I’m making this post because I think it would be a great, EASY addition for players who enjoys the visual experience of these types of games. I’ll address the problem many have with this idea at the bottom of the post.
Now, to clarify the title post, I’m not suggesting to dismantle the grid system as that would open a whole can of worms that would need to be explored in another post entirely. But, for now, simply having the ability to scroll while building to place them in one of four directions would be wonderful.
An example of where buildings seem the most jarring, are for instance the Keeps. They kinda look awful and extremely repetitive from this angle (and to be fair, they kind of look bad from other angles). Having the ability to break up the pattern would be great, adding visual variance that would help bring more life to the cities we build.
Outposts, production buildings and religious buildings are kind of bad as well. Think about the Malians whose got this side-bit sticking out in the same direction or the minarets that are featured in the same position in mosques. Now, why does this all matter?
Besides the fact that people enjoy these games for visual experiences as much as there are people who play it for gameplay purposes, there is another reason. Satisfaction. What does this mean? Any seasoned game developer would take satisfaction into mind when making a mechanic. Whether it is a bubbly pop sound in candy crush, a satisfying crush when an enemy delivers an axe blow or, simply the ability for players to arrange things symmetrically or visually pleasing. The lack of this function in AoE4 is halting.
This is a game. It is meant to be fun, no?
Visual readability
So finally to the point that people will bring up. Visual readability. My argument against this is simply thus; really? is it truly an issue that players would be incapable of identifying a rotated Keep? We can click them, read their names, in fact, I challenge you commenters to post a building in a different angle and try me. I’ll tell you exactly which building it is.
I don’t buy it. And besides, it is such a minute detail that it honestly does not even get close to weighting out the benefits of being able to rotate buildings. I think in fact it is a shame that players who care not for this, feel so compelled to strip others of their fun just because it makes their ability to identify buildings one microsecond slower than usual.
Again, I don’t buy it. People will commit hours upon hours on finger-skateboarding control groups, yet will aggressively oppose something that can also be easily trained is silly. It was in fact a mistake to not include this in the base game, as people would already have gotten over it and assumed it to be part of the game–those very same people who rave on about readability would have just chalked it up to being another part of the game to master.
So now, we’re left with a difficult hump to get over. And with 2023 finally here, I think it is time that this game finally implements one of many modern features that is seen almost unanimously in this genre.
What do you think? am I mistaken in assuming others would also like this feature?
