Fix elephant archers and bolt shooters pls.

[LetswaveaBook]

There is something wrong with elephant archers and bolt shooters.

If there are no enemy units around, they will attack nearby enemy building and do not change focus unless the building is destroyed or the player orders them to do something different. In gameplay that is hugely annoying, since these units do little damage to buildings.

I don't complain about them attacking buildings, what bothers me more is that they don't automatically switch targets when an organic unit appears.

[Gurken Khan]

3 minutes ago, LetswaveaBook said:

I don't complain about them attacking buildings, what bothers me more is that they don't automatically switch targets when an organic unit appears.

Isn't that the default behavior of all units?

[Player of 0AD]

5 minutes ago, Gurken Khan said:

Isn't that the default behavior of all units?

Yes, but soldiers dont hit buildings in this situation, they try to capture. This is often more successful.

[Gurken Khan]

Or they're shooting at fields. Wouldn't want them to do either when there's hostiles around.

[LetswaveaBook]

24 minutes ago, Gurken Khan said:

Isn't that the default behavior of all units?

You are right, but it is behaviour that is more undesirable than soldiers who try to capture.

11 minutes ago, Gurken Khan said:

Or they're shooting at fields. Wouldn't want them to do either when there's hostiles around.

That is indeed also some defealt behaviour that is undesirable. I think that this also needs to be addressed.

[alre]

I agree attacking fields is stupid, bu do we want units to not try conquering by default? 

[Dizaka]

What the eles experience is exactly what normal units experience except they default to capturing buildings.

It's annoying when enemies know this and pull armies in so that while you're dealing with eco your army tries to capture buildings but dies to army that pulled back in.

[LetswaveaBook]

18 minutes ago, Dizaka said:

It's annoying when enemies know this and pull armies in so that while you're dealing with eco your army tries to capture buildings but dies to army that pulled back in.

When enemies do that, the attacker can easily spot his units capturing the buildings and order them to attack. For Elephant archers and bolt shooters it is very difficult to see what they are targeting.

26 minutes ago, alre said:

bu do we want units to not try conquering by default? 

conquoring is fine. attacking buildings/fields with pierce attack is not.

[Dizaka]

1 minute ago, LetswaveaBook said:

conquoring is fine. attacking buildings/fields with pierce attack is not.

It's fine when no enemies around.  When enemies are around it is not fine to be dying without fighting.

When enemies are in range there should be an option to attack enemy over capturing buildings.  Currently, if you are capturing a building and an enemy comes into range you have to click H to reset targets.

[Fabius]

Relating to Bolt shooters, I've noticed they sometimes stop attacking altogether even though they are in a target rich environment, which has lead on at least one occasion to the destruction of my defense network because they are not returning fire at all. Setting them to aggressive seems to fix this but their default setting seems to be buggy and one does not always remember to do this, especially as that leads to other problems like bolters invading enemy bases or moving out of position and compromising critical areas.

[Lion.Kanzen]

2 hours ago, Gurken Khan said:

Or they're shooting at fields. Wouldn't want them to do either when there's hostiles around.

 

2 hours ago, Player of 0AD said:

Yes, but soldiers dont hit buildings in this situation, they try to capture. This is often more successful.

 they do not have this animation (capturing animation). I never saw that the elephant units had this animation.

[Lion.Kanzen]

1 hour ago, Dizaka said:

It's fine when no enemies around.  When enemies are around it is not fine to be dying without fighting.

When enemies are in range there should be an option to attack enemy over capturing buildings.  Currently, if you are capturing a building and an enemy comes into range you have to click H to reset targets.

Always I've always said there is a lot of excessive micromanagement when capturing feature must be optional, it should be secondary feature.

 

For many newbies it may be the worst option in the game.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

11 hours ago, Player of 0AD said:

they try to capture

[chrstgtr]

All this. I would also like to be able to capture siege units like in a23 (and before). I wouldn't want it as a default mechanism like it was before, though. 

[Stan`]

11 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

All this. I would also like to be able to capture siege units like in a23 (and before). I wouldn't want it as a default mechanism like it was before, though. 

Unfortunately, (@Freagarach please correct me if I'm wrong) I don't think we can currently switch capture from the default.

[chrstgtr]

3 minutes ago, Stan` said:

Unfortunately, (@Freagarach please correct me if I'm wrong) I don't think we can currently switch capture from the default.

Ah, that change from a23->a24 makes a lot more sense then. Thanks for clarifying, @Stan`

All else equal, I would still prefer to be able to capture siege, but having capture as default also caused a lot of problems so I get why we would try to avoid that. 

[LetswaveaBook]

I think bolt shooters might benefit from targetting like towers do, such that after each shot they look for a new target. Also, it prevents 10 bolt shooters shooting at the same target.

[chrstgtr]

3 hours ago, LetswaveaBook said:

I think bolt shooters might benefit from targetting like towers do, such that after each shot they look for a new target. Also, it prevents 10 bolt shooters shooting at the same target.

I think between a23–>a24, bolts used to have slash damage (or something like that). Their stats changed a lot and became less useful 
 

honestly, I would be happy reverting bolts back to their a23 stats. But so much has changed since then (ie champs) that the solution may not be that simple (Cata is another story…)

[Stan`]

https://code.wildfiregames.com/D2494

[Fabius]

18 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

I think between a23–>a24, bolts used to have slash damage (or something like that). Their stats changed a lot and became less useful 
 

honestly, I would be happy reverting bolts back to their a23 stats. But so much has changed since then (ie champs) that the solution may not be that simple (Cata is another story…)

As an avid bolt shooter user I can point out that the Ptolemies have a bolt shooter almost identical to A23. And its the most useful in the game in my opinion. Rate of fire is far more useful than more damage, they can already one shot most things with just 160 pierce damage. 240 is overkill unless used against elephants, the big elephants die in roughly four shots. 

An interesting idea, you could make a technology that improves rate of fire for bolt shooters.