Developer blog update: Morale & Difficulty Settings

[Puzz3D]

And I still can't imagine that the AI will be on par with RTW's; CA has to have learned something in the intervening years and the AI must be improved, all subjectivity aside.

Sure it will be better than RTW's AI, but I don't think RTW should be used as the standard since it has the worst AI in the series. RTW also has the worst battle engine.

I got that from him saying "[t]his greater challenge comes at the price of unrealistic unit match-ups - AI hastati beating human principes etc." How does that happen...why from AI bonuses or (to be safe) player minuses.

In MTW, hard difficulty setting gives a 15% bonus to the AI's combat factors, and very hard gives a 30% combat bonus in addition to a +4 morale increase to the AI. At .com, one or the developers, and I can't remember his name, said it was easy to make the AI better by increasing the combat bonus it gets. This was heavily criticized as not representing better AI, and was simply an AI cheat. Maybe this is what Jason is referring to when he says they responded to the fans.

I think it's good to find other ways to make the battles harder besides changing the combat values. More fatigue for the player would mean the player has to do a better job managing fatigue, but if this is coupled with increased morale for the AI, it could become an insurmountable task because the fighting times will increase and there is a high fatigue rate associated with fighting. It all depends on how well the parameters are adjusted.

The delay provides and opportunity to give the AI another kind of advantage, but I'm not a fan of the delay because it's on the order of 2 seconds, and at RTW speeds IMO that's a significant advantage for the player who moves first in multiplayer. The lower running speed in M2TW will make a 2 second delay less of a disadvantage for the reactive player.

Certain words such as realistic are now being used in the PR for the game in a way that's inconsistent with what CA has stated in the past. When we asked for changes based on realism, the excuse from them for not making the changes was that realism was not their focus. I remember this clearly because I was stunned by this response. What I'd like to know is that, if realism is back as a serious consideration, why is the speed boost for charging units still at RTW's unrealisticly high percentage. They reduced the running speeds by 20% (which is still unrealistically high), but not the charging speeds by that amount so now there is an obvious unrealistic discontinuity between a running unit and that same unit when its charging.

[Orda Khan]

We will have a hard time beating the AI in a straight 20 units v 20 units? Well wouldn't that be nice?!
I'd be amazed if it's true but very happy, though somehow I don't believe it

.......Orda

[Divine Wind]

We will have a hard time beating the AI in a straight 20 units v 20 units? Well wouldn't that be nice?!
I'd be amazed if it's true but very happy, though somehow I don't believe it

.......Orda

Indeed, I will however take Jason's comments with a pinch of salt.

Lets wait and see shall we.

[Little Legioner]

They reduced the running speeds by 20% (which is still unrealistically high), but not the charging speeds by that amount so now there is an obvious unrealistic discontinuity between a running unit and that same unit when its charging.

For a good clarification i'm waiting for Episto's report. I'd wish that they invite you to Brisbane office too Puzz.

We're gonna face two options of TW:
First one is advanced RTW which is gonna be disaster for us again.
Second one is advanced MTW... I pay 100 dollar for this without any doubt.

In my point of view they're pure different examples of TW tradition.

Besides eyecandy and shiny blogs gameplay shall decide real path of Mtw 2.

My two cents.

[Puzz3D]

I'd wish that they invite you to Brisbane office too Puzz.

Palamedes has no doubt done as much as anyone can do, and got more changes than I expected. I was considering buying M2TW given those changes, but the Athlon XP multiplayer issue has put me off. I'll reconsider it after the patch.

[Cheetah]

Well, what Pala wrote is both challenging and puzzling at the same time. Challenging because I am sure that now everyone wants to beat the AI on VH, puzzling because just like everyone else I do not see how could the AI offer a serious challenge to a human player on an even battleground.
The most likely solution is that the battleground won't be even, the troops of the human player might be more affected by fatigue and morale ... but this is just an educated guess ... also it seems that on VH it will be very difficult to beat the AI units head on (probably because of the above effects).

[Spino]

Based on the responses it seems that most people are unwilling to grant CA the benefit of the doubt and assume that they put an awful lot of time and effort into improving the tactical AI as opposed to resorting to hidden bonus type shenanigans for AI controlled armies. Can't say that I blame these people but should CA's claims wind up being considered false or grossly misleading the public outcry from the TW community would be massive. Basically I doubt CA would be so underhanded and/or stupid as to try and pull the proverbial wool over our collective eyes.

The relative openness that CA has exhibited via these developer blogs has only increased my optimism for MTW2. Not that I'm quite ready to jump off the fence and pre-order my copy but stuff like this certainly brightens my spirits.

[LadyAnn]

Yes, the blog is the reason why I came back to haunt this place :)

Anniep

[AussieGiant]

I also smell something fishy here.

As Jambo, and Econ have already mentioned there seems to be a few counter active concepts being revealed.

I hope the blog is simply not explaining things very well, because if VH is giving you the most realistic actual statistics then we are in a bit of trouble as far as i am concerned.

[Orda Khan]

I also smell something fishy here.

As Jambo, and Econ have already mentioned there seems to be a few counter active concepts being revealed.

I hope the blog is simply not explaining things very well, because if VH is giving you the most realistic actual statistics then we are in a bit of trouble as far as i am concerned.

Very well said

.........Orda

[AussieGiant]

Very well said

.........Orda

Thanks Orda, and I just had an ironic thought.

For me Very Hard Campaign and Medium Battle was the best set up in Rome.

If what is being said is in fact true, then we might be reversing our traditional difficult settings.

Medium Campaign (so the AI doesn't have thousands of florin to spend each turn) and VH Battle, which gives all of us accurate stats.

The analysis of the diffucult settings will be paramount for me having a good game.

I hope CA explain it in full once the game is released. I'd much prefer having them do that, rather than spending hours trying to test and confirm what each setting change does.

[screwtype]

The AI units respond faster on the higher difficulty settings (Note the last sentence which suggests that no one will be able to handle the full 20 units against the AI which implies the AI gets some kind of speed advantage.), and I'm quite sure it's the player's morale and fatigue that gets lowered not the AI's. Difficulty settings have always caused a dispartiy in morale between the player and the AI in every Total War game, and now they've extended that idea to include fatigue. Also, the blog doesn't actually say the AI is more intelligent. What it says is that some AI mechanics have been included which gives the AI a more intelligent feel. Again this sounds like an advantage the AI gets and the player doesn't.

Well I don't know if you're right, but if the AI has a fatigue advantage in VH, I imagine that could make for a pretty tough challenge.

Really though, I cannot understand CA's obsession with making all the decisions for the gamer, instead of letting him make his own. Why can't there simply be a set of game options where you can set things like morale and fatigue levels for both yourself and the AI, so that you can tailor the game to the exact level of challenge you find most appropriate?

[*Ringo*]

and I'm quite sure it's the player's morale and fatigue that gets lowered not the AI's.

Thats the way i read it also. What would be the point of lowering both the AI and player's stats uniformly? That results in no differences at all!

IMO this is CA's last chance to get the Total War series back on track. Understandably the new engine in RTW wasn't as polished as the STW engine was in MTW, it simply wasn't as developed. Lets hope that's the problems CA have addressed in MTW2 look more towards MTW as a benchmark and from this blog i'm encouraged (although not convinced).

Anyway, only time will tell; all this speculation is making me dizzy!

Why can't there simply be a set of game options where you can set things like morale and fatigue levels for both yourself and the AI, so that you can tailor the game to the exact level of challenge you find most appropriate?

Excellent idea btw screwtype!

[Puzz3D]

Excellent idea btw screwtype!

Creative Assembly doesn't think it's an excellent idea. We've been asking them for this for 5 years. They have refused to provide player selectable options on morale and fatigue, saying that it would be unfair to new players in multiplayer.

[edyzmedieval]

I am keeping my doubts regarding to the game...

[Faenaris]

Creative Assembly doesn't think it's an excellent idea. We've been asking them for this for 5 years. They have refused to provide player selectable options on morale and fatigue, saying that it would be unfair to new players in multiplayer.

Maybe I'm just dense, but I don't get that explanation. If you are a new player and you talk a bit with the host, I'm pretty sure you can set the values to a comfortable level.

But, I'm going off-topic.

I have read the blog and while it seems very promising, I won't get excited until I have played a campaign in M2TW. Making promises is one thing, holding to them is another and I hope CA can deliver all its promises. But, as I said, it all looks very promising.

[TerranAce007]

Really though, I cannot understand CA's obsession with making all the decisions for the gamer, instead of letting him make his own. Why can't there simply be a set of game options where you can set things like morale and fatigue levels for both yourself and the AI, so that you can tailor the game to the exact level of challenge you find most appropriate?

You can actually, if you manually edit the preferences.txt in notepad, but I don't know if that affects MP or not.

The problem that comes from putting so much "choice" in the game is that everyone has their own opinion of what difficulty settings make the game the most "realistic." For single player, it's not much of a problem, since it's you own decision, but in multiplayer (especialy in a competitive sense) some kind of standard for the difficulty settings will have to be set, and the standard will most-likely be different between various tournaments as they try to properly balance gameplay with realism...

For example: I like strategy games like Total War, but I also play flight sims as well. One of my favorites is a WWII flight sim called IL-2 Sturmovik. The game has tons of realism options that people argue about all the time. Padlock makes your virtual head automatically "follow" an enemy aircraft, which is a hell of a lot easier than looking around with your thumb and a hat switch while trying to fly. The downside is that it can also be used as "radar" since the game doesn't know if you can actually see the enemy. He could be behind the clouds, but you can still "lock on" to him. The result is that a lot of good servers turn off padlock in the name of realism, making the game unrealisticly hard, unless you are nerdy enough and have money to blow on a trackIR system (basically a motion sensor helmet you wear that tracks your physical head's motion and moves you virtual head accordingly, so you can actually "look around" in the game)...

I know it's a lengthy and somewhat off-topic analogy to some of you, but think of it as a democracy - every idiot out there has a say in how you play the game....

[cannon_fodder]

So now difficulty levels don't affect a unit's actual stats? That's good. It also seems implied that the enemy has no statistical advantage. If that is the case, I commend CA.

[Orda Khan]

You can actually, if you manually edit the preferences.txt in notepad, but I don't know if that affects MP or not.

Desync

.......Orda

[Polemists]

While I understand the mp aspect the it seems to contradict the ideas of AI many of you seem to have a problem with. If your goal is to fight other players on the same level, then AI won't matter. I guess if it was a 2 on 1 type of deal it may matter.

I dunno just some of my random thoughts.

Personally I've played demo, i was impressed by morale and fatigue. Much better then MTW and Rome in my opinon. It finally felt like a drawn out battle not a quick little skirmish of 40 ppl fighting and then me cutting down 400. I like the fact that a army can return that hole running the entire length of map in retreat thing got annoying. That's fine if calvary but if no one's chasing you it makes sense you may regroup and come back.

[Puzz3D]

You can actually, if you manually edit the preferences.txt in notepad, but I don't know if that affects MP or not.

You only have on/off settings for morale and fatigue in the preferences. These are switched using the arcade option in multiplayer. Prior to RTW, the players had separate control of these options. This combining of morale, fatigue and ammo into a single switch shows that Creative Assembly is actually moving in the opposite direction to what the community beta teams and screwtype have suggested.

The problem that comes from putting so much "choice" in the game is that everyone has their own opinion of what difficulty settings make the game the most "realistic."

We're not asking for more settings on morale. fatigue and ammo for the sake realism. We're asking for more settings besides simply on/off on these for the sake of gameplay since Creative Assembly doesn't optimize the gameplay.

[TerranAce007]

We're not asking for more settings on morale. fatigue and ammo for the sake realism. We're asking for more settings besides simply on/off on these for the sake of gameplay since Creative Assembly doesn't optimize the gameplay.

Well, what do you mean by "optimize the gameplay?" Is that not what the difficulty settings are for in the first place? If I am correctly interpreting your post, you mean the user should be able to set the impact of morale and fatigue indepedently of the diffuculty settings? If so, then what purpose does diffuculty serve? From what I understand about the AI system in RTW, difficulty level determines what advantages and disadvantages (ie. morale, fatigue, reaction time, etc...) are given to the AI, which is the same algorithm regardless of the difficulty setting. In that case, separate morale and fatigue settings would render the difficulty setting obsolete, but would allow you to "optimize" the gameplay to your personal desires.

I'm a bit of a nerd (comp sci major), so I understand some of what goes into programming AI opponents. For the subject of realism, it is my understanding that arcade mode disables morale, fatigue, etc, to make the game more 'fun,' while non-arcade mode enables them for, well, a more 'realistic' experience.

If the AI in M2TW is really as good as they claim, then we could be talking about "smarter" AI opponents on harder difficulties, rather than just bonuses to make up for a lack of "intelligence" in the AI on harder settings. In the blog, they seem to equate "very hard" with being the most "realistic," so it would appear that there are variable morale and fatigue settings in the game (some way or another). Now, with different AI, your system would be more feasable since you know the difficulty setting determines the :intelligence" of the AI, while the morale and fatigue settings would allow you to optimize the game to your liking.

But then we still have the enormously subjective difficulty standard I mentioned earlier...

[LadyAnn]

Backtrack :) Gotta separate out SP and MP issues...

Anniep

[Puzz3D]

Well, what do you mean by "optimize the gameplay?" Is that not what the difficulty settings are for in the first place?

It has nothing to do with difficulty settings. The battle engine is a system with various parameters. They haven't set the morale and fatigue parameters to values which allow the system to provide the gameplay which it is potentially capable of providing. They got it basically right with STW, but not since then. They admitted they forgot to optimize the fatigue for the larger maps that MTW used, the morale level was set too low in multiplayer and ranged units were not effective enough. These things got some adjustments, but they still missed the mark because CA doesn't go through enough iterations on these adjustments. The fatigue and morale was still off the mark in RTW, but the ranged units were better balanced. Now it's clear that the reload time in the M2TW demo is problematic, so I would add reload time to the parameters over which the players need some control.

It would split the community into subgroups, but you would have more people playing (a lot more) as compensation, and the players would be happier with the game. CA has said that want to make the game "fun" to play. Why are they content to have so many dissatisfied players, and so many former players who have quit?

For the subject of realism, it is my understanding that arcade mode disables morale, fatigue, etc, to make the game more 'fun,' while non-arcade mode enables them for, well, a more 'realistic' experience.

I don't know a single veteran player who finds arcade mode to be more fun.

[alpaca]

The AI has another advantage over the player: It can control all units pretty much at the same time whereas the player can only give one unit a time an order and then has to select the next unit, etc. Each order takes at least 1sec for a good player, a lot more if you have to think a bit or aren't so good.

The AI utilizing this only on the higher difficulty settings might also be part of a speed advantage the blog talks about.

[TerranAce007]

I don't know a single veteran player who finds arcade mode to be more fun.

Maybe I used the term 'fun' a little too loosely. I myself play vh/vh because I like difficulty and realism, which is 'fun' for me, as well as to all the veteran players you refer to. More 'simplistic' is probably a better word, since it dumbs down the strategy and tactics and turns the game into an all out melee, hence the term arcade mode. Strategic victories from good tactics are always fun, but arcade mode makes the game more attractive to newcomers and casual players since it involves less thinking and more action. Or if you just feel like firing up a quick battle between classes to massacre a significantly larger AI army for a little amusement.

Either way, I think I will enjoy M2TW. To do all the tweaking you mention takes a lot of time and testing, which means more waiting for us. If the battle engine sucks, they can always release a patch, but at least we have a game to play...

Theres always mods too...

[Puzz3D]

Either way, I think I will enjoy M2TW. To do all the tweaking you mention takes a lot of time and testing, which means more waiting for us. If the battle engine sucks, they can always release a patch, but at least we have a game to play...

Theres always mods too...

Mods are not a solution for multiplayer. We need multiple selectable options on morale, fatigue, ammo, reload and gamespeed. This would not delay the release of the game. What will never happen is for CA to go through all that's necessary to optimize the gameplay. They haven't even come close to doing so in the recent attempts.

I don't see how selectable options whould harm SP, but have no fear because as soon as M2TW is released a multiplayer forum for M2TW will be created, and you won't have us around bothering you. We'll be shuffled off to a separate forum where it will be easy to ignore us.

[Cheetah]

Mods are not a solution for multiplayer. We need multiple selectable options on morale, fatigue, ammo, reload and gamespeed. This would not delay the release of the game. What will never happen is for CA to go through all that's necessary to optimize the gameplay. They haven't even come close to doing so in the recent attempts.

Yuuki you should be a bit more optimistic than that. Do you really think that they dont want to "optimise" it? (according to their criteria of course)

BTW, have you played BI MP?

I don't see how selectable options whould harm SP

It wont harm SP but it could create a nightmare in MP. Imagine everyone hosting with different morale, fatigue, ammo, reload and gamespeed setups. Different setups favour different styles which in turn favour different units. That means that one have to test and keep in mind the best style and best unit combos for each setup. It is not just nearly impossible (if you have just 3 options for each then it is 3x3x3x3x3=243 different combinations) but most players are simply not interested in that.

[ProudNerd]

I really don't understand this blog. If morale and fatigue are ultra realistic on very hard, and the AI is at its smartest, I can't see why that makes playing on very hard a great challenge. It sounds like a level playing field, and I am pretty confident most experienced players can beat even the smartest TW AI on a level playing field.

The big tension with RTWs battlefield difficulty is between realism and challenge. Medium is realistic in the sense that unit match-ups are what you'd expect from the stats. But veteran SPers often press for hard or very hard to make it more challenging. This greater challenge comes at the price of unrealistic unit match-ups - AI hastati beating human principes etc.

I can see that higher morale across the board might be both more realistic and make it more challenging (as in RTR), but still on medium and with equal forces, the experienced player will still walk it.

Fatigue I actually think hurts the AI in RTW - it's often exhausted when it hits your fresh troops. I've started turning fatigue off to increase the challenge.

Smarter AI is nice, of course, but I can't see why it should not be on by default - rather than linked to difficulty levels. With all due respect to CA, I just can't see it being so smart, it's too smart for most players. Yes, a chess AI can thrash most inexperienced players like me but I doubt TW AI has got to that level yet - there are just too many and too complex options for the AI to compute.

Something does not compute. The only way I can see very hard being extremely difficult is if things are unrealistically slanted in favour of the AI (e.g. your men rout or tire realistically, but the AIs act like tireless Spartans). Either VH is not very challenging - which is unlikely given that Jason is an experienced MPer - or it is not the most realistic experience you are likely to have. If the AI will only be smart on a difficulty level where things are in some hidden way slanted in favour of the AI, then that is a bad game design decision, IMO.

That’s exactly what I think the entire blog makes the AI sound totally redundant. I’m not impressed in he slightest. Btween this and the apprantly same horrible dipo its removed a heck of alot of the excitement for mtw2. Who caes thats its a new setting and all that if it has these two gaming ruining flaws?

[*Ringo*]

To do all the tweaking you mention takes a lot of time and testing, which means more waiting for us. If the battle engine sucks, they can always release a patch, but at least we have a game to play...

Theres always mods too...

Personally i'd be happy to wait much longer for a well developed fully tested game, even if that meant another year or two! This, of course, never happens due to the pressure of the money men to make a profit!

Patching should really be restricted to C bugs IMO. And not everyone is willing to spend the time investigating MODS, no matter how good they most definitely are; I usually buy a game based on the contents of the box (which incidently should include a map as standard) not what I can potentially do with the contents! *says while making a paper hat out of his RTW map*