Grouping hotkey and upgrade display improvement

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
1

Hi Devs,

Thanks for the great patch (patch in the right direction). I think the focus should still be improvement to the game itself rather than the balance. Balance is “okay” but it gets figured out by players sooner or later. Right now, balance is actually quite good.

Two things,

Upgrade display improvement.
In Starcraft series, Warcraft series, and even AOE2 (not sure about AOE3), upgrade is displayed differently to AOE4 and is much easier to comprehend. The way it is displayed in those games is that rather than the stat display changing the stats, it adds “+1”. So if you are getting +1 range attack upgrade on Longbow, instead of displaying “7” in the stat sheet, it should shows “6+1”.
Starcraft has a similar thing where they have normal stats but have 2 icon (attack and armour) go up in number from 1 to 3. Pretty sure Warcraft series has the same idea.
Checking upgrades on opponents’ unit is a vital information for players and the way it is displayed now is just unrealistic. It’s almost expecting players to remember the stats of all units if he/she wants to get the upgrade information of the opponent.

Grouping hotkey
Okay so this part is super weird. Let’s say I group 10 Spears into group 3 and I have a situation where I need to split them. I drag 5 units to make a new group, say group 4, then what happens is 5 spears are grouped as 3, and 5 of them are grouped as 3 AND 4. Now I have to click the 5 that is grouped as only 3 and do ctrl+3 again to get rid of the 3 from the other 5… complicated and unnecessary… I believe no other RTS does this and I’m not even sure if this is what you guys intended either. So please fix this!

Finally, I’ve said this in multiple topics but please fix the UI, the group box! Show individual units!!

I’d like to add, please focus on UI, bug, game utilities etc. Balance is good! (well, “okay”, but great for a newly released RTS. MOST people who complain about balance actually just wants to blame the balance for them losing, not themselves. Make the game better and balance can be a side project rather than vice versa!

Thanks

2

exclusive control groups and separate control groups have already been tested in the ranked beta

3

I agree with your suggestions, and some of them were included in the ranked beta test as mentioned. Hopefully, they will be included in the big Spring update.

I think Company of Heroes (also made by Relic) has this selection feature, so you can provide even more minute control over your units. Being able to add the same unit to multiple control groups might make sense for a tactical game like CoH, but may be frustrating for AoE4. Ranked beta had the option to set exclusive control groups, so hopefully, that comes out soon.

4

Both your points were in the closed Beta last week.

Your prayers are heard and this topic can be closed. :wink:

(I assume we see this coming with the spring update)

5

I heard about the groupings but never heard that the upgrade display was also in the closed Beta! that is great to hear.

It’d be great if Devs someday mention about UI improvement… seems like they are very good with communicating about improvement suggestions but whenever I bring up the UI regarding the group box not showing individual units, it is ignored…

6

I don’t recall major UI changes in the ranked beta, but they did have a global queue (in the top right, as opposed to the bottom left with the rest of the UI)