autociv hotkeys in base game

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

Autociv is a great mod for 0ad. It helps make hosting easier and faster, adds chat options like /link /mute and stuff, and provides a multitude of hotkeys so that you can pick and choose which ones are most useful for your gameplay.  There are a bunch of hotkeys that are expected for a standard rts game, and none of them allow the player to move multiple actions into one button (this would be a macro and therefore cheating). While progui has some quite egregious macros, there was at least the positive vision of reducing the necessary clicks to play 0ad. The vision fell apart when reducing clicks turned into reducing actions, and then decisions; resulting in a more boring, automated gaming experience. 

Among the most useful hotkeys for autociv are buttons you can assign to toggle through your buildings of that type. For example you can use a button to select each barracks one at a time and then proceed to tell it to get working even if your screen is not over the barracks. Even with these hotkeys, I still find that the fastest way to train with barracks and stables, or get upgrades with storehouses and blacksmiths is to manually click through them. This necessitates a click on the minimap to go to your base and then a double click to select all. I think these hotkeys that toggle through buildings should have a preference for the buildings that are idle, so that you don't have to search through each building to find the one or two that are idle. 

I think this would enhance gameplay by improving the possible rate of multitasking. Keep in mind that these hotkeys do not reduce the actions and decisions a player must make, it just reduces the use of the mouse for those same actions. Because the player would then be able to train without looking back at the base, I'd consider it a big enough advantage (as well as an expected feature) that it should be available in the base game without getting autociv. 

This being said, I know devs are busy with other things at the moment including performance, balance, and content. I'd mainly like to see what other people think about the idle preference for this hotkey including @nani who made autociv. Also, do you guys think it would be cool to have a visual queue that shows when a building is working or idle? For example blacksmith smoke could be only present (or maybe thicker/darker) when upgrades are being worked on, or maybe some action could be visible inside the stable or barracks to show training.

 

[Atrik]

Dear @BreakfastBurrito_007, you seems to actually like the idea to have features helping with production. This topic should be interesting, I'm looking forward to see more features (or just talking about feature ideas is already entertaining) for this in the game.

Since you again picked up progui (the trainer) as a counterexample, how did you find out it was reducing decisions? Is there any strategy you can't do using it? Is it nudging players toward a particular game-play? In my experience, it's easier to try out different booms/game-plans/strategy with progui in general.

The mod is light years from perfect, but idk why a few people always criticize it for having features that players (and maybe even themselves judging by this post) seems to actually want.

 

About autociv hotkeys, I guess, they where made too good (aka they can be nearly infinitely customized) that makes them more then hotkeys and deemable 'macros' by your standards:

1 hour ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

There are a bunch of hotkeys that are expected for a standard rts game, and none of them allow the player to move multiple actions into one button (this would be a macro and therefore cheating)

It also makes less sens to have them, as they are, in base game. Because you may not want to have features only accessible editing the config file or that require to understand logical operators. This is only speculation from me but it makes enough sens for it to probably be the case of why autociv hotkeys aren't in the game yet.

[Gurken Khan]

2 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

I think these hotkeys that toggle through buildings should have a preference for the buildings that are idle, so that you don't have to search through each building to find the one or two that are idle. 

2 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

these hotkeys do not reduce the actions and decisions a player must make

I feel this is contradictory. If you have a button that searches and selects buildings for you then you don't have to do it manually; hence less actions for you.

Apart from that I don't really have a strong opinion. Guess it could be considered quality of life and be fine with me. (I only do single player, so I don't have to be afraid something gives someone an advantage.)

 

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

4 hours ago, Atrik said:

deemable 'macros'

the hotkeys are not macros. They do not accomplish multiple tasks with one click or press. Also there is no need to modify the config file or anything fancy to set hotkeys, everything can be done easily through the 0ad menu. Are you suggesting that autociv has hidden features that allow you to create macros?

 

3 hours ago, Gurken Khan said:

If you have a button that searches and selects buildings for you then you don't have to do it manually; hence less actions for you.

I suspected some people would make this argument. And that is why it makes more sense to have it in the base game rather than autociv. Additionally if you compare random toggle selections without idle preference to clicking the buildings with a mouse, you'll find toggling actually results in more actions because there is no way to know which barracks is next on the toggle list. Adding the idle preference takes away the unpredictability of the toggle selection, but each barracks would still need to be selected and then set to a task. 

[guerringuerrin]

6 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

Also, do you guys think it would be cool to have a visual queue that shows when a building is working or idle? For example blacksmith smoke could be only present (or maybe thicker/darker) when upgrades are being worked on, or maybe some action could be visible inside the stable or barracks to show training.

This is very cool feature I've seen for the first time being used in StarCraft I and it would be nice to have it. I guess it would be easier to implements in buildings like blacksmiths were it's only necessary to animate a smoke. I wonder what could be the animatio in barracks. I guess it would be much more difficult. Maybe some object like flag or something (flags also used for garrison so maybe it will bring some confusions).

About 

6 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

I'd mainly like to see what other people think about the idle preference for this hotkey including @nani who made autociv.

This could be also a good feature. I'm not really sure about it. I personally assign numbers to my group of buildings and then I have to look one by one with mouse to find out wich one has its queue stopped. I'm starting to avoid using autoqueue as before. And now I try to make rounds of productions. Thats forces me to be more aware of my production all the time and make a habit. I find that I get better production'results this way than using autoqueue.

 

 

Please, don't make this just anooother boring proGUI's discussion. All the arguments for and against have been stated and we end up in an endless discussion. If there are people who cannot/will not understand the difference between preserving the manual aspect of certain economic decisions and an automatic production controller, a new endless thread will not be the resolution. Let's think ahead

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

@guerringuerrin I was thinking for the working barracks you could have a couple guys in there training with weapons, and then when idle those same guys would just sit on the floor cross-legged. I'm not sure how hard this would be to make, but it would a nice art/gameplay feature.

Edited October 3, 2023 by BreakfastBurrito_007

[Atrik]

25 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

Also there is no need to modify the config file or anything fancy to set hotkeys, everything can be done easily through the 0ad menu. Are you suggesting that autociv has hidden features that allow you to create macros?

I meant customizing them, not assigning. You can change what they do and get more precise selection.
 

hotkey.autociv.session.entity.by.health.nowounded.by.class.select.Cavalry

 

Edited October 3, 2023 by Atrik

[guerringuerrin]

21 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

@guerringuerrin I was thinking for the working barracks you could have a couple guys in there training with weapons, and then when idle those same guys would just sit on the floor cross-legged. I'm not sure how hard this would be to make, but it would a nice art/gameplay feature.

Yes that would be the best thing to do. Maybe animations of infantry fighting can be re-used to save some work.

[Gurken Khan]

1 hour ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

 I was thinking for the working barracks you could have a couple guys in there training with weapons, and then when idle those same guys would just sit on the floor cross-legged.

That sounds nice, but it should be visually clear that they're part of the barracks and not actually guys of yours.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

@Gurken Khan I think it might be confusing at first, but I think most people would learn after realizing they are unselectable. There are probably some art tricks that may help them "belong" inside the barracks, like maybe giving them a duller version of the player color, or perhaps without player color.

[chrstgtr]

On 4/10/2023 at 2:27 AM, Atrik said:

Dear @BreakfastBurrito_007, you seems to actually like the idea to have features helping with production. This topic should be interesting, I'm looking forward to see more features (or just talking about feature ideas is already entertaining) for this in the game. It doesn’t simply reduce clicks.   

Since you again picked up progui (the trainer) as a counterexample, how did you find out it was reducing decisions? Is there any strategy you can't do using it? Is it nudging players toward a particular game-play? In my experience, it's easier to try out different booms/game-plans/strategy with progui in general.

The mod is light years from perfect, but idk why a few people always criticize it for having features that players (and maybe even themselves judging by this post) seems to actually want.

 

About autociv hotkeys, I guess, they where made too good (aka they can be nearly infinitely customized) that makes them more then hotkeys and deemable 'macros' by your standards:

It also makes less sens to have them, as they are, in base game. Because you may not want to have features only accessible editing the config file or that require to understand logical operators. This is only speculation from me but it makes enough sens for it to probably be the case of why autociv hotkeys aren't in the game yet.

@AtrikYour mod can decide which units to make, how many to make, and when to make them. It can also move the units for you. With the exception of only a few players (all of whom use your mod), everyone finds your mod problematic.

@BreakfastBurrito_007 I don’t use autociv hot keys, and am not too familiar with their offerings. But based on your description, it sounds like you can accomplish most (all?) of what you want with control groups and a little more work. The control groups in the base game is what I’ve always used. A hot key button for all barracks would be nice but it would only actually save me like 20 clocks over the span of 30 minutes of gameplay (with most of those clicks happening before any real game action). Nice sure. But I’m not upset that it doesn’t exist. 

Edited October 6, 2023 by chrstgtr

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

21 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

@AtrikYour mod can decide which units to make, how many to make, and when to make them. It can also move the units for you. With the exception of only a few players (all of whom use your mod), everyone finds your mod problematic.

@BreakfastBurrito_007 I don’t use autociv hot keys, and am not too familiar with their offerings. But based on your description, it sounds like you can accomplish most (all?) of what you want with control groups and a little more work. The control groups in the base game is what I’ve always used. A hot key button for all barracks would be nice but it would only actually save me like 20 clocks over the span of 30 minutes of gameplay (with most of those clicks happening before any real game action). Nice sure. But I’m not upset that it doesn’t exist. 

Yea I was testing out the existing autociv toggle feature because I wanted to do custom batches on each barracks 1 by 1 instead of making a the same batch across all barracks. The idea came from comparing early game boom with barracks to the last 70-100 pop trained. Usually players will go from 2-3 barracks in p1 with medium or large asynchronous batches to 5-10 barracks in p2 and/or p3 with small synchronous batches. I think its because eventually it gets easier to just select all barracks instead of trying to manage them individually. I think it could be more efficient (especially if you are trying to hit a timing or a transition to cav or champions) to attempt to continue the individual barracks management through the whole boom process, and perhaps even when managing army composition later in the game.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

On 03/10/2023 at 6:24 PM, guerringuerrin said:

For example blacksmith smoke could be only present (or maybe thicker/darker) when upgrades are being worked on

Already in-game.

[Atrik]

10 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

@AtrikYour mod can decide which units to make, how many to make, and when to make them. It can also move the units for you. With the exception of only a few players (all of whom use your mod), everyone finds your mod problematic.

How you imagine it works, pointless form me to try to explain probably , but here would be how to compare it to auto-queue:

Auto-queue
which units to make: same as previous batch
how many to make: same as previous batch, if can't, do nothing
and when to make them: end of previous batch / when housing is available

Trainer
which units to make: read user input
how many to make: read user input, scale down if needed
and when to make them: end of previous batch / when housing is available

[real_tabasco_sauce]

You forgot:

Autoqueue:

Acts individually per production building, must be turned on manually.

Trainer:

Acts globally on production buildings with no user action required for training.

[chrstgtr]

3 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

You forgot:

Autoqueue:

Acts individually per production building, must be turned on manually.

Trainer:

Acts globally on production buildings with no user action required for training.

 Also, 

AQ: peer reviewed for universal acceptance that has occurred

Trainer: not peer reviewed with no universal acceptance 

@Atrik is just substituting terms to make it sound innocuous. “Read user input” is newspeak for “decide which units to make, how many to make, and when to make them” which is exactly how I described it the first time. Just because the player sets the parameters doesn’t mean the mod doesn’t do exactly what I said. Playing with a chess with the “assistance” of AI would isn’t all of a sudden made fair if the “user input” is to play at a 2000 level instead of a 3200 level, and it certainly isn’t fair if your opponent doesn’t consent to the “assistance.”

Even with the substitution of terms, he still has to admit that it does some things differently with no player action. 

Edited October 6, 2023 by chrstgtr

[chrstgtr]

16 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

Yea I was testing out the existing autociv toggle feature because I wanted to do custom batches on each barracks 1 by 1 instead of making a the same batch across all barracks. The idea came from comparing early game boom with barracks to the last 70-100 pop trained. Usually players will go from 2-3 barracks in p1 with medium or large asynchronous batches to 5-10 barracks in p2 and/or p3 with small synchronous batches. I think its because eventually it gets easier to just select all barracks instead of trying to manage them individually. I think it could be more efficient (especially if you are trying to hit a timing or a transition to cav or champions) to attempt to continue the individual barracks management through the whole boom process, and perhaps even when managing army composition later in the game.

I see what you’re saying, but it’s still possible to do that with preexisting control groups. It just requires a few more clicks than/control groups than hot keys. 

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

Ah, I see what you mean. Doing it with a bunch of control groups would probably not be worth the extra attention span lol. I'll probably try putting all of them in one control group though.

[chrstgtr]

44 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

Ah, I see what you mean. Doing it with a bunch of control groups would probably not be worth the extra attention span lol. I'll probably try putting all of them in one control group though.

I understand. But you usually hit max pop by the time you get a bunch of groups. Late game, you can have just two groups to transition to cav/champs.
 

For ease, I usually just create one group for barracks and manually do individual barracks for one or two production cycles. By the end of one or two cycles, I usually have a chance to link the barracks up on the same production cycle from the same group. Cycling through barracks, like you describe above, sounds like too much effort for the reward, to me. 

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

1 hour ago, chrstgtr said:

sounds like too much effort for the reward, to me. 

Well it would be way easier if the toggle had a preference for idle barracks/stables/blacksmiths. In that case you would just hit the toggle button even if just to check for an idle building of the type. Usually if you have even and simultaneous batch sizes across all the barracks it means you need to make houses in larger batches, with some barracks becoming idle due to insufficient res to make the same size batch, housing issues, an upgrade, or a previously delayed batch. Of course its not really worth the effort to get this marginal improvement of efficiency if there isn't a good way to do it. To be honest part of my inspiration for the idea for this toggle was seeing how efficiently progui generates batches across different barracks.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

I think its also done in age of empire, but I can't confirm.

[chrstgtr]

5 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

Well it would be way easier if the toggle had a preference for idle barracks/stables/blacksmiths. In that case you would just hit the toggle button even if just to check for an idle building of the type. Usually if you have even and simultaneous batch sizes across all the barracks it means you need to make houses in larger batches, with some barracks becoming idle due to insufficient res to make the same size batch, housing issues, an upgrade, or a previously delayed batch. Of course its not really worth the effort to get this marginal improvement of efficiency if there isn't a good way to do it. To be honest part of my inspiration for the idea for this toggle was seeing how efficiently progui generates batches across different barracks.

Yeah, but you constantly have to check if all your barracks are active. That requires a lot of checking/toggling. That’s a ton of work and really hard to do well (another reason why progui isn’t the same as auto queue). You can try it (I have) but it’s too much work for me to play a game that I play to relax. 
 

I would like an idle barrack button to match the idle unit button. Preferably with a visual cue. 

[Atrik]

On 06/10/2023 at 7:15 PM, real_tabasco_sauce said:

You forgot:

Autoqueue:

Acts individually per production building, must be turned on manually.

Trainer:

Acts globally on production buildings with no user action required for training.

Yes, this is even the value proposition of the feature. I didn't forget since I describe, and it is, an overlay panel to control production of all buildings at once. With a bit of 'innovations' to make army composition easier to plan as an example.

On 06/10/2023 at 10:18 PM, chrstgtr said:

@Atrik is just substituting terms to make it sound innocuous. “Read user input” is newspeak for “decide which units to make, how many to make, and when to make them” which is exactly how I described it the first time

“decide which units to make, how many to make, and when to make them” => you say this to inaccurately state you're not in control it therefore "you lose decisions". Witch is why critics of the feature deem it outrageous, and the trainer is systematically related as, or at least compared to: an AI.

 

On 07/10/2023 at 8:32 AM, chrstgtr said:

That’s a ton of work and really hard to do well (another reason why progui isn’t the same as auto queue). You can try it (I have) but it’s too much work for me to play a game that I play to relax. 
 

I would like an idle barrack button to match the idle unit button. Preferably with a visual cue. 

I also remember seeing a post from you asking a feature to queue a tech before a building is finished among other ideas of yours that have an implementation in progui. I'm glad to be able to play with theses features on my gui that are obvious to competitive players and feel sorry you forbid yourself from doing so.

In case some players dislikes some features while still having interest for some others I also put in the work to make the mod customizable. So of course, this can only be a bit disturbing to me to see a thread where members happily agree on the fact that my contributions are such treats, while suggesting features that I proposed through "the most hated" mod.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

yea anyway

[Atrik]

yeah... Anyway.... Everybody is free to propose different implementations of playability features.
I suggested mines, and good players, and valuable members of the community, helped to shape this mod with in-game feedbacks. With no agreement in sight, one can always push for mods in general to painful to use online, but just like this threads reminds it, without mods, we would be missing some nice hotkeys. And it's not even the only single feature of autociv. What about some other mods like local rating, map mods etc? The removal of the ignore compatibility check option is even more more ridiculous when you take into account how ineffective it would be anyway against "less threatening"/actual cheats. Furthermore, one could easily enough transform a mod into a kind of cheat that won't show up as mod, so that starts to add up to how stupid the idea is. You can already decide not to play with players you consider cheating, no need to fck everything for everybody.

Edited October 9, 2023 by Atrik