What are your deal breakers that decides if you will buy Age of Empires 4 or not?
For me it is unit responsiveness and fully custom hotkeys. Without good unit responsiveness and fully custom hotkeys it is not really possible to control a RTS. Which means all other good qualities becomes irrelevant.
Basically if if unit responsiveness is good and custom hotkeys are in place, I will buy the game. If not, I will pass.
If Iām still alive by October 28, Iāll buy it 11 no other reason comes to mind
Graphics donāt look good enough for me (Iām not the one who posts endless threads about that just saying, I just plain donāt like them sufficiently for such a prize tag) the civ picks are boring and the campaigns they decided to make too.
If the game is full of bugs and crashes. Something like WC3 Reforged.
Other than that only thing that can turn me away could be stupid AI, which i doubt it would be the case.
After buying C&C4 at full price on release I canāt claim to have any deal breakers with a straight face.
Having said that, Iām happy Iāll have Game Pass during launch because the zoom level which they currently claim they probably wonāt fix is very close to a deal breaker for me. So Iāll play it on game pass and see how it evolves.
I almost never buy games on release, because of a huge backlog + high RRP and perspective of discount even 3months in + poorest state of the game at release compared to buying anytime after release + having new expansions for 2DE and 3DE to finishā¦
There is no ādeal breakerā I can point to, unless Devs remain completely deaf on the feedback from this forum - more options for zoom, hotkeys, UI adjustments, color picker/changer, adding normal options present in 2 and 3 for skirmishes and multiplayer game.
I guess, for somebody focused on single-player- crappy map editor + small number of built-in maps (and having to buy new ones) + very poor skirmish customizability? But even then - that just means waiting for price to drop more.
So far Iām convinced IV is a fun, good RTS. Good enough to bear Age of Empires name and be bought. I hope Devs plan to support it at least as half good as they support DEs, and eventually make IV bright star of the 2020s. Make classic RTS games great again!
Pinball games and combat flight sims might never come back to their strength from mid/late 90s, but I donāt think classic RTS can fall into similar obscurity. Especially with whatās going on inside indie scene.
I have been one of AoE IV most fervent critics, but I still pre-ordered. What Iāve seen is not encouraging as being the best AoE ever, but itās still a decent game and will scratch my itch for a new AoE. As you can see from my username handle, I have context on what to expect.
IMO this will be similar to AoE III which had a lukewarm reception but was still a good RTS.
I do hope that along the way and after the public release, weāll see further improvements to the game engine, mechanics and civ asymmetry.
It helps that down here it was somewhat cheaper @ Steam and I got the AoE II new civs for āfreeā.
Civ design. If thereās not a civilization that holds my curiosity and brings me joy, then thereās really nothing for me to do during a game.
I hope they will add Poland in the future ;].
I will buy for sure no matter what happens. What will keep me though is question how big competitive scene is going to be and if they are going to support esport in some degree
top3 things discussed in Beta Forum .
If they are changed, if Not - GamePass to try a game would be nice.
First month of GamePass is too nice.
Graphics and innovation definitely.
I am one of those people that hate mediocrity, mostly speaking of big studios with a big budget to make a game.
After watch those graphics I am not upset at all, the 2019 preview was great, but it was pre alpha I thought they would add more detail to those texturesā¦ but they didnt. I dont see innovation at any part, even the building collapsing is so strange, the walls collapsing is great but for buildings we see weird broken extructures instead of building destruction, I see magic arrows being fired from buildings, holy divine siege weapons that moves without operators and some other things that are annoying while playing and dont let me feel immersed. Asymmetry had to be like AoE 3 with more unique and different units among civs, but all civs got 2 infantry and 2 cavalry and 2 archers, they all the same with different textures. Naval warfare was so bored, completely different to AoE 3 where it was supposed to be epic and fun.
I mean I can continue with the list, this game screams mediocrity everywhere and I cant have a good reason to buy AoE 4 at the moment. Only thing I see potencial is the beautiful CoH 3 engine that made environment and buildings look great in light and volumetric terms. It was also a pleasure to feel the smooth game, pathfinding and clean art, but thats not enought thought.
Camera. Camera settings (and itās not just a matter of zoom).
As of now the perspective given by the camera is similar to AoE III, but worse. Thatās the very most important reason why Iāve never been able to move to AoE III, which in many other respects may be considered an advancement in the series (that, and Iām simply not interested in the colonial era or more recent ones).
To keep the comparison in the Age franchise, I think AoM does a very batter job with the camera in a 3D environment.
Hotkeys are very important, but they have already said they will add them, eventually. And so many other things people usually complain about can and will be fixed in time.
I very much like what they have done with the civilizations: I donāt quite understand how people can already have such strong opinions about balance and civ design when we are still figuring out that things in AoE II.
I like the environment with its painterly style, even if I didnāt expect it. Not quite so the style for units and buildings, but these are minor concerns. I totally dislike the scale, but this is a necessary, bad, consequence of the choice of perspective and camera settings. So, for me itās very simple:
camera stays the same ā no AoE IV (like AoE III)
In any case, even if I might not be among them, I hope AoE IV will be a success, and many people will like it and enjoy it for the next 20 years.
I have already preorder this game
I see no reason not to buy this game.
The only thing that worries me is the number of players online to quickly find games.
That I believe summarizes everything well.
Already bought it, but camera. GabStrkās right.
Yup. Sound design is the only thing that got real love in AoE IV. Some unit animations are also well done but I suspect some were extracted right from the CoH games.
The rest feels too commercial and not done with enough attention to detail: The lackluster graphics, the interface, the little things like you said such as arrows and cannons not firing from the right places, the asymmetry thatās mostly a reskin job, the simplified tech trees, the lack of blood to appeal to some markets without being culturally inappropriateā¦ I could go on.
Iām sure there are people in the dev team that really, really love the AoE franchise and really tried to make this the best RTS, but this has the marketing dept hands all over it.
It will still be a fine-ish RTS for what it is (this is no Supreme Commander 2 disaster), but I canāt put it even at AoE III level because this isnāt breaking any new ground. Itās a mish mash of things that already exist in the RTS realm. At least AoE III brought with it groundbreaking graphics and physics to the genre at a time when nobody else was doing it.
Agreed! aoe 4 will have its own fan base but wont do as good as we all expected due to the mediocre work done, IMO it should sell in a fair price tag of $20 for example. Dont see any optimistic results by selling a cheap looking game at $60
Itās $40 where Iām at and considering the $10 in value for the AoE II civs, it comes out as a $30 game which is why I preordered. I want to show support to the RTS genre and contrary to what may appear from my posts, I do want this game to be a success both critically and commercially. It will achieve the latter maybe, due to carrying the AoE brand name and appealing to nostalgia, but not the former.