min. ARAMs are instant between 12:00 - 22:00. No idea about NA, but my guess is that its population is lower, but not by that much. Therefore i believe that such function will cause no major problem.

As i said when certain realms are so low populated, they should be ignored when implementing anything. Some people can’t even get matched in less than hour when their MMR is high enough yet ranked is still available.

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I wouldn’t ban Hanamura. To my own detriment (as it turns out it’s my highest win rate map) I’d ban Blackheart’s Bay, and considering the forum complaints about BHB and WHJ they seem far more unloved than Hanamura.

As Karabars noted, it’s not just a population issue (that doesn’t help) but the fact that people would ban different maps and we have many maps, this just isn’t workable.

We do have many maps. When someone bans BHB, other bans WHJ they can still play ToD. It’s perfectly workable (unless they give us an option to ban every single map, however OP suggested to ban 1 map which is fine).

It’s only an issue when population is too low, nothing else. When you have 10 people and 10 maps, each of them banning a different map, you won’t get matched into any of them. However that is just a theory, there is enough players to make it work.

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I’ll never understand why people hate braxis so much. It’s a permanent 4v4 team fight bot which is a lot more fun than splitting and mindlessly soaking.

It’s basically an Aram but you get to play what you want

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Beause most people hate solo laning. Or just refuse to do so. They want to force the weakest hero on thier team to solo lane so they can feed bot lane and call the solo laner bad for losing the game for them.

I had this once. I was forced to solo lane as KT againts Artanis cause Xul obviuosly refused to do it after he got killed lol.

just more fun to jail someone to the solo lane just so he can walk around with the 3 others and be useless in other ways.

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Outright banning a map would likely be problematic.

However, a “prefer to avoid” feature would definitely be nice to have.

I’ve detailed my idea for it before here and here.

Only if the map is chosen before the players are.

If the map is chosen after the teams are assembled, then there would be no increase in queue times because map bans would not be factored into the matchmaking at all.
Your team is assembled, then the matchmaker chooses a map from the non-banned maps.

I am happy with all maps in the game. Each one challenges me in different ways and I love the variety in rulesets. Map bans would annoy me because then the community’s map preferences would get in the way of me playing each map an even amount.

How do you know this? Considering how long it can take to find Ranked matched outside anything other than peak hours on the US server, how much longer will queue times be inflated by a map ban system? Sure QM MM is a bit more relaxed, but the game isn’t growing new players and it couldn’t sustain slightly stricter MM in QM in 2018 due to longer QM queue times and endless complaints here and on Reddit, so that change was reverted.

In some other thread about knowing if your team is competent, someone knowing who has the best hero to take the solo lane and doing so, was the first thing that puts me at ease.

In QM I get it that sometimes you have to use a hero that in SL draft wouldn’t be picked for the solo lane in Braxis, but it’s usually obvious which hero out of your team will fare the best in solo lane. As you say though, most don’t want to do, sure as OJ said, they love, love, love the 4vs4 brawl btm lane. Solo lane top or rotating? Not so much.