I agree alot as an average ranked player myself with what Sitaux and Hera said.
Game is getting complicated and worse overall. What are your toughts on this?
I already have troubles getting friends to play this game. With so much new stuff it will become impossible.
People are complaining overall about three growing problems (a) the complex mechanics being added, (b) new non-UU units and buildings, and (c) the number of civilizations.
What do I mean?
My opinion on these:
Aoe 2 could use short seasons and civ rotation (only in ranked multiplayer)
TBH this number wouldn’t be too much if most of them were easily categorizable. And wouldn’t differ too much in their categoric openers that they would feel very similar when playing against them in the early game.
However lately we had so many additions of new (gimmicky) features that heavily alter the early games and the civs also get several UUs to work with, some of which the traditional counters don’t work well against. And this becomes increasingly an issue even for people like Ornlu, who is one of the biggest “aoe2 brains” out there, possibly even the most knowledgable of all the casters.
And we have to see that if it becomes overwhealming for the biggest brains the others now are basically lost, especially when they can’t even watch these content creators to get some kind of insight that helps them when they get lost in the correct responses against other builds.
As we are still in a heavily exectution based meta the problem is currently a bit blurred as everybody can also just focus on his main strats, trying to just outexecute the opponents. However, at some point we need to get away from that as it makes the gameplay way less interactive, which was for me always the thing AOE2 had ahead of all other RTSs, that it really mattered to try see what the opponent is up for and find responses for that, find weaknesses you can use to your advantage and so on instead of just following your masterplan.
And this is ofc only possible if you have a general idea what the enemy civ is doing well - and if there are too many civs with too many unique touches that’s basically impossible for non-pros. And even some pros have issues these days.
Ofc there needs to be some high ceiling here, so it’s a skill you can work on to get an advantage this way. Being knowledgable about the uniquenesses of the civs. But this ceiling is currently already way too high imo. And if it comes to economic bonusses it often doesn’t even matter that you know them, because in many cases you can’t even do anything about it. (BTW there are some that actually have responses to like burgundians or gurjaras. Or cumans. But it’s also clear that there has to be a limit on these aswell)
I wonder if the game would benefit from having all non-AoK civs locked from the start of the game for brand new players. They would have to unlock new civs one-by-one either by playing normal games or by doing single-player content. Perhaps all campaigns are available from the start, and beating a campaign on any difficulty level unlocks that civ for normal play. This would make the new content trickle quite manageable.
Existing players would of course be exempt from this change. It would only affect new players.
The person has paid for the product,it should not be locked in anyway.
TTrebuchets no Heroes YES, PLEASE!!
Pro whining should always be ignored in any video game.
No game should be designed for the 0.0001%. One my favorite games, Rainbow 6, was ruined because they catered for pro players.
On the other hand, the game has been on a decline for the past 2-3 years. They care about short term profits instead of longevity.
To prevent people from getting to locked paid content it could be in settings an Unlock setting. It would be only as suggestion to keep to certain civs at start.
Bigger problem is that power creep and snowballynes of powerful units.
Yeah it gives me the feeling they try to grab cash as long as its profitable, than they will let it die.
But it would be much better if they stopped ruining the game and added a mulitplayer pass: 3€/year so you unlock multiplayers services. Otherwise you get only single player and lan functionality.
They can continue to complain then, the disadvantages of listening to them far outweigh the advantages in the view of the Devs, since they want to make money off this game.
Frankly I personally do not care what the pros say, they may know more about the strategic part of the game but they’re not here for the thematic reasons. Most of them don’t even talk about the actually interesting parts of it’s historical references and even the campaigns themselves.
Well I play ranked so i care more about multiplayer aspect and not as much about the campaign and am an average player and see the same issues as pros.
Keep on mind, most people play singleplayer
Ok, so why do they put everything new in multiplayer? put all in chronicles. No need to do balance stuff. I don’t get it.
I appreciate the sentiment, but I don’t think it will fix the issue. Right now someone can pick a civ they like, and only the opponent’s civ is an unknown. With your proposed civ rotation, people can’t even pick their own civ, increasing the amount of unknown content. (Unless there are a few core civs that are always in rotation)
I was proposing an idea in a similar vein: Have a ranked mode where the civ list is restriced to just AoC civs (or AoK, or even vanilla DE), and maybe also a smaller constant map pool (eg just Arabia, Arena, Nomad).
This would make getting into the game easier.
What I like about your suggestion is that it also limits smurf accounts a bit: they would have to grind out new civs too.
the only DLC with “very positive” or better rating on steam is Dawn of the Dukes. ever since dynasties of india, the best they have managed is “mixed” (I am not counting chronicles DLC)
Hera even complains about the existence of siege towers; if it were up to him, the game would still be the same as in 2013, so I wouldn’t give his opinion any importance… if a game or saga wants to remain relevant, it has to evolve while maintaining “a certain original essence”…
Yes, that would be easier… You do 3 types of ranked:
That way everyone’s happy…
he is right. the siege towers as they are currently implemented are bad. A siege tower is a slow siege weapon (as the name suggests). It should be strongest against fortified settlements, forcing the defender to sally out to destroy it.
Siege towers are they exist rn are fast, and mostly used as a raiding unit.
siege towers as they exist at he moment are ahistorical and unfun. they have no reason to exist in their current form.
i disagree. Chess is at its most popular at the moment. Even if aoe2 has to evolve it can do so in so many ways that don’t break the game;
-allow larger lobbies (how cool would a 12 player free for all be)
-functioning ranked lobbies
-in-game tournaments
-more varied AI
-bring back the challenge scenarios (barbarossa brawl, etc)
-could also do leaderboards for the art of war scenarios. eg who can get the highest number of vils in the booming scenario etc.
I see these as MP-only issues. Someone who plays SP content exclusively, like me, only needs to somewhat adapt their strategy based on whatever civ they are playing in the current mission and only really remember the reginal and unique units featured in a particular mission. So, I am support regionalisation and adding more civs.
That being said, I believed that any particular game should be made to be enjoyed by as many people as (reasonably) possible. So, a compromise could be made. For example, add optional reskins instead of more regional units, have campaing-exclusive civs, have a “deregionalised” mode for MP that makes all generic units and buildings look the same etc.
Yes, originally the siege towers were going to launch arrows like in AoM/AOEO, but then they changed them to simply be used to cross walls…
Yes, I agree with that… but it goes without saying that if they add things to the game, the idea would be not to break it in the process, hence the patches that come with the expansion… that’s why I’d prefer expansions to be much more sporadic (like 1 expansion every 1-2 years) and give the other games in the series (AoE 3, 4 and Retold) a chance to shine more…
Yes, things vary between single-player and multiplayer players. The key is to balance bringing new civilizations and campaigns to single-player while maintaining the meta for multiplayer players…
Yes, that’s a good option… in AoE 3 and 4 the lack of civs allows you to have campaign and HB only civs…
