A25 Feedbacks from testing

[wraitii]

5 minutes ago, Ceres said:

How do you test a25? Do you compile the latest available code, or do you use the latest available automated builds (for Windows)? If the latter, how do you fetch the complete package? Where could I find more hints about these questions?

 

For the particular case of A25 we're going to be providing test bundles soon (1-2 days at most)

[Ceres]

Oh, that's wonderful news - thank you all! Then I shall be patient and wait.

Edited June 7, 2021 by Ceres

[Yekaterina]

Just now, Ceres said:

Oh, that's wonderful news - thank you all! Then I shall be patient a wait.

If you are not patient, download the code from github or svn then compile: 

https://github.com/0ad/0ad.git

https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/BuildInstructions

[Ceres]

I had already compiled successfully with VS a few weeks ago, but it always is a hassle (for me ).

 

EDIT:

What is your recommendation in a25 about healers in the sense of stance, formation, and moving orders? Should they have the same as the battling unit(s) they are accompanying? Is there a way to kind of "glue" them to these other units, so they always stand/walk/run with them irrespective of stance, formation, and moving orders? Or do you keep the healers in the second (or third) line, awaiting hurt units? Is there a command/stance that sends hurt units away from the foes? If yes, in which direction - just opposide or anywhere, where there is room? Or even back to healers (if available)? I understand that all this might be too fancy (and too much automatism - the human player should still have the power to decide), but maybe this is just a small idea for future discussions.

Edited June 7, 2021 by Ceres

[nani]

55 minutes ago, Ceres said:

Or do you keep the healers in the second (or third) line, awaiting hurt units?

Yes, I always facepalm when I see the healers healing each other while the army dies o when you send an attack order and all units including healers go to the front lines XD instead of healing position.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

On 04/06/2021 at 3:31 PM, Lion.Kanzen said:

How good do you consider yourself creating new units?

 

I discovered that the Iberians are short of cavalry.

don't they still have the spearcav, javelin cav, and champion "fire-cav"?

I hope so. :I

+speaking of adding cavalry...... How about adding a spearcav unit to seleucids? :D.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

21 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

And for that matter, I would prefer there be no building requirements at all. If a player wants to go p3 with 20 pop, fine. If a player wants to rush p3 without a market, blacksmith or other p2 buildings, fine. If you want players to make more types of buildings then the buildings themselves should be more worthwhile. 

At first this seems outrageous, but is actually hella logical. This also opens up a bunch of possible strategies that are out of the envelope due to building constraints on going p2/p3.

[Gurken Khan]

1 hour ago, nani said:

Yes, I always facepalm when I see the healers healing each other while the army dies o when you send an attack order and all units including healers go to the front lines XD instead of healing position.

Maybe they just have another interpretation of 'support' than your cowardly approach?

(Still on a24) Today I just ordered my whole army to capture a CC, and the healers were doing some stupid running around the building, lol.

In general I think it's ok if they heal each other, but I'd wish they wouldn't run away while on aggressive stance and that they'd have some sense of priority when healing.

[Yekaterina]

54 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

At first this seems outrageous, but is actually hella logical. This also opens up a bunch of possible strategies that are out of the envelope due to building constraints on going p2/p3.

Expect a tsunami of rams pouring onto your cc at minute 5 

 

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

18 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

Expect a tsunami of rams pouring onto your cc at minute 5 

Not really. Just think about the time it takes to go p3 from p1, even with instantaneous buildings, and infinite resources it would take you 1 minute and 20 seconds just to go p3. then 30 seconds for the first ram. It would be impossible to get 1 ram by minute 5 if you have 300 f 300 w 300 s 300 m starting res. Anyway, 1 ram at minute 5 is no problem, just use women to kill it. Just because you can get p3 early does not mean you can get a p3 eco early.

Also, people would see you phase up based upon the expansion of your territory, they would see the ram coming minutes in advance.

Edited June 7, 2021 by BreakfastBurrito_007

[chrstgtr]

1 hour ago, Yekaterina said:

Expect a tsunami of rams pouring onto your cc at minute 5 

 

Maybe if you consider a "tsunami" to be 1 ram, 2 spears, 2 skirms, and 13 women, "pouring" to be a single wave, and "at minute 5" to mean around minute 7. If you can't defend against that then you bigger problems than how many p1 and p2 buildings are required for your enemy to go p3. If you don't build a proper base then you won't have the benefits that come along with it, including population cap space from houses, men from barracks, military upgrades from blacksmiths, trading ability from markets, etc.

 

Instead the current setup limits player strategy by forcing a specific build order. Just let players decide and the game will become far less predictable than it is now where I know every player builds a lot of houses, storehouses, and farms in p1, a market, blacksmith, and two other buildings in p2, and a siege factory in p3. 

Edited June 7, 2021 by chrstgtr

[Yekaterina]

Genuine problem: This is 2 rams, but overlapping onto each other. Please can we disable actor overlapping as you never know whether you are under attack by 1 ram or 10 rams merged into each other:

[chrstgtr]

1 minute ago, Yekaterina said:

Genuine problem: This is 2 rams, but overlapping onto each other. Please can we disable actor overlapping as you never know whether you are under attack by 1 ram or 10 rams merged into each other:

This has been a problem for a while, and it can be a big problem because you can't gauge how many units you are being attacked by. Some players, especially Hanni, used to abuse this to conceal the fact that they have many bolts/cata. 

[Yekaterina]

1 minute ago, chrstgtr said:

Some players, especially Hanni, used to abuse this to conceal the fact that they have many bolts/cata. 

Who is Hanni, and can you make a patch to disable this please?

[chrstgtr]

15 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

Who is Hanni, and can you make a patch to disable this please?

No, I don't know how to do patches and lack any coding skills.

Hanni was Hannibal_Barca. He is a moderator in the multiplayer lobby. 

 

[Loki1950]

@Ceresif you are using TortoiseSVN on windows just right-click on the svn root folder and"SVN Update" not with the GitHub repo though as the binary is not mirrored to it you have to do the compile with Visual Studio.

Enjoy the Choice

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

Hanni once got 9 catas in one.

 

[Ceres]

Amazing concealing skills!

[Yekaterina]

@Stan` @wraitii how do you disable overlapping? Is this to do with model size and selection box?

[wraitii]

Can have a few sources, but the problem is twofold:

- Unit pushing allows some overlap, though units in the same spot should push each other away in A25 (may/may not mitigate this)

- The rams are much bigger than their actual pathfinding size.

You can play with the settings in pathfinder.xml, but unfortunately increasing clearance doesn't work that well.

[nani]

56 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

@Stan` @wraitii how do you disable overlapping? Is this to do with model size and selection box?

Overlapping is a "bug" (sometimes is on purpose) and is determined by the pathfinder and the obstruction simulation. From what I've seen in alpha 25 svn units now overlap much more so the problem is worse in that aspect but on the other hand you now don't get the "congestion from hell" you usually get with big armies.

[wraitii]

Note also that you can disable the 'Pushing' behaviour on an individual template basis by adding "<DisablePushing>true</DisablePushing>" to the UnitMotion component of the template.

Depending on player feedback, we might do it for rams/eles & possibly ships.

Edit: though I wasn't particularly aware this was possible in A24, which you seem to suggest? If so, A25 might actually help a bit, though there will be more overlap in general, it should be smaller overlap.

[Yekaterina]

6 minutes ago, nani said:

Overlapping is a "bug" (sometimes is on purpose) and is determined by the pathfinder and the obstruction simulation. From what I've seen in alpha 25 svn units now overlap much more so the problem is worse in that aspect but on the other hand you now don't get the "congestion from hell" you usually get with big armies.

What about allowing overlap of infantry units and women, but ban siege overlap and cavalry overlap?

[Yekaterina]

8 minutes ago, wraitii said:

Edit: though I wasn't particularly aware this was possible in A24, which you seem to suggest? If so, A25 might actually help a bit, though there will be more overlap in general, it should be smaller overlap.

Yes, smaller overlap would help. I personally like the overlap if I am the aggressor but if I am defending against an attack I would rather face an army in open order. 

[ValihrAnt]

Quote

Edit: though I wasn't particularly aware this was possible in A24

It definitely feels much less frequent than it was in a23, but that might also be down to Hannibal not being around for his antics and inspiration to others to replicate it.

On playtesting A25 units seem to bunch up a lot closer than in the current release and it can get quite difficult to tell how many units there are, but stacking doesn't seem possible beyond 2 units.

Also, I managed to get a bug @wraitiion r25745. Basically, I can get units to switch from their normal walk speed and animation to the running speed. So I can move across the map much quicker or have gatherers move at hyper speed. The way to replicate is to set units to formation, click them around in the middle of the formation and move them to no formation whilst units are in the running animation. The speed remains after attack move or other kinds of orders, garrisoning.

 

2021-06-08_0009.zip

Edited June 8, 2021 by ValihrAnt