Apr 22, 2022
Apr 20, 2022
The Roadmap I Want to See
Before we start, let me just say that I am a fan of the work of the Forgotten Empires team. I’m friends with some, I’ve chatted to others and every interaction has been nothing but positive. That being said, six months ago, Forgotten Empires told us there would be a ‘roadmap’ for AoE2. We are still waiting for this but I have faith (or blind optimism) that it will be here soon. Here are a few things I would like to see.
Pathfinding fix
This has to be one of the top priorities for future updates. Pathfinding is shaping the meta right now with Archers/Crossbows completely dominant. The community has been screaming out for some fixes in this direction. Attack move has been the real game changer with the reduction in attack animation combined with the low lag experienced on DE, Knights are often largely ineffective against Crossbows.
Beyond this, units have even shown some issues with regrouping. When clicking units to move backwards, they first reorder themselves before moving. This is affecting melee units mostly too, further reducing their impact against Crossbows.
A roadmap is the perfect opportunity to reassure the community that this is known by the developers and is on their list of mechanics to work on - it would go a long way to easing concerns.
TG ladder fix
The team game ladder has already had a fix. When the game first dropped, there was an issue with the way that team game Elo was awarded. In simple terms, the points gained by the winning team was higher than the points lost by the losing team. As a result, Elo was inflating with more points entering the system than intended. They have fixed this issue. Now the number of points gained and lost are equal. No more inflation. But this still leaves us with the impact of this issue. There are far more points in the system than there should be. It has caused the average Elo to shift upwards.
We have another issue now though. The fix to team game rating meant that both winning players received the same number of points, regardless of their rating at the start. This has allowed a number of players to abuse the system, exceeding a team game rating of over 4,000. This alone wouldn’t be a problem but they are utilising smurf accounts to maximise their points gain. One account is kept artificially low to find easier opponents and the other is then farming the points. I’ve discussed my previous views on smurfing and its impact on the game here.
I want the developers to fix the team game rating. There needs to be a net 0 change in the total Elo across each match as they have now but the allocation needs to be fairly distributed based on the relative ratings. A higher level player should not gain the same number of points as their ally far below them. I feel that the ratings need to be fixed too. It will upset some of the team game players but team game Elo has little to no meaning as things stand. How to fix this though? Is it worth resetting the team game ratings? Can there be a scaled reduction?
Regular balance updates
Balance changes provide the game with new life. The level of balance is the best it has ever been in the 20+ years of the game’s life. That being said, there is always room for improvement. We had a major infantry-focused patch in November in an effort to make them more viable and better utilised. But since then there have been no real changes. There were updates in January and February but these didn’t have any balance changes included.
It means we have had six months of the current balance. It is widely accepted that there are some issues currently (looking at you Sicilians and Flemish Revolution). And yet these aren’t being adjusted. It’s possible they are waiting for the next DLC to arrive to release a huge balance update. I understand the appeal for Forgotten Empires to coincide a large balance update with a new DLC, it adds hype and excitement across the community.
But with a roadmap, the hype can exist anyway. Having balance updates coming regularly would bring some level of excitement about what is going to be changed. Two months gives time for plenty of games to be played and insight gathered on what changes could be needed.
Consistent format to map pool
The next map pool change will be the 50th since DE was released. I’m going to focus just on the 1v1 RM map pool here but the concept would apply to the others. We currently get seven maps in the 1v1 map pool. Arabia has been ever present. Arena has missed just one. This is fine. There is an argument to be had about the current version of Arabia but that is for another blog post. It makes sense to me to have Arabia and Arena in every map pool, they are the two most popular maps.
You could make an argument for including MegaRandom (I personally would like to see this replaced with HyperRandom - I think it is a more fun map with more variety). The remaining four/five should be voted for. Assuming five maps, you have:
Open map - the aggressive maps, something like Serengeti, Land Madness, Acropolis etc. But I want to see tournament maps get incorporated.
Closed map - maps with either starting walls or the ability to wall easily, e.g. Hideout, Golden Pit but even Quarry or Enclosed could spark some life into the map pool.
Hybrid map - Four Lakes is a popular map, it gets voted in every time it is an option whereas almost every other hybrid map has never been voted in (it is only in the map pool if selected by devs). There are so many that provide interesting games, Bay and Cup from the Hidden Cups would gain a lot of interest from the community.
Water map - these are always the least imaginative water maps possible, Islands, Team Islands and maybe Migration (oh and the odd cursed choice like Pacific Islands). But some tournaments below S-tier have shown that there can be interesting options for water maps. Check out Sink or Swim for some that we considered interesting.
Nomad map - we’ve just seen a massive nomad based tournament. Nomad is a popular map but there are plenty of others that are excellent, include some of these in a vote.
Other map - some maps just don’t fit neatly into one of these categories, the chaotic maps. Socotra, Chaos Pit, Colosseum, Crater can all provide fun, entertaining games but are anything but standard.
I want to see tournament maps brought in, ideally to coincide with the tournaments themselves. It adds a lot of flavour to the map pool. This is as important in the team game map pool as it is in the 1v1. Finally, bring the voting system into the game itself. Having a notification in the main menu screen would increase the number of active players engaging in the map selection process.
Ranked seasons
This week saw the start of Jordan’s Medieval Brawl. This is a fantastic initiative to try and increase activity on the ladder with the top 8 active players (played at least 20 games in the previous 14 days). But why should it be down to an individual streamer/player to do this? Microsoft supports a variety of tournaments, this would be an excellent way to get the high level players active on the ladder again. I’ve been a big fan of the variety of content available at the moment but this is just another way to promote engagement.
It could be the arbiter of its own destiny, incentivising playing and enabling more players to move closer to being able to make full-time income. Many other games operate a ‘ranked season’ mechanic and while I use that term, I’m not sure it is quite what I mean. I mean exactly what Jordan is envisioning. Having regular mini-tournaments, accumulating points towards an end of season final event. Jordan has put his own money into starting this and then will be utilising community support to keep it going. But Microsoft could do this or fully back this idea.
These are just my ideas but I think it would go a long way to improving sentiment in the community if we had a clearer idea of what’s coming. The list would obviously need updating but communication is absolutely key here, it is better to know what is coming than to be kept in the dark.
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