al Qamar's Report on Total War Arena - last updated: 23.08.2017

[roarer]

1. What is the stat "Charge impact" ? Is it somehow related to the "Charge" stat in previous total war games?

2. When we saw the description of a unit is strong against something, such as javelin are strong against sword, is there a stat buff on top of the shown stats of the velites ? or is the description just a generalization of the stats and interaction between units?

3. I have seen quite a few cavalry charge miss the intended target. When will that happen and how?

4. How does spear units fair against swords in melee? Cuz in Rome 2, spear got slaughtered.....

5. Are pikes shielded units? can they use drop shield / shield bash ??? Are they vulnerable to missile units? high AP missiles or high base dmg missiles?

6. Who is the best pike player you have come across? any recommended channel? I have heard Agony Duck is good at it but I do not think he streams.

7. I have heard the max player in a party right now is 4. Is it true? Why is 4 the cap , instead of 10 ????

8. Are there any intention from CA allowing players to design maps? How will future maps be created?

9. Is making viable replays on the to-do list of CA?

10. What is CA's attitude on balancing units? A) If it ain't broken, leave it alone B) A unit is under used, buff it! C) People are complaining, change it! D) Let players have some time to find a solution before we make a change

11. Will CA implement team chat in game?

12. As far as your experience go, are players losing interest in the game quick? How often do you find "old" players quit the game?

13. Is it intended that unlimited ammo & stamina will be in game when the game comes out?

14. Does melee units take a lot of time to kill someone else when they are not charging? So cavs & missile units can literally run through them / disengage without heavy losses?

15. What kind of static defence is available in game in addition to stakes and barricade ? Do they come with certain units or consumables ?

16. Do you lose melee infantries when you charge against stakes?

17. What is the point of getting higher tier artillery units? Don't they all just throw rocks XD?

18. Is Military Dog in the Roman unit trees wardogs???? How do they work? Where are the burning pigs then XD?

That's it for now, Thanks in advance

[alQamar]

1. What is the stat "Charge impact" ? Is it somehow related to the "Charge" stat in previous total war games?

>>I have no good knowledge about the stats so I can only assume the answer is yes. Basically it does the same as in Rome 2. Remember it was built upon that code.

2. When we saw the description of a unit is strong against something, such as javelin are strong against sword, is there a stat buff on top of the shown stats of the velites ? or is the description just a generalization of the stats and interaction between units?

>> Well I think this icon describing the strenghts and weaks are guideline but do not apply neccessarily. For example cav is also very vulnerable to ranged units and heavy infantry.

3. I have seen quite a few cavalry charge miss the intended target. When will that happen and how?

>> Cav charge misses happen when the attacking player has no good micro but the attacked one has. It is fairly possible to dodge cav charges.

4. How does spear units fair against swords in melee? Cuz in Rome 2, spear got slaughtered.....

>> I think this is still the same if we speak about Triarii etc, and not phalanxes (pikes) that are in proper formation.

5. Are pikes shielded units? can they use drop shield / shield bash ??? Are they vulnerable to missile units? high AP missiles or high base dmg missiles?

>> Pike units are very vulnerable to ranged units, Imho more to slingers and javelins as to archers. I have no idea about whether they actually can drop shields or not as I haven't unlocked them.

6. Who is the best pike player you have come across? any recommended channel? I have heard Agony Duck is good at it but I do not think he streams.

>> Yes AggonyDuck is the right one to ask about pike units. He developed a kind of passion for them and handle them successfully.

7. I have heard the max player in a party right now is 4. Is it true? Why is 4 the cap , instead of 10 ????

>> CA once stated that 10v10's is thing they consider but they cannot deliver at the moment because of an conflict with the anti-cheating measure. No further specification.

8. Are there any intention from CA allowing players to design maps? How will future maps be created?

>> Never heard about that nor was this discussed on the forum. There is a thread about ideas how we would like to have maps etc. And which maps we want to see in future. A map editor would be nice, though. I will pass this on to CA.

9. Is making viable replays on the to-do list of CA?

>> Nothing I have heard about, the replays are currently saved for investigations for the developers as they give them a deep access to all variables that apply in a certain condition (e.g. bug / pathfinding issue)

10. What is CA's attitude on balancing units? A) If it ain't broken, leave it alone B) A unit is under used, buff it! C) People are complaining, change it! D) Let players have some time to find a solution before we make a change

>> Each game you played you are connnected to their servers and send metadata, same since Shogun 2. This data is under constant revision. In junction with user feedback they are balancing the units. So far they rarely leave units untouched even though they seem to be fair, but any change you make to another unit has consequences. It is like a clockwork.

11. Will CA implement team chat in game?

>>There is a team chat but not limited to a chat limited to a party. I have heard about no plans to implement voice chat like we had in Rome 2 for example - given it was not used often, implementation was not good enough.
Then in a 10v10 and open for anyone voice chat it might end up in a very annoying situation. You cannot mute individuals and they may talk in different languages, have horrid microphones or cause unwanted noises etc.
The use of Teamspeak 3 is the best and most common solution at the moment.

12. As far as your experience go, are players losing interest in the game quick? How often do you find "old" players quit the game?

>> I am in touch with a good portion of players. Old players, e.g. some that still play Rome 1, are not satisfied with the battle engine. There are some issues that just anyone is not happy with, like pull-through - but this one existed even in Rome 1.
The player retention seems to be fair. Since the NDA got lifted we have a regular amount of 1500-2000 players online the same time. At the moment I would say that most of those that started early (November) are still passionated about the game, but I think that new players - even younger ones - seem to loose interest more quickly. I have no hard facts on that but estimating from my Steam friendlist / Steam Community groups.

13. Is it intended that unlimited ammo & stamina will be in game when the game comes out?

>> I personally hope so, that there will be limited ammo and stamina in the game. At the moment the community is split up about both things so the pro / contra about stamina and limited ammo. Both things would slow down the games a lot.

14. Does melee units take a lot of time to kill someone else when they are not charging? So cavs & missile units can literally run through them / disengage without heavy losses?

>> At the moment yes, but this is not intended. CA is about to take measures to equal chances for infantry. This also includes, they are working to finally fix this old pull-through bug. The only unit where pull-through does not happen are pikes.
They improved the contact and disengage behaviour in a previous patch, and I am confident about future patches to improve the problematic situations you describe.
All I can say is: It's not like Rome 1 in how the battles feel like. It's still more Rome 2 / Attila like.

15. What kind of static defence is available in game in addition to stakes and barricade ? Do they come with certain units or consumables ?

Stakes, Barricades? (never seen them), Caltrops, Tar pits

16. Do you lose melee infantries when you charge against stakes?

Oh yes, any unit and very fast.

17. What is the point of getting higher tier artillery units? Don't they all just throw rocks XD?

Good question. In general: I am still stuck in a max of tier 6. I have no intention to reach tier 10 as same as in WoT or similar games it does not deal out, you are loosing silver because the consumable and replenishment costs if you are not a good player. The reasons to go higher tier are different ones. Some feel more competitive, while I think it is not depending. You still can win with tier 6 units against tier 9 or 10 in certain conditions (not like 1v1 fights though)
Well and then I think it is a matter of feeling more successive, so fair psychological aspect why people aim to go higher tier units. Speaking about artillery: yes they all throw rocks but are different though. reload speed, damage / AoE / special ammunition, range etc.

18. Is Military Dog in the Roman unit trees wardogs???? How do they work? Where are the burning pigs then XD?

I miss both! No pigs in the game atm. Dogs are in the game but still not playable. CA said they do not work and contribute to the game as they would like to see them. So in other words, let's guess the engine limits the proper usage. We have seen this in Rome 2 / Attila their strenght is completely different.

That's it for now, Thanks in advance

You're welcome, thank you for taking the time to set up so many precise questions!

[SharpEyed]

Charge bonus is the one visible Charge stat, which is I believe normal charge stat as we all know from TW games
Charge impact? It's not visible, but uhmm I guess it's something related to weight and maybe speed too. "impact" think of momentum. (speed x mass)

About pikes, well Dropping shields of any shield unit is possible with Miltiades and Shield bash is possible with Leonidas, but I guess u ask "unit orders" , well you don't have to unlock the unit to see that.

Static defences, well there are many of them
Yes they are especial to some units as consumables. So you can't use them with every unit, and also they are max 3 per battle I guess (never used)
I'm not sure if they exist for any unit as non-consumable stuff, but I don't think so. But then again you can see all of these even before you unlock the unit.

About ppl losing interest,
Well it's Closed Alpha, some ppl is expecting a perfect game I guess, by not knowing what Closed Alpha is, and our quest is not only playing the game but testing at the same time.

But still can't blame them, as Sir alQamar said higher tiers needs more experience (and luck)
Because xp/silver gaining not increasing by getting higher tiers and you might find urself keep going down, that's why I opened this thread http://forum.totalwararena.com/discu...-fair-xp-stuff

[alQamar]

Thanks for your additions. Never noticed I received knighthood

[SharpEyed]

Thanks for your additions. Never noticed I received knighthood

np and

[alQamar]

Greetings folks,

there are plenty of complaints from Youtubers and fans that classic Total War games and Warhammer titles have major backlashes in terms of playability and balance when it comes to the multiplayer and especially competitive multiplayer scene.

Interesting enough there are still tournaments held despite this, but mostly 1v1, which is sad when I recall to the epic 3v3 international tournaments Rome 1 community held, one even won by my strong Hemisphere clan guys back in 2006.

That was more than a decade ago. So its good to know there is something new showing up on the radar for clan based Total War gamers.


I'd like to say that Shogun 2 has offered so far, the best MP experience since Rome 1, yet unbalanced, yet in Rome 1 there exist some respected tournament-able rulesets like the well-known CWB rules and alternative rulesets.

On the first glance, TW Arena might offend you being an RTS (real-time strategy) FTP (free-to-play) TW title, CA calls it RTT (real-time-tactics) and being hosted off Steam, so it’s only available using wargaming.net platform.
Good news first: despite being a wargaming.net free-to-play there is no OP Russian faction in TW Arena.

I am sure many of you members and especially multiplayer oriented gamers have already seen or heard about Arena during its development, too some of you may be a silent part of the testing team for Total War Arena, under a strict NDA applied.

Me being part of the Arena testing team since Fall 2015 while it was still on Steam. Unfortunately, I wasn't very active anymore since it was handed to wargaming.net platform due real life tasks.

If you want to learn more about TW Arena, I can assure you that the following video will give you an idea of how the game works within 30 minutes of time.

Total War Arena is the first Total War game I can truly consider to being also the first game having microtransactions but thanks to a very strict No to Pay to Win policy will kept balanced for everyone that does not pay.

I am very much proud of the fact that The Creative Assembly is following this noble and unmatched policy very strictly in their game design.

Enjoy and share, this is no NDA limited content:

https://youtu.be/L1UWcs1KvLE

Total War Arena is available as a CLOSED beta after registration in NA, EU and CIS, starting from 1st of September 2017.
Playerbase and matchmaking is technically divided into these 3 regions, so it is much easier than Steam to find and match up with your mates.

Best regards,
al Qamar