Alpha 17 Wishlist/General discussion

[RoekeloosNL]

^^ Sticks and stones aren't to destroy buildings Siege Engines are needed for that. And i believe thats also how 0.A.D is designed. You need Artillery Onagers to attack a City. Sure there still is alot of room for finding the right balance.

[sanderd17]

Basically, Village phase is the phase where you try to build up your economy (so also try to slow down the economy of your enemy). Town phase is where you build your empire (claiming new pieces of unclaimed land, and fight for the pieces of unclaimed land). And City phase is where you try to concur already claimed land from your enemy.

So yes, you're not supposed to attack buildings with simple soldiers. You're just supposed to slow down your enemy at that point (go around his towers, attack his economy). Once you get to city phase, you can make siege engines, and then you're supposed to try to gain territory from him.

Of course, we're still trying to work out a nice balance for all this (how long each phase should take, and how easy or hard it should be to break this typical pattern by attacking earlier). But this is about the general idea.

When you really need to get down a tower in phase II, well then you're a bad player, as your opponent shouldn't have been able to make a tower there in the first place.

Towers also have a big disadvantage: when you go around them, they don't come chasing you, as opposed to an army.

[Blake]

A button for having the option to store savegames and watch them later like in Age of Empires.

An observer mode both in single player and multiplayer with chat options between observers (multiplayer).

Better diplomacy options and better AI to adjust to this options and change between them as it pleases in Non locked teams style gameplay.*

* already suggested

[agentx]

> This isn't about who's right or wrong, this is about discussing how to make 0 AD a good game.

Full agreement. However balance is based on numbers. And I'd prefer discussing how to achieve better numbers, without making loopholes somewhere else.

You seem to have a different game experience than me. Example: switching from Aegis to Petra was chocking to me, before I could look around there were towers and fortresses all over the place. And I was like @#$%. So I took some time, changed my tactics and still win. Actually now I feel like a better player, because my repertoire of tactics is much better and it was refreshing, too. Just by switching the AI it was a completely different game. That tells me something about the richness of 0AD. I don't want to miss that and I think towers are great just the way they are, as long as they do not start moving around.

And logically, you can't expect to have only one master tactic to blew all opponents from the map. At least not in a game where players have incomplete information. The clue is to have a tactic the opponent doesn't expect. At the end this is not chess.

[Radagast.]

That's exactly the point though. Once the buildings go up it's all over, you're fighting a battle of attrition that you can't win anymore. There is no way any ranged unit can compete with a tower as of right now, the pierce armor of the tower is far too high. A tower costs ONLY 200 resources and is invincible to ranged attack. If you garrison ranged units in a tower, then it goes from having relatively high attack to having absurdly high attack. Melee units can't do ANYTHING anymore. Is that really how you want 0 AD to play like? first player to get buildings up wins? It's a race to see who can get their buildings up faster? Come now, you know that's no good. Buildings should serve as defensive support for an army, but buildings shouldn't be strong enough to take on an entire army. Don't talk about siege units either because I'm discussing buildings in early age 2.

The 'design flaws' always get fixed. If you question that then look into the commit logs and you'll see. It just takes some time and then Michael will come up with something for that ranged cavalry issue which surely is an issue. To me it looks strongly as if the limiting factor for open source projects is time. We should allow the team to think a bit about such forum discussions before claiming noone wants to fix it.

There are not many features left for Part 1, so there's no need to be worried, balancing improvements will happen and it's a continuous never-perfect process.

The tower issue might be removed with Sander's breakthrough as props could be attackable by ranged units. (i.e. units garrisoned in the tower could die from arrow fire).

The easiest way to really balance is realism. And isn't high pierce armor realistic? What would people say if they could take down a tower with one archer? For me that would have been it. The goal is strategy in historical context. Strategy itself can vary immensely. Therefore if we allow for realistic strategy, then variety will follow.

(having units climb a ladder to storm a tower or wall would be a fantastic addition too.)

^^ Sticks and stones aren't to destroy buildings Siege Engines are needed for that. And i believe thats also how 0.A.D is designed. You need Artillery Onagers to attack a City. Sure there still is alot of room for finding the right balance.

[iNcog]

I will back up my future arguments with research then, in the mean time I rest my case.

E: I posted that because I didn't feel like repeating my points when no-one reads my posts fully. Two things. First off please read my posts entirely before responding to them. You'll notice that a lot of the points people bring up to argue against me are points that I've already discussed in my posts. Secondly, please don't put words in my mouth or misinterpret what I say. I'm not looking to be right or prove that I know better than anyone else here.

Edited June 10, 2014 by iNcog

[Sanguivorant]

All the game needs is better performance IMO. Everything else is secondary for now.

[niektb]

For the ones interested in the status on Performance, there is a trac page about it:

http://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/GamePerformance

[iNcog]

Oh btw while we're at it, I'd murder for a borderless window.

[sanderd17]

Oh btw while we're at it, I'd murder for a borderless window.

No need to murder

http://xmonad.org/

http://herbstluftwm.org/

http://awesome.naquadah.org/

http://i3wm.org/

[Le Druide Gaulois]

I find this anti-towerism to be senseless. Towers would obviously be stronger and fire more arrows than units. To me, there is nothing unrealistic about towers in the game. I got two suggestions:

-Storehouses should be built anywhere on the map

-Walls could only be attacked by siege, after all, an army wouldn't take a massive stone wall down just by banging swords against it.

[iNcog]

I am against stupidly strong towers because they make for a bad game. 0 A.D. isn't a simulation, it's a game. There's nothing realistic on how units are trained or the way the spawn. There's nothing realistic on the way units are killed or how they fight either. There's nothing realistic on how resources are gathered and then spent. There's nothing realistic about a commander who has the ability to micromanage troops with a bird's eye view. If you want to use the realism argument explain to me how making a tower costs 200 in-game resources whereas most infantry are ~110. A tower is literally tonnes of material, compared to one guy with some equipment that weighs less than 100 kg.

You find this anti-towerism senseless because you're not looking at what makes 0 A.D. a fun and interesting RTS. You can't stick to reality if you want a good game. Have you ever played Starcraft 2? Have you ever been cannon or bunker rushed? If not, then you can't quite understand what I'm really afraid of.

My general point which I'm trying to get across is that you have a bunch of units which are all very interesting. You have so many different kinds of units and they're all relevant units. I love that there's a distinction between units carrying a spear and those carrying a sword. I love that javelins are distinguished from bows. I absolutely love that even more when you consider that there is a lot of micro potential in the game, even as of right now. There's beauty in the way units will move when they are being micro-managed. Each group of units is being carefully positioned and re-positioned as each player attempts to gain the upper-hand. It's also very fun to be one of the players who is actually doing the micro-managing. In this game, 0 A.D. it's even more amazing because you have a lot of things to consider. Swordsmen will counter Spear-men for example, yet Spear-Cavalry does well against Swordsmen. However, Spear-men actually do well against all Cavalry. You have Archers which do some damage from long range and you have Skirms which do a lot of damage from short range. So there's a lot of depth to units in 0 A.D., it's amazing to see. The units are all very diverse and very unique. Units being promoted adds even more zest to things. It's really, really, really, REALLY well done.

I'm also especially excited for things such as unit formation, where a line of spear-men will be a death-trap to cavalry for example, however if flanked you can get some very effective damage in. It's another thing that promotes positional fighting skill. Things such as surface area, hit and run, proper splitting, knowing when to attack-move, etc. It's all going to matter in 0 A.D. For example, a group of archers will fire a volley and will fire, in one volley, enough damage to kill several units. However, that extra damage gets wasted if all the archers fire on one unit, so it's important to select small groups and have them fire a volley if you want maximum damage. That's very good, it adds depth to the game. It's going to be amazing and micro in this game is already pretty fun. I can say from Aoe3 that positional micro for these kinds of units is really the way to go. It's very, very fun. It's not hard to understand. Yet two high level players micro'ing against each other is a treat to see. It's also a treat to actually be the one doing the micro.

These two paragraphs are the tip of the iceberg as well. That's why this game is going to be great, it's why the game is already great.

But then you have Towers. Any idiot can make a tower and put 5 ranged units in that tower. That's all there is to it. I wouldn't mind this normally, since static defense is important to have, however Towers are completely immune to units, period. If you build 1 tower, somewhere and put 5 archers in it and have a few more archers around the tower, you can can cost-efficiently take on x10 the amount of units you have in that area. No micro, no positioning, no nothing. It's incredibly boring and it's also game-breaking in that 1 tower and 10 archers will deal with 50+ units easily. If it goes to 60-80? Just make another tower, no problem. What point is there having beautiful units in the game if they all suck compared to some stupid 200 resource building?

I hope that with this post people understand a bit more where I'm coming from with my dislike for towers. The units in this game, as well as the way they interact with each other, are amazing. Truly amazing. Yet everything is overshadowed by this silly thing called a tower.

Now don't get me wrong, the concept of towers fine. However the stats they have are completely ridiculous. It's just a matter of finding more reasonable numbers. I think that Sanderd's work on units being able to die when in towers and such will also help with this. But as of right now towers are much too ridiculous and they don't really add any depth to the game like the units in this game.

Edited June 10, 2014 by iNcog

[RoekeloosNL]

If that happens like in your Screenshot you need to go around his towers and destroy the 2nd CC.

And when your civ is strong you build onagers and you destroy him. its not all about rush more about tactics. And i watch some of you videos and all you do is rush with jav cav and archers i can understand that after some time people know your only tactic and use it against you. dont get me wrong but this is not SC2 this game is about ancient times and most people like to play it slow.

This is a ALPHA Version so there is always room for optimizations

Maybe there need to be more settings on how you can customise a game.

Edited June 10, 2014 by RoekeloosNL

[Lion.Kanzen]

I find this anti-towerism to be senseless. Towers would obviously be stronger and fire more arrows than units. To me, there is nothing unrealistic about towers in the game. I got two suggestions:

-Storehouses should be built anywhere on the map

-Walls could only be attacked by siege, after all, an army wouldn't take a massive stone wall down just by banging swords against it.

i like that but i prefered a unit like a mauryan elephant / ox cart

[auron2401]

Can we keep this thread for SUGGESTIONS, and not balance DISCUSSIONS?!
These derails are giving me headaches. make a darn thread about it.

Did it for you.

Edited June 11, 2014 by auron2401

[thamlett]

Any thoughts on the name for Alpha 17? It should start with a Q, if I remember my alphabet correctly. (And no, this version cannot be dedicated to Quakenet, although they are very helpful )

[Lion.Kanzen]

Any thoughts on the name for Alpha 17? It should start with a Q, if I remember my alphabet correctly. (And no, this version cannot be dedicated to Quakenet, although they are very helpful )

Is not name topic. If for features those are measurable.

[auron2401]

Name topic is Here.

Edited June 11, 2014 by auron2401

[Lion.Kanzen]

Name topic is Here.

is duplicated http://www.wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=17998

[auron2401]

Why didnt it show up on the search then? Bloody useless....

Because that is for 16. not 17.

Edited June 11, 2014 by auron2401

[raymond]

Performance!

Fundraiser for hire programmers only for programming threading (for A17 or A18).

Edited June 11, 2014 by raymond

[Lion.Kanzen]

Performance!

Fundraiser for hire programmers only for programming threading (for A17 or A18).

The team prefers programmers that are familiarizated with game code. Not a guy do it only for money.