I remember before we were shown any footage of the game how I imagined the game would look like, it would have amazing visuals with detailed units, dead bodies that would fall and roll downhill and would leave rivers of blood, weather effects, mud physics, waves and storms on the sea, imposing castles, tremendous wonders and so on. Here is what we got, that simple building is the HRE wonder dear folks:
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Btw, I have to give credit to @jimmy19846071 after not agreeing with him for so long.
After all this time that he kept posting images and videos from Spellforce 3 as graphics comparison in past years, and now that I have played AoE4 and seen how it looks by actually playing it, I have to admit he was absolutely right! Spellforce 3 looks both waaaay more beautiful (to the point you canāt even compare it to Age4) and also has better visual clarity. Hell, even AoE3DE looks better.
Wow, what the hell happened with AoE4 visually?
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My main takeaway from the stress test is that AOE 4 looks āoddā and āServiceableā.
The environmental art, and some of the vignettes (like scouts running across the hills with a herd of sheep in tow) look gorgeous, as does the sight of troops on the walls. However, the unit models, texture work and animations are all really, really basic, which is especially odd considering this comes from Relic. The very ordinary look of character motions just jumps out when one thinks that this is the same company that made Dawn of War 1 and 2, as well as Company of Heroes, where individual troops just moved in such seemingly dynamic ways.
A small rephrase; while the animations and models arenāt ābadā, they are not as unique or impressive as one one would have thought. They are serviceable.
I also had a hard time picking out units from each other, which may just be my lack of experience with the game. However, to go back to the Spellforce 3 comparisons, I do not recall having the same trouble in that game. Now, Spellforce 3 had overly busy environments that caused some issues, so there is that, but the units did not quite blend together the way they did here for me.
I also noted that the game was definitively more demanding hardware wise, which again, came off as strange considering the visual output does not seem to be all that intensive. Iām sure plenty is going on under the hood, but the end result did not seem like it warranted that, if that makes any sense.
EDIT: I am not bashing all the way on the game. It was fun! Iām just not sure I can count myself as floored between the graphics and the flow of it all.
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question to manipulate?
ask: realistic or readable
Aoe2 community who were surviving for years played in Pixel, which were quite realistic.
Playable Multiplayer > Fancy realism.
But somehow devs did none of that, no realism and no good readability.
Nice biased poll. AoE4 is not pixel units, you craft the poll so of course people will choose ultra realistic
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I do not see how the pool could be biase.
( unless you create multiple acount and selet the vote you want, or if you āpirateā the pol whit computer code )
( but the two biase option demand hard work for no reason)
I never said that that aoe 4 had Pixel units or had Ultra realistic units.
I said in a neutral pol:
I did the poll to suport my folowing saying:
And you say it biase because you also think you know that players do want to see a ultra realistic units in game.
Maybe not exacly like total war units, but more close to reality.
( total war units reference was only a randum example of units, that are bether looking and mecanism, then aoe 4 open beta)
I am not sure if i was clear or if i miss something.
Can some one reformulate our saying, for bether readability?
Those are more reasonable comparisons, for sure.
I agree that theyāre more detailed and have overall better texture quality. I donāt think any of them are more readable, though. Especially AoE3. Everything people complain about AoE4 in terms of readability is much worse in AoE3DE, in my opinion.
I also prefer AoE4 visuals as a whole, but thatās 100% subjective.
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I really donāt know. Thereās a big difference between X019 and E3 (and closed beta) In term of quality graphic.
And at this point iāve have to agree with @AndyPXIII : i tought he was a big fan of AOE4 and he was very Happy for the final result due he has been a member of the Council which helped developers during the game development.
But iāve totally agree with him: this game has not inspiration about civilizations: you donāt have all those beautiful details, design and unicity for each civilizations in similar way to AOEO and AOE3de.
Iām pretty sure some member of Council tried to share their feedbacks about a Better Graphic, textures and more unique elements for each civilizations: more unique units Who play and show in very different way.
This Means, in my opinion, that developers choiced which feedbacks following.
I really Hope the next AOE5 (there Will be One? Who knows) Will change the Developmentās approach:
1)follow the Company of Heroes 3 and Humankind vision about that: involve players to Development with pre-alpha versions. Their feedbacks Will help a lot;
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give a Better Graphic, with real improvements;
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change naval warfare gameplay;
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choose a different periodo: the Ancient Times would be perfect: AoEde itās the only game of the serie without the modern features.
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āThe single player community was never really part of the community anywaysā Oh boy, be careful with your statement, do you think those 15k or 20k age 2 players are just playing ranked?
Regarding graphics, we donāt need ultra realistic, but we need good graphics, detailed units, relic removed a lot of details and units just look like a giant blue blob, contrary to relicās thinking, adding textures, more colors to units an and weapons would increase readability a lotā¦
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Developers resolved these aspects in their last expansion : Fallen God. My video are taking from this version
See in 4k (HDR if you have a proper monitor)
And i Repeat: Spellforce3 has the best graphic for RTS (only CoH3 Will do Better)
https://twitter.com/entwicklerpreis/status/1351992162087534605?s=19
spell force is a great game, I had a blast paying 2v2 with a friend, it has very good graphics, the problem with that game is that is poorly optimized, it only uses a single core, so you need single core CPU power, but they are almost a indie devā¦ contrary to Relic-Microsoft
Yes, we hope the Next Spellforce4 Will take adavantage by multicore CPU
I dont understand what have they worked on for more than 5 years, at least the graphics department, most buildings and units looks so unimpressive.
From Zach Schlappy (Art director)
"When I joined Relic about four years ago, one of the things that was said to me was, āweāre really taking our spiritual inspiration from Age of Empires II.ā So I looked at that and looked at all the colours, did sampling of the colours, took those colours, and we couldnāt do what we did with Age of Empires II.
Zach Schlappi
Relic Age of Empires IV art director Zach Schlappi.
We had to really give it a little more sophistication and more depth in terms of colour. For me, it was really about bringing in a broader audience. We wanted to open it up so that it was easier to read the battlefield, itās a lot more fun to build. You can really see the investment into the amount of detail in the buildings and the evolution of your towns from Age of Empires to Age Empires IV. Thereās a lot more attention paid to the building aspects of the game. And taking those colours, those palettes and applying them to the team colors, as opposed to the entire environment. We really used those accent colours to build the look and feel of the game.
āPlayers love to build these big towns and cities surrounded with concentric walls and put keeps and all kinds of things. It gives them an opportunity to kind of feel a bit safe,ā ā Quinn Duffy
For example, we reduced the amount of detail for small items like soldiers and units and stuff like that for better readability from your camera. We also allow for painterly type detail for the buildings and things like that. We made sure that we kept the buildings in a sort of a what I would consider the coffee-table book-tourist-town-style thatās very colourful; thereās flowers, itās still historical, but itās not old and rundown. Itās maintaining the celebratory view of history the franchise is known for."
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Many details on the Buildings, where? What game i played? They have another version of AOE4? I Played on 4k and i didnāt find Buildings much detailed;
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units have low Textures and seem bad also with the maximum setting but this didnāt help with readability After all: this Is the reason why there are many threads about unit colours, UI and more.
āAge of Empires IV wants to appeal to both casual and hardcore players ā MobileSyrupā Age of Empires IV wants to appeal to both casual and hardcore players ā MobileSyrup
Just want to quote my comment about UI icons design from certain Technical Stress Test post (which has been removed):
Imagine in the future, we are watching an AOE4 tournament live stream, with a layout like Capture Age for AOE2, or any kind of layout like other esports have, which has muiltple rows of icons to show what units and techs each player have, and the number and level of them.
And then they are all similar green and brown icons with some yellow color in middle, thatās a real spot-the-difference minigame.
I have to say that sometimes it gets tiring when reading interviews of developers since they have a rather poor vocabulary, therefore always repeating the same placeholder words that people use when they donāt know how to properly express themselves. English is their main language, no? Hereās some examples:
"
small items like soldiers and units and stuff like that
details for the buildings and things like that
players are like we want more zoom, and we are like you canāt play like that
"
Remember folks, no matter the domain you work in, always read a book or two from time to time.
It was not a neutral poll. It shouldāve been would you rather AoE4 graphics we have now or ultra realistic graphics.
Would we call more modern strongholds cartoony? I think not and that has a similar art style to AoE4. People donāt complain about Stronghold Warlordsā graphics nearly as much as they do AoE4. It is because they dislike the quality of the graphics, not the art style
Notice in the āwhat looks betterā part of the poll, AoE4 is tied with AoE3DE, which is one of the best looking games out there right now. So no, I donāt think most people wanted ultra realistic graphics
My conclusion is that the Dev team didnt do a proper audience research on graphics, the game doesnt look good, it works in terms of mechanics but doesnt look good.
Grass is poor
Water is poor
Units look is poor
Buildings are just ok.
Man, this is the succesor to the BEST RTS, you had an active fan base willing to share any thoughts, if you are going to do it, you need to commit.
Im not buying the game when it goes out. Iāll just wait for any promo in one year or two, play it sometimes and go back to AOEII DE and AOEIII DE.
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Yes, this Is Basically what i think.
I think the graphics look great. And obviously most people donāt really care about the graphics. Whether they like them or not, majority is buying the game.
Out of 143 votes, 98 will recommend the game.
Out of 324 votes, 253 are buying the game and 130 have already pre-ordered.
Or if you donāt like the pie chart, use the bars. Out of 169 voters, 130 voted said they were buying the game, 77%. And out of 95 people who voted on whether they were recommending the game, 65 out of 95 voted they were recommending it.