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chrstgtr

Balancing Advisors
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Posts posted by chrstgtr

  1. 21 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    So the reason that non-random arrows is bad is personal preference?

    One of the reasons, yes. 

    I also think balance makes it pragmatically difficult (or impossible) to do, which I think you would agree with at this point you've tried too different versions that are presenting big balance issues. 

    23 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    But it was silly, boring, and resulted in a lot of unfavorable gameplay.

    All personal preference. None of these are objective conclusions. None of these are valid reasons to do a change. 

    I disagree with all these positions and actually say that the opposite. Because it is largely about personal preferences. 

    24 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    Diving under buildings without consequence, buildings acting like a timer for the soldiers to leave, Healer auras invalidate arrows, lack of control over arrows.

    • Diving under buildings without consequence
      • This isn't true. You do get damaged. You do die if you stay too long. 
      • To the extent you can rush without dying, I think that is a good thing. Basically no one has said that rush was a problem before. 
    • buildings acting like a timer for the soldiers to leave
      • This is the same thing as "Diving under buildings without consequence"
    • Healer auras invalidate arrows
      • This is obviously a problem with healer auras. That is what should've been fixed. 
      • Note, non-random arrows largely invalidates healing as a concept. This is bad.
    • Lack of control over arrows
      • I kind of agree with you here. 
      • But I don't think manually control of arrows is actually used a lot/effectively. 
      • Manually control of arrows is possible with random buildingAI
      • This is less important that buildingAI behavior because it occurs less frequently. 

    --------

    To the extent there are objective criteria, that objective criteria favors random arrows because random arrows was already balanced. We don't even know if it is possible to balance non-random arrows and your efforts to do so are getting more complicated but with no more success. 

  2. 2 hours ago, Barcodes said:

    The suggestion I'm proposing is to allow the soldier who shoots to be able to shoot at enemies while the chariot is moving. It would make sense for this to work because the guy shooting isn't controlling the horses dragging the chariot so it's actually realistic.

     

    I like this (I think I actually suggested it myself at some time in the past) but I think it requires new code to do. 

    Chariots has been something that everyone agrees needs to get changed but there isn't a lot of agreement on what that change should look like or the desired change (trampling) has to get new code to be possible. As a result, we have what we have for now. 

    • Like 1
  3. 1 hour ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    Another poll showed players have mixed feelings about it, but it showed 3 clear issues.

    This poll is equally clear that non-random arrows is disliked:

    • 66% of votes cast called for random buildingAI for CC/fort ("Reverse the non-random arrows entirely," "Make buildings shoot at random unless targeted," or "Make the civic center and fortress shoot at random unless targeted")
      • Note this 66% vote share is as great or greater than questions 3 and 4, which you point to as a clear issue).
    • 61% of votes cast called for random buildingAI to be reversed for all buildings ("Reverse the non-random arrows entirely" or "Make buildings shoot at random unless targeted")
    • The largest vote getter called for random buildingAI ("Make buildings shoot at random unless targeted")
    • But a less popular buildingAI behavior was implemented ("Balance the CC, Tower, and Fortress arrows"). In every way, this was a disfavored option by the voters. 
    To the extent there are "mixed feelings" it is whether a player should be able to override random buildingAI and manually target units.  
    1 hour ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    I went with the next most popular progressive solution which was to adjust building arrow counts.

    This doesn't consider the likely outcome of a rank order vote.

    This is like if you asked people what their favorite ice cream flavor was and gave them the options of dark chocolate, milk chocolate, and vanilla and the votes came out as below:

    • Dark chocolate (3)
    • Milk chocolate (2)
    • Vanilla (2)

    In this scenario, it is clear the people want to chocolate but spread their votes out between two similar options. Same too here. Rebalancing non-random arrows is only popular to the extent that you ignore 2/3 of all votes. Put simply, non-random arrows is/was unpopular.

    1 hour ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    Also, I have still not heard 1 reason from anyone why the building arrow behavior is bad that could not be explained by arrow counts. So why is the behavior itself problematic @Player of 0AD?

    The fact of the matter is that building arrows were balanced under a random behavior and changing the behavior has clearly thrown off this balance. If we can restore balance, then we will be left with a new mechanic.

    No one has put forth a reason why a new mechanic is needed. By your own admission, the old mechanic worked fine. Change should not inherently be favored. 

    It is also untrue that no one has explained why non-random arrows is bad or why random arrows is good. It is just a question of personal preference, which has clearly been expressed several times at this point by the larger community. 

  4. 3 hours ago, Player of 0AD said:

    Melee citizens have been nerfed which is bad, because for example Athens and Sparta rely on these units, as they don't have any champion cavalry. Also, for some civs the citizen spearman is the only unit which can counter cavalry well (Britons, Mauryas). Furthermore it weakens melee mercenaries even more and using them didnt seem to have been a good strategy any more.

    Siege units have already been rather hard to destroy, now even more.

    As I said, Athens have the big disadvantage to not have any champion cavalry, so it might be a mistake to nerf the Iphicrates hero. This civilization relies on him.

    I think the bigger problem that you are getting at is that there is a problem with inf/cav balance. 

    • Like 1
  5. 10 hours ago, hamdich said:

    Members of Balancing team are a fight between each other about what w and what not to change . No wonder every new 0ad version and evey comunity mod is instantly dissliked by  both newbs and pros

    There should be rigorous debate. If you look back in trac at some of the least popular changes, those were the changes that typically had the least discussion or where dissenting opinions where just outright ignored. 

    Disagree on each version of the community mod being disliked. To be honest, all the versions before 26.6 were pretty widely liked at initial release and those changes are still widely approved of. 

    There are mechanisms to reverse changes. Indeed, we appear to be in the midst of changes with buildingAI and melee rebalance. 

    • Like 4
  6. 26 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    potential community mod ideas:

    1. Let siege turn past 45 degrees without stopping (https://code.wildfiregames.com/D5201)(improves pathing and clunkiness)

    2. Reduce catapult and bolt shooter prepare time (https://code.wildfiregames.com/D5131, already committed for a27)

     

    I like both.

    With (2) already committed to a27, I see no reason not to include it.

    Speaking of a27 commits, I think the Iphicrates patch would also be nice to get into the community mod too. 

    What is your plan for the next community mod, mostly cleanup with arrows/melee balance? I think that is a good plan. 

    If you want to add new ideas, I think the wonder is ripe for reform. Ton of things we could do there. But right now it does basically nothing.

    • Like 2
  7. 2 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    The targeting queue is inside buildingAI and the function that fires arrows handles both default behavior arrows and targeted arrows.

    So it is a problem with doing random arrows and manually targeted arrows at the same time ("Make buildings shoot at random unless targeted")? I didn't realize it was built directly within buildingAI. 

    Your choice if you want to try to pursue it. To your point above, the "Make buildings shoot at random unless targeted" might be still be problematic, so it might not be worth you spending time on it instead of just doing a total revert. 

     
    • Like 1
  8. 4 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    k i spent a solid couple of hours trying to make random arrows by default to work, and its definitely not as easy as I thought it would be. Unfortunately it kind of balloons the amount of code needed and the complexity.

    What do you mean? Wouldn't it just be a total revert?

    On 19/03/2024 at 4:53 PM, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    Yeah, really the fundamental issue with the approach is that problems 2,3, and 4 will still exist, just only when ppl are targeting.

    I'm not sure this is entirely true. At least not for early game. It is really hard to target arrows during rushes, especially when you are also trying to hide women/bring men by CC. Meanwhile, players don't like to stay under CCs for long so the defending player has to act really fast. To the extent people can do this, I don't think it's bad to reward them for their micro skills. 

    To your point, late game it might be a problem still. But to the extent it is a problem, it would be similar to the impact of sniping, which isn't done a ton nowadays. 

  9. 4 hours ago, hyperion said:

    So I have no doubt that 32bit is an issue which people might run into occasionally, was just wondering if the last community mod might have moved the tipping point based on recent noise but according to @chrstgtr that doesn't seem to be the case. I think the last notable rise in requirements was with A24 and earlier version should be much less likely to run into this.

    Note, the mac replay I posted was from a 64 bit mac host. 

    It's been awhile now, but I do think you are right that the OOS error has become more common over the longer term. I don't recall it ever happening when I first started playing in a21. Sometime after that it became a known but pretty rare thing. For a26 it feels like a once every 2-3 weeks in games that I am in

  10. 2 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

    The strategy is more effective for 1200-1400 players who can lessen the performance gap between themselves and a higher level player.

    Depends on game but can be. It can also be an effective strategy where a lower player attacks a higher player in TGs (I think that is what you were getting at with the other portion of your reply). 

    4 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

    On a side note heres an interesting game where H.Herle managed to make archers look good:

    Not at home at the moment. But I'll watch later if you think I should. I think the complaints about archers are overstated by some. I agree archers are weak now but in some ways archers are actually better/very strong--it's impossible to do rush where you push near the CC now and archers are quite strong in early game once they get ahead.  

    I think the melee patch in general is more complicated to understand. There are parts I like and others I dislike. I think there have been some good ideas on how to address it. If we ultimately follow the general approach in the melee patch, think it'll take a few tries to get it balanced as well as before (with the added benefit of getting rid of meatshield meta) 

  11. 6 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    so like +25 wood or stone, and reduce garrisoned damage?

     

    I would prob do 50w and moderate reduction of garrison dmg.

    Not stone because that is unfair to p1 slinger civs. 

    1 and 3 because:

    • Cost because it is used as a way to circumvent unit production chokepoints (number of unit producing buildings and unit production time).
    • Dmg because it is hard to stand under it and fight for more than a few seconds. 

    Wouldn't do 2 because time hurts eco too much when you build the tower prophylactically. 

    Open to other suggestions, the ^^^ isn't a strong opinion.  

    • Like 1
  12. Man you gotta accept some feedback when you’re clearly wrong…at least acknowledge it could’ve been better if you don’t think it’s necessary 

    7 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    That question is about what to do going forward. Do we balance arrows to solve the above issues? or revert/semi-revert the random arrows

     Then ask that. That is what I tried to in my suggested alternative question. 
     

    8 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    It doesn't make sense to have a "random balanced arrows" option because the arrows counts were already balanced for random arrows. That would just be the same as a full revert.

    You missed the point. Your third option choice could be random or non-random. Both could be hypothetically be “balanced.”

    Using the term “balance” also suggests an answer. It’s like asking a person “do you support (A) the good candidate or (B) the other guy. There is a suggested answer.  

    11 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    That's basically the first questio

    No. First question is do you like 26.6, including its current values, more than pre-26.6. 
     

    What I suggested is “do you want random or near-unit arrows.” For some, they could say “I want non-random but not at 26.6 value.” That person could say no to your first question. what I suggested is actually more favorable to your position 

  13. @real_tabasco_sauce suggestion: you should change the text of third option in the last Q. Everyone wants balanced arrows—some want random balanced arrows while others want non-random balanced arrows. I know that’s not what you mean but it’s unclear and is the type of option that suggests a “right” poll response. 

    Options like below seem better:

    (1) non-random arrows with community mod 26.6 values

    (2) non-random arrows with different values than community mod 26.6 values

    (3) random arrows unless manually targeted

    (4) random arrows (pre community mod 26.6)

     

    OR, better, just ask the question straight up: 

    “Should buildingAI have random  arrows or attack the nearest unit”

    (1) random

    (2) attack nearest unit 

    the second question is more straight forward and doesn’t get into the dirty details.  

  14. 5 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

    I can't remember that one, but I tried another one against other good players and it worked just fine although I didn't keep all of my cav alive (boo hoo, its still ~60/9 across 4 players). Also there's no need to insult someone who rarely rushes. 

    I'm not insulting you and I do not intend to--apologies if you there was a miscommunication. My point is that I recall very few instances where a "chicken rush" have been successful against good players. If that strategy was anywhere near as effective as you and your bro insist then good players would frequently employ the strategy. But that is very clearly not the case. To be honest, I don't recall a single instance where anyone has ever discussed it (aside from when or your bro bring it up, which used to be fairly often). 

    5 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    You are slamming me and my change to the mod without simply offering a clear way forward

    I don't know what you want. I said it should be reversed. That is as concrete as possible. You asked for input then rejected it and said my input should be different if I felt the way I felt. 

    You also keep dismissing what I have said as theory. That's nonsense. I have said it IS too strong. That is observed. You have agreed with this. I have said it was balanced before. Any deviation from a state of balance that results in more kills will disrupt balance. That is definitional. 

    I feel like you keep changing the goalposts. E.g. There is a change needed because this is a better system-->rushes are too strong-->buildings should kill rushing units-->it is better for 0ad naive players. Or, saying people like-->people will like it-->let's disregard a poll-->let's get a new poll-->I asked some people and they complained about other stuff. 

    I also feel like you haven't set forth any valid reason why you think this change should occur aside from there may be some 0AD naive players who don't understand this (never mind the fact that there are so many aspects of the game that are different from AOE and that 0AD is not and should not be a replica of AOE). 

    This isn't productive. I don't feel you are taking any feedback here and just looking for feedback that you want/disregarding feedback you don't want to hear. This isn't how it is supposed to work. This is a community project. I get it--you/your bro care a lot and received a lot of unfair/mean criticism from others. But there is other criticism that comes from a good place. Don't forgot those, loud and silent, that may disagree with you from time to time. 

    • Like 1
    • Sad 1
  15. 7 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    I did think the 1:30 chicken rushes were imbalanced but above all else, the purpose of the buildingAI change was just progress. To further the enjoyability of the game.

    Again, you see you say it is imbalanced but I’ve only ever heard you and your brother talk about “chicken rushes.” I’ve never seen them work against any good player. Your brother (I think) tried to do against me to prove his point when I built ALL women and failed miserably

    Again, there is no evidence that the player base, as a whole agree, with you on the “enjoyment of the game aspect.” Available evidence says the opposite 

    9 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    I don't think it is helpful at this point to use the past as a reference: Its better to observe current games and adjust from where we are at right now.

    This is just wrong. This assumes the community game IS the current game. The community mod is an experiment. We had that. It appears to have been rejected. 

    You keep taking change as  necessary. That is contrary to what feedback we have 

  16. 5 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    Is that what you mean? If so, I agree. Changes must be made to CC arrows and sentry towers so that rushers can still find kills.

    And lastly, let me address your last sentence here. Maybe people didn't complain about it, but my observations told me there was a problem. Players were able to dive under the CC for extended periods of time with no consequences. The CC should (according to the success of other games) be able to be a somewhat safe space if there is a ton of pressure. I would just argue that it is now too good at countering rushes when it is garrisoned now that it actually gets kills.

    You understand my critique. My point is if it was balanced before, which I think it was, then this is a change designed to disrupt what is already balanced. 

    You keep saying it was imbalanced before. But it seems you are so far ahead of the parade you forgot to look behind to see if the band is still following. 

    5 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    About your second paragraph, I would summarize it as: late game effects are complicated, but in general there is more turtling. Is that accurate?

    You understand my complaints 

    ————

    Random or nearest-unit AI is is a personal preference. You seem to take it for granted that nearest-unit is indeed the preference where most available feedback says otherwise. Same for your perceived imbalanced for rushes. 

  17. 37 minutes ago, hyperion said:

    There were quite a few threads beside this one and even bug reports recently. Sure this doesn't mean there must be a correlation. Once the game is at max pop there shouldn't be much of additional memory be needed based on game length tho unless there is a leak, so I wouldn't dismiss the possibility.

    Windows user are rare in my environment so I have not personally experienced this issue at all and hence I can't make any sensible statement of whether it having changed or not other than the frequency of reports.

    Sure. It’s possible. But I haven’t noticed any change. And two of the three people here are just echos of the just echos 

  18. 9 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    You talk on behalf of others, and I say what would be likely if the decision would be made with no status quo. These are very different.

    These are indeed very different....I am repeating what others have said. I pointing to votes of other people.

    You not only are saying what other people MIGHT think--you are saying that people will change their mind. 

    I honestly don't see how you can continue to insist on knowing the opinion of others. 

    11 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    Thats not an issue though. Give me an issue with the way it is currently.

    It is. 

    If more units die during rush then it is a problem. The current rush game is less dynamic. That is a problem. No matter how you slice it, that will continue to be problem because buildingAI changes are designed to get kills faster. The entire thing is fixing a rush problem that I so rarely heard uttered by anyone (aside from you and your brother).

    Late game is more complicated to assess because of the melee change. But it has also clearly become more staid with players often unable to kill bases if the game runs longer than the first big push. How much of that is melee change vs buildingAI change, I'm not sure. But I know I have seen several players play in a standoffish manner because they don't want to stand under CCs, which has led to more successful turtles. Players will now often walk away from conquering a CC after they winning a unit battle. Game design should not created stilted gameplay like that. 

    • Like 1
  19. 5 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    I think you are making this decision for a lot of people.

    1 hour ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    Without any nostalgia or fear of change, people would prefer what I have suggested to random arrows.

    Come on...Also, see below. 

    5 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    This one? In which only 10 people voted? The only written complaints I have seen that didn't come from haters were yours.

    There's not a lot of commentary in that thead and it is old. Look at the recent votes on the thread that Weirdjokes posted. Out of all the issues, BuildingAI got the fewest number of approving votes and received the largest number of negative votes (note these two facts do not necessarily have to occur simultaneously as there is a third "uncertain option," which received the lowest share of votes for this question). BuildingAI is the only issue where "no" received more votes than "yes." BuildingAI is also only one of two issues where any choice received a majority of cast votes.

    I've checked in on that poll from time to time to see how opinions are progressing and it has been trending downward for awhile. For some people, there is a disposition bias that disfavors change. But you would expect that bias to erode with time. The opposite appears to be occurring here. For other people, there is a novelty bias that favors change. That bias appears to be eroding. Opposition to this change has accelerated. 

     

    8 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    ->Please tell me some issues with 26.6 building arrows that are not due to arrow count balance.<-

    The concept doesn't work if you think rush balance was fine before the mod. Full stop. It's inspiration is a false premise.

     

     

  20. 5 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    Without any nostalgia or fear of change, people would prefer what I have suggested to random arrows.

    This is axiomatic and runs contrary to what evidence we do have. You have championed this issue and on several instances have said things along the lines of "people just don't understand what I am proposing" but people do understand and have experienced it. A lot of people just disagree.

    You keep putting forth a bunch of alternative explanations/theories and it keeps getting more complicated each time. But the fact remains: balance was fine before and there were very few (zero?) complaints. That is nowhere close to true with the mod. Creating a new, more complicated system (that a lot of people seem constitutionally opposed to) just disregards the feedback that we have. Look at the poll in the other thread. There hasn't been uptake on this concept and, as time wears on, it seems to get less popular. Compare the buildingAI change to the melee change where people clearly want something different but just aren't sure if what we have is actually right. 

     

    11 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    Lastly, what do you think should be done now? Full revert? partial revert?

    Keep the ability to manually control building arrows. 

    For buildingAI, I would do a full revert for CC/forts. In the interest of experimentation, I would maybe keep buildingAI as nearest unit for towers to see if that works as towers seem less problematic on borders. I still think sentry towers are too strong and make rushing too difficult in p1. But I don't think the community has really focused on this aspect vs. the fort/cc aspect. 

  21. 2 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    yeah and then someone turned around and made towers 11 pierce XD. I don't think all buildings should have to behave identically wrt arrows.

    I don't really care. But others seem to. Regardless, I think buildings were well balanced before the mod change.

    3 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    is that so? I assume u mean non-random arrows here, not the above updates I suggest.

    Yes, non-random arrows. It seems, at best, to be preferred as much as random arrows but more likely disfavored compared to random arrows. Keeping random arrows doesn't require additional balance changes

    7 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

    There were problems with random arrows, its just that people tolerated them: Buildings did not effectively deter rushes/raids, and healer hero auras could invalidate building arrows.

    This has been the problem the whole time with this change. It was widely held that rushes were balanced before the change. And, if you have a problem with the hero aura then the hero aura should change. Buildings working against armies without hero indicates that it was properly balanced before. 

    Your proposal just feels ptolemaic. At the end of the day, I want to be able to rush the units around a CC in p1. I don't see how that can ever be possible without losing a bunch of units. I also don't want to lose a considerable portion of my army guarding rams from a couple garrisoned swords in p3 after I have clearly won a battle of units. 

    • Like 1
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