You want it like capitalism who starts with more money has it easier and wins? If you want such a system plz give me heredity and everything is fine (fucked by definition). If they would introduce such things the playerbase will decrease (do not take it personally). Instead of that a better introducing in the game would get rid of the problem you mentioned.

For me playing rts is learning possibilities at different points in time depending on what your opponent did. If you give players advantages the whole mechanic is different for both players.

You know that I am really concerned about the balance of the game but you don't balance the game you balance human+game. If you balance human+game ranked gameplay is not more needed if it is perfect.

I think we need a bigger playerbase and the problem disappear.

We can give it a try but in a few days.

Giving a bonus to the weaker player will not help that player improve. It will just give the illusion of being able to better compete. I can't imagine how a system like this would even be worked into a ranked ladder or why it would be - it would defeat the whole purpose of a ranked ladder.

Suggestions like this just remind me how very painfully this game needs replays. 

Honestly, I know that implementing replays on a game with this many units must pose a challenge, but without replays, people are left in relative darkness as to how to improve/what they did wrong.  It is acceptable if an rts doesn't ship with replays, but it desperately needs one within a month or 2 of launching.  Besides helping players to learn the game, it is also a great way to sort of unwind from the main game. RTS games, even ones light on micro, like Ashes, are very stressful and are famous for taxing my adrenal gland into exhaustion.  Replays are a great way to interact with a game you like , but just can't "get your nut up" to play.

In short, I think suggestions like this are a indication of the desperate need of repays this game has.

You are right, replays won't address this issue, at least not directly....but the changes you are proposing will address the issue in a way that kind of goes around the problem and, more likely than not, will introduce new problems into the mix.  I mean, I don't know how much fun it is to best someone who is better than you when their hand is tied behind their back.

So I have noticed that most of my favorite strategy games like Company of Heroes and Sup Com/FA had a great many players in ranked who persisted in playing rank despite having atrocious win:loss ratios.  I have also noticed quite a few Ashes players with a Win:loss records like 5:82.  It's funny to me because they have played vastly more games than I have, and, If I had racked up nearly as many losses, I would have stopped playing the game ages ago. I know what I am saying is just an anecdote, but I am quite sure there is a significant portion of the ranked community that bashes it's head against a wall and shows no sign of stopping! Yes, this is a problem, but I don't think the problem is that people are going to jump ship; I think the problem is that they are boring to fight against, and that their gaming habit is more like a masochist addiction than an actual activity that shows sign of progress. Not to say that having a negative W:L record means you are terrible or anything; I do think the game could teach you it's mechanics far better than it currently does.

I think one of the problems here is that while most players can learn eco, build order, and what counter what, many will never learn the psychology that goes along with rts players.  This, as far as I can tell, is not a problem that is limited to Ashes: it's endemic to all good rts games, and to games not made by blizzard who likes to make their fanbase feel maybe a little too good.

As a mid level player, i think the most common pitfall I see players falling into is over prioritizing the beefing up of their resource production. Basically, they build every extractor, amplifier, and refinery they can at the first available opportunity. What they seem to be unaware of is that they are paying for long term gain with a short term loss; by upgrading your production you are not producing as many units as you could (in the short term) and if your opponent has put less into his ability to produce, he is probably putting into a stronger army than you have.  Your opponent having a stronger army is, by itself, not fatal, but if you are going to heavily build up your production capacity you should invest in pretty good intel to make sure you can position your smaller army in the best possible places to stave off massive losses.

The other problem with this is that  teching up in this way, when such a player initially gets attacked and overwhelmed, as they often do, they lose many of the structures they just invested in. So they are paying for a great many economic structures that boost production for a minute or two and then are unceremoniously blown up.  This is a bad investment.

Bottom line: building up your eco should is a decision that should be predicated on what you can defend, how quickly and easily you can defend it, and what your opponent is likely or unlikely to attack. It is not something you should do as soon as you can in every place that it is possible.

"He who defends everything defends nothing" errr maybe "he who techs up everything techs up nothing" This is also a piece of advice that I feel many Ashes players could benefit from.  Seems old Sun Tzu is still relevant in the post Singularity.

That's the core of the issue. Right now very good players can be match with  much weaker player. I certainly know it because I'm regulary matchrd with legendary player and unless there is a technical glitch I loose 100% of the time. As a level 2 player I'm also matched with beginners and win those games almost always. Balanced game for average players are very rare. Now a below than average player  get matched with a large  kind of player and that a good choice because otherwise the wait time will skyrocket but his record plummet.

I understand the solution I'm suggesting comes with a price and even worse a price that can't be appraise. But I think something has to be done now to adress this issue.

It bothers me that people jump into ranked play and expect to do well.

When I picked up the game I spent 20 hours single player on two maps vs AI until consistently beating "the one before last" difficulty. Then I felt like I had the necessary understanding to go MP without suffering damage to my self-esteem.

Having measures like the one proposed would break the game. It would interfere with any game sense about what production can be sustained considering regions & nodes held + what force can be expected by the opponent to field.

It would break the game when facing a weaker opponent but then you don't have a game anyway. I suppose legendary play doesn't need a handicap system in 200 or 300  elo point reach.