Sandly this is true, relic used to make great RTS, unique experiences, there is still no game like homeworld, COh or dow, unique mechanics, on those times they didn’t ask pros about their game, they just created a fun and unique game then many people can appreciate it, actually many people stopped playing age2 and sc1 to play relic games, nowdays they don’t want to create a unique experiences but to sell the most they can… Now you have a red icon above you wall indicating it is o fire like if you don’t have eyes lol! This way of making game simpler and easy I just hate it with all my heart, they use arrows and points on minimals to tell you where to move… Everything is easy, just because they want the big market but they still don’t understand how rts work, they don’t understand that sc1 was not competitive when it was released that was a process the same with age 2… they want to avoid that process and they created a mess (dow3)
I would rather say, Relic was allowed to make great games.
What did change by Relic? They had a different publisher.
Well Homeworld was published by Sierra Entertainment (also Publisher of Empire Earth).
Dawn of War till Company of Heroes 2, were designed under the Publisher THQ.
DoW3 is result of Sega, AoE4 is the result of Microsoft.
And they have a different mentality and company philosophy.
RTS did flourish at best, with a publisher that has an Indie mentality. “That’s the game we wanted to make, that’s the audience we want to sell our game, we know it’s not going to be a mega hit, but its honest work and its going to need time to get it right”
I think the graphics could be a tad better, but I see the value in what they are doing as well… if you truly want the game to develop into an E sports competitive game, then models that are easily recognizable are needed not for players, but spectators… I do think some of the weapons are still too clunky and things can be improved. The arrows are a real eye sore.
But looking as the cavalry in the pic below, you can tell they are cav, but also blend in pretty well with that snowy back ground. So they want to eliminate that… from a spectators perspective that is annoying. This became a big problem for me in the release of AOE3 DE when they changed the zoom, so many units became really hard to distinguish as a spectator, even though the players could tell better what they were.
To make this style work though, they need better animations, and a diversity of actions and animations… which they are lacking.
I can assure you I (and seems like many many others as well) can clearly notice the arrows look like something they took inspiration from AoE: Onlline and this is upsetting to the point where it looks game breaking.
Goodness knows why would someone want for the game to take inspiration from AoEO, we all know how much that game failed and hurt the franchise.
Dalv, I agree that AoEO’s original business model with pay walls was its undoing. But it surprises me that someone as active and seemingly experienced as you can’t identify anything valuable from an entire game in the franchise. You must have no experience playing AoEO? We can’t mistake the absence of your knowledge for actual knowledge though.
I know the civ asymmetry in AoEO was well done, but I was referring here to visual elements, none of which should be carried from AoEO, an aspect also not well received at the time. Despite the fact it also had good visual clarity, the same feat shouldn’t be achieved here through the same means.
While the overall graphics are not inspired from Online in my opinion, some elements are: weapons made to look as friendly or inoffensive as possible. And while I do understand why weapons need to be oversized (upgrades in weapons are going to be represented visually as well now - so easily recognising the unit by shape is not enough anymore), the arrows make no sense to stick out like that, and their physics remind me of Online a lot as well as their composition.
I dont really care about graphics, whether they are detailed or not, as long as it’s not too cartoony/goofy. And there is something about arrows in games like these that makes it too much to ignore. I was watching the presentation with a friend, who is not a gamer, trying to explain him why I am excited with games and this game in particular. He, same as me, noticed the arrows right away, the only thing he cared and bragged about, and made fun of me as to why I’m into these things as a grown up. I also couldn’t take away the image of the arrows from my mind for the rest of the presentation.
I totally agree with you on the arrows, especially in the gifs player have posted since the video. I am not allowed to talk about my impressions of anything in the game other than exactly what was revealed, such as earlier builds I played. I will certainly look out for what the arrows look like in the future.
I’m not as confident as you are that they drew that much inspiration from AoEO for the arrows. For a cartoony game the arrow projectiles were quite fair in size and were accompanied by trail effects to make them stand out. I’d even go so far as to say that AoEO projectile are quite comparable in scale to AoE3s.
AOEO is the most AOE game after AOE 2, it’s a pretty good game especially PVP is very well balanced. The paywall civs with Empire points and skins killed the game. The game is very good.
well said, every product has their target audience and a user persona. I don’t understand why companies don’t work based on that. The UX designer is responsible for defining Persona with the marketing and sales team. If marketing say they want a wider audience, the UX designer should counter and tell them why their idea is crap. UX designer understand users and can empathize with the users, else role of a UX designer is pointless, other stakeholders will kick around the UX designer.
Marketing thinks by heavy advertisement they can force the will of non existing users,for a short period they will, but it is not sustainable. Today companies care for less investment with huge short term profit (initial sales). The core users get a zombie product that is not playable and the game dies away and everyone goes back minding their own business and the cycle continues,
Imagine if the Blizzard devs went
“Hey you know we should really just copy Dune 2’s UI/UX! Why change it! Works fine and everyone loves Dune2! Right click to move? What is that nonsense! Context sensitive clicking? We don’t need that!”
And then we’re back to square one again… What the heck went wrong? I’m gonna f__g fire all of you people!!! This game was to be a success, that’s why I f__g hired all you bunch of … in the first place!!!
Yeah!
Thing is, why did Relic create all those nice games before and why is it behaving differently now? Well, because before they were starting, they were idealists, they believed in authentic gaming experiences and now, well, now they are 
Relic , right, they are buddies with Microsoft and such and need to dance to their tune somewhat if they want to stay on top of the game. Not an easy position, I gather.
Let me tell you this: I think Relic is really making a effort, they are putting their hearts and minds into the game, they love what they’re doing and want it to be a success. I don’t think they are playing the merchandising game for merchanding’s game sake alone, they have to deliver, they have a lot of stress on their backs, believe me. Their meetings gotta be quite hot, lots of discussions, lots of grim faces sometimes, lots of grunting and arguing and doubts and issues and then believing again and stuff. Not easy! I think all those changes we’re complaining about were hotly discussed in Vancouver also, and many inside Relic must have been in disaccord too!
And now, after all these “dead” years without AOE of any sort and AOE III’s story, of not being so hot, etc., what do you think must have been on the table this time? The odds are heavy! They are discussing every damn detail for hours and there must be a lot of disagreement. But the big shots make the calls and that’s it, that’s what’s gonna be implemented and if it doesn’t make the hit parade, then their heads gonna roll. Believe me, our voices are going to be heard much louder this time around!!
Not sure if this is necessary to have weapons this big
You can usually see by default who is a lancer without making the weapon look 3x as big
The overall image looks cluttered when each unit has an oversized weapon. I can not recall anyone ever complaining about the normal and realistic weapon size in aoe1, aoe2 and aoe3. This should ring some bells.
Yes, reasonable minds can dicker about the extent of it but not about whether it should exist at all.
Wtf how did Blizzard devs relate to my post? And how did Dune 2 come here? 11 Please if you don’t have anything better to say just post your nonsense somewhere else.
Those could have been fun sizes had they combined them with some other interesting mechanic, like throwing temporarily enemies on the ground, or the riders off horse or showing the impact of a cavalry charge in some other interesting way
Now all I see is
1)A red horseman turning suddenly 90 degrees to face his opponent
2)A smoke (?) coming out of the blue knight and seems like he is the one to be negatively affected by the impact while his enemy stands still.
If thats not a bug then it’s really incomprehensible to me.
I saw somewhere else that the Chinese cavalry charge can cause such effect on the enemies as well, but then read that Chinese have fire lances as a unique unit so okay, that maybe makes some sense.
But what is this here? Looks more like he just shoot a shot with his rifle
Imagine not knowing the history of RTS and then whining that somehow we should only listen to these supposed ‘elitists’. Maybe your sense of ‘our opinion holds weight’ might not be so useful if you don’t even understand where RTS have come from, and somehow think that UI/UX should never change because ‘use elitists’ are the only relevant feedback the developers should cater to.
If you don’t even understand how utterly silly you look with your own gatekeeping well no one can help you.
SC2 kept a similar style of the UI to SC1, so your example doesn’t really help you.
I do believe though the UI for AoE4 is good though, with few exceptions. Ofc I would have to play it to really see how well it works with the game.
I think the big issue is,
they still did not understand how vastly different are RTS fans, Casual and E-Sports.
Its like you try to sell Salami Pizza to a vegetarian and a person that can not drink/eat lactose “milk sugar”. So they go ahead and remove from Pizza salami and cheese.
And wonder why nobody does by it.
Loved your analogy there 