View Full Version : Mother of all bugs--missile and melee
Red Harvest
01-17-2005, 08:53
Wow! A fellow over at twcenter figured out that CA appears to have a major bug in the missile vs. melee stats (pri and sec in units files respectively.) In melee the missile stat is being used instead of the secondary stat. I did the following to confirm:
Test 1.
Default Numidian Javelinmen (skirmishers) attacking one unit of Principes. Turn off skirmish, turn off fire at will, charge the Numidian at the Romans as you close using ALT attack. The Numidians switch to their knives (visible in animation.) Result--lots of dead Numidians, no dead Principes.
Test 2.
Mod primary (missile) stat for the Numidian Javelinmen from 6 to 20. Turn off skirmish, turn off fire at will, charge the Romans as you close using ALT attack. The Numidians switch to their knives again, and nearly whip the Principes, inflicting ~75% casualties before routing.
Test 3.
Up the missile attack of Numidians to 30. Repeat...and the Numidians beat the Principes narrowly.
Considering Numidians have very low defense, and Principes very high defense, this makes sense if the game is using missile stats for melee. Add to this the realization that Principes have 11 missile attack and 16 defense... 11 + 16 = 27 while in test 2 Numidia was getting 20 + 4 = 24... a little short.
Lots more testing to go...but this could make sense of a lot of wierd goings on in the game. ~:eek: :dizzy2: :stars:
No wonder most infantry sucks versus Rome's infantry...they are using the danged pila attack value! And those chariot archers? Are they using their high missile attack for melee? How about Balearics and Forester Warbands?
Dear me, that's a HUGE bug.... but it kinda makes sense too in a way... I've been reading reports on the official forums that state that skirmishers seem to do quite well in melee against cavalry which they shouldn't (I've experienced this myself as well, to a certain extent). I guess we have the answer now and your tests confirm the issue.
Might be applicable to archers too as you said. Wouldn't surprise me. They appear to do quite well Vs cav when charging, which is odd.
If it's a general "missile value taken instead of melee" switch for all units, I suppose we'd need a hardcoded fix for it. Can't see how we can mod it. Hope it's already in the coming patch, since it's already with Activision for testing... otherwise we'll have to wait a long time to get this one rectified... till an expansion?
Thanks for the notification.
Does this work the other way round too?
I wouldn't think so, as the foresters still have good missile too...
AquaLurker
01-17-2005, 09:28
That explain why I was able to kill 5 cataphracts with 20 archers in melee lol.
Red Harvest
01-17-2005, 09:34
Missile stats actually work for missile attack. I've tested and modded the missile attack enough to know that it is working properly off its own stat (although I have not checked to see if the secondary stat might be contributing as well.) What I didn't know, but is now obvious, is that the missile stats are also getting used for melee!
And we've been wondering why skirmishers fought so well in melee at times! Turns out the little buggers have been using their rather high missile attack values as melee. If they had decent defense they would be great frontline infantry.
Wasn't too clear. I meant missile values were taken instead of melee for all units which have a missile attack. I agree that it doesn't occur the other way round. Sorry for the bad wording.
The original post on this at the TW forums:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=19393
I'm quite upset... can't see sitting down to play a serious game with these kinda bugs around...
In case we need to live with this bug... could we mod down ALL missile values. Red Harvest was suggesting taking off about one-third of missile attack for various units in that Rock/Scissors/Paper thread. I believe that would put missile attack at about the same values as melee... or at least closer. What units have the biggest missile Vs melee difference?
Dunno... I really hope CA fixes this one.
EDIT: This probably isn't that important... comparatively... but could we also confirm/refute if charge bonuses are working properly for missile units.
I mean I see Forester Warbands getting a Missile attack of 15 and a charge value of 5 for it and a Melee attack of 11 and a charge value of 8 for the melee weapon. So which charge value is actually used? I'm getting pretty confused. ~:confused:
Colovion
01-17-2005, 09:53
In case we need to live with this bug... could we mod down ALL missile values. Red Harvest was suggesting taking off about one-third of missile attack for various units in that Rock/Scissors/Paper thread. I believe that would put missile attack at about the same values as melee... or at least closer. What units have the biggest missile Vs melee difference?
Dunno... I really hope CA fixes this one.
hopefully they caught it in the patch
wow I wish there was like a list of fixes that will be in the patch so that if there was any glaring missing bugs they could be fixed in a more proactive fashion
Just a thought. If you click Alt making them switch to a secondary weapon before charge does that affect the outcome? Or do they still use their missile attack regardless.
Arkatsson
01-17-2005, 14:16
That is one strange bug. But we shouldn't mod it. Because doesn't the missle stat also tells how much damage the arrow or javalin does?
Nope, the attack stats determine the chance of hitting, not the damage.
Just a thought. If you click Alt making them switch to a secondary weapon before charge does that affect the outcome? Or do they still use their missile attack regardless.
As Red Harvest says in the original post, using the Alt attack changes nothing, they still use the stat of the missile attack in melee.
I just lost all my willingness to play RTW... ~:(
As Red Harvest says in the original post, using the Alt attack changes nothing, they still use the stat of the missile attack in melee.
Oops, curse me for not reading properly before posting. Sorry.
I saw Captain Fishpants around a couple of hours ago. Not sure if he noticed this thread though. I'm hoping we can get an early readme on patch fixes next week.
The thread at the official forums on this bug:
http://p223.ezboard.com/fshoguntotalwarfrm7.showMessage?topicID=19194.topic
Arrrgh!
This is really bad news! Especially since the patch has been sent to Q&A... So if this isn't fixed, then we might have to wait more (can't believe they won't get the money to fix this from Activision).
Red Harvest
01-17-2005, 20:49
Arrrgh!
This is really bad news! Especially since the patch has been sent to Q&A... So if this isn't fixed, then we might have to wait more (can't believe they won't get the money to fix this from Activision).
Surely they had identified and fixed this...after the stamina and stat_heat bugs, surely they went through to check to see that all unit stats actually worked as designed. If they didn't then they are just plain sloppy. I can easily understand the other original bugs, but this one is the straw...or perhaps bail of hay...that broke the camel's back.
Heck, they now have to REBALANCE the WHOLE GAME! None of the base Roman units are right in their attack. Instead of "7" they are getting 11. No wonder they cut through Iberian infantry like they were unarmed peasants. You can imagine what this must be doing to autocalc. No wonder I found infantry useless vs. Rome when playing Carthage. Playing as Rome is going to become a lot tougher when this is fixed. ~D That is a good thing.
It had been obvious that traditional infantry was getting the shaft, but only now is the extent of the problem becoming clear.
Khan of ED
01-17-2005, 21:37
The thing i want to ask is:
do missile units use their melee stats when they run out of ammo?
Wow this bug really sucks and better be fixed in the patch. I've always thought that the Roman infantry seemed really tough, but never realized it was a bug.
Well now I know why on a hard difficulty my Roman genereal was cut down to the last man by Cretan archers after a frontal charge
Ye gods what a bug! ~:eek: :dizzy2:
I must echo other people's posts when I say I sincerely hope and pray that CA has recognized and addressed this bug in the upcoming patch!
The fact that the most active and fanatical modding members of the TW community missed this bug does not fill me with optimism. After all, if the hardcore fans missed it then it is quite plausible that CA could have overlooked it as well!
Oh well, if it's not fixed in the upcoming patch then there's sure to be another patch to follow. The TW community will surely go bananas if this bug isn't fixed and Activision decides to wait until the expansion to patch the game further.
Boudicca
01-17-2005, 23:42
This one really leaves me speechless... :wall: how could they...
This bug really shows that they in fact did anything to keep the release date for RTW. I suppose they balanced the game countering the error by adjusting the swing / attack rates etc...
Very bad indeed....
ShellShock
01-17-2005, 23:53
Was this a bug overlooked by CA (easily fixed in the patch), or did they do it deliberately as they could not get melee stats working? I hope not!
tai4ji2x
01-18-2005, 00:17
i know people have complained about archers in melee before (i myself have). but is this the first time it's been confirmed by these tests? CAN WE GET A WORD FROM CA WHETHER THEY WERE AWARE OF THIS? :(
Was this a bug overlooked by CA (easily fixed in the patch), or did they do it deliberately as they could not get melee stats working? I hope not!
Arh, come on now, since the pikemen and hoplites work with their two types of melee weapons (the secondary clearly weaker) the melee stats obviously work for both sets.
Now I have finally realized why my Triarii (6 units) had so much trouble beating Iberian Infantry defending a square, while my Hastati (1 unit) easily carved a path into them...
It also makes sense now why horse archers and Militia Cavalry are so tough in melee. They seem unstopable when charing. Sadly though, the Numidians seemed to be quite good like they should be (now they will be weak again).
Red Harvest
01-18-2005, 00:28
The thing i want to ask is:
do missile units use their melee stats when they run out of ammo?
From the tests I ran today, yes. They keep the erronous missile stat as melee. I did my test by reducing numidian jav count to 2, then whipping the snot out of various units by giving them 20 for a missile attack. They threw their two javs causing high casualties, then tore up Gaul swordsmen and Libyan spearmen in melee.
Red Harvest
01-18-2005, 00:51
Elephant archer units like the War Elephants are apparently NOT effected by the bug. Even though the stat_pri is for the archers, the primary attack is the elephants--as seen by the little sword when you hover over an enemy. The missile attack comes from using alt attack (Mr. Bow and Mr. Arrow.) This is different than all other unit types which have the reverse order. This probably also has something to do with elephants effectively being capable of delivering multiple types of attack simultaneously from a single beast. So it might help in coming up with an appropriate hard coded solution--or determining the source of the bug in other units.
The test I ran was to boost the stat_pri for elephant attack (missiles) to something like 25 then tear through some unlucky Gaul swordsmen. I then tried it with a value of 1. In both instances I caused the same approximate level of destruction. Those poor Gauls.
I'm not sure about chariot archers. They suffer in melee from being "brittle" making the tests a bit more challenging. I'll have to tweak them more to see the effect.
The Numidian javelin cav seem to do pretty well in melee vs. those Gaul swordsmen when given high missile attack (20 vs. 9), but the Numidians suffer from being a small unit with low defense so both sides are effectively eliminated. These guys have 6 for secondary attack so while it will weaken them, they won't be incredibly weak for it. They will benefit from the Romans losing an extra 4 from pila attack.
Numidian legionaires have weaker stats than normal legionaires--the same as principes. But give them a high missile stat and they rip the principes a new one.
Commodus
01-18-2005, 00:58
This is a sad state of affairs. Either way you look at it... If CA knows about this bug but chose not to share it before the patch release, shame on them for wasting god knows how many hours of this dedicated community trying to figure out what is wrong with this game. If they still don't know of this bug, I've got nothing to say. Don't know which is worse...
Everyone keep in mind Shogun(?), the moderator over at the Com, said CA would make an appeal to Activision for permission to release a preliminary fixlist/readme file to the public while the patch is being tested. If permission is given the readme file should be posted sometime this week.
Humph. It most certainly saps out the fun from the game. :disappointed:
Sid_Quibley
01-18-2005, 10:25
Did some tests greek peltasts v triarii.
All grassy flatland fire at will off,skirmish off.Alt double click to charge.
peltast at 36 att kill 97 triarii vanilla kill 36
peltast at 36 att kill 113 triarii vanilla kill 7
peltast at 26 att kill 107 triarii vanilla kill 46
peltast at 26 att kill 90 triarii vanilla kill 37
Then I tried charging the peltasts and once they were engaged, alt clicked to see if they switched to sec weapon.
peltast at 36 att kill 113 triarii vanilla kill 65
peltast at 36 att kill 46 triarii vanilla kill 29
peltast at 26 att kill 58 triarii vanilla kill 30
peltast at 26 att kill 87 triarii vanilla kill 27
In conclusion the peltasts would use secondary stats in melee if forced by alt click but only after charge phase.Seems the code will not select the most appropriate stats for any particular melee phase.
Proletariat
01-18-2005, 11:51
You know I've bit my tongue regarding criticisms against CA for awhile... And I guess I'll continue to do so until after the patch, but this is gearing up be the last straw.
~:confused:
Ulug Beg
01-18-2005, 13:24
Oh dear. Sometimes it is best not to know these things. And I was waiting for the patch before reinstalling on my new PC. Looks like I'll be waiting for the expansion now. After all the hassel of getting them to fix the bug in VI - where everybody died at the same age -I'm not too hopeful.
I do wish CA would dump Activision so they could properly support an otherwise excellent game.
tai4ji2x
01-18-2005, 15:05
all i can do is shake my head
Rosacrux redux
01-18-2005, 15:12
GAH!
I mean... err... well...
GAH!
Khan of ED
01-18-2005, 16:26
One more thing when you play on VH AI gets +7 at melee attack stats,
but because we found out that missile units (peltasts, legions, ...) use their missile stats there should be no difference between easy-medium-hard-very hard am i right? ~:confused:
Red Harvest
01-18-2005, 16:36
One more thing when you play on VH AI gets +7 at melee attack stats,
but because we found out that missile units (peltasts, legions, ...) use their missile stats there should be no difference between easy-medium-hard-very hard am i right? ~:confused:
I don't know. The +7 might apply to missile stats as well. I tried to test this a couple of times, but I can't get the idiot AI archers to stay put and pepper me with arrows. They like to run up to my heavy infantry as if they wanted to do melee. :dizzy2: I need to try it again, but I got pretty disgusted with the pathetic AI the last two times I attempted it.
I don't know. The +7 might apply to missile stats as well. I tried to test this a couple of times, but I can't get the idiot AI archers to stay put and pepper me with arrows. They like to run up to my heavy infantry as if they wanted to do melee. :dizzy2: I need to try it again, but I got pretty disgusted with the pathetic AI the last two times I attempted it.
Can you blame them, they get super stats in melee as well as the +7 from VH, they really want to cut down legionaries with that pocket knife of theirs ~D
But RTW is becoming worse and worse, it could have been the best game ever if everything worked as it supposed to, that's what you get when the only thing that matters is Activision and their money....Gah! Or they could atleast give good support like Paradox games does, but I guess my final decision about them will be based on the future patch, but it looks bad now.
I wonder if it would be possible for people with good coding, programming and skinning experience to get together and take their time to produce a great game, without being rushed by some fat boss with a cigar named Dick. I mean gather a group of good men and make a sort of "garage game" but a quality one. A very good example of this is a small company PopTop, they made Tropico and Train tycoon, two very great games another one is Paradox games with Crusader and similar games ( true, they are buggy, but atleast they try to fix it giving excellent support )
So the devs are aware of the problem... now... or is it only now?
http://p223.ezboard.com/fshoguntotalwarfrm7.showMessage?topicID=19232.topic
Obake Date says:
"Whether or not they will be able to fix it in time for the upcoming patch........... I don't know."
Can I therefore infer that it ISN'T already fixed in the upcoming patch?! It's probable that Obake and Shogun already have the patch readme by this time so they might be able to tell fairly easily. Or perhaps a dev told them they'd be on it?!
If they haven't fixed it yet, I'm voting for giving CA another 2 weeks. Yes, only this one. Yes, I think it's THAT important. Another delay means another furore but it's still better than having the patch end of January and living with this bug till an expansion.
Personally I'm not touching the game with a 10-foot pole until I have some reassurance that it is going to be tackled. What's the point of researching economics, diplomacy, etc.. when core aspects of the game are ruined? Any previous MP/SP battle results would be rendered invalid by this... and modders would need to make radical and heavy adjustments...
I'm pushing heavily to get this one fixed, even if it takes a month instead of 2 weeks. Can we agree on this?
If they haven't fixed it yet, I'm voting for giving CA another 2 weeks. Yes, only this one. Yes, I think it's THAT important. Another delay means another furore but it's still better than having the patch end of January and living with this bug till an expansion.
I couldn't agree more. We've already waited this long and another couple weeks would make no difference to me.
It's probable that Obake and Shogun already have the patch readme by this time so they might be able to tell fairly easily. Or perhaps a dev told them they'd be on it?!
I can tell you that Obake most certainly have not read the readme, he is a moderator (administrator), but not an employee of CA. He knows as much as everyone else most of the time. The Shogun of course might know, but that does not translate into the moderators know.
This is bug is clearly related to the bug that has units with secondary weapons not automatically switching to them for melee combat. On the other hand if CA was already made aware of that bug then it stands to reason that they probably caught the major bug we've been discussing in this thread.
I still cannot get over the fact that such a glaring bug was overlooked by CA, their Q&A people, Activision's Q&A people and the TW community since the game was first released! I guess it is true when they say "S--t happens!"
Well thanks to Obake Date's post in the Com we know for sure that CA is aware of the bug. Now what the TW community ought to do is let CA and Activision know that we want this bug to be fixed in the upcoming patch, regardless of the delay!
I would gladly wait another 2 weeks to a month for the patch if it means squashing this bug now and forever!
Commodus
01-18-2005, 22:43
I fully agree. No point in playing (or re-installing in my case) until this issue is fixed.
So the devs are aware of the problem... now... or is it only now?
http://p223.ezboard.com/fshoguntotalwarfrm7.showMessage?topicID=19232.topic
Obake Date says:
"Whether or not they will be able to fix it in time for the upcoming patch........... I don't know."
Can I therefore infer that it ISN'T already fixed in the upcoming patch?! It's probable that Obake and Shogun already have the patch readme by this time so they might be able to tell fairly easily. Or perhaps a dev told them they'd be on it?!
If they haven't fixed it yet, I'm voting for giving CA another 2 weeks. Yes, only this one. Yes, I think it's THAT important. Another delay means another furore but it's still better than having the patch end of January and living with this bug till an expansion.
Personally I'm not touching the game with a 10-foot pole until I have some reassurance that it is going to be tackled. What's the point of researching economics, diplomacy, etc.. when core aspects of the game are ruined? Any previous MP/SP battle results would be rendered invalid by this... and modders would need to make radical and heavy adjustments...
I'm pushing heavily to get this one fixed, even if it takes a month instead of 2 weeks. Can we agree on this?
Red Harvest
01-18-2005, 22:44
I still cannot get over the fact that such a glaring bug was overlooked by CA, their Q&A people, Activision's Q&A people and the TW community since the game was first released! I guess it is true when they say "S--t happens!"
It is plain sloppy. There are so many stats that don't work right, or backwards that either the QA was poorly structured, or a decision was made that they did not have time to fix what was found. So you can't necessarily blame QA and you can't necessarily blame the development team, it might have been a management call.
When I've done software evaluation from the user side, I tested basic functionality of as many features as I could--literally going through each menu and each field checking to see if things worked and then to make sure that they made sense or were accurate (the real time consumer.) I often found show stopper bugs that way and had to work with the developers to get them fixed so that we could actually use the product.
If you are doing in house beta testing properly, you should be running through all the stats in game to see if they are being applied as designed. Clearly, that was not done or the results were ignored. I've seen this working from the software developer's side as well. It isn't pretty when the QA is cut short or if a decision is made to ship with major known bugs rather than fixing them.
I'll give the community more credit, Spino. This is not the sort of bug you can track down without modding and the hardcore modding community is a much smaller subset. Many players from across the skill/experience range had been commenting over oddness with skirmishers/archers fighting harder than their stats would indicate. We also had been puzzled by the power of pila units in combat with supposed equals or betters. Unfortunately, we were taking CA's word for how the secondary stats were implemented. If CA had provided some sort of in game toggle/function to show unit stats in combat...then we could have tracked this down much sooner--scratch that, we WOULD have tracked this down sooner because it would have been glaringly obvious to anyone who used such a switch. Instead we have had to rely on kill rate testing--and that takes statistics to prove unless one puts in truly silly numbers.
The fix looks to be straightforward. The animation already switches properly (part of the reason it was not found earlier) but the stat switch isn't happening. It shouldn't be hard to get the combat engine to switch stats at the same cycle--or find the bug that is preventing it form occurring. It is very, very likely that the code is already there, but has some small bug that is disabling the switch.
However, even if the fix is easy, there is still a finite retest/recertify time period required. I'm guessing that if it was not already found and implemented in the patch, then it will take at least two weeks and more likely a month minumum. And that is assuming CA doesn't have to go back and do unit/faction rebalancing as a result of the change.
Now for the good news. This gives the community more leverage to ask for a follow up patch to fix any major issues not resolved in this one. When you have a new 3D engine and new combat engine, limiting yourself to one major patch is NOT a user friendly idea...unless you do an incredible job right out of the gate.
I don`t think that this bug is as critical as most people think.
We have played for like 3 months, and the balance of the troops did not seem wrong to anyone.
I have not seen a songle topic wich claimed that legionaries are much stronger than they should be. Actually, everybody thought they were just fine - until now.
Once or twice somebody complained that (cav)archers can deal with cav pretty well, but most of the time the cav still wins.
So what I am saying is that this bug is annoying, but most people are acting way too hysterical.
A bug that stays unnoted for such a long time cannot be so serious.
I still cannot get over the fact that such a glaring bug was overlooked by CA, their Q&A people, Activision's Q&A people and the TW community since the game was first released!
Actually, looking over the numbers, it's not that surprising.
In general, the bug gives most missile units a +3 to +5 added attack.
The archers are big winners, but since no one knew it, people weren't using it. Even with a 7 attack, I'm not likely to use them as infantry much. Just as I don't like to use my Chosen Archers that way. Like many others, I had noticed an annoying tendency for archers to stand up to my generals in melees, but given all of the possible bonuses (morale, snow, forest, elevation, exhaustion, difficulty, etc.) it's hard know that those archers were tougher than expected because of some bug.
The other clear big winners are the pila/jav charger units, most of whom get +4 over what's documented. Mitigating this is all the same bonus issues described above, plus the fact that it's +4 on a much higher starting number so it's not as big a percent boost. Other civs' jav chargers don't get seen too often, so this is mostly a Roman benefit. This probably didn't get noticed because the Romans are supposed to be good. One even suspects that they were balanced to the level of goodness they are with the bug embedded, and if not for the bug their melee stat would be higher anyway.
After hearing about the bug, I had a look at my unit table to see if there's a unit I would use radically differently with this knowledge of the bug. I think the answer was probably not. Except maybe some of the horse archers.
I am willing to wait more than 2 weeks for this fix, chances are there will be side effects to fixing this. Aside from play-balance issues, the attack stat may be used in computations other than straight combat. It has been noted that the AI tries to "match up" units when the battle lines come together, I would assume it is comparing attack/defense stats as part of this. Which attack stat is it using? Maybe this explains some of the odd decisions being made by the AI. It's unlikely, but maybe this is one factor leading to the town square/under fire bug. "They're shooting at us, let's charge them!", "No way, look at those attack values!"
It does surprise me that CA or the QA would not notice this. I would assume CA can log battles and look at the combat results on a per-attack basis. Granted, this would be boring work to parse through those logs, but still...
Also, does this bug exist in the unpatched version? Maybe this was introduced in the first patch.
It is plain sloppy. There are so many stats that don't work right, or backwards that either the QA was poorly structured, or a decision was made that they did not have time to fix what was found. So you can't necessarily blame QA and you can't necessarily blame the development team, it might have been a management call.
I am inclined to blame management as well given RTW's 'September or bust' ship date. But given the 'big deal' nature of this bug I am simply amazed that it slipped through the cracks and stayed hidden for so long!
When I've done software evaluation from the user side, I tested basic functionality of as many features as I could--literally going through each menu and each field checking to see if things worked and then to make sure that they made sense or were accurate (the real time consumer.) I often found show stopper bugs that way and had to work with the developers to get them fixed so that we could actually use the product.
If you are doing in house beta testing properly, you should be running through all the stats in game to see if they are being applied as designed. Clearly, that was not done or the results were ignored. I've seen this working from the software developer's side as well. It isn't pretty when the QA is cut short or if a decision is made to ship with major known bugs rather than fixing them.
Ok. I have seen this sort of thing happen before and yes, it isn't pretty. As a fellow strategy gamer I wonder if you recall a horrendously incomplete and buggy game known as Napoleon 1813? I still cry myself to sleep over that one.
I'll give the community more credit, Spino. This is not the sort of bug you can track down without modding and the hardcore modding community is a much smaller subset. Many players from across the skill/experience range had been commenting over oddness with skirmishers/archers fighting harder than their stats would indicate. We also had been puzzled by the power of pila units in combat with supposed equals or betters. Unfortunately, we were taking CA's word for how the secondary stats were implemented. If CA had provided some sort of in game toggle/function to show unit stats in combat...then we could have tracked this down much sooner--scratch that, we WOULD have tracked this down sooner because it would have been glaringly obvious to anyone who used such a switch. Instead we have had to rely on kill rate testing--and that takes statistics to prove unless one puts in truly silly numbers.
My post was not meant to taken as an indictment of the TW community! But as I said earlier, given the sheer number of people (especially modders) who have played and dissected this game since its release it is somewhat incredulous to find out, 3-4 months after the fact, that such a huge bug was staring us in the face the entire time!
The fix looks to be straightforward. The animation already switches properly (part of the reason it was not found earlier) but the stat switch isn't happening. It shouldn't be hard to get the combat engine to switch stats at the same cycle--or find the bug that is preventing it form occurring. It is very, very likely that the code is already there, but has some small bug that is disabling the switch.
However, even if the fix is easy, there is still a finite retest/recertify time period required. I'm guessing that if it was not already found and implemented in the patch, then it will take at least two weeks and more likely a month minumum. And that is assuming CA doesn't have to go back and do unit/faction rebalancing as a result of the change.
From your mouth to CA & Activsion's ears... ~;)
Now for the good news. This gives the community more leverage to ask for a follow up patch to fix any major issues not resolved in this one. When you have a new 3D engine and new combat engine, limiting yourself to one major patch is NOT a user friendly idea...unless you do an incredible job right out of the gate.
One can only hope. However, based on the moderator posts over at the Com this massive patch is seemingly 'it' for RTW until the release of the expansion pack. Should this 'Secondary Attack' bug not be addressed by the upcoming 1.2 patch then all we're going to get is a quick fix patch to address said bug along with other issues/bugs created by the 1.2 patch! Once that is done I think we're going to have wait the release of the expansion pack in late 2005/early 2006 to get further tweaks, features and bug fixes.
Sid_Quibley
01-19-2005, 01:45
"They're shooting at us, let's charge them!", "No way, look at those attack values!"
Drone, I think you have a valid point there.I did a few tests on peasants v dacian archers to see how missile stats affected archery kills.At 7 attack for the dacians the peasants would always rout before getting in charge range.At 5(and below) attack dacians the peasants would charge and engage.This is regardless of archery kills on the peasants as sometimes att 5 would sustain more kills than att 7 under near identical conditions as possible.
This suggests to me that an opponents attack value does have a bearing on opposing forces morale.
tai4ji2x
01-19-2005, 09:43
la dee da... la dee da... gotta love it
The Stranger
01-19-2005, 14:56
wonders happen when the future is dark
so maybe it will happen again :furious3: CA :furious3:
Red Harvest
01-19-2005, 17:23
Ok, Shogun has responded now at .com. CA Comments on Missile/Melee Bug (http://p223.ezboard.com/fshoguntotalwarfrm7.showMessage?topicID=19320.topic) This bug was not caught by CA. Fortunately, the fix must have been easy. CA's comment so far is that the play balancing is not so effected that they need to make major changes.
Indeed, it also means that the bug will be fixed in this patch and not in a next one. I will no longer need to fear sending my cavalry against these thrice damned headhurlers ~D
Ok, Shogun has responded now at .com. CA Comments on Missile/Melee Bug (http://p223.ezboard.com/fshoguntotalwarfrm7.showMessage?topicID=19320.topic) This bug was not caught by CA. Fortunately, the fix must have been easy. CA's comment so far is that the play balancing is not so effected that they need to make major changes.
Thanks Red Harvest!
Here's the text...
The Primary-Secondary Weapon stats issue and the Patch
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What can we say? Strange things happen in software development. That's no excuse, but we are now clearing up the problem.
Firstly, we'd like to thank players for finding this issue in Rome: Total War. We've calculated that the community has now spent 17,000+ man years in playing RTW. Unfortunately, we don't have the resources to match the dedication of our players so we hope you can forgive us for the lapse in not spotting this bug, which was introduced late in the project. We're less than happy that we missed it. Even if we'd put everyone involved on the project into testing (and stopped putting any cool stuff in the game) it would have taken about 300 years to match your efforts, and we're pretty sure that most people wouldn't have wanted to wait for 300 years for the game to be published. :)
We've now addressed the problem. In the current build units now use their secondary weapon values where appropriate. Archers and skirmishers, for example, now 'know' to use their knife or shortsword combat values instead of their missile values. The main results of the fix is that some missile troops won't be as effective in hand to hand combat, and lance armed cavalry will be more effective than is currently the case after their initial charge. We're now playtesting to make sure that unit balancing hasn't been affected in any overtly strange ways and that combat results are what we'd exect them to be. You'll be happy to know that so far, so good...
This late change does mean that other patch elements have to be retested. As a result, the patch has been slightly delayed and won't be available when we expected. But, having monitored the forums, we know that this is an issue that needs to be addressed. We also know that you're eager for the patch. We are too, but we want to do the job *properly*. That's going to take slightly longer than we thought it would.
So thanks for your continued patience. In the meantime, the game still works and is extremely playable. Once the patch is out you'll find that is even better.
Wonderful news!!! So I am guessing we'll have to wait another week, maybe two beyond the original estimate which saw a late January release date for the patch. That's fine by me.
Wow, it's incredible that they have managed to patch with such speed (barely a couple of days since the bug was first discovered). Thank you CA for the prompt response.
As for any slight delay, that's no problem at all for me, in fact I'd say take your time and make sure it's really balanced. If CA could tackle this bug in so short a time, it's more than possible that the coming patch will address many issues. I heartily look forward to it.
:medievalcheers:
I did a few tests on peasants v dacian archers to see how missile stats affected archery kills.At 7 attack for the dacians the peasants would always rout before getting in charge range.At 5(and below) attack dacians the peasants would charge and engage.This is regardless of archery kills on the peasants as sometimes att 5 would sustain more kills than att 7 under near identical conditions as possible.
This suggests to me that an opponents attack value does have a bearing on opposing forces morale.
Interesting. If the attack values are used in other calcs, which one is chosen? When charging archers, their attack value should decrease once melee ensues (once the bug is fixed). Does the AI make situational decisions based on the two stats, does it know how make the opposing unit use the lesser attack?
Hope this bug isn't the tip of a problem here. I've been writing software for a long time, so I know how little things can get embedded throughout code. Judging from Shogun's post, this should be the end of it.
Red Harvest
01-19-2005, 21:34
This engine really needs some sort of toggle to show full unit stats *in use* at that time for both friendly and enemy in actual combat, not pre combat. I would like to see numeric values for morale, attack, defense, fatigue, anything else that would be relevant as they happen/change during battle. It is not something I would want on during normal play, and it would probably need to be disabled for MP, but it would be great for learning how units work, how the whole fight sequence works, what "special abilities" really do, etc. Right now, we don't have descriptions from CA on how the engine works, so having this sort of tool would be great for learning the game. It might help out the QA efforts as well...
This engine really needs some sort of toggle to show full unit stats *in use* at that time for both friendly and enemy in actual combat, not pre combat. I would like to see numeric values for morale, attack, defense, fatigue, anything else that would be relevant as they happen/change during battle. It is not something I would want on during normal play, and it would probably need to be disabled for MP, but it would be great for learning how units work, how the whole fight sequence works, what "special abilities" really do, etc. Right now, we don't have descriptions from CA on how the engine works, so having this sort of tool would be great for learning the game. It might help out the QA efforts as well...
Yes, more detail for battles would be nice and also some outlines for game mechanics.
There were exact calculations for Shogun (http://www.gamespot.com/gamespot/guides/pc/shogun/p10_01.html)
and I think Medieval wasn't too different (correct me if I'm wrong).
We also had a Shogun Academy website (now archived in the org as a doc) where some of the vets around actively contributed to it.
Rome's calculations on the other hand was mentioned by Jerome as different. I wish he had elaborated a bit more since we can't really see what's going on behind the scenes, which means we can't really know what's working or not working. Of course we can look at kills... but that's a very rough and inaccurate measure.
I believe with a rough outline and some battle details, modders would be able to make tweaks more easily without a whole lot of playtesting and balancing.
I remember that pressing F1 brought up a handy screen of units and their totalled up stats, which was nice to see exactly how strong a unit is. Also as mentioned previously by vets around here, in the older games there were also battles indicators like "feeling safe on a hill", "happy that flanks are protected", etc... which would provide some clue as to how morale was faring. Unfortunately that's gone.
I know I'm rehashing old topics but sometimes when the old stuff is good I really do hope it can be ported to the new engine.
I guess part of the reason why the management part of the game has been dealt with in more detail in the Ludus Magna forum, is because it is easier to figure out. Looking at the Settlement Detail, Trade Detail screens, comparing overviews between turns are all comparatively easier and a whole lot more accurate than figuring out this missile/melee bug for example. Thank god the modders caught this one in time.
As you can see, we are not making a whole lot of progress on XP related issues which also appears odd as some players have mentioned that units can go up 1XP by just sitting around (?) (I won't say it's bugged or not bugged as I don't have hard evidence... and asking modders to crack the saved files to see where XP is stored is a tall request).
So all in all, we'll benefit from more info. The community only wants to make the game better and more bug free and we can help out more easily if we have some added info for battles. When we do have enough data, issues are more easily tracked down (ie, therother found out an odd tax anomaly between tier 2 and tier 3, see https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=37831).
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