When are devs going to care about Otto Game balance?

just an exemple, italy had 43% winrate before their buff, dev buffed it and now it’s completly busted, same with otto despite their winrate they are busted now, same with ethiopia they are so so strong, or also look at russia winrate at top lvl, the civ is one of the worst and they have 50% winrate or smth

So yes % winrate tell you nothing about balance and the reason is because :

1- you can’t take % of player below 1900 elo even 2000 id say honestly because these player make mistake and don’t play these civ at full potential and even 2000 elo player make mistake and the player base isn’t big enough for it

2- qs is completely blind, you pick your civ without knowing the map before so lets pick otto for exemple, otto on Mexico and otto on Sudd is clearly not the same

3- Bad Match up, lets pick an another exemple with otto, Match Up is Otto vs Germany on Sudd and the next game is Otto vs Russia on Mexico, in that case you think the % mean smth ?

I can have more exemple like that but you see my point

% winrate could be viable if we atleast can see the map before choosing the civ and even with it I am not sure because we will see the same mu almost all the time on certain maps

So ye as harisson said, % winrate can give you a direction of potential balance issue but it say nothing at all

But for explain why otto is at 50% rn it’s because of the qs map and MU, just look at china and india for exemple, those civ are on the same lvl with otto but the difference is they are good everywhere, thats why their winrate is higher ( even tho for exemple otto on Mexico is way better than india or china )

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I think what we are seeing in these stats is that otto is over preforming. They are picked at a high rate, Especially at high elos and still have a decent win rate regardless of being over picked. To a lesser extent I think French have a similar deal just at lower elos. Sweden seemed to also till last patch where now a lot of ####### #### rate has been replaced with USA.

That said I don’t want to draw wrong conclusions about this data, and try and be cautious about making statements on it.

I take fair criticism for what it is. Odd to see in a thread opening with a sh*tpost, tho.

Scaling down the lategame cards is well and fine, and the chruch overpop is indeed total bs. Just like the earlier nizam overpop, thats is totally a thing that needs to go. Like, all we wanted was a pike and abus to keep up with basic skrims. That has been achieved so, its all good now.

Not on board with the TC nerf or calling Otto eco a gain. I cant see something that counterbalanced by cost of 3 TC’s as a gain. Most civs that have 3 and 5 vil cards both or tp eco tend to have a huge eco spike or alot of shipments, respectively (old brits, and spain/mexico). With this civ, its a temporary compensation for a free vil ‘advantage’. Real sh*t, I’d rather make vils like normal.

All said tho, lets see if messing with the mosque techs helps anything before anything else.

As far as I can see, the biggest issue is the massive church overpop. And, point well taken, that really should be controlled by how much pop is actually available. An easy fix would be to the route they took with the old nizam overpop and make it impossible to get the tech unless popspace is available.

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I was moreso discussing possible routes not saying all at once. Ideally you tweak 1 spot at a time
If otto keeps its overperforming units, weaken the boom- afterall with water often and no need for hunts to make vills, 1k wood for 2tc vill no further investments is incredible value. Eco is slow, but steady and you cant contain otto like some civs(ie why FI always popular for otto since RE) Haude lakota mexico germany all have brakes applied to their ability to scale eco and military simultaneously. If otto keeps it strong units a brake to their eco (could be increased cost of mosque techs) i think is reasonable.
Also, their shipments are incredible value. 12 abus in 4 is amazing value for example. Now that abus scale toning their shipments down could also help.

Just stopping the church overpop ease and a few buff card tone down, and prehaps a unit shipment decrease here and there could go along way while not killing the flavor but bringing things in line to then reevalaute. With metas shifting all the time no need to delete everything but start with something.

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basically there are a lot of other factors at play in this game so the numbers cannot tell you what is the actual balance problem that is occuring.

kevin has already explained most of it but to bring a comparison from another game, aoe2 balance analysis is benchmarked specifically for arabia 1v1 and a number of maps have their own analysis and rankings (water maps, arena, islands), there are maps where the top civs are completely different then what the standard power levels would suggest and for the most part win rates etc are used as basis to analyse further, but not for balance decisions. Its also done for 1200 elo and above only

Aoe 3 maps are much more diverse then aoe 2 maps so trying to bludgeon the balance with win rates all on its own doesn’t reflect what the balance is actually like for players.

To use aoe 3 as an example, port is known for low win rates but this is only true for the most part in pure land maps. Their performance is very different in water maps, so the presence of water maps in the pool changes their viablity and even then most people don’t even like to play water so it depresses their win rate even further.

It was known before the otto changes was that the biggest determinant of otto strenght was whether it was a tp map and the period where otto was considered the “weakest” it has ever been was a period where there were a lot of no tp maps in the pool. Even before the rework otto was already on the rise again because of changes to the map pool.

If the map pool changes to nothing but maps that otto are strong in, then their winrate would change but nothing about the civ would change

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Thank you for your examples.

This for me is the takeaway. I wouldn’t say that they mean nothing, but they certainly don’t tell you the whole story either.

And yet the majority of people at certain ELOs still do nothing but rush rush rush. Why do you want a game to end within 7 minutes in age 2, where is the fun in that? Are you aware of how EASY it is to do a double barracks Jan rush compared to how DIFFICULT it is to defend against it?

This is a VERY insightful comment, I don’t think most people are aware of this. And it explains why Sweden/china might not have the highest win rate, but yet is super hard for me to beat. The other day I lost to a Sweden player who only had 6 villagers maybe 30 minutes into the game!!! If you look at what he had to do compared with what I had to do, it is a similar discrepancy as you see in Otto games. (Granted it was not a normal game, but I was so frustrated and knowing I would lose vs Sweden I did unusual stuff).
Swedenwinswith6villagers.age3Yrec (10.2 MB)

i was gonna stay out of this, but the short answer i can offer is that the design of otto is ok, really strong units but really weak eco so risk is high. The problem is that the civ is just very easy to play at a decent level and so it inflates elo to varying degrees. The tricky part is balancing those too opposing factors so the civ stays interesting and unique, without making it even easier to play.

by easy i mean:
-High hp units are more forgiving of poor micro
-free vills frees up apm
-not needing hunts for vills is one less thing to macro for
-nearly all otto units are very similar ratio of food and coin with abus being the main exception. this makes macro fairly easy to accomplish with minimal practice. azap are new but are also different macro.

but please note: otto is not a reliable civ on unusual maps. they have several bad matchups as well.

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Otto has been buffed continuously in recent patches. Now the problem is their units are really strong.

Abus gun used to be more resource efficient than skirm but not pop efficient. But now they are better than skirm equal resources and equal pop. They also outrange skirms.

Janissary with full cards are best musketeer in late game. Previously it is strong in early game but becomes weaker in late game.

Nerf on skirm vs hand cav means spahi mameluke can do massive damage to a ### #### of skirms, and opponent often make skirm vs otto because of Janissary.

Azap solves otto weakness to light ranged cavalry previously.

Unique grenadier is very strong as they counter artillery, this is together with grenadier buff in general.

Cav archer also receives a card in age4 and moves faster now.

Then other buffs like double mosque, trainable nizams, minuteman buff etc all come together.

Some of these buffs are ok but all these buffs together, is too much. It is not unexpected to see otto being too strong.

Do not look at otto pick rate to draw any conclusions, because Otto is a fan favourite civ, especially popular at lower level because how easy it is to play and get started (no need to make villager).

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Yeah, that’s true Ottos are one of the easiest civ to play. But should devs nerf a civ because it is easy to play?
Lets recall Aztec again (civ I know best). Very hard civ to play right - but the devs are not going to buff them because of that.

Are Ottos really super strong now? Apart from different buffs, they received many nerfs (no Governor politician, no TC wagon card in Age III, Improved Buildings card moved to Age IV and others).

I really feel they are in a good spot, for example France IMO can do pretty much the same stuff Otto does (rush, semi-FF, FF, FI) equally good and no-one says they are too strong.

Talking a civ with poor eco, units all under average, no musk no falcs, is the best civ to you.
For Otto with free vils as very good bonus, units mostly above average, can rush FF FI various BO, is only “Easy to play”?

Yeah I would think your excuse is because Otto are mostly better so it is “ONLY” easier to play. Aztec all units worse is “ONLY” harder to play, just it. Not means their strength.

I’m just referring to dansil92 and OP. They both said Otto is easy to play and dansil explained why really well. And I agree with that. About Aztecs I’m asking quite often to redesign some aspects of their gameplay but it doesn’t look like it will happen.

He didn’t say for a single moment that their being easy to play is enough to nerf them.

Their units and potential have been overtuned in recent patches.

Just because their turtle strat (ALL turtle strats) have been nerfed doesn’t mean Ottos is balanced.

So your points are strawmen completely.

Indeed, I have been thinking about a post on this topic. People always say that it doesn’t matter since at higher elos they don’t win as much but when most people play at the lower elos. Most people are dealing with the problem and nothing gets done.

An example (not a well though) could be to remove their 200w start and give them a church wagon, this would stop them from having a trade post (which they always build) with no effort and maybe age a bit slower if they want to have a trade post like how it is with most civs.

The card that makes otto units cheaper in age4 should be removed since the whole idea of Jans are that they cost more while having better stats. So it does help much that when they get to age 4 then they have stronger musks at around the same price.

Also Otto used to be poor vs lakota. Now Otto is a hard counter to lakota. Why azap have 4x multi vs light cav and still kill heavy cav in melee? Azap + cannons just destroy native civs there is no counter if you dont have your own culverin or falcs.

Other annoying stuff i find about otto. The spahi hp regenerate when idle. I know it’s been around forever but now it’s on top of all the other tools they’ve gotten over time.

And the card that allows the cav archers to snipe vills. Not sure why it’s not used way more. Once that card is sent it is impossible to press on offense into otto until you have several walls protecting your eco up.