There are bugs that are annoying. Like, for example, the prelate forgetting his job description every 2 minutes and going afk. But while they make the faction less competitive we can live with them for a while.
There are bugs that are game breaking. Like the Rus infinite relic spawns. But at least they only affect one civ. So if you avoid that civ your other games will be unaffected. So yeah, a hotfix would be nice for those but at least the game is still playable most of the time.
But then, there are bugs that are completely, objectively game breaking and that have the potential to happen in every match. There is a bug that has been discovered around 10 days ago, but that has really gained popular interest in the last day and that allows any player (except mongols) to literally generate infinite ressources in the imperial age. I’m not going to explain how it works, because I don’t want even more people to use it, but you can easily find that info on this very forum.
This type of bug simply makes me want to not play the game anymore. Launching a game and wondering if this one will involve the opponent using literal cheat codes is not fun. This is especially the case for team games and FFAs, since those last longer and there are more people who could potentially exploit the bug. In 1v1 it is still potentially game breaking, but let’s be real, games rarely last past the castle age, which I used to find annoying but now it’s a blessing in disguise.
The thing is, I like the game, and I want to play it. Yeah the balance is not that great right now, yeah the French are unbeatable on water maps, yeah I’m getting rammed so often I have started questioning my sexuality. But at the end of the day I still have fun, and most of these things will be addressed in the winter update anyway.
AoE IV has amazing potential, and once its flaws are ironed out it could honestly have its place in the RTS pantheon. But you can’t expect your player base to just patiently keep playing your game when there are literal cheat codes within the reach of every player. This would be a gigantic blunder, and such mismanagement would be a real shame for a game that is inches away from being highly enjoyable.
So, please, hotfix issues that are as game breaking as this. This cannot wait for one month. Nobody wants a mass exodus of frustrated players who might not come back by the time you get around to fixing this
