Remove Berserk - Add Fatigue

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shevegen
Posts: 497
Joined: June 3rd, 2004, 4:35 pm

Remove Berserk - Add Fatigue

Post by shevegen »

This suggestion is two in one, sort of.

So first, berserk.

Berserk is that ability where one until will die in the end. I hate this. It is the single ability I really really hate the most.

The reason is threefold:

- It annoys me to lose units to berserk suicide kamikaze runs.
- I find that berserk limits MY OWN possibilities since I can not use the unit against stronger units easily and thus lose it.
- It is not realistic if two fight one another for 5000 hours when in the rest of the combat, the units have only a limited strike.

I do not necessarily suggest to remove the berserk ability as such, but instead change it to something like a limited amount of strikes. Something like "at max three rounds of combat", so that a 5x5 unit can do their 5x attack for 5 damage each, 3 times in total. That's still a lot. I just hate infinite attack loops really.

At the same time I would like to suggest fatigue. It makes no sense that a single unit can defend against 6 other units or even more if some units die and new ones rush in, for 100% strength each. There should be fatigue, aka less damage. I don't care at which point fatigue kicks in but I would say that it starts AFTER the first round for ALL units that fight against a berserk unit INCLUDING the unit that has berserk. Fatigue could mean -1 damage or something like that. Fatigue goes away at the end of the round, so that when it is your turn, it is gone again. But for as long as the fight is ongoing in this round, fatigue remains.

The idea is that units get tired after a while of fighting. Again, not sure about the cap but ... something reasonable. Like if you already fought 4 units, if you fight the fifth unit, your strength goes down by -1 (I mean damage output).

New abilities could be added to counter fatigue-effects such as endurance or such.

It's for a similar reason I suggested that arrows/ammunition is not infinite. But I don't care so much about arrows, whereas berserk I really find hugely annoying. I am currently playing an add-on campaign which is interesting, but one area is where berserk units arrive from all sides and keep on pounding the same units into oblivion in their suicide runs - and I am sorry but there is NOTHING strategic about this anymore. Sure, that map is also a joke, but I really begin to dislike the berserk ability. I don't think it's a lot of fun.

I understand a strategic component to it and I am not necessarily suggesting to flat out remove it (even if I would not mind if it is gone), but my main aim is to make berserk somewhat more fair. And the distinction simply is that it should not be an infinite loop since that breaks game mechanics FOR ALL THE OTHER UNITS out there, who have a finite and limited amount of strikes.

So please change that.

I think you may perhaps even be able to reach an infinite loop ... have units with slow effect and low damage output like 1 to begin with or so... not sure if it can be done but it'll be the battle of the feeble.
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octalot
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Re: Remove Berserk - Add Fatigue

Post by octalot »

I like the idea of fatigue, in the same way that you might want to slow an opponent before a second unit attacks, planning to fatigue them would also work.

For berserk, the engine itself supports configuring the number of repeats of berserk, so the add-on author could configure the fighters to stop after 2 or 3 rounds, but that would be up to the add-on author themselves. When it's limited*, it's normally renamed as well, for example aggression or rage.

There's an add-on called "berserk limiter" that will reduce the maximum.

[trivia]* technically it's always limited, but the built-in limit is 30[/trivia]
Landiss
Posts: 34
Joined: May 18th, 2018, 6:48 pm

Re: Remove Berserk - Add Fatigue

Post by Landiss »

At the same time I would like to suggest fatigue. It makes no sense that a single unit can defend against 6 other units or even more if some units die and new ones rush in, for 100% strength each.
This is in the frequent proposed (but denied) ideas list:
viewtopic.php?t=34904#w0fpi10
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Pentarctagon
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Joined: March 22nd, 2009, 10:50 pm
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Re: Remove Berserk - Add Fatigue

Post by Pentarctagon »

Relatedly, moved to Ideas.
99 little bugs in the code, 99 little bugs
take one down, patch it around
-2,147,483,648 little bugs in the code
enclave
Posts: 936
Joined: December 15th, 2007, 8:52 am

Re: Remove Berserk - Add Fatigue

Post by enclave »

shevegen wrote: June 23rd, 2018, 5:21 pm So please change that.
Well spoken! I wanted to add something to what shevegen said, I hate that my king dies when enemy kills it, please change that too, I want my leader to be a highest immortal being on the planet, so I don't need to save reload.. To be honest I would just prefer to win every map with just one leader, why would you need to recruit other units? There is no castle sometimes on some maps and it annoys me very much. So we could just add some super-abilities and magic to the kings, actually I don't care too much about magic, just add super-abilities and maybe regeneration of 56hp, because that's how much 2 enemy lawful units can inflict at day if lucky. So please change these things because it makes sense.

Now jokes apart... I like berserk ability, so could you tell me why would somebody change something for 1 single person?

And jokes apart again.. If you don't like a specific campaign, just find out the author name of this campaign and address your ideas to that person.
Add-on/campaign makers can change many many things to your liking, there could be a modification just like you described (and exactly like somebody mentioned above there is a berserk limiter add-on, all you have to do is download that add-on and when you start a new campaign apply that modification add-on to your campaign, you will see modifications listed below and just need to tick ones you want. Just type "berserk" in search when you download add-ons, you should be able to find it, and if it doesn't work well, then again, address your ideas to the author of that add-on).

Basically your idea of berserk and fatigue is an easy job to code, or at least not something extremely hard to do at all. Just find add-on maker who could code it for you if these modifications don't exist yet. Try "half civ" add-on, there is something like fatigue you described, if you feel like it would add a lot of joy to your games.. but nobody will change the whole Wesnoth mechanics for the liking of 1 single person. Many people played Wesnoth for 10+ years, and changing berserk to limited strikes would kind of break these people world apart don't you think?
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BTIsaac
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Joined: December 7th, 2017, 7:30 am

Re: Remove Berserk - Add Fatigue

Post by BTIsaac »

LotI already has lesser berserk (x2, x3 and x5 variations). It's actually pretty useful when an enemy has it and I can attack it with an ability that doesn't permit retaliation.
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