FPI - limiting unit levels a contradiction?

[mbabuskov]

FWIW, I'd like to say that I completely agree with what Neoriceisgood wrote, and IMHO things should stay as they are now.

As for many different types of units, IMO it's very good. Look at, for example, Heroes of Might and Magic III. One of the things that make that game playable for years is that it has a large diversity of units. It has 8 factions + elementals (9), each having 7 units with and without upgrades. That makes 9*7*2 = 126 unit types. Plus it has many non-aligned creatures, IIRC totaling the number at 200-something. And I haven't heard anyone complaining.

[cobretti]

cobretti: Using grayscale to superimpose images on one graphic is a radical idea, particularly for pixel drawing. I doubt any current graphic tool supports such a thing.

What I am asking are two things:

1- Should factions have distinct colours for their units?
2- What pixel editing feature would most help artists produce animated images?

I think Loyalist Dwarves should look like Loyalists and Rebel Dwarves look like Rebels.

If pixel editors could generate intermediate frames, it would reduce the effort considerably.

I found http://tsugumo.swoo.net/tutorial/ informative.

Grayscale idea has some drawbacks, no matter if it's a radical one or not. I was just telling them.

Factions already have different colors, if you activate the 'Show team colors' option
(Seriously, it works better than just recoloring some pixels inside the sprite, which could be confusing depending of the sprite)

Intermediate frames is a very difficult thing to automate, unless you are working with master lines, and not complete graphics. And, even in that case, is difficult to obtain what you really want. That is the reason because of those tools are usually expensive.

[Dacyn]

Factions already have different colors, if you activate the 'Show team colors' option

Factions are different from teams. Often a scenario will have a faction on two different teams, and most scenarios will not use consistent colors for factions.
but I agree that this works better; I don't think distinguishing factions is important.

When any system stops working for a unit, something's wrong.

The goal of leveling is to get to lvl 3, basically. When a unit gets to lvl 3 then it has achieved the purpose of leveling, so why should it level more?

Deliberately limiting a system, so it will stop working is bad, imho.

There obviously has to be some limit, unless level advancement powers are determined by a formula. I don't think setting the limit at three is a problem; units are already very powerful at that point.

[Jetrel]

oy...

here's an idea that apparently no one has come up with yet. I have to agree with blackbeard - it's a real let down when I can no longer level a unit.

Also, it's very aggravating when .. for example .. a high level unit of mine gets killed without contest on a turn - such that nothing I do can prevent his getting killed.


Instead of making higher level units more powerful in terms of raw HP and damage, how about making them both more resistant to damage and giving them stronger abilities than they already have.

To wit, Make them harder to kill, but not better at killing.

Units who are good at a certain type of combat should gain defensive skill in that type of combat (with obvious exceptions, like archers). It is very reasonable to think of a 5th level Elvish fighter being able to roll with blows, and parry strikes away from the more critical parts of his body.

It's also reasonable to think that Delfador could ward away many types of magic.

As for abilities - How about a fifth level Druid/Shyde/sidhe having an entanglement ability that affects all adjacent enemies, causing them to take an extra move point/double normal move points for the first step whenever they move out of a square next to the shyde.

Or for healers, allow them to cure poison and heal on the same turn.

Or, for archers - "first strike" being able to get one shot off before the enemy, even if the enemy attacks them.

Or, for avengers - hit and run (with only one attack per turn), perhaps?

etc.


I reiterate: Make them harder to kill, but not better at killing than existing third level units.

This would solve a lot of the "balance problems," as they would be no better at ruining the lives of enemy units, but would be much tougher to remove from the game, and thus, much more fun for the main player to play with.


On top of that, it is appropriate for a certain select few units to be superpowerful - leader units. Make that dread lich something that even third level units must combat in large teams. Everything should have one weakness that remains into their highest level (the dread lich's would be - impact/holy melee), but they should be able to gain much greater defense at what they are good at.

[Jetrel]

Oh yeah - and no matter what, units with leadership should have one level above everyone else, lest their ability become useless.

one might argue - "it's not useless - you'll always have lower level units needing to be brought up" No, I definitely won't. After about the 6-7th level of Heir to the throne, all my units are at least at level three, and all that the Marshal is worth is as a stunted Champion.

Due to the economics of that scenario, you can't consistently field an army of more than 20 guys, which is why all of my troops are at level 3. The only ones that aren't (mermen, dwarves which you get so late in the scenario) are in terrain the Marshall can't get into (deep water), or terrain that he at least can't keep pace with his troops in (shallow water, caves).


The other balance problem that needs to be fixed is that leaders tend to fall behind their troops in xp. The only counter is to constantly involve the leader in combat, the leader which takes far more xp to level up than his equivalent fighter counterpart. How about this:
Give leaders experience for using their leadership ability. Not much - perhaps 1 xp per subordinate fight, and 2 xp per subordinate successfully killing an enemy.

[miyo]

I don't want super units in Wesnoth, units dying is expected in Wesnoth.

- Miyo

[Insinuator]

I don't want super units in Wesnoth, units dying is expected in Wesnoth.

Yes, let them die!

But, Miyo has a good point. Though keeping units alive is nice, they need to die. I reiterate a previous point: BFW is not an RPG. It has RPG elements, but fundamentally, it is a TBS. In an RPG, units can not die, or if they do, they must be ressurected somehow. In a TBS, units die often. Not as much as in an RTS, so you get a little attached. Wesnoth is like that. Limit the units abilities period and then let them die. Sad, but necessary.

[Dacyn]

otherwise what is the point of HP

[Viliam]

Wesnoth is like that. Limit the units abilities period and then let them die. Sad, but necessary.

An evil idea:
Units on the highest level cannot advance, they can only become old. This means - for each additional 30XP they lose 1HP. Slowly they become so fragile that any successful attack will kill them. This is what usually happens to old people.

[Blackbeard]

When any system stops working for a unit, something's wrong.

The goal of leveling is to get to lvl 3, basically. When a unit gets to lvl 3 then it has achieved the purpose of leveling, so why should it level more?

Deliberately limiting a system, so it will stop working is bad, imho.

There obviously has to be some limit, unless level advancement powers are determined by a formula. I don't think setting the limit at three is a problem; units are already very powerful at that point.

I agree with you as you quoted me, but those statements are out of context:

1- In most First Person Shooter (FPS), the reward system is kills. If you play a 10 level game and it stops recording your kills after you made 5 or 6 kills, something is wrong. If health boosters stop working, that's okay, health bonses are extra rewards.

2- If (taking the FPS example), the game manual states: 'In this game, you kill as many enemies as possible, up to a limit of 6', that is bad. However, if it also states: 'The machine gun shoots 40 rounds a second, up to a magazine limit of 50', that's okay.

There are different kinds of limits, some make the game more exciting and challenging, others just spoil the fun.

Unlike FPS (kill reward), Wesnoth allows you to level many units, not just one, so the impact is less noticeable.

Clearly, campaigns need to balance experience points with level gains, since there are limits ( even FPS kill counter will stop working at some limit). I understand the need to keep reward systems valuable and, hopefully, 5 levels will do that without Wesonth losing its unique position among games.

[Jetrel]

I don't usually lose any units when I play RTS games. It's more fun that way.

And in response to Miyo's post, I'm not proposing general super units. That would be really bad for gameplay. What I am posing is that there should be a few very strong (yet still vulnerable to certain factors) leader units.


Units of any level die way too easily in wesnoth right now, both for you and the computer.

Short of raw HP, which is a very crude and granular measurement, there is no way to take into account the skill of a unit in defense against a certain type of attack.

We already have the mechanisms to do it (resistance), we just aren't using them for higher level units. The idea is, to only make higher level units resistant to a few types of damage - a level 5 royal guard, for example, would be resistant only to blade and impact damage - NOTHING else.

The level 5 royal guard would have perhaps 5 more hp than the current level 3 one, (I would suggest lowering the HP on the current level 3 guys), and would have no more powerful of an attack.


This would make it possible for these guys to soak up the brunt of an assault, and yet would prevent common problems of hp inflation - an attack with just one or two arch-magi or archers could ruin their day.


This would serve to further enhance the differences in the capabilities of units in wesnoth.

[Jetrel]

Forcing unit death is dumb. It's fun, but only in multiplayer. And besides the point, who would get one of the 5th level units I'm proposing in a multiplayer game, anyways?


the only way they would, would be by fighting in some battle royale with hundreds of units, in which case even the level five guys I'm proposing could easily die. And they would be very useful for protecting your other units.


A player spends hours cultivating a couple high-end units. Killing them is, for players like me, unacceptable. I edit the save file so they won't die, and proceed, but I wish the rules were stacked a lot more favorably.



I mean, I'm a pretty good player of this game - I can fight and win against three allied computers in multiplayer fairly. This has nothing to do with skill - rather it has everything to do with luck.

If I deserve a death in single player, I'll take it. And even some deaths by bad luck for low-level units, I'll swallow those, too.

But when a single enemy unit slips out of nowhere and kills a full-health unit that is at a higher level than it is, that's not fun. Not fun at all. Fair is when you have some means to prevent it, such as putting units capable of defense in front of it. But as it's stacked right now, we have none. Only our highest level melee fighters are capable of some form of defense, and even that can be broken by 2 (count em, 2!) enemies of lower level, on most terrain. Units generally only have good defense on one type of terrain, especially with the elves in Heir to the Throne.



Thing is, I'm always playing the campaign on "easy" and it still happens. It's no challenge to win the levels, but it's near impossible to win without losing some vital unit.

Back when I played Myth: The Fallen Lords, I made a point of not losing my troops. On the hardest difficulty, that was impossible. However, it was quite possible on the easiest difficulty.

The same should be true of Wesnoth.

[miyo]

What I am posing is that there should be a few very strong (yet still vulnerable to certain factors) leader units.

Very strong units -> tanks -> you use them in front lines to "take" all the damage and then switch to less experienced units to feed on xp. This breaks the balance.

Units of any level die way too easily in wesnoth right now, both for you and the computer.

Units are expected to die... and they do... I like it.

Short of raw HP, which is a very crude and granular measurement, there is no way to take into account the skill of a unit in defense against a certain type of attack.

Wesnoth is not skills based game... next project we take can be different.

We already have the mechanisms to do it (resistance), we just aren't using them for higher level units. The idea is, to only make higher level units resistant to a few types of damage - a level 5 royal guard, for example, would be resistant only to blade and impact damage - NOTHING else.

As I already said... tanks.

- Miyo

[Jetrel]

(a striking demonstration of two polarized opinions)


NO, nonono, that's exactly what we need! We need tanks! Desperately. - the game is unbalanced right now, which makes it aggravating for people like me, who don't like having advanced units die.


Just because the game works one way right now doesn't mean that way is right.

The whole idea of having difficulty levels is to allow both sides of this argument to be able to enjoy the game. I don't like having more than a few units die. I'll have perhaps 40 units over the course of a campaign, perhaps 5-8 will die. The only way I can accomplish this right now is by cheating. Many commercial games are poorly balanced, and have cheat codes to account for all those player types that the creators did not take into account. The fact that these players must cheat to enjoy the game cheapens the experience.

You are talking to one, perhaps two of those people right now. This is an opportunity to not make the same myopic mistake that many commercial game makers do.

Make it so that all players (you included) can play according to a style that pleases them, and yet still face a challenge.


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here's a comparison. When I play Warcraft III, there are two strategies (amongst many others) that work to win with. The first involves building a small, powerful force of troops that can weather attacks well, but takes a good deal of time and effort (and careful structure) to maintain.

The second involves building many weaker units and using them to overwhelm your opponent. I get the impression that that is how you play wesnoth, as when your advanced troops die you have nothing you can replace them with besides the weakest units in the game.

I'm the type of player that builds less troops and tries to upgrade them as much as possible. Currently, that option is not available to me in Wesnoth.

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The point is this - give people the option of choosing play style, preferably through the difficulty setting.

This brings me to a little rule of mine.



[/quote]

[Jetrel]

My rule, for any game I produce, but which I opine that all games should follow:

Every game should have a difficulty level at which a truly experienced played can plow through the game without losing a single unit (be this a strategy game, or without dying if it is an RPG or FPS).

Likewise, every game should also have a level of difficulty that makes the most experienced player struggle to simply pass a level, let alone advance


Bungie, Blizzard and ID software all knew this very well. That is part and parcel of why their games are so dang fun - everyone can enjoy them. Some people like to really get into the game, some like to only dabble in it occasionally, but would like to be able to play it through.

Wesnoth requires high level units to win, plain and simple. In later levels, you are faced with high level units off the bat - the only recourse you have is to counter with your own, which is sometimes not enough when you have three opponents.

If your high level troops are dying all the time, then we have a bit of a contradiction here, don't we?

There is nothing that would SUCK more than playing halfway through a campaign, and then finding that it is unbeatable because you don't have enough troops at the right level. Many people, people who don't have much free time, would say this when confronted by such a thing: "Screw this." And then they would never play the game again.


Dave said earlier that one of the goals of Wesnoth was to create a game that the creator(s) enjoyed playing, not necessarily to make something that would "sell" well on the open market.

There's at least one minor contributor here (me), who does not enjoy the single player game as it stands. Usually, I'll play a round of multiplayer (vs. computer) every once in a while, but the single player campaign is too frustrating to be fun. There isn't a lot that has to change to make the game fun for me.


The key thing here, is that you perceive this as a threat to your ability to enjoy the game. I want a solution that does not harm your experience. You matter.

But, I want mine, too, dangit.


We should use the difficulty setting to do what it was intended to do, rather than using it as a # of enemies setting. That doesn't make the game any more difficult, it just gives your men more xp, which makes them level faster, and makes you max out the levels even earlier. This creates another balance problem.