Behavioral Economics and AoE3

[momuuu]

Yea, improving in RTS games means you get a better knowledge, which is rewarding.

1. Not to everyone
2. Not necessarily rewarding enough compared to simply winning
3. Not necessarily more rewarding than watching a movie
4. In aoe3 not even desirable, because the better you get the more uncreative the game becomes and you also just cant really find good games anymore.

[Goodspeed]

Discovering the game IS improving at it. Improving is the process of learning to understand something. Understanding things is rewarding, at least to me. You as an aspiring scientist should be able to relate.

If you were a scientist you'd know reaching understanding isnt necessarily a worthwhile process. I find that feeling out a game and trying to find out its general systems is rewarding. I find that going beyond that in strategic understanding is a bit of a hassle and hardly worth it really, unless its your degree/job (then there is at least some reward in something thats boring otherwise). Aoe3 is still fun because just playing the game is fun aswell, at least to me. But I cant enjoy it for the improving alone.

Kinda unnecessary jab towards me btw.

I was just answering your question about what the point of improving is.

[momuuu]

I mostly meant in aoe3. I dont play much partially because I dont see any reason to improve anymore. It just seems to make the game worse.

[[Armag] diarouga]

Yea, improving in RTS games means you get a better knowledge, which is rewarding.

1. Not to everyone
2. Not necessarily rewarding enough compared to simply winning
3. Not necessarily more rewarding than watching a movie
4. In aoe3 not even desirable, because the better you get the more uncreative the game becomes and you also just cant really find good games anymore.

1. Well everyone gets a better knowledge, and getting knowledge is rewarding for everyone.
2. That's true, but who cares about winning? And anyway, if you are about to kill yourself because you lose too much, you can always make a smurf account and win 20 games in a row.
3. Well if you prefer watching movies that's another topic, but it has nothing to do with this.
4. That is not true. They get more uncreative because people like to spam the same build over and over. But boneng and aizamk definitely showed that you can be creative while playing at high level. I enjoy going FI, and that's what I've been doing these last days.

[momuuu]

Welp. I forgot I dont understand what I like as well as Diarouga does. Oops.

[gibson]

Honestly diarouga is more disconnected from reality than most people on these forums, I think.

[fightinfrenchman]

Honestly diarouga is more disconnected from reality than most people on these forums, I think.

And that's really saying something

[HUMMAN]

I agree with dia, actually when your mechanics improve its easier to do creative strats.

[Goodspeed]

Yes doing a creative strategy requires more knowledge of the game because you have to make the build order yourself, you can't copy it from better players. Trying this when you don't understand the game too well will almost invariably result in bad builds. This is true in every game.
That there is little innovation right now is a player issue, not one inherent to high level play.

[Jaeger]

Yes doing a creative strategy requires more knowledge of the game because you have to make the build order yourself, you can't copy it from better players. Trying this when you don't understand the game too well will almost invariably result in bad builds. This is true in every game.
That there is little innovation right now is a player issue, not one inherent to high level play.

Well, one big issue is that even if you should a very good build to a good player, there's a good chance that they will not recognize it to be such. Examples:
-It took years for people to adopt TP's, even though you exposed everyone to them for a long time
-It took _H2O a long time to admit Germany is OP

[deleted_user]

And anyway, if you are about to kill yourself because you lose too much, you can always make a smurf account and win 20 games in a row.

This might be my favorite post on ESOC

[deleted_user]

Yes doing a creative strategy requires more knowledge of the game because you have to make the build order yourself, you can't copy it from better players. Trying this when you don't understand the game too well will almost invariably result in bad builds. This is true in every game.
That there is little innovation right now is a player issue, not one inherent to high level play.

It is in some part a player issue, and in more part a meta, high level play issue. That trickles down because of streams.

At some point good balance necessitates boring play except for I guess the greatest game ever made, Go. That's why chess was good for so long until it wasn't, and engines were invented. There is always a better move to make. Because TPs are so strong they are almost always the better move to make.

But I don't think AoE3 is in its engine phase yet, but it might be. You tried to usher in this phase yourself, with your build order program.

"Players, not plays" is a frequent motto of mine. Because if you are facing Kaiserklein or Raphael you will lose. Aiz is the most exciting and in my opinion greatest aoe player ever, but he seldom reaches RO8 in tournaments. High level "interesting" AoE gameplay has devolved into strictly build orders. There are too many pieces at play for shenanigans.

[Mr_Bramboy]

Does being aware of certain psychological concepts such as loss aversion mitigate the effects of said psychological concepts? If I would rather lose 5 pr than gain 5 pr, that would mean that the best course of action would be to not play the game. Being aware of the concept of loss aversion, I choose to play the game either way.

[deleted_user]

Does being aware of certain psychological concepts such as loss aversion mitigate the effects of said psychological concepts? If I would rather lose 5 pr than gain 5 pr, that would mean that the best course of action would be to not play the game. Being aware of the concept of loss aversion, I choose to play the game either way.

It's probably very complicated. Things that try to make sense of brains don't seem to make much sense of anything.

[Scroogie]

The only two biases i have in my immaculate gameplay is preferring to stay under opponents TC for way too long or getting caught/running into my opponents army like a pr10.

[Oliveza]

for me , i improved the most when i didnt do std build orders and copied form pro Players but rather found my "own playstyle" and focused on what im good at, i will never have the same apm as hazza or the Micro as kaiser, but when i only focued on improving those i would get really frustraed bcs it takes a lot of time to get good at those Things. i just Focus on unique builds and try to cheese & surprise. Ofc most of the time it Fails and only ~5% of the stuff i try is viable , but noone will expect those 5% good builds and thats the fun part for me.
Winning vs good Players with wacky shit xD

[Oliveza]

for me , i improved the most when i didnt do std build orders and copied form pro Players but rather found my "own playstyle" and focused on what im good at, i will never have the same apm as hazza or the Micro as kaiser, but when i only focued on improving those i would get really frustraed bcs it takes a lot of time to get good at those Things. i just Focus on unique builds and try to cheese & surprise. Ofc most of the time it Fails and only ~5% of the stuff i try is viable , but noone will expect those 5% good builds and thats the fun part for me.
Winning vs good Players with wacky shit xD

Edit: whoops didnt read the op , thought this was About this gaming Survey..

when i dont care to much About losing i improve the most and actually gain pr (not with Sioux&aztec)
i think if you care to much About wining , you wont improve as fast as ppl who Play vs better Players and initially loose a lot (e.g. @tabben)
but then get better way fatser, bcs they rlly see what thier mistakes are.
when you only Play vs Players on your lvl (if you are >32pr) you can get away with Little mistakes and wont even notice them.

[Goodspeed]

Yes doing a creative strategy requires more knowledge of the game because you have to make the build order yourself, you can't copy it from better players. Trying this when you don't understand the game too well will almost invariably result in bad builds. This is true in every game.
That there is little innovation right now is a player issue, not one inherent to high level play.

It is in some part a player issue, and in more part a meta, high level play issue. That trickles down because of streams.

At the time of writing I was still somewhat in touch with the game and my opinion was that there were still many unexplored ways to play. I don't know if that's still the case now, but it seems likely.

While I would still say it's mostly a player issue, it's definitely also inherent in high level play, at least in RTS (where mechanics are a large factor) as opposed to "full" thinking games. Top players seem less concerned with finding new ways to play than they are with optimizing existing builds. This makes sense in a game like AoE3 where the meta is somewhat settled, at least compared to a game like SC2 where there are frequent game-changing patches which force people to get creative again. However, I'm fairly confident there's still a lot of room for creativity. I think if AoE3 was more popular, you would see creative players who can also keep up mechanically dominate the game. I think Blackstar is a good example of someone who was creative but also kept up mechanically, explaining his meteoric rise to the top.

At some point good balance necessitates boring play except for I guess the greatest game ever made, Go. That's why chess was good for so long until it wasn't, and engines were invented. There is always a better move to make. Because TPs are so strong they are almost always the better move to make.

I wouldn't say good balance is the thing that leads to "boring play", if we're defining boring play as a stale, settled meta. Rather it's a function of game complexity, popularity and change frequency. Of course, good balance in a game like AoE3 directly (and positively) influences complexity.

The more complex the game, the longer it will take for the meta to settle. Popularity speeds up this process though, because if you have more high level players they will find new ways to play at a faster rate.
In the case of RTS, which will typically (and should) keep being patched throughout their lifetime, patches can "refresh" the meta so that people have new things to explore. So the more patches you make (change frequency), the less stale the meta will be unless your patches are bad. Of course, the significance of your changes also matters.

In games like Chess and Go, there are no changes. So the meta will inevitably settle, as players continue to slowly improve it. Both are very popular games, but we can safely say the meta is fairly stale in Chess whereas innovations in Go are relatively frequent and especially relatively impactful. This is because Go is a more complex game.

Looking at AoE3: It's complex and not popular. So if we change the game frequently enough (EP has tried not to, but I think it should) we will see creativity have more of an impact.

But I don't think AoE3 is in its engine phase yet, but it might be. You tried to usher in this phase yourself, with your build order program.

Given that AoE3 should keep changing through patches, it should never reach that phase. I hope one day this community comes to understand that the game needs to keep changing, though I'm not holding my breath on that one.

"Players, not plays" is a frequent motto of mine. Because if you are facing Kaiserklein or Raphael you will lose. Aiz is the most exciting and in my opinion greatest aoe player ever, but he seldom reaches RO8 in tournaments. High level "interesting" AoE gameplay has devolved into strictly build orders. There are too many pieces at play for shenanigans.

I'm not sure what your point is with "Players, not plays" but I think you're definitely wrong about high level AoE3 being about executing your build better than the other player, if that was in fact your point. It comes back to my earlier example of Blackstar who I'm pretty sure would be the top player by some distance if he still played today. Currently we just have mostly mechanical players at the top.

[RefluxSemantic]

the thing is, the worse you are at the game the less the 'meta' matters. If you're shit the entire game is pure exploration and creativity. One of my fondest memories of aoe3 is when young me realized it was probably better to save your second shipment for age 2. It's so trivial now, but discovering all that stuff from the ground up is just fun and rewarding. Some of my most fun memories of starcraft 2 are from when I just started out, discovering what the game is about. Improving is a curse, you suck much of the novelty and creativity out of the game.

[fightinfrenchman]

the thing is, the worse you are at the game the less the 'meta' matters. If you're shit the entire game is pure exploration and creativity. One of my fondest memories of aoe3 is when young me realized it was probably better to save your second shipment for age 2. It's so trivial now, but discovering all that stuff from the ground up is just fun and rewarding. Some of my most fun memories of starcraft 2 are from when I just started out, discovering what the game is about. Improving is a curse, you suck much of the novelty and creativity out of the game.

This is why I stay bad, so I can enjoy the game later.

[Goodspeed]

I reread some of the earlier posts, can you explain this more @RefluxSemantic

I find that feeling out a game and trying to find out its general systems is rewarding. I find that going beyond that in strategic understanding is a bit of a hassle and hardly worth it really

Where do you draw this line between feeling out a game and "going beyond that in strategic understanding"?
You should try Go, maybe. There is so much room for improvement there that you will never reach that point of "going beyond".

[Le Hussard sur le toit]

In games like Chess and Go, there are no changes. So the meta will inevitably settle, as players continue to slowly improve the meta. Both are very popular games, but we can safely say the meta is fairly stale in Chess whereas innovations in Go are relatively frequent and especially relatively impactful. This is because Go is a more complex game.

I kind of think neither you nor SirCallen follow high level play closely. I would in fact say that the meta has been shifting a lot in the last twenty years. Computers have completely changed the way chess is played at the top level, with many opening that were considered bad being rehabilitated and many moves that would have been considered "too ugly" twenty years ago being played routinely (particularly with pawn play). The reason why top level chess is less interesting to watch than twenty or fifty years ago is that it has become so complex than us mere mortal can not understand anything. And with deep learning chess programs it is even better, players are discovering new way to play old position routinely now.

[RefluxSemantic]

So at some point I feel like I understand the underlying systems, how they work, what they mean. For example in aoe3 at some point you really get a feeling of what the goals of the game are, what a good build order would need to be, how to approach a certain match up. To improve more you just need to start testing shit endlessly, start grinding match ups, applying this understanding. That's the boring part to me. It's essentially trivial at that point, it just takes a ton of time and effort.

[Goodspeed]

In games like Chess and Go, there are no changes. So the meta will inevitably settle, as players continue to slowly improve the meta. Both are very popular games, but we can safely say the meta is fairly stale in Chess whereas innovations in Go are relatively frequent and especially relatively impactful. This is because Go is a more complex game.

I kind of think neither you nor SirCallen follow high level play closely. I would in fact say that the meta has been shifting a lot in the last twenty years. Computers have completely changed the way chess is played at the top level, with many opening that were considered bad being rehabilitated and many moves that would have been considered "too ugly" twenty years ago being played routinely (particularly with pawn play). The reason why top level chess is less interesting to watch than twenty or fifty years ago is that it has become so complex than us mere mortal can not understand anything. And with deep learning chess programs it is even better, players are discovering new way to play old position routinely now.

I'm aware. Note my use of the word "relatively". To illustrate the difference: In Go, playing the opening like people did 10 years ago is straight up game-losing at the pro level.

[[Armag] diarouga]

Chess isn't stale at all. The pro players find small innovations in their openings for every big event. It's just that for low level players it's hard to see the difference. It's the same thing in aoe3 actually. The top players find small improvements (if you don't believe me, check the tournament recs from 2015 to today, you'll see that the build orders are slightly different, the age up time to fortress often is, same thing with unit composition).
The people who don't play the game and just watch one series here and one series there can't understand that unfortunately.