AOE-II DE AoE2 DE Quality of Life improvements we need/want

[FFT]

Introduction​

The following list describes ideas for quality of life features that could improve AoE2 DE gameplay by making certain gameplay mechanics/aspects more smooth,less cumbersome and/or visible without affecting game balance (hopefully). Please comment below if any of these features are already implemented in the game or if there is already a way to achieve the functionality described by the feature. Any helpful comments can then serve as great references for especially new players that might not be familiar with hidden features and/or shortcuts in the game.

1. Smarter construction​

Villagers automatically split up to different foundations when commanding construction of multiple buildings using Shift-queuing except villagers that have already started construction on one of the buildings. In principle this should maximize construction efficiency. For clarity sake see the following explanations and examples:

1. Commanding a group of 10 villagers to construct 6 barracks by means of Shift queuing (Note there are more villagers than buildings). Consider the example below of how it can play out.
   1. All 10 villagers were close enough to start construction of the first building before the second foundation was placed. Therefore all villagers first construction of the first building after which the villagers split up in 5 groups (2, 2, 2, 2, 2) to construct the other 5 barracks.
   2. None of the villagers were close enough to start construction on the first barracks while all other foundations were placed. Therefore the villagers will split into 6 groups (2, 2, 2, 2, 1, 1) to build the 6 barracks.
   3. Some of the villagers (for argument sake 3) already started construction of the first building before the foundation of the second was placed. The "free" villagers immediately split between the buildings as soon as the second foundation is placed in such a way to form 2 groups (5, 5) in total. As soon as another foundation is placed in the queue "free" villagers should split again to form 3 groups (4, 3, 3) in total. If all 6 foundations were placed while 7 of the villagers were still on the way to their respective construction sites and the 3 actively building is still occupied then only the "free" villagers should spilt to form 6 groups (3, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1) in total.
2. Commanding 4 villagers to construct 6 barracks such that none is close enough to start construction before all 6 foundations are placed. The villagers split into 4 and prioritize constructing the closest 4 barracks before building the other 2 for which the villagers split in 2 groups (2, 2).
3. Commanding construction of a wall will automatically split the villagers to different segments of the wall individually (assuming there are more wall foundations than villagers).

However, smart construction is not necessarily always the desired behaviour since players might desire to construct buildings in a specific order (e.g. first build a castle then a stable then a mining camp) which is certainly true. Depending on how it is (if ever) implement a player could first place the foundation and then shift click the commands or just command all villagers back to the most important building and then queuing the rest.

2. Auto-farming and wood management​

[NOTE: It was pointed out in the comments that auto-farming does indeed not work the way it is explained here, but to avoid confusion this section is still kept for reference sake since many comments refer to different features by section number.]

Auto-farming should not use wood reserved for buildings that already has it's foundation placed on the map. This I consider to be a bug fix rather than a new feature. Consider the following scenario which happens often with buildings: Place a TC at some location for which 275 is deducted from your wood stock pile leaving you with <60 wood. A farm expires and needs to refresh before the villagers start building the TC. Since there is not enough wood in the stock pile the TC foundation is automatically cancelled to add 275 to your wood stockpile after which 60 wood is deducted from your wood stock pile to build the new farm leaving you with villagers at the TC site with blank expressions on their faces thinking, "WTF? If only someone 'wood' do their job!" So it "wood" be greatly appreciated if auto-farming can respect the difference between available and reserved wood.

3. Select all units of current selection type(s)​

This could serve as an alternative to double-click select all units. In principle the idea is to have functionality which allows you to select all units on the screen that correspond to the currently selected unit(s) with the use of a hotkey. This addresses the double-click select all drawback of misclicking due to fast moving units, small hitboxes or unintentionally drag-clicking instead. Additionally allows easier selection of more than one type of unit (which I believe is technically already possible, but in a cumbersome way). The concept also includes this functionality with selecting buildings.

Consider the following usage examples where <dhk> represents the designated hotkey that invokes the select-all-current functionality.

1. Select a single archer then press <dhk> to select all archers on the screen.
2. Quickly drag-select a group of military units of knights and skirms then press <dhk> to select all knights and skirms on the screen.
3. Select a stone wall and a stone gate then press <dhk> to select all stone walls and stone gates on the current screen (obviously useful for the back of your base on Arena maps).

4. Drag select all units of current selection type(s)​

This is identical to the "select-all-current" feature, however, the selection field is limited to a cursor drag box. Consider to following usage examples where <dkh> represents the designated hot key that invokes drag-select-all-current functionality.

1. Select a villager, hold <dhk> and drag a box to add all and only villagers inside the drag box to the current unit selection on release of the mouse cursor.
2. Select one palisade wall hold Alt and drag a selection box over an area with a palisade walls. On release all palisade walls within the drag box is added to the current unit selection.

5. Set gather points for incomplete buildings​

Allow incomplete buildings to set gather points. It's that simple. It's "incompletely reasonable".

6. Gather point tracers​

Show a direct trace (trail/line/whatever) from a building to it's gather point. Not to be disrespectful, but I think GL.TheViper would greatly appreciate this when he accidentally sets his TC gather point forward.

7. Auto-retrieve relic command​

How nice would it be to select a monk and right-click a relic and boom, the monk comes back with the relic without you needing to tell him to return to the monastery? I see no reason why the monk would not know automatically that the relic should go to the monastery. It's not like we tell villagers to drop wood at the lumber camp when it gathered a set amount of resources. Villagers do it themselves. Could it be that monks only have wisdom and no common sense? It seems completely reasonable to have such a feature for a single monk retrieving a single relic. With this players would only need to shift click each relic without the need to shift click the monastery as well.

8. Monk conversion traces​

How often do we create a congregation of monks, see the enemy approaching and think to ourselves, "Oh boy! What's yours is mine. It's conversion time!" only to lose track of which monk is converting which unit? Therefore, introducing (inspired by CaptureAge), conversion traces.

Conclusive remarks​

All these features would make the game more smooth and fun to play in my opinion. I am aware that some of these features might spark a little controversy as some could argue that some of the features can break game balance. I would invite those to share the problems there might be in the comments.

On the other hand I also have no way of judging whether it is even possible for the developers to implement these features at all; especially the smart construction since it might be quite a hassle to implement in the code.

Lastly I invite all to share other quality of life features they think would be good to have in the game.

 

[vince]

fix crappy pathing and I'm good

 

[lecracheursagacite]

1. It seems better to make the player do the special action for smart construction rather than for regular construction. Seems a bit too auto-everything either way however. If players don't have time to manually split up villagers to build a set of buildings more efficiently then the game is really too spammy.

2. This is the first I have heard about this which is surprising because if true I feel like a lot of people would complain about it. Having buildings you thought you placed not getting built really disrupts mental flow.

3. Agreed because of how unreliable and imprecise the mouse pointer can be. Generally unit selection should be as effortless as possible. This is an smooth reliable way to translate "I want all of these units selected" in the head to reality in the game.

4. I think that functionality already exists for villagers but if it doesn't it should. Having an easy way to distinguish between economic and military units in a drag select has felt valid in other games I've played. I don't think what you suggest for the second part is necessarily any faster than drag selecting and then selecting from unit portraits but having multiple ways to do something tends to be a good principle.

5. This makes sense because players tend to think about where they want new production buildings to send their units at the same time they are thinking about building new production buildings.

6. Isn't this functionality already present on the minimap? I feel like that is sufficient. Too many artificial lines on the screen cheeses up a medieval RTS. The range indicator mod is already bad enough.

7. It's not really asking much of a player to shift-click a monastery after tasking a monk to pick up a relic. The collection is instant and singular rather than gradual and repeated like with lumberjacks accumulating wood. Can't argue with your logic the monks would know where to go but still don't like it.

8. See comment to 6. Not sure potential usefulness outweighs that.

 

[Potkeny]

Having an easy way to distinguish between economic and military units in a drag select has felt valid in other games I've played.

It's in DE, selected modifier to drag-select only military or economy, feels awesome even early game when sending sheeps and not the scout back to TC.

 

[Spring_]

The ladder literally makes you play islands with no gold or get 2 hour bans for dodging. The first thing they need to fix is the map pick/ban system and allow either RM ranked lobbies or players to chose an exact map from the map pool (so that competitive players can play competitive maps)

Its so crazy to me that the ranked ladders have been literally stollen from the players by FE team... like its so sick seeing the top of aoe2 ladder leave and play other games because they literally arn't allowed to play AOE2... like what the actual ****

 

[Spring_]

1: units should not be "bumped" by forcing them to re-path when attacked. in DE every time a unit is re-pathed it is randomly sent to places against the wishes of the users input even when spammed. for example you can run a vill and continually click and every time a unit hits it the vill might run backwards, it might get pathed behind a wall and run around a 50 tile path to the other side, many bad interactions that counteract direct input from the player.
2: mele units need to be able to share 1 space tiles with at least 4 other units. on average about 4 units can hit 1 tile from one side anyways so allowing these units to path onto the tile to hit the enemy target the correct balance calculations will work. as we have it now 1 unit attacks from 1 tile on the other and blocks all other units creating a massive balance + pathing difference between meme and ranged units.
3: arrows should not do damage to tiles where they missed a unit until an accuracy upgrade tech is upgraded (castle age)

 

[kalpit00]

Huge fan of some of the features mentioned here, not a big supporter of some which can create even more bugs

1) NO. Smarter construction - i dont see how this can be implemented without numerous bugs to catch, and also the design is not clear when shift queuing comes in the picture

2) YES. Auto farming wood management - finna be honest, didnt even know this was a thing, never happened with me lmao as i always make tcs with villagers close by and never drop it all the way across town increasing walking time. Def should be implemented if not already

3) NO. Select all units currently selected using hotkey - ahh i dont know this will completely change the way units are controlled/selected. i like this for selecting walls, but the thing is you can already double click and shift delete stone walls which are visible on the screen - i feel like it accomplishes the same thing.

4) MAYBE. Drag select all units of current type - I love this idea but only for walls, not for units. For units and vills it just doesnt make any sense man. For walls, it is incredibly useful as you can quickly select only the wall pieces you want to delete OR when you misplace palisade walls and have to individually select and delete them because double click shift delete deletes your already built walls as well 11. For villagers, the alt hotkey works just fine, when u want to select only vils and garrison. I have seen viper do it so many times. For military units, i dont like it

5) HUGE YES. Gather points for incomplete buildings - simplest thing devs can implement imo (also if they are worried about bugs which may arise like what if the building doesnt get completed, dude its gonna cost a little bit of memory for the game to remember the tile at which u set the gather point, a flag variable which is set to true once building is complete and the gather point is set at that memory location - easy)

6) MAYBE - Gather point tracers - feels too aoeIV and i like my aoe2 as clean and with minimalist graphics, but depending on how thin the tracer is (if it is like the building range indicator where u can set it to a very thin dark line which only shows up when building is selected, then YES.)

7) YES - Auto retrieve relic command - i like it, especially for noob players u can just set monastery gather point and monk will drop it back. There is an argument where people need a dedicated path to avoid any enemy units/fights and sneak the relic back. In this argument however, you have to use shift clicks anyways to specify the path so you are already manually tasking the monk

8) NO - Monk conversion traces - Just no, its already a part of capture age and I knew the devs can implement in the game, but i dont like it, it takes the skill aspect away from judging which unit is getting converted, especially against monks. Like if u see a monk converting one of kts in a group of kts, u will simply delete him once 2-3 seconds pass and if monks doesnt auto-convert another/restarts his juice, u are guaranteed an advantage (which completely takes away the 2 for 1 trade which monks give (takes 1 unit away from enemy, gives it to u). And for the converting monk player, dude you should know which unit you clicked to convert, and even if u didnt, you can easily retask the monk to convert and as long as u are microing correctly, ur monk juice wont restart

 

[Lokalo]

The ladder literally makes you play islands with no gold or get 2 hour bans for dodging. The first thing they need to fix is the map pick/ban system and allow either RM ranked lobbies or players to chose an exact map from the map pool (so that competitive players can play competitive maps)

Its so crazy to me that the ranked ladders have been literally stollen from the players by FE team... like its so sick seeing the top of aoe2 ladder leave and play other games because they literally arn't allowed to play AOE2... like what the actual ****

Well this is being discussed a lot, also I would like one extra map ban which would let to play mostly maps I like every map rotation. Although Islands? That's the one which is being banned by almost everyone, you have 3 bans, you can easily ban Islands

 

[Spring_]

Well this is being discussed a lot, also I would like one extra map ban which would let to play mostly maps I like every map rotation. Although Islands? That's the one which is being banned by almost everyone, you have 3 bans, you can easily ban Islands

Yes, the problem is that alot of competitive players enjoy 1 meta and they log online to play that meta as high level as they can. This manifests in map biases by players either Land, Water, Open, Closed. If a 2k+ closed map player wants to log on and play that style for ANY reason whether they enjoy it or want to train it for a tournament. they should be allowed to! Forcing everyone to play a bunch of different things they dont like and of course arnt nearly as good at just makes the product not appealing and I think this affects high level and specialty players the most. Like, We have to play a lottery of things we don't like or we have to sit on the sidelines for 2 hours.... how long can this last and why are ladder players so disregarded?

 

[zShades]

Yes, the problem is that alot of competitive players enjoy 1 meta and they log online to play that meta as high level as they can. This manifests in map biases by players either Land, Water, Open, Closed. If a 2k+ closed map player wants to log on and play that style for ANY reason whether they enjoy it or want to train it for a tournament. they should be allowed to! Forcing everyone to play a bunch of different things they dont like and of course arnt nearly as good at just makes the product not appealing and I think this affects high level and specialty players the most. Like, We have to play a lottery of things we don't like or we have to sit on the sidelines for 2 hours.... how long can this last and why are ladder players so disregarded?

Just beacuse casuals are more important for the game than pro/semi players are. THere is nothing wrong with that and it is something it has to be accepted

 

[Promiskuitiv]

2. Auto-farming and wood management​

Auto-farming should not use wood reserved for buildings that already has it's foundation placed on the map. This I consider to be a bug fix rather than a new feature. Consider the following scenario which happens often with buildings: Place a TC at some location for which 275 is deducted from your wood stock pile leaving you with <60 wood. A farm expires and needs to refresh before the villagers start building the TC. Since there is not enough wood in the stock pile the TC foundation is automatically cancelled to add 275 to your wood stockpile after which 60 wood is deducted from your wood stock pile to build the new farm leaving you with villagers at the TC site with blank expressions on their faces thinking, "WTF? If only someone 'wood' do their job!" So it "wood" be greatly appreciated if auto-farming can respect the difference between available and reserved wood.

This is not how it works, no foundations are cancelled to grant wood for automatic farm reseeds.

 

[JUDAS]

Neither of these are game changing, or a priority, like some have said above, fix the ****ing pathing, design new good maps for the ladder, introduce rated lobbies for tgs, and maybe some seasons ladder with rewards, the AoE2 commmunity has proven long enough that is loyal to the game and to the constant milk with the DLCs, just make a fair retribution *$&@ devs.

 

[Lokalo]

Yes, the problem is that alot of competitive players enjoy 1 meta and they log online to play that meta as high level as they can. This manifests in map biases by players either Land, Water, Open, Closed. If a 2k+ closed map player wants to log on and play that style for ANY reason whether they enjoy it or want to train it for a tournament. they should be allowed to! Forcing everyone to play a bunch of different things they dont like and of course arnt nearly as good at just makes the product not appealing and I think this affects high level and specialty players the most. Like, We have to play a lottery of things we don't like or we have to sit on the sidelines for 2 hours.... how long can this last and why are ladder players so disregarded?

Well is not like I disagree with you in essence of choosing map, most people probably would choose to wait longer instead play map they don't want to. Just it's strange you chose water map which usually there is only one which is no problem to ban. Right now I would say there are mostly 2 camps, arabia players which choosing open maps as much as they can and clown players who choosing maps where they can use some cheesy stuff like fc into monks+siege. And I think both of those camps would benefit having one more map ban

 

[Snizl]

Just beacuse casuals are more important for the game than pro/semi players are. THere is nothing wrong with that and it is something it has to be accepted

You would also assume that a 2k+ player has a sufficient network of friends/other players of similar skill that he can play a lobby game against, whereas you cannot expect such a thing from casual players.
The main argument vs lobby games is usually that rating/skill cant be properly assessed. This argument falls flat for the top 1% of players.

 

[hereicome]

I'd just like a monk-holding-a-relic to convert the unit when right clicked on the unit .They should just drop the relic directly and start converting. It's a pain to first drop the relic and then right click the unit to do conversion, In arena it'll be so much better. The extra click really matters when defending against the scout.

 

[kalpit00]

I'd just like a monk-holding-a-relic to convert the unit when right clicked on the unit .They should just drop the relic directly and start converting. It's a pain to first drop the relic and then right click the unit to do conversion, In arena it'll be so much better. The extra click really matters when defending against the scout.

Not really, just have an easily accessible hotkey. Monks do not need specific hotkeys for commands when u can just right click, so disable them if they are interfering. Like I just have the drop relic hotkey on Q, which is the closest to the ctrl groups, and i can easily reach it.

 

[Polluxxx]

1) Rejoining a party once a game is finished
2) Possibility to chat during queue with party members
3) Option to add people to your Steam friendslist in game
4) Rematch option in 1v1s (limit to 2-3 times?)

 

[Lokalo]

1) Rejoining a party once a game is finished
2) Possibility to chat during queue with party members
3) Option to add people to your Steam friendslist in game
4) Rematch option in 1v1s (limit to 2-3 times?)

I would love option to add player, would like to have few people to play without ladder, as ladder is ok, but some smurfs there and stuff, sometimes I want just to have 1-2 games and don't want to play smurf or map I don't like and overall less stress to play with "a friend"

 

[FFT]

8) NO - Monk conversion traces - Just no, its already a part of capture age and I knew the devs can implement in the game, but i dont like it, it takes the skill aspect away from judging which unit is getting converted, especially against monks. Like if u see a monk converting one of kts in a group of kts, u will simply delete him once 2-3 seconds pass and if monks doesnt auto-convert another/restarts his juice, u are guaranteed an advantage (which completely takes away the 2 for 1 trade which monks give (takes 1 unit away from enemy, gives it to u). And for the converting monk player, dude you should know which unit you clicked to convert, and even if u didnt, you can easily retask the monk to convert and as long as u are microing correctly, ur monk juice wont restart

If I understand your explanation correctly you argue that it would be too easy for opponents to identify the unit that is being converted and simply delete it. This is not what I'm suggesting with this feature and I can admit that the explanations are quite cryptic at times. Of course having traces that both you and your opponents can see would be useless, but if, like your gather points of buildings, the conversion traces are only visible to yourself and not your opponents(/allies) then it makes much more sense. This was implied when I typed it out, but I can see why it might not be as clear as I initially thought.

 

[FFT]

This is not how it works, no foundations are cancelled to grant wood for automatic farm reseeds.

I apologize for the mistake then. I might have been too confident that when I place buildings in game that the foundation is set without double checking. At the time of creating the post this was what made sense to me. Thanks for pointing it out.

 

[Paint]

Age of Empires 2 is by far the hardest game I have ever played, it's very complex, very fast and games demand a long attention span so I think things that would make the game easier would help a lot.

Things I would like:
1. Improved auto scouting would not impact competitive games but makes the start a lot less hard for new players.
2. Drag farm construction tool, for example select 8 villagers hold alt+farm hotkey and drag a square and the game places farms in this square in space saving way.
3. Improved notifications for idle TC/Villagers maybe with a voice line reminding you.
4. select all navel units hotkey, exists for land but not for water units.
5. Missing upgrade reminder, when selecting a unit show available upgrades somewhere in the UI.
6. Fix the UI so the "go back to work" panel actually shows up.

 

[JoshuaR]

Maybe more (or completed) build/gameplay tutorials like the Chrazini interactive build order. Including ability for different maps, for a computer opponent, etc.

(This is not actually related to DE wishlist... whoops)

 

[Potkeny]

Chrazini interactive build order

Cicero? https://buildorderreference.com/
(https://www.aoezone.net/threads/interactive-build-order-guide.150157/)

 

[hereicome]

Not really, just have an easily accessible hotkey. Monks do not need specific hotkeys for commands when u can just right click, so disable them if they are interfering. Like I just have the drop relic hotkey on Q, which is the closest to the ctrl groups, and i can easily reach it.

I see the point, but since we are talking about QoL I thought it would be much easier to do it this way. Also you have said yes to the OP's point 7. Using the same logic when we reassign villager from one resource to another, we don't force them to drop off the resources being carried before they start gathering other resource. Similarly it could be better if the monk start the conversion by dropping the relic himself without having told to do so. I understand it might not matter much for higher elo players. But it does at lower elos and since it won't affect the gameplay or balance in anyway at higher ELOs, it fits the QoL definition, just may be not as important as the other ones that are being discussed.

 

[hereicome]

Age of Empires 2 is by far the hardest game I have ever played, it's very complex, very fast and games demand a long attention span so I think things that would make the game easier would help a lot.

Things I would like:
1. Improved auto scouting would not impact competitive games but makes the start a lot less hard for new players.
2. Drag farm construction tool, for example select 8 villagers hold alt+farm hotkey and drag a square and the game places farms in this square in space saving way.
3. Improved notifications for idle TC/Villagers maybe with a voice line reminding you.
4. select all navel units hotkey, exists for land but not for water units.
5. Missing upgrade reminder, when selecting a unit show available upgrades somewhere in the UI.
6. Fix the UI so the "go back to work" panel actually shows up.

I don't know about the voice line reminder. With what could already be an stressful situation I don't want some voice in the background to constantly remind me of something. I'd just have may be an improved version of the idle reminder UI. But there a lot mods that do a decent job of it already.