MP Losing Appeal [Archive]

Yun Dog

02-09-2007, 02:29

Bugs and balance will always affect MP more than SP, little things that can be overlooked in SP campaign (since unit upgrades mean seldomly fighting 'equal' battles) are a major problem for MP.
I say this with regards competitive games where both sides want an equal chance of success. However, if this competitiveness is ignored and the game is approached from a 'fun' angle (and fun does not mean you do not try to win) and the battle is enjoyed as just that, a good battle regardless of who is victorious; the game is very enjoyable.
That being said, MPers are a competitive bunch on the whole and maybe this is the reason so many 'old' players left the community. Time will tell if the next patch manages to bring some back.
Speaking for myself, I never got that involved with competitive battles, even back in Shogun days I always hosted and attacked hard maps where defenders had the advantage (these are still some of the best battles I've had) and the other players had a great time too. There again I took part in one CWB battle and that did not compare at all, in fact I can say that it was boring (at least it was for me)
I'm enjoying M2TW but my approach to the game may not suit others. MP has never attracted a huge following with this series, it's a shame

.......Orda

TWMP has always been the 'mongoloid half-brother kept in the attic' of the TW games. They are ashamed of it but neither can they kill it, so they provide a place for it (but really they wouldnt be sad if the MP community just went away or starved to death). :inquisitive:

any fun had by the MP community has been due to the community and nothing to do with the game makers efforts, if anything they have continually (deliberately or not) wrecked MP.

problems

LAG and all the other issues of balance etc

if you decrease the lag or are playing to win at all, then you'll have the graphics turned down (lag) and you'll be zoomed out (tactics) so basically the benefits of the 'eye candy' have been null and void for MP. Thus for the Mpers the game has become drastically worse over the last two builds.

As Orda says - the community needs to find ways to make playing the game fun in spite of the problems inherent and the absence of support - or give up. :thumbsdown:

pike master

02-09-2007, 06:48

maybe for individual for fun players the atmosphere is a little cold. maybe more veteran players should play more with these people to get them interested in the game more.

7Bear7Bottom

02-09-2007, 10:24

Vikings was built for multiplayer. It will always be the best.:smash:

Orda Khan

02-09-2007, 11:39

There are so many ways of playing this game online to have good fun without hoping for each and every faction to be perfectly balanced (it became clear when MTW came along that this sort of balance was gone).
I had a great time playing faction v faction simulated battles with MTW, call it role playing or whatever. In a 3v3 situation this type of battle provides a lot of fun and enjoyment, just think of some historical clashes. Hungary v Turks, England v France, Mongols v Russia or Poland or Hungary, Spain v Moors, there are so many. When the game is approached in this way it is not so intense and these issues like finding the very best units or factions or counter factions simply don't matter anymore. New/different tactics can be used, maybe some that you'd never attempt in a competitive setting.
One addition to MP that I would like to see is separate lobbies so things like the above would be easier to arrange. Oh, and a lot more maps. The map choices since RTW have been very poor and limited

.......Orda

x-dANGEr

02-09-2007, 11:50

Original Shogun was drawing over 100 players at peak times from Oct 2000 until June 2001 when the MI expansion was released which changed the original Shogun for the worse and participation dropped to about 40 at peak. M2TW probably sold 10 times or more as many copied as original STW, so M2TW having less online participation than original STW is revealing.
Added to the fact that back then, internet wasn't as "spread" as now.

-Silent-Someguy

02-09-2007, 12:59

:daisy:

Puzz3D

02-09-2007, 14:07

Who cares what u think?
The people who haven't purchased M2TW, and who now won't.

Zeph

02-09-2007, 15:49

If people won't purchase a game because of a few posts on the forums then i feel sorry for them. Me personally i love mtw2 mp and see plenty of people on all the time. I have over 4k seperate pids picked up, so theres plenty of players.

peacedog

02-09-2007, 16:09

I was gonna do a long post, but Orda Khan said it all for me :-)

All i can add myself, is that the focus should be on all players, not just clanbods. So many times i have entered the forum to see 6 clan only games with passwords, but none for others. if you want more players then you have to be open to new players.
I am used to it as ive been playing for a while, but i can see it as being offputting for those new to the game.

|Heerbann|_Di3Hard

02-09-2007, 17:01

Vikings was built for multiplayer. It will always be the best.:smash:

YEAH this evening we start at 20:00 GMT be there!! MTW VI rulez. All later games in MP are :wall:

Callahan9119

02-09-2007, 17:06

yeah i kinda stopped playing mp, in no small part due to gamespy...but it, like rome, hasnt lived up to my expectations

maybe its like dudes who think anything after the beetles or rolling stones is junk music...not that i agree with that, but just using it as an example of my feelings towards anything after mtw1 :inquisitive:

just cant get into it anymore, and i cant really understand why. it just feels like something was lost in translation when they redid the engine

i can still fire up a campaign of mtw2 and enjoy myself (although every minute i am lamenting the fact there is no glorious achievments) but there just seems to be alot better mp games out there to waste time playing mtw2 mp

maybe my romantic attachment to mtw1 prevents me from enjoying anything that isnt mtw1 ~:confused:

|Heerbann|_Luculus

02-09-2007, 19:32

We had been looking forward and waited a long time for M2TW, but then we had to see, that we cannot get as like fun in MP as we had expected.

Many of these who like the TW series make similar postings to this question.

I think there are a lot of new players who are testing the mp and have fun to see the lots of nice details. But these are not the players who will play this for a long time.

There are also a lot of old clans coming back to M2Tw but in my opinion most of the TW-series-players miss some important things.

So Bottom said it in one statement: M2TW is not made for MP.

I like battles with as much reality simulation as possible, where the choice of armies, deployment and tactics and teamplay decides if win or loose.

At this point I have to make "marketing" again: We play MTW/VI instead of M2TW, cause this is real fun and all experienced players know what makes the difference.

So have a look, make a couple of battles in VI and compare. You will find out what causes more fun and affords Your skill.

We re starting in 2 hours today. Hope to see You in VI.

Strength and Honour

Zeph

02-09-2007, 20:15

lol so your saying mtw2 takes no skill to play? Man you lot are funny. Your just a bunch of grass is always greener types.

pike master

02-10-2007, 05:33

Cerxes

02-10-2007, 06:15

basicallly a cav army will pretty much ruin just about any other army in the game. peasants that have 3 defence skill with faster animations than most units in the game. two handed units that get owned by any unit in the game. sounds pretty lame to me.

mtw2 definetly doesnt take the kinda skill to play as you would have to have in shogun, viking invasion or rome. when all you have to do is use a cav spam army.

I have a near 50/50 statistical victories over cav spam armies, where I for myself using a mixed combination, so I can´t agree with you that they are almost invincible. But pure HA armies are really hard to beat (depends on what kind of map of course...). But I do agree with you that there are some serious bugs, specially 2H and shield. Those will hopefully be fixed in the next patch release. /C.

Orda Khan

02-10-2007, 13:27

Let's not get too carried away with how good MTW/VI was because my memories of that game are not so fond. All I remember is the sword/cav dominance that ruined the game totally. IMO, MTW 1.0 was far superior in gameplay but people did not like spears beating swords (100 spears v 60 swords) that sounds about right to me since the swords are only just over half the size and would still win from the flank

......Orda

Callahan9119

02-10-2007, 14:00

hmmm cav didnt dominate really till after the lancer patch, which oddly enough is when i stopped playing mtw1 :book:

i didnt really get into the whole sword vs spear thing, i thought it was overblown, i never expected my infantry to win any fights, spears did fine for me when used for what they were supposed to, beating cav and standing there in front of the enemy lines like a big speed bump, kill rates were so low in that game it didnt matter what your inf was

it was just there to make a line and allow you to maneuver your other troops

i always used those saracen spears and the other ones, cant remember the names, was a smaller unit size and they were fast

even if it was as bad as you say, spearmen were usually scrubs anyway historically, untill the pike craze

Monarch

02-10-2007, 20:26

Many of these who like the TW series make similar postings to this question.

I think there are a lot of new players who are testing the mp and have fun to see the lots of nice details. But these are not the players who will play this for a long time.

Yes, and? Are you saying that players that have *only* been playing since around Rome have an opinion that is not as credible as someone whose been playing since mtw?

TBH I think theres alot of people here who played stw, not all of them, who for some reason can't get over themselves and think their opinion superior. Despite the fact newer players from RTW could at least give them a run for their money if not take them to the cleaners and back. I mean I only consider myself just abit better than average, and I've beaten quite a few guys from older clans.

So please...can we just stop saying that rome player's opinions mean squat. M2 hasn't even had a freakin major patch yet, even the great likes of mtw and stw that all you vets once graced with your presence had its problems on 1.1, I'm sure.

Way off topic, but meh.

Cerxes

02-10-2007, 20:44

Well "spoken" Monarch, and both STW and MTW had problems before the patches. I remember for example the GUI of STW that was indeed awkward before CA solved it with its first patch release, and I´m pretty sure M2TW will be the best game in the TW series once all the problems are solved. /C.

pike master

02-10-2007, 21:16

not without the cav charge tuned down and the push through bug fixed.

even at hastings a densely packed cluster of men. many not even having spears defeated repeated charges by norman knights several times and inflicted good casualties. a main line infantry force of spearmen or better should be able to stand up better to a cav charge.

if this isnt fixed on 1.2 it will not be good.

Callahan9119

02-11-2007, 09:01

i played stw and mtw1, i couldnt care less what you guys like or dislike, its your money and you have the right to have an opinion...if you liked rome and now this, thats fine. hope you continue to enjoy it

but all i know is in mtw1 a line was a line, you couldnt just run through it willy nilly, thus it has an arcade type feel i cant seem to force myself to enjoy...maybe i just need to get over myself :laugh4:

|Heerbann|_Di3Hard

02-11-2007, 11:05

In MTW VI are much more multiplayer details, that are all lost in rtw and mtw2. It is now more a hack and slay than a tactical game. A new players haven't never seen in rtw or mtw2 the lost gameplay details. And someone, that only says, "what nice beautiful colors and nice blurry graphics". That one isn't interested in tw series. The soul of MTW was the tactical depth and that is now lost. And products without an own character will disappear from the market.

x-dANGEr

02-11-2007, 15:01

Die Hard.. Listen to Monarch. Mmm.. And I guess you should play someone good at the game as it is nowadays.. (Try Barrett, I'm sure you will have fun.. ~;) )

Puzz3D

02-11-2007, 15:52

I´m pretty sure M2TW will be the best game in the TW series once all the problems are solved.
That's impossible. The M2TW battle engine is missing important features that were in the old battle engine. You also have the problem in the new engine that the combat cycle is different for different types of units which makes balancing the units extremely complicated.

Cerxes

02-11-2007, 18:56

That's impossible. The M2TW battle engine is missing important features that were in the old battle engine. You also have the problem in the new engine that the combat cycle is different for different types of units which makes balancing the units extremely complicated.

What missing features? You mean that the engine has changed algorithm from a non-transitivity rock, paper and scissors game, to a transitivity game? Thank God for that! A game that is based on principles that even children at the schoolyard can manage, sooner or later have to move forward because of the simple reason that we have a need for challenges, or we will get bored rather quickly. /C.

pike master

02-11-2007, 19:20

a cav force rolling off a frontage of needle sharp pikes is not balanced or realistic.

or running through stacked units of infantry unscathed and coming out the rear is not realistic either.

im not talking about balancing im talking realism. performance of units in the game are not only contrary to unit descriptions in mtw/vi, rome, and barbarian invasion but they are even contradictory to the unit descriptions in the game itself.

|Heerbann|_Di3Hard

02-11-2007, 19:40

What missing features?

- missing exhaustions bars

- F1 key unit values (att, def, value, MORALE! (where is it?)) on one page

- good maps with interesting deploy zones. (Not only all in a row)

- balance

- free selection for maps: desert, arid, temperature or green and the seasons, winter, spring, summer and autumn.

- the attacker could select clear, rainy, stormy, fine and so on weather.

- good sprites. I can regonize far away units or at least I can say thats inf or cav.

- Performance: You can play 4vs4 on big maps

- wedge formation for every unit

- better minimap, the new one is confusing

- I can regonize the generals unit in MTW VI. (A bigger banner)

- no need to determine a difficult level. That is strange in mtw2

- GUnner cannot shoot if it rains.

- Skirmish mounted archers are more difficult to use. They cannot shoot and move.

- every player can use every faction. There is no restriction, that only one team can use one faction.

- you team must be attack and one must be defense. No discussion is possible.

- the fatigue is more intensive.

- no one second "all soldiers dead" charges.

- no elephants

- pav shoot out is more interesting

- att/wef/valor upgrades are important in MTW VI They are a tactical component. In mtw2 they play no role.

- I don't know many new features, that could be a reason for playing mtw2

I am afraid I forgot alot.

x-dANGEr

02-11-2007, 21:08

Die Hard.. Read your post. Don't you find something wrong in it?

(Calling these:

- missing exhaustions bars

- F1 key unit values (att, def, value, MORALE! (where is it?)) on one page

- good maps with interesting deploy zones. (Not only all in a row)

- balance
etc..
"feutures")

Fenix7

02-11-2007, 21:26

att/wef/valor upgrades are important in MTW VI They are a tactical component. In mtw2 they play no role.

Like fmaa or cmaa? Or sargents with v3 or v4? No thank you.

In generaly I dislike upgrades, but I would not mind two upgrade options. Morale and valour. Morale as stated would only rais morale of the unit and valour would raise morale and defending skill of the selected unit.No matter the upgread system, upgreaded units like pesants and other cheap units should not be able to win vs elite units.

|Heerbann|_Di3Hard

02-11-2007, 22:59

Like fmaa or cmaa? Or sargents with v3 or v4? No thank you.

I like that option, because there can be created very interesting armies.

In generaly I dislike upgrades, but I would not mind two upgrade options. Morale and valour. Morale as stated would only rais morale of the unit and valour would raise morale and defending skill of the selected unit.

But you cannot see the morale in mtw2. And in MTW V1 there was a nice overview with all important stats.

No matter the upgread system, upgreaded units like pesants and other cheap units should not be able to win vs elite units.

In MTW VI I have never seen peasants, that have beaten any elite unit. And these upgrades don't have the sense to make an uber peasant unit. It should only make different cmaa or knights. You have to analyze the enemy army or you are maybe suprised about the strength of some units.

Cerxes

02-11-2007, 23:34

@mad cat mech: I don´t talk about balancing either, I´m talking about realism as you are, and to achive that you have to develop the AI based on algorithms that are more transitive in its relationships between objects. This is without any doubts the future for advanced gameplaying.

@Di3Hard: When I asked - "What missing features?" - the intention was rhetorical. We are obviously talking about different issues here. The features you are mention in you post has nothing to do with the "features" I´m talking about. But I don´t understand your negative attitude against M2TW as a MP game. Obviously MTW + VI is enough for you since the game, according to what you says, is the peak of the TW-evolution. So stick with it and everything is fine then I suppose. /C.

ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88

02-12-2007, 00:06

Yes, and? Are you saying that players that have *only* been playing since around Rome have an opinion that is not as credible as someone whose been playing since mtw?

TBH I think theres alot of people here who played stw, not all of them, who for some reason can't get over themselves and think their opinion superior. Despite the fact newer players from RTW could at least give them a run for their money if not take them to the cleaners and back. I mean I only consider myself just abit better than average, and I've beaten quite a few guys from older clans.

So please...can we just stop saying that rome player's opinions mean squat. M2 hasn't even had a freakin major patch yet, even the great likes of mtw and stw that all you vets once graced with your presence had its problems on 1.1, I'm sure.

Way off topic, but meh.

Despite the fact newer players from RTW could at least give them a run for their money if not take them to the cleaners and back.

on what Game though Monarch? For Example. You May be Able to Beat Magyar Khan on RTW or BI or even MTW2, where he doesn't have much experience with the RTW engine could you do the same on STW or MTW/VI, where he has the most experience with that Engine?

Off Topic, but just needed to say that.

Monarch

02-12-2007, 01:01

Despite the fact newer players from RTW could at least give them a run for their money if not take them to the cleaners and back.

on what Game though Monarch? For Example. You May be Able to Beat Magyar Khan on RTW or BI or even MTW2, where he doesn't have much experience with the RTW engine could you do the same on STW or MTW/VI, where he has the most experience with that Engine?

Off Topic, but just needed to say that.

Was reffering to m2. And not the likes of magyarkhan, I was more just talking about the average player from the "good ol' days".

more interesting pav shoot outs

IMO, pav shoot outs are boring, if you just sit there shooting at each other. Because the two are so equal, you have two options, wait for ammo to run out and go and make yourself a cup of tea..which no offence seems to be the option your taking. Or actually play the skirmish and try and run down archers, the skirmish can be on of the most strategic points of the game, with feign attacks, diversional run downs, etc etc.

If you can run down some enemy archers in a pav vs pav means you've taken out an important part of enemy army (getting pavs and not peasant xbows means enemy wants to win skirmish) and also means you can fire on their cav/inf and force them to attack, taking arrow fire on the way.

RTKBarrett

02-12-2007, 01:10

Its getting to the point now where if this next patch doesnt solve any major issues im gone...
Theres lil enjoyment to be had with the current gameplay. I played 11 games today, 4 of which i wasnt playing a rusher... these were all clannies. I dnt want a rush on rush game, but u never get what u want.
The only things i have to look forward to are team games where skirmishing and manouvering are actually worth something...

Its depressing as i know if i hadnt met some of the great personalities there are in tw i would have left ages ago as really... it has alot less to offer than other "big titles"

Monarch

02-12-2007, 01:18

Ye, I'd agree that skirmish is one of few strategical points remaining, unless you count clicking charge with your cav :inquisitive:

Baz, you may consider a min 4 archer rule. I guess ppl could still rush with four peasant arch, but still thats almost 1000 req they're wasting.

TBH baz I think I've found more enjoyment recently vs randomers, they actually tend to rush less.

Still, I was having one good game today vs rtk with some randomers, but then good ol' gs stepped in and decided to put an end to that particular game :dizzy2:

I think merc's min 4/4/4 should somehow be enforced on everyone. Only problem is when I try to suggest it often people leave the game :shame:

ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88

02-12-2007, 01:51

Was reffering to m2. And not the likes of magyarkhan, I was more just talking about the average player from the "good ol' days".

I know m8, I was justu sing MagyarKhan as a example, as I had games with him on both VI and MTW2 (and lost all 3 :laugh4: :yes: )

Fenix7

02-12-2007, 02:27

But you cannot see the morale in mtw2. And in MTW V1 there was a nice overview with all important stats.

Was not refering to mtw or mtw2. Mnetioned in general.

In MTW VI I have never seen peasants, that have beaten any elite unit. And these upgrades don't have the sense to make an uber peasant unit. It should only make different cmaa or knights. You have to analyze the enemy army or you are maybe suprised about the strength of some units.

Was not refering to mtw or mtw2 (despite upgreaded pesants are indeed strong in mtw2 :p) but only mentioned this becaus I would not like this to see after 2nd patch.

I've rememebred one more thing. Units gaining valour during match. This is something what should be romoved.

RTKBarrett

02-12-2007, 03:14

Just had some more games, same repetative builds of scottish and milanese rush *sigh*
Supreme commanders out end of the week... that could be the answer :-(

|Heerbann|_Di3Hard

02-12-2007, 10:30

Was not refering to mtw or mtw2. Mnetioned in general.

Was not refering to mtw or mtw2 (despite upgreaded pesants are indeed strong in mtw2 :p) but only mentioned this becaus I would not like this to see after 2nd patch.

I've rememebred one more thing. Units gaining valour during match. This is something what should be romoved.

Okay, sry for misunderstanding.

These killer peasants in mtw2 are really funny :laugh4:

pevergreen

02-12-2007, 10:33

Supreme commanders out end of the week... that could be the answer :-(
:2thumbsup: :yes:

Buy it now!:whip:

|Heerbann|_Di3Hard

02-12-2007, 10:58

Die Hard.. Listen to Monarch. Mmm.. And I guess you should play someone good at the game as it is nowadays.. (Try Barrett, I'm sure you will have fun.. ~;) )

That is not the point. I am sure, Barrett is a very good player. But the CA marketing campaign and the game itself bear on occasional players. They are more interested in playing SP than MP. I think, that is the reason, why the Multiplayer mode is losing appeal.

machiavelli69

02-12-2007, 11:09

Baz, you may consider a min 4 archer rule. I guess ppl could still rush with four peasant arch, but still thats almost 1000 req they're wasting.

we can always propose min "5" archers/xbows and max 7 cav: it reduces the ha swarms and makes rush a bit more difficult.

but it is since the beginning that a cav limit is a clear need given the buggy infantry behaviour, anyway putting a cav limit has been difficult. why?

Real issue with the above rules is that many are enjoing the rush gameplay... other are scared by rules as they make the game less erratic in its outcome...
other "top players" thought (or think with some "new builds") to have discovered the "perfect weapon", but after 1 month all the "slowest" players replicate winning tactics/armies and given "erratic" (buggy) gameplay win against "top players" (or anyway make the game boring with all cav/infantry rushes)

If rules will have no room we have to wait for the patch (and likely quit after being disillusioned?)

pike master

02-12-2007, 12:51

missile units need more effect. that would put a stop to rush armies.

Monarch

02-12-2007, 15:23

Just had some more games, same repetative builds of scottish and milanese rush *sigh*
Supreme commanders out end of the week... that could be the answer :-(

You didn't like company of heroes, I doubt you'll think much of sc mate. Its just an RTS :juggle2:

If you're looking for a promising rts than imo World in Conflict looks better. http://uk.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/worldinconflict/index.html?q=world%20in%20conflict not out for a while though.

Saying that, I'll still probably get supreme commander :P

Nem

02-12-2007, 22:16

RTKBarrett

02-12-2007, 22:20

Today i took titan quest out of its box for a long awaited session, silent denali joined me... we played for hours lol.
I loved it!! in co op it was so much fun :D and the expansion is out soon w00t lol

Puzz3D

02-12-2007, 23:38

What missing features?

1. Squeezed too tight combat penalty which causes individual men to fight at half strength in melee if they have less then 1 meter of space. (Apparently some attempt was made to impliment this through battle mechanics in M2TW which proves that it's important.)

2. Lower accuracy for indirect fire weapons based on depth of the formation and visual obstruction of the individual men. For example, deep formations of archers don't suffer any decrease in accuracy if placed on a downward slope of sufficient gradient that all the men in the formation have an unobstruced view of the target. For another example, the third rank of an archer formation has reduced accuracy when the unit is in close formation, but not when in loose formation. For another example, archers have lower accuracy when shooting over a friendly unit due to the more obstruced view of the target.

3. Range is adjusted for the height of the shooter, and based on experience, I would say accuracy as well.

4. Reduced accuracy for bow weapons in rain. The amount of reduction depending upon how hard it is raining.

5. Increased misfires for gunpowder weapons depending on how hard it is raining. The old engine had 25% misfires for light rain, 50% misfires for medium rain and 75% misfires for heavy rain.

6. Range calculated on an individual man basis.

7. Direct fire weapons (guns) don't shoot if the man's line of sight is obstructed by a man.

8. Fatigue causes longer reload time for some of the men in a unit so that they do not shoot on the next volley. As fatigue increases, the number of men affected increases.

9. Adverse weather causes increased fatigue rate for armored units, and this increases as armor increases.

10. Units respond immediately to movement orders.

11. Units with covered flanks do not suffer a morale penaly from enemy units which are in a flanking position (this may or may not be in the new engine).

12. Could define subgroups.

13. Independent control of hold formation and hold position.

14. Any army formation is maintained while moving the whole army with a single click without the need to group the whole army.

15. A one second combat cycle for all units combined with 60 man unit size and low chance to kill which reduces the statistical uncertainty of the combat results to a level that allows application of tactical moves with a reasonable chance of success.

There are some additional features that I'll add as I think of them.

A game that is based on principles that even children at the schoolyard can manage, sooner or later have to move forward because of the simple reason that we have a need for challenges, or we will get bored rather quickly.
You're talking about the new battle engine. The old battle engine wasn't geared toward children at the schoolyard, but the new engine is. The reason the effect of fatigue and various combat bonuses have been reduced is to make it easier to play for less experienced players.

Cerxes

02-12-2007, 23:54

...You also have the problem in the new engine that the combat cycle is different for different types of units which makes balancing the units extremely complicated.

But then Puzz3D, I really don´t understand when you says that balancing the units is extremely complicated with the new engine while you proclaim that the new engine is lesser advanced than the MTW engine... /C.

Puzz3D

02-13-2007, 04:11

But then Puzz3D, I really don´t understand when you says that balancing the units is extremely complicated with the new engine while you proclaim that the new engine is lesser advanced than the MTW engine... /C.
Because the new engine is missing quite a few things that were in the old engine and they seem to revolve around the combat model for the individual men. Yes they added some new parameters in the new engine such as stamina and lethality and they added shoot while moving, but do these offset what was removed? I don't think so. In the old engine they did distance and line of sight calculations for every single man on the battlefield, and the game ran with faster frames per second on slower computers. Fatigue was also tracked for individual men then averaged over the unit, and I don't know if that's still being done either. I suspect that a lot of cpu power is being consumed by the animations since the move to the 3D men, and that came partially from simplifying other things in the combat model and partially by increasing the cpu requirement. It seems to me that the AI for the individual men is also simplified in the new engine because the men don't know how to properly gang up on a man when they have him outnumbered or how to pursue routers effectively, and they did both of these things better in the old engine.

The new engine is much more advanced in the animation of the men, and these animations now affect the combat results. It would be great if the 3D animations in the new engine modeled combat as well as the more purely statistical model in the old engine, but it appears to me the 3D has a long way to go before it achieves that. It is logical that a heavy weapon would be more cumbersome and couldn't be swung as fast as a lighter weapon, but you don't see lightly armed men making evasive moves when a heavy weapon is swung at them, so the model is incomplete and can't actually model what would happen in such a situation. Also, there is no modeling of different parts of the body being struck or perhaps a shield being destroyed so that a man has to continue on in melee without a shield. You never see a spear or lance get broken, etc. It did defy belief in RTW when a man would be running forward with a pike point against his chest, and he would just keep running forward like that. I don't know if this happens in M2TW. The analytical statistical model is actually superior in modeling combat at this point in the development of the game, and realistically I don't see how a 3D model could cover everything it has to in a game that's trying to field many thousands of men on the battlefield without driving the system requirements off the chart.

The combat cycle is simpler in the old engine, and therefore it's easier to balance the units. There do seem to be more situational combat factors modeled in the old engine which should give it more tactical depth. That tactical depth doesn't become apparent unless the units are well balanced. We learned this the hard way doing the STW/MI v1.02 rebalance beta testing where we ended up with overpowered guns, and I saw it happen again in MTW/VI with the overpriced spears and weak shooters taking away from the possible tactics. Introducing a variable combat cycle to the old engine for different types of weapons or level or armor would make it harder to balance. I don't think it would benefit the tactical play because you can account for different weapon types to some extent in the numerical stats for the units (i.e. anti-cav bonus, armor piercing bonus, attack, defend, charge), and you would balance out the differences introduced by the variable combat cycle anyway in order to provide combat results that met the designed gameplay objective. The key concept is to have a design objective for the gameplay, and the key requirement is to have a battle engine that allows you to achieve that objective. Of course, you also need the time and resources to do it.

I'm sure Creative Assembly has good business reasons for doing what they are doing to the game system, but better simply means higher sales to a business mentality. It doesn't mean the gameplay is better. They have now succeeded in attracting players to the game who believe that unbalanced gameplay is good. Bravo!

ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88

02-13-2007, 04:38

Because the new engine is missing quite a few things that were in the old engine and they seem to revolve around the combat model for the individual men. Yes they added some new parameters in the new engine such as stamina and lethality and they added shoot while moving, but do these offset what was removed? I don't think so. In the old engine they did distance and line of sight calculations for every single man on the battlefield, and the game ran with faster frames per second on slower computers. Fatigue was also tracked for individual men then averaged over the unit, and I don't know if that's still being done either. I suspect that a lot of cpu power is being consumed by the animations since the move to the 3D men, and that came partially from simplifying other things in the combat model and partially by increasing the cpu requirement. It seems to me that the AI for the individual men is also simplified in the new engine because the men don't know how to properly gang up on a man when they have him outnumbered or how to pursue routers effectively, and they did both of these things better in the old engine.

The new engine is much more advanced in the animation of the men, and these animations now affect the combat results. It would be great if the 3D animations in the new engine modeled combat as well as the more purely statistical model in the old engine, but it appears to me the 3D has a long way to go before it achieves that. It is logical that a heavy weapon would be more cumbersome and couldn't be swung as fast as a lighter weapon, but you don't see lightly armed men making evasive moves when a heavy weapon is swung at them, so the model is incomplete and can't actually model what would happen in such a situation. Also, there is no modeling of different parts of the body being struck or perhaps a shield being destroyed so that a man has to continue on in melee without a shield. You never see a spear or lance get broken, etc. It did defy belief in RTW when a man would be running forward with a pike point against his chest, and he would just keep running forward like that. I don't know if this happens in M2TW. The analytical statistical model is actually superior in modeling combat at this point in the development of the game, and realistically I don't see how a 3D model could cover everything it has to in a game that's trying to field many thousands of men on the battlefield without driving the system requirements off the chart.

The combat cycle is simpler in the old engine, and therefore it's easier to balance the units. There do seem to be more situational combat factors modeled in the old engine which should give it more tactical depth. That tactical depth doesn't become apparent unless the units are well balanced. We learned this the hard way doing the STW/MI v1.02 rebalance beta testing where we ended up with overpowered guns, and I saw it happen again in MTW/VI with the overpriced spears and weak shooters taking away from the possible tactics. Introducing a variable combat cycle to the old engine for different types of weapons or level or armor would make it harder to balance. I don't think it would benefit the tactical play because you can account for different weapon types to some extent in the numerical stats for the units (i.e. anti-cav bonus, armor piercing bonus, attack, defend, charge), and you would balance out the differences introduced by the variable combat cycle anyway in order to provide combat results that met the designed gameplay objective. The key concept is to have a design objective for the gameplay, and the key requirement is to have a battle engine that allows you to achieve that objective. Of course, you also need the time and resources to do it.

I'm sure Creative Assembly has good business reasons for doing what they are doing to the game system, but better simply means higher sales to a business mentality. It doesn't mean the gameplay is better. They have now succeeded in attracting players to the game who believe that unbalanced gameplay is good. Bravo!

And Thus Explans it very well.

The system requirement statment at the end of 2nd paragraph I had to laugh at. Obliolusy, They (CA/Sega) Always just happen to use the "Thousands of men on the Battlefield!!!!!!!!" clique quite a bit eh? Add in the 3D models, and boom,Good Marketing right there. Out the window Great AI Play on SP, and Goodbye Wonderfull MP Experience (unless you can make the best out of it).

CBR

02-13-2007, 04:40

But then Puzz3D, I really don´t understand when you says that balancing the units is extremely complicated with the new engine while you proclaim that the new engine is lesser advanced than the MTW engine... /C.
Since one can no longer just look at a stats to find a units combat power but also have to consider actual animations it becomes more difficult.

The actual calculations of finding out if one soldiers hits his target is now more "advanced" than the older engine. But it also introduces more elements that can go wrong if not properly tested.

The player has no control over most of these elements and is only concerned with one thing: does his unit win the fight or not.

So we see stuff like pikemen who cant raise their pikes when figthing against enemies on higher ground, horses that jumps over the pikes, units that switches to secondary weapon too soon or units that are able to push/run through enemy ranks that they couldnt do when fighting etc etc.

In the meantime things like we see on Yuuki's list are left out. And some of that does have an effect on gameplay to make it less advanced.

And actually M2TW is also a rock, paper, scissors game. Spears have extra bonuses v cavalry and some hardcoded handicap v infantry. If we dont see it in the actual game its because of bugs, bad design decisions and/or lack of proper testing.

oh and you said "because of the simple reason that we have a need for challenges" What is challenging to you? Having to go though all units to find the best (non bugged ones) ? Trying out all factions to find the best?

CBR

x-dANGEr

02-13-2007, 16:28

2. Lower accuracy for indirect fire weapons based on depth of the formation and visual obstruction of the individual men. For example, deep formations of archers don't suffer any decrease in accuracy if placed on a downward slope of sufficient gradient that all the men in the formation have an unobstruced view of the target. For another example, the third rank of an archer formation has reduced accuracy when the unit is in close formation, but not when in loose formation. For another example, archers have lower accuracy when shooting over a friendly unit due to the more obstruced view of the target.

3. Range is adjusted for the height of the shooter, and based on experience, I would say accuracy as well.

4. Reduced accuracy for bow weapons in rain. The amount of reduction depending upon how hard it is raining.

5. Increased misfires for gunpowder weapons depending on how hard it is raining. The old engine had 25% misfires for light rain, 50% misfires for medium rain and 75% misfires for heavy rain.

6. Range calculated on an individual man basis.

7. Direct fire weapons (guns) don't shoot if the man's line of sight is obstructed by a man.

8. Fatigue causes longer reload time for some of the men in a unit so that they do not shoot on the next volley. As fatigue increases, the number of men affected increases.

So you want to nerf archers even more.. !!!

10. Units respond immediately to movement orders.

Agreed.

Puzz3D

02-13-2007, 17:26

So you want to nerf archers even more.. !!!
Not at all. In Samurai Wars, 10 volleys from an archer unit will kill 30 warrior monks on flat ground. That's half the unit, and the 10 volleys can be delivered in 40 seconds. On top of that, the archers carry 36 arrows which means potentially they can kill 105 warrior monks which is nearly 2 full units. The archer unit costs 400 and the warrior monk unit costs 1000. This kill rate I'm describing is the same against any unit that has armor = 1 of which there are several. The archers are less effective against units of higher armor, but still cost effective against several of those units. The ranged unit effectiveness in combination with the fatigue definitely deters rushing which makes for an interesting skirmish phase to the battles. This skirmish phase doesn't last for a long time like it did in MTW because the ranged units consume their ammo more quickly, and the ranged units suffer a higher casualty rate when skirmishing. Balancing the ranged units is quite important in Total War battles because if they are too strong it becomes a shooting game, and if they are too weak it becomes a rushing game.

I was asked what some of the differences were between the old and new battle engines, so I posted some of the differences. I don't expect any of these old features to be brought back, although some attempt has been made to bring back the "squeezed too tight" combat penalty which is an important feature because is means you have to keep your units separated for maximum effectiveness.

I suppose an argument can be made that archers don't have to be able to see what they are shooting at, but it seems to me a man would fire more accurately if he did see what he's shooting at. Removing the line of sight penalties to accuracy means it doesn't matter what shape the archer unit takes. It's hard to view this as an improvement to the tactics of using ranged weapons if you've played the older game. For instance, in the old engine you could get a significant advantage over an enemy ranged unit by using enfilade fire because the unit that was enfiladed could not return fire as effectively as the unit delivering it. In the new engine, their is no tactical advantage to such a maneuver because the enfiladed unit returns fire just as effectively. In fact, there is a disadvantage in maneuvering into a position to deliver enfilade fire because your unit will incur fatigue moving and may also come under fire as it moves into position. It's simply pointless to even try the maneuver, and I'm not sure it's worth doing even if it gives you a height advantage.

In any case, I don't expect these old features that involve analytical calculations on individual men to be brought back because it would have too much impact on framerate. If the battle mechanics problems and the lag issue can be solved in the next patch, Palamedes might have a chance to do some good playbalancing in that patch and one after that. I believe there should be a patch after the next one so that multiplayer feedback can be used to improve the playbalance. That might make the gameplay attractive enough for players who liked the older gameplay.

However, as you can see it takes CA a long time to produce a patch so it's very costly for them. They are not inclined to make patches simply to improve playbalance. The most favorable situation for MP is to have a serious bug in the SP campaign that requires another patch to fix which allows MP playbalance adjustments to be made in that patch. This is what happened with the MTW/VI v2.01 patch. The "all kings die at age 56" bug was the reason the v2.01 patch got the go ahead, but even then the programmers had to do it on their own time for no pay. Of course, that was under Activision. SEGA seems to be more willing to approve patches, but even with SEGA there is a limit because as you can see the RTW v1.5 SP campaign was left with the civil war bug and the battles engine left with the "butt spike" issue.

x-dANGEr

02-13-2007, 17:37

Puzz3D, I understand you. But all I'm saying is that we certainly don't need those kinds of "calculations" with the current stats. Simply, archers aren't used.. If some balance changes are made, that'd make the archer battle worth it, those additions would only be nice to have.

|Heerbann|_Di3Hard

02-13-2007, 17:54

However, as you can see it takes CA a long time to produce a patch so it's very costly for them.

I am sure, they already produce the addon (extension pack). This will require most of resources.

Marius Dynamite

02-13-2007, 18:04

Lusted

02-13-2007, 18:34

I am sure, they already produce the addon (extension pack). This will require most of resources.

Yeah most of the dev teams already working on it.

Puzz3D

02-13-2007, 18:41

I blame Gamespy. It kicks me out after a few minutes now. I can still play if I get my clan to host and ready up then I join and start ASAP. After we start battle I get the 'Disconnected from Gamespy blah blah.. ' message but that makes no difference, the game runs fine, it's just the getting started.

Gamespy was the same with Stronghold 2 back when I was young and played that. I probably will avoid games that use Gamespy now. If they use that they are obviously very, very cheap games.
The game itself may be contributing to the disconnect. RTW had this same problem in v1.0 and v1.1, but it worked much better after the v1.2 patch. I had no problem staying connected to the MTW/VI lobby and don't even today, but I had terrible problems staying connected to the RTW v1.1 lobby, and they both use GameSpy. Many players, including myself, experienced disconnects in MTW v1.0 until it was patched to v1.1. The disconnect is something CA should definitely look at in the M2TW v1.2 beta and try to improve. CA seems destined to repeat mistakes over and over with every new release which is part of the reason I didn't rush out and buy M2TW.

Cerxes

02-13-2007, 23:29

Because the new engine is missing quite a few things that were in the old engine and they seem to revolve around the combat model for the individual men. Yes they added some new parameters in the new engine such as stamina and lethality and they added shoot while moving, but do these offset what was removed? I don't think so. In the old engine they did distance and line of sight calculations for every single man on the battlefield, and the game ran with faster frames per second on slower computers. Fatigue was also tracked for individual men then averaged over the unit, and I don't know if that's still being done either. I suspect that a lot of cpu power is being consumed by the animations since the move to the 3D men, and that came partially from simplifying other things in the combat model and partially by increasing the cpu requirement. It seems to me that the AI for the individual men is also simplified in the new engine because the men don't know how to properly gang up on a man when they have him outnumbered or how to pursue routers effectively, and they did both of these things better in the old engine.

The new engine is much more advanced in the animation of the men, and these animations now affect the combat results. It would be great if the 3D animations in the new engine modeled combat as well as the more purely statistical model in the old engine, but it appears to me the 3D has a long way to go before it achieves that. It is logical that a heavy weapon would be more cumbersome and couldn't be swung as fast as a lighter weapon, but you don't see lightly armed men making evasive moves when a heavy weapon is swung at them, so the model is incomplete and can't actually model what would happen in such a situation. Also, there is no modeling of different parts of the body being struck or perhaps a shield being destroyed so that a man has to continue on in melee without a shield. You never see a spear or lance get broken, etc. It did defy belief in RTW when a man would be running forward with a pike point against his chest, and he would just keep running forward like that. I don't know if this happens in M2TW. The analytical statistical model is actually superior in modeling combat at this point in the development of the game, and realistically I don't see how a 3D model could cover everything it has to in a game that's trying to field many thousands of men on the battlefield without driving the system requirements off the chart.

The combat cycle is simpler in the old engine, and therefore it's easier to balance the units. There do seem to be more situational combat factors modeled in the old engine which should give it more tactical depth. That tactical depth doesn't become apparent unless the units are well balanced. We learned this the hard way doing the STW/MI v1.02 rebalance beta testing where we ended up with overpowered guns, and I saw it happen again in MTW/VI with the overpriced spears and weak shooters taking away from the possible tactics. Introducing a variable combat cycle to the old engine for different types of weapons or level or armor would make it harder to balance. I don't think it would benefit the tactical play because you can account for different weapon types to some extent in the numerical stats for the units (i.e. anti-cav bonus, armor piercing bonus, attack, defend, charge), and you would balance out the differences introduced by the variable combat cycle anyway in order to provide combat results that met the designed gameplay objective. The key concept is to have a design objective for the gameplay, and the key requirement is to have a battle engine that allows you to achieve that objective. Of course, you also need the time and resources to do it.

I'm sure Creative Assembly has good business reasons for doing what they are doing to the game system, but better simply means higher sales to a business mentality. It doesn't mean the gameplay is better. They have now succeeded in attracting players to the game who believe that unbalanced gameplay is good. Bravo!

@Puzz3D: O.k. I now understand what you mean, as I before this post thought you were against the antisymmetrical way of designing mathematical relationships between objects, and that by no means is not the logical negative of symmetric relationships that exists in the design of MTW. Of course this is only my view based on the results of how the games behaves during gameplay, since I don´t have access to the designing blueprints for either game. I do agree that there are problems with M2TW for the reasons you mentioned in you post, which are a fact based on certain bugs that has been discovered. But either way whether we like or not, 3D is the future for graphics (nothing strange about that), and certainly it will be a more complex task for designers to implement this with a more advanced statistical model. M2TW is in no way a perfect product in this respect, and never will be. But you have to start making this change at some point, or someone else will. /C.

@CBR: I see that you have quoted the same statement I made as Puzz3D did in his post, but I don´t see any value adding comments from your part in your post worth a comment. It just seems like an attempt from your side to make this discussion to a more personal matter since both you and Puzz3D are members of the same clan. /C.

CBR

02-14-2007, 01:37

@CBR: I see that you have quoted the same statement I made as Puzz3D did in his post, but I don´t see any value adding comments from your part in your post worth a comment. It just seems like an attempt from your side to make this discussion to a more personal matter since both you and Puzz3D are members of the same clan. /C.
Excuse me? What does my post have to with what clan Im in? Are discussions in this forum now only to be done by max one member from each clan?

I asked a question as I wanted you to clarify what you meant. The only "personal" I see is that I wanted you to give me your opinion on what challenging meant to you, and nothing else.

CBR

Dionysus9

02-14-2007, 02:10

Why cant all the battle mechanics be handled statistically and then translated into animation once the result has been determined? Isn't that how M2TW works?

I often see soldiers die in melee when the "attack" that killed them missed by a mile in 3D space (i.e. they die even though the animated sword clearly misses them). How can you explain this result if the attacks are resolved solely on the basis of animations?

Puzz, you are right that if they had to plot the trajectory of every pixel of every man, blade, and missile, it would crash Skynet-- so obviously they can't be doing that. At worst there is some sort of middle ground, but it seems pretty clear (at least to me) that most of the attack/defend determinations are being made statistically and then translated into animation.

:dizzy2:

CBR

02-14-2007, 02:32

I often see soldiers die in melee when the "attack" that killed them missed by a mile in 3D space (i.e. they die even though the animated sword clearly misses them). How can you explain this result if the attacks are resolved solely on the basis of animations?

Sounds like a matter of hitbox size. Same thing can be seen in some FPS as hitboxes are sometimes bigger than the actual 3D figure.

CBR

pike master

02-14-2007, 16:16

if it is software issue dont they call that network code. also i talked to gamespy and they keep pointing the finger at sega. so its either the sega server or the network code in the game causing a lot of problems.

but then again i might just be disconnected from reality right now and doing this typing in my sleep.;)

Monarch

02-15-2007, 03:01

Another "mps not good enough" topic. Boring...

Next thread...

t1master

02-15-2007, 03:58

agreed monarch... :balloon2:

Puzz3D

02-15-2007, 14:19

Puzz, you are right that if they had to plot the trajectory of every pixel of every man, blade, and missile, it would crash Skynet
STW/MTW does it, and not only doesn't it crash the network, the frame rate is higher.

{KotR}Sir_Raison{P}

02-15-2007, 15:44

Hi all:eeeek:

Those that are in the "know" need not continue,but others should note that there is a dedicated VIKING Multiplayer night on Friday nights from 8pm GMT(ish) at the moment.We are getting upto around 20-30 "Seasoned" players in.Might not seem alot,but god are the games superb.The list is growing.VIKING is not dead yet.:burnout:

Take it easy
Rais

Puzz3D

02-15-2007, 17:16

Those that are in the "know" need not continue,but others should note that there is a dedicated VIKING Multiplayer night on Friday nights from 8pm GMT(ish) at the moment.We are getting upto around 20-30 "Seasoned" players in.Might not seem alot,but god are the games superb.The list is growing.VIKING is not dead yet.
Unfortunately, cav/sword armies dominate MTW/VI unless you play at 5000 florins.

TosaInu

02-15-2007, 18:33

Introducing a variable combat cycle to the old engine for different types of weapons or level or armor would make it harder to balance.

That's good.

It is logical that a heavy weapon would be more cumbersome and couldn't be swung as fast as a lighter weapon..

Yes, more realism.

Of course, you also need the time and resources to do it.

Yes, it will be time consuming to balance.

so the model is incomplete and can't actually model what would happen in such a situation.

Even the much simpler STW suffered from this incompleteness in the battle engine. STW and MTW guns have much more problems than just the penetration power. I agree, the AI should be made complete.

The new engine is much more advanced in the animation of the men, and these animations now affect the combat results.

The wrong part in this, is that the animation dictates the stat (as was already evident with the movement of units in RTW), this should be the other way around: the stat of a unit in a text file should dictate the animation. This is even more true for combat(animation). I don't do my weekly shoppings like Ben Johnson, just because we happen to share the same skeleton.

It would be great if the 3D animations in the new engine modeled combat as well as the more purely statistical model in the old engine, but it appears to me the 3D has a long way to go before it achieves that.

Let's hope that this is the design goal for the expension pack: perfect the AI and such and much less throw in more units.

I understood that some M2TW units have an AI that drain quite some CPU power. Adding more of this will certainly require even more CPU. The benefit from 3D over sprites, is that the modern GPU will do a lot of work, but the CPU still has to do a lot of numbercrunching too. Decoupling the combatstats from the animation will allow more scaling and suit the players personal taste. He could for example dedicate all his PC power to top animations and have the AI be minimal. He can also have minimal animations (probably need a seperate minimal animation text stat for that) but have maximum AI. A more powerful (future, and yes, I played a MTW VI 4v4 custom at huge yesterday) PC would allow all of it.

MP would benefit from a proper DIY kit. Provide the tools: extensive parameters to create the behaviour of units, CRC of files, automated distribution of files (optional and confirmed auto download and install of required files), stamping of community/tournament files, option to sent results to a chosen webserver (for campaign, ladder results). And only have a fistful balanced vanilla units to show what's possible (the animations are there from SP anyway). A horse, a spear, a bow and a sword is basically all we need to start. I also think, and that's said and done years ago, that TW needs a seperate exe for MP and SP.

{KotR}Sir_Raison{P}

02-15-2007, 19:53

I wasn't questioning the dynamics of gameplay,Puzz, just getting some interest back in the 'ol VI MP lobby m8 is all I'm trying to do on behalf of a few dedicated gamers in here :duel:

Rais

Puzz3D

02-15-2007, 20:08

I wasn't questioning the dynamics of gameplay,Puzz, just getting some interest back in the 'ol VI MP lobby m8 is all I'm trying to do on behalf of a few dedicated gamers in here.
I left MTW/VI because I got fed up with the cav/sword armies. I suppose it's better than all cav gameplay.

Dionysus9

02-15-2007, 20:53

STW/MTW does it, and not only doesn't it crash the network, the frame rate is higher.

STW tracks the trajectory of every missile, most likely as if it were a ball or a point wieghing x amount etc. What I am talking about is all of the swinging swords, axes, shields, etc., all of the moving parts in teh game adhering to the laws of physics and having their own independent effect on combat results depending on the movement and trajectory of each striking weapon, piece of armor, and shield. Its just nuts.

Animations from stats is the only way that makes sense, not visa versa, with the only exception being ranged missile fire should take into account line of site based on the position of each man.

I think we agree on that.

Puzz3D

02-15-2007, 21:11

STW tracks the trajectory of every missile, most likely as if it were a ball or a point wieghing x amount etc. What I am talking about is all of the swinging swords, axes, shields, etc., all of the moving parts in teh game adhering to the laws of physics and having their own independent effect on combat results depending on the movement and trajectory of each striking weapon, piece of armor, and shield. Its just nuts.
That's right. So, clearly it can't be done. The old battle engine is elegant in the way it models combat, and it provides robust combat results.

Do you remember the reason CA gave for refusing to change the speed of skirmishing infantry when lots of players were saying that it was too hard for cav to catch them? CA said that if they changed the speed then the men's feet would slip along the ground. So you can see from this response that CA values visuals over gameplay considerations.

Animations from stats is the only way that makes sense, not visa versa, with the only exception being ranged missile fire should take into account line of site based on the position of each man.
Fat chance of this happening when the visuals take precedence.

|Heerbann|_Di3Hard

02-15-2007, 21:43

Unfortunately, cav/sword armies dominate MTW/VI unless you play at 5000 florins.

But better than no balance as in mtw2. A good team can use anti cav very well. And anti cav works in MTW VI in opposite to mtw2. And soon heerbann is maybe in stw mod too :D

pike master

02-16-2007, 01:48

Puzz3D

02-16-2007, 08:42

what about the thread that stated that the combat results were predetermined before the animation takes place. ie missile trajectories.i have watched my ballistas do it make angle cuts in their trajectories.
Certainly the finishing moves take place after the game determines that the man is killed. The movement speeds of the units and how fast a man strikes with his weapon are being determined by the animations. In the old engine, you had independent control in the unit stat file over the walking, running and charging speeds of every unit. It"s really important to have this control over unit speeds when you go to balance the dynamics of the gameplay. The gameplay is adjusted for balance at the end of development, but now the person who does that has no control over the unit speeds. Changing the combat cycle also involves changing the combat animation speed, and I doubt that's a parameter in the unit stat file. I think it involves changing the game code in the main exe.

Each missle followed a true physics model in the old battle engine. It is possible that they have changed this to a statistical model in the new engine which would save on calculating the individual projectile trajectories and collision detection with a target. This is probably calculated for the whole unit rather than individual men which would account for the "all men shoot" behavior that I've observed in RTW. It would also account for the increased effectiveness against moving targets that I noticed as though target motion isn't included in the calculation. Target motion is automatically included in a physics model.

TosaInu

02-16-2007, 11:29

Each missle followed a true physics model in the old battle engine.

True physics would involve drag and kinetic energy, those are not present in STW. Not even in the most simplified way (only do simplified calculations on the hits), as can be deduced from the several glitches caused by bullets and also by arrows. MTW didn't fix it all either.

caravel

02-16-2007, 13:44

The way missiles, particularly arrows, work in vanilla RTW reminded me of RTS games like stronghold with all men in a formation firing and damage being very over the top. I haven't really looked into M2TW much, and probably won't buy it until my machine is upgraded, but am I to understand that this hasn't changed?

Puzz3D

02-16-2007, 14:08

True physics would involve drag and kinetic energy, those are not present in STW. Not even in the most simplified way (only do simplified calculations on the hits), as can be deduced from the several glitches caused by bullets and also by arrows. MTW didn't fix it all either.
It's a vacuum physics model. There is no drag because there is no air, and the kinetic energy is therefore constant when firing on level ground. The kinetic energy would change when firing over different vertical elevations, and that isn't modeled. However, the accuracy is changed in that case, and the range changes as a natural consequence of the model.

Orda Khan

02-16-2007, 15:31

RTKBarrett

02-16-2007, 18:23

They are not as damaging as RTW

.......Orda

Missle troops are quite laughable atm, damage is minimal however crossbows can cause alot of damage if given time. The problem is that in mp time is not given and "rushing" has become extremely common... its come to the point now where its rush vs rush, archers are indeed alot weaker in this game. They either need to increase their potential in either firing rate/damage etc or decrease their cost massively...

CBR

02-16-2007, 19:34

Going through the list of units it certainly looks like many missile units do cost a lot. They would have to be quite powerful to justify such costs. Does Palamedes know about this issue?

CBR

RTKBarrett

02-16-2007, 22:35

Going through the list of units it certainly looks like many missile units do cost a lot. They would have to be quite powerful to justify such costs. Does Palamedes know about this issue?

CBR

Ive played several games with pala but the main concern in those were to find the causes for lag... Melon probably knows more as he is in the same clan as pala. I believe CA know what the issues are, whether they are going to put the man hours into fixing them is another question.

pike master

02-17-2007, 17:21

the reason for my comment was to find out if damage truly is calculated before animations then it should be easier to make larger games run more smoothly. it seems in my rome games on highest settings i can see pike and hoplite spears clear across the battlefield but on mtw2 even on highest settings the pikes will disappear after a certian distance albeit a good distance.

it would seem simple to get the game to play as smoothly as rome on larger games.also the missile system is different than rome in that individual soldiers need to have a line of sight to target to hit accurately. the big problem is that those that dont waste projectiles by shooting them up in the air and running your ammo expenditure down when it shouldnt be.

how possible would it be for them to smooth out large mp games. even dual cores arnt using faster processors if anything they are still slower than single processors right now. and until they start using some of the newer materials their developing cpus are pretty much maxed out.

on single player sure you can max it out all the way but on mp even with the fastest systems you still have to crank it down some. this should not be.

Vanya

02-20-2007, 00:50

GAH!

Vanya tossed out the notion of "competitive play" when Olde Shoggy went out of style.

MTW I was still fun to play.

But Vanya rarely played RTW online, and has yet to attempt MTW2 online.

Why?

Simple...

When Vanya goes online, He just wants to play a nice, big game and have fun. But doing that is almost impossible any more. Every game, it seems, is a version mismatch. And if Vanya does find a game to join--or somebody to join His game--they quickly boot ole Vanya 'cause they don't like the stench of His 2-week-old Grapefruit surrogate head, or if they joined Vanya's game, quickly run away claiming they joined the wrong game.

It's no fun if Vanya has to mull around for 2 hours just to get ONE game in. :wall:

And if Vanya is lucky enough to actually play a game, it usually ends with some rat bastid escaping the game half way through and ruining it for everybody! Vanya had to wait 2 hours for that?!? :skull:

In the Olde Shoggy days, Vanya could sit down and in a 2 hour span, play TEN games!

Balancing issues and all that are secondary to the ability to actually play.

And that is why, in a nutshell, Vanya thinks MP has been in a steep decline for some time now.

GAH!

Puzz3D

02-21-2007, 17:04

GAH!And that is why, in a nutshell, Vanya thinks MP has been in a steep decline for some time now.
Samurai Wars is on a steep incline: best engine, best server, best playbalance, largest maps, stable battles, no lag, deep tactics, intuitive gameplay, two or more battles per hour and nobody quits a battle before it's finished.

ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88

02-21-2007, 17:14

Samurai Wars is on a steep incline: best engine, best server, best playbalance, largest maps, stable battles, no lag, deep tactics, intuitive gameplay, two or more battles per hour and nobody quits a battle before it's finished.

Hey,

that's why I always try to play Samurai Wars alot during Sundays. on RTW, I used to hate it (still can't get over I was addicted to RTW :skull: ) when I sit there for 2 hours, and NO Games. Hontestly, I sit there for 1 1/2 hours-2 hours, and not one Game.

When I used to play VI back in 04, when I first Started. I remember I used to come on every day of the week. or at least 5 days a week. On School Days, I could fit 5 games into a 1 1/2 hour time span. Good games. On Weekends, I would spend 6 hours and we would do Castle games, Steppe Games, etc..., 1v1,2v2,3v3's and 4v4's, all great game and no one ever quit. Hell, I remember Once I played for 6-7 hours straight with only relogging once because I was having so much fun.

Monarch

02-21-2007, 18:06

:flowers: :idea2:

Marius Dynamite

02-21-2007, 21:18

The game itself may be contributing to the disconnect. RTW had this same problem in v1.0 and v1.1, but it worked much better after the v1.2 patch. I had no problem staying connected to the MTW/VI lobby and don't even today, but I had terrible problems staying connected to the RTW v1.1 lobby, and they both use GameSpy. Many players, including myself, experienced disconnects in MTW v1.0 until it was patched to v1.1. The disconnect is something CA should definitely look at in the M2TW v1.2 beta and try to improve. CA seems destined to repeat mistakes over and over with every new release which is part of the reason I didn't rush out and buy M2TW.

I never had this problem before the patch. Infact I couldn't even log into multiplayer at first with the patch, but I fixed that after a while, being the clever cookie that I am.

Anyways thats good news that it might just be the patch. I got a 360 and Xbox live over christmas and I just assumed it was that. I mean, undoubtedly the 360 would slow my connection down but I can still play any other game and I can still play lagless M2 with people. It's only Gamespy I have the actual problem with. So it could be the patch thingy :):2thumbsup:

pike master

02-21-2007, 23:19

according to an email sega sent me about a month ago they have responsibility for connection, server and network code issues. they intend to improve the network code for the software in the next patch. at least thats what they told me.

Vanya

02-22-2007, 01:48

GAH!

Vanya wonders what is this thingie called "Samurai Wars"?

GAH!

Puzz3D

02-22-2007, 02:03

Vanya wonders what is this thingie called "Samurai Wars"?
It's a throwback to an era when the game was simpler, but ironically the tactical gameplay more complex. samurai warlords forum (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=105)

7Bear7Bottom

02-25-2007, 11:07

Vanya needs a Bear Hug to pop out of third person typing........:knuddel: :gah: :gah: :gah2: :gah2:

pike master

02-25-2007, 15:15

does samurai wars have a campaign or is it just for multiplayer and custom battles?

R'as al Ghul

02-25-2007, 15:29

It has a campaign. It's a full conversion of MTW to STW, so to say.

Here're some screenshots: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showpost.php?p=794571&postcount=12

When you click my signature you'll be linked to our subforum. For MP we use the beta_5 version. For SP beta_7 is fine.

:bow:

R'as

Gawain of Orkeny

02-27-2007, 20:06

Damn and here I am fielding predominatly archer armies and winning. I generally use 14 or more. Maybe its themass of fire that works. But as has been said VI is still the best. Also the Lordz are releasing a comercial version of NTW that is centered on micro managing your individual units. I cant wait I do really enjoy MTW2 bugs or no. The biggest drawback is so many games dropping. But after experiencing pre patch MTW1 its nothing.

Puzz3D

02-28-2007, 13:09

Damn and here I am fielding predominatly archer armies and winning.
You shouldn't be able to do that. It's represents another playbalance problem.

I cant wait I do really enjoy MTW2 bugs or no. The biggest drawback is so many games dropping. But after experiencing pre patch MTW1 its nothing.
Closing your eyes to the problems is a way to enjoy it. I'm not going to do that. They either improve the game up to the previous level or you won't see my clan playing it.

t1master

02-28-2007, 14:40

at what point will your clan decide it's not worth playing and posting about?

:dizzy2:

econ21

02-28-2007, 15:23

Damn and here I am fielding predominatly archer armies and winning. I generally use 14 or more. Maybe its the mass of fire that works.

You shouldn't be able to do that. It's represents another playbalance problem.

That's interesting, Gawain. I was surprised when looking into the ratio of archers in historical medieval English armies and 14/20 would not be unreasonable for the iconic Hundred Years War encounters. I could not imagine such an army working in SP, let alone MP. I would have thought you need more of a meatshield - even enemy infantry is upon you after a couple of volleys in M2TW. However, given what you say, I may try to play my English SP campaign with more historical proportions of archers.

But, Puzz3D, I'm not sure why you shouldn't be able to win with an archer heavy force? Isn't that historically what the English (and, if we consider mounted archers, Mongols) did? I would have thought the ideal would be to allow a variety of army styles to be competitive, not set up the RPS so that only a balanced force should be able to win.

Puzz3D

02-28-2007, 16:57

But, Puzz3D, I'm not sure why you shouldn't be able to win with an archer heavy force? Isn't that historically what the English (and, if we consider mounted archers, Mongols) did? I would have thought the ideal would be to allow a variety of army styles to be competitive, not set up the RPS so that only a balanced force should be able to win.
I didn't say a balanced army should be able to beat that, but there should exist a counter army that beats it. Only when counter armies exist do you get a variety of army styles used. Players should be able to take any army they want with no tax penalty. The fact that CA has put a tax on more than X of the same unit type is an admission that the units aren't balanced.

Balanced armies shouldn't be able to beat all other army types. Unfortunately, we can't demonstrate that in Samurai Wars because of that confounded tax on more than 4 of one unit type.

Puzz3D

02-28-2007, 17:38

at what point will your clan decide it's not worth playing and posting about?
I'm never going to drop the issue as long as people keep claiming something is better when it isn't. M2TW has better graphics, and that's the only thing that's better in MP. You know as well as I do the large number of excellent players that have left Total War MP. They wouldn't have left if the newer Total War games were really better than the original game. Online participation in STW was still increasing a year after release up until the horribly balanced MI add-on was released.

TosaInu

02-28-2007, 18:06

I'm not sure why you shouldn't be able to win with an archer heavy force? Isn't that historically what the English (and, if we consider mounted archers, Mongols) did? I would have thought the ideal would be to allow a variety of army styles to be competitive, not set up the RPS so that only a balanced force should be able to win.

There's winning and a simple walkover. A unit that results in a (say) 9 out of 10 victory without requiring much input from the player is probably too strong. STW WE 1.0 had the Nag Cav, MHC and MLC, MTW had the lancers in high era (in combination with swipebug and bfu). Of course a archer heavy army should have a chance to win.

I'm not sure the English won because of the bow. Sure, it was more than just a fine weapon and those guys knew how to use it. The battle at Agincourt for example was not just decided by raining 100,000 arrows upon French knights though. There's even research that the bodkin largely failed there, because of the class armour used by the French. The archers did kill a lot sucked into mud knights by stabbing into their visor with small knives. At any rate, terrain, weather, pride and human behaviour influenced the battle a lot.

My personal view is that the English did not win the conflict but the French lost it.

The mongols are yet another story. Their strength was being mounted and an array of unusual tactics.

A balanced army is nice as you almost always have a best unit to counter, it also has a drawback because may find yourself short of just that extra archer, or just that extra knight to combat the other.

It's not a problem when a player likes to wage his chances with a archer heavy army and get good results with it, it does become a problem when that/those units start to dominate every battle because no other army manages to beat them (regularly).

I am fielding predominatly archer armies and winning. I generally use 14 or more. Maybe its the mass of fire that works.

I recall hearing other signals about archers. So, seems Gawain of Orkney just knows how to use them properly?

t1master

02-28-2007, 19:17

i agree yuuki, that the old community and game are pretty much gone for good. i just don't see the point in restating what has been. the new community, many of whom never played shogun or mtw, do not care about the game play issues that the rtw and m2 brought. at what point does it stop becoming worth the time and effort to point out over and over again how things were better?

TosaInu

02-28-2007, 19:51

not care about the game play issues that the rtw and m2 brought.

This is an interesting point. There are several interesting points actually.

The conflict between old and new is not good.

Old can not tell new to stop enjoying the game if they do. But new can't simply tell old to shut up either. The previous titles had their flaws too and old, some of them are playing TW since 2000, had their hopes for improvements with patches or future titles.

And of course, if new likes the game, by all means enjoy it. However, the old is not just a senile pissing in your tea. It took me at least two years to understand all the flaws in STW, though I enjoyed the game. How much better could STW have been if an older one pointed at the flaws right away so they could be ironed out? Of course you need CA for many things if something needs to be patched. But right now, nothing can change or improve. Not because there is no agreement, but because of lack of discussion. That discussion doesn't have to result in a big compromise where everyone is a bit happy and a bit sad, heaven forbid. Modern software is flexible enough to give everyone the best.

Perhaps the knives should be put away when talking with each other? Talking with each other instead of yelling at each other? Also keep in mind that humans have to make it for us. Perhaps it will turn out beneficial for everyone?

guyfawkes5

02-28-2007, 21:01

Tosa is right, expecially given that I was probably one of the ones shouting and losing sight of the bigger picture. A plan of action is needed to at least attempt to improve the situation; and I believe that if anyone disagrees with my previous statement then they shouldn't participate.

So far in my experience every thread that has attempted to improve multiplayer and relations with CA with a sound and workable plan has been crashed by posters advising that CA 'will never listen'. It's just my conclusion that you should devise new plans or at least keep trying; because if you're not participating constructively then why are you here?*

*By the way that was not a knock at older players or a threat to anyone etc etc... just advice that working to improve the situation is the only option we have really.

econ21

02-28-2007, 22:28

I didn't say a balanced army should be able to beat that, but there should exist a counter army that beats it.

Gawain said he was winning with archer heavy armies, but that does not imply there is no counter army. Another player said M2TW missiles are "laughable", so the jury's out.

In SP, archers seem nicely balanced. Nearly everyone must have played the Agincourt M2TW demo and got a taste of what massed longbows can, and can't, do. They remind me a little of MTW arbalests - slow firing, but lethal when they hit. But they are not as overpowering vs the AI as arbalests were. In effectiveness, they remind me more of STW archers - nice to have, but not the only trick you'd want up your sleeve. I'd want to hear more MPers report similar experiences to Gawain before I drew any conclusions about them being too strong. Right now, I think missiles are one of the things M2TW got right.

I recall hearing other signals about archers. So, seems Gawain of Orkney just knows how to use them properly?

Indeed. Or his opponents don't know how to counter them properly. I suspect it's a rare army type that most players are not very experienced in countering.

Or maybe Gawain is just a good player. :bow:

I'm not sure the English won because of the bow.

Me neither - my point was merely that, from a realism point of view, missile heavy should be a viable army style. Having 60% of their troops armed with bows certainly did not stop the English winning some of the key battles of the HYW.

pike master

02-28-2007, 23:22

the best thing we can hope for is that another developer comes along with a better game engine and balance. to me there seems to be a rift forming between people who want a historically unit balanced game and a small minority elite who could soon as less care what the game purchaser thinks.
and as has been stated before most of CAs developers only play it in single player if they play the game at all.

t1master

03-01-2007, 01:01

the old vs new community strife will not necessarily hurt the community discussion overall it does happen elsewhere, it will simply hurt it here.

it's good to have many viewpoints as to what is good in a game and what is balanced, but what we have at the org seems to be the same 14000 posts from the old crowd, who stopped playing rome during the first months telling the new community, who has grown up on rome and now moves into m2 that the game is not worth the time. why even bother to post then? if you have no intention to play the game; accept that you have moved on(or you have moved or been shoved by ca aside, develop a gamestat for m2 that will have the appeal of the old community, or sit in the shadows and have a pint. ~:pimp:

you can counter the arrow army with a strong rush. gawain is good at getting his army out of the way, all whilst shooting at you.

Stoicblitzer

03-01-2007, 06:31

All i can add myself, is that the focus should be on all players, not just clanbods. So many times i have entered the forum to see 6 clan only games with passwords, but none for others. if you want more players then you have to be open to new players.
I am used to it as ive been playing for a while, but i can see it as being offputting for those new to the game.

we make clan games because randoms normally crash games. they do not understand that GS SUCKS and that if they have a router they need to forward ports. seldomly do randoms display skill or respect (CTRL+A and left-clicking the enemy general displays neither). these things ruin games that take ages to get hosted and are a miracle if they make it to the 'start deployment' button.

lack of respect b/t clans is also off-putting. WIN WIN WIN at all costs! 8 max cav? ok ill go 12 upgraded pikes 8 upgraded cav! imo, playing like this displays no honor and winning is hollow. this is almost entirely CA's fault for making such an unbalanced BETA. moreover, screenshooting every single win to be used later is disgusting. it's utterly hopeless.

the main reason i still play mtw2 mp is because RTK retains their membership in a silly tournament. foolishly, i volunteered to captain the team. i am beginning to regret this decision.:shame:

i'd rather find something else to do sometimes...*frustrated*

|Heerbann|_Di3Hard

03-01-2007, 12:12

the old vs new community strife will not necessarily hurt the community discussion overall it does happen elsewhere, it will simply hurt it here.

it's good to have many viewpoints as to what is good in a game and what is balanced, but what we have at the org seems to be the same 14000 posts from the old crowd, who stopped playing rome during the first months telling the new community, who has grown up on rome and now moves into m2 that the game is not worth the time. why even bother to post then? if you have no intention to play the game;

Easy answer. I have bought the game, because the demo was too poor to test it right. After the disappointment of the full version I have sold my mtw2 and told the community my opinion about the game. CA should also know, that not all are happy with their game. The bugs in mtw2 are many in number and heavy in impact. A forum is a location for discussion. And a discussion consists of different opinions.

Puzz3D

03-01-2007, 14:04

Gawain said he was winning with archer heavy armies, but that does not imply there is no counter army.
He's winning with a 70% archer army. He shouldn't be.

In SP, archers seem nicely balanced.
That doesn't mean they are nicely balanced in MP.

Indeed. Or his opponents don't know how to counter them properly. I suspect it's a rare army type that most players are not very experienced in countering.
It shouldn't be a mystery how to counter it. The gameplay should be intuitive and clear. If it's not, then this is another problem.

Or maybe Gawain is just a good player.
Or maybe he's just beating up on newbies.

Me neither - my point was merely that, from a realism point of view, missile heavy should be a viable army style. Having 60% of their troops armed with bows certainly did not stop the English winning some of the key battles of the HYW.
I'm looking from a gameplay point of view which according to CA is also how they look at it. A 70% archer army should not be viable unless the opponent has taken an army that's vulnerable to it.

Puzz3D

03-01-2007, 14:54

it's good to have many viewpoints as to what is good in a game and what is balanced, but what we have at the org seems to be the same 14000 posts from the old crowd, who stopped playing rome during the first months telling the new community, who has grown up on rome and now moves into m2 that the game is not worth the time. why even bother to post then?
I post for the people who are considering purchasing the game.

if you have no intention to play the game; accept that you have moved on(or you have moved or been shoved by ca aside, develop a gamestat for m2 that will have the appeal of the old community, or sit in the shadows and have a pint.
I'll play the game when CA brings it up to the standard of play they once had in the series. I spent over 1000 hours of my time beta testing for them, so I would say I have a big investment not to mention the $245 usd I spent on Total War games and the MP mods I worked on which helped promote their game.

you can counter the arrow army with a strong rush. gawain is good at getting his army out of the way, all whilst shooting at you.
Well he must be head and shoulders above his opponents to be winning most of his games with 70% archers or maybe skirmishers are too fast?

econ21

03-01-2007, 15:24

He's winning with a 70% archer army. He shouldn't be.

We're going round in circles. :shrug:

But, Puzz3D, I'm not sure why you shouldn't be able to win with an archer heavy force? Isn't that historically what the English (and, if we consider mounted archers, Mongols) did?

The fact that one player out of dozens reports winning with archer heavy armies does not to me imply any fault with the game. Quite the reverse: that non-standard but historical armies are viable is a strength.

I'm looking from a gameplay point of view which according to CA is also how they look at it.

The problem with a "gameplay point of view" is that there isn't much external reference. Some people like one style of gameplay, others like another. That's why I'd rather anchor things on realism and then tweak things if realism makes for poor gameplay (which I'm not convinced it will).

But anyway, as I say, I don't understand why one player winning with archer heavy armies indicates a gameplay problem. (Anymore than one reporting winning with a more balanced army).

Scores of players reporting winning with cavalry heavy armies seems the more likely problem with M2TW until the shield bug is fixed.

Paolai

03-01-2007, 16:31

Scores of players reporting winning with cavalry heavy armies seems the more likely problem with M2TW until the shield bug is fixed.

do not forget that also cavs have the shields, and the shield bug do not affect just infantries. When the shild bug will be fixed cavs will be stronger too, not only inf.

Puzz3D

03-01-2007, 17:38

The fact that one player out of dozens reports winning with archer heavy armies does not to me imply any fault with the game. Quite the reverse: that non-standard but historical armies are viable is a strength.
It's a fault if it's stronger than other armies. If that's the case, the gameplay will converge to archer based armies. If he's experiencing these wins because he's playing weak opposition, then his post is disingenuous. He's obviously saying that he can win consistently with that army. I'm saying that if he can do this against equal strength opposition, then there is a problem with the playbalance.

The problem with a "gameplay point of view" is that there isn't much external reference. Some people like one style of gameplay, others like another. That's why I'd rather anchor things on realism and then tweak things if realism makes for poor gameplay (which I'm not convinced it will).
I'm all for realism, but you get nowhere with CA if you argue for a change based on realism or historical accuracy. I certainly learned that being on four of their beta teams, and they've said publically that gameplay considerations are first. I also recall a dev saying their game wasn't intended to be a history lesson, and that the gameplay was like the movie Gladiator or Braveheart. Remember the opening battle of Gladiator? The artillery barrage looked like something out of WWII, and the game is like that as well with siege artillery being use as anti-personnel weapons. If you ask CA why they made the artillery that effective, they'll say because it's fun. Even moreso than gameplay considerations which do have an objective aspect to them, any kind of gameplay can be justified in the name of being fun.

But anyway, as I say, I don't understand why one player winning with archer heavy armies indicates a gameplay problem. (Anymore than one reporting winning with a more balanced army).
He's using it to indicate there isn't a playbalance problem, but if what he says is true, it itself represents a playbalance problem. This is the same player who thinks v0 heavy cav should be allowed in an all valor 1 MTW/VI tournament because it makes the gameplay better. It makes spears cost as much as the cav that they beat. The cav pays nothing for its higher mobility and yet mobility is a valuable attribute in multiplayer. What v0 cav allows is for players to take more cav, and that is exactly the gameplay Tomi is trying to get away from with the all v1 rule. MTW/VI is dominated by cav and swords and this is because CA didn't balance it very well, and they had 3 cracks at it in MTW v1.1, VI 2.0 and VI 2.01.

M2TW v1.2 is a bug fix patch just as was the RTW v1.2 patch. We'll see if SEGA is willing to do a patch just for playbalance purposes after the v1.2 is released and the multiplayer feedback starts coming. I can tell you that the only time CA did a patch strictly for playbalance purposes was way back in STW/MI v1.02.

Scores of players reporting winning with cavalry heavy armies seems the more likely problem with M2TW until the shield bug is fixed.
They will also have to fix the click behind, and then they will have to balance it. This is going to take resources. They also will have to use proper debugging methods otherwise they will end up with the situation they had in RTW where every patch introduced new bugs.

|Heerbann|_Di3Hard

03-01-2007, 17:51

MTW/VI is dominated by cav and swords and this is because CA didn't balance it very well, and they had 3 cracks at it in MTW v1.1, VI 2.0 and VI 2.01.

The anti cav units are only weak because they are a little too expensive, they are too weak against swords and the biggest disadvantage is, most of them are slow. But they are not useless like many units in mtw2. It isn't fair to compare the game balance of mtw2 with mtw1. In mtw 1 you can use anti cav units without regret. It is also a question of convenience/skill to prefer cav instead of anti cav.

TosaInu

03-01-2007, 18:13

do not forget that also cavs have the shields, and the shield bug do not affect just infantries. When the shild bug will be fixed cavs will be stronger too, not only inf.

Pikes and halberdiers will experience a lot of difficulties to beat cavalry then. While spears will not do any better than in M2TW 1.0/1.1. So basically cavalry would be even stronger.

Puzz3D

03-01-2007, 18:20

It isn't fair to compare the game balance of mtw2 with mtw1.
I'm not comparing the two. I'm pointing out that CA didn't get mtw1 balanced, and that was with the help of excellent community based beta teams for the mtw v1.1 and vi v2.01 patches and tons of multiplayer feedback. Even with all that, the price of spears was not adjusted, and all that we were asking for was a 12.5% reduction back to their original prices. That 12.5% overpricing had a major impact on multiplayer gameplay. It was a very reasonable request and wouldn't have adversely affected SP. Someone from CA could have logged onto mtw 1 multiplayer and seen that spears were underutilized if they didn't want to believe the players and the beta team.

Take note: it's the Australian division that's working on mtw 2 and that's the same division that worked on mtw 1, and while this division is more responsive to multiplayer requests than the other division, several of the requests that were implimented in mtw 1 were done incorrectly. When the mistakes were pointed out, they weren't corrected in the subsequent patches.

econ21

03-01-2007, 19:12

do not forget that also cavs have the shields, and the shield bug do not affect just infantries. When the shild bug will be fixed cavs will be stronger too, not only inf.

Good point, but the typical infantry shield is +6 whereas for knights, it is +4. If I am understanding the shield bug correctly, fixing the bug will imply a net +4 shift in favour of the infantry.

Incidentally, just following on from that calculation, the really big effect of fixing the shield bug will not be on cav vs infantry balance but on overall kill rates. They should also slow down considerably, other things being equal.

Right now if we forget about the charge bonus and any spear bonus vs cav[1], the stats imply that a militia spear vs a mailed knight is striking at +6 (attack - defence + shield); the knight at +10.

With shields working properly, they both switch to striking at -2 (attack - defence - shield).

I'm really looking forward to the reduction in kill rates this should generate. Spears and knights both kill each other rather too fast in the current version of M2TW. A unit can be mangled before you've noticed it.

[1]BTW: does any one know what the spear bonus is for spearmen against cav?

TosaInu

03-01-2007, 21:06

Good point, but the typical infantry shield is +6 whereas for knights, it is +4. If I am understanding the shield bug correctly, fixing the bug will imply a net +4 shift in favour of the infantry.

It will imply a shift of 2 in favour of the infantry using these figures?

Incidentally, just following on from that calculation, the really big effect of fixing the shield bug will not be on cav vs infantry balance but on overall kill rates. They should also slow down considerably, other things being equal.

It should influence it yes.

Right now if we forget about the charge bonus and any spear bonus vs cav[1], the stats imply that a militia spear vs a mailed knight is striking at +6 (attack - defence + shield); the knight at +10.

With shields working properly, they both switch to striking at -2 (attack - defence - shield).

The shield is the difference. The miltia strikes the knight and it's the knights shield that reduces the militia's attack. The knights shield being 4: 6*-4=2
*=( militia attack - knights defence). So militia strikes knight with 2 instead of 6.

Knight striking: 10-6=4. So knight strikes militia with 4 instead of 10. A reduction in killrate indeed. But the knights striking power is twice that of the militia now, whereas it was only 10/6 times more at first. We'll have to see how it works out. A bug is fixed, the battles are slower, both good things. But I'm not sure the spearunit will perform better now.

BTW: does any one know what the spear bonus is for spearmen against cav?

That bonus may have to be increased to fix it further.

econ21

03-01-2007, 21:23

It will imply a shift of 2 in favour of the infantry using these figures?

Maybe I am wrong but my understanding is not that the shield stat is currently ignored. It is that the shield stat is subtracted from the defence stat. If so, patching this bug will shift the stats differential between shielded infantry and cav by 4, not 2. I am not sure exactly what such a stats differential corresponds to in actual kill rates, but have some memory of Puzz3D saying it was about 10% per point in RTW.

TosaInu

03-01-2007, 21:44

Maybe I am wrong but my understanding is not that the shield stat is currently ignored. It is that the shield stat is subtracted from the defence stat. If so, patching this bug will shift the stats differential between shielded infantry and cav by 4, not 2.

Then it's 4 yes.

Still, mounted knights will be harder to kill, while pikes and halberds remain the same.

R'as al Ghul

03-01-2007, 21:51

Maybe I am wrong but my understanding is not that the shield stat is currently ignored. It is that the shield stat is subtracted from the defence stat.

Maybe we are saying the same, but my understanding is that the shield value counts negatively atm. When it should be "+6" it's "-6". This makes 12 points difference for the overall defense value when fixed. If a Knights shield's value is now -4 then it will be +4 and the difference to the infantry is 2.
The shield value is definitely not ignored, otherwise all would be fine.

R'as

TosaInu

03-01-2007, 22:05

Maybe we are saying the same, but my understanding is that the shield value counts negatively atm.

Not sure how it's done, but the effect is the same.

When it should be "+6" it's "-6". This makes 12 points difference for the overall defense value when fixed.

Correct.

If a Knights shield's value is now -4 then it will be +4 and the difference to the infantry is 2.

The difference when fixed is 8 points. The mounted knight gains 8 points, the infantry 12. So infantry gains 4 points in such a matchup.

The shield value is definitely not ignored, otherwise all would be fine.

That's not true. The infantry would still be relatively 2 points weaker than supposed. It's true though that it would not have such a huge effect on killrate as a negative shield.

Lusted

03-01-2007, 22:13

The main effect of the shield bug being fixed, or at least from what i've observed using the shield bug workaround, is that spears fair much better in the charge with their higher defence. With the shield being added negatively to combat, it meant that any unit with shields would be seriously handicapped against charging cavalry, as their defence is reduced lots by it. With it fixed, shielded infantry will lsoe in the charge, and in the case of spears, probably kill more charging cavalry, and then do better in melee.

econ21

03-01-2007, 22:37

I was going to raise the issue of the charge. IIRC, in MTW, spears negated the cavalry charge bonus. That doesn't seem to be true in M2TW - my impression is that cavalry still plough into spears and cause a lot of casualties on impact or follow through. Once the cavalry are stalled - e.g. in settlement street - then the current M2TW seems reasonably balanced. Against stationary cav, the spears often seem to win through weight of numbers. I suspect the spear bonus outweighs the current +4 stat advantage to cav I mentioned above. It's the cavalry charge effect that allows cavalry to beat spears at the moment.

I wonder what happened to the negate cavalry charge bonus property of spears? Is it still in M2TW? Was it in RTW? I also found spears rather weak in RTW - triari were underwhelming against cav. Or has it been reserved for pikes?

Maybe my impressions are all wrong and it is still there. I do recall people emphasising the requirement for spears to be "braced" when receiving a charge.

Perhaps there's something subtle at work, like cavalry charge bonuses still working if they "push back" individual spearmen.

TosaInu

03-01-2007, 22:59

I was going to raise the issue of the charge. IIRC, in MTW, spears negated the cavalry charge bonus. That doesn't seem to be true in M2TW - my impression is that cavalry still plough into spears and cause a lot of casualties on impact or follow through. Once the cavalry are stalled - e.g. in settlement street - then the current M2TW seems reasonably balanced. Against stationary cav, the spears often seem to win through weight of numbers. I suspect the spear bonus outweighs the current +4 stat advantage to cav I mentioned above. It's the cavalry charge effect that allows cavalry to beat spears at the moment.

Not sure if this helps. Mostly based on STW and MTW experience.

In STW spearunits largely cancelled a frontal charge. In MTW, you also had cavalry refusing to charge spears. While a charge is something special, it's still a meleevalue.

Assigning a huge defence value to non spear STW infantry units, had about the same effect as being a spearunit. Cavalry charge could hardly/not dent it (of course the unit was also much stronger after the charge and won easily). So, the normal defence is also used against a charge.

Spearunits, being defensively stronger now, should be better able to survive the charge.

The near total cancellation of the charge in STW is not very realistic. A fast moving horse would dent a standard spear formation, dead or alive. Not as much as say an archer line though. Pikes in formation would do better, but a bit damage should be done.

Puzz3D

03-02-2007, 00:19

In STW, the charge bonus of cav was canceled when hitting spears frontally. There were also no pushbacks on spears. The anti-cav bonus of a spear was 8 points; each point making a unit 20% stronger in the old engine. In MTW/VI v2.01, the charge bonus is still canceled if there is no pushback, but there is a chance of pushing back the spear which gives a +6 attack bonus (the anti-cav bonus of a spear is 5 points and of a pike 8 points) on the next combat cycle, and only some of the cav's momentum is taken away. The cav's charge bonus stays in effect until the cav's momentum drops below a certain value, so it's possible for a cav to make multiple pushbacks.

RTW/M2TW is a 3D engine where men have a mass parameter so the pushback is going to be different depending on the value of that parameter. I don't know if there is any bonus on the next combat cycle after a pushback. However, I think the big difference is that spearmen and pikemen can be forced to switch to their secondary weapon and thereby loose their anti-cav bonus. I think the anti-cav bonus is 4 points for spear and 8 points for pike, but each point is worth only about 10% in RTW. This may be different in M2TW. Another effect in RTW v1.3/1.5 is that the cav's charge is reversed and used against the cav when it charges a phalanx frontally, but this also happens when cav charges into the back of a phalanx which I don't think was intended. I believe you can negate this reversed charge feature using click behind, but then the cav won't jump on top of the pikes and penetrate the formation as easily. However, the click behind works quite well with inf vs phalanx. I think these are issues brought on by the 3d engine trying to simulate melee combat.

Puzz3D

03-02-2007, 00:28

Personally I did my grieving a long time ago, and went through the classic stages of denial, rage, grief, and finally acceptance.
Sounds like what happens when you don't get the prettiest girl and you have to settle for something less.

Carl

03-02-2007, 01:20

Alright to clear up a few issues:

All spear and pike units get +8 attack against Cav, plus a further unspecified bonus from having the Spear Attribute.

they also get an unspecified defense bonus vs. charging Cav from their spear attribute and an unspecified penalty vs. infantry from the same source.

Based on the fact that (with fixed Shields or working pikes), many Cav seem to die on impact, I also suspect a reflected charge value.

The formed charge is NOT a push-back type effect at all. A Cav-man that impacts somebody will inflict an attack on them (how this is calculated is unclear). If they survive it and are directly in front of the Cav-man, (he can hit those to the side as he plows into a unit), the Cav man then sometimes drops dead so the man hit must always get a kind of free attack in, I'd guess spears/pike get to reflect charge too as they seem much more successful than their performance in general melee vs. Cav suggests they should be. If the Cav man survives that then he may be stopped or he may inflict another hit on the guy he has collided with and even get it reflected back again. This is probably where momentum comes in in M2TW, and probably also mass as it would be that that determines momentum. Naturally the attack and defense of both the charging Cav and defending soldier are considered in this, but high defense is far more important for receiving a charge than high attack. If your defense isn't' above a particular value (varies with the type of attacking Cav), you haven't got a chance full stop of stopping them.

The defense bonus from spears appears to be quite large as fixed Spear militia with Gold Armour (base defense of about 14), are about as charge resistant as DFK (defense 21) so it looks like the bonus is about 50% extra to the defense score.

Hope all that helps you out.

econ21

03-02-2007, 01:34

Thanks, Carl. That's going in the FAQ. :2thumbsup:

Puzz3D

03-02-2007, 01:36

The elegance of the original engine is that it was done with only an anti-cav bonus, and the gameplay in multiplayer was exceptionally good.

Puzz3D

03-02-2007, 01:40

Thanks, Carl. That's going in the FAQ.
How do you know what he says is right about all these reflected charge bonuses. You're going to put unsubstantiated stuff in a FAQ?

ElmarkOFear

03-02-2007, 02:02

Actually, it sounds like a healthy mental state. One where knowing there is no such thing as a "prettiest girl", you settle for a pretty one who is "real", who is "available", and who will make you just as happy in the long run, if you forget about finding the impossibly "perfect girl" or trying to turn your old one into this idea of "perfection". Otherwise, you will remain unhappy and appear to be a grumpy old curmudgeon to most.

The things going on right now in the MP community are exactly the same things that went on during STW/MTW1 days. Nothing has changed but the game engine. There are the same type of imbalances, bugs, etc . . that there always have been.

As for the type of game (Samurai Wars) some consider closer to perfection than any other: As you know, I never enjoyed playing a game where everything is known. Where there is no chance for surprise before or during battles. It bores me.

I have always enjoyed playing with armies which caught the enemy off guard, and forced them to adapt. I have seen the type of play which some have been working towards: it is predictable, the outcome of unit vs. unit battles already fully known before contact, no unusual armies which when used correctly, could affect the outcome of a team battle. This type of play isn't a game more than a historical recreation. Unfortunately, history/realism takes a front seat to actual gameplay and THIS is why you do not see everyone flocking back to play Samurai Wars and why some of the new players consider STW/MTW boring. Using the last patches for each and/or the mods, most of the fun was taken out and people left. It wasn't because the battles weren't realistic, it was because they were no longer as much fun.

Samurai Wars is a very good mod, and very nice for those who want a more historical/realistic battle simulator, but it is not what the majority of current/or older players want(ed). If so, you would see all those old MTW1 clans come flocking back and you wouldn't currently be limited to one-night-a-week MTW1 gaming. Right now, Samurai Wars is a small niche game for a small section of the old veteran community.

I am glad for this section of the old vet community still enjoying the TW game, and I don't mind the continual self-promotion of the Samurai Wars mod. However, I have noticed certain patrons continually pointing out the inferiority of the new game compared to the old. It isn't inferior: It is different. It has the same type of problems the old STW/MTW1 games had (and STILL have) and this will never change, but it isn't STW/MTW1 and never will be.

Its a matter of choice and personal tastes in gaming. I don't begrudge others enjoying the Samurai Wars mod or the old STW/MTW1 games, but neither should this group begrudge other enjoying RTW/M2TW.

Stop telling people HOW the current game should be. Stop telling them, because they have less experience they do not know WHAT a good game is. Lose the arrogance, it will go a long way in convincing the new players of RTW/M2TW that the old STW/MTW1 engine had some really good features which added to gameplay and which would increase the enjoyability of battles using the new engine.

Or some can continue to complain, whine, moan, and try their best to scare people away from a game, under the guise of "I'm just trying to warn people who are thinking of purchasing the new game of its faults, so they can make an informed purchasing decision." When in reality, they are just bitter about CA leaving them behind so callously, and want to exact some sort of petty revenge by maybe convincing a few people from buying the new game.

I know one thing this group HAS accomplished: I notice CA rarely posts here any more. This used to be the only place to go for any type of contact with CA reps, but it looks like they have been chased away from here as well. Good job.

Gawain of Orkeny

03-02-2007, 02:04

He's winning with a 70% archer army. He shouldn't be.

I do the same in VI but with more success yet you claim its a strictly sword cav thing. Maybe I just am used to having so many archers. I find any decent army can win with the right tactics.

Or maybe he's just beating up on newbies.

Yeah like the Hunters :laugh4:

t1master

03-02-2007, 02:09

we let you win gaw so you keep joining the games... ~;)

econ21

03-02-2007, 02:23

You're going to put unsubstantiated stuff in a FAQ?

Yup, sue me.

My FAQ consists of tips and answers to commonly asked questions culled from Org posts. I've merely quoted Carl's post with proper attribution in another Org thread, caveat emptor.

I'm not pretending the FAQ is only hard information from CA (some code is reported on, but CA staff have posted few insights) or empirical testing (there is some referenced). As we are discovering how the game works, no doubt some of the posts in the FAQ will be revealed to be misinformed. But I suspect collating what we know, believe or even just suspect may induce more critical examination than just letting such contributions drift away in old threads.

In the end, though, I am just gathering what I think are useful contributions.

How do you know what he says is right about all these reflected charge bonuses.

He only said he suspects a reflected charge bonus. I don't know if that suspicion is right or wrong. I haven't noticed that, but then I haven't done the modding and testing that Carl has. Carl is one of a group of "bugfixers" active in the Citadel and they tend to be pretty rigorous in figuring out how M2TW works. If one says something, the others are likely to tear them down if they disagree. It was that kind of interaction and testing that uncovered the shield bug, IIRC. If someone presents evidence that Carl's suspicions are wrong, I will modify the FAQ entry.

Puzz3D

03-02-2007, 02:27

Does this sum up your position Elmark:

One gameplay isn't better an another it's just different. The more unpredictable the gameplay is the better. Game bugs you don't know about don't hurt you. I don't want my opponent to know what I have so I can trick him. Don't make an informed purchasing decision, since you can sell the game for a loss later. Just have fun. All it will cost you is $50 usd, some time and a lot of patience.

Puzz3D

03-02-2007, 02:34

I do the same in VI but with more success yet you claim its a strictly sword cav thing. Maybe I just am used to having so many archers. I find any decent army can win with the right tactics.
I didn't want to get into that, but you know as well as I do that the ranged units get discounts on upgrades which turns them into melee units. This is probably another reason why you don't like the all v1 rule for mtw/vi because you're 70% archer army will fall flat on it's face under that rule.

Gawain of Orkeny

03-02-2007, 06:04

I didn't want to get into that, but you know as well as I do that the ranged units get discounts on upgrades which turns them into melee units.

In MTW2 they already are melee units like the turks but there are more factions with good melee and very long range archers like the moongol and Tems.

This is probably another reason why you don't like the all v1 rule for mtw/vi because you're 70% archer army will fall flat on it's face under that rule.

I play my archer armies for fun. I learned it from Elmo. Ive always said the biggest problem with VI was that spears were to weak and bemoaned the fact that they were so useless. I dont like v1 only because its too restrictive.

Puzz3D

03-02-2007, 10:10

I play my archer armies for fun. I learned it from Elmo. Ive always said the biggest problem with VI was that spears were to weak and bemoaned the fact that they were so useless. I dont like v1 only because its too restrictive.
Elmo doesn't care if the gameplay is balanced or not. One gameplay is as good as another according to him, and he loved to use those pumped handgunners in mtw v1.1 which turned out to be the most powerful melee infantry unit in the game after upgrading, and the unit which inflicted the largest morale penalty. Maybe he doesn't realize it, but it was no fun playing against that unit which had no counteruint.

The all v1 rule for that mtw/vi tournament is an attempt to get a more balanced gameplay. CA made three passes on that: mtw v1.1, vi v2.0 and vi v2.01 and still didn't get it balanced. Total War games are now being defended with the argument that playbalance doesn't matter. That's a little different from the previous defense which was that CA doesn't have the resources to balance it.

I certainly could make a more informed decision about purchasing the game if CA said, "We hope you enjoy the unbalanced gameplay as much as we do!". It would be helpful if that was printed right on the box.

R'as al Ghul

03-02-2007, 11:03

The difference when fixed is 8 points. The mounted knight gains 8 points, the infantry 12. So infantry gains 4 points in such a matchup.
Yes, the infantry gains 12 points defense (shield) and the Knights gain 8 points defense. That's adiffeence of 4. But the end value of the shield is 6 for inf and 4 for cav, which is a 2 point difference.

That's not true. The infantry would still be relatively 2 points weaker than supposed. It's true though that it would not have such a huge effect on killrate as a negative shield.
"Everything would be fine" was exaggerated. :beam:
I don't understand what you mean with "two points weaker than supposed".

TosaInu

03-02-2007, 11:51

Yes, the infantry gains 12 points defense (shield) and the Knights gain 8 points defense. That's adiffeence of 4. But the end value of the shield is 6 for inf and 4 for cav, which is a 2 point difference.

Yes.

"Everything would be fine" was exaggerated. :beam:

:daisy:

I don't understand what you mean with "two points weaker than supposed".

Case.

The first step in the proces of implementing the battlefield behaviour is to make the combat engine with all their bonusses: archers can shoot projectiles, cavalry can charge (maybe receive some sort of bonus then), units can flank each other and receive a combatbonus, units can have a shield which adds frontal protection to missiles and extra defence in melee and so on.The engine is then likely to be tested again and again to check whether all these things actually work. The third step is to assign real values, then it's tested again, values of parameters get adjusted, tested again, and so on until the units work as planned. In this scenario, a spearunit would have +6 extra defence because of the shield, the knight only +4. So the difference is a +2 for the spearunit and that works as proved by the tests.

The unitbalance phase can now be considered completed, it's an time extensive and thus expensive one.

It's possible that, for whatever reason, the shieldpart gets deleted/inactivated from the equation. Then the spearunit does no longer have the extra netto 2 defence and thus the spearunit is two points weaker in the matchup than intended.

Something else happened now, a plus became a minus or vice versa. Perhaps an even harder to spot error with even larger implications. Yes, it would be only 5 minutes to test and fix: once you know it is broken. That's the problem with many errors: seeing it is there, or even realising something is wrong takes more time than fixing. Many people will recognise this.

TosaInu

03-02-2007, 12:07

A prime in MP-CA forum communication being early 2003 where longjohn2, the CA employee working on the battlefieldunits, started a topic (his own move!), prior to the release of a new TW title and discussed with the MP people how things should be. Not enough? Maybe. But MTW VI saw important changes because of this.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=23738

We also got several other topics like this
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php (mind you: some verbal violence is deleted).

The 1st topic is a very good example of how constructive it can be. The second one is not.

What do the the people at the left, center, right, upper, middle, lower, new and old want? Bicker and snipe or achieve something?

Hmm?

Well?

:inquisitive:

R'as al Ghul

03-02-2007, 12:09

Ah, okay. Understood.

Something else happened now, a plus became a minus or vice versa. Perhaps an even harder to spot error with even larger implications. Yes, it would be only 5 minutes to test and fix: once you know it is broken. That's the problem with many errors: seeing it is there, or even realising something is wrong takes more time than fixing. Many people will recognise this.

I don't know, the whole spear vs cav issue turns up numerous times in the advisor speech, for example: "Charging your Cavalry in the front of spearmen is a good way to loose your Cavalry" (Right. Watch this: Annihilates spearmen with a straight charge and dismisses advisor)
I mean how can you miss the fact that this is not working? That should've been something that they should've tested and finetuned in a custom battle. It's one of the essential points of the combat mechanic and, as the advisor tells us, is supposed to work exactly as Puzz3D and others are demanding. You can only miss it when you autocalculate the battles. Which, iirc, they've said to have done a lot.

R'as

R'as al Ghul

03-02-2007, 12:14

[..]Not enough? Maybe.
[..]
What do the the people at the left, center, right, upper, middle, lower, new and old want? Bicker and snipe or achieve something?

Hmm?

Well?

:inquisitive:

Well, when I stated that it's not enough (the participation), I meant today.
I for one would welcome any CA interaction. Remember how they told us to create "Can you explain.." threads? There's not a single CA post in the "Can you explain..Cav vs. Spearmen" thread. I've tried a similar thread in the Citadel because I thought they might be offended by the MP section style of discussion/ ranting. Alas, to no avail.

What do we have to do?

Fenix7

03-02-2007, 12:28

Elmo has a point here and so does Puzz. Thought I'm more on Elmo's side. If you take away the surprise elemnt in RTS then it not RTS anymore. Once I've already been asking about predictability in RTS games and you know what the answer was. Puzz from my point of view you take all this things very personally - you were involved in TW series on all aspects I understand that, but from my point of view this should not be an excuse to take all this issue so personally. Please take this words only as a critique and nothing more.

Let us hypotheticaly suggest that there is a RTS game which has no bugs - meaning no exploits no matter the upgreads, charges, clicks behind units, etc.

And in this bug's free RTS game any kind of army (more or less historicaly accurate - for example pesant armies are not supposed to win at all) can beat any other type of army under the condition that you know what you are doing. And each army setup has a counter army setup. This games should be more like what Elmo described. Would you be preapared to play a RTS game like this? Puzz would you play it? Di3Hard would you? What you say R'as al Ghul? What about the rest? Would you be looking for any other kind issue just to make it more your way? I know I would be glad with it.

Chess is chess. RTS is RTS. You can only simulate a real warfare. Take notice on SIMULATE. This is not a real situation. It is only a simulation. And even Samurai Wars or any other RTS are only simulations. And no matter how good you belive Samurai Wars suppose to simulate particular Japanese era it is still far from reality.

How many times in human history battles were won by such types of armies you would not thought that something like that would be possible. Different eras different tactics. Only strategy remain becaus it has no form.

If 2nd patch would address all mentioned bugs and other balance issue cosidered to be present in MTW2 this would be by far one of best TW series. imho

Lusted

03-02-2007, 13:45

I mean how can you miss the fact that this is not working?

Quite easily, i mean i did tons of custom battle testing for v1 of my LTC mod, and all i thought was that unit stats were a bit off, not that the shield is bugged. Thanks to the testing of Foz/Carl and others, the actual cause of the spear v cav balance and other imbalances was found, and CA now know and are fixing it in the 2nd post.

There's not a single CA post in the "Can you explain..Cav vs. Spearmen" thread. I've tried a similar thread in the Citadel because I thought they might be offended by the MP section style of discussion/ ranting. Alas, to no avail.

Surprisingly Palamedes(the guy who made the suggestion for the threads) has been quite busy on work, and on several personal things(believe me, if you had been through what he's been through recently you wouldn't be up for much work either. And no im not going to say, he told me in private as an explanation for his lack of activity for a while, we've had less convos but i understand given whats happened). CA do try and read these forums, butt hey also have to do work, most of the CA devs are all completely busy working on the patch/expansion.

R'as al Ghul

03-02-2007, 14:16

Elmo has a point here and so does Puzz. Thought I'm more on Elmo's side. If you take away the surprise elemnt in RTS then it not RTS anymore. Once I've already been asking about predictability in RTS games and you know what the answer was.
A surprise factor is fine if it's the opponents army that surprises you. If it's completely random/unclear/unpredictable which unit wins a melee, then it's unacceptable and you hardly will find a game where that is the case.

Let us hypotheticaly suggest that there is a RTS game which has no bugs - meaning no exploits no matter the upgreads, charges, clicks behind units, etc.
[..]Would you be looking for any other kind issue just to make it more your way? I know I would be glad with it.
You're implying that this is all personal and we're only posting to shoot down the new title. That's a serious misconception. I would play such a game as you describe. In fact we're posting with the intention to get M2 somewhere near of what you describe. If you refer to Gawain's all archer army, Imo it shouldn't be possible to beat all kinds of armies with that setup and I don't think it's possible. An all Cav army should easily take care of the archers.

Chess is chess. RTS is RTS. You can only simulate a real warfare. Take notice on SIMULATE. This is not a real situation. It is only a simulation. And even Samurai Wars or any other RTS are only simulations. And no matter how good you belive Samurai Wars suppose to simulate particular Japanese era it is still far from reality.
We know it's far from reality better than anybody else. We neither claim that Samurai wars is a simulation nor that it's properly reflecting the era. We'd need HA that can shoot while running and the possibility to have mixed troops, etc. What we do claim is that Samurai Wars is making the best out of the possibilities that the MTW/VI engine allows and that it's fun to play, has an intuitive system and proper RPS mechanics. While some elements in STW have resemblances to Chess we hardly play with mirror armies like in Chess.
We've uploaded enough replays for everyone to check out what SamWars is about.

R'as al Ghul

03-02-2007, 14:25

Quite easily, i mean i did tons of custom battle testing for v1 of my LTC mod, and all i thought was that unit stats were a bit off, not that the shield is bugged.
You're not a programmer, you're a player. It's not your project and you're not getting paid for it so I don't see your point.
If you develop a combat system you have to check that combat system in play, not in a spreadsheet or on a piece of paper.

CA do try and read these forums, butt hey also have to do work, most of the CA devs are all completely busy working on the patch/expansion.

I know that they have jobs. If it was important to them they could give one of the guys some spare time to deal with the community or they could hire someone from the community or they could pay you a salary. I bet there're also a lot of students looking for jobs in the Sydney area. There're so many ways.

Lusted

03-02-2007, 14:27

If you develop a combat system you have to check that combat system in play, not in a spreadsheet or on a piece of paper.

Yes you do, but im pointing out that i've tested the system extensively for my mdo, i had no idea that shields were being added negatively to defense in melee until the thread about it here at .org.

Oh, and i have experience with programming in both VB, C++, Pascal and other languages. I know how easy it is to make bugs and miss them.

R'as al Ghul

03-02-2007, 14:41

I'm not claiming that all you have to do is fire up a custom battle to spot the shield bug. I've run countless tests myself under the assumption that the shield would work.
My point is, that when you're the programmer of the battle mechanics you should realise that something is wrong (pre 1.1) and then you should run tests or look at your code to determine what the problem is. CA's plan was to make spearmen resist a cavalry charge. When tested in custom battle one immediatly realises that this is not the case. Determining the reason for it is the next step and I agree that it can turn out quite difficult. But if it's your own code, your project you should've a pretty good idea about it.
No offense intended when I said you're not a programmer. I meant you're not part of the developing team and you've no insight into the code.

Lusted

03-02-2007, 14:46

No i don't, but i do understand how the engine works, or mostly, given how mcuh i've modded RTW/M2TW. So i was also testing under the assumption that things were worknig correctly. I just thought units had not been balanced well at all and tried to increase spearmen unit mass, not until later when i found out about the shield bug did the actual cause of the imbalance become clear.

Yun Dog

03-02-2007, 16:24

I know I havent been as heavily involved as most of the contributers to the thread, although I would like to add my 5c if I may.

The things going on right now in the MP community are exactly the same things that went on during STW/MTW1 days. Nothing has changed but the game engine. There are the same type of imbalances, bugs, etc . . that there always have been.

I agree

As for the type of game (Samurai Wars) some consider closer to perfection than any other: As you know, I never enjoyed playing a game where everything is known. Where there is no chance for surprise before or during battles. It bores me.

I have always enjoyed playing with armies which caught the enemy off guard, and forced them to adapt. I have seen the type of play which some have been working towards: it is predictable, the outcome of unit vs. unit battles already fully known before contact, no unusual armies which when used correctly, could affect the outcome of a team battle. This type of play isn't a game more than a historical recreation. Unfortunately, history/realism takes a front seat to actual gameplay and THIS is why you do not see everyone flocking back to play Samurai Wars and why some of the new players consider STW/MTW boring. Using the last patches for each and/or the mods, most of the fun was taken out and people left. It wasn't because the battles weren't realistic, it was because they were no longer as much fun.

I dont entirely agree with this... If I am playing against someone I want to play against them not some exploit of game inbalance. In any game its not fun losing because of some exploit, if I get out played by someone, thats fun, and cheers to them, but if they win because they chose a certain uber unit, which they know cant be countered by regular armies - thats boring - it means the outcome of the game was decided before the battle had been entered - wheres the surprise in that - surprise you lose - you lost before the game had begun - so I wasted all that time waiting for a game - I mean you want to at least have a reasonable chance to win.

I agree that playing unusual armies can be fun, but I dont want them to be the norm, or they should at least be a challenge to try and win with. I want to play tactical battles and have my opponent out manouver me - thats exciting IMO

Samurai Wars is a very good mod, and very nice for those who want a more historical/realistic battle simulator, but it is not what the majority of current/or older players want(ed). If so, you would see all those old MTW1 clans come flocking back and you wouldn't currently be limited to one-night-a-week MTW1 gaming. Right now, Samurai Wars is a small niche game for a small section of the old veteran community.

I am glad for this section of the old vet community still enjoying the TW game, and I don't mind the continual self-promotion of the Samurai Wars mod. However, I have noticed certain patrons continually pointing out the inferiority of the new game compared to the old. It isn't inferior: It is different. It has the same type of problems the old STW/MTW1 games had (and STILL have) and this will never change, but it isn't STW/MTW1 and never will be.

Its a matter of choice and personal tastes in gaming. I don't begrudge others enjoying the Samurai Wars mod or the old STW/MTW1 games, but neither should this group begrudge other enjoying RTW/M2TW.

I dont really understand why there is division, I agree the only way is forward with the new engine, and try and mold it using the experience from great mods like Samurai Wars to improve the new engine and make the battles as challenging and balanced as we can. I dont really see going back to old engines as a viable or popular option as far as growing the MP community is concerned. But I do see the potential of offering players and alternative to the vanilla units - an alternative of balance units that removes unit exploits from the equation and means the outcome of the battle is going to be dictated more by the players actions and manouvering of his army. Surely this is something we all want??

The new engine is here... why not make the best of it

and maybe we can show the new MPers how good this game CAN be :yes:

Carl

03-02-2007, 16:25

How do you know what he says is right about all these reflected charge bonuses. You're going to put unsubstantiated stuff in a FAQ?

I'd like to point out that whilst my theory may or may not be correct in terms of what goes on in the engine, the end effect of however the engine handles things is exactly the same as what using the method i described would cause.

That the important piece here, anyone reading and using that theory can use it to predict what will happen in a given situation with confidence it will be as close as any theory will get to reality.

That said I want to add to what I've already said, an altered version is below with the changes highlighted:

All spear and pike units get +8 attack against Cav, plus a further unspecified bonus from having the Spear Attribute.

they also get an unspecified defense bonus vs. charging Cav from their spear attribute and an unspecified penalty vs. infantry from the same source.

Based on the fact that (with fixed Shields or working pikes), many Cav seem to die on impact, I also suspect a reflected charge value.

The formed charge is NOT a push-back type effect at all. A Cav-man that impacts somebody will inflict an attack on them (how this is calculated is unclear). If they survive it and are directly in front of the Cav-man, (he can hit those to the side as he plows into a unit), the Cav man then sometimes drops dead so the man hit must always get a kind of free attack in. I'd guess spears/pike get to reflect charge too as they seem much more successful than their performance in general melee vs. Cav suggests they should be.based on the fact that Spears will also often kill an enemy charging Cav man even if he kills them I would also say it is probable that in addition to reflect charge giving a Cav bonus, it also gives the model with it a free attack back regardless of weather the Cav man kills him or not. I'm not 100% sure of how this works, but based on the functioning of various units I believe the free attack of the spearman and the attack of the formed Cav charge are resolved simultaneously for them, rather than the Cav man going first and the impacted infantryman, (if they are not a spearman/pikeman), getting a free attack back if the survive If the Cav man survives the free attack back, then he may be stopped or he may inflict another hit on the guy he has collided with and even get it reflected back again. This is probably where momentum comes in in M2TW, and probably also mass as it would be that that determines momentum. Naturally the attack and defense of both the charging Cav and defending soldier are considered in this, but high defense is far more important for receiving a charge than high attack. If your defense isn't above a particular value (varies with the type of attacking Cav), you haven't got a chance full stop of stopping them.

A note on pikes: The formed charge effects seem to mostly rely on the Cav man hitting or passing extremely close to their target. Normally coming into contact with a targets weapon will also cause the model holding it to take a formed charge hit.

However, this is not the case with pikes against Cav charges. In this case the Cav man does not inflict a hit on the pikeman, but the Pikeman does inflict a hit on the Cav man. It is also clear that even if the Cav man survives this hit, he will not inflict a hit on the pikes.

On the other hand a Cav man that hits or passes very close to the pikemans actually body will inflict a hit on him. So it's clearly related to either the Spear-Wall or Long Pike attributes. I'll need to do more tests to confirm which attribute is responsible though.

However it's clear that Cav that do a formed charge into braced pikes are unable to inflict any formed charge attacks on the pikemen despite being in contact with their weapons. However, it is equally clear that the pikes can hit the Cav, and with some kind of reflected attack, and that doing so, (if it doesn't kill the Cav), doesn't always stop him from continuing to count as charging.

Most likely, (based on observational evidence), their is a line of code in either the spear wall formation or the long pike attribute that reads something like, "can_suffer_attacks_from_formed_charges=false", and it is set to true for all other weapons, attributes, and circumstances. This would explain how the Cav can count as charging, whilst the pikemen still don't suffer any damage from it in a situation where for the effects of reflect charge they are in contact with the Cav.

Extra Reflect charge info: it's quite clear from the fact that only pikes attacked head on and spears hit head on actually get to reflect the charge, (and that spears and pikes that are moving and thus holding their spears/pikes up in the air), that the reflect charge ability is localized to only affect enemy that come into contact with the units actual weapon, and not just those that come into contact with the unit whilst it has that weapon out.

The defense bonus from spears appears to be quite large as fixed Spear militia with Gold Armour (base defense of about 14), are about as charge resistant as DFK (defense 21) so it looks like the bonus is about 50% extra to the defense score.

I've got some other stuiff about other things i'd like to write up at a future date, but for now i'll leave it at that re-written version.

Carl

03-02-2007, 16:51

Regarding Elmark's post:

I think you need to understand a bit better what he's suggesting.

What he's suggesting REQUIRES that their are no exploits or uber units. What he wants to see however is that any army that includes more than 1 type of unit in significant quantities should have an equal chance of winning, (in the hands of equally skilled players), as any other army, even if the enemy army consists of a mix of a bit of everything, (the archetypal balanced army), and that not every faction should have access to all unit types either.

I agree with that view point 100%, I would find it extremely boring to play a game where i could predict the exact composition o the enemy army to within a few units. If the armies are relatively similar I could likewise probably predict the probable tactics, counter tactics, and deployment layouts of the enemy army. When armies that are widely different are possible competitively without reducing your chances of success then it's highly likely that armies and tactics will vary so widely that you'll literally have to make things up as you go along because you will have no clue of what army your opponent has, what he's brought to the battle and what tactics he may attempts. The kind of challenges that come from having to think on your feet like that and the occasional moments of hilarity are what makes games fun. it's not fun to lose to exploits and massed uber units. But i honestly find cookie cutter armies and tactics even worse, simply because regardless of the frustration and anger, it's sometimes quite fun to fight these battles as you try to attempt the impossible. Cookie cutter armies and tactics though just require you to repeat a set of pre-rehearsed moves with a pre-prepared army over and over again until one of you makes too many mistakes and one wins.

Army composition should not determine if you win or lose if it can be avoided, but neither should cookie cutter armies determine exactly what kind of tactics are used in every battle.

Puzz3D

03-02-2007, 20:41

I've got some other stuiff about other things i'd like to write up at a future date, but for now i'll leave it at that re-written version.
Ok Carl. Thanks for the clarifications, and thanks for the testing you do. You might consider testing on LAN or online so that you have complete control over the units. That's how CBR and I got the archer vs shield results for different orientations of the target unit for the old engine that I recently posted in the archer thread.

Puzz3D

03-02-2007, 21:08

Army composition should not determine if you win or lose if it can be avoided, but neither should cookie cutter armies determine exactly what kind of tactics are used in every battle.
You don't get cookie cutter armies when the gameplay is balanced. You get diversity because every unit is worth what it costs, and therefore every army type has a good chance of winning. And, because of rock, paper, scissiors gameplay, you can't stick with a single army type indefinitly because you opponent with take the counterarmy which will put you at a significant disadvantage. Even a blanced army will have counter armies. Balance combinded with RPS equals diversity in multiplayer.

If you want to see non-diversified armies, got online with mtw 1 and see the army type being picked in 10k games. There are only two army types being used either the cav/sword army or the cav/(pumped ranged/melee) combo unit army. That's what imbalance does to multiplayer. Introducing many unit types and lots of factions doesn't prevent this from happening as can be seen in MTW/VI. There are over 100 units types in MTW/VI, and yet the usable units are no more than the 14 of original STW all of which were cost effective.

The imbalance in MTW/VI has also lead to stagnant tactics. We certainly don't see stagnant tactics in Samurai Wars. There are many possible tactics in SW, and they can be used in innumerable combinations. No two battles are alike.

Introducing more randomness just so any army type has a chance of winning is not how you make the gameplay better. It's a crutch that allows the playbalance to be worse. The tax on more than 4 or 5 of a unit type is also a similar crutch. I certainly wish I could get rid of that confounded tax in MTW/VI because then we could use more diverse armies in Samurai Wars. The tax didn't exist in original STW, and players took all kinds of interesting army types, and they were all choosing from the same limited unit set. Limited unit types and same unit set are not what makes cookie cutter armies. Imbalance makes cookie cutter armies.

More randomness takes away from tactical play because you can't make intelligent tactical decisions if you can't use reliable judgement. Mostly what you're doing in highly random games is moving things around and seeing what happens. A good strategic battle plan properly executed can be defeated by randomness. The old engine has randomness, but it's not so large as to ruin good battle plans. In the new engine, CA has allowed too much randomness, and I'm not the only one that has made that observation.

Elmark used that overpowered pumped hangunner in MTW a lot. It got to the point where I didn't want to play him anymore because he was exploiting the hell out of that. He didn't like that fact that the handgunners were weakened when players moved from 15k to 10k florins in MTW/VI. Those units may also have been removed from high era. I don't remember. I knew all along that Elmark despised Samurai Wars gameplay despite the fake compliments about it, and I never believed for a moment that he'd play it desipte his statement that he would try it.

Fenix7

03-02-2007, 22:11

Second patch for MTW 2 is not out yet so we all should relax a bit. Perfect or not perfect. Barett decide and he sold his TW cd's (m8 hope to see you back one day - if community will surive till then) and made his decision. He is not depressing others with any kind of posts like we are doing atm. We won't change anything with this discussion - ''what should have been done/what was promised/what you prefer/what I prefer/etc''. Sometimes it is hard not to say anything around here, still I'm convinced that more words won't change things. Time would be better spent when testing different army setups and florin levels. :book:

t1master

03-03-2007, 00:46

Time would be better spent when testing different army setups and florin levels.

agreed aonar.

not to mention, the community hasn't even begun looking into early era written off apparently because cavs dominate, a slew of cool light infantry units are left unexplored. late era has been written off because of musketry, before it was really even looked at, and we've little or no idea what some of the late era infantry can do.

i would like to see the samurai war's crowd play m2, and see if they can make a gamestat that will resemble the work that has been done for the vi mods. despite the good mod in sam wars, there is not going to be a draw of fresh blood, because the mod is on the old engine. it's been played to death. anyhoo...

Stig

03-03-2007, 00:49

Late era is the only cool era imo. Gunpowder, good cav and pikemen. Add the florin limit of 5k to that and you'll won't see overpowered units.

ElmarkOFear

03-03-2007, 03:22

I see Puzz is still irate about losing to me and that all-missile army so often. Handgunners: Have to blame it on something now don't we? :laugh4:

The arrogance of having to blame one's losses on an opponent using a "supposed" exploit. Poor choice of words by an apparently large ego. An "exploit" is using a game mechanic which gives you an unfair advantage over an opponent (such as the red zone, the swipe, etc). It isn't from choosing a particular unit and using it as it was originally intended. Others figured out a way to beat it consistently. Ask some of the old community's veteran players from RTK, Master, Wolf or Fearful Ways.

It is a real pity to see someone who worked so hard to be accepted in the old community, disgrace himself on a continual basis, by making such childish comments about those who disagree (and previously stated thus), with his philosophy on what makes for good gameplay.

Some seem never able to let go of the past. This is why they appear as agitated old veterans and why a lot of the new players do not listen to what they have to post. The hidden agenda, is now not to promote the old game engine, but instead to try to ruin the fun of the new. At least that is how it appears to most and why the majority of MP players do not frequent this forum. The MP community will find another home eventually, because its obviously not here in this "Anti-M2TW" environment.

PS: My comments on the Samurai Wars mod were not "fake." I both complimented it "AND" criticized it as not to "MY" taste. "Despise"? Please. There are very few things in life I despise. The game is not to MY taste, as stated several times previously. Your emotions and bias are apparently reading more into my statements than is there. Once again, it shows a very childish attitude by someone who used to have my respect, but who now only deserves my pity.

If the veterans of STW/MTW1 are smart, they will continue to try to persuade the new players that some of the features of the old engine would add to the fun of the new engine as well. Instead, a certain few, would rather berate anybody that actually has fun with the new game, by continually stating how inferior the new engine is. When they run up against someone who doesn't support their idea of what good gameplay is, they try to discredit them saying they are biased, they don't know what they are talking about, and begin to act like someone's out to get them.

Sorry, but "getting" someone takes too much time and effort. I would rather just speak the truth, no matter how much it hurts.

AggonyDuck

03-03-2007, 03:47

The imbalance in MTW/VI has also lead to stagnant tactics. We certainly don't see stagnant tactics in Samurai Wars. There are many possible tactics in SW, and they can be used in innumerable combinations. No two battles are alike.

What exactly do you mean by stagnant tactics? Would you care to clarify for someone who sees nothing stagnant in the tactics used in VI.

ElmarkOFear

03-03-2007, 05:43

Now when we are talking VI are we talking about the regular game eras or the viking era? The viking era was fairly close to the feel of STW. About the only problem was the strength of the Mounted Sgt. cav unit, but it could be dealt with if one planned ahead.

|Heerbann|_Di3Hard

03-03-2007, 10:56

If you want to see non-diversified armies, got online with mtw 1 and see the army type being picked in 10k games. There are only two army types being used either the cav/sword army or the cav/(pumped ranged/melee) combo unit army. That's what imbalance does to multiplayer.

I have to aggree, that an army in MTW Vi should consists of some standard units. But there are only few unit type (e.g. peasants), that are unusable.cav is often prefered because there is often more movement required as in rtw/mtw and cav is fast. Swords/cav are not uber units. If you are sure, that you will only play defense you SHOULD take anti cav units to make your life easier.

Last friday night, we had again our MTW VI battle night. more then 30 were online. This are a many for mtw vi atm. I saw many different armies. Okay, we tested also for our next tournament. But there are no uber units or big balance problems. Anti cav is a bit too expensive. That is all. And that is also a question of taste.

EDIT: Or try the viking era. There are many useful spear units too!

ElmarkOFear

03-03-2007, 11:51

Viking era is the best of the eras in MTW/VI. The only unit which might be overpowered is the mounted sgt. cav unit and it is easily handled if you prepare for it. The cav/sword armies you see are due to a very bad patch decision, which made spears almost useless to have around. For equal or lesser cost, sword units accomplish the same thing.

The original, vanilla MTW1, was the best. You saw every army type out there, with a large mix of units. The only units which cost too much given their effectiveness were the knight units and pavise crossbowmen. Unfortunately, rather than just reduce the knight unit costs, CA also made changes to weaken spears. Both of these, ruined a nicely balanced game and you began to see the beginning of the mostly-cav armies taking over and continuing on through M2TW.

Grey_Fox

03-03-2007, 13:03

Hmm, somebody's getting paranoid...

Puzz3D

03-03-2007, 14:46

I would rather just speak the truth, no matter how much it hurts.
I will too. The new game engine is inferior to the old one.

Puzz3D

03-03-2007, 15:32

What exactly do you mean by stagnant tactics? Would you care to clarify for someone who sees nothing stagnant in the tactics used in VI.
I'm thinking about the tactics that evolve in an unbalanced environment such as the cav/sword armies or the pumped combo/ranged unit armies. They are stagnant compared to what evolves in a balanced environment where a greater variety of units and armies can be utilized. Of course, the team play adds a strategic element, and that's still present in an unbalanced environment. However if you have allies who do not buy cost effective armies, it lowers the team's chance of winning. In a balanced game, you don't have that problem.

TosaInu

03-03-2007, 22:54

:smg: :painting: :hmg:

pike master

03-04-2007, 00:36

:wizard: where do you get those icons?:charge: :hmg:

Carl

03-04-2007, 01:44

If you go into advanced, then click on more under the icons, then look at the top, theirs a littile scroll list. Gives acess to a whole load of extra ones.

ElmarkOFear

03-04-2007, 02:46

I will too. The new game engine is inferior to the old one.

THAT is your opinion. Wrong as it may be. But you are entitled to your mistakes. While everyone else moves on, you can continue to fester in your misery and your past errors in judgement. You keep stating you were on almost every beta test team from STW through RTW. If this is the case, then you must also accept some blame for the state of those games. You cannot pass it all off onto CA. It was your failure as well.

I was on one of those beta test teams and chose not to participate after seeing exactly who was running the show. Kocmoc, Magyarkhan and a couple of other good players, who actually knew what made for good gameplay, quit or were run off once they realized where the patch was heading.

This is the M2TW MP forum. If this engine is inferior (TO YOU), then take your bias, disrespectful attitude, and disdain of anything CA and participate in the MTW1 or mod forum, where discussions of mods and that game engine can be found. The M2TW forum is for discussions which hopefully will encourage CA to make changes to the "CURRENT" M2TW community. You continue to do a disservice to the current M2TW community by side-tracking any and all discussions with your obvious rantings against the new engine. All this without having purchased the M2TW game, and thus, with little knowledge of its inner workings and how it plays out in online battles. All you have is OLD knowledge of the RTW engine, which has changed. Anything you have to say is second-hand knowledge or from reading other people's comments. Your OBVIOUS bias against CA, the new engine, and ANYONE who actually enjoys the new game, reduce anything you have to say less than useless.

However, I also know, your ego will not allow you to leave the new community to work out its own way of improving the current game. I will be there to insure it doesn't go unnoticed by the other patrons participating here, when you begin disrupting threads with your nonsense.

If you want to continue to embarrass yourself publicly, feel free.

ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88

03-04-2007, 05:47

THAT is your opinion. Wrong as it may be. But you are entitled to your mistakes. While everyone else moves on, you can continue to fester in your misery and your past errors in judgement. You keep stating you were on almost every beta test team from STW through RTW. If this is the case, then you must also accept some blame for the state of those games. You cannot pass it all off onto CA. It was your failure as well.

I was on one of those beta test teams and chose not to participate after seeing exactly who was running the show. Kocmoc, Magyarkhan and a couple of other good players, who actually knew what made for good gameplay, quit or were run off once they realized where the patch was heading.

This is the M2TW MP forum. If this engine is inferior (TO YOU), then take your bias, disrespectful attitude, and disdain of anything CA and participate in the MTW1 or mod forum, where discussions of mods and that game engine can be found. The M2TW forum is for discussions which hopefully will encourage CA to make changes to the "CURRENT" M2TW community. You continue to do a disservice to the current M2TW community by side-tracking any and all discussions with your obvious rantings against the new engine. All this without having purchased the M2TW game, and thus, with little knowledge of its inner workings and how it plays out in online battles. All you have is OLD knowledge of the RTW engine, which has changed. Anything you have to say is second-hand knowledge or from reading other people's comments. Your OBVIOUS bias against CA, the new engine, and ANYONE who actually enjoys the new game, reduce anything you have to say less than useless.

However, I also know, your ego will not allow you to leave the new community to work out its own way of improving the current game. I will be there to insure it doesn't go unnoticed by the other patrons participating here, when you begin disrupting threads with your nonsense.

If you want to continue to embarrass yourself publicly, feel free.

How is Puzz becoming disrespectfull in his comments Elmark? He is just post His opinion, If YOU don't like it, along with anyone else, don't post here. (Why you think I don't like to post on these threads?)

I would and do not approve of People ranting about a game they may not have out right played, but when many comrades,clan mates and friends of that person, Puzz in this case, who actually played the game online, and could refer the information to him, he can also make a opinon on it also (even if he did play RTW/MTW2 online,which I don't not know)

How does Puzz have a ego? Last time I checked, he doesn't. Many Old Players already moved on, and already are just posting Their Opinoins here at .org ElmarkOfFear..

I do not sit here and study the the actual sollider arm movements and all this graphic gameplay stuff, as I do not go into complex things in the communtiy, But What I do Know, and Will Say, No Matter if you El or your supporters will say, MTW2 Is Better then RTW, but STW/MTW are still better then RTW and MTW

Put your Ego in check El and admit that.I had fun on RTW also, I admit that, but I WILL admit RTW is and willl not be the best game in the TW series for MP gameplay, as I and anyone else, incluing You El, will admit that.

How Can CA Make changes ElMark, if Puzz3d and others can't post their thoughts here?

Why Should he post this stuff in the MTW 1 Fourm? It is About MTW2 Elmark, it is just Stupid to make a MTW2 topic in MTW1 fourm, you know that Mate :inquisitive: .

Yes, he may have got his Information from Second Hand Reading ElmarkofFear,But You Yourself even said that STW/MTW is much better then RTW and MTW2. Don't Try to Argue with that ego of yours otherwise,But it's the Truth.

I may and have not have been here for no 6 or 7 years. I only been here since March 2004, when VI was wrapping it up, but still, I can tell the Best Gameplay, and it sure in the Hell isn't RTW or MTW2.Because I played every TW game here on MP on many onccsions (expect for STW/MI,which I will do soon) and I can tell you what is Inferior and what isn't.

Wolf_Kyolic

03-04-2007, 08:55

I can tell you what is Inferior and what isn't.

Ye but who would care?

:beam:

ElmarkOFear

03-04-2007, 13:36

ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88

03-04-2007, 18:11

Kyolic: :beam:

Warman: I never said the old engine was inferior to the new one. :laugh4:

What I said was Puzz can have his opinion. Wrong as it may be.

Big difference. The new engine is not inferior to the old. It is just different. The whole mechanics behind it are different. This engine has the same problems that MTW/VI had (has). They are equal in this respect. To say one is inferior to the other is just a subjective opinion, of which I do not agree.

The disrespect, you mentioned has been continual, throughout this and past discussions of M2TW MP. If you cannot see that, I cannot help you there.

As stated earlier, as long as the discussions are based on M2TW and how to improve it, instead of a continual bashing of the new engine and those who enjoy playing it, I will enjoy the discussions. Otherwise, I will point out when someone steps out of line. This is the M2TW forum, not the Samurai Wars mod forum, nor the MTW1 forum.

Please continue on with the discussion at hand. It is very entertaining.

Kyolic: That goes for everyone including you to,how funny :beam:

ElmarkofFear:

No Matter if we "Help Improve" the MTW2 MP foyer or do "Bashing" that Puzz3d are doing, CA will not fix it. You and everyone here realizes that.

To Me, It is not Bashing when you pointing out the ploblems between the games, and what is better Elmark.

MTW/VI is not equal to MTW2. MTW2 doesn't have good games that the engine can provide. MTW/VI may not be the best ehtier, but still, the Engine on MTW/VI if fast pacing, balanced, and makes you think more, then compare to RTW/MTW2.

That's my 8 cents here. You can like it, or you can dislike it.

guyfawkes5

03-04-2007, 18:47

No Matter if we "Help Improve" the MTW2 MP foyer or do "Bashing" that Puzz3d are doing, CA will not fix it. You and everyone here realizes that.
If what you say is true, then why you bother to repeatedly point a game's faults out if there is no possible solution? Sounds like whining/bashing to me...

To Me, It is not Bashing when you pointing out the ploblems between the games, and what is better Elmark.
It is bashing however, when you point out the problems between the games continously without any forseeable solution (as you said above) and sometimes even exaggerating problems to suit your own viewpoint.

MTW/VI is not equal to MTW2. MTW2 doesn't have good games that the engine can provide. MTW/VI may not be the best ehtier, but still, the Engine on MTW/VI if fast pacing, balanced, and makes you think more, then compare to RTW/MTW2.
Sigh...

The new engine is not inferior to the old. It is just different. The whole mechanics behind it are different. This engine has the same problems that MTW/VI had (has). They are equal in this respect. To say one is inferior to the other is just a subjective opinion, of which I do not agree.
And also I would like to add that if M2TW can't provide enjoyment to you, why do you bother posting in a forum dedicated to it's improvement and discussion?

The bottom line to this whole argument is that there is a big difference between contructive and destructive opinions. People post here to try and improve their lot with the multiplayer experience of M2TW, and I feel it's a tad counter-productive for others to continually dismiss and undermine their efforts because of cynicism and resentment towards CA and/or the newer members of the multiplayer community. Obviously everyone is free to express their own opinions here, but perhaps continuous repetition of your negative opinions about the very game the surrounding forum is based on is carrying the 'freedom of speech' argument a bit too far, huh?

Lavos

03-04-2007, 18:48

Puzz does one and one thing only, In every theread here he opens discusion about a thing that was in old engine that was better than its now. Its compleatly off topic, and that discusion always goes in the way that people start arguing with him and most of the productive discusions goes to hell.

Puzz3D

03-04-2007, 18:51

Tip of the iceberg of inferiority are two observations made by Carl on the effectiveness of archers in the M2TW engine. First: arrows have the same chance of hitting a moving target as they have of hitting that target when it's stationary. Second: the shape of the archer formation does not affect the effectiveness of a volley.

You see it's not just different. It's inferior.

I'm not responsible for the inferior state of the new engine. What a stupid thing for anyone to suggest. Creative Assembly gave the RTW v1.2 beta team 1 day to test the final build. That's not enough time to test the game as any imbecile would realize. Besides that, Creative Assembly told the beta team not to make any playbalance suggestions. They even refused to fix the incorrect stat display on upgraded units saying that it would only be of interest to hardcore players. From reading the thread in the Citadel about armor upgrades, the stat display in M2TW is also incorrect which doesn't surprise me.

guyfawkes5

03-04-2007, 19:07

You see it's not just different. It's inferior.
If so, what do you plan to do about it Puzz?

Wolf_Kyolic

03-04-2007, 19:21

That's not enough time to test the game as any imbecile would realize.

Those imbeciles should not accept to become beta testers on the first hand may be. :beam:

pike master

03-04-2007, 19:32

the reason why infantry take losses when running is that they are not in position with a shield to deflect projectiles. horse archers are about as hard to hit in shooting circle as they were in rome i think. if im right i think units took more losses when moving in rome and bi as well.

the only units who did not suffer were phalanx units which supposedly there spears would deflect some of the arrows.

i think the biggest factor right now is that you are managing 20 units instead of 16 as in mtw/vi. so you dont exercise as much control. i think after a few patches the game will be better overall though.

of course i have always taken all the total war games in stride and i enjoyed playing rome in mp but i played for fun and not competition. regardless of which engine is better mtw/vi right now will have a little more time left because of the valor 1 interest but i think it be dead before long so we should all except that and move forward.

however most of the community is still in rome total war because of their disappointment in the mtw2 performance and server problems and the low turnout in ronin players. there are simply a lot of people who dont like no art or ele games out there. especially for this game when you have access to all that weaponry.

when i played rome i always had only one rule and that was no onagers because i thought onagers ruined the game for everyone. elephants werent so bad because they were so easy to rout. usually a skilled player would keep them in reserve until an opportunity arose to send them in.

in this game i would be satisfied to rule out catapults and trebuchets. in reality these stone throwers were very rarely used on the battlefield and since rome they are just too overpowered for what they are. but i would welcome any other artillery since gunpowder weapons power is historically very devestating. but this is concerning the playing community as a whole and not referring to tournament related or clan related playing.

Cheetah

03-04-2007, 19:56

Puzz3D

03-04-2007, 20:01

If so, what do you plan to do about it Puzz?
Nothing I can do. CA closed the door on suggestions from players like me using the excuse that the game was not intended for hardcore players.

If the current model were to account for target motion, that would take more calculations which would adversely impact framerate. I'm sure CA is aware of the ways they cut corners in the new battle engine. However, they don't want the customer to know.

Of greater import is the OP's observation. If the participation at peak time is 50 to 75 people, that's terrible for a game that's purported to be the state of the art in strategic/tactical gaming. The original Total War game had better online participation than that. I was keeping track of online participation during the 2000 - 2001 period. I saw the tremendous drop in online participation when the MI add-on for STW was released. The engine was essentially the same, and the network code of STW/MI worked better than the network code of STW. The only thing that had deteriorated was the playbalance. Within 3 months, participation dropped to 30% of what it had been before the MI add-on was released. Some players went back to STW. I went into the STW/MI v1.02 beta team because I thought working with CA would result in a better game. However, that's not what happened. The playbalance of STW/MI v1.02 remained inferior to the original STW, and online participation only recovered to about 45% of what it had been in STW.

Some people may think that playbalance doesn't matter, and one gameplay is as good as another. However, my observation is that playbalance has a big effect on how many people play the game. In the case of M2TW, current lag seems to be an issue. I just talked to MizuTears yesterday. He bought the game recently but found the lag in online play to be too severe, and he won't play it online again. He has a new computer, so it's not a question of his system not meeting system requirements. Although, he does have an Athlon cpu, but i don't know which one. He wasn't aware when he bought the game that Athlon cpu is not supported for multiplayer, but we don't know if that causes lag.

cromwell

03-04-2007, 20:09

Maybe we can put together a fund to get Puzz M2TW. In all seriousness, Puzz has done a lot of work on previous TW games. However it's time to update that signature and add a new Mod for M2TW. Put your knowledge to work and make a decent game better. If your not going to buy the game, or work on a mod, it's time to go back to the MTW1 forum. I cannot stand to hear another rendition of how STW/MI or MTW/VI .... was better or worse. Thats not only directed at Puzz, but anyone. Go read the archives if you want more of that, believe me it's full of it.

FearofCromwell

guyfawkes5

03-04-2007, 20:12

Puzz3D - The point I am making is that if there is no viable solution available for the faults you repeatedly point out, then why do you bother to express your negative opinion on them time and time again? I certainly can appreciate what you're saying and I do think you have a deep knowledge of the Total War game engine (to a degree), but I just feel the way you keep pointing to the past and disregarding the future is detrimental to the forum and multiplayer community as a whole.

I feel this is a very sad situation, especially given that you have proved your resourcefulness and talent by creating a thoroughly solid mod for STW, but yet will not contribute any of your experience or knowledge to the current multiplayer experience and the current community as a whole due to your bitterness (this is the feeling I'm getting from you, feel free to correct me as to why you won't help us move foward if you feel otherwise).

Cheetah

03-04-2007, 20:23

How is Puzz becoming disrespectfull in his comments Elmark? He is just post His opinion,

Yes, time and time again the very same comments. As I said it is just counter-productive and irritating. That is all. Nothing personal.

But What I do Know, and Will Say, No Matter if you El or your supporters will say, MTW2 Is Better then RTW, but STW/MTW are still better then RTW and MTW

So what? What do you gain by stating the obvious time and time again? Nothing. It does not lead us anywhere.

Put your Ego in check El and admit that.I had fun on RTW also, I admit that, but I WILL admit RTW is and willl not be the best game in the TW series for MP gameplay, as I and anyone else, incluing You El, will admit that.

Admit what? Elmo never claimed that RTW is better than MTW or STW. Actually if you have not noticed Elmo left the community during thwe times of RTW exactly beacuse he was fed up with the poor gameplay of RTW.

Also could you please notice that no one ever debated that STW/MI was the best game of the TW series. I think that all of the vets who ever played STW will agree on that. This includes Yuuki, Elmo, myself etc. That is not the question.

The question is whether it is a good idea to repeat the same thing (the same obvious statement) time and time again. My answer is clear and simple: no. This what Elmo pointed out.

Please understand that this is a new game, a new engine. Either you can live with it or not. If not, it is fine with me just do not post it in every single thread because it wont help anyone and wont improve anything. That is all.

How Can CA Make changes ElMark, if Puzz3d and others can't post their thoughts here?

Why do you think that posting in every single thread that "the new engine is inferior to the old" could help CA? Why do you think that posting in every single thread that "STW was the best" is a help to CA? How do you want to help CA without playing the game? How do you want to help CA without making specific suggestions based on your experience with the current engine?

Yes, he may have got his Information from Second Hand Reading ElmarkofFear,But You Yourself even said that STW/MTW is much better then RTW and MTW2. Don't Try to Argue with that ego of yours otherwise,But it's the Truth.

Wake up mate, it is a game. Some people like it some people dont. There is no "TRUTH". Actually, as I said we all agree that STW was the best. So what? We (me and Elmo and some other vets who involved with the new community) dont want to repeat this statement till the end of time.

Carl

03-04-2007, 20:25

You see it's not just different. It's inferior.

I have to respectfully disagree. First I've never said that formation width has no effect, nor have I meant to imply that. Also, given the similarities in formation width between archers and other units in the game I can see no way in which it actually matters as their are few situations in which it would come up in.

Likewise the situation with it tracking men makes perfect sense. This isn't STW/M1TW where (as I hear it), Cav moved at exactly the same speed as infantry basic and where only faster because they tiered out more slowly. The difference between the fastest and slowest unit plus the really high pace of RTW mean that you could never balance missile units without it. If you set it up so the miss rate against running infantry was low enough that it was balanced. Cav and especially really fast mounted units would have been traveling so fast they would have suffered almost no hits from each volley, whilst phalanx's and non-running units would be moving so slowly they'd take an unusually high number of hits. You can't balance that in the engine because a slow unit already takes more volleys than a fast one and if you try to do it via shield/Armour it buggers up the melee defense. So they solved it by taking the effects of movement on accuracy out.

At this juncture i think I'll give a fill explanation on how I believe the current engine handles arrows, an maybe I'll go into animations and their effect on combat tomorrow or the day after. I'll at this point thank Puzz for explaining how the old engine did it as that gave me a lot of insights into how the current engine does things.

First, the bit before the arrow is fired.

This is pretty simple. The engine first picks a target man in the target unit for the arrow that is about to be fired. It probably picks a man at random with a random number generator. It then figures out exactly what angle it will have to fire the arrow at, (including getting over any intervening obstacles), to get a direct hit. At this point another random number generation takes place. If the figure generated is equal or greater than a fixed value then the arrow fires at that angle. If it's less than the fixed value then a small fraction of a degree is added or subtracted from the angle generated a moment ago. The amounted added or subtracted will be proportional to the amount less than the fixed number the random number is. Weather it addition or subtraction is probably decided by some arbitrary method (probably a 50/50 split).

At this point the arrow is ALMOST ready for firing. One last thing remains to be done. The Engine will now calculate exactly where the arrow will land comparative to the aim point, (the target mans current position), If their has been no angle added/subtracted then it will be directly on top of the guy. Otherwise it will be some meters in front or behind, (in theory). This distance is recorded and appended to the info the engine stores on the arrow whilst it is in flight. The arrow is then fired.

What happens in flight:

This is even simpler. Once fired it follows a ballistic trajectory that in theory, (if the target does not move), will be identical to that computed when computing where the arrow will land in relation to the target. In reality most targets are moving and thus the arrow will determine exactly how far and in what direction the target has moved and adjust the angle of decent of the arrow, (making it steeper or shallower as required), so as to make the distance it lands in front of/beyond the target the same as was calculated when the arrow was fired. It should be noted that it does take account of intervening obstacles, but whilst able to make the angle of decent shallower, it appears to be unable to make the arrow actually go back upwards and miss any obstacles that appear. It can I believe make the arrow travel exactly level though if that is necessary to make it hit.

You cannot normally see the arrows change direction as the check I mentioned is done very often, it's probably part of the hit detection check and making things look realistic plus known projectile velocities make me believe this check has to be carried out at least 300 times every second, 500 is a more sensible number as it allows for higher velocities in future.

Talking of hit detection. Even if the arrow lands in front or beyond the target man, it may well still pass through or hit another man en-rout to this point. If so hit detection kicks in and it counts as a hit against the man it's just hit regardless.

It is also worth noting at this point that the impact angle of the arrow is very important, if the impact angle is very shallow then it will hit with it's full attack, but as the angle gets more and more vertical the hitting power drops off, meaning each hit does less damage, I'm not yet sure what determines this, but it clearly effects muskets/crossbows more than arrows.

Hope that helps someone, and gives Econ something to drop in the FAQ again.

Remember however that as always this is just a theory based on observational evidence and what is known for a fact.

Gawain of Orkeny

03-04-2007, 21:01

All I know is I enjoy playing MTW2. And to me thats all that counts. The biggest problems are with connections. Maybe someone with some skill and knowledge of modding should make private patches like the lords do with NTW. Ther main point is that it seems to me that MTW2 has the potential to be a fantastic game. Certainly more potential than my beloved VI. Ill stick with it and hope that more people will try to help fix instead of just complain about its faults. I wonder if I should even install RTW if so many are playing it. Ive got all three versions but I hated it so when it came out.

ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88

03-04-2007, 22:58

Yes, time and time again the very same comments. As I said it is just counter-productive and irritating. That is all. Nothing personal.

So what? What do you gain by stating the obvious time and time again? Nothing. It does not lead us anywhere.

Admit what? Elmo never claimed that RTW is better than MTW or STW. Actually if you have not noticed Elmo left the community during thwe times of RTW exactly beacuse he was fed up with the poor gameplay of RTW.

Also could you please notice that no one ever debated that STW/MI was the best game of the TW series. I think that all of the vets who ever played STW will agree on that. This includes Yuuki, Elmo, myself etc. That is not the question.

The question is whether it is a good idea to repeat the same thing (the same obvious statement) time and time again. My answer is clear and simple: no. This what Elmo pointed out.

Please understand that this is a new game, a new engine. Either you can live with it or not. If not, it is fine with me just do not post it in every single thread because it wont help anyone and wont improve anything. That is all.

Why do you think that posting in every single thread that "the new engine is inferior to the old" could help CA? Why do you think that posting in every single thread that "STW was the best" is a help to CA? How do you want to help CA without playing the game? How do you want to help CA without making specific suggestions based on your experience with the current engine?

Wake up mate, it is a game. Some people like it some people dont. There is no "TRUTH". Actually, as I said we all agree that STW was the best. So what? We (me and Elmo and some other vets who involved with the new community) dont want to repeat this statement till the end of time.

1. Posting your own Opinions is not irritiang. Yuuki is posting his thoughts, which he been posting the same. Ok, mabye it is making you and others irrate, but if you don' like it, don't keep responding to it mate.easy as that,n
othing personal.

2. Did I ever say Elmark said RTW was better? Please Re-read my thread. Several Times Elmark Pointed out MTW2 MP was better then RTW, but worser then MTW1. Please read carefully next time. I also know he left, along with many other vets in the communtiy. I know a nice bit TW History, so I don't need to be told about it mate.

STW/MI was refered to being one of the best, Not the actual best.That was my mistake eariler.
I don't need to been told mate to understand it is a new system. Posting it in each thread won't help, but making a Bug list won't help, since CA closed it doors to the MP communtiy, rather you understand that or not mate.

3. m8, Please Notice that I HAVE played MTW2 for 1 1/2-2 months straight, before I got fed up with the gameplay (and some arrogant clans and players on it). How do I want to help?

The truth of the matter is, I can't, you Can't mate, none of us can. Get over it already. Having a MP player,Jason, working for CA does not matter. Oh Sure, may help a bit, But has the new Engine changed to the point of me and others actually having full fun? Some Yes, Others like myself, No. Need to understand CA wants to work on TW as a SP Game, not a MP game, no matter what you and everyone does.

Don't Tell Me to Wake up mate and tell me it is a game, I am not that stupid.. I think some vetreans in this community, mabye yourself, Need to Wake up and realize TW isn't going to be the same like it was 5-7 years Ago. You guys need to ethier Get Used to the New Engine, or Go back to the Old Engine, or Just Leave the Communtiy all Together. Because CA will not fix the Mutiplayer ploblems in this communtiy, rather you guys can step up and admit that.

guyfawkes5

03-04-2007, 23:12

I think some vetreans in this community, mabye yourself, Need to Wake up and realize TW isn't going to be the same like it was 5-7 years Ago. You guys need to ethier Get Used to the New Engine, or Go back to the Old Engine, or Just Leave the Communtiy all Together. Because CA will not fix the Mutiplayer ploblems in this communtiy, rather you guys can step up and admit that.
Oh the irony... didn't you originally step in to defend Puzz3D constantly deriding M2TW?

:clown:

He is just post His opinion, If YOU don't like it, along with anyone else, don't post here.

How Can CA Make changes ElMark, if Puzz3d and others can't post their thoughts here?

Why Should he post this stuff in the MTW 1 Fourm? It is About MTW2 Elmark, it is just Stupid to make a MTW2 topic in MTW1 fourm, you know that Mate.

Lusted

03-05-2007, 00:17

Posting it in each thread won't help, but making a Bug list won't help, since CA closed it doors to the MP communtiy, rather you understand that or not mate.

Erm, CA read all the bug lists at the TW fansites, i even pass the TWC buglist straight ot the CA Oz devs. They are also using the bug list at .com to help prioritize what they fix as that bug list has the bugs rated by how serious they are.

And seriously repeating that the new engine sucks over and over again ain't going to help anyone. Why not make some suggestions, why not be optimitic, because if you stop suggesting changes and just berate CA all the time, im not surprised CA might not listen to the mp community. They're humans, they don't like having their work derided with no positives.

Puzz3D

03-05-2007, 01:26

Erm, CA read all the bug lists at the TW fansites, i even pass the TWC buglist straight ot the CA Oz devs. They are also using the bug list at .com to help prioritize what they fix as that bug list has the bugs rated by how serious they are.
The bug list is all they need.

And seriously repeating that the new engine sucks over and over again ain't going to help anyone. Why not make some suggestions, why not be optimitic, because if you stop suggesting changes and just berate CA all the time, im not surprised CA might not listen to the mp community.
I made suggestions for 5 years, and was on 4 of their beta teams. I've made all my suggestions already.

They're humans, they don't like having their work derided with no positives.
Then post some positives, but if you post that the battle engine is better, I'm going to point out where it isn't better.

I just had a clanmate get burned by CA. He has a good computer a little more than 1 year old. He bought M2TW, and the lag in multiplayer is so severe that he can't play it.

Whacker

03-05-2007, 01:41

I have a new idea for a game. TW.org Forums: Total War! :surrender:

So... where to begin. This is gonna be a long post.

I'll start off with all of the.. interpersonal stuff going on. :grin: I think what we have is a number of folks with good intents but really stubborn mindsets. It can be hard to realize where someone else is coming from. Repeating a message over and over can get annoying, but you have to respect someone who sticks to their guns even in the face of lots of adversity. See I can see where Puzz is coming from, I have friends just like him (at least in my view) who are really smart guys with really stubborn views and opinions, and may not exactly be Mr. Suave when it comes to relaying them to others. For the record I do agree in some shape or form with most of what Puzz says. Really in my view neither side of this argument is right, the new M2TW engine isn't the most miserable ever, but it's certainly not the best. Constructive criticism is the only way that CA is ever going to get the message that many of us would like them to get. On the other hand people also need to be prepared to be summarily ignored, compared to other games and publishers that I've played and interacted with, CA definitely ranks pretty low on my "community involvement" measuring stick. I understand that some individuals are lucky and have personal relationships with the CA folks, but that does NOT help the rest of us in the community. At the end of the day it boils down to can you listen to the next guy give his opinions which you may think are awful, and be able to have a constructive dialogue and still end up respectfully disagreeing in the end? Think that's more than enough on that. ~:cheers:

Now, if we're giving opinions on how to make this game better, then here it goes, been waiting to say this for a long time. (Before you start on this remember that I actually do like M2TW so far, even though I shelved the game a month ago. The reason for that is that the bugs and balance issues were starting to ruin it for me, and since I want to enjoy this game i decided to put it up until the next patch is out, which I understand 1.2 will fix most of what I've been complaining about.)

The root of most of the problems in my view is modding. In terms of the current gaming industry stances and implementations of "moddability", M2TW is just about rock bottom. It's utterly friggin' miserable. Where to start? Let's talk about the use of industry standard formats. Just about the only thing that CA has used that fall into that category are flat text files and the DDS image format. Instead of using some fruity .cas file format that for RTW the community had to come up with it's own tool, or in M2TW where they finally GAVE us one, why not use a friggin' standard format like MD3 or MD4? Don't tell me those won't cut the mustard, it's a standardized well known and documented model that works any way you want it to, you just have to code for it, hell most of the code is already written for you, you just have to Google for it. The actual game file archives? What the hell?? They have to give us some lame unpacker tool just so we can get at the contents, with the lame excuse about using some kind of "special compression format"??? I don't buy it. There are a number of free and/or cheap licensable formats like 7-zip which are easily implemented and can offer better compression rates than even RAR, ACE, ZIP, you name it. Game map formats? What's wrong with BSP? $20 says it can do everything that CA wants to be done, AND it's another open format and there are open source/free tools that CA can simply grab, modify a bit, and redistribute as needed. They've already got a mapper built into the game you say? I'll get to that presently. Second to last, the lack of what we can actually change in terms of game mechanics. CA has coded so much of the game logic into the executable and there's no way we can ever hope to change it, like crusade cooldown, unit movement rates (which I agree with Puzz, MTW was light years better), general/character spawn rates, combat mechanics, etc... I've seen CA's excuse for not telling us anything, about "protecting their intellectual property". My response to that is "total bullshit." Sorry, that's what patents are for. Keeping the knowledge about these mechanics from the community does nothing to help CA's case. People would argue that it's not important to know, well if you are a casual gamer sure. The rest of us want to take the time and effort to understand exactly how this game ticks, exactly what the math this that goes into determining how many kills I get, etc. This is the level of fine tune control and knowledge that we seek so we can leverage that in the game. This is exceedingly important to MP's. Not important? Tell that to the "you run faster with the knife!" CS players, the TW series has it's same kind of fans. Hell I even cooked up a homemade app that did nothing but helped me plan out my Morrowind and Oblivion characters to the last skill level and stat bonus! Last and certainly not least is the complete and total lack of any kind of official support for the modding community. Again sorry, the craptastic little unpacker and the .cas exporter do not cut the mustard. Half-incorrect extremely poorly documented docudemon files? Nope, try again. Look at what ID Software, Valve, EA (for B1942), Unreal, Bethesda etc etc etc have all done. They have offically supported and staffed portals, fully documented APIs, tutorials, and..... SDK's!!! This game is not one of the most moddable ever, it's one of the least, and the lack of official support is infuriating. Point and case, look at the number of good modders that we've had who've drifted away, like DukeJohn. Even the Lordz post on the TW blog I thought was rather tongue in cheek, most of the time you see people fawning and cooing over the games, kissing the marketing folks rears who "invited" them to post. I didn't see any of that in the Lordz guy's post, in fact as I read it there was an underlying "give me a break" tone to his article. That said, the community in general does an admiral job trying to make up for this, but the end result is oftentimes far short of what's actually needed. Our .org modding wiki is a start, but it's woefully inadequate, hell half of what people want to know (like hardcoded values) nobody's been able to figure out yet. Sound like a problem? :furious3:

Now, after I've just got done ripping through CA, what suggestions can we propose to make the game better? To be sure, I'm no insider, I don't "know" how CA actually put this game together or anything about the engine itself that you guys don't, and I'm by no stretch and game coding expert... But, I have done dev. work myself and have several friends in the gaming industry who work as coders, project writers, and mappers, so I do have some clues and am not just pulling this out of my rear. So don't forget, some of this is just guesswork, but I think it's well founded. First, Puzz has called the current TW engine "degraded". While that's not exactly the term I would use, I think from what I've seen CA is running out of steam and into some brick walls with it. Cut to the chase? It might be worth CA's while to abandon their old warhorse and look at licensing something else, like ID's D3/Q4 engine, or the Source engine, or even Unreal. Ideally they should have the current engine well documented (right? right??) and have an understanding of the game mechanics at least as they envison them. So you take that logic, and you grab your (I'll use ID) Q4 engine, and write yourself a client executable gamex86.dll, then throw all your art and goodies on top of that... These engines are modern and extensible enough that you can do pretty much anything you want, and they're already extremely dang fast. If not the ID engine then Source, it doesn't matter, whatever works and is cost effective. Now what does this get you? This gets you a platform that you can work easily with AND your fans can too. Open formats for archives, image, model, and map formats? Check. SDK? Check. Source code so people can muck with the game as they see fit? Check. Built-in optimized net-code that's been worked on since 95? Check. Modern DX9/DX10 graphics support for all the eyecandy and goodies? Check. Documented API for ease of development which can then be put onto a site available to modders and fans? Check. The list goes on.

Don't get me wrong, it's just an idea, and noone would know better than CA if something like this is viable or not. The bottom line is that this game's moddability is miserable, period, and in today's environment modding is a must for game longevity and having a broad fan base. Notepad and editing a few parameters doesn't cut the mustard.

The very last thing I wanted to touch on is the reason for this forum, MP. It's become painfully clear to me over the years I've been here and reading that SP and MP player's wishes are most of the time at odds, Cav being a perfect example. The logical conclusion that I draw and see in other games is to separate the two entities and treat each one separately. Look at games like Quake 4, Heroes of Might and Magic 5, STALKER, etc... It's well known that the games handle differently in MP from SP, have their own separate configurations and settings, etc. So it's not a far stretch for it to happen here. IMO this combined with my above suggestions is the best of both worlds, it allows for much better and balanced MP gameplay without hosing up the single player campaign for the rest of us (who want our cav nice and powerful :grin: ). It's a win win for everyone, SPers, MPers, and most important of all CA whom we all desperately want to listen to us and keeping making good games.

So this may have been harsh at times, but it's a tough love. :grin: I really do hope CA gets the message(s) from the community and works with us more, there's a lot of challenges and room for improvement but it's not insurmountable.

Have a good evening everyone.

:bow:

PS:

:cake::bling::holiday::nospam::wizard::soapbox::verycool:~:santa::download::fortune::google::gatheri ng::magnify::tumbleweed::logic::holiday2::pirate2::happybirthday3::boxedin::holmes::painting::smg::c ouch::hmg::washing::sorry2::rulez::study::404::jarswim::bullseye::hijacked::jarswim::faq::turtle: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111111oneoneoneoneone :grin:

Puzz3D

03-05-2007, 01:54

Puzz3D - The point I am making is that if there is no viable solution available for the faults you repeatedly point out, then why do you bother to express your negative opinion on them time and time again?
Because I almost bought M2TW based on Palamedes' blogs (tactical extravaganza etc.) and the praise that people here were heaping on the game after Gold Day. If I had purchased this game, I would have been severely disappointed and wasted time and $50. This just happened to a clanmate of mine.

ElmarkOFear

03-05-2007, 04:13

The last few statements are just proof that a few certain individuals will never allow any discussions to occur on M2TW without disruption. A personal vendetta against CA and lack of maturity on their part, will not allow their ego's to let any discussion happen on improving the M2TW engine. These guys have given up. I was able to overcome that, by leaving RTW and playing other games. I came into M2TW, with a different perspective and knowing I wasn't going to get another MTW1. A suggestion from a friend (T1) convinced me to try M2TW and I found I could still enjoy playing the game. I know it just grates on a few people that someone would have the audacity to say they enjoy something other than the original engine, but that is the way it is. Until they grow up, they will continue to disrupt any and all discussions.

You can't change an arrogant mindset. I changed mine and found I can have fun with the new engine.

The funniest part is these people are trying to convince everyone they are doing it for the good of the community, by warning everyone not to buy what they perceive as a bad game. The majority of people thinking of purchasing M2TW have never heard of the .org community so a warning does no good. Those who are already members here, know exactly what type of game they are getting with M2TW. A few individuals are actually INSULTING every member of the .org (instead of helping), by making statements which insinuate, if it wasn't for their constant warnings, some .org member might make a bad purchase decision.

Everyone has seen the discussions here and at other venues, and I know for one, you all are smart enough to figure out if you want to purchase the game or not. I am not going to insult your intelligence, like a few individuals, by constantly telling you whether a game is good or bad and then calling you an "Imbecile" if you enjoy the other game. Everyone likes different aspects of a game and it is up to them to decide. Not some egotistical loudmouth, with a personal grudge against CA.

pike master

03-05-2007, 05:48

simply put is that there are probably 100x more people who buy the game for single player than they do multiplayer. so that should give you some perspective as to who CA will need to cater to.

but on the other hand after the fixes i think we will have a game par none to the past total war games. and hopefully it will be along for a few years so it can be patched more and maybe more than just one or two expansion packs added to it. if this is done you may see a stable mp base.

halo is ancient as computer games goes but at any one time youll find about 2000 players on it. thats because its a good reliable smooth running game. total war 2 should be able to come to some kind of perfection given time.

but really the mp community as a whole are into first person shooters,command and conquer clones, and role playing games like warcraft.purely tactical battlefield games are not the thing for mainstream gamers who dont have the tactical know how to own in mp. so if you are playing total war mp games and win at all you probably show more aptitude than someone who plays the other types of games.so pat yourself on the back.

i revisited the rome lobby recently and found the server was worse connection wise than in mtw2 lobby. furthermore the chat monitor was disabled. never a good thing for the general publics participation.the crowd was down too. so i guess the total war community as a whole is definetly making the move to mtw2.

Puzz3D

03-05-2007, 06:14

total war 2 should be able to come to some kind of perfection given time.
You think so? They left the butt-spike problem in the battle engine and the civil war bug in the strategic engine in the final version RTW v1.5. They then released the Alexander expansion, and didn't bother fixing those two problems. Those two problems were introduced by patches. I think the butt-spike problem showed up in v1.3, and the civil war problem in v1.5. In fact, the v1.2, v1.3 and v1.5 all introduced new bugs.

-Silent-Someguy

03-05-2007, 07:42

:clown: .

Demok

03-05-2007, 07:58

:clown:

Wolf_Kyolic

03-05-2007, 08:17

lol

Where is Mizu Sp00n btw? He used to play with me. :)

Lusted

03-05-2007, 12:09

The root of most of the problems in my view is modding. In terms of the current gaming industry stances and implementations of "moddability", M2TW is just about rock bottom.

Ahahhahhahahha!

Whilst M2Tw might not be the best in terms of modding, it certainly isn't rock bottom. I know of several games that are completely unmoddable with no official support of modding at all, not even the support CA are providing. It may not be greast, but it's not the worse.

Orda Khan

03-05-2007, 12:27

This is what MP needs? Nothing changes, the same bitter, old rivalries, the same little digs being posted hoping to gain brownie points. Many times in this thread alone, people have suggested moving on, might I suggest that some of the posters here do the same? How about you guys let old disputes die? How about some of you forget 'what you were told' about others and start thinking for yourselves eh?

.......Orda

Fenix7

03-05-2007, 13:06

I support Orda Khan and Elmo's words.

The last few statements are just proof that a few certain individuals will never allow any discussions to occur on M2TW without disruption. A personal vendetta against CA and lack of maturity on their part, will not allow their ego's to let any discussion happen on improving the M2TW engine. These guys have given up. I was able to overcome that, by leaving RTW and playing other games. I came into M2TW, with a different perspective and knowing I wasn't going to get another MTW1. A suggestion from a friend (T1) convinced me to try M2TW and I found I could still enjoy playing the game. I know it just grates on a few people that someone would have the audacity to say they enjoy something other than the original engine, but that is the way it is. Until they grow up, they will continue to disrupt any and all discussions.

- STW engine
- MTW engine
- RTW engine
- MTW 2 engine

Each engine is different. Thought there is very few people who were able to get best out of it in each of them. One of top 10 STW players once mentioned that with a new serie there are new game engine regulations and of course you have to begin from the start. This is one of the main issues which scare people not to get involved in the new serie. Another thing what made TW series special from multiplayer aspect were people who played it. One of the reasons why MTW/VI revival is so successful.

RTW was not made for my taste - feelt too much arcade; yet this is my opinion and I don't have any need to post this each time when I make a post here or persuading anyone why I didn't like RTW. With the 1.5 patch and good rule set with proper denari level matches offered very balanced and good matches. Napoleonic mod for RTW was simply great despite the engine was not STW or MTW one.

As I've stated previously MTW 2 is not perfect game atm becaus of bug issues. It's game engine is promising thought. Why? Becaus manouvering your army doesn't feel arcade for me. Yet again this is my opinion and I don't want to force it to anyone. However in future I would not like to see any more theoretical comments about TW engines and which is better. What I would like to see are comments on how to improve gameplay - different denari levels, other ideas, anything like this.

As an owner of MTW 2 I don't want to read about issues which has nothing to do with MTW 2. I don't remember I've ever seen anyone browsing around existing STW and MTW forums on this site where he would be constantly claiming (read: posting) how RTW or MTW 2 engine are better then existing STW or MTW one. I don't mind if someone states that he still prefers MTW engine..but from where comes the need to mention this in almost every post?

If I'm nost mistaken this supposed to be MTW 2 forums and I doubt that people who actually purchased MTW 2 and are playing it (or waiting for 2nd patch) are not interested to read theoretical comments which TW engine is superior.

p.s. Lusted thank you for your efforts and your contribution to MTW 2. Your work is noticed.

Puzz3D

03-05-2007, 13:22

If I'm nost mistaken this supposed to be MTW 2 forums and I doubt that people who actually purchased MTW 2 and are playing it (or waiting for 2nd patch) are not interested to read theoretical comments which TW engine is superior.
My posts aren't for them. I'm in the group who didn't buy the game. I'm going to post why I didn't buy it, and respond to every post claiming something is improved when it's not.

econ21

03-05-2007, 13:59

OT: but what is the civil war bug in RTW?

pike master

03-05-2007, 14:23

not really a bug just an inconvenience

Whacker

03-05-2007, 14:30

Ahahhahhahahha!

Whilst M2Tw might not be the best in terms of modding, it certainly isn't rock bottom. I know of several games that are completely unmoddable with no official support of modding at all, not even the support CA are providing. It may not be greast, but it's not the worse.

I wholeheartedly agree that M2TW isn't the worst in that regard, but it still really really stinks. I didn't put this in my huge post earlier but I strongly suspect that it's because CA is on the fence so to speak. They tout moddability as a selling point of the game, but they don't put as big of an emphasis on it as I'd expect to see given other's publisher's marketing practices. In terms of the actual game yes we can change many aspects of it, but it's a real kludge with no real support or direction of any kind, the proverbial "square peg in a round hole". Given what we have to work with, I believe that CA doesn't mean for us to ever have the level of control or ability to work with the game as this "industry standard" bar that I'm holding it up to, again based on their repeated statements about "protecting intellectual property." I also suspect that this might have something to do with cheating protection in terms of multiplayer, if people have access to the client code they can often see ways of exploiting the smallest things. In short this is CA "having their cake and eating it"... CA needs to choose if they're going to fully support game modding and really commit and give us a REAL implementation, or decide that they don't want that to be a part of the game and lock it down nice and tight, this halfarsed middle-of-the-road stuff right now just doesn't cut the mustard. I hope this makes sense.

I still firmly believe that by (potentially) abandoning an aging game engine, switching to a client/server game executable model, distributing the clientside sources, an SDK, providing official support and documentation for it, and fully separating the MP and SP aspects of the game, they can address the majority of the issues that players seem to have such as MPer's desire for better game flexibility, balance, and lag/netcode issues. Again this is just some educated guesswork and a suggestion, it might be a great idea it might not, switching engines takes time and money and if not well managed it could quickly fall to pieces. Then again part of running a successful business is knowing when to take calculated risks and cut your losses when there's better options available and your customers are chomping at the bit for some changes. MPer's complaints about it being tacked on or an afterthought seem to be somewhat justified, but again I don't think it has to be that way. I see a lot of potential for CA in terms of expanding their customer base and appeasing current/former fans by going down a route like this.

My previous post was a lot of pent up frustration at CA and even some at the gaming community, a little tongue-in-cheek, and honestly all well intended. I hope everyone else reading it found it as such.

:bow:

caravel

03-05-2007, 14:42

Interesting thread, I have followed this thread for some time, only now have I decided to post my humble contribution.

:thumbsup:

It occurs to me that in this case, the whole issue is simply a matter of opinion, though Puzz3D does state some undeniable flaws in the Rome engine. The point I do disagree with though is that the new engine is simply inferior and case closed. That is simply a matter of opinion. I can only comment on RTW, MTW and STW, and in the cases of those, I have always found that battle AI has been far worse in RTW, and that it is quite bugged. Most of the battlefield glitches in RTW that really took the polish off the game, were pathfinding and clipping faults. It is simply no where near as solid as in STW and MTW, but I believe this is down to 2D sprites, which are much more manageable than 3D ones. Settlements on the battle map in STW/MTW were also much more simplistic so any pathfinding errors would not have been exposed. In terms of it's advantages I see it as a step forward towards achieving a much better physics model. 2D sprites with all of their limitations have had their day.

The permeable (if that's the right word?) formations in RTW/M2TW are simply better, more realistic and add a new dimension to the solid block units in STW/MTW battles. With this model the effects of cavalry charges can be realised - though they need to be delicately balanced and adjusted to deal the right kind of damage in the right circumstances. The new engine has potential in many areas, and simply scrapping it off and going back to the old one is not progressive. Again though, a system is much more complex.

I seriously doubt that CA will produce a game that will suit the historical wargamer, the MP player, the casual SP player, the RTS gamer and the old STW/MTW vets all in one. That game is never going to happen. The problem is that whatever changes are implimented, someone will love it, and someone else will hate it. The answer to this is for CA to produce an easily moddable vanilla game with extremely open single and multiplayer capability, and for modders to create a more historically accurate game for the SP history/realism buffs and another for the MP community or multiples/combinations of these. For the MP community Half-Life had it's counterstrike, TW also needs it's counterstrike. In order for this to happen support for modding needs to be more than just a casual afterthought. This is where CA are really not up to speed IMHO. If they can drastically improve modding support in the next games, I can see a lot more mods becoming available, specifically those taliored towards MP players.

This thread would do better to continue in a constructive manner. I have tremendous respect for Puzz3D and his deep knowledge of the TW series, but I really think he's wasting his time here, going over the same details again and again as to how the older game was so much better than the new. I really do believe that to be a futile pursuit, and it will not win any of the people in this thread over to the old games. It's kind of like me telling my neighbour that his new car is very inferior to the old model they made a few years back. It's not useful, doesn't help him, the car company are not going to go back to producing the old model again, they're not going to make the new model similar to the old one. So really I'd be wasting my time, and probably annoying my neighbour in the process.

:bow: