Empires is getting boring

Yesterday I had some time to play empires 2.23.

Most of the players were playing on the Nachos server with double ressources.
So it was normal empires gameplay at the early game but as both team had heavies it was only stupid and boring tank fight.
The tanks were more difficult to destroy because of the increased armor of 2.23 and with the combination of double ressources the players build new tanks instantly.

On the normal Nachos server there were only about 6 active players and most of them noobs. This was more fun but 3 vs 3 is to few for empires.

Could it be, that there are less players since 2.23? Or yesterday was just a bad day?

And a wish to the server admin:
Don't increase the ressources. Empires should be FPS and RTS. But with allways enough ressources it is just a dumb FPS with tanks.


P.S.: Hope that Main Public Server and some more players will be back soon.

 

Nachos' and Monet' is an abomination. KILL. IT. WITH. FIRE.

 

Play on emp4all.
or hey! Play another game, then emp after.

 

At endless tank wars, it doesn't matter who wins. Actually someone should win to have an end. At some point I joined as spectator. It is more funny to watch from above.

If there will be arround 30 players at evening, then it will be enough to keep empires alive.

And I hope, that infantry and strategy is pushed with the next release. It is more difficult (especially for new players) to win in a tank battle. And it takes very long, until you gain a feeling of success. As infantry you maybe get killed more often but you also can get some kills by your own more easy. And so you fell more important to your team.

 

I kind of agree SIP, it's like a lot of the tension has gone out of the game. Now it's really predictable past a certain point.
Things that used to make me tense (= fun) in empires

superlights: I know I know, they were and still are pretty godly, but I mean when you had a superlight (either cause you have nothing better, or you need to stall a rush) and they had heavies or mediums or DU apcs. You had to keep your ass moving to avoid taking too much fire, which turned into a crazy spastic LT actually choosing it's moments to engage, rather than this feeling of being pretty damn tough they way it is now. You had to drive sensibly and not allow yourself to be shot at by too many targets at once. Now you can be a lot more lax about when and where you engage, because you are way more resilient. A superlight or two could also keep BE's higher tech away from important stuff because you were actually a threat, buying time for your own research to catch up. Now that all armors are buffed so much it's easy to ignore a couple superlights on your way to a better target.

being comm: Ive commed a few times in 2.23, and it's been a lot easier than in 2.2, because I don't have to worry about ninjas or 1 or 2 tanks rushing me. This takes all the tension out of commanding, for me. The other day on slaughtered a superlight got in my base (I was BE comm) I just drove around, pretty much just getting in his way, for 5 minutes until an afv came and fought him, and died, and then another afv came and killed him. I had no worries at all from this LT.

back and forth stalemates: I haven't seen a stalemate yet where teams exchange the upper hand more than once. It's more like a steady push now, with the winning team making unimpeded progress until they win.

surprising an enemy tank: you used to be rewarded for taking a sneaky route in a tank and winding up behind an enemy tank, unloading into their back armor used to be a wicked surprise kill. now all that means is that you get a few extra shots off before they return fire.

fighting a tank w a researched armor as gren: doing the gren dance w a tank. with armor detection or whatever, is just not really possible anymore, which I think is lame.

tank fights in general: the armors make it a boring slugfest. it used to reward maneuvering, now it's just pure weight of fire.

buildings: buildings are often killed before the attack can be responded to. meaning too much ground is lost too easily. This is related to the point about back and forth stalemates above. It's just way too easy to sit in a heavy w dual HE or dual UML and snipe anything until it dies, from a safe range. This is boring. I killed the entire BE base on Mvalley yesterday in a heavy w UML and an ammo box, from the far side of the bridge. Too easy, imo.

ok, so, notice I didn't say anything about infantry combat, which has been great in 2.23. most of the things which have become less exciting has to do with tanks being too powerful/tough. I think if gren's RPG damage was buffed, and buildings were more resistant to tank damage, and if the tank armor was nerfed to somewhere between 2.22 and 2.23 levels, this stuff would get some of it's tension back.

I think the fragility of any winning teams grip on the map, like in 2.22 was the heart of the tension and fun of this game. an organized rush on an area could get a losing team a new foothold in a map, even with a group of medium tier tanks and infantry. now once you're fucked, you are well and truly fucked.

 

The 3 suggestions you mentioned at the end will be done with 2.24 (the armor buff wasn't tested afterall).

To add to that, the tension will be returned with proper anti tank and anti structure vehicle weaponry. While the armor is buffed, you will see weapons that will kill tanks more easily, as well as that the comm will be weak vs certain weaponry. To add to that, Armor will receive some better balancing for 2.24, and expect some small changes to research as well that will bring back some of the diversity in research options. Another thing is that structures will have a slightly higher resistance vs vehicle missiles than against vehicle cannons, due to their sniping capabilities. I've suggested that vehicle missiles and machine guns should receive a range limit (not to be mistaken with damage fall off or homing/guided range), where if they hit their range limit, they will either explode or dissapear; It's a pretty common suggestion, I know.

 

Dizzyone is working on a model, don't worry

 

diehards like us will stick around for the next release, but don't expect that of the general player base. we may know that this is just some midway step towards a greater game, we hope, but many don't and many will just quit.

 

Note: Nachos has no bias on the resources. Nachos and Monet' was set up when we heard emp4all was supposed to be trying it. Nachos and Juicebox is still up running double resources. It just seems that more people like double resources. If thats not the case, they should be on the other server.

 

It's not like that we have much choice on which server to play.

 

Some online server stats:
http://www.game-monitor.com/GameSearch/empires2/Teamplay.html
There are more people playing on Nachos and Juicebox again and no one on the Monet server.

It's now 190 in europe and about 130 in USA. So there is still some time to get more players on Napalm and VIPER server.

 

i just join the server that has the most players while not being more then 95% full

 

Wait, missiles became sniping weapons? =[ Curse you homing missiles!

I was always a fan of cannons to kill tanks, missiles for buildings. Missiles had worse accuracy (well, the basic and salvos) and slower but buildings were static.

Oh well.... just fix the balance plz.

 

absolutely, and thanks for the info dizzyone, good news!

 

Empire's playerbase comes in waves usually after every major release. At least that's been my impression since the release of 2.0 (when I started playing). We are kinda in a slump being that the latest patches have been small balances and tweaks rather than the feature-rich releases that draw in new (and old) players.

Also, more people play Thursday - Sunday than Monday - Wednesday.

 

I've made it rule for myself not to go to Monet if there's people on Juicebox.

 

2.2 kind of killed my interest in Empires. After that [insert word of choice here], I didn't really want to get back into it (yes, I already thought of that smart comment).

 

At least we have horns, lol!