Age of Empires 4 vs Metagaming, the true enemy of PvP games

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
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Age of Empires 4 vs Metagaming, the true enemy of PvP games.

Basically every game lives and dies how Metagaming is handled, it’s really hard to design, requires a lot of time and resources and is usually horrible handled.

In short, Metagaming is the way how people do play online their game vs other people. People want to win, so they choose the best way to do it, but it doesn’t mean in same time the fun way to do it.

here good explanation

If its done bad, people play game always in same steps, which leads to simply who can faster click the same steps, and finally make the game extremely boring and repetitive.

Here some common encounters.
-exploit map’s style of play.

Age of Empires had so far a very good way to deal here, each map was randomly generated.
This means, don’t stuck by 1 map, they play all over again same way.

-exploit faction weaknesses
a very common mistake I see is, developers make factions differently, to a point where they completely break strategical decisions. Like for example a faction doesn’t have good ways to counter Air units, so enemy does only buy air units to fight that faction.

-exploit early game weaknesses
a common problem by RTS is rush play, because there are no working measurements to stop enemies early attacks.

Problem is, investigating it all needs time and skill. And time is money, something that is rare.
https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/aoe-ii-de-beta-invite-questions/39071

OK so they started beta testing AoE2 DE, on June 18th, release of the game is supposed to be 14. Nov. 2019. Thats like 5 month, which sounds really good.

Anyway Metagaming “development” doesn’t end with games release, its actually does start as more and more skilled people start to play the game, therefore start to influence other peoples play style, till the one play style is remaining.

Age of Empires had a really big luck with its gameplay, as it did manage over the time to keep its depth and variety.

https://gamerant.com/microsoft-e3-2019-leak/?fbclid=IwAR1O5K1YA8DchvBBxRyuFhUgHSqAsKE9Du-yzvoSc479nAPaHRpsBqnsOxI

Yes, we know right now very little about AoE4. According to Microsoft E3 2019 Press Conference Leaks, we have to expect “Age of Empires 4 - Gameplay reveal, 2020 release date”

And here it does start concern me, if the game is revealed 2019 and release the of the game is 2020.
That’s just less than a year for Metagaming development, to a critical launch date, where people expect it to work, despite it does take a lot of time post launch to be polished.

We have seen over the years a lot of games to be overwhelmed by that task.
What do you expect?

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Metagaming totally break matches in AOE3. Before the game even begins, you gotta be prepared to face what’s coming - which is usually easy, as you know wich civ your enemy is playing with.
The most common metagaming example in AOE3 i can think of is the russian rush. If the russian player do it in the best time, the defender player has a bad time defending - even if he did planned from the start.
There’s the absurd buff stacks too - like the instant training 1k hp french curaissers. Everyome knows these exploits by now, and this make mp games a total mess - a fun, game breaking mess.

This is a really good observation. The random factor appears to be the best “cost effective” way to deal with metagaming - and it can be fun too!
The way players use what randoness gives then is mostly defined by their experience and decision making.
No guide can help you with those.