a27 weekend gameplay testing

[real_tabasco_sauce]

3 hours ago, Player of 0AD said:

Whats the point of making elephants a super OP anti-unit champion?

Its pretty exciting for gameplay and all civs have rams. Eles still have pretty decent capability vs buildings, but don't expect to take down a fortress with just 1.

 

Edited May 28, 2023 by real_tabasco_sauce

[real_tabasco_sauce]

ok, i just tested the nerfed eles with a mod I made:

eleNerf.zip This mod only applies to a27.

Eles are still strong even when both sides are fully upgraded (blacksmith upgrades don't apply to eles). The test I did was 50 archers + 10 eles vs 50 spearmen and 50 skirms. (80 pop vs 100 pop)

the archers won with 42 remaining and 0 eles remaining. Possibly this is still OP, but 10 eles (big eles) costs 5500 res (2200 metal, 3300 food) while the spearmen only costed 2500 food and wood.

Possibly this is still too OP, but we have to remember that these are champions, and also that micro could massively decrease their effectiveness (make the enemy eles chase units). They do go down pretty fast to massed ranged units, so perhaps the balance is fine and they could just be considered a known counter to melee units going forward.

[Gurken Khan]

@real_tabasco_sauce I assume the skirms also died, which would be another 2,500 wood and food, making a total of 10,000 res.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

25 minutes ago, Gurken Khan said:

@real_tabasco_sauce

yes, I was just talking about the merit of eles vs spearmen in that case.

[Gurken Khan]

13 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

yes, I was just talking about the merit of eles vs spearmen in that case.

OK. I just thought that your equation wasn't very clear.  Sometimes you considered all involved units (pop), sometimes you didn't (res cost; ofc the lost archers should also be considered. )

[real_tabasco_sauce]

22 minutes ago, Gurken Khan said:

OK. I just thought that your equation wasn't very clear.  Sometimes you considered all involved units (pop), sometimes you didn't (res cost; ofc the lost archers should also be considered. )

Yes, I wasn't trying to make it so explicit as an equation. Such equations aren't really helpful when balancing things like this as there is a lot more influence of context in real battles.

Thats why I am calling for playtesting.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

7 hours ago, ChronA said:

If you want to construct a counter cycle of it Elephant > Melee Infantry > Ranged Infantry > Elephant

 

@real_tabasco_sauce Think outside the box, bruv. Perhaps a Javelin Infantry +20% attack bonus vs. Elephants. Or reduce War Elephant -1 or -2 pierce armor.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

7 hours ago, NitroVicky said:

2. Bigger rabbits or different coloured rabbits? It's very hard to find them and click on them, even if they are standing right next to your horse. The dotted grass of Anatolian Plains certainly isn't helping. 

 

I think we can increase the size of both rabbits and chickens for this reason.

 

7 hours ago, NitroVicky said:

Enable capturing by default

Soooo many people in so many discussions over the years wanted attack-by-default, and very few people spoke up for capture-by-default. I can't see how people can't just "suffer through" one alpha and see if attack by default works for them or not. 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

1 hour ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

@real_tabasco_sauce Think outside the box, bruv. Perhaps a Javelin Infantry +20% attack bonus vs. Elephants. Or reduce War Elephant -1 or -2 pierce armor.

8 hours ago, ChronA said:

If you want to construct a counter cycle of it Elephant > Melee Infantry > Ranged Infantry > Elephant

Turns out, thats pretty much how it is currently playing, so no need to add explicit counters. The gameplay effect is neat, all that remains is to ensure it is balanced. I am not sure if https://code.wildfiregames.com/D5008 is enough to nerf them, so I would probably support either further reducing splash damage or decreasing health or pierce armor.

Edited May 28, 2023 by real_tabasco_sauce

[real_tabasco_sauce]

A 2v2 on a27. Pretty good performance all around, but @Palaiologos wouldn't let @BreakfastBurrito_007 and luchomat to full pop 

metadata.jsoncommands.txt

[NitroVicky]

I defeated 7 "very hard", "random personality" AI Bots all teamed up against at the Gulf of Bothnia. Please see the attached replay files:

metadata.json

commands.txt

Game version: Alpha 27 Agnis Testing build 27660.

I was the dark blue player named "v".

 

Feedbacks:

• Units try to damage buildings by default. I think it would be more strategically sound to capture in most cases, because buildings have less loyalty points than health points and archers do very little damage against buildings. So it would be more convenient if units try to capture by default then only try to damage when a special hotkey is activated.
• AI Bots send women and traders on suicidal tasks, for example: walking through a forest of my defence towers and fortresses, building and gathering in the middle of a battlefield. They also build excessive numbers of civic centres; they even tried to build in a narrow unclaimed area behind my base, but without ever reinforcing it.
• The AI can be more unpredictable and less aggressive - they like to send few units to harass you all the time in late game, but never any effective major assult.

[Stan`]

13 hours ago, NitroVicky said:

Units try to damage buildings by default. I think it would be more strategically sound to capture in most cases, because buildings have less loyalty points than health points and archers do very little damage against buildings. So it would be more convenient if units try to capture by default then only try to damage when a special hotkey is activated.

That's how it's been for years, leading to countless complaints

13 hours ago, NitroVicky said:

• AI Bots send women and traders on suicidal tasks, for example: walking through a forest of my defence towers and fortresses, building and gathering in the middle of a battlefield. They also build excessive numbers of civic centres; they even tried to build in a narrow unclaimed area behind my base, but without ever reinforcing it.
• The AI can be more unpredictable and less aggressive - they like to send few units to harass you all the time in late game, but never any effective major assult.

The AI code is mostly untouched since 2018, and it needs some love.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

We are back!

It's strange to revisit this topic with the same task at hand.

I'll be available 8:00 PM UTC this Saturday for some testing games. I might switch back and forth between a26 and the RC to get more players involved.

link to the recent RCs: https://releases.wildfiregames.com/rc/

[Darkcity]

So, i was testing a27, and played survivle for few units and it seems it has bug where a cata went into ghost mode. It can attack any of my units or buidngs but i can't attack xd. Adding the videos for reference. @Stan`, @Itms. Never seen this in a26.

[Itms]

@Darkcity Thanks for the report! Can you attach the replay for this game? When you browse the replays in-game, the path where they are located is displayed. On Windows, the folder is in Documents\My Games\0ad\replays\0.27.0

[Darkcity]

metadata.jsoncommands.txt

Added.

7 minutes ago, Itms said:

Can you attach the replay for this game?

 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

Ok, we need to schedule a time window on Sunday where plenty of people can test. We really should do a full 4v4 so we can measure the impact of the extensive performance enhancements.

My window begins at 6PM or 18:00 UTC until 2AM UTC the following day. I would just schedule other stuff around when others can join up. @Ginnungagap @MarcusAureliu#s Perhaps we can do a "Sunday PRO" TG on the a27 RC?

Some gameplay items to keep an eye out for:

• Capture balance: units defend capture attacks proportional to their capture attack, so women do not defend buildings from capture.
  • cavalry capture attack is decreased, yet balance may still be problematic.
• Champion cavalry nerf is enough?
• Champion variant balance: cataphract, chariot, longsword

if you use windows and don't want to uninstall a26, you can follow this guide: 

 

Edited Monday at 18:54 by real_tabasco_sauce

[Ginnungagap]

59 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

we need to schedule a time window on Sunday where plenty of people can test. We really should do a full 4v4 so we can measure the impact of the extensive performance enhancements.

I would be happy if we could get a 4v4 together. Although I have to admit that we are still a little stumped by the term "pro" within a free, open source game, and we have not yet agreed on a suitable alternative.

I will be available in the early part of your time frame and will do a bit of subtle promotion inside lobby games until Sunday.

 

[Atrik]

5 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Champion cavalry nerf is enough?

A archer need to shoot only 120 arrows to kill a champ cav, that's a bit better then a26 where it was 140.

Ok joking here, i think it's normal that melee cavalry excel against ranged units especially champs, but i think since you still gave spears only a 2.5 dps multiplier against cavs, that's overall a notable buff from already op champ cavs in a26. My opinion is : buff counters instead of nerfing champ cavs stats. With current balance, it's certain that champ cavs will be way op.

I'm in for the testing.

Edited yesterday at 00:04 by Atrik

[real_tabasco_sauce]

15 minutes ago, Atrik said:

A archer need to shoot only 120 arrows to kill a champ cav, that's a bit better then a26 where it was 140.

Ok joking here, i think it's normal that melee cavalry excel against ranged units especially champs, but i think since you still gave spears only a 2.5 dps multiplier against cavs, that's overall a notable buff from already op champ cavs in a26. My opinion is : buff counters instead of nerfing champ cavs stats. With current balance, it's certain that champ cavs will be way op.

I'm in for the testing.

Well there was a com mod version where we had 3x counter spearmen (after melee rebalance), and while it was indeed pretty effective versus champcav, they were a little too good vs the typical swordcav or spearcav rush. I had complaints that just 1 or 2 spearmen nullified a melee cav rush even when substantially outnumbered.

So, I am keen to see how the -1 hack armor change plays out and then nerf HP to 280 if necessary. Changing the counter back to 3 affects too many other units, especially when most ppl agree its just melee champcav that are really the problem.

Edited 23 hours ago by real_tabasco_sauce

[Atrik]

1 hour ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

So, I am keen to see how the -1 hack armor change plays out and then nerf HP to 280 if necessary. Changing the counter back to 3 affects too many other units, especially when most ppl agree its just melee champcav that are really the problem.

This -1 hack armor correspond to a ~5% damage increased for spears, after they lost ~17%. So basically still a very net counter damage decrease from vanilla a26 for spears vs champ cavs.

Spoiler

My opinion : a26 melee champ cavs should have been (very slightly) nerfed instead of buffed. They are already extremely dominant. In com mod since the decrease to x2.5, they simply feel totaly out of balance.

 

Edited 22 hours ago by Atrik

[real_tabasco_sauce]

3 hours ago, Atrik said:

My opinion : a26 melee champ cavs should have been (very slightly) nerfed instead of buffed. They are already extremely dominant. In com mod since the decrease to x2.5, they simply feel totaly out of balance.

They were not buffed significantly more than other melee units. I agree melee champ cav are out of balance, but is there widespread agreement that sword cavalry and spear cavalry are too? I can't say with any certainty that this is the case. That's why I think further balance changes should be more targeted than returning the counter to 3x.

3 hours ago, Atrik said:

after they lost ~17%.

Spearmen kill melee champcav about 51% faster than in a26, but champ cav also do about 50% more damage overall. This leads to somewhat similar balance, except that in a26 melee champcav are OP because they are a nearly invincible damage sponge, while in the com mod they are OP because they are still pretty tanky but deal legitimate damage.

With the hack armor change in a27 rc, spearmen kill champcav about 60% faster than they do in a26, which is 5.8% faster than in a26 + com mod. So we will see if the ~6% buff for spears is enough (which is probably wont be), and then we take the next step.

Edited 19 hours ago by real_tabasco_sauce

[chrstgtr]

4 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

So, I am keen to see how the -1 hack armor change plays out and then nerf HP to 280 if necessary. Changing the counter back to 3 affects too many other units, especially when most ppl agree its just melee champcav that are really the problem.

Just change it for vs champ cav. The problem with champ spear cav has always been that they're too good of meatshield against units that should be able to counter them. If the rest of the game is balanced (big if) then a hot fix will be to make CS inf spear counter champ spear cav with a better multiplier. 

5 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

I agree melee champ cav are out of balance, but is there widespread agreement that sword cavalry

I think this is an overstatement. There is widespread agreement that champ spear cav is OP. Much less agreement on whether champ sword cav is OP. I also don't think I've heard any (credible) person say that CS sword cav is OP.

[Feldfeld]

I don't think counters should be changed. My proposition would be to nerf melee champ cav HP to 250.

With new player placement option, in many situations it will be possible to go for champions without temporarily putting an ally in a bad spot. I'm confident there will be many cases where they are good to make.

[Itms]

Hi folks, the second RC for A27 is out. Thanks for testing the RC1. At this point we are not going to include balance changes in A27, we are only fixing breaking bugs. There is a chance that we release this weekend if no big bugs are found, so the timing for your testing weekend might not be the best.

We could wait for after the weekend in case your match session allows us to detect breaking bugs, but it would be better if you could start testing as much as possible. If issues are found in the next days we'll do our absolute best to have a RC3 ready for testing on Sunday.