[SUGGESTION] Duels and future stuff

I don't like the current duel player ranking.
More people have 100 elo than those who have 100+ and are not ranked in any normal way (everybody shares rank 152).
This is not a problem for the competitive scene but it kinda puts off the rest of the community.
So when we take into consideration that Xonotic could be more popular in the future then is not very good.

Not only that, but there would have to be some sort of automated matchmaking that would put stats into use. Coordinating these things is a problem. Forums take time, irc is usable but it takes hours to get a match together so I don't bother.

Xonotic really needs some sort of a launcher with pickup/matchmaking capability, it would solve so many problems. If it could be interfaced with the server, players would simply select gamemode, server, map and the game would (optionally) balance the teams.

Now the question is whether this is even relevant when the player base is small. But there are reasons why the base is so small.

I found that launcher project thing here on the forums but it seems to be forgotten an all links are dead thanks to canonical.

The reason they have 100 elo is because when you don't play your elo drops down till it's 100, they are simply not active.

this point is moot because the rankings only go to a certain extent and the baseline is only 100. if the baseline was lowered and the rankings lengthened, you'd be much happier. It's all relative. Most casual players don't care for elo anyhow so your train of thought is illogical, although certainly stats should be improved upon.

No, this is not quakelive; no Xonotic player should need to be held by the hand, especially to the extent of arranging teams.
IRC is a matchmaking system which is more than sufficient and VERY well organized; it just lacks players. you blame your laziness on the system when it should be on the small playerbase.
When xonotic gains more players, of course there will be a boost of people on public servers and matches will be much easier to find anyway.

In addition, elo is an ESTIMATION of skill level based on quantitative data; there are players who are incredibly good and have duel elo in the 400s. people forget this, and it destabilizes the auto match making idea

I would go so far as "Reccomended Servers" and that's it; similar to the welcome page on QuakeLive, this is a far better aspect to draw on as it provides more freedom of choice, less set in stone hand-holding for idiots newbies and more of a flexible hand-holding ethos.

and the reason why the playerbase is small is certainly not because we lack a crappy quakelive-esque launcher.

The problem with the small player base isn't going to fix by itself. And I'm still not gonna use IRC like thousands of people who try Xonotic. And its not that I'm lazy, I'm not going to wait 3 hours for a game, thats insane.
Elo is an estimation yes, but its mostly right. I don't see how "hand holding" is a problem as long as it results in balanced gameplay, but yeah completely unnecessary in Xonotic.
Remember that public team games were always broken, look at what counter strike GO did with competitive game mode.

We had someone work on a lobby / matchmaking system, but (from my perspective at least) they disappeared.