Would 1.2 be better with traits removed altogether?

[Red Harvest]

I don't want to pollute the working thread on fixing traits. What do you all think about the badly bugged traits and their impact on the campaign? Right now the human gets scarred traits very quickly, but we also get command stars at a rapid rate because of some error in the logic/loop. Since CA isn't going to patch this, would we be better off removing all of the traits and triggers? I hate to take it that far, but I really doubt this can be fixed with mods. If the code says 1+1 = 4 or 2 > 3 then it seems there might not be a whole lot we can do about it.

[Khorak]

No! And I shall slap you with this fish until you repent!
*slap*

[Bob the Insane]

I have to agree with the fish slapping man... Even with the traits bing a bit buggered it is still better with them than without...

[hrvojej]

No traits = greatly diminished roleplay.

[The Stranger]

how could you even ask such question. are you high or something.

[The Stranger]

how could you even ask such question. are you stoned thing.

[Tricky Lady]

Double post Emperor Umeu...

Well, I hadn't noticed that the traits were that bugged....
Disappointing.

On the other hand, you would take away a nice incentive to roleplay your family members if the traits are removed.
I'd keep 'em, just for the sake of gameplay (and roleplaying).

[The Stranger]

no one says high other says stoned

[Red Harvest]

Having traits this badly bugged means we end up with clones. Fight any and you get horribly scarred. You also get a bunch of stars. The AI doesn't. So I have to wonder from a gameplay standpoint if the game might actually work better without them.

A poorly executed feature is often worse than no feature at all. Simple stars based on battles won and titles seems an improvement at the moment. That and getting coward vices when you run. I don't feel that the current system is actually *adding* to the game.

[The Stranger]

RTW just sucks i'll have to wait till AoE III comes out. or Rise and Fall

[Old Celt]

I've noticed more AI generals with command stars since the patch than ever before it. The scarring thing is bugged, but making generals tougher doesn't seem like such a negative thing to me.

As far as all the hoopla about farming and tax VnVs, they don't seem like much more than little inconveniences, in that they don't change the outcome of the game in any way. I think the game is better overall with the traits than it would be without them.

[Kaldhore]

traits are spoiling the game with the logic (or lack of) of how they get them.

Ive said in another post that someone who successfully runs a city into a positive income for years should not become an inefficient taxman. Or a poor trader or a poor farmer. They should become a lecturer, teacher or even a mentor.

Im usually positive about total war, but from what ive been reading recently about poor simple coding in the txt files by CA is seriously amatuer and although they said they wouldnt do another patch - they are failing their promise to customers in releasing such amatuer style work. To have an unpaid community fix this work is not only (again) amatuer, but its actually showing contempt for the buyers.

[Pode]

I beg to differ with the Elder Celt about making tougher generals. Since they start out with more hitpoints than anormal man (up to six IIRC), a trait that adds up to +8 is a fundamental flaw, especially if it's as common as scarring is. No man, I don't give a damn how tough he is, should be as hard to kill as an ARMORED ELEPHANT! Throw in hale and hearty on top of scarring and it's Return of The Jedi. If the traits worked they'd be a nice piece of fluff. I wouldn't cry to see them gone however, and certainly wouldn't avoid an otherwise good mod that removed them.

[Old Celt]

But that's just the point, if the general is as hard to kill as an armoured elephant, then they have much better survivability, and most of us like to face general led enemies over captains. How hard is it to kill an armoured elephant after all?

Hasn't someone come up with a simple edit fix for the scarring trait anyway? Yeah, I know CA should have done it properly, but if it's a big problem, we will have to look to each other for a solution.

[Red Harvest]

Old Celt,

I agree to some extent (hence the question for the topic rather than a statement). The AI has more starred generals now. However, even the best have fewer stars than the average player (edit) general. The apparent doubling (and perhaps even quadrupling) of some traits appears to be behind some of this. If the AI benefitted from this to the same degree, then I would not have posed the question. As it is I am concerned about the imbalance...if it worked the other way around (benefitting the AI more than the player) it would tend to balance the game better.

In MTW certain factions had some really powerful generals, and titles that bestowed up to 4 stars if memory serves (something like 2 stars for "master of the stables" and another 2 for being gov. of certain provinces.) On expert you had to be very cautious about attacking of defending against these giants. Early in the game it was difficult to get a general trained and titled in a fashion that could handle them with equal forces (or even if you had notably better forces.) The Byzantines had incredible generals. However, with some factions I always seemed to get drunks, genetic throwbacks, or perverts. Pruning the family tree became critical with some factions. No, this isn't a MTW was better statement. Just a reflection on the differences of what the player faces in the way of campaign opposition.

[therother]

Well, I think we should try to fix the traits that are currently not working as intended in the first instance. Whether it would be better to remove the entire trait system if it is not possible, I don't know. Perhaps it would be better to remove the traits that aren't working correctly instead?

Several of the bugs, such as the GoodCommander bug, are tricky to fix as the AI will not fight that many battles on the battlemap, so any action to fix the current doubling will adversely affect the AI.

CA will undoubtedly fix this issue in the expansion, but who knows when that will come out, and who knows how many new issues it will cause?

One partial fix I was thinking about would involve editing (hopefully automatically) the trait file every time you play. You would use the current triggers for the AI factions, but exclude the player's faction from them. The script would then generate a new GoodCommander trigger especially for the faction player intends to use. I'm sure one of our resident coders could hack together a script to automatically do this before playing.

The player trigger could be as now, with the addition of a new trigger that would give a 50% chance of giving 1 point towards the BadCommander trait for every win. On average, that should mean 1 point for towards the Human general for each win, although 50% of the time you'd get 0 or 2. Hardly an ideal fix, but I can't think of anything better right now. Just did a quick test of this, and it seemed to work as expected.

Another possibility could be to remove the battlefield traits altogether, and replace them with a combination of strategy map traits and retinue. For instance, you could earn command points for being in a settlement with academies, or for using up your MPs a number of turn in a row, or some such. You could also make command self-perpetuating to some extent, say a small chance per turn of getting an extra point. I suppose there are a number of things you could do.

Anyway, I think that's quite enough waffle for one post.

[Medieval Assassin]

And if there wasn't traits, what would we get "Screw you CD you're are a sux0rz"
If a unit doesn't look historical, should we get rid of all the units?
Of course not.
These threads are getting repetitive.

[Colovion]

The traits need fixing - because I love the roleplay with my Generals. I'll find a nancy-boy who looks rather lily-white and force him into battle to toughen him up. I actually don't think that with vanilla RTW I could play without the traits. I mean think about it: you can't have a good battle because they're prettymuch forgone conclusions anyway, so you look to the campaign map to have the majority of your fun. A large part of that is the traits your Generals get. It's a shame that the patch broke and left open a few problems but I doubt we're going to get any response or fixes from CA until the XP...

:*(

we'd better like it or lump it at this point, before EB comes out.

[Red Harvest]

And if there wasn't traits, what would we get "Screw you CD you're are a sux0rz"
If a unit doesn't look historical, should we get rid of all the units?
Of course not.
These threads are getting repetitive.

Well then, don't read them. The question was an honest one. The effect on the AI gameplay is an issue.

I've been thinking along the lines of therother. The solution might be to just remove the most bugged traits or triggers, although that doesn't seem to address the problem fully either.

The real solution would be for CA to step up to the plate an put out a final patch to fix the most annoying remaining (and newly introduced) bugs. (Remember the patch to address the king always dying at 56?)

The 1.1 patch was more of an MP hotfix. We have had only one real patch in this reworked graphical and strategic engine. It would not even have fixed the pri/sec bug except for a modder discovery in the 11th hour, and the 1.2 patch also introduce the HA bug. This does not rise to what many of us consider acceptable product support. (I hesitate to say "amateurish", that has some real sting--but I can certainly sympathize with others who feel that way.)

[Quietus]

I've no big problems with the traits. The Scarred traits actually help. They just need to give it different "names". There are a lot of traits and retinues out there.

This isn't like the "die at 56 bug" of MTW.

[Proletariat]

And if there wasn't traits, what would we get "Screw you CD you're are a sux0rz"
If a unit doesn't look historical, should we get rid of all the units?
Of course not.
These threads are getting repetitive.

Does someone have to take a contrarian viewpoint any time a major flaw is discussed? Do you really think therother and Red Harvest are "CA sucks!!11 y no tr@its?!?!?!" types?

This is a horrible flaw because of exactly what RH said. Every frigging general I have is identical. Scarface with a splash of Useless Assessor, a sprinkle of Bad Farmer and you have my entire family tree.

I think therother's idea of perhaps just eliminating these traits is so simple it's brilliant. Is the way to go about this as simple as it sounds? Merely deleting the text in the VnV file?

[Colovion]

Well then, don't read them. The question was an honest one. The effect on the AI gameplay is an issue.

I've been thinking along the lines of therother. The solution might be to just remove the most bugged traits or triggers, although that doesn't seem to address the problem fully either.

The real solution would be for CA to step up to the plate an put out a final patch to fix the most annoying remaining (and newly introduced) bugs. (Remember the patch to address the king always dying at 56?)

The 1.1 patch was more of an MP hotfix. We have had only one real patch in this reworked graphical and strategic engine. It would not even have fixed the pri/sec bug except for a modder discovery in the 11th hour, and the 1.2 patch also introduce the HA bug. This does not rise to what many of us consider acceptable product support. (I hesitate to say "amateurish", that has some real sting--but I can certainly sympathize with others who feel that way.)

Don't worry Red, most people don't realize that repetition usually means that these problems are real for a lot of people - enough that these threads show up time and again.

"Gee willikers Jerry, there's a pothole in that road, it's terrible!"
(silence)
"Gee willikers Jerry, there's a pothole in that road, it's terrible!"
(silence)
"Gee willikers Jerry, there's a pothole in that road, it's terrible!"
(silence)
"Gee willikers Jerry, there's a pothole in that road, it's terrible!"
...."Stop it! It's getting repetative!"
..."Gee... Jerry, just trying to communicate that this is STILL a problem... that isn't fixed.. lots of people are continually complaining...."

[Red Harvest]

This isn't like the "die at 56 bug" of MTW.

I agree. There are several problems with 1.2 far more severe than the 56 bug was in MTW. At least it applied to both sides equally.

[Kraxis]

The problem really is that the game is heavily SP oriented... Not only is that very obvious but that has been stated by CA as well. So if a number of bugs that individually would be lowering to the immertion of the game, combine to make it rather unspectacular, then the game and its company has got a real problem. Call it repetative, but it is the truth... sadly.

[Quietus]

I agree. There are several problems with 1.2 far more severe than the 56 bug was in MTW. At least it applied to both sides equally.

Which ones Red?

[unseen11]

what annoys me about some of the traits is i have to fix them up myself since CA isn't making another patch

[Svean]

The problem really is that the game is heavily SP oriented... Not only is that very obvious but that has been stated by CA as well. So if a number of bugs that individually would be lowering to the immertion of the game, combine to make it rather unspectacular, then the game and its company has got a real problem. Call it repetative, but it is the truth... sadly.

Of course it is SP oriented but in most cases this is SP game. If they want to make it MP game they had to rebalance most of the gameplay and resign from rest of the historic backgroud (which is forgotten in most cases anyway). If you want MP make some mod :-)

[mxlm]

The effect on the AI gameplay is an issue.

Alright, but if that's the issue, why not simply refrain from using generals much/at all? If it concerns you that much, you can make the choice to balance the game in game. Or am I missing something?

Hell, I typically end up not using generals at all in mid-late stage imperial campaigns. I become too lazy to move generals to my ever-expanding front lines. Though, I grant that I've only been playing on hard/hard.

Which is not to say that it's an acceptable bug, or to take anything away from the folks working to fix it.

[HarunTaiwan]

CA must have really shoddy QA.

All you had to do was power up the game, 1.2, and play the Romans for 12 hours straight. You would then wonder why all your generals were named Scarface.

Now, if you had ACTUALLY been part of the RTW project and know basically how the VnV was supposed to work, you'd be pretty quick to catch this bug.

The farmer and tax bugs might slip by, but again...why is this being caught by members instead of CA? THEY DESIGNED A PRETTY COOL SYSTEM, BUT DUE TO SOME SCREWED UP MATH SIGNS IT DOESN'T WORK?

That is sad...sad...sad.

[Bob the Insane]

Perhaps it would be best to remove just those traits that are problem and make progress down the GoodCommander path much harder...