Becoming less frustrated!

[BCM]

At the moment I'm in a very "unstable" mood, meaning I become very fast sad/frustrated.

Playing 0ad, loosing very fast by a rushing computer, or even resist longer loosing then, is such a thing (and reading that the AI is weak is one more stroke).

So I thought, what could be done to make 0ad less frustratring.

Here is my result:

make more friendly game targets: managing a very fast strong rushing attack, almost killing the opponent, but finaly loosing makes more sad, than playing a long static game killing the enemy, even getting a "score" like this: "that was very slow, played very bad!" and also even if the rushing attack would be the right idea and would get success in one of the next tries.

=> winning (even slow) give a good feeling and power to try it again, trying to win faster!

The sollution to all is the "difficulty", so here my suggestions:

1. for each scenario, there should be shown the difficulty-value (given for example by experience of players).

=> always loosing without knowing why is bad. It's bad, if the reason is a strong difficulty scenario without knowing that better play an other easier one.

2. for each scenario, the difficulty should be able to be changed

=> this could be simply done by the start-condition: make the game easier/difficultier, by giving one side more or less resources and/or more or less units. One simply way would be to put more or less treasures close to one camp. In this way, the strength could be set by a value instead of a few steps (for example easy, normal, hard) and create almost infinite steps.

3. Tutorials (there is an other thread) would be nice.

4. Missions with different steps of help would be a nice thing.

(I understand tutorials as only learn all things about the game.)

Without help, there should be only written things like "kill your opponent ;-) " or smaller targets, like: "Occupy the hill"

Setting to a little bit of help gives general scenario specific hints, like: "first build a fortress at the entry of the canyon, than ..."

And a more detailed level would give specific hints, like concentrate this percent to wood and that to stone ...

(Of course the hints should be tested if they are really good/working, maybe with discussion in the forum which strategy would be best.)

Thanks.

[dinosoep]

the game will change drastically with the introduction af aging/technology/walling system allowing you to more easily counter a rushing computer (walls/archers). I think it's to early to tweak difficulty before those changes are in the game.

If you however need some advice/help, read my two strategies I posted on this forum "a noobs guide at beating...". It'll give you some ideas. Generally if a game is getting really long I recomend having a lot of hero units from a fort and building a lot of barracks. just set waypoint on enemy and start spamming. you'll usually win if you send some more siege.

[ribez]

also much things will be re-balanced, and the AI improved, so tell now what scenario is more difficult than others it's not very useful

[BCM]

... and the AI improved

Yes, I'm afraid of it ...

=> but still I believe, 2) would be good, also now. In this way it wouldn't be only possible to make the AI weaker, it's also possible to make it stronger.

[ribez]

Yes, I'm afraid of it ...

=> but still I believe, 2) would be good, also now. In this way it wouldn't be only possible to make the AI weaker, it's also possible to make it stronger.

i think quantumstate, the creator of qBot, is implementing some changes to his AI that should permit this: see here and next post

http://www.wildfireg...ndpost&p=230770

Edited January 10, 2012 by ribez

[k776]

qBot is the hardest AI. It's the default so it gives people a run for their money.

But if you want something easier, use the dropdown menu when creating games to change from qBot to JuBot, or TestBot (which are easier AI's)

[edwardlongshank]

I fully understand how non seasoned rts players can struggle especially when the game is so micro intensive in these early stages where some of the features that make rts games easier are yet to be added, unfortunately for people like me who have spent so much time playing rts games, the qbot is no challenge, to make it a little harder i do 1v3 against 3 q bots but even that is not really much of a challenge and mid to late game the lag becomes intolerable so anything beyond 3 ai is impossible with the constant mouse lag. I am not trying to Bragg or anything, the first few times i played o ad i lost to the ai so practice really counts. Anyway i was just wondering is the mouse lagg with the 3 or more ai to do with my computer performance being inadequate or will it improve once the game engine or w.e you call it improves?

[dinosoep]

I fully understand how non seasoned rts players can struggle especially when the game is so micro intensive in these early stages where some of the features that make rts games easier are yet to be added, unfortunately for people like me who have spent so much time playing rts games, the qbot is no challenge, to make it a little harder i do 1v3 against 3 q bots but even that is not really much of a challenge and mid to late game the lag becomes intolerable so anything beyond 3 ai is impossible with the constant mouse lag. I am not trying to Bragg or anything, the first few times i played o ad i lost to the ai so practice really counts. Anyway i was just wondering is the mouse lagg with the 3 or more ai to do with my computer performance being inadequate or will it improve once the game engine or w.e you call it improves?

I experience the same lag and I get it rather early in a 3vs1.against the time I killed the first two the lag is too extreme. I hope this is going to improve because my pc is still able to handle all modern games coming out, I don't see why it would be impossible with 0ad

[feneur]

I fully understand how non seasoned rts players can struggle especially when the game is so micro intensive in these early stages where some of the features that make rts games easier are yet to be added, unfortunately for people like me who have spent so much time playing rts games, the qbot is no challenge, to make it a little harder i do 1v3 against 3 q bots but even that is not really much of a challenge and mid to late game the lag becomes intolerable so anything beyond 3 ai is impossible with the constant mouse lag. I am not trying to Bragg or anything, the first few times i played o ad i lost to the ai so practice really counts. Anyway i was just wondering is the mouse lagg with the 3 or more ai to do with my computer performance being inadequate or will it improve once the game engine or w.e you call it improves?

It should definitely be improved in the future, quite a bit already by the next Alpha hopefully as Philip is working on the pathfinding (how the units gets from one place to another without either getting stuck or going right through stuff), which is one of the major issues. Hopefully there will be improvements to the AI system as well which should speed things up, we'll see if those get in Alpha 9 or 10 though.

[AngryKratos]

Hey Everyone! I've been following this game for a year and am happy with the way it is turning out. For me, being able to play a game with lush graphics in Linux, is like a treat!

unfortunately for people like me who have spent so much time playing rts games, the qbot is no challenge, to make it a little harder i do 1v3 against 3 q bots but even that is not really much of a challenge

I couldn't agree more...

mid to late game the lag becomes intolerable so anything beyond 3 ai is impossible with the constant mouse lag.

My laptop lacks a GPU, but still can handle MW3 on 2nd gen core i5 with 1366X1280...But this game lags for me too, surprising...Maybe its just an issue which I'm sure will be resolved..I've kind of play with all the graphics disabled with only the silhouette effect on.

And for you bro, BCM:

Just to add a small strategy i use...along with what dinosoep said by rolling out more heros and spamming...Add a few priests/healers in your army..and also have your army have like 5 swordsmen, 5archers/spear-men and a few hoplites. This really works out for me...

[AngryKratos]

the lag its for the pathfinding and the Ai. not graphical.

So is it the same for everyone or its just my cpu is not fast enough to handle the AI for 3 or more bots?

[FeXoR]

...unfortunately for people like me who have spent so much time playing rts games, the qbot is no challenge...

Note that all really hard AI cheat. It's best to improve the bots as far as possible without cheating. Afterwards one still can add cheating bots to make it a real challenge (Beta stage would be a good time when the game is more balanced I guess). And AFAIK the bots of 0AD are quite advanced compared to some other games.

Some examples:

In Empire Earth the AIs don't need to pay there troops fully, they need to have the resources for full pay but only actually loose 1/10th of them when creating units/building. Advancing on time only depends on the players time, not on resources at all and needs no time.

It's similar in The Battle For Middle Earth.

Hard bots in Warcraft III gain twice the amount of resources when gathering.

In Total Annihilation bots can attack all units in range whether they are in visual range or not.

Nearly every bot in any game knows the hole map without scouting.

I don't like all that things but if games are not complex enough to ask too much of the player to play "perfect" bots have to cheat to be a challenge.

But this should be added later when everything is done to improve the bots without cheating.

[quantumstate]

I'm pretty sure at some point we will start making the AI cheat to ramp up difficulty levels. There are still many improvements to be made before that point though.