Are there any RTS games that are bigger?
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That’s SC1 you are talking about.
Starcraft 2 had not just GSL (ASL, korean world championship for korean ESL TV), but you also had american blizzcon tourneys, WCS and Dreamhack now for Europe.
Ofc Esports is a bigger thing in Korea, since they have state funded this as some kind of sports with public TV channels dedicated to esports, but overall SC2 brought the franchise fron Korea to America and Europe.
All I know is I’m a huge AOE fan since AOE1 who then played SC2 like crazy for the past several years, and now I can’t wait to play AOE4 both single-player and in tournaments, if it’s a reasonable success upon release.
I’m still a bit concerned about the zoom/camera angle issue but we’ll see.
Counting the days! Tick tock, tick tock!
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according to sc2 devs, most of their playerbase plays singleplayer/coop or mods.
That’s true.
Coop was only released cause one of the devs was committing really hard on his own idea of content and barely got accepted as an addition for a LotV patch.
It’s the most played mode for quite a while now if I remember correctly.
Thats what i would love to see is a modified coop like sc2
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I would love a coop mode like Starcraft. They don’t even need to make special commanders, even if it was just the civs and there were interesting coop scenarios with difficulty levels and mutations.
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Yeah they couldnt really do commanders/ but civs 
fast paced unique and specialized units !!!
I love COH because is a complete different game than SC2 it has nothing to do with it, I love also age because is a different RTS than SC… People should understand that age don’t need anything from other games it can evolved by itself, age don’t need to be played like SC it will ruin it… the best example is DOW3, devs tries to copy SC2 game peace and simplicity, community always compare dow3 with scand people hate it… my advise don’t do the same here, C&V4 tried to copy dow2 and it failed… Let SC alone, let the people that like to APM instead of strategy to play that game…
True- but- aoe will never be anything other then aoe… there is nothing like it though many have tried. Using sc2 to apply things like camera fov, gameplay speed, and just optional dlc will improve its reach to targetable consumer groups
Small things- bigger smiles 
across the faces
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It can never be “too easy” if even a top player’s time can be fully utilised to play better. Have you seen how the Rehoboam AI plays AoE 2 DE? The micro of archer fire is way beyond what any human will ever be able to do. It would be advantageous to do that in AoE 4, as well, maybe even more so because the arrows never miss, so the damage will always perfectly match the calculations.
To me, it’s the opposite, and esports is where I see the benefit of AoE 4 over AoE 2, assuming it doesn’t have the problem AoE 2 has of being bottlenecked by the worst performing setup in a multiplayer game. For a casual player, AoE 2 DE at a fraction of the price and with a much greater amount of single player content seems like a better buy.
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What are you trying to say? That kind of micro is impossible for a human being, because you’d need to focus units with multiple groups at the same time. It’s literally impossible to do that.
Why?
Pro players love challenging games where they can show off their skills. AoE4 is not challenging. Esports fans on the other hand love seeing pros do things they can’t and be awed by stuff they’ve never thought of, or stuff they could never do. AoE4 again cannot provide that due to how simplified it is to accomodate basically everyone. Everyone gets a medal!
Watching AoE4 will be like watching the best chess player in the world win, in a time when the game is mostly figured out for the first 50 moves…boring and uninspiring. You need higher skill ceiling to allow for exciting play.
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It’s not impossible to do the same thing to a lesser extent, just really hard. Better players will do it better than worse players.
I’ve seen a decent AoE II player do monk micro that made their opponent think they must be using a macro to cheat, but they weren’t, they had just developed the mechanics to quickly set up the control groups and rapidly target individual units with a monk each. If focus firing with some of your units is a way to improve performance in AoE 4, more skilled players will develop the mechanics to do it better than less skilled players.
You’ll see what I mean when it comes to it.
Statements like these are so funny. Game’s not even out yet, people had a very short time with it but somehow you have this much certainty. Unless you were in the top 25 from the beta ladder, you’re not really in any position to say. And I’ve not heard a single one of them say the game is not challenging. I think about the only objective thing that could be said is that it is less demanding for APM than SC2, which is an entirely different statement.
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Oh sorry, I didn’t know that. I will shut up then.
That’s just some random purity test.
Happens to all SC2/League players nowadays as well.
You aren’t allowed to speak about gamebalance/gameflow if you are not at least diamond then master then grandmaster then top grandmaster, then participated in a tourney, then participated in a BIG tourney, then won a tourney.
It’s shifting the goalpost up and up and up to discredit balance takes on the premise of discrediting the one who is talking about it instead of talking about it.
Best thing to do is speaking about stuff in specific ansd focus on if these statements are true or not.
Aoe4 definitely feels weird competitive wise, since quickwalling and microing against archers is not a thing anymore at all, therefore it’s going to be less entertaining to watch (less “on the edge” situations, more clear outcomes that are beyond playerinput).
Only because a game is simple to play/understand, doesn’t mean it’s bad on a competitive level.
But right now Age4 doesn’t really feel like it’s unfolding itself that great competitively, compared to Age1 or Age2.
Then again, numbers tweaking can effect balance in a big way and open up the game more in the future, so stuff can change.
From a micro perspective, this game has barely anything to work with tho.
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One interesting thing I’ve seen in aoe4 is tactics are more important than micro. For example in this clip red uses the kelp forest to conceal his demo ships, leads with a couple decoy demo ships as a distraction before coming in with the main force of demo ships from the top of the screen.
Remains to be seen what the skill celling is with this but from a casually competitive perspective it’s quite interesting and fitting to shift the high impact skill from micro to tactics. It’s a lot more inline with the concept of a strategy game than arrow dodging micro in aoe2. Also I enjoy that there is a competitive game that feels more like chess than an fps or a moba It’s created a unique distinctly aoe4 feel to the game.
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Agreed on the ‘be specific’ part. “AOE IV easy AI is not challenging for me” is specific. “AOE IV is not challenging” full stop is not. It’s a meaningless statement without any context.
Don’t agree on the rest of your statement. I find AOE2 to be a snoozefest to watch personally. I already find AOE IV much more interesting and immersive to watch as a spectator, despite not that many high quality games being available yet.
We saw a full vertical slice of (MP) gameplay in the stress test and closed beta. Every age, every unit type, land and water maps… every strategic element (eco, military, age-up choices) fully realised. The only unknown really left is more civs. Doesn’t matter if the numbers change slightly, we already know what the general gameplay will be, so people will naturally apply what they know from other games and gauge the skill caps and learning curves for individual game systems.
You can also do that as someone who doesn’t play good enough to execute a strategy. On paper, everybody can understand how the AOE2 drush/flush/fc strategies work and how to run your eco efficient, but performing the micro tasks that are needed for that in the thick of the action, quick and consistent, makes the pro.
For AOE4 the paper is relatively empty with some AOE2 and AOE3 crayon drawings on it… it’s kind of a dumb dumb game, which can be fun, but there are not many layers to dig into for the pros. It’s also slow and sad to control (unit production and tech research speed, convoluted UI and hotkey system, input lag and tiny hitboxes). Add the bad overview and a lot of camera jumps due to the zoom level and there is really not a good spectating experience to be had.
It’s not engaging to watch a pro fight the game more than his opponent…
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