Lack of players: one solution

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
1

sell battlepass, the more you get exp by winning, playing the more you earn
you can earn: profile pics, hero outfits, homecity things, whatever that is really cheap to ##### ####### like “cannonkiller” you get this when you kil 1000 cannons in the game without cheating.

nowadays people wont play a game if there is no a worth reward, its pshycologic. People will spend many time in order to get a reward, if they dont see a value reward, wont play.

It sounds so easy for me, to just add profile pics that people can unlock by playing, NOT COMPLETING MISSIONS, just playing. There could be like 500 different profile pics. No visuals on the game, because the game could bug, ### ####### #### wont make the game crashes. Also profile pics wont make and advantage of confusion.

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the most easy is to start with:

  • profile pics earned with experience
    obtained by playing (the experience could be the one that brings shipments to your homecity, that you got by playing multiplayer games to bring more poeple online)

  • profile pics obtained by achievements
    When hovering mouse over profile pic, you can see how the player obtained it, for example: “this was obtained by detroying more than 100 buildings in one single multiplayer game”, this profile pic could have another better profile pic like “this was obtained by destroying 100000 buildings on multiplayers game”.

  • Or just give medals for this, medals that can be seen on profile

what is wrong with the reward system taht is running today in aoe3?

  1. rewards are given just by starting the game once a week, not by playing.
  2. rewards are only unlockable by making having a mission, instead of just by playing without having to click to unlock missions
  3. rewards are given for playing on not online games
8 Likes
3

It sounds so easy for me

Well it’s great it does sound easy to you, but it’s not easy, nor do profile pictures change anything.
A very large percentage of players is not interested in sticking to competitive multiplayer, and the ones that do are here for the gameplay. Many people don’t care about cosmetics that are this inconsequential, and even if one does care- at some point when you have an X-number of nice profile pics that you like, new ones gradually lose their appeal and value.

There is no proper reward system in AoE3. Never was and prolly won’t be.
What’s here is, at best, a stump of one and probably could’ve been removed just like the XP profile leveling, that was tied to unlocking new HC cards. There was potential in an RPG-like progression system of this kind, but it went nowhere in OG expansions and was removed in DE, probably for the better.

A proper modern reward system is in AoE4, where player performance is rewarded periodically with a plethora of cosmetic items.
Creating one in 3DE would require a lot of work and would be most likely heavily constrained by the limitations of the engine-netcode. And it doesn’t look like it’s a good investment of the publisher’s money. MP is not the main drive for most buyers, and on its own it doesn’t generate money (hero skins are universal across all modes, and that’s a small one-time purchase) in a way a new campaign package would.

For complete newcomers, AoE IV is a much more appealing and easier game to get into, and without context it’s a sensible thing to buy the newest game in the series. ‘What’s that, a remaster of a game from 2005, yeah no thanks’.

4

lose their appeal? have you heard about collectors?

5

Collectors of what? Profile icons?
Sure, they are out there, but what does that have to do with the lack of players? Are you suggesting more people will buy this game because of some profile icons? Or that more players will try multiplayer because of them? Or that they will stick to regularly playing multiplayer because of them?
Some people are like that, but that’s an extremely small percentage, irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

They don’t matter at all in the context of a multiplayer player base. What, a couple of handfuls of people obsessed with ‘completing a collection of profile graphics’ are some substantial way forward for the game?
If somebody plays for profile avatars, then it’s sensible to assume he’ll stop when he gets everything, and people always find ways to cut corners and abuse the system.
You can add 4000 new player profile pictures and it still won’t matter for the vast majority of people interested in real-time strategy games. And dedicated MP players stick with the game for the gameplay, community, tournaments etc. Whether there are some profile pics or not is a very marginal incentive.

I wrote more than just about the appeal of profile avatars but you seem to not care, so I’ll repeat myself- if you want more players to stay and play MP you need to have attractive, appealing gameplay and service ecosystem, and primarily offer good singleplayer content because few are interested just in competitive MP. Ones that are more hardcore about it- play 2DE or were introduced to the series with the release of AoE IV.

It doesn’t matter.

1 Like
6

well, then leave the game like that and good luck.

personally i dont play the game, because its very difficult to balance the skill of players on a match. And i dont want to play versus unskilled people, or very skilled people. Because its not fun.

But definitely i will play more if i could unlock avatars by playing.

Please bring that 5% of people that will play the game for profile pics!

1 Like
7

Like what? The game sits on a very good 82% rating on Steam, with 95% from the recent reviews. What are you expecting and want to see? 3DE to have more players than 2DE? To be supported more than IV? They never advertised they will, nor it’s possible to do that for practical and business reasons.
It was never a focus going forward, that’s IV (at least when it comes to 3D installments). And that game just received a new update for S5:

3DE received few DLCs and a fantastic, free post-launch support not only covering fixes and optimizations improvement, but completely new mechanics and system, and even massively expanded selection or RMs to choose from, completely for free.

So you don’t even play a game and don’t care about all these things, just want more of some profile pictures? Wow. Give me your email, I’ll download graphics from Wiki and crop some from taken screenshots, and email you then in one package.
This is an RTS game, not a profile picture collecting game. There’s already a huge number of player avatars to choose from, and they have zero effect on how many people buy this game and how many people decide to stick to competitive multiplayer.

That’s a bizarre position. I’m pretty sure your demand would end up rather low on the developer’s priority list. With updates they’ve been regularly adding small batches of new avatars. Stop complaining about it as if that didn’t happen.

Where did you get that number from? 5% of people that purchased AoE 3DE will return and start playing regularly if developers add even more profile avatars?

That’s beyond ridiculous.

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8

Don’t most players play single player skirmish anyways?

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9

ok bro, any solution? critize is very easy

10

I don’t know and I don’t think there’s a reliable way to get a precise number, but skirmish vs AI (solo or with other people) is a popular mode among those who discuss the game online.
At least for some time, there’s only so much you can get out of it, thus a relatively small number of daily players vs. people that bought the game.

Campaign offering is poor, so when leaving PvP aside, there’s not that much to do, especially for people that already spent a lot of time with the original release.

I mostly play solo skirmish games because atm I have too many other games to complete, and on disc version and AoE3 CE on Steam I’ve spent prolly 2k hours.

Solution for what? In order to get an answer you need to specify the problem. And BTW I’m not the one criticizing the game.

Few people play 3DE because most people don’t play multiplayer at all, and the ones that want to get into it, prefer either 2DE or chose a newer game in the form of IV, which is much more transparent and easier to learn because of more limited scope, vastly reduced number of units, simpler design that does not include many optional layers like card decks, map-specific natives, mercs, revolutions and all other things.

And whatever problem you think there is, adding more profile pictures is meaningless and just your private fixation.

Multiplayer didn’t win with AoE2 in 2005, is not winning now. And singleplayer focus would require a lot of work and money and might not be possible because of policies in Microsoft, or limitations of the engine.
There is a potential to grow the playerbase, but it won’t happen. This re-release is 3yo and it doesn’t look like Microsoft is planning to shut down IV and switch focus to 3DE.

And most importantly- RTS games are not popular as they were in the late 90s and early 2000s. When you go to Steam charts, strategies closer to top are things like Dota2 or Civilization VI.
Even making 3DE f2p wouldn’t guarantee anything.

2 Likes
11

This may be a proxy for the exact proportion
https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe3/comments/13l4ism/what_do_you_guys_play_the_most_80_of_your_games/

12

what about team games? why dont even ask? i only play team games multiplayer

13

I believe reddit has a top option limit of 6. However, it’s telling that there’s more people playing Single than Multi, and even people playing multi, there’s a lot who only play vs AI.

BTW, source? Do you have a market study I can read?

And do you have a research that points to this being a solution?

14

its how human brain works since always…
read any scientist thing you can google it
you can even watch a documental

15

All I have to say and again . IF only AoE 3 DE HAD the same platform AS AOE 3 TAD When there was even tournament and medals rewards , the game was so ADDICTED and competitive IN AOE TAD ,

I do remember even the numbers of chat rooms there were , FRENCH CHAT ROOM with 50 people in. Spanish chat rooms , Beginners chat room . and more . it was so easy to make friend and play . AND it was so cool to know how was online or already in a match , it was so help full. SEEN AN PRO PRAYER information about everything civs decks hes rewards how good he was. its just sooo many things That a good platform can do

. I DONT MAY IF DEVEOPMENT CHANGE IT HOW TAD WAS BEFORE even with more features. All this is true and 1 of the first reason people get bored about this game no a good addicted reward or information about players and tournaments.
Thanks and make this post seen for Devs. sorry for the bad writing Im a Spanish speaker . :blush:

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16

Sure but again, do you have a market stufy that says more people will play multiplayer if they get decals or skins?

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17

mmm, no bro, but many other games has proven it. Well, its not my business, i just give a posible solution. I dont care if the game progress or not, i just move to other games. Its not my business.
the only prove i have, its the 7 likes on my topics.

18

i just give a posible solution.

It’s not a solution to anything and I already explained that in a few longer posts.
You have no idea what you’re talking about here in the context of maintaining and expanding an active player base in an 18yo RTS game, in the year 2023.

If you want more avatar options for your personal enjoyment- make a thread about it and ask the developer team to include even more new options in the next update. The free profile pic reward system didn’t change a bit and most likely won’t, and certainly won’t be transformed into a cosmetic reward platform even close to what’s in AoE IV.

But framing that request as ‘I figured out how to fix RTS popularity with one simple trick’ is as impudent as it is hilarious.

1 Like
19

who cares about aoeiv? this is aoe3, many player of aoe3 dont play aoe4.
7 likes bro… and increasing

20

I’ve seen joke posts with more likes. It doesn’t prove anything.

Is there really a problem?

This is not LoL or Freefire

21

ive seen many people like you, it doesnt prove anything too.
this is not #### ## aoe1 or aoe2, this is aoe3, many aoe3 players play aoe3 because they consider its the best, tthey dont care about ageofempires # or other else.

yes lack of players is a real big problem, you cant play team games without players and balancing a match on player skills