Why the DM announcement just felt off for me, however sensible

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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So Microsoft and Age Devs etc. I just wanted to take a moment to explain why I feel like the DM announcement made perfect sense, from a business point a view, from a player retention point of view, from a game health point of view, but still felt…off for me. And yes, this is the emotions behind it.

The truth for myself, at least, is basically kind of wrapped in how the message was conveyed. Now, I read the message, and I understand it is someone’s first blog, so I am NOT trying to villify anyone at all. I am trying though, to provide a sincere constructive thought on how their message…missed me a bit, at least emotionally.

Many have mentioned how it came just after DMWC, and that is a part of it, but I feel like it is a bit more specific. Those who watched the finals with Nili and True may have stuck around post-Viper interview and heard Nili and True (mostly True) discuss the DM community and True gave a good and lengthy “thank you” speech that lasted a good 20 minutes or so, I’m not sure. Either way, it was quite heartfelt and moving. Nili even commented about tearing up. Now, I have no personal interest in playing DM, it is too fast for me, so again I state plainly your decision makes complete sense from multiple points of view.

But then, I read the blog, and while the argument is sound, there’s this disconnect, between what I feel personaly and just witnessed on Sunday, and the tone of the blog. Now, I’m sure it was written well in advance, and had to be edited and proofread and such so it may have been a 3 week old statement. It’s just as someone who watched the teary and emotional post-tournament DMWC cast with Nili and True, the little personal anecdotes just didn’t do anything. In another time or another emotional context they might have been just fine, but I think for some of us who watched DMWC, it just felt soo…disconnected. I almost think it would have been better to have the announcement before the tournament final.

I just see a lot of emotion surrounding this recent decision, and I’m sure some might be asking “why?” when the metrics and stuff say so clearly otherwise, and I just wanted to try to explain why I am currently…unhappy so to speak. It isn’t that anyone did anything wrong, it just didn’t go as well as it could have I guess.

Just some sincere thoughts, not trying to attack anyone at all.

Love to everyone.

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Honestly even the “rational” part doesn’t feel right to me. Besides the fact the graph is far from perfect, why do they plan to remove DM because of the low player count when BR is like super dead. Really it’s impossible to get a game under 15 minutes and I don’t know for you but I ain’t waiting more for getting a game especially in a so-called “quickplay” system.

As of the emeotional part it would go wrong anyway, it’s pretty much unavoidable. If it’s announced before the tournament, the hype is ruined and both the players and viewers are less invested. Right after the tournament (as it happened) people who watched it and would like to try DM out would be disappointed. If you wait longer, people who got into DM won’t be happy about getting denied something they only got to enjoy for a short while. And either the DM community won’t like, and who wouldn’t either if it happened to them.

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Yeah, i also dont really understand why quick play in general is still into the game. There was already no reason for playing quick play, because of the unbalanced games.

If you can choose:

  • RM game with balanced teams
  • RM game with unbalanced teams.

Most players will go for balanced teams. Even for EW you could already go to the lobby and get much better balanced games. Now EW goes to ranked, so that is your go to option for playing EW. Then you are left with BR only. You can only join these BR games as solo, while BR is the kind of game mode you play with friends. So they still go to the lobby for these kind of games.

I already expected this outcome when the announced quick play with pretty much no further details. When it was out, i alreade created a thread about why quick play isnt very usefull: How to make Quick Play useful?

Based on their reasoning it would make much more sense to just delete quick play from the game and move EW to ranked without removing DM from ranked. That looks like the much better solution.

Also add a better UI, so everything is much more clear and you are good to go.