Currently when using “" before chatting in team games it automatically changes the chat to always send to all players. I feel like it would be a huge improvement to implement "” before chat to only send that single message to all players and not have it change that drop down selection to automatically send to all every time after you use “". If I want every chat from now on to send to all players I will select it. If I want a single message to go to all players I’ll use "”, and excluding “*” will only send to my team.
This is a fast-paced game, we don’t have time to use a drop down box when deciding who to send a message to.
Looks like formatting got rid of all of your *. I reformatted it below: Feel free to update your post with the formatting.
Currently when using “*” before chatting in team games, it automatically changes the chat to always send to all players. I feel like it would be a huge improvement to implement “*” before chat to only send that single message to all players and not have it change that drop down selection to automatically send to all every time after you use “*” . If I want every chat from now on to send to all players I will select it. If I want a single message to go to all players I’ll use “*” and excluding “*” will only send to my team.
This is a fast-paced game, we don’t have time to use a drop down box when deciding who to send a message to.
I agree with this post entirely. There are some other points I would like to make as well. For some context, I have been a top team player in Age of Empires 3 for over 15 years and am very much in touch with the team player community.
First, this “bug” or whatever you want to call it, only really affects team players as in 1v1 you don’t need to worry about it. If you are chatting in 1v1 there is only one other person to chat to, and that is your enemy. With that being said, I don’t believe this “bug” should be discounted because it only affects team play.
Next, I have heard of this issue being referred to as a “feature” and not a “bug”. Whatever it’s called doesn’t really matter, the issue still remains, and that is that MANY people are frustrated by it. They might not have expressed their frustrations here on the official forums, but trust me when I say that in team games, it is a real problem.
Finally, I would like to point out some of the reasons as to why people are frustrated with this bug.
Anyone that has played AOE3 before DE was acclimated to a different method of choosing to chat with all, allied, or enemy players. As the OP pointed out, the system used to always default to ONLY allied players, unless the player specifically put * in front of their chat message. If they wanted to go back to only chatting with allies, they wouldn’t need to do anything with a drop down menu, they would simply not type * before their message. Players making the jump from AOE3 to AOE3:DE often don’t realize that this functionality has changed and get frustrated when all of their messages (meant for their allies) are sent to the enemy team. Somehow, the enemy team knew everything they were going to do!
Next, I would like to echo the OP regarding the fast paced nature of this game and the concern with having to use a drop down menu to correct the behavior of a feature that (up until DE), behaved in an entirely different manner. Especially in team games, players often have their attention focused on many things and find themselves having to chat with their team or the enemy team (in case of pauses or other issues). Having to use a drop down menu to change back and forth between chat visibility in the heat of battle can be very irritating. Especially when the legacy game had a system in place that was much easier and quicker.
In conclusion, I would like to point out that it is entirely possible for new players to AOE3:DE that haven’t ever played legacy AOE3 might not understand the frustration with this issue as other players that have come from legacy AOE3. Still, I think we can find a compromise. As the OP suggested, just mesh the two ideas. Keep the drop down (for people that may like it?), but allow a player to also just type * before their message to only send that ONE message to the enemy team. After that message is sent, default back to allied chat. We can have both. I don’t speak for everyone, but I am willing to bet that the team game community would be extremely grateful for a solution like this.
Thanks for your continued work on our beloved franchise!
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