Alpha 18 Balancing Branch

[PrincepsRomanorum]

I don't know why polybolos actually have less rate of fire than oxybeles and have less attack too, if it's descripted as a good fire rate weaker bolt shooter.

[tau]

Indeed nice to see wooden towers available, this can make phase I gameplay more interesting (if powerful enough early attacks are possible too).

Btw they have class 'Town' for some reason, allowing to phase to III with 4 wooden towers and enough resources, intended or bug?

Romans who can't build palisade walls still can build these towers, looks a bit inconsistent.

Cavalry has insane vision range now, can't see a reason for this.

(Edit: to phase to III, not to II)

Edited February 8, 2015 by tau

[Lion.Kanzen]

Indeed nice to see wooden towers available, this can make phase I gameplay more interesting (if powerful enough early attacks are possible too).

Btw they have class 'Town' for some reason, allowing to phase to II with 4 wooden towers and enough resources, intended or bug?

Romans who can't build palisade walls still can build these towers, looks a bit inconsistent.

Cavalry has insane vision range now, can't see a reason for this.

yep may be unlucking gradually for late game.

[scythetwirler]

Indeed nice to see wooden towers available, this can make phase I gameplay more interesting (if powerful enough early attacks are possible too).

Btw they have class 'Town' for some reason, allowing to phase to III with 4 wooden towers and enough resources, intended or bug?

Romans who can't build palisade walls still can build these towers, looks a bit inconsistent.

That was an oversight, I'll fix that. Thanks for the report.

[zzippy]

Cavalry has insane vision range now, can't see a reason for this.

Indeed, too much. On a tiny map 1 horse sees all, on bigger maps 3 horses do the job. Vision range should not be greater than outposts' ; atm its 2-3x ...

Edited February 8, 2015 by zzippy

[PrincepsRomanorum]

Indeed, too much. On a tiny map 1 horse sees all, on bigger maps 3 horses do the job. Vision range should not be greater than outposts' ; atm its 2-3x ...

I'm agreed with that.

[scythetwirler]

Vision range for cavalry has been nerfed in r16294. Thanks for the feedback.

[Pithawk]

I would like to propose a countering template with three distinct types of relative strength.

1) Attack advantage against unit type (e.g. 1.5x)

2) Attack disadvantage (e.g. 0.5x)

3) Neither at a disadvantage or advantage (1x)

Let, 1), 2) and 3) be represented by:

1) ---------------->

2) ---------------->

3) ---------------->

Here is the blank template:

I have not tried to come up with my own ideas because there is already a complex countering system in 0AD. What would be useful before anyone attempts their own ideas is if someone could create a 'current state' countering figure where all the known relationships are already drawn. From there, I think we could have some insightful discussion / debate on countering and re-balancing.

Perhaps there is documentation that includes all the current unit vs unit relationships?

....

After a 'current state' map is complete, I would love to see some ideas from the 0AD community that incorporates the idea of attack disadvantage ('x' multipliers are optional, because it gets messy quickly!).

Some ideas:

- Sword cavalry, I think are OP right now. Instead of simply nerfing sword cav attack, why not lessen their damage against some unit types? (i.e. ----------------> )

- Spear cav are perhaps UP, who counter sword cav, but are weak because they are countered by ranged + melee types (I think?). What if spear cav ----------------> ranged units, but also ranged units ----------------> spear cav.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Unit vision should be:

Infantry 50 meters

Cavalry 60 meters

Large vision range makes maps smaller (too small). Large vision also make unit auto-attack to very great range, messing up army control. You can make Cavalry have greater vision with a tech or an auto-scout feature or something like this.

Edited February 8, 2015 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[scythetwirler]

Perhaps there is documentation that includes all the current unit vs unit relationships?

Currently, in SVN, the only hard counter is spearmen dealing 2x damage against cavalry.

Balancing merged into SVN.

[iNcog]

Currently, in SVN, the only hard counter is spearmen dealing 2x damage against cavalry.

Balancing merged into SVN.

I actually really love this change.

[niektb]

I'm only not so fan of the huge range of ranged stuff have these days. It is almost impossible to play on smaller maps.

Also I believe that Gaul Fanatics are rather useless now (like every champion spearman)

The huge spread of ranged cavalry makes them completely useless to hunt (which I tend to do often if there are enough huntables)

Edited February 9, 2015 by niektb

[iNcog]

I loaded up the most recent version of 0 A.D. and played 5 minutes.

I really like the fact that multipliers are gone and simplified.

I do however feel that ranged units should not "miss". I don't like the concept, I can understand where it comes from but I just don't feel the concept. In an RTS, you have to trust your units to do exactly what you need them to.

Whether or not ranged units have too much range or too much dps is something I can't comment on at the moment, I haven't played the game enough to have a valid opinion.

I will just say that (for A19, if anything) in my mind, the best working solution for 0 A.D. is giving ranged units a support role. they're good for scouting, they're good for harass, they're cheap, extra dps in a fight. However massing only ranged units will give you an army which is too fragile, which loses. This is the ideal role for ranged units, I feel.

Likewise, melee units should be tougher units than ranged. Melee cavalry should be tough and fast, but they should also be more expensive to balance things out.

This comes down to numbers and design, however getting rid of most multipliers (except for spear infantry against Cavalry) is, imo, a step in the right direction.

[Lion.Kanzen]

The best to balance ranged is like AOE 3 when are near to close combat provide to melee Attack vs melee units only

Like Spartan woman defensive Attack( with a knife or very short blade), the formation movement don't help to moving effective and are very vulnerably to die, too easy. The only unit I see was great advantage was the slinger, but I need test it more.

But archer Rush is hard to perform. May be need improve micro. The auto micro can be nice as pasive ability to units with Parthian attack ( shot and run) example Horse archers.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

This comes down to numbers and design, however getting rid of most multipliers (except for spear infantry against Cavalry) is, imo, a step in the right direction.

I disagree a lot, but respectfully. There really is no reason to train a archer cav over a javelin cav. The players will find the best cost-benefit ratio and just spam those units and ignore the others. Roles are muddy and unclear. I also disagree that ranged units should alwats hit target. If you don't like ancient combat concepts then why play ancient combat game.

Edited February 9, 2015 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[iNcog]

I disagree a lot, but respectfully. There really is no reason to train a archer cav over a javelin cav. The players will find the best cost-benefit ratio and just spam those units and ignore the others. Roles are muddy and unclear. I also disagree that ranged units should alwats hit target. If you don't like ancient combat concepts then why play ancient combat game.

You have to play on the attributes given to units if you take away the multipliers they have.

You could have a hard counter system like it was done in Aoe3; that would get you very fun unit interaction and micro. In fact when I first got into 0 A.D. about a year ago, I was for the use of a very hard counter system. My arguments were very similar to the one you just gave.

However that direction isn't the one taken by the 0 AD project, the way I understand things. I'll come back to unit stats as a way to differentiate units.

We can look over a basic example.

Let's imagine that we have an archer unit which costs 100 resources. It does 10 damage every shot and it fires once a second (10 dps). It has 100 hp. Now let's take a swordsmen unit. This unit also costs 100 resources, it does 10 damage every second (10 dps). Let's give the swordsmen 200 hp.

Which unit is better? The archers with their range or the swordsmen with their health? The answer isn't clear cut, really. If you engage 20 swordsmen vs 20 archers, the swordsmen should win easily. If you have the archers hit and run consistently, the archers might win, however it will take time. Time is a resource in an rts game. You also can't use hit and run when you're defending a position (civic center, resources or map control). Arguably, even if you give the archers more dps than the swordsmen (13-15), the swordsmen would still win a straight up fight due to their HP. This is without multipliers. The strength of the archer resides not in the fact that it is a cost-efficient unit, but it resides in the range it has.

If we look at things more broadly, we realize that it's possible to play on the strengths that units have to balance them out. Ranged units can be given range, dps and poor HP. Melee units can be given dps and strong HP. Ranged units caught in a melee fight will lose straight up. Ranged units which act as support for friendly melee units can help turn the tide of the fight. Basically, by playing on the different attributes which units are given, you can give them a certain niche role. A unit which is correctly used in that role will do well, a unit which is mis-used will quickly die.

It's kind of like the Mutalisk in starcraft. In Zerg vs Terran, using your mutalisks to fight in a straight up fight is generally suicide. Yet you won't hear a single Terran player who says that mutalisks are a bad unit. Mutalisks were given mobility and damage output. The role they then serve is that of picking off high value targets, workers, cutting off reinforcements and obtaining map control. Mutalisks have no multipliers to help them do extra damage to certain units, yet they still serve a niche role and they're very fun units for that purpose. The same can be said for the Marine.

You can easily replicate this in 0 A.D, I modded the game a bit on my own to give units certain attributes like the ones I described, the results were quite interesting. For example, you could give skirmishers high attack, but low attack frequency. The overall dps that skirmishers have make them bad in straight up fights. However, they could hit and run units quite well due to their high attack. This made skirmishers soft-counter melee infantry units. However making an army with only skirmishers would inevitably lead to defeat. All of this can be done without the use of multipliers and I think that this is what scythe is slowly but surely working towards.

It's for the purpose of micro that I would like ranged units to always hit their targets. As I've said before, this may be a game where the time setting is set in the Antiquity, but it remains a game. In an RTS, you want your units to be reliable. I don't personally believe that ranged units missing their targets adds anything to 0 AD as a game. I see 0 A.D. as an RTS with huge potential which is in development. I don't quite see 0 AD as a historical simulation. Of course, nothing is wrong with having different views and I respectfully acknowledge your point.

[Lion.Kanzen]

the results were quite interesting. For example, you could give skirmishers high attack, but low attack frequency. The overall dps that skirmishers have make them bad in straight up fights. However, they could hit and run units quite well due to their high attack. This made skirmishers soft-counter melee infantry units. However making an army with only skirmishers would inevitably lead to defeat. All of this can be done without the use of multipliers and I think that this is what scythe is slowly but surely working towards.

Sounds interesting suggestion I agree a lot. But spear cavalry are still useless. I mean unpractical. What you think about that?

[iNcog]

Not much as I haven't played the game enough recently.

In my musings I'd imagined the spear cavalry to be a cheaper, lighter and faster version of swords cavalry. The spear as a weapon seems to excel in taking out fragile targets (ranged infantry or harvesters).

Scythe should have his word to say ^^

[niektb]

I suppose spear cavalry should be excellent for charging (or, since charging isn't implemented yet, able to harrass weak(er) targets easily)

[scythetwirler]

Spearmen weren't killing cavalry well enough; counter was increased to 3x in r16313.

Not much as I haven't played the game enough recently.

In my musings I'd imagined the spear cavalry to be a cheaper, lighter and faster version of swords cavalry. The spear as a weapon seems to excel in taking out fragile targets (ranged infantry or harvesters).

Scythe should have his word to say ^^

Spear cavalry currently have very bursty damage. Over time, their damage output is approximately the same as sword cavalry.

[iNcog]

How exactly is their damage bursty? There isn't a charge mechanism quite installed yet, is there?

[scythetwirler]

They have a very high damage attack that repeats every 3.5 seconds while other melee units have less damaging attacks that repeat every second. (Basically, a feeble attempt to imitate charging behavior for the time being)

[Alekusu]

Scythe, to simulate a charge what do you think about boosting only the first attack of the spear cav ? And then the next attacks deal normal damage.

And if they stop attacking for a few seconds, the process restarts.

In that way we can simulate the "charge damage" and the "I'm stuck in the melee damage"

No idea if this is possible though..

[Alekusu]

for example, (numbers are here just to clarify)
cav sword deals 10 damage per unit of time
cav spear deals 40 damage at first attack (that means after doing nothing for 3 or 4 units of time)
cav spear deals 8 damage per unit of time after the first attack

With this,

if cav spear charge and stay in the melee, cav sword will take the advantage after a few units of time
if cav spear micro out of the battle and charge again as much as they can, they will deal more damage than cav sword.

see table

it maybe a stupid idea though ^^

Tell me if it's unclear

Edited February 10, 2015 by Alekusu

[Zezil]

In a way or another , charging should imho be implemented for spear cav, it would follow the spirit of differentiation of units we got for infantry.

Ok, i wrote to expose a doubt i got playing SVN lately: melee infantry doesnt counter ranged infantry, expecially skirmishers ,and i'll explain why.

Rangeds walk faster, they can pretty much act as ranged cav, hit until enemy gets close, run and hit again. Melees cant do much but chase until they die.

Now, the hit and run thing is in the spirit of skirmishers, that's pretty much what they did in battle years and years ago, harassing, make as many injuried as possible and run away( and also support melee infantry). In the game they do this to enemie's death wich kills the gameplay, and is a step back from a17, wich got the melee-rangeds balancing pretty well imo. Only way to kill rangeds is now cavalry or more rangeds.

In a few word, rangeds could rule the batllefield in a18 and we dont want that i think. Melee would only be good to counter cavalry and draw some of enemy'srangeds fire out of your own rangeds. Now , i dont know if this scenario is historically realistic and I dont know if that's something we would like to play, i know we should understand this before alpha18 comes out. So test it and talk about it

An idea to maintain rangeds higer walk speed and make melee kill rangeds in 1:1 battles could be implementing the "chasing woman" animation melee already got when an attacked woman runs away, and also giving rangeds a weak melee attack once they are too close to enemy( the distance i have in mind would be higer then the melee attack range, aproximately 5 meters would be a good least distance to throw a ranged attack). Anyway , if anybody wants im available to test rangeds vs melee battles and show you what i mean and how effective it is.