My Take on current AOE2

I've been playing since I was 8 - currently 29 now - so about 21 years of AOE. I've seen the TyRanT days, RiuT when he was super hype, BacT, etc. I think that DE definitely made some great strides and I appreciate the lower lag and new pics- I know that some people don't like new civs being added, but I view it as a renewal of excitement in the game and mixes things up. But, I think that the current state of AOE is probably the most boring due to a few things - i) the devs broke pathing - there's simply no excuse for this - NAC 5 made this very apparent as villagers were teleporting, luring boar has become an art more than it was, and archers are basically useless; ii) monks are in such a weird spot - they either feel useless (cue first game of hera yo) or feel OP with nothing in the middle. I'd prefer them pre-nerf actually where they had a clear identity. Part of this could also be because archers were a viable counter to monks but now with the pathing issues, archers in general, aren't viable. No one even goes kts xbow double gold comp to counter monks etc anymore; iii) defensive play needs to be nerfed- its so boring as a viewer to watch a 30 min boom fest and then hope for a fantastic late game - not saying that it'd be fun to watch once in a while but given that all-ins with 1 tc are practically dead due to archer nerfs/pathing, no one wants to take that risk. I really do think that AOE has the potential to continue strong - the donos during NAC showed that there's a strong fan base that will support fantastic shows. But, the devs have to do their part. There's only so much bad pathing that a player, especially a top player, can handle. And, it's just unfair to the game and it's fans to have bad pathing/poor mechanics destroy the game. Sorry for the rant, just frustrated.