The whole “it’s i hard to satisfy everyone” or “you just disagree with their perspective” thing is, like many of the stuff they and their apologists have been saying, euphemism at its best.
The problem is not their perspective. It’s their lack of A perspective.
Yes it is hard to please everyone. But as long as you have a clear direction, you could at least please someone.
To be fair, the communication had never been good. Every time they just dropped a “we have something exciting upcoming!” with some enigmatic pictures and that’s it.
But why were people fine back then? Because we knew what to expect. That is a reputation carefully cultivated by ES and then FE during the HD era then the early days of DE.
You hear something upcoming. You know it is going to be a few civs+a few campaigns. You may not like the choice, but it is what it is. (Even the AOE3 US and Mexico DLC, which feels very much like one DLC split in two, made up by adding three scenarios for the DLC owners). When they say DLC, campaign, civ, you know they’ll live up to the quality
This all changed since 2024 after V&V. They had burned that decade-long reputation for temporary heating. Now nothing they say guarantees quality any more.
Campaign? Ha, V&V
Civ? Ha, 3K, variants, exclusively variants
DLC? Ha, some strange not-civs plus their latest half-hearted “innovation” to deliver less
SP content? Ha, just another “innovative” mode from other genres
Even announcements themselves? They could go into silence and cancel it out of nowhere
Now every time they tease something, with increasingly flashy words, surprising, bold, unprecedented, reality-shattering, quantum-entangling, blahblahblah, you don’t know what it is going to be and what new shiny “innovation” they are going to insert in place of something perfectly solid and standard.
That’s where anxiety and frustration comes from. We are now living in the Russian roulette world of “what random parts are they going to shoot in the next DLC”
AND IT IS 100% THEIR FAULT
This is NOT helped by the hundred different mindsets within the developers and management that all fight each other. An experiment here, ditch it, another experiment there, ditch it.
You like antique civs in AOE2 subgames? What about we directly squeeze antique non-civs into the AOE2 base game?
As a result, not only you are not sure which part they are going to “innovate”, but also you are pretty sure it would be replaced by another pile of nonsense.
Watching AOE4 going down the same path is like watching the same things in slow motion because for unknown reasons, the progress is much slower compared to the money they made from the “best selling expansion ever”
And AOE2 had almost 10 DLCs since HD. It is saturated. It is a little more understandable for them to try something “new”. But it is not the case here.
I have no idea why they just refuse to make the bread and butter.
If they want to ditch that direction forever, fine. Let us know. We won’t waste any time or money on you.
I already said that about 3K. Now I say it again:
WE, innovate on civ design, campaign storytelling, gameplay mechanics, things that really matter
DO NOT innovate on monetization