Is current status of game any good?

[Stan`]

For context : http://wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=19889#entry307397 I guess you speak of this.

[DarcReaver]

Yes, that's one part. There are others though.

[Lion.Kanzen]

The concept need be start from something like AOE 3 , a player try to develop a Colony. ( the start of economy and early stages)

The rules of/to combat need be similar to AoK or AoM ( to counter and be counter)

The territory rules are from EE 2 and Rise of Nations this implying capture and commerce, even named each .

[Giotto]

The game feels like it is too micro based atm. I think there should be unit formations and army formations. The units (of 5-30) would operate as a group, then they would be arranged into an army formation for battle. It would be nice if users could create their own. You would have the basic unit formations at present then would group them together to form an army. That way the users would be free to test different locations for ranged and melee units etc. The combat could be reduced to hard counters for units and it would become about the way you arrange your soldiers that allows you to win. E.g scouting revealed you opponent has their archers near the front, so you position your ... Whatever in the front to counter that.

[ickylevel]

The macro phase is way too long in this game. The speed of the units, the fact that armies can gather resources, the strength of the buildings, all of this really penalizes early aggression and turn every game into a macro game. There are no possibilities in this game and you feel like on a rail, especially with the territory system.

My solutions :

Lower buildings hp.

Remove territory system.

Lower buildings construction times.

Create hardcounter unit types.

Remove army gathering or limitate it for one unit type per civ.

Have a nearly orthographic 45 degree camera per default to make unit selection easier (like starcraft 2).

Make resources less abundant so that players focus more on aggressive strategies than turtling. Nerf farms by having only one worker per farm (like in AOEII).

Edited September 13, 2015 by ickylevel

[Giotto]

I agree with the weaker buildings, less resources and hard unit counters points but believe the problem lies more with the fact you are not pressured by a slightly weaker player. Once you have more troops/more territory you have won thus turtling at 40-50 percent and training as many troops as possible is the only strategy. I like my idea earlier because it forces the player to plan battles and leave room for much more strategy at the endgame with army's. I love the territory sytem though, I would definitely keep thatm

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

Just looking at this thread, it is obvious that something has to change, but I do not think that hard-counters are the proper way to go. Counters work well in situations in which there are consistent ways to work with it. For instance, in Age of Mythology, the Greeks had from each military production building produced a soft-counter unit that worked within the rock-paper-scissors formula, but also there were hard-counter units that worked against their unit type. 0 A.D. lacks this system, and when it tried hard counters, the result was a confusing and convoluted mess that was not realistic or intuitive, but what it really needs I would argue is clear unit roles. For instance, there could be units that are designed to absorb damage, or ones that can provide reliable long range support, others that can use their terrain to do hard-hitting ambushes before retreating. By giving distinct roles to each unit that provides intuitive strengths and weaknesses in different tactical situations; it encourages players to use their units in a synergistic way rather than necessarily building counters. The mind-game then is how to counter a specific tactic rather than a unit combination generally.

[av93]

http://wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=20018&page=2

I hear you guys. I think the challenge is volunteer turnover. This game has been in development for so long that is continually evolving due to the people working on it. When I was running it for 6 years, I did my best to maintain a cohesive vision for the game. I took a lot of heat for "locking in" some design decisions and would tell people to hold off on criticism until it could be played as a whole. We got 60% there, but I couldn't finish before I handed off the reigns to Erik. Again due to this being a volunteer effort, people come and people go and that shapes how the game is made. Michael saw 0 A.D. in a very different way than I did, and things started to change (what was once locked was open again for debate) - but I don't think he made it all the way to the end of his vision either.

The dangerous end result in this path is a hodge-podge of halfway implemented features that don't quite make sense as a whole. Ken Wood (lead designer back in the early 2000's) once stated: The fate of 0 A.D. is in the hands, of those who have vision and perseverance. This is why it is going to be super difficult to make a game that is cohesive over a period of 15 years, everyone has a different idea of how it should be done. It is both good and bad. The flip side is... If you don't like it, you can get involved and do something about it to change it.

My opinion it's that, being cohesive, fun or not, we have to remember that not only 0 ad it's being developped: devs are making Pyrogenis engine, that it's very moddable. So now, they are adding features that can be adjusted or disabled, but can be useful for other games.

If the starting vanilla 0 A.D isn't succesful at all, a mod would. I think that all effort (maybe not the stat balancing) is useful. As I stated, before going Beta, devs and designers should take a look and choose what it's in, out or needs to be added about gameplay. Now the important it's pathfinder.

Don't discourage. Although some of us don't feel the gameplay at the best, great work. Just to send positive messages, also are important.

Edited September 15, 2015 by av93

[Giotto]

I completely agree with the above point, and the comment that we need more clear unit roles (that was what I was looking at with hard counters). I believe all effort should be put into developing a clear and consistent game.

[Giotto]

Stop adding features and consider the 3 best aspects of gameplay and absolutely polish them up. My 3 would be:

1. Territorys-fine as is in my opinion.

2. Different civilisations-the differences feel vague and undefined at the moment. These need to be clarified and expanded.

3. Combat-at present it is unclear what does what and why. A massive unit clarification and enhancent of formations needs to happen (army+units maybe?)

Look at YOUR top 3 and ask what and how you can improve them. Too much time is spent on minor aspects when what makes a solid game has much more to do with the core gameplay. As a game developer I know this project is very complicated and interesting but lacks consistent gameplay.

[Karamel]

When I first "studied" 0 A.D., something really chocked me: some contribution were rejected because the core team didn't want it. This was completely new for me. But time passed, games were played, the design document read, reread, rerereread and once more and I understood this (I haven't read all the design document though).

The core team knew where they were going (or at least willing to go). It didn't said "implement hard counter" but said "this kind of unit was used this way historically and was defeated this way" (just for that point).

Since alpha 17 it seems that there are a lot of changes and new things but no clear way about how it should be (or be like)

Someone need to say if http://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/0AD_The_Vision is still 0 A.D. what have changed and which other documents are still usable as a reference (in fact someone did something on his own that seems to go close to that as a mod...).

Maybe get the dedious task of making it clear for every suggestions that were done here (I would really like to add my view but I fear to fall in "this is how it was thought at first", without being there at first...)

[Stan`]

I fully agree with you, Maybe we should all take time to read and reread, the vision and see what it lacks. We could make a list of things that should be but aren't, things that aren't but should be, and finally, make sure everyone is going towards that vision. I will repeat, but this is why we need a Leader.

[Giotto]

Goal needs to be fixing the core system instead of implementing new concepts and then spending years fixing them. Get a balanced combat system with clear unit definitions and expand upon the differences between the civilisations. I don't know why aoe 1 was so brilliant, i personally think it had something to do with a darker color palette, and a more definitive order of progression. The music was great as well.

Edited September 15, 2015 by Giotto

[feneur]

Someone need to say if http://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/0AD_The_Vision is still 0 A.D. what have changed and which other documents are still usable as a reference (in fact someone did something on his own that seems to go close to that as a mod...).

The vision certainly haven't changed, apart from the mention of seasons (I did remove it a moment ago from the latest version, so it's no longer there) which haven't been a part of the plan for years. For some reason we forgot to change that back then. As for the design document, I've gone ahead and updated the main page (http://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/Design_Document ) to better reflect the plans as they are. For a more detailed list of gameplay features (and a few non-gameplay ones as well) see http://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/GameplayFeatureStatus

There are probably individual parts of the pages which should be updated, and I don't remember them closely enough to know exactly what we have followed and what we might have done differently/not done yet. Some things were probably not described, or at least not described in a way that is perfectly clear to us who are part of the project now, more than ten years after they were first written.

[Karamel]

Starting from this I have invited some of you to be part of a design meeting. I've selected participants from their contributions and suggestions on the forum, sens of constructive criticism and developped ideas. If you want to participate please send me a private message, I'll speak a bit with the other and invite you (or not). There shouldn't be a dozen of members to avoid a big mess and interminable meeting. Thus it should be the most objective (as it can be for design things) and opened to the forum.

The first one will happen this sunday and will be about how we feel it with the lights of the design documents to define a few tasks and subjects of priority. The report will be posted on the forum.

The aim of this meeting is to try to keep a cohesive design through the alphas and know where we are going, thus preventing moving back and forth (and try to make it clear so than everyone can work in the same general direction). And at least to evaluate suggestions and say if it would be interesting to include (with giving the time for it), if it won't break other things or if it should go as a mod for examples.

I'm also working on the templates for alpha 19, I'll post more details on a dedicated post after the first meeting if it can validate I'm going in a sensible way.

[Lion.Kanzen]

Ok after read about committe idea.

I propose an idea to have all fans happy.

We know about fans of age of empires these are looking some new features and conservative

For conservative i propose an Arcade Mode And for the other "0aD style" ( based in design documents and planned features)

The arcade mode are most like AoK and some AOM , without territory system ( off switch in settings) and may be without Citizen Soldiers system ( maybe) , without limit the towers, fortress and Civiv Centres.

My second point is about counters, I don't like hard counter system but I'm not happy with don't have counters, because when I play I try to spam a mass of soldiers for win.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Hard counter are okay if they aren't too complicated. Old counter system was tooo layered with primary and secondary counter with various bonuses. It was logical but complicated. Check out the counter I make for Delenda Est:

Sword Infantry

1.25x vs. Infantry and Elephant

(Faster than Spear Infantry and Pike Infantry, but less armor)

Spear Infantry

2x vs. Cavalry

(Good all-around stats, the basis for all infantry, bonuses and stats swirl around those of these men)

Pike Infantry

4x vs. Cavalry

(Lower speed and attack, but higher armor than other melee infantry)

Archer Infantry

1.25x vs. Melee Infantry

(A "general" bonus vs. melee infantry, so has lower attack bonus than Javelin Infantry)

Javelin Infantry

1.5x vs. Spear Infantry, Ranged Cavalry, and Elephant

(Javelin Infantry is the specialist)

Slinger Infantry

1.25x vs. Sword Infantry and Ranged Infantry

(Specializes a little more than archer, is fastest and lightest armored of the ranged infantry)

Spear Cavalry

2x vs. Ranged Infantry and Siege Engine

(The heavy cavalry of the game, with low speed and heavy armor compared to other cavalry)

Sword Cavalry

2x vs. Siege Engine, 1.5x vs. Ranged Infantry and Ranged Cavalry

(Like Sword infantry has higher speed but lower armor than Spear counterpart, good for chasing wily enemy skirmisher unit)

Archer Cavalry

1.5x vs. Melee Infantry

(The bane of heavy infantry everywhere, but is vulnerable to Javelin Infantry and Sword Cavalry)

Javelin Cavalry

1.5x vs. Support Unit (Female, Healer, Trader)

(The raider and scout)

Edited September 22, 2015 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[Lion.Kanzen]

It's works like AoM , it's nice, I check and will a try tomorrow.

[Giotto]

I like the counter's above. It's too hard to position troops in place anyway atm so strategy should be developed elsewhere. Also i still like the idea of groups of ten soldiers, all bound into an army.

[Karamel]

It's too hard to position troops in place anyway

Do you mean in alpha 18 and/or svn or in Delenda Est? (this is a request for you to explain a bit more why you feel it too hard )

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

I like the counter's above. It's too hard to position troops in place anyway atm so strategy should be developed elsewhere. Also i still like the idea of groups of ten soldiers, all bound into an army.

Yes, like this:

[Tobi95]

I really like the way, how Cossacks does this. You can group a commander and certain amounts of soldiers (of the same type) in a group that gets selected together and fights together. But you don't have use this feature and sometimes it is even better not to use it.
But I don't think that ten soldiers always in an army is such a good idea. They would be to expensive to recruit them as a reaction to something and the recruiting times would be higher. And if you don't make the army ten times more expensive than a single soldier, you destroy the balance and the population limit is faster reached.

[niektb]

[...]

But I don't think that ten soldiers always in an army is such a good idea. They would be to expensive to recruit them as a reaction to something and the recruiting times would be higher. And if you don't make the army ten times more expensive than a single soldier, you destroy the balance and the population limit is faster reached.

There are tons of ways to balance such army groups, that wouldn't be an issue.

[Lion.Kanzen]

Gentlemen, the best mrchanic for this is used by Rise and Fall Civilization at War.

You recruit unit single by single but when they are certain number and are together in the rally point , they automatically group in Batallions. The Batallions give a huge boost to stats.

[Lion.Kanzen]