this would still fuck with the maths, and it would mean more losses in the first games for most:
assuming that 700 is their ‘true’ starting elo, then they usually win 50% of their games right from the start.
but if as you suggest they gain 3x more elo from wins, than they lose. they will now have 3 losses for each win, to stabilize their elo
You’re simply ‘fixing’ a problem that does not exist. If the problem is new players getting overwhelmed by amount of civs, they can right now simply choose Random civ.
If the goal is for the new player to learn basic build orders, that already exists in the form of Art of War (I guess it could be expanded upon with more basic build orders).
Arbitrarily locking new players out of all civs is weird and what would the first unlocked civs be? How many civs are unlocked? Do they only get to pick Britons and Franks because those are the OG Archer and Knight civs?
The game is symmetric, most civs have the same tools as any other civ and the difference is in bonuses only. A new player can largely ignore the bonuses. If nothing else, there could be a New Player Guide, that simply tells them that. To not worry about picking the right civ, because each civ has the same tech tree with minor changes.
this would just create a two-class player system and would heavily discourage new players from joining.
and yeah, this would be a huge disadvantage, maybe not a competitive one, but having less choice is just inferior.
no i think most people are categorically disagreeing with the idea of artificially locking people out of content
it’s standard, but so are microtransactions. just because other games have shit mechanics doesnt mean aoe should adopt them too
They do though. 1000 is the starting Elo for any ranked mode in AoE 2. You can check that by hosting a Deathmatch or Return of Rome lobby if you never played on those ladders before. The game just selects from a broader range of players during the placements before narrowing it down.
There is one topic in the video that I agree with in particular, which is the community. I played mainly AOE1DE, then moved to AOE2DE because the game (AOE1DE) was pretty much dead and unbalanced, without updates anymore.
With Return of Rome, I moved again on playing that mostly, but still the community of AOE1 is very much smaller than AOE2.
In any case, except for bigger tournaments like Redbull, Nili’s, etc. sometimes it feels like the community is made of lots of smaller communities, without a centralization.
That’s why I have launched aoecreators.com the other day.
Basically, it is a portal where you can find a list of creators to follow.
For now, it is very simple, just a list, but my plan is to improve it so that you can see when someone is streaming (will use APIs, if possible) and you can search creators by game or by tags.
I invite you to take a look at it and write me an email if you can’t find a creator (or urself, of course).
@eartahhj That’s a great idea 
Just one note: TheViper doesn’t stream on Twitch atm since he has an exlcusive deal with FB Gaming so you might want to link that or his YouTube channel instead.
as aoe2 and 3 player, i think having to unlock civs, or certain parts only, would be a really poor idea outside of campaign or similar, aoe3 had plenty of inbalance due to that effect, of having to grind to unlock better home city cards, it worked for campaigns, but in multiplayer, not a good idea
All right I will correct it now, thank you, I did know that but didn’t remember about it
ornlu, nili, ellie4k, stellarmeesh, membtv, mbl are all missing on the website?
but pooplord of all people is there??
also spirit of the law needs tog o on there
also TWest, Dave, OGN Empires
Thanks I will add them to the list now, the list started mainly about Return of Rome players being myself mainly an aoe1 player
All added to the list
Great idea for a site. Icons are a bit big and maybe they could be in descending size order with the biggest channels at the top? And are you planning to add graphics on the buttons for each channel?
Big icons? I thought they were too small… My idea is to have smaller creators at the top because they need more visibility, I mean for 50k+ creators it’s kinda “easier” to get new viewers, but there are many small creators that nobody knows about and they make good content - not all of them of course, but everyone deserves a bit more visibility - and i personally know how hard that is to get
About graphics, yea I want to improve everything but for now I want to start from something simple, the idea is to make many improvements but I want to see if there is interest around this idea before investing too much time and money.
this would still fuck with the maths, and it would mean more losses in the first games for most:
assuming that 700 is their ‘true’ starting elo, then they usually win 50% of their games right from the start.
but if as you suggest they gain 3x more elo from wins, than they lose. they will now have 3 losses for each win, to stabilize their elo
I think it is fair to assume that new players are typically below 100 1000 elo except smurfs. But for the overall stability of elo values it is required to let them start at 1000 at the start (or at roughly 1000 elo after 20-30 elo in my idea.) So the 100 elo start will in either way cause them to lose more games at the beginning. (With my idea just a bit delayed.) Maybe it is a better idea to let them start at 100 elo but make them gain and lose much more elo at the beginning. Like 8x in the first game 7x in the second game 6x in the third etc.
They should get down to their true elo fast, when you are new to a game and just lose, it can turn you away from the game. I myself lost like the first 20 games and I only played once in a week anymore until I found a strategy I can win with at 400 elo (Goth infantry spam btw.). But I know other are bothered even more by losing, and I if you just lose and don’t know why because it is not even close it is really not fun. There are players who shy away from ranked competition even if they would start with a 50:50 win rate. If they have to lose their first 20 games it will not happen that they do it.
As an aspiring AoE2 YouTuber, that’s a good idea!
Oh, this is only for AoE1 content? I wish there was an equivalent for AoE2 creators, but I guess the market is more saturated.
assuming you mean 1000 elo, I don’t think this is true (certainly not true for 100). if you get comfortable with the controls, learn counter units and learn some build orders before jumping into ranked you can probably stick around 1000 elo. if you have previous rts experience you can also stay around there. I was rated 1200 after my placement matches and then dropped to 1090 or so before climbing back up to 1250.
I do agree that the assumption of ‘a new player has the same average skill as existing players’ is probably not right, but unless we create tiers of players this is probably the best system.
I would like some kind of season system where you promote to higher leagues if you place in the top 10% of your current league, or get demoted if you are in the bottom 10% (or didnt play). that way new players could get placed into the appropriate tier without needing to lose tons of games.
assuming you mean 1000 elo, I don’t think this is true (certainly not true for 100). if you get comfortable with the controls, learn counter units and learn some build orders before jumping into ranked you can probably stick around 1000 elo. if you have previous rts experience you can also stay around there. I was rated 1200 after my placement matches and then dropped to 1090 or so before climbing back up to 1250.
Yes I meant 1000 elo, sorry key board issue.
I see a lot of players falling to 800 elo at the beginning, some lower. I certainly wasn’t close to learning a build order when I played ranked. I probably didn’t even heard of it in this game.
Why and when do players start to play ranked? I played with a friend before against bots, to learn the basics, but the biggest reason for me to buy AoE2 DE was to play against other humans in Diplomacy, 1v1, Team games and FFA. For 1v1s ranked is just the best option because it matches you against players of your skill. Lobby games are just unbalanced often, and since there is no elo they dont get balanced eventually. So I was a real Noob, and directly jumped into ranked, and I think that is pretty reasonable. But I fell straight down to 400 elo. But the competition was what made me play the game. Without competition it is not that interessting. So I think ranked makes the game more attractive (because of balance and competition) also for new players, but losing games at the beginning makes it more unattractive. So ranked with balanced win rate for Noobs is desirable. Btw that friend I played with against bots was better than me, but shys away from ranked, and does not really play the game anymore.
That new players are on average worse than 1000 elo is logical imo, because 1) 1000 elo is the average elo, and 2) players get better over time. So all players combined are better now then when they started to play ranked, so combined they were below 1000 on average and now they are cominbed over 1000 on average.
So you took a Hera vid to get attention for your own ideas which arent related to any things Hera said?!
Your ideas (first post) are terrible as well. We dont need all of these ideas. It doesnt add anything to the game.
Great topic, lets discuss hera’s video without actually talking about his suggestions or the problems he mentioned, but lets introduce new personal problems where i struggle =)
I have been here since the beginning and i can tell you most of the guys who are suggesting civs and balance changes non stop, have left the forum already, most of the suggestions around come from casual users that won’t be playing the game as much as the hard core community, the rest of balance suggestion and even match making comes from single players.
The game hasn’t recovered since covid lockdown, after punishment patch there has been stagnation and the current game version is beyond broken but since many of you only play single players are not aware of the broken path finding, gigantic selection boxes that makes impossible to walk around some buildings, heck if you make a castle near by the rally point all the units will get inside the castle 11, the xbox crossover broke the game and the aoe1 port made it worse.
But yeah according to one guy above the game is fine and thriving.