Devs respond to zoom request from beta

As an AOE 3 player I had no issues with how far you can zoom out :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

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'because it is literally broken and you cant select anything/ differentiate between units! Haha! Silly beta testers :smiley: ’

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idk, guys. Coming from previous AoE games, at 1st the zoom limit bothered me
 I think it just felt weird. But having played 90 hours in the beta, I got used to it, and actually learned to kind of like it. :man_shrugging:

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‘useful feedback from the recent beta
 players wanting to manipulate the camera more.’

‘you can’t play the game like that’!”

super useful :smiley:

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‘you can’t play the game like that’!”
And don’t want now, thanks, saved me some buck

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adam relogin wrong account.
Do u understand how dump it sound to “get used” and what if i want play 20 hours? not 90h?

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If they dont fix things like this, I am afraid some players will not stick around for 90 hours to find out if they get used to it.

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I feel like I shouldn’t have to say it, but I didn’t magically get used to it on the 90th hour, so
 It was actually much sooner than that.

Sorry, I keep forgetting how incredibly dramatic people are on this forum. For anyone who is concerned that what i meant regarding the “90 hours” bit of my statement means that it takes exactly or around 90 hours to get used to zoom levels
 rest assured. It took maybe 3 or 4 matches.

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They’ve already said that competitive games and matchmaking will have different balance than the normal games and campaign for those players that only play for fun.
Leave the actual zoom level for the competitive scene and give us more zoom out level for those who will play casual games or vs AI (which I believe is the 65% of the community, only a small parte will go just for competitive gameplay).

Game can go as simple as that, but they still try to convince us that their vision is right and ours is not, even when they recognized that most of beta testers asked for more zoom out level.

What’s the point of a beta if you won’t listen to the feedback given. Don’t give me excuses and explain to me why you chose that zoom level. We are telling to you that is not working for us.
And who are we to tell you what to do with your game? Oh, just the people that will buy your game so you can still pay your bills and buy some food.

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Then I will reassess if and when there is another beta, but am not pledging my faith with a preorder for the time being.

I’ve no problem with the default zoom as the default, but I certainly made mention that there are certain circumstances where a higher zoom ceiling is genuinely useful:

  • Long, complex unit waypointing around terrain features
  • Walling and other mass construction projects that exceed the default screen FoV
  • Sprawling battles and sieges that spill out the sides of the screen and benefit from quick adjustments of massive formations

You wouldn’t be playing most of the game at that zoom, but it matters for that stuff.

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yeah its your money after all. I don’t recommend pre-orders in general tbf.

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Complaints will probably show up anyway, players like to complain about what they don’t understand. But it seems to me that it is currently very close, look at this launch image, The TC occupies 1/3 of the view

We’re not asking for the entire map to be seen, just ajustment.

In addition to talking about FOV, which I believe is another problem. AoE4 in my opinion has a very wide viewing angle. But there must be a reason and I could be wrong.

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“You can’t play the game like that!”

Excuse me? Maybe players should decide how to play the game? And wasn’t the whole point of that units visual style to improve readability?

Because I surely can see a unit almost as big as a tower with a weapon also huge from a bit more distance. We don’t need a tremendous zoom out to the stratosphere, but some more flexibility for sure.

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We are Age of Empires players asking for something very important that exists in all Age of Empires games. It is very rare for the greater AoE community to agree on many things. It is disheartening to see it happen but still be rejected.

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There will be a natural middle ground between being able to control things (clicking stuff, having functional FPS, being able to identify a unit) and having a good overview (where is my other army, where is the nearest gold resource, etc.). It balances out by itself.
It’s not as if you could all of a sudden see the whole map without fog of war (as in Stronghold).

The player will either find his own best middle ground and stick to it, or switch depending on the situation.
If you really want to enforce a certain zoom level, provide an option for it when setting up a match and make it part of the competitive ruleset. That way everybody wins.
It’s baffling how many people in this forum have an unhealthy adversion to allowing the user to have options in a game :thinking:

The technical explenation is a farce. Performance should not be gained to the loss of essential gameplay elements. Let the player reduce more impactful things like the general poly count (render distance for clutter items, dynamic LOD, tesselation, etc.) in case his system struggles to cope with the amount of stuff on the screen (which is a laughable argument for this game tbh).
These are all elements that the engine already supports. Just have a look at CoH1,2,3 and DoW2,3

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Do you believe there will be any changes in the next beta?

I agree with you, it’s sad to see this kind of request being dropped.

For me it would even be a thing to “solve” the graphical problems that some people didn’t like, cartoon and etc, as you see from afar the details of the models and units become irrelevant.

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I do not believe there will be a next beta.

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This is a discussion that has existed since the very start of the RTS genre and always turns into:

A. Players are given more zoom, and nothing changes
B. Players are given more zoom and then complain about other issues that directly result from playing with a higher zoom, like fuzzy details, miss clicks, etc. Most players don’t even connect that it is directly related, so they demand the same zoom or, once again, more zoom!
C. The zoom stays the same, and players realize that they only needed to play with that level for longer.

Don’t take it from me. Take it from a Starcraft Pro Player, Caster and, RTS Developer Sean Day9 Plot, who actually spoke about this while playing AoE2 Day[9]'s Day Off - Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition P4 - YouTube

If you want a higher zoom level, don’t frame your issue with it as some sort of developer stubbornness, but instead try to see if there is something else that is limiting your enjoyment as is, maybe more options for moving the camera (like using the middle mouse) or other ways to be able to focus your attention on the screen without relying on higher zooms.

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I don’t think this image is at max zoom.

@Adico96 Extremely well put.