Games can be either user-friendly or very user-unfriendly, depending on mechanics.
But Age of Empires 2 is in a weird spot, it is very unfriendly to new user but not because of mechanics as is the norms, but because of the butterfly effect. There are 3 small butterflies that create a hurricane.
I believe there are a few simple tweaks that will make Age of Empires 2 significantly more user-friendly. And allow Microsoft to get more sales. And increase the community.
- The starting elo is too high → lower to 600 & more generous upper calibration.
- There is no difficulty between Moderate and Hard → Add “Advanced”.
- You can’t pick multiple difficulties for different AI in the same game.
Let me start with the elo.
This is the chess elo distribution. The average elo is around 1500.
What is the starting elo? 1000
In your first FIDE-rated tournament, you will start with an initial rating of 1000.
You start your calibration games from 1000.
There is also chess.com who is more generous than the world federation and your starting elo is 1200.
Obviously, you are far from the median when you just start playing chess.
According to chess pros from Google, roughly:
750< Elo you probably play a kid.
750-1000 Elo is considered beginner level.
1000-1200 Elo is considered “better than novice, fresh in the chess world” player.
1200-1300 Elo is considered “I’m starting to take chess seriously” level.
1300-1500 Elo is considered intermediate level.
1500-1600 Elo is considered good player level.
1600-2000 Elo is considered club player level.
2000+ are the pros.
Let’s look at Age of Empires 2 now:
This is the elo distribution. The average elo is around 1000.
What is the starting elo? also 1000.
At this point, the point should already be made and I should go talk about the huge gap between Moderate and Hard difficulties. But let’s keep going.
Unlike chess, where you are far from the median when you just start playing chess, in Age of Empires 2 the game considers a new player what chess would consider an intermediate to good player. Even if that person may not know what a build order is.
Does that seem fair to new players? no, it does not.
It’s like asking someone who never picked up a spear “go kill a tiger, some people kill elephants, some people kill mice, but you’re average” when they don’t even know what the pointy stick is.
Additionally, according to Age of Empires 2 players, roughly:
1000< Low Elo Legends.
That “low elo” is the equvialent of 1500 elo in chess, right between intermediate and good player.
Leading to a scenario where only tryhards stick to the ladder as the beginners simply don’t have a good experience. Good luck telling someone “oh, you need to lose 300 games to get to your real elo”.
A lot of players are saying elo 1000 is too high, but what would be the proper number? My answer is 600 elo & more generous upper calibration.
The more generous upper calibration means that say you lose (x2) for losing but win (x4) for winning depending on the opponents’ elo. Say in a game where you normally would -5 elo, +5 elo whether you win or lose, in your callibration games -10 elo for lose and +20 elo for win. Thus if a pro player joins, he will get from 600 elo to 1000 elo in those 10 games.
This will also actually move the average elo up.
Speaking of average elo. Some people would say “In time the average elo will move to 600 and nothing will be solved”. Let’s ignore the generous upper calibration and do the math.
Let’s say we make 600 the starting elo. The average will go down, but very slowly. There are 40.000 ranked players currently in AoE2. After the new elo is 600, it will take another 40.000 new players to lower the starting elo by half the difference, so 800 elo.
You will need double the playerbase as new players to lower the average elo by half. And that’s not even including the upper calibration.
It will take another 40.000 players to lower the average elo to 700.
So if Age of Empires 2 has 40.000 players, starting elo 600, average elo 1000. It would need:
80.000 players, starting elo 600, average elo 800.
120.000 players, starting elo 600, average elo 700.
I would love to see the day when Age of Empires 2 will have such an issue, too many new players, but I don’t think it will happen, right now we have the opposite issue, because the ladder simply isn’t fun for beginners.
Issue no.2 - There is no Advanced difficulty between Moderate and Hard.
To put it simple: Easy difficulty does literally nothing, Moderate difficulty does almost nothing, Hard is too good for a new player with a good build order and attacking you since feudal.
Once again, do I need to say more?
How can you have a fun game vs AI as a beginner when you play Moderate and he does nothing or you play Hard and he beats you when you have 10 villagers?
In my opinion Advanced should be a “Late game hard”. A difficulty that is very good at defending itself, develops as fast as hard, but attacks as weak as moderate. The only “big attack” would come in the imperial age.
To give the beginner time to develop, but also a challenge if it tries to destroy the AI.
Advanced difficulty should be:
Advances through the ages: At the speed of Moderate difficulty.
Attacks First: Rarely, like the Moderate difficulty.
Builds a Castle: Yes, like both Moderate and Hard. Fast like Hard.
Builds a Wonder: Yes, like both Moderate and Hard. Fast like Hard.
And no.3 - can’t pick multiple difficulties for different AI in the same game.
https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe2/comments/s27uzg/multiple_ai_difficulties/
https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe2/comments/n10hdr/why_did_they_get_rid_of_mixed_difficulty_ai/
https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe2/comments/14aky7c/ai_with_different_difficulty_levels_in_same_game/
If you want some AI players to be good, but some AI players to be bad, you simply don’t have this option, which lowers its user-friendlyness.
Of course, some people would rather want the devs to focus on the competitive aspects of Age of Empires 2, after all what happens to the beginners has no bearing on them, but it does, having a smaller or larger community does have a bearing on them.
Others would say “whoever can’t pass 1000 low elo legend” is not worth of being an Age of Empires 2 player. To which, notice again the contrast between chess where you start at 1000 and the average is 1500, the 1500 being considered between intermediary and good player, and Age of Empires 2 where the starting elo is 1000 and the average elo is 1000. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Those 1000 elo or 900 elo players, the TRUE 1000 or 900 elo players I mean, are now in fact low elo legends, they are way above a large amount of players. The fact that I have to use the word “TRUE 1000 or 900 elo players” and you understand what I mean shows how broken the system is.
There is no such thing as “TRUE 1500 or 1400 elo players” in chess. Because every 1500 or 1400 elo player is a 1500 or 1400 elo player because the system works. In this way, saying “TRUE 1000 or 900 elo players” is a statement that the system doesn’t work.
It’s not the beginner’s fault that he was placed in 1500 or 1400 elo when he is really a 1000 elo in chess. It’s not the beginner’s fault that he was placed in 1000 or 900 elo when he is really a 600 elo in Age of Empires 2.
You don’t need to be an elitist or be like “Imma go pro bro, be the next Hera” (to which, yes, be the next Hera please, he’s a really amazing person), when all of us are here at the end of the day to just enjoy the game. Including low players and high players. And there’s no reason why low skill players shouldn’t have an enjoyable experience because “get good bro!”.
At the end of the day, it’s a game, do whatever you want, play as you see fit, relax.
That’s what it is, that’s what it was always meant to be.
Do it for the game, because you like that game, and that’s about it.
Everyone should be able to play how and as long as they see fit, as long as at the end of the day, you remember, it’s just a game.
