chrstgtr

Great. I'm interested. Sounds like it's still in development, though, and has awhile to go before it makes it into primetime.

I'm saying there is a pretty basic principle where walk speed should correlate to damage, which should correlate to range and we should color within those lines. Archer balance may not right now (and it wasn't right before). Cross bow balance is worse (and always has been terrible). But making archer dmg equal to sling or jav dmg is certainly wrong. Same goes for walk speed. Implementing changes outside of those principles creates problems in the long run. If a solution can't be found when coloring within those lines then something else is wrong. I think, at a minimum, there needs to be some sort of "auto-sniping" built into the game. Pre-melee rebalance shows that is necessary. If "auto-sniping" and corrections within those principles don't help then there is something else wrong. I've been saying it a long time but balance is off post-melee rebalance. It rightfully changed the meta. But a meta isn't balance. Changing the melee rank up helped a ton (which itself was an artifact of a quick fix that was implemented outside of principles and caused problems down the road). But there is still something not quite right. We see a bunch of small problems with balance where things are just a little bit off. I can't put my finger on the exact problem or a solution but I think there is pretty wide agreement that balance isn't quite right.

Hopefully. But… D1971 looks dead. I think I discussed elsewhere on how it’s imperfect. D5282 is really just a concept right now. It also seems designed for balls of armies, which won’t help in small army fights. Maybe it helps where there are long lines. So a partial solution, if that. But obviously helpful if it does deliver. It just won’t be a complete solution. (Have you run any tests yet? Last I’ve seen was all technical discussion.) Just saying we need something more.

None of these make sense to me. Dmg should correlate to movement speed, which should correlate to range. Increasing archer dmg runs entirely counter that. As does increasing archer speed. Changing projectile speed is just a shell game for changing dmg value: it makes a change in the least observable field that isn't even listed in unit stats. The fact that archers were (arguably) the best unit when used for sniping (even when compared to sniping with other units) shows that the problem isn't anything to do with archers stats and instead has to do with how they are used. So, what is the solution? Sniping. But sniping is annoying. So, let's make sniping less annoying. Let's put in an area attack option. The area attack option should mimic sniping micro. It will serve the dual purpose of balancing archers and eliminating the annoying micro tactic known as sniping. If an area attack option doesn't work then I think we need to seriously reconsider whether the melee rebalance patch uses the correct mechanism to balance melee/range units.

100% loot bonus

100%

Also, healing heroes will be strong again. Maybe a .1/s nerf to heal? Maybe not needed with melee rebalance

All these changes make sense to me. But these aren't the most "exciting" changes. Should we try to get in some of the bigger changes to a27? Something like the Roman overhaul?

The bold isn't right. They are frequently used by good players. The basket upgrades are a standard part of the basic boom build order and the baskets are an area that actually create build order differences between civs (delayed for ptol and sooner for mace). It's intuitively pretty obvious that investing 400 to not build ten storehouses that cost 100 and build time is a good investment at some point. I don't have a problem with a construction speed bonus being created. But I don't see why it should replace something that we already have and use. It should be an addition instead of a replacement. NB: isn't there already a construction speed bonus that is basically never used? It's for Carth, I think.

Siege towers balance was just bad before. It's a unit that tends to go through cycles where it is useless or OP. It's really the same story with all ranged siege. There were alphas where players literally banned the use of old siege towers because they were OP. The current siege tower mechanic is potentially problematic, though. Now, siege towers focus their arrows against their primary counter units (melee inf/cav). Changing dps is a really easy way to make siege towers better without using non-random arrows--it's a method that has been both too strong and too weak in the past, so the only thing that needs to be done is find the right balance.

Don't care. Also, don't think it matters outside of people wanting to debrief a game to someone else.

I don't think this addresses any of the underlying concerns with buildings' strength in early or late game. It is the same system just watered down and it will have the same effect as decreasing arrow damage, which has already proved undesirable.

So random arrows but there can be manual targeting for some arrows? Sounds worth trying to me

We have maps that are functional enough. The most popular land map is mainland because it is just wide open space for battles. That more or less exists for naval maps. Ships are just clunky to move, which isn't very fun. Naval battles also don't lend themselves to reinforcements which make the battles frustrating because it is either one short winner take all battle or it is a never ending battle where the player that wins the first fight becomes weak and cannot cross the remainder of the sea and land troops before fresh enemy reinforcements can arrive to wipe out the low health (and not repaired) victor from the first fight. Right now, ships are most fun when their primarily used as water-based siege that fight against land units/buildings.

Apparently it's been so long since any of us have played a game with ships (and for good reason) that we are all forgetting how the AI works.

So the overwork rakes out BuildingAI and replaces it with UnitAI? That's all fine and good (and I agree with most of what you say). But because UnitAI chases, your ships may move without you doing anything. That can be problematic with how clunky ships are (ships getting stuck behind other ships, ships getting lured, etc.). Non-random BuildingAI wouldn't have that problem because ships would only move when you tell them to, which also means that an enemy can't exploit it as easily. UnitAI and non-random BuildingAI aren't really that different from each other aside from the chase aspect. Long overdue.

You can just have separate behavior for siege towers and buildings.

There's some disconnect. Right now, ship AI behavior is buildingAI (I think, it is referenced in the templates and that is how I remember it). I think it makes sense for ship AI behavior to non-random buildingAI instead of random buildingAI. For ships, I think non-random buildingAI is superior to random buildingAI and unitAI. Non-random buildingAI allows for positioning micro and allows the rock-paper-scissors in wow's proposal to work. Random buildingAI will mess that up by shooting randomly, so the efficient build in Wow's model is just a mix mashed together. UnitAI is similar to non-random buildingAI except ships will chase the first ship that they come into contact with. This chase can lead to problems, including luring with rock ships with rock and/or paper ships. Because naval battles are so clunky, I think the AI behavior should be something that emphasizes ship positioning. Non-random buildingAI seems best positioned for that.

Agree. It’s an interesting idea (and one that I think I want) but it really isn’t used. But why is that mutually exclusive? If it is old buildingAI then the classes get muddled and you just need a mix of units. If it UnitAI then I think it could become just be a bunch of luring with sniping (targeting overrides). If it is nonrandom buildingAI then at least you get battle positioning.

It’s been a pretty long time now. It’s got less popular as time went on. At this point, I think people’s minds are made up. I think I agree with this. But wow already has a rework for ships I don’t think they’re mutually exclusive, though It was also integrated with siege towers but I think that make siege towers OP. I’m not sure if that just needs a stat adjustment or if there is an actual problem with the mechanism

There is a more full discussion in like three other threads. The short version is that non-random arrows creates lots of problems. Rushing is overly difficult. Sentry towers are too strong. Standing under a CC always creates unit loss even if there is no defending army outside, which means like 15 swords can defend against 2 rams and an army 3x as large. While it can be OP for both early and late game as described above, it also has lower dps than random arrows so the attacking army remains stronger in a way. Healers, including healing heroes, are ineffective and the ability to slowly level up units is much lower. And more. In addition to these clear balance issues, this is ultimately just a preference issue. For me, I like random arrows because it creates a more dynamic game. If you stay under a building too long with random arrows you suddenly begin to quickly lose a lot of units, which can quickly flip the direction of a game. But with nonrandom arrows that sudden reversal doesn’t happen. This quick reversal effect can also happen if an army becomes lower health and then runs into a full health enemy army in an open field even if the full health army is smaller. All this is to say, we tried. But it was disliked by a lot of people. It wasn’t the first change to suffer that fate and it won’t be the last.

Agree. Simplest and best.

Is any of this really necessary if we get rid of non-random arrows? I think there is a clear verdict on the non-random arrows at this point. Note, even after reverting back to random arrows, we might have to do a little rebalance to account for armor changes in the melee change.

Bolts are strong. But their use is mostly limited to turtling due to their movement speed and pack time, which makes them slow to retreat, slow to push, and extremely vulnerable to move. I vote to reduce the pack/unpack time. It’s just an annoying feature. It feels like you’re constantly playing with awful lag and it is the main cause all of the three problems I identified above. On siege, siege towers are ridiculously OP now.

I would be open to it. Don’t love or hate it. Could be hard to balance. We’re not the first ones to note that the game cadence leaves something to be desired. P2 fights are rarely worth it. Having a hero would help. Don’t know what you mean. 1. Do you mean keep each civ’s current three heroes become available at different phases? That would lead to huge balance issues because some civs have multiple good heroes while others have only one or less (I think this is a problem in and of itself—I think each hero should be more or less as good as any other hero). The idea itself is fine, though. 2. Do you mean we create a bunch of new heroes to be available in p1 and p2? That sounds hard to implement. We already struggle to find 3 good heroes for every civ. The idea itself is fine, though. 3. Would this mean that you can get multiple heroes at once? I love that idea. Might be a good cov bonus too 4. Something else?