
chrstgtr
Balancing Advisors-
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Everything posted by chrstgtr
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Here again the problem is that many of these were not problems before. I will make posts in the other space (although, as I have previously pointed out, the one instance in which I did this several players, including myself, all posted saying the change was a bad idea yet the devs moved forward with the change anyways). An overarching theme here is that many players feel that a large portion of the dev team doesn't listen to players' concerns and feedback and the replies from many devs on this forum only reinforce that feeling. But I will try your way one last time.
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Come on. My point is that it has been read and it has been dismissed (actively and/or passively) by devs on the forums. Maybe I and others didn't go through the proper medium, but why would we if we just get told we're wrong by every dev that is on the forum? Devs can't say we need feedback from players and then say that the feedback is substantively wrong when they get the input. Just like devs can't say we need feedback from players and then say feedback is procedurally wrong and doesn't count because it isn't written in the right place.
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I've never said you're the problem, badosu, because I do not think it. As for civ differentiation, it used to exist. Now not so much. This is part of why this alpha feels so frustrating--it feels like a step back in many respects. Another major problem is that this alpha works well for 1v1s but can become completely miserable in long drawn out team games. This particularly true with my two other major complaints (turtle is way too strong and unit production times need to be sped up). These complaints I have been repeated many times over on the forum but never seem to be addressed beyond being dismissed. I hope that these issues are resolved sooner than later.
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Read my post history. I've made many of my complaints known (primarily civs lack differentiation, turtle is way way too strong, and unit production is way way too slow). I have seen several of these complaints repeated in one form of another multiple times too (e.g. Dakara in this thread saying he wants more HP because fights are way too fast, which is a function of both turtle being too strong and unit production being too slow; breakfast in this thread saying that TGs are stalemates, which is a function of turtle being too strong as well as not being able to produce enough units to sustain fight, again slow unit production; many posters in other threads saying all the civs feel the same now). All of these complaints were basically brushed off or labeled wrong. Most of all many people have said the game is no longer as much fun because of the above reasons. We have tried making our complaints known and in many instances provided specific and actionable solutions.
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See the responses below from devs (just from this short 3 page thread). Not trying to call anyone out but I don't see how the problem at this point is players not communicating their grievances. Also, compare these response to where many players have made very specific complaints with very specific suggestions for improvement (in this thread and others), which were either totally unaddressed or just labeled "wrong." Complaints exist. How are these being constructively addressed?
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This is honestly the best take I have seen throughout all the debate. That may have been a problem in the past. But it clearly isn't a problem now. And if you read all the compliant threads on the most constant theme are players, many of whom have been around for a long time, making complaints or constructive criticisms to which the devs basically say shove it--you are wrong or it is too early to conclude that. There are obviously some large, unaddressed complaints out there. And with each day more players that I talk to seem to enjoy the game less and less. Some have all but disappeared. It would be wise to address these concerns or at the very least actually engage them. Yes, people are playing a24 (myself included) but has anyone actually asked the players that are online day in and day out what they think of the alpha compared to previous iterations? This is honestly the best take I have seen throughout all the debate. That may have been a problem in the past. But it clearly isn't a problem now. And if you read all the compliant threads on the most constant theme are players, many of whom have been around for a long time, making complaints or constructive criticisms to which the devs basically say shove it--you are wrong or it is too early to conclude that. There are obviously some large, unaddressed complaints out there. And with each day more players that I talk to seem to enjoy the game less and less. Some have all but disappeared. It would be wise to address these concerns or at the very least actually engage them. Yes, people are playing a24 (myself included) but has anyone actually asked the players that are online day in and day out what they think of the alpha compared to previous iterations?
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- building hotkeys
- visible corpses limiter
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There seems to be another bug where units get stuck on the corner of buildings that requires me to micro around it. Seems like this could be the problem here too. But the corner building issue never seems to fix itself on its own.
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I get that people don't want their heros to die. But the onus should be on that player to properly micro or place their hero behind the lines in stand ground instead of on the attacking player who is trying to kill the hero. And in the grand scheme of things, losing 1 hero is much less dangerous than losing an entire army. Healers could also have reduced HP if they actually cause armies to chance in a way that causes armies to die while following. Their health could be something like women, which die quickly before a chasing army can get destroyed. But I agree changing the run/walk feature makes sense regardless.
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Then other civs should be improved and given bonuses that are actually helpful instead of something like walls that no one uses. The ptol and celts bonuses themselves weren't OP as much as other civs just didn't have useful bonuses. Also, celts and ptol were used a lot bc they of their unit composition (e.g. slingers and camels) bc those units were seen as OP as easiest to mass with celts/ptol. Those units should no longer be seen as OP and thus those civs should no longer be the only civs used.
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I had forgotten about that, but yes I've noticed some units not retreating. I don't know if it is the same thing or if they were hit during their retreat which caused them to break command. Same with units walking off to attack when near the border, but I think those occurrences were the result of the known issue where towers shooting arrows outside their range
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I haven't seen anyone abuse it this alpha. With that said, I see little point to having it for fighting units, so I would limit it to only women/healers (units that aren't meant to ever fight and also die quickly) or eliminate it all together
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It has happened when I had default formations on and off. I randomly get idle units now when I never did before.
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This happens. Units seems to randomly not listen. It seems to happen with shift commands for me.
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Not really. I've never seen anyone dance effectively with non-hero infantry--they die too fast. So even when it does occur, it is a problem for 1s instead of 1m like it can be with hero. Anyways, my point is that limiting the change to only heros will eliminate 95% of dancing without introducing any other unintended problems. And a second focus on cav would eliminate most of the remaining 5% of problems if it is deemed necessary. And, good to hear about other changes that make it irrelevant
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Something is different now. I often have units that get very far away from storehouses when I never did in a23. Like the reference to the 2nd patch of chickens not getting auto-hunted in this alpha, something has clearly been changed. This is a problem for all maps because it will slow your economy considerably if a chunk of your workers have to walk 3x as far as intended. And, building extra storehouses isn't a very good solution because that is very expensive early on.
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A relatively straight forward fix could be to only slow rotations on the units where dance is abusive (e.g. slow rotations for heros and maybe for cav). Most players that dance don't do so with regular inf and those that they fail. So why make whole rotation system slow to fix a problem that only applies to 1 type of unit?
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Also, I was the one who did the rush. It was micro and unit production mismanagement by dakeryas and reza. Once you get ahead, it is easy to rack up kills
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This is only true if you have bad eco balance.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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?
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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