What we saw is supposed to be a mature version of the game. If it were an indie, nobody would say anything, but when they play one of the most iconic sagas in the PC universe it is very different. There are also alarms because Relic has a murky history destroying iconic sagas, with what happened to Dawn of War was more than enough. In addition, we all have the right to make the respective criticism of a product that will not be free, if they decide to ignore the criticism, some will buy it, others like me, we will not buy a product that does not look well finished and we did not like it from the beginning. I remember very well when the guys at DICE-EA told the community “if you don’t like it, don’t buy it”, Battlefield 5 was a flop, and the community showed what it didn’t like well in advance.
Also, no blood in game and the excuses are to sell in other countries while in sc2 you have blood and corpses ( that add a little of realism to the game and make the feel lest childish) so what is the excuse ? Laziness
It feels like The unit is doing its own thing but animation that governs it plays later. This shouldn’t happen as animation is what makes the unit move. I believe the current animations are unable to convey the action that is perceived by user’s mind. Example horses galloping, User excepts a lot of speed and courage but the game is unable to covey that. AOE 2 has no issues with any horse animations, maybe add few more frames?
The legs of horses seems to go two and fro like a pendulum but lacks lot of animations in between., pretty visible in the norman trailer.
Good luck devs and may be delay the game for another 2 years and get everything correct.
agreed! though what I noticed is the archers, they draw back, but the string is late, and when the arrow releases (too big, its like a javelin) the string takes a few frames to catch up looking like he didn’t fire sometimes until the arrow hits its target.
most of the foot infantry looked pretty good, but the elephants were kind of static and not looking like they were hitting buildings or doing much more than standing there.
things that looked good were villager actions (accept villager bow strings did not go back or move with arrow at all) and how cavalry drop their lances when about to charge.
Also, its a big step backwards to not have crew for siege engines. This made AOE 3 so awesome compared to other age games. They need to be added!
I second to delay and do extensive beta testing before release and make it a masterpiece. I am concerned for a few reasons.
Look at these calvaries, they turn their horses’ head, just in the space of a moment,without any transition animation.
And this elephant. Hard believe that it can rotate its huge body so flexibly.
So as the siege weapon.
To be honest, I’ve never seen the units of any 3D-RTS move like that. Incomprehensible retrogression it is. I mean, AoE II adopted such a action mode， because it’s a 2D-RTS twenty years ago, and we are already used to it. But for an upcoming 3D-game，it looks difinitely bad. The movement of units seems both mechanical and unnatural.
Strange that, in the X019 Trailer, cavalries still turned normally, and units’ actions were more smoothly. Why did they cancel the setting？To restore the operation feel of AoE II? Please not!
Viper did say in his aoe4 reveal trailer that the game felt very slow at first but the latest version he played was much better and he is really excited for it. Maybe this quick movement is part of it, cause adding turning rate will slow down the game a lot and will have massive effect on micro. So some turning animation can possibly be added in, but bear in mind the effect it could have on micro if you really want it to look realistic.
Viper is 1, esport players are X and all the others are X*millions 
good job listening to them.
They actually have already clearly said it in the interviews, units felt not responsive enough for the esport players and they couldn’t micro them like crazy. The archers were reloading too slowly and the boats and other units were also moving too slowly for them.They were smashing their keyboards too fast for the game pace and asked the devs to tweak them more to their competitive preferences. Good job!!!
Units in War3 and Aoe III moves smoothly, both of which are fast-paced games. Sacrificing the quality of graphic and game experience to meet the needs of professional players, I don’t think it’s a good idea.
Actually yeah that is a good job. Would you want to play a game that is slower than aoe2? I wouldn’t at least and I haven’t heard others ever say that aoe2 is too fast paced and should be slowed down in aoe4. So please explain me why you would want aoe4 to be slower then aoe2?
War3 is not really a fast game, units have actually quite a large turning rate compared to other games. If you enjoy that that’s fine, but it is definitely not a game with fast turning rates.
Can’t say anything about aoe3, do you have some examples of video’s/pro games for me to watch with cool micro tricks due to it’s fast nature?
But fair enough, if you deem visuals to a certain extent more important than gameplay. I would also want turning animations to look smother then they do now. I just wonder how they can implement the same turning as for example aoe2 has, without looking a bit goofy. Cause in aoe2 it doesn’t look so out of place, maybe due to the 2d nature?
Are you an esport player? Those were the preferences of players used to play at high competitive levels. No normal player has the same reflexes and preferences with Viper and his opinion that you post is not relevant because he is an outlier and not the norm.
In reality MOST people of the franchise are casual gamers, many of them do not even touch the multiplayer.
Mandating changes to just please the esport community is wrong! AoE2 was not designed with esports in mind, in fact there were not even esports back then. Yet it is the most successful and with the biggest esport community. What does that tell you? AoE3 is faster yet way less popular both in esports and casual players.
And we do not know how the pace of this game compares to aoe2 so nobody can answer your question but the overall pace is actually irrelevant because by ‘pace’ I was referring to the units’ responsiveness which is the topic of the thread, not the game pace as a whole.
Yes and I am talking about the unit responsiveness as well, so turning rates, which is what this whole thread is about.
How is the opinion of Viper irrelevant? Relic created an aoe council with aoe players who give feedback. And part of the feedback of the council was that it all felt a bit slow, which could be part of the reason that they improved turning rates versus the trailer from 2019. Consequently after the feedback of the council changes were made by relic and the game felt much quicker which made Viper more enthousiastic about the game. This is not irrelevant, this is part of Relic’s development process, so your first alinea doesn’t really make sense.
Most players do not touch the multiplayer? Multiplayer is the whole reason aoe2 is still alive after all these years and that there was demand for an DE version, so I don’t get this alinea either.
And how is mandating changes to please the esport community wrong? If the game becomes an esport hit it will be incredibly good for the longevity of the game. In addition, the change to having almost instant turning rates (vs the 2019 trailer) is not a change if you compare it with aoe2 cause of aoe2 has incredibly quick turning rates. And as you say aoe2 is the most succesfull so why would you want to deviate a lot from this?
So all in all, should Relic do their utmost to make all animations as smooth as possible? Ofcourse. But to what extent should this affect gameplay is what I asked in my post above. A pretty sensible question if you ask me. However you just (as I see you do in every thread these last days) demand changes to visuals, without thinking through what affect it could have on gameplay. That’s just really short sighted in my opinion and I don’t understand why you avoid having an in depth discussion about that.
Thought the same. Relic should’ve shown more gameplay to the public in the past. So it seems they listened too much to esporter.
Also I’m not sure if every youtuber is 100 % honest about what he thinks about the game. Maybe some youtubers don’t dare to criticize Aoe4 because they don’t want to get in trouble with developers.
They can simply implement a very fast turning animation like in AOE3 without affecting the “pacing”.
Now the units are directly flipping as in old 2D games with only 8-direction sprites. But they are not. They are actually 3D models.
Good proposal and I am curious when Relic does polishing if this will get added and how it will look. It probably won’t look completely 100% natural but would look much better then it does now.
dude, viper works for them hahaha
obviously he is going to say that the game is excellent XD
@GameSkillar Yes, they should have made dev diaries like so many other games and seek for feedback from the fanbase. Those counsels of youtubers and esport players are just a tiny fraction and likely their opinions very often do not reflect the views of the majority.
@Timbonator8142 Did you actually read my reply? Because you seem to be asking some questions again that were answered already. Also, you’re avoiding to give an answer, are you an esport player? Or do you just watch Viper playing on mixer?
Can you realize how vastly different an esport player approaches the game from a casual gamer? Do you know if this counsel consists of all kind of players or just by esport experts? Are you aware that the overwhelming majority of millions in this franchise are not esport players?
Do you want the game to be just an esport like Fortnite? Because again, AoE2 was not designed with esports in mind.
It’s a bit funny when some Viper’s fanboys quote him again and again as if he has Pope’s infallibility.
The way Viper sees things is very different from how the majority of players see them. And yes, there are tons of people who do not even touch the multiplayer, they play campaigns or skirmishes or just with friends.
The term ‘kept alive’ is out of context here since it is usually reserved for exclusively multiplayer games. AoEO for example ‘couldn’t be kept alive’.
So, all in all, devs should take into account the vast majority of players and should not create a game that will suit just the esport players’ needs. Visual fidelity for example could be of least importance for esports and yet of high importance for the rest, and that’s self evident by the reactions of so many people all over the social media, if you can’t see that, it’s really short sighted of you
That’s what I’m saying and most people would agree with that.
What a disgrace of a game… Battle for the middle earth have beautiful turn for units and horses a very old game! They want to appeal “competitive” players already without having community yet lol.
First give a good game then we could think on competitive, art direction, animations, generic gameplay is something you won’t fix in 6 months…
“viper says” OMG is this the reason? What about us pc gamers that like good animations, fun, we wa t to be surprised with a unique and good game play! Coh2 is super slow compared to sc2 and it has comppetitive community, Relic non pro players money worth and we are more than players.
I am starting to hate this game already with theses decisions made by relic. Pros won’t give a dam when nobody okays your game,
My questions is, is this game for the 50 pros out there ? Or is this game for the millions of age and rts fans? Those who want new things, new features, those who want to watch a gameplay trailer and say WOW! Instead of meehhh ?
I am done with relic they lost me.