3v3 is max for RTW

[TosaInu]

16v16 would be nice.

[Shahed]

Hey Sinan, hope you are well.
I agree with you my friend, RTW does seem geared more to SP than the previous titles but certain things are just so bizarre as to border on comedy. One player, one faction !!! What kind of rubbish is this??? That was patched out of MTW so how has that turned up again?

3v3 max !!!!!!
How will that impact the Clan structure of TW MP community? What's the point in being in a Clan now? Unless these perhaps form sub Clans? Tourneys would be difficult...Celtibero could field about four 3 man teams on any given night.
Given the choice of a huge 4v4 struggle on a massive map, or sweet new graphics and 3v3 max, I'd pick the former every time. 3D graphics, lovely as they are, become worthless in battle, they are only good for watching replays IMO.

Create your own Historical battles and play these online with yer mates
What's the point in this? Can I create a nice 3v3 Parthia v Rome?

Good grief this is such a shambles!!!

I accept SP sounds astounding and I am so pleased to hear this but I'm afraid I agree with Mitch, it's the battles that make this game and it soon gets boring beating the AI which requires false stat increases to give you some competition.

I just expected much more after all the hype

.......Orda

Greetings Old Friend. Everything's great..actually don't have mcuh time to play games nowadays but I'll try play some RTW once I get my copy.

I'm not taking it seriously anymore. I'm never going to get disappointed after MTW MP, that was disappointment enough...but I still played it coy I was such a TW lover (read: fool).

I can't care less anymore to be honest. I had a bad feeling that RTW MP will be utterly thrash and from the reports we have so far, there is no reason to think otherwise. It's unfortunate that all these old problems are once again into MP for another TW title. We already went through this for MTW, and if after all that it's back again then what can I say. Still I had had hoped that RTW: MP will be good, too bad it isn't (form current reports).

I won't be playing any MP at all, I have'nt got the time to waste. If it's good in SP, which I expect it to be, then I'll play some of that. As far as MP is concerned I can only say what I been saying since ages..forget Total War for MP, it's not worth the hassle, I think.

Salute !


Edit: sorry for typos

[Skomatth]

We should have predicted this, even before the demo. There was a bunch of hype, but none of it concerned MP. Does anyone remember the date of MTW release? I want to go back and read the threads on that. Certainly there were gameplay issues, but not interface ones.

[Puzz3D]

MTW v1.0 was released around Sept 1, 2002, and the v1.1 patch came out around Nov 1, 2002.

[CBR]

IIRC US release was aug 23 and 1.1 came out early nov..5-7


CBR

[Orda Khan]

I can't care less anymore to be honest. I had a bad feeling that RTW MP will be utterly thrash and from the reports we have so far, there is no reason to think otherwise. It's unfortunate that all these old problems are once again into MP for another TW title. We already went through this for MTW, and if after all that it's back again then what can I say. Still I had had hoped that RTW: MP will be good, too bad it isn't (form current reports).

I won't be playing any MP at all, I have'nt got the time to waste. If it's good in SP, which I expect it to be, then I'll play some of that. As far as MP is concerned I can only say what I been saying since ages..forget Total War for MP, it's not worth the hassle, I think.

Salute !


Edit: sorry for typos

You seem busy Sinan
No doubt you will still frequent the forums if not the foyer?
Yes, MTW was a mess wasn't it? To think we spent two years trying to sort that game out and then RTW turns up
I've made some good, true friends through MP and it's a shame that some were driven away by poor/lack of MP support. I think quite a lot more will call time now.
You are probably right, perhaps it is time to walk away from TW

......Orda

[RTKLamorak]

I've made some good, true friends through MP and it's a shame that some were driven away by poor/lack of MP support. I think quite a lot more will call time now.
You are probably right, perhaps it is time to walk away from TW

[Aelwyn]

I was thinking about this yesterday. Forgive me if I sound overly dramatic but I really feel this way, its almost as if they WANT to piss off and get rid of the MP community. After all, who are always their biggest critics? And I heard theres a server limit...? Why would you EVER do that?

Well we want people to enjoy the game....when they are allowed to.

?

The way I feel right now, trained monkeys could have made a better multiplayer. And I'm not just saying that to be hurtful to anyone who made the game. I really do feel like no effort whatsoever was given to multiplayer. Isn't there usually a person who's main job is to work on Multi? Wasn't Gil that person for a while? I doubt one CA person has even logged on to see how things work. Maybe thats because they don't care, or maybe thats because they are trying to get on when the server is FULL.

[Puzz3D]

I think the problem is that CA doesn't test the game enough before releasing it. Even single player has some serious issues comming to light that would have been caught by comprehensive testing. Time is money, so very often testing gets the axe. I've been involved in many development projects, and, in general, the managers want less testing and the engineers want more testing. The engineers are not in charge, so they get overruled. I don't know if the problem in this case is not enough testers or not enough time devoted to testing or maybe both. They are using the customers who buy their game to do testing that should have been done by them. The programmers will try to fix as many things as they can in a patch within whatever time limit is put on them. If the managers are not realistic about what the engineers under them can accomplish within the time allowed, serious problems might go uncorrected.

[SouthwaterPanda]

The way I feel right now, trained monkeys could have made a better multiplayer. And I'm not just saying that to be hurtful to anyone who made the game. I really do feel like no effort whatsoever was given to multiplayer. Isn't there usually a person who's main job is to work on Multi? Wasn't Gil that person for a while? I doubt one CA person has even logged on to see how things work. Maybe thats because they don't care, or maybe thats because they are trying to get on when the server is FULL.

As I understand it we've contacted GameSpy to ask for the Friendly room limit to be increased. I saw 55 people in the Competitive room last night. Apparently the limit in that room is 200.

There are bugs and desyncs in MP. However, I've been lurking in the lobbies - scratch another one of your complaints - and there have also been people talking about how much fun they've had playing the MP game. We would much rather everyone was saying that, but in the meantime at least some people are enjoying it. The bugs that have been reported are under review. Some bugs just don't show up until you hit the real world.

As much as it must be annoying for you to not have an ideal MP experience, any suggestion that the team gave no effort to MP is ridiculous. No effort to MP would mean there was no menu item saying "Multiplayer", no GameSpy or LAN option, nothing. I hope you see the difference? "Nothing" vs "something with some bugs". So could you kindly explain exactly how you can say "trained monkeys could have made a better multiplayer" without it being hurtful to anyone?

Patience, and it'll improve.

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

Patience, and it'll improve.

Fine, I'll be patient, I'll wait for the improvement to buy the game: I hope you won't test my patience too much.

When things get worse whereas keeping them the same look easy, claiming that the team made effort to make MP an enjoyable experience seems dubious. When people make efforts, usually things improve.
I hope you can do better. It's tough; but as Gil puts it in another topic, "that's the biz, sweetheart".

It would be interesting for us to know what you consider WAD, and what you consider bug among all the recommandation you'll find in various places from those who have the game. What improvements are you considering?

Regards,

Louis,

[d6veteran]

Perhaps a moderator would like to chime in ...

I think some members need to temper their comments and consider that there is a distinct difference between constructive criticism and flaming the developers.

Some of the CA developers are guild members here, and all of them are real people and more importantly fans of the game like us. Show some respect please.

I too am frustrated with the apparent reversal in the multiplayer game. Overall it is dumbed down from the previous TW games. But lets be nice to each other ;)

[Orda Khan]

Hmmmm.....So comp and friendly are 2 different rooms? Would that be also can't see each other? As in either one room or another?
What is the point in this if you don't mind me asking?
Comp and friendly 'games' in the same room, surely? Not seperate rooms ( sounds too much like MTW or VI rooms )
Limiting the users? Is this like saying the server is just damp string and can't handle it? Why a user limit at all? Please explain like I'm a 4 year old because I can't understand this logic.
Why are we back to one faction, one player again?
Why are we restricted to 6 player max?

Aelwyn made a 'figure of speech' remark, I'm sure you realise this but he made that remark out of frustration. You must also be able to see this.

I am sure the majority of us here would be very surprised if there were no bugs, it just doesn't happen, but as you can see the issues I have outlined above are most definitely not bugs. Combine these with the bugs you mention and the dilema of MP'ers becomes crystal clear.

.....Orda

[Lechev]

Thanks Panda, for the update on some of the improvement done. However, i bet some of us are bitter after all the waiting and the hype.

There's a saying "that the higher you goes the harder you fall" since most or all the MP players here have all the while been hopeful on a much improved MP gameplay experience upon the release of RTW. The initial reports from our US counterparts has so far sounds groomy. Our only best bet now is that a patch addressing those bugs reported will be out soon. Do keep us posted on any update. Thanks.

[Aelwyn]

As much as it must be annoying for you to not have an ideal MP experience, any suggestion that the team gave no effort to MP is ridiculous. No effort to MP would mean there was no menu item saying "Multiplayer", no GameSpy or LAN option, nothing. I hope you see the difference? "Nothing" vs "something with some bugs". So could you kindly explain exactly how you can say "trained monkeys could have made a better multiplayer" without it being hurtful to anyone?

Patience, and it'll improve.

Orda is right, it was out of frustration. I have never said anything so negative about any developers of a game I have played, so I apologize as it was a bit much. But I really do wonder what was the thought process for a few choices. One player-one faction of course, being able to go into negative amounts of money while picking (reminds me of the zero florins left bug from MTW), 6 player max (although I don't like this, there may be a functional reason that I'm not seeing, and I do wonder).

The control is an issue as well, but most of the things changed there I'll just have to try to tweak myself, thats not something I'm necessarily going to completely complain about. But, can you not put single units to keygroups or is it just me?

I apologize for my monkey remark. I just really like monkeys.

[ElmarkOFear]

Lack of features such as the #ignore function, the #ban function, no information on the game settings from the lobby, no telling if someone is in a game or not, the last chat statement being cut off at bottom of screen, no way to tell if your private chat is going out to lobby or not, connection problems, reduction from 4v4 to 3v3 max, one-player per faction, only 5 pre-set denarii amounts and no way to set your own as host, and this is just the pre-battle problems.

Each game iteration has offered less and less to the MP community. Every gameplay decision has the appearance of being made solely for the single player game and with an eye towards the RTS and console-crowd to the detriment of the MP side. I can list all of the indicators of this if anyone likes.

The worse mistake was hiding any and all information about the MP game from the veteran MP community and others. It was just short of deception by omission. To say a lot of thought went into the MP game does not bode well for TW's MP future if this is considered a best effort.

The vast majority of players who have been playing in the MP lobby are new to the series. Of course they are happy with the MP game. Most have probably never seen what the MP game is capable of and "don't miss what they never had". Console and RTS games, with a few exceptions, do not have a very long shelf life. Players move on to the "next big thing" with regularity. This may be want was intended for RTW. I certainly hope not. The veteran MP community deserves better.

[Aelwyn]

OK Elmo said it better than I. Listen to him.

[RTKLamorak]

Lack of features such as the #ignore function, the #ban function, no information on the game settings from the lobby, no telling if someone is in a game or not, the last chat statement being cut off at bottom of screen, no way to tell if your private chat is going out to lobby or not, connection problems, reduction from 4v4 to 3v3 max, one-player per faction, only 5 pre-set denarii amounts and no way to set your own as host, and this is just the pre-battle problems.

Each game iteration has offered less and less to the MP community. Every gameplay decision has the appearance of being made solely for the single player game and with an eye towards the RTS and console-crowd to the detriment of the MP side. I can list all of the indicators of this if anyone likes.

The worse mistake was hiding any and all information about the MP game from the veteran MP community and others. It was just short of deception by omission. To say a lot of thought went into the MP game does not bode well for TW's MP future if this is considered a best effort.

The vast majority of players who have been playing in the MP lobby are new to the series. Of course they are happy with the MP game. Most have probably never seen what the MP game is capable of and "don't miss what they never had". Console and RTS games, with a few exceptions, do not have a very long shelf life. Players move on to the "next big thing" with regularity. This may be want was intended for RTW. I certainly hope not. The veteran MP community deserves better.

That post sums up the MP community's feeling perfectly, with no harsh words either :o

gj elmo, lets hope a dev reads this, altho i think it is to much to hope that it will be different in the next totalwar game :(

[Crandaeolon]

Fine, I'll be patient, I'll wait for the improvement to buy the game.

A very appropriate strategy, Louis. I think I'll be doing the same; no buying the game until MP functionality is at least close to MTW's level.

[CBR]

For those of you who have tried it online, what is the unit size you play with?


CBR

[spacecadet]

Well said Elmo. Agreed with all those points.

Could the number of players be increased back to 4v4 if the units under each players control was reduced back to 16? Or could 4v4 work by simply stating a higher min spec for multiplayer? Or is the amount of info being sent around for 4v4 RTW simply too much even for a medium spec broadband enabled machine?

[tootee]

As much as it must be annoying for you to not have an ideal MP experience, any suggestion that the team gave no effort to MP is ridiculous. No effort to MP would mean there was no menu item saying "Multiplayer", no GameSpy or LAN option, nothing. I hope you see the difference? "Nothing" vs "something with some bugs". So could you kindly explain exactly how you can say "trained monkeys could have made a better multiplayer" without it being hurtful to anyone?

Patience, and it'll improve.

well, after 4 years of MP experience CA should have a better understanding of MP requirements, yet features that are proven essential and important for MP were taken out in RTW for no explainable reason.. except that CA does not understand MP aspect of TW.. I can accept no new or better feature supporting MP mode but its difficult to swallow when important features are omitted in the new version.

Its not "nothing" vs "something with some bugs" but "something with big bugs" in the eyes of MP community.

[baz]

I agree with what Tootee has said above, i think perhaps they simply do not understand what we like and what we dont, what is useful and what is not.

example.
At some meeting i am sure they must of decided to scrap logfiles, why did they do this?

They decided because in their opinion the effort outweighed the benefits.

To be honest how long did you play online before you started looking at logfiles in detail? For me it was at least a couple of months before it clicked how usefull they could be, the problem is no developer gets to this point of experience to realise what is beneficial to have as a feature for a commited Long term MP.

By a long term commited MP, i am talking about people that have played 1000's of MP games. I for one am sure i have played around 5k plus and i ma sure someone like elmo has played many many more!

I am sure this scenario can be adapted for most of the other problems as well.

In conclusion and to try and get this thread to be as constructive as possible I would suggest we try to create a situation where we can iterate and make the developer understand the important of these needed features, only then will they become a priority when making TW games. Clear communication from both sides is the key :)

What i feel should happen is the developers should not be reviewing whether to include a feature or not until they understand the reasons behind the need! We are on the other side of the fence and just as the developers cant see our frustrations, we can not see theirs!

Baz

[Lonewarrior]

I better see a patch fixing all this, or else

[CBR]

Actually I dont think they decided to take out logfiles.

This is only me guessing really:

But we know how CA develops 2 games the same time. RTW has been under way for 4 years now so I guess a lot of things was decided/worked on at the same time as MTW.

If we look at MP we are having very much the same situation as MTW 1.0: no logfiles, buggy replays, ignore/ban commands not there, a faction cant be picked twice...did I leave anything out? While patches and expansion pack improved on MTW nothing was transferred over to RTW.

CA got one more year to develop RTW and unfortunately not much was done on MP. IIRC online historical battles was mentioned a long time ago so it was already a planned feature.


CBR

[Orda Khan]

Historcal battles online would be a very attractive feature if it wasn't limited to 1v1. I had visions of huge faction v faction battles

......Orda

[ElmarkOFear]

CBR: To answer your question about normal unit sizes. Unlike the other two games, RTW has a different unit size for almost every different unit in the game. I have seen 21, 42, 47, 12, etc . . . Lots of different sizes. Would be interesting if the MP was at least on par with MTW. If you like, I will try to take a screenshot and post a listing of units from a custom battle so you can see what I am speaking of.

[Morindin]

Actually I dont think they decided to take out logfiles.

This is only me guessing really:

But we know how CA develops 2 games the same time. RTW has been under way for 4 years now so I guess a lot of things was decided/worked on at the same time as MTW.

If we look at MP we are having very much the same situation as MTW 1.0: no logfiles, buggy replays, ignore/ban commands not there, a faction cant be picked twice...did I leave anything out? While patches and expansion pack improved on MTW nothing was transferred over to RTW.

CA got one more year to develop RTW and unfortunately not much was done on MP. IIRC online historical battles was mentioned a long time ago so it was already a planned feature.


CBR

I agree with this statement and mentioned it another thread. Many of the features missing from RTW that were in MTW I blame on the games being developed at the same time, and developers not having enough time (i.e. sticking to their schedual) to go back and change or impliment things in MTW that worked well.

[CBR]

Well basically units come in 3 standard sizes. 27 men cav unit, 40 and 60 men inf units. There might be some officer or two added. Large will be x 2 and IMO will be closest to what we are used to in MTW with 80 and 120 men units as small will have many 40 men units.

I was just wondering if 3v3 games with such a setting works

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=36860


CBR

[Morindin]

Well basically units come in 3 standard sizes. 27 men cav unit, 40 and 60 men inf units. There might be some officer or two added. Large will be x 2 and IMO will be closest to what we are used to in MTW with 80 and 120 men units as small will have many 40 men units.

I was just wondering if 3v3 games with such a setting works

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=36860


CBR

Most of the games ive played have been on "large". I thought that was default.

Anyway most units are 80 men but you can also build legionares consiting of around 124 men each. Its quite possible to outnumber your enemy using large numbers of legionares, they're quite akin to Byzantine Infantry in MTW but probably a little better.