What's stopping you from playing AoE4?

General forum about Age of Empires 4.
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No Flag r4go
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Re: What's stopping you from playing AoE4?

Post by r4go »

lemmings121 wrote: ↑
24 Jan 2023, 21:03
dicktator_ wrote: ↑
23 Jan 2023, 22:53
Idk how aoe4 balance has been, but it's hard to imagine that they had anything dumber than Hakkapelits before the most recent patch
Surprisingly good tbh. just as any aoe game with a hundred diferent MUs there is always a particular mu a particular map that feels really bad, but on average in ranked map pool with vetos its solid. Having played aoe3 RE then EP then DE, I'm pretty sure current aoe4 balance is above any of those. maybe late EP had a similar level of balance, but you cant even compare aoe4 balance to re/de
umhhh. But in age4 the trade is insane and not all the civ can trading like malians, mongols or other civs. Some civs have really broken units.
The game is super unbelanced and you can feel the difference changing civ 1v1.

i mean: whit french i was diamond I, whit brits plat I (my best civ but actually as you can see in age4wordl is the worst civ), whit malians, that i'm not expert whit them, i'm going to beat diamond II players. Just becouse they mass very fast, trade op. Go, fight, attack move and gg
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France chronique
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Re: What's stopping you from playing AoE4?

Post by chronique »

During the RE era i was better with spain than otto, i am not gona conclude than spain was better.
#statistic_lives_matter
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Tuvalu gibson
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Re: What's stopping you from playing AoE4?

Post by gibson »

doesnt aoe4 have 10 civs? The balance is gonna be inherently much better than aoe3 with 22 civs
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Re: What's stopping you from playing AoE4?

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Post by Seamonk »

Sorry if this counts as a necro. Just wanted to get my thoughts out here as well. For full disclosure, I played through the closed and open betas. I picked the game back up in the last few weeks and haven't played a lot. I'm also not that good, in team around a Gold 2 at the moment.

AoE4 has been out officially for almost 1.5 years and it just isn't a polished, competitive game. There really isn't a reason to spend time in it when there are very similar games that are better and healthier (AoE2) or have that nice comfy nostalgia (AoE3).

Uncompetitive Maps
[Edit:]The following is influenced by a mix of quick matches and ranked matches. Probably not indicative of the real experience.
The maps in AoE4 are not competitive. Remember AoE3 tournaments where admins had to scan the map to make sure resources were distributed equally? That feels necessary on every ranked match I play. Below are two screenshots of ranked matches I've played. The first one is just unfair in resource and land distribution. The second is unplayable with one player not having gold or stone. The sample size for these is admittingly small (I've probably played <20 ranked games total), but it completely turns me off from seeing this as a game that is based on skill.
1v1
2v2

Bugs
There is a bug in the game that allows players to negate most risk in a risk vs reward scenario. A civilization came out that is able to take further advantage of this and was pointed out during the PUP. In their response, you'll see that the dev team really didn't care enough to avoid a broken civ, we're 6 months in and you can still do this. They also classify it as an exploit. Even if the community makes videos on how to use the exploit.
Masteries (especially training) and their rewards are bugged.
"Smart" drag box option doesn't seem smart. I haven't found a button to affect the drag box to just include military units like in AoE3. This is annoying when trying to do anything near villagers.
Memory leaks and visual bugs.


Information Dissemination
Unlike AoE3, AoE4 likes to hide information from the player. I still don't know how charges mechanically work (is it distance based? time based? and how much?). You can't see how much damage a unit will do to different units with different weapons. There's a learning section, but none of this is covered.
It's taking a page out of late 90's and early 00's single player games of not telling everything to the player. This is somewhat okay for AoE2 and AoE3 because of how much publicly available information there is. But in our modern internet, that information isn't on public forums. It's in Discord channels that you have to figure out how to get into or in informational YouTube videos.
Here's an example: I can quickly google and find an Aztec BB rush from 2010. (Yes, this wouldn't work in 2023, but this is to show how easy it was to get info for the game when it was modern.) I can also see other people's comments on the strategy and see the author defend their position or amend it. This collaboration doesn't exist in YouTube, and YouTube doesn't even have a dislike button any more. Additionally, you have to watch a fully padded out video instead of quickly reading text and seeing the discussion. How are you supposed to know if someone actually knows what they're talking about? Now try googling HRE Fast Castle AoE4. You'll get some responses on Reddit and sites that just have build orders, but no dedicated forums or discussions. There's no way to easily figure this stuff out like forums.


The compounding problem: player base
Due to a shaky release, pros and normal players alike left the game. This has now resulted in pretty bad match making. It's not uncommon to be facing opponents that are either way below your level or way above. I'm not good at the game, and queued into some 3v3s with friends. We matched against a pro steamer and his friends almost instantly. I dodged since it doesn't make sense wasting 30 minutes of my life on a pointless game. The pro and his friends weren't on smurf accounts, they were Conq 3 vs 3 golds. While that is one example, it just shows that the player base isn't in a healthy enough state for team games.


Single player is okay
I've played almost all of the Norman campaign, so this might not be totally accurate. The campaign feels slow. Even when you're playing well and will win, it just feels like it takes forever. The videos are really interesting and the tidbits are nice, but it feels like a short YouTube documentary with a huge budget with a really slow objective based RTS in-between each episode.


Miscellaneous
There's also just a lot of the game that doesn't feel good. Hitboxes for clicking is a big one. Let's say you're chopping a Woodline from north to south, and you want to pull a villager to build a house and go back to chopping wood. You probably aren't going to be able to shift click on the tree that the villager was working on, you'll end up clicking on another tree that they'll have to chop down first. Or trying to select a few villagers that are gathering food from sheep. Trying to individually select 5 to go on a landmark will usually result in clicking dead or alive sheep. Or trying to intentionally click a sheep that is surrounded by gathering vills to see how much is left.


Given the above, let's create a few scenarios
  • You're an AoE3 player. You're looking at a slower game where you need to relearn everything. Additionally, the base of the game is AoE2 (basically everything dealing with the economy) and there is probably a reason you don't play AoE2. The selling point is it's a new AAA RTS, but why deal with all of the above?
  • You're an AoE2 player. Why sink time into a game that is less competitive and has much worse match making? 2023 graphics won't overcome the many comparative short comings
  • You're not an AoE player. Why would you jump into a game that looks like it's dying? There are healthy alternatives in AoE2 and SC2 if you want to get competitive and a lot of smaller, casual games that have more tailored experiences.
My apologies for assaulting you with a wall of text. Thank you if you made it all the way to the bottom.
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Re: What's stopping you from playing AoE4?

Post by Mitoe »

There's not a lot I am able to comment on here, but I wanted to point out a couple of things to make your life easier @Seamonk :)
Seamonk wrote: ↑
14 Feb 2023, 22:05
"Smart" drag box option doesn't seem smart. I haven't found a button to affect the drag box to just include military units like in AoE3. This is annoying when trying to do anything near villagers.
What you're looking for is the "Box Select" option. You can find it under Settings > Game. Change the option from "Smart" to "Military Only."

This will work exactly the same way as Easy Military Drag in AoE3. The only difference is that you have to hold down SHIFT instead of ALT if you want to select both military and economic units at the same time.
Unlike AoE3, AoE4 likes to hide information from the player. I still don't know how charges mechanically work (is it distance based? time based? and how much?). You can't see how much damage a unit will do to different units with different weapons. There's a learning section, but none of this is covered.
Charge attacks exist on all melee units, with the exception of Scout and Camel Riders. Off the top of my head, I believe only Knights & Lancers gain additional damage on their charge attack.

Charge attacks grant your units a speed boost between 20% - 30%. Closer to 30% for slower units, and closer to 20% for faster units like Cavalry.

Charge attacks have a duration of 5 seconds for cavalry units, and 7 seconds for melee infantry.

In the upcoming patch this week you will be able to see the different stats of each weapon more easily.
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Re: What's stopping you from playing AoE4?

Post by Seamonk »

@Mitoe thanks for the insight on charging and the box selection. My point was mainly to show how the game doesn't give you that information, but this will definitely make life a lot better with drag boxing.
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Re: What's stopping you from playing AoE4?

Post by Mitoe »

For sure ^^

If you continue to play and there's anything you're curious about that the game doesn't explain, feel free to shoot me a message.
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United States of America SoldieR
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Re: What's stopping you from playing AoE4?

Post by SoldieR »

The patch this Thursday will more easily display unit stats, which I've been begging for for years.

I want to point out the screenshot for your 1v1 ranked was in fact not a ranked game. That map is not in ranked que. Maybe it was a quick match game.

I agree there are some issues but I think most of what you stay is actually incorrect. It is not good that it isn't simple to know or find information, which probably contributed to your understanding of some things.
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Re: What's stopping you from playing AoE4?

Post by Seamonk »

SoldieR wrote: ↑
15 Feb 2023, 03:26
I want to point out the screenshot for your 1v1 ranked was in fact not a ranked game. That map is not in ranked que. Maybe it was a quick match game.
Yeah it looks like you're completely right. The 2v2 is also a quick match. I'll edit the post.
I agree there are some issues but I think most of what you stay is actually incorrect. It is not good that it isn't simple to know or find information, which probably contributed to your understanding of some things.
I'm not sure what I'm getting wrong. The bugs section are all reported bugs. The player base section doesn't have a source, but it's easy to check the steam charts. And for miscellaneous, maybe I'm just bad at clicking?
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Re: What's stopping you from playing AoE4?

Post by rukisrecord »

aoe4 doesn't have Portugal
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Re: What's stopping you from playing AoE4?

Post by fei123456 »

Their UI and buttons are still a disaster imo.
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Re: What's stopping you from playing AoE4?

Post by look »

It's very simple to understand why aoe4 didn't work
it's a totally incomplete game in the end, it could have delivered much more, and it delivered a totally unfinished and poorly designed game.
for new players it's a paradise, but for aoe father players like me it's a waste of time.
Don't get me wrong, that's not to say the game is bad, it's just far from what it should be.
the least expected and acceptable was to have all the features of the old ones with more new things, and then it would be a game 5x bigger than it is.
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United States of America SoldieR
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Re: What's stopping you from playing AoE4?

Post by SoldieR »

For anyone interested to see the state of the game with the newest patch, it is free to play all weekend and 40% off after that.
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Re: What's stopping you from playing AoE4?

Post by Astro Rabby »

Sorry if this thread is too old but as someone who was hyped for aoe4 I wanted to chime in.

I liked it well enough when it first came out, though I don't actually own it I played through Game Pass. The chaotic springald meta and mongol tc drops were something else. But as patches came out and the meta became more known it just kinda lost it to me. It probably didn't help that I went straight to my AOE3 main, China, which was super complicated but hey, they looked fun.

Also 4's dark age is just too stressful, gotta scout the entire map to find sheep, and sheep are a big matter of luck at times. Exploration age and 2's dark age are just a lot less stressful to me.

I may pick it up on steam or try it again if I get game pass back up but I'd rather just stick to 2 and 3 for now. For what it's worth, I still love the "straelbora!" meme and the the way the voices evolve as the game goes on. The nest of bees is also still my favorite RTS unit ever.
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Re: What's stopping you from playing AoE4?

Post by Olivia69 »

Hi Guys,youtube vanced apk
I can't play AoE4 because I'm a text-based AI and don't have the capability to play video games or interact with the physical world. My purpose is to provide information and assist with text-based tasks.

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