Proposition: Decrease projectile damage but increase firing frequency.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

8 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

No offense, but that is a lot of words to say "I dunno bout dis. we can make it gud tho"

I think the intent was that giving the cavalry a buff just because they are in a triangle shape seems artificial/forced.

Instead, one could increase unit pushing values so they cannot stack super well as a blob. Then, you could increase the compactness of some formations so that an easy way to get a nice compact force is to organize. For example, box and wedge could be made a little tighter, and the phalanx even more so. (perhaps disable unit pushing for formations? not sure how that would turn out)

Formations are used in competitive play sometimes, but its just box. There are cases where I would like to use a formation, but it's not quite the shape I am after. There are also some kind of redundant formations. In addition to the previous idea, you could diversify some of the more generic formations (one super wide single file line; maybe a tightly packed outward facing circle)

Here is another idea:

formation for splitting melee from ranged:

enemy

-Melee units-

some midsized gap

-Ranged units-

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

I guess you're thinking of more "army formations" rather than battalions of like-units. In that case, yeah, one could imagine some army formations that do some of the following:

 

 

Could have any number of formation options shown dynamically depending on the composition of the selection.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

Well thats pretty interesting, but I was really just suggesting some refinements/additions to the existing formations. Perhaps we have diverged from the thread too much.

Would it be a complete departure from the formation code to allow something like this?

57 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

-Melee units-

some midsized gap

-Ranged units-

I know the box formation seems to sort melee units to the outside with healers and ranged units inside. 

What do you think about this?

58 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Instead, one could increase unit pushing values so they cannot stack super well as a blob. Then, you could increase the compactness of some formations so that an easy way to get a nice compact force is to organize.

[Lion.Kanzen]

7 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Perhaps we have diverged from the thread too much

always the interaction of units is related.

In the end this damage has to be solved in 2 ways.

 

Maintain current damage and increase armor.

Or decrease the damage maintain the current armor.

[Yekaterina]

Let me clarify: I enjoy the fighting part of each match more than booming, so I would really like the battles to last a bit longer so that there is more action. Regarding rushes, sometimes it's not the perfect strategy and the battles will be small scale - less enjoyable than titanic clashes (personal opinion).

Now, the disadvantage of fast battles is whoever comes with the most numbers and / or champions wins. In team games, given the map size and units' running speed, one player would often lose their entire army before the second player comes. I think this is terrible. Instead, the more numerous side should have some obvious advantage and the less prepared side gradually loses, but victory should avail itself over a few minutes of aggression and resistance instead of a complete massacre in 20 seconds. This is especially the case in 2v1 situations - it should not instantly terminate a player, let them have a chance to reinforce. Real battles don't end in 20 seconds neither. 

In order to achieve this we lower the damage of all projectiles and also reduce the damage of melee, so that units can live a bit longer.

 

[Lion.Kanzen]

22 minutes ago, Helicity said:

Let me clarify: I enjoy the fighting part of each match more than booming, so I would really like the battles to last a bit longer so that there is more action. Regarding rushes, sometimes it's not the perfect strategy and the battles will be small scale - less enjoyable than titanic clashes (personal opinion).

Now, the disadvantage of fast battles is whoever comes with the most numbers and / or champions wins. In team games, given the map size and units' running speed, one player would often lose their entire army before the second player comes. I think this is terrible. Instead, the more numerous side should have some obvious advantage and the less prepared side gradually loses, but victory should avail itself over a few minutes of aggression and resistance instead of a complete massacre in 20 seconds. This is especially the case in 2v1 situations - it should not instantly terminate a player, let them have a chance to reinforce. Real battles don't end in 20 seconds neither. 

In order to achieve this we lower the damage of all projectiles and also reduce the damage of melee, so that units can live a bit longer.

 

For me the fact that the troops can't handle is a defect, the maximum entertainment is to see the troops fight in melee apart from military the maneuvers.

[alre]

59 minutes ago, Helicity said:

Let me clarify: I enjoy the fighting part of each match more than booming, so I would really like the battles to last a bit longer so that there is more action. Regarding rushes, sometimes it's not the perfect strategy and the battles will be small scale - less enjoyable than titanic clashes (personal opinion).

Now, the disadvantage of fast battles is whoever comes with the most numbers and / or champions wins. In team games, given the map size and units' running speed, one player would often lose their entire army before the second player comes. I think this is terrible. Instead, the more numerous side should have some obvious advantage and the less prepared side gradually loses, but victory should avail itself over a few minutes of aggression and resistance instead of a complete massacre in 20 seconds. This is especially the case in 2v1 situations - it should not instantly terminate a player, let them have a chance to reinforce. Real battles don't end in 20 seconds neither. 

In order to achieve this we lower the damage of all projectiles and also reduce the damage of melee, so that units can live a bit longer.

coordinating with your teammates is a key skill.

I agree that large battles are unsatisfactory in 0AD: very high risk and very fast, if you like to fight more than eco you should rush more.

[sternstaub]

3 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

No offense, but that is a lot of words to say "I dunno bout dis. we can make it gud tho"

Wedge isn't a tactic, it's a formation. You don't click it and then cavalry automatically pwnz0r the field. You click it to put your cav into an formation that gives them some kind of stat buff for the tactic or maneuver you want to perform. You still have to command the maneuver. 

Hmm. It is true; adding such will not remove micro, but rather refine it. you can always argue that a game becomes easier if it gets more user friendy. but also, this gives the opportunity to add other challenges to the game, which are more immersive than dancing with units. 

Imagine a centurion reporting: "...i beat them by having my legionaires dance from the left to the right at the moment their archers fired!". Ah, i do not know. 

It is true that 0ad is a game and not a 100% accurate realistic simulation. But it is not supposed to be a click-o-mat either.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

1 hour ago, Helicity said:

Now, the disadvantage of fast battles is whoever comes with the most numbers and / or champions wins

Nope, micro, uprades, unit choices, heros, civ bonuses also matter. 

 

1 hour ago, Helicity said:

This is especially the case in 2v1 situations

If your team works well together this shouldn't happen so this in particular is not a fault of game design.

 

 

[Stan`]

13 hours ago, sternstaub said:

iirc,  @Stan` mentioned in another topic that the projectile speed cannot be adjusted by mods.

I have to clarify, I only meant they cannot be affected by technologies. You can totally change the XML values in a mod.

[Yekaterina]

10 hours ago, alre said:

you should rush more.

As I said, rushes are just small scale sniping, not the titanic clashes that I like.

 

10 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

Nope, micro, uprades, unit choices, heros, civ bonuses also matter. 

Let's assume both sides are reasonably skilled with similar army composition and have all of the military techs. Then the side with more numbers will win, very quickly massacring the outnumbered side. I'm not saying that one side shouldn't win, but the issue is the massacre happens too quickly.  It's just 30 seconds of complete chaos and lag then one side is exterminated completely. There is absolutely zero chance for reinforcement after all techs are researched and champions are involved, which removes the reinforcement aspect of the gameplay completely, making battles just gambles on unit numbers and not well-prepared tactical confrontations.

 

[Yekaterina]

The proportion of damage per second to total health is too high, so units die extremely quickly. The shield techs are less effective than attack techs, which caused this problem in late game. Therefore I would propose more effective shield techs for units and less damage per second overall.

For example, even if we disregard all techs, a Briton chariot deals 36 damage per 1.25 seconds! That's 28.8 damage per second! It can kill a spearman with 41% pierce resistance in 6.25 seconds! A regular cavalry deals 18 pierce per 1.25 seconds, that's only 12.5 seconds to kill a spearman! This is insane! No wonder massacres are so quick!

So I am really asking that we consider either decreasing these damage values or increasing the total health of all units. For a start, let us double the time to kill a spearman - that will correspond to halving the damage of all units. This will reduce the problem of instant massacres. Ideally, I would like firing frequency to be 4Hz, or 0.25 seconds delay between each shot. To get a value of 7.2 damage per second, we need each shot to be 1.8 pierce.

For those of you who love rushing, we can either decrease the total health of women to compensate, or, we give soldier units attack bonus against women.

 

[Stan`]

Interesting it seems chariots are missing from Unit Tables (wildfiregames.com)

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

3 hours ago, Helicity said:

Let's assume both sides are reasonably skilled with similar army composition and have all of the military techs. Then the side with more numbers will win, very quickly massacring the outnumbered side. I'm not saying that one side shouldn't win, but the issue is the massacre happens too quickly.  It's just 30 seconds of complete chaos and lag then one side is exterminated completely. There is absolutely zero chance for reinforcement after all techs are researched and champions are involved, which removes the reinforcement aspect of the gameplay completely, making battles just gambles on unit numbers and not well-prepared tactical confrontations.

You don't always need to commit everything to a fight, if you start fighting and you realize you are losing you can retreat. An extremely common way to reinforce an army when playing infantry versus infantry is to retreat toward your production buildings as your units trickle forward from them. This way each step you take toward your base you are increasing your army size and you can eventually take a fight versus your enemy who is chasing you. I hope this helps!

I definitely agree that briton chariots do far too much damage and skirmisher cavalry should have their damaged reduced from 18 to 16 as they usually wind up being the all-around best unit in every game. 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

6 hours ago, Helicity said:

Ideally, I would like firing frequency to be 4Hz, or 0.25 seconds delay between each shot.

4 shots (arrows, javelins, slings) per second is just not gonna happen. I get what you mean about units dying too quickly, but this is hardly a good solution. 

[Lion.Kanzen]

17 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

4 shots (arrows, javelins, slings) per second is just not gonna happen. I get what you mean about units dying too quickly, but this is hardly a good solution. 

And if they take time recharging?

---Maybe later. when they can defend themselves with melee attack.----

[Yekaterina]

3 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

You don't always need to commit everything to a fight

If you commit less, you die quicker.

3 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

versus your enemy who is chasing you.

Yes, that is only if both sides are pure infantry. Cavalry is very common so retreat is hard. Also just before you run out of range, the ranged units can fire one last shot and that is enough to  decimate a few more units from you, because the damage is too high. This, combined with slow turning rate, makes retreats quite impossible.

[Lion.Kanzen]

6 hours ago, Stan` said:

Interesting it seems chariots are missing from Unit Tables (wildfiregames.com)

That's why I was asking you about making a visual app.

---

Now that I think about it, it would be better to make a web app.

Edited March 3, 2023 by Lion.Kanzen

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

6 hours ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

And if they take time recharging?

---Maybe later. when they can defend themselves with melee attack.----

I have no idea what you mean.

I feel like people just love to propose outrageous stuff for the game without thinking it through. Most semiautomatic firearms don't even fire 4 times per second.

[Lion.Kanzen]

2 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

I have no idea what you mean.

I feel like people just love to propose outrageous stuff for the game without thinking it through. Most semiautomatic firearms don't even fire 4 times per second.

AoE III 

the units reload their weapons.

This same units can go to Melee the combat.

 

 

 

[alre]

the main thing that made A23 and A24 big battles take longer, was that without unit pushing, units would stop at maximum range to shoot at enemies, and the soldiers that were behind were "bumped" back and had no other way to get into the fight than slowly getting around the first line. the usual way to avoid this was to put your units into a formation and moving it forward under enemy fire, this is not generally necessary anymore.

small fights weren't slower than they are now in past alphas.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

5 hours ago, alre said:

the main thing that made A23 and A24 big battles take longer, was that without unit pushing, units would stop at maximum range to shoot at enemies, and the soldiers that were behind were "bumped" back and had no other way to get into the fight than slowly getting around the first line. the usual way to avoid this was to put your units into a formation and moving it forward under enemy fire, this is not generally necessary anymore.

small fights weren't slower than they are now in past alphas.

I think the way units overlap now has negatively affected combat.

[Lion.Kanzen]

I repeat again: except for the pikemen there is very little spectacle when watching melee combat, they all die after receiving a couple of hits.Last night I was staring at the melee infantry, and the cavalry worse. The spear cavalry die fast  under missile fire (stones, arrows and javelins).

It doesn't get to be that effective.

[Yekaterina]

On 04/03/2023 at 5:21 PM, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

I think the way units overlap now has negatively affected combat.

Precisely. I have seen a player called N1met squeeze his entire army of 140 infantry units into a dense crowd of size similar to the size of a siege tower with units overlapping each other. If it was in real life they would have collapsed into a neutron star. Not far from the Schwarzchild radius neither.

So we should disable unit overlap, because that just allows insane damage to be concentrated at one point, cause bad battle actions. If everyone had more space, there would be less pathfinding struggles and less instant massacres.

The counter-argument is that archers would be OP without unit overlap, because in limited spaces, the skirmishers can never get into range of archers so they will be sitting ducks.

On 04/03/2023 at 5:41 PM, Lion.Kanzen said:

except for the pikemen there is very little spectacle when watching melee combat

Exactly. The ranged units do too much damage compared to the health of melee units.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

On 04/03/2023 at 9:21 AM, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

I think the way units overlap now has negatively affected combat.

I'd support a small-ish increase to the pushing values.