I’ve seen various sub-communities of the AoE series calling the game, specific design choices or a slight diversion from how things are handled in their favourite age game a failure or disaster. All of them for very different but also very specific expectations, most of which cannot be reasonably expected to be fulfilled by a game in todays markets, if said game wasn’t specifically designed to copy whatever their favourite game in the series happens to be. Most of these posts or comments start with the author projecting their own (unreasonably specific) expectations on the community and/or target audience at large. Add some extra spice by calling the devs incompetent or lazy. Never mind the fact that this series consists of vastly different games with lots of variety in design choices, features, visions and USPs.
This opening post is a prime example. Honestly, the lack of reflection and self awareness would be funny, if it wasn’t so sad.
No, “all people who played the beta” are not complaining about the same problems. There are issues for sure. Lots of things need to be fixed or adjusted for launch. You would however be hard-pressed to find more than a few that a majority can actually agree on.
Pardon me, but that is such a strawman argument. Critics are not saying the game should be perfect which nothing can be, they are talking about basic functionalities that should be top priority and game should be built with those in mind from the get go. When in fact the game has been designed without these in mind.
Since when is it acceptable to not have basic things at launch like fully custom hotkeys, UI command bar, exclusive control groups just to name a few? This is basic stuff for any RTS, nevermind a giant like Age of Empires. I’m not talking about whatever my favorite game in the series had, I’m talking about basic requirements in an RTS game.
Like I said in other topics, RTS games have done this and have had this AT LAUNCH for more than 20 years now, things such as these are part of the very basic standard a respectable RTS needs to have in order to be enjoyed properly. Past AoE games had this at launch, and now it is ok for them to just be patched later??
Gosh, our standards in quality have dropped.
And somebody was even saying here mods will fix graphical issues? Seriously, we now live in a time where it is ok for mods to be expected to fix the game instead? I find this unbelieveble. So 20 years ago we had all this basic stuff at launch, but not today, today it is acceptable to be patched later or expect mods to fix it.
Point is, this is Age of Empires 4, the game supposed to ressurect the RTS genre from the ashes, it should blow people away and have everybody talking, and yet it is going to be shipped without some of the most basic of RTS functions out there. You and others might be okay with AoE4 ending up just another “there’s some fun to be had RTS”, but the expectations were at least at the level of past AoE titles.
This, there are obvious issues like hitboxes, pathing, UI when it comes to unit selection/grouping, input delay and quite some more of those issues, which, are critical but none of those are “unfixable”.
Then there are balancing/gameplay choices like no friendly fire on siege or archers which hit 100%, even that can be adjusted, the devs heard the opinion and they will think about it but it is up to them to decide.
Overall, there are many subjective things like people not likeing the graphics, which I could not care less since I personally liked it, as probably many others did.
Overall the game is in a good state, but it needs patches for above points, other topics and for sure for the whole multiplayer lobby part (which also got fixed after time for AoE2 DE, so no doubt that will get improved), but that is nothing why the game could be called a fail.
Well, in fact, this conclusion can be drawn from everything that some people will describe here, it is clear that no one says this in a direct word, this is obvious, but based on what people write, one can imagine that they want to cram into version 1.0 and perfect balance, and solving all problems and so on, this does not work that way, I understand that everyone wants the game to turn out as best as possible, but you need to be realistic, the game will need long-term support.
Further, my main argument was Reddit users, viewers from streams on Twitch and streamers themselves, people like what they see and they want to play it. The game at its peak bypassed the viewers of the new Call of Duty on Twitch and gathered 30-40 thousand people in Steam (and this was just a beta version), so the start is more than good, and proves that the game is very interesting to people, first of all these are fans of other RTS, niche dead strategies in which people still sit, many people from StarCraft 2 and WarCraft 3 who want to find a new live RTS for themselves, a lot of people who have never been interested in RTS and the Age series before, so it turns out that AoE 4 not targeting AoE 2 or AoE 3 fans, it is targeting a wider audience, people from the dead RTS and people who have not played RTS or the Age series before.
Again, I’m not talking about balance, which is indeed expected to be perfected after on the long run, I’m talking about functionalities at a basic level that are inadmissible to be missing at launch. Reviews and players will slap the game for this. It will miss its mark of being a great game solely because of simple fixable things like these until release had they been placed in top priority. I was telling you that it was normal for the past 20+ years to have these basic features at launch day 1, but not today in 2021 with a big title like this, you still haven’t answered this - it’s ok to accept your arguments were wrong you know.
And you were talking about viewers during beta, I wouldn’t read too much into that since it is the next Age of Empires title after all, and many people were curious to see how it turned out, so the brand carried it a lot as well. But sure, I hope you are right about it and 30-40k and even way more than that (100k+) people in Steam will continue to play it long after launch. I care an awful lot about this franchise.
What I will say is that all the good RTS streamers I have watched (AoE pros or SC pros) have criticized the lack of basic features heavily as well. It is going to matter and hurt the game, unfortunately, and like someone kept saying here, you dont get to have a soft launch with a big brand name like Age of Empires, just to fix it later. We’ve been through this mistake before.
Yep, absolutely agree with this. These are the ones you will easily get a majority to agree on. Coincidentally these are also the issues most likely to get fixed or at least worked on in my opinion.
This is were opinions start to differ. Personally, I think the notion 100% archer accuracy would prevent the game to have meaningful micro or good balance is fairly ridiculous and shows a lack of experience with RTS. On the other hand, I am open to the idea of adding accuracy if it adds to the game. In any case, acting like an accuracy system like in AoE2 is the only viable option here is silly.
I also believe friendly fire for siege is probably a good idea. I can see it working really well for Age 4. It might however be in conflict with existing plans or their vision for the gam. We also know it is in no way mandatory to balance siege weapons, achieve fun combat mechanics or a reasonable micro floor. Looking at other RTS, there are lots of ways and proven design concepts to achieve these things.
Indeed! Thanks God there are people like you that understand the severity of this situation without fanaticism. I love this saga, it is my favorite game but we can not blot out the sun with a finger, the game is far from being the title we all expect from the most popular RTS of all the times. And as a community we should not accept unfinished and mediocre games just because a blind love to the saga… AoE 3 DE had a curious situation, it got over thousands players once it was released. Unfortunately it got so many bugs and unfinished works that dropped the amount of players and matches to a few within just days. It was so severe that there are only a few players and matches nowadays. Even if they fixed all the problems it wont bring back all those players who left the game due to those mentioned problems…
The same will happen with AoE 4, it does not matter how much mods and patches they do in the future, there will be a big amount of people that will leave the game after some days playing it and realising it has an enormous amount of problems. There is even a popular video on youtube about 60 reasons to not pay $60 to buy AoE 4…
Is age of empires the most popular RTS of all times? not sure about that, by 2004 everyone was playing war lll, C&C generals, Dawn of war etc, I agree is one of the best RTS but no the most popular.
I also agree that this game is good enough to be release, there are big flaws that won’t be solved with hotfixes after release, I am one of those that in order to buy this game, game needs to cancel it releases and work on a new UI, better unit graphics, and better optimization or at lest show these changes in a road map
Sorry but It doesn’t prove that people love it. They tried this game due the “open beta” but we Don’t know how many people really like.
Yes, twich streaming had have many spectators but how many negative comments we’ve seen under the video? Personally, many.
I Can’t say this game Is a “Desaster” because i like different aspects of It: terrains, Hills and more. But many people were waiting something special, in term of graphic Firstly and than about more Strategy options, diplomacy, vivid ambientations, a Better naval warfare.
They had time wait when this was the case for AoE2 or AoE3 to be fixed. Whether or not you like to wait we just need to accept the fact that this is how game development works and its impossible to fix all things as they must release the game at some point and continue to work on things post launch.
The graphics part well that’s entirely subjective as many like them and many don’t. We just need to understand why the developers went that route and hope that they give us an updated graphics pack later down the road for free.
