Public Update Preview - September Update

[helln00]

Oh this is interesting, all the British Cav cards have been made to affect all cavs. Thats not OP but if Brit ever roll Mams as Mercs it would make it the most powerful Mam in the game I think.

[gibson]

Remove the stupid extreme zooming out feature - my guts tell me that it will only lead to abuse and bugs.

Those nerfs to Africa are there but rather light.

Rather a nerf like this than gutting the civs completely, no?

Yea people don't seem to understand how nerfing stuff works. You make gradual changes til you get to a median rather than making extreme changes trying to immediately find perfect balance.

[Rohbrot]

Oh this is interesting, all the British Cav cards have been made to affect all cavs. Thats not OP but if Brit ever roll Mams as Mercs it would make it the most powerful Mam in the game I think.

Spanish mams with unction

[helln00]

Oh this is interesting, all the British Cav cards have been made to affect all cavs. Thats not OP but if Brit ever roll Mams as Mercs it would make it the most powerful Mam in the game I think.

Spanish mams with unction

That is true, though that is only higher attack and not HP right?

[Rohbrot]

Oh this is interesting, all the British Cav cards have been made to affect all cavs. Thats not OP but if Brit ever roll Mams as Mercs it would make it the most powerful Mam in the game I think.

Spanish mams with unction

That is true, though that is only higher attack and not HP right?

yeah, but cc now effects all cav. :<)

[bobabu]

Done a quick test, artillery indeed seems to behave better.

Here's how far the new zoom goes:

Zoomhack report now!

Btw for all the people that cried about zoom. Just look at the aoe 2 pros none of them zoom out much.

[DNLgibraltar]

I don't get the hate. It's a late patch but it's a very good one in my opinion: it hits their superpower strategies hard, but it won't nerf them into being useless.

I still think they'll be great civs ( from S+ tier to A tier) but the amount of nerfs is fair. Also I respect their pov of not tweak everything (other cards and units which are needed) until they see the impact of these changes for the next patch.

This is how game balance should be done.

My only criticism is the lack of balance for other 13 other civs.

[Dolphincup]

This is how balance should be done, if done frequently, but we are only getting patches every 6 weeks now. undershooting balance changes results in months of imbalance, and the game might not afford that. Personally, I think Africa being underpowered for a bit might actually be a good thing. As has been the case with the USA, a civ's strengths and weaknesses can be seen best when the civ is underperforming. Balance understanding aside, I think that devs should typically err to weaker balance. If africa is too weak, there are 17 playable civs. If africa remains too strong, there are only 2.

[JKProwler]

This is how balance should be done, if done frequently, but we are only getting patches every 6 weeks now. undershooting balance changes results in months of imbalance, and the game might not afford that. Personally, I think Africa being underpowered for a bit might actually be a good thing. As has been the case with the USA, a civ's strengths and weaknesses can be seen best when the civ is underperforming. Balance understanding aside, I think that devs should typically err to weaker balance. If africa is too weak, there are 17 playable civs. If africa remains too strong, there are only 2.

In hindsight, maybe putting new dlc civs only on lobby for the first 2 weeks might be the way to go. Not sure how that will effect sales numbers, but in a rts game that is based on qs matchmaking, priority #1 should be ensuring qs is good and incentivise players to keep clicking on qs.

I also feel that DE missed out on utilising a lot of the data that is available on this game through notification to players to keep them playing qs.

Imagine there was a notification board that keeps scrolling informing you about your stat's on various civs, maps, or players in the ladder that were the biggest movers of the week etc..

So many possibilitied

[helln00]

This is how balance should be done, if done frequently, but we are only getting patches every 6 weeks now. undershooting balance changes results in months of imbalance, and the game might not afford that. Personally, I think Africa being underpowered for a bit might actually be a good thing. As has been the case with the USA, a civ's strengths and weaknesses can be seen best when the civ is underperforming. Balance understanding aside, I think that devs should typically err to weaker balance. If africa is too weak, there are 17 playable civs. If africa remains too strong, there are only 2.

In hindsight, maybe putting new dlc civs only on lobby for the first 2 weeks might be the way to go. Not sure how that will effect sales numbers, but in a rts game that is based on qs matchmaking, priority #1 should be ensuring qs is good and incentivise players to keep clicking on qs.

I also feel that DE missed out on utilising a lot of the data that is available on this game through notification to players to keep them playing qs.

Imagine there was a notification board that keeps scrolling informing you about your stat's on various civs, maps, or players in the ladder that were the biggest movers of the week etc..

So many possibilitied

I think delaying them going on QS would only kinda delay the ladder problem since the experimentation that results in OP builds would just be delayed or lessened until people go to the ladder, and then people will still click on QS less when the new civs get into the ladder, and then there might be even less time to figure out patches to the new civs

[Syphax]

You are telling us that balance it's a complicated science.
But they are dumb things that can be easily fixed.

Like this hausa age 2 card, 10 deserts warriors for 500c
Just convert it in 500 influence, the rush will be much less OP.

[helln00]

idk about you but neither mine or the above comment was about balance, just how the civs are released on the day

[Garja]

Done a quick test, artillery indeed seems to behave better.

Here's how far the new zoom goes:

Zoomhack report now!

Btw for all the people that cried about zoom. Just look at the aoe 2 pros none of them zoom out much.

Because in aoe2 the zoom level is already optimal. Zooming more provides no advantage as for the most part there aren't even large scale battles like in AOE3.

[bobabu]

Done a quick test, artillery indeed seems to behave better.

Here's how far the new zoom goes:

Zoomhack report now!

Btw for all the people that cried about zoom. Just look at the aoe 2 pros none of them zoom out much.

Because in aoe2 the zoom level is already optimal. Zooming more provides no advantage as for the most part there aren't even large scale battles like in AOE3.

Not true there are a lot of large scale battles. As an average aoe 2 game goes into the late game while an average aoe 3 game doesn't. Plus in aoe 2 there are more obstacles you can run into like castles and towers.

[JKProwler]

This is how balance should be done, if done frequently, but we are only getting patches every 6 weeks now. undershooting balance changes results in months of imbalance, and the game might not afford that. Personally, I think Africa being underpowered for a bit might actually be a good thing. As has been the case with the USA, a civ's strengths and weaknesses can be seen best when the civ is underperforming. Balance understanding aside, I think that devs should typically err to weaker balance. If africa is too weak, there are 17 playable civs. If africa remains too strong, there are only 2.

In hindsight, maybe putting new dlc civs only on lobby for the first 2 weeks might be the way to go. Not sure how that will effect sales numbers, but in a rts game that is based on qs matchmaking, priority #1 should be ensuring qs is good and incentivise players to keep clicking on qs.

I also feel that DE missed out on utilising a lot of the data that is available on this game through notification to players to keep them playing qs.

Imagine there was a notification board that keeps scrolling informing you about your stat's on various civs, maps, or players in the ladder that were the biggest movers of the week etc..

So many possibilitied

I think delaying them going on QS would only kinda delay the ladder problem since the experimentation that results in OP builds would just be delayed or lessened until people go to the ladder, and then people will still click on QS less when the new civs get into the ladder, and then there might be even less time to figure out patches to the new civs

I'm not saying it's gonna be perfectly balanced by the time it goes into qs. I'm just thinking that there would be a better chance to iron out some of the balances b4 it gets on the ladder qs with more people having a chance to play with the new civs

[n0el]

Done a quick test, artillery indeed seems to behave better.

Here's how far the new zoom goes:

Zoomhack report now!

Btw for all the people that cried about zoom. Just look at the aoe 2 pros none of them zoom out much.

Because in aoe2 the zoom level is already optimal. Zooming more provides no advantage as for the most part there aren't even large scale battles like in AOE3.

What? Have you ever played Age 2? AoE2 goes to late game with max army fighting an order of magnitude more than aoe3 games do.

[helln00]

Show hidden quotes

This is how balance should be done, if done frequently, but we are only getting patches every 6 weeks now. undershooting balance changes results in months of imbalance, and the game might not afford that. Personally, I think Africa being underpowered for a bit might actually be a good thing. As has been the case with the USA, a civ's strengths and weaknesses can be seen best when the civ is underperforming. Balance understanding aside, I think that devs should typically err to weaker balance. If africa is too weak, there are 17 playable civs. If africa remains too strong, there are only 2.

In hindsight, maybe putting new dlc civs only on lobby for the first 2 weeks might be the way to go. Not sure how that will effect sales numbers, but in a rts game that is based on qs matchmaking, priority #1 should be ensuring qs is good and incentivise players to keep clicking on qs.

I also feel that DE missed out on utilising a lot of the data that is available on this game through notification to players to keep them playing qs.

Imagine there was a notification board that keeps scrolling informing you about your stat's on various civs, maps, or players in the ladder that were the biggest movers of the week etc..

So many possibilitied

I think delaying them going on QS would only kinda delay the ladder problem since the experimentation that results in OP builds would just be delayed or lessened until people go to the ladder, and then people will still click on QS less when the new civs get into the ladder, and then there might be even less time to figure out patches to the new civs

I'm not saying it's gonna be perfectly balanced by the time it goes into qs. I'm just thinking that there would be a better chance to iron out some of the balances b4 it gets on the ladder qs with more people having a chance to play with the new civs

Well to me its more that the ladder is probably the best place to see the balance problem play out. Ideally people should be able to do the testing already in stuff like the public beta but multiplayer games on there are rare. Lobbies are sort of too manageable for it to show balance problems besides the really egregious ones. Heck before the new civs were released I remember testing the outlaws for a bit and I remember them even being more busted then they are now. Even tested the natives as well but never really thought about them.

[JKProwler]

I heard the upcoming patch does multi threading? Is this true?

And if anyone played the pup, do you u notice the difference?

[harcha]

multithreading? on aoe3? forget about it

[EAGLEMUT]

I heard the upcoming patch does multi threading? Is this true?

And if anyone played the pup, do you u notice the difference?

There is some speculation, but the devs have not said anything about it in the notes and personally I haven't been able to identify any difference in CPU core usage on my machine.