Or here is something even better: remove the “age of empires” from the title. Then the game and Relic will steer clear of the hideous “insiders” coming from their outdated old games, become the best received RTS in human history, sell 10x more copies, replace AOE2 and live happy ever after.
1 Like
I’m getting - as usual - the distinct impression that it doesn’t actually matter what I “prove”, if I even could.
I said, in my post that you obviously read, that the upper limit doesn’t matter.
Games don’t leave performance lying around. You’ve seen all high profile messes on release. Heck, the panning issue on AoE IV should prove that.
But even if they did. If they both had performance to spare, any proposed to both game’s graphics would impact them differently, because AoE IV is a larger-scale RTS than CoH 3. It has to support more units at once. It has to support more buildings too.
I get what you’re trying to suggest. You’re trying to suggest that more effort was put into CoH 3 and you don’t think they (bothered) to put the effort into using the performance available in AoE IV.
I get why you’re not saying this, because then you’d have to “prove” it. But that’s your argument, because you seem to think that because CoH 3 looks better, Age IV can too. Otherwise why object to me saying that isn’t true?
I’ve seen enough modders benchmark spamming units to see the impact on performance. Some machines struggle with 1000+ (bearing in mind this is feasible in a regular 4 v 4). Some modders have pushed it to 5k or more (on hardware that scales with the demand).
So if on lower-end hardware the game struggles with unit counts seen in a 4 v 4 game, I think it’s a pretty safe bet to assume that the minimum specs to run the game are accurate. I mean, you’d hope so. They’re listed on the store page(s) for the game. But this means the limit is real.
Why would you assume it isn’t? How can you prove there’s performance margins the devs are refusing to use?
It’s an Age of Empires game. There are plenty of AoE fans that like IV. There are those that don’t. But those that don’t don’t get to dictate what it’s called
Just like the folks who didn’t like Online, III or even II don’t get to delete the franchise title from those games.
That said, unlike some folk and their objections to “outsiders” (new blood is required to keep a community going), I have nothing against “insiders”. Not everyone is going to like IV, and that’s fine. Some people don’t like it as it is and want it to be better, and some will never like it nomatter how much it’s supported and added to. Both are fine. But I’m much more interested in the former group and not the latter. Because, well, I play AoE IV!
Relic and World’s Edge (people always forget about WE) work with FE on AoE IV. Attributing everything you don’t like to Relic may be convenient, but isn’t realistic. AoE IV has plenty of people working on it that know the franchise. They don’t magically stop being familiar with the franchise just because you or @AndyPXIII don’t like IV.
Say if single model quality is 5 for AOE4 and 10 for COH3.
People were saying “look it would be great if AOE4 gets 10”.
Then you jump out and start your lecturing of “No let me teach you there is a thing called performance issue and number of units allowed. If AOE4 can get 10 then COH3 can get 20 and always better than AOE4.”
Like who even cares whether COH3 could always have better models than AOE4? Who wants and needs to be taught about that?
The point is not “AOE4 should always catch up with CoH3 on single model quality”. Why can’t I just want AOE4’s model quality to approach COH3’s CURRENT one?
No you suggested that.
I think it’s because they have their own pRiOriTiEs but I don’t know what that is but they must have a good reason. But they are fully capable of doing better, without breaking performance or optimization, after they finish everything else on that obscure but very reasonable priority list.
And I think if they want to improve model quality for COH3 as well they are also fully capable of doing it.
2 Likes
It’s another thing you said yourself then forbid me to use the same logic.
You always sound as if it is “unfair” to poor little Relic and AOE4 to be disliked in general and no one except the one and only white knight is defending it.
Meanwhile you’re using “other AOE games have controversial aspects but some people rationalize it” to prove your point.
Isn’t that obvious from your own reasoning that it is extremely normal for different people to have different opinions about different aspects of the same game? Why is it only unfair for poor little Relic and AOE4?
4 Likes
That’s not what people were saying. There’s a difference between “it’d be nice” and “they use the same engine so they can”. But you know that.
You can. You’re the one who decided to get involved in an engine-related argument. Nobody forced you to.
You chose to do that snarky little post where you didn’t mention me by name. Again, it’s your thing. But you still chose to do it.
At no point did you say “it’d be nice to have better graphics on Age IV”. Just in case that was your point, that’s why I explicitly said “that doesn’t mean I don’t think Age IV can have better graphics”. In my first reply to you lol. Here it is again:
But here you are, ignoring that, and pretending I said something else. I’m not even surprised anymore 
I think they are too. But it’s pretty obvious you’re misreading me on purpose at this point, and I know better than to expect this to change.
I don’t think that at all. Because Age IV isn’t disliked in general 
I think some folks have trouble accepting that, but hey, that’s on them.
Like I said. There’s nothing wrong with anyone disliking parts or even all of Age IV. If you weren’t so focused on trying to gotcha me, maybe you’d read my posts better.
And I see no problem saying this either.
Like priorities, I don’t know what it is, you don’t know what it is either, but you think you can teach me “there is priority”.
Is there any proof that both AOE4 and COH3 have reached the “maximum” utilization of resources without breaking performance (by this I do not mean the hardware will explode if that maximum is exceeded, but with all other factors taken into consideration, the best, most optimal, safest, and most widely acceptable hardware requirement possible)?
So yeah I think they CAN use the engine without breaking performance to achieve COH3’s CURRENT model quality in AOE4, just like they can also make an improvement on COH3’s CURRENT model quality.
BTW
You said that yourself. You think folks don’t rationalize issues with AOE4 because they are tribal and have bias towards poor little Relic (well maybe you don’t count yourself as folks).
Fun fact: folks also make harsh criticisms as “insiders” to other AOEs.
When I say “in general” I did not mean “by the general public” but “some people disliking AOE4 as a whole** and picking whatever they can”.
That kind of mindset blocks 50% of constructive criticisms, and prevents the other 50% of unconstructive complaints, which have full potentials of turning into constructive ones, from turning into constructive ones, by dragging it into another accusation of “you just hate AOE4. You will never be satisfied”.
1 Like
This is true. I have no idea what they know about the franchise and what they don’t know. All I can say is that the game feels off to me. I do not intend to disparage the good people making the game and all their effort.
For that matter, I have no idea what Forgotten Empires knows about the franchise and what they don’t know. All I can say is that their content seems right to me.
3 Likes
AoE 4 isn’t a terrible game it is just bland and honestly just a disappointment for a lot of people and not a very worthy successor to the previous games, not to sound like a snob. But if you enjoy the game great!
4 Likes
I haven’t talked about priority once in this little discussion with you. If you’re bringing other baggage into the discussion, that is again your choice.
Cool, I disagree. Was that so hard for you to say?
I think certain posters are, definitely. I probably should’ve made that more clear.
I think for some posters, that’s absolutely true. I try to avoid engaging with them, mind you.
Which puts the future of the franchise in a very weird position, because “feels” is a very hard thing to get “right”. Especially for a franchise like AoE, which has such a difference in how the game feels between II and III, and then a huge gap (excluding Online, being pretty short-lived officially) before IV.
Like, IV had that problem, which directly feeds into the opinion of make longtime franchise players. But IV turned out relatively well and will hopefully keep going. Any success it has should be noted even if Relic isn’t at the helm. And that will invariably include taking things that Relic have done. Which is where the “let’s not have Relic be involved” rears its head.
If the game did as poorly as DoW III, I’d get it. But that’s nowhere near the case.
I mean, I would expect a game made by a whole new development studio to feel different than the original studio team. That being said AoEIV is nowhere near a drastic change than what Bethesda Game Studios did with Fallout for example. Heck, I suspect if ES came back after almost two decades to the AoE franchise it would also feel different.
FE has more of a history with AoE than anyone else around currently so logically speaking they would have a better understanding of what makes AoE feel like an AoE game. This isn’t a knock on Relic at all.
1 Like
i think game feeling off has many layers to it, to me it feels off with the input lag the essence provides and imo overly smooth looking image (not an art criticism, just little bit of sharpening improves matter nicely), to someone else the thing feeling off is zoom level even as is, then some people will be seeing the offputting part in hotkeys, and so on and so forth
thing is, people are different but to some extent many want the same thing but they don’t necessarily express that the same way or even in a way that would imply they want that specific part patched in a specific manner, thats where communication steps in, which in this game is lacking outside of the surveys, which are fine but can result in misunderstanding of the matter by either party involved
i never see anyone from relic show their presence on this forum for instance but i do see a number of FE and tantalus devs, which gives me extra confidence in their work as a result, also WE mostly fares well on this department, only relic seems to stand out like a sore thumb (ik some of relic are at least somewhat present on AOE discord, but its still less so than FE or tantalus for instance)
1 Like
this, being an outsider as developer will naturally result in at least smt feeling off to someone who played older games for 2 decades no matter how much effort you put in, getting the feel right takes time
1 Like
also don’t forget Bethesda introduced the concept of buggy glitchy release to Fallout XD
like1
/līk/
preposition
having the same characteristics or qualities as; similar to.
It’s the same thing. You always drag other’s complaints or criticisms into some meaningless arguments over wording, small factual details, technical stuff that have little impact on the conclusion, or “I AM A SOFTWARE ENGINEER MYSELF”.
But when people say their opinion it’s normal to pre-assume and simplify a lot of things. Then you show up teaching people “no there is a reason but I don’t know what it is” as if they don’t know everything has a reason, just to turn discussion over every criticism frustrating. I wonder if you have similar high standards for yourself that whenever you make a claim you should always list and qualify every related technical detail and make sure none is “wrong”, instead of “I don’t know either but”.
See, for me, I like the smoothness. I have a longstanding dislike of third party filters anyway (dates back to when ENB was new and people shoved bloom to 1000% and yelled about how great it looked 
), but in particular I don’t think the game needs sharpening.
I do think the softness makes some of the weaker bits stick out more obviously (like the aliasing on grain / long grass).
I was about to mention WE, as Savage is very active in Bug Reports, but you beat me to it.
Relic are active on the modder Discord, so I’ve always been exposed to that. They’ve been super helpful there. Probably why I don’t think about the forum involvement as much.
I think more public communication would help anyway, but I’m not concerned if it’s WE or Relic that does it. They both seem equally involved in terms of developing the game (the first and only mod tools livestream we had was headed by a senior guy from WE, despite the Discord presence being mostly Relican).
1 Like
i still believe having someone from relic directly, aka someone more likely hands on do the talk is more reassuring, but that just my view on the matter
2 Likes
aoe4 is less interesting?
Well, it seems that the fifth season will be very interesting, pup is coming
well, show me what will be interesting in S5, i’ll wait, this szalami comment is simply him overhyping a likely balance patch (the 400 lines really isn’t impressive compared to many past DE patches so i’m keeping my expectations reasonably low for the time being)
It’s great to see this. Hopefully this will be the death of the argument that we players are too stupid to handle more unique units and techs. That was one of the most insultingly ignorant aoe2-centric apologetic nonsense I’ve ever read around here. Glad that aoe4’s original boring civ design appears to be an admitted failure across the board. I have been waiting for this for years.
10 Likes