wowgetoffyourcellphone's gameplay design

[DarcReaver]

1 hour ago, Servo said:

Well I have no issues with pop cap at all. Whether there are safeguards or not. In fact I could neutralize 3 very hard AIs in 0AD before I can even have a hundred units including economic units. 

I think I very clear with my previous posts. My little knowledge in military structure battalions consist of companies, platoons, squads etc and each group or unit can perform different tasks. A squad leader can assign an individual to recon a target area for any purpose. Etc, etc. These are sample things that adds strategy that will be lacking when you do a fixed battalion unit. The more strategic activity an RTS game can have the more it becomes interesting.

 

 

Guess what. We give AI a +1000% resource and build speed modifier on high difficulties and you'll not even be able to beat a single computer.
Battalions have nothing todo with the AI at all, not how it's building units, engaging the player, playing in general. It neither has to do with "strategical activity". And towards the argument "Squad leader can ...". Ancient time combat worked differently and is not comparable with this kind of "commando operation" at all. And this also has nothing to do with the AI either.

But furthermore, and more importantly:

So... just stop it.

 

Edited April 9, 2017 by DarcReaver

[Servo]

Lol you are assuming that it can't be done?! I guarantee you I can beat the AI in 0AD with that 1000% resource gathering rate. I already held 3 hardest AI to phase 1 while I'm at phase 3. I just don't prolong because I'm worried that their behavior might change and not advancing anymore. I remembered playing against 7 brutal AI on Red Alert and still won. 

Medieval people are not dumb to use any possible means to achieve what they want to. Armies just don't collide like there was a magnet that attract them towards each other. They should have a military structure and programs to enhance their capability. 

You have never presented reason why the thoughts I presented were not possible you only say no it's not. You should present your arguments with logic if you have any. 

[DarcReaver]

49 minutes ago, Servo said:

Lol you are assuming that it can't be done?! I guarantee you I can beat the AI in 0AD with that 1000% resource gathering rate. I already held 3 hardest AI to phase 1 while I'm at phase 3. I just don't prolong because I'm worried that their behavior might change and not advancing anymore. I remembered playing against 7 brutal AI on Red Alert and still won. 

Medieval people are not dumb to use any possible means to achieve what they want to. Armies just don't collide like there was a magnet that attract them towards each other. They should have a military structure and programs to enhance their capability. 

You have never presented reason why the thoughts I presented were not possible you only say no it's not. You should present your arguments with logic if you have any. 

Let me repeat once more:

[Servo]

Oh yeah but you haven't presented and reason why my argument is not valid.

As Saladin said in Stronghold and I quote "Your mind is limited you're not fit to command an army". 

[DarcReaver]

1 hour ago, Servo said:

Oh yeah but you haven't presented and reason why my argument is not valid.

As Saladin said in Stronghold and I quote "Your mind is limited you're not fit to command an army". 

So, which aspect did you read and understand? I posted multiple times why your "suggestion" or whatever it's called is crap and has nothing to do with the game itself. If you fail to understand that it's not my problem.

 

13 hours ago, DarcReaver said:

"pop hack" ? Are you serious?

That's not related to the "gameplay". It's related to performance. And sloppy programming.

To use BFME as example - it uses C&C Generals SAGE engine. Generals had no pop cap and so it suffered from bad performance in team games. Since BFME used a heavily modified engine version and had stuff like "global weather effects", Aura particle FX and whatnot, there was Pop cap used to reduce bad performance in team games.

And tbh if you would've done this in a real game your castle is destryed even before you finished to reach your maximum pop cap. This is irrelevant to a point where I say that the same is easily done by adding a higher pop cap limit. Or even a "no popcap" mode that will simply crash with an engine error when too many units are on the field.

 

11 hours ago, DarcReaver said:

So? doing this in a remotely competitive game - be it against (multiple) hard computers or against a "real" player will lead to a defeat while you're trying to accomplish that. It's just a random exploit of coding weaknesses under unreal condititions and serves no purpose at all except for showing "it's possible to overcome the pop limit of the game".

In case you didn't notice : It's certainly not intended. I have no idea why on 0 ad there should be something like this be considered to be put in "on purpose". This is so irrelevant in terms of game mechanics that I don't even know why you bring up such a random thing tbh.

 

8 hours ago, DarcReaver said:

So, you're saying that exploiting a programming exploit is good and should be possible for 0 ad aswell to beat the AI?

Wtf...

Ever considered that beating the AI behavior has NOTHING to do with battalions, pop cap and other stuff? This statement is just beyond me to be honest...

 

 

Edited April 9, 2017 by DarcReaver

[Servo]

I understood everything you said and every time you post I answered and mostly I give situation. 

Pop hack- is still related to gameplay. I said I can make more units like in BFME just to have more fun surpassing the allowed 200. I even did it on RoN when I played assasin with 7 Hardest AI I was able to make or  produce including conversion +|- 300 in 200 pop cap. Everrtjme an RTS game have conversations you can make/have more units beyond allowed and if you're playing AI on infinite hours you can have more units and more fun. Like AoE2 I did so many conversations against 2AI and still controlled/won the game. Btw never did BFME AI ever destroyed my castle. And all my barracks/stable units were promoted to highest level. 

We talked more about BFME because that's the same mechanics on units that you are trying to impose on 0AD and I gave so many scenarios but you never reasoned out with logic at all. Always not true, this and that. Not even giving a situation which if it can make 0AD much better which could be considered by the developers. Only this is good or blah blah blah without any substance at all! 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

@Servo, guy, you are confusing me. Are you saying you want this design to include hacks so you can bypass the pop limit? Simply for your personal enjoyment? Because at first it seemed like you were criticising the design because it might allow for such hacks. Make up your mind and make a simple complete statement on the matter or stop derailing my thread.

Edited April 10, 2017 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[Servo]

No! I don't mind pop cap at all. I said the only thing that does not make sense is the battalion production that's like BFME because imo formations could just take care of it. I don't mind producing units in battalions but unit or units can be detached and it's more real. I only imply that pop limit can be much easier to hack though I haven't and could hardly be applied in multiplayer. But good for me coz I mostly play AI. But there could be a scenario which it could happen to multiplayer if there is peace time with limited or low units. 

i played multiplayer nomad in RoN and we also have difficulty with pop cap that's why players would try to build a wonder colossus  or put merchants on a rare that could increase pop cap. And if the units produce are BFME like battalions there will be massive pop hacking. I can see more disadvantages in this setup than producing it in battalions but units comprising it could be ordered any task individually. And it's more real. 

I never read any response what advantage would it give in terms of gameplay rather that oh it's good or anything without any logical or proper presentation of the advantage. We want to have a nice game here and to tell you I've been playing this game like crazy and crazier than any other RTS games I've played. I posted a lot of things about this game but it's ok if I wouldn't be heard. At least it's still running.

[Lion.Kanzen]

Ok stop pop limit, I don't see the problem with that if are good planned and tested my worry is more like the simplification of only mass soldiers and the inflexibility if they can go as indiviso if the user wish that.

 

@Grugnas have a point with this matter. In other treat. Mostly fan base don't like the BFME style that for me is similar to pretorian, a game focus in combat but repetitive, but with a bunch of fresh mechanics. 

[Grugnas]

I still can't see any advantage of a battalion system over a single units with formations system.

Isn't just simpler, and even useful, to indroduce a "lock" button on the middle panel allowing the player to maneuver the whole formation by clicking on an unit within formation and eventually disrupt it and rearrange troops by "unlocking" them?

Battalion system is just a limit intended to obtain a massacre-like effect and imo its not very versatile, you couldn't even merge different rank battalions.

What you propose is to use a battalion system and, on the other hand, remove the population limit deriving by units death in it. Are the different rank battalions intended to be merged? if so, how are the troops within it arranged? And, if the xp is shared between all the units (thing that i may agree only on loot exp),  will the lower rank units be deployed in the backlane and benefit from the more experienced units in frontlane or will they be deployed in the frontline for an easy death?

Supposing that you will decide for a single unit combats, a kind of "duel" between units within formations resulting in a big brawl, I guess that in case of a cavalry group that outflank and goes for the ranged units, the player is not allowed to move some spearmen from the on going combat and cover the ranged units in the backline because they act as a batallion and, by conseguence, as a single unit.

[IberianJavelinMan]

I suggest a new topic to arguing the pros and cons of a battalion system. Because I really don't see the point of using that. I think it restricts player freedom to controlling their troops and reduces the possibilities micromanaging battles. Also, with soldier citizen system you couldn't split to gather different resources. On the other side, I just see that it would be nice looking for battles and implement some features as in Total War games (charges, moral, flanks, etc).

I personally see lots of troubles and little advantages for battalions.

[DarcReaver]

6 hours ago, Grugnas said:

I still can't see any advantage of a battalion system over a single units with formations system.

Isn't just simpler, and even useful, to indroduce a "lock" button on the middle panel allowing the player to maneuver the whole formation by clicking on an unit within formation and eventually disrupt it and rearrange troops by "unlocking" them?

Battalion system is just a limit intended to obtain a massacre-like effect and imo its not very versatile, you couldn't even merge different rank battalions.

What you propose is to use a battalion system and, on the other hand, remove the population limit deriving by units death in it. Are the different rank battalions intended to be merged? if so, how are the troops within it arranged? And, if the xp is shared between all the units (thing that i may agree only on loot exp),  will the lower rank units be deployed in the backlane and benefit from the more experienced units in frontlane or will they be deployed in the frontline for an easy death?

Supposing that you will decide for a single unit combats, a kind of "duel" between units within formations resulting in a big brawl, I guess that in case of a cavalry group that outflank and goes for the ranged units, the player is not allowed to move some spearmen from the on going combat and cover the ranged units in the backline because they act as a batallion and, by conseguence, as a single unit.

Afaik the current game is setup in a way that promotes macro oriented manspam strategies, just like AoE II. So the actual veterancy does not do much for the individual soldier. No proper healing/unit preservation for the unit itself, and it's hard to keep them alive because individual units are ant like small. -> pointless clicking/searching for units -> no fun.

 And, as a general sidenote: why would somebody want to merge different rank battalions in the first place? And furthermore: Why should individual soldiers in the battalion receive experience? And why should the combat performance vary within a battalion?

It should be pretty obvious that a battalion system should exactly remove these inconsistencies to make the game rely less on individual pointless clicking and instead focus on getting the correct army composition without the manspam effect...  

Edited April 10, 2017 by DarcReaver

[IberianJavelinMan]

5 minutes ago, DarcReaver said:

Afaik the current game is setup in a way that promotes macro oriented manspam strategies, just like AoE II. So the actual veterancy does not do much for the individual soldier. No proper healing/unit preservation for the unit itself, and it's hard to keep them alive because individual units are ant like small. -> pointless clicking/searching for units -> no fun.

 And, as a general sidenote: why would somebody want to merge different rank battalions in the first place? And furthermore: Why should individual soldiers in the battalion receive experience? And why should the combat performance vary within a battalion?

It should be pretty obvious that a battalion system should exactly remove these inconsistencies to make the game rely less on individual pointless clicking and instead focus on getting the correct army composition without the manspam effect...  

I absolutely agree with that part. I don't see the point of veterancy in most of my 0ad games (although I didn't play too much). Don't take me wrong, I like the concept of veterancy but for my game which is spaming spearmen and so, it's useless. I don't care for a single soldier, also I find micromanagement hard for keeping they alive. Selecting hurt units after a battle one by one, send them back, heal them and returning them to the front in most cases doesn't worth the effort and time for me.

But I'm concerned of turning into a battalion system. Maybe it's because I don't have much experience with battalions except for Total War and I really think 0ad may be a great game with or without battalions. But I have AoE gameplay very linked to a splitted units system and battalions make me wonder how it will work mixed up with many other functionalities (veterancy, replacement of deads, gathering resources). I just don't see that system in the currently 0ad. I don't say battalion system is bad for 0ad, I'm just not convinced (just an opinion)

[DarcReaver]

Just like in TW. 

Build a battalion, fight with a battalion, individual soldiers can die and can be healed / reinforced at your barracks. Battalions get experience as a whole for fighting, and if the last soldier was killed the battalion is lost. Reinforcing a battalion costs less than to train a new one. 

If you dont know games with squad based unit systems, here are some examples:

Company of Heroes
Battle for Middle earth
C&C 3+
Praetorians
Warhammer 40k games (DoW 1,2,3)

There might be mroe but those are the ones that come into my mind atm. And once more: soldiers_do_not_gather. Soldiers_fight. That's what soldiers are used for.

Edited April 10, 2017 by DarcReaver

[Lion.Kanzen]

Rise and fall CaW. was the unique to have individual mix with battalions . For me that most interesting.

 

[Lion.Kanzen]

In mostly our time frame soldiers were farmers and other things, even if you saw 300 many have another professions except Spartans.

[Lion.Kanzen]

Quote

Ancient Greek warriors were citizen soldiers, except for the professional army of Sparta, and warfare became somewhat standardized to allow for soldier-farmers to tend to their farms. Only after the harvest had been brought in from the fields would the Greeks take up arms. The different Greek city-states would then settle their many issues during the campaigning season. Warriors would settle scores on pre-selected battle fields, usually a plain between the two warring city-states. The warriors would form up into the famed phalanx on opposite sides of the mountain-surrounded plain.

http://www.ancientmilitary.com/greek-warriors.htm

[Grugnas]

1 hour ago, DarcReaver said:

Afaik the current game is setup in a way that promotes macro oriented manspam strategies, just like AoE II. So the actual veterancy does not do much for the individual soldier. No proper healing/unit preservation for the unit itself, and it's hard to keep them alive because individual units are ant like small. -> pointless clicking/searching for units -> no fun.

1 And, as a general sidenote: why would somebody want to merge different rank battalions in the first place? And furthermore: Why should individual soldiers in the battalion receive experience? And why should the combat performance vary within a battalion? ----------> this

It should be pretty obvious that a battalion system should exactly remove these inconsistencies to make the game rely less on individual pointless clicking and instead focus on getting the correct army composition without the manspam effect...  ---------> and this, sounds contraddictory. 

NOTE: I understand that retreating a survived soldier and garrisoning him into a barrack will refill the battallion,  but refilling a rank 3 battallion from nowhere (for the same base soldiers price) seems unworthy when the survivors could simply be merged to an existant battalion.

What you call  "manspam" its nothing more than a numerical advantage. Using a sneaky group of cavalry for a raid while the enemy troops are busy elsewhere is possible though. While the number of barracks built depends on the time the player wants to wait before refill his army, batches of any size of units can be trained.

Formations can be composed by different types of soldiers and can be distrupted or modified with versatility.

Imo  healers should be indivdual units healing in area and not single targets because they are very hard to micromanage and often they heal injuried ranged units who rarely take damage. Anyway, since the design foresee a battalion refill by garrisoning barracks, i guess that healers role would fall off.

Individual soldiers gain exp on the amount of damage they deal to individual targets, imo experience could be calculated by ignoring target armour avoiding pointless complexity. Whenever a target dies, the Exp loot could be shared between units near the killer as far as they are inspired by the successful kill, this would create a sort of chain in exp gaining, limiting the individual promotion as you pointed out.

Honestly battalion and formations are similar concepts but, while formations require an higher micromanagement at start for setting up battalions (which increases the skill cap), a pure battalion system will only increase men on the screen.

[DarcReaver]

47 minutes ago, Grugnas said:

I) What you call  "manspam" its nothing more than a numerical advantage. Using a sneaky group of cavalry for a raid while the enemy troops are busy elsewhere is possible though. While the number of barracks built depends on the time the player wants to wait before refill his army, batches of any size of units can be trained.

Formations can be composed by different types of soldiers and can be distrupted or modified with versatility.

Imo  healers should be indivdual units healing in area and not single targets because they are very hard to micromanage and often they heal injuried ranged units who rarely take damage. Anyway, since the design foresee a battalion refill by garrisoning barracks, i guess that healers role would fall off.

II) Individual soldiers gain exp on the amount of damage they deal to individual targets, imo experience could be calculated by ignoring target armour avoiding pointless complexity. Whenever a target dies, the Exp loot could be shared between units near the killer as far as they are inspired by the successful kill, this would create a sort of chain in exp gaining, limiting the individual promotion as you pointed out.

III) Honestly battalion and formations are similar concepts but, while formations require an higher micromanagement at start for setting up battalions (which increases the skill cap), a pure battalion system will only increase men on the screen.

I) So, in order to fight with a battalion the player is forced to use randomly either single trained units OR multiple units with a price discount, to put them in a Formation, and then manually refill them when they suffered losses and not having any kind of overview about the total veterancy level / combat performance INSTEAD of simply training a battalion of 10 soldiers which can be reinforced automatically, have a set up combat value and overall equal veterancy level per single soldier within the battalion?

Yeah, sounds like a much more advanced, less micro intensive and better way to make game controls for combat. Especially if you consider stuff like flanking bonuses, hard counter system with charging etc.

Edit. Just to show my point: yeah it's really very easy and rewarding to micro each unit individually here

(note that this is only regular army movement. Now imagine another player or even 2-3 with their units clashing into yours. HF trying to get an overview and apply micro to assign unit counters)

 

II) I don't get your point. First: 1 basic fighter battalion kills another basic fighter battalion -> winning battalion = +1 veterancy level just to state a number. Elite units give +2 veterancy for the whole battalion etc. So the veterancy is tied to the battalion instead of a single soldier. Way more easy to overview, more predictable in gameplay for the player and much cleaner in general.

This is another reason to actually use battalion combat system instead of tying the vet to a single entity. TO REMOVE POINTLESS COMPLEXITY.

 

III) Yeah, higher skill cap... ctrl + A - CTRL Number 0-9 - pick formation. Very skill intensive indeed. This isn't micro. It's bacis of game control. And even worse: this is not where the unnecessary micro part starts. Once a formation lost soldiers it's becoming an annoying micro clickfest to actually "refresh" the battalion.

Once more

1) SOLDIERS ARE ANT SMALL IN 0 AD -> hard to notice individual soldiers unless zoomed in extreme close range -> no overview -> chaotic fights
2) individual soldier level up is no big deal because soldiers die quickly / cannot be microed effectively, except for A-click
3) Battalions make it way easier to overview and keep units in formation properly - if there are no hard battalions it's incredibly tedious to keep selecting and refreshing a combat formation once there is a battle ongoing.

I already covered this half a dozen times already. Single soldiers is something for either Real Time Tactics (less than 50 units per player), macro games in which individual units do not matter (RUSE, CnC maybe) or games from the past century (because of lack of PC power to support proper squad AI).

If you insist on using a 20 year old, outdated system I can't help you. Especially since you already state yourself that you want to avoid unnecessary complexity.
 

Edited April 10, 2017 by DarcReaver

[IberianJavelinMan]

"(note that this is only regular army movement. Now imagine another player or even 2-3 with their units clashing into yours. HF trying to get an overview and apply micro to assign unit counters)"

You are starting to convince me. What I usually do in those cases is to group my army by unit types with ctrl + number. It's impossible to micromanage each unit, so it doesn't differ too much on having battalions.

"If you insist on using a 20 year old, outdated system I can't help you. Especially since you already state yourself that you want to avoid unnecessary complexity."

This isn't useful. We also use programming languages which have 20 year old and there is no problem with that. Lots of recent games have not battalions, or is Starcraft 2 a 20 year old game? or is it Supreme Commander?

About unnecessary complexity is what makes me concerned about battalions. It would simplify some parts of the combat but it is not all necessarily good.

Pros of individual units:

• You can micromanaging to kill more powerful enemies
• You can dodge projectiles easier
• You can do better use of your units (divide them to gather different resources or construct)
• You can micromanage to obstaculize your enemies movement.
• The game is prepared to work this way already.

In general, you have more control about your resources (train just the units you need, use just the units you need for each task...)

Doubts about Battalions:

• What will happen with my formation when I try to harass some women in the woods (e_e)?
• Will I have a full battalion of scouting cavalry? It won't make them slower if faces obstacles like trees?
• As many soldiers are "workers" I wouldn't be able to split them in different tasks. So "manpower" will be wasted (not a doubt, I think it's a con)
• Women will be grouped also? Merchants?
• The formation will be rigid as a rectangle? Could I customize the formation? They will adapt to the circumstances? (for example to surrounding an overwhelmed enemy unit)

I think battalions may work but many things have to be redesigned.

[Lion.Kanzen]

Quote

outdated system

Blizzzard and Forgotten Empires: "lol"

[DarcReaver]

 

14 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

Blizzzard and Forgotten Empires: "lol"

Forgotten Empires revives a 20 year old game. Just saying.

And blizzard games rarely have more than 50 units on the field per player

WHICH I WROTE HERE:

Quote

I already covered this half a dozen times already. Single soldiers is something for either Real Time Tactics (less than 50 units per player), macro games in which individual units do not matter (RUSE, CnC maybe) or games from the past century (because of lack of PC power to support proper squad AI).

 

@#$%ing smartasses really

 

Edit: Also to see how "battalions" _CAN_ work is shown here. The CnC game shows how single entity games can work aswell. However, the main difference to 0 AD is that units are easy to different from each other. Faction's units look very colorful, and each race has a different style -> fights are easier to overview. in 0AD everything looks the same from a far.So this already doesn't work per se. In AoE II the artist style of units also makes the units easy to different from each other, so countering/micro is possible.

or here

 

Edited April 10, 2017 by DarcReaver

[Lion.Kanzen]

Nice graphic, mostly of the games you says where are now....

by the way RoN is almost 16 years old. Total war is the only have life 

( where is BAtlle for the middle earth 3?).

 

[DarcReaver]

7 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

Nice graphic, mostly of the games you says where are now....

by the way RoN is almost 16 years old. Total war is the only have life 

( where is BAtlle for the middle earth 3?).

 

BFME and CnC official servers were shutdown when EA closed EA Pacific studios and lost the license from New Line to sell BFME games (which was in 2013 I believe). It's still played by a couple thousand players via gameranger and a private multiplayer server though and downloadable for free https://www.gamereplays.org/community/index.php?showtopic=977795) (same for CnC games). So it's the same as AoE II on voobly. It sitll has a very active community compared to other RTS games of that time, with tournaments being hosted etc.

Battle for Middle Earth 3 can't come because EA has no longer the License for Tolkien games. SEGA got it now, and SEGA does not make strategy games at all, only Roleplaying games (Return of the King/The Hobbit).

So what are you trying to say?

Edited April 10, 2017 by DarcReaver

[Skhorn]

2 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

( where is BAtlle for the middle earth 3?).

 

If i'm not wrong, it is never going to see the light because they need to buy Tolkien's right to continue another game