To be fair, they feel the same way about AOE-3. Personally, I think AOE-4 is an evolution in some ways, and a regression in others.
The irony is that AOE-4 was made to appeal to the core player base of AOE-2.
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Was that screenshot from the first teaser trailer?
Tried it, and even with some rough adjustments there are massive differences. This isn’t for everyone obviously but I find that the game just looks too blue and muddy, so I tried to make the reds come through a lot more (probably too much), soften the shadows and warm them up, bring out some verdant green and reduce some of the blue haze. Here are some before and afters.
Here is the setting if anyone is interested.
Would love for them to take another look at it so this wouldn’t be necessary.
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This is very true!
The biggest and most famous streamers of the AOE2 already left AOEIV.
And they all agreed that AOE4 is not a complete game.
It misses many basic features, and the combat is way too boring because the siege and metas were stupid.
That cinematics can be done with as little as $200k. That makes this game a budget AAA game
I don’t think it is.
Most AOE2 pros left it because they didn’t like the AOEIV a bit.
It was so soulless if you compare it with AOE2
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A budget AAA game, isn’t a budget game. There’s a huge gap between AAA and “AA” (what was known as the “mid” publisher tier back in the late 00s before places like THQ folded).
And the campaign cinematics were one, single example. That I’m sure you can accurately cost 
That is actually the big point…
Aoe4 was not only an unbelievably unfinnished game when it came out, missing most basic things are very basic QOL features and having tons of game-breaking (pvp) bugs, not even having ranked play and ranked seasons, but most importantly it did not have soul.
The whole UI is just golden, no care for detail or love, as in the previous aoe titles.
The whole game feels clinically clean, empty and soulless.
That’s why so many SC2 pros came into it, but no aoe2/3 pros.
I mean, why the hell would you make the whole UI uniform golden and make all the icons look like clones???
The detail in there was one of the main selling points of the series.
Aoe4 is just a budget game and you can literally feel in every aspect of the game that no love was spent on developing it.
It was (at best!) a low tier side-project of (non aoe experienced) Relic…
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Maybe the best thing for this game is for them to become a cash cow style model, make the base game free, and then release small DLCs to augment gameplay and nongameplay elements alike. Just like they did with AoE 3 DE as the playerbase shrank. At least then the complaints of the game milking the audience would line up with reality.
Sarcasm aside, the game is maintained by several studios, all of whom show a passion for the game. It is clear, to me at least, that they try to honor the series with their effort.
I actually wish they would add something to swap out the UI, kind of like HUD skins from DotA 2 if anyone has played that.
With the El Reinado qualifiers happening, as well as other tournaments in the past, they’ve had a custom caster overlay. Tournament aesthetics are what inspired DotA 2’s HUD skins.
There are already things that can be used to alter the game to our preferences as users. Software like ReShade is actually very old, and it has been used to help remaster old games and have them feel more modern, or just match the preferences we have. I made the suggestion to help people make a visual example of their preferences, but also to help address the issues people have in whatever way I can as a fellow user.
This is very offtopic already, but pro players leaving the scene is extremely normal, even expected. Many of the people who are leaving were big in SC2. Stormgate, which is what they are leaving for, is brand new… but is designed by the SC2 dev team, and it really shows in the gameplay. It also takes time to practice and hone skills to be on top of a game’s meta. They can’t play more than one game at a pro level and excel at all of them, so some of them made the choice. You’ll notice the top earners are not leaving.
It’s very misleading to make attachments with that happening and the quality of AoE4.
This is neither here nor there and I get it was a sarcastic response but the way WE handled the F2P trial from the get-go was botched. Like, if you wanted an example of what not to do with something like that I’d point to 3DE as an example. No DLCs have been released during this period either. Over 6 months now of complete silence since the most awkward DLC reveal I have ever seen.
If you’re talking about explorer skin packs they all released in October 2023.
I suspected it was just a testing bed for when they do the same thing with 2DE though it hasn’t happened yet.
It’s best not to try to understand what WE does with 3DE because none of it makes any sense.
Anyway.
On to the discussion at hand.
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Those who have no idea about development should probably qualify their opinions with a little more caution, in my opinion.
Feel free to dislike / hate / like / love / be underwhelmed or overwhelmed by the end product, but your guessing games are just that: guessing games.
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I identify a budget game when I see it.
Game came out max (!) 40% finnished and it now reached 70-80% of what it should have been at release.
Budget game with budget support.
A game that doesn’t offer basic QOL features of its predecessors (!) 3 years after release, has stylistically way inferior UI, is full of hackers (nothing being done about it), falls behind the player numbers of over 20y old predecessor, underwhelming graphically, troubled engine and pathing, dysfunctional attack prio, dysfunctional counter-system, stagnated meta and balance issues, receives a FRACTION of the patches/hotfixes an over 20y old predecessor does, is a BUDGET game.
Fullstop.
Now I am curious who you’ll justify any of these points with your blind defense of aoe4…
Edit:
I’m not hating the product, I’m hating the treatment it receives from the publisher/devs.
Using my eyes and seeing what is infront of them, is far from guessing.
All these points I have listed above are objective and measurable.
If the game massively falls behind of almost every aspect of its predecessors and obvious flaws are not being tackled 3 years after release, then one who calls this “guessing” is obviously very very delusional…
Sorry to say it directly as that.
By the way, I can’t remember having sent you my CV.
So don’t make assumptions about my work-experience.
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All this time for aoe4 to look like a mobile game, why the cartoonish graphics
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In your opinion. Agree to disagree, of course.
Why do I need to? It’s your opinion of the game. I don’t agree, but that doesn’t and won’t change the way you feel. It’s valid.
I didn’t say you were.
Incorrect, because you have no idea of what happened internally. You’re speculating based on your opinion of the end result.
I don’t need to. But if you want to trade expertise my PMs are always open.
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Would’ve easily bought a UI pack. Hell, I always wanted to make my own for AoE4, including individual artworks for icons, which many others were ready to do as well. It is unfortunate that modding was delivered the way it was.
The community has always been willing to do more with AoE4. I think that is maybe one of the worst parts about the way the game has been handled so far. AoE4 has always had a massive amount of potential, and I think that hope has kept many people around.
I think the hope might be falling off slowly however. You mentioned professionals leaving, and while I agree that is normal, I find that content creators being on a steady decline to be a much bigger concern. In the end. And to be fair, the game itself (not the gameplay or strategy in battles), is simply not that interesting. The campaigns are dull, the visuals are uninspiring, most units share same animations, and the game features too restrictive deisgn. I think not having the ability to mod a lot or just having easy access to map making has hurt it significantly. People log in to play; never really to make screenshots, pretty cities or towns, never to make scenarios.
And while I recognize they are out there, these are especially dedicated people. I’m just talking about casuals messing around and having fun with a sandbox. There is just not much of that in AoE4.
EDIT: It’s unfortunate. I think about all the great art the game has commissioned (like from Craig Mullins) which gives a genuine look into how AoE4 is meant to look and feel. Yet, despite being out for almost 3 years, there is barely any fan art of this game.
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What does “look like a mobile game” mean? What is the mobile art/graphic style?
What do you think “cartoon” means? Because this word seems to have lost all meaning for most of the people who use it.
Take a look at another title familiar to historical strategy players, CIV:
One was praised for having good graphics
The other criticized for being “cartoony” or “mobile looking”
I don’t think i need to say which is which
Man, I’d forgotten exactly how washed out V was. Been playing VI for so long.
Anyhow, some fun stats. One of the games in the above screenshots has 10k active players on Steam right now. The other right now has about 38k. Both are great numbers, but I don’t think I need to say which is which.
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Exactly, AOE fans were waiting for something much better, shiny, and good-looking game.
But we received a version of the 2000s with better cartoony graphics lol.
Back in the day, cartoony graphics were understandable because PCs could not provide enough capability to deliver realistic graphics. But now, graphic cards, CPUs, and other devices are more than capable of doing this. Still, the devs and others do not understand this. They are stuck in the old days and do not want to see any improvement.
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Please explain to us.
Why did they do everything wrong?
Are they not skilled enough? Not enough funds? Bribery? Personal interests or taste? Do they understand AOE fans’ wants and needs? What is it?
Can you please provide any information regarding the AOEIV’s struggle?
If Relic and World’s Edge keeps this attitude toward their player base, the game, and the franchise will decline. They have to improve their communication and provide information to their community.
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