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Organix

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  1. Thanks for those comments, I really appreciate the maturity of the community. I didn't know I could try a17 but I think most of the issues I've spoken are not gone for the time being, because like Zeta said, the "bad decisions" (for me at least) in Game Design department were conscious and deliberate. I want to answer (do not worry, I'll make it short). Yup. What I said. Historical accuracy does not have to go against the game. Soldiers on one side & workers on another would work nice in 0-AD. Heck, if men were workers only and women were soldiers only, I would not have complained so much. A unit must have a defined role because we are in a video game, and put gaming constraint because of reality is plain dumb for my sake. 0-AD seems to be inspired by Age of Empires A LOT.The only changes made ​​by the development team are rarely justified and may significantly harm the whole set. Units and buildings in 0-AD lack of personality, not visually of course, but in the game's core. What is the point with barracks or town center right now? What is the point with all the bonuses for all units? This is a general problem and kind of a mise en abyme of the project itself. Units lack of identity, and so is the game right now. I don't think the feature of soldiers-citizens brings anything interesting, sadly. This is good to read. I'm now confident that programmers and designers will make the best decisions for the game in the future. This is a proof that the dev team is closely linked to the community. I hope that other issues will be addressed as well. Zeta. You don't really answer the problems raised in my first post, because you often say that "you don't see the issue" or "you don't like this statement" or "deliberate decision, it won't change". I understand what you want to explain, but if the dev team is open to a better way to proceed, I'm sure they will try, at least. I remember that the game has no time limits, so it does not matter to have big gaps in a beta. Example : "Some animals aren't hostile." Well elephants are not punching bags as far as I know. Sometimes they attack, sometimes they don't. This is a flaw and this needs to be addressed, like most of what I said early. It's not because the team decided 5 years ago that there were no limits between a citizen and a soldier that you can't think of a better system NOW. I read these boards recently, and you have to admit that new players mostly don't like this feature, unlike the regulars ... who are accustomed. Likewise, you did not catch what I meant sometimes. "Alt" is a fast way to see health of everybody without overfly or select anybody. You press the button, you see the health, you release button. Simple and useful. I also disagree with pop ; it's a value that should be consistent in the game for all civs. Other way, it needs perfect balance, and 0-AD is far from this consideration for now. Anyway, I would like to know why you agree with the possibility to build military units from the start in a town center ? I'm just curious. I did'nt know ! Thanks you Zeta, it will certainly help me a lot. See ya.
  2. Hello everyone ! I'm confused right now because I have so much to tell in every direction... let me introduce myself first. I'm a big fan of Age of Empires 1 / 2, Warcraft and Starcraft. I have spent thousands of hours casually and competitively on these games without ever getting bored. When I heared of a free and non-professional RTS clone last month, I was really excited to try it asap. My first words were : "whouaoo, quelle claque !" Yup, I was really impressed the first time I played the game. Technically and aesthetically, 0-AD is gorgeous. It really comes close to Age of Empires 3 in terms of appearance. Very good point here. Preamble : as a kid, I was hoping to play (or create) a strategy game that takes place between -500 and +500, with Romans, Greek, Celts and more. Kind of Age of Empires 1.5 historically. Anyway I did studies in classics some years ago and I really appreciate the realism brought to all civilizations in 0-AD ! But it is precisely the source of all my worries and the primary reason of this post... NOW I will outline many of the problems I encountered during the countless hours I spent on this game. I do not want to hurt anyone with my remarks knowing that this is a game made by free time volunteers, although defects are defects, even if you are all amateurs. It is my personal point of view and and I've in no way claim to require anything. I have infinite respect for your work and will certainly contribute with donations one day. There are obviously three big flaws in the current beta (not including bugs and performance issues) : I. The historical accuracy devours Game Design, Balance & competitiveness What I mean through this flashy title is fortunately very easy to explain and understand. In no way 0-AD can be take seriously by high competitive players, for obvious things that I'll detail later. Maybe the dev team is not trying to attract this kind of community, but it's a large mistake. Why ? Because the competitiveness of a game does not go against the accessibility. A game like Super Smash Bros Melee knows how to appeal to the avid gamers and the more casual ones. This is terribly difficult to do, but really feasible since 0-ad has no deadlines. I read someone on these boards said that a perfect balance is not in lines, but that all civs should be able to win in 1vs1. It means nothing. A pro playing a low tier civ will easily win against a beginner with the best civ. Don't get me wrong, the balance is far from being perfect in Age of Empires, but I'll tell you the major difference between the two games. In Age of Empires 2, all civs can build trebuchets for the sake of balance. Did Aztecs build trebuchets to counter Cortes back to ~1500 ? Heck no. Developers are forced to compromise. If you don't give trebuchets to a civ, give it a godly substitution to compensate this lack. But balance will come after all in the development schedule, I know it and I'm confident. However, historical accuracy must NOT be an obstacle to game design. I have hundreds of examples, let's go : - female citizens... ok I strongly disagree here. First and foremost, that's sexist. Historically sexist, of course. I'm kidding here but seriously, what does this bring to the game? I mean, even historically, females have never accept to be free punching balls for men, so why couldn't they build military buildings or defend themselves a minimum? It's stupid to separate women and men during the war. I frankly hate this flavour and I would be ecstatic to have citizens on a side, soldiers on another. There is a very good reason why Age of Empires does not distinguish the two sexes but distinguish the two roles. Let me explain the reasoning. These are fundamentals. If you give soldiers the ability to build and gather resources, you open the door for a lot of inconsistencies : this doesn't help your economy because you have to constantly juggle between citizens and soliders-citizens which are probably in a fight. You must be careful to not cut wood or hunt when moving your soldiers on the battlefield, and you have to constantly remember that a women can't build military buildings, so don't bother with them after the city phase. A pain in the @#$%, for what benefit? Be able to hunt with your scout? I don't get it. Soldiers must be constantly in a "search & destroy" mode, not in grape picking. I agree with special units for some civs (because historically, of course greek citizens were warriors... and have you plans to add the latrine? Realism does not equal to fun). A general system where soldiers are builders/citizens at the same time? Underwhelming to say the least, to have a core feature that bad for a game like this... you need a questioning. So what could we do? 0.Current system. (bouuuhh I hate that) 1.Female citizens who can fight and build military buildings ; most of soldiers can always work as citizens. (Mehh...) 2.Female citizens who can fight and build military buildings ; only workers of the game. Men are devoted fighters. (I like it) 3.Asexual citizens who can fight and build military buildings ; soldiers are train in barracks only and this is the best thing ever. (I love it) - the town center NEEDS to only build citizens, not soldiers. And of course, seeing that most of the soldiers are citizens at the same time, the town center is the combination of a house and barracks ; this is strange and not good from my perspective. Barracks (and castle) lack of identity in 0-AD. These buildings can create the same units most of the time. I really don't understand. The town center should'nt be able to create soldiers, and even less cavalry. Other very important thing to note : you should avoid almost all military units in the first phase. I don't mind some man-at-arms, but archers and cavalry so early? Nope. - the range is transformed in meters (except for monks... maybe a french mistranslation). What is the point ? This is so vague in a video game, or rather too specific. My archer can throw his arrow at 36 meters, what a great tip. I have not the time as a player to get used to this new terminology. - so much graphics to differentiate a skirmish greek from a skirmish persian... but only visually unfortunatly. There is a motive on why they don't give unique graphics to a british knight in Age of Empires 2. Because the british knight is not different from any other knight in the game. The game is really confusing for a newbie because you can't recognize a unit by his appearance with a neglected look, and this becomes a big flaw when you have to bring the good units to the table. If the design of tokens changed every time you play chess, you won't be able to think as fast as you are used to. However, a queen is always a queen, a knight is always a knight. But I've already explain the importance of defined roles for the gameplay. - buildings take way too long to destroy. Because of that, towers are too powerful in the early game, preventing any successful offensive before siege. (except for a celtic rush...maybe) - not sure if realistic, but archers and skirmishers are 100% accurate, which means you can't micro with a scout to harass enemies. Archers are gods and arrows are unavoidable, even with the fastest cavalry. This is not pleasant if you like to control your units during a fight, which is blatantly useless in 0-AD right now (except for comprehensive strategic positions). -cavalry should be 2-pop (and not able in phase 1, like I have already said), a hero should be a one-time help. Once your hero died, you should'nt be able to train another from my point of view. - is there a way to know the opponents' progression ? Their phase maybe ? It was really practical to know when your opponent was going to a new age in Age of Empires. Or was it a conscious idea of the dev team to leave the player in the dark ? Just curious, I don't mind either way. II. Strange and reckless decisions The worst decision of the game from my personal point of view is the countless bonuses given to units. x1.5 against mounted units, skirmish and champions, x2 against elephants, countered by archers and swordsmen. x2 against swordsmen and skirmish, countered by mounted units. Man, this is hard. Give complexity to a game doesn't necessarily bring depth. In the case of 0-AD, there are way too much bonuses to memorize for each unit. It's like if you have to perform 16 inputs in order to do a dragon punch in Street Fighter. What is the point here ? The current system is broken because you can't know effectively which unit you have to train in order to counter another on the battlefield. Sure you can memorize all things with a lot of practice, and sure it's logical for a spearman to deal a lot of damage against mounted units, but this has to be as simple as it can be. Because the game never intended for experienced players, there is no need to put a very complex counter/countered system for offensive. Bonuses have to be rare, but more prominent. Spearmen x4 against elephants and mounted units, that's ALL. Skirmishers x2 against archers, countered by cavalry and melee infantry. Clear, simple, logical and effective in the battlefield. When I see "x1,5", I asked myself if units don't loose their purposes, their identities in the warfare because of this decision. Macro > Micro in 0-AD, so why do you bother with such bonuses ? Yup, there is something wrong here. But I have other issues in other departments : - military units should be train slowly. 12s for a basic military unit is too fast, it's even faster than a female citizen. Why ? If you have enough wood, there is no need to train a female rather than a skirmish, which is a strange idea overall. Building a counter-offensive is quickly doable if you have enough resources, and considering the defensive pace of 0-AD, this is maybe the best strategy in the game. The opponents will loose a lot of their armies face to your towers (without siege = late game), and in a very short time you'll be able to overcome any situation by producing a large amount of units. We could believe that a shorter time to train a military unit is a good thing to favorize rush games, it is clearly not the case here. A fast attack can be countered so easily that it's not worth the attempt. - because units are train very fast and because resources abound, the player rarely lacks of something. The market is too efficient right now, so you can buy 1000-stone and 1000-metal without any compromise. Buildings are surprisingly cheap and so are most of technologies. - technologies costs are not balanced at all. It seems like the dev team decided randomly. 100 stone for that or 100 metal for this. By example, I think of a specific technology in the castle that costs stone for -20% wood to build Siege Weapons. This is a dumb move because wood is given at this point of the game, contrary to stone and metal. "Fruit Basket" should be 15s of research instead of 40s. It's useful at the very beginning, so I don't understand why it takes so long. And examples are legion... (on the other side, I love technological compromise : your choice of one tech or another will be important for the rest of the game, very strategic indeed) - going to a new phase is too fast. I propose 90s of research for the second phase, 160s for the last. - too much resources at the beginning of the game, even in low. I suppose "low" is the default value, but it's not enough low to my taste. In the same way, you don't need to build a house from the start (or near the start) as in every other RTS I play, and I dislike that a lot. This is disturbing and definitively not a good thing for casuals. You have to teach to a new player that he must build a house quick in order to allow new units. 20-pop from the start is way too much, I propose you 16. You have the time to train 4 citizens during the house's creation (15x4=60s). It would nicely flow with the beginning, so you can train 2 citizens before starting the house. Oh by the way, a house for 10-pop is a lot considering that a player can upgrade it to 13-pop. I propose 8-pop for a house, maybe reducing a little its cost. Just my thought. - agricultural fields are... completly overpower. I suggest at least 100 wood in order to build one and a cap for 1000 food to collect. By doing that, you strengthen the micro of your citizens and you reward the player for its economic focus. A field is so cheap and so easy to preserve (by doing nothing, basically) that other way to gather food is really factitious. Of course it's slow, but it's also too convenient to be outshine by hunting or whatever. AOK farm's system please. - skirmish-caval are broken. Auto-AI on them makes the micro-game nonexistent and the speed of cavalry gives them a considerable advantage over other units in the game. - treasures are broken. In some maps, you just have to find treasures before your opponent to win the game, even with a terrible gestion of your economy. 1000-food, 300-wood, seriously ?! This is so broken that it hurts the whole metagame. Something like 100-food or 50-metal are more rational for me. Not to mention that a player who knows the map will earn an immeasurable advantage. III. Feeling(s) I'm sure this will be addressed in future updates but I want to speak about that briefly. The fights are not well rendered sometimes ; it looks like Age of Empires 3 without gunpowder, so it's not really great to my opinion. Siege weapons need better animations, and mainly a sense of power and danger. It starts with better gfx and sfx. I love rams in 0-AD thanks to their sounds (it could be improved with more bass, but the feeling is good), although balists and catapults are very poor in comparison. And "hitboxes" are strange sometimes, with a swordsman who can attack a building 4 meters far from him visually. Obviously, buildings will need some feedback on their destruction state, with flames, flying stones and so on. From a general standpoint, the game also lacks of several other feedbacks. Sound feedback, visual feedback. I have to know better when I need more houses, or more resources. I have to know better when I enter a new phase or when I finish the construction of certain buildings. And I'll say that some buildings sound pretty underwhelming, especially Barracks. (I love the "TA-DAAM TA-DAAM" from Age of Kings). This part of the game needs a lot of work. Also : - Why take metal instead of gold? For the sake of difference? There is a reason (again) why AOE took gold mines instead of metal mines. Gold is yellow and shiny, it's easy to differentiate it from the stone and wood on the map and the interface. Most of armors are aesthetically made of gold in the game, so I questionned your choice twice. - Seperate Economic buildings from Military ones with one icon for each. Like Starcraft or Age of Empires, it's much convenient this way. - I need a star on the minimap to distinguish allied market. Please. - Hotkeys? I would prefer customizable ones. For the moment, it's really hard to master some HL tricks. - Press Alt to watch units' health (Warcraft-like), it's really useful. - I'd like to see how much damage a unit can deal without overfly a tooltip. If soldiers were'nt builders at the same time, it would'nt be a problem at all... ehh - An option to only select idly female citizen if the general system of the game doesn't change. - Livestock could gain in food over time. I liked this idea in Age of Empires 3 and I think it could be good in 0-AD as well. Maybe a sheep could be at 50-food when formed (original cost) and grow up to 200-food in 2 minutes. - Wild animals sometimes don't attack citizens. - AI is maybe one of the hardest part in a game's development, I know it. The AI in 0-AD is absurdly easy to beat even in the hardest mode. I play against Petra and the other one and I never loose a game. I don't think I'm somewhat good without hotkeys, so yeah, I'm curious to see what I could do against humans these days. - Ergonomy before starting a game ; changing the map will reboot all the options. Frustrating. - Music for each kind of civ is an excellent idea and I welcome the execution as well. It's very good and atmospheric. The main theme is somewhat lacking, I'd love something more epic and traditionnal, less hollywood-style. Personal taste again, I don't pretend to be objective. - Hundreds of new and unique voices for all units! ____ TL;DR (and I don't blame you) : Historical accuracy doesn't need to crush against simplicity and balancing of the game. Some decisions and ideas are dumb or unjustified, preventing the game's depth in favor of nothing. Soldiers-citizens' feature is a game breaker for me. Better gfx and gameplay's fixes everywhere would bring a (needed) fresh air. If you need someone to help in the balancing department and game design issues, I'll gladly join your forces in my free time. Labor omnia vincit improbus. I hope it was a decent read for you. I'm open to debate, because even if I don't know the project for a long time, I want to see its full evolution from today. (OH by the way, I would love Huns into 0-AD ! I have ton of ideas for this civilization and I am passionate by nomadic cultures... maybe in another thread ehhh!). If you could link me some videos of good players on Youtube, I'd be very happy.
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