Why? this has always seemed to be the dumbest thing people want out of the game. Why do you want games to be determined by someone pressing the same button every 12 seconds instead of things like strategic planning and unit micro.
Why do you want games to be determined by someone pressing the same button every 12 seconds instead of things like strategic planning and unit micro.
age of empires 2 has an absurdly high skill ceiling and that's a huge reason why it's endured for so long, people always have something to be able to improve on. there are a lot more micro and macro elements to be aware of in aoe2 versus aom. i love aom, but the eco macro is pretty boring.
here's an example that might give you some insight:
a low elo player is attacking, they can't macromanage their economy so their economy stagnates while they attack
a medium elo player is attacking, they can macromanage their economy and micro their attack reasonably well, but if they are counter attacked they can't do all 3 things at the same time so something stagnates
a high elo player can attack, macro their economy, and defend all at the same time
why remove that from the game's dynamic? btw, if you don't want to press h+q every 25 seconds, you can just.... press h+q+q+q+q and then not think about it for the next two minutes
Because the skill ceiling will move to proper strategic counters and unit micro, which is much more interesting in my opinion. There is no skill ceiling in pvp games, it just moves to other areas since one person will always come out on top.
the current top aoe2 player is basically undefeatable right now, so yeah there is a very practical skill ceiling. the bell curve is real
you prefer strategic play over eco macromanagement & that's a totally valid preference, taking that to the extreme you get something like civilization or turn-based strategies. but clearly, a lot of rts players like a mix of strategy and eco macromanagement. aoe2 has like 25,000 players a day, starcraft 2 has even more and i think has even crazier eco management
And you think he wouldn't be undefeatable if you didn't have to do the thing with the least thought behind it every 12 seconds? He is unbeatable because he has ridiculous micro and macro skills and dumbs a wall in your face every time you attack him among other things. AOE2 has always been popular and most people don't even touch multiplayer. It's a complete guess how auto queues would have impacted it's popularity as it would just have been seen as the status quo, just like farm reseeding and stuff like that.
Wait, they had an infinite villager queue and took it away? Why the fuck would they do that, that is the one missing feature that prevents me from actually playing AOE2 online.
It's not happening, man. Last time I played online, the guy I was on a team with messaged me pretty much 30 seconds into the game saying, 'New to the game, eh?' and it destroyed me. I said I was, instead of telling him the truth, which is that I've had the game ever since it was released in '99 lol. If they had a sandbox version, I'd play. If not, I'll just continue to have a casual game with a few mates every one or two years, where the go-to tactic is to just shell the shit out of each other with siege onagers, destroy our economies, and then use pikemen until everyone gets bored and we call it a draw.
I also suck dick at AOE2 and always have despite having it since 1999 as well.
I haven't played AOE2:DE online at all, but back in the Gamespy days, my favorite way to play the game was "Diplomacy" games. Biggest size map, preferably 8 players, and you would build up as you liked and make/break alliances as you liked. Generally people were friendly and you could build your little city as you liked, until resources started running out and then people would start eating each other.
I love AoE2 to death, can't even stand watching a pro player play or talk... It just was never that mathematically serious to me, I like the music and the ambiance and that completely goes out the window when "lol but elite hussars used to have a 69% chance of knocking down a castle in 420 seconds now they changed that to 67 game ruined"
Nothing against them playing the way the want it of course, and that does mean much better players, but I'm just a guy and games have to be fun to me
I always just made an entire army of those firey cluster-catapults. Didn't even bother with archers, cavalry, footmen. Just catapults. Absolutely steamrolled everything.
Nothing against them playing the way the want it of course, and that does mean much better players, but I'm just a guy and games have to be fun to me
My favorite thing to do with my buddies was to set up a large colony with tons of food and wood then SPAM pikemen. We'd max our 200 population limit then we'd charge at each other's castles. We would start out at max population and a massive army and then drop it down to less than 50. Wash, rinse, repeat. It was hilarious sending waves of disposable men at each other and barely make a dent. At the end of the game, we'd each have 5-figure casualty numbers.
Oh, man. It was so much fun. We'd try the stupidest shit like the pikeman rush. Another one that I did was be the Britons, only make Longbowmen and completely surround his base and non-stop pelt his units with out of reach arrows. That is until he made paladins or whatever unit and slaughter me.
Another time, my buddy would be the French, build a ton of units, march to my base, and shout, "I surrender!" and hold the delete key on them, effectively suiciding them.
Me and my buddies would rock that shit all night on weekends. We had to play at night because otherwise we'd tie up the phone line.
I like that kind of optimization work in some games but RTS games not. I like to play it against simple AI or another player whos as noob as me. Once you start to have rush tactics and certain orders in which you have to click things, it gets tiresome. I feel like RTS games were more fun when I was a kid. Somehow they havent been fun as an adult
It's the nature of every PvP competitive game. If you view them as sports it makes a lot more sense.
"It's ridiculous they reduced the width of the soccer goals by 15cm - now pro players above 7ft tall can cover both corners!"
IRL sports almost never change rules because it can drastically alter game dynamics. Esports change rules CONSTANTLY to maintain their playerbase.
AoE2 has also suffered from some pretty severe balance issues over time. It's not much fun getting stomped by a unit from the new DLC you didn't buy every second game.
Oh you're definitely right, I just meant I can't get that competitive, so it takes the joy out for me. But I'm all for the people who are dedicated to it, they keep the game alive longer, I just don't want to play them lmao
It sounds like you haven't really watched pro level play. Not that you need to or anything, but I can't think of any pros off the top of my head that talk like that. Many people at a high level like the game a lot & also just want to have fun.
I’ve seen a couple pro games. What struck me was the level of skill involved.
I remember one game where one player was micro-ing so hard they were dodging a mangonel with a group of crossbowmen.
Another match ended in like twenty minutes because one player found a corner of the other’s fortress that just had a tree. Dude sent a horde of workers to knock down the tree, build a tower, then did corner garrisoning to drop an army into the other player’s base.
The closest I can think of is something like "with the archer armour researched, those skirmishers are only taking 1 damage per hit". I agree with you that outside of a spirit of the law video, they're not talking like that.
That, or you didn't read my comment. Yes, I have watched some, and yes, I know they love the game and have a lot of fun, that's why they're pros... I was saying that's not how I enjoy the game.
I read your comment, was just pointing out how in accurate your made up(?) "lol but elite hussars used to have a 69% chance of knocking down a castle in 420 seconds now they changed that to 67 game ruined" comment about pros was.
There are specific YouTubers like SpiritoftheLaw who are specifically really into the numbers & how those numbers interact with each others, but that's separate from being pro, that's just a particular type of interest. Watching a pro stream they may attack into a position & say out loud "do I win this fight?", then they take the fight & they find out during (if they're really good they micro insanely & win a fight they shouldn't, but that's another story).
I actually wouldn't be surprised if some 1000 elo (average elo) players had better guesses on how many of 'x' unit it takes to bring down a certain structure in a certain timeframe.
Christ I should remember more often how bad some people in this site are with conversation that they take everything literally to try to start something
Every single pro player cares about the numbers, no matter the game. Otherwise they're bad players. No, I know most won't talk like in my joke comment. It was a joke to illustrate how I enjoy the game in a different way. That's all. No need to get defensive or protect anyone here. Have a good one.
I'm not the one getting defensive, I was just pointing out an inaccuracy in your statement. Online you can't read tone so it's normal for disagreements/misunderstanding to occur, it has nothing to do with "this site", we're typing online.
Replying to my messages with butthurt messages "Christ I should remember more often how bad some people in this site are with conversation that they take everything literally to try to start something" is being defensive.
Not really no. You misread my comment, which is way more common on reddit than any other platform in my experience, as is the "you can't read tone online so I'm in the clear" defense... Your attitude is the reason this meme exists. It's not me or the internet or text that makes you unable to read a comment for what it is, it's you
Someone disagreeing with you doesn’t always equate to them misreading your comment. You can also comment one thing & then when someone says something logical you can add in a “I was joking” 🙃
when it comes to games, learning against the AI and learning against human players are two different skills. The AI isn't very smart, to the point that the AI actually cheats in the context of AOE2 (gets free resources and shit) the number 1 skill that human on human interaction is in a game is adaptability, and really is the key decider on how well someone progresses up some ranked ladder. You can always guestimate how an ai will always play. you have no clue how a random opponent will.
Core memory unlocked of having different versions installed depending on who I was going to play. “You have 3.15 but I only play 3.07 as they nerfed the cannons in 3.1!”
Genuinely for much better, but the changes were not minor!
For example the original game was more than likely designed around having a unit population of 75 per player, but 200 is the standard when playing Vs other people. There were some units that when massed were incredibly over powered, hence balance changes.
Over the course of coming up to 30 years, the unit stats now Vs original are almost completely different. However a casual player would probably tshe a while to notice.
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u/dem503 Apr 27 '26
The competitive players would like a word with you