chrstgtr

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

If you look at the forum history, the people who were loudest about the a24 being imbalanced were the same people who said a24 was bland and uniform louder than anyone else and they did so from the very start. If anything, it was the casual players who received a24 best, but that also came to pass and I am not here trying to point fingers. And if you look at the ongoing conversations in the balancing community, most concern how we can (re)introduce aspects of the game that lost in a24 or have never been developed. For example, look at the threads @wowgetoffyourcellphone posted where he and I had several productive conversations that hopefully will materialize into new, balanced features that will make everyone happy. Saying "people who care about balance make the game boring" is wrong and unproductive. People who care about balance can also care about it being interesting, fun, and dynamic. People who care about balance simply want new features to be balanced in addition to being new.

Does this only work when you get the alert? i.e., if I continually hit space bar will it rotate me to my different battle theatres?

You mean on the alert itself? I never knew this

Ah, that change from a23->a24 makes a lot more sense then. Thanks for clarifying, @Stan` All else equal, I would still prefer to be able to capture siege, but having capture as default also caused a lot of problems so I get why we would try to avoid that.

All this. I would also like to be able to capture siege units like in a23 (and before). I wouldn't want it as a default mechanism like it was before, though.

It's probably my most used keyboard button after minute 10. It is very helpful for micro if you are not using attack move.

Do you also propose that we wait several days for units to walk across a map to meet the enemy? Or better, that we wait 18+ years to raise a solider? Games are extrapolations. The unit measurements might as well not be denoted in real life units. Sometimes you just have to roll with what is obviously not real life.

You and @Philip the Swaggerlessappear to be the only other Americans in this thread.

I'd rather slaves be specialized for wood. Mines aren't that important to eco. While wood is very important. Make it a tradeoff decision like how fields are mostly women. That way wood could be raided after minute 6.

Some of these, like high priest and slave, would actually be great additions. Also, want to add that instead of making these eco units better at gathering, we could alternatively make them cheaper

Simple answer is, it's not always worth it because it depends on your goals. Berry tech is most efficient for a long boom (it lets you research wood tech earlier), but that isn't what I was trying to do. I put my first 6 women on berries, which led to more early pop at the cost of efficiency (i.e., the wood/farming tech, which would've repaid itself in a few minutes that were beyond my event horizon). If it was a 120 pop challenge my time probably would've been comparatively much slower because my growth curve was sharply flattening.

I only used chicken and initial berries. No extra hunt/berries. Not a single tech researched. Built 1 farmstand, 1 storehouse, 1 barrack, and 6 farms. And, agreed. This proxy is just not really a proxy for anything--it's almost a standalone challenge that led to a very weird build order (that would've been quite slow after the 100 pop mark). I also think that I actually would've been quicker if I had never made a farmstand (I didn't do berry tech, but I did make farmstand). BTW, if you (or anyone) liked this there was something similar to this for reaching 300 pop quickest. I ended up using women tech and had like 40 farms and 5 woodchoppers. I can't remember the exact time, but it was sub 10 minutes.

May I suggest a revision? 100 pop doesn’t have any in game meaning. It’s just a round number and doesn’t require going p2 or doing any techs beyond maybe food and or wood. I think a better challenge would be to do 200 or 300 pop with some limit on women and require p3. I only say this because the first time I did it I got a ‘bad’ time which I felt was because I did upgrades. So I tried twice more, each time with a worse “normal” game build order and I got a better time each time. With that said, my best time after 3 attempts was 7:25 using a build order that would make me terribly slow in mid-late game (zero techs; 1 barrack).

As someone who prefers mainland +90% of the time in a25, I would happily welcome the return of Slopes.

I don't entirely disagree. But functionally this would mean those units never get use. You used to be able to do this (e.g., Maurya could get rams in a23 if they captured a fort and Mace could get champ skirms and swords if they captured the right buildings), but because of balancing issues these functions were all but never used. ETA All this is to say we are a long way away from such a feature *actually* being a feature and not a trivial footnote

Separately, I would also like propose offensive priests that convert enemy units. Not sure what civ this would fit best with (Rome would've been nice in the Constantine era, but that is after the 0ad timeframe)

0ad isn't balanced well enough to allow this. If you are capturing a bunch of enemy buildings then you have already won. (It would also create snowballing issues, otherwise)