Response from Eric Wrobel and Zak Robinson about Update 8324

The way I see it, the civs that take more skill, focus and effort to play should be more rewarding to play (high risk, high reward). Civs like English and French SHOULD have a very low ceiling, in terms of expectations and minimum skill to play competently, but a player that takes the time to learn and master a more advanced and technical civ should be able to feel the impact of that investment. I kind of look at French and English as “Level 1”. Easy to learn, easy to play, but the later, harder levels should feel more rewarding for the time investments to learn them. Currently, it doesn’t feel that way to me. Granted, I am not a game designer and I don’t claim to be. I’m just a dude that’s played a lot of RTS games.

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I think he is referring to the people who are extensively criticising AOE4 developers.

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Going after this logic, at top level French and English wouldnt be played anymore if the other Civs are simply better if played correctly.

If you don’t play against those civs, you are missing half of the game. If, and only if, you don’t play against those civs; you shouldn’t be commenting on game balance. If you are not playing ladder, you are in a bubble.

Yeah. The game can’t work this way. If it does you’ll just find the “easy civs” very quickly aren’t played by anyone.

Seems you missed half the conversation there…That comment is only in regards to his note about the fact I didn’t mention HRE in my post.

Fair enough. perhaps i misread.

I appreciate that the devs acknowledge these major issues - a simple ‘my bad’ goes a long way. That being said, @MeshuggahRaw reflects my sentiments on how the ‘this civ really only has the one opening’ can be applied to other civs on land maps pre-update:

  • English: Council Hall to longbows
  • French: School of Cavalry to knights
  • Rus: Multiple scout to mass murder of animals
  • Delhi: Sanctity to Sacred Sites
  • Abbasid: Economic Wing to Feudal

I thought the early Delhi Sacred Site strategy was actually very clever, and kudos to whoever originated it. Hopefully, after the hotfix next week, this remains a viable strategy.

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This argumentation doesn’t make sense at all, if you take a look at how the game plays out. Because this design of “having to respond to your opponent” is already in the game for Rus. You HAVE to contest Deer and not only that, you also have to search for Wolves and make sure to kill them. Otherwise every wolf is 25 gold and bounty.

So you can apply this exact same argument for Rus, but their bounty mechanic was not nerfed?

And in a more general way, this “having to respond to your opponent” applies to water and fishing aswell. Food gathering from water is the fastest in the game. Therefore, you should build fishing boats and contest the fish. In this patch, we see a 15 wood increase for fishing boats. This was a good decision and makes it so its less punishing if you do not contest water. This is how you properly adress the issue.

Yes someone is a Karen if they think hour long research time with 30+ scholars is broken.

Having an opinion is fine. Much like everything else in civilised society, it’s about how folks express it.

Honestly, this makes sense to me. If not for the bugs, this actually is a good change because every Delhi player I’ve seen opted for this strategy for a little while now.

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Good point here! I think if they’re fixing the Delhi opening, they have to fix the English + French too considering how Abbey of Kings is virtually useless. French, Rus, Delhi and Abbasid, I could see going for other openings. (eg. Chamber of Commerce for French on water maps)

They have to make a big overhaul on all the landmarks to offer more game play variety that actually is worth going towards and this is the major reason why there is only 1 available way to play a civ competitive at least.

If they fix this I think this issue will go away.

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I was replying to the top comment calling people Karen’s for not liking the changes. I think hour long research breaks the game when games end in 20 min at times. My sarcasm obviously did not come through thick enough :smiley:.

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Sure, I get you. And what I’m saying is that the qualifier was not “not liking the changes”. The qualifier was how people go about expressing this dislike of the changes. That’s all.

I’m pretty sure that’s what’s going to happen, they never said that English and French are set in stone. They just probably can’t/don’t want to introduce the changes all at once because the probability that it would screw the balance completely is too high, so better take it at a slower pace. Some civs will be dull/unviable for longer periods due to this, but the game as a whole should be better playable (balance wise, bugs are a different topic).

Dismissing criticism as unfounded before any was even voiced. Insulting critics as “Karens”.

“But everybody who thinks the same is welcome”… Maybe just talk to a mirror? Same result.

Hopefully that will include tenth iteration of Prelate fix, and a fix to the recent lack of bracing for HRE pikemen.

100th time’s a charm I guess

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You lost me here. There is plenty of valid criticism for this patch. It doesn’t even do several of the things the patch notes says it does. There is clearly a disconnect between those writing the patch notes and what is actually in the patch (not to mention badly needing a proofreader, Relic I will gladly do it for free ha, it wouldn’t have taken more than 15 minutes).

The patch also introduced new game breaking bugs. Ones that took about 20 minutes to find after the patch went live.

I’m not even talking about balance changes or lack thereof, that is all up for debate.

Also the whole “karen” meme is one of the stupidest things ever and needs to die.

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