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Differential D3465

[gameplay] Nerf wall towers
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Authored by wraitii on Jan 24 2021, 9:58 AM.

Details

Reviewers
Nescio
Group Reviewers
Balancing
Summary

Wall towers are currently equivalent to Town-phase Stone towers, except:

  • They have 4000HP (4x as much as stone towers)
  • They don't fire arrows by default.
  • They can garrison 2 units instead of 5
  • They have 8 damage instead of 12.
  • They have no build restrictions distance.
  • They cost 90S instead of 100W/100S
  • To add insult to injury, they build in 90s instead of 150s.
  • They don't contribute to 'Town' structures required for city phase.

A thrifty player is basically exchanging DPS for HP, and since you can basically stack those, with enough resources you can get absurdly high arrow counts.
This makes them quite overpowered compared to towers at actually defending, which is probably not really intended given that 0 A.D. pushes players to make towers a lot.

This diff addresses that somewhat for A24, but I think for A25 we should consider actually making them fire only when upgraded. This would allow introducing build restrictions, and would allow not making them such a big cost in our wall-building, which is really nerfing walls right now.

Changes:

  • HP reduced to 1000 (short walls are 1000HP). Could probably be reduced further a bit.
  • 6 damage per arrow.
  • 40 range / 60 vision range instead of 60/80

I think we should maybe also consider reducing their max garrison to 1 and/or only enabling ranged units to garrison inside, like other wall pieces.

Test Plan

Agree

Diff Detail

Event Timeline

wraitii created this revision.Jan 24 2021, 9:58 AM
Owners added a subscriber: Restricted Owners Package.Jan 24 2021, 9:58 AM
Vulcan added a comment.Jan 24 2021, 10:04 AM

Build is green

builderr-debug-macos.txt
ld: warning: text-based stub file /System/Library/Frameworks//CoreAudio.framework/CoreAudio.tbd and library file /System/Library/Frameworks//CoreAudio.framework/CoreAudio are out of sync. Falling back to library file for linking.
ld: warning: text-based stub file /System/Library/Frameworks//AudioToolbox.framework/AudioToolbox.tbd and library file /System/Library/Frameworks//AudioToolbox.framework/AudioToolbox are out of sync. Falling back to library file for linking.
ld: warning: text-based stub file /System/Library/Frameworks//ForceFeedback.framework/ForceFeedback.tbd and library file /System/Library/Frameworks//ForceFeedback.framework/ForceFeedback are out of sync. Falling back to library file for linking.
ld: warning: text-based stub file /System/Library/Frameworks//CoreVideo.framework/CoreVideo.tbd and library file /System/Library/Frameworks//CoreVideo.framework/CoreVideo are out of sync. Falling back to library file for linking.
ld: warning: text-based stu

See https://jenkins.wildfiregames.com/job/macos-differential/3035/display/redirect for more details.

wraitii mentioned this in D3466: [gameplay] Make wall turrets upgrade into proper towers..Jan 24 2021, 10:39 AM
wraitii published this revision for review.Jan 24 2021, 2:09 PM
wraitii updated this revision to Diff 15664.Jan 24 2021, 2:11 PM

After discussing with FeldFeld, only do the HP change for A24.

borg- added a subscriber: borg-.Jan 24 2021, 2:12 PM

I see no reason to reduce health to 1000. In general, they are bigger than a town tower and also the walls. Decreasing the max range / vision is bad because they are the same height as a tower. What I would do is add garrison attack/vision depends of units like a outpost, decrease health by 10-15%, increase stone cost and construction time.

Vulcan added a comment.Jan 24 2021, 3:42 PM

Build is green

builderr-debug-macos.txt
/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/ranlib: file: ../../../binaries/system/libnetwork_dbg.a(precompiled.o) has no symbols
/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/ranlib: file: ../../../binaries/system/libtinygettext_dbg.a(precompiled.o) has no symbols
/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/ranlib: file: ../../../binaries/system/libtinygettext_dbg.a(tinygettext.o) has no symbols
/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/ranlib: file: ../../../binaries/system/liblobby_dbg.a(precompiled.o) has no symbols
/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/ranlib: file: ../../../binaries/system/libglooxwrapper_dbg.a(precompiled.o) has no symbols
/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/ranlib: file

See https://jenkins.wildfiregames.com/job/macos-differential/3040/display/redirect for more details.

Harbormaster completed remote builds in B15385: Diff 15664.Jan 24 2021, 3:42 PM
Nescio retitled this revision from Nerf wall towers to [gameplay] Nerf wall towers.Jan 25 2021, 9:39 PM
Herald added a reviewer: Balancing. · View Herald TranscriptJan 25 2021, 9:39 PM
Nescio requested changes to this revision.Jan 25 2021, 9:59 PM
Nescio added a subscriber: Nescio.

Wall towers have more health than other wall pieces for good reasons:

  • They're the thickest and strongest points, protecting nearby sections (e.g. those of Lugo).
  • When attempting to breach city walls, one targets the weakest section. If wall towers were to have less health, then those would be targetted instead of gates or long segments, despite the latter having larger footprints and thus larger openings.
  • Rebuilding a short, medium, or long segment in game is quite easy, but rebuilding a destroyed wall tower is rather annoying, you basically need to demolish the adjecent pieces too,
This revision now requires changes to proceed.Jan 25 2021, 9:59 PM
wraitii abandoned this revision.Jan 25 2021, 10:04 PM
In D3465#153373, @Nescio wrote:
  • When attempting to breach city walls, one targets the weakest section. If wall towers were to have less health, then those would be targetted instead of gates or long segments, despite the latter having larger footprints and thus larger openings.

This isn't true in 0 A.D., because you can set up your walls so that destroying the tower doesn't actually open a hole at all, and it's only marginally more expensive.

  • Rebuilding a short, medium, or long segment in game is quite easy, but rebuilding a destroyed wall tower is rather annoying, you basically need to demolish the adjecent pieces too,

This is indeed an issue, but I don't think it should really concern balance all that much.

That being said, I decided against merging this after all, so I'm abandoning in favour of other diffs.

wraitii mentioned this in D3706: [gameplay] remove wall tower attack.Mar 18 2021, 1:48 PM

Revision Contents
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binaries/
data/
mods/
public/
simulation/
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Diff 15664

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binaries/data/mods/public/simulation/templates/template_structure_defensive_wall_tower.xml

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