The water in CNC 3 looks ugly because it has almost no lighting from the atmosphere because of the issue that the world is in a post-apocalyptic situation and in a world war that has lasted with its peaks and downturns for 50 years (1997-2047). by an alien mineral that is known as tiberium, hence the subtitles of the main saga of CNC…
That’s it. let’s consider CoH 3 as the real AoE 4 and not this remake of AoE 2 xd…
There you have it… In-game images of CoH2…
And literally none of them have water visible 
Do you even own CoH 2? Those all look like screenshots from the Internet.
@EricGonzalezM’s point was that the assets in CoH 2 (unsure what he means by assets, but he then talks about water rendering, reflections, particle effects, etc) are of “better quality” than in AoE IV.
I agree and I disagree. I agree in that you can see better fidelity on individual units (for example zoom right in on a Germany trooper model or whatever, vs. a Scout or Villager in Age IV). But the difference is Company of Heroes severely limits how many of these units are on the field at once, compared to Age IV.
Before we even talk about time available to polish the game, art style, etc.
Alternatively, it’s because the game is 15 years old 
I don’t knock older games for being restricted by tech. But a lot of people are trying to talk about “engine capabilities” here when they really mean “time available for polish”.
There’s no need to run around trying to guess at what a game engine does and how it works, when you already believe the game was rushed. If you believe the game was rushed - there’s your answer.
The concept of polish or lack thereof and the concept of well-developed and fleshed-out mechanics and robust technical side of the game are very different things. One does not exclude or apologize for the other.
Discussions about price ranges, RRP, and marketing strategy of publishers are for the most part very pointless, but from a technological and visual point this game is now, just like it was in the first closed beta build, a title that qualifies for 25-40$ range, at best.
And it has nothing to do with art style, how textures look, scale of models model, etc. This is a flagship game from arguably the best RTS series in history, and certainly one of the most important series on PC, and it is very underwhelming and in most aspects- barebones and dismaying, considering how few ‘big’ RTS game series exist, and how many years pass from one installment to the other.
Developers by no means are obliged to make their game groundbreaking, on any level, or obliged to not aim for the broadest possible player base out there. At the same time, players have all right to maintain high expectations and hold up huge titles like that to a certain standard 
It’s a well-known fact that most purchases are from people focused on solo/coop modes. And these modes, especially on release, were poor. Campaigns are still unfulfilling- some missions are very simple and relatively short, most have borderline zero replay value, percentage of non-base building ones is much greater than in any other AoE game.
Overall I like them, like the video, style, presented history, narration, no annoying politicizing etc.
But these are games not documentaries, and gameplay is the most important aspect. Some missions are great, some feel like demo versions. Weirdly it reminds me of Hitman: Absolution
Nothing can conquer with AoE2, especially 2DE, but even AoE III with much smaller campaign content at least offered very very decent solo and multiplayer skirmish options, where IV again- was kinda barebones even to late 19990s standards.
Glass is always half empty one way or the other- I’m 100% fine siding with the view ‘game was not rushed, development was smooth, developers just received less time than the game, or they, needed to deliver what was meant to be delivered’ They did a fantastic job within given timeframe.
Thing is- from the player’s perspective this was fifteen years.
There are some great-looking strategies on PC, but for the most part they are of economical type, builders, grand, 4X.
I, nor anyone I’ve seen on this forum before the release of IV, was asking for a potato-ready, clean, pro-play broadcast-friendly game, that could’ve been mistaken after the first screenshot reveals as a high-end mobile title, focused on PvP.
They are. This thread is about the curious case of graphics, and how people are trying to find reasons for that.
Nobody is saying players can’t have high expectations. “I don’t think the engine is cutting-edge” isn’t having high expectations. It’s making a claim about the technical aspects of the inner working of the game that very little of us, if anyone, is actually privy to the details of.
I get it. People are trying to make sense of the thing they wanted, and presumably wasn’t delivered on. There’s been no (or no real noticeable) attacks on the developers in all of these recent posts, it’s all been a pretty good discussion at least from where I’m sitting. I understand wanting to find reasons.
But my “tl;dr” is that when it comes to graphics, people simply weight “style” far more than they rate technical quality. Bringing up 720p screenshots of CoH 2 only serves to reinforce that impression (this wasn’t you, I’m speaking generally).
People raise screenshots of CnC3, and it’s not the technical quality that’s being discussed. It’s simply the end result that’s preferred. That comes across better. And that’s fine. If someone prefers the hard-edged look of more realistic RTS games, I have absolutely zero problem with that.
But if you want to talk about “high-end mobile titles”, do you actually play any? I’m actually pretty into the mobile scene (sue me 
), having played a couple of what I’d consider the most high-profile and / or graphically-intensive releases of the past year or two (Diablo Immortal and Marvel Future Revolution, respectively). And while mobile graphics are often far better than the PC gaming crowd tends to give them credit for . . . they don’t look like a PC-first game does. Like Age does.
If anything, all that comparison does is show how far mobile games have come. If they can match a game that is seen to be too “clean”, lacking fauna or Gaia, or treasure spawns, or whatever it is everyone wants that bring an Age map to life (note: varies severely by the type of Age fan) - mobile games have come a long way indeed. I have a phone from not much more than a decade ago. It has games on it, I could take some pictures of them. They weren’t able to even come close to PC games a decade ago.
aoe 4 graphics is best it put functionality first and foremost and it’s amazing looking
Is one of the problems. Some buildings seen good and others seen…
For example, aoe1 proportions wasnt accurate but all buildings had the same proportions so they were proportionate to each other
I don’t think so but i suppose these are different visions
Almost every review magazine/site pointed that one of the lower aspect of the game was the graphics…
Yes, absolutely. This Is not personal point of view because there will always be people who like or not the graphic or artstyle. But It has been one of the most critized aspect of the game judging the main professional reviews.
Wait. So reviews are a valid source now? Every time I’ve raised reviews before people have criticised them.
Or are reviews only valid when they’re criticising the game or something?
The graphic have always been one of the most critized aspects everywhere.
That’s not what I’m asking. I’m asking what’s acceptable to link with regards to the game, because every time I’ve linked a positive review, it’s been “not a reliable source” or some variation on that.
But now it’s okay? I can link all the positive reviews of the game, including any that appreciate the art style and / or graphical fidelity?
Yes, of course. There Always been positive reviews, i’m not saying the opposite. I said that graphic has been the worst aspect of the game also for many professional reviews.
Actually I don’t believe that much in the media, but the same issue was also raised by indie reviewers and also it was a pretty common issue In all reviews, so when all of them say the same probably is true, also s lot of the steam negative ( and also positive ones ) point the same.
I just want consistency. If you don’t believe much in the media, but you believe in them when it coincides with your opinion on the game, that’s just bias.
I’ve read a bunch of reviews over the past half an hour, and a number of them (if they note the visuals) say the graphics could be better. A couple say the game looks and feels great. So on the whole - yeah - for the reviews that mentioned it, the graphics are criticised more than they’re not.
But that doesn’t always mean what folks want it to mean. The way some folks carry on you’d think it looks like Clash of Clans or something.
All that said, I don’t think anyone would have a problem with the game being made to look better. It’s how the game is made to look better that people will disagree on.
Is just better textures enough? More animations? Additional map biomes / fauna / Gaia visuals? All of the above? I’m good with all of that. But if someone wants the game to look fundamentally different, then you lose my vote. I like the art style. I’m fine it with being refined, but I wouldn’t want that changed.
I’m fine with the artstyle and i already said that this Is the game and we can’t expect a totally remake. But as you already explained, many people are simply asking for Better textures, more biomas, animations, fauna and Gaia. It’s not to hard for developers. I’ve good feelings because Forgotten Empires seems more involed into development.
I’ve always thought, since the first trailers, that maybe a saturation slider could work, as it would make the game look more “realistic” if a player want to tone it down, and people who like it as it is can maintain the look.
There you have water… it’s obviously frozen because it’s the middle of the Russian winter… but if you throw a cannon shot or a dynamite you can sink the units into it…
Yes, it just makes me lazy to look for my screenshots of the game xd…
Of course, just as CnC3 was a long time in development (almost a decade), back and forth about the game and how to follow its story, Westwood wanted to connect CnC3 with Red Alert 2 and EA did not want to because otherwise it was going to be very cumbersome to follow the plot (as it is said Yuri, the antagonist of RA2 originally was a follower of Kane, the antagonist of the main saga, who during the story of CnC 3 was going to find an old chronosphere and travel to the past until the end of the SGM and a lot of more time travel things)…Then EA closed Westwood in 2003 and we ended up with the CnC 3 that we all know, which many of the CnC players did not like too much, but which is still considered better than the fourth installment…that sounds like to me xd?..
Yes, although I still make noise the pixelated appearance of the floor, even with high graphics…
I would also add the bandit camps of the campaigns, but that would already be asking a lot not?..
Most of those are in-game screenshots as you see those scenes when you play them. I bought and played CoH 2 extensively. I know it has reflective snow, puddles, etc. from its default camera angle, no zoom or rotation required.
I don’t buy the performance argument. AoE 4 is running all that eye candy, but the choosing of the sun position, camera angle, water reflectiveness, etc. makes it all almost impossible to appreciate. So we’re getting the worst of both worlds: GPU resources being used to render all that but hidden from view 99% of the time. My puny 2060 gets very noticeable hit on water maps, but the appreciable water quality is akin to that of AoE 2 DE. Am I getting my money’s worth out of those GPU cycles? Absolutely not.
If you as a dev are making a conscious decision to conceal the eye candy because of some strange reason (readability perhaps - seeing your boat reflected could confuse pro players(?) ), then why leaving that in the game anyway taking up all the resources? I swore for months after buying the game that Essence’s AoE 4 revision was incapable of reflections other than 90’s era pre-made reflection maps. It was SO hard to notice them.
If the game will forever retain its default view, then why have water effects, reflections, puddles, shiny textures, etc. hurting performance? Wouldn’t it be better to just do away with all that and get a performance boost? The eye candy has only served to do some nice “gameplay” trailers which don’t demonstrate the real gameplay graphics at all. What a waste.
