I do like wololo, but game should not be balanced around such players or events. They sure should provide skill expression and it already has plenty, it will be good if this RTS can focus on normal average people, instead of people who play this game for a living.
The average person is not a PVP content creator and the people who cover this game is very less, the new generation is not at all interested in RTS especially this genre doesn’t provide instant gratification.
The current game is too much focused on content creators and PVP players, there is hardly anything that keeps a average non PVP player or even if a person want to get into PVP everything involves around some predefined combo and synergy system with well calculated crap.
Nobody has time for this after office work, because we already do a lot of planning and synergies as part of career, life.
Esports has indeed destroyed many RTS games, especially Blizzard’s games, which are completely aimed at balancing the game with a small number of professional players, with the vast majority of ordinary players not on the same level as professional players. This overly professional game balance undermines the fun of ordinary players.
I agree with this, can we have a better single player AI, an in game user friendly map editor, better modding support, more interesting campaign scenarios. I find AoE 2 campaigns to be more enjoyable and have more depth than AoE 4 campaigns.
Of course, at least they could take advantage and do better campaigns with the civs that are missing from AoE 4 and not focus so much on the competitive, since AoE 4 is not going to be the new SC2…
Most of what you all have suggested has nothijgvto do with balancing?
You’re nostly saying tou want the designers to hone in on content that strongly caters to their majority average player experiences.
However, the problem with a small design team is they can’t do everything for everyone at once. So if they abandon the esport attentions and money they need to replace it with FTP content scheme or another to generate traction.
Esport does a decent job at exposure and higher than average players are the type of ppl to participate in such events and better understand and exploit balancing issues in the game.
To prove you’re not talking about balance, can any of you list a balance change that caters to the high end players as oppose to lower end?
I guess it’s no secret that after two years, most changes in AoE 4 were somewhat related to skirmish play whereas traditional single player changes (AI, Campaign) fell short.
Speaking of AI, I made a topic a while ago:
However, I feel like most people use esports as a synonym for “bad” and ignore that, as Shneider said, it does a decent job at exposure to bring in new players. When I was modding on the Red Bull channel last year, I catched some comments during the AoE 2 days from people who remember that game from their childhood but didn’t know that there was a new version of that game being out for 3 years back then.
And speaking of esports - even after 2 years, I personally consider AoE 4 anything but esports ready as several important features (hidden civ choice, sharable replays) are still missing.
You don’t need be a professional player to enjoy multiplayer. And if you’re not at the top you also don’t need perfect balancing as the skill difference and your.performance in game will be much more important.
So what’s the issue with current game? What’s wrong with enjoying the multiplayer? Or are you just scared of losing?
You can play casually in multiplayer too if you don’t mind a lower league. Bronze players are very casual.
I agree with Schneider here. I don’t think any balance changes makes casual play worse.
The only balance changes lacking that would help casual play in my opinion is better defenses on water like fishing ships shooting arrows when guarisoned. Wish they add this.
Another problem is, ladder is never equivalent to professional games. Those professional players know each other as they are matched up again and again in various competitions, but ordinary players does not know who they are matched with in a ladder game. That means ordinary players may take a totally different way of thinking and winning from professional players. Some stategy may not work for the same person repeatedly so professional players will consider they to be helpless, but as your opponent changes in every ladder game, those one-time stategy could still bring you an insane win rate. These aspects will be overlooked if the balance is professional only, resulting in a balanced top ladder, but a imbalanced average ladder
The problem is not balance, the problem is over simplification for eSports sake, that include removing cool features, making graphics childish, making building smaller, ugly UI, reducing game duration and introducing moba features etc.
You seem somewhat inconsistent in your wishes. Here you are asking for an easier game. But in this We need ballistics similar to AOE2 thread you are asking to bring aoe2 ballistics which is one of the most frustrating and difficult to micro mechanics I’ve ever seen in rts
The company, at the core, cares more about player retention. Content creators and Esports double up as marketing. Content creators inspire people to try their strategies in PvP when they come online. Every single successful RTS game has always been balanced around high level of play primarily.
Others have pointed out that ordinary players think differently than Pros. But no. Every single “ordinary player” with average skill level mimics standard build orders Pros perform and invent. Ordinary players mimic pros and content creators inevitably, so there is absolutely no sense in balancing an RTS game around an “average joe,” because the average joe will just copy the content creators.
You are absolutely right. And the real problem with aoe4 pro scene, if there is any, is that esport matches are played with some made up rules (no age 2 stone walls/wall towers, picks and bans, custom maps) not presented in the ladder. That segregates esport from “average joe” experience
I unintentionally liked this post, but I didn’t mean it, so subtract one from the count…
I understand the issue but it’s exaggerated. It’s not that the game is unplayable at lower level, you don’t have to try hard if you don’t want to. It’s good to have a esports scene instead, I wouldn’t let that go.
i still find it funny how competitive tryhards never fail to change whatever discussion they find into “you hate balance” speech, anyway, as tsuda pointed out some of resources put here almost needlessly should go elsewhere where the game lacks great deal, as of OP
this is very true, not sure what exactly causes the infiltration of tryhard wanna be’s in many RTS, but aoe4 stands out here even compared to aoe2 and 3, both of which have this happen but not to quite this extent, whats wrong with people to feel so desperate to go full tryhard over trying to have a fun game, why are they so intent on making every match a pure sweatfest, and yes i’m talking about lower end matches here
Well something is wrong with your mindset here. As with any competitive game for it to be fun you need to, well, tryhard. No matter what level you are. You don’t just go out on tennis court casually walking around and hitting a ball now and then. And you don’t sit by the chess board randomly moving pieces.
You know, if some casual relax is suitable for you, there are many treaty lobbies or something. So I don’t think it’s a promlem. But if you are talking about quick or ranked game, the so-called “focusing on normal people” is unfair imo… It’s basically a competitive game, it’s about win and lose in a given setting of rules. That’s why gamers try to get better and are consequently rewarded by the rules. That’s what the ladder means. If you do care wins then put more effort; or if you don’t, it’s totally ok and just ignore the results and have fun or there are custom lobbies for you.
The competeeeeeve higher caste like using “If you don’t want to win…” to twist the rhetoric.
No I want to win. Every move I do in the game is to win the game, either against players or AI. I test “stupid and fun” stuff so that I can win the game in a stupid and fun way. If I don’t want to win I can straight up delete my TC at the start of the game.
I DON’T want to do 10000 APM, operate everything in the precision of milliseconds, play against the same meta 90% of the time, to win, and quit the PvP and find everything else in the game has been played.