What event you prefer?

[MembTV]

hello guys, just wanted to let u know that I made a post in reedit where we talk about what event next, if you want to vote i will leave you the link HERE and well if you want to give ur opinions on that thread or here because you feel more comfortable, you are more than welcome, i will follow both.

Thanks in advance.

EDITING - The idea here is what you want a NEXT tournament for me, not TG since we just hosted BOA3, and if we choose one or another, KOTD for me is a must yes, but im asking what will be next, so it means if we pick something else doesn´t mean KOTD won´t happen, JUST LATER.

 

[Please_dont_choose_goths!]

I will post here since i dont support the toxic reddit soyboys.

KOTD 5 all the way!

 

[Tripple_criple]

I loved KotD but one map tourneys can get kinda boring after a while. I would love some RM with classic maps (The Open Classic) or even better RM with cool new maps like in RMS, which was really nice to follow because its fun to watch different players approach on new maps.

 

[LeoMontero]

Huge fan of TG, 3-3 and 4-4. I know you dont like 4-4, but is my favourite.
plus, dreaming is free, so i would love to see in 2023 a LAN TG tournament. But a big one, like 6-8 or more teams together. Round robin to have more games. 8 teams 2 groups GSL sistem would be good too.

 

[Proctologist]

Love the fact that you are asking for feedback from the community, very cool!
However, there are not a lot of options to go for. Just KOTD or 'something new'.

I would love to see a 1v1 event with multiple different maps (like pretty much all of them, including arena BF, Island, etc) with a completely open qualifier. So no invited players at all or any seeding done based on previous performances. Also no group stages or losers bracket, just 1v1, you lose youre out.

Seeding based on ladder, put all players in 2 pots and then just draw. You can even make a stream of the live draw just like they do for the Champions League football.

 

[Progeusz]

I don't plan to ever make a reddit account so I can't contribute there, sadly. However I will say here that in my opinion King of the Desert is an extremely important tournament to Age of Empires 2. Arabia has been the most popular maps for decades now and it's good that a tournament focusing on Arabia and its derivatives exists, and is actually one of the biggest and longest running tournaments we have. Keep up the great work, Memb!
Variety is great and I enjoy it a lot when other tournaments play around with formula, like Deep Waters League with extra vills start or Mangroves Shallows Cup with its unique water balance but the reason those feel so fresh is because the gold standard of Arabia exists. Ideal answer would be - BOTH. Both KotD and something new. This might be too much work tho 11

 

[DracKeN]

I've always enjoyed the most open 1v1 tournaments with variability of CLASSIC maps. Like Arabia G1 and then map pools of Arena, Nomad, Islands, Baltic, Cross, Land Madness, Fortress, Atacama... Given that every top player should have most of those maps in his skillset, it always felt that events like that were the most skillful ones and the winner was clear nr. 1 player for a while. For some reason, last tournament like that was TOC and that was a 3 day event, other than that we either have 1 map events or tournaments with tons of new maps that none ever played and none will play the moment tournament ends.
Despite the prize pool increase, coverage, viewers, player numbers, stream quality, none of the events recently excites me as much as for example Clash of the Titans did.

 

[emarz4697]

I know its not part of the survey but my favourite tournament has gotta be rage forest, i love how the teams are divided and I love the diversity of civs and strategies and how the action can start any age depending on map gen and playstyles. Plus big booms are cool

 

[Huehuecoyotl22]

Despite the prize pool increase, coverage, viewers, player numbers, stream quality, none of the events recently excites me as much as for example Clash of the Titans did.

I have 2 questions to you about that, since it also is one of my most memorable 1v1 tournaments:
1. Including the home map pool it had close to 70 maps. So would you say the same map pool, maybe a few maps changes, because some popular maps like Hideout, Land Madness, and any map that includes cracked terrain or mangrove shallows, would still be good for players? I would think only few of the players who started playing in the last 5 years know maps like Meatballs, Rooster, Sand Maze, Slippery Springs, Border Dispute, Tsunami, Soul or Zero well, even if they were featured in multiple S tier tournaments.
2. CoT had a format which is different from what has been used in top 1v1 tournaments in the last years: First KO stage, then 6-player round robin final stage. Personally I would be curious to see something like that again, but since everybody who hosted a major 1v1 tournament recently did not do it, there must be some good arguments against not having a 2-player final.

 

[DracKeN]

I have 2 questions to you about that, since it also is one of my most memorable 1v1 tournaments:
1. Including the home map pool it had close to 70 maps. So would you say the same map pool, maybe a few maps changes, because some popular maps like Hideout, Land Madness, and any map that includes cracked terrain or mangrove shallows, would still be good for players? I would think only few of the players who started playing in the last 5 years know maps like Meatballs, Rooster, Sand Maze, Slippery Springs, Border Dispute, Tsunami, Soul or Zero well, even if they were featured in multiple S tier tournaments.
2. CoT had a format which is different from what has been used in top 1v1 tournaments in the last years: First KO stage, then 6-player round robin final stage. Personally I would be curious to see something like that again, but since everybody who hosted a major 1v1 tournament recently did not do it, there must be some good arguments against not having a 2-player final.

Yeah, it's true the map pool was way too huge and there was no real reason to include maps like Double Migration.. But it's true maps like Rooster, Meatballs or Border Dispute were unique, fun to play and it would be nice to include at least some of them too. At the same time, it feels like having more than 10 maps in the tournament is usually not helping but instead making things more confusing.
I think Round Robin is very underused, with 6 players in the last stage it makes so much sense when there's the map pool, hype, etc. But not having Viper vs Jordan (as the top2 performing players) Finals was clearly missing. I'm not defending the format and I think things could be improved, but at least for me the value of the tournament heavily increases with good map pool. Don't think I'd value the tournament nearly as much if CoT was Arabia only/Arena only, or tournament played from 80% on brand new maps none heard about.
For example T90's League was extremely enjoyable because of the unique maps. And that says a lot given that 3 out of 11 maps were Ravines, Jungle Swamp and Serengeti.

 

[Fuhloh]

I always enjoyed tournaments that had some games where the played map was randomly picked from a map pack with 30+ maps.

 

[Kloerb]

I personally miss a big mixed map tournament like Hidden Cup from this year's Line Up. So Something along those lines would be great. Adding to that, the last KOTD feels quite recent, I think it could kind of take away from the prestige of the event to have them too close together.

 

[OLADUSHEK]

Honestly, I loved Mangrow Shallows Cup so much! It was so fresh and unpredictable. Something that change the meta completely I would love to see.

 

[teutonic_tanks]

I would prefer the most a 4v4 Nations Cup, with perhaps some 3v3s included, but mainly 4v4.

And yes i saw the options in the poll.

 

[ninja14]

1v1, classic LAND maps, NO four lakes type sh==it and NO water maps

 

[Chainsaw]

I also don't have reddit so I cannot vote there, but I think something like Redbull WOLOLO just with normal RM settings. Maps there we varied and aggressive, and I personally loved the strategy involved in the map pick and civ pick. Picking and banning maps made it engaging, knowing if one player picked A, yet he didn't have civ X, then what civ would he choose? And that again made it rewarding to follow from the early stages, cause it would add excitement to the civ pick, which would of course add interest to see how it would play out.

Edit: Echoing others' sentiment: well played to put this out there for the community to have a say in it.

 

[_Donatello_]

I personally miss a big mixed map tournament like Hidden Cup from this year's Line Up. So Something along those lines would be great. Adding to that, the last KOTD feels quite recent, I think it could kind of take away from the prestige of the event to have them too close together.

I agree with your first part on hidde cup maps or what Ninja say classic land maps. But I don't think the tournament will happend that soon and its already almost a year ago since KOTD, but if it will happen anyway and Memb can host something else classic land maps would be dope.

If a team tournament it would be really cool with some sort of Nation cup (maybe have games 1v1, 2v2, 3v3 and 4v4) but this is ALOT of work and seems Memb wants a 1v1 tournament.

I love KOTD most, but it was hidden cup that dragged me back into this game and made me aware it was still going strong, don't want to hijack the topic but would be epic if T90 would host this again

 

[oozkan]

First of all, why reddit, is it an AOE4 tournament?

My two cents, I would enjoy something that will make players to prepare and make sure that they earned money in hard way.

But it might be my insane understanding of sport, since I like climbing mountains such as Ventoux, Stelvio, Alpe D'huez, Tourmalet or Zoncolan with my bicycle, I can understand that others might disagree.

 

[siestes]

KOTD

 

[SuperskinnyBLS]

Anything but the boring "classic maps" please

 

[Modri]

I agree with the classic maps request.

1. Having completely new (but well designed) maps that nobody played before the tournament and (most likely) won't ever play after the tournament usually doesn't increase the strategy variety, it in my opinion decreases it. The reasoning behind it is this game is so complex, it takes years of playing and trying stuff out to really understand and master a well designed map. When you have a couple weeks or days and 10 new maps you'll obviously not want to risk being too creative for your own good as a top player and you'll just practice the couple civs that immediately appear to be dominant on the map, usually with the same strategy. It's efficient usage of your time and maximizes your chances of success. Some meta gets established quickly but even though there might be way more optimal ways of playing the map, we'll never find out. As an example, I'm sure if Arena was introduced as a brand new map in the next S-tier tournament, nobody would realize light cav meta is the best way of playing it. People would probably free boom into some fast 3 tc push early imp, maybe going for relics with a few civs. There would be no trushing, no fast monk rushes, no castle drops, no fast imps, castle age map control would be of very little (if any) importance. The map would appear very one dimensional and boring. Same thing happens with most new maps after a couple rounds of the tournament, when everybody is going for the same 2-3 civs with the one proven strategy in mind that people have discovered first.

2. This is why I believe a big 1v1 tournament that is (among other things) maybe trying to establish who's the best RM 1v1 player atm should again include the classic maps with well established meta. Maps such as Arabia, Arena, Nomad, Islands(?), RF, Four Lakes, Socotra, Atacama, Hideout etc. No gimmicky stuff for once, all maps with thousands of games played on them over the years.

3. Next problem that people usually point out is: “but we always see the same civs on those maps as well and it gets boring.” True, and this is the solution: most banned/played/picked civs in each round should get globally banned for upcoming rounds. No more Burgundians overpowering everybody with their eco and no more endless Chinese vs Mayans wars after a couple of rounds. This is the beauty of having only classic maps in the pool: even if you take away top 5 or even top 10 civs, players still know very well how to play the next best civs according to their strengths because they understand those maps at a much deeper level than they do something they’ve only been playing for 2 weeks. Civ wins appear less obvious when players know the map more thoroughly.

4. Finally with regard to the tournament structure, I’ve personally grown a bit tired of watching all these qualifiers, repetitive GSL groups and multiple stages of the tournament, why not go back in time to a huge single elimination brackets with 128 contestants with no invited players and use whichever seeding method appears to be somewhat fair (they’re obviously all flawed to a certain degree). You get the possibility of interesting upsets, no drama with players not living up to their invited status, everybody can see and plan their way to success as soon as brackets are released and it all just looks very pretty to me.

 

[Influenza]

I agree with the classic maps request.

1. Having completely new (but well designed) maps that nobody played before the tournament and (most likely) won't ever play after the tournament usually doesn't increase the strategy variety, it in my opinion decreases it. The reasoning behind it is this game is so complex, it takes years of playing and trying stuff out to really understand and master a well designed map. When you have a couple weeks or days and 10 new maps you'll obviously not want to risk being too creative for your own good as a top player and you'll just practice the couple civs that immediately appear to be dominant on the map, usually with the same strategy. It's efficient usage of your time and maximizes your chances of success. Some meta gets established quickly but even though there might be way more optimal ways of playing the map, we'll never find out. As an example, I'm sure if Arena was introduced as a brand new map in the next S-tier tournament, nobody would realize light cav meta is the best way of playing it. People would probably free boom into some fast 3 tc push early imp, maybe going for relics with a few civs. There would be no trushing, no fast monk rushes, no castle drops, no fast imps, castle age map control would be of very little (if any) importance. The map would appear very one dimensional and boring. Same thing happens with most new maps after a couple rounds of the tournament, when everybody is going for the same 2-3 civs with the one proven strategy in mind that people have discovered first.

2. This is why I believe a big 1v1 tournament that is (among other things) maybe trying to establish who's the best RM 1v1 player atm should again include the classic maps with well established meta. Maps such as Arabia, Arena, Nomad, Islands(?), RF, Four Lakes, Socotra, Atacama, Hideout etc. No gimmicky stuff for once, all maps with thousands of games played on them over the years.

3. Next problem that people usually point out is: “but we always see the same civs on those maps as well and it gets boring.” True, and this is the solution: most banned/played/picked civs in each round should get globally banned for upcoming rounds. No more Burgundians overpowering everybody with their eco and no more endless Chinese vs Mayans wars after a couple of rounds. This is the beauty of having only classic maps in the pool: even if you take away top 5 or even top 10 civs, players still know very well how to play the next best civs according to their strengths because they understand those maps at a much deeper level than they do something they’ve only been playing for 2 weeks. Civ wins appear less obvious when players know the map more thoroughly.

4. Finally with regard to the tournament structure, I’ve personally grown a bit tired of watching all these qualifiers, repetitive GSL groups and multiple stages of the tournament, why not go back in time to a huge single elimination brackets with 128 contestants with no invited players and use whichever seeding method appears to be somewhat fair (they’re obviously all flawed to a certain degree). You get the possibility of interesting upsets, no drama with players not living up to their invited status, everybody can see and plan their way to success as soon as brackets are released and it all just looks very pretty to me.

definitely can agree with reducing the amount of new RMS scripts that are so well-defined to the point they are just custom scenarios now

 

[kalpit00]

A Classic Map Only tourney would be good, but if that was the case, I would prefer it to be LAN. No matter what people's preferences are, NAC 1, 2 are still my favorite because it included mostly classic maps.

I loved the new maps included in RMSC2 or all the recent tourneys which have featured all these new maps (including EW maps, the arena like maps, etc), but they don't hit the same as a tourney with a mappool like that of NACs or HCs. That's what is missing imo

Not to worry though, we know Hidden Cup will come back. We know Nili will host the next NAC with aoe2 (fingers crossed), so I am ok with waiting for the Big 3 tourneys (HC, NAC and KOTD). The hype will only grow as we have waited so long since the last ones.

 

[kalpit00]

If I had to vote, Memb I would love a tourney with multiple TC starts, and make it as crazy as possible. Budapest (2 TC start), Metropolis (3 TC start), Border Wars, etc are few I know of.

Only thing is it would be very monotonous, and cavalry play will be heavily used (9/10 games), but maybe we can modify the maps to not make them wallable and have golds and stones far away from the TCs (that way we reward ranged units, controlling golds, tower rushing, etc). Also not have multiple boars or deer patch like in some megarandom map gens where players can directly FC off of huntables, rather force players to macro with wood -> farms

 

[Tree]

Oh oh oh, I know Memb would absolutely love this idea...
KING OF THE ISLANDS 1v1 no timer Portuguese only kappa

Jokes aside I agree on pure land maps 1v1, preferably no closed maps like hideout or arena. Also preferably without camp-the-middle-maps like Gold rush as personally I feel like there has been too much of it.

Would like to see more of maps like Mongolia, Valley, Yucatan and other similar custom maps.