0 AD's focus on balance has crippled its design

[Stan`]

16 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

Always welcome from me

What if it's so OP all the others civs are unplayable?

[Grapjas]

1 hour ago, Yekaterina said:

every version has its own problems so it is a bit premature to go to beta. 

That's contradictory. If anything, 0 AD leans more towards beta than alpha.

[Freagarach]

8 hours ago, Grapjas said:

That's contradictory. If anything, 0 AD leans more towards beta than alpha.

Not if we consider the fact that we (mostly I am guilty) break compatibility quite often. ^^'

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Question for discussion:

Why should the "Balance Team" have any say in what features get added to the game? Isn't it their duty to balance the features the team decide to add? 

That's not to say Balance team members can't participate in gameplay feature discussions. But those are two different roles. You can't come into a gameplay feature discussion and then derail it with constant balance concerns. You have to go into a feature discussion with a mind toward expanding the game's features in good faith. 

My latest discussions on Phabricator have had a few mentions of balance, but all-in-all have been a fruitful discussion about making the gameplay feature work. The exact statistics can always be decided later through gameplay experience and with input from Balancers. 

Again, Features and Balance are linked in the end, but they are 2 different things. You add the former, then try to do the latter. If it can't be balanced, then the feature can be removed, but you can't know a feature's balance until it's tried. 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

50 minutes ago, Freagarach said:

Not if we consider the fact that we (mostly I am guilty) break compatibility quite often. ^^'

Right. IMHO, making compatibility-breaking changes is definitely Alpha, not Beta. 

[Grapjas]

5 hours ago, Freagarach said:

Not if we consider the fact that we (mostly I am guilty) break compatibility quite often. ^^'

I said leans towards, not is

You probably won't find an alpha thats more playable than 0AD, even plenty beta's get released in worst states and probably even fully released games. Besides adding new broken and unbalanced features/updates is something that released tripple A games do all the time. Not saying that should be the standard but it's just for comparison. The meaning of "released", "alpha" and "beta" definitely shifted alot with early access being a popular thing to do nowadays.

Edited December 22, 2021 by Grapjas

[smiley]

Making a launcher, either in the style of steam or old school WoW would solve some of the problems preventing quick patching and fixes. Currently, updating regardless of how small or big it is, is copy and replace. However, if there are two templates changed, thats > 99% unnecessary data. Also, multiple version management may also be a good thing.

Maybe someone reading this might want to give that a go because creating a barebones launcher with those sets of features is extremely simple. Or perhaps create a ticket and tag simple. In fact, it literally requires no changes to 0AD. Just make a simple GUI in X language that can download binaries and put them in different namespaces. `play0ad/v24/` and `play0ad/v25/` or something. Launch with writable root to prevent cache mixing I guess. If you want to make it fancy, write a content map and you could have an update process that downloads only change files. If you want even fancier, maybe consider binary diffing too.

I am just pointing out the Minecraft launcher, so maybe look over there if thats something desirable.

Edited December 22, 2021 by smiley

[Fabius]

I have played 0 AD since mid A23. And I personally feel that there has been to much focus on balance and not enough on actual game improvement. Specifically I am referring to things that make civilizations feel and play uniquely. A24 was a net loss of Civ features for something that already felt like a full fledged game with differentiated civs, it just needed a little balancing to ranged siege and slingers and it would be fine. Then further differentiation of civs could have been done to flesh things out.

A25 while nice is still just A24, now with a skirmisher meta, extra blacksmith goodies and better pathfinding.

I really hope A26 returns some of the sparkle from A23.

[Dizaka]

10 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Question for discussion:

Why should the "Balance Team" have any say in what features get added to the game? Isn't it their duty to balance the features the team decide to add? 

That's not to say Balance team members can't participate in gameplay feature discussions. But those are two different roles. You can't come into a gameplay feature discussion and then derail it with constant balance concerns. You have to go into a feature discussion with a mind toward expanding the game's features in good faith. 

...

Again, Features and Balance are linked in the end, but they are 2 different things. You add the former, then try to do the latter. If it can't be balanced, then the feature can be removed, but you can't know a feature's balance until it's tried. 

I'll add it further.  Why should balance team have any say in what features get removed from the gameplay?  IMO, it shouldn't. 

Balancing should be about finding the underdog civs and finding ways to improve them while finding the overpowering civs and either bringing all others to their level or bringing everyone a notch down using stats not features (e.g., not removing Mauryas worker elephant but adding cards to some civs).  For example, slingers vs bows vs skrimishers and bringing everything in line with regards to usefulness.  Another example is champions.  Additionally, Mercs and usefulness of heroes.

Balance should encompass:

• Unit balancing (timings, stats)
• Structure balancing (timings, stats)
• Upgrades (timings, time cost)
• Hero bonus stats
• What structures build what units (within reason)
  • E.g., Delenda Est is completely different in how Carthage works with Mercs but also similar.  It's weirdly cool and more developed IMO.  (note:  to me this is both a balance and feature change).
• Civ bonuses and stats (as long as within spirit of civ)

Balance should provide suggestions/ideas for (things that won't necessarily get added, but could be nice):

• Ideas on new units.
• Ideas on how a civs can work differently (e.g., Ptol/Scythians/Han)

[Grapjas]

2 hours ago, smiley said:

Maybe someone reading this might want to give that a go because creating a barebones launcher with those sets of features is extremely simple. Or perhaps create a ticket and tag simple. In fact, it literally requires no changes to 0AD. Just make a simple GUI in X language that can download binaries and put them in different namespaces. `play0ad/v24/` and `play0ad/v25/` or something. Launch with writable root to prevent cache mixing I guess. If you want to make it fancy, write a content map and you could have an update process that downloads only change files. If you want even fancier, maybe consider binary diffing too.

Why not make it yourself if it's so simple?

Edited December 22, 2021 by Grapjas

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

23 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Why should the "Balance Team" have any say in what features get added to the game? Isn't it their duty to balance the features the team decide to add? 

I want to emphasize that any time and energy anyone puts into trying to make 0 A.D. better is appreciated. My point was just that there are different roles that any individual can fill based on the topic at hand. There are different "hats" you can wear. Some people are good at wearing different hats, some people aren't. Some people want to just wear 1 hat. All of that is fine, as long as folks recognize that the hats exist.  

Xposted from @leopard's post.

[maroder]

16 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Xposted from @leopard's post

Have to agree I would vote to just include every civ from DE that is over 80 percent done. Then do balancing by grouping civs.

 

[Feldfeld]

1 hour ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

I want to emphasize that any time and energy anyone puts into trying to make 0 A.D. better is appreciated. My point was just that there are different roles that any individual can fill based on the topic at hand. There are different "hats" you can wear. Some people are good at wearing different hats, some people aren't. Some people want to just wear 1 hat. All of that is fine, as long as folks recognize that the hats exist.  

Xposted from @leopard's post.

Balance is most certainly not the reason Han chinese have not yet been added to the main game. I myself asked/advocated multiple times in the irc-dev channel for their inclusion, and it looks like the reason(s) they have not been added is something  else, although I don't know (if I learned) the exact reason(s)

And really, the development power is quite low at the moment. There are about 2 developpers coding, and 2 more reviewing, all in their free time, I don't feel like this will ever get much done in the grand scheme of things.

[Stan`]

2 minutes ago, Feldfeld said:

And really, the development power is quite low at the moment. There are about 2 developpers coding, and 2 more reviewing, all in their free time, I don't feel like this will ever get much done in the grand scheme of things.

Well I really want to prove you wrong

2 minutes ago, Feldfeld said:

Balance is most certainly not the reason Han chinese have not yet been added to the main game. I myself asked/advocated multiple times in the irc-dev channel for their inclusion, and it looks like the reason(s) they have not been added is something  else, although I don't know (if I learned) the exact reason(s)

Three reasons:

• Was the only advanced mod (now we got DE and HC) That has been blocking for years, but it's now obsolete
• Not everything was historically accurate, we're just missing a few things, we got the new bixie by @lastrodamo and now we just need camel anims and some little fixes.
• Since A24 I wanted to avoid a balancing debacle and or ruin the work that had been done

 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

58 minutes ago, Stan` said:

• Since A24 I wanted to avoid a balancing debacle and or ruin the work that had been done

Hence, this thread.  

I think part of Alistair's point in his rant video is that each Alpha will have a "flavor," based on the changing balance, changing meta, changing features, no matter what, and that's fine as long as new stuff is added and the game's design moves forward. 

Also, for "Balancers", isn't it fun to balance new things? Sure, you don't want an Alpha to come along and throw everything into complete chaos, but new civs and features to balance should be welcomed by someone who enjoys balancing these things, right?  

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 hour ago, Stan` said:

camel anims

OoooOOOoOOOOoooo. Bactrian Camels CONFIRMED?  

[Stan`]

Just now, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

OoooOOOoOOOOoooo. Bactrian Camels CONFIRMED?  

Just need to motivate @Alexandermb he hasn't answered me back yet. But it's christmas so...

[smiley]

16 hours ago, Grapjas said:

Why not make it yourself if it's so simple?

The fact that there are use cases doesn't necessarily mean it would actually be deemed useful. Code that isn't run is useless.

[alre]

we can talk for days about what the balancing team should do or should enjoy doing, but we have seen already in the past what it was capable of doing. it didn't prevent A24 "debacle" and it couldn't predict much of what would happen in A25. it was just luck deciding that A25 has been received so much better than A24. you do an other alpha with the same premises, and you are rolling the dice once again.

[Grapjas]

1 hour ago, smiley said:

The fact that there are use cases doesn't necessarily mean it would actually be deemed useful. Code that isn't run is useless.

I think it's a pretty good idea and people would be grateful for it, in the worst case scenario it's a showcase thing and people can always fork the idea into something else. Just wondering why you're not doing it yourself because you pretty much seem to have it figured out already and are capable of making it. But now i'm also wondering why you want to let somebody else do it if you think it's going to be useless. 

[alre]

it's only going to be useful if the team uses it.

[smiley]

1 hour ago, Grapjas said:

But now i'm also wondering why you want to let somebody else do it if you think it's going to be useless. 

I don't think its going to be useless. I don't know what others think about its usefulness. Maybe someone else is willing to roll those dice.

[maroder]

5 hours ago, Stan` said:

Not everything was historically accurate

Mh yes, 100% accuracy before something is included is definitely a noble goal, but it also raises the bar extremely. If we applied the good old 80/20 rule that would mean most of the work to include new civs ist still to do, despite them looking nearly finished and them being fun and playable. 

Which, as we can see in the video is frustrating when looking at it from the outside

(Ofc there are also other considerations)

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

On 22/12/2021 at 12:01 AM, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Why should the "Balance Team" have any say in what features get added to the game? Isn't it their duty to balance the features the team decide to add? 

What is balance and what is not can be a fine line.  It feels at the moment that the weight is far too conservative, but I could easily see it swinging the other way.

10 hours ago, Stan` said:

• Since A24 I wanted to avoid a balancing debacle and or ruin the work that had been done

For what it's worth, yes there was a scathing criticism for issues, but I think that in part, that has to be expected with any change.  Ideally speaking those should not be taken personally, but that's asking the impossible.  

Again this is why I think that when making changes that could both add colour to each faction, transparency is key, especially if there will be sweeping overhauls.  Likewise, since the work would focus on just one faction at a time, there could be a large amount of balance testing focussed on just it alone.  

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

I personally don't think something needs to be 100% accurate before it's added. None of the current civs were 100% perfect when they were added by any means. But I suppose if there are niggling issues that bother some folks about the civ, it's okay to address them first. Just know that more issues will arise once they are added, and they will make the current release blockers look trivial. That's how every civ release has been.