BreakfastBurrito_007

The X and Y values are for a horizontal circle where the arrow will land, right? My thinking is that a much bigger range of different Y landing points would still hit the target because of the low, high velocity trajectory followed by the arrows. I suppose as a result the variation in X landing positions probably contributes a lot more to overall accuracy than the Y variations. I did a test: basic carthaginian archer at 60m with 0 techs versus hero (infantry hero): 1:42 to 3:47, duration of 100 shots according to unit fire rate. 87 damage dealt at 2.016 damage per hit gives us 43/100 shots hitting the hero. metadata.jsoncommands.txt I think if archers need a buff, we could boost their accuracy some and maybe their move speed slightly.

I feel like archers are close to being good. A few minor buffs here and there. We can look at a24 for ways to make them OP again lol.

A curiosity of this discussion is that all of the above traits for each civ are already addressed by bonuses/techs/heros ect in game. Surely there are others where mechanics can be adjusted or added. I think its important to distinguish between real gameplay uniqueness and perceived uniqueness. Example of real uniqueness: skirm cavalry for carthage has extra move speed, while skirm cavalry for iberians has reduced cost. The base unit is the same but the bonuses applied to it are not equal or similar. 0ad does a good job of not chasing cosmetic uniqueness. I look at aoe4 as an example for cosmetic uniqueness. At a surface level all the civs have dramatically different units, building types, bonuses, and even unique economic units. This creates a problem where there are almost no basic units in play, and no basic civ setup. As a result everything for every civ is unique, and so the uniqueness loses its value as the respective bonuses and unit strengths must be co-equal. When civilization balance is taken into account in aoe4 every civ must have a "unique" way of doing the same thing, for example every civ in aoe4 has some way of generating indefinite gold through various "unique" implementations. There is more diversity of strategy per civ for 53 civs in aoe2 than there is for 10 or so civs in aoe4. In 0ad and aoe2, the civs are asymmetrically balanced such that a civ's strongsuit can not be exactly matched by another civ and in order to accomplish this there must be a baseline roster and build order that civilizations share.

Well my point wasn’t to copy design decisions that aoe2 makes, but to highlight how automated features should be left unoptimized for better gameplay results. Aoe2 is just a good example of this. I agree that in general aoe2 has a much higher skill level than 0ad at the top level, but that doesn’t at all mean that we need “easier” mechanics, there should be no skill ceiling. Just because high apm can help players win the game, doesn’t mean apm is “demanded” by the game. A good game is one where a bad player can learn a lot of a certain mechanic, win more as a result, and still have a lot left to improve in that same mechanic.

I think the best balance is to have rudimentary automation features. Leaving those automated features un-optimized allows a player to manually outperform it if they decide to allocate their apm and attention to the task. A good example is auto-scout from aoe2. It has known behavior, like trending toward the bottom right corner of the map. One could think of many ways to optimize the path taken by autoscout like using map script knowledge to scout likely other high value locations, automatically avoiding danger ect. Some modders of 0ad would call these changes “quality of life” improvements, but the result is the destruction of gameplay.

Indeed we consistently see that "old" games which feature skill expression become e-sports because you can get infinitely better at the game without being perfect. The satisfaction with learning and improving and outplaying are also what makes games fun aside from just being competitive. Many modern games try to remove these "difficult" mechanics and the result is boring gameplay where the only distinguishing factors are simply choosing the stronger option whether thats a gun in a fps game or a civilization in an rts game. That is why aoe2 performs better than aoe3 aoe4 and AoM retold. Games 20 years ago were designed to be fun in order to succeed in sales. Now they are designed to have a marketing induced mass appeal for a short time, and sell skins in-game. For this its important that a player can feel like they are "good" at the game within a week or so of buying it (skill-based matchmaking also contributes to this). So removing any sort of mechanic with skill expression boosts sales. It seems like some people just want a modern slop game that they can play while yawning and watching movies on other monitors.

I like the distributed farmers idea. There would be lots of gameplay ramifications for eco efficiency and vulnerability to raids. One outstanding point is the slot ("trees" as mentioned by @DesertRose) priority per farmers. Instead of some script that would place each additional farmer at the best possible slot depending on dropsite and farm orientation, slot prioritization should be done based off the path the farmer takes to access the farm when tasked to farm on it (whichever slot is closest).

Sparta has no eco bonus and the buildings they use to train those champions are expensive. If you find a way to attack early with other civs that can boom faster such as gauls or germans or ptolemies then you might have a chance of not needing to fight the hoplites.

They get armor but not dmg from the forge. Also the splash buff and unit preference behavior change they received in a28 is quite significant. In my opinion they can be very strong in this alpha.

@ittihat_ve_terakkiBro you claim to be someone "actually playing the game" as if no one else here does, and yet what makes you come onto the forum is an issue like this? Have you not heard about sniping, champcav, booming/turling issues, fanas, and all sorts of other gameplay issues that we discuss. Definitely it seems that theres something extra bothersome to you about this change that you haven't mentioned.

TGs on the Pokeball will go crazy

"Bad developers you made a civ too fast, it should at least take a decade!"

As for gameplay appeal, mercs that cost more metal and less food (mercs not in the gaul embassy) can be accessed with faster build orders which use fewer farms. Costing more food and less metal doesn't make the unit universally better than standard mercs, especially if that cost change requires a tech first.

This an interesting take. I really like how melee units play in a27, but I'm fairly sure that melee actually die faster in a27 than they do in a26 due to the armor nerfs. The main feature has been their much increased damage that makes them contribute more to a fight besides their "meat shield" characteristic. I suppose faster rank ups due to increased damage might actually make them die slower in some situations. Definitely I notice the increased damage most.

Unit specific techs are an untapped treasure trove of gameplay value. I don't think we should get rid of the blacksmith techs of course, but I think unit specific techs could have more creativity in addition to rewarding focus on unit compositions.

Honestly in the current game a27, if there was a unit stance where buildings were completely ignored unless directly tasked I would use it.

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.