Me too!
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I like the whole video, but what he says from 8:30 to 10:00 is something I resonate with deeply. I used to play A LOT of broodwar and starcraft 2, around diamond up until LOTV. It was, and still is, a fun game… but it is very cut-throat! Very little room for any kind of error, and most games fell apart from missing a proxy or a single poorly managed fight. In AOE4 there is still a critical need for attention and skill, but it’s totally possible to make it up the ladder with a lower APM. Micro can help many parts of gameplay, but it isn’t strictly required to succeed (see: Don Artie’s 50apm climb to conq (random civ only)).
I also like that he’s highlighting that each game is good in its own way. I am happy with the game and look forward to its future, it has been very exciting to see the RTS genre make a big comeback across the industry… the last 2 decades have been such an emotional rollercoaster!
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While I have some different ideas from him (as do other professionals) regarding the path Age of Empires IV could take, his dedication is to be admired.
A game where he has a little more micro up doesn’t have to be with such a low Time To Kill, something I’ve been criticizing SC2 for years.
Those Don Artie videos are pure gold.
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I have mentioned several times that casuals are the majority of players on the ladder, which is why I have never suggested removing stone walls (as I have heard Vortix suggest) I simply want a Meta that allows you to choose between different strategies and that does not stagnate too much
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I think he is being too extreme.
He only wants macro to be the decisive path to be victorious.
The only way to go.
Sounds very extreme and radical.
I think he doesn’t want any changes to AOEIV.
Just some tweaks here and there. But in the end, that is the definition of boring.
It’s a strategy game, not an action game. There’s enough fun micro that provides sufficient variance to my games. If you’re high ranked then you probably want an avenue to show off that skill, and that’s understandable. In this case I suggest you challenge Beastyqt to a duel where you don’t micro your units, while he is allowed to micro and we’ll see if micro is really that unimportant. What would you like to have in the game that’s not already in it? What type of micro are we talking about?
At no time have I said that there is no micro in the game, but that it is just as basic as in many other RTS.
The special thing that it can have (excluding ships) is when it has active or passive abilities (knight’s charge, spearman’s positioning, abilities of some unique units…) and that’s where I think the developers have to keep working.
If you don’t go through the hoops of having to play macro and decision making in mid/late game, in this game, you have nothing to do and for me it is sad to punish and not give the opportunity to other players with other skills.
Again AoE4 is a strategy game not a micro oriented game, and for a strategy game is has plenty of micro. It also has more abilities and hero units than previous AoE titles, but if you add too many then it turns into another type of game and I don’t think that’s their design philosophy. They want a predictable game that everyone can enjoy, not a cutthroat competitive game like Starcraft, where the one who pulls off more difficult micro comes on top. It’s not fun to lose to someone who has faster reflexes in a strategy game. There are other games for action/micro enjoyers. Vortix is playing one right now and he recommends it to other people that prefer a game where micro dominates the gameplay. You might wanna check it out.
Edit: Sorry, that sounded a bit harsh. I just don’t want to lose to a micro nerd in an AoE game. AoE games have always been more casual friendly.
AoE4 is a real-time strategy game like SC2 or AoE2, not just strategy.
At no time I wanted AoE4 to be more micro dependent than macro dependent, but the difference between macro dependence and micro dependence in AoE4 is still high even for an AoE game and while it is annoying that a player with more skill in managing his military units (nerd as you say) beats you for that, it can also be annoying that by making a not very successful approach and the other a more successful approach to pure spamming of units beats you (especially if the game is getting longer and longer).
I’m not commenting on SC2, I’m just looking at AoE2. While it is true that the quick wall fornite and dodge the arrows is not a micro management that I like in an RTS, they have more equality between macro and micro (although the macro still wins by some difference).
Let’s not go to extremes when making comparisons. I don’t want it to become a Blizzard game, only that adding more interesting micro where specialized players (especially young players, which are lacking in these games) can demonstrate their skill in battle gives richness to the Gameplay and opens doors to more people and to other players not having to have a similar style of play to be able to win.
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But AoE2 has none of the unit abilities you wish to add to AoE4 afaik. The only thing AoE2 has on top is arrow dodging, mangonel shot dodging and quick walling. Other than that the use of units is identical, if not AoE4 favored since in AoE4 counters matter more, so micro should be more rewarded. In AoE2 you can just spam a single unit type because the counters are softer. So what micro are you talking about because I’m confused. You get to use the units in exactly the same ways, and the smarter player (not the one that’s better at dodging projectiles), who uses his units better wins. Shouldn’t that be the case?
Real-time strategy means you have to make decisions in real-time, not that having better reflexes should be rewarded. That’s not strategy, real-time or otherwise. I would never want a smarter player to lose to someone with better reflexes that’s simply worse at decision making or smart plays. Being better at booming (or better at spamming units as you put it) can always be hindered through those smart plays, even if not moment-to-moment micro like dodging a mangonel shot, and it very much happens in real time.
The hard counter system in AoE4 is just a bit too much IMO. It mostly funnels all civilizations into extremely similar gameplay styles despite the point being that they are different. While good for balance, not so good for building identity and fun. There are of course exceptions.
The biggest consequence of this design is that if you’re a new player and you try the game, find out you dislike playing X, while you may very likely find another civilization you enjoy, the opposite may also happen; they may discover that most civilizations fundamentally play like X and therefore the game isn’t interesting.
EDIT:
There are so many “unique” units that are just the exact same unit + some stats. In the moment-to-moment micro experience of using them, they do not feel different at all. Imperial Guard, Keshik, Royal Knight, Samurai, Musofadi Gunner, Wyngard units, Ghulam, Arbalétrier, ######### Camel Lancer, Yumi, Mounted Samurai, Cannon, Ghazi Raider.
There are some good ones, like Camel Archer, Zhuge Nu, Onna-Bugeisha, Ozutsu, Janissary, Landsknecht. Units that stand out enough in the moment-to-moment experience than the usual baseline units. I would mention Elephants, Monks, Mangudai, Horse Archer, Grenadier or Cataphract, but these units, despite being designed differently, have also been designed to be utterly useless.
They’re seemingly afraid of breaking this delicate veil of balance or something.
Interestingly, civilizations like Malians who has their counter system flipped does not struggle from this. Because Javelin Throwers can’t afford to suck, lest it would break the whole civilization. I wish they’d take this approach more rather than copypaste the same civilization with, let’s be honest, rather minor differences in actual unit usage. I think they tried to do this with Byzantines but, their units feel just inconvenient compared to Malians. Varangians and Cataphracts should almost replace eachother’s roles but their design realistically just makes them a bad version of baseline units unless they are in very specific circumstances. I think Limitanei was done right, where they are good in most situations and bad in a few.
Don’t get me wrong by the way, I acknowledge that eco bonuses and landmarks are wildly different. But, units need love too. Like, does every civilization have to rely on a Springald? Urgh.
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You are being extremist. Predictable macro game is boring to play and watch.
You can say things with better manners to the user you are replying to, not call him “extremist”.
I like the hard counters, because it forces unit comps instead of massing a single unit while waiting for opponent to spam its counter. And also because it makes the game much more intuitive. A noob can make Horsemen and just a-move them into the Archers and they feel like a counter. But a-moving them into Spears hurts, they get stunned and killed immediately and it’s very noticeable. Attacking a Knight with 15 Archers doesn’t do much and you understand that unit is armored. Being armored has a strong meaning, it’s not just a buzzword.
There are many unique units that are similar because it’s a historical game. There’s only so many unit types you can make that are not people riding a horse or people holding a sword or a bow. That being said, I find Palace Guards to feel different to MAA when playing. They are fast, they can reposition and raid, but have lighter armor. Keshiks as well, since they heal with every hit. Sofa has faster movement speed, it’s cheap and fairly durable, great for raiding and running around the map, while Sipahi has longer range being able to kill siege very easily, and can sacrifice melee armor for melee damage via an activatable ability. Even though they are all a person on a horse, they have their unique flavor which gives them that civ’s identity (to me at least), and I prefer this to having the same Knight or Horseman unit for every civ. Besides these slightly tweaked units there are a lot of very unique ones. I think playing more might allow you to feel the more subtle differences.
I don’t think Mangudai is useless. An acquaintance of mine just reached Conqueror playing Mangudai Keshik every game. I think people are too fixated on pro players when it comes to this. Horse Archer is being used by a top 50 Conq with great success, and I think I’ve seen Demu use it several times. It scales incredibly well. Making it even stronger would completely skew balance in its favor. Corvinus, a top 5 player on ladder, put Elephants in A and S tier in his tier list. But anyway that’s besides the point.
I agree about the Springald. I really wish they removed it from the game and make Mangonels very hard to mass to compensate. I enjoy fights with 1-2 Mangonels and no Springalds the most.
Real-time strategy means you have to make decisions in real-time, not that having better reflexes should be rewarded.
Although reflexes (how fast and how accurate you can click) play a big role when you micro control your units, one of course has to make strategical decisions before clicking. It’s kind of weird how often what you have just said gets repeated again and again without obviously having spent a single thought on this matter.
Micro: Many strategical decisions of lower complexity
Macro: Less strategical decisions of higher complexity
I would never want a smarter player to lose to someone with better reflexes that’s simply worse at decision making or smart plays.
I assume you don’t like to micro your units and your probably also not good at it? This reminds me of university where for some students the subject they were studying obviously had to be the hardest one. By no means would it have been a possibility that they had certain weaknesses that would have been stressed in other subjects. They clearly studied the hardest subject as they clearly also were the brightest minds of them all. They definately weren’t wrong and definately were not tricked by their own brains.
And just to make it clear: I have tons of things to critizise for pretty much all competitive RTS but I can’t stand how micro is being reduced to how fast someones reflexes are. It’s simply just one aspect of micro. You could as well criticise the macro decision making on AoE4 since it heavily favours defensive strategical decisions over offensive ones. If you decide to drag the game out by 5-10 minutes, by building defensive structures, would you consider that complex strategic decision making? Would you consider it complex strategic decision maing to press the “garrison/ungarrison villagers” buttons?
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I enjoy tactical decisions, I don’t enjoy decisions made during fights. I don’t care much about personal attacks, which is a very low form of arguing. We’re not talking about me and you here. I could argue you are very bad at managing your economy, but where would that take us? Besides that you made some very weak points. Micro during fights has nothing to do with strategical decisions. If you think it does, please elaborate because I don’t see it.
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I enjoy tactical decisions, I don’t enjoy decisions made during fights.
So basically you want to amove your army into your opponent and the only decision making you want to do is wether you commit or draw back from the fight. Correct me if im wrong.
What is your definition of tactical decisions? Is respositioning your units during fights, preparing ambushes or deceptions during fights, using units in a proper way during fights in order to stress their strengthes and weaknesses all only based on how fast ones reflexes are?
You haven’t elaborated on your points, yet you keep pushing the talk towards me. I don’t think you are able to remove the person you’re talking to from a conversation. I think we’re done here.
This is the only question you asked in your last post:
Micro during fights has nothing to do with strategical decisions. If you think it does, please elaborate because I don’t see it.
And this is my answer which also includes a question to you:
Is respositioning your units during fights, preparing ambushes or deceptions during fights, using units in a proper way during fights in order to stress their strengthes and weaknesses all only based on how fast ones reflexes are?
If micro during fights has nothing to do with strategic decision making what else is it based on then? Tactical decision making? Or is it only based on reflexes?
So here’s my take: Both micro and macro are based on strategical decision making. Wether you call it tactical or strategical makes no difference. The only difference is the amount and complexity of decisons that are being made, hence:
Micro: Bigger amount strategical decisions of lower complexity with less time given
Macro: Smaller amount strategical decisions of higher complexity with more time given
And now you can write down your thoughts and elaborate where you agree or disagree with.
But you can already do all the things you listed. The discussion was about going above that, as in for the players that have already reached the current ceiling for micro, allowing them to win via being faster and more precise than their opponents. And there’s nothing strategic about that. Strategic is how it’s now, because you can’t win by clicking faster than your opponents during fights.
As a casual player that’s nowhere near top level, what I don’t want in the game is having an opponent that does a simple build, and win by clicking faster and more precise than me when he attacks. That’s not a game I’d like to play, and I’m happy Beastyqt also enjoys the game as it is now. From my perspective it’s as a strategy game should be. You win by outmaneuvering, not by how you micro each fight.
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