chrstgtr

If the priority is to make something that looks cool and historical, then the post referencing borg, feld, and vali's involvement seems entirely misplaced. And frankly, balance shouldn't matter then since that wouldn't be the purpose. But this obviously isn't the case, so I don't understand why you are defending that position. I will also note that this discussion has come up in the immediate context of me saying that I and several other players felt our opinion was completely disregarded. To which the reply essentially said: "you are not like other players, so your opinion does not matter." Again, not trying to be petty, but I do want to point this out, especially since this thread concerns how 0AD should look in the future and is involving player feedback and I (and others) now essentially have to argue that my opinion has worth. To bring the discussion back to the purpose of the thread, even if the point was to just the game look cool and historical, it can be done in ways that also address gameplay concerns. Here, being that a large portion of players do not like this alpha for many of the reasons stated above. I hope it is properly addressed.

I personally don't use walls because I don't like them and I don't think they should be in the game. Strategically, I am rarely in a position where I need to use walls because I am usually the player on my team that makes the offensive push. Regardless of whether you think it makes sense or not, it is empirically true that the vast majority of top players never use walls. If anyone uses anything, it is palisades, which the vast majority of top players never use. And there have been threads/complaints calling out the players that do use palisades for their abusive tactics. and there will be complains for Roman's being op because they have siege workshop and camps to produce rams which most players don't know how to counter? There were siege camps in the last several alpha and very few people complained about them being op. And, the players that did complain about them being op were the ones who did typically did not know to use swords on rams. If that is the base level that you are concerned about then siege shouldn't be in the game or at least should be extremely difficult to make (unlike now). The Nisean horses technology (city phase) is still available to pers and sele only. The techs have changed. The Nisean tech in old alpha is more analogous to the horse breeding tech that gives a 10% health buff in this alpha. Horse breeding tech is available to all civs now. Before the Nisean tech used to be a 20% health bonus to all cav. Now the Nisean tech is a 20% health bonus buff, 10% increase in production time for champ spear cav only. Persia/Sele's bonus used to be relatively stronger/more versatile. This without a doubt makes persia/sele's cav less special than it was before. This is unfortunate, I don't like it much either. The reason it happened is because it's more important to get the basics right and having a balanced core gameplay, from which to further differentiation later. This isn't really necessary, though. There was differentiation before. The biggest problems with balancing was that slingers were too strong and archers were too weak. That problems were corrected this alpha. And, those changes have nothing to do with anything I have complained about or about the civ differentiation. In fact, I initially said this is one of the things I like most about this alpha. Regardless, is having 12 civs that are boring and really just one civ better than having 6 OP civs that are fun and 6 civs that need a buff? You can ignore that 6 bad civs, but you don't get the choice is all 12 civs are basically the same. Regardless, as I have said earlier, a lot of the civs are basically the same as one another with extra features, which will eventually prove to make a new list of OP civs that everyone plays. I'm sorry your experience has been an unhappy one. We're all human in an imperfect world. Gameplay and balance are discussed in numerous threads on these forums, as well as in private conversations and via other channels. It's impossible for anyone to keep track of everything. Moreover, making changes is a slow process, it's not unusual for a patch to be committed (or abandoned) months or even years after it's proposed, which means that even if some comment was read and replied to in the past, it may have been forgotten by the time a final decision is made. Therefore it's really important to keep the discussion unified in a single place: the relevant patch on https://code.wildfiregames.com/ , because it's there the actual development happens and commits are made. In case you're referring to https://code.wildfiregames.com/D2507 : you left one comment there and disappeared. Others continued the conversation, on-and-off, the patch was revised six more times, and in the end several people agreed it should be given a try; it was left open for a couple more months and finally committed in December. If it turns out to have a horrible impact, then it can be reverted in A25, of course, though so far I haven't seen people complaining about palisades in A24. Can you clarify which change you're talking about? We certainly want to avoid this type of situation. If you no longer voice your opinion, your opinion will _indeed_ be ignored. 'We' are not some secluded private studio with a completely opaque decision process: every diff and commit is available and open-source on https://code.wildfiregames.com. You literally have no reason not to voice your disagreement or concern with changes there. It's possible a few diffs get committed without player consensus, but I want to highlight that this really isn't how things have been done in general in the A24 process: most if not all gameplay commits got some agreement from some top players, including usually borg-, feldfeld or valirhant. it is water under the bridge. This was a hot topic for a week or so and I thought I had added more to the thread but apparently it was just talking in the lobby with and without devs. The general feeling was that we had been ignored, so we didn't beat a dead horse. I have been asked in lobby by devs for my opinion on other matters and felt I had the same experience. I am not trying to be petty, I am just trying to point out how in the ideal world we can all improve and in this instance that safeguard of borg, feld, vali clearly fell apart because in this instance only one liked the proposal and others did not. I have been around for multiple alphas. I remember when a22 was released and players immediately recognized that cav was broken. And, I remember when a23 was released and players immediately thought it was an improvement. I am not saying all changes are bad. But I am saying that some changes are undesirable. Regardless, the point of this is try to make the game better now that I (and a large number of other players) think we have taken a step back.

Not to be petty, but I and several other of the top players commented quite a bit on a thread or spoke to devs in the lobby about it. One player and some of the devs, none of which I have ever seen play the game, thought the idea should be implemented. All the other players thought it was a very bad idea. Nonetheless, the revision was implemented. As a result, I decided not to bother commenting on other revisions since my opinion (and the opinion of several other top players) clearly didn't matter. I spoke to other players who commented and several others expressed similar feelings. What you propose is great. But a near consensus shouldn't be ignored lest you invite commentators to become disillusioned and withdraw from the process

But it does give a choice on how to prioritize. These are real benefits--same as researching military techs. And these provide a benefit to a player who pritiozied phasing earlier than a player who prefered to build pop. I'm not sure what you mean My error. I meant give it building abilities. Persians and Seleucids still have a city-phase Nisean Horses technology, which works on top of the generic cavalry health technology that's available to all civilizations (it was added as a partial compensation for the removal of health from the city phase). This is my point, it is available to all civs now. This makes sele and persia less "special". There needs to be more civ differentiation--like it was before. Siege engines were removed from them at the explicit request of someone who pointed out they were only slightly more expensive than arsenals but much more effective. Perhaps rams only could be readded to the army camp, I don't know how that will affect balance, it needs testing, as do other things. This is a balancing question. Again, I like the way this differentiates civs and makes rome "special" They still have +10% metal gather rate per phase advance (i.e. +21% in city phase), the possibility to train troops in triremes, and the quite interesting Long Walls technology. Metal gather rates, especially at that low of a level aren't particularly "special" when compared to something like being able to build a camp in an enemy's base (rome), getting building pop bonus (old celts), getting free buildings (old ptol, still cheaper buildings now), getting to collect res anywhere on a map (mauraya), getting to spam siege early (mace), etc. Naval maps are disfavored by most players, so naval abilities aren't very relevant. Good players don't use walls. Besides, as I have stated at several points elsewhere, the game benefits turtles too much.

HP bonuses don't have to impact champs. We should be able to exclude those. Or just adjust their HP lower so it doesn't have as large of an impact. For example, most (all now?) champs are only available in p3. So a HP bonus from p1-->p2-->p3 shouldn't impact a p3 unit's HP. Regardless, this was only one suggestion. I also like the idea of changing defensive constructions to be less op. I still like giving phasing HP bonus, but it isn't super necessary. Overall, I like the balance changes. Based on what I currently know, I wouldn't change much in terms of unit stats. Yes. Ptol bonus is still nice, now. Just less significant of a difference than before. And free houses with ptol is just one example of how I think civs should be modified to be more different. Other possible reversions would be something like giving celt their building pop bonuses giving siege factories only to mace keeping worker else for mauraya (and maybe giving it building abilities back) I like walls/towers for iber I like cav health bonus for persia/sele (so I would take this away from other civs) I like kush pyramid bonuses I like rome camps and would give it siege again to make the difference more pronounced I liked skirati exp. bonuses for sparta and I think this was nerfed too much Carth and athens could use better differentiators imo carth champs from temples might be a fine strat with champs being a more viable strategy. I haven't tested this athens basically is no longer unique in any way?

But that has to be redone for every unit? That is very micro intensive when you are producing at least 400-500 per game and doing other actions in game

The original reply was in response to how we can make civs more differentiated (again). The one of most obvious ways is to give celts back their building pop bonuses. You can layer onto that extra pop from CCs, but that doesn't change the fact that the original a24 problem (a lack of civ differentiation) remains. can you disable it as default? If not, that is very micro intensive for every single unit that is made.

It's obviously an overstatement. I laid out a lot of the changes I would like to see implemented. Below is a incomplete list I would like changed back. Shorten unit production time Increase unit speed change stone upgrade costs to include food instead of wood reintroduce phasing HP bonus (not in original post but this would help units not die under buildings so fast) reintroduce civ differences don't give every civ siege factory give celts building pop bonuses give ptol free houses and probably many other change that I haven't realized yet give outposts more vision Some of it is also probably units being default in formations. So old units that used to be fasted like skirms are now beings slowed by being grouped spears. Undoing this manually is very micro-intensive. Can we not make 180 rotations slower than small turns? Can we not make minimum unit movements (even if this is done just for heros, which is where dancing is 95% of the problem) to make dancing in place less effective? As for unit production, some training times have been tweaked, yes, but not everything is slower; e.g. citizen cavalry went from 15 s to 16 s, but champion cavalry from 30 s to 27 s, reducing the gap between citizens and champions a bit, to make champions a more viable option. The most common units (which were also the units most quickly produced) all had their unit times greatly increased. For example, women went from 8-->9, citizen solider inf went from 10-->12, citizen cav went from 15-->16. Those are large differences. I agree champs needed to get produced way quicker. This is a good change and has made champs a more viable strategy in a24. Again, I suspect a lot of the slow down is actually attributable to formations being the default. I've played a few games. Quick team games (ones where one team dominated and won on the first push without any retreat) went from gg at about min 18/19 to gg at about min 25-28. Some other games that were never really close but people turtled lasted much longer than 25 mins. That's a massive increase. I suspect this is more likely the result of slower unit production times. Also techs are harder to get now, which slows down the game a lot. And because turtling is a much strong strategy now, which makes a ton of siege required in basically every tg.

As I said, basically keep unit balancing the same. And change everything else back

I am overall not a fan of A24. I like a lot of the balancing changes, but the game overall isn't as enjoyable. Things I don't like The game moves much, much slower. Part of this is because unit production is way slower. Part of this is because units actually move slower. I do not see the need for either of these and both make gameplay considerably longer. Because of slower unit movements, defensive buildings are much, much stronger. This makes fighting under any defensive buildings unsustainable for more than a few seconds. As a result, turtling is encouraged and fighting is discouraged. This is inherently less fun and more simcity. Because turtling is encouraged, it seems like every tg ends in massive siege spam. Sitting back and passively spamming siege to destroy buildings isn't much fun. Civs are too similar now. They all seem interchangeable with the only differences being that some civs are more limited. What is the difference between ptol and rome/gauls/brits besides ptol having many more types of units and buildings? What can mace do that rome can't? It was more fun when there were things like celt building pop bonuses, free ptol houses, and easy spam siege for mace. There are other smaller changes that I don't like. For example, eliminating outposts vision is very frustrating in TGs where it is easy to sneak attack someone. This is made especially frustrating by the fact that capture rates were buffed. Also, I don't like how stone upgrades now cost wood. Before you would do eco tradeoffs between when balancing food/wood. Now, all eco upgrades rely on wood and metal. Things I like Overall, soldiers are much better balanced. For example, I like that archer civs are no longer useless. And, I like that champs are integrated more. Both of these were overdue and I welcome the changes. We eliminated dancing. This has introduced some weird animations but overall it is a huge upgrade. There are some other smaller changes that I like. For example, I like how military upgrades now work.

I do not consent to any team with fpre.

I'm interested.

Chrstgtr will be op this week

Chill, dude. Nothing is capital 'w' Wrong with your video. Alekesu posted a video to help teach players how to boom and be less vulnerable to rush. 1-I assume both videos were made with the intent of teach and there was no opponent so map size is irrelevant. 2-If a player did an early rush of you with men then you did not have enough men to counter. If someone did an early rush on you with cav you could not counter. If a player did a cav harass on all your berries (which alekesu did not have) you would've lost all food production and many women (and therefore the game). 3-Great--that is why I posted the video. 4-No thanks, Alekesu already made one. 5-This is factually untrue. I've also never heard of a deadline for a rush. 6-I never knew all rushes come with 15 cav at minute 4. More to the point--there are multiple boom strategies. I personally think Alekesu posted a very good tutorial that is a better for learners (because he didn't have the berries you did, he explains what he does, and it is at worst arguably a better boom to defend rushes with).

Less women early. Can counter rush.

Here is a more realistic build order with an explanation of how to do it (I know this number can be improved because I did it once in about 14:30 with a similar build order, so tweak the build order around to maximize your build). There is also thread out there with how quick you can reach max pop too, but I think most people cheated and did it with all women (not that it would've made a difference after like 100 pop).

Game 1: Chrstgtr Game 2: Chrstgtr Can one of the observers post the replays. The filepath isn't accurate on Macs and I cannot find the replays since the last OSX update/A23

Pudim lost already

My presence has been requested by Palaiologos. Americas