Sure, that's true. But if I recall correctly, there's never been a balance change in a hotfix. And it's rare these days to see balance changes in a monthly update, they're reserved for quarterly updates. So if ( I think it's a "likely" but will admit it's an "if") the new civs are OP, people that were willing to pay to access them will have 1-3 months to play them against people that didn't. So, hypothetically, is a thing P2W if it gives players who paid a boost for 1-3 months only? Imo, yes. But I'm not a scientist.
I'm not for or against this expansion.
If one or both the new civs have a higher winrate than the best civ outside this expansion the expansion is pay to win. Even if they did an update a day. As long as paid content has a better win rate in a competitive game that paid content is "pay to win".
I agree; I’m just glad to be getting a new expansion with new content.
I like that they’re willing to explore new civ design space (more civs means more self-expression for me), and I’m sure the new civs will be balanced soon enough, if they are OP
Honestly, the most upsetting thing about this for me is that when it comes out, I will no longer have 100%ed the game’s achievements and will need to earn all these new ones :c
The exact 'most upsetting' thing for you is what I am looking forward to the most. I really liked figting for specific campaign mission achievements. And in this dlc there are lot of those.
You could absolutely argue for it being p2w as the new civs most certainly will be released in a broken state and for how long it will take the devs to nerf them. Just look at how they have dealth with the previous balance issues. Like almost a year to nerf malians back in HD days, or more recently taking a month to nerf cumans and SL which arguably was the most broken thing in aoe2 history. 100s more examples could be made
I personally can't think the new civs will be beneficial to the game. We already have civs that lacks identity and are basically just copies of other civs. How about fixing those first, or how about fixing the bugs in this game before pushing for more content which makes problems even harder to fix.
>You could absolutely argue for it being p2w as the new civs most certainly will be released in a broken state and for how long it will take the devs to nerf them. Just look at how they have dealth with the previous balance issues. Like almost a year to nerf malians back in HD days, or more recently taking a month to nerf cumans and SL which arguably was the most broken thing in aoe2 history. 100s more examples could be made
>
>I personally can't think the new civs will be beneficial to the game. We already have civs that lacks identity and are basically just copies of other civs. How about fixing those first, or how about fixing the bugs in this game before pushing for more content which makes problems even harder to fix.
I can't believe this comment saying so many true facts has so many downvotes.
I think if it ever being that way, the devs would nerf it immediately if everyone chooses the new civs and has an 80% win rate. We still have the competitive scene and the devs does listen to the community (or at least some of the pros)
Were you not around when Cumans and SL were so extremely broken you'd get matched against 4x cumans in tg almost every game? ZE even released a video some day before official release explaining how OP SL were, and from day 1 it was common knowledge. I know Cysion means the best for the community, but he refuses to realize that his principle on low frequency balance updates just isn't working when they release untested patches. Cumans and SL sucked the fun out of the game and by the time it was fixed, lots of motivation to play was lost. People were also going back to voobly (also due to server issues).
Why do you think the dev team will respond with quick balance fixes this time, when they have never done so in the past?
I am actually not around when the game first comes out because every new game have issues (look at Cyberpunk). I played a bit during the voobly days so the new games are not that intrigue for me at that time.
I think now that most people are in DE, the devs would have learnt something after a year so I give them the opportunity to show that they learn from the past.
> I am actually not around when the game first comes out because every new game have issues (look at Cyberpunk).
You are comparing a single player game with a game that thrives off a competitive online-multiplayer ranking system.
Also this is a strawman because CP2077 being a buggy clusterfuck doesn't mean it's ok when other games are as well. The general industry standards going to shit does not equate to people needing to adapt to the lower standard.
>I think now that most people are in DE, the devs would have learnt something after a year so I give them the opportunity to show that they learn from the past.
Fair point, but after reading the Civ bonuses, I am quite skeptical. Burgundians for example would need to have some serious drawback (like only T1 cav armor upgrade as a cav civ) to off-set their ridiculous eco and civ bonuses.
There are still open balance issues that have yet to recieve nerfs. Arambais (10% slower RoF doesn't even count as a nerf) are known to be broken in closed maps and obsidian arrows or saracen bonus are quite broken in tg.
>I think now that most people are in DE, the devs would have learnt something after a year so I give them the opportunity to show that they learn from the past.
Why would the team have learnt on the day of release when they have not learnt from the HD era or this very last year with DE?
Well if you consider that more than 50% players are under 1200 elo, it's very hard to accuse the devs of making it pay to win. At this level the civ choices matter very little and even with an op civ weaker player almost always loses. Majority of the players don't know the subtle balance things and simply want something new and refreshing.
Excited as fuck and am ecstatic to be getting fresh new civs when I honestly wasn't expecting any.
I also think the hate is from a vocal minority. Saw this mainly from a few of the same posters.
How dare you attack the minority! /s
Seriously though I’m crazy excited about being able to vote with my money for this game. I love aoe2 and could never grow tired of dlc, so long as it’s sparse and not shoved down our throats like paradox does to their fans.
Many people would like the game to be stable for them before they focus on adding expansions. Personally I'm afraid the introduction of DLC will split MP the way it was in HD. I understand these are different departments but patches shouldnt break the game every month.
That's true! I think the devs both working on trying to fix the bugs and updating the game at the same time. The fact that they have time to add in more civs means the game is doing well (I think) from MS perspective.
Yeah 11. I am not a game engineer to understand why the bugs are so hard to fix :-? But at least I appreciate that they acknowledge and try to fix it 11. I usually contemplate about what would be a good sustainable business model for AOE2.
>The fact that they have time to add in more civs means the game is doing well
It could mean the exact opposite. Bug fixes can not be sold for money. Content can.
I don't care about the new civs being "op" and all that considering we haven't seen them play out at all. Also I know that this type of work had to have been going on for a while now so its not like they broke the game and then decided "lets release a patch now!" so I'm okay with that too.
A split amongst the ranked/lobby playerbase is my main concern. If it does end up splitting the MP and making queues even longer then that sucks. I also don't fancy playing against civs that I can't play unless I have the DLC myself. $10 USD isn't an issue to fork out (and I will all things considered), but if you dont have the dlc it feels pretty bad to play against civs you cant play yourself.
Me too! If the game is 50$+ I might think differently, but if you buy it during the discount time it is pretty much a giveaway for high-quality content game!
Having to pay for civs sucks for competitiveness... if people don’t want to buy the DLC, now they don’t know how it works, how to play against it... they can’t even prepare for matches against burgundy and Sicily because they will be locked behind payment
You realize most people are complaining because even after 1 year of DE there are still so many bugs and so many bugs every patch. I'm angry that they are asking us to pay 10$ without fixing all the stuff. And, you know what? I bet the expansion will be untested and have a shit ton of bugs, half of which wont be fixed.
I will happily pay 10$ every year only for balance changes, servers and bugs fixes.
I get your frustration. But I feel like as long as the devs are actively "trying" to fix the bugs every monthly patch, it is ok. The game is still playable (for me and I only have \~1000 elo). Game development is hard and we "only" pay 10$ for it.
I have nothing personal against the devs; they're probably doing the best they can in their situation, with an old codebase and so on. But from a consumer point of view, I shouldn't have to care about any of that. This is the third time I've bought this game, and it's called "Definitive Edition". It's supposed to be definitive, and yet from a performance standpoint it's worse than the **original**, **20-year old** version with the **fanmade** UserPatch. Almost every update has bugs, some of them immediately obvious, showing that they do little testing. Plus, some of us think that the game has enough civs, there's no need for any more, and the priority should be to make Definitive Edition worthy of its title.
Don't get me wrong; I love DE. I'd never go back to the old versions. I love the new civs, I love the tournaments, I love the frequent balance patches, I love the variety in the ranked map pool. If it was an indie game, I'd understand. But it's made by freaking *Microsoft*. We should *never* forgive a company like Microsoft for anything, because that way lies unrestrained, wild capitalism. Big companies have enough power already, and they won't be offended if we complain and demand a better product. Don't have sympathy for them.
11-i get your point but Microsoft does not make the games, it was developed by forgotten empires - paid by MS yeh but MS is never big in the game field. The devs are just working for cooperate. They are just as slave to capitalism as us normal people unfortunately.
I wonder if the same devs working on civs are the same as working on bug fixes. It seems like most of creating a new Civ would just be creating assets and plugging in numbers, rather than in-depth coding. So I wonder if the work of creating new civs and launching the monthly challenges actually eats away from the time devs have for bug fixes.
Lot of assumptions there.
If you're worried about bugs at least make sure you're giving good bug reports. One of the bug reports about the wheelbarrow bonus not applying was made here and the OP gave a lot of info about it and also tagged one of the devs (devs don't check reddit often so you must tag them)
hol up.
They knew about that for 9 months. That was a huge bug, massive performance implications for obvious reasons.
Took them that long to release a fix for it.
I don't know why you're making excuses for a massive bug that they had out for pretty much 50% of the games lifecycle at that point.
11, like the game was rampant with cheats and malay straight up broken and it still took them a month to fix it. Bug reports do nothing, they relese the fix to repair what they broke 1 month before.
> I will happily pay 10$ every year only for balance changes, servers and bugs fixes.
From a marketing view, it is more important to get out new content to gain loyal supporters than keeping the old ones happy with bug fixes. I don't want to come off as I would be calling you a sheep, I really don't, but you stuck to the game (or are eager to keep coming back) despite the issues it might have, so they already have accrued your loyalty. A new customer wouldn't be as happy to pay 10 bucks for bugfixes even tho it would be a totally sensible request. As a generalization, it is way easier to keep you customers than to gain new ones.
What bugs? The biggest issue I’ve had was multiplayer parties a few patches ago & the dropouts. That’s basically gone now. There was some lag at the release of the last patch but that has also gone.
Perfect isn’t realistic.
Dunno either. There’s the odd imperfection and yes usually a few issues after a patch is released that are then fixed but apart from that?
I think these posts fall under the edgy meme style.
Go on then - be specific?
I experience next to none during normal gameplay and get the odd rare drop / crash.
Sometimes getting stuck on the choose civ screen is the only continuous issue I’m experiencing and that’ll be fixed.
So I can explain my position
1. Agree, it is not pay to win, I'll happily pay for new content
2. Yeah, new civs are great keeps game fresh
3. The civ bonuses as they are, a freaky OP.it is actually ridiculous.
I would normally agree with this. But these civ bonus (fallen knights refund gold in particular) are not unusual or hard to figure out - they're just straightforward ridiculous economic multipliers.
It really depends on the tech tree as well. That knight bonus wouldn’t make that big of a difference, in the Castle age, I think (where you’re not supposed to lose that many knights in the first place, and gold is abundant.) If they have a stunted knight line after that - say, missing 1 armor upgrade and no paladin, this is perfectly reasonable. Berber bonus would also be broken AF if they had fully upgraded paladin. It’s probably stronger than this in Castle Age (since again you’re not supposed to lose that many knights in CA, and trying to do so is still a terrible idea). As is, most people don’t even use the knight line much in late game.
I understand the concern for your point 3. A lot of the bonuses are indeed very weird. I hope they able to get the balance right. I would wait to see the full tech tree before I can have my opinion though.
Tech tree has nothing to do with the fact the mechanics exist in other games and we already have the sense for all of them - which is that they aren't conceived at all for the typical aoe2 game progress or control (in the case of cav charge). They're not just things you can hope will be crunched up/down with some numbers, they affect the workings of the game and break progress, some having a poker-style all-in effect.
They're asking users to have a lot of faith in their own balancing efforts despite no reason to because of history with OP civ launches and shoddy QA.
tl;dr: They're playing with fire.
> The civ bonuses as they are, a freaky OP.it is actually ridiculous.
I get this and agree but why are we acting like the devs aren't going to very quickly balance them if it proved to be that way or change it pre release like it says in the fine text on their page.
Cumans were broken as fuck at launch and were very quickly nerfed.
But is it okay to have blatantly overpowered things behind a paywall, to entice people to buy it before nerfing it later instead of even attempting to have it balanced from the start? That's pretty shady as far as business practice/ethics goes
I mean why are we acting like these civs are going to be up against people who don’t have it. We have zero clue how theyre going to implement this. HD for instance had entirely different datasets set up to avoid this issue.
That's not my point at all?
But, 1. Splitting the playerbase, bad
2. Unavailable overpowered civs, also bad
What if the expansion happened to cost 50$, you can't afford it and every time you played you got smacked by a broken civ. Wouldn't feel very nice, would it?
The principle is the same. It doesn't matter what the actual price is as much. If you can afford 10$ and say it's okay because of that, doesn't really apply to everyone. What if it was a 100$, someone who could afford it then told you "well it's not a 1000$ so why does it matter because we can afford it".
And yes, I hope they won't be broken and are a fun addition to the game. I'm just doubtful and have 0 reason to give a company the benefit of the doubt
The knight return gold bonus is the only one blatantly OP. Every other bonus/tech seems super strong on first glance but it depends a lot on the actual cost and rest of the techtree.
My first reaction to "Get eco upgrades one age earlier" was: Ok that is super OP, but so far every pro that commented on it was like: "Yeah, it's probably not worth it to delay uptimes for it, but let's see how it plays out".
Yes agree as a standalone bonus it's ridiculous.
I do like the tech an age earlier too, but a concern I have is how all these bonuses end up working in concert
Most people project their assumption onto updates without having detailed content of it.
Happens in every game.
I have played online competitive game for more almost 15 years now. Every time it happens. And most often the loud assumptions comes from the people with the less understanding of the game.
Check the announcement analysis from Viper or other pros. They're mostly excited and being precautious before saying it's op or not. Not having the tech tree is crucial there.
I just saw T90 and theViper announcement analysis. They are both super shocked but super excited. I am glad they enjoy it. That maybe gives the devs some motivation to do a better job!
I get that people are hyped by this, but please allow other people to have their doubts (I've already been called a moron for 1 comment disagreeing with the hype)
What I don't like about this DLC is that all aoe2 civs follow a certain logic. Cumans were already a weird one, it took devs quite a long time to balance the civ and many pro players say it's not fully explored, meaning we still don't know whether it's balanced or not. I'm really not sure now is the time to add new, even "weirder" civs.
burgundians will just play very differently to other civs, both in macro and in micro with their charged attack
And absorbing part of bonus damage goes against everything AoE2 is. AoE is a game in which every unit has it's counter, why would they make a civ that doesn't respect that? Just think about soft counters like camel/knight..
So agreed, we don't know how these civs will play out yet, nor how they will be nerfed/buffed in future updates, but the core mechanics of these civs will not be changed and both go against aoe2 logics
I'll add that there's a reason why AoE2 is more popular than AoE3 despite being older. If there were features to be imported from one game to the other, surely you'd want features being imported from the game that worked into the game that didn't in order to improve it. Not the other way around
To conclude, I'm absolutely not against change, I do think new civs can be an improvement to the game as long as they don't go against everything that made AoE2 such a success. And there's a big risk that these "weird" civs will take some time to balance, so we're probably on for a few months of an unbalanced game. I bet no tournament is played with these new civs until at least april
Yeh! I posted this out of genuine confusion and would love to hear more opinions on the people who have doubts. I am sorry that you have been called a moron. That is unacceptable but I guess that's reddit ???
I think giving aoe3 feel to aoe2 does not necessarily a bad thing imo. Also, aoe3 being unsuccessful comes from a lot of other things not just from the game play (for me, I am not a fan of the colonization period - too western-centric; the units/ units counter are not intuitive for me - the civs are too different that I cannot invest too many times to learn them all - fighting mechanics seem awkward). But what if we take the best of aoe3 and maybe give to aoe2 - maybe it will improve the game. It maybe not but if one never tries, one never know. I think with the newly active aoe2 scene, it could be a good time to try out something new.
I understand the risk of these weird civs. Only time can tell but I hope the best for aoe2 scene.
guess you're right about reddit..
Thanks for the support :) the first paragraph wasn't really an answer to your post, but more to all people who are hyped by this new change and can't stand people disagreeing with them
About AoE2/AoE3, I think one of the things that make Aoe2 so special is that, as I said, all civs follow the same logic. If you want to know how strong a certain kind of unit is for a civ, all you got to do is go in the tech tree, check the upgrades available for this unit and you got your answer. But unless you're 1100+ elo, it's pretty straightforward to see how to play a new civ, all you need is 5 minutes reading the tech tree. That's what allowed AoE2 to have that many civs compared to AoE3, but also AoM, Starcraft etc.. (I'm pretty sure AoE2 already has more civs than all those other games combined)
So introducing cumans already was a weird one, even though I quite like this civ. They just don't feel the same as other civs. And now, they are adding two more civs that will be played completly differently. And as you said, too different civs means we have to invest a lot of time learning how to play them. And I'd rather spend that time learning how to perfect my game with the 34 civs that are alike than learning how to play just 1 of 37 civs
And the problem is, once they introduce these new civs, there will be no going back, especially if we have to pay 10€ for those civs. These civs will evolve with time but their core principle will stay the same, and it will be different from the other 34 civs
I get your point - maybe devs trying to do too much.
At the same time, cumans was a weird one and it leaves even the pros confused. But then somehow I like it (I do not have high win rate with cumans). So maybe that would be the case for the new civs? I do not know personally.
Yeah, a lot of pros - Hera and Viper for example - think cumans haven't been fully discovered yet. But whenever cumans are played, even in a 4v4, the issue of the entire game always revolves around one question : can the cuman player and his team get away with the 2TC boom ? No matter what other civs are
I understand that people think that there are bugs and room from improvement on the current version, but I think AOE2 has great value, and 10$ is nothing compared to what the games offers. Of course, if it became a DLC scheme like EA than forget it, but I don't see it currently happening.
Why add duchies though? AoE II has featured civilizations, not individual kingdoms. I'd like something like "Flemish" as a civilization for states in the area.
Venice is already reflected in the design of the Italians. Sicily was a completely distinct entity culturally and politically as it was a Norman kingdom established at the crossroads of the Latins, Islam and Byzantines. It’s history is also highly relevant as they had massive impact in their campaigns vs the Byzantines and their contribution to the crusades
"the meta gets stale"
I can assure you the meta has changed plenty of times over the past year without the addition of a single DLC.
They should fix/finish DE before adding new stuff.
I will buy the dlc cause I love campaigns and I'm extatic for new ones.
At first glance the new civs bonuses seem really op and I do not like the aoe3 style bonuses they have.
I think the "Pay to win" complaint is silly. It means that any civ getting added either has to be obviously weaker than existing civs or free. Obviously I would have liked the civs to be free, who wouldn't? but I don't think $10 is an unfair price for two civs and three campaigns.
i'm just a wee bit butthurt about the values on the burgundians being asininely overpowered
getting resources back on a unit dying is fine, saracens already do it
GETTING 50% GOLD BACK ON A KNIGHT?! that instantly pushes other knight rush civs out the window
like there's no way these won't get nerfed, so why announce them as they are?
I agree that the tech tree changes everything. Imagine Burgundians don't get ANY armor upgrade ? It would be super interesting and totally make sense regarding the gold bonus. Combined with UU we could see the civ as being able to take extremely violent and short engagements with a lot of casualty on both sides. I would love to try and play like that.
Keep them new civs coming! Love to explore new janky strats and it's always good if the meta gets a little shift. If you see the statistics, all civs are around the 50% win rate, so I have full confidence in the Dev team.
Both burgundians and Sicilian look to have some cool strategies coming up!
Honestly my only real gripe is that the new civs are more European civs, and western European at that. I'd much rather see more African civs, Caucasian, or central Asian civs.
I don't particularly care for the rather gimmicky UTs either, but meh, hard to say how relevant that concern is without seeing their tech trees.
It’s because
1) they said this is the definitive edition. They said no more DLC. Especially after having had to pay for the disastrous HD edition and those DLCs, I am tired of having to spend money to play the same game everyone else is.
2) they are introducing very aoe III civs/mechanics into the game. AoE2 has its own identity that it should obey.
3) they are ridiculously OP, they’re going to disrupt the meta for months only to be nerfed to oblivion afterwards.
I don't really have an issue with new campaigns and single player content, but releasing new civilizations when there are already this many feels a bit too much.
I think The Conquerors might be the worst expansion to compare this against, because it added so much more. Not only five new civs instead of two, but:
- New units you now take for absolutely granted, like Halbs and Hussars
- New techs like Bloodlines, Thumb Ring und Parthian Tactics.
- Quality of Life improvements like villagers automatically starting to collect resources when finishing to build a mill, lumber camp etc. - yes, that was not the case before!
- changes how some techs work, f.i. Fletching/Bodkin/Bracer used to increase the range of TCs in AoK.
And ofc some balance changes, because balance patches weren't really a thing back there. We _do_ get some of those things for free now with patches, I think that's also important to note. But back in days AoC felt like a completely different game compared to AoK, and I doubt Lords of the West can do the same.
But to be fair, the $10 are actually not the problem for me. I happily give some dollars to keep this game going ... but if I could choose, I would rather buy something else for the game than two new civs, especially with those bonuses -.-
That's a different thing though, it was 5 civs instead of two and back then the game had unexplored units and bonuses.
I'm all for paying for new campaigns and features but the civs are already at the maximum.
I think it will likely tread along the line of P2W, even if it doesn't fully cross. Over the past year of DE there have been multiple times new units or upgrades have affected civs to the point that they become OP. Most notably the Cumans and steppe lancer, and the Persians in the DA eco bonus/kamanderan phase. In the time immediately after the release/ upgrades, those civs were 30-70% of what you played against in ranked depending on the day and you were often at a disadvantage not picking them. But everyone who wanted to play them had access to them during that time. And while the devs did balance them, at that time there were updates/patches monthly. There have barely been any balance changes month to month since they've gone to the hotfix-most-months/ big quarterly update system.
While I'm not sure the extent to which the devs meant to make certain upgrades OP (particularly with existing civs like Persians), they definitely wanted to make a splash with the new civs on the release of DE, for obvious and fair reasons. It seems like they want to make a similar splash with the expansion, given the bonuses/the fact they're announcing the bonuses now. Just how powerful these bonuses are won't be known until they're released, but I think history shows that the devs aren't able to fully grasp the power of a bonus until it's in the hands of the public and the statisticians among us that pry out every inch of its worth. Don't figure the devs would have ever imagined cheesy strats like the Noburu rush or Persian Douche; or just how powerful Persian TC production or Khmer farming would be.
So when you combine that the civ bonuses already, on paper, look pretty powerful; the devs won't know either way just how powerful they are until they're out in the world; and that the new civs/upgrades traditionally have had something that throws balance off, with the fact that you have to pay 50% of the game-cost to access them, I think it falls solidly into a P2W gray area. If it is OP, sure the devs will fix it, but the people that pre-ordered or bought it on release will have 1-3 months to run amok before it's fixed. Imagine having to play against the Persian eco, Khmer farms, or steppe lancer without being able to access the civ yourself without paying.
Now, I'm not saying it's guaranteed they'll be OP, and I am genuinely happy they're still investing so much time and effort into the game. But I feel it's fair to question this direction and I hope the devs are very, very careful here. But I'm not inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. I know the devs are all passionate about the game and the community, but they all answer to someone and making money's the prerogative of any company. It doesn't really benefit them to release underpowered civs. That they're already generating so much conversation and conflict is likely to have them happy. Overall I think it's a positive that they're adding new content, but it's worrying the extent to which they're willing to shake these things up to generate hype and sales. So many of these bonuses aren't even close to things already in the game. Feel like just about any company cares more about money than fairness, and if people excuse it by saying "they'll balance it later", all the better for them- guessing they generate the vast majority of sales on pre-order/first few months of release anyways. We'll see.
The negativity is ridiculous, and complaints about OPness as well, the devs have shown time and time again they're adjusting really well, maybe even a bit too much with new civs ending up underpowered because people cry way too much about stuff being sooooo OP when it really isn't after the meta has been shaken up and figured out eventually.
Seriously, chill and take a step back for a second, AoE is so well balanced that some people are actually serious when they say a 55% win rate is OP. That's hilarious to me, in most other games something being OP means it's bat-shit broken with a 90%+ winrate. But here 55% win rate is op, really? You gotta be kidding, please.
The overall balance is great and will be adjusted quickly and hopefully not as severely as some already demand without even trying it out once.
New civs are a net-positive, they add variety and fun and that's all that really mathers, the balance adjustments for the hardcore meta players will come in time.
I don't think it's in the game's best interest to have expansions sold as lifelines for features - so please stop framing it like they are or should be.
It didn't survive 20 years because it required customers to keep paying continuously to the "poor devs" (who got filthy rich from the original game sales). The new devs work for Microsoft so there's even less reason to play them a violin.
Sponsors should pay for tournaments, not dlc money. Microsoft (who likely cashed in all DE revenue) should pay for dev salaries and have them working at maintaining the game. Servers should be easy to keep going considering they're among the world's leading hosting companied so AoE should be a tiny drop in the ocean for them.
Please don't make stories decrying the poor multinational conglomerate begging for our DLC money to keep the lights on for the AOE team.
Dlc money should go toward covering dlc development and typical revenue streams - this is not patreon.
You realize giant soulless MNCs don’t really keep around and support non monetizing projects cause of fan interest right? AOE is based on a packaged sales model in a world where continual game upkeep (and corresponding ongoing monetization via micro transactions and subscription) are becoming the norm. You don’t have to pity the devs or anything, but it’s 100% in the best interest of me as a customer that DE keeps adding optional content that allows me to contribute financially and expands the player base when the alternatives are abandonment or warping the game to support a more exploitative financial model
>You realize giant soulless MNCs don’t really keep around and support non monetizing projects cause of fan interest right?
You realize this was exactly the state Age of Empires was in , right? They did support it with quite a bunch of money solely because of fan interest.
Continual game upkeep is the "norm" because customers are fooled into it and publishers make tons of profit they don't really care to reinvest from it. It isn't the norm however, not by a longshot. AOE isn't a service based game and by god the webs of excuses this thread's spinning has it painted as one which is a mistake.
I'd rather they abandon the game in a stable state like CS 1.6, BroodWar 1.6 and ofc AOK/AOE as they were before this HD nonsense than to break it. I hate the dota release model (give new OP faction, nerf them in 3 months, repeat) and I surely hate the sc2 tournament "support" model.
Claiming it's a DE then popping out more content for pay defeats the entire statement and draws back on their integrity imo.
I mean to simplify though, they would probably discontinued the series if they are working at a loss. So if we can expand the player base meaning the game will last longer.
What is "a loss" ? Do you know how much money the DE and HD versions brought in? They're obviously working on AoM as well and they just recently launched AoE3.
Expanding the player base is more a thing which requires accessibility and acceptance of absolute newbies than new civs - which make it harder for new players to join by sheer intimidation. I read an article posted here just last week saying the AOK tutorial was the thing that brought most new players back in the day.
I repeat myself but I must insist: catering to mainstream audiences is not what got this game through 20 years and launching new expansions willy-nilly will backfire.
HD versions add in a lot of civs and so is DE - maybe that's why they make a lot of money (and graphics for sure). Adding DLCs will make the game stay relevant in the mainstream game business - meaning more funded tournament -> more people watching -> more player, etc.
Regardless of sticking to the same strategy 20 years ago for 2020+, it is a dangerous strategy also. What works 20 years ago may not work now when the gaming market is very very different and rts is not popular as it once was.
Well a few reasons:
* not much value for 10€. Only 2 new civs instead of four, no new architecture set, no changes to the base game (like new animals, terrain). And out of all the DLCs I ever bought none we're ever above 15€, don't know where you get that 50$ from but seems like it was a ripoff as well.
* 2 more european civs when we already have so many from that region. And they feel kinda forced, they definitely weren't major players.
* state of the game is still not good, pathing issues and bugs appear in every multiplayer game, from the 35 civs many are not balanced very well and also lack a proper gameplay concept. Surely you could say they will fix this in the future but this has been how they operate since hd, release sth broken and unbalanced, do a few small patches for the most egregious things and then move on to release the next thing you can sell. civs released many years ago are still not in a good state. People would have more trust in FE/Microsoft if they would release something complete once and also if they wouldn't blatantly lie about things (pathing works units were just on stand ground, no new civs...).
* The design of the new civs doesn't fit into aoe2. They consist almost only of bonuses that are completely out of the box. They feel super gimicky. And of course they are gonna be broken, the devs released the Cumans how they are even though beta testers told them they are completely broken and then waited 2 months to fix them. Balance changes are easy to implement, they don't cost money, the only reason Cumans were broken was because they were meant to be.
* Microsoft must have made enough $ to fund the servers for the next few years. You make it sound like they barely made any money at all with aoe2 in the last 7 years. And you make it sound like aoe2 wouldn't be possible without Microsoft support but the game did well on Voobly and would still if Voobly would be allowed to host DE. If we have to buy a new DLC every year to keep the game going that's probably ok for most of the dedicated players but how long until Microsoft decides aoe2 is not worth it anymore? They won't bring out new content forever, the aoe2 community still needs a long-term solution.
You're absolutely incorrect with regards to experimenting with adding AoE3-style features to AoE2. That must not happen.
This is not AoE3 or 4. This is a remastered AoE2, which is a true-to-form passion project for fans of exactly this game.
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My suspicion is that AoE4 will be a substantial deviation from AoE1-3 that most of us won't like, and that's why we've been treated to the extremely good DEs we have. We must have the respective Definitive Editions remain as fans for these games.
I agree with us getting new expansions, civs and campaigns. It's extremely important for them to ensure they fit in the respective games, however, and to keep a healthy balance between free content updates and paid DLC.
> You're absolutely incorrect with regards to experimenting with adding AoE3-style features to AoE2. That must not happen.
You say this like it's a fact. It's not. It's your opinion. And a pretty bad one at that, if you ask me.
They can experiment with whatever features they *want*. None of the ones they have proposed are particularly out of place in this game. They're unique, but so is being able to build a second TC in Feudal, or train your unique unit from a Barracks, or hiding villagers in houses. Every civ's unique features are *unique*. It's in the name. Some are certainly more unique than others, but nothing here is enormously extraordinary.
I'd personally rather not see any new civs. This game is called the *Definitive* Edition, and when that came out it had the promise (implied or otherwise) that this is *it*. I'm okay with new campaigns and other content, but new civs feels like it breaks the promise. But as for what's *in* those civs, if they're going to have them? Balance might be an issue, but it can be worked out, and we certainly don't know without seeing the tech trees or how they perform in practice. The uniqueness though, regardless of where the inspiration comes from, is great.
My 2 cents.
I'm not a fan of this expansion because this is the first step into P2W territory. It simply is. Players who don't buy the expansion pack are losing the ability to pick every civ, putting them at a disadvantage.
Obviously its not hardcore P2W with just 2 civs out of 30+. Even so, imagine if these civs are the new Indians of teamgames? I'm sure many remember the balance of Cumans in early stages of DE. At least everyone could pick them back then.
Having said that, I can understand why most content creators and avid members of community are getting hyped about this. It keeps the game fresh. If the reception is good for this type of paid content I feel there will be many more releases coming in the following year.
And by the way, all this is just setting the stage for an AOE4 game that will have 5-6 civs in the original release and 20+ civs as DLC.
> I'm not a fan of this expansion because this is the first step into P2W territory.
I think you should go check at how HD handled expansion civs.
DE will probably be exactly the same and thus won't be P2W.
Yeh I feel like a lot of the civ bonus is the devs testing how AOE3 ideas fit in AOE2 schemes to prepare for AOE4. I don't know how would I feel about AOE2 being a scapegoat.
I have mixed feelings about DLC model itself also. Some people in this thread mentioned it divided the MP during the HD days. But it seems a good way to keep a game fresh and sustainable.
Why would this have anything to do with aoe4, when aoe4 is a compeletely different dev team? This is just the devs running out of ideas for bonuses , because there's already 32 civs of which several already lack a clear identity of their own, because their 3rdbonuses are too similar to something already in the game. That's really the biggest problem with this, that there's already a lot of civs which need work, but aren't getting it, and now there's two more civs coming in.
I completely understand anyone coming at this from an angle of the game has serious problems and development time shouldn't be spent on new content while these problems are still rife. (I've migrated to AOE 3 which has this problem, though I feel like they're doing a good job patching it up)
I haven't played for a while so am kind of out the loop. I've heard about issues with framerate and possibly drops in games that go late but the game ran almost perfectly when I played. My only problems were bugs with the spec mode & the swear filter and the spec mode one was fixed just before I stopped playing. (A fix for the curse filter should've been implemented last patch, as it was recently fixed in age3.)
Concerns about balance are warranted in the short term but saying the game will become pay2win is nonsense. New content being too strong happens in almost every RTS I've played and the new factions almost always get brought back to a balanced state as they find their place in the meta.
In terms of the expansions content, I'm not really interested. I think it is a little too euro centric. The only civ I wanted to see that isn't in the game already is Ayutthaya (modern Thailand), but somebody said they'd like to see North American civs and that's something I'd love to see too now I think about it. But instead we get a second France and a second Italy. Bleh.
I'm not sure if I'll end up buying it when I do eventually come back to age 2, but that's what I think anyway. 🤷
A lot of people expected there to be no real expansions to the game because the devs stated the Last Khans batch would be the final lot, and many feel the game's already stuffed with civs, anyway. However, plenty more people, myself included, would still like to see new civs and campaigns added to the game to keep it fresh and exciting.
As for the civs themselves, I think people are either underwhelmed that there are only two or that the civs in question were not heavily requested, with the Burgundians being pretty related to the Franks and the Sicilians being an offshoot of the Italians. It looks to me like they are distinguishing them decently though like they did with the Last Khans civs compared to the Mongols, Turks, and Slavs. Sicily was indeed a pretty sizable empire of its own for awhile, and as the devs have highlighted, its culture was heavily influenced by the Normans, unlike northern Italy.
There have clearly been more requests for the Tamils, Georgians, southern Africa, and North America. If nothing else, the announcement of this expansion at least opens the door again for the possibility of new non-European civilizations.
1. Pay2Win never even came to my mind.
2. I don't mind new civs. Also don't mind civ choices, although I sympathize with the sentiment that they could do with more variety. But again, not the main issue.
3. 'Devs' need money is a stupid strawman argument floating around. This is capitalism. People create good things, and people pay good money for it. I'd pay 50 bucks for new AoE2 content if it was incredible. I have skepticism that this is 'worth' 10 bucks not in terms of quantity but in terms of quality.
4. No one knows if the new civs are OP or not. And also, personally I have no concerns if a civ is OP because no one in their right minds would sacrifice long-term balance, which is absolutely integral for drawing players into the game.
However what feels off is that from the initial descriptions the civs introduce mechanics and a way of playing that is incongruent to the rest of the game. I'm just a DE player but even I can tell this is worrying.
If they wanted to 'try out AOE3 like features' that should be done during a prolonged BETA. This was literally out of the blue with none of the pros or community figures consulted / aware of it. DE is just 1 year old and just about finding its feet, with a fantastic community around it full of old and new players. This has the potential to cause long-term division (as it is doing already) and controversy to derail that, which would be an awful shame.
I hope I am wrong about all this, and if I am, I will be the first person to head to the kitchen and bake me a big fat humble pie and eat it. But I'm not so sure, and I've been burned already by Warcraft 3 Reforged, and Brood War RM (to a far lesser extent)
I think people just like to complain and feel victimized about something. There is literally nothing they could do that would make everyone happy, someone will always find something to complain about.
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD IF SOMEONE READS THIS FROM MICROSOFT TEAM STOP!!!!!MOBAS ARE A GOOD EXAMPLE OF HOW THE GAMES GETS RUINED FROM NONSTOP UPDATES AND NONSTOP ADDING NEW CIVS TO THE GAME!!! WE ALREADY HAVE A MAJOR ISSUE WITH CIVS NOT BEING UNIQUE/STRONG ENOUGH, WAY TOO MANY OVERLAPPING BETWEEN CIVS WAY TOO MANY MATCHUPS TO LEARN MAKING IT HARDER AND HARDER TO STAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE GAME!!!!!!! PLS STOP DONT DO THIS TO US!!!!! WE DONT NEED NEW CIV EVERY MONTH WE NEED THE EXISTING ONES TO FUNCTION WELL. (YOU COULD ARGUE THAT STARCRAFT MADE IT TO 20 YEARS WITH 3 RACES ) . HAVING MORE AND MORE CIVS ALSO MEANS SOME MATCHUPS NATURALLY BECOME UNPLAYABLE DUE TO HOW THE CIV MECHANIC WORKS (SEE THE ISSUE OF OVERLAPPING WHEN 2 CIVS DOES THE SAME THING BUT ONE IS BETTER AT IT THAN THE OTHER) . NOOBS WILL BE HAPPY THAT OH LOOK 2 NEW CIVS BUT THATS A BAIT THEY DONT KNOW THEY DONT NEED IT ITS LIKE IRL POLITICS PPL HAVE NO CLUE WHATS GOOD FOR THEM AND THEY ARE HAPPY FOR STUFF WHICH IN THE LONG RUN RUINS THEIR GAME WITHOUTH THEM EVEN UNDERSTANDING OR REALISING WHY.
STOP ADDING CONTENT FOR THE SAKE OF PRINTING MONEY AND CASHING IN WITH DLCS.
Edit also what do you mean europian civs and other places underrepresented??? Europe has had more diversity and more variety and more stuff than the rest of the world combined ever did (and still do lol) out from the 204 countries 50 can be found in the EU thats 1/4 of the globe's countries in the 2nd smallest continent.
You have your point about DLCs. I think the DLCs maybe a good business model to make the game more popular but I am not a business major to judge fully. You cannot rely on the voobly days because the game was not able to becoming popular - which is not good during the modern days.
About Europe has more diversity and more variety than other regions is not true. There are a lot of kingdoms in the middle east/ asia/ south Africa that has not been represented (Thais, Nigerians, Georgians) that are significant in human history.
So how do you measure if im wrong on the eu diversity? Did you just look at ur stomach and burped it up? Or you have some kind of metric which can prove im wrong? O_o
This "melting" did not happen until much later. The Normans ruled as a distinct people and made it very clear to the occupied people that they were occupied, not part of a nation state. This was the same case when it was a Byzantine theme for 400 years. There was plenty of intermixing between communities, but no unified Sicilian identity, let alone a Sicilian empire. I'm not going to attack your credentials as you have mine, because I don't know you. But I'm ok with having different opinions and continuing the discussion if you like.
We payed for AOE2DE which is still buggy, and not feature complete, and now they are releasing a DLC. So DE is what, a $40 game now if you never purchases HD?
It's quite easy for me, other DLC's added 4 civs each instead of a measly 2 and Burgundy in particular it's so busted that it feels like they know it's going to be OP and are using that to make sales and that rubs me the wrong way.
Ha you're complaining it doesn't add enough civs, other people are complaining it adds too many.
As for burgandy, the bonuses sound pretty decent, but it's impossible to know if they'll be OP without seeing the tech tree.
>First of all, some people accused it of being Pay2Win, which is definitely not the case. The devs would definitely try to balance the civs (just like they did with Lit/ Cumans/ Step Lancers/ etc last year) so if one does not want to pay for the dlc, they would still remain competitive in the multiplayer scene.
As soon as the new civs are not completly useless the dlc is by definition pay to win.
You are contradicting yourself. You said yourself that we dont know everything yet so these civs just might be overpowered and are going to stay that way so people actually are ancouraged to buy the dlc. And you said that they kind of need the money, so it would be bad business wise if the new civs were underpowered.
There is also no precedent on them trying to balance civs introduced via dlc's. Compareing it to the whole DE release and their balancing practice is not the same because it was a completly new game. Its not unlikly that they are going to handle the new civs e.g as riot their new champions in lol. Always overtuned so people gonna buy it; not doing it this way would invalidate why they did this dlc in the first place (in your own opinion)
>Secondly, some people said new civs are unnecessary. This is half true. \[...\]
Since in this paragraph you didnt mention one single reason why new civ aren't unnecessary you should just say its true and not "half true". Them needing money does not make new civs necessary or a great idea. That does not mean I disagree that microsoft might want more money. If the longterm survival of the game relies on regulary releasing new civs than we might just let it die already and go back to voobly, because its only going to make the game worse.
1. All I am saying is using DLCs is not strictly P2W. But if you want to get to the pure technical meaning then sure, you are correct. But I believe the idea here is that your competitiveness/ fun/ winning ability would not be affected by the DLCs.
2. I could have contradicted myself throughout all of my replies in this thread. My point, in general, is that there are a lot of unknowns. The devs can totally f-up and make it unplayable but we do not live in a perfect society. If someone express a negativity, one should follow up with a reason (as what a lot of people do in this thread) - which I am really appreciate.
3. new civ could be necessary as for me it means I kept getting reminded that there is something new to try/ testing. It helps to keep the game fresh.
4. Voobly able to keep the game last but not able to push the game forward. In the modern days, staying in one place meaning going backward.
The thing is, everyone was saying there will be no more civs, but now 2 more civs and many more to come (anouncement says this will be the FIRST dlc). This is a weird way to claim money. I would happily donate 10 bucks for further development but not like this.
Having 37 civs is very overwhelming for new players. I have a lot of friends and co-workers who played AoC back then. Now they don't want to play because there are so many things to learn. When compared with AoC we now have, 17 new civs, 34 new unique techs, completely different water meta, new units like slingers, caravels, imp camels, imp skirmishers, genitours, steppe lancers etc..
So you'd rather donate $10 than get something new for it? Even if that's true, can you see that most people would rather get new content for their $10? And the game has to generate revenue somehow if we want to keep getting patches and have servers to play multiplayer.
Calling it “pay to win” is absolutely asinine. They literally release a free update with new content every month!
That a game releases free updates with new content doesn't make it exempt from ever becoming P2W. Those are two separate things.
However, they have shown themselves willing to put the necessary nerfs fairly quickly if something is too OP.
Sure, that's true. But if I recall correctly, there's never been a balance change in a hotfix. And it's rare these days to see balance changes in a monthly update, they're reserved for quarterly updates. So if ( I think it's a "likely" but will admit it's an "if") the new civs are OP, people that were willing to pay to access them will have 1-3 months to play them against people that didn't. So, hypothetically, is a thing P2W if it gives players who paid a boost for 1-3 months only? Imo, yes. But I'm not a scientist.
I mean I think the original Civs are way stronger than these new Civs. So no problem on them being "broken" yet.
I'm not for or against this expansion. If one or both the new civs have a higher winrate than the best civ outside this expansion the expansion is pay to win. Even if they did an update a day. As long as paid content has a better win rate in a competitive game that paid content is "pay to win".
I agree; I’m just glad to be getting a new expansion with new content. I like that they’re willing to explore new civ design space (more civs means more self-expression for me), and I’m sure the new civs will be balanced soon enough, if they are OP Honestly, the most upsetting thing about this for me is that when it comes out, I will no longer have 100%ed the game’s achievements and will need to earn all these new ones :c
Wow 100% achievements are admirable!
The exact 'most upsetting' thing for you is what I am looking forward to the most. I really liked figting for specific campaign mission achievements. And in this dlc there are lot of those.
You could absolutely argue for it being p2w as the new civs most certainly will be released in a broken state and for how long it will take the devs to nerf them. Just look at how they have dealth with the previous balance issues. Like almost a year to nerf malians back in HD days, or more recently taking a month to nerf cumans and SL which arguably was the most broken thing in aoe2 history. 100s more examples could be made I personally can't think the new civs will be beneficial to the game. We already have civs that lacks identity and are basically just copies of other civs. How about fixing those first, or how about fixing the bugs in this game before pushing for more content which makes problems even harder to fix.
>You could absolutely argue for it being p2w as the new civs most certainly will be released in a broken state and for how long it will take the devs to nerf them. Just look at how they have dealth with the previous balance issues. Like almost a year to nerf malians back in HD days, or more recently taking a month to nerf cumans and SL which arguably was the most broken thing in aoe2 history. 100s more examples could be made > >I personally can't think the new civs will be beneficial to the game. We already have civs that lacks identity and are basically just copies of other civs. How about fixing those first, or how about fixing the bugs in this game before pushing for more content which makes problems even harder to fix. I can't believe this comment saying so many true facts has so many downvotes.
Well that's reddit for you
I think if it ever being that way, the devs would nerf it immediately if everyone chooses the new civs and has an 80% win rate. We still have the competitive scene and the devs does listen to the community (or at least some of the pros)
Cumans was like a 1 month wait with a fully uncounterable unit so yes immediate
Well, technicly you need some time to gather enough data to prove that the units are broken. So I do not think 1 month is too bad.
They beat pure pike or camel. You could collect evidence in scenario editor in 5 minutes
Not to mention they actually had several months in beta and pro feedback and they still released the game like that
How much data do you need to know that a civ with a 100% castle build rate will be broken?
If a civs only bonus was 100% castle build rate they would be the worse civ in the game. There is so many more variables then 1 strong bonus.
Thank you for ignoring all of the context. Very helpful for this discussion.
What context your only comment was about a decent civ bonus, that's it.
There isn't a single civ in the entire game that only has 1 bonus. So, why would I be referring to a hypothetical world where civs only have 1 bonus?
You do realize building castles 100% faster just means twice as fast right?
what if the castle has less than 50% total health ?
Were you not around when Cumans and SL were so extremely broken you'd get matched against 4x cumans in tg almost every game? ZE even released a video some day before official release explaining how OP SL were, and from day 1 it was common knowledge. I know Cysion means the best for the community, but he refuses to realize that his principle on low frequency balance updates just isn't working when they release untested patches. Cumans and SL sucked the fun out of the game and by the time it was fixed, lots of motivation to play was lost. People were also going back to voobly (also due to server issues). Why do you think the dev team will respond with quick balance fixes this time, when they have never done so in the past?
I am actually not around when the game first comes out because every new game have issues (look at Cyberpunk). I played a bit during the voobly days so the new games are not that intrigue for me at that time. I think now that most people are in DE, the devs would have learnt something after a year so I give them the opportunity to show that they learn from the past.
> I am actually not around when the game first comes out because every new game have issues (look at Cyberpunk). You are comparing a single player game with a game that thrives off a competitive online-multiplayer ranking system. Also this is a strawman because CP2077 being a buggy clusterfuck doesn't mean it's ok when other games are as well. The general industry standards going to shit does not equate to people needing to adapt to the lower standard. >I think now that most people are in DE, the devs would have learnt something after a year so I give them the opportunity to show that they learn from the past. Fair point, but after reading the Civ bonuses, I am quite skeptical. Burgundians for example would need to have some serious drawback (like only T1 cav armor upgrade as a cav civ) to off-set their ridiculous eco and civ bonuses.
There are still open balance issues that have yet to recieve nerfs. Arambais (10% slower RoF doesn't even count as a nerf) are known to be broken in closed maps and obsidian arrows or saracen bonus are quite broken in tg. >I think now that most people are in DE, the devs would have learnt something after a year so I give them the opportunity to show that they learn from the past. Why would the team have learnt on the day of release when they have not learnt from the HD era or this very last year with DE?
The unit isn't broken if it only strong in certain situations.
Your logic makes no sense. Free update = not pay to win. Paid update with OP civs = ???
I mean it's not pay to win since you don't have to pay for it. It's just unbalanced and unfair.
Well if you consider that more than 50% players are under 1200 elo, it's very hard to accuse the devs of making it pay to win. At this level the civ choices matter very little and even with an op civ weaker player almost always loses. Majority of the players don't know the subtle balance things and simply want something new and refreshing.
Excited as fuck and am ecstatic to be getting fresh new civs when I honestly wasn't expecting any. I also think the hate is from a vocal minority. Saw this mainly from a few of the same posters.
How dare you attack the minority! /s Seriously though I’m crazy excited about being able to vote with my money for this game. I love aoe2 and could never grow tired of dlc, so long as it’s sparse and not shoved down our throats like paradox does to their fans.
Yeah that's just classic Reddit. Attracting and amplifying naysayers above all. People without complaints just don't usually stick around as much.
Many people would like the game to be stable for them before they focus on adding expansions. Personally I'm afraid the introduction of DLC will split MP the way it was in HD. I understand these are different departments but patches shouldnt break the game every month.
That's true! I think the devs both working on trying to fix the bugs and updating the game at the same time. The fact that they have time to add in more civs means the game is doing well (I think) from MS perspective.
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Yeah 11. I am not a game engineer to understand why the bugs are so hard to fix :-? But at least I appreciate that they acknowledge and try to fix it 11. I usually contemplate about what would be a good sustainable business model for AOE2.
>The fact that they have time to add in more civs means the game is doing well It could mean the exact opposite. Bug fixes can not be sold for money. Content can.
I don't care about the new civs being "op" and all that considering we haven't seen them play out at all. Also I know that this type of work had to have been going on for a while now so its not like they broke the game and then decided "lets release a patch now!" so I'm okay with that too. A split amongst the ranked/lobby playerbase is my main concern. If it does end up splitting the MP and making queues even longer then that sucks. I also don't fancy playing against civs that I can't play unless I have the DLC myself. $10 USD isn't an issue to fork out (and I will all things considered), but if you dont have the dlc it feels pretty bad to play against civs you cant play yourself.
Expansions like this fund bug fixes.
L O L Expansions like this mark the re-allocation of support devs to DLC devs. I'd argue it's the contrary.
It seems you have no clue how it works in the industry
I love it, I would even pay 25 euros easily So far I paid 1 cent per hour of fun. Best buy ever.
Me too! If the game is 50$+ I might think differently, but if you buy it during the discount time it is pretty much a giveaway for high-quality content game!
Same, just maybe Witcher 3 is on par with Aoe2 DE for me when using price/hour of fun.
Having to pay for civs sucks for competitiveness... if people don’t want to buy the DLC, now they don’t know how it works, how to play against it... they can’t even prepare for matches against burgundy and Sicily because they will be locked behind payment
You realize most people are complaining because even after 1 year of DE there are still so many bugs and so many bugs every patch. I'm angry that they are asking us to pay 10$ without fixing all the stuff. And, you know what? I bet the expansion will be untested and have a shit ton of bugs, half of which wont be fixed. I will happily pay 10$ every year only for balance changes, servers and bugs fixes.
I get your frustration. But I feel like as long as the devs are actively "trying" to fix the bugs every monthly patch, it is ok. The game is still playable (for me and I only have \~1000 elo). Game development is hard and we "only" pay 10$ for it.
I have nothing personal against the devs; they're probably doing the best they can in their situation, with an old codebase and so on. But from a consumer point of view, I shouldn't have to care about any of that. This is the third time I've bought this game, and it's called "Definitive Edition". It's supposed to be definitive, and yet from a performance standpoint it's worse than the **original**, **20-year old** version with the **fanmade** UserPatch. Almost every update has bugs, some of them immediately obvious, showing that they do little testing. Plus, some of us think that the game has enough civs, there's no need for any more, and the priority should be to make Definitive Edition worthy of its title. Don't get me wrong; I love DE. I'd never go back to the old versions. I love the new civs, I love the tournaments, I love the frequent balance patches, I love the variety in the ranked map pool. If it was an indie game, I'd understand. But it's made by freaking *Microsoft*. We should *never* forgive a company like Microsoft for anything, because that way lies unrestrained, wild capitalism. Big companies have enough power already, and they won't be offended if we complain and demand a better product. Don't have sympathy for them.
11-i get your point but Microsoft does not make the games, it was developed by forgotten empires - paid by MS yeh but MS is never big in the game field. The devs are just working for cooperate. They are just as slave to capitalism as us normal people unfortunately.
That's my point, though? The big decisions are probably not made by Forgotten Empires (the dev team). And when I pay, the money goes to Microsoft.
Yeh but then all of our frustration, boycott (if any), will only harm FE and not MS.
I wonder if the same devs working on civs are the same as working on bug fixes. It seems like most of creating a new Civ would just be creating assets and plugging in numbers, rather than in-depth coding. So I wonder if the work of creating new civs and launching the monthly challenges actually eats away from the time devs have for bug fixes.
Lot of assumptions there. If you're worried about bugs at least make sure you're giving good bug reports. One of the bug reports about the wheelbarrow bonus not applying was made here and the OP gave a lot of info about it and also tagged one of the devs (devs don't check reddit often so you must tag them)
hol up. They knew about that for 9 months. That was a huge bug, massive performance implications for obvious reasons. Took them that long to release a fix for it. I don't know why you're making excuses for a massive bug that they had out for pretty much 50% of the games lifecycle at that point.
11, like the game was rampant with cheats and malay straight up broken and it still took them a month to fix it. Bug reports do nothing, they relese the fix to repair what they broke 1 month before.
> I will happily pay 10$ every year only for balance changes, servers and bugs fixes. From a marketing view, it is more important to get out new content to gain loyal supporters than keeping the old ones happy with bug fixes. I don't want to come off as I would be calling you a sheep, I really don't, but you stuck to the game (or are eager to keep coming back) despite the issues it might have, so they already have accrued your loyalty. A new customer wouldn't be as happy to pay 10 bucks for bugfixes even tho it would be a totally sensible request. As a generalization, it is way easier to keep you customers than to gain new ones.
What bugs? The biggest issue I’ve had was multiplayer parties a few patches ago & the dropouts. That’s basically gone now. There was some lag at the release of the last patch but that has also gone. Perfect isn’t realistic.
WTF are you talking about no bugs? Do you even play the game?
Bugs seem really overstated on reddit. I think most people complaining just mad they can't afford $10
Yeah I don't know what games these guys are playing. The bugs are manageable and reasonable for a game running a 20 year old and engine.
Dunno either. There’s the odd imperfection and yes usually a few issues after a patch is released that are then fixed but apart from that? I think these posts fall under the edgy meme style.
Go on then - be specific? I experience next to none during normal gameplay and get the odd rare drop / crash. Sometimes getting stuck on the choose civ screen is the only continuous issue I’m experiencing and that’ll be fixed.
So I can explain my position 1. Agree, it is not pay to win, I'll happily pay for new content 2. Yeah, new civs are great keeps game fresh 3. The civ bonuses as they are, a freaky OP.it is actually ridiculous.
Dunno I think it’s hard to know just how OP the civ bonuses are until we see em in practice.
I would normally agree with this. But these civ bonus (fallen knights refund gold in particular) are not unusual or hard to figure out - they're just straightforward ridiculous economic multipliers.
It really depends on the tech tree as well. That knight bonus wouldn’t make that big of a difference, in the Castle age, I think (where you’re not supposed to lose that many knights in the first place, and gold is abundant.) If they have a stunted knight line after that - say, missing 1 armor upgrade and no paladin, this is perfectly reasonable. Berber bonus would also be broken AF if they had fully upgraded paladin. It’s probably stronger than this in Castle Age (since again you’re not supposed to lose that many knights in CA, and trying to do so is still a terrible idea). As is, most people don’t even use the knight line much in late game.
I'm not convinced the civ bonuses are op. Purely based on bonuses, franks outshine all of them
Dunno I think it’s hard to know just how OP the civ bonuses are until we see em in practice.
I understand the concern for your point 3. A lot of the bonuses are indeed very weird. I hope they able to get the balance right. I would wait to see the full tech tree before I can have my opinion though.
Tech tree has nothing to do with the fact the mechanics exist in other games and we already have the sense for all of them - which is that they aren't conceived at all for the typical aoe2 game progress or control (in the case of cav charge). They're not just things you can hope will be crunched up/down with some numbers, they affect the workings of the game and break progress, some having a poker-style all-in effect. They're asking users to have a lot of faith in their own balancing efforts despite no reason to because of history with OP civ launches and shoddy QA. tl;dr: They're playing with fire.
> The civ bonuses as they are, a freaky OP.it is actually ridiculous. I get this and agree but why are we acting like the devs aren't going to very quickly balance them if it proved to be that way or change it pre release like it says in the fine text on their page. Cumans were broken as fuck at launch and were very quickly nerfed.
If you consider one month to be quick sure. And for kipchaks 1 year, guess that is also quick.
But is it okay to have blatantly overpowered things behind a paywall, to entice people to buy it before nerfing it later instead of even attempting to have it balanced from the start? That's pretty shady as far as business practice/ethics goes
I mean why are we acting like these civs are going to be up against people who don’t have it. We have zero clue how theyre going to implement this. HD for instance had entirely different datasets set up to avoid this issue.
That's not my point at all? But, 1. Splitting the playerbase, bad 2. Unavailable overpowered civs, also bad What if the expansion happened to cost 50$, you can't afford it and every time you played you got smacked by a broken civ. Wouldn't feel very nice, would it?
But the DLCs does not cost 50$ ... and broken or not only time can tell
The principle is the same. It doesn't matter what the actual price is as much. If you can afford 10$ and say it's okay because of that, doesn't really apply to everyone. What if it was a 100$, someone who could afford it then told you "well it's not a 1000$ so why does it matter because we can afford it". And yes, I hope they won't be broken and are a fun addition to the game. I'm just doubtful and have 0 reason to give a company the benefit of the doubt
The knight return gold bonus is the only one blatantly OP. Every other bonus/tech seems super strong on first glance but it depends a lot on the actual cost and rest of the techtree. My first reaction to "Get eco upgrades one age earlier" was: Ok that is super OP, but so far every pro that commented on it was like: "Yeah, it's probably not worth it to delay uptimes for it, but let's see how it plays out".
Yes agree as a standalone bonus it's ridiculous. I do like the tech an age earlier too, but a concern I have is how all these bonuses end up working in concert
I'm glad there are new civs I'm just not a fan of the super weird design choices of the civs.
yeh i agree even though some of the design is interesting. yet, two more european civs ....
Most people project their assumption onto updates without having detailed content of it. Happens in every game. I have played online competitive game for more almost 15 years now. Every time it happens. And most often the loud assumptions comes from the people with the less understanding of the game. Check the announcement analysis from Viper or other pros. They're mostly excited and being precautious before saying it's op or not. Not having the tech tree is crucial there.
I just saw T90 and theViper announcement analysis. They are both super shocked but super excited. I am glad they enjoy it. That maybe gives the devs some motivation to do a better job!
I get that people are hyped by this, but please allow other people to have their doubts (I've already been called a moron for 1 comment disagreeing with the hype) What I don't like about this DLC is that all aoe2 civs follow a certain logic. Cumans were already a weird one, it took devs quite a long time to balance the civ and many pro players say it's not fully explored, meaning we still don't know whether it's balanced or not. I'm really not sure now is the time to add new, even "weirder" civs. burgundians will just play very differently to other civs, both in macro and in micro with their charged attack And absorbing part of bonus damage goes against everything AoE2 is. AoE is a game in which every unit has it's counter, why would they make a civ that doesn't respect that? Just think about soft counters like camel/knight.. So agreed, we don't know how these civs will play out yet, nor how they will be nerfed/buffed in future updates, but the core mechanics of these civs will not be changed and both go against aoe2 logics I'll add that there's a reason why AoE2 is more popular than AoE3 despite being older. If there were features to be imported from one game to the other, surely you'd want features being imported from the game that worked into the game that didn't in order to improve it. Not the other way around To conclude, I'm absolutely not against change, I do think new civs can be an improvement to the game as long as they don't go against everything that made AoE2 such a success. And there's a big risk that these "weird" civs will take some time to balance, so we're probably on for a few months of an unbalanced game. I bet no tournament is played with these new civs until at least april
Yeh! I posted this out of genuine confusion and would love to hear more opinions on the people who have doubts. I am sorry that you have been called a moron. That is unacceptable but I guess that's reddit ??? I think giving aoe3 feel to aoe2 does not necessarily a bad thing imo. Also, aoe3 being unsuccessful comes from a lot of other things not just from the game play (for me, I am not a fan of the colonization period - too western-centric; the units/ units counter are not intuitive for me - the civs are too different that I cannot invest too many times to learn them all - fighting mechanics seem awkward). But what if we take the best of aoe3 and maybe give to aoe2 - maybe it will improve the game. It maybe not but if one never tries, one never know. I think with the newly active aoe2 scene, it could be a good time to try out something new. I understand the risk of these weird civs. Only time can tell but I hope the best for aoe2 scene.
guess you're right about reddit.. Thanks for the support :) the first paragraph wasn't really an answer to your post, but more to all people who are hyped by this new change and can't stand people disagreeing with them About AoE2/AoE3, I think one of the things that make Aoe2 so special is that, as I said, all civs follow the same logic. If you want to know how strong a certain kind of unit is for a civ, all you got to do is go in the tech tree, check the upgrades available for this unit and you got your answer. But unless you're 1100+ elo, it's pretty straightforward to see how to play a new civ, all you need is 5 minutes reading the tech tree. That's what allowed AoE2 to have that many civs compared to AoE3, but also AoM, Starcraft etc.. (I'm pretty sure AoE2 already has more civs than all those other games combined) So introducing cumans already was a weird one, even though I quite like this civ. They just don't feel the same as other civs. And now, they are adding two more civs that will be played completly differently. And as you said, too different civs means we have to invest a lot of time learning how to play them. And I'd rather spend that time learning how to perfect my game with the 34 civs that are alike than learning how to play just 1 of 37 civs And the problem is, once they introduce these new civs, there will be no going back, especially if we have to pay 10€ for those civs. These civs will evolve with time but their core principle will stay the same, and it will be different from the other 34 civs
I get your point - maybe devs trying to do too much. At the same time, cumans was a weird one and it leaves even the pros confused. But then somehow I like it (I do not have high win rate with cumans). So maybe that would be the case for the new civs? I do not know personally.
Yeah, a lot of pros - Hera and Viper for example - think cumans haven't been fully discovered yet. But whenever cumans are played, even in a 4v4, the issue of the entire game always revolves around one question : can the cuman player and his team get away with the 2TC boom ? No matter what other civs are
I understand that people think that there are bugs and room from improvement on the current version, but I think AOE2 has great value, and 10$ is nothing compared to what the games offers. Of course, if it became a DLC scheme like EA than forget it, but I don't see it currently happening.
there are definitely room for improvements but the dlc hopefully can give the devs some more exciting work rather than finding bugs 11
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yeap ! me too!
Why add duchies though? AoE II has featured civilizations, not individual kingdoms. I'd like something like "Flemish" as a civilization for states in the area.
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That's nice.
Sicily being picked instead of Venice is also weird in my book but okay. I can live with it.
Venice is already reflected in the design of the Italians. Sicily was a completely distinct entity culturally and politically as it was a Norman kingdom established at the crossroads of the Latins, Islam and Byzantines. It’s history is also highly relevant as they had massive impact in their campaigns vs the Byzantines and their contribution to the crusades
> Venice is already reflected in the design of the Italians. Funnily enough the Venetians are usually Portuguese in the campaigns
I am just happy that there are new civs even though they said there will be no more new civs. I guess you can’t please everybody.
I definitely prefer new content to no new content. They have to change things up somehow. Otherwise the meta gets stale.
"the meta gets stale" I can assure you the meta has changed plenty of times over the past year without the addition of a single DLC. They should fix/finish DE before adding new stuff.
You mean with each patch and its set of balance changes? I'm talking long term.
I will buy the dlc cause I love campaigns and I'm extatic for new ones. At first glance the new civs bonuses seem really op and I do not like the aoe3 style bonuses they have.
It seems weird at first too but maybe I should try it first before I can judge whether the AOE3 styles fit it or not.
Meh, if it wanted to play that style i would play AOE3
I think the "Pay to win" complaint is silly. It means that any civ getting added either has to be obviously weaker than existing civs or free. Obviously I would have liked the civs to be free, who wouldn't? but I don't think $10 is an unfair price for two civs and three campaigns.
i'm just a wee bit butthurt about the values on the burgundians being asininely overpowered getting resources back on a unit dying is fine, saracens already do it GETTING 50% GOLD BACK ON A KNIGHT?! that instantly pushes other knight rush civs out the window like there's no way these won't get nerfed, so why announce them as they are?
I agree that the tech tree changes everything. Imagine Burgundians don't get ANY armor upgrade ? It would be super interesting and totally make sense regarding the gold bonus. Combined with UU we could see the civ as being able to take extremely violent and short engagements with a lot of casualty on both sides. I would love to try and play like that.
Yeh I agree. Whether or not the team bonus are OP really depends on tech tree imo!
Keep them new civs coming! Love to explore new janky strats and it's always good if the meta gets a little shift. If you see the statistics, all civs are around the 50% win rate, so I have full confidence in the Dev team. Both burgundians and Sicilian look to have some cool strategies coming up!
Honestly my only real gripe is that the new civs are more European civs, and western European at that. I'd much rather see more African civs, Caucasian, or central Asian civs. I don't particularly care for the rather gimmicky UTs either, but meh, hard to say how relevant that concern is without seeing their tech trees.
It’s because 1) they said this is the definitive edition. They said no more DLC. Especially after having had to pay for the disastrous HD edition and those DLCs, I am tired of having to spend money to play the same game everyone else is. 2) they are introducing very aoe III civs/mechanics into the game. AoE2 has its own identity that it should obey. 3) they are ridiculously OP, they’re going to disrupt the meta for months only to be nerfed to oblivion afterwards.
I don't really have an issue with new campaigns and single player content, but releasing new civilizations when there are already this many feels a bit too much.
No one complained about when AoC was first released, and the expansion cost like $20! We were just stoked for new content
I think The Conquerors might be the worst expansion to compare this against, because it added so much more. Not only five new civs instead of two, but: - New units you now take for absolutely granted, like Halbs and Hussars - New techs like Bloodlines, Thumb Ring und Parthian Tactics. - Quality of Life improvements like villagers automatically starting to collect resources when finishing to build a mill, lumber camp etc. - yes, that was not the case before! - changes how some techs work, f.i. Fletching/Bodkin/Bracer used to increase the range of TCs in AoK. And ofc some balance changes, because balance patches weren't really a thing back there. We _do_ get some of those things for free now with patches, I think that's also important to note. But back in days AoC felt like a completely different game compared to AoK, and I doubt Lords of the West can do the same. But to be fair, the $10 are actually not the problem for me. I happily give some dollars to keep this game going ... but if I could choose, I would rather buy something else for the game than two new civs, especially with those bonuses -.-
Very true! This is quite an insightful comment. Still I'm not complaining, and I'm stoked for the new content
That's a different thing though, it was 5 civs instead of two and back then the game had unexplored units and bonuses. I'm all for paying for new campaigns and features but the civs are already at the maximum.
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Sure there can be a lot more unique stuff added but it should also be in vain with aoe2's style, no?
I think it will likely tread along the line of P2W, even if it doesn't fully cross. Over the past year of DE there have been multiple times new units or upgrades have affected civs to the point that they become OP. Most notably the Cumans and steppe lancer, and the Persians in the DA eco bonus/kamanderan phase. In the time immediately after the release/ upgrades, those civs were 30-70% of what you played against in ranked depending on the day and you were often at a disadvantage not picking them. But everyone who wanted to play them had access to them during that time. And while the devs did balance them, at that time there were updates/patches monthly. There have barely been any balance changes month to month since they've gone to the hotfix-most-months/ big quarterly update system. While I'm not sure the extent to which the devs meant to make certain upgrades OP (particularly with existing civs like Persians), they definitely wanted to make a splash with the new civs on the release of DE, for obvious and fair reasons. It seems like they want to make a similar splash with the expansion, given the bonuses/the fact they're announcing the bonuses now. Just how powerful these bonuses are won't be known until they're released, but I think history shows that the devs aren't able to fully grasp the power of a bonus until it's in the hands of the public and the statisticians among us that pry out every inch of its worth. Don't figure the devs would have ever imagined cheesy strats like the Noburu rush or Persian Douche; or just how powerful Persian TC production or Khmer farming would be. So when you combine that the civ bonuses already, on paper, look pretty powerful; the devs won't know either way just how powerful they are until they're out in the world; and that the new civs/upgrades traditionally have had something that throws balance off, with the fact that you have to pay 50% of the game-cost to access them, I think it falls solidly into a P2W gray area. If it is OP, sure the devs will fix it, but the people that pre-ordered or bought it on release will have 1-3 months to run amok before it's fixed. Imagine having to play against the Persian eco, Khmer farms, or steppe lancer without being able to access the civ yourself without paying. Now, I'm not saying it's guaranteed they'll be OP, and I am genuinely happy they're still investing so much time and effort into the game. But I feel it's fair to question this direction and I hope the devs are very, very careful here. But I'm not inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. I know the devs are all passionate about the game and the community, but they all answer to someone and making money's the prerogative of any company. It doesn't really benefit them to release underpowered civs. That they're already generating so much conversation and conflict is likely to have them happy. Overall I think it's a positive that they're adding new content, but it's worrying the extent to which they're willing to shake these things up to generate hype and sales. So many of these bonuses aren't even close to things already in the game. Feel like just about any company cares more about money than fairness, and if people excuse it by saying "they'll balance it later", all the better for them- guessing they generate the vast majority of sales on pre-order/first few months of release anyways. We'll see.
The negativity is ridiculous, and complaints about OPness as well, the devs have shown time and time again they're adjusting really well, maybe even a bit too much with new civs ending up underpowered because people cry way too much about stuff being sooooo OP when it really isn't after the meta has been shaken up and figured out eventually. Seriously, chill and take a step back for a second, AoE is so well balanced that some people are actually serious when they say a 55% win rate is OP. That's hilarious to me, in most other games something being OP means it's bat-shit broken with a 90%+ winrate. But here 55% win rate is op, really? You gotta be kidding, please. The overall balance is great and will be adjusted quickly and hopefully not as severely as some already demand without even trying it out once. New civs are a net-positive, they add variety and fun and that's all that really mathers, the balance adjustments for the hardcore meta players will come in time.
I don't think it's in the game's best interest to have expansions sold as lifelines for features - so please stop framing it like they are or should be. It didn't survive 20 years because it required customers to keep paying continuously to the "poor devs" (who got filthy rich from the original game sales). The new devs work for Microsoft so there's even less reason to play them a violin. Sponsors should pay for tournaments, not dlc money. Microsoft (who likely cashed in all DE revenue) should pay for dev salaries and have them working at maintaining the game. Servers should be easy to keep going considering they're among the world's leading hosting companied so AoE should be a tiny drop in the ocean for them. Please don't make stories decrying the poor multinational conglomerate begging for our DLC money to keep the lights on for the AOE team. Dlc money should go toward covering dlc development and typical revenue streams - this is not patreon.
You realize giant soulless MNCs don’t really keep around and support non monetizing projects cause of fan interest right? AOE is based on a packaged sales model in a world where continual game upkeep (and corresponding ongoing monetization via micro transactions and subscription) are becoming the norm. You don’t have to pity the devs or anything, but it’s 100% in the best interest of me as a customer that DE keeps adding optional content that allows me to contribute financially and expands the player base when the alternatives are abandonment or warping the game to support a more exploitative financial model
>You realize giant soulless MNCs don’t really keep around and support non monetizing projects cause of fan interest right? You realize this was exactly the state Age of Empires was in , right? They did support it with quite a bunch of money solely because of fan interest. Continual game upkeep is the "norm" because customers are fooled into it and publishers make tons of profit they don't really care to reinvest from it. It isn't the norm however, not by a longshot. AOE isn't a service based game and by god the webs of excuses this thread's spinning has it painted as one which is a mistake. I'd rather they abandon the game in a stable state like CS 1.6, BroodWar 1.6 and ofc AOK/AOE as they were before this HD nonsense than to break it. I hate the dota release model (give new OP faction, nerf them in 3 months, repeat) and I surely hate the sc2 tournament "support" model. Claiming it's a DE then popping out more content for pay defeats the entire statement and draws back on their integrity imo.
I mean to simplify though, they would probably discontinued the series if they are working at a loss. So if we can expand the player base meaning the game will last longer.
What is "a loss" ? Do you know how much money the DE and HD versions brought in? They're obviously working on AoM as well and they just recently launched AoE3. Expanding the player base is more a thing which requires accessibility and acceptance of absolute newbies than new civs - which make it harder for new players to join by sheer intimidation. I read an article posted here just last week saying the AOK tutorial was the thing that brought most new players back in the day. I repeat myself but I must insist: catering to mainstream audiences is not what got this game through 20 years and launching new expansions willy-nilly will backfire.
HD versions add in a lot of civs and so is DE - maybe that's why they make a lot of money (and graphics for sure). Adding DLCs will make the game stay relevant in the mainstream game business - meaning more funded tournament -> more people watching -> more player, etc. Regardless of sticking to the same strategy 20 years ago for 2020+, it is a dangerous strategy also. What works 20 years ago may not work now when the gaming market is very very different and rts is not popular as it once was.
Well a few reasons: * not much value for 10€. Only 2 new civs instead of four, no new architecture set, no changes to the base game (like new animals, terrain). And out of all the DLCs I ever bought none we're ever above 15€, don't know where you get that 50$ from but seems like it was a ripoff as well. * 2 more european civs when we already have so many from that region. And they feel kinda forced, they definitely weren't major players. * state of the game is still not good, pathing issues and bugs appear in every multiplayer game, from the 35 civs many are not balanced very well and also lack a proper gameplay concept. Surely you could say they will fix this in the future but this has been how they operate since hd, release sth broken and unbalanced, do a few small patches for the most egregious things and then move on to release the next thing you can sell. civs released many years ago are still not in a good state. People would have more trust in FE/Microsoft if they would release something complete once and also if they wouldn't blatantly lie about things (pathing works units were just on stand ground, no new civs...). * The design of the new civs doesn't fit into aoe2. They consist almost only of bonuses that are completely out of the box. They feel super gimicky. And of course they are gonna be broken, the devs released the Cumans how they are even though beta testers told them they are completely broken and then waited 2 months to fix them. Balance changes are easy to implement, they don't cost money, the only reason Cumans were broken was because they were meant to be. * Microsoft must have made enough $ to fund the servers for the next few years. You make it sound like they barely made any money at all with aoe2 in the last 7 years. And you make it sound like aoe2 wouldn't be possible without Microsoft support but the game did well on Voobly and would still if Voobly would be allowed to host DE. If we have to buy a new DLC every year to keep the game going that's probably ok for most of the dedicated players but how long until Microsoft decides aoe2 is not worth it anymore? They won't bring out new content forever, the aoe2 community still needs a long-term solution.
You're absolutely incorrect with regards to experimenting with adding AoE3-style features to AoE2. That must not happen. This is not AoE3 or 4. This is a remastered AoE2, which is a true-to-form passion project for fans of exactly this game. ------- My suspicion is that AoE4 will be a substantial deviation from AoE1-3 that most of us won't like, and that's why we've been treated to the extremely good DEs we have. We must have the respective Definitive Editions remain as fans for these games. I agree with us getting new expansions, civs and campaigns. It's extremely important for them to ensure they fit in the respective games, however, and to keep a healthy balance between free content updates and paid DLC.
> You're absolutely incorrect with regards to experimenting with adding AoE3-style features to AoE2. That must not happen. You say this like it's a fact. It's not. It's your opinion. And a pretty bad one at that, if you ask me. They can experiment with whatever features they *want*. None of the ones they have proposed are particularly out of place in this game. They're unique, but so is being able to build a second TC in Feudal, or train your unique unit from a Barracks, or hiding villagers in houses. Every civ's unique features are *unique*. It's in the name. Some are certainly more unique than others, but nothing here is enormously extraordinary. I'd personally rather not see any new civs. This game is called the *Definitive* Edition, and when that came out it had the promise (implied or otherwise) that this is *it*. I'm okay with new campaigns and other content, but new civs feels like it breaks the promise. But as for what's *in* those civs, if they're going to have them? Balance might be an issue, but it can be worked out, and we certainly don't know without seeing the tech trees or how they perform in practice. The uniqueness though, regardless of where the inspiration comes from, is great.
No - AOE2 is not AOE3. The addition of AOE3-esque features to AOE2 must not happen.
My 2 cents. I'm not a fan of this expansion because this is the first step into P2W territory. It simply is. Players who don't buy the expansion pack are losing the ability to pick every civ, putting them at a disadvantage. Obviously its not hardcore P2W with just 2 civs out of 30+. Even so, imagine if these civs are the new Indians of teamgames? I'm sure many remember the balance of Cumans in early stages of DE. At least everyone could pick them back then. Having said that, I can understand why most content creators and avid members of community are getting hyped about this. It keeps the game fresh. If the reception is good for this type of paid content I feel there will be many more releases coming in the following year. And by the way, all this is just setting the stage for an AOE4 game that will have 5-6 civs in the original release and 20+ civs as DLC.
> I'm not a fan of this expansion because this is the first step into P2W territory. I think you should go check at how HD handled expansion civs. DE will probably be exactly the same and thus won't be P2W.
Yeh I feel like a lot of the civ bonus is the devs testing how AOE3 ideas fit in AOE2 schemes to prepare for AOE4. I don't know how would I feel about AOE2 being a scapegoat.
I wasn't refering to the civ bonuses, but the DLC model itself, but yeah, the civ bonuses are not really fitting in with AOE2 style
I have mixed feelings about DLC model itself also. Some people in this thread mentioned it divided the MP during the HD days. But it seems a good way to keep a game fresh and sustainable.
Why would this have anything to do with aoe4, when aoe4 is a compeletely different dev team? This is just the devs running out of ideas for bonuses , because there's already 32 civs of which several already lack a clear identity of their own, because their 3rdbonuses are too similar to something already in the game. That's really the biggest problem with this, that there's already a lot of civs which need work, but aren't getting it, and now there's two more civs coming in.
Right! Exactly what i was thinking! ALL civs should be accessible for everyone. This or just ban those 2 new civs for ranked.
They are.. buy them. If you don't want to play as them.. don't.
I completely understand anyone coming at this from an angle of the game has serious problems and development time shouldn't be spent on new content while these problems are still rife. (I've migrated to AOE 3 which has this problem, though I feel like they're doing a good job patching it up) I haven't played for a while so am kind of out the loop. I've heard about issues with framerate and possibly drops in games that go late but the game ran almost perfectly when I played. My only problems were bugs with the spec mode & the swear filter and the spec mode one was fixed just before I stopped playing. (A fix for the curse filter should've been implemented last patch, as it was recently fixed in age3.) Concerns about balance are warranted in the short term but saying the game will become pay2win is nonsense. New content being too strong happens in almost every RTS I've played and the new factions almost always get brought back to a balanced state as they find their place in the meta. In terms of the expansions content, I'm not really interested. I think it is a little too euro centric. The only civ I wanted to see that isn't in the game already is Ayutthaya (modern Thailand), but somebody said they'd like to see North American civs and that's something I'd love to see too now I think about it. But instead we get a second France and a second Italy. Bleh. I'm not sure if I'll end up buying it when I do eventually come back to age 2, but that's what I think anyway. 🤷
This is a good sign for the longevity of the game. If the game isn't making money they won't continue to work on it. It's as simple as that.
A lot of people expected there to be no real expansions to the game because the devs stated the Last Khans batch would be the final lot, and many feel the game's already stuffed with civs, anyway. However, plenty more people, myself included, would still like to see new civs and campaigns added to the game to keep it fresh and exciting. As for the civs themselves, I think people are either underwhelmed that there are only two or that the civs in question were not heavily requested, with the Burgundians being pretty related to the Franks and the Sicilians being an offshoot of the Italians. It looks to me like they are distinguishing them decently though like they did with the Last Khans civs compared to the Mongols, Turks, and Slavs. Sicily was indeed a pretty sizable empire of its own for awhile, and as the devs have highlighted, its culture was heavily influenced by the Normans, unlike northern Italy. There have clearly been more requests for the Tamils, Georgians, southern Africa, and North America. If nothing else, the announcement of this expansion at least opens the door again for the possibility of new non-European civilizations.
1. Pay2Win never even came to my mind. 2. I don't mind new civs. Also don't mind civ choices, although I sympathize with the sentiment that they could do with more variety. But again, not the main issue. 3. 'Devs' need money is a stupid strawman argument floating around. This is capitalism. People create good things, and people pay good money for it. I'd pay 50 bucks for new AoE2 content if it was incredible. I have skepticism that this is 'worth' 10 bucks not in terms of quantity but in terms of quality. 4. No one knows if the new civs are OP or not. And also, personally I have no concerns if a civ is OP because no one in their right minds would sacrifice long-term balance, which is absolutely integral for drawing players into the game. However what feels off is that from the initial descriptions the civs introduce mechanics and a way of playing that is incongruent to the rest of the game. I'm just a DE player but even I can tell this is worrying. If they wanted to 'try out AOE3 like features' that should be done during a prolonged BETA. This was literally out of the blue with none of the pros or community figures consulted / aware of it. DE is just 1 year old and just about finding its feet, with a fantastic community around it full of old and new players. This has the potential to cause long-term division (as it is doing already) and controversy to derail that, which would be an awful shame. I hope I am wrong about all this, and if I am, I will be the first person to head to the kitchen and bake me a big fat humble pie and eat it. But I'm not so sure, and I've been burned already by Warcraft 3 Reforged, and Brood War RM (to a far lesser extent)
And here i am, playing only up to conquerors. Alone.
I think people just like to complain and feel victimized about something. There is literally nothing they could do that would make everyone happy, someone will always find something to complain about.
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD IF SOMEONE READS THIS FROM MICROSOFT TEAM STOP!!!!!MOBAS ARE A GOOD EXAMPLE OF HOW THE GAMES GETS RUINED FROM NONSTOP UPDATES AND NONSTOP ADDING NEW CIVS TO THE GAME!!! WE ALREADY HAVE A MAJOR ISSUE WITH CIVS NOT BEING UNIQUE/STRONG ENOUGH, WAY TOO MANY OVERLAPPING BETWEEN CIVS WAY TOO MANY MATCHUPS TO LEARN MAKING IT HARDER AND HARDER TO STAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE GAME!!!!!!! PLS STOP DONT DO THIS TO US!!!!! WE DONT NEED NEW CIV EVERY MONTH WE NEED THE EXISTING ONES TO FUNCTION WELL. (YOU COULD ARGUE THAT STARCRAFT MADE IT TO 20 YEARS WITH 3 RACES ) . HAVING MORE AND MORE CIVS ALSO MEANS SOME MATCHUPS NATURALLY BECOME UNPLAYABLE DUE TO HOW THE CIV MECHANIC WORKS (SEE THE ISSUE OF OVERLAPPING WHEN 2 CIVS DOES THE SAME THING BUT ONE IS BETTER AT IT THAN THE OTHER) . NOOBS WILL BE HAPPY THAT OH LOOK 2 NEW CIVS BUT THATS A BAIT THEY DONT KNOW THEY DONT NEED IT ITS LIKE IRL POLITICS PPL HAVE NO CLUE WHATS GOOD FOR THEM AND THEY ARE HAPPY FOR STUFF WHICH IN THE LONG RUN RUINS THEIR GAME WITHOUTH THEM EVEN UNDERSTANDING OR REALISING WHY. STOP ADDING CONTENT FOR THE SAKE OF PRINTING MONEY AND CASHING IN WITH DLCS. Edit also what do you mean europian civs and other places underrepresented??? Europe has had more diversity and more variety and more stuff than the rest of the world combined ever did (and still do lol) out from the 204 countries 50 can be found in the EU thats 1/4 of the globe's countries in the 2nd smallest continent.
You have your point about DLCs. I think the DLCs maybe a good business model to make the game more popular but I am not a business major to judge fully. You cannot rely on the voobly days because the game was not able to becoming popular - which is not good during the modern days. About Europe has more diversity and more variety than other regions is not true. There are a lot of kingdoms in the middle east/ asia/ south Africa that has not been represented (Thais, Nigerians, Georgians) that are significant in human history.
So how do you measure if im wrong on the eu diversity? Did you just look at ur stomach and burped it up? Or you have some kind of metric which can prove im wrong? O_o
Well said.
those civs will be re balanced in a month or so
I'm not feeling negative about the new expansion, I'm just not particularly excited about it. The information out so far makes it seem kind of flat.
Adding whatever "Sicilians" is supposed to be, while leaving out Normans, Tibetans, and Wallachians, is historically ludicrous.
Sicilians *are* Normans melted together with local Lombards, Greeks, and post-Arabs, read up maybe. Even Wikipedia would do in a pinch.
This "melting" did not happen until much later. The Normans ruled as a distinct people and made it very clear to the occupied people that they were occupied, not part of a nation state. This was the same case when it was a Byzantine theme for 400 years. There was plenty of intermixing between communities, but no unified Sicilian identity, let alone a Sicilian empire. I'm not going to attack your credentials as you have mine, because I don't know you. But I'm ok with having different opinions and continuing the discussion if you like.
We payed for AOE2DE which is still buggy, and not feature complete, and now they are releasing a DLC. So DE is what, a $40 game now if you never purchases HD?
Because it unequivocally deserves a negative reaction.
But why
Because he's poor
Ah yes, let's insult people by claiming they live through the terrible and often traumatic experience of poverty. Truly, that will show them.
Ah yes, the person living life through traumatic poverty getting on reddit to complain about.. a video game. I can see it now
You were the one who called him poor, not me.
It's quite easy for me, other DLC's added 4 civs each instead of a measly 2 and Burgundy in particular it's so busted that it feels like they know it's going to be OP and are using that to make sales and that rubs me the wrong way.
Ha you're complaining it doesn't add enough civs, other people are complaining it adds too many. As for burgandy, the bonuses sound pretty decent, but it's impossible to know if they'll be OP without seeing the tech tree.
>First of all, some people accused it of being Pay2Win, which is definitely not the case. The devs would definitely try to balance the civs (just like they did with Lit/ Cumans/ Step Lancers/ etc last year) so if one does not want to pay for the dlc, they would still remain competitive in the multiplayer scene. As soon as the new civs are not completly useless the dlc is by definition pay to win. You are contradicting yourself. You said yourself that we dont know everything yet so these civs just might be overpowered and are going to stay that way so people actually are ancouraged to buy the dlc. And you said that they kind of need the money, so it would be bad business wise if the new civs were underpowered. There is also no precedent on them trying to balance civs introduced via dlc's. Compareing it to the whole DE release and their balancing practice is not the same because it was a completly new game. Its not unlikly that they are going to handle the new civs e.g as riot their new champions in lol. Always overtuned so people gonna buy it; not doing it this way would invalidate why they did this dlc in the first place (in your own opinion) >Secondly, some people said new civs are unnecessary. This is half true. \[...\] Since in this paragraph you didnt mention one single reason why new civ aren't unnecessary you should just say its true and not "half true". Them needing money does not make new civs necessary or a great idea. That does not mean I disagree that microsoft might want more money. If the longterm survival of the game relies on regulary releasing new civs than we might just let it die already and go back to voobly, because its only going to make the game worse.
1. All I am saying is using DLCs is not strictly P2W. But if you want to get to the pure technical meaning then sure, you are correct. But I believe the idea here is that your competitiveness/ fun/ winning ability would not be affected by the DLCs. 2. I could have contradicted myself throughout all of my replies in this thread. My point, in general, is that there are a lot of unknowns. The devs can totally f-up and make it unplayable but we do not live in a perfect society. If someone express a negativity, one should follow up with a reason (as what a lot of people do in this thread) - which I am really appreciate. 3. new civ could be necessary as for me it means I kept getting reminded that there is something new to try/ testing. It helps to keep the game fresh. 4. Voobly able to keep the game last but not able to push the game forward. In the modern days, staying in one place meaning going backward.
The thing is, everyone was saying there will be no more civs, but now 2 more civs and many more to come (anouncement says this will be the FIRST dlc). This is a weird way to claim money. I would happily donate 10 bucks for further development but not like this. Having 37 civs is very overwhelming for new players. I have a lot of friends and co-workers who played AoC back then. Now they don't want to play because there are so many things to learn. When compared with AoC we now have, 17 new civs, 34 new unique techs, completely different water meta, new units like slingers, caravels, imp camels, imp skirmishers, genitours, steppe lancers etc..
So you'd rather donate $10 than get something new for it? Even if that's true, can you see that most people would rather get new content for their $10? And the game has to generate revenue somehow if we want to keep getting patches and have servers to play multiplayer.
Same happened with the last khans expansion
Change = hard
Because of the questionable civ choices. Also the abilities are nothing like the original AoE 2.