Tbh very few RTS have auto queue, so maybe that’s why AoM players are a bit more exclusive to this game because auto queue is necessary?
Also very few RTS release after 2005 where successful.
Also I played a bunch of RTS that have autoqueue in some cases it’s an integral part of the game.
People seem to forget that autoqueue is not just a feature that is there to make sure people don’t forget to queue villagers you can also autoqueue military units.
Dawn of War 1, Empire Earth 2, Supreme Commander and I thin Command and Conquer 3 all had autoqueue.
Supreme Commander is kind of build around autoqueue because resources are spend during construction/training and not as an upfront cost.
So running low of resources means all your current production slows down.
In Dawn of War 1 it’s kinda pointless because you train whole squads of units that need to be manually equipped first as well as the population limit being really low. You will usually have less then 10 squads of units at once.
Empire Earth 2 is the most similar to the Age of Series and I liked the convenience of autoqueue there especially for military production.
But anyway autoqueue is a feature that makes the game a lot smoother to play because it forces you to do less boring things.
If you get enjoyment from clicking on buttons you should maybe play cookie clicker instead.
The more people ask to remove existing game features the more I think it should be added to every Age game. My opinion is becoming a bit radicalised haha.
Why? Because all we had in AoE IV was “the game needs to be designed carefully for it”, and here we have a game where it was, and people still want to remove it because they think it affects skill in some massive way.
Nah. The RTS fanbase as a whole is too obsessed with raw APM. It’s a 90s mentality. We need to get over it.
“but it’ll dumb the game down”
Doesn’t apply here, the game already has it. Yes, it makes certain automate-able actions automated. This is good. It means the complexity of the design can be increased. The cognitive burden on the player can be increased in other, more interesting ways.
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You’re wrong.
Creating villagers/workers is the most fundamental part of any RTS. The more far-removed the game is from actual micromanagement, the less important it is. Games like AoM, AoE, SC, WC clearly focus on micro.
It is a button that gives you a direct way to impact your economy. Like feeding a fire, it isn’t difficult by itself, but with many things happening around you, you may forget to give it fuel once in a while.
These RTSes are NOT meant to feature perfect gameplay. You should NOT be perfectly microing your economy. The point here is that many things ought to go wrong, and it will be the player who can best manage these problems that can benefit mechanically.
The problem ultimately stems from ignorance. The facts are simple. Players like you think it is an issue for no real reason. You note that it is “annoying” (as if there aren’t one million other annoying things in these games to do), but the reality of your rejection of autoqueue is likely much, much simpler. You likely hate missing, forgetting or neglecting worker creation. From your own mistakes, you want to lash out on the actual design of the game. Instead of blaming yourself, you blame the game. Or more specificially, you simply dislike that the game makes you feel at fault for being bad, and blame the design for existing to begin with.
And to that, I say this; that is the point. If you suck enough that this is an issue that causes you frustration, then hear it from me first; you aren’t meant to handle it perfectly. If the opponent throws you off balance, distracts you or makes you mismanage your eco so much that it disrupts your worker production, then the game is working exactly as intended.
What isn’t intended, and what shouldn’t be, is any idea that these fundamental elements of the game should be automated so you won’t actually have to play. The introduction of autoqueue adds so many consequences it may as well kill the game once more (as it did once in the past).
Add autoqueue and AoM:RE will be dead on arrival.
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Then why stop at auto-macro? Might as well remove micro too. Hell, even the difference between civs because then noobs won’t need to learn how to play with all of them.
If you don’t like playing the game maybe you should play AFK Arena instead.
I think this is one of the rare cases where there is a solution that will make everyone happy. AoE2 has a handicap mechanic which is not available in ranked and hasn’t hurt competitive one bit.
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Allow me to bring up something extremely presumptuous that nobody ever thought of (sarcasm intended):
Maybe “how it will impact (ranked) pvp” does not have to be a major, or only concern when designing games.
If it is a concern then make it a togglable option, or alter it across different modes.
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In fact, from a retrospect, any game design that is different from SC, War3 and SC2 is a reason why the game is not an esports contender.
XD
Auto-queue has no effect on skill or gameplay. If it does in fact weaken a player then they won’t be competitive, and by that same logic will have no impact on professional play. The critics need to pick a lane on this one, you can’t have both options be true.
If you want to talk about esports then minutiae like auto queue makes very little difference to a general audience. The villager balance between pro players has only ever changed based off of raids or differences in eco investments. It’s just a button you press every 20 seconds. It doesn’t compare to seeing the micro of units in combat, where they are expanding their base to, or general strategic decision.
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AoMR has the same auto economy feature that AoE2/4 have on console, but AoMR also has it on PC.
There is no confirmation if this will be banned in ranked or not, btw.
Funny that no one is complaining about that yet.
All the arguments you bring can be said in favour of not adding almost any quality of life features.
Like imagine people arguing that hot keys are ruining the game because it’s part of the core skill to click every button with a mouse.
Being able to control more then 12 units at once (the number you have in Starcraft 1) it ruining the game because it’s a core skill of RTS to be able to control your army in small squads only.
Having auto reseeding (or even a reseeding queue) ruins AoE1/2 because it’s a core skill to manage your economy at the same time as you are fighting.
- Age of Empires games are mostly bought by none competitive players.
- Age of Mythology was always the least competitive Age of Game but it was always a fan favourite.
- This small feature will have little impact on high ELO players since they are already capable of constantly queueing up their villagers even in a stressful situation.
Why do people play Age of Empires/Mythology?
Because they want to manage an economy? Unlikely.
People play because they want to build defences, control armies, do battles, burn down cities.
Also most people love it when civilisations feel unique that gives them more different things to do. It doesn’t feel the same every time.
It’s the more competitive people that want to make civs as similar as possible because every single difference is a potential balance issue.
There are different kinds of people.
Many people see RTS as a more relaxing kind of game. Not something where you constantly have to manage 100 small things at once.
They want to comfortably play against bots. And not having to think about your villagers all the time makes the game more comfortable to play. It’s one less thing to worry about.
Also allowing autoqueue in ranked makes it more accessible to people and will make the skill differences between players less extrem. This will lead to more balanced matches and a higher chance of people encountering other players on a similar skill level.
For team games that’s even more helpful. You will be less likely to get a really bad team mate that forgets to queue his villagers.
I don’t understand why this isn’t at last an option for single player (or custom lobbies) in every AoE game yet.
Why not make this part of the game more accessible?
Or is it because it would make the burden of entry for Ranked to high?
One of my big issues with AoE/M is that it’s always hard to play with most of my friends because they are so much worse at game that I just have to sit there and wait for them, since they don’t want me to destroy the AI without them.
They don’t want to use handicap, likely because it feels kinda humiliating.
I guess that’s one of the main issues with handicap.
If you still do worse then the others you feel extra bad because even with 20% more resources you were still useless.
If you to better then the others then you feel like you didn’t deserve it because you where carried by the bonus instead of by skill.
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I could just as easily say “you’re wrong” and the discussion would go nowhere. We have a difference of opinion, nothing more.
Using villagers / workers is the a fundamental part of various RTS games (not all of them, as Relic’s RTS games in particular prove - mainly those focused on resource gathering. And even CnC upends that model somewhat).
I disagree that the ability to click a button every few seconds to add one to the production queue js a vital part of this. Knowing how to use them and having the ability to micro the produced units is far more important.
It’s not ignorance, no, but you’re once again painting the discussion into a corner. Do I call your design bona fides into question?
Let’s be real for a second. You get incredibly miffed when people take potshots at your competence on any subject. Why is it your first resort here, when starting an argument by responding to a post that didn’t mention you at all? What benefit do all these jabs bring? Can you say?
I saw many such predictions about AoE IV. It wasn’t dead on arrival, and it took liberties with the (AoE) formula. Keeping something in Retold that’s in the original game? I feel very confident in disagreeing with this prediction 
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Oops, double post, sorry. I normally merge them but I’ll leave them up.
This is a silly argument, for the following example:
“why add a unit? adding units is bad, if you add one you might as well add a hundred”
If you think I’m being uncharitable with your argument, yes, I am. I’m demonstrating how uncharitable you’re being with other peoples’ arguments.
It begins and ends with AQ. That’s it. Anything else is another topic; another thread.
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“It begins and ends with horse armor.”
I mean, we’re already getting auto-macro in Retold. I think the devs are not intending to stop there.
I’m intrigued by that statement. Do you also happen to know many people that consider a walk on the beach stressful?
From my experience, it’s the exact opposite. It’s usually noobs who want to strip civs of their identity to make them easier to learn.
I am. Why are you lying?
From my experience, it’s the exact opposite. It’s usually noobs who want to strip civs of their identity to make them easier to learn.
I’m not so sure. For me RTS factions get their unique elements sanded down due to balance complaints and the developers find it easier to ########## the factions so they are more similar. I noticed it a lot in Company of Heroes 2 where the Germans and Soviets became more and more the same over the games life.
I guess that’s more the fault of developers taking the easy way out to dealing with balance problems but I think in general casual players prefer faction assymettry because they arn’t as aware of the most effective strategies or concerned with winning as much as possible.
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You’re talking about “noobs that play ranked pvp”. And I agree this is a group more damaging on game designs than pvp pros.
But there are actually a much larger group of noobs that don’t play ranked pvp at all.
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I fear you’ve misunderstood them, they are trying to maintain focus on the threads subject, which is autoqueue, since talking about everything that someone may not approve of in the development of the game should be in another thread about the topic. It just takes away from the discussion at hand and makes the thread more difficult to read.
Agreeing or disagreeing on the subject at hand can build on the discussion, point vs counterpoint may help build a greater perspective. Nothing wrong with wanting to go beyond the topic of autoqueue… in another thread about that other topic.
This is assuming that the auto-queue feature is in Retold…
I’m curious to hear the veterans’ opinions on autoqueue. Do you view it as a handicap or a quality-of-life improvement?
As a casual player, I believe autoqueue should be available to everyone. Don’t like it? Simple: toggle it off and don’t use it. Stop being obsessed with forcing other players to play your style of game.
The mindset of “big brothering” a player by saying, “I’m only forcing you to become better naturally or looking out for your best interest,” can actually steer the majority of casual players away from the game. And most casual folks who are returning to this game are already into their 30s, 40s, 50s, etc… Most of us just simply do not have the time or patience to get “marginally better” without the AQ feature.
All video game companies want is to avoid having a dying game from the start and to retain and grow the player base as much as possible, not to scare them away.
Anyway, going back to the first question. If you see it as a handicap then I will just remind you, the one who is the BETTER player, were beaten by a casual player in ranked SOLELY because of he or she used AQ and nothing else. Sounds a bit silly, right?
And if you see it as a quality-of-life improvement, remember that some people find certain RTS, FPS, MOBA, or any game genre to be a calming therapy for the mind. Don’t take that away from them.
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