I bought Halo Wars DE in the Steam sale, and wow, it’s just like AoE 4 in terms of camera angle and zoom range. It limits you to 30 population, but even that is too much to comfortably fit on the screen when you’re at full population.
So I now understand why RTS players always want to zoom out more.
It’s because RTS games don’t let you zoom out enough.
You’re welcome.
We played in 640*480 for 10 years since 1995 and it was great. But now players never satisfied, they want more and more, like we asking for more money. get used.
yep, hit the nail on the head
It’s almost as if we’re asking for it… BECAUSE IT MAKES THE GAME MORE ENJOAYBLE
Everyone should watch this Day9 Clip to understand why zoom levels are the way they are.
As Day9 explains, when asked playtesters will almost always want to see more of the battlefield in an isometric game but when they actually play the game at a high zoom level, they will complain about things like the game not feeling intense or visceral enough without associating that feeling with the zoom level. When the zoom level is lowered, players would think the game feels much better.
The game loses a lot of personality when units have to be reduced to icons just for them to be recognizable.
How much zoom do you believe the community testers were asking for?
From what I’ve seen, we’d simply like to see the breadth of our starting TC + economy buildings.
It’s never specified? people just always ask for “more”, and no matter what it would never be enough for some people. It’s already been adjusted once and it’s honestly fine as it is.
he can explain any ■■■■ he wants.
But if 100% players are choosing max zoom, than it is not the settings. Why you need zoom settings, if it is FIXED.
And part2, if he would play 4vs4 in aoe4 with isometric camera, may be he/anyperson would understand. WHY YOU NEED TO ZOOM OUT TO FIND POSITION
SC2/LOL are FIXED size map and not random.
In 1vs1 you see 1/16 size of the map. While in 4vs4 you see 1/256 16 time less.
I’m honestly tempted to reply with “git gud” to this post. I play 4v4s as well as 1v1s and I can find my way just fine, the zoom level has never been an issue.
For you.
I can’t play it anymore like it is.
Is it playable - yes.
Can you loose your army without hotkeys on the map - easily. And it will hard to find (harder than with big zoom).
Harder to find new gold/stone position (on another part of the map, which you never saw)
If you OK with that, i’m happy for you. For me it’s bad… a do not like to spend more than 3 seconds for any idea.
looking for smth on big map - it’s nightmare at least for me.
It sounds like the problem isn’t the zoom level then, maybe you should learn to use hotkeys
It is subjective.
I would need both zoom-in and zoom-out as much as possible.
Zoom-in - to enjoy details
Zoom-out - for better awareness of surroundings.
I do think the devs wanted to limit the ability of zoom-out to make it more challenging and would demand more skill to control and use the given camera. Also, performance could be one reason.
However, there is no excuse for more zoom-in.
IF YOU LOST ARMY WITHOUT HOTKEYS
if you unbind or army, or lost unit.
teach me how to use hotkeys, if you rebind.
Do not make mistakes? or what?
What about 95% of people who did not use hotkeys? ■■■■ them?
What I’d like is a hot key to jump between 2 (maybe 3) preset zoom levels. I totally agree with day9 that playing very zoomed out has negative effects, but if we can very quickly and easily switch between specific zoom levels, we can situationally use appropriate zoom levels.
I see it as a bit like car cam and ball cam in Rocket League, where you have a button to switch between those 2 views. Nobody who is any good uses only one of those 2 views, all good players situationally switch between them.
I think I’d also like some way to make the more zoomed in of my 2 zoom levels gradually creep out as the game progresses, as I find the current zoom level not too bad at the start of a game, but increasingly bad as the game goes on, the armies get bigger, units have more range, and the action just generally covers more of the map.
There is a “Select all military” hotkey which you should be familiar with using for cases like this, not only will it select all your units but it will also highlight them on your minimap.
typical position get used.
And be happy, that “select all army” were as hotkey on release.
the only one option how you should do it, if you used to play in other style - get out of that game.
It is disingenuous to argue that we are asking for some absurd level of zoom or to create some false dichotomy where there is only (1) the super zoomed in level AoE4 has and (2) that absurd level that would render the game unplayable.
We literally posted screenshots to demonstrate that we were asking for precisely the same level of zoom as we have in all other Age games. Until and unless we receive that, the game has failed to perform adequately.
Respectfully, it is part of the developers’ role to be super mindful of the comfortable zoom level and to design the size of the units and buildings and building footprints accordingly to create a world that players can easily navigate and comfortably view and click on things. This isn’t some radical concept – it is demonstrated without any problems in all five prior Age games. I have been around since 1998 and do not recall this issue remotely coming up ever before. So I am unable to say that this problem is caused by players not having reasonable expectations. This problem is caused by Age of Empires 4 itself.
You haven’t been paying attention, then. People will never be satisfied with the zoom level, regardless of how far out it lets you zoom.
Assuming that is the case, that still does not prove that the zoom level in AoE4 is acceptable.
It will never be acceptable is my point, someone will always complain and call the game “unplayable”.
Most players don’t realize that there was a massive amount of thought put into such things already.
