Why Balance is so twisted in Age of Empires Online

[Where-TO]

I'm just sitting here wondering how the balance is so screwed up in this game, after a whole lengthy blog post about balancing. The GEAR: it is so off balance. I know people a petitioning for gearless PvP, and that's a step in the right direction, but the whole gear thing is pointless, except for the single player and co-op. There needs to be in-game things like the cards in AoE3, where it is balanced because you can only have so much cards, etc.

[RockOn]

You can choose you playing style with cards. With gears it's just stupid. 1 person is always going to be better than the other. That's not fun for ANYON. I don't want to be pwned by someone, and I don't want to pwn someone else. The best matches are those that are tied and you win by your skills. For Balance it indeed would be much better. But I do think gear should still alter the look of the units in pvp.

[Squibbit]

AoE was never intended to be balanced, and never will be. Especially with this system, it is more or less like pitting 2 WoW players against each other, and gears should factor into the outcome. If you want a balanced PvP, play Star craft 2 or something.

[Wyvern]

It isn't, but that is not the point. I am saying that you cannot dabble in both approaches at the same time. Gear with rarity and stuff will make for unbalanced PvP even without premium restrictions and what-not, unless everyone gets access to the optimal gear very easily. Aside from that, there's also too many variables to balance in an AoE style game.

[ApplePowerPC]

AoE3 wasn't perfectly balanced, but it was still fun. It doesn't have to be perfectly balanced. I don't know why they just couldn't put in cards like AoE3 instead of gear, or make the best gear easy to get for highest leveled players.

[MacIntel]

I guess you are sort of right. Not every game is meant for tournament play, where even small imbalances can have noticeable effect. On the other hand, in lower level play, just having better mechanics and macro will allow you to overcome many imbalances. Granted, I have never seen how imba the high level gears of AoEO is, so I would not be able to make a good judgment call on it.