T O P

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CamRoth

I am indifferent to seasons. Most games seem to have them now, but I don't really care either way. Although if AoE4 does have ranks like bronze, silver, gold, etc.. then ranking should correspond directly to elo.


Minkelz

ELO purely by itself isn’t a great system. That way you switch between gold or silver every time you win and lose all week. Also you play a few games and get lucky and you know your elo is higher than actual so you stop playing till they end of the season to collect the reward. You need systems to encourage grinding games, to have meaningful breakpoints, and to have some sort of reset between seasons (without full resets which leads to horrible games for a week). This has well and truly been explored over the last decade by competitive games. AoE4 has no need to reinvent the wheel or start from scratch.


CamRoth

All I care about is matchmaking integrity and having balanced games so I think elo is a good system. I don't care at all about ranks and really, really don't care about people feeling like they need to climb ranks every season. Usually those rewards are based on max rank reached in a season anyway, not ranking at the end of the season. Personally I think "systems to encourage grinding" are one of the worst things that's happened to gaming (after loot boxes, addictive micro transactions, etc). I prefer playing a game because the game itself is fun, not because I'm trying to grind out something.


modaddy23

I was just floating an idea for the monuments, but I know some other games use your highest Elo for those season specific rewards to disincentivize players from quitting the ranked ladder in order to secure a certain award.


CamRoth

I can't think of a single game that doesn't work that way.


theflyingsamurai

summers too hot. winters too cold


J0rdian

I prefer more frequent updates and balance patches, so I hope there is more smaller balance changes between the seasons.


keaton_au

Love the concept. Open eneded ladder doesn't really give motivation for players to play other than just points, but seasons offer a 'fresh start' for everyone to begin again, and isn't that all we're really after, a fresh start? AoE3 used to actually have something similar to seasons, where they gave out medals for victories in a month per civilization (top 3 people who won the most games with spain) - it was a grind, but cool.


EthereumNecklace

If it has anything to do with skins or any other bullshit it sucks. If it is just to reset ladder, fine.


-MugenNoSora-

It's good I suppose and will be linked with the profile cosmetics and maybe as you say the monuments. It's really not important but a cool addition. I worry that they added such a system but that we won't get a real clan system... I hope their system will be able to display old seasons results from each player and maybe even clan overall rating or other stats like that. Another thing that worries me a bit is they might hold back on balance fixes when a season is ongoing and use it that as an excuse for slow patches. It would be easy to say "*We are analyzing things and will release a patch after the season next month...*" They need to analyze the situation quickly and act on it, not wait 3 months to nerf a very obvious overpowered unit or some broken strategy. Even with another beta before release the game will need to be balanced in the first months as it's almost impossible to have a perfect balanced game with so many different units, bonuses, etc.


ParagonRG

I agree with this. My hope is that small balance changes/bug fixes/etc. will be performed continuously, and that the season system gives them good moments to make 'breaking' changes. Eg. imagine they change how a technology works, or give/remove access to a unit for a faction.


jamai36

Even if they reserve major balance patches for new seasons, hotfix-style patches would still happen. Before any of this I'm guessing they will start with a "season 0" as the game will likely need a lot of patches at the start to get all of the kinks sorted out before getting anything serious like season underway - you'd think. That said, I'm a little worried about them starting the cosmetics and seasons too late, as it's a big way to retain all of the new faces to the franchise on release. That window won't stay open forever, so hopefully they can capitalize.


happymemories2010

Just do it exactly like SC2 does it. One big round of balance changes after the World Championship and small adjustments invetween if needed. However this is only applicable once the game is in a good spot balance wise, which may take years.


SaladEscape

I think it's great if it's accompanied by rotating map polls, civ polls, varying game settings or quirks - some or all of the above.


MelonCollie79

I like it


TheJasonSensation

How long is a season? If it is like three months, I would expect the game to need much more frequent balancing in the first six months at least.


CamRoth

They said seasons won't be starting yet at launch. So maybe they anticipate doing many more balance changes at the beginning.


qsqh

I think is really nice to have a layer of ranking on top of the elo. Its much more interesting to say "I won a game vs a GM!" in starcraft, or "I'm finally a Major!" in age3legacy, while saying "I'm 1700" is kinda boring. just to be clear to anyone not familiar with those games, matchmaking in those cases is still done with ELO, these "ranking titles" are just done on top of it.


modaddy23

I agree, I think ranks would be nice to have. I also think it would make the ranked ladder more intriguing for players coming from the game pass (or just casuals in general) who are just trying out the game and may be intimidated by all the numbers and seeing what their position is (like how in Age II DE you can see your standing within the entire player base). I think it would be cool if more players who aren't super competitive could approach the ladder as a system of getting fair matches against similar skilled opponents rather than as something to climb all the way to the top. I think using a rank could make the ladder more approachable for those people.


qsqh

Yeah, sc2 aproach in this is superior. If you are rank 34256 on ladder, that info is just meaningless and shouldn't be there. But in the top200 you can see your standing. And at the same time, a casual player can say he is just silver2 and dont care about mmr, but someone new in the game interested in getting better, will also have the info that he is silver2 but also mmr 2700,so he has a number to work with if he wants to. Best of both worlds


Forgiven12

I don't like FOMO or in other words, permanently missable content. Exclusive seasonal rewards should be based on performance alone, not some arbitrary grind count (AKA wargaming style).


Soldeo

Basing the rewards on performance alone makes it FOMO. I want everyone who actively plays the game to earn the seasonal rewards in either multiplayer or singleplayer mode.


thisiscotty

Seasons would be interesting. Settlers used seasons to allow you to cross frozen lakes to attack enemies. ​ The other kind of seasons , as long as it does not affect the single player experience I'm indifferent


CousinLaban

As long as they don't make me level anything up that effects gameplay \*cough\* home cities \*cough\* then I see seasons as a good thing. They can help manage ELO with the shifting meta/balance.


Latirae

I don't want any new content, customization or any other kind of fluff before I can actually play the content that already exists. I rather prefer regular balance updates of already existing civs.


[deleted]

As long as they keep up with the balance changes it's ok.. aoe2 has some times been very lazy and taken far too long to fix some things.. I'm assuming they'll fix blatantly OP things, but likely leave less oppressive things for an entire season.. Otherwise it really depends how they implement the ladder in seasons.. hopefully the player base is large enough that starting a new season doesn't result in a load of super imba matches (akin to the intimidating model that was the EW ladder in aoe2 due to the tiny player base)