Microsoft Published a game without functional User Interface (...)

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
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If I was microsoft I would send an apologize to all players.
This game execution is really not working as it should and it is inferior to legacy.
You need 4 clicks to reach someone to wishper a chat message.
U can’t log messages to people that are offline. This is incredible
No Online status granted (independent from Steam)
No chance to search a playuer and add them, no it is like a “super privacy” prison: you need to actually have played someone to add someone (it’s MADNESS)…

I made a full list elswhere and there are also other priorities that shoudl be heard…

I revised as asked from moderation this post but seriously:

This UI is the worse ever thing I ever seen, no user friendly, no design was implemented, they tried with the Golden Yellow Contour but with the terrible Capitals letter, sort of “accessibility” themed idea, they made a very uninspired environment to click and Browse!
This is the word: browsing , the thing we are accustomed to since decades now since 1993.
There is no browsing, you want to hyperlink, no hyperlink: you open something it will close other things u were doing. U open profile it will close the matchmaking… It’s just extremely ridicolous. I am sorry but you need to fix these things, the game cannot be called a game before that.

Another of many many examples of lack of design that this game will make you “experience” … .more like suffer:
If you go for casual games you have no idea you are entering a TREATY game. There is no way to understand you are playing a 20 -10 30 40 minutes treaty game, you might see it from the lobby (if it was updated before you clicked) but if you go in the room you will not SEE CLEARLY WHERE IS WRITTEN that is a treaty game… so you might frustrate other people time finding out that you just joined a treaty game as you will leave immedaitely or as soon as u realize it and this will make people WASTE TIME!
This is horrible. Time is so precious!

There are tons of things that make players waste their time, patience and so on.

Making money with DLC with boosted civs in order to make them interesting to buy and constantly resetting the learning curve with obnoxious changes imposed on civs so that players can create new stuff and have a chance to change the tides of the game instead to accept and play and learn and build experience learning COMMON ROPES… and why? because they want to push further the LONGEVITY of the BUISINESS OF THIS SOFTWARE so by resetting a game you can achieve constant rebirth. But this is not ethical.

These practices should be BANISHED from game design and also European Consumer Center should be aware of this… and ban this Procedural lottery from gaming because this stuff wastes people time and is a time sink, it’s quite disturbing, the design of this game could be A MEGA SUCCESS if this game which in part is now running well, but still makes the pc get hot, it, yes, allows to play with people all over the world finally without disconnections, but it has several issues that should have a big team dedicated to remake it or overhaul piece by piece what doesn’t work.

I WOULD BE THE FIRST TO change my mind and tell everyone to buy if things were actually made respectful. I am not asking stuff that would damage the game but actually stuff that would make the experience functional, the clicks working first of all in the lobby!

Make people learn and keep their achievement, their knowledge, stop changing the game and make a gratuitous big DEFENITIVE EDITION worthy overhaul of t he UI and so on making the QoL at Windows 2023 microsoft levels… This AOE 3 DE stuff that should never go released without having polished and checked this stuff.

And journalist venues that voted this minimally 7 \ 10 or higher … nobody lower than that are just crazy. And it’s horrible that it’s always like this, it feels like we are under a cap where nothing can be criticized everything must be bought and consumed.

Hell no. We won’t be silent.

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Honestly bro while i appreciate that you introduced the prhase “sticky clicks” and “COMMON ROPE” into my vocabulary this whole rant is really hard to follow and not well organized. It comes off more like a street doomsday sayer than an invintation of discourse. I recomend either asking someone to help or maybe breaking down your rants by topic. Its just too emotional and disorganized and the words dont seem to be translating very well what I assume is critique of our devs.

You know, so we can have COMMON ROPE of discussion.

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I have tons of ideas, I won’t edit the OP now again, but more stuff for those interested not to rant like the user above there, not friendly at all, just fan-boying.

Stuff like watching ex post your own order of cards sent (shipments) with a little time marker so that one logically can understand what was sent (without hjaving to hold a record of the game)

Only with the game recording your will be able to see the order of the shipments other people did by going at end game to their card decks… otherwise this stays privately known only by the player at an end game screen (deck checking)

Time markers would allow to understand\ remind your what you sent first second third … up to 25 cards… just by reading the time marker written in little characters on the bottom of the card… or wherever (on the blackened cards of course, the one that have been sent).

There are tons of improvements that need to be done but it’s stuff that is given, it’s a must it’s not like strange game damaging stuff: like “New DLCs”.

I am a player since 1993 … even before I played games, but I mean AOE I I have musics, I played AOE II on msn gaming zone (competing for fun)…I have AOE 3 since 2006… or 2007… I mean … so much good stuff have been left out of this project ,… it’s quite shocking and it’s not just about adaptation.

There is stuff that cannot be underrated and left out. It’s basic tools to have a strong community that plays online and keeps the game going…

If u make a good game the base game will be bought from so many people.
Stop counting on DLC and damaging the balance… There are so many pro and not that are leaving the game…This is not natural because AOE 3 is a good game… or at least it was.

Please. Don’t use DLCs but base the revenue on the good quality of the base game which starts from the quality of the offer: UI, QoL, basic things of the game from the compendium (to see what are the people you can age up with … to be checked in the Home city screens … STRANGELY NOT AVAILABLE!!!) … up to stuff like I said games recording must be allowed at least to be rewinded.

And also stuff like an external video player that PLAYS any (back compatibility) older patches recordings so that those can be “resuscitated”.

It’s a huge loss of value and damage to the passion of players if you make older games’ recordings as they are today: INACCESSIBLE…

there are so many other things … and many things do not require INCREDIBLE work. it’s really easy to introduce these things with some work.

We listed many things here: but it’s 3 years people suggest the basic things that are clearly missing. Please listen to us or we will ahve to resort to heavy bad reviews all over the place and leaving also the game.

Sorry for the title. Take it as a catchy title, despite I really am serious on how bad it feels to have such an unpolished product\art design\ video game… one that I always have supported.I even bought a DLC but … I won’t support it anymore more than I did.

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Stuff like :

Online status (green \ red)

In game (which means online but busy)

Log of messages sent to offline players

Already these 3 things WOULD BOOST beyond limits the community system and people would find easy to start meeting and playing more and more. Do you care or u just care to sell a broken game (like a scam\trap)?

Secondly:

Make Player search possible: I search a name of a player and I want to find it in game not with third party stuff.

And then all the rest is explained.

Allow players to organize and decide in a room - RATED SUPREMACY games -(People will talk, and interaction is good) so people can agree on a game and who they wanna play it with.

People can go online on third parties or even on your in game Profile and see if someone has a good set of games on their shoulders so one is a trustable player or not.

Instead u make people get in matches that are extremely frustrating.

Like this comminitues ARE FORCED to narrow themselves into narrow minded clans of people and bullies and hierarchy starts to weight on human relations: people that wanna learn feel awkward and anyway the game if you are good punishes you by putting yuou with noobs often… often matchmaking balance is EXTREMELY unreliable.

Stuff like 2 good and a bad one but the 2 good are using Portugal! Ahahah like that is impossible to win especially if you have rush civs on the other side and the gmae is not balanced.

Stop listening to people that ask to change Civ: it’s all ok after all, but the game DOESN’t OFFER THE SERVICES it must offer. I just mentioned here 5-6 things… Those things would be game changer already.

It’s not IN THE GAME u need to put changes but THE DAMN BEFORE THE GAME!

(the story of “rated rooms for supremacy” lead to farming is just BS: if you have more than a game with the same player you have automatically 0 Points awarded).

you can introduce also a system that forces players to meet others not always the same player, like that farming is impossible anyway if one plays more than once it means that it will win half the points every time the same person is met.

Like this farming requires more than 1 account… it will mean these people will be found and reported and banned. And their money burns.

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How you would do that UX/UI designer?

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What to say?..
Thank you for existing Vividlyplain. really.

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They banned me on Steam Forums, on Twitter, and now they are starting to silence me here too … I uninstalled the game. I will not come back.
This is a shame and terrible end Microsoft and this title has come to.
I will never be suggesting a microsoft game anymore Bethesda or Blizzard.
What a terrible way to manage players with experience and actually good suggestions and passion, forcing down the throat a wanton violent downgrade…

Not game design anymore.

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I’m pretty sure the post that was flagged by the community and taken down was done so for being off topic when you already had 2-3 live topics about the same thing.

If it was just the one post that was taken down, I believe it was a complaint about the interface in a topic about game balance.

I believe the forum has a rule against hijacking threads with off topic posts.

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