chrstgtr
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Posts posted by chrstgtr
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15 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:
I don't think this is true. I think it is much more desirable to have building arrows that have a constant effect over units in range, rather the being completely diluted across many units and then suddenly massacring an army once they are very low hp. I would bet players coming from other games would be confused that 0ad building arrows are random.
Again, this is your preference. Some would say the old version makes a more dynamic game, which lends to more comebacks, strategic dives under CCs/forts, etc. etc. Let's let the community decide what they prefer.
My comment above was responding to @Philip the Swaggerless where he said he thought CC dmg output would be lower but believed that the dmg output is actually higher in the current mod. That is incorrect. The dmg. output is lower in the current mod compared to previous versions. But, in the current mod, the kill count is higher, quicker. So, in the current mod, buildingAI is both stronger (kills units earlier) and weaker (takes longer to kill all units) than before. That stronger and weaker function will always exist with current buildingAI behavior (unless dmg output was increased so that it was stronger/stronger but that obviously won't happen). If we want the current buildingAI behavior then we have to get comfortable with that paradoxical strength/weakness.
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3 hours ago, Philip the Swaggerless said:
It seems the overall damage output of buildings was not reduced, is this correct?
I thought part of the change to structures targeting units is that the overall damage would be reduced to compensate for the fact that it would be reducing the army much quicker by eliminating individual units faster.
I think that would be good, because it can diminish the power of sitting under cc fire in the early game, but also reduce the turtling power of late game. Instead, it seems much more difficult to besiege a player and knock them out of the game.
It was. Buildings are at once stronger (kills units earlier) and weaker (takes longer to kill all units). That functionality is something that will always be a problem.
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10 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:
random arrows for cc and fort, but keep non-random for towers
I’m still learning/adjusting my thinking, but right now, I think this might make sense. I’d like to see how a rush on the wood line works when someone 2x towers it, esp when it is an inf rush.
For various reasons, I’m not liking any if the other ideas you mention.13 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:At the same time rushers and rush defenders are learning ways to distract and focus cc fire respectively.
I don’t think I’ve heard any complaints about focus fire, which is a feature long overdue imo.
18 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:I've noticed that the primary change is that the cost/benefit analysis of diving under the cc to get kill is much more complicated now
I have really big concerns about this right now.
I additionally have really big concerns about it making gameplay too turtle-ly late game because a player cannot stand under CCs/forts for any real amount of time, so melee taking out a CC is much harder and defenders can take out rams too easily. -
I would recommend reserving judgment for a little bit and to cast your vote in a week. Right now, I would be one yes and one no for the two big changes (melee/buildingAI) but I could see both, either, or neither of my opinions changing so I haven’t voted yet.
No matter what, I think this round of testing is a massive success for the community mod concept. We implemented two radical changes and we are getting real play testing to confirm, modify, or reject the proposed changes. It’s the first time it’ll be an actual experimental mod and not just an avenue for quicker updates.
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Honestly, I think the best way to control sniping is to just make it an inherent part of the game that unitAI does automatically. There was a forum topic awhile where no one was able to agree on it--I think we should revisit it.
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48 minutes ago, Player of 0AD said:
Yes I restarted 0AD
And yes I made sure that the zip file is named community-mod.zip
As I said I reinstalled 26.4 that way and it works, but replays and savegames are lost, any idea why?Check to see if you still have the replays on your HD.
I had the same error until I made sure that the folder name for the old mod was "community-mod." Once I change the folder name and enabled the old community mod I could see my old replays.
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5 hours ago, Player of 0AD said:
Why removing the bonus for allied buildings where you garrison Chanakya?
To be honest, I never knew this existed. With that said, I think that removed bonus isn't very useful.
On the Chanakya changes, I think they are an improvement overall and a pretty big buff to Chanakya because of how he can save a player thousands in resources and time via techs. However, I think the changes highlight how much better Chanakya's bonuses are than Cunobeline's bonus. Cunobeline has the benefit of being more difficult to kill and can attack himself. But Cunobeline is otherwise worse in every single way (res to make, time to make, lack of eco bonus, and a more a more expensive/time consuming building to produce from. I would nerf Chanakya's healing bonus and/or come up with a cool extra bonus for Cunobeline.
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1 hour ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:
Y'all act like this hasn't been solved in like 100 other games, the most applicable being AOE2, which has non-random fire and does not "break" the game.
Can't remember the last time I saw someone "dance" effectively in a game. I can't recall a single instance when someone tried to "dance" around a defensive building. There are a ton of reasons not to like the proposal. Dancing isn't one of those. This whole dancing discussion is so specious
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8 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:
I would like this, actually. Random arrows by default, overridden by the player to target a desired enemy unit until it is dead or out of range, then it's back to random until it's retargeted by the player.
I think that is my preference too. But I understand how others could prefer the proposed patch. Again, this is all preferences--people can like different things and that is ok.
I think we should try the patch and see if people prefer "non-random arrows" or "random arrows." Then let popular opinion decide. I think the next iteration of the community mod will be really helpful for that and the melee rebalance, which are both huge changes
The control piece is really different feature that everyone seems to want.
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11 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:
The "random arrows with no control" just feels like a gimped or bugged feature rather than something desirable.
More like a straw man that I don't think anyone wants. An alternative choice of something like "random arrows with control" would be better.
I conceptually like random arrows more than non-random arrows. But no one will ever actually know until it is widely tested. Even then, this is ultimately just a preference issue.
Regardless, I think we should give this a try to see if it is in fact more enjoyable and if it is balanced.
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@real_tabasco_sauce and I did some testing tonight. We tested it using 120 skirm armies on both sides. In the first test, we had 20 units garrisoned in CC. In the second test, had 0 units garrisoned in the CC. Although the defender seemed to do better when ungarrisioned, the effect wasn't super dramatic (something like 28ish units left over when garrisioned vs 40ish units when ungarrisioned). This addressed a lot of my late game concerns.
If people like the idea, I think we should try it. If people prefer the current/old way, we can revert in a28 (or the community mod). I expect gameplay will be impacted in more ways than we can immediately tell but the community can weigh in on whether those changes are desirable later.
TLDR: My concerns were present but I don't think they were dramatic enough to warrant blocking this patch. Up to the community to decide if it's desirable.
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On 23/12/2023 at 11:32 PM, Atrik said:
""auto-sniping mod"" is a legend used by players losing games and in need of an excuse to not face their mistakes or true level in the game.
Big words coming from you.
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10 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:
My point was that if you asked an RTS player unfamiliar with 0ad if they would rather control their towers or let it be random they would be much more likely to support player controlled buildings.
Again, I 100% support the ability to control. It’s a total change to default behavior that is concerning to me.
You keep talking about how it isn’t a preference. But it is. You keep saying it’s more exciting but we don’t actually know that. RandomAI can lead to dramatic shifts in battles very fast. Whereas this would require a 1 by 1 change. Is that more exciting? I don’t know. It probably depends on the person too.
6 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:Yeah I can never get anyone to join RC games XD.
Yeah, it’s a problem, which I way I think we need a useful community mod like thing
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4 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:
in principle it is undoubtedly better than random arrows (more interesting, more exciting, more fun, more player controlled content, basically more STUFF to do).
But this isn’t necessarily true. The change in default targetingAI can very easily eliminate any benefit to garrisoning because it fundamentally creates an “overkill” issue with all garrisoned units aiming at one unit. That might make garrisoning only “useful” where a defender is vastly outnumbered, which isn’t particularly desirable in late game and creates balance issues in early game. And, that isn’t something that can just be fixed with balance because early game and late game concerns demand opposite balancing changes (early game would need CCs/towers to be nerfed while late game would need CCs/towers/forts to be buffed). Thus the default targetingAI change could have very large meta change impacts, which may or may not be desirable.
Even if you don’t buy any of the above, the change is fundamentally a preference issue, which may or may not be inline with the player base general preferences. It’s not like there is a chorus of people demanding this type of change. So it is far from clear that this undoubtedly an improvement like you suggest.
Honestly, I’m happy with the way towers/forts/CCs are balanced now (and it seems like most others are too) so the change is entirely a change of behavior instead of a balance issue. The problem is it isn’t even clear that change of behavior is actually desired.
I'm not entirely opposed to it. But I do have some big concerns. This is the type of thing that could entirely change the game meta, so I think it’s important we get it right. Testing in RCs has obviously missed some very big meta changing balance issues in the past.
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1 hour ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:
I think giving players more direct control is a good thing, but I think putting it into the Community Mod isn't a bad choice.
Yeah, I’m all for it in the community mod. To the extent my opinion matters, I think giving the player option to target enemies is good too. I don’t see too much downside to letting a player specifically target enemy units
I’m just a little concerned (about rushing and other things too) when default behavior is to attack nearest enemy. That’s why I’d really like to see this be widespread tested.
25 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:Rushes can still be extremely powerful without diving under the cc, though so I think it wont hurt rushing too much.
It would also be available to towers too. Anyways, any judgment is premature
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28 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:
I could imagine it would be really nice to be able to snag weak cav units when being rushed. At least it could be something for the rushed player to do while they are made into a cupcake.
I think that’s a concern, though, for the targetingAI. Rushing right now is pretty balanced. Losing one out of 3 quick rushing cav hurts pretty bad (don’t care if a player targets with tower/cc—that’s skill the same as targeting one cav with your units)
Anyways, I think all this will be hard to predict actual gameplay effects without actual tests and this could have very large meta impacts. That’s why I would really like it to be in community mod
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Agree with borg—would separate.
it would be really nice to test if this targetingAI functionality is desired through the community mod
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On 17/12/2023 at 1:52 PM, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:
A few problems I have with transport ships are:
We already have a lot of ship classes.
The other ships can already garrison and transport units. Do you want to take that away?
Transport Ships have a very limited utility. You transport the army across and then you'll probably delete them because that's all they do. Or you'll station them near your shoreline in case you want to ferry more, but that's just a bunch of idle time for a supposedly crucial unit.
I'm 20/80 against lol
Agree. Like what’s the point? They do the same as the other ships (can garrison and move units) but less (no fighting).
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On 03/12/2023 at 11:21 AM, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:
Heroes and generals could make the difference.
I always thought giving generals or some other special unit category to a civ would be a nice differentiator for a civ. Kind of like Han ministers but more than just a generic eco boost. Something like where you can select a special type of minister to give a super boost to a single resource (Han seems like a good candidate since the groundwork is already there) or a general that is really good in one respect but nothing else (Athens seems like a good candidate given how their government worked).
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3 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:
Good in 2023 means what?
Fair. My point is that something is better than nothing. And, I wouldn't let the giant mass of work to paralyze you from doing something to improve the current state of SP.
Just my two cents. You do you.
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On 25/11/2023 at 11:27 AM, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:
I still don't think everyone understands the work necessary to create a good narrative campaign that will work for modern players. Yes, we can string scenarios together and put some text on the screen. That was fine 20 years ago. Today, people will want to see cut scenes (whether pre-rendered or with camera tracks in-engine) and have audio tracks and dialogue. You'll want custom animations too for the cut scenes.
Perfect is the enemy of good.
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14 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:
That's why I think some kind of Strategic Campaign or multiple Campaigns would be easier to achieve for single player. What do you think? The image above is from an aborted projects I was involved in 14-15 years ago, but is illustrative of the concept.
I think this (and the lack of a smarter AI) is the biggest obstacle to gaining a larger player base. The lack of a campaign mode (and a smarter AI) makes new players less likely to engage with the game for a sustained period of time.
Anecdotally, I know when I started playing 0AD, I played the game for about a week until I learned the basics and could regularly beat AI. Then I stopped playing for a week or so because it didn't feel like I was "building" towards anything. Then I started playing again until I beat the hard AI on every map. Then I stopped playing again for like a month because I felt like everything was repetitive and boring. Then I randomly decided to try the multiplayer lobby and haven't really stopped playing since.
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8 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:
I said 'bad idea' because letting the fish be infinite and significantly faster than farming would basically guarantee a player's victory if they have a 'safe' fishing source and their opponent doesn't. There should be a need to transition to farms at some point, or reach for more distant and dangerous fish.
This. Saying fishing has no purpose is completely wrong. Fishing requires an upfront, risky investment that pays off handsomely when done well.
Heavy fishing maps are also vulnerable to ship attacks late, which can’t be defended without also making ships. If you try to out boom a fishing player with a lot of berries/farms, you will lose 100% of the time against a good player.
Making fishing infinite won’t make fishing more viable—it will make farms/berries useless.
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Introducing the Official community mod for Alpha 26
in Gameplay Discussion
Posted · Edited by chrstgtr
The more I play, the more I think this is the answer. Not sure if it is necessary for towers but I am leaning towards no.
I don't think the meta has really been figured out yet. I think we still need to wait to see how things shake out. With that said...the below are all things that I was independently thinking.
I also think there is a general problem with how champions aren't being made as much anymore. I like how melee is being made more now. But that diversity has come at the cost of less cav and champs. Personally, both neither system is better than the other for me. But I do think we could make the current system better to address the cav and champ issues.