News on the patch.

[Frantz]

played the game for many hours and the only real problem for me is the AI on tactical battles ... a game fail when you realize tht you are playng alone against a stupid computer ... MTW2 is so near to be a perfect game that is a shame to see 500 knights massacred by 2 units of militia crossbow ( if the game isnt patched i will halve the amount of arrows/darts when possible )
but lets help CA with some heavy scripts :

IF you have 1 unit of archers and the opponent 12 THEN attack !!
IF you your units are standing for more than 5 minutes THEN move your a...
IF you are getting to the ram and the door is already open THEN leave it and enter the door !!
IF you sustain more casualties by arrows than your opponent THEN retreat or attack !!
and build more ladders !!!

[absents]

Wow, you people just keep on bending backwards for CA that has consistently kept on NOT improving the games they make.
Good for you, I guess. There's a saying in my country; if one is given with a spoon, can't demand with a scoop.

[Barry Fitzgerald]

Hmm maybe a tad harsh there!

I think maybe some are just pretty happy, and some fussy.

[Frantz]

i personally say that because i LOVE the game , i just dont understand how after all the playtesting and months of production they havent saw that enormous AI faults ...thats all

[Barry Fitzgerald]

Well I agree with frantz and econ.

I am fussy myself...but I dont think that is a bad thing really. I don't expect miracles either. Maybe well all got to expect too much...

It has to be said (and with respect to CA), clearly they are not a charity but a commercial games developer. The days of Paul woakes, and Geoff Crammond are likely over. This is a serious business, with much larger outlays for companies, pretty obvious that this time of year was the target for sales..(nothing wrong there)..

Point being deadline hits...product must be out. I am sure they knew about the numerous issues....

Is this acceptable? Well it isnt ideal is it...from a end user point of view.

[absents]

If M2TW is any indication of how you run a "serious business", I expect CA bankrupt soon enough.

[d1ng0d0g]

Well I do hope a patch appears soon, but I'm still entertained quite a bit by this game. The bugs that some people mention are actually features. Some of the features may indeed need balancing, but that's something that could be (and should be) done by volunteer modders. True bugs should be fixed.


Personally I love games that can be modified a lot and those are the games I spend money on. Infinite replayabillity, or at least, a lot more value for your buck then most non-moddable games.

I would really love to see a game producer create only an engine and provide all the tools to create a game and put that on sale. This would maybe require a really large legal team, putting to trial any who try to make a profit of your engine.

Then as a demonstration make and sell a game using that engine.

This would really improve the world of gaming a lot and keep a lot of people from screaming.

"If you don't like it, change it."

And then you could.

Dingo

[Daveybaby]

i personally say that because i LOVE the game , i just dont understand how after all the playtesting and months of production they havent saw that enormous AI faults ...thats all

Become a software developer on a massively complex project with unmissable deadlines looming and financial constraints on how many people you can employ and how much time you can spend testing and you will begin to understand.

If M2TW is any indication of how you run a "serious business", I expect CA bankrupt soon enough.

Must... not... feed... troll... must... resist... urge... to... ridicule...

[JFC]

Become a software developer on a massively complex project with unmissable deadlines looming and financial constraints on how many people you can employ and how much time you can spend testing and you will begin to understand.

DaveyBaby, Sorry fella, but that irritated me. We, the consumer, shouldn't/don't need to understand! We want a product that works! Or at least by now have some kind of 1st patch that is starting to address problems raised to keep the interest going.
If I buy a car that gets delivered without a steering wheel and tyres I'm gonna be a bit miffed and I aint gonna become a mechanic to understand why!
It's a business I agree, however they have sold a product with problems! (and no offence to CA, quite a few!) And who decides the release date? Isn't it them and SEGA?

[Freedom Onanist]

DaveyBaby, Sorry fella, but that irritated me. We, the consumer, shouldn't/don't need to understand! We want a product that works! Or at least by now have some kind of 1st patch that is starting to address problems raised to keep the interest going.
If I buy a car that gets delivered without a steering wheel and tyres I'm gonna be a bit miffed and I aint gonna become a mechanic to understand why!
It's a business I agree, however they have sold a product with problems! (and no offence to CA, quite a few!) And who decides the release date? Isn't it them and SEGA?

Well, in your estimation it is flawed and presumably unplayable. To many others this isn't the case. CA would be liable if they had released the game you are talking about, but many people don't recognise as such. Certainly, my CA "car" has got a steering wheel and tyres. It mightn't be as responsive as I hoped in some situations, but CA are releasing the suspension and low profiles to "pimp my MTW2".

Yes the AI can be improved and CA have stated that they are working on just that. But, the AI, as it is, doesn't make the game useless, many people are enjoying themselves - maybe they don't know any better eh?.

As has been said, CA are working on a patch. If the patch is late, so be it. The complaining usually starts with "this game has been rushed to the shelves....", so i don't think you can have it both ways and complain if they are taking their time this time round.

[Doug-Thompson]

You know, enough really is enough.

I fired up my computer this morning, came to the forum, and found four patch/general bug threads on the first page. The games been out a couple of weeks.

All right. A bunch of folks not happy. You haven't been happy for weeks. The number of threads where people think their individual unhappiness deserves a thread of its own is a clear sign of that.

We all get the message. However, we got the message a long, long time ago.

If you must remind everybody at least once a day of how unhappy you still are, would you all please find one thread — one that has been created already, giving plenty to choose from — and stick to it. There'd be no danger of it sinking to the bottom. There's obviously enough misery to keep it afloat.

It's gotten to the point that you have to choose up sides between being a fanboy or perpetually p*ssed off.

[Daveybaby]

DaveyBaby, Sorry fella, but that irritated me. We, the consumer, shouldn't/don't need to understand! We want a product that works!

Shrug. Not saying you have to understand, but i was responding to somebody who said they couldnt understand how the game got shipped with bugs. The reason is, basically: in software, bugs happen. The more complex the software, the more likely it is to happen. Thats how.

We'd all rather the game had been bug free, but if you can name one complex strategy game that was released in that state in the last 10 years, i'd be interested to hear it. Even bog-standard RTS-by-numbers games get patched several times after release, and most of those *still* dont do anything more complex than the command & conquer did 15 years ago.

Or at least by now have some kind of 1st patch that is starting to address problems raised to keep the interest going.

In case you havent been paying attention, there IS a patch, its in the publishers QA cycle, which means stuff like checking it doesnt format your hard drive when you install it (cos i'm sure everybody would just LOVE that) across umpteen different versions of windows and hardware, and adding the copy protection so that the all the leet crackers have something to keep them busy for another 15 minutes. This stuff takes time - about... oooooh... 2 weeks or so on average.

I think it would be nice if CA kept us a bit better informed as to whats going on, but to be honest i cant blame them for keeping their heads down until they know for definite when its going to be released, cos god forbid they give a date and then have it slip - i can just imagine the tantrums.

If I buy a car that gets delivered without a steering wheel and tyres I'm gonna be a bit miffed and I aint gonna become a mechanic to understand why!

This isnt a car. You may as well make comparisons with buying a cake for all the relevance that has. Nor, for that matter, is it a shoot em up or beat em up with the exact same gameplay as last time bolted onto a swishy new graphics engine for the next generation of consoles. Crank that handle.

It's a business I agree, however they have sold a product with problems! (and no offence to CA, quite a few!) And who decides the release date? Isn't it them and SEGA?

Unfortunately, business reality sets the release date. Christmas season has a say. So do finances, profits and the march of technology. There is a window of opportunity where your product is viable, a fixed target that has to be met.

There are a lucky few (valve, sid meier) who have sufficient funds that they can dictate their own timescales, but everyone else is all too aware that it doesnt take much to sink a software house. And its usually the ones who are doing something different that are the first to go.

You can say "i shouldnt have to care" all you like. In a perfect world you would be right.

[TB666]

i just dont understand how after all the playtesting and months of production they havent saw that enormous AI faults ...thats all

That's because the AI faults was created right before the game went gold.
They tried to make the AI more aggressive on the battlefield but discovered after the game went gold that the AI was now instead extremely passive and once the game has gone gold you can't touch it unless with a patch.
If you played the pre-beta demo unscripted you can see that there is no trace of a passive AI and that the AI uses it's troops like a pro.
Good use of flanking, no suicidal generals, finding weak spots in your line etc.
I myself got beaten countless times by the AI in the pre-beta demo, it was that good.

Now CA has already fixed that huge AI bug and Palamedes thought they would release that patch on day 1 but I can guess that SEGA wanted CA to make a large patch instead that will fix any other bug that will be reported.
And hopefully that patch is soon finished.
After all Wikiman did not say that we would have it in two weeks.
He just said that would have it if testing went smoothly which if the patch is indeed delayed then it didn't go smoothly.

[Barry Fitzgerald]

I have to agree with TB666...that is my experience also. The demo was much more in yer face attacking, and using it would seem anyhow some reasoning and strategy.

Currently in the retail game it is IMO very passive and a bit feeble being honest. Every trick I try just seems to work most of the time. Flanking cavalry attacks dont get countered..or even a response until you have engaged a unit.

I have even moved whole armies right up next to an enemy..and they just stand there...nothing...this happens too often, though not all the time. People complained rome was buggy when it was out..meet the new champ!

It does spoil the game a fair bit...you cannot say what we are playing now, is really what it should be. I am not at the point where I am shelving the game, but on the other hand ist impressions count...and I am not blown away as I was with the other total war games..(and they had their faults)

So we shall see what the real game is when the patch/patches are out..until then we are really paying playtesters for an almost beta game in some respects.

[nameless]

Currently in the retail game it is IMO very passive and a bit feeble being honest. Every trick I try just seems to work most of the time. Flanking cavalry attacks dont get countered..or even a response until you have engaged a unit.

I have even moved whole armies right up next to an enemy..and they just stand there...nothing...this happens too often, though not all the time. People complained rome was buggy when it was out..meet the new champ!

It does spoil the game a fair bit...you cannot say what we are playing now, is really what it should be. I am not at the point where I am shelving the game, but on the other hand ist impressions count...and I am not blown away as I was with the other total war games..(and they had their faults)

So we shall see what the real game is when the patch/patches are out..until then we are really paying playtesters for an almost beta game in some respects.

The AI actually counters what you do, at least from what I have seen.

Missile troops go off first to lure you in. However, if you send out a unit to lure them in they take the bait and charge in en masse.

Interestingly enough they kept a few troops in the back. When I tried to get my knights and swordsmen to flank they actually deployed and charged these troops to hold them off. They eventually failed but the fact is that the AI attempted to counter my moves.

In siege battles, I usually spread out my troops to spread out the AI's own troops but eventually the AI will realize which is the most dangerous and will redeploy their troops to stop it.

[redriver]

People complained rome was buggy when it was out..meet the new champ!

I don't have the game myself but I know somebody who got a brand new high end system with best pretty much everythin' and a fata$$ LCD sceen ontop just for this game. after playin' it for less than a week he just shelved it and downloaded Chivalry to play RTW until the patch comes out.
the guy was like really hyped 'bout the game and now he tells me it's only good for eye candy and even then RTW still looks better now that he can run it on max settings too lol

[Frantz]

thank you TB666 , now i feel better :)

[Darkmoor_Dragon]

That's because the AI faults was created right before the game went gold.
They tried to make the AI more aggressive on the battlefield but discovered after the game went gold that the AI was now instead extremely passive and once the game has gone gold you can't touch it unless with a patch.
If you played the pre-beta demo unscripted you can see that there is no trace of a passive AI and that the AI uses it's troops like a pro.
Good use of flanking, no suicidal generals, finding weak spots in your line etc.
I myself got beaten countless times by the AI in the pre-beta demo, it was that good.

Now CA has already fixed that huge AI bug and Palamedes thought they would release that patch on day 1 but I can guess that SEGA wanted CA to make a large patch instead that will fix any other bug that will be reported.
And hopefully that patch is soon finished.
After all Wikiman did not say that we would have it in two weeks.
He just said that would have it if testing went smoothly which if the patch is indeed delayed then it didn't go smoothly.

Ttbeofk the demo was scripted - there were practically no AI actions in it at all.

[Darkmoor_Dragon]

There is no denying there is a great game buried in MTW2 but its partially hidden behind some fairly serious balance issues and a mediocre to awful AI on the tactical battle maps and on the campaign.

There is an excuse with software that if you ship it broken you can always patch it later. The legitimacy vanishes when that starts to become be the deliberate action, rather than the unfortunate circumstance.

CA should be experienced enough to know that friggin' with the code, especially the AI which has ALWAYS been their Achilles heel, is quite literally suicidal and whoever made that decision bears the ultimate responsibility for the subsequent disenfranchisement of a substantial proportion of their fan base.

CA promised (again) that THIS time it would be different, we would be awed by the AI on both battle and campaign modes - but yet again it isn't and we certianly are not.

As one reviewer succinctly put it -

" Yet, while Creative Assembly has addressed some issues, others continue to plague them. Worse, these problems have existed throughout the series and considering this is the fourth game in the franchise and the second with this engine, patience has worn thin to say the least".

I've got plenty enough experience with designing, playing, testing and writing about games to say that I'm aware of the vast majority of "issues" surrounding a game development, testing and release - but come on folks, as much as we LOVE CA for making the series, as much as we LOVE the potential, as much as we LOVE the improvements... what gives with them (CA) messing with the code and releasing it (essentially) untested when they KNOW that AI will ultimately make or break the game for a massive (and it is massive) number of buyers?

I mean, batter your head against a brick wall or what?

CA, get a grip: your (SP) game is utterly reliant on the capability of the AI, it makes or breaks the entire (sp) game.

And I'm thinking of those members of CA i've spoken to in person and/or interviewed for magazines and I'm thinking "Which one of you was the total Numpti-foo" who made that brilliant decision?

(And I wonder if anybody {still} in the press will ever have the balls to ask them to their face?)

[TB666]

Ttbeofk the demo was scripted - there were practically no AI actions in it at all.

However if you removed the script there was plenty.
Pre-beta demo unscripted= AI is good, better then in RTW 1.5 and more like what they promised
Gold demo unscripted= the same thing we see in M2TW now.

[econ21]

Wow, you people just keep on bending backwards for CA that has consistently kept on NOT improving the games they make.

If you are talking about patches - as we are - then you are quite wrong.

The patched MTW/VI was significantly improved over MTW 1.0 and RTW 1.5/1.6 is significantly improved over RTW 1.0 (if you doubt me, ask the EB or RTR teams why they are porting to 1.5 from 1.2).

I've never read anyone arguing otherwise or wanting to play with a v1.0 TW game rather than the final patched version.

[Jambo]

What Shogun posted is not what I'd call news. Wikiman already said there would be further news in 2 weeks approximately 2 weeks ago! All Shogun has done is repeated that statement and the sycophantic fanboys go delerious for a few days giving CA some more time. If I was being cynical I'd say it was simply a stalling tactic, and it's worked. They now have till next week to come up with something, whatever that may be. As I count it that means the proposed release day patch, a promise that suckered me into purchasing the game, has now become at best a 4 week patch, possibly longer, since in true CA form nothing concrete has been stated. In fact, it's entirely possible that the patch won't even be out next week... most likely it'll just be more "news"...

I've played the game only 4 days before the niggles bothered me enough to shelve the game. The passive AI, the inability of the some units to actually inflict damage on cavalry, the buggy siege AI, the massive lag during certain sieges, the pathfinding frustrations, etc, etc.

[Frantz]

Jambo is true , there are bugs but come on there are 1000 other fantastic things that make you play and play again .... yours is a point of view a bit too negative and not objective , sad to say that ... shelve the game ? come on ...

[Jambo]

Jambo is true , there are bugs but come on there are 1000 other fantastic things that make you play and play again .... yours is a point of view a bit too negative and not objective , sad to say that ... shelve the game ? come on ...

1000...

Negative. Objective. I feel I'm being very objective. I'm not saying I hate the game or CA, or that it's terrible. What I am saying is that in its current form I finding it hard to immerse myself in the experience. Everytime I play out a tactical battle I feel I'm exploiting the system. Play with archers and the passive AI won't attack, play a siege defence and the AI falls short in so many ways it's an automatic victory. Sure, the odd battle works really well and the thrill returns, but this isn't me being negative, it's me being realistic. It's just not enjoyable. I play games to be mentally and dexterously challenged and if it doesn't do this, then I play another.

[chunkynut]

Thinking about how MTW and RTW were patched I think we can expect nothing for a couple of months and then a big patch ... which will also ship with an expansion pack

I think the games great and for passive AI problems ... attack if you really find it a problem. I find it's about 50/50 if the AI will be passive or not - in situations where I feel they should be, and I've seen intelligent AI e.g. on bridge crossing was firing into the defending AI and they did nothing for a while as I was moving my troops across and having taken casualties (and started outnumbered) retreated from the field.

I'd rather have a [i]more[i/] aggressive AI but not so much so that we get the suicidal generals or cavalry miles ahead of the main body of the army so you can just pick them off.

[Veresov]

What Shogun posted is not what I'd call news. Wikiman already said there would be further news in 2 weeks approximately 2 weeks ago! All Shogun has done is repeated that statement and the sycophantic fanboys go delerious for a few days giving CA some more time. If I was being cynical I'd say it was simply a stalling tactic, and it's worked. They now have till next week to come up with something, whatever that may be. As I count it that means the proposed release day patch, a promise that suckered me into purchasing the game, has now become at best a 4 week patch, possibly longer, since in true CA form nothing concrete has been stated. In fact, it's entirely possible that the patch won't even be out next week... most likely it'll just be more "news"...

I've played the game only 4 days before the niggles bothered me enough to shelve the game. The passive AI, the inability of the some units to actually inflict damage on cavalry, the buggy siege AI, the massive lag during certain sieges, the pathfinding frustrations, etc, etc.

Well said Jambo! My thought exactly.

When I read that CA was only going to give "news" of the patch shortly, I could only sigh with disappointment. This tells me that the patch is not going to be available anytime soon. After all, why release news if the patch is just around the corner? I doubt CA will even give a specific release date in this 'news'. I suspect this patch won't be released until Jan 2007.

Now, you can argue that this delay is great. They will fix more bugs. Thats one way of looking at it. My thinking is however that this game was not adequately tested, is riddled with bugs, and it is sitting on my shelf. The lag on the sieges is so bad that I have to autoresolve these or reboot the PC and my system is state of the art SLI. Its sad to say but I can't play this game without getting frustrated by the bugs.

[Freedom Onanist]

Weird really, I think I am playing the same game as some of you, yet I am still enjoying it.

There are a few things that are niggly, the AI passivity, the micro-mangement of agents (something which has always been in the TW series from the start), the way assassins and merchants take sooooo long to become useful and able to take on the opposition (again all that micro-management). The un-intuitive way your agents and generals have to be actively searched for. How often have been so deeply into the game and click on a city to find 5-6 generals? Some of the units seem a bit iffy on their stats (billmen anyone?).

But none of these things are game stoppers to. They are all down to my personal preferences and idionsyncracies. All these things have bugged me from the start with the series. Well, all save the AI passivity. I am confident CA will rectify this. I think it is the result of over conservative setting after the play testing, maybe they felt that unlike the (few) players who come to these forums (who all seem to be VH/VH ) the run of the mill player out there would be too challenged by an overly agressive AI.

The fact remains, that I have had hours of fun already and by the sounds of it it should be getting better - all for £25, not bad IMHO.

[Jambo]

I take it you've never experienced the show-stopping lag sometimes encountered during siege defences? Well, if you have it's a gamebreaker as you have to quit the battle. Having said all that, I do enjoy it when it works - it just falls short too often at the moment to keep me interested. I'm sure the patch will do wonders when it arrives, but what worries me is that M2TW is the only game I've ever shelved within 4 days of purchase. My other recent purchases, BF2142 and Civ IV, were far more playable and challenging straight out the box.

Agent micromanagement is a cumbersome chore, but like you say it's no gamebreaker and I can live with that. It's funny, I also remember occasions of clicking on cities and thinking, man, where did all those generals come from...!!

[Husar]

I take it you've never experienced the show-stopping lag sometimes encountered during siege defences?

Upgrade your hardware or disable high quality textures and Shader 2, this is not a bug, it's you insufficient hardware and the fact that you chose your settings too high.
Since I got a new graphicscard, I had no unplayable lag on high settings...
And no, I would not call the game a beta, I think it's awesome, but that does not prevent me from expecting a patch for the passive AI bug and some other minor bugs.

[Grifman]

Wow, you people just keep on bending backwards for CA that has consistently kept on NOT improving the games they make.
Good for you, I guess. There's a saying in my country; if one is given with a spoon, can't demand with a scoop.

To say CA hasn't improved the game from the original Shogun is patently absurd.