we talked a lot about balancing, bugs, new features, closed beta for 1vs1 ranked games, map editor, hotkeys and so forth. I think it’s time to pause thinking about our own benefits and talk about some other things.
I think the main problem is to inspire and gain new players for AoE 4 and real-time strategy games in general. Why should new players stop playing games like Fortnite, CoD and so forth? I love strategy games, but i know our community is not the biggest at the moment.
Let us think about how we can inspire new and young players finding to find their way to play RTS-Games like AoE4 and let the community grow. Some thougts on my own:
Tournaments with price pools for new players or low skilled player
Expand the campaign and make it more gripping
Videos, Support etc. for how to master AoE4 in less steps
Take away the fear from new and low level players to play ranked games
Low skilled players should not be matched with smurfs and high skilled players and so on
…
Motivating ranked titles also for new players. No one want to be a bronze player. Give ranks a name like spearman, knight, elite knight and attractive rewards (also for the low skilled players).
Publish posts about topics like:
“Why you really should start playing AoE 4?”
“How rts games works and how this games are good for your brain”
“We want motivate new players joining our game, therefore we …”
“Win a coaching with one of the best players of the world”
…
Make new helpful and challenging scenarios for example to train things like useful invest all ressources and hold the ressource count low
A more creative and better AI for players who aren’t interested in playing ranked games
An individual reward system (daily, events, season, etc.). Something like earning random cards for each played ranked game. With this cards you can build a deck and play an AoE 4 card game with your friends or with other players of the world.
Make AoE 4 more individual and more interesting for all the players of the world. Let the community help to improve the game. Ask players why they’re scared playing ranked games and take away the fear for them.
I understand your point, I see a lot of content from the community that is very important for a game, for example there is content on youtube with tutorial videos, the soul of a game is the community that cooperates with each other, having activity in this forum is proof of it . I will make my proposals for the rankeds in the private forum, I will argue the motivational approach that they should give to the rankeds
I would rather be bronze 1 than a spearman. I only play AoE2, and I have to admit, I don’t like the AoE4 upgrade style of Knight>Elite Knight>Veteran Knight or whatever it is. It just isn’t as cool sounding as the AoE2 transition from Knight>Cavalier>Paladin. Basically, using unit tiers for ranking like that also sounds really bland. I also think that having lower levels be a basic and weak unit like a spearman will push players away from ranked. No-one wants to identify with a low end unit, it makes you feel like a weaker player. If they name it after units, they should just pick decent ones for the lower ranks, but still have it improve. For example: Mangonel>Springald>Bombard might reflect the top 3 ranks
if i think about which rank titles are possible, i agree that is it difficult to have titles without rating the skill of players, but i see some other options to motivate some low skilled players to play more ranked games.
You could change the sub-titles of rank tiers to something more meaningful like I or II or III. For example the first rank of a bronze player could be Master of Bronze. It could be that i am i bronze player and happy with that. So i have the chance to master bronze and get some separate, attractive reward for that and it feels like “hey, i am a master and i am happy with it.”
I think that would be a benefit for the players, because of a good title of his rank and a special reward at the end of the season. If the players have a reachable target, i think they will be more motivated and plays more ranked games. But that is only a little part of my collected feedback.
i’ve never said, that we not need bug fixes. We can focus on fixing all bugs and optimize the game for the best players of AoE 4 and some other veterans of rts games. That’s a good thing, but I think there is another and bigger challenge than this.
If i look at my steam friendlist, there are no surprises. All players with AoE 4 in their game list are exactly the same players, played other AoE titles. Most of them are casual players and have no interest in ranked games or have fear to try it out, because the skill of players playing ranked games is to high. Most of these players played AoE 2, AoE 3, SC2 etc. before and have a lot of routine in playing rts games.
So i think the challenge is more than fixing some bugs like animation cancel for best of the players. We need more new, young talents and should support them on their road to ranked games and to the top. We should find ways to bring new players to play AoE 4 instead of other games and let the community grow. Some recommendations from me you can find in my initial post.
That’s my personal opinion and not everyone have to think the same way. That’s perfectly fine with me.
From my understanding, Age of Empires 4 is aimed to be a long term project, likely because Microsoft understands that the Age-franchise is very established and popular / well known.
I don’t think you need to worry, the game will (likely) get support, polishment and added content for years to come, and slowly but surely gain a growing player base.
While not certain, but pretty sure, I’d bet AoE 4 will see its first growth in some players when the level editor and modding support is added, that will vastly increase the variety of things to do in the game, mainly for casual players that constitutes the majority of the playerbase.
Tbh what AOE4 needs is more singleplayer content and a better AI.
The MP scene actually has a reasonable playercount and (hopefully) the spring patch will provide great balance changes and healthy freshness to the game.
The campaign though is very straightforward and the AI in custom games is super garbage. AOE4 campaign is interesting at first but gets old gameplay-wise imo pretty quick.
