Setting the Direction for DE

[Javon]

What? You believe it's a vocal minority saying the game is good? Because I'd say that ESOC is the game's minority and most of the threads or posts on here disparage the game on here. However most of those posts are made by the same people over and over. So vocal minority on a minor forum is saying the game sucks ass beyond comprehension I'd reckon.

I said it's a vocal minority in this community, aka ESOC. Just go in twitch chats and see what most people think about DE, I can tell you it's not positive.
Maybe casual players out of the community think the game is great, but that's not really the majority of people who will post on the official forums.

People love to complain more than they care to appreciate, so the forums are usually biased this way. Anger is a power feeling, content or pleasure is less so. And saying most of twitch chat thinks the game sucks is hyperbolic. Maybe those comments stand out to us if they coincide with our viewpoints.

[ChewSick]

Finally, if I exaggerate slightly: say former EP top players just can't do anything but semi FF into skirm goon micro. Can't adapt to new strategies, they're just bots. After all, it's not like they've won every single DE event so far

That's not what I said or meant. I'm just saying that you in particular have a very unhealthy relationship to everything you don't play yourself. That's not just a DE thing but has existed since probably ever. I remember you ranting about Japanese or Water long before DE.

how is that any different than ranting about toxic semi ff ?

I'm not ranting about semi ff. I just say that there should be more viable strategies than just this. there's a difference between that and just saying "turtling/water/new aoe is toxic for the game".

[Jotunir]

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Finally, if I exaggerate slightly: say former EP top players just can't do anything but semi FF into skirm goon micro. Can't adapt to new strategies, they're just bots. After all, it's not like they've won every single DE event so far

That's not what I said or meant. I'm just saying that you in particular have a very unhealthy relationship to everything you don't play yourself. That's not just a DE thing but has existed since probably ever. I remember you ranting about Japanese or Water long before DE.

how is that any different than ranting about toxic semi ff ?

I'm not ranting about semi ff. I just say that there should be more viable strategies than just this. there's a difference between that and just saying "turtling/water/new aoe is toxic for the game".

In AOE3, at least to my understanding you can do all of those things, but some strategies are considered more effective than others. Turtling is difficult to achieve in this game, because maps are generally small, buildings are made of cardboard and control of the resources is vital (trees, mines, hunts).

[JKProwler]

Just wish some of the top players that actually have devoted hours of there life on this game took more of a leadership role in shaping the future direction of this game instead if dragging it down if they feel strongly about certain issues.

Any new player seeing the threads here will just instantly lose any motivation in continuing with the game with all the doom and gloom.

The game release was just plain awful and I understand a lot of the bitter feelings from that has exaggerated a lot of the things that they currently don't like about this game.

What they fail to see or at least appreciate is how much the game has improved from release and how there is a team of developers who has clearly stated that they are commited in continually supporting the game at least into the near future.

With some of the critical bugs now seemingly fixed, now is the time to voice your concerns on the main forums or join the pupp program.

With all the complaints of the minor changes on the meta in DE, ur gonna be in a shock awakening when u jump on to aoe4. And don't expect it to be polished in release either.

[Seamonk]

So I want to make a point that I wasn't trying to imply semi-ff good, all else bad. And, as a whole, DE is better balanced than TAD. I didn't mean for this to go to doom and gloom.

My point is that if people are unhappy with the game, they need to bring up the points to the developers. And I don't think these points can just be "Japan Sweden Inca bad". There needs to be some discussion on how to actually steer the direction of the game towards enjoyability for some people.

What has been discussed in this thread so far is so abstract that it probably wouldn't be useful for devs to see anyways. Just complaining about high level things wouldn't be productive.

In my example, I talked specifically about the Spanish logistician affecting CM. These kind of examples are what I think would be useful to talk about. Why are Japan/Inca/Swden/Waterplay/Walls unfun to play against? What are some suggestions to keep the identity of the civ but also make it more fun to play against?

I dunno. It just seems like there is a decent amount of turnover within the community with people being upset and choosing to play less. But at the same time not working with the devs to try and improve the game. Maybe I have rose tinted glasses for ESOC patch discussions, but it seems like people were actively trying to better the game with a development team in the past. I think we have an opportunity to work with a dev team with more tools now (like changing gren animation, which we couldn't in EP) and it feels a bit weird that we aren't.

[Kaiserklein]

Finally, if I exaggerate slightly: say former EP top players just can't do anything but semi FF into skirm goon micro. Can't adapt to new strategies, they're just bots. After all, it's not like they've won every single DE event so far

That's not what I said or meant. I'm just saying that you in particular have a very unhealthy relationship to everything you don't play yourself. That's not just a DE thing but has existed since probably ever. I remember you ranting about Japanese or Water long before DE.

That's not even what you said, you didn't say anything about me. And you did say that former top players that won't adapt aren't the best anymore, which is why I said that they're still the ones winning every tourney, so it's factually wrong.

Anyway, yeah these things aren't fun to me. And I believe it's not fun to most other people (of course I bitch much more about it than the average guy). A poll was made about people's least favourite civ and the result was Japan by a fair margin. I'm sure if you ask people if they enjoy playing against port water you'll have the same answer. This kind of stuff isn't what most people play aoe3 for, at least not at higher level / on ESOC.
Now on DE, there's just many more examples of that kind of shitty strats. It's not new, it's just much worse.
Btw saying I have a "very unhealthy relationship to everything I don't play myself" is plain wrong. There are plenty of things I don't play but don't mind.

[Kaiserklein]

People love to complain more than they care to appreciate, so the forums are usually biased this way. Anger is a power feeling, content or pleasure is less so. And saying most of twitch chat thinks the game sucks is hyperbolic. Maybe those comments stand out to us if they coincide with our viewpoints.

Yeah people like to complain, but have you seen the amount of hate towards the dev? The game is a massive fuck up, even 9 months after it came out. There was nowhere near that much hate back then on EP, yeah some people complained but really much less. I think everyone tried to stay optimistic for a while, but at some point you just give up.

Just wish some of the top players that actually have devoted hours of there life on this game took more of a leadership role in shaping the future direction of this game instead if dragging it down if they feel strongly about certain issues.

You aren't necessarily aware of how much the top players are involved, that's all I'll say about this.

[harcha]

I don't think it's a massive fuck-up now, most glitches casual players would notice are gone. As far as devs are concerned it's a good game now, if it wasn't at launch.

[Dolan]

Tbh, looking at the UI used to watch recs on streams gives me the impression AOE3 DE is an indie game. The quality of the work is just submediocre.

[Dolan]

Look at this



A simple semi-transparent overlay with simple basic fonts, slapped on top of expanded, other UI elements. All colliding in the viewport, like it was done by a bunch of complete amateurs or developers that are still in college and they're working as interns for no pay.
This is just terrible.
Modders can do and have done a much better job than this. I can do a much better job than this for less money.

[Dolan]

You can't even see that gadget which reports the techs, it's blocked by other UI elements



Intern-level quality of work.

[Kaiserklein]

Yeah I mean at least after 9 months you can finally observe games without it going OOS or finishing before the end of the game, lol. Just need a proper obs UI now... But yeah I guess the game isn't fucked up

[Aizamk]

You can't even see that gadget which reports the techs, it's blocked by other UI elements



Intern-level quality of work.

That's from my obs mod for DE. There is no built in observer UI which shows techs researched etc.

[Dolan]

@Aizamk
Then the situation is worse. I thought they developed this rudimentary form that reports some stats.
You have an excuse, you're not getting paid for this ^^

[Kaiserklein]

I think the bigger excuse, if I'm not mistaken, is also that DE blocks lots of stuff, so doing a better mod than this is pretty hard

[Aizamk]

Yea they removed a bunch of functionality that let the old obs UI mod function. Tbh we're lucky that they kept some of the old UI elements from legacy, else even the simple version wouldn't be possible.

[ChewSick]

@Kaiserklein I completely dislike playing against turtle/water as well, but I just don‘t wanna take it away from people who enjoy playing that style. It frustrates me just as much as you when i bite my teeth out at those walls.

[Kaiserklein]

@Kaiserklein I completely dislike playing against turtle/water as well, but I just don‘t wanna take it away from people who enjoy playing that style. It frustrates me just as much as you when i bite my teeth out at those walls.

I get that, but if most people hate playing against it, surely there's a case for fixing it?

[Challenger_Marco]

They made a 2.7gb game into 30gb ish game which performs worse than legacy game ,idk who asked for overhaul'd graphics ,the graphics in legacy was already perfect ,the devs listened to the wrong side of community ..most of the casual ppl emphasised on new graphics etc.

I would be completely be happy to play on legacy settings with reworked match making system like in DE ,home city changes (all cards unclocked ) +new civs ,new server,the new UI is ok , keeping the graphics out the way or w/e which causes sluggish performance for low end users.

Without the lovely tournament UI it kinda sucks rn ,Legacy was a buttery smooth game but what happened in DE was they failed to achieve the performance like in aoe2 de ,and for a 5$ (aoe3 de is pricing in my country ) is speaking for itself ,which is cheaper than legacy ,legacy costed 10$ ,i would pay 5 more bucks even to achieve the performance it had before.

Anyways idk if there will be an option in DE to revert to legacy graphics.The 2.7gb can be less than 10gb or w/e without these new graphics saving tons of gb ,every 30gb game is able to outperform aoe3 de which is clearly unoptimised game but if they can make it someone better i might be happy and see many players back.

[RefluxSemantic]

I understand that some people are unhappy with the changes to AoE. But mostly these are the people who are used to the same playstyle and notice that it suddenly doesn't beat everything anymore.
AoE3 isn't just about mechanics: micro is important, but strategy "doing the right thing" is just as important. And after all this is a strategy game.

This is such wrong way to engage a discussion like this one. Its not very kind to dismiss genuine opinions as being childish whining. I hope you realize that now.

For example I dislike the changes to the gameplay starting from EP despite being a semi-ff player. I just had more fun facing the weird aggressive strategies and trying to pull off the perfect defense, even if that wasnt really meta at the time. Its like the opposite of what you're saying. I miss that harsh challenge.

On topic: for me there is no reasonable fixing this. The entire process of balancing going back to the start of EP was something I disliked and I dislike the 'final' product too much. The best fix is to just wait for aoe4. Which is what Im doing :)

[Scylla-x]

I'm a casual player and long time fan from original aoe3, everyone I play with (average/low level) is very happy with DE, I think the majority of players are happy that there are new civs with sweden/inca and usa, as well as many of the card changes and civ balance. I've never seen such a wide range of civs used, the game is pretty well balanced.

There are some small tweaks to do like logistician probably needs to take slightly longer to age or for shipments to arrive, seems a bit too good atm.

The devs will only nerf or buff civs depending on the overall win rate, as the aim is to make the game enjoyable for the majority of players so they keep playing, like aztec had a very high win rate(noobs can't stop a quick rush) so it gets nerfed, the devs don't care about the top 50 players crying about turtle and water if a thousand low elo players enjoy that style of play.

[gibson]

Yea esoc is the vocal minority in terms of thinking the game is mediocre.

[Mitoe]

Yea esoc is the vocal minority in terms of thinking the game is mediocre.

They also happen to be the ones who play the game more than anyone else. Weird

[dansil92]

mitoe speaks truth

[gibson]

Thats not even true. Looking through the ladder past the 500s there are a solid amount of people who have 1000+ games. Does the population of this website play more than the median person? Almost certainly. Do they play "more than anyone else"? No. Funnily enough, that many of the games vocal critics barely/don't play at all. Weird that people who dislike the game don't play it, while people who like the game do.