Either score gives useful information which you can exploit during a game, in which case I argue it should not be there (you should get that information from scouting), or it doesn’t, in which case it’s pointless anyway so why have it.
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As much as I appreciate the effort put in this post, I personally still prefer that the game remains without a visible score while playing, and I salute the devs for standing up to their decision.
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I have no idea what this has to do with AOE IV - different games, different strategies and builds, will have different metas.
Because it’s not about “free informations” 
I did not expext such imagination and legends about score from people’s that does not know what it is.
I swear, if you play 10 games with score, you will be completely converted. 
This is an RTS strategy, it has all to do with aoe4. But well maybe you cant understand.
As I always said : Do not expect from someone something that is impossible from him.
I will try, if you hide your strategy in an arena, it’s like a coinflip, impossible to see the agression coming. All is about luck there.
He was arguing that score can help to spot that, wich I dont think it can anyway. But his argument is valid and has all to do with age4. For now there is no arena in age4 maps, but we dont know what will happen at the release.
I guess I’m struggling to understand your arguments.
“Players should get free information because scouting is…easier?” If scouting is easier thats all the more reason to force players to scout properly.
“The score is completely unreliable” I agree, so why would we give it to players to rely on? Ive seen plenty of AoE 2 games where players who have clearly lost think they still have a chance because their score is higher, and vice versa.
“In islands and BF players cant always scout properly” so work with what you have and try to get as much info as you can. Be creative.
“Players will hide their strategies” YES! this was one of the most exciting things in Age 2 when a pro would succesfully bluff a unit and get them to create a bad counter, or cause them to play passively and boom bc they missed the hidden signs of aggression. Games that make intel important are in my opinion the most exciting.
“Stream viewers need it to tell whats going on” But again youve argued over and over that its both not a lot of info, and unreliable. I think the viewers will gather whats going on just fine without the score
I dont mean to take a super sarcastic tone here, but it sounds like all of your arguments argue the exact opposite, I genuinely dont understand how these argue for adding the score back
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Hello Studzman8373.
I will try to explain. It’s ok, when I wrote the post I knew that I will be in discussion with people that does not know what the score is. And just think about it. Imagine a Topic where you are the best. And Imagine yourself debating with nice people, but they dont have a clue about what’s going on. They can understand partially some things, or just repeat what they heard somewhere one day… Well.
Let’s start about your questions
→ ““Players should get free information because scouting is…easier?” If scouting is easier thats all the more reason to force players to scout properly.”
Because scouting is easier, and score information not reliable, we dont care about how much score can gives of information, because we have a way better and easy way to access scout information by scouting. Even if I think that there is some exageration about what the score can gives of information, the fact is that a lot of people have that opinion in mind : “Score gives free information” it"s false (Unless when you start to build a landamark). So I just tried to say, we dont care anyway about score information, because scouting gives already all what we need.
→ “The score is completely unreliable” I agree, so why would we give it to players to rely on? Ive seen plenty of AoE 2 games where players who have clearly lost think they still have a chance because their score is higher, and vice versa.
Iam not asking to add score for people to rely on it, they can if they want, they can ignore it if they prefer. It’s just nice to know my overall strength, if it gives zero inforamtions about strategies, it still gives an idea of my streanght. It’s just confortable like a compass in the game. But there is a lot of error margin on it, that’s why in age2 no one use score to decide his strategy, that does not exist.
→ “In islands and BF players cant always scout properly” so work with what you have and try to get as much info as you can. Be creative.
I dont care about informations that score can gives me, it’s not about that. As I said Relic can remove landmarks from the calculation of the score, then we will be in the same spot. Score gives 0 reliable informations + it will improve the comfort of a lot of players. TeutonicTanks explained above how much it was a good experience for him to have that compass when he was a noob in age2
->“Players will hide their strategies” YES! this was one of the most exciting things in Age 2 when a pro would succesfully bluff a unit and get them to create a bad counter, or cause them to play passively and boom bc they missed the hidden signs of aggression. Games that make intel important are in my opinion the most exciting.
In age 2 score does not entrave players to hide their strategies, it happens every times in all tournament. So I dont understand your point here. Score does not affect that part. In Age2 because of the score you can know when you opponent click up to the next stage, and even with that, there is still a lot of hidden strategies. But as I said, Relic can remove from score in game Landmarks, then we will not spot when a player is starting to build it.
→ “Stream viewers need it to tell whats going on” But again youve argued over and over that its both not a lot of info, and unreliable. I think the viewers will gather whats going on just fine without the score
Let’s say, I told you that Bejita has 8999 score, and Sangoku 9000 score.
Does that say anything about their secret tactics? NO. Does that tell us what’s their ability and how much gold they have in their pocket? Not at all. While this information is not that big for players.
It is in a viewers perspective, it has some nice aspect. It’s NICE to know the strenght, even if it has zero signication, but viewers are just noobs that like to watch others to play, and having that information is like a compass for them, look at how all those videos that calculate strenght of Manga Characters, does those have any signification? But still have a lot of success.
But let’s say your score is double than your opponent, that’s means the game is completely over, and trust me a lot of players does not like to resign unless they lose their last monument. Wich is hidden behind walls and buildings. Score will help everyone to win times. But that’s not an obligation, you can continue the game if you want.
But this is only for 1vs1.
In Team games, because you play with randoms, you dont know how much they are good at the game. And there is always one guy in the team that is strugling, he wants to resign, that’s fair, he is dying. But with the score displayed, he can see that his team is doing extremely well for their economy, and maybe Elephants from Delhi Sultanate will save him soon. It improves experience for everyone in team games. Otherwise, people will tend to resign at the first agression that they cant handle.
If you went for an eco approach, sometimes you cant help your allies, but you can be able to kill 2 guys, because you have the strongest economy. Those asymetric games is something that happen all the times because there is plyers that like to go for agression, and those who like go for late game ecnomy etc…
Do I need to say something about FFA ?
If you never played with score, I understand why you are not easy to convince. That’s why I created this topic. But it’s way harder than what I expected. Trust me, I want age4 to success because I like the gameplay, that’s the only aspect of the game that I like actually, but that’s enough for me. I dont care about graphics etc…
I can advise you to watch some AOM, AOE3 or AOE2 streams to understand how the score is fine. Specially in team games.
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I’ve played at least 1000 games with score in aoe2.
That’s exactly my interpretation of his comments as well. His argument is basically “it’s comfortable for me.”
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I’ve used score. I generally had it up in Age 2 to give me a rough idea of where I was at versus other players. That part I understand. I definitely didn’t rely on it, and really only used it because it was there to be used. Just because it was something that was there doesn’t make it a good mechanic, and as much as everyone is admitting that its unreliable, its just not something that players should be getting used to using. They would be much better off learning to scout their opponent from the beginning instead of learning bad habits like relying on an unreliable score.
I somewhat understand the team game aspect, but again, if you’re deciding whether to quit or keep going, then you probably have time to look around at your allies and make that determination from your shared vision. Or here’s a novel idea: TALK to your teammates, ask them if they would be fine with you resigning.
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There is no “learning to scout” in aoe4, this is the easiest thing in this game, wich can be good, because every player can focus on strategies, there is no skill required for scouting in age4.
Why would people get used to rely on score? Let them play how they wants to play. Iam not asking players to rely on score or not. Atleast displaying score can be an option. You cant just ignore that, all the previous age of empires have that feature.
The second part of your message about team games, just tells that you dont understand how team games works when you play with randoms without discord/ts vocal and how the score can improve the experience. Iam done with you
I mean I’m kind of done with this conversation myself, you clearly don’t have any compelling arguments as to why an admittedly useless, no-info-giving, unreliable number that sort of tells your standing among other players but not really, should be included in the game. I’m generally also of the opinion of “let the players play how they want to play” but I just see nothing added from this other than to discourage scouting and team communication. Its just not a useful change. Maybe there are better arguments out there for it, but none of these are doing it.
Scouting being easier does not mean there isn’t still skill to scouting, that to me says you don’t understand the purpose of scouting. Exploring the map is just the first part of scouting. There’s plenty more to learn like when to check the opponents base for aggression or timing attacks, checking villager counts and resource timings, scouting good harass locations, following would-be-harassment units to your base so you know when to defend, etc.
And you shouldn’t need discord to talk to your teammates, thats what chat is for. And if your teammates refuse to chat with you, then take a look at your surroundings and decide for yourself. Think critically, not just “oh we’re behind in an unreliable score, might as well give up.”
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I don’t like scores, and AOE4 doesn’t require the player to see scores while playing, it has scouts and unique vision mechanics. The score itself is a huge influence and has both advantages and disadvantages, many people are just not used to it, in fact, do not need to see the score in the game.
In spectator mode we can see the score, isn’t that enough?
I wrote a whole post to explain my point of view but you are clearly not here for discussion, just to speak about things that you clearly dont understand, I start to think that you are doing this on purpose. Good bye 
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Compelling arguments? Have you ever played a 4v4 TG in aoe2 on a open map (like eg. arabia)? If so then you would notice very quickly that there is no chance of knowing how many villagers the other side killed or lost, since you need to pay attention to your own game, unless you wanna die completly. It’s also not always possible to overview all the time whats happening on your side, with own ally.
And you shouldn’t need discord to talk to your teammates, thats what chat is for. And if your teammates refuse to chat with you, then take a look at your surroundings and decide for yourself. Think critically, not just “oh we’re behind in an unreliable score, might as well give up.”
This sounds nice in theory, but in practice it doesn’t work at all. I have played thousands of highlevel TGs on voobly and aoe2DE, I’m under the top 200 TG players. There are so many ppl who are not fluent in english (especially asians or sout americans), who simply don’t talk or give wrong information, because they are not able to properly interpret the situation. It’s luck based if your ally communicates or not. Take a look at surroundings doesn’t tell you how much army or villagers he lost or killed. In practice this doesn’t work. Think critically sounds like you always have plenty of spare time, but that’s not the case. The game is fast paced and there is simply no chance to sit back overview all bases and insta know what’s happening - after all you even only see your allies bases and don’t know how the opponent’s base looks like, how much he invested, if he is all in.
Especially when in game a player is very behind score saved me quite a few games from early resigns, because he was still even or close and then i could use this as argument to convince my allies from not resigning. Score saved me way more games than it lost me due to interpreting it in a wrong way.
Keep in mind that the dominating game mode in mutiplayer in aoe is TG and not 1v1, TG has a huge importance.
Honest last question: what’S your background? How many aoe TGs have you played, if you played some and at what level, ruffly? Just for curiosity.
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LOOOL,
allowing urself to compare aoe4 with sc2, but if compare to aoe2 than “new game”.
I just gave example how score helps to gameplay.
PS yes games are different, but aoe4 (close to) aoe2 …(far away) sc2.
also the problems described above(u can reread) will be the same, because same mechanics/same random maps. and no air units, no active abilities from sc2.
cheese strats on some maps will be broken.
I already know the similar strat
HRE → man&arms + rams push
PPS again, score is controversial, but at least ppl should understand that score give to the game.
and if we understood the reasons and made a decision that’s fine… but 90% of arguments “sc2 does not have something, so it also should work for aoe4”
In my opinion devs could improve the score “to reduce” its importance. or give alternatives such as active scans to civs(like China). But they removed feature and did nothing…
u can always see that age opponent has… it’s also cheating, u should ask to remove it also.
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I don’t understand the problem here for HAVING the scores. It was there in all previous AOE games, you can hide it or show it.
There is already the “landmarks” numbers at the top, so there is already informations about others players. Also “Player 2 is at feodal age” is displayed too. Scores can help to know where we are against others. When someone resign it’s easy to see it. You don’t want to show it you press a button. You worry about “cheating” ?? Let an option in the lobby to disable it…
I’m a slow AOE player since 1998, I like the scores to know where I am, anyway if i’m far behind others guys will beat me, if I’m far ahead maybe I will not attack the “little guy” but more the second or the best displayed… these are just numbers. I think it’s difficult to get a unit alive at each part of map to see how each player may be. But if you want to play like that, uncheck the score button and voila.
At the end, scores in AOE 1 - AOE 3 DE never killed somebody. Less options is less playability.
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The only way I can forgive you changing my mind about score, is if you share your twitch !!
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There’s at least 2 active abilities to help with scouting in the game, maybe more once we see full release. HRE MAA + Rams push is strong but slow so it’s the easiest thing in the world to scout and expect coming - no idea why you think score is needed in order to help there.
on arena? how to scan behind walls ?
how them slow? 30 MMA will run from ur base to opponent for 30-40 sec, if opponent doing boom or wrong army → he is ded.
2 out of 6? what’s the second one?
Also china forced to select landmark for scanning.
There will be more strategies in no time after release.
I just gave example how score saves games.