Wall discussion

[britishmusketeer]

Walls are quite controversial recently and lots people have been saying they are too weak.

Personally I think they don't have any purpose in RTS. In an RTS economic plays should be countered by making something happen with your units. However with walls this is often not possible. If the opponent has a full wall and units that outrange yours, there is no way to push through. In the garja-dyddy91 aztec vs japan game for example, garja went for a 8 min timing sending shipments that would get the greatest mass at that point. When he reached the wall however he was unable to punish dyddy for his economic play with the cree because dyddy invested 50w in making himself invulnerable until he chooses to leaves his base. Obviously removing walls could be a balance concern for japan however that could be easily fixed by something like increasing 2 villagers to 3. Walls can also be used for things such as preventing raids, trapping enemy cav, blocking agra forts ect which are all things that imo shouldn't be possible. Another large issue currently is the fact that walls upgraded to bastion are not nerfed at all which doesn't make sense because it is available in age 2 whereas the siege necessary to deal with it is not available until age 4. Since walls have lots of issues and abuse possibilities whilst making games more stale, and without having any advantages, I would propose removing walls from the game or making them available in age 5.

Thoughts?

[n0el]

Walls or the ability to wall have a place. Almost all rts games have this ability.

[Hazza54321]

walls should be only for late game, like fortress age plus

[britishmusketeer]

Walls or the ability to wall have a place. Almost all rts games have this ability.

Walls. The ability to have a wall in place(buildings) is the way you are supposed to protect your base imo and buildings are obviously more expensive and actually worth something if you lose them.

[Garja]

Walls have a place but they're just to buy time. Wood wall that is.

[yurashic]

Thoughts?

People should build more walls in general.

[deleted_user]

I think walls are fine. And I think they should buff their hit points from .5RE to .75RE in the EP.

[iCourt]

Hopefully Dsy or _H2O doesn't mind me posting this conversation here, but I found it rather intriguing and worth the community discussion regarding walls.

[spoiler=Click to Read]

Hi!
You seems pretty cool so i want to ask a question about programming possibilities. I hope its not bothering for you but i have no skills to check that.
Is it possible to ceperate wall corners cost from the big one walls?

<Unit id ='611' name ='WallConnector'>
<DBID>895</DBID>
<DisplayNameID>34894</DisplayNameID>
<EditorNameID>34895</EditorNameID>
<ObstructionRadiusX>1.0000</ObstructionRadiusX>
<ObstructionRadiusZ>1.0000</ObstructionRadiusZ>
<MaxVelocity>0.0000</MaxVelocity>
<MovementType>land</MovementType>
<AnimFile>buildings\wall\wall_tower.xml</AnimFile>
<ImpactType>Stone</ImpactType>
<PhysicsInfo>house</PhysicsInfo>
<PlacementFile>wall.xml</PlacementFile>
<Icon>buildings\wall\wall_icon_64x64</Icon>
<PortraitIcon>buildings\wall\wall_portrait</PortraitIcon>
<RolloverTextID>34893</RolloverTextID>
<ShortRolloverTextID>34892</ShortRolloverTextID>
<InitialHitpoints>3000.0000</InitialHitpoints>
<MaxHitpoints>3000.0000</MaxHitpoints>
<LOS>1.0000</LOS>
<ProjectileProtoUnit>Arrow</ProjectileProtoUnit>
<BuildPoints>2.0000</BuildPoints>
<Cost resourcetype ='Wood'>5.0000</Cost>
<Cost resourcetype ='Gold'>0.0000</Cost>
<BuildingWorkRate>1.0000</BuildingWorkRate>
<AllowedAge>0</AllowedAge>
<Decay delay ='0.0000' duration ='0.0000'></Decay>
<Armor type ='Siege' value ='0.0000'></Armor>
<UnitType>LogicalTypeValidSabotage</UnitType>
<UnitType>LogicalTypeVillagersAttack</UnitType>
<UnitType>LogicalTypeHandUnitsAttack</UnitType>
<UnitType>LogicalTypeShipsAndBuildings</UnitType>
<UnitType>LogicalTypeRangedUnitsAttack</UnitType>
<UnitType>LogicalTypeMinimapFilterMilitary</UnitType>
<UnitType>BuildingClass</UnitType>
<UnitType>AbstractWall</UnitType>
<UnitType>MilitaryBuilding</UnitType>
<UnitType>ColonyBuilding</UnitType>
<UnitType>Building</UnitType>
<UnitType>CountsTowardMilitaryScore</UnitType>
<UnitType>HasBountyValue</UnitType>
<Tech row ='0' page ='1' column ='0'>Bastion</Tech>
<Flag>CollidesWithProjectiles</Flag>
<Flag>StartsAtFullEfficiency</Flag>
<Flag>Immoveable</Flag>
<Flag>NoBloodOnDeath</Flag>
<Flag>ObscuresUnits</Flag>
<Flag>NonAutoFormedUnit</Flag>
<Flag>Doppled</Flag>
<Flag>SelectWithObstruction</Flag>
<Flag>PaintTextureWhenPlacing</Flag>
<Flag>FlattenGround</Flag>
<Flag>ColonyBuilding</Flag>
<Flag>wallBuild</Flag>
<Flag>Tracked</Flag>
<Command page ='10' column ='0'>Delete</Command>
</Unit>

I believe it is possible, but setting it to 0 could cause other balance issues. But in theory, yes you could set the price for the pillars to 0 wood.

Thanks!
So basicly "pillars" and the "main wall" have 2 different ID which makes it pretty easy to set them different price.
My plan would be other. Players usually delete pillars nowdays to reduce wall cost. (only in sup)
Its kinda bad because its not really the way how players should use the wall. It force force players to learn this delete ability and use it evey matchup which makes game walling looking technically bad designed.
We could avoid it with set different price to "pillars" and "main walls"(idk how to say this part in english).
For example: Pillars change wood cost to: 1
Main wall change wood cost to: 10
In this case wallers pay normally for walls and makes deleting pillars unnecessary. It makes it user friendly.
Btw my main plan would be 5/45 wood but community is pretty conservative and fear about changes.
I made a post compare outpost to walls and 5 walls which cost 50 can be same effective as an outpost which is 250. And waller players just make it worse by deleting and make 5 wall cost 25 wood...
Its an unused price/value screw right now.

Walls actually have 7 different ID numbers associated with them.

<Unit id ='611' name ='WallConnector'>
<Unit id ='482' name ='CWallGate'>
<Unit id ='374' name ='WallStraight1'>
<Unit id ='405' name ='WallStraight2'>
<Unit id ='406' name ='WallStraight3'>
<Unit id ='407' name ='WallStraight4'>
<Unit id ='375' name ='WallStraight5'>

Villagers can only build 3 of these however.

<Train row ='0' page ='255' column ='1'>WallStraight2</Train>
<Train row ='0' page ='255' column ='1'>WallStraight5</Train>
<Train row ='0' page ='6' column ='8'>WallConnector</Train>

I have absolutely no idea what 1, 3, and 4 do. My guess would be they are associated with the single player campaign in some way. Most likely the walls/gates used over trade routes as you could not rebuild them. I'd have to basically create my own mini fan patch to enable them to see.

As for your idea, I understand the sentiment from watching some of the tournament games. I would agree there is some issues with how walls are designed, and the pillars are an issue. I can bring this up with the patch team as I'm in conversations with them currently, however this is a balance change at the same time. People still may delete wall segments even with that change. Another option would be to make them so you couldn't delete the pillars, however that could cause other issues.

[/spoiler]

[fightinfrenchman]

Getting rid of walls would be ridiculous, that's just changing the game to make it suit you better.

[Mr_Bramboy]

Walls or the ability to wall have a place. Almost all rts games have this ability.

Yeah, except the biggest RTS of all time..

[thebritish]

no walls=no patch players

[britishmusketeer]

Walls or the ability to wall have a place. Almost all rts games have this ability.

Yeah, except the biggest RTS of all time..

I think he was talking about using buildings as walls which you can do in sc2(assuming that's what you are talking about)

[[Armag] diarouga]

You can wall in sc2.

[britishmusketeer]

You can wall in sc2.

thats what i just said...

[Dsy]

No need to delete them, just rework.
First there is a way to remove advantage by using the "delete pillar glitch". It should be implement to the game. (set different price for; pillars/ 1 wood cost and straight walls/ 10 wood cost)

Second it should cost more. But lets just fix the glitch first which remove the advantage by using a game bug.

[n0el]

You can wall in sc you can wall sc 2, you can wall in RA. You can wall in aoe2.

[Cometk]

deletion of pillars isn't a glitch, it's the use of a hotkey that can be changed in the hotkeys menu. it takes game knowledge, macro, and even still it can be done poorly... lotta players end up with gaps in there walls because they make them incorrectly.

[britishmusketeer]

You can wall in sc you can wall sc 2, you can wall in RA. You can wall in aoe2.

you can also wall in aoe3 without walls

[n0el]

True.

[Magnam]

I would say that walls have their place in aoe3. The maps are way too open to remove walls completle and u don't really have a nice grid like sc2 or aoe2, so walling with buildings is pretty annoying and by far not as effective as it is in sc2.
I like the idea to make a wall limit before age4. So that u can only place like 5-10 pieces or sth like that and after age4 u can place as many as u want.

[deleted_user]

I like your avatar, love that album.

[Dsy]

deletion of pillars isn't a glitch, it's the use of a hotkey that can be changed in the hotkeys menu. it takes game knowledge, macro, and even still it can be done poorly... lotta players end up with gaps in there walls because they make them incorrectly.

Its a glitch. And the main problem it requires micro and game knowledge but it shouldnt.
A newcoming players shouldnt be to force using walls like that. How disappointing to hear "you need set your hotkeys to delete unnecessary pillars which is built by ur brainless villagers, but even then you need to do it good or otherwise there will be gaps in your walls"

Or: Click on walls and use it!

Decide you which is user friendly.

[Cometk]

what is your solution?

[momuuu]

fuck walls and all that they stand for

[Dsy]

Set different price for; pillars/ 1 wood cost and straight walls/ 10 wood cost.

In this case new players arent forced to learn glitch. They are fine without that.