View Full Version : Creative Assembly Feedback on Multiplayer requested by CA
Erado the Black
07-31-2002, 23:14
This is posted in the MTW forum on the community site:
Quote
So we will be using GameSpy for online multiplayer battles. This works in the following way:
Once you have a copy of Medieval: Total War you can use either GameSpy arcade (available from GameSpy.com and on the Medieval: Total War disk) or the game to connect to the Medieval: Total War GameSpy chat room. Here you will be able to chat with other players from all over the world and join in multiplayer battles.
You will need a to create a GameSpy account and register a user name(s). You should be aware that to use this name exclusively (as your online Medieval: Total War player name) you will have to be the first person to play Medieval: Total War using that name. Once you have registered, that name will be exclusive to you (within the Medieval: Total War community).
All results of battles will be kept on the GameSpy server. An interrogation page will be available, so all results can be copied to compile your own leagues tables (subject to GameSpy terms and conditions). We can also build pages that show the top players over the last 24 hours according to battles fought and won etc. However we had a lot of different views on this concerning Shogun Total War (regarding how these results are calculated), so the best thing will be for the whole community to decide on the different leagues they would like to see and we will accommodate the ones that we can implement.
Currently there will be one chat room available but we can easily increase this to provide chat rooms for specific languages, beginners, intermediates, and experts and for competitive play etc. The format for results to be displayed and accessed by players and clans is versatile and should accommodate most players' needs.
So use this thread to discuss what you guys require from the multiplayer tables.
The Shogun, bringing wisdom in an unwise world.
[/QUOTE]
So after all our tantrums about the leagues you can now voice your ideas on how to improve on it. The thread to put your opinions in is: http://pub24.ezboard.com/fshoguntotalwarfrm5.showMessage?topicID=814.topic
Very good, finally we get some feedback.
So practically the MP servers will be hosted on Gamespy and the 'foyer-type' setup (like we have now) will be retained. Good. Hopefully GameSpy servers will be better.
It is VERY good that we can make our own leagues...thanks for posting this Erado...and thanks to Richie for the info.
Let the discussion about the leagues...BEGIN.
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Clan Kenchikuka (http://www.totalwar.org/kenchikuka)
evil is within us... http://www.totalwar.org/site/emomalta.gif
Stephen Hummell
08-01-2002, 00:54
NICE!
Damn, the browser isn't in game. Oh well, at least it's better than EAPlay.
youssof_Toda
08-01-2002, 01:16
*whipes away his tears* YES! YES! WOEHOE! YES! YES! finally it seams like the developers of the game care what we think about online playing and leagues and stuff!
ooh, sounds exciting!
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-All knowledge is worth having-
LittleGrizzly
08-01-2002, 05:18
woohoo leagues and stuff sounds great !
youssof_Toda
08-01-2002, 16:02
After all the complaining about lack of interest of the developers in our oppinions I would have expected more response...
Dark Phoenix
08-01-2002, 16:27
Just wait Youssof in 2 weeks the bitching will be back that they dont listen to the community.
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"DP is correct" - Shiro
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We may have years, we may have hours,
but sooner or later, we push up flowers
Konnichiwa,
Leagues only concern part of the audience and only a part of that part. I'm also an online player, but I don't care about leagues.
As an online player, I'm more interested in what they'll do for registering clans/players. The options provided by EA were very poor.
A better registration would improve any league, a different league will do nothing to change the situation for the other part of the part.
This problem solving away from the root will likely only make things worse for that other part. Recall that bright idea to hardcode unitlimits: it may solve the complaints of a part of the competitive online players, it will also make things worse for those who play teambattles.
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Ja mata
Toda MizuTosaInu
Daimyo Takiyama Shi
http://www.takiyama.cjb.net
youssof_Toda
08-01-2002, 18:02
Jst post any ideas you have about the setup of online playing, say what you would like it to be instead of complaining afterwards that's it's not what you wanted. No one knows what ideas will be implemented and which not but at least speak out.
ShadeWraith
08-01-2002, 18:26
As can be seen by the volume of responses on the subject of Leagues...bitching is easier than offering solutions http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif. Im not sure its possible to create an accurate league table/ladder that truly reflects player skill. There are too many variables... are victories as attacker or defender....what unit types used....what map used.... quality of opponent etc etc etc. What I do know is any system implemented that ditches the old "honour" system would be an improvement.The most rudimentary system would just be a ratio of victories against losses, that would be good enough for me. We all know who the good players are anyway and surely the whole point of the game is to have enjoyable battles not the dubious privelige of holding points in a discredited system. Who knows by scrapping the honour system we may also inadvertantly purge the game of some of its more annoying occurances such as camping esc'ing etc etc.
Wraith
youssof_Toda
08-01-2002, 18:35
Maybe winnersratio of last 50 games, and battles are removed from the record after a certain period of time (1-2 weeks?).
Momotaro Asakura
08-01-2002, 19:23
Well for me the leagues are not that important for me. If there had to be any I think that as Wraith suggested a simple Victories vs Losses would be fine for me as well. I think simple is best.
As proven in the STW leagues there will always be someone (yes you Magy http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif) who will find a way to beat the system and rise to the top.
Kraellin
08-01-2002, 19:38
it might be smarter of CA/Act to simply provide the raw data of battles and NOT try and calculate who is the top/best player(s). this, hopefully, would also show who dropped/escaped and if timers are used, and what the time length was and what map this was on, what the weather was and ALL of the raw data, including who was the host.
there are so many variables in a game like this, that, it can get kind of daunting trying to figure out who is better than whom, and who is simply taking advantage of bugs, connection speeds and other frailties of the interface and game. we all saw that in the 'honor' system of stw/we/mi and we all knew this wasnt reflective of true ability. i'm glad to see CA is more or less acknowledging this fact and attempting to do something about it.
but here's the thing, shld CA do anything about it, i mean, other than provide the raw data of the games played? this idea of putting the data on the gamespy servers and allowing an inquiry of the data let's the players interpret the data themselves. this may be the smarter way to do this. let the players decide. let the players make their own tables and ladders and so on. CA then doesnt even have to designate 'friendly' or 'competitive'. you played; you won or you lost. simple. there are no 'honor' points to play for or cheat for. you played. the results are posted somewhere for anyone to see.
this has some other advantages. players can make their own ladder systems, their own ranking systems and include, or not include, those players who wish to participate in that system or that they wish to keep track of.
it also provides a history, and almost a storyline, to any given player. if i wanted to know about player x, but have never played him before, i could look up his server logs and tell pretty quickly what kind of player he is. who has he played, did he win or lose, does he do better in 1 on 1's or in bigger games, does he like rain or dry weather and so on. this could be likened to one's reputation in the real world. and in fact, this is perhaps the true strength of doing simply raw data files. it actually would simulate what might have occurred in the old world where rumors and storys would circulate about this or that general or king. one got a REPUTATION, good or bad and others noticed and acted on this. the use of the word REPUTATION is much more exact, for this game, than 'honor' ever was.
the use of the word REPUTATION could even be carried farther. one could get a reputation for being a horseman, or an infantryman, or sieger and so forth. one would be shown to have a reputation for escaping or for standing firm or as a rusher or camper. rushing and camping might be hard to show in the stat files, but perhaps even that could be tracked and logged. i think this would be a whole lot better than the old honor system and, in fact, a whole lot more realistic. wouldnt you as the king of france, for instance, want to know what the ruler of spain was like if you were thinking of invading spain?
leave the ranking and rating systems up to the players. CA avoids all the flames for making a system that may or may not be liked and it puts the onus and responsibility on those that are actually playing the game. the players do tend to get to know who is good and who isnt so good.
if CA wants to put up a list of games played in the last 24 hours or something like that, why fine, but if i'm CA i stay away from RATING those games. simply post them and the raw data of the games and let the players draw their own conclusions. this is why a REPUTATION system would be a whole lot better than a ranking system. reputation simply shows tendencies rather than ranks. ranking says, bob beat fred, fred beat alice, alice beat bob, so who is the best? it's an endless debate. you see it in sports analyses all the time. reputation says, this guy tends to win on rough ground in rough weather when playing as a defender but cant attack worth a d*mn. which information would you rather have?
ok, i got carried away again ;) talk among yourselves :)
K.
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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.
ShadeWraith
08-01-2002, 19:55
Very interesting points Kraellin, but wouldnt the raw data from all battles take up a lot of storage space? And are their any people out there who would be willing to invest time to design an application to interpret the raw data? Im presuming the raw data would be held somewhere centrally here of course. You would also need to quantify what data would be collated..weather...map...unit types...att or def....kills losses....victory or defeat...number of players etc etc.
The more I think about it the more I like this idea, maybe someone could develop an application similar to the log file reader that would enable you to do a search on a particular players stats. If people were desperate for some kind of rating then if we decided what factors to include in the raw data we could design a matrix to calculate a general rating for a player. Maybe this could take the form of a ranking system with broad categories such as squire..knight...Baron..Lord etc.
Wraith
Wraith
Erado the Black
08-01-2002, 20:01
Very sensible, Kraellin. But there will always be a portion of players that want some sort of competition. I certainly would appreciate the possibility to create temporary ladders for Community organised tourneys.
But I suggest the thread at the .com forum is used to post our ideas.
Konnichiwa,
It seems that registering at GameSpy will offer the same 'features' as registering at EA. One person can register as many nicks as he wants, and the same abuse as we've had with STW will start all over again.
It has been mentioned many times, FastCub recently mentioned registration of one profile, but allow to change the nick and reset the honor to the starting value.
The profile contains the registration date and a name. Only one profile or at most two should be allowed per CD (preferably only one available for comp games).
The player can edit his nick (once in 24 hours?)
and reset his honor to the startvalue (if that system is used). He should also be able to submit a request to join a clan (player can only be in one clan at the same time).
The clanadministrator will see his profilename and current nick (and some/all previous nicks or a thrown out of clans counter). The clanadministrator can decide whether to allow this player to join or not.
The clanadministrator could set a clantag and or -name, which doesn't have to become part of the players name, but which will be assigned to his profile so that this player will be grouped with other clanmembers in the chatfoyer. Grouping of a clan can also be done by listing members under a custom banner (WestWoods Renegade allows custom banners for clans).
The clanadministrator will also have the possibility to kick players out of the clan.
Clanadministration can be performed by either the clanleader or a small founding group: in STW the founder did the 'clanadministration', this should be seperated:
Clanadministrator is founded, then any member including the leader sends request to join, to administrator. In this way, even a leader can step out of a clan and join another.
1. No undercover names (one can only change his nick once in 24 hours). And true identity may be reveiled by the profile (which can be searched).
2. No cheating in ladders with multiple registered nicks (only one profile).
3. No stealing honor from others by a low rated nick.
4. Social control: outright bad behavior is discouraged as one can no longer hide. Act like an ass and you are one.
5. Clans get some control over who'll be in the clan and who not. Would you want a member who's already been thrown out of 100 clans?
Again, sorry I'm not interested in leagues and I'll fail to contribute anything to that.
Something like described above is something that would benefit the entire online community and would also improve any league.
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Ja mata
Toda MizuTosaInu
Daimyo Takiyama Shi
http://www.takiyama.cjb.net
Jemasze Toda
08-01-2002, 22:31
Why don't you guys copy your statements to the topic on the official site?
Maybe they get more "official" attention there...
yours Jemasze
Celtiberos Shimazu
08-02-2002, 00:06
I think that it shouldn´t be a leage. It could be better, give only points in officials tourneys made by users with some rules, or by Electronic Arts.
And... if there is a leage, this one should restarts every weeks.
Unless I can 'join' a clan using my ONE name... ie, 'Vanya Fukushima'... you will NOT be able to enforce the one nick rule.
As it stands now, each time you join a clan, you have to pick a new name. And each clan has "naming conventions". Like your name has to have a prefix like "Insane" or "7bear" or "Leiderhosen" and use a specific "family name" like "Johnson".
GAH!
Unless my original nick can switch clans without changing the nick itself... THIS CANNOT BE DONE!
GAH!
Here is how it goes online...
[Vanya]: GAH!
[Feller]: You are good! Wanna join my clan?
[Vanya]: GAH!
[Feller]: Come on! Join my clan!
[Vanya]: GAH!
[Feller]: What name you want?
[Vanya]: GAH!
[Feller]: My clan is the 'Sumvitch' clan.
[Vanya]: Huh?
[Feller]: What name you want?
[Vanya]: Oh... that is so difficult... choosing a name... Whats your prefix?
[Feller]: Make a name with 'Sumdum' as prefix and use the 'Saketome' family name.
[Vanya]: Uh... 'SumdumHo Saketome'...
[Feller]: LOL
[Vanya]: GAH!
[Feller]: So... you gonna join?
[Vanya]: GAH!
[Feller]: PLEAZE!?!
[Vanya]: You mean I can't just join as 'Vanya Fukushima'?
[Feller]: No! The prefix is for solidarity! Its your badge of honor!
[Vanya]: 'SumdumHo Saketome' oozes honor! GAH!
[Feller]: See? Welcome, my brother!
[Vanya]: GAH! [Cuts Feller's head off]
...
Erado the Black
08-02-2002, 12:37
Lol Jemasze, just about at the time you posted that I copied Kraellin's and Tosa's posts to the official forum.
But yes, please, if you have an opinion on this please (also) post it over there. This is one subject that had better be discussed as focused as possible. It was a bit messy in previous games, at least this time we get something to say about it in advance. Let's make the most of it.
Kraellin
08-02-2002, 13:04
shadewraith,
yup. it would start to add up in storage space. you'd prolly want an admin keeping track of the thing to keep it from taking over the net.
as for folks willing to invest the time to interpret the raw data, i think we've already shown we have several folks here who are very good at this sort of thing. there's what, 2 or 3 log file readers now, new mods coming out for mtw and the game isnt even released yet. it wouldnt even be that tough to make some sort of cgi app to automate the entire thing. if the raw data exists in a standardized format then you could make an app that would poll the raw data server and coallate it however you wanted it to be and then print it out on your own web site/ladder system. you could even run multiple ladder systems. or several folks could run their own systems. we used to do something similar in railroad tycoon II where a couple folks ran ladder systems for that game, and i've seen semi-professional ladder systems run for other games on gamespy, though, how they're getting the data i'm not sure.
erado,
this doesnt eliminate 'comp' games. it simply puts it into the hands of the players as to ranking and rating. in fact, you could very simply do it similarly to stw/we/mi by making 'recorded' and 'unrecorded' games. thus, an 'unrecorded' doesnt have the raw data logged to the web site. the 'recorded' ones are then the equivalent to 'comp' games, with the exception that the player ladders or systems do the ranking/rating. and, you wouldnt see any honor points next to a player's name. i suppose that would be less enticing to some. but, if that's really what's needed and wanted then CA could still do their own ranking system and post the points in feedback method while still leaving the raw data for others to also utilize.
tosa,
one cd, one nick is best. being able to edit that nick even every 24 hours or once a week still results in being able to 'hide'. i've seen it in games before and ultimately it's the folks you dont want in games that do this.
yes, i like the part about having a clan nick that isnt part of your perm nick. folks come and go from clans and one might well need to change this, but like you say, the addition of that designation would have to be approved by the clan admin(s), but one could choose to drop it oneself, without clan admin permission.
as for posting this on the .com forum, feel free :)
K.
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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.
hi guys,
sounds good erade, but lets see if this can realy work...
to the ladder, LÖOL.... latly at MI server we just played friendly games, maybe 1 of 50 was a comp game wich i/we joined...
i dont care about the ladder, and this new system wont show who is the real number 1;2;3;...5...
we will see again many guys wich cheat and play semself to win...
the best would be, if every game would count, no chance to play friendly....
i saw it on WArcraft, somehow this ladder system look real good, i didnt figured out yet, how it works, but seems ok...
i havnt an idea how the system should be, maybe we dont need such a ladder. and just can look at the stats of the players...
koc
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Grey Wolves (http://www.totalwar.club.tip.nl/)
Konnichiwa,
Vanya san, there seems to be misunderstanding between us, I humbly apologize for not explaining more clearly.
What's supposed is not 1 nick per CD key but 1 profile per CD key. By profile I mean a record with a fixed unchangable dateOfRegistration + part of name/code.
That record is personal, but it has a user customisable field for nick, a field for honor/rank (which could be reset to zero if the user wants so, for whatever reason), furthermore he'll find buttons to send a request to join a clan, fields that will store a 'clanbadge' if accepted by a clan, a button to leave a clan (thanks for that Kraellin) and it would be good if the user had a counter that says in how many clans that person has been. This provides a check for clans, it will decrease the paranoia: clans have the dilemma is this person really a nice newbie like he says/pretends or a clandestroyer? Clans and players will benefit from this. I guess a players profilename (the name of the record) should also be visible, and perhaps the clanadministrator should be able to see in which clans a person has been.
To answer your question: it would be possible to join a clan and keep your own name. You'ld simply receive the clanbadge in your profile. That info is used to group clanmembers in the foyer.
In case of an prefix, it's convention for FPS shooter clans to put the prefix in square brackets in front of a name:
[Mizu] TosaInu Toda.
You could argue about whether it's up to the member to change his nick from TosaInu to [Mizu] TosaInu or have a seperate field that stores the clanbadge and giving the user the option to toggle usage of this on or off (same could apply to the clanname, member stays in clan but can choose to fight as individual).
And you could stick to the 'manual' badge in use by many clans right now: LinkSlice for nick.
Kraellin san,
I like your idea of raw data, it would apply to both friendly and comp games, the raw data can be processed into whatever kind of ladder in the case a game is comp (just pick the relevant info).
I know that 1 nick/profile would be 'best' But there are legal/honorable/not harming reasons why one would want to change his nick (or allowing a relative to play occasionaly).
That's why 2 accounts seems fair (preferably only 1 allowed for comps).
Changing nicks once in 24 hours indeed still enables hiding, but not in the absurd abusive way it allows hiding now. And the honor/rank/reputation is still linked to the profile when the nick is changed from A to B. Perhaps it should be possible to allow tracking of the profilename?
There's a 'tiny' conflict of interests here:
protect players from misuse of nicks by rare few and allow 'privacy' of players (even if just nicks are involved). This system also (partly) prevents exploits of any laddersystem.
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Ja mata
Toda MizuTosaInu
Daimyo Takiyama Shi
http://www.takiyama.cjb.net
GAH!
While we're at it, why not add social security number and/or driver's license, a home address and phone number, a picture of what you look like and a list of your magazine subscriptions (past AND present)?
No more dealing with credit bureaus... you can get your credit report online instantly from GameSpy by simply using your Shoggy account!
GAH!
We'll have stalkers poping into OUR bedrooms to snatch kids...
We'll have love letters from online inmates flooding our mailboxes...
We'll have a Congressional hearing into our 'inmoral' consumption of head soup (at least, I rev. Falwell is likely to think so...!)...
We'll have a new International High Court of Online Nickname Abuse... where players accused of crimes against virtual humanity can be tried for their lack of honor, newbie preying, and spamming, and clan sabotage...
We'll have a United Player's Union emerge where mobsters will collect protection money from players so they can enjoy the thrill of playing online! They know who you are and where you live... and your aunt has a fat man with a baseball bat lurking behind her as she walks her Chihuahua anxiously awaiting its bowel movement while hoping it would spontaneously talk so she could become instantly independantly wealthy... and praying to God, Allah or Buddha every day her dog doesn't end up in a connoli in that fat man's meathooks...
GAH!
[Takes a deep breath]
But I see what you're sayin'...
In the end, it may all be irrelevant. If you simple make a nick and CLAN MANAGEMENT is EXTERNAL and ladders are EXTERNAL... then there is nothing to argue about. Limiting the one nick per CD... well, then it makes sense. Because your clan affiliation is independant of your nick! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif
Editing nicks? Can you really see dat hungarian guy with the Mongol fetish... whats his name?... can you see him change his name from 'MagyarKhan' to 'Sahara Pizini', 'Maggie Whoppers' or 'Militia Ether-Ridge'? Somehow, I doubt it...
GAH!
Somehow, I doubt losing to one of my Furies, like Hoss in the STW era, compelled this whole debate about multiple nicks... sure it was the inmature little boogers with a hole in their heart that need to find a li'll love and affection that go about sabotaging warrior's dreams of conquest (No, I'm not talking about Jenna's movie here... although on second thought, it might be more relevant than we think given the current direction of my rant...)...
GAH!
Where was I?
http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/confused.gif
Oh yeah...
http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif
[Sips sake, eats popcorn]
[Pops in DVD...]
...
[This message has been edited by Vanya (edited 08-02-2002).]
Gah! I am posting this on behalf of Obake, who because of his work firewall, can't access ORG when he is at work. This seems the first shot at a complete competitive ladder, thanks Obake. You can reply at .COM too.
MEDIEVAL: TOTALWAR Competitive Ladder Rules (v.1.0 proposed)
Introduction
Section 1 – Ladder Admission and Activity
1. All members of the Ladder must register to participate.
2. Individuals are only allowed to sign up once. Use of multiple names for Ladder competition is strictly forbidden.
3. Ladder members must provide the Administrators of the Ladder with a valid E-mail address for contact purposes
4. Ladder members are considered to be unranked until they have fought their first battle.
5. In addition, any active ladder member that has not fought for a period not less than 8 weeks will be considered to be inactive and will be removed from Ladder competition.
6. Ladder members who have become inactive through lack of participation will be re-activated upon their return to active Ladder combat. They will also be considered unranked and will lose their previous ranking.
Section 2 – Ranking
1. Ladder rank is based on performance in combat. Lower ranked individuals will only move up in the rankings by successfully defeating higher ranked opponents.
2. All individuals enter the ladder at the bottom of the ladder and are considered unranked until they have fought their first battle. If two unranked individuals fight then both will be considered ranked upon completion of the battle.
3. If a player defeats an individual ranked 3 or fewer spots ahead (i.e you are ranked #10 and defeat the #7 ranked player), that player will take over the rank of the player they defeated. All players in between will shift down one rank (i.e using the same example, the #10 ranked player would become the #7 ranked. The former #7 ranked would become the #8 ranked, the former #8 ranked would become #9 and so on). This is done to encourage continuous activity within the Ladder.
4. If a lower ranked player defeats a player who is 4 or more ranks ahead of the lower ranked player, that player will advance ½ of the rank differential between the two (rounded down). The maximum ranks that can be gained through this method is 10 ranks. For example, the #30 ranked player challenges and defeats the #1 ranked player. The victorious player would then advance to the #20 rank. If the same player instead defeats the #20 ranked player, he/she would then advance to the #25 rank.
Section 3 – Match Scheduling
1. Ladder member must accept challenges from lower ranked members if they are within 5 ranks below their own rank (i.e the #10 ranked must accept a challenge from the #15 or higher ranked individual).
2. Individuals refusing to accept challenges may incur rank penalties on a case-by-case basis.
3. Challenges should be completed within a two-week period in order to maximize ladder activity and to ensure that all ladder members have a fair and equal opportunity to gain rank.
4. Matches not completed with the above-referenced “two-week” period can be considered forfeit (see Section 5 below).
5. Ladder members are not required to accept challenges from individuals that are 6 or more ranks below their own rank, although acceptance is strongly encouraged in order to foster gameplay and build the community.
6. All challenge battles should occur at a time convenient to both players and both must agree before entering the battlefield that the battle is a ladder match.
7. It is the responsibility of both players to arrange a mutually agreeable time for the match to take place.
8. The “two-week” rule may be bypassed if both players agree. Ladder Administration must be notified of such an agreement.
9. Challenges may also be withdrawn in the interest of sportsmanship if the “two-week” rule cannot be met
Section 4 – Match Format
1. In order to foster gameplay, the individual with the better connection should always host the match.
2. All matches are a “best of three battles” format as follows:
• Battle One
1. Higher ranked individual chooses map.
2. Lower ranked individual chooses to attack or defend.
• Battle Two
1. Lower ranked individual chooses map.
2. Higher ranked individual chooses to attack or defend.
• Battle Three
1. Same as Battle 1
3. All games must register as “Complete”.
4. The victor of a battle will be determined by the game upon completion.
5. In the case of a host crash or drop the battle will be re-started. (see Section 6 below).
Section 5 – Battle Results & Forfeits
1. All match losses must be reported immediately by the individual who has lost.
2. Deadline for submission is 24 hours after the completion of a match.
3. Failure to report results in a timely manner can result in an additional loss of rank beyond any potential loss of rank due to the match. This additional loss of rank will be determined by the Ladder administration on a case-by-case basis.
4. Forfeits are treated in exactly the same way as a loss for purposes of ranking.
5. Forfeits are the only occasion where the “victor” reports the results.
6. A match may be considered forfeit if it does not take place within the two-week period referenced in Section 3.3 above providing that one of the participants can substantiate that the other has made no effort to schedule said match.
7. Forfeit is the least desirable outcome for a challenge and should be avoided at all costs.
Section 6 – Drops, Escapes and Cheating
1. It is inevitable that disconnects will occur during ladder matches. This section is designed to reduce the amount of intentional drops and escapes in order to increase the level of integrity within the ladder.
2. If a disconnect occurs before units have begun combat, the battle will be re-started and will not count as official.
3. If a disconnect by either player occurs after combat has begun, and there is no reason to suspect an intentional escape/drop, the battle will be re-started and will not count as official.
4. If there is reason to suspect that intentional escaping/dropping is taking place in order to avoid a loss, this must be reported to Ladder Administration immediately.
5. It is allowable for a player to escape in order to expedite a match if they are willing to accept such as a loss for that battle.
6. Continued dropping/disconnection during combat can be considered un-sportsmanlike and/or cheating which may result in the offending individual being removed from the ladder.
7. Use and abuse of bugs inherent in the game in order to gain an unfair advantage over an opponent are not allowed and will be considered cheating.
Section 7 – Sportsmanship
1. Sportsmanship and fair play are absolute requirements for the success of the Ladder. Repeated complaints of un-sportsmanlike conduct against any individual can result in disciplinary action. These actions will be taken on a case-by-case basis. Every member of the ladder will be held accountable for their actions as a member of the Ladder.
2. Cheating will not be tolerated in any form and cheaters will be immediately removed from the Ladder. If a player suspects another of cheating, that player should contact a Ladder Administrator immediately and must also submit any evidence they may have to substantiate their suspicions (i.e screenshots, logfiles, etc.). Ladder Administrators will investigate the issues.
3. Public accusations of cheating will not be tolerated either. Regardless of proof or suspicion, players will not accuse another of cheating in any public forum. All suspicions of cheating must be submitted to Ladder Administration as described in #2 above.
The reasons for this are simple:
• Public accusations of cheating are viewed as being immature and petty.
• False accusations can have harsh and long-lasting effects for both the individual accused and the Ladder’s/Community’s reputation.
• Public accusation serves no purpose other than adding fuel to a fire and makes the situation worse than it already is.
Section 8 – Miscellaneous
1. These rules are subject to change. Every effort will be made to inform all Ladder members of any changes prior to scheduled matches.
2. Submission of a loss following the publication of a change in these rules constitutes acceptance of the changes.
3. Changes may be made to any of the rules provided both individuals mutually agree upon the changes prior to the beginning of a match. Any changes agreed upon must be provided to the Ladder Administration along with match results.
4. The MEDIEVAL: TOTALWAR Competitive Ladder will operate in a mature and honorable manner. These rules are meant to be used by players as a guideline for the resolution of any disputes. Any disputes that players are unable to resolve on their own will be resolved by the Ladder Administration using common sense and these rules as the guideline.
5. The ladder will only be successful if the members are having fun. In order to ensure this, the rules have been kept as simple as possible. In all matters pertaining to the ladder, the use of common sense and courtesy by all players will result in an enjoyable experience for all.
GAH!
I like it.
*BUT*...
Two weeks? What if some pig-dog "challenges" me while I'm on a month long vacation in Fiji? So I am PENALIZED for that?!? GAH!
This reporting thing... is too cumbersome. Who has the patience and will to exit the game, go to some website and fill out a form... or worse yet... find the "admin's" email and email him that you were the victor... And then having to send log files of all 2-3 battles fought to validate your claim... GAH! This has become a bureaucracy all of a sudden! YIKES!
If you play the game, it should be automatically detected. GAH! Otherwise, its too much work! And the ladder, which should be "fostering game play" will become a meeting ground of the same 10 players over and over again with no new blood... GAH!
Maybe I'm just overreacting... Maybe it won't be as bad as I think it will...
More questions...
How do you intend to ENFORCE no dual ladder entries? Based on unique email? What's to prevent me from making a free Yahoo email for each nick? Not a thing!
How do you intend to prevent honorable players from being dragged through the mud by a malicious player -- but on the surface quite honorable? The whole he-said-she-said arrangement here allows for frivolous accusations.
Whoever ends up building this ladder has their work cut out for them. Of course, this is an EXTERNAL ladder, so CA/Activision may not be the ones implementing it. How then will you display results? Have some poor slob slaving away in their mama's basement between laundry loads? That seems like a bleak outlook... I'd rather be cutting heads off! GAH! So, I hope whoever builds this makes it as automated as humanly possible to minimize all these headaches. If you want the user pigs to submit log files to validate the game... that will be a bureaucratic step -- and a royal pain if you have to exit to submit or remember to submit when you exit, and pray you submit the right ones to keep from being accused as a cheater! But if you want to do this, feel free to reach out to me, as maybe I can provide you with something to read in the logs submitted http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif ...
GAH!
A ladder with 10 people on it may not prove to be a lot of work. A ladder with 10,000 may prove to be a full-time job...
GAH!
Will Activision/EA provide an API with which you can query games online? Somehow, I doubt it... 'cause its GameSpy! GAH!
Oh! I ALMOST FORGOT! GAH! Say some pigdog challenges you while you are online in a game. Now, because the ladder is EXTERNAL... how are you supposed to determine that he is within '5 ladder points' of you?!? By LEAVING, going to a web site and checking it? What if the site is NOT updated every minute or is NOT LIVE?!? You may not be able to make that determination ANYWAY! You may have played 30 games since the site was updated... what you think YOUR rank and THEIR rank is could be DEAD WRONG!!!
And another one...
I play TWO battles... one versus a player LOWER than me and one versus a player HIGHER than me.
UNLESS you have a SCHEDULE of battles -- which means that ladder battles have to be setup BEFOREHAND... *** MORE BUREACRACY! GAH! ***... you will not be able to prevent me from sabotaging the ladder somehow.
If I submit the WIN against the higher player first instead of the first game I played, and do not submit them in the order they were played in, I might be able to influence how my ranking changes. Try it and you will see what I mean.
GAH!
Now, don't get all bent out of shape... I merely state this so you can think about the issues beforehand and anticipate these potentially fatal pitfalls. Hopefully, this will make the final ladder better at the end of the day...
Well... I wish you the best of luck in erecting this ladder thingiemabob...
(Best of 3 is nice...)
DarknScaly
08-03-2002, 05:00
They should use the same system as Bioware have with NWN - a single profile per CD - far simpler and great at eradicating the "dubious intended" as no matter what nick people use you can always cross reference against CD-key.. then you just roll all results by registered CD key... dead simple.
Krasturak
08-03-2002, 11:52
Quote Originally posted by DarknScaly:
- a single profile per CD - [/QUOTE]
Krast believes this is the crucial idea.
youssof_Toda
08-03-2002, 14:06
I like the ideas of Obake jst 2 few notes:
1. Loosing places for not playing, whatever the reason, is a good thing cuz it 'punishes' inactivity i see no reason why this would be unacceptable. (critisizm of vanya)
2. About the dropping/escaping thing, i suggest we make a list of each members online connections and report after each round everytime there is an unfinished game.
We don't do the case-by-case thing cuz whatever you decide the one who feels disadvantaged will always complain. If it's obvious that with some players unfinished games occur unuseually much, whatever the reason, he is taken out of competition. From my own experience your connection needs to be realy crapy if all this happens.
This sounds more to me as a league created by the players than a league which should be made available by CA. I'm perfectly happy if they make the battlestats available and we make our own leagues for who wants to have one,cuz eventhough I'm trying to brainstorm with you I would never participate in any tourney/league
Konnichiwa,
There's one problem with 1 profile per CD. People who've followed this discussion months ago know what that is.
This seems a better solution:
Each CD key
1 profile for comp and friendlies.
1 profile for friendlies only.
The nick is limited editable, but it's possible to search the static profilename as well.
Kocmoc san, I refuse to play comp games.
------------------
Ja mata
Toda MizuTosaInu
Daimyo Takiyama Shi
http://www.takiyama.cjb.net
DthB4Dishonour
08-03-2002, 20:20
I am very pleased to see that CA is asking us the MP users how we would like MP to be played.
I see alot of progress in the ideas already stated here. I have a few ideas of my own aswell which I'm not sure is possible or practical. I we register our profile with the games serial #. The serial number would be needed to register new names. We then only allow 1 name to be used by that serial # at any one time. We can also have the option of allowing a person to view the info on our serial #(all of our nicknames, honor for each...battle logs for each...etc...etch. This info would be controlled by the player who can lock or unlock the info as he sees fit. So that if his integrity is challenged he can invite people to see that he is not doing whatever cheat they accuse him of. Also this can give a clan leader a better view of the person he is allowing in his clan.
In summation 1 profile per serial # but also allows multiple names. So if a person says hey I'm new I wanna join clan "DogCat". The clan leader can say ok allow me to see your profile which would have each nickname, its battle logs, honour etc. This would give clans more appeal and stability.
However we would still be able to see battle log info on individual nick names as we do today. We just wont know nickname a..b..c.. are all the same person unless you can see the profile.
One question I open to you all is margin of victory. Is that gonna be calculated? Or is gonna be a win is a win and a loss is a loss. I would like to see some margin here for close games. Perhaps very close games in which both players have almost identical honour only the victor increases honour and the defeated is not penalized. This would encourage guys to keep on fighting even if you are lossing. And not just esc or quit once you see you might not win.
Anyway this is just my oppinion. I know with the dedication,loyalty and inteligence of STW members this new system has the potential to be truly grand.
*...so that his place will never be with those timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat*
[This message has been edited by DthB4Dishonour (edited 08-03-2002).]
Konnichiwa DthB4Dishonour san,
The profile as described above works like that, with the difference that only one nick can be active at a time (24 hours?). And any gain in rank is stored in the same 1 profile.
The secondary friendly only profile would be usefull too:
1. relatives who want to occasionaly play TW on your computer (younger brother, husband, girlfried...).
2. Some players may desire some privacy at times.
The secondary nick can only play friendlies and can't be allifated with a clan.
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Ja mata
Toda MizuTosaInu
Daimyo Takiyama Shi
http://www.takiyama.cjb.net
Kraellin
08-03-2002, 21:29
i would urge CA NOT to make ANY sort of league/ladder system. leave this up to the players. ladders systems come in so many flavors and styles that having a single 'official' system is never going to be satisfactory. if you stop and think about it, you have players of varying degree of ability, you have a ton of variables in the game itself, you have players that may play once in a week and others that play 100 times a week. you have various setup differences in the games themselves that affect outcome. and then you have the cheaters that are constantly trying to exploit bugs or features.
by letting the players coallate the data, they can make the decision to exclude or include the results of whatever games and players they want. thus, if someone is a known 'cheater', the person coallating the data can simply leave his/her data our of the ladder/ranking for that site. someone else, who feels this person isnt a cheater, can go ahead and include him in his/her own site and data tabulations. clans can make up clan rankings. various systems of ranking and rating can be used, whereas if there is only one 'official' system and it's pretty much hardwired, we're stuck with whatever that happens to be, good or bad.
any system shld take into consideration the frequency of a player playing over time. it shld take into consideration how many games he plays, who he plays against and their current ranking, what conditions existed, the number of players involved, whether the game is 'friendly' or for ranking. i can easily see some nice tabulations being made that would show some interesting results. if CA/gamespy simply provide the raw data of the game results and conditions, the players can and will, make their own systems.
even tournaments could be conducted using the raw data system, with results posted and coallated almost instantly on a web site. it shld be quite easy to do. game is played, results are sent to the base gamespy data site, a player running his own site with a cgi, asp, php (or whatever the heck they're using these days), queries the gamespy site on a constantly repetitive polling basis, the data is entered into a tabulation application and printed back out on that web site in a results table. voila', instant tournament results. the same can be done for ladder systems, 'reputation' systems, clan ranking systems, and on down the line.
i've just seen too many 'bad' ladder and ranking systems to want CA to venture into that arena. provide the game, provide the arena, and provide the results, but leave the evaluation of the data up to the players.
as a simple example, let's say i play magyar khan 30 times and beat him once or twice (if i'm lucky or he's drunk :). a simple rank/rating is never going to show that, on occaision, i can beat magyar. it will show that he's better than i am, but heck, we already know that. now, let's say that magy plays cheaterX and loses a number of games before we discover that cheaterX is cheating. now it appears that magy is about equal to me as a player because he's been robbed of his ranking points. by putting up and leaving up the raw data, player sites can adjust their rankings by going back and eliminating cheaterX from their coallated data, thus fixing the ranks/ratings. it becomes more fluid. if CA/gamespy hardwire a ranking system, ranks and ratings can never be adjusted.
in one ladder system i played in, there was a built in query system where one could challenge the results posted. you had 3 days in which to make a challenge and the opposition had 3 days after that to respond as well. the admin of the site acted as the arbitrator and if you made a challenge you agreed to abide by his decision. i dont think CA/gamespy want to get into mediating challenges and disputes and ANY system they utilize WILL result in disputes. let the players handle this by NOT hardwiring ANY system into the results of the games. just post the raw data that can then be accessed by the customer.
K.
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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.
GilJaysmith
08-03-2002, 22:24
A couple of things you might like to know:
- When an MP game starts, we send a snapshot of the game setup to the GameSpy server, marked 'not final'. If the game ends properly then we send another snapshot, this time of the results, marked 'final'. Anyone writing a script to process the game data should be able to tell whether the game ended properly.
- There's a 'Friendly/Competitive' switch on the game hosting menu which is included in the game snapshot. Hosts in 'league' matches should set this to 'Competitive'. Again, people writing scripts can check the flag to spot non-league matches.
If we provide raw-data access pages then no doubt we'll document the data format for you, but the above points seemed worth mentioning now.
Gil Jaysmith
Creative Assembly
Hello Gil! Thanks for posting on these forums, we are honoured by your presence. And thank you for the information.
I like Kraellin's concept of the ladder system, Obake's proposed system is very similar and the ideas could be amalgamated in one piece of system.
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Clan Kenchikuka (http://www.totalwar.org/kenchikuka)
evil is within us... http://www.totalwar.org/site/emomalta.gif
MagyarKhans Cham
08-04-2002, 00:18
nice posts guys,
Kreallin, aint it true that noone ever lost to a cheater?
Kraellin
08-04-2002, 02:58
gil,
thank you. always nice to have source information. anything else you could provide on CA's intentions in these matters would be appreciated.
since this is likely to be a hot topic, as evidenced by dissenting views already to various ideas, i once more submit that this is THE best reason for CA/gamespy to NOT make ANY official system for keeping points or evaluation of data.
obake posts a system and there is disagreement. i, myself, do not like 'challenge' ladder systems, but that's just me. but i'm also just as sure that others do prefer this method. and i'm just as sure that others may prefer other systems. if CA/gamespy leaves this as an option for the players, to let them build their own preferred systems, then we are following a much more flexible, more customer responsive, system of managing game results. in other words, it's another mod we get to play with :)
and i would also point out that if you ever look at baseball analysts, in particular, you may notice that there is this wonderful ongoing discussion/arguement about the best team of all times and other lesser statistics. the debate is almost endless and quite fascinating at times, based on the abundance of statistics that are kept regarding that game. this team beat that team in this or that year, but lost to this or that team in the same year, but when comparing the length of the seasons in each of those years and the where the games were played in all the various non-standardized parks and what the weather was on such and such a day, and on and on in an endless reverent arguement about this major league record or this or that player's statistics. it's just absolutely fantastic. the same sort of thing is possible with a game like CA has provided, given that the raw statistics are kept.
there is one other possible advantage to all this: a player made, or CA made, online campaign system. elmarko and magy have both run or are running simulated online campaigns, and perhaps others as well. by supplying detailed results of online battles in a data format we can access and utilize ourselves, it shld be quite possible to build an online application for the campaign map and functions and simply import to that the raw data from real time battles. i know elmo currently has his hands full juggling stats and keeping track of the player battles and adjusting koku and so on. this could be automated quite easily if the raw data were provided to a central web site. elmo, or whomever, would simply tell their polling program to ONLY get the data from battles designated for the online campaign. that data would then be entered into the app running the campaign and there you go, online campaign. details and time could be managed by the local administrator such that if you wanted a 'move' to be one real day or one real week, this would be possible.
the options, with a raw data feed of ALL games played and consequently registered to a central location, are quite large. and i'm always one for many multiples of options.
magyarkhan's cham,
philosophically, i agree; realistically, a dead man is a dead man, no matter how he died, but yes, i dont consider it a loss if someone cheats and 'beats' me.
K.
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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.
MagyarKhans Cham
08-04-2002, 08:01
Being able to field broken down units would be nice, where u just load a simple txt file structure when hosting a game. this is plain simple and allows many of us to run their own linked scenarios-campaigns.
even more nice would be some sort of web based tool to store retrieve data, but that would be a dream..
The Black Ship
08-04-2002, 09:13
A simple Wins-losses-incompletes record system might be enough to discourage droppers. I mean if you see a guy with a record of 10-2-16 your probably gonna shy away from a competitive match. If his drops are due to a bad internet connection too bad...it's no fun playing with a bad connection either.
Of course this doesn't solve every problem, but it should be a quick code fix.
Konnichiwa GilJaysmith, Target, Longjohn2 et al sama,
An online campaign by fans would be much easier with flexible tools.
Please stop looking for the holy grail and give us a map and a horse instead.
This is not meant as an offense, just a statement that any search for implementing 'the way' by a software developer will be very time consuming and will not satisfy/cover the needs of more than just a few of the customers. This applies to any aspect of any piece of software.
Mind that MTW is supposed to please males/females from 13-60, offline players, historic enthiousast/gamers, online individuals/online clans, competitive minded people, tactic/strategic minded people... It's not possible that 1 fixed implementation will please all.
Key: options, configuaration, modding, tweaking, scripting and tools. The raw data fits in nicely.
The MTW demo shows that CA is getting the idea, continue this road please.
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Ja mata
Toda MizuTosaInu
Daimyo Takiyama Shi
http://www.takiyama.cjb.net
GilJaysmith
08-04-2002, 19:59
Quote Originally posted by Kraellin:
thank you. always nice to have source information. anything else you could provide on CA's intentions in these matters would be appreciated.
[/QUOTE]
Thanks for the welcome, Kraellin and others.
We're trying to let you drive our intentions, hence Richie's enquiries. What we do may well be the minimalist just-give-us-the-raw-data approach which seems to be a basic consensus among you. This doesn't appear to prohibit our creating 'official' systems of any scope at a later date, and greatly appeals to me since it involves less work than any other option...
Nothing else in particular to say right now, but, being responsible for the MTW network code and frontend, I'll be lurking on both forums after the game's release to see what problems turn up.
Gil Jaysmith
Creative Assembly
Kraellin
08-04-2002, 21:54
black ship,
yeah, i sorta like that, simple, doesnt evaluate anything, just states some simple facts, and does provide some relative ability info about each player in the foyer. that, coupled with the raw data on a central site allowing for complete evaluation, would work for me.
gil,
thanks.
and, oh, that was our total motivation in all this, to provide you with less work ;)
and yes, this does leave the door open for an official system. perhaps we could do an interactive approach to figuring out an equitable solution to a fair rank/rating system and implement it 'on the fly' with a patch later on.
network code and front-end...interesting. would you be the person, then, to inquire about direct ip play in the game? this is also something we've wanted for a while. one of our bright patrons here recently made a small program for running direct ip games for stw/we/mi. with the EA servers being less than stable, this has become more a necessity than a luxury. and regardless of the stability of the gamespy servers in the upcoming mtw, it is sometimes more desirable to run direct ip (peer to peer) games than through a hosting service, the biggest advantage being that you can often cut down on some lag in the game by bypassing the hosting service. so, is this already included in mtw, and if not, would it be possible, at this late date, to get it implemented?
K.
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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.
MagyarKhans Cham
08-04-2002, 22:04
Raw data is ok, but be sure its a Mongol understandable and workable format
I'm pretty my views are shared by many spoken before me. Glad that CA is soliciting our feedback. Hope that they implement to the best practicality the features that were suggested.
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tootee the goldfish,
headmaster of Shogun-Academy (http://shogun-academy.tripod.com)
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Another issue related to direct ip is the ability to host through a router or proxy server. Shogun actually is direct ip, but the player is not able to enter ip addresses manually. If a host could enter the ip address of his router and have that passed out to potential joiners and that router is set to forward all incoming packets to his machine, then he could host. Many players are unable to host Shogun games because they are behind a NAT (network address translation) router or proxy server.
I could be wrong, but it also seems possible to me that GameSpy match making server could determine the the router's ip address from the incoming host request packets and pass that out to potential joiners as the host's ip instead of the using the host's local ip which is not visible through a NAT router.
Gil, thanks for your feedback on this forum. It's very welcome to see this communication.
Puzz3D
Well here's hoping they offer alternatives to GameSpy Arcade. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/frown.gif
Sure, it might be great if you want to be in leagues and all that, but some of us are just interested in meeting up with friends and playing games. I hope to heck we aren't forced to use GameSpy Arcade for that. I despise that software.
Maybe if they offer a way to host/connect-to games via IP address directly through the M:TW software, and also a LAN game option, it will be okay.
[This message has been edited by JRock (edited 08-04-2002).]
GilJaysmith
08-05-2002, 01:32
More comments so more things to say:
As Richie specified in his request for feedback, you won't have to use GameSpy Arcade to host or join a game. It's there as an option for those who like it. MTW will let you browse any supplied chatrooms and any games currently being hosted by Arcade users or directly from within MTW. Arcade users can join MTW-hosted games and vice versa. In short: if you like Arcade - and many do - then you can use it. If you don't - and some don't - then you don't have to.
No direct entry of a host's IP address, sorry; all internet matchmaking goes through GameSpy so we can validate your CD key.
No hosting an internet game (but you can join a game) from behind a router or proxy server. Sorry again.
There is a LAN game option. This doesn't involve GameSpy in any way. That includes game logging; LAN games are always 'friendly', and the results aren't sent anywhere.
Once you're on the battlemap, network traffic goes directly from players to host and back; GameSpy isn't in the loop and will not be contributing to any latency you may experience.
Gil Jaysmith
Creative Assembly
Quote Originally posted by GilJaysmith:
[B]As Richie specified in his request for feedback, you won't have to use GameSpy Arcade to host or join a game.
...
all internet matchmaking goes through GameSpy so we can validate your CD key.
[/QUOTE]
I'm confused by those seemingly contradictory statements: So we DO have to use GameSpy in order to play a multiplayer game with friends online, yes?
Quote
There is a LAN game option. This doesn't involve GameSpy in any way.[/QUOTE]
Awesome!
Quote
Once you're on the battlemap, network traffic goes directly from players to host and back; GameSpy isn't in the loop and will not be contributing to any latency you may experience.[/QUOTE]
Yes, I'm aware of that. The only concern was being forced to use Gamespy to play a multiplayer game, but you mentioned it's necessary because of the CD key validation, so that is understandable.
Thanks again for reading here and replying!
[This message has been edited by JRock (edited 08-04-2002).]
GilJaysmith
08-05-2002, 04:44
Quote Originally posted by JRock:
I'm confused by those seemingly contradictory statements: So we DO have to use GameSpy in order to play a multiplayer game with friends online, yes?
[/QUOTE]
Well, the word "GameSpy" is being used for many purposes here. I'll try to be precise and hopefully the misunderstandings will go away:
"GameSpy" is a chatroom and matchmaking service (amongst other things, but we'll stick with that for now).
"GameSpy Arcade" is a program provided by GameSpy for finding games and browsing chatrooms. You can use GameSpy Arcade with all the GameSpy-enabled games you've installed, not just MTW.
MTW can talk to the GameSpy servers itself, and you can browse chatrooms and current games using the MTW menus. You are still using GameSpy services, so you will have to register with GameSpy, and enter your GameSpy registration details (and CD key) into a login menu in MTW. But in this case you aren't running GameSpy Arcade.
And/or: you can choose to install GameSpy Arcade and use that for chatrooms and game finding. In this case you run GameSpy Arcade instead of MTW. When you host or join an MTW game from within GameSpy Arcade, it launches MTW and takes you to the right menu.
Whether you host through GameSpy Arcade or directly through MTW, you'll wind up at the MTW hosting menu, and you'll set up the game details in the same way.
Once you've hosted your game, anyone using GameSpy Arcade will see it, and anyone using the MTW menus will see it. All are free to join.
In both cases you're using GameSpy services and that's why you need a GameSpy login, but in one case you're also using GameSpy Arcade, and in the other you're not. It's up to you.
Hope that clears things up.
Gil Jaysmith
Creative Assembly
Gamespy is just a browsing software. Many games use it without the need for Gamespy Arcade (example: Soldier of Fortune II, NWN). Basically it's an ingame browser that is also accessible through Arcade. This is very good news. Thanks a lot Gil.
MagyarKhans Cham
08-05-2002, 05:27
will tehre also be a friends-who-is-online management poosibilty? like my Khan experiences now in Battle.net?
Gil,
Thanks you cleared that up just fine!
Quote Originally posted by SattP:
Gamespy is just a browsing software. Many games use it without the need for Gamespy Arcade (example: Soldier of Fortune II, NWN). Basically it's an ingame browser that is also accessible through Arcade. This is very good news. Thanks a lot Gil.[/QUOTE]
You mentioned SoF2 and NWN, both of which I play and both of which allow direct connecting (inside the Gamespy game browser) to a specific IP address. I would assume M:TW will work the same way, since it would still verify CD key first, yes?
Yes JRock. It's just using the software that Gamespy Arcade uses without the annoying parts, basically. In other words, it'll be just like SoF2 or NWN.
Kraellin
08-05-2002, 09:31
thanks gil.
we've seen a few screenshots of part of what i'd call the front end, but i may be naming that incorrectly. are you involved with the setup process for multiplayer games at all or with the single player setup? in particular, i'm interested in the whole picking your army, assignment of koku/florins/gold, attacker/defender choices and so on. does your responsibility extend to these things or does it more or less end once the player is logged into the hosting service?
K.
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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.
Quote Originally posted by Kraellin:
in particular, i'm interested in the whole picking your army, assignment of koku/florins/gold, attacker/defender choices and so on[/QUOTE]
Yes, how much control will the players have over deciding types of units or number of units allowed in games during setup, or will it just be the same as Shogun where the only true limitation was money?
GilJaysmith
08-05-2002, 18:57
Quote Originally posted by JRock:
Yes, how much control will the players have over deciding types of units or number of units allowed in games during setup, or will it just be the same as Shogun where the only true limitation was money?[/QUOTE]
You can vary the money limits separately for the attacking and defending teams. There are no other explicit limitations.
We do have some implicit limitations in unit selection, as follows:
The valour upgrade for a unit is limited to 4 rather than 9; weapons and armour upgrades are still limited to 3.
Upgrade costs are cumulative. So for example, upgrading the weapons of a valour 4 unit costs noticeably more than doing the same for a valour 0 unit. Upgrading a superheavy cavalry unit to 4/3/3 will cost you tens of thousands of florins.
Also, there is an increase in a unit's basic cost for each unit you buy of that type after the fourth. This is to, shall we say, encourage army diversity http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif
Gil Jaysmith
Creative Assembly
youssof_Toda
08-05-2002, 19:43
Will siege units be included for non-siege batles as well? (Plz tell me they aren't)
That's very nice info Jil.
I like the different kokus for attacking/defending, will finally make 'hilly' maps playable! And campaigns like Magyar's one better and easier. I just hope this new feature won't end up unused like most of MI's features...
Valour (honour) 0 - 4
Weapon 1 - 3
Armour 1 - 3
Seems good. I guess honour and upgrades will cost much more than they did in Shogun relatively compared to the unit's cost. Interesting. Cumulative pricing seems a very nice idea. A 'YA h8 3wep 3arm' will kinda be impossible because to give upgrades to an H4 unit you will need all your treasury. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif
------------------
Clan Kenchikuka (http://www.totalwar.org/kenchikuka)
evil is within us... http://www.totalwar.org/site/emomalta.gif
GAH!
I must say I have read many delightful things here lately!
GAH!
Lemme ask ye this then:
If we can 'buy' siege engines in MP play even without playing on a castle map... What will cost more: a heavy-hitter unit (ie, Royal Knights or Kataphractoi) or the siege engine? Can the siege engine be 'upgraded' to 4/3/3 as well (florins willing)? And lastly, what is the relative cost of guns to other units? Will an 'African Gun Monkey' or 'Bedouin Camel Gunner' be cheaper than tougher melee units? (Not that there is anything wrong with that...)
GAH!
And lastly... I hope youz at CA have tested MP play over IP using minimum spec PCs connecting by modem to ensure there is as little lag as possible in 4v4s with max size armies... http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif Right?
GAH!
[Sips sake, eats popcorn]
[Eyes necklace... looks up at CA reps...]
[This message has been edited by Vanya (edited 08-05-2002).]
DragonCat
08-05-2002, 20:46
Hey all! Nice to see so many friendly people still around!
Also great to see so many of you have worked hard to bring around some great upgrades to the Total War games. The things I've read about in this thread really look great - and are a testament to all of you. I thank you all for all the time and effort you've put in!
I'm looking forward to seeing you all in battle online when MTW hits the shelves. After seeing the demo, I am sure we are in for some extraordinarily good times!
DragonCat
. . . on the prowl!
Konnichiwa GilJaysmith sama,
Thanks for sharing this info with us. The first thing is very good.
Limiting the valour cap is nice too, but I still see problems.
Due to the nature of some units, H0 units are as dangerous as H2 units, but much cheaper. A very rewarding tactic in STW is purchasing H0 Kensais. A H0 Kensai with 1 weapon costs as much as a pure H2 Kensai, but is better in many cases (due to battlefieldrewards the H0 will promote to H2 after 4 kills), with this system they'll also be cheaper.
This 4 unit limit will be good news for some competitive minded players, it's bad news for many other online gamers.
1. Some extreme maps render certain units completely worthless.
2. The roles in some teambattles are divided: A takes 8 spears and 8 guns, B takes 8 nags and 8 nods, C takes 12 lcav and 4 nagcav. Such battles are very hard to coordinate and is extra penalised now (the enemy team may take normal armies).
3. Other people realise that an improper balanced army has weakness that can be countered and see challenge in that. The simple stats and upgrade system from STW made it easy to minimize weaknesses in unbalanced armies (superashis and guns), MTW offers a more advanced system that may make these implicit limitations redundant. For examle 1v1: if player A takes 12 archer units he'll be sort on spears, player B can easily slay him with 2 cavunits.
4. Forcing diversity will minimize diversity as unbalanced armies are no longer a viable possibility.
This implicit limitation limits the fun for some players.
Proper unitstats are the implicit encouragement to promote diversity.
I'ld suggest to make more explicit limitations that can be set by the host: things that works for some persons don't work for others.
The biggest problems I see are honor sellback and a high valor caps. If I were host I'ld limit these from 2 to 5 and no unitlimits (increase in basecost).
Please add explicit boxes for:
-a. Min valour
-b. Max valour
-c. Treshold at which unit base cost increases.
I'ld drop the cumulative cost of weapon/armor upgrades and maintain the system implemented in STW now. They caused a problem in extreme cases that can be prevented by the valourcaps and the better unitstats that MTW will offer. Instead, the new system will pose a serious problem with H0 units now.
-d. maintain the weapon and armor upgrade from STW.
Ideally any upgrade for a given unit should affect his unitspecialty in order to maintain the Rock Paper Scissors system.
The yariashigaru in shogun is made as a cavbugger, when 'properly' upgraded he becomes an allround killer. That is because the anti cav bonus isn't upgraded, but the normal combat is.
The MTW demo shows that the unitspecialty is upgraded with valour, but so is the normal combat. The danger remains that a unit like the yariashigaru would still outclass the monk as the normal combat for both are upgraded in the same way.
The outright best solution would be if the host could select a custom unitstat like custom maps and that the upgrade behavior becomes part of the stat. A prebattle CRC would ensure that all players use the same stats and prevent irregularities.
It seems that the latter would require a lot of recoding, but boxes for a, b and c should be included in the first release and would in no way interfere with a possible implementation of the latter in a patch.
------------------
Ja mata
Toda MizuTosaInu
Daimyo Takiyama Shi
http://www.takiyama.cjb.net
Quote Originally posted by youssof_Toda:
Will siege units be included for non-siege batles as well? (Plz tell me they aren't)
[/QUOTE]
Well I for one hope it is an option. I like having the most options at my hands as possible, just in case I and some friends would like to try something new.
Just as I'd hope for more options and optional limiters for setting up skirmish battles and multiplayer games, but oh well. :-\
[This message has been edited by JRock (edited 08-05-2002).]
Erado the Black
08-05-2002, 21:32
Interesting point in your last post, Tosa. I wonder how the cuulative cost works out. Take note though that also every unit of one type over 4 costs extra as well, so at least you will be facing a slightly diversed army of 4 different unit types, or the opponent is wasting some money at least.
I like your a to c options though. Whatever system would be implemented, they would help.
youssof_Toda
08-05-2002, 21:47
Quote Originally posted by JRock:
Well I for one hope it is an option. I like having the most options at my hands as possible, just in case I and some friends would like to try something new.
Just as I'd hope for more options and optional limiters for setting up skirmish battles and multiplayer games, but oh well. :-\
[This message has been edited by JRock (edited 08-05-2002).][/QUOTE]
I already get visions of ppl camping on a hill with 8 cannons shooting you to pieces
Konnichiwa,
This type of artillary is not suited for field artillary because it takes too long to reload and too long or it's impossible at all to reposition it.
I like JRocks idea to make this optional, as there will be people who'll like this challenge.
My second thought is that if this artillary prove to be so effective against fast moving targets, that it should be remodelled.
The trebuchet for example can pivot some 30 degrees left or right. It seems not to costs any time. This repositioning should take a while as trebuchet is a rigid construction. Repositioning a trebuchet should even be a strategic move (but that would require seasonal turns and updating of damaged castlemaps as well). Repositioning a demiculverin should take some time accumulated with the normal reload.
In other words: a demiculverin is only dangerous when you camp in front of the muzzle. Thus... it may also prove useful to beat a hillcamper.
------------------
Ja mata
Toda MizuTosaInu
Daimyo Takiyama Shi
http://www.takiyama.cjb.net
GAH!
Have any of youz played the "Catapult Madness" MTW Mod?!?
You have 10 catapults on a corner hill, with 4 billmen and 1 kinigit unit. The Frenchies attack you with a huge army that includes many kinigits and feudal foot soldiers with some archers.
Lemme tell ya the way it went down...
The Frenchies approach slowly at first. THe moment they cross the ridge at mid-map, my 'pults open fire. I target all 10 on the first unit. A few shots later, the lead unit -- kinigits no less -- are DECIMATED! Units behind them are DECIMATED!
I then cycle my 10 'pults to hit other units as they come in range. Same result!
A MASSACRE!
The Frenchies -- I give them credit -- persevered and reached my position on the corner hill. But they were SO decimated that my billmen scared them silly when they lowered their weapons... BEFORE REACHING THEM!
It turned into a rout, and my melee units barely tasted blood! The 'pults skinned them!
GAH!
And this is with simple 'pults! Imagine if it were 10 CANNON!
GAH!
Kraellin
08-06-2002, 01:10
gil,
excellent news on the varying gold for attacker/defender. this, indeed, will make life better for multi games.
i like that the valor cap is now 4. 9 was always a bit too much. 5 would have worked also.
but here's where i disagree a bit. put an arbitrary limiting factor on how many units you can have of one type, is exactly that, arbitrary. i'm one of those that like to take, at times, an all cav army, or an all whatever army. i understand, to a certain extent, why you've changed this, but please, change it back. it may sound silly to take an all cav archer army at times, but in a 3v3 or 4v4 game it's actually smart, at times, to have at least one army that specializes in one or two things. plus, it's just plain fun :) it's also interesting at times, in something like a 4v4, to have one person take all defensive infantry, another to take all missile, another to take all cav, and another to take all offensive infantry. and whereas we may still be able to do that by increasing the koku to soaring amounts, it does seem an unnecessary limiting arbitrary. please, change it back.
the preferred method is to give the host the ability to set his own limits. this leaves it in player control and offers more flexibility. the host would have some method of saying, 'ok, you can only take 3 or each unit' or whatever his preference was. even if this were only done on an across the boards level, it would be better than the method you've just described. if you could limit any individual unit to numbers, this would be even better, but i'd settle for a total across the boards method of limiting the number of same units. so, even if there were a row of radio buttons for 'no limits', 'limit to 1 of each', '2 of each', '3 of each', and so on, this would still be arbitrary, but it would be OUR arbitrary and not hardwired. a player could then say, 'ok, lemme go find a game with fewer limits on it'. if it's hardwired at 'extra costs over 4', then we're all stuck in the same mold.
ok. now this next has been a point of contention for a while. we've had some hot debates on this and you may or may not be aware of those, gil. morale and skill have always been tied together in 'honor'. one increases 'honor' and one also gets a combat increase. this is a mistake, but ok. it's been around for a while.
the other is the 'honor' sell back issue. you're not really selling honor; it's just a method of saying what your army is going to be. but why start at honor 2 as the default? why not just start at honor 0 as the default, at least in multi?
and that brings us to the other upgrades. but let's stop a moment and define some of our factors here. basically, for all units, we have at least 4 factors: honor/valor, skill, weapon grade, and armor grade. honor translates in the game as simple staying power on the field. skill is defined by offenseive (how often you hit) and defensive (how often you're not hit) adds. armor, iirc, is anti-missile protection, and weapon is damage per hit, i think.
why not simply make each of these a separate upgrade? start each out at 0 and allow any one factor to be upgraded without upgrading the others. i do understand that honor and skill are fairly closely related. one gains skill and becomes more confident and thus is more willing to stay on the field longer, but they are still separate critters. it's always bugged me, in this game, that a peasant could not have honor without skill. that just isnt true. there is no good arguement why a peasant, with no skill, cannot still stand in the face of adversity, particularly if he feels he is defending something like family or country.
as for how each of these gets upgraded as far as cost increases for each step upwards, i've not really much opinion. i guess i just got stuck on the earlier points :)
so, what importance would i place on these items. the limit thing on the numbers of units shld be changed back prior to release. if it's not too late, it would also be nice to see a host option to limit at least the overall unit max numbers, but isnt essential for release. the whole honor, skill, armor, weapon thing also isnt essential for release, but it would be nice if we can continue to work on that one and maybe overhaul it for the expansion or a patch.
we know it's getting tight...well, we hope it is :) and i think you'd be risking life and limb to delay the release by more than a few days ;) so, my wish, is to eliminate that one arbitrary on max unit numbers and if possible, allow the host to set that. as for the other stuff....we'll talk :)
and again, thanks for being here.
K.
------------------
The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.
Kraellin
08-06-2002, 01:11
oh, and who the hell let dragoncat back in here? ;) good to see you back again, bubba! :)
K.
------------------
The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.
I find Tosa's points about the cumulative pricing of upgrades (per unit valour/honour) to be very valid. However I was always a strict believer in balancing things out. The STW system does have flaws. Super units are possible, for few koku one can transform a 700 koku Yari Ashigaru into a killing machine because upgrades are so cheap. Gil's system would prevent this unbalance because a H7/8 unit would be impossible to upgrade without spending loads of money.
However, 1.03 battle stats showed that the imbalances can be eliminated by proper unit stats balancing. It's nearly the perfect game and it uses 'the old system. And I am also concerned about the loopholes of the proposed system...regarding Honour 0 units mainly. But again, the fears of Tosa may not present themselves in the MTW system...because we don't know the unit balancing and by how much exact florins the upgrades will be capped per valour level...
------------------
Clan Kenchikuka (http://www.totalwar.org/kenchikuka)
evil is within us... http://www.totalwar.org/site/emomalta.gif
Two quick notes:
*Having more options never hurt anyone: Allowing us to choose to enable siege weapons for skirmish battles satisfies those of us interested in doing so, while it being optional means those who don't want such a game don't have to enable that option.
*Please ensure that the maximum monetary limit for each team is super-high, so that if the players want, we can play full-16-unit-armies for each player with top-of-the-line maxed-out super-knights or whatever the best possible unit is. The point of this is again OPTIONS. If people want less, they can lower the monetary cap per team, but at least leave us the OPTION to have an Unlimited monetary cap or something similar that allows us to each create a super-army for a massive, powerful battle. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif
Thanks!
[This message has been edited by JRock (edited 08-05-2002).]
GilJaysmith
08-06-2002, 06:26
Evening,
Strewth... what a busy busy thread...
OK, forgive me in advance if I don't quote and reference everything everyone's said; I did read it all. I'll divide my comments between artillery, unit stats, and multiplayer performance...
Artillery:
Artillery is available on non-siege battles as well as sieges. You can get caught with it in your army (or catch the AI with it) during a single-player campaign battle, so you'll have plenty of chances to get used to how it's best used on non-castle maps...
Artillery is intended to be much less deadly against soldiers compared with how useful it is against stationary objects. This has been changed since the demo, where the artillery was quite ruthless no matter what it shot at. But balancing the artillery has been quite difficult. We needed it to be powerful and accurate enough to knock down walls without running out of ammo or boring you to tears for half an hour. We didn't want to change rock-paper-scissors into rock-paper-scissors-Dalek. Hopefully we've succeeded and you'll like it.
The issue of artillery movement was raised. This is again somewhat of a compromise between strict realism and our perhaps twisted idea of fun. Basically:
- during deployment you can put your artillery where you like within your deployment zone
- once the battle has started, you can rotate certain types of artillery on the spot, but the other (bigger) types can't rotate
- all artillery types have a 'firing cone' in front of them, within which they can shoot at a target without turning
- the heavier artillery pieces can't fire at anything which moves outside of this cone
This is why I don't really believe that an all-artillery army will chew up the opposition. Loose formation significantly reduces artillery casualties. Approaching from the side cuts casualties from heavy cannon to zero.
You can upgrade artillery when you buy it for a multiplayer game. A higher valour increases the artillery crew's ability to 'range in' on a target, and its overall final accuracy. My understanding is that upgrading its weapons and armour will only affect the crew's ability to hold its own in a melee, so you probably shouldn't spend much money on that.
You can't buy extra power for the projectiles http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif
Unit upgrades and stats:
I've only been at CA for just over a year and didn't play Shogun online. So the talk of "honour sellback" confused me until I checked with LongJohn and Target, who told me how it worked. La la...
Anyway, there is no "valour sellback" in MTW. When you buy a unit for your army it starts at valour 0, and the range is 0 to 4. Hopefully that deals pretty finally with the issue.
Unit limits. Remember this is not a hard limit, it's a financial penalty - something like an extra 20% of the base cost per extra unit of the same type. Buying a fifth or sixth unit won't wreck your budget. Trying to buy ten or twelve of the same unit *will* cost you noticeably more than it would without this "rush tax". But each faction has perhaps 20 troop types to choose from, and finding faction-specific team mixes which don't cost you any rush tax may prove to be an interesting part of your research into the best ways for your clan to defeat all comers http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif I'll grant you that a customisable limit would be nicer, but we'll see how the basic idea works out first.
The unit stats are contained in the production files which you've probably already found and examined in the demo. These are amenable to modding, assuming you can make sense of our spreadsheet http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif This file is included in the network game CRC, so if you mod it you should make sure all your fellow players are using your version.
The upgrade costs and caps are in the game code, not in this file. Moving them would probably be sensible but won't happen before release. Allowing the host to select a custom stats file (so you can have several, and don't have to rename the original file) is also an appealing idea for a patch, subject to other priorities.
The maximum florins limit for each team is 99,999. You can buy some *really powerful units* with this amount of money. In a 4v4 match this is still 25,000 per player.
I'm afraid I'm not in a position to advise on the detailed proposals and comments which several people have posted for changing the nature of unit upgrades. I'm not familiar enough with the battlefield calculations to provide authoritative answers or opinions. I know the caps because they're implemented on the multiplayer menus, but that's all http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif Sorry.
Multiplayer performance:
The network code is faster than Shogun's and generates less traffic. Upgrading your CPU will probably help you more than upgrading from modem to ADSL. I'll leave it at that. The game is entirely playable on min spec, but don't expect it to perform miracles with the huge armies which are possible on high-end machines - and which are naturally the figures we talk up to everyone. Once again, wait and see, my little pandas http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif
And so to bed.
Gil Jaysmith
Creative Assembly
That all sounds really really cool!
If you could pass on a note to the coders to possibly offer some sort of "Unlimited florins" checkbox for multiplayer/custombattle games, that would be much appreciated!
It's good to hear that the artillery has been made less effective against troops. In the demo it's a real man eater.
------------------
CONITOERGOVINCO
Kraellin
08-06-2002, 10:38
gil,
artillery. i've a slightly different concern about that. i make maps. i make somewhat weird maps. maybe you saw the map i sent graham with the flying units in stw ;) since we dont quite know what or how the deployment zones are going to be for mtw, i find myself wondering about a castle that is placed deeply in the defender's zone. wouldnt that be out of reach of the deployment zones of the attacker and thus out of range for the attacker's artillery?
i also made a map in we/mi with 2 castles. again an oddity for the editor and engine, but i did get it to work. i see complications again for artillery under such a condition.
both of these situations seem to warrant a more mobile, albeit very slow, artillery.
that valor defaults to 0, excellent!
yes, i understand that the unit cost simply goes up after 4 and isnt a true cap or max number, but it still has almost the same effect. if i want to buy 16 cav archers i'm penalized substantially whereas my opponent buying a max of 4 of any given unit isnt. this seems a bit unfair and a bit arbitrary. and i'm not quite sure what problem this is supposed to solve. with the balanced stats of 1.03 you can buy 16 of any unit and it does not unbalance things. it may surprise someone, but doesnt unbalance the game. so again, i'm not quite sure what is being solved here by adding extra costs after 4 units. now, if we were talking about earlier versions of stw/we/mi then i would understand it a bit better, as, with unbalanced units, buying 16 of a super unit would very much so unbalance things...and did at times. i also refer you back to my earlier reasons for not doing this. so, would it be fair, at this point, to ask if the problem you're attempting to solve with this is one of unbalanced units?
but ok, you left this open for revisions later on, and it is getting close to release time, so i'll let it rest.
again, we thank you for the excellent information and feedback and if we appear to froth at the mouth a bit from time to time, why, dont mind it too much. it's fairly normal around here ;)
K.
------------------
The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.
GilJaysmith
08-06-2002, 13:20
Quote Originally posted by Kraellin:
since we dont quite know what or how the deployment zones are going to be for mtw, i find myself wondering about a castle that is placed deeply in the defender's zone. wouldnt that be out of reach of the deployment zones of the attacker and thus out of range for the attacker's artillery?
[/QUOTE]
On castle maps the deployment zone is shared by all the attackers and is basically all of the map except for a rectangle around the castle. It doesn't matter where the castle is. So you can choose how and where you attack, and your artillery can go anywhere you think is advantageous.
On other maps the deployment zones are the eight circles of various sizes which you know and love from Shogun. Here your artillery deployment is trickier, and the easiest solution is generally to point them towards the middle of the map, or the bridges if it's a river map, and on high ground if you've got any.
I would recommend against two castles on a custom map. In MTW a castle can have a more complex nonrectangular design, but the code will have problems if there is more than one castle. You can try it, but I foresee "issues".
Quote Originally posted by Kraellin:
so, would it be fair, at this point, to ask if the problem you're attempting to solve with this is one of unbalanced units?
[/QUOTE]
The units are not unbalanced as far as we can tell. The rush tax is there as a safety measure in case someone finds some marginal but definite advantage which they then try to exploit to the point of boring other players.
I'm sure you've considered this point, but plenty of players won't ever read these forums and won't benefit from the tactical analyses which people here brings to bear on the game. When many people played Shogun, they saw that it offered network play, they logged in, they said hi to a stranger who offered them a game, they chose a reasonable and realistic army which they thought would make for an entertaining game, and then they got rushed by sixteen monks and called a loser. And they never bothered again. We have to think about them too, and try to limit the possibilities for such things happening in MTW. While perhaps not ideal (few things are) I hope that the rush tax will be at least a plausible solution.
Gil Jaysmith
Creative Assembly
Very good info Gil, thanks.
Whilst I agree with Kraellin that the 'rush tax' does seem too restrictive...I deem that it WILL be necessary in the first/early versions of the final game. Both the original Shogun (monks) and MI/WE 1.00 & .02(guns and Yari Ashigaru) had significant unit inbalances...which lead to rushes...and eventually led to the creation of the 4 max rule. Which in MTW, will be 'forced' to a certain extent. And I think it will be necessary...Shogun had less than 20 units and needed 2 years to be finally perfected in 1.03 MI/WE. Medieval will have over 100. And some will ALWAYS exploit any imbalance in units...only weeks/months after the game is released we can think of fixing them. Plus it seems quite a marginal tax for fifth and sixth units or so...a fifth No-Dachi would only cost 360 koku compared to the normal cost of 300. Altough 'necessary' I feel that the rush tax will NOT be needed when patches are released and unit balance
is perfected...so many would like the feature to be 'optional', at least in later versions of the game.
Question: By how much will upgrades cost more per valour level? Ie. If a weapon upgrade costs x florins on a V0 unit, how much will the same upgrade cost on the same unit but V1? In percentage?
Thanks!
------------------
Clan Kenchikuka (http://www.totalwar.org/kenchikuka)
evil is within us... http://www.totalwar.org/site/emomalta.gif
youssof_Toda
08-06-2002, 14:12
Quote Originally posted by GilJaysmith:
The units are not unbalanced as far as we can tell. The rush tax is there as a safety measure in case someone finds some marginal but definite advantage which they then try to exploit to the point of boring other players.
I'm sure you've considered this point, but plenty of players won't ever read these forums and won't benefit from the tactical analyses which people here brings to bear on the game. When many people played Shogun, they saw that it offered network play, they logged in, they said hi to a stranger who offered them a game, they chose a reasonable and realistic army which they thought would make for an entertaining game, and then they got rushed by sixteen monks and called a loser. And they never bothered again. We have to think about them too, and try to limit the possibilities for such things happening in MTW. While perhaps not ideal (few things are) I hope that the rush tax will be at least a plausible solution.
Gil Jaysmith
Creative Assembly[/QUOTE]
except for that loser thing you make me feel guilty
Erado the Black
08-06-2002, 14:13
GilJaySmith,
Are you really surprised that this is such a busy busy thread?
The issues raised here strike at the heart of the multiplayer experience. Richie may have started it as a thread to find out our ideas about online player management on Gamespy, and you have received a lot of feedback on this issue, but the main contributors in this thread are the same that put together patch 1.02 for MI/WE. After that patch they never stopped and continued in the background to come up with what is the best set of stats for MI/WE so far, version 1.03.
All the ideas vented here are a continuation of discussions they have had over the past months or probably longer than that.
On behalf of the community I think a big thank you for their contributions is in order once again. Excellent work, Terazawa, Obake (mainly on the .com forum), The Mizus (Kraellin, Puzz3d and TosaInu) and also JRock, Vanya and the others that put their feedback up in these threads.
The main reason it's so busy in here though, is that this community has been craving for a chance to have a dialogue with the developers about these very issues. So, while Richie's request offered us that option, your presence in here has given us a long awaited way for direct communications on these issues. On behalf of everybody I want to thank you for that, and can only hope that this will not be a one off. There are a lot of patrons here that know the meaning of constructive criticism and please take this thread as a perfect example of that. I hope we'll find you around here for a long time to come, and while you're here, could you perhaps persuade Target and LongJohn to show their noses a bit again (if you need a baseball bat just say the word http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif.
Konnichiwa Gil JaySmith sama,
Good post Erado the Black sama, a nice box of cigars would be a humble token that we appreciate their honorable efforts.
Valour 0 is great!
Unitbalance is very hard, things that seem to work well, may prove to provide a minimal imbalance which can be exploited to the max. We have worked on 1.03 for months, starting from 1.02 and using (nearly 2 years long) all day experience with units, months of experience with stats and valuable info from LongJohn2 sama. The mongol units may still not be perfect. Frankly, a 4 max limit would be a handy tool to tweak this extreme army.
I applaud the wise decision to use the 'caps' at this stage, as MTW does offer a new system which may cause some unforeseen 'problems'. When such a 'flaw' exist, it may indeed well be that some players will abandon the game forever. This would not only hurt the game developer/publisher but also the gamers: less players -> less fun/challenge and less support.
You mentioned that 'new' players would leave when rushed, this may be true. More frustrating than being beaten badly, is being beaten before you know what happened. It's important ihmo that the deployment zones are seperated by some no man's land, so that players can prepare.
The second issue is flaming other players. I agree that game 'issues' unlock quite some frustration, but it's a known fact that the ease to hide with an undercover nick makes things worse. One can easily ventilate all his frustrations, there's no social control at all. Again, it's not only CA/Activision that'll get hurt by this, but also the entire community. Limiting nicks per CD will prove to be very effective here.
Is it possible to disable battlerewards in MTW online? The problem described for the kensai is a serious one: some cheap low valour units upgrade to expensive high valour units in a short time. It's not unusual to start with a 307 'gold' H0 kensai and 'end' the battle with a H4 1176 one.
Disabling battleawards in online games will stop exploits, I'm convinced that it will prove even more decisive than the 4 'max'.
Network code.
I'm happy to hear that MTW has improved network code.
Some modern FPS allow 32v32 games, MMORG even allow thousends of players online.
The best thing about TW (in my view) are the online teambattles. At times we do really need to be able to host a 5v5 or 6v6.
It would be an impossible thing for current hardware to handle 12*16 units. But, in my limited view, 8*16 is the 'same' as 64*2.
There are more players sending data but each user sends data for only 2 units, not 16.
Let's take a step back: 32 users with 1 unit each: 4 times more players and 4 times less units and better network code.
The idea is advanced teamgame (clanwar).
There are two teams, with 15 squadcommanders and one general each.
The squadcommanders only controls 1 unit and can only see the part of the field where the unit is. Each player can focus on complex manoeuvring of 1 unit, but coordination becomes more important. The general unit provides a morale boost, and focusses on coordination (you could think about allowing the general player to also see everything the 15 units can see). Basically only 2 colors are required here, as there are only two teams.
In a similair way, wouldn't it be possible to host larger teambattles with less units each? For examle 6v6 with 8 units each?
This topic may provide some more info (one can not post anymore in that topic):
http://www.totalwar.org/maps/000535.html
Thanks for taking the time to communicate with us.
------------------
Ja mata
Toda MizuTosaInu
Daimyo Takiyama Shi
http://www.takiyama.cjb.net
Kraellin
08-06-2002, 19:46
gil,
ah, ok. castles. deployment zones. ok. understood. that wasnt clear before. thanks :) (of course, i'll still be stretching the limits of the editor :)
'rush tax'. k. i got it. as tosa points out, it took almost two years, ultimately, to balance the units to where you wouldnt need restrictive limits on armies, so it would be a bit unrealistic to expect perfect balance, and no unforeseen surprises, on the plethora of units in m:tw. ok. i now understand the 'rush cap' and its purpose. and, as an afterthought to all of this, my arguing for a host max number limit is also arguing for controls over the same exploitations to avoid the same things you mentioned. we simply chose different solutions. fair enough.
what's interesting to note in regard to the above, is that in our present games of we/mi 1.03, we now DONT have to impose these arbitrary limits. one can take whatever one wants and nobody cries 'foul' or asks for limits. to expect that in m:tw, fresh out of the presses, and with the number of units involved, would be ludicrous on our part, particularly in light of how much work was done on stw/we/mi by the mod folks and by CA. i also think a lot of us dont really understand the difficulties of making changes to existing code. a coder friend of mine always said he could write code in minutes, but debugging it was quite another prospect.
this is excellent, gil. this communication from someone at the source is exactly what we've been clamboring for here. there's been a void of communication from CA for a while. we, sitting on the other side of things, tend to fill in that void with speculation, rants, assumptions, and all the other faulty types of 'knowledge'. you could say that, on our part, there's been a potential of communication building up and when someone shows up from CA, that potential suddenly gets released in one big, almost electrical flow. it's also why, despite evidence to the contrary, one hears, from time to time, that 'CA doesnt listen'. the evidence, over time, says otherwise, but the 'apparency', because someone doesnt respond verbally from CA, is that CA doesnt. those of us who have been around for a while do realize that this is just an apparency and that you guys do listen. there have been lots of player requested changes made and only a few of us were involved with the 1.02 beta, so again, most folks may not be aware of all the things CA has done based on player requests (and 'requests' is putting it lightly, at times :)
so again, we DO appreciate you being here, gil and i second puzz3d's invitation to target and longjohn, and to any other member of CA who would care to show up. (target, yes, i know you've been to the mod forum recently. thanks :)
in light of all this, gil, here's a possible solution to this communication gap we sometimes experience here. would you folks at CA be willing to utilize some of us as your PR agents, beta testers, 'field agents', and so on, through a closed forum that was 'by invitation only'? it might alleviate some of the communication problems we've had in the past, since it would effectively add to your ranks without adding to your payroll. some folks here might holler 'exclusion!' but then, some folks here shld be excluded ;) at any rate, it's something you might toss around at the office. the folks that worked on beta 1.02 enjoyed working more directly with CA on this, or at least i did :) perhaps we could arrange something like this again on an on-going basis.
or, perhaps, since the .org seems to be setting up some semi-permanent reference, sticky threads, we could utilize this as a place to post a permanent list of requests on which CA representatives could respond. all would be able to see it, but not all might have posting ability.
at any rate, thanks again, gil, for filling the void. it's much appreciated!
K.
------------------
The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.
Gil,
Assuming that the individual MTW unit types are already set in some well thought out rock, paper, scissors relationship, the use of unit cost becomes an important tool in fine tuning balance in the online game. It allows for a much smaller adjustments than changing the integer combat factors, and doesn't affect the single player campaign in any way. I think the monks in original STW are only off by about 10%, and yet that was effectively exploited by many players and brought a boring sameness to many online battles just as the v102 beta team's oversights resulted in YA/musk sameness in WE/MI battles. Without access to unit costs and with great effort and a lot of player feedback from online battles, we have to a great extent corrected the v102 for the Sengoku units in the WE/MI v103 stat which I feel opens up a richer online game experience by making all the units useful relative to their costs within a strong rock, paper, scissors system. However, it's not an official patch and is used by only a handful of players. It's important that CA set the standard for online play in official updates, and gathering considerable feedback from online battles seems necessary to achieve that. It's an iterative process despite all the analysis. Breaking out stats and costs from the main exe will be important to simplifying the task of making official patches just for the purpose of addressing game balance issues whether they be multiplayer or single player.
That leads me to another thought which is of great importance and that is the game speed. In the single player game, we have a speed slider so it's not an issue there as long as the range goes from relatively slow to relatively fast. In the online game, some network code fixes in WE/MI resulted in the game playing faster than original STW. Some players feel that the game plays too fast to effectively control 16 units. While speed varies a lot over the internet, in 1v1 games with all fast machines on fast connections it is awfully fast and difficult to control things. So, I'm just pointing out that, while improving the efficiency of the network code is good to do, some compensating adjustment has to be made to the game speed to maintain the same playability.
Thanks for the answers to my previous questions.
Puzz3D
GAH!
Starting Valour at 0 is not all its cooked up to be. I always thought it was a nice choice to have the option to cut honor to make room for improvements elsewhere.
It saddens me to see this strategic budgetary option go the way of the dodo...
Maybe you can cut honor to -1? http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/eek.gif
http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/frown.gif http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/frown.gif http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/frown.gif http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/frown.gif
And the fact that the rate tax thingie will cut into the effective assembly of the Wet Gunny Wedgie Army of Doom is a travesty! But it will bear no fruits, for this legendary army will persevere despite The Man's attempt silence its awesome power...
GAH!
I just realized! Gil is a Shoggy newbie! Lets all sing the 'Waltzing Newbie' hymn to welcome him to our li'll corner of the Horseman's playground!
GAH!
Quote Originally posted by Erado the Black:
The main reason it's so busy in here though, is that this community has been craving for a chance to have a dialogue with the developers about these very issues. [/QUOTE]
I just hope for the next game they will be more active in the community BEFORE most of the coding is done. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif
Vanja,
The honor sell back was directly responsible for the monk rush army at 5000 koku. You can buy 10 monks for 5000 koku, sell back one honor point on each and buy 4 more H1 monks. That means you sell off 20 honor points, but get 36 points when you purchase the 4 H1 monks. The overall army combat power goes from 110 combat points with 10 H2 monks to 126 combat points with 14 H1 monks and you have 4 more units for maneuvering to boot. All that with a unit that already has the best hth/koku and no effective counter unit.
Quote Originally posted by Puzz3D:
Vanja,
The honor sell back was directly responsible for the monk rush army at 5000 koku. You can buy 10 monks for 5000 koku, sell back one honor point on each and buy 4 more H1 monks. That means you sell off 20 honor points, but get 36 points when you purchase the 4 H1 monks. The overall army combat power goes from 110 combat points with 10 H2 monks to 126 combat points with 14 H1 monks and you have 4 more units for maneuvering to boot. All that with a unit that already has the best hth/koku and no effective counter unit. [/QUOTE]
I feel your pain. Too bad we just lost one of our options though...
In a world where all of y'all are clamoring for MORE options, it seems hard to believe you'd be happy to see this one done away with.
But, heck, it'll be fine with me anyway.
GAH!
but puzz, if 1 of this h1 monks is routing u will win it, i didnt feared the rush in STW and i wont fear any rush in any other games!
a rush is very good and u need to maneuver ur units well, if u have skill u can beat the rush!
i see many post from u guys, u always jsut try that a rush dont happend and bring some other probs with it...
there wil always be a unit wich will superb, like spears with upgrade now, or in stw monks.... well u cant do anything against it.
with strong guns u can beat any rush, yes, but it takes the fun away...
so whats the solution?
imo, the best patch we had was in STW, it allowed a rush, but if u choosed maps like totomi u could hold it easy, so they guys didnt played always the damn iron, now a rush is silly.....
nono, we have to live with some mistakes, we cant get the superb solution..... actuall its all shit, the patch are mady by guys wich have his opinion but other guys have other opinions...so a few decide over many...
koc
------------------
Grey Wolves (http://www.totalwar.club.tip.nl/)
Dionysus9
08-07-2002, 01:22
Yes, Gil, thanks for being here. Just to know that our thoughts are being considered by the developers restores some confidence in the game that EA eroded.
I am quite confident that a continuing dialogue between CA and the consumers (us) will be produce more income for your company.
When potential buyers log on to the Org and see a CA ambassador, they immediately feel that the game is supported-- and that goes a LONG way.
Keep up the excellent work.
GilJaysmith
08-07-2002, 01:51
Evening,
Well, it looks like my work here is done and you now all agree that our solutions are best http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif
Seriously, the thead has been very informative and educational for me, and hopefully I've reciprocated a little. If other topics crop up which are within my remit then I'll probably comment.
And so to some minor specifics:
Terazawa Tokugawa:
If I recall rightly, the cost factors for the upgrades are:
x1.5 per valour level
x1.35 per weapon level
x1.3 per armour level
Multiply all this with the base cost to get the total cost for your upgraded unit.
Erado:
The world shall hear from me again http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif
Target didn't seem to be impressed by the baseball bat, and shot me through the face. Next time I won't ask him in the middle of a game of Soldier Of Fortune 2...
TosaInu:
The deployment circles do still have a little overlap.
Disabling battlefield valour increases in multiplayer games: interesting. Will ponder.
More players with fewer units: too much of a change to consider for MTW, sorry.
Kraellin:
Beta programmes... I think that they're the only way to fly, but it's not up to me. Politely and carefully lobbying Graham and Richie is probably the best approach.
Puzz3D:
The improved network speed should reduce the effect of internet latency rather than accelerate the game beyond its single-player speed. The game caps its speed at 14 logic frames (i.e. soldiers moving, fighting, etc) per second, no matter what your graphical framerate is. If the game needs to spend more time on logic processing, it drops graphical frames so it can maintain 14fps of logic, leading to jerkiness - the soldiers are still covering the same distance in the same time, but you aren't seeing all the steps they take. If the game has spare time it adds graphical frames, and the camera movement becomes smoother, but the game logic won't speed up unless it was already running slower than normal.
To all others:
Thanks for your kind words.
Gil
off to try out some demos
Konnichiwa Gil JaySmith sama,
Thanks for answering. Understood about the big changes being required. But would it in theory be possible for the 'network code' to do this? Does 8 players * 16 units each equals 16 players * 8 units each for network traffic (approx)?
------------------
Ja mata
Toda MizuTosaInu
Daimyo Takiyama Shi
http://www.takiyama.cjb.net
Kocmoc,
A handful of top players could handle the monk rush in STW, but the point is that an army composed of all one unit type in a rock, paper, scissors system should on the average fail. The results averaged over many battles and many players is what determines whether the system is balanced. That's why it would be nice to have the official stat adjusted a few times after periods of use by the whole community. As good as the balance was in multiplayer STW, it would have benefitted from some adjustments, and with all the battle experience that was developed over many months it was pretty clear which units had to be tweaked. MTW will probably sell very well, and there will be a big influx of players to the online game, and good play balance will be important in keeping them playing for a long time. What too much imbalance does is prevent players from fully exploring the entire tactical depth of the game. In my book, imbalance leads to less long term enjoyment and that means players drift off to other games they find more enjoyable. There will always be imbalances, but it's in everyones interest to reduce them as much as is reasonably possible. In the end, CA will decide what's reasonable and what isn't. Gil's job seems to be to make the online environment as user friendly as possible, and that's very important as well. We loose countless players to all the hassles associated with the EA servers.
Erado the Black
08-07-2002, 03:53
Kocmoc,
you're a decent player to put it mildly. Yes, you can handle the monk rush. I could handle it in many battles...
Imagine the fun a newbie had, expecting the same resistance as he found in the SP campaign, going online and facing a monk rush in his first battle... How long did it last before his entire army was routing? A minute if he was lucky?
With MTW we will have a fair group of STW experienced players who will no doubt tackle the novelties of MTW... How much trouble will you have with most of the new players that you will meet?
There's a responsibility there for the serious online veterans to help them enjoy their first battles, learning some skills to make a battle last at first and then also win one or two.
But the jerks who find a rush army in the first week could destroy the online experience for a lot of new players, chasing many away as happened with STW and MI/WE. The fact that the honour sell back is gone, plus the increasing value for the fifth and consecutive units could help lessening the rush armies. There probably will be rush armies still, and well, I'll have a word with Graham again...
Mail me by the way, Kocmoc, your address keeps bouncing my mails.
Thanks for answering my questions, Gil!
Seems good, but I guess we'll have to wait to play the game before judging.
------------------
Clan Kenchikuka (http://www.totalwar.org/kenchikuka)
evil is within us... http://www.totalwar.org/site/emomalta.gif
Kraellin
08-07-2002, 19:07
"Well, it looks like my work here is done and you now all agree that our solutions are best" ...rofl. how little you know us. we tend to like to beat dead horses to death ;)
it's been quite informative, gil. thanks.
we look forward to badger...er, discussing these issues more after the game is released and we've had a chance to prove to ourselves that we were right all along ;)
i think someone, you or one of us, also touched on bringing the money values out of the .exe and into the stats files. this would be excellent. even if it was only the base unit cost this would go a long ways in helping to tweak the stats down the road.
oh, and one other thing that may or may not be in your purview, but that i wish you'd pass along, i saw, in one of the reviews a while back, that it mentioned that there were going to be 400 or more maps released with the game. we/mi had an arbitrary map limit of 500 maps. i hope this isnt also true for m:tw. if CA is releasing 400 and the cap is 500, this is going to be a problem. and even if CA isnt releasing 400, this is still going to be a problem. please, remove this cap completely! rip it out! i'd rather spend 10, or even 30, seconds each time the sorting routine has to look in the map folder than to have this cap on there.
K.
------------------
The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.
If not we could have to delete original maps to include our masterpieces! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif
Hehe.
------------------
Clan Kenchikuka (http://www.totalwar.org/kenchikuka)
evil is within us... http://www.totalwar.org/site/emomalta.gif
Gil,
"The improved network speed should reduce the effect of internet latency rather than accelerate the game beyond its single-player speed."
An important point I haven't seen mentioned here is the issue of out of sync at the beginning and drops during the game. Any improvements in these areas is highly desireable, and I hope the improved network code helps because it's currently a huge time waster in the online game.
Puzz
GilJaysmith
08-07-2002, 20:19
Quote Originally posted by Puzz3D:
[B]Gil,
An important point I haven't seen mentioned here is the issue of out of sync at the beginning and drops during the game. Any improvements in these areas is highly desireable, and I hope the improved network code helps because it's currently a huge time waster in the online game.
[/QUOTE]
Almost all out-of-sync conditions were caused by bugs. There were quite a few of them. We think we've fixed them all. Quite possibly we haven't, but if any remain we'll try to track them down once we hear about them.
Gil @ CA
GilJaysmith
08-07-2002, 20:23
Quote Originally posted by Kraellin:
i think someone, you or one of us, also touched on bringing the money values out of the .exe and into the stats files. this would be excellent. even if it was only the base unit cost this would go a long ways in helping to tweak the stats down the road.
[/QUOTE]
The unit costs are in the stats files... look in crusaders_unit_prod11.txt.
It's just the rush tax and the scale factors for MP unit upgrades which are in the EXE.
Quote Originally posted by Kraellin:
with the game. we/mi had an arbitrary map limit of 500 maps. i hope this isnt also true for m:tw. if CA is releasing 400 and [/QUOTE]
IIRC the limit is now 1000 maps.
Gil @ CA
youssof_Toda
08-07-2002, 21:46
One question; will the battlerecorder still work?
ElmarkOFear
08-07-2002, 21:56
I think this is great feedback on the game and it is great to see GIl here with some very important info. on the network code and multiplayer changes to be made in MTW. I am wondering if there will be tools to implement a player hosted multiplayer campaign game for the community? I wish there was someway to communicate with someone and discuss items which would be invaluable in hosting multiplayer campaigns. I have hosted a few campaigns now and realize the difficulty/impossibilty of having a full multiplayer campaign for MTW, but I think it is very possible to make it easier for players to host their own, given the right set of tools. Gil, if you have any suggestions on how I may pursue this I would appreciate it very much. The tools I think are needed would not require much time in the way of programming and could possibly be made a part of any add-on packages or patches. Thanks. My email addy is: el-marko@insightbb.com
GilJaysmith
08-07-2002, 22:22
Quote Originally posted by youssof_Toda:
One question; will the battlerecorder still work?[/QUOTE]
Yes.
At the end of each battle you get the chance to save a replay of it with the filename of your choice. You can also watch replays through the menus; no need for the command-line options anymore.
Gil @ CA
Hm, I do not like this semi-4-max rule. IMO it is the balance of unit types that should prevent players buying a one unit type army and not some arbitrary cost constraint. Why should anyone be penalised if he/she wants to buy 5 or 6 spearmen or desert archers?
Besides it seems that there is some confusion with respect of one unit type armies and that of the rush. Although most of the one unit type armies are rush armies (i.e. nag.cav army, no-dachi army, etc) many rush armies can be build using the 4 max rule. That is, you cannot prevent the rush with the 4 max rule. IMO the only thing that can prevent the rush is a large map with deployment zones placed as far away from each other as possible.
youssof_Toda
08-07-2002, 23:12
Quote Originally posted by GilJaysmith:
Yes.
At the end of each battle you get the chance to save a replay of it with the filename of your choice. You can also watch replays through the menus; no need for the command-line options anymore.
Gil @ CA
[/QUOTE]
Cool, thx
Kraellin
08-07-2002, 23:44
gil,
out of sync bugs....good!
1000 maps? why this limit? is it to reduce sorting time or what? this is the only game i know of, except maybe some old 8 bit games, that puts that limit in there.
battlerecorder playback in the menus...can this be done from multi, within the chat rooms also or do we have to go back to the out of chat menu system? (i'm assuming the latter, but there are menus within the gamespy chat rooms, so a clarification here would be nice.)
elmo,
what types of tools would you need/want?
cheetah,
yeah, i understand. perhaps, if the rush tax and upgrade costs are pulled out of the .exe and into the stat files, then we wouldnt need any other revision. we could just load stats that dont make use of the rush tax. i also think gil makes a good point, that every time there is a new release, there exists the possibility of something overlooked. if indeed there are 100 or more units to mtw, then it's going to be even more possible to have some major unforeseen imbalances that result in something like the old 16 monk army rush. this rush tax thing is just a safeguard against that. and you're right, one can still get rushes with the 4 max unit limits. the reason i'm willing to not make this more of an issue right now is that gil has left the door open for revisions and changes. things like moving the rush tax out of the .exe to the stats file would cure this immediately and he's already mentioned this being a possibility. other measures could also be implemented. and in the long run, we're no doubt going to be doing our own stat tweaks and will most likely ask CA to simply remove this rush tax thing altogether.
quote from Gil: "Every time i get out, they just drag me back in!" you might wanna make that your new sig, gil. ;)
K.
------------------
The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.
Imagine the fun a newbie had, expecting the same resistance as he found in the SP campaign, going online and facing a monk rush in his first battle... How long did it last before his entire army was routing? A minute if he was lucky? posted by erado
Imagine the fun a newbie had, expecting the same resistance as he found in the SP campaign, going online and facing a monk rush in his first battle... How long did it last before his entire army was routing? A minute if he was lucky? posted by erado
true, but u dont need a rush-army to kill a newbie in 1 min!
they get steamrolled if they come online, like i did as i come online years ago and other too...so thats they way they come online and get beat ....sometimes faster sometimes slower, it depends just, how they guys speak with this newbies...if they explain theyr mistakes and help them....
but if a rush, make the newbies left the online game....i cant believe it...
guys, i know how many time u invested in this patches, many real good ideas are in it, but u see it very often from ur points.
let me explain it. mizus i played often with u and i know that u do the same like we all, but there are possible way u dont know...coz u never played like this... what i mean is u go slow and start ur shooting...than 1 will win and the other has to rush him, if he has mayn guns left,...phew it will be hard...
u should watch some videos of mag and me, we mix armys we are pretty fst on some flanks we move over the whole battlefield and let the horses dance, i dont fear the guns in 1,02 i just fear the iron board!
give me some hills and let me attack i have a much better chance to win it, and it gives u much more tacticel possibiltys...
...back to the point...
u use ur setups to test or test 1 unit vs 1unit, but thats the point in my view, u cant do it and it just show u how good or bad 1 unit is compared to the other unit...
but its just the whole thing wich decide...
long time ago as we worked on the 1,02 i told u guns with power 4 is still to strong...months ago it got changed... i dont wont sit on a cloud but i saw it before it was ready...
and patches just work if u make it to a MUST HAVE PATCH!
dont give them the chance to choose, bring a new patch and they need it or they cant play.
i offer again my time to help u with any patch or in any question u guys have...
Erado, my new email is Mike.Friedrich@primacom.net
plz dont get me wrong guys i respect all this work u did, but maybe u think in the wrong way... think about what happend if u have hills there, make rushes possible, so the maps will change.... if not...we will see iron again all the time.....
koc
------------------
Grey Wolves (http://www.totalwar.club.tip.nl/)
Quote Originally posted by Kraellin:
1000 maps? why this limit? is it to reduce sorting time or what? this is the only game i know of, except maybe some old 8 bit games, that puts that limit in there.
[/QUOTE]
Not trying to sound smug or anything, but do you really think we'll need more than 1,000 maps? If the game ships with 400 it still leaves you with 600 custom maps to add.
Konnichiwa,
STW WE was shipped with 110 maps. There are 336 custom maps now. I've hardly made any new maps when WE/MI was shipped, nor has Kraellin. Kraellin and I have made mosts of the first 100 maps. We're near the 500 caps now.
MTW will ship with 400 maps and a mapeditor and is supposed to attract more customers than STW. There'll be 600 custom maps in no time.
I've a perfect excuse to do nothing now http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif
------------------
Ja mata
Toda MizuTosaInu
Daimyo Takiyama Shi
http://www.takiyama.cjb.net
Erado the Black
08-08-2002, 01:04
Yes Magy, In fact, anything they can come up with to support community organised multiplayer campaigns will be applauded. But hosting a game with broken units is top of the list. Allow us to host custom battles online, that you can prepare in a text based structure, and that allows for units that don't have the full number of troops in them.
Kocmoc,
The problem in the v102 beta wasn't the testing method. The problem was not enough battle testing, partly caused by changes to the stat being made too close to the final deadline.
Player mods are fine, but I agree with you that most players won't use them. Probably 90% of players will only use the official stat.
Kraellin
08-08-2002, 01:55
xiahou,
400 CA maps, 500 old stw/we/mi converted for use in mtw maps, maps in savemaps as well as battle\maps, one player making 50 maps in a week, test maps, ongoing edits...yeah, 1000 isnt going to really do it :)
kocmoc,
i dont quite understand what you're saying here. the method we used in 1.02 was the most objective method that could have been done. if we tested on hills and full blown battles you would get very slanted results and it wouldnt have accomplished very much in balancing things. let's say i test my army against magy's. magy is a much better player than i am. how am i going to figure out what part of the battle is imbalance and what part is magy's ability?
now, if you mean that the units could have been balanced at different relative strengths and weaknesses and still be balanced, then i agree. remember, however, that we had a directive from CA to not drastically alter any of the units. so, we couldnt upset the relationships too much here. what you seem to be arguing is tactics where all that balancing is, is relative potentials of the units. HOW those potentials get actually used is tactics and there is no way we can balance that in a stat patch. so i'm at a loss here as to what you're objecting to regarding the methods used to do the patch.
yes, an 'official' patch is always going to take precedence, but we're slowly winning folks over to 1.03. it is a better stat file and finally fixes some of things that we didnt fix in 1.02.
and Kocmoc, your views are always valued. you're one of the 'old timers' of the game and one of the best. your input is always valuable. i just wish ya spoke better english or i spoke your language better :)
K.
------------------
The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.
youssof_Toda
08-08-2002, 03:17
Let's jst say that STW 1.13 stats were perfect. But who cares about that when we are in MTW? All I hope for that range v h2h will be balanced like in STW so you have the choice on which tactic to use.
GilJaysmith
08-08-2002, 04:42
Evening all,
Short one tonight...
ElmarkOFear / Erado:
I'm afraid I don't see support for multiplayer campaigns getting a very high priority. To say anything else would be unfairly raising your hopes. Sorry.
Kraellin:
I'm not wild about the limit on the number of maps, either. I boosted it to 1000 because we had more than 500 maps at one point and time was real short that day. Support for an unlimited number of maps is on my wishlist.
Battle playback is on the main menu, so yes, you'll have to drop out of the multiplayer menus to see replays. It should be only a few seconds' overhead to leave and return. MTW will remember your GS login details so you won't have to retype anything.
Gil @ CA
Fear my all-conquering Danish empire...
Kraellin
08-08-2002, 07:55
thanks gil.
K.
------------------
The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.
ElmarkOFear
08-08-2002, 08:34
Gil, Thnx for the quick response. What I am thinking of are simple items, such as an editable map in TGA, JPG, or GIF format, which shows all of the provinces and possibly a program to keep track of what is in each province (Icon based, like the Shogun MI/WE game). Something that would allow you to add units/buildings to a province by the "drag and drop" method used in the single player campaign. These two tools would be of great help and I do not think that they would involve much programming or time on the part of the developers. It would add a great deal to the multiplayer experience though. If you want to check out what I have done with a campaign website . . go to: http://home.insightbb.com/~el-marko/ The map there was made by someone in the community for a previous campaign and I borrowed it for use in this one. If you would like access to the province or clan pages, send me an email and I will give you all of the passes so that you can see what I have set up on each province page. Thnx again Gil.
Quote Originally posted by GilJaysmith:
Yes.
At the end of each battle you get the chance to save a replay of it with the filename of your choice. You can also watch replays through the menus; no need for the command-line options anymore.
Gil @ CA
[/QUOTE]
Hi Gil. Thanks for all the info. Useful and interesting. On the battlecorder, beside being able to name the file, does it also keeps the associated battle result, i.e. logfile, if logging is enabled? Right now, I am manually renaming all my replay.dat to have the same logfile number so that I can associate the battle replay with the result. It will be a nice feature that MTW can handle this for the player *shouldn't be too much work 4 ya I think http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif*
Also, it is possible to have the units' info (i.e. wavering, uncertain, impetuous, gen is killed) during the replay? I believe MI, it is not available (as it is for debugging).
I tried to read the entire thread but it is too huge, so maybe what I have below is already mentioned.
1. the "rush tax" is referring to the cost penalty for unit beyond 4th? good feature.
2. i'm not sure how the rest feel, but I dont quite like the mouse feel in STW/MTW. it doesn't react like it normally would in desktop (window mode). i'm not sure how to describe it or what causes it, but maybe u get what i mean.
3. map generator. is there a random generator that can seed a map which later can be refined? it pretty hard to start from a flat one. Maybe a controllable seed in forest/grassland/hills/water/beach/etc. E.g. I set a seed for grassland(70%)/forest(10%)/hill(10%)/water(0%)/beach(off)/seednum(12345), and a random map is generated for me to work on. Too much work I guess. Maybe a proposal for future TW products, or MTW patches/expansion sets.
4. as(3), but in multiplayer mode. the host set the seeds, and host the game (instead of choosing a map). the rest of the players will have the same info and as such all can play on the randomly generated map online. I'm sure many MP players will like this feature.
My 5 cents.
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tootee the goldfish,
headmaster of Shogun-Academy (http://shogun-academy.tripod.com)
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Another thing I have always wondered, not pertaining to multiplayer though.
Why do units, after grouped, line up in weird order after I left_click and draw them out on the ground? It like I have a group of 4 similiar-type units, and when I deploy them on the ground using left_click+drag, their order from left-to-right has no relationship to the grouped unit's icon at the bottom of screen. It is not logical to me as a player (maybe it makes the code easier?).
My preference is this.
Maintain the order of the units' icons when selected and grouped, i.e. i select unit A, B, C and D, the grouped icons show [A][B][C][D]. I draw them out on the ground, and their order from left to right is same as icons [A][B][C][D].
My 5 cents.
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tootee the goldfish,
headmaster of Shogun-Academy (http://shogun-academy.tripod.com)
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BarryNoDachi
08-08-2002, 11:41
the lining up of troops is very frustrating and does limit the movement of your army to me it is definately not logical (i even got a maths degree hehe)
i also agree that it would be nice to have more info on the replays
the chat between players would be nice as it shows why ppl do certain things or dont lol http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif
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Clan Kenchikuka (http://www.totalwar.org/kenchikuka)
To add to what Tootee is suggesting, Gil, I wish to mention something that has been asked forever now! A 'remember army' option in Multi-Player (like in Custom Battle) would really be handy...most use the same army / small variation of it...
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Clan Kenchikuka (http://www.totalwar.org/kenchikuka)
evil is within us... http://www.totalwar.org/site/emomalta.gif
What happened erado you finally joint the dark side ?
is this some kind of intellectual properties rip off which software company's are famous for?
Because they don’t listen anyway and just take our good ideas and turn them into profits and forget to improve the game or fix the bugs look at it, stw3 out nearly and still most stw 1 bugs are still around?
Erado the Black
08-08-2002, 15:58
Nah, Jun,
It's just that I look so very very dark compared to your horribly bright and positive look on things. Thought I'd choose a name to reflect that.
Papewaio
08-08-2002, 16:19
That and Erado-sama is a New Zealand Rugby Union supporter http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif.
GAH!
GIL!
GAH!
Can you add an option (if not now, in a future patch) to make the REPLAY files MPEGs? That way you can watch them without having to do it through the game! AND, you can post them on the WEB to show newbies of all walks of life the path to Nirvana! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif
"The path to Nirvana is paved with thorns."
-- Vanya
"The beacon that illuminates your path amidst the darkness shines from within."
-- Vanya
"Give a man some head soup, and he shall cease to be hungry today. Teach him how to cut heads off and make is own damn soup and he shall never starve."
-- Vanya
GAH!
Hirosito
08-10-2002, 00:03
that's so modest of you vanya
Papewaio
08-10-2002, 04:52
Quote Originally posted by Hirosito:
that's so modest of you vanya[/QUOTE]
Why?
Its not even his recipe for Head Soup.. .he got it off the Naked Chief.
Hirosito
08-11-2002, 04:41
i've no interest in the village people
Papewaio
08-11-2002, 15:04
Howabout a variant of MP where other players are in charge of the reinforcments.
3v3, 2 on the field of each side and one waiting in the wings with reinforcements... or even larger 4v4 with extra in the wings with reinforcements.
Wavesword
08-12-2002, 00:37
Even some randomness in choices like a tradeoff between size of reinforcements/ time before arrival- modified for weather conditions etc.
Konnichiwa Gil JaySmith sama,
Who'll write the scripts for nickregistration? Will there be 1 comp/friendly/clan nick
and 1-infinite friendly only? Will there be clanadministration (kick members/tag/clanname/admin independent of founder? Is it possible to organize players by clan in the foyer?
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Ja mata
Toda MizuTosaInu
Daimyo Takiyama Shi
http://www.takiyama.cjb.net
Papewaio
08-18-2002, 03:39
This thread has a lot of useful information. So could someone summarise it and start the second version of it. If no one else does I will do it when it reaches over 150 posts.
youssof_Toda
08-18-2002, 03:51
Obake already summarized most of the stuff in this threat on the .com
Papewaio
08-30-2002, 18:12
Shiro do we close it or archive it or just let it hang around like my week old socks?
GAH!
When you host an MP game... can there be an option to include mercenaries?
It would be funny...
When host sets up the game, he can pick up to, say, 6 units to serve as mercenaries. Like Alan cavalry, steppe horsemen, etc. Then, when everybody picks their army, they have the option of including merc units too!
But, to add a little jazz to it... the pool defined by the host is for everybody. So, when player x takes the Alan cav unit, that unit is no longer available to the other players unless he relinquishes it!
GAH!
That way, you can go into battle as the French with a pair of Bedouin Gun Camels and some Nubian spearmen alongside your funny-talking kinigits!
GAH!
Vanya cannot guess as to how feasible this is... any reactions?
Vanya would laugh long and hard if he saw people fielding armies with mercenary peasant units!
http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/eek.gif http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/eek.gif http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/eek.gif
http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/eek.gif http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/eek.gif http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/eek.gif
ROFLMAO
GAH!
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