The official fixed crate topic

[Garja]

I really dont think that fixed crates would actually be the huge of a change. Yes, if french and german got wood+coin starts they would almost always go market. However, if brits got a 300w start, they still have three good options: market, 2 house, house+tp. Same goes for India, Jap and Spain. Yes you could fix crates for spain to always allow them to go market or smth, but that doesnt mean that they always would, same if you gave sioux 100w.
I think that Mitoe is very correct in saying that most of the crate imbalances are caused by coin crate starts. If there were some way to remove the possibility of starting with a coin crate from the civs which it hurts, but still allow for some civs to get it, that might also be a good step towards balance.

If Spain has 200w and French 100w 100g that of course is unbalanced.
Honestly just deciding which crate spawn give to which civ is enough of hassle to discourage this change. Not to mention the testing required to fine tune things (e.g extra 100f or not).
So basically you have to give (almost) all civs the same crate which, guess what, it is pretty much the same as current system.

Or, what if two different crate options were coded? It would also be cool if you could code one of the options to appear more than the other; say you gave Germany the option of 300f 100w 100c with 3:4 odds and 200f 200w with 1:4 odds. Of course, those numbers could probably be different for balance or whatever, but I think you get my point.

Or, what if we leave all the three options as it is now?

[drsingh]

A random wood/food/gold crate can get balanced later in game. As number of villagers increase. The difference in vs between a wood/food crate amounts to lesser seconds as the game progresses.
But it already has an impact in 1st minute of game for some civ. Most important is wood crate. Eg-
India can do much more effective 10/10 with wood crate than with others.
Germany can get early tp which significantly boosts its semi ff build. (I feel this possibility is op in a semi ff favored mapset)

Coin crate doesnt have that big impact (compared to food crate) since its mostly means slower age up for all civ (except dutch). And those civ which gather it later on, get more vs (166>120). Considering best possible macro coin vs food crate actually are not significantly different in outcome of a 1v1 matchup.

What if we remove only 100w random crate....

Or maybe change fixed crates of all civ to -> -100w and +100f. Allowing random crates to any of 3 resources.
Eliminating imbalanced starts - like tp in 1st minute.
(India could be exempted)

I haven't thought this through. Just putting some alternatives.

For the most part I feel people who oppose fixed crates are -
Those who have mastered macro with some civ where it was possible, and now don't want any change.
Those eg German players, who are fond of their occasional tp start with 100 wood.

To analyse this situation, there is a need to unlearn previous knowledge and game play styles. And to get a fresh objective view of it. If it will be good for the competetive aspect of game. And fun.

For most players the perception(false??) of how the crates affect their game outcome leads to them getting demoralised as soon as game starts. And leading to less fun in game.

[Garja]

For the most part I feel people who oppose fixed crates are -
Those who have mastered macro with some civ where it was possible, and now don't want any change.
Those eg German players, who are fond of their occasional tp start with 100 wood.

To analyse this situation, there is a need to unlearn previous knowledge and game play styles. And to get a fresh objective view of it. If it will be good for the competetive aspect of game. And fun.

For most players the perception(false??) of how the crates affect their game outcome leads to them getting demoralised as soon as game starts. And leading to less fun in game.

It is more about that after thousands of played games you realize how boring AOE3 would be with fixed crates.
Not to mention that we had already an example of that with AOE:o, which btw didn't have treasures either.

[iNcog]

For the most part I feel people who oppose fixed crates are -
Those who have mastered macro with some civ where it was possible, and now don't want any change.
Those eg German players, who are fond of their occasional tp start with 100 wood.

Well I've also been reading several discussions on the topic: you're leaving out a few.

There are also those who want to see some variation in early game macro, as it just gives them something to work on in age 1. It's different, not a LOT, but different nonetheless. I know that I personally like random crates, I find it engaging to adjust my age 1 micro around those crates. This is subjective, hence I cannot be wrong or right about this feature; I merely enjoy it. In the same vein, some people do not enjoy it. However the question regarding crates is more subjective than not. Some people want less RNG, some people find that it adds zest to playing.

One thing is for sure though, is that fixed crates will lead to there probably being one best way to open for each civ. I'm not sure that I like that.

There are some who see that fixed crates will mean having to go through every civilization and figuring out which fixed crate start best suits them. That is a challenge in itself, since there are 13 civs to run through, you need to get it right and once you do get it right, then the balance of every civilization becomes dependent on the crate start they receive. This in itself is a pretty strong argument imo, since it'd be a hassle to go through every civ and decide on which crate to give them.

Another good reason would be that the ESOC patch should stick close to the original game's design features and random crate starts is one of those design features. Random crates is similar to treasure and procedural generation for maps. This is also a strong argument and as of today, people disagree on what kind of changes are acceptable for the patch and what are. Fixed crates is a pretty immense change to bring to the game and it has the potential to probably reformat the current tier list we have. Also, if we're OK with an immense change like fixed crates, then are we also OK with other immense changes such as giving civs new units or new civ bonuses?

There are several very valid arguments against fixed crates, but also several valid arguments for fixing crates. I strongly believe that there is no right or wrong answer to this question, however the implications of such changes should certainly be ascertained before making any decision.

[drsingh]

I'm sorry if my last post felt biased.

Both extremes of this discussion are not good. I agree with lot of points on both sides.

First I'm not sure of the need of fixed crates. Since it matters only at the top level play, which I don't have experience of.
But based on the examples provided by others, we can't ignore there is some imbalance caused by this.

Also I personally do like variation. I have quit aoe3 twice in past because of monotonous play. I would like much bigger changes to make game more interesting. But thats my personal opinion.

If there is a way to keep random crates while simultaneously reducing the magnitude of effect they have, we should discuss that first.
Like you mentioned before going with either extreme will turn off around 50% of the community.

1) removing random coin crate (as mitoe said)
2) removing random wood crate (I feel this is needed)
3) keeping random crates. But changing 100 w to 100 f for most civ starting fixed crates. (biggest change, uncertain effect, just for example)
4) making the random crate be 100 food fixed for all civ. Doesnt change much from current patch getting random 100food start.
5) other suggestions...

[Hazza54321]

making fixed crates would make 1v1 easier to balance imo

[deleted_user0]

For the most part I feel people who oppose fixed crates are -
Those who have mastered macro with some civ where it was possible, and now don't want any change.
Those eg German players, who are fond of their occasional tp start with 100 wood.

To analyse this situation, there is a need to unlearn previous knowledge and game play styles. And to get a fresh objective view of it. If it will be good for the competetive aspect of game. And fun.

For most players the perception(false??) of how the crates affect their game outcome leads to them getting demoralised as soon as game starts. And leading to less fun in game.

It is more about that after thousands of played games you realize how boring AOE3 would be with fixed crates.
Not to mention that we had already an example of that with AOE:o, which btw didn't have treasures either.

yet other players with alot of games too disagree with you. or is it something you realise only after 20k games but not after 10k?

[momuuu]

Im not truly sure, I do kinda think it's a misconception that randomness creates strategy though. Yes you'll have to adapt, but if things are consistent then people just get to a deeper level of strategy more quickly.

I really don't know what to think about this topic, there's a handful of civs that perform way worse or way better on certain crate starts. The best example would have been china: on a +100w start, they'd be able to get 2 villages for free which would be pretty insane, or if you made their base wood crates 200w they'd only be able to get one village if it isnt a wood start. China is the most extreme, and they received fixed crates. That seems, at first, not that insane to me. Then you learn that sometimes civs get 2 random crates instead of one, so china is effectively randomly down 100 resources in I think 40% of the cases. This kinda makes me feel sad about the fixed crates thing, which otherwise wouldn't be insane for india/japan (just give them wood start) or maybe france/germany/iro/otto (with regards to TP) while for other civs random crate starts are mostly completely fine.

Now, because I don't want to simply complain, I have a suggestion: We can keep random crates but make it so that it's not possible to get 2 random crates. It removes some randomness yes, but also maintains some. What happens is that the same options remain (since the only 2 crate starts were 100f 100w or 100f 100c right) but the faster variant with +100f is gone. Then you can actually start talking about fixed crates for some civs that prove to be too problematic, while keeping the random crates for the other bunch of civs. I think this could be the best of two worlds really.

Btw for those saying fixed crates are really boring, I honestly don't find it that boring for china, and civs like Dutch honestly don't give a fuck about crates.

[Garja]

yet other players with alot of games too disagree with you. or is it something you realise only after 20k games but not after 10k?

Actually is something you will realize way sooner when this change will be adopted.

Im not truly sure, I do kinda think it's a misconception that randomness creates strategy though. Yes you'll have to adapt, but if things are consistent then people just get to a deeper level of strategy more quickly.

Unfortunately there is a clear limit in AOE3 strategy depth due to the gameplay itself and the fact that is a 10yo game.
Randomness such as crates or treasures add depth to the game, even if in a forced way. With depth then you have more tactical options. Several tactical options combined increase the strategy involved.

Not sure you got the crate system right btw. And crate start does matter with Dutch at the moment. Ah also China is boring af with fixed crates. Not a coincidence it's my least played civ lol.

[Dsy]

You can't even say B > A > C honestly. Like ok, TP is the best option but then 100g and 100f are very close. For Aztecs 100g means you have much easier time completing the first batch of puma. Also 100g = market which is often more valuable than 100f. Then there is the combination with treasures, etc.
It is just more complex than how you think it is.

And btw, yes rng kinda determines what you will do, but that's good. Being forced to go for a market instead of TP produces different games which is the whole point of introducing random elements.

100g and 100f is very close only if u play aztec mirror for example. If you play vs japan its really matter that you can age up 25 sec earlier i guess... Thats why i said f>g start. But in mirror its the same i agree.
Thats the problem that rng effects the civ power. And basicly like dia said there are some psecific matchups where they just win or lose factors. 30 sec age up time/tp is huge effect. I dont think some1 could disagree with it...

[deleted_user]

no, just no,

[Garja]

No, it doesn't work that way, sorry. 100g vs 100f as Aztecs is close and depends on what your game plan is. In general tho 100g allows a market while 100f doesn't. So 100g is actually better, given that 100f crate doesn't allow any vills to be skipped in age1 and 100g doesn't delay you by any extra vill either.
In general 100f doesn't really make a difference in age up time for 80% of civs.

[drsingh]

I also don't feel fixed crates would be boring. Since you still have treasures for variation. Without 100w start India or German etc usually needs to find a 90 wood treasures to balance.

Fixed start will make balancing much easier and achieved earlier.

But, trying to keep up with concerns of nearly half of community. One possibility can be-
Adjusting starting crates of civ which have a lot difference in power level in different crate starts.
Eg German getting -100w +100f +1 random + removing uhlan nerf
India getting -100f + 100w + 1 random
Something similar for iro nd portugal.. And any civ where random crates significantly upset balance.
Removing double random crates to be fair to China.

Crates start can still behave as they do now for most civ. But the random crates matter lesser for problematic civ's.

[lordraphael]

i see your point mitoe and its by far The Best point in favour of rdm crate starts.
I agree rdm crates wont make The Game completly balanced especially a civ like japan would benefit alot if it received a wood start while civs that naturally perform good vs jp were penalized by a non wood start.( For The reccord i dont eben think japan is weak theyre pretty strong imo ). However with fixed crates we would habe a common ground to balance The Game. If it turns out that jp is to strong we can finally touch their insane scaling for example but at leat we will have a common ground for balance

theyre decent, but they have so many countercivs so they arent seen in a tournament setting.

well yea but if thats the case then buffing them to the point where they can overcome their respective counterciv makes no sense. Civs like japan or dutch will always be very weak to civs like brits or spain. Its the way those civs are designed and surpasssing this by buffs would most certainly mean that, while balancing the aforementionend MUs, some MUs will be very dutch / jap favoured.

A civ like japan is very decent but not very good in a tournament setting with counterpick rules. Same applies to dutch and a few other civs.

[Dsy]

Lol that just simply not true. You get 100g. You build a merket from 100w.
Until that you need 25g to buy wood for house. And plus 50w + 50g to buy hunting dogs. Thats 50w and 75g investment with hdogs. 25g if you not upgrade.
In other hand you just get pure +100f.

Its a huge time difference actually.

[Garja]

???
You buy the gold, get market + hunting dogs and repay the all the resources you gathered with the upgrade, aging up at the same time.
With 100f you have extra 100f, yes.
Now, what's better hunting dogs or 100f? I'd say hunting dogs. For most civs it is actually about gang saw being researched 40 secs earlier or so.

[lordraphael]

I really dont think that fixed crates would actually be the huge of a change. Yes, if french and german got wood+coin starts they would almost always go market. However, if brits got a 300w start, they still have three good options: market, 2 house, house+tp. Same goes for India, Jap and Spain. Yes you could fix crates for spain to always allow them to go market or smth, but that doesnt mean that they always would, same if you gave sioux 100w. I think that Mitoe is very correct in saying that most of the crate imbalances are caused by coin crate starts. If there were some way to remove the possibility of starting with a coin crate from the civs which it hurts, but still allow for some civs to get it, that might also be a good step towards balance. Or, what if two different crate options were coded? It would also be cool if you could code one of the options to appear more than the other; say you gave Germany the option of 300f 100w 100c with 3:4 odds and 200f 200w with 1:4 odds. Of course, those numbers could probably be different for balance or whatever, but I think you get my point.

you wouldnt give brit a 300 wood start obviously ,which would be a bit sad, i admit it, because tp for brit is pretty fun, but also hilariously strong. Heres my list of crates for each civ :

Germany: coin
Fre: coin
Brit:coin
Dutch: coin or food
russia : food
Otto: wood ( might be to strong but without a wood start otto is def below average )
Spain: food or coin
Port: THis one depends largely on how port is changed, asimple crate fix wont do the job anyways for port and they would need some further tweaks no matter what.

Iro : wood ( might already be enough to fix the civ. Imo they wouldnt be a very top civ but def. competitive)
Azzie: coin probably, I dont know enough about them to know for sure.
Sioux: wood ( would need some other buffs altho consistently being able to tp at the start would help a lot obviously )

Japan: Wood ( This might make them very strong if other civs where nerfed via fixed crates, but then you could buff their core OPness, like yumi and scaling of units in general)
India: wood ( im quite sure that this would already be enough, infact im not even 100 % sure theyd even need that but I guess you have to start somewhere. India is a civ that scales with the players skill the most id say. At least if you dont go for 10 / 10 every game. Also in terms of builds india is very unexplored i feel. Karni builds might be strictly superior to agra builds in almost all MUs IMO, but we have barely seen them in play.)

China: already fixed start

[momuuu]

Did anyone read my suggestion of pseudo-fixed crates?

[Garja]

It is already a pseudo-fixed crates system. It is actually fixed crates + the same one for all civs.

[Dsy]

I tested france with 100w with f and c.
With f 2:39 i clicked age up. 13 vills
With c 3:01 i clicked on age up. (i had hunting dogs) 14 vills

And it was no treasures. So if i get some -> will get xp and 3 vills arrive faster. All means then 2:35 is totally doable with food start.
Ofc we dont notice it cause no1 do rush usually nowdays. If you want you can just go earlier chop wood with f start and go for ugrades and stuffs too and age with 14 vill. But for rush and vs rush food start is significaantly better. For example vs russia.

[momuuu]

It is already a pseudo-fixed crates system. It is actually fixed crates + the same one for all civs.

Youre being kinda unbearable really. I tried to propose a middle of the ground system which you ignore or dismiss with this argument? Really?

[Diarouga]

Show hidden quotes

Hey guys, what do you want, you want to see your name in the TOP10 Elo of a 10 years old game or you want to play a game in order to have fun ? It's a RTS game, which means that the intersting feature of this game is strategy. And ofc, the more situations you face the more strategical it is so the more intersting it is for this games.

Also it's so funny to see that the World Cyber Games with the best players were played on unbalanced maps, with broken civs and random crates on the official patch and no one complained. Whereas here we got more balanced maps with fixed civs on an unofficial patch where people plays mostly unrated and it's not enough.

If you dislike randomness (I can understand it) because it brings unbalance per definition so you can't do properly your dick measurement with your opponent, there is a mod designed by Microsoft called Scenario where the concept is to have no randomness so just go play there (and i'm serious).

The goal of the EP, if I am not mistake, is to create a more balanced game making minimal changes with maximal effect. This is just that. Playing 1v1 in this game can be so luck-driven that I almost always just play unrated, even though I would like to play rated. I do so just because it is so damn frustrating to lose to a player because the civ you played is wholesale weaker than theirs, the map is unbalanced, or the crate spawn that game just happened to be the most imbalanced it could be.

Why not consider you just lost fair and square and maybe you were out played?

That is definitely the case in some games, but I have played afternoons of EP unrated doing the same matchups again and again: India vs. China, Jap vs. French, India vs. Russia. India and Japs are two of my main civs on TAD, both EP and RE (I mostly play EP). Truthfully, I really only started to notice how much my crates were affecting how much I won when I spent like 5 hours one afternoon playing as India vs. China. I think we played 10 games in total, and I lost 3 or 4 of them. All of those games I started with a coin crate and/or 300w, meaning I couldnt 10/10 or fast 14 vill agra, which seemed to be the deciding factor in this player and civ matchup for whatever reason. On the other hand, China always gets the same crates, meaning that he could learn from one game from the next and evolve his strategy based on the same starting factors. I, on the other hand, could not learn and evolve in the same way. If I thought of a better way I could do my build, I couldnt always do it the next game because I would get different crates. Me winning or loosing that specific matchup should not hinge on luck, thats just ridiculous. I see what you are saying about how we should learn to adapt and such, and you are right in your thinking, but there are builds/strategies in RTS games that are just objectively better than others. And when luck determines what options each player has, and the options are not of equal strength for both civs, that is just an imbalance, plain and simple.

Yeah exactly! That is just too random. And think about Iro, with a wood crate start, I would play them in a tourney and many would, but yet nobody has ever done that because they're simply trash

[Garja]

It is already a pseudo-fixed crates system. It is actually fixed crates + the same one for all civs.

Youre being kinda unbearable really. I tried to propose a middle of the ground system which you ignore or dismiss with this argument? Really?

I kinda dismiss with that already. But if you're proposing of fixing only the 100f crate then that might work. I would keep it tho. Honestly I don't understand what you're proposing exactly, that's why I'm not sure if you got how random crates work.

[Diarouga]

Civs that can use all 3 crate starts reasonably:
British
Dutch
France
The early TP is op
German
The early TP is way too op
Iroquois
:( It's sad you don't get my point, that's probably why you disagree. Iro is a top tier civ with a wood start and trash with other starts.
Ottoman (they age too quickly for it to matter, that coin becomes relevant quickly enough)

Civs that suffer or benefit too greatly depending on the crate start (?) Indicates uncertainty:
India (suffer coin)
China (suffer on wood & food starts; benefit on coin)
Portuguese(?) (suffer coin)
Japan (suffer coin)
Sioux (suffer coin)
Spain(?) (suffer coin)
Aztec(?) (suffer coin)
Russia (suffer coin)


...You know we could consider just removing coin starts from the game, instead of actually hard fixing crates.

I agree that the coin start is the biggest issue but the wood start is also big, that would mean that France and Ger get a wood start very often, and that Iro still wouldn't be playable.

[Hazza54321]

i honestly think india and perhaps japan could have a fixed wood start, theyre fucked otherwise i think