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

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

For me, I'd like to see fewer arrows in the game just in general, and make each arrow more impactful. This would not only reduce the cacophony of sound during battle, it would help reduce range queries immensely. DE already does this (people ask why DE runs better while looking better than the base game; this could be one reason).

[real_tabasco_sauce]

On 8/11/2022 at 1:16 PM, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

For me, I'd like to see fewer arrows in the game just in general, and make each arrow more impactful. This would not only reduce the cacophony of sound during battle, it would help reduce range queries immensely. DE already does this (people ask why DE runs better while looking better than the base game; this could be one reason).

Would players of the community mod be interested in a branch to lengthen attack repeat times? Buildings and ranged units could in theory all have slower repeat times which decreases the number of range queries and other calculations needed per second. We could then assess the improvement on performance in TGs. I would design it to minimize any effects on balance.

I guess I would first test it on my own to see if there is an improvement before making a merge request.

Edited November 9, 2022 by real_tabasco_sauce

[Feldfeld]

29 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Would players of the community mod be interested in a branch to lengthen attack repeat times? Buildings and ranged units could in theory all have slower repeat times which decreases the number of range queries and other calculations needed per second. We could then assess the improvement on performance in TGs. I would design it to minimize any effects on balance.

I guess I would first test it on my own to see if there is an improvement before making a merge request.

I made a similar suggestion here:

  

On 02/11/2022 at 8:53 PM, Feldfeld said:

Instead of fine tuning stuff like this, I'd be more interested in some more radical changes, such as for example straight up halving the attack rate of all ranged units (so reducing their DPS by that much), accompanied by a melee cav nerf. That could rehabilate melee infantry and maybe champions as well. Experiment, bring new units to the light, try to reach a new balance.

except I intended for it to be a straight nerf to ranged units + a rebalance of a few other units. If I make a merge request with that i'll do some experimentation myself to avoid starting with huge imbalances.

If you want to lengthen repeat times and minimize effect on balance, from my understanding this would result in even higher damage for ranged units to keep DPS. Personally not fond of such high damage values though it could always be tried.

 

Edited November 9, 2022 by Feldfeld

[chrstgtr]

37 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Would players of the community mod be interested in a branch to lengthen attack repeat times? Buildings and ranged units could in theory all have slower repeat times which decreases the number of range queries and other calculations needed per second. We could then assess the improvement on performance in TGs. I would design it to minimize any effects on balance.

I guess I would first test it on my own to see if there is an improvement before making a merge request.

It would introduce higher variance because each arrow would make death more likely if hit. And misses would be a bigger lost opportunity. I don’t know if that would be a meaningful balance change or improvement in lag. Could be something to experiment with and I would be open to experimenting to see

[real_tabasco_sauce]

6 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

It would introduce higher variance because each arrow would make death more likely if hit. And misses would be a bigger lost opportunity.

yeah I guess hitting/missing shots would wind up being more impactful. Not sure if thats a good thing or bad. 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 hour ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

yeah I guess hitting/missing shots would wind up being more impactful. Not sure if thats a good thing or bad. 

Tighten up the accuracy slightly to take the edge off this? Regardless, I think it's worth a shot.

Edited November 9, 2022 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[Philip the Swaggerless]

1 hour ago, Feldfeld said:

If you want to lengthen repeat times and minimize effect on balance, from my understanding this would result in even higher damage for ranged units to keep DPS. Personally not fond of such high damage values though it could always be tried.

It seems to me this would boost ranged units, especially cav.  They can fire, retreat, fire retreat, etc...  Although it could increase overkill and lose some efficiency there.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

Well for buildings, their fire rate could be reduced a lot and an arrow damage increase would make up for dps, essentially no net difference to gameplay.

As for unit repeat times, I think we should keep the change fairly minimal for the reasons mentioned by @Philip the Swaggerless. Something on the order of: skirmishers 1.25 sec to 1.5 sec would probably be noticeable. I could raise everything (maybe except crossbows, pikes) by .25 and then adjust damage accordingly.

3 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Tighten up the accuracy slightly to take the edge off this? Regardless, I think it's worth a shot.

There may or may not be a need to do this. I think we would have to try it out to really know. If we took that approach, I would be tempted to also slightly slow projectiles down, so that moving targets are not as easily hit.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 hour ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

There may or may not be a need to do this. I think we would have to try it out to really know. If we took that approach, I would be tempted to also slightly slow projectiles down, so that moving targets are not as easily hit.

Indeed projectiles in Vanilla are ridiculously fast, you can't see them half the time.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 hour ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

As for unit repeat times, I think we should keep the change fairly minimal for the reasons mentioned by @Philip the Swaggerless. Something on the order of: skirmishers 1.25 sec to 1.5 sec would probably be noticeable. I could raise everything (maybe except crossbows, pikes) by .25 and then adjust damage accordingly.

Meh, just go for 2 seconds for all ranged units for a standardized look and easy DPS calc. 

[chrstgtr]

36 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Indeed projectiles in Vanilla are ridiculously fast, you can't see them half the time.

Wasn't this a big part of the problem with a24 and no one realized how big an impact it had until it was too late? Doesn't this impact accuracy a ton? I wouldn't mess with projectile speed and would just adjust DPS/repeat times as you see fit. 

Changing accuracy won't change things--the problem (if it is one) is that each projectile will have a bigger impact on the units it hits (i.e., a unit may die in 3 hits instead of 4). That is unavoidable with the change you are suggesting and will introduce greater variance in results because which units get hit (and misses) will matter more (i.e., lower health units that previously would not have died may now die from a single projectile hit). This may or may not have a meaningful impact on balance--I don't know, and tests would be needed. 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

You are free to make 1.67% and 2.21%  adjustments ad nauseam.  But I never said changes wouldn't need playtesting. Of course. 

[chrstgtr]

42 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Meh, just go for 2 seconds for all ranged units for a standardized look and easy DPS calc. 

I think intervals should be standard across all CS units (melee included)--it makes it easier to understand, especially for newer players. I don't know at what interval the speed should be, but I tend to prefer quicker speeds. Some other say they like different interval speeds as a form of differentiation, though. 

[chrstgtr]

1 minute ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

You are free to make 1.67% and 2.21%  adjustments ad nauseam.  But I never said changes wouldn't need playtesting. Of course. 

My point is that something like changing projectile speeds can have a massive, unintended impact, and playtesting for things like this in the past have failed terribly. Changing projectile speed and walk speeds were two things that no one thought would matter, but basically ruined a24 for a lot of players. I'm just suggesting humbleness and making adjustments in easily observable/measurable aspects of the game.  

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

4 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

Some other say they like different interval speeds as a form of differentiation, though

I feel like that's getting pretty far into the weeds as far as differentiation goes. Especially when the visual differentiation is lost in the chaos of firing at will. 

[chrstgtr]

2 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

I feel like that's getting pretty far into the weeds as far as differentiation goes. Especially when the visual differentiation is lost in the chaos of firing at will. 

I agree. But it's some others' opinion. 

Like a bunch of these other things, I don't really care what values are set. But constantly changing a bunch of this stuff doesn't make a lot of sense, especially when you can do a simple adjustment to just one or two variable (i.e., damage and amour, or accuracy) to achieve the same desired effect. 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

I think repeat times are certainly a differentiating factor, even if they only make a small difference to gameplay.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 minute ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

I think repeat times are certainly a differentiating factor, even if they only make a small difference to gameplay.

1.35 sec repeat time at 13 damage. Quick, what's the dps? What's more important?

[real_tabasco_sauce]

54 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

1.35 sec repeat time at 13 damage. Quick, what's the dps? What's more important?

I mean.

its not necessarily something you would calculate while playing. You just get a feel for the fire rates of different units. I think fire rate, accuracy, prepare time, and acceleration are all valuable differentiators and I think this is something that shouldn’t be uniform.

[chrstgtr]

29 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

fire rate, accuracy, prepare time, and acceleration

Related note, only one of those is visible in the in-game stats. I really hate the lack of transparency there is for accuracy, prepare time, and acceleration. I only have a rough idea how units compare for some of those variables. I cannot imagine how hard it is to understand for someone who is just learning how to play

[ChronA]

14 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

[more damaging arrows with a slower repeat rate] would introduce higher variance because each arrow would make death more likely if hit. And misses would be a bigger lost opportunity.

Unlikely it would cause any noticeable difference with respect to <Accuracy>. The Law of Large Numbers applies because, even with a reduced rate-of-fire, you are still flinging hundreds of projectiles over the course of a typical battle (most of which hit something). That is more than a large enough sample size to push the tendency very close to the theoretical expectation.

In intuitive terms, yes misses would be a bigger lost opportunity, but the projectiles that do hit balance it out by having a proportionately larger punch that almost exactly makes up for the damage that is lost.

Plus, I don't think the threshold of "game breaking chaos" is nearly as sensitive as this objection makes it out to be. There are a bunch of really unpredictable factors in 0 AD's combat already: e.g. not being able to tell how many units are in an enemy formation due to the obscene model overlap, or the way that promotions can randomly change a few lucky units' stats on the fly. Despite this, I don't hear anyone complaining that the combat gameplay is unskillful.

Edited November 10, 2022 by ChronA

[Feldfeld]

5 minutes ago, ChronA said:

Unlikely it would cause any noticeable difference with respect to <Accuracy>. The Law of Large Numbers applies because, even with a reduced rate-of-fire, you are still flinging hundreds of projectiles over the course of a typical battle. That is more than a large enough sample size to push the tendency very close to the theoretical expectation.

In intuitive terms, yes misses would be a bigger lost opportunity, but the projectiles that do hit balance it out by having a proportionately larger punch that almost exactly makes up for the damage that is lost.

Plus, I don't think the threshold of "game breaking chaos" is nearly as sensitive as this objection makes it out to be. There are a bunch of really unpredictable factors in 0 AD's combat already: e.g. not being able to tell how many units are in an enemy formation due to the obscene model overlap, or the way that promotions can randomly change a few lucky units' stats on the fly. Despite this, I don't hear anyone complaining that the combat gameplay is unskillful.

Well, technically, there are large battles, but there are also small skirmishes which could be very important early game.

The game should be balanced such that a good player wouldn't need to rely/ be forced to be in a position where randomness decides the game. AoE2 has imperfect accuracy early game, and even monk RNG which is definitely questionable and can decide some games but in the end it stays because only rarely it makes a difference (for example map RNG would be just as if not more important).
I'd say we need to tune this so accuracy RNG doesn't have too much impact in fights, and small skirmishes should be predictable up to a reasonably good level for a good player (they are currently, I don't know if/how it would change with reduced rate of fire).

[ChronA]

2 minutes ago, Feldfeld said:

there are also small skirmishes which could be very important early game.

That is a fair counterpoint. There might be some room to debate whether those skirmishes (if they are decisive) are actually so small that LOLN breaks down, or if they are just protracted exchanges still involving hundreds of projectiles but now spread out over a few minutes instead of 30-60 seconds. But I admit I lack the experience base to evaluate that question.  

Also I do agree with the concern that slower projectiles could throw of the balance in a major way, as it opens up a new avenue for systematic counter-play that could change the balance of tactics in unpredictable ways. (Dancing!)

Also, with fewer, chunkier projectiles there could be problems with overkill weirdness. Like if previously it takes 10 arrows to kill a unit and 50% of the last arrow is overkill, that means 5% of the unit's DPS is wasted. Where as if it only takes 2 arrows with 50% overkill on the last shot now you are losing 25% of your theoretical DPS.

Because of issues like this I would actually agree that any changes to attack rates should be lumped in with a general rebalancing of ranged vs melee troops. No sense doing the same work twice. (It helps that a melee buff is sorely needed if 0 AD is to have any pretenses of being historical.) 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

8 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

Related note, only one of those is visible in the in-game stats. I really hate the lack of transparency there is for accuracy, prepare time, and acceleration. I only have a rough idea how units compare for some of those variables. I cannot imagine how hard it is to understand for someone who is just learning how to play

I would wager to guess most players (everyone not in the top 30 or 40) do not play the game thinking of it as a large spreadsheet meant to be deciphered in the most efficient way possible in order to maximize positive outcomes within time-frame blah blah. If a unit is effective in a certain situation, then players use that unit in that situation. Most will not care to perform deep statistical analysis on the fly (or even beforehand). The goal is to make the unit behavior intuitive to most players and we do so tweaking a dozen different stats that most players don't need to know in order to play an effective and fun game. 

Edited November 10, 2022 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[chrstgtr]

24 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

I would wager to guess most players (everyone not in the top 30 or 40) do not play the game thinking of it as a large spreadsheet meant to be deciphered in the most efficient way possible in order to maximize positive outcomes within time-frame blah blah. If a unit is effective in a certain situation, then players use that unit in that situation. Most will not care to perform deep statistical analysis on the fly (or even beforehand). The goal is to make the unit behavior intuitive to most players and we do so tweaking a dozen different stats that most players don't need to know in order to play an effective and fun game. 

Maybe. I’m sure some do—we can see it in the forums. 
 

More to the point, is there harm to showing it?