If you are going to implement range mod as a feature, don’t make it objectively worse than existing range mods. Castles, TCs, etc. do not have a circular shot range, so why would the range option show it so. As it is, you can stand inside the edge of the circle and be perfectly fine. Currently, there is no reason to uninstall Mandala to use this feature as Mandala gets the range right, and the “official” version gets it wrong.
Furthermore, there is no reason to have the circle disappear with fog of war. The building does not disappear or move in fog of war, and we can still count out its range in the fog of war, so why would its range disappear.
With that said, I do believe the range marker deserves justification as it is controversial:
There is simply no precedent to ban Age of Mandala.
It is a graphics mod which are common and largely permitted.
It does not give otherwise unobtainable information.
It doesn’t give a different category of processed information than grid mod, which is almost universally accepted and used.
It is not overpowered compared to other common visual mods: small trees has a much greater effect.
It is not more distracting than other accepted mods (age of cubes…).
And if we have no precedent for banning Mandala mods, there IS precedent for implementing simple QOL options into options rather than mods (grid mod, resource quantity). Though, I would say that having small trees as an option should be a higher priority considering its longstanding and widespread use.
There was a time were missplaced towers in range of fire would lead the way to the victory or the defeat. It took skill or time, not anymore! some things change.
I only ask to the casters, dont use it, its too intrusive and doesnt add anything for a viewer perspective. I can even stand the grid when it is too dark
Very interesting how your justification doesn’t include any reason for why it benefits the gameplay (It does the opposite by making it more stale and it creates an uneven playingfield). I find your reasoning extremely cookie cutter, weak, lacking context, fallatious and even misleading. Clearly you are very biased and unable to make fair comparisons.
Can’t beat em join em right? It’s just making a small problem into a large one. They are promoting this feature and normalizing it for streamers and competitive play…
Also we know there is a hacker forum out there where they have more exploits, so following your reasoning official map hax feature soon? Mangonel projectile target soon? Go to relic hotkey soon?
Are these arguments or are you just listing other things that are beneficial and therefore this mod must also be so?
Misleading… As if the range information being obtainable or not matters, what matters is that you don’t need to remember and estimate anymore in realtime.
Grid mod doesn’t provide any information other than just highlighting the underlaying grid which is already indicated by every asset in the game…
Grid mod has a very broad usecase and is not so intrusive as it blends with the map.
Clearly range mods are not universally accepted so what is your point?..
Very silly to compare an unnecessary QOL feature with a fundamental feature like small trees which we all greed upon is vital for competitive play.
Also the comparison is very weird as small trees is mainly a universal convenience thing while range mods specifically help with attacking and defending.
More important, it is overpowered when one player uses it and the other doesn’t. This is why a vast majority needs to agree that the mod is beneficial to the gameplay, this consensus doesn’t exist and therefore range mods create an uneven playingfield.
Ah yes, comparing a mod with less benefits that almost no one uses (because of how intrusive it is) with a widely popular range mod… Context??? Ofcourse age of cubes is more distracting, to the point that there is zero concern that many will start using it so it does not have any significant effect on the game.
I can’t take a single point you made serious. Instead of making a list of how the mod is not bad, I suggest you argue how it benefits gameplay…
I do agree that if they decide to make such a mod official, then it is unacceptable that it looks worse and provides false information. I cannot understand how they add pure trash to this beautiful game.
I actually never said it benefits the gameplay. My argument was that it is in the benefit of players for popular mods to be implemented as options, since dealing with game options is a smoother and more reliable experience than dealing with mods. Just as adding grid overlay changed nothing about its in game effect, but made it more pleasant and convenient for players to adjust to their liking.
This falsely assumes that Mandala mods have been banned, which as my post argued, there would be little precedent for. So, “can’t beat em join em” makes no sense as there was never an attempt to “beat em”.
Next you bring up a number of false comparisons. Map hax: this is clearly modifying the game state or gaining unobtainable information (depending on what you mean by map hax). Go to relic: That is straight up botting. The only one of these that is even remotely comparable would be mango targeting, which is gaining unobtainable information too as trajectory cannot be computed only from the location of the mangonel.
These are demonstrations of the precedent of allowing similar mods and therefore the inconsistency that would be banning Mandala. Furthermore, your statement that they other things are “beneficial” is only your opinion and experience. I have seen people who don’t see small trees as beneficial and utilizing an unfair advantage.
Misleading is false. Gaining unobtainable information is a clear and universal hallmark of cheating, which would be grounds for banning Mandala, so my argument stands.
Grid mod absolutely provides information. It converts the “remember and estimate anymore in realtime” to count-the-squares.
This argument works against you as you refer to Mandala as a "widely popular range mod.
This is either ignorant or misleading. The range addition is the same color and opacity of the grid overlay. So to the degree the grid blends in, the range indicator blends in.
"Unnecessary QOL feature? Every QOL feature is unnecessary. QOL is the greatest thing about AOEII DE. Select all barracks, stable… Reseed farms. Improved waypoints, More informative UI. All of these are “Unnecessary QOL features” that reduce some supposedly meaningful skill.
In two sentences you call small trees “vital for competitive play” and “mainly a universal convenience thing”. Also, it absolutely does help with attacking and defending. Stopping holes in walls: defending. Identifying units behind trees to kill them: attacking. Selecting villagers to run from raids: defending.
Using what poll or metric? You would need to do that with every visual mod. Are we going to do this for every mod that could be beneficial: idle pointers, age of cubes, the conversion UI mod (an official mod which I actually consider questionable as it gives the unobtainable information of your conversion target). Are we going to have a weekly mod acceptability poll that is as underused as the map poll? Furthermore, I think you are overestimating range indicator’s effect. It really has less effect than you would thing, and is more of a small thing that occasionally allows you to play the game instead of playing guess-the-tower-range.
Arguing for its gameplay benefit is actually besides the point. There is no consistent grounds for banning it. Many players like to use it. It is a convenient QOL feature for those players that use it to have it as an option rather than a mod. THAT is its benefit.
But, to humor you, as an appendix, I will lay out some of the gameplay benefits to having a range indicator.
AOEII is a real-time strategy game, meaning that it’s essence is in implementing economic and military strategies and tactics in real time. The less attention required in busy work (reseeding farms in late game, pre-multiqueue queueing, pre-DE tech researching, counting squares from a known-range tower, counting villagers working each resource), the more attention can be devoted to performing more interesting strategies and tactics. Every one of these QOL improvements (auto-reseed, multiqueue, tech queueing, villager count) removed some skill from the game. But ultimately, the controversy came and went as it became evident that rather than taking away from the essence of AOEII, they allowed it to shine more as players got to do more of what they loved about AOEII.
I also read the posts of PacificWheel208 but i pretty much dont see any good reasons against the range indicators. It pretty much seems like he dont like the range indicators. There is nothing wrong with posting that opinion, but his posts seems to lack arguments. He mainly make statements like these:
These statemants are just a personal attack to the topic starter without any real arguments. While reading if feel like the completely opposite of what he says. In his post i mainly see these kind of personal attacks without a good reasoning. Note: There is nothing wrong with having a different opinion, but please dont use all these personal attacks in the discussion.
The range mod dont give you new info at all. It only shows the known info in a visual manner. You could already click on a building to see the range and drawn the circle around the building in your head. Having some tools to process the known data faster are totally fine to me. These things wont really make a difference at high level, where people already are spot on with their estimates, but lower rated players benefit from this. QoL features that make it easier for weaker players to play multiplayer, while changing nothing for higher rated players are totally fine to me.
I havent seen any good reason from people that dont like the mod. I see two frequent reasons against a range indicator:
It creates an uneven playing field. Not sure why, since all players have access to the range indicator. How will that result in an uneven playing field? It isnt hidden behind a pay wall or something like that. So everyone is able to use the range indicator. Having it as part as the game makes it even more even: A feature is more well known then a certain mod.
They visually not like the lines and think they are annoying to watch. I dont see the issue, since no one is forced to play with the range indicator. Also other settings are optional. You can also play without grid if you dont like seeing a grid. That is up to the player and can never be a reason to just say range indicators are bad.
So to me the range indicators are totally fine.
But i looks like the topic starter wont wanted to start a discussion about this. His main goal seems like discussing why the range indicators are bad, because the are no perfect circles, like the devs made, but they are like the Age of Mandala mods. So why are the lines misleading? You are still better off with the age of mandala mods, instead ingame tool. That seems pretty weird to me and needs to be fixed. I would even consider this as a bug and post it in the report a bug section.
There are reasons why the mod is controversial, because of how it impacts gameplay and visual. The topic starter wanted to give justifications to take away the controversy, intead of arguing how it benefits the game he goes the other way and only says why there is no grounds to ban it in the most generalized ways… I don’t understand how you can convince anyone like that. This kind of arguing aready comes from being convinced you like the mod and does not adress why.
You assume that everyone wants to use the mod, which we know is not true.
If you don’t want to be in a disadvantage, you’re forced to use it. Your comparison to grid mod is not equal and without context…
Most important argument is how it negatively impacts gameplay by removing good risk reward situations and making gameplay more predictable and boring.
How is this relevant to the benefit range mods give you? Info being obtainable or not is irrelevant, it’s about not having to know or estimate in the moment.
Good reason…
Even pro players cannot know and perfectly estimate the exact range of each building, for each upgrade and all this during high apm play. More important it shows a psychological barrier that exactly shows where the risk lies.
This is nothing more than deliberately ignoring how it’s being used in all skill levels and far more than just a tool for noobs. Just a complete excuse of an argument. Also you’re conveniently ignoring how in the first place that noob will have a harder time dealing with raids in his base or facing trushes…
Ofcourse I get heated when very little standards are applied and cheats are being imported into the game (range mods, auto scout, all healthbars visible…)
Don’t like to be that douchebag but as far as I can tell it’s only pros and good players that don’t like this range mod cos it takes away an element of their skill. The original poster hasn’t given any concrete reason for why morally range mods should be in game and if they benefit the gameplay at all (which they don’t) it’s fairly blatantly obvious that putting archers close to TC to kill vils is a high risk high reward situation where newer players will fail more in this decision making process naturally and more experienced players will eventually push the limits through their skill gained through years in these spots, giving this aspect of decision making in the game up for cheap for free to everybody is kinda lame for anyone that’s built this up over the years of play. I think a lot of the people that are for this change are lower skilled players that like this because it’s obviously hugely advantageous to them and not the better players. Any mod that tells you the exact decision to make with pin point accuracy is not beneficial to the game on a fundamental level. Mandala mod will ruin skill in mangonel fights in this game if every one uses it. It’s not knowing the exact range that gives some pros a big advantage over other pros for instance some pros styles are very all in with siege and they get more used to the range of mangonels more so than other pros when msgonel battles happen they will have the advantage making it easy for everyone is detrimental to the game on so many levels I can’t even believe the likes of me and Pacific have to even argue this. It seems fairly obvious that if aoe2 is a decision based game on warfare that taking away the decision in the most critical part of the game is wrong and negatively affects the game. What’s next auto fighting armies?
I am pretty tired of these kind of statements in your post. You blame others for being biased. Have you ever considered that you are biased as well? I do hope so, since you clearly are biased. As long as your posts are full of personal attacks i just stop argueing with you about this subject.
Btw Pacific have multiple more reasons to back his view of range mod being bad for game the original poster just gave fluffy answers without any sense to them. Half the time I don’t even know what his point is cos it doesn’t make logical sense what he’s saying no offence just read your point out and check through it once your fnished writing. Ty btw the points about the built in range mod being not as good as the non official mod by OP are good tho
How many times do I have to spell out my point for it to be clear to you? The question of “should the mod be made” is gone. That ship has sailed. The mod is made. Now we must ban it or not. That is why I directed my attention at that:
There has NEVER been a precedent to ban visual mods from the game, REGARDLESS of any advantage or simplification they provide. Making rule judgements against all precedent or inconsistently applying rules creates uncertainty, instability, and perception of unfairness.
Since this is more than a visual mod and affects the fighting system of the game so much I would have it banned personally think the vast majority of pros and experienced non pros would too
Except it isnt… This claim is my main issue with the arguments of the players who are against this mod. They think it is more then a visual mod. But in reality it is just a visual mod like many others. The range indicator dont add anything new to the game at all. All info needed to make the range indicator is already available into the game. The range was already visible into the game. The mod only makes this visual instead of just showing the number only. The mod dont add anything else. So this mod is clearly a visual mod.
And yes, showing things visually makes things a little bit easy. Isnt the same true for things like the small trees mod and the grid line mod? People even claim that the cube mod has the benefit that is shows everything more easily. All these mods have the beneift of seeing certain things more easily. The range indicator mod is just a mod like those: A visual mod like those.
True, score does give non-earned information. But I think it might pay for itself by also giving players some sense of whether the game is over or not. Hard to say, but scores are also as old as the game and going nowhere, so it may be a mute point.
Ill bring it back to my point that mods make the game a bit easier to play they are helpful but they don’t tell you the correct or best decision this is the part that breaks the mod imo, if it tells you the perfect way to play. Grid mod doesnt tell you where to put towers still it helps estimate it for sure but doesn’t tell you the answer. No mod I know of tells you what units to make Vs the enemy. Small trees doesn’t tell you when and where to wall holes, this range mod tells you where to put units, since I’ve been using this built in mod I’ve lost very few archer units to TCS. I don’t usually lose much anyway cod I’ve been playing a long time but I can definitely get another half to third tile of extra resources cut off from enemy or guarantee a tower is the perfect tower. I’m sure for newer players it will be even more broken it terms of how it improves their decision making ability. I get the argument is the game tells us that the range is this much in written form so why can’t we see what this is visually. it’s just that it affects the decision of where I move units too much. it is a visual mod with big implications at the decision making level. Its possible that in a game in the future you could get a mod that would set a unit to not go within the circle range of another building or unit to keep it protected. I think everybody would agree that this would be broken as it would prevent a mistake and automate a decision making part of the game. This mod is doing something similar but not quite as obviously bad. Still bad tho
And range mod does not do this either. It does not tell you where to place towers or archers, it does not even tell you not to place towers or archers inside this circle. It only tells you “this is the range of this tower, do with it what you will”.
I see no problem here. I don’t want to win a game vs you because you misclicked archers under my TC. That is about as unsatisfying as winning a chess game cause someone blundered their queen. TCs should keep enemy armies a set distance at bay, not randomly kill armies.
No, it’s not. At least not as a visual mod. This would require a data pack mod as it is botting. And data pack mods are not compatible with players with different data packs.
All visual mods have some mostly beneifts. That isnt really strange. Otherwise there is not really a reason to use them. This is true for the range indicator, but also for other visual mods. Even those who are posted by @CLOYNEPERSON
Afaik the grid mod was mainly for spotting the gaps between buildings, but it also works for placing buildings and microing units. These are all benefits of using a grid over using no grid. So having a grid will let you play more easily. I cant think of any drawback. If you know any drawbacks, let me know. Something like esthetics is pretty much subjective and doesnt really count.
Small trees arent only for holes next to a forest, but also for seeing behind the tree line and microing your units. Things like placing you lumbercamp is easier with small trees. Without small trees, these things are much more unclear. Seems is true for example a scout rush. You can more easily spot the vills behind the trees with small trees. Again this visual mod seems to only have benefits for the user. I cant really think of any drawback.
If i than have a look at the range indicator mod: It has the main benefit that you can place your buildings more easily. That is totally fine for me. I have no issues with visual mods that makes playing the game more easily as long as you still need to play the game yourself. This is true for all of the mentioned mods in the text above. With all these mods it is still the player that is in control. The player still have to perform all actions. You only get some more help in the decision making part of the game with all these mods, but in the end the decision is still made by the player.
There is a big difference between these kind suggestions and visual mods. These suggestions cant be made as visual mod. For me this is a false comparison for that reason.
Visual mods: These helps you visually to make better decisions. You still need to make the decision and do all the actions.
These suggestions: The game makes the decision for you and plays the game for you.
I draw the line with visual mods. A different visual which help you to improve making better decisions is fine. I even consider this as a great idea, mainly to improve the decision making for lower rated players. But features that play the game for me are a no go. I dont need an auto everything. I want to play the game. I wont want the game to play the game for me.