Road to Success (AoE II DE) From a AoE I DE Insider Tester

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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Good evening ladies and gentleman!

I really want to share my excitement about the release of Age of Empires II Definitive Edition, a game that I have been waiting for a long time.

These are main points I would like to comment to the whole developing team to help them in order to make a great game:

*- When AoE I DE was released it mainly had a graphic overhaul, that was one of the main problems to the lack of playerbase staying to play the game. When we are speaking of an overhaul, a remaster or a remake, indeed we love the graphics (they are lovely) you cannot forget about pathfinding, units stucking with everything they find, stopping to answer your commands. We want to play the game smoothly. *
*The smoother the more time we will invest in it, as it will be more enjoyable. *
So one of the focus must be directed to fluidity and solving all the code issues that affects gameplay. Something that wasn’t fixed or highly solved in the release of AoE I DE and made it fall.

*- Another issue is related to the release ONLY for Windows 10 and Xbox live. That cut off a lot of players as we were forced to play with those 2 conditions. Most of them didn’t had access to Windows 10, or medium computers and didn’t want to upgrade. *
Xbox live is a plataform that is mainly used of consoles. As the game is mainly played on PC, as almost every RTS, it’s quite a good thing that is released to Steam, that is a positive point against AoE I DE. This allows the community to access it easier and have a good online plataform. This redirects me to the next point.

- Multiplayer we have been suffering for a long time of desynchronisation and continous lag/fps drop/freezes. If multiplayer playing isn’t fixed, revamped or something that solves the main issues we are fighting right now, it will eventually die aswell.
As you know there is quite a big online community, ranked and even tournaments are held in a lot of places. If the game is intended to surpass and not commiting the mistakes of AoE I DE, this is a must and is something that I am looking forwards to.

- We need more stability for the amount of maximum population that is allowed in the game. Normally we play with 300 of population and in the worst cases when 12 player are playing with 300 each that transforms into 3600 units that the current game can’t hold well. If the game is just going to get little “changes” within the current code and just a new texture pack, there will be a lot of negative reviews about it, cause people really want to play it smooth and enjoy it.

- Multiplayer Ladder, it would be nice that the ladder is updated with more info, better interface and prettier layouts. This is more cosmectic and can be added afterwards, but remember that the game isn’t only the mechanics or the graphics, it’s also the whole interface.

This is a general approach to every point and I am eager to be able to help the game to become a big hit. God, I love Age of Empires II, that’s why I can’t stand that it goes in the same directions that AoE I DE at launch.

Greetings

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That has not been an issue on the Windows 10 side since the Spring Update (and definitely is not an issue with build 1903). Why did I stress build 1903? As of that build, there are few games from first-tier Microsoft-owned studios that will be unique to either XBOX or Windows - and AoE II - DE won’t be one of them. The only reason that the testing will start on Steam is because that is where the core AoE II player base is - even I get that. Further, a new XBOX client (specific to Windows 10 build 1903 and later) dropped last week - and it will be this client that future XBOX games that arrive on Windows (that will include AoE II DE going forward) will target. That is not merely a possibility OR a probability - but a certainty. If anything, the issue with Steam will be how well the client supports 4K - the XBOX client for Windows already does. Are there, in fact, ANY games on Steam that can do 4K? (I’m heart-attack serious in asking that, as that is a factor for me within merely the next twelve months - if not less. The hardware can go there now - if Steam can’t, why should I let that roadblock me, when other middleware doesn’t have that issue? There ARE other game clients - for the PC - that aren’t roadblocked by 4K. If Steam can’t go there, why should a developer of 4K titles let himself be hobbled by middleware that can’t?

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PGHammer,
In the end I can understand the problems with Windows 10, indeed I don’t share the same point of view.
About Xbox and Steam, Steam is not the best plataform within the world but it has pros that Xbox doesn’t have. Indeed it doesn’t supports 4k games, it’s obvious that microsoft isn’t spending much time in it’s plataform. We need a suitable multiplayer plataform to play, if you really can prove me that Xbox live is the one we can use, I wont have any issues about it, but right now, Steam is the better option.

I appreciate your information about the matter.

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I agree, my friend! We want a fluid game above all else! Fluency has always been a problem of age of empires. Otherwise the game will end up being a HD Edition 2.0 and people will continue playing the classic on voobly that was much better than the HD edition.

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Wholeheartedly agree with all your points @Ravnico: the lack of singleplayer fluency, pathfinding and multiplayer stability was what stopped me from playing AOE I DE after a few months. Thankfully all of these matters were adressed in the last 10 th update, however I hope AOE II DE won’t have such a troublesome and long release curve.

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Pero recientemente han actualizado el Age 1 DE, y he notado, que implementaron buenas mejoras, los graneros ahora tienen la opciĂłn de reconstruir las granjas automaticamente, y se ha notado una mejor optimizaciĂłn de los fps del juego, espero que Age of Empires 2 DE muestre las mismas mejoras

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Pero en el post comento lo que habĂ­a en el lanzamiento
No tienen tiempo de arreglar todo para otoño, y si no se concentran sacarán algo parecido al AoE I DE.
De ahĂ­ mi post.

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To keep it short… 2 Things are important.
1.Automatic search for laddergames as it is in Starcraft 2. Means you click start game and system search an enemy that has nearly the same MMR
2. Better Control, would be nice to have Attack Move and Stop Move as it is in Starcraft and Warcraft, the Battles would have more depth.

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Middle computers?They can run win 10 as a piece of cake.

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I think the main problems with AoE 1: DE is it was a very flawed game unlike AoE2. To make that game work you will need to remake it entirely not just some graphic update or stats adjustment.

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attack move is included since African kingdoms.
Still remanent in DE.

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Attack move has been in the game since AoC/AoK (called patrol but works the same way). So has stop move command.

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isn’t exactly same thing.

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- Multiplayer we have been suffering for a long time of desynchronisation and continous lag/fps drop/freezes. If multiplayer playing isn’t fixed, revamped or something that solves the main issues we are fighting right now, it will eventually die aswell.

This is the key. The multiplayer peer to peer connection system built into the original AoE2 is archaic. If we’re not playing on dedicated servers or whatever needs to be done, the lag shared among all players will persist and I don’t see how anyone will enjoy that…

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Great to see that Definitive Edition is also an update and not just all previous DLCs merged together!

Adding it to Steam is a great move, many players, including myself, play exclusively on Steam because it’s more convenient to have all the games in one place.

True that, AoE II is so amazing because it’s a great multiplayer game, if the multiplayer part experiences issues the whole game will eventually die.

Can’t wait to see my AoE II ELO and ranking in tournaments.

That’s true, a long game with 12 players will almost always see max population for everyone.

Multiplayer Ladder is amazing, I just hope you use a working system like ELO and not something like Bronze, Silver or Gold league that look more shiny but are ultimately superficial. Often in these games a bronze play can beat a gold player with makes his gold ranking a facade.

I have seen in a previous note that you’re also releasing a new DLC with Definitive Edition, could you please consider adding Vlachs in that update? It would mean a lot to many romanians, I already made an in-depth topic about it in case you are interested.
https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/age-of-empires-ii-hd-vlach-culture/41650

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