JUNE 2022 PUP - Release Notes

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
145

Where? show me the stats or do you Think
that the success depends by how many people are watching Twitch or streaming the game? Spectators are not necessarly Buyers.
Or the fact that The game iteself had been in the First place of sellers for some weeks? I Just said
that the First wave of positive reviews and selling have been determinated by the awaiting for a new game of AOE and by the franchises itself: it’s too important.
I can suppose Aoe4 could have sold 1 milion of copies but it’s not a great result: Halo wars sold the same copies and It was a console game but the “Halo name” done its work.

However:

  1. I’m sorry you can’t read what i had wrote during the both beta test: long threads with tips, problems, polls with hundred of voters relating to different aspects from Graphic (improved textures) to Gaia, animations, Diplomacy, building sizes etc. Nobody listened us. I made a lot of threads about AOE4: check the difference from what i wrote after the announcement and what i wrote after the preview and beta test. But i tried to be positive, inviting the devolpers to change something. Many discussions wiht many users. So not, i tried to be constructive, also with “the merged graphic thread”;

  2. Yes, i tried mods. I’m not a modder but i played with different moda like the one with “advanced settings”. They are pretty good but don’t change the game a lot because the game iteself have been built with a determinated vision: only developers could change It with a Great expansion or a very big DLC.
    I didn’t found any mods which improved the graphic textures or changed the models and for what i seen it’s very difficult also for the modders. There aren’t mods for Blood and gore. But Adam isgreens said: " We are reching fot T rating so there Will be not blood. But mods will resolve this". Where? We are waiting. You can put a Ferrari’s motor on a 500: it always will be a 500.

  3. what i was looking in AOE4? The next Evolution of RTS, a new Era. Adam isgreens said this, not me. Do you remember the “humanized histories”? What are and where are? I seen and played a bad Copy of AOE2de and AOE3de. When you released these beatiful games you can’t make a game which seems a many steps back of the prevouust ones: you can’t. Developing a game with a old Engine and bad textures is not a excuse for the “potato systems”: there are specs for this reason and moderna technology to help with this (DLSS, for example but also software solutions). And the same i can Say for the lack of immersion or Gaia. You have different biomas but not different fauna: LoL. Those are all things that show that this game have been developed only for competitive players.

But i’m ready to Say i’m sorry to developers and i admited that i was wrong if developers Will show something new, like a big DLC with new Graphic options, new animations and more. Maybe they could announce it on the upcoming Xbox showcase, maybe not. We’ll see.

I would like to ask you this: do you like play most singleplayers campaigns, skirmish and co-op vs AI or matches with other players?

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146

The vocal minority who asked for more zoom of course.

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147

What I’m saying is that a game could have a 100% positive rating if everyone rates it at 6/10, because every player thinks it’s a bit better than the cutoff between positive and negative. You can’t tell the difference between a game that everyone rates at 6/10 and a game that everyone rates at 9/10, because both are 100% positive.

148

How else do we gauge success though? People told me DoW III was a failure because the user reviews were poor, and that it couldn’t retain a playerbase (if you think Age IV’s was low, DoW III was in the triple digits by this stage).

We can only work with the stats we have. And those stats say Age IV is a well-received game. That’s all that matters to getting the game supported, too. DoW III lost support because it didn’t have a community; a playerbase to make that worth the (financial) effort.

It doesn’t look like Age IV has that problem. Which is good. Not for the people that dislike Age IV at a conceptual level - nothing can fix the game for them - but for the people that want things like more Gaia, more maps, etc. Content can be justified if there are the players for it.

As for what you wrote in the beta tests, I read a lot of stuff. I just don’t comment on it much. Your opinions are valid for you, I don’t want to put them down even if I disagree with specifics.

I normally enjoy SP more; that’s just how I enjoy RTS games. I don’t have a lot of time to get good at MP, and honestly my micro sucks. Always has. I also enjoy modding, and have spent a lot of time messing about with the tools. I haven’t made much of anything yet, but that’s mainly a spare time thing.

I will play co-op vs. an AI, and I will play skirmish. It’s mainly competitive games with other players I’ll avoid.

They got it. Next?

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151

These are the people who do not know the game. Do not know art. Do not know programming. Do not know gaming industry. Do not know micro. Do not know what they want. Do not know themselves.

Why are they catered to? I feel betrayed.

163

one of my comments got hid (as well as other ones). I don’t want to point anyone here but It’s necessary to go too low for an opinion you don’t like?

165

Completely standard behavior on forums. So better be careful what you say etc

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166

after a few pretty hard matches english vs HRE I have one question.

the current winrate for england in this matchup is 40,2%

so what will this look like after the patch? GG at the start?

167

whoooa, new chinese great wall and spirit way are soo good, and siege has finally been tuned for good! I might come back for a few matches… and color selection FINALLY.

This looks good

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168

Why do you think great wall and spirit way are so good?

170

Gatehouse is better because now you can build it offensively OR defensively and get great value out of it; as oppose to current patch where it just gives nearby stone walls extra HP and double dps of range units on walls NEAR it (niche).

Spirit Way got WAY WAYY better by the simply fact that Spirit Way in CURRENT patch is USELESS, UTTERLY useless unless you can hit Ming for grenadiers or can hit yuan and defensively go for multiple raids. NObody is spamming Zhuge Nu around their Spirit Way in Imperial Age?? Now we have situation where the landmark becomes immediately functional and NO YOU DONT DELETE your own units??? But! as a passive bonus as units naturally DIE, you get faster attacks and small heal.

171

Its niche now. Current gate is way better than the upcoming. The dmg buff is semi irrelevant and pointless but the hp to walls is insane. It gives you so much time vs backdoor. Every second counts and having the massive HP is really good for that.

New one. Who is gonna idle on the walls? No one. How many times on high level do you see someone putting archers to wall ? 1 out of 1000 games? Its pure RP. “oh im on wall I can shoot further and deal more dmg” "ops enemy just went to destroy my base from side, I guess it was useful benefit.

Walls losing the hp means the dmg buff on wall is also lot weaker because it takes couple of shot to destroy the wall and to completely nullify the bonus js tear whole wall down. Enjoy bonus that you wont benefit. Shit change

Top of that developers don’t want china to passively stay behind walls and wall but they want china to sit on walls and keep walling?!?!?!?! How the fuck that makes any sense?

Spirit way is more useless in next patch. If game drags into imperial you will always look into going grenadiers nowdays because its only way to go. And how much it saves from grenadiers is unreal 30% from 240 is 72 resources saved per grenadier. INSANE. In past spirit way could be used for FL or Grenadiers not anymore thanks to developers listening low elo sanctum TG players and nerffed FL to ground

Meanwhile in next patch. Upgrade dynasty units = useless 50% save which is 500 resources. Make 10 grenadiers and you saved more resources.

And don’t let me start with the buff. Its fuckin useless. Attack speed + heal. Heal is irrelevant. It heals 2 hp per second which is IRRELEVANT. 1 out of 100 deaths it might save a unit and most cases it wont be relevant at all. TOP OF THAT you’re not going to have this power fantasy where you think its great that my dynasty units provide support to universal units the fact is any competent china player stops making dynasty units or makes handful of un upgraded zhuge nu and presses delete and gets the buff that way or kamikazes it to enemy army. What a great gameplay design. Pure stupidity.

No one is going for Ming or Yuan for dynasty units because both units are pure shit. The speed buff for FL is still shit. They’re as fast as lancers and lancers do everything better and are cheaper to get than FL so whats the point of going for Yuan when you get lancers at castle age and not +castle? There is no point.

No one will make overpriced support units that has no meaning to be core part of your army. NO ONE.

Developers are for this to blame how they’ve killed all chinese unique units and made them shit and they continue to take away chinese identity. Now they lose the siege which will be completely irrelevant and worthless and not worth to make in next patch. Top of that Knights / Lancers get massive buff ans horsemen too and they’re far better raiding unit than overpriced FL.

Look at SC2 for example how support units are made. Medivacs 2 great tools for Terran infantry to use. Most important heal that comboes well with stim pack (active ability that increases dmg and speed for short duration in exchange of HP) or simply pick up units and fly them away with speed boost ability. They’re core part of terran army and insanely important.

Then lets look at AOE4. Relic has some weird stupid idea to push religious units to be support unit but they cost too much and provide what? None exist heal. No one is going to make religious units for this purpose and we have seen this to be so true pats 6 months. Only one that makes them is delhi and because of elephants. Same applies to Zhuge nu, FL and grenadiers. No one is going to make single unit just to get small increase in attack speed or irrelevant heal. We would’ve argument if the heal was 20 hp instantly and attack speed was dmg and not attack speed.

Spirit way stays useless so does gate way.

There is no offensive chances to use gate way. Its not French or English landmark that just can obliterate everything on its way with anti cannon weaponry. Gate way just gets taken down by 1 ram and thats it. useless effort.

I cant be more excited of patch and seeing how all these changes backfire and I can say everytime “told you so”

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172

Algo que me parece triste (para age 4) es que sus números de jugadores al menos en steam son muy inferiores al age of empires 3 DE (que es bueno para el age 3 claro esta) el ultimo dlc del age of empires 3 le dio mucha mas vida y el numero de jugadores aumentaría al menos en 2000 o 3000 mas de los que siempre están, que no es mucho pero para lo que estaba antes joder es impresionante! pasamos como de 3500 a casi unos 6000-6200, pero lo triste es que muchos de esos jugadores nuevos son aquellos que jugaron el 4 y vieron el trailer del dlc de knights of the mediterranean y los comentarios no fueron muy alentadores para el age 4… (sinceramente eso me dio mucha pena)

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173

Кое-кто забывает, что игра также доступна в xbox game pass, и учитывая приличный ценник игры - там явно аудитории не меньше, чем в стиме.

174

HRE’s Inspiring Warriors should be an AOE around the targeted unit; because inspiring 1 by 1 will take too long to prep before each fight? And its benefits are something between that of abbasid +2 armor from camel support and English’s Network of castle’s 25% attack speed. Having this ability be a bit of both skills is neat but make it a decent splash circle and maybe reduce the duration to 45 seconds?

175

Generally I don’t see much changes that will actually bring more players back for the game or keep them playing. No new content besides one new map.

Besides the color picker all the new features are just relevant for competitive players.

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176

except arguably zoom, that one has some casual impact imo

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177

yep, I played the game in beta and once at launch and have been waiting for them to fix the zoom to come back and try it out again.
Will be loading it up on gamepass when the zoom update goes live.

178

zoom can be good for some casual players too :smiley:

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179

His point is that more zoom alone won’t bring new players. Yeah it’s good for casual and comp… but for those of us still around. Nobody is going to tell their friends “hey dude! AoE IV has this AMAZING zoom, go and pay $60 to see it!”. Much less it will generate new reviews on popular sites that would bring renewed interest.

The game needs something to pull new RTS fans in, regain all the lost players and generate extra publicity. If it’s not the next patch, perhaps that’d be too late already.

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