BreakfastBurrito_007

I think increasing metal availability and adding more uses for stone will help the barter system be a a little less frustrating in a25. In particular in 4v4s. A while ago I had an idea for a system that would make the most bartered-for resource at the market also be the most profitable resource to trade for with traders. The idea is to make trading a less hands-off process and reward players who are looking out for resource values, potentially adjusting their unit composition based upon what resource is most profitable for their traders. Since currently traders get all resources at the same rate, mercenaries are the cheapest unit if ur whole eco is traders. If this is implemented, and resources are brought within reason in terms of availability and relative value, then traders would bring a much less predictable income stream. I think this would also prevent the market barter rates from stagnating and it would tie trade income to real-time player actions. I think it is also nice for the people who take interest in historical accuracy and realism. Traders have/had a limited capacity to carry stuff, so to carry the most value with them, they would take whatever resource was most scarce. Also traders don't and didn't always have the same profits each time they traded. If you are more interested in this mechanic you can come to that thread and make a comment :D. I would welcome some feedback on my idea.

yea I think this is a bigger problem in a24 given how important it is to get metal quickly at the beginning of p2. It is rare to see barter rates more reasonable than 100 metal---> 500 wood. I had an idea where barter rates could be reflected in traders productivity of trading a particular resource. There is a thread for it.

I am a bit confused by this, can't you gain resources by bartering anyway. Like bartering 100 metal for 800 wood?

I am not sure how prevalent the ddos is anymore, but I know that sometimes having a password seemed to help. I am wondering if there could be a feature where you could write the password on a parentheses portion of the hosted game name, example [ breakfastburrito's game(archies) ]. When the game starts, the parentheses section is no longer visible. If ddos were to get worse perhaps this is a feature multiplayer hosters could use for a little extra protection depending on how the ddoser is attacking. I don't know much about ddos, but a while ago @Dizaka told me he thought it was a good idea.

yea in those 1400+ games, or what used to be worth 1400, there could be balanced teams as well. We loved balanced games because it seemed like either side could lose at a moments notice. In a24, balanced games often become endless, and at all times it seems like neither team can win. Usually these ones go for 45-50 minutes and then someone goes AFK.

Hey guys! I saw some thoughts about balance and I thought I would put in my 2 cents. From what I have observed, team balance has meant different things in a23 and in a24. In a23, a balanced game would usually involve each player getting super sweaty and the game would get super intense. In a24, the intensity peaks at 15-16 minutes and then the game stagnates, a variety of things influence this like ranged units, metal availability, stone excess, structures power. The end result is that a balanced game does not feel competitive and exciting, but competitive and tiresome. I hope you guys can agree with these observations of 4v4s and 3v3s.

Ok my apologies for taking so long to do this. Here is the error after doing: extract all to mods folder within 0.A.D folder. All of this is installed on an SSD since bootcamp takes up much space on the computer.

1: I can't argue with this except with: not everything that was historically accurate will make the game more fun to play. Example: WW1 fps games. 2: All ranged units could have the same resource gathering speed that is no faster than any of their walk speeds. I don't know about the programming situation, @Freagarach did not elaborate about it being impossible to program into 0ad. 3: making them slower would lead to them being unable to defend a huge area, meaning that archers would need to be closer to the place they want to defend, reducing the total area that is impenetrable in a turtled base, and therefore decreasing the extent to which players territory boundaries form blocks to general movement across the map. Buffing building arrows and archer move speed meant that once the archers arrive under their local defenses you must either retreat or die. 4: this is one reason why catapults should be given splash damage as it existed in a23, and why forts should lose their territory root given in a24. Archers should be defeatable at a fort and flankable for faster armies (which should not be limited to cavalry as it is in a24). However, the main issue is not their power in defending one spot as you said, it is their ability to defend in any point in the territory area as if they had been waiting there the whole time. I agree with your logic about reversing the roles of ranged infantry and melee infantry (ranged should support melee rather than the other way around). Keep in mind that we are closer to this than any point in the last 5 years (if my memory is right). I don't think I have any more points to make to try to convince you that archers should not be most maneuverable. Only that this is the reason why archer cav were made slower in a24. I should also say that there is a group of people trying to balance britons and gauls as mobility/guerilla oriented civs, they won't be this way if archers are more maneuverable than skirms and slings.

@PyrrhicVictoryGuy Thanks for the info, I think I ought to change my cav selections. @LetswaveaBook I say it is ideal because most of the time armies fail without at least some melee, preferably with enough to pressure other armies archers. I have also been seeing armies of 1/3 ranged to 2/3 ranged infantry where in alpha 23 it was more like 80% to 100% ranged. What are some other ways to balance ranged infantry? I observe: add armor to skirms and slings (most people dislike this one) decrease accuracy of archers establish minimum range for archers I think something must be done to allow the non-archer ranged units to use their damage advantage against archers in more situations (other than de-garrisoning from building or ram). I think the best way to do this is to differentiate ranged infantry speeds based upon range. What are your main gameplay concerns about re-differentiating ranged infantry walk speed? Do you think archers should be the most maneuverable unit?

This micro is only possible in early game and with 2-5 units. Players would probably wind up slowing down eco because of misclicks and neglect of other micromanaged eco opportunities like hunting. I am not suggesting to discriminate ranged inf in eco walk speed, I think I may not have been clear earlier. If all the ranged inf were the same walk speed as archer when gathering, then this would negate any eco advantage that skirms and slings would have over archers, and mean that no ranged unit is faster when gathering res than when walking to battle.

If you like the way ranged infantry are balanced in a24, then what are the the strong points of skirmishers currently in a24? I can only think of one: de-garrison quickly from fort or temple to kill an ele.

Please don't mock me mate. :I I think I mentioned in my post that the gathering movement speed for all ranged units would never be faster than their normal movement speed, so this would not be abused to make any unit move faster. Why not? is it a programming constraint? My main point is that ranged/ melee balance is fairly close to ideal, and that further adjustments to that balance should be careful and slight. If ranged infantry are to all have the same speed, then something must be done to limit archers' mobility in some other way, otherwise skirmishers will never be a viable option, and the wide-area turtling will be just as prevalent in a25 as it is in a24 right now.

My arguments: Historical accuracy should never make the gameplay worse. We could just make all ranged units the same speed as archers when on "eco gather" order. The only thing is... it has existed before, and everyone I have talked to who played a23 has argued that making archers the same speed has made them OP, and I have mostly agreement with the argument about them contributing to wide-area turtling. It is true that archer cavalry are op in a24, in a23 they were op as well, but there were more economic/strategic (early p3 attack with rams) risks to this as well. I think that archer cav should not be affected by archery tradition as a start. In general a23 was a game that was much faster paced and exciting. For future releases, I think it would be awesome to have a cavalry momentum/acceleration system so that cavalry are not simply used the same way as powerful infantry. If you are unhappy with the prevalence of ranged units, you would have hated a23 XD. I think a24 has struck a good balance with melee units, the only times it is frustrating is being unable to catch up to archers. I have seen (in 4v4s) armies are between 1/3 ranged units and 2/3 ranged units, archers being op makes their ratio increase. I think a speed adjustment for ranged units is good enough for melee/ranged balance as well as ranged/ranged.

Excuse me for being off topic, but don't spearcav have better HP and armor?

@ChronA If I am getting it right you are saying that the main problem with ranged infantry having different speeds is the resulting gather rate differences. I think we could just have all the ranged units go the same speed of the archer while on a "gather res" order. This way, the mechanic can't be abused to speed any ranged unit up, and there is only a tiny eco advantage to making skirms (they run slightly faster to go to gathering place= negligible).

I think everyone agrees that archers must see some kind of nerf in a25. I think they should be the least agile least maneuverable ranged unit in 0ad simply because they have the biggest range, (no complex discussion of historical accuracy, damage counters, or physics based mechanics). This just makes sense from a gameplay perspective, since it gives advantages for different units in different situations. (remember how frustrating camels were in a23?) Some of the ideas for changes are: don't change it I love pacing back and forth along forts and towers for 45 minutes with 100+ archers. re-differentiate ranged unit run speeds ( I like this one because it kills multiple birds with one stone: turtleing, op archers, gameplay over-stabilization add some inaccuracy to archers (This is a nerf, but it does not address the concerns of wide-area turtleing and gameplay over-stabilization) damage drop off with range add a little armor to slingers and a bit more to skirms. (this will just make them die slower while chasing after archers, but they will not see an increase in chances of getting within range) Crazy new burrito idea: Add 3 meter minimum range for archers Archers move slower than slingers and even slower than skirms Archers start firing with low accuracy (maybe the same as skirmisher), but over 4 shots linearly increase to their maximum accuracy value and keep it until they either move or are told to shoot something else. After testing the above changes, adjust archer attack damage until balanced. archery tradition could adjust these values as part of a tradeoff for the tech. These changes would make archers more powerful in pitched battles and building defense and would make protecting them important, because the changes make them more vulnerable to melee units, skirmishers, and cavalry out in the open. However, those same units would suffer if the archers are well positioned. To be honest, the problems with a23 ranged infantry balance were simple: slingers a bit op... please reduce damage slightly. Now we have a very complex balancing conundrum. The surest way to proceed would be to revert all ranged unit stats to a23 and then proceed from there, I think all you would need to do would be a slight buff to archers and a slightly bigger nerf to slingers.

Any thoughts on returning splash damage to catapults? I liked this mechanic in a23, but it was sometimes frustrating, it could do more damage to a smaller number of units, perhaps limiting cap on the net damage each shot can do? I think we should be careful to limit tech proliferation. A feature is broken? lets just make it an expensive tech! I think this is a solution sometimes, but we can't let it become a lazy way to "balance" something.

This the right long term idea, we absolutely need civ differentiation and interesting civ based mechanics, but balancing archers and wide-area turtling are big problems that need to be addressed soon @alre@LetswaveaBook did you guys get to play a23? I see that you joined the forum fairly recently. My hope is that you at least know what I am talking about... how much mobility there was in a24, and how turtling was only good for small areas.

It is impossible to beat them at a fort, it used to be catapults would stop this fairly well because they can damage archers which stay still AND the fort. The main problem is not them hiding in one place however, the problem with them being the most maneuverable infantry unit lies when you try to avoid attacking the fort, and instead attack a weak place in their base. If you rightly recognize that fighting at the fort vs archers will cause death then you must try to attack somewhere else. The big problem is that archers can just follow you wherever you go without becoming more vulnerable because if you decide to attack once they are away from the fort, you are slower than the archers, so they can just go back to the fort. Archers only face 2 threats: other archers, siege towers, and cavalry. Cavalry and siege towers can be countered fairly well by archer civs and are very expensive endeavors, while archers can just gather resources without worrying about being vulnerable or out of position. The core problem with archers is that without cavalry: archers can hit you you cannot hit archers you cannot catch archers by chasing them Is it crazy to say that it should be possible to overextend or get flanked with archers? and it should not require cavalry to flank archers and beat them in this way?

Archers are faster because they: run same speed as skirm and sling don't need to run as far to fight. I don't know if we learned from the infamous camel rush of a23, but archers being able to hit and run (meaning they have greater effective speed) is a capability that will prevent them from being balanced. What reasons? can you list them? how was this intended to help gameplay? Perhaps archers could be most inaccurate in their first shot and then, in order to gain some accuracy they need to shoot 2-3 arrows from the same position. (values can be changed, and maybe champions and horse archers could exhibit this less). [this ought to make the history/realism people happy :D]. Maybe this could be combined with archers having a small minimum range so that they get "routed" by melee inf and melee cav, instead of stretching that bow while they have a spear in their face. This combination would make bigger groups of archers more vulnerable to smaller groups of melee. This way they would be most vulnerable in mobile situations. Idk, I still think that simply differentiating speeds of mobile units would have great implications for large-area turtling, and would result in nicely balanced ranged inf, and is easy to implement.

I tried this mod some in singleplayer but I have not been able to try it in multiplayer yet. Could someone who has done this in multiplayer make a post telling us their observations?

no, but Seleucids should get some kind of non-champ melee cav XD. I feel the melee units do not need an over all attack increase. I think that the main problem with them is that the longest range infantry unit is also the fastest, so non-cav melee units have a hard time getting close enough. If ranged infantry speeds are differentiated so that skirms>slings>archers in speed, then this will be enough to make using melee inf less frustrating.

This would be nice, so a greater proportion of champion cost comes in the form of opportunity cost in exchange for better army composition. Problems: low champion diversity.

I think this is a good way to go about balancing the ranged units. Perhaps an exception being at least some reduction in archer speed, and an increase in javelineer speed. I don't know if the damage values for those ranged units should be the same too, since I have almost never seen battles between slingers and javelins in 4v4s. I think it is right not to bring all the ranged units down by getting into a tit for tat nerf race between ranged units. I am usually seeing give or take half ranged/half melee which I think is a pretty good ranged/melee balance, which is certainly one bonus of a24. I think if we get ranged infantry right on a25, rotation adjusted, and the turtling problem is solved, then a25 will be a vast improvement over a24 and a23.

@Yekaterina I think it is best not to talk about cc changes in isolation, many other features of a24 are causing problems. These changes to ccs will not do much alone, they need to be analyzed carefully with other features so that they combine to make outsized improvement in gameplay. I can confirm that I agree with those changes to ccs provided that the gameplay becomes less stabilized, turtleing becomes less OP/ gets restricted to a smaller area of control, and defenses are weakened a bit. Add some civ diversification, and the positive effect of cc changes is multiplied by the presence of other good changes.