Competitive MP Totally Broken Post-Patch

[Cu'Roi]

http://forums.totalwar.com/showthrea...-and-you-don-t go post in that thread it's important that the thread takes off.

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After the patch, the game is now so unfair in different ways for different reasons that it precludes any meaningful ranking system and any real competition.

Some people have multiple level 5 units with inspire. Some people have units with both inspire and bonzai on a level 6 unit. Other people have 46 vet slots. people who used clone armies and saved them can still load their clones. on the other end of the spectrum some people had their entire avatars erased. the result of the patch is that nobody is on an equal playing field any more, and some players have unfair advantages, because the patch changed the rules of the game to the benefit of some at the expense of others.

in the short term they need to roll back the alt-f4 changes, give everyone 46 vet slots, and reset all veteran points for all players. besides it makes sense to reset veteran skill points after a patch that changes game play.

otherwise the game is inherently unfair, because people who owned the game before the big patch have units with capabilities that nobody else can ever get. and people who were dumb enough to delete their heroes get 3 extra vet slots.

fairness is an implied prerequisite of any game. if the rules are not the same, the game is not fair. if it is not fair how is it even a game? why is it worth playing? until this is fixed the game developer has made a game that gives some players a huge edge over others. think about that for a second.

[AMP]

I agree with some and disagree with some here...

I agree the competitive MP is broken in terms of how the MM works and how the ladders works, but it was always broken from the start. You need dedicated servers and a ladder that isn't just a grind to the top, which would seem like common sense?

I disagree that just because people have units with inspire and banzai make it unfair because those skills are worth their cost and no more, where it doesn't benefit anyone anymore than normal really because he is "paying" for that skill not getting it for "free".

I agree or should I say that I wouldn't have a problem with vet skills being reset, that wouldn't bother me at all.

I disagree that 46 vets slots is an advantage because you don't even use half of them in a match and heck... I don't even use like 15 of my vets, where some are just experimental vets. And my gameplay doesn't hurt because of such a thing, so I don't see how going up against someone with a few extra vets slots would put them at a disadvantage.

I disagree that clone vets are unfair, only bringing in a unit more then you're restricted to deploy is unfair, not units that don't have caps. Here again vets cost funds, skills cost funds and you're not getting them for free. Tokens were only put in place to make people want to play MM more, they don't determine the value of the skill, only the price of funds do. I don't have clones and never used clones and I don't care if people use clones against me.

I don't think myself as dumb for deleting Yari Hero and the Katana Hero because to me they were dumb units that weren't worth their value, only the bow hero is "kinda". And at the time you had 22.5k matches, so it was worth it then to have different vets instead of those two heroes.

[Kocmoc]

Well, the problem is, that people keeps complaining full-time, everywhere. We have to decide, what is worth to consider and what not.
The ladder is pointless, change it, leave it or stop it. I personal would like to see a better laddersystem, which actual reflect the real skill of the player and not just the amount of games played.

Vets, now with 14k max, its pretty easy to have enough vets all the time, I personal cant use my 43 vets at all, let it be around 12-16, more not. Rest of my vets are for testing and adjusting.

Having vets with lvl 5 or 6 and bansai/inspire. Since the nerf, I hardly use my inspire bots anymore, the effects are just too small to pay for this (120 Koku).
I cant see the advance of having those units, you just pay a lot for abilities, which are not always worth the money.

Clones, I never understood it anyway, I dont bother with people having clones, they pay the price for it, thats it.
If I now made the units the normal way or someone cloned it, I cant bother less, they saved themselves some time maybe (to get the tokens) but after all the game stay fair, since they pay for it the same way I have to pay.

All fine.


The MM is the problem, I pointed it out before the release already and clearly stated, that we will reach this current situation.
New player are doomed and I will bring my suggestion once again here:

Give everyone 10 tokens for free with each lvl and 100 free for reaching lvl 10. This would give new player at least some small start support.
Or take the clantokens away at all, I dont mind it, the setup is already too important. Id like to see more the movement and playstyle, since who bring which setup.

[Sp00n]

TBH I agree with most of it, the ladder is terrible I get a random 6000 player drop each time I hit the top 100, Inspire and Banzai now work as they should only being available after 8 upgrades, its totally not correct for them still to be available on units that have only 4 upgrades from pre patch, as you basically get them on the cheap.
Clone units are using an exploit to have more vets than you should. I do like the game but in terms of balance its light years adrift from the original.

[Cu'Roi]

yes well you had to pay for grenzers and ferguson rifles in ETW too but that didn't mean they weren't OP. all the best players took them naturally, as they were the best units, the difference was everyone had equal access to them and here that is not the case.

aside from the fact that having more options gives an inherent advantage independent of the cost of the option, those skills are in fact worth much more than their cost (this is very easy to prove on paper btw). and since a player could get access to them as a level 5 before the patch whereas now you have to be level 9, someone who wants those abilities now will incur 200-300 gold in sunk costs to get access to them. and even then you only get one of the abilities, not both.

it cannot be both ways. one player gets inspire at a total cost of 700 gold, another gets an inspire at a total cost of 1050 gold. at any fund setting, one person is getting a bargain the other is overpaying. although inspire cost 120 in both cases, the sunk costs alone ensure that inspire is actually more expensive for the latter player (thats ~250 gold out of 14k i can't spend how i please now).

not to mention the fact that if the ability is worth the cost, then naturally you'd want to take as many as possible to a point since they are worth it, but you wont be able to take as many on any funds setting because they cost more. the point that diminishing returns makes more inspires not worthwhile is up for debate, but it's more than the 2 max you'd be able to bring under the current game design.

and if 3 extra vet slots aren't useful, why did people delete their heroes in the first place?

this is actually a very serious problem and sooner or later people will figure out that the game is broken because of the patch.

[Marshall Louis-Nicolas Davout]

I thought the patch fixed most of the stuff.

[Cu'Roi]

no, i've just scratched the surface. someone put in the fatigue retainer and tell me what that does (someone at CA got their + and - signs mixed up) and also someone try to increase attack for your new cav unit and see what that does. and then maybe someone else can tell me why i have 2 units that are exactly the same but in game one of them has 16 reload and the other has 20 according to the unit card pane in the right?

but at least those things dont affect the base fairness of the game like some of the other things i've brought up do.

i haven't cared about any of the other issues - most of this stuff i expected to be frank - but i always assumed that i'd be able to play competitively with others on an even playing field. now i find with this new patch i can't even do that (and i am one of the players who got some advantages, but i want to actually win because i'm better not win on some bullcrap, and not ever even knowing if the match-up was even fair to start with cause i have no idea what the other guy is working with).

you can't just make a game, and one by one break every part of it and expect people to play it. people play MM for the ranking system and for clan tokens. but when new players face level 10s with units they can't even buy when they are still trying to learn the interface, and then when they are winning they get dropped and find it counted for 2 losses, and then when they do actually finish a game with a win only to find the leader board didn't record it, and then after all that the leader board periodically wipes their stats, multiple times... how long do you think people are going to play a game like that?

lets look at a check list:

people who bought the game to play 3 v 3 match making (self explainatory) - gone
people who bought the game to play in battle list (regional anyone?) - gone
people who bought the game to play MPC (diplo? timer? sync bug? lmao) - gone
people who bought the game to make a run on the ladders (hahaha) - gone
people who bought the game to play classic TW (you can't see those battles in battle list) - gone
people who bought the game to play in tournaments (see OP) - gone
people who bought the game to play clan war (zerg steam groups ftw) - gone

I'm a straight shooter and i call it like i see it and this game is garbage. but hey at least we did get the uniform painter that was supposed to come with NTW this time around.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6314214...-new-total-war

[AMP]

I'll say again for like the 10th time to people... I play MM for random opponents, random maps and collecting tokens to spend on skills. The LB is just a plus if it worked and those that play just for the LB are more so the kind of people that did/do all the d/c'ing and alt-f4'ing, those that can't see it's just a grind to the top. You have no rewards (except shogun ladder - retainer and armor set), so it's just for bragging rights, which tournaments are better for anyway - bragging rights

Those that have to spend extra funds to get inspire and banzai over someone who already has it on a unit with rank 5 isn't throwing away those funds, they are being spent on skills. Someone having 3 inspires (360 koku) for example that someone else can't have just yet means that the other persons 360 koku is going somewhere else, both players have same starting funds.

Fatigue is broken because vets get fatigue reductions as they lvl up making fatigue retainers and skills pointless. Only fatigue retainers may be useful for vanilla builds that don't have many vets. This also makes the Gens fatigue aura almost useless as well. This was always like that though, the patch didn't do that.

Same with speed upgrades they are still pointless because all units are set at max speed. It would've been nice to see a number for speed just like it shows in SP and having working speed upgrades, which would change gameplay/tatics abit I'm sure.

I'll say again I deleted two of my heroes because of 22.5k matches, matches where you were using ALL vets and ALL 20 slots and those two heroes weren't worth their cost to me, so I made room. Now MM is at 14k, which is how it should be, those extra slots don't matter at all.

The patch broke some things sure, but it fixed many as well.

I bought the game for 1 main reason to play against other people online and it has a working MM for the most part, which is a plus.
- 3v3 MM is buggy but works
- they need to combine regions for the battle list and allow people to surf through them
- MPC isn't that still 1v1? No thanks has to be 4 players atleast for me to grab my interest because 1v1 isn't very... multiplayerish
- Ladders that was expected to fail (grind plus p2p), but I still play MM
- classic battles would be nice with a MM and good ladder
- I'll just join tournaments hosted by people, TW isn't nearly ready to have built in tournaments
- clan meta is dumb and anyone could've seen it was a waste if they did any reading into it

Lets just hope the next TW is better. <--- I find myself saying that with each new release

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

VI MP was so much simpler then S2TW MP is today.

[Cu'Roi]

well if amp you want to defend the game that's fine, i was satisfied with teh game too prior to the patch (or maybe i should say i was cautiously optimistic prior to the patch). i've made my points and i can assure you i'm not wrong (i have no background in economics but just off-hand the principals of sunk costs and opportunity costs ensure that the way clan skill upgrades work post patch compared to pre-patch is unfair. of course you don't need to have a degree in economics to see that it doesn't pass the sniff test). i will expand on a couple things though:

-cloning isn't fair because someone could get 5 units with clan skill upgrades having only spent the clan tokens one time
-our (similar) motivations for playing MM are irrelevant and also not representative, I was/am making a generalization that most people play MM for their rank as an end in itself. when that isn't working, a large % of people will quit sooner than they otherwise would have, and the logical conclusion of these issues since they were not sorted in the patch is that the volume of players seeking games drops more quickly than it needed to. once it reaches a tipping point, MM ceases to function. then everyone loses. it may take a long time for this to happen in 1 v 1, especially with steam sales and expansions etc, but it will happen with 2 v 2 comparatively soon.
-you may believe 3 extra vet slots once you've got 43 makes no de facto difference (and that's fertile ground for debate), but the fact that having more vets slots gives at minimum theoretical advantages is inarguable. i also didn't follow your rationale for why 43 slots were useful @ 22k but not 14k, so i may have missed something though.
-post patch fatigue retainers actually cause units to fatigue more quickly.
-you may have the patience to conclude that 3 v 3 MM works, i can't agree with you though, and i doubt many people who bought the game with that intent would agree with you either.
-tournaments are for bragging rights, and for good reason. they have a lot of problems but they were the best measure. what we have now is a situation where the upper echelon players are not on the same playing field in an avatar competiton. this jeopardizes core legitimacy of avatar based tournaments. now the work around is easy; ban veterans. but that is not as fun or strategic for several reasons. Ideally CA would cure the cause so we don't have to put a band-aid on the symptoms.
-hundreds to thousands of players have already been lost needlessly.
-i hope the next TW is better too, but if you want to see why it wont be and see CA spit in your face at the same time, click the link at the bottom of post 7 :).

many of the problems i mentioned in this thread are facts and not subject to debate. however, the significance and ramifications of the facts we've discussed in this thread are a matter of opinion, and although i am more than prepared to support my opinions, we can agree to disagree if need be.

[Nowake]

Bit of a side post, yet I would say we should not push this thread and blow it out of the water.
At least the "tone" of your posts is a bit instigative to my mind. And approximations without any sort of data, just to serve your point, such as:

you can't just make a game, and one by one break every part of it
(...) hundreds to thousands of players have already been lost needlessly

or formulating the problem in terms of:

if you want to see why it wont be and see CA spit in your face at the same time, click the link at the bottom of post 7

are a bit out of place. This is not some mmorpg where some chap invests five hundred days in an account and fundamental changes from a developer means his whole game (read: life) changes -- no sarcasm towards those people either by the way. This game has more than one side and on the whole, it is a pretty solid product, certainly close enough to what was advertized and decent value-for-money. Writing about feeling spat in the face by Creative Assembly and what not is just a silly way of leading the conversation towards any type of conclusion.

Of course, just a very personal opinion and you're most probably not interested in it, but it's a reaction and you did open it to the public so please don't take it the wrong way.

[Cu'Roi]

no offense taken. i think in my last post i explained that most of what i said was fact, meaning that some of it was opinion. you correctly can discern fact from opinion :). not sure every poster can though.

tell me though, do you think hundreds of people haven't been lost due to bugs? cause i know 3-4 personally, and peak usage on steam was 30k. seems like a safe extrapolation to me.

also, when CA announces they are working on two new games less than 3 months after their last release which is still mired with problems and undelivered promises, it is offensive to people who are not satisfied with the state of the game like you are. i likened it to being spit in the face, but another comparison could have been used. i don't think it matters.

obviously CA is working on new games, it never stops. that doesn't mean it's kosher to tell people that any more than it's kosher to tell your girlfriend she looks fat (hey, it gets the point across).

i've never been one to mince my words, but i'm also not one to engage in personal attacks. if you don't think my posts are well reasoned though, i'm certainly open to discussing that. especially since you seem(?) to be implying i'm making things up to serve my interests.

[Swoosh So]

Surely tons of people are lost due to multiplayer bugs yeah i agree there, the matchmaking system is broken to bits and the clan campaign is just lol but the actual battles when running i like alot - theres some balance issues to sort out but this is easily the 3rd best totalwar in terms of the battles alone. If the bugs are all ironed out this will be a cracking game if they keep releasing additional maps to keep the game fresh.

[UglyJun]

All is not lost Cu'Roi :)
They have fixed classic mode, where we all get same units same upgrades. its still good fun as soon as people realize it i hope there be more games hosted!!!

[Cu'Roi]

Surely tons of people are lost due to multiplayer bugs yeah i agree there, the matchmaking system is broken to bits and the clan campaign is just lol but the actual battles when running i like alot - theres some balance issues to sort out but this is easily the 3rd best totalwar in terms of the battles alone. If the bugs are all ironed out this will be a cracking game if they keep releasing additional maps to keep the game fresh.

this i agree with. i don't mean to be a hater. i have been optimistic and thoroughly enjoyed the game to this point. but the results of the patch are not acceptable, even by the most lax standards. they have actually managed to break the fairness of the game (even if only slightly, but it is there). this is a sacred tenet of any game.

@jun - idk the classic battles aren't even listed in the battle list, so CA has effectively killed this mode too. lucullus has been on about this for some time, and i didn't disagree, but haven't much cared either haha. i care more now though...

[AMP]

@ Cu'Roi

I'm not defending anything I was just pointing out what I found to be false and true or my opinion on the matters at hand which you brought up.

It just seems you don't understand what I'm trying to say on some of my points and disagree with some of my other points, which is fine. Since you don't understand me, no point in trying to discuss anything. :)