Depends on how you do it.
Yes it would change things but it#s not equal to throwing the balance out of the window.
I think they should have rather rebalanced it instead of just completely removing that mechanic.
But I guess it’s an AoE3 feature and there for AoE2 fans will hate it, it doesn’t matter how good it is.
I played the Beta, I know. It’s sad that they removed it. They should have at last kept the animation so it looks like they are fighting in melee even if they still do ranged damage.
So why is a game with symmetric civilizations so much more popular than all the others combined? Because it fulfills the 2 fundamental things that an RTS must have to be successful: Extensive content and a favorable competitive scene.
There are 3 options here: Either we make the civs more asymmetrical and at most there would be 10 civs (unfeasible in this franchise, except in AoM, because players will always ask for unrepresented civs) or we make the civs just as symmetrical as AoE2 and you can make 40 (but in these days they would look boring due to their lack of variety) or leave it as it is (with some more different and others less) and we would have a limit of 15-20 civs.
I disagree that your first option would cap civs at around 10. In support of my position, I offer AoE3 DE, which has 20+ civs and certainly well more than 10 being quite more asymmetric than those of aoe4. It also shows no signs of slowing down.
For that matter AoM and AoEO have fewer than 10 asymmetric civs but their development are constrained by other factors than the gameplay considerations necessary to make more than 10 civs.
I’m concerned arguments that creative design is impossible is exactly the kind of thinking that put aoe4 in this spot to begin with.
For the record, I love AoE3, but your argument is invalidated by this question:
Where is AoE3 in the RBW?
Right, it’s not included.
Only a much smaller tournament was held to cater to the smaller competitive niche of the numerical franchise.
AoE3 DE is a competitive failure (many mechanics imba) and it meant a brutal change in mechanics compared to the previous ones (not viewers in Twitch). That’s why its numbers are stagnant, so your example has not been the best.
Funny to see these two opinions on the same side of argument:
(1) AOE4 is actually very asymmetric than AOE3 at release (Asymmetry good)
(2) AOE4 is not so asymmetric so it’s great. Look at AOE3’s numbers (Asymmetry bad)
We’ll most starts of AoE have had less inspiring Civs in the beginning and then they have gotten more creative over a longer period. It is also easier to improve on a completely new civ and see if it works and then rework the older ones to fit the newer more inspired ones.
Competitive tournaments aren’t how I enjoy age games, so I have zero knowledge about how they selected their games. I was disappointed not to see aoe3 though.
eSports ? That’s like 1% of player base lol, games like Rome total war RTS never had big tournaments and the game was more successful that any age game.
For sure AoE2 revived the franchise because of its purely casual scene and not because there were PvP matches and small tournaments in Voobly + new civilizations created by FE…
An RTS without a good competitive scene is doomed to failure or stagnation with few numbers. It must have visibility on streaming platforms and content for casuals, only then the game grows.
And the one who commented about TW Rome, as if that game was a pure RTS. It has nothing to do with it. Likewise, the numbers are not being the best either.
Not entirely disagreeing but one minor correction: RTS (no modifier) is doomed to failure.
Now from the perspective of a player I only care if I have more interesting contents to play with for longer.
Because whenever an RTS enters esports it will always shrink to Blizzard’s model: only a small number of (truly unique) factions with maybe 3-4 builds each become really viable, regardless of how many you have in the base game. The pros will always go for them.
In that sense I’d prefer the base game to be as rich as possible.
I’m actually quite glad AoE3DE doesn’t cater to esports because it gives the devs room to experiment with complex mechanics, units, and overall civ design…not to mention the vibrant maps. Sure, I find it egregious that the game was mysteriously left out of Redbull but only for the exposure it would have received. And it’s not like 3DE is completely lacking in competitive play, either.
I’ll take an interesting and deep game that might not be as popular in the competitive scene over a bland one any day. I don’t care to watch tournaments but understand how beneficial they can be.
It doesn’t make sense for you to find it atrocious that AoE3 DE isn’t in Red Bull and be happy that the devs aren’t working so that in the competitive AoE3 part they don’t focus on limiting depth to properly balance civs, mechanics, and be more eye-catching and understandable for external viewers.
I am not in favor of making shallow games, but if I know something in these more than 20 years of experience, it is that an excessively deep RTS will not be able to be competitive and grow. Maybe you don’t care if the game grows or not, I do care.
It doesn’t necessarily have to be the “Blizzard model” (which, by the way, is the most successful/most viewed). Nor can they ask for different factions (and that there may be room for one more) because it is not a historical video game, in any case the content goes the other way. And since there are very few factions, they can make them as asymmetrical as possible, because balancing, although difficult, can be done better.
What I mean by Blizzard model is that regardless of how many options you have in the game, the pros will always find a few metas and stick to them. So for esports and generic players it is basically two different games. The reason why the “esports game” does not thrive is not how the “base game” is designed (unless for totally not-esport-oriented games like Total War of course), but whether they are really willing to promote the former.
Again I just showed you an example that that’s not true, are those 20k players in age 2 playing competitive? Doubt so, in company heroes 2, most games are 4v4 and 2v2… 4v4 is the less competitive mode., I remember that for warcraft 3 custom games was the most popular mode and many people used to play arcade maps (like dota or warlocks), competitive is important yes, but it is not key factor, relic should bring the tools for competitive but never focus the game in eSports.blizArd realized that with sc2, players were dropping fast because the APM required for sc2 is abysmal, then they started with arcade sectionz they also introduced single player content and co-ops modes, most people that buy RTS are people with actual jobs that don’t have time to be a eSports legend and just want to have some fun either single player, co-op, vs IA or semi competitive… Those are the guys that have money to buy your game.