I don’t think changes should be made for people watching others play on a streaming service. You already have spectator mode/replays to take out the players hectic viewpoint.
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Im only quoting this portion of you post because I think thats what the argument boils down to in the end. With the rest we can only make an educated guess how the game will turn out and I can understand why you might reach different conclusions then me. Now on to the point.
For me(!) this game (and RTS in general) should have two ways to win. One is the one you described above, better strategy and tactics expressed in unit choices, building placements etc. The other one (and I think this is where we diverge) is you should also be able to win due to superior execution even though you make suboptimal tactical choices resulting in you just having a more stuff. An example of this would be the infamous games back in the day where DauT won with only skirmishers against other high lvl players due to having a superior execution, even though skirmishers are one of the most easily coutered units in the game.
I simply do not want to miss that aspect of the game or diminish it. And I think thats where a lot of the general contention lies.
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For the love of God, please don’t put any other auto-ing feature, this game is about management and organisation, if You can’t do something that has been like that since 1997 in this game, the second installment of the series then just don’t play it. I bought this game because it’s a nice graphical remaster, these changes they are applying are already quite disappointing because I wanted that, a graphical remaster, not new features destroying what this game was, if you want changes then make them in the next game they develop, that is the space for new features, not old games. If I wanted to play something that is diverging from what was AoE II (bug fixes and balance patches put aside because they are obviously needed) I might as well ask for a refund directly to microsoft because the game is not like it should have been.
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I really hate these changes. Let the gameplay as it is. However, If you want to add a new gamemode similar to “village wars” with all these new things automatic-oversimplifying things that clearly a minority of the community is asking just do it, but leave the ranked games and MP as it is.
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Yeah, they can implement an scenario or a mod to play unranked and everyone will be happy.
Can’t auto-queue be something like the “Full-Tech Tree” option?
Respectfully, gameplay features are important but there is more to player numbers than simply gameplay features. The appeal of the setting for the game, medieval for Age of Empires II, is important. There have been many RTS games released over the years but medieval, modern warfare and science fiction themed RTS games are most popular. Promotion of the game is also important. Microsoft has the resources and opportunities to promote their games many times over than which is available to other companies.
As far as the adding more features to the game, I feel that this is a slippery slope. The definitive edition of the game should be just that, definitive. The truest edition of the game compared to the original game release to run on modern hardware. I had hoped back in 2013 that HD would have satisfied that itch but unfortunately there wasn’t anything like the Age of Empires Insider Program back then to help make that edition of the game an overwhelming success for players of all types.
For helping new players to the game, instead of QoL features, I would like to see better integration between the William Wallace tutorial campaign and the Art of War missions such as a statement at the end of the tutorial campaign encouraging new players to try the Art of War missions next. I would also like to see more Art of War missions offered as has already been excellently suggested here on the forums.
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You bolded part of a large quote and focussed only on the part you bolded out of context. There were numerous reasons and explanations given and a whole argument presented for why AQ is horribly bad for RTS games and you bold one part that you can interpret in the way that you say argues in favor of it and you ltierally ignore the rest of the quote and all the other reasons and explanations given in the argument for why it is really really bad.
You could have just as easily quoted and bolded THIS par of the quote, but your confirmation biased in favor of AQ prevented you from doing that:
“[…]Auto-queue enabled perfect macromangement meaning races whose units were slightly stronger could always outplay races whose units were slightly weaker. In other words, if you were playing Isis and I was playing Odin: in vanilla Age of Mythology I could get a ton of mileage from microing multiple raiding parties while simultaneously out-macroing to 115 population. But in Titans that skill ceiling was taken away. Reducing the game mostly to a micromangement contest and ensuring that Isis’s superior units and economy would practically always win.”
Isn’t it a bit silly that you ignore the part that AQ reduces RTS into more of a micromangement contest despite the fact that you want to DEcrease the micromangement aspect of the game? Can you not see how contradictory that is?
Seriously, when there’s an argument listing multiple reasons why X is bad … it’s not a very good argument to focus on only one of those reasons and interpret in a way that shows the opposite. Because, obviously, even if you turn out to be right about that one reason … you’ve still literally ignored all the others.
I don’t see how removing a huge amount of the game’s macromanagement, reducing the game to more of a micromangement contest and lowering the skill ceiing … I just don’t see how that’s good for the game.
There will also be far less room for comebacks, as explained, making the game far less exiciting, and even more unforgiving, with an even bigger slippery slope for the losing player. That isn’t good for the game either.
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This part is what makes me thing AQ didn’t made some design flaw that was there before more apparent, but rather created it.
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And as for the point that you think was flawed … the point is it’s not possible to have a PERFECTLY balanced game and there will ALWAYS be problems … but one thing you can do is increase the game’s enjoyment. So no, it’s not ALWAYS a good thing to make problems more visible if they’re not always fixable. This game has 35 civs, for example, and you will never get all 35 civs to be balanced … some will always be stronger than others. The devs can do them best to tweak the balance and, generally speaking, of course making problems more visible is a good thing so they can be fixed. But as you will never have perfect balance … the solution is not to make it so the weaker civs are not only more visibly weak but also have less chance of making a comeback. AQ makes the problems more visible by making them bigger INCLUDING problems that may not be completely fixable.
Honestly, to any real lover of competitive RTS AQ should clearly not be implemented. Now, Rise of Nations is a great game, some people like AoT more than vanilla AoM and Supreme Commander is a great game series in the eyes of many too … but I need to make one extra thing clear–besides my point that however great those games are they can’t hold a candle to AoE2 or Starcraft, far greater games, neither of which have AQ–those games, however great, are NOT competitive.
If your argument is taken to its conclusion, whereby you consider even macro to be micro, then EVERYTHING becomes micro reducing your argument to meaninglessness.
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Every action is a form of micro, of that there can be no argument. It’s a question of just, what is fair, fun and useful for micro. If you use an action to make a meaningful decision, that’s great. That’s the point of playing games. But, there is a reason why we quickly hotkey through town centers, and use hotkeys to build villagers. Its because you are spawning it without thought. You aren’t making any form of meaningful decision. You aren’t playing a strategy game.
As for the video, I saw it. I paid attention to it. I’m not sure how you think AQ could make something like -
“…the more subtle issue with auto queue is the way it made balance problems much worse…” So the argument again is that there were balance problems that were already there, but for some reason, the author shifts the blame from the fundamentals balance issues that are in Age of Mythology, to AQ. It seems like the author is doing everything to not acknowledge the flaw, or minimize them.
As for the skill ceiling argument, I have yet to see anyone outside of this single author make that claim. He does once again talk about unbalanced civilizations when talking about AQ. Almost always, it is an issue. It’s like he can see some trees, but keeps missing the forest.
Finally, he brings up a lot of examples of how Age of Mythology differs significantly from Age of Empires, which makes the comparison less ap then you might believe. The shorter lengths of the game, the faster the scouting, the increased the number of sheep. All these issues set Age of Mythology apart from Age of Empires 2. To argue that the single item of dozens, the AQ , is the reason that Age of Mythologies popularity dwindles is very much a stretch.
Anyway, I’m done watching youtube videos. If you have a good source, let me know, because whenever I google or bing Auto Queue and Age of Mythology, I don’t get anything. Even typing in Auto Queue Ruined Age of Mythology gets only a few forum posts from a decade ago.
http://aom.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/display.cgi?action=st&fn=1&tn=19668&f=1,19668,8880,0&st=30
Here is someone thinks that AQ is a problem, but even this poster thinks the main problem isn’t AQ.
"the problem is that strategy does not count. You can have the most creative and innovative strategies, but you’re simply not going to be able to beat The Boom. The Boom has taken over AoT, partly because auto-queue allows you to maintain constant villager production, even while tending your military. Seriously, the majority of top level games are a boom contest. Egyptian, boom. Greek, boom. Atlanteans don’t have to, but they are at their best when, yet again, they boom. Norse too, are best when they boom. And if they don’t boom, they can’t compete with the other civs.
You may take a boomer off guard once or twice with hard, early aggresion, but he will quickly adapt, and then once again the game will go back to boom.Of course, the main cause behind this problem is TCs in classical, and not auto-queue. (though AQ does add to it) Removing classical TCs would be a vast improvement to this game."
Please, note how he ended it. If you follow the link, you will see a lot of interesting discussion on this issue. And this is a game that went from not having AQ to having AQ.
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Why not? I would use it
Could you expand? There are a lot of different things going on in this thread.
This. TC can be built in the second age. That exacerbates the boom problem much more than AQ.
AoM: TT and AoM: EE have many balance problems and anyone that has enough experience with it knows that AQ is the least of the worries when it comes to that.
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It’s only one of the many arguments used. Also, the “it prevents distraction from working” point for isntance, is brought up as well.
So why didn’t AoM prevail against AoE? Why wasn’t AoM remastered? And why did no DE follow as with AoE?
You come up with arguments that just don’t make sense since AoE has prevailed as it was and AQ would only destroy it.
FOR WHAT?
Because of less insignificant people who miss something from a failed game?
Such serious suggestions can only be made by people who do not manage to overpower AoE and miss their old game. Please contact the developers for this. maybe you get your AoM DE, but don’t try to destroy a running concept with all your might.
Thanks @Psychcaptain for the link
Just wow, these sarcarstic 16 year-old arguments bashing both AQ and AoE2 sound so familiar…
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It didn’t prevail for a lot of different reasons, but I don’t think AQ was one of them.
Which is the point that we are making. AoM differed so much from AoE 2, that to argue that particular difference of AQ was the cause is folly.
I think to continue on would go greatly off topic. Perhaps a different thread?
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You won’t listen to logic and the fact that you get any likes at all on this issue astounds me.
AQ is clearly very bad for the game for the multiples reasons given, regardless of if those reasons are ignored or not.
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