A Message to World's Edge, the community needs continued Caster Mode support for FFA

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
22

Nicely detailed post, and congrats on the success of your channel, Aussie_Drongo!

Unfortunately, as part of the community, Caster Mode/FFA is pretty low on my personal list. I wasn’t even sure what that was until you described.

I feel they could get some gamers, maybe even quite a few, if they’d just ditch the forced gold-colored silhouette icons UI (give us a 2nd option that looks more like other Age games), and also let us zoom out more. Those are two biggies preventing me from buying.

This zoom level shown in your AoE4 video, for example, just doesn’t do it for me. Stresses me out just to see it, as the thought of playing it looks like up-close chaos, somewhat :sweat_smile:

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I’m used to (and far prefer) this in AoE2:DE:

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Granted, the AoE2 shot is from a 1440p monitor, but even 1080p has a pretty good zoom level. With AoE4, the cam is just to tight on the action. Makes me claustrophobic (not sure how else to describe it), creating artificial tension that I don’t personally care for or agree with.

If they do those two fairly simple things, more gamers would result. And then Caster Mode/FFA sounds good. If they’re able to do all three at once, then that’d be great for both you and the long-time AoE fans that refuse to buy with the UI/UX and zoom they have. Simply adding Caster Mode/FFA won’t result in a purchase from me and probably several others who have waited since launch already for at least the two things I described

PS: With Caster Mode, couldn’t the players playing just watch the cast in a second screen and use that as leverage to cheat (i.e., see enemy locations, progress, etc.)? I’ve never understood that part of things… unless there is a significant delay between live action and cast. (I think AoE2 lets you put a delay on audience stream views, if I’m not mistaken, so maybe it’s just that.) Just wondering!

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I’d really like to see caster mode get some love.

An entirely new UI for team games/FFA seems like significant work but it’s pretty mind blowing to me that the bugs in the 1v1 UI haven’t been fixed for so long. It just makes the game seem janky.

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24

please add this request! we need it

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25

“I can’t believe it: Drongo posting something on the forum, OMG!”

Well, Hype aside, you’re right: I enjoy your videos, and caster Mode is a good way to analyze games and gameplay.

Better features for it would be greatly appreciated for any YouTube gaming channel that wants to stream more of the game.

In fact, I was informed that there is a “Bug” that prevents Caster Mode from seeing the development of Japanese Agricultural Technologies, but that will be corrected for the 7th Season.

That’s the kind of thing for example that needs to be improved. In fact, it happened in one of your videos, here I point out the Japanese bug:

Japanese BUG caster Mode
Japanese BUG caster Mode1710×961 2.35 MB

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26

Watching FFAs or any other casted games not only on your channel could be elevated to much by a better Caster Mode. Watching the big AOE IV Tournaments with bugs in the UI literally bugs me all the time.

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27

I completely agree. I love watching content about AoE4 and this improvement would make the experience even better. Let’s keep increases the popularity of the game by improving viewer content!

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28

Does watching AoE4 translate to very many sales, though? Or are the only people watching the casts mostly a combination of those who already own AoE4 and those who will never buy AoE4 and choose to just watch? I’ve not seen any studies on this. Similarly, I wonder if everyone who has commented in this thread so far (except me) owns AoE4 already?

Only asking out of curiosity, because based on personal experience, I’ve watched streamers of various games and never bought what they played just because they streamed it. I already did my game research to know if I’ll be buying or not. And if I’m on the fence, I’ll quickly glance at or scrub through a Part 1 of a playthrough to help me decide.

If I seek out game streams, they’re usually of games I already know, love, and own. I know some people are swayed into buying after watching a stream, I just wonder how often that really occurs

All that said, I know this franchise has become deeply rooted in eSports, Tournaments, and the need to cater to that more than single-player, casual players. So please know the OP’s idea will probably be implemented/fixed soon… I wouldn’t worry too much about that! Glad it has been brought to light so its better for him and viewers someday

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The more players who keep playing the game, watching caster content and tournaments, the more potential copies of future DLCs being sold. Also, the larger the game, the higher the chance to attract further people to actually buy the whole maingame PLUS all available DLCs. The more people follow the casters and professional scene, the better the chance for profitable tournaments with larger price pools.
Which again attracts more players…
The circle closes, makes sense?

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31

I wonder if the dev work would be easier to simply allow the modded UI instead of making a new caster mode. I mean can the back-end code be changed to allow modded UI’s while casting? But yes, we really need this!

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32

Thank you, @Carry_Potter_woll! That makes sense, and helps me understand better

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33

Nice! :slight_smile:

Because of this fact, it’s so amazing that we finally got crossplay.
This is a HUGE stepup for the playerpool, the community won’t be split anymore.

The size of the playerpool should never be underestimated for quickplay/ranked queue.
Especially for team ranked, with a large player pool the system can very quickly (short queue times) match teams fo EQUAL skill level.
Also for high rank 1v1 it helps quite a bit, as the pros and semipros, but also the lowest end of the ranked players get into matches much more quickly.
Which again keeps them active, they won’t leave the game out of frustration of having to wait to find a match for ages.
That’s when games start dying.
Keeping the playernumber high should ALWAYS be the DEV’s main goal of any RTS if they wanna have a successul game, that keeps cashing in money.
The best way for that is to HEAVILY support it and don’t allow the chance of having bad reviews due to poor release quality and poor/slow support.

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34

Dear Devs,

please make this happen.

Drongo’s Outback Octagon is the sole reason I got into AOE IV and his casts are the reason I stayed - I’m sure there are more people like me. They create the sense of community and give us the reason to care about the game, cheer for top players and aspire to get better - which motivates us to play more thus increasing user engagement. Didn’t the last expansion sell like hot cookies? Drongo deserves some credit for that. Give the man the tools to do the work that benefits your business so much.

But it’s not just Drongo and Outback Octagon. There are also official team tournaments and community-organized tournaments and casts. For example, Beasty often casts Nomad FFAs of his viewers on his stream - yet another way the caster mode would benefit the studio by making those look more professional and engaging to the random viewers on Twitch curious about AOE IV (obviously they’ll click on his stream first as the biggest).

Also, please consider an in game observe mode (even if just for Conq 3). Back in a day I was one of the top players in a different game - Guild Wars, and the in game “Observe” mode for the games played by the top 100 guilds was the pillar on which the PVP community stood on. At the very least feature Drongo’s viedos or Tournament streams or maybe list top player’s streams on the game starting screen - then just watch community engagement skyrocket. Many players aren’t even aware this content exists, and don’t worry - net net it’ll bring more people into the game then out of it to Twitch/ YT.

This is a huge marketing opportunity for AOE IV. Devs, please don’t sleep on it and give the community the tools to work for you.

Best,
Just some guy that barely hit Plat 1 this season…

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35

As someone who played AOE2 as a kid, i have to say that my experience with AOE4 as an adult has been so much more fun and I wish more people would recognize this game for how amazing it is! Aussie Drongo might be (probably is) the biggest ambassador for this game. His enthusiasm in his casts makes me want to play more and has already got several of my friends to start playing. If only the devs could recognize how Drongo’s enthusiasm in his casts will lead to player base growth. Watching professional commentators call NBA games as a kid only made me want to go outside and play more. The more excited Drongo gets, the more opportunity there is to grow this community.

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36

I support this 100%

Please Add a UI that is capable of supporting 8 Player matches so we can see whats going on in game when watching.

It would be an amazing addition to AOE4:)

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37

please make this happened … :heart: continue support for caster mode (bug/fix/enhancement). we want to see it in the AOE4 Roadmap

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38

This needs to be prioritized!

Casters are deeply underappreciated by how much they help with player retention and influx to the game!

I am a family father of 2 small kids, working a full-time job with a stay-at-home wife.

I have incredibly limited time to put into gaming and with the number of great games that have come out lately,

Watching Cast games very often is the only way for me to consume and keep up-to-date with new AOE content.

And that also helps motivate me to play AOE4 whenever I have time and opportunity without feeling completely alienated!

So prioritizing optimizing the Spectator UI should be just as important as new content for the game!!!

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39

DEVLOPERS
PLEASE GIVE PROPER CASTER MODE. NOT FOR JUST DRONGO BUT FOR ALL. DRONGO CREATED ONE IN OUTBACK OCTAGONE WAS GOOD LAYOUT. BUT THAT WAS FOR OLD CIVS.
YOU GUYS CAN SHOW YOUR CREATIVITY AND MAKE BETTERONE WITH NEW CIVS. LIKE FOR J.O.D. HER XP, FOR OTTOMANS WAJIR POINTS FOR BYZENTINES OIL ETC…

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40

You say the AoE4 devs aren’t working on any updates to the tool, but I wonder if the Capture Age team is cooking up something on their end. Doubtful, considering the need to partner with the dev team to launch Caster Mode, but thought it might be possible because I think the Capture Age team used to work independent of the devs before DEs and AoE4.

At any rate, here was the pre-launch announcement for Caster Mode for AoE4:

And it says in there it will continue to evolve with player/caster input in mind:

While Caster Mode (Beta) will apply only to 1v1 matches, the tool will continue to evolve over time – with your input in mind!

I don’t know if they have evolved much or at all since then (Oct '22), but it might be a nice time to, especially also if they never did evolve

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41

Aussie is doing a great job, I’m literally watching his videos everyday, and I can tell these little tweaks that he’s asking for would be a real improvement. Please support him!

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42

Please fix caster mode for Drongo. Casted games keep me interested and engaged in the game/community.

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