The new Arabia is horrible and uncompetitive.
The main problem are the 3 back Woodlines, which causes 4 problems.
- Repetition. All Map gens feel very similar, which makes games very similar, which lowers replay worth.
- Predictability. You know where the Woodlines are, and don’t really need to scout for them. In addition to that randomness was always a major selling point of aoe
- Geological close resources: The 3 Woodlines are so close that they are basically one ress point. Once the enemy is in one you probably loose access to all of them.
- Unfair Map gens. I play since the voobly days and thus have experienced a lot of different Arabia map gens. In this point this gen is the worst by far. Like half of the maps have such lopsided maps that its the game deciding factor. Which should not be in the spirit of the game
All of this is extremely frustrating and for the first time I had to ban Arabia, and I was a Arabia only player.
8 Likes
100% agree. Completely ruined a perfect and classic map. They are going to lose a lot of the player base over this. I’ve banned it for the first time since it came out and I’ve been playing this map for 15 years.
3 Likes
Basically it’s now turned into Socotra with a slightly bigger map. Stupid ridiculous messy games. Just all-in feudal cheese strats with towers and all in army or just scouts running round in circles. The devs need to pay attention to this. I wish I knew where to make an official complaint, I’m so angry about this. It’s the most popular map, they shouldn’t be messing with it like this.
Agree with all 3 first points, finally someone which critics the map by really playing it !
However i do not with the 4rd point, as you said all players have very similar wood and there is always boths ressources in back and forward so it’s fine for this.
@wolfsilver9640 Thats not true. Its totally possible to have all 3 Golds and 2 Stones and berries, unwallebel forward on hills while the enemy has back gold and easy walls. Wood alone is not enough! This was always possible (1 in 15 ods?) but not half the time and never to such a degree
Really ? i didn’t see that :o can you provide some screenshot to help understand what you’re talking about ? i never have opportunity to see that at the moment
At least you don’t speak with yourself…
However, there is one more thing I figured out about the new arabia that is really strange.
While the early game is very agressive the midgame can be extremely boomy.
As there are more woodlines on the outside sqaure of the map now, it’s often quite easy to “cut” the map in two with stone walls using the woodlines. That’s totally weird.
And I also don’t like it. In the old arabia expansion was way more complicated, a matter of evaluation how much protection and of which kind you want to provide to your expanison.
The new one is way more easy to expand with just walls… There is no real tradeoff, no choice to make if and how to protect your expansion, you just wall and boom.
That whole map design is just something completely different. It’s not Arabia. It’s a weird map that heavily favors eco civs. Good eco for good early agression, good eco to boom away with a solid lead behind walls. At least if you are already ahead.
I don’t get it… why, just why?
1 Like
Stop cry and play another map arabia not is the only one
I wasn’t who “cryed” for changes to the old, real arabia.
2 Likes
No i don’t, if you read my messages you should probanly know it, i proposed some modifications in my very first messages which i think is not a good thing, but again you are juste saying the same thing in loop and not getting any arguments expect than personnal one which is hilarious for me since not only they are not argument but also they are at very least false or even the total opposite. So again i will told you the exact same question ? i make a lot of arguments and you never respond to that, i’m open to discussion but if the other one is also else it’s just impossible.
I think the map itself is fine, but it shouldn’t be called Arabia, it should be called something like Forest Clearing, or idk. And Arabia should be brought back to voobly Arabia.
5 Likes
no, thanks don’t want to get ressources traped and very very unfair maps
When people say voobly arabia that doesn’t mean we want all the bugs that map script had. They have since fixed these, so we can have a voobly arabia where resources don’t get bugged at all
The map is great. New Arabia is best Arabia. More challenging and random, like it
1 Like
So this is just stating an opinion as a “fact”. For some people, sure. But repetition also improves it for others. A lot of people like the consistency. See it as an upside. Allowing these players to better develop their skills and feel like the randomness inherent in the game has lessened. The new map encourages them to play.
Is the randomness really a major selling point tho? If I try to get people into AoE II, the random map gen is not really that high on the things I’d tell them. It is a rather unique to the game, admittedly.
In many ways the opposite argument is also true. The randomness can very much be something that turns people off from the game.
Furthermore, a lot of people feel like it takes away from the competitiveness of the game. They still wanna keep a degree of uncertainty that has become part of the games pvp scene, but would enjoy more consistent scripting.
Ultimately, it is a matter of mutually exclusive wants. Consistent and fair map generation necessarily come at the cost of randomness. But people also still want a degree of the uncertainty as well. One can argue this version of Arabia is step closer to achieving the Goldilocks zone of the balance between consistency and randomness.
This is a problem with the map script itself, not the design philosophy behind it. If anything, more consistent spawns very much have the goal of giving fairer map generations.
1 Like
The problem is that Arabia was always known for its randomness. It was considered to be a tough map to play, but also a good map to play, because it really helps players to discover different strategies, and adapt to versatile and unique situations. Sometimes you might have gotten a comically bad map, but if you learn how to change your plans, and draw up new plans based on the maps, it makes you a better player. The DE Arabia where 1 tc YOLO is king, does not really do that.
As for fair maps, Arena already exists.
Personal opinion:
I also think that voobly Arabia helped more to develop the meta, because having more randomness to the map means you could not just simply decide a strategy before the game even began and pull it off, because the map wasn’t consistent enough for such rigid gameplay. Nowadays you can very often decide your strategy even while you’re in the lobby and pull it off, because the map is so consistent.
Since when is arena fair map? its better than before but still you can have 2x amount of space safer gold and stone
New arabia = best arabia
revival good point of Open map concept
If you don’t like? You may be Boom player.
and sometimes All Stone, gold mine placed too outside.
We need to improve situation at leat one of them make inside
worst arabia ever, it’s not arabia anymore
I personally disagree. I love the new Arabia and how open it is. I find there is still quite a bit of variability between map gens, even if the woodlines are a bit more predictable. I also disagree that the closeness of woodlines is a problem because enemies can deny access to them all at once. Its not one one tower or bunch of archers can range all three woodlines at once, so I just don’t see this as a major issue.