I don’t think this is a feature that they would add anymore, this has been requested since the pre launch - A poll on Archer, Xbow projectile interaction - nothing was answered in respect, so I would assume it’s out of question, a pity imo. The guy above said something that actually makes sense, the mechanic could be improved for instead of missing, hit the unit tile when the arrows are falling , this way when units are in group the arrows would hit more easily. That would make the mechanic to be less dumb but still useful. This philosophy should have been applied to a lot of things imo, improvement instead of exclusion. I hope in aoe5 we will have the opportunity to see something like that 
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Not a pure opinion, just logic based on experience of both AoE2 and SC2 games. And there are thousands who would agree to that logic 
Ask yourself what your post brings to the question, I don’t care about opinions of others, I care about what could make the game better, that’s all.
Hardcore disagree here.
Competitive player here and the thing that triggers me the most is some kind of rng mechanic atanding between me and the result of what I play out.
This is why I find AoE2 middle distance/high distance standing ranged bad, SC1 shooting a higher position from below bad and CoH dicerolling table top real time bad in general.
What this game is holding back from beeing more competitive is the fact that it’s unfinished, not only in a content and balance sense, but in a way of “how do we want to design this thing” on the most basic levels such as siege, water and landmarks.
“Always hitting arrows” is absolutely no factor in how competitive the game can be in its’ overall design…
If anything, more RNG and more dmg muting mechanics can be the exact oposite of competitiveness.
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While I agree here, I disagree about the arrows, check out my last comment here
I’ll go ahead and take the liberty to copy paste it:
However on the other hand, coming back to the realism aspect of the franchise, it feels wrong that an arrow can be shot at one trajectory, you see it moving in the air, and your units move out of it’s normal range, but the arrow adjusts in the air like a guided missile and tracks down your unit which should logically have run out of the range and speed of the arrow. And this goes for all projectile physics, they feel weird and broken and unrealistic.
Also, SC2 is a futuristic game with futuristic weapons, here we are discussing medieval weapons and how accurate they were… is clear that relic wanted to starcrafize age IV.
I don’t understand why developers want to copy sc2 game plays always, each game has it unique mechanics, DOW1 had melee/range toggle, accuracy system, cover, knockback, synckills, morale etc, age 2 has ballistics and it is slow, every game has it’s core features that should be respected and implemented in sequels, That’s why DOW3 failed so hard, they remove every feature possible from DOW1, and that is why relic is having a lot of care for COH3 using same core features not removing any single one, but here they don’t apply the same concept.
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It’s not about realism but immersion.
Nobody is arguing about damage models, superficial economy, “recruiting” units because you aren’t supposed to play a simulator but a game.
You can only use the “realism” argument if you hardcore cherrypick in the most disingenuous way possible.
It looks kind of out of place in the 3d environment on occasions, but not as bad as some people might want it to be.
And visually speaking, everything is subjective anyway.
If someone critizises the gameplay aspect of it, it’s just a designchoice.
While the arrow design definitely made AoE2 more distinct in beeing AoE2, that doesn’t mean it’s a requirement for all Age games and there is no positive/negative to either of these designs.
I, from a competitive point of view, don’t want dicerolling and dmg muting mechanics that stand in the way of balancing rock/paper/scissors, to impact my game.
It’s not as cut and dry as you want it to be folks.
While I understand that you might miss the mechanic from AoE2, it doesn’t mean that it’s “clearly better and it’s incomplete game and not competitive if not implemented”.
I would even argue the exact oposite.
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well, not sure about that, probably every age2 player out there prefer a ballistic system, so you already have a big number to play with already.
I won’t call age IV unfinish with it’s latest patch, the game is to simple to be fun, “oposite of competitiveness” those things are what make the game fun, people stopped playing sc2 because it is boring, it is more focus on APM instead of strategy, that’s why games like coh exist, also if PUBG is competitive every other game can be competitive, you just adapt to game rules.
I couldn’t disagree more on any aspect you brought up.
Competitiveness is not the oposite of “fun mechanics”.
They can go hand in hand to make a game feel deeper and more fun to play.
SC2 has more playernumbers if estimations are correct. (estimate 250k logins for coop plays and over 500k for every gamemode overall)
NA servers show just short of 10.000 games getting played at the same time with around 20.000 players active in the chat which would be around 35k players online at the same time, in NA servers alone (NA, EU or KR servers are completely split).
It has more content/gamemodes and a way deeper approach of what you can bring to the table and how you play it out.
Strategy in SC2 is insanely important and depending on your unit composition it’s easier or harder to micro.
Hell you can even go full A+leftclick army with chargelot, archon, immortal.
I highly suggest you checking out harstems “low apm” and “beating grandmasters with stupid stuff” videos.
AoE always had a superficial but selfexplanatory approach to it, which is less challenging to the player.
CoH is basically a tabletop game in real time, and goes into a complete other direction of the RTS game genre.
It just depends how serious you take the game and if there is bigger support for tournament hosting.
Ofc it’s a different definition if you approach it from that direction, since competitiveness is defined by financial support of 3rd parties or playernumbers then…
Physics are not subjective.
I expect ANY game to have proper physics, we live in a world with laws of physics, breaking those laws, even in video games, sets off alarm bells in our brains. It’ll never look right.
It’s okay with firearms and futuristic weapons because the projectiles move so fast, but in a medieval themed game it really stands out.
If they’re close enough, they shouldn’t be able to dodge based on trajectory and distance and some other laws of physics, however if I am on horseback riding away from your tower as you shoot at me there is a very high probability you will miss.
You’d argue against common sense physics then.
Unless they update all towers to f-16 models and make the arrows guided missiles, this not now how arrows should behave.
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I’d have to agree here, age was made way before the competitive scene coopted it, while I have no problem with there being competitive players, the vast majority of the players of this series were and are casual players that play for the historical realism and feel of being a governor of a province in these time periods.
A lot of times when the focus becomes competitive, too much focus is put on creating symmetrical factions and units and making sure everything is fair, which is fine, but a game like age and civilizations in general there are not going to always be a 1:1 matchup.
Well that’s all it really is, at the end of the day.
If you’re not playing for money, you’re a casual player just like the rest of us
God I hope this post is a joke
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As an age2 player, I much prefer 100 percent accuracy arrows and feels like it adds to the game rather than takes away, giving the rise to importance of other types of micro rather than arrow dodging.
If I were to make one change however, I would like a hard limit on arrow range, not allowing arrows to travel further to hit their target if the target has moved out of the maximum range after the arrow has been fired.
I suppose this would lead to a back and forth arrow dodging mechanic, rather than a side to side arrow dodging mechanic allowing for archers to run in and take a shot, and retreat avoiding any return arrow fire, or a player to retreat out of range.
I think this would also give depth to the game, making the importance of choosing when to engage in battle more relevant with players jostling to bait the opponent into taking a fight they might not want to take, or having to retreat to a more defensive position.
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Not every game needs to have a space planet simulator physics engine to be considered playable.
Handcannons/Streltsy could shoot further until the bullet hits the ground, ranged units don’t have a limited amount of arrows/bullets and you buildings are based on HP rather than stability in structure and where it got hit by what until it collapses.
The focus of games are on playability and not simulation.
For immersion sake we appeal to certain “realistic” scenarios to draw a general picture of what is happening, but reality has very little to do with how the game works in depth.
See building buildings, units spawning out of nowhere, no economy chains, hp bars, ammo, eating/junk, social issues/gouvernment and whatever.
It’s a game and I refer to this here again, since you’ve proven my point:
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“, from a competitive point of view, don’t want dicerolling and dmg muting mechanics that stand in the way of balancing rock/paper/scissors, to impact my gane” And I not want a boring game with almost not mechanics on it game with shallow game play.
Exactly my point.
If I attack something, it should hit it.
It makes the game way more shallow and restricted if the game has the possibility to say “no” and making damage very conditional on the most basic level.
The more control we have in the game, the more stuff we can do with units on the field.
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There should be 10% chance for a unit to refuse your order. 1% chance to change alliance during a battle. Some times units should die randomly because of different diseases. You should be able to micro these things by punishing/treating etc individual units
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There’s nothing wrong with liking the other arrow mechanic either.
But trying to bend reality and saying that it has objective reasoning behind why this would make the game better on so many levels is just wrong.
That’s all I’m saying.
When it comes to competitive gameplay I’d even argue into the complete oposite direction.
unironically the attack speed bug makes the game have a higher skill cap.
You want it and don’t want it at the same time … The arrow wouldn’t touch you further if it followed its initial trajectory : You want the butter and the butter money as we say here. Not possible.
And the problem is not that Relic did a design choice, the problem is that they’ve mixed design choices that are not compatibles (probably coming from wanting to merge SC2 and AOE2)
- Having a slow RTS VS making everything touching 100% : they offer you time for things but you cannot exploit that time to do the things you would normally want to be able to do during that time.
- Having no readability on when a tower/TC is on the way to shoot you VS having 100% hit ballistic (+ weird unreadable hysteresis as a bonus):
If you closely look at units/buildings firing at you in SC2, most have a rotation animation to prevent you that you enter the range, or at least the orientation of the canon that indicates you that you can be shot quickly. And if you react in time, the animation is cancelled and you can escape. That creates a natural dynamic hysteresis you can read just by looking at the units/buildings. In AOE4, they took the unreadability of AOE2 (which is acceptable because arrows don’t touch you while moving is no ballistic is researched), removed ballistic, archers always shot if the animation begin, and they added some random distance hystereris based on what ? I still don’t really know : a unit is seen, it is not shot until it comes closer (nothing weird until now), AND THEN they change their minds, make some workout to become better archers and shoot you on the other side of the map … This is a game design non-sense, I’m sorry : readability and consistency are BASICS of game design, and they failed so hard at it. And it is not a question of habits or experience, even starting as a noob in SC2 I’ve never complained about this kind ot feedbacks/reability : SC2 is perfect to me on that point, if you miss something, it is 99% your fault (miss click, bugging, etc).
I’m sorry, but this is putting SC2 and AOE2 together, mixing them, drinking them and vomiting them in something that has no coherency anymore…
Even if I like the game and some really good ideas in it, each game creates frustration due to missing feedback. If it is not fixed soon, I’m afraid I will quit that game sooner than I thought.
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