T90 Talks Farms
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- Опубликовано: 23 авг 2024
- Here are my opinions on the new Auto Farm feature
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This video was created under Microsoft's "Game Content Usage Rules" using assets from Age of Empires, © Microsoft Corporation.
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Rumor is, the next update will sound a loud alarm if you're building military buildings on a tiny uninhabited island...
Savage
like ranges you mean? maybe alarm sounds after the second one placed?
11
whats the reference 😭😭😭
@@ilikechocolate3741 well atleast when trying to place the third?
I cant wait for this 20 minute educational video on modern agriculture!
Not as Important !
I’m all farmed out. Good Manor Lords farming might take more micro than AoE 2 11
"Hey guys, spirit of the law here..."
Nice specs. Your opinion feels more authoritative with the new glasses.
He's right about the multiplayer user experience and lack of a good social system / insufficient integration into current social systems like Steam.
The opinion also feels more authoritative without weird 2009 clip over the ear headphones
Why does he look less like a baker cop now?
As someone with a compulsion to always place farms neatly, I am very pleased with this addition to the game.
The Autofarms take your ability away to place them neatly.
@@ottomanpapyrus9365it also takes away the pressure to choose where they go which is what results, for me atleast, in the compulsion of making sure they’re tidy and therefore taking more time
No tidy placement required if the auto feature is placing them for me
Omg the way camera zoom in to T90 😂
**chef's kiss** Thank you Hardy for that one
It seems to me that they are decreasing the width complexity to allow for greater complexity in depth. Placing farms isn't a fun part of the game and isn't something that new players can care about, but being better at it gave you an edge and now that edge is being taken away a bit. The autosystem doesn't do things perfectly, so at the high end it can be a trap, but it allows allows for a focus on other parts of the game, which is vital for new players.
Exactly this. While his mind is in the right place with the big 3 things they shouldnt touch, this feature actually doesnt impact any of them.
Adding farms or a better way to call it expanding eco or eco balance isnt about the time it takes for you to do it, its about doing it.
The time you have to spent on it is actually limiting the time you can spent on thinking about how you want to win the game.
Also his statement about people enjoying the game because its difficult can be countered easily with the fact the game got a lot more popular when these QOL features were added with DE. Its not the time spent on manually placing farms that drives people to play the game, its the actual RTS aspect of using your military, building a nice base and being creative what brings this community together.
Nothing more satisfying than placing five perfectly placed farms in three seconds. We gonna have to disagree on that
If new players don't care about placing farms or aren't capable of thinking about several things at once then they should suffer the consequences, that's the point of any game... the less you care the more likely you are to lose.
@@WithmeVerissimusWhostoned this feature doesnt change any of that tho.
Its legit just a timesaving feature, still gotta give the inputs to place the farms.
@@WithmeVerissimusWhostoned That is the 'git gud' mentality at its most extreme. Are you not old enough to have played the original version or have you just forgotten? Villagers originally had to be tasked constantly. After building a lumbercamp you had to select the villagers to actually collect wood. All farms had to be manually reseeded and you constantly heard the hissing of a dead farm when dealing with a late game push. All these things required a very different player than today, but those requirements also made the game less fun.
I get it, T90, but I remember playing Age of Kings when you couldn't even queue farms, and had to manually reseed each one. When Age of Conquerors added the reseeding queue it was the greatest thing ever, and when Definitive Edition added the auto-reseed button I genuinely celebrated.
I agree auto-ization can be a problem, but at the same time I remember when you had to wait for a research to be finished before clicking a new one. That change ABSOLUTELY affected how people play and, especially in the case of blacksmith research, it's become almost necessary. And I remember not only when you had to click Cartography, but when it cost gold instead of being free and automatic.
What keeps me coming back to AoE2 is the victories, the battles, the losses, the near scrapes, the joy of a perfectly executed ambush and the despair of being blindsided by the obvious. Farms are just the thing that lets me afford the food cost for all those moments.
I agree. I don't play the game for the farms, I play for the exciting battles and hoping for victories. Farms are a means to getting to the fun part of the game. And lets be honest, If it affects the top 100 negatively (which I don't think it does), but benefits the rest of the million who play, then the new farm feature is a win.
Plus I don't think he realizes just how small of an effect we're talking about here... inefficient vs efficient farms is hardly a factor in the first place, I'd be willing to bet that people trying to get efficient farms has a more negative effect than inefficient farms do, this just removes that issue (to an extent)
@@annaairahala9462 100%.
@@annaairahala9462 Its also the number of farms you place while microing army in the front, so have to agree with T90 on this.
@@annaairahala9462 If the effect of efficient farms is negligible, then in order to remove a marginal issue (people being concerned about inefficient farms) this feature would render all economies looking more like the same thing. Being someone who likes watching games, I always loved how the farm placements add character to a person's base, and I feel this feature would hurt the variety more than I think is acceptable for this marginal benefit that you mentioned.
I like the farm feature but boy do I agree about the lack of other features missing for 5 years that is baffeling they did not fix yet. As someone who always plays multiplayer with friends, I'm kind of tired of the whole inviting everyone through steam, set up call on discord etc. At least we don't have to direct connect IP anymore
I'm trying not to have an opinion until I play w this new addition, but I remember when they changed a farm reseed queue to auto reseed if there is enough wood. I didn't like that change at first. Now I can't imagine going back.
Also auto scouting scouts.
but that also bites you in the butt sometimes. This change doesn't really have a drawback
This is a really good point. Yes, changes will impact how the game is played. but they are not all bad
Your two examples don't change the early game META at high levels. It is better to "scout" by hand and it is better to "redo" your farms by hand, using the automatic commands is equivalent to suicide.
Here we are waiting to see if it will also be a suicide or if all the pro players will join in to fight on equal terms.
If they don't do it, then the MAJ is good.
Otherwise it changes the balance of the game and is not a good thing.
Let's wait and see.
@@BunchyMutt It does. Its SLOWER! I can place farms faster.
It really doesn't matter. In early game you are unlikely to float enough resources to spam a bunch of farms at once, the feature doesn't compensate for straggler trees around the TC, and you would want to place farms manually at locations that are less likely to get picked off by raids; In the late game when you have 60 farms and handcart the efficiency disadvantage from poorly placed farms is negligible, even when your farms are all a few tiles away from the mill they are still 98%+ efficient.
I strongly suggest anyone to watch spirit of the law's video on this.
There he shows how limited this feature actually is, and explains how in many cases being able to place farms manually will still yield way better results.
Regarding the trend in general, I think I can see the devs' reasoning: the AOE2 core fanbase isn't getting any younger. They don't want to alienate older players who want to play AOE2 as a *strategy* game.
I don't think SotL's video really shows this to be anything but nearly perfect, with manual better if you have lots of time and in certain circumstances. Personally, I don't think the automation improving efficiency by 3-5% ruins the game, and is really just a nice QoL feature.
It's not about efficiency. The point is the reduction in time.
@@neildutoit5177 I would say that the time difference can be almost negligible, if you then trade space efficiency (maybe the bigger savings of this). If you compare to clicking farms randomly around the mill/TC, you might fit an extra farm with the update and have pretty similar time. Either way, it still feels like a QoL update to me. Player skill can still be easily seen in army control micro, economy balance, predicting and responding quickly, and this is really such a small change. If it keeps or brings more players in the game, it's well worth a tiny reduction in skill ceiling.
@@Gendulf I have no comment on whether the change is good or bad. Only that it is a big change.
The time difference is not negligible. It's big. Its really really big. It's the different between having to click 10 individual tiles in different places while thinking versus having to click a single 4 tile big square 10 times. Without thinking. That could be 1,2, even 3 seconds faster. When you consider that pros usually only spend 3 or 4 seconds placing farms and managing eco between jumping to the fights, were talking more than 50% speedup in some cases. Which is enormous. Even for more casual players it'll be more than 20% faster in some cases which is big. If you're attacking with mangonel and monks, for example, those 3 seconds will often be the difference between killing the opponents mango and losing your own mango. In other words, I would expect this change to change the outcome of the game in a non trivial number of cases.
Again not saying I think this is good or bad. But it is big. It's huge. It's massive. But not because of farm efficiency. Because of time taken to manage eco during fights.
The oldest players are the ones who have an issue with it.
Well. Let's revisit this topic in 3 and 6 months.
I think T90 might be too set on this opinion
@@annaairahala9462 I'm actually really surprised how opinionated this video is. His opening arguments with the 3 most important things of the game, "make vills", "make military" and "make farms" is wild to me. Maybe he shifts his opinion a bit now that he sees most people do not look at it the same way he does 🤷🏼♂️
@@mrkirby8622 The funny thing about this is the trend youpudding started, and t90 loves to cover, has only one of these 3 most important things, namely creating military. Red Phosphoru does not place farms is not creating vills in castle and is succesful nontheless
@@mrkirby8622
I also disagree with T90 here, but I hope that he doesn't change his mind just based on other people's opinions. If he got convinced, perfect, but I hate when people don't stick to their convictions in order to blend in.
i completely agree with t90
Highly doubt Dark Elf will use this feature
I agree with the precedent argument. I don't agree that this particular feature is a problem. Farm placement is such a minuscule part of what makes eco tick in AoE. Villager production, resource balance, eco building placement, quick walls/eco protection, managing villagers under fire are all so much more important than where/how farms are placed.
Yeah, I'd argue this effects the game even similarly to auto-scout (which mostly effected lower ELO anyways).
Still nothing that should be taken to far (auto vil creation 👀).
Full agree with this. I think the setting that gives the cricle for tower/castle range is a bigger problem than this. Glancing at an enemy tower and knowing the exact range, shouldnt be freely avaliable knowledge.
Being able to spam farms that would be a 1% increase of efficientcy than before, isnt impactful.
Placing farms correctly under pressure, when your base is likely very compact due to said pressure, is not a minuscule task.
@@tuanld91 compact base either a) throws auto-farm out if whack anyways or b) lets you only place farms into free space anyways.
Also, what if, due to said pressure (like walled-out ranged units), you only want farms on "the far side" from that threat, no use for auto whatsoever.
@@tuanld91 SOTL did a video of comparing perfectly placed farms vs speed placing. The poorly placed farms had less than a 2% disadvantage compared to the perfectly placed farms.
WHile i have yet to try out this feature in ranked pvp. I have beein using it in campaign missions, and let me tell ya, its really overrrated. Its nice, but not efficient.
Fully expecting rage against me for this, but I’m not sure I agree with everything you said here, T90. I *DO* agree that an in-game friends feature would do much to improve the community. I also think an option to turn off in-game chat censoring is worthwhile.
For the record, I’ve been playing since the George W Bush administration. I love this game a lot. Very much. On the daut v. lierry dichotomy, I’d say I’m more of an eco player. So any disadvantage to eco-leaning players is something I would be willing to get upset about. But I’m not upset by it, and here’s why:
The mechanic itself isn’t that great. Granted, I’ve only had the chance to try a few matches since the feature was released, but I learned pretty quickly the mechanic has its limitations. Sure, it’s speedy, but you can realistically only place 6-7 farms before the next suggested farm placement is in Narnia and you’d be better off moving your mouse to a nearby TC or another mill. One house or tree line where the game would like to place the most efficient farm would throw it off such that you’re better off finding another drop off building and auto placing there. The mechanic does not account for farms already placed around other buildings. Farm placement still takes attention, albeit less than it formerly did. Sure, the time to place 20+ farms is cut dramatically, I’d suggest to you that situations where you need to place 20+ farms at once are rare in competitive play. You’re placing the highest number of farms once you run out of food from animals/berries, otherwise you’re grabbing a few vills off wood lines to get more food income. It’s not like you train 20 vills and have them idle until you have some magic number so they can all build farms. At least when I play, I place a few farms at a time. If your eco is so imbalanced that you’re placing 20 farms at a time, something else is wrong.
Now, I would agree with you more if they made this change game breaking. If you didn’t have to click for each farm you want to place (meaning, if you selected a villager then right clicked a mill and the villager would find the right spot for a farm on their own), we’d have a problem. We’d also have a problem if the mechanic was “smarter”-for example if it took into account the most efficient drop off point regardless of the building you’re hovering over.
There might be something to be said about losing some of the clumsy mechanics that come from the original game, but I think it’s worth pointing out how far we’ve come. I put in my AoC disc a few months ago, and realized very quickly how accustom I’ve become to DE’s quality of life improvements. Remember selecting each military production building then having to queue each unit? Or having to cycle idle villagers one by one? Or having to periodically add farms to the reseed queue? Heck, I remember a time where you’d have to cycle through idle farmers and right click the farm to reseed. (I became very fast at pressing the scroll wheel to cycle through sound events, then right clicking the exhausted farm) Or not being able to do research until a building was done with its queue? These things are all improvements along the same line as this, but I think this here is the line itself. I wouldn’t want to see automated vill/unit queues, or anything more.
It does seem like, despite auto-farm placement being more visible, over the course of the game, auto-reseed saves way more clicks. Once all your farms are made, you only have to occasionally move farmers around for eco balance. Meanwhile, farms are drying up constantly on different time cycles, so maximum food production requires constant hopping around your base to reseed them every few minutes ... if we didn't have auto-seed.
Valid points but I am concerned about the direction these developments are going. Games nowadays are mostly made for 5year olds even if it’s rated m for mature. I don’t want AoE to go there.
Besides that for me it is/was part of the fun. Sometimes when I see LEL I remember being just like that back when I was 10 yo and playing the original AoE. Finding that sweet spot for you and the game is part of the experience.
The last we need is (as mentioned) an auto villager que or a right click unit icon to research all upgrades…
> If your eco is so imbalanced that you’re placing 20 farms at a time, something else is wrong.
Bro, that's the point! The feature makes it so that players who make their eco such that "something else is wrong" are punished less. That's the problem.
@@Theseus1989 My guy, there's no shot that a toddler could accomplish anything meaningful in this game even if there was twice the amount of automation. Almost all the vills would be idle, there's be barely any buildings if at all. This game is stressful as it is!
@@snivelill4457 As mentioned before I was 10 when I played the original AoE. I could maybe understand some words if any at all since English is not my native tongue. I was able to play and win. The game doesn’t need to be easier. Legend of Kain Soul Reaver wouldn’t be as good either if all puzzles were already solved. The game is amazing as is. Don’t fix things that aren’t broken. If it stressful then consider it a training on how to deal with stress. Also LeL is my favorite and no they’ll be less legendary.
I have a neuro degenerative condition that makes using a mouse accurately painfully slow and sloppy at times. The auto farm addition is an absolute godsend for me and I hope they keep it.
All i will say is that playing DE then playing HD make you realise just how much better DE is for having the QOL features. 100 x better. I think auto-queue vills/units like in age of mythology is when we should get out the pitchforks. Not now.
Genuine question for those who have played AOM (and make at least a modicum of effort towards competitiveness): is auto queue villagers a negative thing? As a similar game that has that feature, does it deserve the boogeyman status it is getting in the AOE2 community? I get that AOM may be inferior to AOE, but is that feature part of the reason, or is it a different reason?
I think you're forgetting how frustrating this game can be when you feel like you can't control it. Using hotkeys makes the experience completely different. Once you learn how to use hotkeys to make villagers or to place buildings (or hotkeys for any number of things) the game becomes a much smoother experience. It takes a while for beginners to learn hotkeys and during that time the game is a lot less fun and involves a lot of hunting through menus and unnecessary clicking.
I've introduced a lot of my friends and the ones who got far enough to learn the hotkeys stuck with it and all the ones who didn't quit. The majority of frustration with being able to actually feel like you're controlling the game is wiped out by hotkeys. This change just wipes out a bit more. Maybe they can make some compromise, but for the community to grow I think new players will need to feel like they can actually control the game earlier in their journey.
Edit: I'll take this argument even further. You say the game is more fun when you get to make choices, but by the game's nature, the lower your apm the fewer choices you get to make. Choosing to focus on military vs. choosing to focus on eco is a meaningful choice for you because you can control the game. Whereas when a beginner has already made the choice to make 15 farms they don't get to make any more meaningful choices. When it takes 3 clicks per farm it can take up to a minute before that new player gets to make another strategic choice. And fewer choices means less fun. Clicking repeatedly to execute a choice that you've already made isn't fun, it's a procedural barrier to the parts of the game that are fun.
What made me love age 2 was not placing farms perfectly
Ok boomer
then dont? wut
Don't worry this new feature places worse farms! You just place them quicker
@@DashzRightdude using a meme from 2020 thinks he's cool
You still can? If you have actually watched how farm placement works in this. It's really not going to do much. It's a quality of life feature for some and it won't really affect anyone else.
disagree. I want auto retaliate toggle on vills. fight me
Honestly, I think the auto scout feature is far worse than the farm placement. It's so much in terms of actions and inputs that is being automated. Before you had to make deliberate decisions if, when, and how you want to scout the map but now you can do that with just a couple of scouts, put them on auto scout and they'll flush out all the sneaky stuff your opponent might try to hide. I'm specifically thinking about the late game and how placing outposts everywhere can be incredibly useful and how otherwise you had to manually scout for what your opponent is doing. Now you can achieve a very similar effect by simply auto scouting. And why not put 5 Hussars on auto scout if you're spamming them anyway?
Auto scout wasnt complained about as much because it is worse than manual scouting. Auto farm is better than manual.
Yes ^ this exactly, I was thinking of all those (low elo since I watch mostly that on his channel) times people send a vil off to build a secret base or all the times you can tell players make decisions based on bad intel. It is definitely a big change to the game and one I am personally opposed to. Back when I started we didn't get autoscount on the first even, but this is really an issue for late game hiding and sneak attacks. I mean if it is the annoying hiding that last base you could just research spys! This autoscout change needs to be removed.
Auto scout doesn't work after the map is already scouted. So it often misses siide bases
Year auto scout should b handled the same way
agreed, get rid of both
Strong disagree.
Shift queue doesn’t ADD something for the player. It lets them manage the game in a more time efficient manner (they don’t have to remember to go back and click those units to the next task at the correct time)
Queuing technologies doesn’t ADD something for the player. It removes the important aspect of clicking the technology at the correct time to reduce downtime.
Farm reseeding doesn’t ADD something for the player. It removes the need to manage your mill’s farm stock and wood income.
Attack move doesn’t ADD something for the player. It removes the mechanic of making sure your units don’t complete their patrol and return to your base (or that you engage properly when you spot an enemy.
All of those changes lower the amount of unnecessary micromanagement and inefficiency. You don’t tell your lumberjacks which trees to cut.
If you want the actual line in the ground, it would be a feature letting you set your gather point to the mill and having villagers automatically gather the closest food resource, then switching to auto building their own farms if there is no food within the mill’s line of sight. That would be crossing the line.
Why would that cross the line? Why not have auto-build orders?
i disagree.
All the things you have mentioned (except for attack move) are "necessary evils" that have been made easier with the automication features.
The farm placement on the other hand is a choice players have to made.
You can place farms in an efficient way and lose time for micro or you can place t90 farms to control your army. Both options are legit choices. And thats the difference.
It is not a viable choice to not reseed farms for example. Thats why that was a good feature. Reseeding farms was just a necessary evil.
And furthermore the auto placement takes also some of the individualism of players with their base design. Until recently bases looked often unique because some farms havent been properly placed. And that did reflect their mentality, strategy and skill.
Now all the farms look the same.
Yeah. These things aren't what people are looking for in the game. They're basically chores that you have to get done. You know what you already want to do, it just sucks your time away. I get the management is important but there's a fine line between execution and redundancy. I certainly would not play this game if I had to tell every lumberjack to cut the next tree after they finish their last one. Seriously, you still gotta babysit your vills constantly, this isn't anything. This puts slightly more attention on the meatier parts of the game for those that want to use the feature.
So with that logic, you'd be fine with Auto-Queue vils ?
Individual units getting command queues is more game-changing than auto-farm placement ever will be.
"May your hobby go mainstream"
What joy.
The only feature I want is setting unit attitudes when they leave production. Ie, patrol to x
Not ignore being hit and walk to your doom.
you can do it in settings - they go out either aggresive or defensive stance... i use aggro bcs at least they do something before they die :D
I'm going to argue that being able to queue buildings and research changed the game way more than the ability to spam your farms down a bit faster, especially since I doubt people build more than 100 farms a game (I probably hardly ever make more than 30 (not counting reseeding)).
Also auto queueing villagers probably will just screw new players as they'll end up with a bunch of vills standing around doing nothing and no food to go to the next age.
i think you're underestimating the exponential benefit of proper farms vs random placed ones, over a long game the vil efficiency with well placed farms adds up a lot and that doesn't factor in the fact that you as time goes on can product more because of extra food income aswell.
I think this update will significantly hurt the players who aren't as confident in attacking and as a result probably push them away from the game
"since I doubt people build more than 100 farms a game"
*laughs in Hera*
@@MegaLars10 I guess let's assume someone places 1000 farms in a game manually, do you think that takes more time then setting up your research proper without modern queueing. Personally I doubt it, I can place 15 farms in under 3 seconds, and I'm old and slow.
@@Jerad2142 none of that has anything to do with what I said but alright
And if you can place 15 farms that fast they will most definitely not be efficient farms, which proves my point
@@MegaLars10 Actually exactly why I uninstalled DE, I love trying to optimise my economy and don't enjoy dancing military units around. I either lost to early attacks or won by massing an efficient army that didn't need to be micromanaged that much. This change basically told me my way of enjoying the game is wrong, so I took the hint and started playing something else.
From a game design perspective, this effectively puts farms closer to equal footing with all other resource gathering. Only with farms are you required to place the dropoff point and explicitly define every worker's resource location. All other resources are placing a dropoff point and letting workers automatically gather the closest of that expected resource. There's efficiency sometimes in manually designating every worker's resource, but players usually don't do that unless they think there is a strategic advantage to it. This auto farm placement essentially enables the same flow for gathering food from farms. The major difference in resource collection that remains is that farm locations don't have to change as the resource runs out.
We may need to look past how this changes the way things previously worked, to thinking about how the game works holistically as an experience. In which case, this just makes all of your eco processes consistent.
Why would you want to have game elements be equal? There is no part of that which is axiomatically better. Skill is much more satisfying for a player than making things equal and easy. Players think that if the designers could lower the difficulty then the game will be better. This almost always ends with the game being worse. For example, it is easier to play a game if you start with a LVL 100 weapon, but there will be no challenge and the game will be boring.
@@JhoferGamer Sorry, "equal footing" was a bit misleading, primarily I meant consistent, in that they can be used similarly. Consistency is usually better, not only for onboarding new players, but for a generally more congruent overall experience. Think about some other aspect of the game's design that spans different areas of the game, like unit production. Regardless of the unit type or the building it comes from, the way the player makes a unit is the same. Some may require research before they are available, but that is also consistent across different units. Imagine that for siege weapons only, the player had to research something prior to every single unit being made, e.g., before every onager. That breaks consistency with other production and prevents queueing of those units. Surely this is a level of difficulty or inequality that wouldn't be considered good if it was introduced in the next update?
The way farming was designed had a similar inconsistency. Only with farming is there a prerequisite action everytime before getting the resource. Now it's consistent with other resource gathering, just like all unit production is. Note that the strategy for manually placing the farms is still there, just like the value in using those units is strategic even though they are made the same way.
I know this analogy isn't quite the same, but my point isn't that it makes it easier (consistency isn't always easier to do, but it is usually easier to learn and remember, in this case, it may be both), but it makes farming align with other economic buildings and concepts.
I don't see this as intended primarily to make the game easier, and I also think experienced players will still find skill and strategy in manual placement based on the environment around the dropoff. To consider consistency a detriment to that effect is saying there is skill in doing things that are convoluted, so they should remain convoluted.
I'm a big fan of t90 but this is weird. There's no way this small QoL feature has anywhere near this amount of affect on the game as he's suggesting. If the argument was "fix pathing and bugs before introducing new features" I could get on board.
I want formations for villagers and no formations on my knights. When will my desperate cries be heard
Maybe this is a take you've already considered, maybe not: This puts food eco micro closer to that of wood/gold/stone.
In fact, they could go a step farther and make it so when you put the TC rally point on a mill, the vil will autoplace a new farm when it gets there, if there isn't one ready to farm. Then it would be on par with micro on the other resources. But then it would auto-consume wood, causing beginners to starve on wood without understanding why, so they won't do this. (okay, auto-reseeding undercuts my argument...)
For that same reason (starving due to auto-production), they will not do auto vil-queueing. No other unit/tech/building does this.
Great argument. Though auto placing a farm on arrival to a mill would cross the line for me because at that point you're actually building eco automatically.
This is how it works when playing on console. Villagers can automatically place a farm once they're created
"This puts food eco micro closer to that of wood/gold/stone. "
Well if you put it this way, consider this:
The ENTIRE balance of the game, units and civilzations is affected by that. Wood is easiest to come by and near infinite most of the time. Stone and gold are both limited and a crucial part in the fight for map control.
Food on the other end is the hardest to get, but also near infinite, since you will end up turning wood into food via farms and fish traps.
Buffing farms would also buff anything that costs food, the results of which are impossible to tell. Game balance is a fine line, a very fine line for an RTS like this, and messing with it can cause serious issues
if i have auto vill queue, i want auto military queue too. in that case, itd be nice to have an auto scouts build button.
@@TelesphorosGAMEDEV right klick to put anything in auto queue? shift right click to put the unit in quto queue in all production buildings of the same type?
Sorry T90, I generally think that your analysis is spot on but I think this is you with a bad case of Old Man Brain.
1 - You talk about why people play Age of Empires and (essentially) talk about skill expression, and that because autofarm makes placing farms much easier that it will narrow the extent of skill expression people can demonstrate. My question is - when you think about Age of Empires, like, the parts of the game you love so much as a player, caster, and spectator, how much of it is watching farms get placed? Not eco management, because this doesn't affect your decision-making in eco management basically at all, but the act of placing farms around a mill. I don't know about you, but for me I have not once given more than a passing thought to it. One of the reasons for that is because there is an (almost) objectively best way to place farms - for me this is much less of a deal than autoscout because there is actually different scouting strategies you can pursue that get eliminated by using that feature. Consider also that people probably said the same thing about autoqueueing farms and back in the day - is the game more fun or less fun now that we can spend more time strategising and microing and not having to make sure that every single building is producing. Perhaps some people miss those days, but I don't think it makes the game a better experience.
2 - Precedent setting and something like autoqueueing villagers. You phrase it like it was a bad thing. Did autofarming ruin the game? Or did it allow high APM players to more fully express their skill? And did it add a layer of strategic complexity where a 1000 elo pleb might autoclick and forget but a pro player might turn it off in some circumstance? It's the same principle. I think the difference between the way you view the game and I view the game is that you want to maintain the difficulty because you appreciate the nuances and the little skills that contribute to a player reaching "baseline" play... but those things are not fun for most people who play the game, in my view, and it is very uncommon that a quality of life feature like this (yes, it is a quality of life feature) is implemented and then retconned because most people like it most of the time. See also: multiqueue, autofarming. Even autoscouting is usually inconsequential.
Sorry for the wall of text, just was bored and felt like throwing my two cents in.
I want to preface this with saying that I don't play AoE 2 anymore so this change does not affect me at all. However, I will still state my personal opinion on this anyways.
I will say that y'all are blowing this way out of proportion. It isn't that big of a deal. Adding quality of life changes to bring it in line with more modern rts games just makes sense. Doing so will make it easier for new players to pick it up and enjoy the gem of a game that it is.
Notice i said NEW players, not low to mid elo players. There is a big difference here.
This game has an extremely sharp difficulty curve in the sense that there are just so many minute details and hidden mechanics to learn for new players that it can become completely overwhelming.
example: Skirmishers do more damage to archers, but just how much more? As a new player it isn't intuitive, all you see is Archer has 4 attack, while skirmisher has 2, so from that perspective obviously archer = better than skirm. The end result is a new player being confused as to why his ball of archers just got wiped by a handful of "weaker" units. But then when they try using skirms against the opponents archers, they lose anyways due to the hill damage bonus. My point is not to complain about mechanics, but to point out how there are a lot of things that will cause brand new players to become annoyed and step away from the game.
Now, regarding the argument that the game is so popular because of how hard it is, I strongly disagree. It has been my experience that the game is popular mainly from a nostalgia perspective, not a difficulty one. Of course it's hard, it's an rts after all. But most new / younger players aren't looking for a hard game, making it difficult to even get them to try the game in the first place. A lot of the popularity comes from people who go "oh yeah, I remember playing that game when I was younger! *installs game to play*" rather than people going "What is this game? I've never seen it before." *installs game to play*. Of course that is a vast generalization and it's much more complex than that but I hope you get my point.
Ok, enough with the random tangent, back to the topic at hand.
Back to the auto farm placement issue. Personally, I feel this literally changes nothing for veteran players. "But it takes away some of the strategy in the game, directly hurting eco focused players and artificially boosting players who have a harder time with eco." Uh, no? It's literally going to be available for everyone, eco focused players included. Which means those eco focused players will be able to, get this, have an easier time focusing on eco.
example: let's say pre auto farm placement player 1 collected 250 food in a given amount of time while player 2 collected only 125 in the same timeframe. Now with auto farm placement, player 2 is able to gather 325 food in the same time, clearly out collecting the more eco focused player. Except this ignores the fact that player 1, using this same feature, now collects 450 food in the same time meaning that overall literally nothing changed. Now obviously these numbers are completely made up and, let's be honest, make no sense at all. They are just to make the point more clear.
This was the same reaction the community had when auto farm reseeding was implemented. "This is terrible, it takes away some of the strategy! Having to reseed your farms is part of the game." I'd like to ask if anyone would like to go back to the days of farms not auto reseeding.
The only thing this will change is making it a little bit easier for brand new players to enjoy the game.
I expect that in a few months time this outrage will have past and things will be exactly as they were.
You are fee to agree or disagree with my humble opinion, just please keep things civil!
I guess automatically re-seeding farms, switching to chop a new tree, or mining a new tile kill skill expression.
you kinda are overexaggerating this. placing a farm while raiding isnt going to change anything. for your example of the raiding/home eco meme. regardless of if they can make farmsd faster or not if they forgot to do it, the automatic wouldnt change that. the rss balance in early game will still be a thing. you will need x farms to produce vills per x tc. you will need to assign workers to different jobs still. the only thing that changes is a slight mouse movement. this is the kind of thinking that halts progression. its the nostilgia (i grew up with this so it should stay the same for everyone) and honestly there is too much of this. still love ur content so no hate
for me the issue is that this basicly removes any individuality in farm placement. because i guarantee basicly everyone will use auto placement. The manualness of the game is a very big factor for why its fun. Its not just a fight over some town. Its a town built by a person.
T90 outta touch with this one. He in elite 1% of high elo players. This is good for the game. You're an old man screaming at clouds. I respect this is how you feel but you're wrong and I think youll come to see that.
Yeap all "pro" players are like this. Any change that forces them to think outside the box and try new metas is to hard for their brains to process.
@@blaubeer8039 just because something is hard doesn't mean it's good. But this change won't change anything meaningful. Because the top 1% already kept up on farms. Only late game if they need to mass then due to something happening this will help but they still have to have the skill set to micro building eco. If you weren't improving this change won't magically make you better at the game.
@@Nemeca99 TheViper isn't like that. He thinks this is a good change and a very tiny one. His take on it was quite calm and level-headed I thought.
@@Nemeca99 Very unfair comment. Most of pros like it or don't care much. Only Nicov who is notorious for whining all the time about everything anyway dislikes auto farm placement a lot.
No, easy does not mean fun.
I think as this is such a widely divisive issue for the playerbase, we could have a great new format on our hands: get some guys from the community together that have different (but reasonable) views on the topic and have a discussion. i don't think there is a clear wrong or right answer here but having both standpoints debated passionately could really help take the edge out of it.
This is the sort of feature that there isn't really any going back either. People will quickly become dependent on this and taking it away will be like reinstituting solid farms on AOE1. Tons of players will just rage quit.
"shift queueing is okay because you can choose whether or not to do it"
Okay, then auto-farm placement is also okay because you can choose whether or not to do it. I don't see what the problem is.
We had these same kinds of arguments back when farm queueing was added. And then again when auto-reseeding was added. I don't really have any problem removing tedious and repetitive things from the game.
"tedious" and "repetitive" things from the game? Creating Miltiary is repetitive. Researching technologies is repetitive. Tasking villagers is repetitive. Making buildings are repetitive. Don't understand that argument
Researching technologies (unless you are doing x256 mod) is the exact opposite of repetitive. Queueing units is repetitive, sure, but since there are many different unit types, it is necessary to allow fine-control of unit, resource, and population balance. That is a necessity, not a feature (no need to mention auto villager queue, because that would be a good thing). Farm placement is repetitive without adding any strategic depth.
@@paulyoung8671 auto queue villager would be a good thing lmao
@@ottomanpapyrus9365 yeah it's so cringe that they made military automatically spread out and fight in melee, bad design choice, they should've made each soldier manually clicked to attack the others. so much skill ceiling removed
MbL predicted this.. Auto everything!
agreed on the QoL/UI vs adjusting the core gameplay of the game for people who already enjoy it, I dont think a change like this will add new players to the game, nobody is not going to play because farming is too hard. And if you keep adjusting the gameplay and making it easier than the people who already play and enjoy the game will be affected. The community aspect of the game needs to be improved. The most loyal people to the game usually belong to a community such as t90's. Great points in this video
This just show's how good this game is now, when you can complain about little details in game play. I started playing AOE 2 around 2000-2001 and i'm over the moon how this game has evolved. I'm still kind of simcity player, but i have learned some new tricks thanx to T90, Hera, Viper and many other player youtube content.
OK. So what about auto farm reseed? What about built-in range indicators?
those are perfect... i wouldnt play it without auto reseed :D
Built in range indicators isnt great either.
@16vSciroccoboi agreed
Built in range indicators were a bad feature... that were forced by the existence of a mod. Once a mod that did it was available, adding them to the base game was the only way to maintain fairness vs. "making a mod required to compete" or "banning the mod and forever being haunted by cheating and accusations of cheating."
The range indicators were the best way to salvage a situation, not actually a good thing.
@@threewestwinds there's mods that show potential enemy Tc locations too. They haven't added that crap yet.
Age had not feel the same for me since QoL changes. This is over the line.
It makes wanna quit :(
We can't leave because finding sheep = pure dopamine bliss
If you look at Starcraft Broodwar vs Starcraft 2 I think that's a case study in Skill Expression (I beleive as things stand AoE stands in the middle).
SCBW had many /QoL/ deficiencies (capping unit selection at 12), poor path finding at ramps, no hot keys to select production buildings; the list goes on.
Starcraft 2 was a hyper-optimized game, where path finding is probably the best of any RTS, you can tab through unit types in a selection to grab spells.
In the former you have a unique mechanic of "Action Economy" where as a player you can flex your skill to micro units in combat, build units at home, and massage knots in choke points. These forms of skill expression allow players to make tangible discrete improvements in their play. In the latter gameplay is more so focused on strategy than technical skill expression, it may be more accessible to newer players, but that doesn't mean it will have more staying power.
I don't think one game is objectively better than the other, but I do think there are 2 subgenres of strategy games, one where you're wrestling with the game as a commander/general would to micromanage troop formations, and the other where you're playing senate to finance troop compositions that will /autonomous/ fight for you. Patching in this class of changes risks alienating the current player base because of the dramatic shift in game identity.
I respect and appreciate the perspective from a caster and a top player. You obviously know things way more than I do, but I somewhat disagree. I can understand where you come from, and 100% expected pros to not like this change. But, a game is more than it's top 5% players, right? They have to add things for players outside of this group. I think this is a feature that tiptoes on the edge, and I do think overall adding this is a bad thing for the game overall but for slightly different reasons. I believe if you can manage your farms properly you'll be better off than the auto long term, but this will make people never develop that skill. But the worry of what it could lead to I absolutely agree. Auto-villagers would be REALLY bad for the game. That removes ALL skill needed and not just some.
T90 has his FB bag, probably doesn't give a shit if the game fully dies now. Just like he keeps romantizing the voobly days like they didn't have so many QoL issues that DE has solved.
With all due respect there was outcry when auto refreshing farms was introduced. This legit does not make a difference. Spirit made a vid and he as well sees how this is mostly a late game feature. I do however agree with setting a precedent
in pro games it will be a mid-late game feature. in all other elos this will be heavily used after the first 5 or so farms.
Viper made the same observation in his video a couple of days ago. We love you T90 but this isn’t the hill to die on
Spirits comments were about the farming efficiency not taking into account the time/mental effort it takes to place the farms. Also placing farms is fun, managing eco is fun, scouting is fun. Why are we automating the fun of the game?
It makes a huge difference. For one there are legitimate reasons not to use auto reseeding. For this theres bascily none. Auto placement is several times faster while ensuring better efficiency.
@@dougler500 Same argument was made against queing reseeds and later auto reseeding. Now we dont know any better and can't live without it. It takes away one part and makes room for even better micro/macro and strategy. When auto resseding was introduced the avarage skill went up which to me is way better
You're right they could do more with community features.
But I like the auto farm I know lots of people that don't like all the micromanaging necessary without it and it will make the game easier for them
We don't need the game to be easier, we need to get better. The progress and improvement is where the fulfillment comes in when you DO win against your opponents. Just like how you raise your children
I like the new feature. It's not really auto-farm. You still have to remember to make the farms and click a number of times. As a casual player I find it quality of life feature.
that's great for casual and campaigns, now let's remove it from ranked games and tournaments.
Auto farm would be tasking villagers to the mill and letting them build their own farms as needed.
@@adeadfishdied that's literally what this is brother
@@collaide okay let's also remove autoreseeding
this is a silly comment
@@pax6833 except auto-reseeding is a completely different feature that's not affected by any of the critiques leveled by t90 in this video?
Overall I see it as a good thing personally, but placing farms one by one for me has always been more fun.
i like it. If more menial tasks get streamlined people can use the time elsewhere... like playing the actual game for instance (ie strategy, tactics, exploration, timings, micro ...).
Im up for autoqueue also.
I mean... What is the point of playing Farming Simulator if the farms are automatically placed for you? What...? You make MILITARY in this game!?
It should be a balance of both
Suggestion:
Make a Hardcore Mod and hold some tournament there
The mod should disable
Auto scout
Auto farm reseed
Auto farm placement
Etc
And add any else you would like.
Am a genius just thought of another idea
How about you just add an option of normal play or new play
Like we had on Voobly of MQ or SQ
Also queuing up multiple units at a time, All shortcuts, queuing up actions with shift, villagers dropping of res automatically. All things the game does for you and reduces the "skill gap".
Such a stupid argument in bad faith by taking it to the extreme. Yeah, let's make players write code to execute actions in the game too. Let's remove UI and just use 'text descriptions' to describe the current state of the game. Come on dude, this is how ridiculous your comment looks like
@@Dan-rf2eothat's why am suggesting it like a mod, cuz people like u start crying
@@randomgammingpro956 If you don't want an extra feature you wanna remove all features. If someone disagrees, they're crying. I see the trend here. It feels like I'm arguing with my gf. There's just no reasoning at all 11
I think the rationale exactly the wrong way around! This is a buff for eco players: if you spent more time and skill on eco your relative rpm will get a boost because the individual actions are cheaper now. The aggro player who spends less time on eco will get less of that boost, pushing him or her into being a bit more eco focused. I like eco only games. For me this is a great addition!
Interesting take. I wonder...
building placement is also an important aspect of aoe2. farm position impact building placement very much
I agree with the slippery slope arguments closer to the end of this video about more and more auto/convenience features making their way into the game. I am worried that they'll eventually make a big mistake with these additions. However watching this video after Spirit of the Law's video on the subject leaves me with the impression that this video doesn't account for the inefficiencies or limitations of this feature, much like auto scout isn't the best way to scout (although auto farm admittedly has far more use than auto scout).
In the very first example of auto farm in this video, there ends up being wasted space around the town center and villagers exposed waaaay on the other side of the mill when they could be in much safer positions around the town center, as an example. If someone does this type of placement without thinking, they could easily be setting themselves up to be punished for it. Players using this feature would be better off sometimes using it and sometimes not, and if you do use it, sometimes you might micro alternate locations for some villagers right afterward anyway. That's the player control and micro still existing right there. I'm not saying I like the feature (I don't think it was really necessary), but analysis of this feature is probably incomplete without considering the factors I mentioned.
The other thing is I'm not sure how this is a feature to help new players so much. New players use auto scout because when they click the scout they can easily see it as an option on the UI. Auto farm is a shortcut that you have to look for (unless it's taught in the tutorial now or building description or something). I'm not even a new player and I only know about it because of it blowing up in the AoE2 community on RUclips. And to really make full use of it you have to be aware that villagers spread out to farms evenly after building a mill, another piece of obscure AoE2 knowledge I only know from AoE2 community videos decades later. If I was a new player just playing the game without being addicted to RUclips videos on the subject, I probably wouldn't know about any of these features for ages, if ever. People have to be aware that when talking about new/beginner players, under normal circumstances very few hotkeys and shortcuts and tricks are being used in play because they just don't know.
Auto micro, auto macro, auto build, auto auto everything! ♫
I disagree.
Auto farm is a good feature.
Auto scout is wrong.
Auto farm is cool.
This should be top comment
Auto scout is much much less effective than auto farm placement
Fairly , they could finally ban some of those automatic functionalities in Ranked, or just let players choose to enable it or not in room settings.
I understand the concern about how having auto farm is a sign of bad direction towards automated everything.
However, I don't feel that auto farm itself is that bad a thing, sure there are cons to it like what T90 mentioned such as loss of individuality, but personally, the key factor on how I view someone being better than me in the game is never how well or fast they can place farms but rather how consistent they are on creating vills, army control, situation awareness, game knowledge, etc. etc.
You can give someone the sharpest kitchen knife but it would still be worthless if that person never cooks! As such I would imagine the impact of auto farm would not be much of a concern for the low elo, where learning to actually farm is more crucial to their growth.
I can't say for the higher elo as I'm not one myself but I'd like to imagine there isn't that big of a gap in farm placing skills, hence the impact of the change to each individual should be more in line to regular buffs and nerfs to civs/units for the pros... is what I would like to think (a boon when they buff your fav civ, a bane otherwise).
Regardless of the varying opinions, the passionate gatekeeping from the community to prevent the game from straying down the wrong path is a welcoming sight. If the day automated villager Q tries to pass, I hope we will all stand together and deny that one at all cost.
nice glasses t90
How about some kind of middle ground: you can drag farms (just like walls) to place multiples in a line. Let’s you place neater farms without taking it to far
if you hold control you can place farms verry fast already :)
not sure that would work for xbox
@@internetUtuber If you're playing a RTS on a console that's your own foolish decision.
@@Druppelsgewijs yeah but in lategame chances are you still place them T90 style xD
Having played several games over the last few days I disagree. I'd say it's exactly like the shift queuing example given in the video. I was aware something changed regarding farms due to the green squared outline, but I was still placing farms as I normally do. Just like shift queuing it's something you CAN do, but are not required to do. That's my take from what little experience I have with the new feature.
I would assume AoE2 has an older playing base as the game is 20+ years old. The average, casual 40 year old player probably has a lower APM compared to a 20 year old pro gamer. I don't feel strongly either way regarding auto farming, just a thought.
I'm a noob at 780 elo (played like 12 ranked matches recently), and even I think its a horrible idea. It'll make the feeling of my skill progress alot less satisfying, I was going to focus on improving my eco skills first, but this makes it so easy that it feels unnecessary.
I've seen alot of good games ruined by '"QoL updates" or making it easier by making the player stronger, its a shame and why so many people flock to older versions of games these days. It's why I'm starting to play AoE ranked now (instead of where I used to just kinda build as a kid playing AoE2).
I think this QoF are fine but they are close to the line, if more are implemented that affects eco drastically (like the auto vill toggle) those would be better for only campaigns and vs machine, but not for online play, and not for ranked at all
Yeah, I think it's good that this discussion comes up. Not because this feature is broken (it's really not) but it warns the devs that they're REALLY close to where people draw the line with automation.
@@mrkirby8622 Good take
@@mrkirby8622 I don't think they are anywhere near the line really. If you think about it this feature is really no different to having rally points. It's easier, faster and more convenient to build the farms this way just as it's easier, faster and more convenient to click a rally point somewhere instead of clicking each created unit individually to command it to move or work. My guess is this will blow over real fast and become the new norm just like the many previous and far more impactful qol changes. You're right that it's not a bad thing to remind the devs not to overdo it I suppose.
had this vid in the background as i played a game. It is a handy feature, grated I'm a LELO guy but it seems like a more efficient shift+build feature.
I agree 110% with everything you said. I would just like some transparency on the developers' plan for the game and its future. If this is part of a larger shift in the game then it's a serious problem. People say it's a small change--well, sure--but a game is a very specific arrangement of small choices made by developers/producers/whoever. AoE2 doesn't have to suddenly become an FPS to lose its 'joie de vivre', and I think the precise eco-micro balance is very important to the game's essence, as you say in the vid.
They're trending to make the game more like StarCraft, and not in a good way. Up next is more fixed start and fixed res maps.
This is a positive change imo. Anything that reduces time needed on menial tasks so that players have more time to spend on higher level strategy or focusing on army action is good.
CORRECT! I think T90 made this video because he HAS to. But this actually a cool and good change to the game. Resisting change is natural, especially as we become older.
I agree. I don't want to spend time on menial tasks like creating vills, walling, pushing deer, luring boars, or even executing build orders. They should automate all of that so I can focus 100% on army action and higher level strategy.
@@arnoldvosloo220 nice strawman
I think army micro is a menial task
@@pax6833 Where's the strawman? Explain.
Viper completely changed my standpoint on this feature. The strategy is what makes this game interesting, not APM.
What did Viper say about it?
As a proud 850er LEL, it's not about how high your APM is - it's how you allocate your APM that's interesting.
Complexity and difficulty add to enjoyment. The feeling of working toward something and achieving said goal is the pinnacle of human satisfaction. Taking away from the expression of skill in a game not only harms the individual player base it also harms the viewership. If there is less skill expression in any game then there is less for fans to be impressed at when watching pro players.
Please listen to the fans and meet the people (who are currently playing this game) at the table. Take the time to listen and grow with the community, not beside it...
T90. the T strands for TRUTH. I'm 100% behind his points of view. All of them.
farm placement should be an option. like small trees.
Even as an OG, I can see that adding automations (QOL) is saving this game. It is growing more rapidly than ever, and with better gameplay. Now players can have even more time to micro their units and focus on fighting, as opposed to screwing around with villagers more cumbersome mechanics. Being good at placing 20 farms is not a skill we should have to work at. It is not a task we should waste our time on. We already have to select the 20 villagers and put them on a mill, why should that be 22 clicks instead of 2?
Just think about how good these kinds of QOL automations are.....The skill ceiling lowers slightly on eco, but instead of any skill being removed from the game, the skill ceiling on army unit controls just got higher.
I look forward to more QOL improvements that will allow for more focus on microing of armies. To me that is the most fun part of the game, but you only get to experience it in short bursts and with divided attention.
You attention should be divided in AOE, dont get me wrong, but there are levels to this
The change is also optional, you don't need to use the feature if you don't want to... It's also not perfect, there's some circunstances where it would be better to not use the feature and place them yourself
But thats just you I enjoy the strategy and thinking part of the game thats why hes saying there are 2 different types of players those that are micro based and those that are macro based. Why do micro players just get to bet better?
@@marcosruim9292 These circumstances are almost fictional in the amount of times they pop up.
@@Tyysst Micro and macro are both important, obviously, but this doesn't change a lot. This helps macro players do more micro, but also helps micro players do more micro. I'm typically more of a (poorly) macro player, and I think that's completely fine.
I've seen that argument made before on this topic, and I find myself disagreeing with it. In RTS games, there is often a division between economic and building management, and unit management. This is similar to the "macro vs micro" argument. A player's attention is divided between these, and so decision making and skill expression tend to be divided as well. Age of Empires 2 has always been heavier on economic management and macro skills than a lot of its contemporaries, such as Starcraft. This kind of automation change, while not a major upheaval or anything, is still a small step away from the fundamental macro-oriented aspect of the game. If you want to play a game where precision and attention to economic management are less prioritized, fair enough, but I think it's a bad change.
100% agree, thanks for making it. What brought me to the game was team games and what kept me was the high skill ceiling. Not having persistent ranked teams or "divisions" and medals or seasons like league of legends has is really disheartening as if im playing the game the wrong way and i should play single player or quick play.
new farm it`s the best feature for the game.
You are just old and don`t want to change anything =)
Reseeding farms was a more core aspect but the more conservative community had to accept it because it proved to give a good game experience.
However, I think that automatic should be a little less efficient than manual (autoscout).
I think the discussion about this feature is kinda cringe.
Like when Star Craft pros discussed not having to select every worker unit anymore in Star Craft 2.
I disagree with the auto farms = bad take.
If placing farms down manually adds strategic depth, then why don't we also add strategic depth by making it so that villagers need to be manually assigned to chop/mine the next woold/gold/stone after the current one runs out?
No one would want that, obviously, because it''s needless busywork which distracts you from actually playing/learning the rest of the game.
Exactly. It allows greater focus on the actual decisions that are going to really matter. How can you even measure a game that was decided by a farm's placement? Other than being in the way or misclicked on or something.
Yep, exactly my thoughts too.
I'm halfway through this video, and it seems a middle ground would be adding a toggle in the options that would at least allow both players and tournament holders to de-activate this if the impact does go awry.
honestly i dont think this change affects the eco game that much. eco is a big bunch of things (vill production and tasking, wood/stone/gold camp emplacement, etc. and most importantly, balance) and the way a player places farms can only affect a very minor % of all that.
the introduction of auto-seeding impacted much much more, and it was well received.
another point is, where does that player attention go? its no longer neccesary to use some focus in a task that is ,frankly, very dull, and it can now be used in a more interesting part of the game. true, it takes away some of the player agency (or identity maybe?) but i believe it can bring so much more of it in other aspects of the game.
I think a feature like would be nice to have as an option - but not in ranked, tournaments, etc.
yeah i think that would be a good solution.
Why shouldnt noobs have this as an option in their own lobbys?
In the end they are thoose who benefit the most of the auto placement.
But for ranked and such auto placements is a big no no imo.
Imagine the casters repeating during tournaments "and remember that these guys dont have X and Y feature so they can't do things as clean as you casuals" 💀
@@DaddyMouse thoose "casuals" would be somewhere between 400 and 900 elo like most unranked players.
These casuals could hardly perceive such details since pro game plays are overwhelming for them.
How are you going to moderate it not being used in ranked and tournaments?
@@adamNZ2024 You...code it that way? Easiest thing in the world
I want a game to be FUN.
You analyzed this entirely on how it impacts competitiveness.
But you never talked about what parts of AoE2 are fun.
Is it fun to place farms? Or build military/fight?
I'm 1000 elo. Building up an eco, seeing it grow as a reflection of my macro skill and choices, and defending that eco are my favourite parts of the game. I like feeling my capacity to produce military growing out of my macro, it makes the battles feel meaningful because I earned every single unit. How can you meaningfully separate placing farms from building army? They're extensions of the same process.
very true. i absolutely love T90 but i definitely feel like this is quite a bad take.
I dont think placing farms has anything to do with skill in this game. Its quite anti beginner and what t90 says is more suited toward the high level
he talked about it from the perspective of fun.
It is because he is so far up in his Ivory tower that he can only see above the clouds.
If you only want the Miltiary part about Aoe2 might I suggest Deathmatch.
Aoe2 Conquest, the macro is an integral part and you have to manage both
Economy and miltiary. That is the beauty of the game
While this update does speed up how quickly you can place farms. I feel is mostly felt when placing 6+ farms at once and being used as a patch to quickly rebalance your eco.
If you're adding 1-2 farms at a time this doesn't feel too impactful.
And being irresponsible spamming farms with how fast you can now will leave you woodless. There's still skill expression on where and when to place them.
But this should be the line drawn. I don't want to see buildings auto cycling through a queue to produce villagers/military like Supreme Commander.
Damn he even adjusts his glasses after he makes a point. Glasses smurf confirmed
We have auto placement in AOE4 and trust me, its better.
Also this video reminds me of a video Day9 did on starcraft brood war back in the day where he was talking about how the terrible pathing and the need to box units like zealots made for a higher skill ceiling. Which is true, but its also a worse gameplay experience.
AoE4 is a completely different game and doesn't have over 2 decades of culture based around people reverse engineering how the game was originally made, and making the best of it
I agree, but at the same time, having both games cater to the same people seems redundant. They're not the kinds of games that are going to hold both players. If each caters differently, a larger amount of players total would be accounted for, and people can lean towards the one they like more. That said, I prefer AoE2 regardless, and do like these kinds of features. But I also don't want to scare away the existing playerbase, many of which have stuck with the game even when it was forgotten. I think there's room for games to cater to different crowds.
I have the same opinion as T90. I love placing farms. Especially if you have the poles with the perfect mill. I think its very satisfying to make +50 farms in lategame for the husar spam. It's a core mechanic and to see that so many publishers make silly decisions nowadays, just to attract new customers is quite hurtful. If you think the game is to hard, play against Ai, in the lobbybrowser or in Quickplay. Whats wrong with that?? Nobody forces you to be good or be the fastest farmplacer. If you don't enjoy managing the eco the game isn't right for you.
Yea… except placing “poor” farms matters extremely little for effeciency. And this feature atm also isnt perfect.
I completely agree with you, and this isn't only a trend with only AoE2... a bunch of new RTS games are moving in this direction and abandoning people who have a love for macro and economic advantage. I guarantee you, if the community doesn't reject this then autoqueue for villagers is next for AoE2.
RTS should have a constitution or unspoken rule that the game shouldn't spend resources without user input.
I agree with the concerns you have over the automation of the game. I have had 10 or sp games with the farm gimmick and found i still prefer to place the farms where i want them until late castle age when i start relocting woodlines that are getting too low or moving groups of stone miners that have finished their piles. I used it then and liked it. Only saved 10-20 seconds of my focus and i think my placed farms are pretty efficient anyway so no huge farm boost.
The scout change bothers me more than the farm change this patch as it changes the value of that initial scout - now im LEL at 950ish elo. But the joy I get from deciding to hit and run or go for a vill snipe or try to deny a range going up while my archers come forward feels dulled now i know that this scout is replaceable. It felt like a more important decision whether to engage with the scout that can reveal the map once its hp runs low.
I know that this is a silly thing to be hung up on, but its just something i dont like.
I think the devs should listen to the pros on this on principal. That being said, I don't know if I would agree this changes the dynamic as much as the reseed mechanic for example. I agree that the apm division between eco and military is part of what makes aoe unique though. Look at starcraft players for example, they don't even look at their base 90% of the time it seems. Relative to other rts I still think aoe will feel heavily slanted toward eco management just from having to balance FOUR resources, TONS of technologies, multiple resource sources/rates etc. From that perspective this change seems frankly miniscule, though I do respect that the line has to be drawn SOMEWHERE (arguably with the farm reseeding, as that has a much greater impact imo)
TBC I like farm reseeding and would probably enjoy this change as well but from a perspective of maintaining the purity of AOE as a unique experience, these types of changes should be avoided.
Some other features that should probably fall under this category (removes an element of decision making/judgement and/or apm sink:
Shift Queuing
Grid overlay
Small Trees
Range Indicators
Number of vills on each resource indicator
Max unit selection (can't remember if this used to be smaller on release, but VERY BIG change if so)
100% agree. i argued with some people in viper's patch note video about this and used some of the same arguments.
ebb and flow, player control, precedent and inconsistent argumentation for the people in favor of it, all for a measly "well it's hard for players to place farms". And now they're gonna get even MORE crushed by micro-intensive players who now suddenly don't need to look at their eco at all. Brilliant analysis all around T90, 100% agree and I'm yet to hear a convincing argument in favor of this in any elo range except console players.
And yet you'll be hard pressed to find good arguments against accessibility, either.
@@snivelill4457 You didn't watch the video you're commenting under !?
Why not auto queue villagers? Auto boar lure? Auto deer lure? auto house building? THose are accessiblity featuers too`?
@@collaide I didn't tell you that the game should be played for you, either.
@@snivelill4457 So you do confirm, you didn't actually watch the video you're commenting under?
Accessibility is good for casual games, non-competitive games etc. But when you destroy a games competitive nature in the name of accessibility it is BAD. There's a reason why counter strike and valorant don't have built-in aimbots that allow every player to hit every shot. The same reason for why I'm opposed to that is also why I'm opposed to auto-farm-placement and other future "accessibility features" like auto-villager-queue and auto-house building etc etc.
@@collaide Well, I'm certain you misunderstood me now, because I don't even consider these future features accessibility features to begin with, really. It more so reminds me of an "auto level" in certain kinds of games. I just figure that automatic farm placement is the least pressing of our worries, and that's what I focused my attention on.
Also, it behaves more like a semi-automatic farm placement anyway.
To be perfectly clear, no, I do not actually think villagers should be pumped out by themselves just because I'd rather a smoothened experience. It takes away the agency of a player's intention and turns it into something mindless. Apologies for the confusion.
I think this is still fine, but I'm afraid they will add auto villagers at some point and that is a bit scary.
Can I ask why auto villagers is scary? As a game dev (not related to AoE2), who has thought about doing things like that to minimize busywork in an RTS, so people can focus on strategy and making bigger, more interesting decisions.
Exactly.
Auto creating vills is actually a civ bonus for Turks in AoE3 lol
I agree it will just be one more thing that removes the uniqueness of a player. Even Viper can make T90 farms at endgame when he's managing tasks. With this feature it will just be one more thing you won't see anymore.
"This game survived because it's hard" - what a bold generalisation, depth and strategic complexity ≠ inconvenience and outdated gameplay mechanics.
About the final rank argument , apart from the competitive scene, i thinknthe game is more about taking fun whatever your rank is. Si i don't mond dropping elo if i don't want to use the feature, it just allows me do so if i find it more comfortable :)
Thank you very much for your video !
I think this comes down to how you define RTS. I like controlling everything, but at the same time, the more micro-intensive stuff you have in a game, the less overall strategy you can execute.
For example, dodging balistics is essential the higher you go, but it begs the question of whether this contributes the RTS aspect. I have been playing abunch of broodwar lately, and I question sometimes whether broodwar is a strategy game, considering how much time I spend trying to make my army move straight.
what made me 'fall in love' with aoe: world generation + no other games
the 'boom': 1999-2002
this change: very nice, saves from carpel tunnel
T90 you are absolutely correct! I am also a StarCraft fan and this 25 year old game has such a great comeback at the moment BECAUSE it has so many things the player has to control.
100% agree. Lots of people h8 the feature and no one asked for this. REVERT THE CHANGE
I dont play PVP but all the historical battles and campaignes etc and I love it. been at the game for about 18 Years now and as you said the D-Edition was great and Updates too. However even I was shocked when I was replaying Genghis Khan Into China and suddenly the farms placed automatically. This is actively draining the joy out of the complexity of the game for me. Hope the devs hear our voices
Glad to hear.