[mainline] Add Aragwaith to mainline

[Implementor37]

I apologize to anyone I offended with my uninformed ideas... Honestly the whole Khalifate-inspiration issue does not bother me in the slightest . Neither does the realistic aspect . What bothers me is that issues over the Khalifate name/inspiration keep coming up (i regularly find people quit mp games if they find out someone ended up as the Khalifate for some reason) and my attempt to find a solution to this "problem" likely just caused more/worse problems than the original one . I am hereby declaring that I shall never again post about the Khalifate name, inspiration, or related issues. I'm making a fool of myself over something i don't really even care about and isn't going to change... I take everything involving the Khalifate back--feel free to lock/delete this at will..

Actually, i did have one good idea in all this nonsense. The only good idea I've had on this entire subject is including the Khalifate name-translations (i.e. "Arif" means "seargant", "Jundi" means "soldier", etc.) in the unit descriptions. Being able to see those in game would be a huge help in learning the Khalifate names. Everything else I said is pretty much just me repeating the same garbage that is constantly thrown at the Khalifate in order to avoid the same thing happening in the future.

On the other hand, if anyone seriously considers mainlining the Aragwaithi (or Vampires, or Elementals, or Minotaurs, or just about anything else), hit me up. I'd be happy to help with that however I can. I'd be willing to help wherever else i might be needed (although i don't know where exactly that would be--I know WML, could teach myself LUA if i ever needed to, and know C & Java (srry, haven't studied C++, but could try to teach myself if needed ) but I'm pretty sure I've destroyed any credibility I have with the Khalifate... I give everyone permission to PM me if i do something stupid on the forums (which is waaaay to often.. )... My art skills suck, but I can help with about anything else...

[Astoria]

I honestly cannot comprehend this as a concern for the Khalifate.

I was talking about the Aragwaithi.

[Velensk]

Oh. I've alway had the impression that they were some kind of elf (not sure where this comes from).

The Aragwaith are not terribly like the loyalists either. Their gameplay theme is that of being very much glass cannons but with a few tricks to work around that. Aragwaith are even worse than drakes at holding a line but are neutral and have exceptionally high damage so there is no time of day when they cannot deliver a deadly counter attack. If you do not start killing them off quickly then your own units will begin to die very quickly once the fighting comes to a head.

[Eagle_11]

Oh. I've always had the impression that they were some kind of elf (not sure where this comes from).

or rather 'half-elf', partially elvish influenced human culture.

[Astoria]

Oh. I've alway had the impression that they were some kind of elf (not sure where this comes from).

The Aragwaith are not terribly like the loyalists either. Their gameplay theme is that of being very much glass cannons but with a few tricks to work around that. Aragwaith are even worse than drakes at holding a line but are neutral and have exceptionally high damage so there is no time of day when they cannot deliver a deadly counter attack. If you do not start killing them off quickly then your own units will begin to die very quickly once the fighting comes to a head.

They're as human as it gets.

Which Aragwaithi did you try? If it's the EoC Aragwaithi, I'm happy that the stats turned out the way I intended them. I'm not sure how well balanced they are against mainline factions, though, or how hard they would be to balance. I think the main thing with balancing them is to make sure that 1. Every unit is frail enough to force an offensive playstyle and 2. Other factions don't get completely overrun. If you think their gameplay niche is big enough, the biggest thing that would keep us from including them is balance.

[Velensk]

To be honest, I don't remember. I've played several variants of them over the past eight years. They've all given me much the same impression such that I couldn't tell you which was which.

[Implementor37]

When I have time, I intend to compile a document comparing the EoC Aragwaith to the WoL Aragwaith (I think those are the two primary versions...if there's another let me know and I'll add that to my comparison) so that we can all understand which version of the Aragwaith we are disussing, and which is potentially best-suited for mainline . I'll have it ready by the end of the week and put it here for those who want it... I know I've said it before, but I really enjoy the glass-cannon aspect of the Aragwaithi. (The catch of neutral is that while they can deliver a deadly counter-attack at any TOD, there is no TOD at which they are nearly invincible) Probably the best way to balance the Aragwaith is too keep their resistances and hitpoints low to compensate for their high-damage and mediocre cost. (Changing Protection from "Adjacent units of lower level from this side receive a +20% bonus to all resistances (up to a maximum of 50%)" to "Adjecent Units from this side receive a + (15 * difference-in-level)% bonus to all resistances (up to a maximum of 50%) and giving Protection to the Guard (lvl2) and the Shield Guard (lvl3) instead of just the Shield Guard could help make up for a generally resistance-free (or even a few weaknesses) Aragwaith).

[Astoria]

Can you also look at the unit WML? I don't want to need to rewrite everything if they were to be included.

[Elvish_Hunter]

Can you also look at the unit WML? I don't want to need to rewrite everything if they were to be included.

Instead of eyeballing every single file I decided to just use the diff command with this invocation:

Code: Select all

diff -r War_of_Legends/units/human-aragwaithi Era_of_Chaos/units/human-aragwaithi > aragwaithi.diff

Here there is the resulting output, that hopefully will spare a lot of work to Implementor37 :

aragwaithi.diff

(117.28 KiB) Downloaded 253 times

From a quick glance, I noticed that most of the differences are in the animations code: WoL is still using the old animation syntax, while EoC uses the compact one. There are also a few balancing differences and a few renamed units, but I didn't check them in detail.

[Crow_T]

Just as a side note- if 5 more human factions were developed, what would matter more- that they were humans, or that they added something interesting to gameplay? It's a big world with many cultures!

[Implementor37]

@Elvish Hunter Wow...Thanks--I guess I'll stop working on my document now--it mainly focused on balancing so here it is:

Aragwaithi Comparison.txt

(16.77 KiB) Downloaded 237 times

. My only other suggestion was mentioned in my above post (change protection and give it to both Guard and Shield Guard). (and i used units.wesnoth.org to find the values to avoid searching tons of individual files ...)

@Crow_T: 5 Human Cultures? I count 3 (Loyalists, Khalifate, Aragwaithi)--where are the other two? (Rebels are elves, Knalgan Alliance has some human outlaws, but is more focused on the Dwarves, Northerners (orcs), Drakes, and Undead are self-explanatorily nonhuman) I don't think it really does anything bad to the game to have multiple human cultures: i'm of the opinion that (for the most part) more factions is better (providing factions have different playstyles to justify their existence) and don't think that a 3:5 ratio of human-nonhuman factions would be horrible. Perhaps eventually another non-human faction will be complete enough to mainline...but i don't think there are any close right now...(closest is probably elementals atm)

[iceiceice]

Implementor37:

So IIUC, in the beginning the Outlaws were a human faction, separate from the Dwarves. The outlaws at this time had the thug as their main melee unit. The dwarves had the dwarf scout (with throwing axes) as their "speedier" foot soldier.

However the thug is very imbalanced vs. the undead, because it's cheap and deals massive impact damage in melee. And the dwarves were too weak without any faster units that were cheaper than the Gryphon rider. So they got merged into Knalgan Alliance, and thug and dwarf explorer got the cut.

Some would say that Knalgan vs. Undead is still the most problematic default era matchup right now, despite all that.



Edit: I'd say also though, if the Aragwaithi were originally meant for campaigns, it might be easier to make one of those campaigns mainline quality and get some one to maintain it, than to try to shoehorn it into mp. It's really a lot of work to balance things for mp.

[beetlenaut]

Some would say that Knalgan vs. Undead is still the most problematic default era matchup right now, despite all that....It's really a lot of work to balance things for mp.

Would there be anything wrong with changing the factions slightly in different matchups? For example, make the Dwarvish fighter cost one more gold only when playing against the undead? It would make it much easier to add and balance new factions. With the current system, it sounds like the problem is getting a little bit intractable because of the amount of playtesting required for every little change. Six factions was bad enough, but seven is much worse, and no one wants to face eight or nine.

[tekelili]

Some would say that Knalgan vs. Undead is still the most problematic default era matchup right now, despite all that....It's really a lot of work to balance things for mp.

Would there be anything wrong with changing the factions slightly in different matchups? For example, make the Dwarvish fighter cost one more gold only when playing against the undead? It would make it much easier to add and balance new factions. With the current system, it sounds like the problem is getting a little bit intractable because of the amount of playtesting required for every little change. Six factions was bad enough, but seven is much worse, and no one wants to face eight or nine.

You were pretty close of my "dinamic balance" idea there
(In case you have no clue what I am talking about, it means players would do such match ups adjusts by themselves every game. Instead beign a problem, balance would become a player s skill)

At the end, it doesnt matter how much you try to balance factions before a match up (imho). You wont be considering decisive factors as map terrain composition, amount of villages, keeps distance, initial gold. Final pirouette comes when you ask the guy who defined such settings to balance "your match up", outcomes in be balanced "for every match up"

Edit off topic: Btw would be rally usefull be able to define recruit cost without intoduce a new [unit_type] (no way currently afaik). Mermaid Initiate is too expensive for some enveiroments, as example.

[Implementor37]

Some would say that Knalgan vs. Undead is still the most problematic default era matchup right now, despite all that....It's really a lot of work to balance things for mp.

Would there be anything wrong with changing the factions slightly in different matchups? For example, make the Dwarvish fighter cost one more gold only when playing against the undead? It would make it much easier to add and balance new factions. With the current system, it sounds like the problem is getting a little bit intractable because of the amount of playtesting required for every little change. Six factions was bad enough, but seven is much worse, and no one wants to face eight or nine.

I think a better idea would be to give the Undead player 2 gold every time an enemy Dwarvish Fighter is recruited...otherwise in 1v1v1 Knalgans v Undead v Rebels, increasing the Dwarvish Fighter cost by one would unbalance Knalgans and Rebels (This gets even worse on maps like Morituri which hold up to 8 players). On the other hand, giving the Undead player 1 or 2 gold would only affect the undead players directly, and not anyone else. Actually, perhaps even introducing the Thug would be OK--it could be countered by Ghosts+WC... Especially if the Thug was expensive (raise cost to ~19 gold). On the other hand, its OK for some matchups to be a little unbalanced. Perfect Balance is unattainable (outside of mirror matches which aren't especially popular), and it is the discrepencies between factions which make Wesnoth so addicting. I enjoy the challenge of beating (or attempting to beat ) match-ups I know to be a little unbalanced (such as Drakes v Undead--in small maps the starting TOD sometimes makes all the difference) or factions I'm not as good with (*cough*Knalgans*cough*)

Edit: I'd say also though, if the Aragwaithi were originally meant for campaigns, it might be easier to make one of those campaigns mainline quality and get some one to maintain it, than to try to shoehorn it into mp. It's really a lot of work to balance things for mp.

That's why i didn't say "you guys should do this" (i get how annoying this is) but said "i'd like to help make this possible" IMO, the Aragwaithi have a really unique playstyle, due to their high-damage low-hitpoint design (AKA "glass cannon"). I've spent far too much time enjoying the amazing open-source (and free!) game that is Battle for Wesnoth. It's about time I did something useful for the game that's given me so much enjoyment over the last couple years . I've got most of the summer with nothing else to do anyway