RTW demo conclusions: a full summary

[Blodrast]

Most of us have seen the demo, and a lot of people have expressed their opinions on it. That's a great thing.
What this thread is trying to do is summarize all of them, in the hope that the CA guys will have a look at them and:

1. Feel good about the fact that people ARE appreciating a lot of the stuff they've given us with this demo, and that most people are enjoying it (to various degrees, of course).
2. Let them know what we'd like to see changed in the final release of the game, and the problems we think that the demo has (isn't that one of the major goals of a demo, besides marketing and increasing awareness of the game ?)

If I were to make a (perhaps not very successful) effort of summarizing all of it in a few words, it would sound like this:
"Absolutely great looks, effects and eye-candy, somewhat disappointing as far as the immersion feeling goes, and could be better in terms of customizability of the UI and gameplay".


This thread is merely trying to summarize everybody's opinions and put them in some orderly fashion, with the purpose of getting them better organized and all into one place, easier to read and grouped into logical (?) categories.
So credits go to all the people who have pointed out nice (as well as less-than-nice) things in the threads in the Colosseum.

Please use this thread to point out things I might have overlooked or left behind (or misrepresented), and I'll periodically edit this post to include them.


1. Graphics

- I think it's fair to say that almost everybody enjoyed the graphics: both the terrain and the unit details; night battles rock !
- the ability to zoom in and watch the battle is great.
- not sure if this belongs here, but the game seems to run pretty smoothly on even lower-than-minimum-requirements configurations...well done !
- if possible, a control for anisotropic filtering within the game would be very nice.


2. Animation

- melee looks really cool, almost everybody seems to love charges (the animation effects, although not necessarily the speed at which it's done and their scary effectiveness), and a lot of people also love elephants throwing soldiers in the air; most people were thrilled with the various animations.
- 'flying' units are bad, i.e. units running so fast they look like they're gliding over the battlefield (both inf and cav).
- reports of camera being "jerky" when selecting a unit


3. Sounds

- the spatial effects are really really cool, it's great that you hear them louder when the units are closer and fainter when they're away, and that they're also directional (you can tell _where_ that unit is with respect to your position). That's a big thumbs up from everybody !
- voices and accents are apparently a rather significant problem for quite a few people; most people were less than thrilled with them; perhaps there is time (and disposition) to tweak them a bit; many people suggested screams/orders in native languages (to the extent that is possible, of course)


4. Music

- again, there's no accounting for tastes; people seem to like the main menu music, but opinions vary with respect to the battle music; however, this is certainly just a small sample of the entire amount of music there will be in the final game, so it's hard to formulate a general opinion on the music based on the little we've heard so far.


5. User Interface

- valour better shown as figures, not chevrons
- fatigue should be shown in the unit icons; also ideally as figures/lines
- ability to resize/turn off the HUD and the minimap and the "commands" panel in the lower right corner
- when choosing MTW interface / RTW interface, it should be persistent (currently, you have to change it in-game, otherwise, even if you choose MTW in the main menu, and then start the game, the UI will be in RTW-style unless you press ESC during the game and change it...). But it's excellent that we do have a choice about it!
- also about the "Classic TW style" interface: it would be nice if it were fully consistent with the old one; people reported inconsistencies with respect to dragging to adjust unit spacing and depth, and moving your army while preserving formation.
- minimap: can we have the option of choosing between arrows and dots as back in MTW ? Too many big arrows together make a mess and you can't tell much from it, also it would be nice to be able to get unit info when hovering over them as in MTW.
- great customization of settings (audio/video/controls); perhaps some explanations for each setting would be helpful (esp. to new players) ;)
- possibly show morale in the unit icons as well ? it would be great to have it always available at a glance.
- big ugly pause box; a screenshot with that on it is worthless; much smaller and more discrete would allow us to take breathtaking screenshots of RTW !
- speaking of screenshots: can we have an in-game screenshot key as before ?
- cool thing about rallying the troops; also nice that routing units' flags turn white, although the graphic effect itself is odd for some people (kinda intrusive).
- time compression handling from within the game (MTW time slider is missed ! ;) ); or at least have more notches of compressing time.
- Rally hotkey, please ? Also, general's cavalry should have both Wedge and Rally as special abilities (appearing available and working as well).
- a mouse (not camera) sensitivity/speed slider would be welcome
- since the game will have time of day settings, can we have that displayed as well during the battle, please ? It might be useful to know how long you have till sunset/dawn, etc.


6. Game aspect/balance

- speed: the ratio between the units' running speed and walking speed is too big; units walk a bit too fast, run _way_ too fast, and cavalry is like a maglev train.
- the melee speed is also a bit fast: units are killed at an amazing rate. Again, think of 'Commando' with 3.12 dead people / second. A lot of people feel like you don't really have time to do anything once the battle is engaged, and, at the rate the units are dying, it probably wouldn't make much of a difference anyway.
See the "Petition to reduce RTW speed" thread, and "Poll: RTW speed: reduce or not reduce ?" A solution would be an option to adjust speed.
This is definitely the biggest complaint people have, and most people have it.
- flaming arrows: quite controversial; in the end, it probably is a nice feature, and it is definitely great that we can turn them off !
- green arrows underneath units; a big no-no.
- space now shows dots/lines at destination, not the actual units; how can you tell which unit will end up where ? It was way better in MTW.
- speed (yup, it's that important)
- speed - related probably: charges against other fast units tend to be a clickfest; quite a feat to actually click on the right target if it's running at full speed.
- ability to turn off units repeating orders (big issue; lots of people annoyed by this)
- ability to turn off the advisor(s) (it's there ! this is a GOOD thing ;))
- routing units losing their key assignments (that's BAD)
- one unit can't belong to multiple groups (pity, why not ?)
- ctrl+1-0 for assigning groups, 1-0 for recalling them - great
- cut-scenes during battle: really cool, but only if you have the option of disabling them; they're definitely fun, but sometimes during a battle one would rather be focused on the battle itself, and dislike being interrupted to see (for the 1287-th time) how the enemy general is killed. But it's great that they're there, absolutely great ! (hoping for cut scenes in the campaign as well)
- barbarian units names: barbarian infantry, barbarian cavalry, barbarian skirmishers...please. ;)
- would be nice to have the factors influencing morale in the tool tip (e.g., in MTW: "worried about flanks", or "happy that flanks are protected", etc).
- info about a unit is more detailed as the unit is closer - very nice touch !
- not clear if some unit (elephants, sacred band cav) are overpowered or it is just an effect of the difference of valour between units.
- a more in-depth tutorial outlining some of the more advanced features (formations, unit depth, generally speaking "advanced" unit control). If that's already planned, that's great !
- exhausted units should not be able to "run" indefinitely (esp. heavily armoured ones); old STW/MTW system was much more realistic.


7. (Potential) Bugs

- ATI cards: the red glare experienced by some people, apparently due to projectiles (not necessarily flaming arrows)
- flaming arrows occasionally also cause weird effects
- spears of the Poeni infantry disappear (looks like the unit doesn't have spears);
- possible pursuit bug: units order to pursue/attack routing enemy just run along them instead of attacking them, OR going _past_ the chased unit and keeping ahead of it... (encountered by _many_ people) (see the 'Pursuit bug ?' thread)
- units trying to run away get stuck in enemy units' formations; instead of trying to change the direction in which they're routing, they just remain stuck.
- is music supposed to play throughout an entire battle ? a few people reported that it stopped in the middle of the battle.
- in the Trebia battle, a few units apparently got stuck in the river and stayed there for the duration of the battle.
- either the "Halt" command, or disabling "Fire At Will" should stop shooting archers from firing; right now, only moving the archers stops them from shooting.
- changing a unit's formation while it's marching makes it stop, change formation, but apparently not always continue moving; this used to happen in MTW, units resuming march after switching to the new formation.
- options from the main menu don't always seem to be carrying over to the in-game menus (e.g. "high quality shadows") (reported on Win98SE, ATI 9800 PRO, Catalyst 4.7 drivers).
- possibly suicidal enemy generals: reports claim that AI generals blindly charge into units, in a rather suicidal manner (this may be an issue for the demo only)
- perhaps some cavalry units should have "charge, back off, regroup, and then charge again" more of a priority than they currently have (another thing that may only be a demo issue)
- using phalanx in an intelligent way (when needed, break formation, change direction, regroup into formation again, rather than trying to rotate as a phalanx) (possibly yet another demo issue)
- units simply walking into the water and drowning: when AI missile units near a water shore, they keep advancing towards the bridge in a line, thus drowning a significant number of their ranks. To be clear: they are not falling off the bridge, they are advancing to provide missile protection for their troops/to fire at the enemy on the other shore, and instead of forming a narrow and long column to march on the bridge, or to stop at the water shore, they keep advancing straight into the water.
- less frequent than previous one, but apparently still a bug: routing units on a bridge just seem to die after a few seconds; they simply disappear (no, they don't fall into the water) as they were running.