Is 0ad going to die?

[Gurken Khan]

4 minutes ago, BeTe said:

Idk what's chicken rush

That's when you train your war chickens!

I guess it's training cav from the start & putting them on the chickens until they're used up and then you sent your cav to your enemy.

[camelator]

This is why new payers can't play

 

[rejoicing]

1 hour ago, camelator said:

This is why new payers can't play

 

Sad :'( Thank you for sharing camelator.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

@camelator

I'm sorry they kicked you out for balance. Many TG hosts will be more inclusive than this one. I think some players get far ahead of themselves trying to set up a 'pro' TG. If you are persistent and improve, you will find spots more regularly. And you will also find nicer hosts

That is one downside to the community mod. Because the player base is split, it is harder for players to find games.

My hope is that it can become a CTE instead of just a fixed and balanced version of the base game.

Edited September 4, 2023 by real_tabasco_sauce

[king reza the great]

10 hours ago, camelator said:

This is why new payers can't play

 

We dont play with unknown players

Because they are smurf or noobs

In both cases the game will be spoiled

It happens in all games not just 0ad

If u r noob just play games in ur lvl and try to lvl up

If u r smurf just come with ur real acc

GL

Edited September 4, 2023 by king reza the great

[70H4NN2S]

13 hours ago, camelator said:

This is why new payers can't play

 

@camelator i am really sorry for this. I didn't had a great day until then and was a little bit stressed. I had bad experience with smurfs telling they are bad players and then suddenly being the best or one of the best players in that game. It trows off the entire balance, which you want to have. 
There are players who have time for maybe 1-2 games in the night and they want to enjoy it, so i try to put known players in there.

But i know how hard it is a beginner. I was in that position a few months ago and it's really hard. You want to play but are rejected, because some players want to have a good time with players they know. It took me a long time to be slowly accepted in those games. What i usually did was, host a game on my own. 

Look everybody is always careful about the lvl of the other players, like @CryptoCamelius in that chat. The sad reality is that many players fear other players they don't know, because it might be a 2000 rated player or a person who plays 0ad for the first game or just another smurf or troll.

I go sometimes to other games and try to help new players by giving them some tipps and hints and try to help them improve if i am able to do it, just like other players helped me. 

We need a better rating system for 0ad in my opinion. Something that can rate the TG performance of each player and then maybe just autoBalance the games on his own, so the hosts don't have the dilema between choosing who to let play.

I am sorry.

[Gurken Khan]

53 minutes ago, 70H4NN2S said:

We need a better rating system for 0ad in my opinion. Something that can rate the TG performance of each player

While a TG rating might be good it helps zero with new accounts (noob or smurf).

[70H4NN2S]

38 minutes ago, Gurken Khan said:

While a TG rating might be good it helps zero with new accounts (noob or smurf).

But it will become accurate after the first 10 games or so. It might be harder to get the first games with that system, but it will make smurfing less appealing. New players start without community-mod, so it will take them some time to get it. But it will be suspicious if you see suddenly a account with 0 games wanting to play a game that's hosted with the community-mod. 
It will not change so much for new players, but make it harder for smurfs. 
And like in my case will i be able to trust camelator and other players easier, if i get a somewhat accurate rating for him for TGs and know that he played a few games with that account. So i can let a player i don't know play easily.

 

Smurfs will have to grind harder and their ratings will be corrected after they destroy 1-2 games with the right formula.

 

Edited September 4, 2023 by 70H4NN2S

[camelator]

13 hours ago, king reza the great said:

We dont play with unknown players

Because they are smurf or noobs

In both cases the game will be spoiled

It happens in all games not just 0ad

If u r noob just play games in ur lvl and try to lvl up

If u r smurf just come with ur real acc

GL

I don't agree,

there are many games we can mix players with different level. A good player can win by helping newbies and help them to win the game as well. Instead of that, I notice during TG the looser always say it is not his fault but because he played with newbies. But it is the same for the other team so... The best team win. That's all.

And I think the rule you think good is one of the reason there are less and less players playing 0AD.

And I can also said I saw a lot of games interrupted brutally because one player have bad connection. So actually the first question you should ask is what is your connection instead of what is your level.

 

I agree we have to review the rating system : I don't like to play 1v1 this is why I have a bad level.

 

 

Edited September 4, 2023 by camelator

[camelator]

I am thinking...

If the problem is smurfing and TG...

Well, maybe the most important data to display next to the player name in the hall  is not the score 1v1 but the age of the account. We can change the years by other numbers or text (I mean qualification) related to the age of the account.

I am thinking that as an old game developer who had to improve game experiences through its games. But I maybe wrong. it need tests probably.

 

Edited September 4, 2023 by camelator

[70H4NN2S]

55 minutes ago, camelator said:

I am thinking...

If the problem is smurfing and TG...

Well, maybe the most important data to display next to the player name in the hall  is not the score 1v1 but the age of the account. We can change the years by other numbers or text (I mean qualification) related to the age of the account.

I am thinking that as an old game developer who had to improve game experiences through its games. But I maybe wrong. it need tests probably.

 

I would have the option to see how many games has a player played, how old is his account, etc. Like interesting stats you can see in basically each other game. 
Now, i don't know if you have that kind of information collected, but it would be helpful in my opinion and should be definitely implemented. 
Together with a more accurate rating system that rates above all the TG performance. 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Age of Account is a good one. Also, I suggest there be 2 separate ratings, 1v1 and all others. 1v1 skills don't necessarily translate to team skills.

[king reza the great]

In battle for wesnoth which is free open source game we could see age of acc but still there were smurfs!

[king reza the great]

10 hours ago, camelator said:

I don't agree,

there are many games we can mix players with different level. A good player can win by helping newbies and help them to win the game as well. Instead of that, I notice during TG the looser always say it is not his fault but because he played with newbies. But it is the same for the other team so... The best team win. That's all.

And I think the rule you think good is one of the reason there are less and less players playing 0AD.

And I can also said I saw a lot of games interrupted brutally because one player have bad connection. So actually the first question you should ask is what is your connection instead of what is your level.

 

I agree we have to review the rating system : I don't like to play 1v1 this is why I have a bad level.

 

 

Some players like me dont like to be mixed with noobs. We like op games.

Also the reason that there is lack of players is not behaviour of players

There r some reasons

1-No new version

2-We have to switch mods many times that is annoying

3-We have to use vpn to connect to games

 

 

 

[camelator]

14 hours ago, king reza the great said:

Some players like me dont like to be mixed with noobs. We like op games.

Also the reason that there is lack of players is not behaviour of players

There r some reasons

1-No new version

2-We have to switch mods many times that is annoying

3-We have to use vpn to connect to games

 

 

 

I really love this kind of discussion.

As an old game project manager,

I am so sorry this is what you think.

During the eighties games ROMS were not updated but players spend a lot of money. I am not really sure your first point is a real issue.

as of tomorrow I think this is a choice (a good one? a bad one?) to make this game very open => If you don't like it (like me indeed) you can write your disappointment to improve what you're dislike  (I agree with you, but unfortunately it looks like the switching mod is not an issue for most players - very frustrating I have to say )

Concerning the VPN issue, .... What to say except a lot of players already reported bugs... Of course this is an issue for a lot of players... but it looks like the dev team has no answer.

But actually joining what you wrote and what I wrote does not reveal gap in players wishes.

as of now, I am in the hall: There are 13 games, and only 1 is not launched. Whatever what you think and what I think, we can't say it is a success.

 

 

 

 

[Περσεφόνη]

0 A.D. less popular because it is less casual. The fact is that in many RTS, such as the entire Age of Empires series, the computer player captures land only within his original “nook”. At 0 A.D. The AI tries to capture the entire map and attack from everywhere.

Age of Empires players may not be used to intelligent AI opponents, so I think there needs to be another layer of difficulty where the AI uses its full potential but doesn't build more than two cities. In general, it wouldn’t hurt to add a manually adjustable limit for city centers.

Edited September 15, 2023 by Περσεφόνη

[Gurken Khan]

57 minutes ago, Περσεφόνη said:

In general, it wouldn’t hurt to add a manually adjustable limit for city centers.

Mmm. You can set the difficulty level and the behavior for every AI player; I think that's enough options for players who think their AI opponents are too unwieldy.

[Dakara]

Peut-être faut-il faire un peu de publicité (le serveur pourra absorber cette vague de joueurs ?) 

Je parle de soft publicité comme de la présence sur des forums de chaque langue.

 

-Le comportement n'a quasiment aucun impact sur la perte de joueur.

-Je pense pas que le jeu souffre d'un manque de mise à jour, de toute manière une course aux contenus n'est pas bon augure.

[bunni]

I think one contributor is the project's appearance or presentation to the public.

This is the main image on the Wikipedia page, so its what search engines show as a small thumbnail. not flattering. You can update that to a more recent image with lighting and color balance better suited to thumbnails.

Section one and two of the user manual carry on without explaining how a traditional RTS works and present video from 2012. Even to me that feels like "oh boy, here we go. 2012? is this even current and correct?"

As someone who has watched this develop for 13 years with great interest but cant get into it myself, it looks like an overly technical RTS made by history übernerds who haven't updated their knowledge of game user interfaces since Command and Conquer was cool. It looks out of date, whether it is or not. On 4k displays the 0 A.D. homepage is like a stripe down the middle of the screen with a vast expanse of tiling background. I feel like I'm hitting a homepage for abandoned software left up for historical purposes.

The play experience in the early days was a lot of 'not implemented yet' and glitchy things, and when I came back many years later, it was still the same. I cant get a new player into it if its not functional and well documented (in a way a noob groks.) I think it's only inviting to old heads like us that remember when games were played on boards made from dead tree flesh, colored with crushed insect shells and tailings from mineral mines. We're patient, we remember playing StarCraft for 20 years, but these days the market is done with a game in 6 months and pushing the Steam Store's next new thing. How does a game like 0 A.D. attract players or even get taken seriously in today's environment?

As an outsider, I think redouble your efforts to make the thing look as polished as it is, take some glam shots of battle elephants under a sky blackened by arrows or something. Make a version of the docs that an RTS noob can understand cuz this is a niche genre today. Make the web site look less 90s... and that UI sucks, it looks like something out of an OpenGL programming manual, not a carefully thought out and organized system for commanding armies. I dunno, direct hate mail to /dev/null idgaf but I don't wanna see this thing die just because ppl didn't deburr the edges and developed in a vacuum.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Yeah. We should scrub as many pre-Alpha 26 images as possible and push stuff like this:

 

Keeping old stuff around for nostalgia doesn't help promote a modern game. The game itself is also bloated with about 50 maps which are sub par and a bunch of old sub par world assets too. If a tree looks bad, we need to delete it. If a map is bad, delete it. Old textures, delete or update. For nostalgia or access to the older assets, the old alpha releases are always available for archeologists. 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

to be fair, my browser thumbnails look pretty great. Maybe google already knows what I want XD

[Grautvornix]

Not that I am very relevant in this discussion (playing only casually against AI), but to me, 0ad is one of the best and most interesting games I have seen AND it has many mods and config options AND it is historically fascinating (I keep learning about about old cultures both from the game and from the this forum) AND, btw., it is free of charge.

Game mechanics and UI may look old fashioned to some, but the user interface of a cardboard chess game is also old fashioned. So what? I don' think this is the point.

It is particularly interesting to nerds like myself to play a game that delivers this level of excellence in historical relation while gameplay is sufficiently complex - and constantly challenged and improved.

Of course, there are bugs and inconsistencies, and the game is not "finished" (but which one is ever? Can you name one that is perfect?). AFAIK, it was never intended to compete with commercial platforms anyway.

And yes, there are also noobs and smurfs and all that in the multiplayer environment - but this is life. Those looking for a clean platform and mates truly and exclusively matching their level might need to pay for this as a service in a "gated community". You don't find this in the wild.

Bottom line: I like it as it is evolving, and I don't think it will die so soon.

Let's tune down the volume a bit.

[Dizaka]

7 minutes ago, Grautvornix said:

Of course, there are bugs and inconsistencies, and the game is not "finished" (but which one is ever? Can you name one that is perfect?). AFAIK, it was never intended to compete with commercial platforms anyway.

I don't know whether that is true (never itnended to compete with commercial platforms).  However, the game competes extremely well with commercial platforms thanks to volunteers like @Stan`, @vladislavbelov, @wowgetoffyourcellphone and others who have been contributing to this project for any length of time.

[Grautvornix]

@Dizaka Of course you are right - may remark was more related to time-to-market until the game is "ready" and "fully featured" as well as those aspects that are seen as a "professional multiplayer gaming environment". 

Point taken .

[poised]

I tend to play with people I know, while on the phone to them. Maybe I should make a point of playing a game here and there with randoms as a way of contributing to the game's life.