Devs, WinterStarcraft has done great service by describing which points can be improved to give more chances to get AOE4 up to competitive level. The video compares in depth several aspects of AOE4 vs AOE2 and SC2.
Specially in user experience side, the game is lacking. There’s no way around it. I don’t care that the icons are yellow or green or coloured, the design choices in this area of the game show lack of care or lack of attention to what really worked for established titles in the competitive scene as AOE2 and SC2.
Some points raised in the video:
No selection panel.
Alt key is binded to rotate view.
No Select-All-Barracks hotkey, for example (Select-All-Military buildings does not do the trick).
Market buttons do not show prices, need to hover.
No global queue.
Minimap is painful.
Units still look very similar and hard to select when in the middle of the battle.
Strange that it has all these competitive features like replay and spectate but even basic QoLs like mini-maps and some basic unit selection hotkeys are sorely lacking.
Thanks for linking to this. I would prefer not to have an artificial limit on where the TC can be placed. Making the TC more vulnerable to attack in the first age would be preferable, because this would create a high risk/high reward situation.
Mongol Players Able to Place Town Center Directly Next to Enemy Town Centers
We’re aware that players of the Mongol civilization are able to make use of the civilization’s unique ability to pack up buildings to quickly move their starting Landmark Town Center next to their opponent’s in the Dark Age. Our team is investigating this as a balance issue as this strategy severely limits the options for counter-play from other players. We will be tuning how closely players can place their Town Centers in relation to enemy Landmark Town Centers and will communicate more on the timeline for this fix in the future.
This might be true, but time is of the essence. As I’ve been stating here like a broken record, if you release an unpolished product (UI issues galore, no ranked play, etc), then the player base will quickly drop off. This is already partially being reflected on the Steam active player trackers.
Unless the devs plan to push fixes/updates/patches and introduce ranked play in a couple of weeks at most, then the moment has already passed.
Ummm, yes? It’s Q4 with numerous major game releases and Christmas/Holidays around the corner. These are typically make-or-break moments in the industry. It’s not like AoE4 is only competing against other RTS games out there – you’ve got Battlefield, Halo, CoD, Forza 5, etc around the corner. Time and the attention of customers is finite.
Correct, and the issues pointed out nearly 5 months ago (including by this OP) are all unaddressed.
It’s the most popular RTS ever. But it’s old and not supported by blizzard anymore. Also pretty good but not top people from sc2 will come to aoe2 because it’s easier to become the top here.
They’ve also got feedback on the stats post game being lacking. And they got this feedback pre launch. Just put two guys on it for one day and they’d fixed it. But they didn’t want to.
We are sick of Blizzard. Blizzard kicked out the devs which supported that game. We want AoE4 to become the next starcraft. We want this game to become a bastion of rts. The criticism comes from a wantingness to help, not hurt.
if you want to leave after a week and jump on CoD or Forza 5 and drive in the middle of nowhere in Mexico I’d rather see you stop playing AoE now. The gaming industry is better off without customers like you with a 2-minute patient and attention level.
