proGUI, the day after

[alre]

3 hours ago, Atrik said:

With the advantage that the player itself (and not an artificial intelligent trainer) chooses the type of units to train by clicking on icons (or associated hotkeys)

well progui is a bit like that (but not too intelligent) because it works on a logic that makes it choose which unit to train based on army composition specifications. I would actually like mentula's solution better because I would enjoy retaining control on which barracks trains which unit.

at that point a gui mod that makes you keep track on production (exactly like boongui always did) would be a nice option for those who want to improve their game without any automation.

[alre]

or maybe we should drop batch training completely but I don't quite dare proposing that.

[Atrik]

1 hour ago, alre said:

would actually like mentula's solution better because I would enjoy retaining control on which barracks trains which unit.

You can already do that in progui by enabling vanilla auto-queue in a barrack. It will still resize the batch if the trainer is on, and remember to train that unit while it can. If you do this in 2 barracks and have 5, the 3 without auto-queue enable will probably be enough balance to your compo.

Also misquoted, I didn't say anything sounding with "an artificial intelligent trainer", I was going to express that at the contrary progui solve this:

Quote

that building produces the meaningful maximum amount of units that available resources allow. I'm not doing the math here to define what meaningful means. This is an attempt to formulate the concept, and details can be adjusted later.

by being not intelligent and use user inputs on the panel. How would you solve this otherwise anyway? This is why I repeated a few times that, in my experience, it's harder then one can think to do a resizable auto-queue in vanilla version, because if you don't control it, it's a unplayable nightmare.

The experiment with the mod I did to resize auto-queue proves the point, where barracks that consume all wood or even too much of your stone can be frustrating. You want to be able to put on hold everything or define the amount of resource not to consume, hence progui panel.
This is what I mean by limitations that Mentula's proposal would bring. You could always do an algorithm to define batch size accounting for what the player will need for other means but then it's actually "more auto" then progui.

Edited June 19, 2023 by Atrik

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

I'm against all macros, so the "solution" I am most in favor of is no solution at all.

[Atrik]

1 hour ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

I'm against all macros, so the "solution" I am most in favor of is no solution at all.

I think we were discussing gui features, for example I don't think you consider formations macros, but it's running much more code then something that will resize batch size. My guess is that you'd want the gui to features to be alike the "Age Of" and stay as is. This would be a very reasonable opinion tbh. Still the gui could have some better feature for managing production.

I used to play with just a modified boongui overlay. I had nothing auto, but I could see and select idle buildings very fast, and set the batches manually, it was also already solving my issue with having to find the building for which auto-queue broke. I'm sure for example implementing in vanilla idle building icon like the idle units could still look useful for players with your UI preferences.

Edited June 20, 2023 by Atrik

[Mentula]

Some numbers from experimental data

I made an experiment to quantify the advantage provided by the proGUI trainer to economy. Technical details below. It turns out that -within the context of the settings below- I could reach the population cap 24 seconds earlier with proGUI (on average). On top of that, I could gather additional 1.14K resources with proGUI (on average).

Experiment details (conditions, fairness, biases)

Spoiler

1. Dataset

Dataset consists of 10 games, 5 with proGUI (with QuickStart enabled), 5 without proGUI (with QuickStart mod enabled). Replays are attached to this post.

2. Conditions

In all games, settings are: population cap: 200, initial resources: 300, map: mainland with temperate biome, opponent: Petra sandbox (so that no military action ever occurs), civilization: Gauls.

3. Bias reduction/removal

• Games are played in alternating order (proGUI, no proGUI, etc..) -> to reduce the impact of habits and muscle memory.
• Games are played in sequence: no other game has been played between one game and the successive -> to reduce the impact of short-term memory arising from different play styles.
• Focus on economy only -> to remove fight, rushes and other military actions that can alter economy.
• No economy/other technology researched -> to reduce the variance arising from late or early research.
• No extra food gathered (berries, hunt) -> to reduce the impact of random map generation.
• Equal number of production buildings -> to impose same conditions on production capacity.
• Equal number of fields and food gatherers -> for comparable conditions.
• Equal population composition: only one type of military unit is trained after reaching ~65 female citizens -> for comparable conditions.
• Equal equipment (computer, mouse, screen, etc...) and equal user.cfg/local.cfg configuration files -> for comparable conditions.
• No cherry-picking: all games played for this experiment contribute to final result. Find them attached -> to remove arbitrary selection.

4. Possible existing biases

• I have not played any competitive game with boonGUI or proGUI. Adaptation to the new interface and the new training system could in principle have had a negative impact on games with proGUI, in favor of games without proGUI, which is the setting I am more familiar with. It is possible that a higher familiarity with proGUI affects the edge in favor of proGUI.
• I used my mod bundle (all mods here) in the non-proGUI games. Although QuickStart is the only mod whose functionalities have an impact on the games, a more familiar setting could in principle have boosted the economy in favor of games without proGUI. It is possible that the absence of the mod bundle affects the edge in favor of proGUI.
• After having observed other players whose economy was boosted by proGUI, I could have been influenced by previous knowledge. Besides my assurance that I tried to act as fair as possible, this bias cannot be removed and can in principle affect the economy of one setting in favor of the other, although it's not evidently clear which of the two.

Conclusion

Results from experiments under comparable conditions show that -in my case- the economy of games with the proGUI trainer enabled is boosted by a non-negligible factor. The fact that both the population and the amount of collected resources are better with proGUI can be decisive in a game.

I foresee objections of having forgot this and that. Please remember that 1. this is just data, anybody can produce more data to fit different settings 2. 0 A.D. is a game based on public information: other measurements -even on other players- can be taken and shared. Whether we use a particular mod or not, the information we share as a community, via replays, is public and visible. In other words, a player who does not use proGUI have the same means to evaluate the impact of proGUI on other players [with a rough comparison: one does not have to be alcoholic to measure the effect of alcohol on others]. So any data or thought from any user is welcome and shall not be minimized, regardless of the mods they use.

I will put a link to this post in the first post of this thread for future reference.

10_replays_Mentula_20_06_2023.zip

[alre]

48 minutes ago, Mentula said:

I foresee objections of having forgot this and that.

this made me laugh, your analysis is perfect. If you added a chart, I'd have you published.

[Atrik]

Interesting.
And you had only 2 productions buildings to manage. The edge it probably provides is expected to noticeably grows with the number of buildings.

Your sample looks serious enough for this kind of experiment but very surprised from the results.

Since you don't have much edge cases in your boom in these experiments (and that you train only 1 type of unit and you don't actively manage production variables),  you could have exactly the same performances if you used the resize queue mod I cited earlier. (Will do the exact same thing: training batch using same forumla and at the same moment).

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

@Mentula Very interesting results. I would expect the auto-batching to be quite powerful economically, because the only reason not to use autoqueue as it is in a26 is that when you have 1-by-1 training you can start to float resources, which causes the economic return rate advantage of smaller batches (ie 1 by 1) to be offset by the negative economic effect of having unspent resources. With automatically scaling batch sizes, you can ensure that you are using up your resources while ensuring 0 idle time, all while not paying attention to the barracks.

Earlier we were discussing the unfair advantage purely from the standpoint of focusing more on military, but considering that it causes a faster boom even in non-combat situations is really concerning. Obviously for testing purposes you have to isolate the economic effect, but it is important to keep in mind the compounding effect that increased military focus would have on the advantage of proGUI.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

This is a good watch for those familiar with the automation debate.

Ok so maybe its a different game from 0ad, but many points on automation are valid across RTS games.

Maybe the most important is the division of attention between fighting and economy.

The controversy of this farm auto-placement puts into start contrast the motion to automize unit and technology production like in proGUI. In 0ad, we already have some things heavily automated like autoqueue. Admittedly, autoqueue is more justified in 0ad given the citizen soldier mechanics, but I heavily advocate against further automation.

Some say 0ad is too hard, but I say let it be hard. Learning how to do hard things and winning for your efforts is rewarding and exciting. To improve the experience of new players, focus should instead be placed on improving the ui, ranked games, and matchmaking/finding. Obviously, we don't have any kind of matchmaking, but it is important that new players get a few games with players of roughly equal skill so they can experience more than just village phase. Excessive automation makes RTS games easier sure, but also shallow, and shallow games are not fun for long.

One of the main issues with aoe4 is that where aoe2 is deep, aoe4 is shallow (homing bullets, 1-click strategies). We can make 0ad more deep by increasing the amount of player-controlled features, adding more technologies (unique and/or unit-specific), and diversifying unit stats.

Edited May 4 by real_tabasco_sauce

[TheCJ]

Well, Im neither a pro at this game, nor have I been around for long, but I still want to add my thoughts.

1. Is proGUI a "cheat"?

According to wikipedia: "Cheating in video games involves a video game player using various methods to create an advantage beyond normal gameplay, usually in order to make the game easier."
Now, I never played with proGUI, so all information I have is from @Atrik in this thread, but to summarize what he said the mod does:
It gives players the ability to produce units from buildings without having to select those buildings.
It gives players the ability to designate a desired ratio of certain units, which is automatically sustained (by re-training only unit types, of which the player lost some or only training them in said ratio while booming).
The player can choose a certain amount of resources to be kept, which wont be used by the automatic queuing system.

Did I get that right?
If I did, that is certainly an advantage beyond "vanilla 0ad". Because any tool, how insignificant it may be, that only one player has, is an advantage.
Now, I believe "vanilla 0ad" should be considered the "normal gameplay", which makes proGUI a cheat. 

2. Does it matter?

Well, there is a forum post about it, so it seems to matter to some people. I personally don't believe it matters, as the advantage is not big enough to be insurmountable through skill, and the advantage lessens the better you get at the game.

3. What could/should be done?
Any tournament or competitive game should clearly state before, which mods (if any) are allowed and which aren't. Of course. But the same goes for 1v1s or teamgames. If you don't want to play with someone who uses proGUI, don't. Nobody forces you. But the same way, nobody can force another player to disable proGUI. 
The only real problem I can think of is, if somebody is being dishonest about whether or not they're using the mod? Is there a way to check for the host of a game, whether the players are using the mod?

4. Anecdotal thoughts.
I don't use any mods that alter my gameplay (with the sole exception of the "delete no warning"-option from autoCiv), no Quickstart, no building hotkeys, no guis, I don't even use the default 0ad autoqueue (normally... Corrals are impossible to use without). Because I actually like to look for the idle barracks. It's part of the game for me.
But since it's still very much possible to defeat an opponent who uses all of those things, I really don't care how other players play this game to have the most fun.

[Grautvornix]

Frankly, also being a non-competitive player, I am somehow puzzled about the many issues that 1on1/multiplayer games seems to have due to people using different mods. If your opponent has mod that gives him a competitive edge, so what. The game is less fun, maybe, but should also be much less fun for that guy (no real contest).

After all, this is not a real competition that actually matters, isn't it? We are enjoying a beatiful game for leisure. (This is also why I am personally agains any trophy money) Let us keep this game fun. There is a world out there that is deadly serious already. If you want serious competion, go out and do it in the real world. 

My two cents.

[ffm2]

This is not the first cheat mod and wont be the last, here's just my opinion on this tedious discussion.

So everyone has to draw his line where cheats begin on about this spectrum:

-Map revealed
-Chat revealed
-Let ranged units automatically back up if mellee come too near, make them follow if melee goes away (cav in a ~22 were like this and broke game mechanics)
-Automatic aim at most wounded units
-Army shoots the exact number of projectiles at one unit necessary to kill it.
-Automatic dodge arrows
-Automatic wounded units run to next temple
-Automatic deleting structures at 55% capture rate
-Automatic set houses according to resources and demand
-Automatic queue units according to resources
-Automatic start with instant command to move women to berry's, men to wood, cavalry to chicken with perfectly executed cc-teleport (Quickstart mod)
-Make more contrast for better visibility
-Disable fog for better view
-Increase zoom.max = 500.0 (this should be standard anyway btw.)

There has already been cheaters/modders that enabled 1. and 2.. Most optimize their settings for the better in some way.

This has gone way too far for me. I would rather have a complete vanilla setting and disable all mods for all players than this state.

To me proGUI is a clear cheat and I know a lot (clear majority) that also consider it a cheat. You set your line maybe else where, where cheats begin, but that's not up for the individual player to decide. Atrik at least has some fairness sense that map revealed is a cheat.

If I get raided by Atrik get demotivated because he doesn't have to watch his base and can focus only this raid. Usually you can stick arount, make his units waste time and be sure the player only has that much APM. But he doesnt have to spread that amount of APM across a bigger map. He plays a different game than me. I don't accept this as a loss at a fair game.

On 17/06/2023 at 6:45 PM, Mentula said:

a) we all use proGUI b) some of us use it, some others don't c) the proGUI queuing system becomes part of 0 A.D. vanilla

a) is not an option. If it were next comes the map revealed mod (or one of the other suggested cheats above) and we all do that.

b) same argument. Some have map revealed. Not a sane option.

Quickstart is also a cheat and AFAIK incorporated in proGUI. It could at least emulate a good player. But it sends does all these commands instantly. Ungarrision from the cc in 3 different directions with different units instantly is just silly.

chrstgtr is a opponent of proGUI yet Artik and knight002 used at least quickstart in a game hosted by chrstgtr. The wishes of other players do not get respected. It's clear that many users dislike the use of these mods. It does not get stated each host. But chrstgtr made it clear here and Atrik knows it. I just saw another rated 1v1 with quickstart (at least) enabled for one player with no anouncement.

If quickstart were no cheat, why doesn't the game just start a few seconds later with the woman already gathering berrys etc.. It is not intended that way and playing it down won't convince me.

On Grautvornix: Why isn't this a real competition? Because there's no money involved? People gather together and want to play a game with even odds and give it some effort. Good performances earn recognition of other players and bad performances gets .. lets say reactions too. People care and the game is in a good state so that one can put in some effort and it's fun to rise in the leaderboard and also optimize ones skill regardless of how useful this skill might be.

It's also annoying to me that this gets cited like a dogma to automate everything:
"Repetition - If you find yourself doing the same action over and over without thought, then we need to either eliminate or automate such an action. Linear repetitious procedures are meaningless and boring."

If you take it that serious over every other argument, next time you close the game, leave it closed. Don't open 0ad again.

It's a really sad state and critics get shouted at like in the attached snippet. I don't know what to tell you Atrik what hasn't been better formulated by others already better. It's either a lost cause or needs time for you to reflect on the matter.

[Atrik]

For context @BreakfastBurrito_007 routine is to:

1. login
2. spectate a game
3. comment on my game-play with "cheat" every sentence

He've been doing this tirelessly for 2 years. He's also totally lying as he already saw me play without autotrainer and have the EXACT same tactics with success but goes on to spam comments like "rush is how he exploit cheat" in game chat and lobby. I would challenge anyone to remain calm toward someone after spreading lies and dismissive comments for a extended period. The fact is: use vanilla autoqueue, and you'll already have a "automated training system". The difference is that you have to pay attention to error messages telling you "Not enough resources, deactivating"; and when you get it, just restart autoqueue again.

As for @ffm2 argumentation, it's the same that was argued over and over in others topic so i won't reply. You believe it's a cheat and "imagine if we automate everything". You are however the first I witness taking it as far as wanting to regulate contrast or graphics settings like fog, clearly positioning yourself like willing to prepare all 0ad player to some e-sport major event. Although only the most mainstreams e-sport event actually even dare to regulate hardware/settings to that point.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

23 minutes ago, Atrik said:

The difference is that you have to pay attention to error messages telling you "Not enough resources, deactivating"; and when you get it, just restart autoqueue again.

you got part of it.

Edited October 16 by real_tabasco_sauce

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

Well I can explain my routine in similar steps:

1. want to play a game
2. see atrik (or other progui user) is playing in an otherwise fair game
3. request to spec
4. Someone asks me why I'm spectating and I explain the above.

11 hours ago, Atrik said:

The fact is: use vanilla autoqueue, and you'll already have a "automated training system". The difference is that you have to pay attention to error messages telling you "Not enough resources, deactivating"; and when you get it, just restart autoqueue again.

You failed to mention that the autotrainer scales batches in order to optimally use resources, which maximizes the boom when compared to vanilla autoqueue. And you also said the golden word too "attention". Progui autotrainer frees up attention so that you can raid/harass players who actually have to play the whole game, quickly overwhelming them and causing them to lose both economically and militarily. Sometimes these players don't even know that you have this mod. This is what makes progui autoqueue NOT equivalent to vanilla autoqueue and are what make your mod an unfair advantage. Finally, using an unfair advantage in a game is cheating.

So bedevil me for using the correct word in a situation.

Edited October 16 by BreakfastBurrito_007

[ffm2]

12 hours ago, Atrik said:

it's the same that was argued over and over in others topic so i won't reply.

"What do you mean there's a wrong-way driver on the highway? There's dozens of them!!"

 

Here is one information that 3 people try to convey to you over month, yet you fail to understand it or want to justify your cheating to hang on to your mod in regular games:

On 17/06/2023 at 11:00 PM, Feldfeld said:

The biggest advantage is in the case of continuous fights or harrassments, preferably in p1 or p2, where there are 3 or 4 production buildings per player. In that case, the attacking player can focus near all his actions in microing the fights, making threats, forcing his opponent to react accordingly, and he will still have near perfect production at home.

On 15/10/2024 at 1:37 AM, ffm2 said:

If I get raided by Atrik get demotivated because he doesn't have to watch his base and can focus only this raid. Usually you can stick arount, make his units waste time and be sure the player only has that much APM.

"rush is how he exploit cheat" - Breakfastburrito_007

 

@Dunedan I report Artik_III for repeated violation of terms of use and he shows no effort to stop in the future:

8. Not to undermine the intended gameplay or purposefully gain unfair advantages in multiplayer matches (for example cheating, using exploits or bugs).

Here is a replay if there is any doubt and here is the expressed wish that proGUI or quickstart should not be used by chrstgtr:

On 06/07/2024 at 11:29 AM, chrstgtr said:

Be honest. You posted your mod. I immediately said I considered it cheating. Many others said they agreed. Several people said they did not want to play with anyone who used the mod or any other mod like it.

2024-10-13_0018.zip