The understated case for Zoi

[Goodspeed]

It's clear that many are unaware of how incredibly lucky this community is to have someone like Zoi. The time and passion he’s putting into the EP project are unprecedented, and have been for years even during my time as lead. Zoi is a highly intelligent, hard-working, objective person with a passion for game design and a vast amount of knowledge of AoE3. His only problem is his inability or unwillingness to engage in politics and in the stroking of top players’ egos, which are very large indeed.

You won’t hear me deny how important it is for someone in Zoi’s position to engage in politics. Unfortunately so. And I have tried to explain to him that this is something he needs to get into, but alas his passion is in the tech, and he has little patience for “the softer side”. Perhaps this reminds you of someone you know at work. Maybe it’s you. Think about that person and what they bring to the table. Are they routintely underappreciated?

I hope I can convince you that he is an asset you need to cherish. Please at the very least avoid buying into the negativity, which has always been rampant even before he took over, without doing some critical thinking of your own first. Try instead to look at what he’s doing with objective eyes. Unfortunately not many are coming to his defense, so it’s understandable if you’re leaning towards joining the group of critics, but be aware of how bandwagon mentality can work and how it can drive groups of people to wrong decisions.

I will try to present another perspective in this post. One more in touch with reality.


First I want to address the frequently heard argument that EP7 is diverging from the RE patch too much. I know many will disagree, but I still want to at least make the argument that even if this were the case, it’s what the game needs.

AoE3 players are averse to change, more so than ever these days, and this is understandable because this is the game they know. This is the game they put countless hours into, and they don’t want it to become something else entirely.
On the other hand, the game still has many problems. Not only balance problems, which are as glaring as ever, but design problems as well. I know this isn’t what you want to hear. Like you, I loved the game despite its flaws. But awaken the idealist in you for a second and entertain the idea that it could be so much better.

Let’s look at the quality of games today compared to, well, any point in AoE3 history. On a high level of play the civ variety, build variety and strategic depth today are unprecedented. This is obvious to people who have been playing the game for a while, but maybe less so for those who are relatively new to it. Let’s go back a few years, all the way to the end of the vanilla era in 2006, where Spain was dominant. Does anyone remember tournaments from that time? Well, if you don’t, you didn’t miss much. It was Spain FF vs Spain FF. Sure, other civs were played on a high level, but if you wanted to be on top you played Spain, and you FF’d.
What about the TWC days? Oh hello Iroquois, goodbye everything else. Ah they were nerfed, good, now we’ll all play Dutch instead.
Then came The Asian Dynasties, quite literally. China was pretty broken for a while there, and do we remember WCG 2008? How many of the 14 civs were played in the live event? I don’t remember, but it can’t have been more than 4. And of course, if you weren’t playing Japan every game, you didn’t have a chance to go all the way.
Even in the ASFP era, where there were less issues with certain civs being dominant, high level gameplay wasn’t particularly exciting because the civs were too similar.
And surely I don’t need to remind you of the RE patch days, where we had to ban civs from tournaments to make them worth watching.

Compare that to the varied and entertaining high level tournament games we’re seeing now.

If we achieved so much improvement in variety and game quality with our changes so far, is it a stretch to think the game could improve much more still? Are we not tired of seeing the same units and unit compositions over and over? Do we not want to explore the possibility of balancing or redesigning the late game, thereby enabling the metagame to evolve without having to constrain it to the first 3 ages? Do we not all enjoy watching people like Aizamk get creative with the game and explore other ways of playing? Ways that, without more changes, may forever stay unviable?

And “no” is a possible answer. Maybe we don’t want that. The “establishment” of top players certainly doesn’t want that. But indulge me here, just for a little bit. I want to stress that, with AoE3’s brilliant shipment mechanic and other unique design features, it laid the groundwork for an RTS that could be much better, much richer than the one you’re currently playing. You may not see it, in fact you may not even want to see it, but the potential is there.

But let’s ignore our disagreement on that matter, assuming you do disagree, because as it turns out it’s not all that relevant. Let’s examine the notion that EP7 is aiming to change the game, which in my opinion is not grounded in reality. Let’s look at the notes.

https://wiki.eso-community.net/ESOC_Pat ... istory/7.x

It’s a longer list than we’re used to from EP. That scares us, but let’s filter out the small fixes and extract a list of changes that are somewhat significantly changing the game. They are few.

Crossbowman inaccuracy removed
Praise the Gods. When was the last time you saw a crossbowman?

Trading Posts at minor native settlements now grant a trickle of 0.7xp each
This is, admittedly, a change. A real one. Perhaps the only real change in EP7. But are we, as a community, still not ready to admit to ourselves that the meta on maps without trade routes is comparatively strategically bankrupt?

"Black Flag" banner-army changed from 3 Arquebusiers and 1 Flamethrower to 4 Changdao Swordsmen and 2 Meteor Hammers; cost changed from 170w, 425c to 380f, 350c; train-points decreased from 40 to 33; moved from Castle to War Academy; description and Summer Palace updated accordingly
It’s effectively a new banner army, and one that China may find very useful in rounding out their composition. While it’s doubtful that this will affect the meta much (it’s not intended to, so it will be tweaked if that is the case) I do think the concern that China’s weakness to cavalry is part of its identity is a valid one.

Taj Mahal "Cease Fire" ability duration decreased from 20 to 15 seconds; now also halves all military unit speed
This may change the meta in that India will have a harder time abusing the cease fire ability. But are we sad about that?

Portuguese
- 100f added to starting crates
- Berry and hunting gather-rates increased by 5%
- Settler cost increased from 85f to 100f
This might change things. But it’s actually moving EP closer to the RE patch.

Other players can no longer see if "2x" shipments have been sent, via deck inspection.
Were we really a fan of players getting to scout Japan for free?

Ultimately I count 6 changes that might be impactful to the meta, one of which moves the game closer to the RE patch, and I’m being pretty generous with my definition of impactful. The game is not changing. Please do not fall into the trap of seeing a big change list and a couple of vocal critics and sounding the alarm. If you know and like EP6, you will know and like EP7. In fact, I would go so far as to say that if you know and like the RE patch, you will know and like EP7.

Try the ASFP 1.2 patch notes and see what “changing the game” actually looks like.
https://www.rts-sanctuary.com/Age-Of-Em ... pic=136145 (scroll down to the 5th post).


Then there’s the complaint that Zoi does not listen to feedback from top players. This hits home for me, because being told that I wasn’t listening to feedback was my biggest frustration during my tenure as EP lead. The truth of the matter is that everyone wants to make their own patch. Everyone knows best. Keeping everyone happy is literally literally (not a typo, just emphasizing I actually mean literally since the word has apparently lost all meaning these days) impossible. And I understand that it feels like a slight when you spend time giving feedback and then don’t see your ideas implemented in the patch notes, but there are so many ideas out there. So many opinions.

Zoi is one of the few people I know who genuinely takes feedback to heart. For the EP project, he spends a significant amount of time discussing changes with top players. Much more than I did, in fact. As a result he has scrapped, tweaked, and added changes left and right. He absolutely listens to feedback. But we have to remember that being a top player doesn’t mean you’re automatically right about everything. What do you do as patch lead when top players disagree about something, which they invariably do? And what do you do when they don’t want to take the time to explain their reasoning in depth, and you’re left with an opinion unsupported by arguments?

Remember that uhlan HP change people love to complain about? That was Mitoe’s idea. I mean that as a compliment, for the record, because it’s a great change. In spite of this, Zoi has spent a significant amount of time searching for alternatives. He even still brings it up to me sometimes, arguing that its unpopularity alone may be a good enough reason to replace it and asking my opinion about alternatives. He’s not doing this because he thinks it’s a bad change, but because of feedback. The point here is that he’s willing to consider replacing a change he considers to be good just because it’s unpopular.

So if, in the end, the community collectively wants EP to go back to its minimalist policy, it will. Many changes were in fact scrapped from EP6 based on feedback. But one more thing we should remember about EP feedback is that the people who are most averse to change are also the most vocal. Which brings me to my final point.


EP’s minimalist policy was never all that popular. There were often people wondering why we weren’t changing more, and these were typically the kind of community members you would hear from only occasionally, i.e. not as vocal. Our minimalist policy was popular among top players and the established community “elite”, but not so much among the broader community. And this makes sense, considering the established elite is more invested in the status quo.
Does this remind anyone else of politics?

It follows that one thing we should be avoiding is making decisions based on only the opinions of our established elite, and forgetting the opinions of the community as a whole. Zoi has expanded my effort to poll the community about the patch and is asking about individual changes as well as balance, to get a better idea of where the community stands on certain changes and on the project as a whole. This is another sign that he does indeed take feedback very seriously. All feedback.

Considering the fact that, shortly after EP releases, people are typically alarmist about how the patch is about to change everything and ruin their favorite civ, it’s a good sign that ⅔ of the community voted EP7 to be better than EP6 shortly after its release. viewtopic.php?f=19&t=18759


With DE on the way and EP potentially more important than ever, the community needs to understand the value of someone as dedicated and passionate about the project as Zoi is. If the developers come knocking, for the love of God send them his way. And if DE does its own thing and inevitably ends up a broken mess, please remember you have this priceless resource to help you get it back on track with community patches.

Thanks for reading and best of luck with it all.

TL;DR Be nice to Zoi please.

[TheNameDaniel]

Insane post, perhaps this time could be used more wisely to test the new coronavirus vaccines.

[aaryngend]

Nice wall of text, but there is a huge mistake in it: Please use the ASFP1.1a in your argument instead of ASFP 1.2, as the latter was barely tested and kind of rushed out. When people think of the old fan patches, they think of the ASFP 1.0 (which only did little balancing and was very close to the last RE patch) and the ASFP1.1a.
ASFP 1.2 should just be forgotten. Right after it came out SC2 hit the shelves
It also changed way too many things and is comparable to the current EP7 in the scope of big changes.

[Mr_Bramboy]

I don't agree with your post, but I appreciate the voice from the other side I suppose.

Let’s look at the quality of games today compared to, well, any point in AoE3 history. On a high level of play the civ variety, build variety and strategic depth today are unprecedented. This is obvious to people who have been playing the game for a while, but maybe less so for those who are relatively new to it. Let’s go back a few years, all the way to the end of the vanilla era in 2006, where Spain was dominant. Does anyone remember tournaments from that time? Well, if you don’t, you didn’t miss much. It was Spain FF vs Spain FF. Sure, other civs were played on a high level, but if you wanted to be on top you played Spain, and you FF’d.
What about the TWC days? Oh hello Iroquois, goodbye everything else. Ah they were nerfed, good, now we’ll all play Dutch instead.
Then came The Asian Dynasties, quite literally. China was pretty broken for a while there, and do we remember WCG 2008? How many of the 14 civs were played in the live event? I don’t remember, but it can’t have been more than 4. And of course, if you weren’t playing Japan every game, you didn’t have a chance to go all the way.
Even in the ASFP era, where there were less issues with certain civs being dominant, high level gameplay wasn’t particularly exciting because the civs were too similar.
And surely I don’t need to remind you of the RE patch days, where we had to ban civs from tournaments to make them worth watching.

I don't think it is a question whether or not EP7 is better than RE 1.03. The question is whether EP7 is better than EP6 or EP5. That's what the discussion is about. Tournaments nowadays are better than ever before primarily due to ESOC maps and the ESOC patch; there is no question about it.

You proceed to list six arguably good EP7 changes. The Chinese change is the only one that I still find strange, and the Japanese deck checking change is one that I was originally not a fan of but have gotten used to. Trading Posts granting an XP trickle has its obvious flaws that I hope to see highlighted in the upcoming weekend tournament and EPL2. What you don't mention are the magnitude of other terrible changes that were forced into the patch with no discourse within the community whatsoever. Halberdier changes, envoy train time changes, samurai/yabusame changes, et cetera et cetera. Not to mention some of the planned EP8 changes. (+60% guard xbow attack ???)

EP's minimalist vs. the current policy is a question that I believe we cannot answer at the time. Does the current policy attract more players, or does it scare them away? Changing the mahout from a lancer to a cuirassier is something that belongs in WoL, not in EP in my opinion. There's a reason EP's minimalist policy was popular among 'the elite': because those elites are playing the tournaments and providing the entertainment for the viewers.

Zoi might listen to your feedback, but if the experience among top players is negative, then that surely says something. Some people like Hazza have given up entirely trying to talk sense into Zoi. While Hazza is definitely not the most diplomatic and sensible person in the community, he is a good player and his words should be heeded carefully.

My biggest pickle with Zoi is the way he brings forward his changes. We are presented with a list of 50+ changes, most of which are irrelevant to the meta as you said. It would be better to list ~5 changes and work from there. Changing halberdiers and envoys is not going to impact anything; all it does is clutter the patch notes and mess up players' incentive to contribute towards a meaningful patch.

Also, diarouga's poll is a joke. That post was created maybe one day after the release of EP7. I'm biased, but I get the feeling people voted EP7 to annoy diarouga, and some other people voted EP6 in a knee-jerk reaction to EP7's patch notes.

[chronique]

ASFP 1.2 should just be forgotten.

Looks pretty intersting patch, china was nerfed age 3 and native was buffed with xp trickle.

[Goodspeed]

Nice wall of text, but there is a huge mistake in it: Please use the ASFP1.1a in your argument instead of ASFP 1.2, as the latter was barely tested and kind of rushed out. When people think of the old fan patches, they think of the ASFP 1.0 (which only did little balancing and was very close to the last RE patch) and the ASFP1.1a.
ASFP 1.2 should just be forgotten. Right after it came out SC2 hit the shelves
It also changed way too many things and is comparable to the current EP7 in the scope of big changes.

It was an example to show what changing the game looks like. If you really think it's comparable to EP7 in scope, you are mistaken.
Very striking also is the difference in response (scroll past 1.2 notes to see it).

[aaryngend]

It was an example to show what changing the game looks like. If you really think it's comparable to EP7 in scope, you are mistaken.
Very striking also is the difference in response.

How am I mistaken? EP7 changed a looot of things, ASFP 1.2 changed a loooot of things. I didn't mean scope as in the total thing, but the fact that lots of areas of the game got touched and changed, i.e. no minimalistic approach.

Looks pretty intersting patch, china was nerfed age 3 and native was buffed with xp trickle.

It also almost completely eradicated any kind of unique traits every civ had, standardizing them into French 2.0.

[Goodspeed]

My entire point was that EP7 may have a long change list, but that doesn't mean it's changing the game. To illustrate: You have a list of a 100 changes where units are getting +1 HP and other minor stat changes, versus 1 change that says "the game now starts in colonial age". Which is changing the game more?

[princeofcarthage]

My entire point was that EP7 may have a long change list, but that doesn't mean it's changing the game. To illustrate: You have a list of a 100 changes where units are getting +1 HP and other minor stat changes, versus 1 change that says "the game now starts in colonial age". Which is changing the game more?

+1 HP can entirely change how a unit works thereby changing its viability and use. For ex. Uhlans are paper at 189 hp and okay/good at 190 hp. Take that into account for 100 units and you completely upset the inter-working relation between units.

PS: My post is completely unrelated to OP and in no way taking any sides.

[Kaiserklein]

I stopped reading at "His only problem is his inability or unwillingness to engage in politics and in the stroking of top players’ egos". This alone is so wrong and doesn't make me want to keep reading. You basically act as if Zoi is perfect, except he doesn't bother manipulating top players, lol.

In fact, Zoi's ego (and your faith in him) is disproportionate. You both think he's smarter than all the top players and we're just biased and spoiled bitches, basically. It's easy to repel any criticism like that. But you probably have no idea how many hours I've spent discussing with him, and how stubborn and wrong he can sometimes be. I'm talking about extremely tedious and pointless conversations, about petty matters that could be fixed way more easily.

You're honestly being very biased as a former patch leader, and most importantly as Zoi's friend. And you're basically pulling a dontay, "everyone is against me because everyone is dumb". No, trust me, Zoi has done some things very wrongly, and it's not just about "politics".


Now don't get me wrong. I'm not saying Zoi is a bad patch leader or anything. I think he's good for the job and has done some good work overall. Just the way he does it is extremely frustrating for everyone, plus it prevents the patch from improving more, as it could if Zoi listened more to other people, and stopped overly caring about some petty matters when trying to balance and design the patch.

It's sad, because beyond EP, this will impact DE. And I really don't want DE to be less popular because of a few nonsensical changes. After all, in that context, the popularity of changes should be the priority, shouldn't it?


I could say a lot more on the matter, including examples and stuff, but I've spent enough time arguing about all this, and it doesn't change a thing anyway. Just keep in mind I've been one of the few top players who defended and helped Zoi for a very long time, if that's worth anything to value my opinion.

[aaryngend]

My entire point was that EP7 may have a long change list, but that doesn't mean it's changing the game. To illustrate: You have a list of a 100 changes where units are getting +1 HP and other minor stat changes, versus 1 change that says "the game now starts in colonial age". Which is changing the game more?

I get your analogy, but changes still add up. I doubt all these EP7 changes are only minor touchups, they do change the game and the meta by a lot. Else people like diarouga, Kaiserklein and Hazza54321 wouldn't be complaining.

[chronique]

It also almost completely eradicated any kind of unique traits every civ had, standardizing them into French 2.0.

I did a mistake lol, when i said native i mean "tp native" and its "without xp trickle".

[jesus3]

Zoi is da GOAT. Like, he's indeed a goat. Look at his Skype profile pic if you still have doubts

In all seriousness though, I know he really takes the whole thing seriously and is trying to incorporate as many (also top level) opinions as possible until concluding the "best" changes. He also consistently underlies his changes with data. It's the very nature of EP changes that there are some people who won't like certain changes. Of course, being the "one in power" makes every mistake weigh more and I think we can all agree that nobody is perfect. It also enables people to cross the line from "professional" criticism to personal attacks faster and imo that line is being crossed way too often.
You may all have your personal opinions about him as a person (at least his internet persona for that matter), but that shouldn't matter unless it's obviously linked to a certain mistake in EP changes

GreetzZzzz

[Goodspeed]

I stopped reading at "His only problem is his inability or unwillingness to engage in politics and in the stroking of top players’ egos". This alone is so wrong and doesn't make me want to keep reading. You basically act as if Zoi is perfect, except he doesn't bother manipulating top players, lol.

You're not the only top player. And zoi isn't perfect. The fact that he has no patience for the political aspect is a flaw indeed. Excuse my big ego comment. I got carried away a little, was thinking of a specific incident.

In fact, Zoi's ego (and your faith in him) is disproportionate. You both think he's smarter than all the top players and we're just biased and spoiled bitches, basically.

I do not think that.

But you probably have no idea how many hours I've spent discussing with him, and how stubborn and wrong he can sometimes be. I'm talking about extremely tedious and pointless conversations, about petty matters that could be fixed way more easily.

Oh, I can guess. You want to compare numbers? I think you could probably drive from here to China on a road paved with discussions between him and me. Of course he's wrong sometimes. We're all wrong sometimes. And yes, it can get tedious, but his attention to detail is not pointless or petty. Protip: You don't have to respond to everything. Be selective

[Riotcoke]

The fact that he has no pateience for the social aspect isn't just a flaw, it makes him unable to do the job. Being able to talk to people in a role that is all about knowing people's opinions is a key tennant anyone leading a community based patch needs. Therefore it's obvious that he's not fit for the job.

[[Armag] diarouga]

It's clear that many are unaware of how incredibly lucky this community is to have someone like Zoi. The time and passion he’s putting into the EP project are unprecedented, and have been for years even during my time as lead. Zoi is a highly intelligent, hard-working, objective person with a passion for game design and a vast amount of knowledge of AoE3. His only problem is his inability or unwillingness to engage in politics and in the stroking of top players’ egos, which are very large indeed.

It's more than just politics honestly.
1. He takes him way too much time to answer people's concern (and that's when he does it). And when you criticize a change and get no answer, you think that he doesn't care about your concerns. And actually, I do think that he totally ignores some of the concerns.
2. When he decides to answer, he's always extremely patronizing and tries to explain why you're totally wrong and he knows better than everybody.
If it were just politics, it would only be words but in fact, his decisions also show that he doesn't really care about some feedbacks. For instance, as far as I know, he decided to implement EP8 without asking players' opinion about it.

First I want to address the frequently heard argument that EP7 is diverging from the RE patch too much. I know many will disagree, but I still want to at least make the argument that even if this were the case, it’s what the game needs.

How can you be so sure that it's what the game needs ? I myself can't say if that's what the game needs. What I can say however, is that it's not what I want, and in my opinion, it's not what the game needs.
You're criticizing the top players' ego, but this kind of statement shows that your egos are actually very big as well, you think that you know better than the top players, and it's more than just an opinion.

Let’s look at the quality of games today compared to, well, any point in AoE3 history. On a high level of play the civ variety, build variety and strategic depth today are unprecedented. This is obvious to people who have been playing the game for a while, but maybe less so for those who are relatively new to it. Let’s go back a few years, all the way to the end of the vanilla era in 2006, where Spain was dominant. Does anyone remember tournaments from that time? Well, if you don’t, you didn’t miss much. It was Spain FF vs Spain FF. Sure, other civs were played on a high level, but if you wanted to be on top you played Spain, and you FF’d.
What about the TWC days? Oh hello Iroquois, goodbye everything else. Ah they were nerfed, good, now we’ll all play Dutch instead.
Then came The Asian Dynasties, quite literally. China was pretty broken for a while there, and do we remember WCG 2008? How many of the 14 civs were played in the live event? I don’t remember, but it can’t have been more than 4. And of course, if you weren’t playing Japan every game, you didn’t have a chance to go all the way.
Even in the ASFP era, where there were less issues with certain civs being dominant, high level gameplay wasn’t particularly exciting because the civs were too similar.
And surely I don’t need to remind you of the RE patch days, where we had to ban civs from tournaments to make them worth watching.

I'm not sure what your point is here. You want to prove that the game design needs to change and that maps and balance can't do it alone.
So far, you're only giving examples of why the game was worse because the balance was worse. Of course, when the balance is bad, there is less civ variety, of course you see less strategic depth when you have to play on low hunt maps. So what ?
It shows that we need to improve the balance and have good maps, don't see what it has to do with the game design.

If we achieved so much improvement in variety and game quality with our changes so far, is it a stretch to think the game could improve much more still?

No, we can still improve the balance and have new maps.

Do we not want to explore the possibility of balancing or redesigning the late game, thereby enabling the metagame to evolve without having to constrain it to the first 3 ages?

Haha, nice one. We want to redesign late game, but so far it hasn't been Zoi's goal (or I missed the relevant changes to late game). Honestly, late game is slightly better than on RE currently but barely, the difference is very small.
And tell me, how are you going to "enable the meta to evolve" so that the games don't end in age 3 ?
The reason why the games don't go to age 4/5 in 1v1 is that you need to push to get the map control, because the maps are small and don't have infinite resource in base in 1v1. In 3v3, maps are larger and have more resource, which is why the games often go to industrial, or even imperial.
It proves my point again, if you want to change the meta, make new maps, the game design is fine as it is.

And “no” is a possible answer. Maybe we don’t want that. The “establishment” of top players certainly doesn’t want that.

You're quite good at politics gotta admit. "The selfish top players don't want the game to be better for the community because they wouldn't be top players anymore" xD. That's wrong, though, we do think that the game has some flaws, we disagree about how many flaws it has however, and we have different opinions on how to fix these.

Trading Posts at minor native settlements now grant a trickle of 0.7xp each
This is, admittedly, a change. A real one. Perhaps the only real change in EP7. But are we, as a community, still not ready to admit to ourselves that the meta on maps without trade routes is comparatively strategically bankrupt?

No TP maps are a big balance and design issue, that's for sure.
My solution would be to remove no TP maps from tournaments and competitive play because they're not competitive, and that's actually what this change does.
It basically turns a native TP into a normal TP, which means that no TP maps are now TP maps. What's wrong with that ? Well, aside from the fact that you're manipulating the community by doing that (because you should just replace the native TPs by normal TPs if that's your goal), it creates 2 big issues :
1. Natives aren't balanced, and when the natives aren't useless it's a balance issue as it gives your a free rax. For instance, you can deny a fb if you age early.
2. It makes ATP way too strong on normal maps, and the ATP nerf isn't going to be enough to compensate that. On High plains you can now take 7 TPs with ATP, what a joke, 5 was already too strong.

So basically, you're turning no TP maps into TP maps with a balance change because it's not politically correct to remove no TP maps from the game, and you create balance issues because of that.

Ultimately I count 6 changes that might be impactful to the meta, one of which moves the game closer to the RE patch, and I’m being pretty generous with my definition of impactful. The game is not changing. Please do not fall into the trap of seeing a big change list and a couple of vocal critics and sounding the alarm. If you know and like EP6, you will know and like EP7. In fact, I would go so far as to say that if you know and like the RE patch, you will know and like EP7.

You forgot some changes. Cba to read the patch notes because it's too long but these changes seem relevant :
- TC aura for TPs is removed
- Random crates for China

I'm quite sure there are at least 10 big changes in EP 7, and they make the game less enjoyable imo. They're small changes of course, but by adding many small changes, you end up getting further and further away from the RE patch.
The question is not whether EP7 is better than RE or not, because it is since it was built on good patches with better maps, it's "Are we making the game better with this new patch ?". And in my opinon, the answer is no.

Then there’s the complaint that Zoi does not listen to feedback from top players. This hits home for me, because being told that I wasn’t listening to feedback was my biggest frustration during my tenure as EP lead. The truth of the matter is that everyone wants to make their own patch. Everyone knows best. Keeping everyone happy is literally literally (not a typo, just emphasizing I actually mean literally since the word has apparently lost all meaning these days) impossible. And I understand that it feels like a slight when you spend time giving feedback and then don’t see your ideas implemented in the patch notes, but there are so many ideas out there. So many opinions.

Well, one sure thing is that people don't feel like they're being listened.
You used to listen and show that you understood people's concerns, but I'll give you that it's just politics.

It's also totally normal that Zoi doesn't implement every suggestion for obvious reasons. However, when you take a look at EP7, or even worse, at EP8, you see that almost all the changes are Zoi's ideas. Thus it's fair to say that he does ignore the suggestions and considers that his ideas are better ie he knows best. And this is not just politics.
Another big issue is that he announces that he's going to make a list of change, and it's your job as a player to prove that some of the changes are bad, it's not how it should work.

When you were EP leader, it was your job to convince us that the changes were good, and it worked quite well. Now people are negative because they're not listened and they need to make a lot of effort to remove a bad change.

What do you do as patch lead when top players disagree about something, which they invariably do? And what do you do when they don’t want to take the time to explain their reasoning in depth, and you’re left with an opinion unsupported by arguments?

It's a hard situation when people disagree, you're right on this. When there's a consensus however, it should be quite easy to make a change, and Zoi doesn't implement the suggestions, even when all the top players agree that this is a good suggestion.
Back to my point, it tells us that Zoi doesn't really listen to people.

EP’s minimalist policy was never all that popular.

It was. Some people disagreed but from what I know, it was popular.

It follows that one thing we should be avoiding is making decisions based on only the opinions of our established elite, and forgetting the opinions of the community as a whole.

Can you stop with that "top player conspiracy" please ? Top players have a better knowledge of the game, and that's one of the reasons why they're better.
Furthermore, the game has to be balanced for the top players. It's a general rule, that's what they do in Starcraft II, although some races are easier to play at lower level.

With DE on the way and EP potentially more important than ever, the community needs to understand the value of someone as dedicated and passionate about the project as Zoi is.

With DE on the way we need a patch everybody likes because everybody will have to play on this patch.
DE is the worst time to test things and split the community. That's why Zoi should try to create a consensus among the community (which isn't a hard thing to do), instead of making the changes he likes .

TLDR :
1. If you want the meta to evolve, make new maps, you don't need to redesign the whole game.
2. Zoi tries his best but he should listen more to the suggestions instead of taking all the decisions alone.
3. For DE we need to reach a consensus, it's not the right time to test stuff.

[[Armag] diarouga]

I don't agree with your post, but I appreciate the voice from the other side I suppose.

Let’s look at the quality of games today compared to, well, any point in AoE3 history. On a high level of play the civ variety, build variety and strategic depth today are unprecedented. This is obvious to people who have been playing the game for a while, but maybe less so for those who are relatively new to it. Let’s go back a few years, all the way to the end of the vanilla era in 2006, where Spain was dominant. Does anyone remember tournaments from that time? Well, if you don’t, you didn’t miss much. It was Spain FF vs Spain FF. Sure, other civs were played on a high level, but if you wanted to be on top you played Spain, and you FF’d.
What about the TWC days? Oh hello Iroquois, goodbye everything else. Ah they were nerfed, good, now we’ll all play Dutch instead.
Then came The Asian Dynasties, quite literally. China was pretty broken for a while there, and do we remember WCG 2008? How many of the 14 civs were played in the live event? I don’t remember, but it can’t have been more than 4. And of course, if you weren’t playing Japan every game, you didn’t have a chance to go all the way.
Even in the ASFP era, where there were less issues with certain civs being dominant, high level gameplay wasn’t particularly exciting because the civs were too similar.
And surely I don’t need to remind you of the RE patch days, where we had to ban civs from tournaments to make them worth watching.

I don't think it is a question whether or not EP7 is better than RE 1.03. The question is whether EP7 is better than EP6 or EP5. That's what the discussion is about. Tournaments nowadays are better than ever before primarily due to ESOC maps and the ESOC patch; there is no question about it.

You proceed to list six arguably good EP7 changes. The Chinese change is the only one that I still find strange, and the Japanese deck checking change is one that I was originally not a fan of but have gotten used to. Trading Posts granting an XP trickle has its obvious flaws that I hope to see highlighted in the upcoming weekend tournament and EPL2. What you don't mention are the magnitude of other terrible changes that were forced into the patch with no discourse within the community whatsoever. Halberdier changes, envoy train time changes, samurai/yabusame changes, et cetera et cetera. Not to mention some of the planned EP8 changes. (+60% guard xbow attack ???)

EP's minimalist vs. the current policy is a question that I believe we cannot answer at the time. Does the current policy attract more players, or does it scare them away? Changing the mahout from a lancer to a cuirassier is something that belongs in WoL, not in EP in my opinion. There's a reason EP's minimalist policy was popular among 'the elite': because those elites are playing the tournaments and providing the entertainment for the viewers.

Zoi might listen to your feedback, but if the experience among top players is negative, then that surely says something. Some people like Hazza have given up entirely trying to talk sense into Zoi. While Hazza is definitely not the most diplomatic and sensible person in the community, he is a good player and his words should be heeded carefully.

My biggest pickle with Zoi is the way he brings forward his changes. We are presented with a list of 50+ changes, most of which are irrelevant to the meta as you said. It would be better to list ~5 changes and work from there. Changing halberdiers and envoys is not going to impact anything; all it does is clutter the patch notes and mess up players' incentive to contribute towards a meaningful patch.

Also, diarouga's poll is a joke. That post was created maybe one day after the release of EP7. I'm biased, but I get the feeling people voted EP7 to annoy diarouga, and some other people voted EP6 in a knee-jerk reaction to EP7's patch notes.

People totally voted against me in that poll, as I was more unpopular than ever, not against EP 7.

[aqwer]

@Goodspeed
Very nice writing. In my personal opinion, things are getting better with every patch, at least from viewers perspective.
Why?
Because aoe3 has lot of mismanaged strategical assets the hinder us to use the full potential of the game. Same type of bot play is kinda boring. The reason that the options were limited or sub par. EP at least tried to expand the limits of strategies and its impact is very positive.
Keep up the good work.

P. S. ASFP has some very nice changes, we can adopt more from there.

[[Armag] diarouga]

The fact that he has no pateience for the social aspect isn't just a flaw, it makes him unable to do the job. Being able to talk to people in a role that is all about knowing people's opinions is a key tennant anyone leading a community based patch needs. Therefore it's obvious that he's not fit for the job.

Exactly, if he's bad at the social aspect, he should be an adviser, not the leader.

[chronique]

I'm sad to see where this discussion is going :( .

The only stuff i want to talk is "why a change is done" and "if peaple are agree". I realy don't want talking about peaple psychologic.

So plsssssss dont make my cry.

[Kaiserklein]

You're not the only top player. And zoi isn't perfect. The fact that he has no patience for the political aspect is a flaw indeed. Excuse my big ego comment. I got carried away a little, was thinking of a specific incident.

I didn't mean I'm the only top player at all, not sure what's that about. But okay

I do not think that.

Okay I exaggerated, but you still said you'd take Zoi over all the top players together to lead the EP.

Oh, I can guess. You want to compare numbers? I think you could probably drive from here to China on a road paved with discussions between him and me. Of course he's wrong sometimes. We're all wrong sometimes. And yes, it can get tedious, but his attention to detail is not pointless or petty. Protip: You don't have to respond to everything. Be selective

I'm not trying to compare. Just saying I'm not talking out of my ass, I've discussed enough with him to know he has sometimes very flawed views on the game, and very stubborn about it. To a point where even if there's basically a consensus among top players, he might just not really care. For reasons I call petty, such as cross patch compatibility. But I think I've explained my point enough times and you know what I mean

[harcha]

Okay I exaggerated, but you still said you'd take Zoi over all the top players together to lead the EP.

Is there anyone actually stepping up to put all the work in and lead it instead of Zoi?

[gamevideo113]

The DE will probably be out at the end of the year. I think now is a good time to experiment. I'd much rather experiment now with ESOC people rather than experiment later when the clueless DE devs decide to spice stuff up and make a plethora of changes without having an idea of how this game works.
AoE2 DE is still seeing a lot of support and balance adjustments, so, even if we don't get to the point of perfect balance by the time the DE is released, we can still end up with a decently balanced DE.

[Bucknasty]

the patch has now become what it said it wouldnt......it’s not even close to the original game.

[[Armag] diarouga]

Okay I exaggerated, but you still said you'd take Zoi over all the top players together to lead the EP.

Is there anyone actually stepping up to put all the work in and lead it instead of Zoi?

I'm quite sure some top players would do it, yes.
Also it doesn't have to be just one person. I remember someone once suggested that it could be a team of 5-7 person who would vote the changes (which could inclue Zoi btw).