Ever hear of a boardgame called "Melee" ?

[Alice]

Around here, we know how to flame people with scientific discussion.

The term "flame" implies an emotional connection to the post for me. While i may be passionate about my idea suggestions, I don't know anyone on this forum from Adam. The flame seems like a personal attack, not a valid judgement of the idea listed in the post. That's not in my opinion very scientific. Sounding like Spock again. Oh well, live long and prosper.

[Casual User]

1. Alice, don't take everything I say seriously, I'm often joking.

2. Alice said : "So why don't you let the computer select the weapon you attack with as well?"

Usually, you usually do. The computer pre-selects a weapon for you when you attack (according to the same principles as the ones it chooses the defending weapon with). It would be aggravating to select the weapon each time, but it could be useful under the conditions I gave above.

3. Letting people use ranged weapons in melee either destroys the difference between melee and ranged attacks or forces the establishment of a very non-KISS rule. Why break it fixing it when it's not really broken to begin with?

4. Any project like Wesnoth accumulates a lot of inertia with time. That doesn't mean you shouldn't post your ideas, but it does mean you must accept a 95% chance of rejection...

5. Alice said : "O yeah, I also like the idea of experience for healing"

I'm with you, but shhh! We are a persecuted minority of the Wesnoth forums, so we must run off to the catacombs.

Actually, Darth fool once said he might make a patch to allow something like this.

[Emmanovi]

Although I appreciate your newness, there is a Frequently Proposed Ideas thread, at the top of this forum.

I was simply stating that one of your ideas has been suggested before, and was denied (several times I believe), and has been placed into the FPI thread. I meant no personal attack or hatred.

[Alice]

Thanks to everyone for the civil replies. I was just startled at the heat from the first few replies. Newbies need a little TLC.

[Cuyo Quiz]

I cherish the fact that i can go for a while, have a drink and then come back to find out my units have been slaughtered by my enemies. I don't want to be there choosing which melee weapon should be used everytime a battle is ensued, especially with Northeners or Undead.

We already have a CTK calculator, couldn't it choose the weapon from that?... OTOH this wouldn't be something expected from everyone, and it would eliminate what could be seen as one of the advantages of attacking in Wesnoth.

[Yogibear]

So why don't you let the computer select the weapon you attack with as well?

Because it would make certain units die without need. There are many games, especially in multiplayer, where the key to victory is to gain an economic advantage that makes you win in the long term. So you won't waste a unit in such a situation. Therefore, you might rather choose to attack with a weapon, that can not be countered by the enemy instead of risking to die.

Take drake fighter against heavy infantery as an example. The fighters primary attack is melee, the weaker secondary ranged fire. The heavy infanterist only knows melee and he has a very strong attack, especially at daylight. If you can't kill your enemy within one turn, you must always be aware of having to fight twice: first when you attack yourself and then when it is your enemies turn. Since all drakes have bad defense almost everywhere, fighting a heavy infanterist twice, there is a good chance to take 3 very powerful hits from him. If your fighter is not dead by then, a second unit can finish it very easily. On the other hand, if you choose fire for the first attack, then the heavy infanterist has only a very small chance to push the fighters hitpoints so low to get it killed in that turn. That gives you the opportunity to withdraw and heal it.

Especially for units with low defense it often lets them survive if you choose a weaker attack that can not be countered. The computer is not smart enough to take that into account, and there is no planning ahead of the current turn for the AI at the moment.

Also, why prevent a defender from having his attack just because he doesn't have the same weapon type that he was attacked with? (I actually think I know why this is the case. It simulates ranged attacks were the defender is not in proximity to the attacker. ) Hence, my argument for true ranged attacks.

Yes, it sort of simulates a true ranged attack. And no, it is not the same. Because if the attacked melee unit survives, it can always strike back the very next turn if it wants. There is no way getting around that. A true ranged attack would give you the opportunity to put your fragile archers behind a line of strong fighters, thus preventing the enemy to reach them with melee attacks.

I believe weapon selection could add a subtle dimension to the game.

It surely adds a new dimension, but i think it is much more than subtle. It makes units more similar, since they almost always will use their primary attack. It will probably screw up current tactics quite a bit. Which does not inherently needs to be a bad thing. But i think it would also take away a lot of diversity.

[Alice]

Because it would make certain units die without need. There are many games, especially in multiplayer, where the key to victory is to gain an economic advantage that makes you win in the long term. So you won't waste a unit in such a situation. Therefore, you might rather choose to attack with a weapon, that can not be countered by the enemy instead of risking to die.

Yogi, you just proved my original point. If it is a good thing to get to pick your wepon when you attack, it should be a good thing to pick your weapon when you defend. It might not prevent you from death, but at least you could cause maximum damage.

Someone else implied that the AI picks the most possible damage for you. I'm not convinced of that yet. I've looked at the calculations, but haven't spent time to totally figue them out yet.

[Noyga]

Especially for units with low defense it often lets them survive if you choose a weaker attack that can not be countered. The computer is not smart enough to take that into account, and there is no planning ahead of the current turn for the AI at the moment.

Actually, it is, and it is configurable with the agression parameter of the AI.
The default value is 1 - 1/2 = 0.5, which means the AI is content with dealing only half the damage to his opponent of that which he himself takes.

[Yogibear]

Yogi, you just proved my original point. If it is a good thing to get to pick your wepon when you attack, it should be a good thing to pick your weapon when you defend. It might not prevent you from death, but at least you could cause maximum damage.

Exactly! And i think that takes away some strategic diversity and makes units more alike.

Look at another example. Northerners against undead. I like to recruit tons of troll whelps. They are cheap, they have many hitpoints and they regenerate without sitting in a village. They have other disadvantages but lets put that aside for a moment. Playing against undead, the most dangerous unit for trolls is a dark adept. He has a powerful ranged only magical attack. If i put a troll on a mountain, with 60% defense i can expose him to three maybe even four attacks without having to fear that he dies. But two dark adepts hitting 10-2 (or more at night) with 70% chance to hit can easily wear him down or get his hitpoints so low that a third unit can kill him. So, there is two options: Make sure that the troll whelp can only be attacked by two units maximum at a time or use other units, that can deal better with dark adepts, for example orcish archers. If an archer gets attacked, it might die but do a lot of damage before. This is pretty much what you are thinking of but it requires choosing the right units at the moment: A crucial strategical element in every game.

Now what happens with your proposal? The troll whelp can strike back with his impact melee attack, causing substantial damage to a dark adept. Since the DA (Dark Adept) has low hitpoints there is a good chance that he will die the very next turn. So i don't care about my troll any more. It takes at least two DA to kill him and if they die the next turn it's an exchange of 13 vs 32 (2*16) gold. What i want to say is: It doesn't matter, if i choose the archer or the troll, they both could be used. All three are very much alike since their primary attack does similar damage. I am not forced to choose the right units, just put them on good terrain and they will have an advantage. IMHO this takes away a strategical element of the game.

PS: Don't take the gold exchange calculation too serious since everything would have to be rebalanced including units cost. But still it's like a two enemies for one of your own units exchange.

[hands]

The idea of a ranged attack that isn't usable at range does seem a bit odd at first. Yet, you seem to have grasped one justification for the current system. Scale is quite arbitrary in Wesnoth. One tile might represent a few feet. Another tile might represent miles. Therefore, to some degree the weapon chosen when attacking dictates what type of combat you engage in. So, the defense weapon is dictated somewhat by that logic. Another justification is that the with the current system a certain difficult problems don't exist or they have been resolved.

It does make some sense that if an archer could see an enemy coming, he might be able to get off a shot before the enemy reached him. So, a defender with a ranged attack could basically have first strike against a melee attack. This would allow for some interesting possibilities. In my mind a unit with 4-3 close and 6-4 ranged attacks could have 4-3 close or 6-1 (first strike) ranged/4-1 (last strike) close defense against a melee attack.

It doesn't always make sense for a defender to choose their weapon, but I could see some argument for it. Adding an option to the game preferences might be the best way to allow playing either way. In fact, another option could be added for people in a hurry to simply let the computer always choose your weapon for you.

P.S. I'm a newbie here to, Alice. So, I'd like to say, "Welcome."
P.P.S. Someone just recently made a fork of the game over here. You might want to go talk to them. They might like your ideas and implement them even if they don't fly well here.

[Darth Fool]

There is a very simple reason why you are not allowed to choose your defensive weapon. When playing multiplayer, it would meant that everyone would have to pay attention to the game all the time. You couldn't do hotseat game without exchanging seats during every attack. By having the defensive attack chosen, only the player whose turn it is needs to be interactively involved in the game for it to proceed.

[hands]

There are other ways around that: disable defensive weapon choice in hostseat games, disable defensive weapon choice in multiplayer games (or have the option), implement a time restriction for defensive weapon choice, establish a penalty system in multiplayer games for delaying the game due to defensive weapon choice, etc. If each player could individually decide whether or not they wanted to choose their defensive weapon, the last option would give them a very good reason to either concentrate on the game or let the computer choose the defensive weapon for them.

[bruno]

Thanks to everyone for the civil replies. I was just startled at the heat from the first few replies. Newbies need a little TLC.

:D

Newbies can also save themselves grief when joining a community by reading discussions (past and/or present) for a while before jumping in. You still might end up saying something that will get some unexpected flack when you post, but the odds should be a lot lower.

[Elvish_Pillager]

Yeah, but that mostly means you will get expected flack instead.

[Alice]

It seems I can't win here. If I argue a general idea, the next post asks for a specific. Then the specific get picked apart because the general idea is not considered.

In one of the posts it was stated that if ranged combat were to be allowed you would end up with lines of infantry in front of a lin of archers shooting at the enemy. That's exactly what happened in real battles, and it was called strategy (or at least tactics). That was declared a bad thing, so now I have to propose achange without ranged combat. I propose a choice in defence weapons. That is declared to be cutting down on the strategy of the game.

I do agree that having the ability to choose the defense weapon for a unit does make all the units more generic. But the strategy is still there, it's just shifted a little. Instead of having to have picked the right character, and positioning in just the right place, the emphasis moves to using what is in the right place the best you can untill you can get another charater better suited for the job there to help.

If what has been said is true about the scale of each hex being variable, I agree that this makes ranged combat much harder to program. However, in a lot of ways this doesn't make sense. Do hexes vary in size within the same map, or is it from map to map? If they do not vary within the same map, the range could easily be calculated and adjusted from map to map based on it's scale. If it varies within a map, this makes the character units seem a bit silly. (One walking dead in the area of several miles, but I come up to the adjacent several miles and have to stop because of his zone of control?) If the hex sizes are several miles, the units ought to be squads or companies, not individuals.