A few points about mp (so far)

[Kalle]

When hosting I noticed a few things i would like;

1) more maps! there is only one 4 vs 4 map, no 3 vs 3 map, few 2 vs 2 and a handful 1 vs 1. I want more of every kind!

2) This automatically leads to the next issue. Why cant I specify exactly the number of players I want in a game regardless of what map i choose?? i.e. if i choose to play on a so called 2 vs 2 map i should still have the possibility to have 8 people participating if that is what i want.

3) i want an option to limit the artillery ammunition

4) i want to be able to set the amount of florins i want not only choose between the two preset levels of florins.

5) i would like a lobbychat regardless of the possibilities steam gives you. When hosting and lacking a player to fill a 4 on 4 its a very easy thing to just write to all people scanning the lobby; please join my game.

6) is there anywhere i can see exactly what a "valour" upgrade does?

7) price of units is hard to see, make it more clear please.

In game;

1) is there a way to activate the easy but superb in game chatsystem of mtw/vi in this game? pressing t for team and y for allies. The system used in the game is bad.

There will be more im sure :)

In addition I would like to add in spite of the above that this, imo, by far is the best totalwar mp since mtw/vi.

Kalle

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

When hosting I noticed a few things i would like;

1) more maps! there is only one 4 vs 4 map, no 3 vs 3 map, few 2 vs 2 and a handful 1 vs 1. I want more of every kind!

2) This automatically leads to the next issue. Why cant I specify exactly the number of players I want in a game regardless of what map i choose?? i.e. if i choose to play on a so called 2 vs 2 map i should still have the possibility to have 8 people participating if that is what i want.

3) i want an option to limit the artillery ammunition

4) i want to be able to set the amount of florins i want not only choose between the two preset levels of florins.

5) i would like a lobbychat regardless of the possibilities steam gives you. When hosting and lacking a player to fill a 4 on 4 its a very easy thing to just write to all people scanning the lobby; please join my game.

6) is there anywhere i can see exactly what a "valour" upgrade does?

7) price of units is hard to see, make it more clear please.

In game;

1) is there a way to activate the easy but superb in game chatsystem of mtw/vi in this game? pressing t for team and y for allies. The system used in the game is bad.

There will be more im sure :)

In addition I would like to add in spite of the above that this, imo, by far is the best totalwar mp since mtw/vi.

Kalle

Saw you online yesterday Kalle hosting a game by the way .



I argee with all those points, escally the money. I did a fort game yesterday, which I won, but it wasn't kinda strange not giving the attacker more money and that.



The gameplay is great imo, just we need chat, more maps and etc...., Like Kalle said!

[Swoosh So]

I wouldent call previous ingame totalwar chat systems superb although they may be better than what you have now, its high time this game had a chat window that you can set to transparent background or customise.

[Kalle]

Hello Swoosh and Warman!

Did you like what you saw warman?

Well superb might be a strong word but it was way better then the current one so why they replaced it with a worse system is a mystery.

Have you ventured online in this game yet Swoosh?

Kalle

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

Hello Swoosh and Warman!

Did you like what you saw warman?

Well superb might be a strong word but it was way better then the current one so why they replaced it with a worse system is a mystery.

Have you ventured online in this game yet Swoosh?

Kalle

We should play sometime mate, I defend my precious Star Fort aganist you then !



Yeah, I did. Fought 2 games yesterday, lost 1 and won 1, I'm 2-1 right now overall.


Just I hope they fix the chat lobby + the money levels and such.

[Swoosh So]

Havent even tried the demo yet kalle, its worrying that the ingame chat is bad ofc because with each totalwar release in the past we have seen worse and worse mp options and features, from the heady days of online ladders and a good functional lobby to the tripe that was seen in rtw and mtw2.

[Kenchi_Sulla]

Agreeing with points Kalle makes. I have been playing with TGI and Tibs and we are using voicechat but a functional chat should be made available.... Same with the lobby.

The MP part (both 1v1 and 2v2) is very enjoyable once you ban the mortars... There are no major balance issues since unit stats are roughly the same.... I dont mind that at all.

Overall, its a far better experience then RTW or MTW2!

Try it,

Regards

Sulla

[tgi01]

Good points all of them ... the best thing is that most of these are very easy to fix
( like the arty ammo or adding more maps or number of players on larger maps ...)

The chat lobby .. well to be honest we can prolly forget that and try to use the forum and the tools in steam to have a working community ... even if they implemented it we are on Steam and the game will be far more popular than previous versions of the game and a chat lobby with 1000 ppl wont really work ...
what we need to do is to see how to use the steam tools and so on to advertise the MP community ...

TGI

[PanzerJaeger]

Good suggestions, Kalle.

I noticed a larger than usual amount of games where people had the unit sizes at their smallest level, I guess for smoother games. I'm pretty sure the arty effects are not reduced though. This made the uber-arty even more terrible. In one game, I realized that I was out-arty'd immediately so I rushed my forces across the field to engage my opponent, but with such small units I had lost about 50% of my forces before I even reached his.

Still was kind of a fun fight though.

Edit: Does any else miss the Attack/Defender designations? A lot of people seem to want to just sit on their respective hills and shoot their cannons. At least having one side as the "Attacker" put the onus on someone to do something in the older games.

[Monarch]

Good suggestions, Kalle.


Edit: Does any else miss the Attack/Defender designations? A lot of people seem to want to just sit on their respective hills and shoot their cannons. At least having one side as the "Attacker" put the onus on someone to do something in the older games.

This was purely artificial though, wasn't it? Nobody was forced to attack simply by being labelled attacker. Why not just agree on attacker/defender in chat?

[Kenchi_Sulla]

Guys, just grab the initiative, ban mortars and beat the crap out of your opponent! This game will make it!

PJ, your the PJ I know?

Sulla

[PanzerJaeger]

This was purely artificial though, wasn't it? Nobody was forced to attack simply by being labelled attacker. Why not just agree on attacker/defender in chat?

Yes, you could do whatever you liked once the battle started. However, the attacker/defender roles were pretty well respected by people. Many changed their army setup depending on what role they were taking.

That didn't mean the defender had to sit still. In fact, most good players wouldn't just sit there and allow themselves to be attacked. It did, though, put some pressure on one side to take the initiative - and added a dynamic to the game which I feel had some value.

Oh well, I'm sure the glut of hill-sitters will die down once people get more accustomed to the game. It just sucks when you're on a 2v2 map and everyone else just wants to stare eachother down.

Guys, just grab the initiative, ban mortars and beat the crap out of your opponent! This game will make it!

PJ, your the PJ I know?

Sulla

Yes. I didn't realize that was you. Good to see you're still active man.

I played a bunch of no arty battles tonight, and besides that one where the guy brought all arty(lol), they were great fun.

I do miss the chat though. I played a couple of rounds with a guy who was really into the team aspect and it was a pain not being able to talk in the lobby...

[pevergreen]

At least you guys get games. Stupid timezones...

[KrooK]

I havent tested multiplayer so far but some single games shows me that...
this game is so that hard to believe (I know I will be given warning point for that but someone finally have to say it).

Actually CA did not want invent anything new and simply....copied ntw 2 and mixed with retrofit.
So we have slow units from ntw 2 and slow kill ratio from retrofit.

Number of maps was already mentioned.

Chat too - luckily polish clans are well organised and we have people on communicators.

Graph - fairy tale about beginning of USA

Artillery - omg:) If you say anyone who know anything about military that mortar has bigger range than cannon - he will watch on you like on idiot. I have heard that there is "no mortar" rule - after 2 days of playing people have enough :)

Luckily we have light into tunnel - in Poland we have good idea what to do with ETW. :)

[gollum]

Originally posted by Krook
Actually CA did not want invent anything new and simply....copied ntw 2 and mixed with retrofit. So we have slow units from ntw 2 and slow kill ratio from retrofit.

Both of these have been suggested by long time mp players - and in any case it cant be bad. At least CA is building on previous experience (in certain aspects) and in experience that was well regarded by (large parts of) the mp community.

All problems mentioned - major being maps and mortars valid - yet shouldnt be all that hard to correct in a patch especially if mp participation rises.

Lobby chat would be good too.

Good points Kalle

[KrooK]

Game has in game chat.
Howerer it has no lobby chat.

[gollum]

Thanks for pointing out that Krook - thats what i meant - mistake edited out.

[Lord Adherbal]

I've been playing some MP and think it's alright, far better then anything CA did since VI.

But yes the mortars ruin the game. How that cheapest, super range, unlimited ammo, large blast range unit got past their balance testing - or just the design phase - is beyound me.

I think the maps are very diappointing though. We did a lot more interesting stuff with the RTW editor for NTW2 back in the days...

[KrooK]

Some games after me (I played only 1vs1) and ....
- mortars - as mentioned but they can be stopped (hard but possible)
- annoying chat (as mentioned - nothing change)
- 95 % of games LOCKED (really annoying)
- problem with moving whole army
- system of special orders really bad ( im checking what changes into controls would be best)
- too slow kill ratio - maybe mtw 2 had too fast but here its just funny


But some good things
- no problems with droping during game (problems with joining but when you join its ok)

Additional things
CA is really afraid of balancing game. Seems that they understood that they cannot make as much units as into mtw 2 so they just made much less, but with different cost. Resolution from Shogun - but it was 8 years ago. They could use this time better. Same with map. Looks like they are scared, but maps are much better than into mtw 2.

I agree its best thing they did since VI. However its still not good :)

[Tomisama]

In addition I would like to add in spite of the above that this, imo, by far is the best totalwar mp since mtw/vi.

Kalle, I appreciate your spirit

And I wholeheartedly agree, as I am sure others will, once they take the time to learn the new ropes.

My biggest problem so far is not getting Floating Flags to permanently latch to Never for Land Units (I like them on my Ships)

Beyond that I am having a great time.

The best game in years

[Kalle]

Lol, this much agreements I never had before outside of my own clanforums

I think killrates should not be judged to soon, if anything im feeling that sometimes they are to high.

Also there are sometimes, at least for me, a problem with getting my trooops to start running and i dont mean fleeing

I think CA has issues to deal with of more concern right now though. Seems there is a problem with loading saved campaigngames that crashes the game...

Kalle

[PanzerJaeger]

I played quite a few MP battles last night without mortars, and I have to say - when they finally happened - they were really a lot of fun.

Moral, balance, and kill rates all felt far superior to the last two titles. There was time to actually maneuver and the games I had were very tactical.

While the unit selection is more limited, the differences in factions are certainly there - albeit more subtle - just like STW. For example, Austria has some of the worst line infantry in the game for the standard cost, but they have the cheapest Jaegers - so an Austrian army would need to take advantage of that. In contrast, Prussia has very good line infantry available at a cheaper price than many other factions, and so on. But yes, as pevergreen said, the game is more about tactics that hugely varying armies - as is historically accurate.

The real problems, IMO, were technical. The whole lobby froze quite a bit when trying to get into a game and the whole thing felt very buggy. Also, lack of a chat lobby definitely hinders things. Steam is nice, but it simply won't do.

I'm not smart enough to do the kind of technical analysis that will surely be done in comparison to the other titles and there may yet be uber armies or other exploits emerge, but I can say that I haven't had as much fun in an online TW game since MTW, and I did make an effort at enjoying the last two games.

[FearofFucy]

Hello all
So is this game worth buying?

[KrooK]

And I played some games with mortars and I have to say - they are not as strong as I was afraid. There is nice and easy trick to bet enemy with mortars. You will not be told which trick because I trust into your skill :) I can only polite ask - play with mortars - maybe problems with them are not into mortars but into ... your brains (most old players are .... SLOW).

But some new bugs happened - game crashed twice seconds before my victory ( I got 15 units, enemy 1). Looks like when host quit battle, something bad happen. And funny is that I can hide light cavarly while I can't hide heavy. Even into really deep forest.

[Andres]

I can only polite ask - play with mortars - maybe problems with them are not into mortars but into ... your brains (most old players are .... SLOW).

Let's be careful with suggestions about the content of ones' cranium, we don't want things to get heated, do we