I have no doubt about that, as these suggestions for AOE-4 were ignored. But these are suggestions for a potential AOE-5, not suggestions for an already established game.
The cheap argument of discarding artistic elements in favor of readability has been debunked with solid arguments time and time again.
You must differentiate between real scale and proportional scale (as far as possible).
That is to say? Sorry, my native language is not English and it does not translate well.
Some context if you are really willing to discuss:
It’s not realistic proportion or proportion between units and buildings. It’s the proportion within buildings themselves. It’s like a human unit with huge fists yet small arms then one other human unit has proportionally a much bigger head (yet the same height as the others).
And it could be trivially fixed without any changes to the gameplay.
When artists design the looks of giants and dwarves (which are NOT realistic) they didn’t just zoom a normal human being in or out. They need to adjust the body part proportions to make them look more convincing. Same goes here. A “smaller” building should not be a normal building shrunk, but one with fewer but normal sized doors, windows, rooms.
Again, it’s a game. You play it, not admire it like a painting or a sculpture. Going back to the chess analogy, would you say the pieces are not art because they’re not proportional? If anything, the fact they’re not proportional makes them even more artistic. I think the word you’re looking for is immersive, not artistic.
So why doesn’t AOE4 make units look like chess pieces, or to be more “abstract” such as a moving square with a spear icon? It’s a game not a simulator. These are all sufficient for you to play the strategy game already.
But instead they create unique models for each civilization and add all the small detail changes with upgrades? I’d say you don’t need them either. You can imagine all the gear changes and model differences in your brain by looking at a simple icon. It’s a game and you won’t look at them like an artwork.
Some people use mods that change all trees into small green blocks in AOE2 to help them play FYI. That is some great level of abstraction. It’s a game after all.
Edit: wow you already started typing the moment I posted the reply. Makes me wonder if you really read the post at all.
I’m not interested in discussing this, because I’ve already talked about it in other forums similar to the one suggested ArrivedLeader22, and because I know it won’t have any effect on AOE-4, but it would be fine for AOE-5.
There’s a compromise between immersiveness and practicality. Making everything to scale would look more immersive, but probably won’t be too practical for a game such as this. If you look at pre-alpha screenshots, the buildings used to be much bigger, so something must have made them change that.
Your cube mod picture doesn’t do you any favors, it’s a bad way of supporting your point (google Reductio ad absurdum fallacy). But people using mods to make AoE2 trees and walls smaller is actually a good argument for it being a game first and foremost. There is a level of immersion involved, but it’s not supposed to be a 1 to 1 simulation of the real thing, especially an RTS game. It’s a mismatch between what you want it to be and what it actually is. You want to recreate the medieval period in cgi format. There are some other medieval games more focused on immersion, most of which also having a first person pov, so that you feel even more immersed into the world.
Is this how you are willing to discuss? I took the time and read your post very carefully, even if you’ve edited it some 10 times in the meantime. I think I’m done with your trolling. Please don’t reply to my posts.
you forgot aoeo which put the bar higher. also it has romans now.
This is something we all know and agree on.
The point is to which level and the post I referred to already proposed how to improve immersiveness with simple changes and without affecting game play at all. But I know you didn’t read it because you are still repeating “realistic proportions” or “1 to 1 simulation” when THAT IS NOT THE POINT HERE AT ALL. Google strawman fallacy.
The only difference is you think the current compromise is perfectly fine (no problem, the amount of unique units was also perfectly fine in 2022). Some other people including myself think it could still have some room of improvement.
No matter what, I will still post it again so that someone who is really willing to read it can read it.
So why aren’t the devs adding it to the base game?
Simple. Because it looks awful. It will scare new players away. Pro players will stay anyway, but new players will not play a game in 2020s with cubes everywhere.
That is the exact “compromise” you are talking about. You think you are the only person here who knows this while we don’t. No we all know. We are talking about how to make it look a little better without harming the gameplay.
I don’t think making the buildings a little taller (not 10x as you said. Google strawman fallacy) would completely destroy the gameplay.
Sorry I happen to have forgotten who did it first.
Why not? They updated it for 3DE, and then again for AoMR. They can always improve it further if they need to.
Yes, I understand what you wanted to say, but maybe you didn’t understand what I said.
I know what a Remaster is in the case of AoE2 and in the case of AoMR, which is practically a Remake due to the engine transition (it doesn’t use the same original engine as AoM).
But I can’t say that they are simple remasters or a completely identical game.
The point is: The experience and feeling of playing them will be different.
All AoE2 remasters have changes and improvements to the Gameplay, adding some extra resource, making a new balance, adding new civilizations and maps, adding and changing some unit or upgrade, and some civilizations have practically been remade.
For me, this is not something simple or that made the game the same.
The moment you change or remove something or add something, it stops being the same.
A practical and simple example, to understand what I say:
You are going to eat a Beef Burger at several different establishments, and you end up discovering something incredible when comparing them.
Although they are all beef burgers, there is a difference in the quality of the food, a difference in the preparation, a difference in the sauce, a difference in the seasoning… and guess what: your experience and feelings when trying them will be different.
The base, the essence, of each one is the same → it is a Beef Burger! However, they are not the same. They are different Burgers, because if they were the same you would not taste any difference and your experience would be the same in all of them.
There is no way for us to know.
It is believed that they could continue with the Definitive Edition line.
But we will have to wait 2 or 3 years until a new Remaster or Remake is announced to know which path the developers chose.
Only time will tell us that.
They’d need to improve it a lot more, since atm it’s not on the level of the Essence engine, and some people weren’t even satisfied with that in 2021. But again, we’re counting the chicken before they hatch here. There is absolutely no reason to believe AoE5 will begin development.
AOE4 Devs, you have my respect. You are still willing to look for potential ways to improve the game and have the ability to do so without breaking the compromise and I fully trust in that, even though your most fanatic fanboi fervently believes you will break everything when you improve something really small.
And why does AOE-2, the flagship game of the series, have better proportions than AOE-4? It even has siege operators in some units, so nothing new is being asked for.
I guess the chess argument is better (which I don’t even dare to answer because it is an attempt to distort the discussion).
Imagine AOE-5 is set in ancient times. Who wouldn’t want to see things like this?:
Instead of just this:
It’s like supporting lazy and mediocre work.
I don’t think anyone that doesn’t exclusively play AoE4 believe that.
AoE4 feels more restrictive than even AoE2, and that uses pre-rendered 3D graphics. The textures on 3D models also feel much cheaper.
Don’t forget siege units going poof…something that is also the perfect compromise between immersiveness and practicality.
The moment they are given proper collapse animations, the game will break. How terrible.
Maybe you’re right, but to me AoM doesn’t look much better than AoE3. In fact, I think AoE3 looks better than AoM in certain aspects.
The Relic engine used in age4 is proprietary 
That’s alright, I wasn’t replying to you. I understood you’re not interested in discussing it.
