April 12 (1.3) patch is another step in the right direction

[Dionysus9]

I would like to thank Creative Assembly for the 1.3 (april 12) patch. It has improved my MP experience. On April 11 I was lucky to see 3 games in the "battle list." Last night I saw 20. Huge improvement there. Thanks CA-- keep up the good work. You're not done yet, but you are making progress!

[Gregoshi]

I think a few of us SP guys are all for CA getting your MP problems fixed as a priority. So much potential within grasp...

[t1master]

is it still like kocmoc's one hour in shogun mp thread?

[Marshall Louis-Nicolas Davout]

you must be joking.

I see at least 5 or 4 game when ever I go play online.

But yes,it is good for CA to do this.

[Dionysus9]

T1m -- its much improved over Kocmocs prior post. There are still issues, but not nearly as bad.
Takeda-- have you played yet since the new patch? you will probably see a lot more than 4/5 games now.

[RTKBarrett]

They have lost the majority of interest now... if nothing changes further in two weeks im pretty sure i wont bother either. Its a shame, the game itself is good but the devs dnt know what they are doing for mp and lied about several things in the build up to it.

[Hunter KIng George]

I dont know about the majority losing interest...today I saw tons of games on. And many respected players were logged on. And this is on a weekday, let's see how many are on during the weekend. There are issues no doubt about it, but from my experience it's mostly game crashes from time to time. I know this is enough to turn some players off...but so far the enjoyment of playing the game has outweighed it's issues.

I believe they will eventually get it right.

Nice to see you T1, for what it's worth, I believe the game is still worth getting.

[Kocmoc]

It got better, but its still far away from being good.

1. Ladder is still bugged like hell, we got another 3 "losses" out of a sudden
2. we still see 3:1 or 4:0 playercombinations
3. Client bug still, you restart less, but its still a lot
4. You cant join the team, gets pushed back to main - result is mostly that both has to restart

Im sure CA is working hard on it, but for now, the steps are too small and the time they need is too long. We need way more fixes than this.
I cant aplaude for this, this are "patches" which shouldnt be happen, this should be fixed before release.

And now lets look at the ingame problems, which didnt got touched at all!

1. 22k games still around, maybe CA wont change it at all, if so, that make a statement. The information policy is still terrible.
2. Moral and the penalties, its still a matter and more people will ask: Where on earth is the so called moral?
3. alt-f4. We got 3 losses yesterday, because 2 camper with magonels did alt-f4 vs. us at some point.


The game has potential, i repeat that since weeks, its good after all. Just that there are a big bunch of problems, bugs, imbalances, bad designed things...

[Dionysus9]

I had a chance to play for a lot longer tonight and I had absolutely no problems playing a couple of 3v3's and several 2v2's with clan mates-- we tried MM and also hosted battles and they all worked. For a second after finding an MM opponent it had us split 3v1 for a moment, but it corrected itself (which it didn't used to do). I also was able to host a "classic battle" for the first time.

Since the new patch we can now play against a lot more European and Asian folks which is pretty cool because it offers a big pool of talent and a large player base that wasn't there two days ago.

It was the first time my multiplayer experience was not marred by any serious bugs. I played for 2.5 hours with absolutely no problems, no restarts, no crashes. And I was playing 1v1, 2v2, and 3v3's. Made a new friend from Romania, too.

So far I'd say the latest patch is a success (not the ultimate success but for what it is-- a preliminary patch-- it is a success) and if you haven't played lately then you shouldn't knock it until you've tried it. Yes there are still droppers, yes the ladder is terribly bugged, yes large clans are unstoppable in the clan competition-- but tonight I really had a good time with no problems. It gives me some serious hope for the future.

If you have no interest in epeen, the game is shaping up nicely. They still have work to do, and a fair bit of it-- but if they continue on this path they will get it done.

[Kocmoc]

Well, the problem I see is (not a bug), that Im forced to play MM to gain tokens, to upgrade my vets. If I dont do that, I lack good units in hosted games.

So we are forced to play MM and roll over 95% bad player. I wish there were a "challenge" mode, where we could challenge other top teams via MM.

[Dionysus9]

A challenge function would be very nice and really should be implemented. It also might help them fix the ladder system. As Wolves, you and Magyar would probably still roll over 87.5% of the "top teams" anyway so you might not notice a huge difference.

I know that is not your only concern-- but the new Avatar and vet system via MM battles is basically still experimental and it is fun, and that is what most people are doing, but you could stick to "Classic Battles" and avoid all of those issues.

Right now my main concerns are (in no particular order) Non-functioning morale penalties (several types), forced 22k for high ranking MM battles (magnifying non-functioning morale penalties), non-functioning retainers and clan token skills, mega-clans being unbeatable in the clan competition (you could win 100% of matches against them as herioc victories and still not even make a dent in their provincial holdings), ALT-F4 droppers (affecting ladder ranking), other ladder bugs affecting ranking (randomly fluctuating ranking).

I haven't seen any rtillery spamming lately so maybe that has been fixed (1 unit max?)-- if not add it to my list.

Then again as long time players we are pretty picky. What's important post 1.3 patch is that the instability of the MP platform itself appears to be fixed. If you play only 10k classic battles with friends, almost none of those issues will affect you. Of course nobody is doing that because the avatar/vet system is so much fun-- but my point is -- for the first time since launch there is a way to play predictably stable MP battles that are essentially bug-free (classic battles only, mind you) and similar in form to prior TW releases. I recognize the classic battles are no longer as exciting as they used to be (with the avatar/vet system) but they appear to be stable now.

[Swoosh So]

I dont mind doing matchmaker to gain tokens, i wish u got more than 1 per match tho if u used a retainer or something, have to say tho the game is excellent in the hosted battles i really cant knock it despite the problems elsewhere.

[Magyar Khan]

the rate at which CA is solving problems is below anything......... so many odd bugs and stuff going on and some of them are so simple to correct and they are still in the game...... if i was a CA employee i would not sleep well last weeks...

[Marshall Louis-Nicolas Davout]

T1m -- its much improved over Kocmocs prior post. There are still issues, but not nearly as bad.
Takeda-- have you played yet since the new patch? you will probably see a lot more than 4/5 games now.

There were 4 games always.You in the UK?

[KrooK]

The problem is that game is still divided on regions.
In Poland when I'm trying to find game there is no more than 1 pending.
Another problem are quitters. Alf + F4 still works. Into earlier parts of total war serie this problem was not so big. When quitter was called quitter into international chat, everyone knew that he is quitter and should be kicked from games. Now quitter can join another game without problems. Good option would be special information that player is using alf + f4 into end screen. This would help a lot into tournaments.

Magyar - if I were a CA employee, I would sleep perfectly. Everyone is bashing at them and... still buying their games.

[Kocmoc]

If we could see all hosted games, than It would be fine actual, but sadly I just can see my regional games.