Introducing the Official community mod for 0 A.D. Empires Ascendant

[LetswaveaBook]

On 08/12/2022 at 5:34 PM, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Just curious: what are some reasons to vote against number 3, unit specific upgrades? I would have expected more popularity due to the amount of content included.

I dont know all the reasons, but I suspect that most people read badly.

Nobody pointed out that the tooltip for the Infantry archer said that it increases damage by 10%, while the code multiplies it by 1.15. Also the sword2.json file is missing a %-sign in the tooltip.

There is also the curious case that mercenaries are excluded from the upgrades, without showing that in the tooltip.

Apart from that, I dont have any noteworthy opinions about the patch. 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

5 hours ago, LetswaveaBook said:

I dont know all the reasons, but I suspect that most people read badly.

Nobody pointed out that the tooltip for the Infantry archer said that it increases damage by 10%, while the code multiplies it by 1.15. Also the sword2.json file is missing a %-sign in the tooltip.

There is also the curious case that mercenaries are excluded from the upgrades, without showing that in the tooltip.

Apart from that, I dont have any noteworthy opinions about the patch. 

Thanks for finding that mistake. I can fix that later today. As for the mercenary part, most civs coincidentally don't have upgrades for their mercenaries because mercenaries are most often unit types that the civ doesn't already have.

Since there are exceptions, and also for consistency, I will just say "Non-mercenary soldiers". How does that sound?

[real_tabasco_sauce]

Ok, @LetswaveaBook I fixed the issue you mentioned and updated the tooltips. Maybe after we test these in the next version, we could just allow them to affect all units. It might be too confusing to have them remain non-mercenary upgrades. It would be quite infrequent anyway that the upgrades also effect mercenaries, because there are few redundant mercenaries. One example would be the sacred band cavalry and spearcav mercenaries from the italian embassy for carthage.

Im going to go ahead and test all the merge requests together, looks like we have almost enough votes to decide.

Edited December 10, 2022 by real_tabasco_sauce

[real_tabasco_sauce]

1 hour ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Im going to go ahead and test all the merge requests together, looks like we have almost enough votes to decide.

so far so good, I haven't found anything broken.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

I would say with 26 votes we could probably call it. Anyone disagree?

Looks to me like 1,2,3,4,8, and 10 certainly have enough support, but i'm not sure about 7. Neither cavalry change was supported, we can redesign something for cavalry later as @chrstgtr said.

#7 (crush rebalance and hack attack for clubs) is one vote ahead for yes and its actually a fairly minimal change, the main thing is increasing macemen's general effectiveness for fighting. Less crush armor also means catapults will 1 hit more units, which I see as a positive.

Does anyone think 7 shouldn't be added even though there are more yes votes?

edit: nevermind, I guess the votes keep coming. When should we call it?

Edited December 11, 2022 by real_tabasco_sauce

[Norse_Harold]

I voted yes on most of the proposals for community-mod version 0.26.4 except unit-specific upgrades. That would add a lot of new variables to the balancing responsibilities. And, it would add a lot of new functionality that people would have to learn. As a result, it's not suitable for a limited balance mod. There's already a high enough learning curve for the newer players. I even saw a skilled player, SaidRdz, complain that he felt like a newbie for several weeks until he could learn how to be effective with the new version of community-mod. This is not a statement about SaidRdz, it's a statement about community-mod.

Also, any votes that are approximately "50% yes, 50% no" should be interpreted as no votes.

Edited December 11, 2022 by Norse_Harold

[chrstgtr]

3 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

I would say with 26 votes we could probably call it. Anyone disagree?

Looks to me like 1,2,3,4,8, and 10 certainly have enough support, but i'm not sure about 7. Neither cavalry change was supported, we can redesign something for cavalry later as @chrstgtr said.

#7 (crush rebalance and hack attack for clubs) is one vote ahead for yes and its actually a fairly minimal change, the main thing is increasing macemen's general effectiveness for fighting. Less crush armor also means catapults will 1 hit more units, which I see as a positive.

Does anyone think 7 shouldn't be added even though there are more yes votes?

edit: nevermind, I guess the votes keep coming. When should we call it?

What was the criteria we used last time? I thought it was a super majority or at least a majority of all votes cast.

Lots of people pick the third option as a "I like some but not all choice." At a minimum, I don't think something that skids by on a 40%, 35%, 35% votes should get in. 

[Dizaka]

3 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

I would say with 26 votes we could probably call it. Anyone disagree?

Looks to me like 1,2,3,4,8, and 10 certainly have enough support, but i'm not sure about 7. Neither cavalry change was supported, we can redesign something for cavalry later as @chrstgtr said.

#7 (crush rebalance and hack attack for clubs) is one vote ahead for yes and its actually a fairly minimal change, the main thing is increasing macemen's general effectiveness for fighting. Less crush armor also means catapults will 1 hit more units, which I see as a positive.

Does anyone think 7 shouldn't be added even though there are more yes votes?

edit: nevermind, I guess the votes keep coming. When should we call it?

I'mma get bashed for this one:

For 4 I voted no.  It may be good ideas.  Great ideas too. I'd strongly, however, suggest making that "1 item changed/modified then vote for that 1 item."  Do not bundle items as riders for voting. 

It's hard to get a large overview of impact on the individual items/riders.  It would be better for a "no bundling/riders" rule on changes to be voted on.  Might sound stupid, but riders could be a problematic (a rider is an additional provision added to a bill or other measure under consideration). 

[chrstgtr]

3 minutes ago, Dizaka said:

For 4 I voted no.  It may be good ideas.  Great ideas too. I'd strongly, however, suggest making that "1 item changed/modified then vote for that 1 item."  Do not bundle items as riders for voting. 

 

Do you mean 3?

 

Edited December 11, 2022 by chrstgtr

[real_tabasco_sauce]

9 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

What was the criteria we used last time? I thought it was a super majority or at least a majority of all votes cast.

Yeah we did something like that. Unfortunately this means only 5 changes will be actually added, which is a tiny fraction of the work I put in here 

Hopefully I don't get any blame for the lack of content.

Edited December 11, 2022 by real_tabasco_sauce

[real_tabasco_sauce]

17 minutes ago, Norse_Harold said:

And, it would add a lot of new functionality that people would have to learn. As a result, it's not suitable for a limited balance mod.

I would say learning new things is good. If there are more things to learn, that means there is more content to explore.

Also Said saying he feels like a newbie is a massive exaggeration, he still plays very well XD.

Also, this isn't a balance mod, its for new features too.

Again, I think I did a bad job of communicating what the upgrade system involves. Sorry to all the yes voters.

[Dizaka]

16 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

Do you mean 3?

 

Yea, sorry.

 

13 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Yeah we did something like that. Unfortunately this means only 5 changes will be actually added, which is a tiny fraction of the work I put in here 

Hopefully I don't get any blame for the lack of content.

I don't think anyone is unappreciative of your work, just an fyi.  There's a lot of stuff that I do for family that is unacknowledged and when it comes to a group vote I usually get outvoted.  Doesn't necessarily mean anything other than a decision was made.

  

2 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

I would say learning new things is good. If there are more things to learn, that means there is more content to explore.

Also Said saying he feels like a newbie is a massive exaggeration, he still plays very well XD.

Also, this isn't a balance mod, its for new features too.

Again, I think I did a bad job of communicating what the upgrade system involves. Sorry to all the yes voters.

 

I think if 3 was more itemized into 23 items it would get a lot more support.  Sort of like #1.

 

Edited December 11, 2022 by Dizaka

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

23 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Yeah we did something like that. Unfortunately this means only 5 changes will be actually added, which is a tiny fraction of the work I put in here 

Hopefully I don't get any blame for the lack of content.

That blame should go to the boring players who resist anything they don't understand. Keep in mind that to understand it all you need is to read the link that is posted and ask the author a question.

That would be very twisted indeed if you got blamed. 

If I remember correctly the Team bonuses were almost rejected last time and have since been quite successful in terms of player feedback. 

 

 

Edited December 11, 2022 by BreakfastBurrito_007

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

3 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

I would say learning new things is good. If there are more things to learn, that means there is more content to explore.

I would like more people to have this mindset. 

People are saying that all the upgrades in the system being bundled together is a bad idea. I suppose the alternative is to have 23 fractions of the system all in series in the poll. If you support this way of voting for the system please state the advantages.

[chrstgtr]

13 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Hopefully I don't get any blame for the lack of content.

No one reasonable will be upset with you. You did/are doing a great job. 

Assuming this all gets implemented into a27, there will be several new changes--maybe more than a24--and we did it without adding a new civ. That is a huge accomplishment. On this note, thanks to @wraitii and @Stan` for creating this project--I think it's been a huge success and one that makes a27 much more likely to succeed even though a27 will likely include a large number of changes. 

Thanks, @real_tabasco_sauce and everyone else who participated here

[real_tabasco_sauce]

10 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

If I remember correctly the Team bonuses were almost rejected last time and have since been quite successful in terms of player feedback.

I think they were almost rejected. I think a lot of voters are not looking on gitlab to see the specifics before voting. Also many might dislike change like @Norse_Harold said.

 

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

24 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

Thanks, @real_tabasco_sauce and everyone else who participated here

Yep let us hope that the mod contributors are still willing to progress the game despite having their best work outvoted by people privileged to have both no work invested in patches and near total ignorance of the patch itself.

Its a shame that people are denying this effort a chance to even be tested. A26 was a fine alpha even before the community mod, aside from the han fields bug. People must understand that there was a risk of the Athens team bonus being OP for example, but we voted for it because we wanted to try it out.

Edited December 11, 2022 by BreakfastBurrito_007

[real_tabasco_sauce]

If you want a better look at the upgrades (all visible in the tech tree), here is the branch made into a mod:

unit_upgrades.zip

[Dizaka]

44 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

I would like more people to have this mindset. 

People are saying that all the upgrades in the system being bundled together is a bad idea. I suppose the alternative is to have 23 fractions of the system all in series in the poll. If you support this way of voting for the system please state the advantages.

My understanding:  Votes for a change should be informed votes.  That is, to make changes as appealing and unanimously supported/voted by the community so that there is a greater likelyhood of adoption in a27 (if even possible) it would be best to vote on this when changes are properly elaborated.

Problem:  Yes, someone can go through code, but not everyone can read code.  Yes, someone can go through comments, but not everyone has the time to read the comments.  Doing the items in series is an alternative to if the item is not described properly in the changes.  I spent 20 minutes reading through all the items and voting on obvious things.  Then I spend 30 minutes reading through the comments to find item 3 changes and to try to piecemeal what the 23 changes are.  I couldn't find enough of a descriptive of all the individual 23 items that were changed/added.  This doesn't necessarily mean that those changes are bad.  But I do not want to jeopardize the integrity of the process.

I can't make informed votes on changes, that likely, are good when they aren't descriptive if I want a high chance of other changes making it into a27.  My reasoning is that I want to protect the integrity of the whole vote process to make sure that the changes in the community mod are likely to be given a strong weight by stan and the dev team.

Maybe add a 4th option "better description needed" in the votes?

Edited December 11, 2022 by Dizaka

[Feldfeld]

5 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

#7 (crush rebalance and hack attack for clubs) is one vote ahead for yes and its actually a fairly minimal change, the main thing is increasing macemen's general effectiveness for fighting. Less crush armor also means catapults will 1 hit more units, which I see as a positive.

Does anyone think 7 shouldn't be added even though there are more yes votes?

I'll explain a few of my votes.

I voted no for #7 because elephants are already borderline OP in my opinion and this will buff them a lot. I imagine this will make them 1-hit kill a lot of units. On top of that, personally i'd like perhaps a return of catapult splash damage and i'm not sure the change prepares well for it.

I voted no for the cavalry nerfs for reasons I already explained in this thread.

Voted no for #9 pikemen because while the current situation may be not great i feel this change lacks a bit of vision and turns them slowly into spearmen.

Voted no for #11 crossbows because in my opinion they are rather weak.

Voted yes for all well supported proposals except #2 Alexander which I skipped.

Voted yes for #3 unit specific upgrades. IMO it is good that it is a complete change (and not divided into many changes) because otherwise it would be way too slow, and the changes go well together.
Whether the upgrades themselves are good, that I don't know without playtesting but it looks like a nice change to try for me.
It also acts as a cav nerf as it removes the cavalry speed and health upgrades.

It would be nice if a changelog for the mod can be shown in the game for people who don't follow the forum. I remember autociv had some form of changelog when it was updated.

[alre]

3 hours ago, Dizaka said:

My understanding:  Votes for a change should be informed votes.  That is, to make changes as appealing and unanimously supported/voted by the community so that there is a greater likelyhood of adoption in a27 (if even possible) it would be best to vote on this when changes are properly elaborated.

Problem:  Yes, someone can go through code, but not everyone can read code.  Yes, someone can go through comments, but not everyone has the time to read the comments.  Doing the items in series is an alternative to if the item is not described properly in the changes.  I spent 20 minutes reading through all the items and voting on obvious things.  Then I spend 30 minutes reading through the comments to find item 3 changes and to try to piecemeal what the 23 changes are.  I couldn't find enough of a descriptive of all the individual 23 items that were changed/added.  This doesn't necessarily mean that those changes are bad.  But I do not want to jeopardize the integrity of the process.

I can't make informed votes on changes, that likely, are good when they aren't descriptive if I want a high chance of other changes making it into a27.  My reasoning is that I want to protect the integrity of the whole vote process to make sure that the changes in the community mod are likely to be given a strong weight by stan and the dev team.

Maybe add a 4th option "better description needed" in the votes?

right. at the time I voted I hadn't noticed that the upgrades were civ specific, for instance.

btw @real_tabasco_sauce don't make this personal, it's the worst thing you could do. no one wants to reject changes because they don't appreciate your work, and no one wants to feel obliged to accept changes out of appreciation of your work alone. that would be bad. (personally, I skipped that question, for various reasons that have been said already by others)

anyway, mind that all civs can train mercs after capturing buildongs that train them.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

Im frankly just surprised so many would reject such a large addition of content to the game. Almost nobody would vote no on a new civ, even thought they may not understand all the details on the new civ.

8 hours ago, Dizaka said:

what the 23 changes are

@Dizaka did you follow the link provided? https://gitlab.com/0ad/0ad-community-mod-a26/-/merge_requests/25

It is a tech tree, a system, found in the barracks/stable for each unit. Each of these 23 is an upgrade for a particular unit type. among them, there is a level 1 (town phase, costing 100 food, wood, metal) and a level 2 (city phase, costing 200 f,w,m). They do not effect mercenaries. Each civ is allotted 4 to 8 of these upgrades for units which are important to their play style, and also depending on balance. (for instance, I didn't give the skirmish cav upgrade to mauryans).

each upgrade is also designed to give differentiating qualities to units (longer pikes, increased pikemen cavalry counter, spearmen prepare time upgrade).

The idea is that the upgrades one civ has access to are at least a little different from another, and different advantages/disadvantages come from this.

I hope you can see that they all work together as a system and that adding a select few of them wouldn't work well.

A lot of you mentioned you like them, but a few things are remain unappealing. What would you personally change about the upgrades?

5 hours ago, alre said:

btw @real_tabasco_sauce don't make this personal

It's hard not to. The fact of the matter is that I put a lot of time into these thinking new content would be widely approved of. For so many people to vote no on the grounds they don't understand it is pretty disappointing.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

8 hours ago, Feldfeld said:

I voted no for #7 because elephants are already borderline OP in my opinion and this will buff them a lot. I imagine this will make them 1-hit kill a lot of units. On top of that, personally i'd like perhaps a return of catapult splash damage and i'm not sure the change prepares well for it.

see, this is a good reason to vote no. Thanks.

[alre]

30 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

It's hard not to. The fact of the matter is that I put a lot of time into these thinking new content would be widely approved of. For so many people to vote no on the grounds they don't understand it is pretty disappointing.

you are doing great work and I'm sure that if you give it some time you will get to make a lot of sense out of this whole story. your work isn't wasted, you can propose it again next time after taking the feedback. criticism is fundamental to development, (game development, but really, any tipe of development) you can't make a good product without collecting some failures on the way.

for the time being, I really recommend you to not make the mistake of taking it personally, it's just how work works. (pardon the pun)

[real_tabasco_sauce]

2 hours ago, alre said:

you can propose it again next time after taking the feedback.

yeah I probably will later, but I don't have any clear feedback. Just saying it's confusing is pretty unhelpful. Anything can be confusing the first time you see it. 

Anyone have specific changes they would like to see in the upgrades? Maybe allow them to apply to mercs too? Maybe they are too expensive?

The icons are all quite good matches, so theres not really much to improve there.