Moving The Franchise Forward While Staying True to Its Roots

Yes, but the problem is that you can’t have that in RTS games at all, so you don’t need to balance the two worlds at all.
And also, the correct thing to say would be: “AoE3 had a progression system but it wasn’t complex at all to where players could just ignore it and still win against a player who does focus on it AND STILL FAILED”… Which goes to further prove the first point. Because, let’s be honest, AoE3 is pretty much dead for a long time and it never was near the level of AoE2.

If you want progression system then you need to play a game based on that, where the main idea of the game is to level up your avatar, like in Lineage 2, WoW, Guild Wars etc. Or play Clash of Clans, because thats the closest you can ever have a game which somehow resembles a strategy game with a progression system.

Whereas in a real strategy game, the main idea is obviously to strategically or tactically outsmart the opponents (apart from some needed APM), so any progression system just makes the very concept of these type of games pointless, and you are most probably interested in completely different game genres without realising.
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I would also like to point out the fact why forced progression systems are harmful for multiplayer competitive games, and having in mind that these usually go hand in hand with microtransactions sooner or later, why we (especially since the AOE community is quite mature and knows how good games used to be) should be so vocal about these kind things which brought the industry into the appalling state it is today which seems to be regarded as “the new normal” today. There are the very recent examples of Destiny 2, Middle-Earth, Star Wars Battlefront 2 which prove the exaggerated greed and illegal (crates/gambling) practices the big companies are coming up with. We need to make sure Microsoft doesn’t follow this route with AoE4, or else we will all be very disappointed.

Make no mistake, the success of an RTS game on a large scale is ultimately dictated by its success in multiplayer PVP, which is arguably even more important then mod support. A progression system will throw away all this by making it unfair and making the very concept of an RTS pointless as discussed earlier.
Not to mention that such a system also has the flaw of making the players that play more, hence already more experienced, even more powerful by also giving them better gear/stats, thus widening the gap even further. As if coming home from work and wanting to play a fair game for which you paid full price not possible because you didnt “unlock stuff” wasn’t enough. It makes no sense in competitive shooters, it makes absolutely 0 sense in RTS games.

Adding microtransactions as well to that, into an AAA fully priced title, is absolutely inadmissible and inexcusable, and you should take the responsibility of criticizing such practices immediately. That is where forced progression systems sooner or later lead to, don’t be fooled.

^ of course, when talking about that appalling state the gaming industry is today I’m referring to the incomplete products sold in DLCs, pre-order scams/luring, forced monetisation of already sold products, microtransactions/pay2win progression systems, gambling, useless skins, bad optimization, console streamlining the product, over simplification, QTE, lackluster overall quality and so on.
We need to make sure neither of these things are even remotely in the mind of MS/Relic for AOE4.
They are so overwhelming in a negative way that you could make an AAA game today listing the lack of all those features AS features, and simply win the market.

That’s all fine. I just want something in AoE4 to hook me and give me things to work towards. Letting me slowly unlock cool outfits for my units or little flags or decorations for my buildings would be enough for me. I like making my civs unique to me. I think it makes my opponents stand out, too.

I absolutely do not want gear that changes unit stats, of course.

@“Andy P” said:
That’s all fine. I just want something in AoE4 to hook me and give me things to work towards. Letting me slowly unlock cool outfits for my units or little flags or decorations for my buildings would be enough for me. I like making my civs unique to me. I think it makes my opponents stand out, too.

I absolutely do not want gear that changes unit stats, of course.

Agreed. No pay to win / grind to win. I’m fine with a cosmetic progression system - it could be fun to kit things out how you like.

Just don’t let it affect gameplay.

@MajorPectoralis said:

@IamDalv said:
No, the main flaw of AOE Online and main reason for its quick death was the fact it had a progression system. Add the cartoony graphics and you have a mobile game. It was a freemium model game with progression system. No matter how you tweak it, progression systems have no place in an RTS like AOE. They deserve all the criticism out there when coming with stuff like this.

Leveling up makes 2 types of players:
Those who like it:
It makes you want to stick to a game. If there’s no reward system for what you do in game, its easy to just see it as a very repetitive game that has no feeling of purpose. It gives that feeling of success and progress that many players need so that the game doesn’t just become a dull repetition.

Those who don’t:
They want a simple game to enjoy and not worry about the consequences of losing… if you lose, it just means you’re not as good as the other player and you practice and get better and that’s it. Simple, easy.

I believe AoE3 did a great job of balancing these while AoE2 was too 2nd type player and AoEo was too first type player…

AoE3 had a progression system but it wasn’t complex at all to where players could just ignore it and still win against a player who does focus on it.

There is > @“Andy P” said:

That’s all fine. I just want something in AoE4 to hook me and give me things to work towards. Letting me slowly unlock cool outfits for my units or little flags or decorations for my buildings would be enough for me. I like making my civs unique to me. I think it makes my opponents stand out, too.

I absolutely do not want gear that changes unit stats, of course.

Yes I was thinking of a leveling system that unlocks essentially just fluff: portraits, small cosmetic changes etc. The thing that will hook me almost exclusively however is if the multiplayer is fun and has enough depth in mechanics and strategic possibilities. The fluff is just a cool little bonus for me. A progression system that adds power or alternative units/techpaths would be horrible. I doubt that will happen anyway.

Legitimately, if I had to win 1000 pvp matches to give my favorite unit particularly dapper little hats, I would log in every single night until those things were ours. How proudly we would wear them around your cities. Have to play another 1000 matches just to make sure they see enough sunshine.

I will be happy as long as I have more civ variety this time. AOE 3 and online did a great job with it, and aoe iv must extend this!!

I also think some form of cosmetic items that can be gained after a certain amount games played or units summoned, or something similar would be a nice addition to game for those who are really hooked. As long as they are purely cosmetic and doesn’t increase any stats.

Optional objectives would be great and I think it would be great in a single player campaign to complete side missions/quests to gain a buff to a particular unit or building.

What I’d really like to see is something that most games don’t have, the ability to customise the HUD and elements of the UI. Now what I mean here is to be able to resize, move, add/delete and change the colour of elements within the HUD or UI. Being able to customise these slightly would allow players to create their own personalised ways to interact with the game. Some people like a lot of numbers and stats on their screens while in game, others prefer a simple cleaner look, and these options would be well received by many.

Keybinding and shortcuts are things which I feel also should be highly customisable. In many RTS games I’ve found the way which you move around the map a debate which many players have. A good example is in games where you use the mouse around the edges of the screen to move the map. Some people like it to move automatically when the cursor goes near, other times it’s annoying when you want to select a unit on the edge of the current display. I’ve heard players say they prefer holding down a button then moving the mouse to move the map more effective for their play styles, others like WASD. Movement speed also needs to be considered. I only gave one example, moving the current display around the map, and even that itself has a lot of potential for customisation that players may want in the game.

As people said before I also don’t want to see many little microtransactions and DLCs, which without them limit game play and progression. I can understand that some DLC may be released and as long as they are more of an addon for those who are really interested, rather than the next level of the campaign then I’m fine with it.

No, even skins still wont work in an AOE game, it would be quite childish to see a historic unit going around the map with a hat, mickey mouse ears or dressed as some clown with lipstick. What a ridiculous sight! It may work in other games because they are cartoony. AOE4 would become laughing stock and lose its reputation.
Whats this obsession with skins/cosmetics, we are not children anymore.

@IamDalv said:
No, even skins still wont work in an AOE game, it would be quite childish to see a historic unit going around the map with a hat, mickey mouse ears or dressed as some clown with lipstick. What a ridiculous sight! It may work in other games because they are cartoony. AOE4 would become laughing stock and lose its reputation.
Whats this obsession with skins/cosmetics, we are not children anymore.

Sorry I wasn’t talking about the skins as some of these guys are talking about. I also hate loot boxes, unlockable type of games. Because they are reminiscent of mobile games. I like AoeO but not its business model. I am saying that unit variations like it was in aom and aoe 3.

@IamDalv said:
No, even skins still wont work in an AOE game, it would be quite childish to see a historic unit going around the map with a hat, mickey mouse ears or dressed as some clown with lipstick. What a ridiculous sight! It may work in other games because they are cartoony. AOE4 would become laughing stock and lose its reputation.
Whats this obsession with skins/cosmetics, we are not children anymore.

Cosmetic changes do not need to be childish (mind blown) and can keep with a historic theme from their period. More importantly skins can not interfere with units appearance to the point they distract or camouflage. If they do I will be along side you saying how terrible they are. In an RTS with serious amounts of units care is needed with appearance changes, but that is up to the devs to make sure they get right. Even though I consider this fluff (and ultimately could not care too much if they are implemented) I have no problem with small cosmetic changes. This is also not a childish aspect. We are very much visual creatures, at all ages.

I like all your suggestions. I would like to add 2 and 4 player coop multiplayer missions and also 2 against 2 multiplayer coop missions with challenges, where of course every team needs to play it’s own role in regarding the challenge of the played mission. E.g. one has to play the defensive role and the other plays the attacker, this will be very entertaining with time restricted gameplay (you get races against the clock) and gives a lot new gameplay possibilities. Very useful too for balancing and measuring the player’s skill and level for the matchmaking in the competitive multiplayer parts of the game. Actually I’ve got so many more great ideas for the franchise. If you really want to make it bigger you got to put more money in it.

@IamDalv said:
No, even skins still wont work in an AOE game, it would be quite childish to see a historic unit going around the map with a hat, mickey mouse ears or dressed as some clown with lipstick. What a ridiculous sight! It may work in other games because they are cartoony. AOE4 would become laughing stock and lose its reputation.
Whats this obsession with skins/cosmetics, we are not children anymore.

What hyper serious war simulation franchise do you think you are playing? The rest of us are playing Age of Empires. Wololo. Look out for that racecar.

We can both have fun, stay loose, and play around with history. Or maybe you think there were no dapper little hats in all of history?

Apart from AOEO and maybe AOM which are caricatured, all games in the series have a mature art direction and I seriously could not see things like hats without rendering the game ridiculous. Things like wololo or the racecar are little funny details, but the overall theme of the game is mature, with a positive mood but mature, it is by no means a caricature art direction.
And considering this is a game where the camera is far from the details, the cosmetics would need to be significant in order to be visible. So you cant just apply a small detail on the weapon of a unit like you would have in a first person shooter, you would need to transform the entire unit therefore making a significant change. In an RTS an extremely important requisite is being able to easily recognise the units, so a particular unit from a particular civ needs to always look the same no matter what player controls it.

Every single game is caricatured. I’m really not sure we are playing the same games. Units are gigantic relative to buildings. Weapons are gigantic relative to units.

We can have unique cosmetic stuff that is all things awesome, relaxed, and totally appropriate.

Regardless,AoEO even had an option in settings to hide vanity from the uppity grouches. Fear not.

No, caricaturization in games is when units have irregular sizes compared to themselves (e.g. Head too big compared to body), buildings have irregular sized when compared t themselves (e.g. Top of building bigger and bending like a ballon as in AOEO or Zeus Master of Olympus). Weapons are not disproportionate in relation to the units in AOE apart from some siege weapons.
What you are talking about is sacrificing realism for better gameplay, thats something else.

OK, well units can still have unique wearable items without bending the art style.

Along with the 2v2/ranked stuff, why not also include clans/teams/(insert group term here)?

+1 to clans its such an important feature that devs overlook nowadays. Gives a huge boost to the activity

@IamDalv said:
No, caricaturization in games is when units have irregular sizes compared to themselves (e.g. Head too big compared to body), buildings have irregular sized when compared t themselves (e.g. Top of building bigger and bending like a ballon as in AOEO or Zeus Master of Olympus). Weapons are not disproportionate in relation to the units in AOE apart from some siege weapons.
What you are talking about is sacrificing realism for better gameplay, thats something else.

LOL @“Andy P” How the heck this post got flagged? Are people just going to get flag for having different opinions now? Can we not just have a freedom to discuss without being questioned via private messages (he knows who he/she is) or flagged by an individual (he knows who he/she is)? I thought aoe community is full of grown ups. Therefore I joined it. Even AOE online community over at ESO wasn’t this broken.