What should Age of Empires IV improve?

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
761

It’s not outdated. It’s just not used very often.

You’ve probably never experienced the past of Age of Empires or what happens with certain games on the market. The famous “useful life” or the company’s interest in “keeping the servers active”.

When I was a “little gamer”, I got to know Age of Empires 1 and later Age of Empires 2. However, at the time I couldn’t afford a computer. After a while, my family and I were able to change our lifestyle. And when I finally went to play the game at home, the official servers had already been shut down! However, I realized that the community was strong and that there was an alternative support to be able to play with friends and interact with the community for competitions. There was LAN mode and even connection via IP.

So I always played AoE1 and AoE2 with other people, friends, family, even when the servers were down.

As the years went by… the company that owns Age of Empires saw that its old games were still being played a lot and decided to release HD versions and Remasters/Remakes and continue the series, since it would be able to achieve a certain amount of sales. However, to get to this current period we are in, it took a few years.

Today, for example, I can play that old game: “Battle for Middle-Earth” with mods, I play with friends. Even though there are no servers, it is possible to play and have fun. (NOTE: I also play another series of games: “Command & Conquer” with mods. All with friends and LAN connection.)

Now, “Age of Empires 4” has extremely LIMITED support. The game has an expiration date that no one knows when it will arrive.

We live in an unstable world, where a war, severe climate change, global internet instability, or some global economic problem can happen.

AoE is not a series that makes a lot of money for the company, if compared with other titles, and maintaining and paying for servers for an infinite time is out of the question.

Now, regarding the synchronization error… I have a modern gaming PC, high-speed fiber optic internet and yet the game still gives a synchronization error??? What do you mean???.. It’s the ONLY game here at home that gives this problem. In addition to having limited support, it still gives an error! Thank goodness it only happens sometimes… but it’s discouraging.

No further comments…

  • I hope for bug fixes and instabilities
  • And if it’s to keep AoE4 alive for a few long generations… hope for the addition of a LAN mode, at the very least!
762

Well, since the season is coming to an end, I’m asking for the classics again:

1.- Japanese with Tanegashima guns (arquebus/ matchlock/ musket)

Instead of Ashigaru handcannoners, they should have Ashigaru gunners or Ashigaru Arquebusier with a proper Tanegashima Arquebus. Please, that would be the best. And in fact it’s vital: When they do Japanese campaigns in a few years, and see that they should have put the famous Tanegashima arquebusiers of Oda or Toyotomi in the Sengoku wars, or even in the Imijin wars of Japan and Korea, people will realize that the Japanese should have soldiers with Tanegashima arquebus. Some images of reference:

Tanegashima ashigarus_1280
Tanegashima ashigarus_12801280×785 333 KB

2.- More fauna, Age of Mythology of Retold has already implemented them.

And well, in comparison it looks very nice in AoM:R, in AoE:IV there could also be more fauna, especially if they want to make more varied biomes. You know: Hippos, giraffes, elephants, lions, tigers, alligators, etc.

Atlantean Zoologic
Atlantean Zoologic1920×1080 380 KB

BUGS - PUP Season 9

A).- Musofadi gunners gets handcannons when you develop “Serpentine Powder”

I suppose is a BUG, because don´t get sense that they get a “Downgraded weapon” as a improvement. In Rus Streltsy that didn´t happen, so i still suppose is a BUG. Please correct this.

image
image1149×311 51.9 KB

2 Likes
763

AOE4 should introduce a new Epic campaign with narrative stories. The most of players buy DLC only for single player contents .

Quoting developers "
Quoting developers" Our most visible cohort tends to be our competitive community, tournament organizers, and streamers, but there’s a rather massive and understated majority of our players that show up week over week and month over month just to enjoy their favorite Campaigns. They love Campaign content exclusively, and they’re playing them over and over again “”.

I really like the animated cut scenes and of course the ancient period.

I would like to see also an ancient Campaign in AOE4 in near future. This or a new AOE5 set in the ancient world with the lastest graphic improvements.

The Sultan’s Ascend DLC Is the latest representation of what Developers understand very well: the most of players are casual Who Don’t care multiplayer. This Is the reason why they are trying to improve also graphic and animations (starting from Season V to the lastest arrows animation) because these are important elements for casual players.

2 Likes
764

Why is this forum filled with people who like the older games better? Why don’t they just stick with what they like?

2 Likes
765

My friend’s game player nickname often changes. Can I label their names？

766

Introduce captains mode for civ selection in ranked. Currently, it can happen that you simply lose a match because you choose the wrong civ. That can be frustrating on all levels. Yeah, there are players who only know 1 or two civs. But, at least when you enter let’s say the top 10000 / aka plat captains mode should be included. Let’s say just to ban 2 civs each.

767

A new game is better. It’s understandable that AOE-II absorbed AOE-1, but for AOE-4 it’s better to just stay in the era it was meant to represent.

This is more or less what I once questioned in a thread, but people were quite reluctant, although an AOE that collects all the eras, but each of them as an independent game is actually not a bad idea.

People still believe that AOE-4 can only reach its potential if it doesn’t ignore the virtues of other games in the series. It’s not yet the game they consider ideal, but they hope that one day it will be.

Others simply express their disappointment by comparing it to the game that many consider (or we consider) the best. They waited 15 years or more for a game that would captivate them and it simply didn’t happen. Something similar happened with AOE-2 players regarding AOE-3, however the expectation was much higher with AOE-4.

However, the criticisms of AOE-4 are most of the time justified and argued. I almost never see things like “AOE-4 is a bad game because less people play it than X game”, and instead they say “This is great in this game, why isn’t it in AOE-4?”

That happens when you’re part of a franchise, you want the sequel to something to simply be a better version of what came before, so when it comes along and doesn’t fulfill that purpose (depending on each person’s expectations) it’s natural that it goes to those spaces meant to talk about it, in this case these forums.

There’s also something to understand here, and that is that although many consider X game of the franchise to be the best, it’s not close to being the game they consider ideal and there’s room for improvement. In other words, there’s still no AOE that they can call perfect, so in a way they’re self-critical of their own favorite game, so they expected AOE-4 to be that perfect game.

I see and read a lot of suggestions here that simply don’t adhere to dogma like many people who believe that a game from 1999 was already the pinnacle and the apogee of the saga. Thinking like that is much worse than criticizing AOE-4, as it would simply result in stagnation and little to no innovation.

768

I really like the point number 1, even if it is just a change in the model, I´m pretty sure no one likes the hand-cannon design, it looks really bad. The Musofadi Gunners (its easy to see the comparative in the bug you reported) , Jennisarys and Streltsy got much better weapon design, other civs should get new weapons models.

769

Please add the ability to reconnect or, even better, the option to save and load the game like in AoE2 (multiplayer). A random disconnection after an hour of gameplay is frustrating and discourages new players.

2 Likes
770

Who was it that thought of closing this thread, improperly; I want to contribute to the thread with two patch notes :wink: :wink: :wink:

imagen
imagen

1 Like
771

Then feel free to make a new thread.

772

It’s funny I’ve seen people complain about this one and it’s the the thing about her that makes the MOST sense.

1 Like
774

Optimize the randomization of civilizations to avoid duplicates.
Playing a 3vs3 (3 players vs 3 AI) with a total of 3 Malians (2 players and 1 AI) and 2 Abbasids (1 player and 1 AI) isn’t fun, while playing with 2 players against 2 AI and both AIs choosing Joan of Arc is a higher level of difficulty than what you chose, especially if you are not so lucky with the randomization of player civilizations, making it impossible to compete.
Considering the number of civilizations present in the base game and DLC, the actual probability of this happening is far higher than the statistical one.
Objective: avoid abandonment of the game.

3 Likes
775

More liveliness of graphics and biome
It is certainly possible with relatively little programming effort to add small but actually important details into the environment that make the whole game more lively:

-Chickens in the village center could move around a bit

-Horses in the building stable could move their tails

-Arrows that hit after a unit has been killed may get stuck in the ground

-Corpses could slowly disappear into the ground

-Reload animation on each siege unit with these “ghost silhouettes”

-Wild animals that match the different biomes

-Units in siege mode could visibly carry their weapons sheathed on their backs or similar as is the case in AoE 3

-footprints/wheel tracks
in snow and sand

2 Likes
776

My main issue with AOE4 is the point system for ranked it makes no sense. For example, I was loading into a 3v3 lobby when suddenly one of my teammates left before the game even loaded. So, the only logical thing to do was leave. But for some reason i lose 32 points. Why, am i losing 32 points for a game that lasted 15 seconds. My teammate has left and i am a player down why am i being penalised and secondly why 32 points thats so much.

Now, this brings me to my second problem which is the reward and lose point ratio for ranked. Yesterday, i played 5 games and won 4 games in row and averaged 16 rank points a game and i was nearing plat3. I played my fifth game and lost. I lost 42 points! 42 points! I went from almost plat 3 to plat 1 and because of that I instantly stopped playing. Even though i won 4 games in the row i somehow went negative. I should at least be 20-30 points up not 5 points down. Because of this, i don’t play ranked near as enough as i use to. I don’t want to play 5 more games just to lose my last one and lose all my progress just because i make one mistake. The problem needs to be fixed.

777

The mini-map lives up to its name.

IT’S TINY.

I wish this had the big ‘pop up’ map that AOE3 has. It’s the best map and most useable map I’ve ever seen in a game.

778

The siege needs to be balanced, mangonels are impossible to deal with. With janissaries even worse

779

Japanese shinobi can get a move speed increase with tech at age 3 or 4 and its movement animation should change to clasic shinobi movement like the one at age of empires 3.You know the foot work.

780

I think they will release new single player campaigns very soon, in 2025. Co-operative modes would also be very welcome. I played all the IV campaigns on intermediate difficulty when I had Game Pass.

In the future if I get a job, I’ll buy AoE IV but only if it has enough single player campaigns. I’m keen to try the multiplayer but I’m very worried about lag, disconnections, a lack of players in my region, and all the other things people complain about, like match making and balance. I won’t buy IV for multiplayer alone, that will be secondary for me.

781

Still no counters to mangonels