Talking more from a technical point of view, what do you think needs to be in the game regardless of setting/timeline/style etc.
Here are my thoughts:
Multiplayer based on dedicated servers as opposed to peer to peer play.
Ability to rejoin games in progress (if dropped)
Ability to rewind recorded games.
Stances for units. These are the stances from AOE2 and I hope we see them in the game since units in Relic games dont have stances and I’m not sure sure devs know about them when playing AOE2 as I have never seen them using them on streams:
aggressive: units open fire on sight and follow enemy units until they lose sight of them. This is the default stance.
defensive: units open fire on sight but only follow enemy units in a small area, they return to initial place if enemy units leave that area. This is useful when you defend a resource with some units, as they wont continously follow a passing scout leaving area undefended.
hold ground: very important for long range units like archers in keepimg a tight formation, avoiding to be scrambled.
do nothing: set unit to only respond if attacked
Formations: a game with lots of units needs this.
Randomly generated maps
State of the art spectator mode like in Voobly. Not just a player occupying a spot in the lobby.
Multi-monitor and tablet support: already made a thread about this. Basically you should have the ability to place a more detailed mini-map on a different screen, even on a phone or tablet, like you can do in Battlefield 4. You should also be able to customize what you see on the other screen: stats, chatlog, tech three or just streching the primary screen.
Ability to choose player color. The recent Relic games so far dont actually let you do that.
Ability to use friend or fie colors like you can do in AOE2 by preasing alt+G: you are blue, allies yellow, enemies red, neutrals grey.
Ability to co-op by picking the same color.
Diplomacy and ability to send resources to other players.
Ability to easily talk in team, all chat or enemy.
In AoE2 you easily do this by entering nothing before chat (team), entering * before chat (all), or # (enemy). It’s crazy how simple these features are, yet how handy and devs forget about them.
Taunts
Funny cheats
Good mod support
Although numbered, these werent meant to be in a particular order.
I agree with the bulk of your points, though I’ll note that Relic does in fact know about stances. Which is to say, it’s been in a lot of their games, specifically the Homeworld series and at least Dawn of War 1. In fact, DOW 1 is part of why I feel like they will do a good job here, as the gameplay style of that title was along the same lines, albeit on a smaller scale.
I would also like AOE 4 to keep the workforce tracking thing as found in AOE 3 and Empire Earth 2, where you could see how many workers were on which resource.
If there isn’t a number next to the food, wood, gold, and stone icons that tell us the number of villagers assigned to each, then Relic is going to have some explaining to do.
Multiplayer definitely needs re-done because the AoE2 system is buggy. It would be a great idea to have some ability to unrank a ranked game if it becomes too laggy and players get disconnected. I think in AoE3, the game became unranked if someone resigned before a minimum game time.
I thought the AOE3 formations were well-implemented. Vulnerable units automatically went to the center of a formation.
Very good list. You’ve basically given a recepe for building a successful multiplayer RTS.
Here’s a few extra on that topic:
Proper matchmaking. Picking your opponent is not fine. Create some good user experiences by having a league and promotion system. Make your current status easy to understand, and precise, rather than ambiguous.
In game leaderboards.
Highly customizable hotkeys. Every action to have one. Camera hotkeys and sc2-style control groups.
Detailed unit stats in game. If I hover over unit attack, I want to see what it deals bonus damage to. If I select a worker, I want to know current gather rates. If I hover over an upgrade, I want to see the exact effects.
Unit upgrades to cause visual changes in units.
All buildings should have a separate animation for when they are training a unit, and when they are researching an upgrade. This helps with scouting and understanding what is going on.
+1
This is something I have always loved with AoM. Even armoury ups had a visual feedback. Very rewarding for new players, and also useful for competitive play.
One thing I forgot, would be nice if we had the ability to customize the HUD. For example if I want the minimap on the bottom right or left side of the screen I should be able to change it to be there.
One features that definitely needs to be in the game is a powerful tutorial. New Age fans will play this for first time. Let’s welcome them in our beloved franchise.
@Nakamura_RTS said:
Very good list. You’ve basically given a recepe for building a successful multiplayer RTS.
Here’s a few extra on that topic:
Proper matchmaking. Picking your opponent is not fine. Create some good user experiences by having a league and promotion system. Make your current status easy to understand, and precise, rather than ambiguous.
In game leaderboards.
Highly customizable hotkeys. Every action to have one. Camera hotkeys and sc2-style control groups.
Detailed unit stats in game. If I hover over unit attack, I want to see what it deals bonus damage to. If I select a worker, I want to know current gather rates. If I hover over an upgrade, I want to see the exact effects.
Unit upgrades to cause visual changes in units.
All buildings should have a separate animation for when they are training a unit, and when they are researching an upgrade. This helps with scouting and understanding what is going on.
Add to that something I’ve seen posted on reddit:
a tournament system set up in the game (maybe be able to easily create a tournament within the lobbies), and have it so twitch streamers can easily use it to set up tournaments.
First of all, I agree mostly, but I saw some stuff I’d like to comment on:
Multiplayer based on dedicated servers as opposed to peer to peer play.
IMHO, more options means… more options. Why limit?
Stances for units.
I would enjoy the ability to customize the DEFAULT stance for each type of unit. It is rather annoying when creating a new batch of units and they default to “the one”, which is not necessarily the one I would’ve chosen.
Formations: a game with lots of units needs this.
Three things here:
a. The ability to build a custom formation for each unit type.
b. The ability to build custom formations for groups with multiple super types (e.g. infantry, ranged, cavalry and siege, or something like that).
c. Customize the default formation for each unit type when created (see point 4).
Multi-monitor and tablet support: already made a thread about this. Basically you should have the ability to place a more detailed mini-map on a different screen, even on a phone or tablet, like you can do in Battlefield 4. You should also be able to customize what you see on the other screen: stats, chatlog, tech three or just streching the primary screen.
Oh I love this, the idea of being able to see the “mini-map” maximized.
@“Liquid Gray” said:
First of all, I agree mostly, but I saw some stuff I’d like to comment on:
Multiplayer based on dedicated servers as opposed to peer to peer play.
IMHO, more options means… more options. Why limit?
Stances for units.
I would enjoy the ability to customize the DEFAULT stance for each type of unit. It is rather annoying when creating a new batch of units and they default to “the one”, which is not necessarily the one I would’ve chosen.
Formations: a game with lots of units needs this.
Three things here:
a. The ability to build a custom formation for each unit type.
b. The ability to build custom formations for groups with multiple super types (e.g. infantry, ranged, cavalry and siege, or something like that).
c. Customize the default formation for each unit type when created (see point 4).
Multi-monitor and tablet support: already made a thread about this. Basically you should have the ability to place a more detailed mini-map on a different screen, even on a phone or tablet, like you can do in Battlefield 4. You should also be able to customize what you see on the other screen: stats, chatlog, tech three or just streching the primary screen.
Oh I love this, the idea of being able to see the “mini-map” maximized.
Thanks for the input. Would be also nice if damaged units would go at the rear when pressing the formation button.
This isn’t a “must”, but I think it would really add to the visual appeal of the game to have day and night and possibly even dynamic seasons. Not necessarily to influence gameplay, though it could
It would be a good way to make the game feel visually more modern and fresh, without having to add a lot of visual complexity.
The pathing of units should be very good (at least as good as aoe3 and age of empires online).
There should be a map editor like in aoe2 inwhich you can even add triggers and stuff to let people create their own custom scenario’s which always have been part of the multiplayer experience of aoe2.
The game should have post game statistics as well as overal statistics like: ensemblestudios.com/player_stats.aspx#CivUnits
Why is that important? Because everybody can see which civs and which units are overpowered (on average) which should lead to better balancing decisions.
Upgrades, age up choices, deck of cards, “god powers”, whatever they may add to the game, it should add more meaningful strategies. The idea should be: an extreme amount of meaningful choices that directly change the game that is being played.Not only should the game have standard upgrades like: “+20% hitpoints +20% damage”. The game should also have stuff like: “your muskets can now build forts”, or flaming arrows change archer damage vs buildings, or “your archers can now apply hit and run strategies= +15% walking speed +2 range”. Or even stuf like: a building gives you 5 things to choose from and you should toggle the choices on or off: “your villagers change their hitpoints by +50% but their gathering rate is -10% while toggled active”, “your military regenerates 5 hitpoints per second while having 40% less walking speed while this is toggled on” and meaningful trade-off choices like that.
To add to point 4. Ofcourse aoe3 had tons of strategies with the possibility of building decks, but i would like to add to that that sending in “700 wood”, is not that strategic as a choice as “yeomen add 4 range to longbowmen”. The 700 wood is not a real change in strategy, while yeomen is. Why? Because it doesn’t matter if you do a british manor boom or a fast rush, the 700 wood is always a standard shipment and it doesn’t define your strategy at all. So to close this statement: add meaningful choices to the game.
4 Don’t build in restrictions. Less rules is usually better. For instance in AOM you had predefined settlements where you should build your second and third towncenter. I always hated it. I want to be able to build 8 towncenters if i want to and place them where i want to place them. Another point for instance was that in AOE3 you couldn’t place buildings near your opponent’s base. This destroyed the possibility of tower rushing or placing a fortress in your opponents camp, or even walling in your opponents baracks or gathering spots, all of which where unbelievable funny strategies to pull off. Ofcourse whenever a strategy could become overpowered you just add in mechanics to slow down some of the strategies, for instance you make towers build slower to make the tower rush less viable in the early game, but you also add a research to the game that makes you build buildings faster. In such way you only add a soft restriction to the game.
Esports tournaments on twitch is what made me buy and play starcraft. Nothing else. Esports is as important as watching Federer play tennis, it made me play tennis as well. Live tournaments on twitch, mixer and youtube are a great way of selling the game to new players.
You know I wouldn’t mind with your 4th point as long as you didn’t have to grind for that bonus, as long as it would depend on just that one match where you decide to use it. So it should be pretty much like in Company of Heroes 1 or Age of Mythology where what you did on the battlefield in a match let you choose a bonus during the same match and that was all.
No bonus should be carried over to your profile to use in further matches/remain forever in effect like in AoE3 or CoH2 where you leveled up/unlocked stuff because that is an awful AWFUL idea. It doesn’t actually help with the game’s longevity, it actually keeps many players away from the game. Every match should feel anew and everybody should start with the same possibilities always.
Why limit?