There and back again: Suggestions to control your rebellious units

[krt0143]

It's about making the unit orders more logical for new users.

I have problems with the (otherwise great) feature of "go there, do something, and then come back": The "Oh cool, they come back!" becomes all too often "Aw crap, they go away...". I waste inordinate amounts of time trying to catch stupid units deciding they have to go/return to some point on the other side of a "giant" sized map, instead of staying put and wait for my orders.

And no, the attack movement doesn't necessarily help: For instance what can you do when unloading unit groups from a ship, and they all start scuttling away like scared cockroaches? While you need to take care of some urgent matter on the other side of the map? Wouldn't it be real nice if they stayed put, waiting for you to tell them what to do?

What I'm suggesting is to reverse how it (seems to) work right now:

1. Unit stances ("aggressive", etc.) should only and exclusively determine how a unit will react to enemies in its vicinity (or being attacked).
2. Units should not remember where they were when receiving a standard command (standard right click), nor try to go back there when they consider they have finished their task. Never, ever.
3. Units should remember where they started from and do their "do something and then come back" thing only when specifically ordered so (Key+right click). That "memory" should only last for that specific task, i.e. when they come back they forget about everything, and are ready for new type #2 or #3 orders.
4. Repairing a dropsite shouldn't be an invitation to gather. When building one, okay, that makes some sense. But repairing my dock is just that, a repair, and I shouldn't have to catch the repairers before they vanish into the hinterland to cut wood... It's even more annoying with the "Norse" civ which has a dropsite ship. Each time I repair that one (and it happens often!), my repairers scuttle off to cut wood...

What this changes, is that you won't find yourself chasing after units which, for some unfathomable reason, kept a memory of some past location, and won't lose it unless you memorize a new location, which is just shifting the problem but not solving it. When you have 300 units to micromanage, of which 150 have a mind of their own, your head explodes. People trying to second-guess your intentions is already annoying with normal humans, it gets horrible with hundreds of stupid-but-lightning fast AI units...

I guess you all have got used to it, and probably don't even notice it anymore, but for new users it's a major pain in the neck, compounded by the lack of documentation. Here you are, making two coordinate but separate attacks on very different places on a giant map, all the while the AI is trying to storm your CC somewhere else, and you need to spend waste most of your time catching your rebellious units...
 

(Also posted this in the suggestion thread, but made a copy here for the discussion I feel coming... )

 

[Gurken Khan]

I don't really have this problem. If I want my guys to do something and then go somewhere I just order them; for repairing x and then going to y it's two right clicks.

[krt0143]

10 minutes ago, Gurken Khan said:

for repairing x and then going to y it's two right clicks

There might be a way to control that constant second-guessing, but sorry, if any new user needs to ask and ask again to have the secret passphrase, it's like it didn't exist.

Sorry, but for any new user, 0 A.D. is a game where your units don't obey, but go their own ways in the most inappropriate moments.

My point was:
It's better to have simple defaults and the extras as optional options, than be drowned by uncontrollable options and unable to do the simplest things.

This might change the day 0 A.D. has a full player manual, with neat explanations of how things work and how to do everything, but I'm probably too old to see that day. Till then, KISS principle: "Auto-gathering", "auto-returning" and all other "auto-" should be optional, not default. Or gameplay settings options which default to "off" on a new install. 

 

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

3 hours ago, krt0143 said:

Sorry, but for any new user, 0 A.D. is a game where your units don't obey, but go their own ways in the most inappropriate moments

Don't worry, as you gain experience it'll get easier to control your units. Take the case of repairing a dock, you might have an idea of what you want your units to do after repairing the dock, so just use shift to queue their next task. Even if you don't want them to do anything after repairing the dock, you can always use shift to tell them to move to a spot next to the dock so that they can wait for your next order.

[krt0143]

1 hour ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

Don't worry, as you gain experience

Well, the point was actually to not scare away any new users...
One gets used to everything, even the worst. If one stays long enough.

I'm afraid most people won't. We're in an instant gratification era, games are plentiful, so saying new users should just accept the abuse in the hope it will eventually get better doesn't help.

 

1 hour ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

use shift to queue their next task

See, that is specifically what I was talking about!
Somebody who wants to try out 0 A.D., has absolutely no chance of ever finding out that command exists! For him, 0 A.D. will be an annoying game with uncontrollable units. I'm vocal, annoying, and yet it took me one month (and 198 forum posts) to hear about this. I'm really afraid others won't have the patience -- or just the available time.

If (general) you want to keep 0 A.D. as an exclusive private club that's fine, but in case you want to make it a popular game, sorry, this won't do: Either anybody (including dirty nasty newbies!) can immediately feel at home in this game, or it will remain a wallflower. 

(Just my 2 cents worth and all this.)

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

1 hour ago, krt0143 said:

We're in an instant gratification era

0ad is not an instant gratification based game. Learning and improving are features of games that people keep playing for fun. There are great 0ad tutorials and advice videos online as well. 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

1 hour ago, krt0143 said:

Somebody who wants to try out 0 A.D., has absolutely no chance of ever finding out that command exists! For him, 0 A.D. will be an annoying game with uncontrollable units. I'm vocal, annoying, and yet it took me one month (and 198 forum posts) to hear about this. I'm really afraid others won't have the patience -- or just the available time.

It would be a good thing to put in the tutorial.

[krt0143]

20 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

0ad is not an instant gratification based game.

So it's the exclusive private club one has to earn his entry in. Got it...

 

22 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

There are great 0ad tutorials and advice videos online

I hate online video tutorials with a passion. How to waste 10 minutes about something which could had been written in 2-3 phrases: Useless. I'm of the generation which had learned to read, and reading is my preferred medium of learning. But okay, that's me.

As for the tutorials, maybe, but with a big caveat: If I judge by the content making tutorials on this site, most I've seen are well past their "best before" date, describing things which are no longer true. Unfortunate, but to be expected on a WIP project.

Others are simply besides the point, because written by people with completely different priorities than the average modder like me. Example: Spending an inordinate time on how to package a mod for uploading on mod.io, but omitting to explain how to create said mod...

TL;DR: Not so many. The simple step-by-step explanation on how to create a civilization or a map still eludes me... I don't need it anymore, but that's 200 posts and a month later.

[krt0143]

3 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

It would be a good thing to put in the tutorial.

It would be a good thing to put in a manual.

Chapter: Unit control

Units do and don't, Why and how. Keys, commands and shortcuts to use. Special functions and controls. (etc.)

[alre]

9 hours ago, krt0143 said:

It's about making the unit orders more logical for new users.

I have problems with the (otherwise great) feature of "go there, do something, and then come back": The "Oh cool, they come back!" becomes all too often "Aw crap, they go away...". I waste inordinate amounts of time trying to catch stupid units deciding they have to go/return to some point on the other side of a "giant" sized map, instead of staying put and wait for my orders.

And no, the attack movement doesn't necessarily help: For instance what can you do when unloading unit groups from a ship, and they all start scuttling away like scared cockroaches? While you need to take care of some urgent matter on the other side of the map? Wouldn't it be real nice if they stayed put, waiting for you to tell them what to do?

What I'm suggesting is to reverse how it (seems to) work right now:

1. Unit stances ("aggressive", etc.) should only and exclusively determine how a unit will react to enemies in its vicinity (or being attacked).
2. Units should not remember where they were when receiving a standard command (standard right click), nor try to go back there when they consider they have finished their task. Never, ever.
3. Units should remember where they started from and do their "do something and then come back" thing only when specifically ordered so (Key+right click). That "memory" should only last for that specific task, i.e. when they come back they forget about everything, and are ready for new type #2 or #3 orders.
4. Repairing a dropsite shouldn't be an invitation to gather. When building one, okay, that makes some sense. But repairing my dock is just that, a repair, and I shouldn't have to catch the repairers before they vanish into the hinterland to cut wood... It's even more annoying with the "Norse" civ which has a dropsite ship. Each time I repair that one (and it happens often!), my repairers scuttle off to cut wood...

What this changes, is that you won't find yourself chasing after units which, for some unfathomable reason, kept a memory of some past location, and won't lose it unless you memorize a new location, which is just shifting the problem but not solving it. When you have 300 units to micromanage, of which 150 have a mind of their own, your head explodes. People trying to second-guess your intentions is already annoying with normal humans, it gets horrible with hundreds of stupid-but-lightning fast AI units...

I guess you all have got used to it, and probably don't even notice it anymore, but for new users it's a major pain in the neck, compounded by the lack of documentation. Here you are, making two coordinate but separate attacks on very different places on a giant map, all the while the AI is trying to storm your CC somewhere else, and you need to spend waste most of your time catching your rebellious units...
 

(Also posted this in the suggestion thread, but made a copy here for the discussion I feel coming... )

- I don't get point #1, what's the change wrt current behaviour? 

- seems points #2 and #3 are solved if you only use aggressive and never defensive. I don't personally recommend defensive and I think noone uses it pvp, but it's more popular on single player

- #4 could be a good point. I never personally had that kind of problems because I queue commands quite often (as everyone playing pvp)

btw there are written tutorials for enhancing your game, not a whole game manual though, that would be very heavy and, I suspect, not very popular.

[krt0143]

13 hours ago, alre said:

- I don't get point #1, what's the change wrt current behaviour?

From what I was told setting units to "defensive" makes them always record their current location and go back to it, even for mundane tasks. 
It's that second part, the mundane tasks, that point #1 addresses.

 

13 hours ago, alre said:

seems points #2 and #3 are solved if you only use aggressive and never defensive.

Sure. Another, similar solution is to not play 0 A.D...

Seriously, since when "avoiding problem" = "solving problem"? "Defensive stance" is a necessity outside of PvP games.

 

13 hours ago, alre said:

I don't personally recommend defensive and I think noone uses it pvp

Sorry but your argument sounds much like "Personally I don't need it, so there is no need for it".

Indeed, horses for courses. It might make little sense in PvP,  but I play exclusively single player games, and with limited units (can't train more than x of that unit, even if the previous ones died), so "defensive" is mandatory. I can't afford to lose unique units because they decided to chase some passing enemy while I wasn't looking. And I play on giant maps, so "wasn't looking" is bound to happen a lot. To put things in perspective, if my kill/death ratio in the end is below 20:1 I consider I was sloppy. See, it's a totally different game... I absolutely need to be able to tell my idiot units they should only go attack when I've decided they should, at a precise moment.

There is that cheesy tactics to thin out the AI enemy forces before an attack consisting in sending a fast unit near the enemy lines to lure enemy units back to your kill zone. Do this a couple times and everything will be much easier...

 

13 hours ago, alre said:

btw there are written tutorials for enhancing your game

Before "enhancing" something*, one needs to know the basics. Like for instance how things work, besides the AoE fundamentals every gamer knows by now.

The problem is that 0 A.D. is much like, but not a 1:1 AoE clone, and all those nasty, annoying, unwelcome noobs struggle with the unexpected differences, especially with the rebellious AI: Dumb AIs which take initiatives are a sure recipe for disaster.

* Besides, I'm sure it's about enhancing PvP games, which is utterly irrelevant to me.

 

13 hours ago, alre said:

that would be very heavy and, I suspect, not very popular

Popularity is not a metric for manuals! A good manual you read once and then forget.

But no need for a full 80-page manual. What the game (desperately) needs is the chapter coming right after the existing in-game tutorial: A short and concise explanation of how to control your units' AI. (See further up: Units do and don't, Why and how. Keys, commands and shortcuts to use. Special functions and controls. (etc.))
I'm thinking at most about 1-2 pages worth of text, and included in the game, easy to find, not hidden in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the Leopard"...

[alre]

21 minutes ago, krt0143 said:

From what I was told setting units to "defensive" makes them always record their current location and go back to it, even for mundane tasks. 
It's that second part, the mundane tasks, that point #1 addresses.

an example?

22 minutes ago, krt0143 said:

"Defensive stance" is a necessity outside of PvP games.

said who? your doctor? if you don't like using some stance, don't use it, it's that simple. you don't need to change it for everyone else, not simply on the basis that you and I don't like it.

[krt0143]

5 minutes ago, alre said:

an example?

Of what? Of a mundane task? Well, selecting a large group of units doing something, embarking them on a ship, then disembarking them somewhere else. More often than not many/most of them will start running to return to their ancient start locations, wherever those might be...

 

9 minutes ago, alre said:

said who? your doctor?

Here we go again with the personal attacks. Seriously, can you ever have a conversation as an adult?

 

10 minutes ago, alre said:

if you don't like using some stance, don't use it

Yes, if you don't like some gear in your car, don't use it. Sure.  /facepalm

The frightening thing is that you're actually part of the dev team. That both explains some things and promises for the future.
 

I'm out of here. I don't have neither the patience nor the need to endure self-absorbed children. I liked the game and thought I'd invest some time in it, but now I understand why everything here is empty and silent.

[alre]

19 minutes ago, krt0143 said:

Of what? Of a mundane task? Well, selecting a large group of units doing something, embarking them on a ship, then disembarking them somewhere else. More often than not many/most of them will start running to return to their ancient start locations, wherever those might be...

mmmmh seems impossible. I'll try to reproduce later.

20 minutes ago, krt0143 said:

I'm out of here. I don't have neither the patience nor the need to endure self-absorbed children. I liked the game and thought I'd invest some time in it, but now I understand why everything here is empty and silent.

I insist you stay, you're a good tester, and it's nice to have a clown in the bunch .

btw I'm not a dev. things are silent because there are very few active devs.

[ChronA]

4 minutes ago, krt0143 said:

Here we go again with the personal attacks. Seriously, can you ever have a conversation as an adult?

You have been told how this works. If you as a representative of "new players" ask for a feature, then the community has a moral imperative to try to accommodate it, provided it is a sincere request and there is a solution that would actually help.

Yes, that means the community gets to question your previous gaming experience, and yes even your general intelligence. This is not a personal attack, it is them trying to understand what is causing the issue so they can determine what sort of correction is needed, or if one is even possible. If you can't stand the heat why are you hanging out in the kitchen?

[Vantha]

Hi, I'm still comparably new to 0ad. I'm usually not joining discussions of other people that don't affect me. But I do want to point out something (I think is) important: 

0ad has a comparably small player base, some even say it's shrinking. Either way, 0ad is a great game, it deserves a much bigger playerbase. Having more players would  benefit everyone. We definitely need new players. We should take every new player that we can get, and avoid new players from quitting right away after playing the game just a few times. The first impression of the game counts. It is impossible for old players who have played the game for years to actually reproduce the experience you get when first playing the game. That is why we need new players that share their thoughts and make suggestions. Of course, some of these suggestions will be bad. But this information is way more valuable than many players understand. To state that a new player's ideas and impressions are wrong, jidt because experienced players think otherwise is a very very weak argument. And even if all thoughts and suggestions are rubbish (which is definitely not the case), then why not just explain and help them (without offending them)? Please be more welcoming to new players. That is a sign a sign of maturity and responsibility.

That being said, I fully agree with @krt0143 here, 0ad desperately needs a good tutorial, it would help new players A LOT. And no, YouTube videos and any other guides don't come close to what completely new players, that have never played a single game, need to know. I can confidently say this, because I had many problems myself when first starting out. Pressing random keys and buttons on the screen is not how learning to play a game is supposed to work. I hope you understand what I mean.

[Gurken Khan]

10 minutes ago, Vantha said:

Please be more welcoming to new players.

I don't think @krt0143 - for example - was received too badly; his questions were answered and (a lot of) his ideas were taken seriously. It appears that "we want to be exclusive" and talking about "all those nasty, annoying, unwelcome noobs!" are over-dramatizations. Ofc not all of their opinions/suggestions/ideas were welcomed with open arms; but that's to be expected, especially when delivered in an undiplomatic way.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

5 hours ago, krt0143 said:

See, it's a totally different game... I absolutely need to be able to tell my idiot units they should only go attack when I've decided they should, at a precise moment.

Sounds like standground will be your friend. This is the double shield icon.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

@krt0143 I think people are getting upset with the way you are phrasing things. I think you should focus on asking how you can change these things for your own game for PvAI gameplay, instead of proclaiming these gameplay elements to be flawed in general. It's not right to complain about the game design when you've already gone and "fixed" so much of it to suit your gameplay preferences. The rest of the community will not change the entire game because of your complaints, so you need to be clear in your writing that you want to change things for your version of the game rather than complaining about the way vanilla 0ad works.

[Vantha]

3 hours ago, Gurken Khan said:

I don't think @krt0143 - for example - was received too badly; his questions were answered and (a lot of) his ideas were taken seriously. It appears that "we want to be exclusive" and talking about "all those nasty, annoying, unwelcome noobs!" are over-dramatizations. Ofc not all of their opinions/suggestions/ideas were welcomed with open arms; but that's to be expected, especially when delivered in an undiplomatic way.

You've cleary done something wrong, when you make someone with this enthusiasm want to quit.

 

Edited October 6, 2023 by Vantha

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

24 minutes ago, Vantha said:

You've cleary done something wrong, when you make someone with this enthusiasm want to quit.

 

Sometimes ppl have to be accountable for their own emotions, reactions, and the way they handle them. I've had my fair share of drama, but I regroup and evaluate and move forward, apologizing if necessary, standing my ground at other times, or burying the hatchet.

[Gurken Khan]

49 minutes ago, Vantha said:

You've cleary done something wrong

 

I?

[Vantha]

10 minutes ago, Gurken Khan said:

I?

No, not you, I did not refer to anyone specific. This was meant as a general statement.

Edited October 6, 2023 by Vantha

[alre]

6 hours ago, krt0143 said:

Of what? Of a mundane task? Well, selecting a large group of units doing something, embarking them on a ship, then disembarking them somewhere else. More often than not many/most of them will start running to return to their ancient start locations, wherever those might be...

I can reproduce this on A26:

- put units in defensive stance while idle (or not, I suppose)

- tell them to garrison something

- make sure that the garrisoned unit/building doesn't have a rally point set, and ungarrison it in any way

the unit will move towards the previous idle position.

this is very broken, needs fix. Possibly just add an instruction to forget this.heldPosition when garrisoning in UnitAI.js.

thanks for reporting.