AOE-IV Is Age of Empires 4 a failure?

[Paint]

After the beta I was quite optimistic but because of the extreme price of almost 80$ (at least here) and it's unfinished state I never actually bought the game. It looks like balance changes have been very slow and did not address the biggest problems and many of the people streaming it went back to their older games.

 

[ProudObuch]

Regardless of whether it is a failure or not, Gamers lose.

Once again they proved that no matter how bad the game is on release, game developers get away scot-free and it is bought anyway. Selling an expensive game in such bad shape is a crime if I would do it with any other product.

AoE4 will be another example that decreasing quality on release doesn't matter and will have no consequences or backlash.

 

[TohoBuWaha]

I think the game itself has great ideas and is really fun to play and it could be extremely good (and my favourite strategy game).
Unfortunately "could" is the word to pay attention to here. The developers are doing a terrible job so far. Very slow with patching things and when they do, there's a lot of questionable stuff in there. The very best civs basically don't get touched, while others get nerfed. Even worse is that the devs are completely fine with broken things in the game. You could literally get infinite ressources from nothing and it still wasn't enough for a hotfix in the devs opinion. I don't know how long it took them to fix that, but I think at least 3 weeks. There are still gamebreaking bugs like attack animation canceling (elephants can kill any building in a few seconds, using that for example) or upgraded explosion ships obliterating the whole screen (fun the first time you see it, annoying after that).

It doesn't end there though. There's still literally no option to influence what map you play on with quick search - welt, except for Alt+F4. It's a really bad sing, if I'm happy that Alt+F4 is possible and doesn't get punished...
Missing ranked mode isn't that terrible imo, since you still have a ranking and can view it on the homepage. Just not ingame. Not perfect, but there are bigger problems (as you hopefully can see).

Balance has also quite some problems, with Chinese Fire Lancers being way too good at sniping buildings...and units xD
Siege being very dominant (guess what can snipe it though...).
Some other things as well, but I think you get the idea.

I think there's one last chance for this game with the next update. If that's not really good - and I mean REALLY good - the game will probably soon be as big as AoE3 (sorry, AoE3 fans xD).

 

[Drunken_master]

Is water wet?

 

[MaSmOrRa]

If we're talking about

There's still literally no option to influence what map you play on with quick search - welt, except for Alt+F4. It's a really bad sing, if I'm happy that Alt+F4 is possible

Embracing the authentic German pronunciation there I see xD

In terms of player retention I think there's no 2 ways about it, it is indeed a (big?!) failure.

I personally don't care if AoE 4 or AoE 2 is the better game, I just don't think you can have both games be equally successful as you keep hearing from the people in power.
I think one of the them will always be in the spotlight over the other.

The other thing to consider though, is Microsoft really upset the game wasn't a massive esport success?
They clearly didn't care about the Multiplayer experience at all, so I suspect the only number they're interested in is the total number of sales. Which I believe are not public at this point? And probably never will be...

 

[The_Philos]

Unfortunately "could" is the word to pay attention to here. The developers are doing a terrible job so far. Very slow with patching things and when they do, there's a lot of questionable stuff in there. The very best civs basically don't get touched, while others get nerfed. Even worse is that the devs are completely fine with broken things in the game. You could literally get infinite ressources from nothing and it still wasn't enough for a hotfix in the devs opinion. I don't know how long it took them to fix that, but I think at least 3 weeks. There are still gamebreaking bugs like attack animation canceling (elephants can kill any building in a few seconds, using that for example) or upgraded explosion ships obliterating the whole screen (fun the first time you see it, annoying after that).

Can't really tell, if it's really the developers fault or if there is a lack of money for proper support and further developing.
The (unfinished) release at least indicates to me that there was a rush to get the game out and usually that's on the publisher, same as funding the support after release. There seems to be no dedication to spend more money than necessary and minimal funding for marketing (to be honest, the marketing for AoE IV was terrible from the start and they had some f***-up's beforehand). With the limited funding I guess you can't expect a full-time support, not to speak of frequent and quick updates, which (sadly) seems to be the standard in today's gaming industry - or Microsoft is just really not interested in a long-time investment into an E-sport scene.
I still wonder what went wrong during development that some basic features of today's RTS titles were left out of AoE IV (for sinlge- and multiplayer).

 

[kw1k000000]

Regardless of whether it is a failure or not, Gamers lose.

Once again they proved that regardless of the release state of the game, game developers get away scot-free and it is bought regardless. Selling an expensive game in such bad shape is a crime if I would do it with any other product.

AoE4 will be another example that decreasing quality on release doesn't matter and will have no consequences or backlash.

Imagine going to a Michelin star restaurant, order a 150$ steak and they serve it raw, bland and without any side dishes. You would immidiately send it back to kitchen and if they don't give you a well cooked meal, you don't pay.

Here on r/aoe4 people are happy that they got a poorly cooked raw meal for a hefty price. It's us as consumers who are the problem because we are ready to pay top $$ for unfinished bug fest. On r/aoe4 people are very creative in coming up with excuses as well. The promoters are a big part of the problem as well for shilling out for the game (looking at you too streamers and tournament corrdinator)

If I was a game company I would do this every time because I know I'll get away with it.

 

[God]

I saw the title and first thought was that it is just another shitpost by please_dont_choose_goth

 

[Dagan]

We can't tell for sure if AOE4 is a failure because we don't exactly know what Microsoft planned for the game. If their goal was just to sell well on release, then we need to look at the sales number (I think it sold well but I don't have any statistics about that). However, if their plan was a live service game that lasts long then they failed for sure.

By releasing an unfinished product you lose player numbers very fast and most importantly you lose player's faith if you don't fix the game fast, or at least show signs that you are interested in doing so. The current state of AOE4 is a mess: full of bugs, bad balance, no good spectator mode, etc....

As @TohoBuWaha said, if the next update is not good enough, I don't see AOE4 surviving for long and it will fail as a live service game.

 

[Rayne]

Imagine going to a Michelin star restaurant, order a 150$ steak and they serve it raw, bland and without any side dishes. You would immidiately send it back to kitchen and if they don't give you a well cooked meal, you don't pay.

I’d imagine Gordon Ramsay would pop up:

 

[King_Boo]

Imagine going to a Michelin star restaurant, order a 150$ steak and they serve it raw, bland and without any side dishes. You would immidiately send it back to kitchen and if they don't give you a well cooked meal, you don't pay.

Here on r/aoe4 people are happy that they got a poorly cooked raw meal for a hefty price. It's us as consumers who are the problem because we are ready to pay top $$ for unfinished bug fest. On r/aoe4 people are very creative in coming up with excuses as well. The promoters are a big part of the problem as well for shilling out for the game (looking at you too streamers and tournament corrdinator)

If I was a game company I would do this every time because I know I'll get away with it.

Why the hell would you want a steak actually cooked? Just warm it up and serve it nice and rare

 

[IamJeo]

I tested it in both closed and open betas too (limited own gametime, more just watching a few really enthusiastic ppl on discord, as I could not get over the multitude of control/ui/mechanics issues), and saw how basically no big issues were patched for release.

I even preordered it since there was that offer where you got the Dukes DLC on top.

Well, I was shocked to see the game didn’t have basic necessities like properly modifiable hotkeys, patrol, control groups were not unique which was terrible, so I just returned it and bought a friend and myself the Dukes dlc with the steam wallet funds.

I guess once it has a proper re-release at the end of 2022 or whenever they have gone through the roadmap, I’ll check it out again.

 

[sheeesh]

as a fan of the series, it seems like a failure to my expectations from what I've seen so far and my experience playing during the beta.I shall consider buying it in the feature under a reasonable price and after some hardware upgrades on my side.

 

[-R-]

Judging by the dramatic drops in viewers and players, plus the flak it's gotten from some of the top names in the game, it has to go down as a failure, IMO. Furthermore, with the exception of Hera, it's also a failure for streamers who gambled hard on AoE4. It definitely made financial sense for them at rhe time, with money flowing into the game, but with viewer numbers dropping and MS not bankrolling as many events as expected, most seem to be coming back to AoE2 already.

What I do not get is Nili sticking to it even after all of GL withdrew from competitive AoE4. Watching his stream languish with at best a couple hundred viewers is kind of sad and reminds me of those Japanese holdouts after WW2, stranded on some god forsaken island fighting a war long lost.

 

[LeoMontero]

Judging by the dramatic drops in viewers and players, plus the flak it's gotten from some of the top names in the game, it has to go down as a failure, IMO. Furthermore, with the exception of Hera, it's also a failure for streamers who gambled hard on AoE4. It definitely made financial sense for them at rhe time, with money flowing into the game, but with viewer numbers dropping and MS not bankrolling as many events as expected, most seem to be coming back to AoE2 already.

What I do not get is Nili sticking to it even after all of GL withdrew from competitive AoE4. Watching his stream languish with at best a couple hundred viewers is kind of sad and reminds me of those Japanese holdouts after WW2, stranded on some god forsaken island fighting a war long lost.

poor nili, right now he has 130 viewers in his chanel. i dont get it, really. you made a mistake going to aoe4, accept it, come back to aoe2, people will forgive you.
i feel pity for him.

 

[doacid]

What I do not get is Nili sticking to it

poor nili, right now he has 130 viewers in his chanel. i dont get it, really. you made a mistake going to aoe4, accept it, come back to aoe2, people will forgive you.
i feel pity for him.

It's been a long time since I watched him last time but I can think of two reasons. It could be one or the other, or maybe both or neither xD

One is that he genuinely enjoys playing and casting aoe4, regardless of the viewer and financial loss this brings. After all he's also employed by Microsoft so he doesn't rely exclusively on Twitch.

Another one is that he has some inside information and knows Microsoft still has big plans for aoe4 and that it will eventually be up to competitive standards, growing in size. Regardless of the current failure of the game if Microsoft really wanted they could still make it a huge success (imagine one million euros tournaments). So sticking with aoe4 now could leave him in an advantageous position in the future.
This would explain why they're not pumping money into it yet, cause they're waiting until the game is actually finished.

Whatever the reason he's living the dream doing and streaming what he pleases so no need to feel bad about it. Also there's nothing to forgive, that mentality is totally backwards.

 

[lecracheursagacite]

The current product is what you would expect to be the no-name studio imitation/knockoff entitled Time of Civilization: Pride and Power.

 

[Paint]

I am not surprised it happened but it wasn't my intention to have this post derail into talking about viewer numbers. I think bringing this up at a place where the person mentioned being likely to see it is bad manners.

I wish everyone involved with working on or streaming the game success and hope it works out.

Personally I don't really care how successful tournaments around age4 or any other game are it doesn't really impact me as a player.

 

[-R-]

One is that he genuinely enjoys playing and casting aoe4, regardless of the viewer and financial loss this brings. After all he's also employed by Microsoft so he doesn't rely exclusively on Twitch.

Another one is that he has some inside information and knows Microsoft still has big plans for aoe4 and that it will eventually be up to competitive standards, growing in size. Regardless of the current failure of the game if Microsoft really wanted they could still make it a huge success (imagine one million euros tournaments). So sticking with aoe4 now could leave him in an advantageous position in the future.
This would explain why they're not pumping money into it yet, cause they're waiting until the game is actually finished.

These are both plausible, but the situation was/is very surprising to me seeing as everyone on his team bailed on the game due to its current state.

This being said, it's his choice and his alone, I'm not here to tell him what to do nor do I have the right to do so. I've not been to his channel in ages because I'm not that much into AoE4 at this point, but I wish him to do well.

 

[Tuunbaq]

Indeed, the numbers are there:

I'm waiting to see him stream some AoE2 again though, right now it's 100% AoE4. I liked to watch him grind the AoE2 ranking.

 

[Fall]

For me personally it was a failure, but I was going into it hoping for a competitive multiplayer experience similar to what you get from AOE2/SC2.

That clearly is not the case, this is not a game designed for competitive multiplayer. And that's OK, not every game is designed with that in mind. I've heard the campaigns are good, and I'm planning to give them a try at some point.

 

[SuperskinnyBLS]

Aoe4 has a lot of potential

 

[Snippy]

Its sad to see how aoe4 dont manage to live up to the hype. They have lost players in an alarming high speed, and has been far under aoe2 in playersize the last two weeks.

 

[kw1k000000]

Why the hell would you want a steak actually cooked? Just warm it up and serve it nice and rare

Big difference in RAW and rare

 

[kw1k000000]

What I do not get is Nili sticking to it even after all of GL withdrew from competitive AoE4. Watching his stream languish with at best a couple hundred viewers is kind of sad and reminds me of those Japanese holdouts after WW2, stranded on some god

Nili is hopefully getting paid by MS for his tournament coordinator role so he kinda has to be on the good side of MS products.