A Pro Council for Better Balance

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
21

You are ignoring that I was referring to someone else’s standard: “By that standard”. This is what I was referring to:

I have dedicated years to this game. I started playing it as a child. I am very passionate about it.

You see, @KHANATTILA, you don’t know what you are talking about. I know that I am a mere 1200 Elo player, I admit that I don’t know everything. But the pros are not as circumspect, I’ve seen them suggest some absolutely absurd ideas for general balance. Why? Because they think by virtue of their credentials that they know all things when they do not. Because they spend all their time focusing on the pro scene and neglect the rest of the game.

The Hera-Humzh video should be proof of this. He thought that by virtue of his being the best player in the world that he could get a total noob to win his first game on the 1v1 ladder. Total absurdity! He was thoroughly trounced. In fact, Humzh didn’t win even the second, third, fourth, and I don’t know how many more games.

Could I do any better? Could I get a brand-new player to win a 1v1 with fewer matches? I don’t know, I honestly don’t know. But I at least would understand that half the difficulty is the game itself.

T90’s uncle is 500 Elo on a good day, but I bet he could beat many of the pros of 20 years ago. What makes the pros of today any better than the pros of 20 years ago? The average player, that’s what. Now, with the average player of today being as good as the pros of 8 years ago, the pros are forced to copy more strategies from the average player.

RBW: El Reinado, the grand finals, Hera pulled out a trick he copied from regular players. That trick is banned in tournaments to this day because it is overpowered. An overpowered technique was completely ignored by the pros but discovered by average Joes.

The pros are no more qualified than any of us to decide general balance.

Edit: you see how passionate I am?

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22

Yeah, i agree

Yes same as I said, they know alot about balance in the highest of elo, but not about low elo etc. They shouldn’t be totally ignored, but also shouldn’t be deciding everything. you need knowledge how to balance units in all elo brackets as much as possible. Otherwise you will get units that can be countered only with hardcore micro which pros take for granted and in low elo doesn’t exist.

23

I’ll start at the end. I hope I’ve kept this reply as short as possible.

Everyone on this forum is passionate about this video game. The same can be said of people posting on Reddit, those active on various Discord forums, the pros & content creators, and even the developers themselves (who sometimes receive far too much animosity when it is actually the management who should be blamed).
We’re all here because, in one way or another, we love this video game.

This confirms something that is already well known in the chess world, as it has been widely acknowledged for a long time: not all grandmasters (aka pros) are cut out to teach. Some very strong players are (RIP Danya), others are not. Being a very strong player and being able to teach are two distinct skills.

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, I spent a lot of time coaching players with an 1v1 Elo rating of 1200-1400, because I didn’t have much else to do, and even now, I still find myself taking part in or watching matches involving players with a TG Elo rating below 1600 (~1800 1v1). And there are blunders I keep seeing:

  • playing camels as a hard counter to battle elephants
  • playing knights as a counter to Arambai
  • playing Genovese as a counter to Cataphracts
  • playing CA with the Ethiopians, thinking they shoot faster
  • booming with the Maya in Black Rage Forest
  • playing Firelancers, because they’re overpowered in all situations, right?

The list could really go on and on. That’s why I don’t blindly trust any changes suggested by the average player. Not that they don’t have nothing to say, mind you, which brings me to my next point.

The best and most valuable feedback you can give is on the consistency and clarity of the game, and if there is a strategy that 97% of players cannot handle.

If, as mentioned above, players are blindly playing camels, it’s clear there’s a problem somewhere. Or how it annoys me that the Condottieri haven’t been moved to the Shock infantry class and aren’t affected by Gambesone. This, along with many other minor issues, makes the game less digestible.

Btw, I suggest you take a look at how TheViper played eight years ago before making comments like that.

24

Yeah i can totally agree with the clarity which have been consistently becoming poorer and poorer, and then thrown out the window.
in the aok you had two units to point out to new player huskarl and chatapract: now its ghulam, genoesse crossbows, Jian, war chariot, fire archer, bolas rider, all of wich have unitnuitive bonus damages and armor… and all these new gimmicks new units have is clearly making new players think how to use them, when in fact you can ignore everything mybe with exception of armor ignoriing and poison damage (leitis, liao dao, armenian archer). of course i forgot some …

25

Which is why I said, “The pros are no more qualified than any of us to decide general balance.”

And understanding how the game works is a third. Most of the pros and casters don’t actually understand how a lot of the mechanics work. The average player is not much better in that regard, but there are a few, mostly modders, that do.

And I say don’t blindly trust changes suggested by the pros. They may have experienced the game but they often don’t understand it.

I see you also don’t understand the game mechanics.

Oh? Was TheViper worse than I thought?
Perhaps I should have said “the average competitive player of today being as good as the average pro of 8 years ago,”. Other than the top 8-10 players, the average pro wasn’t that good. Hera is dominant because he is consistently very skilled, the Viper was dominant because he was the only one that was that skilled.

Huskarl? not Throwing Axeman? not Mameluke? not Janissary? not Chu Ko Nu? Huskarl, like Samourai, is positively bland compared to those.

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26

In my personal opinions, professional Age of Empires II players shouldn’t be involved simply because, I feel, as a game Age of Empires II would benefit most from approaching new content from a historical context first, before adjusting it for balance if required.

Bringing pro players into the development means historical elements will almost surely suffer straight away, even if a tight leash is kept on the degree of changes that are allowed. If something historical is an actual problem for gameplay, it should be adjusted based on everyone’s feedback and not just the feedback of a small handful of elites. The rate of pro players versus single player- or casual lobby ones are still one to hundreds, and unique flavours are preferred over enforced limitations on deviation from the curve.

If anything, pro players should have little-to-no say in balancing outside of tournaments, where they would control factors such as map and civilization selection. Outliers in either category can be banned. Differences in quirks and flavour is something the pro players can more easily adapt to than the average player, thus they are consistently the least affected by balance changes anyway, or have the easiest time overcoming them.

So, in short: Artistic vision first, balancing second.

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The topic was understood very differently, and it turned into chaos. Most people said that pros should not be the ones making decisions. If you read carefully from the beginning, what I suggested was that a council made up of pros should have a 50% say. I never suggested that pros should decide everything. What I imagined was developers and pros representing the community making decisions together. Or that developers would make some decisions, while pros would make others. This topic was not understood correctly. It created the impression that I was saying pros should decide everything.

I just thought that if balance was handled in a more democratic way and with different perspectives, better results would come out. Some people may think that 5–6 pros would not represent the community. But democracies are also represented by a few hundred members of parliament in the end. We cannot take opinions from the entire community one by one. Also, when I say pros, I do not mean only 2500+ Elo players. Streamers like MembTV and T90, mod creators, and people who have dedicated years to this game are at least as experienced and knowledgeable as pros.

In conclusion, what I want is for a council of 5–6 community members with high game knowledge and experience to help the game developers with a 50% say in decision-making.

29

I tried to communicate in my post that even if the control is partial or heavily overseen, it might interfere with the vision of the developers. It’s hard to say in advance what they could- or would affect, and there are certainly bad changes they could prevent (cough, bleed, cough, poison), but there also plenty of pleasant quirks they might consider pointless or vestigial in nature. Those little details wouldn’t really matter to someone with 60+ APM who don’t really look at anything except for relevant information.

I don’t think there has been a single game that has been improved by pros influencing the development, the result always turns out more clinical, soulless. Starcraft 2 is a great example of why good players aren’t necessarily even halfway decent game developers.

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Do you know if the developers prioritise historical accuracy above all else? Have I been living under a rock for the last few years?

31

I mean the naval and infantry focus of Armenia is totes historical

32

That’s where you went wrong: democracy sucks at getting positive results. “The more democratic a system becomes, the worse the quality of its officials.”

I know, and I disagreed with that notion. I don’t trust the pros to make half the decisions, and I don’t trust the pros to have half the say in any decision.

We, the average player, have just as much representation without a “pro-council” as we would with one. In fact, we have more authority without one. The informal discord that already exists is the limit for what is acceptable.

The topic was considered, the core concept was extracted and evaluated, and found to be utter garbage in isolation, and no factor of the whole topic was submitted considered sufficient to make up the deficiencies of the core concept: therefore, the whole topic was determined to be utter garbage, both in isolation and in total.

33

What? The opposite is true. if you are a dictator you value loyalty over competence. That is why dictatorship depends only on how good the dictator is. If he/she sucks, than everything sucks. in democracy you don’t put all eggs in 1 basket. Thus is much less risky to become instantly bad.

In next statement you just contradicted yourself wtf? So what do you stand for?

Do you want more people to have their opinion on how the balance the game or you want only the devs to do the changes? U make no sense or i dont understand english enough….

PS:
I think we don’t need a pro council, only devs who actually listen to hardcore fans from time to time.
If the council would be formed it should have players from all elo ranges.

34

Society is not a basket–to continue the analogy–it’s a batter. All it takes is one bad egg to make the batter bad. In dictatorships it’s very easy to tell which egg is the bad one, but in democracy there are so many more eggs to check.

Neither pure democracy nor absolute monarchy actually exist. There will always be a little bit of the other. There is even a third element that always exits: aristocracy. These three always exist together. A system can be more one thing than the others, and that one thing is what we often call the system even though it still contains some of the others. A system is good or bad based on how well it balances these elements.

A dictatorship forms when the aristocracy, in order to court the favor of the monarch, abdicates its responsibility to lead the populace. Oligarchy forms when the populace refuses to honor the monarch as is his due. And Mob rule takes over when the people think they don’t need the elite due to the failures of the monarch. (“monarch” might be better translated “sovereign” sometimes)

The Devs are the monarch in this situation; the pros, casters, and other influential persons are the aristocracy; and the regular players are the populace. If the AOE2 “aristocracy” were to have explicit power they would be more concerned about the decisions they make than about their duties to the players, i.e. streaming, casting, performing well in tournaments, or accurately reporting on the state of the game.

This may be getting dangerously close to a “political discussion”, but OP was the one who opened that can of worms in the first place.

35

What’s the difference between democracy and dictatorship?

The masses will always be dumb, but a dictator could be wise and benevolent.

36

@FloosWorld I think this thread needs moderator intervention

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37

It probably does. Politics, like sand and glitter, gets everywhere.

38

Back to the topic.

I disagree with a Pro Council for balance.

This game is not played only by pros. They represent a tiny fraction of the playerbase. The Pros will minimax the fun out of the game with balance changes.

Balance changes should appeal to the greatest possible number of AOE2 players and not just the Pros. At the same time, the devs should not allow certain civs to dominate pro games. There is balance between the two, it’s difficult to be struck, but that should be the goal.

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39

Totally disagree with you. You can’t fix dictatorship if he/she is bad, that is why its dangerous much more than democracy where more people wield power not just 1 person and batter analogy is bad, they can vote the bad guy out or his voice is not strong enough to make chaos.

But as they said its getting political and ill stop here…

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40

You started to discuss democracy… I can delete my posts if it is a problem. I just see we have different views. I think we did not cross the line couse we didn’t use any examples and names. But Aoe 2 de is full of politics if you check campaigns… :stuck_out_tongue: