Beta Fixed Starting Crates Discussion

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New Zealand zoom
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Beta Fixed Starting Crates Discussion

Post by zoom »

Please discuss anything relating specifically to fixing civilizations' starting crates, here.
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Re: Beta Fixed Starting Crates Discussion

Post by zoom »

I only have one definitive opinion, on this issue: Either Chinese starting crates float, like the rest (including the bonus food crate), or all other civilizations' starting crates are fixed. It's not at all certain that this will be within the scope of EP7, though.
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Re: Beta Fixed Starting Crates Discussion

Post by deleted_user0 »

fix all crates. or you'll have to turn china in a completely new civ. which basically already happened, so might as well make chinese crates dynamic, but you'll have to add a food crate. or add a wood crate, which potentially will make them super strong.
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Re: Beta Fixed Starting Crates Discussion

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Post by Goodspeed »

umeu wrote:fix all crates. or you'll have to turn china in a completely new civ. which basically already happened, so might as well make chinese crates dynamic, but you'll have to add a food crate. or add a wood crate, which potentially will make them super strong.
Yes

I'm for fixed crates, and since this patch is so big you're already losing track of balance anyway, so it's a good time to make potentially impactful changes like that.
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Re: Beta Fixed Starting Crates Discussion

Post by deleted_user »

Fixed crates will fix the most problems, it won't make the game more boring but it will save the game from semi FF meta all the time, since currently when you start 200w there is no better option than going semi ff in current meta, bringing fixed crates will be the best change ever done!
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Re: Beta Fixed Starting Crates Discussion

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Post by [Armag] diarouga »

It's just a beta, we can test fixed crates honestly. The community as well as most top players support it, and if it's a mess we can always revert.
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Re: Beta Fixed Starting Crates Discussion

Post by lemmings121 »

I'm in favor of fixing crates too, and this beta test might be a good time to get it in the game. People will be testing with keshiks, samurais, rajputs, and other new stuff, removing the ramdomness of the crate start will even help testing those "new units".

-

If you decide to not go through with fixed crates and instead make china random, might be still a good idea to keep their 300w fixed, and only give extra food when others civs have their optimal random crate start.
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Re: Beta Fixed Starting Crates Discussion

Post by edeholland »

[Armag] diarouga wrote:It's just a beta, we cant test fixed crates honestly. The community as well as most top players support it, and if it's a mess we can always revert.
Did you mean "we can"? The sentence is a bit confusing for me right now.

Also I agree, we should test it out.
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Re: Beta Fixed Starting Crates Discussion

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

I meant "we can" sorry.
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Re: Beta Fixed Starting Crates Discussion

Post by Garja »

Fixed crates is just a bad idea. Random crate is such a nice mechanic they added to the game and any random crate related issue is just a non problem.
If we ever want to deal with the China exception then just go and fix that instead of removing a huge part of the game.
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Re: Beta Fixed Starting Crates Discussion

Post by Kaiserklein »

[spoiler=Why we shouldn't fix crates]
Just boring if crates are fixed. The exact same thing applies to treasures. Removing random crates is just like having only maps with cascade/klondike kind of treasures. Yes it makes the game a bit more competitive because there's less randomness, but

1) it breaks the current balance. Huge change, we have to rebalance ep around it.

2) removes an age 1 skill, macroing depending on the crates/treasures you get. Believe it or not but even some top players still mismacro on some crates starts with some civs.

3) it's just not the spirit of aoe3. There's lots of random stuff and starting crates are just one of them. For example some maps are frozen, which changes the way water plays out. Some tp lines can spawn in different ways. The resources aren't fixed either, meaning that it's never totally fair. It's just how the game works, it's roughly balanced and then you have to adapt. If you fix crates you might as well fix hunts, treasures, maps spawns etc. Or move to sc2.

4) it's obviously boring and leads to less diverse builds. Depending on crates start you can see iro getting a farm, a tp, or nothing. You can see slow or fast age. You can see japan going for consulate or not. And so on.

5) it's a lazy and ugly solution. Removing a core feature of this game, instead of trying to balance in another way. For example nerfing tps a bit, and giving alternatives to some civs on wood starts (like we did with otto or sioux), is one way to make sure random crates aren't too imba. Much more elegant. In the same way, having cascade/klondike treasures is a lazy fix, while having wadmalaw treasures (no useless or op treasures, and with balanced risk/reward ratios) is an elegant fix.
What about iro fast aging? Or getting a farm? What about otto going silk road after 3v with a mosque? Or building a dock in age 1 and training 7 fishing boats or w/e it was?
[/spoiler][spoiler=How to balance crates starts instead]
Instead of being lazy and fixing crates, we could try to make sure the extra wood crate is also useful for the opponent... And nerf the age 1 TP. I'm not sure what's hard to understand. It's not black or white, there are solutions in between, we don't have to remove an entire game feature and make the patch even more different from RE.
Well for one thing I'd nerf TPs a bit. I think it's obvious TPs are too strong overall in current meta, and not only in age 1. That would be a big change, but it has to be done imo.
Then we could maybe let russia overqueue to 11/10 in age 1 somehow, like china does. That buff could have probably replaced the rusket discount, if we applied it to ruskets and strelets as well. That would probably let russia get a market on wood or coin starts.
You can find other similar buffs for other civs. For example give warrior priests a multiplier vs treasure guardians, so that on wood start aztecs can go for a TP without a firepit, and use the wp to take treasures more easily. That's just an example, I didn't think through all the buffs we could apply because I know it's not gonna happen anyway.
[/spoiler]
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Re: Beta Fixed Starting Crates Discussion

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

It's a bit of a stalemate honestly.
200w start for some civs is a huge balance issue. From what I see, there are two ways to balance it :

1) Fixed crates, that's what most people want although it's removing one feature of the game

2) Nerfing age 1 TPs. And India/Japan/Dutch still have crate issues. Also as GS said, nerfing the TPs is also very awkward.
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Re: Beta Fixed Starting Crates Discussion

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Post by Mitoe »

I'd prefer fixed crates over TP nerfs. I'm willing to try it out.
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Re: Beta Fixed Starting Crates Discussion

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

Wow even Mitoe is fine with testing fixed crates.
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Re: Beta Fixed Starting Crates Discussion

Post by Mitoe »

I've said in previous threads that I'm fine with it; it was only the initial discussion I was really against it.

At the end of the day if it means we don't have to make as many balance changes then fixed crates is probably for the best. However, I think that the crates should always be the ones that give the civ the most options.
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Re: Beta Fixed Starting Crates Discussion

Post by Garja »

[Armag] diarouga wrote:It's a bit of a stalemate honestly.
2) Nerfing age 1 TPs. And India/Japan/Dutch still have crate issues. Also as GS said, nerfing the TPs is also very awkward.

Just why. Dutch doesn't mind any crate.
India and Japan in the end are fine even with the gold crate mostly because the same crate is bad for civs they struggle with (well maybe not Japan vs Aztecs but that's another story).

When I say "a non-issue" I mean exactly this. This is not a balance problem. Just play around what you're given. Even at the highest level it's entirely possible to play around these little differences in starting efficiency.
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Re: Beta Fixed Starting Crates Discussion

Post by zoom »

Goodspeed wrote:
umeu wrote:fix all crates. or you'll have to turn china in a completely new civ. which basically already happened, so might as well make chinese crates dynamic, but you'll have to add a food crate. or add a wood crate, which potentially will make them super strong.
Yes

I'm for fixed crates, and since this patch is so big you're already losing track of balance anyway, so it's a good time to make potentially impactful changes like that.
I would like to fix all crates, personally, but I cannot justify making such a controversial and fundamental change to the game, with the community seemingly split on the issue. While it definitively would help inter-civ balance, long-term, I do not believe it necessary to achieve satisfactory results.
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Re: Beta Fixed Starting Crates Discussion

Post by zoom »

lemmings121 wrote:I'm in favor of fixing crates too, and this beta test might be a good time to get it in the game. People will be testing with keshiks, samurais, rajputs, and other new stuff, removing the ramdomness of the crate start will even help testing those "new units".

-

If you decide to not go through with fixed crates and instead make china random, might be still a good idea to keep their 300w fixed, and only give extra food when others civs have their optimal random crate start.
1. More changes would make determining the impact of others harder, on its own.
2. You are assuming players not to attribute other changes' impact to the difference in starting crates, which would have a far greater impact on inter-civ balance.
3. That would only buff Chinese, vs other civilizations, which I'd rather not.
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Re: Beta Fixed Starting Crates Discussion

Post by lemmings121 »

zoom wrote:3. That would only buff Chinese, vs other civilizations, which I'd rather not.


I was thinking more in the lines of "ok, if you are giving china random crates, just dont give anything less then 300w because it would hurt them too much, but also, dont give them random 400w because would be insane op."
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Re: Beta Fixed Starting Crates Discussion

Post by Goodspeed »

Why would 400w be "insane OP"? Other civs also get a big boost from the wood crate.
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Re: Beta Fixed Starting Crates Discussion

Post by Cometk »

you would age up 30-45s sooner because you didn’t have to waste 200vs chopping wood
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Re: Beta Fixed Starting Crates Discussion

Post by Goodspeed »

That would be 168 food, which is not 30 seconds. China would age faster, but other civs get an early TP where they otherwise wouldn't. For some civs this is a big deal, and I would argue a bigger deal than aging 15 seconds earlier. Either way, "insane OP" is overstating things.
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Re: Beta Fixed Starting Crates Discussion

Post by deleted_user »

Kaiserklein wrote:[spoiler=Why we shouldn't fix crates]
Just boring if crates are fixed. The exact same thing applies to treasures. Removing random crates is just like having only maps with cascade/klondike kind of treasures. Yes it makes the game a bit more competitive because there's less randomness, but

1) it breaks the current balance. Huge change, we have to rebalance ep around it.

2) removes an age 1 skill, macroing depending on the crates/treasures you get. Believe it or not but even some top players still mismacro on some crates starts with some civs.

3) it's just not the spirit of aoe3. There's lots of random stuff and starting crates are just one of them. For example some maps are frozen, which changes the way water plays out. Some tp lines can spawn in different ways. The resources aren't fixed either, meaning that it's never totally fair. It's just how the game works, it's roughly balanced and then you have to adapt. If you fix crates you might as well fix hunts, treasures, maps spawns etc. Or move to sc2.

4) it's obviously boring and leads to less diverse builds. Depending on crates start you can see iro getting a farm, a tp, or nothing. You can see slow or fast age. You can see japan going for consulate or not. And so on.

5) it's a lazy and ugly solution. Removing a core feature of this game, instead of trying to balance in another way. For example nerfing tps a bit, and giving alternatives to some civs on wood starts (like we did with otto or sioux), is one way to make sure random crates aren't too imba. Much more elegant. In the same way, having cascade/klondike treasures is a lazy fix, while having wadmalaw treasures (no useless or op treasures, and with balanced risk/reward ratios) is an elegant fix.
What about iro fast aging? Or getting a farm? What about otto going silk road after 3v with a mosque? Or building a dock in age 1 and training 7 fishing boats or w/e it was?
[/spoiler][spoiler=How to balance crates starts instead]
Instead of being lazy and fixing crates, we could try to make sure the extra wood crate is also useful for the opponent... And nerf the age 1 TP. I'm not sure what's hard to understand. It's not black or white, there are solutions in between, we don't have to remove an entire game feature and make the patch even more different from RE.
Well for one thing I'd nerf TPs a bit. I think it's obvious TPs are too strong overall in current meta, and not only in age 1. That would be a big change, but it has to be done imo.
Then we could maybe let russia overqueue to 11/10 in age 1 somehow, like china does. That buff could have probably replaced the rusket discount, if we applied it to ruskets and strelets as well. That would probably let russia get a market on wood or coin starts.
You can find other similar buffs for other civs. For example give warrior priests a multiplier vs treasure guardians, so that on wood start aztecs can go for a TP without a firepit, and use the wp to take treasures more easily. That's just an example, I didn't think through all the buffs we could apply because I know it's not gonna happen anyway.
[/spoiler]

I think nerfing TPs are defenitely more game changing than fixed crates, you wouldn't even feel fixed crates changing the game once you get used to it,
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Re: Beta Fixed Starting Crates Discussion

Post by Goodspeed »

zoom wrote:
Goodspeed wrote:
umeu wrote:fix all crates. or you'll have to turn china in a completely new civ. which basically already happened, so might as well make chinese crates dynamic, but you'll have to add a food crate. or add a wood crate, which potentially will make them super strong.
Yes

I'm for fixed crates, and since this patch is so big you're already losing track of balance anyway, so it's a good time to make potentially impactful changes like that.
I would like to fix all crates, personally, but I cannot justify making such a controversial and fundamental change to the game, with the community seemingly split on the issue. While it definitively would help inter-civ balance, long-term, I do not believe it necessary to achieve satisfactory results.
Yeah, that's why we didn't go for it last time. Fair enough
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Re: Beta Fixed Starting Crates Discussion

Post by edeholland »

What is the latest poll on the fixed crated discussion? Could it be useful to have an insiders poll? Quite a few players are not voicing their opinion.

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