Speaking of post-game support - do we know if Relic will still be doing the balance patches and DLC or will World’s Edge or even Forgotten Empires take over at some point?
There are a lot of starcraft players who question the balance of AOE
In fact, there is no blizzard-style balance in AOE series. From a Blizzard game perspective, AOE2 is impossible to balance, how can you expect a game with such random maps to balance?
Similarly in AOE4, players at similar levels are often more affected by map randomness than by civilization. There’s so much uncertainty lurking in the dark fog, which is why I find the AOE series so entertaining.
A game like StarCraft II, where randomness is only a matter of player error and decision making, is a dead end.
In short, Age of Empires IV doesn’t need balance (especially the starcraft kind) and can be fun, deep, and have a lot of fans.
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How lol? They brought not a single innovation to the RTS genre. All they have are mechanics from previous AoE games or what already exists in other RTS games.
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AOE4 foreshadows a direction that puts randomness more heavily on randomness in game mechanics, making it more entertaining.
For example: Warcraft iii equipment drops, AOE maps are random.
When there is so much randomness and irremovable system influence is kept within a reasonable range, there can be competition without compromising entertainment. Poker, for example, requires skill.
That’s my point.
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AoE 4 brought nothing new, even in that regard. The notion that AoE IV is the future is wrong, as games have gone before it with the same mechanics and systems.
Map randomness was not invented by AoE IV.
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You don’t have to revolutionize the genre necessarily. Sometimes it’s enough to put it into spotlight again, to evolutionize. Some things are good. They don’t need to change. The RTS formula is good. AoE 2 is good. To use AoE 2 as your base for your new game and to modernize it with a few tweaks here and there, e.g. more assymetrical civs, might be the way to go.
One problem of the genre was, for the developer, the few ways to monetize. You don’t need to have a good amount of sold games, you need a steady income with your product. They tried DLC with AoE 2 and they also introduced cosmetics via events. I’m quite sure AoE 4 will use some kind of cosmetic ingame store or season passes to generate this kind of steady income.
Put the genre in the spotlight again due to a AAA developer putting effort and money into a new game, modernize the game quite enough without losing, what was great about the genre, find ways to monetize it and use money to force (if it is not there without forcing it) a healthy esports scene. Et voila. You should be fine. I think.
Hello guys !
To people talking about balance in SC2 and AOE serie, I’d like to tell you that the balance team in SC2 is or was trying to reach the “perfect balance” which is, of course, impossible to reach.
On the contrary, i don’t think AOE2 balance team is trying to reach this perfect balance point (it’s my assumption here) BUT, they gave us patches every month which is not the case for SC2. Plus we have more civs and they are less assymetrical than SC2 races. Considering these 2 facts for AOE2, we will be able to switch civs quite easily and discover new meta again and again which is good for the dynamism of the game imo. I believe it’s also quite fun for the viewer and interesting for the player in competitive play even if the game is not perfectly balance.
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There are a few reasons why perfect balance of all civs isn’t possible in the AoE franchise: First of all, the amount of civs. Some are for water maps, some are for land maps, some for early game aggression, some for late game. Additionaly, other than SC2, AoE has at least to a degree random generated maps which makes balancing nearly impossible. Therefore the AoE devs decided it is enough if there are a lot of good options for the different scenarios (water maps, open maps etc.) and called it a day. And I think most AoE 2 pros right now would agree there are some civs stronger than otthers but in general it is quite balanced. Tournaments include drafting as well and therefore you can ban civs which seem to be too strong in some scenarios.
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All what you described is not that of a game which is the future.
And AoE IV is very similar to AoE II, the price of €60 when most people are now used to the DE pricea of €20 will mean less people will buy it (regardless if the €60 is the value). The people who do buy it, if they are AoE II or III players, will what I forsee go back to their games in a few months.
If AoE IV fails to get new players, I dont really see how the game will succeed to the point were they will make enough money off cosmetics.
And again all you listed are not signs of a game being the future, but of a game being like fifa, adding some new stuff, but not changing or innovating the genre, which RTS really needs. RTS doesnt need a game similar to previous installments, the RTS genre is dying down for a reason.
AoE 2 DE was a remaster. The game was there. They “simply” had to change a few things. I know they had the change a lot, but it is still a remaster, based on a game which was already there.
AoE 4 is a whole new game. It has new assets, a new campaign, a new engine - everything is new about it, productionwise, beside the design foundation which it grounds on. This is way it has a 60€ price tag, which is, to be fair, the normal price for a new game these days. I do not understand why people thing it should be a 20€ or even 40€ price tag. It is a new game. They are reasonable to charge it the full price of a new game these days.
Yeah sure. If it fails, it won’t be able to be sustained via cosmetics. No discussion here. But there are a lot of reasons to think it won’t fail. There are of course reasons to think it will. We’ll see.
There are some aspects needed in an RTS to actually make it an RTS. You can’t change the whole formula without it losing something else than a RTS. I don’t exactly know what you expected of a new RTS?
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Innovation does not mean whole formula change.
AoE IV has nothing new, everything is from previous installments or based on already existing mechanics of other games. There is not a single new mechanic in the game.
Also it doesnt matter AoE IV had to build everything from the ground up, its not new. Its a bad selling point when in base your game is the same as a 20 year old game to say “yeah but we build it completely new”.
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I wont switch ill still play AOE2 AOE3 AOE4
Innovation in nearly every case is literally putting existing things together in a new order. If you put A, B and C which are already there in some form or another together in a new way so it becomes D, that is literally innovation. You don’t critizise new cars for using the wheel, do you?
Simply not true. If you use existing ideas and put them together in a new product you are still creating a new product. The idea behind the game is just one aspect of the production of a video game. AoE 4 has a completely new engine, new assets, new sounds, new speakers, new online enviroment, new campaigns. It is a completely new product based on a foundation already there. The price tag is reasonable. I can’t see how one could argue for the same price tag of a “simple” remaster.
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Disruptor is as balanced for ladder players as ghosts or vipers against P are…
Believe me, nerfs (even tho flat stats) can affect pro plays and general viability.
Especially when you have a concept in which units are overlapping in their roles against certain other units (crossbows bonus dmg vs heavy, spears bonus dmg vs cav, both raelly good vs knights).
Simple stat reduction/increase can easily shift the balance heavily towards one unit type over the other for the most optimal lategame unit comp.
It’s not really that simple with any game at all. The developers would first need to implicate it in both pro and casual games. If it’s a game breaker in pro games, it needs to be more exact. If it’s a game breaker in casual games, they need another approach. It may be slightly easier than balancing SC2 because of the large competitive scene but it’s still difficult.
Once again it’s not that simple. Microing isn’t OP in the competively scene, it’s necessary. Both sides need to utilize microing at LEAST once during a game. It may be OP to casual players, but that’s a given. Casual players don’t tend to fight pros in the first place.
Kinda. Newer games come with newer issues though. It seems balanced right now but this is before people really find out crazy strategies like the ones in AoE2 and AoE3.
You were going well(well mostly), but you crashed it at the end.
Carriers in SC2 are so ridiculously easy to counter, there’s literally no way someone who played SC2 on any decent level will consider them A move iwin unit.
This is not true. Despite the meme designs that SC2 got over time that literally ruined it, the game still got more support than the entire aoe franchise combined. Aoe2DE and AoE3DE are simply ways of milking the RTS cow, and we have no idea how long it will last.
If there is one thing I fear the most is that AoE4 will be a failure in the beginning and microsoft will decide it is not worth investing more into it to fix it, which is why I am overly critical of dev decisions. They already poured a lot of money into marketing (I have a feeling they paid more for marketing than actual development), and if it fails, well, devs go down.
The wheels on a car are obviously not marketed as innovation.
Innovation means doing something new, look at the definition. All new things in AoE IV except maybe 1 thing is from previous installments.
Landmarks? Asian wonders (AoE III), one single gold/stone mine? (AoE III), asymetrical civs? basically all with mainly AoE III. Neutral marketplaces? (AoE III), religious side? (AoE I) Almost entire unit rooster and building rooster? (AoE II).
AoE II and III both brought innivation to the RTS genre and did new things compared to the predecessor, AoE IV only has units hiding in trees (which other RTS games also have), which on itself is really similar to stealth in AoE III.
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When AOE III was released, they were not only creating a brand new game, they were changing 2D sprite animation to 3D. Basically revolutionising the AOE genre.
Did they start from scratch, and take out much of what was great about AOE II and make a whole new game?
Absolutely not. They improved certain things from AOE II and just added a lot more stuff on top of it.
Why? Because they were forwarding the franchise as well as creating an entire new game.
They added extra particle physics which wasn’t present in AOE II. But they didn’t delete stuff. They added asymmetr to the civs. Yes they went a bit too far and added stuff that put people off the game. But that’s how you know when a Dev team is trying to forward a franchise.
Same with AoM. They didn’t remove anything from previous games (except they toned the blood down a little which made it childish). But they only added stuff on top of previous games. Brought it into a new world.
AOE IV went ahead and decided to remove much of the things from previous games, adding some things.
And not only that, while even the new games are packed with graphical details, mechanics, new worlds etc. AOE IV is charging the highest price point for having less unit details ever seen in the AOE franchise, less textures, less particle and animation features, and everything reduced from not only its predecessors but also it’s fellow 2021 games. And still thinks the game is worth that price point.
You don’t pay top quality price for a downgrade.
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-Units on walls.
-Stealth (already mentioned).
-Influence system.
-Shepherding.
-Computer-generated maps and terrain.
-Nomadic gameplay (mongols).
-Decorations added after placing buildings. It’s not necessarily new, but it is extremely well detailed and refined. There’s roads, bushes, etc.
-Scouts are able to pick up carcasses.
-Unique unit abilities (not new, but improved on greatly) such as the palings, campfires, charges, etc.
-Sacred sites.
-Taxes.
-Neutral markets.
-Siege deployment. Instead of just unlimbering the horse and artillery, the siege weapon must actually be set up and placed on the ground.
Ofc though, with innovation comes mistakes.
-Homing arrows.
-Lacking UI.
-Civ naming isn’t the same across the factions, English and Abbasid Dynasty instead of English and Abbasids.
-Only two continents with civs.
-Lacking formations.
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ITT:
Others:
Seriously though, just because someone likes something does not mean people with other opinions need to persuade them otherwise (and vice versa for those who don’t like it!).
The game isn’t even out yet, can’t we just let people enjoy things? I’m really looking forward to this game but every time I come on here I feel like I’m going to be hunted down for having that opinion if I dare post it.
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