Popular AoE Streamer makes a good point about the zoom level

Age of Mythology: Retold Discussion
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This zoom feature was not in the original AoM. This is something they’ve added to Retold to reflect AoE 2 DE and AoE 3 DE, which are different games entirely. So no it’s not being taken away, since this is not how AoM worked. Letting bad features from AoE 2 creep into AoM Retold is a mistake. They are not the same game.

The graphics in AoM Retold are one of it’s biggest selling points. Having the game advertised and played zoomed out to the point where the units look like ants is a disaster from a marketing standpoint. It was very apparent from the beta that this is how many streamers and casters will interact with the game.

Capping the zoom level is also a balance and gameplay design decision. League of Legends could allow you to zoom far out while playing, but that is something that the developers determined was a bad idea. Blizzard felt the same way with Starcraft II. Is the Age of Empires franchise different than those games, of course, and it’s understandable that the zoom levels shouldn’t be the same across these games. What is not understandable is why the optimal way to play AoM Retold is to play so far zoomed out that you can often barely see the units.

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The zoom has already been in the beta and almost no one has any complaint about it.
You have to accept that 90% of players do want to have this feature even if you believe it’s harmful.
It’s been 2 weeks since the beta and I have not seen anyone else complain about it.

If it had been missing in the beta there would have been a lot of complaints since far zoom is in AoE3DE which uses the same engine.

You need to accept that the vast majority of people want different things then you in this case.

Just let people have their fun!

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The biggest AoE 4 streamer/caster made a video with a thumbnail that says “This is why AoM Retold Sucks” and the went on explaining during the video why the zoom should be capped. He considers it the worst feature of AoM Retold and how it will harm the game. The link is in the op.
So yes it is an issue. 90% of players might think they want something only to later realize it was a bad thing for the game overall.

Ask yourself this, do many people play or watch AoE 3 DE? No. So who cares what the game did?

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You know what? It doesn’t matter if far zoom is worse for players because Microsoft doesn’t have the best experience as a goal it has to highest sales and the highest customer satisfaction as a goal.

There will be a lot less sales and a lot less satisfaction if far zoom was removed.
Being able to zoom out more has consistently been a top priority demand for players and not being able to zoom out far enough is often mentioned as a negative aspect in reviews.

Also Blizzard doing things is not an argument. We don’t know if SC2 would have been more or less popular with more zoom because there is no identical game with more zoom.

If less zoom was possible the number of popular streamers complaining would be much much higher.

It would be a very bad financial decision to limit the zoom in AoMR just because of 1 streamer.

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Skadidesu, I’d just ignore the issue tbh. You’re spinning your wheels mate.
The zoom level won’t get pulled no matter how much the author spams posts on it. Because you’re right, the overwhelming majority of the player base either don’t care or want the far zoom.
Just let this guy spam his posts and he’ll eventually run out of steam. He’s already done ANOTHER post about the farm saturation

3 Likes
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Blizzard, Riot, and Valve all made conscious decision to cap the zoom in their games. They made it for financial reasons ultimately and it was the right decision. Those game are vastly more popular than any Age game. If it worked for those games, yes it would work for AoM Retold. I’ve explained thoroughly why being more zoomed in makes the fights and combat more exciting to watch. These are huge sellings points of those games, and are as well in Retold. Unfortunately, the really far zoom level available in Retold trivializes the amazing graphic and effect quality.

Do I need to remind you that in the original AoM you were not able to zoom far out? Your claim that capping the zoom in AoM retold would somehow hurt the sales of the game. Want to know what will hurt the game? New players checking out videos and streams of ant-size units. Why create a game with these amazing graphics if players are just going to zoom out so far? You keep talking about the “90%”, do you have any idea how many players new to the genre and AOM will be trying this game. Players who come from Starcraft II, League of Legends, DOTA 2, etc… Players who are used to only playing and watching isometric games that are far zoomed in.

You are jaded by the opinions of AoE 2 DE players who are used to the really farm zoom available in that game. Just because it’s an option in AoE 2 DE in no way means that it should be possible in Retold. AoE 4 does not let you zoom out that far and that game attracted way more players than AoE 2 DE did at launch.
Zoomed out gameplay makes the game look slow and boring to the casual observer. It is a huge mistake for the Retold developers to allow it in the game, especially when its really not necessary. I am not suggesting that Retold copy the zoom level of Starcraft 2 or League of Legends, but it’s so obvious that the current zoom level both for players and casters in Retold is problematic.

It’s disingenuous to deny the potential downsides.

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Dota and LoL are completely different games. Absolutely no comparison whatsoever.
In Supreme Commander you can zoom so far out you can see the entire map. You know what in Google Maps you can zoom so far out you get into space.

I said it multiple times but you can apparently not compute it.
The original AoM was made for way way way smaller monitors and way way way less powerful hardware.
If you only watch 720p streams on your 6“ phone then that’s not what the game should be designed around.

People want to enjoy the game on a larger monitor too.

People don’t buy games based on how the streaming experience is like they buy them based on how the game actually plays like.

And as I said even if you were right that low zoom was the better experience, it doesn’t matter because if people will refund the game and review bomb it on Steam then the developers lose a lot of money.
So the developers don’t have a choice, they have to keep the zoom as it is.

You can keep writing the same arguments again and again but you will not convince anyone and certainly not the developers.
But evidently you believe spamming the forums is a valid strategy.

2 Likes
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What in the tarnation is Supreme Commander. League of Legends and Dota are infinitely more popular than whatever that game is. League of Legends is exciting to watch and play because you are up close and personal with the action. When DOTA and League of Legends were in development, don’t you think that the zoom level was experimented with? Of course, and they settle on a zoom level that was close to the combat. Starcraft II did the same thing. Zoom out makes the gameplay look slower and many players equate slow with boring. You don’t seem to understand how important fast paced combat and action is to most gamers nowadays. It is a huge miss for Retold to permit players to zoom out so far and not take advantage of the new graphics, effects, and physics.

You are only taking into considering players who are familiar with the far zoom out levels of AoE 2 DE or AoE 3 DE. There will be a lot of players who have never played those games who will complain about the zoom level and be turned off by it. They will be the ones review bombing the game on steam potentially.

The biggest Age of Empires 4 content creator literally made a video about why the zoom level is the worst thing about Aom Retold. People care about this. It won’t just affect players coming from other genres of games, but it’s apparent that even AoE 4 players are dejected about it. What’s the point of remaking Retold with this level of graphic quality if the best way to play the game is to be so far zoomed out that it’s like watching ants with sticks.

The original Age of Mythology never let you zoom out this far. It wasn’t just a hardware limitation, but also a design decision. The Retold devs are falsely applying a feature available in AoE 2 DE to a game that doesn’t need it. This is a mistake. They are not the same game, and this is not what most RTS players are familiar with. Retold is not being marketed only to players of the original AOM, this game is trying to cater to the entire RTS community.

Think about all those skins that they sell in League of Legends or DOTA 2. They want people zoomed in so they can see them up close. Graphics and cosmetics matter. When they made the Retold trailer, they didn’t show the gameplay far zoomed out did they? The complete opposite in fact.

Imagine you have a bunch of people streaming AoM Retold all the way zoomed out with the lowest graphic settings. You have thousands of people checking out the game for the first time and all they see are blurry dots moving around…

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By this logic do you think they should remove the low graphics options also? Seems like your making mountains out of molehills, none of this will have much if any impact on the games sales.

This seems like bait at this point, eagerly awaiting your next saturation thread

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Supreme Commander is an absolute RTS classic and a beloved game in the RTS community. League of Legends and Dota(2) are MOBAs, a completely different genre.

LoL and Dota2 both are based on a funmap/mod from Warcraft3, a RTS with a high focus on hero units, small armies and high micro battles. Both named MOBA games took very strong inspiration from Wacraft3 regarding the zoom level because of their origin (you know, Dota, the original wc3 mod that uses the wc3 camera zoom) and that makes sense because MOBAs took the essence of hero gameplay from Warcraft3 and are based strongly on fast pased micro battles.

RTS games on the other hand can vary greatly in this case because some RTS are more designed around fast pased battles (like Starcraft as you mentioned) where a closer zoom level CAN make sense. Other RTS games are more designed around macro, economy, map control on bigger maps etc… some are somewhere inbetween. And there are even exceptions like Command & Conquer where the camera zoom since the 3D era (i would say even before) tends to have a far zoom level although it can get very fast pased on a competetive level and it always worked very well. You can’t say there is the one zoom level that is best for all ‘‘bird eye view’’ games. It’s not that simple.

There will always be players that enjoy different things in their video games and that’s okay. Because of that it’s awesome that we still have this big variation of games, genres and stuff. But i can calm you down on that, i never heared about a RTS game that got review bombed because you cann zoom out too far :smiley:

It is what the most Age of Empires players are familiar with (and from other RTS that are not high micro unit control based like blizzard RTS). And the original Age of Empires 2 wasn’t designed around it either. But it was very well received. To be fair, AoM is way closer to AoE2 as it is to Starcraft so the design decision makes sense to me.

That’s mostly the case for RTS releases. But it doesn’t mean that the game don’t have the right to have it’s own identity.

Competetive AoE2 games are streamed mostly zoomed out and with thousand of ingame graphic destroying mods and settings like small trees, big grid on the maps etc. and played on ugly competetive maps (if you compare them to the power of beautiful landscapes the game have to offer). But you know? people love to watch this games to this day.

Plus you have always the choice how you want to see or show the game. The zoom is dynamic. If the streamers don’t use it, shame on the streamers, not the game because the game offers the choice. In the end streamers will use it the way it makes most sense for the viewers in the long term.

‘‘When Age of Empires and Age of Mythology were in development, don’t you think that the zoom level was experimented with? Of course, and they settle on a zoom level that was flexible and had a wide range.’’ Sorry, i just wanted to do that cause i found it funny :smiley:

In the end i don’t think it would be clever to take too much inspiration from games that come from a completly different genre and have totally different gameplay. AoM isn’t about controlling only one unit, use multiple spells with it and move it around like a wild dog in bling bling cosmetics. There are many people out there that played different strategy games for years and never touched MOBA games. And yes, there are many players that played MOBA games for years. But that deasn’t mean that every game now needs to be as familiar as possible to your beloved MOBA games. If fast pased games would be the only way to success, super successful games like Anno 1800 (or any TBS game) would’nt exist nowadays. The newest Settlers game was a completely desaster BECAUSE the developers (or the publisher) forced it to be more fast pased (what’s really unfitting for a Settlers game to be honest).

Not every game needs to be build completely around competetive games, esports and commentary videos just because multiplayer is ONE of many ways to play the game. And AoM is one of those multi-layered games in my opinion. But that’s a subjective view of mine.

But anyway, I understand your statement that battles (especially little early game skirmishes) look and work better from a closer view. Maybe content creators for AoM can learn this in the future an use the dynamic view the game offers. We will see. Have a nice day, love your passion you are showing here for the game :slight_smile:

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I appreciate your civil response. You’re right that you can’t always make a 1:1 comparison between games, and the popularity of a game doesn’t necessarily signify the quality of the game. As you stated, having the camera zoomed in makes the battles look better. Part of the reason they chose to fully remake Age of Mythology instead of just remaster it, is because they probably figured it had a broader appeal than the other Age games. It had a better chance of attracted players from other RTS games and genres as well.

I’ve never played Supreme Commander. It may very well be an RTS classic, but it’s not a relevant game anymore. There’s probably 2-3k players playing Supreme Commander right now. League of Legends has over 5 million. The massive popularity of League or DOTA is for many reasons, but the combat is a huge appeal. The zoomed in camera ensures that you are always immersed and up close to the fights. Starcraft II and Warcraft III are the two most popular RTS games ever made. They both use a zoomed in camera so that players can watch the full intensity of the fights. It’s a huge draw of those games.

I am aware that there are RTS games that use and rely on a zoomed out camera, but for the most part these games have no playerbases anymore. Blizzard always made a conscious decision to make the combat a focal point of their RTS games. The MOBA genre used this same concept, while changing and watering down other aspects. I realize that AOE 2 DE uses a zoomed out camera, but just because its available in that game, doesn’t mean AoM Retold should utilize it in the same way. The original AoM did not allow players to zoom out anywhere near as far as players and spectators can in Retold.

The reality is that gamers nowadays want to watch fast paced exciting combat. What is exciting about combat that is being carried out by army units the size of ants? The RTS genre is on its last legs, and Age of Mythology Retold is trying to help revive it. Age of Mythology Retold is trying to appeal to a broader audience, and showcasing the impressive new graphics will be jeopardized by allowing players to zoom out so far. It’s an oversight that should be fixed.

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Call of Duty, Fortnite and Minecraft are even more popular.
And? Should we change AoMR to 1st person or over the shoulder 3rd person?
Stop talking about Dota and LoL, those games are not RTS games. It’s a entirely different genre. Your comparison is absolutely worthless, stop bringing them up.

I can list a bunch of strategy games that are a lot closer to AoMR then Dota are that allow you to zoom out a lot but I haven’t done so so far because I thought it is silly to compare AoMR to games that aren’t similar enough.
Like Total War, any global strategy game (Europea Universalis, Hearts of Iron, Crusader Kings) or any city builder (Cities Skylines, Anno).

Your whole paragraph about Dota and LoL is useless because it’s an entirely different game.
You control 1 hero (and in Dota one carrier) and not hundred villagers, hundred soldiers and a whole lot of buildings.

Shouldn’t it be very very obvious that you need a lot less map overview if you just control 1 unit.
All you need to know is where the 9 other heroes are which you can perfectly see on the minimap. Everything else is exactly the same every match.
There is nothing you would want to zoom out for.
The map is exactly the same, the NPCs walk exactly the same patch, the towers are at exactly the same locations and so on.

No they will not be because it does never force you to be zoomed in. It’s literally just your mouse wheel and you can choose to zoom out or not.

Why should people that don’t like to be zoomed out “accidentally” zoom out and then not be able to zoom in anymore?
wtf are you talking about?

No absolutely not.
You where the first person to complaint about Zoom since the beta came out 2 weeks ago.
When the AoE4 beta happened there were many many people complaining about the too close zoom instantly and after release there were even more people complaining.
Many reviewers and journalists listed the zoom as one of the biggest problems with AoE4.
When AoE2DE and AoE3DE introduced new zoom options no one complained but many people posted about how happy they were.

Maybe you should rewatch the video.

  1. He commented a game, the video is about the game.
  2. He used click bait to get more people to watch it
  3. He never ever said that the game should not have far zoom, hi didn’t even imply it
  4. He literally just wanted an easier way to get back to default zoom, that’s it
  5. He never said AoMR sucks. He was referring to other people saying that.

Stop trying to frame what he said in a way that supports your opinion.
His intention was never to remove the feature from the game.

He just explained why other people might think the game looks bad. He never said those people should be forced to play the game more zoomed in.

The video is named “Addressing The #1 Complaint About Retold”.
He never said that the far zoom was the complaint. The complaint was readability.
The text on the thumbnail is in quotation marks. He never said that AoMR sucks.

But hey that would require a little bit of critical thinking and not just pulling straws to support your opinion.

How do you know?
It was absolutely because of hardware.
Almost no one had a 20" monitor back then. Most people had smaller ones. Most people were still using CRT monitors.
I’m writing you from a 4K 43" monitor now.
Fully zoomed out AoMR on my 4K probably shoes more detail then fully zoomed out old AoM on the CRT monitor I used until 2005.

So it’s absolutely about the hardware.

If you play on a 13" laptop or a SteamDeck or something then just don’t zoom out.

AoMR (hopefully) doesn’t sell skins.

Most popular streamers have good hardware and also know how to present the game well.
Why would someone with a shitty computer that makes the game look bad have many views?
If you have many views you make enough money to afford a good computer.

Also fully zoomed out the graphic setting matter less. As you said a million times, you see less details when zoomed out so you will notice less if the streamer plays with low detail models and low res textures.

Warcraft 3 is older then AoM so my point from earlier completely applies to that game too. It was played on CRT monitors.

Starcraft 2 is also a lot older then you might think. It was released in 2010, 14 years ago.
Starcraft 2 is closer to the release of Age of Empires 1 in 1997 then it is to today (2024).

So the point of it being made for different hardware stands too.
Starcraft 2 was designed when 1080p was considered a very high resolution and even back then it was criticised for it’s close zoom.

You might still be running a 1080p monitor but not everyone does.
The game supports features like ray tracing that require the most powerful GPUs to run smoothly. Who owns a RTX 4090 to run games in 1080p?

That is stupid. RTS had a huge decline in popularity over 10 years ago and has been making a comeback for years now.
AoE2DE and AoE4 are a lot more popular then any other RTS released after Stracraft 2 in 2010.

People wanted slow and boring combat in the past? What is that logic.
People did enjoy the same kind of game speeds 20 or 30 years ago.
It just always comes down to what kinda person you are and what mood you have. There are many slow games that are super popular. There is a reason why Euro Truck simulator exits.

People will not decide their purchase decision on who the game looks like fully zoomed out with stream compression when they click though Twitch.
I think you overvalue the importance of streamers a lot.

Real world evidence has shown that players of AoE2DE, AoE3DE and AoE4 do actually care a lot about being able to zoom out.
It is something that many people actively care about, it is something that is important enough for many to influence their purchasing decisions.

Being able to zoom out does not mean not being able to zoom in.
You can always get as close as you want to the battle, you can watch the flowers wave in the wind if you want to, no one stops you from doing that.
Many people have posted about how they stopped the game to just zoom in and look at the details sometimes when trying the beta.

You pretend like people just fully zoom out and then suffer all the time without noticing.

Most people just want to play the campaign (AoM has the most popular campaign in the Age of Franchise) or play coop vs. AI.
Why would you force your way to play on those people. That is not nice.
Let them play the game however they want.

You are only going on about Streamers. Maybe you should form your own opinion on the game by playing it yourself instead of watching other people play.

You keep reposing the same arguments:

  • Close zoom was not a problem >20 years age (in 2002)
  • Close zoom is not a problem in a game that has 1 unit (Dota/LoL)
  • That one streamer said something that vaguely resembles my opinion (it doesn’t)
  • People make their purchase decisions mostly based on Twitch streamers

Just posting them again won’t convince anyone.

Short summery:

  • Dota is not an RTS, any comparison is absolutely worthless
  • AoM was designed for monitory that have like 1/10 of the pixels
  • Aussie Drongo never said that far zoom should be removed
  • Many people do want far zoom and this feature does actively impact sales
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League of Legends and DOTA 2 are successors of the RTS genre. DOTA was built within Warcraft 3 using many of the same mechanics and gameplay features. To deny the relationship between MOBAS and RTS games is being disingenuous. DOTA evolved the RTS genre in particular Warcraft 3, by removing the need for armies and having players control a single hero on the map. This decision lead eventually to League of Legends, a game that boasts 10 million concurrent players. How many does Supreme Commander have? 2,000? There are more League of Legends players in Korea than there are RTS players in the whole world.

While the word MOBA was coined to differentiate DOTA and League of Legends, they still share so much in common with RTS. This comparison is not useless. There are many reasons why MOBAs are way more popular than RTS games, but a huge reason is the combat. People prefer the combat in MOBAs, it is more visceral and easier to follow and control. The camera in MOBAs is close to the action at all times, and the limited zoom level is largely what makes the fights intense. The ability to zoom out would entirely change this. Your claim that “there is nothing you would want to zoom out for” in a MOBA is so ignorant. Anyone would zoom out if they could in League of Legends or DOTA 2. I have no idea what your familiarity is with League or DOTA, but your statement is clueless. Being able to zoom out would make it much easier to spot enemies trying to gank you or initiate a fight. There are many more reasons, that I won’t get into it here.

Many players new to the game and genre will be turned off by streams, videos, or replays in which the game is too far zoomed out. Zooming far out makes the game look slower. It makes the combat look boring because of this, and also makes the detail of the graphics not as visible.

It’s as if you don’t understand what modern gaming is like. I am well aware there is a market for isometric strategy games with far zooms that are turn-based like Civilization 6, but Age of Mythology is not one of those games. Most people familiar with RTS know about Starcraft II. That is a game in which the camera is locked at close zoom, which forces players to see the fighting take place up close. This was not just a technical limitation of the game, but a purposeful gameplay design decision by Blizzard Entertainment. They stated this in multiple interviews.

I was definitely not the first person to complain about the zoom. The most popular AoE 4 content creator literally made a video with a thumbnail that says “This is why AoM Retold sucks.” In the video he literally explains his dissatisfaction with the zoom level in the game. As I have reiterated before, AoM Retold is not AoE 2 DE or AoE 3 DE. Just because some players of those games asked for higher zoom levels, does not mean that AoM Retold should have one as well. Retold is trying to cater towards a much broader audience than the nostalgic decades old playerbase of AoE 2 and AoE 3.

The thumbnail of the video says “This is why AoM Retold Sucks.” He then goes on to explain the huge issue he has with the game, which is the zoom level.

Your claim about what he says in the video is totally inaccurate. He clearly states it here: https://youtu.be/8XudhSvCGPU?t=476 (7:56 of the video)

"The reason why readability is so damn difficult in this game is because I can zoom out so far, and when I can zoom out this far everybody looks like ants… I am asking the devs for a feature or a function that allows a maximum zoom or a threshold. "

Many RTS and MOBAs all sell skins. Obviously, these skins would become much less attractive to players if the game they are playing incentivized them to zoom out all the time. This is another advantage of capping the zoom level, whether you don’t personally care for skins, we know how popular they are.

There are many streamers who play on top end PCs who still turn the graphics all the way down. They do so for maximum FPS. I’m not sure how much of the Retold beta you have watched, but there were definitely frame drops on many steams. Players who play the game competitively and stream it will possibly lower the graphics to maximize their FPS. This is pretty common place with all competitive games that stream on twitch or youtube. Companies have actually been pressuring streamers to stop doing this.

It’s one thing for a game to be streamed or advertised on low graphic settings, its another thing for a game to be so zoomed out that you can barely see the character models. This is exactly what was happening during Retold, since some of the biggest streams were doing this for a competitive advantage. Many seasoned Age of Empires or Age of Mythology players will still play regardless of how far the camera can be zoomed, but a new player to the game might be discouraged from watching or playing due to how boring zooming out can make the game look.

The zoom level in Starcraft 2 was something that Blizzard carefully calculated. The close zoom level was a design decision for both balance and aesthetic reasons. it proved to be the right one. The up close intense combat of Starcraft II was a huge reason for its popularity and successful esports scene. League of Legends also uses a similar camera zoom level, and it was a major competitor to Starcraft II and Warcraft III, eventually poaching millions of their players.

Go look at the most played games on steam or the most watched games on Twitch. Many of them share this in common. They have fast paced combat that is up close and zoomed in. I’m not sure where you have been the last 25 years, but the combat in Supreme Commander where the units resemble ants is not what gamers find exciting nowadays.

Yes, a lot of players will decide their purchase based on watching gameplay that is so zoomed out that the units look like ants. The Retold developers put so much effort into the new graphics and effects, and zooming out just negates all of that. It’s a huge concern.

The issue is that you are being close minded. You are thinking only in terms of AoE or AoM veterans like yourself. AoM retold is being designed for a players outside of the AoE/AoM spectrum. They want to attract players from not just other RTS games like Starcraft II, but other genres as well. They likely chose to remake instead of just remaster AoM for this very reason. They thought that it would have more mass appeal than AoE 3 for example.

You need to understand the mindset of many gamers and the influence of content creators and streamers. Attention spans are not what they once were, and that’s part of the reason the RTS genre is no longer as relevant. Imagine a newcomer to AoM Retold who was lured in by the cinematic trailer, is then exposed to gameplay that is zoomed out and slow paced. They will instantly disregard the game as being boring. Why would they play this when League of Legends and dozens of other zoomed in faster paced games with more intense combat are available?

The success of AoM Retold relies heavily on fresh blood. That is another reason why the zoom level should be capped. It does the visuals and gameplay a disservice by zooming far out.

Close zoom is how the original AoM was. Retold should be similar. This zoom out so far that you can see all four corners of the map does not belong in AoM. Stop thinking that just because it exists in AoE 2 or AoE 3 that Retold should adopt it.

That "one streamer’ is the most popular content creator for Age of Empires 4, and some of the largest streamers of other RTS games such as Starcraft II have also echoed his disapproval of the zoom level.

People absolutely make their purchase decisions based on streamers. Palworld had the second highest peak playerbase of any game on steam. The popularity of this game was almost entirely driven by streamers and content creators. The streaming community enabled Palworld to break records and surpass the peak playerbase of some of the most popular game franchises. The Palworld peak playerbase surpassed the #1 and #2 most popular games on steam, games which have dedicated playerbases dating back decades.

The popularity of AoM Retold and the longevity of the game in terms of the content updates it receives is undeniably reliant on its popularity with content creators. People streaming and creating content for Retold at launch is by far the most marketing the game will ever receive. Having players show off the game while zoomed out will definitely discourage many players from buying it or showing interest. The zoom level matters a lot.

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In the beta, the maps felt much smaller than in the EE. I don’t know where that comes from, because it doesn’t look like they actually are smaller. But the higher up zoom might actually contribute to that.
I briefly played Surpreme commander, and the fact that you can zoom all the way out to see literally everything is very useful, especially since in that game you can command literally thousands of units, that’s not even an exageration, you can literally cover the map in tanks. Yet from a certain zoom level on, the units and buildings are replaced with icons. You may actually come into a situation where you don’t know what half your units look like. You just know their icons and their stats. There’s pros and cons to both.

36

I am very well aware of that. My friends used to force me to play Dota in WC3 back in the day and I never liked it.
But that doesn’t matter. The reason WC3 made Dota possible is because WC3 had a very powerful editor that allowed to change many game systems.

Dota is basically a very cut down version of WC3. A very cut down version needs less features.

If you have skill you will always have your eyes on the minimap where you can perfectly see the enemy heroes.
There are only 5 enemy heroes to track so that’s not really an issue.
Being zoomed in is advantageous because it makes aiming the abilities and the auto attack better.

The player experience is more important the the viewing experience.
Don’t you agree that players are more important then viewers?

Stop comparing a 2024 game with a 2010 game.
Not everything that Blizzard does it a good thing and not everything they do needs to be copied.

Blizzard is not the holy grail of video game developers!

He maid a click bait thumbnails. Dou you know what click bait means? He is putting a controversial opinion in the thumbnail to create more views.

I wrote that already but apparently you didn’t compute that but he put the sentence in quotation marks. The sentence does not reflect his opinion at all. He is reacting to people saying the game sucks, he is not saying the game ##### #################

AoE1/2 did not have a zoom at all, not even AoE2HD. AoE3 did not have far zoom either.
AoE3DE (and I think AoE2DE too) did not have far zoom on release. It was patched in later.
So why should far zoom be a good addition to all of those games but not to AoMR? Why should AoMR be different?

You argue that AoMR is not like AoE while at the same time saying it should be like Dota or SC2.
AoM is way way more closely related to AoE then to any other game.

Read the sentence again (or listen to it). He simply wants an option to limit zoom for himself.
He does not want to force closer zoom onto everyone like you do.
He want’s a feature or a function to limit zoom. Not a restriction.

There is nothing wrong with options. Far zoom is even an opt in setting in AoE3DE.
I can checked the setting of AoMR to see if there is a similar setting to turn of far zoom in that game later when this weekends Beta starts.

I haven’t watched Steamers play it because I was busy playing myself.

AoMR is not primarily a competitive game.
AoMR is the most casual game in the whole franchise basically.
It has the most liked campaign in the series, it has funny fancy god powers and myth units and also has an AI personality selection unlike any AoE game.

You go back to completely ignoring my point.
It was carefully curated for the hardware of that time.
The game was not designed for 4K monitors because they didn’t exist.

The same zoom level looks a lot closer on a bigger monitor.
How does that not get into your brain.
If I’m 1 arm length away from a 42" monitor every space marine will be exactly twice as toll as if I was the same distance to a 21" monitor.
AoM was designed for even smaller monitors.

Do you understand this?
I’m honestly asking because you keep ignoring it.
You are automatically closer to the game by using a bigger monitor on the same zoom level.
I’m pretty sure everyone has a bigger monitor then they had back in 2002 when AoM was released.
I don’t thing AoMR even supports resolutions below 720p. 720p was considers very big in 2002.

Are you mentally unable to understand screen sizes or do you believe most people still use a 10-20 years old monitor?

You know what?
That doesn’t matter.
Twitch views do not directly translate to sales.
Not every game has to be made for Twitch.
Not every game has to be designed for Esports.

Dawn of War 3 failed spectacularly because they tired to copy Dota and #### ## ##ports focused game.

No most people don’t decide what game to buy based on Twitch.

The trailers and gameplay in reviews show up the graphics very well.
The reviews that will drop around launch will be a lot more zoomed in and will likely dedicate some time to showing of how the graphic looks like when very close up.

People are smart enough to realise that streamers are zoomed out more.

It is still just one. All the other popular content creators did not have that complaint.
Also he never ever ever said that there should be no option to zoom out more.
You are framing what he said in a completely wrong way.

So there are 0 popular content creators supporting your opinion.

Yes because everyones friends were playing it and it was everywhere on social media.
Not because a few popular streamers picked it up.

AoMR will never become the top popular game on Twitch because it’s just not the right genre for that and it should not make the game worse to appeal to people that it will never be able to convince to buy the game anyway.

I fundamentally believe that a player/user/citizen should have all the right to do what they want unless they are harming others.
If they want to play zoomed out then they should have all the rights to do so. The developers should not step in and decide how the players are supposed to play the game.
There are many people with very different opinions, hardware or physical abilities.
Some people play on a SteamDeck, some on a 65" TV. Both players should be allowed to have the best experience by letting them choose how zoomed in they want to be.

If your argument was that it should be restricted in ranked to level the playing field between people with different sizes of monitors, that would be a whole different argument.
But you are saying that you want to remove a feature from every that was already in the beta because it makes the game look worse on stream.
Why do I and many other have to suffer because some people don’t know how to present the games that they are playing well.
Why should my freedom be limited by people that I have nothing to do with?

I will say that one last time.
It doesn’t matter how often you repeat your 3 arguments it will not change anything anyway.
Being able to zoom far out is something the vast majority of people want to have and removing this feature in the release version of the game would generate a massive community upcry about the game and lead to a significant reduction in sales and a lot of negative reviews. On Steam, metacritic and other platforms.
It will be one of the biggest talking points on social media.

The developers are well aware of it and even if all the developers would agree with your opinion they also know that limiting zoom would hurt their sales and therefor they can not do it.

You can argue as much as you want to. I will stop replying now. It stops being fun since you don’t even acknowledge my arguments.

38

I don’t think it is that big of a deal but I don’t think you should be able to zoom out THIS far.

It is also convenience thing that maximum zoom should be at playable levels. If Retold zoom levels stay as it is, I probably will have to move my screen 40% closer to my face. So I will adapt, however we will all be blind in 2 years.

1 Like
39

I think it’s clear you’re in the minority here OP - the vast majority of people don’t want more limitations on the way they play, they want more options, and the option to zoom out should not go away.

40

What are you talking about?
Who forces you to zoom all the way out?

I play half zoomed in most of the time. Why can’t you do the same?

41

I remember someone once said “if people are allowed to zoom as far as possible, they will always zoom as far as possible and hurt themselves, because that is not the best zoom level to play the game and appreciate the arts” when defending AOE4’s (extremely close) zoom…

The thing is first of all people don’t always zoom as far as possible. Then if the game becomes unplayable or unwatchable at a certain zoom level (which I don’t believe is the case either) then there are serious design issues.

42

I gotta say I definitely agree.