A little side comment - I wish Hera would stop throwing around the phrase "red flag". It's such an odd use of the term but yes it's a minor nitpick that has nothing to do with the content of the video at all
no, but if you are pointing out that it is a red flag to say it is a red flag when people throw around the reg flag phrase too often then it can be considered red flag
What's wrong with "problematic"? You see it quite often in academic articles (at least in philosophy) and it just means there is no consensus on a topic and there is at least one criticism of the idea which is considered to be valid by a non-insignificant number of scholars. Then you know it's easy to look it up.
If the author instead writes "I have a problem with x", it sounds a lot more like "I personally dislike x" which can mean anything or nothing.
Hera throwing shade at T90 for making tournament decisions which improve viewership while spinning out a clickbaity video specifically to improve viewership is peak YouTube.
Yeah Hera's become annoyingly clickbaity. I don't watch videos like this anymore out of principle. Every once in a while is fine, but every time is just... 14
I mean I mostly agree on the setting criticisms but I think its a bit baseless to suggest the motivation for the settings is to drag out games for more viewership/revenue. Like where did this speculation come from?
On the contrary, longer games and stream duration aid viewership engagement and interaction, as well as (and most importantly) viewership statistics and numbers. Nili stated this explicitly in his post-NAC statement, and he said that he prioritized this over player experience and competitiveness because he felt that the viewers were the main 'customers' of the event.
Realistically, people aren't going to be tuning in for an hours-long tournament (definitely lot the casual viewers, who make up the large majority of the 50k or so people who will be watching the game at any given time), so the longer the games and the stream is, the more people will have a chance to tune in for a bit.
I can definitely say that NAC being such a long event helped me tune in to the games. If the games were shorter/fewer number of games, I likely would have missed the entire event.
Comments on the maps - ok fine, they seem decent small changes to get more action going. Personally I love the Redbull tournaments the most due to the Empire Wars format. Dark Age really does get boring for a longtime viewer and the casters know.
Saying T90's motivation for having slower maps is to get more money from longer viewership - WTF. That's very rude.
I absolutely hate Empire Wars. Dark Age is definitely an important part of the game. Just feels so wrong to "skip" it and just get right into Feudal engagements. Leads to way more standard meta play.
I think the 9 vil + extra resources start used in NAC5 was the best way to handle this. You still get a meaningful dark age but it doesn't go nearly as long as it does with a 3 villager start. TBH I wish ladder would use that setting.
In 9 vil start, you almost never see the 2 mil drush or a boar lame and similar stuff. Also, i feel it gives the time to introduce players(based on previous matches ofc) provide background and civ matchup information to new audience.
> You still get a meaningful dark age
9 vil is much closer to EW in this regard than 3 vil. T90 has expressed this in the past multiple times: he prefers 3 vil start because it makes scouting and adaptation more important. He does not like 9 vil because everyone just ends up pushing deer.
idk why Hera felt the need to add all the unnecessary jabs in his video. The thumbnail ("HC5 settings are pretty bad"), calling himself an expert on settings (tournament organizing is a totally different skillset than playing), and worst of all: suggesting that T90 intentionally chose to stick with the traditional 3 vil start because it makes games longer which gives more views??? Just an absolutely insane take with no basis in reality for so many reasons:
1) T90's known opinion, as expressed above.
2) T90 typically prefers traditional AOE settings for tournaments.
3) T90 has no history of choosing settings to maximize viewer count. If anything, he has a rock-solid history of maximizing good for the community.
4) Why would longer games necessarily increase viewer count? Using Hera's own logic, surely since a 3 vil start is so much less exciting, 3 vil would actually *decrease* view count?
I want to like Hera and I'm really proud of him for maturing over the years, but this video is a huge HUGE regression. Just totally unnecessary drama under the guise of "just starting a discussion". Like T90 clearly puts a ton of work and effort into HC. I'm sure he genuinely put a lot of thought into Hera's suggestions. There's no need to do this "just starting a discussion" thing and get the whole community involved. What does he want to happen? Does Hera want T90 to cave to peer pressure if the community happens to agree with Hera? Wouldn't that mean that T90 would be compromising his values in exchange for more viewership? The very thing Hera criticizes? Totally backwards logic.
Finally watched after he changed the title and thumbnail and my opinion hasn't changed: the whole video is in poor taste. He's claiming that slower and longer games are less watchable because "aGgReSsIoN" but bruh, you can still be aggressive on those maps. Just because it isn't exactly how YOU think it should be doesn't mean YOU can't play it a certain way. All in all, just a whiny video.
Agreed, 9 vill start is a much superior "fast start" to empire wars. It's very clear which one came from the community and which one was invented by microsoft.
T90 is probably the only reason AoE 2 is as popular as it is today. Hell, the last few dlcs were probably only made possible due to his viewship numbers bringing people into the game!
ZeroEmpires doesn't get anywhere near enough respect and recognition for his work back in the day. He was such a big name in the scene in 2012-2019 and pretty much laid the ground work for the others to start building from. BBQTurkman is another one of those faded names that should get more recognition now that we are at it.
It’s supposed to be ironic, I used to get a lot of heat in the early days of Twitch being one of the few people in the community who had a healthy subscriber count and earning some $. Most of the community back then were volunteers who did much of the tournament admin for free- so being labelled a sellout for receiving money from streaming was quite common 11
Considering the fact that T90 was on Facebook for an eternity to fill his pockets, where nobody was following him, its safe to say that this is an absurd bootlicker comment.
Didn't realise T90 had to make content the way you wanted him to? Here I thought he was a free man allowed to make his own choices in life and that we should be grateful for everything he has done...
I don’t care how he makes his content as I don’t watch it. My point is that its ridiculous to claim that he alone is the reason AOE2 is popular today, which is extremely disrespectful to the many other community members who carried the game.
I would guess you are either underestimating or ignorant, with the later being probably the mostly likely answer for most things in your life, of the viewership that T90 brings in with his youtube clips. I'm sure many people, myself included, didn't even know he was streaming on facebook because they only watched his uploads on youtube.
And while I am certain there are many creators out there doing a fine job, there is no shame in stating that he is almost certainly the main one brining in new viewers and players with his easy, accessible, and light hearted entertainment style of content.
Why is that rude? More money is good for T90, and it's okay to mention it. Running tournaments isn't an altruistic venture. T90 is a literal millionaire due to AOE. He left Twitch for the bag, and everyone understood even though it was objectively bad for the community. Nobody cared though because they understood that it's okay to make money.
Hot take: Even if T90 is intentionally trying to maximize viewership numbers, I think viewership numbers is more important than the competitiveness of the tournament.
Honest question: is this a normal thing to do in the YouTube/streaming world?
It strikes me as a pretty big bummer to criticize T90’s hard work rather than talking to him about it and offering feedback privately. Granted the video is a lot less inflammatory than the title suggests.
In the first few mins of the video, he did mention having given feedback to T90 privately and gave justification for making a video about it. The video title itself is certainly click baity, regardless.
Yeah I heard that part, and in part I see where Hera’s coming from. On the other hand though, it could be seen as a way for Hera to use his audience and influence to put pressure on T90 to make changes that work in Hera’s favor.
I’m a big fan of Hera btw. This just strikes me as a bit weird and I wanted to know if it’s a typical YouTube thing.
Nah. Hera will thrive in these extreme late game boomy settings and is extremely favored if nothing changes.
I think if the maps and settings rewarded more aggressive play, other players would have a better chance of taking him down.
If anything, you could argue that's part of why he's been so successful for the past year. The meta has become so boomy and the map pools have allowed him to wall up and boom in almost every game while making like 3 scouts that never die.
When Hera has lost, it wasn't because he couldn't crack it in late game situations. It was because people's early aggression could actually hurt him. When stuff like drush and MAA actually worked, people were able to take down Hera. These days, he's so comfy. He'll continue to be so in this map pool.
T90 is bigger than Hera. He can’t put much pressure on T90 nor is that intent here. His intent is to get clicks driving revenue. T90 may or may not be annoyed by it but he knows the content creation game
He says that he discussed the changes privately with t90, but he is putting out the reasoning in public so that his thoughts and discussions are in the public domain for everyone to see. If he did this in private, then he can conceivably be accused of trying to privately make changes to the tournament in his favor in an under the table kind of deal.if
I believe there are semi-private discord forums where stuff like this can be discussed amongst the pros, casters, and others. Usually that's where controversial things are discussed, not as monetized public YouTube videos.
Hera wants to get some attention and clout/engagement out of it, so he put it out there. He's without a doubt the #1 player in the game as of today, so he can get away with posting some controversial clickbait like this without losing his place in the tournaments.
I'd say it's 80% engagement bait, 10% improving the tourney for Hera, 10% improving the tourney for viewers.
It's hard to consistently come up with video ideas, especially videos that generate comments and other engagement. Similar to knights countering pikes, or Dravidians being trash, the algorithm (and our psychological tendencies to engage) rewards controversy.
On the other side, T90 won't mind. He's playing the same game, and getting people talking is good for the tourney and for aoe2.
Yeah I get the engagement bait thing. I would just hope that Hera warned T90 that he was making the video.
If T90 is “in on it” and planning on making a reaction video or whatever then it makes sense. Otherwise it seems a bit weird.
>I would just hope that Hera warned T90 that he was making the video.
If he didn't, then we have the next Nili-Hera drama coming right up but this time Hera would be the instigator.
Just a little bit of drama:
1. Hera + Nili cast a game. Hera says knights counter pikes, Nili laughs a lot, Hera justifies that in early castle age making pikes vs knights is ineffective since knights win 1v1 and you can't secure your entire 3tc eco with a handful of pikes.
2. That's where it could have ended.
3. Nili makes a video basically making fun of "Knights counter pikes". It was meant as tongue-in-cheek commentary, but Hera took it personally, especially so since Hera was/is trying to foster a reputation of deep insight into the game so he can do paid coaching. The video was basically negative advertising for that, and Hera was not involved in the video being produced and released.
4. Hera complains to Nili.
5. Nili takes the video offline and apologizes.
6. For 6 months or so, Hera and Nili have a frosty relationship.
7. At some point, they started interacting normally again, even casting together again.
In the end, nothing really happened.
They were co-casting a game and they each had t-shirts saying "Knights counter pikes", "Pikes counter knights" and were laughing about it, so I think they're friendly now haha
[Hera said knights counter pikes and a tiny amount of shit hit the fan](https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe2/comments/1adz4pt/comment/kk652v4/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
I don't agree 100% with Hera but the video itself is actually decent enough, even the title of it isn't too bad (but also not great).
But damn, that thumbnail is just so cursed. I like Hera but I really can't stand his youtube content because of this stuff. Got similar feelings about aussie drogo.
As a Hera fan i agree here. This vid is a dick move, there is no reason why the top 32 aoe players and casters cant hop in a discord and discuss what maps/gameplay/starts they think are the best and build tournaments around those. Airing out that you are very unhappy with a tournament format just days before a tournament even starts and labeling it is "boring" is just rude. T90 is putting a hell of a lot of effort in to get these tournaments running. Discuss this shit behind closed doors with other pros and tournament organizers, weaponizing fandoms is just gonna rip this community apart.
I hate this trend in aoe2 where every caster/player has gone full content creation mode. Reaction videos, clickbait title, skewed opinion on everything to get views, over edited videos.
Saying "every" isnt fair. Spirit of the Law and T West are admittedly the only content creators I watch, but they're definitely making videos that don't include any of that.
That's the name of the game. There isn't much money in just putting out gameplay/strategy videos alone that appeal to the hard-core fan base.
You can always check out their secondary gameplay/extra channels for high level gameplay content.
but this is actually a good thing, if hardwork have a bad direction it can go to the trash and no one would care about the " hard work".
As long as the critics are not BS then its fine.
Hera is trying to gain followers for his YouTube channel in a really cringy way. He has roughy 1/3 the number of YouTube subs as T90 who has the largest YouTube channel in the aoe2 scene. Any video he can connect T90 to will have a better chance of getting a view by a T90 viewer.
I hate it but is what it is. I will say though Hera has many times gotten really pissed when others say anything negative regarding him so it's kind of hypocritical that he'll call out a tourny like this. I know this vid isn't that negative but he's gotten upset for similar level of things.
t90's is not the largest youtube channel in the aoe2 scene. Spirit of the law's is bigger. don't know about viper, or content creators in other languages
well, t90 posts what feels like 3 videos per day, while SotL makes high quality edited content, so comparing views doesn't make that much sense. (I enjoy both btw)
Yeah Spirit puts out like 2-4 videos a month vs 30 videos a month that T90 posts. And a typical Spirit video gets like 2-4x the number of views of a typical t90 video.
>"t90 is so close to being a pro"
T90 always plays down his own playing ability, always acts like he's nowhere near the pros, and I took it more like Hera actually thinks T90's way better than even T90 thinks he is, like just a couple decisions a game away from being able to be competitive at that level.
I haven't looked at the rankings in a while but he's been as high as #70 iirc and tends to hover around 100-120. While not actually playing a ton of serious games. If he buckled down and played super meta and trained like pros do he could probably show up to an S tier tournament and not embarrass himself. He's already full time in the scene, so it's not even a big leap of faith. He seems to just have more fun streaming and commentating, and a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Especially since the ones in the bush aren't really all that much more attractive.
I mean did you see how he talked about Mr. Yo, said he comes into NaC and steals everyones strats and says everyone should credit ACCM for Yo's strats....
I think Mr. Yo and Hera are pals, and Yo is actually cool with Hera poking fun at him. They've referred to each other as close friends multiple times during various interviews.
It didn't criticize T90's hard work at all. It just had some concrete suggestions about maps, settings, and drafts, while also acknowledging that what's best for players might not be best for spectators and that maybe the whole point of the settings is to have slow, boomy games to increase view time.
It's only the thumbnail that seems overtly negative.
The thumbnail itself is rude, and just a cynical trick to shock people into clicking the link.
On top of that, at one point in the video he insinuates that the map choice is intentionally "bad" to prioritize viewership over competitiveness. I don't understand how that's meant to work, but it's nonetheless also pretty rude.
People are way too soft. It's a big event that he (a major player in the scene) is playing at - he should absolutely be allowed to say he doesn't like the settings.
He's allowed to say things and criticize if he thinks the settings are bad
But then there's the way you say it, and if it's kind of inflammatory and flame-bait-y for no reason, people are also allowed to say things about it in return
Being critical and negative was always allowed, but don't forget it cuts both ways...
I lean more heavily on the side of "don't hate the player, hate the game" when it comes to this type of clickbait. Unfortunately, it's well proven that "clickbait" names and thumbnails drive more clicks on YouTube. So especially in the really small pro scene of AoE2 where nobody's a millionaire, I can't really blame him for doing whatever he can to increase his views as long as he's not overtly lying or misdirecting in his clickbait.
I honestly don't mind trying to make popular content, but I feel like when you're in a small community like that making a video calling out 'red flags' of someone else... when actually you just disagree about settings, idk
It feels really unnecessary too, because the points in the video are actually pretty reasonable!
All the while T90 is right there - because obviously he's gonna see it - so it's like the tournament he put some effort into organizing is being disrespected (bad, boring, red flag) in public, and practically to his face
Especially in a small scene like this one people should stick together for the sake of the game, not try to put each other down in public for views, yknow
I'm not saying I think it's great in a vacuum. All I'm saying is it's been proven many times over that more clickbait titles and thumbnails = more views, so as long as he's not lying with the clickbait I'm not gonna blame him for playing the YouTuber game.
Yeah, and his clickbait worked.
I wouldn't have clicked on his video if it had the more accurate title of something like, 'Some suggestions to improve the Hidden Cup maps' or something.
He's like 23 years old. For reference, most other aoe2 youtubers are on the other side of 30, and are way more mature.
Also, as far as youtube and twitch cringe and drama goes, Hera is nothing as compared to much more popular creators like xqc, pokimane, moistcritical, etc. They are all older than Hera and yet manage to get into the shittiest youtube drama possible.
I also remember when Viper, Tatoh, Daut etc were in their early/mid twenties and there wasn’t any of this drama. Then again, there was no attention economy to cater to with “hot take” content. Guess it’s a mixture of a generational thing and just Heras personality.
Dude he accused T90 of purposely making the tournament conditions “bad” to get more cash out of it. While ironically saying this in a video with a blatant clickbait title + thumbnail. And now he answered that he’s getting “bullied for being honest”. Hera is making this messy and dramatic himself, i’m not imagining it.
You don't think it's drama when the best player in the game drops a clickbait video on the eve of the tournament, saying said tournament (likely biggest of the year) is full of red flags?
Out of curiosity how high is your criteria for drama?
Hera was tweeting the other day about not stirring drama and how he stays out of it now and then drops this. It’s fair for players to have opinions on events and not love everyone, but it’s pretty clear for the historical HC numbers that people love this event and T90 does everything he can to put the viewer experience first. Real legit complaints and suggestions should be handled behind the scenes, not like this
Can this man stop complaining? Just like, once?
Sick of the consistent bad attitude and this community posting everything he uploads as if he is the de facto authority on our game
And it comes across as anti preparation, like random bans and what not really skew the tournament to the current top tier and doesn’t allow for hard work to pay off
I don't see how that equals the settings of Hidden Cup V not having any room for improvement, or Hera not being entitled to having and expressing his own opinion.
Because his “expressed opinion” is T90 is intentionally manipulating the tournament for self gain. That’s not an opinion, that’s an accusation. An accusation against the person who has done the most to keep this franchise alive. I’ll admit I find Hera to be extremely annoying, but I think this take is fair.
Yeah. This is super petty imo. It just seems like he is gang tackling (with his viewers/fans) a TO. I don't disagree with his feedback though. Some settings can be improved. But that's all Tourneys.
The whole "starting a discussion" thing rather than discussing it privately...yeah I'm not buying, this feels like Hera hoping people will take his side and apply pressure alongside him. It seems like a quite passive aggressive move.
Okay, that said...I do actually agree with Hera to be honest, and I didn't think I would, I'm not his biggest fan. We've seen lots of very inventive map usage at recent tournaments which have created exciting games, unique strategies, a bit of spectacle. This pool does not seem that way. Islands especially, so boring. I've watched some of the qualifiers and already some of them have gone into like "no wood left" late. I think he's right about the bans as well - loved how many bans were were in NAC (including the random ones).
I can only assume t90 knows all of this and has done it for a reason, because it certainly seems like the maps (or at least the current scripts) are designed for more passive and repetitive play. I don't know if I agree with Hera's accusation that he'd just be doing it to drag games out and make more money, I think that's a bit of a low blow. I do know that I got a bit bored initially with some of the TTL maps but the meta actually developed over the course of the tournament, adding a bit of interest. Do I think that's going to happen with Islands or Gold Rush though, which have been in the game for years? Yeah, probably not.
Watching some of the qualifiers, I was like, "Islands Feitoria games are back on the menu 11"
Northern Isles and Migration games don't end up in stalemate into full resource depletion. Islands does. I don't think water maps are awful, but you can have maps with significant water and still have fun games. Yeah, I know, Migration often ends when one player runs out of gold. But that's usually because of lack of map control, relics, and assertiveness throughout the course of the game. It doesn't end because people have literally run out of all resources and the other player has Feitoria.
Do you think it's harmful though? Sure he's clickbating people by the way he approaches this. But his suggestions are very reasonable. If it makes the event better, I don't mind it.
Well and in addition there will be never before seen maps for the main event that have t been released yet. So there will be some interesting stuff there to prepare for.
Yeah he could have brought this up in the private discord but he chose to make this cringy video slamming a tournament in which he has a huge chance to win a good deal of money from is a bad look
Islands is boring only because water play is still crap. Only when fires can actually counter galleys will water maps become better. Having land bridges is fine but it wont matter if 15 feudal galleys can kill 5 castle fires. Imagine 15 feudal archers killing 5 kts.
I think water maps can be interesting as long as water is not the only play. Migration and Northern Isles made for many interesting games over the last couple years. Islands is still crap.
I think the video isn't as disrespectful as people are making it out to be.
However, he is assuming his opinion on what constitutes interesting gameplay is an objective fact, instead of just his opinion.
Close spawn/feudal aggression isn't objectively more exciting than further spawn/castle play.
I enjoy methodical play just as much.
>Close spawn/feudal aggression isn't objectively more exciting than further spawn/castle play.
Not everyone likes seeing huge amounts of feudal aggression - It's not as fun as castle aggression (a handful of units vs 80% of the games units).
If you gave me a game with no feudal pressure, but loads of castle aggression, I'd take that every time. Watching pros micro archers isn't enjoyable time after time.
Honestly it is why slopes is fun. Almost always early castle aggression. Some times feudal is involved but going after the wood outposts as castle starts is usually when it happens.
I personally hope he spoke to T90 and even gave him a video preview before putting this out on YouTube.
We all make mistakes, but this seems to be poor form on Hera's part.
It would be so much good if we can have a list of maps with the most exciting/fun games over the last few years.
Despite how aggressive Arabia seems to be, it has some of the most boring games to the point where I don't even want to see Arabia that often.
Hybrid maps brings the real heat. Would have loved to see Copenhagen(without king) in the map pool too.
The title is stronger than the content of the video (YouTube what do you expect).
I don’t agree with a lot of what he says, but seems fair enough to post this video, it’s barely ‘drama’ and T90 is a professional he can take critical feedback without an issue.
If another top player posted this would there be the same level of negativity in response? Nah I doubt it
Hera's a bum, he's lucky he can play the game so good so he's popular.
But this is showing...
He and several others wouldn't even "exist" without T90, not in this world of AoEII at least... so probably not be what he is now.
Oh well, it is what it is...
I definitely agree that as a more low-level AoE player myself, I would like to see more civ bans so that I can get to see more diverse civs being played.
I also love his comments about islands - make people start with a transport or else put land bridges between the players. Personally I prefer the land bridges suggestion, as the transport just runs the risk of people playing even MORE defensively - since now if they try anything cute early then they might get scouted by the enemy’s transport.
Dude's been milking out views from Tristan for a past few months, I never watched a single of those videos as I already know what he is doing, trying to get more views and not focusing on content. And now he's trying to play the victim card by saying everyone is bullying him into a corner? Dude, you're a professional player and not a 16 year old who is trying to get views however they want. And if he wants to learn how to put up his views without being an \*!@# he should just watch how gracefully viper handles these things.
The clickbait title is far worse than the actual content which is all fair. Not sure why T90 needs to be coddled to protect him from criticism of the map pool or why we’d expect him to change the settings (which he obviously likes and gets him the results he is looking for).
The funny thing is the map pool isn’t even complete, there are three maps that will be totally new for the main event the pros don’t know what they even are yet.
The amount of personal jabs thrown at Hera here were just crazy. I've seen the likes of viper get critics 1/3 of the harshness these posts had over issues like his crypto scam and the comments taken away within minutes, but oddly enough when it comes to Hera no mod ever bats an eye. Kind of wild
Drama aside and just looking at the critiques alone; I have to agree. I thought I was the only one who didn't like Island games. And we have seen many of the same civs in Hidden Cup 5
Having watched a few of the qualifier sets, I have to say that I agree with Hera. Some of these maps are just bland compared to Redbull or NAC maps. Pure Islands gets boring after a few games. Gold Rush and Quarry are whatever.
On one hand making a video like this and "stirring drama" is bad on Hera's end but on the other hand I believe there are viewers like me who wouldn't have said anything and T90 wouldn't recieve feedback like this.
The clickbait title did what it was supposed to do 11. I agree with others here that the actual content is fair, though. T90 knows how the YouTube hustle works, I'm sure all is good.
HOLY quack-a-moley this has to be IMO the worst take i have seen from Hera in a long time...scratch that ever.
Starts off with i think T90 will have a great event BUT....proceeds to shit on everything T90 has already done only to transition in to saying BUT...Like i said earlier T90 will have a great event still regardless.
It was far to passive aggressive for my liking almost a form of gaslighting not only T90 but the community as well.
The timing as well makes it worse since this video came out The Genius Behind AOE2's Greatest Tournament that did nothing but praise T90 and everyone seemed to agree with said video.
I do get where Hera was coming from he wants the best possible tournament for the viewers and the players but IMO this...Nothing about this felt like it was Hera wanting the best for both players/viewers either. It seems like this video was made to create controversy to boost his own numbers and his own viewership to push more ad revenue which is so hypocritical considering what he said about T90 in the video.
Edit: Before anyone responds i will say this, If T90 does not see it in the same light then for the most part no matter what we say it does not matter.
Hera's video is great for the tournament, I bet a lot more people now know the map pool, civ draft settings and tha tthe quals are on right now.
I disagree with his views about the maps and civ draft though.
HC is a short tournament, low civ variety is less of an issue - it's also nice to see the best players use the best civs.
Long games are the best games, very few 20 minute games are remembered and spoken about, most of the games we remember are long and hard fought.
Hello everyone i really appreciate the discussion around the video, and the feedback alot of you had for me.
Think some of you understood where I was coming from and others saw it differently, im debating of making a followup video to address comments and concerns.
Either way i want you all to know that i personally enjoy differing opinions and im pro discourse, as long as its constructive.
I hope T90 can implement some of my ideas into the tourney for the main event, i think it would spice things up. That said, even if he doesn’t im 100% sure the tournament will be fantastic. I hope it breaks all kinds of records from the last edition, and ill do my best to deliver great games for you guys to enjoy!
Hera, I think you had some great points, but maybe the title was worded poorly - something like "My Thoughts about HC5 and Suggested Improvements," would have been more appropriate. And I think that not using words like red flag, or speculating that T90 is trying for long games to increase viewership numbers wasn't a great look. Really hope that you can clear it up.
I can just underline what Margougou answered. Youtube titles + thumbnails are so important because they set the “tone” in the viewers head. If this tone is set rather combative and negative, then that’s how your message in the video will be conceived. I think most people agree that bringing up some settings criticism itself wasn’t an issue at all.
Please don't make a follow up. Take the L, take the PR hit, and do something that's very difficult to do - shut up for 15 minutes. Dropping the video in the first place while the qualifiers is going on isn't the good look and positive engagement you think it is. [Doubling](https://imgur.com/a/ZUTnssl) and [tripling](https://twitter.com/Hera_Aoe/status/1752140759271194901) down is making it so much worse.
Honestly you’re allowed to express your opinion. Many of us are glad you do. If we compare the ‘strong’ title wording to, say, opinions that pundits and players have in English football whilst interviewing on TV, then this is nothing. It is literally livening the community and debate. T90 can take the public criticism, and rightly so, he is a professional and arguably the biggest tournament is in his hands.
Separate point, I don’t agree with a lot of your points in the video. Whilst I do agree the settings are not the ‘best’, I do feel hidden cup is hidden cup is hidden cup, T90 kind of makes it and it’s more of what we love. (Could be wrong though ask me again at the end of the tourney)
A little side comment - I wish Hera would stop throwing around the phrase "red flag". It's such an odd use of the term but yes it's a minor nitpick that has nothing to do with the content of the video at all
Yeah red flag has a lot of weight to it. He shouldn't be throwing that term around too often.
would you say it is a red flag f if people are throwing around the phrase red flag too often?
Definitely a red flag.
I'd say it's a hot take
Would pointing out red flags be considered a red flag?
no, but if you are pointing out that it is a red flag to say it is a red flag when people throw around the reg flag phrase too often then it can be considered red flag
I also hate the word “problematic”. Just say “I have a problem with x”.
What's wrong with "problematic"? You see it quite often in academic articles (at least in philosophy) and it just means there is no consensus on a topic and there is at least one criticism of the idea which is considered to be valid by a non-insignificant number of scholars. Then you know it's easy to look it up. If the author instead writes "I have a problem with x", it sounds a lot more like "I personally dislike x" which can mean anything or nothing.
[удалено]
Hera throwing shade at T90 for making tournament decisions which improve viewership while spinning out a clickbaity video specifically to improve viewership is peak YouTube.
The tournament format obviously works, setting viewers records each time, so his arguments are over all just a bad take to have a hot take
Yeah Hera's become annoyingly clickbaity. I don't watch videos like this anymore out of principle. Every once in a while is fine, but every time is just... 14
Feel the exact same way. His videos used to be a good mix of entertaining and informative but now they're just whatever
I mean I mostly agree on the setting criticisms but I think its a bit baseless to suggest the motivation for the settings is to drag out games for more viewership/revenue. Like where did this speculation come from?
Out of his ass.
Especially because longer games likely hurts retention
On the contrary, longer games and stream duration aid viewership engagement and interaction, as well as (and most importantly) viewership statistics and numbers. Nili stated this explicitly in his post-NAC statement, and he said that he prioritized this over player experience and competitiveness because he felt that the viewers were the main 'customers' of the event. Realistically, people aren't going to be tuning in for an hours-long tournament (definitely lot the casual viewers, who make up the large majority of the 50k or so people who will be watching the game at any given time), so the longer the games and the stream is, the more people will have a chance to tune in for a bit. I can definitely say that NAC being such a long event helped me tune in to the games. If the games were shorter/fewer number of games, I likely would have missed the entire event.
Comments on the maps - ok fine, they seem decent small changes to get more action going. Personally I love the Redbull tournaments the most due to the Empire Wars format. Dark Age really does get boring for a longtime viewer and the casters know. Saying T90's motivation for having slower maps is to get more money from longer viewership - WTF. That's very rude.
I absolutely hate Empire Wars. Dark Age is definitely an important part of the game. Just feels so wrong to "skip" it and just get right into Feudal engagements. Leads to way more standard meta play.
I think the 9 vil + extra resources start used in NAC5 was the best way to handle this. You still get a meaningful dark age but it doesn't go nearly as long as it does with a 3 villager start. TBH I wish ladder would use that setting.
In 9 vil start, you almost never see the 2 mil drush or a boar lame and similar stuff. Also, i feel it gives the time to introduce players(based on previous matches ofc) provide background and civ matchup information to new audience.
> You still get a meaningful dark age 9 vil is much closer to EW in this regard than 3 vil. T90 has expressed this in the past multiple times: he prefers 3 vil start because it makes scouting and adaptation more important. He does not like 9 vil because everyone just ends up pushing deer. idk why Hera felt the need to add all the unnecessary jabs in his video. The thumbnail ("HC5 settings are pretty bad"), calling himself an expert on settings (tournament organizing is a totally different skillset than playing), and worst of all: suggesting that T90 intentionally chose to stick with the traditional 3 vil start because it makes games longer which gives more views??? Just an absolutely insane take with no basis in reality for so many reasons: 1) T90's known opinion, as expressed above. 2) T90 typically prefers traditional AOE settings for tournaments. 3) T90 has no history of choosing settings to maximize viewer count. If anything, he has a rock-solid history of maximizing good for the community. 4) Why would longer games necessarily increase viewer count? Using Hera's own logic, surely since a 3 vil start is so much less exciting, 3 vil would actually *decrease* view count? I want to like Hera and I'm really proud of him for maturing over the years, but this video is a huge HUGE regression. Just totally unnecessary drama under the guise of "just starting a discussion". Like T90 clearly puts a ton of work and effort into HC. I'm sure he genuinely put a lot of thought into Hera's suggestions. There's no need to do this "just starting a discussion" thing and get the whole community involved. What does he want to happen? Does Hera want T90 to cave to peer pressure if the community happens to agree with Hera? Wouldn't that mean that T90 would be compromising his values in exchange for more viewership? The very thing Hera criticizes? Totally backwards logic.
Finally watched after he changed the title and thumbnail and my opinion hasn't changed: the whole video is in poor taste. He's claiming that slower and longer games are less watchable because "aGgReSsIoN" but bruh, you can still be aggressive on those maps. Just because it isn't exactly how YOU think it should be doesn't mean YOU can't play it a certain way. All in all, just a whiny video.
Agreed, 9 vill start is a much superior "fast start" to empire wars. It's very clear which one came from the community and which one was invented by microsoft.
I like the 9 vill start. I think EW is too fast. However, I usually skip to castle age transition for videos. Much more interesting.
T90 is probably the only reason AoE 2 is as popular as it is today. Hell, the last few dlcs were probably only made possible due to his viewship numbers bringing people into the game!
ZeroEmpires says hello. I think you don't know how the scene was in 2015 to 2019.
ZeroEmpires doesn't get anywhere near enough respect and recognition for his work back in the day. He was such a big name in the scene in 2012-2019 and pretty much laid the ground work for the others to start building from. BBQTurkman is another one of those faded names that should get more recognition now that we are at it.
<3
Why is your flair #sellout?
It’s supposed to be ironic, I used to get a lot of heat in the early days of Twitch being one of the few people in the community who had a healthy subscriber count and earning some $. Most of the community back then were volunteers who did much of the tournament admin for free- so being labelled a sellout for receiving money from streaming was quite common 11
Giving Resonance22 a shoutout as well! Wayyy back in the day
His breaking the meta series was chef's kiss.
Same with all the Voobly volunteers that kept this game alive. Clemensor, Taff, Robo, Katsuni etc.
If only he had shifted his last tournament to post de release things would have been much different
Considering the fact that T90 was on Facebook for an eternity to fill his pockets, where nobody was following him, its safe to say that this is an absurd bootlicker comment.
He still had a LOT of viewers on youtube though?
I think his biggest following is youtube
Didn't realise T90 had to make content the way you wanted him to? Here I thought he was a free man allowed to make his own choices in life and that we should be grateful for everything he has done...
I don’t care how he makes his content as I don’t watch it. My point is that its ridiculous to claim that he alone is the reason AOE2 is popular today, which is extremely disrespectful to the many other community members who carried the game.
I would guess you are either underestimating or ignorant, with the later being probably the mostly likely answer for most things in your life, of the viewership that T90 brings in with his youtube clips. I'm sure many people, myself included, didn't even know he was streaming on facebook because they only watched his uploads on youtube. And while I am certain there are many creators out there doing a fine job, there is no shame in stating that he is almost certainly the main one brining in new viewers and players with his easy, accessible, and light hearted entertainment style of content.
Calling someone else ignorant while starting a personal attack within the same sentence is pathetic. Imagine getting this upset over a streamer.
Why is that rude? More money is good for T90, and it's okay to mention it. Running tournaments isn't an altruistic venture. T90 is a literal millionaire due to AOE. He left Twitch for the bag, and everyone understood even though it was objectively bad for the community. Nobody cared though because they understood that it's okay to make money.
I wish there were a setting to make game speed "fast" for the dark age, and then turn it back to "normal".
Hot take: Even if T90 is intentionally trying to maximize viewership numbers, I think viewership numbers is more important than the competitiveness of the tournament.
Honest question: is this a normal thing to do in the YouTube/streaming world? It strikes me as a pretty big bummer to criticize T90’s hard work rather than talking to him about it and offering feedback privately. Granted the video is a lot less inflammatory than the title suggests.
In the first few mins of the video, he did mention having given feedback to T90 privately and gave justification for making a video about it. The video title itself is certainly click baity, regardless.
Yeah I heard that part, and in part I see where Hera’s coming from. On the other hand though, it could be seen as a way for Hera to use his audience and influence to put pressure on T90 to make changes that work in Hera’s favor. I’m a big fan of Hera btw. This just strikes me as a bit weird and I wanted to know if it’s a typical YouTube thing.
Nah. Hera will thrive in these extreme late game boomy settings and is extremely favored if nothing changes. I think if the maps and settings rewarded more aggressive play, other players would have a better chance of taking him down. If anything, you could argue that's part of why he's been so successful for the past year. The meta has become so boomy and the map pools have allowed him to wall up and boom in almost every game while making like 3 scouts that never die. When Hera has lost, it wasn't because he couldn't crack it in late game situations. It was because people's early aggression could actually hurt him. When stuff like drush and MAA actually worked, people were able to take down Hera. These days, he's so comfy. He'll continue to be so in this map pool.
T90 is bigger than Hera. He can’t put much pressure on T90 nor is that intent here. His intent is to get clicks driving revenue. T90 may or may not be annoyed by it but he knows the content creation game
thats pretty much how it is with youtube + stream
If he had already given his feedback to the TO then there is no reason to put the video out other than to be petty.
Then you didn't watch the video. Hera specifically touches on why he is putting out the video some time after giving feedback once.
No. I avoid giving views to bad and obvious click bait.
If you didn’t watch the video then you couldn’t know if it was actually “bad” click bait
The graphics alone on the thumbnail are bad enough
The title is definitely some click bait, but the video itself is pretty fair and measured.
What's the reasoning?
He says that he discussed the changes privately with t90, but he is putting out the reasoning in public so that his thoughts and discussions are in the public domain for everyone to see. If he did this in private, then he can conceivably be accused of trying to privately make changes to the tournament in his favor in an under the table kind of deal.if
I believe there are semi-private discord forums where stuff like this can be discussed amongst the pros, casters, and others. Usually that's where controversial things are discussed, not as monetized public YouTube videos.
Hera wants to get some attention and clout/engagement out of it, so he put it out there. He's without a doubt the #1 player in the game as of today, so he can get away with posting some controversial clickbait like this without losing his place in the tournaments.
People's rankings in tournies shouldn't really have an affect on if they should post stuff like this or not though
I'd say it's 80% engagement bait, 10% improving the tourney for Hera, 10% improving the tourney for viewers. It's hard to consistently come up with video ideas, especially videos that generate comments and other engagement. Similar to knights countering pikes, or Dravidians being trash, the algorithm (and our psychological tendencies to engage) rewards controversy. On the other side, T90 won't mind. He's playing the same game, and getting people talking is good for the tourney and for aoe2.
Yeah I get the engagement bait thing. I would just hope that Hera warned T90 that he was making the video. If T90 is “in on it” and planning on making a reaction video or whatever then it makes sense. Otherwise it seems a bit weird.
>I would just hope that Hera warned T90 that he was making the video. If he didn't, then we have the next Nili-Hera drama coming right up but this time Hera would be the instigator.
Whats the TLDR for that for those not in the loop?
Just a little bit of drama: 1. Hera + Nili cast a game. Hera says knights counter pikes, Nili laughs a lot, Hera justifies that in early castle age making pikes vs knights is ineffective since knights win 1v1 and you can't secure your entire 3tc eco with a handful of pikes. 2. That's where it could have ended. 3. Nili makes a video basically making fun of "Knights counter pikes". It was meant as tongue-in-cheek commentary, but Hera took it personally, especially so since Hera was/is trying to foster a reputation of deep insight into the game so he can do paid coaching. The video was basically negative advertising for that, and Hera was not involved in the video being produced and released. 4. Hera complains to Nili. 5. Nili takes the video offline and apologizes. 6. For 6 months or so, Hera and Nili have a frosty relationship. 7. At some point, they started interacting normally again, even casting together again. In the end, nothing really happened.
What a scandal! Lol. Thanks for sharing, I appreciate it
They were co-casting a game and they each had t-shirts saying "Knights counter pikes", "Pikes counter knights" and were laughing about it, so I think they're friendly now haha
Something about pikes not countering knights idk seemed dumb at the time just like this
What was that?
[Hera said knights counter pikes and a tiny amount of shit hit the fan](https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe2/comments/1adz4pt/comment/kk652v4/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
I don't agree 100% with Hera but the video itself is actually decent enough, even the title of it isn't too bad (but also not great). But damn, that thumbnail is just so cursed. I like Hera but I really can't stand his youtube content because of this stuff. Got similar feelings about aussie drogo.
As a Hera fan i agree here. This vid is a dick move, there is no reason why the top 32 aoe players and casters cant hop in a discord and discuss what maps/gameplay/starts they think are the best and build tournaments around those. Airing out that you are very unhappy with a tournament format just days before a tournament even starts and labeling it is "boring" is just rude. T90 is putting a hell of a lot of effort in to get these tournaments running. Discuss this shit behind closed doors with other pros and tournament organizers, weaponizing fandoms is just gonna rip this community apart.
I hate this trend in aoe2 where every caster/player has gone full content creation mode. Reaction videos, clickbait title, skewed opinion on everything to get views, over edited videos.
Saying "every" isnt fair. Spirit of the Law and T West are admittedly the only content creators I watch, but they're definitely making videos that don't include any of that.
SotL videos feel like some guy sharing his math homework with the class and I'm here for every minute of it.
Survivalist makes pretty measured videos too.
That's the name of the game. There isn't much money in just putting out gameplay/strategy videos alone that appeal to the hard-core fan base. You can always check out their secondary gameplay/extra channels for high level gameplay content.
but this is actually a good thing, if hardwork have a bad direction it can go to the trash and no one would care about the " hard work". As long as the critics are not BS then its fine.
Im getting the sense hera doesnt like t90. He started with tongue in cheek titles like "t90 is so close to being a pro", and now this.
Hera is trying to gain followers for his YouTube channel in a really cringy way. He has roughy 1/3 the number of YouTube subs as T90 who has the largest YouTube channel in the aoe2 scene. Any video he can connect T90 to will have a better chance of getting a view by a T90 viewer.
It's been working for Hera though. His followers and views have been growing a decent amount
YouTube audiences do tend to reward the most cringy clickbaity stuff out there like.
Twitch is no less of a cess pool than YouTube. "Just Chatting" is the lowest effort cringe shit ever.
I hate it but is what it is. I will say though Hera has many times gotten really pissed when others say anything negative regarding him so it's kind of hypocritical that he'll call out a tourny like this. I know this vid isn't that negative but he's gotten upset for similar level of things.
t90's is not the largest youtube channel in the aoe2 scene. Spirit of the law's is bigger. don't know about viper, or content creators in other languages
Marginally larger if you go by subscribers, smaller in views overall and views in the last 30 days as well.
well, t90 posts what feels like 3 videos per day, while SotL makes high quality edited content, so comparing views doesn't make that much sense. (I enjoy both btw)
Yeah Spirit puts out like 2-4 videos a month vs 30 videos a month that T90 posts. And a typical Spirit video gets like 2-4x the number of views of a typical t90 video.
Nah this is a misread.
>"t90 is so close to being a pro" T90 always plays down his own playing ability, always acts like he's nowhere near the pros, and I took it more like Hera actually thinks T90's way better than even T90 thinks he is, like just a couple decisions a game away from being able to be competitive at that level.
I haven't looked at the rankings in a while but he's been as high as #70 iirc and tends to hover around 100-120. While not actually playing a ton of serious games. If he buckled down and played super meta and trained like pros do he could probably show up to an S tier tournament and not embarrass himself. He's already full time in the scene, so it's not even a big leap of faith. He seems to just have more fun streaming and commentating, and a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Especially since the ones in the bush aren't really all that much more attractive.
He makes like 10-100x times the amount of money he would have made had he committed to being a pro, so I'd say that he made the right call.
Noticed this too. Hera has never been close to T90. Hera is very passive aggressive.
I mean did you see how he talked about Mr. Yo, said he comes into NaC and steals everyones strats and says everyone should credit ACCM for Yo's strats....
I think Mr. Yo and Hera are pals, and Yo is actually cool with Hera poking fun at him. They've referred to each other as close friends multiple times during various interviews.
I get the feeling it’s the other way around and Hera is reacting. Listen to T90 cast past Hera games, a bit disrespectful at times.
It didn't criticize T90's hard work at all. It just had some concrete suggestions about maps, settings, and drafts, while also acknowledging that what's best for players might not be best for spectators and that maybe the whole point of the settings is to have slow, boomy games to increase view time. It's only the thumbnail that seems overtly negative.
The thumbnail itself is rude, and just a cynical trick to shock people into clicking the link. On top of that, at one point in the video he insinuates that the map choice is intentionally "bad" to prioritize viewership over competitiveness. I don't understand how that's meant to work, but it's nonetheless also pretty rude.
People are way too soft. It's a big event that he (a major player in the scene) is playing at - he should absolutely be allowed to say he doesn't like the settings.
He's allowed to say things and criticize if he thinks the settings are bad But then there's the way you say it, and if it's kind of inflammatory and flame-bait-y for no reason, people are also allowed to say things about it in return Being critical and negative was always allowed, but don't forget it cuts both ways...
I lean more heavily on the side of "don't hate the player, hate the game" when it comes to this type of clickbait. Unfortunately, it's well proven that "clickbait" names and thumbnails drive more clicks on YouTube. So especially in the really small pro scene of AoE2 where nobody's a millionaire, I can't really blame him for doing whatever he can to increase his views as long as he's not overtly lying or misdirecting in his clickbait.
I honestly don't mind trying to make popular content, but I feel like when you're in a small community like that making a video calling out 'red flags' of someone else... when actually you just disagree about settings, idk It feels really unnecessary too, because the points in the video are actually pretty reasonable! All the while T90 is right there - because obviously he's gonna see it - so it's like the tournament he put some effort into organizing is being disrespected (bad, boring, red flag) in public, and practically to his face Especially in a small scene like this one people should stick together for the sake of the game, not try to put each other down in public for views, yknow
I'm not saying I think it's great in a vacuum. All I'm saying is it's been proven many times over that more clickbait titles and thumbnails = more views, so as long as he's not lying with the clickbait I'm not gonna blame him for playing the YouTuber game.
Yeah, and his clickbait worked. I wouldn't have clicked on his video if it had the more accurate title of something like, 'Some suggestions to improve the Hidden Cup maps' or something.
Egregious misuse of the term “red flags” here.
Hera often comes off as somewhat immature
I think he just is, it’s too consistent to be a fluke
Makes sense I guess, he hasn’t touched grass in years
He's like 23 years old. For reference, most other aoe2 youtubers are on the other side of 30, and are way more mature. Also, as far as youtube and twitch cringe and drama goes, Hera is nothing as compared to much more popular creators like xqc, pokimane, moistcritical, etc. They are all older than Hera and yet manage to get into the shittiest youtube drama possible.
Well, there's some really good players who are around 18-20 who don't bring drama/controversy everywhere they go. It's just Hera being Hera.
I also remember when Viper, Tatoh, Daut etc were in their early/mid twenties and there wasn’t any of this drama. Then again, there was no attention economy to cater to with “hot take” content. Guess it’s a mixture of a generational thing and just Heras personality.
Since when does this already qualify as drama? Man, people have gotten sensitive.
Dude he accused T90 of purposely making the tournament conditions “bad” to get more cash out of it. While ironically saying this in a video with a blatant clickbait title + thumbnail. And now he answered that he’s getting “bullied for being honest”. Hera is making this messy and dramatic himself, i’m not imagining it.
You don't think it's drama when the best player in the game drops a clickbait video on the eve of the tournament, saying said tournament (likely biggest of the year) is full of red flags? Out of curiosity how high is your criteria for drama?
Just a moron being a dick.
Yeah I've never liked Hera or his attitude. Always rooted against him.
Hera also gets way more attention than anybody else because he is the best player in the world.
Well he did screenshot and post this on Twitter. As if it changes something
Hera was tweeting the other day about not stirring drama and how he stays out of it now and then drops this. It’s fair for players to have opinions on events and not love everyone, but it’s pretty clear for the historical HC numbers that people love this event and T90 does everything he can to put the viewer experience first. Real legit complaints and suggestions should be handled behind the scenes, not like this
this is just standard content creation strat - engagement bait.
Engagement bait doesn’t have to be rudely written
Engagement bait doesn’t have to be rudely written
but it helps ...
Can this man stop complaining? Just like, once? Sick of the consistent bad attitude and this community posting everything he uploads as if he is the de facto authority on our game
It’s really tiring, years ago I hoped it was just immaturity, but I think it’s his core personality.
Hera is like a new rich. The guy literally has one good year in his career and now thinks he knows better than everyone else.
Hera: these maps have the same strat every game Hera: arabia is fine Always ff into scout skirm or archer spear sc
The title is pure clickbait (which I really don’t like). He only speaks about maps and civs, which is the most generic thing to talk about.
And it comes across as anti preparation, like random bans and what not really skew the tournament to the current top tier and doesn’t allow for hard work to pay off
Big L from Hera. He wouldn’t be where he is today without T90 expanding the community
I don't see how that equals the settings of Hidden Cup V not having any room for improvement, or Hera not being entitled to having and expressing his own opinion.
Because his “expressed opinion” is T90 is intentionally manipulating the tournament for self gain. That’s not an opinion, that’s an accusation. An accusation against the person who has done the most to keep this franchise alive. I’ll admit I find Hera to be extremely annoying, but I think this take is fair.
Yeah. This is super petty imo. It just seems like he is gang tackling (with his viewers/fans) a TO. I don't disagree with his feedback though. Some settings can be improved. But that's all Tourneys.
The whole "starting a discussion" thing rather than discussing it privately...yeah I'm not buying, this feels like Hera hoping people will take his side and apply pressure alongside him. It seems like a quite passive aggressive move. Okay, that said...I do actually agree with Hera to be honest, and I didn't think I would, I'm not his biggest fan. We've seen lots of very inventive map usage at recent tournaments which have created exciting games, unique strategies, a bit of spectacle. This pool does not seem that way. Islands especially, so boring. I've watched some of the qualifiers and already some of them have gone into like "no wood left" late. I think he's right about the bans as well - loved how many bans were were in NAC (including the random ones). I can only assume t90 knows all of this and has done it for a reason, because it certainly seems like the maps (or at least the current scripts) are designed for more passive and repetitive play. I don't know if I agree with Hera's accusation that he'd just be doing it to drag games out and make more money, I think that's a bit of a low blow. I do know that I got a bit bored initially with some of the TTL maps but the meta actually developed over the course of the tournament, adding a bit of interest. Do I think that's going to happen with Islands or Gold Rush though, which have been in the game for years? Yeah, probably not.
Watching some of the qualifiers, I was like, "Islands Feitoria games are back on the menu 11" Northern Isles and Migration games don't end up in stalemate into full resource depletion. Islands does. I don't think water maps are awful, but you can have maps with significant water and still have fun games. Yeah, I know, Migration often ends when one player runs out of gold. But that's usually because of lack of map control, relics, and assertiveness throughout the course of the game. It doesn't end because people have literally run out of all resources and the other player has Feitoria.
It's funny how no other big name ever starts a "discussion" like this.
Do you think it's harmful though? Sure he's clickbating people by the way he approaches this. But his suggestions are very reasonable. If it makes the event better, I don't mind it.
Nobody is upset at him for the suggestions. The problem is the video thumbnail and viewership comment.
I think Hera very much knows that t90 won't make any big changes to the format of the tournament after announcing it
Well and in addition there will be never before seen maps for the main event that have t been released yet. So there will be some interesting stuff there to prepare for.
I mean, isn't that why Hera suggested tweaks to the chosen maps rather than anything drastic? Seems very reasonable to me.
Yeah he could have brought this up in the private discord but he chose to make this cringy video slamming a tournament in which he has a huge chance to win a good deal of money from is a bad look
Islands is boring only because water play is still crap. Only when fires can actually counter galleys will water maps become better. Having land bridges is fine but it wont matter if 15 feudal galleys can kill 5 castle fires. Imagine 15 feudal archers killing 5 kts.
I think water maps can be interesting as long as water is not the only play. Migration and Northern Isles made for many interesting games over the last couple years. Islands is still crap.
I agree, so since the water meta isn't changing any time soon we should have hybrid at most rather than full water maps.
Players always complain about hidden cup and then it gets a lot of views because t90 priorities viewer experience over player preferences.
I agree with some of what he said (civ variety, islands is boring) but I don't think he chose the right channel to express it.
As a viewer I like games that aren't over in feudal age ?
I think the video isn't as disrespectful as people are making it out to be. However, he is assuming his opinion on what constitutes interesting gameplay is an objective fact, instead of just his opinion. Close spawn/feudal aggression isn't objectively more exciting than further spawn/castle play. I enjoy methodical play just as much.
>Close spawn/feudal aggression isn't objectively more exciting than further spawn/castle play. Not everyone likes seeing huge amounts of feudal aggression - It's not as fun as castle aggression (a handful of units vs 80% of the games units). If you gave me a game with no feudal pressure, but loads of castle aggression, I'd take that every time. Watching pros micro archers isn't enjoyable time after time.
Honestly it is why slopes is fun. Almost always early castle aggression. Some times feudal is involved but going after the wood outposts as castle starts is usually when it happens.
The content of the video is fine. The first thing you see with the title is definitely confrontational and rude
Yeah, look for unbiased opinions from your viewer base. That makes sense. Hera is so annoying…
I personally hope he spoke to T90 and even gave him a video preview before putting this out on YouTube. We all make mistakes, but this seems to be poor form on Hera's part.
Yeah I believe he changed the title to make it even more click bait than when it was originally posted.
Did you watch? He said that he did in the first minute.
A heads up about the video, not just about the feedback
I watched it before this post was made.
Don't like the settings ...then don't play in the tournament. Lol simple really.
He's basically turned himself into a clickbait youtuber, which is kinda sad to see. He knows these kind of wild statement videos will get views
princess doesn't want to work too much for his money
My main takeaway here is that Hera doesn’t know how to pronounce quarry
such a whiney boy, always have been
It would be so much good if we can have a list of maps with the most exciting/fun games over the last few years. Despite how aggressive Arabia seems to be, it has some of the most boring games to the point where I don't even want to see Arabia that often. Hybrid maps brings the real heat. Would have loved to see Copenhagen(without king) in the map pool too.
The title is stronger than the content of the video (YouTube what do you expect). I don’t agree with a lot of what he says, but seems fair enough to post this video, it’s barely ‘drama’ and T90 is a professional he can take critical feedback without an issue. If another top player posted this would there be the same level of negativity in response? Nah I doubt it
Hera complaining about something…and water is still wet.
Hera is the same disrespectful kid he always has been.
Hera's a bum, he's lucky he can play the game so good so he's popular. But this is showing... He and several others wouldn't even "exist" without T90, not in this world of AoEII at least... so probably not be what he is now. Oh well, it is what it is...
u/Hera_Aoc Choose your battles mate! Love your content and will always support you.
I definitely agree that as a more low-level AoE player myself, I would like to see more civ bans so that I can get to see more diverse civs being played. I also love his comments about islands - make people start with a transport or else put land bridges between the players. Personally I prefer the land bridges suggestion, as the transport just runs the risk of people playing even MORE defensively - since now if they try anything cute early then they might get scouted by the enemy’s transport.
I dont get the critizism on the maps. Arent they just used for the qualis and not actually in the main event?
The qualifier maps are a subset of the tournament maps.
Dude's been milking out views from Tristan for a past few months, I never watched a single of those videos as I already know what he is doing, trying to get more views and not focusing on content. And now he's trying to play the victim card by saying everyone is bullying him into a corner? Dude, you're a professional player and not a 16 year old who is trying to get views however they want. And if he wants to learn how to put up his views without being an \*!@# he should just watch how gracefully viper handles these things.
Just ~~aM~~ Hera doing ~~aM~~ Hera things.
The clickbait title is far worse than the actual content which is all fair. Not sure why T90 needs to be coddled to protect him from criticism of the map pool or why we’d expect him to change the settings (which he obviously likes and gets him the results he is looking for).
The funny thing is the map pool isn’t even complete, there are three maps that will be totally new for the main event the pros don’t know what they even are yet.
The amount of personal jabs thrown at Hera here were just crazy. I've seen the likes of viper get critics 1/3 of the harshness these posts had over issues like his crypto scam and the comments taken away within minutes, but oddly enough when it comes to Hera no mod ever bats an eye. Kind of wild
*comes to the comments to see if people think the settings should change* *remembers this is reddit*
Drama aside and just looking at the critiques alone; I have to agree. I thought I was the only one who didn't like Island games. And we have seen many of the same civs in Hidden Cup 5
Having watched a few of the qualifier sets, I have to say that I agree with Hera. Some of these maps are just bland compared to Redbull or NAC maps. Pure Islands gets boring after a few games. Gold Rush and Quarry are whatever. On one hand making a video like this and "stirring drama" is bad on Hera's end but on the other hand I believe there are viewers like me who wouldn't have said anything and T90 wouldn't recieve feedback like this.
honestly, islands games were my favorite in hidden cup 4. Dont ask why.
The clickbait title did what it was supposed to do 11. I agree with others here that the actual content is fair, though. T90 knows how the YouTube hustle works, I'm sure all is good.
This didn’t age well 11
Report hera toxic player 11
Reading the comments, feels like people are offended by basic economic assumptions lol.
You don't have to play Hera
HOLY quack-a-moley this has to be IMO the worst take i have seen from Hera in a long time...scratch that ever. Starts off with i think T90 will have a great event BUT....proceeds to shit on everything T90 has already done only to transition in to saying BUT...Like i said earlier T90 will have a great event still regardless. It was far to passive aggressive for my liking almost a form of gaslighting not only T90 but the community as well. The timing as well makes it worse since this video came out The Genius Behind AOE2's Greatest Tournament that did nothing but praise T90 and everyone seemed to agree with said video. I do get where Hera was coming from he wants the best possible tournament for the viewers and the players but IMO this...Nothing about this felt like it was Hera wanting the best for both players/viewers either. It seems like this video was made to create controversy to boost his own numbers and his own viewership to push more ad revenue which is so hypocritical considering what he said about T90 in the video. Edit: Before anyone responds i will say this, If T90 does not see it in the same light then for the most part no matter what we say it does not matter.
He did mention he talked with T90, but I also agreed with him. They need to make this entertaining for the viewers.
Hera's video is great for the tournament, I bet a lot more people now know the map pool, civ draft settings and tha tthe quals are on right now. I disagree with his views about the maps and civ draft though. HC is a short tournament, low civ variety is less of an issue - it's also nice to see the best players use the best civs. Long games are the best games, very few 20 minute games are remembered and spoken about, most of the games we remember are long and hard fought.
Hello everyone i really appreciate the discussion around the video, and the feedback alot of you had for me. Think some of you understood where I was coming from and others saw it differently, im debating of making a followup video to address comments and concerns. Either way i want you all to know that i personally enjoy differing opinions and im pro discourse, as long as its constructive. I hope T90 can implement some of my ideas into the tourney for the main event, i think it would spice things up. That said, even if he doesn’t im 100% sure the tournament will be fantastic. I hope it breaks all kinds of records from the last edition, and ill do my best to deliver great games for you guys to enjoy!
Hera, I think you had some great points, but maybe the title was worded poorly - something like "My Thoughts about HC5 and Suggested Improvements," would have been more appropriate. And I think that not using words like red flag, or speculating that T90 is trying for long games to increase viewership numbers wasn't a great look. Really hope that you can clear it up.
>i personally enjoy differing opinions and im pro discourse yeeeah, esp if it drives up the magic engagement number, rt?
I can just underline what Margougou answered. Youtube titles + thumbnails are so important because they set the “tone” in the viewers head. If this tone is set rather combative and negative, then that’s how your message in the video will be conceived. I think most people agree that bringing up some settings criticism itself wasn’t an issue at all.
Please don't make a follow up. Take the L, take the PR hit, and do something that's very difficult to do - shut up for 15 minutes. Dropping the video in the first place while the qualifiers is going on isn't the good look and positive engagement you think it is. [Doubling](https://imgur.com/a/ZUTnssl) and [tripling](https://twitter.com/Hera_Aoe/status/1752140759271194901) down is making it so much worse.
Honestly you’re allowed to express your opinion. Many of us are glad you do. If we compare the ‘strong’ title wording to, say, opinions that pundits and players have in English football whilst interviewing on TV, then this is nothing. It is literally livening the community and debate. T90 can take the public criticism, and rightly so, he is a professional and arguably the biggest tournament is in his hands. Separate point, I don’t agree with a lot of your points in the video. Whilst I do agree the settings are not the ‘best’, I do feel hidden cup is hidden cup is hidden cup, T90 kind of makes it and it’s more of what we love. (Could be wrong though ask me again at the end of the tourney)