Non-random BuildingAI

[real_tabasco_sauce]

10 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

1 and 3 if non-random

so like +25 wood or stone, and reduce garrisoned damage?

based off of this:

24 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

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

 

[chrstgtr]

6 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

so like +25 wood or stone, and reduce garrisoned damage?

 

I would prob do 50w and moderate reduction of garrison dmg.

Not stone because that is unfair to p1 slinger civs. 

1 and 3 because:

• Cost because it is used as a way to circumvent unit production chokepoints (number of unit producing buildings and unit production time).
• Dmg because it is hard to stand under it and fight for more than a few seconds. 

Wouldn't do 2 because time hurts eco too much when you build the tower prophylactically. 

Open to other suggestions, the ^^^ isn't a strong opinion.  

[real_tabasco_sauce]

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

Edited March 13 by real_tabasco_sauce

[real_tabasco_sauce]

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.

Edited March 19 by real_tabasco_sauce

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

17 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

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.

Now you understand the anguish of design by vote. :* 

[ShadowOfHassen]

17 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

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.

Do what you think is best, and if people grouch about it, ignore them. I for one, trust you with game balance. :-)

[real_tabasco_sauce]

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.

Edited March 19 by real_tabasco_sauce

[real_tabasco_sauce]

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.

[chrstgtr]

4 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

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.

What do you mean? Wouldn't it just be a total revert?

On 19/03/2024 at 4:53 PM, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Yeah, really the fundamental issue with the approach is that problems 2,3, and 4 will still exist, just only when ppl are targeting.

I'm not sure this is entirely true. At least not for early game. It is really hard to target arrows during rushes, especially when you are also trying to hide women/bring men by CC. Meanwhile, players don't like to stay under CCs for long so the defending player has to act really fast. To the extent people can do this, I don't think it's bad to reward them for their micro skills. 

To your point, late game it might be a problem still. But to the extent it is a problem, it would be similar to the impact of sniping, which isn't done a ton nowadays. 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

7 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

18 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

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.

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.

[chrstgtr]

2 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

The targeting queue is inside buildingAI and the function that fires arrows handles both default behavior arrows and targeted arrows.

So it is a problem with doing random arrows and manually targeted arrows at the same time ("Make buildings shoot at random unless targeted")? I didn't realize it was built directly within buildingAI. 

Your choice if you want to try to pursue it. To your point above, the "Make buildings shoot at random unless targeted" might be still be problematic, so it might not be worth you spending time on it instead of just doing a total revert. 

 

[alre]

On 19/03/2024 at 9:47 PM, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Now you understand the anguish of design by vote. :* 

On 19/03/2024 at 10:19 PM, ShadowOfHassen said:

Do what you think is best, and if people grouch about it, ignore them. I for one, trust you with game balance. :-)

it is the community mod.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

Now that we are back to random arrows, what do you all think? Are arrows any different compared to a26? What things do you find better than with the non-random arrows? What is worse?

[real_tabasco_sauce]

 

 

Edited July 4 by real_tabasco_sauce

[chrstgtr]

10 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Now that we are back to random arrows, what do you all think? Are arrows any different compared to a26? What things do you find better than with the non-random arrows? What is worse?

I like arrows now. The functionality seems to be correct. I think they could need the slightest buff to restore the a26 balance, which I think was the slightest bit better. 

Haven't heard any complaints about arrows but I obviously don't speak for everyone (and this is obviously a departure from before when complaints were heard).

Off topic, but the complaints with current community mod seem to be navy being underpowered and bolts being OP, both of which I agree with. 

Edited July 5 by chrstgtr

[real_tabasco_sauce]

Ok so I have made some developments:

In the above are some nice UI improvements:

• Instead of the arrow, a rally point cursor appears when a unit's destination is just to a particular location.
• When all a structure's firepower (building arrows AND degarrisoned soldiers) are to be sent to a particular enemy unit, the familiar sword icon appears. This is the behavior if no hotkeys are involved.
• If you press ctrl ("autorally" hotkey, for example used to garrison trained soldiers back into the selected building), the rally point alone is set to that enemy and building arrows remain untargeted
• if you press "force attack" (unfortunately this is also ctrl by default), you are in command of the building arrows and only the building arrows.
  • shown by the red crosshairs.

Also, the arrows now fire in sort of volleys or bursts, rather than a constant stream of arrows. This means they can be dodged to a degree, which is fun.

Next steps:

• change force attack default hotkey (or find another appropriate hotkey).
• add some audio feedback for when the arrows of a building are being targeted.
• rebalance building damage according to non-random building AI.
• rework building technologies and/or change building damage with each phase.

Edited September 17 by real_tabasco_sauce

[real_tabasco_sauce]

@Stan` @wowgetoffyourcellphone any sound recommendations for telling a building to attack something with its arrows?

[Stan`]

Doesn't it use the current sword sound? I suppose an arrow sound could be somewhat more  fitting, but not sure.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

I'm thinking more like the "FWWWOP" sound from AOE3's "Enemy Sighted!" notification. 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

5 hours ago, Stan` said:

Doesn't it use the current sword sound? I suppose an arrow sound could be somewhat more  fitting, but not sure.

I don't think any sound is used.

I kind of like the idea of using 

https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/src/branch/main/binaries/data/mods/public/audio/attack/weapon/arrowfly_02.ogg

but with more volume. It's fairly quick sound and is the least monotonous of the arrowfly sounds.

maybe even one of the old sling sounds could be good:

https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/src/branch/main/binaries/data/mods/public/audio/attack/weapon/sling_22.ogg

edit: I went with the second one since the first one doesn't sound very exciting.

Edited September 16 by real_tabasco_sauce

[real_tabasco_sauce]

 

 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 hour ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

I don't think any sound is used.

I kind of like the idea of using 

https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/src/branch/main/binaries/data/mods/public/audio/attack/weapon/arrowfly_02.ogg

but with more volume. It's fairly quick sound and is the least monotonous of the arrowfly sounds.

maybe even one of the old sling sounds could be good:

https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/src/branch/main/binaries/data/mods/public/audio/attack/weapon/sling_22.ogg

edit: I went with the second one since the first one doesn't sound very exciting.

As an aside, the game really is missing quite a few little UI feedback sounds. For instance, a sound for planting a waypoint. 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

1 minute ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

As an aside, the game really is missing quite a few little UI feedback sounds. For instance, a sound for planting a waypoint. 

Yes there are some that should be looked at. But there is some grey area: if the graphics give the user enough information, it may be good to avoid adding too many sound cues to avoid audio clutter.

for example, aoe2 docks will make a lot of ding dongs and it can get overwhelming XD.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

5 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Yes there are some that should be looked at. But there is some grey area: if the graphics give the user enough information, it may be good to avoid adding too many sound cues to avoid audio clutter.

IMHO, user input feedback is crucial. So whenever a player clicks something, be it a UI element or initiating a command in-game, it should usually have some kind of sound. 

 

6 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

for example, aoe2 docks will make a lot of ding dongs and it can get overwhelming XD.

Yes, but that was more of the specific sound, rather than the notion of a sound at all.  

[real_tabasco_sauce]

19 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

For instance, a sound for planting a waypoint. 

Wait don't we already have the order sound when a waypoint is planted or added?