More things to improve: icons. And unit portraits. Give the UI some actual charm.
You guys managed to go back and fix up COH3’s UI just before launch. Do the same for AOE4.
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In general, a lot of the biome’s textures could be tidied up.
There are some textures that simply don’t fit in certain textures and it really hurts the appeal. They also don’t blend in well, and more important, aren’t needed for the intended appearance of said biomes. Here are some examples.
There are other offenders though. For example, Gobi desert have these ridiculous orange orbs that do not blend in with the environment AT ALL, and appear at random intervals like so; here are five of them.
Gobi Desert also has this “semi” dune desert texture. Like, you can see sand dunes, but they are mostly covered up by this completely unnecessary bumpy texture that ruins the entire appeal. Here are some examples of that.
You can see from right to left, how it varies. Right is where it has more of that rocky bumpy texture, and left, less. Here is an image that represents most of Gobi Desert, where both are combined and look awful together.
Ideally the duny parts should be separated and exist in between the bumpy parts; not one on top of the other. It defeats the purpose of each texture and just looks visually and aesthetically confusing.
Taiga Winter is also a problematic biome. The snow does not really look like it, although ironically, from a different angle and so, different lighting, it will reveal the snow to be bumpy and reflective instead of the flat grayish white that covers the ground.
Here is snow. Doesn’t look much like it. Yet this is how the default lighting and camera positon shows.
Here is that same snow from a different angle, one that the default position cannot see.
Taiga Winter also has these bits of marshy mud, that from the default angle looks flat and dull.
Yet from another angle, the lighting reveals key details about it, making it look far more visually stimulating.
Mind you, this issue is present with Taiga Summer as well. So yea, overall environments could be looked at.
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Big agree…
I guess it, again, was a financial decision.
Filling the game with generic all-same-color icons is much less effort than actually creating icons with character and charme.
Making most of the QUICK money with least effort…
If people are not happy with the game and leave it quickly?
Who cares, they have already bought the game and the cash is in Microsoft’s pockets.
Unfortunately, this is and was the main goal of aoe4.
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aoe4 was a guaranteed success, they just took the most dare i say, cost efficient way to develop it
That’s a cynical angle to approach this from, there’s going to be some level of impact with layoffs, but that was a year ago now. They were one of the first titles at the xbox showcase last year and had a 50% population growth that has been sustained for 2 months. If their objective is to make money they are accomplishing that, and it really points to resources being pulled from teams outside of aoe 4 development.
Edit: looking through community posts I’ve been reminded of something that really pulls this tangent apart, which is that community engagement as well as future support is being handled mostly by world’s edge and not relic. It just feels like an argument looking for things to pick at. Just look at the bottom of the webpage. Whose name do you see there?
Opinions on style choices and the financial goals of a business aside, there is still some polishing left to do with the UIX outside of gameplay. To support the growing community I’ve been hoping for a general chat for organizing games inside the client, but outside of lobbies, as well as a clan or guild system for groups to organize with. Crossplay, hopefully coming soon, should capitalize on community features as well.
Dear Insider,can an option be introduced to control particle effects?Just like the thick and long-lasting smoke in the 2021 beta version.Thanks!
I hope you guys can add the crossplay functionality to the game, so Xbox players can play with/against PC players, even in a unranked mode. I would like to play with my friends in coop mode (vs AI). This is how we have fun. You must understand the low budget fans of the game needs 
I would really like a Quality of Life change applied to the docks – I’d like 3 seperate rally points if possible. One for fishing ships, one for military ships (including transport), and one for trade ships.
Can have buttons to press before assigning it, or if you click on some fish it knows to automatically use the fishing ship one. If you click on an allied dock or neutral trade post, it knows to use the trade ship one, and if you click anywhere else it knows to use the military one. I don’t mind either way. Just it takes a lot of APM for me to reassign ships to the right place at the moment, on top of everythign else on land…
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I think the game could do with having the Incas, Mayans and Aztecs. 
Solid QoL updates that allow the player to create their own content would be the best bang for their buck, personally I think:
- Building templates (Think 9 barracks/stables/archery range, walls with a gate, 8 farm mills, ect)
- Automating the first action in your base (Allow players to set up their own logic for starting the game, think starting villager production/send starting villagers to closest wood/food, start creating a mill)
Similar to modding this allows players to create their own content but this would be relevant to ranked games so affecting a larger proportion of the playerbase. The main time consumption being players creating their own designs and starting automations for each civ.
the building templates sound interesting, the auto first action could just be partly copy pasted from console edition, as for affecting a larger part of playerbase, remember ranked is a tiny minority of the players, but often the loudest and most resilient to any sort of change, unless its a downgrade (no scoreboard till post game for instance)
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After reading many topics, here is my current list of desired improvements:
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Be able to choose your start position in team games.
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Auto queue Villagers on PC. (will help a lot new players)
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Crossplay between PC and Xbox.
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Replay of the best moments, with nice camera angles, to make uploading videos to YouTube easier and faster.
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Create and Join clans
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Be able to reconnect.
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Rewind replays
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I support option 2 
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The thing is that the prequel feels more dynamic than 4…the other options would be to influence you in AoM and AoEO but few played them to be able to take examples to be able to apply something in AoE 4…
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Free camera mod for replays.
Will help with the streams
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User friendly Map Editor like it was in AoE1/2/3 And AoM
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The AoM and AoE 3 map editors aren’t as friendly…but they are very deep…
but bro, as a kid i could make a campaing mission using the AoM editor. It is user-friendly. Maybe less than Aoe2 but stil a league better than Aoe4…
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This is singleplayer content too btw. It isn’t all campaign mission this or cinematic that.
A sandbox editor that lets people mess around was part of the singleplayer fun. The fact that AoE4 launched without one, even going as far as launching an unusable editor made for mods only shows how disjointed the initial direction was. You’d have to not know these games to make that decision.
Oh and nevermind the fact that testing units in AoE4 is nigh impossible because we don’t have a sandbox editor. Their mechanics and functions exist in a vague state where many things are left undiscovered for months as a result.
6 Likes