It’s a shame that it’s basically impossible for you to determine this, then. It’s hard enough defining incompetence internally. Is it the programmer, or their training? The management? The tools?
You only see the end result and you judge based on that. That’s why your use of “incompetence” is, generally, nothing more than an attempted insult. It’s a claim you have no way of proving beyond “the game has a fair few bugs”. Which, as much as I’m sure you’d like to claim, is in no way unique to Age IV.
There’s nothing wrong with not liking the game, or wanting more from it. But that’s not what you’re on about here.
Anyhow, I just wish the UI is better in this game, rest can be improved slowly over time, but the user experience in controlling units really feels awkward ;(
It would be cool if Blizzard created a new RTS franchise in a magical world, like Age of Mythology 2. They would have more space to add exotic units, dragons and spells.
Personally, I’d love if they created a game concept similar to BFME2, with thrilling combat starting from early game and minimal economic management. I think that mixing heroes and troops squads was a cool concept, which was never developed to the level of AoE (troops only) or Dota (heroes only). Also, time has proven that the most popular strategy games have minimal APM for economy management (TW Warhammer, Dota, LoL).
But these are not the RTS we are looking for, AoE2 and SC2 are the best RTS, AoE4 can become REALLY good after many fixes and development. Spring parch will be decisive. Maybe AoE2 has too many ressources to care about, many with 2 or 3 it’s enough, but manage the eco of course is really important in an RTS and it can be a source of winning going to eco, as a strategy I mean. Maybe the good example u r looking for is SC only 2 ressources, eco important but no need to look as much as micro in battle
I have talked about this before. I had my doubts it had to do with competency until that patch which proudly advertised it would bring ability to see post-match map. Patch came out and this feature didn’t actually work, game continued to behave exactly the same in this regard - you would only see vision of your allies once you’ve been defeated which was already the case, but NOT the post match map. A developer posted here and said they arent’t sure why it hasn’t worked, the code they wrote.
So while I don’t know the names of the exact people that worked on this feature, I can say that those involved were incompetent. Now bear in mind this is a simple feature to add which doesn’t require complicated coding, so you can imagine when it comes to more complex ones why they take so long to develop → because pesonnel there lack the required skills.
And I wish I could limit myself to saying “game has a few bugs” like you claim. If only that was the case, but the problem is game lacks many basic features and functionalities which makes it an average game in the genre, and is in the hands of people that have little to no experience with RTS and cant code properly so future is not very bright either.
Again, if “thing didn’t work properly” was a sign of surefire incompetence, you’d end up laying off most of the software industry.
The thing you’re calling a “simple feature” you have no idea about. Which is a par for the course, in my experience. It’s always a simple feature until you have to develop it yourself. I recommend giving it a go!
Yeah, Relic are famous for having no experience with RTS games
Honestly, your opinion is your own, you have the right to express it. But man, it’s funny to read sometimes.
How is that not evidence of incompetence? What more do you want? It’s a simple feature which they could not code and I do have an idea about it. And we’re not even talking about an indie developer here, we’re talking about a “world-class studio” (as they themselves describe it) with Microsoft behind financing the project.
And you don’t know the development process, which I have followed since the beginning. Relic has hired lots of people when they got the contract to develop AoE4, many of these people did not work as game developers before, nevermind RTS games. The few who did have a game dev background on past AAA titles did not work on RTS games either.
Also Relic never worked on a classic RTS before which requires certain elements (maybe if we throw there Homeworld, but that’s stretching the definition already). That can still be achieved with proper guidance and willing to listen, and ofc competency, which did not happen.
You can go ahead and continue to turn a blind eye, but they are exposed to criticism very rightly so.
Yeah, all you’re doing is exposing how much you don’t know about games development. Or software in general.
Does a character modeller need to work on RTS games to work on models for an RTS game? Animators? Texture artists? Engine programmers? Tools programmers? UI artists?
Your issue is with the design of the game and the prioritisation of specific features. That has very little to do with the background of any developer hired to work on the game. But you stretch, and you reach to find some evidence of “incompetence”, when the much more likely answer is “they made a game you don’t like that much / they made a game you think could be better”.
And yes, Homeworld is absolutely an RTS. It was literally genre-defining at the time (alongside other such great work from other developers). There’s no stretching any definition. There’s no blind eye from me here. Plenty of people have been very vocal about the things they’re expecting from Relic, and how much work Relic has to do to make Age IV worth the money for them.
I have nothing against anyone like that.
I have something against mistaken claims of incompetence from posters who are making it increasingly clear they wouldn’t be able to measure competence in software development in the first place.
PS: yes, I’ve followed the development process from the beginning. I was there when people started to obsess over hirings to predict Age IV would be a massive failure Turns out it wasn’t, and what remains of those posters have had to either silently vanish, or find new ways to attack Relic (while never admitting they were wrong).
Dislike the game, or its shortcomings, as much as you want. Attack the developers, regardless of how “justified” you consider the “criticism”, and you’ll find people emphatically disagree. That’s all I have to say on this really, because I’m already repeating myself. Cheers!
Oh for goodness sake, I’m wasting my time with you since you clearly are too biased and either insincere or don’t know what you are saying. They couldn’t even design a pause function ffs, so what are we even talking about anymore. You’d need some serious shilling to even defend stuff like that which is the most basic stuff for an RTS.
And I was talking about “classic” RTS games specifically, which requires certain elements, but hence you havent noticed the distinction, clearly you don’t know what you’re talking about and I’m wasting my time.
There is no single consensus on what “classic” means. Some people use it to refer to the early 90s, some people refer to it as the late 90s and early 00s. Generational shift means that this kind of thing will always be a moving target.
Relic haven’t had an intentional pause in any of their games (including Homeworld). I believe it was patched into Deserts of Kharak (which wasn’t made by Relic, though Blackbird has a fair few former Relic developers, plus a bunch of other talent)?
Sure, you want it. Nothing wrong with wanting it. Age of Empires has it, yup. That doesn’t mean “incompetence” in not having it. It’s something they’re actively working on in CoH 3, so maybe one day we’ll see it in Age IV. But it’s certainly not finished yet in that game. It’s something they’ve had to develop from scratch. Presumably, it is something that they therefore can design. It just comes down to resources and having the time to.
I’m not being insincere at all. I’m enjoying correcting your own obvious bias and lack of knowledge about how games are made. You seem to think that hiring an animator from a non-RTS background is somehow going to make a bad RTS game. You think that post-game mechanics are “simple”. You have no idea! You literally have no idea.
I don’t mind that people want these improvements. I don’t mind that people consider the game bad without these improvements. I don’t mind when people say Relic should be able to make these improvements. I mind when people like you claim it’s a “simple” task in order to justify your own accusations of “incompetence”.
But sure, call me a shill. Call me whatever names you want. It definitely helps
MS has the certification process because they’ve had it for years. They had it with Games for Windows Live (anyone remember that particular joy?).
I’m not sure it is either. The problem is, knowing what I know of software, is there could be a bunch of reasons. Maybe they struggled to prioritise post-launch. We’re certainly seeing improvements to the process (communication, patch notes, etc) that were absent or lacking before. Maybe they’re held back by tooling, or some kind of infrastructure issues, that are taking longer to eliminate than they’d like (technical debt is a constant in development). Maybe it’s bad direction. Maybe it’s poor management. Maybe it’s something else.
The patch-a-month cadence seems to be intentional, and I don’t doubt we’ll see the odd hotfix inbetween as we go (December already proved that, with a patch followed by a hotfix). I don’t consider a patch a month slow, assuming they keep to it, though I understand the frustration from folks who want important fixes sooner.
Even if they like the idea of me being called a shill
(likes are public, don’t worry I’m not actually offended, don’t hurt me haha)
Whether anyone is competent or incompetent is beside the point. The point is whether we each enjoy the game. Ultimately, that’s the entire objective of a game.
Turns out it wasn’t, and what remains of those posters have had to either silently vanish, or find new ways to attack Relic (while never admitting they were wrong).