spam Current trend in 0 A.D.: Hoplites spam.

[AlexHerbert]

Whether it's Athenians or Spartans, some players have already realized that this units are broken and keep abusing it. Every match is the same strategy: pressing a single button out of everything the game has to offer (Just press one button and win most games??)

I know there are ways to counter it, but honestly this style of gameplay becomes super boring for me. I was even reading a document about the vision for 0 A.D. here in forum, where is mentioned spamming as something that should be addressed. They talk about automate repetitive actions, which honestly does not sound like a good idea to me. Automatic spam of broken units?
Hmm, probably not.

Could these units maybe be nerfed a bit? Maybe increase their cost the more you train, or simply limit how many can exist at once, similar to Ministers or Centurions?

 

I found the link: https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/0AD_The_Vision.
Snares section.

Edited May 12 by AlexHerbert
to add link

[Guest]

Athenian and Spartan Hoplites are OP by design.

Use faster units to counter. 

[AlexHerbert]

1 hour ago, Deicide4u said:

Athenian and Spartan Hoplites are OP by design.

Use faster units to counter. 

It’s pretty obvious the guy who designed them was a 300 fanatic, drank way too much coffee mixed with Red Bull and, while screaming “this is Sparta”, made these unit stats in a complete frenzy.

Edited May 10 by AlexHerbert
Wording

[Guest]

I don't know about Athenian hoplites, but OP hoplites is all that Sparta has, besides Skiritai. And it's historically accurate, however imbalanced that may seem.

Maybe the Athenian elite promotion to champion is a bit too much.

[Seleucids]

Try elephants against them

They are durable enough against melee and do group damage if they try to cram the hoplites

[Guest]

13 minutes ago, Seleucids said:

do group damage

Daily reminder that Thrace Black Cloak sword champions also do circular splash damage.

As an anegdote, it's funny that they would've destroyed Spartiates in early alpha versions, due to their counter damage bonus against spearmen.

[Thalatta]

8 hours ago, AlexHerbert said:

They talk about automate repetitive actions, which honestly does not sound like a good idea to me. Automatic spam of broken units?
Hmm, probably not.

Could you please nerf these units? Maybe increase their cost the more you train, or simply limit how many can exist at once, similar to Ministers or Centurions?

The problem doesn't seem to be the automatic spam then, but the spamming of a (possibly) broken unit. I have no clue about actual balancing, but if they are unfairly hard to counter (also considering it would/should be almost the only viable strategy for the Spartans), limiting the number of Spartiates has been proposed many times, has historical basis, and it should be trivial to implement, besides ideally forcing the use of units like the Neodamodeis. If the problem is hoplites in general, well, I think it’s ok for at least one civ, the Spartans, to be quite limited in their flexibility. I can’t talk much about the Athenians yet because for now I’ve played mostly with the Spartans after drinking way too much coffee mixed with Red Bull while screaming “this is Sparta".

[diagonalo]

@AlexHerbert I assume you are referring to mass garrison of hoplites in barracks early-on so they promote to champions. This shouldn't be a problem in TGs because it's not very good against a standard minute 15 maxxed out attack. Some players might feel this offers them a shortcut but this is only helpful in for example Nomad matches.

Normal hoplites esp. Athenian ones still have many possible counters like outplaying them with ranged (even archers) or making a 50/50 melee/ranged army with proper upgrades, champions or just making full melee-only of your own. Technically swordsmen should be stronger in hand-to-hand combat. In my personal opinion pikemen are actually much better when used in team with ranged units than hoplites. Honeslty I would just recommend making a normal army and fighting melee in front.

I can see how champ spamming with the garrison might be a bit annoying and you might even compare it to Gaul fanatics. But in my opinion having such a 'secret' strategy is intriguing and that's exactly the kind of depth I like about 0ad. You still can make a big citizien-solider army and you will be fine but can be annoying.

[AlexHerbert]

3 hours ago, diagonalo said:

@AlexHerbert I assume you are referring to mass garrison of hoplites in barracks early-on so they promote to champions. This shouldn't be a problem in TGs because it's not very good against a standard minute 15 maxxed out attack. Some players might feel this offers them a shortcut but this is only helpful in for example Nomad matches.

Normal hoplites esp. Athenian ones still have many possible counters like outplaying them with ranged (even archers) or making a 50/50 melee/ranged army with proper upgrades, champions or just making full melee-only of your own. Technically swordsmen should be stronger in hand-to-hand combat. In my personal opinion pikemen are actually much better when used in team with ranged units than hoplites. Honeslty I would just recommend making a normal army and fighting melee in front.

I can see how champ spamming with the garrison might be a bit annoying and you might even compare it to Gaul fanatics. But in my opinion having such a 'secret' strategy is intriguing and that's exactly the kind of depth I like about 0ad. You still can make a big citizien-solider army and you will be fine but can be annoying.

Nope, I mean players that pressed the same button all the game and win just because that units are broken, and the rest didn't made spam of melees.

Edited May 10 by AlexHerbert

[AlexHerbert]

11 hours ago, Deicide4u said:

Athenian and Spartan Hoplites are OP by design.

Use faster units to counter. 

Faster units are cavs, hoplites are anticav, and even when you do ranged cav, hoplites (when spammed) don't fall fast enough to avoid they go capture your cc (I know some games give you time to make walls, but not all of them.)
So, they are not just units with high damage but also have armour of a tank.

They are just broken and some players win just because over use them, not because they are the best players in the world.

Edited May 10 by AlexHerbert
Wording

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, AlexHerbert said:

even when you do ranged cav, hoplites (when spammed) don't fall fast enough to avoid they go capture your cc

Yeah, as I've said 100x already. Capture is a broken mechanic that allows things like these. If those hoplites had to damage your CC, their strategy would fail.

[AlexHerbert]

4 hours ago, Seleucids said:

Try elephants against them

They are durable enough against melee and do group damage if they try to cram the hoplites

Elephants are far more expensive than Hoplites, that is what I meant to increase the cost every time they click that button or is autoqueued.

This is a real way to avoid spam. Or as I said limit them as Centurions.

Edited May 10 by AlexHerbert

[AlexHerbert]

4 hours ago, Deicide4u said:

Daily reminder that Thrace Black Cloak sword champions also do circular splash damage.

As an anegdote, it's funny that they would've destroyed Spartiates in early alpha versions, due to their counter damage bonus against spearmen.

Yeah, Swordsman Champs from Gauls and Britos also can beat them, but that means I also will have to make spam to counter a spammer.... 

Edited May 10 by AlexHerbert
add one word

[diagonalo]

You might enjoy looking @Emacz Classical Warfare AEA mod where (Spartan) hoplites work quite a bit differently and some units got specific pop limits.

[guerringuerrin]

Like any other RTS, the game keeps evolving as players discover tactics and strategies to exploit the strengths and weaknesses of different units and civilization mechanics. Maintaining good balance throughout each release is a very difficult task, carried out by very few people who dedicate a great deal of time and effort to it.

It would be useful to properly identify what the actual problem is and why the unit is considered broken. Perhaps the issue is the capture system itself, which allows a ball of hoplites to steamroll everything and capture your base. Perhaps it is the Hoplite Tradition technology rather than the unit itself. Or perhaps there is also a lack of skill involved in dealing with a ball of hoplites, which are actually easy to micro against due to their slow speed.

The frustration is completely understandable. Balance issues happen and will continue to happen. Contributing ideas to solve a potential problem is always welcome, but ranting about the supposed motivations of the person responsible for the unit’s design does not contribute anything at all.

[Thalatta]

16 minutes ago, guerringuerrin said:

Like any other RTS, the game keeps evolving as players discover tactics and strategies to exploit the strengths and weaknesses of different units and civilization mechanics. Maintaining good balance throughout each release is a very difficult task, carried out by very few people who dedicate a great deal of time and effort to it.

It would be useful to properly identify what the actual problem is and why the unit is considered broken. Perhaps the issue is the capture system itself, which allows a ball of hoplites to steamroll everything and capture your base.

I think the answer is here:

2 hours ago, Deicide4u said:

If those hoplites had to damage your CC, their strategy would fail.

This has been discussed recently, and makes sense as a historical Spartan weakness. Although early adopters of the ram, they were not good at sieges: "it took the Spartans years to subdue the helot insurgents, who particularly in Messenia, fought long and hard for their freedom, finally entrenching themselves on the stronghold of Mt. Ithome, where the Spartans, unaccustomed to siege warfare, had very great difficulties in dislodging them" (A History of Ancient Sparta, by T.B. Schutt).

 

49 minutes ago, Emacz said:

But they are still probably the single strongest melee unit in our version.  It makes almost 0 sense to take them head on in a fight in open terrain where you have to face all of them at once. You will LOSE!

Which would be historically inaccurate after just the first quarter of the game’s timeframe (and why I see Thebans as necessary).

[Thalatta]

8 hours ago, Emacz said:

Olympic hoplites should be stronger than Thebes sacred band... but we definitely beefed up them, part of the reason I say Spartiate's are the strongest in our version is because it is really there only go to unit and the game needs to be some what balanced.

In my "Thoughts on the Spartans" thread I argued why they shouldn't be called "olympic". Historically, that position was more honorific than anything. Still, comparing individual units is a complicated thing to do, particularly those having to work in a phalanx, so I was mostly thinking after the introduction of Epaminondas’ “oblique order”. It is not that clear to me that the Sacred Band should be weaker than Spartiates, seems more a “300 fame” thing, although in their favor there’s the agoge system (so, for the sake of gameplay, could make some sense). But after all, the Sacred Band went undefeated until they were obliterated while refusing to surrender against the Macedonians. Regarding Sparta having a longer timeframe of dominance, this is just a few years, and hegemony was not always complete for anyone, so hard to compare under that argument (and could be argued that Athenian hegemony was even longer).

[AlexHerbert]

13 hours ago, guerringuerrin said:

Like any other RTS, the game keeps evolving as players discover tactics and strategies to exploit the strengths and weaknesses of different units and civilization mechanics. Maintaining good balance throughout each release is a very difficult task, carried out by very few people who dedicate a great deal of time and effort to it.

It would be useful to properly identify what the actual problem is and why the unit is considered broken. Perhaps the issue is the capture system itself, which allows a ball of hoplites to steamroll everything and capture your base. Perhaps it is the Hoplite Tradition technology rather than the unit itself. Or perhaps there is also a lack of skill involved in dealing with a ball of hoplites, which are actually easy to micro against due to their slow speed.

The frustration is completely understandable. Balance issues happen and will continue to happen. Contributing ideas to solve a potential problem is always welcome, but ranting about the supposed motivations of the person responsible for the unit’s design does not contribute anything at all.

For me is not "frustration," for me is "this takes out the fun of the game," I don't care to lose when the game was good and fun and probably I am not the only one that sees that way. A spammer of Hoplites force you to make spam and play monotonous like him to counter or lose.
(And "automate repetitive tasks" won't change this, chances are it make it worse.)

Edited May 11 by AlexHerbert
Pic

[dinuruian]

54 minutes ago, AlexHerbert said:

For me is not "frustration," for me is "this takes out the fun of the game," I don't care to lose when the game was good and fun and probably I am not the only one that sees that way. A spammer of Hoplites force you to make spam and play monotonous like him to counter.
(And "automate repetitive tasks" won't change this, chances are it make it worse.)

a jester for a king, some1.

[Dakara]

connect your territory to ally and delete your cc ! 

[Perzival12]

2 thoughts on this subject:

A: no matter how many times we nerf units, there will always be one init that stands out from the crows, and eventually every unit will have 1 hp, zero attack, and full armor.

B: I personally have never found the Athenian hoplites a problem, (I need to play Sparta more to see about them), but when I compare garrisoning units in a barracks to promote them to Rome having a tech that auto promotes every unit (making them probably the most OP race in the game), I don’t see much of a problem.

[AlexHerbert]

1 hour ago, Perzival12 said:

2 thoughts on this subject:

A: no matter how many times we nerf units, there will always be one init that stands out from the crows, and eventually every unit will have 1 hp, zero attack, and full armor.

B: I personally have never found the Athenian hoplites a problem, (I need to play Sparta more to see about them), but when I compare garrisoning units in a barracks to promote them to Rome having a tech that auto promotes every unit (making them probably the most OP race in the game), I don’t see much of a problem.

That is what I just said many times, that units do have a counter, but those players force you to play monotonous like him or lose... (I have never seen a Spartans player use stables, for example.)

 
But well, I have it already solved for me anyways. I just say it for people still don't know how to deal with this (like the ones in the overlay screenshot.)

Finally, you are not obligated to play with those players 

Thanks everyone for your answers.

Edited May 11 by AlexHerbert
idk why the emoji stayed that big

[Guest]

15 hours ago, AlexHerbert said:

I have never seen a Spartans player use stables, for example

Well, Spartans don't have good cavalry. That is one of their main weaknesses, the other being poor siege. Every civilization/faction has its strengths and weaknesses.

The fact is, you don't choose a playstyle and go with any faction. You choose a faction because you like its playstyle, units and its quirks. 

[AlexHerbert]

2 hours ago, Deicide4u said:

Well, Spartans don't have good cavalry. That is one of their main weaknesses, the other being poor siege. Every civilization/faction has its strengths and weaknesses.

The fact is, you don't choose a playstyle and go with any faction. You choose a faction because you like its playstyle, units and its quirks. 

I do not want to repeat the same points because I see my previous replies were not fully read.

For me personally it is not a major issue, I know which players rely on spam tactics, I know the counters against hoplites, and I have literally seen those players press essentially the same single button for over three months in 100% of matches I watch them, even more than 3 players in the same match doing the same spam.

At that point it become less like a preference and more like an exploit (like market exploit.)

That said, I also know I can simply choose not to play with those players (and others also can.) And that's the main point, that situations like this can make it harder that more people play 0 A.D. If there is no intention of that, then it is not really a problem, but if the goal is to encourage more interaction and long-term engagement with the game, then I think it is something that need to be solved.

 

I proposed the solutions in previous messages and I do not really have anything else to add beyond that.

Edited May 12 by AlexHerbert
Forgot a word

[Guest]

24 minutes ago, AlexHerbert said:

I have literally seen those players press essentially the same single button for over three months in 100% of matches I watch them, even more than 3 players in the same match doing the same spam.

At that point it become less like a preference and more like an exploit (like market exploit.)

It's not an exploit. You're just playing against people who want to win, and they are using the strongest strategy available to them to achieve victory.

This is like complaining about why Protoss players don't build Scouts, or why Terran players don't train Ghosts against Carriers in Brood War. They don't do that because they know all pros and cons of Scouts and Ghosts, and they want to win the match. 

If you don't care about winning, then sure, train cavalry with Spartans. You'll have access to 2 basic units that are easily countered.