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[gameplay] tweak war dogs.
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Authored by borg- on Jul 16 2020, 3:22 AM.

Details

Reviewers
badosu
wraitii
Group Reviewers
Restricted Owners Package(Owns No Changed Paths)
Balancing
Commits
rP23893: Update Briton war dog.
Summary

Dogs are not used by any player in current meta. Many wrong things with war dog in current gameplay.
@Nescio removed the kennels that were also historically problematic. D2533.

  • It seems illogical and unreal that a dog can gain experience in combat;
  • Brit starts the game with an elite dog, which is capable of beating a cavalry in a 1x1 fight, or killing many women (in the range of cc) and leave alive;
  • Weak in late game;
  • Advance and elite rank are practically useless as they are weak and never get promoted. (I at least never saw).
  • Runs more than a horse.
  • Seems to have an incorrect animation with the damage time (already reported to @Stan).

Proposal:

  • Remove advance and elite rank templates. Brit now starts the game with basic rank, making it weaker at start;
  • Increase your health to 110, stronger in late game. (using elite dog actor to give more realism);
  • Decrease your running speed to 25.9 (faster than infantry, slower than cavalry);
  • Better tooltip;
  • Cleaning templates.

Initial patch by @borg-, updated by @Nescio.

Test Plan

Check mistakes and omissions.
Test mainly against melee units.

Diff Detail

Repository
rP 0 A.D. Public Repository
Branch
/ps/trunk
Lint
Lint OK
Unit
No Unit Test Coverage
Build Status
Buildable 12426
Build 23765: arc lint + arc unit

Event Timeline

borg- created this revision.Jul 16 2020, 3:22 AM
borg- edited the summary of this revision. (Show Details)
Nescio edited reviewers, added: Restricted Owners Package; removed: Stan, badosu, Nescio.Jul 16 2020, 11:40 AM

Since you're disabling ranks, why not do it properly, i.e. svn mv brit_war_dog_b.xml brit_war_dog.xml and delete the _a.xml and _e.xml templates?

(using elite dog actor to give more realism);

A dog (cheap) covered in chainmail (expensive) does not seem really realistic to me. I'd recommend sticking with the basic actor, though I suppose we could settle on the *_a.xml actor as a compromise.

templates/template_unit_dog.xml
39 ↗(On Diff #12702)
<Tooltip>Cannot attack Structures, Ships, or Siege Engines.</Tooltip>
75–76 ↗(On Diff #12702)

How about 1.5 and 2?

Since you're disabling ranks, why not do it properly, i.e. svn mv brit_war_dog_b.xml brit_war_dog.xml and delete the _a.xml and _e.xml templates?

(using elite dog actor to give more realism);

A dog (cheap) covered in chainmail (expensive) does not seem really realistic to me. I'd recommend sticking with the basic actor, though I suppose we could settle on the *_a.xml actor as a compromise.

I deleted, no Idea why dont work.

I deleted, no Idea why dont work.

svn rm brit_war_dog_a.xml brit_war_dog_e.xml

Nescio updated this revision to Diff 12712.Jul 16 2020, 12:46 PM
Nescio edited the summary of this revision. (Show Details)
  • do it properly
  • also adjust footprint
Owners added a subscriber: Restricted Owners Package.Jul 16 2020, 12:46 PM

Go ahead . Looks reasonably. I'm not familiar with this unit. Even im not sure how works in AoE 3.

Nescio updated this revision to Diff 12808.Jul 20 2020, 12:31 PM
  • exclude war dog footprint (to D2496)
badosu accepted this revision.Jul 24 2020, 3:48 AM

Did you test how well it performs attacking some women guarded by 2 skirms, 2 spearmen? I think this would be a good metric on how we mitigated the early harass.

Overall I like the change.

This revision is now accepted and ready to land.Jul 24 2020, 3:48 AM
borg- added a comment.Jul 24 2020, 4:16 AM

Did you test how well it performs attacking some women guarded by 2 skirms, 2 spearmen? I think this would be a good metric on how we mitigated the early harass.

Dog now needs 4 hits to kill a woman instead 3.
In a fight against 6 women, only 3 women die.
If the woman is protected by 4 - 6 soldiers, then the dog must die easily, killing perhaps one or max two women.
Cant win 1v1 vs cav now.
And much more useful in late game (cuz increase health), since before they were never promoted.

wraitii updated this revision to Diff 12909.Jul 25 2020, 10:26 AM

Rebased, the skirmish template was missed. Will commit.

wraitii accepted this revision.Jul 25 2020, 10:27 AM

This all makes sense to me.

This revision was automatically updated to reflect the committed changes.

For the war dog footprint, see D2496.

Silier added a subscriber: Silier.EditedDec 21 2020, 7:54 PM

@borg-

In D2879#125660, @borg- wrote:

Did you test how well it performs attacking some women guarded by 2 skirms, 2 spearmen? I think this would be a good metric on how we mitigated the early harass.

Dog now needs 4 hits to kill a woman instead 3.
In a fight against 6 women, only 3 women die.
If the woman is protected by 4 - 6 soldiers, then the dog must die easily, killing perhaps one or max two women.
Cant win 1v1 vs cav now.
And much more useful in late game (cuz increase health), since before they were never promoted.

How is that true ?
Dog got +20 health and was moved to phase I. (phase I is another patch but still)
Does not look like is weaker compared to a23b.

borg- added a comment.Dec 21 2020, 8:43 PM

@Angen it was about brit start with dog_e vs now dog_b.

The proposal of the patch was to improve dogs in late game and worse in early game, thats why +20% health and start with Basic level.

hmm, right :)
I was not starting random maps on a23b.
thank you for explanation