scythetwirler
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Posts posted by scythetwirler
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In terms of health, most champions do have significantly more health than citizen soldiers at the moment.Note that ranks may be temporarily disabled for A18 due to the massive amounts of hardcoding and easily overlooked inconsistencies. Champions may be buffed later when advanced and elite soldiers are reintroduced.
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If you cannot join the games of others, then that usually means they have not set up their hosting correctly and no one else can join their game either.
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Rams are intended for sieging structures; using them to target infantry is not efficient. That being said, infantry can surround a ram and effectively halt its progress.
Also, a siege weapon should be considered a top priority target when it is sighted. It's quite possible to concentrate a regiment of infantry on the siege weapon and take it out quickly.
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In Alpha 17, 5 spearmen will beat a ram. That's (50F+50W) times 5 = 250F+250W. A single ram costs 350W + 200M. Spearmen are also faster and more maneuverable.
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Even faster shooting rate for archers? They already shoot as fast as machine guns!
Misworded it. Their rate of attack is the same as before, but their rate of attack is now faster than that of other ranged units (other ranged unit rate of fire was decreased).
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Changes made:
- Differentiation of skirmishers and archers
- Civ-specific unit\buildings perks and bonuses
- Formation Enabling/Disabling Toggle (see ticket #2936)
- Stronger champions and heroes
- Nerfing of Persian Cavalry (so that they are consistent with those of other civs). This may turn out differently during civ differentiation stage, as Persians were noted for their strong cavalry.
- Disabling of cavalry "auto-micro"
- Making siege weapons considerably more effective than foot/cavalry soldiers against structures.
- Decreasing accuracy of bolt shooters.
The repository is located at https://github.com/scythetwirler/0ad/ (branch 'balance'). You can see the changes at the bottom of that page (though I may forget to update that with changes).
The branch will set you up to join a separate lobby for this branch.
Installing the branch:
Windows
Download GitHub for Windows and open the application Git Shell. From that window, type in the following commands:
mkdir 0ad-balancecd 0ad-balancegit clone https://github.com/scythetwirler/0ad.git
The last command will take a while to execute, as it will download an approximately 4-6 GB repository.
When the git clone has finished, you can run the game using pyrogenesis.exe (most likely in your Documents/GitHub/0ad-balance/0ad/binaries/system/ folder).
Linux
Install git on your distribution of Linux and create a folder in which you want to download the repository. Run the following command to start the download:
git clone https://github.com/scythetwirler/0ad.git
The last command will take a while to execute, as it will download an approximately 4-6 GB repository.
When the git clone has finished, you will need to compile the game. See BuildInstructions for compiling instructions (SKIP the "Getting the code" section). After compiling, you should be able to run the game using pyrogenesis (in your 0ad/binaries/system/ directory).
Branches:
master - Copy of the 0ad git repository.
experimental - cutting edge changes that have not been thoroughly tested (both technical and balance). Please use this version to test unless it does not function due to recent changes in code.
stable - technical stable version Fallback if the experimental branch does not function due to recent changes in code.
To switch between branches, simply open git shell and type
cd 0ad-balance/0adgit checkout branch_name
Keeping up to date:
I will make frequent adjustments to balance.
Windows:
Open git shell and type in
cd 0ad-balance\0ad\git pull
Linux:
cd inside your 0ad/ folder and run
git pull
If there are source changes (usually if there's a merge commit), then you will have to recompile (BuildInstructions).
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There's a bug where you have to press enter while in the text field to save.
http://trac.wildfiregames.com/ticket/2451
EDIT: Seemed like you got it
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Yes, the gear symbol. I also notice this gear symbol when I'm trying to go up a level. Is the gear symbol simply "time."
Yes, the gear symbol represents the time in seconds needed either for a unit to train (in the case of sheep, soldiers, workers, etc.) or for a technology to research.
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@scythetwirler
Maybe you should rename this to Alpha 18 Balancing Branch?
I'll probably make a new topic for that. No need to bloat this one imo.
Once I get that topic up, I'll probably lock this.
Also, could you add me and/or somebody else to the commit privileges?
My answer to when you first asked that still stands.
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Try following the directions here: http://play0ad.com/download/linux/#a0A.D.providedpackages
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- champions. need. more. health.
I definitely agree with this. I wasn't able to spend as much time balancing champions as I liked prior to A17.
- buildings need more pierce armor. Its ridiculous, how 8 archers can tear down a building thats in progress or a few more archers can destroy eg a tower.
(which damage do archers to a stone tower in reality? Imho: nearly none.)
Agree for the most part, but I do think that foundations/half-built buildings should be squishy.
- rams are op now compared to catas. Need less pierce armor too, or champs more health, as said above. Or units generally dealing more hack, dunno.
I'll have to test this a little more, but I recall thinking that 5 melee soldiers can down a ram pretty quickly. Catapults should be placed behind fortified positions such as a fortress or an army for best results and are quite devastating against enemy units.
- That skirmcav auto-micro needs discussion too. All ranged units should get this feature, or, what I personally would prefer: no auto-micro at all.
I'm not very fond of the auto-micro either; I'll see what I can do about that.
- Ptolemies are clearly op in earlygame. Its nearly impossible to defend their raids in first gameplay minutes without own eco going downhill. Also in lategame, that hero that increases pikemen health 40% during his lifetime is ridiculous. Give him an aura, or nerf the percentage.
I'll have to test this a little more. The hero's bonus does seem overly effective, though I don't think that was introduced with my changes.
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I've seen you in the lobby these last two days. I'm assuming you've got it figured out?
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Sorry to hear that. I'll take note of this incident. Ratings will be reset at A17 (database field changes due to profiles etc.) so it wouldn't make too much difference as A17 is just on the horizon. If you do get this again (after A17), please contact a lobby mod (me or leper) via PM (it's best not to defame people publicly) and we'll take care of it accordingly.
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Archers (and ranged infantry) can be garrisoned onto walls in the developer version (and A17).
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The current state of gameplay is just mostly a simplified, unified game just to test (through an alpha release) whether the civs are balanced at their current state before we start introducing bells and whistles for each faction (rebalancing after civ perks will be much more difficult if the baseline isn't balanced).
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Having no formations is at least a predictable messiness - units go where you think they'd go. Formations that regroup randomly and split of ranged and melee units are much less predictable.
Ideally, I'd like an option for the moment to disband formations the same way you could toggle a formation but leave an option for both at the player's choosing.
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My stance on formations:
Formations are a cool concept, but as of right now, I do not feel they are ready. Sure, they look cool and organized, but there are some (frustrating?) bugs with it. Notably, when a unit in a formation dies while regrouping, the whole formation will try to reformate into a different shape due to having one fewer member in their formation. More often that not in large battles, another unit will die before they reach their formation shape and they will attempt to reorganize again. This cycle repeats until the formation is wiped out without a chance to attack.
In addition, having no formations seems to make the game less laggy (this may or may not be true, but it feels that way)-
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I meant that this wasn't done to slower gathering in the early game.
In short, no, and i have no clue what in my post could give you this impression.
If speaking about researching, i see that the balance branch aims to force players to choose some tech strategies instead of researching all techs (that usually happens in a16) and consider this a good initiative. However, 'researching everything' is still possible in the branch, though has become harder. (I am aware that this is not the final version of techs and other techs are to be added.)
For example, I continue to research many gathering techs:
1) because I can,
2) because they make a really huge difference,
3) because alternatives (trading or merchandising) are more micro and less fun.
As a result, on many of the maps I can have lots of resources and it starts to feel like a deathmatch. This is why I suggested to decrease the coefficients.
As for training/building everything, I am a little bit lost how to comment on this, I don't have such desires
And which exactly change is supposed to prevent a player from this?Techs are not done yet (rather far from being done).
Notably, the blacksmith techs will be a lot more expensive (probably in the ballpark of 1k of two or three resources in town phase and 1.5k for the extensions in city). The only techs that have undergone change so far are the gathering techs.-
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You can see discussion here: http://trac.wildfiregames.com/ticket/2160
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For ram attacking infantry, how about we give it a slight damaging aura instead (unlockable tech?), this simulates the soldiers inside the ram retaliate against attackers, also with this aura the ram doesn't have to stop to attack enemy units and can still sort of push forward given enough time. This way we can silmulate the fact that ram can still be blocked by enemy but it can slowly bowl over opposition, but clearing the blocking enemy with your own units will be more effective though.
Rams attacking units is just meant as a placeholder until the pathfinder can be fixed etc.
I think the Mauryan worker elephant can get around the wheelbarrow tech, but the other civs might miss it. Not sure why it was chained to lumber abilities anyway.
Wheelbarrow techs (and subsequent capacity techs) have been revamped and implemented.
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Scythetwirler: can you add me to the GitHub so I can have some edit privileges?
I'd rather not for the time being, at least until some things have been tested out and fixed. You are always free to fork it and submit pull request for fixes/suggestions.
What is the justification for making cavalry weaker against ranged attacks? Aren't cavalry (generally) supposed to counter ranged units?
It does seem that way in other RTSes, but I'd like to try out a more generic battling system that doesn't revolve around rock-paper-scissors combat. The problem with cavalry countering ranged units (imo) is that they'd be either immensely overpowered (due to their speed, they decide when they want to battle, and thus, usually only when they have an advantage), or vastly underpowered if we nerf them too hard. Right now, I'm giving them a sort of raiding niche to attack unprotected workers.
Priests made to cost only food and not metal, for what reason? Are we supposed to be able to mass Priests? Shouldn't Priests be special support units, hence cost some Metal?
Metal, imo, was too precious to spend 200 on each healer. Merely having 25 healers was enough to deplete your entire starting 5000 metal mine. Perhaps they should cost a little metal, but currently I want to increase the usage of healers to see how people use them and go from there.
Also, why do swordsmen cost wood? Makes no sense to me.
Swordsmen were almost never being used beyond early rushing, due to their high metal cost. I'm not sure where wood would be used for a swordsman, but right now, I'm just trying to balance it. If metal cost is decreased too much, they become too strong early game. Thus, I had to add another cost to make them on par with other soldiers.
And rams "attacking" soldiers and women sounds pretty weird. Seems like a lot of the changes were made to just make changes? Experiment?
Realistically, you would not stand in front of a ram because you'd be bowled over. Previously, you could just send any unit (healers included) to just block the ram. With its large obstruction size, rams became useless quite often - they couldn't reach a structure to attack.
I've done my testings with "making units move faster" and the effect is 100% what I expected: gameplay feels nervous and quick. I had hardcoded into CCmpUnitMotion that all units moved twice as fast, which is a little fast, but I think changing templates so that all walking speed are between 1.5 and 2 times their current values will help the feel of the game greatly.
(Merchants OTOH shouldn't be changed, they were ludicrously fast).
I rather like this idea. I'll give it a try sometime.
Another note: It is still in the experimental phase, many things are subject to change.
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Can you try running it again?
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I haven't been able to get github to get a working clone up. corrupted something or something
Did you download the whole repository or did it stop midway?
Alpha 18 Balancing Branch
in General Discussion
Posted
That was an oversight, I'll fix that.
Thanks for the report.