Why AOE4 is a total loss

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
1

Why aoe4 sucks:
1.There are still insane amounts of game breaking bugs and exploits a 10gb hotfix is a joke adding even more bugs. I counted 4 bugs during the tournament ranging from visual glitches to game breaking.
2.Terrible pathing issues. There where several moments during pro-games in which rams took 1 minute to move back and forth in between units never attacking the intended building. Got to babysit rams huh?
3.There are insane amounts of map screws. Yesterday the aoe4 20k tournament showed how bad the game really is. The map-generator put the trader behind a giant forest and chokepoint. Themistaa was screwed like hell in that game, because he couldn’t trade. Besides that misplaced gold mines dictate the entire game so players where forced to build 1 or 2 towers on them, while the other player didn’t have to do that and was ahead.
4.The game is mindless spamming of OP units like knights/lancers and Maa+springalds. Quote during the tournament: “the knights are completely overwhelming the spearman”. “The infantry- springald build without needing siege workshop is very OP”.
5.The game isn’t balanced between civs and between unit types at all. Mongols had ± 90% winrate during the 20K tournament.
6.The 20k tournament showed a complete lack in strategies per civ. Most civs and map based strategies are already set in stone, because of the lack of legit alternative choices. At least aoe3 had about 10 legit builds / strategies per civ with the card system.
7.Some units can not be distinguished from eachother because they look the same: Zhuge nu and crossbows or fishing ships and exploding ships.
8.HRE and chinese never saw play in a single game during tournament.
9.The observer UI is completely ridiculous. We need to have the following observer UI:
Viper: total pop || army resource value|| current resource || income per resource|| Total income|| resources lost||
Instead the casters needed to click and calculate all the time to even show the most basic information. Also units lost is useless stat compared to resources lost. Some units cost 800+ resources.
10.There where server issues during the tournament.
11.Relic already has announced their next game: company of heroes3, it is a total â– â– â– â–  you towards aoe4 fans, why not give aoe4 a bit more marketing time for longevity huh?
12.Aoe 4 engine looks far worse then RTS games from 10 years ago.
13.Even the aoe forum is old garbage.

I have played aoe games for about 22 years together with a friend. Now we don’t care about aoe4, because of the bugs and exploits and disbalance monobattles etc. We prefer Linewar, which is an indi RTS -4x strategy game made by 2 developers. Why? Much more unit diversity, much more interesting opening prep and much more interesting strategies, unit combinations etc. And they are only getting started in alpha fase. These indi-devs have much more love for the game they are making, while aoe4 is just sucking out the nostalgia like hell for 60 dollars.

All that for AOE4 with lack of depth, lack of special unit types, lack of special researches, AOE4 is just a completely dumbed down game with tons of fake choices that aren’t choices at all. Most builds are already set in stone. Like mongols 3 melee cav unit types in the stable and only 1 sees play in endgame. Completely stupid design.

Viper said after the tournament he won, he disliked the mapscrews and will be playing AOE2 tournament next not knowing how to distribute his time between games, basically implying that aoe4 is a ■■■■■■■ joke of an “esport” and he knows it (of course he wouldn’t say that).

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Totally disagree with the game being bad. Personally I enjoy it.

But it’s sad that most games are being released unfinished, which applies to AoE IV, which is great for me even in the current state atm. Hope future fixes make it even better. Still releasing unfinished games applies to 90+% games released in past years. Any way too little time have passed to make any concrete conclusions yet.

But I can understand your disappointment if the game hasn’t met your expectations. Such things happen. And you are right about some things - game is in unfinished state with bugs, glitches, etc, but I also disagree with some other arguments you provided.

Also Viper hasn’t said he didn’t like the game. More than that he already announced a long term calendar of tournaments and other activities on AoE IV. Don’t say in his name. You’re just trying to misinterpret his words, which he maybe hasn’t even said and use it to make your own words more valuable. Also Viper is very active making videos of his AoE IV MP matches and even campaign walkthoughs.

Like it or not, it is subjective of course. Any way hope you will return to the game when it will be polished and enjoy it.

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This game is incredible and best I’ve played in years. It has some issues but please don’t be melodramatic.

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The UI needs work (including the observer UI, which doesn’t show nearly enough information), but the core game itself is a lot of fun, so I will continue playing AOE4.

I have no interest in WW2 era RTS games since RTS is less fun when all the units are ranged, so I don’t care about COH3.

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The game isn’t a total loss. As others have said, the game is in its infancy and updates and rebalances are still needed. It’s not perfect my any means (and most modern games upon release are not fully fleshed out, unfortunately - just a fact of the modern video game industry).

You need to give the game/devs time to sort it out. I agree, it’s total BS that they would release a less-than-finished game and charge full price for it, but there’s nothing we can do about that now. There’s no need to be overly dramatic about the game being a “total loss” 3 weeks after release. Personally, I find the game enjoyable despite the many bugs, so I’ll continue to play it unless they really drive the game into the ground (which i don’t think will happen - in fact, i think it will improve over time.)

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Where did he said this?

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This is high level whining. What you described does not sound like major issues but only needs time to fix.

Also what exactly are the bugs added by the hotfix?

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He didn’t say that I watched live this guy is lying. He just said springalds are a little OP especially with how Abbasid and Mongols can make them in the field. He said he isn’t sure how he will split his time between AOE4 and AOE2 but he’d like to compete in both. He said he will see how the competitive scene for both games develop and he doesn’t know if to compete in both will effect him negatively. He’s also said several times he likes the game.

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Whilst the topic is too dramatic, what is important is to identify how Relic will handle patches, hotfixes and bugs, like the ones mentioned by OP, to understand where the game is going.
Right now, I would say that whilst its somewhat competitive due to being new, I am not confident it will be relevant in a year or two.
If the Devs are interested in keeping it alive and well, then they should be able to handle bugs faster.

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So, to use your own vernacular, your post sucks and has so many insanely, ridiculous things wrong with it.
To just comment on a few:

The Boulder Bay Mista vs Viper one was bad yes. But that’s on the tournament admins to properly screen. They are all supposed to be reviewed and approved prior to playing.

The game has been out a little over 2 weeks. You are aware right? Balance and meta are still being figured out. Saying civ and map based strategies are set in stone is ridiculous. We already saw a number of unexpected things like French losing most of their matches and Delhi (considered the worst civ in tier lists prior to the tournament) getting played and winning. This reminds me of how forum warriors would say things like “AOE IV requires no micro” after dabbling with the stress test for a few days.

Server issues? You mean a millisecond pause on a few occasions? All things considered, the whole event ran extremely smoothly.
Yes, Relic has more than 1 team working on games - historically they’ve always had 2 games concurrently in play.

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Some things that I am finding lacking is the sea play…

The ship turning micro is kinda silly, and no ships would have fought like that. It just makes the sea fare look gimmicky.
Demo ships are just too good, not sure what they cost, but they need a DMG cap or be used as a supplemental way to attack with other than 1 hit multiple kills. Should be like half damage, or be really expensive and look different than fishing ships.
Stealth on the water is incredibly stupid… even those small ships have about a 30ft sail… its not going to hide in those
patches of seaweed. Instead they should slow ship movement, and turning speed (even more so)

I really wish there was more of a boarding mechanic. ( a power drain bar and if enough left over the other ship is captured, or if only a little left say less than half the other ship is automatically scuttled) so in a 1v1 equal setting the ship that makes contact first gets a ramming bonus to knock off 10% of enemy boarding power, then both bars drop until the winning ship scuttles it. but if 2 ships were to board one, then the 3rd would be taken control over, but dropping the remaining boarding power down to the minimum level a ship needs to sail, (say 25%)

About cannons:
With french cannons not needing to pack up to move, look really silly because they move at the speed of infantry… They would weigh a ton and need careful planning to move to keep balanced and so forth, need to be slower. IMO these cannons need to move slower than a packed cannon but just not needing that packing animation, and the packing type of cannon need a longer packing time, but would be balanced by faster movement while packed.

Seen archers counter cav too easily and cav kill pike men too easily as well. (why is it a archer can run away and quick fire, but a horse as to stop for the rider to swing a sword and then try to catch up, cav units should keep pace, to punish those retreating cowards… ) something just feels off with the counter system, then it all relies on siege which seems broken due to too fast of speeds. I think only Rams trebs (which seem useless due to other better units) and siege towers should be made on site. Springalds, cannons, and mangonels are much more complex pieces of equipment needing a dedicated shop to make the springs and castings.

And yeah map balance is super Key, that one middle sea level blocking the trade line should have been rehosted. when it came down to late game he was cut off from that income.

and was disappointing to mainly see mostly repeat civs. and even then its pretty much the same thing with all the civs.

The game as quite a bit to go.

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The map-generator put the trader behind a giant forest and chokepoint.

The casters said the tournament organizers preselected the map seeds. Meaning, they knew exactly Mista might have a disadvantage on Boulder Bay since they knew one player had a full forest wall off for his trade.

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Asymmetric civs = 2-3 good civs in each map and a bunch of crap in the long run. There is always going to be FOTM and its impossible to balance. Just hope that your civ is FOTM or keep switching if you want to play competitively.

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Apparently the biome choice can affect how trees show up in the map seed.

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AoE4 appears to be selling well. If true, then it is not a total loss by any stretch. That doesn’t mean that everyone here will enjoy it. But it’s not helpful for anyone to overstate their position.

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I like the game a lot. Never played AoE before, just SC2. Here are just some major things I want fixed first:

  1. Improve hotkey system how SC2 uses alt stealing
  2. UI - remember my last game type (1v1, 2v2, etc)
  3. Water maps. Allow veto maps, or make them a 5% chance to occur
  4. Allow cancellation of units in production w/ the ESC key
  5. Add option to cap maximum fps in the menus (lobby)
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Relic moved on cause worlds edge is in charge of managing aoe4

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lol a total loss? so many cry babies. of course its not going to be perfect, the best way to balance the game is through people playing it. did you think it was going to be perfect from the get go?

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Most of the complaining I’ve seen are disagreements with directions the developers went (such as how the game looks) rather than complaints about the actual experience playing the game.

It really is a lot of “they didn’t do what I wanted so it’s bad” on these forums; though it’s gotten slightly better since the game released and didn’t instantly die/wasn’t unplayable to everyone like they said would.

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Its not about balance mate.

The game is unfinished. It has ONE game mode, half the tooltips do not match reality. All civilizations have major bugs. If you bought a AoE1, AoE2, AoM or AoE3 physical copies back in the years they were released, you would find a complete game.

Multiple game modes, taunts, more maps. Hell, even the DELUXE Edition items are half-finished. The “Unit Counter Chart” only has 6 units… Compare that to any other AoE game… I still have the nice tech tree chart from AoE2 hanging around.

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