Simple as that, I have never thought ranked season were fun. They encourage grinding to get the rewards instead of playing for fun of it and lock behind awesome collectables behind burning through the game in order to get the rewards instead of just for the fun of it, which is what happens to 9/10 people. Only the pros can get the best rewards quickly, everyone else just has to grind and grind, sapping all of the fun out of the game. I want that orange statue, but I’m never going to get it because I’m not that good and the game isn’t that fun.
Basically, ranked seasons sucked, Elo was perfect, and gating rewards as an artificial way to encourage players to play doesn’t lead to enjoying gameplay, just grinding, especially since those rewards will enter the shredder once the season ends. But again, they made up their mind a long time ago and this game is going to join every other game that encourages people to sap any enjoyment out of it by grinding ranked instead of having fun. I’m not bothering with the ranked seasons, even though it sucks to see such awesome rewards and have no possibility of getting them.
The fix is simple, just don’t give out rewards for playing ranked, or make it super easy to get the max rewards and just have people compete for the ranking instead of the rewards. To do otherwise encourages the worst type of gameplay.
Relic did something similar with Dawn of War 2 where you could unlock new visuals for your units by levelling up your race but in ranked pvp only, it was rubbish. (Although at least it was not timed)
Statues and profile decoration is not as bad but I hope they don’t go down that road further and have things like new skins for your units but only if you play this many ranked matches or whatever.
At least you can atain them for free. It is hard it is grindy but it’s free.
It could be worse:
They could go the present trends and put a battlepass with various degree of grinding. Or even pay not to grind.
Or a shop. And i bet alot of people will buy them to look good.
Or they could even go as far as to reward unique skins for wining tournaments. I know a few games that do this.
Plus i dont understand why so many people care about cosmetics so much. Not just this game, any present game. Even singleplayer games (usualy behind preorders).
People care about cosmetics because people like customization and player input and decision-making about even granular and inconsequential elements of the game. It’s fun and that’s all we need to know.
Not sure what you mean by ‘so much’, I don’t see anyone being crazy about it. We’re not talking about some outrage about ruined superhero skins or something.
If I had to guess it’s a mix of a few things, like general design and availability of game modes that focus on a certain type of gameplay that is not to everyone’s liking or the fact that this new official content is locked behind very repetitive and (fairly, depending on player skill) difficult loops of grind.
On itself collecting cosmetics is no weirder than collecting digital cards, avatars or forum titles or whatever.
I guess it would be less controversial if the system was designed around participation in all types of game modes. In 2DE and 3DE you can earn elements like that by even logging into the game or completing challenges in single-player skirmish.
With a steady stream of new shiny goodies in reach of 95+% of players, these few special rewards locked behind the rank wall in PvP would be less significant. Or maybe that’s a bad word- they would be overshadowed by the rest, even when carrying great value in pride for people that earn them.
These are not even faults or shortcomings of the system. That’s what this game is. We have tools for player content, there are some events etc. but the focus on competitive PvP was clear since the days of closed beta.
People buying these games should be aware support is and most likely will be focused in the majority on this type of gameplay.
There is no trickle of single-player maps, persistent PvE campaigns, advanced coop modes etc, it’s just not this game.
Is this good or bad- well that’s a different discussion. AoE2’s legacy is this, but it’s just a byproduct of that game design from 23 years ago and reality of these times.
Personally I’m not really interested in grinding any ranks in any game. If they come along with the rest- that’s awesome. Main thing I don’t like about potential cosmetic rewards with seasonal ranks is time gating content, but that’s just my cadence of playing. Don’t like ticking timers and these grind loops. No matter if that’s RTS or FPS.
You know what, this might actually be a controversial take but I would prefer a paid shop with money for cosmetics to time-gated FOMO baiting “seasonal rewards” shite. I think the best system would have just been to give out points and have a points shops. Being able to buy something 5 years down the line is better than stuff entering the shredder forever. Obviously I think the best option from the start should have been to stick with Elo but this game isn’t getting Elo and I very sadly accept that fact. They chose seasons, they’re sticking with seasons, awful 1v1 seasons.
I like pretty thing and saying I got all of the thing. It’s why I sapped every single drop of enjoyment I got playing Duel Links out of myself by trying to 100% the events. I like collecting the things, I don’t think it’s fair to lock things behind time gates. But again, the system isn’t changing. The game was released and this is how it is. It’s designed to facilitate grinding, the worst part of every single game. Nobody enjoys grinding, they enjoy the reward they get from grinding, and if that grinding requires you to be good at a game, then it’s even worse. No matter when you buy a game, you should in time be able to get everything.
To do otherwise is just designed to elicit FOMO, and I’m not buying into that crap and sapping the enjoyment out of this game for the sake of a really awesome statue. It’s why ranked seasons always suck, they encourage grinding, and if you grind a game, you’re not having fun.
It’s a visual media. I’d say more people care about cosmetics than don’t. That said, I’m in both camps, I care for mechanics but if something looks like carp, I’m not gonna enjoy it as much. I like to win games and look fancy doing it.
you are sooooo wrong.
firstly, there are a lot a lot of people who do not care about rewards.
secondly, I’ve played in TGs with a guy, who did alft4 in 5 minutes. Ranked games is for one who wants to win no matter what and rewards are nice addition. But the main part is winning no matter what
I would say even statues and profile pictures are bad when cosmetic items are limited. Can you imagine shitstorm that would happen if they put another color selection behind ranks ? It doesn’t matter what it is, all that matters it is locked from 90-99%+ players. Based on how is ranked ELO evolving it looks like 60%+ will not even get golden statue…
I don’t know where that trend of ranked giving exclusive rewards started, but its definitely not positive trend and it devalues games for casuals. It also devalues game in the long run as any form of FOMO content like events just further reduce value for new buyers and returning player have less reason to return once they missed something.
Ranked is even worse offender as AOE playerbase is maybe hardcore, but not competitive hardcore. At this point its possible to easily declare that more people fooled around with mods then tried ranked for at least 5 games…
But again I am biased as I don’t even like idea of ranked to exists as it’s completely pointless splitting of queues and creating artificial mode for people to play that does nothing extra.
Better map selection ?
Showing artificial number ?
More balanced matches (thats good joke btw)?
Mode that solely rewards small part of playerbase and ignores everyone else (Are we really in an era where we build walls between players based on their skill?)?
Showing icon next to profile picture ?
Creating artificial period that is called season ? that in reality will do nothing other than forcing you to play another 5 matches to get what you once reached…
All improvements can be added to original quick match to make it better.
But I am not pitchforking cultist. I will let these who want it to be separate queue to have it separate from quick match.
Just remove cosmetics from it or give everyone equal opportunity to earn all of them. So it doesnt matter if you started 20 years ago or if you start 20 years from now, If you play the game you get to experience all of the game content, all little event challenges, all cosmetics to customize your profile, towncenter of whatever they added down the line. Ultimately this series got another installment because player felt like that could always return to it and experience it whole again. Not because they were rewarding players with exclusive rewards every few months to keep them playing until they burn out and never return as their memories will get blurred with burnout.
Seems you’re suffering from FOMO mate. It’s just some cosmetics, chill out. You have others with the event (and even most of the ranked cosmetics are just a recolor lol)
You guys are totally not seeing what I’m saying. The point of ranked should be just for the competitive nature of it, not for rewards beyond an Elo. Nobody needed time gated artificial sweeteners to get them to play ranked in AoE2, they’re a shit design choice.
The rewards are an incentive to play ranked, as long as rewards are given out for doing something, there is going to be a big chunk of people who only want those rewards and are only playing for those rewards, and that doesn’t encourage fulfilling and fun gameplay, but grinding. It happens in Fortnite, League, Fallout 76, even Overwatch to a slight extent, it happens in every single game where there are ranked seasons and rewards for those seasons, or really any time gated event. At least the events in AoE2 are so easy you can get them done through regular playing and they’ve made it clear they’re OK re-releasing the cosmetics. Games with a competitive nature should reward you for consistent playing by accumulating rewards, not encourage you to smash out as much as you can (which is what they want you to do if they put exclusive rewards) because if you want the best rewards you either need to be already great, or pretend you’re a Korean eSports guy and play until your eyeballs melt. That’s the reality of it, that’s what they want.
Yeah, the point of ranked is to win, but so long as there are rewards, and those rewards are locked behind a limited time thing, there are going to be people who only care about those rewards, not playing for the competitive nature of it. That’s why they include rewards, to honeypot more people into joining the deathmarch towards killing their enjoyment of the game by encouraging them to grind for rewards, because it creates more incentives to play ranked. You guys are blind to their intentions, they don’t care if you play ranked for the fun of it, that’s why they put in rewards, to get people who otherwise wouldn’t want to play ranked to play ranked and try to sucker them into a march towards only caring about the exclusive rewards. It’s why the Elo system was perfect, it didn’t punish people for not picking up early, and you had as much time as you wanted to get a good Elo and no bullshit grind incentiviser. Grinding isn’t fun, nobody enjoys it, and people who do are lying to themselves. The only fun part of grinding is getting the reward and even then if the grinding is as BS as usual you put down the game until the next event. It’s BS.
I’m glad you didn’t read anything I said or address any of my points, “lmao getting annoyed about bad thing? lsoer!” at least shows you know you have nothing to add. Let the rest of us try to have have a productive discussion. Games shouldn’t cultivate FOMO through BS like this. I’m glad you don’t give a shit about cosmetics, I don’t either, hence why I’m not bothering with ranked. But us being smart enough to know it’s BS doesn’t change the fact it’s a crap decision.
CUSTOM LOGOS! CUSTOM LOGOS! CUSTOM BANNERS! That would be awesome, but yeah…downside is it might lead to a bunch of edgelords making swastikas and SS runes as their banners, and we all know the report system in these games doesn’t actually do anything.
In terms of decorations, AOE4 should learn AOE3. AOE3 can receive rewards as long as certain conditions are not difficult to achieve, and it is not limited to single-player games or multiplayer games.
Yeah, I think that’s the mentality people should take…
Reward system, ranked seems quite boring, unfinished and unmotivating to me. I gave feedback on the forum after beta, and in the survey, so devs have access to infos.
Now I play quick match simply. Game could benefit from some new features, mechanics and so, but I find it also funny in its current state - apart from some issues that are hopefully fixed soon. I have no problem with ranked being included… it could be better, but I also don’t have to play it simply if I don’t like how it is…
I don’t find that to be the case with Rocket League. The highest season rewards I can get in that is champ, and that requires winning 60 games, so you have to play around 120 games to do that. A game takes around 8 minutes with queue times, goals etc, so that’s around 16 hours of playing the game to get champ season rewards. But I don’t see it as a grind, I’m just playing the game and trying to get better at it. If I didn’t enjoy playing those 120 games, why would I be playing the game at all?
OP, I don’t think rewards (at the most desired rewards) should be gated beyond rank…
HOwevER most COMPETIVE games reward competition, AT LEAST this game actually gives you ALL THE SAME objects regardless of the rank you achieve with the only difference being the colors you have access.