I decided not to buy the DLC because the game didn’t become what I wanted it to be (a very personal opinion, if you like it, then great). I would have expected my overall experience as a player to remain the same, but oh no… You gotta have it clear that you’re a cheap bastard and that you’re missing out on content that’s behind a paywall.
Ok, so I want to play Ottom… Jesus! What is this scrolling mess?
I really don’t understand how Relic expects the AoE 4 UI to work if there comes a point where there are more paid civs than free ones, or biomes, or maps. Games should NOT rub on your face the fact that you are missing content. I don’t care if some games do it (hello EA), it should not be accepted. If you opt out of a DLC then that content should NOT be there as a grayed out option. That reeks of desperation and milking the player base.
The only UI that isn’t alphabetic is the civ dropdown, so I’m not sure there’s some nefarious purpose behind the map and biome selection list.
That said, moving all unowned content to the bottom of every list is very reasonable, assuming the devs can get it past marketing (as there’s no reason for the civ list order beyond that).
They’re also going to need a new UI solution eventually as more civs are added to the game regardless. Would be good to kill two birds with one stone there.
I would expect it is intentionally done like this because they may periodically unlock content for a limited time, like they did with the Sultans Ascend maps. Also, the majority of people wanted variants to be explicitly labeled as subfactions of their civs, and that’s what they did. So I think complaining about this is pretty much a dead end.
My experience is significantly degraded by having greyed out options everywhere. The UI is not optimized for that. I call that an issue and I do have a problem ignoring it, of course I do.
If I choose not to buy any more DLCs and the disabled choices keep piling up, what’s going to happen then? Will I have more disabled civs than available ones? Maps? Biomes?
It’s crazy. The Civilization franchise, known for their myriad of paid DLCs for each iteration, don’t do this at all. You only see what you paid for, which is the right way.
Thank you, those examples actually help my point. AoE2 has a significantly better UI (locked civs are last and using tiles instead of a scrollable drop down) and the paid DLC campaigns are not seen unless you are looking for them. That’s why I didn’t mention the AoE 4 paid campaigns in my first post. That’s the only situation where they don’t interfere with normal gameplay.
But the civs, the maps and the biomes are there mixed with the rest and that is a poor design choice, purely for marketing purposes: “hey look! you’re missing content! LOOOK!!”
I will admit in the OP, having to scroll down past locked civs to find the civ you want to play is pretty annoying/feelsbad. I think it was more of not creating 2 different layouts for the dropdown for people that own DLCs rather than trying some subliminal messaging or something.
It is good feedback, especially once their are more civs and the scrolling gets to be a lot.
This is something the Civilisation games have had to iterate on (and marketing still makes itself felt there). Of course, their concurrent players are in the tens of thousands. It’s easier to do the “right” thing with that kind of ROI.
The people you want to convince don’t read the forums, and likely never will. You’ve already made one of the strongest moves you can (not purchasing), and you’ve left explicit feedback.
All of that is great, but as someone who knows Civ extremely well, raising that game is a whole different, well, ballgame. The devs there have a lot of different challenges, and longstanding community gripes who can’t understand why the game has problems others seemingly don’t.
