You might think you’ve reached the highest 4v4 or 1v1 rank. In reality, you are cheating, often as a group of four, and then flaunting your in-game ranking.
These cheaters wield the most powerful unit—the knight—as the ultimate tool bolstered by their hacks. I have published numerous articles advocating for nerfing the knight. Almost all who oppose this are cheaters themselves.
If you are intelligent, you will realize that weakening the “knight”—this essential cheat-enabler—would be the most significant blow to all cheaters. Those who complain about the knight’s overpowering strength in 4v4 are the game’s most loyal fans.
The Biggest Pain Point and Flaw in Age of Empires IV Gameplay Design – The Scout’s Excessive Line of Sight
For various reasons, particularly concerning vision mechanics, a large portion of the player base now prefers 4v4 over 1v1. In 4v4, I don’t aspire to the highest ranks, nor do I enjoy bullying new players in the lower tiers. I genuinely want new players to be able to enjoy the game without pressure.
However, the skill level in the Gold rank is extremely inconsistent. The root cause is that many skilled and experienced players are being pushed down from the Diamond rank by cheaters. This results in a situation where a player’s rank might sometimes be “Conqueror,” and other times “Gold.”
I deeply wish for less experienced players to be matched against each other, where they can find fun and learn. I don’t want them to feel forced to pick up the “weapon” of cheating just to compete against veterans. Because of this broken cycle, I’ve decided to stop playing this game daily and will instead become a casual player.
I often find myself quickly defeating and completely overwhelming new players, and now I feel guilty about it. My hard-earned skills are only being used to dominate newcomers, while against high-level, seasoned cheaters, they feel useless.
It’s an endless, frustrating cycle: I effortlessly crush everyone from Diamond rank downwards, then get consistently defeated by squads of “skilled cheaters,” which drops me back to Gold or Platinum. Then, the cycle of dominating new players starts again. Now, defeating those new players just makes me feel ashamed. There’s no sense of accomplishment left.
if you are able to quickly destroy new commers and you are losing to veterans then you are most likely gold/plat, which is correct because new commers are boosting you and veterans are putting you in the right place.