the patch and all of the changes it has gone trough

[spanky4ever]

I have always thought that Aoe3 was a super fun game, but there were maybe a few balance problems.
I like the buff to Ports: making villies cheaper, cos ports was very underplayed
I like the extra bank to Dutch, cos Dutch also was lagging behind in eco
I like the carnimata, and that infantry can make teepees, for Sioux.
I could even say that the buff to India, making their houses cheaper is a good one.

Other than this, I am starting to have the feeling that the changes have gone way too far. I am afraid that we are changing the game, to be something totally different from the original game. I also think there have been made changes to one civ, that make it necessary to make changes in other civs, and on and on we go, further and further away from the original game.

I would not have knowledge enough to go into the little tweaks that have been dune to all of the civs. But in some sense I feel I should not need to - cos I
really like Aoe3, and my stance is that there should be made as little changes to them as possible.

Maybe its time to roll back some of the little tweaks here and there, and make the game more like the original? That is before we make a totally new set of gameplay, cos I do not think that was the PLAN

I do feel that Zoom got a lot of flaming for the changes he made, but I also think his changes was based on many changes made before him, that just made the game to far away from the game we all love.

[spanky4ever]

https://youtu.be/08NlhjpVFsU

[HUMMAN]

the only thing does not change is the change itself.

[QueenOfdestiny]

Missing open mind, neutrality and friendly discussions are the problem imo.


But...
https://youtu.be/DLzxrzFCyOs

[GiBthedurrty]

xD

[Dsy]

For me the game was fun at time when H2O vs Blackstar were playing. Its not because of the patch (it was unbalanced even then) but how people played the game.
I remember first game was german mirror Blackstar has started a dopp timing attack by shipping 3 dopps, H2O could barely repell by late respond but somehow managed to strike back with his own doppels. Raids, changing units, micro was all over the place.
That past showed how this game could have been great, but its failed for me.

There are so obvious issues like free walls since half of the game is melee units and they get screwed. - Never gets fixed since few players love to abuse
Or its not good that there are useless units in the game. - Never gets fixed since players want to see same games over and over
Or on RE if i pick worse civ i probably just lose. - Its totally fine for most people, they master the best civs and want to keep maintain the unbalance

To sum all these things seems to me players adapted to RE patch and they get advantage from it. They would never want to lose any of the advantage what they learned no matter how logical an improvement could be.
I think dev team should be the people who arent thinking of their own winrates rather just thinking on the game as a whole.

[Gichtenlord]

When Zoi was making fun of treaty patch because of the numerous changes and now he does it as well. EleGiggle

[[Armag] diarouga]

Missing open mind, neutrality and friendly discussions are the problem imo.


But...
https://youtu.be/DLzxrzFCyOs

"Open mind" lol. I just want to play Age Of Empires III, not another game, it doesn't make me close-minded at all.
If anything, judging the people who just want to play aoe3 (ie something like half of the community), and not some random zoi patch, makes you biased and close-minded.

Also if you want the rickroll joke to be funny, you have to put a hidden link. Here it doesn't make sense.

[Gafur]

^ damn this guy is savage

[spanky4ever]

It feels like there is a chase for perfect balance, BUT "perfect" is a metaphor that doesn't exist in real life. So for every change that is being made for one civ, it will cause imbalance towards other civs, which you then need to address in the next patch upgrade.
That is why, in good old Goodspeed philosophy; change as little as possible, and when you do make some changes, be very sure that it will enhance the game and balance. If you cannot be sure of that, DO NOT CHANGE IT.
If it's not broken (or you have damn good evidence that it is), don't fix it.

So my idea here is simply to roll back 90% of the changes - keep the really necessary, and be really sure next time ANY changes are made to the patch. (maybe worth a poll @deleted_user5 ?)
Btw, reading the forums, there are made tons of threads that suggest changes. Why are a lot of ppl so eager to change Aoe3??

[momuuu]

Its a bit of a logical fallacy to claim that because perfection doesnt exist balance cant get better. Of course it wont be perfect, but you can definitely make the balance much better.

[Mr_Bramboy]

The main argument made thus far is that this is a beta, and therefore some changes might be reverted if the community desires that. Whether that will happen is up to the dictator himself to decide, but for the sake of the patch itself, I do the process of creating a patch like this will be reconsidered. If there's one thing that ESOC is bad at internally, it's developing new procedures and carrying out new plans. The idea of an EP panel with high-leveled players and voting has been around for years, but it has never been acted on. This is constantly close to being discussed until another focus pops up. Now is a better time than ever to start laying the foundations for such a panel and to see into the effects that it would entail. The community - at least anyone significantly better than I am at this game - deserves to have a voice in the patch that tournaments are played on, or the patch will lose its trust. ESOC is not big enough to ignore such a prominent voice, and it must work together with its players to ensure a fair patch.

[[Armag] diarouga]

The main argument made thus far is that this is a beta, and therefore some changes might be reverted if the community desires that. Whether that will happen is up to the dictator himself to decide, but for the sake of the patch itself, I do the process of creating a patch like this will be reconsidered. If there's one thing that ESOC is bad at internally, it's developing new procedures and carrying out new plans. The idea of an EP panel with high-leveled players and voting has been around for years, but it has never been acted on. This is constantly close to being discussed until another focus pops up. Now is a better time than ever to start laying the foundations for such a panel and to see into the effects that it would entail. The community - at least anyone significantly better than I am at this game - deserves to have a voice in the patch that tournaments are played on, or the patch will lose its trust. ESOC is not big enough to ignore such a prominent voice, and it must work together with its players to ensure a fair patch.

Well there is this issue, and the patch philosophy is another one.

[spanky4ever]

Its a bit of a logical fallacy to claim that because perfection doesnt exist balance cant get better. Of course it wont be perfect, but you can definitely make the balance much better.

My main worry is that in pursuit of that "balance", you move the game further and further away from the original. I thought it was a goal to make as little changes as possible? I could be wrong

The other problem is that ppl will never agree on what changes are needed, and what changes are bad, -- there is just no way this community will agree, and I think the frustration has been building up, and are increasing for every change that is made.
Btw, so are the eagerness of some ppl to practically change everything.

In the end, we will have a patch that is very far from the original game, and do we really want that? I can only speak for myself here, but I would NOT like that, at all

[edeholland]

Its a bit of a logical fallacy to claim that because perfection doesnt exist balance cant get better. Of course it wont be perfect, but you can definitely make the balance much better.

My main worry is that in pursuit of that "balance", you move the game further and further away from the original. I thought it was a goal to make as little changes as possible? I could be wrong

Various people have already stated that it's no longer a goal to make as little changes as possible. Read this: https://eso-community.net/viewtopic.php ... 15#p338459

[[Armag] diarouga]

Its a bit of a logical fallacy to claim that because perfection doesnt exist balance cant get better. Of course it wont be perfect, but you can definitely make the balance much better.

My main worry is that in pursuit of that "balance", you move the game further and further away from the original. I thought it was a goal to make as little changes as possible? I could be wrong

Various people have already stated that it's no longer a goal to make as little changes as possible. Read this: https://eso-community.net/viewtopic.php ... 15#p338459

And various people have stated that it's still a goal. So what's the solution, ignore half of the community and make 75% of the players unhappy? Because 50% just don't want to game to change, and 25% will want the game to be fixed but not that way.

[BrookG]

these percentages deserve a poll @deleted_user5

[EAGLEMUT]

If there's one thing that ESOC is bad at internally, it's developing new procedures and carrying out new plans. The idea of an EP panel with high-leveled players and voting has been around for years, but it has never been acted on.

I'm confused, isn't this actually the old way of how EP balance team initially worked, like, pre-EP3?

[[Armag] diarouga]

If there's one thing that ESOC is bad at internally, it's developing new procedures and carrying out new plans. The idea of an EP panel with high-leveled players and voting has been around for years, but it has never been acted on.

I'm confused, isn't this actually the old way of how EP balance team initially worked, like, pre-EP3?

No, it was one dictator (GS) who had the last word. It was okay, since he had all the legitimity (he made the patch, was a top player when he was active, and he would listen to people and make popular changes).
Now, we have a new EP leader, who doesn't have that legitimity, and who wants to change everything, while he doesn't even play rated games/tourney games, so one could think that he doesn't really care about the state of the game, and just wants to play god and conduct some tests with the game.

[Mr_Bramboy]

If there's one thing that ESOC is bad at internally, it's developing new procedures and carrying out new plans. The idea of an EP panel with high-leveled players and voting has been around for years, but it has never been acted on.

I'm confused, isn't this actually the old way of how EP balance team initially worked, like, pre-EP3?

Not really as far as I recall. There were no binding democratic decisions, but recommendations to GS, the team lead. It wasn't ideal but it was better than what we have now.

[momuuu]

If there's one thing that ESOC is bad at internally, it's developing new procedures and carrying out new plans. The idea of an EP panel with high-leveled players and voting has been around for years, but it has never been acted on.

I'm confused, isn't this actually the old way of how EP balance team initially worked, like, pre-EP3?

No, it was one dictator (GS) who had the last word. It was okay, since he had all the legitimity (he made the patch, was a top player when he was active, and he would listen to people and make popular changes).
Now, we have a new EP leader, who doesn't have that legitimity, and who wants to change everything, while he doesn't even play rated games/tourney games, so one could think that he doesn't really care about the state of the game, and just wants to play god and conduct some tests with the game.

Tbh I think Zoi has more legitimacy than Goodspeed had. Goodspeed seemed very biased to me in some aspects.

[91]

If there were big changes in the official patches I really wouldn't mind, but in an unofficial patch it really turns me off. I don't always want to use EP, and it doesn't take many differences for me to get confused when switching patches.

First of all I want to highlight something: Balance at rank 40 is not necessarily balanced at rank 20!. If you balance for top players it might cause issues for rank 15-30 games, so having a perfectly balanced tournament final doesn't mean the majority of people will enjoy playing the game. Not many players are at the top level. Tournaments will feature top players, but civ rules usually force more variety than balance does anyway. People tend to have their favorite civs.

EP with only a few changes:
- Attracts new players easily as it's easy to switch back and forth, no need to go 100% all in
- Gives less reason to switch at all for some
- Less work to balance it, but might sacrifice some of the "perfect" top level balance
- Will put more emphasis on anti-cheat, bugfixes, and maps (which is already awesome)

EP with a lot of changes:
- New strategies and meta will pop up every now and then
- Players who usually use EP are less likely to get tired/bored of it
- Harder to attract new people that don't want to put too much effort into learning, so harder to grow.
- Easier to attract people who do want a change of meta, but alo more competition from other mods/patches
- There will be a lot of drama/discussions about changes.

Obviously there are more arguments for each of the above, and depending on who you ask they could be either a pro or a con.

I don't know how you can ever make everyone happy, but I know that I'd rather see a patch who stands up for their vision and goals than one that goes back and forth on it. Because otherwise you'll just attract player base A, then scare them away, then attract player base B, then scare those away. and so on.

[momuuu]

If there were big changes in the official patches I really wouldn't mind, but in an unofficial patch it really turns me off. I don't always want to use EP, and it doesn't take many differences for me to get confused when switching patches.

First of all I want to highlight something: Balance at rank 40 is not necessarily balanced at rank 20!. If you balance for top players it might cause issues for rank 15-30 games, so having a perfectly balanced tournament final doesn't mean the majority of people will enjoy playing the game. Not many players are at the top level. Tournaments will feature top players, but civ rules usually force more variety than balance does anyway. People tend to have their favorite civs.

EP with only a few changes:
- Attracts new players easily as it's easy to switch back and forth, no need to go 100% all in
- Gives less reason to switch at all for some
- Less work to balance it, but might sacrifice some of the "perfect" top level balance
- Will put more emphasis on anti-cheat, bugfixes, and maps (which is already awesome)

EP with a lot of changes:
- New strategies and meta will pop up every now and then
- Players who usually use EP are less likely to get tired/bored of it
- Harder to attract new people that don't want to put too much effort into learning, so harder to grow.
- Easier to attract people who do want a change of meta, but alo more competition from other mods/patches
- There will be a lot of drama/discussions about changes.

Obviously there are more arguments for each of the above, and depending on who you ask they could be either a pro or a con.

I don't know how you can ever make everyone happy, but I know that I'd rather see a patch who stands up for their vision and goals than one that goes back and forth on it. Because otherwise you'll just attract player base A, then scare them away, then attract player base B, then scare those away. and so on.

I think you missed a third philosophy, a patch that just tries to make the balance good and ignores just about anything else. Otherwise, you are right.

You can't please everyone and I honestly think the community is basically in a threeway split between optimizing balance, balancing a bit while keeping the game similair to RE meta, or making big gameplay changes. At least from what I read, those three camps seem about equal in size. EP will be considered mediocre by all three camps if they try to please everyone. EP should come up with a design philosophy based on what seems realistic and optimal and thus act accordingly.

[BrookG]

First of all I want to highlight something: Balance at rank 40 is not necessarily balanced at rank 20!. If you balance for top players it might cause issues for rank 15-30 games, so having a perfectly balanced tournament final doesn't mean the majority of people will enjoy playing the game. Not many players are at the top level.

Call me blind, but I don't see much truth into that. Can a MU weigh towards one civ when 2 players of pr40 play and the other way when they are pr25? Or is it possible for a MU to be 50-50 at pr40 and 70-30 for pr20? Could it be that the skill of the players is that equal that MU balance doesn't matter at all?

Also, one point that needs a lot of attention is for whom is EP designed? Is it only for those same 40 people that are playing in the late tournament rounds? It sounds pretty undemocratic and unfair for a community patch. Then the biggest part of the community (players between pr20-30) aren't voiced, assuming they don't know anything and they will be pleased regardless.

[dansil92]

First of all I want to highlight something: Balance at rank 40 is not necessarily balanced at rank 20!. If you balance for top players it might cause issues for rank 15-30 games, so having a perfectly balanced tournament final doesn't mean the majority of people will enjoy playing the game. Not many players are at the top level.

Call me blind, but I don't see much truth into that. Can a MU weigh towards one civ when 2 players of pr40 play and the other way when they are pr25? Or is it possible for a MU to be 50-50 at pr40 and 70-30 for pr20? Could it be that the skill of the players is that equal that MU balance doesn't matter at all?

Also, one point that needs a lot of attention is for whom is EP designed? Is it only for those same 40 people that are playing in the late tournament rounds? It sounds pretty undemocratic and unfair for a community patch. Then the biggest part of the community (players between pr20-30) aren't voiced, assuming they don't know anything and they will be pleased regardless.

I would say Japan vs just about most civs is japan favoured at lower levels where opponents struggle to seige shrines, keep the eco penned up and keep military count low simultaneously... japan is far from a top civ in tourney but one of the best for noobs since most pr15-25 players just accuse you of japan laming and think that japan is invincible