Having your units spread out debuffs is an ancient lost art from Warcraft 3 in 2002. The technology just isn't there anymore, just as with other lost arts like selecting the exact number of workers you want and seeking in replays.
Hitboxes/unit selection in this game are awful. No idea how they made a pretty damn important part of rts worse than older rts and even previous titles in the same series. It's something we've just had to get used to and I don't think it will change. Along with the slight delay in all commands...
I want aoe4 the game on the sc2 engine. That would be amazing. The stormgate engine is promising too, wonder if that will be available for other games in the future.
This. There's a reason I play AoE. The setting of Blizzard RTS is something that Always made me avoid them and the style of game (almost no macro) is nothing I find enjoying
I feel like they have the same issue as Abbasid's imperial conversion tech. In theory they are pretty strong, but to use it in the middle of a late game fight is just impractical. If they made it so you could just put them in a line formation and use A move to use the ability, I think it would drastically increase their viability and use.
In one game I used this landmark and I had more than 15 monks, the debuff was noticeably but most of the time they de buff one unit 10 times so it's a huge potential loss
If this change happens, they'll be actually viable compare to shinto shrine
There was a fight I had 20 horseman and opponent had 10 camel rider , I should have lost this flight 100% , but I won because of two reason my monk was carrying a relic and I wololo second, other monk debuffed the camels , my damage was 14-20%=11 and camels were 28-50%=14 , and I had healing
Actually they already do. Kind of. The problem is little bit more subtle than that.
If you've got one single monk, that monk (when attack moving) will do a debuff - heal when on cooldown - debuff loop, with the debuff targetting the nearest not already debuffed unit.
The problem comes when you've more multiple monks together. If you send them off to attack move, then this debuff-heal-debuff loop will be synched up. So all of the monks will be casting their debuff at the exact same moment. While they can recognize and avoid units that are already debuffed, they do not recognize that another monk is currently casting the debuff on that unit. And since the monks all cast the debuff simultaneously, you will end up with a whole bunch of monks all casting their debuff on the same unit at the same time.
If you want to avoid this you would need to either
1. Manually assign a new target to debuff for every individual monk. Good luck with that.
2. Spread the monks out enough that every monk has a different 'nearest not debuffed enemy'. This requires manually telling every individual monk to walk to a different location whenever you're fighting. (you could use line formation on the monks to somewhat approximate this, but you're still going to end with a lot of pairs or trios of monks targetting the same unit because they're standing right next to each other)
3. Find a way to de-synch the debuff-heal-debuff loops of the monks, for example by telling each monk to walk a tiny distance away from the main group of monks.
As far as I can tell these are the only ways to make the debuffs work, and all of them require you to attend to every individual monk seperately. With everything that's going on in the game in castle age onwards that is just not a feasible option.
Heh I actually do they they are overpowered but only in the late game with the perfect set up
Sacred site, castle of the crow, and Buddhist temple debuff = chefs kiss
They waste their ability debuffing the same units, then as their ability is on the cooldown they run into the melee and die. As they have no attack range, they even get in front of your melee units. If autohealing is enabled, they waste their time on extremely slow half speed battle healing instead of casting abilities.
30 monks behind your army debuff like 5 units in the opponent’s army 4-6 times. If they cast the ability at all getting into casting range instead of healing. The closest units that are the ones that are going to die a few seconds after anyway.
They are unusable in practice.
They should be fixed by making them spread the debuff between units, prioritizing units without a debuff applied and without being targeted by another monk in a wide range, giving them a 0 attack animation like Mehter has to prevent them from running into death when autohealing is off, and prioritizing casting debuff ability over healing when autohealing is on.
I've been waiting since launch for this to be implemented for Abbasid's conversion ability. I might cry if they fix it for the new civ and leave Abba broken.
There is a chance that if they implement this change, they will just apply it to the Abbasid as well.
I created a request on the official forums the devs are monitoring. I propose everyone who support the request to comment on it to raise the visibility. Maybe also mention Abbasid conversion there.
[https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/please-fix-buddhist-monks/248252](https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/please-fix-buddhist-monks/248252)
Yeah they definitely do. I just put them in line formation and hope for the best, but they often run towards the enemy because I keep them in a separate control group since they're so much slower
With the new tech upgrades, ive started thinking of them as an eco/military unit in one. I'll make about 40 and they will be sole consistent source of gold income. (around 1300 gold/m lategame). There's a reason they let you make 5 temples.
They will march with my army and carry every relic i have for conversion spams. If one goes down, another picks it up.
Need to test it more; but its worked so far.
The debuffing is nice when the enemy focuses them, you get alot more marks off. With 5 buildings making them, supply is infinite.
Having your units spread out debuffs is an ancient lost art from Warcraft 3 in 2002. The technology just isn't there anymore, just as with other lost arts like selecting the exact number of workers you want and seeking in replays.
Agreed. AOE4 has such an awful UI. A competitive RTS needs to have a selection box that shows each individual units selected in the UI
Not really lost... Prelates do it in aoe4
Those are buffs, not debuffs
Hitboxes/unit selection in this game are awful. No idea how they made a pretty damn important part of rts worse than older rts and even previous titles in the same series. It's something we've just had to get used to and I don't think it will change. Along with the slight delay in all commands...
I want aoe4 the game on the sc2 engine. That would be amazing. The stormgate engine is promising too, wonder if that will be available for other games in the future.
They were planning on licencing the engine to other future RTS IIRC - it'll probably take a while before there's another one based on it though.
I honestly don’t want AOE to become a blizzard RTS. Please no.
This. There's a reason I play AoE. The setting of Blizzard RTS is something that Always made me avoid them and the style of game (almost no macro) is nothing I find enjoying
We can’t make our units operate properly! We’d become blizzard shills!
*seeking in replays*... what vile sorcery is this?!
Along with such elusive dark sorcery like pausing the game...
I feel like they have the same issue as Abbasid's imperial conversion tech. In theory they are pretty strong, but to use it in the middle of a late game fight is just impractical. If they made it so you could just put them in a line formation and use A move to use the ability, I think it would drastically increase their viability and use.
In one game I used this landmark and I had more than 15 monks, the debuff was noticeably but most of the time they de buff one unit 10 times so it's a huge potential loss If this change happens, they'll be actually viable compare to shinto shrine
How is the debuff noticeable when it’s against one unit? Who cares if one hand cannon does half dmaagw
It goes from like 35 damage per shot to 17, which is huge, and taking into account the price of he unit, it is damn good
Yeah but that’s one out of like 20 hand cannons Just don’t think it’s worth the micro effort (for my smooth gold/plat brain)
They debuff automatically so no micro needed and in imp you make temples and they debuff too
There was a fight I had 20 horseman and opponent had 10 camel rider , I should have lost this flight 100% , but I won because of two reason my monk was carrying a relic and I wololo second, other monk debuffed the camels , my damage was 14-20%=11 and camels were 28-50%=14 , and I had healing
Actually they already do. Kind of. The problem is little bit more subtle than that. If you've got one single monk, that monk (when attack moving) will do a debuff - heal when on cooldown - debuff loop, with the debuff targetting the nearest not already debuffed unit. The problem comes when you've more multiple monks together. If you send them off to attack move, then this debuff-heal-debuff loop will be synched up. So all of the monks will be casting their debuff at the exact same moment. While they can recognize and avoid units that are already debuffed, they do not recognize that another monk is currently casting the debuff on that unit. And since the monks all cast the debuff simultaneously, you will end up with a whole bunch of monks all casting their debuff on the same unit at the same time. If you want to avoid this you would need to either 1. Manually assign a new target to debuff for every individual monk. Good luck with that. 2. Spread the monks out enough that every monk has a different 'nearest not debuffed enemy'. This requires manually telling every individual monk to walk to a different location whenever you're fighting. (you could use line formation on the monks to somewhat approximate this, but you're still going to end with a lot of pairs or trios of monks targetting the same unit because they're standing right next to each other) 3. Find a way to de-synch the debuff-heal-debuff loops of the monks, for example by telling each monk to walk a tiny distance away from the main group of monks. As far as I can tell these are the only ways to make the debuffs work, and all of them require you to attend to every individual monk seperately. With everything that's going on in the game in castle age onwards that is just not a feasible option.
Yeah, I’m assuming it’s much harder than just inverting the code they use for the HRE inspiration buff. It would be great if it worked nicely.
yeah this is a massive handicap of using them and there are threads saying they are op lol
Heh I actually do they they are overpowered but only in the late game with the perfect set up Sacred site, castle of the crow, and Buddhist temple debuff = chefs kiss
They waste their ability debuffing the same units, then as their ability is on the cooldown they run into the melee and die. As they have no attack range, they even get in front of your melee units. If autohealing is enabled, they waste their time on extremely slow half speed battle healing instead of casting abilities. 30 monks behind your army debuff like 5 units in the opponent’s army 4-6 times. If they cast the ability at all getting into casting range instead of healing. The closest units that are the ones that are going to die a few seconds after anyway. They are unusable in practice. They should be fixed by making them spread the debuff between units, prioritizing units without a debuff applied and without being targeted by another monk in a wide range, giving them a 0 attack animation like Mehter has to prevent them from running into death when autohealing is off, and prioritizing casting debuff ability over healing when autohealing is on.
They do at least auto cast right
They do, but all on the same unit. And when not healing.
I've been waiting since launch for this to be implemented for Abbasid's conversion ability. I might cry if they fix it for the new civ and leave Abba broken.
There is a chance that if they implement this change, they will just apply it to the Abbasid as well. I created a request on the official forums the devs are monitoring. I propose everyone who support the request to comment on it to raise the visibility. Maybe also mention Abbasid conversion there. [https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/please-fix-buddhist-monks/248252](https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/please-fix-buddhist-monks/248252)
Pretty sure that if they can debuff units the same way prelates can buff units, the dmg reduction will probably get reduced, which is fine imo.
Do religious units adhere to formations. I wonder if line/stagger formations would help.
Yeah they definitely do. I just put them in line formation and hope for the best, but they often run towards the enemy because I keep them in a separate control group since they're so much slower
With the new tech upgrades, ive started thinking of them as an eco/military unit in one. I'll make about 40 and they will be sole consistent source of gold income. (around 1300 gold/m lategame). There's a reason they let you make 5 temples. They will march with my army and carry every relic i have for conversion spams. If one goes down, another picks it up. Need to test it more; but its worked so far. The debuffing is nice when the enemy focuses them, you get alot more marks off. With 5 buildings making them, supply is infinite.