Constructive Thread : Let's give them time to improve the game because it has potential and it's fun!

Hi so I was rather skeptical about AOE IV Graphics etc.

But i must admit that the game is fun. After testing most of the civs here is my feedback.

I think that when AOE2 was released it wasn’t a perfect game but it improved with the community feedback.

Perhaps if we give them time we will be able to get a really good game. They will continue their work because for sure there will be expansions.

We have to take in account that perhaps there was this one GUY in their team which had high rank at relic which was only about money and didn’t want to care about feedback. This happens a lot even nowadays with triple a games specially at blizzard and EA. Even if the majority of the team is trying to listen to feedback there could be this guy who is only there to be sure that microsoft gets the bucks.

So please be patient with relic i’m sure many of them did question the final choices and that now they’ll have to change many things to improve the game so let’s make constructive and positive posts for them to listen to.

Gameplay changes needed :

  • Cutomizable hotkeys with mouse buttons included. This is a must in 2021.

  • More zoom flexibility.

  • game speed options : game still feels slow specially during fights.

  • colors options not everyone wants to play blue or red.

  • It’s hard to transition unit production. Perhaps because there are too many units and that upgrades seem relatively too expensive for some unit types. You should perhaps reduce the price of some upgrades for essential units like spearman and man at arms. The biggest issue for me is the fact that you have archers and arbalesters and they really differ in fights.

  • Cavalry is way to tanky against archers even if arbalesters are meant to be the counter

  • I’ve red comments on steam that the easy IA is way too aggressive for new players.

  • Make No 100% hit chance on ranged units but increase their damage to compensate.

  • Melee animations take too long it makes some units to feel clunky specially cavalry units.

  • Siege is too tanky against melee units.

  • Line of sight seems to vary too much depending on the position of units. For example you lose line of sight when being in a forest ? Why ? There is a bug on boats when you go over seaweeds you lose full line of sight and you boat becomes a phantom like the black pearl xD.

  • Nest of bees is a little bit broken.

  • Styrletsy are awesome but they are too powerfull. Keep in mind that there has to be the Turkish Janissaries and the Portuguese arquebuses/Aventuros which are meant to be the most powerfull handgun units of middle ages. So if you make Styrletsy this powerfull let’s imagine what their Turkish and portuguese counterparts will be…

  • It’s way too difficult to raid and to take villagers down compared to old aoe. For example i find it even difficult with mongol mangudais to get some villagers when raiding. I don’t figured it out yet why but i see that even the pros struggle to raid. i think it is because a mix of factors. Melee unit animations are too slow and villagers are way too fast and tanky.

  • Spearman should have automatic stand ground (it improves damage against cav) while being charged by cavalry because by standing ground you lose mobility and cavalry counters you then. So spearman which is cavalry counter becomes innefective…

  • Game lacks cheap trash units cavalry with high mobility and quick attacks. Not a spear cavalry but a sword focused cavalry unit with a fast attack animation and easy to kill counter. The trash spear cavalry sucks at raiding it does like 0 damage at villagers.

Visuals Aspects to improve :

  • for my german friends : landsknecht should evolve into full plate ZWEIHANDER or gothic knight : https://static.turbosquid.com/Preview/2020/03/30__06_51_41/Polished_Plate_Armor_with_Zweihander_Rigged_mb_00.jpg064748EF-1F4C-459B-A2E8-14F114B20E4CLarge.jpg

  • Adding more details to the textures of units.

  • Uniformizing elite units looks. Or you make everything look gold or silver or a mix of both but has to have golden motives and the armor being silver. An example where it is beautifully done is the elite Rus men at arms those look fantastic. An example where it is particulary ugly on french cavaliers and royal knights it looks disgusting. There are many units where the gold look doesn’t look good at all. I believe that if you add textures you could make it silver with gold motives or black with gold motives. Try to follow the Rus men at arms mixture of gold motives because they just look incredible.

  • Gold ore looks weird.

  • Artillery Projectiles should shoot slower and be bigger or more visually distinguishable. You should be able to see clearly what is hitting you.

  • Some Weapons are still too thick oversized specially spears and some bows.

  • Adding details on units.

  • Roof tiles on castle are too shiny they look like they are metallic while they should be ceramic.

A good solution to improve the graphics would be a HD pack with 2k-4k detailled textures on units and buildings.

I think that many of those ideas would be a great start to improve the game and make it really good.

If you have other recommendations let’s discuss it here.

8 Likes

I was 20 when AoE2 came out and got it at release. I do not recall anything like what you are saying. It was ready to go.

13 Likes

wow andy, youre a lot older than I thought haha

a true veteran

4 Likes

Well i mean it wasn’t the final version of the game we have today even if it was close to it.

You are describing a soft launch. AoE2 was not a soft launch. It was tight as a drum. AoC came out a year later and improved it ofc, but AoE2 was ready the day it was born.

10 Likes

well i guess you’re right x)

Yeah having been an adult through the entirety of this series makes me unique around here. When we are kids we tend to form different impressions than as adults. I see a lot of observations today that people seem to have made as children that are stilted. The most common is some weird impression that AoE was at one time some gritty realistic war sim. It never was. It was light hearted fun with exaggerated graphics since 1997. No adult in 1997 in their right mind played this series thinking it was realistic. It was fun. It was sunny. It was looking at history through a fun house mirror.

Catapults drove themselves. Villagers said weird goofy nonsense. Priests were weirdos. Unit portraits made them all our buddies.

12 Likes

Priests were weirdos haha specially in the first AOE.

I respect that and I completely agree, but one thing is making a master piece that dosnt take itself seriously and one unfinished game. You can relate the great evolution the game had, from aoe 1 to aoe 2 it was a great evolution and innovation move. Then we got AoM which pushed it to the limits and then we got AoE 3 that did everything even better while still being fun and not taking its self seriously.

But about AoE 4; one thing is not adding crew on siege and other thing is having funny overpowered boars.
One thing is not being able to pick your favorite colors and other thing is putting 20 elephants in a boat.
One thing is not having customizable keyboards and other thing is having overpowered relique priests.

You see my point? they failed in something but did great in other. Thats why a big part of the community got dissapointed. Yeah probably most of them got too hyped and cant see the unfinished game they got. Plus a lot of other mistakes they did… but I am even more dissapointed understanding what Relic did here. They basically ignored us and just released the game as they wanted it to be cuse they knew the nostalgia would get over any other problem found in the game. And obviously the money invested promoting the game with pro players and so on to make people feel the hype,…

Biggest thing that needs changing is Pop Size!!

200 ? By the time you have a decent sized civ your army is down to about 120-130 say. That’s a very small army.

Pop needs to go to 500 like it was in AOE2 or even better 1,000 so we can have epic battlefield wars

2 Likes

Currently the biggest issue with a game they are ignoring their fans - mouse hotkeys were reported like 2 months ago, really it makes so much time to develop such simple thing? So we will have game in a better state in like what, 5 years?

I was 35 when AOE2 came out and still here with IV :slight_smile:

1 Like

I didn’t like AOE2 until really AOC came out. Made such a massive difference.

Relic is silent after the release hiding from us ? Where is your excuse now relic ? The game has so many flaws for better readability like your excuse was for this Lego fighting animations graphics ?

dagger axe is more suitable for the time of aoe1.
Weapon call error needs to be fixed.Also we need 4k enhanced graphics pack and blood dlc.


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Nowadays almost no game is perfect at realease but yes this one is very expensive so it should at least have some kind of polish.