Why did the devs make the game harder?

[WindBlownLeaf]

Before we get started, *I'm* not finding the game too hard. I have no trouble beating the hardest AI in 1v1, only the extreme still gives me some difficulty. I'm also not looking for advice on how to improve or anything like that.

The reason for this post is, after trying to get friends into the game and watching them play, I started to reflect on how the devs made the game intentionally harder and I'm not sure why.

1.) The DE AI is way better than the previous versions. I'm not sure why they decided to make it stronger. What I think is they put too much emphasis on pvp and ranked, meaning to provide people with a way to 'train' themselves before going online. However, most people don't want to nor will ever play online, making their efforts pointless.

(New players also won't have a clue the other AI versions are easier, nor will they think of giving them a try.)

2.) The game has gotten faster. I thought it was just my imagination, but after scrounging up my old AoE 2 CD and giving it a go, there's no doubt in my mind that 'normal' speed in the CD version and DE version aren't the same. DE version is definitely faster.

3.) Campaign doesn't allow difficulties below standard. This was not the case in the old version. You could select 'easy' if you wanted.

4.) Player skill has also grown, making online less beginner friendly than before, but there's nothing you can do about that, I guess. Don't get me started on the so called 'noob' unraked games. Played with a buddy earlier this week and got 13 minute castle dropped into mass organ guns... Not a very welcoming community, in that sense.

Anyway, I'm sure there's more, but that's everything I can think of atm.

[TheDiaper]

You are not the centre of the world, period.

[Krosis Priest]

Originally posted by Flakstruk:

Dare to suggest a fun addition and see how the balance ninjas come crashung down on you.

MP is important but it isnt the whole of the community. If there was as much effort put into cosmetics, game modes and scenario/campaign stuff on an ongoing basis as BalANce ChAnges it would ensure the health of the community and the profitability of the studio for another 20 years.

This, basically. All there needs to be said in a nutshell.

[FloosWorld]

Originally posted by Krosis:

Originally posted by FloosWorld:

The AI was actually always a "training for Multiplayer", it just happened that internet in the 90s was quite expensive and the hardest AI on AoK and Conquerors used resource cheats to compensate the lack of skill. AoE 1 and 2 had a big MP scene on MS Gaming Zone before its shutdown, Microsoft even sponsored a 100k tournament back in 2001 that Nili covered on his channel a while ago and you can thank the MP crowd for keeping this game alive during the time MS didn't care for the AoE IP :)

Tryhard keyboard smasher? This game isn't Starcraft 2. Yes, the Extreme DE AI knows some mechanics pro players do (using buildings as part of your wall, pushing deer, luring boars) but it doesn't know of the advanced stuff like quick walling to save your lumberjacks or gathers at woodlines or berries. In addition, that stuff is the basic of the basics and literally used by everyone. The Extreme AI at best is - depending on the map and the strategy you choose somewhere between 1000 and 1200 Elo - with trushes it even is more like 700. 1000 is where 50 % of the ranked population sits and with 1000 you're considered average. At that Elo, the avg. eAPM is 15 - 40[cdn.ageofempires.com] which you can achieve by occasionally using hotkeys and relying on the mouse most of the time, so much for "keyboard smashing". You can even inflate your eAPM by using right-click to repair countless of times.

AoE 1 had several AI personalities but tbh, in FFA and TGs when you leave the win condition at Standard, the AI will sometimes try to go for a wonder victory. In 1v1s on Standard, they prefer relic victory as that's the most efficient play on that condition.

You still can play in the "old ways" if you know what you have to do, so much for "Modern Gaming [TM]". AoE 2 DE is still very much AoE 2. The changes made such as removing Tracking, Cartography or the Cannon Galleon upgrade is just a continuation of what Ensemble already did with Conquerors when they got rid off redundant technologies.
If you actually played MP instead of relying on 3rd party sources all the time, you'd notice how much prejudice in this paragraph actually is, which makes me just sad. Don't rely on others, make your own experience :)

As I've already said - Multiplayer isn't sweaty as unlike Starcraft, speed is less important than decision making and all the speed is worthless if you don't know what to do.

I don't know - with ~20k concurrent players on Steam in its peak (idk how much more players we've got from MS Store) and 45993 (1v1) or 76100 (TGs) players on the ranked ladder (Source)[aoe2.net], I wouldn't call that a minority - with the rise of the internet, the population became more balanced.
And to be absolutely honest with you - I mostly see SP only players acting as loud, narcisstic and constantly screeching about those evil and toxic MP players whereas players doing both or mostly playing MP congratulate themselves for new PBs, asking for advice on how to play with a certain civ or how to do a certain BO and are in general relaxed. Need examples? Here you go:

Two things that took me from 180 Elo to 800 Elo
A request for help ! I was 400 elo player that posted here. I improved to about 700 elo but I have a problem.
As a slow turtley player, can I also be matched with equally bad players online regularly?
Finally finished my first Skirmish! What skirmish settings should I play to practice?
New to AOE2 on Xbox. Best way to get into Multiplayer?
Question about Counters
I defeated my ladder anxiety!

I could go on with examples but I guess you get the idea.

Those horror stories about toxic people come from TGs with randoms as your team mates or the occasional idiot in 1v1 crying about a "civ win" whereas the idiot picked Portuguese on Arena, so the current No. 1.

Don't get me wrong - I don't hate on SP only players, I just find it sad that those kind of players spread their prejudice against MP without ever having tried it.

I'll try to keep it short this time.

1. No, absolutely no one in the late 90s/early 00s designed AI with multiplayer in mind, or even made multiplayer a major focus in any way in probably every genre except maybe arena FPS. And guess what? It made the games better, because the game design was focused on an actual coherent vision, not on pandering to whatever the current multiplayer """"community"""" wants (and how to monetize the sh!t out of it at the same time). There's a reason pretty much all memorable and actually groundbreaking games of the last decade were focused on single player and storytelling, while everything focused on MP either bombed eventually or became a mass production with a new reskin every year or two. If AoE2: DE was being developed with overall quality and you know, DEVELOPMENT in mind instead of pandering to a screaming minority and trying to earn money on e-sports, it would already be twice as great as it is. Instead, we're stuck with a sh!tty AI which in some ways is dumber than in some RTS games made 20+ years ago, which does only one thing well: emulating a generic modern multiplayer player (uh no idea how to word this better).

2. The MP crowd never kept AoE alive, the campaigns did. I do not know a single person who cared for multiplayer, I've known quite a few who remembered and/or replayed the campaigns maaaaaaaaany years after The Conquerors came out. I have never heard anyone, or read any article, or watched any video, or ANYTHING which ever focused at all on AoE's multiplayer.

3. The DE AI is trying to emulate a keyboard smasher and the devs have been clearly trying to nudge the game - thankfully in MOSTLY subtle ways - into making it more "fast and aggressive and modern". Yes, they have managed not to actually ruin it. But the tendency is obvious (all the uberaggro new unique units with hardly any slow and tanky ones, crap like "faster rams" bonuses, trying to indirectly nerf towers/castles even more with making siege even cheaper and more powerful etc. etc.). And DE could, again, be SO MUCH BETTER if the devs focused on overall quality and diversity rather than trying to pander to one type of player.

4. Someone already gave you decent sources that show MP is the minority. And it is obvious and logical to everyone who knows the RTS playerbase, except the multiplayer bubble which always thinks they are the most important in everything.

5. The sentiment you keep making that "MP is actually nice and welcome, you're just relying on bad sources" was nice and wholesome the first time, became questionable some time later, and became truly ridiculous about 50 threads ago when someone new or making a completely understandable complaint/suggestion got trolled and screamed at by the multiplayer mob, with sometimes my own grumpy self being the only attempt at a civil reply. Trust me, I've played plenty of games single and multiplayer. I can tell when a playerbase resembles a "community" (ah, my favourite overused word) and is actually mostly nice (case in point: Team Fortress 2), and how to recognise one dominated by utter tryhard sh!tlords who treat the game as an attempt to cure their insecurities rather than, you know, a game that's supposed to be enjoyable (even if competitive). I've seen enough to check pretty much every red flag there is for the multiplayer playerbase here and no, I do not believe it's just "a few bad apples" that make every thread that's even vaguely related to multiplayer an instant cesspool. (Particularly fun example: even on the official AoE forums, when I made a thread about the ridiculous "feature" that bombard towers do 1 damage to rams, someone with Age Insider title called me a "noob that just wants to turtle".)

6. I think every thread I've seen here actually focused on single player/campaigns is civil and just a normal discussion. No one there cares about multiplayer, because we just don't. It would just be nice if it didn't suck almost all the dev resources for the 10th rework of Arabia.

[edit: I guess I failed at keeping it short]

I'm also tryingto keep this as short as possible - but I'm sure it won't be easy.

1.) No, the devs tried to make a fun experience for both SP and MP in the 90s/00s.
While online gaming wasn't as big as it is today due to horrendous prices, LAN parties were big and AoE 1 and 2 were hits among other games like Counter Strike. The AI in those games tries to make up for missing a human player and also to challenge you to beat it, hence, making it a training partner for MP. Some also have fond memories of playing Age vs their parents or siblings. This didn't stop tournaments from happening.
The "screaming minority" is actually the diehard SP only players as the "major" part of AoE 2's players nowadays is mostly focused on SP but occasionally plays casual MP games with or against friends (+ AI).
I know from myself that there's some kind of mindset where you feel secure playing a shooter in MP whereas you feel intemidated by only thinking about playing an RTS online vs randoms. I tackled this fear two years ago and I'm so glad to have been wrong about this mindset.
It's pretty much even between memorable SP games (such as the ones Sony released with God of War and Last of Us) and memorable MP games (like Battlefield 3 and 4 which are still seen as the best modern BF games).

2.) Campaigns alone do not keep a game alive. While they're a good driving force of attracting players to a game, playing them alone over and over again is not what keeps players into the game. When Forgotten Empires released their mod in December 2012, it featured a couple of campaigns as well as new civs but guess what what most players were doing? Playing the MP part of it, which helped FE in convincing Microsoft to include their mod as a DLC for HD Edition. The rest is history as they'd say.
AoE 2's campaigns have memorable moments (e.g. the entire narration in William Wallace, La Hire in Joan of Arc) but they weren't as "cool" as the ones from C&C for example that were all about FMV cutscenes. If there's a game actually known for its campaigns, it's C&C. It's also known for its notorious bad AI which is why it isn't played as much in MP as AoE is and look how small the player numbers in C&C Remastered are vs AoE 2 DE.
You surely haven't heard of Vietnam then where AoE 1 is literally national sport due to the game being available on every PC and AoE 1's players attracting millions of viewers and fans on their Facebook pages where AoE 1's competitive scene mostly takes place. It's actually quite interesting how they refuse to play 1 DE and tournaments still taking place on Rise of Rome instead - I guess the upcoming AoE 2 DLC tries to migrate them to Age 2. Here's an article about that, so you have at least read about it.[www.fanbyte.com]
In case of AoE 2, the currently ongoing Nations Cup with over 1000 sign ups across several national teams shows, how active MP actually is. All it needs is just you leaving your bubble. :)

3.) Regarding "keyboard smasher" (lol): I've included a graph in my OG comment to you that shows the correlation between Elo and the effective Action per Minute. It shows nicely that even as a player at 2k Elo, you still can be as slow as 20 eAPM, which comes from using little to no hotkeys, being a slow player, or just using the mouse. Dave - one of AoE 2's prominent figures - has a 2nd account where he plays with a controller[www.aoe2insights.com] so the eAPM naturally won't be high and still he manages to be in the 14xx Elo region which is where the top 12 % of the ranked ladder sits. You could say the became more competent to play like the average player.
T90 has an ongoing series called "Low Elo Legends" that already encouraged players with a similar mindset like you (and me two yrs ago) to give MP a try as it shows that it's not only about keyboard smashing and getting those high APM. Feel free to check it out.

4.) It's actually one source (the video why the next RTS might fail), I've seen the section and tbh, it just says that MP and SP are both important for a game, which is why AoE 4 is underperforming atm, due to the campaigns not really being fun and the last couple of changes solely being focused on MP.
I on the other hand gave couple of sources and examples of how the different figures (AoE's concurrent player base + the total number of ranked players) show that MP is definitely at least 50 % of the game which you seem to ignore.

5.) This may sound arrogant and I'm hating myself for saying that, but in fact, you do rely on horror stories on why you hate the MP crowd so much and this very paragraph prooves it.
In my ~300 ranked games since I started two years ago, I've encountered really toxic players in just 5-10 for them which is a very good quota for a game with MP and just shows that the AoE 2 community is mature. Those toxic guys were crying when I literally played better than them which just made me giggle. And as you said, you "believe" it as you are just relying on stories instead of having your own experience in that regard.
I'm just trying to expose these horror stories about the evil multiplayer as such and encourage players to at least give MP a try, even if it's just in a casual setting with their friends. :)
While it indeed sounds rude of them and I don't get it either why BBTs just deal 1 damage against rams whereas they e.g. fixed an issue from HD to DE where destroyed trebuchets just dealt 1 damage, I'm pretty sure they said that because currently, AoE 2 encourages all types of play - from rushing to turtling + booming. I'm sorry that you had this particular experience.

6.) Yes because the question(s) asked in those threads are about SP and campaigns, hence it makes sense that "no one there cares about multiplayer" in this particular case.
For MP/Skirmish focused threads, you also find people keeping it civil and not caring for SP in that regard as the question was focused on MP. And you find helpful people looking over your replays and give you tips on what you could've done better.

TL;DR - a good RTS needs both SP and MP because if it's focused on just one aspect, it underperforms - see AoE 4 (or 3 which only has brought some new Historic Battles).

[feillyne]

Originally posted by WindBlownLeaf:

1.) The DE AI is way better than the previous versions. I'm not sure why they decided to make it stronger.

Definitive Edition's extreme AI owned by a palisade: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2945305219

[The Icecream Snowman]

The easiest AI is easy for beginners, it does almost nothing. The difference between difficulties is too wide, though.

Back when I played the CD version, I could beat hard AIs consistently and hardest occasionally. When HD came out, I hadn't played for several years and I'd forgotten basically everything. Standard was too easy, moderate stomped all over me. I had to learn how to play against each difficulty all over again.

Now in HD, the behaviours of the different difficulties requires different play styles, and learning those is hard when you get stomped on before you've figured out what's happening.

Moderate isn't just a better, faster version of standard. Moderate tends to build a big army and roll it to your base, smashing you in one go. Hard constantly pours units towards you to wear you down. Hardest doesn't rush but goes for a strong castle age. Extreme is supposed to play like a human player, using all the tactics people like me can't be bothered to learn.

[Flakstruk]

I irks me the MPs cling to the we saved the community arguement. MP was indicative of a wider market.

However,
Taking the arguements above at face value,
Are SPs justified in feeling left out by dev's?

I'd say yes, its a fair assertion: there are regular changes that "fix" balance or map pool. Is an investment of dev effort that dont benefit them much. And very little if any content that add to thier experience, Unless its in a paid DLC.
SP requests amount to deeper immersion; skinning and building sets, thematic unit additions, variation in AI scripting.
Using recent examples, Theres no reason that a houfnices attack radius can be modified but the huns cant have steppe lancers in SP

[FloosWorld]

Originally posted by Flakstruk:

I irks me the MPs cling to the we saved the community arguement. MP was indicative of a wider market.

However,
Taking the arguements above at face value,
Are SPs justified in feeling left out by dev's?

I'd say yes, its a fair assertion: there are regular changes that "fix" balance or map pool. Is an investment of dev effort that dont benefit them much. And very little if any content that add to thier experience, Unless its in a paid DLC.
SP requests amount to deeper immersion; skinning and building sets, thematic unit additions, variation in AI scripting.
Using recent examples, Theres no reason that a houfnices attack radius can be modified but the huns cant have steppe lancers in SP

Don't get me wrong - SP with campaigns and such is great and fine but the most visible aspect of a game remains its multiplayer and as mentioned earlier, ppl have fond memories of playing Age vs or with their siblings and/or parents. So if they see that people still play this old game regulary online, it attracts them to eventually buying it and reliving their childhood memories.
While I only started playing MP "seriously" with DE, I remember looking for ways to play Age 2 online and came across platforms like GameRanger, Gamespy and Voobly back in 2012/13.

I'd say unit/building skins isn't a SP only request as many players want to have more culture/regional skins, especially after AoE 4's release :) Civ unique castles is also a regular request.