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

[real_tabasco_sauce]

It seems like it could be a good idea for the future of modding in general, but for the time being I think what @guerringuerrin cooked up is pretty ideal for near-term use in the community mod.

[guerringuerrin]

@real_tabasco_sauce I think this feature is ready to be forked+merged in the gitlab. The cool thing is just one text file is needed to be modified for future changelog's updates. In the future, png icons like the Welcome Screen has can be added to get a better look.
I'll contact later to make the fork I'll probably need some guidance for that =)

[Nobbi]

On 13/02/2024 at 4:10 AM, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

A balance challenge emerges for civs like persians whose strengths lie mostly in cav.

A starting point could be  undo the changes to Persian immortals. I never saw anyone playing them any more after they had the chance to switch between spear and bow. Please make them spear only champs with high HP as for any other CIV with spear INF champ. And also add an upgrade for barracks to make them there, because of the palace build limit. This would add a nice non CAV strat to Persians.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

https://code.wildfiregames.com/D5202

This patch is committed for a27, and changes the immortals quite a bit. Rather than reverting them to standard champions like those that many civs have, they are cheaper, weaker, and retain their weapon switching. This allows the Persian player to field a lot more of the immortals.

I also removed their speed penalty, which was a little excessive, and slightly reduced their switch time to 6 seconds from 8.

I could make this into a community mod patch if you like. It would be worthwhile for testing anyway.

[hamdich]

-Catapults back to 100 range : Players already use them rarely due to low mobility , packing/unpacking , armor .

-Siege towers  back to normal random firing mod : i tested the siege towers and i must say they old version is at least twice stronger ( same towers number twice kills )  .    the amount of arrows missing is rediculous because the target dies with 10 first arrows and the next 20 arrows fired before they realised its dead they just hit nothing . Maybe make them as soon as the target dies/destroyed they come back to random firing, otherwise leave it always random firing

- elefants need more damage : i say 90-35 -25 

- catas/ bolts  must be able to fire from fortresses and walls .  

- Traders and trader civ bonuses : unless the map has very low resssources no player would even think to use traders , if traders get better gain and lower cost  they would use them more often no matter  the condition of the map is 

 

                               

[Philip the Swaggerless]

On 20/02/2024 at 1:59 PM, real_tabasco_sauce said:

I also removed their speed penalty, which was a little excessive, and slightly reduced their switch time to 6 seconds from 8.

Why a switch time at all?  Who ever asked for that?  If any, shouldn't be anymore than 4 seconds!  They are too weak to use as spearmen and it is too cumbersome switch back and forth between them.  

Too make them less cumbersome to use, it would also be good to choose which unit to produce them by as default.  Maybe the easiest way would just be to add an archer unit to the production building and Cyrus.

[Philip the Swaggerless]

2 hours ago, hamdich said:

-Catapults back to 100 range : Players already use them rarely due to low mobility , packing/unpacking , armor .

Hard disagree.  Make packing or mobility better, then.  

 

2 hours ago, hamdich said:

- Traders and trader civ bonuses : unless the map has very low resssources no player would even think to use traders , if traders get better gain and lower cost  they would use them more often no matter  the condition of the map is 

In team games it is useful to make traders if you are pocket to get the diaspora tech alone.  But traders have long needed a revamp.  Even in maps with low resources, you can always get a lot of food, which means you can make cavalry, which means traders are not safe.  Also, most maps start with 5k metal so if you have merc cav they will also make traders a complete waste.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

I think both the 85 range catas and the time to pack and unpack pretty punishing. I would agree with either bumping range up to 90 or decreasing the pack time some or both.

@Philip the Swaggerless I was initially inclined to switch it to 4, but I was made aware that melee cav would have no chance to catch the archer form off guard before they switch to spearmen and get the cav bonus.

i like your idea to let both forms be available from the barracks.

[chrstgtr]

3 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

I would agree with either bumping range up to 90 or decreasing the pack time some or both.

Please not range. Camping from a safe distance discourages fights. Also, long pack times are just annoying. No one likes playing with units that don’t feel responsive—it almost feels like lag is built into microing cata

[hamdich]

19 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

Please not range. Camping from a safe distance discourages fights. Also, long pack times are just annoying. No one likes playing with units that don’t feel responsive—it almost feels like lag is built into microing cata

If 80 range you might as well erase catapults from 0ad . You do realise it is a catapult right ? not a archer unit,  they are ment to shoot from long distance always have been , historically and in every similar RTS game  . Also they have low mobility , packing and unpacking , cost too much and highly suseptible to hack infact 30 archers  with 70 range can kill a catapult in 10 seconds .

Nerfing range is like saying like nerf archers range to 45 like slingers but lets increase fire rate to 0.75 .  more or less just to get the idea , 

Now it doesn't really has to be 100 , the range/fire rate ratio is to be experimented but granted you cant give catas 80 range nor fire every 2 seconds instead .

for example in Aoe4 catas fire from very long range , but damage to fire rate  is conciderably  less than rams . as a result rams cheaper die faster do more damage if they stay alive while catas cost more less  damage but mostlikly to last longer but they when they get caught mobility + unpacking = dead mostly

Edited March 1, 2024 by hamdich

[real_tabasco_sauce]

@hamdich the current range is 85, not 80. I would rather improve mobility than bump range back up. The current values also prevent the infinite catapulting situation.

On a bit of a side note, I don't think aoe4 should be a source for inspiration.

[Lion.Kanzen]

30 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

prevent the infinite catapulting situation.

What is this?

[hamdich]

1 hour ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

I don't think aoe4 should be a source for inspiration.

I agree. but like or not  AOe been there for long time and similar games took one or two things from it 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

On 29/02/2024 at 8:35 PM, Lion.Kanzen said:

What is this?

Catapults can get stuck shooting a building indefinitely if their vision cant see enough of a structure to reveal it has been destroyed.

On 29/02/2024 at 9:59 PM, hamdich said:

I agree. but like or not  AOe been there for long time and similar games took one or two things from it 

Yes, thats why I think aoe2 is far better a source of inspiration than aoe4, especially when it comes to strategic depth and mechanics.

[Lion.Kanzen]

8 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Catapults can get stuck shooting a building indefinitely if their vision cant see enough of a structure to reveal it has been destroyed.

If I remember that, isn't it a bug?

[real_tabasco_sauce]

Ok here is my plan to address current concerns with buildings. My understanding is that most of the problems people have are when buildings are fully garrisoned. For example, a CC gets almost 7x as powerful when fully garrisoned, so it can be too powerful early on. Also, many players are leaving towers garrisoned indefinitely in order to make the most of their arrows for turtling.

These differences were not really problematic when buildings shot randomly, but when all arrows are directed to 1 unit at a time, they become problematic.

I think this is an example where we should look to aoe2 as an example. CCs, Towers, and castles get stronger when fully garrisoned, but not by an order of magnitude like they do in 0ad.

So the plan is generally this: decrease the fully garrisoned damage of most buildings, while keeping the ungarrisoned damage the same (or maybe boosting it for forts?). The defensive buildings is that they provide firepower without the need to garrison, and that garrisoning can be used to add arrows if you are in a rough spot. (for that matter, I think the un-garrisoned arrows should be even better, but I am sure most people would want a more cautious approach like this).

Towers:

• fire rate: 2->4
• default (un-garrisoned) arrows: 1->2

Now for CCs, people say they are too strong when fully garrisoned, so I would do a little more:

• fire rate: 2->4
• default (un-garrisoned) arrows: 3 -> 6
• max arrows: 23 (basically the same as a fort) -> 16

For forts, I think they should remain pretty tough to crack, so I would do it a little differently:

• fire rate: 2->3
• default (un-garrisoned) arrows: 4 -> 6 (or maybe 8 to boost un-garrisoned arrows)

I think this is all I would do for now, but in the future we could consider stuff like letting tower upgrades apply to forts, or phase dependent building damage.

Edited March 11, 2024 by real_tabasco_sauce

[real_tabasco_sauce]

To give some examples, currently these are the changes from un-garrisoned to garrisoned:

• Sentry: 11->44 is 4x stronger
• Defense tower: 11-> 66 is 6x stronger
• CC: 33 -> 253 is almost 8x stronger
• Fort: 44 -> 264 is 6x stronger

with the changes above, towers would only be about 2x as strong when garrisoned, the CC would be about 2.5x stronger, and forts would be about 4x stronger.

[chrstgtr]

8 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

To give some examples, currently these are the changes from un-garrisoned to garrisoned:

• Sentry: 11->44 is 4x stronger
• Defense tower: 11-> 66 is 6x stronger
• CC: 33 -> 253 is almost 8x stronger
• Fort: 44 -> 264 is 6x stronger

with the changes above, towers would only be about 2x as strong when garrisoned, the CC would be about 2.5x stronger, and forts would be about 4x stronger.

There was a pretty explicit change to unify building arrows recently: https://code.wildfiregames.com/rP25309

Personally, I'm ready to walk away from any change to buildingAI. Random vs. nearest unit buildingAI just depends on personal preference and, after some testing, the player base doesn't seem to want a change in behavior. 

As it has been said in other places, no one seems to have a problem with rush or late-game building-unit balance, so this change also doesn't "fix" anything (aside from behavior preferences). But as we have seen, it can introduce a problems with building-unit balance. 

At this point, this seems that this doesn't fix anything, it creates balance problems, and it changes buildingAI to a disfavored form. Seems like an experiment that was worth trying but has run its course at this point. 

[chrstgtr]

55 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

I think this is all I would do for now, but in the future we could consider stuff like letting tower upgrades apply to forts, or phase dependent building damage.

I always thought this should be true. But that's a different issue from buildingAI behavior. 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

23 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

There was a pretty explicit change to unify building arrows recently: https://code.wildfiregames.com/rP25309

yeah and then someone turned around and made towers 11 pierce XD. I don't think all buildings should have to behave identically wrt arrows.

24 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

player base doesn't seem to want a change in behavior. 

is that so? I assume u mean non-random arrows here, not the above updates I suggest.

26 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

As it has been said in other places, no one seems to have a problem with rush or late-game building-unit balance, so this change also doesn't "fix" anything (aside from behavior preferences). But as we have seen, it can introduce a problems with building-unit balance. 

I assume you mean non-random arrows, not the changes I suggested just now. Please tell me some problems with non-random building ai that are not due to the arrow count balance.

My understanding was that you found particularly the CC to be too strong at preventing rushes, and that turtling was too effective.

There were problems with random arrows, its just that people tolerated them: Buildings did not effectively deter rushes/raids, and healer hero auras could invalidate building arrows.

[chrstgtr]

2 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

yeah and then someone turned around and made towers 11 pierce XD. I don't think all buildings should have to behave identically wrt arrows.

I don't really care. But others seem to. Regardless, I think buildings were well balanced before the mod change.

3 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

is that so? I assume u mean non-random arrows here, not the above updates I suggest.

Yes, non-random arrows. It seems, at best, to be preferred as much as random arrows but more likely disfavored compared to random arrows. Keeping random arrows doesn't require additional balance changes

7 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

There were problems with random arrows, its just that people tolerated them: Buildings did not effectively deter rushes/raids, and healer hero auras could invalidate building arrows.

This has been the problem the whole time with this change. It was widely held that rushes were balanced before the change. And, if you have a problem with the hero aura then the hero aura should change. Buildings working against armies without hero indicates that it was properly balanced before. 

Your proposal just feels ptolemaic. At the end of the day, I want to be able to rush the units around a CC in p1. I don't see how that can ever be possible without losing a bunch of units. I also don't want to lose a considerable portion of my army guarding rams from a couple garrisoned swords in p3 after I have clearly won a battle of units. 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

17 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

I don't see how that can ever be possible without losing a bunch of units. I also don't want to lose a considerable portion of my army guarding rams from a couple garrisoned swords in p3 after I have clearly won a battle of units. 

These are both symptoms of the fact that buildings get way too strong only when garrisoned. Take the CC for example: 33 pierce goes up to 253 at the moment. This has always been an issue IMO, its just now that it is actually killing units it feels OP. Previously, you would just retreat after losing HP across all your units.

I think you need to look at the behavior and the arrows objectively and individually, throwing away all previous balance ideas, and ask yourself which is the superior system? One that acts as a damage aura, or one that actually kills individual units? Then, ask yourself which is the issue: is it because buildings become 5 to 8 times as powerful when garrisoned, or is it because units are killed 1 by 1?

Without any nostalgia or fear of change, people would prefer what I have suggested to random arrows.

Lastly, what do you think should be done now? Full revert? partial revert?

Edited March 11, 2024 by real_tabasco_sauce

[chrstgtr]

5 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Without any nostalgia or fear of change, people would prefer what I have suggested to random arrows.

This is axiomatic and runs contrary to what evidence we do have. You have championed this issue and on several instances have said things along the lines of "people just don't understand what I am proposing" but people do understand and have experienced it. A lot of people just disagree.

You keep putting forth a bunch of alternative explanations/theories and it keeps getting more complicated each time. But the fact remains: balance was fine before and there were very few (zero?) complaints. That is nowhere close to true with the mod. Creating a new, more complicated system (that a lot of people seem constitutionally opposed to) just disregards the feedback that we have. Look at the poll in the other thread. There hasn't been uptake on this concept and, as time wears on, it seems to get less popular. Compare the buildingAI change to the melee change where people clearly want something different but just aren't sure if what we have is actually right. 

 

11 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Lastly, what do you think should be done now? Full revert? partial revert?

Keep the ability to manually control building arrows. 

For buildingAI, I would do a full revert for CC/forts. In the interest of experimentation, I would maybe keep buildingAI as nearest unit for towers to see if that works as towers seem less problematic on borders. I still think sentry towers are too strong and make rushing too difficult in p1. But I don't think the community has really focused on this aspect vs. the fort/cc aspect. 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

53 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

A lot of people just disagree.

I think you are making this decision for a lot of people.

53 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

"people just don't understand what I am proposing" but people do understand and have experienced it.

You are taking me out of context. I said these things before the mod was out. Now that it is out, players understand it.

53 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

Look at the poll in the other thread.

This one? In which only 10 people voted? It was 6-4 non-random. The only written complaints I have seen that didn't come from haters were yours.

53 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

But the fact remains: balance was fine before and there were very few (zero?) complaints.

I would hardly call that a fact. If it was fine before, why don't you advocate for a full revert? After all, you suggest that 

53 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

Creating a new, more complicated system (that a lot of people seem constitutionally opposed to) just disregards the feedback that we have.

If that is the case, why do you suggest to further change the system ...

53 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

In the interest of experimentation

 

53 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

Keep the ability to manually control building arrows. 

For buildingAI, I would do a full revert for CC/forts. In the interest of experimentation, I would maybe keep buildingAI as nearest unit for towers

Let me make the rest of this reply about why going halfway as you suggest won't work as well as one might expect:

1. Not an elegant solution: As you suggest, there would have to be two distinct buildingAIs, one with random arrows and targeting, the other with non-random arrows and targeting. Either this, or a new class for non-random buildings that gets read by buildingAI and then activates a non-random version of firearrows().
2. How to balance random and targeted arrows: Allowing a building to be random when it becomes non random upon targeting is bound to fail: If non-random arrows are stronger as you say, players would benefit from constantly targeting manually. You would have to ensure both the targeted arrows and the random arrows are balanced, which would (obviously) need to be handled differently.
3. Inconsistencies: Asymmetry between units is fine and we call it differentiation. When mechanics are so massively different when players expect consistency, we have a problem. You call for differences between targeted and un-targeted arrows, as well as further differences between CCs/Forts and towers. I think that would be a confusing mess.

->Please tell me some issues with 26.6 building arrows that are not due to arrow count balance.<-

53 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

There hasn't been uptake on this concept and, as time wears on, it seems to get less popular.

What makes you say this? I saw complaints during week 1, but now I see none in the lobby. Surely this means there is no problem, right? Jokes aside, I don't declare no complaints to mean there is no issue, that is why I plan to rebalance the arrows.

Edited March 11, 2024 by real_tabasco_sauce

[real_tabasco_sauce]

new, more detailed poll: 

 

also, anyone feel free to chime in on this:

17 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

->Please tell me some issues with 26.6 building arrows that are not due to arrow count balance.<-