Why is AoE2 player base so low?

[I_Sniper_]

the match making for team games is one of the biggest mistakes by microsoft/worldedges, FE,

100% true, but it's not just microsoft mistake.

We have to be honest :
We wanted Age of Empires for us ONLY, we wanted a game that feet the fanbase expectations. We all have friends to play with, we all knows some good player to get carried by. So it's OK to have broken team games, because we will BE the premade team most likely. That's not the case of potential new players. The amount of players that stopped playing aoe2 because of our egoism is big.

The Denial is awesome : Compared to how much aoe2 is successful everywhere, the playerbase is extremely low.

 

[HongeyKong]

Seperating solos and premades have already been suggested in tens if not hundreds of posts, and the reply of having longer queue time was also almost made every single time.

Compared to how much aoe2 is successful everywhere, the playerbase is extremely low.

LEAGUE OF LEGENDS
https://twitchtracker.com/games/21779
150~250k viewers on average
https://activeplayer.io/league-of-legends/
1060k live players


VALORANT
https://twitchtracker.com/games/516575
100~150k viewers on average
https://activeplayer.io/valorant/
570k live players


CSGO
https://twitchtracker.com/games/32399
6~80k viewers on average
https://activeplayer.io/counter-strike-global-offensive/
560k live players
https://steamcharts.com/app/730
600k average players in the last 30 days


DOTA2
https://twitchtracker.com/games/29595
50~60k viewers on average
https://activeplayer.io/dota-2/
320k live players
https://steamcharts.com/app/570
440k average players in the last 30 days


AOE2
https://twitchtracker.com/games/13389
2~3k viewers on average
https://steamcharts.com/app/813780
13k average players in the last 30 days

Note that there are still people on Voobly / HD (& ofcoz MS store LUL).

 

[I_Sniper_]

Seperating solos and premades have already been suggested in tens if not hundreds of posts, and the reply of having longer queue time was also almost made every single time.



LEAGUE OF LEGENDS
https://twitchtracker.com/games/21779
150~250k viewers on average
https://activeplayer.io/league-of-legends/
1060k live players


VALORANT
https://twitchtracker.com/games/516575
100~150k viewers on average
https://activeplayer.io/valorant/
570k live players


CSGO
https://twitchtracker.com/games/32399
6~80k viewers on average
https://activeplayer.io/counter-strike-global-offensive/
560k live players
https://steamcharts.com/app/730
600k average players in the last 30 days


DOTA2
https://twitchtracker.com/games/29595
50~60k viewers on average
https://activeplayer.io/dota-2/
320k live players
https://steamcharts.com/app/570
440k average players in the last 30 days


AOE2
https://twitchtracker.com/games/13389
2~3k viewers on average
https://steamcharts.com/app/813780
13k average players in the last 30 days

Note that there are still people on Voobly / HD (& ofcoz MS store LUL).

A : Let's fix the game with good game mods!
B : We do not have enough players!!

A : How can we have more players if we dont fix the game first?
B : We dont have enough players!!

A : Can we try to think about why aoe has low amount of players maybe?
B : We dont have enough players!!

A : There is maybe a reason for that? Maybe team games arent working in a good way, they does not provide a good gaming experience?
B : We dont have ENOUGH PLAYERS I SAID!!

Do you understand the paradox there or not?

 

[Lokalo]

Well I'm quite keen to see how DWL start will go in warlords tournament. I still think dwl start would increase aoe2 playerbase. I know there are many people who like slower pace and stuff and people like to say few minutes do not change much, but it really does. I so often lazy to queue again cuz I start thinking of the time of dark age. I personally can't imagine playing tons of games of arena simply because of doing nothing every game til castle age. Like doing nothing for 10 minutes and then you can get fooked in 2 minutes.

Lately I started to play quite a lot of chess and sometimes I miss there some randomness as in aoe2, makes me realise how nice aoe2 is as even doing exact same thing always have different outcome, however it is so nice to be able to just press play again and basically be playing whole time, sure queue times have some impact to it, but idk, i really do think before queing if I really want to have that whole early game again or just do something else instead, like jump right into the game in chess. Also the longer the game takes to start(the longer dark age/ dark age and feudal in arena) the more you get attached to the game, that's why EW even if is more hectic is less stresfull for me. Especially those games where you get fooked by few m@a or 4 archers in wood line or 5 scouts is super annoying, not because you lose, but that you need to start over again lol

 

[HongeyKong]

A : Let's fix the game with good game mods!
B : We do not have enough players!!

A : How can we have more players if we dont fix the game first?
B : We dont have enough players!!

A : Can we try to think about why aoe has low amount of players maybe?
B : We dont have enough players!!

A : There is maybe a reason for that? Maybe team games arent working in a good way, they does not provide a good gaming experience?
B : We dont have ENOUGH PLAYERS I SAID!!

Do you understand the paradox there or not?

1) aoe2 is not successful by any means.
2) aoe2 have a decent playerbase, not great but decent, especially with the low popularity.
3) RTS is a niche genre

 

[I_Sniper_]

1) aoe2 is not successful by any means.
2) aoe2 have a decent playerbase, not great but decent, especially with the low popularity.
3) RTS is a niche genre

Age Of Empires 2 (and 4) -has been built- for a niche audience. (Passionate casuals and 1vs1 Rankeds)

---> That's exactely the problem

 

[HongeyKong]

No, RTS is a niche genre, not just aoe. Its hard to learn compared to other genres by nature (let alone master), and thats why the devs (FE/Relic) dumbed down made QOL changes to the games.

 

[I_Sniper_]

No, RTS is a niche genre, not just aoe. Its hard to learn compared to other genres by nature (let alone master), and thats why the devs (FE/Relic) dumbed down made QOL changes to the games.

Being a "niche genre" does not mean that you cant grow in term of playerbase.
Also If we look closely the success of AOE in term of popularity, it's big. This is NOT what a niche game looks like. Not at all.

Every gamer in the world played once in his life an age of empires game.

You cant say that we -couldnt have more players- . No one knows as long as we didnt try to get more players.

And the obvious solution : SoloQ for team games.

 

[oozkan]

My point is that the potential of age of empires games is big.

I think you are at same age as me, in other words, old.

I gave up this kind of ideas when I realized kids don't care about RTS anymore. So it is not AOE thing, whole genre is niche until someone shows up with a revolutionary gameplay.

 

[Giuseppe551]

It's hard for aoe2 to even gain market share in RTS when there's another game that:

-is faster, both in pace and length of game
-has more fun micro
-has instant queue times
-offers more early game strategic variety
-has zero lag

Changing the way you queue for TGs won't change any of that and won't convince starcraft players to switch. Honestly aoe2 isn't even that small, figure ~100k ranked players vs 250k for sc2 (was like 500k before being abandoned by blizzard).

 

[Lokalo]

It's hard for aoe2 to even gain market share in RTS when there's another game that:

-is faster, both in pace and length of game
-has more fun micro
-has instant queue times
-offers more early game strategic variety
-has zero lag

Changing the way you queue for TGs won't change any of that and won't convince starcraft players to switch. Honestly aoe2 isn't even that small, figure ~100k ranked players vs 250k for sc2 (was like 500k before being abandoned by blizzard).

Well faster pace like DWL format I think would be good, although starcraft pace is not really for casuals I feel, its very unforgiving too.

Although for having bigger player base probably most important would be to create something more for casuals. And maybe not neccessary casuals or how to call them, but way more chill mod. Custom scenarios can be fun, but most of them are very far from the real game.

I don't know something like DM with castle or two at the start, so you wont get rushed and you can chill more doing troops. I'm not sure what it could be, but many people play against AI just cuz it's not stressful, would be good to have some chill mod, so people still can play some and don't get too rusty. Often people do not play for a bit, watch streams, then become rusty, then have even more stress to play ranked games.

To those who played LoL, basically ARAM in aoe2

 

[I_Sniper_]

Well faster pace like DWL format I think would be good, although starcraft pace is not really for casuals I feel, its very unforgiving too.

Although for having bigger player base probably most important would be to create something more for casuals. And maybe not neccessary casuals or how to call them, but way more chill mod. Custom scenarios can be fun, but most of them are very far from the real game.

I don't know something like DM with castle or two at the start, so you wont get rushed and you can chill more doing troops. I'm not sure what it could be, but many people play against AI just cuz it's not stressful, would be good to have some chill mod, so people still can play some and don't get too rusty. Often people do not play for a bit, watch streams, then become rusty, then have even more stress to play ranked games.

To those who played LoL, basically ARAM in aoe2

This is one of the common mistake :

Casuals are elitist players, they often have a deep knowledge of the game and they are passionnate.
There is a huge barrier between starting age of empires for the fist time and playing casual games.

Spoil : new players are getting kicked out of casual lobby games. Casuals players have their rules and mods.

Only a button that makes you in a game with same new players will feet new players needs.

We can even imagine that a new player who start SoloQ will play vs bots his first games, and it will be considered like a ranked game. A lot of games are doing that lately. A tutorials that explains exactely how to play Team games, why as pocket you play cavalry and why often it's archers as flank, like league of legends, they explain exactely what to do if you play mid-top-bot-jungle etc..

 

[I_Sniper_]

It's hard for aoe2 to even gain market share in RTS when there's another game that:

-is faster, both in pace and length of game
-has more fun micro
-has instant queue times
-offers more early game strategic variety
-has zero lag

Changing the way you queue for TGs won't change any of that and won't convince starcraft players to switch. Honestly aoe2 isn't even that small, figure ~100k ranked players vs 250k for sc2 (was like 500k before being abandoned by blizzard).

Team games is what age of empires games does better than any other RTS.

if we focus on what the game is strong at (Team games) and give a normal experience to players. Just a -normal- experience. it cant be bad right?

Right now, playing vs pre-mades team is the WORST thing that you can encounter in this game. And the consequences are bad specifically for new players.

In Voobly there was players that were never playing 1vs1. Only team games.

Is it possible in 2022 ? Ofc not, unless you like to get destroyed by [Insert a known name of a stacked team]

 

[I_Sniper_]

League of legends removing duo queue for SoloQ :

 

[HongeyKong]

So...
Adding ways of queuing up would lower the competitiveness and quality of games, while adding queue time......?

 

[ltm]

But of course it would help to keep the numbers growing and steady, the experience needs to be better to the point that you would queue up again and play more and more, with more actives players we all win.

Lets say that you have 3 hours to play and you queue with the current system with apparently no map preference, the first game you get your allies 200 or 400 points lower than you, but you are optimist and believe that the other team will have the same elo difference but in reality you are being matched vs a team full stacked 400 elo higher than you and 800 points higher than your team mates on arabia, the game is over before it starts by min 11 both flanks are somehow dead, you lose badly that one but you don't lose the spirit and queue up again, this time the map is arena you have got a 2k ally in ur team and two 1100, you may think that this time the 2k player will carry, then this time you are facing a bunch of 2.2k players with one low dude on their team, the 1100 on your team never had a chance, they would die vs trush or because there was a bird on their thrones. You queue up one last time, this time the map is nomad and all your allies are around your elo, so you think yes this time it's gonna be gud, you see a bunch of chinese letters in all the enemies, this time is vivi, straydog, thislove and one lady with low elo, you decide to play it without knowing their ranks, by min 17 you already have 3 castles on your face, the water is lost and two of ur allies have left the game =(

From those 3 hours you had to play you just spent 1.5 hours getting rekt without any chance to win, the rest of the time you spend it watching a streams, youtube or a movie, the next days you do any other activity before even attempting to experience until maybe the next week.

For new players the experience is almost the same, the match making for team games is one of the biggest mistakes by microsoft/worldedges, FE, all they had to do was to repeat the same formula that worked before and improve it not remaking it without even considering all the factors, it is unforgivable that they have done nothing to improve team games experience so far, despite having more players on that game mode and having lots of complains every week.

Yeah of course it's always better to improve the game, and DE has plenty of things to improve.

Just don't think we would see a significant difference in player numbers.

 

[I_Sniper_]

There is one example that will convince everyone :

Memb was playing Team Games only before DE, I remember he had a lot of games.

After DE he almost play only 1vs1 when he dont cast. Is it because he dont like TGs anymore?

SoloQ will instantely improve the number of games. Day 1 everyone will play more,
It's math. Easier to queue for a ramdom than to queue with friends. And then having a good game mod that feet expectations of 95% of the playerbase will ofc improve the number of players.

Or you consider aoe2 like a bad game? That will never convince new players?

 

[I_Sniper_]

So...
Adding ways of queuing up would lower the competitiveness and quality of games, while adding queue time......?

It will not add a queue time...

It will lower queue time in soloQ, does I need to explain that?

I dont know what will happens for the teamQ, maybe it would be longer, but games way better. There is 0 interest to match solo players vs team players.

Ask any player :

Do you want 2 minutes of queue and to be Matched vs Vivi?

Or 5 minutes of queue and to be matched vs an equal team?

 

[Potkeny]

I dont know what will happens for the teamQ, maybe it would be longer, but games way better. There is 0 interest to match solo players vs team players.

Do you seriously believe that there are enough TG aoe2 players that splitting them into 2 queues would not result in 2 horrible Qs instead of one?

Do you seriously believe that people wouldn't quit minute 2 in SoloQ if getting "the wrong" map? Or when their teammate is "too low elo" compared to what they want from a teammate?

Considering you can only Q up to the exact variant of TG you have numbers for right then (you can't make a 4v4 if you are 2 or 3), friends playing together would get horrible matchmaking (long waiting time into whatever match the MM could get, so horrible quality), and if you can't get acceptable matches with friends, why play TG?

Yes, TG matchmaking is not good, yes, TG matchmaking needs improvement, but splitting the numbers rarely makes for a better experience in niche games (and RTS games are niche games), you need a critical mass before it can improve things.

 

[I_Sniper_]

Do you seriously believe that there are enough TG aoe2 players that splitting them into 2 queues would not result in 2 horrible Qs instead of one?

Again the "paradox" argument.
1/ Build a game
2/ Add wrong game mods
3/ Say no to adding the right game mod because it will "Split the queue"

Following your words : we should merge everything? ONE queue for everything?

Do you seriously believe that people wouldn't quit minute 2 in SoloQ if getting "the wrong" map? Or when their teammate is "too low elo" compared to what they want from a teammate?

That's an other problem, I dont see why it would be worse with SoloQ there is no reason.

Considering you can only Q up to the exact variant of TG you have numbers for right then (you can't make a 4v4 if you are 2 or 3), friends playing together would get horrible matchmaking (long waiting time into whatever match the MM could get, so horrible quality), and if you can't get acceptable matches with friends, why play TG? Yes, TG matchmaking is not good, yes, TG matchmaking needs improvement, but splitting the numbers rarely makes for a better experience in niche games (and RTS games are niche games), you need a critical mass before it can improve things.

That type of reasonning is why aoe is a niche game. I though aoe community was a family ? We are all friends right ?

AoE is NOT a niche game. The mentality of the community IS, the game has been built like a niche game. We should go out of this.

 

[Potkeny]

AoE is NOT a niche game. The mentality of the community IS, the game has been built like a niche game. We should go out of this.

Traditional RTS games are niche, they are not the mainstream shooty-shooty-twitchy-twitchy games, you need way too much multitasking even for the "average players".

AoE2 might not be as much of a niche game, but competitive RM TG is.

You can't pause whenever you have to, you can't (or well, shouldn't) leave the game whenever you want to, you can't decide what settings exactly to use, its a ranked TG queue with strict settings. You can't play CBA TGs there, you can't do 40 min norush treaty games, or diplomacy, or 300 pop, or...

AoE2 is popular because of the variety of options it provides for the players, and competitive RM TGs are just one slice of that, a game mode inside a niche genre.

 

[HongeyKong]

I dont even know where I should start.

People dont play TGs becoz they find it frustrating to play against premades.
1. I played solo in 95%+ of my 2000+ranked TGs on DE.
2. I assume the higher the elo range the more premades, but as a 15/16+ I hvnt met THAT many of them.
3. I cant speak for others, but I personally dont mind playing against premades. (Smurfing is another story)
4. In low elo rage, playing against premades should be less of a problem as:
-4a. There should be fewer premades by proportion.
-4b. Casuals dont play that often anyway.

Splitting solo and premade queue would grow the playerbase
Lets say people actually hated playing against premades, and would gladly start playing Ranked TGs after the change. But:
1. Would queue time of SOLOQ players actually become shorter?
-1a. How many players (X) would try Ranked TGs becoz of the change?
-1b. How many stackers (Y) were in the playerbase?
-1c. Are you sure X > Y?
2. What about the stackers?
-2a. How long would their queue time increase?
-2b. How many of them would start SOLOQing instead of stacking?
-2c. How many of them would straight up stop playing?
3. The RIOT screenschot you provided literally stated "Removing duo queue would increase the population of other queues, thus shortening queue time.". Meaning, "Adding a seperate queue would make queue time longer."

AOE (RTS) is not niche, it has the potential to get close to DOTAs level if not reaching DOTAs level.
Just wake up really.

 

[Lokalo]

Well the idea of having soloQ for TGs is interesting from the perspective, that let's say if player X is ranked 1600, so would get all opponents/allies of like 1550-1650, technically it would mean more balanced matches.

But yes, as even that sounds quite good, it creates big problems. Not letting people play TG with friends is not really an option, which means need separate queue as forcing people to go to lobbies not sure if is a good idea.

And having 2 separate queues for this playerbase probably won't work, if we had more people, that might work out, but now I would imagine both queues would have big queue timers.

And let's start, that TGs would be way more fun if they would just turn off family share, that is easiest fix which would increase TG experience a lot

 

[I_Sniper_]

Well the idea of having soloQ for TGs is interesting from the perspective, that let's say if player X is ranked 1600, so would get all opponents/allies of like 1550-1650, technically it would mean more balanced matches.

But yes, as even that sounds quite good, it creates big problems. Not letting people play TG with friends is not really an option, which means need separate queue as forcing people to go to lobbies not sure if is a good idea.

And having 2 separate queues for this playerbase probably won't work, if we had more people, that might work out, but now I would imagine both queues would have big queue timers.

And let's start, that TGs would be way more fun if they would just turn off family share, that is easiest fix which would increase TG experience a lot

Solo queue will have less queue time, players will play more because they dont have to wait their firends, they just grind like in 1vs1.

The system is so bad actually that there is bad experience for teams and Solo. Team games is a machine that forces players to go away of age of empires 2, iam not sure that everyone understand that.

 

[HongeyKong]

And let's start, that TGs would be way more fun if they would just turn off family share, that is easiest fix which would increase TG experience a lot

Actually Ive heard two completely different suggestions
(1) Make MP completely free, and lock SP contents behind the pay wall.
(2) Disable family sharing for MP games.

Not sure which would actually help growing the MP playerbase.