How to make this game easier?

Age of Mythology: Retold Discussion
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I mean like this: Imagine if villagers in AoM didn’t move automatically from one wood to the other when they are done with it. Currently if a villager is harvesting wood you don’t to retask it. It will harvest it untill there no more trees nearby. But one can make the argue that this is automatic and a game should have no automation.

Well I definetly don’t want that. Because this is super frustrating. Although I do see that because a new player doesn’t know he has to continously make villagers they might be missing out on the fun, I think there are other ways around it.

They literally made the game easier by giving every one “trigger bot”.

Not in ranked.

I don’t think so…. ALthough I haven’t played against it. But yes it doens’t give that much advantage. The point isn’t advantage. The point is that I will feel like I am watching a movie instead of playing a game.

Increase the amount of starting villagers. But there should be a stop at mythic cause The game would be unplayable.

Sorry but I don’t get what this has to do with what I said.

natural resources around the TC

I don’t think so. I think it is nostalgia + more single player content.

In fact I do know that most people don’t like manually queueing villagers. But somethings are not same as they look. Sometimes people are wrong.

And mythic Isn’t the end either! there are upgrades after mythic and also a wonder age and a titan.

I can’t see that. Not in pro plays and not in my mid leveled games.

There is no knowledge. If you match newbies with newbies knowledge gets thrown out. Randomness will decide who is winning.

I can see it in my games. I see it every where. I have been newbie once. I see why my friends don’t like AoM/AoE.

I agree with you. Maybe the thing that I want can easily be managed with a proper matchmaking.

Yea the thing is that since the player base is so small and it also is being split in so many directions leads to very bad multiplayer experiences.

It was kind of my bad. I did explain it badly.

In every RTS I know rushes are either → win the game in 4 minutes or lose it in 4 minutes. Giving The bases somee more resources/defences would only cause the pro plays to last 5 minutes longer while giving newer players better chances. I think having with AQ in AoM playing aggressive has become sort of easier since you don’t need APM to manage villagers.

Rushes in starcraft can end the game in minute 3. That is because bases there don’t defend themselves. Rushes in AoE 4 are tolerated much better since arrows don’t miss. The more defence you give to the main base the less viable rushes become.

Again As I said, The more aggressive player dictates the pace early on in the game.

Unfortunately options don’t work. It will just make people confused as why in some games it is possible and in some it isn’t. Especially regarding such huge advantage. I likes beasty’s suggestion alot. He said allow autoqueue but put a delay on it.

TLDR; I have come to the conlcusion that making mythic more accsesible is not a good idea. Continue with rest of your suggestions.

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Yea, but level is the starting point. Having 4-5 items wold be closer. Half of your games you dont get that full potential not your are entitled to simple because.

You didnt see Isis fast mythic dominate last tournament? The china doing the same thing in the one before that? It always happens. Simply it depends on the civs that see more play. If what dominates is earlytimings then it wont happen much, if its late game civs you will see it a lot.

Specially on team games matches are longer than the average 1 vs 1. I can get to mythic quite often in team games. I gues it also depends on what frequency you consider as “resonable” 1/4 games? 1/10? 1/20? 1/2? Looking at aomstats it seems for defensive gods it seems a 1 to 4 or 1 to 5 ratio. When i look at team games its 1:2 to 1:3

Im sorry but that is such a nonesense take to me. It would still matter, whoever grasp the concepts first will do better. Its not like people play sending random inputs and click and hitting random keys and hoping things work. What is that idea even hoping to accomplish?

Throw 2 people that have never played games, make them play AoM and then make them play CS, which game do you think will be easier to get the basics of? Im not even talking about every niche interaction that even thou CS has some any RTS has way more, im talking basic controls and strategies of the game. Ofc theres knwoledge barriers of entry in all games.

Exactly you see it in you personal experience. And theres other experience besides that

Pretty much

its fine to come up with ideas, but also to be willing to see that they cause more harm than good and you do that so its perfect for talking about ideas.

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Sometimes the easiest game to win, is to not play at all.

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Actually, it is necessary; they don’t go to work themselves.

Everything is fine with this. I’d even say there’s no rush in the game at all if the players are equal. This will be a game until T3. And it makes me sad.

Yes, this is bad.

And you are not happy with this?

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A false statement of epic proportions brother

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The items in League are side content. And you do get to experience a lot of them in a standard match especially in a game that people don’t resign. Although I am only speaking from my experience, I was a silver player in league and I stopped playing it 5 years ago. and it seems the game has changed a lot.

Either way. The way to compare Items to AoM is to compare them with upgrades not with Age ups since that is the core of the game. And As I said I do give up on the Idea since it is super difficult to implement this but I do think that games that last into mid heroic age are the most fun.

The thing is I don’t mean by specific. first off let me explain my self better: I do think that 1v1s are in a bad spot since so few of them get to have big fights. most of them get decided in late classical or early heroic. I want that changed. But this is not my topic at the moment. MY argument is that locking game this much game content behind skill is not good. It is a more fundamental problem rather than just “make mythic easier”.

These strats were annoying because they were seemed cheesy (and they were indeed very cheesy in my opinion). But they were cheesy because the entire game is designed around “Early game ,mid game, and late game civs”. These are all relative terms. You can easily change the game in a way that fast mythic becomes the best option for every civ. THE PROBLEM starts when you implement this change without considering other stuff you end up with a game that is only fun for 2 games and then it becomes a random mess.

This is a good comparison but I was thinking making the game more compatible in pro play with how low levels are playing. Low levels won’t like microing early game. But they will like end game fights.

THat is exactly what new player experience is. They do random stuff.

If you explain them they will learn AoM easier. Or at least they will learn it to a degree that will become enjoyable.

But yes if there is no guiding CS will be easier to enjoy. But The problem is even if you get “the knowledge” of how cs works it is very difficult to actually “apply that knowledge” in CS. But still this argument falls when you consider that if two people with bad skills are matched with each other both of them will enjoy the game.

Well my experience has been that AoM won’t stop bleeding players. The only online AoE game that has been semi succsesfull is AoE IV. And I don’t know if it is making enough profit for them.

Well it also does the same in other AoE games. Villager Auto queue works the same way recoil works in CS. It is a set pattern which can be mastered over time. Will it fully be mastered? probably not but who ever practices it enough will have an advanage over the other.

It is fine for you. THese rushes work the best against new players. More veteran players don’t die to them as often. And these strats ignore the main selling point of the game. You will never see kronos rush in AoM teasers, All you see big armies clashing under thunder. Now should every game of AoM should be like that? probably not. But a decent amount should reach to that point.

It isn’t. These mechanics give new players some breathing room. and will make lazy people rethink. I do like rushes cause I can just micro a hand full of units and win. But this isn’t fun.

Not if it is done so early in the game. We are here to build empires and armies. Not to heimdall rush with 2 einheries.

Would like to hear your experience. What I have seen from military auto queue is that players don’t like to risk not having it so they stuck to quick match. While some part of the community knew that it is inconsistent so they didn’t use it at all. It had to be either in or out.

They thought by adding this option the player base won’t get split. The community responded by getting split in casual and ranked. Having options is great, but not for everything. Especially that thing has a potential to split the player base.

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Thats all RTS. As long as theres ages theres civs that will do better at the start, in the mid game or at the point in the game where you have all upgrades.

The those New players will loose to the New ones that do. Some people like aggresion, some dont. You cant just remove one aspect because another player doesnt enjoy it. And again i dunno where this metric of people dont like early micro. If that was remotely true gods like odin or pos would be dead in low Elo since their whole strenghs is that play. Yet they are not.

But you are commiting here explaining someone CS. The point is theres more base knowledge to grasp before you become competent in an RTS compared to other genres. Ofc if you have coaching it becomes less so.

The Last part seems more fantasy theory than anything else. Where that coming from? A player might face something New and be like “this is BS” and Just move away.

Theres a difference from people typing random inputs like monkeys and figuring the game on the go. One has a learning process the other doesnt.

If you mouse over the age up and read you need a temple, then look for the temple and then look at the cost and then send villagers to gather said resources you are not on random inputs. All those details are things you need to learn to be competent in pvp. That doesnt exist in CS (the example we are talking about) more than Just aom and shoot. Ofc theres advance stuff in both games but for getting the bare básics theres a lot more in one of them.

You are comparing a game that has 1 year yo a game that also did very poorly and over the years improve and got to were it is now.

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Is healthy for a Multiplayer game to be splitted in both Casual and Ranked modes
Not everyone is a frenetic roster willing to win tourneys

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This is not a natural split. This is a fake split. AoM in ranked and casual is exactly the same, The only difference is that QM has shittier matchmaking and Military auto queue.

Some games have benefitted a lot from not splitting their player base. Dead by daylight only allows you to play ranked yet no one complains. Normal match in Dota saw a considerable amount of reduction in player numbers after turbo released.

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I think is to make things quick. I mean thats the goal here
In a perfect world all matches would be fair even on QM but we know we do not live on a perfect world

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In AoE 3 team rushes are the most fun for me. It at least gives me some adrenaline, because the rest of the game feels like working in Excel. This is really not fun.
And for your information. In AoE 3, the TC only fires when there are villagers inside, but it can kill any unit except a cavalry in one shot. It’s very difficult to destroy it; to destroy the TC, you need to build special units with increased damage to buildings. However, rushes still work there because they left a window for it. Playing every game until T3 is boringly monotonous.
I haven’t played the game for 16 days. I played once after the balance patch. That was five days ago. I don’t want to spend time in AoM the same way I did in AoE 3. It’s slow and boring.

This should be a player’s choice, not something forced upon them by the developers. In AoE 3, only 35% of players prefer to rush. Although any civilization has tools for it.

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I’m so sorry ….To be honest our discussion has strafed in a such direction that I don’t know what we are discussing any more…. If you don’t mind can we take this from the beginning?

I say that: Early agression in age 2 should become even more limited across all levels of gameplay. Compared to AoE IV the aggression is limited but I think it would be better to become even more limited. Age 2 should become shorter and more like archaic age in which You have to get out of.

I agree with you but there were some simple things that they could have done to make things a tad bit better.

Yes the thing is AoE games in general are designed for that. As I said if my suggestion is to come through some major changes need to happen before hand otherwise the game will be super boring.

Yes but here is the problem. the player needs to take an action for the TC to defend. Now arguably this is a very easy action. Just garrison. But even with that skill gets involved. How many villagers should u garrison? garrison too little and you end up not doing enough damage. garrison too many and you end up with idle time.

This is what I’m trying to say: make the impact of actions taken in the early stages of the game smaller, rather move it to later stages of the game. But this would require massive overhauls for AoM.

EDIT: what i said about AoE was completly subjective. I used to raid in AoEIV a lot but after moving to AoM I felt like rainding wasn’t viable any more untill the tower nerfs. But recently I played a few games of AoE IV despite not enjoying it, I again felt that raiding in AoE IV is much easier compared to AoM.

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Fair enough. Sure.

To that i would say even thou limiting play in the early stages of the game so that New players and bad players can get the hand of the game in a better pace for them would be a thing. I disagree based on how it would affect balance. Some civs would become a lot stronger by enabling the to get to heroic basically free of risk.

Also due to how dull it would become imo. Aom is already slow in terms of how little you do in archaic age and how defensive positions compared to other RTS. And having classic age transform into a second archaic would be dreadful.

1 Like
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Thank you.

I didn’t say it for new players. I said for all skill levels. Specially for pros.

balance can change. Not easily. Making the game more focused on mythic although is very desirable but near impossible to implement. I think making the more focused on late Heroic is possible with some tweaks and will have a positive impact on how the game is viewed.

I do agree that if we implement this earlier stages of the game need to sped up considerably.

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Dunno how this would be benefitial to players that know how to play the game and deal wit things.

We had that with the fort patch. And it was not well recieved, at least for the higher elo players. It kills diversity. And ome civs simply get way ahead of others.

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The fort patch was a problem because of the hack armor buff for all buildings rather than the power distribution from TC to fort. That buff basically nerfed all early game rushes which relied on melee units, while making siege weapons stronger. There’s a reason freyr skyrocketed in that patch.

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Pretty much yea. Adding to that, we dont have aoe civs in aom. all civs dont have baseline options and just replace or add into it with unique things.

All civs are different and have their strenghs and weakness distributed differently. So any blank change that affects all of them in the same value will skew their power, tunring some of them amazing and others bad.

Same would happen with the whole “make X age last less” or “make Y age easier to get to”. Woul need a really big rework around civ design to support it.

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What are those simple things?

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I want the pro play to become more similar to the way casuals play. Granted in won’t be the same. If rushing is not viable people will be encouraged to learn how to defend them rather than deleting the game.

But I do feel like it slowed the player bleeding a bit. Plus the fort patch changed a lot of things without any prior testing. obviously it will break the game.

1-Making queue options limited.

2-Making their mind about MAQ.

3- avoiding splitting the player base to this degree.

4-making players play against bots in quick match before moving to ranked game mode.

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Thats never happening. In any game. Pro players play what will win, not whats more fun or whats more flavourful.

Its a different mind set to what a casual player plays the game for. And thats fine. After all its a game. Being in it to win a tournament is something a very small minority will do.

Theres also skill level. Im sure things like centaur feel underwhelming to some casuals since you take their eyes off them and they are fragile enough to die right there. This type of units dont do that when skill ful people use them. Even when using the same units the outcomes can vary.

Not according to any player statistics. Several high level players also left the game, and moved parts of their audience with them.