Testing Propositions

[DarcReaver]

2 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

@DarcReaver that is better why you dont start a topic like that my first time I do in that way.

Because this way I'm doing YOUR work as developers. YOU should be the ones who actually should think of stuff like this and not me. You could try to take the opinion and rethink your game and come up with working solutions from experience from other games.
It's not as if there aren't plenty of great games to take inspiration from and merge it with 0 AD to form something even greater.

Instead you're ignorant "you jsust dont know how to play" "no its not broken just needs experience" and then you expect me to fix the game for you.

Edited March 1, 2017 by DarcReaver

[sphyrth]

Woah! With those concepts you're better off having a team to build a mod for the game... a total conversion even.

[DarcReaver]

10 minutes ago, sphyrth said:

Woah! With those concepts you're better off having a team to build a mod for the game... a total conversion even.

Stuff like this needs to be the core of the actual game first. The developers have to have a vision of the game, how it should be played and build it accordingly.
Leaving everything to modders or total conversions does not help.

Of course opinions differ, but if someone of the dev team would set up a line for the gameplay there would be no reason to create mods to fix the game for them.
I don't even care if its a system similar to mine, but it should _WORK_. And in the current alpha it's more than obvious that the dev game version does NOT work.

And the worst thing:

I came here over a year ago (!) and there has been ZERO, ZERO !!! progress in the game design department. It's almost the same when I left at alpha 18 or 19. that's the real problem. They don't care.

They even created a "balancing" sub forum that states "Hey look our game is awesome that we don't need to improve the game design. Just help us fix the stats and it's awesome!" which is utterly bulls***.

There is so much great art and potential in this game and they're not even remotely using it to make something great out of it.
Of course it's a difference if you're an Indie developer compared to the great lords of games like microsoft or Blizzard. But that's no excuse to get your own stuff to work properly.

Hence my rambling.

Edited March 1, 2017 by DarcReaver

[Lion.Kanzen]

Quote

scrap the Citizen Soldier system

No, you must probe this is wrong and is an  Inaccuracy.

Quote

units are trained in batches. that means: you click on the "train button" and once finished a certain amount of units is spawned instead of single units (I'd still suggest to have battalions because with the tiny units on the map it would simply make everything way more easy to overview, but anyways. I'll go with this for

I Agree with that but I dont want a Battle for Middle Earth game. I like more like Rise and Fall : CAW.

Quote

- unit cost is increased accordingly, building times aswell  

No, this mostly of worst thing of RoN. we have infinite resources to do that.

 

 

I dont see problem with your proposition for resources. thats need a topic itself.

 

Quote

 Citizen can be "called to arms", transforming them in a garrison/defense type unit (like a Hoplite for example) for a set amount of time (like 30 seconds - 1 minute). After that they automatically become Citizens again

So you even had idea i proposed The call of arms before. but not like RoN. that turn Citizen to soldiers unlike have an animation or click a button(UNNECESSARY MICROMANAGEMENT )

 

Quote

New gather system

System 1 civilized/hellenic tribes/romans/Karthago

* 2 trainable types of Gatherers : Women and Citizens
    - proposal:
    women cost 150 food, number of women per training: 5
    - gather food (only)
    Citizens cost 200 food, number of Citizens per training: 2
    - harvest metal, food, wood, stone

why these costs?

Quote

Barbarians have weaker buildings compared to hellenic tribes, but they are cheaper.

-> resources can be collected with Ox carts or cheap stash buildings that only require a couple of resources to be built. Can be built anywhere on the map no matter if friendly or neutral territory.
-> allows early expansion and swarming the map with units, setting up camps for ambushes and harassment

I

Historical inaccuracy so far, even is a cliche, Iberian have more HP than others. the others have different costs in materials.

you are runing the concept without investigate, how about Ptolemies? and some civil buildings.

Quote

-> resources can be collected with Ox carts or cheap stash buildings that only require a couple of resources to be built. Can be built anywhere on the map no matter if friendly or neutral territory.

This can be nice with Nomads not with Celts  or Iberians, more Inaccuracies.

 

Quote

> allows early expansion and swarming the map with units, setting up camps for ambushes and harassment

Yes I like this is similar to DE the first time i play.

Quote

combat unit system:

- units take up different amounts of population, the better/larger the unit is the more pop cap it uses

- mace/sword units 1-2 pop
- spearmen 1 pop
- hoplites 3 pop
- siege weapons 4 pop
- melee cavalry 2-4 pop (from light -> heavy)
- archers take 2 pop
- skirmishers take 1 pop
- mounted skirms take 2 pop
- ships take 5-10 pop, but are much more powerful and expensive compared to now

This haven't sense more than gameplay, I tell nope. Aoe3 do things like this. I know this solve the way of use this units Infantry melee over other but isn't the way.

Quote

example Sparta:

- hoplites spawn 10 men each
- elite spartans are only 5

sounds like this... a mobile game? you want do that with 0 AD

 

 

Quote

germanic tribe Axemen/Swordmen spawn with 15 soldiers each and so on.

The costs are applied based on their hitpoint/damage ratio.

why?

hmmm no thank you I want RoN. or other game. this no the feeling of we want sounds like fantasy RTS. or RoN that was so inaccurate.

 

We have anothers common concept with Slaves. this very similar to TW series, that for me fits so well.

Spoiler

Slave/Capture system:

- not all soldiers/women die on the Battlefield
- wounded enemies can be captured and are put into a sort of "slave building". Either automatically or the ownership is changed and they can be garrisoned manually
- slaves are captured automatically when military units stopped fighting (to reduce necessary micro)

Slave building:

Slave buildings work like a market place and permanently create resources.
the building can be built and then upgraded to become a mine (produces metal), quarry (produces stone), farm (produces food). Each building limits to like 10 slaves or 20.

Civs that did not rely on slavery in history instead get a resource bonus for captured units added to their resources.
That means that defensive slaver civs can slowly build up a better economy by utilizing the slave buildings.

 

 

Quote

there is a difference between a trained army and tribal warfare. Experienced, well equipped soldiers are better at fighting and are more powerful in direct combat. They have to be weakened by nomads with hit and run tactics, ambushes
and other stuff.

Each unit gets a hard counter that is significantly cheaper in one are

I'm sure there are more cliches ,

the other part I mentioned in other topic about delete your own units. and the problem now you unbalance the game between factions.

 

About Conversion.

http://trac.wildfiregames.com/ticket/997

its working game because have money. but what you think about this?

 

Quote

Astonishing ignorance. Wow.

probe it that. 

[Lion.Kanzen]

Quote

Stuff like this needs to be the core of the actual game first. The developers have to have a vision of the game, how it should be played and build it accordingly.
Leaving everything to modders or total conversions does not help.
 

MUST? hahaha. your idea must... nah I dont like it sounds like another bad EE idea same mistakes thats bring them never launch another game like that.

some modders are Developers like Niektb, Lordgood, etc.

Quote

I came here over a year ago (!) and there has been ZERO, ZERO !!! progress in the game design department. It's almost the same when I left at alpha 18 or 19. that's the real problem. They don't care.

How old are you? the people here dont work  or have as Job this game, we have a life outside. is this hard to understand, and you how you are helping? are you helping?

[DarcReaver]

1 hour ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

MUST? hahaha. your idea must... nah I dont like it sounds like another bad EE idea same mistakes thats bring them never launch another game like that.

some modders are Developers like Niektb, Lordgood, etc.

How old are you? the people here dont work  or have as Job this game, we have a life outside. is this hard to understand, and you how you are helping? are you helping?

I'm 28 and I'm doing this in my free time aswell. I'm employed as leading technical Estate Construction Engineer for a large community.

Also you're right heading towards the route of "never launch a game".

BECAUSE YOU DONT HAVE A GAME. YOU HAVE A BUNCH OF PIXELS THAT CAN FOLLOW ORDERS. THATS ALL!

I could just go ahead, take some of our Eastern Front Model assets, put them randomly together and say "LOOK THIS MY GAME ISNT IT BEAUTIFUL!?"

Because that's what you're doing. And it's the wrong way. But deep inside you know it already.

As I can't properly quote the first post I'll post directly in the quote in red (edit since you aswell took red colour I switch to purple):

1 hour ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

No, you must probe this is wrong and is an  Inaccuracy.

I already did state numerous reasons why the citizen soldier concept is bad and I won't do it again. Just read the posts I wrote earlier inthis thread kthx.

I Agree with that but I dont want a Battle for Middle Earth game. I like more like Rise and Fall : CAW.

 

No, this mostly of worst thing of RoN. we have infinite resources to do that.

I never said this should be another Battle for Middle Earth game. Neither did I say infinite resources. Apart from that your famrs already ARE infinite sources of food. the unit costs were just examples how training multiple units at once could be accomplished. It's an early concept, and even then it's more advanced than everything you've accomplished in over a year of development with at least half a dozen people or more. Enough said.

edit: I say BFME series and several other games had very interesting and refreshing ideas to mix up with traditional RTS traits. In particular for BFME this was a battalion system and the possibility to apply flanking bonuses to units aswell as trampling soldiers and defending against trample with Pikemen type units. Just like it can be seen in games like Rome Total War series. Epic fights with cavalry charges, flanking and demolishing enemy armies with superior tactics. Units getting experienced in battle and leveling up, allowing them to deal more damage than their rookie fresh trained counterparts.That's stuff that is way more advanced than building X barracks and spam infantrymen from them faster than your enemy. That's why I've taken these games as examples in the past for great progress in the genre.

I dont see problem with your proposition for resources. thats need a topic itself.

yes, and this is a CORE TOPIC AND SHOULD BE THE FIRST THING TO ACTUALLY FOCUS DEVELOPMENT ON. DEAR GOD.

So you even had idea i proposed The call of arms before. but not like RoN. that turn Citizen to soldiers unlike have an animation or click a button(UNNECESSARY MICROMANAGEMENT )

I don't care too much about the actual implemetation. It should be in spirit of the citizen soldier system to live on but be less retarded.

why these costs?

Historical inaccuracy so far, even is a cliche, Iberian have more HP than others. the others have different costs in materials.

Yes, however this is minor stuff that is settled in a later phase of the game. Actually, stuff like hitpoint bonuses for units or build times are something for an actual playtest beta.

you are runing the concept without investigate, how about Ptolemies? and some civil buildings.

This can be nice with Nomads not with Celts  or Iberians, more Inaccuracies.

Dude I don't care for which civs this would be used. Be it celts or Iberians, I don't It's about creating a @#$%ing gameplay diversity, so stop nitpicking random details out of the concept and treat them as if they're 100% done. They're just examples how the civs can be made more diverse without turning everything upside down. And creating a concept that allows players to switch between civs fitting their playstyles more.

If you had done your job right ideas like this would be in the game already instead of "unit X has 2 hitpoints more than unit Y"

Yes I like this is similar to DE the first time i play.

This haven't sense more than gameplay, I tell nope. Aoe3 do things like this. I know this solve the way of use this units Infantry melee over other but isn't the way.

sounds like this... a mobile game? you want do that with 0 AD

 

What? If you train multiple uints at once you create larger armies/economies, creating an illusion of actually managing a civilization, not a bunch of villagers with stones and sticks, why do you compare it to a random mobile game? I don't get the point.

 

why?

hmmm no thank you I want RoN. or other game. this no the feeling of we want sounds like fantasy RTS. or RoN that was so inaccurate.

I don't get your point once more. As if 0ad would be anywhere near historical. If you'd have a historical game there would be much more emphasis on actual numbers of armies, multiple cities, empires that rise and fall and so on. Arguing with historical accuracy is always a mess. Who would want to play romans who in reality got destroyed when the barbarians invaded italy? Ingame you'd need romans to auto loose after 30 mins because they're invaded by barbarian tribes. lol.

We have anothers common concept with Slaves. this very similar to TW series, that for me fits so well.

  Reveal hidden contents

Slave/Capture system:

- not all soldiers/women die on the Battlefield
- wounded enemies can be captured and are put into a sort of "slave building". Either automatically or the ownership is changed and they can be garrisoned manually
- slaves are captured automatically when military units stopped fighting (to reduce necessary micro)

Slave building:

Slave buildings work like a market place and permanently create resources.
the building can be built and then upgraded to become a mine (produces metal), quarry (produces stone), farm (produces food). Each building limits to like 10 slaves or 20.

Civs that did not rely on slavery in history instead get a resource bonus for captured units added to their resources.
That means that defensive slaver civs can slowly build up a better economy by utilizing the slave buildings.

 

well this was just an idea to get something rolling, and people to think about alternate ideas for combat/resource gathering interactions.

I'm sure there are more cliches ,

the other part I mentioned in other topic about delete your own units. and the problem now you unbalance the game between factions.

 

About Conversion.

http://trac.wildfiregames.com/ticket/997

its working game because have money. but what you think about this?

 

 

probe it that. 

The last two paragraphs are pretty unclear to me because the english is too weird for me to understand. English isnt my main language so idk. What do you actually mean?

 

In case you still don't understand the reasoning behind the criticism:

The point is that 0ad is an uncreative, soulless clone of Age of Empires 2 without a working economy concept, military concept, no unique traits that make the game standing out from it (except for the capturing system which has some potential to be fair) and the horrible citizen soldier system that creates more problems than it fixes. If I'd make a list with pro's and contra's for 0ad compared to AoE 2 it would look like this:

0 ad Pros:

- nice 3d graphics
- other civs than AoE II, and "historical accurate" with no fantasy involved
- interesting map layouts

0 ad Contra:

- as stated in the name "0" gameplay
- no original ideas to make civs differ from each other
- no military counter system
- no teching progression
- no cohesive teching options for military and economy
- no strategical depth
- no longtime motivation to actually get into the "game"
- chaotic feeling throughout every match, no red line in the game to get a progression effect for players playing it
 

Other negative points like missing game features, animation bugs and so on would be unfair since the game isnt finished at this point. If I'd split up certain points (like strategical depth or teching progression) this list would become quite a bit longer. Since you yourself say it's an alpha I won't go into the details as much aswell, because the game can evolve, right?

 

Sure, you have historical weapons, names, building architectures for your civilizations. But that doesn't make it a game.

It makes it an interactive museum. No Rise of Nations clone, no nothing. Just a museum that moves.

State me otherwise?

I'll just post a dozen AoE II HD stream recordings from youtube between some players and put your (admittedly nicely recorded) youtube channel content against it. After minute 10 there should be a significant difference to see where 0ad is lacking.

Edited March 1, 2017 by DarcReaver

[Skhorn]

It seems there is one thing you miss from all the concept behind 0ad and it's constantly repeated trough the forum: its a project that grows by contributions. You say you don't care of development, but the work that took several days, weeks, months or years can't be thrown away just because there is someone that does not like it, specially with not enough good arguments to make more viable the idea. At least have some sort of respect, you don't know what's to code or to do a whole set of buildings for a faction. IT TAKES TIME

I seriously encourage you, to be more patient an try to read and clear the idea of what 0ad is, as a game, as an historical/accurate game that you just seem to joke about, why? With that in mind you may have more decent arguments, than just babbling.

As for the more hilarious thing in your post, 

Spoiler

I don't get your point once more. As if 0ad would be anywhere near historical. If you'd have a historical game there would be much more emphasis on actual numbers of armies, multiple cities, empires that rise and fall and so on. Arguing with historical accuracy is always a mess. Who would want to play romans who in reality got destroyed when the barbarians invaded italy? Ingame you'd need romans to auto loose after 30 mins because they're invaded by barbarian tribes. lol.

Dude, seriously? That's not an argument for someone of your age. 

[DarcReaver]

31 minutes ago, Skhorn said:

It seems there is one thing you miss from all the concept behind 0ad and it's constantly repeated trough the forum: its a project that grows by contributions. You say you don't care of development, but the work that took several days, weeks, months or years can't be thrown away just because there is someone that does not like it, specially with not enough good arguments to make more viable the idea. At least have some sort of respect, you don't know what's to code or to do a whole set of buildings for a faction. IT TAKES TIME
 

I seriously encourage you, to be more patient an try to read and clear the idea of what 0ad is, as a game, as an historical/accurate game that you just seem to joke about, why? With that in mind you may have more decent arguments, than just babbling.

As for the more hilarious thing in your post, 

  Hide contents

I don't get your point once more. As if 0ad would be anywhere near historical. If you'd have a historical game there would be much more emphasis on actual numbers of armies, multiple cities, empires that rise and fall and so on. Arguing with historical accuracy is always a mess. Who would want to play romans who in reality got destroyed when the barbarians invaded italy? Ingame you'd need romans to auto loose after 30 mins because they're invaded by barbarian tribes. lol.

Dude, seriously? That's not an argument for someone of your age. 

We had around 25 people work on Eastern Front in the past 5 years, of many which were modelers, animators, coders and 2d artists. I know how much work is required to made new models and I dont question the quality of the work. That's why I put the 3d art on the positive list.

Just for some references we're using on Eastern Front:

Eastern Front Mode ingame and renders

Just feel free to browse through the pages and see for yourself. There are hundreds of assets created, tanks, missiles, grenades, at guns, infantry units, buildings, special effects, sounds etc.

about the last paragraph you posted, I was clearly exaggerating and joking, hence the "lol" at the end of the paragraph. Of course it's clear that history shouldn't go that far. But this shows the discrepancy between "historically accurate" and a game. A game is a game, and compromises have to be made in order to get a playable game that doesn't feel like a sciFi abomination.

edit to clear this up: I respect the vision of having an "authentic historical game". But putting a bunch of historically accurately modeled units and buildings together doesn't make it a game. It's a "authentic historical model/art showcase". You can look at the art and be happy, and that's about it. Like an interactive screensaver.

About the other stuff:

Yes, the game grows by contributions. But look at it this way:

In order to contribute something that can be used you have to have some sort of recipe of which you can cross out stuff that has been done already and stuff that still needs to be done. There has been progress in many areas, I noticed the smoother animations of soldiers, some new ambience music, and finally non buggy path finding and a fix to the lag which made earlier versions unplayable.

But in terms of gameplay there is NO progress whatsoever. The uints still are all in the HQ, there is no resource distribution, every unit costs lumber and food although it clearly shouldn't. There is no teching present, nothing. In over a year. Nobody added gameplay related stuff to the design document, no gameplay patterns were created. Nothing.

That's why I wrote that you made a nice little interactive museum.

A game works like this:

You create an enviroment (for example Ancient times, Space, medieval, fantasy or whatever setting you like)
then you create a certain "ruleset" for your game to play in. I.e. large scale battles, real time or turn based, micro focused with high hitpoint units and low army sizes, and other options
then you go ahead and build your art assets for the game.
The ruleset is then tweaked and polished throughout the early stages of the game development, things that work are kept in and others are removed. After a certain time you get something that could be called a prototype game and then you can go further to tweak it as you wish.

0 ad has no _working_ ruleset, not since a few days, but since its very start. That's the key issue. And this is not getting fixed. IN YEARS. And the further issue is that there is noone who cares about this. The devs, like Lion.kanzen clearly stated their ignorance and incompetence in this matter numerous times aswell as their inability to actually make a game, not an art showcase.

Instead they go ahead and say "let others fix our game for us, we don't care about it".

 

Edited March 1, 2017 by DarcReaver

[DarcReaver]

And once more to clarify the core argument:

It's like you're joining  Formula 1 racing with a 20 year old stock car with 20 horsepower.

Then you start your first race and notice "ahh crap, I can't win the race, the others are too fast for me".

The logical solution would be: reduce weight on the car, put in a decent engine and make its traction and controls better so you can keep up with the high powered special formula 1 racing cars. Or simply kick out the stock car and get a proper racing car for the class I'm driving in.

Makign the solution according to the 0 ad guysto the problem "I can't win races with my car" is to put cooler rims and a different coating paint. Alternatively, I buy more Stock cars with 20 Horsepower, but accurate coating paint and rims and say "look, I have more racing cars now! They look completely authentic!" - but they still suck performancewise.

And then tell the others to drive more slowly because they're the ones driving the wrong cars.

And if someone questions this he's told that "this is how racing works. You have no clue about real racing cars". Or alternatively "I don't have any engine mechanics on my team, so I can't make my car faster. But I insist that even in this state the car works well enough for racing!"

Edited March 1, 2017 by DarcReaver

[Skhorn]

Look, i'm not the right person to talk about your disregards about the game, as i'm not entirely familiarized with all the game developement. 

But there is something i can say to you:

First, check this magnificent and beautiful post 

You may think: Why the f|@·~ i want to see that? Well, the way how Sundiata exposed his idea about a faction, led that single idea into a mod. I know its not the same as gameplay, but i think my point is very clear.

Instead of letting loose your rage, why don't you come up with a decent post, explaining your ideas, giving pros, contras, comparing x with y or whatever you think it may be useful for you to explain it. Testing is needed as devs can't go blindly writing code, they got to know what people think that should be done and should be corrected, they need to know another point of view. But there are ways to get to them, one way, is giving a nice explanation, not mere millions of words, just a good explained idea. 

So, you think that writing while on rage on the forum it will make them say: Yes, change it!! or you think they will take your words seriously? No, seriously, no. I think some of your protests can be seen here http://trac.wildfiregames.com/roadmap or searching in the forum you may know what has been said about it.

I urge to try another efficient way to expose your ideas. Avoid writing that with rage, be polite.


 

Edited March 1, 2017 by Skhorn

[Enrique]

Unlike Lionkazen and sphyrt I understand DarcReaver and share some of his thoughts regarding the core gameplay even if his words aren't as polite as we're used to. 

There are some reasons that made the gameplay direction to the current state it is, but it is not a valid argument to defend the current gameplay at all.

I think experimenting with more radical gameplay changes, even if imbalanced, would be a better way to find the correct gameplay systems' mix to get a fun game instead of trying to balance the alpha to make it enjoyable for its current playerbase. Sadly, we don't have a lead gameplay tech/dev and normally each member has its own game view.

[DarcReaver]

24 minutes ago, Skhorn said:

Look, i'm not the right person to talk about your disregards about the game, as i'm not entirely familiarized with all the game developement. 

But there is something i can say to you:

First, check this magnificent and beautiful post 

You may think: Why the f|@·~ i want to see that? Well, the way how Sundiata exposed his idea about a faction, led that single idea into a mod. I know its not the same as gameplay, but i think my point is very clear.

Instead of letting loose your rage, why don't you come up with a decent post, explaining your ideas, giving pros, contras, comparing x with y or whatever you think it may be useful for you to explain it. Testing is needed as devs can't go blindly writing code, they got to know what people think that should be done and should be corrected, they need to know another point of view. But there are ways to get to them, one way, is giving a nice explanation, not mere millions of words, just a good explained idea. 

So, you think that writing while on rage on the forum it will make them say: Yes, change it!! or you think they will take your words seriously? No, seriously, no. I think some of your protests can be seen here http://trac.wildfiregames.com/roadmap or searching in the forum you may know what has been said about it.

I urge to try another efficient way to expose your ideas. Avoid writing that with rage, be polite.


 

The article you posted is called "design process". Exactly what I wrote in my last paragraph here:

Quote

You create an enviroment (for example Ancient times, Space, medieval, fantasy or whatever setting you like)

then you create a certain "ruleset" for your game to play in. I.e. large scale battles, real time or turn based, micro focused with high hitpoint units and low army sizes, and other options
then you go ahead and build your art assets for the game.
The ruleset is then tweaked and polished throughout the early stages of the game development, things that work are kept in and others are removed. After a certain time you get something that could be called a prototype game and then you can go further to tweak it as you wish.

The article collects references for usable units, buildings, art style, technologies etc. to find a way to implemetn this civilization into the gam, so it would be part 3.

Regarding the red marked area:

Dude, I did this, numerous times on various occasions. The only stuff that came back was ignorant babbling. Even when I created something more substantial in EVEN THIS THREAD there was no positive reaction apart from "you're wrong and I am right. You just don't know how to play". So tell me, what should I do?

Especially from Lion.Kanzen. There's a history of borderline retarded posts regarding the development process and can be read througout the whole forum. If I was in charge I would've kicked him out of the team years ago because of his attitude and way of thinking towards certain topics asswell as the incompetence of comprehensive reading and developing solutions to problems. People like him are toxic for a creative process.

Also, being nice only gets you so far. There are situations in which being nice doesn't help at all. Maybe you'll learn it someday aswell.

23 minutes ago, Enrique said:

Unlike Lionkazen and sphyrt I understand DarcReaver and share some of his thoughts regarding the core gameplay even if his words aren't as polite as we're used to. 

There are some reasons that made the gameplay direction to the current state it is, but it is not a valid argument to defend the current gameplay at all.

I think experimenting with more radical gameplay changes, even if imbalanced, would be a better way to find the correct gameplay systems' mix to get a fun game instead of trying to balance the alpha to make it enjoyable for its current playerbase. Sadly, we don't have a lead gameplay tech/dev and normally each member has its own game view.

So I'm not the only one, great to hear that there are also other opinions within the dev team. I'd strongly encourage you to experiment. There are numerous options to make the game stand out, just pick one and stick to it. the game has incredible potential that shouldn't go to waste.

Edit: oh and don't be too much concerned about balance. Some of the most played games in this world are imbalanced by design. That's not a major problem as long as each player has a fair option of winning. If you create a certain civ outline that all civs follow you can't really mess up the overall game balance much.

I speak from experience. On Eastern Front we had lots of discussions about the faction balance and spent many days of changing weapon stats and units. But then we noticed that our approach to the faction design was bad. We changed it and suddenly lots of balance problems were gone without any further work required.

Design > balance. Because Design creates balance and not the other way around. Having a @#$% design with good balance is worse than having a good design with worse balance. Because a good design can be improved and balance can be achieved.

Edited March 1, 2017 by DarcReaver

[Palaxin]

After reading this discussion I feel compelled to give my honest opinion on this topic, too. I can at least partly understand @DarcReaver and others getting in rage mode after trying to provide valuable input for the dev team regarding gameplay enhancements, only to get no to insignificant feedback and/or to observe the game heading towards a foreseeable future that is so wayyyyy below the true potential of the game. The usual answer - "we are all volunteers and if you want to change something then work on it" - does not address the problem properly since (at least from my experience and my observations) you will only waste lots of time trying to implement bigger changes, e.g. by means of a mod. AFAIK @wowgetoffyourcellphone has spent countless hours for the DE mod with tons of new features, techs, ... - and got some icons committed so far (correct me if I'm wrong). @wraitii has proposed a new market mechanism long time ago, received predominantly good feedback, provided a patch, ... And 15 months later no one remembers about it. I have the impression no one tries or dares to really touch/experiment with gameplay because "it would make XYZ complicated" and "AFAIK this already has been discussed 7 years ago ..." etc. (exaggerating a bit). Actually as soon as a ticket receives the "design" (= gameplay) keyword it's doomed into oblivion. It seems to me that the dev team is not well-rounded enough and especially is not covering certain tasks/roles/characters. We first of all lack a leader with the big picture in mind, a vision, a plan to follow, and who can take quick decisions or at least quickly comes to an agreement with some core devs. This is just my observation and no personal critique - @Itms is certainly a valuable dev, but I only associate programming issues with his name. As @DarcReaver said, we need a clear, recognizable gameplay concept that allows and forces a player to choose between a large variety of different strategies. Factions need to have stronger gameplay characteristics. A basic ruleset for military strengths, weaknesses and counters. A basic ruleset is such a necessary thing. It's defining the game like a constitution is defining a state. If we don't address these things the game will remain more a historic accurate simulation but will not be playable for long, at least not for a great majority of players. And a big number of players will help us all, since it will attract more devs/contributors addressing our lack of manpower.

Similar to @DarcReaver suggestions, here are some sample rules that could be combined to a ruleset:

• RULE: The higher the value of a unit/building/tech, the higher its cost. (currently this is not true for population)
  example: Civilians require 1 pop, infantry units require 2 pop, cavalry units require 3 pop, elephants require 4 pop, heros require 5 pop, ...
• RULE: The higher the value/complexity of a unit/building/tech, the more diverse its cost.
  example 1: basic units cost 1 resource (food), citizen soldiers 2 resources (food and wood/metal), champions 3 resources (food, wood and metal), ...
  example 2: village phase techs usually 1 resource, town phase techs usually 2 resources, city phase techs usually 3 resources, ...
• RULE: The higher the value of a unit/building/tech, the more rare the needed resources are
  ...
• RULE: There are three classes of buildings/units/strategies/factions. Each class is strong against another class and weak against yet another class.
  Alternatively: There are five classes of buildings/units. Each class is strong against two other classes and weak against two further classes. Or each class is strong against another class, weak against yet another class and about as strong as two further classes.
  example 1: (melee) cavalry beats ranged (cavalry/infantry), ranged (cavalry/infantry) beats (melee) infantry, (melee) infantry beats (melee) cavalry
  example 2: buildings beat soldiers, soldiers beat siege, siege beats buildings
  example 3: booming beats turtling, turtling beats rushing, rushing beats booming
  example 4: swordman beats pikeman (1v1), pikeman beats spearman (formation), spearman beats swordman (formation). pikeman beats swordman (formation), swordman beats spearman (1v1), spearman beats pikeman (1v1).
• RULE: The stronger a faction can potentially be (in terms of tech upgrades, units, bonuses, ...), the slower its development
  example: early game faction, mid game faction, late game faction

These are illustrative examples that could help to achieve a red line in gameplay. But it is important to formulate such rules, make tickets for their implementation, etc.

Edited March 1, 2017 by Palaxin
added wraitii's new market implementation as an example

[DarcReaver]

Very good post Palaxin, this sums up my view on this matter pretty well.

to give one more example to the design process: It's painful, as there has to be decided which stuff is kept and which stuff is forfeit, resulting in work of people to be repelled and pissing them off. But that's the cost of real progress.

It's like not going to the dentist: You avoid doing it because the doctor could notice that something is wrong with your teeth. So you avoid fixing the teeth by not knowing about it. But that's not the correct approach unfortunately. The teeth still have problems, and thus you'll get ill someday.

Edited March 1, 2017 by DarcReaver

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

I'll just talk about resources and gathering first.

 

I think citizen-soldiers can remain, but like darc say it's broken right now. Restricts a lot of strategies. I think it can be fixed with battalions, and when you task them to gather something they change from soldiers to citizens, which are vulnerable. They do not automatically switch back to soldier when they are attacked or raided, they either have to be done manually per battalion or a call-to-arms button use -- both options available. Point is, when in citizen-gatherer mode, they are as vulnerable like "villagers" from aoe. It take vigilance and speed to switch them back to soldier mode and fight back effectively. This works great with a battalion system. A lot harder without battalions. There can even be a "muster" time, it takes some seconds for the men to re-don their panoplies and fight back, but during that time they are vulnerable like villagers, though they can still fight back -- would be awesome to see them fighting back with axes and picks and hoes until their muster time completes. 

 

Resources

My conception is to keep food gather pretty much as it is now. Women are best at it. As darc say, almost every unit should cost food, with some exceptions. In my opinion, food should be the most important resource in that almost every unit use food -- mercs are exception in my mod. in DE, even ships cost food -- the crew.

Wood, yes, for most standard building and for ranged units like archers, javelin throwers, and ships, etc.

Stone for high level buildings and defensive buildings. 

Metal for sword units and powerful units like champions, elephants, etc. Used for most of the Blacksmith techs.

 

I would like it if stone and metal were mined in 2 different ways. I would like to see "Mine Shafts" where you build a storehouse on a slot next to the mine shaft entrance to capture it, then you can garrison men inside to mine the metal. They exit to drop off their metal haul at the slotted storehouse. This is like Vespene Gas in Starcraft. Only one player can own a mine shaft at a time. You say, "What about allies???" I say, that's what teamwork is for, trading and tribute. Coordinate who owns which mine if you need to. If you suck at compromising on such things, then trade and tribute are your answers. An important aspect of the Mine Shaft is that if the player's storehouse is destroyed, the men inside the mine perish. 

Stone is mined from large "Quarries" -- about the size of a Civic Center  These look like open quarris on the side of a mountain. Imagine a large marble quarry. Two slots for storehouse, allows to share. No strict ownership, unlike metal Mine Shafts. Units are easily raided while mining the quarry since they chisel the stone out in the open. If storehouse destroyed, miners don't die, they just can't quarry anymore.

 

There can still be small metal and stone mine like there is now in the starting territory of the player, but these are limited, maybe just 1 of each, and farther away from the CC than they are now. To really gather a good amount of metal and stone you have to go scout and find these rich resources, the Stone Quarry and Metal Mine Shaft. These are large, strategically important. Another aspect of the Stone Quarry and Metal Mine Shaft is that you do not have to own the territory to place your storehouse and claim them. So, you may take the risk of gathering far from your defenses and reinforcements.

 

That's all I can think of right now for resources.

Edited March 1, 2017 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

About balance, I agree. I don't care if every single faction is balanced against every other faction. In fact, I want the factions to be imbalanced!!! I want challenging factions, I want uber factions, I want underdog factions. No, I don't want the perfect Protoss, Terrans, Zerg balance, where you try desperately to get a 33% victory rate for each faction.... If Rome curb-stopped a certain historical faction, do I want that faction to be 100% balanced against Rome in the game? Hell naw. Give them a challenge? Sure. The first conceit of the game is history. You want to present interesting historical challenges to the player, yes? Stop with this 0.48% increased attack balancing stuff and focus on making the game a compelling example of what you're trying to achieve first. Does that mean the alpha needs to be crazy imbalanced? Of course not, but detailed balancing should come in beta.

Edited March 1, 2017 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[sphyrth]

DE will be my haven for Citizen Soldiers if you could implement that @wowgetoffyourcellphone. I still can't wrap head around why they're currently game-degrading right now, but I do love that call-to-arms idea just to get rid of that immediate pickaxe-to-sword non-realism thing.

[Enrique]

14 minutes ago, sphyrth said:

I still can't wrap head around why they're currently game-degrading right now

It has been said already on the thread. There's no tradeoff for making units that can fight and gather so there's little to none benefit on doing pure-economic units. In AOE2 defending villagers is ultra important on high level matches.

[Lion.Kanzen]

@Enrique I don't say he can't right with some stuff, but some aspects aren't right for 0 A.D. Sounds like he wants another game. More arcade. I want an arcade mode. But he can say the team don't want the game because the lack of time. That ask the age, because I don't get why is he so demanding our time.

 

-------

why so out your ideas ( at this point I'm not reading the reply after my reply) but I have a suggestion, try to open  your own path through of forum I try to find volunteer, if you haven't skills to create that modes that ar ideal try bring people so this way the game will have more changes that you desire.

 

------ I try to read your last thought replies later------

[Lion.Kanzen]

1 hour ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

About balance, I agree. I don't care if every single faction is balanced against every other faction. In fact, I want the factions to be imbalanced!!! I want challenging factions, I want uber factions, I want underdog factions. No, I don't want the perfect Protoss, Terrans, Zerg balance, where you try desperately to get a 33% victory rate for each faction.... If Rome curb-stopped a certain historical faction, do I want that faction to be 100% balanced against Rome in the game? Hell naw. Give them a challenge? Sure. The first conceit of the game is history. You want to present interesting historical challenges to the player, yes? Stop with this 0.48% increased attack balancing stuff and focus on making the game a compelling example of what you're trying to achieve first. Does that mean the alpha needs to be crazy imbalanced? Of course not, but detailed balancing should come in beta.

Yes , but we don't wants celts and Germans becomes The Pre columbian civs of 0A.D, 

I mean is weaker in mostly of cases specially Aztecs , nobody wants play with them, and Mayans are good in few moments.

the imbalance can exists because the counters and a civ can counter other. But no one wants a useless faction.

but in a 1v1 must be a way to have victorious even if the military units are unbalanced, that brings the game more strategic.

[Lion.Kanzen]

52 minutes ago, sphyrth said:

DE will be my haven for Citizen Soldiers if you could implement that @wowgetoffyourcellphone. I still can't wrap head around why they're currently game-degrading right now, but I do love that call-to-arms idea just to get rid of that immediate pickaxe-to-sword non-realism thing.

The  problem with that is :to jump in the "soldier mode" when enemy are attacking you?

how many second you will lost?

must be a K-shortcut ?

there are many questions. So the the most fast player have a advantage?

 

---------

I do   many experiments in my map battle of dirt.

• starting resources far.
• slaves and women at the starting without CS's around.
• no many resources, the poverty of a village.

 

Edited March 1, 2017 by Lion.Kanzen

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

2 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

there are many questions. So the the most fast player have a advantage?

The faster player always has advantage, Lion. 

 

But like I said, they can still fight back, but with their pitchforks and shovels and stuff until they are mustered.

Edited March 1, 2017 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[Enrique]

8 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

@Enrique I don't say he can't right with some stuff, but some aspects aren't right for 0 A.D. Sounds like he wants another game. More arcade. I want an arcade mode. But he can say the team don't want the game because the lack of time. That ask the age, because I don't get why is he so demanding our time.

That's the point of the discussion. Impactful changes. It's not the first thread I read about the game not being appealing through the point of "checking it out".  More arcade? what?

You asked for specific solutions/ideas, and he gave you a list of posts with specific ideas. He then proceeded to put a quick draft of overall core gameplay system and you started nitpicking it when it was clearly an example. 

The point is, don't be so defensive about the game. 0AD It's not perfect, and DarcReaver is clearly wanting to prove a clear point here, even if it sounds harsh. Doesn't seem to me that it's for the sake of just complaining, but to actually realize the issue. Also it's not just a random player as it seems he has experience on RTS game dev and modding.

 

[Lion.Kanzen]

2 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

The faster player always has advantage, Lion. 

 

But like I said, they can still fight back, but with their pitchforks and shovels and stuff until they are mustered.

 

yes but no was the idea of the project the game were this way. It's  supposed be more strategic but the formula have that.

its this when I asked myself if there possibility to get more slow gameplay, I mean game speed I mean same pacing as Rome Total War. Units in a large combat... or close of that idea.

[Feldfeld]

What ? Sorry I have read almost nothing in the thread, but I want to say one thing, and it is that booming is clearly NOT the ultimate strategy to go with. Rushing can be very efficient and it is used very often. I don't know if that subject has been discussed already but if not i want explanations.