And how do you suggest you increase or decrease AI difficulty in MM?
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Hello, relatively noob-level player (but long-time Age of Empires player) here, and I am really surprised with the heated discussion about the auto-scouting feature. I have read some of the arguments about it, but I am one of those who actually like this feature TBH.
My reasoning behind me liking the said feature, is the fact that I can focus on other equally important parts of the initial part of the game, which is building my economy and bases. I personally am all for giving players options and giving them ways to be able to focus more in implementing their strategies and their economy. Since this game does want to give players the task of being a king, the auto-scouting feature does compliment that experience, as kings donāt personally micromanage an expedition force/spying party. They send out forces and then expect news from them after they return of valuable intel, while the king is focus on building his alliances, his army and then making decisions based on the intel his scouts provide how to make his strategy work.
Anyway, I suppose my only suggestions on the said feature would be the following:
- Just keep the AI of the auto-scout to be as ādumbā as possible. Meaning, it should at the very least perform good enough to see enough of the map, but not better than a manually controlled scout. The idea here being, a manually controlled scout SHOULD be able to perform better than an AI controlled scout, so as to give incentive to those who actually work on improving their scouting skills.
- I personally would like a new āScout unitā that a player can only build a few of (limited in production so as to not abuse them in the long run), with no upgrades enabled for that unit, so as to keep his role clearly as a scout. This is so that players who use an auto-scouting unit, wonāt be confused why they suddenly cannot produce another one.
Thank you and hopefully this might help the devs in implementing this feature which I personally believe is a step in the right direction in opening this game for more people to play. Coz letās face it, making the game unnecessarily obtuse and out of reach for alot of people to enjoy, would be bad for the game and the community as not alot of people would embrace playing it, hence keeping the community smaller or worse would die out once the ācasualsā (which we all were when we started) got tired of being told to āgit gudā and for them to move on to other accessible games. I really want this game to thrive and for the RTS genre in particular to flourish in this modern age, and so far AoE2DE is doing a stellar job atleast in my opinion in making the genre as accessible and as easy enough for new players to get into, with all the quality of life improvements in the game.
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While that is a good point. Scouting is an important part. Because you need to see what your opponent is going forā¦
So auto scout imho should be set as a host lobby option and be turned off by defaultā¦
Changed my mind about the issue, after more than a month I must admit I use auto scout sometimes, and Im happy devs added this to the game, good job! Best of it is mbls meme song
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i have stopped scouting completelly and just focus on getting a perfect fast castle boom done.
if i were to focus on both manually scouting this would not be possible for me and the pazoff of outbooming my enemy is so much higher than some better scouting.
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You have the multi waypoint for scout
Also, you can guess where your opponent is probably and making the scout go around there more.
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They should do a survey 6-months later and see how many use and love it compared to when it first launched 
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When auto-scouting was announced, I was very much against it - automating a key part of the game is not the best way to help noobs. Iāve given it a couple months though and here are my thoughts:
-
How does auto-scouting change the way you play the game? Please explain.
At the start of the game, I scout manually, as before. In late Feudal/Castle I usually turn auto-scout on. -
Would you consider auto-scouting āusefulā given your skill level? Why or why not?
Definitely.For most people itās not worth using it in the Dark Age since manual scouting will be better. It has proven useful even at the professional level in Castle Age when a lot of pros would forget to scout. I think Castle Age is the most useful time: people are busy fighting and often forget to scout. -
Could you tell if your human opponents were using auto-scouting? How did it change the flow of the match?
Itās hard to tell, the only time I noticed was when their scout was idle. -
Did you encounter any issues with the feature?
The biggest issue is that if one player loses their scout early on, they are at a huge disadvantage because their opponent is able to scout the extra golds/stones/relics. There are two ways to get around this:
- Make all scouts have the option to auto-scout.
- Make auto-scout age locked.
Option 1 would level the playing field so that everyone would have vision of resources. The issue with this is that having multiple scouts constantly go round the map would be overpowered in late Castle Age onwards. Forward buildings would be easily discovered, and armiesā locations exposed.
Option 2 would level the playing field so that no one would have vision of resources, unless they scouted it manually. If auto-scout was locked to Dark Age, newer players who need it are able to use it to find their starting resources for them.
I prefer the second option as it still makes the game easier for noobs, while not making auto-scout overpowered in the late game. Importantly, it means the current issue of 1 player losing their scout and being at a disadvantage is solved.
I have seen a lot of people saying itās too hard for them to scout at the same time as doing other things. I am only 1000 elo, but I am able to go back to my scout at least every 30 seconds and keep it moving. I often have it idle for a few minutes if Iām busy fighting or something but I think itās fair for my opponent to have an advantage if they have the presence of mind to keep scouting while fighting.
I am interested to know other peopleās thoughts on my suggestion though, I feel like it finds a middle-ground between helping new players and stopping it from changing the game too much later in the game.
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Iād like auto-scout age-locked to just the Dark Age, too. It was part of my proposal before, though I mentioned a time limit for it, too, of like 5 or 10 mins. But Iām more than okay and would be more than happy if it was just age-locked with no timer.
I wouldnāt be a huge fan of seeing an auto-scout timer, to be honest, but I was trying to figure out a way to avoid auto-scout from getting abused and having too much of a long-term effect on veteran (or quicker) vs. less-experienced (or less quick) gamers. Dark Age only works for me if also having a timer is shunned. (Though, I admit, there is something appealing about only having auto-scout only work for 4 or 5 minutesā¦ so Iām not too against it. Bottom line: Iām flexible with this topic.)
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I guess that would work too. A potential advantage in having it locked to Dark Age instead of a timer is that new players tend to be in the Dark Age for longer than those who are more experienced with build orders etc. so it gives a bit more of a boost to them.
i would prefer a timer over a age lock, consider empire wars which starts in feudal age.
edit: just watched a epire war mbl vs hera game. It is so intesene hera gave up around a minute in the game and just went full auto and got like 95% explroed with the 2 starting horse autoscouts.
not sure if this is good or bad, but it is a massive change to aoe2 where auto scout is META
I donāt think the feature - or the game as a whole - should be designed towards less played gamemodes. Standard AoE2 starts in the Dark Age, so the game should be designated that way. In the RBW tourney thatās happening at the moment, you start with 2 horses/camels which can both auto-scout. As you said, itās pretty much meta to use it on both of them, and imo OP considering you can literally see all the map.
I dislike this since knowing how to scout and remembering to scout is a skill, and removing that removes a key part of the game. However I think thatās mainly up to Nili to adjust the settings so they canāt auto-scout or something.
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To be honest you might as well just remove the feature if this is the case, in the sense that itāll probably be the same effect for a (decent?) fraction of the players. It would also be annoying I imagine to have your scout on auto and then when you age up (more than likely) forgetting the scout is now idle.
This isnāt just an auto-scout thing, this is a AOE pathing thing. You can just click any? unit inside a āwalledā area and itāll try find a way in if it can.
Auto scouts is meant to help noobs like me that use it even in dark age and not for already good players that only use it in late feudal.
I think limiting it to first 5 minutes of fine, a small message could be displayed announcing the end of auto scout at that time point
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If this feature has a place in the game, auto scout should be meant for people that donāt have a competitive mindset or the willingness to improve. Skill level should not matter, so I donāt see why you would put a time limit on a feature that is for those who are hypercasual.
The problem arrises when you force it into competitive play;
- It puts you in a disadvantage if your opponent uses auto scout in a clever way.
- It takes away from the identity of this game, where scouting is a core skill.
I donāt think MM is only for competitive people, so I would not be so blunt to say that it has no place there. However when your opponent does not agree on a setting that changes the core gameplay, it should not be allowed in game. Each player gets some checkboxes eg; auto scout, auto reseed, auto treb pack. And when both players have them checked, the feature is present. But if only 1 player agrees on using it then the feature will not be present in the game.
If you read this and you think, well that would make it complicated. Remember Iām not the one that thought it was a good idea to introduce these ridiculous features.
Well, players at my level donāt do this very often. Especially not at later stage of the game when fighting is intensive. Yet another skill replaced by a game āfeatureā.
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Keep in mind that this topic is for feedback regarding the auto-scout feature from players that actually played with it, youāre still just theorycrafting about the impact:
But your suggestion is complicated, far more complicated than just having auto-scout in the game as-is, toggles are a stupid solution, either the feature stays or it doesnāt.
Thank you for reminding me like a good schoolboy. The idea that I have no clue how it effects the game because I have not manually turned it on, is ridiculous to say the least.
I did not make it complicated, only those who thought it was a good idea to implement them while they degrade the gameplay. And like that is not enough of an issue, they force them onto competitive players.
You have added nothing with your vapid comment. My suggestion is definitely better than how it currently is, comparable to a MQ/SQ toggle.
You are more than welcome to continue theorycrafting about the feature in the non-official threads, I was just pointing out that that kind of feedback was specifically not requested here, per the dev quote from one of the earliest posts in the thread.
The MQ/SQ toggle in voobly is even sillier than the auto-scout toggle you proposed, it never should have been a toggle.
- How does auto-scouting change the way you play the game? Please explain.
It does not. Because I am not using it.
- Would you consider auto-scouting āusefulā given your skill level? Why or why not?
I am a beginner (well, not totally because I am good at AOE1 and played AOE2 before in my lifetime, but I have a hard time keeping track of all 9999+ new civs that were added since Forgotten Empires, so itās all new to me).
I am not using the scout feature. I also use a hotkey for my scout, and I find it easier to just maneuver it around however I want. I always forget to click that special button anyways, and when I end up thinking about it, itās going to re-explore places Iāve already explored, so Iām just thinking screw that, Iāll scout it myself.
- Could you tell if your human opponents were using auto-scouting? How did it change the flow of the match?
No.
- Did you encounter any issues (not already listed in the known issues ) with the feature?
No.
And if you want my honest opinion, it wonāt really change much on the game. If a noobie requires an auto-scout feature to even have a chance at winning, he probably sucks at everything else anyways and remains what he is, a noobie. Point blank.