DISCLAIMER: VERY LONG POST AHEAD, CONTINUE AT YOUR OWN RISK!
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And so this small survey comes to an end, with it my evil-small experiment concludes. The public aim was to generate some feedback or information about custom scenarios and campaigns or scenario design in general. However, the hidden goal I had in my mind was to test the community’s voice.
Expand to read the rest of the Foreword
As the chosen topic was quite obscure a whopping 172 people responded. A fair estimate I would give is that about 15 to 25% found it relevant to them. The remaining chose to engage with the content regardless, because they either felt it was a progressive step to take and possibly offering something good in return for the game or the community itself.
For a common cause - in this case just acquiring information, the few of you have decided to use your voice with the hope of future change (we will see about that). By uniting ones voice with many others there is a high chance to get something done, something great. A collective voice reaches further than one chirping in a forum post with a high chance never to be seen by anyone relevant… A collective voice is easier to observe, yet harder to maintain and direct, therefore many have to invest time. I thank thee for that whom invested theirs.
Now, there have been surveys targeted at AoE2 players before that have acquired a lot more responses than this one. Polls pop up every now and then. Though, to be frank it surprises me that the developers of this game have only really utilised Ranked Map Rotation polling to talk to their players. Every other form of feedback seems to only come in the form of a complaint, insiders whispering in the developers ears or every now and then a lucky suggestion thread that gets crowds flocking to it and due to it there is no option to ignore it, as the hand has been forced to act.
In my opinion you can consider the lack of communication as wasted potential. I am sure that more than 50% of the playerbase would not even respond to an official survey, but regardless the ones that would respond can generate so much useful information and feedback - a gold mine not exploited for some reason.
Anywho, let us see what content You - the 172 involved in the community generated.
Expand Section 1 - Generic Questions
- The bias of UK and EU West comes from the option of multiple choices being allowed and some small effort from me by appeasing to some of my contacts (that situate mainly in EU).
- Figures, most here just want to play, but a lot in the other hand are limited to certain times. (sadface)
- Some rare hardcore gamers have found the survey and cast their input, now-now raise your hands who did it so. The rest seem to hover around 1 to 3 hours per day for the duration of a week. Though it is possible that some only play all their hours on the weekends and some exclusively during the week.
- Now this is probably the most interesting chart for me among the Generic Questions, since it clearly highlights that the people most involved in the community are old timers (even if they may be outnumbered by the growth since 2013 and 2019). I imagine the willingness to be involved and invested in the community heavily increases over time and the wish to see the game continue into the long future inspires a lof of these old timers.
- I am glad to see that about one third of the responses mainly play SP, as it hopefully reflects in relevant and/or meaningful answers in the Campaign section.
- Surprise-surprise neither of the two new game modes has managed a single response in favour for them, getting one DM response was interesting to see, but then again it is not as popular in DE and nor they were the target group of this survey.
- Almost half the responders never play Ranked or play it very rarely. While the other hundred are spread out among the divisions given. Possibly illustrating that the old timers find playing Ranked games less important than enjoying the game itself as a whole.
This concludes Generic Questions section.
Expand Section 2 - Campaigns
- A question I felt relevant due to the upcoming update. There have been a lot of colourful threads and opinions in the past for the release of Battle Royale and Empire Wars, though almost always more than half cared not. It is encouraging to see that there is interest for Co-op Campaigns, a very few custom co-op ones exist in the past and of course various RPGs. I personally like the shift towards catering to the many casual people who come to enjoy campaigns, or Single-Player, or just want to play with friends - this would offer exactly that.
- The amount of who chose “No” are fairly close to the amount who play 91 to 100% games as Ranked. You have been spotted!
- A healthy scene of Campaign completion, I must admit that I myself am very poor at completing them and have played only AoK, AoC, AoF and AoAK ones properly and to be fair AoK and AoC ones were never properly completed until 2014-2015ish.
The next question was the following:
You are tasked with designing a Campaign, who or what event would it be about?
1st Crusade 1096 AD
1st-2nd century Christians
30 year war in central europe
3th crusade
A civ of the players choice conquering all others for world domination
a civ that currently lacks a campaign
A historical war most likely
A RPG like campagne
about a campain where you fight for the Byzantine empire or something where you fight as a King as a vassal
About the Spanish Wars against Low Countries or Simon de Montfort and the Albigensian Crusade
age of alien defense. how man evolved to defend aliens
Alexander the Great
Alexios Comnenos (Byz restoration)
All Crusades
All kinds of Crusades, battles in Central Europe
Belisarius
Belisarius or Heraculus
Bjorn Ironside (his raids on the Mediterranean)
Brian Boru (Celts) or some campaign for civ that hasn't had one yet(Mayans, Japanese, Koreans, Chinese etc.)
British Occupation of Ireland
Byzantine Empire
CBA
Ceasar's story
Charlamagne
Charlemagne
Charlemagne
Chimu
Chimú, Wari, Chanka
China
China
Completely made up history.
Conflict beetwen Poles and Teutonic Order
Considering it's AoE2 recent events are out of question, so I have no idea
Constantine I
Corsica, possibly
Counts of Cilli
Crusade
CRUSADES man, but I think I would prefer to make 6-7 Individual Battles all within Europe, specially Western Europe (Spain, Britain, France)
Don't know
don't know what exist already
Don’t know
Dunno
Dunno
dunno, probably something about duke Domagoj of Croatia, but does it even matter about who or what it is if playing the campaign feels like torture
Early rise of the Ottoman empire (culminating with the Fall of Constantinople)
Eric the red
Estonian world domination
Fall of Byzantine Empire
Fantasy RPG single player scenario, already got one in the work
Fantasy world of my own
Feudal Japan
Fictional
Fighting a historical battle
First Crusade
Flanders VS France
Flemish revolution
Genpei Wars
Germanic tribes
GOT
Han-Xiongnu War
Harald Hardrada
Harald Hardrada
Harald Hardråde
Historic event with some made-up twist
Historical battle
historical fiction/pure fiction
history of the crusades against constantinople
Honestly no idea, some major historic battle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Szigetv%C3%A1r
hungarian campaign
I don't know
I dont know
I just published one, on Huns before Attila
I mainly have ideas for a single scenario, likely without historical background.
I wouldnt
I'd like more Meso-american campaigns
Id focus on the challenge of level desigm before lore. Idk.
idc as long as its with friends
Idk
idk
idk
Improving skills in multiplayer
Incas
India
Inuit
It can be anything
It would be about th Mayans.
Kazakhs
King Charles the 1st
Kublai Khan's conquest or more of Mongols post
La Grande Jacquerie
Lady Cofitachequi
Lithuania
Lord of the Rings
Magyar's kalandozasok (raids into western europe and Byzantine Empire)
Maratha empire of India
memes
Middle East
Mongolian Invasions to Japan
Münster rebellion
Muslim conquest of the Maghreb
my own work of ficton, unrelated to history
My wife
NA
Never played them
No
No
No idea
no idea what's already present to think what else i want, besides I'm not much interested in campaigns to answer this question
No idea, not really interested
No one
None
None
Northern crusades
Not any in particular, but preferably about new civs or civs that doesn't have a campaign of their own (Celts, Chinese, Turks, etc.).
NOt much
One of he civs that don't get a campaign yet, like Vikings Chinese Japanese
Ottoman empire
Otton 1rst
Persians vs 300(spartans)
Polynesia
Portuguese History
Portuguese invading Brazil with their diplomats
proaably the map im working on that will never get finished
Probably about a civ that have no campaign yet (not Lithuanian since they'll have one soon). Maybe Persian or Chinese, for having lot's of different opponents/victory conditions
Probably something in Europe
Probably something regarding the mongol empire
Ragnar Lothbrok
Really no clue
Reconquista
Rise of Rome
Rise/expansion of Song Empire 906-976AD
Robert the Bruce
roll the dice
Rollo becoming Duke of Normandy, or the Imjin war from the Japanese perspective
Roman Empire Fall
rpg
Sack of Rome in 1527
Saladin
Siam
Slavs
Some ficitoanal/fantasy rpg/fixed force
Some historical battle or personality thats missing from the official game campaigns.
some stupid freky thing like cannibal escape
someone from a chinese era (dont know the names)
Something about the Viking Era and Viking Raids of olden times.
Something about Western Europe between centuries XX-XII
Something india or africa
Spanish reconquista, however It would extend over a few centuries
Sun Tzu
Teutonic Order Invasion of Russia
Th Great Heathen Army (and possibly the establishment of the Danelaw)
The baltic/northern crusade
The Battle of the Golden Spurs
The Bruce Invasion of Ireland
the crusades
The fall of the Byzantine Empire
The Great Emu War
The Ottomans and Siege of Constantinople
The Slavs against the Mongols
The Spanish reconquista
The time thanos came down and snapped his fingers, or when that really big guy with the ring started smashing poeple left and right with his mace until some kid chopped off his hand
The Wars of the Roses
Tvrtko I of Bosnia
Umayyad Conquests
Varus Battle against the germanic Tribes
Viking
Viking exploits to Sicily
Warring States Japan
WW2
yep
yer maw
- What stood out for me the most were the ideas for Vikings. They never received a proper official one and perhaps now it is time to give Custom Campaigns a go. Try out what is available in the Mod Workshop? I am sure some of these ideas could be appeased already.
- Feel free to acknowledge the lazy-fun answers and give them praise, as this was a required (intentionally made so) some people who lacked the spark of ideas simply had no choice to enter something else here.
The next question was the following:
What is your most favourite Campaign? (skippable)
2
-
Alaric
Alaric in DE
Anything Bulgarian
Atilla the Hun
Atilla the Hun campaigns
Attila
Attila
Attila or Kotyan
Attila the hun
Attila the Hun
Attila the Hun.
Barbarossa
Barbarossa
Barbarossa
Barbarossa
Barbarossa
Barbarossa
Barbarossa
Barbarossa
Bari
Bari
Bari
Bari and Saladin
Bayinnaug
cannibal escape
citadel vs kingdom of abuki
Cumans
Custom campaign, Lord Basse's Gwindlegard series
Dracula, Bari...
Frederic Barbarossa
frederic Barbarossa
Frederick Barbarossa
Fredrick Barbarossa
Genghis Kahn
Genghis Kahn
Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan (epic campaign) and Bari (I like challenges, no catwalks)
Genghis, Attila, Suryavarman I
Ghengis
Gjengis khan
Goth campaign
Grand Dukes of the West
Grand Dukes or Attila
Hautevilles
Hautevilles
Hautevilles
Hautvilles
hd campagin of itlay or something that de doesnt have
Historical battles one innit
Huns
Huns, and Sicilians
i liked the Rise of rajas and i love the Gaja Mada Campaign
idk
Ivaylo
Ivaylo
Ivaylo
Ivaylo / Dracula
Jean d'arc
Joan
Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc
Kommemnos - Byzantine Restoration
Kotyan Khan
Kotyan Khan
Kotyan Khan
Kotyan Khan
Moctezuma
Mongols
No one
Pachacútec
Pax Romana
Probably the Barbarossa campaign
Saladin
Saladin
Saladin
Saladin.
Saladin6
Saladino
Sicely one
Sicilians
Sicilians
Sundjata
Tatars
The African Kingdoms campaigns
The Hautevilles
The Hautevilles
The Slavic one where you get free units and I don't have to do "work"
Vlad dracul
William Wallace
William Wallace
William Wallace
William Wallace
William Wallace Ultra Hardcore
- William Wallace going strong. A lot of the AoK/AoC Campaigns have received praise. Could it be that the newer ones are just not good enough? Or do the old ones seem much dearer to us now then they really are? Personally I loved Barbarossa for the reason of simply ending up with the Emperor in a Barrel unit, that just made it perfect. Honourable mentions that shine as bright as the old campaigns would be Hautevilles, Ivaylo and Kotyan Khan. Perhaps you should play these next, if you have not completed them already?
The next question was the following:
What do you like the most about Campaigns? (skippable)
2
-
A more immersive experience
asthetics
Atmosphere, epic battles, variety in objectives, secondary objectives
betrayals
Build and destroy
Campaign witu good storyline
Can be played at my own pace; are more unpredictable than random matches; some are elaborately designed and make one rethink what is possible with the scenario editor
Can't tell only one
Challenge.
Childhood
comparatively chill gameplay/ nostalgia
Conocer historia
Creative and fun mechanics
Custom contents are diverse
Destroying big cities
Different ways to play and win
doing objectives, story, gameplay
Elements of surprise
Every campaign is different, the eye-candy maps, original victory condition, original army composition
Exclusive features (e.g. when aztecs turn horses into xolotl warriors at montezuma's campaign)
Fair challenge without frustration
Gameplay and cool little gimmicks, like no farms in Ivaylo 1
Good design in order to force you to play to the strengths of your faction (aka Alaric campaign emphasising the Goth spam)
Having to think completely differently to normal RM, in terms of objectives, eco management, army compositions etc.
Historical aspect
Historical background
Historical content
Historical Content
Historical Storytelling
History
History
History references and cutscenes
How the campaigns tech/units limitations or custom units changes the gameplay
How they tell a story
I like mix of hero and build-eco style with innovative approach (like Sicilian campaign, where you can train your hero by killing enemies -it makes player more attached to main character)
i like to play them a bit historical and then i play my favourite again with just booming a lot
I used to play campaigns to learn what a civ can do/ cannot do vs specific matchups & because i like learning a bit of history here and there
I usually enjoy playing challenging campaigns, I can get frustrated a lot but it feels pretty rewarding managing to beat a hard mission.
idk
idk they are very boring
Immerse myself in other worlds
Immersion and history through story telling.
immersion of historical feeling; nuance of emotions
Learn history through them, even do it's simplified while having fun and having a sensation of achievement.
Learning history, playing hard scenarios
more realistic/enjoyable gameplay
narrative and gameplay
No campaings yo can use other units
Not playing them
Nothing
Replayability, complexity
Reply historical events
Role play
Rpg
Scenarios ambience
Side objectives, and lots of them
Story
story
Story and historical background
Story and unic maps/units
Story and unique scenario only units and tech
Structured and has achivable goals
the community
The goals that you do not find in a regular game, the feeling that you are influencing the fates of people (even though you actually aren't), the personalities that the computers have (what units they make, how aggressive they are), and the ability to ally with people by doing something.
The Hero Characters and the Details in the Maps
The historical context and interesting objectives/map design
The history
The history/stories.
the map design
The Maps
The narrative aspect, how it gives meaning to the battles
The original voice dialogues
The playing in history 3
the settings and their approach to the story
The stories they provide, and interesting gameplay
The story
The story and history at the start and end
The story and history behind it.
The story, the gimmicks in the scenarios and the representation of the civilization
The story.
The varied gameplay
The variety of challenges
The variety they offer; I like Campaigns which offer a change from a regular AoE2 random map style with build and destroy/fixed force/escort missions
There are more things to discover, a memorable example is Joan of Arc 1 though I usually prefer missions where I can build up this one is still great.
there is a civ named abuki's
They have a story.
They way they can teach
To offer fair challenges and interesting and diverse situations (encourage the player to make use of the strengths of a civ in numerous situations).
Unique and interesting challenges
Variability during scenarios, changing tasks and alliances, arabic landscape
Variety of enemies, interesting objectives, secondary objectives, getting to try out the civ and make use of its bonuses
Variety of mechanical experiences and the stories
Variety to achieve a win and challenge
When I walk around and other units join my force
when they're not in aoe2
- History and story seems to speak to the players the most, however I do feel like nifty objectives and tricks or unexpected events only contribute to the magic of history and the stories we know today. Though, I do understand experiencing it for the first time, learning it the first time leaves an important affection that will be hard to remove later on, if at all.
The next question was the following:
I would play Campaigns more, if they had this in them (skippable)
2
more action, more beginner friendly, coop
-
1st-2nd century AD dating
A bit easier. The difference between normal and hard is pretty small
A more complex story line
A very hard challenge.
achievements to try and get
Better cutscenes, differing a bit more in terms of faction design from the standard skirmish match
Better Dialogue!
British, palms, oasis, Crusader missions
Cash prizes
Challenges
Co-Op & better AI
Controllable Gaia units
custom balancing, faster pace, some actual challenge, something that would force people into action and punish them for being stationary (booming and ■■■■), more limited resources, "randomly" spawning reinforcements (like in some AoM campaigns which are way more fun than any aoe2 campaigns btw), short cutscenes (I'm pretty sure this is impossible with aoe2 engine tho), trebuchets that threw villagers instead of rocks (there was a voobly mod for it and it makes campaigns much more enjoyable)
Difficulty
Diffrent ends or ways to win.
Epic fights (predetermined units) / defend the spot
Good pacing, it doesn't have to be short but it shouldn't feel like a drag where you're just waiting until you have enough units or similar.
Good stories
Grindy gameplay - this happens in many campaigns and it is hard to prevent - when you are just stuck in a situation where everyone is attacking you, you are defending and only slowly advancing. In particular, this is a problem of infinite spam games.
Harder AI
High Scores, Timers, Challenges
Human opponents (AI are too easy)
I feel some (especially newer) campaigns can be too grindy when the ai has infinite spam.
i hate Campaigns which you have to walk around with making villigers bc i suck at it
I play campaigns a lot, if they had less endless spam of units I can see other people playing them more.
I play them alot
I would love a hardcore 20 scenario campaign
I'd play them even more often if 2/3 of them weren't just greedy boom into knight swarm
idk
if competition between two players was better
If I had more time LUL
If the AI wouldn't be so predictable and exploitable.
if they had aod vs abuki's
If they were easy.
If they were more challenging
Interesting gameplay rather than chores. I macro enough in ranked
Larger pop limits, smaller sucks butt
Less "keep-random hero alive-or-lose"
less infinite spam; no insanely large map (Yes, less York City)
More alliances and/or dialogue. Sometimes it feels like you're on your own with multiple faceless enemies.
More challenge
More challenging AI and overall good scenario design (no infinite reources / infinite spam)
More difficulty (most official campaigns are sort of easy) and less disruptive gimmicks (too many RPG elements, giving to a civ too many units/techs/mechanics that aren't usually available to them; poorly designed maps).
More fixed force battles.
More frequent official campaigns with achievements and interesting periods of history
More innovative approach like first, second missions of Cumans or hero-leveling system like sicilians. I also like, when player has given choices, which makes different outputs - like making some enemies or allies
More interesting features like the custom Byzantine campaign with taxes
more mechanics
More of a challenge, less of build for 20 mins then stomp enemy
More plot twists
more RPG elements and unique stuffs like what modders do, less RTS and B&D
More than 5 missions, a bigger scope, and better/fulfilling last missions *cough* *cough* El Cid, Ivaylo *cough* *cough*
More unique ways to play IE Korean choosing where to go in the last scenario, or the first and last Hautville missions
More variety in gameplay
Multiplayer capability, don't just Co-op
multiplayer, let me play with my friends please!
n/a
No
PPL IN THEM or if i created it(but still i dont play cpagins )
Reinforcements
Replayability, like changing factions (see Three Kingdoms from PhillySouljah)
replayvalue : differnt paths to take
Scenarios completable in about an hour without prior scenario knowledge
Sí
Side-objectives, multiple ways to play
simple and fun
Skip
The feeling of progression and improvement I get from multiplayer
We always need more campaigns (maybe more achivment with specific condition too fulfill ?)
- I would summarise a lot of the feedback as “add more replayability”. Most campaigns we have today have a very strict story. You play it through once most likely. The story does not change, it is not dynamic, there are not that many side-objectives, sometimes you can complete the objectives in a different order, but you really cannot end up with different outcomes besides winning or losing. A lot more work would be required to have more dynamic campaigns, but perhaps that should be the future?
The next question was the following:
Free form entry about Campaigns (skippable)
2
-
abuki's best civ ever
At least one campaign for each of the civs, in which the civ potential can be learnt
Campaigns are great!
Campaigns are the best
Campaigns make up a lot of what I do in AoE as I do not play multiplayer, so I hope they improve them in future months.
ghengis khan was the most irritating campaign ever played
Have completed all campaigns 2-8 times, 75% of them on Hard with recent AI versions
Haven't played them since 2000s played all of them then
I even created a spreadsheet with all the campaigns in chronological order here's the link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kC1OS77B4R_yrr7XIeHbK7pp_zowsBGDIzXiLUKE8wk/edit?usp=sharing
I haven't played all official campaigns but I have played several custom campaigns
I play lots of Custom Scenarios.
I would appreciate more comprehensive 1) guides for the creators (there is no normal guide how to create slides, background map and especially publishing the scenario, which took me like two days), 2) tools for creators (such as a graphic editor for slides, map, built in AI editor, etc)
I would love to see every crusade in a campaign
I'd love to have the classic campaigns remastered for good, like with a real hard dificulty (I'm talking Bari 4th level of challenge). For an experienced player the old AoC and AoK campaigns are just too easy.
idk
idk what this means, if it means say whatever I think then I got nothing
Kinda over them
Make the Hastings civ Sicilians already
n/a
No
People who make diplo maps for multiplayer should try out making a campaign.
Playing campaigns in aoe2 mostly feels like a slow grind where you mostly do "nothing" for 20 minutes and then just run over everything with massive armies (at least in the ones I've played), I also think that introducing the random cost mod into the campaigns and if it was somehow possible to change stuff like gather speed on villagers for different resources it would make the experience a little bit more challenging and therefore a little bit more fun, in my opinion... KEEP IN MIND I don't enjoy playing aoe2 campaigns and even if I did it's still more enjoyable for me to play campaigns from games like Empire Earth and then slowly descend into complete frenzy because the game was released in 2001 and I've had my 40th crash in the same campaign game and then hopelessly read trough the code for the next 2 hours trying to fix that ■■■■ :)
RPG based scenarios (some of the forgotten campaigns of the HD version), aren't bad per-se, but they feel slow and they're pretty annoying to re-play sometimes. I'm also not a fan of unnecessary long missions (due to endless spam of units) that drag the mission for too long (I'm not a fan of saving, I prefer to finish a mission in one sitting).
Sí
Skip
Starcraft II respawns its hero, so if you accidentally lose track of it you don't suddenly lose.
Wololo
- WOLOLO!
This concludes the Campaign section.