Its a big let down for me… I really thought they would go for some crew… It works fine in AOE3 and cannons look great, and show about when its reloaded ready to fire again. You end up learning how to micro within those confines, and it helps make siege something you have to protect and plan for. And not let them get out of position. Its ridiculous to see a mangonel just moving and firing on its own, especially with movement and dexterity in ways that even with crew could not operate… as a stand alone piece sometimes taking on armies that as also going back and forth to avoid it… Its kinda lame OP. and for all the work and beauty in the rest of it, is a big omission.
The same with ships, you end up finding a way to position and work within the parameters of the units movement to micro it,
makes me wonder where else they short cut things. As we see in sloppy arrow firings from castles, and wonky movements, elephants hitting air in siege mode, etc…
The game will likely succeed in sales no matter what but could really miss out on being great if they are afraid to innovate and short cut the animations and immersion.
Uhm… You DO know that in AoE4 all catapults and cannons will need to unpack just like the cannons in AoE3, right? The mechanics are still the same, mate, we’ve seen this in the preview videos.
Cannons, catapults, and trebuchets all start out as packed carts and then you have to unpack them to use them.
The fun fact is people asking for more realism over gameplay will remain but the game will be dead because they will be alone playing the game in a few years.
RDR1 and RDR2 for exemple
player base sc1 > sc2 > aoe2 >>> other
Only fact here:
1- RTS game that has the most simple IA and very responsive has the most
player base than other game in the same genre
2- clean visual and very quick understanding of the situation
3- simple mechanic
To people who will say it’s not because 10X players play aoe2 than aoe3 the game is better?
it’s true because saying better is subjective, but it will bring more players in the long run
so playing the game with 10,000 Vs playing the game with 500,000 players is extremely different
but it’s like adding things to football that the majority don’t like will not bring more spectator/players in the long run
When do you add crew to siege what it does?
1 - you need to add some frame for animation when turning the siege engine or it will look more dumb than unmanned so it will be less responsive
2- less clean visually talking
3- it potentially kills some FPS
Here are a few things to consider so you can answer this simple question yourself:
How many units would on average be on screen in CoH and how many in AoE 4 (estimation from previous series, 4v4 confirmed, and few short clips we’ve seen). For this point also consider that company units count as 1 if it is grouped. It needs to pathfind as one and so forth. Also tanks occupy more pop cap. I’d say it is a fair assesment to say overall in average aoe game you have 10 times more units (from about 20 individual units to order to 200) if not more depending on how tank heavy you go.
How many other units and things are going on in AoE, villagers, base building, trade that do not exist in CoH and strain PC resources along with human perception and having clearer visuals and information
Is it a fair description to say that CoH is a game based on the core of units interactions and combat mechanics? Maneuvering a tank, or an anti tank gun ? Doesn’t it make sense since this is the focus of the game to be able to kill the anti tank gun’s crew (which would be a disadvantage that the tank won’t have) doesn’t the more realistic turning rate make the tank need more maneuvering in order to show its armored side on the anti tank gun ? Doesn’t the anti tank gun need to try to out maneuver said tank and hit on the rear? Thereby making the anti tank gun take risks while it turns and moves to be hit and captured by infantry?
IS THIS GAMEPLAY SEQUENCE OF ANY RELEVANCE TO AOE4 ?
Designs that make alot of a sense and are very succesful in one game do not need to be blindly copied into another unless they make sense on that setting and overall design decisions in that other game as well.
I have to say, the ships in aoe3 are beautiful but garbage to play with.
The worst part is the whole thing would be fixed if the ships auto-fired whilst moving, thus you could micro them sideways to cut enemies off and all sorts of neat chase mechanics, rather than get in range, turn, load, loose range, get in range, turn, load, loose range… I have to agree with op, its clunky, and does not bring me joy.
packing and unpacking mechanics have forever been a pain as well, its always based on a distance / how far you click kind of thing whether they decide to auto-pack or unpack, and 25% of the time they don’t do what you wanted - the amount of times cannons in aoe3 pack up to move 1 unit length forward to then unpack is so frustrating.
The only reason unpacking and packing works for aoe2 trebs is because theyre designed to be rare and micro-managed, they have the longest range in the game, they’re to be moved into position, and defended. But If you suddenly make all your siege and field artillery follow this mechanic, you loose so much in the clunkiness of the mechanic, it simply doesn’t feel like the units do what you want them to, and its harder to justify dynamic movements of your army during large field battles, because your locked into where your field guns first got set up.
Just my two cents,
I honestly hope for both - some high range artillery which requires packing, and many smaller artillery that don’t and can be micro’ed.
It’s the dev’s responsibility to come up with a way to implement those well. That’s what we pay them for. If we people on this forum have the ability to do that job, we’ll be directly hired by the devs instead of writing requesting here.
Realism and gameplay do not contradict each other at all. One reason RTS died is because as many other successful genres kept improving their graphics and representation with technical advancements (and miraculously found good ways to maintain or even improve the gameplay at the same time), the majority of old-schooled RTS player base still stick to “no that’s going to harm the gameplay so we should not make the attempt at all”, even before the attempt was made.
How would that work though? The crew will be integral part of the unit or replaceable by some random soldier? If part of a unit how would melee with catapult look like?
Whole crew will die at once when cat is destroyed? Or they will die one by one? If so how can you replace them? This is not a squad game with replenish option. Its just easier as it is.
Argument about FPS is nonsense though. Game has ridiculously low hardware requirements already as it is.
That hurt. Unbalanced? Tell me in what way. Respect the age community. AOE-3 has wonderful things although it is less liked than AOE-2. The siege operated in age of empires 3 does not hinder the game at all. The stone throwers in age of empires 2 also require assembly time and are bunnerable to the same as the cannons in age of empires 3 (Cavalry).
Also in age of empires 2 it is also in some cases:
Exactly. What happens is that they do it alone, although the assembly I have seen that if they use those ghosts as they did with the buildings, which brings some logistical realism.
they balanced around it because it was introduced in it at the beginning but not for balance reason just to be more realistic and lower skill cap but RTS game no need unfun mechanic like snaring to be fun to play by the lower player
this is just one man for the siege with no pack unpack mechanic or no turn delay like SC2 and SC1 but in modern game people want animation with crew look the disaster things in aoe3 canon, naval fight not fun to micro and very frustrated
One reason AOE3 artillery may feel a little clumsy (though I personally do not feel so) is the weird pathfinding. Sometimes it decides to re-pack and unpack for short travel distances, even when moving in the unlimbered mode is much more efficient, especially in the middle of the combat.
That has little to do with crews or packing/unpacking.
Snaring is not realistic at all. There is nothing like that in real world.
The reason why snaring is introduced is that AOE3 was set in a very range-focused historical period. Without it melee units would become pointless.
First of all, the AOE3 way is not the single way to implement crews or packing/unpacking mechanics.
Secondly, that’s your personal opinion.
Finally, even AOE4 itself had packing/unpacking (look at the French unique cannon, whose main advantage is not needing to unpack). Having crews or not is not going to affect that.
And interestingly enough, even cannons in AOE4 do not have that one man like in AOE2, which is of course perfect and infallible in every respect.
Snaring is more realistic than game with no snaring mechanic because when you are hit by weapon in real life it slow you down … Not really but the thing is that units in AoE 3 reloaded much faster than in real life so that’s reason for snaring balance.
This is a very good review of these kinds of mechanics. I would add that instead of a high range a unit that unpacks could have a devastating anti infantry effect (alot of dmg and / or aoe) but be vulnerable when it unpacks, kinda like the siege tanks in SC2.
Edit: i also (if that wasn’t clear) 100% agree that these mechanics should be rare and made around 1 unit and strategy of how to compliment it, instead of just have all siege units follow this pattern.
your insinuating that having a crew directly leads to lower response times, which is false. cannons in aoe3 already shoot faster than siege units in aoe2, with essentially 0 attack delay. they can feel clunky due to their low turn rate, rof and move speed when unpacked, which is part of balancing and has nothing to do with their art or animations. change those numbers and artillery in aoe3 would be flat out far more responsive than the crewless siege units in aoe2.
falconets have less delay than scorpions, and heavy cannon/mortars have less attack delay than trebuchet despite having crew members. and you can test this out for yourself. the one downside is that aoe3 has no lock pack/unpack stance and cannons can sometimes fire blanks, but these issues have nothing to do with the art side of the units themselves.
this idea that crew members cause units to be less responsive has no basis outside of your conjecture.
looking at the disaster that is aoe2 naval gameplay, we should be happy that the devs are exploring new ways to integrate it into the game, as current examples aren’t good. both aoe2 and aoe3 naval has issues, I’m open to new ideas in this area.
the torch is both more realistic and better for gameplay, as more of an army can bring their numbers to bear on a building rather than the stupid collision/pathing problems and smacking a house with a sword to set it on fire that is currently in aoe2.
