Let's face it, we are a tough crowd to please

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
1

Everybody, chill the f*** down for a moment.

Lately, we have been seeing a lot of anxiety about AoE3’s future. Topics about AoE3 dying or being abandoned by the devs, complaints about balance and content quality, complaints about the multiplayer system, people wanting to buff rushing, people wanting to nerf rushing, people demanding new civs, campaigns, maps, units, native allies, etc. It’s a lot.

I’m not saying that all these complaints or requests are illegitimate or unfounded, I have done plenty myself. But let’s take a step back and put ourselves in the developer’s shoes and look at just how many different crowds the devs need to address.

  • First, you have the competitive crowd. The people who care primarily about having everything perfectly balanced and will constant argue, between themselves, that this unit or that building needs to be nerfed or needs to be buffed. That certain civs just “ruin the game” or “break the meta” or whatever.

  • Then you have the history and geography nerds, like myself, that are constantly asking for new civs and new maps with unique mechanics and historically authentic designs. Those that will bicker over which nation should or shouldn’t be featured in the game and which units have the correct uniforms or not.

  • You have the AoE2 and AoE4 stans that that want the AoE3 to be more like those two or the Legacy purists who want the game to have as few changes as possible. On the flip side, there are those who wants so many new mechanics that would turn AoE3 into a completely different game.

  • Finally you have the casuals, the people who don’t frequent the forums, and just want a nice looking game that is fun to play for a few dozen hours, or even less.

  • There are those who only care about the single player campaigns, those who only play random maps against the AI, those who only play casual multiplayer with friends, those who play competitive online, those that just like to build stuff, those that… etc.

Imagine having to please all these people at once. Then we have the sad reality that AoE3 is not the most popular game of the saga and often gets overshadowed by AoE2 and AoE4. Those games also have their own fan bases with demands of their own and Forgotten Empires have to please them as well. Which means that we, AoE3 fans, may not get as much time and attention as we would like to from the devs.

All I ask is for a little more patience and consideration with the FE team, they can’t address everybody’s requests at once. Also, the game isn’t dead because it’s not getting balance patches every week, we don’t know what is going on behind the curtains, maybe the devs are focusing on other projects right now, maybe they are on a break, maybe they are preparing the next major DLC, who knows?

On the other end of things, it would also be nice to hear from the devs more frequently. It would help to temper some of the playerbase anxieties as well as letting us know if our feedback is being listened to or not and why. A roadmap or a few dev diaries would help a lot with keeping a healthy communication between fans and devs.

27 Likes
2

The competitive crowd is also split between treaty and supremacy which are often at odds.

5 Likes
3

You can always find people complaining about something. Anywhere.
Game, as a remaster, was very impressive even on day1 when it was riddled with performance issues and bunch of bugs and glitches. Since then it received crazy amount of new content, vast majority of it- completely free.

Not sure how one can be hard to please, unless one has unrealistic expectations. AoE II (HD) was a king when it comes to pro pvp. There was no reason for them to support it, and not just drop it like they did AoE I DE.
But they did stick with it for a long time and provided so much more. People that complaining all the time are annoying as hell.

4 Likes
4

Al fin joder! un comentario mas centrado es lo que esperaba, yo sinceramente soy del grupo que quiere que hagan más cosas nuevas en el aoe 3 ya que soy del pensamiento que dice que si ya metieron el pie en la asimetria que ahora se metan de manera completa, yo soy conciente de que el equipo de FE hace lo posible por dar lo mejor para este juego y yo me he comprado todos los dlc´s sin rechistar para apoyar el juego, pero hay gente que no piensa lo mismo

5 Likes
5

Negativity can be infectious. This is what is happening right now. The ebb and flow of the AoE3 forum have always been controlled by when updates/content is dropped and when other games receive it too. Anxiety tends to break out when other games get attention. It’s not specific to the AoE3 forum either, as I’ve seen the same competitive paranoia from the AoE2 forum. The demand is greater than the supply and the AoE teams can only do so much to keep the different playerbases happy. It’s really tough.

Some speculate FE is taking more responsibility with AoEIV so there’s also that. AOE3 being left out of Redbull, AoEIV’s free DLC. It’s a combination of things that have led to poor morale. I believe it’s just a temporary thing. Ebbs and flows are natual.

Since we know something is happening in October it would be safe to say the fact the devs have been quiet is because they are busy.

14 Likes
6

People seem to forget that before de, AoE 3 had been basically abandoned, with no updates or new content. I’m just happy that they have put as much effort into a remaster of a game originally made in 2005 as they have. People need to stop with the endless whining

14 Likes
7

Not many people are still playing Asian dynasties suggesting that the improvements/changes in DE mean something.

2 Likes
8

I just want a new Asian civ devs. Out of original 3 civs in AOE3 only Asians have left in the cold. Where is my Asian civs FE?

1 Like
9

I don’t think treaty is a large portion of it, the players are very vocal but there are way more people just on the sup ranked ladder than there are playing treaty.

10

voce falou tudo que eu queria falar a 1 ano eu ja reclamei várias vezes em posts mais decidi parar com isso obrigado pelo seu post e seu ceticismo

1 Like
11

Yeah I didn’t even think treaty was considered ‘competitive’, I didn’t even know it was possible to play ranked treaty. Anyhow, the game wasn’t designed to have a forced period where no one attacks, so I don’t see how they can be expected to balance it for both treaty and non-treaty.

1 Like
12

Yeah it was removed from the ranked search, presumably due to lack of players.

1 Like
13

I think this game due to its philosophy and design, leads to it having more untapped potential than other AOE games. I would say to the point where it is almost unnecessary to buy another game because what do the other games offer that you can’t offer or implement here?

People here are more flexible and therefore there is more free rein for creativity. While in other game forums orthodox gamers just slam the door on you because anything coming from this game is “bad” for other AOE games, then people prefer to expand the existing game and not “bother” no one. That’s why the forums are full of creative and unique ideas that want to expand this universe.

In summary, people who play AOE-3 expected more from AOE-4, but since it did not meet their expectations, they prefer to improve and polish AOE-3.

5 Likes