@Teutonic_knight said:
Edit: also the general lagginess of multiplayer only worsens the pathfinding problems!
There is no “general” lagginess of multiplayer. I play mostly 6-8 player games that go to Iron Age and the game is not that laggy. Yes, a second of lag here and there that you can use to micromanage your economy; nothing game breaking.
As long as everyone has a green ping it’s fine.
@Tom4 said:
You are talking about that this is some brand new game. It isn’t. IT’s just RoR. And all strategies have already been played to death in 97-99. These vietnamese people are playing old skool AoE yammie, and assy CA bronze rushing. Nothing new.
The strategies weren’t played to death 20 years ago. Most of the people back then didn’t know how to play, and even the top players back then would be weak now. Any random pleb from today would be able to beat top players from 1999
This is extremely consistent with relaunches, gamers from 2018 are just better.
@Tom4 said:
Slingers are strong in Tool age, but there are numerous ways to counter them. Did you think about bronze rushing? Or just Booming to bronze? You know how many slingers 2 cavs can eat?
This works, yeah. If you can hit 9 minute bronze.
Thats Just a blind statement. You werent There so You only guessing. For sure You never played Matty, out4blood, DevilZ clan, etc etc.
In 98 people also have cable internet, so its not like Atari timeframe LoL.
Mind You also There where only 2 big strategy games. So rts experts only played sc And aoe.
The fun part of AoE/ ror back then where the fan and strategy sites where people discussing and sharing strategies.
The game cant be balanced because There are numerous way to play IT. A mediterraan map totally desires a different approach, Then a Continental , hill country or island map. Then You also have the option of DM where other (slow civs) get stronger due to bigger tech tree.
Then There is 1-1, 2-2, 3-3. Shang Will be OP on 1-1 hill, but suck on 3-3 mediterrean. The same goes for tool rushes, Bronze rushes, boat Booms etc. Etc.
If you want to talk about disbalanced units, then You better talk about ca’s and composite bows dominance in Bronze age. But then again, You nerve them soms other unit Will shine. Tool age is pretty Nice. I never played An expert game where somebody Just make slingers -_-. Not now, and not then.
With a good fishing operation its ok of You lose some vills to a tool rusher.
Now all i see here is noobs crying about units.
I Will tell You one thing about experts; they Just play the game for what it is and get good at IT instead of wasting time on forums to complain about the Ai, and slingers LoL.
Perhaps some people would just like a more balanced game. I can see that you’re not in that group.
Slingers don’t feel that OP. They lose to axemen especially with any lag and like other tool age units, do not scale out.
I find bronze swords to be way stronger. They seem to beat everything in bronze age cost effectively except hoplites in the editor. Since the game doesn’t have garrisoning I think being aggressive is better than being defensive.
I’ve won like 80% of my games (mostly multiplayer) just by spamming legions.
Why would you count latency in as a factor to win against Slingers? Bottom line: Massed slingers will always outplay Tool Age. So many times this has been demonstrated by skilled players on Twitch and even narrated while getting Slinger rushed or rushing him-/herself.
Long Sword and Legion are Iron Age units. If you’re winning 80% of your games by spamming Legion then your enemies let you boom to Iron Age.
Also the Vietnamese Tournaments which got mentioned previously; Small addition, they play by no Towers/Walls and No-Tool-Rush. Thus it always becomes a Camel / CA spam fest.
Anyone here want me to show you how axers can beat slingers if played properly?
My only concern about slingers needing some adjustment would be about their build time or their bonus against walls.
For scouts to be a reasonable choice in tool: reduce their cost and build time, as well as armor upgrade.
For any melee unit in general to perform against archers: reduce the cost of bronze shield and fix pathing so they wont get stuck while trying to attack.
@RealIronSteel said:
Anyone here want me to show you how axers can beat slingers if played properly?
My only concern about slingers needing some adjustment would be about their build time or their bonus against walls.
For scouts to be a reasonable choice in tool: reduce their cost and build time, as well as armor upgrade.
For any melee unit in general to perform against archers: reduce the cost of bronze shield and fix pathing so they wont get stuck while trying to attack.
Try 1v1ing Tom4, maybe he does not dodge you …lol
@ZheBoyzForum said:
@RealIronSteel said:
Anyone here want me to show you how axers can beat slingers if played properly?
My only concern about slingers needing some adjustment would be about their build time or their bonus against walls.
For scouts to be a reasonable choice in tool: reduce their cost and build time, as well as armor upgrade.
For any melee unit in general to perform against archers: reduce the cost of bronze shield and fix pathing so they wont get stuck while trying to attack.Try 1v1ing Tom4, maybe he does not dodge you …lol
What do you mean?
Guys, what about this: Can’t we make the Scout Cavalry a faster unit (increase the base speed of the unit by 25% or something)? This way we might preserve the unit stats/costs as it is by now (no need to rebalance techs/fighting stats) and also we fix the problem of the slingers (early aggression/raid on enemy by scout can be powerful if opponent is planning on going mass slingers. Gonna make enemy player react with axes in order to prevent further damage, for example).
Let’s also keep in mind that more speed means less arrows being shot before scout gets close to a ranged unit, and the scout will be hitting the target sooner (less HP lost), it also opens possibilities of the use of this unit as a late game raiding unit, even decent against CA on small numbers (I think, since this bonus would make the Scout the fastest cav on the game). All of these benefits would justify the big price of the unit, delivering a more interesting Tool Age fighting…
But hey, I never played this game on MP, but I’m believing that it can be the easiest (and most interesting) option for our Tool Age problems related… Comments?
Honestly I think Scout is one unit that could get some new look. 100 Food is a ton. Making it maybe 80, getting rid of that non-attack part, and perhaps giving an upgrade in bronze would instantly make it another viable unit for various parts of the game. I think the Scout looks a lot cooler in DE than in the original so making it viable would be amazing
@Potdindy said:
Honestly I think Scout is one unit that could get some new look. 100 Food is a ton. Making it maybe 80, getting rid of that non-attack part, and perhaps giving an upgrade in bronze would instantly make it another viable unit for various parts of the game. I think the Scout looks a lot cooler in DE than in the original so making it viable would be amazing
Doing a value change to this unit could be interesting (I was going on this same path), indeed, but I still would see it as a non-practical unit by the begging of tool age, being just a little less situational on the Tool warfare (according to the values that you suggested). That’s why I formulated this “kind of” random thought of giving it more speed. It seems a small adjustment, but actually changes in a simple way many aspects of the game (cited above), making more reasonable for you to spend one hundred food on a very fast unit. Also helps to solve the problem with civs that cannot go on a chariot spam late game (scouts can be a useful option to be spammed on trash wars as a fast “trash”, ofc, we might have to adjust it more on HP or armor, but still, I would prefer a faster unit as the main improvement, in order to “keep more simple” the factors that would be changed).
Changing more obvious aspects sounds right, but it can also create more problems. For example, a new upgrade for scouts on bronze could potentially make the bronze unit “Cavalry” useless on the Bronze Age, since we would enable the possibility of making the upgraded Scouts a horse unit capable of doing the job of the Cavalry, a little less effective, but completely gold free (Cavalry is somewhat expensive if you think about). Now, if the player stacks the new upgraded Scout with Nobility + Storage Pit techs, we probably would see a quite powerfull unit on critical mass that only costs one kind of resource (now think of on how Palmyrians and Persians wuold benefit from that). I mean, I’m just trying to make visible that game balance is complex, and sometimes it is better to make a more “incisive” solution that potentially helps on general matters such as the slinger dominance on Tool Age, and that would be fair to all civs if we think of (all civs would benefit from faster scouts equally, since everyone have this unit, and also everyone already have means to combat a very fast unit with low stats overall).
Oh, and you are 100% right on the non-aggressive stance of the scout on villagers. We really need it to be changed, it affects a lot the raiding power of the unit.
@MannedLeopard58 said:
Doing a value change to this unit could be interesting (I was going on this same path), indeed, but I still would see it as a non-practical unit by the begging of tool age, being just a little less situational on the Tool warfare (according to the values that you suggested). That’s why I formulated this “kind of” random thought of giving it more speed. It seems a small adjustment, but actually changes in a simple way many aspects of the game (cited above), making more reasonable for you to spend one hundred food on a very fast unit. Also helps to solve the problem with civs that cannot go on a chariot spam late game (scouts can be a useful option to be spammed on trash wars as a fast “trash”, ofc, we might have to adjust it more on HP or armor, but still, I would prefer a faster unit as the main improvement, in order to “keep more simple” the factors that would be changed).
Changing more obvious aspects sounds right, but it can also create more problems. For example, a new upgrade for scouts on bronze could potentially make the bronze unit “Cavalry” useless on the Bronze Age, since we would enable the possibility of making the upgraded Scouts a horse unit capable of doing the job of the Cavalry, a little less effective, but completely gold free (Cavalry is somewhat expensive if you think about). Now, if the player stacks the new upgraded Scout with Nobility + Storage Pit techs, we probably would see a quite powerfull unit on critical mass that only costs one kind of resource (now think of on how Palmyrians and Persians wuold benefit from that). I mean, I’m just trying to make visible that game balance is complex, and sometimes it is better to make a more “incisive” solution that potentially helps on general matters such as the slinger dominance on Tool Age, and that would be fair to all civs if we think of (all civs would benefit from faster scouts equally, since everyone have this unit, and also everyone already have means to combat a very fast unit with low stats overall).
Oh, and you are 100% right on the non-aggressive stance of the scout on villagers. We really need it to be changed, it affects a lot the raiding power of the unit.
So, I’d agree to everything you just said. The Heavy horse archer is the faster unit, and making scout as fast would give it yet another role. Do remember about cavalry that that line has a +5 attack vs barracks units, which Scout does not have. I played a 3v3 game as Macedonia and it went long and everyone ran out of gold. I decided to spam scouts, and it actually worked solidly raiding his vils. However, they don’t attack and die to everything. In old AOE I made a mod where Scout became Light Cav in bronze and had 5 attack or something. Suddenly, late game, you can make a cheap raiding army that sucks verses any troops, but can be devastating against eonomy. And it is gold free. Also, comparing it to cavalry is legitimate, but the stats are Att: 3>>8. HP: 60>>150. Not really close. Even if you just made scout faster and raised attack to 4, leaving price at 100, it would be a viable strategy, and would keep slingers from dominating tool, thus allowing bowmen and axemen to have a role as well. Lol I think that fixing Scouts pretty much fixes tool war right?
In my opinion the biggest problem with the tool age balance is that slingers are almost as good at killing villagers and melee units as bowmen, with bowmen only having one more range. The best way to rebalance that is perhaps to increase slinger’s reload time or creation time.
The scout problem is a bit harder to fix, since there is no real counter to scouts, so if they are buffed, they could easily become too powerful. The scouts are strongest when used to harass enemy villagers while avoiding enemy units. This requires very good micro, which I’m not capable of myself, so it’s understandable that they appear weak. I’d love to hear what some players with good micro think about the viability of scouts.
@Potdindy good argument. I Forgot about the +5 attack that Cavalry unit has. Interesting mod change that you commented. I guess that this tech can be a option maybe. And yes, maybe the scout is the key against slingers, hehe.
@qweytr24 yeah, game balance can drive you nuts, I would like to see on how pro players really feel about the whole issue of slingers… We basically have a disfunctional rock-paper-scissor by now. Adding a tech in order to enable you to make slingers would possibly slowdown the mass early dominance of slingers maybe? (since you need to take time to build an archery range or an stable, the tech would buy time for players to prepare themselves)
Interesting how top vietnamese players solved it by making “no tool rush” agreements, 11 (which is also a option… They could add a treaty mode on AoE 1, doesn’t seem a crazy idea if you think of)
@qweytr24 said:
In my opinion the biggest problem with the tool age balance is that slingers are almost as good at killing villagers and melee units as bowmen, with bowmen only having one more range. The best way to rebalance that is perhaps to increase slinger’s reload time or creation time.The scout problem is a bit harder to fix, since there is no real counter to scouts, so if they are buffed, they could easily become too powerful. The scouts are strongest when used to harass enemy villagers while avoiding enemy units. This requires very good micro, which I’m not capable of myself, so it’s understandable that they appear weak. I’d love to hear what some players with good micro think about the viability of scouts.
So, do realize that Scouts cost twice as much as axemen and though they have 10 more hp, they have 2 less attack. Certainly theyre the better unit if they cost the same, but if im going to train 3 scouts, why not just train 5 axemen (including 50 food for axe research)? Not saying you’re wrong. I’d rather not make enough changes, than make too many changes.
These discussions need to keep happening. It is pretty lame that a 20 year old game still has not figured out how to make units viable. In AOE2 pretty much every unit has a point when it can be used, but in DE we still don’t use some of them.
@Potdindy said:
@qweytr24 said:
In my opinion the biggest problem with the tool age balance is that slingers are almost as good at killing villagers and melee units as bowmen, with bowmen only having one more range. The best way to rebalance that is perhaps to increase slinger’s reload time or creation time.The scout problem is a bit harder to fix, since there is no real counter to scouts, so if they are buffed, they could easily become too powerful. The scouts are strongest when used to harass enemy villagers while avoiding enemy units. This requires very good micro, which I’m not capable of myself, so it’s understandable that they appear weak. I’d love to hear what some players with good micro think about the viability of scouts.
So, do realize that Scouts cost twice as much as axemen and though they have 10 more hp, they have 2 less attack. Certainly theyre the better unit if they cost the same, but if im going to train 3 scouts, why not just train 5 axemen (including 50 food for axe research)? Not saying you’re wrong. I’d rather not make enough changes, than make too many changes.
These discussions need to keep happening. It is pretty lame that a 20 year old game still has not figured out how to make units viable. In AOE2 pretty much every unit has a point when it can be used, but in DE we still don’t use some of them.
With scouts you can run away from enemy axemen and go for the enemy economy. When the enemy comes to defend, you can flee and go hit another part of the enemy economy. Of course, the problem with this is that if the enemy sends his axemen to your base, you have nothing with which to defend, so I do think that it’s generally better to make axemen or slingers. I’m just saying that scouts don’t necessarily have to be able to beat other units in direct combat to be viable.
@Potdindy said:
Do remember about cavalry that that line has a +5 attack vs barracks units
It has +3 attack vs barracks units in AoE DE (whatever the real bonus was in original game).
@JosephC64 said:
@Potdindy said:
Do remember about cavalry that that line has a +5 attack vs barracks unitsIt has +3 attack vs barracks units in AoE DE (whatever the real bonus was in original game).
If this is true, this is another change that DE has made to balance the game. They also added some hp to swordsmen, and suddenly, sword spam is viable.
@queytr: Yes I agree that scouts should not be able to defeat infantry one on one. In fact, I like the rock paper scissors that hoplites cav and archers have in this game. My comment earlier about an upgrade was for bronze age and therefore for late game. However, for the tool age, even just removing the no attack attribute might make scouts a lot more viable, while not buffing them too much
@JosephC64 said:
@Potdindy said:
Do remember about cavalry that that line has a +5 attack vs barracks unitsIt has +3 attack vs barracks units in AoE DE (whatever the real bonus was in original game).
The bonus damage is +5 and not +3 for Cavalry and Heavy Cavalry. (Cataphract has +6)
In original it was +5 against Short Swordsmen and Long Swordsmen. And +6 damage against Broad Swordsmen and Legions (Same bonus for Cavalry, Heavy Cavalry and Cataphract)
Remember that Scouts have good usage in Bronze Age
Scouts are trained during Tool age → Bronze Age transition.
At that points they are used to scout the map and harass enemy workers before first Cavalry units have arrived.
After the first Cavalry units have arrived the Scouts are used to follow the enemy workers and maker sure that you don’t need to spend time to search the enemy villagers with Cavalry’s. It is hard to find the running villagers with the small line of sight that Cavalry has.
Cheaper cost or faster movement speed would give a lot of power to Scouts outside of Tool Age.
To balance out Tool Age fights i would increase the Slinger Stone cost from 10 → 20/25 and for Scout i would create Tool Age research from Stable that would give Scout +1 pierce armor and maybe +10/20 HP.
Slinger
Having to Collect lot of stone forces the Slinger user to keep their economy in predictable places giving opponent easy way to interrupt the economy whereas collecting food and wood can be made almost anywhere making it much harder for the slinger user to find and kill enemy villagers.
Scout
Having Tool Age upgrade would have direct effect on the extended Tool Age fights without making the Scout stronger on times when the Scouts are already strong (very early Bronze Age).
Even with +1 pierce armor the Scouts wouldn’t be strong against Bowmen because of the low damage that the Scouts have. The +2 armor that Bowmen get mitigates 40% of the Scouts damage.