The (Old) Official ETW Criticism Thread

[Evan]

Poor performance due to multithreading isses.
Not much detail given to uniforms and unit detail/variety.
No blood/gore -- even just a little would be awesome (as much of it would considerably impact performance).

[iblewafuse14]

Poor performance due to multithreading isses.
Not much detail given to uniforms and unit detail/variety.
No blood/gore -- even just a little would be awesome (as much of it would considerably impact performance).

He said it PERFECTLY

[masliko]

Poor performance due to multithreading isses.
Not much detail given to uniforms and unit detail/variety.
No blood/gore -- even just a little would be awesome (as much of it would considerably impact performance).

+1,and also ,sounds of battle lack dynamics.CA has missed alot of opportunity in this game,and mostly on small details.

[Akimov]

Whoever was in charge of the play testing and then giving it the ok need taking out and shooting.

The game has everything except a AI that can do anything other than clump its units into one criss crossing mass.

This would have become apparent the first few times they played it and they released it anyway.

[Xugaa]

Graphics could be better
No blood or artillery explosion craters/ground damage
Building destruction looks crap
Most units look exactly the same, just a colour change
Unit faces are awful
Lack of unit choice
Minor historical detail flaws
Pirates overpowered
Natives overpowered, too many and in formation
Missing textures/weapons
Excessive cheating ai, limiting campaign
Issue chasing routing enemy units
Pathfinding is horrible
Unresponsive commands
Ai during sieges are awful
Issue trying to join online games, host response
General amount of missing/flawed/unfinished content

[Epic]

I don't know if this should be considered a rant or a bug or whatever. But I really miss the voice that use to give you hints during battles like in medieval 2. I'm talking about that guy that use to yell out "We're under attack, we must act quickly" or "The enemy is running, run down those worthless scums." It use to bring the battles more to life and it was easier to know that my general has died. In this I don't even realize that my general is dead until the end of the battle.

[snuggans]

3 different reoccuring CTDs throughout 50 in-game years. managed to circumvent all but the last, as i've just had about enough.

now just patiently waiting for the patch.

at this point i would offer myself as a tester for these types of companies for no pay at ALL; the programming errors are so obvious it just can't possibly be human error that misses them. so i'm wondering what exactly it is?

[Otherguy]

- Unit diversity is awful.
I don't really care that much about the looks or names of the units, its the stats/abilities that tick me off, from faction to faction most of them are the same down to the last detail, something I haven't seen in any TW game before now.

- Faction ship diversity is just as bad.
Comparing the stats of naval units from diffenrent factions you get the same crap as land units, copy paste ftw.

- Pre set alliances limits gameplay.
Altough some people might rejoice in historical accuracy on this subject it still limits overall gameplay.

- Empty spaces.
Large ammounts of land on the campain map can not be claimed, thus giving the game an unfinished feel.

Make no mistake I love the game dispite these disappointing aspects, it is my hope that CA will improve on the game as time progresses.

[Strategos Brutus]

-A lot of CTDs
-Clonarmies
-Dumbass-AI
-Reinforcement-system. Getting me haemoriods
-No Blood, why CA? That would be awesome, looking at marching soldiers with blood on their uniforms. Think bout Medieval II
-Factions got nearly the same Roster
-Perfomance on Campaign Map
-Overall Perfomance *sigh


Anyway good Game

[jahjeremy]

I wanted the land battle AI to be...

if (vastly outnumbered)
retreat
if (slightly outnumbered)
skirmish, hole up in buildings
else if (even numbers)
stay in corner, make a nice defensive firing line, flank attacks
else if (more numbers)
advance with coherent firing line, make flank attacks

But we seemed to have gotten...

if (vastly outnumbered)
sit there and get pummeled
else if (slightly outnumbered)
throw away cavalry in massive charge, dribble in infantry in useless incoherent blobs
else if (even numbers)
see slightly outnumbered
else if (more numbers)
see even numbers

And the AI in general....it has no idea how to skirmish or make a coherent firing line or flank attack. In other words, it doesn't seem to be able to do much of anything right.

What do you all think of this assessment, too harsh? I guess that after all the hype I was expecting to fight Napoleon but apparently they cloned some Mongol general code from MTW2. :hmmm:

[Akimov]

Not harsh enough!, funny this inability to do anything right didn't show up in "real gameplay" trailers. Call me a cynic

CA have again released a game where the central element (the battles) dont work!!!!

I should have expected it. The AI on Rome and M2 were pretty awful until modded.

Where do they get off getting paid to do this shoddy .

Didn't appear in Kieran's AAR with Prussia

"Win war with Austria after they all clumped together in one stupid mass in every single battle"

[Pink Beard]

I wanted the land battle AI to be...

if (vastly outnumbered)
retreat
if (slightly outnumbered)
skirmish, hole up in buildings
else if (even numbers)
stay in corner, make a nice defensive firing line, flank attacks
else if (more numbers)
advance with coherent firing line, make flank attacks

But we seemed to have gotten...

if (vastly outnumbered)
sit there and get pummeled
else if (slightly outnumbered)
throw away cavalry in massive charge, dribble in infantry in useless incoherent blobs
else if (even numbers)
see slightly outnumbered
else if (more numbers)
see even numbers

And the AI in general....it has no idea how to skirmish or make a coherent firing line or flank attack. In other words, it doesn't seem to be able to do much of anything right.

What do you all think of this assessment, too harsh? I guess that after all the hype I was expecting to fight Napoleon but apparently they cloned some Mongol general code from MTW2. :hmmm:

HAHAHAHA LOOOl

+rep VERY funny post haha!!

[TheLastPrivate]

Step ahead in time period, step back in quality... how?

[centurie]

hate the game .takes over my life ..wife does not talk to me...no time for the kids.....how can a game be this cruel??

[Thornwallis]

Pathfinding is horrrrrrrible.
AI is horrrrrrible.

I don't usually rant like this... but it's justified this time. I'm thinking about returning the game if they'll take it.

Maybe the modders can do something with this...

Worst part is how they advertised their full time staff devoted to AI. Did they even play the game?

[ma-ta]

my rant?... just one... WHEN WAS VALACHIA - SOUTHERN ROMANIA - PART OF BULGARIA???

I don't have anything agains the bulgarians... they're our neighbours...

[gfzgfx]

WHERE ARE THE MERCENARIES? Poor show CA, poor show.

[Henners]

Three big issues for me:

The game feels rushed. There are agent videos (that I am aware of), no campaign intro cinematic, no general speeches, the diplomacy (and I really miss this) has no voice acting... units on the campaign map don't speak as much as they used to, no campaign map "EVA" type character giving you snippets of information... It's tolerable, but it feels a bit like a punch in the face to the fans that CA releases a game which *loses* aesthetics possessed by previous games!

But the one that's annoying me most right now?

This is the 18th century...

Not bloody Braveheart...

Please... Give us Harpischords and classical stuff... not... bagpipes... WHY DO WE HAVE BAGPIPES?! WHO THOUGHT OF BAGPIPES?! WHY WOULD THE FRENCH LISTEN TO BAGPIPES?!

Ahhh... 13-year old rant done.


Oh but the final jip is; OP Native Americans fighting in formations and pwning a force about one/third larger than theirs... I may be a noob but I understand that lining up and shooting a bunch of naked natives tends to make them flee in terror... but nope, they get into your ranks and start TOMAHAWK'ing... Also bows bother me with their whole tendency to be 10x better than muskets Whether that's true or not I dunno...

How many Europeans died fighting injuns? 'Cos on my campaigns... the Kill Ratio is probably about 1.5 Europeans to 1 Indian... and in real-life, that'd mean defeat for Europe.

[F2kSel]

When holding a fort I took out the AI's Artillery first after that my two units held off over a thousand AI as they wouldn't climb the walls. I assume they had climb ability and if they didn't why attack a fort when the only means of breaching the walls were gone.

[666_VIKING]

Two or three Bugs I have noted, although (perhaps fortunately) so far I have not CTD'd but only on Road to Independence. Purchased the Special Edition version via Internet from GAME website (cheapest at moment) loaded it, which took ages via Steam, then discovered that there were updates to be added which took in excess of 6 hours to download and install. Maybe for those experiencing crashes, it might be a case of patience whilst the game sets itself up initially (although towards the end, I was spitting blood at it taking so long whilst reading the many reports of crashes).
1. Noticed that in a lot of cases troops and horses just slide around the map without any walking motion. Also noted that in some of the scenes particularly the film scenes) shading is reversed eg under a wide brim hat, the forehead is bright colourful skin whilst rest of face is dark, almost like wearing a face mask.
2. On borders of territories what you would expect to change to your contries colour remains a variety of other colours so you cant get a clear idea of your border.
3. Turned down resolution to 800x600 after experiencing quite a few cases of "locking" in scenes and battles. Still there but not as often, but after a few seconds it unlocks okay. I guess this is possibly graphics card or chip (Intel(R) Core(TM)2CPU 6300 1.86 GHz 1.0 GB Ram, Vista XP SP3 UA).
4. Generally speaking I think the game and play is good, and it will be spectacular when they get rid of the bugs.
5. It is my opinion/belief that the game has been tested and bugs noted, and suspicion that release before resolving these problems by CA has been deliberate. With recent economical downturns, CA have launched the game onto the market to top up the research capital budget to continue working on perfecting this game (ie cash flow ??? were they running out of money??) so hopefully as income comes lashing in from sales, they can get the maximum number of bodies onto eliminating all issues.
6. Bit unfare on us the purchasers who have to limp along with these problems, but provided we get the patches at no extra cost, I can live with that as long as we do not have to wait to long. After all better to have the game out as a visible item that can be worked on and corrected, instead of as in the case of Ubisofts latest illusive IL2 Storm of War which was suposed to be released 4/5 years ago and we still wait.
Pwerhaps the wrong place to say this but well done CA. ETA, once bugless, could become a new classic benchmark for all other Strategy/Tactical games for many years to come, perhaps even more so than its predecessors.