Our ideas of “fun” are very different, and I don’t think that yours aligns with most of the MP playerbase, which is quite a significant portion of the overall playerbase. It is actually true, you just don’t want to learn how to play the game it sounds like. Maybe AoE isn’t your kind of game?
1 Like
Yes let’s go back before DE when khmers had the lowest victory rate( it was 38% if i renember no?) of history of aoe2. Or maybe we should go back to the “huns wars” period?
1 Like
Nah, they hate scout rushing, so I’m not sure when they want to go back to, but it can’t be Hun wars.
1 Like
Well, this doesn’t apply at all to AoE 2 and anyone who ever played 2’s MP in any iteration (CD, HD, DE) knows this. You can also play MP and still be casual as there are many Coop vs AI lobbies or just friends and family hanging out in MP. Casual doesn’t strictly refer to SP only.
What’s btw the issue with scout rushing? That’s one of the basic openers in the game and also one that’s easily countered.
Btw “anyone with a brain” is insulting, don’t you think so? So please, next time, make your argument without resorting to insulting language. 
4 Likes
If you want to play casual, play unranked and choose maps. The fun of ranked is the tension and pressure, the thrill of winning “when it counts” vs. losing “when it counts”. The fun of unranked is playing how you want.
I’ve played AoE2 primarily in CD (a lot) and DE, and it exactly applies. I never expected this to be the game that someone somehow decided was a great idea to push in the “modern, aggressive, engaging” direction, but here we are. I gave up playing it completely for now because the game I used to love for actually pushing RTS into the direction of a slower pace and actual defensive options devolves into a fly-swatting sweat match every single time, no matter what I do. I’ve recently come back to several other RTS games I used to play (AoE3:DE being one of them), and “oddly” I do not get that feeling with those at all. I’ve also seen many threads here and on Steam of someone proposing to make the game less toxic and more beginner-friendly, and the replies very much confirmed my opinion of where the game is going.
Because scouts very obviously were not designed as a rush unit and the fact that the DE devs leaned on fascinating rock/scissors Feudal Age combat between scouts and archers rather than making dumb rushing harder and actual AoE games easier proves my point. Literally no one who gets into the game sees scouts and archers and decides “yes, this would make for an exciting strategy” and almost literally every campaign mission in the game (which is how people learn to play AoE2) pretty much ignores that stage for this exact reason. And if something is a hell for beginners but easy to counter if you know it will happen, that’s the definition of bad design and it was okay in 1999, but leaving it intact in 2023 means you want toxic “strategies” to remain.
(I’ve seen this in multiple multiplayer games which all went in a horrible direction and it was always the same road downhill from there. Good devs nip things like this in the bud and design the game around promoting actually fair and enjoyable gameplay. Bad devs pretend it’s part of the game and copy-paste slogans about “aggressive and engaging gameplay” then wonder why new players play multiplayer once then uninstall, which is especially egregious if someone pretends that just because it was there in 1999 it makes sense now, when half of the game has been massively modified and reworked in the meantime.)
I don’t care. If someone is deliberately a toxic ####### in a game people play for fun (especially to beginners), I really do not care about their little tiny feelings and they should deal with the consequences. I’m never insulting to people who aren’t toxic.
Well, it really doesn’t apply, especially when you followed the game and its scene closely in the last 10+ years. As MP was one of AoE 2’s pillars since day 1, build orders, attempts to play aggresive etc were always part of the game’s identity. This has absolutely nothing to do with “modern” as AoE 1 and 2 were both hits on MS Gaming Zone, the MP platform before its shutdown in 2006. I’ve literally discovered a Clan Website from 1999 that provides a highly unoptimized build order.
I mean, there have been already some mods for HD Edition that have been later ported to DE that teach you about Hotkeys, Fast Castle and Build Orders in general:
That’s an interesting take on AoE 2. However, Age 2 is based on Ensemble’s experience with AoE 1 and playing a lot of Warcraft during the development which by itself is a fast, multiplayer-oriented game. AoE 1 had some quirks such as very fast units and villagers on speed after researching Wheel but overall, Ensemble kept this very identity intact with the sequel but toned it down to a reasonable level. That means, playing defensive with turtling is an option, but so is rushing as both are part of the RTS triangle with Rush, Turtle and Boom.
“Toxic” in which way? The only kind of complaints I read here is lowering the starting Elo from 1000 to 500 or 600 which would be an absolute disaster as it would just cause inflation.
That’s also an interesting take on the game. However, Scouts were exactly designed to be used in Feudal play. They are fast, get +2 attack since The Conquerors and have Spearmen as their anti-cav counter since Age of Kings. As said above, rushing is part of an RTS and scout rushing is basic.
This sounds a bit like personal opinion to me. Well, people learn to play with campaigns but mainly only with the tutorial. The campaigns themselves tho are good for getting familiar with a civ and its playstyle such as the Knight + Throwing Axemen combo in most of Joan of Arc or using Ballistics-affected Cannon Galleons against the Towers in the final El Cid mission.
Also, campaign scenarios have their own AI scrips that allows computer opponents to act the way they are supposed to act so that they work within the environment of the scenario.
Furthermore, with Art of War being added to DE, you’ve got a 2nd tutorial that actually lowers the skill ceiling as it teaches you about both rushing and defending against it.
I’m being honest - out of all possible rushing options, I’ve never seen anyone complaining about scout rushing before. Learning this strategy (no need for quotation marks btw ) is beginner-level for competitive play. There’s other stuff I’d rather consider “toxic” such as playing against a competent Gurjaras player who knows what they’re doing.
It’s sad that you’ve seen this in other MP games, but this one still doesn’t apply to AoE 2.
Well, some stuff such as the Mangonel delete trick or palisade scanning was unintentional and meanwhile patched out of the game. Same with the unintended feature to garrison a dead body inside a unit as that one’s a leftover from the kidnap feature Ensemble planned but ultimately scrapped and had to be patched out with UserPatch.
Story time: Apart from occasional games with my brother and a friend vs the AI, I was mainly a SP only player who thought I just get stomped when playing MP as my knowledge about the game in MP is limited and I can’t keep up with them. Two years ago, I wanted to overcome my anxiety towards MP and started playing ranked. I was frustrated because I lost my first three games in my first session. I didn’t gave up tho. I talked to others, asked for help, downloaded the BO mod from Cicero and just kept on playing and you know what? I was so glad that I was wrong about my initial thoughts of playing AoE 2 vs randoms in MP. I discovered the game I played for 20+ years in an entirely new way and can only recommend others in my situation to do the same.
Out of all MP-oriented games, RTS tend to be the most intimidating ones for some reason as I never had problems playing a FPS online despite being only the cannon fodder there.
Well, you should actually care, especially with hindsight on the Code of Conduct in this forum.
If someone is toxic, don’t get down to their level, at the end of the day, it just makes you look bad. Don’t fight fire with fire.
3 Likes
I just dont get how some guys get a civ up so quick