Well its fine that you don’t like it but please, I prefer this than some realistic style that will look dated in a few years. I don’t think its as unitary dislike.
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So far it seems that AoE3DE has better graphical appeal.
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It’s not the art style that’s throwing me off its the scale. War elephants were almost half the height of a castle, villagers and infantry almost matched the height of houses. If the dev team just scaled down the size of units relative to buildings to AoE2 levels and tightened up how close units were standing in a formation it would go a long way to improving the visual style of the game and lessen the complaints of cartoonishness.
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true but that kind of stuff cannot be changed now sadly 
Yeah the units look very cartoonish, while the rest of the game looks great - buildings, landscape, and trees. This cartoonish approach to units is exactly what Relic did with Dawn of War 3 and that game was a massive flop because things like that turned off all the hardcore 40k fans. They certainly won’t change it between now and release, doesn’t matter how much everyone complains about it.
I think they do need to tone down the entire colour scheme, which is much more plausible than fixing the cartoon graphics. We are talking about medieval times where people washed once a week, walking on dirt pathways majority of the time, and the units are meant to be battling non-stop - so not sure how the art team got to the sunny spring coloured palette.
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Just done watching the fan preview now, all i was thinking was damn this look like “Clash of Clans 2” or what the mobile game is called, i was expecting something new and good, not cartoonish characters, both AOE2/AOE3 DE look way more appealing … its sad to say.
I hope all the negative feedback on graphics wont make trouble for the making of the game, but as you said, you want to hear what people think and want…
So take notes, buildings/nature are looking very good, units and such looks bad.
After all this is my opinion.
I was expecting it to have better graphics more towards Total War style, you can see soldiers “duel” people pushing siege rams, realistic look on weapons and arrows. Also the style with this golden ghost people putting up trebs and buildings, wth…
Overall im disapointed, but excited for AoE3DE updates. Will be fun to try.
Take care, wont be preordering AOE4 before they make it better, all this bad graphics and childish/lazy art is a really bad excuse for bad work. I know relic can do sooooo much better, after being a long time fan at CoH series.
But no hate, just feedback, its importent
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Ok, now with this Fan Preview, I can confidently say that the unit art-style seems so out of place it’s baffling.
When you look at the building and enviroment graphics it looks awesome. And then you look at the units and they are WAY too stylized, to the point you’re almost looking at other game, a mobile game.
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I’m more concerned about the animations, especially of archers etc, they feel so off, Age 2 DE has way better animations for archers and so on? Hopefully just an “alpha build” thing.
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Not a fan of the scale and look of the units. It gave off a very cartoonish look which i personally don’t like. The environment and buildings looked decent though. Arrows are the size of ballista’s and the lack of blood and bright colours takes away from the medieval setting, which is better suited to colonial era where armies wore bright coloured uniforms.
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Man it looks like it was made by some kind of indie studio.
Melee Attacks to have some kind of flash-laser-spark-flame sword effects
How ? It looks atrocious. Ok we did now there will be no blood, still there are other way to show a unit was hit, like make him dirty. And the arrow animation is just wow, extra large arrows in slow motion.
I hope it was some kind of April fools’ joke or something.
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Unit scale way too big compared to buildings, units too cartoonish or colorful, low poly units, bad horse running animations, arrows don’t cast light/shadows and don’t blend well with scenery, arrow size too big, arrows goes too fast and complete absence of velocity (same speed from start to finish), arrows disappear too quickly and doesn’t penetrate units, no blood, fire animation with low frames/refresh rate, fire effect looks bad, fire icon on buildings not needed (I hope we can toggle it on/off), group of units changing direction in a squary way, gold civilian ghosts constructing buildings… what is that? Bad design choice, please remove that… this doesn’t look realistic! I haven’t seen separate builded towers appart them tied to the walls.
I’m honestly very disappointed… Sorry for being harsh but this is the truth. It looks like a mobile game or a kickstarter project made by a small indie dev studio. Guess I will have to stay to AOE2 for another 10 years… I was disappointed in AOE3 when it was released, and now the same history is repeating again ;(
Rest is not bad especially the diversity in look between the different empires and unit/building designs.
Please make sure AI build an army before attacking… not like in AOE2 where they keep sending single units. AI need a huge overhaul.
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I love almost everything I’ve seen in the preview. The landscapes and buildings look dope, the sound seems to be pretty amazingly worked, the playability looks accurately attractive, and the civilizations we have seen so far look really great.
But I have to agree on the units scale and animations thing. They look awkward at best, with a size clearly out of place and some oddities like sparks when clashing in melee combat, the strange animations in archers and crossbowmen, or the handdrawn-like shot arrow effects.
I’m pretty sure the game overall is going to be a blast, and I will buy it 100% sure, but honestly I think they should lightly rework the units size and some animations (not all of them, even I’ve seen some chinese units attacking with a really awesome animation, and that’s cool). Reworking that a bit would make it a total 10/10 impression, but anyways I love what I’ve seen overall.
10 Likes
AI definitely does not send units 1 by 1 lol
Totally agree!
Hope the devs see your comment.
Yeah but they keeps sending small groups that are killed within seconds… it’s like complete suicide when they are outnumbered. When this happens, they should build a substancial army that can challenge yours and attack.
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The game is being released THIS YEAR. The BETA is going to ALSO be released. At this point, since the graphics, are somewhat similar to the preview 1 year ago. These graphics will probably remain. The only thing that remains, is whether the “previews”, DID NOT accurately portray the graphics, and that the graphics, in fact, LOOK BETTER while playing, than in the preview. 
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HEY!!! I TAKE OFFENSE TO THAT STATEMENT!!! HOW DARRREEEEE YOU COMPARE THIS GAME TO CLASH OF CLANS!!! CLASH OF CLASS IS WAYYYYYYY BETTER!!!
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Those chinese horsemen are using fire lances, as Spirit of the Law said in his last video:
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You’re just dismissing opinions just because you don’t agree with them? Wow…
I guess we’re lucky that you like the game, otherwise it would be a big shame
i think its so good, love it
1 Like