Greetings to all forum members, I hope you are all well. While I was browsing the forums and some YouTube channels, I realized that quite a few people have requested a massive change to the graphics engine of Age of Empires IV. I understand that since its release, it hasn’t convinced a large part of the community, and for that reason, the title wasn’t well-received at launch. In fact, I include myself in that group, since I only bought the game when the price dropped and the anniversary edition was released. That being said, what do you think about the graphics engine of Age of Empires IV? Do you think it should stay as it is, or do you think it should be updated? If your answer is that it should be updated, do you think the developers are aware of this issue through the community? Do you think they plan to update the game’s graphics engine, or do you think that graphics are something the developers have never considered for this title and therefore have made it clear they won’t address it now or in the future? Let me know your thoughts on this topic, which has been a subject of debate for years since the release of Age of Empires IV. In fact, I understand that the developers have never wanted to discuss this aspect and prefer to focus solely on releasing new content for the game.
Theare are lot of things about the grafics and many opinions. One of the biggest problems for me are:
- Tickrate (super low tickrate with the engine!)
- Visual clarity
- Siege Operators
- Continue reducing the “Plastic” and saturated aesthetic.
- Improve the siege destruction physics and further improve building destruction.
- Improve the ratio of Units to Buildings.
- To be able to zoom more freely.
- More wildlife animation in buildings and more fauna in general on the map.
Without a doubt, updating the game to a more suitable graphics engine might be the best solution to fix all the problems mentioned. In fact, I’ve also interacted with the Gaia from Age of Empires IV, and it’s quite strange. Even the Gaia from Age of Empires II seems more relevant to me. Age of Empires IV feels somewhat empty in that aspect; it’s as if something more is missing, but I’m not quite sure what.
Yes, I feel the same way. The units and technologies aren’t well-designed. It’s as if the entire interface is so modern that it feels empty and lifeless, unlike the interfaces of Age of Empires II and III, which are much more vibrant and user-friendly. For example, when you create units in Age of Empires IV, the interface is cluttered with the same unit’s image repeated several times. This could easily be solved by adding a number to a single image, making the interface cleaner every time you create military units or villagers. Similarly, the scouts still don’t have a button to automatically explore the map, a button that Age of Empires II and III do have. The unit images also look very generic and lifeless. I don’t feel like there was any care put into the unit designs. Age of Empires II and III are better; you quickly identify with each unit and technology.
Let’s see, honestly, changing the engine won’t be possible; at most, they can optimize and refine what they already have.
Uh?
You sure you’re not confusing your own view of the game (which is valid for you), with the overall reception to the game, which was generally-positive?
Well yes, there are a lot of ppl buying the DLC’s and playing it, but overwall it hasn’t so much playerbase like AoE2 for example and in the competetive side of the game (tournaments, Twitch, Revenue, Viewers, active ProGamers, etc.) it is on the lower end of the RTS Competetive Games.
That has a lot to do with the engine and it’s problems and some design decisions. Yeah there are a lot of ppl enjoying it and that’s great, but on the other hand its not that impressive for such a new RTS game in total, compared to its other older games. What is a really big shame and sad, because AoE4 had / has the potential to be bigger thand the rest. But it comes with many problems.
Although it’s not number 1 competitively, only AoE2 and SC2 have more players participating in ranked matches. And WC3’s streams depend heavily on 1 very big creator.
I’m not sure what you mean by “the lower end.”
And look, as the game gets older I’m more critical, but we shouldn’t undervalue a game that isn’t doing too badly despite all the room for improvement it has.
lets be blunt, the thing that killed aoe4’s momentum wasn’t post launch in any way, it was the launch itself and how blatanly unfinished it was on top of all the basic rts features imaginable just not being in, it took them a year just to sort that out, thats where momentum died, it should’ve been delayed till at least mid 2022 based on how the launch went, then we’d probably be talking very differently about it
I think he’s referring to the AOE community in general, not just AOE-IV fans.
Something similar to what happened with AOE-3 back in the day, I suppose.
I don’t think a graphics engine update will change any of that, personally.
The single, only game in the franchise that’s tracking better is AoE II: DE. Agree to disagree.
What other RTS releases have had similar staying power? Dune: Spice Wars? Frostpunk 2? What is impressive meant to look like?
If they are, then that’s even less relevant. But I don’t think they are.
At the time, I saw several reviews on the Age of Empires forum and on various YouTube channels, all saying that the game was released in an unfinished state. I also remember them saying that the graphics engine wasn’t the most suitable for the franchise, and the campaigns were heavily criticized for being very vague and lacking context in each scenario. I verified this myself, and it’s true: in every scenario, there’s a narrator telling you everything instead of the interaction between various historical figures that Age of Empires II has, which is why the Age of Empires II campaigns are so immersive. The Age of Empires IV campaigns feel somewhat empty, and that was one of the reasons why the game wasn’t well-received at the time; it even had negative reviews. It wasn’t until after 2022 that the game started to boost sales, and when the Anniversary Edition arrived, Age of Empires IV began its period of success.
Yes, that would also be a very good idea. I’ve noticed that Age of Empires IV has very poor optimization on PC. I think changing the interface would also help a lot; making it more dynamic and historical would be great. Changing the unit and building portraits to more stylized and eye-catching photos, like in Age of Empires III or Retold, would also greatly help identify each unit more easily. As you say, there are many ways to improve Age of Empires IV without having to completely change the graphics engine.
I think the developers should give the title better graphical optimization for low-end computers. They also need to fix the game’s zoom, which offers very little visibility; it doesn’t allow the camera to zoom in or out very far. Another issue is the interface. They could update it to something more dynamic, for example, by adding typography in the style of each civilization along with its coat of arms, so that the interface looks more historical and not as modern and empty as it currently does. They could also update the portraits of the units and buildings to make them look more realistic and more in line with other titles in the franchise. This way, the civilizations wouldn’t look so generic and lifeless. They should also add buttons for scouts to explore the map and a more stylized button to summon villagers to your town center when you’re under attack. Another thing that never quite convinced me was how outposts are updated. You have to perform a series of upgrades for each tower, which makes it… It becomes very tedious and boring. I would prefer the original method of the other games in the franchise where you advanced all the towers with a single technology without having to advance them one by one. Similarly, when creating military units and villagers, every time you click to create one, the spaces are filled with several portraits of the unit, which is confusing, and you have to count them one by one to know how many you are creating instead of doing it more ergonomically by adding numbers to a single portrait, just like in the other titles of the franchise. I think that in all these aspects, Age of Empires IV regressed considerably compared to its predecessors, which seems quite illogical to me since, being the newest title in the franchise, it should have innovated more. However, it seems as if Age of Empires IV suffers from the same interface errors that Age of Empires I suffered from in 1997, which is quite strange.
The game was affected heavily on release by two things: an extremely long patch cycle (this picked up after January 2022), and a edge-panning bug that absolutely destroyed performance.
You’re right in that the Anniversary Edition and the price dropped help AoE IV have staying power, and I completely agree. But the original campaigns I always enjoyed. It’s funny, because at the time, I felt like I was in a minority. Then the Sultans’ Ascend came out and people started posting how they missed the original campaign format.
I know my opinions don’t always match up with the majority, and I’m fine with that. That’s why I raised user reviews, because overall they’re solid (and on release they were lower, but not massively so I don’t think).
ptsd kicking in, just rotating or zooming was already enough to nuke the framerate btw
Swapping out the entire engine for a game is just too massive an undertaking.
Honestly, I think they could just add a filter system instead. That way, players could at least tweak the lighting and color tones themselves.
In fact, I also liked the theme of the first Age of Empires IV campaigns, but I think making them was too expensive, and that must be why the developers didn’t continue with that approach of telling the story more realistically by hiring actors and all that. I imagine they went back to the original format because it’s much cheaper, and the company’s budget isn’t what it used to be. Another problem to address is that of civilizations without campaigns. I think they should at least work on creating historical battles for civilizations that don’t have campaigns.
Tan mal le fue a AoE IV con los gráficos que pensaban meterle toda la carne al asador por este juego y mira que pasó. Le dijeron que tenia gráficos de Fortnite, de Clash of Clans, de Los Sims, y asi jaja. Pensaban que esta nueva entrega seria la que movería la franquicia, pero los gráficos decepcionaron a mucha gente. Fue otro motivo por el que cortaron el presupuesto al juego y salieron con sus pendejadas como las civilizaciones variantes y demás
Yo pienso que deberían tanto para PCs de bajos recursos como de altos recursos mejorar la estabilidad y el rendimiento, además de sacar más opciones de personalización de los gráficos.