Hi! First of all, congrats to the devs on the release of the xbox version!
context: I’m coming from the PC version of the game and was looking forward to playing with mouse and keyboard on console to replace my poor PC experience (old insufficient hardware), on Xbox Series X.
I was hoping one could find the same identical experience on the platform with M&KB as the PC version, but found those details hindering that:
HUD size isn’t customizable, it takes a lot of screen space and can’t be click through despite being transparent. Expected to be able to swap to the current PC style HUD if desired
Build menu and shortcuts aren’t the same accross versions, on PC you usually tap “Q” to access age I buildings from a villager then say “Q” again to build a house. On this version you have to press “Tab” to cycle through to the build menu and then tap “Q” to access the house. Accessing each Age tabs only through “Tab” cycling. Expected to be able to use years of habit on this version, can’t customize those shortcuts.
Build menu and shortcuts part 2: I noticed some buildings don’t appear in the same grid spot when using the Grid Layout system. Using Abbasid as an example, House of Wisdom (Age I building / landmark) is normally placed on the letter “F” of a QWERTY or AZERTY keyboard. On this version, HoW was accessed with the Gid Key “W”, so not on the same spot in the layout. Haven’t tried other civilisations but am expecting other inconsistencies to exist now.
Mouse additional hardware buttons not detected, expected to be able to access mouse button 4 and 5 (and others) like in other XBOX console games allowing for mouse and keyboard, such as Halo Infinite. For reference, I was using the Logitech G603 but can’t test with any other mouse, and am assuming this issue isn’t strictly a hardware issue since it works with the same hardware in Halo as mentioned.
I have to do additional testing but I’ve noticed small details in the remappable hotkeys that I’ll post here if I can confirm them, such as “Select All X military building” hotkeys to not properly register shortcut such as “CTRL + A” even when making sure there are no conflicts across shortcut categories.
Thanks for reading, Hopefully we can get those two versions closer to one another, as seems to be the point with Microsoft “Play Anywhere” approach and “chose your own input style” that I applaud. Especially if Cloud streaming the game would allow for M&KB input, one would expect identical PC experience when playing from one instead of locally.
I hope the devs fix this. Simply implementing the PC HUD would fix it IMO. I too don’t have CPU capabilities and playing on Xbox lets me experience all the great visuals.
I’ll also add that currently, K&M HUD does not properly display the player list or their scores.
Hi! I am bumping this relatively old post since it is my understanding that is has not been yet solved, yet even addressed.
I acknowledge the fact that developing games cross-platform is a massive undertaking (on top of developing games on itself), Furthermore, AoE IV is a beautiful game. A couple of game hours show how much care was put not only on the gameplay, but on the artistic aspect as a hole, from the soundtrack and voice acting (which evolve as you progress your civs), to the scenarios, the depth of the civilizations and how their cultural history affects their game mechanics… There is so much to congratulate the devs for.
I feel compelled to say this in case someone from the dev team picks this thread up, because I don’t want to sound ungrateful or ‘whinny’ when I say the following:
If at very least the hotkeys issue remains unaddressed, I will push for a full refund, and I will encourage other people with the same complain to do the same.
For all the positive things to be said, the hotkeys issue is a game breaker. It breaks immersion because the default configuration in Xbox is unoptimized for KBM in a way that is highly uncomfortable to play with, it tends to annoy a player how many steps you have to take to perform simple actions. It is not even about competitive gameplay, having a highly uncomfortable configuration takes away part of the feeling of achievement for, for example, when you are developing your economy enough to push some upgrades (just a simply case)
This game deserves support. I could have played it through GamePass yet I decided to buy it out of love for the franchise and for respect towards the work. But I was unaware of this bug (I actually researched a lot about kbm compatibility on xbox before engaging with the game, so this problem catched me off guard), and I feel these kind of equality in terms of functionalities are required things. I know how much effort it must take developing and mantaining these games, however we console players have a right to require these things, we are supposed to have the same game as PC players if the game is advertised as such, otherwise the game should be named ‘AoE IV xbox edition’ and acknowledge the potential differences and most importantly, limitations in gameplay.
I’m also finding this to be inconvenient while playing with Keyboard and mouse on XBox.
when clicking on villagers. you need to then click on the build button only then can you use hot keys to choose what to build.