Yes it is Elitism
Note the devs don’t ‘owe’ you anything. They don’t need to ‘cater’ to you. If you think your elitisim somehow makes you like some bizarre arbiter of what ‘should’ be done and that somehow “learning from literal decades of UI/UX changes” is something the devs should ignore, maybe you should rename “elitiism” to “willful ignorance” instead.
Age 3 DE is already dead ? I bought that game on steam and it was very good but it has extreme performance issues so I refund it… I think it has a superior game play than age 2,. Age 2 game play is dumb for 2021 while it looks beautiful compared to age IV, when I play age 2 I have fun but I find it extremely old and simple
I agree that the units in each civ need to look more unique. This issue is definitely visible in the released video, so I am free to agree that this observation also gels with my experience playing AoE4.
However, I do advocate for the importance of exaggerated weapons.
I am on the council and have played every AoE game for the past 23 years. AoE has always had unrealistic proportions. Gameplay dictates this. It is necessary for players to distinguish units and buildings quickly while zoomed out. In order to do this, the buildings needs to be relatively smaller than normal and the units relatively larger. And the units themselves need relatively oversized weapons. Every AoE game has this. Not having it would feel incredibly weird and uncomfortable. It would be poor game design.
These disproportionate sizes vary across AoE’s five core games, but they are always there. So reasonable minds can dicker about the extent of it but not about whether it should exist at all. It should.
Regarding weapons proportions: Yeah, maybe proportions weren’t totally accurate in Aoe2, but weapons were almost never the important factor in recognizing units. The clothes/armor and the color is much more important for recognition.
So, do you agree on units have to be more polished, with more details, right?
I would like the units in the civs to each be more distinct. I am not sure that requires polish or details, but I suppose that could be one way to get the job done.
I love unique civs in this franchise. So if every civ has a dude with a spear, I’d like them each to still look different in each civ. That is something that is done in AoEO.
Agree there! Never needed disproportionate sizes of weapons to recognize a unit in AEO 2.
There’s a difference between having “to be more polished, with more details” and having more polygons. See, they can have less polygons but a lot of detail and the opposite, lots of polygons and little detail. Meaning we have to find out which is the case, and therefore the problem, here.
I dunno. In the heat of the battle, I am not too worried about whether the unit’s pants have creases. I just want to know who to click on to counter the other dude before he kills me.
The better graphics, the prettier the game, though. Nobody is arguing for worse graphics. But I am not sure how important better graphics are in any given situation.
The right word Is “choice”. There are people Who are not interested to the graphic or textures and people Who consider this aspect very very important.
I made this thread and It could be a good solution for all fans
If you Are in the Council, could you try to share this to developers.
they read the forum and can find this for themselves. you don’t need to lobby me to lobby for you 
Hey, no pression on you: it’s not my intention. But i’ve neber seen Relic developer here, on community, so i was asking to you.
I dont think they respond, but I do think they read.
I usually think that next AoE or any other game should have better graphics than previous. Gameplay is also important, but I still like if game is visually appealing not the opposite.
Yes, they read as they did with DOW, I remember 
I have no idea about any prior Relic releases or how they have historically engaged with their communities. But here in Age of Empires land, my forum experience goes pretty far back, and MS and their partners have always followed along with the ebb and flow. I believe that will be the case for the foreseeable future, as well.
Anyone with an opinion should feel encouraged to post it here.
Andy, don’t you think that when it comes to arrows they don’t need to stick out like that by making them oversized? Doesn’t it take away from visual clarity when you have a rain of arrows flying over units? Arrows need to stick in, not out. There was no problem at all in reading the game in AoE2 where you have realistic sized arrows for regular archer units, it just blends so well there.
Also, don’t you agree that the arrow physics is wrong to put it lightly?
If such solution works very well in many cases, you try to imply it by first best chance.
Problem is they try to imply a solution that never worked by RTS genre.
RTS are simply a special case where it never ever worked,
does fundamentally break the product and alienates the gaming audience.
RTS were in first place popular, because they did establish an own niche,
the only counterpart to it can be called DarkSouls games, people know those games are hard becouse they have to be, and that are games you wont enjoy if you dont have the skill to play them properly, you need to learn, you need to train, you need get better.
You cant make a DarkSouls alike Skyrim or Diablo, because it would simply loose its soul and be just another loot RPG, not skill RPG.
I mean imagine for a sec DarkSouls in hand of “average business Mann”, it will get PvP battle royal mode, it will be more colourful, so you can see where the enemies do lurk, the enemies will extra scream louder to reveal their location, you will get QuickTime events for traps, you will have warning signs for traps, Boss Battles will be skippable, all weapons and gear will turn into cosmetics.
Was any SoulsLike game a fail? Bloodborne, Nioh, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, The Surge, Code Vein and many other AAA titles were highly praised and very successful, despite many can not play them, still their charm sells.
RTS in same time did not regain their dignity back. Its always made for somebody else, nobody.
Buy modern RTS is like, Buy a Dark Souls game and cuddle with bunnies and kittens, while picking flowers and dancing. You clearly had different expectations, but the game is right now made for a wider audience, nobody.
The arrows for sure look weird in the gifs and images I’ve seen players post since the video was released Saturday. I’m not sure my opinion really matters than anyone else’s, but to any extent it does, the best I can say is in playing the game off and on for the last few years, I have no recollection of ever noticing the arrows.
