[poll] Cosmetic DLC

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
390

@TungstenBoar Thanks :slight_smile:

@MatM1996 Yes. But I don’t see a problem because this style would only appear in the Imperial Age buildings (TC and market) + buildings (walls, towers and castle) that would make more sense in this style than in the previous ones.

@PeakHornet46539 In fact, only cereals would be enough to show the diversity of each region:

→ Wheat: Mediterranean and Middle East
→ Barley: Central Asian
→ Rye: North and East Europe
→ Oats: West Europe
→ Millet: East Asia
→ Rice: South and Southeast Asia
→ Sorghum: Africa
→ Maize: Native America

6 Likes
391

Ah ok, no problem then


392

Wheat (Europe/Middle East/Central Asia), Rice (South, Southeast and East Asia), Millet (Africa) and Maize (Americas) would be sufficient.

1 Like
393

That should depend on the map, not the civilisation, in my opinion.

2 Likes
394

The regional skins should apply to Return of Rome too.
Korean and Roman armies shouldn’t look the same.

For RoR I suggest 3 regions:
West(Mediterranean), Middle East and Far East.

The regions are independent of the Architecture set.
Carthaginians and Palmyrans for example would have Middle Eastern units but keep the Roman architecture while Hatti would keep the Egyptian architecture but get Western units.

Future regions could be Southern Asia or Northern Europe.

4 Likes
395

how about fixing core issues like pathing instead of pouring glitter over the fe*es aoe2de has always been?

396

Ok tell the graphic designer he has to code path finding now.
You can easily heir new people that make art assets for AoE2DE. It’s not that complicated, there are a lot of people that make their own unit sprites as mods.
But getting someone to learn a 25 year old engine takes years. They can’t just heir new programmers.

And also bug fixes don’t get people to play a game.
Did you ever buy a game because there was a line in the patch notes that said that a certain rare bug got fixed? Probably not.
But did you ever buy a new game because it got a lot of new content in an update? More likely.

I’m not saying bugs should not be fixed, of course they should.
But they should not stop everything else until the bugs are fixed, if they did that then we would have 0 new civilisations, campaigns, maps, game modes etc.

5 Likes
397

They have been doing this since the game was released. Every patch so far there is someone like you justifying adding alpaca avatars and events and other useless glitter with the argument they shouldn’t just be dropping doing that. Well, 4 years of doing so and nothing done to actually fix the pathing, maybe they should really focus on that? Maybe pathing is one of the core elements of the game, maybe the skins and other cr*p wouldn’t be worthless if the game wasn’t due to the 4 years of neglect after making the ‘questionable’ (for a lack of better words) decision to use the same old engine. How about making the abhorrent chat filter optional (ON by default and even if they want, they can protect it behind parent control password, but OPTIONAL)? How about the inability to save a MP game? This couldn’t be done in non-DE era due to the fact games were p2p. We have p2server now, why hasn’t this been implemented? But God forbid they drop the useless eyecandy. I understand things can be done simultaneously, but there’s a budget. Then, there’s management. There should be priorities, right?

4 Likes
398

I really hope this comes to light. This would increase engagement and honor each civ.

Please make this happen devs!

1 Like
399

The game makes money by selling DLCs, not by having people play it for a long time.
There is no subscription, no season pass etc.
They have to add new things to make any money. The sales of the game always go down, only a few people buy a game 5 years after release and if they do so they only buy it on discount.

There were many bugs fixed since the release of the Definitive Edition and they also added a lot of new features and options to players.

Path finding is one of the most complicated and most complex parts of the AoE2 code, nothing that can be easily fixed and other changes to the code in other places can introduce new bugs to the path finding.
The question is how many other bug fixes and new features should be delayed to improve the path finding. Different people have different priorities for that.
A bug that is game braking for you might be something someone else doesn’t care about at all and vice versa.
And at what point would you consider the path finding “fixed”. There will basically always be room for improvement. Units will never exactly walk in exactly the way you want to in every situation.
If you come from AoE1(DE) and the path finding in AoE2DE is a dream.
If you come from AoE4 the path finding in AoE2DE is probably just mildly annoying.

The whole chat filter thing is a completely different story. That has nothing to do with them not being technically able to do so.
It’s likely because they don’t want to risk losing their age raging. AoE has a 12+ years rating which is a lot lower then most other multiplayer games. Many other strategy games have 16+ ratings or similar, shooters are basically always between 16-18+ ratings.
That’s something we can’t discuss here, we are both not lawyers, or are you?

But back to the topic.
For a lot of people things like immersion and story telling are more important then a bug free experience.
Not having every army of every civilisation look like it’s from western Europe would massively improve the immersion of the game for many people and bring them a lot more enjoyment then some small bug fixes.
I bet many people wouldn’t even notice if the path finding was “fixed”.

2 Likes
400

That’s true
But if this game is included in an Xbox pass, that perception changes

401

Not really.
The majority of players don’t play though games pass and the people that do are usually those that only play the game for a short time.
DLCs are not included in the games pass for example.
Almost all people that play the game a lot over a long time have bought it.

We also don’t know how games pass revenue is calculated. So even if the majority of players were though games pass, how much money ends up being payed to the developers of one particular game.
Does it even depend on the hours played?
It’s certainly less money then a battlepass or micro transactions would make. Not saying they should add those things, that would be awful.

1 Like
402

I don’t understand so many complaints about the path finder, it’s definitely better than the AoE and AoE3. AoE4 is the most recent release in the series so it just doesn’t count.

Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition it’s a 25 year old RTS game that stays ALIVE. To keep servers running, balance patches released, and bugs fixed, developers need to make a profit.

The game pass is a business strategy, there is not that much profit for an individual game there. The only option you have are the DLCs that add new campaigns and civilizations. They criticized each other a lot saying that they would ruin the competitive and that they would make it difficult for the newbie ones to learn, but the story has been completely different. Interest in this game has grown at a competitive level. Adding unit skins isn’t going to kill competitive game, it’s not going to make it unreadable, there are already plenty of artist examples that have made fully readable models. In this case, an option can be placed to deactivate it or simply NOT buy the skins DLC. If the DLC is successful (which it will be
), the developers will have the opportunity to work on implementing improvements and bug fixes.

Please let the game expand. There were people complaining about the DE improvements in its release because they need everything to be old hardcore.

6 Likes
403

how much more stuff they must break before you start criticizing I wonder. maybe they’ll break the stuff you use/play the most thats when you finally care, only then you realize just how long for them to “fix” certain things.

staying positive is one thing, however they definitely have priorities in the money side and the many complaints about bug issue are very valid and shared by many of us. the DLC and skins happen to coincide with making money. when theres something you needed fixed and they dont see a point to it, maybe you’ll open your eyes then.

7 Likes
404

It’s funny you should mention that because if innovation and QoL is what we need (to which I agree), then maybe the devs shouldn’t have gone for the 25-year old engine the first game was based off of. Maybe a new engine would have been much more suitable given how with every new patch there is a plethora of new bugs.

And while I agree the game should expand, please let the game expand, and not the bugs. DE looks beautiful enough and graphics-wise, the artists have done their job. Of course there is always the room for improvement, but that is not the point I am making: all I am saying is there are far more important changes needed before we can daydream about civ-specific architecture.

6 Likes
405

Could a “regional” sprite group also be “temporal”.
So having less modern or more modern looking units for some civilisations.

Now the West Roman Empire was added to AoE2 as a late antiquity civilisation. But there are many other civilisations from the same time in the game, for example the Goths, Celts, Huns, Persians, Bengalis etc.

So my idea was to give some of those civilisations AoE1/RoR sprites.

Civilisations

Late Antiquity civilisations:

  • Huns
  • Goths
  • Celts
  • Persians

Maybe Late Antiquity civilisations:

  • Bengalis (Because Chariots)
  • Chinese (Because no Gunpowder)
  • Mayan
  • Ethiopians (They have been around since the Bronze Age)

Technically Late Antiquity civilisations but practically not:

  • Franks (are better at representing late medieval French)
  • Britons (are better at representing Norman England)
  • Byzantines (should be different to Romans)

Changed unit lines

Milita Line

This one is a little tricky.
AoE1 has 2 Lines, the Clubman and the Short Sword Line that have 6 units combines while AoE2 has a 5 unit Militia Line.

  • Option 1: AoE2 Militia → Short Sword → Broad Sword → Long Sword → Legionary
  • Option 2: AoE1 Axeman → Short Sword → Broad Sword → Long Sword → Legionary

The issue with those 2 versions is that the Short and Broad Sword look very Bronze Age, that doesn’t fit into Late Antiquity.

  • Option 3: Militia → Long Sword → Legionary → Two-Handed Swordsman → Champion

Here the last 2 units are AoE2 but there are a few good reasons for that:

  • The Romans don’t have those units, they have the AoE2 Legionary instead. So they would transition from their best unit in AoE1 to their unique unit in AoE2.
  • The Persian Militia Line ends with the Long Swordsman while they have a fully upgraded Legionary in AoE1. So if the Long Swordsman looks like a Legionary it would match the end of their AoE1 tech tree

Archer Line

This one is trivial:
Bowman → Improved Bowman → Composite Bowman

Romans would also happen to end at the same unit in both games in this case, the Improved Bowman.
The Composite Bowman looks more Asian so giving the Persians the Improved Bowman as an end of the line would fit too.
Also feels more historical to let them spam Improved Bowman instead of Crossbowman.

Giving Mayans Archers instead of Crossbows is also obviously more historical even if the unit wears very different clothes.

Cavalry Archer Line

Even more trivial:
Horse Archer → Heavy Horse Archer

They would probably better fit into a Hunic army then the AoE2 Cavalry Archers so that’s a plus.

Knight Line

This one is also simple:
Cavalry → Heavy Cavalry → Chataphract

The Cataphract would perfectly fit into a Persian army and would probably also work better in the Hunic one.

The Cavalry looks a little Bronze but I think it’s ok.

The new Heavy Cavalry look with it’s silvery Iron armour would look very nice for the Roman and Chinese Champion.

Mangonel Line

This one is simple but the units might be too different looking:
Stone Thrower → Catapult → Heavy Catapult

The issue is that the Catapult only has one projectile.

Scorpion Line

Also simple but also maybe too different:
Ballista → Helepolis

They would work better then the Catapult Line for sure.

Monk

Is replaced by the Priest.

Units that won’t work

  • Scout and Camel Rider don’t have any upgrades so they can’t replace their AoE2 counter parts
  • All Elephant units are based on the small (now extinct) Northern African elephant
  • Chariots have no equivalent in AoE2 (other then the Ratha)
  • The Hoplite Line has no equivalent (the Teutonic Knight plays similarly but is thematically very different)

Summery

Now Romans would fight with AoE1 Legionaries, Cavalry, Improved Bowman and Ballista in Castle Age which would be kinda similar to how you would play them in AoE1.
In Imperial Age you now have AoE2 Legionaries, Heavy Cavalry and Helepolis. They don’t get the Heavy Cavalry in AoE1 but this could represent them being a bit more technologically advanced, the same with the different looking Legionary.

The Goths would have a pretty ancient looking army in Castle Age with Legionaries, Cavalry and Improved Bowman but in Imperial Age they would have Champions and Hand Cannons.

The Persians and Huns would now field Cataphracts instead of Paladins, making them look more distinct from the European Knight civilisations with their Paladins.

This would give us a visual bridge between AoE1 and AoE2 and more unique looking civilisations without having to make a single new sprite.

Sadly we can’t mod in regional sprites without datamods yet.

2 Likes
406

I’m looking forward for this Cosmetic DLC.

3 Likes
407

So I voted no on basically everything. That being said, if skins were toggleable, I could imagine myself wanting a very select few.

So everybody could have the game look how they want.

That and it’d also give people an opportunity to get accustomed to additional skins. 100s of new skins all at once could be overwhelming, but if I only toggle unique castles now, then unique monks next month, and something else the month after that, then it’s not so big of a deal.

That’d also facilitate the people who are die-hard against unique skins, but also really want to support the game.

2 Likes
408

oh lord i hope they will bring unique castles and regional unit skins one day


4 Likes
409

they can, just making it free is enough. but we all know its coming along with battle pass, so now it’ll be shoved down everybody’s throat