We need to talk about the map pool
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- Опубликовано: 24 авг 2023
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TheViper | Professional Age of Empires 2 Definitive Edition Player for GamerLegion | Sponsored by Re-Bo 
Игры
They should REALLY add current tournament maps to the map pool so us plebs can feel like we are pros. Imagine playing TTL maps like Spiral or Fractal or El Dorado in the map pool. Would be new and fresh and really fun!
I think exactly the same.
yes
Yes!
Also including some info on the Map in the Loading Screen and in which tournament it was played and maybe even a link to its liquipedia page would be cool.
Imagine having to play houseboat at 600 Elo 1111 Would be fun to cast on a tuesday night!
They should really introduce blind voting as the first step! Seeing that the top possible picks already has a majority vote prevents me from even thinking that there’s a chance that my vote counts
Yeah, it's a shame it's still not done, that should have been removed after max 3 weeks they introduced map voting.
Either way, the majourity of the voters are noobs, they're going to pick the closed maps. Michi one week, Tunnel the next and repeat.
No, no more voting thank you, it has been a disaster. Seasonal handpicked tournament is the way to go.
That's true, my cousin and I both threw our votes in on the ones that were close races instead of what we actually wanted.
People get so shitty when they get a map they don't like so now the maps are all similar.
It's a never ending nightmare of pleasing no one.
@gastoncosta7315
But the dozens of maps are actually interesting to play on.
It's just that most aren't "balanced" like the eSports hyper competitive section of the player base wants so they never get used in ranked.
And then you get people who just play the three same maps again and again and insta quit when they get one they don't play often.
Just feel like the game is becoming more montone across the board.
This issue corrects by simple thing - give players as many bans as they want. U want play only arabia - fine u should have ability to ban all other maps. Yes, u will wait longer for a game, but it is fine - because u will have the thing that u want. It is horrible that admins force ppl to play on map they dont want to. So it is perfectly logical to skip theese maps, or play like an idiot, or play without passion - and it also decrease gaming experience for others in both teams
@@little_spoon_of_love
That just creates a situation where only the same 3 maps will ever show up again.
The percentage of the population that plays on anything that isn't Arabia/Arena/Black Forest etc. is just caught not being able to participate in any of the maps they enjoy on ranked.
And ranked play and the competetive scene is what shapes the developement of the game.
Civs are balanced around how they perform on the ladder. But if the only sample size is a single type of open map and a single type of closed map then the game just trends towards having every civ designed to play the same way. Because when we try to compare civs to see how they actually perform across map types we'll only have data for a few maps instead of a several.
dont have numbers. but i can agree that big procent of ppl will end up being conservative like in real life. However even this conservation not monolite - i see people swearing and leaving when they have openmaps, water maps, nomad maps, closed maps. (I personaly want to play closed and open but not nomad and water). So i think people will just separate on groups and all be happy. Balance in sc2 for example based on proplayer's games as far as i know. It seems to be logical - they are able to use potential of races to the fullest possible extent. We can utilize this aproach too. And again,, it doesnt hurt trying - more bans available just an option, we can at least try it. @@DCdabest
I love it when there are weird maps in the pool. Totally for this.
I was talking with my duo buddy about this recently as well. I think the best way to do it would be, instead of voting for 3 maps like we are currently, we vote in maps from smaller pools.
For example: pool 1, you pick from fortress, arena, hideout
Pool 2 you pick from bf, Amazon tunnel, maybe Michi or something
You go on to make pool's that have similar maps, so we get 1 from each type, and later pools could include some of the more unique and under utilized maps
I love this idea. That's more competitive too... instead of all closed maps (like this map pool) or all aggressive ones like the previous ones. :)
Finally, finally finally, I like to see this being talked about. I would love to return to the game, but the games are too repetitive and would like a big shake up of the map pool
I would like to see a "full random" toggle for all gamemodes in ranked and unranked that just picks a map out of everything available.
That's actually a really good idea, I mean all the game has to do is to put 2-8 players together and select a random map for those - in the end having the same effect on the queue / wait times as a singular added map while adding the most variety possible!
I believe the maps Viper talks about are maps that are available only if you subscribe to a specific mod corresponding to a specific tournament, so if i'm correct your solution wouldn't add these "interesting" maps to the pool and would just add some official maps that are currently banned because they're not balanced.
First step would be to officialise the community-created maps that pros love to play.
How and who?@@EvilCherry3
Every time a map appears in a tournament and is approved by the pro players at the end of the tournament it should be added to the pool.@@thefatherfarmer5282
I agree, I also would like for more variety in the map pool. There are some really amazing maps that are played in tournaments that I don't get to play.
Finally, someone said it! The map repetition is real. Mixing in some fresh maps could totally reignite the excitement and strategic challenge. Hope the devs are listening.
I mean... some people are crazy obsessed about one particular map. because of it, you can't get rid of arena, arabia, megarandom, nomad. you also need a water map because evenif people avoid them, you can't just make water disappear so you usually have something like island so there is at least a bit of water play in the map pool. and now you only end up with one map out of 6 where you can really rotate to new original stuff. the only way to have more diversity in the map pool would be for players to accept playing something different than the map they always play and feel comfortable on.
As a non player that likes to watch other people play aoe II, I would actually like that some "experts" split up the mappool into different groups.
It will always be atleast 2 open maps, it will always be 2 closed maps(arena and water could both fit into this group), it will be always be an 'other' type of map.
Therfor, in my head. Those that loves arabia, can still get an open map. Even if arabia isn't in the pool. Those that loves arena, can still get hideout.
Those are examples, of course.
The idea is that arena, hideout and another closed map can not be in the pool at the same time.
Hera brought this subject up as well. I have been asking in aoe forums for the past 2 years to start including the tournament maps. Great idea and thanks for speaking out
I would like to see a mega random, and full random tab/option as a permanent choice.
You can add as many maps as you want on 1v1s. There is no complicated ban math like in team games. It’s literally always just (number of maps/2)-1 and you’ll have the correct amount of bans. They could have 21 maps and 10 bans if they wanted. Idk why they don’t do that.
Agreed.
Problem: many players just want to play over 50% of there games on arabia.
Solution: put arabia 2 or 3 times in the mappool, so it's still likely to be played and more expensive to ban
Agreed. Ive had similar thoughts. And they haven't changed the empire wars maps in what feels like years. Which, in itself, is telling.
As you said about new tabs for 9 villager start, there should be map tab which you open and it has like 5 or 10 empty spaces, you just drag there maps from your all of your maps and queue, it might take some time to find someone who has atleast 1 same map, but I am sure that map tab would be used also. Or if choosing from all maps might make queue too long, give us 5 empty spaces and like 15 or 25 maps from which to choose which I want to play, this would lower queue time for sure
- Have 15 maps.
- Arrange them in a 5x3 rectangle.
- When a player queues up, that player bans 2 of the 5 columns.
- From each of the remaining 3 columns, the player bans 1 map.
- When they find another player to match, up to 4 columns will have been banned, so at least 1 column remains.
- Of that remaining column, up to 2 maps will have been banned, so at least 1 map remains.
- So there is a 100% guarantee that any two players will have a not-banned map in common.
- But each player on their own only has to leave 6 of the 15 maps unbanned.
- You can still select 1 or 2 maps as favourite.
- You can still select additional maps that you don't want to ban, even if they're in columns that you're otherwise banning.
- Enjoy a ranked queue that only consists of the 40% of maps that you like the most.
The beauty of this game lies in incredibly varied random maps, and dozens of random civs.
Some people just wanna try hard on one specific map until they know the meta in and out and will crush any opponent their level.
As soon as they try another map, they get clapped so hard they return to their clown maps.
Playing current tournament maps would be amazing! I’ve talked about that with the two people I play with. It would be so cool to try out maps that are being played in the largest tournaments
I think the main issue here is that low/mid ELO players are mostly trying to master or at least getting familiar with the game, which implies knowing and executing once and again so many different combinations of strategies, civs, units, bonuses, hotkeys, etc... and they do that by playing the same maps over and over again (even with the same civ in most cases).
If you add to that a larger map pool, which is great in terms of more strategies and civs options, it will result in more frustration to learn the game properly. This kind of players represents around ¿90%? of the community, i don't feel like there is a problem with map monotony for them. If we remember GR, Voobly, etc.. almost every game was BF-GA-LN and Arabia (Maybe FR) at higher levels; also in Custom games here in DE we mostly see BF/Nomad/Arena/etc... like always.
Maybe a good option will be to expand the pool based on your ELO/Rank, providing lower ELO games with fewer and more common maps while they improve other skills and adding new and more complex maps while they climb on the ladder; with the reasoning that if you want to become a 'pro' or high ELO player, you must master different scenarios and be able to addapt to them.
At least that's what I think about it 😁
Agreed 100%. People just get so comfortable playing they're favorite maps.
Considering its meant as an enjoyable pasttime for most this is suprising/critiqueworthy how?
@TheGahta I just think that people may be so comfortable playing their 1 or 2 fav maps they don't realize how much they would enjoy other maps if given the chance. It's kinda like ice cream. It's always nice getting your favorite flavor, but it can be exciting discovering a new one here and there to keep things interesting and diverse.
I think they should increase the number of maps, and have a new favorite system. So you rank the maps with numbers from favorite to least favorate in the rank queue. They can then match up people based on favorite playing style, and not based on a specific map. A Arena player will likely have arena on 1 and fortress on 2. So they can be matched up togheter on either map with this system. Same goes for open maps or Nomad starts for example.
the argument with the tournament maps is rly cool and i can relate to that.
would be awesome to play some tournament maps in ranked ladder .
There's no pleasing the community regarding the map pool, the week that the city of lakes map got voted into ranked everyone just bitched about it
Good suggestions, I would love to see more hybrid maps, scandi and cross especially
I'd have 9 maps per rotation - Arabia / Open / Closed / Hybrid / Water / Nomad / Gold Rush-Style / Chaos (e.g. Socotra) / Mega-Random + then players vote for 1 map of each type per rotation (with no repeats). Then there is the option in the lobby to either use these maps or you can select full random per category (E.g. Open might randomise between Atacama, Haboob, Runestones, Land Madness etc)
“Variation is the spice of life” - Viper, 2023
I showed this to my wife and she handed me divorce papers.
TheViper: we need more variety!
My Opponent on the Ladder: look at me playing my 3500th game as Franks on arena.
*Cries in 1000 Elo*
I’ve been watching the TTL games currently going on. There are some really fun looking maps I’d like to play on. Spiral for example, there’s a few strats I’d like to try out. Maybe a tourney map lobby?
Another idea:
Player A (or team A captain) propose two types of map (like open, closed, water, mixed, nomad...).
Player B (or team B captain) chooses between those two or random.
A map that fits in the chosen category is randomly selected and played
Great vid! I think you need your music volume down a bit in these edits and to choose music that's more lowkey/chill
People my Elo (1500-1800) are usually going pre made and taking turns queue dropping if don’t get Nomad or Black Forest. If I solo queue team game and ban one of them, I get the other 4/5 times. 5th time is usually Arena, and sometime Arabia but more often than not someone drops five mins in.
I personally agree directionally. However, I think wait times would extend a lot with more bans. Since people will use bans in different ways, they'll be pooled into a lager variety of maps. Addition of new maps with same number of bans will not impact wait times but will have the externality of people playing on the map of their choice (if there is one) less often.
No there is always 1 map between 2 players/teams which is not banned.
Yes, as long as bans are less than half of the pool, there’s always at least 1 map available for any 2 in the queue
I've thought of this issue as well. Someone else in comments suggested adding a "fully random" map choice, which would pick a completely random map out of the total pool of maps. Which would basically only have the effect on queue / wait times as a singular added map while giving variety to those who want it. Basically you choose "full random" as your map, it puts people who favorite that together and gives them a random map. Would then be great if they added tournament maps like cup/bay etc. to that option to then actually give us more variety
Map pool should follow A list tournament's. I agree with the Viper.
Dunno, I don't think that's even an issue. Main issue is, players get to vote from same 10 map pool list everytime and EVEN WORSE they already can see % of voting, so they won't vote for map they want if they see it doesn't have a chance. Those % of voting have to be hidden before voting finished.
@@Lokalo1 true
I've wanted to play on tournament maps ever since Battle of Africa 1. A big part of the reason I don't play AoE2 much any more is that every game is quite similar, even trying to play closed maps you get people alt-f4ing as though their Arabia ranked grind to 1500 is all that matters
Michi being in the map pool is such a troll. Especially at the lower level (im ~1400 elo) where the game goes for 40 mins before the trees get cut and one team gets completely swept immediately.
What Microsoft probably took away from this video: make Arena the only map in the pool
Mega random can be anything such as large walls, a million dear or water allow for a super fish boom so its a fast castle map too.
team map pool includes Michi, Fortress, Black Forest, Arena, Team Islands for this week... i literally logged on to play and saw I was basically going to be forced into an hour boomfest and logged off
It's easy to say this, but in the past when the devs have mixed in cool fresh maps like Bog Islands or Nile Delta, most of the pros/streamers just bitch about it, ban them, and continue favoriting Arabia or Arena.
I don't have data on the reaction of the wider playerbase, but it's probably similar. When I would favorite those maps, queue time was atrocious.
I just started playing this game like two months ago, and even I just thougth it would be cool having more maps to play on
Very much agree. Need more variety in the map pool and I'm okay with forcing players to play more varied maps. I think closed map gameplay is a crutch for a lot of the player base and I personally find these maps (Arena/Hideout/Fortress) which are always in the map pool to lead to boring, drawn out games and predictable games
I, like most low Elo, prefer closed or semi closed maps for the (mostly false) sense of security. I think the map pool has become what most ranked players (
I’m 1.4K and I prefer closed maps
Same but I also like diversity.
Closed maps isn't necessarily a problem for high elo, I think the problem is the lack of variety in closed maps, there are so many different open maps and not many closed maps
Makes sense.
@@mradul2474 Personally, as flawed as this might be, I assimilate the main open maps and find them very similar (Arabia, Atacama, Land of Madness), while I categorize together maps with macro environmental characteristics: golden pit for instance, but also the ones with the hills, and many others.
What I hate with Arabia is that most games will be determined by who manages to make scouts/knights (sometimes archers) the first and break through, and by micro, or in other words things that, to me, rely more on your gamer qualities, on your reflexes, all this, than on your strategic abilities.
I mean in general.
While I love basically all the other maps (water, hybrid, closed, nomad, and the ones with environmental characteristics).
Several "clowns" here are commenting here to express how they like their sense of security, but I think Arabia grinders have something similar when they follow a certain meta and play always in a similar way. I'm of a different type, that dislikes Arabia and open maps not because of the absence of sense of security (at least not as the main factor), but because of the game narrowness it brings. I like closed maps and I like diverse maps. I want to adapt to the map just as much as I adapt to what my opponent is doing, their civ, etc.
I feel like what could help us a lot in theorycrafting what to do to improve the map pool, would be to take a look how voting went historically to try to find some "clusters" of voters. I imagine if there's, say, 40% of closed maps players who will vote for 3 closed maps all the time, 30% open map players and 30% nomad/water/other players, inadvertently we will end up with map pool favoring much more closed maps (like currently).
7 months later and we still suffer from the same 20 maps
How about a map where, along your regular start, you get a small fortress or town on the other side of the map and there you have to defend a wonder or king or something? Maybe you own some hero or have some special trigger units to recruit, or have to interact with neutral factions? You know, kinda like a campaign styled random map with some RP stuff going on and stuff. Or wait, you could have an "Evil Empire" mode where all players start as revolutionaries and have to be first to capture the relic or whatever :- D
Making posible to have different kinds of maps would me amazing because it would make more likely to play with different civs, which is something many people would love. I think part of the meta getting stuck is in part because of this. Just playing EW shows my point. Basically 90% of the time people play cab civs and agressive playstyle. Changing the map can bring oportunity to other civs and strategies.
Devs should add a button similar to the ‘if both players select then both players are random civ’ button, but similarly this new button would effectively unban all banned maps behind the scenes and truly give a random map experience to those who want it.
They could also add a gamemode like a recent TCI tournament but in smaller version like BO3 or BO5 with map and civ selection. It will be more fun to play I think.
I even think it should be possible to add the options "arabia only", "arena only" or "full map pool" (with bans), so the low level players (and MbL 😂) dont get overconfused by the complexity of the rarer maps and can focus on learning build orders or just enjoy arabia or clowning if thats what they like.
I would like maps that have some objectives on them. Maybe that’s just the custom scenario guy coming out in me, but it would be cool if they had tiny towns to look out for or maybe even AI raiders. I remember a map where there was essentially ruins on the map that people could fight over. That would be great.
there is afternath map where you need to control 2 buildings on opposite sides, when you controling it, it gives all rss slowly. It might be similar to what you looking for
There could separately be two check boxes with 3 villager start and 9 villager start so that you can pick either of them or both, then it doesn't necessarily split the 3 vill and 9 vill queue.
And yes as a mediocre 1300 elo player I agreed with everything you said about the map pool, I have also looked through the tournament maps and dreamed of getting to play those instead of just arabia, arena, hideout and megarandom over and over again. And I have not had the motivation to grind ranked for very long due to that.
African clearing is quite often a tower war map due to people TCing fish and wood being so exposed.
I do think tournament maps and completely different maps should be rotated through. There's more fun in playing maps that have little or no meta than arabia/arena for the 1000th time where everything until castle is mathed out so much that everyone is playing on auto pilot.
Love the intro 👌😆
I think they should change map selection from individual maps to map groups. So i dont pick Arabia, i pick "Open Land" and then i might get arabia, or gold rush, or something else.
But I agree with all of this. More map selection.
Imagine bringing in a new friend and playing arabia and then you queue up and get nomad and theyre so lost.
Idea for video: make a tier list of the maps.
It would be interesting to watch what makes a map good from the perspective of a pro
AOE2 has sooo many maps, it's a surprise that the 1v1 pool is so small and repetitive. I think there's some element of competitive integrity that the devs are trying to uphold in the pool. I suspect they're using the same maps because they're proven to work and they're not going to take the risk of upsetting the playerbase because they added in an uncommon map. The community can be quite short tempered and volatile at times, so I understand why they play it safe.
But I totally agree with you. The maps in the game are vast, there's tons and yet they're never played except in customs. It would be cool to rotate in some more maps and expand the pool. It doesn't have to come at the cost of removing the ones that some players always want to play on (Arena, Arabia etc) if the pool was expanded, as well as the possible bans. With the bans increasing with it, the choice is in the player's hands and they can certainly refuse to play those other maps and stay on Arabia by using their bans how they see fit.
Good take Viper, totally agree. This is certainly not like the Counter Strike community, where we only want to play on three maps for the rest of our lives and the rest can go in the bin XD
I can understand less hardcore players not wanting to learn new maps every week. However, I think everyone would be happy if map pool reflected currently active big tournaments. It would both help the hype of tournaments and also encourage people to play the game more. Right now they watch a cool series between pro players, want to try same cool strat they saw on that map... and they can't, so they just turn off the game. Lots of people are like that.
Learn maps? Lol it is better for new players to have a fully random map pool because they won't get stomped by tiptoe perfected build order by an arabia player with 2000 games on arabia.
But so many maps play out the same. Like Viper said, 5 out of 7 maps (sometimes 6 with megarandom) are fast castle maps. You can categorise literally any map into Open Land, Closed Land, Water or Hybrid so that's only 4x types of map you need to learn and even then, there is a lot of crossover knowledge between them. E.g. Fast castle boom on closed land maps is not that different from fast castle fish boom on water maps.
Having too many maps would certainly dilute the player base. There should be a rotation of maps, removing the most popular and repeated maps from the voting options for like the next month (except Arabia)
100% agree!
I felt like this 6 months ago tbh
It might make it harder for casuals who aren't so good at adapting (my friends) that they suddenly have to use different strategies. We always lose nomad because of the lack of ability to adapt. I don't know how adding more variety would play out, and, believe me, I love the ideas presented here, and I hope that we see more different maps (I love water and hybrid maps for example). I'm just pointing out a potential issue. Over time it shouldn't be an issue any more though.
Power level does creep up on certain maps - sure, because power level is balanced the other way on other maps... Sometimes, balance gets in the way of fun.
I do not play 1vs1, but when playing with friends team games, there is always an arena player and arabia player in the same group :)
tottaly agree, i always want a dirty one, socotra, chaos pit,
I agree, more maps would be nice. I dont even need a votingsystem. Just increase the mappool by 50 maps keep the Arabia/Arena standard. 3 dev picks and 5 random maps from the pool. People always vote the same because they see the mappool and know ok its either this map I hate or this map - so I vote this map. I prefer a random map over that system.
Another banger analysis/opinion/rant from TheViperino, keep em coming
I love those videos! More!!!
i started playing aoe2 back in the day on maps like continental and rivers. were always exciting maps full of land or sea or players that would go 50/50, resource islands that proved valuable lots of fish if you can control it I loved that map still play it today and have players ask what is this map -.-
There are so many amazing tournament maps and WE NEVER SEE THEM
I am not sure about just more maps in the pool.
I am a semi regular 1300-1400 player. I have around 2000 games since DE released and now play about a hand full of games a week. More maps in the pool would probaly make it harder for me to play, because i would need to look into more maps to at least get a rough overview what they are about before I can actually start playing. Also when the mappool would be bigger I would probably play a lot of map only once or twice, which isn't too much fun. It is nice to develop strategics on maps, but for that the map pool has to be a bit more focused - if you don't play every day.
But I would also be for more variety. Tournament maps in the pool sounds awesome.
I agree with everything you said. I hope microsoft and forgotten empires take a look into it
I agree. Even for open maps. Last pool was basically just arabia style maps.
I just hope they add black forest for the next week. but yes, Hideout,Arena and Fortress are pretty much similar, should just keep one of those.
They should add more maps to be played and more bans.Always should have not only arabia but also black forest and arena available as they are most liked maps.
I miss Voobly more and more when this is the state of multiplayer in this game...
Agree. Stream chats are always like "how can I play this map?"
One thing that really gets mecrazy - why SEVEN mpas ffs, when there is a place for eighth map? jesus christ
definitely agree !
Every time there’s a tourny, there should be a featured map from it
Adding the map pool of the current upcoming biggest tournament at every moment would honestly make me both: watch more tournaments and play more AoE2.
"Variation is the spice of life [in my opinion]." The Viper, 2023
There are so many cool maps on tourneys around the year I would like to play on ranked and never get the chance...
I definitely agree
There are sooo many maps used in tournaments and Ladder map pool doesn't reflect that AT ALL! Would be so nice if they changed it!
Can confirm, I'd love to play tournament maps if the people who made them were fine with it. Playing the same pool of maps over and over is really tiring
SO TRUE!
I agree with the problem overall. But I do appreciate the fact that they don't go TOO much out of the way and funky stuff and I think it's okay overall to play this one save. Also it's very simple as it stands, which is another plus imo.
The Viper has spoken and dropped the mic
Like: The idea to include tournament maps on the pool
Dislike: The lack of water maps on them
Oh boy I love water maps, last map pool had Baltic and Four lakes. It was heaven..
That's my main issue, water in them. I hate water. And sadly most hybrid maps play out very similarly, you win water, get castle age or imp faster and gg wp.
There was Land Madness and Shotels but people votes for the walled maps
Completely agree Vipi
Tournament maps would be nice
Yeah I play with AI mostly and pick maps from current tournaments most of the time :D
More and different maps please!
100% agreed. Every time a map appears in a tournament and is approved by the pro players at the end of the tournament it should be added to the pool.
Great video Viper
“Arabia has a lot of variety”
Literally the same map repeated over and over, has no naval, opponents generally wall themselves in… “variety”
Love this game but it almost feels like the Devs are butthurt that Voobly did it better by allowing ANY MAP to be played as ranked, and they are determined to do anything but allow us (the consumers) to play how we would like.
Just include these cool maps in the "Mega Random" map pool and remove some of the more wacky ones from it. In addition more bans would be cool.
He has solved it tournament rotation
Coliseum in map pool would be lit!
TL; DR: Why not 2 ladders? 1 with a lot of maps (like 40?) AND unlimited bans, other 1: NO bans, NO civ-pick (as 'real elo' or for tournament-seeding/qualis) + better queue algorithm + easy opt-ins for 9 vill start etc.
--> Longer explanation -->
Imo, I think there could even be like 40 or more maps (with some change continuously) in the map pool, BUT unlimited bans. To me it still makes no sense, that you have the option to pick 1 specific civ, but not 1 specific map in ranked, as some civs, especially when a new DLC comes out, are just better on certain maps than others, which kinda defies the "map bans rather show your true elo"-argument. One might also argue it creates longer queues, but if you want a quicker game, just unban a few maps. Maybe it even could create a larger player-base as people finally get to play the maps they want and get puntos for it. E.g. If you only want to play ranked 1v1 black forest with Vikings all the time plus get a little elo reward for it, you may turn on DE more often? (fatslob comeback?)
Now probably another argument could be, that this destroys the sense and use of ELO, but why not have seperate ladder with NO bans and NO civ picking? Again it should be easy to opt-in and out for that ladder (like the click boxes for 3 vill start, empire wars, 1v1, 2v2, etc.) to avoid longer queues if you wish. Same could be done with the 9 vill start as a simple clickable option maybe even within the same ladder. Wouldn't that also be closer to the 'real elo' and better for tournament-seeding where pros have to qualify via ladder-games? Likewise I think the queue-algorithm needs a rework too for faster matches - I've seen streamers waiting several minutes in the spectator dashboard for their match, though there were other players similar in elo/placement queueing at the same time. Eventually there could even be a toggle where you can choose whether you rather want a quicker queue, but the chance of a higher elo disparity or rather a longer queue until someone with a similar elo to yours comes up.