BreakfastBurrito_007

I absolutely agree, we can be balanced without being symmetrical (as in aoe4). We have been through reduction eras in 0ad such as a24. We have come a long way in introducing varied gameplay mechanics and we need to continue doing that even if there are situations where things are imbalanced. For example fanas can be powerful at times, perhaps even op and perhaps in need of a nerf, but we should not revert their cost back to include metal as that is what differentiates the fana so much from other champs.

I think listening to competitive players/esports players results in improved gameplay. High level players like a game where they can continue to improve and as a result of their level continue to beat players who are worse than them, this is why aoe2 is still alive. Good gameplay mechanics are ones that are easy to learn and very hard to master. Aoe4 was seen by some as a sequel to aoe2 but the developers dumbed down mechanics as much as possible and the result was twofold: civs looking different but actually playing mutually equivalent having no baseline to stand out from, and there being no skill expression. The strategy of the game was basically boiled down to the series of decisions made while aging up. A key example of this is that you can't walk thru an enemies raised gate, its an infallible passive filter. Aoe4 as a result has been vastly less successful than aoe2 has despite aoe2 being old as the hills. Maybe this seems elitist but I promise you its not. A game which features skill development is fun for all ranks. So having features which could be seen as "competitive" is actually just good game design.

Its not the techs themselves but this^ that is the core of the discussion. Recent gameplay innovations like mercenaries having a primarily metal cost in p2 has made the most extensive impact on skipping some techs, but of course most of the time the booming=turtling approach makes the most sense. I definitely don't think that adding tech pairs back into the game is a good idea except for some civ specific situations like the mauryans berry upgrade choice.

I agree, I just want to make sure that we don't go from it being something that's almost never built to being something that's always built and at a set time in an optimal build order. I think having situation dependent gameplay choices is essential, so if its too much of a gimme then it has less gameplay enrichment value.

I like the idea with ptol library in p2, but I feel like maybe a slight cost addition and significant build time addition is necessary. Ideally it can be buildable in p2 but not something that can always be built immediately upon reaching p2. It should be a challenge to time its construction between eco or military techs in order to maximize value.

Adding a metal cost would be lame. A small adjustment to armor values or hp or speed or a combination would be all that’s needed if anything at all.

Walling in 0ad is costly in both resources and the mental capacity required to make sure they are actually sealed. palisades and stone walls need to become easier to seal and place if they are to become more impactful on gameplay. I've had moments before where palisades were remarkably successful in protecting my base from large amounts of cav in p2, but its quite rare to see palisades actually accomplish what the player envisions when they are built.

This is an example for the opposite point because in aoe2 there are lots of different hidden stats per unit that aren't shown. Its actually a great system to only show the basic stats of the unit, because showing all the stats would take up too much space and cloud out critical basic stats that can change with upgrades. Players in aoe2 actually learn the massive variety of different unit and civ specific bonuses and technology effects without having to see them. For example the light cav doesn't say that it has +10 versus monks which is essential for gameplay, but players simply learn this by doing (or looking at wikis/tutorials).

It does delay the full offensive, but also the exploitation of some uniqueness of the civ. There are probably some civs that could stand to get their heroes earlier. Currently Seles are the only civ that get heroes from cc, which is a unique advantage. I think hero buildings could also include unique techs and some could be made available in p2 depending on civ balance considerations. Basically we have a wide spectrum of different options for how fast a civ should access its heroes and we can make those choices on a case by case basis.

My apologies, I group all of the cheats together so I don't consider autostart to have any exception despite it providing a smaller advantage compared to others. My point is that one player shouldn't be allowed to cheat and then when challenged about it, claim that the game "isn't competitive" so its no big deal. The gameplay experience of everyone in the host matters. Autociv still has 1:1 action to input correspondence so I don't think it should be considered a cheat. Cheats like maphacks or progui actually deliver additional capabilities like extra vision or large volumes of management actions for a single gui level input. 1: any time I raise the question about progui before game start (whether it will be disallowed or not) I usually have to explain it to at least 3 to 4 people, others are tired of debates about this and don't invest any of their attention. During this discussion progui users are totally silent and do not respond do inquiries about their mod usage. Usually at least one person is outraged, but they quickly realize that there's nothing they can do about it. If enough people in the host express concern about progui before game start, the progui user will break silence and verbally attack the person who raised the issue with words I can not put on the forum. This serves to derail conversation about the mod. Additionally there are also dishonest people who claim that the scripted autotrainer is "equivalent" to vanilla autoqueue which is mathematically false. 2: There aren't really any stats on the summary which illustrate directly the advantages provided by automation, so players (even good ones) mistakenly believe that their usage of vanilla autoqueue or manual batch training is as efficient. I've advocated for cumulative barracks/stable/cc idle time statistics before. Additionally players do not realize how much of their mental capacity manual batch training consumes because its a practiced action that they are used to doing every game, so they underestimate how much extra time a progui user has. While its obvious to us that certain players use progui, the forum discussions are started by a vocal few who are aware of them and grasp the size of the advantage. Its easy to point to me or chrstgtr or reza and make the claim that "everyone knows and everyone accepts my cheating", but that is not the reality in multiplayer. Getting away with it in a team game does not mean that everyone there gave you consent to cheat, quite the opposite.

This is an assumption that one player makes about 7 others. And when they find out they lost because someone was cheating, the answer is "chill out its just a game". Awesome argument guys. Usually all 7 other players are unaware that this advantage exists, and even the minority of players who know that such mods exist do not grasp the magnitude of advantage that automation scripts provide. The discussion about the game being "non-competitive" is very convenient when cheaters use it to downplay the negative gameplay consequences that results from cheating. Funny enough the "competitive" nature of 0ad has been used to justify the same automation scripts by players who claim that their mouse can't click fast enough to compete with players who have "better" hardware. No player can click faster than even the cheapest mice allow, and some players even prefer not to have a mouse. Even more funny is that an auto-clicker which people have claimed to be in-use in 0ad would be considered an automation script and therefore cheating. The hypocrisy is mind boggling. I also totally reject the car analogy because in this case the automatic car is simply faster.

This is a common verbal attack motif of geriatrix. He does this so that he can have a martyr for his crusade against whatever player he is focused on. There need not be any actual reason for the player to have left or any causal connection between geriatrix, the “victim” or the person he is accusing. The main thing is to just not take a single thing he says seriously.

Undisclosed. Players who use automation mods, and presumably map hacks (I’ve never observed someone use map hacks) do not disclose this before game start, and avoid/ignore any discussion of this. I think fair gameplay is fun gameplay so I don’t play when there is a cheater. 0ad does not need to be competitive like an esport but the game itself is a competition (we are trying to win right?) so yes it needs to be fair by default. If any player could select a 2.5% handicap without anyone knowing it would probably make the game less fun. We’ve had this discussion so many times, everything has already been said but the problem remains.

Can we change the name of this topic to something slightly more positive so that it’s not the first thing visible when searching for 0ad forums.

To me it’s clear that the counter alone (whether it should be 2.5x or 3x) is not enough to balance the champ cav and cs cav. In my opinion a speed nerf is needed.