Suggestion - Add "lights" to active buildings

[TheAchronic]

This is a feature you will find in many games as it works well with RTS games. Many games takes it a step further, and fully animate buildings when they are active–and although I love that idea more, this idea is extremely cheap and easy to implement. Taking that into consideration, here are the benefits that justify adding it into the game;

Remember when we had no global queue, and had to depend on clicking on individual buildings to see if they were producing? That was rough, and it is great to have a global queue now. However, we can take this one step further by adding lights from within the building, shining through their doors and windows to showcase that they are active. This would directly tell the player if a production, tech, religious building is active or not, by simply glancing at it.

This is not meant to be a replacement for the global queue, but simply add even more visual context that helps players feel attuned to the gameplay by using their basic senses. This would also be a mechanic to be wary of in combat, as a player could change their strategies depending on if the enemy production buildings are active or not. Of course it could mean that for instance, those players could camp an active production building, but also that the other player could fake production in an attempt to stall out the enemy, so as a gameplay mechanic, it can be utilized in many ways.

It also grant more life to the currently stagnant cities we build. Consider that the things that move the most are either villagers, mills or a lumber camps. Seeing faint lights coming from inside buildings going on and off, it would contribute to a city that feels more alive.

Here are two mock ups I quickly put together.

Barracks

Stables

I didn’t put too much effort into these, so don’t take it at face value. It would be up to Relic to decide how to fully implement it, how strong the lights should be, what colour and if they flicker and so on.

Anyways, what do you think of this idea? I feel that it is a reasonable enough considering how easy it would be to implement as well as how much it would add to the game feel both in gameplay and visuals.

[EricGonzalezM]

I would love it, but I doubt they would ever do something like that as long as horses and chicken remain being statues.

Even when it comes to the eSports focus AoE4 has, there is a lot of value in seeing what buildings are actually producing something. As you mentioned, I see often “high IQ” moves of players building a stable as a decoy so the enemy starts churning out spearmen, but a hidden archery range is what’s actually producing the units. So if you scout and you see a stable doing nothing and just sitting pretty there, you’d know something’s up.

It’s all these little details that I really wanted AoE4 to have from the get go, but here we are 1.5 years later, sigh.

[TheAchronic]

I understand your sense of hopelessness, but I think it is also important to do things like this, where players showcase exactly what they want in the game. It should help developers directly understand what is being asked for.

And despite their strategy of avoiding interacting with their playerbase, we do know they watch from afar. And so, creating mockups like these strips them of the excuse that they never considered it. If things go unchanged despite the repeated support of a suggestion, we’ll learn that the inaction is likely a decision. Of course, that is the worst case scenario.

On a brighter note, this should help them understand our point of view better.

[HasanIchess]

the intention is good, but it must be in such a way that the rival does not see it

I do not use control groups in the buildings and to control which building I want them to occur, some time ago I suggested that the production of a building can be deactivated, in the secondary panel, in this way it cannot be activated by mistake, like the secondary panel that Mongolian buildings have.

They made me see a good idea that this could serve as a garnish, so I also suggested that activating that also cancels all the production that was queued in that building. I will be patient in waiting for that according to the list of priorities that the game has