A reflection on the state of the competitive scene.

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A reflection on the state of the competitive scene.

Post by Riotcoke »

I'd like to premise this discussion that KOTOW was a very enjoyable tournament to watch, the production value was incredible and, generally, the games I was able to catch were very enjoyable to watch. However, with the KOTOW tournament over, I think it's important to have a discussion of the state of the AOE3 in general and in particular the competetive scene.

Some important topics that come to mind are:

- The role of 'laming' in high level games - Has game knowledge replaced mechanical skill?
- Does the increase in civilsation, unit and stratergy diversity benefit the competitive scene or detract from it?
- Does there need to be stringent rules set on pausing/unpausing during tournament games?
- Has the viewing experience of DE competetive games reached a level comparable to EP?
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Re: A reflection on the state of the competitive scene.

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Post by kaister »

Yes, Detract, Clearly, No
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Re: A reflection on the state of the competitive scene.

Post by dicktator_ »

Riotcoke wrote:
28 Aug 2022, 22:18
- The role of 'laming' in high level games - Has game knowledge replaced mechanical skill?
In my opinion aoe3 has always been very much about game knowledge. Though this is true more so now than it was back then, because of all the lame stuff. Back then it was more like knowing timings and knowing when to fight etc, and having great micro could still be a really big edge. Now it's more about knowing builds. But I don't think game knowledge replaced mechanical skill because I think game knowledge was always a big factor.
- Does the increase in civilsation, unit and stratergy diversity benefit the competitive scene or detract from it?
This probably caused the shift that I described above. When there are a ton of new civs, units, and strats, the number of viable and possible lame builds increase, and it's more about developing builds that take advantage of those things. Since there are so many new things and limited time to practice, it's impossible to learn about everything, so some build order losses are unavoidable. I'm not really decided on whether it's good or not. I don't really hate it, I actually had fun playing in this tournament, but I get also get nostalgic for EP days.
- Does there need to be stringent rules set on pausing/unpausing during tournament games?
Absolutely. This is a no-brainer.
- Has the viewing experience of DE competetive games reached a level comparable to EP?
I'd say no. Aiz UI was perfect and the skill level felt higher.
steniothejonjoe wrote:I can micro better than 99% of the player base and that's 100% objective
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Re: A reflection on the state of the competitive scene.

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Post by Squamiger »

Regarding the question of game knowledge being the biggest factor, it’s not necessarily because of the total quantity of stuff to learn, it’s due to the fact of things being constantly added. The meta is in flux because there are civ overhauls and new civs every 6 months. 2015-2019 EP only saw mechanics triumphing over game knowledge because the game was so much more figured out than DE is now. DE is still a Wild West where there are probably still many undiscovered builds

And with pausing / unpausing there should definitely be rules, I feel like no one has truly abused it as much as it could be abused potentially. Like pausing in a fight solely to micro split fire perfectly
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Re: A reflection on the state of the competitive scene.

Post by a forum ghost »

I was not really around during EP. But the game mechanical skills seems to have decreased even compared to last year global tournament.

I remember that there where some players with legitimate impressive mechanical skills that tournament, notably Hazza at his peak, Knusch and even Kaiserklein on his first series vs Iamturk.

This year, I was not impressed by nobody mechanical ability, with the exception of Ungurs using the line of sight glitch to take free volleys with his artillery. Which I found quite hard to make use of that with that consistency.

I do think that mechanical level dropped. But the dissonant voice in my head also argues that I just may got better (I was basically a beginner on multiplayer on the beginning of 2021) and don't get as easily impressed anymore. Which could also be true, actually.

But I don't know. The impression that I have is that the mechanical skill level dropped, and nowadays is much more about build orders than micro.
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Re: A reflection on the state of the competitive scene.

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Post by iNcog »

I tried to log on and play DE with Italy/Malta DLCs. I lost literally every game. I probably played really badly but even casually, it didn't feel like I was playing aoe3 at all. Nowadays when you watch streams and stuff you see all these revolt builds and natives and literally nothing is recognizable. I don't play AOE2 at all anymore but I can watch TheViper or Hera on youtube and know what it is that I'm looking at.

This trend started with African DLC when Hausa rushes took over the ladder. It's just a dredge of units that no one recognizes and no one knows what they do and they just right click your base.

Mechanics 100% took the backseat. RIght now, if you want to be good at aoe3, you need to be good at build crafting and figuring out what is strong. So really it just became a lame fest. It's the "random bullshit go" meme.

EP was prime AOE3, imo.
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Garja wrote:
20 Mar 2020, 21:46
I just hope DE is not going to implement all of the EP changes. Right now it is a big clusterfuck.
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Re: A reflection on the state of the competitive scene.

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Post by Squamiger »

I had a thought, the 2008 WCG was japan mirrors because there were no civ pick rules and Japan was the best civ, so players adapted to that, and developed mechanics required to win japan mirrors to an insane level. In contrast, the civ pick rules of EP/DE tourneys makes it so build order knowledge is favored over mechanics, because you have to have such a deep civ pool to win series. It might be interesting to make a tournament where there are zero civ pick rules. I think players would quickly figure out which civ is the strongest, and then everyone would play that, and it would be a mirror fest like in 2008, and mechanics would reign supreme again. But no one wants a tourney without civ pick rules it seems; viewers constantly complain when there are too many mirror matches because the number of people who like aoe3 for the history and aesthetics still outnumber the people who like aoe3 for the rts mechanics.

i'd be into it though, a tourney with zero civ restrictions. it would be up to the players to figure out the most OP civ and then spam it, and then build order knowledge would be less important and mechanics and game sense would take center stage in a series of repeated mirrors.
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Re: A reflection on the state of the competitive scene.

Post by MaxMagous »

I don't even necessarily disagree with all the answers you are getting but asking these questions here is like opening a debate on which party should win the elections during the conference of one of the parties. If you wanna reinforce your opinions sure, but you're only gonna hear one side of the story.
look wrote:
01 Jul 2022, 08:55
Kaiserklein wrote:
01 Jul 2022, 07:42
Well nvm, none of these dates work for me
who care? unfortunately, one must decide to be an aoe3 pro or not
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Re: A reflection on the state of the competitive scene.

Post by iNcog »

MaxMagous wrote:
29 Aug 2022, 07:14
I don't even necessarily disagree with all the answers you are getting but asking these questions here is like opening a debate on which party should win the elections during the conference of one of the parties. If you wanna reinforce your opinions sure, but you're only gonna hear one side of the story.
Isn't the idea that the other side comes and defend their point of view though. I would love to be shown to be wrong
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Garja wrote:
20 Mar 2020, 21:46
I just hope DE is not going to implement all of the EP changes. Right now it is a big clusterfuck.
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Re: A reflection on the state of the competitive scene.

Post by Squamiger »

@iNcog I do think you are kind of wrong, your argument is the same one people have used since TWC. The issue to me is not that there's a lot of new stuff added to the game, it's that new stuff keeps being added and things keep being changed. New additions and changes every couple months means the meta can't really settle like it did in EP. This is not necessarily a bad thing either, it's just how the game is going to be for a while. TWC and TAD also had a bunch of stuff no one was used to, but these strange aspects became beloved features once the game had time to settle during the EP years.

And, like I said, there is still a way around this problem even if they keep adding new things constantly: to make mechanics king again, create tourneys with zero civ pick rules and mirror matches. That would dramatically speed up the development of a fixed meta because people would have to focus on finding the absolute strongest civ and build and then just spamming that and relying on their mechanics and game sense. The way civ pick tourneys work right now you force people to have to try to learn every single civ in the game to a shallower level because you can't win without a deep civ pool. Maybe the old EP method of alternating civ picks only works well when there's a more stable meta.
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Re: A reflection on the state of the competitive scene.

Post by iNcog »

Squamiger wrote:
29 Aug 2022, 12:30
@iNcog I do think you are kind of wrong, your argument is the same one people have used since TWC. The issue to me is not that there's a lot of new stuff added to the game, it's that new stuff keeps being added and things keep being changed. New additions and changes every couple months means the meta can't really settle like it did in EP. This is not necessarily a bad thing either, it's just how the game is going to be for a while. TWC and TAD also had a bunch of stuff no one was used to, but these strange aspects became beloved features once the game had time to settle during the EP years.

And, like I said, there is still a way around this problem even if they keep adding new things constantly: to make mechanics king again, create tourneys with zero civ pick rules and mirror matches. That would dramatically speed up the development of a fixed meta because people would have to focus on finding the absolute strongest civ and build and then just spamming that and relying on their mechanics and game sense. The way civ pick tourneys work right now you force people to have to try to learn every single civ in the game to a shallower level because you can't win without a deep civ pool. Maybe the old EP method of alternating civ picks only works well when there's a more stable meta.
I agree, a lot of it has to do with how the meta just doesn't have time to settle or flesh out.

Thing is though, good builds these days unlock different things from before. It's not like a Haud rush or something where you unlock a lot of units very quickly and go from there. Today it feels like the gg buttons that you can click outshine in effectiveness compared to just solid macro, micro, raiding, etc.

I'm not even thinking about tournaments when I'm discussing this, I'm talking about just plain laddering. So many things you can encounter are just seemingly random until you get hit by a timing out of nowhere. It also feels like the counter plays are limited because map control takes the backseat. You don't need to follow through your build anymore with a good eco, you just need to defend on one base and go click your button. That's what it feels like anywhoo. It's honestly hard to elaborate more because I haven't really played a lot, I kind of lost interest after facing dumb cowboy builds into gatling gun timings. I genuinely think the USA is one of the most poorly designed civilizations to be made for the game and I don't enjoy playing against it.

Maybe I should come back and give it a go, I did really enjoy Hausa as a civ. But ehhhh it doesn't feel like it's worth it.
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Garja wrote:
20 Mar 2020, 21:46
I just hope DE is not going to implement all of the EP changes. Right now it is a big clusterfuck.
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Re: A reflection on the state of the competitive scene.

Post by Squamiger »

I agree that there’s a lot of whacky stuff. But like has always been the case, the way to counter the stuff is to play it yourself. When it’s cowboys and Gatling vs cowboys and gatlings suddenly mechanics matter again
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Re: A reflection on the state of the competitive scene.

Post by Le Hussard sur le toit »

I'm with Squamiger here. If the amount of crazy stuff we got had come over a 3 years period rather than one year and a half it would have been digested into meta rather easily.
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Re: A reflection on the state of the competitive scene.

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Post by Goodspeed »

I neither play nor watch DE but being a knowitall piece of shit I have thoughts regardless

@dicktator_ is right in that AoE3 has always been very much about game knowledge. Much more so than other RTS, at least. Personally I think that is one of the few things it has over other popular RTS like AoE2 and SC2. While mechanics were completely dominant everywhere else, AoE3, with its relatively complex build orders and large amount of civ variety, by design struck a nice balance between mechanics and strategy. We could say it somewhat more convincingly put the "S" in RTS.

The big downside of this kind of design was that it turned out preventing lame fests was pretty difficult. It's the kind of design that really only works in theory. You have to patch quite frequently and add content very deliberately timed and thought out. The kind of game state we had with ASFP and EP is hard to replicate by the developers themselves, who are simply never going to be as on top of it as a community-run patching effort. Before then, in most of the game's history, AoE3 was a lame fest.

But, while they have the lamefestness in common, there are some important differences between pre-fanpatches and post-DE. Back then the meta was settled and it was everyone mirroring the same build against each other in which case mechanics remain a very important if not the only important factor. Now, mirrors being discouraged by tournament rules and with even more civ variety, it's one lame build against another and the game result depends more on which build is better or happens to counter the other than who executed it best. Mechanics become all but irrelevant and the nice balance between mechanics and strategy that AoE3 struck in its design, is gone.

Another difference is that with the current playerbase, it's the worst time to be adding this amount of new content. You need a very active and involved competitive community to find the lame builds quickly so you can patch them quickly. Others have made points about the meta settling; That is indeed step one towards creating a playable state of AoE3. The meta settles, you figure out what needs fixed, fix it and repeat. If you keep releasing new content and your lack of a competitive community prevents the meta from settling quickly, it never settles. At that rate, you're not going to get the game to a playable state. That seems to be where we're at.

I think the community, whose only real means of influencing the game's state at this point is tournament rules, potentially needs to get somewhat medieval on them. I'm thinking of rule changes like:
- Outright banning many civs. Every civ that is problematic to the meta, potentially every civ that was released in the last year.
- Banning specific cards as a way of restoring balance to civs that are otherwise okay
- Reinstating free pick which would allow for more mirrors, bringing some of the impact of mechanical skill back and allowing competitively minded players to specialize more. Forcing players to diversify with this much new content being released is probably no longer sustainable
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Re: A reflection on the state of the competitive scene.

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Post by RefluxSemantic »

If you increase the number of different match ups, trying to master civs to great detail becomes harder and harder, to the point where it is not worth it anymore. It becomes more rewarding to just find some 'lame' (as in, easy to execute hard to beat) strategy. Those strategies have historically been disliked by the vast majority of the competitive community. I dont think its just about mechanics vs strategy, but also about the type of strategy that is relevant.
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Re: A reflection on the state of the competitive scene.

Post by princeofkabul »

It's just a different game these days, mostly about preferances. In competitive standpoint I'd say the old one is suited better. (EP).
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Re: A reflection on the state of the competitive scene.

Post by Le Hussard sur le toit »

I think with 20 civs most tournaments should be played with some sort of measure to decrease civ diversity - free picks to focus on the top meta civs works, restrictions to a subset of the pool works too, like in the old TWC cup and underused cup, or the legacy tournament.
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Re: A reflection on the state of the competitive scene.

Post by callentournies »

feels like mart nailed it, and put into words my thoughts as someone who plays and watches DE

cant get medieval w/tourney rules when M$ is deciding them for pittance money for being the forgotten one of the bunch
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Re: A reflection on the state of the competitive scene.

Post by Garja »

Le Hussard sur le toit wrote:
29 Aug 2022, 18:05
I think with 20 civs most tournaments should be played with some sort of measure to decrease civ diversity - free picks to focus on the top meta civs works, restrictions to a subset of the pool works too, like in the old TWC cup and underused cup, or the legacy tournament.
I was always for this one and I think that's also what they do in aoe2 (?!)
Tourneys should be thematic. There are too many civs with different playstyle that don't even cope well with each other. I mean it's fine to have one big open tourney but then it has to be free pick with no civ restriction at all(maybe just forced pick with the latest dlc civ) so that one can just prepare 2-3 civs very well and diversity is given only by players' preferences.
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Re: A reflection on the state of the competitive scene.

Post by robo »

Garja wrote:
29 Aug 2022, 19:17
I think that's also what they do in aoe2 (?!)
Nope. We have civ drafts, where each player alternatively bans & picks their own unique pool of civs (usually 1 civ per map +1 extra) and then can use them however they choose during that series.
Then they draft again vs the next opponent for whichever maps they play on.

Eg from the recent RBW qualifiers, Bo7:
Map Draft = https://aoe2cm.net/draft/zeJnG (Game 1 is set to Arabia, and then the loser of each game chooses the next map)
Civ Draft = https://aoe2cm.net/draft/KluqI

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There are very occasionally tournaments with special rules limiting or requiring certain civs to be played, but they are a very small minority.
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Re: A reflection on the state of the competitive scene.

Post by Squamiger »

Interesting, I feel like there’s some consensus in this thread to reduce or change the EP style tournament format where you are required to learn a large number of civs and matchups, and to transition to an open format where a smaller number of top civs are favored and mastered. Would love to see a tourney with free civ pick rules / zero civ restrictions where this is possible. I feel like this format would result in some really cool upsets, where everyone assumes that 1-3 civs are the best until someone comes up with an underdog strat with a less common civ and wipes everyone for a brief time
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Re: A reflection on the state of the competitive scene.

Post by Garja »

robo wrote:
29 Aug 2022, 20:14
Garja wrote:
29 Aug 2022, 19:17
I think that's also what they do in aoe2 (?!)
Nope. We have civ drafts, where each player alternatively bans & picks their own unique pool of civs (usually 1 civ per map +1 extra) and then can use them however they choose during that series.
Then they draft again vs the next opponent for whichever maps they play on.

Eg from the recent RBW qualifiers, Bo7:
Map Draft = https://aoe2cm.net/draft/zeJnG (Game 1 is set to Arabia, and then the loser of each game chooses the next map)
Civ Draft = https://aoe2cm.net/draft/KluqI

Image

There are very occasionally tournaments with special rules limiting or requiring certain civs to be played, but they are a very small minority.
Ok fair enough.
I guess it works a bit better for AOE2 tho, because civs are more similar or maybe because lot of tourneys are high profile invitationals so you'd expect players to play all the civs and not have a very favorite one (?!).
The idea of banning someone main civ in aoe3 just seems unfair/bad to me. I don't think you want to emphasize a wide civ portfolio even more in this game when you can already have so many BO wins.
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Re: A reflection on the state of the competitive scene.

Post by Le Hussard sur le toit »

Thematic tournaments : Vasco de Gama cup : Ports, Hausa, Ethiopia, Ottos, India, China, Japan.
The Religious league : Only Euro civs (including Malta+Italy).
The Great Game : Russia, Brits, India, China, France, Dutch, Japan, Ottos.
The Monroe cup : TWC civs + Inca, Mexico and USA.
Charles V cup : Spain, Dutch, Germany, Italy, Aztecs, Incas, Mexico.
Big Blue Blob cup : French mirrors only.
Make America Great (for the first time) : USA, Lakota, Hauda, Brits, French, Mexico, Germany, Dutch.
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Re: A reflection on the state of the competitive scene.

Post by helln00 »

I like the idea of thematic tourneys, we can theme it around the various regions and where they interacted
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Re: A reflection on the state of the competitive scene.

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Post by Kanoo »

IMHO, as a casual viewer and player of the game, I’ve had more fun watching this series than the last couple of Pre-DE tourneys where the same matchups with identical strats were milked to death. Watching the same set of players time and again make it to the latter stages of the tourney where a 5 sec delay in a Hussar batch or micro being the only deciding factor seems similar to watching a tennis tourney during the height of Nadal, Federer and Djokovic era. The other players just made the numbers. Still fun, but a little monotone to the sheer brilliance of the fab 3.

Yes, I dislike the laming, but with evolving meta, and regular balance updates, it can be minimised to a reasonable standard.
I’m also glad to see newer players like Warsword, Ungurs, Yukietty, etc climb up through the ranks, and challenge the g-old standard of players, and am excited for the future of competitive aoe3. I think we’ve had very close games this time that could have gone either way.

PS, game knowledge should be rewarded too.
thebritish wrote:
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So, you are saying that if i watch H20's rec, i can beat anyone below H20's level because i know his BO?

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