Exactly, it’s just a matter of some brave soul with an ambitious project letting us know so we can support them.
I understand. We can combine the best and most requested mods to create a super project. This way, each modder would contribute what they’re most passionate about and, at the same time, help create something great for the game. Just like Forgotten Empires charged for an official mod for Age of Empires 2 many years ago, we can repeat the same pattern with Age of Empires 3. Nothing is stopping us; we just need the desire to create something fun and well-made.
Alright I’ll cut the snark and actually explain why no one is taking this post seriously.
So what coffeeco01, AssertiveWall20, M00Z1LLA and me have in common is not that we’re experienced modders, necessarily, a big part of it is simply that… we’ve been in the community for long enough.
Like strictly speaking there’s nothing outlandish at what you’re demanding. The ESOC patch was a real thing and to a degree or another it did inspire many of the changes that were brought to DE.
What the ESOC (ESO Community, or Ensemble Studios Online Community if you wanna be extremely pedantic) had going for them however is that, well, they knew the community, they knew the pros. They ran tournaments. Hell they still run tournaments. With prize pools! How cool is that?
My point is, they are a community of people you trust when it comes to them making balance changes for the game.
Note as well what they didn’t do. IE bring completely new civilizations to the game.
Have you even considered how hard it is to do that?
To have a completely new civilization. All new scripting, all the voice acting, hell, the AI, the 3D art, the 2D art, all of it?
Are you realistically willing to pay me the, let’s say, 1000 dollars it takes to make something up to the standards of this game. That’s monthly btw, per person.
I’m not even saying that making a big mod is impossible. Like Napoleonic Era and Wars of Liberty did exist. Hell, most of what’s DE’s team used to be Napoleonic Era’s. But then again, people keep claiming that they want Wars of Liberty in DE but they never stop to even consider what does that even mean.
And it’s not like big mods for DE don’t exist. Dismissing big projects like Age of Pirates or Age of the World right off the bat feels really disrespectful to me. Like I may have my differences with them, but I don’t just go and claim “yeah we need a real mod for DE”. That’s, you know, rude.
Hell, what ever led you to believe you can just go and convince the authors of said mods to combine them because you demand it. Come on, if you really want it that bad do it yourself big boy.
You may notice I didn’t even bring up the three civilizations I did for this game myself. I know they are not up to snuff, but hey, I had a fun time doing them. And then I moved on, and I just come back to this game when I feel like it. I have a life outside this game, wild I know.
Yes they cancelled the DLC, yes the game’s balance is thoroughly broken and there’s a lot of obvious bugs it’d take like 5 minutes to fix. Whatever, it happened, let’s just move on.
Either fix it yourself or go play something else, don’t start begging people to do it for you.
You keep talking about how WE take the right direction for the game, how we can combine the other mods, we started sharing ideas. Bro what do you mean we? What are YOU bringing to the table?
Who died and put you in charge, where suddenly you can start claiming you can make the grand ultimate mod that will fix all the things that are wrong yet have shown 0 actual effort put into it.
You have no communication with the community at large, no idea where the game’s balance is at, hell, you don’t even know how to design a custom civilization, do you?
Be real for a second. Either have an actual plan with clear goals or stop wasting everybody’s time.
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@zeppelino24 I want to know what you actually want from this idea. It sounds like what you really want is for the production of the game to continue?
Balance mods are typically pointless IMO. They aren’t hard to code, but you can’t play them on the ladder so what’s the point? There’s no modder unification for that, what you need is for the top players to write out a list of changes they want and then they can play it in tournaments.
Aside from balance what exactly are you asking for? Like HoopThrower said, there are already big mods out there with decent sized teams working on them. Have you tried them?
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Yes, I’ve tried several mods, but so far there’s nothing quite like Napoleon Era or Wars of Liberty in the Age of Empires 3 Definitive Edition mod assets. Based on that, we can say that while the other mods are good, they don’t fully reflect the historical period of the official game. That’s why this post is here: to encourage modders to create something that truly corresponds to the official game, and also, as I’ve said before, to financially support the modders so their work is also rewarded. Of course, this is only if the community agrees; nothing is mandatory in this life. The modders and the community have the final say.
Of course, Hoop Thrower, I respect your opinion, and I can only clarify that while it’s true I’m not a modder, I have created Metropolis cards with their descriptions and unique art for some new revolutions. However, creating entirely new units is something I’m still not very experienced with. There’s an old saying, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” While you’re right about some of the points you make, others seem more like a direct attack, but don’t worry, you’re probably younger than me, and that’s why I understand young rebels. Anyway, my position is to continue posting ideas to improve the game, foster unity to continue developing the game, and support other projects and opinions from other forum members as much as I can. Your opinion is respected, and as I’ve said before, the final decision on undertaking a project of the scale I’m suggesting in this post rests with you. I’ve never forced anyone to do anything, nor do I consider myself the director of anything; this is just my humble opinion. opinion and suggestion which I seek to project in this publication
I have some experience creating Metropolis cards with their descriptions and unique artwork. If anyone finds my knowledge useful, I’d be happy to help create Metropolis deck cards, whether for Civilization or Revolution. As I’ve said before, everyone can contribute in one way or another. There are many good ideas that can be implemented; it’s just a matter of choosing the most requested ones. Modders can also share their ideas so we know the direction we want to take in this post.
Just going to say, new content will likely worsen balance. It’s rare that new content is added and balance improves. The ideas of “let’s add new civs” and “let’s balance the game” can be held as goals simultaneously but they actively work against each other.
If you look at something like Wars of Liberty it (from my understanding) wasn’t a balanced mod. It was about adding fun content.
If you look at the ESOC Patch, it was about balance. How much brand new content did they add? Well, Spanish Gold changing from a junky age 4 card to what it is now is basically all I can think of off the top of my head. That’s one card for 1 civ out of 14 at the time.
In my personal opinion, hardly any new content is currently required to balance the game. Something roughly like This likely would improve the balance while essentially adding no innovative content.
Trying to make something Wars of Liberty-ish while simultaneously trying to improve balance will be nearly impossible and to even attempt that means asking for a lot of time from people. You might want to pick a lane.
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Whether it’s new content, bug fixes, or balancing, we have to start doing something for the game because leaving it in its current state isn’t the best option.
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Alright, here’s what I would propose:
- Improve the AI. There’s a lot of content in this game effectively locked out because the AI can’t play it. King of the Hill, Water maps, and some Historical maps are effectively unplayable for the majority of the playerbase. There should be an AI mod that addresses these, and it should be fully MP compatible so people can play co-op online with it.
- UI Overhaul: While the new UI made a lot of functional improvements, it lost a lot of charm from the legacy game. The multiplayer UI in particular is a lot less welcoming than the old ESO layout, so someone should go through and try to achieve a middle ground, combining the old legacy assets with the new layouts.
- Festive Content: New content is fun, but festive content is special. It can get you in the spirit and bring communities together around the holidays. If there was a mod dedicated to making festive maps then communities could create annual events like a Santa Smash that they host every year.
- New Assets: It might be great to really push the limits on what this game can do. To get the most bang for our buck, maybe we could expand the native sites? Start putting some really crazy techs and units in there? We could do some easier stuff like make some special reskinned ships with abilities, and if we start feeling really crazy we can try implementing new map layouts or make our own historical maps.
Let me know if any of these ideas sound good!
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Finally, something positive! Your ideas seem quite interesting to me. What I liked most was the suggestion to add new improvements and technologies to Native American trading posts. With all the technologies, units, and abilities that Native Europeans have, I feel that Native Americans have fallen far short in that aspect, as they don’t even have abilities, and their technologies are very scarce. Not to mention that many only have one unit per settlement, while Native European settlements have two or more military units. I hope this type of review or rework for Native American settlements will be considered.
What about making all new natives? Something like a pirate settlement or maybe cowboys? We could make a whole new map set to put them on. There might even be a way to add more techs to the trading posts through some sort of mini age-up system.
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That sounds great to me; it’s just a matter of figuring out which native types would be best suited for each map. For example, we could replace the Tupi Archer with the Blackwood Archer, and we could also add the Ibirapema Warrior, thus introducing some new technologies to the Tupi settlement. Its ability button could contain the “Caciques” skill, which makes infantry units attack 25% faster for a short period.
We can also rework the Mapuche settlement, adding the Bolas Rider and the Kona, and incorporating new technologies. Their big button ability would be Malon, which causes all cavalry to deal passing damage for a short duration.
Finally, we can add the Muisca to some South American maps with their respective Guecha Warrior and Temple Guard units. They would have their own unique technologies and their big button ability Herboristería, which causes all units to slowly heal over a certain period of time, to name just a few examples.
Hey man quick question, how’s the Tupi Archer exactly called?
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Or the Mapuche cavalry unit.
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No idea why so much negativity on here, the guy is trying to inspire people to keep the game going, if I was a modder I would help
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We’re not replacing the unit’s name; we’re replacing the unit itself. The intention is to give the unit a makeover to resemble the Tupi Archer from Age of Empires 2, as the latter makes more historical sense. Another possibility is that these archers are created in batches, similar to Russian military units. Logically, this would make the new Tupi Archer slightly weaker, and the Curare technology would be added to the native settlement so they can fire poisoned arrows.
I guess it’s kind of interesting to rework old ones, but what about completely new ones? What if the cowboy town had a few choices, and you could choose from a couple historical figures like Wyatt Earp or Jesse James and they would join you as a hero and unlock some other units?
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The Blackwood Archer in AoE2 is less accurate than the AoE3 ones… They were pretty elite warriors, not cheap cannon fodder.
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