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Dionysus9
01-13-2003, 00:21
As many people have noted the gamespy serve seems to have trouble with large numbers of people online.

Today I saw 171 people online--thats the most I've ever seen and must be close to the record.

This is a good thing if the server can handle the strain, but if not then we are going to have problems...

...can we get any assurances from CA or Gamespy that things will run smoothly at 200+ players online?

CA?

youssof_Toda
01-13-2003, 01:05
Don't expect them to pay too much attention to the problems of the 'small 0,1% segment' of the MTW market.

Magyar Khan
01-13-2003, 01:22
yes sadly
i hope thatw e get the option to make subrooms as we could in old shogMI

with 200+ men the problems will certainly increase. as the currently hosted gameslist will be as long as the currently playinglist of prepatch period. and we all know what happen then...

AMPage
01-13-2003, 03:19
That small percent could be much bigger, if they worked more on multiplayer. I see players come and go everyday i'm on, because of the poor multi.

Puzz3D
01-13-2003, 21:40
I got disconnected from the foyer when the 170 were online, and I noticed considerable lag on text messages. I also got disconnected after every game I hosted. This problem doesn't happen to me every time when fewer players are online.

If additional options on ammo, fatigue and morale are not possible, I would like to see a more reasonable second choice on each of these. I spend a lot of time in the foyer every day, and as far as I can see "NOBODY" is using the secondary options. I think it's because the secondary settings are too extreme. Why not make the settings:

Ammo..... normal and 2x (excluding arbs)
Fatigue.. normal and 1/2 rate
Morale... normal and +4

I think those secondary settings would get used. Also, we should come up with some specific cost adjustments on certain units. Some things I would do are:

Return all spear units to the original v1.0 costs.
Increase Byzantine Infantry from 175 --> 225.
Increase lancers from 800 --> 925.

bosdur
01-13-2003, 21:45
I would say the proper pricing for lancer is around 1050-1100, a valor 2 khwzarmian cavalry costs 1083 and has same stats with lancers.

LadyAnn
01-13-2003, 22:01
Lancer costs 1100 on v1.0. They changed it to give a chance to Spain SP (cause Spain is too hard to play). That messed thing up royally.

Dancing lancer are cheap http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

Annie

Knight_Yellow
01-13-2003, 22:02
i feel that gamespy with the help of CA should create more servers since the 171 ppl online made it impossible to chat since so many posts where cumming up and also even using private chat was very hard since sometimes ppl are marked as ingame/AFK even when there not.

PS. ive seen two extremes this morning (the morning after 171 ppl) 171 ppl then a few hours after 11 ppl.

FasT
01-13-2003, 22:02
yes i was there, got 2 172..was Sunday nite:)

No lag for me in game or text...Just same annoyin this ppl in list greyed out when not in game http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pissed.gif

Magyar Khan
01-14-2003, 02:41
well for now lag is for me the same as always been in MTW

i also vote for Puzz3D idea and i hope his influence amongst teh betas is enuf to pursuave johnnylong

Dionysus9
01-14-2003, 04:32
I dont know why we cant have more options like Puzz is requesting. Why only have ON/OFF for fatigue and morale?? Isnt that a little simplistic? How hard can it be to give us a few options?

Another MUST HAVE is an auto-download for custom maps. As it is, custom maps are few and far between because its tough to get 7 other people to download your map. The map editor is better than it was and easier to use, and yet we have less custom maps. Gah.

All I can say is Gah.

ShadesWolf
01-14-2003, 07:46
Lag as always is a major problem for me. I only have a 56k modem (We dont have broadband or cable where I live)

I can manage (sometimes) to host a 1v1 but that is about it.

In the main I have to join games hosted by other people. This really angers me.

As for the number people online, the more that come online the worst my connection seems to get.

Dionysus9
01-14-2003, 09:35
Quote[/b] (Puzz3D @ Jan. 13 2003,14:40)]Return all spear units to the original v1.0 costs.
Increase Byzantine Infantry from 175 --> 225.
Increase lancers from 800 --> 925.
Yuuki, re: unit costs

I agree all spears should be returned to v1.0 costs.

I agree lancers should be increased to 925.

I disagree about the byz inf. I think we need to pump their cost up to 275 at least. They are simply the most powerful unit in the game at a very very low cost. A cost of 275 brings them in line with chivmenatarms according to my calculations.

Amp, re: MP

I've come to the conclusion that CA leadership are shortsighted corporate boobs. Their "less than 1 percent" argument is circular-- its akin to saying "our plants dont survive with the meager amount of water we give them--why should we waste more perfectly good water on dying plants?"

Well damnit if you gave the plants/mp-players the attention they deserve/need they would grow properly. If you ignore them they are going to shrink. Its elementary logic--doesnt take a genius.

These are the same people that told Gil he had to come to the .Org on his own time. Bunch of braniacs over there at CA.

baz
01-14-2003, 09:58
at some point sunday evening i saw 185 ppl online...

Kocmoc
01-14-2003, 10:46
1 more problem, we cant open single rooms. like we could do in stw....for a tourney this foyer is very bad.

AMP is right here, many comes online and try to play but leave in a short time again...as they come maybe from SP and try to play MP....and they dont know that this brings problems... if CA would do some more effort in the MP market im sure much more would come and play....

i dont speak about balancing as they dont help us in this matter, they just want our money for the vikings ....so we pay for a patch wich cant realy help, the vikings will jsut unbalance it once more, so we see new problems and than we need 3 months again to get a patch.....well....lol...if they give us a patch after publishing vikings....

this isnt a support, nether its true what they wrote in the advertise, this is just a very bad support, lets say....it isnt a support, so many bugs....so many dissapointed players. all agree there are very bad disbalances....so i ask, hell at least give us a short patch to fix the balance.
this is something wich can be fast done, u guys need just some hours to put thisa patch up.

...and dont tell me activision dont allow it. LMAO
than bring a beta....jeez, i never understand how a company can still live if they act like this guys....

koc

CBR
01-14-2003, 16:25
Quote[/b] (bosdur @ Jan. 13 2003,20:45)]I would say the proper pricing for lancer is around 1050-1100, a valor 2 khwzarmian cavalry costs 1083 and has same stats with lancers.
V3 mounted sergeants cost 859 and V0 Chiv knights cost 650..and have same attack/defense/morale (ofc mounted sergeants add cav shields but has less armour against missile)

V2 Alan cost 578 and V0 feudal knights cost 425, same total combat stats(shields included)and morale, ofc Alan is faster


If you can upgrade a cheap unit to be nearly as good as an expensive unit for the same cost the whole idea of buying the expensive units is gone. More details about Lancers in next post.

CBR

CBR
01-14-2003, 17:25
Quote[/b] (Puzz3D @ Jan. 13 2003,20:40)]Ammo..... normal and 2x (excluding arbs)
Fatigue.. normal and 1/2 rate
Morale... normal and +4

I think those secondary settings would get used. Also, we should come up with some specific cost adjustments on certain units. Some things I would do are:

Return all spear units to the original v1.0 costs.
Increase Byzantine Infantry from 175 --> 225.
Increase lancers from 800 --> 925.
Yes these setting are rarely used so they might as well be changed a bit to help MP

I think Im more and more in favor of +6 morale as we are already using lots of V3 units in the 15K games.

Next thing is the Lancers.

Now first I will explain how I see it:

If we can get +4 or +6 morale to all units we dont need to play with 15k+


What should we play with then?

Well I would like to see more unit types used and the only way that can be done is to decrease florin level so we cant buy just the good units. That would mean playing at 5-6K florins.

Balanced army example:

4 order foot 4x400 1600
4 cmaa 4x250 1000
4 Pav arb 4x300 1200
4 chiv knight 4x650 2600

total 6400 florins

Now some might buy more heavy cavalry instead of spears, that might be 6 cav 2 spears or 8 cav 0 spears. Total cost would then be 6900 or 7400 florins.

So if we are going to force people to pick the weaker types of units we would have to go down to 6k and less.

That ofc means no or very few upgrades at all.

Some say that is part of the "skill" to buy the correct upgrades. I disagree..but if you want money for upgrades (the current 70% cost or even the pre-patch 50%) you will end up having so much money that we still wont see the weaker units. We cant have both.


And finally Lancers:

Yes with the current florin levels they should be more expensive..925 sounds like a nice number but if we can get the +4/+6 morale increase and we reduce the florins to 5-6K then what?

Lets take the balanced army at 6400 florins. If I pick Spanish and buy Lancers instead of Chiv knights I would have to pay for the 600 florins somewhere. I could reduce my spears and go down to 2 chiv sergeants and 2 feudal sergeants or cut down to 3 Lancers and 1 Alan or take 2 lancers and 2 chivknights and take 2 order 1 chiv sergeant and 1 feudal sergeant..etc etc

If we had the same army just with 15K the only real difference would be perhaps one upgrade extra for a chiv knight and that makes Lancers very good at high florin games.

But at low florins the 150 cost difference between Lancers and chiv knights will force the Spanish player to make reductions in his army.

Now 150 florins might not be enough but as I see it Lancers should max get a cost increase of say.. 50. Yes it doesnt sound as much but it will make a difference.


Its a question of what we want:

Continue to play at high florin levels and really only have a handful of units to pick from, as the rest are too weak.

Or do we play at less florins (that ofc requires an increase in morale) and have more units to pick from as you simply dont have money to buy only the best.



CBR

Puzz3D
01-14-2003, 17:54
Bosdur,

You can't really compare v0 and v2 units using their upgraded costs. The upgrade costs are overvalued so that cheap units can't be upgraded to be more powerful than the more costly elite units. What I did for the lancer estimate was take the v0 chiv knight as the basis around which you would balance all the other cav. The lancer has 2 more combat points, and 2 more armor than the chiv knight. Each combat point improves a unit by 20%, so I took 650 * 1.2 * 1.2 = 936. Now you could say the 2 additional armor points should increase the lancer's cost to possibly something like 1000 or 1050, but I didn't want to err on the upside because the lancer is a special faction unit. Also at 1105 upgraded cost, the v1 chiv knight is superior to the lancer since it has same combat and +2 morale, although, its armor is 2 points less. In practice, I would say +2 morale outweighs -2 armor especially since the chiv knight is already well armored. You could push the lancer up to 975 florins, but I wouldn't go beyond that. If you do this kind of analysis on the khwazmain cav, it comes out to 780 florins with -4 morale still to be added. So I think that's still in line with my suggested lancer cost However, the expensive cav units did get a cost reduction in the v1.1 patch which the less expensive cav didn't get, so the less expensive cav did loose ground relative to the expensive cav. It could be that there are other cav units that need adjusting.


Dion,

I didn't really use a calculation to suggest 225 for the Byz inf, but I would have the same reservations about bringing its cost up too much and possibly overly weakening the Byz as a faction. However, maybe it does need a bit more than I suggested. The chiv maa at 250 florins is +2 combat and +4 morale but 60 men vs the 100 man Byz inf. The +2 combat alone would make the Byz inf's 175 cost equivalency 252. So in v1.1, we have the Byz inf's extra men counterbalancing its lower morale in some unfathomable way. If we get the +4 morale setting, the disadvantage of the Byz inf's lower morale would dimminish somewhat. Once again, I wouldn't want to overprice a factions special unit, but I can see a higher price on the Byz inf than I suggested, and 250 to 275 may well be the right cost range for it. You could drop it to 80 men, but I wanted to keep my suggestions within something that LongJohn is willing to do.

I would interject here that the cost of upgrading ranged units could be put back to being the same as all other units like it was in v1.0 if the archers were tweaked up a bit in effectiveness. This is something that I know LongJohn has resisted doing due to SP concerns, but I have reason to believe that typical ranged kills for an archer in a MP battle are around 15 total. That's almost negligable in terms of impact on a battle.


Kocmoc,

There won't be any small patches for MTW. We did get adjustments made to MP playbalance in the v1.1 patch, so we should try to nail down some cost adjustments on MTW units for the VI add-on. There are new units and new factions coming with that add-on, so you're right that new imbalances will probably show up, but, if things run true to form, there will be one patch issued for the add-on and a chance to get the new stuff re-costed. We should try to make the most of that. Balance in MP can only be arrived at by our collective battle experience. CA has a good product in MTW. Did you ever see anything approaching 185 in the STW foyer? Their support is industry standard, but the devs come here to the org which is above what most other companies do for their games. In financial terms, the cost of MTW is insignificant to the total money I spend each year to survive. Total War series is by far the best computer gaming value I've ever purchased.


CBR,

That's correct that the game balance shifts with different florin amounts. My suggestions were not aimed at optimizing low floring games. If we don't get the +4 or +6 morale adjustment for the second setting, we will be stuck continuing to play in the 15k to 20k range. I was thinking a +4 morale would put you at around 8k florins for a game, and that would allow for some upgrading or customizing of units if you will which seems to be what CA wants. The MP is more like a construction set where it's left to the players to find what works and what doesn't. If we do get the morale increase, that will benefit the lower morale units more than it does the higher moral units. You can't really balance the MP game the way it's set up, but I think we could try to get some of the obvious bumps ironed out.

Dionysus9
01-14-2003, 22:09
Quote[/b] (Kocmoc @ Jan. 14 2003,03:46)]...jeez, i never understand how a company can still live if they act like this guys....

koc
I'm always suprised they stay afloat too, but I'm pretty sure there are 2 reasons:

1) as much as we grumble most of us still plunk down our $$$ when the Vikings get here; and,

2) as many MP players as they are alienating, they are selling enough games to enough SP players to make it worth their while and keep the games coming.

I think thats how they manage to stay in business.

baz
01-15-2003, 01:27
the way puzz works the effectiveness of a unit out really seems to make sense to me .. do CA not look at this method??