Experience Matters

[Sangel]

I've been pondering ways to make it easier to advance "tricky" units like the Elvish Shaman, without unbalancing the current XP progression system too much. Anyway, one concept I came up with is "vicarious" XP.

It's simple enough: If a unit is beside a friendly unit when it makes a kill, it gains 1XP (or possibly the level of the unit being killed in XP). Note that this only applies to finishing blows.

This way units behind-the-lines, such as healers, will be able to progress slowly even if they're unable to dodge out and score kills - a dicy proposition with a 3-2 attack, at any rate.


Other thought, probably expressed before: Healers should gain 1XP per turn in which they heal/cure someone.


Thirdly: It seems a bit wasteful when you have only 2XP to advance and you kill a third level unit worth (24? 32?) XP. Perhaps excess XP should roll over onto the new unit?

[Dave]

I've been pondering ways to make it easier to advance "tricky" units like the Elvish Shaman, without unbalancing the current XP progression system too much. Anyway, one concept I came up with is "vicarious" XP.

It's simple enough: If a unit is beside a friendly unit when it makes a kill, it gains 1XP (or possibly the level of the unit being killed in XP). Note that this only applies to finishing blows.

This has been suggested before in the form of the 'wise' trait -- i.e. 'wise' units can get experience like this, others can't.

I think I kinda prefer it as only units with the trait being able to get it, instead of all units.

Thirdly: It seems a bit wasteful when you have only 2XP to advance and you kill a third level unit worth (24? 32?) XP. Perhaps excess XP should roll over onto the new unit?

This is part of the strategy.

David

[turin]

Thirdly: It seems a bit wasteful when you have only 2XP to advance and you kill a third level unit worth (24? 32?) XP. Perhaps excess XP should roll over onto the new unit?

then don't kill it with the unit that only needs two. it is important to know when a unit should get a kill and when a different unit should. if you want it to advance, don't have it get the kill. when it just fights the unit it will advance, if it only needs 2XP.
(BTW:
0th level=4
1st=8
2nd=16
3rd=24
4th=32
... each level worth 8, and 0th worth 4)

[Boucman]

thx, Turin, I've been looking for that kind of spoiler.

another idea on the same theme

rather than gaining XP for all adjacent friendly units having a kill, why not gain XP for all adjacent ennemy units being killed, this way there would still be incesitives to put these units in the heart of battle.

that doesn't really solve the problem of low xp for healers, but I think it would be better for the "wise" trait which would be overly powerfull conpared to other traits in it's orginal forme.

[Darth Fool]

thx, Turin, I've been looking for that kind of spoiler.

another idea on the same theme

rather than gaining XP for all adjacent friendly units having a kill, why not gain XP for all adjacent ennemy units being killed, this way there would still be incesitives to put these units in the heart of battle.

that doesn't really solve the problem of low xp for healers, but I think it would be better for the "wise" trait which would be overly powerfull conpared to other traits in it's orginal forme.

Oooh, I like it. I can just see the wise unit now, thinking to emself, "That looked like a really dumb thing to do. Got the poor basXXXd killed. Better not do that myself."

I would however suggest that it not be restricted to just enemy units. One can probably learn just as well from watching a friendly unit die....

[Kamahawk]

I've been pondering ways to make it easier to advance "tricky" units like the Elvish Shaman, without unbalancing the current XP progression system too much.

The shaman is not hard to advance.

[Sangel]

Given that you need to reduce an enemy to <3 HP without killing it before you have a reasonable hope of killing it with a shaman, I beg to differ.

[Kamahawk]

Against undead the impact damage will be 4 and with a leader near by it will be 5. If your attacking a skelliton in water you will have a 70% chance to hit it. A shaman could easily kill a skelliton or even revenant with 10 or less hit points in that kind of situation.

BTW I happen to have 3 shydes in my army at the moment and getting more would not be a chalange, for me its not that dificult.

[miyo]

Elvish Shaman are not hard to advance, I have had many Druids and Shydes. It is matter of tactics.

- Miyo

[Boucman]

I would however sugest that it not be restricted to just enemy units. One can probably learn just as well from watching a friendly unit die....

true, but if you do that units wiith the "wise trait will still get some xp when on the second line of battle, and the actual "use" of the unit would change, which is what I wanted to avoid. moreover, the extra xp would be much more important, theses units would gain level much much faster. think wise+intelligent...

[Ave]

Yes, there is a slight problem with advancing healer units.
They are soft, and not for combat. Yet, to get them advanced, you must move them front line, or do cheesy things like bringing the enemy down to a few hp's and then doing a 'coup de grace' with the healer unit. Contrary to the 'wise' trait, which would be a random trait, so it doesn't really work right, what about giving healer units XP when they actually heal someone.

Scholars could be a special unit as Dave mentioned before.

[turin]

Yes, there is a slight problem with advancing healer units.
They are soft, and not for combat. Yet, to get them advanced, you must move them front line, or do cheesy things like bringing the enemy down to a few hp's and then doing a 'coup de grace' with the healer unit. Contrary to the 'wise' trait, which would be a random trait, so it doesn't really work right, what about giving healer units XP when they actually heal someone.

Scholars could be a special unit as Dave mentioned before.

they are not soft, and they are often useful in combat. what do you think the 'entangle' is for? if you attack with that, they can't attack you as well next turn, so your shaman is not really in danger.

it is not cheesy to bring enemies down to a few HP nd then have a unit needing XP kill them- it is strategy.
healers COULD get XP when they heal someone, but this would make it too easy for them to advance. if they could advance by just healing, then they would be gaining combat skills while never being in combat.
i have 3 shydes, they were not hard to get, but it took a while, like it should. they are secondary units, not primary, so it should, i think, be harder but more worth it to level them up.

[Boucman]

I agree with Turin on that one, but the "wise" trait would still be interesting...

[Darth Fool]

I would however sugest that it not be restricted to just enemy units. One can probably learn just as well from watching a friendly unit die....

true, but if you do that units wiith the "wise trait will still get some xp when on the second line of battle, and the actual "use" of the unit would change, which is what I wanted to avoid. moreover, the extra xp would be much more important, theses units would gain level much much faster. think wise+intelligent...

Yes, but if a friendly unit dies, for one thing, you have already been punished by losing a unit, and two, it potentially opens a gap where something can attack the wise otherwise well protected unit....

[tefkab]

they are not soft, and they are often useful in combat. what do you think the 'entangle' is for? if you attack with that, they can't attack you as well next turn, so your shaman is not really in danger.

If you stand at the front you are normally next to two units. One is entangled, and the other one may attack.

You are right that with the correct strategy, it is possible to level up a shaman. IMO this is not the point. The purpose of a fighter is to fight and the purpose of a healer is to heal. In my opinion a healer with the highest possible level should not be able to attack as good as a low-level fighter. This is different in wesnoth right now, but I think this would be better. Starting with the precondition that a fighter fights and a healer heals, the fighter should get XP for fighting and the healer should get XP for healing.
When a healer healed a lot he becomes better in healing, not in fighting.