AOE-II DE Fix Ladder By Making 1v1 Ranked Free?

[TheShaunPlays]

Pls don't delete admins, I'm not asking how to get a free copy.

Microsoft have shown they are willing to go with a hybrid model of paid and free (Halo Infinite), radically I wonder if the same thing for AOE2 could help fix the lack of online players on ladder? They're a business so it might be hard to make the whole game free but Art of War and online ladder only (not custom lobbies) could help pump a bit of life into the game.

This doesn't directly address the lack of top end players but who knows, with a larger lower skill level scene maybe we see more players come through to the top level after some time. Players who aren't from the Voobly lobby only days, players whose first experience isn't 1000 hours against the AI, a.k.a players who are more likely to stay on ladder as their main way to play AOE2.

It might also lead to extra sales for Microsoft, maybe they try it and want to make custom lobbies, or give campaign a go?

I doubt this happens but who knows.

 

[SuperskinnyBLS]

I guess in shooter games they are somehow able to make profit even if it's free to play, cannot say the same about Aoe2 so in my opinion no such thing will happen.

 

[HongeyKong]

aoezone: So we spent $20 for a free product.

 

[Tendo]

I actually thought they might do that for AoE4 (before the prize was revealed).
Making Ranked Games F2P could definitely help the game in getting more Players for the Matchmaking and with the campaigns and DLC's you still have enough to sell to those new players.
But looking at the current MM I doubt Ranked Games would be a great advertisement for the game, especially since noobs would just get wrecked at the beginning.

 

[LowEloNobody]

Highly doubt it ever goes free, but might drop price to $5-$10 eventually. There could be a case to make the base game free to then cash in on DLC's at $20 a piece.

 

[IYIyTh]

As if folks didn't use the Nocd cracks back in the day.

I had the original aoe2 cd/disc but at one point it got so scratched/scuffed playing online made the old 200's CPU have a near heart-attack.

 

[Paint]

I think a free to play version with like 5-6 civs and a campaign would be cool. then they could sell a civ for 2-5$ each and end up making more money while also increasing the player base. Legacy buyers should obviously keep everything.

 

[TheShaunPlays]

I guess in shooter games they are somehow able to make profit even if it's free to play, cannot say the same about Aoe2 so in my opinion no such thing will happen.

I feel like it's easier to make microtransactions in shooters, mods a less prevalent to make free skins

 

[HongeyKong]

Free (Campaigns included)
Celts: AOK, Europe, William Wallace, Siege
Spanish: AOC, Europe, Conqs, Paladins
Incas: FE, America, Weakest Meso, Eagles
Ethiopians: AK, Arica, Archers, Camels
Khmer: RR, Asia, Most unique out of the four, Elephants

Standard Price
The remaining non-DLC civs

DLC

 

[asdfasdfasdf1]

make it f2p and introduce lootboxes that appear randomly when you kill enemy units, but to open them you must purchase keys.

i want pink elephant skin and golden cataphracts. and teutonic knights doing fortnite dances. plzzzz devs

 

[Paint]

Free (Campaigns included)
Celts: AOK, Europe, William Wallace, Siege
Spanish: AOC, Europe, Conqs, Paladins
Incas: FE, America, Weakest Meso, Eagles
Ethiopians: AK, Arica, Archers, Camels
Khmer: RR, Asia, Most unique out of the four, Elephants

Standard Price
The remaining non-DLC civs

DLC

I would switch Celts for Japanese to get a water civ and Incas for Aztecs for the nostalgia but reasonable otherwise.

My choice would probably be Vikings (with a new campaign), British, Spanish, Aztecs, Chinese, Mongols.

 

[Tempires]

I think a free to play version with like 5-6 civs and a campaign would be cool. then they could sell a civ for 2-5$ each and end up making more money while also increasing the player base. Legacy buyers should obviously keep everything.

They already this AoEO. each civ/premium upgrade for free ones costed 9 euros.

 

[HongeyKong]

You gotta pay for good civs

 

[SouFire]

Here are the reason why it would fail:

-With the same computer you can run dota at 200 fps, you can't play aoe4v4 BF without lagging, in other words the game optimization is so bad for old system or low ends which is pretty basic for free to play games.

-Server availability: for us the jump from p2p to server relay was amazing as long as you don't get matched in the severs with +250 ping or else the experience is worst than voobly, microsoft has thousands of complains for the BAD PINGS on their servers for the shooters or other MP games(even halo saga), their pairing algorithm to choose the servers is awful, me on NA vs any guy on south america always choose their servers despite i see brazil servers at 250 ping and south americans have 50 ping on their server, halo is full with those complains, so there will be only complains about it, then again we may tolerate it cause we were used to play with lag and delay for decades, but certainly for new users this will cripple their experience.

-Match making forces noob bashing, adding 100k new players to the MM will only increase noob bashing as the skill difference is huge and it will take years for those new players to improve and fill intermediate levels or high, i can see players not trying it after getting matches vs the point traders on the ladder or a team of full 2k elo 1x1 that waited 8 mins.

-The lobbies and the servers don't have enough space or the proper size for thousands of players, see aoe2.net the game only has 1000 spots for games going at the same time, while aoe4 has room for x4 times the games running, in the lobbies you can't see more than 100 rooms being hosted, so you need other sources to find games, then again you won't find things over 1000 games running, the infrastructure for the game was never designed for massive players.

I mean you can fix somehow MM, the server algorithm/pairing and increase the lobby size, but you can't improve the performance cause it is still using the engine from 1995.

What they could try seeing how pathetic aoe4 was to lure and keep new players, is maybe some free MP experience, something like 8 civs available and only 1x1 and 2x2 game modes for RM and william wallace and the art of war campaigns as tutorials as an experiment, but who knows the game is just too old and complicated, most free to play games are easy to understand after the tutorial.

 

[TheShaunPlays]

Here are the reason why it would fail:

-With the same computer you can run dota at 200 fps, you can't play aoe4v4 BF without lagging, in other words the game optimization is so bad for old system or low ends which is pretty basic for free to play games.

-Server availability: for us the jump from p2p to server relay was amazing as long as you don't get matched in the severs with +250 ping or else the experience is worst than voobly, microsoft has thousands of complains for the BAD PINGS on their servers for the shooters or other MP games(even halo saga), their pairing algorithm to choose the servers is awful, me on NA vs any guy on south america always choose their servers despite i see brazil servers at 250 ping and south americans have 50 ping on their server, halo is full with those complains, so there will be only complains about it, then again we may tolerate it cause we were used to play with lag and delay for decades, but certainly for new users this will cripple their experience.

-Match making forces noob bashing, adding 100k new players to the MM will only increase noob bashing as the skill difference is huge and it will take years for those new players to improve and fill intermediate levels or high, i can see players not trying it after getting matches vs the point traders on the ladder or a team of full 2k elo 1x1 that waited 8 mins.

-The lobbies and the servers don't have enough space or the proper size for thousands of players, see aoe2.net the game only has 1000 spots for games going at the same time, while aoe4 has room for x4 times the games running, in the lobbies you can't see more than 100 rooms being hosted, so you need other sources to find games, then again you won't find things over 1000 games running, the infrastructure for the game was never designed for massive players.

I mean you can fix somehow MM, the server algorithm/pairing and increase the lobby size, but you can't improve the performance cause it is still using the engine from 1995.

What they could try seeing how pathetic aoe4 was to lure and keep new players, is maybe some free MP experience, something like 8 civs available and only 1x1 and 2x2 game modes for RM and william wallace and the art of war campaigns as tutorials as an experiment, but who knows the game is just too old and complicated, most free to play games are easy to understand after the tutorial.

Point 1, agree that it ran better then it may help but it's far from an intense game. 4v4, 1v1s are rare except when in a custom lobby (which is not part of the free mode I'm suggesting). Most 1v1 ladder games can be on low end devices, I played on a dodgy laptop for years.

It's Microsoft, if there is a player base they can easily add servers

Another easy fix, it wouldn't be hard to add into MM that new players or players on the free mode should be matched to lower ELO players first or other free players. Once we see that they're winning we up the ante to stop people from just smurfing and noob bashing. I do admit it will have some teething issues in the first influx of players but I don't believe it's big enough to not give it a go.

Again, easy for a company like Microsoft to add more servers, AoE4 has more servers because they expected more players. There'd be no point adding servers to AoE2 right now as the player base using them on ladder isn't there.

Just a note that yes you did mention those points are fixable and another note saying while more optimisation is always better it's not a very intense game to run. But more intense games have way bigger player bases.

 

[Paint]

I think if they actually made a limited civ pool free to play version they would have to rotate them very regularly becouse playing against the same 5 or 6 civs all the time would be very unfun. Maybe just make it forced random civ with the option to buy any chose any civ you like.

 

[JUDAS]

Well f2p could be a good idea, but the lack of players in ladder for 1v1 is at top level, and that is not going to be solved by that, it can be only solved with money.
People is going overdramatic about not having the top players playing ladder, AoE2 has kept his playerbase in the same numbers than the last year, and even if not, well you know that Covid helped to increase the numbers, and now almost all the restrictions are gone, so the game will be in its normal state.

 

[lecracheursagacite]

aoezone: So we spent $20 for a free product.

Cheap attack on AoEZone. People who purchased for example TF2 had similar complaints when that game transitioned to F2P.

 

[SlipperySteve]

I think most people start out playing against the AI before transitioning to ranked. I think it could make more sense to make it free to play against some of the easier AIs. Probably a more attractive introduction than getting stomped in ranked games for a lot of people.

 

[LowEloNobody]

I think if they actually made a limited civ pool free to play version they would have to rotate them very regularly becouse playing against the same 5 or 6 civs all the time would be very unfun. Maybe just make it forced random civ with the option to buy any chose any civ you like.

Stares in Hoang

 

[TheShaunPlays]

I think most people start out playing against the AI before transitioning to ranked. I think it could make more sense to make it free to play against some of the easier AIs. Probably a more attractive introduction than getting stomped in ranked games for a lot of people.

The transition of players going from AI to PVP is only from a very small subset of players, most stick to PVE. This cuts out that transition all together and forces PVP, with some smart match making they won't get stomped much more than new players in any other free online game.

 

[TheShaunPlays]

Well f2p could be a good idea, but the lack of players in ladder for 1v1 is at top level, and that is not going to be solved by that, it can be only solved with money.
People is going overdramatic about not having the top players playing ladder, AoE2 has kept his playerbase in the same numbers than the last year, and even if not, well you know that Covid helped to increase the numbers, and now almost all the restrictions are gone, so the game will be in its normal state.

With restrictions gone we need to come up with strategies to hold those numbers and still grow the game, not sit back and watch it dwindle.

 

[TheShaunPlays]

I think if they actually made a limited civ pool free to play version they would have to rotate them very regularly becouse playing against the same 5 or 6 civs all the time would be very unfun. Maybe just make it forced random civ with the option to buy any chose any civ you like.

My idea doesn't limit civs, it limits game modes, in F2P you would only get ranked all civs that are available in the base game would be available