Is aoe4 worth the switch/cost?

[jgals]

I see aoe3 is somewhat dead now but its a game i love. Aoe4 looks a bit stupid and cartoonish graphically and the game play seems a little too new era starcraft 2 rtsfor me . But it looks like lots of pros have switched. I havent even tried the game. Why are so many good players switching is it because its newer and more popular or actually better?

[InsectPoison]

I tried AoE4 on the XBOX PC Game Pass but I just could'nt get into it. Just didn't like the return to AoE 2 style game and the graphics put me off.

That's not me saying its a bad game, just for me personally I couldn't enjoy it. The best way to see if you'll like it is get it off game pass, Microsoft always has deals like £1 for 1 month free game pass. If you don't like it then just cancel the game pass.

[iNcog]

It pains me to say since I've been an aoe3 guy for so long but, aoe3 as of right now just feels like a lame fest. I'm not having fun with it.

AoE4, at the moment (unsure about new civs) has excellent design. It's strategic but also mechanically focused. I've been playing it and it's been an absolute ton of fun. There are lots of good streams and the ladder itself is actually pleasurable to play on. There's something about the fact that the game has literally no bullshit in it whatsoever that's quite appealing. They did away with overpowered fishing and defensive play; the map pool is better is better as well. It has custom hotkeys. The only gripe I have with the game is that sometimes some things have bad hitboxes. Otherwise you can just sit down and chill and play it casually. Literally casually, it's difficult to outright end the game with a gg button or something (like aoe3 or sc2). I can rush or FC or boom or do whatever it is I feel like doing in the game. There is remarkable depth to the game as of right now. I've fully made the switch. I'll come back to aoe3 maybe when things settle down a bit, but aoe4 right now is living up to the potential it's always had.

I personally also enjoy it more because I like to play aggressive and the game allows for that.

[Cleters]

Played AOE4 non-stop on release for 3 months. Once I replayed AOE3 cause friends had a 5/6 lobby. I never returned to AOE4 after. It's about everyone's taste, but for me there's no match, AOE3 is a way better game. I'm not talking about finitions and all, but in the core gameplay, there's just nothing I like in AOE4, it's just flat and bland. :/

[Miyawaki Sakura]

AOE 3 = Invent new lame BO!
AOE 4 = Build tower, build castle, keep build tower for rush,raid,defense.
The nice thing about 4 is that you don't have to spend more than 7 minutes on QS.
But 4 felt like a gay game to me.

[Le Hussard sur le toit]

AoE4 really seems like a great game tbh. I'll always prefer AoE3 for different reasons (hard counter system, batch training...) but I can enjoy both.
At my level competitiveness is not a problem in any case.

[helln00]

aoe 3 has higher highs for me, nothing higher then a china death mass spam, but also so many lower lows

aoe 4 feels feels more refined

[Ardeshir]

AoEO's the best game in series and AoE3's a close second but AoE4 is still good fun. All 3 are more enjoyable to play than AoE2 imo. Interested to see how Mali and Ottomans play out balance wise in AoE4 but I don't think they'll be as disruptive to the meta as new civs are in AoE3.

[iNcog]

What's so good about aoeo?

[Challenger_Marco]

What's so good about aoeo?

Pay to win game which is the biggest disaster game in aoe series

[Ardeshir]

What's so good about aoeo?

Pay to win game which is the biggest disaster game in aoe series

Was

Now it's had 5 years of the most ethical and fan driven "private server" rehosting in prolly all MMO history, by a slew of the veteran PvE and PvP players from the 2 years between the game being un-fucked, to official closure. Somehow it's got the most balanced, and prior to the gather rate nerfs, had the mechanically fastest gameplay in the series, yet it was built around PvE (and an MTX squeeze). Also has leagues more "campaign" content than the other games, that's near fully coop-able and solo-able, and the itemization and levelling-adjacent-civ-mechanics also add a lot of depth for MMO and RPG fans.

Also if you ask RecoN or TheMista their fav titles, probably GiveUAnxiety and SoldieR, their answer will all be AoEO. Stacks of notable players in the other titles have played it. Had PegasusRush (AoM) play some games in the showmatches for ingame rewards a couple years ago. Big catch 22 with getting serious competition going on it yet the players have always been there.... until a fella named Spartan dropped $2,000 on showmatches across 4 months just recently.

[Squamiger]

aoe4 isn't necessarily a bad game. you will like it if you like the age series in general. But aoe3 players are black sheep of the franchise. They are least likely to enjoy other age games, in my experience, because 3 is the least similar to the other games. so asking here you will get a pretty strong pro-aoe3 response.

[Ardeshir]

Makes sense that it's seen as the black sheep game cause it does have an odd eco, and really strange transitional teching gameplay (because of decks) in comparison to the rest. Plus the latest timescale. Dunno about being least likely to enjoy other games in the series though. In my experience the aoe2 one titlers and main titlers are pretty vocal about how unplayable and nonmemorable the rest of the series is lol

[DamagedBananaBread]

Aoe3 is a dumpster fire.

[Lukas_L99]

Ape3 or Ape4, that's the question

[tabben]

As a famous player once said, "see you all in aoe4 ??!" - that's not really how it panned out

It looks worth in some aspects however doesn't seem to be enough reasons for most aoe3 players.

Most appealing is probably larger player base, which means easier time finding games/content around the clock (full-time streamers playing the game), more frequent tournaments/showmatches etc.
Also large player base and game being newer generally means better support from devs in terms of patches/bug fixes. Aoe3DE still feels like a Beta version many times

But we know that larger player base is not enough for people to swap game even within the same series, in that case we'd just all gone to aoe2 (or starcraft) long ago.

From how I recall aoe4 release, players from aoe3 seemed quite positive about the game overall - mainly complaining about lack of ranked + adjustable hotkeys. I think the biggest hurdle for people is getting used to all the minor/major gameplay differences and accepting the game for what it is, without constantly comparing it to the game you're used to. For example snare, herding, walls, shipments, early/lategame tendencey etc.

Looks very much the same in the MOBA genre, people seem to stick with whatever game they grew up with - mainly LoL/DotA but people were even playing Heroes of Newerth until they shutdown servers earlier this year (12 years old game).

[aaryngend]

Agree mostly with @tabben. I don't think it's the playerbase, popularity, amount of bugs or anything that keeps people from liking the other entries as much as their favourite one.

It's just that all three age games are different enough to each other that you won't see much unification or willingness to swap completely.

I've yet to meet anybody except me who likes all three games enough to rate them as 'great, with some flaws here and there' and even I pick favourites when it comes to certain aspects

[iNcog]

I'll come out and say that AOE2, AOE3 and AOE4 are all great games. I've played them all on ladder (aoe2 less so) and honestly every single one of them is a premium and well designed game. I was quite skeptic about aoe4 before but the game has turned into a good title (minus some bugs and stuff but eh).

I can also say that SC2 is a great game. I've played that game a lot.

I did not enjoy aoeo. and it wasn't the gameplay (which was probably good? aoe4ish with aoe3 engine). I could never, ever be okay with the graphics and art design.

[iNcog]

It's kind of funny that rts players tend to give one title immense preference over other games and then shit on those other games. Brood War players whining about SC2, SC2 players whining about AOE4, AoE2 players whining about AoE3, AoE3 and AOE2 players whining about AOE4.

Which is really weird to me because they are ALL good titles totally worth investing time into. I think rts players tend to be quite reactionary when it comes to stuff. and whiny too