The level of play is much higher now than in 2005-2010

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France [Armag] diarouga
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Re: The level of play is much higher now than in 2005-2010

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

it’s just ‘easier’ to learn the most efficient builds. As soon as the game moves beyond that point the skill level returns to what it’s always been.
It's more than just build orders, it's also general game understanding, plans, unit compositions and timings.
It's easier to learn and improve at the game, thus players are better now. Today's players aren't more talented, but they're better.
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Re: The level of play is much higher now than in 2005-2010

Post by princeofcarthage »

So basically today's players are bots. Okay.
Fine line to something great is a strange change.
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Re: The level of play is much higher now than in 2005-2010

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Post by [Armag] diarouga »

No, they've just learnt the game. If you learn math stuffs at school instead of figuring it out yourself, does it mean that you're a bot ?
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Post by Guigs »

[Armag] diarouga wrote:No, they've just learnt the game. If you learn math stuffs at school instead of figuring it out yourself, does it mean that you're a bot ?
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Re: The level of play is much higher now than in 2005-2010

Post by Peachrocks »

Ehhh the game is certainly more robotic then it once was. Sure certain skills of learning exactly how the builds work and what your opponent is going to do is a skill, it’s nowhere near as adaptive or to put it another way ‘suboptimal’ as it once was.

I agree with @Diarouga though that players aren’t more talented but better. As I already said as soon as the game moves beyond what they know and the usual structure, the skill level falls off significantly. At least from where I sit.

It’s understandable why players would get referred to as ‘bots’ because they malfunction when things happen against their programming or when the game goes beyond what they’ve been programmed to learn. It’s just especially in 1vs1 this is very very rare.
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Re: The level of play is much higher now than in 2005-2010

Post by chris1089 »

[Armag] diarouga wrote:No, they've just learnt the game. If you learn math stuffs at school instead of figuring it out yourself, does it mean that you're a bot ?
The bot is the person who applies a math method they have learnt without understanding the concept, which in the UK at least you can do more or less up to end of high school.
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Re: The level of play is much higher now than in 2005-2010

Post by [Armag] diarouga »

chris1089 wrote:
[Armag] diarouga wrote:No, they've just learnt the game. If you learn math stuffs at school instead of figuring it out yourself, does it mean that you're a bot ?
The bot is the person who applies a math method they have learnt without understanding the concept, which in the UK at least you can do more or less up to end of high school.
Top30 players obviously understand the concepts. There are some bots lower in the ladder ofc.
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Re: The level of play is much higher now than in 2005-2010

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Post by aaryngend »

The argument that people have more content nowadays to learn from only benefits the low to medium spectrum.
Top and high ranked players don't need streams, guides, etc. they have their own practice buddies and play against the cream of the crop anyway. They don't benefit as much from streams and guides as the rest of the crowd.

@Peachrocks: you never cease to amaze me with how you can incorporate a potshot at Japan in every post you make. We could literally talk about grass growing and you would find a way to implement anti-japan lamentations one way or another :hehe:
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Re: The level of play is much higher now than in 2005-2010

Post by jumhana »

Not only people watch recorded games for BOs. They also learn the micro as well. I think the rush meta is dying because people learn:
-How to use less wood to build wall
-How to time a shipment with MM, age up bonus, and settlers so they all pop together from TC.
-How to design a base that gives you the defender advantage
-How to scout properly what your opponent is doing.
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Re: The level of play is much higher now than in 2005-2010

Post by Peachrocks »

aaryngend wrote:
@Peachrocks: you never cease to amaze me with how you can incorporate a potshot at Japan in every post you make. We could literally talk about grass growing and you would find a way to implement anti-japan lamentations one way or another :hehe:
Sorry but I really dislike when games allow you to ignore significant parts of them and Japan is a master of this. Also honestly I stopped playing 1vs1 quick search after 5 Japan games in a row. Civ sucks all the fun out of the game for me for so many reasons. Plus honestly it’s relevant. Ironically back in those days Spain was the same which is why I made the comparison.

Also would people rather I talk about nats, outlaws, revolts and other unused concepts and how most players don’t even need to know 70%+ of the game instead?

Also @jumhana the point about making all your units pop out at the same time is older then TWC. It’s the biggest reason why Spain could ignore rushes while doing their brainless FF because they could just ship 7 rods, get 6 minutemen, train 5 dogs and have 4 Huss or 8 pike come out of the tc at the same time and you could never scout it, other than assume it’s coming. There’s a reason Spain was nerfed from their vanilla glory days.
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Re: The level of play is much higher now than in 2005-2010

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Post by Riotcoke »

@Peachrocks 100 percent i know all about the unused concepts of the game, nobody cares about them for good reason, as they're for fun and this is primarily a competetive website for the game.

Also just so you know a lot of the niche stuff can be used at a higher level i.e Aiz & Kaiser's old outlaw builds on RE & EP. Just because people like playing and getting better doesn't mean what you do is bad, it just means they're better.

Knowing crappy niche stuff does not make you good at the game unfortunately.
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Re: The level of play is much higher now than in 2005-2010

Post by Squamiger »

this conversation reminds me of the discussions around WoW when the WoW Classic remake came out like a year and a half ago. People had so many memories of vanilla WoW raids being extremely challenging back in 2004-2006, and people got mad when the old raids seemed super easy in 2019. People assumed that the developers had tweaked the game to make the raids easier and more accessible to casuals because they weren't nearly as hard as they remember, but no-- the truth is, people just have SO much more access to optimal strats and gear options and talent builds now than they did back in those days, that were even pre-youtube, basically. Information about the optimal way to play just travels at light speed and disseminates so easily and broadly now compared to the mid-2000s. So people aren't necessarily more skilled, but your average player can just play at a much higher level in general because they have so many more resources.
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Re: The level of play is much higher now than in 2005-2010

Post by Peachrocks »

Riotcoke wrote:@Peachrocks 100 percent i know all about the unused concepts of the game, nobody cares about them for good reason, as they're for fun and this is primarily a competetive website for the game.

Also just so you know a lot of the niche stuff can be used at a higher level i.e Aiz & Kaiser's old outlaw builds on RE & EP. Just because people like playing and getting better doesn't mean what you do is bad, it just means they're better.

Knowing crappy niche stuff does not make you good at the game unfortunately.
Or any game for that matter. Almost all games these days are about perfect mastery of 5-30% and being completely ignorant of the rest.

The only reason 'nobody' cares is preference of how the game should be played. This is an unpopular opinion and I really need to stop voicing it, even as a joke. Anyway this is REALLY off topic.
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Re: The level of play is much higher now than in 2005-2010

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Post by chronique »

Peaple are better now because we have that :
strategy-wall

:biggrin:
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Re: The level of play is much higher now than in 2005-2010

Post by jumhana »

@Peachrocks wow I didn't know about that. I only watched it happened twice, during H2O vs Mongo10 and Aizamk vs Yurashic. But my points still stand, that new players have more access to resources to watch elite players and get better understanding about the game. Especially when the game is casted by good casters that give play by play breakdowns on what is happening on the map.
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Re: The level of play is much higher now than in 2005-2010

Post by jumhana »

chronique wrote:Peaple are better now because we have that :
strategy-wall

:biggrin:
While I agree with you that strategy wall has been helping me a lot but don't forget there is also aoe3.heavengames.com which is basically where the players would discuss their strategies back then.
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Re: The level of play is much higher now than in 2005-2010

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Post by Riotcoke »

Peachrocks wrote:
Riotcoke wrote:@Peachrocks 100 percent i know all about the unused concepts of the game, nobody cares about them for good reason, as they're for fun and this is primarily a competetive website for the game.

Also just so you know a lot of the niche stuff can be used at a higher level i.e Aiz & Kaiser's old outlaw builds on RE & EP. Just because people like playing and getting better doesn't mean what you do is bad, it just means they're better.

Knowing crappy niche stuff does not make you good at the game unfortunately.
Or any game for that matter. Almost all games these days are about perfect mastery of 5-30% and being completely ignorant of the rest.

The only reason 'nobody' cares is preference of how the game should be played. This is an unpopular opinion and I really need to stop voicing it, even as a joke. Anyway this is REALLY off topic.
No nobody cares as it's like 10 percent of the game not 70 percent, please.
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Re: The level of play is much higher now than in 2005-2010

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Post by flontier »

Ofc the level is higher. The only reason why the level would have dropped is if the players base had drastically decreased over the time but its not the case, there are more players today than in 2007 for example. Like the game has never been "big" but in 2005-06 when he was totally unbalanced during his release lol.

It is just a common pattern evolution that you can find for example in any irl sports as well.
Why records are constantly beaten in every sports over the time ?
Well we have more knowledges and better technologies, trainings & practices are a lot more optimized, hence preparations etc... so in term of pure performance sportsman are better today than 40 years ago. But in terme of raw talent ? Well no thats probably the same and anyway it just cant be mesured.

Same for aoe3, everything is more and more polish after 15years of aoe3, a small micro superiority from a 2008 top player cant catch up a big knowledge and experience gap.
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Re: The level of play is much higher now than in 2005-2010

Post by RefluxSemantic »

I remembering in my quest to trying to understand Dutch I finally found some Dutch recs from Flooky (highest ranked player of the time) and for some reason still unknown to me he went food trickle first rather than 3 vills first. I know I already said this, but back in those days learning the game was just a million times harder. Just try to think of how fucking confused pr20 me was after seeing that rec from a field marshal.
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Re: The level of play is much higher now than in 2005-2010

Post by Garja »

Pretty sure that was some very old shit game. Food trickle isn't a thing since idk forever. Actually Idk if it has ever been a thing.
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Re: The level of play is much higher now than in 2005-2010

Post by Aykin Haraka »

Hazza54321 wrote:How is piroshiki a solid indicator
what bout rafuuuuu the wild retired man
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Re: The level of play is much higher now than in 2005-2010

Post by Mitoe »

RefluxSemantic wrote:I remembering in my quest to trying to understand Dutch I finally found some Dutch recs from Flooky (highest ranked player of the time) and for some reason still unknown to me he went food trickle first rather than 3 vills first. I know I already said this, but back in those days learning the game was just a million times harder. Just try to think of how fucking confused pr20 me was after seeing that rec from a field marshal.
To be fair, food trickle on RE maps is probably not the worst thing in the world since you have hardly any hunt anyway. Every 4-5 minutes it's like having an extra animal under your TC, and also can't be idled; and in a meta where age 2 all in rushes were probably more common than they are today, that does actually matter. It's obviously not a good card in terms of raw economic value, but it doesn't surprise me that it could be useful back then. With Dutch even the 3 population space could be useful, especially in aggressive games.
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Re: The level of play is much higher now than in 2005-2010

Post by RefluxSemantic »

Garja wrote:Pretty sure that was some very old shit game. Food trickle isn't a thing since idk forever. Actually Idk if it has ever been a thing.
I'm pretty sure it was never a thing, but that is what Flooky did in that one rec I obtained.
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Re: The level of play is much higher now than in 2005-2010

Post by SoldieR »

I'm pretty sure I remember Dutch players sending food trickle often against heavy rushes where they expected a lot of idle time. Like vs russia
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Re: The level of play is much higher now than in 2005-2010

Post by Garja »

I mean I've seen it more than one time. It's basically 2.5 unupgraded vills iirc (maybe less cause it's food trickle?). It just never got the status of being the best option.
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