Terrible pathfinding in towns

[Dayve]

RTW was never beta-tested... I'm convinced of it. A bit like M2TW... How can such simply bugs as units not doing what you tell them to do, which is, i dunno... Perhaps the most important function of a battle?

Or, in M2's case... Such bugs as your most powerful units on the battlefield, cavalry, not charging... And Billmen not attacking at all...

If these games were beta-tested before release, then i'm Bill Clinton. And i did NOT have sexual relations with that woman.

[Barigos]

Those pathfinding problems a very bad for gameplay,but on the other hand they provide us with a kind of battle chaos.Something must go wrong:like misunderstood orders etc.
The real problem is that it creates terrible situations for AI units!Sometimes they perform so stupid!The most annoying thing is that they start running in the streets with no real purpose,especially when under human fire.I even prefer not to use missiles against such enemy units:)

[Ludens]

RTW was never beta-tested... I'm convinced of it. A bit like M2TW... How can such simply bugs as units not doing what you tell them to do, which is, i dunno... Perhaps the most important function of a battle?

Actually, I know at least two people who participated in beta-testing R:TW, both notable community members, and the R:TW credits list several others. However, I do get the impression that CA was not very interested in fixing playability bugs. They probably focused on fixing the crashes, as R:TW was very stable, even on release.

[blank]

What i like the most is when you order your phalanx unit to attack somebody in the city: they engage, and then suddenly turn to the other direction so the enemy can hack away at their defenseless side

Captain: ''Attack that general unit!''
Phalangite:''But that wall over there seems much more dangerous''
Captain: ''I see... Ok, screw the general with his 150 bodyguards, EVERYBODY CHARGE THAT WALL!!!''

[pezhetairoi]

argh, yes! But what I hate more is the way a unit i order to move along the edge of the square to the other corner for fields-of-fire purposes will run -onto- the square. CA, wake up!

[neoiq5719]

argh, yes! But what I hate more is the way a unit i order to move along the edge of the square to the other corner for fields-of-fire purposes will run -onto- the square. CA, wake up!

The best is when u get into a settlement and get into a fight and with a second unit u wanna get thru by taking the highway between the wall and the fight to attack either from behind or the next unit over BUT NOOO. They just have to get RIGHT thru the middle of the battle. Maybe they are just checking up on their buddies or something .
There should be an audio file for those in which u hear. "coming thru, sorry , sorry, would u stop that for a sec" cos at least we could laugh a bit and not get pissed off.

[bovi]

Actually, I know at least two people who participated in beta-testing R:TW, both notable community members, and the R:TW credits list several others. However, I do get the impression that CA was not very interested in fixing playability bugs. They probably focused on fixing the crashes, as R:TW was very stable, even on release.

That sounds reasonable, and explains a lot. It's true that the game has never been unstable, except when I had a faulty graphics card, certainly not CA's fault. I suppose they thought gameplay issues could be fixed later, when they saw what the most people were reacting to. I find it odd that some of the items discussed here have not been fixed throughout the patches, though. There are workarounds to all the problems of course, and they're not gamekillers, but still very noticeable.

[cunctator]

Somebody with 3DSM could try to mod the Data\settlement_plans\street_plans\pathfinding_XXX_XX_city.cas files. They probably contain the information what areas of cities are accessible to units and what not.

[The Celt]

Somebody with 3DSM could try to mod the Data\settlement_plans\street_plans\pathfinding_XXX_XX_city.cas files. They probably contain the information what areas of cities are accessible to units and what not.

Signifer1 was working on something like that. It was basically a remodeled Rome with a realistic layout and everything. unfortunately I don't think he ever got it finished. But it proves that settlements can be edited. Not sure if the actual nodes will show up in 3DSMax but it's worth a shot I suppose.

[Ludens]

I find it odd that some of the items discussed here have not been fixed throughout the patches, though. There are workarounds to all the problems of course, and they're not gamekillers, but still very noticeable.

It's often suggested that many issues were not present in the original game, but have been introduced with patches. I know this is true for the memory leak, but I don't know it has been proven for any of the other bugs. Also, what people often forget is that many of the bugs were only discovered after extensive modding and playtesting by the community. However, I do wonder how such things as the save-load bug could have escaped the programmers' notice. Don't they test their own code?

[Kralizec]

Well, in 1.5 (or was it already 1.3?) units occasionally spread out across hundreds of metres for no apparant reason. Sometimes when a unit is fighting, you see men moonwalking backwards while pretending they're being hit by invisible weapons. Add some pathfinding issues in settlements and some other bugs that were there since 1.0, and 1.5/6 is still by far the best functioning version of RTW IMO, wich is saying something.

However:

I suppose they thought gameplay issues could be fixed later, when they saw what the most people were reacting to. I find it odd that some of the items discussed here have not been fixed throughout the patches, though. There are workarounds to all the problems of course, and they're not gamekillers, but still very noticeable.

For stat/cost ballancing this approach is okay, but it's not limited to that. When I purchase a game I don't think I should have to wait months for a patch that will remove the siege bug, save/reload, horse archer bug...and so on.

Looking at some of the posts in the MTW2 forum it seems to be even worse for that - completely passive AI, 2-handed weapons not attacking at all due to an animation bug, and so on...in a finished product?

EDIT: fixed quote tags

[Ludens]

Krazilec, that quote is from bovi, not me.

[bovi]

As Blacksnail put it in another thread concerning the amount of bugs in shipped products:

This was the most recent game I could find without bugs.

People are perfectly willing to buy bugged games to get them early. Therefore, publishers are pushing developers to release early. If everyone returned every game with bugs there would be no games with bugs. Then again, there would be no games.

[blacksnail]

RTW was never beta-tested... I'm convinced of it.

You may be convinced, but you are nevertheless wrong.