Multiplayer Suggestions - an overview *moderated*

[alQamar]

Multiplayer Suggestion - an overview

This is so the devs get all reasonable and meaningful suggestions for multiplay avatar campaign in one thread. We would like to make Shogun the best TW ever hopefully
and hopefully finished and polished before CA gettin in the pressure to work on the next
title.

Before anyone is starting a "Guttenberg"-discussion i would like to mention that the idea of this thread and though even some phrases are taken from Skurkanas Multiplayer Issues - an overview thread

Based on how helpful a suggestion seems to be, i'll add a raw tag:

(most helpful): wished by most of all people / would improve the game definitely
(very helpful): wished by lots of people / would improve the game a lot
(helpful): a certain amount would like to see this done

Please know that we cannot list all wishes here - we have to think about the "extra" time CA needs for implementing it and we should not get lost into dreams and wishes that would better come up in a new game.
This thread is about Shogun 2 multiplayer avatar conquest only - nothing else will be discussed here.

This thread will be moderated so please do not get offensive if your reply will be edited or even deleted.

thank you for your participation!
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GAME PLAY & BALANCING

WEATHER CONDITIONS SHOULD BE USED RANDOMLY (very helpful)
- weather conditions should be used randomly in match-make battles. currently nothing of them is used - very sad -

FOG OF WAR (helpful)
- currently and likely to all predecessors there is no FOW on the battle map. this makes it somehow too easy to see units and revealing strategies

FORCE ATTACK (helpful)
- it should be possible to force attack (e.g. Bowmen) to a certain point even there is no "visible" unit in range

BATTLE TIMER (ONCE ALL DOJOS ARE CAPTURED) (very helpful)
- a lot of people are angry about the "camping-site" situation on certain maps. no that camping would help to win but it makes the game unintersting till boring.
a often heard suggestion is that there should be a battle timer unit all dojos are captured by one faction, and will lead to victory of this. this would force the other side to move and not just sitting and watching the scenery with mangonels on their defensive hill - for details of balancing etc plz discuss with your customers, but not here
here you find a similar good suggestion

REMOVE DOWNLOAD LOCATION RESTRICTIONS / REGIONAL SERVER DIVIDE (most helpful) - as seen in the past with Napoleon TW there are again known restrictions to see players in chat lobby, chatrooms, and classical battlelist battles, or even match-making battles, that are depending on your download-region in Steam. CA fixed that in NTW. We dont accept this limit as it threatens any worldwide community ambitions. we still don't like to have dozens of unknown players in our friendlist just to be able to play a couple of games with

CANNON-BUNS SHOULD BE MUCH MORE AFFECTED BY FIRE (very helpful)
- currently cannon-buns are quite immortal in naval battles. it would be nice if they could be set on fire more easily or explode even, damaging other ships in the near, as they have stored lots of gun-power, isnt it? flamebomb-kobayas are too slow and have too less mines to be efficient

CANNON-BUNS CANNOT BE BOARDED (very helpful)
- currently cannon-buns are quite immortal in naval battles. they cannot be boarded even if you had the luck to get in distance and survived

RESCUE THE YARI HERO (very helpful)
Yari Hero: Charge is higher but Cavalry bonus is the same as Yari Samuari, Lame for more than double the cost of Yari Samuari. Yari Hero Cavalry bonus should be head and shoulders above all Spear units, 35 is what I would start at because right now, blah and I've been testing it. good suggestions would be:

Armor Level higher or
Speed bonus or
Melee Defense higher or
Scare Cavalry ability or
also read on here

FLAME BOMB UNITS/ NINJAS TOO HARD TO USE (very helpful)
as using the same strict logic on formation and throwing style before the enemy all flame bombs are quite useless... even as they act and suffer same way than grenadiers in Napoleon. I havent tested it yet but it is likely that they are not useful for defending sieges as in NTW they didnt throw down their load correctly down the walls as well.

MORE REALISTIC FRIENDLY FIRE FOR MATCH-LOCK (most helpful)
There should be a much bigger penalty for firing into the backs of your own units to hit the enemy.

[Ctrl] MOVEMENT
to reference Rome Total War, one could select several units while holding Ctrl and simply click a location, having them become "temporarily grouped" until they moved to that location.


OVERLAY CHANGES

OVERHAUL FOR MOUSE-OVER INFO (most helpful)
- currently the units speed is not shown anywhere
-penalties should be clearly written there as figures
original thread and example

INCLUDE BACK BUTTON (most helpful)
-a back button in the match-make battles (or at least leaving with [Esc]) Most of the problems could be even workarounded by this as long there is no patch for all stated match-make battle problems, rather than ALT-F4 or killing shogun2.exe in taskmanager. We are tired of restarting the game

LOADING SCREEN (TW:S2 SPLASH SCREEN) IMPROVEMENTS: (most helpful)
- a loading process bar on the startup screen would be helpful or at least a review of the processes there. it tooks "ages" to load up Shogun 2 for all players.

SAVING COLOR PROFILES FOR VETERAN UNITS (very helpful)
- ability to save / load or reset color profiles for veteran units

COLOR PICKER (most helpful)
- currently the color picker is a little bit weird, as he always put in a 0 in the textbox that needs to be deleted with DEL KEY. currently this prevents a quick input of color codes

APPLYING SAME COLORS TO MULTIPLE VETERANS (very helpful)
- a lot of players would like being able to set the color of the veterans for multiple units once instead of every single unit, this would shorten the design times.

REVIVE THE MAP EDITOR BASED ON THE CAMPAIGN MAP (most helpful)
- in Rome Total War it was possible to host games on self picked maps (according to file /data/custom_locations.txt, e.g. Hemisphere Map Pack or others - CA will know what it is about). That system should be possible again as it offered thousands of real good places to play without the need that everyone had to have the same parameters / maps on his PC)

CHANGE TO BATTLE LIST LAYOUT (very helpful)
- changing the battle list layout so we have an ability to see who is in the hosted games or at least the name of the hosting player according to former TW games.

CLAN CHAT ABILITIES IN STEAM (very helpful)
- add clan chat button which will open up steam group's chat quickly and easily (many people dont know that there is clan chatroom on steam)
- Make the in-game clan chat working (now the clan tab in chat sometimes disappears) and more flashy when someone writes on it (atm the flash when someon writes there is almost unnoticeable)

IGNORE / MARK PLAYER (very helpful)
- some certain player should be able to take on a ignore list or getting marked
would prevent games with certain leavers


ADD AUTO-RUN SELECTION IN GAME OPTIONS
some people like it, some people don't. Best option would be to add a button the options menu which acitvates/deactivates auto run of units

CONCEPT CHANGES

MORE VARIOUS MUSIC IN ALL MENUES (helpful)
- Jeff van Dyck has done a great work upon the TW:S2 soundtrack, anyway a lot of players are really rid off the endless repeat of the music in the Shogun 2 menu and so put off all music. I think this is too sad.
How about bringing other existing tracks of the soundtrack in the menu, would be more enjoyable.

MAKE LEVELING AVATAR AND UNITS HARDER (very helpful)
- a lot of people are quite disappointed to have all things reached so far with their avatar and units
also it is very upsetting some, including me, if you are not a 24/7 player you cannot compete as you will face lvl 10 players with all units unlocked and having lvl 7 up monks and sort. this is imbalancing and really hard to stand for casual gamers or even new starters.


MORE MATCH-MAKE BATTLE PREFERENCES (in menu avatar campaign -> create a team) (helpful)
although the present preferences do not work, we would like to have more options there instead of only presetting land, naval or siege battles. like: army size, (preferable weather conditions), funds, And a "search for players with same skill level? YES/NO". This may be lead in a lot of coding but it is worth. only danger may be longer waiting times either.

RETAINERS SHOULD WORK IN NAVAL BATTLES (very helpful)
- e.g. more ammo for bowmen, accuracy etc.
- some special retainers for naval battles or sieges only

GET SHOGUN 2 VAC (VALVE ANTI-CHEAT) ACTIVATED - MORE THAN ONLY ON THE PAPER (most helpful)
- create an option to report a player after game with a box to write description and the ability to upload a screenshot from your steam made screenshots and additionally a saved replay

MORE INFLUENCE TO THE PLAYER WHICH ELIGIBLE UNIT SHALL BE PROMOTED (very helpful)
- the current system of awarding veteran units is very random and hard to understand, not units fought best will get veterans, not units that got upg. in the post-battle screen statistics get veterans.
the players only influence is to accept or decline the choice of the offered units. he should be able to pick out veterans himself, as long the unit got upgrades and so is eligible to be promoted to a veteran.

ALLOW RESKILL OF VETERAN UNITS (very helpful)
- allow the reskill (reset of skill) of veteran units for some clan coins likely to the avatar

ABILITY TO KICK OUT PLAYERS FROM THE SHOGUN 2 CLAN GROUP(very helpful)
- it would be helpful if there is an option for the group leader to kick players from his group. currently kicking a player from the steam group does not fit to get him out of the Shogun 2 Clan group

USE BETTER VOICES IN THE NEXT RELEASE OF SHOGUN
perhaps next time they can hire

Ken Watanabe for the english speaking version (Inception)
Toru Tanabe for the german version (Last Samurai, Inception)

i also ilked the chosen voice from the first video footages before release (old intro videos), it was more like them, more natural japanese accent, wonder why you replaced the speaker.
this is one footage where it was used: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99r4F7WLtbo

this is the new one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzdU_UYCDxU this voice sounds very neutral and misses the passion and natural accent of a german speaking japanese.

[alQamar]

STOP FORCING 22k BATTLES IN MATCHMAKING FOR LVL 10 SKILLED (very helpful) patched with 2.0
- a lot of people told me that fighting 22k is pointless in matchmaking. thus they are currently forced if all avatars within a match-make battle are at lvl 10. Playing with so much money is pointless, like it was ever in TW (even more if you cant choose unit sizes). it just leads to winners that spam the most expensive / skilled units in field. Please let this option aside to the classical battle list for some fun adventures but dont force us to play that pointless thing, please

STOPPING PLUG-PULLERS / QUITTERS / LEAVERS IN ANY WAY (most helpful)
- some ideas by Filar > fixed with patch 4

SEPERATING CLANS IN GROUPS REGARDING TO THEIR MEMBERS
- it is very urgent to balance the mp conquest map. easiest method would be to seperate clans of ever tier in groups regarding to their number of member in the group in step of 10 - so 0-10 Members Group 1 - 10-20 Group 2 - 20-30 Group 3 and so on. See my post on current stats in tier 2 group 1.
it is ridiculous!
Additionally it would be very fair to all competitives to loose points the same system you earn them if a clan team looses a battle.
> solved with new influence point system in Patch 4


BATTLE TIMER of 60 mins FOR SIEGES (very helpful)
- a battle timer for sieges should be mandatory. 60 mins is the far most ok time. as sometime you need preparation times to knock your enemy and we dont want to force the attackers doing dirty rush and die. Currently and really weird to understanding of sieges attackers sometimes camp outside the castle waiting, or attack and retreat with some less units, still facing having more than the defenders. this must be stopped > 45 min time limit introduced with patch 4

BALANCING THAT STEAM USER GROUPS DO NOT DOMINATE REAL AND COMPACT CLANS ANYMORE (most helpful)
- some ideas by Filar
- easier suggestion in every tier get clans sorted into groups with similar member sizes, would easily solve that problem without new inventing systems. > fixed with new influence system in patch 4


LIMIT CLAN COMPETITION MAP MOVEMENT (very helpful)
- to increase tactical depth would be nice if you can only move around 1 or 2 areas around your clan holding or if the clan have no area, 1 or 2 areas around the clan conquest marker
territory. > fixed with new influence system in patch 4


GREAT GUARD IS OP REGARDING TO ITS PRICE
- several games showed us that Great Guard is too cheap regarding to its abilities.
it has a special move without skilling and it easily smashes Yari Cav on LVL 4 that is much more costy since patch 2. > fixed with patch 4

MATCH-LOCKS ARE TOO POWERFUL REGARDING TO THEIR PRICE
- several games showed us match-locks are much too cheap regarding to their power, especially you can defend Buatsui only taking Matchlock ashigaru at 14k with ease as the attacker will not have, even not theoretically, enough arrows to shoot them down. Afterall matchlocks have not the exclusive state they should have but are a nearly must have to win or dominate the opponent that killed the game style. a lot of big nameful clans have going over to play a NTW like strategy that is very hard to approach, not to say impossible. this is not Shogun
all matchlock units are too cheap, bascially too accurate and too fast if even skilled - thats a fact - they are more effective than elite lines in NTW. > fixed with patch 4

GREYOUT UNIT CARDS IF NOT AFFORDABLE (most helpful)
- units that can not be fielded (too less money left, missing retainers, to much damaged vets) should be greyed out like in previous games of TW. > fixed with patch 4


REDEFINE FILTER AND GAMETYPES IN BATTLE LIST MODE (most helpful)
- additionally to the previous suggestion, it would be also very helpful if classical battles can be seen when selecting the filter "all". to seperate them from avatar conquest games it would be quite "easy" to give them according tags:
like "landbattle (classic mode)", "siege (classic mode)" etc. > fixed in patch 4

IGNORE / MARK PLAYER (very helpful)
- some certain player should be able to take on a ignore list or getting marked
would prevent games with certain leavers

IMPROVE INVALID ARMY MESSAGE (most helpful)
- instead of just telling "a player has picked an invalid army" it would be much more helpful, if the game tells the players names everyone who seems to be involved in the same message > fixed with other measures in patch 3 and 4

GROUP RETAINERS BY FUNCTIONS (most helpful)
- sometimes it is quite hard to find the approriate retainer as there are so many. having the opportunity of a filter, some kind of grouping / categorize them would be very very helpful
e.g. "melee inf", "bow inf", or even "for monks", "for ashigaru", "for avatar" > fixed with patch 4

FILTER FULLY REPLENISHED VETS (most helpful)
- The vet screen also needs a "only show fully replenished vets", as formerly stated a color identification (greyed out) of all units that cannot be taken for any reason (to damaged, missing retainer) should be applied > fixed with patch 4

MATCH-MAKE SHOULD OBEYE PLAYERS AND VETERAN STRENGHTS (very helpful)
- as stated before the game is not very mercy to new players or casual gamers you will face a lot of games where the unlocked ablities and veterans are far beyond your own. these games are hard to stand and much too simple for leveled up players. (mostly i get crushed by overskilled units not skilled players) > improved with patch 4

REAL UNIT SIZE FOR CURRENT MATCH SHOULD BE VISIBLE IN PRE-BATTLE SCREEN (very helpful)
- the unit size in match-make battle seems to dynamic according to all players system performance.
anyway it is vital to know unit size in order to select an apropriate army. unit size should be shown in the hosting view during matchmake battle. currently the unit size is not displayed correctly.

SORTING VETERANS (very helpful)
- it would be nice and helpful if veterans could be sorted by type, level etc. veteran get sorted logically as soon you enter the veteran screen. > fixed with patch 4

STATIC COLORING OF THE SASHIMONO (helpful)
- the color of the Sashimono (flag on the back) should comply with the color and sign designed in the avatar menu, (Mon) and also being updated to all units incl. veterans if updated.
currently it will change its color as soon you change the veteran unit colors. it is nice to have the option to color units but it makes the game very unfriendly if there are many different flag colors on the battlefield > fixed with patch 4

ANOTHER GOOD SOLVE FOR ALT-F4

http://forums.totalwar.com/showthrea...2-alt-f4-solve
implemented: loosing a battle costs half of points that would have earned for victory
> fixed with patch 4

[GrudgeNL]

Suggestion: match made preferences.

Before the player uses the search button to find a match made battle, the players can fill in a quick preferences screen below.
Players can choose for example: Preferable Army Size, Preferable Weather Conditions, Perferable Funds, And "Search for players with Same Skill Level? YES/NO".

After players have set their preferences and are searching for players, the Match made Search system will first search for players with similiar preferences. If this options is added, Players will be able to play with the unit sizes their PC can handle and play with a different weather condition

[AlJabberwock]

Please note that moderation has begun ( ). This is a suggestion thread, not a discussion thread, as such, its intention is to give a place where _short_ paragraph suggestions can be viewed by Devs and others related to MULTIPLAYER form and function.

If it isn't a suggestion, it will be deleted, if its too long it will be edited or deleted, and if its rude, expect... "other".


While I will edit if neccessarry, my time is limited, and I would rather not have to close the thread and filter ALL access.

Al

[AlJabberwock]

ELIMINATE REGIONAL SERVER DIVIDE
My suggestion is a common "want" for MP, as it appears many players cannot come into contact with one another because of "Steam server region". What often appears to happen is that players are on at the same time, but cannot see one another in chat or elsewhere if in different geographical regions.

[alQamar]

ELIMINATE REGIONAL SERVER DIVIDE
My suggestion is a common "want" for MP, as it appears many players cannot come into contact with one another because of "Steam server region". What often appears to happen is that players are on at the same time, but cannot see one another in chat or elsewhere if in different geographical regions.

the region limit was there in NTW at the early stage aswell, and they fixed it though the battle list could be seen across all regions. dont know if they made it for the chat too like in RTW... i think this suggestion was stated in the MP problems already as a bug, but i will take it on the list. thnx

[NotSure]

It's far too easy to get to Rank 10, I suggested making it harder or at least not give XP if you lost the battle. With that being said please do something against plug pullers.
I don't know if this is Steams fault or Shogun but I seem to get lost connection to steam quite often and so are others, I'm not the only one with this.

[NotSure]

Also, in Army management If you want to customize your units make us able to do it with multiple units, like I want to customize my archers with the same color but I have to individually do them all. I tried selecting few archer units with shift + click and customize but it only does only one of the units

[chrondeezlodorf]

would like to see a time limit option for matchmaking in increments of 5 mins. this would help players search for other players who wish to rush battle and not worry about facing a camper. with 5 minutes i wouldnt imagine anyone taking the time to sit.

another idea for matchmaking would be to have the option to check or uncheck siege units for non siege battles(obviousle siege battle will always have siege enabled no matter what)
siege units such as mongrels+ seem to be scaring away many newer players and creates a false sense of great imbalance in this game. im sure devs do not need new players go around telling their pals that when you start off you will always face siege blah blah.

[alQamar]

/updated

there is already a suggestion upon more selections before match-making. i personally think that keeping siege units out land battles would come close to a rule like "no art". rules are limiting the games abilities to much. siege units are not imba unless to much skilled. game rules have corrupted all TW games so far, most of all RTW.. they are playing CWB since 5 years now... boring boring.

timelimit suggestion is made... the details should be worked out by CA. timelimit without a logical component wont work, as still one side could just sit defensive on the hills. while the other side now has to urgent attack. no, we saw that not working in former TW. there have to be a system making not moving and fighting players likely more loose, e.g. morale malus or the dojo capturing solution.