Input listening is a nightmare. For example, when I did some game coding in 2019, it was at that time impossible for a software to detect the keyboard layout type. It was only possible to detect the OS install language to try identify the keyboard layout to apply.
I’m Swiss, so I use a specific keyboard, the qwertz layout which is basically a german based keyboard but as I’m french-speaking, I got a french variant of that qwertz layout. The french keyboard layout is azerty, so I often automatically get the france keybinding logic even that my keyboard layout parameter is “french(Swiss)”.
Listening an input is easy, but then knowing where it is on the physical material is nearly impossible. Gamepads are not officially listened by all computer today, as in, their input ID are not registered by default as all the basic keyboard and mouse inputs are. Even extra mouse buttons are not always listened by runtime environnement. At some point in the past, the mouse itself was not a standard.
So currently, gamepads are not a PC standard, meaning you can’t put an universal “listener” system on machiens that may not be able to recognize the thing you’re trying to listen.
Then why moderns games have that capability ? Because they are using more recent game engines, made at an era where controllers listening code are built-in for those game engine Cores. AoE2 game engine core is very, very, very old. Adding the controller support to it would requiere to make some very low-level code mdofication, which could result in bugs no one could expect. You should also coinsider that the originale GENIE engine was not built by the team currently maintaining the game, so maybe there is still some part of that engine they can’t really work on, but I think it’s not the real reason for that.
As they’ve been adding wider platform support for the past years, it’s just a matter ot time until the PC version feature a controller support. So just be patient, and let the time do the job.
Well, they have already done the work to port AoE2 to console, so they would know well enough how the inputs work with this Genie engine at this point, it is just a question of when they feel like doing it with the PC version.
Porting it to PS5 must have been way more difficult that it would be to just add Controller support to Windows
It’s more complexe than that, hardware is not the same, os are not the same.
About the when, I’d say not before the next Xbox model release.
Actually yes but no. Porting to a console like PS5 is way easier because of some simple fact. The hardware is the same on every PS5, with little to no variation with later released models. Sony probably provides some “how to use the console”, or API guides included with the license partnership system, otherwise no one would have used their console, meaning they provide infos on how to make things such as controller listening working. The PS5 controller is native to PS5, while gamepad is not to Windows OS. Also remember that the OS is sold separatly from hardware for PC, only Apple sells the OS and the Hardware in the same time, so ironically the Mac version may be easier to work with a controller support implementation.
A PC version would requiere not only to support Xbox gamepads but also Sony gamepas and eventually generic gamepad systems such as Logitech.
And then there is also the USB port version, and many things we can’t think about that could mess with “just adding controller support”.
The time spent on adding controller support to the PC game would need to be payed. DLC are released on all platform, would it be fair for the PS5 players to pay a DLC in which contnet has been split between adding Controller support and adding content ? The PS5 game sales cover PS5 porting dev, same for Mac version, but how would you finance the PC controller addition, if you see what I mean.
In the end, adding controller support is way way more complexe than we could think.
fully agree and they port the same content to both games minus mods but thats a different story, no reason not to have controller on their most popular game
And let’s not forget that apparently according to leaks next generation Xbox consoles will actually be PCs… If they don’t add controller support to AoE2 and 3 PC versions, the games won’t be playable on the next Xbox “consoles” which are actually just PC’s running windows.
Don’t get impatience, most companies doesn’t ever reply directly on forums to suggestions (Paradox Interactive being the major notable exceptions) and also, we are in summer. You’ll only know if they took into account when an update comes with it
really? not getting any response in the official forums has been normalized in the aoe forums, but is far from normal. Devs of basically all other games I know are more responsive, more communicative in general, and more honest in their responses
what even is the purpose of an official forum, if the devs don’t respond to anything?
You must play Paradox or a lot of indie games, because big companies are very corporate and barely do that, everything they say in public has to be measured. And each time they say something, people demonize what they said for years, so yes, I would understand why they don’t want to answer when they get that attitude from the community over anything
But even for games like Total War (arguably a bigger franchise than aoe) the devs regularly host Q&A session on their discord. Don’t get me wrong, total war has had some big issues in recent years as well, especially with their communication, but the fact that it’s still miles ahead of aoe2 is such an indictment of this game’s dev team. How can you get beaten by Total War on communication??
Aoe really is objectively bad in this regard, and far behind the norm in the industry
I said it above, Paradox is famous for being a notable exception since always.
And for Total war is very recent development and it isn’t known how well they will manage, and they might very well shut down fast at the next bad release like they do with every bad release, I don’t know if you heard about their forums apocalypse after they released Pharaoh, banning everyone everywhere.
I have. I pointed out to them that they promised that they wouldn’t add more civs. Their response was a callous “we changed our mind”. Utterly despicable. This game is a bait and switch, if I’ve ever seen one.
I literally gave you example for “a Big Corporation” that acts miles better. And it’s not just one studio: Firaxis (Civilization) also does it. Out of my steam catalogue of 200+ games, aoe2 is genuinely by far the worst.
tbf, I tend to avoid games by shitty studios, I sure now know to avoid games by these devs. Their behavious is atrocious
Not saying other companies are ideal, but AoE games doesn’t even receive semi-regular dev diaries, only sometimes we get an interview when a streamer or a journalist hosts a dev on their channel.
We are catching for straws and it makes us easier to misinterpret what’s being said. The 3K clusterfuck would have probably been half as controversial if we received regular dev diaries and the civs were announced from the beginning instead of being teased as “civs from around China”.