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November 30, 2021
Gaming
First major Age of Empires IV patch is an absolute mess
Age of Empires IV has been a revitalizing influence to the RTS genre, bringing in multiple franchises and players from across different genres back to Real-Time Strategy. Although the launch featured many bugs and issues, players had been content to wait for a fix.
After the developer Relic Entertainment announced their roadmap earlier in November, hopes were high for the first major update, but they were to to be disappointed.
Winter has come early and our Winter 2021 update is now available on Steam (other platforms later today)!
It brings with it a number of community-requested changes (including optional player scores) and more than 100 balance and bug fixes!
While the developers introduced plenty of balance changes for the game, they seem to be headed in the wrong direction for many players. The most prominent example is probably the Delhi Sultanate, which had only recently started to be competitive. In contrast to the the dominating French or Mongol civilzations, Delhi got hit hard by the nerf bat. The popular Sacred Site opener was heavily nerfed along with their research speeds and many other miscellaneous adjustments.
Springalds were also untouched in the Winter Update, although they have dominating the troop composition across all game modes. Even pro players added their voice to the chorus that the developers seemingly lack direction in terms of balancing.
Like, there's a lot of positive stuff, but I feel like the most important stuff that would make me want to queue up game after game is still missing. Really hope the next batch of balance changes won't be too far away. Not sure how long I can play against springalds.
Other changes like the adjustments to horsemen are also confusing. While they got a bonus of 1 armor, their HP was also reduced, not even properly buffing a unit that barely has a place in the meta.
You can read the full Patch Notes on the official site here:
If it was only a disagreement on balancing between developers and players, the patch might still have been a decent one, as it does fix many issues. But unfortunately for the fans the new patch is also riddled with new bugs. That is in addition to bugs or exploits that are still unfixed as of now (like the HRE’s Prelates or the infinite resource exploit in Imperial Age).
The new bugs are plentiful: Scholars for Delhi are reportedly increasing research times for technology instead of reducing it, Elite Camel Archers lose Abbasid-specific upgrades if the player researches Incendiary Arrows and more.
Absolute worst offender is without a doubt the infinite range Spearman that can be created by researching the Abbasid technology Phalanx multiple times in the Barracks.
Here is the gamebreaking bug in action:
While it obviously is broken beyond belief in terms of balance and fair competitive games, it also crashes lower end PCs as they cannot keep up with infinitely increasing ranges.
Can Relic Entertainment fix this mess?
All these bugs make it apparent that Relic Entertainment’s quality assurance is not up to par. Many have suggested public test servers or open beta patches to let the community help them, but it remains to be seen if the developers will listen.
I think this AOE4 patch really shows why having a PTR is so important nowadays.
First order of business has to be a hotfix for the most glaring issues players have found within hours of the new patch. Secondly Relic needs to take a good hard look at themselves and how they want to take care of Age of Empires IV.
The game has started out as the new hope for the RTS genre, but if future patches are not improved AoE IV could end up binned before it ever had a fighting chance.
