Why so few players?

[Lord Commander Dante]

Just wondering really. This game isn't even old.

[Sharpnessism]

Another problem is that Triumph relies on data like "number of hours spent playing X mode", which isn't always a good idea of where to invest effort.

For example, the Warcraft and Starcraft strategy games series had people spending a massive number of hours playing multiplayer (hundreds or thousands in MP, compared to 40-100 hours in the campaign). Yet it was the story of these games that hooked players in, the 'character' of the units that made it charming, and the iconic characters that brought kept people playing & buying sequels.

There is too much focus in AoW4 on procedural generation of maps, interchangeable races (essentially cosmetic), and we don't even have unit descriptions anymore in AoW. Too many things feel completely replaceable and forgettable.

[Draken]

One of my gripes with the game:
Too many decisions that matter too little.

For an example let's compare the unit modding in Planetfall with AoW4.
In Planetfall you have 3 slots, but the mods you can put there are powerful. You boost a unit's power level tremendously, or change it's role on the battlefield. Want to turn your scout into an actual combat unit? With the right mods you can. Turn your generic low tier range unit into a support unit that can shoot? You can.

Compared to AoW4 you have an unlimited number of enchantments you can slap on your units. But the power level of those enchantments are far lower, both in actual power as well as in scope. Most give you a few stats improvements. Abilities are rare and usually just make a unit better at it's job. Enchantments are also pre-assigned to a certain unit type.

Want to give a mending touch to your shield units? Nope. Want to give an enchantment that improves arrows to your arrow using scouts? Nope.

This means that in Planetfall you really noticed the changes your mod selection made to the units in battle. While in AoW4 most enchantments just make the units look slightly different, but play the same. Just a small bit stronger.

The same is true for province management, city buildings, empire tree and tome research. Everywhere you go you have a lot of choices to make, but they do not feel that impactful to me.

Even your choices for starting the game, race, traits, culture and society, do matter a lot less than in previous games. The Tome system quickly starts to overshadow them.

[TirAsleen]

Originally posted by Busta Cap:

If you compare everything to daggerfall the last 20 years have been a disappointment. Every bethseda game has been smaller in scope and less complex that the one before and this remains the biggest land mass in an RPG ever (even most of it is random). I mean 3 countries!

No, i just play Arena currently, graphics aged like milk and it got no unity mod, but its still very addictive with a surprisingly well designed massive dungeons some say better than in Daggerfall, btw it has 8 Provinces all of Tamriel! A game that was released in the early 1994...and i am just here posting, because i got a crash after 70 hours playing it. Dunno how Oblivion and Skyrim is, Morrowind was disappointing coming from Daggerfall, because it lacked the big scale and the horror ambience with its screaming skeletons and jumpscares. It got an excellent Jeremy Soule OST, though.

People say this year was a good year for gaming, i say every year in the 90ies was a good year for gaming. The GOTY is BG3, but BG was created in the 90ies and Larian just continued an idea that was an original 90ies creation, like Bethesda continues the work of the original 90ies designers of ES. Seems to work looking at the sales for Skyrim.

It was possible to quest in Skyrim in early 1994 in Arena allready and i had my fun sending people that only played ES5: Skyrim pixelated screenshots of Arena while standing in the snowy Skyrim province, something you cannot do in Daggerfall or Morrowind.

[<click here>]

Originally posted by Sharpnessism:

Another problem is that Triumph relies on data like "number of hours spent playing X mode", which isn't always a good idea of where to invest effort.

For example, the Warcraft and Starcraft strategy games series had people spending a massive number of hours playing multiplayer (hundreds or thousands in MP, compared to 40-100 hours in the campaign). Yet it was the story of these games that hooked players in, the 'character' of the units that made it charming, and the iconic characters that brought kept people playing & buying sequels.

There is too much focus in AoW4 on procedural generation of maps, interchangeable races (essentially cosmetic), and we don't even have unit descriptions anymore in AoW. Too many things feel completely replaceable and forgettable.

100%

During the late '90s, there were three highly praised real-time strategy games: Red Alert, Total Annihilation, and Starcraft

Red Alert and Starcraft are both beloved series that made a mark on the cultural gaming zeitgeist.

But Total Annihilation? I remember as soon as Starcraft came out, no one except gaming hipsters cared about Total Annihilation anymore. Its not because Total Annihilation was bad (it won numerous awards), but because Starcraft's single player campaign really sticks out.

Its been decades since I played Total Annihilation, and I don't remember anything that happened in the story. If someone asked me what it was about, the only thing I could tell them, without googling it, is that its about a robot commander duking it out with another robot commander. Meanwhile, its also been decades since I played Starcraft, yet I still remember getting to use Zeratul for the first time in the story and thinking, "Damn dark templars are so cool. I wish I could use them in multiplayer".

Its not a coincidence that the most popular 4X game of the last decade is Stellaris. Despite not having a single player campaign, its still a narrative driven game (precursors, fallen empires, crisis, random narrative events, etc)

A game that stands the test of time is memorable. A game that does not stand the test of time is sterile. Age of Wonders 4 is a good game. But its sterile.

[Stinkypoo]

core gameplay is somewhat shallow and what made the game appealing was the idea of making a lot of choices for a faction in-game and out.

[jeopard]

Originally posted by Archon:

Originally posted by isaacaderogba1:

At least for me, the constant skirmishes in AOW4 just wears me down after a while. Waiting for them to expand other gameplay areas

This is largely why I've been playing Master of Magic and Endless Legend more than AoW these days. In MoM, the battles are quick, but tactical and satisfying,. In EL, they are smaller scale, short by-design and use an 'orders system' to reduce the micro-management.

I used to love the tactical battles in AoW ... now, not so much. I just find them incredibly tedious more than anything, especially in AoW4, where the units and combat situations often seem very "samey" and never unfold in unexpected ways.

In fact, I don't think I've ever been surprised by how a battle unfolded in AoW4; the units, tome enchantments, limited maps, and lack of meaningful racial traits, etc. all diminish the experience to a great degree.

You can never go wrong playing Master of Magic. Which AoW game is most similar?

[TirAsleen]

Originally posted by jeopard:

You can never go wrong playing Master of Magic. Which AoW game is most similar?

AoW2 is basicly the TS version of MoM.

[CrUsHeR]

Originally posted by Sharpnessism:

There is too much focus in AoW4 on procedural generation of maps

That's... a pretty weird statement.

AOW3 has a truly amazing map generator. Not only does every map generation look very different, but it also has more than a dozen sliders to really finetune everything.
Example you can take a Continents map and increase the water level, or take an Island maps and reduce the water level. Full control over Climes distribution, etc.

AOW4 maps however look all the same; after playing so many maps, you can recognize that they always consist of several identical prefab parts. There are some global settings like all-desert or something, but absolutely zero controls like the AOW3 sliders.

Particularily ugly is the distribution of the resource nodes. It always looks like someone spilled a bag of candy across the map; i.e. it doesn't even matter where you found a city, it's all filled to the brim with resources. No strategical value in anything.

The appearance of the map also never changes in AOW4, example a Necromancer doesn't fill his domain with tombs and corruption like in AOW3, there is nothing like the Blight Empire spell and such.



Also gotta say that i never played any of the AOW3 campaigns, same with Planetfall and AOW4. Random maps is where the heart of the series is, but this also failed in AOW4, badly.

[Warlord]

It's not casual friendly.
No real marketing budget.

4x genre very niche.

[CrUsHeR]

Originally posted by Warlord:

It's not casual friendly.
No real marketing budget.

4x genre very niche.

Funny - facts are the exact opposite



1) AOW4 was aggressively advertised through influencers and developer broadcasts like no other Triumph game before (probably no other PDX game either).

This made your "very niche game" the #1 steam top seller months before release, not counting F2P microtransactions for other games.



2) Literally everything about the game is 100% casual friendly, greatly dumbed down over the older games in the series. We're talking mobile / console gaming levels of complexity.

Just look at the map generator, there are only a few options you can set, and most of these are of the challenge / meme type of map. Ooh-ho-ho, the whole map is now desolate terrain with unicorns, very funny.

The only thing which is more complex than the predecessor is the city building, and this part is specifically aimed at the Civ player audience. Aka the ultra-casual strategy gamers.

[DreadReapr]

join official aow4 discord and you can find a link to our MP discord server
cant share it here so i dont get banned

[Asmodean]

Originally posted by Blanch Warren:

You should see how often I play EU4 these days. I am willing to play PBEM, though.

I even undust now and then my old turn-based (not the real time remake) version of Master of Orion 2