Suggestions for 0 A.D.

[Gurken Khan]

On 5/28/2019 at 12:38 PM, Ozerol Notna said:

is there three types of damage and three types of armor

Yes. Slingers for example do crush damage, which also makes them useful against buildings since they have less crush armor.

 

[Ozerol Notna]

On 5/29/2019 at 11:26 PM, Gurken Khan said:

Yes. Slingers for example do crush damage, which also makes them useful against buildings since they have less crush armor.

 

Well that's pretty dumb. Do you think there'd be a way to seperate damage types based on units? Like having pierce dealt by infantry do less damage to a ship than a ballista?

[Gurken Khan]

5 minutes ago, Ozerol Notna said:

Well that's pretty dumb. Do you think there'd be a way to seperate damage types based on units? Like having pierce dealt by infantry do less damage to a ship than a ballista? 

Not sure what exactly you find dumb. For your question, I just looked at the Athenians and their bolt shooters have higher pierce armor than their triremes, so currently it's just the other way round than what you asked; since some units for example have 3x damage against horses I guess theoretically units could also get 0.5 against ships. But I don't know the technical limitations, e.g. of the templates. Maybe @Stan`would know more or who to ask.

[fatherbushido]

3 hours ago, Ozerol Notna said:

Well that's pretty dumb. Do you think there'd be a way to seperate damage types based on units? Like having pierce dealt by infantry do less damage to a ship than a ballista?

If you want to handle more cases, you have to use an object (or something like that) instead of a single number for attack bonuses.

It's a bit heavy for the benefit but well that's easy to do.

[StopKillingMe]

I have been playing a lot of practice games at Ptolomies and one thing I don't understand is the starting camel archers ineffectiveness at killing hunt - I have seen contestants on naked and afraid kill African wildlife with home made bows in one shot - and yet just now I had my camel archer try to kill a Giraffe and after like 14 strikes with an arrow the animal is like still at half health - this seems like a really unfair disadvantage for Ptolomies.  All hunt should go down as easily for everyone faction or you are putting some civs at a distinct early game disadvantage.  And anyway, an animal cannot withstand dozens of arrows, that is very unrealistic IMO.

[Gurken Khan]

@StopKillingMeCamel archers just have a crappy damage output.

I still prefer'em over melee starting cav though. ^^

[Ozerol Notna]

On 5/31/2019 at 10:36 PM, Gurken Khan said:

Not sure what exactly you find dumb. For your question, I just looked at the Athenians and their bolt shooters have higher pierce armor than their triremes, so currently it's just the other way round than what you asked; since some units for example have 3x damage against horses I guess theoretically units could also get 0.5 against ships. But I don't know the technical limitations, e.g. of the templates. Maybe @Stan`would know more or who to ask.

What I find dumb is that a man hurling a rock is able to demolish structures. If he was a troll throwing boulders I'd accept it, if he was slinging at a hut or a tent I'd also accept it, but throwing stones at a wooden house or gate to tear it down just feels wrong. 

I was suggesting something along the lines of adding unit templates to damage types so that it goes up or down according to the receiver.

Example:

"Unit" receives a 15 strong attack of "whatever" damage from "Some Enemy", but because "Some Enemy"s attack was classified an "Infantry" despite "Some Enemy" being a cavalry, then "Unit" receives less damage. One the other hand, "That Guy" deals the same amount of "whatever" damage but the attack has the "Siege" tag even though "That Guy" is a "Whosit" unit, therefore the "Siege" type is applied to the damage causing "Unit" to take "Siege" damage which he has no resistance to in-spite of the source not coming from a "Siege" unit.

Of Course, this could be way too much work to implement so I understand if its not added in.

[Sundiata]

6 hours ago, Ozerol Notna said:

What I find dumb is that a man hurling a rock is able to demolish structures. If he was a troll throwing boulders I'd accept it, if he was slinging at a hut or a tent I'd also accept it, but throwing stones at a wooden house or gate to tear it down just feels wrong. 

Yeah, slingers destroying fortresses seems a little silly to me as well, and kind of defeats the purpose of siege with slinger-civs. You can just mass slingers and use them as your siege...

Spoiler

Full disclosure, I just had my backside handed to me in a MP match where my opponents took out my fortresses with massed slingers... 

 

[Lion.Kanzen]

On 6/2/2019 at 5:03 AM, Sundiata said:

Yeah, slingers destroying fortresses seems a little silly to me as well, and kind of defeats the purpose of siege with slinger-civs. You can just mass slingers and use them as your siege...

  Hide contents

Full disclosure, I just had my backside handed to me in a MP match where my opponents took out my fortresses with massed slingers... 

 

they can take any structure, I tested the borg's mod and ai spam  skirmish cavalry and rams. but no more slingers.

Edited June 8, 2019 by Lion.Kanzen

[StopKillingMe]

In my opinion the ability for women to be tasked to build military buildings should be removed.  You should not be able to lay a foundation with a male then task women to build the military building, wall, tower, or palisade, unless of course it is a Spartan woman.  The meta is going to soon become one of the starting men will lay a foundation for a rax and the women will build it - I'm pretty sure this is an unintended consequence, please remove this ability from women.

[Guest]

Or just remove the stupid restriction. If a women can build a Civic Center, why can't she build a barracks?

[Lion.Kanzen]

31 minutes ago, (-_-) said:

Or just remove the stupid restriction. If a women can build a Civic Center, why can't she build a barracks?

she can. but she can't place it.

[StopKillingMe]

3 hours ago, (-_-) said:

Or just remove the stupid restriction. If a women can build a Civic Center, why can't she build a barracks?

Spartan women are allowed to construct towers and palisades as a unique tech to the Spartans - therefore, in order to maintain this unique tech, all other women should not be allowed to do this.  The ability of men to lay the foundations but women to build is in my view an unintended consequence that should be removed in order to preserve the unique tech of Spartan women.

[StopKillingMe]

On 6/2/2019 at 4:03 AM, Sundiata said:

Yeah, slingers destroying fortresses seems a little silly to me as well, and kind of defeats the purpose of siege with slinger-civs. You can just mass slingers and use them as your siege...

  Reveal hidden contents

Full disclosure, I just had my backside handed to me in a MP match where my opponents took out my fortresses with massed slingers... 

 

Massed slingers are the number one problem with 0ad right now - this needs to be addressed ASAP.  I'm pretty sure there was never an intention that an army of slingers would rule this game.

In 1v1 competitive play, I am finding little reason to make spears at the start - startup typically consists of women with ranged infantry as workers.  The ranges men walk faster than spears, so there is a huge economic benefit to making them.  Spears in Age 1 need to somehow become more important to make, because they are supposed to be the bread and butter of most armies from this time period.  

[Guest]

48 minutes ago, StopKillingMe said:

Spartan women are allowed to construct towers and palisades as a unique tech to the Spartans - therefore, in order to maintain this unique tech, all other women should not be allowed to do this.  The ability of men to lay the foundations but women to build is in my view an unintended consequence that should be removed in order to preserve the unique tech of Spartan women.

That's one way to look at it. But my point still stands. It's as silly as slingers destroying buildings.

[thankforpie]

add dragons and loot

[Lion.Kanzen]

4 minutes ago, thankforpie said:

add dragons and loot

we have loot. 

[thankforpie]

Just now, Lion.Kanzen said:

we have loot. 

underdeveloped yes

[Guest]

We have a dragon unit too lol. Search for it in Atlas.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 hour ago, thankforpie said:

add dragons and loot

 

59 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

we have loot. 

 

57 minutes ago, thankforpie said:

underdeveloped yes

We need some kind of animation or notification up at the top that shows the loot being added to the treasury.

7 minutes ago, (-_-) said:

We have a dragon unit too lol. Search for it in Atlas.

Could definitely be improved. lol Maybe inspired by Drogon from Game of Thrones.

[StopKillingMe]

1 hour ago, (-_-) said:

That's one way to look at it. But my point still stands. It's as silly as slingers destroying buildings.

This is my point about changing things that are core to the game - if you allow women to build everything you void a Spartan civ special tech.  That's why changing out core functionality is a slippery slope and can't be done lightly.  I will give you an example:

• History: Baguada means 'guerrilla'; an irregular combatant. Skirmishers, raiders, pirates, etc., would fit under such a designation. Such men were extremely common in Celtic armies. While positions were best held by dedicated spearmen standing in an ordered line and wall, the duty of softening an enemy, and even breaking weaker enemy positions, such as militia, would go to men carrying huge numbers of additional javelins. So many javelins did Celts bring with them, they were said in at least one instance in Galatia to 'charge following a black shadow so great sunlight is emptied from the sky', a poetic description of the enormous number of missiles they would put into the air preceding their main attack.

• History: Sling bullets are found in enormous numbers in Celtic sites, made of lead, though clay bullets would also have been used. Slings figure prominently in Celtic myth, and were not associated with any sense of shame. To the contrary, the great skill needed to use a sling well was highly rewarded and favored, so they found much more use in Celtic society for a ranged weapon than bows, outside of specific tribes. The god Lugos, in Irish myth Lug, is associated closely with many weapons, among them his sling. Slings were the primary weapon of Celtic hunters as well. In battle, men with slings would mainly be of the middle class, so better equipped than most slingers in other societies for melee. However, the heavy lead bullets so common to them makes their range shorter than average, compensated for by the puncture power of well-made bullets.

So using this as an example, the effectiveness of the Brit Slinger Rush is based on a historical precedent.  So balancing slingers needs to be done in a subtle manner, not in a way that essentially removes the slinger from the battle field as an effective strat for Celts.

So the effect of slingers on buildings should maybe be addressed, but not their effectiveness in an actual battle as the objective.

[Lion.Kanzen]

24 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

 

 

We need some kind of animation or notification up at the top that shows the loot being added to the treasury.

Could definitely be improved. lol Maybe inspired by Drogon from Game of Thrones.

• numbers animation simliar to RoN or AoE III.
• I can draw the head as a Dinosaur lover i can draw some kind Lizards and Dinosauridae speciments.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 hour ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

• numbers animation simliar to RoN or AoE III.

As long as the number appears up near the treasury ribbon, and not above the dead soldier in the game world.

[Genava55]

Something has been working on my mind for some time, mainly because I'm not a big fan of systems based on rock-paper-scissor. The case of the overwhelming advantage of the ranged units in the recent alphas released stresses the difficulty in balancing different type of units while keeping the game history-friendly. I see often people suggesting balancing changes or different gameplay based on historical facts (or according to their understanding of the history). This makes me wonder if this is possible to satisfy people with both historical accuracy and a balanced gameplay with depth and diversity. Ideas like spearman and swordsman having distinctive efficiency against different units are themselves not very historical. Even the idea that the cavalry is the best counter against ranged infantry is itself contradicted by numerous accounts on the battlefields where the later was often used against the former. This is not a mean criticism, most of the RTS falls in these simplifications to ease the gameplay, even the Total War games. This is understandable. Age of Empire 2 has reached a very high level of gameplay mechanics with this system. Even StarCraft 2 has several aspects from rock-paper-scissor systems.

However I wonder if the inclusion of battle formation could be an opportunity to innovate in the gameplay. Historically, the battlefield was unbalanced from a game point of view, mostly filled with infantrymen and this across all continents and across all the time periods. The only exception being the nomads. Therefore why not consider an unbalanced system working around battalions of infantrymen? If the gameplay is unbalanced in purpose in favor of the infantrymen, with the other type of units working as support and counter around them, it could be easier to balance. This is kinda a heretic way to think in RTS games but I throw this idea to encourage further thinking. Even for mods, not only for the vanilla.

To sum it up my mind, winning an encounter could be based on obvious parameters like the quality of the infantrymen and the numbers but also on parameters strongly related to the battle formation. For example, the battalion could gives a bonus to all the units (obviously) but this bonus could varies according to the depth of the formation. Like this players should consider both the width of the formation in comparison with the enemy's formation (because it will impact how much units will hit your unit in the same time) and the depth of the formation because each additional rank will increase the bonus. Clearly this is favoring the numbers of units, so outnumbering strategies will often win. But it could be counter by flanks attacks where each units attacked by enemy's melee units while being on the sides will lose all the bonus from the formation. Which will give an interesting tactical advantage for the cavalry. Moreover, this could also be countered by ranged infantry raining their missile on the infantrymen. Not only to cause damages and kill the units but in decreasing the bonus or even causing malus for the units hit. It could even slow down the movement of the whole formation and slowing their rate of attack (DPS). It could also be counter by forcing the player to split his army and to use clever strategies to destroy quickly the army with a smaller force, see this. In my mind, the ranged units and the cavalry should work as support and counter against each other to weaken the enemy main forces (which is the infantry). For the moment, I do not know how it could include the champions cleaverly but I wanted to share my thoughts. This is could be tested in a mod maybe.

Edited June 17, 2019 by Genava55
Changed the video in the link, put a better one

[av93]

At first, pathfinding and formations should be better. I see a lot of work being done by @wraitii, but I don't know to what extend and with what aim. I miss the dev diaries. (I think are improving the system to thread the pathfinding, among others things, like fixing the gliding units)