Separation of Movement & Line of Sight

[Gambit]

The only way the balance could be tipped is if one player's skill highly surpasses the other ones.

^This is what perfect balance is. When only a player's skill or game factors other than unit stats effect the outcome of a game.

[Captain_Wrathbow]

But adding this line of site would need re-balance to everything.

Only if it were implemented into default. It could easily just be incorporated as a possibility and not used in default.

[chino2468]

Exactly, and that's the way things should start. If many people like it, maybe someday it can be incorporated into the main game. I mean, it's not very reasonable to think that default factions should not be touched ever again =]

I especially like the idea of being able to see beyond Ocean or Chasm, but I also like the idea of having greater visibility from Mountains.

[Pentarctagon]

I mean, it's not very reasonable to think that default factions should not be touched ever again =]

There was a thread a while ago where it was mentioned that the kalifa might be added to 1.9, though iirc it was never 100% confirmed or denied whether or not they were being added.

[Speedbrain]

I think you may be right. I know TSI and others are feverishly working on the Kalifa.

And Chino I am totally on board with changing the line of sight to be different. It seems as though it was done the way it is because it was the easy solution.

But thinking realistically, you would expect a unit to see across chasms and ocean tiles. You may also see an increase in the distance they can see from the tops of mountains. You could also see limitations in forests or behind mountains, etc.

I think some other hex-based strategy games have line of sight systems in place.

[chino2468]

I remember the case of the Civ games, it would be a nice addition, I think.

Hmm, I don't really like the Califa, or see them as part of the main setting, but oh well, who am I to question decisions? I just like the game =]

[Taimat]

Not adding it because it would require changes to default is a bit silly. Extra work shouldn't block progress, though I see the point. Add it as a possibility, then set some time aside somewhere down the road to figure out the sight lengths for units. Hell, just do it a little at a time. It's just numbers, and they don't need a rewrite every version change.

[Noy]

Not adding it because it would require changes to default is a bit silly. Extra work shouldn't block progress, though I see the point. Add it as a possibility, then set some time aside somewhere down the road to figure out the sight lengths for units. Hell, just do it a little at a time. It's just numbers, and they don't need a rewrite every version change.

Yeah I really wish it was that simple.

No. No. No. No. No. No.
I am fed up with the fact that every time someone suggests an engine improvement, someone chimes in with "0H BUT DAT WILL BREAKZ TEH MEYNLIEN". This is why we can't have nice things people! There is a difference between making something possible within the engine, and actually implementing it in default and other existing content.

Hopefully we can convince the original poster to not want it for default, and only to exist as a possibility.

I'm fed up with people who suggest what they think is a "benign" engine improvement won't have anything to do with balance or gameplay.

[Gambit]

I don't understand.

If default and the currently mainlined campaigns don't use the feature, there is no effect to balance or gameplay except in UMC and possibly future mainline campaigns.

[Mordocai]

Well, actually this change would -not- affect balance. For the simple reason that this could just be added as an option available when making units/scenarios. Basically, the default (if nothing is messed with) would be that they see as far as their movement, and can't see past chasms etc(So same as usual). However, you could also mess with the rules and make certain terrain take more/less VPs(vision points) than others, and make units have more VPs than MPs, etc. Mainline would not be affected, but it would allow us to mess with it in UMC. I agree that bringing different Vision to the mainline WOULD affect balance. However, there is no reason to add it immediately into mainline. It'd be much better to play around with it in UMC first. As noted in the thread in Experimental, I also vote for the ability to make vision change based on TOD. Once again, just for UMC.

[Noy]

Maybe you misunderstood me... I'm actually for this change and have been discussing it with others. My main concern here is actually implementation and keeping it Kiss. Almost all the ideas actually turn out to be quite clunky.

However In my post above Im Talking more about people who suggest "benign" changes and don't see how it does break balance.

[Mordocai]

Maybe you misunderstood me... I'm actually for this change and have been discussing it with others. My main concern here is actually implementation and keeping it Kiss. Almost all the ideas actually turn out to be quite clunky.

However In my post above Im Talking more about people who suggest "benign" changes and don't see how it does break balance.

Awesome. Yeah, I completely agree that just about any change that affects the behavior of the units/system will break balance in some way. Luckily, this doesn't -have- to change anything at all about the unit/system behavior.

As to keeping it KISS, I think (without knowing much about how vision/movement is handled in the code) the bulk of the code could probably be derived from the MP code. Vision could use what would be basically a second type of "movement point" except it would govern LOS instead of how far the unit could travel in one turn. The amount of vision points/how much each terrain costs would be specified in configuration files, just like MPs are right now. This would make it essentially as simple as MPs (blocking seeing through cave walls etc would be done by making the VP value of that terrain 99, just like how MPs is done[IIRC]). As for mainline, the default number of VPs could be the number of MPs + 1(Since they currently see one tile farther than they can move) and the default terrain costs could be identical to MP terrain cost. To prevent having to change the configurations on basically everything, it could be built in that these defaults are followed unless the amount of VPs/VP terrain cost are explicitly set.

[Noy]

Um, how is that kiss at all when it takes a paragraph to explain its basic function?

[Gambit]

As to keeping it KISS, I think (without knowing much about how vision/movement is handled in the code) the bulk of the code could probably be derived from the MP code. Vision could use what would be basically a second type of "movement point" except it would govern LOS instead of how far the unit could travel in one turn. The amount of vision points/how much each terrain costs would be specified in configuration files, just like MPs are right now. This would make it essentially as simple as MPs (blocking seeing through cave walls etc would be done by making the VP value of that terrain 99, just like how MPs is done[IIRC]). As for mainline, the default number of VPs could be the number of MPs + 1(Since they currently see one tile farther than they can move) and the default terrain costs could be identical to MP terrain cost. To prevent having to change the configurations on basically everything, it could be built in that these defaults are followed unless the amount of VPs/VP terrain cost are explicitly set.

It takes a whole paragraph to describe its basic function and flesh out its implementation on the WML side of things (about which the player does not care).
I'm sorry Noy, but I feel you're being overly hostile to an idea that you like.

[Anonymissimus]

I don't know how much it relates to the issue, but the sighted event has always been very buggy since I got to know wesnoth in 1.4. Recently Sapient said that filter_vision seems to have bugs, too. Both need to calculate areas which are visible. In my workaround for the sighted event I'm using a lua call to the engine's pathfinder (movement...) to calculate the visble area. I would have to change it or it may even become useless (this is no reason to deny this idea however).