"auto-sniping" thoughts and tests

[Dizaka]

31 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Throwing aside the effort to develop this, the potential performance costs, the UI clutter, and the difficulty for new players to learn something like this, I think this would be actually harder than using the mouse and hot keys to select and attack. (Aka micro).

 

I mean, there's a way to implement this without it being an issue.  It can be default behavior situation.  It could also be taken even further to prioritize ranged over melee units.  I don't even believe it needs to be something like the 'h' key.  Rather, the 'h' key could reset the behavior as it resets the current default behavior.  There's ways to implement it to make it opaque to the regular user.  More advanced users could do their own sniping behavior with keys/shortcuts however they want.  @Atrik

 

31 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

There is simply no way it turns new players away. New players don’t experience micro unless they go against a player far better than themselves.

new players get turned away by difficulties in finding matches, performance issues, and boredom.

the learning curve for micro is actually part of a “skill gap” and it is essential for games to be fun and learnable.

people who have played for years should be able to beat new players because they are better. There is nothing wrong with this.

now overkill can be addressed partially by modifying unitAI. I think there was a motion for ranged units to target the next closest unit of the closest is already being attacked by x units. Personally I am 50/50 on this idea, but in the grand scheme of things, it should be the player’s responsibility to manage overkill.

I'm sorry, but there is no "skill" in mashing keys nor a "skill gap" in mashing keys.  It's like saying to make mashed potatoes you need skill.  No, you just need half a brain to mash a potato well.  There is no "skill" by randomly selecting individual units to target.  Additionally, it is unrealistic for a "top commander" to be telling individual units who they should be targeting.  Extremely unrealistic and I believe 0ad wants to be more of a RL simulation - I believe that's why catapults no longer do the massive AOE damage.

 

 

 

 

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

6 minutes ago, Dizaka said:

RL

What's RL?

[Dizaka]

1 hour ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

What's RL?

Real life.  That’s the argument generally given about the 0ad - it’s not a fantasy simulation but as close to real life as plausible.  Realism and historical accuracy is an important element of 0AD.

Sniping is a fantasy feature and a fantasy “micro” skill.  There never exists one person who controls everyone to target 1 person to give an overkill problem.  That’s unrealistic and something out of a fantasy.
 

Sniping and hero strafing are end user solutions to the same problem - the “intricacies” of the targeting system.  Basically, the limitation of dev resources.  Targeting needs rework in a way @Atrik suggests to allow for better balancing of melee vs ranged.

Edited August 18, 2023 by Dizaka

[Atrik]

1 hour ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

RTS games should absolutely have skills involved, strategy execution should take skill.

Agreed, but keeping battle mechanics all revolving around tricking unit AI to make and avoid overkill is simply lame.

1 hour ago, Dizaka said:

I'm sorry, but there is no "skill" in mashing keys nor a "skill gap" in mashing keys.  It's like saying to make mashed potatoes you need skill.

Well, it probably still is a 'technical skill'. It's definitely a trainable skill to make the right sequence of clicks and to do it very very fast. But I agree, @Dizaka, 'sniping' is actually the one thing dumbing down this game rn. And I don't know that it is any sexy for new players to come to 0ad and be good at 'sniping'. Only to some players that are used to 'sniping', is this mechanic not obviously ridiculous.
You aren't going to make anyone wanting to learn 0ad showing off, the currently battle n°1 battle mechanic: sniping (aka mashing keys).

Edited August 18, 2023 by Atrik

[Atrik]

53 minutes ago, Atrik said:

Well, it probably still is a 'technical skill'.

I look at it that way:
We want to maximize Strategic skills (or decision-bearing actions).
We want to minimize Technical actions (or skills in offsetting the interface and game limitations).

Sniping is just you wanting your ranged  units to attack enemy ranged  units but you can only do it by clicking all enemy units. You are offsetting a game limitations with a technical skill.

Flanking, engage/retreat, formations, positioning of small units detachments are on the other hand what the game should be about. These are strategic skills, and it would be even more rewarding to have to choose the right one, to counter the enemy, or to play a specific battle tactic.
The fact that formations choice for a engage is made irrelevant (you should go for box every time and start sniping) because of the default AI focus isn't really fun.

[alre]

15 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Once sniping becomes a more nuanced approach, like how I expect things will turn out after my melee rebalance patch, it will seem silly to implement an auto-sniping feature with so little interest in sniping.

when will we see the next rebalance? do we need to wait for the tbd a27 release? is there a reason community mod is not being developed anymore? 

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

The need for sniping to win an engagement in 0ad a26 doesn't come from overkill. There are numerous ways to reduce and induce overkill that aren't sniping. Sniping originates from the lack of combat value of melee units (some champions can be valuable, but not very). Hopefully @real_tabasco_sauce's melee rebalance can deprecate sniping when compared to traditional micro exampes like @Atrik mentioned. 

While everyone loves to hate sniping, just everyone loved to hate the meat-shield meta before it, automating it will not fix the underlying balance issues that are the root cause. 

Anyone remember the formation spam micro from a23? I for one really appreciate how far we've come from those days.

[Dizaka]

2 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

The need for sniping to win an engagement in 0ad a26 doesn't come from overkill. There are numerous ways to reduce and induce overkill that aren't sniping. Sniping originates from the lack of combat value of melee units (some champions can be valuable, but not very). Hopefully @real_tabasco_sauce's melee rebalance can deprecate sniping when compared to traditional micro exampes like @Atrik mentioned. 

While everyone loves to hate sniping, just everyone loved to hate the meat-shield meta before it, automating it will not fix the underlying balance issues that are the root cause. 

Anyone remember the formation spam micro from a23? I for one really appreciate how far we've come from those days.

Overkill is definitely a thing with crossbows.  More so with champion crossbow from mace.

It's not really automating sniping.  It's modifying the current targeting/attack mechanic to the one being most utilized/favored by players.  It's similar to changing game stats.  

Additionally, I do not believe melee are useless.  Watch how fast regular sword mow through the current tank/archer meta.  A good maury player (and iberian) can cause a lot of havock.  Additionally, a good Gaul player can silence the ranged meta by flanking.

 

Edit:  On another note, sniping became more popular/useful with introduction of Han, a crosssbow ranged civ.

Edited August 18, 2023 by Dizaka

[guerringuerrin]

On 18/08/2023 at 5:05 PM, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

While everyone loves to hate sniping, just everyone loved to hate the meat-shield meta before it, automating it will not fix the underlying balance issues that are the root cause. 

Ofc not. And right now there is people using it agains people who are not aware of this. 
And right now there are people using autosnipe against players who are not notified of this. There are people using auto start and eco automation against people who don't agree with it and can't do anything about it.

And the arguments are always the same: "I don't want to repeat the same action 100 times. I don't want to worry about finding the barracks inactive, it is a repetitive and unnecessary action."
As if a macro that makes instant decisions, instant auto batch number according resources wasn't a totally clear advantage. What will be the next one? teleportation through buildings with just a few clicks? hehe...

And then they say: "then don't use autociv, because it adds hotkeys that the game does not have and that is a great advantage too" comparing what is a standard in any SERIOUS RTS to the same as these macros that completely change the gaming experience.

And that's what it's all about after all, isn't it?. What kind of game do we want?
People with such valuable knowledge, which could contribute to the development of the core of the game, prefer to individually resolve their own expectations of the gaming experience. I must say, I find it quite disappointing

Edited September 23, 2023 by guerringuerrin

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

0 A.D. is in serious trouble. Full stop, these mods are killing the game. @guerringuerrin is right, in that folks with skills to actually help with developing the core game would rather use that time and effort making what essentially amounts to cheating tools in order to destroy the PvP aspect of 0 A.D. for short term LoLz. Once multiplayer has been turned over to the cheaters and spammers and botters, it's a sure sign of the game's death. 

[alre]

3 hours ago, guerringuerrin said:

And right now there are people using autosnipe against players who are not notified of this.

do you have any evidence or just reporting a rumor?

2 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

0 A.D. is in serious trouble. Full stop, these mods are killing the game. @guerringuerrin is right, in that folks with skills to actually help with developing the core game would rather use that time and effort making what essentially amounts to cheating tools in order to destroy the PvP aspect of 0 A.D. for short term LoLz. Once multiplayer has been turned over to the cheaters and spammers and botters, it's a sure sign of the game's death. 

mmmh no. the endless debate may be bad for the game though, especially since there is never a hint of any actual solution.

[guerringuerrin]

59 minutes ago, alre said:

do you have any evidence or just reporting a rumor?

Yes, I have evidence. But I won't show it until I have collected enough and there are no doubts left. And because I don't want to compromise anyone who is innocent either.
On the other hand, the author of the post himself confesses to having done it with satisfactory results in the first message of this thread. So I don't know why you doubt that such a thing exists either.
 

59 minutes ago, alre said:

mmmh no. the endless debate may be bad for the game though, especially since there is never a hint of any actual solution.

Many solutions have been proposed. Starting with not focusing on continuing to automate aspects of the game but on working better on combat dynamics based on the characteristics of the units. (damage, resistance, hp, units counter dynamcis like AoE, movement speed...).
The fact that you don't mention a single one is another demonstration that certain players simply haven't taken any of these inputs. But I do agree with you on one thing: this is an endless and, I might add, pointless debate. Because at the end of the day, and with honorable exceptions, it seems that the "external collaborators" are doing whatever they want depending on their programming skills and are not having a community approach to the development of the game. You may call me naive, but I believed that was the true spirit of a community-developed open source game project. 

Edited September 23, 2023 by guerringuerrin

[Atrik]

4 hours ago, guerringuerrin said:

And right now there are people using autosnipe against players who are not notified of this.

28 minutes ago, guerringuerrin said:

Yes, I have evidence. But I won't show it until I have collected enough and there are no doubts left.

Hope you can share with use some evidences, would be nicer to even don't start feed rumors before having any proofs.

31 minutes ago, guerringuerrin said:

On the other hand, the author of the post himself confesses to having done it with satisfactory results in the first message of this thread

I think I tend to avoid sniping all together when possible. And if I do use exactly Alt and press 120 times like you'll imagine. So would be quite interesting if your accusations would be toward me.

Regardless of if you really found a player that use autosniping or not, this is childish primitive reaction to what one find easily a threat. Sniping can be easily "cheated". Real cheats like revealing chat or enemy stats are already easy to do with a small modification, but sniping is even easier because you just have to install any software that can multiply your clicks.

A lot of 'gaming mouses' are shipped with a driver already allowing you to have any button to do multiple clicks. People can hate me all they want, won't change the fact that sniping is a extremely weak mechanic of the meta/game, that you can have a "cheat" mouse before even learning about sniping.

In my humble opinion, we should try to solve the problems of the games by making it better.

 

Now about the allusions to progui, that is pretty unrelated excepted that I authored this topic, I will just remind that a lot of people took position about it, and never actually tried it. They built assumptions, and started to be very vocal about it still. @BreakfastBurrito_007 you admitted that you never tried it and still log-in regularly to spec game of whoever is online, use progui, and start making a dozens of remarks about it, very close to harassing. You don't even know who use it until they tell you...

[real_tabasco_sauce]

46 minutes ago, Atrik said:

Now about the allusions to progui, that is pretty unrelated excepted that I authored this topic, I will just remind that a lot of people took position about it, and never actually tried it.

plenty of us did, and I can tell you it is like playing a different game. Imagine a racing game where the steering is done for you.

47 minutes ago, Atrik said:

You don't even know who use it until they tell you...

It takes about 6 seconds of observation to tell who is using it or not.

[Atrik]

1 hour ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

it is like playing a different game. Imagine a racing game where the steering is done for you.

Can't really picture the comparison since that's quite a lot of new buttons in progui for it to feel like a lose of control. And the vanilla game already has an autoqueue feature, I have more and faster control over my production then if I used autoqueue, this is the reason you call it a cheat remember.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

Nah that argument is completely illegible. I don't follow the logic.

To clarify what I said before, you have less things to do, less tasks. A smaller game. For all you care, we could remove the entire barracks UI and your gameplay wouldn't change. You hardly ever click the barracks. So yeah, you play a different, easier game because you dislike how difficult the game is, and now you use this advantage to beat up on newer players without the mod.

Then you go and claim it is justified because its how you think the game should be in vanilla and that its not cheating. Furthermore, now you call efforts from the community to call out your cheats harassment. Lets just say that since your reputation is literally in the gutter, players are bound to suspect you for other cheat developments.

[Atrik]

9 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Furthermore, now you call efforts from the community to call out your cheats harassment.

Why not you just avoid games with players you think are cheaters instead of attacking them in the chat? This solution seems more civilized if you have divergent opinions on what is cheating or not.

13 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Lets just say that since your reputation is literally in the gutter, players are bound to suspect you for other cheat developments.

Yes I noticed this is also what you wish for. I find it really funny so idc if you continue to justify behavior like your brother and yourself have in game chats.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

9 hours ago, alre said:

mmmh no. the endless debate may be bad for the game though, especially since there is never a hint of any actual solution.

The solution is obvious, you just don't like it because you use this mod.

 

8 hours ago, Atrik said:

but sniping is even easier because you just have to install any software that can multiply your clicks

Yes this is also a macro. Albeit less egregious than yours because its simply multiplying clicks instead of managing decisions.  0ad is a free game and I don't think people are really buying mice specifically to cheat in it. My mouse costs 5 dollars from a local grocery store.

 

8 hours ago, Atrik said:

In my humble opinion, we should try to solve the problems of the games by making it better

Where you see a flawed game design I see a skill issue. A skill issue that you would rather eliminate than learn.

 

[Atrik]

5 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

Yes this is also a macro. Albeit less egregious than yours because its simply multiplying clicks instead of managing decisions.

Since you think sniping will and should stay in 0ad, then you'll figure out one day or another that such click multipliers can make noticeable difference, far greater then any mods of auto-queue.

And thinking I have any mods that take decisions for me is just you talking about something you built assumptions on. You can't know what a players is doing on it's gui by spectating it, even more so if the player have panels you don't have. Or maybe you consider restarting auto-queue a decisions?

Anyway now it's obvious we won't make use of any matters in this topic so we should probably leave it here.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

1 hour ago, Atrik said:

You can't know what a players is doing on it's gui by spectating it

yes I can, its actually really obvious when players are using progui's autoboom feature. Choosing batch sizes, autoqueue, what unit to make are all critical repeated decisions, they are not just mouse clicks.

It has been harder to investigate how autosnipe is used and by who, but there are some very obvious signs that something is happening with it in-game. 

Edited September 24, 2023 by BreakfastBurrito_007

[Radagast.]

Both sides can be understood and no crimes are committed.

A solution can be to create more checkboxes like
[x] Only players with same mods + hashes
[x] Include GUI mods

Or a "no GUI mods" ranking or a warning "This player has GUI mods"?

and so on. You will find a solution. And you will walk in peace

Long term the game should be made so that brains decide - no matter what click magic opponents master. Darkness is part of the game and makes you battle harder

Edited September 24, 2023 by Radagast.

[guerringuerrin]

18 hours ago, Atrik said:

Regardless of if you really found a player that use autosniping or not, this is childish primitive reaction to what one find easily a threat. 

You are completely changing the focus of my intervention. In this and the other thread about proGUI my focus has always been on automation and how all those mods that automate aspects of the game significantly change the gaming experience, as well as being a real advantage against those who don't use it.

18 hours ago, Atrik said:

A lot of 'gaming mouses' are shipped with a driver already allowing you to have any button to do multiple clicks. People can hate me all they want, won't change the fact that sniping is a extremely weak mechanic of the meta/game, that you can have a "cheat" mouse before even learning about sniping.

A totally irrelevant argument. All games have weaknesses and cheating is possible. That has nothing to do with the approach I'm trying to give you. And this weak mechanic that we talked about that leads to the overexploitation of the snipe tactic can be counteracted, as already said 20 times, by modifying the characteristics of the units to improve the combat dynamics.

 

My question was always the same. What kind of game do we want?

But all this no longer matters, the discomfort of many users about the use of these mods and the impossibility of doing something about it is real and it is something that I only see as possible to be solved with some feature that is implemented in vanila to truly be able to know the mods that clients use when entering a host. Because whatever we say, the advantages are very clear. I have tried proGUI, no one has told me about it. And the people who use it themselves admit that, used well, it generates a very clear economic and time advantage due to the automations that we all had already mentioned many times.

18 hours ago, Atrik said:

Hope you can share with use some evidences, would be nicer to even don't start feed rumors before having any proofs.

As I said, before accusing anyone, it is important to gather more evidence. But there have already been cases of games where this error has been shown to certain players:
"Failed to initiate autoSnipeMod ogg data at: mods/autosnipe/mod.ogg"

And one could argue that anyone could have created a mod with this name just to spread these rumors. But it would seem too sophisticated (and sad) to me.

18 hours ago, Atrik said:

In my humble opinion, we should try to solve the problems of the games by making it better.

Of course. And I don't doubt your intentions at all, but I don't agree with the methods you implement to improve the game and in this I try to be completely honest and constructive in my comments. You will notice, for example, that I never use the word cheat and this is no coincidence. But I think that what you do is individually create a mod to modify aspects of the game that you don't like and although this game is based on mods and anyone can and is allowed to do it, certain aspects that your mod incorporates change and influence it completely. in the gaming experience and in equal conditions in the competitive field.

18 hours ago, Atrik said:

I think I tend to avoid sniping all together when possible. And if I do use exactly Alt and press 120 times like you'll imagine. So would be quite interesting if your accusations would be toward me.

I didn't accuse you. In relation to you, I only mentioned that you yourself say in this thread that you have emulated autosnipe with satisfactory results. Your words, not mine.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 hour ago, guerringuerrin said:

My question was always the same. What kind of game do we want?

Not a game that allows some to install cheat mods. Yeah, I'm using the word.  

 

1 hour ago, guerringuerrin said:

But all this no longer matters, the discomfort of many users about the use of these mods and the impossibility of doing something about it is real and it is something that I only see as possible to be solved with some feature that is implemented in vanila to truly be able to know the mods that clients use when entering a host. Because whatever we say, the advantages are very clear. I have tried proGUI, no one has told me about it. And the people who use it themselves admit that, used well, it generates a very clear economic and time advantage due to the automations that we all had already mentioned many times.

The solution is to remove the disable checks feature from the base game. This would ensure that all players in a match have the same mods installed and enabled. 

 

@Atrik @seeh et al.

If people would like to see macros and other GUI/input features in the base game, then those people should submit patches: 

 

https://code.wildfiregames.com/differential/diff/create/

 

 

 

[Atrik]

1 hour ago, guerringuerrin said:

You are completely changing the focus of my intervention. In this and the other thread about proGUI my focus has always been on automation and how all those mods that automate aspects of the game significantly change the gaming experience, as well as being a real advantage against those who don't use it.

Of course. And I don't doubt your intentions at all, but I don't agree with the methods you implement to improve the game and in this I try to be completely honest and constructive in my comments. You will notice, for example, that I never use the word cheat and this is no coincidence. But I think that what you do is individually create a mod to modify aspects of the game that you don't like and although this game is based on mods and anyone can and is allowed to do it, certain aspects that your mod incorporates change and influence it completely. in the gaming experience and in equal conditions in the competitive field.

I understand where you are standing now, but I though I saw you calling me "autosniping" in game chat. Sorry if I've been mistaken at some point (You are right that your comments here are constructive attempts and It's me reacting stupidly).
However I didn't do any mods for myself. I published anything I use in games. And I did my best for progui to be very customizable, implementing features I won't use if they make sens when suggestions came to me. Also did my best to make it available through the downloader.
That's how now, all players could have their preferences fulfilled: you can play with or without this mod, with or without players using it.

That's the best possible scenario where everybody can get what they want, so no I'm not a "rogue developer", "modding only for myself", and even less so someone trying to force anything on anyone.

1 hour ago, guerringuerrin said:

"Failed to initiate autoSnipeMod ogg data at: mods/autosnipe/mod.ogg"

You probably have been trolled... Not sure autosniping would be an .ogg file, they are media files. So indeed, someone likely created this mod to spread the rumor.

1 hour ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

@Atrik @seeh et al.

If people would like to see macros and other GUI/input features in the base game, then those people should submit patches: 

Some people are pretending to even hate most ideas that would relieve players from click-fast tasks. On the other hand, mods give the possibility to players to have choices, and might help to experiment things, for modders it also lower the constraints to contribute. So that's reasons I miss to understand what are you proposing here.

[seeh]

3 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

@seeh et al.

what does that have to do with autoCiv... ?