The Case for EP 2.0

[gibson]

A fan patch wouldn’t help the game, overall community, or new/lower level players. What it potentially would help is player retention/growth in the “high level” (~1600+) community.

[iNcog]

A fan patch wouldn’t help the game, overall community, or new/lower level players. What it potentially would help is player retention/growth in the “high level” (~1600+) community.

(/half answering this /half responding to the thread)

I would say the retention and growth of the 1600+ community would be overall good for the game and its community. I agree that it won't help new players in any capacity but as Frontline points out, if you're picking up the game right now (whether a returning player or a new player) it's an absolute slog to get through all the gimmicks that preclude you from playing the game and having fun. How can you just do this cool little fast fortress build when it gets roflstomped by one of the gimmick strategies?

DE was great in many ways but it wasn't good for anyone who cared about a fair, fun competitive ladder experience.

The elephant in the room is that microsoft shit the bed when it came to designing/balancing new civs and then abandoned the game. The EP is a "bad" thing in many regards but as pointed out in this thread, it's probably the only realistic alternative.

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Perhaps ESOC should look to develop an open beta version of the patch first. Flesh out the technical aspect of it and address some of the big parts of balance. Don't make it "official" until playtesters (which is open to anyone) say that yeah this is a nice improvement overall. That way you don't alienate those who don't want a split community. From there you could even have an official version of the patch and a balance-testing version of the patch. Anything that pursues compromise over perfection.

[gibson]

A fan patch wouldn’t help the game, overall community, or new/lower level players. What it potentially would help is player retention/growth in the “high level” (~1600+) community.

(/half answering this /half responding to the thread)
I agree that it won't help new players in any capacity but as Frontline points out, if you're picking up the game right now (whether a returning player or a new player) it's an absolute slog to get through all the gimmicks that preclude you from playing the game and having fun. How can you just do this cool little fast fortress build when it gets roflstomped by one of the gimmick strategies?

This isn’t true for the vast majority of players, most of whom never touch the ranked ladder. Most people like more/unique content.

[Goodspeed]

With a fan patch you are only ever going to reach a very small part of the community, and that's the only part you should be trying to reach. Casual players will never care about your patch and that's fine because it's mutual; neither should you care about them. @gibson You mention players who never touch the ranked ladder. Why are they relevant?

When I was trying to convince people about the first EP there was a lot of talk about how we were going to reach the masses. To me the patch was always by and for the competitive community and for them only. We never did reach the masses, yet EP grew the community. Know your target audience.

Frontline's point about the new player experience rings quite true for me personally, relating to DE but also to another game. It didn't take long for me to drop DE after trying it, not only because the game had changed too much from how I remembered it, but also because I knew that if I kept playing it wasn't going to get better. A competitive community churning out fan patches might've given me the confidence to press on.

I had the opposite experience with Civilization 6. At one point I looked into playing multiplayer, and since this is a game where 99% of the player base never touches multiplayer I didn't have high hopes. Discovering CPL (their fan patch) convinced me that it was worth a try and I had a lot of fun playing it. Like any fan patch worth its salt, it is by and for the competitive community.

[andrewgs]

A fan patch wouldn’t help the game, overall community, or new/lower level players. What it potentially would help is player retention/growth in the “high level” (~1600+) community.

abosultely, there's only so many games of baja/otto fi anyone can take before they give up playing


The chinese community should be involved to avoid splitting the community. I suppose that would need a chinese translation when editing text.

I think a ladder is doable; I remember talking with dori or hellpunch some time ago about whether they could retrive game results for a patch like they do for aoe3 leaderboard sites. I also think they could see custom lobbies that allow spectators - so checking spectator mode could be used like the 'ranked games' on RE.

Ranked lobbies would go a long way to make team games enjoyable again IMO. 3v3 Deccan kept a lot of more casual people playing.

With that said, I agree with the sentiments that an EP 2.0 could equally be harmful if implement improperly. Dividing the community over a somewhat balanced patch aimed exclusively at the tournament level sounds like a poor course of action. Rather, the patch would need to be ambitious in scope and scale, so that it’s evidently superior in all faucets compared to the base DE version.

What and how much are you intending to change? I can see it being easy to remove/nerf the broken stuff to the point they're unviable.

[gibson]

With a fan patch you are only ever going to reach a very small part of the community, and that's the only part you should be trying to reach. Casual players will never care about your patch and that's fine because it's mutual; neither should you care about them. @gibson You mention players who never touch the ranked ladder. Why are they relevant?

They aren’t relevant. I only mentioned it because it’s been mentioned how the game sucks for new players and a fan patch might help said new players. It needs to be clear from the get go that the intention is not to help new players, but to balance the game for top level players.

[gibson]

The biggest hurdle to overcome in regards to adoption is probably not the Asian community, but the community of a certain retard

[Squamiger]

You're working with an unsettled meta where players are still gaining edges by having a better meta read quite often (I assume, anyway). If that's still a way to win games at the top level, can you expect to get a proper grasp on the state of civ balance? Are top players going to agree on balance changes?

This is also key, I think. EP 1 came out almost a decade after the game had any significant changes, so the meta was very settled, and even then, there were disagreements about what to change. I think with DE, so much of the game is still fairly unexplored. Can anyone here tell me what the precisely most optimal build order (age up alliances, card order, tech order, when to train abuns, etc) is for Ethiopia to hard rush, age 2 timing, semi-FF, naked FF, FI, for instance? I doubt anyone will agree exactly, the way people might agree about how to properly semi-FF with France.

Also, the main complaint seems to be that people don't like uncompetitive things like Baja or Otto. In these cases, why would EP2 be significantly better than just playing lobby games with civ rule bans / gentleman's agreements to not do certain strats? EP2 will be a whole lot of work just to produce a product that will be essentially equivalent to playing in lobbies with civ / strat bans. As people have pointed out, the original quality of life change for EP1 was the new maps. But there's just nothing really comparable in DE that is as bad as RE maps were.

Also, as a pr 25ish player, I will remind people that while I very much enjoyed watching tournies on EP back in the day, I didn't really play much of it myself, mostly because other pr 25s rarely had it installed. Instead, I would just host lobbies on RE with Garja maps that I had downloaded, and I think a lot of other people around my level did the same. It was really mostly about the maps. So again, if that's not the main issue on DE (the issue is Baja and revolts and Otto etc), what is to be gained from EP2 that wouldnt just be solved by DE lobby games with civ bans / gentlemans agreements?

[Squamiger]

honesty I think the only solution to revive the aoe3 competitive scene is to make an actual aoe3 moba that becomes as popular as Dota. then we can get the trickle down effects when that takes off

[Hazza54321]

Regarding balance , ep2 could always start with the blantantly obvious changes the TAD otto iro equivalents (baja, italy, church cards in general, otto, usa) and then start to tweaking small things.

Regarding player base im worried it wont reach enough players even the old guard because theyve mostly left. The top player scene is tiny compared to the time of ep1 and there were times where ep was dead.

I would love for this to happen as i think its vital for growing the competitive scene (which also grows the casual scene because of tournament viewership) but idk if theres enough compared to last time, might have to run a few polls and reach the lurkers

[alistairpeter]

There's a large amount of people who came from the old game who found it to be a lot more enjoyable. It barely feels like the same game anymore, even when I face a classic civ on the ladder like France they find a way to ruin it by laming DE nats or something.... not that I'm only in favor if standard play, it's just that a lot of the options in DE are stronger than TAD Iro and Otto ever were, even DE Otto is more annoying (better huss, mosque xp curve, church FI, Azap removing goon weakness, 500 wood tc for civ w free vills, stronger minute men etc.).
It really gets discouraging to play vs the DE things, I would rather play vs RE japan or Iro any day vs this stuff, getting 10/10 Sepoy rushed, facing Germany on a 200w start, none of it was overly egregious feeling like the stuff in DE which consistently makes my stomach churn.
Even the meta encourages people to send two infinite outposts vs rushes, it's quite sad how unrecognizable this game can be at times. I love Goodspeeds suggestion to potentially re-release the DE civs, and think a patch could have the potential to save this game for the people who remember just how much more fun it used to be. How can you expect people to want to try their hardest when you can lose to a guy who isn't even trying at all but abusing a build, or when you're not even having fun because DE is just a knock off brand Aoe3 that fails to capture the vision the original designers had (even in a historical sense, fuck the commerce age it's called colonial). I think the sad reality is that even after nerfing the majorly broken things, there will still be 100's of little pesky DE things that are just strictly better than anything comparable in TAD that will always keep DE feeling like DE and not Aoe3. A patch is the only option to restore any sense of original Aoe3, made by people who loved how the game used to be, and recognize how far it's fallen from where it once was.

[Goodspeed]

You're working with an unsettled meta where players are still gaining edges by having a better meta read quite often (I assume, anyway). If that's still a way to win games at the top level, can you expect to get a proper grasp on the state of civ balance? Are top players going to agree on balance changes?

This is also key, I think. EP 1 came out almost a decade after the game had any significant changes, so the meta was very settled, and even then, there were disagreements about what to change. I think with DE, so much of the game is still fairly unexplored. Can anyone here tell me what the precisely most optimal build order (age up alliances, card order, tech order, when to train abuns, etc) is for Ethiopia to hard rush, age 2 timing, semi-FF, naked FF, FI, for instance? I doubt anyone will agree exactly, the way people might agree about how to properly semi-FF with France.

Also, the main complaint seems to be that people don't like uncompetitive things like Baja or Otto. In these cases, why would EP2 be significantly better than just playing lobby games with civ rule bans / gentleman's agreements to not do certain strats? EP2 will be a whole lot of work just to produce a product that will be essentially equivalent to playing in lobbies with civ / strat bans. As people have pointed out, the original quality of life change for EP1 was the new maps. But there's just nothing really comparable in DE that is as bad as RE maps were.

Also, as a pr 25ish player, I will remind people that while I very much enjoyed watching tournies on EP back in the day, I didn't really play much of it myself, mostly because other pr 25s rarely had it installed. Instead, I would just host lobbies on RE with Garja maps that I had downloaded, and I think a lot of other people around my level did the same. It was really mostly about the maps. So again, if that's not the main issue on DE (the issue is Baja and revolts and Otto etc), what is to be gained from EP2 that wouldnt just be solved by DE lobby games with civ bans / gentlemans agreements?

Ranked lobbies aren't possible on DE, right? That was one of the reasons I quit playing it. I think it could be the "Garja maps" of EP:DE, if technically possible. Hosting unrated lobbies with Garja maps was possible on RE patch too, as you said. EP made Garja maps rated possible. Being able to host rated lobbies banning the DE civs would be a big one to some of us. It's also good for the teamgame scene, as someone else already mentioned.

If technically possible, fixing things like pull trick could also be a selling point. Speed is one of the most important stats in any RTS, and artificially boosting the speed of units that are supposed to be slow shouldn't be possible. I'm surprised it has remained in the game for so long (maybe I'm behind and it's fixed already).

I should note that, while rated Garja maps and anticheat were big selling points of EP back then, we were always thinking bigger than that. It was nice to have things to draw in players, but long-term our plan was not only to fix the major issues in RE patch but to actually improve the game (make it more fun to play competitively) and keep improving it steadily. I think we managed, and EP:DE could too. I'm sure there is plenty to improve on, even after the obvious broken stuff is fixed. And even if there isn't, patches prevent a stale meta and that keeps players interested too.

[Goodspeed]

@Community Team I think ESOC should consider "declassifying" the old staff EP forum and give everyone read-only access, for reference.

[MaxMagous]

I don't even know if I agree with the idea (I unapologetically love DE) but if this has to be done
1) I'd agree with giving frontline the keys of EP 2.0. Which is just a different way to say don't give the keys to someone who would make the game look like old EP meta. Ew.
2) I've never really modded a game but I know my way around coding and stuff so I would love to help on the technical side. You'd probably end up finding some ez4twc easter egg somewhere though

100% of all italian output is spent on prompt configuring aoe3 italian brainrot

I can confirm this. Gli Italiani, migliori fanno

[Frontline]

A fan patch wouldn’t help the game, overall community, or new/lower level players. What it potentially would help is player retention/growth in the “high level” (~1600+) community.

I disagree. A good fan patch by nature will always attract the competitive/hardcore base first, but there’s nothing that inherently limits its reach. Before AoE2 DE came out, a large section of the community used the Voobly userpatch over the official HD version due to better performance and stability. If a theoretically perfect AoE3 patch—completely balanced, immaculate pathing and collision, absence of bugs or errors, etc—was released, then why wouldn’t the community broadly adopt it over time?

Now realistically, an EP 2.0 is unlikely to capture the majority of the playerbase. However, there’s a world of difference, in terms of potential reach, between a patch solely focused on tweaking a few problematic unit stats, compared to one that also includes substantial civilizational and mechanical reworks.

A settled, nuanced meta only matters if the game is relatively sound in terms of balance and design. No one really cares to perfect builds that maximize the abusable aspects of the game because its intrinsically uninteresting after the novelty wears off. Also, the issues of DE are systematic; a gentleman’s agreement doesn’t make them magically go away.

What and how much are you intending to change? I can see it being easy to remove/nerf the broken stuff to the point they're unviable.

Ideally, the patch would involve an overhaul of as many systems, civilizations, mechanics, and units needed to eliminate gimmicks and cheese while keeping the variety and essence of the game intact. I’d think the sensible first move would be to start with the most glaring of DE’s defects and work backwards from there.

[musketeer925]

If technically possible, fixing things like pull trick could also be a selling point. Speed is one of the most important stats in any RTS, and artificially boosting the speed of units that are supposed to be slow shouldn't be possible. I'm surprised it has remained in the game for so long (maybe I'm behind and it's fixed already).

These kinds of changes are substantially harder than basic unit stats balance changes. They require reverse engineering and patching the game's code rather than editing some XML configuration files. The "unhardcoded" project at the end of EP1.0 starting doing some of these kinds of changes, but I am not sure if anyone with the necessary expertise is around and willing to contribute the time for that.

[Goodspeed]

If technically possible, fixing things like pull trick could also be a selling point. Speed is one of the most important stats in any RTS, and artificially boosting the speed of units that are supposed to be slow shouldn't be possible. I'm surprised it has remained in the game for so long (maybe I'm behind and it's fixed already).

These kinds of changes are substantially harder than basic unit stats balance changes. They require reverse engineering and patching the game's code rather than editing some XML configuration files. The "unhardcoded" project at the end of EP1.0 starting doing some of these kinds of changes, but I am not sure if anyone with the necessary expertise is around and willing to contribute the time for that.

Yep. It would be a shame if there isn't anyone like that, because I think very quickly in a project like this you will start to want to make changes that require more than XML editing. A pull trick fix is a good example but I'm sure there's more.

[Squamiger]

What do you mean fix pull trick? You mean remove it from the game? It’s such a fundamental mechanic to top level game play, so I think you would find a lot of opposition to that

[Mitoe]

Changing pull trick also comes with a lot of potential knock-on effects like changing how units will feel to move in general, since without it formations basically cannot function.

[Goodspeed]

What do you mean fix pull trick? You mean remove it from the game? It’s such a fundamental mechanic to top level game play, so I think you would find a lot of opposition to that

Oh, ok. That's surprising. But let's not get distracted.

[gibson]

A fan patch wouldn’t help the game, overall community, or new/lower level players. What it potentially would help is player retention/growth in the “high level” (~1600+) community.

I disagree. A good fan patch by nature will always attract the competitive/hardcore base first, but there’s nothing that inherently limits its reach. Before AoE2 DE came out, a large section of the community used the Voobly userpatch over the official HD version due to better performance and stability. If a theoretically perfect AoE3 patch—completely balanced, immaculate pathing and collision, absence of bugs or errors, etc—was released, then why wouldn’t the community broadly adopt it over time?

Now realistically, an EP 2.0 is unlikely to capture the majority of the playerbase. However, there’s a world of difference, in terms of potential reach, between a patch solely focused on tweaking a few problematic unit stats, compared to one that also includes substantial civilizational and mechanical reworks.

There was almost 0 EP adoption below captain and EP had far more compelling quality of life changes than anything a DE ep could offer. Entry/beginners simply don’t care about the things high level players do. Balance is not relevant to a 600 elo player, and a high level balance patch is just as likely to make the game less balanced for that player than more so.

[Garja]

Game is too casual for a fan patch. By that I mean it has too many mechanics that are simply not fixable without just removing them. And it is arguable if we should even want that in the first place.
Adoption and technical feasibility issues are natural consequences of that too and, let's be honest, they are enough of a deterrent to even starting a project like this.
On top of that, even for just sheer balance tweaks, I would not trust a single person at the moment and with reason. The meta is not settled and there surely is stuff that is still not figured out. Because of that there is no real balance starting point. Also none has the necessary deep knowledge of every civ to make the right calls. A pool of top players would help in that sense but there is simply not enough of them/enough playerbase in general.

Best thing we can hope for is one last patch that fixes the blatant broke meta stuff. Couple otto FI related things. Small nerf to Baja. Small nerf to Italy age4. Couple more other reasonbale balance tweaks and blatant bug fixes/incoherent stuff.

[iNcog]

Relying on microsoft for "one last patch" isn't going to work, even if you fix the current known broken stuff (baja, italy, whatever else) then the broken stuff than hasn't been figured out yet will just surface. You would be in the same place as now.

Spoiler

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DE apologists don't get how stagnant the game is and how stagnant it will remain without someone at least taking a cursory stab at keeping the game alive. Sorry but figuring out what is broken and then figuring out the optimal build to abuse what is broken isn't at all what a real competitive game is about. You could have eventually made the argument if microsoft still cared to support the game but they have made it clear that they don't.

Another question to ask is whether anyone feels like the previous EP was successful. I believe it was quite successful in what it did and given that it was the foundation that microsoft worked with when they released DE, that validates the whole damn thing. Do people think that we are in the same position now that we were in 2015 or are things different? To me it seems clear that we are in the same spot, possibly worse due to design/balance (better for other reasons).
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I don't think the question is whether or not to do the EP, personally it seems clear to me it should really be done especially when the few top players left are in support for it. What do you have to lose? nothing lol, maybe a few DE apologists will be sad because they can't abuse their broken builds anymore. What do you have to gain? seemingly a lot, possibly the resurgence of the game back into another good era

The question is to scope out the reach of the patch:
- How much should be changed? Is pull trick included (imo no)? Do you redesign America/Italy/Lakota? Do you orient the spirit of the patch back towards legacy or keep it closer to DE? Is the patch tailored for a wider audience or does it have a more narrow focus (top players and competitive play) that trickles down (imo the latter)?

The next question being the methodology:
- Do you try to fix everything at once? Or do you come up with a more structured approach? Nerf every gimmick into the ground and then slowly work natives/revolts/mercs/memes back into the meta? Try to focus on only fixing outliers every patch iteration? Take out and re-release the new civilizations?

[Squamiger]

Can someone articulate how an EP2 would have made the last esoc tourney better / more competitive?

All the gripes people seem to have are gripes with dealing with lame stuff on ladder, which EP2 will not address at all

[Garja]

Relying on microsoft for "one last patch" isn't going to work, even if you fix the current known broken stuff (baja, italy, whatever else) then the broken stuff than hasn't been figured out yet will just surface. You would be in the same place as now.

Spoiler

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
DE apologists don't get how stagnant the game is and how stagnant it will remain without someone at least taking a cursory stab at keeping the game alive. Sorry but figuring out what is broken and then figuring out the optimal build to abuse what is broken isn't at all what a real competitive game is about. You could have eventually made the argument if microsoft still cared to support the game but they have made it clear that they don't.

Another question to ask is whether anyone feels like the previous EP was successful. I believe it was quite successful in what it did and given that it was the foundation that microsoft worked with when they released DE, that validates the whole damn thing. Do people think that we are in the same position now that we were in 2015 or are things different? To me it seems clear that we are in the same spot, possibly worse due to design/balance (better for other reasons).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I don't think the question is whether or not to do the EP, personally it seems clear to me it should really be done especially when the few top players left are in support for it. What do you have to lose? nothing lol, maybe a few DE apologists will be sad because they can't abuse their broken builds anymore. What do you have to gain? seemingly a lot, possibly the resurgence of the game back into another good era

The question is to scope out the reach of the patch:
- How much should be changed? Is pull trick included (imo no)? Do you redesign America/Italy/Lakota? Do you orient the spirit of the patch back towards legacy or keep it closer to DE? Is the patch tailored for a wider audience or does it have a more narrow focus (top players and competitive play) that trickles down (imo the latter)?

The next question being the methodology:
- Do you try to fix everything at once? Or do you come up with a more structured approach? Nerf every gimmick into the ground and then slowly work natives/revolts/mercs/memes back into the meta? Try to focus on only fixing outliers every patch iteration? Take out and re-release the new civilizations?

3 years of patches have proven that, even with some 2 step forward-1 step back process, balance improved over time. The game support is now discountinued and game is left with some major balance/design issues which btw are not new, they simply haven't been adressed properly yet. A last official patch would actually do a lot in that sense. And of course there will always be some stuff that is stronger than the others but it's fine because the game is NOT meant to be competitive in the first place.
That means the game is not necessarily about the 5 extra units you get at some point (even tho it can very well be depending on the MU) nor the fact that one civ has one extra card upgrade for its units. There are way more important things going on and the meta isn't about that. DE has given every civ infinite options. At this rate, with this playerbase, meta will basically never be stale and there will always be, at worst, atleast one funky option to blind counter the opponent build, no matter how strong it is. That's why it is important to fix what is blatantly too strong at every level and to fix what is universally recognized as a bug or incoherence while leaving everything else up to players to figure out.