Game and hunting?

[tribalbeat]

I would like to propose a change in how hunting works. Right now, the only main two sources of reliable food are farming and fishing. Hunting deer or other medium game requires too many units chasing them down for a very small amount of food. To remedy this, I would recommend a mix of increasing the amount of food that animals carry, reducing their health, and slowing them down. This gives units a better chance to catch them without having to run halfway across the map or sending 30 archers to kill one deer.

One other thing to help make hunting feel more natural would be designating animals as either small, medium, or large game. Values right now are temporary and subject to playtesting.

Small game would be things like peacocks, rabbits and chickens which would carry about 100 food a piece.

Medium game would be things like deer, boar, camels, gazelles and carry about 200 food a piece.

Large game would be animals like elephants, walruses and hippos and carry about 500 food a piece.

This would let the player immediately know how much food the animals are worth without having to learn every single animal.

Anyway, what do you guys think? Has hunting been working well for you and I am just an idiot? Are there any parts of this that you would like to see modified?

Edited October 18, 2013 by tribalbeat

[Lion.Kanzen]

The better units to do this huge task are cavalry, carry more food, are fast as chasing a Gaia animal, but agree with 2 shoots can be dead. Obviusly the units can miss, but when happens the animal don't run away. Some time hago I say hunting needs tech improvement and may be a unit to do better this. In AoK the units uses bows.

[Mythos_Ruler]

The obvious fix would be to make animals "dumber," meaning they only run away when struck, and then only a small distance and don't continue to run away without being struck. Basically, they wait around to be hit again after running a small distance. Makes sense.

[sanderd17]

Let's say I agree, but not everyone does: http://trac.wildfiregames.com/ticket/2092

[Palantius]

FPS-mode! That would be sooo cool! And you could by cool weapons like bombs and stuff! And some animals could be super strong and have superpowers!

But seriously... I don't see what function hunting fulfills in a strategy game - it doesn't really require any strategical planning, and on the contrary, it takes away the focus from strategy and just requires more micro-management.

I know a lot of work has been put down to that aspect of the game, but I just can't see how to justify such a requiring task for the player when it doesn't add any (significant) strategical depth to the game.

Well, that's my opinion...

[Lion.Kanzen]

Hunting is optional, the micromanaging that is optional it is. For example if the troop have poor Heath and I have enough money to train healer I need garrisons in a temple, but is optional.

Is a game where's the war in the way hunting is not but is one path to have more food.

[Palantius]

I don't really know if this is an answer to your last post or not, but I'm going to present my view on options in strategy-games (the part that is relevant to this topic, so I'll leave out stuff like non-linearity and parallell systems (hehe, I've learnt some fancy game-design-words ) ).

The starting point is that any option that could be used must be used if it would be the best option in the situation. If you need more food and hunting would help, then you'd have to hunt even if you don't like to do it. The nature of strategy-games is that the best possible move must be made. However, I found that there are exceptions to this rule:

1. One is that, if you have little experience with a certain situation, you should avoid it (and the opposite if you know that your opponent has little experience with a certain situation). This is because the players are a part of the game. That is quite natural and can be found in almost all strategy-games, for example, in chess, you stick to the openings you know. This exception isn't really relevant to this topic, but the next exception is.
2. If a "move" is the best possible, it could also be a good idea to avoid it if it's to time-consuming. This is relevant since 0ad is a Real Time Strategy-game. So basically, the question the player would stand in front of is: do I have the time to do this even if it's good from a strategical point of view? And since it's not thinking that would take up the precious time, but instead micro-managing, the player finds himself playing a game that is part strategy-game and part micro-managing-game. "Should I attack that building? Maybe not, then I can't hunt at the same time..." This is of course natural (in chess, to physically make a move takes time and could be used against your opponent if he only got some seconds left), but it should be as small as possible, after all, the best strategist should win, not the fastest "clicker".
3. ... there are probably more exceptions ...

So what I'm trying to say is that micro-management must be avoided even if it's "optional".

[tribalbeat]

FPS-mode! That would be sooo cool! And you could by cool weapons like bombs and stuff! And some resources could be super strong and have superpowers!

But seriously... I don't see what function resource gathering fulfills in a strategy game - it doesn't really require any strategical planning, and on the contrary, it takes away the focus from strategy and just requires more micro-management.

I know a lot of work has been put down to that aspect of the game, but I just can't see how to justify such a requiring task for the player when it doesn't add any (significant) strategical depth to the game.

Well, that's my opinion...

[Palantius]

I see that you replaced "hunting" with "resource gathering" in my post, but I'm not sure I get your point...

The difference between hunting and other resource gathering methods is that hunting requires far more micro-management.

If you seriously mean that all resource gathering methods should be removed, then I must say that it's an interesting idea that deserves some thought! What about having resources that you "capture" and what you can build in some way depends on the number of captured resources. This puts a lot more focus on expanding, which in my opinion is a central aspect in any RTS!

However, back to the topic of hunting - why not just remove the possibility to hunt? The extra time the player gets could be used for strategic planning. Also, I've played a game yesterday in which a lion annoyed me very much by making my army go after it while I wanted my army to go after my opponent. It's a small problem, but hunting does little good for the gameplay, so my point is, hunting does more harm than good even if you don't think about the micro-management aspect.

Edited October 19, 2013 by Palantius

[Lion.Kanzen]

How you doing with your mod? In your mod your apply many this concepts right?

Good news was implemented Sanders ticket with some changes

Edited October 19, 2013 by Lion.Kanzen

[Palantius]

How you doing with your mod? In your mod your apply many this concepts right?

Good news was implemented Sanders ticket with some changes

Yes, this is something I would do in my mod. However, there are many things that I think can and should be changed in the main-game, so I'll try and work on these stuff first and then I'll mod what I think should be changed after that.

This is a comment by Sander in his patch as a reply to a comment that changing animals vision to 0 could be seen as a hack:

In some way, it can indeed be seen as a hack. But is there any reason they would not run from a cavalry javelinist throwing javelins right next to their feet while they do run from melee units? Imo there isn't, so the hack is already in the game, (just a little disguised by giving them a lot smaller vision range than prey animals actually have).

Secondly, I think melee units should be able to hunt those animals, otherwise, you'd give the civilisations with a ranged horseman to start with a huge advantage. And there is no other way of achieving this when they start to run at a very high speed the moment you get in their vision range. Real hunting with melee units requires strategy, like surrounding and hiding. The last one equals with giving a zero vision range to animals (as there is no other way to hide in the game).Also, should sheep really have a vision range and report back to the player what they're seeing?Also, should sheep really have a vision range and report back to the player what they're seeing? Also, should sheep really have a vision range and report back to the player what they're seeing?

And I totally agree with the solution, but I want to point at that the solution still was a hack, and the reason a hack like that had to be the solution is because hunting is very unrealistic and way too technical - you can really feel the "gamyness" when hunting: "click to get points".

Edit: Yeah, my point... My point is that 0 ad is not a hunting game. Therefore, any implementation of "hunting" will be full of "hacks" so that it would fit the game. Then you don't have hunting, but some sort of mini-game.

Edited October 21, 2013 by Palantius