Ghost's resistances and drain

telly · Post by **telly** » November 23rd, 2004, 12:09 am

Ghosts now with their 60% resistance means that for instance during the day a whelp or grunt will only do 1hp damage. This makes them practically unkillable especially if they're on a village. So they're easy to level despite their weak attacks and then wraiths are a hundred times worse. I don't know if it was a deliberate change but with drain now units just keep on gaining hp for ever and ever. Wraiths are just crazy unkillable, they only take 1hp damage and then gain 3+ hp with each hit so they can beat really any number of enemy units and only gain health. Even level 3 units, nothing without fire or holy attacks stands a chance against them.

Post by **Dave** » November 23rd, 2004, 12:14 am

This is a very good point. We may have to review this.

In fact, we may review the use of additive instead of multiplicative resistance calculations, since I am now dubious as to whether the effects work well.

David

telly · Post by **telly** » November 23rd, 2004, 12:32 am

Yeah don't know how the multiplicative calculations you use work but obviously something is wrong.

Orc warriors do a 9-2 attack.
75% for day is 6.75
and 40% of that is 2.7
but somehow the game works it out as 1?

A

Post by **Dave** » November 23rd, 2004, 12:36 am

telly wrote:Yeah don't know how the multiplicative calculations you use work but obviously something is wrong.

Orc warriors do a 9-2 attack.
75% for day is 6.75
and 40% of that is 2.7
but somehow the game works it out as 1?

Those are multiplicative calculations.

The game uses additive calculations currently.

i.e.

Orc gets a -25% penalty for day, and a -60% due to ghost resistance, and (-25) + (-60) = -85%, so it only does 15% of its base damage.

But, perhaps we should revert to using multiplicative calculations, and then it'd do a 'mediocre-but-not-pathetic' 3 damage.

David

Post by **quartex** » November 23rd, 2004, 12:50 am

I think perhaps ghosts reistances are a bit too high. I liked it better when ghosts had more hp and lower resistances.

I think additive penalties are easier for new players to understand, just add the damage resistance to the time of day penbalty and it's easy to tell how much your attack will be reduced. If we have to start calculating what 40% of 70% of 8 is, it's harder to do the math on the fly. Yes, I realize that's what the "damage calculation" button is for, but it's easier with additive penalties to get a general idea without having to check every time.

I think we just have to be careful that we don't have resistances that are quite so high.

Post by **turin** » November 23rd, 2004, 12:54 am

um.. i'm not sure why this is a problem... if you attack a unit that is resistant to your attack type during the time of day when you are least powerful, you SHOULD do very little damage. i think the solution is not to go back to multiplicative, but instead to make ghosts weak to pierce. >)

Dobob · Post by **Dobob** » November 23rd, 2004, 1:07 am

Dave wrote: But, perhaps we should revert to using multiplicative calculations, and then it'd do a 'mediocre-but-not-pathetic' 3 damage.

I remember being against additive calculations when they were introduced, but I think they work correctly now. Like it is now, high-resistance units (the ghost is the worst in this category) are just more affected by other bonuses (excepted by the remaining 3 multiplicative bonuses). So you must be a lot more concerned with time of day and leadership when battling them. So, in your ghost vs grunt example, the ghost should be attacking during the day and the orc during the night, where the ghost will receive massive damage.

As for drain, attack damage could simply reduced.

scott · Post by **scott** » November 23rd, 2004, 1:08 am

or at least neutral to pierce. Are there any other factions that are more or less helpless against ghosts? Dwarves have stronger damage and are neutral...

pg · Post by pg » November 23rd, 2004, 1:50 am

Dobob wrote:So you must be a lot more concerned with time of day and leadership when battling them.

Quite hard to do vs ghosts in multiplayer. They are quite fast so you are unlikely to get to attack them when you want, and many factions don't even have leadership to use against them.

So, in your ghost vs grunt example, the ghost should be attacking during the day and the orc during the night, where the ghost will receive massive damage.

Yes, grunts beat level 1 ghosts at night but you need to attack with at least 3 grunts to kill one full hp level one ghost. Ghosts are basically invincible during off times of day for many lawful/choatic units. This lets them use their ranged attacks on fighter units to gain basically free xp and damage.

As for drain, attack damage could simply reduced.

True, but they have weak ranged and low hp when they level. They need to have a fairly strong drain attack as that's the type of unit they are. The real problem is how hard all ghost units are to kill. They are so quick they can retreat usually, they also choose their ground on where to fight and then can heal in 1 or 2 turns. They need fairly low xp to level and you also need generally 3 units to kill them or fire mages. Fire mages are very weak and die easily. Wraiths basically don't even need to fear fire mages ATM unless they get attacked first or are at low hp(both of which are unlikely). Ghosts need some stronger counters.

scott wrote:or at least neutral to pierce. Are there any other factions that are more or less helpless against ghosts? Dwarves have stronger damage and are neutral...

Level one ghosts on a village can give any fraction trouble, and wraiths are probably the single strongest level 2 unit in the game. They are basically stronger than all level 3 units too. A spectre is basically as close to god like as you can get in Wesnoth.

Uppi · Post by **Uppi** » November 23rd, 2004, 2:03 am

pg wrote:[
Level one ghosts on a village can give any fraction trouble, and wraiths are probably the single strongest level 2 unit in the game. They are basically stronger than all level 3 units too. A spectre is basically as close to god like as you can get in Wesnoth.

Unless they stumble across a paladin or white mage...
But for example against orcs they are nearly invincible and just keep getting more and more HP. I had spectres with more than 150 HP...

Elvish_Pillager · November 23rd, 2004, 10:25 am

How to fight ghosts? ZoC them and wait. They can't hurt you enough to kill more than one or two units before you can kill them all.

MRhe · Post by **MRhe** » November 23rd, 2004, 1:36 pm

Elvish Pillager wrote:How to fight ghosts? ZoC them and wait. They can't hurt you enough to kill more than one or two units before you can kill them all.

But that is under ideal battlefield conditions, i.e. that you don't have a pressing need for troops elsewhere and/or the enemy is not using a fleet of ghosts. The most effective undead games I have played/seen are when the player uses a lot of ghosts to wear down the opponent.

Another problem with this is that the ghost can often times get enough xp through ineffectual combat to lvl into a wraith, at which point it's time for your units to run for the hills. They're extremely powerful in their current incarnation.

telly · Post by **telly** » November 23rd, 2004, 2:40 pm

MRhe wrote:
Elvish Pillager wrote:How to fight ghosts? ZoC them and wait. They can't hurt you enough to kill more than one or two units before you can kill them all.
But that is under ideal battlefield conditions, i.e. that you don't have a pressing need for troops elsewhere and/or the enemy is not using a fleet of ghosts. The most effective undead games I have played/seen are when the player uses a lot of ghosts to wear down the opponent.

Another problem with this is that the ghost can often times get enough xp through ineffectual combat to lvl into a wraith, at which point it's time for your units to run for the hills. They're extremely powerful in their current incarnation.

Yeah its disproportionately more difficult to surround a ghost than it is for your opponent to float them around cheesing off experience till they level.

Elvish_Pillager · Post by **Elvish_Pillager** » November 23rd, 2004, 8:08 pm

MRhe wrote:
Elvish Pillager wrote:How to fight ghosts? ZoC them and wait. They can't hurt you enough to kill more than one or two units before you can kill them all.
But that is under ideal battlefield conditions, i.e. that you don't have a pressing need for troops elsewhere and/or the enemy is not using a fleet of ghosts.

No, it's not. All you need is a scout or two at the battle and you can trap them.

Besides, if you are neutral it doesn't matter a lot. The situation where ghosts are impossible to deal with is a corner case.

Wraiths need major nerfing and ghosts need minor nerfing, IMO.

SaintDust · Post by **SaintDust** » November 24th, 2004, 7:30 pm

i would like to see the Undead race made better not worse..
though the wraith is almost unkillable, its not.. an adept, or mage can easy kill it..

plus it cost 20 gold, and has an above average exp.

20 gold per ghost is hard to come up with later in games..

maybe increase the exp by a few points.. like 4-5..

whatever you do don';t make it worse.
the undead don't have much to work with as it is..

im hoping to see a new unit introduced..
something that is not killable by impace/fire/ and holy damage