FPI - limiting unit levels a contradiction?

[Blackbeard]

As an afterword, I actually do like Shyd's and Mage Of Light levelling quickly. They are powerful and don't take xp. These are exceptions because they don't have a downside. For the rest, they eat xp and slow other units levelling. And yes, I will sacrifice advanced units to win a scenario, but usually save/restore (when I remember) to avoid the loss and restarting.

[Jetrel]

And yes, I will sacrifice advanced units to win a scenario, but usually save/restore (when I remember) to avoid the loss and restarting.

ditto. Sometimes I'll just let a level 2 guy go if it was an honest mistake, but never a third.


[ I am vaguely reminded, in all of this, of those times when playing civilization, that a fighter plane of mine would die whilst fighting spearmen. How the hell is that supposed to happen? I could understand him, maybe, not killing the spearmen, but being killed himself? At such times, the game needs a revised ruleset. Period. ]


I often don't consider it fair because wesnoth does not account for units' ability to parry. This has an amazing effect on the dynamics of battle. A swordsman on open ground might be easy to pick off with an arrow, but he'd be very hard to hit with a sword.

Thing is, he has one too, and instead of just sitting there and getting sliced, he might try putting it between your blade, and his body.

It's called a parry. I think wesnoth should somehow account for the presence of such things. The only possible way that they are doing so right now is through having more hp for more skilled characters, which IMHO is a terrible way to do it.

Sorry about being snide, but I would opine that this is a ridiculous and grievous omission - no fault of anyone, really, because the game is not done yet. Let's not cling blindly to the status quo for its own sake.

Someday, I'll give these proposed edits a spin, since they all work with the current code, and I'll see if I was right about their making this a better game. If so, I'll release the config files back to the project, and I expect people to try the dam* thing before condemning it. IT MIGHT WORK BEAUTIFULLY.





One thing to keep in mind during all of this is the basic fallacy of Turn-based strategy games. Units commonly die because your enemy can gang up on and destroy a powerful melee bulkhead of your army without you being able to involve your other troops.


To a point, this is negated by positioning - units placed next to each other allow the enemy to only attack with a certain number of tiles. The idea is to put your most powerful melee unit there, on the front line, so he can keep your weaker units from dying.

The mark of a well-balanced game, at least one like this where the player puts so much into producing his units, is that the best melee units will not perish in such a situation. Under a stiff attack, they should come close to it, but then should be able to duck back to recover (if they are alone, they can't duck back and then they die). In certain rare situations, it is understandable for a unit to have a reasonable (50%*, for example - it would actually depend on the terrain) chance of dying in a single turn: one such thing would be an elvish champion getting attacked by three Royal guards. *(you wanna bet your life on a coin toss? I don't)

"but that's not fair! There's no way he would survive."

Yeah, there is, because it's not just a fight between him and the three royal guards! It is in Wesnoth, because it's TBS, but ... what the heck are all his friends standing next to him doing? NOTHING IN WESNOTH, but a lot in the real world - in the real world or in RTS, or even in more interesting TBS, they are fighting alongside him.

The counter for this, in wesnoth, is to make it so that a unit with full health will not die in a single turn unless he faces ridiculous odds.

Over a few turns, the rules of reality will set in hard - one elvish champion will die to two Royal Guards, most likely (though I like the randomness of wesnoth - this is not a certainty). With more units, the attackers can pull back when wounded and let their friends do the fighting - the analogy in the real world is of a comrade jumping into the fray before the enemy can deliver a killing blow.

In the real world (with good tactics, equivalent troops, etc), outnumbering an an enemy three to one means that they will suffer severe casualties, and you will suffer hardly any. Seriously - you will suffer perhaps a third of what your opponent does. This is part of why the mongols did so well - they attacked as a horde of 150,000, rather than as separate small armies going off to different countries.

People get wounded, and their friends dive in to try and prevent them from dying. In the real world, most men do not die in the battle but die of their wounds a few hours after.

If we followed that logic - that the men must die if they get severely wounded, konrad would be a goner the moment he got seriously wounded - he would never truly heal from that just as people in the real world often come back from wars missing a leg, or otherwise. He might survive the story, but he'd be a gimp for the rest of his life.

However, this is fantasy, where we have magic healers to patch them up. If we use that excuse to heal konrad, and other units between levels, well
dang it all we should use it for other units as well. It should be permissible for them to fall back and recuperate for some large span of time.


The fact is this - wesnoth should do something to counter the problem of being the kind of TBS game it is. A tough unit should not usually die in a single turn (if he has only 2-3 units attacking him because of his position) because it gives adjacent friendlies no time to help him, and negates the whole point of putting troops in any formation. A solid wall of troops with the tough ones in front is the best formation with wesnoth the way it is now, but that is an idiotic formation in the real world.

Over two turns, nature takes its course - the better strategy will win. Right now, flanking, and real military maneuvers are a joke in wesnoth, because the fight is over before they happen.





Until I attempt this edit, I'm out of this discussion. All these words and all this reason won't change your minds - you need to see it for yourself.

[Dave]

I often don't consider it fair because wesnoth does not account for units' ability to parry. This has an amazing effect on the dynamics of battle. A swordsman on open ground might be easy to pick off with an arrow, but he'd be very hard to hit with a sword.

This is taken into account a few ways:

(1) by making the unit difficult to hit. Admitteldy this doesn't make him easier to hit with a bow, but this is a simplification Wesnoth intentionally makes.
(2) by giving him higher resistance to blade and blunt attacks.

A common theme throughout Wesnoth is that common actions are implied. Parries are implied. If you have 60% chance to hit someone, that's not because you're incompetent at using your sword, but rather that he has a good chance of parrying your attack.

In general though, the addition of explicit parrying rules would basically lead to 'super units' that are unkillable by weak melee units. This is something that was intentionally avoided in Wesnoth's design.

Most designers would have some kind of adjustment values of the attacker's chance to hit based on skill, and the defender's chance to parry based on skill. This was intentionally avoided in Wesnoth's system, for simplicity, and to make it that higher level units are not too super.

I do think that the system you propose has some qualities as a game rule, however I will give one simple reason why it wouldn't work in Wesnoth at the moment: the AI will not be able to deal with it. Until someone can write an AI that could handle it, I don't think it can succeed.

Someday, I'll give these proposed edits a spin, since they all work with the current code, and I'll see if I was right about their making this a better game. If so, I'll release the config files back to the project, and I expect people to try the dam* thing before condemning it. IT MIGHT WORK BEAUTIFULLY.

This isn't about 'condeming ideas', but about explaining why design decisions are made, and why we feel they are good, sensible design decisions. Sure, if someone put serious effort into a patch, we'd try it out.

A] Just like it is now, except change the name to reflect what is actually does. A setting to affect the number of units that the enemy produces.

{restless gangs}
{fielded armies}
{raging hordes}

b] And then have a difficulty level, much as it is presented now, but have it scale some factor other than number of enemies.

Difficulty level is not currently used simply to increase the number of enemies. That is one thing that it does, but in fact a scenario designer can do just about anything they want with it. Some of the things that are done are,

- making tougher enemies appear
- adjusting the number of turns allowed to complete a scenario
- adjusting the power of your allies
- making scenario objectives different


Also, I strongly disagree with the notion that 'fewer enemies isn't easier, because you just get less experience'. To start with, with fewer enemies, there is much less threat to your units, and your chances of winning the battle. This lets you have the space to more carefully plan which units you are going to concentrate on getting experience.

When I am hard-pressed in a battle, and am desperately trying to win, I have to concentrate on killing enemies, so they can't kill me. I can't afford to use weaker attacks to subdue an opponent so a level 1 unit can get the kill -- I have all my work cut out for me just getting the kills.

On many scenarios in harder difficulty levels, I can't even recruit or recall any 1st level units at all, because my higher level units have all the work cut out for themselves just winning the scenario.

And then there are units dying. One of your main complaints is that so many of your units die, but now you're complaining that fewer enemies is in fact easier because you level-up faster. Surely fewer enemies also mean many less units of yours die! I know it means that for me.

And then there's gold. On easy you can finish off a scenario far faster than on the harder difficulty levels. That means a much higher gold bonus for the next scenario.

Imo this whole thing about 'easy not being easier because of less experience' is an unproven myth, that has a small element of truth to it that is overwhelmed by the factors that actually do make easy easier.

I also think that changing units damage based on difficulty would work very very badly. Who wants to play a 'hard' level where enemies do twice as much damage as you? This would make your units die far worse than they do at the moment on hard level.

One idea that could work on harder levels is to make experience requirements go up. I'd actually be kinda in favor of that, in combination with the differences already used.

David

[Dacyn]

I often don't consider it fair because wesnoth does not account for units' ability to parry.

You mean that units in Wesnoth do not have the ability to parry. Wesnoth does not exist.

Yeah, there is, because it's not just a fight between him and the three royal guards! It is in Wesnoth, because it's TBS, but ... what the heck are all his friends standing next to him doing? NOTHING IN WESNOTH, but a lot in the real world - in the real world or in RTS, or even in more interesting TBS, they are fighting alongside him.

no they are not, They are 1 hex away, which is about a mile.

People get wounded, and their friends dive in to try and prevent them from dying. In the real world, most men do not die in the battle but die of their wounds a few hours after.

Once they are mortally wounded, Wesnoth considers them dead. Remember a turn is 4 hours, this is enough time for them to actually die.

If we followed that logic - that the men must die if they get severely wounded, konrad would be a goner the moment he got seriously wounded - he would never truly heal from that just as people in the real world often come back from wars missing a leg, or otherwise. He might survive the story, but he'd be a gimp for the rest of his life.

KISS. This is not important enough, IMO, to exist in Wesnoth. (And it would be annoying, too. Would you like having your lvl 5 guard lose a leg- remember, this does not affect the chance he has of actually dying)

The fact is this - wesnoth should do something to counter the problem of being the kind of TBS game it is.

Wesnoth is not what it is not.

Over two turns, nature takes its course - the better strategy will win. Right now, flanking, and real military maneuvers are a joke in wesnoth, because the fight is over before they happen.

Stop trying to make Wesnoth realistic! Have you read Wesnoth Philosophy?

[Insinuator]

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.

That does not matter for BfW. They are not trying to sell this game. Just because you, one insignificant, puny, opinionated person doesn't like it, well, too bad. It is obvious from the extraordinarily long posts that no one, except for perhaps blackbeard, agrees with you. And believe me, I read them all. BfW has close to 500 registered users. Not a lot, but certainly enough to veto one idea (or group). This is not a the U.S. governmental system. The little guy don't win (especially when he is completely wrong on so many levels). I would say more, but it has been reiterated so often I tire of it.

[Sangel]

Not particularly politely phrased, Insinuator, but you do have a point.

Most people in the community don't particularly want this level of detail, or miss the fact that it's not there. I really don't care about the lack of parrying, units fighting alongside each other, or a detailed wound system. It's just not important to me.

I suspect that most other players agree.

[Dave]

Ermm yeah, you might try to be a little politer Insinuator, but there is a point to be had here...

Jetryl is arguing in favor of the 'casual player', yet on the other hand he wants the game to be made more complex by having a more sophisticated parrying and wounding system. I don't see how this makes any sense.

Btw I have had quite a few people tell me that they 'normally don't like strategy games at all', but that they just love BfW because it makes it simple and easy for them.

David

[Roel]

Btw I have had quite a few people tell me that they 'normally don't like strategy games at all', but that they just love BfW because it makes it simple and easy for them.
David

Thats true, I suck at every strategy game, including BfW, but I'm still playing. I don't need a wounding system, I allready have to pay attention to terrain type, XP points and not getting my ass kicked.

[Integral]

Btw I have had quite a few people tell me that they 'normally don't like strategy games at all', but that they just love BfW because it makes it simple and easy for them.

I'll vote for this too -- the only other serious "strategy" game that I've played much is chess, which is even more abstracted than Wesnoth.

Daniel

[Insinuator]

Ermm yeah, you might try to be a little politer Insinuator, but there is a point to be had here...

Sorry. I am afraid I am often too blunt. Just got kind of annoyed that Jetryl did not get the point. I must say, some of the ideas were not bad, in fact, a few were quite good. But that wasn't the point obviously. It would not be BfW then. It would be just another commercial game. And the vast majority of people who develop Wesnoth don't want that. Very simple.

I should offer my sincerest apologies though if I may have offended you Jetryl. I hold nothing against you personally. I just view every human as insignificant and puny, myself included.