The problem wasnt puppypaw or ML being hesitant. The problem was that 2 players are thrown into a MASSIVE LAN game with cameras, lights, and crowds with no warmup. You need to have exhibitions or full tournaments so competitors can adjust. You can blame water all day but if redbull invested even 50% of the effort into AOE4 as it gave AOE2 then the experience would be infinitely better for everyone.
It seems he really doesn't want to badmouth Red Bull for obvious reasons. I think he shouldn't have said anything if he can't be unbiased. The tournament organizers butchered any hype for cross pollination of viewership for the games by having these pathetic showmatches. For the amount of prize money I'm pretty sure the community including the players would've gladly chopped that in half if that meant more exposure. Inviting ML to the finals is so, so stupid. MarineLord himself said Puppypaw is really close to his level but played awful because he has 0 offline experience, while ML has a bunch from is SC2 days and previous Red Bull event. He might very well have won if it was played online. For all the smacktalking ML does he said he admires how far Puppypaw has come and that he's really close to taking tournaments from him now, and he did this on Beasty's stream when talking with Beasty about it during 2v2 practice.
I missed most of the whole redbull wolololololo happenings, but its kind of hard to take your take as entirely unbiased when you gush about all the goodies and gifts you received and how rad the castle was. I don't doubt it was neat to be there, but your onstage experience doesn't exactly translate 1 to 1 to what the online viewer experience was. Like, of course you think they are the greatest thing ever when they shower you with gifts lol. Your comments about AoE4 unit readability is spot on though. I've been thinking this from launch, the units are hard to visual distinguish from one another. Think the average viewer will be able to tell the difference between a spearman and a palace guard? Probably not. And the attack animations are so weightless and floaty. Horsemen are terrible offenders for this, I often can't tell if they are attacking or not, and I have 1800 hours in the game. AoE4's sound design is generally really excellent, but in terms of weapon hit effects they could definitely do with more punch.
KP, I agree with many of your points especially regarding game presentation, but others not so much, especially in how you're overly glazing Red Bull. I understand where you're coming from; you went to the event and got a bunch of awesome swag and were treated extremely well by RB staff and AoE2 folks. However, to the average AoE4 viewer, this event was a disaster. We don't have the luxury of getting free stuff to make up for it. We had to sit through terrible stream quality, a tacked on showmatch format, and unprovoked negativity from AoE2 viewers in chat. It's not 'entitled' to ask for better than this, it's just asking for at least the bare minimum to make an enjoyable viewer experience. Saying "we're lucky to even be here" and 'Red Bull didn't have to include AoE4 but they did, so we should be thankful" makes you sound like the patronizing AOE2 elitists who look down on the other games in the series. AoE4 was most likely only included at World's Edge's request anyway, not RB; it seems pretty clear from what I've seen (and correct me if I'm wrong) that the people at RB behind the Wololo tournaments do not really care about AoE4 at all. So when people say, 'we don't need Red Bull', it's not a dig towards RB itself, it's just saying 'We're not interested in being in a tournament where we're treated like second class citizens'. I and many others would honestly have much rather MS just given the 50k prize pool to EGCTV or Rising Empires to run their own proper tournament.
Red Bull already did invest way more in AOE4 than AOE2 Red Bull Wololo: Legacy in 2022, 300k price pool (AOE2 only 200k) 16 players LAN on Germany, and the results were around the same regarding viewers. El Reinado had a little more. Microsoft also for 2 years put way more money on AOE4 than AOE2, and in both situations AOE2 always had more viewers with less money, so they pulled back on the investment a little bit for AOE4, it still is a lot of money, but is not gonna be the same as before, or the same as AOE2 as long as the viewers aren't the same or similar.
@@TheRubenMar There's a difference between scaling down the prize pool and totally destroying the whole purpose of a LAN tournament. A glorified showmatch with online qualifiers is just insulting. Inviting one player to the finals is about the dumbest thing I've ever seen in any competition.
@@stysner4580 There is no such thing as an AOE4 S-tier LAN, only the one that Red Bull gave AOE4 on Germany and this one. I'm sure Marine Lord and others are not insulted for the free trip and money. It's a gift and people sound spoiled because for a few years, we were spoiled, it's time to face the reality of the game and be grateful for the gifts it gets. It's Red Bull money and organization, with Microsoft putting the prize pool, if AOE4 doesn't get invited, it goes to the other AOE games on the event, it would not go to a different AOE4 tournament. I think it is selfish, for people to argue the AOE4 scene shouldn't get this at all. AOE1 got the same LAN showmatch on Germany and Spain, and they got more views in both because of Vietnam, they came, they played, and then went back to their tournaments in Vietnam, their situation is more unfair, they don't even play on the version they'll like.
@@stysner4580 There is no such thing as an AOE4 S-tier LAN, only the one that Red Bull gave AOE4 on Germany and this one. I'm sure Marine Lord and others are not insulted for the free trip and money. It's a gift and people sound spoiled because for a few years, we were spoiled, it's time to face the reality of the game and be grateful for the gifts it gets. It's Red Bull money and organization, with Microsoft putting the prize pool, if AOE4 doesn't get invited, it goes to the other AOE games on the event, it would not go to a different AOE4 tournament. I think it is selfish, for people to argue the AOE4 scene shouldn't get this at all. AOE1 got the same LAN showmatch on Germany and Spain, and they got more views in both because of Vietnam, they came, they played, and then went back to their tournaments in Vietnam, their situation is more unfair, they don't even play on the version they'll like.
It's ridiculous how vehemently the AOE 2 camps are opposed to others. We all play what is now a niche gaming genre. Many formerly big game series have been cancelled by other publishers. Newer RTS game series don't take off and lose the player base they previously gained after the first few days. And Aoe? It still hasn't understood that its glory days are over and would rather harm itself by having part 2 attack part 4 and insulting each other and just complaining about each other in the community. So stupid.
No every game that came out after AoE2 HD only exists due to the AoE2 community. RTS is a semi dead genre and AoE2 is the only relevant one. 3 and 4 lost the plot and are objectively bad game design. AoE2 is just a soecial game and acting like it’s just one of the numbers is a form of disrespect.
This Wololo was a bad experience for the viewers. The schedules were hard to find or blank when you found them and then not followed. The visuals looked bad and the sound was terrible for AoE4. What does it matter what the archers sound like if the sound if so badly distorted for the viewing audience? AoE2 fans acted like children even though they clearly got the most support. Then the final was just underwhelming, poorly conceived and AoE4 was treated like an after thought. There was only one match up and it WAM did a great job but his presence as a commentator only made the beat down more sad. Also the stats for who was watching AoE4 are not reflecting the viewers because they were watching streams other than the official because the official was such poor quality. Not sure how it could have been more half-assed, the last wololo went much better. It's wild to me that you felt like this was "the best". Regarding the exploit abuse, it's just bad sportsmanship and against the spirit of fair competition. "If someone finds something creative to exploit the game or whatever, they should be rewarded for it" is a hot garbage take. Not just for you and AoE but for competitive gaming at all.
Hera grinds ranked every day and basorbs the souls of all high level players while viper is semi retired with a career ending m/changing injury and the fame of his character. Hera is and has been way better, if Viper is as good he would use the same tools. Or could if he needed to. It’s not an exploit it’s part of the game, nothing stoping Viper from patrolling units. If you know the game it’s normal. Stop whining calling for artificial rules to be in place when it doesn’t matter the outcome Hera will continue to win like a machine grinding the most.
@nutellabrah6718 I don't care who you fanboi for spectators don't want to watch one side use exploits to gain an unfair advantage. If the only decider is who is willing to stoop lower people like you would win.
@@randonkbay it’s not an unfair advantage. Both sides can use the same game engine and favor civs and unit matchups that take into account the existence of patrolling. Again if you understand the game and the history and Mr Yo era you’ll realize it’s all part of tournaments and whatever goes goes. This has already been talked about long ago and the community concluded to get good. Yet here you are acting like you know what’s fair or not. Hera would win no matter what it didn’t even factor in. You just aren’t aware about what’s going on.
Great comment about observer changes. Please do get EGC to zoom in their casts going forward. 1. The game was originally designed around a more zoomed in camera angle 2. The visual clarity issues are way less pronounced, and stream encoding issues are reduced because small details are now larger and so less prone to encoding artifacting 3. When you zoom in the audio volume, punch, and clarity goes way up! When you are zoomed out, the audio engine adds more reverb (because they’re simulating that you’re far away) and the volume is lower. In general, EGC has extremely “dry” casts because their in-game volume is way too low, and aoe4 has one of the best audio engines of any RTS.
I was watching on my 68 inch TV and the AOE 2 games came out super clear. AOE 4 was blurry on the big screen. I moved to my computer monitor and it worked fine. I don't know if zooming in would help or recording in 4k instead of 1080. I may be the only one who tries watching it on 4K so maybe not an issue.
@@billthomas2154 streaming in 4k would never work. Encoding is hamstringed by the limit on bitrate you can use via twitch. So part of the issue i think is the graphical style, but a big part is also a twitch caused issue
I understand you point of view trying to get a good image of AoE 4 community from Redbull and stuff. But I'm not sure ignoring a problem is always the best solution. Sometimes just stating facts and highliting them can already solve a part of the issue. Like people just realising they are wrong about their toxicity. Some won't, some will. And I don't believe this is only 30 of them
@@medmel2160 of course I'm not suggesting we just ignore toxicity issues. But if the overall sentinment towards RB from the AoE4 community is perceived as negative/toxic... we end up looking like the problem. And when I'm talking about that perception I'm looking at the entire sequence of events from announcement to execution, not just what happened on the day
I feel like the graphics in AoE4 are amazing! Part of the reason that keeps me playing😁 I genuinely don’t understand how people think AoE2 looks better, I play it every now and then and it looks like a 20 year old game! I know right, who would have guessed.
Its what people are used to. AoE4 has some pretty impressive graphics but in some ways they miss as I highlighted in the video. I was talking to a dev and explained to him the thumbnail test: look at AoE2, SC2 and AoE4... which is the hardest to make thumbnails for where you can tell what's happening? It's definitely 4, there's a reason things like pointing arrows are so prevalent in the content created
Ao4 looks like a cheap mobile game. Us more serious fans don’t like that look. Stop trying to shove it down our throats. AoE4 objectively sucks which is why hardly anyone plays it and it will continue to die. Stop talking as though it’s a living game just cuz it’s on Xbox gamepass.
@@Spanishflea. the environment doesn't pop from its background. Pristine example of this is Starcraft: if you take a unit and check against its environment its a lot easier to make that unit clash with its background. Highly recommend looking at Sc2hl for an example of this. Theres some post processinf trickery but the less burdensome encoding and the environment difference helps a lot
Don't comment on your stuff often KP but your rambling starting at 21:30 onwards is something I agree with and felt connected with deeply. Kind of funny how nearly every popular map I've made started by being hated for being different, even by you by the way :D Remember "Suckotra"? Sometime hated maps remain hated, but I always push to try and shake up the meta with something new while not breaking it, and i'd rather risk failure than produce the #1475th clone to Dry Arabia that would be universally accepted. Though those also definitely have their place. Anyway, cheers, appreciate your dedication and passion for this game
Aye in fairness it is a ritual to flame your wonderful work ;) Socotra definitely needed a gloss over we can agree but its a map with a lot of flavour and honestly led to another map that I now love even more (atoll based on the bugged socotra spawn)
Nomad would have been catastrophic. FFA's don't work at the highest level of competitive in FFA, this has been known for over a decade. It also does the opposite of what Empire Wars was in theory meant to achieve which was "make games conclude faster"
@@KillerPigeon wasnt talking about FFA, more of a nomad 1v1, but tbh normal aoe4 is already quite quick anyway and empire wars going to make it too quick. Only other alternative i know of is what they did with extra vills start during previous RBW i guess
Empire Wars is a silly game mode. The early game of AoE4 is quick and interesting. It actually exceptionally well designed. Even though there's not a ton going on, there's still a lot to do, and to do it well takes a great amount of skill. Do you go early Deer? Are they gathering stone? Do I get units out early? It's chill, exciting, has great strategic decision making and very enjoyable. Playing a Mongol Tower rush for example, some games can already be mostly decided by the time an Empire wars even kicks off. Empire wars just cuts that off and leaves it on the chopping room floor. WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO DO THAT? It's a stupid game mode for AoE4 to have. No wonder it's not popular. It's not that people were resistant to change. It's that the entire premise of the game mode was a disaster waiting to happen from the get go! It might make more sense in a game like AoE2, where I have heard that the early game can be quite protracted. Edit: Seasonal events might be cool. But how about a seasonal event where we can get a Ger to unpack correctly? Get the game into a polished state first before messing with this other stuff.
Limited time gamemodes sound good yes, but blaming the playerbase for not playing empirewars and thus causing its demise is wild. It's the dev's jobs to create something that players want to play. If the playerbase rejects the idea, the idea was bad or incorrectly marketed and nobody is to blame, but them. And some minor changes based on user data wouldn't completely change the perception or quality either.
@@MasteFelix fair point, but the issue comes when people complain that the mode isn't balanced. A big tournament would have likely got people playing the mode so that it could have been refined. My point around EW isn't that it would have guaranteed a better version of AoE4, but that its stigmatised and now used as ammunition for why to not change anything.
The problem for aoe4 was not too less games. On this day ML would had won 4:0 or 5:0, it was not even close. The problem was, that it was just one match and the players were not able to get into the tournament mode on stage.
Arabian Castle, in Spain what a rich History! we need a Spanish Civ now with Musketeers. Was nice also seiing all the panel with Villager clother and berries, felt Amazing. Looking forward for next year- and with a bigger AOE4
I think you need to go and look at the chat for aoe4. It was not 30 people. Literally every 10 messages had atleast one with some kind of 'criticism' of aoe4. It was miserable. I get why you think being shit on during the entire broadcast is fine, because your paycheck comes from the scene. For me, as a viewer, I will not ever watch another redbull if aoe2 is in it. If that means no more aoe4 in redbull, idc. The production value was bad, the tournament structure was bad, they obviously put aoe4 in as an afterthought, the aoe2 community is the worst out of any game I have seen (despite being the oldest) etc. I was fully let down.
@@AkshayPrasadrocksstop acting like AoE4 is more relevant than it is. If it would have been a successful game people would be playing it. It was made by the same people who made company of heroes and that’s a weird game too. Some games just fail. Deal with it. Stop acting like the community didn’t reject the game as a consensus a few years ago. It’s a dead game outside of gamepass casuals playing on controller whining about the Red Bull tournament where aoe4 and AOM are lucky to even be a part of since they are just tagging along and tacked on
@@nutellabrah6718 Imagine being a full grown man and typing up an entire paragraph to defend your dogshit community, and doing it so terribly that you don't realize that you are doing the exact thing I was talking about. You are literally the person I was talking about. Embarrassing
So I'm a casual AOE 2 fan I loved seeing all the games I don't play, I didn't get the chat experience I was watching on TH-cam when I did but it was a shock to see the chat in clips I've found online and in this video. I may have a misunderstanding of the demographic of players, but isn't the AOE community adults? Seeing how the AOE 2 was appalling. Like I get most people in the community think AOE 2 is the best RTS made but like have some respect for the other age of games atleast.
Many adults are id1ots, else this planet wouldn't be in such a shitty state (for thousands of years too). You don't have to go far to see another example. In this comment section there is another such fool (nutellabrah6718) running amok and shitting on AoE4 while wanking off to the God-ordained AoE2.
I'm pretty sure the AoE4 community collectively thought they were pretty toxic, but after seeing how AoE2 "fans" treated all other games we feel a lot better about ourselves :')
@@stysner4580 i wouldn't exactly go saying its the community as a whole tho, its definitely the vocal minority making the majority look bad. But idk from how pigeon describes it in the video it sounds like it was a both side thing for sure but the only thing i know i saw was clips of chat shitting on AOE4 so im not sure.
@@siffertime1642 Obviously I haven't seen every chat message but it really seemed like there were a couple annoying AoE4 chatters during AoE2 streams who were swiftly banned, the chat was mostly normal. But when a non-AoE2 game came along, the whole chat changed in to hate and removed messages. It was mild during AoE1, annoying during AoM and absolutely destroyed the chat during AoE4.
@@stysner4580 right which are the clips that most people have probably seen. its just wild to me that most age of players are "adults" but then act the way that everyone saw regardless of what games they are there to watch. Thats why when i dont want on youtube and they have chat turned off then i just disable it cause chats for most games tourneys are cancerous.
With respect to small details: Something that always stands out to me as a viewer between AoE2 and AoE4: 1) We have 0 Banners on any building, why not? Banners are literally essential to medieval warfare and should be everywhere as they are in AoE2. 2) Buldings look too clean: Give us some moss and rough edges around the buildings so they look like they have been build to endure and integrate better with the environment 3) Fauna: We need different animals depending on biome and we NEED some water plants and whatever on water without deep sea fish.
about the point 2: Why would the buildings not be clean tho? The medieval buildings are rough and mossy now but I would imagine they were pretty clean when they were built and maintained back in the day
@@sarangtamirisa5090 The medieval era span 800 years and some of them even dated back to ancient rome / greek. No, these buildings were already rough and dated even during the medieval era and thus a little moss and stuff here and there goes a long way.
I think stylistically AoE4 does a decent job with its archiecture, its just ingeneral everything melds too well into the setting: great for say an immersive FPS, but can easily become a negative for a competitive strategy game
@nutellabrah6718 I love the original Alien movie, even though you first see it burst out of the girls chest on a stick. Alien Romulus was pretty good too, definitely easier on the eyes to watch tho. Mobile games have come pretty far and look great these days because technology tends to move in one direction
Talking about the twitch chat, I got really uncomfortable reading it when Soe came in, not knowing her. That amount of sexism through comments about her looks or her legitimacy was shameful
I appreciate the transparency and reflection here. KP partially restored my belief in the importance of putting AoE4 on a stage to show to new audiences with the advice on how to improve the audience viewing experience. I do think there's one bit of misunderstanding about the toxicity between AoE2 and AoE4. I think there are different personal and cultural philosophies regarding how people weigh the value of dignity against trying to be cooperative and non-confrontational, the latter of which certainly would improve the perceived marketability of putting on events for AoE4. But many people willingly make choices to improve/maintain their dignity, self-esteem, and sense of self-worth at the cost of money and likeability, and RBW: El Reinado surely felt like a degrading experience. Many would rather never have another Red Bull event if this is the level of respect they show the community by way of how they show respect to the game, and I don't think that is a sentiment which should be easily dismissed. People showing their best when they're treated with disrespect would be admirable, but this was not just AoE2 fans triggering AoE4 fans. This was AoE2 fans triggering AoE4 fans who had already watched a game they're a part of be consistently disrespected since the event was announced. I don't think people would have taken the bait if everyone didn't deeply suspect AoE4 was set up to fail from the conception of this event. I'm glad to hear Red Bull was nice to the people who got to travel to the live event, but this event was unambiguously a net-negative for improving relations between game communities as a direct result of the planning decisions that were made.
Please stop talking as though AoE4 isn’t a failed game that was almost unanimously rejected by the community and isnt just tacked on here as an afterthought.
@@stysner4580 maybe you should stick to doom scrolling tik tok cringe lords that had no dads growing up. Really deep gaming going on in those circles. The young ones are the cool normal smart ones, and the old ones are the weird ones right? Oh wait…
@@nutellabrah6718 Calling AoE4 a failed game just because it has less playerbase than AoE2, you're an idiot. And yes, as someone who played AoE2 when it came out and is now enjoying AoE4: the older "fans" of AoE2 have certainly shown their face.
Finally someone says the same thing as me: age games and RTS games in general needs experimental modes that change, like Hearthstone has/had weekly mode. It needs to evolve and find better spot, it needs to experiment and persuade larger community that changes are good.
On the spectacle portion, I 100% agree with you. AOE4 is a great game, but animations should be more varied, more clear, more cool. This game lacks a visual “wow” factor that games like sc have. I’ve tried many times to get my friends and my brother into the game, some will at least try it, but none really keep playing because it just doesn’t have anything cool enough to appeal to them. I think the game needs better combat animations, bigger impact with mango shots, arrow fire etc. give us banners for our men to carry with them. We need cool things too!
I gotta agree - water in AOE4 is terrible experience to watch, i especially hate the maps with the little bathtubs where most of the battles during the match actually happen. It's just so mindnumbingly boring - 2 types of ships circlejerking around in endless back and forth - never any variety, never anything interesting happens except for occasional demo ship, no room to maneuver or flank opponent -eventually one side overwhelms the other and that's it. On the other hand AoM is definitely the most entertaining to watch and it's not even close. I'm really happy it's successful.
I really like that you are talking about visibility issues in 4. I watched it with my wife and she commented on how the architecture would be better if viewed from a different (not straight overhead) angle
Player/viewer count. If the AoE4 DLC wouldn't have done as well we wouldn't even have had the laughable showmatch. AoE1 is very popular in Asia (mainly Vietnam I believe) and has a lot of viewership and players there. AoE2 is the most watched and played of the AoX franchise by far. AoM is new, so it got a laughable showmatch spot like AoE4 did. Active player numbers go: AoE2 -> AoE4 -> AoM -> AoE1 -> AoE3. There is a larger gap in numbers between AoE3 and AoE4 than there is between 4 and 2, and even 4 only got the showmatch because of the DLC and demand from the community.
The aoe 2 exploit has not always been in the game. The originial game had that exploit, then HD version came around in 2013 and fixed it somewhere in the following years BUT keeping the exploit working on ranged units. Then DE version came in without the exploit (I verified this myself) and FINALLY some patch brought back the exploit unoticed. This is a patch problem not a long running overpowered exploit no one ever uses somehow.
i really like how AOE4 looks and feels. Especially the foliage thing i disagree with i think. I like that the environment is rich. And balancing animations between looking realistic and feeling powerful is tricky, i just guess they went a bit more for realism arcade.
Once again, AoE4's foliage may make sense for a singleplayer immersivw environement.. BUT, AoE4 evolved into a competitively driven game, from that perspective it needs something that works better for viewing and playing. They could always keep all the extra clutter behind a graphical setting but i guarantee the viewing exp would improve drastically from a competitive graphical setting
As someone who watches a casted game or 2 a day and plays a game or two of AOE4 a day... i had NO idea the event happened. I might of missed something and maybe its on me but i opened up youtube and there it was. Surely someone like me should have 100% known exaclty when the event was happening like i would a sporting event was on. Like i said perhaps its more on me for not looking into it enough but it completely passed me by.
@@foggymartin i think this is one area I'd love to see some sort of ingame notifications in AoE4. RedBull actually does a really good job marketing these events so I'm a bit surprised you missed it. Definitely a fantastic event
@38:00 to exploit bugs or known broken aspects of the game in order to gain an advantage in a competition is never gonna get any respect, rulebooked or not. We all may understand the many reasons why it's not a bannable offense from an admin PoV, yes, but it doesn't change the fact Hera used a dirty trick in the *final* against someone you said yourself almost didnt made it due to health issues. I don't care if it even helped him to win or not ! We all know Hera has the skill to be champion. He could probably have won not using anything wrong. What happened to Sport? Desire to win so hard he puts sand in his gloves because *technically* it's not written in the book? Take your crown Hera, i respect you as a person, but you made a mistake.
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I also believe that we should have at least 1 special map in the ranked pool just to get data on it and try it out every season. What I mean by special map: 1) One map with special properties on otherwise known sites. For instance Sacret Sites now function as healing stations instead of generating gold, markets have to be captured and garrisoned with traders (cap to 10 similar to the sulthani trade network) in order to generate gold and then just be capped at 10 pop. No further scaling. etc. Try these things out as I think a lot can be improved as well. People who do not want to engage with it just downvote and be fine.
This feeds into the limited time game mode ideas. Its a perfect way to test things without it being forced, and it ensures the devs don't have to enter panic mode to fix broken things as quickly, because there'll always be a safe core mode
Just because they are in the same name family doesn’t mean they are the same or comparable. They are made decades apart by different companies and for different eras.
after watching one of the biggest aoe4 creators milking & fueling the drama, I just wanted to say ty for being the voice of reason KP. it was very sad to see parts of aoe4 return the same toxicity towards aoe2 and for some reason also redbull?
It disappointed me. There's always vocal minorities that will be toxic in any given community, kinda feels like we had an opp to rise above it but chose to dance the dance
@@KillerPigeon yeah I personally was not aware of the drama but as a AoE2 fan and rejector of 3 and 4 (I like 1 in the 2 engine) I feel attacked by a lot of these anti AoE2 comments I see. Like how dare they, after we built the proverbial house they play in. I also feel like there some allegory to zoomer/boomer passive aggressive vibes like the random newcomer zoomers coming from who knows where and acting like AoE2 is some outdated thing and like AoE4 is better because it came out in their generation kinda thing. Like they are “rising up” or something lol, it’s rude and insecure and envious and passive aggressive. Still watching the vid but you seem to have a level headed take
@@nutellabrah6718 so what you're doing here is fueling the hate divide. There's actually a lot more people than you think that love things about both games but lean towards one. You're complaining about the toxic elements but then becoming one, we should all be striving to do better. All games have their own following and actually AoE4 does reasonably well in what is considered a growth dead genre. This pettiness isn't a good look for any of the communities. If you really wanted to play the "we paved the way" card someone could point out quake for online gaming and dune for RTS gaming. The point is that games can learn and evolve based on what came before them, they don't have to carbon copy or cater to the exact same audience (and honestly neither should they, what would be the point)
@@KillerPigeon yeah I agree, it is petty and shouldn’t be a thing. Esspecially with the epic castle. As a viewer it out a smile on my face to see such appropriate pageantry and cosplay and people really giving it that classic renaissance fair feel which was surprisingly apt. It was exciting for everyone. It’s like stop fighting got a castle. Maybe everyone took that as their own way to get excited. The AoE2 people felt possessive and gatekeepy of the castle :) and the AoE4 people were like we made it we are here now in the castle respec us. In the end everyone was just excited about the castle. In a way a war breaking out over a castle is pretty lore accurate.
@@nutellabrah6718 " I feel attacked by a lot of these anti AoE2 comments I see. Like how dare they, after we built the proverbial house they play in." Ahahahahaha you're one of those morons
I disagree with the point of Hera. There is always something, no matter what, called integrity and honor. That should always supercede any ruleset, game mechanic, bug or otherwise oversight in a competitive spirit to win. The idea that you're willing to "do whatever it takes at the cost of integrity and honor" to win means it's no longer about skill, but who can find the most loopholes to bypass the skill to win. The player who wins should be who is the most skilled. Not the player who can find the most abuses. Developers and rulemakers can't possibly cover every single scenario or issue. That is why it is up to us, the players, to have the integrity to report exploitations and not use them, even if it gives us a competitive edge. If you need someone to define what integrity, honor, skill, or exploits are, then you're already wrong. Am I saying "cancel Hera" or flame him or trash talk him or stop following him or anything like that? No, absolutely not. I'm just disappointed in him for doing it, and it's okay for me to feel and say that.
What he did wasn't even unfair. It sounds like that mechanic is very difficult to execute properly, and it will become less effective if it becomes more common. Seems similar to quick walling. Realistically, Viper didn't even respond to it. It seemed like he was looking somewhere else. If he understood what was happening, he could have moved his army away for a re-engage later. It's even more the case in game 4 than game 3. I feel his attention was obviously elsewhere in game 3. He probably just sent the pikes in and turned his attention elsewhere. Game 4 there was one major fight at the time, so it's a bit surprising he didn't respond.
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ye ML confirmed himself being a duckhead bigtime in his speech
That depends. If you know ML and how he is you'd know he's just joking around. He has been like this since the SC2 days where a lot of people were like that. Jokes and smacktalking during interviews was always the norm.
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@@stysner4580 yeah, backstage talk, normal interviews, whatever.... but not main speech after biggest tournament of the season... imagine that in olympics... insta ban for no sportmanship
Be glad there's room for stuff like that. It would be so boring to hear the same "thanks to my team and the fans" after every tournament. No thank you.
Balance wasn't the only reason aoe4 couldn't retain, there was loads wrong with the game. It was a next generation rts that from the point of view of ui features and control was two generations behind aoe2 and sc2 at launch, and is now maybe only one generation behind.
Make no mistake about it, balance was a HUGE problem. Age of springald definitely showed that. There were others though, campaigns and modding were neglected. One of those was definitely fixed with Sultans Ascend and overall AoE4 has come an incredibly long way in just 3 years (sounds like a long time, but for strategy games... they aren't easy to develop and evolve post launch)
@@KillerPigeon Yeah aoe4 has definitely come a long way, it is interesting to wonder how it would have done if it were in the state it is now on launch. I still don't think it would have retained, however, its still not up to par with sc2 and aoe2 from the standpoint of responsiveness, ui, control, etc. I love aoe4, but when I switch from playing some aoe4 to aoe2, it still always feels like a breath of fresh air with how much better aoe2 handles.
@@karlheber23AoE2 feels super tight. I had the same experience trying AOM and it felt sluggish by comparison even though it looks almost the same as DE.
The hotkeys on release were atrocious, and the AI was basic AF. I was pretty excited for AoE4 on release, but all of the issues drove me and my friends back to AoE2. I tried it a year or two later and found that I was building black smiths instead of barracks. I would end the game with 3-4 black smiths. The hotkeys had improved, but it was still awkward for me. On top of that, it was impossible to convince my friends to give it a try. I enjoy watching AoE4 now, but I don't think I will try playing it again. I'm loving AoM retold, though. Having some hotkey issues, but nothing on the level I experienced with AoE4.
Gotta crack some eggs to make an omelette. EW might not have been the final destination but it could have been part of the journey to improvements, we just refused to even hop on the bus
@@KillerPigeon just dont assume, that every "no empire wars" post means: no change. This is a bias. I am for many changes, but not for the only sake of spectable. Just count "no empire wars" as it is, not additionall as "no improvement". You will see your charts will change dramatically! Ideas like more villagers, change in sound and animation, balance shift I dont like the idea of "we should be happy and let standards go, just to get a place on red bull wollollo. While i am ok to only have a showmatch on stage, but then let someone with aoe4 expertise set the rules and maps etc. ..and not like what we get this time. You didnt consider any of that in your "we are the problem" rant..
@@Zeitgeyst now who's making the assumptions. I've spent countless hours into this game and this community and I wholly recall how EW was received, as have I seen how some vocal individuals have treated modes that deviate from the normal 1v1 format. Its not everyone, but its a vocal minority that sadly is what gets seen. There's nothing wrong with wanting more, but there's a giant difference between wishing for something and feeling entitled to something.
@@KillerPigeon if a game mode is good, it will prevail eventually (see dota as an extreme example). In my opinion aoe4 is more a case for StarCraft2's more workers in the main game, than find a different game mode that is more showable. I would really like to see a discussion around something like that in a crossover between yourself, somebody like beasty and maybe an Aoe2 Player. I am open te get my opinion on that changed! I agree, that aoe4 have room for imrpovement to make it better for casting (e.g. castermode). I really like the casters for AOE4, the big and small ones, but it is sad to see how the changes are to slow to help you guys out. Thanks for your work and passion btw! --- So vocal minorities are entitled?..so there is no problem i guess, if the rest have legitimat problems with the organisation of the aoe4 part of RBW.. i agree!
The problem wasnt puppypaw or ML being hesitant. The problem was that 2 players are thrown into a MASSIVE LAN game with cameras, lights, and crowds with no warmup. You need to have exhibitions or full tournaments so competitors can adjust. You can blame water all day but if redbull invested even 50% of the effort into AOE4 as it gave AOE2 then the experience would be infinitely better for everyone.
It seems he really doesn't want to badmouth Red Bull for obvious reasons. I think he shouldn't have said anything if he can't be unbiased. The tournament organizers butchered any hype for cross pollination of viewership for the games by having these pathetic showmatches. For the amount of prize money I'm pretty sure the community including the players would've gladly chopped that in half if that meant more exposure.
Inviting ML to the finals is so, so stupid. MarineLord himself said Puppypaw is really close to his level but played awful because he has 0 offline experience, while ML has a bunch from is SC2 days and previous Red Bull event. He might very well have won if it was played online. For all the smacktalking ML does he said he admires how far Puppypaw has come and that he's really close to taking tournaments from him now, and he did this on Beasty's stream when talking with Beasty about it during 2v2 practice.
I missed most of the whole redbull wolololololo happenings, but its kind of hard to take your take as entirely unbiased when you gush about all the goodies and gifts you received and how rad the castle was. I don't doubt it was neat to be there, but your onstage experience doesn't exactly translate 1 to 1 to what the online viewer experience was. Like, of course you think they are the greatest thing ever when they shower you with gifts lol.
Your comments about AoE4 unit readability is spot on though. I've been thinking this from launch, the units are hard to visual distinguish from one another. Think the average viewer will be able to tell the difference between a spearman and a palace guard? Probably not. And the attack animations are so weightless and floaty. Horsemen are terrible offenders for this, I often can't tell if they are attacking or not, and I have 1800 hours in the game. AoE4's sound design is generally really excellent, but in terms of weapon hit effects they could definitely do with more punch.
KP, I agree with many of your points especially regarding game presentation, but others not so much, especially in how you're overly glazing Red Bull. I understand where you're coming from; you went to the event and got a bunch of awesome swag and were treated extremely well by RB staff and AoE2 folks. However, to the average AoE4 viewer, this event was a disaster. We don't have the luxury of getting free stuff to make up for it. We had to sit through terrible stream quality, a tacked on showmatch format, and unprovoked negativity from AoE2 viewers in chat. It's not 'entitled' to ask for better than this, it's just asking for at least the bare minimum to make an enjoyable viewer experience. Saying "we're lucky to even be here" and 'Red Bull didn't have to include AoE4 but they did, so we should be thankful" makes you sound like the patronizing AOE2 elitists who look down on the other games in the series. AoE4 was most likely only included at World's Edge's request anyway, not RB; it seems pretty clear from what I've seen (and correct me if I'm wrong) that the people at RB behind the Wololo tournaments do not really care about AoE4 at all. So when people say, 'we don't need Red Bull', it's not a dig towards RB itself, it's just saying 'We're not interested in being in a tournament where we're treated like second class citizens'. I and many others would honestly have much rather MS just given the 50k prize pool to EGCTV or Rising Empires to run their own proper tournament.
Red Bull already did invest way more in AOE4 than AOE2
Red Bull Wololo: Legacy in 2022, 300k price pool (AOE2 only 200k) 16 players LAN on Germany, and the results were around the same regarding viewers. El Reinado had a little more.
Microsoft also for 2 years put way more money on AOE4 than AOE2, and in both situations AOE2 always had more viewers with less money, so they pulled back on the investment a little bit for AOE4, it still is a lot of money, but is not gonna be the same as before, or the same as AOE2 as long as the viewers aren't the same or similar.
@@TheRubenMar There's a difference between scaling down the prize pool and totally destroying the whole purpose of a LAN tournament. A glorified showmatch with online qualifiers is just insulting. Inviting one player to the finals is about the dumbest thing I've ever seen in any competition.
@@stysner4580 There is no such thing as an AOE4 S-tier LAN, only the one that Red Bull gave AOE4 on Germany and this one. I'm sure Marine Lord and others are not insulted for the free trip and money. It's a gift and people sound spoiled because for a few years, we were spoiled, it's time to face the reality of the game and be grateful for the gifts it gets.
It's Red Bull money and organization, with Microsoft putting the prize pool, if AOE4 doesn't get invited, it goes to the other AOE games on the event, it would not go to a different AOE4 tournament.
I think it is selfish, for people to argue the AOE4 scene shouldn't get this at all. AOE1 got the same LAN showmatch on Germany and Spain, and they got more views in both because of Vietnam, they came, they played, and then went back to their tournaments in Vietnam, their situation is more unfair, they don't even play on the version they'll like.
@@stysner4580 There is no such thing as an AOE4 S-tier LAN, only the one that Red Bull gave AOE4 on Germany and this one. I'm sure Marine Lord and others are not insulted for the free trip and money. It's a gift and people sound spoiled because for a few years, we were spoiled, it's time to face the reality of the game and be grateful for the gifts it gets.
It's Red Bull money and organization, with Microsoft putting the prize pool, if AOE4 doesn't get invited, it goes to the other AOE games on the event, it would not go to a different AOE4 tournament.
I think it is selfish, for people to argue the AOE4 scene shouldn't get this at all. AOE1 got the same LAN showmatch on Germany and Spain, and they got more views in both because of Vietnam, they came, they played, and then went back to their tournaments in Vietnam, their situation is more unfair, they don't even play on the version they'll like.
It's ridiculous how vehemently the AOE 2 camps are opposed to others. We all play what is now a niche gaming genre. Many formerly big game series have been cancelled by other publishers. Newer RTS game series don't take off and lose the player base they previously gained after the first few days. And Aoe? It still hasn't understood that its glory days are over and would rather harm itself by having part 2 attack part 4 and insulting each other and just complaining about each other in the community. So stupid.
No every game that came out after AoE2 HD only exists due to the AoE2 community. RTS is a semi dead genre and AoE2 is the only relevant one. 3 and 4 lost the plot and are objectively bad game design. AoE2 is just a soecial game and acting like it’s just one of the numbers is a form of disrespect.
@@nutellabrah6718 your comment , proves op point.
This Wololo was a bad experience for the viewers. The schedules were hard to find or blank when you found them and then not followed. The visuals looked bad and the sound was terrible for AoE4. What does it matter what the archers sound like if the sound if so badly distorted for the viewing audience? AoE2 fans acted like children even though they clearly got the most support. Then the final was just underwhelming, poorly conceived and AoE4 was treated like an after thought. There was only one match up and it WAM did a great job but his presence as a commentator only made the beat down more sad. Also the stats for who was watching AoE4 are not reflecting the viewers because they were watching streams other than the official because the official was such poor quality. Not sure how it could have been more half-assed, the last wololo went much better. It's wild to me that you felt like this was "the best". Regarding the exploit abuse, it's just bad sportsmanship and against the spirit of fair competition. "If someone finds something creative to exploit the game or whatever, they should be rewarded for it" is a hot garbage take. Not just for you and AoE but for competitive gaming at all.
Hera grinds ranked every day and basorbs the souls of all high level players while viper is semi retired with a career ending m/changing injury and the fame of his character. Hera is and has been way better, if Viper is as good he would use the same tools. Or could if he needed to. It’s not an exploit it’s part of the game, nothing stoping Viper from patrolling units. If you know the game it’s normal. Stop whining calling for artificial rules to be in place when it doesn’t matter the outcome Hera will continue to win like a machine grinding the most.
@nutellabrah6718 I don't care who you fanboi for spectators don't want to watch one side use exploits to gain an unfair advantage. If the only decider is who is willing to stoop lower people like you would win.
@@randonkbay it’s not an unfair advantage. Both sides can use the same game engine and favor civs and unit matchups that take into account the existence of patrolling. Again if you understand the game and the history and Mr Yo era you’ll realize it’s all part of tournaments and whatever goes goes. This has already been talked about long ago and the community concluded to get good. Yet here you are acting like you know what’s fair or not. Hera would win no matter what it didn’t even factor in. You just aren’t aware about what’s going on.
Great comment about observer changes. Please do get EGC to zoom in their casts going forward.
1. The game was originally designed around a more zoomed in camera angle
2. The visual clarity issues are way less pronounced, and stream encoding issues are reduced because small details are now larger and so less prone to encoding artifacting
3. When you zoom in the audio volume, punch, and clarity goes way up! When you are zoomed out, the audio engine adds more reverb (because they’re simulating that you’re far away) and the volume is lower. In general, EGC has extremely “dry” casts because their in-game volume is way too low, and aoe4 has one of the best audio engines of any RTS.
I was watching on my 68 inch TV and the AOE 2 games came out super clear. AOE 4 was blurry on the big screen. I moved to my computer monitor and it worked fine. I don't know if zooming in would help or recording in 4k instead of 1080. I may be the only one who tries watching it on 4K so maybe not an issue.
@@billthomas2154 streaming in 4k would never work. Encoding is hamstringed by the limit on bitrate you can use via twitch. So part of the issue i think is the graphical style, but a big part is also a twitch caused issue
Pls post more of such content, gives us insights on what is actually going on in the background. Thank you for this video!
I understand you point of view trying to get a good image of AoE 4 community from Redbull and stuff. But I'm not sure ignoring a problem is always the best solution.
Sometimes just stating facts and highliting them can already solve a part of the issue. Like people just realising they are wrong about their toxicity. Some won't, some will. And I don't believe this is only 30 of them
@@medmel2160 of course I'm not suggesting we just ignore toxicity issues. But if the overall sentinment towards RB from the AoE4 community is perceived as negative/toxic... we end up looking like the problem.
And when I'm talking about that perception I'm looking at the entire sequence of events from announcement to execution, not just what happened on the day
I feel like the graphics in AoE4 are amazing! Part of the reason that keeps me playing😁
I genuinely don’t understand how people think AoE2 looks better, I play it every now and then and it looks like a 20 year old game! I know right, who would have guessed.
Its what people are used to. AoE4 has some pretty impressive graphics but in some ways they miss as I highlighted in the video. I was talking to a dev and explained to him the thumbnail test: look at AoE2, SC2 and AoE4... which is the hardest to make thumbnails for where you can tell what's happening? It's definitely 4, there's a reason things like pointing arrows are so prevalent in the content created
@KillerPigeon how is it difficult to make thumbnails for aoe4? The game is so detailed and and the colour depth is wonderful.
Ao4 looks like a cheap mobile game. Us more serious fans don’t like that look. Stop trying to shove it down our throats. AoE4 objectively sucks which is why hardly anyone plays it and it will continue to die. Stop talking as though it’s a living game just cuz it’s on Xbox gamepass.
@@nutellabrah6718 another toddler copy/pasting the same rage bait. Get better material, child.
@@Spanishflea. the environment doesn't pop from its background. Pristine example of this is Starcraft: if you take a unit and check against its environment its a lot easier to make that unit clash with its background. Highly recommend looking at Sc2hl for an example of this. Theres some post processinf trickery but the less burdensome encoding and the environment difference helps a lot
AoE 4 exist
Pretending that is does not by the tournament organizers is just strange.
Don't comment on your stuff often KP but your rambling starting at 21:30 onwards is something I agree with and felt connected with deeply.
Kind of funny how nearly every popular map I've made started by being hated for being different, even by you by the way :D Remember "Suckotra"? Sometime hated maps remain hated, but I always push to try and shake up the meta with something new while not breaking it, and i'd rather risk failure than produce the #1475th clone to Dry Arabia that would be universally accepted. Though those also definitely have their place.
Anyway, cheers, appreciate your dedication and passion for this game
Aye in fairness it is a ritual to flame your wonderful work ;)
Socotra definitely needed a gloss over we can agree but its a map with a lot of flavour and honestly led to another map that I now love even more (atoll based on the bugged socotra spawn)
Missed it live, looking forward to strapping in for this one :-)
RBW should have picked nomad game mode instead of empire war if they want something unique
Nomad would have been catastrophic. FFA's don't work at the highest level of competitive in FFA, this has been known for over a decade. It also does the opposite of what Empire Wars was in theory meant to achieve which was "make games conclude faster"
@@KillerPigeon wasnt talking about FFA, more of a nomad 1v1, but tbh normal aoe4 is already quite quick anyway and empire wars going to make it too quick. Only other alternative i know of is what they did with extra vills start during previous RBW i guess
Too much randomness in competitive play is disastrous. Imagine practicing for months, then lose to bad luck when there's 20K on the line.
Empire Wars is a silly game mode. The early game of AoE4 is quick and interesting. It actually exceptionally well designed. Even though there's not a ton going on, there's still a lot to do, and to do it well takes a great amount of skill. Do you go early Deer? Are they gathering stone? Do I get units out early? It's chill, exciting, has great strategic decision making and very enjoyable. Playing a Mongol Tower rush for example, some games can already be mostly decided by the time an Empire wars even kicks off. Empire wars just cuts that off and leaves it on the chopping room floor. WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO DO THAT? It's a stupid game mode for AoE4 to have. No wonder it's not popular. It's not that people were resistant to change. It's that the entire premise of the game mode was a disaster waiting to happen from the get go!
It might make more sense in a game like AoE2, where I have heard that the early game can be quite protracted.
Edit: Seasonal events might be cool. But how about a seasonal event where we can get a Ger to unpack correctly? Get the game into a polished state first before messing with this other stuff.
Limited time gamemodes sound good yes, but blaming the playerbase for not playing empirewars and thus causing its demise is wild. It's the dev's jobs to create something that players want to play. If the playerbase rejects the idea, the idea was bad or incorrectly marketed and nobody is to blame, but them. And some minor changes based on user data wouldn't completely change the perception or quality either.
@@MasteFelix fair point, but the issue comes when people complain that the mode isn't balanced. A big tournament would have likely got people playing the mode so that it could have been refined. My point around EW isn't that it would have guaranteed a better version of AoE4, but that its stigmatised and now used as ammunition for why to not change anything.
The problem for aoe4 was not too less games. On this day ML would had won 4:0 or 5:0, it was not even close.
The problem was, that it was just one match and the players were not able to get into the tournament mode on stage.
Already flagged this :)
Arabian Castle, in Spain what a rich History! we need a Spanish Civ now with Musketeers.
Was nice also seiing all the panel with Villager clother and berries, felt Amazing.
Looking forward for next year- and with a bigger AOE4
I think you need to go and look at the chat for aoe4. It was not 30 people. Literally every 10 messages had atleast one with some kind of 'criticism' of aoe4. It was miserable. I get why you think being shit on during the entire broadcast is fine, because your paycheck comes from the scene. For me, as a viewer, I will not ever watch another redbull if aoe2 is in it. If that means no more aoe4 in redbull, idc. The production value was bad, the tournament structure was bad, they obviously put aoe4 in as an afterthought, the aoe2 community is the worst out of any game I have seen (despite being the oldest) etc.
I was fully let down.
I 100% agree. It's insulting and I won't bother with the next redbull event. It's just a giant aoe2 circle jerk.
Stick to your Xbox gamepass 9.99 with controller gameplay
@@nutellabrah6718 One of the worst insults I have ever heard. Try better next time
@@AkshayPrasadrocksstop acting like AoE4 is more relevant than it is. If it would have been a successful game people would be playing it. It was made by the same people who made company of heroes and that’s a weird game too. Some games just fail. Deal with it. Stop acting like the community didn’t reject the game as a consensus a few years ago. It’s a dead game outside of gamepass casuals playing on controller whining about the Red Bull tournament where aoe4 and AOM are lucky to even be a part of since they are just tagging along and tacked on
@@nutellabrah6718
Imagine being a full grown man and typing up an entire paragraph to defend your dogshit community, and doing it so terribly that you don't realize that you are doing the exact thing I was talking about. You are literally the person I was talking about.
Embarrassing
So I'm a casual AOE 2 fan I loved seeing all the games I don't play, I didn't get the chat experience I was watching on TH-cam when I did but it was a shock to see the chat in clips I've found online and in this video. I may have a misunderstanding of the demographic of players, but isn't the AOE community adults? Seeing how the AOE 2 was appalling. Like I get most people in the community think AOE 2 is the best RTS made but like have some respect for the other age of games atleast.
Many adults are id1ots, else this planet wouldn't be in such a shitty state (for thousands of years too). You don't have to go far to see another example. In this comment section there is another such fool (nutellabrah6718) running amok and shitting on AoE4 while wanking off to the God-ordained AoE2.
I'm pretty sure the AoE4 community collectively thought they were pretty toxic, but after seeing how AoE2 "fans" treated all other games we feel a lot better about ourselves :')
@@stysner4580 i wouldn't exactly go saying its the community as a whole tho, its definitely the vocal minority making the majority look bad. But idk from how pigeon describes it in the video it sounds like it was a both side thing for sure but the only thing i know i saw was clips of chat shitting on AOE4 so im not sure.
@@siffertime1642 Obviously I haven't seen every chat message but it really seemed like there were a couple annoying AoE4 chatters during AoE2 streams who were swiftly banned, the chat was mostly normal. But when a non-AoE2 game came along, the whole chat changed in to hate and removed messages. It was mild during AoE1, annoying during AoM and absolutely destroyed the chat during AoE4.
@@stysner4580 right which are the clips that most people have probably seen. its just wild to me that most age of players are "adults" but then act the way that everyone saw regardless of what games they are there to watch. Thats why when i dont want on youtube and they have chat turned off then i just disable it cause chats for most games tourneys are cancerous.
With respect to small details: Something that always stands out to me as a viewer between AoE2 and AoE4: 1) We have 0 Banners on any building, why not? Banners are literally essential to medieval warfare and should be everywhere as they are in AoE2. 2) Buldings look too clean: Give us some moss and rough edges around the buildings so they look like they have been build to endure and integrate better with the environment 3) Fauna: We need different animals depending on biome and we NEED some water plants and whatever on water without deep sea fish.
about the point 2: Why would the buildings not be clean tho? The medieval buildings are rough and mossy now but I would imagine they were pretty clean when they were built and maintained back in the day
@@sarangtamirisa5090 The medieval era span 800 years and some of them even dated back to ancient rome / greek. No, these buildings were already rough and dated even during the medieval era and thus a little moss and stuff here and there goes a long way.
I think stylistically AoE4 does a decent job with its archiecture, its just ingeneral everything melds too well into the setting: great for say an immersive FPS, but can easily become a negative for a competitive strategy game
It’s practically a mobile game made by the guys who made company of heroes. Has little to do with AoE2 glory.
@nutellabrah6718 I love the original Alien movie, even though you first see it burst out of the girls chest on a stick. Alien Romulus was pretty good too, definitely easier on the eyes to watch tho. Mobile games have come pretty far and look great these days because technology tends to move in one direction
Talking about the twitch chat, I got really uncomfortable reading it when Soe came in, not knowing her.
That amount of sexism through comments about her looks or her legitimacy was shameful
I appreciate the transparency and reflection here. KP partially restored my belief in the importance of putting AoE4 on a stage to show to new audiences with the advice on how to improve the audience viewing experience. I do think there's one bit of misunderstanding about the toxicity between AoE2 and AoE4.
I think there are different personal and cultural philosophies regarding how people weigh the value of dignity against trying to be cooperative and non-confrontational, the latter of which certainly would improve the perceived marketability of putting on events for AoE4. But many people willingly make choices to improve/maintain their dignity, self-esteem, and sense of self-worth at the cost of money and likeability, and RBW: El Reinado surely felt like a degrading experience. Many would rather never have another Red Bull event if this is the level of respect they show the community by way of how they show respect to the game, and I don't think that is a sentiment which should be easily dismissed.
People showing their best when they're treated with disrespect would be admirable, but this was not just AoE2 fans triggering AoE4 fans. This was AoE2 fans triggering AoE4 fans who had already watched a game they're a part of be consistently disrespected since the event was announced. I don't think people would have taken the bait if everyone didn't deeply suspect AoE4 was set up to fail from the conception of this event. I'm glad to hear Red Bull was nice to the people who got to travel to the live event, but this event was unambiguously a net-negative for improving relations between game communities as a direct result of the planning decisions that were made.
Please stop talking as though AoE4 isn’t a failed game that was almost unanimously rejected by the community and isnt just tacked on here as an afterthought.
@@nutellabrah6718 lol
@@nutellabrah6718 What are you talking about? I'm very sure everyone in your facebook group hates the game, but maybe open your eyes bro.
@@stysner4580 maybe you should stick to doom scrolling tik tok cringe lords that had no dads growing up. Really deep gaming going on in those circles. The young ones are the cool normal smart ones, and the old ones are the weird ones right? Oh wait…
@@nutellabrah6718 Calling AoE4 a failed game just because it has less playerbase than AoE2, you're an idiot. And yes, as someone who played AoE2 when it came out and is now enjoying AoE4: the older "fans" of AoE2 have certainly shown their face.
Finally someone says the same thing as me: age games and RTS games in general needs experimental modes that change, like Hearthstone has/had weekly mode. It needs to evolve and find better spot, it needs to experiment and persuade larger community that changes are good.
KP is the Richard Hammond of the AoE world
On the spectacle portion, I 100% agree with you. AOE4 is a great game, but animations should be more varied, more clear, more cool. This game lacks a visual “wow” factor that games like sc have.
I’ve tried many times to get my friends and my brother into the game, some will at least try it, but none really keep playing because it just doesn’t have anything cool enough to appeal to them.
I think the game needs better combat animations, bigger impact with mango shots, arrow fire etc. give us banners for our men to carry with them. We need cool things too!
I gotta agree - water in AOE4 is terrible experience to watch, i especially hate the maps with the little bathtubs where most of the battles during the match actually happen. It's just so mindnumbingly boring - 2 types of ships circlejerking around in endless back and forth - never any variety, never anything interesting happens except for occasional demo ship, no room to maneuver or flank opponent -eventually one side overwhelms the other and that's it.
On the other hand AoM is definitely the most entertaining to watch and it's not even close. I'm really happy it's successful.
I really like that you are talking about visibility issues in 4. I watched it with my wife and she commented on how the architecture would be better if viewed from a different (not straight overhead) angle
Do someone know what's like the official stance on AoE3 not being invited in theses events ? (I live under a rock)
Player/viewer count. If the AoE4 DLC wouldn't have done as well we wouldn't even have had the laughable showmatch. AoE1 is very popular in Asia (mainly Vietnam I believe) and has a lot of viewership and players there. AoE2 is the most watched and played of the AoX franchise by far. AoM is new, so it got a laughable showmatch spot like AoE4 did. Active player numbers go: AoE2 -> AoE4 -> AoM -> AoE1 -> AoE3. There is a larger gap in numbers between AoE3 and AoE4 than there is between 4 and 2, and even 4 only got the showmatch because of the DLC and demand from the community.
@@stysner4580 did you meant to post this under my comment ?
@@drenghel4641 Yes. It's player and viewer count. It's so much lower than AoE2 and 4, and they were even reluctant about including 4. Viewers = money.
@@stysner4580 Sorry I was not paying enough attention, I thought this was another comment ! Sorry again
@@stysner4580 Now that I read you, sure that makes sense, but did they communicate about this ? that's what I asked
The aoe 2 exploit has not always been in the game.
The originial game had that exploit, then HD version came around in 2013 and fixed it somewhere in the following years BUT keeping the exploit working on ranged units. Then DE version came in without the exploit (I verified this myself) and FINALLY some patch brought back the exploit unoticed.
This is a patch problem not a long running overpowered exploit no one ever uses somehow.
i really like how AOE4 looks and feels. Especially the foliage thing i disagree with i think. I like that the environment is rich. And balancing animations between looking realistic and feeling powerful is tricky, i just guess they went a bit more for realism arcade.
Once again, AoE4's foliage may make sense for a singleplayer immersivw environement.. BUT, AoE4 evolved into a competitively driven game, from that perspective it needs something that works better for viewing and playing. They could always keep all the extra clutter behind a graphical setting but i guarantee the viewing exp would improve drastically from a competitive graphical setting
To me as a viewer, it was an amazing experience even taking into account all the technical difficulties.
As someone who watches a casted game or 2 a day and plays a game or two of AOE4 a day... i had NO idea the event happened. I might of missed something and maybe its on me but i opened up youtube and there it was. Surely someone like me should have 100% known exaclty when the event was happening like i would a sporting event was on. Like i said perhaps its more on me for not looking into it enough but it completely passed me by.
@@foggymartin i think this is one area I'd love to see some sort of ingame notifications in AoE4. RedBull actually does a really good job marketing these events so I'm a bit surprised you missed it. Definitely a fantastic event
@KillerPigeon in game notifications would be perfect. I certainly would've seen that 👍
@38:00 to exploit bugs or known broken aspects of the game in order to gain an advantage in a competition is never gonna get any respect, rulebooked or not. We all may understand the many reasons why it's not a bannable offense from an admin PoV, yes, but it doesn't change the fact Hera used a dirty trick in the *final* against someone you said yourself almost didnt made it due to health issues.
I don't care if it even helped him to win or not ! We all know Hera has the skill to be champion. He could probably have won not using anything wrong. What happened to Sport? Desire to win so hard he puts sand in his gloves because *technically* it's not written in the book?
Take your crown Hera, i respect you as a person, but you made a mistake.
43:00 my lil bro play aoe2 CBA and he said that thing is really easy to counter, just have the halberdier to standground near the patrolling paladin
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I also believe that we should have at least 1 special map in the ranked pool just to get data on it and try it out every season. What I mean by special map: 1) One map with special properties on otherwise known sites. For instance Sacret Sites now function as healing stations instead of generating gold, markets have to be captured and garrisoned with traders (cap to 10 similar to the sulthani trade network) in order to generate gold and then just be capped at 10 pop. No further scaling. etc. Try these things out as I think a lot can be improved as well. People who do not want to engage with it just downvote and be fine.
This feeds into the limited time game mode ideas. Its a perfect way to test things without it being forced, and it ensures the devs don't have to enter panic mode to fix broken things as quickly, because there'll always be a safe core mode
Should be AOE2 Vs all aoe
Just because they are in the same name family doesn’t mean they are the same or comparable. They are made decades apart by different companies and for different eras.
swear it was a bo9 then suddenly changed to a 5>? noone mentioned anything about that
@@eelm2079 hmm not sure it was ever confirmed a BO9
after watching one of the biggest aoe4 creators milking & fueling the drama, I just wanted to say ty for being the voice of reason KP. it was very sad to see parts of aoe4 return the same toxicity towards aoe2 and for some reason also redbull?
It disappointed me. There's always vocal minorities that will be toxic in any given community, kinda feels like we had an opp to rise above it but chose to dance the dance
@@KillerPigeon yeah I personally was not aware of the drama but as a AoE2 fan and rejector of 3 and 4 (I like 1 in the 2 engine) I feel attacked by a lot of these anti AoE2 comments I see. Like how dare they, after we built the proverbial house they play in. I also feel like there some allegory to zoomer/boomer passive aggressive vibes like the random newcomer zoomers coming from who knows where and acting like AoE2 is some outdated thing and like AoE4 is better because it came out in their generation kinda thing. Like they are “rising up” or something lol, it’s rude and insecure and envious and passive aggressive. Still watching the vid but you seem to have a level headed take
@@nutellabrah6718 so what you're doing here is fueling the hate divide. There's actually a lot more people than you think that love things about both games but lean towards one.
You're complaining about the toxic elements but then becoming one, we should all be striving to do better. All games have their own following and actually AoE4 does reasonably well in what is considered a growth dead genre.
This pettiness isn't a good look for any of the communities. If you really wanted to play the "we paved the way" card someone could point out quake for online gaming and dune for RTS gaming. The point is that games can learn and evolve based on what came before them, they don't have to carbon copy or cater to the exact same audience (and honestly neither should they, what would be the point)
@@KillerPigeon yeah I agree, it is petty and shouldn’t be a thing. Esspecially with the epic castle. As a viewer it out a smile on my face to see such appropriate pageantry and cosplay and people really giving it that classic renaissance fair feel which was surprisingly apt. It was exciting for everyone. It’s like stop fighting got a castle. Maybe everyone took that as their own way to get excited. The AoE2 people felt possessive and gatekeepy of the castle :) and the AoE4 people were like we made it we are here now in the castle respec us. In the end everyone was just excited about the castle. In a way a war breaking out over a castle is pretty lore accurate.
@@nutellabrah6718 " I feel attacked by a lot of these anti AoE2 comments I see. Like how dare they, after we built the proverbial house they play in." Ahahahahaha you're one of those morons
KP was hands down the best caster at the event
I disagree with the point of Hera. There is always something, no matter what, called integrity and honor. That should always supercede any ruleset, game mechanic, bug or otherwise oversight in a competitive spirit to win. The idea that you're willing to "do whatever it takes at the cost of integrity and honor" to win means it's no longer about skill, but who can find the most loopholes to bypass the skill to win. The player who wins should be who is the most skilled. Not the player who can find the most abuses. Developers and rulemakers can't possibly cover every single scenario or issue. That is why it is up to us, the players, to have the integrity to report exploitations and not use them, even if it gives us a competitive edge.
If you need someone to define what integrity, honor, skill, or exploits are, then you're already wrong.
Am I saying "cancel Hera" or flame him or trash talk him or stop following him or anything like that? No, absolutely not. I'm just disappointed in him for doing it, and it's okay for me to feel and say that.
What he did wasn't even unfair. It sounds like that mechanic is very difficult to execute properly, and it will become less effective if it becomes more common. Seems similar to quick walling.
Realistically, Viper didn't even respond to it. It seemed like he was looking somewhere else. If he understood what was happening, he could have moved his army away for a re-engage later. It's even more the case in game 4 than game 3. I feel his attention was obviously elsewhere in game 3. He probably just sent the pikes in and turned his attention elsewhere. Game 4 there was one major fight at the time, so it's a bit surprising he didn't respond.
ye ML confirmed himself being a duckhead bigtime in his speech
That depends. If you know ML and how he is you'd know he's just joking around. He has been like this since the SC2 days where a lot of people were like that. Jokes and smacktalking during interviews was always the norm.
@@stysner4580 yeah, backstage talk, normal interviews, whatever.... but not main speech after biggest tournament of the season... imagine that in olympics... insta ban for no sportmanship
Be glad there's room for stuff like that. It would be so boring to hear the same "thanks to my team and the fans" after every tournament. No thank you.
@@stysner4580 no u
No, you.
Balance wasn't the only reason aoe4 couldn't retain, there was loads wrong with the game. It was a next generation rts that from the point of view of ui features and control was two generations behind aoe2 and sc2 at launch, and is now maybe only one generation behind.
Make no mistake about it, balance was a HUGE problem. Age of springald definitely showed that. There were others though, campaigns and modding were neglected. One of those was definitely fixed with Sultans Ascend and overall AoE4 has come an incredibly long way in just 3 years (sounds like a long time, but for strategy games... they aren't easy to develop and evolve post launch)
@@KillerPigeon Yeah aoe4 has definitely come a long way, it is interesting to wonder how it would have done if it were in the state it is now on launch. I still don't think it would have retained, however, its still not up to par with sc2 and aoe2 from the standpoint of responsiveness, ui, control, etc. I love aoe4, but when I switch from playing some aoe4 to aoe2, it still always feels like a breath of fresh air with how much better aoe2 handles.
@@karlheber23AoE2 feels super tight. I had the same experience trying AOM and it felt sluggish by comparison even though it looks almost the same as DE.
Man no one cares about your opinion why the f are you commenting everything? Go outside you pathetic scrub@@nutellabrah6718
The hotkeys on release were atrocious, and the AI was basic AF. I was pretty excited for AoE4 on release, but all of the issues drove me and my friends back to AoE2.
I tried it a year or two later and found that I was building black smiths instead of barracks. I would end the game with 3-4 black smiths. The hotkeys had improved, but it was still awkward for me. On top of that, it was impossible to convince my friends to give it a try.
I enjoy watching AoE4 now, but I don't think I will try playing it again. I'm loving AoM retold, though. Having some hotkey issues, but nothing on the level I experienced with AoE4.
Great video, but no, no empire wars, please!
Gotta crack some eggs to make an omelette.
EW might not have been the final destination but it could have been part of the journey to improvements, we just refused to even hop on the bus
@@KillerPigeon just dont assume, that every "no empire wars" post means: no change.
This is a bias. I am for many changes, but not for the only sake of spectable.
Just count "no empire wars" as it is, not additionall as "no improvement". You will see your charts will change dramatically!
Ideas like more villagers, change in sound and animation, balance shift
I dont like the idea of "we should be happy and let standards go, just to get a place on red bull wollollo.
While i am ok to only have a showmatch on stage, but then let someone with aoe4 expertise set the rules and maps etc. ..and not like what we get this time. You didnt consider any of that in your "we are the problem" rant..
@@Zeitgeyst now who's making the assumptions.
I've spent countless hours into this game and this community and I wholly recall how EW was received, as have I seen how some vocal individuals have treated modes that deviate from the normal 1v1 format.
Its not everyone, but its a vocal minority that sadly is what gets seen. There's nothing wrong with wanting more, but there's a giant difference between wishing for something and feeling entitled to something.
@@KillerPigeon if a game mode is good, it will prevail eventually (see dota as an extreme example). In my opinion aoe4 is more a case for StarCraft2's more workers in the main game, than find a different game mode that is more showable. I would really like to see a discussion around something like that in a crossover between yourself, somebody like beasty and maybe an Aoe2 Player.
I am open te get my opinion on that changed!
I agree, that aoe4 have room for imrpovement to make it better for casting (e.g. castermode).
I really like the casters for AOE4, the big and small ones, but it is sad to see how the changes are to slow to help you guys out. Thanks for your work and passion btw!
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So vocal minorities are entitled?..so there is no problem i guess, if the rest have legitimat problems with the organisation of the aoe4 part of RBW.. i agree!
Such a wholesome video, it's good to hear positive things about the event.
insightful
Good video!