AOE2 Heading Towards Pay To Win

[TheShaunPlays]

First off, I know DLC is required to keep the game running and for Microsoft to keep supporting the game. I'm not saying we should get rid of DLC.

I am however worried that we might be heading towards the new civs being stronger overall than the civs you would get with DE. While it's not too bad on Arabia as a clown I'm certainly feeling the pressure against Poles, Bohemians and Burgundians on Arena.

Hera did a recent video where he ranked Arena civs and over half (3/5) of s-tier was DLC after DE civs (the 3 I mentioned along with Turks & Portuguese). If this trend isn't reversed and slowly starts creeping into Arabia we might have a big issue in the player base.

Curious to hear other people's thoughts on the topic.

 

[KolyaKrasotkin]

When talking about "player base", three (or even four) levels must be distinguished, imo:
casual; ranked casual / semi-competitive; and competitive (with maybe a separate category for the actual pros).

On the casual or ranked casual level (which, let's face it, are well over 90% of "the player base"), I don't see the big issue. If civ-picking starts to significantly compromise the fun for people, random will become standard again, at least in lobbies.
And ranked matchmaking pushes you to 50% win rate anyways. So, if you want to pay 10$ for 100 ELO, you are free to do so. But, so what?
On the pro level, there might be a problem, but it's not pay2win (as they will buy all DLCs anyway), but it's tournament games becoming more and more predictable and boring, if the pool of viable civs on a given map is very small.
And that is the case already, which is why already a completely different civ draft system for tournament games was suggested, that would also solve a potential problem of new civs being blatantly op.

 

[Lokalo]

Well that's long lasting concern which was already mentioned many times and I totally agree and said exactly same numerous times. I don't mind DLCs, but devs taking to balance new civs over a year is way too long.

Also sure, they are better in arena, but I personally find them super strong on arabia too. I mean Poles with Burgundians need more time to get running in arabia, but from middle castle age they can become insane. Having bow-saw from start of feudal age with burgundians and doing heavy plow going to castle age(saw ACCM did it even early feudal age in NAC4 qualifiers) you can feel early castle age that you just floating tons of wood. Is like having celts wood bonus, just you actually have powerful units and easy transitions to play with. Basically why would you play celts if you can have pretty much same bonus with burgundians and also most powerful unit in castle age(?)? Similar goes with poles, many might don't find relationship between them and vikings, but I do, cause they both thrive on farms eco. Yes it works very differently, but they are similar in that way, that they both shine when you get more farms going. Just issue with vikings is that you always feel on timer, as you have better eco, but your arbs have no thumb ring, you have no halbs, zerks are quite situational and super hard to get fully upgraded. While with poles you have so many options, that people usually dont even go arbs or CA, why would you, if you have dirty cheap knights and amazing UU. Well they do go arbs often, but usually as counter to pikemen, not as main opening.

The more I watch poles in tournaments the more broken they seem. Although even if it's an old civ, chinese feels bit broken too, especially if you idle your tc only 15-20 secs, you get quite huge lead from the start and with cheaper techs good luck catching up Though that's on arabia.

Overall I like balance changes of devs, and I agree with some "tuning civs slowly" meaning that they nerf just little and then nerf again, issue is they do them once every 3-4 months. They nerfed Poles a little bit last patch, I believe they will do it next one too, but in the end it will be like a year to fix the civ.

 

[kalpit00]

In all honesty I think the state of the game is so fresh that Devs might actually either be too busy occupied with other things, or just not prioritizing multiple balance patches (or they could just be lazy, which is possible considering how monotonous the life of a programmer is, as i myself am studying to be one, but it's not something to be hold accountable for)

Like they have a balance patch once every 3 months or so, and they make little little nerfs (in most recent ones, Hindus, Gurjaras and Poles all got nerfed, and now they are in a much better spot than they were before - still broken on some maps, but on arabia, which is the map all civs tend to be balanced around, it's an improvement)

I don't mind the rate at which they publish balance patches, it does take time (atleast 1 month+) to fully test all the changes they make. We already see tons of bugs every time there is a new patch, and then they throw a hotfix for the bugs, and the original problem which was the rebalanced civs still exists - as people complain they still are broken or useless (like the ones at the bottom). It's a repeated cycle which never ends.

If anything, I would want them to take 3 months (or longer, 5 months if you need), but please don't reintroduce more bugs every time there is a new patch, or break the game by breaking pathing, units teleporting through walls and so on.

I don't mind people picking the same civs all the time, it's not as much of an issue once you get decent at the game. (Sure it was annoying to face gurjaras or hindus every single time on arabia, but then again like someone mentioned above, it's just inflated elo due to OP civs, so I don't mind going random civs and then beating the OP civs due to actually playing good - it trains me to become a better more all-rounded player). Elo is just a number.

My only wish is they introduce more fun maps on the ladder, then the usual Arena, Nomad, African Clearing, Four Lakes, Gold Rush, Black Forest, Islands. They are the same maps rotated every cycle, I want to play the maps which pros play in the tournaments -> this would not only force civ pickers to play other civs, but also make other civs viable on ladder. City of Lakes is a good example, it's a trollish map but you can pick malay on it, a civ you would never otherwise see. Give us Houseboat, Graveyards, other fun maps.

 

[Lokalo]

My only wish is they introduce more fun maps on the ladder, then the usual Arena, Nomad, African Clearing, Four Lakes, Gold Rush, Black Forest, Islands. They are the same maps rotated every cycle, I want to play the maps which pros play in the tournaments -> this would not only force civ pickers to play other civs, but also make other civs viable on ladder. City of Lakes is a good example, it's a trollish map but you can pick malay on it, a civ you would never otherwise see. Give us Houseboat, Graveyards, other fun maps.

Please no, just no 11 Houseboat in ladder, ohh god, now I see ho devs come up with those dumb maps like city of lakes. Also not that houseboat is awful map itself, but "this would not only force civ pickers to play other civs" doesnt work at all. Is like in nomad people pick spanish all the time. So they would pick malay. Or they will pick Lithuanians or whatever is great in Graveyards. Bringing maps to ladder where one or few civs are way better makes things way worse, not better. If there are tons of hunt, they will pick Mongols, tons of relics as Graveyards they will pick Lithuanians and so on. You might be fine playing them, but for me it gets really boring really fast to face Gurjaras nonsense half of games, glad those times gone.

 

[LowEloNobody]

Eh, you also have DLC civs that are incredibly situational and just straight garbage on Arabia i.e., Bengalis, Dravidians. You also still have perennial top civs on Arabia, Frank's, Mayans, Aztecs, Chinese, etc., that have been around for years

 

[kalpit00]

Please no, just no 11 Houseboat in ladder, ohh god, now I see ho devs come up with those dumb maps like city of lakes. Also not that houseboat is awful map itself, but "this would not only force civ pickers to play other civs" doesnt work at all. Is like in nomad people pick spanish all the time. So they would pick malay. Or they will pick Lithuanians or whatever is great in Graveyards. Bringing maps to ladder where one or few civs are way better makes things way worse, not better. If there are tons of hunt, they will pick Mongols, tons of relics as Graveyards they will pick Lithuanians and so on. You might be fine playing them, but for me it gets really boring really fast to face Gurjaras nonsense half of games, glad those times gone.

the point of giving houseboat as an example was that newer maps would make people pick civs which are never picked.

I am an arabia only player myself, and I get bored after 2 or 3 tryhard sessions (don't have the time either currently)

The upside of newer maps is that yes there will be 1 or 2 solid civs on them, but on a larger scale, you can come up with off-meta civs and win. Like you mentioned, take a hunt heavy map where 99% of times Mongols would be picked. But around the 16xx level you can pick counter civs to that and make the game fun (like imagine berbers as a sole counter to mongols, you can have a fun matchup where the early game mongols have advantage but you get your timings in castle age). Now take this on a grander scale, with more and more diverse maps. You can have unique maps (like houseboat, not saying i love the concept of it, but a map where majority would choose a civ like malay), and then also prepare counter civs and strats vs the majority civ pick

 

[LowEloNobody]

I am an arabia only player myself, and I get bored after 2 or 3 tryhard sessions (don't have the time either currently)

Maybe try another map?

 

[SouFire]

There are not counterweigths for cysion and co introducing their broken units or awful balance, in the past the community would complain with the support of the top players and then they would be forced to restore balance, but now the top players and the community are dispersed within their own communities, so they have all the freedom to keep pushing obuch like units every now and then.

I have been telling this for years now, we have the worst balance ever speaking of general balancing and not arabia only stats, we can't really see how stupid the balance is cause all tournaments have adopted drafting,ban and snipe settings, pro players don't need to worry about developing new strategies or mastering different civs as all they need to to do is secure the safe civs and ban the annoying/strong civs from their opponents and the viewership seems happy with that without even thinking in the consequences of adopting such system that manipulates civs statistics and balance general opinion by forcing diversity.

Every dlc has included broken civs/units/mechanics and honestly it looks like a never ending cycle, it took 6 long years for them to nerf camel indians and one dlc to make hindustanis camels even more stronger than ever and buff massively the civ that already had one of the best win rates by giving them eagle like units with another game breaking mechanic and HC with 9 range.

Economic bonuses like poles, gurjaras, hindustanis and burgundians are beyond even viking economic bonuses with a huge difference, all those civs have super strong and cheap military compositions and artillery options, that is clearly a pay to win conditions by releasing something like that.

 

[Instinctz]

Hera did a recent video where he ranked Arena civs and over half (3/5) of s-tier was DLC after DE civs (the 3 I mentioned along with Turks & Portuguese). If this trend isn't reversed and slowly starts creeping into Arabia we might have a big issue in the player base.

here's my problem with what you're saying. balance isn't going to impact 90% of the player base to begin with. literally for the mass majority of us, the reason we win or lose isn't going to be because Poles are better then Britons.

 

[asdfasdfasdf1]

hindustanis, franks, chinese, portuguese.

 

[Lokalo]

Well as expecteed poles nerf, would like Hindustanis nerfed bit more, but overall It's nice to see what they made. Some little nerf to Chinese wouldnt hurt, but lets see how those changes will affect.

 

[Zeev]

I don't see it as pay to win. It's normal when you release new stuff, that it's strong. That way you get more people to try it out. Then you can start tweaking it little by little to get it on the same line as the rest of the civs. No matter how much you test it yourself, you can't find every possible tactic or exploit. Community will find those for you and then you just fix them.

The balance has never been as good as it now. We have come a long way from hun wars and aztec/mayan wars.

 

[Crawsack]

There are not counterweigths for cysion and co introducing their broken units or awful balance, in the past the community would complain with the support of the top players and then they would be forced to restore balance, but now the top players and the community are dispersed within their own communities, so they have all the freedom to keep pushing obuch like units every now and then.

I have been telling this for years now, we have the worst balance ever speaking of general balancing and not arabia only stats, we can't really see how stupid the balance is cause all tournaments have adopted drafting,ban and snipe settings, pro players don't need to worry about developing new strategies or mastering different civs as all they need to to do is secure the safe civs and ban the annoying/strong civs from their opponents and the viewership seems happy with that without even thinking in the consequences of adopting such system that manipulates civs statistics and balance general opinion by forcing diversity.

Every dlc has included broken civs/units/mechanics and honestly it looks like a never ending cycle, it took 6 long years for them to nerf camel indians and one dlc to make hindustanis camels even more stronger than ever and buff massively the civ that already had one of the best win rates by giving them eagle like units with another game breaking mechanic and HC with 9 range.

Economic bonuses like poles, gurjaras, hindustanis and burgundians are beyond even viking economic bonuses with a huge difference, all those civs have super strong and cheap military compositions and artillery options, that is clearly a pay to win conditions by releasing something like that.

I agree some of the new mechanics are a little ridiculous. But think about how many civ bonuses/features that we'd call completely broken if they were released now. Britons getting +1 range in castle and imp? Broken, OP, how can you stop 11 range Arbs?

Mayans? Dirt cheap archers, Plumes are fast moving, fast firing, have high PA, and their elite upgrade doesn't cost gold. Also their resources last longer. Broken, OP.

Franks? Best paladins in the game, have a UT that lets their stables pump out units for forever, free farm upgrades and berry bonus, best scouts in early feudal.

Spanish? Their UU is uncounterable in castle age, they can drop castles insanely fast and they have full trash and their blacksmith upgrades don't cost gold.

The point isn't that the civs I just mentioned are broken per se, it's just we're used to them. They define "normal" to us when we compare the new civs, and if the old civs don't keep up, we hate it.

Trust me, I agree that Shrimvamsha riders are stupid, it's an insanely cheap unit with a mechanic that makes no sense whatsoever. But in general I'm fine with some of the unique mechanics they've put in.

 

[kalpit00]

The point isn't that the civs I just mentioned are broken per se, it's just we're used to them. They define "normal" to us when we compare the new civs, and if the old civs don't keep up, we hate it.

I somewhat agree, but I really hate the fact that devs have given new civs so many tech options.

Like why on Earth does Poles have BBC and monk techs? If you are giving a civ such a strong eco backed with powerful units like Cheap Cavalier, Arbs, Winged Hussar with +1 vs archers and trample damage (I am telling you this unit, on top of poles farming in late imp is lowkey broken).

You mentioned Britons and Franks with their powerful military options backed by economic bonuses. And yes, we are used to them, we know the meta with them, maps to use them on, and exploits vs them (Like franks, you wanna try deny to deny berries or go elongated feudal as their scouts lack bloodline - exploit) (Britons, siege ram is a good option)

But then come a civ like Poles or Hindustanis. How do you exploit it? Especially on closed maps like Arena, you cannot deny their folwark farming, or Hindu casually 5 tc booming while you can barely afford a 4th tc. And get to late game, both civs have endless tech options. Like how do you stop Poles cheap cav spam, with 33% extra gold from stone mines, and also arbs with thumb ring (or HCA - parthian)? They also have obuch which is a really cost efficient unit vs other infantry. And once gold runs out, you pray to god you have relic adv because the broken Winged Hussars will come. Also, if all these options weren't enough and you try to go Halb SO early push, they have monks with redemption block printing, and BBC, countering any form of siege (including houfnice or SO).

I agree Poles on open maps aren't as popular as folwarks are exposed. Well then you pick Hindus there 11. Same story, unless you are lucky with being sneaky or map hacks, this civ just saves food on vils and then boom 3 tcs while you try to go 1 tc all in and kill. And funnily enough, their vil bonus is so bonkers they can afford army at the same time, and have monks with redemption ofc so you cannot kill them in castle age. Get to imp, their options again are endless, Ghulams counter any archer civ, HCA an overall power unit, Imperial camels vs any Pala civs, and 9 range HCs which are deadly. In trash wars too, they get FU hussars and E skirms, with cheaper vils so when they get raided, they replenish faster than you do 11. Oh and also they get bbc and Siege elephants (which are siege rams in disguise)

 

[Crawsack]

I somewhat agree, but I really hate the fact that devs have given new civs so many tech options.

Like why on Earth does Poles have BBC and monk techs? If you are giving a civ such a strong eco backed with powerful units like Cheap Cavalier, Arbs, Winged Hussar with +1 vs archers and trample damage (I am telling you this unit, on top of poles farming in late imp is lowkey broken).

You mentioned Britons and Franks with their powerful military options backed by economic bonuses. And yes, we are used to them, we know the meta with them, maps to use them on, and exploits vs them (Like franks, you wanna try deny to deny berries or go elongated feudal as their scouts lack bloodline - exploit) (Britons, siege ram is a good option)

But then come a civ like Poles or Hindustanis. How do you exploit it? Especially on closed maps like Arena, you cannot deny their folwark farming, or Hindu casually 5 tc booming while you can barely afford a 4th tc. And get to late game, both civs have endless tech options. Like how do you stop Poles cheap cav spam, with 33% extra gold from stone mines, and also arbs with thumb ring (or HCA - parthian)? They also have obuch which is a really cost efficient unit vs other infantry. And once gold runs out, you pray to god you have relic adv because the broken Winged Hussars will come. Also, if all these options weren't enough and you try to go Halb SO early push, they have monks with redemption block printing, and BBC, countering any form of siege (including houfnice or SO).

I agree Poles on open maps aren't as popular as folwarks are exposed. Well then you pick Hindus there 11. Same story, unless you are lucky with being sneaky or map hacks, this civ just saves food on vils and then boom 3 tcs while you try to go 1 tc all in and kill. And funnily enough, their vil bonus is so bonkers they can afford army at the same time, and have monks with redemption ofc so you cannot kill them in castle age. Get to imp, their options again are endless, Ghulams counter any archer civ, HCA an overall power unit, Imperial camels vs any Pala civs, and 9 range HCs which are deadly. In trash wars too, they get FU hussars and E skirms, with cheaper vils so when they get raided, they replenish faster than you do 11. Oh and also they get bbc and Siege elephants (which are siege rams in disguise)

I think you make good points, and I think both Poles and Hindustanis are due for some nerfs (they both just got their eco bonuses nerfed in the most recent patch although that patch just got rolled back due to performance issues).

For Poles, their main weakness is they don't have one single power unit that overwhelms you, it's the eco and cost-effectiveness of their units. On closed maps, Dravidians Urumi Swordsmen/Halb/EEA deals with Poles pretty well, Britons/Ethiopians Arb + Halb shreds their cav that doesn't get +4, Mongols on closed maps can shred Poles because Mangudai/Hussar/Siege Rams are tough for any civ to deal with, if they can get there. Obviously Poles have a huge eco edge but they aren't unstoppable. Slavs Boyar/Halb/Siege is tough for them to deal with.

Hindustanis, yes if they can get to their perfect army comp they're pretty unstoppable. But it's not every match that someone can go Ghulam/Imp Camel/Shatagni HCs. A huge mass of CA/Hussar fights that pretty well anyways.

The problem mainly is that people don't have experience fighting these civs, so it's a struggle figuring out what to do to stop them, doesn't mean they're uncounterable.

I do think some nerfs to their eco are in order, and will probably have a huge impact on their win rates.

 

[kalpit00]

I think you make good points, and I think both Poles and Hindustanis are due for some nerfs (they both just got their eco bonuses nerfed in the most recent patch although that patch just got rolled back due to performance issues).

For Poles, their main weakness is they don't have one single power unit that overwhelms you, it's the eco and cost-effectiveness of their units. On closed maps, Dravidians Urumi Swordsmen/Halb/EEA deals with Poles pretty well, Britons/Ethiopians Arb + Halb shreds their cav that doesn't get +4, Mongols on closed maps can shred Poles because Mangudai/Hussar/Siege Rams are tough for any civ to deal with, if they can get there. Obviously Poles have a huge eco edge but they aren't unstoppable. Slavs Boyar/Halb/Siege is tough for them to deal with.

Hindustanis, yes if they can get to their perfect army comp they're pretty unstoppable. But it's not every match that someone can go Ghulam/Imp Camel/Shatagni HCs. A huge mass of CA/Hussar fights that pretty well anyways.

The problem mainly is that people don't have experience fighting these civs, so it's a struggle figuring out what to do to stop them, doesn't mean they're uncounterable.

I do think some nerfs to their eco are in order, and will probably have a huge impact on their win rates.

I agree, and the reason why the civs which have borderline uncontestable army comps like Mongols and Magyars are balanced because they do not get any such eco bonuses.

Here's a fair comparison : take vikings for example, this civ's economy was #1 before any of the DE civs, and even with the thumb ring tech, their options were still limited comparatively - they had the powerful arbalest play with siege ram, but still lacked mobility, no monks or bombard cannons which meant they weren't preferred in closed maps. Now take Poles, and think of the list of maps you would prefer to have vikings over poles. If there's no pure water map, poles would be chosen any day of the week - and they both have bonkers economy, except one civ gets endless tech options which are viable on any form of map. (Even Islands I can see someone going poles and tower rushing because their vils regenerate 11, which reminds me Poles are also a good civ on vil rush maps like socotra)

Back in the old days, civs had their own roles on specific types of maps. Sure there were things which were very unbalanced, and balance on a more wider scope has never been better than it is now, but now we are reaching a stage where you have jack-of-all-map type civs like Poles, Burgundians, Hindustanis which can perform on any type of map (open, closed, hybrid). In AoC, we only had Byzantines and Saracens with full tech trees viable on land, water, closed, etc - and neither of these two have concrete economy bonus. If we consider non DE civs, Byzantine and Saracen would be a default in any draft because they are good vs a variety of civs on a variety of maps. But now, nobody bats an eye (Byzantines are only better on four-lakes kind of hybrid maps than these new civs, which wasn't the case before)

 

[kalpit00]

On closed maps, Dravidians Urumi Swordsmen/Halb/EEA deals with Poles pretty well, Britons/Ethiopians Arb + Halb shreds their cav that doesn't get +4, Mongols on closed maps can shred Poles because Mangudai/Hussar/Siege Rams are tough for any civ to deal with, if they can get there. Obviously Poles have a huge eco edge but they aren't unstoppable. Slavs Boyar/Halb/Siege is tough for them to deal with.

And to stress this point, yes you mentioned many comps like Mongols, Dravidians and Slavs and said if they can get till there. Here's the ridiculous thing about poles - they get bombard cannons. You cannot compete with the imp timing that poles get due to their farming, prevent them from dropping a fwd castle and start trebbing your castles. As mongols, there's just no way, not only will you be behind to imp by 3 mins atleast, you need castles to make mangudais and they are targetting your castles. Even with slavs, which have the farming bonus and may be able to match the imp timing, well they also need castles to make boyars, and boyars are expensive af. Dravidians might do somewhat better if they get enough urumi swordsman SO bbc, but again poles get monks with redemption and winged hussar arbs.

 

[shn_09]

First off, I know DLC is required to keep the game running and for Microsoft to keep supporting the game. I'm not saying we should get rid of DLC.

I am however worried that we might be heading towards the new civs being stronger overall than the civs you would get with DE. While it's not too bad on Arabia as a clown I'm certainly feeling the pressure against Poles, Bohemians and Burgundians on Arena.

Hera did a recent video where he ranked Arena civs and over half (3/5) of s-tier was DLC after DE civs (the 3 I mentioned along with Turks & Portuguese). If this trend isn't reversed and slowly starts creeping into Arabia we might have a big issue in the player base.

Curious to hear other people's thoughts on the topic.

As you've mentioned it yourself, its only on closed maps where new civs are great. Otherwise on all the other category of maps the base game civs are the most powerful ones. All open maps Hindustanis, Franks, Mayans are the strongest, all hybrid maps Japanese, Byzantines, Lithuanians, nomad maps Spanish, Malians, Persians and maybe Italians. Even on Arena I don't think the civs you've mentioned are much stronger than Portugese or Turks.
And it's just so far away from Pay 2 win. What about Sicilians, Dravidians and Bengalis? Those civs are Pay 2 lose. If you just create a whole bunch of average or below average civs who's going to purchase the DLC. All the civs you've mentioned have already been nerfed and are about to get huge nerfs shortly as seen in the rolled-back patch's notes.