I agree with everything except nerfing mythological creatures, that's what makes this game different and more fun than other RTS. There are already games without any mythological creatures, so why nerf them more? The less it resembles AOE, the more audience it will retain.
Thats why I play AoM and detest AoE2; all races in AoE2 are the same. Unique units are used rarely and on top of that you basically always go archers or light cavalry with a micro battle that's just a skill check. YOu micro you live you don't micro you die easy as that.
@@ShakerGER I've played both at very high level and I have to agree somewhat. Although what they've done with AOE2 DE helps diversify civs a little more than it used to (for example they released a civ with moveable ox carts like norse from aom). I'd say although they have similarities, they attract a slightly different appetite.
@@stuartmacaulay5761 I am still at the start of AoE2 (basically only play Armenians and aztecs) so OFC my opinion is somewhat restricted but if thats the first impression I get as a game dev yeah that ain't a good sign
Also myth units are literally a centerpiece of your progression, and there is no hiding that you're bringing them. Your opponent knows exactly which myths you're bringing as soon as you age up.
@@ShakerGERI agree,but AOM taked it to it's other extreme and that's a terrible thing too. The norse don't have any archers, they don't have anti cab,egiptians cannot make cav until age 3 and only in the stronghold,greek do not have healers,etc.
Another point I'd add to the multiplayer criticism is the party/lobby system: I played a bunch of team games with friends, and it is frustrating to constantly have to keep remaking the lobby after every game. Game ends early because an opponent disconnects? You have to remake the lobby and reinvite your friends. Game ends normally after playing? You have to remake the lobby and reinvite everyone again. Game ends because of a desync (which actually happens too often in 3v3/4v4 team games from my experience)? You have to remake the lobby and reinvite everyone again.
Beat me to it. We have to reduce friction for making re-queue / play next match. Just make it a prompt. "Play again with same players?" or something like that.
Omg yes this! In aoe4 you create a party and the party leader can queue up for ranked or create a lobby and everyone goes in. It's not perfect (players can easily accidentally leave the party after a game ends), but it's pretty good. None of the Definitive Edition games, including Retold, have this. And it's such a nice little QoL feature.
Beat me to it. And I think Magic hit the nail on the head about why it feels "lonely" UI-wise. I get that fix on Discord, as he said; it causes a situation where you don't need to open the game to get it, which reduces chances for spontaneous games to pop up.
@@JimCullen how do i keep the party in Aoe4? Normally 1 or 2 of my friends get out of the party. How can we keep together? (winning or losing). I´m talking specially about ranked tg matches.
I play a lot as well, and got two pretty big issues: - Defensive play is impossible, towers and fortresses aren’t giving you a proper possibility to play defensive. - Maps: the ranked map-pool is so minimal, there should be more maps available.
Have you tried the citadel with ra aoe empowerment? Its a really good way to still play defensive. Put it on your forward position and fortiy it with 2 migdol strongholds. If you empower all of these buildings with the ra pharao they deal sooooo much damage and its really difficult to push through.
Which is it? Defensive play is impossible but we should nerf berry and chicken gather rate? And why would be want stronger towers. Maybe slightly. But I sure as hell don't want the tower spam meta of the old game back
Villagers also seem to just get shit on by every unit. They were a lot heartier in the old game. If you chased a hunting group to their base with like 10 early game cavalry you might pick off 2 or 3 of them but now you’re killing pretty much the whole group if they don’t see you before you start attacking
Buffing relics would be a good way to get people moving also, make them worth getting to the point where if you turtle too much you could get greatly disadvantaged
It doesn't seem like Relics are fought over either, since they're too easy to get. What if instead Relics only spawned like 10 minutes in, but you already knew where they would be so you could go and defend the area first?
@@cinderheart2720 that could be a special map version instead. Also, instead of spawning normal relics, it would be great if it spawned really powerful relics, that way it would incentivize the players to actually want to get it.
What I'm really concerned about this game is how long will it last? I really want to see as many civilizations as possible. I'm worried whether they will add my culture's pantheon, which is Finnish. There is enough material for it to be a full on civilization, but not popular enough to be of the first ones to be added.
Hey magic! Very nice video, and thanks for the shoutout! I completely agree with the point you raise about hunt. It feels very odd to have a mechanic (faster gather rate) that hints you to keep hunting, while it actually makes little difference, and endangers your villagers, exposing them to raids. As the game is right now, unless there are several groups of hunting animals nearby, i don't even feel it's worth to send forward a big group of villagers. It's just too much walking time and you are compensated with scraps. In the old game having hunt privilege meant a lot, here it's just... not it. Even odin hunt feels underwhelming, and great hunt feels inconsequential. If you factor in the better farms, hunt is now irrelevant. Now we even have relics like ptah's sceptre which discount farms by 25%! I think the weaker towers may be the consequence of too much food in your base (they are less of a deterrent to raids and rushes) but i had many games where the opponent pushed me on berries and i moved on chickens to the other side, or the opposite. You cant foodblock properly when there are too many food sources, and berries having 150 each is absurd, it's 1000 food only from berries! so, as always, you are spot on. I also feel that most maps have an incredible abundance of hunt. About the views, i get what you say and it really is discouraging. i may have hit 30-40-k on two videos, but the amount of work required to do those kind of videos is just too much. I've often wondered to switch to much faster content like this video: no real work required, the content being your expertise and nothing else. But i started as an attempt to draw more people into playing this game i love too much, not to make views. I really wanted the quality to be as high as possible, hoping to reach people outside our timeless devoted playerbase. Those 5k on my last video feel depressing, considered the target were RTS players in general (not just aom) and aom novices, to try and expand the game's playerbase. It's even worse to look at boit's views. He is THE aom creator, and is now having almosr the same views as his titans videos did. I know that part of this is because many creators emerged and many pros started casting and there is more content and thus the views are more split between us, but boit is the best caster we have and his results are very poor. Feels like it's always just us, always the same devoted community, a little bigger maybe. This shoutout warms my heart, but i fear most of your viewers already viewed them. I really hope it's not the case. I'm not sure liking videos is any useful. I know a very, very big youtube content creator IRL and he told me likes and comments aren't really useful. According to him, youtube's algorithm is totally dominated by views and retention. All youtube cares about is how many people watch, and for how long you are able to make viewers stick to the website and see ads. As a result, videos with higher like ratio arent necessarily the most viewed. But i agree with the sharing! It may really help. I may be biased, but i will always believe that aom is the best rts in the age franchise. I think the improved myth units and god powers are a way to make the game stand out as "more different" from aoe2, so i may be on dev's side on this, but there are indeed some problematic ones, like mummies who are really too snowballing. I will not be discouraged easily about the views (though i know i could produce videos faster if i had more) because i know what this game can be and really want everybody to know too. Videos like this one, made by experts as yourself are very important, as they give game devs a direction . Your contribution to the community is invaluable, much more than those views suggest. I really hope you keep producing good content and things start to improve! You really deserve it.
I agree to most of what you wrote. I'll add this perspective of a previously more active viewer: I grew too annoyed by Boit's clickbait and samey video titles, to the point that I no longer watch his videos at all now. I still watch yours and Magic's. But I also personally burned out a bit on AoM after playing it a ton in Sept/Oct. Still watched many videos though... just Boit's not anymore :/
I for one prefer to be able to prepare My game/plan for the first 6-9 minutes without too much fighting going on or being necessary 🤔 Something I tend to dislike in games is when We typically never see 30-50% of the content because the individual games end sooner. So in AoM's case, I don't want stuff like mythic age and lategame and titans to be something that We never see, otherwise there's not too much of a point to have them in the game in first place and heroic age might as well be the maximum age. Most of the cool stuff and the variety opens up the longer the games goes, whereas there many fewer possibilities early on. And with longer to slightly longer games,it's much easier/more realistic to make a comeback from one or two or three mistakes, since the any given mistake is more forgiving later in the game than it is earlier in the game, and I like that there is the possiblity to comeback from mistakes by virtue of being able to keep up a bit longer and to potentially exploit future mistakes from the opponent. A killing blow at 6-7 minutes is okay once in a while and can be fun too, but I don't want to even be a third of the games that are playedf 🤔
This is my problem with ALL rts esports. The pros don't play in a way that interests me, and I genuinely don't care how good they are if it's boring to watch. It's not a thing that can be changed by changing the game itself; high level optimized play is watching someone with memorized hotkeys do the exact same thing over and over again, and it's a problem with THEM not being here to have fun, not the game.
AoM classic had good variety in terms of game length. Some of the most exciting games to play and watch would go for only 5 minutes and end with villager fights or all ins. After that, my favourite games were the ones that went for 30 minutes and ended with building and wall spam and titans. I’d argue that AoM Retold games very rarely end as fast as 5 minutes and very rarely go longer than 20 minutes. Retold has done a lot right but I think there’s something happening that is meaning most games just end in the heroic age.
@@mashedpotatosoup I'm around 1250 elo and it's easily 50% of My games ending past 20 minutes and 25-30% of them ending past 30 minutes And maybe 5-10% of them end beyond 45-50 minutes 🤔 I even built a wonder in a ranked team game once!
Part of the problem with the old version was that it meant the number of viable strategies were limited *because* you had to hunt early, and could lose early. It was sort of like the old days of Age of Empires 2 when people discovered Feudal attacks that were able to kill you before you reached castle age; once they had that down, you *had* to fight in feudal, or you'd lose. I think the devs want the option of different strategies being viable, such as "fast heroic", or two TC, or ect. IMO, i think those were much less viable in the old game.
i feel like those strategies are only semi viable because people havent found the most op strat for this game yet. For example i dont think 2tc or stuff like that will be viabe if the best strat is just going fast heroic and flaming weapons or something like fast mithic meteors/lightning. Also you are automatically making any early map control basically meaningless since you can always just turtle up
What I took from it was that the triple food setup encourages booming and should perhaps be reserved for boomy maps, like Alfheim. It’s a shame that the ranked map pool does not have a single super aggressive map, personally I would like to see a variety of maps that need different strategic approaches
@borchtrikavky this is an excellent analysis and I will be taking this to explain to some of my friends. Its not that not economic greed isn't viable its just that it doesn't have any benefit right now compared to a fast heroic! Imo its the god powers combined with how they changed the myth unit dmg formula, for some reason it feels more fair in EE (heroes vs myth) but i actually don't know and haven't tested it. Those 2 things make some of the timings unstoppable. My initial thought as a casual was that Kronos would be op with his 2 myth units per age just because of how strong god powers are. also heavy units vs medium is wild and armory upgrades are not as relevant till late heroic -> mythic. overall: it feels like the investment to go fast heroic is just too low compared to the investment to get multiple tcs and secure map control vs Heavy units being so much better than medium with armory. Maybe make TCs cheaper? I like the old blizzard style of balance, making everything more op faction-wise; I'd rather limit map resources and overall advancement time/cost or something like that. I think that some of those combined might alleviate the need to nerf god powers like crazy. They def could use a longer CD.
@borchtrikavky "Also you are automatically making any early map control basically meaningless since you can always just turtle up" How is map control not have several high value uses still? Turtling up is better than dying, but it isnt winning
The game needs some basic quality of life improvements. Let us watch replays at high speed, at least 8x. Let us watch replays from the perspective of where the player was looking at that time. Let us pick colours in ranked, in a way similar to how aoe2 or aoe4 do it. Map bans in ranked would be good too. Let us pick our civ while queuing, so we don't have to wait until a match is found to choose a civ. If we could stay in a party for TG queuing, so we don't have to re-invite our friends after every game ends, that would be an added bonus (aoe4 has this, but aoe2 does not). We can debate the balance of maps or civs or counter triangles, but all of that is ultimately subjective and people will have different opinions, and changes made for a certain goal might or might not actually achieve that goal. But basic QoL is something everyone should be able to agree on.
Oh yes, agree completely with you about the lobbies and in-game chat. I suspect they might not want to have to deal with the moderation that would entail, but it would be so much more lively if they had it, and it would make it possible to develop a great community of different kinds of things, like for people who want to play different custom scenarios etc.
So, for this game to sucess, before any sort of balance changes that should come aswell: 1 - Some bugs and rewards gotta be fixed, so as the 1st thing, and this is an issue for months right, we gotta fix replays, casting and stuff like this, this is emergency fixing and where the priority should be. 2- Pathing and some other bugs of units not following commands, shift click, walls that are consistently bugging at the forests and small edges to place them. 3- Increase ladder importance which is, in my personal opinion rly rly important and rly easy to be made, long queues should be fixed by less filters or whatsoever is the problem. Making it leagues, instead of numbers for rating, make it way more attractive, with statues, banners, icons and rewards for higher u go on the ladder, making ur profile look cooler, maybe even a reward for the guy who finishes top 1 at the end of a season for exemple, making the profiles of the players almost as like aoe4, that u can watch ppl's replays that they played on the ladder, and improving the menu for give more importance to multiplayer, with ur rank there rly big inviting u to play more. 4- The devs should implement someone to talk to the community, someone who goes to streams, or call ppl (out of the council aswell) to ask for their opinions, giving them the right direction. 5- When it comes to balance, i'd rly like the god powers having less importance at the game, this is something aot did a lot better than retold, timings were huge but they did not decide the game, i preffer having a preference to timing sometimes more than titans, but retold pulls it to the peak, where u can be 20-30 villagers ahead and the guy use 1 god power and it equalize things or switch sides completely, or spam a myth unit that u simply cannot counter, the approach when it comes to balance should be different, god powers like tornado, meteor, implosion, and stuff like this are simply pulls ppl to the limit when it comes to mental, as i said before i preffer retold approach to the timings than titans, even tho the importance is at its limit, a lot of god powers that just ruins ur opponent's gameplay by simpling clicking in ur mouse is insane to me. 6- When it comes to performance the game could be improved aswell, some stuttering, internet lagging sometimes even when ur internet looks fine(??????), bugsplats, crashes and stuff like this. I dont think theres any issue with the maps btw, i like that u dont have to move out of ur base it benefits defensive gameplay, thats why i told u i dont think towers should be buffed, but crenellations instead, otherwise it would be a simple buff to eggy since they dont even pay for that. Nevertheless, i think the game has a great future if, and only if, the devs actually read those opinions that comes from ppl who played lots of different RTS and can point exactly where the issues are, this is the 1st game in years that i actually like to play, as well as u know me magic, i only scrim, cause for me playing ladder is a mental torture, facing same abuse over and over again after 8 min queue (THIS IS SUCH A BIG ISSUE ASWELL AND SHOULD BE FIXED)
The biggest problem i have with the game is simply that you can’t play defensive. The towers do negative dmg everyone knows this. And building towers and fortifications ultimately gets you in a huge gold deficiency compared to someone who rushes you. If you upgrade your tower and someone upgrades their units armor the tower upgrade makes no difference at all. The only real way to counter someone that rushes you is to spam build units yourself. And then you would have been better off rushing yourself in the first place to kill or villagers or zone off gold or other stuff from your opponent. Baseline is this, you should be able to play both offensive and defensive. But currently there is few to no options to play defensive.
@ I disagree with your take. The opening argument he made was that there are nothing on the map of value fighting for. And also at his lvl nobody plays a pure defensive style if they are not forced in to it. They all build units and try to win skirmishes.
@@coltizz kimo beat him today turtling in his base doing nothing for 15 minutes every game with no units. Divine also never leaves his base until mythic.. His argument is no fighting happens because everyone is invulnerable in their base with the starting resources. If towers werent good how can they just camp in their base and be safe? Your own argument acknowledges that you are wrong. Everyone is comepletely safe inside their base so no fighting happens.
@@frank6013 I can only speak for myself and my time playing and watching different content creators. Firstly about the tower is shit, if you are moving your units the tower won’t hit them. There is a guy a breaking down just how bad towers are compared to the old version of the game. I’ve seen many high lvl players complain about how bad defense is in the game. Can the highest ranked players come up with ways to defend? Yea probably that’s why they are the best in the game. But talking about average players that play the game for fun getting raided and rushed early is hell. And that’s the point, it’s much harder to defend then it is to raid your opponents gold minds or kill of some villagers with your cavalry. The tower is complete ass in this game and falls of completely in the end game. It takes one tower 30 seconds to kill one hoplite unit with no upgrades. And in the old version of the game it took 8 seconds. 30 seconds to kill one base unit with no upgrades. Please tell me again how the tower is good…
@@coltizz You are no average player, an average player in every AoE game knows he has to build units to defend rushes and doesnt see turtling to the last age as a viable strategy. Back in the days people knew they should play closed maps like Black Forest and wall in if they don't want to learn the game properly. They still lost to every mediocre Arab player even with 30 minutes peacetime, because they never learnt to play the game properly with their wall in strategy.
A few opinions: 1 - I agree with your opening point that there's too much Food available in your starting location (and possibly Wood) but want to stress that this argument really doesn't extend to Gold. It stills feels like a bad, distant second goldmine can completely kill a game sometimes so over-abundance of Gold definitely isn't an issue. 2 - I definitely agree there needs to be more 'stuff' on the maps that incentivize actually exploring them. My main concern is how would you introduce that without it inadvertently making the Norse more overpowered? 3 - As a slight addendum to the above, you mentioned that hybrid-water maps are better because they're immediately more active. I agree but also feel that ultimately it's disappointing that there's no cross-over between Naval and Land combat and it just ends up being a tussle over a slightly higher Food production. AoE3 fixed this by having Gold and Treasures in the water or ships that produced military units and AoM could possibly also benefit from this. 4 - I hope that moving the game in a more aggressive direction won't lead to even **more** nerfs to towers and fortresses. Defensive buildings already feel laughably insignificant. 5 - Others have already said this but I strongly disagree with the idea of nerfing timing attacks or Myth units - they feel like the most fundamental element of Age of Mythology and the biggest draw for new players. I think if more of the civs/minor gods are just balanced *upwards* to be able to do similar things then that would be better. 6 - Completely agree with you that the multiplayer lobbies and server lists need to be improved. Used to spend literally days straight just connecting to The Titans lobby, queuing in random games, accepting invites and chatting shit. There's a wider problem here with gaming becoming extremely sterilized in general but the community aspect is definitely lacking. Some additional stuff: 1 - I think there needs to be an entirely separate lobby/server list for custom/editor games. Right now they feel too difficult to find and I think for many people they were one of the biggest draws for online games. 2 - Still *major* issues with unit glitches. Units constantly getting stuck in place and being unable to move - this happens to me at least once per match. Sure it doesn't matter when it's just one spearman but when you lose an Elephant or a Cyclops to this it's genuinely awful. The original never had this issue - get it fixed. Also major issues with units randomly turning non-hostile to enemy units and just standing there.
Thanks Magic.. even though I am not getting any time to play or to even see videos, whenever I get time, I check your videos.. it is super informative and very fun.. though I can’t do even 5% of what you show in your gameplay when I play, I still learn a lot
I agree wholeheartedly with most of the things you say, especially with including chat section in lobby (currently I have a similar situation to the one your student had, I still want to play but my friends moved on to another games). One of the biggest obstacles for me to continue playing is that feeling that I’m making a dive in game being completely alone. Also a big shoutout to the comment suggesting to move berries further from TC, I think it’s a great idea and a very elegant one
I soo resonate with you. This is the game I have been playing since childhood. Aom retold’s quality is unbelievably low. Units move around like bubbles. Textures look toyish Elephants have bubble butts Camels look like ostriches 😢 Agreed with all of your points
can't agree with magic this time. I am a new player and this is my first RTS game, i really need some time to focus on economy and then focus on fight. I've had some games that fights from the beginning till the end, but that was too chaos for me. In my memory in the aoe games it takes even a longer time before fighting, as RTS is not popular as before, to keep it going, I guess it's fine to be more beginner friendly
Same for me. I’m a new player, and I really enjoy playing this game. However, some people might say, ‘Well, you’ll have to learn,’ but even if I knew how to play, I find it unattractive to put so much effort into food management for it to play such a decisive role in winning a game
I hope even if you disagree with his balance points at the beginning, that you could have watched through to the end and agreed with the other points he made. Because those were much more generally applicable to everyone, IMO.
I think the first point on (too much) food being available in the starting base is really good, together with hunting dogs being removed which is just baffling to me as it provoked a lot more dynamic play. Nerfing chicken and berries to 0.7, not benefitting their gather rates from husbandry and getting hunting dogs back (possibly nerfing the cost/effect of it to make it more optional than vanilla) would be good changes imo
I agree with this take. I think removing the food entirely is fine for experienced players, but as a new player I found the food options beneficial while learning - nerfing would be the better option imo
We need the big chat box back and the ability to see player names list to see who is playing! Also less food starting out is such a good idea! Also I love your thoughts on the multiplayer UI. THIS NEEDS TO BE FIXED.
Those are the tips of video that the devs need to see, i personaly think the devs should implement the old AOT patch on retold like god bonuses water fights and the maps,the game used to be way more fun to play with early game agression.
Not sure if you are looking at the original through rose tinted glasses mate, Egyptian fighting classical was the exception not the norm in most of the games I played or watched. I'd say they actually fight classical more in retold. Maybe it was different at the very top. They could make berries gather a little slower though to incentive leaving base. Agree some of the god powers are too strong, particularly now they can be recast. No idea how you can fix it without changing the entire game. I played from early ESO too and you are 100% right about how much better the lobby was. Not sure why they don't implement that because it would be easy surely.
Your first point: I like the increased levels of starting food, but it would be interesting if there were different sorts of maps, some of which do not have as much starting food. Second: Yes, static defences need a buff. Not a massive buff, but a buff. They're pretty useless right now. Third: Some strats and powers are OP and need a nerf. Fourth: Personally I don't care about the multiplayer lobby much, even though I also do play ranked. But it's not a bad suggestion. Fifth: I personally don't see a lot of disconnects or other bugs but I can imagine it'd be extremely annoying if it happened often. Sixth: I strongly agree. Devs should focus more on CC.
Using your thread to avoid spreading to thin in the comments, as it is a good format. TL;DR; I agree on Magic take that they should focus first on making the game fun, increase sense of community, and encourage content creation to make for a successful game. For me balance is important but secondary as specially for an asymmetric game is much harder to do, and I prefer a more fun gameplay rather than a perfectly balanced game (*cough cough such as the current state of StarCraft 2*). 1st: I see a lot of casuals already complain that games may be too short; (which I personally like time wise; as I prefer two or three 15~30 min games in a session rather than one 1hr game). Counter point is that your may prefer AoE 2 or 4 if you prefer longer games. Or maybe add a treaty mode?. Point is that if devs decide to go with this measure it will fragment the player base even more. 2nd: Agree. 3rd: Agree. With keyword being *some* (i.e. FW as Loki, Atlas implode) and may be over tuned for what they cost. 4th: I am one of the persons that Magic is targeting with that statement, I used to play AoM on ESO and felt part of a community without the need of 3rd party services; which are always welcome but fragment the ecosystem even more (which discord should I put my attention on?). Also being included in the base game reduces friction and encourages communication. Even if it is being a lurker only. (However there may be some additional concerns such as the need for moderation or some policy compliance stuff which may be harder to implement and cause more harm than worth). 4th extended: Adding that I would think is beneficial to add seasons which reward playing ladder for additional cosmetics (similar to what they did for Holiday event). This way not everyone has to play for them but only the ones that really want that cosmetic (may be even similar to non-multiplayer ones but with extended features i.e. a golden border). I want an external motivator (rather than just internal of getting better) to queue for ladder. It is just the way my brain works and a lot of others; hence why they have implemented similar rankings and seasons in other games such as AoE 4, Counter Strike, LoL, etc. Bland ELO is just boring (even if it is the best underlying metric that at the end is what the rankings are based on). 5th: Same; that was just at the beginning and I suffered lots of OoS but now have been synched. So not really sure what other important bugs needs to be ironed out but they have been really effective at communicating with us on that regard (have an online page sharing known issues and status). 6th: Strongly agree 2.
@@rmachuca For point 5: Just because you don't see it/experience it, doesn't mean it's not an issue. I play a lot of 1v1s and yes, desyncs are EXTREMELY rare with those. Once you get to 3v3 they're quite common, and as you increase player count, it gets worse. They have no real ability for you to reconnect to the game if you desync. There needs to be a way to accomplish this. The casual player base is what keeps this game alive, and if the chaotic 12 man FFAs, 6v6 or even say new game types like Risk with tons of players are unplayable or are almost guaranteed to have a drop - players will opt for games that are more stable. Writing off these issues will likely lead to aom entering the same state as its predecessor, which is a niche game that has a small player base and receives little/no attention.
@@hardlYIncognito I did not mean that I am neglecting them, only adding a data point that it has not been my current experience after the patching. If they are still there, feel free to keep reporting them. At least it worked for me and it was fixed for me. So keep trying and if there are enough bug reports they can hopefully fix them.
A couple of other things I’ve been noticing that you didn’t mention here: 1. Villager AI is a bit wonky and not as customizable as you would like. For example if you choose a balanced distribution I often see villagers splitting between distant sources or prioritizing sources that are further from TC even if there are sources right next to TC, especially with mines (granted you generally want to task villagers manually but in larger matches like 3v3 or 4v4 with a lot of action you end up idling a lot unless you’re auto-tasking) 2. Pathing/grouping for military requires a lot of micro-managing. Say you want to send your army to attack your opponent’s base, in the military options you can’t issue commands like “Stay as group” or “Keep cavalry behind infantry” if you wanted to have cavalry run a flank for example. Instead you have to basically stage your whole army outside of the enemy base before attacking to keep them together which is fine if you like to micromanage but annoying for people who like to execute several strategies at once in mid and late game pushes. 3. You mentioned it briefly but OP god powers are a serious problem, to some extent you can play around them but it’s always so tilting when you’re pushing an enemy base and then one scout with an Earthquake levels all your infrastructure or one Fimbulwinter wipes half of your villagers and cripples your entire economy while you’re pressing the attack. 4. Might just be a bug but if anyone else has played the new campaign as Freyr, for some reason he’s the only god who doesn’t get a near-instant Age II for me, everyone else’s is super expedited but his is still normal speed for whatever reason which is frustrating since he’s super useful in 1v>1 but not if you can’t build up just as fast as your opponents by 5min.
Longtime ranked AOE2 player. Recently found your channel when I started up AOM. Love what you’re doing and have found many of your videos helpful with the transition between games. I agree 100% with your points. The most frustrating thing that I have experienced is the constant drops in game. I play with 2 friends and there’s about 20% chance someone will drop. Even though they are still connected to internet… and no way to rejoin game. One night this happened to us SEVEN times in a row until we gave up. Seems very unacceptable. It’s incredibly rare in APE2.
I really miss hunting dogs honestly. A big reason why aot early games are different from retold is because within the first five seconds you would have to make a decision about what you were going to prioritise. If a player was rushing you, you knew that they probably missed out on a big upgrade, and you would have an advantage in food. I think the biggest issue in retold is that there's a very small comeback potential. It's much harder to play from behind. If my opponent is spamming contarius, they shouldn't be able to spam arcus and dryads too, especially at the 10 minute mark. Maybe it's my experience in the game, but in legacy, I could look at my opponents unit comp and deduce their eco management so I'd be able to figure out what to attack. I haven't been able to do that in retold, and from all the casts I've seen I don't think the top player's really can either. In other words, player's don't really seem to need to commit to a strategy, so there's a reduced chance of counter plays especially if you're playing from behind. And I think that is a big reason why there's such a small comeback potential, and why certain comps are so oppressive. I think that water fighting, especially in the classical age, is just really bad. It removes so much of the dynamics from the game and is so much less rewarding. Obviously finding the balance between the water being an automatic win and not needing to fight for it at all is really difficult but I think it's really necessary and I dont see much discussion about it. Having a fish upgrade in the classical age would really help. Then player's are actually rewarded for winning the water early because their fish are more effecient. Maybe slightly more radical, but the ships should all cost slightly different resources. Perhaps the archer ship costs the same, but the siege ships costs more gold and less wood and the hammer ship vice versa. This way, players are forced to manage their eco differently and implement a strategy on water. Their opponents are rewarded for scouting, and have to change the way they're allocating their villagers to produce the counter ships. And it goes without saying but the water myth units are just way too good, so reaching the heroic age first and just building two additional ones is all the water fighting you really need. I'm not sure what the workaround is, but it's something that really needs to be looked into. Perhaps having only a select few gods spawn a free water myth unit would be good (aphrodite would need to train her first scylla), but might not be the right way forward. This way at least you have to make a decision to find an advantage on the water, but you're not forced down a particular god path like you were in aot.
The one thing i don't agree with you on at all is the multiplayer lobby chat. It might've been a fun and interesting addition back in 2003 when gaming was very different. Every RTS lobby chat i've been in the last 6 years have been extremely transphobic and pro nazi that i've had to turn them all off. It's good that it's gone, and it shouldn't be a thing in ANY RTS game. We've proven that we can't handle it without turning it into a toxic cesspool. Like it or not, the RTS fanbase is a special kind of people and i'd rather not platform them any more than needed. But sure, make guild chat lobbies that you can join, like old WC3. But i don't want to see a public chat lobby at all. Period. This is the one thing i actually respect devs for taking a stance against by removing global chat lobbies.
Is there anyway to import the hot keys from the old game? Haven’t played in years and don’t have a ton of time and the hot key setup has kinda gatekept me from getting some back
You can be the juiciest peach, not everyone likes peaches. So while I’m open to people complaining for the sake of improvement. I think this game is a really fun RTS and I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea for many reasons. But it is mine and that’s good enough for me.
Hello magic, very nice video, same as you i have been playing this game for 2 decade since AoM and AoMT even tho i never went to the top level i love this game and i know pretty much all good players that have passed last 20 year and watched a couple thounsnd of games. wich all the best for this new edition. good to hear from you again.
Would increasing military unit speed help skirmishes become more common? Im not good enough at the game to know the reproductions, but visually many units seem quite slow when playing the game and could be sped up.
I have the OG Gold edition disks next to my computer still, love they re-released this game. Watched your tournament with mista and learned a ton. My main gripe has been grouping issues that can take a few seconds to sort out. Wish there was military regrouping as well, I feel like there were more formation options in the OG games. Still mostly casual, but wanting to try out more of the multi-player. Hope you can making the AoM content, it's been a lot of fun watching people playing and learning about this game again.
Agree with ideas of buffing hunt and pushing it further out. Also think the game could benefit greatly for rewarding scouting more. Too many games folks don't even bother checking what the other player is doing. Some things that could help there: 1) Make buildings being built even more vulnerable or slow TC build times -- build some army before grabbing the second TC every time. Fight over the early settlements as well as hunt/gold. 2) Have town centers gain the statue of the pantheon they are worshipping to age up, and give some sort of animation that the age up is happening. This gives me some ways to prepare counter play, but requires me to scout out that it's happening. Also could tell me which TC is aging up so I could rush to take it down to counter play the timing. 3) Less globally effective powers (make FW area again for example) 4) Make god powers more easily mitigatable. Like steering tornado away from base with troops, or actually being able to run SOME of your army away from implode. May be as easy as increasing initial animation time before effect starts to take over.
i think berry should be placed at the edge of the tower range in sight but harder to defend with the possibility of cutting them of with archer's to enable food starving as you say
There is a bug, whereby when you cast pestilence a random gold mine disappears. I think it disappears once the godpower runs out. It doesn't happen always, but it does sometimes
Bugs and unintended/poorly optimized behavior definitely is an annoyance that too builds up over time for sure. Like, as you mentioned about the chat stuff, it is true that if you play with friends and they stop playing then it isn't as fun to play it again. Interactive ui would definitely help with that. Someone else pointed out the need to remake lobby every time. Also, i am not sure if attack move deals with this issue cause i am casual who right clicks but i have noticed many times that a reason why my opponent(or in some cases, me) gain advantage in a fight is because the units simply follow commands with a delay. For example, if someone has an archer death ball and i react to it by going a bit back to regroup and then attack back, there is almost a pause that units have before following the command to attack which with a death ball, tilts the fight even more in their favour. There's many versions of these issues. - building temple close to forest can cause the unit to spawn in between the trees and not be moveable. - pathing can be pretty horrible too where unit will prioritize walking through an area with a small LOS even if ybe distance betwene the much safer and much riskier paths is so small that it isnt easily visible. I don't think these are huge issues BUT these sour your opinion as you or friends start to drift a bit away from the game. Really wish that this stuff gets fixed.
Imo they need to address the thing that are standard in other top RTS (sc2+wc3 etc.) that are missing in retold. The 2 biggest missing key RTS features is the ability to toggle off formations entirely. In WC3, formations are enabled by default, but you can disable it with a chat command. This lets all units move at their normal speed, and prevents those moments where your units actually go the opposite direction from where you told them to, just because they had to run back and get in line behind something else. Disabling formations gives much more freedom of control which is what RTS should be all about. Secondly, shared unit control needs to be a toggleable option in the diplomacy tab, just like in SC2. If a player in your team quits or disconnects, this would be enabled automatically and you could then control their armies instead of auto-losing. Currently when a player disconnects, all other players just leave the game which is a huge waste of time. Also this would enable teammates to split their focus onto micro and macro depending on which they prefer or enjoy the most. My brother loves microing and is good at it, but his macro is ass. This would let me help him out in that regard and boost our overall enjoyment by quite a bit. Both of these changes are quite basic, don't affect balance at all, and would improve the game tremendously. I'm shocked these features still aren't standard in all RTS.
Very interesting suggestion about being able to toggle a "No Formation" option. It really sucks when you have some slow units and then they are slowing everyone down and you have to deselect them. Quite clunky. Would rather have the option to just leave the slow pokes in the dust at times
I have a gamebraking bug where in Skirmish mode I wasn't able to advance age. The icon never appears and the hotkey doesn't work either. Contacted the game support but they couldn't give me a solution.
I love this game, but one thing that really has upset me a few times, is that if I disconnect from a ranked game, it doesn't give me very long to reconnect. I know that having a stable Internet is in a sense my responsibility, but sometimes my 4G wireless router disconnects for like 20 to 30 seconds and then it gets signal again and I can't reconnect in time. And I must say this doesn't happen repeatedly, it happens like once or twice during a day, and it only disconnects once. But then over the course of a week I have 4 losses on ranked because of a DC. It just sucks when I invest so much effort into a game. I'm 30 minutes in, in a winning position and then I DC and can't reconnect in time. It just sucks
The low-hanging fruit: fix the game. I don't want to watch 70% of a game on a stream before it freezes. I think they should increase the 'standard' amount of starting hunt from 1200 food to at least 1400 food and the starting gold from 3000 gold to 4500 gold, but to compensate: grossly incentivize moving out of your base after starting hunt finishes. Right now most games feel like 'what is the most amount of strength I can get at my opponent's 2nd gold' and the 3k starting mine together with incredibly deadly heroic age GPs force you into a specific playstyle that is kind of eh. As for the starting hunt buff, they removed hunting dogs because it was a must-get (making it strategically irrelevant), but now upping as fast as possible is a must-do too, because of how that lines up with your starting hunt. Forward starting gold is a good point, I remember in our alfheim game that you uploaded you had a forward gold and advanced at like ~5 mins. Immediately I thought to myself 'wish I had gone 3:15 and parked my centaur there' but of course I don't know where your mine is because mine(pun intended) was to the side covered by a cliff and a forest. I don't agree with your MU take. I think it's the GPs that are the issue. Chat functionality is raised in almost every pvp game that's released nowadays and the general dev feedback is 'this doesn't work in 2024', some reasons being that the platform (in this case steam) enforces the company to spend resources on moderation and you'd have to split up the players over chat rooms as well which is just more to moderate, and then they can potentially be held accountable for any infractions if they are non-compliant.
Do desyncs still happen? And why? Any root cause? Me and 2 friends were excited to play this and all 4/4 of our games we tried desynced, and we havent played since (3months). Its been us 3 vs 3 AI players. Not even other real people connected besides us 3.
In my opinion, the main thing that needs changed is making defensive gameplay styles more viable. 1. Buff towers/forts/defensive buildings 2. Buff markets. Maybe not to what they were in titans/EE, but enough to make caravans viable again. 3. Add in a defensive win condition. It can't be wonders anymore, but there needs to be a defensive win condition to make defensive gameplay viable.
On the first point, I think the problem is not even the abundance of resources but the fact that the TC has such a big range and covers all your resources. In AoE2 the TC can only really keep your farmers safe, everything else is raidable and some resources can spawn really far away. Turtling is still a viable strategy if you pull it off but it's much harder. Maybe in AoM TCs could gain range as you age up but have very low range on Archaic and Classical, also make some resources spawn further away (players are already safer in general due to towers, compared to other games). Another point that I see as a problem personally is the fact that most civs can have an unlimited number of heroes on demand. Myth units have to be too strong early on to compensate, which in turn lead to the cheese rush strategies, but are still nothing more than a support unit later on, because overinvesting in them is a mistake, which is not the case for human and hero units - you can never go wrong with them. That in turn means that the civs that gets the best human units are usually the winners in the late game, which for a game around Mythology seems quite disappointing. As much as Retold tried to make MU more viable, they are still not present enough, IMO. There should be a world where a player could boom to a full MU army which would be hard to get to, but unbeatable if they pulled it off, like the Goth spam in AoE2. But the fact that heroes are so easy to get means MU will never be balanced in a way to make the rock-paper-scissor actually exist
to be honest, i am not a pro player and i like it that i am not always die after 10 minutes. rush plays are usualy just fun for the rush players. i like it that i now have a chance to win by focus first on economy and defend against rushes and then turn around the game and win against a rush player with a better economy.
Really interesting thoughts! I particularly relate to your call to action regarding content creation at the end. I only do it as a hobby, and haven't made anything for a long time (and I only have one AoM-related video). But I'll try and make a new AoM video. 🙂 I have, at the very least, been posting memes on the subreddit haha
Great video and really good opinions. I'll just share my thoughts as someone with barely any time to play and not too good at the game either: (So I'll probably say nonsense) 1. Your point about easy resources(food): I agree. And yes, towers need a buff. Give them slightly more damage and make them cheaper to build. 35% discounted to start. They are weak late game and not worth the investment early. But this poses a risk where the first person to be more aggressive wins on the spot, even earlier than a timing attack due to the opponent not being able to get any food. Skirmishes now are fought over the second TC and second gold mine. Any sort of "starving" strategy would not change much. So no change to food resources, but bring back hunting dogs, to make hunt even better than now. I would want to stop my opponent early from getting more hunt value if they researched it, denying value from their investment. 2. Timing attacks: Yes. Super annoying. But only for people that know how to play decently. Hard to change this one though. Any change makes the game less fun to watch and play. This is unique to AOM and not worth changing too much in my opinion. 3. Multiplayer: I only play with my friend. If he can't play, I don't play. This proves your point. 4. Content creation: More people on the game the better. But I imagine this game would be interesting to those who play it. And even then, I would prefer to play, than watch a game. To reach more people it would have to be something faster pace and funny or even flashy. Guides are good too for active players.
I think that the argument youre trying to make is that by giving an earlier opportunity cost of taking hunt should be balanced by having to defend. Adding more strategy to the game by having to balance units vs villagers. Every game ive watched in the last couple of months has had either all in classical age. Or push straight past to heroic. I think that if you force hunt out on the map though, we need changes to towers. Towers need stronger atracks but less tracking. Blanced with later upgrades. Make them miss if your moving on the edge of vision. They need to do more damage than shanking with the villager you want to save.
They certainly don't need less tracking, their tracking is already horrible as is, being able to completely miss even very slow units like the non-zeus hoplite (4.3 speed) or even toxotes (4.0) running past it. I'd say this is their biggest problem, in fact, even more so than the lack of damage, because increasing damage is useless if the arrows can consistently hit nothing else but the dirt around the target.
They also changed the dynamics of the eco upgrades. Basically hunting dogs are heroic, where farms can start to be setup already. Husbandry also buffs chickens and berries if I am not mistaken, which coincides with your points, hunt ends up collecting at the same rates. They should implement the berries OR chickens and make hunting dogs in archaic age again.
I lost my response apparently so I'll say it again. The chat really brings me back to ESO. you had many different types of chats and 1 with everyone in side. I remember you could invite people who were online to the lobby you were in. If you were lucky, someone joined and then you could start your game. The chat and whisper worked way better than now, I feel like too. In the lobby, you also had the observer option so you could view your coach or friend playing live from your pc. The start of the game back then was also very different. Atty and norse were classical by 4.30 to go agressive. Greek by 5.30 as they were more secure and eggy usually 6min. now everyone is up at 4.30, so the start of the game is always the same. There's barely any options in archaic to change. Then again, it's a different game and a new game so not that figured out yet I do feel that AOM Retold contains a lot more bugs than the original AOM and AOT. For example basic functions like "get back to work" bugs out. It sends villagers back to the resource but they just stand idle in a wood line for example. Same with creating multiple farms with multiple villagers, 1 starts building and the rest stays idle. So you need to assign them manually again. It's just these basic but important aspects in the game that don't work properly. It's strange that older games seemed more like a better finished product than nowadays. Everyone seems to be rushing. I do love this game since I was in early 2000s and I really wish it to grow. I've been following a lot more channels and responding to more which I never do. Even helped with writing down BOs on some videos at the beginning to help beginners.
Ive been playing AoM since I was a kid as well. 31 now and I’m still having fun playing the extended edition for an hour or so (against AIs). I’ve never played multiplayer on AoM, was always a COD multiplayer / Warzone player until a year ago when I stopped. Love watching videos of retold, from you and AOM Moose. May purchase it soon. Cheers!
Hear me out. Make hunt significantly faster, but don't have hunt right next to your TC. Keep berries and chickens. Increase tower damage, but don't make it too accurate at long range. Myth units are great, but possibly increase training time significantly if you think they're op. I really like your idea of better menues, having friend lists on screen (like eg dota 2), chat etc could really help. As im used to aoe2, i also think some counter unit damage multipliers are kinda crazy, but possibly thats just me. Great work and keep it up!
I haven't started on the new one yet but like you it's the only strategy game (released in 2002) on which I've spent hours and days (a bit for Starcraft before too though!) I've never been very good but it's always been super cool. Balaitomos! taimpeursmek! lol (voice in the old version) So many hours! Video games are crazy! Thank you for your commitment to ensuring a new top version! Which is really done, in any case the campaign seems very accomplished, the multiplayer seems high level! The old ones are back it seems! Excellent! Same mechanisms, more options! Good game, have fun
I am a bit disagree on few topics. I am casual player, not pro or anything, but I think there's more casuals like me: 1. Eraly skirmishes. Me and my friends - we don't like too early action on the map. We like to sit back, relax, build our economy, infrastructure, build our big armies and then fight. Because it feels cool to fight with big armies for victory, not to fight with 5 hippos and minotaur for 1 dead animal. Sometimes I want things to be more spicy, and I can do something on the map: we can fight for relics, we still can harass too greedy builds, fight for new TCs etc etc. 2. Myth units and myth powers should be strong. Otherwise we have just worst age of empires. I want to build my valkyries, I want to ignite my weapons, i want to thunderstrike that priest. Because it feels cool, it is what game about. Maybe devs should adjust some numbers, but all "myth stuff" must remain strong and be able to decide the outcome of the games. 3. Ranked system. I don't care who is 1st and who is 10th tbh. Because I am like 9999th or something lol. But I think we should have some leagues tied to number breakpoints. Like 1000 rating is silver, 1100 is gold for example. Today it's like: "I am 1400 rating, I won some games and now I 1500. Is that rating good? Idk". But when you got promoted from one rank to another it feels satisfying, it's little goal that you achieve. it could be cool if we had some borders or profile icons from ranks I am agree on other takes, and i wish my favorite game the best future
My issue with AoM and probably most RTS games in general, is that the game is "solved" so to speak after a while. The meta strats are discovered, there are certain ways to play, ways to react to plays, openings, build orders, etc... Players study the game similarly to chess, and if you don't play a certain way, you lose. This is perfectly fine, it's strategy game after all, but it makes the game have an ending for most of the playerbase. So you learned a bunch of strats, a bunch of openings, mid game, late game and now you are playing robotically the same game every time. Most of the top players can predict exactly what is going to happen in a given matchup and what needs to be done to find win conditions. So people quit and only the hardcore fans remain. I find myself in a spot where I don't even want to boot up the game anymore, even though I love it, because I know what god i'm gonna pick, I know i will face either Gaia or Ra, I know how to beat them, I know when I failed to beat them and I just don't want to live the Groundhog day one more time. Arena of the Gods looked very promising to me and hyped me a lot I must say. Because I thought it would fill the gap of replayability. An endless mode, randomly generated, roguelike or whatever you want to call it, that I can always come back to and have a bit of variety, a break from ranked, chill with some friends in co-op or versus with different scenarios. But it was just another campaign with an ending. I believe that if AoM wants to grow, it needs to fix that "ending".
Facts have been spoken here. The social aspect of gameranger, voobly, and extended edition is why I played them. The flame in the in-game chat was actually a huge plus to make the game feel alive but now everything gets censored (even aom related words like contarius get censored iirc). Also, the lobby browser is cluttered with games that I'm not interested in so I tend to just interact twitch streams instead of actually playing the game. I also remember back in the day complaining about the 2tc ptah SOO abuse meta, but nowadays I'll take a beating of that any day of the week over whatever this current meta is (turtle up in base until power spike like you said).Most matchups just aren't fun to play compared to legacy.
Shift clicking farms and villager pathing are sometimes absolutely horrible, so i would like to see those fixed. For example when i shift click farms, sometimes they just stand there after i finish clicking. Pathing however is very very bad, like if i sent dwarves onto a gold mine and then an ox cart, there is a chance the dwarves will head all the way back to the TC to drop off instead of using the ox cart right next to them. Anyways i love this game but nothing is perfect
I think that the issue is that town centers are too good, and towers are too weak. Town centers are basically forts (in fact they're flat out stronger than hill forts), except they also produce villagers. So, it basically means that when players go 2nd tc, its pretty difficult to wipe out that second tc, any resources near them are secured (which often leads to a lot of secure hunt), and resources nearby but not under the tc are hard to raid, and trying to permanently deny the resource is challenging since the opponent can fight you so close to the tc (or just go somewhere else, since if you go deny their 3rd gold mine its so fast to get back on that 2nd gold mine). Because town centers are the best defensive structure, it means defense is strong early, but doesn't really get better. Once your force is strong enough to break a town center, you probably also have some god power that massively swings the fight, so you just very suddenly take one fight and win. I think town centers should be nerfed back down to 10 damage, and towers should be buffed to 5. That on top of the other things magic suggested, but point is if you want to defend an area, you shouldn't be preferring a town center to towers before even considering the fact the tc produces vills and gives population.
My only complaint is in regard of visual detail. Because some of the new visuals look amazing... others dont or were left out completely. For example: Details like red splatters and skeletons are gone. Arrows dont stick into the ground correctly and throwing axes twirl for infinity instead of bouncing off the ground like they used to. Why leave these details out? Its silly.
Awesome video. Very interesting to hear these thoughts from a pro player. My (viewer) perspective: I love that myth units are used way more than in the older aom. I remember in the older versions, in many games not a single myth unit would be produced and it would just be human soldiers fighting which kinda felt like a less interesting version of aoe2. Most myth units were never used or extremely situational. Also I love that god powers can be reused. Imo it's these two things that really set aom apart. I absolutely agree with your perspective regarding early aggression or lack thereof. I'm missing those small but intense skirmishes at the beginning of the game.
-I'm with you, i also think bringing back in Hunting Dogs would make hunt more important and solve the thing. I'm also ok with havin just berries or chickens or just lower the quantity you have (is nice chickens have husbandry speed). -The chat thing, like on ESO, is very cool but I think it would be hard for them to develop and manage. -Mummies need a rework (like older Mummies or limit to minions spawned plus bigger ability cooldwon) and that's easy and quick to do. -There is an issue which also is big to me: in the older game we were able to distinguish units better and do a better micro, so i'd like some units to be more easy to recognize, but this has not only to do about models but pop aswell. We have too much housed and pop in the early game, the skirmishes implies bigger armies and it's harder to micro when the infantry clash, i wanna be able to distinguish hipaspists and hoplites better, berserkers and hirdmans and hersirs better which is hard to do in a big army clash. -I'm also ok with lil tower buff (not big or maybe just the early game because tower spam in later game is boring and lame).
I want : 1) More comeback potential when playing from behind 2) More games reaching Mythic Age 3) Better defenses : walls towers and fortresses being more meaningful (this will automatically help in points #1 and #2) 4) Caravan deployment being more meaningful and actually possible to use it and see it being used in pro matches Most importantly : 0) Release China ! Release more civs !
I believe the strength of god powers and myth units is a major selling point of the game and core to what sets it apart. Rather than weakening that, I'd be much more in favor of improving static defenses to increase resilience to timing attacks.
Certain god powers being free wins is not good for the game.Implode, meteor, etc. Mummies are insanely op.. Static defenses are not the problem nor are they too weak.
@frank6013 thanks for sharing your opinion! I actually disagree, though. To me, mythic age god powers and myth units should be the most impactful parts of the game outside of a titan.
@@zachbrown9350 Clicking one button should be more impactful than growing and managing an economy and producing and controlling an army? Thats just objectively awful game design. I lost a 110 population army to implode the other day, ever single unit died. To you click. Its idiotic design.
@frank6013 it's the culmination of 3 age advancements. Both players can use god powers, and you see who the opponent chooses when advancing. If they get implode, avoid putting 110 population in one place. Losses can be frustrating, but it's better to learn from them than make reductive statements and cast blame.
I welcome reusable god powers, because people would save them for the one, final push.. Once used, only myth units remained to put the mythology into AOM.
I agree with the lobby points - it doesn’t feel vibrant at all. In addition, I use to love looking through peoples profiles and seeing what games they had played, against who, the map, the build order used, timeline, and other stats (sc2 was really good at this). As a low level player it’s great to see what the pros are doing and understand ladder build orders without having to download a recording or search on YT.
My feedback: 1. Fix the goddamn D3D12 crashes that are ruining matches for me. This is the only game that crashes, and I have more than capable hardware. 2. Improve defensive playstyle. 3. I like the slower pace, early agression is something I really dislike. 4. Add support for exporting/importing 3D models in game for modding purposes. 5. Add a way to simply rejoin the match if you crash for some reason, something like "Reconnect" button in League of Legends.
My biggest complaint is that I am honestly having less fun online without auto queue. I know it’s a component that many players enjoy…. But having one more thing to master in a game is making me want to walk away from it. Having to smash my keyboard to make units just feels bad.
All I got is that the game needs a lot of fixing on xbox, I cant even garison my fishing boats into a dock. I cant collect an army then select specific units in that group. I also cant select villagers while they are being attacked, I lose most my villagers in raids just from not being able to easily manage them, I dont like using the bell because I dont want everyone to stop gathering.
Maybe a creator wheel in game alongside the chat you suggested could help. This way devs could promote bigger tournaments and even just content creators directly to their players. I am sure the majority of players doesn't even know about you guys or tournaments. They will just start the game and play the story without even noticing that there is more.
Agree with most of your points, especially the global chat feature for a stronger community feel. I was pushing for this same feature as early as the AoE2 HD days but the devs still haven't added it to even AoE2: DE (perhaps moderation is the problem?). On the content side, a suggestion to help increase your own exposure/viewership- I've observed a lot of Spirt of the Law's videos are Top 10s/numerical lists that are easy to digest in 10-15 minute clips. Might be something to consider to sprinkle in your own content to attract a larger audience even beyond AoM players. Seems to really help with the algo!
While I am not particularly fond of specifically nerfing god powers I think I do definitely agree with the idea. I do agree that the combo of turtling+really strong minor gods/god powers completely swaying the game to one person and the other person's only play being to not let them get there is too op. It's the reason why I am not the biggest fans of gods like gaia and hades. Cause once their setup is done, there really isn't too much counterplay to do. Like for example, if you wanna go for plenty vaults as your age 4 power as Zeus and the other person chooses to go for an implode/meteor then you are absolutely cooked in most cases even though you both progressed to age 4 with comparable stuff. I think it's fine to have turtling as an option if there are harder nerfs on the army comp you can make or the god powers you get access to for sure. Tbh though again, I am not too fond of the idea cause I think the game's USP is myth units and gods but yeah, I would like for there to be more counterplay to turtling+strong army strats. "Getting gud" is definitely a possible answer to but it is a bit annoying that opponent doesn't have to do so and it's only you who has to play better than them (and also game end then faster otherwise they get out of control later) Definitely a hard problem but one that I do notice.
Forcing players to leave their base earlier for food will probably cause more kill-or-be-killed scenarios imo. I agree that earlier skirmishing is good, but I don't think the way to achieve this is through forced economy exposure, since economies are so small at that stage, many games will just end then and there. Personally, I'd like to see more impactful relics, like they could offer a one-time reward the first time they're brought back to a temple, and they could cause the hero carrying it to move at 50% speed. Maybe its a bad idea, but I think the early skirmishing should not end often end games, just watching a few age 2 units kill some villagers and then gg is called won't be fun imo.
I think the point you made about early game food is really smart. Especially for hunt heavy maps like marsh or watering hole, it would be great to see either chicken or berry not both. Do you think villagers in retold might want to be a bit tougher if this change is made? Time to kill is a bit faster than the original. Changes to maps and new maps can make a huge difference in meta game for RTS. It's always a great place to start when the game action is stalling out IMO
Im glad to see this video, you talk about important subjects here and i agree, i think power spikes that you said are unfun will be balanced if game gets developed more, things will be nerfed/buffed to the point that they are not so gamewinning and they are more situational,. for me it seems like towers and fort being to weak is the main issue aswell, since you have more population and their dps is lower AND enemy can recast powers while attacking, now its more like blitzkrieg sometimes rather than strategy game.
they need to add a build hotkey button (make it toggle on and off from settings) so you do not use alt for everything else in the game. One of the reason i know many do not play as you cannot have similar hotkeys like aoe2 or aoe4.
I agree with everything. About nerving the powerspikes. I think the developers have already put a few steps into the direction of nerving some power spikes, but maybe more is needed. The only downside about nerving godpowers and myth units is that the feeling of beeing powerful (feeling like a god in the game) goes away. And therefore perhaps the game loses it's uniqueness. A middle way is good I think. I also agree about the early game tactics. Remove the bushes or chickens 50% off the time or put some other variables in the game to get more action early on. Also buff up the towers a bit. 1000% for supporting content creators and every other thing that can uplift the game.
Honestly, the chickens are just a safety net you fall back on while you are being denied hunt and don't want to commit to a farm switch. Berries are slightly more important because of Ra, if they were removed that would be a straight up indirect nerf to Ra. God powers are what makes AoM into AoM, BUT there are some that are insane swings. Son of Osiris, Curse. Chaos. Flaming Weapons. Meteor. Implosion (yes, it is a bit more difficult the get the most out of it, and you are unlikely to ever cast it a second time, but it is still too good as-is, and I'm a Gaia main). Chats... please. Why isn't it there? Yeah, I am guilty of booting up Starcraft 2 while drunk and had no desire to actually play, because I knew there will most likely be a controversial topic going on in general chat, but I didn't mind. I didn't call people names, but hey, it is a nice outlet for my drunken ramblings with 99.9% I will never see those people again. AND the LFG channel was there for people looking for Brutation partners without trusting the matchmaking RNG. I would love to just hang out in a chat with players of the game I like. Sometimes we even talk about the game! And it would be really nice to have and LFG/help me learn chat channel. I am not a dad, but I am of the age most "dad" players are, so multiplayer leaderboards don't really mean much anymore, no notes. I have experienced some disconnects, mostly during loading a ladder game. Even if I close and relaunch the game, it fails to join, because it already gave the win to my opponent. Been on the other side too, I loaded in and instant victory screen. Not a lot, but it does happen. I don't really watch any of theese players, but that is because of the youtube algorythm who just decided to recomend me Magic's videos instead of someone else. A like never hurts. Especially if it's about something like "how to counter this niche, but absurdly OP if not handled correctly" strategy, like mass automatons, or educating struggling casual players about how to navigate some matchups, because if they can't find theese easly, those casual players will get frustrated and leave. Nice summary Magic, I agree with most points. I know a lot of people also want to raise how turtling kinda sucks (well, towers do, forts are pretty okay), but honestly, I may play the campaign begind an impenetrable wall, but it would just make multiplayer drag on too long and be boring, as you'd need age4 siege/myth to bust a fortified position, which means nothing really happens for like half an hour, then whichever player has the superior eco will just parade march and win. There is a reason Blizzard never could balance Siege Tanks properly, but they couldn't remove them either since it was such a core unit... but it was either OP and can lock down games, or not worth the cost. I remember when Blizz thought HotS Swarm Hosts will be good to break tank lines... and then we saw a 5 hour ZvZ at a major tournament. If defensive structures get a major buff, the devs would need to halve the available rescources in/near the starting base, otherwise, a turtle meta may sound good, but it's a pain, with 30-50 min long matches of "who blinks (attacks) first."
I agree with everything except nerfing mythological creatures, that's what makes this game different and more fun than other RTS. There are already games without any mythological creatures, so why nerf them more? The less it resembles AOE, the more audience it will retain.
Thats why I play AoM and detest AoE2; all races in AoE2 are the same. Unique units are used rarely and on top of that you basically always go archers or light cavalry with a micro battle that's just a skill check. YOu micro you live you don't micro you die easy as that.
@@ShakerGER I've played both at very high level and I have to agree somewhat. Although what they've done with AOE2 DE helps diversify civs a little more than it used to (for example they released a civ with moveable ox carts like norse from aom).
I'd say although they have similarities, they attract a slightly different appetite.
@@stuartmacaulay5761 I am still at the start of AoE2 (basically only play Armenians and aztecs) so OFC my opinion is somewhat restricted but if thats the first impression I get as a game dev yeah that ain't a good sign
Also myth units are literally a centerpiece of your progression, and there is no hiding that you're bringing them. Your opponent knows exactly which myths you're bringing as soon as you age up.
@@ShakerGERI agree,but AOM taked it to it's other extreme and that's a terrible thing too. The norse don't have any archers, they don't have anti cab,egiptians cannot make cav until age 3 and only in the stronghold,greek do not have healers,etc.
I'm a giga casual who only fights skirmishes against computers. I don't even know why I'm here
The algorithm led me here 🙇🏼♂️
Lol same. Ill play against 10 titan AIs and use cheats. Super fun for like 1hr every other day.
I don't even own AOM and I ended up here smhw
Same
I don't even play the game but i'm interessted. So praise the almighty algorythm i guess.
Another point I'd add to the multiplayer criticism is the party/lobby system: I played a bunch of team games with friends, and it is frustrating to constantly have to keep remaking the lobby after every game. Game ends early because an opponent disconnects? You have to remake the lobby and reinvite your friends. Game ends normally after playing? You have to remake the lobby and reinvite everyone again. Game ends because of a desync (which actually happens too often in 3v3/4v4 team games from my experience)? You have to remake the lobby and reinvite everyone again.
Beat me to it. We have to reduce friction for making re-queue / play next match. Just make it a prompt. "Play again with same players?" or something like that.
God forbid you play a game with 12 people. garunteed 2 of them will get disconnected at random
Omg yes this! In aoe4 you create a party and the party leader can queue up for ranked or create a lobby and everyone goes in. It's not perfect (players can easily accidentally leave the party after a game ends), but it's pretty good. None of the Definitive Edition games, including Retold, have this. And it's such a nice little QoL feature.
Beat me to it. And I think Magic hit the nail on the head about why it feels "lonely" UI-wise. I get that fix on Discord, as he said; it causes a situation where you don't need to open the game to get it, which reduces chances for spontaneous games to pop up.
@@JimCullen how do i keep the party in Aoe4? Normally 1 or 2 of my friends get out of the party. How can we keep together? (winning or losing). I´m talking specially about ranked tg matches.
I play a lot as well, and got two pretty big issues:
- Defensive play is impossible, towers and fortresses aren’t giving you a proper possibility to play defensive.
- Maps: the ranked map-pool is so minimal, there should be more maps available.
Have you tried the citadel with ra aoe empowerment? Its a really good way to still play defensive. Put it on your forward position and fortiy it with 2 migdol strongholds. If you empower all of these buildings with the ra pharao they deal sooooo much damage and its really difficult to push through.
@ Yeah that is working Allright-ish, but it shouldn’t be depending on a specific god.
Too hard to defend and it's why I'm not playing as much.
Which is it? Defensive play is impossible but we should nerf berry and chicken gather rate?
And why would be want stronger towers. Maybe slightly. But I sure as hell don't want the tower spam meta of the old game back
Villagers also seem to just get shit on by every unit. They were a lot heartier in the old game. If you chased a hunting group to their base with like 10 early game cavalry you might pick off 2 or 3 of them but now you’re killing pretty much the whole group if they don’t see you before you start attacking
Buffing relics would be a good way to get people moving also, make them worth getting to the point where if you turtle too much you could get greatly disadvantaged
It doesn't seem like Relics are fought over either, since they're too easy to get. What if instead Relics only spawned like 10 minutes in, but you already knew where they would be so you could go and defend the area first?
@@cinderheart2720 that could be a special map version instead. Also, instead of spawning normal relics, it would be great if it spawned really powerful relics, that way it would incentivize the players to actually want to get it.
What I'm really concerned about this game is how long will it last? I really want to see as many civilizations as possible. I'm worried whether they will add my culture's pantheon, which is Finnish. There is enough material for it to be a full on civilization, but not popular enough to be of the first ones to be added.
Fix the wall bug, this is one of the more frustrating bugs, not being able to place a wall.
Hey magic! Very nice video, and thanks for the shoutout!
I completely agree with the point you raise about hunt. It feels very odd to have a mechanic (faster gather rate) that hints you to keep hunting, while it actually makes little difference, and endangers your villagers, exposing them to raids. As the game is right now, unless there are several groups of hunting animals nearby, i don't even feel it's worth to send forward a big group of villagers. It's just too much walking time and you are compensated with scraps. In the old game having hunt privilege meant a lot, here it's just... not it. Even odin hunt feels underwhelming, and great hunt feels inconsequential. If you factor in the better farms, hunt is now irrelevant. Now we even have relics like ptah's sceptre which discount farms by 25%!
I think the weaker towers may be the consequence of too much food in your base (they are less of a deterrent to raids and rushes) but i had many games where the opponent pushed me on berries and i moved on chickens to the other side, or the opposite. You cant foodblock properly when there are too many food sources, and berries having 150 each is absurd, it's 1000 food only from berries! so, as always, you are spot on. I also feel that most maps have an incredible abundance of hunt.
About the views, i get what you say and it really is discouraging. i may have hit 30-40-k on two videos, but the amount of work required to do those kind of videos is just too much. I've often wondered to switch to much faster content like this video: no real work required, the content being your expertise and nothing else. But i started as an attempt to draw more people into playing this game i love too much, not to make views. I really wanted the quality to be as high as possible, hoping to reach people outside our timeless devoted playerbase. Those 5k on my last video feel depressing, considered the target were RTS players in general (not just aom) and aom novices, to try and expand the game's playerbase. It's even worse to look at boit's views. He is THE aom creator, and is now having almosr the same views as his titans videos did. I know that part of this is because many creators emerged and many pros started casting and there is more content and thus the views are more split between us, but boit is the best caster we have and his results are very poor. Feels like it's always just us, always the same devoted community, a little bigger maybe. This shoutout warms my heart, but i fear most of your viewers already viewed them. I really hope it's not the case.
I'm not sure liking videos is any useful. I know a very, very big youtube content creator IRL and he told me likes and comments aren't really useful. According to him, youtube's algorithm is totally dominated by views and retention. All youtube cares about is how many people watch, and for how long you are able to make viewers stick to the website and see ads. As a result, videos with higher like ratio arent necessarily the most viewed. But i agree with the sharing! It may really help.
I may be biased, but i will always believe that aom is the best rts in the age franchise. I think the improved myth units and god powers are a way to make the game stand out as "more different" from aoe2, so i may be on dev's side on this, but there are indeed some problematic ones, like mummies who are really too snowballing. I will not be discouraged easily about the views (though i know i could produce videos faster if i had more) because i know what this game can be and really want everybody to know too. Videos like this one, made by experts as yourself are very important, as they give game devs a direction . Your contribution to the community is invaluable, much more than those views suggest.
I really hope you keep producing good content and things start to improve! You really deserve it.
Love your videos! Thanks for the write up!
I agree to most of what you wrote. I'll add this perspective of a previously more active viewer: I grew too annoyed by Boit's clickbait and samey video titles, to the point that I no longer watch his videos at all now. I still watch yours and Magic's. But I also personally burned out a bit on AoM after playing it a ton in Sept/Oct. Still watched many videos though... just Boit's not anymore :/
@@MrAbgeBrandt Thanks for your feedback! And for being part of the community ❤
I for one prefer to be able to prepare My game/plan for the first 6-9 minutes without too much fighting going on or being necessary 🤔 Something I tend to dislike in games is when We typically never see 30-50% of the content because the individual games end sooner. So in AoM's case, I don't want stuff like mythic age and lategame and titans to be something that We never see, otherwise there's not too much of a point to have them in the game in first place and heroic age might as well be the maximum age. Most of the cool stuff and the variety opens up the longer the games goes, whereas there many fewer possibilities early on.
And with longer to slightly longer games,it's much easier/more realistic to make a comeback from one or two or three mistakes, since the any given mistake is more forgiving later in the game than it is earlier in the game, and I like that there is the possiblity to comeback from mistakes by virtue of being able to keep up a bit longer and to potentially exploit future mistakes from the opponent. A killing blow at 6-7 minutes is okay once in a while and can be fun too, but I don't want to even be a third of the games that are playedf 🤔
I also don't think it is true that longer games = less viewership during tournaments and other casted games.
This is my problem with ALL rts esports. The pros don't play in a way that interests me, and I genuinely don't care how good they are if it's boring to watch. It's not a thing that can be changed by changing the game itself; high level optimized play is watching someone with memorized hotkeys do the exact same thing over and over again, and it's a problem with THEM not being here to have fun, not the game.
AoM classic had good variety in terms of game length. Some of the most exciting games to play and watch would go for only 5 minutes and end with villager fights or all ins. After that, my favourite games were the ones that went for 30 minutes and ended with building and wall spam and titans. I’d argue that AoM Retold games very rarely end as fast as 5 minutes and very rarely go longer than 20 minutes. Retold has done a lot right but I think there’s something happening that is meaning most games just end in the heroic age.
@@mashedpotatosoup I'm around 1250 elo and it's easily 50% of My games ending past 20 minutes and 25-30% of them ending past 30 minutes
And maybe 5-10% of them end beyond 45-50 minutes 🤔 I even built a wonder in a ranked team game once!
@@LoLotov Pro rts play=unfun and boring
Part of the problem with the old version was that it meant the number of viable strategies were limited *because* you had to hunt early, and could lose early. It was sort of like the old days of Age of Empires 2 when people discovered Feudal attacks that were able to kill you before you reached castle age; once they had that down, you *had* to fight in feudal, or you'd lose. I think the devs want the option of different strategies being viable, such as "fast heroic", or two TC, or ect. IMO, i think those were much less viable in the old game.
i feel like those strategies are only semi viable because people havent found the most op strat for this game yet. For example i dont think 2tc or stuff like that will be viabe if the best strat is just going fast heroic and flaming weapons or something like fast mithic meteors/lightning. Also you are automatically making any early map control basically meaningless since you can always just turtle up
What I took from it was that the triple food setup encourages booming and should perhaps be reserved for boomy maps, like Alfheim.
It’s a shame that the ranked map pool does not have a single super aggressive map, personally I would like to see a variety of maps that need different strategic approaches
@borchtrikavky this is an excellent analysis and I will be taking this to explain to some of my friends. Its not that not economic greed isn't viable its just that it doesn't have any benefit right now compared to a fast heroic!
Imo its the god powers combined with how they changed the myth unit dmg formula, for some reason it feels more fair in EE (heroes vs myth) but i actually don't know and haven't tested it. Those 2 things make some of the timings unstoppable. My initial thought as a casual was that Kronos would be op with his 2 myth units per age just because of how strong god powers are. also heavy units vs medium is wild and armory upgrades are not as relevant till late heroic -> mythic.
overall: it feels like the investment to go fast heroic is just too low compared to the investment to get multiple tcs and secure map control vs Heavy units being so much better than medium with armory.
Maybe make TCs cheaper? I like the old blizzard style of balance, making everything more op faction-wise; I'd rather limit map resources and overall advancement time/cost or something like that. I think that some of those combined might alleviate the need to nerf god powers like crazy. They def could use a longer CD.
Agreed, and I think this is and has been good for the gameplay and the community
@borchtrikavky "Also you are automatically making any early map control basically meaningless since you can always just turtle up" How is map control not have several high value uses still? Turtling up is better than dying, but it isnt winning
The game needs some basic quality of life improvements. Let us watch replays at high speed, at least 8x. Let us watch replays from the perspective of where the player was looking at that time.
Let us pick colours in ranked, in a way similar to how aoe2 or aoe4 do it. Map bans in ranked would be good too. Let us pick our civ while queuing, so we don't have to wait until a match is found to choose a civ. If we could stay in a party for TG queuing, so we don't have to re-invite our friends after every game ends, that would be an added bonus (aoe4 has this, but aoe2 does not).
We can debate the balance of maps or civs or counter triangles, but all of that is ultimately subjective and people will have different opinions, and changes made for a certain goal might or might not actually achieve that goal. But basic QoL is something everyone should be able to agree on.
Oh yes, agree completely with you about the lobbies and in-game chat. I suspect they might not want to have to deal with the moderation that would entail, but it would be so much more lively if they had it, and it would make it possible to develop a great community of different kinds of things, like for people who want to play different custom scenarios etc.
Replay speed please!!!! All good ideas above
So, for this game to sucess, before any sort of balance changes that should come aswell:
1 - Some bugs and rewards gotta be fixed, so as the 1st thing, and this is an issue for months right, we gotta fix replays, casting and stuff like this, this is emergency fixing and where the priority should be.
2- Pathing and some other bugs of units not following commands, shift click, walls that are consistently bugging at the forests and small edges to place them.
3- Increase ladder importance which is, in my personal opinion rly rly important and rly easy to be made, long queues should be fixed by less filters or whatsoever is the problem. Making it leagues, instead of numbers for rating, make it way more attractive, with statues, banners, icons and rewards for higher u go on the ladder, making ur profile look cooler, maybe even a reward for the guy who finishes top 1 at the end of a season for exemple, making the profiles of the players almost as like aoe4, that u can watch ppl's replays that they played on the ladder, and improving the menu for give more importance to multiplayer, with ur rank there rly big inviting u to play more.
4- The devs should implement someone to talk to the community, someone who goes to streams, or call ppl (out of the council aswell) to ask for their opinions, giving them the right direction.
5- When it comes to balance, i'd rly like the god powers having less importance at the game, this is something aot did a lot better than retold, timings were huge but they did not decide the game, i preffer having a preference to timing sometimes more than titans, but retold pulls it to the peak, where u can be 20-30 villagers ahead and the guy use 1 god power and it equalize things or switch sides completely, or spam a myth unit that u simply cannot counter, the approach when it comes to balance should be different, god powers like tornado, meteor, implosion, and stuff like this are simply pulls ppl to the limit when it comes to mental, as i said before i preffer retold approach to the timings than titans, even tho the importance is at its limit, a lot of god powers that just ruins ur opponent's gameplay by simpling clicking in ur mouse is insane to me.
6- When it comes to performance the game could be improved aswell, some stuttering, internet lagging sometimes even when ur internet looks fine(??????), bugsplats, crashes and stuff like this. I dont think theres any issue with the maps btw, i like that u dont have to move out of ur base it benefits defensive gameplay, thats why i told u i dont think towers should be buffed, but crenellations instead, otherwise it would be a simple buff to eggy since they dont even pay for that.
Nevertheless, i think the game has a great future if, and only if, the devs actually read those opinions that comes from ppl who played lots of different RTS and can point exactly where the issues are, this is the 1st game in years that i actually like to play, as well as u know me magic, i only scrim, cause for me playing ladder is a mental torture, facing same abuse over and over again after 8 min queue (THIS IS SUCH A BIG ISSUE ASWELL AND SHOULD BE FIXED)
The biggest problem i have with the game is simply that you can’t play defensive. The towers do negative dmg everyone knows this. And building towers and fortifications ultimately gets you in a huge gold deficiency compared to someone who rushes you.
If you upgrade your tower and someone upgrades their units armor the tower upgrade makes no difference at all.
The only real way to counter someone that rushes you is to spam build units yourself. And then you would have been better off rushing yourself in the first place to kill or villagers or zone off gold or other stuff from your opponent.
Baseline is this, you should be able to play both offensive and defensive. But currently there is few to no options to play defensive.
The opening argument of this video is that the game is too defensive. Did you even watch it? lmao
@ I disagree with your take. The opening argument he made was that there are nothing on the map of value fighting for. And also at his lvl nobody plays a pure defensive style if they are not forced in to it. They all build units and try to win skirmishes.
@@coltizz kimo beat him today turtling in his base doing nothing for 15 minutes every game with no units. Divine also never leaves his base until mythic.. His argument is no fighting happens because everyone is invulnerable in their base with the starting resources. If towers werent good how can they just camp in their base and be safe? Your own argument acknowledges that you are wrong. Everyone is comepletely safe inside their base so no fighting happens.
@@frank6013 I can only speak for myself and my time playing and watching different content creators.
Firstly about the tower is shit, if you are moving your units the tower won’t hit them. There is a guy a breaking down just how bad towers are compared to the old version of the game. I’ve seen many high lvl players complain about how bad defense is in the game.
Can the highest ranked players come up with ways to defend? Yea probably that’s why they are the best in the game.
But talking about average players that play the game for fun getting raided and rushed early is hell.
And that’s the point, it’s much harder to defend then it is to raid your opponents gold minds or kill of some villagers with your cavalry.
The tower is complete ass in this game and falls of completely in the end game.
It takes one tower 30 seconds to kill one hoplite unit with no upgrades. And in the old version of the game it took 8 seconds.
30 seconds to kill one base unit with no upgrades. Please tell me again how the tower is good…
@@coltizz You are no average player, an average player in every AoE game knows he has to build units to defend rushes and doesnt see turtling to the last age as a viable strategy.
Back in the days people knew they should play closed maps like Black Forest and wall in if they don't want to learn the game properly.
They still lost to every mediocre Arab player even with 30 minutes peacetime, because they never learnt to play the game properly with their wall in strategy.
Anyone who thinks players want competitive Esports deserves to have their franchise to end up like Concord.
A few opinions:
1 - I agree with your opening point that there's too much Food available in your starting location (and possibly Wood) but want to stress that this argument really doesn't extend to Gold. It stills feels like a bad, distant second goldmine can completely kill a game sometimes so over-abundance of Gold definitely isn't an issue.
2 - I definitely agree there needs to be more 'stuff' on the maps that incentivize actually exploring them. My main concern is how would you introduce that without it inadvertently making the Norse more overpowered?
3 - As a slight addendum to the above, you mentioned that hybrid-water maps are better because they're immediately more active. I agree but also feel that ultimately it's disappointing that there's no cross-over between Naval and Land combat and it just ends up being a tussle over a slightly higher Food production. AoE3 fixed this by having Gold and Treasures in the water or ships that produced military units and AoM could possibly also benefit from this.
4 - I hope that moving the game in a more aggressive direction won't lead to even **more** nerfs to towers and fortresses. Defensive buildings already feel laughably insignificant.
5 - Others have already said this but I strongly disagree with the idea of nerfing timing attacks or Myth units - they feel like the most fundamental element of Age of Mythology and the biggest draw for new players. I think if more of the civs/minor gods are just balanced *upwards* to be able to do similar things then that would be better.
6 - Completely agree with you that the multiplayer lobbies and server lists need to be improved. Used to spend literally days straight just connecting to The Titans lobby, queuing in random games, accepting invites and chatting shit. There's a wider problem here with gaming becoming extremely sterilized in general but the community aspect is definitely lacking.
Some additional stuff:
1 - I think there needs to be an entirely separate lobby/server list for custom/editor games. Right now they feel too difficult to find and I think for many people they were one of the biggest draws for online games.
2 - Still *major* issues with unit glitches. Units constantly getting stuck in place and being unable to move - this happens to me at least once per match. Sure it doesn't matter when it's just one spearman but when you lose an Elephant or a Cyclops to this it's genuinely awful. The original never had this issue - get it fixed. Also major issues with units randomly turning non-hostile to enemy units and just standing there.
Thank you. As always with meaning, I love such videos. I agree with everything.
Thanks Magic.. even though I am not getting any time to play or to even see videos, whenever I get time, I check your videos.. it is super informative and very fun.. though I can’t do even 5% of what you show in your gameplay when I play, I still learn a lot
You're welcome!
I agree wholeheartedly with most of the things you say, especially with including chat section in lobby (currently I have a similar situation to the one your student had, I still want to play but my friends moved on to another games). One of the biggest obstacles for me to continue playing is that feeling that I’m making a dive in game being completely alone. Also a big shoutout to the comment suggesting to move berries further from TC, I think it’s a great idea and a very elegant one
Why can we not use HEADSETs to chat with teammates during the game??????? Why is it not build in???
I soo resonate with you. This is the game I have been playing since childhood.
Aom retold’s quality is unbelievably low.
Units move around like bubbles.
Textures look toyish
Elephants have bubble butts
Camels look like ostriches 😢
Agreed with all of your points
can't agree with magic this time. I am a new player and this is my first RTS game, i really need some time to focus on economy and then focus on fight. I've had some games that fights from the beginning till the end, but that was too chaos for me. In my memory in the aoe games it takes even a longer time before fighting, as RTS is not popular as before, to keep it going, I guess it's fine to be more beginner friendly
Same for me. I’m a new player, and I really enjoy playing this game. However, some people might say, ‘Well, you’ll have to learn,’ but even if I knew how to play, I find it unattractive to put so much effort into food management for it to play such a decisive role in winning a game
I hope even if you disagree with his balance points at the beginning, that you could have watched through to the end and agreed with the other points he made. Because those were much more generally applicable to everyone, IMO.
I think the first point on (too much) food being available in the starting base is really good, together with hunting dogs being removed which is just baffling to me as it provoked a lot more dynamic play. Nerfing chicken and berries to 0.7, not benefitting their gather rates from husbandry and getting hunting dogs back (possibly nerfing the cost/effect of it to make it more optional than vanilla) would be good changes imo
I agree with this take.
I think removing the food entirely is fine for experienced players, but as a new player I found the food options beneficial while learning - nerfing would be the better option imo
We need the big chat box back and the ability to see player names list to see who is playing! Also less food starting out is such a good idea!
Also I love your thoughts on the multiplayer UI. THIS NEEDS TO BE FIXED.
Those are the tips of video that the devs need to see, i personaly think the devs should implement the old AOT patch on retold like god bonuses water fights and the maps,the game used to be way more fun to play with early game agression.
Not sure if you are looking at the original through rose tinted glasses mate, Egyptian fighting classical was the exception not the norm in most of the games I played or watched. I'd say they actually fight classical more in retold. Maybe it was different at the very top. They could make berries gather a little slower though to incentive leaving base.
Agree some of the god powers are too strong, particularly now they can be recast. No idea how you can fix it without changing the entire game.
I played from early ESO too and you are 100% right about how much better the lobby was. Not sure why they don't implement that because it would be easy surely.
Your first point: I like the increased levels of starting food, but it would be interesting if there were different sorts of maps, some of which do not have as much starting food.
Second: Yes, static defences need a buff. Not a massive buff, but a buff. They're pretty useless right now.
Third: Some strats and powers are OP and need a nerf.
Fourth: Personally I don't care about the multiplayer lobby much, even though I also do play ranked. But it's not a bad suggestion.
Fifth: I personally don't see a lot of disconnects or other bugs but I can imagine it'd be extremely annoying if it happened often.
Sixth: I strongly agree. Devs should focus more on CC.
Using your thread to avoid spreading to thin in the comments, as it is a good format.
TL;DR; I agree on Magic take that they should focus first on making the game fun, increase sense of community, and encourage content creation to make for a successful game. For me balance is important but secondary as specially for an asymmetric game is much harder to do, and I prefer a more fun gameplay rather than a perfectly balanced game (*cough cough such as the current state of StarCraft 2*).
1st: I see a lot of casuals already complain that games may be too short; (which I personally like time wise; as I prefer two or three 15~30 min games in a session rather than one 1hr game). Counter point is that your may prefer AoE 2 or 4 if you prefer longer games. Or maybe add a treaty mode?. Point is that if devs decide to go with this measure it will fragment the player base even more.
2nd: Agree.
3rd: Agree. With keyword being *some* (i.e. FW as Loki, Atlas implode) and may be over tuned for what they cost.
4th: I am one of the persons that Magic is targeting with that statement, I used to play AoM on ESO and felt part of a community without the need of 3rd party services; which are always welcome but fragment the ecosystem even more (which discord should I put my attention on?). Also being included in the base game reduces friction and encourages communication. Even if it is being a lurker only. (However there may be some additional concerns such as the need for moderation or some policy compliance stuff which may be harder to implement and cause more harm than worth).
4th extended: Adding that I would think is beneficial to add seasons which reward playing ladder for additional cosmetics (similar to what they did for Holiday event). This way not everyone has to play for them but only the ones that really want that cosmetic (may be even similar to non-multiplayer ones but with extended features i.e. a golden border). I want an external motivator (rather than just internal of getting better) to queue for ladder. It is just the way my brain works and a lot of others; hence why they have implemented similar rankings and seasons in other games such as AoE 4, Counter Strike, LoL, etc. Bland ELO is just boring (even if it is the best underlying metric that at the end is what the rankings are based on).
5th: Same; that was just at the beginning and I suffered lots of OoS but now have been synched. So not really sure what other important bugs needs to be ironed out but they have been really effective at communicating with us on that regard (have an online page sharing known issues and status).
6th: Strongly agree 2.
@@rmachuca For point 5: Just because you don't see it/experience it, doesn't mean it's not an issue. I play a lot of 1v1s and yes, desyncs are EXTREMELY rare with those. Once you get to 3v3 they're quite common, and as you increase player count, it gets worse.
They have no real ability for you to reconnect to the game if you desync. There needs to be a way to accomplish this. The casual player base is what keeps this game alive, and if the chaotic 12 man FFAs, 6v6 or even say new game types like Risk with tons of players are unplayable or are almost guaranteed to have a drop - players will opt for games that are more stable.
Writing off these issues will likely lead to aom entering the same state as its predecessor, which is a niche game that has a small player base and receives little/no attention.
@@hardlYIncognito I did not mean that I am neglecting them, only adding a data point that it has not been my current experience after the patching. If they are still there, feel free to keep reporting them. At least it worked for me and it was fixed for me. So keep trying and if there are enough bug reports they can hopefully fix them.
A couple of other things I’ve been noticing that you didn’t mention here:
1. Villager AI is a bit wonky and not as customizable as you would like. For example if you choose a balanced distribution I often see villagers splitting between distant sources or prioritizing sources that are further from TC even if there are sources right next to TC, especially with mines (granted you generally want to task villagers manually but in larger matches like 3v3 or 4v4 with a lot of action you end up idling a lot unless you’re auto-tasking)
2. Pathing/grouping for military requires a lot of micro-managing. Say you want to send your army to attack your opponent’s base, in the military options you can’t issue commands like “Stay as group” or “Keep cavalry behind infantry” if you wanted to have cavalry run a flank for example. Instead you have to basically stage your whole army outside of the enemy base before attacking to keep them together which is fine if you like to micromanage but annoying for people who like to execute several strategies at once in mid and late game pushes.
3. You mentioned it briefly but OP god powers are a serious problem, to some extent you can play around them but it’s always so tilting when you’re pushing an enemy base and then one scout with an Earthquake levels all your infrastructure or one Fimbulwinter wipes half of your villagers and cripples your entire economy while you’re pressing the attack.
4. Might just be a bug but if anyone else has played the new campaign as Freyr, for some reason he’s the only god who doesn’t get a near-instant Age II for me, everyone else’s is super expedited but his is still normal speed for whatever reason which is frustrating since he’s super useful in 1v>1 but not if you can’t build up just as fast as your opponents by 5min.
Longtime ranked AOE2 player. Recently found your channel when I started up AOM. Love what you’re doing and have found many of your videos helpful with the transition between games. I agree 100% with your points. The most frustrating thing that I have experienced is the constant drops in game. I play with 2 friends and there’s about 20% chance someone will drop. Even though they are still connected to internet… and no way to rejoin game. One night this happened to us SEVEN times in a row until we gave up. Seems very unacceptable. It’s incredibly rare in APE2.
I really miss hunting dogs honestly. A big reason why aot early games are different from retold is because within the first five seconds you would have to make a decision about what you were going to prioritise. If a player was rushing you, you knew that they probably missed out on a big upgrade, and you would have an advantage in food.
I think the biggest issue in retold is that there's a very small comeback potential. It's much harder to play from behind. If my opponent is spamming contarius, they shouldn't be able to spam arcus and dryads too, especially at the 10 minute mark. Maybe it's my experience in the game, but in legacy, I could look at my opponents unit comp and deduce their eco management so I'd be able to figure out what to attack. I haven't been able to do that in retold, and from all the casts I've seen I don't think the top player's really can either. In other words, player's don't really seem to need to commit to a strategy, so there's a reduced chance of counter plays especially if you're playing from behind. And I think that is a big reason why there's such a small comeback potential, and why certain comps are so oppressive.
I think that water fighting, especially in the classical age, is just really bad. It removes so much of the dynamics from the game and is so much less rewarding. Obviously finding the balance between the water being an automatic win and not needing to fight for it at all is really difficult but I think it's really necessary and I dont see much discussion about it. Having a fish upgrade in the classical age would really help. Then player's are actually rewarded for winning the water early because their fish are more effecient.
Maybe slightly more radical, but the ships should all cost slightly different resources. Perhaps the archer ship costs the same, but the siege ships costs more gold and less wood and the hammer ship vice versa. This way, players are forced to manage their eco differently and implement a strategy on water. Their opponents are rewarded for scouting, and have to change the way they're allocating their villagers to produce the counter ships.
And it goes without saying but the water myth units are just way too good, so reaching the heroic age first and just building two additional ones is all the water fighting you really need. I'm not sure what the workaround is, but it's something that really needs to be looked into. Perhaps having only a select few gods spawn a free water myth unit would be good (aphrodite would need to train her first scylla), but might not be the right way forward. This way at least you have to make a decision to find an advantage on the water, but you're not forced down a particular god path like you were in aot.
Lots of great points
The one thing i don't agree with you on at all is the multiplayer lobby chat. It might've been a fun and interesting addition back in 2003 when gaming was very different. Every RTS lobby chat i've been in the last 6 years have been extremely transphobic and pro nazi that i've had to turn them all off. It's good that it's gone, and it shouldn't be a thing in ANY RTS game. We've proven that we can't handle it without turning it into a toxic cesspool.
Like it or not, the RTS fanbase is a special kind of people and i'd rather not platform them any more than needed. But sure, make guild chat lobbies that you can join, like old WC3. But i don't want to see a public chat lobby at all. Period. This is the one thing i actually respect devs for taking a stance against by removing global chat lobbies.
17:06 GREAT point here! bring back old Multiplayer UI.
name of age of mytholody discord channel?
hey, it's in the description !
Is there anyway to import the hot keys from the old game? Haven’t played in years and don’t have a ton of time and the hot key setup has kinda gatekept me from getting some back
You can be the juiciest peach, not everyone likes peaches. So while I’m open to people complaining for the sake of improvement. I think this game is a really fun RTS and I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea for many reasons. But it is mine and that’s good enough for me.
I agree with everything, you put our thoughts into words like the magician you are
Hello magic, very nice video, same as you i have been playing this game for 2 decade since AoM and AoMT even tho i never went to the top level i love this game and i know pretty much all good players that have passed last 20 year and watched a couple thounsnd of games. wich all the best for this new edition. good to hear from you again.
Dude, The general multiplayer chat, Of course so fun and useful, yes....pls bring the chat back...thet you said, the feeling of lonelyness is real
Would increasing military unit speed help skirmishes become more common? Im not good enough at the game to know the reproductions, but visually many units seem quite slow when playing the game and could be sped up.
I think unit speed is fine atm
I have the OG Gold edition disks next to my computer still, love they re-released this game. Watched your tournament with mista and learned a ton.
My main gripe has been grouping issues that can take a few seconds to sort out. Wish there was military regrouping as well, I feel like there were more formation options in the OG games.
Still mostly casual, but wanting to try out more of the multi-player.
Hope you can making the AoM content, it's been a lot of fun watching people playing and learning about this game again.
Agree with ideas of buffing hunt and pushing it further out.
Also think the game could benefit greatly for rewarding scouting more. Too many games folks don't even bother checking what the other player is doing. Some things that could help there:
1) Make buildings being built even more vulnerable or slow TC build times -- build some army before grabbing the second TC every time. Fight over the early settlements as well as hunt/gold.
2) Have town centers gain the statue of the pantheon they are worshipping to age up, and give some sort of animation that the age up is happening. This gives me some ways to prepare counter play, but requires me to scout out that it's happening. Also could tell me which TC is aging up so I could rush to take it down to counter play the timing.
3) Less globally effective powers (make FW area again for example)
4) Make god powers more easily mitigatable. Like steering tornado away from base with troops, or actually being able to run SOME of your army away from implode. May be as easy as increasing initial animation time before effect starts to take over.
i think berry should be placed at the edge of the tower range in sight but harder to defend with the possibility of cutting them of with archer's to enable food starving as you say
good point!
I don't think I agree. Berries are the slowest food source. They should be a safe option you can take if you really need to.
Archer balls are already bullshit oppressive and unfun. No thanks
This feedback is spot on. I don't disagree with any of it.
There is a bug, whereby when you cast pestilence a random gold mine disappears. I think it disappears once the godpower runs out. It doesn't happen always, but it does sometimes
Bugs and unintended/poorly optimized behavior definitely is an annoyance that too builds up over time for sure.
Like, as you mentioned about the chat stuff, it is true that if you play with friends and they stop playing then it isn't as fun to play it again. Interactive ui would definitely help with that.
Someone else pointed out the need to remake lobby every time.
Also, i am not sure if attack move deals with this issue cause i am casual who right clicks but i have noticed many times that a reason why my opponent(or in some cases, me) gain advantage in a fight is because the units simply follow commands with a delay.
For example, if someone has an archer death ball and i react to it by going a bit back to regroup and then attack back, there is almost a pause that units have before following the command to attack which with a death ball, tilts the fight even more in their favour.
There's many versions of these issues.
- building temple close to forest can cause the unit to spawn in between the trees and not be moveable.
- pathing can be pretty horrible too where unit will prioritize walking through an area with a small LOS even if ybe distance betwene the much safer and much riskier paths is so small that it isnt easily visible.
I don't think these are huge issues BUT these sour your opinion as you or friends start to drift a bit away from the game. Really wish that this stuff gets fixed.
Imo they need to address the thing that are standard in other top RTS (sc2+wc3 etc.) that are missing in retold.
The 2 biggest missing key RTS features is the ability to toggle off formations entirely. In WC3, formations are enabled by default, but you can disable it with a chat command. This lets all units move at their normal speed, and prevents those moments where your units actually go the opposite direction from where you told them to, just because they had to run back and get in line behind something else. Disabling formations gives much more freedom of control which is what RTS should be all about.
Secondly, shared unit control needs to be a toggleable option in the diplomacy tab, just like in SC2. If a player in your team quits or disconnects, this would be enabled automatically and you could then control their armies instead of auto-losing. Currently when a player disconnects, all other players just leave the game which is a huge waste of time. Also this would enable teammates to split their focus onto micro and macro depending on which they prefer or enjoy the most. My brother loves microing and is good at it, but his macro is ass. This would let me help him out in that regard and boost our overall enjoyment by quite a bit.
Both of these changes are quite basic, don't affect balance at all, and would improve the game tremendously. I'm shocked these features still aren't standard in all RTS.
Very interesting suggestion about being able to toggle a "No Formation" option. It really sucks when you have some slow units and then they are slowing everyone down and you have to deselect them. Quite clunky. Would rather have the option to just leave the slow pokes in the dust at times
very good points right here
I hope the devs watch this video!
The live chat was the reason I loved Heroes of the Storm so much
A really big issue with me is a bug that causes to select the previous god use instead of the chosen one
I have a gamebraking bug where in Skirmish mode I wasn't able to advance age. The icon never appears and the hotkey doesn't work either.
Contacted the game support but they couldn't give me a solution.
I love this game, but one thing that really has upset me a few times, is that if I disconnect from a ranked game, it doesn't give me very long to reconnect.
I know that having a stable Internet is in a sense my responsibility, but sometimes my 4G wireless router disconnects for like 20 to 30 seconds and then it gets signal again and I can't reconnect in time. And I must say this doesn't happen repeatedly, it happens like once or twice during a day, and it only disconnects once. But then over the course of a week I have 4 losses on ranked because of a DC. It just sucks when I invest so much effort into a game. I'm 30 minutes in, in a winning position and then I DC and can't reconnect in time. It just sucks
The low-hanging fruit: fix the game. I don't want to watch 70% of a game on a stream before it freezes.
I think they should increase the 'standard' amount of starting hunt from 1200 food to at least 1400 food and the starting gold from 3000 gold to 4500 gold, but to compensate: grossly incentivize moving out of your base after starting hunt finishes. Right now most games feel like 'what is the most amount of strength I can get at my opponent's 2nd gold' and the 3k starting mine together with incredibly deadly heroic age GPs force you into a specific playstyle that is kind of eh. As for the starting hunt buff, they removed hunting dogs because it was a must-get (making it strategically irrelevant), but now upping as fast as possible is a must-do too, because of how that lines up with your starting hunt.
Forward starting gold is a good point, I remember in our alfheim game that you uploaded you had a forward gold and advanced at like ~5 mins. Immediately I thought to myself 'wish I had gone 3:15 and parked my centaur there' but of course I don't know where your mine is because mine(pun intended) was to the side covered by a cliff and a forest.
I don't agree with your MU take. I think it's the GPs that are the issue.
Chat functionality is raised in almost every pvp game that's released nowadays and the general dev feedback is 'this doesn't work in 2024', some reasons being that the platform (in this case steam) enforces the company to spend resources on moderation and you'd have to split up the players over chat rooms as well which is just more to moderate, and then they can potentially be held accountable for any infractions if they are non-compliant.
Do desyncs still happen? And why? Any root cause? Me and 2 friends were excited to play this and all 4/4 of our games we tried desynced, and we havent played since (3months). Its been us 3 vs 3 AI players. Not even other real people connected besides us 3.
In my opinion, the main thing that needs changed is making defensive gameplay styles more viable.
1. Buff towers/forts/defensive buildings
2. Buff markets. Maybe not to what they were in titans/EE, but enough to make caravans viable again.
3. Add in a defensive win condition. It can't be wonders anymore, but there needs to be a defensive win condition to make defensive gameplay viable.
100% agree about a chat lobby and GPs being tuned down.
I like that change, its beginner friendly.
But I agree that it makes watching replays more boring. Maybe a compromise would be the best.
On the first point, I think the problem is not even the abundance of resources but the fact that the TC has such a big range and covers all your resources. In AoE2 the TC can only really keep your farmers safe, everything else is raidable and some resources can spawn really far away. Turtling is still a viable strategy if you pull it off but it's much harder. Maybe in AoM TCs could gain range as you age up but have very low range on Archaic and Classical, also make some resources spawn further away (players are already safer in general due to towers, compared to other games).
Another point that I see as a problem personally is the fact that most civs can have an unlimited number of heroes on demand. Myth units have to be too strong early on to compensate, which in turn lead to the cheese rush strategies, but are still nothing more than a support unit later on, because overinvesting in them is a mistake, which is not the case for human and hero units - you can never go wrong with them. That in turn means that the civs that gets the best human units are usually the winners in the late game, which for a game around Mythology seems quite disappointing.
As much as Retold tried to make MU more viable, they are still not present enough, IMO. There should be a world where a player could boom to a full MU army which would be hard to get to, but unbeatable if they pulled it off, like the Goth spam in AoE2. But the fact that heroes are so easy to get means MU will never be balanced in a way to make the rock-paper-scissor actually exist
to be honest, i am not a pro player and i like it that i am not always die after 10 minutes. rush plays are usualy just fun for the rush players. i like it that i now have a chance to win by focus first on economy and defend against rushes and then turn around the game and win against a rush player with a better economy.
Really interesting thoughts! I particularly relate to your call to action regarding content creation at the end. I only do it as a hobby, and haven't made anything for a long time (and I only have one AoM-related video). But I'll try and make a new AoM video. 🙂
I have, at the very least, been posting memes on the subreddit haha
thank you for your service
Sadly when you go to a video on like it whit out seeing it the algorithm will push it down. They see a customer that only see 0.1 sec of the video
I havent played on the recent patches but towers feel so usless. Tower buff?
Great video and really good opinions.
I'll just share my thoughts as someone with barely any time to play and not too good at the game either: (So I'll probably say nonsense)
1. Your point about easy resources(food):
I agree. And yes, towers need a buff. Give them slightly more damage and make them cheaper to build. 35% discounted to start. They are weak late game and not worth the investment early.
But this poses a risk where the first person to be more aggressive wins on the spot, even earlier than a timing attack due to the opponent not being able to get any food. Skirmishes now are fought over the second TC and second gold mine. Any sort of "starving" strategy would not change much.
So no change to food resources, but bring back hunting dogs, to make hunt even better than now. I would want to stop my opponent early from getting more hunt value if they researched it, denying value from their investment.
2. Timing attacks:
Yes. Super annoying. But only for people that know how to play decently. Hard to change this one though. Any change makes the game less fun to watch and play. This is unique to AOM and not worth changing too much in my opinion.
3. Multiplayer:
I only play with my friend. If he can't play, I don't play. This proves your point.
4. Content creation:
More people on the game the better.
But I imagine this game would be interesting to those who play it. And even then, I would prefer to play, than watch a game. To reach more people it would have to be something faster pace and funny or even flashy. Guides are good too for active players.
26:25 I have the same bug. Almost since the beginning of the game skirmish is broken because of this +1 player! Thank you for mention it @IamMagic
It's weird that turtling is too good, but defensive fortifications are simultaneously too weak
I think that the argument youre trying to make is that by giving an earlier opportunity cost of taking hunt should be balanced by having to defend. Adding more strategy to the game by having to balance units vs villagers.
Every game ive watched in the last couple of months has had either all in classical age. Or push straight past to heroic.
I think that if you force hunt out on the map though, we need changes to towers.
Towers need stronger atracks but less tracking. Blanced with later upgrades. Make them miss if your moving on the edge of vision. They need to do more damage than shanking with the villager you want to save.
They certainly don't need less tracking, their tracking is already horrible as is, being able to completely miss even very slow units like the non-zeus hoplite (4.3 speed) or even toxotes (4.0) running past it. I'd say this is their biggest problem, in fact, even more so than the lack of damage, because increasing damage is useless if the arrows can consistently hit nothing else but the dirt around the target.
@@leyline_leilaFair point. I guess I mean more tracking then?
In the former game there was more snare, you need this vs archer deathballs and vs vills
They also changed the dynamics of the eco upgrades.
Basically hunting dogs are heroic, where farms can start to be setup already.
Husbandry also buffs chickens and berries if I am not mistaken, which coincides with your points, hunt ends up collecting at the same rates.
They should implement the berries OR chickens and make hunting dogs in archaic age again.
I lost my response apparently so I'll say it again.
The chat really brings me back to ESO. you had many different types of chats and 1 with everyone in side. I remember you could invite people who were online to the lobby you were in. If you were lucky, someone joined and then you could start your game.
The chat and whisper worked way better than now, I feel like too.
In the lobby, you also had the observer option so you could view your coach or friend playing live from your pc.
The start of the game back then was also very different. Atty and norse were classical by 4.30 to go agressive. Greek by 5.30 as they were more secure and eggy usually 6min. now everyone is up at 4.30, so the start of the game is always the same. There's barely any options in archaic to change. Then again, it's a different game and a new game so not that figured out yet
I do feel that AOM Retold contains a lot more bugs than the original AOM and AOT. For example basic functions like "get back to work" bugs out. It sends villagers back to the resource but they just stand idle in a wood line for example.
Same with creating multiple farms with multiple villagers, 1 starts building and the rest stays idle. So you need to assign them manually again. It's just these basic but important aspects in the game that don't work properly.
It's strange that older games seemed more like a better finished product than nowadays. Everyone seems to be rushing.
I do love this game since I was in early 2000s and I really wish it to grow. I've been following a lot more channels and responding to more which I never do. Even helped with writing down BOs on some videos at the beginning to help beginners.
Ive been playing AoM since I was a kid as well. 31 now and I’m still having fun playing the extended edition for an hour or so (against AIs). I’ve never played multiplayer on AoM, was always a COD multiplayer / Warzone player until a year ago when I stopped. Love watching videos of retold, from you and AOM Moose. May purchase it soon. Cheers!
Hear me out. Make hunt significantly faster, but don't have hunt right next to your TC. Keep berries and chickens.
Increase tower damage, but don't make it too accurate at long range.
Myth units are great, but possibly increase training time significantly if you think they're op.
I really like your idea of better menues, having friend lists on screen (like eg dota 2), chat etc could really help.
As im used to aoe2, i also think some counter unit damage multipliers are kinda crazy, but possibly thats just me.
Great work and keep it up!
I haven't started on the new one yet but like you it's the only strategy game (released in 2002) on which I've spent hours and days (a bit for Starcraft before too though!) I've never been very good but it's always been super cool.
Balaitomos! taimpeursmek! lol (voice in the old version)
So many hours! Video games are crazy!
Thank you for your commitment to ensuring a new top version! Which is really done, in any case the campaign seems very accomplished, the multiplayer seems high level! The old ones are back it seems! Excellent!
Same mechanisms, more options!
Good game, have fun
I am a bit disagree on few topics. I am casual player, not pro or anything, but I think there's more casuals like me:
1. Eraly skirmishes. Me and my friends - we don't like too early action on the map. We like to sit back, relax, build our economy, infrastructure, build our big armies and then fight. Because it feels cool to fight with big armies for victory, not to fight with 5 hippos and minotaur for 1 dead animal.
Sometimes I want things to be more spicy, and I can do something on the map: we can fight for relics, we still can harass too greedy builds, fight for new TCs etc etc.
2. Myth units and myth powers should be strong. Otherwise we have just worst age of empires. I want to build my valkyries, I want to ignite my weapons, i want to thunderstrike that priest. Because it feels cool, it is what game about. Maybe devs should adjust some numbers, but all "myth stuff" must remain strong and be able to decide the outcome of the games.
3. Ranked system. I don't care who is 1st and who is 10th tbh. Because I am like 9999th or something lol. But I think we should have some leagues tied to number breakpoints. Like 1000 rating is silver, 1100 is gold for example. Today it's like: "I am 1400 rating, I won some games and now I 1500. Is that rating good? Idk". But when you got promoted from one rank to another it feels satisfying, it's little goal that you achieve. it could be cool if we had some borders or profile icons from ranks
I am agree on other takes, and i wish my favorite game the best future
I agree on the emphasis on skirmishes.
My issue with AoM and probably most RTS games in general, is that the game is "solved" so to speak after a while. The meta strats are discovered, there are certain ways to play, ways to react to plays, openings, build orders, etc... Players study the game similarly to chess, and if you don't play a certain way, you lose.
This is perfectly fine, it's strategy game after all, but it makes the game have an ending for most of the playerbase. So you learned a bunch of strats, a bunch of openings, mid game, late game and now you are playing robotically the same game every time. Most of the top players can predict exactly what is going to happen in a given matchup and what needs to be done to find win conditions. So people quit and only the hardcore fans remain.
I find myself in a spot where I don't even want to boot up the game anymore, even though I love it, because I know what god i'm gonna pick, I know i will face either Gaia or Ra, I know how to beat them, I know when I failed to beat them and I just don't want to live the Groundhog day one more time.
Arena of the Gods looked very promising to me and hyped me a lot I must say. Because I thought it would fill the gap of replayability. An endless mode, randomly generated, roguelike or whatever you want to call it, that I can always come back to and have a bit of variety, a break from ranked, chill with some friends in co-op or versus with different scenarios.
But it was just another campaign with an ending.
I believe that if AoM wants to grow, it needs to fix that "ending".
The fact that a mass of archers bears even there so called counters is ridiculous. The archers have needed a nerf since legacy.
speaking facts about timings most games both players just sit doing nothing and wait till timing, then 1 big fight decides game
Content creation/viewership/community are the biggest issues. Also having more diverse starting and map resource configurations would be cool.
Facts have been spoken here. The social aspect of gameranger, voobly, and extended edition is why I played them. The flame in the in-game chat was actually a huge plus to make the game feel alive but now everything gets censored (even aom related words like contarius get censored iirc). Also, the lobby browser is cluttered with games that I'm not interested in so I tend to just interact twitch streams instead of actually playing the game. I also remember back in the day complaining about the 2tc ptah SOO abuse meta, but nowadays I'll take a beating of that any day of the week over whatever this current meta is (turtle up in base until power spike like you said).Most matchups just aren't fun to play compared to legacy.
Shift clicking farms and villager pathing are sometimes absolutely horrible, so i would like to see those fixed. For example when i shift click farms, sometimes they just stand there after i finish clicking. Pathing however is very very bad, like if i sent dwarves onto a gold mine and then an ox cart, there is a chance the dwarves will head all the way back to the TC to drop off instead of using the ox cart right next to them. Anyways i love this game but nothing is perfect
I think that the issue is that town centers are too good, and towers are too weak. Town centers are basically forts (in fact they're flat out stronger than hill forts), except they also produce villagers. So, it basically means that when players go 2nd tc, its pretty difficult to wipe out that second tc, any resources near them are secured (which often leads to a lot of secure hunt), and resources nearby but not under the tc are hard to raid, and trying to permanently deny the resource is challenging since the opponent can fight you so close to the tc (or just go somewhere else, since if you go deny their 3rd gold mine its so fast to get back on that 2nd gold mine).
Because town centers are the best defensive structure, it means defense is strong early, but doesn't really get better. Once your force is strong enough to break a town center, you probably also have some god power that massively swings the fight, so you just very suddenly take one fight and win.
I think town centers should be nerfed back down to 10 damage, and towers should be buffed to 5. That on top of the other things magic suggested, but point is if you want to defend an area, you shouldn't be preferring a town center to towers before even considering the fact the tc produces vills and gives population.
Completely agree
My only complaint is in regard of visual detail. Because some of the new visuals look amazing... others dont or were left out completely. For example: Details like red splatters and skeletons are gone. Arrows dont stick into the ground correctly and throwing axes twirl for infinity instead of bouncing off the ground like they used to. Why leave these details out? Its silly.
Awesome video. Very interesting to hear these thoughts from a pro player.
My (viewer) perspective: I love that myth units are used way more than in the older aom. I remember in the older versions, in many games not a single myth unit would be produced and it would just be human soldiers fighting which kinda felt like a less interesting version of aoe2. Most myth units were never used or extremely situational. Also I love that god powers can be reused. Imo it's these two things that really set aom apart.
I absolutely agree with your perspective regarding early aggression or lack thereof. I'm missing those small but intense skirmishes at the beginning of the game.
-I'm with you, i also think bringing back in Hunting Dogs would make hunt more important and solve the thing.
I'm also ok with havin just berries or chickens or just lower the quantity you have (is nice chickens have husbandry speed).
-The chat thing, like on ESO, is very cool but I think it would be hard for them to develop and manage.
-Mummies need a rework (like older Mummies or limit to minions spawned plus bigger ability cooldwon) and that's easy and quick to do.
-There is an issue which also is big to me: in the older game we were able to distinguish units better and do a better micro, so i'd like some units to be more easy to recognize, but this has not only to do about models but pop aswell. We have too much housed and pop in the early game, the skirmishes implies bigger armies and it's harder to micro when the infantry clash, i wanna be able to distinguish hipaspists and hoplites better, berserkers and hirdmans and hersirs better which is hard to do in a big army clash.
-I'm also ok with lil tower buff (not big or maybe just the early game because tower spam in later game is boring and lame).
I want :
1) More comeback potential when playing from behind
2) More games reaching Mythic Age
3) Better defenses : walls towers and fortresses being more meaningful (this will automatically help in points #1 and #2)
4) Caravan deployment being more meaningful and actually possible to use it and see it being used in pro matches
Most importantly :
0) Release China ! Release more civs !
I believe the strength of god powers and myth units is a major selling point of the game and core to what sets it apart.
Rather than weakening that, I'd be much more in favor of improving static defenses to increase resilience to timing attacks.
Certain god powers being free wins is not good for the game.Implode, meteor, etc. Mummies are insanely op.. Static defenses are not the problem nor are they too weak.
@frank6013 thanks for sharing your opinion! I actually disagree, though. To me, mythic age god powers and myth units should be the most impactful parts of the game outside of a titan.
@@zachbrown9350 Clicking one button should be more impactful than growing and managing an economy and producing and controlling an army? Thats just objectively awful game design. I lost a 110 population army to implode the other day, ever single unit died. To you click. Its idiotic design.
@frank6013 it's the culmination of 3 age advancements. Both players can use god powers, and you see who the opponent chooses when advancing. If they get implode, avoid putting 110 population in one place.
Losses can be frustrating, but it's better to learn from them than make reductive statements and cast blame.
I welcome reusable god powers, because people would save them for the one, final push.. Once used, only myth units remained to put the mythology into AOM.
I agree with the lobby points - it doesn’t feel vibrant at all.
In addition, I use to love looking through peoples profiles and seeing what games they had played, against who, the map, the build order used, timeline, and other stats (sc2 was really good at this). As a low level player it’s great to see what the pros are doing and understand ladder build orders without having to download a recording or search on YT.
I very much agree with this one!
My feedback:
1. Fix the goddamn D3D12 crashes that are ruining matches for me. This is the only game that crashes, and I have more than capable hardware.
2. Improve defensive playstyle.
3. I like the slower pace, early agression is something I really dislike.
4. Add support for exporting/importing 3D models in game for modding purposes.
5. Add a way to simply rejoin the match if you crash for some reason, something like "Reconnect" button in League of Legends.
My biggest complaint is that I am honestly having less fun online without auto queue. I know it’s a component that many players enjoy…. But having one more thing to master in a game is making me want to walk away from it. Having to smash my keyboard to make units just feels bad.
God powers and myth units are way too strong, totally agree about the lack of chatrooms and cold lonely vibe of the UI
All I got is that the game needs a lot of fixing on xbox, I cant even garison my fishing boats into a dock. I cant collect an army then select specific units in that group. I also cant select villagers while they are being attacked, I lose most my villagers in raids just from not being able to easily manage them, I dont like using the bell because I dont want everyone to stop gathering.
Maybe a creator wheel in game alongside the chat you suggested could help.
This way devs could promote bigger tournaments and even just content creators directly to their players. I am sure the majority of players doesn't even know about you guys or tournaments. They will just start the game and play the story without even noticing that there is more.
Agree with most of your points, especially the global chat feature for a stronger community feel. I was pushing for this same feature as early as the AoE2 HD days but the devs still haven't added it to even AoE2: DE (perhaps moderation is the problem?).
On the content side, a suggestion to help increase your own exposure/viewership- I've observed a lot of Spirt of the Law's videos are Top 10s/numerical lists that are easy to digest in 10-15 minute clips. Might be something to consider to sprinkle in your own content to attract a larger audience even beyond AoM players. Seems to really help with the algo!
Thanks! Will try it out
While I am not particularly fond of specifically nerfing god powers I think I do definitely agree with the idea.
I do agree that the combo of turtling+really strong minor gods/god powers completely swaying the game to one person and the other person's only play being to not let them get there is too op.
It's the reason why I am not the biggest fans of gods like gaia and hades. Cause once their setup is done, there really isn't too much counterplay to do. Like for example, if you wanna go for plenty vaults as your age 4 power as Zeus and the other person chooses to go for an implode/meteor then you are absolutely cooked in most cases even though you both progressed to age 4 with comparable stuff.
I think it's fine to have turtling as an option if there are harder nerfs on the army comp you can make or the god powers you get access to for sure.
Tbh though again, I am not too fond of the idea cause I think the game's USP is myth units and gods but yeah, I would like for there to be more counterplay to turtling+strong army strats.
"Getting gud" is definitely a possible answer to but it is a bit annoying that opponent doesn't have to do so and it's only you who has to play better than them (and also game end then faster otherwise they get out of control later)
Definitely a hard problem but one that I do notice.
Forcing players to leave their base earlier for food will probably cause more kill-or-be-killed scenarios imo. I agree that earlier skirmishing is good, but I don't think the way to achieve this is through forced economy exposure, since economies are so small at that stage, many games will just end then and there. Personally, I'd like to see more impactful relics, like they could offer a one-time reward the first time they're brought back to a temple, and they could cause the hero carrying it to move at 50% speed. Maybe its a bad idea, but I think the early skirmishing should not end often end games, just watching a few age 2 units kill some villagers and then gg is called won't be fun imo.
I think the point you made about early game food is really smart.
Especially for hunt heavy maps like marsh or watering hole, it would be great to see either chicken or berry not both.
Do you think villagers in retold might want to be a bit tougher if this change is made? Time to kill is a bit faster than the original.
Changes to maps and new maps can make a huge difference in meta game for RTS. It's always a great place to start when the game action is stalling out IMO
Im glad to see this video, you talk about important subjects here and i agree, i think power spikes that you said are unfun will be balanced if game gets developed more, things will be nerfed/buffed to the point that they are not so gamewinning and they are more situational,. for me it seems like towers and fort being to weak is the main issue aswell, since you have more population and their dps is lower AND enemy can recast powers while attacking, now its more like blitzkrieg sometimes rather than strategy game.
The defensive building should be buff and may be less initial food in the TC zone and more food away from it.
The Old one looks like pure Love, too :)
they need to add a build hotkey button (make it toggle on and off from settings) so you do not use alt for everything else in the game. One of the reason i know many do not play as you cannot have similar hotkeys like aoe2 or aoe4.
I agree with everything.
About nerving the powerspikes. I think the developers have already put a few steps into the direction of nerving some power spikes, but maybe more is needed. The only downside about nerving godpowers and myth units is that the feeling of beeing powerful (feeling like a god in the game) goes away. And therefore perhaps the game loses it's uniqueness. A middle way is good I think.
I also agree about the early game tactics. Remove the bushes or chickens 50% off the time or put some other variables in the game to get more action early on. Also buff up the towers a bit.
1000% for supporting content creators and every other thing that can uplift the game.
Honestly, the chickens are just a safety net you fall back on while you are being denied hunt and don't want to commit to a farm switch. Berries are slightly more important because of Ra, if they were removed that would be a straight up indirect nerf to Ra.
God powers are what makes AoM into AoM, BUT there are some that are insane swings. Son of Osiris, Curse. Chaos. Flaming Weapons. Meteor. Implosion (yes, it is a bit more difficult the get the most out of it, and you are unlikely to ever cast it a second time, but it is still too good as-is, and I'm a Gaia main).
Chats... please. Why isn't it there? Yeah, I am guilty of booting up Starcraft 2 while drunk and had no desire to actually play, because I knew there will most likely be a controversial topic going on in general chat, but I didn't mind. I didn't call people names, but hey, it is a nice outlet for my drunken ramblings with 99.9% I will never see those people again. AND the LFG channel was there for people looking for Brutation partners without trusting the matchmaking RNG. I would love to just hang out in a chat with players of the game I like. Sometimes we even talk about the game! And it would be really nice to have and LFG/help me learn chat channel.
I am not a dad, but I am of the age most "dad" players are, so multiplayer leaderboards don't really mean much anymore, no notes.
I have experienced some disconnects, mostly during loading a ladder game. Even if I close and relaunch the game, it fails to join, because it already gave the win to my opponent. Been on the other side too, I loaded in and instant victory screen. Not a lot, but it does happen.
I don't really watch any of theese players, but that is because of the youtube algorythm who just decided to recomend me Magic's videos instead of someone else. A like never hurts. Especially if it's about something like "how to counter this niche, but absurdly OP if not handled correctly" strategy, like mass automatons, or educating struggling casual players about how to navigate some matchups, because if they can't find theese easly, those casual players will get frustrated and leave.
Nice summary Magic, I agree with most points. I know a lot of people also want to raise how turtling kinda sucks (well, towers do, forts are pretty okay), but honestly, I may play the campaign begind an impenetrable wall, but it would just make multiplayer drag on too long and be boring, as you'd need age4 siege/myth to bust a fortified position, which means nothing really happens for like half an hour, then whichever player has the superior eco will just parade march and win. There is a reason Blizzard never could balance Siege Tanks properly, but they couldn't remove them either since it was such a core unit... but it was either OP and can lock down games, or not worth the cost. I remember when Blizz thought HotS Swarm Hosts will be good to break tank lines... and then we saw a 5 hour ZvZ at a major tournament. If defensive structures get a major buff, the devs would need to halve the available rescources in/near the starting base, otherwise, a turtle meta may sound good, but it's a pain, with 30-50 min long matches of "who blinks (attacks) first."