Store Page
Age of Empires II (2013)
All Discussions Screenshots Artwork Broadcasts Videos Workshop News Guides Reviews

Age of Empires II (2013)

Store Page
View Stats:
Global Achievements
This topic has been locked
morness 23 Aug, 2016 @ 9:57am
Patch 4.7
Hello and long time no see!

We have been looking into a variety of your concerns and with desyncs still affecting some players we wanted to start there. Desyncs have proven difficult to track down so we’ve improved the logging system to provide a wider range of information. This information is key for identifying and fixing these remaining issues.

So we need your help, please select yes on the popup when asked to upload your desync logs.

– details below!

We have also included some other gameplay improvements that will hopefully improve your overall gameplay experience.

Thank you for your ongoing support as we continue to move forward from here.

Improved Desync Logging:
The desync logging system has been improved and now logs additional details like player and game settings:
  • When a player encounters a desync their logs will now include additional game and player state information which is critical in tracking down these problems.
  • Sync logging parameters have also been exposed in a config file (Age2HD/desync-tracking.txt). If you’d like to alter your settings you can open the file in a standard text editor (like notepad) and follow the written instructions. When playing a multiplayer game all users will update their settings to match the host. This will ensure that everyone is running the same parameters.
  • The data collected by these logs is now stored in memory rather than logging to a file (which endlessly grows during gameplay and is very slow). This approach also enables us to only collect the data for the frames in and around the time of the desync.
  • If you encounter memory issues (by increasing the frames for example) the game will automatically reduce the number of frames recorded if memory has become scarce.
  • When a player encounters a desync a file will be generated and saved in the logs folder (Age2HD/Logs). To manage space only the 10 most recent logs will be saved.
  • This file will also be sent to the development team if you select yes on the pop-up when asked to upload their logs. We encourage all users to do this so we can work together in tracking these down

AI Improvements:
  • AI Boar Lures now have better placement. Gathering should now be more efficient and AI hunters should die less frequently when using a Boar Lure.
  • Boar luring villagers should now garrison sooner if they are at low health.
  • sn-home-exploration-time function should now default to 300 (rather than -1)
  • up-drop-resources function now should now work as expected.
  • sn-gather-idle-soldiers-at-center function should now work as expected. When
    playing a King of the Hill game the AI should now try to take the center instead of using patrol orders.

General:
  • Farms should no longer appear depleted before they’re empty. Villagers should now correctly gather every last morsel before the depleted sound effects plays.
  • The Save Chapter button has returned! When playing a game with the record game option checked the Save Chapter option will appear in the menu list. The hotkey associated with this action is also functioning.
  • File names within the game should now display special characters correctly when saving and loading (within the game menus).
  • Unit outlines should now display correctly when villagers are obscured by buildings and objects.
  • Water animations now correctly stop when the game is paused to give players a better visual indication that the game is correctly paused.

Other Updates:
  • We are aware of the importance of MP Restore and are actively working towards a long term solution. Due to the complexity of this feature we want to ensure it is stable before pushing out a patch.
  • We’ve recently moved to a new build making process to align with the latest Steam Updates so older patch builds will be unavailable until we can update them. Due to this new process we may not be able to resurrect all of the old builds (specifically the XP branch).
  • Balance updates will also be coming with the next patch. Especially fans of extreme tower wars will need to expand their tactics in the future.
< >
Showing 1-15 of 440 comments
GregStein 23 Aug, 2016 @ 10:00am 
Great to hear that you guys finally pushing a new update. Is there a change to make the game animations 60fps instead of 25-30 fps. Becaue it makes the game look slow and discouraging to play.
#1
Mr_F0NG 23 Aug, 2016 @ 10:02am 
Farm bug fixed?! The sun shines once more. Morness I have a workshop full of desyncs for your viewing pleasure. However they are before the new debugging features just released. If they won't be helpful I'll remove and create a new batch.

The retail version of megarandom desyncs as do most special maps at a very high rate. I have stopped trying to play them all together so not sure how many in the workshop will show that. The other ones seem to be after someone drops/lags out.
Last edited by Mr_F0NG; 23 Aug, 2016 @ 10:09am
#2
morness 23 Aug, 2016 @ 10:02am 
Just be aware, there may be a brief window where things don't work while I switch the DRM systems. I'm doing this now. I'll post when it's finished!
#3
NOCTURNE 23 Aug, 2016 @ 10:13am 
The description doesn't mention it, but I hope it also includes bug fixes for sp campaigns/editor/ect., as well. Right?
Last edited by NOCTURNE; 23 Aug, 2016 @ 10:14am
#4
76561198067818656 23 Aug, 2016 @ 10:20am 
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ it finally happened
#5
CheeseOnToast  [developer] 23 Aug, 2016 @ 10:21am 
Originally posted by NOCTURNE:
The description doesn't mention it, but I hope it also includes bug fixes for sp campaigns/editor/ect., as well. Right?

Doesn't seem like it but maybe a future update. :AOESheep:
Last edited by CheeseOnToast; 23 Aug, 2016 @ 10:22am
#6
Wafflesaurus Supreme 23 Aug, 2016 @ 10:34am 
Thanks for the update. Stop by more often.
#7
RushingSquirrel 23 Aug, 2016 @ 10:35am 
My game won't start anymore ): If i try to start it says that it's checking data but when it's finished it starts the data check again, so i can't start the game. Has anyone experienced the same issue?
#8
NOCTURNE 23 Aug, 2016 @ 10:35am 
Originally posted by NOCTURNE:
The description doesn't mention it, but I hope it also includes bug fixes for sp campaigns/editor/ect., as well. Right?

Pff. Nothing! I guess it was too much to hope for... Maybe almost a year wasn't enough time... :P

Originally posted by CheeseOnToast:
Originally posted by NOCTURNE:
The description doesn't mention it, but I hope it also includes bug fixes for sp campaigns/editor/ect., as well. Right?

Doesn't seem like it but maybe a future update. :AOESheep:

Hopefully in this year.
Last edited by NOCTURNE; 23 Aug, 2016 @ 10:46am
#9
Pantera 23 Aug, 2016 @ 10:36am 
well its not much but atleast they are back. I just wonder when the wall bug (unit just walks through the walls) and all the civ specific bugs will be fixed, especially the berber ones.
Last edited by Pantera; 23 Aug, 2016 @ 10:37am
#10
Kadoras 23 Aug, 2016 @ 10:44am 
Originally posted by RushingSquirrel:
My game won't start anymore ): If i try to start it says that it's checking data but when it's finished it starts the data check again, so i can't start the game. Has anyone experienced the same issue?

Yes I have the same thing here, played yesterday, no problem.
Now this very sloooow data check, and when eventually it gets to 100% it says OK and nothing happens sigh! Click 'play' again for endless repeat!
#11
morness 23 Aug, 2016 @ 10:45am 
If anyone has encountered infinite validation, then it should be good to go. You can also try restarting steam. Everyone should be good to go now.

Also make sure everyone is on the live build (not some beta branch).
Last edited by morness; 23 Aug, 2016 @ 10:46am
#12
Mr_F0NG 23 Aug, 2016 @ 10:46am 

Originally posted by morness:
Just be aware, there may be a brief window where things don't work while I switch the DRM systems. I'm doing this now. I'll post when it's finished!


Originally posted by Timm:
Originally posted by RushingSquirrel:
My game won't start anymore ): If i try to start it says that it's checking data but when it's finished it starts the data check again, so i can't start the game. Has anyone experienced the same issue?

Yes I have the same thing here, played yesterday, no problem.
Now this very sloooow data check, and when eventually it gets to 100% it says OK and nothing happens sigh! Click 'play' again for endless repeat!

If you read a few posts up you should have your answer. Just wait and it will be fixed.
#13
rez 23 Aug, 2016 @ 10:48am 
Originally posted by morness:
Other Updates:
  • Balance updates will also be coming with the next patch. Especially fans of extreme tower wars will need to expand their tactics in the future.

Is there a chance this becomes a choice rather than forced rebalance? I mean like this can pretty much corrupt current saves in terms of strategy and tactics. Is there really something broken in terms of balance? I happen to play the original AoE2 pretty much even now so I'd rather both versions have the same tactics, unit/buildings cost or at least as close as possible. Also there's multiplayer games to take in account.
#14
morness 23 Aug, 2016 @ 10:52am 
Originally posted by UltraFong:
Farm bug fixed?! The sun shines once more. Morness I have a workshop full of desyncs for your viewing pleasure. However they are before the new debugging features just released. If they won't be helpful I'll remove and create a new batch.

The retail version of megarandom desyncs as do most special maps at a very high rate. I have stopped trying to play them all together so not sure how many in the workshop will show that. The other ones seem to be after someone drops/lags out.
Thanks for the tip. We do know that the desync rate for patch 4.6 was about 3.9%. And it should be the same in 4.7. The new desync tracking tools provide a lot more information now, so now we'll be able to better diagnose the existing one so we can fix it (or them).

What we know so far is that it tends to be related to games which are fairly laggy (or one really slow player either computer and/or bad connection). Either way, it seems the synchronization can break in those cases causing one of the players to either stay on the old frame or skip to a new frame. In one QA session we had a desync where the slow player had a villager that changed from a forager to a hunter, but none of the other players new that. Could be anything, it's early info :)

I find the MegaRandom suggestion a good lead. There are so many different maps it can generate, perhaps it is doing something unique deep in one of it's branches that's causing a slightly different map to generate for different players. We'll look into that. If it desyncs, does it happen in the beginning of the game?
#15
< >
Showing 1-15 of 440 comments
Per page: 1530 50

Age of Empires II (2013) > General Discussions > Topic Details
Date Posted: 23 Aug, 2016 @ 9:57am
Posts: 440

Discussions Rules and Guidelines