Can people just realize MS don't care?

ALSO, FE is working on patches, and most likely a new expansion for Age of Empires 2 HD, so why the hell would they emigrate back to AoM:EE?

As much as I liked AoM, Microsoft obviously has shown no compassion or care for AoMEE, this is why they made a mediocre expansion with terrible balance for the Chinese, and a crap performing, weak multiplayer aspect that has connection problems, and who knows what else.

FE has shown them selves to be incompentent, and Skybox have shown they cannot handle an 3D game like Age of Mythology, they should just stick to AoE2HD.

Also, MS got their quick $27,000,000 (900,000 sales for a $30 average)

Also AoKHD is a more refined product, has two dlcs for a total $20 and when combined with the $20 cost of AoKHD, the same price as AoMEE but AoKHD has much more content, balance, nostalgia, and support so, obviously AoKHD is the way to go, also to mention AoKHD has 3.8 Million owners, with an average $76 million, so obviously AoK is a better money generator.

Signed

Quoted from XLightningStormL:

Can people just realize MS don't care?

ALSO, FE is working on patches, and most likely a new expansion for Age of Empires 2 HD, so why the hell would they emigrate back to AoM:EE?

As much as I liked AoM, Microsoft obviously has shown no compassion or care for AoMEE, this is why they made a mediocre expansion with terrible balance for the Chinese, and a crap performing, weak multiplayer aspect that has connection problems, and who knows what else.

FE has shown them selves to be incompentent, and Skybox have shown they cannot handle an 3D game like Age of Mythology, they should just stick to AoE2HD.

Also, MS got their quick $27,000,000 (900,000 sales for a $30 average)

Also AoKHD is a more refined product, has two dlcs for a total $20 and when combined with the $20 cost of AoKHD, the same price as AoMEE but AoKHD has much more content, balance, nostalgia, and support so, obviously AoKHD is the way to go, also to mention AoKHD has 3.8 Million owners, with an average $76 million, so obviously AoK is a better money generator.

Sorry, XLightningStormL, I'm not too sure I support this discouraging attitude towards the project. Basically, you're telling a huge crowd of devoted fans of Age of Mythology to not be devoted fans in the latest creation. We want something to be done about it. Just because the creator is more emphasized on the companion project than this one doesn't mean "all is lost". (tsk) There are options. We can continue to encourage him/her. We can have someone else pick up the project. See? There you go.

There are too many good things about AOM:EE too just throw it away. Anything's possible; just shoot for the stars.


Signed.

[This message has been edited by Ventrose (edited 12-14-2016 @ 10:21 PM).]

Monks are my biggest problem with the china. They aren't my only problem, but they are just way, way too powerful. They would be fine costing 250 gold and 4 population in their current status.

I ran this test in editor:
Blue team: 15 hoplites
Red team: 5 halberdiers and 5 monks

15 hoplites vs 5 halberdiers and 5 monks (no upgrades)

15 hoplites are 30 population of army, and 1350 resource of army. (750 food and 600 gold)

5 halberdiers and 5 monks are 20 population and 850 resource of army. (200 food and 650 gold)

What happens when these two forces fight?

Result: BLUE TEAM: All units dead
RED TEAM: 5 Hoplites and 5 Monks

How on earth is this balanced? A smaller, cheaper army able to win so convincingly against a larger more expensive one without utilising any form of counter units.

nice testing, and my reason not to play with china players on EE, no matter if it's 1v1, teamgame; they're on my team, they're opposite team.. just won't play with china as long as this broken balance persists

While I'm very thrilled and supportive of EE, I too had some constructive feedback on my own. My critique was focused on the opposite: the other Heroes, the Immortals, seem just a little too weak; I haven't really play-tested them, but do seem generally to lack the valiance and vigors of the heroes in the other cultures; since they were fairly easy for Myth unites to defeat.

Anyways, I originally posted this in the News Forum thread announcing the initial release of AOM:EE Tale of the Dragon. On the other hand, it seems either no one really saw it because the thread was old, or no one took it as seriously because I posted it in an old thread. And so, it has been moved here, where people might be able to see it better.




"I've been out of the loop for so long. How is everyone doing?

As of late November, I finally purchased and downloaded Tale of the Dragon, which is a really nice expansion. I'm totally enjoying it. And, I appreciate all of the new options for game play. (Finally, we have a civilization that, as a rule of that civ., can convert pieces! Something's been missing since Age of Empires right there! haha)

However, I did encounter a few difficulties. And, I thought that I'd bring that to your attention:

1 - Shennong's monks having the option to convert myth units is great, but they either take too long to convert them, or they are unable to actually finish converting them at all; I don't know specifically which it is, but it is a problem. (I think of all the games I've played, one myth unit was succuessfully converted...after a few minutes of game play, using 8+ monks.) Hardly have I been able to use this feature to my advantage.

2 - The Mount Vesuvius map does not have a proper-working AI: while enemies and allies do in fact move on the map, they are restrained to their small islands, without ship-building and sailing into the large central Island for battle. It seems like the very same Vesuvius map from Download Central that hasn't been upgraded.

3 - Some of the maps from the original (and Titan exp.) do not in fact produce a Gigantic map, even when that option is chosen; it simply reverts to a large map.

4 - In the campaign, one or two of the heroes, though I've forgotten which one at the moment, carry relics in a very weird manner: it drags on the floor in front of or exactly intersecting at the feet; I think the Zhi even drags it sideways, which is really strange. If I remembered correctly, I think the immortals have exactly that same problem.

On a minor note (as in, not a big deal!):
5 - I sometimes get confused as to whether or not the Vermillion Eagle is actually attacking; only when I see its whirlwind infernum on the ground do I know that it is. Personal suggestion: include the Phoenix's fire breath before making the infernum appear. Or, make the head-ducking and beak-opening animation more severe to indicate attack.

6 -The immortals are too weak for heroes, as they die too easily from the attack of 1-3 Heroic or Mythic myth units. We can only have 8 of them total, and 2 to 2.5 of them equals 1 Hersir, and Hersirs are the weaker heroes since the original series. Adding armor or giving them 100-200 more hitpoints would be nice."

Ventrose you have to be trolling right, asking for china buffs?

6 -The immortals are too weak for heroes, as they die too easily from the attack of 1-3 Heroic or Mythic myth units. We can only have 8 of them total, and 2 to 2.5 of them equals 1 Hersir, and Hersirs are the weaker heroes since the original series. Adding armor or giving them 100-200 more hitpoints would be nice."

um no
Immortals are much stronger than Hersir and do not need a buff


And Shennong's myth unit convert rate should be slow. It is so gamechanging to steal a myth unit it shouldnt be done easily.

Monks are broken enough as is
being able to easily convert a whole army with just a couple of monks is ****ing broken.

Converting is present in vanilla with Sets ability regarding animals. That combines the fun of converting with not haveing your units stolen by such a guy, that was good enough already.. also there was traitor for Atty. Who wants to play convert-wars on a regular basis?.. X_X

[This message has been edited by Lilitu (edited 12-18-2016 @ 03:05 PM).]

Quoted from Sword of Scarlet:

Ventrose you have to be trolling right, asking for china buffs?

Very nice to meet you, too.
But, no, I don't think for a second I am trolling; I'm sorry my expressed experienced has caused you an 'Immortal frenzy'. I really am.

Immortals are much stronger than Hersir and do not need a buff

He says roses. And, she says Violets....

And Shennong's myth unit convert rate should be slow.

I agree...
Not to the point, however, where no actual successful conversion after more than 26 games of playing Shennong has rendered the feature ineffective and unuseful.

It is so gamechanging to steal a myth unit it shouldnt be done easily.

Yes, in the exact same way I would say that, in an average game playing Loki, I've enjoyed my 'evil' Hersirs hand-generating anywhere from 6-20 myth units....

Even if I have to work for those myth units by hitting helpless deers, walruses and aurochs, those extra myth units, many of which do not come with the minor God I worshipped, rendering Loki useful makes me want to play him over and over again. See? There one should have his/her faith in a reliable Major God.

Monks are broken enough as is
being able to easily convert a whole army with just a couple of monks is ****ing broken.

Absolutely. So, instead of bickering back and forth, may be it's simply time to realize that many people, like you and me alike, agree this is kindly an area for improvement.



Edit - I accidentally forgot the other half of me response.

Quoted from Lilitu:

Converting is present in vanilla with Sets ability regarding animals. That combines the fun of converting with not haveing your units stolen by such a guy, that was good enough already.. also there was traitor for Atty. Who wants to play convert-wars on a regular basis?.. X_X

Yes and no.
Yes: Conversion is nothing new, so I can understand that it may not come across as awe-inspiring as advertised.
No: There's a difference between converting free-for-all animals (which can take a long time, even for Set worhshippers) and converting human soldiers that previously belonged to your opponent: the animals are much weaker in combat, even as myth units, and then the other players are not punished as they would with the lost of hard-earned trained soldliers.

Also, the Traitor God power only allows you to steal units 2 times; what's the big fun in that, when compared to your army of religious hoodjyah's who could do it 2-6 times each time enemies lay foot in your town?

[This message has been edited by Ventrose (edited 12-20-2016 @ 03:13 AM).]

Ventrose

The main reason I stated you were trolling was you stated giving immortals a couple hundred of HP because they are too weak...? That is completely absurd.

You also stated that Immortals are weaker than Hersir, which is just flat out wrong

[This message has been edited by hi itz sauce (edited 12-20-2016 @ 01:19 AM).]

And, that is exactly where you, my friend, went wrong: slight (but insignificantly) inaccurate facts does not equate to trolling.

Your behaviour is amoung the best ways to make enemies here and abound. Not a good way to express yourself to a new forumer for the first time, chap.

Now, more pertinent to the topic at hand:
Since neither of us actually showed any supporting evidence for our claim, I took the initiative to playtest for 5-10 minutes. It turns out that, in fact, the Hersir was slightly weaker than the Immortal when pitted against each other, as well as each pitted against the same sample myth units. (Both single heroes were defeated against the Hydra, but with the Hersir, it sustained slightly more of its hitpoints) However, what was consistent throughout my testing was, no significant difference.

Looks like my original supposition seems off. Maybe the problem that I originally had wasn't that the Immortals were too weak. I'm now guessing that it lies more in the fact that, for something limited (to 8), it really wasn't all that powerful; its limited availability and expense for something only slightly more powerful than the Hersir made it a bit of a disfavor for me. See, Hersirs are relatively weak for Heros, but their abundance causing attack in pack makes them more decently effective than their Immortal counterparts. So, there we go.

Of course, I don't recall ever making this particular point as big of an issue as you endowed it. My bigger concern was converting myth units, which you seemed to have dropped responding to.

edit: Actually, I take that back. The only thing I tested was whether the Immortal or the Hersir was the ever weaker piece, not how powerful the Immortal was in general. The point of fact is, referring back to the memory of my 26 games playing Shennong, I relied moderately minimal on the Immortals, since they were so mortally dispensible. And, like I said over and again, I can't have more than 8 of them; not to mention that I can't have al 8 of them until later in the game. So, unfortunately, hi its sauce, my original point on Immortals being too weak still stands; even if my original proposed solution of adding hitpoints wasn't a good solution after all.

Is there any reason why you are posting under two screen names?

[This message has been edited by Ventrose (edited 12-20-2016 @ 03:22 AM).]

Ventrose

I thought you were trolling when you suggested "couple hundred of HP" for the immortals, effectively multiplying their health by several times, as well as the fact that you seem to be asking for China buffs in general. It's just such a ridiculous statement, I thought you had to be trolling to come up with such an idea.
Your inaccuracies in stating that 2-3 immortals was equal to one Hersir is not a "slight, insignficant" inaccuracy. It is so far out from reality that I just thought it had to equate to trolling.

It is very clear to almost any player that has played AoM a reasonable amount since the Tale of the Dragon expansion was released that China is on another level of overpowered, more so than any other civilization in the game. Heck, you don't even need to play the game to know China is overpowered. A quick skim through Proto files for Chinese units tells you everything you need to know already : Skybox intentionally created a civilization far above and beyond the power level of all other civilizations to encourage players to buy it.

If there were a tier list and China were in Tier 1, tier 2 and tier 3 and possibly tier 4 would be empty before we finally see Gods like Isis in Tier 5. (Although Shennong is a weaker than the other two chinese Gods, he is still very overpowered by virtue of being Chinese.)

The absolute number one priority when it comes to changes for AoM:EE's China changes is just a blanket nerf to just about every single unit they have, as well as some of their God Powers (Call to arms). China has gotten to the point where it has become socially unacceptable to play China in anything other than new player games, and giving them a buff in any way or form should not happen until they are given some absolutely huge nerfs coming forward to put them in line with the other civilization.
-------------------------------------------------------
The reason I was posting under two accounts is complicated and probably too boring to attempt to explain.
-------------------------------------------------------
If you are not trolling and I have offended you in suggesting you were, then I apologise for doing so, although I do not think it was unreasonable in any way to believe you were and I have explained why. I have no intention of continuing this discussion.

[This message has been edited by hi itz sauce (edited 12-20-2016 @ 03:31 AM).]

You already made your point about why you thought I was "trolling": it's due to the fact that I proposed adding 100 hitpoints. We got it the first time. As I've been taught by a wise professor, repeating oneself doesn't make his/her point any more substantial.

Since you went off into your own tangent about Chinese in general being too over-powering:
I personally don't think so: I found Immortals and Chinese myth units very easily defeatable; it actually forced me to have to be more clever in the way I used them, only about 60% of the time which I was successful.

But, I will say this: I kind of sort of felt the same way you do for the Chinese exp. when Atleanteans TT was first release. While villagers were hard to come by, the Atlanteans, when I played them, in fact beat the f*** out of almost any opponent on the map! One could say it was the new features that were so cool at the time which were the good promises from advertisement made into action. Perhaps the same could be said for the Chinese expansion in your experience.

By the way, I edited my previous post. I'm sure you didn't get to it before you posted a response, but just thought I'd let you know.

I do not think it was unreasonable in any way to believe you were [trolling] and I have explained why.

And, I have counter-explained why your explanation was off and simply wrong.
If your behaviour is irritating and you have been asked more than once to please stop, please just stop. Easy.

If you are not trolling and I have offended you in suggesting you were, then I apologise for doing so...

Due to your previous statement in quote, apology not quite accepted; since I don't think you were being all that sincere.
You're right you were a bit annoying.

[This message has been edited by Ventrose (edited 12-20-2016 @ 03:51 AM).]

Ventrose
Yes my apology was more of a formality than anything. You are obviously not a troll, just a new player.

[This message has been edited by hi itz sauce (edited 12-20-2016 @ 04:12 AM).]

Quoted from hi itz sauce:

You are ...just a new player.

Not even close.

[This message has been edited by Ventrose (edited 12-21-2016 @ 12:45 PM).]

Quoted from Sword of Scarlet:

No: There's a difference between converting free-for-all animals (which can take a long time, even for Set worhshippers) and converting human soldiers that previously belonged to your opponent: the animals are much weaker in combat, even as myth units, and then the other players are not punished as they would with the lost of hard-earned trained soldliers.

Also, the Traitor God power only allows you to steal units 2 times; what's the big fun in that, when compared to your army of religious hoodjyah's who could do it 2-6 times each time enemies lay foot in your town?

- Balance. If it takes for Set so much effort to convert weak animals and he is among experts the strongest god overall, stronger than Isis A+E, because this early harassment is crucial,.. you want your chinese god to have a better version of it not only gaining units but also killing them for your enemies?
- Traitor is a 3rd age god power available twice. You want still a stronger version..
- Another Conversion is the Lampade, but the unit turns rogue. You want still a stronger version..
- Another Conversion is Mummies, but you dont get a Colossus from this, you get a Minion with Lifespan. You want still a stronger version..

You are a defensive player, right? Yes it might be fun for you just like using cheats is something for fun games if at all. But if I besiege your town with my hard earned Norse army for which I had to organize eco for 5 minutes perfectly to get it up and ready at a good timing, have to worry about loosing this attack to tc and towers and defensive army and then loose to something like that I uninstall the game and never come back. Stealing units on a regular basis is not a fair or fun mechanic, it breaks the game. Why should I bother to manage eco, research, build my civ if you just steal the the crucial units away from me?

If you like to defend, cant handle loosing and are bad at defending your city cheat yourself a thousand traitors and play like that. Same thing. Fun for you and not anyone else.

[This message has been edited by Lilitu (edited 12-20-2016 @ 11:50 AM).]

Lilitu
I think you made a mistake in your quote
I never said any of that

The quote is from Ventrose, not you, who answered to another quote from me earlier. Here: http://aom.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/display.cgi?action=st&fn=1&tn=29836&st=8#post9

Also sorry that I rant about chinese, but I feel that conversion is a bad game design decision. The AoM-Team kinda had to reuse it because it was really iconic in AoE (Wololo), so they did it with Set Animals which is cool, cause you dont steal your opponents units. Also the other conversion mechanics, mostly atlantean, are still very limited available and also pretty strong variatons of one-hit-kills-Myths (Medusa/Lampade/Mummy/Argus), like the mummy is a counter to Colossus for Egypt.

The chinese game design doesn't care about that game design decision and just implements good old 'Wololo' again. Thats just aweful.

Sorry Lititu, have to correct you there:

This is what one of the Game Designers (Lead to be exact) Greg "DeathShrimp" Street stated on Conversion, from this thread:

http://aom.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/display.cgi?action=ct&f=1,4083,,all

The_Avenger772 is pretty close. Some players loved Monks in AOK and some hated them. Since we were positing the Priest as the way Egyptians dealt with MUs, we just could not afford to have a significant number of players not want to play a third of our civs.

No matter how long it takes to convert a Mountain Giant, it still sucks when it happens. Not only do you lose an expensive unit, but now it is coming to get you! Our testers just wouldn't play MUs when fighting Egypt.

Conversion has a lot of problems that we never really solved in AOE and AOK. It was often hard to find the Priest who was converting you in order to kill him in time. It gave a huge benefit to players who could micromanage individual Priests. Because of the micromanagement, it was very sensitive to pop cap. In a game where armies have 20 units, you could control your Priests. In a game where 50 Paladins came calling, the Priests were useless. Then there were the techtree issues--if you convert an Ulfsark, can he build? Does he get your upgrades? What if you convert an archer, but don't have any upgrades that can affect him? What if you convert an Academy? Can you then train Hoplites out of it? Soon you could have the units of all 3 cultures all for the cost of a few Priests.

Don't get be wrong--we could have solved all of these problems, given enough time. However, there are more exciting features we would rather have spent our time on, like God Powers and supporting 50 units on a screen in a 3D engine. You can't take a game as huge as AOK and bolt all of AOM's features on top of it. You end up with a titantic mess. Something has to give, and conversion seemed like an easy candidate.

...but we didn't delete the code, because we needed it for something else.

End quote

So, No, Conversion was originally intended for Egyptian Priests, but because only the Egyptians got Priests, there were problems in the balance, and techtrees, and so it got cut, and replaced with animal conversion for set.

People assume all the time that 80% of Age of Mythology's content was there from the beginning, it wasn't, it was added in, changed, etc, overtime as development went on, so in the end a majority of the current game is different from the original design document.

Still, Chinese conversion is a mostly unbalanced, rubbish feature, but as you stated it was added for "wololos", and what DeathShrimp stated is the kind of crap that shows how crap Cysion can be in his designing ability.

Expanded Mod also was going to have the infamed Wololos as a generic sideline unit trained from the Shrine, but was cut, due to the above issues, and finally due to how long conversion takes.

[This message has been edited by XLightningStormL (edited 12-20-2016 @ 07:16 PM).]

Thx Thats an interesting read!

Though as stated it shows conversion is a difficult feature to do right/fun. I feel that the problems not solved in AOE/AOK arent adressed still (or not that I know of) and am one of the people hateing it X_X though I dont see the contradiction kinda since I was talking about balance a lot.

Fix graphical deterioration. The quality of models and textures at the standard zoom is below what it was in the original game 14 years ago.

I think this was does on purpose to lessen lag, and honestly I think it's fine the way it is.

Support the modding community and fix their long list of issues.

Biggest thing here is not being able to use online anim mods. While it's true that broken anim files can cause out of sync, it is very rare that it would be done by anyone, and was never the main reason for oos.

Improve the quality of the Tale of the Dragon DLC’s art(units, anims, buildings) through Forgotten Empires. They clearly have been forced to push out a rushed product, not up to the standards of what we expect from an Age game.

This is just being nitpicky. Everything is great.

Other than the first and third thing mentioned, good stuff