buying this dlc, is supporting this questionable model business.
Also they are mixing on purpose PvE and PvP content just to milk the players more. They could release a “just 2 civs” dlc, and the complete version as separate products.
releasing sprites had more sense.
What man? Cumans are one of the strongest in closed maps and one of the best in teamgames
And I talk about my experience with them.
Hard MP community is always unhappy with literally all, go and check Aoezone
It is the very nature of competitive MP, that the player is always salty and unhappy.
I’m not a fan about the new DLC. There are still big balance problems even a year after the original release, and the developers want yet more civs? And with most of the new mechanics sounding like they belong in AoE III, it makes me feel this is the beginning of a new DLC model featuring 1 - 2 civs per release, with mechanics/bonuses copied from AoE III. The new civs shall be utterly OP upon release to coax competitive players who want to stay on top into buying the DLC, followed by an equally careless overnerf some months later, repeat.
I have total confidence that the Lords of the West will be a big hit in the short term, like similar DLC models. But it shall crush the competitive scene in the long term, like similar DLC models. Giving me a contradictory list of the most popular games with similar on-going DLC content won’t convince me otherwise. For those games are “lightning in a bottle” and the formula for their continuing success is exclusive to those games.
i fully support new dlc, keeps the game alive.
ut will not have the impact of AOE 3 home city cards for one reason.
they help you only if you are stong at the moment.
aoe 3 cards bring you back from the dead…
there are a lot o ways to mantain the game alive like sprite packs
And even then, AoE2 is the only strategy game that can bring people to the game-pass. the netflix of gaming.
xbox pass have forza, and gears. but for the strategic crowd only AoE2 works. Aoe1 and AoE3 failed.
Paper Money and Cuman Mercenaries are little bit similar. You and your allies get 500 gold and 10 kipchek.
But unlike the new techs, there’s no penalty for researching Paper Money and Cuman Mercenaries too early
Yes, the new ones can easily criple you, if you research them at the wrong time, but on the bright side, they are not useless.
I am quite looking forward to see if this will end the "useless UT"arguments.
That’s not good civ design. That’s another reason why they should replace the proposed unique techs with ones that aren’t one-time only and borrowed from aoe3 or aom. If you research any other unique tech at a time you don’t intend on, you’ll just be down however much the unique tech cost. It won’t affect your strategy at all aside from that.
With these techs, if you research it once, there’s no backing out. Once you click that button to turn all your villagers to military that’s it and your strategy as a whole has changed completely.
Yet another reason these techs are horribly flawed and won’t work to the advantage of these civs or the game in the long run.
The fact they can cripple you is horrible. Civs should not be defined by their unique techs, and no civ is. Unique techs, unlike bonuses, require a castle, investment of resources and castle time to research. They’re not applicable from the start of the game like bonuses are. The fact is, a “useless” unique tech like madrasah or Cuman Mercenaries or orthodoxy is much better than a unique tech your civ relies on, because the civ with the less useful unique tech won’t be as reliant on it.
They aren’t, civs are still defined by their bonii and Tech Tree, mostly.
You may find it horrible, but there is no denying it is not useless, like Atheism or Madrasah.
You will likely not use them at all times, but they are great Panic Buttons, specially the Burgundians UTs.
Does Madrasah or Atheism being useless mean the new civs should have poorly-designed techs? “Panic Buttons” as you put it, are useless 99% of the time but, unlike Madrasah and Atheism, OP the 1% of the time you do use them. All other UTs, they’re useless when you don’t research it, but they’re just strong (not OP) when you do research and use them. With these techs, they’re useless most of the time but OP the times that you do use them, regardless of the cost of the tech.
Late game 1v1s, both burgundian UTs are insanely strong. If you change the cost of the tech or stats on the flemish pikemen, you’re just changing when those insanely strong moments show up, not how strong those moments are. That’s poor design.
Another criticism I have is the fact that they are panic buttons. Every other technology in aoe2 is designed such that, once you research it, if you don’t make use of the technology, you are only as behind as how much that technology cost you in resources to research. If I research ironclad as teutons but don’t end up making siege, I’m only going to be however much ironclad costs behind. With these techs, specifically the burgundian ones, there’s no going back once you’ve hit them. All your food is gone or all your eco is gone. That’s poor design.
I see no reason why these unique techs need to be “one-time use” and broken sometimes but useless other times. The only reason that comes to mind is devs trying to incorporate aoe3 features into aoe2. Make the unique techs continuous as opposed to one-time use before releasing the civs officially and it’ll be much easier to balance if we find out the techs or the civ are underwhelming or overpowered.
Where are your statistics that AoE 1 and AoE 3 failed? Those two just need more tweaks and contents and they will be fine. AoE 2 is simply the favorite due to its medieval settings.
Lol Sprite packs as dlcs? That sounds like those emoticons for MOBAs. I preordered the Lord of the West DLC just for the new campaigns and it’s great to have the new civs as bonus. If they can add atleast 2 more Historical Battles then it would be more worth.
making different halbierds for Spanish and Chinese are emoticons for you? that explains a lot about your non-sensical apologism with the broken mechanics.
AoE2 has 10x more active players than AoE3. will you call it success for a game released 2 months ago?
You’re overly negative here. They give us new content which you buy if you want but are definitely not obligated too.
The reason new civs are usually OP on the beginning is that they want us to try them out and also that a player who plays Burgundians for the first time has a slight edge over some other civs years and years of experience have been amassed about.
I see new content as an indication for their commitment towards AOE2:DE, nothing else. Events and patches aren’t free either.
I’m being as negative as I need to be to be a discerning buyer that can tell when a product or service I’ve paid and might continue paying for is moving away from what I think is a worthy purchase. And you’re right: I’m not obligated to buy it. But, as a business and mega corporation, I thought Microsoft liked pursuing, and keeping, all of the money and ego? Okay. Whatever.
Anyway my decision is informed by hearing about or playing around a dozen games with similar monetization models that were all failures in the long term due to a constantly shifting meta locked behind a paywall that stopped a competitive community from taking shape. And as I said before, exceptions keep the rule in place. If you don’t want to know what this is like, then you don’t want to know what this is like. Nevertheless AoE2’s competitive scene, the same scene which is the root of the revived interest in AoE II that went on to energize a Definitive Edition of the same game, is on a timer. But that’s okay. For by the time Microsoft leaves AoE II behind in whatever state they care to leave it in, Microsoft will give you AoE IV to stuff your brain with next.
They do not care about ego, only money.
And in this case, they ARE following the money.
80% of all the 5 million Steam customers that bought the game, never touched MP, and have been continuously asking for more civs.
This is also the most sucessful product in the franchise, with a track record of expansions doing really well for it.
Almost everyone that had HD, ended up getting all it’s expansions, and then DE. This means that expos sell well for this game, and it would not be wise to not develop the product further, and get MORE money from it.
They ARE following the money, listening to the MP community will eventually make working on the game unproffitable, just like what happened with Starcraft 2.
MP is not where the modern gamer spends his time anymore.
The multiplayer community, the streamers etc. are one of the reasons why AoE is so popular again. Multiplayer is a really important part of the game and the community should also be listened to. And I say this as a singleplayer.
But they are being listened to.
Who do you think balance changes and Battle Royale was for?
Not for the SP crowd.
If people really want this game to keep being worked on, then they have to throw in cash so it is justifiable.
The vast majority of the playerbase (even MP) will not give money for nothing, and the one thing most people want, is more civs.