[UMC] Is Time necessary...? and a lot of other ideas.

[Jabie]

Apologies for adding a large number of ideas in a single thread, but if I split this thread into multiple threads I'd probably take up half the forum page.

TIME - IS IT ALWAYS NECESSARY?

Is time necessary in *every* scenario? Where there is a clear narrative reason for time it's justfied. (e.g. "Damn! They've escaped with the princess, but if we're quick we might just catch them up." or "The commander wants this orc camp destroyed within three days. If we don't succeed he'll be flanked and we'll have cede the whole North Bank to the Black Eye Clan.") However, on many occasions the time limit feels artificial. Why the heck should I fight in unfavaourable conditions because of a ficiticous time limit? At the very least each scenario should contain a reason why my units are having to take the offensive on First Watch instead of Dawn.

One proposal would be target time. For instance if a scenario has a target time of 20 turns, then you get the EFB if you complete it before in less than 20 turns, you get a bonus. If you complete the scenario but not within the time limit, you don't get any EFB.

RECRUITER ABILITY

Sometimes, when you have several NPCs to protect, especially in the first scenario in a campaign, it can be hard to remember which one of them has the capacity to recruit units. A simple ability, "Recruiter" would make it a lot easier to determine which of them can recruit units.

I OVERCAME THE FORCES OF EVIL AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT

A fairly simple one. Completing a scenario ought to be worth XP - whether it is worth only 1XP to all units on the battlefield, only to 0 Level units, only to units with the Leadership / Recruiter ability (see above), is still to be determined.

LEVEL UP SCREEN / UNIT TREE

The Level Up screen doesn't seem to have a Help screen. This can be awkward if you plan on retaining a unit throughout a campaign and pick a dead-end upgrade. Perhaps an indicator to the maximum levels that can be accomplished through levelling up would be in order.

FACTION FLAG

The discs help a lot, but a small flas next to a unit description showing the colour of that units faction would help as well.

KEEP AS VILLAGE

Here's a scenario I've run into a number of times. I decide to harass the boss with a couple of scout units, I damage him, he nips off to a Village. I jump on his Keep and he can't recruit any reinforcements. As long as I continue to blockade the keep, he won't be able to recruit again. Now, if Keeps operated as a 1/2 effective village (e.g. +4HP, cures Poison), but only for units with the Recruiter ability, he'd have less incentive to leave the Keep in the first place.

[monochromatic]

Hmm...okay. Let me address these one by one.

Apologies for adding a large number of ideas in a single thread, but if I split this thread into multiple threads I'd probably take up half the forum page.

Preferable for me, not sure about others. Thanks for not taking up the entire forum.

TIME - IS IT ALWAYS NECESSARY?

Is time necessary in *every* scenario? Where there is a clear narrative reason for time it's justfied. (e.g. "Damn! They've escaped with the princess, but if we're quick we might just catch them up." or "The commander wants this orc camp destroyed within three days. If we don't succeed he'll be flanked and we'll have cede the whole North Bank to the Black Eye Clan.") However, on many occasions the time limit feels artificial. Why the heck should I fight in unfavaourable conditions because of a ficiticous time limit? At the very least each scenario should contain a reason why my units are having to take the offensive on First Watch instead of Dawn.

One proposal would be target time. For instance if a scenario has a target time of 20 turns, then you get the EFB if you complete it before in less than 20 turns, you get a bonus. If you complete the scenario but not within the time limit, you don't get any EFB.

In short, basically yes. There are many scenarios where, once you get positive income, you could surround the enemy leader, take all his villages, and keep him at minimum hp. At that point one could continue to press 'End Turn' until they have near infinite gold! An example of such a scenario is 'Return to Parthyn' in DiD. The turn isn't a story idea, in fact, it's gameplay related.

RECRUITER ABILITY

Sometimes, when you have several NPCs to protect, especially in the first scenario in a campaign, it can be hard to remember which one of them has the capacity to recruit units. A simple ability, "Recruiter" would make it a lot easier to determine which of them can recruit units.

UN-KISS and WINRPG. They are already differentiated by silver and gold crowns. And heroes having to ability to recruit is a FPI.

I OVERCAME THE FORCES OF EVIL AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT

A fairly simple one. Completing a scenario ought to be worth XP - whether it is worth only 1XP to all units on the battlefield, only to 0 Level units, only to units with the Leadership / Recruiter ability (see above), is still to be determined.

Why? You already get to carryover your xp and leveled units, what more can you ask? Remember, you can recall high-level units for just 20 gold while the ai has to pay the full value for high level units each time (usually 30-70 gold!).

LEVEL UP SCREEN / UNIT TREE

The Level Up screen doesn't seem to have a Help screen. This can be awkward if you plan on retaining a unit throughout a campaign and pick a dead-end upgrade. Perhaps an indicator to the maximum levels that can be accomplished through levelling up would be in order.

Purple xp bars indicate that units cannot advance another level, while blue ones can. White ones are ones that are about to level. Also, if you look under the sprite picture on the left of the level-up screen, there is a button you can click to view the unit description. Also, memorize what's in here this is a good reference: http://units.wesnoth.org

FACTION FLAG

The discs help a lot, but a small flas next to a unit description showing the colour of that units faction would help as well.

Being worked on already. Search in 'Art Contribs' and you'll see a number for WIPs for that.

KEEP AS VILLAGE

Here's a scenario I've run into a number of times. I decide to harass the boss with a couple of scout units, I damage him, he nips off to a Village. I jump on his Keep and he can't recruit any reinforcements. As long as I continue to blockade the keep, he won't be able to recruit again. Now, if Keeps operated as a 1/2 effective village (e.g. +4HP, cures Poison), but only for units with the Recruiter ability, he'd have less incentive to leave the Keep in the first place.

Then why would you need a keep? Villages provide usually just as good defense as castle with the added +8 and cures. This would unbalance gameplay and healing keeps are OP. Think how hard it is then to take out the Orcish Warlord in the first scenario of NR with just Peasants and Woodsmen!

EDIT: I thought english was supposed to be my first language. Typos!
EDIT2: Re-read and edited accordingly.

[Reepurr]

TIME - IS IT ALWAYS NECESSARY?

[blah blah]

a) Difficulty.
b) Taking the offensive on First Watch rather than dawn? Easy. By the time you actually get there, it's dawn.c
c) EFB is un-KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid) and it will easily confuse.

RECRUITER ABILITY

Sometimes, when you have several NPCs to protect, especially in the first scenario in a campaign, it can be hard to remember which one of them has the capacity to recruit units. A simple ability, "Recruiter" would make it a lot easier to determine which of them can recruit units.

I never have this problem.

I OVERCAME THE FORCES OF EVIL AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT

Why should it be worth XP? You simply kill units with your units.

LEVEL UP SCREEN / UNIT TREE

Always wanted one of these. However, checking for dead-ends is easy if you look for the purple AMLA colour text.

FACTION FLAG

Isn't the race definition enough?

KEEP AS VILLAGE

Yes, and if you DO steal/keep your keep, the keep-squatter can gain lots of HP and become pretty much immune to anti-keep-squatter-assault-units. Plus, your leader can happily and easily replenish themself. You can fix this scenario fairly easily with a simple passive_leader ai toggle.

[Maiklas3000]

TIME - IS IT ALWAYS NECESSARY?

Agreed, losing by X turns does not always (or even usually) make sense, and neither does infinite turns. I don't have a solution.

RECRUITER ABILITY

Gold crown.

I OVERCAME THE FORCES OF EVIL AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT

Not opposed to 1 XP per unit, but also not in favor.

LEVEL UP SCREEN / UNIT TREE

Agreed, I hate that I can't see the surrounding units (do I want a ranged unit or melee unit?) I hate that I can't even easily search the Internet on my tablet PC. I'm trapped at that screen.

FACTION FLAG

Hmm, maybe more obvious uniform color changes.

KEEP AS VILLAGE

I think this would be better addressed with better leader AI.

[Gambit]

The response to the title alone: Nope not necessary. You can do whatever you want in your own UMC's. Go crazy! No rules!
But as far as changing current mainline campaigns; the developers would evaluate such suggestions case by case.


Also no worries on the big first post. I'd much prefer a giant compilation thread to having dozens of similar ones.

[pauxlo]

One proposal would be target time. For instance if a scenario has a target time of 20 turns, then you get the EFB if you complete it before in less than 20 turns, you get a bonus. If you complete the scenario but not within the time limit, you don't get any EFB.

This would have to be negative EFB (so a LFP) for taking too long, at least, to not allow "cheating".

I OVERCAME THE FORCES OF EVIL AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT

A fairly simple one. Completing a scenario ought to be worth XP - whether it is worth only 1XP to all units on the battlefield, only to 0 Level units, only to units with the Leadership / Recruiter ability (see above), is still to be determined.

You can do this with WML (victory event) for your own campaigns - I think in "Saving Elensefar" something like this was done (but there it was described as "they used the time to train a bit more").
This could be coupled to your early finish bonus: give bonus XP instead of/additionally to bonus money, depending on finish time

FACTION FLAG

The discs help a lot, but a small flas next to a unit description showing the colour of that units faction would help as well.

The units have a different team color, too
(This does not help much for color blind people, though.)

The faction-specific flags were planned for the villages (and maybe for the turn indication, too), not to show besides the stat fields. Showing them there too is a nice idea, I think.

KEEP AS VILLAGE

Here's a scenario I've run into a number of times. I decide to harass the boss with a couple of scout units, I damage him, he nips off to a Village. I jump on his Keep and he can't recruit any reinforcements. As long as I continue to blockade the keep, he won't be able to recruit again. Now, if Keeps operated as a 1/2 effective village (e.g. +4HP, cures Poison), but only for units with the Recruiter ability, he'd have less incentive to leave the Keep in the first place.

You can do something like this easily in WML for UMC, but I doubt this would be done for Default Multiplayer or most mainline campaigns.

[Atz]

One proposal would be target time. For instance if a scenario has a target time of 20 turns, then you get the EFB if you complete it before in less than 20 turns, you get a bonus. If you complete the scenario but not within the time limit, you don't get any EFB.

This would have to be negative EFB (so a LFP) for taking too long, at least, to not allow "cheating".

The simplest method would be that if you don't finish by the allotted turn, you get no carryover gold at all. This would prevent people from sitting there amassing gold. However, it's not any less arbitrary than the current system, and it still leaves the problem of experience-farming - just leave the AI a few villages and you'll get an endless stream of units to kill, allowing you to level up far more units than should be the case.

[fog_of_gold]

Why not this("-EFB") suggestion? It would, as against yours, solve the experience problem since you have to pay for the enemy's units (either you or the enemy as the village) and is therefore not worth to be used. I'm not sure but as far as I know, debts are also carried over and so if you use more turns, you'll get some gold by no needing to pay them. If this isn't true, this would of course be needed for the -EFB idea, since otherwise the experience cheat wouldn't be solved. Apart from that, pauxlo's suggestion is a lot of more KISS than yours.

[Atz]

I'm fairly sure that negative gold doesn't carry over the way things are done at the moment - there's a minimum starting gold for each scenario. I don't think it has to work that way, though.

Unfortunately, limits on minimum starting gold exist for a reason. If they didn't, it would be possible to "win" a scenario, only to find that the next one is nigh-impossible to finish because you don't have enough gold. Thus, giving a gold penalty that carried over would create a de facto turn limit anyway: the point at which your gold is reduced so much that it becomes impossible to win the next scenario. However, instead of being told immediately that they can't progress any further, the player goes onto the next scenario, only to find that it is impossible. This is extremely frustrating, and in many cases players don't understand why they can't move forward.

[Jabie]

What if, after the target time was exceeded, Gold was no longer generated. That's pretty KISS, and can be justified, as your citizens only have so many resources to offer. Thus the boss wouldn't generate enough cash to spawn new troops (so no XP-farming) and players would be running at a loss, which penalises their carry-over and provides a sufficient incentive to try and keep within the time limit. With a lack of new troops the game would naturally wind down until one side won and one side lost.

[pauxlo]

Most of those proposals are doable in WML, and wait to be tried out in UMC. When some of this turns out to be useful, I think also mainline campaigns will use it eventually.

[Velensk]

You'd have to disable healing and natural income too.

I think that it is prudent for the purpose of keeping campaigns interesting that players be forced to go on offense as soon as they reliably can because it is frequently far too easy to sit back on defense (and hard to design against a player inclined to do so). As such, I think using solid time limits as a rule is a good idea. I think that you could infact build what you have just proposed into a scenario without too much difficulty (though I don't know how you'd disable healing).

[Reepurr]

I know this has been mentioned before, but I just remembered the [Profile] button in the level-up interface. So that one's already implemented.

[sacred_chao]

If you wanted no time limit in a UMC you could eliminate gold carryover altogether and just have an allowance per level. This makes some campaign sense if you are a military leader who shouldn't be just coopting the King's resources for his own military ends. Hmm, maybe you could even have a whole-of-game treasury, with the occasional top-up.

Obviously this would drastically change the gameplay, but would be an interesting change to explore...

Where there is a clear narrative reason for time it's justfied. (e.g. [...] "The commander wants this orc camp destroyed within three days. If we don't succeed he'll be flanked and we'll have cede the whole North Bank to the Black Eye Clan.")

You know, I would love to see a campaign where you have to fight back from the consequences of failure rather than the campaign just ending.

So the orcs have taken the North bank? That just means either a mission to win it back, or a sudden horde of orc reinforcements showing up in later levels...

P.S. I second that an actual unit tree in the help would be awesome.

[Noitakuningas]

I have a solution to the Infinite Turns = Infinite Gold conundrum:

After the time limit expires, you don't gain gold, but can still lose gold.