I completely agree all of those. It seems devs even don’t care about the issues and the community. That’s really disappointing.
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I really hope the developers let these kind of posts not affect them. The game has been modernized, and is getting constant updates. Your points are just ‘whinging’. If you aren’t happy with this game, go back to Voobly - That still works just fine. The rest of us will stay on DE.
I’ll add, not saying the game is perfect, but its been 4 months - Give them a chance to work through the issues. This isn’t the same team that developed the game 20+ years ago.
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I’m sorry but wouldnt luck be a bigger factor if everyone has to go Random civ? If I get Mayans and my oponent gets Byzantines on Arabia, wasnt he unlucky? I am all in favor of allowing players to choose. ■■■■, I dont want to play the third MegaRandom in a row. Or Hideout. Or Alpine Lakes. Ugh.
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I don’t think you understand how statistics play out when factors are random over time. IMO both map and civ should be random, leading to the best case test of adaptability and skill over time, as anyone with a basic understanding of probability could tell you. There will be cases of civ mis-matches, but they become inconsequential over time, much more so than a system where people can pick Civ.
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this is nuts to me… like thinking of other competitive games… playing heathstone and not doing whats in your deck when you play a game or playing league and given a hero at random you’ve never played on a map you’ve never played. etc etc
like sure it can be fun to adapt and see what happens at times but as the main ranked way to play? theres over 30 civs some people only like certain civs…some are trying to get better by focusing on a main one or two. making it always random just screws this all to ■■■■. No one should have to try to remember all 30 civs in case they get them in ranked…or try to hurry though the tech tree at the start of the game. Even Pro and casters forget things that some civs have or dont have because they aren’t famialr with them. Also if both are random its more then just possible civs match ups…not all civs are good on all maps…that’s the way its supposed to be. Its going to really suck when you get like…islands and someone gets Italians or Vikings and then the other player gets something with terrible navy? these will be common as well as civ counter picks. now its one thing if I chose random and got a bad civ for the map or other player as I made the choice to do so but forcing it? just going to decide matches before they start and anger so many…you have people complaining now because they don’t like the map pool and just want Arabia…having it all random and civ choices is going to be even worse
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Hardly. Comparisons to a game like Hearthstone don’t really apply here either. It’s a completely different game. Civilizations in Age are similar enough that the win rate even for the worst possible civ matchups that you can put together can still result in the underdog winning. Having 30 similar civs and not doing random as the standard for ranked play is simply bonkers. There’s a reason why the majority of ranked play was random civ prior to DE.
It also completely goes against their stated goal to get more players playing more maps to then allow civ picking. I honestly think it’s a test for Age IV to see what the actual needed number of total civs for future expansions is, since we know the Civs in Age IV will be far more specialized. If Microsoft sees that all of the sudden half the civs aren’t being used, the cost benefit is to make the expansions for Age IV more expensive and even offer stand alone civ purchases closer to some other strategy games. The fact that so many people are supporting this behavior is sad for the community long term.
yes the games are different but the point was that its a competitive game where you don’t even know what you can do,what map you’re on or anything until you get into the game. Then its a mad dash to figure out what civ you are with the map hope its something good and figure something out all while trying to do your normal eco and scouting. Like look at HC3…a lot of those matches were so good because the pros knew the maps and came up with ideas on how to best use the map with the civ they picked.
Also what? like yes an underdog can win in age but that doesn’t make it fair. theres meta civs for a reason. ■■■■ theres been thread in this forum about people pissed off playing a meta civ. Like lookingat my example before with islands. if you don’t have anything good for water and the other player is the top tier water civ…you’re already way behind.
MS already knows some civs don’t get used, its why they have balancing updates every month as well as bug fixes yet civ also have different areas they are good in and others they are bad at. That’s why you’re able to pick your civ so when you get a map you can figure out what you’re going to do ahead of time. like mongols are good on open maps not the best on water maps…pre buff goths were good in team games when you could be protected…bad in 1v1s…Indians are good on maps with shore fish…etc etc… that’s the whole point of giving them different bonuses and strengths
also huh? if they see half the age 2 civs aren’t being used…they make expansion more expensive or offer civ stand alones? that doesn’t make sense. Age IV civs are more specialized yes which means like I said before they are going to have more strength and weaknesses if people aren’t using a civ the answer isn’t ‘well up the expansion price or sell a new civ’ they don’t get paid on the civs use where they have to try and cover their cost back. The real answer is ‘huh why don’t people play this civ?..oh its terrible so no ones picking it lets either balance it or remember this lesson for the other new civs we make’. Them being more specialized means that you’re really going to need to know how they work and what map is good for them because if you don’t or random throws you on a terrible map for them its useless
That mad dash is part of the skill involved. If you can’t do it and need to have extra planning, are you really more skilled than your opponent or just good at one facet of the game?
I’m glad you referenced Hidden Cup. The reason those pros are so good and adaptable with every civ? Years of playing on random to test every possible angle out. Not only utilizing 3-5 civs and rotating based off of the map.
There aren’t inherently bad civs. The argument that they release balance patches actually lends itself more to a random civ approach.
Don’t forget that the whole multiplayer system was designed by Relic and adapted for DE. There’s a method to the deliberate changes they made from how Age was played for 20 years previously to how DE was set up.
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For me the main problem is that the game doesnt give us many choices. On Voobly and HD we could decide who to play, with civ pic or without, ranked or unranked on random map or not. Now its weirdly split up between Lobby Browser (where we cant play ranked, and not being able to see ratings of others makes teamgames etc very hard to do) and we have ranked matchmaking where skill levels are even but we cant play the maps we want or against an opponent we want to play (we cant even rematch and we dont even see opponents rating afterwards and its very inconvenient to add them as freinds).
I do not say that the current system is bad but there are some things they could implement that would help many without hurting anyone (like showing ratings, have a build in friendlist, give a option to play random civ if both tic a box while the countdown is on)
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And then he proceeds to repeating himself 
huh? while its years of playing sure its not from playing on random. Check the quarterfinals games. They came into those with civ choices and practiced strats… something they couldn’t do if the civ and map picks were entirely random…all that practicing for celts on cup…gets really screwed over when you get mongols instead. also they kinda did use a lot of the same civ based on the map.
theres a difference of knowing the game and having the skill to adapt over the course of the game with the settings you picked versus being tossed into a game at random. theres also a reason why when they stream they’ll go random but in tournments they don’t.
theres already a mad dash for dark age and trying to scout and get your build order going up…having to check the map and tech tree as well is just dumb it does nothing for the skill its just you both trying to figure out what the hell game you’re in and then hoping you have a decent civ for the map. like you mention are you more skilled and then above said its okay if you get a mad civ for the map cause you can win as the underdog…I mean its possible sure but its uphill fight and when you lose…is the other player actually better? or just benefited from their early advantage?
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12 lobbies in the lobby browser - all impossible to join because they fill up so fast.
300 lobbies shown on aoe2.net, most with 1-2 players.
This is so broken.
Whats the bet microsoft will fix this by blocking access to AOE2.net?
I agree with Skillmund on this issue if not all. I’ve played this franchise since it’s inception. Every version, every add-on. My son and I play 5+ multi-player games per since DE release.Game has crashed at LEAST twice every week. No kidding
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That’s 5+ games per week.
Because random in regular ranked and ladder play has been the standard for years… for a reason. Tournaments/show-matches are emphatically not the same as ranked play. There are rules regarding civ picks within tournaments that elevate civ picking to a strategy. This is because of civ bans, multiple series of games wherein you cannot repeat civ, and tournament rules expressly banning civs or limiting their stats to make play more balanced.
Now if civ bans were an option in ranked play, that would precipitate a better basis for civ picking every game. But they are not at this time.
It’s a strategy game. Adapting on the fly is part of the game. Always has been, always will be.
Law of averages. Outliers (randomly getting lucky and getting a supposed ‘civ win’) are balanced out over time if everyone has to go random every time. Under the current system, this is not the case. This actually leads to matches are less balanced than they should be over time when players are able to select whatever civ they desire. That is, if you really believe that a ‘mad civ’ is the winning factor in those matches. Realistically, this is not always the case when we consider that the ratings for civs on Voobly had most above a 40% win rate, wherein even the worst civs could still win 4/10 games on average in mostly random civ matches. We cannot really tell what the percentages are in DE, as the statistics page for AoE2DE is woefully incomplete. The lack of justification of fear for a ‘mad civ for the map’ would be even more true as of today’s update, wherein the map bias for 1v1s isn’t as extreme between the current maps between the four bans with the omission of Alpine Lakes and Islands.
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No is because they are taking it less serious and don’t care who they get on stream. With that being said though I still see them pick more often then not because they want to try something or work on something and you cant do that in random. Again, you literally gave the reason its random above with what you did before saying well you didn’t do that.
Sure adapting on the fly is part of the game…but theres a difference between adapting to what the other player is doing and the situation and trying to figure what map and civ you’re on as the game started…theres literally maps for random starts if you wanna play those and some pros do but even in those maps you know the baseline of the map so you can prepare.
Bottom line here is I saw people picking all the time before DE and I did too but by your own omission some people were seeing civs and either forcing a random choice or immediately picking the counter Neither helps skill of the game and picking is still important because its what people want to play that’s important. as its not fun if someone…me, you, streamers, pros etc want to work on an idea or a build in ranked or just like a certain civ and we cant because we have to go random. Sure its still possible when I pick a civ that they might’ve picked my counter but they don’t know what I picked its the luck of the draw and I know that going into it. I know my map, I know my civ and im prepared. Hell you skipped over my point about the quarters…if you want more skilled games that’s how you get them. People knowing the maps and preparing plans for said map with civs they know.
Sarcasm : Yeah the games was balanced before DE for sure : Franks, Meso civs still dominating, Cavs archers etc…
At least with new civs it’s not the same civs dominating. I’m sry but the game wasn’t balanced at all before DE. You were just accustomed to it. Everyone playing arabia and the same civs dominating… Yeah clearly…
if you aren’t happy just go back to voobly… God how are there people still raging ? did you take a look at WC3 reforged ?
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The latest update seems to bring a lot of good changes, thanks to the devs for taking care of certain issues pointed here. Especially the fix to recorded games is great news for those who like to go for unorthodox strategies or play FFAs where the wins are usually meaningful and worth watching. I’m not sure if backwards compatibility to watch recorded games has been fixed yet, if not, hopefully it will be soon as keeping a collection of your best games is really nice to have.
As time goes on, hopefully (and thankfully) the content of the main post will become more outdated and making me look like a raging idiot, but that’s a good sign of the game improving, so it’s fine, everybody wins. Some issues pointed in this topic were just personal opinions fueled by frustration, such as new civs or auto-scouting. There seems to be hate towards Voobly/oldschool community, but those contests you love to watch are played by these people and there’s no need to split the playerbase. What I’m trying to say is, civ or balance changes don’t really matter. If the game is stable like voobly, I’m confident that DE has enough going for it to be a worthwhile trade-off for everyone to come to this platform, even if they don’t like some of the new content.
The game still has a long way to go, there are still hard crashes going on, lots of lobby issues with missing games. Not sure if units not responding to commands was fixed. The ELO in unranked is a step in the right direction, however adding W/L display for unranked games would be great, even without showing the ELO (as to separate it from ranked). Lots of people have hundreds of unranked games and 0-5 ranked games.
Profanity filter is still in a really bad spot, it’s really cringe-worthy with things like the letter “i” or “1” being censored. I’m aware some of this is tied to xbox-live, but everyone who is logged in there is currently excommunicated and won’t know about it unless checking here.
Edit: it seems some recorded games still don’t work at all. The devs are still useless.
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Even if they work for MS, they are a small team you know ? they aren’t blizzard or EA. Moreover MS asked them to rework AOE 3 and AOM. They have to follow a schedulde made by MS. The priorities are on the game reworks. They are nice enough to try to keep updates on the game while it isn’t MS priorities. They even make events. They are certainly looking at the issues you list however it certainly requires a lot of time for a small team to fix them while reworking other games…
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