I only played skirmish in AoE 3 until de was released and now basically exclusively play pvp, and I see what both sides are saying here. Multiplayer you don’t want it too complicated because it makes it harder to sort through units and such, granted that is also part of being a skilled player. For single player the more unique units, civs and difference in unit appearance makes it more fun and give you more things to try and play around with. I only play multiplayer now and am pretty excited for the patch to come out for all the unique units skins to go live. Just spices the game up imo. Each side of the player base has different things to contribute. Casual single players will want more unique thing and most people who play multiplayer exclusively not so much. But people who only play single player also aren’t tuned in to what is balanced as well. Because let’s face it any decent player can crush the AI pretty easy so Unit compilation doesn’t matter as much.
Another thing to remember is that when I talk about multiplayer, I am not talking about competitive play at the highest levels. The biggest AoE3 youtuber for a very long time was SamuraiRevolution, and he featured very casual multiplayer content, like FFA and fun builds for 1v1 and team, for players from like 600-1200 ELO (or the pr equivalent on legacy).
Casual multiplayer is what keeps people coming back, and making the game more accessible to casual multiplayer is a good idea.
i think there is a point to be made about whether its a good idea to give rather generic combat cards unique names. like the new british names while obviously having a history behind them are going to be rather confusing.
实际上这款游戏的中文文本完全就是某些朋友说的那样，对特殊兵种的命名直接是采用“某国”“XX兵”的方式，例如葡萄牙猎兵被翻译成“葡萄牙长枪兵”，俄国射击军被翻译为“俄国长枪兵”（这里的“长枪”不是pike，而是“射程更长的枪gun”），土耳其苏丹亲兵被翻译成“奥斯曼火枪手”。但是中文社区的绝大多数玩家对于这种命名方式都十分不满，不仅因为它不够准确，而且丧失了游戏的历史氛围。因此，在游戏官方模组平台上订阅数量最高的模组之一是一款中国玩家自制的调整改进游戏中文翻译的模组。所以对于这件事来说，我们中国玩家有着极大的发言权，恰恰是因为，官方翻译的胡乱作为，让这款游戏的历史气息完全消失了。而更残酷的事实是，即便如此，很多新人玩家同样看得一头雾水。
I can agree with that, they should’ve used those historical names in future cards.
Yes. Yes they did. ESOC hosted the tournament. ALL competitive players play and bought DE. Many ESOC contributors make contents, livestream and startegy guides that help and attract new players. So yes, yes to all these questions.
of course not, unique names make units more distinguible, just by viewing it and not by clicking on it to see what unit is. Makes it easier to play
And the “casual multiplayer” player according to your portrayal does not want to read any description or check the icons and panels, and would not learn that the first icon in a Town Center is a villager unless it is called so. They play the first few games and quit because there is some name he cannot remember.
If someone is “casual” he has the freedom to check out units and cards at his own pace. He does not feel the urge to memorize the same few metas to win every game. Either he does not have to remember everything at all, or he has enough time to remember anything he needs.
Your portrayal of “other players” could only come from the mind of someone that has been soaked in some small pvp circle for so long that almost forget what a “game” is supposed to be, or how he first learned to play a game. No matter how many times you try to use “it’s a game” as if it adds anything to your points, you are not treating it as a game. You are treating it as a labor, and think everyone else does the same.
Additional copies?
10k viewers?
I don’t know since when the purchase of competitive players are counted as 2x or 20x of that of other plebs and generate more profits. On the contrary I see “competitive players” skipping all DLCs because they are not familiar.
And I don’t see any AOE3 tournament or competitive scene that is big enough to make microsoft get out of its way to spend 6 months on a DLC for it —— if that happens maybe they’ll justifiably have a say on the direction of the game.
And last but not least, I don’t think ESOC and its contributions would grant some sort of nobility status to every single ESOC member, or every single individual that has an account on ESOC. When some people, either from ESOC, some renowned mod team, FE or even the old ES, jump out and attempt to kill the fun for me, I’m equally against them.
Like if someone really enjoys the small tree or cube tree mod in AOE2 because it helps with his competitiveness, I don’t want to bother. But if he comes out and pushes that to become official and compulsory, then I’ll have my share of objection.
中文玩家忍受了“某国某兵”这种”简洁易懂”的翻译十几年，不得不手动把它们改成更符合历史的名字。
这边有些人倒是想把原版都全给改成某国某兵。不如跟咱换换。
I want to agree with you here, but so many units don’t follow the rules of the unit class. Grens are heavy infantry but bad vs cavalry. Some skirms counter other skirms but its not immediately obvious. The new units continue to stretch any attempts at archetypes, while the old units continue to fall behind. While I actually prefer a game full of in-depth history and units, I’d personally prefer to see the units reigned in a bit - - what I mean is that every civ can have a unit or 2 that stretches the system a bit (the way rifle riders or flamethrowers do) - - and keep the rest of the units more in line, even if they are unique. I think TWC did this fairly well, tad stretched things a bit further but still kept a few rules and now… theres few rules if any.
Side note: Hausa is to me the perfect example of a new civ done right. All the units are within the bounds of the established counter system, Maigadi stretch it a bit but still is a musketeer in most regards.
Second side note: its mostly minor native units i think most of the complaints fall on. Mainline rosters have generally been ok to understand at first glance. Broad generalization, but it usually only takes a game or 2 to figure out a civs units, but natives and mercs take significantly longer because exposure is lower.
I agree with squamiger on the new card names being excessively vague. Historical names are cool and worthwhile, but “team scout cavalry” or “team cheap stables” is very easy to remember the first time i read it, a reference to a royal house is not nearly as easy to stick in memory. I’m fine with unique cards and names, but I also like clarity at the same time. I have no idea what the card “pizza” is going to do.
Not surprising that every time one uses the “new player cannot” “casual player cannot” shield, it eventually ends up being “I cannot”. Next time change your ids to “new player” or “casual player” to make it sound more convincing.
A unique sight of this game is someone who cares about pvp wins so much that cannot accept losing to one unfamiliar card, or has no time to look at and think over a card description for 10s, speaking on behalf on “casual players” as if the latter cannot wait to get on the pvp train the first minute a new patch drops and never read any descriptions.
i said nothing about new players or casual players, only myself. i will have a real conversation with you when you stop being condescending and aggressive in every post.
Yeah obviously I’m more condescending than those people including op who pretend to speak on behalf of “new/casual players” who they portray as lacking basic comprehensive abilities, or some pvp elites who sound as if they are more important to the game than us plebs. But sure they are your comrades so they are not condescending.
Look at the past conversations in this thread since it was created: it started as one complaint and it attracted swarms of people who want to simplify this, simplify that, get rid of this, get rid of that, turn this and that into another AOE2.
Want to get on the train just because someone happens to make one point you agree with? Good luck! There is someone who directly name called me as “feeling superior” just because I said it’s not difficult to remember some names through a few games. There is someone who believes the game was not competitive since 2006 but still stick around spreading his competitive propaganda. I tried to discuss normally. I cannot. This thread with a very “let’s gather and s**t on the game” kind of title has turned into a stinking hodgepodge of hate on every aspect no matter related to the title or not. Do you really think it is a good place to talk about anything specific?
If you want to discuss how to improve the clarity of some certain designs better create your own thread and be specific on that. That’s what I’ve been doing. And try not make the title sound like the signal flag for another hate fest.
what about having a card named “pizza” is more historical or accurate compared to a card called cavalry combat? i don’t really buy the reasoning that unique name = more historical
Devs like to have fun and throw in some humor once in a while. Besides, who doesn’t love Pizza? Some of the tooltips are pretty funny. As for being confused about what Team Pizza is it doesn’t take that long to scroll through a civs library and to learn what its team cards do or check their deck if you don’t remember.
From the UI to the tooltips AoE3 is quite newbie friendly in this regard.
Well did you get additional copies? Or 10k viewers?
Again that’s not the topic of the thread.
Two name convention will work the best for shared units, and unique units will just have a unique name. That’s the best of both worlds.
That’s obviously for humor. Without these things, the game would turn into something dry and grindy like AoE4.
Just read what the card does if the name doesn’t give enough info. Jesus!
Look. I’d rather have a card named “Ethiopian Coffee” than “Infantry speed improvement” because the former is more fun, and I can read that the Ethiopian coffee card improves infantry speed.
Because I never said I’m supporting “more historical” ONLY. You tagged me as that.
There are a lot of things unique names can represent better than some standardized, bland names: reference to history (but not limited to it), culture, important events, peoples, a lot of things. That’s straight up more immersive than “cheap houses”, and a main selling point of AOE games.
I’d say other mainstream RTS like the blizzard ones are all much better in their pure RTS aspects (very smooth control, good AI, carefully designed factions and units). What is the point of playing AOE instead of those games? Why are civs called by real civs in history not “gigachad eco civ no 1”? Why aren’t the ages called tier 1, 2, 3? (jeez even the very competitive game of warcraft 3 called its tiers town hall/keep/castle not tier 1, 2, 3) Why are the AI players given names of real historical figures with unique dialogue lines? Why are you initiating a real revolution not “a switch to an extra deck”?
In fact none of the preceding games in the series use the “cheap houses” type of bland naming for their techs.
And as have been pointed out again and again names are the LEAST important part in the learning process. Detailed descriptions tell you exactly what the effects are. Icons help you build a relationship between the visuals and their effects better, and the icons for most cards including (I’d even say especially) those with unique names are intuitive enough.
Why do you think they add the guns instead of just filling the icon with the coin and the flag?
Why do you think they add a market icon and a number?
Why do you think they put that rose next to a group of houses?
AOE2 damage upgrade techs are not called “infantry/cavalry damage” or “archer damage” and they have random icons (ironically AOE3 icons are a huge improvement on that aspect). No one ever had problems memorizing them. In Chinese we mostly call them something equivalent to “damage level 3”. But if you say blast furnace, most people know what it is.
Whatever a card is called it was still the same infantry combat (BTW does that name tell you it adds 15% or 20%?) and it’s apparent from the icon.
Well pizza is one exception where the icon is not so intuitive. But the time you spend complaining about it is more than enough for you to read the tooltips and memorize this and another 20 cards. And how do you think AOE2 players memorize their 40+ unique units all with their own names and gimmicks (and not reflected by the name or the look at all)?
AOE4 has a very simple, very straightforward, very non-unique tech name of “extra material” ---- does it tell you anything about what it does? Or is it easier to memorize?
If you want better tooltips, or a bracket/icon indicating the roles, I’m fine with that. If you want to revert anything ----- buckle up. Once that first example is set, you’ll initiate a whole campaign of downgrading every aspect back to a more uniform and bland state. There are bloodthirsty people attracted by your topic who want to revert and simplify the game far far further than you some “simple name change” you’d expect, and you’ll find the outcome no more easier to learn than the current state.
So they are not more important to the game than any other player. That’s my point. Then why are those people so loud?
Don’t get me wrong. I respect people who create contents, and those that dive deeply into the game. But I rarely see them jump out and claim superiority over other players because they have an account on ESOC. It’s the forum posters that I have never found in the rank of major competitors or content creators who constantly do this.
I know that but I was more referring to their behaviour towards the devs and balance changes.