chrstgtr

This is a massive oversimplification. As I process what micro would be in my head, I am honestly worried it will be too complicated. It involves: what units/unit types will I select, where will I put them, what group will I target, how many different focus group will I have l, how many attacking groups will I have, how often will I update each groups attacking orders, how close of attend do I have to pay to the groups being attacked so the attackers don’t default to the nearest unit, how big of groups do I target so my attackers don’t default to the closest unit, how do I position my army so if they do default to the nearest unit are they still in a good fighting position, how much do I lure units so the enemy walks into my melee, how close do I pay attention so I don’t get lured, how do I position my melee to take advantage of luring, how do I position my melee to take advantage of enemy units defaulting, etc. And that is just a list of things I can immediately think of before I began an idea repeated itself in my head. How can you do so simply categorize all micro strategy with no imagination? How someone can say it is easy with no risk (esp when compared to something where you literally just select a small area to shoot aimlessly at), I cannot understand.

You’re statements on attack group aren’t true. If you select a large area, attack group just makes you shoot father projectiles that are less likely to hit. If it also acts as a tower that randomly selects then that means that it will attack random units walking through the area that you probably don’t mean to target and are less likely to be hit because they’re moving. If attack group selects random units that you aim at until dead or at units that are nearest in that area then You will have to regularly re micro as that area will have units disappear and range units will go back to default attacks if nearest unit. Plus if you do attack group then new arriving units will need to be microed to attack group or they will just default to nearest units. This provides the benefit of being able to target ranged units in the back which is why this whole discussion exists so idk why you don’t think it provides player benefit and as I describe above it also requires regular micro and skill. I described these pros/cons in my initial comments on this thread. I believe those possibilities should be re-examined. The only person who spoke in opposition to that said they thought my proposal would be OP (despite no reason given for that) and that they preferred attack ground bc it would hit the footprint, which is obviously true but equally obvious that that would make attack ground only useful in the very limited situation where extreme chock points exist (which also probably creates balance issues that something like attack group with target of nearest unit doesn’t have a problem with) Not trying to say I told you so here, but attack ground has some very obvious deficiencies that makes it use extremely limited. And these deficiencies are severe enough to mean in the vast majority of situations on the vast majority of maps attack-ground won't address anyone's original concerns that led to this discussion, namely that range units overkill meat shields. If you want it, fine. But it is not something that excites me at all.

I think between a23–>a24, bolts used to have slash damage (or something like that). Their stats changed a lot and became less useful honestly, I would be happy reverting bolts back to their a23 stats. But so much has changed since then (ie champs) that the solution may not be that simple (Cata is another story…)

Javs only fought melee, though. It was basically archers using the new feature vs javs using the old (many units with overlapping targets) feature. Would need to see more Also, what targeting feature is this? Random ground targets? Or group targeting?

I think it's because misses become very important. All units are low health, but slight variations (i.e. a little more luck on accuracy in equal fights or just more units) can lead to totally different outcomes. This is another form of what i was talking about

I don’t get what you were disagreeing with then. but fine, the undeveloped option is (always) better than the option that is currently developed. My point is, we should strive for targeting of some type. If you want to implement some intermediate, transitionary option, fine. I don’t think it will be useful, but I’d be happy to be wrong I don’t have to use it if I am right. but development shouldn’t stop there, especially since we know a better option that just isn’t developed yet

You aren’t getting what I am saying: randomly targeting units within a defined area (the way a tower works) is always going to be better than randomly shooting projectiles within a defined area (imagine a tower, but half your projectiles go in the wrong direction) I laid out four different ways units can be targeted and only one of those is what you are describing

Because if you are shooting aimless then many (and likely most) of your units are guaranteed to be useless. It is like sending your men into battle and then setting 20% of them to passive. more to the point, how is random shooting at an area. Better than targeted shooting at an area? You can achieve the same thing that you want with random targeting of units with an area (1) above, but not have any of the downside.

Sure, there are confounding factors. But for every enemy change the attacking player can make an appropriate reaction. What I described is more or less optimal play that will lead to pretty wonky outcomes. But we’ll see regardless, unless the dev team wants to undertake a lot of work at the front end, we are going to need to pick one preferred choice and then test that option. My preference is known

Some things are just simple math. If all units in an area are randomly targeted then all units will die more or less at the same time. If I have 10% more units then my units will have ~10% health left when all the enemy dies, which will occur more or less all at the same time. An army of 100 (even if it just has 10% health) is going to roll over any enemy with an army of 0. Barracks won’t be able to spam quickly enough to even make a dent

I don’t think you are understanding what I wrote. Either units are targeted, which may or may not lead to many units being targeted all at once (see above), or individual geographies are being targeted—regardless of whether or not units are in those aimed at locations. Shooting at random geographies is pointless. Shooting at units is useful. How you target units is a different discussion, which I lay out above

That would be (1) or (3) as I describe above. I believe (1) is bad for the reasons k describe

This is either my (1) as described above or random shots. They are either targeting units or not. Not targeting units is useless. If shots aren’t being targeted and are just shooting at an area (as opposed to units within that area) then I don’t see why anyone would ever use that

This doesn't make sense. Why would you ever ask your units to attack at random? In every way, this is less preferable than any of the options I describe below. I think there are only four real options here: Tower-like attacks for a specified area that targets units within the area. This has at least two options as I explain below With each volley, a new target is selected. This is the same as a tower. Pro: This will probably encourage healers because units injured units won't just die right away like they do now while they are under attack from several units all at once. Con: It will lead to a slow, sudden death of large armies. This will without a doubt lead to snowballing in 1v1s because large enemy armies will die almost all at once while the attacking army will lose basically no units. In team games, this will lead to a teammate's army being able to quickly wipe enemies even if the enemy army is large because units will be uniformly very injured. This will also make this type of attack Targeting closest units within an area. This is the same way units are now except they will only attack units in a specified area. Pro: It works. Con: It will still probably lead to some units being overly targeted. This will eventually lead to melee units being targeted as they walk through the ranged army Repeated attacking of randomly selected units until they are dead. Pro: this gets rid of the overly targeted problem that we have now Con: Coding? Nothing works like this now. This also leads to less control over attacking unit types here. This also make this type of attack not very workable with melee units. Additionally, this may lead to situations where your attacking units have to walk some distance before engaging in a fight, which is pretty undesirable, but I suppose that could either be fixed with code or itself could be seen as a feature because better micro would avoid this problem. Some combination of the above while selecting targets based on unit types Pro: you won't randomly target melee walking through. Con: Coding? Nothing works this way. Overly complicated? Personally, I like (3) and would like the option of adding (4) somewhere down the road.

Not useless. But maybe not the best CS unit in game. Remember melee units will continue to fight other melee units, where pikes will do well, and range units quickly fall when melee is able to directly engage with them. In response to your question, I think it depends. Is it the situation where you pick an area or pick units. Pick units would follow. Pick area would disengage after they leave. No strong preference for me here, but I do think both could encourage more movement in fight, which could be interesting (ie large-scale luring or moving your units into safety

Thanks, I didn’t know a difference had been created yet. Can you link me to it It doesn’t sound very functional given what players want it to be able to do, but I would like to be able to take a look

I don’t quite get what the difference is. My suggestion had always been that a player should be able to drag and select an area where units will focus their fighting on until they are given a different command or no more units exist in that area. This can be done where units focus on the nearest unit with a selected area (like how normal attack move works) or where they spread out their projectiles within a selected area (like how towers work). Ideally both iterations would be possible what I don’t want is a feature where units will just aimless shoot at an empty area (or stand idle) because they were “told” to while enemy units walk right in from of them

It will 100% decrease micro in certain situations (at least amongst the best players). Has anyone ever effectively defended against a pike and skirm/sling rush successfully without microing to attack the range units in the back? Some unit combos are just better than others, but that can be overcome with good micro that targets certain units. That element will largely disappear (and I don't think many will be sad that they will no longer have to select 30 units one by one).

I think this is what most people want. Attack move just targets the nearest unit, so why can't we have something where we just attack units within an area. This would be similar to how towers and defensive structures work. But more to the point, is there any downside here? Players don't have to use it if they don't like. The only downside I can see is that it decreases micro, which many would see as upside and is irrelevant in large group battles.

I’m unconvinced, but it’s your time to spend.

Does it actually matter? I can’t recall a single instance when someone purposely captured a corral. Make the patch if you want, but I think you can afford to be lazy here

It wasn't luck. A24 tried to do a lot of stuff. In hindsight, a lot of people have summed up a24's mistakes by saying something to the effect of "in a23, slingers were too strong and archers were too weak, so a24 just should've lessened the dmg of slingers and increased the dmg of archers." That obviously sounds reasonable. But rather than taking that simple approach, a24 tried to do a lot of complicated changes. Some of these changes, like pathfinding, projectile speeds, and rotation times are massive changes with effects that seep into every aspect of the game and ripple through unexpected areas. When you try to change that much all at once there are a lot of unintended and unexpected changes. It's no surprise that the full effect of all these changes wasn't appreciated during development. In comparison, a25 was not as ambitious. It changed relatively few things and the changes that occured to the bigger things, like rotation speed, were far more modest. In short, the changes were more modest, humble and incremental. As a result, their impact was more ascertainable during development. There is a reason to limit these massive changes that impact everything--because it makes balancing possible. If you try to change everything all at once then you're basically making a new game with each alpha instead of adjusting an old game to keep up with current needs. With that said, basically all of the feature changes that are being discussed here (and elsewhere) aren't of the type that would have rippling impacts.

Just worth noting that at least one of those (attack ground) was actually proposed by @BreakfastBurrito_007, who falls on the balancing side of things, and he and I squawk about it just about every chance we get. The balance vs. feature divide isn’t as binary as some people suggest. I get that there is some paralysis resulting from bad memories of a24’s release. I would submit that the process for a24 just failed. The people who drove a24 are largely uninvolved at this point and the proper concerns were raised at the time, but we’re just largely ignored or voted down by a minority that controlled the process. I really don’t think the entire MP community should be blamed for something like that, especially when many complaints of the MP community are the same ones being voiced here.

This is a defeatist point of view that clearly relies on false assumptions. There are many examples of where new features had been proposed and adopted, so I don’t understand how you can say it’s not possible. I’ve even given you an example of how it can work out so someone doesn’t have to “run the gauntlet” alone. With the possible exception of turn rates, which have been tried several times and are still being tried, I am at a loss to think of any features that have actually be shouted down by anyone truly involved. Sure there are some people on the “balancing” side who think nothing should be introduced because it will wreck balance. They are wrong. Also wrong are the people in the “feature” side who forget that 0AD is a game. Like with most things, the right answer is usually somewhere in the middle

I like but, but same hero is tough because it requires everyone to be the same civ. Same class could work but it a little tricky because some hero’s are ele which most civs don’t have and then there are other hero’s that are something other civs don’t have, but I suppose you could unmount cav heroes or make other similar adjustments. And there is also the fact that some heroes of the same class type are very good while others are basically worthless after the first five minutes. this all goes back to how the game isn’t fully built yet and there are large swaths that need to be improved if a random game mode like nomad is ever going to pretend to be fair. With all that said, the easiest solution is also the most obvious here: let players chose their hero at the start