Age of empire 3 DE - Disapointings

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
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Dear developpers,

I am a loyal player of Age of Empire 3. Playing it since 2007. I always have find this game one of the best games ever created.

Since the annoucements of AOE3 DE, I was looking forward to see the new face of AOE3.
The same days it got out, i bought it without hesitation. Trusting the work of fans of the franchise.

However, it took not long to notice many many many bugs and things missing from the first AOE 3.

Who could believe that the AI made in 2007 would be better than the one developped in 2019 ? that’s unthinkable, especially for the ships, making it unplayble. the displacement system seems to be made of 8 directions. As it was done on AOE 1 made in 1999. That’s a nice improvment for AI !!!
The amazon map appears the leave one side of the map without wood. When we now amazon map is a naval map that require wood to play on it. Strategies can be done to get wood. However, I don’t see the point of playing it if it is the be forced to play a certain way. I don’t think this was volunteer. I highly think this is a mistake and almost 1 year since the game got out, the bug hasn’t been fixed yet.

Then, the ranked system, what about it…
First of all, the balancing is ****. You can’t do a single treaty game in team without any members of the teams leaving without reason. When finaly no one leaves, most of the time, the teammates doesn’t have a deck, doesn’t know how to play or so many reasons i can’t imagine.
All this for what reason ? the random ranked system and the impossibility of seeing decks of others players. Why remove this opportunity for helping new players to get a decent game ? instead of this, you have to pray that your teammates will know how to play.

Nothing seems to be done to avoid people leaving the game. No sanctions, no nothing ! What is the point of playing any game if we face the risk of seeing anyone leaving at any moment !!!

More of the problems: the ranks. What it means, how it works ??? the friendly ranks means nothing. In AOE 3 at least we had real ranks that meant something. Why not just give a name to these ranks ? make it more realistic.

Other point: the scenario. If the host didn’t announced in the name of the game which scenario it will be, we can’t see which scenario we are going to join. Which map, which version… what a waste. Especially when we know the next problem:

When you try to join a game and fail, the pool of party will take a while for refresh. The game that you tried to join will just disapear and will come back when it will be too late to join !
When you try to join an another game while you are in a lobby, the poor AOE 3 DE won’t make it, it will say you can’t join and make you leave the previous lobby. Then when you try again, it will say you are still in the previous lobby What the F* ??? it just said i left the lobby but it seems your game didn’t see it that way**. So you have to leave multiplayer and come back so the lag stops.

Finaly, the point that seems so little but so important from my perspectiv, Age Of Empire wants to be known as a historical game. We could believe it in the last AOE 3 with the historical anecdotes that we could read while waiting the game to launch… Where it is now ??? Did humanity forget these anecdote from 2007 to 2019 ? I don’t think so… Why loosing a treasure like that. This is so interesting and many young player could learn many things. I was a young player and i can tell you that i learned a lot.
I think it wouldn’t be a waste for this new community full of rage and impatience.

I am sure i forgot so many problems that i find outrageous. Problems that have not been fixed since 1 year…
What a waste. A marvelous game failed.
I tell you I will think about it twice before buying AOE 4 that I have been waiting for 15 years.
I can tell you, I am not the only one. All the old community think as I do. And you really should listen to us since we are the most stable community on this game.

I hope all these remarks won’t be put away.
Sorry for my english, I make my best be clear.

Cordially,
Thecouillon (nickname IG)

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I truly understand how disappointed you are and I could say that I’m as well. However The game is in a lot better state than it was before. It was brought to today’s standards. There could be some improvements done but the random queue system allows for more games to be found and also people not leaving because they didn’t like a map. I won’t compare games but any new game that has a random queue system if you want to win you can queue with friends and win. If you queue solo you’ll get people who won’t be good at the game. That is the thing about random queue and has always been. Having fixed lobbies allows you to choose with whom you play and how you want to increase your ELO which was a big fault in the Old AOE3. There are customs for that and after you get to know a couple of people who are as dedicated as you. you may just create custom lobbies.

I’m as disappointed as you when it comes to balance and bugs I’m even doubting if I should buy AOE4 because for a game that has been around for almost year and people complaining and yet none to few fixes it really is frustrating and I feel the same.

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Is todays standard broken AI and broken pathfinding?

I think in some ways AoE III DE has definatly improved the game, mainly speaking on terms of no Out of Sync bugs anymore and other mainly quality of life improvements. But stuff like worse pathfinding and AI compared to the original makes it kind off worse in some ways aswell. I dont want to lose a game because one of my armies pathfinding just decided “no lol I am going to stop moving”.

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Agreed, the game has flaws but it at least is better of than before de

We could have an aoe2 style system where a player gets to ban 2 maps of their choice from the pool.

Balance and bugs are in a pretty bad state.

however for aoe4, I think you should have faith in relic since something new always has the chance to be good.

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The AI definitively improved. I remember when I was doing the US challenges, and it’s was a quite pleasuring surprise that the new AI can kite, raid and protect their vills better.

Don’t get me wrong, the AI still quite weak even with the cheating (That always existed), but it’s is definitively stronger than the previous ones.

About the pathfinding, I don’t want to be too nihilistic about, but it was always bad, and I think it will always be somewhat bad.
Improvement are definitively welcome and needed, but I sincerely don’t remember playing a RTS that have a spectacular pathfinding. I think that might have a technical difficulty in this type of games or something.

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Pathfinding on AOE 3 DE is much worst than Original aoe (TAD etc)

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In vanilla you didnt have travios or wagons stuck in buildspaces, you didnt have controll shift not working for building trade posts, you didnt have your units suddenly canceling their move order, you didnt have them getting this much stuck when the map is slightly cluttered.

A bit of a though pathfinding is expected, but not these types literally causing you the game.

The only really bad thing of vanilla I could remember that they sometimes walked into the enemy because the unit they were supposed to target had already died.

Then you must have been in luck. All ai games I did had the ai send lines of infantry, not in formation and often just idling everything. Maybe they fixed it by now, but that is basically why I never played singleplayer anymore.

1 Like