$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$Idk how mid-to-high ranking players aren't more enraged by the graphics. They're hideous from a gameplay/focus standpoint, and the terrain is simply hard to look at no matter how much I tweak the settings. If the devs cared even a little about their longstanding players, they'd offer a classic graphics mod, and it baffles me why people haven't revolted against DE for this alone.
Pathing and collision are rubbish. Go back to voobly and the mechanics are like upgrading from a Pinto to a Ferrari - especially if they're going to build the QoL improvements (which I don't care about but am fine with).
The map pool concept is super boring. Nobody has ever been excited about getting 1v1 TI or Gold Rush or Steppe. It was very obviously devised by someone who had no personal experience with the AoC community. If everyone felt as fondly about f'ing gold rush as they do about arabia, you'd have seen gold rush games on voobly for the past decade...
I've been madly in love with AoC for 20 years, but playing DE feels like it has more in common with experiencing a car wreck in slow motion than it does with the game I've dedicated thousands of hours of my time to. Once every 3 weeks I log onto DE, play one game to remind myself how much it sucks, and head straight back to Voobly where there are still 1,000 players online at any given time.
I've massively cut down on my stream watching since DE came out, I've spec'd precisely 0 DE games, and I wish more people would follow suit. Once the casual interest in the game dries up, it sure would be nice to see the community move back to Voobly.