Polls about community mod version 26.6

[Player of 0AD]

Anonymous voting

[zozio32]

reagrding the first one, I would only change the fact that building should target units if in range before buildings.    There is no point in a tower shooting at buildings around when ennemy units are attacking

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

2 hours ago, zozio32 said:

reagrding the first one, I would only change the fact that building should target units if in range before buildings.    There is no point in a tower shooting at buildings around when ennemy units are attacking

this is how the implemented buildingai works unless there are bugs. Be sure that there are units closer than buildings and that you didnt attack-click the building.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

I think people should also recognize when making their vote that keeping the changes in the mod allows them to be balanced and tweaked, where as "bad change" is preferring the previous version with any undesirable features that we have accepted for a while as a playerbase. Basically "bad change" is if you see absolutely no potential for the change to improve gameplay.

[chrstgtr]

I would recommend reserving judgment for a little bit and to cast your vote in a week. Right now, I would be one yes and one no for the two big changes (melee/buildingAI) but I could see both, either, or neither of my opinions changing so I haven’t voted yet.

No matter what, I think this round of testing is a massive success for the community mod concept. We implemented two radical changes and we are getting real play testing to confirm, modify, or reject the proposed changes. It’s the first time it’ll be an actual experimental mod and not just an avenue for quicker updates. 

Edited January 31 by chrstgtr

[real_tabasco_sauce]

@Player of 0AD

your second voting point here is incorrect. 5 armor corresponds to 40% less damage, which means units that deal hack damage have a net +10% strength vs buildings.

Please reserve your judgments until the gameplay effects are well understood! I saw players complaining that archer cavalry were dealing more damage to women, this is simply the opposite of the case. I think the differences have simply pushed many players out of their comfort zone. Yes, maybe you don't like it as is, but this is experimental, and it is done with the long term growth of 0 A.D. gameplay in mind.

So please give suggestions over the next couple of weeks and I will update it one way or another.

Edited February 1 by real_tabasco_sauce

[real_tabasco_sauce]

@Player of 0AD the reason the chanakya hero was changed is because it is very awkward to have a hero with two bonuses that are mutually exclusive. You could not heal AND get the discount bonus, so after only seeing the healing properties in games, I decided the change was necessary. idk about you, but I have never seen the hero garrisoned except to try and heal up.

Edited February 1 by real_tabasco_sauce

[Philip the Swaggerless]

It seems the overall damage output of buildings was not reduced, is this correct?

I thought part of the change to structures targeting units is that the overall damage would be reduced to compensate for the fact that it would be reducing the army much quicker by eliminating individual units faster.

I think that would be good, because it can diminish the power of sitting under cc fire in the early game, but also reduce the turtling power of late game.  Instead, it seems much more difficult to besiege a player and knock them out of the game.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

Yeah the main two issues I think are the power of the fully garrisoned cc early in the game as well as the strength of turtling later on.

I agree @Philip the Swaggerless that changing building damage could be a useful balance tool along with range, default arrows, and max arrows. 

[chrstgtr]

3 hours ago, Philip the Swaggerless said:

It seems the overall damage output of buildings was not reduced, is this correct?

I thought part of the change to structures targeting units is that the overall damage would be reduced to compensate for the fact that it would be reducing the army much quicker by eliminating individual units faster.

I think that would be good, because it can diminish the power of sitting under cc fire in the early game, but also reduce the turtling power of late game.  Instead, it seems much more difficult to besiege a player and knock them out of the game.

It was. Buildings are at once stronger (kills units earlier) and weaker (takes longer to kill all units).  That functionality is something that will always be a problem. 

Edited February 2 by chrstgtr

[Player of 0AD]

12 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

@Player of 0AD

your second voting point here is incorrect. 5 armor corresponds to 40% less damage, which means units that deal hack damage have a net +10% strength vs buildings.

Please reserve your judgments until the gameplay effects are well understood! I saw players complaining that archer cavalry were dealing more damage to women, this is simply the opposite of the case. I think the differences have simply pushed many players out of their comfort zone. Yes, maybe you don't like it as is, but this is experimental, and it is done with the long term growth of 0 A.D. gameplay in mind.

So please give suggestions over the next couple of weeks and I will update it one way or another.

Wrong. Can you prove "40%"?

[real_tabasco_sauce]

0.9^5 = 0.59 ~ 40% less damage.

59% of 150% (melee damage buff) = 88% so overall it takes roughly 12 percent slower to kill a building. Looks like I was wrong.

Can you prove "70%"? @Player of 0AD

Rams only got +4 hack armor so they technically should be 98% of the original damage at least according to the same math. But players have noticed that rams go down very quickly. maybe this is a by-product of the other changes?

[real_tabasco_sauce]

6 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

It was. Buildings are at once stronger (kills units earlier) and weaker (takes longer to kill all units).  That functionality is something that will always be a problem.

I don't think this is true. I think it is much more desirable to have building arrows that have a constant effect over units in range, rather the being completely diluted across many units and then suddenly massacring an army once they are very low hp. I would bet players coming from other games would be confused that 0ad building arrows are random.

I agree that it is currently a problem because of how many arrows are available from the fully garrisoned CC for example even in p1, but I am sure that some balancing can greatly improve the issues.

[chrstgtr]

15 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

I don't think this is true. I think it is much more desirable to have building arrows that have a constant effect over units in range, rather the being completely diluted across many units and then suddenly massacring an army once they are very low hp. I would bet players coming from other games would be confused that 0ad building arrows are random.

 

Again, this is your preference. Some would say the old version makes a more dynamic game, which lends to more comebacks, strategic dives under CCs/forts, etc. etc. Let's let the community decide what they prefer. 

My comment above was responding to @Philip the Swaggerless where he said he thought CC dmg output would be lower but believed that the dmg output is actually higher in the current mod. That is incorrect. The dmg. output is lower in the current mod compared to previous versions. But, in the current mod, the kill count is higher, quicker. So, in the current mod, buildingAI is both stronger (kills units earlier) and weaker (takes longer to kill all units) than before. That stronger and weaker function will always exist with current buildingAI behavior (unless dmg output was increased so that it was stronger/stronger but that obviously won't happen). If we want the current buildingAI behavior then we have to get comfortable with that paradoxical strength/weakness.

[Atrik]

2 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Rams only got +4 hack armor so they technically should be 98% of the original damage at least according to the same math. But players have noticed that rams go down very quickly. maybe this is a by-product of the other changes?

1.5 * 0.9^4 ~=0.985

Make sens but I also get the feeling rams are less viable because swords inf are already used more often.

[alre]

2 hours ago, Atrik said:

1.5 * 0.9^4 ~=0.985

Make sens but I also get the feeling rams are less viable because swords inf are already used more often.

I don't know the melee buff change, but if there was a flat buff to melee damage, it makes sense that swords are more used, even OP maybe.

[Atrik]

39 minutes ago, alre said:

I don't know the melee buff change, but if there was a flat buff to melee damage, it makes sense that swords are more used, even OP maybe.

Yes... they are definitively stronger/more useful. I'm not totally sure we can call it OP if players manage to find enough counters against armies of ~100% swords. For now I felt like  this re-balance open up for more varied army composition then the previous 60% ranged/ 40% melee that was typical without this mod.
For sure now "Steel Working" for Iberians and Mauryas are feeling a bit op, it probably should have been reduced to only 10% bonus for swords now that swordsman armies seems viable in more games.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

32 minutes ago, Atrik said:

For sure now "Steel Working" for Iberians and Mauryas are feeling a bit op, it probably should have been reduced to only 10% bonus for swords now that swordsman armies seems viable in more games.

Or perhaps it could be good to split it into a new upgrade. idk

[Sabloku]

According to what I read, you all have deep knowledge compared to me.
Maybe do two mods ?
Im afraid of big changes, I like this game and I don't want it to be broken

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

At the start of the community mod changes were limited to bugfixes and small unit/hero/civ tweaks. The main vision of the mod was to act as a testing environment for future changes. Through 2022, 2023 and until now the community mod has served as the base game for quite a few 0ad players. This is the first release of the community mod to feature significant experimentation, and it has been both successful and unsuccessful. Every player has felt some level of discomfort as their established understanding of the game is challenged, some people reject such discomfort and some people tolerate it.

People who have considered the changes and adapted to them by and large are contributing to the mod (and 0ad) with constructive criticism. That is really good to see.

Another group of people who do not wish for the game to change, who are unable to adapt and learn, yearn to execute the same strategies that they have always preferred. When they encounter the discomfort of looking outside of their box, they become enraged. For this group it feels like the end of the world, or the end of 0ad.

Its obviously no use to include people of the second category in playtesting as it is in the community mod, because they can't or don't explain what it is they don't like (what is imbalanced?, what is broken?, what plays poorly? ect.). In previous alphas where there were balance issues there was nearly unanimous understanding, think of merc cav, firecav of a25, slingers of a23, or archers of a24. In the case of comm mod 6, there is almost no agreement between the most vocal disparagers of the mod. The lack of constructive feedback from this most vocal group is an indication that its best to protect these people from new things by making sure that the base game is in a bug free and balanced state upon alpha releases. This way, players interested in contributing to balancing/game development can test things, provide feedback and then go back to the base game if there are issues with the community mod version.

Edited February 2 by BreakfastBurrito_007

[Atrik]

This re-balance seems to changes a lot how you have to plan for army composition. Since melees are now a source of dps rather then meatshields for ranged units, the counters are significantly more pronounced.

The paper-rock-scissor is much more pronounced, and it does put less importance on numbers (army size... techs..).
Inf Swords slaughter Spears, Spears decimate Cavs, Cavs beat inf Swords...

For inf, 60% ranged 40% melee seems to not be the cookie cutter composition that will be good in all cases now, with this mod I saw more games where players tried successfully both full ranged or full melee. It really depends on what you plan to fight against and how.

For cav, melee surely die a bit faster under defense buildings (less resistance) but also inflict damage faster so rush with melee cav are still possible. It feels more balanced then when hans sword cav for example could stay under cc for very long. Massive cavalry are easier to counter with spears, as they move a bit faster in this mod and deal greater damage (as a % of total army dps).

The changes can feel frustrating because cavalry is harder to play with now, and aren't always the best unit. You can lose cavalry units much faster, but it's also rewarded by greater dps (For ranged cav too, as they kill melee inf faster, but die faster too if they get caught).

This mod did address a lot of players feedback about balance, and did it better then ideas like increasing the resources or population cost of cavs etc...

It was a bit of a bold move to push theses significant changes (even if I personally think they did great to make balances more interesting) onto the community mod without much polling and teasing. Because of this the community suffer new divides. It was well known that the community mod is a default for a lot of players and therefore isn't the "experimentation mod" for any member of the balancing team.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

It is true that it was a bold move, and I realize the mod is dividing the multiplayer lobby to some extent. It has been a year and a half since the last release, and with the meta being so static and dependent on 'sniping', I knew a bold move was needed to thoroughly test these changes if they are to be committed. If I had not added it to the community mod, the changes would either have been abandoned out of fear of imbalance or minimally tested and committed with imbalances. With this bold move, we now have the opportunity to extensively playtest changes and make improvements or remove stuff.

I could have instead made a separate mod for smaller scale testing, but I know exactly how that goes, and I know it doesn't work: 5 to 15 players would download and install, barely manage to organize a handful of matches. In that case you either get no idea of the balance and how things are effected, or you get an under sampled set of results, which is often worse.

I get that some ppl are unhappy, but I know that this will be an improvement in the long run.

[Fabius]

I just tested the mod and I must say i really like the change to the melee. I was caught of guard by the immediate loss of survivability against ranged units, but after getting over the initial shock and switching mindset a little I found it much more enjoyable having my sword units do meaningful things instead of just taking damage like before. Blacksmith armour and such is much more important now and certain hero bonuses have greater value now. I also liked the nudge towards a diverse army to cover different things as apposed to a single unit spam. Overall a great change  

Now about the catapult splash damage, what is the radius size? I tested that too and it seemed to be non existent, in fact there seemed to be little impact at all from what I could tell, uncertain if I tested it wrong or what exactly the trouble is, so was a little disappointed by that.

[Stan`]

You can now share your replays on http://replay-pallas.wildfiregames.ovh

[Lion.Kanzen]

47 minutes ago, Stan` said:

You can now share your replays on http://replay-pallas.wildfiregames.ovh

How is it supposed to be used?