End of Advanced Game Settings mod

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
45

It would be a pretty big win for them too. Maybe not an easy one, but one I think many would enjoy

AoE4 has quite a lot of assets as well, many varying unit models, sound effects and quite a bit of foliage. There are players who don’t engage in any form of custom games and may not see the use or real need for more advancing modding. This could help bridge that gap, as it would offer them the ability to utilize mods within their online games as well, to change their experience or to make things more readable or some other reason.

It could bring a newfound interest into modding.

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46

I could be totally off base here but I’ve been concerned with this for a while now. None of these popular AoEIV streamers are AoE lifers, meaning they have no investment in AoE beyond the newest entry in the series. Once the hot new RTs come out they might leave the game altogether. I tried warning several people at WE about this possibility. Again, I could be totally wrong but it’s something to watch.

This isn’t meant to gatekeep but it has been something I’ve noticed. The AoE2 pros have mostly gone back to AoE2.

@GorbMort

It’s all good. I know you know I have criticisms of AoEIV but I’ve never gone all doom on the game or plastered this forum with steam charts. Those people annoy me too.

Anyway, this has gone slightly off-topic. Apologies for my contribution.

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47

4’s subreddit went crazy after Spirit’s video for giving the DLC a B+ rating.

Can you maybe give a time stamp? Sadly, the VOD starts at the beginning.

It’s kind of ironic. For people, it’s kinda like a hobby to hate AoE 3 but when being asked what they hate about it, they can’t name specific aspects.

Something I’ve noticed about AoE 2’s pros is that they’re very loyal to their game and you can’t blame them as 10 years ago with HD Edition and The Forgotten becoming the first official expansion in 13 years, the game has entered its renaissance.

To finally come back to the topic: it’s a sad but understandable decision that you discontinue the mod (which I btw hoped would be an official part of the game).

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48

Yeah, I really like all the main AoE2 pros. Just some really good folk. AoE2 has a fabulous competitive community these days, the best in all of AoE.

I thought Spirit’s comments about AoeIV were pretty mundane. I wish all the other AoE games had their own SotL. A very important contributor to the AoE community as a whole.

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49

“4’s subreddit went crazy after Spirit’s video for giving the DLC a B+ rating.”

Actually that part isn’t completely true, there were more people that complained that the video felt biased and very shallow, not like the videos that he usually does. I don’t think there were a lot of grievances that he gave it a B+ rating. More the content of what he said in video. Just to clarify, as it can give a very skewed light of the opinions people had.

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50

This. Though he has built a quite large community due to the lack of competition, so even without the prize pools he could stick with the game as it looks. E.g. if stormgate launches and thrives in player numbers he wont really make money from tournaments over there as he’s just not good enough to compete with the SC2 players.

Apart from that the hype/popularity around beasty is something I’ve always found to be quite dangerous for the game. AoE4 effectively got one big streamer that really isn’t the type of person you would want to drink a beer with. He’s been bitching literally everytime he’s lost matches or thought he was treat in an unfair way (N4C, several tournament losses, pesty decision for tournament modes). And of course his fan base will copy him and ##### around as well.

I’ve only watched AoE2 streamers occasionally but overall there a) seems to be much more streamers and b) most of them are quite humble. Looks like an overall much more healthy competitive community to me.

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52

I am aware of this. However, I don’t see the bias but rather some unlucky wording such as “reskin” whereas it should be rather “replacement”

53

Thank you for making the mod. I would Patron and many others prob would too if you keep fixing it so it stays working. My point of view is this should be included in the base game without a mod. I don’t understand what Microsoft is thinking. If I was them I would give you a nice payment for your hard work and then take it and put it in the main game.

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54

i mean, its not inaccurate to call it a reskin with unique ability, was the case in 3 as well, its just egoistic people taking offense over a basic pronoun

55

watched the whole reaction and here’s my impression, beasty isn’t above admitting potential bias on his end, the real idiots in that stream are those in the chat that know nothing of sotl it seems, beasty has some weird takes however i didn’t really expect much less from someone infamous for pointless whining when it isn’t 100% in line with his logic, but he admits when not familiar with the subject (the editor in this case)

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57

Let me attempt to steer this thread back to its topic by saying that what you have noted can be the result of much of our content, and content makers being focused on competition, and anything competitive in nature can be somewhat volatile. However, if developers further support modding by expanding the current modding tools or creating a scenario editor for casuals and opened access to certain mods in online matches, it could help create a space for more content creators who would be willing to explore casual elements of the game rather than simply streaming or commentating matches and tournaments.

There is nothing wrong with this type of content of course, but that covers an overwhelming amount of what you can engage with in relation to AoE4 outside of the game itself. It would also be lovely to see other type of content also make it big, for as it stands, the casual rarely interacts with modding due to lack of accessibility or support, so will be unlikely to seek interacting with mods or content related to it outside of the game.

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58

I hope this topic will draw the attention of developers to the problems of modding.

Although despite the fact that I created one of the most viewed threads on the forum regarding AI issues . Developers still do not try to dramatically improve the behavior of the AI.

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59

Yes 100%. I’ve always enjoyed mods/scenarios on other RTS and always found it a pity to not have those mods available to the same extent in AoE4. Having more mods or/and a tool that is more accessible to begin with would be highly beneficial to the playerbase.

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60

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Over half a year ago modders compiled a document that highlights numerous issues with modding AOE4.
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i remneber this one when there was some user defending that mods were perfect and didn’t need changes and become what mods are now. It happened time ago but I dont remember their names. Otherwise I know he can help us and me to clarrified this one becuase his activity back then. @GorbMort could you? pls

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2. Lack of communication.
This isn’t a new issue, but it persists. I wouldn’t even call it silence. There is communication, but it’s limited to only a few chosen people. Everyone else is left in the dark.

This is baffling to me, as it just doesn’t help anyone. I don’t see any bright future, or any promise that things are going to get better for me. And with all the issues being ignored for so long, this makes it even worse.

This got a lot worse after Relic laid off devs. As they also got rid of the only dev that was still actively communicating with modders on discord. After that, there is only silence.
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no surpries it alwasy been like this since release

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3. Update lottery.
You may ask, what is this? Well, it’s the one thing that drives me mad and discourages me to even touch the mod. Each time I try to update the mod I encounter one issue. I can’t! Well unless I want to repeat extremely entertaining process of launching the game, pressing “update mod” and closing it once it fails. Then do it once more, hoping that the mod will eventually pass the check and update…

Why ? They decided that all mods are checked by profanity filter. I can guarantee that this feature never worked properly. Unless the desired behaviour was to frustrate modders. In that case I am probably the one affected the most as I dared to have multiple localizations for my mod as community desired it.

Anyway, the best way to see this issue and why it’s so frustrating is to head to the modding discord and see the update-lottery thread from a few weeks ago. Here is link to modding discord and to update lottery thread that perfectly summarizes this issue and how it’s ignored.
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dunnio how it is working rn with this issue becuase modder may be starting to leave to other games where they enjoy making content and nopt being censored.

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4. XBOX version and mods.
All mods are available on both PC and XBOX versions. However, modders can’t access the Xbox UI on the PC version, making it impossible to update the mods to work properly on Xbox. Thus I can’t update the mod to work properly on the XBOX. Due to this one of the core aspects of the mod (diplomacy) is not available. So as someone who never owned a console, and I definitely do not plan on buying one, with another copy of the game just so I could finally update the mod for folks that want diplomacy on XBOX.
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crossplay will not happen soon becuase they are 2 plataform or any other problem that I have no idea but the fact they didnt did this one time ago says a bit of the implicances.

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5. Updates breaking mods.
It is expected that patches will break mods. On the other hand, there is also a way for developers and modders to communicate about this. Bare minimum is a proper changelog that includes all breaking changes being listed. Other is to also provide migration guidelines, which in general are not really that hard to produce. It’s good to remember that these are official modding tools…

Problem is that we do not receive anything. Each patch I have to go though the process of extracting game files and maintaning private repository to see diff of all the changes made by the patch to both scripts and attributes as any of these could break the mod.

For context last few patches broke mods in subtle ways, such as changing attributes on all markets made it impossible for the mod to detect market. Even a Halloween biome update broke the mod as it introduced new sacred site without any warning… (nope it wasn’t just a cosmetic change, biome used separate sacred site entity)
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yeah a problem thta is never discussed and its pretended that it doenst exist but it happens everytime a patch goes live

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  • 6. No PUP and early access for modders.
    The absence of a Public Update Preview (PUP) and any early access for modders is what I consider the final nail in the coffin for me as it leads to my final point.
  • 7. Lack of respect.
    All of the above can be summarized as being disrespectful towards me and the time I have invested in making and maintaining the mod.I spent AT LEAST 3 months working on the mod, with work being equivalent to a full time job, and additional time helping other modders…So I really feel that World’s Edge has no respect toward me as a person and as a member of the AoE community. In the end, my mods are not revolutionary ideas or impossible features to implement. They are mostly basic features that were available in previous games in the franchise and should have already been part of the base game.
    [/quote]

both are the same thing (buit 7 can be applied to everyting else) lack of respect of the work of the communiotty that at least want to enjoy this game.

62

Nobody said “mods were perfect” and “didn’t need changes”. You should probably stop misquoting people.

63

I just told you to help me out to clarified. nobody is judging you

64

I didn’t feel judged :slight_smile: I said “nobody said”, because you’re inventing something that nobody said. That’s all.

65

I wouldn’t be that surprised if someone said it, people say crazy things.

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66

Normally I wouldn’t be. But it’s a specific claim, with a specific history, and there’s a specific reason I was tagged vs. any other poster. Sorry for the tangent!

67

i know but some people takes it personal when it gets exposed and then changes to “nah they needed the changes” or just moving goalposts