RTW demo conclusions: a full summary

[Spino]

I wholeheartedly agree with everything Blodrast has written. Well done!

I would also add a few things to his list.

5. User Interface

Compressed time - Time compression is handled poorly. First of all there are not enough 'notches' for compressed time. I guess I miss MTW's time compression slider too much. I see in the descr_shortcuts.txt file that there are hotkey slots for the time compression; pause, play, ffwd & ultraffwd. Great, but there's no way to set them from within the game! A few more compression speeds would also be welcome: Pause/1X/2X/4X/8X/16X

6. Game aspect/balance

Rally Feature- Forcing you to select your general before rallying the troops is a major pain in the ass. Pausing in SP battles to do this is fine but in MP games things are way too hectic, especially if you're in the middle of a tricky maneuver. Based upon the entries in the descr_shortcuts.txt file I see there is NO Rally hotkey! Rally has become a specialized function of a general unit. Please bring back the MTW method where you could use the Rally feature simply by selecting all your troops and then hitting the button or using the hotkey. Yes, I suppose you could macro your general and use the Rally function that way but with a 20 unit limit I can see people shying away from giving the commander an entire slot.

7. (Potential) Bugs

Mouse control/speed - The mouse controls are way too sluggish and insensitive for a time critical game like this. I've been playing the demo on a friend's rig (Athlon XP 3000 & Radeon 9200 128meg) and while the framerate is fine the mouse controls are not. Even when I pause the game and change the camera view to an empty portion of the map the mouse moves painfully slow. As a result selecting and controlling units, especially those in battle, becomes needlessly challenging. I can only imagine the pain this will cause in large battles, especially MP ones! My friend has an optical mouse that moves the cursor like a teflon coated bullet in other games so it's not the mouse or its scanning rate. PLEASE give us sliders for mouse sensitivity and mouse movement filters!!!

[Red Harvest]

Blodrast,

About the ATI card thing. You might try increasing the details. I'm using a 9800 Pro and maxed everything in the game (except left off AA) at 1280x960, and clicked the "glint" box. That cleared it up. I've not yet gone back and determined what is causing the orange triangles in the default settings, but I got it for about 2 seconds every time a volley of flaming arrows struck. After I maxed the graphics details the orange triangles disappeared completely.

Great post by the way!

[Leet Eriksson]

Very well done Blodrast, my only gripe with the game is the cheesy accents, hopefully CA will include the native languages, i just hope ~:p

[Red Harvest]

6. Game aspect/balance

Rally Feature- Forcing you to select your general before rallying the troops is a major pain in the ass. Pausing in SP battles to do this is fine but in MP games things are way too hectic, especially if you're in the middle of a tricky maneuver. Based upon the entries in the descr_shortcuts.txt file I see there is NO Rally hotkey! Rally has become a specialized function of a general unit. Please bring back the MTW method where you could use the Rally feature simply by selecting all your troops and then hitting the button or using the hotkey. Yes, I suppose you could macro your general and use the Rally function that way but with a 20 unit limit I can see people shying away from giving the commander an entire slot.

Spino, I haven't played with this much yet. But this actually makes more sense than MTW's method. It should take the physical intervention of an officer/general to rally most units. Yep, it's a pain in the butt, and won't matter if the fighting/movement speed is so high that you don't have time to do anything. Elite/disciplined units should rally on their own--but rank and file should not. I need to study the implementation of this a bit more.

[frogbeastegg]

Excellent work, Blodrast. It certainly voices my main concerns better than my scattered, lack of sleep hampered, rushed ramblings.

Red Harvest, you managed to fix the ATI problem by maxing everything? I have a 9800 pro, 1280x1024 res with everything set to max and it's still there. I also enabled antistrophic filtering x8 in the ATI control panel. The red galre is still present. I've tried a few other settings (lower res, less advanced effects, no filtering) and there was no change to the glare. Interesting.

Which reminds me of another point:
Graphics options Can we have a control for antistrophic filtering inside the game please? RTW really benefits from this on my system but my other games don't, so having to rely on a universal override setting is not great.

[The_Emperor]

Excellent post Blodrast!

One other addition I for one miss from the previous two games... The Casualty ratio bar! That used to be extremely helpful in working out how well a battle was going, now it seems a lot harder to work out.

It would be great to have it back.

[Papewaio]

Emperor that ratio is above the speed buttons on the bottom left box.

Hover your mouse over it and you will get % displayed... just look for the blue/red bar.

[The_Emperor]

oh well its not as easy to see as it used to be... Make it bigger!

[Spino]

Spino, I haven't played with this much yet. But this actually makes more sense than MTW's method. It should take the physical intervention of an officer/general to rally most units. Yep, it's a pain in the butt, and won't matter if the fighting/movement speed is so high that you don't have time to do anything. Elite/disciplined units should rally on their own--but rank and file should not. I need to study the implementation of this a bit more.

It is an even greater pain in the butt since you cannot hotkey group a single unit! I tried making my general unit hotkey Group #1 and the game will not accept it! So basically in the middle of combat you may instantly command groups of normal units but in order to access your general and command him to rally the troops you either have to use the mouse in order to select your general unit or cycle through each individual unit with the keys in order. This means precious time is lost before you can directly control the general, let alone rally the troops.

On a different note I've also noticed that 'Exhausted' troops can run! No more trudging about as in MTW. In RTW exhausted infantry units can run at a respectable speed and for a looooong time, almost indefinitely! I played the modded training battle as the Gauls and had a Tired unit of Gaulish archers chased all around the map by an Exhausted unit of Triarii! In all that armor the only thing with two legs an exhausted unit of Triarii should be able to catch is a dead man! C'mon CA, give us a break!

[Degtyarev14.5]

PLEASE give us sliders for mouse sensitivity and mouse movement filters!!!

Ummm... Spino, there are two, for camera movement speed and camera rotation speed.

Look under camera options.

A.

[ah_dut]

@FBE that's why i bought an fx 5600 xt, runs like a dream. and nvidia's drivers are better.
and yes even on low spec systems it works well ,all my family use nvidia so can't comment on the ati glitch. BTW what's up with the light speed movement of cav?
and OT i've been on the shanghai maglev, 431 km/ph and still don't feel fast so ur analogyy may need working on

[Akka]

GREAT post, Blodrast. It voices every single of my concerns about the game, and I simply have nothing to add.
I'm posting here just so that CA knows about the VERY SERIOUS shortcoming of the demo, that could really hamper it.

Because as for me, RTW was about to be bought, no question asked. But then I saw the demo, and honestly, I'm actually hesitating. The graphics are great, but immersion is what makes a game (at least this one), and immersion has taken a crippling shot with the arcade feeling of the game, and these AWFUL ENGLISH-SPEAKING UNITS ! A Roman/Carthaginian unit talking to me in english is definitely an horrible surprise to say the least...

[Red Harvest]

@FBE that's why i bought an fx 5600 xt, runs like a dream. and nvidia's drivers are better.
and yes even on low spec systems it works well ,all my family use nvidia so can't comment on the ati glitch.

Oh please, I had far more problems with nvidia drivers back when I owned one than I have ever had with ATI drivers. I went through four sets of drivers before I found ONE that could run STW on a GF2. The driver myth is just that, a myth. There are differences, yes. There are things that each company does better with their drivers (or with their hardware design--that often gets incorrectly attributed to drivers.) Making blanket statements about them is a bad idea.

[Spino]

Ummm... Spino, there are two, for camera movement speed and camera rotation speed.

Look under camera options.

A.

No no no! I am referring to the mouse speed, NOT the camera speed! When I speak of mouse speed I am referring to the responsiveness and movement rate of the mouse controlled cursor while playing the game. It really is slower than it should be.

Spino: inserted your issues; I took the liberty of moving the rally hotkey issue into the UI section, hope you don't mind too much ;)
Edit: but then I removed the mouse movement stuff; do the sliders suggested by Arseclown after your post do the job ?

Thanks Blodrast, but the mouse movement and slider stuff I mentioned in the above text is completely separate from the camera options. I'm sure you've seen the mouse settings and sliders I'm talking about in other computer games, especially 3D shooters.

[Blodrast]

Spino: gotcha. fixed.

Oh, and btw, it just occurred to me: a good way of making sure that CA gets to see this thread would be to stickify it - until it's been noticed (that _is_ the purpose of this thread, is it not ?)
Of course there is no point in keeping it sticky after 2-3 weeks - at that point it would certainly be too late to make any changes in the final release anyway.

Edit: ofc you can also change the title if you think that would have a better chance of catching their eyes.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Sticky it and start a thread that says "CA DEVELOPERS: READ THIS" and make a link to this thread. That might get their attention

That or storm thier offices.

[Spino]

Spino: gotcha. fixed.

Oh, and btw, it just occurred to me: a good way of making sure that CA gets to see this thread would be to stickify it - until it's been noticed (that _is_ the purpose of this thread, is it not ?)
Of course there is no point in keeping it sticky after 2-3 weeks - at that point it would certainly be too late to make any changes in the final release anyway.

Edit: ofc you can also change the title if you think that would have a better chance of catching their eyes.

Thanks again Blodrast!

[Medieval Assassin]

If not already noted:
Whyis it that when an elephant smashes into a line, 15 people fly 10 feet above the elephant, wouldn't they get pushed aside or get knocked down...Why would they fly straight up?

[Thoros of Myr]

Why can footsoldiers no longer form a wedge?

Why do I now have to make my entire army a group to use the group formations? This was not so in MTW.

[Rosacrux]

If not already noted:
Whyis it that when an elephant smashes into a line, 15 people fly 10 feet above the elephant, wouldn't they get pushed aside or get knocked down...Why would they fly straight up?

eye candy, assasin.

W00t, watch da Romanz dude, up the air! W00t! They fly, dude! Coooool! Elies rockz dude

[Degtyarev14.5]

No no no! I am referring to the mouse speed, NOT the camera speed! When I speak of mouse speed I am referring to the responsiveness and movement rate of the mouse controlled cursor while playing the game. It really is slower than it should be.

Aahh, I see. Okay, point taken. CA, bring on the slider!

But I'd like to make a clarification: you would like to see a slider that controls the rate of movement of the mouse cursor across the screen. Meanwhile, some have complained that the mouse cursor moves sluggishly, and only after a delay. Here we have two separate and unrelated, although superficially similar, issues.

The noted sluggishness is indicative of a struggling system. I found the same whenever I turned all the graphics settings to highest in Battlefield 1942, when I was running an obsolescent GeForce 4 MX 440. Spino's request is a perfectly valid one; however to eradicate mouse delay and general unresponsiveness, people are going to need to either upgrade their systems, or turn down their graphics settings.

I'm sorry, I don't like to be the bearer of bad news, but...

A.

[Oleander Ardens]

Good points here..

Talking about gameplay: I too miss the wedge. Not because it was a good battleformation for infantry, but because it allowed you to move through small gaps, giving the whole formation a more narrow front.

Perhaps CA could add a column for all units. No battle malus or bonus beside the fact that it is vulnerable and can move better and swiftly through gaps, making it easier to use some sound tactics...


Cheers

OA

[CBR]

I have always missed the column, not just for one unts but for groups to make faster marching.

I wanted units to have the ability of more than one special formation but I guess thats hoping for too much..


CBR

[cugel]

None of you have mentioned the worst aspects of the UI: What happened to F5, F6 and F7?!!! In MTW we could get rid of all that screen clutter and play without the unit cards at the bottom of the screen the kill ratio & stuff at the top!

And that annoying screen at the left (you know the F5 screen that shows where on the map you are). Is there a way to get rid of it?

Also why are the unit cards so small. Can we get rid of them?

And what happened to F1 which displayed the valor and morale bonuses???

DAMN!

I really don't understand this! Shouldn't we have the ability to go easily go full screen and back again!

Why should the user interface take a STEP BACKWARD! I could see not improving it, BUT MAKING IT WORSE????

The mouse speed problems are also a pain. I'm getting better used to directing my mouse but I hate having to wait for the thing to register (with the game paused too).

Gamespeed: I agree this is a problem.

:

I'm not a happy camper at this point. I suppose I'll wait and check out the game, but I ain't buying it at this point. Not until a lot of this stuff gets fixed. I'm not holding my breath either that we'll get major interface fixes in the patch (if there is one). This game seems to need about 3 months of solid work on the basics!

Oh, well, the MTW: Middle Earth Mod should be ready to roll soon! I'll probably be doing some more work on that instead. Wait till you see the artwork on that! It'll blow your minds. I kid you not!

[Ludens]

BUMP

Shouldn't this be stickyfied? It would be better if we keep all the issues in one place.