In this game, the rock-paper-scissors Boom>Turtle>Rush>Boom is fulfilled with a high percentage of the time… Logically, low-rated players will always suffer more against a more aggressive game and it should not be a justification to harm the rest of players. You have to learn to defend yourself from rushes.
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I am sure if breaking through a city with an ordinary attack were not easy as it should be, and even a faster player were challenged to look for different strategies each game, the game would be much catching. Otherwise it is just a run against the time since the beginning with no sense of strategy.
Anyway i am not saying the game has to be slower…but if a player is defensive by nature could find a different way to win challenging a faster one to push more…
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So far as I know blacksmith and university upgrades still don’t affect tower elephant archers. That’s a bug they’re supposed to be tracking. There’s also something related to spearmen stutter stepping (presumably something related to bracing) and various other units sometimes failing to attack.
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Ranked seasons with cosmetic rewards based on highest achievement level by the end. I think that would go a long way to sustain interest. IMO the fundamentals of the game are pretty good; just seems like the amount of manpower devoted to updates is currently not really sufficient.
Siege still feels… off to me, too. Like one well-placed mangonel shot can just swing the tide of a battle way more than it ought to. Not sure what to think exactly about this or if others even agree, but still feels like some tuning needs to be done here. Packing / unpacking time feels sort of ridiculously fast too.
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I would prefer Cosmetics and Challenges before DLC new civs. Adding a new Civ is a huge undertaking, and right now there is no incentive for the level system and XP. The game does need rewards, hell even AoE2:DE has all kinds of events and cosmetics. This game is bare bones right now.
Once they implement what @FerengiQuark mentioned, and work out more balance issues, improve water, then I am all for new DLC civs.
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In regards to learn how to defend from rushes and attacks in generally it would be helpful to have 1 or 2 corresponding art of war missions.
An alternative to make walls stronger would be for me to make siege units weaker. Stone walls get destroyed very quickly by siege. Furthermore siege is still very strong against units.
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Its a matter of time really.
I can see there being a resurgence of players once they’ve finally released the modding/ranked modes.
(on top of other fixes like hotkeys and colours like they’ve promised)
But to really get peoples attention?
Release a new civ or campaign DLC already.
We don’t need documentaries and high production for a new campaign. Just give us new content.
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If you favor defense more, the games would be more static and slower. If you properly scout an enemy base and see an all-in or early attack coming, there are several ways to defend with outposts, strategic palisades, and a correct combo of units.
It’s easier to complain about everything in the forum, but very rarely do you see a thread looking for tips to play better.
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I’ve been waiting for substantive changes since the Beta, and watching the scene closely. Broadly, I would like the game to have a more ‘serious’ feel, either tactical depth-wise or presentation-wise. Currently it has some solid core RTS mechanics but does not stand out enough on its own.
I believe there are still many of us that will buy and play the game (with current gameplay) if the graphics are a bit more mature - colors a bit sharper and animations more realistic. Adding blood will also help with realism. Currently the units seem a bit pastel-y and stiff. So any concrete updates about graphics overhaul / new assets or animations will definitely keep me tuned in, and I’ll be happy to buy with these changes alone.
Aside from visuals - More unit abilities, or unique units with abilities. Esp, if different unit abilities can be combined to better effect eg hammer-anvil. This could be a major dimension in which AOE4 takes off on its own beyond 2 & 3. I’d like to see it leveraged more.
Perhaps a stretch for AOE, but relic’s bread and butter - a more tactically engaging terrain would also be interesting - forest defense buff, shallow water debuff, perhaps add marshes with speed and defense debuff, or low vegetation with speed debuff and armor buff. Fire mechanics with siege / archers/ grenadiers could be interesting. This would bring together engaging elements from other RTS into AOE’s historical setting, and existing AOE players would also find something completely different from 2&3. I suspect the devs already had similar ideas given the minimal mechanics already in place like hiding in trees.
Hoping for the best!
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This situation reminds me of other release flops. Recent ones that come to mind are Warcraft 3 Reforged, Cyberpunk, Battlefield 2042. The release is everything. If you release a bare-bones game with basic features missing, people get furious. No one wants to invest time playing a game that is going to be dead soon, it’s a gamble to stick around for the game to maybe be finished in time. Why gamble when there are so many solid games out there to play with more active development? Why pay $60 to beta test some companies game when many games these days are actually free to play?
Salvaging to me would be giving everyone a refund who bought the game and making it a closed beta for another 1-2 years until they’re ready. The unfinished presentation at a triple A price is really greedy.
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Comparing the state of W3 Reforged, Cyberpunk, and Battlefield to AoE4 is already overkill.
AoE4 has good reviews on Steam and even though the multiplayer is in beta, the game is still playable.
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That’s what I mean though, when it’s playable is when the beta should start. All the hilarious bugs that have arisen should have been ironed out before release. Or if it’s going to be released as soon as it’s minimally playable it could have been f2p; people would be a lot more patient for development. But it’s like they ran out of time or money and only finished the very minimal. Things like colors and campaign flesh were designated as secondary priorities but that’s what people expect for $60.
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I think the community content tools have huge potential for revitalizing the game by adding a ton of variety and new content, if a lively content-creation scene develops and some really interesting/wacky mods get released that get covered by some gaming news outlets. So I really appreciate that the devs are seemingly prioritizing releasing the content tools. I think it’s a very reasonable strategy.
I’m unreasonably bummed that picking-your-own-color is put off until season 2, but I guess it’s better than it not being acknowledged at all. I hope there doesn’t end up being any “gotcha” like “you’re the only one who sees the color you picked”, although I don’t know what solution I’d recommend for situations where two people want the same color. (Previous games made it so picking the same color meant you’d literally control the same civ, I think? And I’m not saying that feature should come back, although I wouldn’t mind, but if it adds any significant amount of development time then maybe it shouldn’t come back.)
…This is kind of an out-there idea, but maybe there should be an options panel where you set your color preference from highest to lowest preference, and in cases where two players want the same color, it gets automatically decided by coinflip and the loser is given their second-favorite color.
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The game feels ‘unfair’ to a noob like me with just 30 games since beta. It doesn’t give me any way to rebuild or recover against cheesy strats.
To me, losing in the beginning 1v2 and then rebuilding is fun. I’ve played tons of GA and Oasis games in aoe2 and over 10.000 games in aoe3 but aoe4 just frustrates me because I can’t micro anything it seems.
Right now, if you have 3 knights vs. 4 you lose.
3 hussars vs. 4 hussars you could actually win, i’ve done it many times. 10 musketeers would melt against 4 skirms stopping early rush but they would all die against 1 hussar.
I miss that kind of pwning skill. Right now, it’s the one with the relics and cheese that would win. How much fun would it be to have HRE as goth huskarls run into Celt siege and destroying all of it. Or 2 horsemen killing 10 lb +ram?
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DLC with great reviews and a lot of press.
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One thing I don’t see mentioned much is how poor the AI is. I played AoE2 to DEATH back in the day online (Microsoft Game Zone). But I’m in my 50’s now and don’t have the reaction time to really play competitively online.
When the HD edition of AoE2 came out, my friends and I ‘got the band back together’ and played it quite a bit but just teaming up vs the AI. There were several good AI mods that kept it fresh and interesting and we could have fun playing together without the baggage of online play vs randoms. When AoK:DE came out, we again all bought it and played the heck out of it vs the AI (as it released with some very good AIs and it was continuously improved over time).
In AoE4, we tried it out and after the first handful of learning games, we were trashing the AI on the hardest settings. We aren’t world-beater players by any means but the AI is terrible. It just raids and skirmishes a bit but once you mass an army, it’s over. They have no capacity to fight vs massed units.
I’m still playing a game here and there vs the AI debating whether I want to dip into MP (and deal with all of the baggage) but all of my friends dropped it after the first few patches where there was not even a mention of AI improvements.
I’m hoping with the release of the modding tools that some folks will work on AI mods to save the game for us old farts who are too crotchety to want to get online and deal with randoms anymore. 
Does anyone know if the modding tools enable people to much around with the AIs or are we doomed to wait until Relic prioritizes it somewhere in the future?
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I’m releasing a video later today regarding modding, and I’m sure the modding community will deliver some gems with the Spring Update.
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Biggest complain for me is graphics and visual effects, 3.0/10. Projectile trajectory, destruction animation, death animation, siege animation, no blood & corpses need fixing. Come on, it’s a war game not The Sims.
Other problems are:
- UI and icon should be reworked for clarity
- Map imbalance
- Spectator mode should get more love
- Need more unit types
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@FerengiQuark your point about communication is important. Hearing the details, warts and all, about how the update process works would go along way. I think the community wants to help. Maybe shorter versions of the relatively-polished dev vids would help.
This. I’m looking forward to this.
I hope the player base will grow, because the excitement of playing the game at launch was how many games there were to choose from, everyone trying new things, and generally favorable interactions with other players.
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