Better UI leads to easier micro/macro. Easier micro/macro means more quality games to watch and play. Many people thought game being easier just means “faster game with relatively low skill barrier” when SC2 came out with mechanics and UI that makes the game much easier and they were wrong. It just made SC2 players do more crazy things better and faster.
The UI that is REALLY needed a proper group box. I know this has been issued a few times but I think it needs to be emphasised even more. If I drag a bunch of units, the group box should show each unit individually. This leads to better micro in fights (pulling weak ones back easier and less likely to misclick), more precise unit selection (selecting 8 vills quickly using shift on the group box rather than clicking the vill to make farms) etc.
Literally every good RTS I’ve played (BW, SC2, AOE2, and WC3) has this. Even DOTA has it! (Not RTS) I just don’t understand how a triple A RTS game that is released in 2021 doesn’t have this… BW and AOE2 are 20 year old games… it helps so much in creating quality game experience as well as better quality games to watch.
Rivers of words have been written about the UI selection box which should let you select individual units and the importance of this. No answer even indicating they acknowledged this was given. It’s a waste of time and a lost cause. The game is in the hands of RTS incompetents.
Bug fixes yes. Balance, not really apart OBVIOUS op things like Mongol trush, and French Hulk pre patch. Most players don’t realise that it’s just them not knowing how to play, rather they want to blame it on balance. Balance will be fixed sooner or later. UI fix is much more important imo. Bug fixes though I agree.
French are still incredibly hard to counter on water maps, we still have a lot of players who refuse to play water maps.
The big balance fix I believe they need is siege, it’s just simply not fun spamming 20 bombards and winning, yeah I win, but it’s not fun.
Artillery should be extremely strong, but extremely weak, similar to age 2 and 3, I’m not sure who decided bombards would have 20vbillion health but that was a bad decision.
Realistically, artillery is extremely vulnerable once units close in, in real life horsemen and archers would pick off the crew of most artillery, quickly disabling it.
There are no crew here (annoyingly) so to simulate this, artillery should be extremely vulnerable to archer fire/melee however also extremely effective at range against all units.
I’m sure water map issue will be fixed (giving bans). I personally feel that river maps would be more interesting if there were no fish. Water can still be used for strategic purposes but game isn’t decided by fish fight.
The siege thing you mentioned may be a big problem for AOE2 origin players as it just feels like mech style from SC2 so I personally don’t have a huge problem with it, but an easy fix to what you feel is needed would be just increasing population cost to these expensive units. Like BCs/Carriers, giving it 6~8 would make it a lot less efficient to mass.
All these balance suggestions are things game devs have to be careful with. You change things too soon, you are taking away opportunities for players to figure out the meta. Too late, then people leave. So it isn’t something devs SHOULD fix straight away. Even 2 pylon/bunker blocking the ramp vs zerg in SC2 took a long time to fix.
UI on the other hand, has no ripple effect other than just making the game better period. I’m not saying there shouldn’t be balance patches, but along with bug fixes, UI should be more of a focus.
UI conversation acknowledged. I’ll fully admit I mostly stick to the bug forums myself, but our team has a lot of lurkers. We pretty much see everything, even if no one responds. Please don’t ever feel like we don’t care; I personally don’t know anyone on the team that doesn’t.
…was that a quadruple negative? That must be a record. Hopefully you know what I mean .
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