Remove spread a.k.a randomness

[Yekaterina]

4 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

I like physics, but I am worried about what this might incentivize players to do. Come in close to enemies to exploit higher damage, like pikes who can not chase archers down.

What do you propose?

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

I think a constant damage model is fine.

 

[raynor]

39 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

I like physics, but I am worried about what this might incentivize players to do. Come in close to enemies to exploit higher damage, like pikes who can not chase archers down.

Not sure I really understand this point. In my view, you can still have close range damage to a reasonable value, so that it is not too overpowered. Maybe you can elaborate a bit more on this?

 

33 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

I think a constant damage model is fine.

 

What I like with @Yekaterina proposal is that it still feels like "unique" approach to projectile in RTS, while solving dancing/turn rate issues. Constant damage independently of distance, I am afraid this is again a recipe for hard balancing between ranged units . Also, having decreased damage when distance increase will also counter balance the fact that archer are too good at turtling, without having to touch their mobility. WDYT?

Edited May 14, 2021 by raynor

[Yekaterina]

This would nerf the archers 

Archers going for shorter distance means melds can reach them more easily. Therefore they are less of a threat.

[Yekaterina]

I meant melee 

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

I suppose it is not as much of a problem if other ranged units, who would out dps archers in close range (skirms and slings), also have a damage increase at close range, and if archers are slowed in walk speed. These other things would incentivize an archer army to keep distance.

 

In my opinion, the main reason archers are the most op turtle unit is because they can get to a fight faster than other units. Their range reduces necessary run distance. In addition to their range making them more powerful adjacent to defensive buidings. This way, archers can defend a much larger area at the same time, and they can't be outflanked except with cavalry.

 

Edited May 14, 2021 by BreakfastBurrito_007

[Yekaterina]

21 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

In my opinion, the main reason archers are the most op turtle unit is because they can get to a fight faster than other units. Their range reduces necessary run distance. In addition to their range making them more powerful adjacent to defensive buidings. This way, archers can defend a much larger area at the same time, and they can't be outflanked except with cavalry.

Exactly. If we use the exponential model and choose the appropriate value for k then the problem would be solved. The extra range of archers would not increase its damage per second because each hit has been diminished so much by the long distance.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

mmm. Perhaps this is also a good way to nerf the range bonus that is added with archery tradition. If the damage drop-off equation was carefully chosen we could different choices for ranged units. This would also help the unit ranges feel less "sharp" and complicate the decision of whether to "dive in" or attack at maximum range. I would wait for some other opinions on this before I get too excited though.

[ChronA]

I'm happy to code in falloff damage as tool for modders to experiment with, but personally I don't think its going to end up being a good fit for EA or any of its spinoffs without major changes to unit AI.

Right now ranged units want to start attacking enemies at maximum range, and they will stay at maximum range unless their enemies move towards them or their player orders them to move closer. That means, with damage falloff, ranged units default behavior will cause them to do minimum damage, and additional micro steps are required to make them become effective at their intended role. That would be fine for an RTS in the Blizzard style, but for Ensemble Studios style games (post AoK) I think low level players expect units can be left unsupervised without completely negating their combat performance.
But, I could also be wrong about that! It might be a question of fine tuning parameters. I mean, technically the situation I just described already exists with the projectile-spread mechanic. However, either no-one minds, or spread is currently so small and units pack together so tightly that at normal engagement ranges that it's not an issue.

Anyway... re: linear vs exponential model: I am leaning toward the exponential. I think elevation range bonuses (and target leading) is going to make linear damage falloff complicated. Exponential ironically should be simpler.

[Yekaterina]

4 hours ago, ChronA said:

I'm happy to code in falloff damage as tool for modders to experiment with, but personally I don't think its going to end up being a good fit for EA or any of its spinoffs without major changes to unit AI.

How would you code range dropoff? Please teach me!

[LetswaveaBook]

4 hours ago, Yekaterina said:

How would you code range dropoff? Please teach me!

I think it was meant that ranged units are more likely to miss at large range.

[ChronA]

Okay! At some point I've got to stop playing with different stat values on my own and share this darn thing!

This mod contains support for a deterministic damage model, via accuracy overrides and distance based exponential damage falloff. It also adds support for directional armor/resistance values. The included unit templates demonstrate the grammar for these features. (I think they also strike an interesting new balance between unit roles... but I'm biased obviously.)

Let me know your thoughts.

damage_mechanics_mod.zip

Edited May 20, 2021 by ChronA

[raynor]

2 hours ago, ChronA said:

Okay! At some point I've got to stop playing with different stat values on my own and share this darn thing!

This mod contains support for a deterministic damage model, via accuracy overrides and distance based exponential damage falloff. It also adds support for directional armor/resistance values. The included unit templates demonstrate the grammar for these features. (I think they also strike an interesting new balance between unit roles... but I'm biased obviously.)

Let me know your thoughts.

damage_mechanics_mod.zipFetching info...

Thanks, I will happily test it this week end

[ChronA]

7 hours ago, raynor said:

Thanks, I will happily test it this week end

 If you want to test this you will probably want to open up a text editor and make some adjustments. I put in the bones of an interesting balance concept with the infantry templates I included. However their main purpose was to demo some of the things one can do with the new features.

Thus the ranged infantry in particular are a hodge-podge of different concepts. (Archers have fully deterministic accuracy with the maximum amount of damage falloff allowed. Slingers are fully spread-based with damage falloff starting at 50% of their max range, and skirmishers are 50% spread and 50% deterministic with no falloff.) For my own tastes I would probably drop the archer and skirmisher <AccuracyOverride> down to 0.3 and 0.4 respectively, then bump up the archer's <OptimalRange> to 20.

To complete things for multiplayer testing, the changes would also need to be extended to cavalry, champions, and static defense buildings. I didn't have time to work on them yet. If anyone is especially interested in my take, I can probably dedicate a few hours tomorrow to whip a polished version up.

[alre]

@ChronA I just tested it and it doesn't work for me. Damage dealt by archers is constant, and even if it rarely fails, it does sometimes (I only observed that on a gazelle though, on people it always lands for what I could see).

[ChronA]

@alre That's odd. I've checked it again on my side and it is definitely working for me. The gazelle takes damage from every shot, hits and misses. So to try to figure this out, a few questions:

1. Are you sure the gazelle isn't taking damage? If it was very far away the arrow might have a very long flight time before the hit registers. Also, if the gazelle is very far away the damage falloff will reduce the damage to low single digits. (At max range each arrow should only do 5 damage, if he is shooting beyond his max range--because that is something units can do when leading a target--it will be even less.)
2. Were you using a citizen soldier archer, or a champion/hero archer? I didn't get a chance to propagate the changes to champions or heroes, so they can still miss.
3. Do you have any other mods enabled in your load order? If so, try disabling them.
4. Are you using the alpha 24 build, or have you upgraded to the a25 preview? I prototyped the mod from a24. Its possible a25 breaks something.

[alre]

@ChronA I had autociv, I tried again without it and I can confirm that the gazelle always takes quite precisely 6 damages at each shot, regardless of the distance, and that the arrows can miss. This archer was shooting arrows at a fleeing gazelle, when it suddenly stopped; the arrow landed where the gazelle was going, but since it stopped it was a miss. The gazelle had only 1 hp, but it survived until the following shot. I was using a persian CS archer, one of the two you get at the beginning of a game.

Edited May 23, 2021 by alre

[ChronA]

Hm. If arrows are doing 6 damage that means the new templates aren't loading. If it were just the scripts that were broken, the archer should be doing 20 damage per shot. I'm guessing the mod isn't loading at all. For additional confirmation, could you check the hack armor on the pikeman: it should be 18. 

Just a stupid hunch here, but try reinstalling the my mod by unzipping it in your mods folder. I gather properly built mods are zipped, but I didn't go through that whole process. (I am not a proper computer sciency type--sorry.)

Also, is it working for anyone else?