Desired gameplay(planned) features for A23

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

IMHO, each release should have a couple of BIG showcase items, supported by a plethora of small things. This is how you keep the interest high and momentum going.

[Lion.Kanzen]

1 minute ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

IMHO, each release should have a couple of BIG showcase items, supported by a plethora of small things. This is how you keep the interest high and momentum going.

Indeed, people lost interest if you aren't showing new elements of gameplay, is like Call of duty every year or FIFA ( sports games)

every years is almost the same, so the  people avoid some releases. The same here,   yesterday I was showing  an old image and a guy reacts impressive for the changes of 0 A.D since  the last time he play the game.

 

another suggestion, keep feeding the people with new possible mechanics that can be released soon in the social network.

this helps to maintain the hype.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Random team would be nice.

[Stan`]

1 hour ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Random team would be nice.

Is there a ticket for that honorable request ?

[av93]

Hmm my short (but hard) list would be

-Motion rewrite (no more sliding) / Better pathfinding

-Simple campaign support (aoe 1 level of interface, no need of cutscenes for now)

-More triggers (with a scenario editor trigger interface would be better)

-Finished animations, and adding stuff already done here (this could make it into a22):

 

BTW, here it says that Feature Freeze started on 31 of may. Track used to be a somehow indicator for new releases, but not now isn't anymore. I started to watch this page, that was more real. What happened? @elexis

Edited July 8, 2017 by av93

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

18 minutes ago, av93 said:

BTW, here it says that Feature Freeze started on 31 of may. Track used to be a somehow indicator for new releases, but not now isn't anymore. I started to see this page, that was more real. What happened? @elexis

Nah, 4 more weeks of freeze time should do it.

[elexis]

The number of tickets on the milestone are not relevant, the relese blockers are. I'm sure wowgetoffyourcellphone would have loved to help. If you think we were idle or didn't fix some release blockers before the feature freeze, check again.

[elexis]

3 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Random team would be nice.

How would that not end up with imbalances?

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

8 minutes ago, elexis said:

How would that not end up with imbalances?

In what way? If there are any "imbalances" the player is accepting this possibility when they choose to set the teams to random. 

 

But "random team" isn't exactly random, it divides the number of players into equal teams, you just don't know who has been teamed with who until the match starts.

Edited July 8, 2017 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[elexis]

Player 1 and 2 being very strong, Player 3 and 4 mediocre, Player 5 and 6 never played the game before. I guess it might work if all of the players are equally equipped, but I've rarely seen it. New and established players both often complain about teams being imbalanced, or one player resigning too soon (thus ending up with 2v3 or 3v4 which by itself most often decides the fate of the game). Usually one spends an awful lot of time in the gamesetup trying to figure out the perfect balance and it was often proposed to implement an auto-balancing feature (I guess the difference in the sum of the ELO-rating between teams should be minimized).

But I do agree that it will be a nice feature in case of having equally equipped players around and it can be implemented, even as a simple ticket for beginners (-> that what Stan said).

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Ehhh, gameplay isn't just about satiating the 100 or so players who play on the lobby. For every 100 players on the lobby, you have thousands more playing against the AI in single player or teaming up with friends. These people you never hear from, but they are still your audience. Sure, "balance" it some way, by averaging lobby ratings or whatever, but it's likely those who would use the feature don't care. If they did care, they wouldn't randomize the teams. Know what I mean?

[elexis]

100 is the number of players that are online simultaneously. We have 96603 registered a21 lobby accounts and 200k alpha 21 downloads. (In general I don't like the SP vs. lobby comparison. Most features are equally applicable and relevant in SP and MP.)

(In this case, it's not correct that players in IP based multiplayer are of equal strength and there are also friends in the lobby who never play with anyone else. In singleplayer I don't really know what we need the randomization for either, since bots are of equal strength unless you want a surprise difficulty.)

(The auto-balancing proposal would be the opposite of the randomization proposal. It was proposed as a button that would order the teams before starting the game, so that it can still be changed (mostly because one can start balancing teams again if one player leaves or joins). Anyway, no real need to discuss it, more a need to program it, or at least post a simple ticket on trac.)

[elexis]

Maybe we want a random teamsize option for SP rather? So if we set 8 players, it could become a FFA, 2v2v2v2 or 3v3v2 or 4v4?

[av93]

9 hours ago, elexis said:

If you think we were idle or didn't fix some release blockers before the feature freeze, check again.

No no, didn't thought that, just was curious about the track timeline, adding new features, balance changes within a feature freeze.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

9 hours ago, elexis said:

100 is the number of players that are online simultaneously. We have 96603 registered a21 lobby accounts and 200k alpha 21 downloads. (In general I don't like the SP vs. lobby comparison. Most features are equally applicable and relevant in SP and MP.)

(In this case, it's not correct that players in IP based multiplayer are of equal strength and there are also friends in the lobby who never play with anyone else. In singleplayer I don't really know what we need the randomization for either, since bots are of equal strength unless you want a surprise difficulty.)

(The auto-balancing proposal would be the opposite of the randomization proposal. It was proposed as a button that would order the teams before starting the game, so that it can still be changed (mostly because one can start balancing teams again if one player leaves or joins). Anyway, no real need to discuss it, more a need to program it, or at least post a simple ticket on trac.)

Other games have the random team feature. Thought it would be nice for 0 A.D. to have it. Seems something "missing" when I drop down the team menu. It's not a big deal. It's not something radical I dreamt up out of thin air though.

Edited July 8, 2017 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[elexis]

2 hours ago, av93 said:

No no, didn't thought that, just was curious about the track timeline, adding new features, balance changes within a feature freeze.

(We're still in feature freeze and the changes since then were basically fixes we never had the time when focusing on new features. (That player grouping should be considered a fix because some player being isolated / surrounded by enemies was reported in almost every match as a bug of the affected maps). I'll be happy though when we can change strings again and do real things)

[serveurix]

On 27/06/2017 at 9:17 AM, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Oh, and some ideas for replays/observers: When you choose 'Observer' in the drop down:

1. Add the resource icons back to the upper left, hover to see the resource counts for ALL players. Right now there's nothing.
2. Hitting TAB enables status bars for every single thing in the game.

I'd like to see a spectator overlay, that shows a table displaying information in real-time about the players, such as :

- their global score

- the amount of each resource they have

- their current pop

- their citizen pop and champion pop

- the phase they are in

- their number of relics/wonders

And there should be a hotkey allowing the spectator to cycle through players POVs, and an other one to toggle the fow+sod thing.

Edited July 12, 2017 by serveurix

[Stan`]

There is one issue with this. Since you see in real time what happens you would be able to cheat were you a friend with one of the players. I'm far from being a good player but I'm pretty sure this can be decisive information.

[Feldfeld]

7 minutes ago, stanislas69 said:

There is one issue with this. Since you see in real time what happens you would be able to cheat were you a friend with one of the players. I'm far from being a good player but I'm pretty sure this can be decisive information.

Actually, being a spectator makes cheating easy currently. You can find all these informations easily by seeing the stats of the game and of all the players. The suggestion made here would make it easier to have these informations (constantly refreshed and without needing to go to another screen, you would see it while seeing the game). The spectator also has strategic informations (what the other player is doing, what army does he make etc).

[DarcReaver]

On 27.6.2017 at 9:17 AM, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Implement some of the longstanding gameplay elements that have been forgotten about:

1. Capturing and Garrisoning animals in corrals -- with food trickle.
   •   Reveal hidden contents

     Extension?: Training sheep, etc. is disabled until 2 of an animal type are corralled.  

      

2. Charging.

 

And then also coaxing @Enrique into completing the new cavalry animations and getting those all set into the game.

  Reveal hidden contents

Add a surprise civ like the old days. Or maybe bundle together the Chinese and add them as a bundled mod.

 

It would be nice to animate the Zebu for the Mauryan Indians.

Also, add Auroch and Zebu to the game finally as fauna. And generic "Cattle" for eventual capture/corral feature.

 

Oh, and some ideas for replays/observers: When you choose 'Observer' in the drop down:

1. Add the resource icons back to the upper left, hover to see the resource counts for ALL players. Right now there's nothing.
2. Hitting TAB enables status bars for every single thing in the game.

those. Plus a working concept for map controls.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

7 hours ago, DarcReaver said:

those. Plus a working concept for map controls.

Do you mean hotkeys, meta, or map control as in gameplay?

[DarcReaver]

On 13.7.2017 at 7:58 PM, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Do you mean hotkeys, meta, or map control as in gameplay?

gameplay.

[Stan`]

13 hours ago, DarcReaver said:

gameplay.

How is your gameplay mod going ?

[ArcaneExodus]

I was hoping A23 will offer an easier way to host matches, becomes this seems to be an issue. Not only that, but the ability to share custom made maps; And a competition to make a campaign (eventually)

Was hoping for mines, trees, ranches, and caravan traders to garrison units and gather resources infinitely on certain maps; Say for 8 player modes, each player could start with 1 infinite tree, and 2 mines (metal and stone) Each could hold up to 24 units; Plus add a ranch to garrison 24 farmers of cavalry and a trade caravan to equal 20 traders that could garrison units to protect it. Could really reduce the amount of lag in big games if you took all the resources and units off the map garrisoning them in a few mines and trade caravans.

Hoping that formations will work, but only for melee infantry; That's all the game needs... A campaign and the classical phalanx and testudo formations; I highly suggest making the formations not move, unless ordered to and gain maximum armor against piercing weapons so they take 1 damage like buildings, but only attack units right beside them. Also, allow them capture buildings while in formation. Give mauryans maiden archer/sword mode, celtic tribes throwing axe/melee champions.

I thought the civilizations need some more balancing, and the best way to do that is offer new units, features, better formations, new buildings, upgrades, ect. If any civ seems weak, just start adding features to the game, and make it better!

[Stan`]

@ArcaneExodus Network support has improved as the game now has a better way to go around firewalls. @fcxSanya or @elexis could probably be more specific.

About formations work is being done to make them easier to fix.

About the infinite resource stuff it's sounds more like a game mode to me. So not planned but could be done by motivated modders if you can find some