26 Oct 2015, 16:46

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Before you start raising your pitchforks, don't worry, H2O isn't actually going anywhere, and nothing's really changing here at ESOC. H2O's role, however, will be changing a bitI will be filling his shoes, and so all of you people interested in asking questions about the site or complaining about how our awesomeness is ruining your productivity, you can send your messages to me, rather than himAs life has gotten busier, Mr. H-twenty will be focusing more on future events rather than anything website related: he will, however, continue to work on our new site until it's ready for use.And now that I've mentioned it, I suppose I should mention that the ESO-Community website will be undergoing an overhaul in the distant (or maybe not-so-distant) future, and you can expect a lot more awesome features as a result of us moving away from Proboards ') That's all we'll say about that for now, but expect more details and dates in upcoming news posts![hr]So remember that patch we mentioned last month? The one that said we were going to add ESOC maps to the rated quick search pool, try to fix many of the cheating problems, and make minor balance changes? Yeah, that one. Well, it turns out the entirety of ESOC is so gullible that it actually spent a 30 page thread discussing a patch that's ACTUALLY BEEN CANCELLED! HA!Just kidding. While you may think we've been slacking off for the last month, we've actually been putting a lot of work into this patch and it's finally ready to go (a huge thanks to Musketeer925 for all his hard work!). So when's it going to be released? This Friday, just in time for the weekend! AND we have A LOT of recorded games from our beta testing to share with you on release day as well ')I hope you're all looking forward to playing your rated games in a cheat-free environment on your favourite ESOC maps!Oh, and the patch notes? Well you can have them I guess, if you really care that much:[spoiler]{MAP POOLS}Everyone should be very excited about the new maps: this will fix a lot of the problems with the current rated game system, and hopefully lead to more epic games rather than map screw losses ') The patch will have 4 main map pools:ESOC ArizonaESOC ArkansasESOC Baja CaliforniaESOC BengalESOC Cascade RangeESOC High PlainsESOC Hudson BayESOC KamchatkaESOC ManchuriaESOC Pampas SierrasESOC TibetMongoliaNew EnglandPainted DesertPatagoniaSiberiaYukonAndesDeccanCaliforniaAll currently existing ESOC maps.The standard ES map pool currently used for quick search on RE patch.As not all of the ESOC maps are ready for team games yet, we recommend you use this map pool when playing team games. Maps compatible with team games will also be tagged upon release, so keep an eye out for those:ESOC ArizonaESOC ArkansasESOC Baja CaliforniaESOC BengalESOC Cascade RangeSilk RoadSiberiaHimalayasHimalayas UpperPainted DesertSaguenayAndesDeccan[/spoiler][spoiler]{BALANCE CHANGES}- Wood wall HP reduced to 1500 (down from 3000).- Stone wall upgrade improved so that stone walls still have the same HP as before (7500).- Wall line of sight reduced to 1.- Elmeti, mamelukes and lil bombards are now unavailable to train in the fortress age.- "Hire Egyptian Mamelukes" card effect changed to 4 Mamelukes (down from 5).- Monitors: changed cost from 800 wood and 200 gold to 600w/200g. Reduced "Long-range Bombardment Attack" ability range to 70 (down from 100) and increased cooldown to 1 minute 30 seconds (up from 1 minute).- Bank build XP increased to 110 (up from 70). Kill bounty adjusted accordingly to 220 (up from 140).- Initial bank limit increased to 6 (up from 4).- "Bank of Rotterdam" and "Bank of Amsterdam" cards: effect changed from +1 bank limit to +20% bank gather rate.- Starting crates: -200 wood, +100 food.- Aenna cost increased to 110 food (up from 100).- War Chief HP aura effect decreased to 10% (down from 15%).- "Silk Road" card moved to discovery age (from colonial) and effect increased to 25% (up from 15%).- Abus gun reload time increased to 3.5 seconds (up from 3 seconds, equal to -14.3% dps).- Abus gun veteran upgrade now gives +2 range.- Mosque cost increased to 150w (up from 100) and XP income increased to 0.7 xp/s (up from 0.4).- Villager cost decreased to 80 food (down from 100).- Starting crates: -100 food.- Bow rider HP reduced to 220 (down from 250)- Cetan bow HP increased to 100 (up from 90) and speed increased to 4.5 (up from 4).- Improved 3 Lancers shipment to 4 Lancers.- Improved 5 Rodelero shipment to 6, 6 Rods to 7, and 8 Rods to 9.- Japanese "Shogunate" wonder to the industrial age now gives 600 XP (down from 1600) as listed.- Japanese end isolation now correctly reduces unit attack by 5% (down from 10%).- "Repelling Volley" card now grants (x1) increased bonus damage against Eagle Runner Knights.- "Close Combat" card now grants (x1) increased bonus damage against Light Infantry as well as Cavalry.- Aztec fortress age "Shaman" politician now grants 2 Nobles huts instead of 1.[/spoiler][spoiler]{BALANCE CHANGES EXPLAINED}- Wood wall HP reduced to 1500 (down from 3000).This was pretty much a no brainer. We've seen recently that walls are being abused more and more and they are too strong for their (very low) cost. Wood walls are supposed to work as a temporary blockade (for example to block opposing cavalry from reaching your ranged inf) which can be quickly sieged down. Currently they take too much time to siege down, making it possible to defend a town with multiple layers of walls and very little military units. This promotes non-interactive play styles and is not how wood walls are intended to be used.- "Hire Egyptian Mamelukes" card effect changed to 4 Mamelukes (down from 5).We nerfed this shipment because Portuguese and Ottomans both rely on the shipment to such an extent that it becomes very hard to balance these civs while it exists. 4 Mamelukes is still viable, but only in cases where you need tanking cavalry which is how the card should work in our opinion. Currently it is too game-changing.- Monitors: changed cost from 800 wood and 200 gold to 600w/200g. Reduced "Long-range Bombardment Attack" ability range to 70 (down from 100) and increased cooldown to 1 minute 30 seconds (up from 1 minute).Rebalanced monitors to make sure they aren't able to kill an entire base from a small lake or the sea. Long range artillery simply has no place in a game where there is no defense for it. Reduced cost to compensate.In Dutch games, we noticed the following:- Banks are slightly too weak for their cost. To fix this we went with an increase in build XP reward to give Dutch that 3rd and 4th colonial shipment slightly faster, making them more competitive in general.- The Dutch boom is fast but caps quickly. Dutch booming to 4 banks is economically barely better than French sending 4v and maxing market upgrades. To make Dutch more like the boom civ they were intended to be, we increased the initial bank build limit to 6. This adds the option to invest a little more in economy whenever it's appropriate and make Dutch a more versatile civ overall.For Iroquois, we noticed:- Their start is simply too fast and too catch-all and this often snowballs into victory quite easily. To fix this we removed the free early TP by removing 2 starting wood crates, and added 100f to compensate and give them a more consistent age up time. This means that Iro will no longer be able to rush very fast and easily transition into an eco style afterwards, and weakens all of their more economic build orders as well.- Their late colonial mass is overpowered due to very strong upgrade cards, cost effective units and the very strong War Chief aura. To fix this we increased Aenna cost and reduced the WC aura to 10%, keeping their uniquely strong "Conservative tactics" card intact.Ottomans are kind of a special case. We noticed that abus guns are too strong, but at the same time we found that the most common builds which are considered overpowered don't really use Abus guns. Their all in builds are overrated and will remain as strong as they used to be minus the Mameluke, and our changes focus on fixing Abus guns and giving the civ the option to play for longer games.- The Silk Road change gives them the option to plan for an economic style, but it costs a card which means all in styles are significantly weaker after sending it.- We discussed how to nerf Abus guns and decided to go with a unique approach: Increasing reload time. We went with this approach because we find that Abus are a kiting unit (very weak in close combat and high ranged damage output) and we don't want to standardize the unit to be like other ranged infantry. Keeping the kiting ability of the unit intact, we nerfed damage per second (over time) instead. The veteran upgrade now gives +2 range to compensate for the ROF nerf, making Abus more competitive in fortress age.- The mosque change is simply to make Ottomans more playable on non-TP maps, since they heavily rely on XP for their economy.We'd like to address those of you, likely to be many, who think Ottomans will be too strong after these changes. We did test them and the reality looks different. We started off by removing a wood crate, and we quickly saw that Otto was no longer competitive. Even in later tests, with all of the above changes, Otto have been underwhelming.There are multiple reasons why Ottomans may very well be overrated. They rely on a nerfed Mameluke shipment, they are much weaker on maps with high natural resources, and perhaps most importantly they rely on early aggression.Otto's reliance on timings to win games is a bigger deal than it seems. While other civs' builds have been evolving and improving all this time, Otto's metagame has remained uniquely static. As other civs learn to adapt to Otto's aggression, Otto is stuck doing the same old thing over and over again because they simply lack more options. It's no surprise that as the metagame gets more figured out, the civ is getting weaker and weaker. An important example of this is how other civs have started building more trade posts while Otto has always done this. Other civs are improving their build order by squeezing in that TP and reaping the XP benefits, while Otto is still building the same amount of TPs they always were. Other civs used to be caught off guard by Otto's early fortress pressure and Mameluke timing whereas now they see it coming a mile away and will cut corners appropriately.Don't get me wrong, Otto's aggressive builds will still be scary but rest assured they are counterable. We gave this civ the means to evolve beyond jan+falc+mam timings, the rest is up to all of your creative mindsIn Portuguese games, we notice that they are not quite able to keep up military production while safely booming from 3 TCs, which means that their civ bonus cannot be properly used. This is because they use a lot of natural resources (huntables) and their early game economy is underwhelming. To fix this, we reduced Settler cost by 20 food which means Portuguese will save 200 food for every 10 Settlers they make, compared to RE patch. Because this makes Portuguese age up to colonial very quickly, we compensated by removing a food crate.In Sioux games, we noticed that the civ has decent semi-FF options but a broken colonial age. Their fortress-focused builds will remain as they were, but their colonial units have been changed to give them more colonial age options while nerfing their current best option. To this end, we nerfed Bow riders and buffed Cetan bows.For Spain, we notice that they have some scary early fortress pressure builds but lack the means to finish games in many match ups. To improve them slightly, we buffed some of the shipments that we thought too weak.[/spoiler]A quick note on our anticheat: yes, we believe we've fixed many of the issues which allow people to cheat on ESO. That being said, while it does work, it is still possible that our fixes may be circumvented. But fear not! As we are, of course, able to update the patch, we will be able to fix more of these issues in the future if the need arises.[hr]So I should also mention that there's going to be a streaming event this weekend to celebrate the release of our community patch, and the start of Incog's Strong World event! No exact details just yet, but expect some Strong World matches and ESOC Patch quick search grinding ')Keep an eye out for future news posts about the ESOC patch, weekend stream, Strong World, and the winter championship! There's a lot more to come at ESOC over the next couple months!