Casual friendly doesn’t mean it will be like dow3. It’s going to teach you how to play and strategies. Like AoE2 de has it already.
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i hope so.they said art of war missions will be in aoe4.i hope they meant art of war.
i don’t want a game with less units,less tactics,less buildings game,i don’t want a “kid” game
at least they didn’t reduce resource number.it is still 4(gold,wood,stone,food)
aoe3 made a mistake with reduce resource number to 3.
another problem,modern rts games don’t want you to play defensive,don’t want you to build a base
it is red alert2 allied buildings:
and red aler3 allied buildings
RA2 11 Normal Buildings + 8 Defensive Buildings = 19 Buildings
RA3 7 Normal Buildings + 5 Defensive Buildings = 12 Buildings
Why we are going to Casual?Souls-Like games are so popular now.Gamers isn’t a kid can’t understand aoe2.Many of my friends tried aoe2 and none of them said “it is so complex,i can’t understand”
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we saw men on walls.i hope it will bring more strategies,tactics for game.it can bring variation for defensive play.
RA3 and AoE3 both had competitive gameplay and many tournaments. SC2 is the best RTS alive and has only 2 resources. RA3 -> less buildings but it has tech upgrade and unit abilities. Also it’s the only game uses air, land and sea together so effectively. In RA2 you don’t even use most of the buildings that are removed in RA3.
I played AoE2 when I was a kid and it was a very good game for many years. When you learn one civ, you can adapt to any civ easily because there are not much difference. AoE4 will have more diverse units, buildings, strategies.
For me old games like AoE2, RA2 and many others are fun because of nostalgia not because they are good for this time. But of course they are still better than DoW3 because it’s designed to pull moba players. I don’t like CoH eighter.
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That’s a good point. CoH1 only has one defensive building, so you need ot relly too much on units to defence, which makes counter attacking very hard due to lack of mobility.
CoH2 only makes defensive play possible with certain factions, and certain commanders - both of which are provided by DLCs and microtransactions. Without these, you may aswell just resign.
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Problem is what happened by Relic with DoW3, happened by other teams too. There is simply a breaking point for the game, if it is enforced to reach wide audience and be accessible.
Let’s take as example how Microsoft managed Battletoads, so imagine you have an IP like Ninja Turtles & Super Mario. While original challenging and cool games were very well membered, this is what Microsoft did turn it into 2019, because it has to be accessible and reach wide audience.
While no gamer in charge would allow such game to exist, they could have had at least hired better artist, but in a corporation you kind of have to do the plan no matter how awful and obvious bad it is, you just are doing your job.
definition by 2020 for games is
-be accessible: you are watering down as much game elements as possible, to a point where gameplay is removed from the game.
-reach wide audience: you are making a game for nobody and alienating during the process any kind of fan base franchise ever had
to make RTS accessible and reach wide audience:
-they nerf base build, but it is what makes those games fun in first place
-they nerf units, which makes them lame
-they nerf win options, which makes them repetitive
And that is why so many RTS games do flop, because there is at launch no actual game to play. While you are moving objects on screen, there is simply no game. As long publishers won’t realize it, I don’t think we can have another nice RTS again, as simply any kind of talent, know-how, experience and good ideas a developer can have, are simply destroyed during the process.
Let’s take a look at Relic:
Just look how interesting, creative, realistic and so immersive they can make games. Dynamic weather system did lead to such great authenticity, you literally started to care what is happening to your freezing units and tried to keep them warm. This hard and challenging environment, did create quite an intense and unique gameplay experience. Not to mention the other wonderful squad management mechanics and nice efficient units.
For their last game, they had to remove everything. Strip down completely any kind of Relic identity and make it as generic as possible. They had no choice, the publisher did demand it.
Problem is, Publisher must allow game to be good.
So is Age of Empires 4 allowed to be a good game?
And I have quite a lot of doubts if AoE4, can be such game,
if main concept is again “accessible and reach wide audience.”
For over 10 years, there has been simply no good base build RTS, we could rally behind.
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Don’t forget Starcraft 2
I’m pretty sure Microsoft is working with professional players like Viper. I don’t think gameplay will be simplified for wide audience. Instead it will have different civs that won’t be easy to master every civ like in AoE2. It seems there will be options for rush and turtle. There are man on the walls which will make turtling and expanding more effectively.
To reach wide audience:
-Game won’t have blood but it will be supported with mods. I would prefer a solution like SC2 which has black blood option or turning blood of would be okay too.
-Art of war will teach how to play like in AoE2. A fighting game called Killer Instinct has very clear guide that teaches you how to make combos or counter moves and defending. So Microsoft is experienced about reaching wide audience without taking complexity and core gameplay out.
Maybe they are making
Different game modes,
default mod,complex and classic aoe mod.for experts
And a casual mod,less tech less units less tactics so less complexity for new players.
To the PcGamesn interview
Age of Empires 4 will have game modes,another way to include series newcomers and veterans of the series.
Which team doesn’t claim to have the best experts ever to make a good game?
So where is it?
Teams like old Blizzard don’t exist any more, and just because some guys are good at play 20 year old games, doesn’t mean their council is going be valued, especially once handful of casuals start to complain to be bad at games and investors want to make unrealistic profits with bad concepts.
There are so many teams out there, but non of them seems to understand what the games market actually does want from a strategy game. Just check this 3 projects that tried to copy AoE like 0 A.D., Empires Apart, War Selection, this 3 games are for free by the way , would you green light any of them? 0 A.D. is made by dedicated AoE fans, Empires Apart has a big publisher specialized in Strategy games, War Selection is made by a fresh team. Still they fail vs a game that was made over 20 years ago.
0 A.D.
https://play0ad.com/
Empires Apart
https://store.steampowered.com/app/530630/Empires_Apart/
War Selection
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1022450/War_Selection/
Lets pick as example one gameplay element, like SC2 Terran Command Center can after update, upgrade for energy to increase population, by use Calldown: Extra Supplies on already build Supply Depot, to increase population by 8.
https://liquipedia.net/starcraft2/Calldown:_Extra_Supplies
Why don’t we see something like that in other RTS games? It’s a nice method to speed up base build make it more deep and complex, Starcraft2 has plenty of it, modern games do have non of it. Even worse, I think they do extra “due to casuals” dumb it down, furthermore make it slower. And that’s by a gameplay element, that decides very early for player if game is bad or good.
I understand people want desperately new game and game journalist write as nice as possible articles.
Issue is, games market does for quite a while complain that RTS gameplay did get so lame, they don’t want to play them anymore. But instead to listen to people who could play RTS games, all the attention is focused on casuals who don’t even care RTS genre does exist. Have a watered down game mode is not a good way to get newcomers into the genre. Have an outdated game mode is also not a good way to get veterans back on board.
In Short they make either game more simple or/and roll back to something old, we don’t see them try to make the games more deep and complex.
Microsoft as large company might simply not see what is needed for Age of Empires 4.
You just literally said that there is no size or type of company that has gotten RTS right recently, so what would make Microsoft specifically any worse? At least there is one publisher who is currently working on RTS games that people actually like and still play: yep, Microsoft. Making and maintaining the Age 2 DE, working on Age 3 DE and still patching the AoM DE (considering a DE for it as well, apparently), Microsoft is probably literally the best positioned company in the business to have any clue how to make a good RTS game. I’m going to wait and see what they can deliver, I’m not a fan of dumbed down games either and want a mechanically deep, engaging experience. But I’m not going to work from the assumption that there’s literally only one formula to deliver that, and if there is that sucks because that probably means RTS is a terrible dead genre. Let’s see what this actually looks like before calling it terrible.
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IMO, one thing a lot of people, including many developers, get wrong is what casual players want. Casual players don’t prefer simplified game mechanics. Casuals want a not-so-steep learning curve. For historical games like AoE, it means intuitive unit/building behaviors. Units are controllable like toys: they go wherever you want them to, they don’t slow down because of damage or flee due to fear; you can train archers in archery ranges, and train rams in siege workshops; villagers gather wood from trees, and fishing ships gather food from fish; trees disappear when chopped down, pikemen counter cavalries, and archers counter infantry. Everything works as naturally expected. The game has a relatively slow start, so you can slow down, take your time, and learn the game when you first jump in. You can turtle in your base and build all units and throw the death ball at your casual friend. You both enjoyed the game. Casual players don’t know much about different resource gathering rates, terrain bonus, build orders, can’t quick wall, can’t memorize all the civ bonus/unique units/costs, don’t lure boar/deer, can’t make proper unit composition, hardly ever use formations, but the game mechanics are still there for them to discover, instead of removed altogether.
All these game mechanics are essentially minigames inside the macro game. It’s exciting when a casual player discovers them one by one, and becomes a better and better player. It rewards a casual player for playing the game more, and people get a game that they still play years later.
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I agree with you. You could play aoe2 during childhood with only 5 villagers and spamming militia - you didn’t need 100% percent of the game mechanics to have fun, but slowly you would learn, even if during the campaigns.
The most recent RTS titles mentioned before seen to try to make you use 100% of it’s features right away - be it removing things that would bottleneck at 60% or 80% usage, or making the game hard without then.
I find CoH a good example of not having a steep learning curve. Of course, it’s not steep because there’s nothing to learn in the game, but has potential to keep the player engaged at least until he finish the campaign - the moment i realised the game was bs due to lack of features, btw.
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I still wonder why they all don’t see the obvious:
If a game is too simple and slow its boring to play.
Remove complexity from RTS is like remove fall and collision damage from Super Mario.
Sure if in Super Mario can not die from touching gumbas and fall under the ground, you create a more accessible game for casual, but who is supposed to play something so lame?
+1 thats why I do think the game needs a certain degree of complexity.
Problem is, if they again did miss adding enough complex and deep design till beta, its probably not going to be included later on. And result in usual next flop.
+1
Very good point
In AoE2 already a handful of worker units do provide quite good back up to play.
in modern games, even if you have maxed the base, it still lacks production capabilities of old games.
In AoE2 you can have 6 barracks and 4 stables to mass produce large armies, in modern game you already struggle top find for 1 Barack resources to get your unit.
Well I did play recently C&C Remastered, if I do look again at Grey Goo for example, so I don’t think the issue is rose-tinted glasses, older RTS are clearly superior to their modern day counterparts.
-You can out build your enemy
-You can out number your enemy
-You can out perform your enemy
there are quite a lot of moves, that aren’t possible in modern day game
-Grey Goo economy does stay pretty much the same, while in C&C you can build more harvesters to faster gather resources
-I have like 4 times more units in C&C
-the additional tier 2 and tier 3 units do heavily increase the variety
-air units are in C&C more relevant and can actually change the situation
-in old game you can with handful of units inflict a lot of damage even fatal blow
-I can capture enemy buildings and build Obelisk of Light “tier 2 tower” next to them
-I can blow up enemy base with my commando unit
-or simply outnumber massively my enemy with mammoth tanks
There are much more ways to influence the game. And right now that 25 year old soup, has more people on board than all AAA RTS combined from last 10 years.
Its quite obvious by pick up older games vs modern, that they are simply lacking mechanics to properly influence the gameplay. I think this ongoing narrative with “easy accessible games”, should really be re-valuated.
The game today is usually picked up by people, who kind of already know what an RTS is, the idea to make the game accessible for new comers, by making it duller for already existing audience, kind of tends to rather scary of people who would have had paid and played, than to bring in new customers.
That’s why I do think AoE4 should rather focus on adult people, who are used to play RTS games.
By RTS You can’t make there a good compromise to people who play game for first time and are supposed to beat people who have experience and skill. You merely make there the game lame, as they’re clearly going to loose anyway. Starcraft 2 success does show it very clearly, the game has to be more complex and intense.
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The key to a sucessfull RTS is being easy to pick up and hard to master. Some people underestimate the role of good campaigns and tutorials on this regard.
AOE2 and SC2 completely succeeded on this regard, though to be honest I was kinda dissappointed that quite a few campaign units in SC2 weren’t in SP skirmish mode.
But if a game is badly designed, that won’t help.
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 is a good example for it.
It had campaigns/tutorials, is an easy to pick up and hard to master.
Problem is it just missed the point what makes a game a strategy game.
As key factors I would rather describe the pace, feeling and feedback.
-The pace must give you the feeling game is under control.
-The pace must give you the feedback, that you do actually progress with the game.
Problem was simple, it did feel inferior vs Tiberium Wars.
-1- the combat pace was too fast, as you had to activate unit abilities and they had very little hit points, even by having in TW, 4 or 5 times larger army, it was still clear what is going on, its simply 40-100 units shooting at 40-100 units. Ra3 did feel awful already at 10vs10 units, as you had to select each separately to cast an ability.
-2- the production pace was too slow.
While in TW you would produce 2 tanks in same time, Ra3 had barely had funds for 1 tank.
It did lead to feeling that RA3 units are bad to control and game is boring. Sure SC2 also has a fast combat pace, but not each unit has casting abilities and it has quite fast production. Also SC2 units can use their abilities like teleportation simultaneously or can permanent change attack type, in RA3 you had to deal by each unit separately, did feel quite messed up.
EAs, E-sports ambition for RTS were just too sloppy executed.
It’s a big problem by the way, as Publishers request E-Sports, without to have a clue what make a game E-sports, we have seen each time RTS team to deliver instead very bad gameplays, by trying to mimic game mechanics they don’t understand.
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I thought they will understand their mistakes in ra3.but they don’t understand.they make tiberian twilight. a perfect rts game
Problem with C&C4 starts already at just simply start the game, you have merely 1 lame production mobile building and no means to win the game, except wait up timer.
We see same issues in Anthem and Mass Effect: Andromeda, and that just shooter games.
I mean how hard can it be, to notice that in a shooter a gun does not kill properly enemies?
Best quote was this, “while having hundreds of people working on, the project puts itself together, without to have even a single human being to influence what they actually are doing”.
They somehow don’t notice the product they put on the stores, is not going to be liked.
Problem is, modern games do forget to give the tools to actually play them.
To play a game you should have fun with it.