One of the popular features that AoE4 had on release was Quickmatch vs AI with ability to choose difficulty
Playing vs AI is one of the best ways to practice a new god or warm yourself up after you have had break from the game. Teamgames last longer and AI games have less leavers. AI lobbies are extremely popular regardless of genre of game and are commonly played amongst group of friends that hold different skill level. This holds true to RTS genre too with AI lobbies everywhere in modern RTS games such as Beyond All Reason and AoE4.
Would you use quickmatch vs AI?
Yes
No
0voters
I am just unsure how long the queue times would be, but there should be decent audience amongst single players who just don’t want to play PvP or find quick search much more pleasant than creating a lobby.
This is an excellent idea in my opinion. I think they should just make quick match in AoM against AI. Right now it just doesn’t make any sense. It is just a shittier version of ranked.
And adding team games vs AI will cause new players to see the full potential of the game when they have a team mate who actually plays good.
It would seem theres too many variables for it to have decent queue times unless theres a consensus. Theres AI dificulty, the gods they pick, if they are defensive, aggresive, economy, etc. Dunno if theres a current more popular difficulty option and just have them be random god as a standard option would help people find matches quicker
The AI difficulty will be an issue though yea. but I think it should just be set to be easier experience… Somewhere that new players start to get a grasp of certain things. currently AoM (AoE series in general) is just too difficult for new players to enjoy. This will take the edge of a bit.
It would be great if they required people to play at least 5 matches before joining ranked. Although that every one from any skill level is welcome in ranked. But making players have a positive experience at their first games might be more pleasant.
Plus this will make quick match and ranked to be actually different than each other and not just the same thing.
Thats why i think it being on lobby is just fine as it is. People can customize all they want and fin people with similar likes. Wanna play 3 players vs 2 titan? Here we have a lobby. How about 2 players vs 3 titan. Sure go ahead. Theres to much diversity in AI games for it either have the freedom of custom options and actually work) or just having a standard and not catering to lot of people (who would just go to lobbys either way).
I do agree that i dont really see whats quick play meant to be. Dunno if this is a higher elo thing but i dont see the use for it.
As for new players being introduced into an RTS, thats what the campaign is for. It literally goes step by step on basics, shows you all civs in different scenarios. Tells you about unit composition, aging up, god powers, etc etc.
For player vs player play i agree theres not much inside the game to get a hold of it. But theres a community and in this day and age guides for almost everything online. At least for AOM dont think theresa a god fo which you cant find a build order or even full strategy guides for players interested
I don’t think Gen Z are used to lobby finders xD. I think we are the last generation who knows what a lobby browser actually is. They are more used to match making. and I’m not saying lobbies should just be removed. they sure are popular. This is just a step in order to make the new player experience better. A new player who wants to play multiplayer(I’m not talking about a player who bought the game for single player) will more likely start from quick match rather than visit lobby browser.
And I don’t know about campaign… AoM has a wonderful campaign but I think using campaign as a tutorial for new players is just bad. Campaign should be focused on being fun and immersive. And does campaign teach you build orders? (genuine question cause I played campaign in The Titans but didn’t replay retold)
A new player who wants to play multiplayer can use the quick match or rank functions (player vs player) and if they want PVE theres lobbys. Dunno if theres a game that has a quick matching mode of PVE that has similar amount of custom options as this that we could take as an example.
All campaigns funtion as a tutorial that progresses in difficulty. In AOM´s case it starts with the basic RTS introduction (move units by clicking, attack, group units, etc etc). Most of the campaign progress in a similar way for all civs, first only in classical for some time, using only 2-3 unit types. Then it allows you to go to heroic, use siege, more godpowers, buildings, etc. Then mythic. Then theres that level where you already have and army and is just moving it around the map and it occurs similar with all the civs so you get an idea of how they work while progressing through a story. It even culminates with building a wonder.
As for build orders, i dont think theres a single RTS campaign that teaches them. Since thats not the point of the campaign. Meta strategies, build orders are a multiplayer aspect of the game and is usually learned by looking for guides, someone tells it to you or you “figure one out”.
Lobby finders are troublesome for new generation of gamers because 2 reasons:
When they look for a lobby: There isn’t a public lobby of approriate AI level 99% of time. Also majority of AI lobby hosts put on a giant map which is a terrible experience.
When they host a lobby: Hosting a lobby requires lot of setup, more attention from host and responsiblitiy
What I am trying to say is that most people won’t go again to a lecture or a live show where they are the only person in the audience or host a public lobby since they don’t want to stand out. And once they check for lobbies 10-20 times and there aren’t lobbies, they just stop doing it all together.
Power of quickmatch is that you can just turn the search on and watch a movie with the game making a sound when your queue pops. Easy and 0 responsibility.
Not to mention that it will always result in the standard game settings. lots of lobbies are subject to the host’s own liking and might create inconsistent experiences for players which leave them confused.
You are right on that, quick vs AI mode could work if it had a standard option, like a default map size, random god for enemy AI, (maybe you coudl choose a certain difficulty, dunno which is the most popular one for PvE players) otherwise queue times beging to geat really long for finding people that opted for the same custom options you picked.
I think this would be lead to relatively fast matchmaking:
Only 3vs3
One queue
You get to choose difficulty of 1 AI in opposing team. Other 2 AIs are determined by what other teammates chose.
Opposing AIs can differ by 1/2 maximum skill levels.
What opposing AI differing by maximum 1 skill level means that for example if you queue Extreme AI then you will either match with 2 other players who queued titan/extreme or extreme/legendary with 1 enemy AI being guaranteed to be Extreme (the one you chose).
Ideally AoMR will get map bans similar to AoE2 at some point.
I agree with every thing. for this part though I think it is better to just have Easy / Intermediate AI. best case scenario is that they add a match making system like SC2 which actually sees how much you have playerd and matches you accoridngly. but I guess till they add that they can use the system you proposed, works fine. Although I would perfer if they just go easy AI so new players get to have some fun time first.
But the most important thing you mentioned is “make it 3v3 only” this will have huge impact. Making options limited will decrease queue times drastically and also will enhance new player experience by not making them choose (some players get confused when they see they can put multiple options on during quick match search and can’t decide).
Also team games will make people learn from each other, have social interactions and in my subjective opinion team games are more fun. I would even say make it 4v4 or 5v5 for even more chaotic experiences (like cs2 which is 10v10 in casual but 5v5 in ranked).
The only problem with this is that maybe some people would want to play 1v1 quick match since 1v1 has been considered the staple of RTS genre. For that I would say it is best for them to just play skirmish… . Although a huge portion of AoM multiplayer community only plays 1v1. So maybe also add a 1v1 mode?
By the way, I firmly believe that replacing the quick match with team game vs AI will drastically improve casual player base of the game and also active player numbers.
I agree that alternative to differing skill levels is that they could have only 3 queues:
Beginner: Moderate AI
Advanced: Titan AI (Titan AI is quite popular in public lobbies)
Pro: Legendary AI
I think there would be enough players for all of these queues. I prefer differing skill levels because there is big difference between Extreme and Legendary or Easy and Moderate AIs, but this is pretty good too and much easier to code.