Is there a way to get a score at end of campaigns?

[revolushn]

Ok, so im new (this is my second post). I read the required posts before posting this, and i do hope that I wont be villified for posting my idea. I also have been reading on here for about a year before signing up. I looked through about 15 pages of ideas and did searches to see if this has been asked (the only one i found was in a developers discussion post and it was really answered).

So after my little 'disclaimer", let me say that Wesnoth is seriously better than any other game I have ever played (or bought). I have spent literally hundreds of hours playing, much to the annoyance of my girlfriend

What would really make me replay campaigns (more accurately - enjoy replaying campaigns, as I do often anyways) would be having a score of somesort at the end. Possibly even just a gif or something that could be saved, saying what units I ended up with, how good they were, how much gold I finished with etc. Then I could go back and try to do it better. I could then try different things like attempting to finish a campaign without recruiting archers or mages or horses and compare the results at the end.

Some people might not find this fun, but I would. For example, I have finished HttT five times now on Medium difficulty, and once on hard, and have what units and gold I finished with written down on pieces of paper - yes, I have basically made my own certificates of achievement... Is that really really wrong?

Anyway, I apologise profusely if this has already been asked. Like I said I have looked for a similar question and couldnt find it. Also, again, thank you for such an awesome game.

- rev

[Sangel]

Hmmmm. This isn't such a bad idea, really. It would be nice if Wesnoth could produce a summary of your campaign from the final data set. It could contain the statistics that Wesnoth already tracks, along with any other pertinent data that was already available. If compressed using our save compression technique, it would be both small and difficult to edit without compromising it in some way. On the other hand, then you'd have the question of how it would be read. There'd probably need to be something new integrated into the UI, which could add clutter. And maintenance overhead on the code.

[AI]

"Compressed save" means nothing more than gzipping the savefile, which is trivial to undo and redo under *nix.

While cheating is terribly simple, this could still be a good idea.

[vicza]

Actually, the total statistics, of entire campaign, is already available. So, you can see, how much units were recruited, how much advanced etc. I'd rather prefer that there'd be per scenario statistics (an had already a topic about this). And yes, I think it would be good, if this per scenario statistics could be seen in the end of campaign as some kind of a summary.
Another criterium could be gold you end the campaign with.

[Edward V Riley]

Good idea for a guy with only his second post.

I agree and know what you're talking about. Some people, of which I am one, love to revel in math statistics in relation to strategy. Perhaps instead of just agreeing with you, we should be coming up with a method of scoring?

How would this be done? This is off the top of my head, but I'll start.

Positively affecting score:
Units killed: How to tabulate this? We assign a point value, to make things simple we use the GP cost of each unit, If it's a second level unit, we assign double the base gp value, and so on.
Turns taken: This too, should be a score factor. For every scenario that there are turns left over, those extra turns are added to the final score.
GP left over: At the end of the game, whatever GP you have left is added to your score.
Level of difficulty: At low level, this is only the base score, at medium twice the score and so on.

So the tabulation of the score would be: UK(units killed) + TT(turns taken) + GP + LOD= score

Negatively affecting score.
Units Lost: Same as units killed. Each unit you lose has a point value based on it's GP cost, and doubled for second level and so on.


So to calculate a final score you'd:

UK + TT + GP + LOD - UL= score

[Blarumyrran]

last time something like this was discussed, iirc it was positively feedbacked too but noone bothers to implement it.

back in HOMM2 & 3 i always liked to see "what unit am i gonna get to be this time?", since for each score a unit was assigned (the highest scores giving you black dragons or archangels). i think such feature would be cool. maybe for mp too.

[revolushn]

Yeah, I always liked that in homm as well. That was the sort if thing I was thinking of. Just something simple that if im talking to my mate I could say something along the lines of "I just finished HttT on hard, I got a score of XxX and had 400 gold and 14 L3 units..." I dunno, It would be more for me to compare with the next time I want to do the campaign.

I realise that I can always look at the final scenario of the campaign and find out all this stuff, But 1) I dont save all my saved games - there would be hundreds by now, and 2) my replays never seem to work so I could see the start of the final scenario but not the end anyway.

But yeah, something along the lines of the Heroes scoreboard would be cool, but I liked EVR's ideas of a bit more detail too.

[AI]

L2s and L3s have their own prices, so no need to double or triple the L1's cost, especially as some units don't have L1s.

I also think we should be sure to list each of the partial things, because the overall score may be (is probably) imbalanced in some way causing it to be changed later on.

[peet]

The campaign "A New Order" has a system that tracks your accomplishments and gives you a score at the end.

I believe it uses a variety of flags that get checked each time you do something, then at the very end it counts those flags.

Peet

[Sangel]

The campaign "A New Order" has a system that tracks your accomplishments and gives you a score at the end.

I believe it uses a variety of flags that get checked each time you do something, then at the very end it counts those flags.

Peet

An interesting idea, and one that could tie in very nicely with these systems. Along with tracking "universals" such as gold, recruits, kills, advancements, etc, there could be a campaign-specific section. This could tags implemented by the campaign designer, such as "Defeated all liches in the Valley of Terror" in the Heir to the Throne Campaign (a significant accomplishment not already implied by completing the campaign).

[Dave]

revo: Thanks for posting this idea. Similar ideas have cropped up in the past, but it is a very good idea, in my view.

However, many good ideas never make it into the game because no-one takes the time to make a good implementation. If you would really like to see the idea in-game, I'd encourage you to try and implement it. Find a campaign (perhaps heir to the throne) that you think this idea would work well in. Find out who the maintainer is and contact them. Find out if they'd be interested in changes which implement a scoring system, and if so try to implement one and send them your changes.

If you do a good job of it and you make a good implementation in one campaign, it's likely other campaigns will copy your approach and a scoring system will proliferate throughout Wesnoth.

David

[revolushn]

Dave: thanks for your reply, what you think really is important to me (and not only because you and the other developers are some of my all time favourite heroes ) but because you really do know what you are talking about. Unfortunately I dont. The extent of my programming is one comp-sci course at university and dabbling with linux on my gf's mac. What you do is far beyond me.

Still, I might look into it and see if i can learn - seems like as good a time as any to start (don't s'pose you have any tips on where to start..?)

I really liked Sangel's idea too! I had never thought of that; but having an overall score, a score that has categories (such as best units, kills and gold), and achievements attained throughout the campaign would really make for a concise and detailed (not to mention bloody impressive looking) scorecard.

thanks to all for your responses. If you're interested I have been playing quite a lot in the last few days and just completed HttT again on champion difficulty - this game really never loses it's appeal

[Sangel]

If you're considering doing this, I would suggest looking at "A New Order" and seeing how it has currently implemented the idea. That way you'll have some idea what is possible using the current Wesnoth model - it's possible you'll be able to get the basics up and running using WML, which is far easier to learn than C++.

Best of luck.

[Dave]

Yes, the reason I suggested it is because it can be achieved using WML, which isn't really a programming language. It's closer to HTML. Thus most anyone who really wants to can pick it up and learn it.

David