Shifting Elvish Sorceress (and Human Mage) - Racial purity?

[foolius]

This is my last idea for the day... (sorry again if this bothers people)

I've been playing Wesnoth for a while and I always thought the fact the Human Mage was in both the Human and Elf unit lists was sort of a missed opportunity. I also thought the Elves ended up with two wizard type units at level 2 (Human Archmage and Elvish Sorceress). However, it's very rare to get Elvish Sorceresses because 1) they promote from Elvish Shamans, 2) the natural mage unit for the Elves is still the Human Mage.

What if the Human Mage were removed from the Elvish unit list, and replaced with a level 1 Elvish Sorceress unit (temporary name: Seer)?

The unit tree would look like:

Elvish Shaman --> Elvish Druid --> Elvish Shyde

Elvish Seer? --> Elvish Sorceress --> Elvish Sylph, etc.

The Elvish Seer would be built similar to the Human Mage (maybe with 5-4 attack, cost of maybe 20-21).
The Elvish Shaman would get a small strength boost or reduction in cost to recognize the loss of the option.

I attached a picture of the unit list.
I think it thematically works well. It would be cool to see more Sorceress units. There would be no racially shared units between factions. And I don't think it has a bad impact on the unit balance. The Human archmage is basically a fire unit, which arcane damage mostly captures that.
If you wanted to differentiate the Sorceress more from the Druid -- maybe remove the slow attack from the Sorceress line.

I love the game, and am only suggesting this as a potential improvement! (I sincerely apologize if this idea bothers a lot of people)

[beetlenaut]

I doubt this will bother people, but you don't have enough justification for making a radical change to the unit line like that. That would change the balance significantly. There is a reason the sorceress is a little hard to get. (Actually, the only thing hard about getting a sorceress is that I want healers more. It's not that hard to level shamans. Use teams of two of them near the front to slow enemies, heal each other, and take a kill when possible.)

[Noy]

Um No, which is why we never made this change despite the fact we had a lvl1 elvish mage completed. We want to encourage a bit of racial diversity so that factions aren't merely all dwarvish or elvish movetypes; it makes play a bit more structured. Its not going to change, as this is a gameplay decision we have made.

Its all been discussed before, so if you're interested in the discussion, you can search there.

[Thrawn]

yeah, getting rid of mage should be an FPI

[JW]

A change in the sprite would still be nice so when you have, say, a Red Mage leader 3 out of 4 games on random ou actually know how to plan your recruit on the first move.

I thought that wasn't out of the realm of discussion.

[MDG]

I am curious to know if having the same unit line in two factions complicates MP balancing? Or rather, I guess it does, I'm curious how much? Note: I am not pushing the idea (been there once before), just interested in the implications for other era's...

[Ghost_whore]

i agree, i honestly think its stupid to have the same unit in two factions. If they have mages then why not bowmen? spear men? it should be changed! or, at least change the picture and name! That is one of the thinks i was dissapointed in about wesnoth...

Noy said: We want to encourage a bit of racial diversity

I have yet to come across a black mage, or an asian dwarf or any racial diversity at all! If you want racial diversify it destroy teh faction idea... all it does is create six factions made of a mix and mixture of six races. Instead of the 6 pure factions. I say, if there going to do it with one unit they have to do it with all. or not at all.

[zookeeper]

Noy said: We want to encourage a bit of racial diversity

I have yet to come across a black mage, or an asian dwarf or any racial diversity at all!

You've managed to miss the fact that:

1) rebels have elves, woses, mermen and humans, not just elves and humans
2) loyalists have humans and mermen
3) northerners have orcs, trolls and nagas
4) knalgans have dwarves and humans
5) undead have undead, humans and bats
6) drakes have drakes and saurians

Congratulations.

[Turuk]

Racial
1 : of, relating to, or based on a race

Diversity
1: the condition of being diverse : variety ; especially : the inclusion of diverse people (as people of different races or cultures) in a group or organization <programs intended to promote diversity in schools>


Racial + Diversity = Variety based on races, the inclusion of different races in a group.

1) rebels have elves, woses, mermen and humans, not just elves and humans
2) loyalists have humans and mermen
3) northerners have orcs, trolls and nagas
4) knalgans have dwarves and humans
5) undead have undead, humans and bats
6) drakes have drakes and saurians

Tada.

I'm pretty sure that the races of Wesnoth have no idea where Asia is, or what exactly would constitute a "black" person. You could try African or African-American, but I still think there would be little recognition of the words.

[foolius]

You've managed to miss the fact that:

1) rebels have elves, woses, mermen and humans, not just elves and humans
2) loyalists have humans and mermen
3) northerners have orcs, trolls and nagas
4) knalgans have dwarves and humans
5) undead have undead, humans and bats
6) drakes have drakes and saurians

Congratulations.

I apologize for saying "racial" purity. I should have said "faction-unit" purity. The comment was more about why the human mage appears in two factions -- especially when the Rebels already have the sorceress, which has pretty much the same functions as the human mage.

I totally agree about not having many sorceresses because of wanting the healers more -- that's precisely the point! You use human mages as the "mage" unit, because you don't want to branch your "healer" unit into a "mage" unit.

My biggest apology is that this has been debated before. I tried to do a search about it, but I didn't know it was proposed as the elvish mage. If someone could create a somewhat comprehensive list of FPIs for the wiki / sticky, that would help. Sorry again for the dead horse.

[Melon]

I think I've already seen a similar idea debated in the past and I must say that I agree completly with the points raised in the OP. Of all the Wesnoth units, only the mage belongs to two factions simultaneously. Giving the elves their own mage with stats similar to those of the previous one shouldn't have any sort of dramatic impact on the faction balance as far as I can tell.

My biggest apology is that this has been debated before. I tried to do a search about it, but I didn't know it was proposed as the elvish mage. If someone could create a somewhat comprehensive list of FPIs for the wiki / sticky, that would help. Sorry again for the dead horse.

The only similar thread that I can recall used a slightly different argument then yours. It stated that having the mage unit in two factions at once led to multiplayer confusion, since recruiting a mage or having a mage as your leader made it more difficult for other players to guess which faction you belong to in shrouded maps.

[Turuk]

This topic comes up every so often, and so far there has been no headway made to resolve the perceived issue.


Here is the thread that talks about the whole issue of multiplayer confusion, as well as proposing a simple redesign of the mage in the Rebels faction, all artistic, that would not hurt balance but establish a difference between the two.
http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=18845

Older discussion on changing the Art
http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=15780

Discussion towards replacing the Mage with Another Unit
http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=184955

A more recent replacement thread here
http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=21066

[JW]

Um No, which is why we never made this change despite the fact we had a lvl1 elvish mage completed. We want to encourage a bit of racial diversity so that factions aren't merely all dwarvish or elvish movetypes; it makes play a bit more structured. Its not going to change, as this is a gameplay decision we have made.

Its all been discussed before, so if you're interested in the discussion, you can search there.

You know, I was just thinking about this, but if the goal is racial diversity, what difference does the look of the sprite have to do with that? Change the sprite but keep the same unit.

Or idea 2: add more "racial diversity" in the same manner by creating the same types of units in different factions, like adding the Footpad to the Undead faction.

By doing neither it appears as laziness causing an exception rather than a philosophy causing an occurence.

[Turuk]

You know, I was just thinking about this, but if the goal is racial diversity, what difference does the look of the sprite have to do with that? Change the sprite but keep the same unit.

In the first link I posted, irrevenant proposes doing just that, but was stalled when people then went on to point out the effect this would have on multiplayer.

That was not my intent. My intent was to indicate that it's the same unit - just with different affiliations and lifestyle. The factions are balanced just fine as they are.

I am not usually one to dig up old posts, but I think that he captures the general feeling which most people who propose a change are aiming towards, as it might help with the general theme of distinguishing the mage of the Rebels from the mage of the Loyalists. Getting rid of the mage from the Rebels will obviously never happen.

[Neoskel]

I think having the same mage unit appear in two factions highlights how they're independent of the Loyalist government. They help whichever side they feel is in the right (or, depending on the mage, pays them better) even if it means they have to fight their fellows.

Course that's just a in-world excuse for a design decision.