Jump to content

StopKillingMe

Community Members
  • Posts

    109
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by StopKillingMe

  1. Once again, I will restate clearly, the only objective for balance patch 1.0 should be to address the fact that Celts are being overplayed. So here we go again, yet another attempt (that no doubt you will tell me is wrong): Remove slingers from Age 1 CC for Britons and Athens, all slingers now trained from barracks in Age 2 Reduce slinger attack to 8.0 pierce - .5 crush, slow attack speed to 2.0 seconds Implement quickly, see how that affects ladder play, prepare for next patch. Easy peasy.
  2. Sorry, let me clarify. Balancing the *Celts* is relatively easy. And for the ten billionth time, I'm not talking about doing this in a mod, I'm talking about balancing vanilla which is what most of us are playing. Take away the slinger from Britons in Age 1, and reduce skirmishers attack from 16 to 14. This is my solution. Slingers will quite obviously not be used in Age 1, since with this patch you can no longer train them. The number one problem on the ladder right now is an Age 1 Briton slinger rush. This solves that problem. Slightly reducing the attack of Skirmishers makes a Celt Age 1 Skirmisher rush not as effective. Again, this is all that is needed at this point, we do not need to abandon vanilla and all starting playing a mod (of which there are several different flavors) - we do not need to tear apart the game and rework everything, we need a simple balance patch that addresses the Celts. This can be done very quickly.
  3. After many hours of test play, I believe that the solution for balancing Gauls is rather straight forward. Take away the slinger unit from the Britons in Age 1, give them skirmishers in the CC just like Gauls (make them advance to Age 2 to make slingers), and reduce all skirmishers attack from 16 pierce to 14 pierce. Problem solved. This can be patched in less than a week. You're welcome.
  4. Sigh. I guess this is a pointless discussion. I gave those three things as an example of what needs to be done, and yet again it turns into another "that's not gonna work" post. Clearly there are too many emotions and personal fiefdoms involved here. I think it's unfortunate. 0ad is open source if there is any game that should be able to be patched for balance easily, it should be this one. Oh well, I guess everyone is going to go off in their own direction and make mods. So be it. I tried. I will just play Britons and slinger rush from now on until I see the next change, and if I have to dive into the changelog to find out what balance changes were made for myself, so be it.
  5. I guess I don't get it anymore - first you say that wicker baskets are fine, then it turns out you changed them in your mod. I believe what the rest of us want, is some kind of balance patch or change to balance in the next Alpha release, and we would like to understand what is being changed, specifically, as in a list of what is changed and why. This is what competitive players need. A statement of "I balanced techs" isn't enough information, we need to to know what techs were changed and why. The main reason we need this information is in case the patch gets it wrong, we know what has been changed and what we can do to balance things in the next patch. An example would be: Wicker Basket tech research time reduced from 40s to 30s, this makes researching wicker basket with only one berry patch worthwhile Attack speed of all slingers reduced by 30%, this should make it easier to counter early age slinger attacks Pop bonus for Celts barracks reduced from 4 to 3, this should make it harder for Celts to attack early Things like that - we need to enumerate the things that are being changed, and roll that up into a single balance changes document. Even if ultimately some decision is made to include a Borg mod into the next Alpha, I think it is more than fair that the player community should get to know what balances changes were made, and why - as in specifically what was changed and what is the reason and the desired outcome.
  6. Do not expect me to ever respond to you again, as you quite clearly have decided that your purpose is to troll me. I ignore trolls. Goodbye.
  7. Do you have anything to contribute to the subject of this topic?
  8. The purpose of my thread was to discuss strategy. Not sure why I get a warning and you are allowed to troll.
  9. I find this civ to be quite interesting. Elephants as a mobile drop off point is very powerful, as is spamming archers as workers. You can start the game by producing another worker elephant, and making archers instead of women - then positioning the first worker elephant next to berries. With the 4 starting women on berries and the starting cav on chickens, you can realistically get men out faster than any other civ. With the 2nd worker elephant next to wood, and the first elephant next to berries, you get fast walking time without the build time of a storage unit or farmstead, all you need to worry about it building a house. Only need to send one woman to wood, the rest of the archers can cut wood, and now you can build a farmstead and storage unit at your leisure. When you get to town phase, there is sword bearing melee cav at the barracks for raiding. The mobile drop off point of the worker elephant gives you tons of flexibility, and with so many archers working its hard for your opponent to attack you early. If you spam raiding cav - and attack around the back of your opponents base, you can catch him off guard and kill lots of women, food starving him.
  10. OK, so let's use this list as a baseline. "Balance current techs, many are useless." This needs to be detailed more - what techs are we changing? "Balance all auras and hero." Again, specifically what heroes are we changing and why? We should only target OP heroes. Let's get this list fleshed out and start doing a deep dive into specifically what we are changing, and get all of it enumerated. ********* I still feel like we need to address the Celts a little bit more specifically - they should be nerfed in some slight way. Also - killing hunting animals should be a lot easier, early game hunt is important. I play Ptolomies a lot so maybe its just a problem with the camel archer, but some hunt is ridiculously difficult to take down, to the point that it's an unfair disadvantage. My reasoning on the wicker baskets researching faster is that on a map with only one group of berries, by the time you get a farmstead up and the research is done half your berries are already gone - maybe even changing wicker baskets to affect the speed of farming a little bit would make them more worthwhile to get early game. I feel like right now it's a viable strat to skip getting them and go right to upgrading farms.
  11. I understand - I am actually playing a lot of practice single player games in anticipation of what the future meta might look like, I am experimenting with the Mauryans, the two things that I think can be used is faster archer training time and the fact that worker elephants are mobile drop off point. I'm messing with a 2nd elephant start strat...
  12. The only thing I would say to this - is that in 2v2 or 3v3 games on larger maps, at least from my perspective, it appears to be a race to city stage, and spam of siege, with no real way to counter it - in my opinion if you decide to spam siege, there needs to be an effective counter to it - right now people seem to be able to spam siege, and put some massed ranged units next to it, and there is no way to counter it, the game is over at that point..what I don't like about that is, an army made of entirely ranged units should crumble to anything melee.
  13. I'm just doing this as an example of how it works.
  14. I have been playing a lot of practice games at Ptolomies and one thing I don't understand is the starting camel archers ineffectiveness at killing hunt - I have seen contestants on naked and afraid kill African wildlife with home made bows in one shot - and yet just now I had my camel archer try to kill a Giraffe and after like 14 strikes with an arrow the animal is like still at half health - this seems like a really unfair disadvantage for Ptolomies. All hunt should go down as easily for everyone faction or you are putting some civs at a distinct early game disadvantage. And anyway, an animal cannot withstand dozens of arrows, that is very unrealistic IMO.
  15. Medium or Small Map size? I am assuming for fairness map should be random/random but what is the accepted map size for competitive play?
  16. This seems to be a very controversial subject, with what I believe to be an unfortunate amount of emotions involved. So I'd like to in this thread establish some things, from the player perspective. I would like to break this down into digestible chunks to consider: 1. Is balancing gameplay a priority? If so, when is the target for implementing this? I don't think that opining that nothing is being done is productive. As a community we need to be supportive of the established process for making changes. 2. How will gameplay changes be implemented? A patch, or in the next Alpha release? 3. Who determines what is changed? An expert player? Consensus from a debate? I believe at least for the first change to balance, it should be from consensus - from the players - and not decided by a single individual. As such, the things that I feel need to be discussed are the following: Is 0ad a traditional rock/paper/scissor RTS? I submit that no, it in fact is not that. What I believe 0ad to be, is a unique RTS based on historical warfare. Therefore, in my opinion, trying to change it from that original ideal is a mistake, and a disservice. What exists right now should be slightly modified, and very carefully. Not abandoned and reworked. The CC structure, who can build what, what can train from the CC - none of that should be changed. So I submit to you that trying to overhaul 0ad is something that should not happen. Dramatically changing this game in my opinion is for the modders, and should not carry over into a game that has not even been slated for release yet. In my opinion, the very best thing that can happen to 0ad right now is a code freeze and move into Beta. The ideal of Nerfing one or two factions at a time - in my opinion, is the best way to balance gameplay. A wholesale change to how the game plays will confuse everyone, we should make changes slowly and play the changed game extensively before we decide to change it again. For an extended period in the game lobby, not in test with just a few people. Long term competitive play reveals the issues with balance in a comprehensive way, a couple of days of play testing does not. This is an established process in other RTS games that works, letting the player community expose the game's weakness. Consider AOM, these are the patch notes in regards to game balance: Odin now gets his hunting bonus. The actual change was to increase Odin Villager and Dwarf hunting rate from +10% to +20%. Thor's Pig Sticker improvement now affects hunting rate. The actual change was to increase hunting rate from +10% to +20%. Loki's Ox Carts are now weaker instead of stronger. The actual change was to subtract 80 hitpoints from Loki Ox Carts. Raiding Cavaly have +10% more Pierce and +5% Hack Armor. This should let Norse counter archers more easily in the Classical Age. Norse Longhouse now costs 110 Wood instead of 130 Wood. This will let Norse make more Longhouses. Isis Obelisks now cost 10 Gold instead of 5 Gold. This should prevent Isis from making quite so many Obelisks. Egyptian Barracks now cost 75 Gold instead of 50 Gold. This will prevent Egyptians from making quite so many Barracks. Ancestors now have 140 hitpoints instead of 180 hitpoints. This makes the God Power a bit weaker, but will also affect Mummy Minions. Hippikons now take 20 seconds to train in Classical. They remain at 15 seconds in Heroic and Mythic. This should make it harder for Poseidon especially from having such large cavalry armies in Classical. Helepoli now have -15% Hack armor, occupy +1 pop slots, and have -50 hitpoints. This should discourage the "all Helepoli armies" in Mythic. Then the second balance patch: Egyptian First Age farming is slower; Plow restores the rate. Plow takes longer to research. (+10 Seconds. ) Ra’s Chariots and Camelry have a smaller hitpoint bonus. (dropped from 20% to 10%) Ra’s Priests now empower gathering less than Pharaohs empower gathering.(dropped from 20% to 10%) Mercenary Cavalry pierce and hack armor decreased. (Hack 60% dropped to 40%, Pierce 70% down to 45%) Build limits (max number you can have at one time) imposed on Mercenary (12) and Mercenary Cavalry (8). Mercenary and Mercenary Cavalry lifespans are 5 seconds shorter. Heavy Chariot, Camel and Elephant improvements are more expensive. (Heavy Camels; Additaional 150 food and 150 gold, Elephant; Additional 200 food and 150gold, Chariot; Additional 150wood and 150gold. ) Chariot speed decreased (Ra's are still faster, but less fast than they were).(-.3) Animals of Set cost 1 less pop slot. Heroes no longer get bonus damage vs. animals of Set. Set's Slingers have more hitpoints. (boosted from 10% to 20%) Roc hack armor decreased (easier for Throwing Axemen to hit them). (hack dropped 10%) Roc speed decreased. (dropped by .5) Cyclops has more hitpoints (+50 HP) Poseidon's Towers produce only 1 Militia. It's obvious these changes were coming from a place of balancing actual real time gameplay, and not from one person's vision of how the game is supposed to play. I believe strongly that this is the approach we should take. In summary: 1. Preserve the original ideal of historically based combat as much as possible. (rock/paper/scissors counter system is not necessary, and out of scope) 2. Separate game play balance changes from all other dev activities, so that they can be applied via a patch. 3. Make incremental changes to one or two factions at a time, see how the game plays after it's patched, adjust again, patch again, and so on. 4. Publish patch release notes, so that players see exactly what is changed and why and can change game play decisions or what faction they want to play accordingly. So having said that, these are my ideas for patch 1.01 Increase build time for Celts buildings Reduce crush damage for all slingers Change default action to attack from capture on all siege weapons All melee cavalry get an attack bonus (or increase) vs siege Slow the movement and attack speed of rams Speed up research time for wicker baskets tech dramatically
  17. Do you want to be a rebel? Cause that's road you are on...you can unite the players or divide them, your choice... *Drops the Microphone*
  18. In other words you're hacking with speed as your only objective...we used to call this "agile" deveiopment, an initiative that did more harm then good...do us all a favor and accept the process, warts and all...we need unity in the game lobby, make vanilla great again!
  19. This right here says it all...I urge people in a leadership position at WFG to reject this attitude and implement balance changes carefully and slowly.
  20. I'm going to continue to play vanilla in the game lobby. Mods are fine, but incorporating any of them without due diligence into vanilla I am totally against. Is he going to rewrite all the documentation if his new counter system gets in? The problem remains, the pace of his changes are too fast with no one elses input. There needs to be a measured approach.
  21. But I'm now a troll, remember? My point remains, game play balance and game features are two different things and should be implemented separately. Translation:. Your opinion doesn't matter.
  22. You know what, you guys can badmouth the actual guys that did the heavy lifting all you want, I'm just making sure the WFG team knows that at least one person is loyal to the process, and will remain loyal. Just say no to mods! I already have.
  23. I rest my case, you are driven by ego. Which probably explains why you don't want to help improve vanilla...I'm not trolling, I am offering up my opinion that incorporating your mod into the next Alpha is not a good idea. It got suggested here and I'm making sure that my opinion on that is being noted. If you want to now act like a child and try to villify me here by labelling me a troll, it only proves the point that for you this is about your ego, not the future of this game.
×
×
  • Create New...