It’ll basically just be a harassment tool for late game.
The auto-explore mechanic itself doesn’t feel like it would fit into Age of Empires but they could always just limit it to single player if too many people complain about it in multiplayer.
When I do that, it means I’ve found everything interesting ( my ressources, location of enemy) and I don’t rush (ie.don’t need the scout to fight/spy) so I just spam the black zone, just like an AI would. And once there is no more black zones, then both waypoints/AI will be 100% random.
What is the hard part of scouting? It’s mainly monitoring the enemy, finding their sneaks in time ,stuff that an AI can’t do. And if it somehow could, only then auto-scouting would be a problem. But since we all know good ol’ AI, there is not much to worry here. However if it’s just about removing the last dark zones from the mini-map it’s not hard, it’s tedious.
That’s the spirit. Of course if it was never proposed I wouldn’t have cared but right now people are acting like it’s going to destroy the game.
Finishing the exploration (ie.not the skilled part of scouting)
Ah ok. But isn’t it the case of normal scouting already?
Since traditionally the units the AI dedicates to scouting don’t attack, I doubt you could use auto-scouting for harassment. And if it could be used as some kind of auto-raid feature then it would be too much. As of limiting it to SP, it sounds sensible but then arguments like
would be valid since people use SP to train.
Auto Scouting is a horrible Idea. This is one of the nuances that makes this game so appealing. Scouting is important and has been since military action was first implemented. Knowing the lay of the land has won and lost many a battle in real life, removing the difference between players that can and those who cant is removing a fundamental aspect of strategy and cheapens the game.
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On the contrary, your statement agreed that AQ is an indispensable feature even at Competitive level, which facilitates the implementation of it.
Except that the auto scouting feature that will be implemented won’t be that clever (ie. it will just remove all dark parts and then randomly wander around) so it’s not like it will gather actual intelligence for you. It’s no where close “removing differences between players”
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No, he means that autoqueue would force everyone to use it. I’m not sure of that since autoqueue can easily suck up all your ressources so not using it defintely has its advantages, but what is certain is that he doesn’t want it to be implemented. Anyway I don’t think that autoqueue will get in just because they will add auto scouting.
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My main question.
No, the majority do not want auto-scouting. I personally feel it’s bad for the game.
But - was that information private? Should Insider Newsblast information be spread onto the forums before public release? Talking about it between insiders, yes, but I’m not 100%. Only been lurking here for a short while.
Thanks to everyone for the discussion about the auto scout feature. We want you to know the development team is watching this conversation with interest, and we understand the concerns that some have expressed in this thread.
We’re very excited to share this widely requested feature with the community, and we also acknowledge that it will have an impact on gameplay. We expect that impact to be positive: Our hope is that new players will feel more confident joining their friends in multiplayer matches, and more seasoned players will find it a nice quality-of-life improvement they can use to keep exploring when they want to focus elsewhere (though it’ll still be far less efficient than a manually commanded scout by a skilled player).
However, as with any change we make, we’ll continue to listen to feedback from the Age of Empires community and make tweaks based both on what you tell us and how we see the feature being used in game.
Our plan is to release auto scout for all game modes in the next update, and our request is that you try it out and give us your feedback once it’s released. We’re open to all feedback on this and other aspects of the game as we continue to work on improving the Age II DE experience for everyone!
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@Plus2Joe
I won’t lie I am slightly confused, when has this been a widely requested feature from the community? Elo being shown beside names has been a widely requested feature. A fully operational leaderboard has been a widely requested feature. Melee units working properly and not glitching out. Is a WIDELY requested feature. Proper Ranked queuing for team games and player balancing for random queue. Widely requested feature.
This as seen by the instant outrage and reaction has never been a widely requested feature. If it had been so widely requested so many people would not have been blindsided by the announcement.
Speaking for myself I can honestly say that once this patch comes out you will have lost one player. And every person thereafter to whom I recommend the game will be advised to stay away from DE. Just as I did with HD.
I however am one person and in the grand scene of things insignificant.
The project manager has the sole power to decide the direction of this game. Streamlining it in a desperate attempt to retain new players is not a game I wish to be a part of.
So as a person who is active in the community, and online with nearly 500 hours played in DE alone. Come next week with the implementation of this new feature, voobly will have regained another player.
Of course my subsequent reviews will be changed to accommodate this change.
But I am one person and therefore insignificant.
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In every game so far which had this feature, it was always a better choice to scout for yourself than letting the AI scout for you. It’s probably going to be, like @CactusSteak2171 said, a pretty dumb AI actually which just turns in circles without any strategical thinking behind.
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“very wrong” is for sure an overstatement. I agree with you to some extent, but it’s not as extreme as you make it look like. If it was you’d have to be against villagers going to work after building a camp for example. It’s always about finding a balance between the need to keep track of things and the game not being annoyingly hard to play.
So yeah, you’re right, but it makes sense to think about for which things it is healthy to be part of the challenge you mentioned and for which things it’s not. So I think you make it look too simple.
Just for the record: I’m no noob, depending on my actitivity I’m floating somewhere between rank 100 and 500 and my apm is at least decent. It’s not about me wanting to be able to play with 50 apm or whatever. I just think it makes sense to openly discuss/think about certain feature and not just go “everything that makes to game easier is straight up bad”.
My point was not to say that all of those will follow because of that change. That’s obviously not true. My point was to show that the general direction (and way of thinking) all of this is going is not good in my opinion - and that that’s far more of a concern than the single change we’re discussing right now. I still think that’s a valid point.
Please don’t go the “by the way, you all wanted this”-direction. It’s just not true and ~66% of the community being against that change (according to polls) should show that. Please just be honest and say “we thought it would be a nice idea, but maybe we should have discussed it a bit more (with more people) before releasing it”.
There are a lot of things that are in fact “widely requested features”, which makes it even worse to say you implementing something most of the people don’t want, while there are many things that would make most players happy.
Nope, they don’t. More seasoned players don’t want the game to become easier and easier to play. They rather understand that diciding where to put attention is an important part of the game and should not be overly simplified.
That’s certainly a good thing and I believe you and thank you for that. I really appreciate that you listen to the community (no sarcasm here) - I just think it would be good to be a little less pro active without getting feedback first when it comes to implementing new features.
Yeah, I think that’s just the wrong approach, especially now that it’s clear that the majority of the community does not like this change. Please implement it more carefully (if at all)!
Hey, don’t you think that’s a bit of an overreaction? I think it would be cooler if we all stayed here and tried to make the game as good as possible. I think the devs are willing to go that way with us - they jsut seem to be a bit to pro active at some points ;D
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completely agree on this. There are a lot of real request that should be implemented. I don’t really understand why you gonna implemented something that’s clearly unwanted instead. You said the devs take use a forum as a guide and feedback for implementation, but clearly you don’t.
Please, go for more urgent things, and take some extra time to think about the auto scouting and how the bigger part of the community doesn’t want it.
WE DON’T WANT AN EASIER GAME. We just want a good multiplayer system. And a good melee pathfinfing. That’s what this game still needs
If you gonna ignore thw opinion of the community and add it to the game anyway, play make it a selectable option IN THE LOBBY, so we can chose if we want other players being able to use it or not
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I remember auto-scouting being mentioned a long time ago, in some early articles about AoE2DE, when it was still in development. Also, remember that the devs/staff have done extended surveys that reached far more player than those active on the forums.
Welp, if getting rekt by OP cuman for 1 month was fine enough for you to stay but auto-scouting is a good reason to leave forever (even though it has 0 reason to stay if it turns out to be too unpopular) then I don’t get your logic.
Yeah, they DARE to try new stuff and risking not to please everyone.
Ok, but what makes you think this “general direction” will lead to tons of automated stuff? The most sensible thing to do, right now, is to assume that the dev team is competent enough to realise what’s acceptable and what is going too far, as auto-conversion would.
Probably that according to what the surveys led by the team says he is honest
Or they won’t care because it will be barely relevant for them
Welp, sometimes you need to test things to be sure. If we listened to the people who were 100% convinced that the 2 feudal TC gimmick/Kreposts were always going to be OP, the game would be less diversified right now. Heck, when a showmatch revealed the Tatars bonus, tons of people were complaining the hill bonus would make their CA machine guns. Of course it turned out to be false, but I let you guess what would have happened if devs were “less proactive”
So you just want to stay away from people enjoying the feature? That’s… weird? I mean have you ever seen the AI scouting and thought “wow, it’s too OP”?
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Whilst I don’t think it’s necessary… I’m okay with it if others want it. I have read (likely from Steam at least) that some players would like it and whilst it’s not a terrible idea I can see it might ruffle some feathers. Though, personally if it’s a dumb AI then it’s probably worthwhile just to keep tabs on your scout or even take manual control.
Anyway the best compromise would be to just lock it behind a lobby option so it’s there for those who are okay with it and also banned for those who’d rather not have it. Just a thought.
No, it’s not to OP, it’s just unfair. It’s one less thing other players have to do. Image you manage to block both stones and go tower rush. Your opponent have the auto scouting on, and his/her scout finds a stone mine somewhere else. Is a game changer. Scouting is a skill. I want a fair game. I don’t want handicap for any player
It’s going to be quite random, so nothing guarantees they will find it, and you can totally find it yourself first and plan something to deny them this one as well. It’s really something small, it’s not like there was an option to make your army intelligent and you would find yourself up against pikemens that never waste time on anything else than cav or skirms that always focus archers (in beta times there once was a guy who legit made a thread to require that because he though that the “intelligent decision from the player” was just choosing which army to produce)
Of course, but without autoscouting it’s guaranteed that he won’t find if, because he will be busy defending from the tower rush. It does not matter how you see it. At the end, it’s obvious it’s something designed for noobs. And i’m okay with it, as long as it stays with noobs. It shouldn’t make his way up to the competitive scene/rated games.
Then there are 2 possibilities:
you’re just as bad at scouting, and then since you can’t both focus on scouting and your offensive, you can use auto-scout
or you’re better and are able to do both, but then 1-you should play against better player and 2-your manual scouting will prove to be better anyway.
Since pros are much better at scouting and they have many more uses for scouts (ie.if it wanders randomly chances are it won’t be there in time to rush/defend), so for them clicking on the auto-scout button will just be a waste of finger stamina. And if you are worried about lower elo ranked games, I doubt it will change much. In my first ranked game, the enemy did spot my archers with his scout, and still died because 1-he failed to close his walls and 2-he was trying to quickwall like a pro… while leaving the remnant of his eco AFK and free to be slaughtered. Auto-scouting wouldn’t have changed anything.
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Basically the same thing. Algorithm AI and the one that AI uses will be the same. In Extreme it does avoid scout stuffs properly.
It is because most game adds all known stuffs instead of actual gameplay tricks. But no harm adding it and those advance tips will help a lot to newbies.
Those who says this does nothing more than city building in AOE2 but the game clearly isn’t about that. There is a reason why competitive community still exists.