Dancing from a player point of view

[fatherbushido]

In 0 A.D., the unit "dancing" was pointed out as an annoying issue until a23, especially in multiplayer lobby games.

The ability to dodge projectiles is not something specific to that game and probably not even a bug.

In old release, projectiles were just head seeker. Then there was some kind of targeting. So the ability to dodge them is not new, it was already used in multiplayer lobby games around a16 if I remember correctly. It becomes probably worse when the patrol command was introduced, when that exploit was more known and when people used it with high resistance units like hero.

I know that I have already ask the question and that this issue is considered fixed in a24. Still, I would like to know from a player point of view, what is really annoying :

- ability to dodge units with micro

- ability to dodge units in an automated way (patrol for example)

- the fact that units target the closest one

And for example :

-  is a low resistance unit dancing annoying?

- is 1 attacker vs 1 dancer an as big issue as 10 attacker vs 1 dancer?

 

All inputs welcome.

[badosu]

It is a contentious topic as the majority of players won't tolerate even the slightest micro to dodge projectiles (OMG U DANCING!!!!111onze!).

At the same time reducing turn rate to a state where dancing is not extremely overpowered like before but allows players to get some limited benefit seems beneficial, at least in my opinion.

The obnoxious issue was one single unit dancing (with patrol or not) targeted by all of the opponent's ranged units, that is what we want to avoid. In my opinion a limited version of dancing where that is not possible but allows for micro when raiding for example is beneficial.

[badosu]

Another interesting discussion is that we automatically predict a units position during targeting. On aoe2 for example this is a technology 'ballistics'. Not sure how much sense there is in having that as a technology but it is a good thing in terms of gameplay diversity.

[Lion.Kanzen]

One idea would be to doThe archers (especially inexperienced) have very poor accuracy and miss a lot except when it is a large group of archers, that more than one of them is going to have to hit many targets, especially a large column of marching infantry.

[Freagarach]

34 minutes ago, badosu said:

Another interesting discussion is that we automatically predict a units position during targeting. On aoe2 for example this is a technology 'ballistics'. Not sure how much sense there is in having that as a technology but it is a good thing in terms of gameplay diversity.

Ancient patch: https://code.wildfiregames.com/D880

[faction02]

1 hour ago, fatherbushido said:

- the fact that units target the closest one

If feasible, fixing this could be very interesting. Overkill is another issue with units control. I haven't noticed abuse of it but I suspect it has important impact in late game.

Dancing becomes annoying when:

(the number of actions needed from the "spectator" in response to dance)/(number of actions performed by the "dancer" to counter the action) becomes "large" or if the actions from the spectator are inefficient.

Examples:

 - hero dance is very annoying since it requires microing a whole army; 

 - automatic dance is very annoying too since one action will usually required many actions by the spectator; 

 - 1 unit versus 1 unit seems ok since the micro would be balanced;

 - cavalry speed & inaccuracy of archers made rush defense against cavalry in a23 sometimes very inefficient. In early game, even with 10 archers, a group of cavalry could run around the enemy relatively safely 

Edited March 11, 2021 by faction02

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Know how there is a "max gatherers" stat? There can be a "max attackers" component. For structures we can make it rather large, like 80 for a large structure. But for units we can reduce it considerably. We can base it largely on footprint size. So, melee attackers attacking a target won't mill around and run around trying to get to the target if too many are tasked to the target, they will find a new target instead. And then also, archers will seek a different target if too many are already targeted. We could even go a little more granular with it and divide it up between melee and ranged max attackers. 

[fatherbushido]

Thanks for the inputs above.