suggestions for Next Alphas (A26-30)

[alre]

wait... 25 spear cav cost more than 5 cataphracts

[LetswaveaBook]

5 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

I thought it produced a nice melee versus ranged unit "rout" effect. 

Does this rout effect also exist if the archers are put on 'stand ground' mode? Or are they just firing all when on stand ground?

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

7 minutes ago, LetswaveaBook said:

Does this rout effect also exist if the archers are put on 'stand ground' mode? Or are they just firing all when on stand ground?

Oh yea that effect probably did depend on what "order" they were on, they probably would not move then. The reason the ranged units move I think is to try to get within range boundaries again. It is quite rough and would need to be more developed if it were to be implemented.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

49 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

For nearer to future alphas I would advocate for adding a suitable minimum range for slingers and archers. Some skilled mod folk demonstrated the effects of this earlier in the year, and I thought it produced a nice melee versus ranged unit "rout" effect. 

It's not bad, but you get these weird effect of your units being scattered to the wind chasing down fleeing archers. There needs to be some work done on the fleeing behavior to mitigate this effect.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

1 hour ago, alre said:

wait... 25 spear cav cost more than 5 cataphracts

metal is different from other resources. 50 metal is not worth 50 wood in a game of 0ad. The mining rates are slower than wood and food. And most importantly, metal is a limited resource, which is ok, but it means the things you buy with it must be consequential. This is why I don't like mercs costing metal (a side note).

so 25 spear cav are cheaper than 5 cataphracts 

Edited June 11, 2021 by BreakfastBurrito_007

[Lion.Kanzen]

1 minute ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

This is why I don't like mercs costing metal (a side note).

not all should cost metal, rank units and trash units should cost less, or change the recruiting mechanic.

[LetswaveaBook]

6 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

so 25 spear cav are cheaper than 5 cataphracts 

For 25 spear cavalry you need 1750 food and 850 food more than you need for 5 cataphracts for which you need 500 metal. I agree that metal is more expensive, but not that expensive. I think a cataphract is something like 2.2-3 times as expensive as a spear cavalry, provided that all things are reasonable.

I know there are people that like to trade 100 wood/food for 25 metal at the market, but that does not mean 100 wood/food is worth 25 metal.

 

[maroder]

10 hours ago, wraitii said:

Based on A24 experiences, experimenting too much in any given future alpha is unlikely. If we want to depart from the current gameplay, we'll have to ship two mods

Strong support for this idea.

There are the players who like the a23 gameplay and want it refined through small incremental balancing changes and there are other players who want to have new mechanics and a different more experimental gameplay style. And it is obviously not possible to do that at the same time.

Link to relevant discussion in other thread:

 

So we could have a game setup option called "classic" or "Empires Ascendant" and one that is called "experimental" or "Empires Extended".

With this we don't split the community, because you could decide each match, what gameplay you want. Also: one "official" experimental mod is much easier to maintain as multiple small mods that are maintained by different persons and not integrated from the beginning.

 

 

Edited June 12, 2021 by maroder
added link to other thread where the problem is discussed.

[Freagarach]

5 minutes ago, maroder said:

"experimental" or "Empires Extended"

Delenda Est? ;P

[LetswaveaBook]

4 minutes ago, maroder said:

Strong support for this idea.

There are the players who like the a23 gameplay and want it refined through small incremental balancing changes and there are other players who want to have new mechanics and a different more experimental gameplay style. And it is obviously not possible to do that at the same time.

So we could have a game setup option called "classic" or "Empires Ascendant" and one that is called "experimental" or "Empires Extended".

With this we don't split the community, because you could decide each match, what gameplay you want. Also: one "official" experimental mod is much easier to maintain as multiple small mods that are maintained by different persons and not integrated from the beginning.

I support the idea of letting players actively chose which mode they want to play.

In A24, people complain how one thing is bad. I don't really understand it, because if it is bad, why not solve it by a mod? Also I think in the lobby it should be convenient to switch mods and try out different things.

[Yekaterina]

37 minutes ago, LetswaveaBook said:

I support the idea of letting players actively chose which mode they want to play.

In A24, people complain how one thing is bad. I don't really understand it, because if it is bad, why not solve it by a mod? Also I think in the lobby it should be convenient to switch mods and try out different things.

If you guys can give me all of the small mods or some requirements that you would like then I can collate all of them into a big mod, then call it 'Empires Extended'. But of course some balancing advisors will be needed to sort out the clashes. Currently we have:

Bellum mod

Rotation and train time mod

Mercenaries mod by Letswaveabook

NROC

Autociv

Thorfinn mod (implemented into Bellum Mod already)

[maroder]

2 hours ago, Yekaterina said:

If you guys can give me all of the small mods or some requirements that you would like then I can collate all of them into a big mod, then call it 'Empires Extended'. But of course some balancing advisors will be needed to sort out the clashes. Currently we have:

I appreciate the enthusiasm, but there are so many mods and concepts out there, that I think a design document would be a better start than just throwing all together.

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

It would be nice to disable gathering in enemy territory or at least have a cursor mode for that.  It was especially annoying when I was trying to kite with a group of archers at some infantry in a wooded area but kept on accidentally ordering them to gather wood.

[Gurken Khan]

@Thorfinn the Shallow Minded Or maybe a more general 'forced click on ground' mode; pretty often when I try to order units to go near/between buildings I find myself trying different zoom or angles so my cursor doesn't get caught by the structures. 

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

2 hours ago, Gurken Khan said:

@Thorfinn the Shallow Minded Or maybe a more general 'forced click on ground' mode; pretty often when I try to order units to go near/between buildings I find myself trying different zoom or angles so my cursor doesn't get caught by the structures. 

That too could help.

[ChronA]

8 hours ago, maroder said:

So we could have a game setup option called "classic" or "Empires Ascendant" and one that is called "experimental" or "Empires Extended".

With this we don't split the community, because you could decide each match, what gameplay you want. Also: one "official" experimental mod is much easier to maintain as multiple small mods that are maintained by different persons and not integrated from the beginning.

Not necessarily a bad idea to support parallel progressive and conservative development paths.  I've seen seen that approach helps keep the peace on other projects. But my concerns would be how far "Empires Extended" could really push things while still being tethered to Empires Ascendant by a shared code base, engine, & art assets; and would the conservatives really be open to integrating substantive developments from Empires Extended into their private sandbox?

I'm guessing you would eventually still end up in a situation where the two sides want to fork. The progressive will be tired of having to worry about breaking assets that EA depends on, the conservatives of defending their assets from being broken. When that happens, it will end in each party making a power play for design control over the shared engine and art (which would not be good).

This might be a case where Wildfire Games could benefit from the example of the Spring Engine and Zero-K.
Zero-K is by far the most popular Spring game (AFAIK) and probably drives a lot of its development. However Spring Engine exists for more than just Zero-K and the two are quite clearly separate entities, with Spring supporting several competing TA clones and other games besides Zero-K. The same does not seem to be true of 0AD/EA/Pyrogenesis, which appear to be functionally all one thing. I think Zero-K could survive a fork over design ideology because everyone would have confidence that Spring would not pick sides. Formalizing the progressive/conservative divide in 0AD's dev scene would be a lot safer if Pyrogenesis (the engine) and 0 AD (the art and code libraries) had similar levels of conceptual independence from the game called Empires Ascendant.

(Note: I've deliberately avoided looking too much in on Spring/Zero-K development, because I'm occasionally friendly with some of those guys, and avoiding their drama is one way that I stay friendly with them. So if I am off base in my characterization of the Spring dev ecosystem, please pipe up.)

[alre]

the click snaps too easy to the building. if I don't have the pointer on the building volume, it shouldn't take it as a click on the building.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

11 hours ago, ChronA said:

if Pyrogenesis (the engine) and 0 AD (the art and code libraries) had similar levels of conceptual independence from the game called Empires Ascendant.

This has been brought up before, and there have been steps in that direction. I think it might eventually happen.

[Gurken Khan]

Is there a way to automate the worker ele's building support? I don't see a way. Used to be that one could queue its actions or just let it build whatever foundation was in sight. I read the tip to let it a guard a unit, but that is only useful for gathering as it doesn't move up close enough to grant its aura bonus. Since that's some microing I could happily live without, I suggest:

- to reduce the guarding distance; or

- to increase the range of the aura; or

- if it's a part of a building group, let it move up accordingly.

[Yekaterina]

1 minute ago, Gurken Khan said:

s there a way to automate the worker ele's building support? I don't see a way. Used to be that one could queue its actions or just let it build whatever foundation was in sight. I read the tip to let it a guard a unit, but that is only useful for gathering as it doesn't move up close enough to grant its aura bonus. Since that's some microing I could happily live without, I suggest:

- to reduce the guarding distance; or

- to increase the range of the aura; or

- if it's a part of a building group, let it move up accordingly.

OP

 

We want the worker elephant to be difficult to manage, so that Mauryan players have to have good skill in order to boom well. 

[Yekaterina]

@Gurken Khan don't you think that Mauryans are already very OP? We must either weaken them or strengthen other civs, not futher boosting the Mauryans. 

[Gurken Khan]

1 minute ago, Yekaterina said:

@Gurken Khan don't you think that Mauryans are already very OP?

I couldn't judge. But for example I'd be fine with limiting their pop cap to match those of the other civs. Without the ability to build the worker ele has already been significantly nerfed, the need to micro everything kinda goes on top of that. I'd be happy to get rid of that, so I can focus more on the genocide aspect of the game.

[PyrrhicVictoryGuy]

By genocide  aspect of the games i suspect u mean using those auto pilot units that shall not be named...

[Gurken Khan]

@PyrrhicVictoryGuyNo, by genocide I mean wiping out civs.

I'm at a loss regarding the auto pilot units...

[PyrrhicVictoryGuy]

When i say auto pilot units I mean units that require little to no micro to be effective.