For anyone interested in a constructive critique I’d like to recommend this channel in general. I haven’t watched every single video, but for the ones I did, I can’t recall anything I disagree with.
21 minutes spent covering 24 (mostly rather minor, compared to things like general game design) issues:
Very interesting video - most of these things were mentioned here, multiple times, not only in a special closed beta subforum. I really hope these changes will eventually be implemented and will make AoE IV even better and more attractive for potential buyers. Devil is in the detail, and when put together improvement on these elements will certainly lift up the visual presentation that was so heavily criticized compared to other components of the game.
I dont agree with him about dust. I play beta and ı like dust. Soldiers runs and we see dust. Soldiers fires gun and we see dust. This is simple. I cant see any problem dust. I want to see epic fights and I like fire gun effects.
What is my opinion? Do you have any arguments about subject of improvements to clarity on the battlefield, or you just want to say ‘I like smoke’?
Everyone can write, however valuable or not, that contribution is. Yes. And? I’m not sure what are you trying to convey besides ‘it’s ok for me’. It’s fine you like it.
Devs can reduce smoke level but I dont want game to be age of 2. I want to feel war especially gun units, cannons. I like age of 4 gun, cannon units. They are awesome.
I have to agree with falcon. The smoke effects really didn’t cause any problems during the closed beta. Even with the smoke you could clearly see what was going on. So I don’t agree with Age of Noob.
It makes the fights more epic with all the smoke that makes gunshots marching and charge impacts feel grand.
I enjoyed the video. He points out things that we have been discussing in here for months. The animations especially are very rough. I’d like him to say something about their timing as well which is not on spot and makes the physics feel terrible. For example, he showed a particular clip with a soldier receiving an arrow and then falling on the ground after a whole second, when the arrow had already disappeared. Looked like a joke. Lack of blood, corpse decay, destruction animations, building attack animations, all of that are good points regarding the visuals.
As he said, you can’t appreciate the battlefield enough like that. It’s unacceptable to lack so many, seemingly small details in a supposedly triple A, 60 bucks game.
Even things that appear like a part of an inconsequential cosmetic layer carry potentially serious gameplay ramifications. Mentioned elephants that don’t come close to connecting with a building they are currently attacking - distance is big enough that in heat of the battle I might catch myself commanding them to attack a second time because one- they stand a bit too far from the attacked entity and two- their animations and dmg effects don’t connect and it might be sometimes hard to say what exactly is going on there.
And above that- these things come up as cheap and amateurish, especially for a full-priced game from an industry veteran studio.
Even WarCraft 1 had blood and gore. It’s such a minor element but has big impact on the general atmosphere and tone of the game. AoE are 90% about fighting. And fighting is present almost for the entire duration of the match. I wrote many times about death and idle animations, gore, physics impact on the battles (from ragdoll to building models destruction) etc.
It’s like driving mechanics in a racing game or shooting in an FPS.
And it can’t be covered with a sleight of hand ‘eyy that’s just the style’. Yes IV is stylized but these are separate things. Game can be highly stylized but still it doesn’t come hand in hand with poor animations, poor physics or poor destruction mechanics. Well, unless the style is ‘budget/early access game’.
I have installed october '97 AoE demo and blood is there. It will be outrageous if it’s not included in the final version of the game
I have been saying that continually and it always comes back to E-sports. Widely accessible games of low hardware needs that disregard immersion and detail. The forbidden fruit that caused the demise every good series ever. Haven’t you guys seen how much they emphasize on competitive play and esports in their interviews? Even after the beta, with all the feedback they received, the most important thing that they had to address was when they’re going to add competitive ranked seasons and how it’s going to affect the meta.
That’s the dream of every over ambitious dev ever. To re-invent that magical money making esport cow that can be milked for years to come, instead of focusing on making a good game.
A la LoL/Fortnite/dota/pubg style.
I mean almost all of his points were made about smoke/dust. The other points I don’t really care about. Pretty much every point he makes isn’t really noticeable while you play the game. So while I don’t agree with his other complaints I don’t disagree either because I haven’t noticed most of them.
To me it just feels like nitpicking.
I agree with all his points and it’s just like he says, many little details like these add up and result into a not extraordinary game.
Btw, regarding the arrows and especially comparing them to the perfect arrows from AoE2, I dont find the excuse that the game is now 3D satisfying. It is 2021, we should easily have the technology to render perfect arcs and such for arrows, no matter if it’s now 3D.
Weird arrow animations, missing blood and almost instantly disappearing bodies is just jarring. Feels so wrong.
Gunpowder fire blasts are incredible though!
He sounded very whiny about the gunpowder smoke to be honest. Not everyone plays competitively and I liked the excessive smoke. Blackpowder tends to be like that. If there was an option to tone it down both parties would be happy.
Question (and am not mocking), just curious- what’s this guy’s background? It seems that whatever he puts out becomes somewhat popular here in the forums.
He’s the one of the only ones following aoe4 closely and criticising minute elements.
So a lot of people here like to reference him because they agree with his points.
Other big aoe Youtubers have just mainly given their endorsement to the game cuz they like it.
Only other guy who talked about zoom was Aussie drongo.
Fantastic video. We’ll have to wait and see how things look with the open beta before we know how many of these things are still issues, though. Can’t talk in detail about the closed beta.
