Outrageously Gorgeous.
the trailer then, although animated, absurd, the goddess at the end looked like an angel from the bible.
Titan Quest II is an RPG, and Spellforce III is a blend that according to the user reviews (which are solidly lower than AoE IVās in general) looks good, nails the hero part, but the strategy is lacking.
Form is a part of function in video games. You donāt just slap a billion polygons on and call it a day. The technical quality of the resulting ingame assets is the result of a thousand different decisions, but a big one is āwhat genre is itā. Itās like comparing AoE IV to CoD or Battlefield.
I get why folks want better graphics. But thereās such a thing as unrealistic standards. I want the devs to continue to improve how IV looks. But āi want it to look like a fantasy RPGā is just making an impossible demand. Itās an RTS.
Spellforce3 Is quite similar to Age of Empires. There also tournments for this also.
3 Likes
At this point I dunno weāll see more Graphic improvements because those are the textures. I donāt believe Relic will have resources to redone the most of models.
This is the final state.
7 Likes
aoe3 did better on its time and was the reason why some got a hooked with the comparison from aoe 2 pixels to 3d ones. aoe 4 neede one style that dont suck on multiple units and dont force units to looks toyish. it failed on both.
3 Likes
Itās similar because it has tournaments?
I donāt own Spellforce III. But looking at the user reviews, itās not famed for being a classical RTS. And the positive reviews are less than AoE IVās by percentage.
If you consider that successful market research, I donāt know what to tell you.
I have nothing against Spellforce III or its devs. Iām here, saying that your suggestion to make an AoE game look like an RPG (Titan Quest II) is completely unrealistic.
You can dislike AoE IV as much as you want. It still doesnāt make āAoE should look like Titan Quest IIā a sensible suggestion.
also you dont have to make player to waite extra time to get an porpotion enough to be legible and rip off 60 bucks for the ones who bought at 60 and the ones who did at 40 because the price of it wasnt worth it for the game features.
2 Likes
Nobodyās making anyone wait for anything. Iām definitely not.
I am of this opinion, by now the game needs to expand the community, in order to be continued, if you make it free like aoe 3 the community increases and so does the development interest, negatizing it and not playing it creates a ripple effect, which leads to new players not playing it and old ones leaving it, in that you reduce the community and so does the investment interest in developing it, to get out of this vicious circle you need a big change like the one I mentioned above, to revive the interest in sharing and increase the audience.
Eh, the problem is that the developers are handling us like dogpoop and only interact with a ten foot long stick.
How is a community really meant to take place if there seemingly isnāt any excitement from their part? And I mean excitement, and not that obvious fake attitude they present when talking about their games (like CoH3).
Youtubers can only do so much. And it is pretty telling that when those guys start leaving, that there is suddenly a lot less discussion around the game as well.
7 Likes
While I completely agree that more communication needs to happen from the devs across the board, how do we measure ārealā vs. āfakeā excitement?
Developers, generalising a tad (but I am one, so itās kinda okay haha), are not what Iād call camera-friendly. Especially out of the box. Itās not our role, not what weāre trained for at all. Being on a stream or the like is inherently a performance, and this doesnāt have to be a bad thing. It takes practise, work.
(which is another reason why they should do more outreach, but thatās an aside)
Is your issue just them saying somethingās good when itās not? If so, thatās another can of worms imo, because on top of communication, you want them to be saying the things you want to hear (vs. things you donāt, that maybe other players do). Presumably.
Like, I bang on about mod tools, and theyād get me excited. But would they get others excited? Assuming the capabilities are increased, and that otherwise they mostly remain as-designed. I donāt think so. I think itād be factually good for the game, but I donāt see a ton of excitement around that kind of news. And if players arenāt excited, dev enthusiasm is going to seem fake whether it is or not.
Random question: are you on the CoH 3 Discord?
No, i mean that tournments show that RTS Is the main soul of SF3.
The are less users because itās not famous as AOE. Spellforce3 had Two big DLC and the last One was very well reviewed (86-90%)
The same quality graphic of Spellforce3 could be more realistic to you? Because the developers are the same.
What i would to say is that development resources are important of course but the developers skills the most. Relic Is a good team but we have to admit that theya are not the same since Dow3 launch and the recent layoffs are a bad presage.
I would suggest to you to buy Spellforce3 on steam: prices are really low.
Iām pretty sure you will like it.
2 Likes
Are the user reviews lying now? Is there a reason itās only at 76% or so? I remember everyone criticising IV for not reaching 90%, saying it was indicative of the quality of the game.
Do user reviews matter, or do they not? There are even reviews that give the game a thumbs-up, but criticise the RTS side of things.
Thereās no point having a discussion if the goalposts keep getting paraded around the pitch.
The thing about percentages is āless usersā doesnāt actually matter. 75% of any number is still less than 85% of any number.
No, Iām trying to explain that a game that is primarily an RPG (which Spellforce III also is, despite having strategic elements, those strategic elements seem pretty shallow - the main draw is how good the developers are at the RPG experience, and they seem very good at it), means itās unrealistic to expect that technical quality to translate to a proper RTS.
And if you truly want AoE IV, or a future game, to be better, we need better lessons than āmake it prettierā. They made it prettier in S5. People still wanted new civs, people still wanted new campaigns. This is what I mean by āmarket researchā. Actually investigate what the players want.
I might do. But my backlog of games is huge, to the extent I really donāt buy many / any games at the moment. When Iām on the computer at the moment, itās AoE IV or Guardians of the Galaxy. Unless itās too hot (weāve had some bizarre temperatures in the UK this year), in which case I go back to Dawn of War II or even SWBF2 (classic).
1 Like
Itās almost two years since AoEIV launched and it has received a minor but important update on its textures in the graphical department, but can we already move on from all the āgraphics sucksā topic already?
It is what it is, its fine if you donāt like AoEIV how it looks or how it plays or both but there is no need to beat a dead horse. I think most of the same people thats been here on the forums since day one, hating on AoEIV have made it crystal clear about your feelings towards this game.
If you are so eager for whenever they announce a AoE5 be my guest, Iām sure all of us will be excited for when that time comes, but itās not today. Can we please focus on more important parts, how to improve AoEIV to make it even better game than what it is today?
That should be the main priority, or otherwise what are you all doing on this forum whining & talking about something that wonāt get changed, and have been talked to death at this point? Itās time to move on!
Also, if any developer read this PLEASE announce a roadmap already for AoEIV! We want to know what will happen to this game for the near future, and right now we mostly want to get a confirmation that AoEIV will continue to get the support & love that was initially intended. Thank you!
3 Likes
Except, one of the main ways that they should focus on improving the game should putting in actual effort in the graphical department. I call tell from experience much of the environmental decisions were amateurish and rushed. Theyāve also made multiple stubborn mistakes in production by ignoring key features of AoE, such as varied fauna, varied trees from the correct environment, expressive biomes that feel authentic, water that isnāt a downgrade from AoE3 released in 2005, grass/foliage that isnāt pixelated, better proportions on production buildings, metal that shines realistically and weapons that arenāt just white looking like toys, siege crews that unpack and pack siege units, different stylized cariages for siege units, footprints, biome effects like snow, sand or even birds flying by, colour temperature on their environments (so cold environments feel cold and warm ones feel warm) and a big one; varied animations. Most humanoids use the same set of animations for walking and interacting, broken down into archers/spearmen/MAA when attacking only. This makes them look and feel the same despite being different. The same issue troubles horse units, and combined, these makes almost all units in the game. In contrast, past iterations would present units in individual idle poses and different walking and attack animations. Not all of them of course, but AoE4 overrelied on reusing these animations.
And that is just graphics. There is more to say but as far as problems goes, the game has many more issues than just that. Music is generic, feeling like hollywood background music and having no personality besides āgeneric mongol musicā for example. I couldnāt hum you a single song besides the launch theme (because it destroys your ears). Contrast that to AoE2 and it is ridiculous.
Campaigns are a complete waste of time and resources and whoever even acknowledged the creation of them in that style are a complete corporate parasite that well knew how efficient it was to produce and cared not how absolutely bad it would be as a product.
Few civilizations that each lacked personality to warrant the release of only 8 civilizations. People keep touting the horn of AoE4 being more asymmetrical; I disagree. While on paper it makes no sense that AoE2 is more asymmetrical, it still feels more asymmetricalālikely due to the focus in AoE4 being economy and randy techs instead of given bonuses. Either way, 2 years later and developers have no idea what to do with it still.
UI design being the worst thing I have seen to come out from such a big name project in the last decade. It is just awful, awful and awful. You canāt have the entire UI rely on golden borders alone.
The only thing I can straight up praise the game on is sound design. That and maybe the models for most buildings. The rest of it feels like they released 2-4 years too early, and graphics is a large part of what was left unbaked. So until they get off their ass and work on what this franchise deserves, there will be constant complaints on these forums, by the likes of me and others who too understand the shitsandwich that was served.
8 Likes
Oh, and how could I even forget. Better lighting. Imagine having a 3D engine and actually not using it. Well, you donāt have to imagine, that is basically how Relic has been treating more than half of the advantages that AoE4 has being a 3D experience.
Absurd. That is what AoE4 is. No one will know why everything went bad because the developers will not say. But, years from now, we will know. How much actually went wrong during development, because from where we stand right now, it just does not make sense how they seemingly made so many mistakes in creating this.
3 Likes
It looks spectacular, I played Titan Quest 1 for a few hours when it was released for free on Steamā¦ I think Retold can see something similarā¦
Yes, I think the sameā¦ maybe if they put a trial mode on AoE 4, maybe AoE 4 will pick up a bit more and stabilize at 15k players like AoE 3ā¦
Yes, I agree with everythingā¦ I donāt care about the graphics, but if they improve all that you say, I wouldnāt complain and it would improve the game a lotā¦ I directly left AoE 4 months ago, waiting for Iāll see if I announce something for Gamescom, but if Iām not convinced I wonāt come back, Iāll see what the seasons show from time to time, but I wonāt play it anymoreā¦
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BG3 is also incredible.
Only the turn-based combat is a little bit slow for me.
But I love the details, crystal clear graphics, almost everything is interactable and useful.
This game also looks promising.
Relicās engine is too old for modern gaming.
We need a more suitable company to take care of AOE franchise.
LOL
It is just you think it is impossible to have such incredible graphics.
Just because you cant do anything that is a high standard, stop saying āUnrealistic standardsā.
Every big company criticized BG3 recently, and one of them was Blizzard; their recent Overwatch is performing worse and that makes their point useless. Just like that, your point is just yours and is restricted by your imagination and skills.
Impossible?
Nah you are just lazy!
It is sad to hear this āImpossibleā word from a community council memberā¦
5 Likes
They made it tiny prettier. Not enough prettier.
When updates come and new things are introduced it is always not enough for AOEIV.
Do you know why? Because the game must have had all the things they are introducing to us during the release. This is how horrible the release was. And it is just a horrible mess now. AOEIV is lackluster and this is why people will complain to make this game better as it never satisfied the players in a lot of aspects of the game.
They improve graphics, but the improvement was not enough because building textures and unit textures are still blurry in many areas, they add new technologies, and it was supposed to be in the game during the launch as most techs are all the sameā¦ Relic is just too slow. They gotta put more resources into the game and improve the performance and effectiveness of their development. Everything they deliver is a half baked, raw foodā¦
And yet, you still praise them, and you never take any criticism, and that is horrible news for us.
A council member is pushing only what he thinks is good (BIASED)ā¦ Ignoring the majority of the players.
I think Worldās Edge needs to improve council member standards and need to have voting in place.
So that low-quality and biased members will be removed from it by the players.
And that will create a council where players sit and represent other players to deliver what most want.
3 Likes