Project Celeste Review (The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly)

Saving Spot for statement regarding PvP and why it will never work with the current paradigm of the current devs. (I'll respond next week, it's a busy week for me)

 

I think for pvp better hotkey management is needed, so even total noobs can manage some basic apm. This is one of the key aspects of starcraft2.

 

GE

 

I personally like the idea of more legendary gear. It would be great if legendary gear was always the best in the game. i hated having to farm old quests just to get super rare items. Of course, in the old game, we were able to have multiple accounts. we can't have that here. It would be boring for a person to always have to configure skirmish to get certain level rewards or to have to use moes which is usually a waste of money.

 

I read somewhere that you can have up to 5 accounts max on this. I can't seem why someone would want to have more than that but I do have a list of people who do have that many.

 

PvP rewards needs to be muliplied with factor 50. Also legendary shop with PvE legendaries should be added for Spartan Points. I am serious with this.

 

when I joined this game back in early Jan. there were 300+ players online every weekend sometimes beginning thurs. night.Now we are doing good if we have 150.there were always around 200 on weekdays.I've watched these numbers spiral downwards up to now.Where are all the people that were so ecstatic over this game coming back?there seems to be a very small crowd of loyal members.I will stick with this game until it dies again.Everyone,I'm sure, has their own opinion where the problem is.I see this game as legitimate recreational fun,when the majority of video games seem to come from the depths of h... .this game is so varied in its content and always has something to offer.I appreciate all that those that work on this game and its further development,have done so far.I pray for them each day in this work.None of us is perfect and most of us far from perfection.At least those people working on this game are willing to sacrifice a portion of their lives to at least try to make this game attractive to more players.Do they fail at times?Does that surprise anybody?God bless them in all their efforts.
I ask everyone to be more patient in this work and its development and keep playing.The problems with pvp are varied and many,but I don't want to prolong this reply.I leave it to the developers.In pve there are less problems.but I will say the main problem in pvp is the fact that the worst of what is in people comes out to a much higher degree in pvp,anywhere from a lack of charity,patience and kindness to downright nastiness to say the least.I must stress that this is not always the case,but I have seen it a much higher degree in pvp.We need to begin with oursevles and our own failures.

 

I think Co OP needs a happy hour .. a

 

Hello everyone,

50-100 players most if the time online.
For a few hours per day players total goes to around 110-120.
Weekends around 150 players or less.
PVP - let me say simple; "dead"
When i say "dead", that might be sounds not right for someone, but thats what it is, a few only, same people on pvp, nothing else. When i am agressive with my opinion here, thats intent.

For PvP, u can convert some of the players from pve. Somehow need to make pvp more attractive for pvers.

Maybe we can/should manage to advertise for aoeo, like, when i remember right, zutazuta / interjection from ESOC did before.

And one point i want to add. Even if everything is right, what everyone says, at the and of the day; its a game.

I am grateful to everyone, who is spending time for aoe.

Greetz / hf & gl all

 

I strongly agree with this quote and disagree with the OP's reasoning around the "divine" items being a bad idea. To me it's silly both that there are so many Epic and Legendary items that is pure crap, as well as a rare items would be "the best you can find" on a certain area.
I think instead the idea they went with about adding the divine items should be taken a step further and some items should either loose their epic/leg-status and be demoted to rare, or that they would get a boost so they would fit in a epic/leg cathegory.

Besides that to use Moe's is a "nonono no NO NO Never, don't do it, look away" issue to many since it mostly gives crap (and from what I heard has been nerfed more under Celeste?), and is to compare with the temptation to eat dogcrap in order to hope and find some undigested candy in it. I spent 500k the other day and didn't even get one legendary item or even on item I would concider good, nor that the market in it's pricesettings is concidering valuable. To have Moe's as a hope to function as a coin-sink is not a good hope, very few use it, and many warn about it.

A good coins sink would be to make the stores have USEFULL stuff, like the epic stores and such (with the need of an addition of legendary stores) that people accually want to buy. Also make the best items (like the Delian hood, that's by FAR best of the best in it's area) to be Legendary status instead of rare. As it is now I haven't bought it and will likelly never do it just because I prefere the shiny things that's close to as good (2,7% extra walk speed doesn't show much in practice) over a rather ugly rare item. So, make some of the best items buyable from shops, and shiny, and not to silly expensive, and you will have a coin-sink that works.

Another point to not have the best items low-level is that the inflow of new players issadly VERY low (which we see in market on prices of scout items in example, and how hard many items are to sell) and when many of us has all civs on lev 40 the best items in old system was impossible for us except from new players. Also the new players would need one LOS sword on five civs and one LOS javelin on one, and as soon as you are four levels over where you can find it you will never find it again on that civ, and when all civs is passed that you are screwed on you own. So the chance of new players stay on that level and farming is the only hope - which many don't, and also is a very boring way to play the game.
Hence if we would go back to old system it would force people to make dual accounts, one regular and one for farming, where they can farm the items needed themself - or else they could pretty much forget to ever get them. As it is now they can always buy the leg versions from other players, and when they got all they can by time upgrade them to better boosted versions also same way - and if wanting to after that the impossible quest to get all items maxed, which can never be done during a liftetime, even with help of all players in the game.

In short, make the best items shiny and make more real good items buyable at high prices - if it's one area that's not looked over much it's the stores in this game, most are so unintresting that you only go to them to sell of crap and you look nothing to what they sell (and if you do you'd get disappointed).

 

I have a similar suggestion to this but for the PVE Crete maps, but those points you win there is rather boring to buy crappy chest with, so I suggested this, a suggestion in two parts where the first is to give Crete-points instead of chests as reward:

//QUOTE:
6A/ Remove chest payouts and add "Crete points payout": So maybe like 2k for top 1 place, and less and less depending on position. Top 25 (at least) should all win Crete points.

6B/ Fix two new stores: There should be two new stores with 10 (or more) random items each season (rotating similar to EP-store), one store for Legendary, and one for Epic items. Have them cost a more "true price" (compare to stats from GM if possible) where the most expensive Legendary item cost like 1000 Crete points (so 1st position gives ability to buy two good Leg items that one accually want).
*This also makes it pay something back for them who do ALOT of Crete maps, so after 40 quests you can buy something good (or much less if you got partly what you need from a lower price on season and want to save up to get what you really want).
[END QUOTE]//

Here is link to that post:
https://forums.projectceleste.com/t...-improve-the-crete-experience.3886/#post-6029

 

About the PVP.

I've played AoE1 since 1998 and AoE2 since 2001 (was a bit late to jump on that train due to resolution/monitor issues in the old days) and only played those games in PVP, and in my opinion it's the only area where they work as they should, PVE there is nothing that will keep you entertained for long. In that area AoEo is magnificent and genious, and in here I've played almost only PVE.

I have ALOT to say about this, and though this will not be short I'm going to do my best to keep it simple.

First of all, what makes PVP so intresting is the thrill of meeting an opponent that you not that easily can predict, as with the AI in PVE where you pretty much know "if I do this, computer does that" and "if I instead do that, computer instead does this". That part is same for AoE1+2 and AoEo.

The more relevant differences then is two things, how to find games and who to experience them with.

In AoEo the computer pairs you with an unknown name that you don't see before you launch, and if you're new to PVP that person is twice or more your skill - and it is NEVER fun to meet players that is EITHER to good, or even to bad.

That's why AoE's LOBBY-SYSTEM is such a good idea, and it SHOULD be implemented in Sparta. There it should be a number of rooms which you can host and do settings in. You should be able to preset what map and number of players it will be, and what skill-level your opponents should be (like n00bs or experts kind of text). Due to a ranking system only new nicknames can smurf (a problem you never can avoid), and them who uses their own nick would have a ranking that reveals if they are better than n00bs or not. Here you also get an IMPORTANT social factor, you can chat a bit before games, and after games you activelly havet to exit room, but can also stay and thank for the game or chat about how it went or so.

This part is mainly game-mechanics and can be solvable by building a better engine for how to find players to play with, and if you enter Sparta and see like 1-3 rooms, or hundreds as it can be many times over on AoE2, you can soon see if there is any one looking for a player with your skills and presets for map and such, and you don't have to enter a game that you after you see the best player in the game and a map you hate wish that you had never entered.

The last thing I will say is the most important, and it's about the social part. The thing that had made AoE grow so much is commentators that spectate games and releases them to youtube or even send them live on twitch so that all others with intrest can watch the best of the best wrestle with a commentator as if you were watching sport on television. This part has even made E-sport a thing that has grown to a multimillion dollar industry in some games.

Another thing that was AWESOME that voobly fixed was the ability to "spectate" games that other were hosting. Then you could enter a gameroom which the best players were to play in, and set yourself as a "spectator" which meant that you would live specate the game while the best players in the world met toe to toe, and you could watch any player or both or all as you pleased (changing point of view to one or all), and choose to look on map exactly where you thought it was most intresting at the time. This did that a game could have 2-8 players, and as many or 100+ spectators in same game. This social part was for me and many of my AoE2-friends something we mostly did for many years, we wasn't playing activly, but we watched games and were on coms talking about them as they happened, and it was REALLY entertaining.

Because of this I have earlier suggested a "spectator" function to the game, and then I mean as well to the PVE side as to the PVP side. You should any time be able to right-click persons and watch their games, as well as players should be able to accept all to do that, or none, or if "accept all" a list of people who are banned, or if "reject all" a list of people who are accepted anyhow. In this game we would need settings for this that said "never allow in Crete" i.e and special rules for Sparta as well as all PVE in general. But IF we could look on eachother, and "see what he is doing, and how", the social part of this game would grow massivelly and it would draw more people to the game for sure, or make the way into the game easier and more attractive.

To make this possible in AoE2 they used the "Save game" file that is created each game (if selected), and used that live to send to spectators so they could watch the replay while it still was recorded. So to solve this I assume one have to solve the challenge to "save games" as they did in AoE2.

EDIT:
I STRONGLY would advise all devs with AoEo to go to www.voobly.com and try some PVP in "Age of Empires II: The Conquerors" there and see how it works to find game through their lobby-system. Even more I'd advise you to spectate games of the more skilled players and see how that works, and after that concider what this could mean for the AoEo-community and the inner life there.

Link the thread with that suggestion:
https://forums.projectceleste.com/threads/spectate-live-experience.27/#post-49