Suggestions for 0 A.D.

[Thalatta]

@Red Wolf, maybe edit your post to add numbers to your suggestions, so the following is easier to read:

I disagree with 2, 11 and 15 (standard practice doesn't mean good practice, I'm strongly against spontaneous combustion).

I agree with 1, 12 (also proposed it), maybe 4, 5, 13 and somewhat 6. 14 would be nice, but not a priority, I guess.

Regarding 3, the default size should just be bigger, many have complained already, and honestly, I find it offensive to people that have sight problems. I got super used to it, but I remember thinking how unnecessarily dumb it looked.

Regarding 7, this is easy to find in Settings > Hotkeys, start writing "mi" and you see "Select military only: Alt", so just use that modifier.

Regarding 9, you said "snap", go to Settings > Hotkeys, start writing "sn" and you see "Toogle snap-to-edge: Ctrl", so just use that modifier.

Regarding 16, as usual, Settings > Hotkeys, start writing "id", the hotkeys are "." and "-". If you literally meant "button", yeah, maybe, or could eventually be right-clicking on the one for idle workers, or similar.

Regarding 8 and 10, I'm quite neutral and would like to listen to arguments.

Edited September 1 by Thalatta
Changed "the rest" for "8 and 10", and "it" for "the one for idle workers", since I didn't specify beforehand.

[Thalatta]

@Red Wolf, some clarification:

Regarding 10 (Wall towers could be upgraded to fire at enemies): I think this was so in the past (someone said "left-over from old wall towers being able to shoot" in another thread), so there were reasons to change it. I think there are issues on how Palisades, Walls, Towers and Fortresses work, so we might see some changes at some point.

Regarding 15 (Signs of destruction on buildings as they lose health are barely noticeable): I actually agree on that, just not with flames appearing without any reasonable source.

[Perzival12]

18 hours ago, Red Wolf said:

16) There should be separate buttons for idle villagers and idle military units.

LOL I literally just added this to Hyrule Conquest the other day, what a coincidence

[zozio32]

22 hours ago, Thalatta said:

@Red Wolf, some clarification:

Regarding 10 (Wall towers could be upgraded to fire at enemies): I think this was so in the past (someone said "left-over from old wall towers being able to shoot" in another thread), so there were reasons to change it. I think there are issues on how Palisades, Walls, Towers and Fortresses work, so we might see some changes at some point.

Regarding 15 (Signs of destruction on buildings as they lose health are barely noticeable): I actually agree on that, just not with flames appearing without any reasonable source.

you can always garrison the wall towers for them to shoot I think + the possibility to put ranged units on the wall itself.

Edited September 2 by zozio32

[Dakara]

Hello @Red Wolf

thanks for your suggestions. 

1) The one can be good, but its a copy paste from age of mythology eheh. But its useful. Frankly I don't need and the system of notification is quite ok for this situation already.

2) I disagree because house are not so hard to manage already. And the wood need is already low. 5 and 10 population by house is enough. If you want Carthage has house with 20 population for a extra cost.

3) Agree, options are always nice.

4)There is some mod for change this info panel already, you can find them, I have no opinion on this idea

5) I don't know really theses formation but i suppose they have a difference so i'm against your proposition. But we should change the UI for hide some formation we never want to use.

6) Frankly it's actually quite ok but we can always improve. So why not change the color text yes.

7) Hmm I didn't understand, but maybe use alt for select only unit military. 

8) Ctlr right clic don't work? should be exist so I agree witht he fact to garnison animals in corral. But in same way of other garnison, so with the usually keybind.

9) It's exist, ctrl

10) Sure but only for iberes! 600 metal 600 wood, a tech in castle.

11) Not often, why not, but not priority.. We can make the difference with the map

12) Actually, you can move your unit how you like and do a good shapes. its nice actually i think

13) Against, risk of abuse lol, if you are focus you don't make mistake, but yes its annoying and take some seconds.

14) yess

15) why not

16) button not exist but keybind exist already so not really need

[Grautvornix]

6 hours ago, zozio32 said:

you can always garrison the wall towers for them to shoot I think + the possibility to put ranged units on the wall itself.

Not sure - I thought you can only man the walls themselves and not the towers, right? (I believe in one of the very old versions (0.23 or before?) it was vice versa (towers manned but walls not).

 

[Thalatta]

30 minutes ago, Grautvornix said:

Not sure - I thought you can only man the walls themselves and not the towers, right? (I believe in one of the very old versions (0.23 or before?) it was vice versa (towers manned but walls not).

You can always test this stuff in minutes :P. In any case, I went through that and it's problems in https://wildfiregames.com/forum/topic/137611-what-do-you-think-0-ad-lacks/page/6/#comment-757933 (a PR was made our of that, although I think things have to be further simplified).

Basically: "to man the Wall that button [Turret ] must be used, but to man the Wall Towers the Garrison button must be used".

[Grautvornix]

Thanks - I know I can test it myself, but I was travelling without access to the game.

Just tested it - you are certainly right.

Question remains, why two different mechanisms for the same effect... (probably I should read the manual or the forum more carefully)

[Perzival12]

4 hours ago, Grautvornix said:

Thanks - I know I can test it myself, but I was travelling without access to the game.

Just tested it - you are certainly right.

Question remains, why two different mechanisms for the same effect... (probably I should read the manual or the forum more carefully)

Garrisoning hides the unit inside of the building, spitting them out when it is destroyed. They also add to the building’s default arrow count.

Turreting places the unit on top of the building, kicking them off when it’s destroyed, and also allowing them to be shot off of it. They don’t add to the default arrow count (if there is one), but since only archers, slingers, and javelineers (and Crossbowman) can be placed on top, they can fire on their own.

[Thalatta]

5 minutes ago, Perzival12 said:

allowing them to be shot off of it

You mean that, if they are shot, they don't lose health, but they fall from up there?

[Perzival12]

10 minutes ago, Thalatta said:

You mean that, if they are shot, they don't lose health, but they fall from up there?

Sorry, they lose health, and fall off of it when they are killed.

[Thalatta]

3 minutes ago, Perzival12 said:

Sorry, they lose health, and fall off of it when they are killed.

Yes, I noticed because in these 10 minutes at last I kind of learned how to use the Editor

In any case, my point in that link was not so much "two different mechanisms for the same effect", but that "there's no need for different buttons if the functions are similar and, if I'm not wrong, there's no overlap between them". Of course there are the differences you mention, but they are still similar things, although later on I stated that "maybe there's a case (or plan), to have structures that can be both garrisoned and posted (this should be the term, instead of "turreted")", in which case it would be fine to leave two buttons (although the "turret" naming should be corrected because, as I explained there, it makes no sense).

[Perzival12]

3 minutes ago, Thalatta said:

Yes, I noticed because in these 10 minutes at last I kind of learned how to use the Editor

In any case, my point in that link was not so much "two different mechanisms for the same effect", but that "there's no need for different buttons if the functions are similar and, if I'm not wrong, there's no overlap between them". Of course there are the differences you mention, but they are still similar things, although later on I stated that "maybe there's a case (or plan), to have structures that can be both garrisoned and posted (this should be the term, instead of "turreted")", in which case it would be fine to leave two buttons (although the "turret" naming should be corrected because, as I explained there, it makes no sense).

I use such buildings a lot in HC, I’m not sure if they are in use in vanilla 0ad tho

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Quote

1) When animals attack gatherers, nearby gatherers should automatically defend them. The same applies to gatherers who are also military units when enemies attack them. I have lost entire groups of gatherers to wolves because I didn't notice they were under attack; after all, the units appear small on screen due to their scale relative to the buildings.

I wholeheartedly agree. In fact, Delenda Est has this feature already. Subsequent UnitAI changes to the base game have made it a little buggy, but it could easily be added to the game without too much fuss. 

I've already created an issue on Gitea for this: https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/issues/9143

^Rating: Must Have

 

Quote

2) Houses should provide a population capacity of 20, not 15. Units are trained very quickly in this game, and the housing capacity falls behind rapidly.

Indeed. I'd like to change the house from:

• Small House
• 5 pop
• 75 cost

and

• Big House
• 10 pop
• 150 cost

 

to these new stats:

• Small House
• 10 pop
• 100 cost

and

• Big House
• 15 pop
• 150 cost

and

• Tenement (Carthage and Rome)
• 20 pop
• 200 cost

 

I've always thought that the pop bonuses and costs should be more aligned. The double cost and double benefit difference seemed too big to me.

And then, I think, re-add the 2 pop cost for Citizen-Cavalry and Infantry Champions, and 3 pop cost for Cavalry Champions. And increase 'default' pop cap to 400. 

^Rating: Should Have

 

Quote

4) In the floating info panel (which appears when hovering the mouse over a unit, building, or technology button), the items could be arranged in this order: Unit/building name; Costs; Unit type; Command instructions—all spaced out, with the name and costs in a larger font than the rest of the text. The way the text is currently formatted—all bunched together and uniform in size—makes it difficult to quickly scan for the information a player might be looking for.

The word you're looking for is 'Tooltip.'  I think most of us agree that they should be improved!

I've made this gitea issue, which is very relevent: https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/issues/9166

^Rating: Must Have

 

 

 

 

[Thalatta]

I've slowly gathered 20 new suggestions, ordered from things that seem to need a fix to less conventional ideas. Eventually I'll come back to all this, select the least controversial, and make a poll, PR or whatever. Hopefully the most obvious would have been implemented by then.

41) UI fixes: on Matches > Random, map size can be selected, but on Skirmish and Scenario it seems size is not stated, which I would like to know before starting one. For the Menu, in Learn to Play > Manual, under Hotkeys, it says "Options > Hotkeys", when it should say "Settings -> Hotkeys" (There's "Settings > Options", but no Hotkeys there), but I think all that should be removed because it's redundant with Hotkeys. Then, a Tutorial appears both in Learn to Play and Single Player > New Campaign, apparently with the first one not being able to be completed. I'd remove it from both places and put it on Single Player > Tutorial, to separate what is playable, in Single Player, from what is readable, in Learn To Play, which could be renamed to Information, Resources, Library, Encyclopedia, whatever. The menu states Catafalque Overview, but the window has as title Catafalque Bonuses, which is a better name to avoid repetition with Civilisation Overview, although I'd put Catafalque Bonuses inside Civilisation Overview to present and concentrate all information from a given civilisation better.

42) Simplified self-rally: the CTRL modifier shouldn't be needed for self-rally, just right-clicking does nothing right now, and the hovering icon is a crossed flag, making one think it's just impossible to do. Besides, when rallying to other buildings the hovering icon is the garrisoning one, no need for CTRL. It would then be more consistent and intuitive.

43) Building rotation and placing: besides rotating a building with a couple of hotkeys, one can also keep pressing the right mouse button. The problem is that, if I'm not wrong, when one chooses to do it with the mouse (which I think is nicer), one can't then also move the building around. SHIFT could be used to allow that, since it doesn’t do anything in that situation.

44) Hidden foundations: why are foundations destroyable, if they are just a plan? It could be less annoying.

45) Merchantmen capacity: it's weird that they are as profitable as Traders for the same distance. Ships were not only faster, but also had way more capacity.

46) Animal behaviour: most should be faster and weaker. Foxes should not be so aggressive (except against smaller animals). Animal regeneration and feeding (hunting or grazing) would be nice. Starting doing it weakly shouldn't change gameplay at all. Some of these things have recently been proposed.

47) Button additions: one for "Capture" is needed. "Attack" should be called "Call to Arms" (given that that's how the action is commonly called, and it's not just "attack"). I see there's a PR for the "Turret" button naming already. A button for Idle Warrior was recently proposed, but maybe just right-clicking on Idle Worker could do (while slightly changing its appearance).

48) Palisades and Walls issues: I can't seem to build just a single block, and when trying to do it while pressing SHIFT, things get a bit stuck until I press ESC or right-click. Also, one should be able to build Towers just besides Palisades (while pressing CTRL), Walls don't have this problem.

49) Building stances: it would have been useful to me if buildings that shoot arrows had stances. Sometimes I don't want to shoot on enemy buildings because I want to (re)capture them.

50) Upgrade categorisation: I find it weird to say Immortals are "upgradeable": "switchable" might be better. It would be nice to have a clearer categorisation of choices that are singular (most techs, Tower upgrades), multiple (mutually exclusive techs, could eventually be done for building upgrades) or reversible (Immortal "upgrades", could eventually be done for some "techs", like choosing type for government, etc).

51) Construction panel simplification: having all buildable structures always on view when someone who can build them is selected seems unnecessarily too much for new players, maybe there could be just a couple of build buttons, Common Structures and Unique Structures, like in many other games. This would also make the use of future action hotkeys more streamlined.

52) Building Auras: it would be nice if some structures don't just become useless, for example the Forge after all its techs have been researched. Maybe it should have some other effect, bonus aura, whatever.

53) Just Towers and Walls: Wall Towers are confusing. Recently, for them to shoot arrows recently was proposed, as it was in the past. Personally, I wouldn't have included Wall Towers into Walls, I would have instead made it possible to build Towers into Walls themselves (at a Wall block cost discount), or upgrading Wall blocks to achieve the same result. This is not really an increase of micro, because Wall Towers don't even shoot when ungarrisoned in the first place.

54) Target Area: this button concept could reduce micro in many situations. The size of the pointer would change to an adjustable circle (maybe using the hotkeys that rotate structures) in which the action performed at the centre of it would also be repeated whenever possible inside that circle. This can be used for things like gathering, hunting, combat, garrison, boarding, repair, etc. I think there's a PR for something similar regarding just combat, but this generalises that idea. For example, one could order to hunt all animals inside that adjustable area, in that order, by queuing. One could garrison all towers inside that area, or repair all that needs to be repaired inside it. Ideally, units would get more evenly distributed according to available slots. This would make ship boarding much faster, and the landing spot could be converted to a landing area with this tool, for ships to distribute themselves alongside the coast inside it.

55) Task specification: I've mentioned the modifiers "target reset" and "cycle reset". As an example with cutting trees, target reset would cancel the gathering order after the target tree (or trees if combined with target area) is spent, and cycle reset would only make one travel to the dropsite (and proceed to a random targeted tree if combined with target area). The cycle reset target area combination would be quite useful when used on regenerating resources, or also when range attacking multiple units if one wants to wear down them equally and not for a given unit to get fixated in killing another one.

56) Separation criteria: I think the minimum distance restriction between certain fortifications is quite limiting and artificial, although it's clear that it helps "the gameplay and the realism", as pointed out somewhere when also criticised. It takes a bit of time to plan for their distribution to cover what needs to be defended. An alternative and more realistic way would be for these (tall shooting) buildings to block each other's line of "fire". This blocked view should be bigger than the buildings themselves, one could think to account for reaction and aiming times when an enemy comes into view, to make these structures quite inefficient if built near each other. In this way things would be more flexible and faster, while there would still be a relationship between separation, coverage, garrisoning, and costs. Things might have to be adjusted a bit so that the optimal separation approximates the present one.

57) Edge icons: I've read this idea around here, it would be nice if there were a few icons outside the edge of the map indicating that there's some foreign far away port/market in that direction, and the trading units would be able to interact with these icons, leaving the map and returning with profits after a given time dependent on how distant that place is said to be. Caesars III had something similar, making it more immersive, like a bigger interconnected world and not just an isolated scenario. Other things could come from outside the edges, like small barbarian raids, mercenaries, or migrating animals, with their size and frequency a gameplay option (all this could also be disabled).

58) Corral changes: as someone mentioned, there's no advantage between raising livestock in a Corral vs building more Fields. I think they should be rethought a bit for more interesting use cases. It's been mentioned that Field yields could depend on terrain fertility, and I've mentioned that the count limit for certain animals in the Corral could be dependent on surrounding territory (plains better for cows, mountains for goats), that being besides water could mean fish farming, and that it could train Britons' dogs, since probably there were no dedicated kennels for this. Also, having Corrals could improve Fields efficiency (traction, manure), and that would be the historical order. Chickens are notoriously missing.

59) Building orientation: to maybe fix useless Palisades and Walls, ugly mindless structure placement, and the teleportation exploit, I thought that garrisoning/ungarrisoning could happen through the door only. An ungarrisoning cooldown after garrisoning could also be useful, particularly for the Market to avoid continuous horrid looking Trader caravans (my making Traders, and Merchantmen, garrison for a bit instead of just touching the destination).

60) Map layers: as a possibility for people who want to experiment with it, I was wondering if certain actions could trigger other maps and options. For example, one could have a campaign map, where buildings are cities and units are armies moving slowly, and when one wants (city building), or with some triggers (battles), the map is "zoomed in" and there's another map, more local, like they normally are now in the game. Maybe this requires obscene amounts of memory.

 

Previous 20 suggestions: https://wildfiregames.com/forum/topic/18003-suggestions-for-0-ad/page/176/#comment-634810

[Obelix]

30 minutes ago, Thalatta said:

41) UI fixes: [...] For the Menu, in Learn to Play > Manual, under Hotkeys, it says "Options > Hotkeys", when it should say "Settings -> Hotkeys" (There's "Settings > Options", but no Hotkeys there), but I think all that should be removed because it's redundant with Hotkeys. [...]

I can confirm this misbehaviour and filed Issue #9208 for you. A Pull Request will follow soon; the reference will be edited into this Reply. Pull Request's been proposed: #9209

Edited 30 minutes ago by Obelix
Included PR link