While not all issues where adressed in the last updates I still think the changes done were good (except for horsemen).
I am quite positive about the next patches :). I am sure the Devs will do a good job.
lol. That couldāve been me. I said it many times while playing the closed beta and stress test (those subforums are now gone) and I think Iāve said it somewhere in the main subforum as well. But Iām certainly not the only one who have said that the game would be reviewed favorably and would have pretty good sales numbers but the players themselves would disappear quickly and the game reduced to cult/niche like AoE3 not long after.
To be honest Iām not happy I was right because I love the AoE franchise and I paid full price for this game. I personally stopped playing already. Just pick it up every now and then. Grew bored of the bugs (canāt freaking autoheal my units to this day, really?) but mostly of the simplistic gameplay.
I just hope the good sales give other developers hope that there is still market for great RTS games.
all i am hoping for is that they dont break more things or add any more new bugs
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Yeah the gameplay is very bland compared to AoE3. Only Delhi and Mongols are any good.
The people on this forum find a way to complain about everything they can. Who cares, the game is getting updated slowly but surely. I heard fire lancers will get addressed and as a chinese player I am really excited about that! I hope to see fire lancer spam in team game mirrors be a thing of the past!
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I am not too worried, I beleve it is more an issue of players adapting and accepting that AOE4 is a much different game than AOE2 or 3. At the high level stratagies are different, likewise stratagies are also different for 1v1 vs multiplayer games. Also remember that the high level only consists of the to 300ish AOE4 players wile the vast majority of players ar not pro.
With that said, my bias is as a low to mid level chinese civ player that enjoys pvp team games and the following is what I have noticed.
Fire lancers tend to be an unexpected twist and can typically counterd effectively by Knights but may be more difficult to pull off this counter in a solo game. While LM (landmark) sniping is more effective, it is possible with knights aswell. As to their splash DMG it is a civ spicific trait that enhances their tool kit like the leitis bonus damage in AOE2. these points make me beleive that this unit is a critical patch.
The Late Game Siege Meta however is something that I belive is going to be a focus of the patch. As in both high and low level games devolve to a death ball of seige where it comes down to line of sight and micro. the bigist issue I belive is with the Mangonel/Onagers/NestOfBees not doing firendly fire, or doing too much damage to incomming units. Like wise if units do get close the rate of damage is so low they end up getting wiped before enough damage is delt. The repair rate to damage rate in some cases is dumb as well and needs to be addressed, I belive this is a more critical factor than nerfing tanky or long range seige.
If they find a way to fix the Late Game Seige Meta I beleive that they will be able to fix the mongols aswell. Seeing as the rest of the mongols abilties are tied to their civ does not make them unbeatable, just extreamly annoying to play against.
As for the Early Game Seige, the ram push specifically, you can expect it, you can scout it, you can adapt to ie, you can counter and win. The strongest push comes from the HRE and is rough counter but possible and sets up for a good rebound. Its just another Stratagy that can be overcome
I beleve what is still more critical to get patched right now is the glitches like, dock placement killing fish, hit boxes for almost everything need tweeking, the wood chop wall exploit (need to address if its a glitch or part of the game), UI/QL items, etc.
They will get it done when they get it done and players will come and go with the patches and future DLC. The game is nowhere near dead.
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Given a number of RTS or RTS-adjacent titles releasing soon, game might indeed be irrecoverable but better late than never, game can still make it to the top but chances are dwindling each week.
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Yea originally I thought that nerfing the fire damage on fire lancers was the way to go, but honestly now I think nerfing the splash damage or removing it entirely makes more sense, maybe in favor of a slightly stronger charge damage.
I also agree about mangonels not doing splash damage. I actually really enjoyed how they played in aoe2, where they gave some trick and fake out shot opportunities and actually were not so great in the hands of an unskilled player because they ended up just killing all my own troopsā¦ errā¦
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Relic designers and producers are too scared to implement the basic concept of FRIENDLY FIRE
I mean, it sucks, so I donāt see whatās wrong with that. Itās a classic example of realism defeating gameplay principles.
Something having a defined cost is different from āwhups, you accidentally ate one of your own unitsā. Risk vs. reward in terms of player psychology tends to break when the cost is too high, even if the reward is similarly-high.
I meanā¦ it works in AoE2, SC:BW, SC2 and WC3 (+ countless others) and never was a problem. Area of Effect siege power was balanced around that risk reward factor. You can only go so far with balancing mangonels when a unit HP buffer comes to play.
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It can work, sure. But itās only one way to balance siege strength in a game, so itās not really about being āscaredā of doing it vs. exploring other ways of handling that strength.
People are used to it in older games, because those older games have existed for years, if not decades, and their success is based around the game as a whole, rather than any one individual mechanic. I donāt think āfriendly fire on siege unitsā was a defining part of AoE IIās popularity (though I could be wrong!).
The biggest problem (and probably why the most āmodernā RTS to embody it is SC2) is the interaction with unit control and pathfinding (which is generally a problem in most RTS games - and even though SC2 has a great implementation, it introduces other, different problems with regards to balance, such as how it makes map blockers less effective so long as thereās a hole that the unit size can fit through). Combined with any input delay (which even if you could theoretically remove in single-player, will always be a factor in multiplayer), and you have an issue where your units will die to projectiles and thereās nothing you can do about it (except to be psychic in the first place). Thereās always going to be an intersection of ācancelling siege ordersā and āmoving unitsā that results in spawned projectiles causing damage to moved units.
To me, thatās less risk vs. reward and more being at the mercy of game mechanics, which is something no player likes to feel. If Iām sacrificing a unit, or a part of a unit, I want that to be fully in my control. I want to click and have that action happen, and obviously the benefit of that action too.
If I want to throw a unit(s) into a fight knowing that they could get hurt by something Iām doing, then sure. But a lot of the time the damage from siege is so excessive that I might as well not send the unit into the fight, except to die (as a meat shield or similar blocker to my more valuable back line). So why have friendly-fire in the first place? To force use of a meat shield unit? To deter people from throwing something like Knights into a combat scenario where siege projectiles are also landing? Itās complicated, fair enough. But I donāt see friendly fire as the solution. I see it as a historic one that can have application, but we really need to think harder than just ābecause itās been done beforeā.
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