Patch 2.5 Beta & Steam Summer Sale!

[MS Ryz0n]

Development Update: Steam Summer Sale Edition

There’s a lot to talk about here, so let’s jump right in!
As always, chat about the beta patch in the community hub here!
To submit feedback on the 2.5 beta after trying it out, follow the instructions Here

To opt into the 2.5 beta, in your library select "Properties" for AOE II HD, then select "Public Beta 2.5" in the beta tab. We hope to push a finalized version of 2.5 out within the next 1-2 weeks to replace the current 2.3 build.


Livestream!
Not a fan of reading? You can join me and the community team live tomorrow at 10AM Pacific twitch.tv/ageofempires – or right in the game launcher – for all of the info below and more!

Steam Summer Sale!
If you’ve been waiting for a sale, the steam summer sale is waiting for you! Between July 11 and July 22nd AOE II HD and AOEIII are participating in the Steam Summer Sale, along with several other Microsoft Studios titles. Keep an eye out for some huge discounts on some of your favorite games.

Trading Cards
I’ve been hearing a lot of comments recently around trading cards and the program Valve has started. Like many of you, we think it is pretty cool and are looking into the program to see what makes sense to do with it. I don’t have anything to announce at this stage, but keep your ears open, we’ve got a lot we’ll be doing with AOE II HD down the road!

More streams & Blogs
Over the next two months, we’re going to do an increase of development blogs, updates, and streams for the franchise. Got a suggestion on what we should talk about for a stream? Preferences on any particular people we should talk with or include on a stream or blog? A favorite custom scenario we should demo? Let us know by posting here!
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Beta Patch 2.5

We’re excited to announce our next beta patch, 2.5, now available for download. We’re expecting to be pushing this out to everyone to replace 2.3 over the next week or so as we iron out a few last quirks, but wanted to give you the opportunity to check it out immediately!

Ladders & Rankings
Since launch, the ranking system on AOE II HD wasn’t as good as we wanted it to be, and we’ve been spending some time working with the FE team to make a number of improvements. Due to the changes, 2.5 beta onward will be using entirely new ladders, so you’ll be starting fresh. When we go from beta to the masses, we’ll reset the boards so everyone starts as a level footing.

How will the new leaderboards be organized? The core functionality will operate on a ranked ELO system, something most competitive players have grown accustomed to over the years. Winning a game will grant you elo points, with the amount depending on the skill level of your opponent. Over time we’ll be investigating some additional techniques to keep the leaderboards interesting, and with 2.6 and beyond may see implementations of new short term “challenge” boards we reset from time to time, decay systems, and more. For now though our focus is on implementing a meaningful competitive leaderboard.

To do so, we are separating RM and DM leaderboards into separate rankings, so every player will have multiple ELO scores associated with their profile. We’re seeing some exciting developments from 3rd parties in creating complex sites for leaderboards and ratings, and are really looking forward to seeing what they do with the new ladders.

Launcher Updates
Our game launcher has been a useful way to provide some patch update notifications, but we haven’t been updating it with the frequency or agility that we’d like. To improve that, there have been some significant changes to how we’re handle information processing in the launcher. Most of these are under the hood, but will allow us to put up new information easier, and even create live streams right into the launcher. This particular piece will be finalized once we push 2.5 out to the public.

Gameplay Changes / Updates
Beta 2.4 was an experimental patch for us in many ways, we wanted to push the bounds and tried a few things we didn't know if it would make sense to put into 2.5. Because we weren't pushing it out as an official patch, this meant we were able to be a bit riskier on some changes. For the most part the results were positive, and it allowed us to identify a number of issues to fix that would otherwise not have been apparent.

One of the biggest modifications in beta patch 2.4 was the unit selection size. While the 40 from the original game was often cited as restrictive, in upping the limit to 200 we ran into several new challenges. Such a drastic increase has an inherent effect on DM types of gameplay, where unit micro is critical for successful battles. Reducing some of the unnecessary APM for moving a large army wasn't on its own an issue, but combined with the second challenge it affected gameplay more than we were comfortable with.

The second issue has to do with unit formations and movement AI. Over a decade ago the command structure and pathing for the game was handled in a way designed for 28.8 or 56k modems and Pentium CPUs popular at the turn of the century. The movement logic is something we're delving into, but with 200 units in a single formation there were a number of unexpected and quirky behaviors. Because of this we've backed down the max unit selection size to a more moderate 60 units. This should provide a utility boost over the 40 previously available, while avoiding the negative performance and game effects from our experimentation.

Lobby Changes
The existing lobby system provides some basic information, but we’ve had a number of requests and we’re exploring different ways to improve it. You will see a few changes being placed into 2.5 already, just select one of the games and some information about the included players will be displayed, including their ELO for that ladder.
The biggest lobby request we’ve heard is unfortunately surprisingly tough due to the steam matchmaking API. We’re not able to get ping numbers directly through steam, and it doesn’t show up until you’ve fully connected into a game. To save space, I’ll talk about this more on the live stream tomorrow about what challenges we face, and some of the things we are looking into, but to help you select your games better, we’ve added in a lobby filter titled “region” with several settings.
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Full list of Patch Notes (from 2.3)

Tech tree:

• Implementation of unique unit with purple legend entry, and purple boxes for all unique units. Make sure any unique unit is not visible by more than one civ.
  
• Tech tree should show up properly at all scales on both the left and right side. There were several clipping bugs when the window was at a 4:3 aspect ratio.
  
• Scrolling to the left or right in windowed mode should feel right. Before it would only scroll in some cases when you were well outside the window boundaries.
  
• Scrolling should be disabled when you are close to the bottom of the window so it doesn’t interfere with resizing.
  
• Scroll and close buttons are always centered now in any resolution/aspect ratio.

Gameplay

• Maximum Selection Size
  • Increased from 40 (2.3) to 60 (2.5). Backed down from 200 in 2.4beta due to aforementioned reasons
• Hotkeys
  • Reverted hotkey changes from 2.3 that caused incorrectly functioning shift + alt control group commands
    
  • You can now hotkey groups 0-9. (An added control group over the original 1-9)
    
  • The hotkey reset button will not scroll the menu to the top of the screen anymore
    
  • Clicking “reset hotkeys” will restore the key to the default instead of making there be no hotkey for the item.

Localization

• English strings are no longer locked inside language.dll, but use language_base.txt. Other languages will be converted to this new system in upcoming patches.

Steam Stats / Achievements

• Single Battle Buildings Razed stat and Single Battle Buildings Lost stat was incorrectly using units lost and has been corrected. These stats/achievements will be reset on the official 2.5 release

Cheats

• From 2.3, cheats for wood, food, gold, and stone are now 10,000 instead of 1,000 and should reduce the wear and tear on your ctrl + v keys.

Lobby / Quickmatch
Since only a small % of players utilize the beta build, this will become more visible when 2.5 replaces 2.3 here soon.

• Quickmatch should match players with the closest applicable ELO ratings and should use DM or RM ratings depending on which mode is selected.

• Lobby games are now sorted properly, with games on top reported closest to host according to Steam.
  
• Regional settings for lobbies will be primarily based on your Steam download region settings, thus unsurprisingly it is recommended to select the download location closest to you.
  
• You can filter lobbies and quickmatch by regional settings including:
  
  • Worldwide – Shows everyone on the patch!
    
  • Far – Within a continent or two roughly.
    
  • Regional – Your region and surrounding regions
    
  • Close – Only games in the same region as you
• Additional information in the lobby browser. Clicking once on a game will display added info including:
  
  • Names of players in game
    
  • ELO of players in game for the associated gametype
    
  • Indication of whether the game is RM or DM
    
  • Other misc information (i.e. scenario name)
• Double click to join a game lobby

Performance changes from 2.3

• Internal frame rate is capped at 60 (from 20).
  
• User interface updates 10 times per second as opposed to once per second. (mini-map, progress bars, etc)
  
• If you encounter any issues with frame rate unlocks, you can revert to the original behavior by running the game with -ORIGFPS. You can right click on Age of Empires II: HD Edition in Steam, go to properties. Then click on “Set Launch Options” and enter -ORIGFPS. It will remember this setting, so you may eventually want to remove it later

Leaderboards & ELO Ratings
The ELO calculations have been completely rewritten from the live version in 2.3 and follow the old MS Zone calculations. These boards will be reset again at the go-live for 2.5. Here are the known rules

• Leaderboard ELO calculations are only considered for games that contain exactly two teams. Any other combinations of teams are not considered for ELO calculations, such as a 3 player free for all
  
• There are two separate ranked leaderboards which encompass the following:
  
  • Deathmatch games will be ranked on the DM leaderboard.
    
  • Random Map, Turbo RM, King of the Hill, Regicide, Defend the Wonder, and Wonder Race are part of the RM leaderboard.
    
  • Any other mode will not be considered for ELO score calculations and is unranked, such as custom scenarios.
• There is a minimum time that a ranked game requires before the game will be officially calculated on the leaderboard. 2 minutes for DM and 5 minutes for RM. Games under those time limits are considered pre-maturely completed and are not scored.
  
• A pre-game penalty is deducted for starting any ranked match. The 3 points is refunded back at the end of the game – whether you win, lose, resign, or quit, irregardless of the time limits for determining whether an ELO calculation kicks in (5 minutes RM, 2 minutes DM). It is designed to penalize players that pull the network plug to avoid finishing games.
  
• Any MP game that is saved and restored later will be considered an unranked game to avoid exploitation.

Known Issues

• It is highly recommended when moving to the beta build (or when upgrading between builds) to create a new player profile to avoid any potential conflicts during the upgrade. You can do so within the game by going to options, deleting the current profile, and creating a new one.
  
• If you do a fresh install of AOE II HD after having the game on your system, in certain circumstances text may appear to ‘vanish’ from in-game. This is a result of font files in the steam folder needing to be read on startup. (Windows thinks you got rid of the fonts and didn’t initialize them again when you redownloaded the game). Simply restart your machine and the text will re-appear.
  
• We are tracking several rare crashes across multiple versions on windows XP during campaign play and will continue to investigate to improve stability.
  
• Please ensure you are using a copy legitimately purchased through official retail channels (amazon, Steam, GameStop, etc) and downloaded through Steam when attempting to play AOE II HD. We cannot support issues that may crop up with other versions.
  
• We’re investigating some double-byte language display issues (Korean, Russian, Japanese, and Chinese) as part of the language system transition we are doing here.