Vote of No Confidence

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
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After watching todays stream (Twitch) it is clearly unwise to put any sort of hope that this game will get better within a reasonable amount of time.

I know some people are probably tired of hearing this, but their reason for nerfing The Delhi into the ground is unwarranted. This is the second time they have said, in person, that they did not want Delhi to have only one strategy (meaning sacred site rush). But they have, twice now, not defined what the Delhi’s strategy SHOULD be, or given an example of alternative and viable tools at the Delhi’s disposal.

It is okay to always have longbowmen, knights, men at arms and Rams all up in Delhi’s business from the get go, but HELL NO should Delhi take sacred sites. God forbid. Meanwhile, Delhi economy is getting hit from the get-go by these units, and Delhi’s defense was, WAIT FOR IT!!! NOT to go into other people’s towns but to take pressure off of their own by capturing sacred sites. When first discovered, this seemed like an ingenious mechanism implemented by thoughtful strategic minds. Turns out it was a mistake that they didn’t intend. We gave them too much credit.

When asked about strategies they thought were inventive and interesting, they mention Wonder Building with an obscene amount of walls. What in the ??? This does not happen in most ladder games by far, and is seriously not an interesting strategy.

They keep talking about their data and telemetry and in house team feedback, but I’m wondering what data they are getting, and if it is possible they are misinterpreting it. And is their in-house feedback a larger data pool than the current number of players in ladder games? I highly doubt it.

With all the Delhi spam in the chat channel during the stream, they didn’t really answer or acknowledge any of it. They just repeated that they don’t want Delhi to have only one option.

Seriously???!!!

They also did not seem to think the game was worse after the patch than before. Nor did they take any real responsibility for it.They mentioned the "hundreds of bugs’ that were addressed, but glossed over all but 2 of the bugs that were introduced. All they did was pat each other on the back and laugh nervously while glancing over at the outpouring of dissatisfaction coming from chat.

Something seriously wrong here for a franchise that had the potential to be an esport and worth way more than the amount of effort they have given it.

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I posted this before and i’ll write it here aswell: They intentionally killed Delhi. There is no other way to explain the absurd treatment they gave to Delhi. Not to mention the unfixed billions of bugs that Delhi struggles with. They just don’t want us to play Delhi it’s that simple.

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Seems as such. Zak and Eric had to put in work if their longbowmen or knight rush didn’t work. What a joke. These people have no clue how the ladder games look.

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They nerfed early ram rush in the same patch though, because everyone was doing that too, and a lot of people were complaining about how strong it was.

TC’s can retarget their fire.
LB campfire ability can’t be used in combat anymore.

Early knight harass was also very popular and something that a lot of people complained about
Spears got buffed (Maybe overbuffed)

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they said in their ad riddled twitch stream that since all top players like Viper, Grubby, FitzBro were streaming delhi exclusively and always doing the sacred site rush, they had to nerf it so that they get them to play other civs and other strats.

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That’s a weak excuse on their part since all the top players are spamming mongols, English and French too. And these civs were barely even touched.

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I’ve seen it all before with Forza Horizon (another Xbox Studios / flagship Game Pass title). Ranked team racing in FH4 had huge problems leading to people spamming FIX RANKED in their livestream chat. They never responded to it, and the mods deleted all such messages. Their solution for FH5? They’ve removed ranked racing! At least I believe that is the case, I haven’t bought the game myself to see exactly what is in there. It’s doing even worse than AoE 4, in that I’ve seen the Steam player count for FH5 actually below that of FH4 already, and it was released a little after AoE 4.

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I wonder if they (the developers) didn’t think that, perhaps, these people were enjoying Delhi because it was so different and gimmicky. Maybe, just maybe, Delhi was the identity that every Civ deserved. People had fun playing it, but it wasn’t overpowered. People just liked streaming and covering it because it was this thing call “fun.”

Dehli’s Identity was whacky with no clear direction in my opinion. It was what the dev’s espouse their goal to be. No clear path to victory.

Other civs say rush, cav, archers, rams! Delhi’s was “hold out and make the opponent guess.”

Just a crazy thought. BUT NERF IT!!
Makes no sense.

People were tired of french, english, and mongols and the mirror matches, so Delhi stood out. That’s why people played them so much and casted their games. The fact that the dev team didn’t like that shows that they are not in tune with the player base.

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I care more about the bugs and 15x slower tech in Imperial. Who thought this was a good idea? Who asked for this? The only strengths of Delhi were early sacred capture and the tech gimmick… so you nerf BOTH of them? If you get rid of one, shouldn’t you at the very least leave the other alone, or even buff it? The early game tech speed buffs do not require a late game nerf. Those buffs merely make up for the removal of Dark Age Sanctity.

Statistics and in-house feedback are of limited utility. Numbers mean nothing in and of themselves, and the Relic team is a very limited sample size of individuals who are NOT pro players. Listen to the pros. Bring them into the discussion. Every successful competitive RTS does this. The opinions of expert players are more valuable than raw statistics or the balance ideas of less-skilled players, even if they’re on the dev team.

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“Dehli-ted patch” is a obvious sign that no fun is allowed in this game.

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Another comment, for the devs: I would refund now if I didn’t have too many hours on Steam. If I knew I would come to have so little confidence in the direction of balance and design, I never would have bought it in the first place.

Delhi, as others say, was the most fun and interesting civ. The nerfs feel arbitrary. You’ve succeeded in making me not want to play Delhi - and not want to play the game at all. Even if I start playing HRE and come to enjoy them, I can’t trust that you won’t nerf them out of nowhere in the future. I can’t trust that expansion civilizations will have a unique identity, or be allowed to keep it, or be allowed to stay competitive. At a fundamental level, the first updates to AoE4 have destroyed my trust in your ability to maintain a fun and balanced game, and many other players are thinking the same thing.

If you watch Hera or Viper’s reactions to the patch notes, you can tell that they’re thinking it. Turin is thinking it. These are just the 3 that I happen to watch. I’m sure I could go find patch note reaction vids from Winter or other Starcraft players, and see the same thing. We all want this game to succeed. But in order for this game’s success to be closer to SC2 or AoE2 rather than AoM or AoE3, you need to prioritize feedback from these expert players, who understand better than anyone else the balance of the games they play. The competitive and streaming scene will die soon otherwise.

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I undersign these words thouroughly.

Never in the history of AoE have you seen a civ tier like this (incredible coincidence, note BOTH powerful, long-lasting Muslim civs at the exact very bottom of AoE4, while shortest-lived-of-all-civs Relic pet civ Mongols at undisputed top):

Delhi-ted
Delhi-ted1920×1532 132 KB

Sanctity dynamics was not only utterly essential for Delhi to survive and compete (it was always a very weak, but super fun civ). It was also the charm, the very personality of the civ itself, and the single most fun element of early-game AoE4 gameplay. That’s why I mained Delhi (seriously considering to abandon AoE4 now).

They completely butchered what was already the game’s weakest, buggiest civ. Bugs are in the dozens now… Not. A. Single. Word. From Eric

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Mmm listen to pros is not always a good idea you end with a simple game, I come from.coomany of heroes and they changed a lot the gama, they are just players not developers…

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My goodness, just stop already. What are you saying, they want to openly discriminate by nerfing muslim civs? Don’t be ridiculous. There’s just a lot of balancing and bug-fixing to do but that has nothing to do with race or religion.

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I don’t know. Personally I wouldn’t be too broken hearted if AoE4 didn’t do so great and it led to a resurgence of AoE2. Based on the way the devs are going right now, I don’t think it really matters what the players want, it’s going to be driven into the dirt anyway if they randomly nerf stuff like Delhi and Horsemen.

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Lol actually I just watched Grubby’s video (the video from your screenshot) and what you’re visualizing with that screenshot wasn’t even his conclusion. He put HRE under Abassid bc of the spearmen-brace not working.

tier list grubby
tier list grubby1920×1080 142 KB

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probably they are saving this for spring 2022 update , lets not bash them.

and they are going to be fixed on the hotfix.

To be fair . i respect your opinion about Delhi . but its obvious that delhi is going to be buffed in a near future

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I feel that you are overreacting. I think a lot of your frustrations come from playing a certain way, and now that it’s been modified, you’re not open to learning “a new way”.

It is okay to always have longbowmen, knights, men at arms and Rams all up in Delhi’s business from the get go, but HELL NO should Delhi take sacred sites.

No one even starts base rushing until post-Feudal. Sanctity moved up to Feudal I don’t see what’s the big issue here? Dark age you should be getting your villagers and resources in order, scouting, fortifying and prepping for Feudal anyways.

NOT to go into other people’s towns but to take pressure off of their own by capturing sacred sites.

It’s easy to ignore sacred sites and to just cut the head off the snake - your base. I feel that you’re over obsessing these sacred sites as a way to win. When playing against Delhi I don’t think about the sacred unless the countdown is drawing closer to victory, and that’s usually later game. I think about your base more than the sacred sites.

What in the ??? This does not happen in most ladder games by far, and is seriously not an interesting strategy.

It’s not all about you and your 1v1 ladder games. I like 3v3 and 4v4 games.

With all the Delhi spam in the chat channel during the stream, they didn’t really answer or acknowledge any of it.

What did you want them to acknowledge? I feel that they did a great job addressing the balance to the game. They pulled back the curtain to show that, yes there is a lot involved with game balance. They have renewed my confidence in the game after watching their stream.

Something seriously wrong here for a franchise that had the potential to be an esport and worth way more than the amount of effort they have given it.

I feel that you are overreacting again. Give it time. You’re making it sound like you personally can fix the game without breaking it in another area.

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I guess they hate Germans too?