Fortune teller ability

-> What i might be working on · Post by **Eleazar** » January 24th, 2006, 1:13 pm

Ask_ wrote:
JW wrote: Unit with Foresight can also backtrack if the first battles were not beneficial - and not fought.
As I already said, the "future" should of course be "fixed" and not depend on how many times your ask This is obvious from both gameplay and "realism" points of view.

This is niether obvious nor possible.
1) it still would require the breaking of our UI principles. (Changing these principles is unlikely to happen to add a good feature.)
2) There is no gameplay point in forseeing something that is immediately going to happen. If the fight doesn not inevitabley and immediately follow the foretelling, then the result is not truely fixed.
In otherwords, if i foretell that attacking A with my B would go badly, and have the option not to attack at all, the future is not fixed.
If i then have the option to attack A with C, D, E, and F the battle previously foretold between B and A would probably go very differently.

Ask_ · Post by **Ask_** » January 24th, 2006, 4:29 pm

1) it still would require the breaking of our UI principles.

How so? There will be no new 'actions', just a change in the 'Damage Calculation' dialog.

In otherwords, if i foretell that attacking A with my B would go badly, and have the option not to attack at all, the future is not fixed.
If i then have the option to attack A with C, D, E, and F the battle previously foretold between B and A would probably go very differently.

Hm. I have had only a cursory glance over the sources, but may be it will be easier to understand if I explain in terms of possible implementation.
First, I assume that the combat sequence between given two units in a given environment (terrain, TOD) can be entirely determined by a single value -- RNG seed.
Second, the above seed value would chiefly (or only?) affect hits/misses, so even if the battle is repeated with modified units' health, the hit/miss sequence will be the same, he only difference would be that one of the units may die sooner.
If both points above are true, then the following implementation is possible: For each 'prediction' generate a new random seed and store it in the map indexed by unit IDs. When a new prediction is requested, first check the map to see whether it was already done, and if so, retrieve old value.

Post by **Darth Fool** » January 24th, 2006, 4:44 pm

Yes, it is possible to implement such a system, but why? It adds little in the way of gameplay. From a fantasy-realism perspective (where we presume that fortune telling is not the scam it is in our world) I would far prefer that a fortune teller would prevent any movements made by adjacent units from being undone. Or even, units next to a fortune teller would be controlled by the AI and precalculated. Then you could have the fortune teller inform the player what was about to happen, and it would happen. From a realism perspective, we could just have the fortune teller give random vague fortunes to adjacent units that have no impact on the future outcome of the game.

JW · Post by JW » January 24th, 2006, 5:52 pm

Ask_ wrote:
JW wrote: Units have movement:
Arrow Unit with Foresight standing next to 2 front line warriors (A & B).
...
Ah, but is not this the way it is intended to be? I do not see it as being better or worse for any kind of area-effect ability.

It doesn't matter how you intend the ability to be used - this is how it would be used.

Ask_ wrote:
JW wrote: Unit with Foresight can also backtrack if the first battles were not beneficial - and not fought.
As I already said, the "future" should of course be "fixed" and not depend on how many times your ask This is obvious from both gameplay and "realism" points of view.

This is a ridiculous amount of change to add an element to the game that can easily become insanely overpowered - and for only one unit that doesn't even exist.

Woodwizzle · Post by **Woodwizzle** » January 24th, 2006, 7:58 pm

How about a unit with precognition can see the result of any attack he makes before it is executed. This would be show by showing mow much damage would be done to each unit in the attack dialog. They would not be able to foresee what will happen when some one else attacks them. Also if we though in a 10-20% chance of coming up with the wrong prediction things would get really interesting (eddie's in the space time continuim and what not ;P)

Post by **Becephalus** » January 24th, 2006, 9:29 pm

ummm I think this is a horrible idea....

Elvish_Pillager · Post by **Elvish_Pillager** » January 24th, 2006, 9:39 pm

Becaphalus: http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3454

Duke Guillermo · Post by **Duke Guillermo** » February 1st, 2006, 3:34 am

A few questions would need to be answered before this ability could even be considered:

1) What conditions have to be met for the future be told?
2) What details about the future would be shown to the player?
3) How could this ability be coded so that the future remains the same when other units move?
4) What units would have this ability?
5) If units with this ability don't currently exist what would their stats be?
6) If units with this ability already exist how would their stats be adjusted?

And, once the uncertainty is cleared, the question that matters:

7) How does the suggestion add to gameplay?

hunterkillr · Post by **hunterkillr** » February 1st, 2006, 9:50 am

This looks like a job for my http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9313 Destiny System proposal.

With that system there would be a constant future(even in save/load), and with a constant future comes fortune tellers.

Ask_ · Post by **Ask_** » February 1st, 2006, 4:50 pm

A few questions would need to be answered before this ability could even be considered:

The idea was already rejected, so I do not think it is worthwile to repeat the answers to these questions. If you want, you can read them in my previous posts in this thread