DarcReaver

So? Then I guess you also don't need a braking pedal in your car because you never drive on hilly streets and already have a parking brake. Just because someone set friendlyfire = 0 it's still important to think about it. What if at some it becomes necessary to set friendlyfire = 1? OH NO THE GAME EXPLODES DAFUQ Dat hostility ... I've read all posts in here and was astonished by the amount nonsense posted here, indeed. If this was part of a patch changelog of another game it would be called "minor bugfix: units no longer accidentally attack wildlife units unless they've been attacked by them first". Just fix the issue for now by lowering the sight range of units as a workaround. And after that fix the issue properly by separating target aquiring range from sight range. If the engine doesn't support that it's another core issue that needs to be fixed first and should be set on the priority list. Maybe some of the devs should actually analyze and play some good RTS games and make notes about the GUI, unit behavior and sight range mechanics and then implement those in 0ad.

Yes, the game has 4k problems, but I don't see how that's affecting graphics... xD

You can't even agree to fix such a nuisance? Others would call this a bug. lol... Ofc friendly fire and wildlife interaction needs to be fixed. Just like in every other RTS game on the market from the last 10 years...

No, only if you pay me $$$

the issue with settings is that people will treat the standard rules as "basic" game, so this won't help for competitive multiplayer I fear. Unless you make a "tourney" mode or "competitive mode" that automatically sets up certain rules. In theory this might work - a "fun game" mode where you can play whatever you want (unranked) and a competitive game where you set up certain rules.

Well his arguments are pretty retarded. It's the typical eyesight of people who don't want to loose an advantage. If a game requires you to destroy/rebuild walls and you mastered this "feature" you don't want it gone. Because it's something other people cannot do aswell as you can. The issue with this is that this type of person does not differentiate between "good" and "bad" Actions and APM. You can get 300+ APM by just spamming right clicks. That doesn't make you a good player. Same - building and destroying walls does not define a good player. The point about "random maps": I think he is pretty spot on on this point. This is what makes AoE games different from other RTS. It's a good feature. But his view on "it's good luck/bad luck" like poker is bad. There should be some basic balance in the map layout. If it isn't, the game is not fun. No matter if 1v1 or 4v4. The easiest way to get rid of these people is to get someone who is a better player than they are, and then abuse them for dozens of games with the @#$% they say that should stay in the game. To the point they're so pissed off that they quit or admit that they were wrong. Indeed. Useless, tedious micro is cancer. Nobody needs units that are too retarded to move properly, or to destroy walls to get units through a wall. True, those purists are cancer for games. If you follow their opinion you'll alienate 99% of the community. This is probably someone who never played some other game and didn't evolve further at all. It's the same type of people who only play the most basic, unpatched version of a game, because they think that balance changes are unnecessary, because "it makes the game more hard" ... Which is retarded. AOE 1 Rise of Rome is Chariot archer spam in 99% of the time with assyrians. If MS/FE had put in the vanilla game stats I'm 100% sure the community would be even more dead than the one from Dawn of War 3 or Age of Mythology. AoE DE at least has some nice tool rushing options, and it's possible to use other civs than just Assyrians. I have decent sucess with Greeks and Sumerians in 1v1 for example. Considering that on the 1st day of "open beta" in AoE there were like 40 rooms open at the same time. The 2nd day there only were like 15 open. This shows that many people try it out but obviously they dislike somehting about the game - maybe the balance, maybe the gameplay, and maybe the controls. A lot of people expect certain "quality of life" changes to a modern game.

Sure, nothing wrong with that. @Lion.Kanzen like this, yes. like I said multiple times, noone needs another Age game with AoE DE, AoE 2 HD, AoE 2 DE on the way.

Yes. The town bell in AoE 2 is in because the game's economy units are very important to keep alive. Villagers are slow moving and resource gathering is slow and it's hard to boom. Loosing a couple of villagers can be gg at any time. In AoE I you have easier time to expand the economy, especially from bronze onwards because TCs are easy to build and wheel villagers work very fast. Also it's easy to redeploy villagers because of their speed. Since it's much easier to boom in 0 AD (faster villager creation, villagers from houses etc.) and loosing vills does not matter that much I sort of question why the game has an easy mode defense mechanism.

Nah don't get me wrong. I know that 0 ad has stuff ingame that is not part of AoE, but once again - we had multiple discussions in the past about the overall gameplay, and that copying stuff from another game without having a "clue" about its impact is bad. And town bell mechanics, among others, should be made part of a discussion if it's necessary.

Yes. this is the argument for almost everything gameplay related. Might be worth a shot to question why something is necessary instead of copying...

After playing quite some games in AoE I I sort of question why the town bell is in the game at all anyways. Just makes the game more campy..

Melee will still try to walk around other units if you right click on a certain enemy, but a-move is possible now aswell, so it's better. It's still much better than AoE II HD again. The balance changes seem to be influenced by Upatch, but they go a bit farther.

Yes, combat system is the same, but they seem to have changed attackspeeds to match animations. Units have movement type tags ("fast", "slow") and same with their attackspeeds. Chariot Archer rush is fixed, because they reworked civ bonuses. Assyrian archers no longer fire 40% fastert. Now they shoot 25% faster and villagers move 10% faster instead of like 40%. So the main faction that spammed Chariot Archers is no longer OP. Choson swordsmen line gets cumulative hitpoint bonuses (like +15/20/35 or smth) for short/broad/long swords instead of +80 HP for Legions only. Greek get cheaper hoplites and higher speed on them etc. About animations: yes they're the same still. Why would you need dedicated servers for an RTS?

The effects look cartoonish, but it's not too bad. But I think those are placeholders. Overall it "feels" good - it's fun to play, looks nice, has very fluid gameplay and less 1 type of únit spam compared to normal aoe (Which is chariot archer spam 99% of the time). I'm sure I'll stick to it for quite a while, got me hooked. Which hasn't happened with RTS in a long time. Also I like that most people play it on "fast" instead of "very fast", so it's a nice mixture of micro and macro. Plus it's less campy than AoE II, since you can't protect your villagers so easily. This makes the game more like Starcraft/Warcraft, which is pretty cool. Putting pressure on the enemy, re-establish the base, and loosing vills isn't so bad in AoE because you get more resources overall. Stability is pretty excellent, much MUCH better than Steam AoE II, actually I didnt expect that, esp. since it's only a beta. Even with yellow connections.

Already have access to the beta. It's pretty awesome and runs very smooth, especially compared to the steam version of AoE II and AoM. Some neat improvements in farming (they're like in AoE 2 now) and overall pretty clean visuals. Also, balance fixes to Assyrians, Chosons, Greeks and other factions.

Actually a very interesting map layout. Me likes.

Where's the train?

this topic in a nutshell: Independant of that I'd like to add that the combat system is lacking. There should be more damage types/armourtypes available to create more differences between unit types. This could also be achieved by using armour/penetration values.

Well it isn't really beneficial to start discussing whether this is OP or not. I do believe you - the issue is pretty simple: having mobile harassment earlygame in a game like this is a large advantage and result of sloppy/bad faction design and another example why a proper gameplay dev (team) is needed since the team doesn't understand how the game mechanics of RTS games work/why and which mechanics are fun and rewarding for player's experience. I just took these games as a very random example of how boring, strategically unattractive, repetitive and unrewarding the tech demo is in multiplayer (I just typed in 0 ad multiplayer games on youtube and age of empires II multiplayer and took some random games from page 1 which were no single player 'let's play' videos to prove my point). If I'd play more than like 5 of these games I'd immediately ditch it and play something else because it sucks (just like I did with Age of Empires 1 after playing against those weird vietnamese players). And this is not because of bad balance, but because it simply sucks to have no variety of choices. Which leads back to lack of a proper game design.

Dude this doesn't matter that you can post game expamples of Pros beating other pros on Arabia or another map. Because AoE offers more POSSIBLE strategies because of a better game design and more VIABLE strategies because of better balance. Also the game usually does not end with a Flush in AoE but instead with more tactical choices depending on the civ matchup AFTER the rush, which consists of adding multiple additional units, researching unit lines to counter enemy unit lines (like getting champions/halbs against people going cavalry upgrades) or getting trash units + archers, or mobile harassment forces (like woadies, Boyars or whatever) or getting siege to counter mass trash or getting monks to convert powerful enemy units or whatever. This isn't present in 0 AD because IT ISN'T EXISTANT. Because the game design is unfinished, incoherent and unbalanced and there are only a couple POSSIBLE strategies and only a few VIABLE strategies, which limits both singleplayer and multiplayer. Just accept it instead of arguing against it.

Yes the suspense in this game is killing me literally. Especially the strategical choice of building a clump of cavalry units and sending it over to the enemy after booming for like 15 minutes. AoE II is nowhere near this strategical finesse with all its unit line upgrades, different military building paths and overall tech trees, and stuff like dark age rushing, feudal scout rush or archer flsuhing etc. This one aswell. 100 camel archers are really much better gameplay than AoE II.

Okay then compare this: to this It's pretty self explanatory why 0 ad is inferior to Age II by miles.

Yes. But now think about the following: You have a very low limit for POSSIBLE strategies in 0 AD because the design is weak. You have even less VIABLE strategies becausethe bad unit balance. But now if you invest dozens/hundreds of hours to get the current game design balanced you still end up with a very low amount of POSSIBLE strategies. This makes me question: why would this be worth the effort? Why not make the game design good first and then balance the good game design to get a good game experience?

Well I admit I was a bit harsh. However, reading these posts "prove me" "give me exact points" "you don't know stuff I know it better" kind of posts seriously start to annoy me on these forums. Especially from people who have no clue and experience with game making in the first place. It's repeating stuff again and again and again and again and again without any benefit for anyone.

He directly asked me to show my points. And since I've already written down a massive essay and contributed the stuff he can just go ahead and read those topics to get on the same level of knowledge as me. I simply don't want to waste my time to keep repeating and repeating my points. And no, I didn't showcase my idea ingame because 1) gameplay/engine features are missing, 2) mods are getting no attention (look at DE, which is levels ahead in terms of proper game design than v0AD gameplay) and 3) I have other projects to work on which are way more useful than discussing with game design rookies, or some ignorant/incompetent coders about issues they don't seem to understand. Well yes, you have a COUPLE of options. However, this isn't nearly comparable to a "real" Age of Empires 2, a Starcraft game or any other game that is played by a larger community in competition. Also see this, as I'm trying to explain my point: A lack of POSSIBLE strategies is a result of bad game design. A lack of balance results in a lack of VIABLE strategies. This is a major difference. Against AI in AoE 1 you can spam short sword soldiers and still be able win. Or play with the units you want. Or walling your city, go iron age with like 30 pop and then spam elephants as first military unit. But in MP you will get destroyed by cav archers 9/10 times. However, 0 AD doesn't offer you more than 4 basic units, like a couple of siege weapons and a few weapon techs.