Are there balancing changes planned for A24?

[Boudica]

Cleopatra is a bit overpowered and the animation looks unrealistic, but on an unrelated note, as far as I know, it was very real for professional archers to shoot several times per second. I remember seeing a documentary where a professional could hit three moving discs thrown at once in different directions. We are affected by pseudo-historic movies, but it was pretty impressive what ancient soldiers could do. Of course, they would usually hold (and sometimes also shoot) multiple arrows at once for a fast repeat time.

</offtopic>

Edited May 15, 2019 by Boudica

[Lion.Kanzen]

2 minutes ago, Boudica said:

Cleopatra is a bit overpowered and the animation looks unrealistic, but on an unrelated note, as far as I know, it was very real for professional archers to shoot several times per second. I remember seeing a documentary where a professional could hit three moving discs thrown at one in different directions. We are affected by pseudo-historic movies, but it was pretty impressive what ancient soldiers could do. Of course, they would usually hold (and sometimes also shoot) multiple arrows at once for a fast repeat time.

the technique is different than the actual animation, because is a composite bow. like nomad style of shooting. its very controversial.

 

the controversy is the power of this technique. 

Spoiler

 

 

[Lion.Kanzen]

 

fire reloading is more intimidating. must be have less range.... but only a expert can say that.

[borg-]

1 hour ago, elexis said:

So there are three classes of contributions:

1. Hard-counters (core idea)
2. Prerequirements / Dependencies
3. Unrelated goodies

If that is correct, then I would again recommend to stop working on unrelated goodies, get the dependencies uploaded if you want this in Wildfire Games 0 A.D. (like FeldFeld did with the hard-counters tooltip). Then get the hard-counters in. Then you can continue to work on unrelated goodies. The more unrelated stuff is added, the more time-consuming it becomes to split it apart later, for you, anyone who would commit it, and anyone who reads it years later. If you want to only have it a mod, I won't stop you, but if your objective is to not have it in a mod, there has to be some theory how this happens. I understand many people offer their contribution and leave it there, but reality is one chances to get something committed increase by some orders of magnitude if one actively looks for oneself how to get it in (i.e. trying to identify the developers, getting them interested, making it as easy as possible for them to agree).

The mod was tested for 5 months now, so I guess you have sufficient results to stop adding new unrelated features? I mean it's your work and WFG review is the end-boss, your choice, I can only show the situation.

Well actually I did not put a lot of new stuff, just a few things that were already in the code but that were not being used, some auras and techs, but i will do so, I will follow your tip.

I'm preparing a "final" patch with the best balance possible. It should be ready in the next few days.

After that I will apply to the snv a24.

Edited May 16, 2019 by borg-

[Sundiata]

2 hours ago, Boudica said:

Cleopatra is a bit overpowered and the animation looks unrealistic, but on an unrelated note, as far as I know, it was very real for professional archers to shoot several times per second. I remember seeing a documentary where a professional could hit three moving discs thrown at once in different directions. We are affected by pseudo-historic movies, but it was pretty impressive what ancient soldiers could do. Of course, they would usually hold (and sometimes also shoot) multiple arrows at once for a fast repeat time.

Spoiler

Funnily I just rewatched this video of Lars Anderson. The video is a funny, low production value, wild claims making kind of video, and he received a lot of online hate from armchair historians and jealous, less accomplished archers, but his skills are undeniable, and illustrate your point very well:

 

On accuracy, this random video illustrates some impressive shots:

 

There are huge differences between all the different archery traditions, and they're not all comparable. Self bows vs composite/recurve bows. Use of thumb rings, or not. Pulling arrows from a quiver vs holding them in hand. Firing from the left or from the right. Archery cultures were able to do things with the bow and arrow that we might consider impossible today... Things like rate of fire, range, accuracy and penetrating power.

For example, the Arabs referred to the Nubians as "pupil smiters":

Quote

According to historian Al-Baladhuri, the Muslims found that the Nubians fought strongly and met them with showers of arrows. The majority of the Arab forces returned with wounded and blinded eyes. It was thus that the Nubians were called 'the pupil smiters'.^[2] Al-Baladhuri also states, quoting from one of his sources that went to Nubia twice during the rule of `Umar ibn al-Khattab.^[5]

"One day they came out against us and formed a line; we wanted to use swords, but we were not able to, and they shot at us and put out eyes to the number of one hundred and fifty."

[Clearly archers were used as frontline troops in this engagement...]

 

This is strongly reminiscent of Heliodorus of Emesa's Romance, the "Aethiopica" (3rd or 4th century), in which the Kushites shot with frightening accuracy, aiming specifically for the eyes in "The Great Battle" with the Persians. 

Quote

With such a band of horsemen and the Persian army thus appointed the governor set out against his enemies, keeping the river ever behind him; for as he was far inferior in numbers to the Ethiopians he planned that the water should be instead of a wall that he might not be surrounded. Hydaspes likewise brought on his army and placed the soldiers of Meroe, who were skilled to fight hand in hand with heavy swords, against the Persians and the Medes on the right wing. The Troglodytes and those who come from the country where the cinnamon grows, light harnessed soldiers and cunning archers and very swift of foot, he set against those who were on the enemy’s left wing. But against their centre, which he heard was the strongest, he set himself and his elephants with towers on their backs, together with the men-at-arms of the Blemmyes and the Seres, whom he instructed what they should do when they came to fight. When the signal was given for battle, among the Persians by 274trumpet, with the Ethiopians by drum and timbrel, Oroöndates with a shout led on his men to the charge. Hydaspes for his part advanced as slowly as possible step by step, by this means providing that the elephants should not be far from their supports and that the enemies’ cavalry in the centre should be weary before they came to blows. When they were within shot, and the Blemmyes saw that the mailed cavalry were calling on their horses for a charge, they did as Hydaspes had commanded. Leaving the Seres to protect the elephants they ran out from the line against the horsemen, so that those who saw them might have thought that they were mad, who being so few durst encounter so many and so well armed. Thereupon the Persians spurred their horses to go faster than before, thinking that the enemy’s boldness was their gain, and that they would at the first dash overcome them without ado.

But the Blemmyes when they were almost come to hand strokes and in a manner stuck by their spears, suddenly all together fell down and crept under the horses kneeling with one knee upon the ground and sheltering their heads and shoulders beneath, without any harms save that they were trodden a little by their feet. And then they themselves did a strange and unexpected thing. As the horses passed over them they thrust with their swords and wounded them in the belly, so that many of their riders fell, by reason that the horses could not be governed because of their pain and so threw them. Whom, as they lay in heaps, the Blemmyes stabbed under the thighs; for the Persian horseman is not able to move unless he has some one to aid him. Those who escaped with their horses whole then charged against the Seres. But they, as soon as they came near, stepped behind the 275elephants, as though behind some great tower or hill of refuge. Then there was a great carnage and the horsemen were almost all slain. For their horses, being afraid of the greatness and strange sight of the elephants, thus suddenly revealed, either turned back or ran aside, and caused the main battle to break its array. They who were upon the elephants — six men upon each, two fighting from every side save the behind — shot steadily at the mark from their tower as from a castle, so that the number of their arrows was to the Persians like a cloud. The Ethiopians aimed especially at their enemies eyes, as though they were shooting not for life but to see who were the better archers, and hit their mark so exactly that those who were stricken ran here and there in panic with arrows, as if they had been pipes, piercing their eyes. If any of them against their wills rode out from their ranks, because their houses could not be checked, they fell among the elephants; where they died, being either overthrown and trodden under foot by them or else killed by the Blemmyes and Seres who ran out from behind the elephants as from an ambush, and wounded some with arrows and slew others at close quarters when their horses had cast them to the ground. To be short, those who escaped did nothing worthy of recounting nor hurt the elephants a whit, since the beast is covered with iron when he comes to battle, and if he were not, he hath of nature scales so hard over his body that no spear can enter thereinto.

 

Similar stories of incredible accuracy and other archery skills are commonplace in archery cultures from around the world. 

 

Edited May 16, 2019 by Sundiata

[Boudica]

Aiming specifically for the eyes, that's brutal.

Sorry for going off topic. We should move this elsewhere.

[Lion.Kanzen]

2 minutes ago, Boudica said:

Aiming specifically for the eyes, that's brutal.

Sorry for going off topic. We should move this elsewhere.

I open a topic in art forum.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Lars is an accomplished archer, but his archery is that of an action hero. Techniques would be a little different in the middle of a pitched battle. Or did archers shoot 10 clay targets per second at Gaugamela? 

[Sundiata]

18 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Lars is an accomplished archer, but his archery is that of an action hero. Techniques would be a little different in the middle of a pitched battle. Or did archers shoot 10 clay targets per second at Gaugamela? 

My point was that in different places and contexts, you'd find different types of archery techniques. Persian archers in pitched battles like Gaugamela would operate significantly differently from Nubian archers employing guerrilla tactics like at the First Battle of Dongola. Clearly there was some trick archery going on there. I'm not saying that they were somersaulting all over the place like Lars  But aiming for the eyes, for sport, in the midst of battle, while hanging from an elephant, or hitting exactly those parts of the body that your enemy was taunting you to hit, like with the Arabs... Sounds pretty epic to me.

PS: This stuff is also very relevant/worth investigating for your Nomadic Civs, because those guys weren't your run of the mill archers either.

Edited May 16, 2019 by Sundiata

[Loki1950]

The average Samurai would shoot 100 arrows a day on the range and at least one hour of sword practice that was before European contact other archer cultures had similar training regimes Mongol children where given bows at about 10 years of age both sexes as Mongol woman where secondary defenders of the clan and most children rode horses from way before that.English long-bowman also started at that age getting stronger bows as they grew. I myself got my first real bow at that age though being left eye dominate and right handed none of the conventional sighing systems worked for me I had to develop an instinctive style and my accuracy was never excellent though I did hit my targets there is an other relevant issue the draw Mongolian with the thumb drawing the string to the ear or the Mediterranean with the first joint of ether two or three fingers drawing the string to the check or chin.Depending on the draw style the arrow is placed on differing sides of the bow this is due to the different torque generated by each the thumb draw twists the bow string so the arrow goes to the left side so the arrow is placed on the right side of the bow the three finger draw is opposite of this assuming a right handed archer enough archer geek stuff

Enjoy the Choice

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

2 hours ago, Sundiata said:

My point was that in different places and contexts, you'd find different types of archery techniques. Persian archers in pitched battles like Gaugamela would operate significantly differently from Nubian archers employing guerrilla tactics like at the First Battle of Dongola. Clearly there was some trick archery going on there. I'm not saying that they were somersaulting all over the place like Lars  But aiming for the eyes, for sport, in the midst of battle, while hanging from an elephant, or hitting exactly those parts of the body that your enemy was taunting you to hit, like with the Arabs... Sounds pretty epic to me.

 PS: This stuff is also very relevant/worth investigating for your Nomadic Civs, because those guys weren't your run of the mill archers either.

All true, just saying that we should maybe focus on perhaps having attack animations based on different techniques found in the different countries, so that a Greek archer's animation might look different from a Persian archer's animation. My main beef is the fact that the archers in the game fire 100s of arrows at 2 arrows per second in some cases and looks ridiculous in pitched battle. Before we turn the game into an archery sim (how do we simulate the "shooting them through the eye slit thing anyway?), perhaps just having animations for the different draws, etc. would be pretty cool. I kind of wish the game had a dynamic animation system so that archers could aim higher for long range targets, while aiming more directly for closer range targets, if you know what I mean. even if it's not 100% dynamic, could maybe have a "high aim" and "low aim" variant for each draw animation and the engine can pick the right one based on target distance.

[Stan`]

56 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

how do we simulate the "shooting them through the eye slit thing anyway?

Critical damage ?

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Just now, Stan` said:

Critical damage ?

Will we have prop points on the body meshes for arrows to show? That would be cool.

[Stan`]

1 minute ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Will we have prop points on the body meshes for arrows to show? That would be cool.

Could be done but it'shard to switch death variants depending on what killed a unit.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

2 minutes ago, Stan` said:

Could be done but it'shard to switch death variants depending on what killed a unit.

I could see an arrow to the face would make the death animation stiffen up and fall backward like a board. 

[Stan`]

13 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

I could see an arrow to the face would make the death animation stiffen up and fall backward like a board. 

That's ragdolls and we don't have that feature in the engine Else we would not need death animations at all

[GunChleoc]

13 hours ago, elexis said:

Problem is if one spends some time to give some valuable feedback, one gets implicated (i.e. one gets bad reputation if one provides some feedback for improvements but doesn't finish off with a complete review, test, discussion, commit, fixing bugs or balancing defects of that afterwards), so developers are often faced with the decision to not respond at all, to go all the way, or to appear as someone who orders someone to do additional work for no reason. I.e. one has to bring a lot of dedication and time if one wants to start working on something.

I think that is indeed a problem. The responsibility of the reviewer should end with the commit and after that, the responsibility of maintaining the patch should lie with the person submitting the patch. Of course, people can also disappear, but being afraid of that will continue to be a huge blocker. People submitting a patch should state if they can't do the follow-up maintenance so that the team will know what to expect, and the team can of course not assume anything when there's a new contributor. I guess the thing here is to find a balanced way of dealing with the risk of new/regression bugs.

[fatherbushido]

What balance is about:

- Put a ball on that curve, find the balance. You have one hour.

- Tomorrow, same exercise, the curve will change somewhere.

[thankforpie]

ples balans teh game i hav nothink to play me poor irl

[StopKillingMe]

The problem with the Borg mod is that he is implementing more than just balancing changes - which means he essentially forking the code.  You can't have one person making all the decisions about what needs to be changed.  The original design concepts and integrity of what 0ad is need to be preserved at all costs.  Features and balance need to be separated, they are two different things.  Borg's approach is counter productive.  Implementing his own counter system is off the reservation stuff that I cannot support, the existing counter system should be tweaked, not replaced.  Reading through what is in his mod, much of it is stuff that circumvents the dev process and is clearly not release candidate 1 functionality.  This game is not even in beta... it's time to code freeze already and head to beta, people want to play this game.

[borg-]

1 hour ago, StopKillingMe said:

The problem with the Borg mod is that he is implementing more than just balancing changes - which means he essentially forking the code.  You can't have one person making all the decisions about what needs to be changed.  The original design concepts and integrity of what 0ad is need to be preserved at all costs.  Features and balance need to be separated, they are two different things.  Borg's approach is counter productive.  Implementing his own counter system is off the reservation stuff that I cannot support, the existing counter system should be tweaked, not replaced.  Reading through what is in his mod, much of it is stuff that circumvents the dev process and is clearly not release candidate 1 functionality.  This game is not even in beta... it's time to code freeze already and head to beta, people want to play this game.

None of the changes "affect" the original code.

You only have a few things what is needed, how a more of icons in the interface. 

The interface shows the units counter.

Cheers promotion desable.

Are small things, just because they were necessary.

Of course it had implementation of new units and constructions, but all of them were already in the code, they just were not being used.

There are lots of balancing problems in the 0ad, it's not just changing some attacks and armor that's all correct. This is already being done and we are missing out on the whole new alpha.

About the counter system, I have used the least possible units for this, I do not want a complex system and difficult to understand, because this is also not realistic. I do not think I should use a system that already exists, so good that it is not being used .

I'm probably working on what will be the last version of the mod. I am deepening the civilizations, technologies and units. I'm differentiating each of them for a different style of play.
All this based on the original design. I read the design documents at the request of the elexis. If you could see the new version, and see the details, you will see that most of what was written for 0a.d is there. Of course I had to make some small changes so that everything would be in tune at the end, but the promising originais of the game are all there.

 

Edited May 30, 2019 by borg-

[Hannibal_Barca]

17 minutes ago, borg- said:

None of the changes "affect" the original code.

You only have a few things what is needed, how a more of icons in the interface. 

The interface shows the units counter.

Cheers promotion desable.

Are small things, just because they were necessary.

Of course it had implementation of new units and constructions, but all of them were already in the code, they just were not being used.

There are lots of balancing problems in the 0ad, it's not just changing some attacks and armor that's all correct. This is already being done and we are missing out on the whole new alpha.

About the counter system, I have used the least possible units for this, I do not want a complex system and difficult to understand, because this is also not realistic. I do not think I should use a system that already exists, so good that it is not being used .

I'm probably working on what will be the last version of the mod. I am deepening the civiçizations, technologies and units. I'm differentiating each of them for a different style of play.
All this based on the original design. I read the design documents at the request of the elexis. If you could see the new version, and see the details, you will see that most of what was written for 0a.d is there. Of course I had to make some small changes so that everything would be in tune at the end, but the promising originais of the game are all there.

 

I think the problem is that you are doing all this in one shot.

And it definitely looks like someone just plainly got carried away with fancy scenario units and added them in.

There are steps to differentiate, introducing both balancing and new features at once is one of the best ways to muddy the waters of clarity.

[StopKillingMe]

29 minutes ago, borg- said:

None of the changes "affect" the original code.

You only have a few things what is needed, how a more of icons in the interface. 

The interface shows the units counter.

Cheers promotion desable.

Are small things, just because they were necessary.

Of course it had implementation of new units and constructions, but all of them were already in the code, they just were not being used.

There are lots of balancing problems in the 0ad, it's not just changing some attacks and armor that's all correct. This is already being done and we are missing out on the whole new alpha.

About the counter system, I have used the least possible units for this, I do not want a complex system and difficult to understand, because this is also not realistic. I do not think I should use a system that already exists, so good that it is not being used .

I'm probably working on what will be the last version of the mod. I am deepening the civilizations, technologies and units. I'm differentiating each of them for a different style of play.
All this based on the original design. I read the design documents at the request of the elexis. If you could see the new version, and see the details, you will see that most of what was written for 0a.d is there. Of course I had to make some small changes so that everything would be in tune at the end, but the promising originais of the game are all there.

 

You should be doing this in concert with the dev team - not on your own in a vacuum - sorry that you might not like to have this pointed out - but you are making a second version of this game - which will split the already small gaming community.  0ad is a unique RTS - it needs to be preserved.  They way things should be balanced is one civ at a time - over the course of lots of playing time and community debate - right now the only thing that needs to be done is to nerve the Gauls/Britons - nothing else needs to be changed, once that is done, then the next OP civ will reveal itself through game-play - then that one gets nerfed, and so on - that is how you traditionally patch an RTS for balance.  You are doing way too much, too soon.

[borg-]

17 minutes ago, Hannibal_Barca said:

I think the problem is that you are doing all this in one shot.

And it definitely looks like someone just plainly got carried away with fancy scenario units and added them in.

There are steps to differentiate, introducing both balancing and new features at once is one of the best ways to muddy the waters of clarity.

It is an independent mod to be added or not the original version. I'm working hard and fast, so that gives me enough time for me to have a good respaw and go changing what I need. Do you have another way to do it? Maybe, but I'm not seeing any at the moment. We have the same game inception screens as at least 6 years ago. We have range and stables for all factions, but they are not being used just because no one wanted to take a few days to work for it, not because it should be slow and gradual. Remote units are at least 3 years to be balanced, and what change have we had ?? Just changes races and poorly done, which end up leaving another op unit.
As I said, balancing is the least of the problems, the design is that it is stopped.

Edited May 30, 2019 by borg-

[borg-]

5 minutes ago, StopKillingMe said:

You should be doing this in concert with the dev team - not on your own in a vacuum - sorry that you might not like to have this pointed out - but you are making a second version of this game - which will split the already small gaming community.  0ad is a unique RTS - it needs to be preserved.  They way things should be balanced is one civ at a time - over the course of lots of playing time and community debate - right now the only thing that needs to be done is to nerve the Gauls/Britons - nothing else needs to be changed, once that is done, then the next OP civ will reveal itself through game-play - then that one gets nerfed, and so on - that is how you traditionally patch an RTS for balance.  You are doing way too much, too soon.

This is a mod, I did this so players can play a decent game. If this is not implemented well, the mod will continue there.

But I ask you, which team takes care of this at the moment?

And I've told you before, if you continue with this shallow balance, it will never work.

I can give you quick examples here. If u nerf gaul/brit, so pto is new op, if u nerf pto, rome/athen is new op. If i nerf slingers, so skir cav back op again, maybe archers.

How long would it take for each such change to be made? 2 alphas for each change ??
I'm sorry, but that's not how you do it. That's why you delegate specialized people to do each type of service.

Edited May 30, 2019 by borg-