The big problem with the game is that it’s not competitive; only a few gods are being favored, and the rest simply cannot compete. I’m referring to the poor game balance and those annoying raids that only benefit 3 gods: Poseidon, Susanoo, and Odin. Those 3 gods have always been at the top of the ranked ladder because it’s easy for them to win every match in 12 minutes, as other players simply quit the game because they can’t counter those raids. This problem doesn’t happen with other AOEs because they don’t have heroes, myth units, and divine powers, plus towers and TCs are more powerful in AOE. My recommendation is to nerf cavalry raids and buff TCs and towers against light cavalry, plus make tower and villager upgrades more accessible
Sounds odd since as you filter for higher and higher elo some god performance do change. I also do see people value wayy to highly 3-4 % difference. Losing 4 more games per 100 games as another player isnt really game breaking imo.
Do you really think every civ in aoe2 has the same strengh and representation in both ladder and competitive enviroments?
Given how gods like set and shennong in the image you show are doing quite well while not having access to cav in classic age. And other gods that do have not doing as well does kinda show its not as simple as “horse strong, please nerf”.
Looking at Poseidon, clearly theres a difference between his horse play and what hades zeus or demeter do. So Just nerfing horse makes some the gods you want to make viable even worse since you are generalizing a problem instead of specific dynamics.
Freyr for example also has acess to freya like odin, and the same units, so theres clearly something else happening besides “cav auto wins please nerf it”
Yes, there are some games that aren’t made for competitive play…
AoE 3, AoE 4, and AoE Online do have heroes, but they don’t have overpowered things like powers (although they do have passive and active abilities that can be used occasionally)…