real_tabasco_sauce

@hamdich I think they are instantly disliked just because of human discomfort with change. For instance, some players told me the game was broken because I made cavalry archers OP in 26.6 (I made them much weaker).

yes, and its now in the game! Go to settings-> community-mod, and you will see the patch notes in order of release. The 26.7 changes are shown, but I had to make a 26.8 version because of an issue

we got the new one out! Unfortunately its called 26.8 not 26.7

Yeah I think the game is very much in need of a more diverse tech tree and I think this would be a great way to introduce more interesting tech combinations for different civs. I will redo a lot of these upgrades at some point to be a little bit more interesting. Also I think ppl would be more interested in them after the naval rework, since those techs are very similar.

yeah, mostly trying to optimize the rebalance and arrows situation. That and bringing in some of the more simple a27 stuff like the changes to immortals: https://code.wildfiregames.com/D5202

What do you mean? Wouldn't it just be a total revert? The targeting queue is inside buildingAI and the function that fires arrows handles both default behavior arrows and targeted arrows.

potential community mod ideas: 1. Let siege turn past 45 degrees without stopping (https://code.wildfiregames.com/D5201)(improves pathing and clunkiness) 2. Reduce catapult and bolt shooter prepare time (https://code.wildfiregames.com/D5131, already committed for a27)

k i spent a solid couple of hours trying to make random arrows by default to work, and its definitely not as easy as I thought it would be. Unfortunately it kind of balloons the amount of code needed and the complexity. I could still do it but it would take me a lot longer than just adjusting the problematic arrow counts, so I could get ready for a new CM release very soon.

https://mod.io/g/0ad/m/badosu-balanced-maps New version: fixed missing chickens in "fixed" mainland incompatibility checks turned off mod name fixed. It will be ready in the mod downloader after it gets signed.

ill make a new version and fix that, thanks @chrstgtr

Yeah, really the fundamental issue with the approach is that problems 2,3, and 4 will still exist, just only when ppl are targeting. It seems that 2, 3, and 4 are really more about the arrow counts when garrisoned, so I am keen to let the poll go on a little longer. Ultimately though, it wouldn't be too hard to go between closest and random default behavior. So if ppl eventually want to go back to the current behavior it wouldn't be much wasted time.

Ok, after a couple of months with the new update, do you all find melee units too strong when they rank up? I have a plan to reduce the melee rank up stats (+hp, +20% damage, +1 armor of all types -> +hp, +10% damage)

Ok, so it is pretty clear to me that questions 2,3, and 4 are problematic at the moment. Would you all say these issues are only problematic when the CCs and towers are garrisoned? Or are they problematic regardless of the soldiers inside contributing additional arrows? I don't think the "Make buildings shoot at random unless targeted" solution will work very well, but I can certainly do it if thats what ppl want.

ok, I just figured out how to allow siege towers to benefit from targeting (with queueing and pushing to front of queue). https://code.wildfiregames.com/D4964 All thanks to the glorious @Isam f

https://gitlab.com/0ad/0ad-community-mod-a26/-/merge_requests/36 I did a 0.3 pierce buff here. Of course a well played game can make archers look really good, but I have heard archers being a little weak from a lot of players. I think 0.3 won't take them to OP territory, just a little boost.

so like +25 wood or stone, and reduce garrisoned damage? based off of this:

Ah i see. Sure, so would a full revert. The reason the option involves the term "balance" is because that is what would be done by changing the arrow counts. The system is different, so it should be made balanced. Basically, it describes well the task of adjusting arrow counts now that they work differently. We have a new system that has disrupted balance as evidenced by questions 2-4, and that solution would involve restoring balance by changing arrow counts I suppose I could avoid the term "balance," but then I would need a lot more words than necessary.

What do u all think should be done with sentry towers? Slight bump in cost? Increase build time? change arrows counts/fire rate?

That question is about what to do going forward. Do we balance arrows to solve the above issues? or revert/semi-revert the random arrows. It doesn't make sense to have a "random balanced arrows" option because the arrows counts were already balanced for random arrows. That would just be the same as a full revert. That's basically the first question.

new poll

You aren't butting in, thanks for your input! However, I am really confused @ChronA. I can't tell what you mean.

@chrstgtr You are slamming me and my change to the mod without simply offering a clear way forward.

Ok then you want to go back to a26, surely. Frankly, I don't understand why you say this. I see perfectly content players in the community mod. You are massively overstating the effects on rushes, people are still doing rushes very effectively, its just different. One player yesterday told me that rushes are slightly more difficult. thats about 1% of the complaints. And your own complaints above are purely based on theory as you insist. Right now I am hearing that archers are too weak. I heard this from about 15 people when asking the lobby. I heard elephants are not quite effective enough from 5 people. And I heard 1 player say that spearmen were much more impactful when defeating a rush than the building arrows! Frankly I think you are very confident about your opinion solely based on a26 vanilla, and you fail to accept what is actually happening in the mod. It is not a disaster as you make it out to be, and that is why you called for "more experimentation" even though you said above "it appears to have been rejected." If it was really that bad you would actually advocate for a revert.

That is massively mischaracterizing the intent of changing buildingai. I did think the 1:30 chicken rushes were imbalanced but above all else, the purpose of the buildingAI change was just progress. To further the enjoyability of the game. I don't know what to do with this information. I don't think it is helpful at this point to use the past as a reference: Its better to observe current games and adjust from where we are at right now. So it doesn't help to tell me I am wrong and my development is wrong simply because things were not problematic in the past. Nevertheless, I think I identified the two main issues you raised with the current version and I agree with both. But ok, I give up on it for now. The next version will just address the other variables and then we can take another stab at rebalancing arrows sometime later.

anyone know how to refresh a poll? I would like to start a new one with more detailed questions.