This game is way too similar to EE and voobly right now. Yes, Retold is better version of EE and AoT with greater balance, graphics and stability. But ultimately it is still same game with no new gods, godpowers, campaign missions or units. It feels great but we need new content. AotG wasn’t replayable content. We need gods, we need crazy maps, we need multiplayer gamemodes. What I am trying to say is we need something. Even if Chinese DLC comes out with 3 new gods, couple maps and new campaign, it is hardly enough to fill the void for more than 3-4 months.
What I am trying to say is speed it up. Modern books about innovating and good products are all about trial and error. Add new minor gods, and fix them after. Add new units to existing civs, and balance them after. Just don’t leave broken stuff in the game for months. I understand there probably isn’t large product testing crew anymore so it is hard for developers to step up and come up with new ideas by themselves.
I will also list couple actual problems with the game. I want to make it clear I am absolutely correct in everything and you can disagree but then you are wrong.
Custom lobby count
Let me show you average view of joinable lobbies when person log ins:
You see there is only 1 joinable lobby, rest can be considered private without even a lobby name, and that 1 lobby is a noob lobby: vs Titan AI. This is not great because even EE that has magnitudes of less playerbase has more lobbies that average player can join. How you fix this is pretty simple: Force players to type in lobby name like in EE. I bet half of these “RandomDude77’s lobby” are actually public lobbies. We are bleeding playerbase just because lobby hosts are too lazy to type anything in because they don’t have to.
Competitive map pool
Now this is something that people are gonna hate me for saying: But AoM is not AoE2. Pacing is much faster and there are enjoyable units and godpowers. Map pool should reflect that and lead to more straight on fights. What competitive maps should be majorly are slower maps and this is only way to salvage viewership of AoM esports. So map pools should include maps like Mirkwood, Arena, Acropolis, Aïr, Jotunheim: Easily wallable maps. Actually one map where we have seen most epic games falls in this category: Highland. one which limits places enemy can attack from.
So competitive map pool should not be Tundra, Marsh, Ghost Lake, Savannah and Alfheim but easily wallable maps because in Retold pacing is much faster with walls, castles and towers being quite weak. This makes godpowers like Underworld Passage, Shifting Sands and Undermine good strategical choices but not instantly game-ending. Every AoM game in purely open map will be the same: Raiding hunt, going mythic age faster, then waltzing into enemy base and pressing godpower to win it. Closed maps offer much more strategy than “tempo godpowers are the best”. In closed maps you can still risk it for the bisquit fighting enemy army but you cant just avoid fights running in circles around enemy base.
Disconnection issues
Reconnecting feature doesnt seem to be working right now. So many people are disconnecting for a second and they are completely gone from the game because reconnecting window does not let them back in. This makes custom maps somewhat unplayable.
Closing Throughts So ultimately we need more new stuff. Units, techs, godpowers, minor gods, major gods. You can even shuffle existing minor gods around. For example why is Freyr only Norse god with access to Ullr, Aegir and Vidar? Surely from game design, not marketing point of view, it would make sense that each norse minor god is accessible by 2 Norse major gods and we don’t end up with 3 Norse gods with Bragi and 1 Norse god with Aegir.
It’s the worst idea ever, there’s nothing worse than adding new units and new gods that aren’t balanced, this isn’t a moba. And if that means adding new bugs and fixing them a few months later, that’s not the way to go either.
Where I agree is that, yes, they have to release content, but the game is new, so you have to give them time to do it and not rush things at the risk of causing more problems. That would also lower the game’s rating and it would collect negative reviews.
What’s more, the game is far from ‘dead’, just another post-apocalyptic to depict a reality that isn’t true.
Regarding ranked matchmaking, I agree that many changes need to be made, and the first one is to make autoqueue active by default to unite the community. In match creation, 99% of games have autoqueue active, so why disable it in ranked matches? This makes people who are used to playing casually feel uncomfortable trying to venture into ranked mode! They’ll have to learn a completely new way of playing. They’re accustomed to autoqueue, so dividing the community and making autoqueue inactive by default in ranked matches is the dumbest idea in history!
As for maps, I don’t agree that there should be very closed maps. The logic of ranked mode is precisely aggression, so it’s standard since the beginning of Mythology for these maps to be used. Maybe a map ban option? If there are 10 ranked maps, you can ban 3, your opponent bans 3, and the remaining ones are chosen. I would really like something like that.
I’d also like it if, when we queue for a ranked match, the game would skip the lobby waiting time once a match is found! It should go straight into the game as it always did! That waiting time is useless; you can’t even see the players’ names, and no one talks in the chat since it’s poorly designed. It’s buggy and irritating to use the chat.
Most disconnections are not due to players’ internet connections but rather to game servers losing their internet connection. I’ve seen ranked matches where 3 players disconnect at the same time, indicating server-side issues.
Why do people keep forgetting that they are working on DLC for this game?
Just because they haven’t dropped a trailer in months doesn’t mean they completely stopped working on it.
They promised us 2 major DLC and many of us already paid for them!
Why do people assume others forgot about it? We don’t mind if DLC is late but fixes to necessary features (such as reconnecting) are coming out faster. Also there should be some reshuffling of minor gods amongst norse so there are 2 Tyr/Baldr/Vidar/Hel/Bragi/Aegir/Njord/Skadi/Forseti/Freyja/Heimdall/Ullr. It is just logical thing to do that should happen eventually, so might as well do it between DLCs “to keep game interesting”.
Seems you are confused since this was about competitive tournaments. While ranked and competitive should retain agressive maps, it should also have easier to hold maps. Closed maps were never given opportunity because game tunnelvisioned on open maps since start. We have seen many high ranked Highland, which is chokepoint map, games where titans and wonders show up, whereas it never happens on other maps.
I do agree there should be similar ban system to what is present in AoE2 where people who hate maps like Arena can just ban it.
It is just reconnecting feature not working. If you have even slightly off internet you get to reconnecting screen and it apparently almost never goes through. Even with great connection this can occur from minor things like someone other than you using same internet connection or you watching stream on 2nd screen.
No matter how much you work internally on a god or unit, it won’t be balanced upon release. Once the unit is in game with animations and everything, the balance team can also easily rework whole identity of a unit.
I don’t necessarily agree with Riba’s points, in fact, if I remember correctly he was one big proposer of “no military auto-queue for ranked” which I think is one cause of ranked not being played much at the moment. In the end I got used to no military AQ, and now its probably too late to change the ranked default to attract more players.
But I do agree that we needed a patch weeks ago. I know that they are working on the DLC, but that is no excuse. Many people only purchased the standard game, and they deserve support. There is still a lot to improve in the game: pathing issues, UI, bug fixes, balance changes, etc.
I haven’t played ranked for more that 2 months now. Still waiting for something to change and bring a little life back to the game.
Seriously, what bugs are we talking about? Pathing issue, UI? Are you playing the same game? Apart from certain units being sent into the air and getting stuck in the scenery, I’ve never seen anything else. For desync issue, I didn’t experiment it either in 500 games played, except when I played the coop campaign which is a MOD.
You want a change in the balance, but what more do you really want? The gods that underperform are at 42% win rate at pro level, but you’re not pro far from it, a guy playing Poseidon or Seth (the worst gods right now.) with a better elo will beat you every day of the week, it’s ridiculous to stop games for trivial “bugs” and “balance problems”.
Seriously, what bugs are we talking about? Pathing issue, UI? Are you playing the same game? Apart from certain units being sent into the air and getting stuck in the scenery, I’ve never seen anything else. For desync issue, I didn’t experiment it either in 500 games played, except when I played the coop campaign which is a MOD.
You want a change in the balance, but what more do you really want? The gods that underperform are at 42% win rate at pro level, but you’re not pro far from it, a guy playing Poseidon or Seth (the worst gods right now.) with a better elo will beat you every day of the week, it’s ridiculous to stop games for trivial “bugs” and “balance problems”.
There are problems with the game server in several multiplayer games 3 players including 1 player from my team were disconnected at the same time. Regarding the imbalance of units, the Atlanteans are excessively superior in everything against the other pantheons. The Hetairoi are also completely broken with their area damage, they are practically mythical creatures that do not cost favor.
Either you are a very oblivious player and can’t see the bugs that are screaming right in your face, or you are a bad character and are trying to cover up for this incompetent team of developers.
They have promised a lot with the Immortal Pillars DLC and if they don’t deliver I will be upset and I will make sure to voice my opinion on it.
The same goes for the 2nd DLC. I expect the same from that.
Seems like
an overall buff to Greek (except for Athena)
a slight overall nerf to Egypt
an overall buff to Norse (accept Loki)
a slight overall nerf to Atlanteans
I hoped to some few other buffs/nerfs but I am overall really happy. The bug fixes sound really great too with some I personally really hoped for.
Also it’s a positive feedback/life sign for the community next step will 100% be the Immortal Pillars DLC which seem to come either February or March.
Team: Sir, the community is urgently requesting these changes to improve the game!
Developer: Okay, fix the connection issues and the walls. The rest of the updates will be things they haven’t even mentioned on the forums in the past few months.
It’s becoming increasingly clear that you have no intention to credit the developers with any work that they’re doing.
This update wasn’t just “connection issues and the walls” and you know it, so you’re intentionally misleading readers with what the patch actually contains.
