Yes but look at adam isgreen’s linkedin:
He worked for a lot of rts games
Relic also has experience, sure they and Adam used to make good games,
what does concern me are their last works like Universe at War and Dawn of War 3,
and it simply seems to me like AoE4 is developed with the same “spirit”, that is rather a curse.
Based on those games, they seem not to understand a very basic thing: As RTS games do offer a lot of sandbox, the more they as Developers are focused to create a certain design, to make the game to be played the way they want, the more is taken from the player to play the way he likes.
If a faction in RTS does play different, that means there is no other way to play it.
If a faction in RTS does not have access to certain units and buildings just for “difference”,
that means all along the strategies of those units and buildings are missing.
Universe at War and Dawn of War 3, are prime example of modern day RTS curse. Both games were designed for pure offensive, while using very limited unit and building rooster to do it.
So in fact compared to older versions,
these “modern” base build Strategy games simply lack Strategy and base building.
Considering we are talking about Strategy games after all, that means the mayor point to play does not exist in the game. Sooner than later people start to realize they are rather playing an “quick time event” than “sandbox game”
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Yeah…
All modern RTSs failed,(northgard got good feedback)And all of this games developed by experienced rts devs
AoE Online,Robot.They made classic aoe games
DoW III,Relic.They made CoH2,DoW II,Homeworld
Forged Battalion,Petroglyph.They made c&c games
And a new settlers game and aoe4 coming.If they fail,probably we don’t see anorher rts games in the future years
While they are from different teams, they share 1 common thing, they try to be “modern”
It seems to me they just don’t anymore understand what makes RTS fun to play.
Strangely enough City builders and turn based strategy games are doing fine,
so why not RTS?
Well lets take Universe At War Earth Assault as example for a modern game.
It does have many traits of modern RTS games
First of all the entire game is focused around some weird Idea, like:
Imagine a castle in AoE2 would be able to walk and you can build it very early in the game,
at a point your enemy does not have proper siege engines to counter it.
That’s basically Universe At War.
To make that Idea work, gameplay does sacrifice a lot.
-faction can not be played defensive
-you cant play most of the factions
-lack of proper countering units
-nerfed base build
-limited unit limit
-limited economy
And the weird part is, Relic did make years later same game with Dawn of War 3.
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i heard a new rts game,Northgard.
What is ur thinks about it,many people say it is incredible
I heard about Northgard, too. My friends who played it said they were utterly disappointed with the game. They say that the way military units work and the unbalance of factions made the game really bad. Not my words tho.
Thanks for infarmation!(:
I think one of the most important concerns is to rotate-encourage the player-base on all skill-levels towards being inspired to play all civilisations so as the player-base avoids all going with the same turtle-civ or whatever.
This should ecourage vast arrays of tactics being implemented from various player groups, forming great clashes in both newcomers-, medium- and pro tournaments.
Sometimes you see developers overcompensating a civilisation to incite players to play it, rather than guide the player into ‘how’ this civ can make you overcome challenges other civilisations cant.
Indeed, its not focused on combat.
It’s an indie game with several ways to win the match. Northgard is rather a city builder. To win you have to build nice city or make money, maybe take over win points, win with army is optional. At best, I can compare it to Anno and Settlers series, its simplified version of it.
I think modern developers already fail at inspiring people to play their games.
Well lets take a look at a classic concept for faction design.
1- Its clear how units are supposed to counter each other
2- All factions do have access to countering units.
Problem is, modern day designers make something
extremely weird , bad understandable and somehow still forget to add countering units
here as example units from Grey Goo, can anybody even tell them apart?
https://i.imgur.com/ynYtiYq.png
https://i.imgur.com/wjJAjhM.png
Another example are those Walker from Universe at War,
the game did not have countering units for those big Units,
you were supposed to use a lot of units, to beat 1 big unit
that’s not a good game design.
Exactly the same thing did Relic Present by Dawn of War 3,
huge units, with no countering units, where you are supposed to use lots of units to counter 1 unit.
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CoH2 has the “Tiger Ace” too. But when you buy it, half of your eco is gone until it dies. Not that it really matters, the tiger ace is a monster. But you can counter it with mass anti-tank, it theory.
I guess game devs try that to break the rock paper scissors. Can be advantageous if done right - like Titans in AoM.
One thing in common between titans and tiger ace: Very late game unit. I guess that’s where the games you mentioned failed.
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If something is overpowered isn’t even the biggest issue,
sometimes certain things are missing completely.
For example defense towers are a thing a lot of RTS these days seem to not know about.
Problem is if you break “rock paper scissors”, by for example nerf paper, or even remove paper , the game will be simply about make rock, make rock fast and as many as possible. So you end up breaking the strategy.
Shouldn’t something like this be obvious for an RTS game designer?
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My big concern is for AoE4, RTS do have several mayor design issues.
1- If something was good, its not a shame to use it again
I understand there is this “enthusiasm” to create something new and original,
a lot of the projects looked very promising
and here starts the problem if its improved, replaced or simply removed.
For example, I really had a big problem with AoE3 City Card system,
I was used to playing it in Generals, but AoE3 added a lot of grind behind it.
Relic also does have their Doctrines.
I have massive doubt if that’s a good concept for AOE4.
You can suddenly turn the tide or give a final blow.
It’s the feel like suddenly to use guns and rifles in Dark Souls.
While People are expecting to kill in melee with combos.
2- A “stalemate” situation is very common for such modern RTS.
Unlike situation in chess, where you can’t move your figures,
RTS tend to turn into something like chew gum, where you still have to play,
but do no longer taste the sweet.
For example, I loved Universe at War,
the original concept did really inspire me to try out the game,
but it didn’t keep me for long.
Problem is as you play vs people who are your friends, or you play vs them a lot online,
you kind of start to do very similar things and it’s not easy to knock out people.
So after like 20 Minutes, I usually run out resources and can’t beat them, they can’t beat me.
Infinite resources aren’t a solution either, as you get stuck for very long time,
till somebody does lose his interest to play.
There are a lot of ways to add secondary win options, than simply annihilate your enemy.
In AoE2 you could build world wonder, if you got bored.
I wonder how they handle it by AoE4?
3- A problem is if the game does feel incomplete.
Well there are some choices, I really do not like them.
For example Mongols in Empires Apart do not have Walls ,I understand they wanted “original faction”
but I do like to play defensive. I find it much better if tech is accessible and certain factions do have their buffs like in AOE2.
Age of Empires 4 has a difficult task indeed.
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i agree.but
adam isgreen said every faction have different gameplay style.what’s ur thinks?
Well, huns (or is it goths?) didn’t have walls when they first appeared in aoe2, too.
And well… Mongols are naturally offensive, all of their buffs in all games i know are offensive, so, if you are having problem attacking you are done for.
I like how you mentioned the stalemate situation. For aoe2, it’s the late game trash wars. For aom, it’s the mid-late game spams (god powers and titans usually break it, tho). For aoe3, waves upon waves of instant spam of units - trade monopoly fixed that.
How to fix that? Resources are not the way here, i think. Timer mechanics are the best way in my opinion - you make fatslob get out of his wall and go into offensive, otherwise he loses the game. 5 mins to aoe3 is too short. maybe 10-15?
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I liked the idea of certain resources being required to have settlers which travels on map, alike in AoE2. As it enables the ability to raid supply lines, or create a small new fortified trade-colony, or multiple non-fortified trade-colonies.
Raid < Fort Colony < Multiple Colonies < Raid
To overcome the very-late-game-0-sec-stand-still-spam-of-meatcorpse- swarming-soldiers, I’d hope to see a late-late-game buildable wonder of ’Culture’; capable of seizing territory, units, buildings or alike within reason and at Cooldown or perhaps it’s influensive ability costs resources.
Sounds like the area of influence in 0 A. D. and Rise of Nations. I’m not a fan of this at all, and would prefer to have it far from the game.
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Through gameplay, that isnt at all what I meant.
This wonder’s feature would be target-oriented.
The building itself wouldnt be able to do anything. But at a cost, from it, you could influence/takeover something at 10x cost of what it actually costs.
A super Expensive, final age wonder: For those insane games beyond 70 minutes.
Considering how their last games were,
I think it will backfire as usual.
Faction will be in the end not valuable or overpowered.
Well let me explain the issue of adding or changing features from developers perspective with this cartoon.
It should be already by start of the task, be clear what it is about, or we get another Anthem.
Problem with your suggestion it nerfs defense build, the usual issue for RTS by the way.
This means no nice castles to siege, which removes atleast 2most important strategies
and basically the identity of AoE2.
I did find AOE2 very OK with collect the relics or world wonder.
Becouse you need just 1 relic to have and can easy build your world wonder
Problem in case of RTS it’s hard to tell how an idea does work out.
We have by the design to ensure strategy variety and different play styles.
Well I personally think problem of modern RTS is simply lack of Goals and Motivation.
So, here is my Idea, feel free to say what could go wrong there:
1
Well build world wonder does take a lot of resources and time.
I wonder why you can’t capture it for yourself to win.
Would make sense, if it becomes after destruction neutral
and could be taken again, and slowly regenerate.
Like you destroy it and after 5 min its back with 5% of health points and resets the timer.
2 we need an eco/build buff.
I would suggest compare to AoE2 by 15%,
you should gain faster resources and units should be faster produced.
My feeling is after all those years people are simply bored to play.
-3 as a very big issue I see, how many resources are actually available.
I would like to see there 60% buff at least. And more locations with stone and gold.
-4
As for late game economy, I would like send trade carts for food, stone and wood as well
-5 as for “intended gameplay”
why not simply give “intended” units a golden icon background and make their icons bigger ?
So units and buildings that are buffed for the faction are somehow highlighted.
example normal unit
example the intended unit + 15% more hitpoints
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