Hot take: GUI mods are NOT cheats and we should not regulate their use (+ general discussion about cheat prevention)

[Seleucids]

7 hours ago, victorcrimea said:

While I'm against "wild west" in competitive gaming (in extremes it will become a challenge of automation tools). I completely agree with the incentive to make game fair by-design.

1. In order to make game fair and truly transparent it is essential to play competitive matches without fog of war. I understand it is not THAT fun, but at least it eliminates a possible map reveal hack.

2. I do not agree with the quote above that sharing only relevant state is not possible and here is where I come from: I can easily play 0ad game via Parsec(remote desktop application). So my host computer simulates and renders 0ad, captures frames and sends me only video stream which is limited to 10 mbit/s. Total video stream lag is 20ms (encode 7ms, network(LAN) 13ms, decode 10ms) and game is very much playable. Which is an extreme edge case showing that sending only relevant information is possible. So let's derive a useful solution from that: if two players Alice and Bob want to play a very important competitive match I could host a game for them on my computer. Running two vanilla instances of 0ad, and give them access via remote desktop(be it parsec or whatever else). Thus they won't be able to reveal what's under fog of war in any way and their computers will never access the full simstate.

This last example shows that it is ultimately possible to do that. I assume that video stream(knowing nothing about it's content) is way less optimized that the game could be. I also totally understand that my network is low latency and supporting less reliable connections is harder, but again if you look at a video stream it gets jelly and pixelated when network has hiccups, it doesn't make game OOS.

@bb_ what do you think about this?

Taking your idea further: some "fair" third guy with an OP computer hosts 2 virtual machine instances each with a 0ad process running inside. Then each VM is made accessible 1 player via parsec or TeamViewer or whatever. Both will then have to play according to the rules that you have set up in your VM.

And then the latency and network lags kick in...

[bb_]

7 hours ago, victorcrimea said:

network(LAN) 13ms

One of the problems in the above suggestion is in the above. This might work on a LAN, but one should consider the case when the server is on the other side of the globe than the client. In that case the ping becomes much higher (at least 133ms since that is the time that light would need to travel the distance, so it probably will be 250-300ms, try https://www.meter.net/tools/world-ping-test/). This will give noticeable lag on moving the camera, opening any menu, highlighting units etc.

Secondly, I doubt many players will have a computer able to compute the rendering for all players and observers. Sure one can come up with neutral servers who are able to compute it for small matches (and yes dedicated/headless servers are definitely something wanted), but having a reliable ecosystem for this is another (financial among other things) issue.

[Deicide4u]

Any tool, be it GUI mod or any other mod, that helps one player play the game faster than the other player, is cheating.

In RTS games, time is a very important factor. It's in the name. If something helps me play faster than you and it's not an official part of the game, then that something is a "cheat" tool.

I think this is obvious.

[Emacz]

3 hours ago, Deicide4u said:

Any tool, be it GUI mod or any other mod, that helps one player play the game faster than the other player, is cheating.

In RTS games, time is a very important factor. It's in the name. If something helps me play faster than you and it's not an official part of the game, then that something is a "cheat" tool.

I think this is obvious.

I don't completely agree... GUI makes me faster cause i can diffiernciate between berries and trees better.  The colors are more clear.  So for older people, people with poor vision etc, I think gui is necessary to play the game well.  If the base game wanted to make brighter more vibrant colors then I wouldn't need gui

Are we also saying that Autociv is cheating because it allows for more hot keys? hot keys tend to be very important in all RTS game no? But if the base game doesn't have standard hot keys, people are going to make their own.

[Stan`]

10 hours ago, Emacz said:

Are we also saying that Autociv is cheating because it allows for more hot keys? hot keys tend to be very important in all RTS game no? But if the base game doesn't have standard hot keys, people are going to make their own.

I do wish for some of the Autociv hotkeys to be merged in th emain game. It has been long due.

[WiseKind]

On 07/04/2025 at 9:17 AM, victorcrimea said:

Running two vanilla instances of 0ad, and give them access via remote desktop(be it parsec or whatever else). Thus they won't be able to reveal what's under fog of war in any way and their computers will never access the full simstate.

Thank you so much for this excellent demonstration showing another angle on the claim that making the game fair-by-design isn't hard.

I would say that I don't think video-streaming the game to clients is the right answer, though. Lag would be much more consequential, even if it doesn't result in OOS errors. However, I want to place emphasis on this line:

On 07/04/2025 at 9:17 AM, victorcrimea said:

I assume that video stream(knowing nothing about it's content) is way less optimized that the game could be.

This is the point that I am trying to make. It is possible to design the network protocol to fix the holes that I am describing, while allowing it to use even less bandwidth than it already does.

Though I don't have the time or experience to create a technical demonstration of how this could work, I do have quite an imagination. I imagine that the simcode would work just like it already does, but with only one simple change: make it possible for the host to send packets ordering units or structures to "pop-in" or "pop-out" of existence.

Then, the host would have all of the tools it needs to control what players can see at any given time. The simplest implementation on the host end would be to check on each tick if a unit is entering or leaving a player's vision range, and send the pop-in/pop-out packets for that tick. Each player command should only be synced with clients that have the affected units in their vision range at that moment. Of course, any implementation would work as long as the basic tools are available, so we can separately discuss whether running these calculations on every tick would be too costly for hosts.

The host would also no longer need to send data for units that aren't visible for the client, which directly reduces the bandwidth requirements.

There are two potential problems with this model, which I think are also easy to solve in principle:

• The map itself is also a source of valuable information when the Shroud of Darkness is enabled ("Explored Map" setting is turned off). There would need to be a way to stream the actual terrain and resource data to clients as they explore the map, otherwise players could still bypass the shroud of darkness.
  As I have described before, I can already somewhat bypass the Shroud of Darknesss simply by viewing the black parts of the map from an angle, and observing humps and dips in what is really a silhouette of hills and valleys that I shouldn't be able to see.
• Then there are replay files. If the client cannot see the whole game state (and they shouldn't), then it's worth reconsidering how replays should work. Perhaps the "pop-in" and "pop-out" commands could be recorded on the replay file directly, creating a "partial" replay, that only shows one perspective of the match.
  If we want players to be able to see the whole match replay at the end of the match, then this would require the dedicated server to download the replay file to each client once the winner has been determined. Alternatively, there could be a website associated with that provider, allowing players to search for their match (or possibly any match) and download the full replay file on their own time.

On 07/04/2025 at 5:02 PM, bb_ said:

Secondly, I doubt many players will have a computer able to compute the rendering for all players and observers.

As I said, they wouldn't need to. Nobody is actually suggesting that we do it this way; this is just a hypothetical example to demonstrate that the real bandwidth requirements to secure the network protocol aren't as you described previously.

Look above to see my proposal for the simplest change that would need to be made to make the game fair-by-design.

On 07/04/2025 at 5:50 PM, Deicide4u said:

Any tool, be it GUI mod or any other mod, that helps one player play the game faster than the other player, is cheating.

Another great example of a tool that enables a player to play faster is Adderall or caffeine, or other stimulant.

I made the point above that when playing online games, it's a fact of life that we can't control factors like fatigue and comfort for all players, and we generally accept this fact.

The mood of a player is likely to affect their performance much more than the usage of computer macros or other tools to implement the same behaviors they already have, but with less keystrokes. My case is that this general acceptance should also apply to client-side modifications.

It's also worth pointing out that the ability to concentrate (enhanced by stimulants) is completely different from the ability to type or click faster (enhanced by mods). The former of the two is relevant to gameplay, because the inability to concentrate manifests in the lack of awareness of game elements, which leads to flawed strategies being used.

The latter, however, is not relevant to gameplay. The inability to type fast manifests in the furious typing or clicking to implement the strategy that one has already formulated and decided on, resulting in direct frustration as the player is unable to mechanically implement their desired behaviors. This is a problem that I have never had when playing in singleplayer, and if it is a frequent problem in multiplayer, then this deserves its own discussion; not about whether GUI mods should be banned, but whether we should make changes in the game to avoid the Confusing UI that results in this frustration:

Quote

• Frustration of Artificial Intelligence - It is important to minimise frustration when playing the game. I have lost count of the times I've screamed at the computer, “WHY DID *__ DO *__!” Whether its AI pathfinding or suicidal units, we need to minimise player frustration by rigorous AI testing.
• Confusing UI - It is very important to avoid handicapping gameplay by making the user interface so complicated that people are not capable of doing what they want to do, and stop playing the game because they can't figure out how to control it. We to need promote an interface that can be easily picked up by our target audience. It is critical to pay special attention to other games in our genre from which we will be drawing players.

 

 

On 07/04/2025 at 9:43 PM, Emacz said:

The colors are more clear.  So for older people, people with poor vision etc, I think gui is necessary to play the game well.

This plays in to a point I made before: some of these tools are not meant as performance tools as much as accessibility tools. A mod that transforms the tree and berry models into red and green cubes would be very helpful to a player who, for whatever reason, has difficulty making out the patterns of these different game objects. It would also be helpful to a player who doesn't have a GPU powerful enough to render the models for the game.

If you are arguing that these tools are cheats, you are essentially saying that vision problems, as well as certain neurological differences, constitute flaws in that person's skill in the game, and therefore these people should not be able to play 0 A.D. with us, because of their differences. I think that's absurd and not cool at all.

Edited Wednesday at 16:17 by WiseKind
one SINGULAR spelling correction

[Deicide4u]

11 minutes ago, WiseKind said:

Another great example of a tool that enables a player to play faster is Aderol or caffeine, or other stimulant.

 

Are we playing "the philosopher's game" here? I was explicitly talking about the in-game tools. And those should be the same for all players. For multiplayer, at least. I don't care what you do in SP, that's your fun time.

[TheCJ]

7 minutes ago, WiseKind said:

The mood of a player is likely to affect their performance much more than the usage of computer macros or other tools to implement the same behaviors they already have, but with less keystrokes

Unless you can provide some evidence supporting this claim, I don't think this will convince many (I for one highly doubt this statement).

10 minutes ago, WiseKind said:

It's also worth pointing out that the ability to concentrate (enhanced by stimulants) is completely different from the ability to type or click faster (enhanced by mods)

In my experience, this is not true. In fact, they seem to be interlinked to an astonishing degree. Whenever I play a 4v4 teamgame and it starts to lag, I stop being able to concentrate on many things at once; I literally start waiting for my units to execute the orders I gave them and my APM drops significantly.

While playing 1v1 I have no problem micro-managing 3 different armies and my economy simultaneously, because it doesn't lag.

Atleast in my case, being able to click fast is a necessity for me to be able to think fast.

17 minutes ago, WiseKind said:

some of these tools are not meant as performance tools as much as accessibility tools

Accessibility tools in this context are inherently just accepted advantages to mitigate disadvantages a person has that hes not responsible for.

So it is a performance tool, otherwise it can't be an accessibility tool (what good would a tool for a disabled person be if it didnt help him?).

[Atrik]

26 minutes ago, Deicide4u said:

For multiplayer, at least. I don't care what you do in SP, that's your fun time.

The majority of comments here are coming from SP players afaik giving opinion on what MP should be. It is... puzzling. They also post elsewhere that MP community have too much influence on game development (??!!). So this is definitely a troll topic that cannot be taken even the slightest seriously. As for fun, MP players also play for fun. There will never be 'pros' players on a free game, they are just designated this way when they are regular players.

[Seleucids]

1 minute ago, Atrik said:

So this is definitely a troll topic that cannot be taken even the slightest seriously.

Especially considering what AFistfulofDollars (Geriatrix) just said about me in the gamesetup page of Barcodes TG. You saw that. He also claimed that this @WiseKind is my smurf (clearly wrong). @WiseKind maybe you and @Dunedan should address this. 

Atrik I consider you to be one of the most intelligent players in the lobby, please stay calm and carry on with your valuable work. Let's not be distracted by haters nor fall prey to Geriatrix trolling. 

[WiseKind]

54 minutes ago, Deicide4u said:

Are we playing "the philosopher's game" here? I was explicitly talking about the in-game tools. And those should be the same for all players.

I get the feeling that you didn't even read or consider my full argument.

Yes, you were focusing on in-game tools. I understood that much. I was making the point that these tools should not be regulated, and I tied this to two statements that I have already made more than once throughout this thread:

• The effect of these tools can be somewhat compared to the effect of life factors such as fatigue or stress, something we already generally don't try to regulate just for an online match.
• There are two different aspects of the gameplay experience: the mental challenge of keeping track of everything, and the mechanical challenge of implementing the strategy that one has chosen. I claim that mods mostly only help with the latter, which is already not relevant to skill because the game does a good job at keeping the required keystrokes to a manageable level, at least in my opinion. Nor should it be relevant to skill, because a game where skill is capped by a player's typing speed doesn't sound like fun at all.

I'd like you to tackle these statements individually in order to claim that these mods can be described as a cheat (which, in this context, can be understood as a way to replace the needed skills to play the game competitively). And they say I'm the one making all the assumptions...

42 minutes ago, TheCJ said:

Unless you can provide some evidence supporting this claim, I don't think this will convince many (I for one highly doubt this statement).

I was just repeating something that @Atrik said in the old thread that got deleted. Perhaps I should have been more clear that this isn't my original idea, so I apologize for that.

Maybe ask Atrik what made them say that, but in the meantime, here's the rest of my case.

Illustrating my point with an example

Let's bring into focus the imaginary scenario that everyone has probably already thought about, but don't want to put it into words for some reason or another.

Suppose a player is VERY new to the game, either on about my skill level (Hard Petra Bot is my limit), or even weaker. I can go back to my old replays, and I almost always am able to describe the mistakes I made in strategic terms (spending too much time finding a food source in the early game, or focusing too much on early-game research and not enough on training units, etc.).

Now suppose that player installs ProGUI, and uses the feature that everyone has been describing, which allows the player to set-and-forget their unit training routine, and if I remember correctly, resource gathering as well. A new player sets their rally point on the starting resources and hits "go", and they can passively watch the same early-game progression that other (good) players are used to manually performing.

Problem #1: I have developed the belief that what makes a player "good" or "bad" can almost always be described in strategic terms. If you need more evidence for this claim, maybe I can pull out some of my old replays, compare them with more recent replays, and add commentary on what I really think was going wrong there.

In this hypothetical example, what is making the player bad is that they don't know how to implement this strategy manually. The mod knows more about how to play the game than they do, which isn't true for even probably me. When spoken like this, it may seem like ProGUI or other tools can be used effectively as a teaching tool for VERY new players, helping them to grasp the concepts that seasoned players take for granted.

Features like this may even be considered for the vanilla tutorial; something like a trigger that automatically controls the player's units to show them what semi-decent gameplay might look like. Combined with the tutorial panel, this could be a way to illustrate how a good player thinks. However, this wouldn't go very far, because...

Problem #2: This game is (should be) sufficiently diverse and sophisticated that, in this hypothetical example, the VERY new player who is using ProGUI to watch their economy passively grow in ways that don't work in vanilla, would still lack the sufficient strategic understanding of the game to, you know, actually play good.

The game starts, and the first thing I do is set my civic center rally point on the starting resources. As a VERY new player, I genuinely see nothing wrong with this! Oh, my population limit was reached? Time to select all of my units and order them to build houses in a row. Every single unit is no longer building resources, and is now walking across my base to build a bunch of houses, which takes a while. Now I can get back to gathering. My berries run out, so I do what the tutorial suggested and build farms next to my civic center. My wood runs out, so I build a storehouse beside the next closest source of wood. I don't build a barracks early-on, or defense towers, or anything else, because I'm a new player and I don't understand any of that. Other players have stated in the past that ProGUI doesn't automate decisions about building construction, which is what I'm going with for this example. But even if it did, it would still be a similar story.

It may be true that a new player would benefit greatly from the mod in terms of raw scores, but it doesn't serve as a replacement for knowing how to play. Someone who does know how to play still has to pay attention to everything in order to get the best possible use of the mod.

In conclusion: So, I just made this example knowing that there is a whole lot of room for me to have to fill in details that I wouldn't know definitively, so it's worth stating again that I still haven't tried ProGUI, and I know that there's a high chance that a lot of what I just said is inconsistent with the actual mod. I would like to say that this is besides my point. It's just an example, and you can comment on every little thing that I misunderstood, and say that I'm a bigot (I will probably do just that, once I have actually tried it), but these are all minor nitpicks, and my point still stands. My point is that even if a GUI mod is capable of making strategic decisions on the player's behalf, this cannot be considered cheating, because such mechanisms still depend on the player's ability to concentrate and understand what is happening, which will always be necessary.

53 minutes ago, TheCJ said:

Whenever I play a 4v4 teamgame and it starts to lag, I stop being able to concentrate on many things at once; I literally start waiting for my units to execute the orders I gave them and my APM drops significantly.

While playing 1v1 I have no problem micro-managing 3 different armies and my economy simultaneously, because it doesn't lag.

If I am understanding this correctly, your claim is that the lag in the game affects your ability to keep track of everything.

I feel like I must put a pin in this and discuss it later, because I obviously don't know what the lag is like, since I've never tried multiplayer. I have tested the multiplayer by running multiple clients on the same computer, and the result is that every command I send has a noticeable delay, but this doesn't make it harder for me to concentrate on what I am doing (not that I was ever trying to, since those tests were mostly an attempt to explore for myself how multiplayer works in 0 A.D.).

In the meantime, maybe be more specific about what you mean?

1 hour ago, TheCJ said:

Atleast in my case, being able to click fast is a necessity for me to be able to think fast.

Again, I have yet to experience 0 A.D. at a high level, so I can't really make a claim here, but I think it would be helpful for you to be more specific about how this works, if that is possible.

The scenario that this makes me think of is one where you input your commands on the keyboard (and don't struggle to do so), but must wait for those commands to be enacted before you can begin thinking ahead.

I don't see where a GUI mod fits into the picture here. A GUI mod might reduce the number of required keystrokes, but it wouldn't make the lag go away. If this is your experience, then I don't see how a mod like ProGUI would make it better.

And if it is the case that you are struggling to input the key commands fast enough, then I would say that this is the Confusing UI problem like I mentioned above. Being limited by my typing speed doesn't sound like fun at all, and if that happens frequently in a typical rated match, then I would say that 0 A.D. is falling for the Confusing UI snare that they mentioned in the Vision.

38 minutes ago, Atrik said:

The majority of comments here are coming from SP players afaik giving opinion on what MP should be. It is... puzzling. They also post elsewhere that MP community have too much influence on game development (??!!). So this is definitely a troll topic that cannot be taken even the slightest seriously.

I think this comment is unfair. I wouldn't say that this is a troll topic that doesn't deserve sincerity. I, for one, have had a lot of fun in this one discussion, and a lot of productive and mature argumentation has already been observed, which I enjoyed a lot.

I am feeling the frustration that some forum users don't seem to see my argument eye-to-eye, and make comments that seem to ignore things that I have already said. But neither @Atrik nor @TheCJ are guilty of this, to my knowledge. And it doesn't ruin the whole thread for me.

Also keep in mind that this thread is actually several threads in one. There are the following arguments occuring simultaneously here:

• Are mods like ProGUI and AutoCiv unfair to players who aren't using them?
• How should we address the flaw in multiplayer that allows any player to reveal the map unfairly? (a completely different question than the one above it)
• How much of the community is SP-only, and therefore much harder to measure?
• Emphasis on singleplayer in future Beta versions?
• About the notorious lag in multiplayer due to poorly-optimized code

As you can see, these are completely different topics that have all been brought up at least once in this singular thread. To confuse these disparate questions into one would be a mistake.

I would also like to say that every opinion I have stated about "what MP should be" has been on the basis of 0 A.D. being a free software project, and I feel I do have a stake in how certain networking and social structures are implemented, because I don't want to see this great project get ruined because people don't understand my vision of what free software is supposed to be about. But I understand now that I am not going to change the opinion of other people, and I would be better off seeking out a portion of the community who is more welcoming to mod users, letting everyone else do their thing.

47 minutes ago, Atrik said:

As for fun, MP players also play for fun. There will never be 'pros' players on a free game, they are just designated this way when they are regular players.

Hearing this makes me want to try the multiplayer lobby sooner. I did register on the lobby, mostly as a defensive reservation of my username, and when I looked at the list of active games, I saw two people playing a 2v2 versus the Very Easy Petra Bot.

If that is what people are using the lobby for, then I might just give it a try, maybe even today. I do plan to try that and ProGUI, mostly because it has been brought up so much, and because understanding what these tools actually are, and how they work, will allow my to better illustrate the opinion I have.

But, as I have also already said, my base claim does not depend on specific facts about these specific tools. In this very post, I may have gotten a ton of stuff wrong about ProGUI, and this will probably make me cringe and want to go back and edit my mistakes later, but please understand that my base claim is that there can be no such thing as a GUI cheat mod. Therefore, no fact about these specific tools will ever change my mind. Hopefully you can understand this.

I understand the frustration of seeing people make foolish assumptions about your own work, without putting any effort to understand the very thing they are arguing about. But please understand that I am not arguing about ProGUI at all; it's just a useful example that I use to illustrate my base claim that actually has nothing to do with ProGUI, and I am only working with the information that I have gathered from other forum users.

If I have misunderstood one of these things that other people have described (and I have misunderstood at least one thing, I'm sure of it), then feel free to correct me, but please don't call me a bigot and say that this entire thread is just a big joke, because it's not. As I have said before, please look past the misunderstandings and see the broader argument being had.

[Deicide4u]

@WiseKind At this point, you "arguments" start to sound like trolling to me. I'm not reading all of that because you said

33 minutes ago, WiseKind said:

The effect of these tools can be somewhat compared to the effect of life factors such as fatigue or stress, something we already generally don't try to regulate just for an online match.

and they literally can't be compared. 

34 minutes ago, WiseKind said:

About the notorious lag in multiplayer due to poorly-optimized code

The devs are addressing this and it will most likely be fixed in the next release.

Can't read everything, sorry.

[TheCJ]

5 hours ago, Deicide4u said:

and they literally can't be compared

why?

(Fatigue makes me play worse, proGUI also makes me play worse, sounds similar to me )

No for real, both "external factors" that arent connected to the game and "internal factors" like mods can have an impact on how well you play, so atleast in that aspect they can very well be compared.

Of course those factors are also sufficiently different in their nature that a comparison will be limited in usefulness.

[TheCJ]

6 hours ago, WiseKind said:

but I think it would be helpful for you to be more specific about how this works, if that is possible.

I expressed myself poorly due to my lack of understanding my own mind/behaviour. My main goal was to give you an (albeit very subjective/singular) example of a player (myself) whose concentration is connected to the amount of meaningful inputs he can give the game, as you claimed those two measures to be generally distinct. It might only be tangential to the main point.

 

I'll try to phrase it more eloquently:

In some 4v4 teamgames, the performance drops to single digit fps (mostly during large fights) with additional input delay and stuttering due to network issues with some players. This results in a "stop-and-go" experience, where some things happen, then the game freezes for a moment (it is still possible to move the camara and give out commands), then something happens again, it freezes again... Each "freeze" in this case is of the magnitude of up to 1 second (usually). {This performance issue is a seperate one and is also being addressed already, so we dont have to go into any greater detail here}

This "stop-and-go" phenomenon results in the player effectively having "unlimited" (a lot of) time to micro-manage and do many things at once (since you get up to a whole second every other second where nothing happens but you can still give out commands). It is thus compareable to changing the game speed to 0.5x or slower.

Now, theoretically this should make it easier to execute any strategy, as you have a lot of time to click all the necessary buttons and a lot of extra time to think about what you should do,

But (and the following is only my experience and should not be generalized) what actually happens is, that I have way too much "free time", I stop having to click all the time and stay alert all the time because, well, nothing is happening. And playing at "0.5x speed" (or the lag equivalent) means I only need half as many APM. At this point I get bored and stop thinking about tactics/strategy entirely (atleast thats what I think is happening. As mentioned at the start I do not know why I am unable to keep on playing the game "normally", but I just catch myself zoning out and watching helplessly as I lose the game).

The only thing I can say for certain is, that I dont seem to be able to focus/concentrate very well if the game doesnt demand a lot of clicks from me. That's why, atleast in my case, having to click a lot is a necessity for strategically engaging gameplay.

 

That being said, I am the last person to tell anybody how to enjoy 0ad, I just wouldn't want any more automation in the base game.

[TheCJ]

7 hours ago, WiseKind said:

even if a GUI mod is capable of making strategic decisions on the player's behalf, this cannot be considered cheating, because such mechanisms still depend on the player's ability to concentrate and understand what is happening, which will always be necessary.

But this is a different point to the one you made before:

9 hours ago, WiseKind said:

The mood of a player is likely to affect their performance much more than the usage of computer macros or other tools to implement the same behaviors they already have, but with less keystrokes.

Is it not?

 

Of course, the impact of "external factors" like stress, sleep deprivation, "mood" etc is much harder to measure than the impact of "internal factors" (and even their impact isnt exactly easy to measure scientifically), which results in both sides of the argument having "the same" leverage;

We just dont know if the "mood" will affect performance more or if "macros" will affect performance more, which is why you shouldnt use your opinion regarding this as an argument.

 

And regarding GUI mods not being able to replace player concentration and strategic thinking:

This argument falls apart when you consider meta-strategic decisions a desirable part of the game.

I'll try to illustrate;

RTS games have a plethora of possible actions at any given moment. Each of these actions has strategic implications, some of them very small ones, some very important. In fact, the amount of strategically relevant actions is so great, that you cannot possibly choose the optimal action for every soldier/building at once.

A player has thus not only the strategic decisions themselves (Like "which unit to produce" from "which barracks" in "which batch size"), but they additionally have "meta-strategic" decisions (like "which strategic decisions do I think about? Do I spend "brainpower"/concentration on thinking about optimal army compositions early on? Or do I rather focus on economic balancing first?").

For example:

While there is a fight going on, I will (most often) choose to concentrate on the fight and accept suboptimal production (just queue anything, as long as the barracks are working). Other players might strategize differently and choose to concentrate more on their production.

This meta-strategic decision (of choosing which aspect to think about) will have advantages and disadvantages (like any "normal" strategic decision). But if I had a mod that would always make a "solid" strategic decision in one aspect (Lets say I write a mod [called ECObot™] that automatically realizes when I have too much wood and not enough food and redistributes my workers for me), then I not only give away the strategic decision of economic balancing to my mod (which comes with advantages and disadvantages in and of itself and might thus not be a cheat), I also free myself of the disadvantage of my chosen meta-strategic decision (normally, choosing to focus on your military will result in your own economy suffering from "neglect"; for example suboptimal resource balance since you chose not to think a lot about your economic strategy. But with ECObot™ I don't have this disadvantage).

So the meta-strategic decision to focus my attention on my military suddenly got a lot stronger than it would normally be. The mod did not "replace" player concentration, it instead worked in areas the player wouldn't have concentrated on in the first place, which is comparable to an expansion of the players concentration ability/focus.

[Emacz]

On 08/04/2025 at 3:56 AM, Stan` said:

I do wish for some of the Autociv hotkeys to be merged in th emain game. It has been long due.

@Stan` what is the reason for them not being in the game?  Because if they were added it might solve 1/2 or at least some of this discussion

[Stan`]

1 hour ago, Emacz said:

@Stan` what is the reason for them not being in the game?  Because if they were added it might solve 1/2 or at least some of this discussion

The way they were done in the mod, mostly, as the mod is built around the game, rather than part for it. Then because nobody ported the code to Trac/Phab/Gitea

[Emacz]

1 hour ago, Stan` said:

The way they were done in the mod, mostly, as the mod is built around the game, rather than part for it. Then because nobody ported the code to Trac/Phab/Gitea

hmm ok im no coder, but there have to be people who could help, no?

[Stan`]

Yeah, but they are doing other things I suppose

[guerringuerrin]

On 08/04/2025 at 4:56 AM, Stan` said:

I do wish for some of the Autociv hotkeys to be merged in th emain game. It has been long due.

I'm almost done with that for place and select hotkeys for buildings and selecting units. I need some time (and help) to do the PR

Edited Friday at 15:27 by guerringuerrin

[WiseKind]

On 10/04/2025 at 1:14 AM, TheCJ said:

In some 4v4 teamgames, the performance drops to single digit fps (mostly during large fights) with additional input delay and stuttering due to network issues with some players. This results in a "stop-and-go" experience, where some things happen, then the game freezes for a moment (it is still possible to move the camara and give out commands), then something happens again, it freezes again... Each "freeze" in this case is of the magnitude of up to 1 second (usually). {This performance issue is a seperate one and is also being addressed already, so we dont have to go into any greater detail here}

I, too, find it VERY annoying when there is even a small amount of input lag, or a moderate amount of FPS lag. I haven't seen either of those in 0 A.D. (maybe I just have a better PC), but I have seen it in other games, and it severely reduces my ability to play competitively. Part of it is aiming with my mouse; when the screen is lagging, I must wait for feedback when moving the mouse pointer, whereas I wouldn't have to if there were no lag. I know how you feel here, but like you said, this is probably besides the point.

On 10/04/2025 at 1:14 AM, TheCJ said:

At this point I get bored and stop thinking about tactics/strategy entirely (atleast thats what I think is happening. As mentioned at the start I do not know why I am unable to keep on playing the game "normally", but I just catch myself zoning out and watching helplessly as I lose the game).

I cannot say I have experienced this myself. When I struggle to concentrate, it is usually due to sleep deprivation, which has now become my primary limiting factor to becoming better at 0 A.D. (as well as everything else in my life, woe is me).

On 10/04/2025 at 2:08 AM, TheCJ said:

On 09/04/2025 at 5:59 PM, WiseKind said:

even if a GUI mod is capable of making strategic decisions on the player's behalf, this cannot be considered cheating, because such mechanisms still depend on the player's ability to concentrate and understand what is happening, which will always be necessary.

But this is a different point to the one you made before:

On 09/04/2025 at 4:03 PM, WiseKind said:

The mood of a player is likely to affect their performance much more than the usage of computer macros or other tools to implement the same behaviors they already have, but with less keystrokes.

Is it not?

Let me clarify. Suppose that there is a modified client that has multiple features. Some of those features can be described as "macros" (i.e. single buttons to do what would normally require multiple keyboard commands), and other features can be described as "scripts" (i.e. computer code that is capable of making in-game decisions on behalf of the player, using elements of the game as input or feedback).

What I tried to say in both of those paragraphs, is that neither category of tool is considered unfair to use in rated multiplayer. Those to paragraphs are logically adjacent to each other, but not contradictory at all. In fact, they go hand-in-hand.

My case is that the challenge, the skill, of 0 A.D., comes from strategy. Other factors, such as a player's reaction time or coordination skills, are not nearly as important in 0 A.D. as they are in other genres (though, that is not to say that they don't matter at all). This is supported by the 0 A.D. vision, which clearly states that there should be a "greater emphasis on strategy" in 0 A.D. than other RTS games, and I interpret this as implying that 0 A.D. will de-emphasize other elements of gameplay that I described above.

Macros are easier to explain: they directly reduce the mechanical load for the player, but since 0 A.D. (ideally) already does not have a mechanical load problem (or shouldn't, else this needs improvement), and mechanical load is not considered part of the game (again, stated more or less directly in the Vision), then the use of macros cannot be considered cheating. People in this thread have frequently mentioned the macros of a mod called "AutoCiv", such as the ability to create a hotkey to select only specific types of units, and those types can be finely customized. I would not consider this cheating, as it only makes it slightly faster to do what a player would already be able to do, just with more keystrokes. Though speed does matter in a real-time strategy game, it does not matter on the scale of split-seconds that one would save by using a macro (more or less, depending on their overall typing speed), nor should it if 0 A.D. is going to maintain an emphasis on strategy as opposed to quick reflexes.

Scripts are a little harder to explain: my original point was that it is true that scripts can be described as making a strategic choice on behalf of the player, even if they aren't actively thinking about it in that moment. This may seem like it enables the player to offload certain aspects of the gameplay from their working memory, whereas a vanilla player wouldn't have that luxury. However, I said that using scripts in this way would be a mistake; even though a script can make a choice on your behalf, the game is deep enough that a simple script would not be smart enough to make the "best" choice in every potential scenario. You would inevitably be leaving yourself strategically vulnerable in ways you don't even realize, and an adept player would recognize those weaknesses, especially if they are common to all matches that you participate in. You could attempt to improve your script to make it better able to make the "best" choice, but with so many potential choices and moving parts in a game as deep as 0 A.D., a script that could reliably and dependably handle an entire aspect of gameplay without any human thought would have to be so smart and complex that it would effectively be artificial intelligence, and I doubt any of the mods mentioned in this thread are on that level. Even if they were, I still wouldn't consider that cheating, because I think it would be an interesting experience to compete against a fully or partially automated player, though I already know many people would disagree.

On 10/04/2025 at 2:08 AM, TheCJ said:

We just dont know if the "mood" will affect performance more or if "macros" will affect performance more, which is why you shouldnt use your opinion regarding this as an argument.

Fair point. Really, I'm just trying to say that they're comparable, which you already agree with. This is important because we generally accept that we can't control the fatigue levels of each player in an online match, even though this has the potential to greatly impact gameplay (For me personally, my performance in the game is directly proportional to the quality of my sleep).

Again, this was originally said by @Atrik in the old thread which was deleted, and I apologize for not making that clear the first time.

@TheCJ I know that I didn't address everything that you have posted so far, particularly your point that an auto-trainer, like the one described about ProGUI by others in this thread, does not replace the need for concentration, but it does make the failure to do so less punishing. I think this is a valid point, and I have an idea of what I can say for this, but I need more time to think about it, so for now... stay tuned!

[real_tabasco_sauce]

4 hours ago, WiseKind said:

This is supported by the 0 A.D. vision, which clearly states that there should be a "greater emphasis on strategy" in 0 A.D. than other RTS games, and I interpret this as implying that 0 A.D. will de-emphasize other elements of gameplay that I described above.

Your interpretation is not supported by the the text you are referring to. Saying a player's superior strategy should beat another player's faster clicking (with a poorer strategy), does not mean that the vision calls for removing aspects of the game that involve many actions like training units from your buildings.

To argue that macros and scripts are not cheats because they handle inputs that shouldn't exist according to this misinterpretation is a bit illogical.

[WiseKind]

17 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Your interpretation is not supported by the the text you are referring to. Saying a player's superior strategy should beat another player's faster clicking (with a poorer strategy), does not mean that the vision calls for removing aspects of the game that involve many actions like training units from your buildings.

Let's be clear, the vanilla game already has a "script" that helps to reduce the mechanical load of 0 A.D., that is the auto-queue. Granted, it's a limited auto-queue, with no logic for restarting itself, or changing batch sizes, based on the resource count, and it will complain if you run out of resources, which makes it less useful for early-game economy management.

This feature is good for 0 A.D., for reasons that are depicted in the Vision. The Vision calls for the gameplay to be more strategy-oriented, as opposed to reflex-oriented. If the default auto-queue were removed in a future version of the game, that would make the game worse, since all that would do is re-introduce the need for frequent check-ins with the barracks, which does not present a fun challenge on its own, and it's just very annoying.

So, if removing the default auto-queue feature would not make the game more challenging (the strategic element is unchanged), then it would not be unfair to use a mod that re-adds the feature, even if other players aren't using it.

So, by extension, a mod that enhances the feature further is the same deal. The strategic nature of the game is completely unchanged; the only potential difference it makes is that your failure to check in with a failed auto-queue (or when you aren't using the auto-queue for whatever reason), is less punishing. That's what @TheCJ was trying to argue earlier, but I still need time to get back to that.

17 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

does not mean that the vision calls for removing aspects of the game that involve many actions like training units from your buildings.

I would say this specific example is bad. I know that there are other elements of gameplay that require a high mechanical load, but the game already does try to help eliminate the "many actions" of training units. It's a simple solution that ProGUI tries to build on (or so I've heard), but it works, and I have seen it come in handy before. So, yeah, the Vision really does call for removing inputs that shouldn't exist because they are repetitive and therefore boring:

Quote

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.

I don't know how it could be much clearer than that. I don't want the skill curve of 0 A.D. to come from remembering to spam click on my units every minute or two, so this should either not happen at all, or it should be done for you. That's basically what this is saying.

 

[Deicide4u]

7 minutes ago, WiseKind said:

The Vision calls for the gameplay to be more strategy-oriented, as opposed to reflex-oriented. If the default auto-queue were removed in a future version of the game, that would make the game worse, since all that would do is re-introduce the need for frequent check-ins with the barracks, which does not present a fun challenge on its own, and it's just very annoying.

I think you'd love StarCraft. The original one, I mean.

No, really. Try it. The best RTS ever, for a reason.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

18 minutes ago, WiseKind said:

strategy-oriented, as opposed to reflex-oriented.

This is a false dichotomy. We can and should have both these aspects of gameplay.

18 minutes ago, WiseKind said:

I don't know how it could be much clearer than that. I don't want the skill curve of 0 A.D. to come from remembering to spam click on my units every minute or two, so this should either not happen at all, or it should be done for you.

The skill curve comes from strategy and multitasking ability, it has never been and nor should it be exclusively be one or the other. Skill curves/learning curves are important for a game's long term enjoyability.

The vision also states this:

Quote

• Confusing UI - It is very important to avoid handicapping gameplay by making the user interface so complicated that people are not capable of doing what they want to do, and stop playing the game because they can't figure out how to control it. We to need promote an interface that can be easily picked up by our target audience. It is critical to pay special attention to other games in our genre from which we will be drawing players.

This should disqualify macros and large-scale automation scripts from being compatible with the vision since these are very unintuitive. One of these automation mods has an added GUI panel and additional settings slots for configurations. Compare this to simply clicking a building and then clicking a unit.