Is the Age of Empires franchise lead by a toxic directive?

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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Is the Age of Empires franchise lead by a toxic directive?

I am thinking so, and i think the users are seen as a joke by the direction/management.

Because Age of Empires 2/3 Definitive Edition are still completly bugged each, the TGs are dead because of technical reason and the flood of multiusers/rank booster/smurfs.

And we get some fun quotes in the offical annoucements, like ‘We take your concerns very seriously’ or (not by word) ‘the alt-f4 issue is known and beeing worked on’.
Yet nothing happens, and we get another bugged out DLC, with features which don’t address the problems.

Similar to the ‘we take your report seriously’ when reporting a player who is clearly cheating or griefing and he plays another 1000 matches with his account 11

Nobody who is actually playing the game in multiplayer (and/or played AoC on Voobly or HD) would not consider the game to be in a really bad state.

In case of AoE3:DE the game runs so poorly, that the community splits on the legacy and definitive version.

So, what are your thoughts?

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You are exaggerating, AoE2 is in no way “completly bugged”
The TG stuff is not easy to fix, even if some people here claim to have the perfect solution
Also there’s nothing bugged about the new DLC except some campaign achievements

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AOE 3 DE isn’t exactly running so poorly but still need adjustments
About the Alt f4 problem, the fix is ready for a new update.

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I could not disagree more. We have received constant updates on AOE2DE and AOE3DE since launch, on almost a monthly basis. There are 2 DLCs for AOE2 and 2 for AOE3. I’m no dev, but I’ve done enough programing to gather that there isn’t a rapid fix for the Alt-F4 issue; being patient is the best strategy, even if it is frustrating. Even AOE1DE receives updates, and that’s the least played of all three.

The devs hear us, they love the games (remember there are tons of modders for the series that are now employed to work on these games), and they are working hard.

The player stats don’t bear this out. It’s 5-1 in favor of DE based on steam users, and the few who stick with the old version seem to do so because they lack the necessary computer hardware.

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The main issue seem bad priorities. They seem to prefer ‘bloatware’ over real fixes. Something like fixing the TG ratings shouldnt be that hard. We dont ask for a completely overhaul of the mechanic. We only ask for some minor adjustments which already fix most of the issues at the TG ladder. Yes, some minor changes can fix the TG already. They just need to change some formulas in the code and that is all. OK, they might also need to reset the TG ladder in my opinion. But deleting everyones ratings and set it to 1000 again doesnt sound too hard either…

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No, your post sounds like exaggeration, or maybe you have some personal beef with (some of) the developers. The DLC was bugged, and it’s pretty weird that the lobby system got bugged with its release, but it seems like the only thing they dropped the ball on was some QA.

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Ok, let’s start with the bugs you can see right away when you open the game and try to play:

  • You are often “disconnected from the master server”, so that you can’t fetch the room list in the lobby browser, can’t receive invites, can’t fetch the map pool, etc.
  • If you restart the game it can take a long time to connect, or you don’t connect at all. You don’t know when you are actually connected. So if people want to queue with friends or make a custom game, it takes a while to get everyone in. This step needs to be repeated for every single god**** game.
  • There are a ton of GUI bugs, such as your client shows the main menu, while your teammates client shows that you are in a lobby, participants in the lobby view are missing, while they are actually inside, etc
  • The hotkeys shown in the hotkey editor are not backed by the hotkeys files, when changing between multiple profiles while editing.
  • The game freezes while starting a team game for an unknown reason (about 1/20 times) and you are stuck in the lobby view or loading view.
  • If someone dodges by alt-f4, you are often stuck in the lobby view, or loading view, don’t know if the games may start, until you get an error message with a hex error code printed into your GUI.
  • The game crashes back to desktop for an unknown reason (about 1/20h)
  • The coop mission go out of sync (about 1/2 times)
  • For AMD graphic users the game turns into a power point presentation by horrible frametimes, so you have to alt-enter 2x to reinitialize some of the rendering, ever few minutes.
  • Some people can’t send steam invites, neither by the game client, nor by steam.

I play the game on different computers, with different hardware. I tried to reinstall the client/os/steam/whatever in order to make it run as best as possible. I switched to Nvidia graphics to get rid of the frametime bug. Still the numbers I am giving are referring to the best case possible. Some people just crash every hour back to desktop, making multiplayer not an option.
There is a list of unfixed bugs in this forum.
I consider this to be completly bugged.

But the new updates barely fix things, or even break more things.
I agree that there were amazing updates to the game, such as removing the foundation scanning for units, removing the deletion of straggler trees, bringing the pathfinding to an acceptable level, and allowing the game to calculate post imp battles in real time.
But that’s about it.
The ranked team game system is a total desaster, the game is bugged as hell and crashes for many people, which has not been fixed in >18 month.
It’s hilarious how many crashs and restore are there in the tournament scene.
And if you cut the patches were unit stats/maps only were changed, or were the game was broken by patch, there are actually not that many patches left.

The AoE3 legacy users with the fan patch, used by everyone before DE came out, are not listed on steam.
So you have the power users split between the official and the legacy version of the game… doesn’t sound like the point of a definitive edition for me.

If I give my customers a software like this, with the amount of bugs, especially GUI bugs, and these inconveniences of use, I am done. I would never get a contract again.
And yes, the matchmaking system can be fixed in about 100h, even if the programmer has never worked in this software project.
There was one forum user who made a list about teamgames. Only 50% of the teamgames he got were legit, without crashs or extreme “griefing”. And the time queueing up for these games was insane (guess why i write such a post here).

That’s a mentionable point: There are no additional software interfaces needed, the existing code for the matchmaking system just needs a small rework, which requires 100 to 2000 lines of code maybe. I don’t know what the heck is going on in their office, that this is impossible for them.

I don’t know them, only their product. And I am glad that I don’t have to work with them 11

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Tbh this is what people should be making threads about. But every thread is about fixing <civ/mechanic OP does not understand due to his low ELO> (by OP I dont mean you, but the hypothetical OPs of said threads).

The only thing I can say is that QA could probably be a wee bit better. There’s definitely been bugs released that could have been very avoidable with testing (lithuanian infinite relics, being able to delete enemy walls, coustilliers doing double bonus damage to CA, etc.)

Also, I would hardly call these feats amazing:

This was mostly just useless tinkering with the game engine, but actually not really useful time spent in light of issues with crashing and MP issues. (as well as those and similar changes themselves resulted in new bugs)

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Its not “toxic”. It’s simply that they dont care enough. They don’t wanna invest too much into this game and want to maintain it with the bare minimum required. And also they are being stubborn.

They could have, for example, fixed the TG issues 18 months ago, but they simply believed it wasnt a big problem when everyone in the community was saying otherwise. And look how it has snowballed now.

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My thought is: Why people who really think this don’t just leave the game?

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Exactly. Recently the server was buggy, making MP nearly not playable. And all those microsoft people just sit for like 10 days before they finally realize that it is a catastrophic issue. And a lot of times the bugs introduced from a new patch make me feel that they don’t really play the game themselves.

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Because you like the game itself and hope it will go better, even if you don’t believe it anymore.

I mean these are clearly bugs. I guess he…no we all would enjoy this game a lot more when you could just queue up with a decent queue time and just play a game without crashes. The reality is even pre dlc completely different.

Letting your frustrations out is therefore understandable.

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The amount of bug is bad but tolerable imo (as a 1v1 only player i never encounter alt+f4a and seldom encounter drops). I think the devs should focus a LOT more on the infra, but I think you also underestimate how difficult it CAN be to fix legacy codes and/or issues that are not anticipate (Saying “merely” 2000 lines are very insulting to a current software engineer). Also I have seen MUCH more buggier software sold as subscriptions. I think you will never be fired if you can deliver AOE2DE to this quality (as a small team, say yourself) lol

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Yeah, ranked 1v1s, campagins, and rm vs the ai work really well.

How is that an insult?

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  1. 2000 Lines are not a few. It likely affects multiple components, and require a lot of communication to make sure you dont misunderstand things (if you do it correctly)

  2. Even if it is 2 lines of code, it can still require a day worth effort to debug, understand the full picture and fix it with confidence.

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still only a day. not month or year.

How long alt+f4 problem exists?
while they fixing and improving AI. They just dont give a shit.

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Maybe it’s not that easy to solve?
How you would solve that issue? Making people lose before the game even started because of a ping timeout?
Even in Fifa I heard there is the same problem with people just wanting to play on home court every game. So this problem isn’t an easy task. The whole game industry has to deal with it.

(and seems nobody has a solution yet)

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20 sec solution to cover 90% problem so players wont alt+f4.
if (starting_search_time - start_time_of_the_game) less than 5 min then timeout search for 10 min.
Adjust it with total counter of fast restarts.

They literally have fucking year: the thread started an year ago (Aug 2020).
They did 2 expansions in that time.
So, let’s be real. They did not care…
#getused

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I also can’t understand it, I get that some stuffs need time to be fixed but their priority doesn’t seem to be in the correct spot.

  • When they list something in aoe2 that is ‘fixed’, it is never actually 100% fixed, just some workaround so that specific stance doesn’t happen but the same bug could happen in another case ( units passing through walls for example )
    • to this day, Scouts still teleport sometimes along with any other cav and people just turn on a blind eye
  • When they release any fix, other 3 pop up. When they release big patches, game breaking bugs appear and they aren’t fixed for several weeks (multiple tech queable during a HUGE tournament in aoe2 )
  • Very low optimization for the game :
    • Aoe2 main screen was literally using over 90% cpu for the first 5-6 months as if they were mining from it (noticed by several in this same forum)
    • Lobby still takes huge amount of gpu for unknown reason when it is literally a browser
    • Aoe3 had 0 optimization when released. Still today, people with HIGH end graphics card can’t play this game max set (not my case but reading some posting here and other forums).
    • Aoe3 was looking horribly, everything was blurry when you were actually playing the game. Couldnt distinguish units. A dev modder from original Aoe3 had to release a mod to fix after a month, until they eventually fix the blurriness 1 months later. 2 months total.
  • Every time a patch is released, some mods stop working completely or they bug out.
  • Previous recordings break every single patch (???)

I am also starting to think it is wanted, so people will migrate to aoe4 so they are trying to combine both aoe2 and aoe3 in aoe4… [while they slowly release aoe3 like stuff in aoe2 (Flemish revolution) and aoe2 like stuff in aoe3 (single farms)]

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It should take one employee 4 weeks at max to fix it, so the cost of a fix is below 10,000 usd

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I hope they put all their fantasy ideas into aoe4, let the technical support run for aoe2de and aoe3de 24