Use mangonels. Still work effectively vs blobs. At least force them to make springald
compare aoe4 walls to aoe3 walls , then you know why we say that walls are stupid now.
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Still no TEAM RANKED.
Patch is a fail for me. Waiting on Ranked team to start playing again. Till then Im out
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What would be the purpose of team ranked? Itās not balanced at all, and donāt really show your skill level. In sc2 people are masters in teamgames and maybe diamond or even plat in 1v1
Two different gamesā¦ and ur experience of sc2 is irrelevant to other strategy games.
TGs in SC2 unplayble. but aoe != sc2.
The difference of games is huge. Aoe is more strategic with castles + walls. You need take territory to control. Control SS, control trade routes, control resources.
I believe in sc2 there were none of 3vs3 or 4vs4 tournaments. (can be wrong).
Meanwhile in AOE universe:
- aoe4 already had 3vs3 \https://liquipedia.net/ageofempires/AoE4_Pro_League
- regular tournaments 3vs3 with 30k$ in aoe2 \https://liquipedia.net/ageofempires/Battle_of_Africa/3
Aoe2 had āteam bonusā tech per civilisation. Yes, itās not aoe4ā¦ but roots are hereā¦ roots there players designed to play in the team.
So it can be balanced and is balanced somehowā¦ even in the current state itās balanced in 10000times better than sc2.
PS 3vs3 the most entertaining format, because pocket have a lot of options. 4vs4 looks like 2vs2(x2)
Can you show me the math on that one?
what math do you expect?
I provide link with regular tourneys. With big prize pools (30$k+) for AOE franchise.
It shows that even pro scene somehow intersted in TGs. for aoe2/aoe4.
(as far as i know sc2 do not have any)
Pro scene insterested in money
In AoE2DE, team ranked leaderboard has 66k players, 1v1 has 41k players, so I donāt think any other arguments are needed besides the popularity of it.
Oh wow, watch the decline of the human race right there
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season 2 is a thing . Maybe on summer.
90% of the patch changes cater to ~10% of the player base.
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You could apply that statement to every patch with the right angle.
True. So to rephrase: Most of the recent patches have been oriented towards the competitive player base while leaving other core aspects of the game untouched.
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All of the patches have catored toward those playing against other human opponents with a focus on Civ balance above other things, like color pick.
Apart from rolling out and constantly improving documentation for the Content Editor and related tools? I get it, itās easy to pretend itās just one thing in the patch notes, but itās a fantastic set of tools that I hope they keep supporting.
If I had to balance the effort between even a medium-sized balance patch and the tools we now have access to? No slight to any effort spent on balance, but the tools knock it out of the park.
The content editor is great, but we all know that was coming at some point. Itās basically a given in any decent RTS that at least tries to have a chance. In fact, that shouldāve been part of the game from release, so Iām inclined to say āabout time!ā instead of āthank you, devs!ā.
My point is that the constant tweaks to units, landmarks and maps that focus solely on competitive gameplay demand almost all the devsā time and resources. How many times have mangonels been tweaked so far? (and now they need another change after being nerfed to oblivion). I understand this is all part of a very lengthy balancing act inherent to every RTS, but the rest of the game is suffering as a result.
I would love to see a patch with changes such as:
- AI is no longer dumb.
- Siege units and Mongol mobile camps no longer clip the terrain.
- Units no longer disappear when killed over water.
- Water combat has been revamped.
- There are now waypoint indicators and selectable player colors.
- The UI has been reworked.
- Unit animations now loop properly (have you seen a prelates inspiring or a wolf attacking?)
- Frickinā chickens and horses in stables have FINALLY been animated and scaled properly.
- I could go onā¦
Little to none of the above affects eSports players but that overall lack of polish does affect the non-ranked player base, which in most RTS is 80% or so active players.
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you misjudge smth.
For balance responsible balance team. For development - devs. Itās different people. Balance do not take time of devs.
Yet people seem to be having to use cheat engines and overlay apps to do any useful modding of the game.
Iāve just given it a try for the first time, and after 5 minutes Iāve got basically nowhere trying to do something that would have taken me about 1 minute in AoE II DE. Please donāt tell me I need to read documentation, or learn to use it, or whatever, because I never had to do that with the AoE II DE scenario editor. With the AoE 4 tool, after 5 minutes I canāt even work out how to set what civ each player is, or set it to a ādo nothingā AI so that I can manually control the units when I run the scenario, or put units onto the map. All these things are easy to do in AoE II DE.
Iām not asking you to say āthank youā. Iām pointing out that post-release efforts include the Content Editor, which means a significant chunk of effort was aimed at non-competitive features. Which means that claiming most of the recent patches are oriented towrads the competitive playerbase is, at best, undervaluing the effort and scope of the modding tools, nevermind any other tweaks that have been made.
Iāve modded most of Relicās games as far back as Dawn of War. Iām familiar with the games I havenāt modded directly (CoH, basically). This is relevant because Age IV is the same (line of) engine, and the tools line up with what Relic have been provided before. But thereās a lot more to them. Even compared to what was provided with DoW III (anyone can bash on the game, whatever, but the tools themselves are solid, restrictions aside). This indicates to me, as a software engineer, significant time was invested in bringing these tools up to scratch.
And thatās before we get on the documentation (that Relic are still adding to), or the video guides, and so on. Itās the highest-profile launch of modding tools, with the most support that Iāve seen for any Relic game in the past twenty years!
This is not to be confused with the capabilities of the tools. There are restrictions currently, absolutely. But a lot of what was possible in past games was done by the community, not using Relicās own tools, so 
Iām not a competitive player either, for the record. But what youāre asking for is your personal little list of things that would improve the game for you.
I donāt care about chickens and horses being animated. Would it be nice? Sure. Am I opposed to Relic doing it? No.
However, if I had to choose, I would choose different things. I would choose for specific fixes and enhancements to the modding tools (first and foremost). And thatās the problem. What I, as a non-competitive player, would want the devs to focus on is not the same as what you, another non-competitive player (Iām assuming), want the devs to focus on.
So how do the devs choose? How do you even break this up amongst the existing development teams? AI has no relation to animating chickens, for example. Water combat has something to do with AI, but a lot not to do with AI.
You want things, fair enough. Iām not expecting you to project manage something like this. But Relic / Worldās Edge would have to, and in doing so they would need to compromise between every single request the playerbase is asking of them. Which is why we have the roadmap we do.
Depends what you call āuseful moddingā. Iām on the main (?) modding Discord and people are plenty active using the Content Editor and its related tools and frameworks.
Iām sorry youāre having trouble with it. There is a steep learning curve, for sure. But Age IV is not Age II, and as such the tools are going to be more complicated. Itās actually a big (ger and bigger) problem with modding modern games. Theyāre more complicated than the games we grew up with (modding). But itās very hard to simplify it to the extent that youād find it as easy as modding something like Age II.