chrstgtr
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Posts posted by chrstgtr
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1 minute ago, Yekaterina said:
Good idea. What should we call it and what exact stats shall we use? For a start I think swords can have the armour and health of a spearman by default, then the tech boosts it by 20%
The tech itself costs 200 metal and 200 wood?
To be clear, at this time, I would only recommend option 1--quicker unit speed.
A stronger attack tech for swords is already an option in the blacksmith. I think it makes sense to apply this to all sword civs (i.e. Sparta, and possible a few others, still needs it). It's very good, but also very rarely used right now because most players don't make a lot of swords and because techs in general are too expensive (this is already changed for a25). I doubt 4 techs for swords (e.g., general melee level 1, general melee level 2, sword attack tech level 1, and sword attack tech level 2) are necessary. Besides we want to make swords useful--not OP--and we are already judging swords' usefulness against civs that already have similar tech implemented, so I don't think it's necessary.
I would be very cautious with increasing health/armor. Swords are already the best attack unit (when they actually get to fight), so I wouldn't want them to become both the best tank unit and the best attack unit.
Basically, I would want to see how changing unit speed impacts balance and then introduce techs as appropriate.
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4 hours ago, wraitii said:
https://code.wildfiregames.com/D4050
The diff above changes unit "Prepare Time", that is the time to the initial attack (≠ from the repeat time, which is the time between two consecutive attacks).
It makes archers weaker, and javelineers easier to micro.
If there is no strong argument against, I'll merge this for A25.
Also posted on the ticket number...
This should only really impact rushes. Making skirms (//i.e.//, jav cav) quicker will encourage rushes, which are still a bit difficult with the rotation times being slower than a23 (although faster/easier than now). It will also make players less likely to lose units to enemy archers when passing from afar.
I think this will be fine and/or good.
Any possible unintended side effects?
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Sword units already perform well in close contact. The problem is that most sword units never make it to close contact to do damage and/or you run out of metal and consequently can't sustain a sword army. This can be fixed a couple of ways that I list below.
- Quicker movement speed: This is my preferred solution. It will make units get to enemy quicker. It will also make it so that other units (which are almost always quicker) can't simply run away once the swords reach them. This also helps avoid the annoying hit and run battles that are impossible to counter. I would start experimenting by making swords the same speed as javs (the quickest inf unit) or slightly quicker than jav.
- Cheaper cost: This would help solve the difficulty of sustaining an army, but won't address how swords currently can't survive long enough to actually engage in close combat. Regardless, an incremental approach is best, so I prefer to first use option 1 and then see if additional changes are needed before we begin to implement changes that will have wide-ranging effects like this on eco/resource management. There are also other changes that should make metal more available in a25, which will render some of these concerns less relevant.
- Higher armor: This may have a ton of side effects that could accidently make this unit very OP. Swords already perform well against other units when in close contact, so they just need to be able to enter close range with enemy units before they die. Giving them extra armor will not only help them get to enemy units but will also help them once they are already there. I see no reason to do this when there isn't a problem with close range fighting and there is a perfectly fine option already available (i.e., quicker unit speed) that won't have the same unintended consequences.
- Higher health: Same as the above. I don't think it is worth considering when there is a perfectly fine option already available.
- Stronger attack: This doesn't address the fundamental cost/speed problems and thus is a very indirect way to deal with the problem. It will also introduce unintended consequences, like making rams very vulnerable, so I don't think this is worth considering when there is a perfectly fine option already available.
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1 hour ago, wraitii said:
I've merged the train time, the turn time, and a large mercenary change this morning.
I will make a diff to grant spear/pike a bonus against elephants, which I believe will come useful.
This mostly concludes the A25 gameplay changes from what I can tell, but we still have a severel days to introduce some changes.
Thanks, Wraitii. You put in a lot of good work at the end that I think will substantially improve a25.
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1 minute ago, PyrrhicVictoryGuy said:
Is it just me who thinks the stone thrower ballista feels meh, even bad?
No, they're terrible. But there are fixes on the way.
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27 minutes ago, Player of 0AD said:
And maybe elephants should also have a weakness against spearmen/pikemen like cavalry does?
I've always liked how pierce countered ele and hack countered rams. It requires players to have diverse units in order to properly fend off attacks (i.e., having ele and rams be vulnerable to different types of attacks discourages single unit spam).
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On 20/05/2021 at 1:40 PM, Thorfinn the Shallow Minded said:
As I would suggest, swordsmen should move a bit faster and have more pierce armour while performing a slight bit better in fights against spearmen. Swordsmen historically were not deployed with the sole purpose of destroying siege weapons.
Totally off topic, but I agree. Right now players don't make sword because melee is generally used as a meatshield and no one wants to waste metal training units that never even make it to enemy lines. If swords are quicker then they would more quickly close the gap and engage in fighting where they could do real damage.
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22 hours ago, alre said:
- if you remember what I've being writing in this forum lately, it will come to no surprise, but I'm not a fan of differentiating ranged speed again: archers feel goofy and slow, and archer rush is much weaker and slower. Having played half a game (crash? ddos?) as ptole bordering to maurya, I can assure archers are still strong defensively, slowing them down affects their offensive potential more than their defensive one (I played persia the previous match, and I had to move my soldiers very little, still dealing much damage)
If all range units move at the same speed then archers will always win with good micro. It will be the same as camels in a23
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Corinthian Isthmus used to be played a lot too, but basically no one plays it in a24 because of turtling issues.
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Hyrcanian Shores and Unknownland are also played fairly often.
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1 hour ago, Thorfinn the Shallow Minded said:
Simply speaking units of different speeds, regardless of the proximity of the resource, are going to have different gather rates. More time walking back and forth means that there is less time actually working; it's simple math.
How would eliminating or reducing the effects of unit speeds on their economic efficiency be bad? Frankly I find it absurd that say a skirmisher is a better lumberjack than an archer due to their uses in the battlefield a questionable thing.
Of course they have different gathering rates. But that isn't a bad thing. It introduces different dynamics into the game. It introduces choice. It introduces strategy. Let players build more storehouses. Or research techs. Or just make different units that are quicker gathers. Or make units that counter quicker gathers, so you can try to rush the other player that is going for boom. What you propose eliminates all of the aforementioned choice and strategy. One of the main lessons to be learned from a23-->a24 is that making everything the same and uniform is a stale, lazy way to balance and is actively disliked by players. What we have now isn't broken. Let's not try to fix what already works.
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I don't see any need for this. There is already an incentive to build more local drop sites to limit shuttling distance. Likewise, you can just research basket techs to carry more res. I also don't see why it unit speed matters--if a player makes all of one unit type then that unit type should be rushable. A properly built eco will address all the problems you describe, and if a player doesn't do it then they will have a worse eco.
To me, all this does is necessarily take out strategy in what units are trained, what buildings are built, and what techs are researched.
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3 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:
A couple other considerations:
Maybe the relationship should be a more simple LINEAR relationship: if wood is maxed out in the barter-market, wood trades for 5x as much value as the default amount and the other resources are all 1/5 of their original rates. This sounds extreme, but its intended purpose is to make people weigh the benefits/problems of: floating resources, bartering excessively, and what units they should make from their trade revenue. It will also make it harder to manage a full-trade economy. This will also introduce a risk/saftey spectrum to trading, do you want to spread out your trade income across 2-3 resources or go all-in for a particular resource because it is valuable at the moment.
Another cool feature that would limit/complicate this mechanic could be if traders can only react to a change in the trade resource choices once they reach the next market, because they can't just drop their current stock. If a player changed their resources based upon a sudden change in barter values, then it is possible it could change by the time the trader is able to pick up the next round of stock at destination/origin market. If a trader is in transit, then the values of what they carry still apply, so the traders could lose some value of what they carry even if the value was high when they picked up their stock at the last market.
The goal of these changes would be to revolutionize the way trading is done in 0ad, going from a boring extreme-late-game mechanic to a a variable economic strategy with risk and reward beyond the cost of traders unit training costs. I could even see trade being chosen at earlier times in some games if players anticipate extreme barter rates that can happen as people gear up for the big P3 fights.
@Dizaka@Player of 0AD@Palaiogos @chrstgtr@ValihrAnt
What do you think of the idea?
To me it seems possible and potentially a really fun gameplay mechanic. Also this is a good way to make trading less of a guaranteed way of getting metal since otherwise it would be too easy to spam mercenaries from trade (in a24 mercenaries are the cheapest unit to get from trade).
I'm fine with the way trading works now. It reflects demand insofar as players actually use it--less desired resources fetch a low trade-in value, high desired resources fetch a high trade-in value, less desired resources demand a low purchase price, and high desired resources demand a high purchase price.
I'm also fine with the way traders work now--they are a long-term investment that is very expensive on the front end but ultimately very efficient at generating resources. I would like to see the speed tech comeback as there doesn't seem to be any good reason to take away player choice, but that is another matter.
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Players don't build regularly build army camps this alpha. This alpha army camps can't produce siege and as a result are only only useful if they can shoot arrows at enemy units. That means that camps are only useful if they are placed in an area that will be the center of fighting. Except it is difficult to place buildings somewhere there is constant fighting since your builders will get killed in the fight and the defending player can more quickly spam to a location in their own territory. This ticket (https://code.wildfiregames.com/D3668) will also make army camps less useful because the arrows won't even be as effective anymore.
Camps can be built in enemy territory for offensive purposes. In order to actually use camps for that offensive purpose they should have the ability to produce siege. Otherwise, it is just a bad version of colony.
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Many people are having difficulty when trying to download and install mods, which make them less played. How can you add a mod to the download mod/install list in the game menu? Specifically, I want to have Vali's mod added
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1 hour ago, Thorfinn the Shallow Minded said:
I think that there is an argument for introducing a technology for skirmishers that would increase their movement rate. They could start of with just a marginal difference in speed to not make them massively better from an economic perspective. Archers being a wee bit slower seems fair.
It is better to start them off at the difference that make sense to balance the units and then offer speed tech. Otherwise you just make archers OP until a jav based civ can afford the tech. Units should start balanced without techs and end balanced with all techs. @ValihrAnt’s mod balanced archers well.
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1 hour ago, Grapjas said:
yes, they should be exactly that:
2 hours ago, alre said:a nuisance
Making a game purposely annoying shouldn't be a result of intentional design.
Palisades should be much more expensive than they are now, which is about as close to free as you can get from a resource cost and build time perspective, and much more quickly destroyed. Area damage to palisades has been suggested many times by many people and it makes total sense to me.
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9 hours ago, wraitii said:
I think turn times are a bit of a decoy problem. I think if there were no archers in P1, you wouldn't notice it nearly as much. That being said, not against bumping them.
Turn times are a problem even when the defender doesn't have archers. Rushers are unable to do hit and run attacks now because it takes too long to turn around rushing units and defenders only have to hit h to kill rushing units. If the problem was only archers then players would still effectively rush non-archer civs but that isn't happening.
As I have said elsewhere, though, you are correct that archers make the problem particularly acute.
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1 hour ago, Dizaka said:
In a23 rushing was done by many players early on. Currently, there is a problem where very few players rush. The reason for very few players rushing is that rushing with 1-2 cav within 2-3 mins is generally unfeasible. It is unfeasible for the following reasons:
- Unlike in a23, you now cannot micro arrow evasion. Currently, to rush, you come with 4-5 cav, at minimum, and may have to commit to the rush b/c projectiles always land.
- Archers can kill skrim cav fairly fast (most players only play archer civs).
Thinking about it: What if projectiles behaved different between phase 1 (P1) and then P2/P3?
The suggestion: For example, what if projectiles behaved like in a23 for P1. However, in P2 and P3 they behave like they do in a24 to prevent a "hero" from luring all the arrows?
I believe the change could bring about more early-game rushing and add diversity to gameplay.
@chrstgtr @nani @aixo @Palaiologos @bbgotbanned @PistolPete @VeNDettA @letsplay0ad @borg_ @BoredRusher @badosu
I believe there are three main reasons why no one rushes in a24.
- Increased rotation times: Higher rotation times makes it more difficult to do hit and run attacks. This is distinct from dancing. Before you could attack and quickly turn away. Now, you attack and have to turn around slowly before running away while the defending player only has to hit h to begin fighting. This provides a major advantage to defending players
- Slower training times: Slow training times means it now takes longer to train units, so defending players are more likely to have a barrack to produce defending units whereas before this was not the case.
- Archers are more accurate: Archers are more accurate in a24 compared to a23. This means that archers can effectively snipe rushing units while they run away. While before it was not uncommon to attack with 10 rushing cav at minute 5 and not lose a single unit. Now this never happens.
It makes much more sense to me to revert back to a23 levels for the three items above, which we already know works, and adjust as necessary to reach the perfect balance instead of making guesses for what might work next alpha or making changes that will unnecessarily complicate the game. Conveniently, @ValihrAnt already made a mod that addresses all three issues. I highly recommend you check it out. I have played several games that were all very enjoyable and more balanced than a24. In these games, rushing was a viable strategy.
On 02/05/2021 at 8:26 AM, ValihrAnt said:Changes: Citizen soldier train times back to A23 values. Rotation times for citizen soldiers lowered. Archers 0.6 lower move speed, skirmishers 0.6 higher move speed. Archers 0.5 extra spread.
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Just providing feedback on the mod itself--I played a couple games on the mod and I am a huge fan. Game is much, much more balanced, and a lot of fun. A lot of the strategies that disappeared in a24 like rushing are possible.
I encourage everyone to give it a try.
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2 hours ago, Thorfinn the Shallow Minded said:
The problem with changing training times is that it does nothing to fix the fundamental issue. Barracks serve a primarily economic role in the Village Phase. Some people might not consider that a problem, but to me, the average Athenian just getting equipped to serve for the military doesn't say to himself, "Whelp, better start hoeing those fields."
Introducing a gather-rate penalty of some sort to units trained in the barracks would generally fix this problem. Suddenly booming would otherwise be done by researching fertility festival and training women or going with a suboptimal investment that would leave the player better protected at the cost of efficiency. And there you go. Booming would not be turtling.
This is another solution to a different "problem" that we don't know will work. Reverting to old train times will work to fix the problems that were introduced in a24. What you propose is a larger change to the whole meta, which is fine to propose but an entirely different topic. Any larger changes to the meta should be made from a point that already know works (i.e., a23 training time) and merits of your proposal should be considered within that context.
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36 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:
Where?
https://wildfiregames.com/forum/search/?q=spam&quick=1 And, a ton of players complain about spam in game and in lobby.
8 minutes ago, hyperion said:Before the meta was don't float resources, now the meta is don't float resources.
That is just to say the meta is to be efficient, which is kind of like saying the meta is to kill enemy units or to kill enemy CC's because, well, of course, it is.
There is clearly less diversity of gameplay strategies now--that is indisputable. Regardless of what individually or collectively actually caused it, @ValihrAnt mod clearly addresses the current problem, and thus is clearly an improvement.
As for the need for the a more incremental approach to changes, I entirely agree.
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4 hours ago, hyperion said:
I'm convinced that many changes between release are a mayor annoyance for casual players, worse if it's a back and forth like with training time proposed here. The situation after the change was neither better nor worse. So changing once was bad in hindsight, changing twice is worse.
This isn't true. The current meta is worse because it allows for one good strategy--you to make a ton of barracks, spam, and boom. If you do not make a lot of barracks then you float a ton of res (which is inefficient) because of the long training times. In other words, a25 only allows for one good strategy--put down a lot of barracks and spam. In a23 more winning strategies were available with rushing and quickly phasing up.
We've all played it, and the vast majority of people are upset by these changes. The people who complained about spam last alpha are still complaining. And, people who used to be happy are now upset. How can you say that reverting to a way that will make more players happier isn't an improvement?
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4 hours ago, ValihrAnt said:
I articulated myself badly there. What I mean is that in my opinion there's no good reason to limit the amount of barracks or really any building for that matter. I believe that spam is something that should be part of the game and used as part of a strategy if the player deems it the correct approach. Say one player tries to rush up to the City phase with low investment in military, the other player recognizes that and spams out military to try and overwhelm the other.
I agree. Spam isn't a problem in and of itself--it is a strategy just like any other. It becomes a problem when it becomes the dominant strategy because it is both the best and easiest strategy. Multiple strategies should be encouraged. Eliminating a strategy is frankly just a lazy way to change the meta by limiting player choice advancing what should be the true goal--to encourage multiple strategies. If you want to encourage other strategies then make other strategies better. Player choice should also be fostered, stifled.
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Sword melee
in Balancing Discussions
Posted
I would keep the same for now. Swords are already very strong when they actually get to fight. The problem is that they can't ever reach enemy units before dying. I do think it makes sense to introduce the sword tech to all civs with swords, though (i.e., Sparta has swords but doesn't have the tech, Gauls has sword champs but doesn't have the tech, ptol has swords, but doesn't have the tech, etc.). It is essentially a "sword tradition" tech that already exist but is called a different name.