Pro players leaving AOE4 and Vortix's reason behind his decision

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
41

You have even more wow effects in aoe3(de) and that game has homing missiles and falcs/cannons do basically autosnipe, as you just aim at the target and it will precisely hit.

Micro is extremely devastating there in the hands of a skilled player.
Aoe4 micro feels unbelievably clunky and beta-version like.
Almost disgustingly unplayable.

TL;DR
Homing-missiles have nothing to do with aoe4 being boring to watch.
Homing missiles were one of the AMAZING decisions Relic has made for aoe4, not blindly copying aoe2.
The problems sit deeper in the hole.
Aoe4 is super repetitive and meta is stagnated af because of how poorly the game is designed, how overpowered towncenters are in the defensive and how non-thought-through the countersystem and matching of different civs is.

The pathing is very poor in aoe4, making micro (especially melee) a very poor experience.

1 Like
42

Indeed, AOM Retold’s biome, fauna, and gaia all look really good. AOEIV looks like Tetris because always same animals are everywhere.
The fish swim so naturally and the variety is so nice to notice. AOEIV is just deep and shore fish lol
Also, projectiles in AOMR are not homing and allow some microelements that spice up the action and make the game fun to watch with monsters and so on. But AOEIV is so lifeless, most units have the same stats. Battles are too predictable because 9 archers will always defeat 8 archers at the same attack interval. Basically whoever attacks the first shot wins with little margin. Not interesting to watch.

AOMR will be much more successful, but it needs better communication and faster updates.
Ausie and Fitzbro already switched to AOMR and only showing it on their channels. AOEIV is just way too boring to watch and the numbers tell.

43

Yes, I like how the physics work in there. It is the best game in that field.
I always loved to use cannons against those musketeers and skirmishers, it would just blow them away and felt so fun.
Also, most units have melee attack when the enemy units get closer. And the cannons felt a little bit weaker at such range and so on.
AOE3 is really fun. Unit positioning is way more important if I compare it with AOE2 and AOE3.

44

Let’s talk defensive boom meta (either turtle multiple TC, or turtle FC or turtle timing all in…which is the one strat that might fit both turtle playstyle and slight the early aggression playstyle)

Defensive Boomers:
Abbasid’s, China’s, HRE’s, Byz, Rus, Eng, Japanese, Ottoman*, Mali.

Aggro Civs: (has to more aggressively play the map for resources)
French’s, Delhi, Ottoman*, Mongol

That’s 12 boomers vs 5 aggro civs? And Ottoman can legit stay in base fo a long long time with all that free food and free other stuff.

This is very very lopsided and the safe and sheer abundance of in base resources further favors the defensive boom.

Aka this is a base build simulator game by far, with a lil bit of poking here and there until you have an oversized mass to clash.

3 Likes
45

Yes, it turned into a base-building simulator, which is why the viewership is so low. The people who say it is okay think that AOEIV is a strategy game because only macro matters. If so, such games are actually simulator games, not strategy games. This they still do not understand and failing really hard.

2 Likes
46

No, I worked in emergency management for 7 years. I was the guy telling people to be worried about impending disaster, or managing evacuations for severe weather events.

However, I am the guy saying that people use exaggerated concerns to gain immediate attention, and that the attention has little to do with improving the game. Generally, calling it a ‘dead game’ makes the situation worse, as it generates undue anxiety.

The pro scene is in danger of not having talent in the short term. This does not indicate that tournaments will end, or even that every pro who leaves will never come back.

On player-count, if you pay attention to the long-term trend you can see that it has actually grown over the last 2 years. There are too many details to express in simple terms why that is, but it shows very clearly that the game is not dead, nor is it on the way to dying.

I’ve said this in other threads: the biggest threat to the game is the players. We are far more capable of destroying this game ourselves through arguing and exaggerating claims than the developers are by balancing poorly. We share this space with each other… if we make the discussion toxic it just turns away new players.

After all, who wants to learn a difficult game if everyone is talking about it being dead? That’s why I believe that people crying ‘dead game’ are actually working towards killing it, not critiquing it with the intention of improving it.

1 Like
47

Adapting AoE 2’s non-homing projectiles that become “smart” after a research would be actually cool. That’s also what AoM Retold does because in the original game, only units having 5.0 speed were able to dodge projectiles.

Edit: one of the better AoE 2 inspired changed in AoE 4 btw was how rams were tackled by reducing their HP but giving them more pierce armor.

48

It honestly wouldn’t.
Missiles are fine in aoe4.

After 2 comes 3, after 3 comes 4.
So it’s only logical, we will not go BACK, always look towards the future.
Not going back to outdated 1998 feature.
Aoe3 was a step up from aoe2, into the right direction.
Aoe4 shouldn’t go backwards in progress.
Aoe3 presents BEAUTIFUL micro, BEAUTIFUL and (almost) flawless counter system, aoe2 very onesided and boring.
So, aoe4 should orient itself to aoe3, not 1998 game.

49

Oh, it definitely would but tbh, that’s personal preference. I also can’t stand how exteeme snaring in AoE 3 is compared to AoM but still appreciate 3.

Imo it’s more logical to take the best things from each iteration and a lot would actually like non-homing projectiles. I know, you see it different as an AoE 3 player :smiley:

1999 actually :stuck_out_tongue:

Nah, not really. 2 has endless replayability just like AoE 3. I recommend seriously checking 2 out, especially on its competitive side, like I did this week with AoE 3 :wink:

50

Agreed to disagree.
The homing missiles and the extreme snare make aoe3 especially nice for me personally.
You can’t just run armies away if you moved it out of position into a counter-based army.
This very frustrating part of never being able to punish poor play heavily and never being able to force fights, which annoys the hell out of me in 2 and 4, does not exist in 3.
Same goes for raids.
If you use pikes well in aoe3, you can punish raids so hard that the dmg the enemy raider takes, can cost him the game, losing his EXPENSIVE cav in seconds or splitseconds, when not being careful.
Same goes for catching the villagers… The raiding cav can slow them down and have a massacre.
Strategic and smart play pays off so much more heavily in aoe3 compared to aoe2/4.
It all makes the game slightly slower and almost a little “round-based”.
Which I personally love.
Not just spam apm to win with spastic clicking and camera movement, but you have to play smart to win.
Not entering and leaving the same fight 60 times per minute because your enemy nor you can ever force it…

That I can actually imagine.
Otherwise noone would be playing it since 1999.

Thanks for the idea.
I did play aoe2 as a teenager tons, vs AI, before I had internet.
Later on lan-parties, local area network with and against friends.
I loved it as a teenager.

The second aoe3 was released, I bought it and never looked back.
Liked it 1 million times more than aoe2 and all the small things that annoyed me in aoe2, were fixed, as it was a step up in my very personal opinion.
Since 2007, when I got my first internet connection (satelite with massive ping, 700+), I played it against players on ESO.
2011 I got cable internet with 10ms ping and played aoe3 on eso like an addict for another year until the playerbase got smaller and smaller, then I switched over to league of legends with a massive playerbase and a quicksearch system.
No more hosting game and waiting for multiple hours (in the elo my friend and me played 2v2).

When aoe2de came out and aoe3 (vanilla) was almost dead, I tried it again.
Archers seemingly nonstop missing their targets when enemy units dance arround, no snare on melee units (never being able to punish the enemy for going out of base being HEAVILY outnumbered) and no cavalry being available in age2, made the pvp extremely unpleasant for me.
After a few matches I uninstalled aoe2de again.
It seemed to me the game was purely about multitasking, spam apm and never being able to force fights.
Found it not only boring but also frustrating.
Again, no heavy cav age2, constantly missing arrow and no snare were the big 3 KOs for me.
Did not enjoy at all, 0/10.

In aoe3, you blindly run 20 skirmishers across the map and enemy has 10 hussars, you are F*****.
In aoe2/aoe4 you run back to base and have most of your units still alive.
Sorry, but that is just bullshit.

51

Which on the other hand makes units just awkward to control and is one of the reasons why AoE 3 never took off in the mass in addition to coming out around the time of RTS decline.

You can force fights, you just need to know how. As you’re used to AoE 3, you simply don’t know how to force them properly in 2 or 4, likewise I struggle in 3 as I want to apply my AoE 2 experience on it. :slight_smile:

The amount of times I lost against a slower player with better decision making makes me disagree with that :smiley:

Ballistics exists, it’ll make your arrows undodgable for 99% of all players unless you play against a micro god. In Feudal archer raids, you’re usually also close enough that projectiles will hit.

Also, as I said a couple of times before, no heavy cav is the case because historically, heavy cav such as knights were only really used in Medieval warfare around 1000 - 1100 which coincides with the Castle Age aka Age 3 in both games. As AoE 3 is set around 1500-1800, it obviously can already have heavy cav in Age 2.

If you ever seriously want to give AoE 2 a try, feel free to hit me up, I’m more than happy to give tips.

2 Likes
52

Gonna go out on a limb and say I don’t think AoEIV folks care about this AoE2 vs AoE3 battle that has been raging for eternity.

As for AoEIVs pros scene, Stormgate hasn’t set the world on fire so far so perhaps in a couple of weeks some players will return. I don’t think AoEIV is headed towards a death spiral, games like this tend to ebb and flow. I suspect every AoE will take a hit when AoMR comes out.

Microsoft does need to step up with the prize pools and tournaments and WE needs to communicate better. Something the 3DE playerbase has been yelling into the clouds for years now btw. I figured it was going to work its way into the other games eventually. Sad.

I don’t care about the competitive scene in any game and never have, but it is important to cultivate.

1 Like
53

I get the lack of communication. I’ve called it out more than once (yes, even me!).

But that has nothing to do with you folks (and others) deciding to blame “pro players” for literally anything.

54

Yeah probably.
Aoe3 is indeed micro intensive because of that.
You make a mistake, you get HEAVILY and RIGHT AWAY punished and can usually not just pull out again, as in aoe2/4 and save most of your army.
Less spam apm, more mind attention on your army.
Also, it encourages you to keep your units together in order to outmass the enemy and win fights.
I feel units in aoe2/4 are scattered a lot more often.
To me the aoe3 snare feels right and it not being there in aoe2/4 feels very wrong to me, but I agree, that’s a personal thing.

Hmm, maybe I just gave up on that too quickly.
I just tried a few matches as I said, pretty much right after the release of aoe2de, when it was extremely laggy also, before it got patched.
I felt like my archers didn’t hit anything and I could never start a fight and make my enemy fight back instead of run away from me.
Part of that, of course, comes from the fact of not having heavy cav to engage and force him into a fight and decide the fight by microing.
I just felt like a fight would only happen if my enemy likes it to lol

I just checked, I got 440 matches 1v1 (only ranked, I didnt play unranked) in aoe4 on my 3 accounts together, stopped playing last season upon reaching conqueror1.
819 matches ranked team, mostly 2v2, peaking at conq2, close to conq3.
I’d say that is enough experience and game-understanding to confidently state, you can’t catch armies and force fights in this game.
At least not even close to how you can in aoe3(de).
Units are as slippery as eels in aoe2/4 if you compare it to aoe3de.
If you catch an outclassed army in aoe3(de), it’s a wipe.
If you catch them in aoe4, you might get a good mount of even just a few or none of them down.

Fair enough.

That makes sense historically.
I personally find that still a poor choice gameplay-wise.
Imo that breaks the countersystem and purpose of age2.
Why not stay age1 then, if you can’t create a fully capable army?
In aoe3 you have the fully circular countersystem in age2.
Stone (heavy cav), paper (archers/skirmisher), scissors (heavy melee infantry).
Age3 light cav and siege weapons come on top and compliment the countersystem.
I had been in love with that idea since I tried aoe3 the first time in 2005.
Your units feel strong and impactful at any age and you can counter any other unit.
Something which is (imo) not the case in aoe2 and aoe4.
In aoe2 units (cav) don’t feel impactful in Feudal age, in aoe4 they don’t feel impactful and maa have no counter by many civs age2.

Thank you a lot for the offer, I appreciate it! :slight_smile:

That is yet to be waited for, before one can be sure on that.
I’d say this depends highly on the pace of patching stormgate.
Current steam ratings are far from amazing, let’s see if this changes at full release.
If the game gets established as a proper competitive rts with a big scene, the aoe4 pro community might shrink to that.

That is quite certain, I agree.
Maybe it could also be a wakeup-call to the decisionmakers behind aoe4.
Finally give it worthy support and fix the still remaining big problems the game has had since pre-release.
Though I doubt anything will change for the pace of patching and the efforts (not) being put into the development of aoe4.
It’s been multiple years and the game is (imo) not even there yet, where it should have been at release.
Not positive for a big change…
Which is sad, because the game has/had massive potential to be incredible.

100%

I can’t remember having blamed things on pro players, other than ex-sc2 pros who were and are trying to push the game into a sc2-like direction.
I personally have blamed Microsoft/the Devs over and over and over again for abandoning the game and throwing it on the market half-finnished, not the pro players.
The pro players themselves keep asking for very much needed bug-fixes, changes and qol features, which the devs just don’t deliver, or deliver only after years or repeated begging.
The pros/fans can only ask/suggest, but if the Devs don’t bring the changes, who is to blame?

A good example is Aussie Drongo, who even created a thread in this forum, politely asking for the devs to work on the spectaror/caster mode, which seems quite abandoned, development-wise.
Before you mention it:
Aussie Drongo is not exactly a pro player, but he’s probably in the top5% if not better of the ranked players and had already been very high ranked and high skilled and experienced in aoe3(de) plus being a big streamer and youtuber for aoe3 and aoe4.

1 Like
55

Yeah. In AoE 2/4 on the other hand, it’s usually useful to outflank the opponent. Projectiles being able to miss in AoE 2 can also mean that the defender gets a second chance if the attacker makes mistakes. For example, if I scout the opponents base and notice they’re about to garrison their TC to snipe my scout, I can ride around it which for me as the defender means that I effectively caused idle eco on their vills without a benefit.

As said, snare would be okay if it was on a more subtle level than in AoM where it’s there, but barely noticable. :smiley:

Yeah, in Feudal, most of your targets are villagers, so you’re acting at close range and usually, you mix either Spearman or Skirmishers into your composition to cover potential counters by your opponent.

Can’t speak much for AoE 4 here as I gave up on ranked after S1 already but I think in case of AoE 2 my point still applies.
It’s mostly about forcing the opponent into errors by distracting their eco, making them spend on counter units and make the best out of the situation.

Well, you still have a counter system with Scouts, Spears, Skirms, Archers and MAA. Heavy cav just gets added to the mix in Castle Age, same as siege.
In general, your army in AoE 2 should consist of a Gold unit that’s covered by a Trash unit and in Castle Age, you add a siege unit that compliments the two.

Yw! :slight_smile:

56

“I can’t remember doing the thing, except when I do the thing”.

C’mon :sweat_smile:

57

Ayyubids have had a high win rate in the tournament, they can afford Fast Castle without problems because with the economic wing they get 7 free villagers, very convenient (then they will do 2TC in castle age)

imagen
imagen1187×493 57.2 KB

https://aoe4world.com/esports/tournaments/red-bull-wololo-el-reinado-age-of-empires-iv-qualification-stage/statistics
imagen
imagen959×300 47.1 KB

58

From my end, I want the game to succeed. But the competitive stage just delayed and divided the update into 2 parts. The second part should come in 2 weeks at maximum. But it was never supposed to happen. It is only happening because the tourney qualification process scheduling overlapped with the update. This is why we still do not know what is Khan’s Hunter, how the bounty changed and so on. This is truly an unethical, irresponsible, and selfish request of the competitive players and organizers. Because of them, AOEIV didn’t receive the full update and the players are leaving and it is continuing. This must be fixed immediately!!!

59

Having left AoE4 for the same reasons as vortix I can second pretty much all of what he’s said. In my opinion the devs have designed a game mainly for casual RTS players without attempting to do so.

What kind of worried me already during the first matches when the game was released, was how easy it was for the defending player to drag the game out. There’s defensive landmarks that act as keeps. There’s towncenters that act as keeps (light). There’s towers that act as keeps (light light). There’s wooden and stone walls that strengthen the defense. Now ppl might say that there’s other games, that also have defensive structures, and my answer to that is yes. But AoE4 has little to no micro and a very slow pace. That combined with defensive structures makes it super easy for the defensive player to drag the game out. You build some wooden walls early on, a second TC or/and towers joined by a defensive landmark and then your already entering the 10-15minute mark of the game without having done anything strategically special. And there’s little an equally skilled player can do against it. The defensive player might not win the game eventually because he wasted too many ressources on defensive structures but he can easily drag the game out by 5, 10 or even more minutes with little to zero skill expression. And that’s an extremely frustrating experience if you want to make something happen during the early and mid game. And during the lategame (imperial and late imperial) this becomes even worse

When it comes to the low twitch viewer numbers my guess is that what’s keeping ppl away from watching is that literally every outcome of a fight is highly predictable due to little to zero micro skill expression. Why would you want to watch those fights when you know the outcome beforehand? It doesn’t create any excitement. Further, there’s no cheeky indiscovered strategies or playstyles in AoE4 that could gain attention. It’s always the same dull armies clashing eachother at certain periods during a match.

2 Likes
60

Honestly, I would like the interesting micromanagement way in AoE4 to go by Khan or Jean special abilities style. I think that could be the way to go as well as improving the battle animations to make them a bit more fluid.

Regarding the siege problem, the water game and its lack of variety, the metagame that tends more to boom, hackers, matchmaking, reconnection, pause, fauna, improved interface for casters, etc. I hope it will be something more interesting for the player and the viewer.

The problems are there and I think many will agree.