Sorry From CA - Current State of the Game and What Happens Next

[Vuk]

2%? IF they are even being honest, that is 2% officially reporting their problems, not 2% experiencing problems. For all you know, 40-50% of RII owners are experiencing major technical problems.

It was so obvious in the weeks leading up to its release that it was an unfinished game. Why didn't they just postpone its release? They could have still shipped out the same discs and boxes and just had Steam automatically update the game when it was released. Don't they know what a killjoy it is to be promised an awesome game and find out that you are an unwilling beta tester?

[CaptainCrunch]

2%? IF they are even being honest, that is 2% officially reporting their problems, not 2% experiencing problems. For all you know, 40-50% of RII owners are experiencing major technical problems.

Exactly. No way in Hell do they release a formal apology about the condition of their game, or put someone on 24hr tech support at the official forum, if they truly believed that only 2% of their sales are being affected by problems. The fact that they even tried to pass that off as true is grimey.

I hope this little statement of contrition is sincere and they're prepared to not only sort out the game's technical problems, but to address all the major gameplay concerns. Otherwise this release will end up being an unmitigated disaster for them in the long run. There are only so many times you can fool people before they realize they're wasting money on your products... even the suckers.

[BroskiDerpman]

Modding can only do so much to a highly flawed base game.

If I use Shogun 2 as an example (It's a decent TW game if you aren't too Western biased) the technical stuff was only fixed to a certain point, the unit balance wasn't really paid much attention to except for over nerfing, over buffing or extreme cost efficiency.

Plus Napoleon, and Empire can be used as examples too in which the mods barely patched up the poorly made games.

Mods will not fix things such as default running as if you could it would be already done in Shogun 2.

If ai is dumb then get it fixed instead of rehashing it again and again. CA left the ai unoptimised in Shogun 2 and HedgeKnight had to tweak it, CA could've done that and more if they spent some time and they could do it faster as they're full time.

Oh have fun and be sure to spam all heavy infantry in campaign for me. XD

Oh as of now mods are needed to patch the game instead of fleshing it out, 4tpy is a patch, better combat is also a patch. Cosmetics are patches... Things that vanilla game lacks dearly and needs so bad.

[Monk]

I am the 2%.

[Vuk]

Good slogan. Those who are having trouble with their game should adopt that as their signature. Good way to make a statement.

[BroskiDerpman]

Anybody want to gift me Rome 2? XD

Just kidding, I'll go check if there's any after action reports going on as I just watched Volound's let's plays and he would always curbstomp the ai on legendary so I just want to relax and read some AARs and look at kewl screenies.

[Monk]

Good slogan. Those who are having trouble with their game should adopt that as their signature. Good way to make a statement.

It all seriousness I wouldn't put too much stock in the 2% line. This is Mike Simpson, a man who has a long history of being bad at PR. He is the the same man who blamed players' own perceptions for terrible AI in the original RTW. "2% are reporting issues" easily mistranslates into "2% are suffering problems," it would have been better to keep any official statistics out of his attempt to let the supposed minority know they are taking their concerns seriously.


I suppose the biggest problem with being a total war fan for so long is you remember all the disappointments that came with the previous games, which make continued disappointments that much harder to bear. Rome II is an average game at best... but it could have been beautiful.

Oh yeah, I know. Were you there for the ETW release? I actually think it was on par with this one for the poor reaction from the community (and justified). Left it, gave it a few months, came back, and it was fine. I think it will be like this here as well.

I disagree with you on the "came back and it was fine." part. Empire was never anything more than a total pile of daffodils. Pretty to look at but not a lot more. The much lauded 1.4 patch never solved the AI issues to my satisfaction, and conquering ALL of France with one army in one turn felt incredibly wrong from a gameplay perspective. If it wasn't for Shogun 2's excellence I likely never would have looked at a TW game again, and have still to this day never tried Napoleon: Total War. I haven't played Empire since a few months after it was released.


As for Rome II.. the game just feels like its scale is too big when you compare it to the support systems in the game. Technology, the way unrest works, taxation, AI ability, turns per year, etc, it's all so streamlined that it feels completely inadequate to support the hugeness of the game's map.

Feature-wise a lot of the game feels like it was pieced together in a patchwork manner, nothing feels like it compliments anything else. Technology is researched too quick creating huge gaps between faction military strength. Units gain veteran too fast, causing armies to become death machines in within 10 turns of their creation. Unrest is obtuse in how it builds, and friendly fire unrest from taking neighboring cities is possible. The AI regards the player armies with indifference on the campaign map and tries to rush your cities. Campaign movement speed doesn't make sense for the turn length. There's no penalty for losing all your generals as you get free ones right away, making commanders throw away units..

I must wonder if there was any beta for Rome II at all. Because playing the released product is..interesting. I asked myself an honest question last night while trying to play: Am I having fun? I answered, "No." And stopped. Wake me up in 6 months when CA finishes their patching cycle and proclaims Empire Rome II ready to play.

[Hooahguy]

Well to be fair I also was playing with Darthmod which made the experience much better.