Hidden Cup 2v2?! | Town Center Ep. 23 with MbL

[@p.s.n.]

Dude, I love Mbl so much. He's such a wholesome and unique guy, it's a gift to have him in the community. I just wish him the best, in AOE and IRL. And thanks GL for all you're doing! So hyped for NAC :)

[@markburke1396]

Man MBL is the absolute best, not knowing how to use technology, being so incredible at the game, not doing anything anyone else does. he is so unique and just an honest person.

[@afz902k]

I was laughing out loud by the end of that conversation.

[@Alex-xe4eo]

viper being such a dissapointed coach/dad 😂

[@ParamecioLord]

Everyday Viper looks and lives more like a dad like our lord DauT.

[@L_bow]

The transformation begun😮

[@johnlee89]

I found it absolutely hilarious that Viper is always exasperated when he talks to MB. He acts the same when MB played team games in tourneys/showmatches/Nation cup with him. "Train more MB!” "we are on the same team MB!" 😂

[@Pityuerez]

11 This was fun! Thx guys! You just have to love MbL! I would for sure be interested in the 2v2 HC thing too, and many-many more people also i think!

[@Alan-sh5gy]

Man MBL is so relatable

[@Raizan-IO]

Very likeable man.

[@icarian553]

38:00 Sandy Petersen, one of the designers behind original AOE2, said in one of his videos or interviews that one of their ideas was to have buildable and destroyable bridges. This idea was shot down by their coders because they explained that to have those, the game would stop for few minutes every time a bridge was built or destroyed because the game would've to recalculate all pathing routes for all units.

[@jeremykothe2847]

How is it any different from destroying/building a wall?

[@jeremykothe2847]

Pathing is a technical challenge, no doubt. But it has been done... SC2 has some of the best pathing of any similar game, and it will run on a potato.

[@SirQuantization]

@@jeremykothe2847 It isn't the truth is the coder/s that were asked just weren't creative enough to think of a way. It was absolutely doable.

[@jeremykothe2847]

@@SirQuantization We weren't there ofc, but in my experience (45 years coding), it's more likely they were asked about it, gave an estimate, and management decided it wasn't worth it. Or other things were just more important. Given the success of the franchise, kinda hard to second-guess them.

[@daarom3472]

​@@jeremykothe2847this happens a lot. Which is why as a Product Manager whenever I start a new job/assignment I always spend quite some time getting to know the actual coders and get some sense of what they're doing. That way in later stages I can more easily counter the "it's too complicated/long/expensive" arguments 😂

[@wesseb771]

😄😄😄😄 best guest interview ever

[@davidhaines3044]

MbL driving instructor: "Why don't we just Auto drive aswell? Let's auto headlights, auto wipers, auto gears. Auto everything!"

[@AoLIronmaiden]

I wonder if his transmission is AUTOmatic

[@samlenz2490]

Love this mbl guy

[@2MeatyOwlLegs]

I'm absolutely in love with the idea of a 2v2 Hidden Cup!

[@SirQuantization]

14:50 gotta agree with Viper, pure water maps are so not fun but hybrid maps are actually really enjoyable because you get to balance water with land control. 29:36 man 2v2 hidden cup would be so good! Just pray Viper and Hera don't get put together 11 38:58 coding bro here, 100% the amount of calculations each unit has to make is a huge factor and each step added to the logic would decrease performance too. If it got too complex the game would absolutely run terribly. I have an idea to get around this though, what if 1v1 logic was different from 2v2, 3v3, 4v4. In 1v1s since there are less players there is less units and therefore the pathing code could be more complex. That would at least fix pathing for 1v1 tournaments. Or maybe the code could change based on how many units exist. For example at 200 units the code could switch over to the more basic pathing then perhaps at 400 units it becomes even more basic, etc, etc. Loved this episode but I mean, I always do. Cheers guys

[@BNCITY4ever]

You just have to love MBL!

[@CharSheee]

In my opinion, a 2v2 HC would be a brilliant addition to the existing tournament formats. It would simply be something new and at the same time high-quality gameplay. Personally, I think it would be exciting to see how the hidden feature plays out under these conditions. And with RECs up to the semi-finals, there would also be motivation for exciting strategies from day 1. That way, nobody can see the most exciting strats until then and the preparation counts double with single elimination and unknown opponent strength.

[@Dondideeda]

Oh that’d be really nice !

[@brucebrown2720]

A 2v2 Hidden Cup would be great, only if there were maps that kept the scout archer to knight crossbow meta from dominating every game.

[@jacobwood3326]

I woild be so down to watch!

[@TimClauson]

Do the players know the pairings know each other or is it totally blind?

[@CharSheee]

@@TimClauson A bit of both. On the last Hidden Cup, according to T90, the players were at least aware about the Brackets. For ex. all Players know, that Hera was in the Top Bracket, but not exactly which alias he got. But after Ro16 and Quarters (which got played hidden) it was of course obvious to the players who their opponent was. But as Viper and Masmorra suggest, the hidden aspect should be more for the viewers. It's better to put the teams on the best server, even if you then perhaps know who the opponent is. Hidden Cup traditionally has very varied maps and, as explained at the beginning, the mode with recs encourages more interesting strategies. Regarding the concern of a classic Archer / Knight meta, there are enough maps to prevent that. Also, if there really is a 2v2 HC, I think that T90 and co. are aware of this and choose / design maps accordingly. Whether the teams are fixed or random is a difficult decision. Completely random would certainly be fun as a spectator, but that would then only be possible with invitations or how else should a qualifier take place? A 1v1 qualifier for 2v2 is hardly possible. Ideally, the best 2v2 teams should compete in their best line-up. At least if a prize pool of 20-40,000 is planned. With lower values, a more fun setting is of course also possible. But the fact that there will be no fixed seeding should be enough. At least in my opinion.

[@langeboriskogen]

Love MBL, great guest

[@vox43]

This has to be one of the very few times when somebody with a moustache looks younger than without a moustache 11

[@Nomatterwhat69]

TRUE LOL

[@RambinoYT]

Hidden Cup 2v2 or World Cup 2v2 Would be amazing! Imagine we had a league of World Cup Teams fighting like a Premier League the entire year, OMFG that would be awesome! Also, i feel Vipers pain in the lack of effort in training Mbl does before tournaments. He would be better, more consistent and do better if he actually did. Morten, du er top 5 om du legger ned innsatsen!

[@afz902k]

I would also love a Hidden 2v2 cup. I can already imagine some team characters like Algirdas & Kestutis, Jogaila+Jadwiga, Attila & Bleda, Ragnar & Rollo, Don Quijotl & Sancho, Joan of Arc and La Hire, uhmm Asterix and Obelix (XD)

[@Razius33Officiel]

That's definitely a possibility as masmorea described. Also, pathing problems were used to explain "impossible" problems to resolve fully in courses. Can't remember enough to explain, but it definitely is difficult.

[@Razius33Officiel]

Another aspect I can imagine is about the testing. The number of cases to consider is enormous, and I can understand why there are some wholes when they try to fix a bit.

[@andrewy2957]

I don't have too much experience with video game design, but I do have many years of coding experience and I think one of the path planning challenges is that AoE has a lot of agents that all seem to select their own path, which leads to each agent blocking each other. Since each unit is planning it's path independently, it leads to a lot of collisions, bumping and freezing. Ideally, I think if the user selects a group, their path should be calculated together in cohesion. Pathing is definitely not an easy problem, but it has been solved in lots of creative ways.

[@ViscachaMusic]

As a software engineer, I support this statement! I guess the devs are shy to implement it from scratch to solve the issue. Just trying to hotfix the existing system will likely never lead to a good result if you need to compute the pathing for all units. But if you group them, it's likely much more feasible and may also make the regrouping issues much less pertinent.

[@NachoAoE]

What an amazing episode! Poor MBL being called out on not training 11111, I loved Viper father figure arrising! They seem like they get along very good, it's nice to see AoE friendships

[@joshkauffman4208]

15:00 everything viper said regarding pure water maps like islands "you go gallons I go gallons" makes the point even more that there is not good and dynamic play on water with what we have currently and could use what the dlc brings for balance. Even on hybrid maps. I don't think more options will ruin water and hybrid maps

[@daarom3472]

I would also like ships to be a bit weaker compared to land units.

[@aryansanghi5362]

7:53 If I am correct, in victors and vanquished DLC in the Teutons campaign, it implements similar feature where you have to keep favor of allies high to keep them as allies or otherwise they'll leave you. You keep favor high by doing certain stuff like donating resources and so on.

[@Raizan-IO]

Such a good mission too, only held back by the AI. The enemies are very very dumb, while when the dukes rebel they are too defensive overall.

[@LonelyKnightJ]

viper can probably voice a random peasant if you make a northern scenario/campaign

[@jacobwood3326]

11111111 that would be perfect

[@tomaszkmiotek7345]

2v2 World Cup brought me back to the game. Do I want Hidden Cup 2v2? Hell yeah!

[@jonathandb91]

❤ MBL

[@NeoXist]

About what you said if there were missions like the elections; there's nothing exactly like it but there's definitely missions out there that use "favor" as an objective. For example, in V&V there was the Robert mission where you try to gain a duke's favor by respectively tributing them, getting relics or even building castles. There was a Japanese mission in that DLC as well where the Shogun has an "Ire" meter, the more you kill his subjects or use technology from the Portuguese, the higher the Ire. You could lower it by tributing to the Shogun but the moment it reaches 100, he would attack you with a massive army. It's definitely an entertaining aspect of the game IMO and how the mission in Battle for Greece worked was amazing, toptier DLC imo!

[@sokarash]

16:32 On the topic of Water maps I am curious about one thing from TheViper, even though it might not the best place to ask in a podcast about "Everything Age of Empires" _2_: From what I've heard Relic also knew that water isn't very popular, so the opted to not include it in Age of Empires 4 at first. But when they invited top players form Age-games (and probably others) to Vancouver sometime in 2019 to check out an early build of AoE4 with out water, feedback was to include it because its a big part of the franchise. It was probably too late for the campaigns (and they did not include any water mechanics in the base game) and the water mechanics for the launch seemed underdeveloped (even by how bare bones the games was at launch). Is that true or did I misread something?

[@jetsebrienen1976]

MBL is such an amazing dude

[@aldenespineli3428]

Love MBL.

[@jonathandb91]

Masmorra, I can't believe you are such a fixture of the AOE2 community yet you don't really play campaigns! You thought that one elections campaign from Chronicles was cool? There are so many incredibly creative scenarios and campaigns that are incredible works of art. On AOE heaven back in the day there were so many fantastic campaigns and scenarios by auteurs like Ingo Van Thiel and many others. You should really explore more creative scenarios. People have done amazing things with this game!

[@MasmorraAoE]

Have any suggestion in particular? I played a bit of Jadwiga and loved it too!

[@jonathandb91]

​​@@MasmorraAoEoh nice! I loved Ulio as well : ) But I was more into cinematic campaigns vs the ones with interesting mechanics like the election one

[@sokarash]

He also doesn't care about history, so I'm not sure if even even plays the right game...

[@paweborkowski6959]

6:30 if you like favour mission, try a free Dandolo custom campaign. Highly recommend.

[@TheOhioNews]

Let's goooo! It's a good day when you guys upload a new podcast ❤

[@bananan7]

Masmorra, the point of moustache is that people are gonna question why you wear it and tell about Movember

[@afz902k]

Or in my case, me being asked if I had a stache due to Movember and me being confused about it, as it was just a coincidence.

[@redy_JA]

Would be nice to have Sebastian as an interview partner next as he is kind of the breakthrough player of 2024

[@sokarash]

33:41 Path is a difficult task. AoE1 actually had three different settings for that, each usually calculation better results, but at the costs of using more computing power - lower end machines should use lower settings. But that was scraped in later games. In simple terms: you can get a path very quickly, but chance are its very poor. Getting the best path to a destination is difficult to calculate as you basically have to evaluate many different paths to get the best one. But in a Realtime strategy game, no one wants to wait minutes to get the best path. You have miliseconds to calculate them (for those ongoing calculations, programmers have budgets, so if they target 60fps, the have 16.6ms per frame, which is split between graphics, physics, AI, and so on). Also the game isn't static, there are other units moving around making those calculations very costly to do in terms of computing power. Also, working with the old codebase certainly doesn't make things easier, as more modern approaches like flow field (which AoE4 uses) would probably be tough to implement (I am a software developer, but without acccess to the actual code base, its impossile for me to say anything for certain, therefore the guesses). I personally think StarCraft 2 has the best pathfinding in RTS, but that was build from scratch and uses a purpose-build engine.

[@afz902k]

IMHO Warcraft 3 and even Starcraft 1 had great pathing. Blizzard have always been great at it. I also don't remember ever having pathing issues in Command and Conquer games, but I could be misremembering that.

[@meninbike1602]

7:20 I remember something along those lines in the Rajas campaign..

[@mduke4948]

Guys. Wait. Listen to me. "Hidden Cuples"

[@MasmorraAoE]

Brilliant.

[@MrSwordstroker]

its hard not to love MBL

[@runehvidbjerg3399]

Would it be possible for u guys to show a calendar at the end of each show, with upcoming pro tournaments an events? Thx for Great content, enjoying every episode, Stay Classy

[@jeremykothe2847]

Lots of esports have shot callers who aren't players these days. Even games like world of warcraft, the very top raids have raid leaders who aren't logged in, they just watch and make calls.

[@crazymagoo6694]

"Why not the face to the fire" 😂 Clearly some viking memory in Viper's blood lol

[@zackc3767]

Imagine being an Aoe2 fan and you go for driver training and MbL is your instructor. Then you make a bad turn and get called a potato.

[@shredmaster2000]

watching that last section about training after seeing the set vs viper in the wandering warriors cup is absolutely hilarious

[@Nomatterwhat69]

No Shave November!!!!!! Well I missed that one, I might participate in that in the next November 11. It looks great on him 😂😊

[@anyuser4471]

I seriously think for a long time now, if MBL would have the passion and patience similar to Viper and Hera or others such as Tatoh for training and preparing and build orders and stuff, he could be top 2.

[@NoahEvans-u3s]

The last part of this interview felt so brutal. I feel bad for MBL, hope his AOE2 luck improves soon.

[@nicholaswoollhead6830]

I felt so sorry for him but its good advice lol

[@GaricG]

MbL is the best!😂❤

[@GuerardClément]

Nice podcast guys

[@grandengineernathan]

I am a coding bro, I know a bit on pathing but I am not an expert on the topic, and it does take huge amounts of computing power especially when not done properly, so shortcuts are often made to save up on computations

[@Usernameforsf]

Woooo! Mr. Masmorra, don’t insult the AoM campaigns!! 111 They’re the best, is the campaign I played the most, prostagma forever!

[@afz902k]

And apparently people really love the original voice acting as well 11

[@Usernameforsf]

@ exactly!

[@LuisManuelRoballoAlvarez]

I favorite pure water maps ❤

[@KyleNguyendlv]

MBL really have symptoms of burntout / depression I feel. Hope he get through it alright!

[@TheRubenMar]

The level from the new campaigns that you're describing, sounds like a similar dynamic than the scenario Robert from the Victors and Vanquished DLC, if I understood the description, I still have not played the new campaigns

[@herrderz4064]

Being a driving instructor is making MB raging at chat, I understand

[@nicholaswoollhead6830]

When Vipi was roasting Embee I felt so sorry for him but it was very fstherly. MbL can be top 5 if he listens haha

[@yg-dn5ms]

MB so handsome 🥰

[@sSickrabbiTT]

Great Episode so far! Small thing: I just wanted to switch to listening on Spotify while walking and there the Episode is not yet available. Can you have a look at that publishing times of the free versions please? :D thanks!

[@zackc3767]

Mbl might be Spirit of the Law's alter ego.

[@kilkil7245]

Hidden cup 2v2 would be Amazing!

[@Grato537]

Dude I'm only 45 seconds in but that stache is epic. I'd be in favor of Viper keeping it for a bit.

[@mpo87-h1c]

Didn't pathing work well in Voobly times with (user?) patch? The key question would be why can't they reuse that in the current game. I think the "potato code" excuse shouldn't be allowed anymore because they've been shipping DLCs for a few years now. They had plenty of time to improve the game core codebase.

[@NZr...]

Viper fishing for their team strategies. Have they analysed my gamesplay!? Do they have a Hera-counter guide i can borrow?

[@jacobwood3326]

Viper must be getting jealous of Nelson’s hot takes and had to get in on the action 11 Haven’t finished the vid yet but so far so good!

[@jonskog7263]

But if MbL trained say 20 sets, wouldn't it take away from his unique style? xD So many people in the scene say MbL is one of the most fun players to watch. Purely from a viewers perspective, seeing someone lose with style can be more entertaining.

[@indianajons5847]

Hidden cup 2v2, yes please!!

[@olivierl2172]

Do you know why subtitles aren’t available?

[@danielolson263]

I could definitely see pathing in a game like AOE2 to be more expensive. Some thoughts: - The obstacles on the map are very dynamic. You place down a building, pathing can change. You chop a tree down, pathing can change. Any change could technically alter pathing for any moving unit in that area. Meaning, lots of pathing calculations have to be calculated in realtime. That's probably why AOE2 forces your units to be within some form of formation. The game can spend its resources on pathing that group, rather than every individual unit, and then the units just try to stick together. There is lots of crown simulation research out there, trying to figure out how to solve this kind of problem fast. But it's not often that they include the variable of a player dynamically altering the environment themselves in realtime. - Given how AOE2 is a very 1v1 competitive game, pathing of units needs to be the exact same for both players. If my group of archers paths itself into a mango shot, then my opponent also needs to see my archers walk into a mango shot. This means one of two things: Either all pathing is calculated on the server and replicated down to the clients, or pathing has to be calculated on each player's computer deterministically, meaning all players in the game have to see the same exact pathing. Both of these options are expensive, with the latter being nigh impossible. - Imagine you have one Server PC having to handle the pathing of 8 players with 200 pop each. And there are 8 players constantly changing the environment and requesting new pathing calculations. That's a huge crowd with so many dynamic constraints. - I am curious if pathing performs the same way in a 1v1 game, tiny map, with minimum pop vs a 4v4 game, ludicrous map, with maximum pop. You would think that pathing should be much more accurate and have as expected in the smaller game as AOE2 has relatively much less to work with. So I wonder if the "regroup" pathing bug we all hate happens in both situations. The "regroup" bug was likely an optimization to make pathing cheaper. If everyone tries to regroup and then we path, the calculations get easier as we are only working with one dynamic moving actor, as opposed to however many units are in the group. But if that is still showing up in small, 1v1 games where theoretically AOE2 should have the resources available to it to spend a couple more milliseconds on pathing, then that's confusing. Idk, welcome to the rambling thoughts of a rendering engineer. Hopefully something useful in there.

[@jeremykothe2847]

Pathing is really well understood by now and similar games have done it really well. I suspect the real issue is that it's not easy to completely replace the existing system, so instead they're just tweaking things.

[@danielolson263]

@@jeremykothe2847 yeah of course! Working on 25 year old potato code does not help haha

[@danielolson263]

@@jeremykothe2847 I will say though, that I think the RTS genre in general has more complexities to deal with regarding pathing. Hundreds of moving units and a completely dynamic environment? That's a lot, especially, as you said, on old code, while also being immediately responsive when the player requests a new path by clicking their units. That responsiveness is likely much more important to a player than the fact that the units get pathed perfectly, so some likely tradeoffs there. In AAA games, doors are frequently a huge issue as the second a door opens, tons of pathing recalculations have to happen. Maybe AOE2 could "solve" the problem, but then I doubt people would be able to play without some top spec PC.

[@jeremykothe2847]

@@danielolson263 All of this has been solved. Just google it. It's an incredibly common problem, with many solutions. It's just not "free" to fix it. If they decided to re-engineer their code with modern knowledge/approaches, there is absolutely nothing in AoE that is special or different. SC2 has all the same challenges, was written 10+ years ago, and runs on a bad PC from that time.

[@adrijc]

I share Nelson Point regarding updates and old computers, however, we cannot keep playing with such an inneficient game. Random crashes and lags, pathing, etc. But The most important question. How did Viper shaved moustache and cut hair in such a short time?

[@RudOnd]

I felt sorry for you during the commercial 11

[@dhavalgada2171]

Only way pathing calculation is taking too much CPU/memory is because they have too many corner cases getting checked. Constantly hear starcraft having better pathing, so in modern age the computers should only be able to do it faster.. Sounds like a skills issue tbh.

[@gebhard128]

At least Viper got some Hair

[@flugaflaug1647]

What? Where?^^

[@battleforevermore]

How much for a video message from daut saying "The viper was, is and always will be better than me"

[@markusdegenhardt8678]

No money in the world 11

[@TimClauson]

Get daut to promote surfshark again

[@blakdfje]

Would be cool if MBL would practice a lot for a tournament

[@sirpanicoff]

For Spanish people, pls, allow the close captioning! 😂🎉❤❤❤

[@Grato537]

Thinking of TTL as a "tournament" is so odd. It's meant to be a league format. Like every other major sport and many major esports have. I wish it were even longer honestly. The idea is you can follow it similar to how other major sports are followed.

[@giopi6]

Really don't understand viper's perspective on naval combact. I think there is a lot of potential there to improve.

[@lordrubbish_aoe]

11 that mustache is epic viper has gone full dad

[@TimClauson]

Keep the mo

[@paweborkowski6959]

Or Maybe Hidden Cup 2v2 when the team DOESN'T know who's on the team.

[@kevinpriggert6501]

gg

[@yuuya5985]

coding bro here, calculating 1000 units moving at the same time is not a big deal in any sense for modern computers, your computer carries thousands of operation when you open any software and it's supposed to behave well. currently pathing is bad simply because aoe2 has a lot of different terrains/units/collisions to consider under all situations, making it inherently difficult to make a comprehensively well-thought pathing algorithm, therefore at the currently stage pathing algorithm is just "poorly" written. keep in mind that it's still a huge task, so it's hard to get full credit.

[@samuelevanssound]

Masmorra feels more tired than new-dad Viper

[@TheEhrnberg]

pls maybe do signed stuffs giveaway so all can afford :))

[@nicholaswoollhead6830]

Goddamn I love MbL but the man needs someone to design the lighting in his house. That topligh is unbearable

[@LZZBR]

I am completely sick of 1vs1 games. I get it, they are way easier to show and narrate. On team games there are so many things happening at the same time that you will always miss important stuff. But still, they add so much variety, it's almost like a different game.

[@ajlib]

How have you never heard of Movember... i would say 90%+ of western people have heard of it, its been going on for years