There is a new survey in Steam about Age of Empires IV. Folks, please take it.
The devs take into account our feedback and make the necessary changes (most of the time).
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Apparently the Survey is for all the games in the franchise in general (included AoE IV).
1.- La primera parte pregunta por gustos generales, y sobre que tan importantes son algunas cosas en el juego (Como un BotĂłn Pausa inexistente actualmente en AoE 4). Lo mejor a la mayorĂa es poner 5 a todo, excepto claro con algunas preguntas trampa psicolĂłgicas (“Juego el juego para escapar de la realidad porque tengo cáncer”), obviamente debes poner 1 (“No me trolees”).
2.- CAMPAIGNS PART.- In one part they ask about the cinematics of AoE2, if we like this narrative way for new campaigns (Like the Sultan Ascend of the New DLC), or if we prefer another ways to tell a story in the campaigns, like the:
- AoE2 Narrative Story
- Age of Mithology: Epic
- AoE3: Fictional+Epic
- AoE3 W.C. + AsianDynasties: Historical+Epic+3D
- AoE4 Documentals → (PLEASE, DON’T CHOOSE DOCUMENTAL)… or well, choose it if you like those.
- AoE4 DLC Sultan Ascend: Narrative Story
3.- VISUALS.- And the last part the aske if we like Realism or stylized surreal art for the units design. For a hystorical game of this franchise, OBVIOUSLY REALISM IS THE ONLY CHOICE.
Note: if you dont want that AoE IV become Roblox, "CHOOSE REALISM"
4.- WISHES.- The most useful part has to be the final one where they ask what is “The only thing you would change about a game of the franchise” and what are their ideas that could help improve the games as they are now,
Here I give some ideas to improve the weight of our desires in the last question. You can apport more ideas:
Age of Empires 2 DE:
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1.- Improve the direction of the units when walking/patting: Seriously, it’s become annoying that was great a few patches ago, and now units get lost when going straight to a point, they can’t even move in a straight line.
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2.- Siege Tower with a attack aggainst walls: You could make the AoE-II and AoE-IV Siege Towers acquire a “Minimum” siege attack against walls, it would increase their use and have a historical function that the towers always had: Break down walls. They would then be the cheap option for the battering ram but to knock down walls and cause panic on top of them at the same time. When Age of Mythology: Retold comes out and lots of Siege towers subtypes with siege attacks appear, people who play AoE2 and Aoe4 will wonder why theirs don’t do the same.
Age of Empires 3 DE:
- 1.- More events apart of the Monthly Hero.- We were waiting many months since the last year without more events that the monthly hero. Please, another temathic event would be appreciated, at least for a change.
Age of Empires 4:
Many suggestions for AoE IV:
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1.- More fauna, more types of animals per biome (Bears, lions, tigers, elephants, etc.).
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2.- For Japanese: Change the Ashigaru Handcannoner for Ashigaru Gunner / Ashigaru Arquebusier or whatever you want to call it, but have the blessed Japanese Tanegashima harquebus. If they do Japanese campaigning, it will be pretty obvious when they get to the Nobunaga or Hideyoshi part and have to do visuals, that the Japanese had harquebusiers, not handcannons.
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3.- Tercio Pikeman, Tercio Arquebusier for a Spanish Civ: If Spain become a civilization for AoE IV, please make them to have Tercio Pikemen in the IV age (as an improvement to the Spearman or as an extra unique unit), and Tercio Arquebusiers as a unique light infantry gunpowder range unit.
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4.- More unique units necessary for historic representation, specially with certains civs, as Ottomans that still didn’t have horse archers (at least AKINCI, please), but either would have Azap, Kapikulu and Deli.
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5.- Maybe a Militia unit or a light swordman for every civ, which would be a cheap melee dark age option aggainst spearmans, weak aggainst archers or even horseman.
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6.- Better Camera Mode: At least that let you zoom as the camera mode of AoE III DE, and that would be disponible in all modes, not only in a Mod.
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7.- Improve Editor options: Very limited at the moment, in fact there is not even a Custom Campaign mode, you can only upload mods with loose custom scenarios. Age of Empires II’s model for mods and custom campaigns is always going to be the best.
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8.- More Hystorical Short fact for Masteries: Or at least a section of “History”, which is available in AoE2, AoE3, AoM, but not in AoEIV. I understood that precisely the informative documentaries and extra information were the reward for completing the campaigns and master’s degrees: BUT since the Anniversaty edition, there has been a reduction in the Short Facts that you get for complete the masteries: From 15 of the original civs, the Ottomans and Malians get only 4, and in the DLC Sultans Ascend, Byzantines and Japaneses have ZERO, 0 short facts when you complete the masteries.
- 9.- Offer something for players who continue to increase levels indiscriminately until they reach 400 lv or 500 lv: It occurs to me that they could give 1 point of something per level, and that those points be used to unlock old taunts, flags or monuments of past events. In AoE3 there are metropolis improvements, and every week they offer a new avatar image.
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Just finished. I told them to listen to the players and have more/better communication with the customers.
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Did you happen to ask for more zoom out capability for cam, higher pop count max, and better UI?
No survey presents itself for me there. No matter, there’s an entire forum of comments, threads, suggestions, feedback, and bugs they could pull from here if they wanted. Why would everyone having to re-type stuff elsewhere help, I wonder?
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Because this is a survey apparently from Microsoft, not from Relic.
That’s why the Survery cite the Age of Empires II campaigns, it’s because they know that their campaigns of this game sell more than others (their last DLC was only of campaigns). While precisely, AoE IV was criticized a lot for this aspect of the campaigns, which were documentary and “not at all epic” which takes away the spirit of replayability. At least in HispanoAmerica Spanish language, the girl who plays the documentarian’s voice makes it so sweet that it’s fine, but I tried it in other languages, and no, it’s not good at all. On top of that, the company is about to release Age of Mythology retold, and if the remake of the campaign sucks, they won’t sell well, which is why criticism is important.
So if the big bosses (Microsoft) know that we ask for things, and the company in charge of the game (Relic) does not even take them into account, not even from the global survey, then actions will be taken. This is how companies work.
On the other hand, I was desperate to finish the survey (it took me about 3 hours), and in the last question where there were requests, only the main ones came to mind, and I forgot about other extras, like the customizable UI, or a best Editor. So, so that other people do not forget precisely these details, is my comment. In fact, I’m going to update it with those requests, thank you.
To be fair, aoe4 was (especially early on) marketed as an e-sports competitive RTS title.
It was their excuse for having extremely weird weapon- and projectileproportions at release, “better readability”.
Aoe4 was never meant as a campaign-game, it is focussing on multiplayer ranked.
Unfortunately, due to technical problems, poor pathing, super poor unit aggro priority (archers attacking buildings instead of units, knights “raiding” farms instead of killing villagers next to them and so on), many bugs, inbalance between the civs, poor water fights, not being able to reconnect and last but not least, MASSIVE amounts of hackers and basically no permabans, multi-accounts through steam sharing, Microsoft has failed the ranked multiplayer focus entirely.
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People should choose what they honestly prefer.
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But this forum is “© 2022 Microsoft. All Rights Reserved.” What a good place to gather feedback… your own website. No? They can read the forums just as easily as you or I, no?
The tough part would be aggregating the forum data to make pie charts and histograms, but the forum has, essentially, been a multi-year survey 
Pick a game, read through the threads.
And the forum is, arguably, more informative in a lot of cases, since many posts have screenshots, write-ups, direct responses, and discussions to give well-rounded opinions and context.
Actually, marketing focus on AoE 4, especially pre release was always on its campaigns. They showcased skirmish gameplay only very late down the road. They placed Genghis Khan and Joan of Arc on the artwork, two figues whose campaigns in AoE 2 are fan favourites.
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First time they spoke about the game in depth was 2019, and the focus was on the setting and campaign features. Reference: https://youtu.be/Wldt-DCsU2I?si=wM1gVnFEcdFF2x9q starts @1:00
Their primary focus has been on presenting a medieval period game since it gives them a great deal of stories to tell. To be honest, I see professional level play as a complete after thought. EGC and redbull aside, there’s next to no support for pro level play. The promise has always been historical rts that sacrifices realism to be a more readable playable game, and that’s about the player’s interaction with the game itself rather than a tournament audience. For goodness sake, the caster interface was given to them by fans because they hadn’t made something with spectators in mind. They didn’t design the replay system with rewinding, critical for competitive play.
Make sure to highlight the issues you have with the game in the survey though, there’s no better time for it.
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Indeed, everyone can write their opinion. Mine is there.
Personally, it’s not that I hated the original AoE4 campaigns, I quite liked them. BUT, if I had to decide between the 4 originals campaign and the narrative style of Sultan Ascend, I would choose “Sultan Ascend”. It’s just a matter of preferences.
Of course, what I miss about the original campaigns that there was not in Sultan Ascend, are AWARD VIDEOS, where they showed you documentaries from the Middle Ages, about important information about the civ in question (“Trebushet, incendiary arrows, Yam system, etc”). I would have liked to see something similar with videos of Abbasidas or Ayubies.
In fact, you reminded me of something: since the anniversary version, they kind of got a little lazy in the Single Player rewards: Ottoman and Mali masteries only have 4 extra data, while Byzantines and Japanese have ZERO , 0, 0=0. That can’t be, I’ll add that too.
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also add the reduction of tourney and prize p ools, e celebs goign back to their og rts or game. competitive scene is dying
I asked for reconnect, autoquee villager with penalty, tournaments with better prize pool to bring streamers and other things that @GoldenArmorX mentioned above.
Oh, I have nothing against preference. I just don’t like telling people how to respond to a poll, even as an opinion. That’s all.
I prefer the mission variance of Sultan’s Ascend, but I’ve always liked the narrative style (and real-world clips) of the base campaigns.
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Ok, I just completed the new Age of Empires survey and two things are quite clear to me:
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They are starting to plan a new Age of Empires;
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Most of the survey questions are a clear reference to Aoe4.
From what i seen from the questions themself it seems that AOE4 have been the most divisive title of the series, why?
Because there were important questions on some aspects that were the most critized aspect of AOE4:
- cinematic Campaigns: personally i like documentaries when i watch documentaries not when i play a video game which always had beatiful narrative cinematic campaigns. Aoe3 and AoM set a standard for the franchise. Aoe4 it was a step back. Developers would simply spent less money to make good narrative and cinematic campaigns with focus on the main characters that could help the player to immerse himself into the history.
Other aspects of the questions about campaign were relating to “better cutscenes and story”, better dialogues and more. All of aspects which have been critized about Aoe4.
2)Graphic and Art Style: it’s the first time since i partecipated to all sruveys that i seen so specific questions about the art style, realism and high detailed graphic. Again, these questions are relating to Aoe4 and develepers understood that Aoe4’s graphic have been one of the most critized aspect of the game and the art style have probably moved away from what many fans were looking for (more detailed graphic with more realism, because Relic was behind the development).
There also were questions about which style we prefer for Aoe (stylized or realistic) and wich aspect are more important for a realistic art style.
Personally i choosed "realistic graphic, with high detailed units, terrains, buildings, realistic icons on UI, wheater effects, realistc damage on units and more.
I would like to see a new standard in terms of graphic quality for the next title. I hoped for two years in a graphic DLC for AOE4 but the train have been passed, i suppose.
We’ll see what Developers are cooking for the series but these questions showed to me that graphic aspects will be very important for the future titles.
Personally i don’t think Relic will be developers of next AOE cause the recent layoffs and because they are indipendent and are focused on their franchises: COH3 (they are going to improved it, really) and DOW.
About the graphic engine that coud be used i think that Unreal engine 5 is the best choice beauce it supports all recent features like DLSS that’s importnat to have incredible graphic and very good performance also on dated PC.
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Nowhere did it give me the option to select hotkeys as an important part of the game 
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How long did it say it would take, on average or estimated, to complete it… and how long did it actually take you?
And I wonder why AoE Insiders didn’t get an email informing is about it with a link to it
Hopefully the take from that survey will be to discard the AoEIV model for good. For whatever plans may lie ahead.
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