Don’t compare with other games. It will make your argument subjective and unconstructive.
Do remember to spend your time phrasing your point (or “criticism”) very carefully and politely otherwise the people will be heartbroken.
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Whether someone prefers AoE3’s vivid style or AoE4’s painterly style is subjective, true. But objectively AoE3 is more advanced in many ways. It consistently has higher res textures, models on par or better, simulations (trampled grass, water ripples), real-time reflections and ragdoll physics. AoE3 having more graphical features while supporting lower specs suggests better optimization or use of hardware. Like AoE4 has an underutilized sky and cloud system while AoE3 has simple but cheap skyboxes. And that is normally good enough when playing the game.
Still, AoE4 has been improved and greatly optized since launch and even runs better on max settings for me now. The question of what graphical features can AoE3 take from AoE4 is interesting. Maybe terrain erosion and volumetric fog. The sky and cloud system perhaps.
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The cliffs in 3DE are objectively bad.
AoEIV runs like butter for me, 3DE is prone to lag when in big battles. Heck, I have the occasional hiccup while playing 2DE. I’m sure AoMR will run similarly to the DEs after a few patches.
My PC is well above the recommended specs btw.
Masteries are great and I’d love to see them make their way to the DEs.
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A lot of this requires analysis I don’t have to hand, but let’s try and break it down.
“higher res textures” I disagree. The environment textures blow III: DE out of the water. The units look (sometimes a lot) better zoomed-in in III: DE, but the materials aren’t as good (outside of the inconsistent weapon aesthetics in IV). IV is hurt by a lack of consistency in this regard though.
Models are comparable, but models in IV seem to have more layers. Look at Achronic’s post here. It highlights the texture issues, but the polys on the model (facial weaknesses aside) seem to look more complex than in the close-up AoE III screenshots I’ve seen (or taken). Look at RoomOfEvil’s post here. All that detail on the arms? Texture, not model.
Ragdolls exist in III - the physics there is good! I’d give that to III: DE, but I also know what the Essence engine can do there. Trust me when I say if you could magically rip out a piece of an engine and put it in another game? Essence’s physics are fantastic, when utilised properly. CoH 3 is finally getting there with that, for the record.
The realtime ripples in AoE III: DE don’t look realistic. There, I said it 
But I’ve also asked for better water effects in every AoE IV survey (and the Sultan’s Ascend delivered on some of it I think). I don’t really want to give that to either game. IV looks better now than on release, but they could still make it better (and traditionally Relic games didn’t even feature much water, which again demonstrates the strength of the engine).
Your point about the skyboxes is actually in favour of IV. I believe (though I don’t have a source), that the developers intentionally left that to modders to experiment with.
Of course, I don’t actually want to backport anything back to III: DE. It is its own game and I want the developers to keep building on that vision; for that playerbase. Just as I do with IV.
Also, anecdotally, AoE III: DE has some kind of hitching / microstutter on my (pretty absurd) PC. AoE IV has never had this (I wasn’t even that badly impacted by the terrible FPS drop on camera panning that affected early AoE IV, that took them a few months to properly address).
Quick response.
AoE3 Cliffs: is subjective whether good or bad.
Environment textures: ground texture detail I’d say on par thanks to the terrain update a year ago. Aesthetics is up to the viewer. Rest of the enivronment assets are similar lod.
Units and buildings: AoE3 for textures. I did a comparison of janissaries between the 2 games a while ago and AoE3 is notably more detailed.
PBR: Subjective but i prefer AoE3. AoE4 can have a weird shine depending on the camera angle, for example on horses.
Water ripples: more realistic with boats leaving wakes, but subjective to how well it achieves it.
Skyboxes: A win for AoE4 but currently underutilized, which seems like a small waste of FPS imo.
Performance: it took 1-2 years to overtake AoE3. Well done to the devs for improving performance while also making AoE4 look better.
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Bad in what sense, in appearance? Of course not. There are different types of cliffs depending on the terrain, and besides that I have another fact: When cannonballs hit them they make a different sound.
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It could be considered subjective whether players prefer AoE3 style cliffs or AoE4/AOM style cliffs. I personally don’t mind the cliffs in AoE3 and think it contributes to the overall visual aesthetics as a recognizable feature of AoE3. It can replicate sheer cliff faces whereas the other games cannot.
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I happen to love the art style. I didn’t at first, and thought it looked depressing, but after the overhaul I think it looks gorgeous. I love the fluorescent unit colors (though I’d like a bit less of it on some units) and even the light emanating weapons that make it easier to distinguish and also give the game a more optimistic vibe. There are plenty of things to still improve about the graphics, but for me all the suggestions and reshading examples made above look much worse than what we have now.
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I agree overall. The graphics have certainly improved since launch, I find the entire AOE4 aesthetic to be rather calming. Still muted in places but not too bad either.
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From what ive heard is that the people that made the game are no longer linked to the game, its the aoe2 and 3 devs that are making those improvements to make the game more age of empires like, theyre doing what they can.
Where have you heard such a thing? Relic does all the development. Forgotten Empires does the balance testing. And World’s Edge is the project management. We’ve had ZeroEmpires from Relic on Reddit answering some things after latest patch, to just give you an example.
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Do you have anything to confirm this? For reference, this is the last thing I can remember reading from anyone involved with the game commenting on the hierarchy of development.
ZeroEmpires •5mo ago
Relic made the DLC and have been the primary developer of AoE4 since day 1. There have been other studios helping along the way, Climax supported the Xbox version, Forgotten Empires have supported with balance playtesting and maps, and there have been other studios involved with outsourcing. However, when it comes to content and features, Relic have been supporting the game since launch.
https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe4/comments/1bpq3je/comment/kwym2f3/
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I saw it from a red bull wololo interview with one of the Devs from an aoe de I think or a worker, I hadn’t seen that comment from zero empires, perhaps that’s the involvement and they just do balance stuff, and relic does the development, but the game has been changing the art style that’s why I misenterpreted what he said, I was wrong.
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World’s Edge has been involved from the start. Forgotten Empires has been involved since after launch (I think). Nobody knows how involved Relic is but to put all the “good” decisions at the feet of “anyone but Relic” is just wishful thinking from people not involved or even close to the game’s development who want a boogeyman to blame.
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You’ve only heard that from other random people who have no idea.
Ok, you were actually right. A few tournament organizers confirmed in Demu’s chat today that Relic hasn’t been working on AoE4 since SEGA ditched them. It’s been the same developer who made AoM Retold, Forgotten Empires, who’s been working on the game ever since.
I’m trying to find the clip to confirm this, but the whole stream is 5 hrs long. Any kind of info on what the match was or anything to help narrow it down?
https://m.twitch.tv/videos/2263251999
It’s kind of a big claim, and it isn’t consistent with how AoE is developed. For example, AoM Retold is lead by World’s Edge and codeveloped by Forgotten Empires. All games in the series have at least 2 studios co-developing.
Starts at 1:59:56 it seems. It’s discussed for several minutes intermittently.
So from ~April, the game has been maintained by Forgotten Empires.
Which also explains the slow patching and no DLC. It’s not Microsoft who doesn’t want DLC to affect AoM sales, it’s the actual devs that were busy with AoM.
This actually annoys me a bit, seeing how many patches AoM is getting, while AoE4 is left running with game breaking exploits for weeks on end.
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Well, it looks like some of Relic’s devs are still somewhat involved in AoE 4, for example ZeroEmpires, as his Twitter bio still says he works at Relic:
https://x.com/ZeroEmpires
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Well, since they don’t want to confirm who’s working on the game, I’ll just shit talk Microsoft from now on when there’s something wrong with the game. Don’t wanna risk shit talking the wrong dev you know.