Lately, I see many people complain about how the game is becoming boring to them in the ladder, with almost every game being the same, m@a into archers or scouts into knights/CA etc…and they lose enthusiasm for the game. The devs nerfed the towers in general and nerfed Incas Trush and Celts drush and many othet unique things in the game, so many people complain about how the game is becoming boring day after day with doing same things all the time. IMO the current meta somehow need a shake, and the question is how?
I have some suggestions that IMO will add big changes in the game, and will give the game more life:
Adding and creating new units in dark age and feudal age.
Buff the dark age militia, maybe give them bonus attack vs villagers? And +5% speed more? This will make them more viable, and maybe give them bonus attack vs Palisade walls.
Decrease the general cost for many things like towers for example to make them more viable as defending buildings not only in the trush.
Increas Palisade walls cost but reduce the building time.
Decrease the cost of siege units and siege upgrades to make them more viable in late game and to give Siege civs more identity rather sticking with archers or knights in their play, both of the siege upgrades and siege units are too expensive to add them in the battle to be a real threat especially in late game, if no for the siege unit costs then at least decreasing the siege upgrades cost.
They are already viable. Drush is a very common opening: its goal is to delay the opponent, harrass him and keep him open. You don’t need to kill vills with a drush for it to be effective, this change would effectively make every one drush pre mill every game. That’s the way to make a stale meta
Towers are fine as they are. Towers should be a big investment since otherwise you’d return to the meta where we wouldn’t see a single unit some game
Fine as it is
Siege is already the most efficient and important kind of unit in the late game. When gold runs low literally evry bit of money you can squeeze out from relic must go into siege.
By decreasing siege cost you’d make castle all-in pushes way more effective, while also making civ with a strong siege even more strong in closed maps. There’s a reason why siege onagers cost that much, and that’s because, when protected, they are the most powerful unit in the game
All those changes would make the game not only more stale, but also worse
Your way of replying didn’t target the main idea and was wrong. You only replied on my suggestions of how to change the meta and some things in the game, but not for the topic itself that talking about how the game is becoming stale. I think no need to ask you what do you think, because it is obvious what will you say.
The “problem” with this game is that is already first released in 1999. That is 22 years ago. Build orders are really clean and there arent much surprises any more. And you also cant fully change the game, but keeps it identity. For that reason i dont think we really need to change things like adding new units to the feudal age and stuff like that. Also things like siege are in a pretty good spot. I dont really like changing them either. It is not like Siege is underperforming.
I do feel that the game is too much defensive focussed, due to walls are pretty strong in feudal age. Some solution to that issue would be a warm welcome.
On arena we have a whole lot of different openings too:
relic war
straight boom
castle UU
siege - monk push
various fast imps
And those are just the openings.
Yeah, in castle knights and xbows are the more common units because of their upsides, but this is not what a stale meta looks like. Stale meta would mean every single game the same opening and follow up, and that’s not true
Tbh walls have never been weaker, it’s just both.the map generation and players that have become better at walling behing behind because of less lag that make look walls stronger
The meta changed because of BOs are much more optimized and people regonize much more that this game is also about eco. Eco now is much more important then in 2000. So having a save eco will be much higher on the prio list. As result there is much more walling, even the nerfed walls already.
This isnt something new for DE, this change in meta already happend at Voobly. So it is not just the map gen (i even think it is doesnt really matter that much as people claim). It is mostly because of players give much more priority to walling, since they much more understand the strength of walling.
Don’t forget the Tower nerf though, and the meta not being Hun Wars with sometimes Mayans and Aztecs mixed in. And the map thing is kinda huge. I would like to see how a pro tournament on current balance and ranked maps would look like.
Lol. There’s 3 units in feudal what do you expect? It still baffles me when people complain the game is getting stale when it’s been the same build orders strategies since HD. Have you seen games of other competitive strategy games? Its always the same openers what else do you expect? If you want something different you have modes like empire wars or even battle Royale. And maps like arena and hideout. Not to mention custom modes like CBA. Aoe 2 out of all competitive games are more friendly to non-competetive players and people on these forums are still demanding changes to the only mode that is competitive which is RM
Regarding Siege, I think a good change would be moving the Siege Workshop to the Feudal Age with Rams being available. Could punish people who sit behind their walls with Archers late Feudal Age while still being a massive investment at that stage. Having access to Mangonels and Scorpions at the beginning of Castle Age is really good though.
Another three things I’d like to see are:
Revert the Tower nerf to something between old Towers and current ones
Make the maps more open and also more interesting, while we did get more open maps in the last couple of patches I’d like a collaborration with the people who make tournament maps as they produce a ton of interesting maps that we plebs can never play unless in our lobbies
Change the starting cost to 150 so that it is more fairly divided between Outposts, Stone Walls, Towers, Castles and TCs, currently it supports 3 TC Boom above all
The biggest thing for variety is though that most civs are not in a good place, so many of them are build upon a flawed concept that doesn’t make for good gameplay, like Indians build around Camels or Burmese being strong against Knight civs while not having any counter against Arbs. I would say maybe 1/4 of the civs are in a state where they don’t need further changes.
E: TG also needs some changes, since pick position was introduced it has become very boring. Random positions aren’t perfect though so I would be curious about a solution that makes things less boring but still fair.
THANK THE LORD FOR THAT JESUS I STILL HAVE PTSD FROM THE HUNS WARS DAY
I agree, but the thing is that de arabia map generation is way more consistent than AOC arabia generation. That actual makes it easier to wall because it’s fair, while the AOC could have 300 ponds and zero woodlines.
Yeah, the meta has changed on its own because of BOs optimization and the realization that a safe eco is just bettee, but the map is just as important when it comes to the actual situation
Wrong, people are still making it depending on their map
Wrong, people are still doing it depending on their map
OH NOES, PEOPLE DOING AN OPENING THAT MAKES SENSE WITH BRITONS, WHERE WE WILL WE END UP.
The problem is not the game being stale. The problem is that you don’t like the meta 11
This is why I said about creating new things, add new units in dark/feudal, change old things costs like Towers, units and upgrades. Add new techs to the game in dark and feudal. These things will be good.
You say meta has changed on its own just after saying map generation played into it, doesn’t make any sense.
Though I can see how the meta gets slightly more defensive as the meta progresses, thats just natural for every game as defensive gameplay is best when you know what you can expect.
Excalty, you will already know what it is coming, because it was like this from long time ago, so you already prepared your defence before even scouting your opponent. One of the changes that will be great to add in the game, is hiding the civs, so for example when you are in the game you will never know what is your opponent civ until you scout his base, maybe this will shake the meta a little.
