What happened to Empire Wars?

[HongeyKong]

I never talked about more ladders just replace the second one every month with something else. They can even reset the elo and start you off based on your RM rating so you don't have to do the 10 calibration matches. (For DM they can still use DM elo)

So month 1 DMers dominate the "Rotation Ladder", month 2 RMers destroy the DMeres, month 3 another group of underrated players crush the overrated players?

 

[Paint]

Every month the second game mode changes yes.

 

[AoeWololo]

Did someone ask for graphs?!
These are based on data downloaded from aoe2.net. They show the last days of death match vs the first days of empire wars.View attachment 197597View attachment 197599

It brings me a lot of joy to see a visual representation of this mode dying. Thanks.

Some say the beginning is boring to watch, well sure it can be sometimes. However what matters is how it is for the player, they need time to read the map and develop strategy. When playing time flies. I see EW as a degradation of the game. A rushed mode with less variation.

Lets pray that after battle royale and EW they aren't considering some new cringe mode.

 

[SouFire]

It brings me a lot of joy to see a visual representation of this mode dying. Thanks.

Some say the beginning is boring to watch, well sure it can be sometimes. However what matters is how it is for the player, they need time to read the map and develop strategy. When playing time flies. I see EW as a degradation of the game. A rushed mode with less variation.

Lets pray that after battle royale and EW they aren't considering some new cringe mode.

Actually i think they might have something new to announce in their road map and it might be a new game mode.

I often believe that the problem with empire wars are the awful maps, just because the redbull used those maps doesn't mean those maps were fun, the players would have played forest nothing just for the cash.

Lots of those redbull maps are like memb's arabia i mean kod4 arabia, you can't place tcs cause they decided to put terrain restrictions like land madness, habob well i think you can only place flat tcs on runestones 11, but in a good map empires wars can be interesting in terms of strategy and since it isn't played post imperial fast speed, you can actually micro and do some proper eco management and take decisions on which units and techs upgrade and not only producing army and sending it straight to the enemy.

 

[Biz]

they should move arena/BF to empire wars start

those are the maps where you don't explore. dark + feudal is useless

but they are clogging up the RM queue for no reason, making everyone waste 20 minutes booming and then having the game end immediately after because the teams weren't fair

 

[TwilliverOngenbone]

they should move arena/BF to empire wars start

those are the maps where you don't explore. dark + feudal is useless

How to say you have never played BF before in two lines

 

[AoeWololo]

Actually i think they might have something new to announce in their road map and it might be a new game mode.

Probably will be "TikTok wars" where we have to upload live dances to the cloud and who gets most upvotes before imperial wins.

 

[xdreamlegendx]

The screen cant fit in that many ladders. And making the profile panel scrollable is bad UI / UX design.

This has to be one of the worst excuses for not adding in more game modes to ranked mode.

Personally I enjoyed playing the DM Ranked Queue (despite its flaws) however a ranked lobby system to run concurrently with MM could fix a lot of issues.

EW was always going in this direction without a long term community to back it up it flopped unlike DM which has a 20 years + community & history.

Ranked MM needs more variety & less vanity imo.

 

[Paint]

EW was always going in this direction without a long term community to back it up it flopped unlike DM which has a 20 years + community & history.

Ranked MM needs more variety & less vanity imo.

Didn't all the data say that EW is far more popular than DM?

 

[xdreamlegendx]

Didn't all the data say that EW is far more popular than DM?

I disagree, that the total number of players / matches is only slightly higher after much more $$$ was spent on EW.

EW flopped. DM has always been consistent.

If DM had similar funding & promotion it would attract more players than EW. Even EW has this problem compared to RM. The difference is DM has much more history & long term community than EW.

I would like to think there would be enough MM & Ranked Lobbies to go round for all popular game modes

 

[Paint]

They spent money on EW because people watched it. If people would watch DM there would be more money spent on it. Also DM has been a thing for 20 years as you say and it still hasn't collected a large following so it's safe to assume it never will.

 

[lecracheursagacite]

They spent money on EW because people watched it.

You could also say people watched it because they spent money on it.

 

[Lokalo]

I think overall EW is just too stresfull, you start a game and have to instantly build an army without any proper scouting or much thinking, you kind of have to guess what to open. Also if not getting full walled, getting smashed by scouts, even pro players in RBW did.

So starting with like 8 villagers in dark age might be an interesting idea, but skipping whole dark age for players is just too stressful.

I think similar issue to DM, DM for me personally is a lot of fun(well I used to play DM 15-17 years ago)
and watched DM tournament last year. Although the start hussar/paladin sniping villagers can be super hectic and stressful too, especially for players who are not used to it. I always thought having few extra vills or even small paliside walls for DM could make it more appealing for newer players to start, but maybe I'm wrong. But for me DM always been for post imp big composition fighting with macro behind and that hussar/paladin vill sniping worst part of DM. No one wants to get behind a lot first minute in the game, at least that's how I see it.

 

[xdreamlegendx]

They spent money on EW because people watched it. If people would watch DM there would be more money spent on it. Also DM has been a thing for 20 years as you say and it still hasn't collected a large following so it's safe to assume it never will.

People love watching DM especially when that noob Viper plays


The problem is converting these viewers into players through sustained investment, this is why EW flopped because of a lack of investment after initial hype.

DM infrastructure (streaming, yt etc) is no where near as developed as RM yet in many ways is still above EW.

RM seems to get all the glory just because it is RM and I think we need to think about the longer term picture more rather than just axe game types that are not deemed "popular" anymore...

 

[HongeyKong]

I think overall EW is just too stresfull, you start a game and have to instantly build an army without any proper scouting or much thinking, you kind of have to guess what to open. Also if not getting full walled, getting smashed by scouts, even pro players in RBW did.

Thats because they made it feudal start.

 

[USC_kiky]

A naive question about the DM tournaments: why is it always on Arabia? Can’t they include Arena, Blackforest, Land Nomad, Migration, Baltic Sea, Islands, Gold rush etc. into the map pool of a DM tournament or that is just boring to play? I thought it may be fun to watch though.

 

[Paint]

You could also say people watched it because they spent money on it.

It's not like there have never been any DM tournaments.

 

[xdreamlegendx]

A naive question about the DM tournaments: why is it always on Arabia? Can’t they include Arena, Blackforest, Land Nomad, Migration, Baltic Sea, Islands, Gold rush etc. into the map pool of a DM tournament or that is just boring to play? I thought it may be fun to watch though.

Arabia is by far the overall most popular game type (including variations) as it is the most perfect of all DM maps it is fast paced with great resource placements encouraging an aggressive style of play we all love DM for imo.

The maps you mentioned, USC_kilky, are mostly closed maps which result in long term attrition which are likely to run into hours games each time, so for example they are not great for DM Tournaments.

Below is a list of maps in the upcoming Slugfest @ High Noon DM Tourney:

Runestones Arabia Golden Pit Golden Swamp Gold Rush Seize The Mountain Atacama Ghost Lake

As you can see, great variety & also very open fast paced maps as that is what DMers prefer, if you would like a link to our DeathMatch Discord feel free to send me a DM

 

[HongeyKong]

Btw can anyone tell me the difference between
1) Standard DM
2) RM / 2.0 speed / Explored / Post-imp start / Ultra high res
???

 

[xdreamlegendx]

Btw can anyone tell me the difference between
1) Standard DM
2) RM / 2.0 speed / Explored / Post-imp start / Ultra high res
???

I am pretty sure there are no differences here.

 

[Huehuecoyotl22]

Btw can anyone tell me the difference between
1) Standard DM
2) RM / 2.0 speed / Explored / Post-imp start / Ultra high res
???

I am pretty sure there are no differences here.

I think one difference is that map scripts can recognize a game mode and thus something like boars or straggler trees don't spawn.

 

[xdreamlegendx]

I think one difference is that map scripts can recognize a game mode and thus something like boars or straggler trees don't spawn.

I just loaded post imp rm on fast speed arabia with ultra high res and there are no boars / sheep or stragglers.


I dont think there are any obviously recognisable differences at least.

 

[Tendo]

The problem is converting these viewers into players through sustained investment, this is why EW flopped because of a lack of investment after initial hype.

Did it flop though?
Yes EW has no real community especially compared to DM, but isn't the great part of EW that it doesn't need an own community because it's so similar to RM?
Also I wonder how the gamemode can be considered a flop when it provided 6 great S-Tier Tournaments (EW Duo1 was only A-Tier) with huge viewer-numbers.

Biggest mistake of EW or better said the Devs was proly to release EW Ranked Matchmaking so late, instead of right before RBW1.

 

[xdreamlegendx]

Did it flop though?
Yes EW has no real community especially compared to DM, but isn't the great part of EW that it doesn't need an own community because it's so similar to RM?
Also I wonder how the gamemode can be considered a flop when it provided 6 great S-Tier Tournaments (EW Duo1 was only A-Tier) with huge viewer-numbers.

Biggest mistake of EW or better said the Devs was proly to release EW Ranked Matchmaking so late, instead of right before RBW1.

Yes I think it did to a degree.

Weren't most of those of tournaments inflated with MS money? 100k + has been spent for 1k ~ players roughly same as DM with a lot less Official Investment for DeathMatch.

Will they still invest the same for EW this yr or next?

EW & RM are not so similar & each should have their own community that will thrive or else why not just go back to RM?

Regarding viewer numbers, too much attention is placed on to stats & not enough on the actual community imo. If you can't convert viewers to players that's pretty useless (also a problem for DM but much less has been invested compared)

The decision to axe DM was a very unpopular decision & felt to me like a short term fix to a long term problem which is underinvestment in anything that isnt RM it seems.

 

[lecracheursagacite]

It's not like there have never been any DM tournaments.

Have there ever been DM tournaments with the production funding RBWs received?