Ideas & Improvements To Playability

[ZeroEmpires]

Hey! First I want to apologize in advance if what I say here has been said elsewhere before, I am pretty new here and there's a ton of history in these forums.

The suggestions I have here are mostly about playability and making the game feel more fluid and easy to control.

Firstly, the lack of hotkeys is a real big issue. There's many hotkeys in the manual but many do not cover the basic needs of the player. Control groups are great and I'm glad to see that they exist in 0 A.D. as well as unit creation hotkeys but I think there really needs to be more. Hotkeys to center your view on a building are really important, being able to jump around the map without having to scroll or click the mini-map adds a lot to playability and ease of use, it also helps players to do things more quickly due to not needing to remember where they placed a specific building on the map. Quickbuild hotkeys are also a big must, selecting a unit and being able to press a hotkey to create a building instead of clicking the UI is once again a huge time saver. Players will feel much more comfortable being able to place building foundations with hotkeys.

Also, the idle unit hotkey is great but with the differences between male and female units so huge I feel as though there should be a different hotkey for each. Female villagers will be close to civic centers and form the backbone of your economy, generally speaking they will be separate form the male units who will be fighting and building military buildings away from the economy centers. Therefore, having separate hotkeys for each will help players to keep tabs on where their females are and where their males are. From a mid-low zoom level it's very difficult to distinguish between male and female villagers at a glance. Furthermore, your military is likely to be idle more than your economy, if you set 10 females to chop wood they will do it until the wood runs out. But if you send 10 military units across the map the second they stop you'll start cycling through them instead of the important economy units you intend to select.

Second, if you are attacked by a unit that is out of your LOS you can not see the unit attacking you. I don't know if this is intentional but it makes defending really hard, if you hear an attack sound it's pretty hard to work out where you're being attacked from. There's no jump to notification hotkey to center your view on the attacked unit and if the unit is out of sight firing at you with arrows then it might be difficult to spot the arrows occasionally flying into your view. Putting a map revealer over the attacking unit is a good way to counter this problem.

Third, sound feedback. I love the game music, it's fantastic. A lot of the sounds in the game are also great so really good work there! However, the game seems to lack a lot of sound feedback. For instance, when you advance to a new age there is no distinguishable or clear sound to tell you of that, and because there's no large visual (buildings changing) it can be difficult to realize when you've actually aged up! This may be alleviated also by the "jump to building" hotkeys, such as jumping to the civic center using a hotkey to quickly check on the building queue there.

These are my suggestions at present and I am sure there will be more as I continue to play! I'm really loving the game so far though and I hope you find my suggestions constructive and not critical, the project seems to be moving in a great positive direction which is fantastic. I really love the way that technologies are done, forcing the player to decide between one or another really adds an interesting mechanic! Keep it up.

-Zak

[Stan`]

The age phase sound is waiting for review

[azayrahmad]

I agree with many things you said. You take the words out of my mouth

if you are attacked by a unit that is out of your LOS you can not see the unit attacking you

Shouldn't this be a good thing? It's more realistic. That's why you should always bring your scouts with any army. That being said, I need that 'jump to notification' hotkey so bad.

[FeXoR]

IMO any units sight range should be greater than any units attack range (If a person can's see that far no one can attack that far... because he can't see the target).

[sanderd17]

Hey! First I want to apologize in advance if what I say here has been said elsewhere before, I am pretty new here and there's a ton of history in these forums.

The suggestions I have here are mostly about playability and making the game feel more fluid and easy to control.

Firstly, the lack of hotkeys is a real big issue...

Adding hotkeys to do stuff isn't very hard. The harder part is setting up a hotkey schema that's fast for advanced players, and not too hard to learn. Currently, you can save camera locations, and jump to them (F5 to F8, see the manual). Jumping to buildings is not as easy, as not all civs have the same sorts of buildings. So you might end up with many unused keys in some civs. The same counts for building creation.

Second, if you are attacked by a unit that is out of your LOS you can not see the unit attacking you. I don't know if this is intentional but it makes defending really hard, if you hear an attack sound it's pretty hard to work out where you're being attacked from. There's no jump to notification hotkey to center your view on the attacked unit and if the unit is out of sight firing at you with arrows then it might be difficult to spot the arrows occasionally flying into your view. Putting a map revealer over the attacking unit is a good way to counter this problem.

It's the first time I hear this complaint. Normally (in the default stances), attacked units either go to their attacker, or flee (in the case of females). So it is noticeable. The minimap also pings when your units are attacked (going from white to player colour), so you can click there to see it.

Third, sound feedback. I love the game music, it's fantastic. A lot of the sounds in the game are also great so really good work there! However, the game seems to lack a lot of sound feedback. For instance, when you advance to a new age there is no distinguishable or clear sound to tell you of that, and because there's no large visual (buildings changing) it can be difficult to realize when you've actually aged up! This may be alleviated also by the "jump to building" hotkeys, such as jumping to the civic center using a hotkey to quickly check on the building queue there.

There is a sound for phase upgrade (and for general technology researches), though it's a generic sound, and there should be a different sound in the future (when we have an active sound artist again). The main visible thing is territory increasement. Certainly visible when you've build some buildings on the territory border (which most players do).

These are my suggestions at present and I am sure there will be more as I continue to play! I'm really loving the game so far though and I hope you find my suggestions constructive and not critical, the project seems to be moving in a great positive direction which is fantastic. I really love the way that technologies are done, forcing the player to decide between one or another really adds an interesting mechanic! Keep it up.

Thanks for your interest.

[greenknight32]

The only hotkey that I miss having is a single keypress that will pause the game.

[sanderd17]

The only hotkey that I miss having is a single keypress that will pause the game.

The Pause/Break key?

See the top right in this layout: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/it-services/learning/documentation/keyboard-1/keyboard-r1-6.gif

[Stan`]

I don't have it on my laptop, though I have the numerical pad.

[Dezzi]

I am not sure about those ideas, but I think one way to improve playability is to have Forts not take large amounts of territory because at the moment people are just forting there way to victory.

The idea should be destroying your opponent with units instead of with forts lol.

[niektb]

I don't have it on my laptop, though I have the numerical pad.

I've got it on my laptop above the "+" key.

[Stan`]

Above the "+" I have "-" or "VerrFn"

[greenknight32]

The Pause/Break key?

See the top right in this layout: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/it-services/learning/documentation/keyboard-1/keyboard-r1-6.gif

Got a new keyboard recently, not totally at home with it yet...whattaya know, there is a pause key over there! Except it's above the page up key on this one. I'll have to try that...and there's a calculator key to the right of that? How'd I miss all this stuff?

Edited August 13, 2014 by greenknight32

[blakehaswell]

I agree with pretty much all your feedback Zak. Especially building hotkeys.

The Pause/Break key?

MacBook keyboards don’t have a pause/break key. Apparently fn + ESC is the equivalent though, so I’ll need to try that next time I play.

If that works perhaps it’s worth adding to the documentation, because as a Mac user my initial impression was that I was missing out on the keyboard shortcut for pause.

[serveurix]

attacked units either go to their attacker

I'm surprised, because I've seen units remaining idle when attacked by a unit out of their range. When I'm playing against Persians and Mauryas, it happens quite often, giving those civs a significant advantage.

But maybe it is some sort of delay in the code asking the unit to move for a counter-attack ?

[sanderd17]

I'm surprised, because I've seen units remaining idle when attacked by a unit out of their range. When I'm playing against Persians and Mauryas, it happens quite often, giving those civs a significant advantage.

But maybe it is some sort of delay in the code asking the unit to move for a counter-attack ?

Hmm, that shouldn't happen. Probably a messed up visibility check.

Can you confirm this behaviour in certain cases? You can open the developer overlay (ALT+D) and switch the perspective to the enemy to force such a case.

[RoekeloosNL]

I seen a patch is added in development that add the resources to the player when the units are killed. I dont like that if you attack there farmfields or other resources they still get there food so they can make more units. the point is you attack there income so they cant use it... its realistic and a tactic.

-When killed resources like berries/Wood/fish sould fall on the ground so it later can be taken by the player or enemy.

Edited August 17, 2014 by RoekeloosNL

[sanderd17]

I seen a patch is added in development that add the resources to the player when the units are killed. I dont like that if you attack there farmfields or other resources they still get there food so they can make more units. the point is you attack there income so they cant use it... its realistic and a tactic.

That's not a patch, that's in-game. It just immediately goes to your base (no shuttling needed), and we have no graphics for it. Normally, the attacker gets around 10% of the original cost of the unit killed or structure demolished.

[Llanos]

I agree with Zak, hotkeys are important. At least the important buildings should get a hotkey.

Maybe you could copy the ides of aoe. b (build) + building hotkey (b = barracks, c = civic centre, f=fortress, h=house, s=blacksmith and so on). to skip to a building would be the building hotkey and spacebar to centre the map.

Addition to the third suggestion: add in a sign (like I II III) or change the emblem colour in the top bar. Just as an additional hint for the players.

Is there a techtree implemented? If yes, how do find it?

[serveurix]

Hmm, that shouldn't happen. Probably a messed up visibility check.

Can you confirm this behaviour in certain cases? You can open the developer overlay (ALT+D) and switch the perspective to the enemy to force such a case.

I've tested again on the Maurya Sandbox scenario and I was indeed able to reproduce it. I think there are several problems here :

- Firing range upgrades do not cause vision range upgrades. A mauryan archer that has a firing range of 50 will get a firing range of 60 after tech upgrade, then 64 and 68 after rank upgrades, but will keep his vision range of 50 all the time. This makes the firing range upgrade pointless, unless you play without a fog of war.

- I went in the firing range of a persian archer, then moved the unit out of one or two meters back, the persian archer kept firing on it, even though the two units were out of each other's vision range.

- I attacked a persian archer (range of 50) with a maurya archer (range of 60). When the arrow hit him, he moved ten meters to the target, then stopped. He waited to be hit by a second arrow to fire back.

This, in my opinion, is probably related to an other bug I've encountered, units suddently stopping in the middle of their task, even if it's a task automatically given by UnitAI.

Edited August 18, 2014 by serveurix

[Radagast.]

Adding hotkeys to do stuff isn't very hard. The harder part is setting up a hotkey schema that's fast for advanced players, and not too hard to learn. Currently, you can save camera locations, and jump to them (F5 to F8, see the manual). Jumping to buildings is not as easy, as not all civs have the same sorts of buildings. So you might end up with many unused keys in some civs. The same counts for building creation.

As so often there is a patch - #1899 ([PATCH] Cycle entities) - on trac that jumps through all the buildings when typing e.g. J. for civic centers .

To address the problem you mention, why not get inspired by how blender des it?

Blender uses the first unassigned letter of the building:

e.g. if you have archtower, assembly hall, blacksmith, and cc:

• type a to select the closest to camera archtower entity (press a again to select the next and so on, just like alpha123 did it in the above mentioned patch).
• type s to select assembly hall, because a was already assigned before for archtower.
• b to select blacksmith, press b twice in a row to select all blacksmiths on screen, three times to select all in territory or globally on the whole map.
• c for civil center,
• ... and so on.

@Llanos: sounds useful. Though I'd keep F for focus instead of the spacebar, just because it already is like that currently for units. (F hotkey unfortunately is not working for focusing on structures).

@RoekeloosNL: Can be done, though in reality fields can't be destroyed/taken out anyway other than by using fire or by flooding them. Or by preventing the enemy harvesters to reach the field. So I see no issue with how it currently is other than that units should be able to block harvesters, perhaps a command to surround a field to build a meat wall/isolate it. (fields should not be attackable other than by fire or water)

I seen a patch is added in development that add the resources to the player when the units are killed. I dont like that if you attack there farmfields or other resources they still get there food so they can make more units. the point is you attack there income so they cant use it... its realistic and a tactic.

That's not a patch, that's in-game. It just immediately goes to your base (no shuttling needed), and we have no graphics for it. Normally, the attacker gets around 10% of the original cost of the unit killed or structure demolished.

It's a patch, because currently only the goods traders bear are looted. And also the artificial loot as defined in the killed unit's entity simulation template.

That's what the patch addresses: Robbing the dead entity of the resources it carried with it as well as the garrisoned entities.

[iNcog]

I'd proposed a hotkey set-up some time ago.

Really, there's nothing too complicated about the hot-keys for building buildings. As long as E is for houses that is, that'll help get you aoe players to play the game. Honestly, besides that, just make sure that you use the qwerty asdfg keys before the other ones.

Hotkey customization would be great as well.

[Stan`]

Problem is not hokeys it´s camera displacement: no cod exists for that.

[niektb]

Wasd should be preserved for camera movement. That plays the way better than other RTS games that don't use those keys.

[Radagast.]

The code exists, but it doesn't work for buildings, which is surely possible to fix. (To test type F key when having a unit selected and moving the camera anywhere on the map. It should jump back.)

[iNcog]

I personally don't like it, I often time try to make a house and end up rotating the screen. I use the cursor to scroll around. Of course, I admit that the use of wasd keys is somewhat unique and I can see it being nice for other users. Customization would be nice, however I think that building hotkeys are much more important than camera hotkeys. It doesn't make sense to use both mouse cursor and actual hotkeys (hot hotkeys in that they're where the left hand is) for the same role, in an rts you're generally trying to spread the work-load around as much as possible.