[Unused Building Balancing Ideas]

2 hours ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

How feasible is it to break turtling with economic booming?

The tragic situation in a24 is that you can turtle without any significant economic downsides. Or to phrase it better, a turtling situation can arise from a 4v4 even when all the players do not try to turtle. After 20 minutes I would say about 90% of attempted attacks on a base become retreats.  Perhaps imposing a stone cost per unit*second of repairs for repairing big buildings like forts and towers and ccs could make it harder to dedicate to long term turtling with units static under defenses. The best unit for turtling, archers, should have a hard time moving along the defenses to defend a weaker portion of the perimeter. This would cause archer+ building defense to be relegated to defending particular structures like forts and CCs, it would reduce the area of which turtling can defend and reduce the economic feasibility of turtling, in this situation archers would be unable to defend a fort unless they were placed near there in advance, this would reduce the area of the map that can be covered by a turtle-like defense with archers and make army mobility and exciting gameplay a feature of a25.

 

These problems are very hard to explain, but also very important. If you want to, you could join me to spectate some 4v4 where hopefully I could point out some of these situations or explain them better. I could be online this Sunday between GMT 21:00 and GMT 7:00 the next day. 

 

 

 

[Unused Building Balancing Ideas]

I think it is important to make wonders a risky but potentially rewarding undertaking. I think there is no reason why we can't have both a pop expansion upgrade for free at a more expensive wonder (like what @chrstgtr said) as well as a civ specific thing there (like what @Dakara said with upgrades).  Perhaps building the wonder for some civs could unlock some interesting unit that maybe some civs could only train from the wonder itself.  I think wonders providing tie-breaking capability is good, but it is important not to make wonders a tie-breaking necessity.  Ties should be rare, and balanced and contentious battles should leave each side one mistake away from severe losses that should often spell doom, rather than a reinforced, stabilized game-state that is inalterable by player choices, be they mistakes or 1000 IQ plays (like in a24).  <<<--- TL;DR

Issues:

Endless 4v4s are a really serious problem in the game. I think some factors contributing to them are:

1. metal availability: people can not afford to lose siege weapons and eles so they are rarely risked once metal runs out.
2. slower time to make new army: decreases willingness to risk, decreases rate at which attacks can be mounted
3. stone and time excess: such slow gameplay tempo and excess of stone causes building proliferation, with forts, towers, ccs, temples, stuck between frontlines. Also towers and forts seem to have more arrow damage, arrow range, and hitpoints.
4. military movement speed: most units seem slower this alpha, so most offensive movements turn into 2v1s or 3v1s. Also defensive building gridlock combined with pathfinding changes has made it more costly to punch through defenses and the reward of being on the other side is reduced.
5. opposing archer armies need more space to not engage each other, so armies can attack each other from their own defenses and bases.

I am sure you guys could name a bunch of other features that introduce gameplay overstability and stagnation. But I would like to describe the effect this problem has. In a23, players could roam the map or go to unexpected places to attack, and turtling usually meant that you were trapped in your base which used to be a bad thing, since your allies could face a 2v1 in your absence. It is not that more players in a24 are choosing to turtle, it is that the gameplay has become more turtle-like in general, and their hand is forced. A standard a24 4v4 on mainland on "medium" (what used to be "Normal") map size has less mobility that a PIZZA(4v4 tiny mainland)  did in a23. In a23, armies would wriggle their way around enemy team bases and cause maximum damage and force favorable fights by using rams and eles to threaten key buildings, in a24 such a move is almost certainly resulting in a loss via 2v1. Truly, in a24, it is rare and often inconsequential to catch someone off guard.

 

Possible Changes:

Some measures that could be undertaken to make gameplay in a25 as dynamic and exciting as it was in a23, while being balanced are:

1.  nerf archer infantry speed---> archers should be powerful still but can be out-maneuvered by most other army comps, this way they can not protect the whole base from the woodline, and an attack to the vulnerable part of a base with rams will cause panic and a defender can not patiently organize a huge defense army before serious damage is done.
2. return archery tradition to a trade-off to suit different situations (perhaps minimum range? ----> check out my post to @letsplay0ad mod)
3. return stone cost to some upgrades and make fort cost 100-200 more stone than in a24. Or perhaps keep tower damage but increase stone cost by 100% so that most bases will have defensive holes.
4. increase training rates somewhat
5. increase lethality of overall battles.
6. decrease HP, arrow damage and range from forts and towers and CCs (back to a23 levels)

This is an underlying cause of many seemingly unrelated frustrations people have with a24, and is a problem that I feel must be addressed by a25. If you disagree or agree please tell me how you feel about this. It is a very complex problem and I hope I have been able to summarize it in one post. And in the end, the changes could be many things, but they need to reward: movement, risk, maneuvering, and action. 

 

 

 

 

[Mercenary use in the punic and successor factions]

Currently, the only situation where mercenaries would be advantageous as an overall army composition (rather than just anti-ram) is trading. Since traders get all resources at the same speed and mercenaries costs less total resources, then a player with mercenaries will beat a player without mercenaries if both are using trade as primary resource gathering method. Most games of 0ad do not see significant amounts of trade.

I am not sure about the specific value changes that are needed for mercenaries, but I think keeping their inability to gather res is ok. If mercenaries costed the same in total resources as regular citizen soldiers, and with an increase from their current cost of wood and food and a mild reduction of metal cost maybe to a value between 25-50 (not sure). Example cost: 30f 40w 30m for infantry and 70f 40w 40m for cavalry. 

 

Also, maybe the "good mercenaries" (expertise in war?) upgrade should increase mercenaries rank to veteran rather than just advanced, but increase the training time of mercenaries and still cost some resources.

[Nerfed archer accuracy XML file]

I am not sure if skirmishers should have a minimum range, because they are supposed to be a high damage closer range unit that works in combination with your own melee units. My hope is to get some judgement on these features (minimum ranges, archery tradition tradeoffs) from the balancing team members, it is not necessary to have the numbers ironed out; the core ideas of gameplay function are what matter. The values can always be tweaked for balance before the game is released.

@chrstgtr what do you think?

[Nerfed archer accuracy XML file]

41 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

Now archers vs spears 

20 archers vs 10 spears 

 

This looks good! 

It is kinda like a rout, where the enemy flees disorderly with some still fighting and some running. This is what I would expect to happen if archers were to encounter melee specialized units on the battlefield.

[Nerfed archer accuracy XML file]

23 minutes ago, alre said:

I wanted to say that both archers and slingers had side weapons and could fight close quarter, but if they weren't to, slingers needed more room than archers, not the opposite.

Ok this is probably true, but I don't see how it should affect gameplay. We have religious healing in the game as a fun mechanic which is mostly just hysteria in real life. The main point of minimum range is not historical accuracy but to encourage taking big fights with melee units and cavalry rather than circling around local defenses in an endless 4v4 as we see so many times in a24.

[Nerfed archer accuracy XML file]

30 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

What is Padawan Designer?

OK. Slingers are cheap troops who do a lot of damage to units, but are poorly armoured and very inaccurate. The only exception is Roman Legions who also know how to use a sling. 

Thanks for the inspiration. I got some ideas:

Very cheap cost: 10 wood, 10 stone, 40 food.

Low accuracy: spread > 4.0

High damage: 5.5 < pierce <  14 (must be less than skirmishers though)

Walks at the same speed as any other ranged units.

I know that people are looking to diversify civilizations and units for a more interesting playstyle in a25, but this is not conducive to good gameplay.

If anyone remembers the iber bonus from a23, they will know that is was quite powerful, reducing skirms from 50 f 50w to 40 f 40 w. Most civs that had skirms would almost exclusively use them for eco building during the first 13 minutes. and only train melee units until the last 20-50 population before a limit of 200. This bonus was especially powerful in combination with ptol because the merc skirms went from 25 f 50 w and 25 m ---> 20 f 40 w 20 m meaning that you could train men from a barracks and women from a cc just with 1 horse on chickens and 5-10 women on berries, this was because ptol could use the starting metal for immediate eco boost and would only need wood for skirm training.

The point is that some units being cheaper by large margins makes those civs have very fast booms. Ptol already use only a bit of wood in a24, so such a low cost would make ptol (slings in p1) able to make eco insanely faster than the other civs. women would only be 10 total resources cheaper than slingers, and we already have women as a fast boom option for early game. It would basically be like women eco unit that can fight. Also accuracy is less important if you have greater numbers.

[Nerfed archer accuracy XML file]

Minimum range might be a good thing to have on ranged units anyway. Perhaps slingers only have minimum range of 1 m, archers 2 m, and skirmishers none since throwing spears is the least complicated mechanical energy transfer.

My favorite idea for archery tradition is +10 range +15% pierce damage, but increase minimum range to 5 m and decrease pierce and or hack armor. End result being they beat archers that dont have archery tradition but become very vulnerable to cav or melee inf.

I think my biggest point of uncertainty is what the default behavior for ranged units will be once an enemy unit is within minimum range; will the ranged unit try to run until is at long enough range, or will it just shoot at something else? I think the latter option is better as it will not result in units running away from the battle endlessly.

Having longer range units have bigger minimum ranges is something that could wind up supporting micromanagement and battle tactics for players with both melee and ranged units, and make the choices of units a little more important. I think that when melee units get close in, then it should be a worse situation for archers than for skirms, and this minimum range system could help with that.

 

 

 

[Nerfed archer accuracy XML file]

I am not sure what the balancing folks have in store for archers, but a reduction in accuracy would be a good idea to nerf them. I think they should also have slightly slower move speed than skirms or slingers. We also need to keep in mind not to over-nerf them. I have a recent post to letsplay0ad's mod discussion about archery tradition. The changes of archery tradition and base archer balance should be done at the same time, to avoid bad combinations that make archery tradition a "never-get" or an "always get" upgrade for archer civs. My basic idea is to make archery tradition make archers more effective vs other ranged units, but make them even more vulnerable to melee attack from cav or inf.

[Let's Fight - Gameplay Balance Mod]

Hello again everyone!

I had an idea today to improve the "archery tradition" tech available to some archer civs.

I think it should return to being a tradeoff tech like in alpha 23 but with some changes.

1. 0 resource cost and instant research: a decision kinda like the seleucid champion infantry research
2. add a drawback and a bonus with an overall effect depending on the situation in game (not necessarily a buff or nerf tech)

The idea is to make archers with archery tradition beat other archers like in a24 by a significant (not OP) margin, but increase the vulnerability of them such that more units or buildings are needed to protect them from melee cavalry or melee inf. 

potential combinations of improvements and drawbacks: 

• +10 meters range BUT establish minimum range (5 meters) where the archer would go to attack units further away.
• +10 meters BUT reduce HP (a little)
• +10 meters +15% damage BUT reduce HP(a little) reduce pierce and hack armor (a little)

I think that if archers were nerfed in a25 to a reasonable level, then this upgrade could give some options to civs that would usually get archers, like mauryans. If a maur player is against a cavalry civ, or a civ with no archers, it is smart for that maur player to choose regular archers. But if the maur player is against regular archers, such as carthage, then it is smart for maur player to get archery tradition. But if a25 makes mercenaries balanced and effective (but still more expensive), then the carthage player could pull a surprise by investing time and res into merc shops and merc uprgades and mercs and showing up with mercenary sword cav.

Balance considerations: getting this tech would have no repercussions like less training time from cc or resource cost (like a24) hence it should not be allowed until p3.  Archer cavalry maybe should not be affected by the change, depending on the combination of buff and nerf chosen by the developers for the upgrade.

I posted this here because there are many good ideas for a25 here and because I could find no other channels related to a25 that were open to public contribution.

 

[Let's Fight - Gameplay Balance Mod]

On 26/03/2021 at 4:53 PM, letsplay0ad said:

Let's Fight

• 0 A.D. is an open-source RTS game (https://play0ad.com/)

• Let's Fight is a 0 A.D. gameplay balance mod for Alpha 24 (Xšayāršā)

Motivation

Currently the meta of Alpha 24 is skewed towards turtling via walls, towers, and forts.

This problem is exacerbated by the advantage that archers, units that already have high range, have over other ranged units.

This mod aims to provide gameplay that is more rewarding for aggressive players and roughly equalize the strength of civilizations to allow for a greater variety of strategies.

In particular, there is an emphasis on encouraging players to utilize different strategies depending on the civilization and situation of the game.

Several balance changes in this mod were based on discussions in the "Gameplay Discussion" and "Balancing Discussions" sub-forums.

Installation

• Drag and drop the pyromod file over the 0ad start icon or open the pyromod file with pyrogenesis.exe
• The mod will be downloaded and you will be taken to the "Mod Selection" page (if not, then click "Settings" -> "Mod Selection")
• Click on the "letsfight" mod in the "Available Mods" and click "Enable" in the bottom left
• Click "Save Configuration" in the bottom right
• Click "Start Mods" in the bottom right

Updates

Thanks to the 0ad community for their feedback.

Some people have had questions about the changes or wondered about the justifications.

The reasoning behind each change is placed in brackets behind each bullet point.

v0.2.2

• Reduced health of all buildings [Thanks @Edwarf]
• Fixed mercenary upgrade to rank 3 technology for Carthaginians [Thanks @Edwarf]
• Removed the limit for Carthage embassies [Thanks @0AD Dev Team]
• Moved Iberian monument to town phase [Thanks @0AD Dev Team]
• Have Iberian monument count towards city phase requirement
• Lowered the limit on fortresses and towers

v0.2.1

• Automatically set mercenaries to rank 2 and halve training time [Thanks @Nescio]
• Mercenary upgrade to rank 3 technology for Carthaginians [Thanks @borg-]
• Fixed health bonus to military units with each phase up [Thanks @Valihrant]

v0.2

• Increase cavalry move speed [Thanks @Valihrant]
• Increase turn rates for infantry and cavalry [Thanks @Valihrant]
• Added a minimum distance between forts and civic centres [Thanks @faction02]

All Changes

Units

• Cavalry and Infantry javelineers accuracy increased (spread reduced since they became much less effective in fights compared to all other ranged units)
• Infantry javelineer walk speed increased (to allow skirmishers to chase slingers and archers and prevent formation laming)
• Infantry slinger walk speed increased (to chase archers, but still be slower than javelineers and prevent formation laming)
• Cavalry and Infantry archers attack rate reduced and damage increased (to have players make a choice between the pros and cons of different ranged options rather than an obvious winner with high range, damage, and attack rate as higher attack rates provide a demonstrable advantage in practice even with equal theoretical damage-per-second)
• Melee cavalry health increased (to make melee cavalry more effective in fighting and rushing as they currently are underutilized and tend to lose to massed range)
• Reduced training time of cavalry, infantry, and women (to allow players to make the choice of either rushing or a larger boom)
• Increase cavalry move speed (to enable raiding as it is currently disadvantageous to attempt in all stages of the game compared to booming)
• Increase turn rates for infantry and cavalry (allow better engagements for aggressors while still keeping in the intent of preventing dancing)
• Automatically set mercenaries to rank 2 and halve training time (since mercenaries have prohibitive cost compared to the value they provide as they do not have enhanced stats without this upgrade or the ability to gather resources)
• Fixed health bonus to military units with each phase up (tradeoff of having more pop or phasing up for a hp bonus during a fight or push to allow for more variety of timing strategies)

Siege

• Allow rams to hit fields and units (to allow for fast clearing of space and to prevent laming by body blocking)
• Reduce wood cost of catapults (to compensate for the inability to effectively fight units as area-of-effect damage was removed)

Buildings

• Increase the resource cost and build time of palisades, stone walls, and Roman siege walls (to prevent abuse of walling which also throttles the game due to the increased pathfinding workload)
• Reduced arrow damage of civic center, sentry tower, defense tower, and fort (to prevent defensive structure abuse and have players make the choice between a larger army with higher damage but lower durability or defensive structures with lower damage and higher durability rather than getting the best of both worlds at minimal cost and decision-making)
• Reduced health of sentry tower, defense tower, and fort (to prevent defensive structure abuse and allow unit pushes to be more effective in the late game rather than having territory creep and turtling be the obvious choice of strategy in all situations)
• Theater buffed to have more territory weight and influence (since it did not provide a significant advantage for its cost)
• Roman army camp can produce siege engines and cost 100 more wood and 300 more metal (to allow for greater variety of strategies at a greater cost)
• Increase outpost vision when not garrisoned, but give greater vision when garrisoned (to make outposts useful while still rewarding garrisoned units)
• Allow Macedonians to produce arsenals at the town phase (to allow greater strategic variety and compensate for the loss of the uniqueness of the siege workshop from A23)
• Added a minimum distance between forts and civic centres (to have players make the choice of increasing territory via a civic centre or securing territory via a fort instead of allowing both at low risk)
• Lowered the limit on fortresses and towers (to encourage more strategic placing of forts as opposed to spamming and to prevent mass fort and tower abuse)
• Removed the limit for Carthage embassies (since the limit on the number of embassies greatly restricted the variety of strategies players could employ with Carthage mercenaries)
• Moved Iberian monument to town phase (to provide more opportunities to use this building as part a combat asset earlier in the game)
• Reduced health of all buildings (since even civic buildings such as houses and economic buildings such as storehouses took upwards of seven hits by rams to destroy)

Technology

• Reduced city phase requirement from 4 to 3 (to encourage boom/earlier aggression and de-incentivize tower abuse while also encouraging usage of other special town phase buildings unique to certain civilizations)
• Defensive towers do not count in city phase requirement (to discourage turtling and de-incentivize tower abuse while also encouraging usage of other special town phase buildings unique to certain civilizations)
• Sentry towers do not count in town phase requirement (to discourage turtling and de-incentivize tower abuse)
• Reduced metal cost of all farmstead and storehouse technologies by half and increased wood cost to compensate (since metal is scarce on popular maps and is required for many strategies)
• Reduced metal cost of all forge upgrades by half and increased wood cost to compensate (since metal is scarce on popular maps and is required for many strategies)
• Remove food cost for non-champion mercenaries (since mercenaries' high metal cost coupled with their inability to gather resources necessitates an advantage to compensate; also, since the intent was to have them be more realistic by costing gold or metal, then food should not be one of their costs)
• Add cartography to market while keeping the option in civic centres (to still allow players the choice of taking cartography in the village phase, but also have the choice to take it in the town phase without sacrificing unit production)
• Bring back carrier pigeons and stone foundations for outposts (to give the choice between achieving greater utility at the cost of a garrisoned unit or at the cost of time and resources through technologies)
• Arsenals produced by the Macedonians count towards city phase requirement (to allow greater strategic variety and compensate for the loss of the uniqueness of the siege workshop from A23)
• Mercenary upgrade to rank 3 technology for Carthaginians (to give a differentiating trait to Carthage and an incentive to try a mercenary army strategy as Carthage has the greatest mercenary diversity)
• Have Iberian monument count towards city phase requirement (to provide more opportunities to use this building as part a combat asset earlier in the game)

Thoughts, Comments, Suggestions? Discuss!

I've tested this mod against the AI, but the best results are from real players.

Try some games with other players and then let me know what changes you liked and disliked.

Feel free to make other suggestions that you would like to see in this mod after testing it out.

 

letsfight_v0.2.2.pyromod 233 kB · 9 downloads letsfight_v0.2.1.pyromod 179 kB · 12 downloads letsfight_v0.2.pyromod 171 kB · 4 downloads letsfight_v0.1.pyromod 147 kB · 7 downloads

Hello again everybody,

I was trying to get a multiplayer game going with the mod recently and I tried to update from the first version. I tried to get "letsfight_v0.2.2.pyromod" as it seemed to be the most recent version and the one the host was using. When I downloaded the mods and installed them by following the same procedure as the first release, it seemed to replace the first version of the mod but keep the old name of the first release along with (2.2) after the name. After I save configuration and start mods and go to join a game, I find that I need the "letsfight_v0.2.2" rather than the "letsfight (2.2)"  I am not very good at computer stuff so perhaps someone could point to what I am doing wrong.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Let's Fight - Gameplay Balance Mod]

Hello @letsplay0ad,

These changes seem very well thought out and should make the gameplay a little more dynamic and less stabilized. Ideally, as players test the mod we could decide what parts are really good (candidate changes for a25) or what values could be tweaked. It would be awesome to see a25 take this direction. 

Nice work!

 

 

[Bring back a23]

Hey @hyperion

Thank you for the response.

I feel the late game stability is much stronger than you stated it to be, at least in the 4v4 setup that is most common. I do not have any replays to post because I don't know how to do that, but I am sure that you have heard of or even played one of these endless 4v4s. In retrospect, the a23 level of instability was a bit high during 15-25 minutes, but not quite the spike that comes with a24 at 18 minutes (due to the speed at which multiple eles and rams can be acquired). Usually there are 2 outcomes to a balanced 4v4, the game ends at 20 minutes and things are labeled "OP" or teams are considered "imbalanced", or players survive the 17-21 minute instability spike and then the game becomes stagnated and endless.

I think that while these things are considered and debated for a25, we should talk about how we can change our 4v4 setups so we can still have fun in a24. 

• Larger maps could enable more movement which would make it more unstable, make metal more available late game and let more players access enough gold. This change would also reduce choke-points, reduce effectiveness of defenses ( since you already need to build way more buildings in total than in a23), and make archers' vulnerabilities more pronounced and exploitable. Larger maps also make more lag, so this would not work for every 4v4.
• Perhaps playing with only 1 fort allowed at any time, (if it is destroyed can rebuild). This would prevent some overwhelming fort spam. In one instance, @Dizaka built forts around the edge of the map faster than @chrstgtr could destroy them with large numbers of siege (he made it about (2/3)*pi around the circle).  I am not as sure about this one so someone could convince me that it might be bad.

This is one thing that I think makes AoE2 such a good game so long after being initially released. It seems to be slightly unstable throughout most matches, so you could expect game-changing decisions and developments to be made at any time. I think a slight instability rewards action and creative strategies, but does not guarantee more success like in the case of too much instability at 17 to 21 minutes in a24,. I understand that it is incredibly complicated to design a game to have such an ideal and controlled level of stability/ instability, but I think it is an aspect worth improving for a25.

disclaimer: I never played AoE2, have only watched some videos of team games and 1v1s.

[Bring back a23]

Hello everyone, 

@chrstgtr @Dizaka @bbgotbanned @PistolPete @cobrakai@badosu

I have seen much frustration with the new alpha and it is much more worrisome than archers and eles being slightly too powerful or metal being too valuable. The problem is 4v4 gameplay pacing. I have been talking to players I often do 4v4s with recently and have been formulating my response to this for some time. This is what I believe to be causing the endless 4v4s we have seen so much recently. One point of concern is that these stalemates can happen even when teams are moderately imbalanced.

I am sure you have all seen stable vs unstable systems. A stable system has forces built in to return it to its original state if it starts to move. An unstable system has forces built in to push the system away from its original state if it starts to move. I give the example of a ball on a hill or in a valley: In an unstable system (top of hill), any motion of the ball will compound and the ball will accelerate. In a stable system (bottom of valley), the ball will roll back to the bottom after being nudged.

Go to attached to see diagrams demonstrating stable vs instable systems (page 1).

In a 0ad 4v4 application, one team can try very hard to beat the enemy and either their efforts will "snowball" (grant more successes) or it will be costly and not achieve much. In an unstable 0ad 4v4, a team who wins a battle can expect to win in their next few engagements unless they make a mistake or their enemy gets clever, usually this leads to a victory overall. In a stable 0ad 4v4, a team who wins a battle does not see a "snowballing" or "compounding" effect on their next fights, and you can expect the game to return to the original situation. In 0ad, an unstable situation makes things that are slightly overpowered (like slingers in a23 or eles and archers in a24) seem very OP; in addition, it makes the teams seem less balanced than they may have been. 

Often in a24 4v4s the situation after 20 minutes is stable. This means a team has to work very hard to win even if they have some serious advantages. 

I have made some graphs depicting the stability level of 4v4s of different alphas (23 and 24) as they progress in time from 0 minutes to 1 hour. I include examples of what players might see at particular times.

Go to attached to see a23 diagram (page 2)

In a23, for a balanced game, it could be quite intense due to the moderate instability of the gameplay most of the time.

Go to attached to see a24 diagram (page 3)

in a24, after a brief period (17-21 minutes) of high gameplay instability, a balanced 4v4 can stabilize and become endless. This way, 4v4s either seem super imbalanced if they end around 20 minutes and seem gridlocked if they last any longer.

I am not sure what causes this behavior in 4v4s. But I will list some of my suggestions in bullet points.

• map gets fully built up so there is no unoccupied land ( all 4v4s have been played on same map size as usual a23 4v4s). This seems to make movement and flanking attacks very hard. This matches poorly with tower and fort defensive buff.
• metal runs out for all players quite quickly, even if it is evenly distributed. This means more lethal options like rams/eles/champions are harder to get.
• Somehow, it is easier for players to rebuild all the way (idk about this one but I saw it quite a few times)

I hope to get at least some people agreeing with my assessment and adding some extra detail as to what is causing this gameplay quality problem. The endless 4v4s truly are frustrating and boring. I think there are many great changes with a24, like stables, blacksmith changes; people like to point out problems, but I think this issue is the only serious gameplay problem with a24. If we can find what is causing this issue we could have a 0ad that is mildly unstable. A mildly unstable 0ad means for the duration of a balanced game, it seems like either team can win at any moment rather than a stalemate, which makes for an intense and fun game.

Some players had similar frustration and I am hoping I am being accurate for those who did not put a finger on how to describe it. I think a revert to a23 would be very sad and a last resort situation, considering what a leap some features are, and how much awesome work went into the new alpha.

 

(Also, please excuse my handwriting, I know many other people grew up with other alphabets and have better handwriting than me :I.)

 

 

0ad Stability Charts.pdf

[Balanced Maps mod]

Hello everyone,

I have an idea to consider for the balanced maps mod if it is being updated for a24. I thought, from a few different 4v4s, and discussing with different players, that metal seems to be way too scarce as a resource. Right now many things cost metal, some p3 buildings, eco upgrades, military upgrades, siege or eles, swords for anti-ram, and don't forget hero. It is not that these are too expensive, it is that one metal mine (5000 metal) is not enough. The way it stands, a player who only has 1 metal mine is at an outrageous disadvantage to someone with 2 or 3. Often a player without extra metal has to barter for 2000 metal to catch up with a player who has more than 24 people on metal. Total resource costs for mercs and champions have been reduced but metal cost remains high. In a 4v4, metal on the entire map quickly runs out so that no one can make these units (also some civs depend on mercs for anti-ram). One solution could be to have metal mines be upgraded from 5000 to between 8000 and 10000 metal. Certainly it would make sense to playtest this before making it final, as it would be undesirable to have no economic reason to expand. Another way to fix this could be to replace the  small stone mines in mainland valued at 1000 with metal mines worth the same.

 

[Odd lag issue with particular hosts.]

Well, basically the problem went away as suddenly as it came up. I sure hope it does not return.

Thanks for helping me out nonetheless!

 

[Odd lag issue with particular hosts.]

Ok, my brother and I tried a number of things. 

1. LAN games: He hosted a LAN game, and I joined, there was lag and even some times where the connection warning said I was losing connection. When I hosted one for him to join, He lagged in the exact same way. 

2. MP games: in normal multiplayer no connection warnings appear for him on hosts where I left because of lag. From a Larger survey of hosts, it seems the only host I can reliably connect to is the one from USA. Also, it seems that my brother has the same problem just not as severe.

Here are some screenshots from an MP game that had only 2 players and me as spectator to test. I have Activity Monitor running as well.

[Odd lag issue with particular hosts.]

Ok so I was in a game where I was lagging badly enough for the host to kick, then my brother rejoined the same game and he had no connection issues (same computer and net). 

[Odd lag issue with particular hosts.]

Hi wraitii,

It's awesome to hear about the disconnect issue being fixed. As for the lag I cause on certain 0ad hosts, I have logged onto my brother's computer (same model and OS version) and tried the same hosts at the same time and confirmed that he does not experience any lag. I live in Oregon, USA, which is on the West coast. When he comes back I am thinking of copying the settings for 0ad he has arranged on his computer; I don't know if there are some settings that impact connection.

Last night I tried finding the ping of the connection to 0ad and it seemed to be averaging around 300 ms. That was on a host who lives in the USA as well. I saw that I was lagging only a little, so it seems my connection is worse across the board, unlike what I observed earlier (about lag only on certain hosts).

I will provide an update about the settings experiment sometime soon.

The help is much appreciated!

[Odd lag issue with particular hosts.]

Hello all, 

I have been having some strange new lag problems that I have never seen before. I used to play 0ad on a 2011 Mac desktop, but I have recently changed to a 2016 macbook pro. On the 2011 mac I had never experienced myself lagging out a server except when my internet was underperforming. On the new computer, I have found that on certain hosts, I consistently lag bad enough that hosts kick me upon entry (even before game launch), while on other hosts my connection has absolutely no lag whatsoever. I tried different hosts soon after one another (to minimize changes in conditions), and considering different days; the lag is always there for the same handful of hosting players and never there for another handful of hosting players.

Are there ways I can view my connection statistics to the host or does anyone have any advice on this problem? To me it remains enigmatic.

I posted here because I could not find a similar discussion elsewhere and because people in the lobby seem indifferent about the issue.

I hope someone can at least shed some light on this issue or what problems I might be facing.

[Alpha 24 SVN Teamgame]

Well I was thinking about getting the testing version for mac and I realized my computer isn't able to update to run the version since its from 2011. Will the new alpha also only be supported on newer versions of Mac OS?

If so, it looks like breaky will be squinting at a 13 inch macbook pro rather than the giant 27 inch from 2011 lol.

[Faction ideas for future alphas]

Hmm these factions in these other mods sound really cool. Is there any talk of adapting them or some of them into a future alpha like there is with the Borg mod?

 

[Faction ideas for future alphas]

Post here about any new civ ideas or critique of other's ideas.

I have been thinking about what makes a good civilization in 0AD.

Ptolemies are a great example of a creative faction, they have some wildly different gameplay options than with other factions in 0AD.

I thought another cool civ could be a central asian origin nomadic group. The huns are a good example although they invade Europe later than the 500 BC to beginning of the common era. I am not sure if anyone else has thought of such a civ, but I could not find anything similar on the forums.

I think there are a lot of interesting gameplay features that could be put in for the Huns (or whatever group).

• Mobile buildings. Buildings could have a food or wood (or both) cost to pack them up into carts like the catapults. Larger buildings cost more and take more time to pack up and unpack. Buildings should not be able to train or research when packed. Houses and corrals could have a food cost added like 25 food 50 wood or 50 food 25 wood. Larger buildings should probably just cost wood and mineables like other factions. Fort might be hard to balance... maybe adjusted to a strong military camp type thing 3000 hp? Also the buildings could maybe be built to start or maybe you have to train them from cc. Territory rules apply for unpacking-placement just as for other civs.
• Units. Huns could be another faction to use the stables to train horses. The huns should have access to a horse archer unit that has similar cost and power as skiritai commandos as well as champion melee and ranged cav and other, cheaper citizen cav. Only siege would be ram unless someone finds another good siege unit for them to operate.
• Economy. The Huns should be a civ that encourages or forces corrals to be used (I'm not sure which) since they were pastoral. They could have a better corral system plus some interesting not op upgrades. Hopefully the huns would wind up being the least wood intensive faction but not so much that they would be the only option on maps with less wood. They would also require more food thanks to cavalry and food in building costs.

I am sure there are other people with creative ideas out there, this one was bugging me so I wanted to see if anyone else thought this was a good idea. Also there could be some very interesting artwork for this civ.

 

 

[Suggestions for 0 A.D.]

On 1/2/2019 at 2:49 PM, thankforpie said:

oh i didnt notice this thread, i have balancing some suggestions

1. OP CIV META

my sugestion would be nerfing gauls, britons and ptolemies - that will let players for more competetive play (and more fair play), players in multiplayer wont be forced to play these 3 civilizations if they want to win.

there are lot of civs that i like but the urge to pick OP civ is ultra big. above mentioned civilisations are too fast

I played many competetive games MOBA included and it is unavoidable to not have stronger and weaker civs/characters/champions but the gap between these 3 and rest is so big that most players started 'maining' celtics and ptolemies, to the point where at least half of each game on multiplayer are celtics and ptolemies (sometimes all players)

 

if these 3 civs were growing at same pace that other civilisations do, it would be great

 

2. RANGED UNIT META

Althrough point 2. and 3. arent as troublesome as point 1, I noticed ranged units are much stronger overall than melee units.

maybe with small dmg nerf people would start using melee units for something else than for human shields supposed to die instead of ranged units lol

 

3. SLINGER > ARCHER,JAVELIN

one could think if archers have biggest range then they are strongest,  or vice versa - javelins, because they have biggest dmg.

thats not the case. slingers can kill javelins before they come close.

 

Javelins have bigger dmg than slingers, but it doesnt do anything because slingers already have enough dmg to kill. why would you need more?

ranged units are often hitting same target, so if u have 60 ranged units together, theres HUGE chance they will atk same targets, and only 5 attacks would be enough to kill, but since it was the closest target, theres often situation where 60 of ranged units hit exactly same person instead of splitting their arrows for targets, therefore a lot of arrows are wasted.

thats case in fights javelin vs slinger (not with archers, they have low dmg),  javelin just die before they come close, and when they are close they also atk slower so the 'bigger dps' isnt really bigger, its much smaller

 

slingers somehow have perfect atk range and atk speed, so the supposedly bigger javelins damage isnt helping them at all, because they are slower and need to come closer, and they will die before that happens

 

 

 

 

my few thoughts

For the 60 slings to 1 enemy issue there could be a volley mode set as a working formation. The sum of all the damage from all the archers or slingers shooting at once could be cut by a ratio and then randomly distributed to a formation that is attacked. It might be possible to create an algorithm that estimates the population density of the formation being attacked by archers and then uses that to assign a ratio for how many arrows hit. Parts of the attacked formation that lie outside the range of the center of the archer group that is attacking should not be factored into the area of the formation or the number in the formation. That way the damage done from the formation of archers is naturally varied between the formation under fire and the range of the archers is not violated. Also a really cool trajectory animation for arrows could be made. ;D. This might also be a good way to give archers something that slingers and skirmishers don't.

I have no experience developing anything, but this does seem rather difficult to do. Yikes.

I was frankly just wondering if you guys thought this would be cool or even a good gameplay addition.

[Suggestions for 0 A.D.]

On 1/9/2019 at 9:59 AM, LANDLORD said:

My opinion for balance and changes:

Economic:

-I think that building repair should cost metal/stone/wood (or whatever it cost to build the building). Rebuilding for free is a bit too easy and it doesn't make sense from an economic perspective either- it always costs resources to rebuild anything in the real world. If a temple is damaged by 50% and you want to repair it (and it costs 300 wood to build the temple), it should cost 150 wood to fully repair it (obviously on a sliding scale).

-Some civs have a big hindrance in terms of some of the resources it costs to build their buildings. Iberian Fortresses and barracks costing so much stone is tough to overcome at times. 

Game Units/balance:

-I think that melee calvary should be much stronger vs. infantry (that are not pikemen). In the real world, calvary was very strong vs. archer formations. I would like to see a bit more balance in terms of melee calvary doing damage vs. non pikemen infantry units (this may cause some balance issues early on with some melee calvary rushes, but most civs are able to build pikemen or spearmen at the start). 

-Archers should be buffed a little bit. Their range is great, but their attack is very weak. I understand you need to have the tradeoff as well- higher range SHOULD equal lower damage (and vice versa, low range = high damage). But archer civs are still very weak.

-Some siege options for some civs are very poor. Elephants for Mauryans die very fast and are very vulnerable. I think that buffing elephants to make them somewhat equal to rams would be good. And if not, then at least increase the attack they have vs. regular units (maybe with some splash damage). Elephants need a buff. 

-Overall civilization balance- I would like it if there are some different buffs for some civs. There's a reason why you never see some civs being used in multiplayer games. Nerfing the celtic civs is a good start. Either scrap some of the other civs that nobody plays (Carthage) or buff them IMO. 

There is the opportunity cost of workers' labor... could be mining shooting whatever. However I think adding a repair cost might also be good.