MP Losing Appeal

[CBR]

But then Puzz3D, I really don´t understand when you says that balancing the units is extremely complicated with the new engine while you proclaim that the new engine is lesser advanced than the MTW engine... /C.

Since one can no longer just look at a stats to find a units combat power but also have to consider actual animations it becomes more difficult.

The actual calculations of finding out if one soldiers hits his target is now more "advanced" than the older engine. But it also introduces more elements that can go wrong if not properly tested.

The player has no control over most of these elements and is only concerned with one thing: does his unit win the fight or not.

So we see stuff like pikemen who cant raise their pikes when figthing against enemies on higher ground, horses that jumps over the pikes, units that switches to secondary weapon too soon or units that are able to push/run through enemy ranks that they couldnt do when fighting etc etc.

In the meantime things like we see on Yuuki's list are left out. And some of that does have an effect on gameplay to make it less advanced.

And actually M2TW is also a rock, paper, scissors game. Spears have extra bonuses v cavalry and some hardcoded handicap v infantry. If we dont see it in the actual game its because of bugs, bad design decisions and/or lack of proper testing.

oh and you said "because of the simple reason that we have a need for challenges" What is challenging to you? Having to go though all units to find the best (non bugged ones) ? Trying out all factions to find the best?


CBR

[x-dANGEr]

2. Lower accuracy for indirect fire weapons based on depth of the formation and visual obstruction of the individual men. For example, deep formations of archers don't suffer any decrease in accuracy if placed on a downward slope of sufficient gradient that all the men in the formation have an unobstruced view of the target. For another example, the third rank of an archer formation has reduced accuracy when the unit is in close formation, but not when in loose formation. For another example, archers have lower accuracy when shooting over a friendly unit due to the more obstruced view of the target.

3. Range is adjusted for the height of the shooter, and based on experience, I would say accuracy as well.

4. Reduced accuracy for bow weapons in rain. The amount of reduction depending upon how hard it is raining.

5. Increased misfires for gunpowder weapons depending on how hard it is raining. The old engine had 25% misfires for light rain, 50% misfires for medium rain and 75% misfires for heavy rain.

6. Range calculated on an individual man basis.

7. Direct fire weapons (guns) don't shoot if the man's line of sight is obstructed by a man.

8. Fatigue causes longer reload time for some of the men in a unit so that they do not shoot on the next volley. As fatigue increases, the number of men affected increases.

So you want to nerf archers even more.. !!!

10. Units respond immediately to movement orders.

Agreed.

[Puzz3D]

So you want to nerf archers even more.. !!!

Not at all. In Samurai Wars, 10 volleys from an archer unit will kill 30 warrior monks on flat ground. That's half the unit, and the 10 volleys can be delivered in 40 seconds. On top of that, the archers carry 36 arrows which means potentially they can kill 105 warrior monks which is nearly 2 full units. The archer unit costs 400 and the warrior monk unit costs 1000. This kill rate I'm describing is the same against any unit that has armor = 1 of which there are several. The archers are less effective against units of higher armor, but still cost effective against several of those units. The ranged unit effectiveness in combination with the fatigue definitely deters rushing which makes for an interesting skirmish phase to the battles. This skirmish phase doesn't last for a long time like it did in MTW because the ranged units consume their ammo more quickly, and the ranged units suffer a higher casualty rate when skirmishing. Balancing the ranged units is quite important in Total War battles because if they are too strong it becomes a shooting game, and if they are too weak it becomes a rushing game.

I was asked what some of the differences were between the old and new battle engines, so I posted some of the differences. I don't expect any of these old features to be brought back, although some attempt has been made to bring back the "squeezed too tight" combat penalty which is an important feature because is means you have to keep your units separated for maximum effectiveness.

I suppose an argument can be made that archers don't have to be able to see what they are shooting at, but it seems to me a man would fire more accurately if he did see what he's shooting at. Removing the line of sight penalties to accuracy means it doesn't matter what shape the archer unit takes. It's hard to view this as an improvement to the tactics of using ranged weapons if you've played the older game. For instance, in the old engine you could get a significant advantage over an enemy ranged unit by using enfilade fire because the unit that was enfiladed could not return fire as effectively as the unit delivering it. In the new engine, their is no tactical advantage to such a maneuver because the enfiladed unit returns fire just as effectively. In fact, there is a disadvantage in maneuvering into a position to deliver enfilade fire because your unit will incur fatigue moving and may also come under fire as it moves into position. It's simply pointless to even try the maneuver, and I'm not sure it's worth doing even if it gives you a height advantage.

In any case, I don't expect these old features that involve analytical calculations on individual men to be brought back because it would have too much impact on framerate. If the battle mechanics problems and the lag issue can be solved in the next patch, Palamedes might have a chance to do some good playbalancing in that patch and one after that. I believe there should be a patch after the next one so that multiplayer feedback can be used to improve the playbalance. That might make the gameplay attractive enough for players who liked the older gameplay.

However, as you can see it takes CA a long time to produce a patch so it's very costly for them. They are not inclined to make patches simply to improve playbalance. The most favorable situation for MP is to have a serious bug in the SP campaign that requires another patch to fix which allows MP playbalance adjustments to be made in that patch. This is what happened with the MTW/VI v2.01 patch. The "all kings die at age 56" bug was the reason the v2.01 patch got the go ahead, but even then the programmers had to do it on their own time for no pay. Of course, that was under Activision. SEGA seems to be more willing to approve patches, but even with SEGA there is a limit because as you can see the RTW v1.5 SP campaign was left with the civil war bug and the battles engine left with the "butt spike" issue.

[x-dANGEr]

Puzz3D, I understand you. But all I'm saying is that we certainly don't need those kinds of "calculations" with the current stats. Simply, archers aren't used.. If some balance changes are made, that'd make the archer battle worth it, those additions would only be nice to have.

[|Heerbann|_Di3Hard]

However, as you can see it takes CA a long time to produce a patch so it's very costly for them.

I am sure, they already produce the addon (extension pack). This will require most of resources.

[Marius Dynamite]

I blame Gamespy. It kicks me out after a few minutes now. I can still play if I get my clan to host and ready up then I join and start ASAP. After we start battle I get the 'Disconnected from Gamespy blah blah.. ' message but that makes no difference, the game runs fine, it's just the getting started.

The actual multiplayer gameplay I'm ok with. It's not great but it's still good fun with friends. I am looking mainly forward to the Napoleonic Mods though.

Gamespy was the same with Stronghold 2 back when I was young and played that. I probably will avoid games that use Gamespy now. If they use that they are obviously very, very cheap games.

[Lusted]

I am sure, they already produce the addon (extension pack). This will require most of resources.

Yeah most of the dev teams already working on it.

[Puzz3D]

I blame Gamespy. It kicks me out after a few minutes now. I can still play if I get my clan to host and ready up then I join and start ASAP. After we start battle I get the 'Disconnected from Gamespy blah blah.. ' message but that makes no difference, the game runs fine, it's just the getting started.

Gamespy was the same with Stronghold 2 back when I was young and played that. I probably will avoid games that use Gamespy now. If they use that they are obviously very, very cheap games.

The game itself may be contributing to the disconnect. RTW had this same problem in v1.0 and v1.1, but it worked much better after the v1.2 patch. I had no problem staying connected to the MTW/VI lobby and don't even today, but I had terrible problems staying connected to the RTW v1.1 lobby, and they both use GameSpy. Many players, including myself, experienced disconnects in MTW v1.0 until it was patched to v1.1. The disconnect is something CA should definitely look at in the M2TW v1.2 beta and try to improve. CA seems destined to repeat mistakes over and over with every new release which is part of the reason I didn't rush out and buy M2TW.

[Cerxes]

Because the new engine is missing quite a few things that were in the old engine and they seem to revolve around the combat model for the individual men. Yes they added some new parameters in the new engine such as stamina and lethality and they added shoot while moving, but do these offset what was removed? I don't think so. In the old engine they did distance and line of sight calculations for every single man on the battlefield, and the game ran with faster frames per second on slower computers. Fatigue was also tracked for individual men then averaged over the unit, and I don't know if that's still being done either. I suspect that a lot of cpu power is being consumed by the animations since the move to the 3D men, and that came partially from simplifying other things in the combat model and partially by increasing the cpu requirement. It seems to me that the AI for the individual men is also simplified in the new engine because the men don't know how to properly gang up on a man when they have him outnumbered or how to pursue routers effectively, and they did both of these things better in the old engine.

The new engine is much more advanced in the animation of the men, and these animations now affect the combat results. It would be great if the 3D animations in the new engine modeled combat as well as the more purely statistical model in the old engine, but it appears to me the 3D has a long way to go before it achieves that. It is logical that a heavy weapon would be more cumbersome and couldn't be swung as fast as a lighter weapon, but you don't see lightly armed men making evasive moves when a heavy weapon is swung at them, so the model is incomplete and can't actually model what would happen in such a situation. Also, there is no modeling of different parts of the body being struck or perhaps a shield being destroyed so that a man has to continue on in melee without a shield. You never see a spear or lance get broken, etc. It did defy belief in RTW when a man would be running forward with a pike point against his chest, and he would just keep running forward like that. I don't know if this happens in M2TW. The analytical statistical model is actually superior in modeling combat at this point in the development of the game, and realistically I don't see how a 3D model could cover everything it has to in a game that's trying to field many thousands of men on the battlefield without driving the system requirements off the chart.

The combat cycle is simpler in the old engine, and therefore it's easier to balance the units. There do seem to be more situational combat factors modeled in the old engine which should give it more tactical depth. That tactical depth doesn't become apparent unless the units are well balanced. We learned this the hard way doing the STW/MI v1.02 rebalance beta testing where we ended up with overpowered guns, and I saw it happen again in MTW/VI with the overpriced spears and weak shooters taking away from the possible tactics. Introducing a variable combat cycle to the old engine for different types of weapons or level or armor would make it harder to balance. I don't think it would benefit the tactical play because you can account for different weapon types to some extent in the numerical stats for the units (i.e. anti-cav bonus, armor piercing bonus, attack, defend, charge), and you would balance out the differences introduced by the variable combat cycle anyway in order to provide combat results that met the designed gameplay objective. The key concept is to have a design objective for the gameplay, and the key requirement is to have a battle engine that allows you to achieve that objective. Of course, you also need the time and resources to do it.

I'm sure Creative Assembly has good business reasons for doing what they are doing to the game system, but better simply means higher sales to a business mentality. It doesn't mean the gameplay is better. They have now succeeded in attracting players to the game who believe that unbalanced gameplay is good. Bravo!

@Puzz3D: O.k. I now understand what you mean, as I before this post thought you were against the antisymmetrical way of designing mathematical relationships between objects, and that by no means is not the logical negative of symmetric relationships that exists in the design of MTW. Of course this is only my view based on the results of how the games behaves during gameplay, since I don´t have access to the designing blueprints for either game. I do agree that there are problems with M2TW for the reasons you mentioned in you post, which are a fact based on certain bugs that has been discovered. But either way whether we like or not, 3D is the future for graphics (nothing strange about that), and certainly it will be a more complex task for designers to implement this with a more advanced statistical model. M2TW is in no way a perfect product in this respect, and never will be. But you have to start making this change at some point, or someone else will. /C.

@CBR: I see that you have quoted the same statement I made as Puzz3D did in his post, but I don´t see any value adding comments from your part in your post worth a comment. It just seems like an attempt from your side to make this discussion to a more personal matter since both you and Puzz3D are members of the same clan. /C.

[CBR]

@CBR: I see that you have quoted the same statement I made as Puzz3D did in his post, but I don´t see any value adding comments from your part in your post worth a comment. It just seems like an attempt from your side to make this discussion to a more personal matter since both you and Puzz3D are members of the same clan. /C.

Excuse me? What does my post have to with what clan Im in? Are discussions in this forum now only to be done by max one member from each clan?

I asked a question as I wanted you to clarify what you meant. The only "personal" I see is that I wanted you to give me your opinion on what challenging meant to you, and nothing else.


CBR

[Dionysus9]

Why cant all the battle mechanics be handled statistically and then translated into animation once the result has been determined? Isn't that how M2TW works?


I often see soldiers die in melee when the "attack" that killed them missed by a mile in 3D space (i.e. they die even though the animated sword clearly misses them). How can you explain this result if the attacks are resolved solely on the basis of animations?

Puzz, you are right that if they had to plot the trajectory of every pixel of every man, blade, and missile, it would crash Skynet-- so obviously they can't be doing that. At worst there is some sort of middle ground, but it seems pretty clear (at least to me) that most of the attack/defend determinations are being made statistically and then translated into animation.

[CBR]

I often see soldiers die in melee when the "attack" that killed them missed by a mile in 3D space (i.e. they die even though the animated sword clearly misses them). How can you explain this result if the attacks are resolved solely on the basis of animations?

Sounds like a matter of hitbox size. Same thing can be seen in some FPS as hitboxes are sometimes bigger than the actual 3D figure.


CBR

[pike master]

if it is software issue dont they call that network code. also i talked to gamespy and they keep pointing the finger at sega. so its either the sega server or the network code in the game causing a lot of problems.

but then again i might just be disconnected from reality right now and doing this typing in my sleep.;)

[Monarch]

Another "mps not good enough" topic. Boring...

Next thread...

[t1master]

agreed monarch...

[Puzz3D]

Puzz, you are right that if they had to plot the trajectory of every pixel of every man, blade, and missile, it would crash Skynet

STW/MTW does it, and not only doesn't it crash the network, the frame rate is higher.

[{KotR}Sir_Raison{P}]

Hi all

Those that are in the "know" need not continue,but others should note that there is a dedicated VIKING Multiplayer night on Friday nights from 8pm GMT(ish) at the moment.We are getting upto around 20-30 "Seasoned" players in.Might not seem alot,but god are the games superb.The list is growing.VIKING is not dead yet.

Take it easy
Rais

[Puzz3D]

Those that are in the "know" need not continue,but others should note that there is a dedicated VIKING Multiplayer night on Friday nights from 8pm GMT(ish) at the moment.We are getting upto around 20-30 "Seasoned" players in.Might not seem alot,but god are the games superb.The list is growing.VIKING is not dead yet.

Unfortunately, cav/sword armies dominate MTW/VI unless you play at 5000 florins.

[TosaInu]

Introducing a variable combat cycle to the old engine for different types of weapons or level or armor would make it harder to balance.

That's good.

It is logical that a heavy weapon would be more cumbersome and couldn't be swung as fast as a lighter weapon..

Yes, more realism.

Of course, you also need the time and resources to do it.

Yes, it will be time consuming to balance.

so the model is incomplete and can't actually model what would happen in such a situation.

Even the much simpler STW suffered from this incompleteness in the battle engine. STW and MTW guns have much more problems than just the penetration power. I agree, the AI should be made complete.

The new engine is much more advanced in the animation of the men, and these animations now affect the combat results.

The wrong part in this, is that the animation dictates the stat (as was already evident with the movement of units in RTW), this should be the other way around: the stat of a unit in a text file should dictate the animation. This is even more true for combat(animation). I don't do my weekly shoppings like Ben Johnson, just because we happen to share the same skeleton.

It would be great if the 3D animations in the new engine modeled combat as well as the more purely statistical model in the old engine, but it appears to me the 3D has a long way to go before it achieves that.

Let's hope that this is the design goal for the expension pack: perfect the AI and such and much less throw in more units.

I understood that some M2TW units have an AI that drain quite some CPU power. Adding more of this will certainly require even more CPU. The benefit from 3D over sprites, is that the modern GPU will do a lot of work, but the CPU still has to do a lot of numbercrunching too. Decoupling the combatstats from the animation will allow more scaling and suit the players personal taste. He could for example dedicate all his PC power to top animations and have the AI be minimal. He can also have minimal animations (probably need a seperate minimal animation text stat for that) but have maximum AI. A more powerful (future, and yes, I played a MTW VI 4v4 custom at huge yesterday) PC would allow all of it.

MP would benefit from a proper DIY kit. Provide the tools: extensive parameters to create the behaviour of units, CRC of files, automated distribution of files (optional and confirmed auto download and install of required files), stamping of community/tournament files, option to sent results to a chosen webserver (for campaign, ladder results). And only have a fistful balanced vanilla units to show what's possible (the animations are there from SP anyway). A horse, a spear, a bow and a sword is basically all we need to start. I also think, and that's said and done years ago, that TW needs a seperate exe for MP and SP.

[{KotR}Sir_Raison{P}]

I wasn't questioning the dynamics of gameplay,Puzz, just getting some interest back in the 'ol VI MP lobby m8 is all I'm trying to do on behalf of a few dedicated gamers in here

Rais

[Puzz3D]

I wasn't questioning the dynamics of gameplay,Puzz, just getting some interest back in the 'ol VI MP lobby m8 is all I'm trying to do on behalf of a few dedicated gamers in here.

I left MTW/VI because I got fed up with the cav/sword armies. I suppose it's better than all cav gameplay.

[Dionysus9]

STW/MTW does it, and not only doesn't it crash the network, the frame rate is higher.

STW tracks the trajectory of every missile, most likely as if it were a ball or a point wieghing x amount etc. What I am talking about is all of the swinging swords, axes, shields, etc., all of the moving parts in teh game adhering to the laws of physics and having their own independent effect on combat results depending on the movement and trajectory of each striking weapon, piece of armor, and shield. Its just nuts.

Animations from stats is the only way that makes sense, not visa versa, with the only exception being ranged missile fire should take into account line of site based on the position of each man.

I think we agree on that.

[Puzz3D]

STW tracks the trajectory of every missile, most likely as if it were a ball or a point wieghing x amount etc. What I am talking about is all of the swinging swords, axes, shields, etc., all of the moving parts in teh game adhering to the laws of physics and having their own independent effect on combat results depending on the movement and trajectory of each striking weapon, piece of armor, and shield. Its just nuts.

That's right. So, clearly it can't be done. The old battle engine is elegant in the way it models combat, and it provides robust combat results.

Do you remember the reason CA gave for refusing to change the speed of skirmishing infantry when lots of players were saying that it was too hard for cav to catch them? CA said that if they changed the speed then the men's feet would slip along the ground. So you can see from this response that CA values visuals over gameplay considerations.

Animations from stats is the only way that makes sense, not visa versa, with the only exception being ranged missile fire should take into account line of site based on the position of each man.

Fat chance of this happening when the visuals take precedence.

[|Heerbann|_Di3Hard]

Unfortunately, cav/sword armies dominate MTW/VI unless you play at 5000 florins.

But better than no balance as in mtw2. A good team can use anti cav very well. And anti cav works in MTW VI in opposite to mtw2. And soon heerbann is maybe in stw mod too :D

[pike master]

what about the thread that stated that the combat results were predetermined before the animation takes place. ie missile trajectories.i have watched my ballistas do it make angle cuts in their trajectories.

[Puzz3D]

what about the thread that stated that the combat results were predetermined before the animation takes place. ie missile trajectories.i have watched my ballistas do it make angle cuts in their trajectories.

Certainly the finishing moves take place after the game determines that the man is killed. The movement speeds of the units and how fast a man strikes with his weapon are being determined by the animations. In the old engine, you had independent control in the unit stat file over the walking, running and charging speeds of every unit. It"s really important to have this control over unit speeds when you go to balance the dynamics of the gameplay. The gameplay is adjusted for balance at the end of development, but now the person who does that has no control over the unit speeds. Changing the combat cycle also involves changing the combat animation speed, and I doubt that's a parameter in the unit stat file. I think it involves changing the game code in the main exe.

Each missle followed a true physics model in the old battle engine. It is possible that they have changed this to a statistical model in the new engine which would save on calculating the individual projectile trajectories and collision detection with a target. This is probably calculated for the whole unit rather than individual men which would account for the "all men shoot" behavior that I've observed in RTW. It would also account for the increased effectiveness against moving targets that I noticed as though target motion isn't included in the calculation. Target motion is automatically included in a physics model.

[TosaInu]

Each missle followed a true physics model in the old battle engine.

True physics would involve drag and kinetic energy, those are not present in STW. Not even in the most simplified way (only do simplified calculations on the hits), as can be deduced from the several glitches caused by bullets and also by arrows. MTW didn't fix it all either.

[caravel]

The way missiles, particularly arrows, work in vanilla RTW reminded me of RTS games like stronghold with all men in a formation firing and damage being very over the top. I haven't really looked into M2TW much, and probably won't buy it until my machine is upgraded, but am I to understand that this hasn't changed?

[Puzz3D]

True physics would involve drag and kinetic energy, those are not present in STW. Not even in the most simplified way (only do simplified calculations on the hits), as can be deduced from the several glitches caused by bullets and also by arrows. MTW didn't fix it all either.

It's a vacuum physics model. There is no drag because there is no air, and the kinetic energy is therefore constant when firing on level ground. The kinetic energy would change when firing over different vertical elevations, and that isn't modeled. However, the accuracy is changed in that case, and the range changes as a natural consequence of the model.

[Orda Khan]

The way missiles, particularly arrows, work in vanilla RTW reminded me of RTS games like stronghold with all men in a formation firing and damage being very over the top. I haven't really looked into M2TW much, and probably won't buy it until my machine is upgraded, but am I to understand that this hasn't changed?

They are not as damaging as RTW

.......Orda