I don’t speak German and i translated only the main title and the some part of these articles"
“Stirbt Age of Empires 4?” Stirbt Age of Empires 4?
“Age of Empires 4 geht unter: Die Entwickler müssen dringend mehr tun!” Age of Empires 4 geht unter: Die Entwickler müssen dringend mehr tun!
I’ll not say more about that beside a consideration: for me AOE4 Is and It will the most weaked game of the all franchise.
For German Mates here: could you post a summarize of what those article explain?
Translation
Age of Empires 4 was one of the best and most promising real-time strategy games in years. At launch, players fell in love with the game in droves - old fans, newcomers and pros from other brands from Warcraft to Starcraft.
But today there are fewer and fewer of them left. It’s already fallen below the player count of Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition on Steam, leaving even the most die-hard pros fed up. How could that happen? In this video Maurice tries to explain the descent.
Also on the podcast, Maurice sat down with Marco “Rage of Empires” Giesel and Niklas von Bonjwa to discuss if Age of Empires 4 is dying .
And we also have some ideas on what content could save the game: these DLC races are a must!
By the way, Maurice has recently been on Twitch and streams excellent strategy games 5 days a week - have a look!
Out of what I translated using DeepL, the article talks about AOE4 being the weakest of the whole franchise. It also criticizes the devs for being ‘‘sluggish’’ to feedback and serious balancing issues. It also says how they published a concrete roadmap right after the podcast which ‘‘was a drop in the bucket’’.
I remember watching Honor play (A german player top 32 in the world at that time) and he decided to quit the game because he was no longer having fun. He has a huge community and of course many germans are no longer interested when they see their favourite streamers quit.
If I remember correctly, back then we had Rus in dominant position, spamming Horse Archers all day since people realized they attacked faster than they should.
Ultimately the balance being not what it should be coupled with gamebreaking bugs like Delhi and HRE Spearmen, Horse Archer attack speed, no real nerf to Mongols, no hotkey customization, no viewing the map after a match, no control group stealing, no colour selection etc made him quit.
Tl;Dr: The game is in an unacceptable state not only from Quality of Life feature point of view (I call colour selection QoL here, but lets be honest this shouldn’t even be missing at all, games from 20 years ago have this feature) but also the numerous amount of bugs, the missing hotkeys, the map inbalance, the fact that dominating civs don’t get nerfed while other civs get nerfed. See Chinese.
Keep in mind Honor is (or was?) Grandmaster in Starcraft 2. And this game is years away from the amount of polish that Starcraft 2 has. And Starcraft 2 is free to play nowadays. Its entirely possible that this game will never reach the status quo that Starcraft 2 has in terms of user experience.
I just love to see GameStar trying to get attention . Seriously GameStar thinks that we care that Aoe4 has 7k players diary players when aoe3DE has 3k and we get 10k on weekends ? Only on steam ofc
Can’t die what never lived. The release numbers were just consequence of the franchise name and marketing done. Maybe the spring update can give life to the game , maybe not.
Maurice from gamestar is a huge fan on Age of Empires, obviously he wants the game to be successful. Germans in general love strategy games and RTS and always have. Most of us played strategy games like ANNO, Empire Earth, Age of Empires, Starcraft, Warcraft, Stronghold when we were young. This game could have been a huge hit but instead it left all of us dissapointed.
spring update is just bringing basic features, nothing to be really excited and the modding tool is a beta one.
All those things should have been at launch.
Don’t know who is making the calls there, but those people have failed to deliver a good game, a good AOE game to be precise.
AOE4 attracted various RTS players from Warcraft and Starcraft, which they seem to be satisfied with the game quite well as they have low standards and don’t know much about AOE.
For AOE2 fans, they saw the trailer and were immediately disgusted by it. AOE fans complained about features, unit size, camera zoom in and out, graphics, weapon size, stupidly big arrows, hoaming arrows, and more. Completely ignored its main AOE fans and players who wished AOE4 was the one they were waiting for for 23 years until now. It is an absolutely sad thing to happen.
This is the result of trying to reach a wider audience by applying all kinds of things from other RTS genres. What is the result? The result is that AOE4 lost its AOE identity! That’s it!
Edit: Oh and about AOE3
please check the link:
its clear tha we need to beg for a refund for this kind of games.
Do you really think anyone from WC and SC would be happy with such a lack of basic RTS features…?
The streamers were very happy about the AOE4 and even said that I am completely wrong. But really, this is according to my forum and twitch experience.
sellouts it seems. trying to promote a game that is not even finished is morally incorrect.
Streamers and competitive players go wherever the $ is.
I believe that that idea only exists in a way formally adhered to in a few countries and small communities, not in the modern world or in big communities.
Without obligation to provide a product or service in your base reality, it follows that anything provided is of sufficient quality.
This game is nearly perfect and can only be improved indefinitely post launch. If all else fails, remember to be grateful for the work of the Devs.
“General Discussion | AoEZone - The international Age Of Empires community” General Discussion | AoEZone - The international Age Of Empires community
There’s so much delusion also on this community. It seems Relic failed with this.
At this point i don’t think the future roadmap will change the future of this game. Leaving the new game of a beloved franchise to a third party developer Who was working on its IP It has been a huge mistake. It’s pretty clear that the most of resources and talents are on COh3.
I Hope the next AOE Will be develop by Forgotten Empires and Tantalus who have already a Great experience with AOE.
And the most important thing: Essence Engine could be not the best engine to animate ancient or medieval battles. A new version of Bing engine (AOE 3 and AOM), Unity Engine or Unreal could be Better.
Don’t mean to be rude, but aren’t you the one who said that AoE4 isn’t popular because its not AoE2? Because arrows always hit targets etc?
Oh, and AoE3 is not popular because its not AoE2, right?
Literally, why do you waste time criticizing a design choice of a game that chooses to be different from AoE2 in any form?
Nothing they’ll change will ever satisfy you because you want a completely different game from what they made (you just want an AoE2 remake, an idea I hate). So stop crying on these forums and go play your precious AoE2.
Bcse AOE2 is the identity of the AOE!
If you cant understand such a simple thing, you better go to school and learn a few tips and tricks there.
the idea that only exist in small regions doenst means it shouldn exist in bigger ones.
I disagree with you with my entire being.
And despise AoE2 elitists like you who cannot think beyond AoE2.
Huh! AoE2 is the identity !?!? It is a good game but the identity ? I laugh at you sir!
This series is more than one title. Better learn that.
Age of Empires is more then just age of empires 2
