I’ve been thinking about this too. Do esports players really care about small details like different flora and fauna? different game modes? deep civs? a robust unit roster?
I watch how they play the game and I can’t see myself enjoying a game at all if I played like that. It’s not necessarily about having fun to them but raising their elo and winning tournaments and generating money from streaming. I’d love to ask former AoEIII pro players how they can sit there and and not have any misgiving about AoEIV siege compared to AoEIII.
I think Relic listened to them too much and now we have a watered down game that got stale very quickly. What is worse is many of those esports players are now dissatisfied with the game. Quite the conundrum.
So you watch replays of pros playing? I do too and I have fun watching those matches, then go right to AoE4 to play and have more fun because I’m the one playing, so surely it’ll be better, only to get bored almost immediately.
There is a heavy bias in people’s rhetorics.
People like to talk about “oh the sequel of xxx is too innovative so it wasn’t as successful or flopped hard” ignoring (1) any other problem that game has besides “being innovative” (2) there are perhaps 10x more series with no innovation and faded into oblivion.
I am not unhappy. I am contented. I am an RTS player… played C&C games including Red Alert, played a lot of Starcraft/Broodwar, WarCraft 1, 2 and 3 and StarCraft2.
I played some Age of Empires in the past but not serious on it. I have been playing StarCraft2 for years and I am looking for an RTS that is not StarCraft. And this is it… AoE4.
So far, I am okay with it. The controls and features are not as complete like StarCraft2. But it doesnt need to. I just regard AoE4 an RTS game that has its own game mechanics. And it is playable… very playable.
I havent played 1v1 against another player but I am having fun skirmishing with the Hardest AI. I know… you could abuse the Hardest AI with rushes (towers/rams) and exploit it with Stonewalls to beat it easily. What’s fun with that? But I did these exploits just to complete the Masteries.
To make the game fun, I just avoid these abuses/exploits and have the Hardest AI mass produce everything and have it gun down my army. I love it. If it cant destroy my defenses, it opens up controlling Sacred Sites or it makes Wonder forcing me to move out. And when I move out, it attacks a weak side of my territory so I have to put defenses too while my offense army is out.
Have you played Rus? Rus is weak on doing early rushes and Rus dont have Stonewalls where you could put up archers on it to exploit the weakness of the AI. Playing Rus gives me a challenge. I love it. I am having a Blast.
BTW, if pro-StarCraft2 players like Marinelord, Leenock (and Serral last year) and pro-WarCraft 3 players like Grubby are playing this game, I would play it too. Looks like they were having fun. I understand as I am having fun too.
There are several reasons why AoEIII wasn’t well liked upon release with several being the time period it takes place it, high system requirements at the time and a fantasy based campaign style.
But most of all it is mainly based on the fact it wasn’t AoEII 2.0 I’ve been hearing the same reasoning since 2005.
Funnily enough I couldn’t play AoM for years because my PC wasn’t powerful enough, luckily by the time AoEIII came out I had upgraded so I got to enjoy both games at the same time.
Hindsight is always 20-20 of course. If a game tanks, people will blame it on whatever was more notorious at release. “No Man’s Sky? The hype killed it, that goddamned E3 trailer” “AoE3 was too complex man, that whole home cities thing and cards was dumb” “Cyberpunk’s bugs had bugs” “X game failed due to microtransactions” “Z game had terrible graphics”.
In the end reality is much more complex. Even what else is popular at the time of release can seriously destroy a game.
There is innovation just for the sake of it, something nobody was asking for (e.g. Tesla’s yoke) and then there’s freshness. The landmark concept in AoE4 is a good example of something innovative and fresh (its implementation has been problematic, but the idea itself was great). Other aspects of the game are simply better implemented elsewhere and that’s where the real issue lies.
IDK about the lankmarks being innovative as it was just pulled from TAD.
This may be my bias kicking in but I think the age up mechanic is better in TAD since all wonders were available from the start meaning you could come up with different strategies that weren’t locked behind advancing in age.
Within the AoE universe they are. I just wished they had a more significant role during a match. They should be more strongly dictating the strategy you choose. Say, if you choose the English Council Hall to mass produce longbowmen, it should weaken or hamper your production of cavalry or infantry for example. There should be more of a risk if you don’t scout properly or anticipate what your opponent is going to do. Right now landmarks simply add bonuses but keep your tech tree otherwise identical.
And people around here say that the problem is that the other landmark (which I don’t even remember) is not strong enough.
Make landmark picking a risky ordeal. You are choosing to focus on ranged units? Then you can’t have maxed out knights. Let’s see if people keep picking that one up every single time. That would even improve the team match dynamics since now you’re lacking a unit that your teammate needs to compensate for.
As it is right now, everybody has full tech trees, that’s incredibly dumb and boring.
You are French and you’re choosing the Chamber of Commerce and Guild Hall? Then you’re focusing on economy and not military, you have access to weaker units so you need to amass them.
The only “risk” I can think of when choosing a landmark right now is constructing the Reignitz Cathedral and having all the relics stolen. Still, full tech tree.
Hotkey Customization: This is a no-brainer for an RTS game and I’m baffled how they could not have thought about it…
Scenario/Map Editor: For many casuals building cities is super fun. Also essential for tournaments so that custom maps can be made for variety.
Poor AI: I believe that according to stats, more ppl play vs the AI than multiplayer. I’m 1000-1100 elo on AoE2, so nothing special, yet I beat the Hardest AI with absurd ease even when I started learning the game…
Slow Patches: Yes the Roadmap is great and all, but honestly it feels too slow. Especially for some of the more important features.
Missing Modes: Landmark victory gets a bit repetitive after a while and makes it impossible to relocate your base when pressured. Where’s Regicide? Where’s Conquest?
Details matter: Things like Global Queue, Color choice, Animal biomes, etc may not seem that important, but they add to a feeling of incompleteness.
And one thing I didn’t expect is that the emphasis in Civ difference didn’t play out as I thought. Yes, the Civs are more unique than in AoE2 but that tends to be a double edged sword, as most Civs end up being played the same everytime… With English you’ll go Council Hall into Longbows, with Mongols you’ll tower rush, with Rus you tend to go fast castle, etc. There’s little variety and with so few civs, it becomes even more apparent…
Honestly it’s a lot to fix even if the updates come a lot faster, which they won’t…
Unbalanced ,repetitive style , some crucial balance changes are completely not understandable for anyone, lack of content and gamemodes, seemingly inconsistent/low support (seems to start to get better)
That would have been set in the twentieth century and has ages from the industrial age to the present… to the aoe 4 I feel a aoe 2 2.0, but worse done in all its sections: very outdated 3D graphics, generic campaigns of 1vs1, empty maps, there are no treasures, allies of any kind … you are only to the good of God… I play it and I like it less… even the aoe online is better made and is a mmorts full of life and charisma…
Let’s stay on topic about why people are unhappy with the current version of the game.
As a council member I must say that we made suggestions of all types for the game but that doesn’t mean they were all accepted by the developers. It should be clear to all by now that Relic has a firm vision for the game and to some extent we have to take it or leave it. The council is composed of Age fans like yourself. We have the same wants and needs and have been asking for them all along.
Too many reasons. Just too many.
We have random civ now, so what about colour pick and map editor? When could we see mongol’s stone tech in tech tree? There are just so many things to be added into the game.
Balance is also a problem. Comparing to AOE2 which has 39 civs where even the worst civs can have a 45% win rate in total and can be powerful in some maps, AOE4’s balance is nearly a disaster. Delhi flew from worst civ to best while China dropped from middle to bottle just in one patch. And English and Abbasid still get zero change.
Balance is just a PVP problem, but PVE also don’t goes well. A good AI should know when to do what, like a easy AI should go attack after Player gets to castle even imperial age.
That’s just design problems, and there are also many bugs to be fixed. I have not played AOE4 for over a month, and I can still see people complaining about Mongol’s infinite ovoo and HRE have 7 relics in the landmark. Is it just that hard to be fixed? I have no idea.
What I said above is just a small complain. Relic should know they’re almost the only one team which can make new RTS game on Earth. The global RTS players are all waiting for a new era. Players want an AOE4 to lead their path, not a baby to pet. The most extremest opinion I have seen hurt me a lot. I don’t want it really come true.
