Current Situation on Aoe4 and Aoe2

[ninja14]

Maybe season 2 for aoe4 gives a better reflection of the active player base.

Thats what people were saying about season 1, Dec patch, Jan patch .. :D

 

[HongeyKong]

Isn't it slightly unfair to only compare steam numbers? If you look at the side which aoeZone is interested in, the competitive ladder, the playerbases are roughly equal according to aoe2.net and aoeiv.net if you look at the 1v1 ladder.
I don't play aoe4 myself, nor do I really enjoy to watch it, but if you want to compare the competitive playerbase the 1v1 ladders seem like the best comparison to me.

Reminder:
AOE2 ladder = 28 days
AOE4 RM ladder = 2month+ (Maybe there wont be any active mechanic)

 

[SuperskinnyBLS]

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you are very optimistic! I say july 11

BRO GAMEPASS BRO

 

[[KoBHV]venivero]

BRO GAMEPASS BRO

Yeah sorry that might change the picture. But are you sure that age 2 2013 has more players there?

 

[LowEloNobody]

Reminder:
AOE2 ladder = 28 days
AOE4 RM ladder = 2month+ (Maybe there wont be any active mechanic)

Is this still accurate? I know that a the DM ranked ladder patch broke the expiration of old accounts for awhile

 

[Shakal]

The amount of players in Season 1 leaderboard and amount of them not playing for over month suggests ranked season convinced many players to give the game another chance, but it again didn't last long.

 

[LowEloNobody]

Isn't it slightly unfair to only compare steam numbers? If you look at the side which aoeZone is interested in, the competitive ladder, the playerbases are roughly equal according to aoe2.net and aoeiv.net if you look at the 1v1 ladder.
I don't play aoe4 myself, nor do I really enjoy to watch it, but if you want to compare the competitive playerbase the 1v1 ladders seem like the best comparison to me.
Edit: scrolling to the bottom of the aoeiv.net ladder it does seem that people are still visible even after 2 months of inactivity so it's not a fair representation as well. Maybe season 2 for aoe4 gives a better reflection of the active player base.

It is slightly unfair, but mostly because Xbox GamePass usage is much higher for AoE4 than AoE2. As a rough estimate, you should multiply AoE2 steam numbers by ~1.1 and AoE4 numbers by ~1.4

As for playerbase, the 1v1 playerbase is much larger than the ranked player base for the entire AoE franchise, so I'm not sure why we should care about the competitive playerbase more

The big difference is that the campaigns in AoE4 are literally hot garbage, so most players are likely playing against AI or PvP.
AoE2 has both more, and higher quality campaigns, so it's natural to see more players and engagement there

 

[LeoMontero]

Funny thing is that for me (and probably most people) it was crystal clear from day 1 that this game is crap. Still some pretend it’s not and it’s beyond my imagination how anyone can think that.

I mean, I obviously understand that once you are paid by Microsoft you need to speak in their interest publicly
(I myself would never publicly say that the company that is paying my bills makes shitty products. I would actually lose my job if I did that)

there were few people that thought that age4 was better than age2, that now are not here anymore. they defend till the end that crap game, and now are under the bed crying like babys with hunger.

i want to know if nili still thinks that aoe4 is the future. what a guy. he lost all credibility, his streams are half numbers, and he is again in age2. he is an employee, but people dont care.

 

[stanno]

If there's something that AOE2 has, it's a dedicated playerbase. There are maybe 15-20k core players players across HD, Voobly and DE combined who will probably never play anything else besides AOE2, at least in the RTS genre. AOE4 could've been the game to finally change that, and also bring in players from other games.

Instead, Microsoft made a complete blunder of the release of AOE4 and now we're essentially back where we were a year ago.

I'm hoping Stormgate or Company of Heroes 3 will have a great release, so that Microsoft can learn the lesson that you can't half-ass a game in a genre that is already niche like RTS.

 

[LowEloNobody]

If there's something that AOE2 has, it's a dedicated playerbase. There are maybe 15-20k core players players across HD, Voobly and DE combined who will probably never play anything else besides AOE2, at least in the RTS genre. AOE4 could've been the game to finally change that, and also bring in players from other games.

Instead, Microsoft made a complete blunder of the release of AOE4 and now we're essentially back where we were a year ago.

I'm hoping Stormgate or Company of Heroes 3 will have a great release, so that Microsoft can learn the lesson that you can't half-ass a game in a genre that is already niche like RTS.

You're off by about 10x

 

[stanno]

You're off by about 10x

Am I though? (Not accounting for people with pirated copies)

 

[The Bloodless]

Am I though? (Not accounting for people with pirated copies)

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I'd say that's pretty far off, if you consider people who play daily / a few times a week to be core players. A single point in time at around 21 gmt does not really get everybody who's playing regularly. You can multiply that by 2-5 perhaps just by considering that this is the peak time for only one region of the world -- EU. What about everybody living elsewhere?

Take this number of Active ranked ladder players, for instance, which is about 40k on de. That's double the numbers you're finding here already. Add the hd and voobly numbers and you get a minimum 2x your sum of 23k -- so 46k. More likely number may be 2.5x that 23k -- a total of 57000.

10x does seem a bit exaggerated if you're only concerned About ranked players, but, as we all know, those playing campaigns and versus ai drastically out number those playing multiplayer.... If you're looking at total core players overall, 10x seems very reasonable (230000).

I haven't looked up the numbers myself though so admittedly I'm kinda going off "known" stats others have posted in the past.

 

[stanno]

I'd say that's pretty far off, if you consider people who play daily / a few times a week to be core players. A single point in time at around 21 gmt does not really get everybody who's playing regularly. You can multiply that by 2-5 perhaps just by considering that this is the peak time for only one region of the world -- EU. What about everybody living elsewhere?

Take this number of Active ranked ladder players, for instance, which is about 40k on de. That's double the numbers you're finding here already. Add the hd and voobly numbers and you get a minimum 2x your sum of 23k -- so 46k. More likely number may be 2.5x that 23k -- a total of 57000.

10x does seem a bit exaggerated if you're only concerned About ranked players, but, as we all know, those playing campaigns and versus ai drastically out number those playing multiplayer.... If you're looking at total core players overall, 10x seems very reasonable (230000).

I haven't looked up the numbers myself though so admittedly I'm kinda going off "known" stats others have posted in the past.

You're right that I didn't choose a "peak time" where most people are playing. But even so.
For me it's better to see how many people launched the game on steam/gamepass on average during each month. Because even if on steam you launched the game just to play campaigns or versus the AI, you are part of that number. The only players that this number isn't contemplating are the players who have bought AOE2 HD or AOE2 DE legally but on any given day are playing the game in Offline Mode.

AOE2 does not have 200k people playing the game on average in any day of the year.

That's my take on it, anyway. It's still a very healthy playerbase overall. Something that seems utopic for AOE4 gamers at this point.

 

[HongeyKong]

10x does seem a bit exaggerated if you're only concerned About ranked players, but, as we all know, those playing campaigns and versus ai drastically out number those playing multiplayer.... If you're looking at total core players overall, 10x seems very reasonable (230000).

A bit offtopic but
1) Im not sure if its true
2) I myself will never call those core players (people who play regularly)

 

[LowEloNobody]

You're right that I didn't choose a "peak time" where most people are playing. But even so.
For me it's better to see how many people launched the game on steam/gamepass on average during each month. Because even if on steam you launched the game just to play campaigns or versus the AI, you are part of that number. The only players that this number isn't contemplating are the players who have bought AOE2 HD or AOE2 DE legally but on any given day are playing the game in Offline Mode.

AOE2 does not have 200k people playing the game on average in any day of the year.

That's my take on it, anyway. It's still a very healthy playerbase overall. Something that seems utopic for AOE4 gamers at this point.

You are talking about average concurrent players, not total player base. For average concurrent players then the steam tracker is fine, just multiply it by about 1.1 to include GamePass players.
But the TOTAL playerbase is everyone who plays the game at some point in a given period of time, which is about 180-220k people for AoE2

 

[stanno]

You are talking about average concurrent players, not total player base. For average concurrent players then the steam tracker is fine, just multiply it by about 1.1 to include GamePass players.
But the TOTAL playerbase is everyone who plays the game at some point in a given period of time, which is about 180-220k people for AoE2

But where do you get that data?

 

[MaSmOrRa]

But where do you get that data?

AoE2 used to track the number of players playing unrated lobbies too.
For some reason those numbers are not public anymore, but the last available number was 170k I think.
So that's 170k players playing at least 1 unrated game in a span of 28 days.

 

[Progeusz]

AoE2 used to track the number of players playing unrated lobbies too.
For some reason those numbers are not public anymore, but the last available number was 170k I think.
So that's 170k players playing at least 1 unrated game in a span of 28 days.

This number only included online play, right? Without AI skirmishes or campaigns?

 

[oozkan]

So when AOE4 numbers are not catching up, new method is claiming that AOE2 don't have 200K players per month. If you can't climb enough, you start to pull cuffs of people above.

 

[Tempires]

So when AOE4 numbers are not catching up, new method is claiming that AOE2 don't have 200K players per month. If you can't climb enough, you start to pull cuffs of people above.

and you keep making everything aoe4 fault and find any reason to downplay aoe4. whenever aoe2 has 200k unique players per months or not has nothing to do with aoe4

 

[Dusk2Dawn]

player numbers must be somewhat proportionate to viewer numbers; 900 viewers game will not have same players as 3k viewers game

anyway

 

[MongolTCRush]

and you keep making everything aoe4 fault and find any reason to downplay aoe4. whenever aoe2 has 200k unique players per months or not has nothing to do with aoe4

I think that the thing that is missing here is the aoe4 community doesn't want to be as big as the Aoe2 community.

With some of the best competition the game has ever had seen played yesterday to qualify for a 300k tournament, and a $1 million tournament in the works, new maps every week, consistent updates and a modding community really taking off.. most people are very happy with where the game is at!

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Aoe2.. in fact I discovered it through aoe4 and have found the campaigns to be 100 times better and more enjoyable!

But the simple fact is aoe4 isn't affected by aoe2 in the same way as Aoe2 is affected by aoe4.

For the first time, aoe4 is starting to create a community of "aoe4 players" rather than players who "have come from sc2" or other games, such as aoe2.

I think the aoe4 community in general is happy with how things are, even if people can jump on twitch at an obscure hour of the day and take a screenshot of 19 viewers..

The aoe2 community is rebuilding from a rough patch, with something like 20k viewers at least yesterday, and whilst it's easy to blame aoe4 for the rough patch.. there were many more factors involved.

The sooner people realise they don't need to be upset by what others enjoy, and they can be happy with their game regardless of how it compares to others, and still find a game fun.. even if it isn't super popular, the better!

I've been called every name under the sun since I joined these forums, even though I gave Aoe2 a go and liked some parts of it better.. simply because I enjoy and prefer aoe4.

Whilst I can understand the frustration of aoe4 affecting aoe2, I think it's important that we try not to vent that frustration onto other players who are simply wanting to enjoy a game.

Aoe2 consistently has more viewers then aoe4, and there's not a single aoe4 player who will question that.. but it's possible to be less popular, and still fun to watch and play.

Whilst for the most part people in both communities are great and supportive! Unfortunatly there's a few people on these forums who seem to be so upset on the effect a game has had on others, but there is a struggle to "be kind" to each other.

Personally I'm surprised the admin of the forums hasn't stepped in to stop the loud minority. In my opinion, the biggest threat to either game is not each other, but the lack of kindness within the communities of either game.

 

[Lokalo]

Aoe2 consistently has more viewers then aoe4, and there's not a single aoe4 player who will question that.. but it's possible to be less popular, and still fun to watch and play.

But isn't that the main downside of aoe4? I mean besides 100 other things, from which I guess many are fixed now, but aoe4 doesn't seem fun to watch for majority. Many people say is fun to play, but it's hard to enjoy watching it.

 

[MongolTCRush]

But isn't that the main downside of aoe4? I mean besides 100 other things, from which I guess many are fixed now, but aoe4 doesn't seem fun to watch for majority. Many people say is fun to play, but it's hard to enjoy watching it.

I can only speak for myself,

In puppypaw vs vortix game 3 yesterday I was over the moon at how good puppy was playing, In game 7 I was in tears laughing over how well puppypaw was able to defend a relic

In Themista vs wam game 3 I was worried my favourite player would be knocked out, in game 4 I felt relief

In the showmatch, I felt a lot of comedy and "hah serves you right moments"

But, there were also games I didn't find entertaining.

For me, watching Aoe2 - everything seems to be "figured out", whilst some players in aoe4 are actively building new meta each week.

That's simply an advantage of being a new game I guess.

The point I'm trying to make, is that I felt a range of emotions and really enjoy watching aoe4. But some people won't, just like I don't in watching Aoe2.. but that doesn't mean that others don't go through a range of emotions watching Aoe2.


Aoe4 might be boring for some, even the majority of people who prefer the Aoe2 style, but I don't think they have a right to say that others cant find it incredibly entertaining and the highlight of their week.

For me, I won't be doing anything on weekends untill October because I look forward to egctv every weekend. For me, it's entertaining. And even if Aoe2 gets 100k viewers and aoe4 gets 1.4k.. it will still be entertaining!

 

[Lokalo]

I can only speak for myself,

In puppypaw vs vortix game 3 yesterday I was over the moon at how good puppy was playing, In game 7 I was in tears laughing over how well puppypaw was able to defend a relic

In Themista vs wam game 3 I was worried my favourite player would be knocked out, in game 4 I felt relief

In the showmatch, I felt a lot of comedy and "hah serves you right moments"

But, there were also games I didn't find entertaining.

For me, watching Aoe2 - everything seems to be "figured out", whilst some players in aoe4 are actively building new meta each week.

That's simply an advantage of being a new game I guess.

The point I'm trying to make, is that I felt a range of emotions and really enjoy watching aoe4. But some people won't, just like I don't in watching Aoe2.. but that doesn't mean that others don't go through a range of emotions watching Aoe2.


Aoe4 might be boring for some, even the majority of people who prefer the Aoe2 style, but I don't think they have a right to say that others cant find it incredibly entertaining and the highlight of their week.

For me, I won't be doing anything on weekends untill October because I look forward to egctv every weekend. For me, it's entertaining. And even if Aoe2 gets 100k viewers and aoe4 gets 1.4k.. it will still be entertaining!

Well I didn't say people can't enjoy watching aoe4. Just many players including Viper said themself, it can be really fun to play, but it's hard to watch. What I meant is not me or you enjoying it, but on average people enjoy playing it more, while aoe2 I often would say even the opposite, many people watch it and do not play or at least do not play actively.

As for new meta, well for sure, new game and then add tons of changes every 1-2 months, which shifts meta. But at same time game shifting a lot is not neccessary good. Especially for those playing less.

However I would say even in aoe2 there are some stuff that pro players do not use enough or started using more lately. Is for sure much more difficult for 1v1, but in tournament games as BOA there are stuff to invent still, but sure thing, aoe2 is there for 20 years, is hard to surprise with something. However its there for 20 years not without reason though.

Feel like aoe4 just missed it's hype train, they maybe could catch quite some aoe2 players watching it if it was better at release, so many people dropped it and won't give a second shot, maybe during RB some will