uhh excuse me AoE 4 is a gem, the best game of all, it will save the AoE franchise a bring it out of obscurity. So leave those old ways and get with the new program.
1 Like
No matter, I knew my words were going to be stinging.
And ok, perfect, AoE3 has hardly any problems outside of what is the content of the game. If someone sees structural problems for which the game does not grow, they are a hater and justify mistreatment of the game.
Regards.
1 Like
My suggestion is you submit your cv to microsoft, instead of lecturing us plebs here.
Or maybe not because you have earned enough by watching matches. You don’t need to waste your time on this pitiful little game.
The game has received little promotions since the very beginning. No one ever tried. It was not only omitted in tournaments, but also on twitter, on the youtube channel, and on the 25th anniversary of its own series. Long before the “fancy complex stuff” (which violate the golden rule of competitive AOE of course) were added. That’s why it does not have a “competitive” scene (by your definition). Idk how you reverse the logic and attribute it to some inherent “problems” of the game.
Such questions have been discussed here over and over again. A lot of ideas have been proposed. From to new contents, to better tutorials, to more advertising, to even radical ideas like “reduced” modes for matches specifically. I don’t know how you dare to represent “anyone sees structural problems for which the game does not grow”.
Now what? None has ever been tried even once.
I don’t think either we need the “stinging” insights from someone who have ascended into the rank of the cooler kids.
I watch tournaments occasionally when I have the interest. But I didn’t see you playing. Where were you?
5 Likes
Glad you mentioned AOE1.
AOE1 had extremely bad balancing, lackluster mechanics, and very clumsy controls. The players in Vietnam had to invent a million rules out of thin air to make it competitive. None of them was intended by the game developers. 80% of the game contents (baffling considering how small the game already is) are never touched in those matches.
If it’s because of some “structure advantages” that AOE1 has a competitive scene, those players from Vietnam must have all migrated to the new, more optimized version of the game right? AOE1DE and RoR must have been huge successes right?
If people want to compete they will always find a way. Even for games that were never designed to be competitive (like Total War), there are competitive players.
Whether there is a “competitive scene” is a pure game of money, with some luck factors (like the original AOE1 in Vietnam).
If one wants to force a competitive scene into AOE3, it’s even easier than AOE1. At least this game has a modern core and functions much better. We just need to gather some competitive players to hand pick civs, cards and maps that are “competitive” and for god’s sake promote it. Now, nobody ever tried in the first place since the release of DE ——guess what we mean when we talk about “mistreatment”?
I thought people have already learned it the hard way in the 10 years trying to mimic Blizzard. So many devs and players suffered in that stupid competitive 1v1 hell. So many games prioritized making the next great esports over anything else.
Then what? There was still only Blizzard. Then even Blizzard killed its own RTS business.
At least leave some games with their own identity. I’m again very selfish. I would rather NOT live in the “golden age of esports RTS” where I have to do the same labour but only in different skins across 100 different games.
RTS is one of the rare genres I see where some diehards ask for fewer contents (even the far more competitive MOBA is not like this). Such is the sequela of that RTS esports plague which drained the entire genre, only to prove that RTS was unfit for esports (that’s why MOBA took over completely).
Edit2: don’t get me wrong. If some competitive players request certain QoL functionalities for competitive plays, or propose some special modes, rules and events to promote competitive gameplay (pray if the higher-ups ever look at them), I would not say a word.
But if they want to “fix” the core game and revert it to a more monotone state like “the shiny new one” with static chicken where you can only play the same few sequence of moves 10 times a day regardless of the mode you’re playing, and no other choices —— no thanks.
Edit: and these are off-topic. The main reason people are quite angry here is because they don’t promote the work they have already done.
Whatever your esports theory is, that does not explain such treatment. It could only explain why some games are more worked on while some games are not (and the not-competitive AOE3 ironically does not belong to the latter. It has received THE MOST free updates in contents by far), but NOT why a business would prefer to hide the work they have already done themselves.
6 Likes
This thread has derailed a bit lol just enjoy the games. I enjoy aoe3 the most but aoe4 is also a really good game especially enjoyed the campaigns, aoe4 is probably more competitive but aoe3 is a lot more fun just to play casually.
1 Like
Sorry but maybe the majority doesn’t just care about competing at all?
AoE3 wasn’t in redbull because the AoE3 pro scene did not think too hard till it was too late. Next time, we need AoE3 pros to lobby for a slot for AoE3 in redbull.
But despite all of that, AoE3DE still gets the most quality updates, despite the company not caring about it. So, for the most part, it doesn’t seem like we are in some bubble. Seems like some of these competitive players (and you) are in some bubble of their own - this little bubble where they imagine their winrate or elo or their ability to quick wall under pressure makes a difference to anything or anyone but their egos.
4 Likes
You don’t know what they tried to do to include AoE3 in Red Bull (even Showmatch) anyway.
If it’s okay that many of you have no interest in competitive, I respect it, but if the game doesn’t have one of the 3 pillars (stability, fun and competitiveness) I don’t know why there are complaints that AoE3 was not included in RB, enjoy the game and that’s it.
P.S: In AoE3 there are not professionals, only some high level players.
2 Likes
sarcasm killing me rn XD
1 Like
There were plenty of individual AoE 3 players as well as ESOC who already lobbied for a slot in RBW:L last year iirc. Red Bull couldn’t promise anything as the schedule was already tight with the finals of AoE 1 as well as group stage and playoffs for AoE 2 and 4.
Imo instead of the cheat unit showmatch they did last year as AoE 4 introduced cheat units one year after its launch, they could’ve filled that slot with AoE 3 instead
9 Likes
ok, i’ll ask very politely the following question, what defines competitiveness of the game, what you call the third pillar? saying aoe3 lacks the competitiveness pillar is very misleading, its there but its not a priority, because why prioritize smt only 10% or so of people care about
on my take, i much rather lack the competitive pillar over lacking the other 2
(and yes i’ll say it directly, competitiveness pillar is all aoe4 has to offer, hence the constant declining), and i’d lie if i said i enjoyed aoe4 campaing offering, spoilers, i was burned out badly by it, which never happened in any rts i tried to this day, let that sink in
5 Likes
and if you use balancing as basis for competitiveness pillar, then why is aoe3 with 22 very assymetric civs arguably better balanced than aoe4 is, same with aoe2, 43 civs, way better balanced than 4 (and by that logic aoe3, easier to balance 43 fairly symetrical civs over 22 radically asymetric ones)), 4 is still the bottom of that list btw and thats with just 10 civs that are less asymetric than current aoe3, and the balancing is all relic’s been doing consistently for last 2 years, any other update to features and what not took an eternity
Depth in a game can be appreciated by many players, but it can also present some challenges that can make it difficult to balance and reach competitive play. Example:
-
High barrier to entry: If the game is too complex, new players may feel overwhelmed and discouraged from entering the competitive environment. This could limit the growth of the player community and reduce skill diversity among competitors.
-
Difficulty Balancing: The more units, mechanics, and strategies in the game, the more difficult it will be to achieve near-perfect balance. Balancing can become a complex challenge for developers and could lead to mismatches that overly favor certain strategies and units (and those left undiscovered due to lack of players), affecting competitiveness. It is not true that AoE3 is more balanced than AoE2 or AoE4 (this last game also fails in some pillar).
-
Challenges for viewers: A game with a lot of depth can be difficult to understand and follow for viewers who are not familiar with all the mechanics and strategies. This could decrease audience interest in competitive play and affect the viability of tournaments and events.
Excessive depth could negatively impact the competitive environment by making it difficult for new players to enter, complicate balance, and challenge viewers’ understanding.
Tools for a favorable competitive environment should also be guaranteed, such as the AoE2 and AoE4 ban system to guarantee fairer games, improve the replay and Matchmaking system and a good interface to broadcast games, etc.
Why is a favorable competitive environment good for the game even if they don’t represent the majority of players?
-
Attracting committed players (who will dedicate hours to the game).
-
Better and more accurate feedback.
-
Professionalization of players (content creators or high level players), which will allow better PROMOTION of the game.
-
Inspiration and aspiration of casual players, having as a reference high-level players to improve.
In summary, a favorable competitive environment is essential for the growth and longevity of a game like AoE3, since it attracts and retains committed players in that aspect (even if they are not the majority, but they play many hours), they promote the game in the scene of " e-sports", improve the game through player feedback and enrich the experience for all players in the community.
I can hardly explain it better.
The best competitive environment was in the 2016-2019 season with the ESO-C patches and broadcasts.
5 Likes
How can you make the game more popular if you don’t make any attempt to advertise it? Do you think its a magical thing that just happens? Aoe3 was heavily hindered on launch because the game DELETED files from people’s pc. Now, how can somone release the game at that state is another talk. Any chance of increase in gamers when the game was the most advertised, AKA on release, was rendered null by this bug. Do you think people will just trust a game for months in a state like that?
Aoe2 constantly gets ‘advertised’ from all the tournaments it gets, that are mostly sponsered by Microsoft (around 90% i would say). People feel like its still an active game there. I also heard that the people that get to decide what tournaments Microsoft (‘worlds edge’) sponsers, are members from aoe2 community. How is this a fair hiring process, i don’t know.
I agree with you, Aoe3 doesn’t get as many viewers as Aoe2, but nobody is saying the tournaments for Aoe3 has to be in the same caliber as Aoe2. For instance, a 5k tournament, would be sufficient. Instead of giving Aoe2, 50k tournaments, you can reduce it to a 45k.
And people talking bad about aoe3 are just parroting aoe2 players, who are very vocal. Just ask them a few question regarding aoe3 to see if they really have played aoe3 and see them fumbling as they don’t know what you are talking about.
Also, instead of focusing on modes that nobody asked for, like Tycoon or Empire Wars, that was totally unneeded given the complexity of aoe3 (how do you even balance for both supremacy and Empire wars when you can’t even balance supremacy?) Devs could have focused on other contents, such as more single player campaigns or bug fixes. Nobody on their right sanity would purpose a mode like Empire Wars having played at least 2 aoe3 games… This tells all we need to know about who ‘manages’ the game. To further push this mode, they removed deathmatch from the queue system to put empire wars… Who asked? How many people did you really gain from this? There are 170 people in ranked empire wars, and 30 in team empire wars ranked.
Of course when you continue to make shitt* decision regarding what needs to be done, by incompetence or malice from Worlds Edge, you can then say ‘the game isn’t doing as well even when we tried’… but the problem is because of your management, not inherent flaws of the game system. Nobody is playing aoe3 to play another aoe2.
Also you are not correct in saying aoe3 isn’t ‘balanced competetively’. If you check the stats we have, aoe3 civs have all winrates ranging from 45-58, which means that except a few civs, game also has ‘competetive’ balance.
10 Likes
This exactly, AoE 3 needs some advertising across the social media platforms. The game should have been included on RBW and talked about more in the anniversary event. Port it to XBox to pick up more players. It’s not going to be as popular as AoE 2 and that fine but Microsoft doesn’t even try to advertise it to garner more players.
6 Likes
i see all the points mentioned and agree with majority, but here’s parts i don’t agree with:
technically yes but only for highest elos, so not that impactfull lower you go
this here wrongly assumes every player that tries the game ends up on ranked ladder, if you want to know where especially aoe4 failed, this right here is what you’re looking for
this tho is a very valid point, tho DE did copy paste esoc patch balance to main game, the balance besides sweden seemed fine till new civs started dropping rapidly
1 Like
You have the proof with this patch.
And within the (balance) feedback from high level players there is also feedback from technical players who worry that there are no ultra broken strategies at lower levels or worry about the treaty.
When I talk about casual players I’m talking about some, others don’t leave PvE (and don’t have to), but there is a greater chance that a casual player will start to be more frequent and faithful to the competitive environment.
There was a part, but there was no full balance copy-paste from ESO-C to DE and the Swedes and Incas were ultra broken.
That’s not counting other problems that the user above said that I prefer not to remember.
How could you have “professional” players if there is no official tournament in the first place? Do they make a living by donations from the community?
Now I see many people’s perspective.
In their eyes there are two kinds of players: “casual” players who have low elo and “competitive” players who have high elo.
In fact there are a far larger, silent group of players who only play pve, (custom) campaigns, or mp with friends. Those are the real “casuals”.
Now has there been any attempt to appeal to those people? They did as much as their attempts to promote the competitive aspect of the game, which means none.
Not every game needs to plunge into that competitive 1v1 hell. People are occupied enough by their jobs. I don’t think most would want to start a second career in a stupid video game.
The fact is many, I’d say most, games lived quite healthily without any competitive orientation (yet the competitive people still find ways to compete). Whatever your game is, even when it’s as “shallow” as AOE1, competitive players still play only 10% of the game. For any game you can leave out that 10% “competitive, balanced” part of the game for them to compete. Give the 90% to the greater majority of players. A lot of game tried to mimic Blizzard, or Blizzard’s most successful part (esports of course), by only offering and focusing on that 10%, forgetting Blizzard games had great casual gameplay as well.
And that’s what killed RTS. You optimize that competitive aspect to the utmost you get MOBA, and it then overthrew RTS. But such mindset continue to plague the genre nowadays. After this genre killed its own competitive scene, some competitve diehards still oppose more contents for the sake of competitiveness. That is unprecedented. You never see a single game genre where fewer contents and stalled expansion is considered a good thing. Not even for the far more competitive ones. How many heroes are there in LOL now? Considering it’s a 5v5 game, what is the depth that brings? Do the competitive players complain about too many contents every day?
But you see that in RTS——a genre that has been proven to be unfit for esports.
AOE3 occupies a special spot in the RTS world. There are already enough games for you to do the same kind of labour with different skins every day. I can spend a whole day transitioning from “recite 10 build orders within the precision of seconds, medieval version” to “recite 10 build orders within the precision of seconds, sci-fi version” to “recite 10 build orders within the precision of seconds, fantasy version” to “recite 10 build orders within the precision of seconds, medieval version #2”. And you cannot play anything beyond that, either in sp or mp. That’s why they need to continue offering campaign and other sp contents to keep the majority of people fresh (AOE4 fails on this). I just want a game where I can try out different fun and stupid things without some competitive invisible hand telling me “no you’re not allowed to play these!”
But has anyone also advertised this side of the game once? Still no.
TLDR: you tried nothing to promote it, and you use it as an excuse for not promoting it.
7 Likes
The more I involve in such discussion the more it solidifies my belief that RTS is an inherently “inferior” genre. It had its heyday in the 2000s because it found the best balancing point between scale, micro, viewer experience, pacing, and a lot of things. Nowadays however it has become its greatest weakness. Game industry has developed so much that if you look for grand strategy games, micro-intensive games, games that are good for streaming, games that last for days, games that you can finish in 10min, you have far better options for each.
None of those genres neglect more contents and greater depth.
RTS on the contrary: according to some people, more content hurts it. Greater variety hurts it. Better graphics hurts it. Better detail hurts it. Innovation hurts it. You’d better leave it in the ICU if it is so fragile.
Either that some people are wrong, or RTS is really doomed.
Someone speaks as if “competitive esports” is some brand new trend of the new era. No. It’s actually obsolete. A healthier industry has something to offer whatever kind of game you look for. They don’t need to all do the same thing. And RTS has been particularly short on that. There are many more innovative RTS games with freshingly different gameplay and they never got any attention. What would you think if some CS diehards come and teach COD to ditch its story mode, or BF to switch to small and fast maps, or most other FPS to remove aim-down, so that the games can have more competitive players? Why can’t I look for different things in different games?
Many people including whoever is managing this series fail to acknowledge that. AOE never was well-received as an esports. It always fell far behind SC and later WC3 in terms of that. It had its foothold in RTS because of its unique historical setting and greater scale. The series was brought back into public attention because of a fan-made mod not some community-held tournament. It would be a miserable mistake not to take greater advantage of that, but to force the Blizzard esports into it instead. Do you have Blizzard games’ unit control in the first place?
EDIT: do you know among the true casual players (those that played some sp contents and shelved it like any other sp game), what is the most memorable and recommended part of the shiny new “welcome to competitive AOE” game? Campaign cutscenes.
6 Likes
I haven’t thought about that but now that you say that… yeah, RTS as a genre has a difficult stand these days as people seemingly love to complain about everything.
I wouldn’t say that esports is obsolete. Sure, it’s just one small part and most certainly not new but as someone who modded the Red Bull channel last year, I can say that esport can draw people into the game as we had chatters who saw the game(s) for the first time and got interested.
esports however shouldn’t be the deciding factor for a game.
2 Likes
What a piece of story you have told, mate. No one forces you to play a mode you don’t want.
You have a brutal bias and prejudice against competitive RTS play.
-
You underestimate competitive players as an insignificant minority (+20% in games like AoE2 or SC2) without taking into account the passion, dedication and hours of those players in the community.
-
You describe the competitive environment as hell with pejorative terms towards competitiveness.
-
You associate the competitive approach with the death of the RTS genre.
The genre declined in its time due to the competitiveness of the market, new player preferences in other games and online, higher complexity/barrier to entry, and the lack of a competitive team environment separate from 1v1, not E-Sports. .
- You underestimate the importance of E-Sports. You underestimate the relevance of e-sports and its impact on the growth and promotion of RTS games (the 2 most advanced). E-sports have been a catalyst in increasing gaming exposure and attracting new players.
It’s not fair to dismiss the competitive focus in RTS, as many people enjoy the challenge and excitement that competition provides. A balanced approach that spans diverse experiences can be beneficial to the growth and longevity of the RTS genre.
You can always separate the game modes and provide a varied experience in casual (where AoE3 has been more focused these times) and competitive (where it needs to be improved) modes to provide a gaming experience for everyone.
2 Likes