Do you think the AOE Council done a good job?

[jimmy19846071]

This Is not a thread against people Who are into the AOE Council (nothing aginst you, Andy) but i really wanna understand how Developers thought that a few players (10, 20, 50?) Would had rapresent the whole Age of Empires Community.

Developers started to share Official Polls for some right purpose (what people wanna see from the next installment) and those Polls were pretty clears about players’s preferences and One of them It was related to the graphic’s preferences: 85% of players would had wanted a “brillant and realistic graphic”: something between Aoe1-Aoe3 and Total War.
So, Developers was considering also a graphic style similar to Total war (with flags, i suppose).

You can clearly chek it here:

Age of Empires 4 - The Definitive Community Survey

So what’s happened from X019? I clearly see a graphic downgrade and this is related to what AOE’s Council said about. I can’t speaking about specific people but Viper said in its videos that many feedbacks were related to Building sizes, unit sizes, colours, readability. So many changes happened due AOE Council feebacks

And than

Aoe3De

Than i seen this on Reddit, about the naval warfare video, and some discussions with a memeber of council (TheRevMrGreen)

user Tams82
“I don’t know what to think on the matter.There are a very vocal minority who say water isn’t a liked part of the competitive game… but I have my doubts that those people even play competitively. I haven’t heard of any top players wanting no water gameplay, even if they do vastly prefer land maps. Obviously, enough people complained that there was no water to help change Relic’s mind.
That’s too little too late for me though. I don’t believe their hearts are in the right place to be custodians for this franchise”.

TheRevMrGreen
"Water is a hugely important piece of the game. Even if you don’t always use it, just the options of incorporating fishing ships and merchant transport ships (in age games with them) is a hugely necessary piece of strategy to create an more interesting game. I don’t care what the stupid metrics say — Age needs docks on day one.

user Tams82
“I don’t think 4 is going to do well. Unfortunately, I think they are going to hide how it does behind Games Pass (which I have concerns about existing, but that’s another issue)”

user Temistocles1984
“Are you in Council, right? I’m asking if Council ever gave good suggestions to developers. From what we’ve seen this game received a lot of negative reactions everywhere. Do you know that the First impressions are the most important for the game? This game seems really poor for a 2021 game and It’s not a polisihing matter or artstyle but the lack of textures, Building sizes, terrains, effects, Plastic weapons etc. After playing the CoH3 pre-alpha my question Is: what f…g happened with Aoe4? Same developers, same engine but COH3 seems a lot Better. Readability Is very important only for competitive games and this mode Is A very Little percent of AOE’s fanbase. Most of people play only campaigns, scenarios and skirmish vs AI so you could have a Great Graphic and possibility to zoom in on the Battlefield whenever you want because the rythm of gameplay Is a bit slower.The Competitive games Will not save this game because AOE Is not a competitive or E-sport game. The developers’s approach to community for CoH3 Will decrete the success of this game. Unfortunately Aoe4 have been developed hearing only few people of a Council and half of them were pro-players. Developers shared Official polls for AOE4 some Years ago for what? Nothing, i suppose. 85% of people asked for Brillant and realistic graphic but we’ve giant soldiers, plastic weapons, orribile water and effects and Little Buildings. But from waht i read in some interviews developers said that many aspects have been changed After the Council’s feedbacks. So mate, i really Hope this game Will be a success, but i doubt. Unfortunately in this case the AOE Council Will probably face very negative reactions”

TheRevMrGreen
“I’m unable to say what my impressions have been, what my feedback was, and what conversations we’ve had, let alone those of anyone else. My job is give them my most honest assessment of the game and represent the community as best as I can. Their job is to do with that feedback as they wish.You will have to speak to each of those players on the council and ask them yourself if the game as designed brings them joy”.

From what this guy says it seems they (Council) thought that their feebacks would have represente what community think about the different feautures of the game (readability, graphic, bulding, units and weapons sizes etc) but the reality seems to be a bit difference.
So i ask" Why World’s Edge and Relic didn’t make “development platform” shared with all community in the similar way choosed by Sega for the Humankind and COh3? It would been better anyway.

Sorry for the long Thread.

[EgoTonic]

Short answer: we don’t know if they did a good job as we don’t know enough about the game to have a valid opinion about it and we don’t know in what ways the community council actually influenced the development of the game except for maybe that they wanted naval battles in the game.

Please don’t try to blame your dissatisfaction on the community council just because you are unhappy with what we have seen from the game so far.

[NineFlazberry]

It is you again…
We have no reason to distrust the players’ advice.
I think it’s obvious to everyone that the benefit of advice is not in the number of players, but in what these people have to offer, it makes sense to choose only the most useful members of the community. (By the way, I don’t see you in the group of advisers.)
But we have a group of “anti-advisers” on the forum, it includes 5-6 people according to my calculations, but these people regularly provoke the community to the “flame” times, and also like to engage in the substitution of concepts.
For example, I have already written many times that the perception of the game design is your personal problem, this is the taste characteristic of the game, but you continue to insist that the developers especially for you and ten more people should make a separate version of the game with photorealistic graphics, especially for those who like to look at models (instead of playing the game), and my argument about the transition of design like Civilization 5 and 6 was completely ignored, since the “anti-advice” does not care, they are here only for stirring up the “flame” and controversy.
No matter how much you tell you that the game looks great, that staged screenshots are not an indicator (I will attach a screenshot of AoE 3 as an ordinary player sees it), you will still bend your line. I get the impression that you did not play RTS at all, or played all this time as follows - (I start the game and examine the effects and units).
And now you still question the usefulness of people who are directly selected from the community to help create the game, no matter how you deny it, but it is.
Many players on this forum have already offered you a simple way out, do not play, and do not bother the community.

PS

You still have the conscience to show screenshots with angular models AoE 3, and say that these are excellent graphics.
You seem to specialize in looking at models, apparently you somehow do not look carefully.

[Temouloun]

Seeing the X2019 screenshots makes my heart cry every time. The game looked so much better than what it is now. Look how detailed the units are, how well textured they are and the scale… I’m so sad that I’ll never get to play that game.

[BeetleRock203671]

I’m sad about that too.

[jimmy19846071]

“PS
You still have the conscience to show screenshots with angular models AoE 3, and say that these are excellent graphics.
You seem to specialize in looking at models, apparently you somehow do not look carefully.”

You probably need a pair of glasses.

Your screenshot shows a competitive scene (all players are Humans) and it not represents the main modes that peopole currrently play on. And for this reason the graphic in that screenshot is set on medium or low setting as you clairly seen. So, how can say to me that AOE3 grahic is bad when you play it on low setting? Not sense and not logical.

“Many players on this forum have already offered you a simple way out, do not play, and do not bother the community”. Who, beside you? Plese tell me, because i seen only few persons who defend AOE4 anyway.

The walls on wich you (and some other people) are trying to bulding your metric are the main reason why many game is going to be failed: “accept everything developers made only because is AOE”. This is not good for development.

The “selected people” who had played to Dow3 before the launch said the same things you are trying to argumenting now and the final result it was an epic fail.
The same thing happened with AOEO.
Yes i’m not in the Council and this is not a problem for me but i tried to do all my best to give my feedbacks: you not.

[NineFlazberry]

And again about DoW 3, it seems to me that you “anti-advisers” have some kind of template for theses.
Have you left a review? But its usefulness is questionable.
What is it? Let’s take you apart.
You seem to be playing RTS, but at the same time you are looking at models in the game, you claim that you are playing RTS with maximum zoom, although any RTS player will say that such a comfortable game is impossible, you show screenshots of CoH 3 (which looks almost one-on-one like CoH 2) or screenshots with AoE 3 DE, which clearly show that the models do not have as many polygons as from the latest insider screenshots of AoE 4, you also show zoomed frames of the very first trailer of the game when even the game did not have gameplay, you show frames from the alpha of the game (the game has not yet been released in beta) and trying to stick a ready-made label and rating, although normal people do not do this, even the mighty journalists from IGN do not do that. When the game comes out, leave your review on Steam, but for now you are engaged in provocation, you also accuse the community council of incompetence.
Yes, you are not on the community council, and I understand why.

[NineFlazberry]

@jimmy19846071

Not sense and not logical.

As I understand it, your logic is just iron.
Does every player have 4K and RTX? You are healthy?
The screenshot was not taken by me, but this is exactly the picture that the average AoE 3 player sees, the fact that you have money for expensive equipment does not mean that most people have it, and the game should look good at any settings.

PS
" Who, beside you?" - Are you suggesting that I scroll through the entire forum and take screenshots for you? Sounds like a hesitant occupation. Considering that you easily ignore the theses that are inconvenient for you.

[jamreal18]

Nope! It hey listened, what happened to graphics? AoE3 DE seems like a more game with more attention attached to it. Look at siege engines which are magically moving on its own.

[jimmy19846071]

@NineFlazberry

Does every player have 4K and RTX? You are healthy?
The screenshot was not taken by me, but this is exactly the picture that the average AoE 3 player sees, the fact that you have money for expensive equipment does not mean that most people have it, and the game should look good at any settings.

I never said all people should have a RTX 3080. I said that you don’t force people to play with a mediocre graphic becuase this game have to be run on every specs. You can do it easily with graphic options and a game is generally devoloped with the best graphic options and than it will be “adapted” to the different configurations.
It’s remarkable how devolopers try to make this game playable for the most of people but the main point remains: don’t force the people who have a decent dekstop (and the most of people have a 1060 graphic card which is enough for all game in fullhd) to play with a graphic wich not so good. And also developers said that graphic has less textures.

@NineFlazberry

Who, beside you?" - Are you suggesting that I scroll through the entire forum and take screenshots for you? Sounds like a hesitant occupation. Considering that you easily ignore the theses that are inconvenient for you.

Yes, Please. I always read and answered ( with kidness, as always) to all people who think differently by me. This is the value of democracy.

[NineFlazberry]

@jimmy19846071

I said that you don’t force people to play with a mediocre graphic becuase this game have to be run on every specs.

Nobody is forcing you to play the game.
And yes, great praise from the developer that they make a game for everyone.
It is extremely proud to say that it is especially for you because you bought expensive equipment, that is, people with bad PCs are not considered? This is very arrogant and single-handed.
Do you want to make a separate version of the game for you?
I’m talking about the fact that the game looks good, the models are really good, the fact that you do not like their design is your personal problem, this is a matter of taste.
And of course, I will come back to the thesis that you seem to say that you played RTS, but at the same time claim that you are playing with maximum zoom and look at the models, which simply does not coincide with productive RTS games, but even so then you should understand that only 5% of people, or less, play games of this genre this way. And on these people should we build our basic judgments? What you write on the forum over the past few weeks looks like a provocation.

[NineFlazberry]

@jimmy19846071

Yes, Please.

I’ll make sure to do this as soon as you acknowledge that your feedback doesn’t make sense prior to release.

[RadiatingBlade]

The council is only as good as the development team allows it to be. At the end of the day, the design decisions are made by the development team. The development team can choose to agree with or ignore anything the council proposes to them. Be respectful to your fellow players. Any disrespectful comments, insults or threats will be met with moderator action.

[Glazzarini]

@EgoTonic

Short answer: we don’t know if they did a good job as we don’t know enough about the game to have a valid opinion about it and we don’t know in what ways the community council actually influenced the development of the game except for maybe that they wanted naval battles in the game.

This is on point.

I’d just like to add a few things. Note that my goal is not to personally attack anyone here. If you feel offended by anything I type here, I’m sorry. But it’s just a different opinion.

Your post is heavily based on personal opinions and impressions, yet you take them as if they were facts.

First of all: the only thing we know for sure (and “for sure” is the key phrase here) that was influenced by the Council, is the fact that AoE4 has naval gameplay. This is because the devs said that in video, and it was confirmed by the person on Reddit, as you appointed.

I don’t like the naval gameplay in any AoE game. If it was my call, I wouldn’t include it. Seems like the devs wouldn’t as well. The Council disagreed. This poll shows that 70% of this forum agrees with the Council: [Poll] Is Naval Gameplay really a MUST for you?

(Note that the option in the poll is “I want water gameplay no matter what it takes”. I take that as people want water even if it sucks - as it sucked in every other Age game, imho)

The Council did represent the majority of the community with this specific feedback. This is a fact.

@jimmy19846071

Polls were pretty clears about players’s preferences and One of them It was related to the graphic’s preferences: 85% of players would had wanted a “brillant and realistic graphic”: something between Aoe1-Aoe3 and Total War.
So, Developers was considering also a graphic style similar to Total war (with flags, i suppose).

Total war was an example of realistic graphics to illustrate that option. It doesn’t mean devs were considering it. It has been discussed a lot here, but to put in few words: total war is a completely different game, in which super realistic graphics work really well. In fact, that is a game designed to allow the type of gameplay many people defend here, of pausing, slowing time and zooming in.

@jimmy19846071

So what’s happened from X019? I clearly see a graphic downgrade and this is related to what AOE’s Council said about

I don’t see a graphic downgrade. Some unit are less detailed now. Some units are more detailed now. The textures look better overall now, in my opinion. I’m saying this after watching all trailers again, not only seeing the images you posted. X019 looks better? Sure. I think it’s mostly related to the scaling of units.

So there is the scaling of units. There is strong evidence the Council influenced this. (Again, there is no way to know for sure. In this case, the evidence is strong enough that I’m ok to treat it as a fact.)

The bigger size of units for the sake of readability is exaggerated in the current state. However, I do believe the scaling in X019 was not good either. It would be really hard to play the game with units that small. That said, I still like the current graphics. It doesn’t bother me all that much, as long as gameplay is good.

You dislike the graphics, many people like them. This is a sign that they’re not objectively bad.

Regarding AoE3 DE, I also don’t think it looks better than AoE4 at all. I guess this point is greatly related to a preference for realism many people have. More realism does not necessarily means better graphics. But you are free to preffer whichever graphics you like, of course.

---

Finally, we have the “the majority of players play campaign and skirmish with AI, so they want to play slow, zoomed in games” argument. A lot of people say this here. The problem is they assume everyone who likes singleplayer is allergic to the word “competitive” and likes to play in slow pace and zooming in. That’s not true. I don’t play ranked, but I also never play like that. I’m sure I’m not the only one.

I’m not a competitive player, but I really want the game to be suitable for eports. I like watching and I think it does good for the game’s longevity. It doesn’t automatically make the campaign worse.

The buildings could be larger and still provide good readability? I think so. Is it the Council’s fault the scaling is how it is now? I don’t know. No one knows other than the Council and the devs. As the person said in Reddit, the devs do what they want with the opinion of the Council.

Maybe the Council doesn’t represent you, as they don’t represent my opinion in a lot of aspects, but that’s how it works. I’m sure they gave a lot of feedback you’d agree. And the fact that you don’t agree with some decisions doesn’t mean they don’t represent the community.

[jimmy19846071]

I’m not offended, how could i? Your post Is very well exposed as i would expect from some users here.

I agree with some of your points and while i understand the personal opinions about the art style (someone likes colour graphic, other ones live realism etc) One thing Is a fact: every models have low textures. I’m not the One Who saying this but these are the Word of the Art director on a german interview.

Less textures Don’t mean necessalry a bad graphic but a less detailed graphic of course, no doubt about this.

For some people more details mean more immersion and realism for other ones no. But we are talking about different point of views.

You said that What Council said about the naval warfare Is Basically what the community wanted and i’m pretty sure about that but i’m speaking about graphic not features or Strategy elements (like navy).
Sizes of weapons and Building have been a clear feedback by Council (Viper said this and other member of Council on reddit confirmed that) and this aspect has received a lot of criticisms, also now. So, what Council said in this case represented what Community wanted? Judging by negative reactions, not.
So this Is the entire reason behind this thread. No provocation.

But It’s a pleasure answering to you. You made right argumentations and statements.

[NineFlazberry]

Your words are wonderful, I agree with each of them.
Unfortunately, this person (the author of the topic) has more than once carried out his provocations in other topics earlier, it is simply useless to prove to him that either. Everything you wrote has already been written to him and he still continues to stubbornly repeat the same thing, causing the community to react, despite the fact that all his arguments and complaints are extremely personal and do not relate to the general problems of the community (he gives out what he personally does not like for the problem of the whole game, which the developers must solve), as you can see, he has zero support (well, maybe 3-4 people).
I have already noticed a pattern, and the fact that on the forum there isby a whole gang (4-5 people) of such strange people.

[jimmy19846071]

@NineFlazberry

, as you can see, he has zero support (well, maybe 3-4 people).

Yes, the band of haters

[GusTank04]

I still think that they should just make a Ultra graphics DLC prior release. Would solve everyone’s problems

[NineFlazberry]

There is no need to confuse populism and deliberate provocations.
Neither now, nor in that clownery that you arranged in the thread about CoH3, a group of several specific personalities participated. I can put together a great populist post to play on the feelings of every fan and get the same reaction, no need to substitute concepts.
Your provocations are obvious enough.

[GusTank04]

If anyone on this thread tries to provoke people jimmy is one of the last one’s I’d expect to. I still disagree with him about the graphics but I don’t think you are being fair in your arguments