Please read Section 3.0 regarding ideas and “civilizations” (tech-trees).
Please read Section Conclusion regarding boycotting and the game’s population.
Read more at:
https://meta-plays.com/forums/topic/4422-an-open-letter-to-aom-managersdevelopers-on-how-to-save-competitive-aom/
Read more at the link above.
Of course, that can also serve…
Of course, I wouldn’t have said it better… without new content that attracts people to try Retold, it will be useless to have a balanced multiplayer, because there will be no one to play it…In addition, we must not be exaggerated, surely Retold will bring strong balances to the most op mythologies such as the Norse and the Atlanteans of Cronos and also missions of art of war to learn the classic mythologies and also the newest, such as the Chinese and perhaps the Aztecs…
Why don’t you actually write a response to people about your positions that they disagree with instead of just writing “please read section fill in the blank.”
SC2 was ‘ok’. But it suffers the same problem. It’s so old, anyone who is not mentally impaired already knows the exact balance. Better to mix up some of the balance in the new game and otherwise it’s sort of the same.
I’d like to see some of that 2TC build changed, and the stuff that top players tend to just do over and over, maybe it would make it more of a ‘risky’, takes more time, etc, rather than a ‘win most of the time’ thing.
Aside from that he was only partially right, there are some subgod choices that are just memes or not as good to pick. But ofc he is biased toward Norse.
Couldn’t agree more.
I just wanted to say that it wasn’t this at launch, and therefore RTS games don’t have to launch with a focus on SP content to succeed. It can come later down the line - focusing on PvP first can absolutely be a viable business model.
RTS games occupy a really weird space where they often have huge fanbases for both SP / PvE and PvP content. Take CoD for example. It’s shipped a campaign most of the time, but the big winner is PvP. Always has been.
Take Civilisation and it’s the other way around (though the people who care about MP there care about it a lot).
A lot of RTS games split it a lot more evenly. The SP players often account for a lot of rolling playerbase, but the MP scene is often dedicated by people with a lot of loyalty for a franchise or specific title. And this lasts for years, if properly-supported (just like SP content does).
Well agree I really liked SC2 wings of Liberty and SC2 heart of the swarm. Really cool and unique storytelling (unfortunately i didn’t find the time to play the last part yet)
There really are not many RTS games with good story telling since the focus is more on the gameplay I guess. Never played multiplayer really in these games so can’t talk too much about this.
Yeah this guy comes across really arrogant
they did correct course after seeing it wasn’t working as intended, but ye launch was very competitive and esports centric, but at least SCII did the controls properly right away, didn’t need patches a year later to fix hotkeys or pathing
but there is that phenomenon in RTS with strict split between competitive hardcores and everyone else, imo decent multiplayer portion does matter, as do controls (the thing this part of community will make a priority), but there should be effort put in to make a solid campaign to sell the setting, as well as proper editors becoming a standard again, because a great editor will save devs more time, effort and money down the line
It was also in development for something like seven years (or more, I can’t remember), by a studio that was funded by the titanic success of WoW.
Like, results are dependent on a lot of factors. Resource is always a big one. I was just trying to highlight the design direction, is all.
And you know me. I like the tools Age IV ships with. I learned how to mod Dawn of War in my teens, before I had any programming skill, which is definitely a factor.
It’ll be interesting to see what AoM: Retold ships with. I’m definitely interested in Retold - I’m a sucker for mythology. I playee my brother’s copy way back in the day (and we weren’t good at sharing haha).
aom editor was super similar to what aoe3 has, the same engine codebase, so i’ll be very much familiar with that tooling, like you are with relics (which i ain’t for example), i’ll assume editor for retold will be the same as always, or with some additions, both are about equal possibility
well yes, it was developed for about that long, but not all wow money went there, there was development happening for diablo 3, getting bought by activision and so on, but aoe4 and relic had microsoft backing, imo, this isn’t a problem with lack of resources, its those resources being missmanaged in multiple areas
i still think at its core aoe4 can be a great one, i want it to be because i’d happily put it on the same shelf as aoe2 and 3 or likes of starcraft, but it would seem the people in charge of development direction don’t agree with that (namely aoe part, they are kinda mimicking starcraft 2 hoping for esports), given the only thing atm keeping this game reasonably afloat happens to be the constant big money tourneys
I could care less if AQ was removed myself. Hotkeys are a thing and I use them both in AoE2, 3 and 4. The problem is that this was added in a previous expansion so to take it away you are going to have to add something. This is always how it works with any audience although it being a while since the main game was released and the fact its AoM Retold I think should more than enable this to happen.
The main problem I see is that AoT unbalances the whole main game and TotD further unbalances it and complicates things by shoring up the weaknesses of the various pantheons so there are no weaknesses to take advantage of and adding China. Im not a competitive player mainly because my gaming habits shift and Im not gunning to play AoE2 every waking hour but I like a challenge. Im probably a casual player like many out there but I’ve played 1v1s a lot. After this many years I do want new pantheons to try out but I think adding more is going to be difficult especially as we got the fan made mod that was China. Im excited to see new mythologies but the existing China faction doesn’t excite me a lot and its gonna be difficult to add 6-7 tech trees.
Sorry, but reading the post, you say you don’t intend to use “casuals” as a negative term, and yet when adressing the sections of “boycott” or basically evereything regarding the opinion of casuals, you just basically say “who cares about them, they play the game only occasionnally as opposed to the competitive players”. This just sounds arrogant, and makes it really hard to follow your ideas.
I can understand that the opinion of someone who plays the game more regurlaly and has a deeper understanding of it’s mechanics can be more valuable, but leading the game in a way that caters to these kind of players is not a good option. You need to make the game engaging for all kind of players, to have a bigger playerbase, and from there you can have more people going into PVP, creating content around the game, streaming, making new maps and campaigns…
Just another quote from the post : “AQ basically masks “low intelligence” and steals the glory from worthy players”.
If you can’t see the arrogance in this kind of statements and why it’s not a good way to convince people, I don’t know what to tell you.
You’re totally right. Furthermore, this guy regroups all casual players into his own definition of what a casual player is. I’ve played this game since it first came out and I still consider myself a casual player, not a pro. However, I do not correspond at all to his definition of a casual, so what am I? LMAO
And I think everybody’s opinion is important, whether you’re casual or pro player.
Please read Section 3 regarding DLC’s.
Please read the title.
Please read Section Conclusion regarding Casuals.
Read more at the link above.
Is your Open letter SO long you don’t remember half of it and cannot argue for it why it should be listened to? I don’t even know what my comment in the specific section refers to and you address a possible solution for adding more pantheons in that section not how you explain to the playerbase of AoM why AQ is being removed (I personally don’t care either way it can be removed or not removed Im fine with either). Do yourself a favour (please for your own sake) and explain yourself in words instead of referential comments towards your letter asking every person to do your work of explaining why you should be listened to. I’ve read your letter and agree with many parts of it espeically around balance and the fact that this game at its core was a rock paper scissors match up between different civilisations, but asking me to go and read it again when I have questions about the effect on the playerbase of removing things which have alwys been in the game is asking too much. We don’t all have free lives. Maybe the fact this is game is called Retold gives room for removing AQ but idk how the wider playerbase is going to feel (and the community poll on this showed the feeling). If your game removes a feature people like and enjoy then they aren’t going to play it. Very simple. And I expect RTS pros to more drift towards AoE2 where there are loads of civs to learn with many different mechanics. AoM is different game. Doesn’t mean it can’t have a pro scene it just means it isn’t going to be as deep as AoE2 is probably due to the ideas behind each game.
If you don’t accommodate people and bring them around to your viewpoint (if a person is on ths forum they are clearly more casual than whatever definition you’ve subscribed to) then you won’t see anything of what you want get into the game. I’d like additional factions to play but I realise adding more is going to be a problem because I listened to your viewpoint and agreed with it. Question is how do we get around this problem?. A no compromise position (like in politics, negotiations) won’t get you anywhere.
tbh. this whole thing kinda feels like AoE2 people arguing why every civ should be the same.
“More balance”.
Of all the Age of games I think AoM is the one that is the last one that should be focused on competitive play.
I know there is a big disclaimer for “casuals” at the beginning but I don’t think the game should be too different between casual and ranked.
One of the worst things about AoE4 is that the civilisations in the campaigns have a completely different balance an even have different techtrees.
That means you can’t take over things you learned in the campaign into multiplayer/skirmish.
Same would be true for AoMR. Having multi use godpowers everywhere but ranked would be strange.
The two proposals are weaker god powers or god powers that are basically delayed to give prepare time.
Those two things are boring.
There are the two problems
So either the whole game needs to be boring or ranked will never be perfectly balanced.
And I think 90% of players rather want an interesting game then a perfectly balanced game.
Having big impact full god powers is at the centre of AoM. If you don’t like it then you should probably play AoE instead (especially AoEO seems the closest to AoM without the M).
I disagree completely. This whole “letter” that is barely readable and absolutely inappropriately formatted as a feedback.
It’s just self-entitled person demanding his opinion to be only valid option on how game should be.
First and foremost game has to be fun for as many players as possible. It needs to gain audience, so there are money for further support. Attacking casuals and making game harder & “balanced” is directly against it.
It’s really terrible idea to alienate the largest group of players that can and will pay largest portion of development cost…
Balance and Competitive scene will re-emerge if game is able to have healthy player base. If you just murder casuals then you will have terrible player base and noone will care about watching the game they don’t enjoy.
Makes me curious why “competitive players” always want to make every game a torture for themselves and everyone else.
Lol you are so afraid to address each argument individually to the person questioning your weak points.
Keep on trucking though!
Please read section 4 