Hi everyone. With last patch, frankly I began to lose hope on the future of the game. And I would like to know your opinion about it. Please, select the options you think they’ll fix. If you think they’re going to fix either everything or nothing, please only select that option.
I believe this is not the programming team rault, but a management issue. Clearly this project needs more people, more budget or more attention. Is that, or it was simply a cash-grab, but I preffer not to think so.
This game will stop getting updates soon after AoE IV release regardless of its state. Let’s hope the devs can solve the games biggest problems until then as it doesn’t seem likely that Microsoft understands their franchise enough to create a worthy successor to AoE2.
Pathing will never be perfect, its the hardest thing to fix. Cheaters will find their ways after the updates stop at least. Some of the bugs exist since the release of DE, there are just too many bugs and not enough devs to fix them, so no, this game will never be completely bug-free. Maybe Voobly will have DE balance changes and QoL improvements but without DEs graphic upgrade the community is destined to shrink.
The management issue is that the purpose of this game is to even the ground for AoE IV, not to create the best AoE ever. The focus is also clearly on Singleplayer as that is where the majority of players lie.
The thing is, how much of a good image is this towards AoEIV? I mean, the multiplayer experience is terrible, and that’s the worst type of advertising for a game under development. If that’s their idea, well, I think they’re not doing it well
-Isn’t AoE II bigger than ever? I’ve been lucky to have a pretty pristine multiplayer experience so I guess it varies be person. Out of 477 games I think I’ve had less than 10 crashes.
-I mean the only really serious bug is that 3v3 and 4v4 ranked matchmaking is broken. Hacking has never been too common in Age of Empires. Unfortunately yeah the April exploit caused a lot of exploiters though. But luckily that one is fixed.
AoE2 DE was pretty much universally praised upon release and tournaments and such stuff are having a greater effect on the games reputation than ladder games. I wouldn’t say DE tarnished the reputation of Microsoft or the AoE series. If the next patches go on like the last that could be damaging though.
Microsoft seems pretty stubborn on their treatment of AoE2, it just doesn’t seem likely that things will change drastically.
Hey there! While this poll doesn’t necessarily violate any rules of the community, it also doesn’t seem like something that is leading to constructive discussion about how to improve the game. I will not close it, but I do want to remind everyone that the best way to be heard is to focus conversation on a few important things:
Identifying the problem: Clearly and in detail. It’s very difficult to fix a problem if all we know is that there’s a problem. We will often ask for files, information, and other critical details to help the team figure out exactly what’s happening, so don’t be afraid to start out with these details so we can get them passed along sooner than later.
Specifics are better than broad topics. “Fix all bugs” or “Fix all pathing” are really broad statements that don’t really tell much about your expectation or the impact of the problem. This is why we encourage people to post one thread with one issue—since it helps channel the conversation and explore a single topic rather than making broad statements that could branch anywhere.
Opinion should be backed by experience. With tens or hundreds of thousands of players in the game at any given time, there will never be a perfect consensus about what should be changed or updated. The loudest opinion is not always the best, and the more educated is more likely to be considered on behalf of every person playing the game.
New issues will arise: Games are complex. Games that utilize multiple systems (such as chat moderation, login, etc.) are even more complex. It is impossible for any game to make a change without that echoing into other systems, and no developer can perfectly simulate a live environment for identifying issues. We are listening and will continue to address these problems as they arise.
Finally:
Criticism ≠ constructive discussion. As mentioned at the start, anyone can be critical, but change is inspired by explaining the why and how something can be made better. There is an entire discussion that can be had about resources and time and what it takes to implement new systems and changes, but we are listening and we are prioritizing asks based on what will best improve the game in any given moment. We’re here for the long run, and the game will only continue to improve in the long run.
I would encourage anyone voting in this poll to consider finding or starting threads about the issues that are most important to them and then linking them here. We are listening, and we are also looking for people who can keep the conversation productive and on-track rather than looking for the cracks to justify their anger. (We also have a limited number of hours in our work day, so I, too, will prioritize threads that focus on discussion, ideas, and solutions rather than focusing on frustrations.)
I’m confident in the devs sorting everything out eventually… Bugs and loopholes happen, perfect balance is impossible to attain, programming a perfect game isnt easy…
I voted for as many positive outcomes in the poll as possible (for some reason i couldnt vote for 5 out of 6, only 4)… the voting isnt flaud, the poll is flawed… as usual…
No, the poll is not flawled. You just didn’t understand how to vote. If you think they fix all four issues, then you have tl vote for one option. Gosh, I even explained how to vote.
Thanks for your reply. I hope that when you say “we’re herefor the long run” you mean it.
Anyway, one of the main issues I feel is the lack of communication from devs about current issues (in this case, the #1 player in ranked being a recognized cheater, or last month malay disaster).
On the other hand, I, personally think that the current issues of the game are not the programmers fault, but the management’s. Clearly, you are overwhelmed for the amount of job, due to lack of resources, information or whatever. I’m not critical about your work, but the way the project is being handled.
Don’t get me wrong. This post is not about being critical. It is just to know how people feel about the future of their beloved game. I’m still have fsith in FE and their dedication to AoE2. But at the end, “it’s all about money, honey” and money seems to be runing low on Microsoft budgets for this game.
If I’m allowed to give an advice, I would suggest you to be more comunicative with tw comunity. I will prefer an honest answer to none. Even if that honest answer is something like “sorry guys, we still have no idea how to stop cheaters” or “we know melee units are really dumb, but we have inherited an spaghetti code”
I know times are hard, and probably you should have double the staff you do for this project. It’s just I don’t think silence is not the best approach.
Anyway, I’ll keep reporting bugs and trying to help you in any way I can.
Thank you for your reply.
Please consider introducing a beta branch for the monthly updates. Create a new “Report a Bug” section in the forum for the beta branch only. There are enough players (including me) who would voluntarily test such beta updates and report bugs. Release the beta update a few days or a week before the actual release. It would help a lot to find the most obvious and game-breaking bugs. In my opinion this is the only way to improve the quality of the monthly updates in the future.
They won’t be able to fix everything. This game is over 20 years old and still has many relicts from that time. Unfortunately they didn’t rebuild the game from zero like they are doing with Mafia: Definitive Edition. Would’ve taken more time but definitely been the right choice. Because “bugs” like low FPS for everyone if 1 player in the game has a toaster PC, I fear we will never see a fix for that.
Thank you for the reply to this thread. AoE2 DE is such an amazing game. We appreciate all the work you and the team are putting in. And it’s very encouraging to know that you’re here for the long run.
Some of the bugs we are experiencing are extremely frustrating. And it’s easier to vent on the forums than to craft a helpful bug report. But you are right – the only way to make the game better is for the community to provide clear and helpful information to help the devs reproduce (and fix) the bugs.
I will start writing up bug reports and hope others do the same.
Is there anything else we can do to help? Would love to help out and make the game better. Can we help test beta builds of the game? Let me know!
You must understand, that the community’s reaction is a result of a series of broken promises. MS also still doesn’t realize, that you have more than four generations of players (Zone, Voobly, HD, DE) and therefore four different communities (with different expectations), playing your game – and somehow you managed to disappoint them all together. One of them is your old Zone community (to which I belong) who still waits for the promised “updates” – it’s been more than 13 years now, but hey, never lose hope and keep things constructive.
Please allow me to quote your predecessor on the Zone.
when MS decided to shut it off, the devs has 0 say in it. you’re holding different people to a promise made by different people who got shafted by MS 20 years ago i think is a bit too much.
since the dev ask for constructive advice, I will share some and I really hope it reaches them.
stop with all the extra “features, cheats, events” and only focus on fixing bugs, game balance and thats it. all the time should go into fixing bugs and game balancing should only take a tiny bit of time.
if AOE2DE must have these “events”, make them once every 3-4 months or something, these added content is great but not at the expense of a broken game. we’d rather much, much, MUCH have a working game than these events.
The devs have been receiving constructive advice since the early part of the beta. To their credit, some of it, they have listened to.
It’s far more concerning how much they ignore and simply don’t address at all.
The community has brought up numerous real issues and, rather than addressing why they won’t even touch them, they just ignore and give you some silly new skin for your TC.
I find a member of the FE team basically saying that they will silence anything they don’t see as ‘constructive’ indicative of the actual feeling of the team behind AoE2 DE at this point: they feel like they know best and they don’t care what you think. If they see it as an issue, sure, they’ll fix it. If not, then you had better get used to it.
I got a new record today. One hour in matching, waiting. 10 games that either failed to connect, or freeze when started. Couldn’t play a single game. seriously don’t understand how this game can be more and more broken each patch.
Frustrations happened because many of us bought the game (for 3rd or 4th time) six months ago and we still have a product which looks like more a BETA than a finished product. Patches have been inconsistent and brought more problems than they have solved. STILL TODAY, 6 MONTHS after the launching we can not have an stable environment for multiplayer and the game is full of bugs. Finally, there is a general sentiment in the community that the FE have not addressed the main concerns of the general public and they have be not very open with their communications.
However after I see your post, I sadly think there will be not much improvement because you guys show 0 self-criticism and actually think the current status to the game is acceptable.
honestly to give them some credit. it was great around between jan to march’s patch. then s*** hit the fan when april patch came in and they really wanted to put that 256x tech mod into it for some reason, along with 3rd drop site and bunch of other junk.