What are your expectations for the future?

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
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I’m going to start this on a negative note by pointing out that the developers don’t really communicate with us about development, and that I rather feel they are content in treating us like plants that need the bare minimum of water and sunlight to be satisfied. So if you’re wondering about my expectations; they mostly stem from this impression.

I’m not a fan of it. It feels like there is no community managers here, which makes it feel like no one who cares. They don’t ask what we expect of them, and likely go off cold statistics to produce the bare minimum before going off to another project. Meaning, there is no space for us to interject on what maybe we consider to be a bad idea. Anyway, we are soon approaching a new content cycle and I figured I would inquire the community about their expectations prior to the teasers, trailers, roadmaps and launch.

What do you expect for the future of AoE4’s development, and do you think they will be met?

Here are mine.

DLC
My take on DLC depends on whether it is paid or not. If this is free content, I’m fine with 2 civilizations. I do think a third would make sense, as well as releasing them independently throughout the year. Make them line up with seasonal events and suddenly you’ve made the content draught feel a lot less dry. If they however opt to do paid DLC, I very much expect new campaigns on top of at least a third civilization per DLC. The Ottoman and Malian release just isn’t enough to be paid–though this of course depends on price.

Graphical overhaul
Another thing I expect the game to do, is probably some kind of graphical overhaul. From another readjustment of colour/light values, more fauna, different walls for each civilization, weather, to different looking and better performing water.

Scenario editor
I also hope the game would eventually bring a scenario editor to life much like this games predecesors.

Civilization and Unit design philosophy
And lastly, I kind of hope for a change in civilization and unit design. The game’s balance has taken a few turns since launch, and I very much feel they’ve neutered too many fundamentally interesting things about the civilizations for the sake of “balance”. IMO, the game is a game, and should be fun, and I very much hope they take some pages from the other AoE games as to make Unique Units and unique civilization bonuses more interesting. To be more specific here, I personally feel AoE4 hinges too much on the rock-paper-scissor element of Age games, leaving the experience between civilizations feel too similar despite their asymmetrical design.

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how can anyone complain about the rock paper scissors system, my god! that saved the water

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In a nutshell, for me personally:

  • More campaigns (am willing to pay).
  • More UX polish, particularly in the pre-game and main menus but generally throughout. Not UI specifically, though reworking some UX will require UI changes.
  • More and better modding support. The longer this game goes on for, the more important this is (even more than new official content).

I’m firmly against a “traditional” Scenario Editor (and always have been) because I want the devs to expand on what we have, instead of developing something in parallel that’ll require its own resource budget and maintenance.

The tools we have, if properly supported, would enable modders to make things comparable to the Scenario Editor of old. What you can do with custom maps and scripting is incredibly powerful, but modders are being held back in certain critical ways.

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and yet no one complain about the anti counter rps that was added since aom. anti cav cav, anti inf inf and anti archer archer. In aoe 4 anti cav cav is absent and makes games more turtle focus and theres no progression of the formula like anti inf inf light armor or heavy anti cav cav melee

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Care to give some examples? Because I think the opposite.

  • Chinese have gotten tons of buffs to their tax mechanics, dynasty system, and their unique units at the cost of nerfing generic and OP bombard/siege spam.
  • English got 3 additional unique units added, Delhi and Rus also got 1 additional unique unit added.
  • French and Rus both got additional unique mechanics for their cannons in the Season 4 update
  • Abbasid keeps getting buffs to make different HoW wings more viable and their camels were buffed

They haven’t neutered anything that made civs interesting unless you think OG Mongol Tower Rush, Rus Horse Archer spam, or team game Grenadier spam was ‘interesting’.

And your solution to make civs feel more unique is to remove the RPS counter system to encourage more incentive for every civ to spam Knights or Archers?

On one hand, I agree that I’d like modding abilities expanded. They did promise the ability to eventually mod in new textures/graphics and I hope that comes soon so people could even end up modding new civs. On the other hand, while I don’t know that we need a full on traditional Scenario editor, I’d still like the ability to easily put 10 of unit X vs 10 of unit Y just to see who wins for example.

Additionally, not counting new civs, I would also like to see custom tournament maps in Ranked (probably #1 request from everyone), more campaigns or unique civ-specific Art of War scenarios, more immersion elements like new languages, flora/fauna skins for different biomes, and continuing balance tweaks to make more landmarks viable and even out some civ matchups

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既然提到相剋系統，我就想問那些在時代三前就能產裝甲步兵的文明，顯然在同個時代沒有能剋制他們的對手。

這時候你一定會跟我瞎扯可以用某種戰術破解。

好，那麼可以用其他戰術破解的情況下你為什麼執著於遵守相剋系統？

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camel riders are anti cav,- cav.

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only 1 civ so that makes the game locked to turtle because they make an base unit in the anti counter rps an uu which messed up the balance of it. Also there no replacement for an anti mobile mobile unit. horsemen used to be thta ideal but they nerfed it

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I think you may have misunderstood the thread. I’m not asking to debate the points I brought up, as I simply shared my own expectations for the future of the game, and I’m asking others to share their own.

I’m not going to engage in debate, but I will give you a few examples since you asked.

I will first note that three of your examples are recent changes, which I think are going in the positive direction. With China specificially, I think your example is the opposite of what you stated. “Buffs” is a very generic expression, buffing the “tax” system is the furthest change from fun that I can imagine. Dynasties have been overall changed for the worse (albeit balanced); Song villager production is weaker, Yuan no longer influences Siege and Ming is less interesting due to two indirect nerfs; disabling IO->Clockwork production means the Ming health buff on Siege is mostly going to appear on generic Siege units instead of the tankier Clockwork ones, and the Grenadier was weakened with a nerf on top of the redesign of Pyrotechnics.

As for the examples you asked for, China is a good example of a civilization which has been neutered in many ways. Ming’s bonus for instance works on all the units it mentions, while Yuan arbitrarily rejects Siege despite being included in the description like Ming. Building speed is completely jumbled and varies randomly from building to building, and the Pyrotechnics redesign killed what was interesting about it in an attempt to simply nerf the tech. They’ve done quite a few of these types of redesign, another unit I can think of is the Streltsy.

I don’t believe in removing the counter system. Instead, I’d just like that the UU for each civilization feel like they are worth making. Some just feel overly balanced.

One important thing about my opinion on this is that I care about fun more than I do balance. That doesn’t mean that I want an unbalanced game, but understand I want them to balance things in a way that doesn’t remove the “fun” of whatever it is. Take Pyrotechnics; instead of restricting it to a singular unit, reduce its general effectiveness and allow it to be used by all gunpowder units. Just an example.

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do you have a suggestion? do it, not just complain, thanks

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I already did my suggestion add more base units to the anti counter formula. where the equivalent to aom podromoi on aoe 4? If not wheres the light mobile unit that counter cav for the sake. even re imagine aoe2 skirmish to counter heavy units and some light units with high mobility on base to use grass hide to strike. And before you say somethign about that concept historically skirmish tend to ambush and sometimes counter heavy armament as bow arrows tend to be ignored by heav plate armor unlike the aoe representation as a rear army anti archer unit. or just an speedy version of the spearmen like aoe 2 woads but with charge attack.

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More than fun, perhaps what a player liked is abusing broken units. Fun for the abuser, bad gaming experience for the sufferer.

China is a good civilization right now.

P.S: Zhuge nu in feudal, fire lancers and palace guards with yuan are troublesome.

If there is a civilization with more unique units it is problematic.

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中國是個神奇的文明。即使勝率、使用率不高，但只要有人提出中國應該如何修改，就有人會跳出來說中國很好，無須修改。
而在預想新文明時，很多人又想著套用中國的朝代系統，最好能得到各種buff。相似的系統，只要文明不稱為中國，那就沒有平衡性的問題。

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Totally Agreed. The overwhelming majority of the playerbase disliked where siege at was when the game came out. Too fast, too bulky, and too powerful/spammable. Anybody who expects the game to move back in that direction is setting themselves up for disappointment. I really like where China is at right now, and even when everyone else including top players were complaining that the Pyrotechnics change would ‘remove China’s identity’, and ‘nerf China into the ground’, I still supported it because it was a dumb (and historically inaccurate) identity to begin with. And then soon after, China began to be considered the best civ lol.

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The following would make the game a 10/10 in my opinion:

1.- More civs (Byzantines, Italians, Spanish, porteguese, vikings, Italians, ethiopia, japanese, kmer, Korea, Poland/Lithuania, Persians)

2.- Variation in animals (I made a thread about this “Gaia hunting variation”
Hunt other animals and not just deer, have alternatives from gathering sheep, other threats instead of wolves, bigger animals for boars and add marine animals to hunt.

3.- Campaigns, I love them

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More units as someone above said.

More unique mechanics for each civ.

Not a huge fan of aoe 2 but I like that you can aim your catapult or to simplify it, make siege takes more skill.

Bring sappers in second age if you want to go agressive without forcing player to invest in rams and all in.

Personaly I think for now the civilizations are enought, they just need more depth and the combat overall.

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While there’s certainly civs that haven’t been neutered I really didn’t like the direction devs took with mongols. Tower rush was way too strong and deserved a nerf but the cheap tower prize was quite special for mongols. To me it would have been much better if they had taken away other things from those towers like range or a smaller area of influence etc. Movement speed for units is not there anymore except for traders and cav. Ovoo stone production in dark and feudal (iirc) has been nerfed and plundering due to the nerfs also barely is a thing now. They have literally lost their special characteristics step by step for the sake of fixing a too OP civ quickly.

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New game. Age of Mythology 2.

By Age of Empires you can’t make more without to break what is already there.

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I hope the arrows are micravel!!!

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Infinite arrows to eliminate a unit is illogical, there has to be a way to make arrows more dynamic and avoidable for better balance and realism!! It doesn’t have to be like Age 2!!

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