Note: This list comes from the Reddit post I created today. You can check it out here.
Age of Empires has come a long way from being played only through LAN to connect multiple players through the internet. However, I noticed that there is a lot of space to improve the game's current state. Here I will list possible improvements that, In my opinion, should improve the gameplay:
EDIT: Here I list some of the improvements submitted by fellow Redditors from the comment section:
Age of Empires has come a long way from being played only through LAN to connect multiple players through the internet. However, I noticed that there is a lot of space to improve the game's current state. Here I will list possible improvements that, In my opinion, should improve the gameplay:
- Reconnecting - This is a MUST HAVE and the MOST important feature of the game. Imagine how many times some of your friends crashed, not only at the beginning of the game but throughout an hour-long game, due to his internet or an in-game bug that caused the game to crash. The whole match is ruined for 8 players. The reconnect option must come to the game ASAP.
- THE LAGS - This point is probably the second most important aspect of the game, if not the most important. The issue is that the game lags as much as it lags for the worst player (performance-wise). How is this still present? Imagine playing other games such as WoW or DotA2 where the game lags because one player has connectivity/performance issues. Developers need to take that burden out of players and transfer it to servers. Imagine a TG game of 8 players where it runs as smooth as the game in 1v1 or against bots. This would bring an immense improvement to multi-player gameplay.
- Ability to browse through the game while queuing - I cannot say how many times I was searching for a game and wanted to browse the game's content like changing the hotkeys, look at campaigns or even check the leaderboards and information about our clan. Honestly, when you search for the game, you should not be limited by searching for the match.
- Replays - The current state of replays is just unbearable. You cannot rewind the replay backward, skip to a specific time, and even watch replays from an older version due to compatibility issues. Take an example from DotA2, where I can watch the replay from 2017 on the current patch (with some bugs, but the replay does not crash). Making improvements to the replay system would not only comfort players but encourage content creators to make more videos from AoE2. As I am also a content creator, this would have an immense impact on making videos. If you are interested in some funny clips, be sure to check out my youtube.
- In-game match history - Even Voobly had some basic features of match history. I would like to see the feature of viewing your last matches and clicking on them to display the final score, map, and more.
- Improved scoreboard - From the AoE2 HD, the scoreboard has not changed. The scoreboard could be expanded by adding some new interesting features like the amount of healing done to units. I am sure any of the fellow Redditors could find a scoreboard stat interesting enough to give a better perspective of the game.
- Unit/Villager pathing - This has been an issue for a long time, possibly very hard to fix. However, if you issue a move command which is longer than 20 tiles, the unit should be able to find the most reasonable path towards that location. To understand the current state of pathing, check out the video from T-West where he explains this issue: pathfinding_video
- Party improvements - When you are in a party, and the game crashes for someone else while in-game or even when the match is found, the party needs to be re-created. I don't see a reason why the party should be dismissed and members re-invited in these situations.
EDIT: Here I list some of the improvements submitted by fellow Redditors from the comment section:
- Internet connection/ping test - before every match. To avoid lag.
- Chat - When queued with a party, you should be able to chat.
- Lobby settings - Save your lobby browser settings.
- Villager pathing - Vil pathing, fix the damn vils gettings stuck when collecting res.
- Different minimap - shading for the explored area that is outside a player's vision. Currently, the minimap is either black (unexplored) or revealed (explored), with no distinction between what is currently visible and what has been explored once but isn't visible anymore. In the game, this is the part of the vision that is layered in a grey tone, it would be nice for the minimap to also have this grey-ish layer.
- Player searching - Friending a player easily from within the game.
- Unit selection cap - 60 unit selection cap removed.
- Villagers attack move - attack move for villagers (ie make supremacy useable)
- Remove shift-click delay - shift-click delay gone. Makes no sense scouting or moving with shift is slower.
- Wall building - proper walls/ buildings edges, ie no silly gaps because of weird visuals.
- Healthbars - show hp on hurt units only.
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