Need More "Something"

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
1

Man the game is missing some shabang, and this is just gonna be some general thoughts →

need more civs. like now, should be first priority. 8 civs is just not enough because they’re all too generic. why didnt u include vikings turning into early sweden lategame? age 1 dark age viking rush would’ve been epic. why no spanish ??? it’s one of the most prominent medieval civs with rich history?? why not just something like “Iberian civ” bc its multi cultural and then u can go Andalusian or spanish or portuguese as u age u choose?? HRE is great, but what about polish-lithuania?? the civs, they’re played differently, yes, but they don’t feel that unique. they all share the same units even if they look different, what i mean is–>

Not enough unit bonus variations/tech variations. if i play mongol full light cav vs say HRE full light cav, it’s literally the same thing. maybe i have a different eco, but the units is the same, a light horsemen is a light horsemen. mongols get the bit extra HP from the stone tech but not enough to justify "oh this civ is completely different: —> why not adding unique abilities??

spearmen bracing and knight charge are fantastic abilities, as are the longbows pikes, but thats what u need to add of more! im not saying turn this into league, but unit smashing where units are EXACTLY the same, is beyond boring.

“Age of mythology only had 9 civs on release” → k, but lets look at aom units:

Greek
-infantry – hoppolite, hypastist
-archer-- toxote, peltast
-cav – hippiikon, pret-something cant recall

Eggy
-inf-axemen,spearman,1 more
-archer-slinger,cav charrior archer
cav-cammel, war ele

norse
-ulfsark, huscarl, axemen
-archer-none, ballista(used this way at least)
-cav – raider, jarl,

and EACH unit from the 3 different culture groups, felt unique. so while say if ur greek vs greek ok it feels the same, even if ur one God worshiper and the other greek worships another god, the moment u encounter a norse, or egyptian, bam ur facing an entire new world.

not to mention aom didnt just have the infantry → cav → archer counters, they also had the
myth unit → soldiers → heroes → myth units counter, like counters inside counters it was beyond unique. Plus the different abilites that myth units and/or heroes brought, no civ felt the same. NONE.

Right now, i can’t feel any major difference when playing france, hre, or england. they’ve almost the same eco, even if aquired differently, sure, but the units are identical. some are aquired sooner in age, but thats it. and some have maybe better stats. it doesn’t feel like, omg wow. maybe longbows, perhaps thats the only one.

additionally, and hopefully someone will interpret cause idk how to really explain it, but civs feel like they’re either forced to be played one way, and/or sometimes they dont have enough flexibility.

additionally, the units responsiveness feels clunky. ik they used their own engine for this game, but i would’ve preferred even if the game were more cartoonish but polished, it’s hard to explain but unit responsiveness is clunky compared to aoe3 /aom.

lastly, why is the game so dark?? like brighten it up i feel im playing at sunset every time on even map, please put the light like right at center 12 noon. specially on those “reddish” dessert terrain map, i feel im looking at planet mars.

and lastly, retouching the civs not being unique, upon aging, some buildings give u either a specific tech, buff, but none give u a bit of each. make it so! going a certain building should give u perhaps an entirely unique unit, and then really force u to choose, “man, idk!”

why not for england, that useless healing building thing make it a “norseman invasion building”, when u build it u get access to unique huscarl or something, representing wessex getting invaded, and then now THAT is a huge decision → do u get the good viking-anglo infantry, or get the instant longbow + archery. boom!

the french trade house that no one uses in land maps → why not a continuous buff to passive income or something, then ur eally have to choose man do i get the early knight or maybe hyper eco late game !?

what of the HRE, that uselss palace thing that no one goes cause the relic gameplay too stronk? how about, going that building grants unique idk polish winged hussar mercenaries, light cavalry that doesn’t get affected by spearman brace pog! like make the buildings /ageup really give players a headache when it comes to decision makiing, thats what makes it fun. right now it’s too straightforward and no distringuishment

stuff like that, would really make civs feel unique even while going against other same civs, bc the buildings /ageup completely change them.

atm i honestly i dont feel i can play as much aoe4 as i could aoe3/aom, or other rts D: and im a huge gamer nerd.

overall, i think aoe3/aom had more of a “culture” influence, either through techs/unique units that atm aoe4 doesnt have, but i think u could add it.

in aoe4english playing english feels like a complete mirror.
per comparison,
in aoe3, english facing english feels like facing a complete diffierent civ bc of the unique cards,
in aom, say Ra vs. Ra or zeus vs zeus feels like facing a complete different civ too because of the different paths aging up takes u to.

5 Likes
2

1 more thing, why on earth do bombards not do mass aoe damage.

late age 4, is considered late medieval → i usually love going pikes, arquebus/gunners, and bombards.

why on earth are they strictly anti building. they’re early cannons, which were definitely used against en masse groups of infantry. i’d prefer if they didnt 1 shot cav, but did spread aoe damage in a cone, as would a cannon ball in real life. it doesnt just stop, it keeps ricochetting

2 Likes
3

imagine how OP siege would be then everyone would only build bombards it’d be redic…

2 Likes
4

There’s a game called age of empires 3, which is surprisingly part of the series, where artillery have 100% accuracy, high attack and also splash damage, but nobody is spamming artillery even in the late game, because the devs took a “very convoluted” balancing procedure of giving them less hp and having more units counter them.

11 Likes
5

AoEIII even has cannonballs too, you can see them roll away after they make enemy units fly in every direction upon impact! And how can one forgot the artillery is actually manned! And horse drawn!

It’s almost like AoEIII is the newer game!

Does Relic not have a animation department?

8 Likes
6

I was initially thinking they just wanted to please the AoE2 fans. But as time goes on it feels like they didn’t manage to appease the fans of the previous Age games.

Sure, it’s not possible to please every Age fan. But when I first looked at the icons of the units in the thoroughly lacking UI, it felt like the life of AoE wasn’t there in this game.

Today I see a lot of people defending this game. And indeed, if all you are into is a Multiplayer RTS, this may be it - it’s easy to learn, and the counter system and units are simplified to death.

I’m not that kind of person. So this game doesn’t have anything for me anymore. I’ve played against the AI - it cannot put up a good fight. I’ve played on all maps - every element on the map has a gameplay purpose, where’s that group of turtles in the pond? Or vultures on a tree that have no purpose but to look pretty?

I’ve played all the campaigns - they are essentially just attack or defense missions with only a few interesting missions that do not involve traditional 1v1 gameplay. The documentaries are nice, but at the end of the day, limited and not as interesting as fictional reconstruction of historical events.

Every map just sheep and deer turning these things into “resources” that lack “joy” (for comparison AoE2 and AoE3 have map specific skins for resources… so instead of deer there’s elk, moose, serow etc.) In AoE4, they claim to have biomes, but these don’t change anything about how drab the maps look.

Again, I’m not complaining about gameplay and balance - there are others to do that. I’m speaking about the oversimplification of the look and feel of AoE4, that goes a long way into making this game feel dry and repetitive.

I’ve tried to be constructive before. But what I’m saying doesn’t seem to be what the creators of the game really want, so this is just a rant from an old Age fan, nothing more. I hope AoE5, if it ever happens builds on the existing Age games instead of going back 20 years and reinventing the wheel.

6 Likes
7

I respect your opinion, but disagree. The number of civs isn’t what holds me back from buying or playing :slight_smile: Probably wouldn’t even be in the Top 10 or 20 for me. AoE2 has made me numb to the “more civs” idea, haha

Those AoE3 animations were neat the first time I saw them, but quickly were a distraction. It adds a level of cartoony-ness that I don’t personally want or need in AoE4.

I feel it was probably just a design decision to not do animations like that, and I’m personally thankful for it

1 Like
8

I think the animations offer immersion.

It’s weird to see a cannon move across the map with nothing pulling or pushing it. In a game where buildings crumble realistically, ships sink realistically etc.

Have you seen how hilarious siege destruction looks. Destroyed siege vanish in a smoke cloud.

It would be best if they allowed the player to toggle these animations on or off. So that way both sides are happy.

4 Likes
9

I’m not bothered by those things.

I like that siege units are self-propelled :slight_smile: There’s a long thread about this very thing elsewhere, and it’s one of those tug-of-war topics where you’re mainly either for or against it.

I’m all for adding graphical polish (for things like better siege destruction or environmental detail/ beauty), as long as gameplay isn’t impacted or affected. Siege operators would detract from my experience, personally, even if they were somehow purely visual… which would be very unlikely

3 Likes
10

Honestly it’s just a preference. I don’t really even see the siege operators - they do their thing and don’t distract me at all.

So just add options for it.

11

Man even for the zooming option people on this forum can come up with a million reasons against it. Including but not limited to: they cannot do it without ruining performance/ it’s not of high priority/ people will always want more zoom level/ it’s not fair if people can zoom differently/ the game aesthetics is designed to be looked at in this particular zoom and it’s actually good for you but you do not know. Do you know how blasphemous such a proposal is?

4 Likes
12

AoEII pro players seem to enjoy it well enough.

I ask myself these 2 questions, “what does AoEIV bring to the table that the other games lack, and what does AoEIV do better than those games” I honestly don’t seen anything. Sure you can put units on walls, that’s kinda cool but rather niche.

Is the gameplay better? no, not for me. It was fairly obvious to me upon playing the game it is meant to attract new players to the rts sphere. In that case one could say the game has been a success at least initially. Has it been able to keep them? doesn’t look like it.
Are the maps interesting? not really. Rather lifeless.
Are the civs deep? no. On the surface they do but once you actually play the game…they’re just bland.
Are the unit models nice to look at? no. The oversized weapons are meant to help distinguish one type of unit from another instead of the units themselves being recognizable. Even in a blob you can still tell units apart in AoEIII, you can’t in AoEIV large weapons and all.
Are the age up mechanics robust? no.
Are the graphics and animations immersive? no.

And that’s not getting into basic features that are missing.

Everything about AoEIV screams lazy and uninspired to me. Relic are just hired guns and it shows. And to be honest, I have no faith in future iterations in this series should we get them. I have AoEIIIDE and that’s all I care about these days.

Despite my personal opinions on the game I do think it has contributed positively in some areas, namely introducing the AoE franchise to a wider audience that only a new game could do.

I care about the AoE franchise but I regret buying it despite having reservations about it that have only been come to pass. If I could get a refund I would.

AoEIV players will just have to learn to develop a thick skin like AoEIII players have.

6 Likes
13

Becoz this is a game. If you let one unit to do all things, you wont make variety of units. Everyone on this game would be Bombards Vs Bombards.

And when you are in a game, it is not reality. You make castles in few seconds. Hey, it takes months/years and tons of people to make a Castle. The game portrays to look real but it’s not real. It is just a game to make players have fun.

14

needs the other half of they game they left out on release.
that is all

2 Likes
15

I know the game needs work, but this is more a familiarity Vs clarity thing.

Aoe3 is just as bad or even worse than aoe4. You just know it better or seen it first so you’re biased.

Many many many reviewers have said aoe3 had clarity issues and was one of the reasons it wasn’t as successful as aoe2

I think most people were fooled by this. Tons of people thought the civs were deeper than they were because they looked so different to each other (I mean even Knights and lancers are still considered different units by some people)

And as people learned how similar the civs are and how similar each match plays out , we lost a lot of players.

I mean FFS they’re a tiny demographic, it doesn’t make them right. Devs definitely tried to make too many people happy just like they did with dow3. But not as extreme.

Devs tried to make the game historically accurate with the ugly weapons yet still forced in detracting gameplay aspects like unmanned UGLY siege. Nevermind that it’s unmanned, they’re boring and ugly in comparison to previous titles.

3 Likes
16

So we ended up with a game that is neither historically enticing like hearts of iron ( or similar popular historical titles) nor dynamic and fun to play albeit unrealistic like SC or Warhammer (or similar fantasy/sci- fi titles)

I’m beginning to think most of the remaining player base were players just desperate for an RTS title so they pushed on in aoe4.

And now since Warhammer 3 drops, they flood over to the next fad, since relic dragged their feet and did too little too late…

5 Likes
17

You hit the nail on the head with this one

2 Likes
18

There’s no statistical evidence of playercount dropping because of the release of TW3. I mean, it’s only been a day, but there’s been no massive drop in the past 24 hours, so.

I think the modding tools are what’s going to really help generate interest in the game long-term. Would AoE II have done anywhere near as well without the user-created content? I doubt it. Thankfully that’s what’s said to be coming in the first major update this year.

The thing about modding tools, assuming they’re complex enough, is that stuff like design, balance, whatever . . . these all stop being issues. Assuming there’s motivation to make changes, that’s all you need. The problem is if the motivation isn’t there. But I don’t feel like that’s the case. A lot of people are very invested in what they want to see changed - they’re going to get the ability to demonstrate it (fingers crossed).

19

AoE3 has it’s faults but of all my criticisms of the game I’ve never had any problem telling a skirmisher from a musketeer or a hussar from a dragoon no matter how big of a blob they’re in. This has only been enchanced with DE where the unit models are even more gorgeous.

Another problem with unit models in AoEIV is simply they have too much color and that heavily contributes to making them indistinguishable on the battlefield.

AoEIII wasn’t liked by AoEII players because it simply wasn’t AoE2 2.0 (I’ve been hearing this reasoning since 2005) Of course there are other legitimate reasons such s the fantasy based campaign or just not being as enthralled with the era it takes place in and I can see why the home city may seem daunting to people who just want to play a simple game. AoEIII requires time investment to appreciate it.

2 Likes
20

I think some of the fundamental disconnect between players upset with the game and fine with it lies somewhere in here

Some people are okay with the simplification, while other people are insulted by it

4 Likes