Better casting overlays?

I love all the improvements devs have made lately. :heart::heart::heart:

But one thing ive never seen them mention is the replay / casting overlays.

This makes such a huge difference for how fun it is to watch. I groan each time i watch a cast or one of my replays that doesnt have the homemade versions EGCTV uses. Its like watching baseball without knowing the score, outs, inning, # of people on base, etc. How am i supposed to get invested or learn from it? I have no context, and dont know how significant each moment is or if someone is making a comeback, etc.

Watching a game is probably the first experience many people will have with the game when they are considering buying it, outside of watching a trailer. Its also huge for learning from watching. This seems important.

There are some great overlays out there. I like this one that Aussie Drongo sometimes uses.

It shows # of vils on each resource, income/min, and total resources, along with army composition and production. But casters cant use it most of the time. I take it the players have to do something when setting up the game, and i get the impression it requires tinkering with the game files in a shady way.

Devs, do you have a plan to adopt something like this?

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I totally agree with this.

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Also, we need a sacred site timer. That comes up a lot watching these games.

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Yeah that would be great. I’d also enjoy

Rewind
More zoom range
Vil and TC Idle time
Apm

My DREAM features would be:

Instant replays:
In sports you have to hype big plays. Scripts could offer optional instant replays when kill rate or apm spikes meaningfully. Should have varied camera sweeps sometimes with slo mo, at various zooms, just like sport events. Stats should pop up at the end. It could show how many units were killed / lost, or maybe value of units+buildings destroyed. Or maybe the net delta in win likelihood. Use those badass dynamic music skills for this too.

Player Skill Spotlight:
There has to be a way to better highlight what each player is doing, and the skill they’re using. Player viewpoint and keyboard cams suck. Maybe an aura that matches the player color that shows up around units selected. Maybe an arrow pops up when a move action is issued and fades after a second. It should be toggle-able and subtle, but also swell to flurries of power during surges of apm (think lightening storm viewed from space).

Stats and Analysis tools
You know how sports show overlays of head to head stats? Auto-generate some aoe4world matchup stats and offer them during early game lulls. What rank are they, where from? Are they on a win streak, or terrible in this matchup? Auto-select a couple stats that deviate from median values. Give us context for the match.
Also, look at capture age in aoe2. It shows army value, dynamic army health, etc. Battle win chance could be displayed.

Winrate Deltas
Can scripts calc win likelihood like they do in chess analysis? It would be cool to watch this dynamically changing. Action sprees that cause high deltas can trigger replays or cause the Player Skill Spotlight system to emphasize them, maybe triggering special graphic effects, granting game-level achievements or badges and music swells. (Holy s*** that eco micro just got him back in this!) Think aoe version of halos “double kill” or goldeneye’s “most cowardly” awards.

THAT would be an exciting esport experience.

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This would be epic.

There are a lot of little things around casting and postgame analysis that I would like but can’t call to mind.

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Just look at professional sports casts. They are super popular for a reason.

Another thing is we need to track more types of statistics. Pro sports has points, assists, tackles, turnovers, slugging, obp, etc.

How about stats around
Raiding: vil kills / min
Forced Idle: vil garrison time / total vil time
Resource Float: avg floating resources / # of vils
Macro Execution: % of time vils are working
Power Plays: a 5% increase in win likelihood occuring within 30 seconds.
Combacks: # of games theyve come back from being down 10% in

Then we can say stuff like “Yes, Beasty’s Resource float is under 25, but Mista’s forced Idle is 13% and his power play count is twice the league average, you just cant boom against that.”

Would reveal different playstyles and give me something to look forward to and a reason to pick my favorite.

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They just announced a capture age overlay! So cool!!

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Dude. Can’t wait.

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