guerringuerrin

@wowgetoffyourcellphone everything working good now! The Pyrobolos sinks straight into the ground when it dies. I assume it’s because there’s no destruction animation for the structure (units die with an animation). Black cloak champs looks awesome

Nice work @wowgetoffyourcellphone! I found some bugs, i'm not sure if this is only on my end. I'm using R28 vanila without any other mod than this. When building barracks and stables: And some more of them when selecting those built barracks and stables, probably related to the same issue: Dying heros: ERROR: CCacheLoader failed to find archived or source file for: "art/materials/player_trans_spec.xml" ERROR: CCacheLoader failed to find archived or source file for: "art/materials/player_trans_spec.xml" Edit: and this last one. Duplicated fertility festival:

As a starting point, it seems fine to me. Still, I think that in some normal circumstances, capturing is still a bit too quick/easy. Maybe 1000 points are enough. We’d need to test it.

One could consider a system where capture points and garrison capacity scale with population. That said, it would likely introduce additional complexity. Even if feasible, it might be preferable to tune fixed values around reasonably standardized scenarios. That could work, although there are additional variables to consider. Capture time will always depend on the size and composition of the army. Are we talking about basic or elite units? Melee or ranged? Are heroes involved? Yes, that seems like a relatively simple solution to implement. As for collisions, they already exist. As shown in the video, when no formation is active, many units are unable to capture and instead try to find alternative paths. I think a certain degree of overlapping is actually beneficial for battles (though not for capturing), otherwise unit behavior can become somewhat clunky. It’s probably a matter of fine-tuning the parameters under specific circumstances.

From this initial post you made, it doesn’t come across as an additional idea but rather as a solution to the problem of buildings being too easy to capture. That is: instead of increasing capture resistance, allowing more units to garrison inside. That’s why I responded the way I did. What I mean is that, from a gameplay perspective, it seems much more interesting to improve the capture points of buildings and be able to keep more units outside, actively engaged in combat. If you garrison 40 or 50 units out of an army of 150, the enemy will most likely be able to wipe out the remaining forces due to overwhelming numerical superiority. I’m not opposed to increasing the garrison capacity of forts/CCs or other important buildings per se. But when it’s proposed as a solution to the issue of rapid capture, I think it’s better to directly strengthen capture resistance instead. As for the historical aspects, I understand them, but this is a game and, as such, it relies on certain abstractions.

This is what we are talking about with formation exploit: formation capture exploit.mp4 And this: formation gathering exploit.mp4 The problem with this approach is that, if you need to garrison, say, around 40 units to prevent your building from being captured, out of an average of 150 soldier units you might have in a 200 pop game, you end up dedicating 26% of your units just to guarding a single building. It makes more sense to increase capture resistance.

Nice poll, @Atrik. Additionally, it would be good to address the exploit that allows capturing buildings in tight spaces using formations.

Each iteration looks so much better

In this game, you can always rebuild even if you’re down to a single unit. This happens quite often in team matches. A player might lose their entire base but still have a few units left; even without enough resources, allies can share the bare minimum needed to bring them back into the game. Instead of breaking something that already works, it might be worth considering adding an extra victory option, something like “last CC standing,” so no one gets frustrated (especially when playing against the AI) searching the entire map for that last unit. As for the other buildings, you just need to wait a few seconds for them to lose control.

Yes, it's a work in progress created and maintained by @Stan`. It's happened to me a few times too. The good thing is that it's a great way to preserve replays and also to consolidate statistics and interesting game data. I imagine it can be improved over time.

@Thalatta I’m not dismissing the negative experience that some players may have. What I’m saying is that it’s very difficult to establish that this negative experience is representative of every(or considerable amount) new player’s experience. I agree that the AI needs to be improved. Ideally, it shouldn’t rush under certain configurations. That’s something we all know is pending and difficult to implement. But that’s very different from wanting to modify the game’s pacing in its default state. I haven’t seen this kind of engagement approach in other RTS games. What I have seen are in-game tutorials, ranging from basic mechanics to complex build orders, along with campaigns and achievement systems, challenges. Establishing a slower pacing as the “normal” baseline would be a substantially disruptive change, and accepting it would require very solid evidence. Not just a handful of reports you might find on Reddit or that show up here from time to time in the forum. Furthermore, you will always have dissatisfied players. You can keep searching and maybe find 100 or 200 reports online about this issue. But is that sample representative? That’s roughly the same number of players who play multiplayer every day. The same group you’ve described as a minority (and I agree that’s likely the case). So those 100 or 200 reports should also be considered a minority, shouldn’t they? So, one thing is making the AI easier, and another is changing the game’s pacing. I think changing the AI’s default difficulty from Normal to Very Easy Defensive would be a positive change in this regard. Even so, without a basic guide to the game’s military and economic mechanics, it’s very likely that a new player will lose their first few attempts, for the simple reason that they don’t understand how the game works. I’ve seen many newbies build 50 farms with 100 civilians (people clearly coming from AoE). You have to give new players the tools to understand how to play. And if many of us recommend that people read some guides, it’s simply because the game doesn’t provide that kind of (good) how-to in-game. You should also care about those who are having a positive experience, they’re proof that something is being done right. I think you’re drawing conclusions far too quickly for how little time you’ve been here. Have you seen the developers play? Do you know them? There are all kinds of contributors: some play very well, others are complete noobs, and some, I think, don’t even play at all. I hope that over time you’ll come across other perspectives and have experiences that will lead you to see this differently. Casual players don’t necessary need the game to be slower; they need in-game tutorials and campaigns, they need guidance. It’s not about “making it easier so they stick around.” It’s about teaching them how to play, giving them content, storytelling, and engagement. And this is missing, not because of some “experienced-player corporatism,” but because there isn’t enough manpower to tackle tasks of that complexity and scope. There’s no need to break what already works; what’s needed is to improve what works and build what’s missing. Changing the game’s default speed to 0.8x is not a cosmetic change at all. It’s a significant design decision. Alright. I think it’s a good idea, and I’ll open the PR as soon as I have some free time. Basic PRs like this tend to be resolved fairly quickly, whether accepted or rejected. Btw, I don’t think you’re trying to impose your ideas. I just meant that some of them are based on assumptions without solid support.

@Frederick_1 Thanks for sharing these replays! I’ve uploaded them to the Replay Pallas. The other tournament replays I was able to recover are MacWolf vs 20R_Seb, and those are uploaded as well.

Plenty of times? How many times—10, 20, 30? What number would actually be needed to consider it truly representative or a majority? Do negative responses to that claim, even from SP players, not count? And why couldn’t a “normal” level be challenging? (even though it really isn’t…) I personally never found the normal level challenging; I lost a couple of times and then started beating it. You yourself have said you didn’t find it very challenging. So how should it be, beatable on the first try? And I’m pretty sure that the newbies who didn’t find it challenging didn’t go to the forum to comment on it… For me, moving from Normal to Hard in StarCraft II took quite a lot of matches… It’s a much more challenging and intelligent AI, with vastly better combat micro than in 0 A.D., and also superior economic management. And regarding the excess of clicks, this game is far less click-intensive than AoE 2 and SCII, starting with the auto-queue feature present in the vanilla version, which drastically reduces APM when producing units. What’s the evidence? Two friends: one who may or may not have stopped playing, and the other who apparently kept playing on medium? Okay, now let’s move on to your reviews about the fast-paced: This guy wasn’t even used to playing RTS games, and after his third match he began to feel like he’d gotten a handle on things. Great, the guy recommends the game and gives it a positive review. Another person who recommends the game and says it’s very addictive. He explains that the pace is determined by the difficulty: if you want a relaxed experience, you play on easy; otherwise, you increase the difficulty. The mention of pacing is quite conditional; he says: “I tried playing medium level and the enemy advanced faster and attacked faster. So it was more of a fast-paced game than a slow leisure game.” In his own words: “So far though, this game is pretty addictive as it's only my 2nd day playing it and I have only tried Acropolis Bay. I definitely look forward to trying more and even the one with 1v4 game play.” Great! he loved the game. Two days in and he’s already hooked. Playing on Single Player only for 2 days, counts as a casual for me. These three posts include suggestions from other players giving advice on how to win, along with guides. Do those testimonies count as well? Or are they all tryhards??? An experienced RTS player who always loses against the Petra bot on easy, come on man… read a guide, watch some videos... I do take this from that last frustrated player, though: “0 A.D. has such a hard time explaining its mechanics clearly and providing a proper easy difficulty that it makes it really hard to get into, and with the game's low popularity, it's hard to find up-to-date guidance online too.” A good tutorial is necessary so that new players don’t jump into fighting the AI blindly without understanding not only the basic game mechanics, but also more advanced concepts. And I think achievements are great. As for balance, I do think it’s primarily shaped around PvP, and that’s for obvious reasons seen in many other RTS games. It’s natural for balance to evolve based on different playstyles and strategies that players discover over time as they refine techniques, explore units and civilization-specific features, and push the gameplay in different directions. It should also be possible to separate both realms to some extent. In the SP environment, there can be technologies and units that don’t exist in MP. This is quite common in many RTS games too and adds an interesting layer to the single-player experience. And it’s not really the case that multiplayer being only for “tryharders”. While it’s true that there’s a group of very intense tryhards like myself, you can also find daily matches that last for hours, with very laid-back players who just play and have fun without an overly competitive mindset. This is what I mean: you keep referring to the game as prioritizing multiplayer as if that were a deliberate design decision and it isn’t. There have been campaigns in the past, but they’re difficult to keep updated from version to version due to technical constraints and the very limited manpower available to maintain everything. There’s currently one person working on updating the old campaign, and another developer working on a more advanced narrative system for creating campaigns. I understand that some people may have told you that, but it’s not a premeditated design decision at all. If the proposal is to set the easy level as the default, fine, that can be done very easily. I don’t see why the developers wouldn’t accept it. I’ve seen in another post that you have some knowledge of JavaScript; you could make the PR yourself in very little time. Now, reducing the normal game speed to 0.8x and trying to set 1.25x as the “competitive option” seems like a terrible idea to me. But it’s not as if this is there because it’s designed with multiplayer players in mind.

Well… Have a good day

I’m not interested in discussing semantics. The point you’re making is clear: “many people might get a bad impression of the game,” and based on that premise, you’re defending your idea of recalibrating the difficulty levels. But the reality is that you have no actual evidence that this is a frustration point that is driving players away. To be clear: I don’t see a problem with recalibrating the AI. What I do see as a problem is making decisions based on personal opinions presented as if they were factual premises. Here’s another assumption without solid grounding: in your less than three months here, how many people from the community have you actually talked to in order to make that claim? How many members do you think the community has to assert that this is the “opinion of many”? And how many others don’t participate here and might hold a completely different view? The truth is, you don’t know. Yet you bring it up, assume it as a valid premise, and from there make proposals about how things "should be.” And how do you know that the majority of singleplayer players don’t enjoy the game at its current pacing? Do you have any statistics to support that? I’ve seen new players running the game at 1.25x speed, so does that mean the game is too slow? I understand that this may be your preference, and that others might agree with you. There’s nothing wrong with having a different opinion or proposing ideas, but it would be better not to defend them based on unproven assumptions.

I understand that there may be some reports from frustrated players who quit the game because they couldn’t beat the AI, but there’s no solid evidence that “a lot of people” have a negative impression and/or abandon the game because of that. RTS games have always been known for being quite challenging. And if I had to put forward a hypothesis, I’d say that having engaging campaigns is far more effective for player retention.

Kids can be very, very good at playing 0 A.D. and many other games as well. The AI is, in fact, very easy to beat with a bit of practice. And you don’t need to defeat the AI on Very Hard before moving on to multiplayer. In the lobby, you can find all kinds of player profiles and skill levels. it's not all tryharding. The AI needs fundamental improvements instead of compensating for its weaknesses with production and gathering handicaps. Things like better decision-making and creativity. As it stands, the Very Hard AI is much easier to beat than the AI in StarCraft II on Brutal. Also, this game is far less click-intensive than others in its genre. Improving the AI and adding campaigns would be a major contribution to retaining and growing the single-player community. There’s a lot of work to be done, and not enough manpower.

Just wait until devs have time to fix it

Well, it’s not as simple as it seems, since it’s very easy to pass one mod off as another. You just need to change one or two files and that’s it.

With this new paragraph you added, I realize I misinterpreted your first message. It seems like this is something that could be addressed by increasing the base capture resistance of buildings/ships. The dynamic you’re proposing sounds interesting for certain gameplay contexts, especially in single-player/campaigns, and perhaps even multiplayer matches on “thematic maps” (scenarios). I think this touches on something we haven’t explored much: the possibility of having different balances and mechanics depending on the game mode (single-player, campaigns, thematic maps, multiplayer). Of course, it’s important to keep in mind that this would increase both the amount and complexity of the work, and available manpower is limited.

I think it's a good thing that siege units are required to break walls. In fact, I support making building capture more difficult. The same applies to towers, which are currently too easy to capture—especially due to formation capture behavior, where an absurd number of units can overlap, allowing buildings to be captured in a very small space at an excessively fast rate. Building capture itself is not a flaw; it just needs refinement. It’s one of the game’s original mechanics, and we should stop trying to homogenize the game with others. Instead, polishing its unique aspects will make 0 A.D. even more distinctive. Yes, turtling is a valid playstyle (albeit a boring and somewhat lame one), and it’s already viable—you just have to execute it properly. I also think that making capture more difficult would make it even more effective. However, making walls cheaper and faster to build would only encourage this dynamic, which, while valid, would significantly harm multiplayer matches. It also depends heavily on the map. On closed maps with chokepoints and natural boundaries, turtling is already quite effective. On Ambush Nomad, for example, when playing with Wonder victory, turtling is very common and effective. So I don’t think it’s impossible—I just wouldn’t encourage it.

well I don't think they have a long building time anyways

idk. @Atrik made good improvements with snapings walls that will be probably in the next realease, and are cool. But boosting their building time or things like that. I guess is just a matter of tastes. I find turtling/defensive playstyles very boring

You can't boost walls too much or you will encourage turtling playstyle, which kinda suck for multiplayer. Also, roads might be a good feature for a mod focused on city builder or a more economic, design city gameplay. For and RTS i think is a bit too much

Yes, following the standard currently used in 0 A.D. and this proposal, it should be: Unlocks "Scale Body Armor". I also think an elegant way to remove the quotation marks would be to use color to highlight the name of the unlocked technology. In this thread (which I finally found, bc we went totally offtopic ), @Atrik and I were discussing different designs for unit stats tooltips: