I am pointing this out, since it seems the game will never have a limit to add civs. Now we have like 43 civs and we will get more later for sure. The problem with adding more civs means the balance will be very hard and the match ups also will be unfair in many cases especially with civ pickers everywhere.
It will always be harder to balance a game that have like 43 more than less. Giving the choice for the player a bann draft will somehow bring more variety in the game and will help the devs also to balance the civs since they will get more infos about what civs are being banned more than others and why. I think a draft with 5 bans will be good.
The thing is, since the game has too many civs and many of them are strong and we also will get more in the future will always make the balance broken.
It is not for picks, the draft should be only for ban, like 3 to 5 choices would be good. It will alsp punish the pickers and will make the match ups more bakanced and fair.
There is this interview with some important person working for microsoft at masmorra’s youtube channel, he said that dlc weren’t the real focus, the focus was to keep and increase the active playerbase, in other words they do not depend on dlc content to keep supporting the game and events.
A lot of users around here if not all should see that interview to finally understand that dlc’s are not necessary for any further support.
Having said that, every single dlc has been selling less and less to a point where they are only attractive once there is a big discount, so in terms of actual numbers microsoft isn’t making significant profits with each dlc.
As you say we have too many civs already and newer civs are being developed stronger than previous ones with more gimmick mechanics or insane bonuses that often breaks the balance and it takes forever for them to balance things out and most of the times aok and aoc civs are left behind in the dust in the process.
If the goal is to keep the actual numbers and make them grow, we don’t need more civs cause we already have a scary number of civs to master to new comers, we don’t need flying knights or ships on land, we need stability and a better match making system that offer quality over quantity.
Exactly brother. Adding civs won’t help the game at all, it is killing it. This staff is good only for single player base. So IMO, if the devs want to bring new civs for thr single player base, then those civs should not be added at all in Ranked.
The multiplayer is the most important part in the game, if the devs keep adding civs like no tomorrow it will be a Titanic and disaster, not a good thing as they think. More civs means more imblanaced stats so more players will even stop playing AOE2 multiplayer due to the unfair match ups.
Just to make a fast conclusion; let them add 1000 more civs but not a single one should be in Ranked. And we really need a ban draft system in Ranked; 5 bans would be good start.
I hope that as long as there are good candidates, Developers will add historically interesting countries. I would like to see Switzerland in AOE 2 (Like Austria in AOE 3 but some lobbyists try to tell me that Germans and Austrians are one people).
I’m hoping for new factions:
African Dlc 1
African Dlc 2
Asian Dlc 1 ( New nations and Campaign for Japanese)
Asian Dlc 2 ( New nations - for example Tibet)
American Tribes Dlc (for example Tarascans)
American Tribes Dlc 2 ( Northern American tribes like Iroquois)
Caucasus Dlc
Swiss and Austrian Dlc
Slavs renamed and reworked to Kievan Rus as Flc
Grand Duchy of Moscow and Republic of Novogorod Dlc
Balkan Dlc (for example Serbs)
Even without Romans the balance have many issues with many imbalanced civs around. Honselty there is like 15 civs or more still need changes to be balanced.
Do you mean there are 15 civs “too strong” of 15 civ “either too strong or too weak” ?
Either way, I think 5 bans is too much, but I think it would be nice to have 1 optional blind civ ban (Namely, when you pick your maps, you are allowed but not forced to ban one civ per map).
Then you can ensure you wont play against the same OP civ 3 times in a row, while not hampering civ pickers too much. OP civ pickers will “only” be forced to learn a second civ.
This of course still raises the never ending problem of “freedom of play” for those who only have time for one game per day/week and want their little Arabia x Franks game…
Giving a ban draft won’t remove any freedom. It may cause a longer time in the queue but all the players will still be able to pick whatever they want.
1 ban is not enough, and 5 is not too much, bro we have 43 civs now and Romans in the way so 44 civs which makes a 5 civs ban draft barely change anything, well if 5 too much (which is not imo) then make it 3 at least.
When did this interview happen?
They can say they don’t focus on DLC and just want a stable payer base but most people don’t play through game pass so they get nothing from those players in the long run.
Also players lose interest when there is nothing new.
Only a part of the player base plays ranked.
Most players just want new content and don’t care if it’s unbalanced because it doesn’t matter on their skill level.
There aren’t many people that are willing to keep playing the same game with no changes, other then balancing and bug fixes, forever.
And this is the thing why I suggested adding a ban draft to ranked.
Also I don’t mind adding 1000 civs more in the game but only for single player not for ranked. Adding more civs to ranked ladder will make the match up unfair and very hard to balance.
How is this comparison done? At any given point of time - the older DLCs will obviously have a higher selling rate because of existing for a longer amount of time. It will be interesting to compare how many purchases of each DLC were made, 1 year since their release.
Not true at all. Game was in the worst balance before HD when only 18 civs were there. Huns were insanely broken on all open land maps, Vikings on water and Chinese on Nomad. New civs, new mechanics, new things to try will only keep the game fresh and active. More tournaments have been happening with higher prizepool than before, more community events, smaller tournaments, showmatches.
Usually during the release civs are broken to increase sales, making it look like pay2win but eventually they get balanced out.
On the other hand, lets say new civs were never added. Game had already gone stale with everyone picking Huns and doing CA, would have died in 2012, with mostly a very tiny group of people casually playing michi or king of the hill at times much like many other rts games over the years. And if you’re a hater of new civs and content, you can always play the oldest version of the game on platforms like voobly. Some of the people there still play the 1999 version of the game and pick their favorite civ every game.
The civs added in the last 10 years - Magyars, Incas, Italians, Slavs, Hindustanis, Malians, Ethiopians, Berbers, Portugese, Burmese, Malay, Khmer, Vietnamese, Lithuanians, Bulgarians, Cumans, Tatars, Burgundians, Sicilians, Poles, Bohemians, Gurjaras, Bengalis and Dravidians. Why should even a single one of these be left out for ranked? Or to put it in other terms how does even one of these civs ruin competitive gameplay or bring about unfair matchups as compared to the older civs?
Your opinion doesn’t represent the actual big majority, as the numbers show the huge majority of aoe2 de owners don’t have all the dlc’s so in other words they are not interested in newer content at all.
You need to change ur way of thinking, current games measure their success not by the total sales, but by the amount of players that they can hold, specially MP games like aoe2, go and watch the interview to learn more instead of just pretending like if you were talking on behalf of the majority or the actual focus from the guys in charge of the game.
Aoe2 de has the biggest active player base on steam of any other MP from microsoft, so this is their jewel.
That’s why I think it’s a good idea.
Also the data on why civs get banned how often on which ELO and what maps is probably valuable data on what should get balanced.
Probably half of the buyers of any given game never even touches it so it’s hard to quantify that.
Even active players are hard to calculate. Yes you can see how many people log in every month but how many of those people are people that only actively play the game for a few weeks a year and then come back a year or two later.
Adding new things to a game (free or payed) gets your game attention and gives players a reason to come back.
No news agency will publish a new article about your game if there is just a few balance patches and bug fixes over years.
Then link it.
That says more about the other games (cough Halo Infinite cough) then about AoE2.
Considering the speed at which they add new content to the game, I think they are already slowing down for multiplayer reasons.
AoE3DE got new content at a faster rate then AoE2DE despite having a much slower player base.
They already don’t want competitive players to have to learn too much new content.
They have to make a balance between parts of the community and the balance is definitely not to stop adding new civilisations.
You gotta balance the people that are bagging them to add more civilisations with those that are crying about how new civilisations ruin the balance.
But to some degree that’s their fault, they could make public betas before a DLC so they can balance new civilisations and mechanics before they hit ranked.
Maybe delaying ranked for civilisations like for the Romans could be a good thing for the future, just that they should give players a clear time frame of when they are going to be added to ranked.
A full civ draft makes it much too complex for most of the users. I understand why it is done in pro tournaments, but it will be an annoyance to do it for every game on the ladder.
In the past it was fine beause the number was not that much. Now the game have a big number of civs, 44 civs and I am pretty sure we will get more.
Just with all due respect what is the problem with you to be against a ban draft?! And what is the problem with you to have only single player new content not ranked? If you are 700 ELO player or don’t play ranked at all then you don’t have the right to say no because you don’t care about the fair play.
Also I would like to add that your argument “if you don’t like new content then go back to 1999 version”, is one of the dumbest arguments I have ever seen, and who are you to tell me what to play? Of course DE much better but I have the right to say my opinion that more civs means more imbalanced situation.
Just as a conclusion, adding a ban draft will not change anything except for the better, devs will havw many informations and feedbacks why X and Y civs were banned a lot, it will help them to balance the game. Also this will not prevent players from picking civs, all players will still be able to play whatever they want.
You also may say “if you don’t like new content don’t buy it or back to 1999” or whatever, this is also dumb because if I didn’t get the strong civs or buy them then this will reduce my chance to get fair match up in the ladder because I don’t have all the civs, so for sure I will be forced to buy them.
GETTING A BAN DRAFT SYSTEM IN RANKED IS A MUST RIGHT NOW.