Well. I do agree the game needs improvement. I can only hope the game gets improved after launch, because I know they’re aware about the UI complaints. It’s so modern, like it would be in a Troubles RTS or something. Not a medieval game. The icons look like I’m doing my driver’s license test again. The units don’t even have pictures like the past AoE games.
I’ll be honest, the UI is one of main things I don’t like about the game so far. There’s a lot of great things, but it doesn’t help when they’re undermined by the bad things. I like the art style, but I just can’t stand the UI. Here’s to hoping that they change it.
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I agree that civ specific UIs would go a long way to making each civ feel more distinct. However once (if) you learn the hotkeys, their appearance becomes less important. But the overall feel would be greatly impacted with more thematic designs.
Graphics in general look good enough for me. If lower settings can strike a balance between growing the player base (accessibility) and looking good, I think that is the right approach for the community overall. There are obviously limitations then at the higher graphical end.
Most people that seem upset by the graphics do not appear to be focused on competitive gameplay. The game is clearly geared towards this though.
Dawn of War III was geared toward Competitive play as well and look how that turned out…
Starcraft 2 was geared towards competitive play and look how that turned out. All successful RTS games do not have the most amazing graphics and they have thriving communities because of the competition. Just look at aoe2 after all these years.
It is not a stimulator, it is a competitive RTS at its core.
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AOE2DE has a beautiful Graphic.
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Agreed, but it is not focused on photo realism or pushing high end computers.
I’ve never seen it as a competitive RTS and from interviews theyve done they said that statistically more people play singleplayer than multiplayer. Multiplayer may live on long term, but the thing most people play is skirmishes against the AI.
In this case, this game Will fail. The most of players don’t play competitive.
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They have a dedicated balance team for competitive play… Yes they have said they are not trying to compete with SC2 being hyper competitive with “super micro”. But don’t ignore that it is there front and centre still.
We will find out very soon regardless.
It’s a pillar of their dev team but I wouldn’t say it’s the main one.
So where are the historical and graphical focused showmatches? Each week up to launch are competitive games with competitive commentary focusing on build orders, timings, counters etc. Not the main one haha. This is what they are using for the main advertisement.
Yes, and this Is not a good thing. They never showed a single Mission from campaigns.
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I didn’t like the graphics in trailers and I liked them even less after playing the stress test. For me, there are obvious things that make parts of it just plain bad (trees, extreme LoD popping,…) but my biggest issue is that the scenery feels like 3 art directions fighting each other. This resolves for me into a random arrangement of cluttered things instead of a harmonic image. I think this is also the reason, why so many discussions about certain parts of that problem turn into sides picking on each other, as it’s hard to put a finger onto one thing and put it into relation to other games making it better. But yes, this is an AoE4 problem for me, even the infamous DoW3 does a way better job on this and no other RTS I played like CoH, SC, or AoE2/3 has this problem to that extent.
Luckily, I learned that AoE4 will be part of the Gamepass, so I can check out the SP content safely and decide via the whole experience if it’s distracting enough to stop playing. Relic will still get my money (somehow), the player counter will show me as a unique player and if I don’t like it, I didn’t waste any money on it and you guys hopefully got a new RTS able to fill the gap of the next 20 years :). Everyone wins.
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Too few civilisations and not enough depth. The techs are all similar looking and there isn’t a real mystery and drama feel that AOE2 had. I’m not holding my breath for the scenario editor either.
Or people simply get tired of criticizing the same things over and over and over.
Not everybody has your standing power when it comes ot repeating the same bs. 
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Yeah people just 180 on their opinions because they get “tired of criticising”. 
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They say we make excuses for the graphics and now THEY are making excuses
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Just to be clear what we are talking about:
AOE1 DE
AOE2 DE
AOE3 DE
AOE4
Note that all of these screenshots were taken from a google images search, and the AOE4 shots are from the results of a google images search for technical stress test images only search. You will find ‘better’ looking AOE4 shots, but they aren’t from the stress test and they have a zoom level which you cannot even get in the technical stress test version of the game, which is the only version I think we are even allowed to comment on or give screenshots from. I wasn’t invited to the previous betas so I couldn’t have screenshots anyhow.
Please look at these pictures as objectively as possible and tell me with a straight face that AOE4 has better, 2021 next gen graphics that make you be like ‘wow this is the best AOE game ever, I’m going to pay 4x the price!’. It is certainly debatable whether AOE 4 graphics are even ‘equal’ to the others or not.
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Since when have RTS games been about graphics. I do not recall any ever being released that were stunning with next gen graphics. The latest RPG story driven games do not even achieve this most of the time.
Gameplay > replayability > accessibility > graphics. There are probably a few other things that should come before graphics as well. The continued rise of popularity of aoe2 greatly emphasises that graphics are just not that important.
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They never have been ,it’s just a few graphic andy’s spamming every thread about it in this forums, that’s all.
