Disappointed with the current situation of aoe4. Necessary changes!

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
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Hi friends. My hope is that this message reaches as many people as possible who agree with me, and perhaps the developers will also see it and improve the game.

I’ve been an aoe4 player since its release. I played all seasons and have qualified since the first season to conquer+. Today I’m leaving the game due to its various problems. I will mention a few here and also some basic improvements that I would like to see in the game. Maybe if they correct at least half of what I’m going to say here, I’ll play again.

I also know that several players also stopped for some of these reasons.

Let’s go:

1- Lack of care with the game: When the season changes, the character icon is bugged and you need to change it again. The game’s chat is horrible and takes several seconds for messages to appear. The friends list does not have an alphabetical order or search bar. Unlike other aoe you need to type “/” to use taunts.

2- Anti cheater The game does not have a basic anti-cheat or punishment for those who use cheating.

3- Pause and reconnect I don’t even need to talk about it here, it’s basic in any game.

4- Opportunity to replay games again. Caster mode does not have simple features like the Russian prize or the Japanese upgrades.

5- Ranked scores are based on hidden matchmaking. Sometimes you beat someone with 1400 points and have 30 points to gain. But it beats a 1450 and has 20 point gains. It makes no sense. A smurf has a game score of 1500 but her hidden score is 1350.

A friend of mine spent a season losing on purpose until he reached bronze. In the other season he reached conquer 3 without any problems. And his player level is at most diamond 1. This happens because hidden matchmaking understands that you are a bad player. So even though he was in conquer 1, he played against platinums and gained a lot of points.

The game should work with the basic rating that is used in games. Like chess. If player A wins 30 points, player B also loses 30 points.

6- Game starting system is horrible. You can see who your opponent is before starting the match. This causes someone to withdraw from the match and is only penalized in time. He should also be penalized with lost points.

7- Number of smurfs within the game. The number of smurfs present in games is nothing new. If there is a fix for hidden matchmaking and also match searches, it would somewhat eliminate this problem.

8- Sheep and resources poorly distributed on the maps. It seems that after the latest updates, the sheep have become disorganized. Sometimes one player collects 5.6 sheep from the same location, while the other player collects none. (beastqy was complaining about this yesterday on his live). Sometimes resources are poorly distributed. Lots of gold mines for one player, and one or none for the other.

9- Lack of a stream mode for those who want to go live. Stream sniper is a big problem.

10- Players can delete fish spots by building something in their place.

11- Hitting the boar makes it disappear from the mini map.

12- The game has a card with little information about its units. We just need to buy with ao2 or mythology for example.

13- Lack of animal diversity on the maps. There are only wolves (not collectable), wild boar, sheep and deer. While in aoe2 there are many types of animals.

14- Lack of upgrade to reveal where the opponents’ landmarks are when they have practically died. Who has never been angry at a Mongolian-playing opponent who is hiding the latest milestone?

15- Bad click when collecting a boar next to a tc. Or when there is an object nearby (for example trees).

16- The problem with canceling the scout animation to collect deer.

Among other problems that I don’t remember now.

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I’m not sure about point 14.
Everything else I highly agree on.
Work has to be done about that TIMELY.
Ideally already on release 2 years ago and it has never happened, unfortunately.

This game has to receive some real big DEV support asap to not just die.

3 Likes
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Can’t agree more.

We want reconnection, more rewards or item unlocked by the current experience system (or you’d better tell us what this experience level is using for?), more team-rank inspiration like everyone could enjoy the best moment or process.

We love this game, and we don’t want this 2021’s game died as Starcraft2, Warcraft3, please do something!

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If there is no HUGE and I mean really HUGE GIANT patch for aoe4 by the end of this season, which fixes at least 80-90% of the existing bugs, pathing, balance fuckups and physics issues, which have been in this game since the betas, I’ll finally give up on this mess of a game and leave it behind.
Now after the game has made INSANE profit through the DLC (Microsoft stated it was their most financially successful aoe expansion EVER), there is absolutely NO EXCUSE to pump the budget for the support MASSIVELY.

One thing is, that cheaters have to be receiving their perma-bans.
People have been reported over and over but not banned for weaks.
At least the DEVS should communicate, WHY and WHAT are the decisions.

It’s heartbreaking as this game has giant potential, but the managers who lead the devs don’t let them do their work, cut their budget short, lay off people and just want big returns/profit.

I have very slim hope only for this game to reach the finnished game state, it should have had in year 2021, when it was released.
But let’s see.
Maybe this season patch makes the impossible possible.

2 Likes
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I can add a small detail traders look like carrying shit make it look like shiny gold please

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A “List in alphabetical order” for friends would be very helpful if it were implemented. In fact, we should also suggest an “Alphabetical Order List” button for the installed MODS, which now practicaly are out of order and not even in alphabetical order.

As I understand it, there are messages if it is found that the other player used Cheats and if there are bans, although it has not yet been made public how these work or at what rate, and it should be made public at some point.

Perhaps this level of Cheaters level was not expected to be so high, and the team that controls that is not as large as we thought (Remember that Riot lost several employees last year).

Hopefully the system improves for next season, since from what I understand the most common cheat is map-hacking to reveal the map, so it would be very easy to detect, but need people and not IAs to really correct those players.

Well, you can pause the game in single player by entering ESC and where the configuration menus appear. At least the lack of this mechanism in skirmishes and campaigns helped me a lot in ranked.

Of course, I understand what you mean: The pause button for Aoe2, Aoe3, AoM, which allowed you to decide the attack and movement pattern of your units individually in short margins.

I guess the developers didn’t want the game to work like that and disabled it (At least the lack of this mechanism in skirmishes and campaigns helped me a lot in ranked).

However, only for nostalgia, to in games against AI (Artificial Intelligence) in single player mode, it could be enabled, perhaps with a button in the options menu: “Allow Pause button in single player Skirmishes”.

About the japanese upgrades, it must be due to something in the algorithm, perhaps because they have “Unique upgrades” in the Mill and the Blakcsmith. I hope it would be corrected. In fact, that thing about the Japanese Upgrades would fall within the BUG Section.

No idea, I had understood from what they say on Reddit that the ELO in AoE IV works very simply:

  • You keep winning, you get more points, and you get even more if you beat ranks higher than yours.
  • You keep losing, you lose more points, and you lose more if someone from a lower league beats you.

I don’t think it’s bad, so I’m not complaining.

The problem is How do you know if these people really did it that way? What if they really had a sudden crash or their internet went down? Then I don’t think taking points away is okay. Laws always have to have their margin of freedom or else they fall innocent.

Well, in theory, if one is going to be a coward and want to disconnect by force, he should disconnect the internet cable or forcefully turn off his computer to disconnect the game; so I don’t think that’s good for his machine in a long time; and like a plus the time ban is a good corrective measure.

The Smurf problem exists in more than one online game, and I don’t think it’s just an AoE IV problem. In fact there is no efficient solution with them, given the anonymity of the internet, they are like adults who get into children’s tournaments and then teenagers in chess to feel that they are better and it is very difficult to detect them.

As you say, the only thing that could be done with them is to have the algorithm transfer them directly to Conquerors in Ranked and that here they don’t bother more with their childishness.

Of course, at least they contribute monetarily to the game, since unlike LOL (League of Legends), smurfs in AoE IV have to "Repurchase the Game" on another account to be Smurfs, so in theory they are people who has enough money to do that.

I guess it’s a matter of checking the generation algorithms for random maps. In general, I suppose that what is fair is that there should be a minimum generation of some sheep near the base of each team or player (30% and 40%), and then a quantity of 70% or 60% if you completely randomize the rest. of the map.

I don’t know about that, so I won’t comment.

In general, every game in the “Age of” franchise has had problems with coastal fish:

  • AoE2: you couldn’t build docks where there were coastal fish
  • AoM: coastal fish did not exist, and in fact there are few marine maps with fish (BUG and bad design, I hope it changes in the Retold)
  • AoE3: there are no coastal fish and villagers have no animation to collect them.
  • AoE4: random maps with coastal fish, they are destroyed if a dock is built on top of them. It would be Normal if it weren’t for the fact that the enemy can take the opportunity to destroy all the coastal fish on the map, especially on River maps.

Solution: A user on Reddit suggested that a mechanism could be made for coastal fish to “flee” like deer by building a dock where they are. It would be a funny mechanism, but it would make sense, since the fish are not static berry bushes, they are a school so in theory they should also move away if you make a building near them, not disappear. And well, they would go to the nearest side.

I think the joke of that is that the enemy is not able to see where you killed the wild boar so that it goes to harass your villagers.

I know it sounds advantageous for some civs like Rus or JoanDArC to have villagers know where to go to collect it, but making it visible could actually have its cons.

True, and even if it is in a history section, like in AoE3 or the AoM with the extra compendium that each unit has. It was a nice section of the game and made you understand what they based it on to create it.

At least, most of the users of the forums has been asking for that for a long time.

I suppose that due to the pressure from the AoM, which does seem to have varied fauna, one day they will consider it.

In Aoe2 it happened since Conquerors because, when making civs like Aztecs and maps like Pre-Columbian Mexico in the Campaign, they had to introduce jaguars, turkeys and quetzals to keep a good impresion in the fandom. I guess for AoE IV it will be the same if they want to bring out Aztecs or something like that.

Sometimes I think they should create a building called the Palace, or Town Hall, where extra useful technologies are given for Late Game or to imrpove base units (pikes for spearman, harquebuses for Handcannoners, etc.), but also to revive the SPIES technology mechanic from previous Age games, but instead of revealing enemy units, you could reveal enemy villagers and LANDMARKS for a short time, so they can’t be hidden in those cases. Otherwise, SPIES would be in Keeps.

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In order of priority, what I would like to see in the next patches are:

  1. Cheating being resolved
  2. Balancing
  3. QoL improvements that are community consensus
3 Likes
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I also want to say something about siege and anti siege.In battle most of the time siege and anti siege unpacks attacks and packs again so in this kind of situations springalds do only one attack before enemy siege unpacks and leaves.In those scenarios improving attack speed of springald doesnt mean too much.

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EDIT - on second thoughts, nevermind. Edited the question out. Nothing to do with you hd.age, but some folks really get wound up when I ask how we define community feedback and it just isn’t worth it :slight_smile:

I maintain that the developers do consider the community when making changes (the S7 Preview showcases this with the reduced victory UI). But I also think this community here isn’t necessarily representative.

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I’m actually playing all my multi games against diamond and conquerors while im plat 1. This is fucking non sens and this elo system is a huge amount of sh*t !
Smurfs everywhere. Leavers and afk. No reco. No pause.
AND WE ARE IN SEASON 6 LMAO

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Can someone explain to me how me as a Gold rank is more often than not meeting up against plat and diamond ranked players?

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You are a good player :slight_smile:

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Its just that I struggle a bit when my team mates are either diamond or platinum as they blame me for us losing the game and it might be my fault but i can’t help to be matched with more skilled people than me.

Is it always like this in the beginning and does the matchmaking become better after more games played?

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In ranked team games, matchmaking is a bit messy. But a messy quick matchmaking is better than one that is precise but requires you to wait 5 minutes or more in line.

Enjoy it because it’s good to play against better ranked players. But don’t listen to those who accuse, because the defeat is not your fault.

2 Likes