[mainline] Give cold attacks to more units

[BuBu]

Hello,

I made a search but didn't find anything about cold attack...

• I saw that FIRE attack is in all factions less the undeads, so it is in almost factions.
  ARCANE attack is in loyalists, undeads and elves faction, so it is in more than half of all faction.
  But COLD attack is in the hand of undead faction and has weak (+-) attack with saurian in Drake faction.

So we have only this units that has COLD attack:

lizard (all lvs)
dark adept (all lvs) (this unit rule cold attack)
ghost (all lvs (less the second option to lv))

BLADE and PIERCE has too much in the game .... So why few units that has cold attack (no meelle in use cold attack)?

[powershot]

Are you suggesting cold steel?

[monochromatic]

Balance I presume. You know, the Elvish Sorceress line used to use cold damage instead of arcane. (afaik)
Any unit that receives cold damage in any attack automatically becomes that much closer to being overpowered against Drakes.

[Velensk]

Alright, lets go through standard idea procedure here:

Why is it so important that there be more cold attacks? What problem is it solving? The game is very well balanced as is and adding more cold might unbalance it (especially considering how vulnerable drakes are).

On a second note: What kind of cold attacks do you think should exist? Are you proposing that troops bash each other with weapons made out of ice or something?

[BuBu]

Balance I presume. You know, the Elvish Sorceress line used to use cold damage instead of arcane. (afaik)
Any unit that receives cold damage in any attack automatically becomes that much closer to being overpowered against Drakes.

Yes, i remember that and make this faction get weaker to undeads. If you remove the mage that is the only unit that is in 2 faction and his true faction is loyalists some things will change and i think that will be interesting IMO. So could put another in his place more like a elf.

Alright, lets go through standard idea procedure here:

Why is it so important that there be more cold attacks? What problem is it solving? The game is very well balanced as is and adding more cold might unbalance it (especially considering how vulnerable drakes are).

On a second note: What kind of cold attacks do you think should exist? Are you proposing that troops bash each other with weapons made out of ice or something?

So why they create COLD attack? If use so few, why not remove it so? If create a toll why not use it? The problem is if think only in Drake Faction (-50% = because has few cold attack)... think in other faction ... this game is saturated of BLADE and PIERCE ATTACK.

IMO only need a new unit to elves faction or change a existing lv 2 or 3 in other factions to dont hurt much drake faction.

[Dixie]

Imo, it's a flavour thing and you shouldn't overthink it. Of course there's a lot of blade and pierce attacks: there ought to be at least 3 times as many melee/physical weapons than there are magical ones. And even (most) magic users have a melee attack. But every resistance doesn't have to be used evenly across units. What's so wrong about having a rarer one? Besides, cold is mostly a drake-bane, and fire an undead-bane. In most other cases (HIs, dwarves), either one does just as well. And (in SP at least) undead are a much more common enemy.

And you're bringing another unrelated point in the debate: you want to change the mage, now? Elves already have their mage: the shaman. The mage being in the rebel faction is mostly useful (essential, even) in MP.

And a few posts up, you forgot about the knalgan alliance: they have neither fire nor cold attacks.

Anyway, my personnal take on this: I think the game is interesting and balanced the way it is, I don't see how the issue you raise is a problem. If it bothers you so much, you always have the option of creating your own era where every attack type is used in ~16% of cases.

[BuBu]

What's so wrong about having a rarer one? Besides, cold is mostly a drake-bane, and fire an undead-bane. In most other cases (HIs, dwarves), either one does just as well. And (in SP at least) undead are a much more common enemy.

Drake-bane = cold ok
Undead-bane = ARCANE (this is better than fire)

I usually i play MP and online.

And you're bringing another unrelated point in the debate: you want to change the mage, now? Elves already have their mage: the shaman. The mage being in the rebel faction is mostly useful (essential, even) in MP.

monochromatic was saying about elf shaman, so remembered that the only unit thats in 2 faction is the MAGE. What is the problem in remember this? This is a great FIRE attack unit.

I know that the mage it is very useful, but IMO it make REBELs the best faction to play. They have SLOW + ARCANE + FIRE + IMPACT + PIERCE + BLADE + HEAL + LEADERSHIP + 70% OF AVOID + ETC ... you dont think the same?

And a few posts up, you forgot about the knalgan alliance: they have neither fire nor cold attacks.

and ARCANE too ...

Anyway, my personnal take on this: I think the game is interesting and balanced the way it is, I don't see how the issue you raise is a problem.

The people dont like changes and i understand they give much work to do. Wesnoth have very intelligent guys to do a very good strategic game and if they say no, no problem, but they see how the game will get rich use more cold attack will be good.

If it bothers you so much, you always have the option of creating your own era where every attack type is used in ~16% of cases.

You very polite ... i only give a idea a suggestion to better use of COLD attack. If it hurts you, i am sorry.

[Velensk]

I think that either you are not thinking this through very well, or you are having trouble expressing yourself in english. If you were making any points in that last post I missed them.

As for the second post: Cold has it's place and thus we keep it and we do use it. The dark adept is a prominent user of cold and is one of the most efficient attacking units in the game but arguing that we should have more of it around because we have it as an option is much like saying that we ought to have more units with the charge attack because only one mainline level 1 has it. Of course the game is saturated with blade and pierce, not only does this make more sense (mundane weapons being more common than magical ones, is that really a surprise?) but it is great for dynamics. Consider a unit like the troll, the troll is by general standards a tough unit with high hp and regen but it is particuarly resistant to standard units therefore if you want to bust a troll line it is advisable to spend a bit extra and purchase your mages/dark adepts/ghosts/burners/whatever who might not be as cost efficient as cheaper units who do equivalent damage (mages do the exact same damage as spearmen but cost 6 more and are a ton more fragile) but they do it in a rarer damage type. This helps encourage diversity and also prevents it from being necessary to contrive damage types for the sake of having them.

The fact is, that as it is, no faction really needs a cold type attack that does not have one just like there is no unit that really needs a charge attack. Where cold is right now it works and there is no need to make it less rare just for the sake of making it less rare. We don't need/want to remove it as it serves a number of purposes (defines the major difference between normal mages and dark ones, defines a decent portion of the drake mirror, creates a few interesting dynamics in the case of the auger/ghost).

[HomerJ]

Is there a large flashing animated gif when you sign up for this forum that reads
"If it ain't broken then don't try to fix it!"?
If not, there should be.


Greetz
HomerJ

[Great_Mage_Atari]

Not really a good question. How many characters are actually bad against cold anyways? Compare the number of cold resistant characters to the amount of fire resistant characters. Are the results surprising? If so, study up on some balancing details. Cold really isn't needed that much in the game, seeing as how hardly any mainline units are actually bad against it.
As to your question on why hardly any factions besides the Undead have it, it's for balancing reasons.
As the man above me said,
If it ain't broken, don't fix it!

[BuBu]

(mundane weapons being more common than magical ones, is that really a surprise?)

Wesnoth is based in mundane weapons? Really? So where is magic spells or a fire ball attack or ice spell cast for a mage or a flying griffon's that use cut attack and etc ...

At least the example of troll is interesting.

How many characters are actually bad against cold anyways? Compare the number of cold resistant characters to the amount of fire resistant characters. Are the results surprising? If so, study up on some balancing details. Cold really isn't needed that much in the game, seeing as how hardly any mainline units are actually bad against it.
As to your question on why hardly any factions besides the Undead have it, it's for balancing reasons.

This is because they use more fire attack than cold attack, so they only worry with the fire attack and dont cared much of cold attack. This seem to make undead faction like the owner of cold attack.

I didnt build a strategic guide to use cold to post in this topic, but i did a suggestion asking why to think a better way of use it, because when you think with more people you can get better ideas (not when the people deal with you with anger words like they want kill you).

Half part of the undead faction has good resistances against cold as some horse units, merman's, silver mage is good against cold. All drake factions is weak against cold, but like i said it has all this bad resistance to cold because it is very rare attack and some guys wont want balance it. I only think that put one or two in the max 3 units with high level wont destroy wesnoth strategic and wont need balance every era. "Elf mage" in the past did use cold attack and no one had problem with that. That attack changed because they created arcane attack and reduce one more cold unit.

Is there a large flashing animated gif when you sign up for this forum that reads
"If it ain't broken then don't try to fix it!"?
If not, there should be.


Greetz
HomerJ

As the man above me said,
If it ain't broken, don't fix it!

In the new version is creating a new faction as i saw in the change log, it wont unbalance it, so could adept better work with cold.

But how are you saying "forget of this and dont bother because we dont want balance cold" how everyone is showing in this post or "even talk about like was a forbidden thing".
if you disagree, no problem, only dont be with anger. We are only "talking" in some ideas that we dont know that will work, so just thinking if is good or not.

[Velensk]

I think that again you're having trouble expressing yourself in english but I'll answer as best I can anyway.

Wesnoth is mostly about the clash of armies and armies in the wesnoth universe mainly comprise of ordinary men. You can train magicians so that the magical attacks exist but as it is much harder/more expensive/talent is rarer/whatever the typical soldier is much more common. This is reflected in the game mechanics by the fact that mage units tend to be both fewer in number and more expensive in cost.

For griffons, claws are a mundane weapon.

Cold is rare as much for thematic reasons as balance reasons. Fire attacks are probably easier to create with wesnoth magic than cold effects (certainly true in reality, we have dozens and dozens of weapons for setting things on fire but how many practical military weapons do you know of that operate by draining all the heat out of your enemy).

Elf mages had cold in the past, and people did have a problem with that which was why it was changed to arcane.

We are only talking, but although the topic itself is not forbidden, the way you are presenting it is strongly discouraged in the forum guidelines.

[BuBu]

Ok velensk, i had understood that you said, my English is a little poor, thanks for your effort.

i will focus in more consistent idea so:

Exchange pierce attack --> cold attack:

Unit to analyses this situation:

• Ranger
  Merman Spearman + Merman Javelineer
  Elvish Marksman + Elvish Sharpshooter

Units that get benefits with this change:

Vampire Bat {all lvs} ( 0 to 20)
Lich ( 30 to 60)
fencer {all lvs} (-20 to 10)
Footpad {all lvs}(-20 to 0)
Thief {all lvs} (-20 to 0)
Orcish Assassin {all lvs} (-20 to 0)
Mermaid Initiate {all lvs}( 0 to 20)
Merman Fighter {all lvs}( 0 to 20)
Merman Hunter {all lvs} ( 0 to 20)
Cavalryman {all lvs} (-20 to 20)
Horseman {all lvs} (-20 to 0)
Elvish Scout {all lvs} (-20 to 0)
Silver mage (0 to 50)
Ghoul {all lvs} (30 to 40)
Ghost {all lvs} (50 to 70)
--------
Sea Serpent (0 to 60)
Cuttle Fish (0 to 60)
Yeti (20 to 60)

The units that will reduce the advantage:

ALL DRAKE FACTION (usually -10 to -50)
Dwarvish Fighter {all lvs}
Dwarvish Guardsman {all lvs}
Dwarvish Thunderer {all lvs}
Dwarvish Ulfserker {all lvs}
Heavy Infantryman {all lvs}
Pikeman {all lvs}
Sergeant {all lvs}
Troll {all lvs}
Wose {all lvs}
--------------------
Giant Scorpion
Mudcrawler
Fire Dragon

Usually cold attack units in other games they are from mountains or northers place (snow places) or from oceans. They attack with "cold wind" or frozen weapons like: blizzard, ice bean, ice field, ice arrow, freeze wind, cold touch ...
In wesnoth seem to unite cold with "bad" or "evil" meaning for example: saurian, ghost, and dark adept. They forgot the naturals cold.

--------
Other units to analyses:

• Mermaid Enchantress + Mermaid Siren (impact)
  Silver mage (fire)

-------

[powershot]

Hold on and prepare for serious criticizers.

[Velensk]

Through all of this you still haven't provided a good reason why we should change other than that you think there should be more cold in the game.

You think it does not make sense that cold attacks would be more effective at night when the sun isn't there to warm them back up? In wesnoth, chaotic does not mean evil (inherently) it means nocturnal. As it is, I think there is something fairly symbolic about dark magicians destroy by draining heat away while more ambiguous ones destroy by overloading with heat.

I can think of absolutely no reason it makes sense that elven marksmen or mermen javelineer would be using cold attacks. Both their weapons kill you by putting holes in you. While this might make you cold, that isn't what we are representing.

And again for the mermaid enchantress, if someone was hurling a ton of water at you with decent speed I imagine you'd die from having your organs crushed long before you'd have a chance to die of being cold and wet even if it is night.

We could change the silver mage but the question is why. Why would a mage suddenly stop using fire magic simply because he's also figured out how to teleport and more importantly, why force scenario designers to rebalance all those scenarios where having silver mages assassinate enemy leaders (particularly undead leaders) is an option?