Score explanation from a top aoe2 player

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
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I want to read this topic not to argue about adding score in age4. But to explain what does that mean. I saw a lot of people talking about it, and there is a lot of misinterpretation about what it does.

“Score gives free informations, you should learn scouting”

This is an understandable argument from people that does not play with score like in aoe2. I want to explain why this sentence is completlety absurd for age4.

Scouting in age4 is the most easiest thing to do. There is no comparison with StarCraft or Age Of Empires 2. After 10 hours, I never lose my scout and I know everytimes what my opponent is doing. And I played a lot of games versus the best players of the beta ladder.

Iam surprised no one talked about this, but in age4 exploration is extremely easy, and there is no skill required. (grp ctrl for the scout maybe).

In age of empires 2, the scout is also your army, he is extremely strong, and you can win games just because you managed to keep your scout alive. So exploration has his risk, you can lose your scout to the ennemy town center, it happens even for the best players, you can sometimes get killed by villagers, and even get trap by fast walls.

This does not exist in age4, for the best or the worst I dont know yet, age4 for any average rts player is almost like playing chess. You see almost everything.

Does score still gives informations that you cant grab with your scout?

Yes, but that’s good for the gameplay, and it will make the games more strategic and more intense.

Examples :

Islands : You cant scout your opponent, so you will have to check the score to see when your opponent build his landmark. Is that a bad thing?

I truly think, it’s not, losing to random strategies, that you just CANT anticipate because there is no exploration is not good in my opinion.

And the score said only that your opponent started to invest a lot of ressources somewhere, maybe he just started a lot of eco upgrades or he did a lot of fish. So you are never sure, exploration is 1000x better than any information that score will gives you.

Balck Forest : Let’s say your opponent build early walls, if you did not manage to get in with your scout(Wich I easely do 95% of times), you cant explore him.

The score will tell you if your opponent is going ECO approach or Military approach. But not in a way that you will be 100% sure.

You will have to build a tower to check for example, or just boom in a way that you can fast go for military just in case etc…

Is that bad? Do we want a strategic game, or a game where people just hide their strategies, behind walls and water?

I want to explain that the score gives almost zero information compared to active scouting. The score can said “Maybe there is military”, but he does not say if that’s archers, maa or cavalry.

I play aoe2 a lot (top 130 tournament ranking) and I never focus on score for those things, iam always active with my scout, the only thing that score told me is when he click up to the next stage. But this information is free in age4 because you can see the landmark being built, unless water maps and sometimes black forest.

I spoke about informations that score gives. Now let’s talk about why the score can be good.

What’s the score?

Score is the amount of ressources that both players have in bank + buildings+ thechnologies+K/D ratio + exploration.

What’s the good sides of the score?

As a player it will gives me an approximative idea of my strength. And opponent strength. Is that a big information? Does that ruin strategies? Not at all, in real games, you dont even have times to watch that information, and it’s not always true.

But it’s comfortable to have that information, hard to explain, it’s just better to have like a thermometer, like in dragon ball when Bejīta calculate Kakarotto force. That number does not determine his strategy, it’s just a number.

In team games, score is obviously way more needed, otherwise players will just resign if they struggle against their opponent, if they see their allies with a big score, they will have faith that maybe they will win the game. And it’s extremely hard to know in a 4x4 if the situation is complety dead or not, score will help players to end their game or to continue.

In FFA, the score is obviously needed, the winner of the biggest FFA ever in term of viewership in aoe2 was determined by the score (AOE_EVENT by ZeratoR (It was me btw :D))

The last but maybe the most important, age4 has been built in a way to be a streamable game, there is obviously a big focus in that direction, and in 2021, to mesure how a game perform, you will not just calcultate how much games you sold, but also how much viewers you have in twitch/youtube etc…

And the score there, is extremely needed,

In Twitch there is those guys, that plays one game in the whole year, but they love watching others playing, and those kind of active mumbers of age4 community will need the score because they can start watching games randomly from any streamer, and when they arrive in the stream, it’s extremely hard for them to understand what’s going on, unless you have that little information.

Of course iam in favor of the score in age4, but the topic is not about convincing anyone, I just want to explain the whole story about it. And why I truly thing that is a good thing for age4.

Thx for reading the entire post, and Iam sorry for my apromaximative english. This is not my main language.

TheSniper_AOE

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It’s kind of funny, until you said this, I didn’t notice anything grammatically wrong with your post, and would not have guessed this. It is spelt approximate rather than apromaximative if you want to correct it. I agree that score should be added though.

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I agree, score should be kept, it is an interesting mechanic which made AoE unique. Even if you can read score to give you an advantage, this requires skill too.

Not to mention that now it is so inconvenient to tell who is who in a team game especially since clicking another player’s unit doesnt tell you whom it belongs too, like what the hell that is an example of bad design right there.

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I normally use the score in aoe2 to make a judgement on wether a comeback is possible (with a reasonable % as its always technically possible) or if its futile and I shouldn’t waste mine (and the opponents time) and just resign to go find a new game.

Likewise as mentioned in team games it gives me an idea of wether I should hang on in there because my allies are winning convincingly on the other flank or if the game is over and a waste of time to sit through.

My honest opinion is that score should be in the game and on but with an option to turn it off for custom games so that Pros running tournaments can disable it if they want to. I understand and appreciate the impact that score has at the super pro competitive level however 95%+ of players do not fall into this group and the score offers a significant amount of utility to stop players from wasting time unnecessarily.

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I’m happy with how it is now and according to me don’t need for this to come back.

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I assure you that score has no impact in competitive play unless Islands. Maybe devs can turn off Landmarks scoring?

AoE4 is a casual game in some aspect, it needs score 100x than aoe2.

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Hey Fyrapan90, could you develop a bit more? Did you read the whole post?

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Yes, I did and while I understand where you coming from I still agree that this was a good thing to remove the in-game score altogether. You shouldn’t be rewarded with automatic information on how well or bad your opponent does in a game but instead should focus on scouting and finding that information yourself.

You can scout on other islands by simply transporting your scouts over to those islands and start scouting for intel or even harassing your opponent early on. I really hope they don’t add this to the game, and if they do that they let us disable it if we so choose it.

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It seems that you did not understand what I wrote. I started to explain that Score has NOTHING to do with exploration. Score does not give automatic informations. Specialy in AoE4 where scouting is easy for casuals and pro.

In age2 a good exploration is always better in the game compared to no exploration. Its like you just dont know what score is. This is extremely unfair.

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Precisely. And that adds immense dynamics to the match. I say that having been a constant victim of passage denial on Black Forest. It’s one of the most impactful things that can happen early in a match.

No score for me.

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Yes it does it provides with information on how well your opponent is doing and can easily decide whether or not you should push for an early attack or how to plan your next move etc.

It doesn’t give you exploration information but it for sure gives you other Intel on how they are doing overall which is as valuable as the exploration part.

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This is completly wrong. Iam Sorry. In age2 going offense because of the score does not exist . You Can often have a lower score and being in a better spot in the game.

  • Score is totally useless compared to exploration. If you play with the score only, you have a bad strategy 9/10. Its not a reliable information
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Then we have to agree to disagree then, because if it doesn’t show your overall progression in the game then why have those scores at all in the game?

Of course it’s not 100% determine whether or not your opponent can catch up, of course they can but that’s not the point. The point is that it gives out valuable information that you can take for your advantage in your play and that part I dislike.

All sorts of information should only come by scouting and looking that yourself up which also determines how skillful you are as well. Anything that gives out automatically free information in a RTS game is bad.

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100% agree, score is a really important part of AoE, we need it AT LEAST for team games for all the reasons mentioned above

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Plzzzz read the whole post. I explained why its good for age4 to be a success, how it improves Twitch experience for viewers. Did you know that the hate towards age4 from age2 players already started like for age3 15 Years earlier? Do you want this game to have a chance to live more than 2 months or not?

I have 20000h+ in age2. 150h+ in age4. I did 3x 16hours streaming in row for stress test until my computer crashed. I want the best for age4.

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We are talking about the players playing in game that they can’t see each others scores but if you are referring to those who watch the game in replay or live they should indeed have the option to check the scores while the match is played as that doesn’t impact on the game itself.

My opinion is still my opinion and I honestly do think that if this is introduced into the game it will be for the worse. And come on man are you really trying to boost your argument by writing things like I have played thousands of hours of this and that and therefore my opinion is the only one that matters?

I’m sure there are two sides to this and wanting different things, so the best way for Relic is to make us able to choose if we want that on/off in a game at the lobby. Like that everyone can decide how they want to play = better for everyone.

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Score will not save you man, it will not tell you what your opponent is doing. If you get ften denial from scouting your opponent. That means you are playing at a low elo level. Score does not matter for you it has 0 impact. Only top 500 in aoe2 can sometimes read the score, its 0.0001%. in age4 that does not count because scouting is the most easiest thing to do for the top players.

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On my side, i will say that score is for the end game and for the observer.

Players should not know the other player score, and figth until they can’t.

It is not fun to see players lose hope and just leave because you got more score.

Figth! Adapt! Retreat!

Learn to turn a losing war in to a win!

Don’t just do a rush, in the hope of a fast blind win, whit no other strategy.

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Yes I want to prove that I played age4 a lot and I liked it. I think its important. Anyone can wrote what he wants here. And someone with only 3 games will not be credible to me.

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The problem here is that first of all you think that your opinion is more valuable than others and that it is the only way to do things but I’m sorry to tell you it’s not true and you will not be the only one playing this game.

Secondly, you assume that I have less experience than you? That’s very professional of you to do that, in order to again try and make your argument more valid than it is. Man I told you already a solution to this problem and you haven’t even replied about that.

Anyone with a sense of logic in their mind would take a solution like that to keep both parts happy as this is a game meant to be for everyone and not only to you or me.

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