disscusion about 1.12 mushroom terrain

[tekelili]

i am opening this thread after being asked to do so at gna page (where I reported this issue after beign asked to use gna page rather than forums )

In 1.12 currently mushrooms ar not longer single terrains, instead are double terrains with also its base terrain properties. this mean maps like The Freelands are now imbalanced. This also means all UMC authors that carefully balanced their maaps have now to change them (a work that developers still didnt achieved at mainline maps). This will probably means a lot of WML in addons changing units defense on mushrooms can now have different behavior in 1.12 (in other words, will break some addons code). I dont even know how developers would manage some units defenses as horses or gryphons on mushroom terrain.

Btw I am affected for both issues, I would have to recode all my addon random maps generators and some magic items. Some changes can be hard to figure out, like changing a "flying" magic item code to not boost defense in mushrooms. Wich btw I dont even know if it is possible, bacause in my experience with WML trying to modify some units defense, the current double status of forest terrain, becomed issue imposible in some cases (double terrains are a hell for coders).

This change wont be reversed unless it gets some "general complaiment", so hoping some support here

[Ravana]

Did its terrain code change? Is

Code: Select all

            [filter_location]
                terrain=*^Uf,*^Ufi
            [/filter_location]

still valid?

[iceiceice]

So in my opinion, although the change is a bit disruptive (and we should have made whatever necessary changes to the mp / campaign maps before 1.11.16 release), I think it's a good thing and I don't think we should reverse it.

You can read the irc logs from the day that this change was made, but if I remember correctly we were motivated to do this because the current system seems quite confusing for newbies. Best defense / worst movement is a good system that we use for forests, why do we do something completely different for mushroom groves? The "rule" that mushroom grove doesn't get this behavior isn't written anywhere... not very newbie friendly. I think the view was that we probably intended to do this when we introduced dual terrain types but forgot about the mushroom groves.

We did consult with mp devs to figure out if there would be balance problems with this, iiuc it was expected that the balance impact would be quite limited.

But if we really want for there to be zero balance change, it would be very easy to do computerized find and replace, and swap mushroom + hills for mushroom + flat etc.

"What about cavalary and gryphons?"

I guess for units that get higher defense on flat than on mushrooms, we probably should put a "negative" terrain defense modifier for them, similarly to how we handle forests for cavalry currently.

One possible objection is that we could be changing the look of some of the maps for the worse if we remove hills under mushrooms... IMO however the look of the terrain goes right to the heart of the problem, if a newbie sees that the map maker put these mushrooms on hills, she's going to be reasonably confused about why her dwarves don't have 60% defense.

From a search with regular expressions, here is a list of all terrains in data/multiplayer/maps and in data/campaigns which are ever paired with ^Uf:

Edit: Added notes

Gg
Gs
Gd
Gll
Rb
Rd
Re
Rp
Rr

^ These terrains went from Mushroom grove to Mushroom grove + flat, which should not be a significant change (if we put negative modifiers on cavalry and gryphons)

Hh <-- Many.
Hd <-- Only 2p_Howling_Ghost_Badlands.map, 2 times
Uh <-- Only 2p_Hornshark_Island.map, 1 times
Ur <-- 2p_Hornshark_Island 10x, 2p_Arcenclave_Citadel 8x
Uu <-- Many.
Dd <-- 4p_King_of_the_Hill 1x, 2p_Howling_Ghost_Badlands.map 1x, 4p_Isars_Cross.map 2x
Ds <-- Only 9p_Merkwuerdigliebe.map, 3 times
Ss <-- Only 8p_Mokena_Prairie.map, 4 times
Mm <-- Only 6p_The_Manzivan_Traps.map, 1 times


So based on that, the most significant changes are because of Hills Hh + mushroom, and Underground Uu + mushroom. I would think that if we replace Hh^Uf with say Gg^Uf, (grassland + mushroom), this would not pose major problems (but we could also leave some of them as hills). For the underground + mushroom... I'm not sure what the balance consequences are. The most significant change I can see is dwarves getting better defense.

Actually, it might be a good idea to give dwarves a maximum 40 defense modifier on fungus, this might fix the caves and also reduce the need to change the existing fungus hills.

[NanRage]

Is a disaster,,,

For example in Caves of Basilisk that 2 mushrooms in centre they do have a reason to be there, to slow. And to me CoB is one of most balanced maps.

But it is posible I didnt complety understood what u mean. But from my ignorance, I dont think doing what they want to do helps game in anyway, quite the oposite, makes unbalanced best default maps.

Salut.

[tekelili]

@iceiceice: From an intutive behavior for a newbi, I dont think double terrains are a great improvement. Not very intutive that my horseman can walk throught mountain when have a village, of a darve with some magic buff in flat defense become also buffed on grass/forest double terrains. Some players with lot of experience asked me why their darves were buffed on "forest" in that case

In fact, I still remember that in last TGT edition, I was "cheated" twice in the same game on Loris River by the same forest/swamp hex, wich is almost impossible to notice at simple sight, and stoped my attacks due to increased movement cost

[Horus2]

General complainment here.

The proposed solution generates more (needless) trouble than what it solves. And if you want to revert the balance by adding those negative terrain defense modifier code for mixed terrains, i don't see where those are indicated for the newbies. Which is funny, because that is the same reason you want to change the dual fungi terrains.
While we are so protective towards newbies, let's not forget that the trait pool of individual units are also nowhere indicated, like that trolls having fearless but no intelligent, etecera etecera. The fungi is a single exception; you encounter it and learn it. The trait pool is something that can be different for every single unit and keeps you in uncertainity for a good while. Can you imagine how many newbies' heart broke because they never got a single intelligent Troll Whelp, that can be leveled into a beast that does double the damage? Well, it seems noone found it worthy to mention in the past... how long since the new trait pool for the troll is in, four years or maybe six? Or there is the Naffat, which cannot get strong trait. Sure, logical, but we heard enough times that WINR.
I have a theory why is it so, why noone complained about the trait system. Because in a game where in the campaigns players encounter potentially deadly tomato surprises on a daily base, we can safely assume that the general population does not mind it. They have a mindset for such occurences.
Consistency is not a holy grail that can be used for everything. Exceptions serve the game balance (and prove the rule). Otherwise what should follow, uniformising the forest resistance of the Elvish Archer and Shaman to 60%, because that is inconsistent?
Furthermore, there are some intricate usage of mixed fungi terrains on 1v1 maps. The first to come into my mind is 2p_Swamp_of_Dread, a very nice 1v1 that features moderate amount of swamp-fungi, where the harm of flattening every fungi terrain is only aesthetical. But in the case of the many maps with the much more frequent hilly mushroom grove, it clearly has a gameplay impact, since there are core units that has less defense on fungi than on hills, and units that need more movement points to cross a hill than the fungi.

The solution is simple: revert the change, mention it it in the help menu, make Delfador give a lesson to Konrad about it in the tutorial and let's forget that it was about to happen.



ps: Thank you tekelili for posting it!

[Blop]

I support what Horus2 says, especially about newbies. In the past I used to wonder (with this rule) why cavalry had 30% on forests.

[Velensk]

I'm going to have to disagree with Horus here. The change makes mushroom groves more versatile and a more powerful tool for mapmakers.

Also, what units need more movement to cross hills than mushroom groves? Right now, one of the primary purposes of mushroom groves is that they are one of the few terrains that slows down pretty much everyone.

@Blop perhaps you missed the years and years when cavalry got 30% defense on forests anyway before forests were considered mixed flat/forest. There is an easy logical basis that's pretty intuitive (cavalry have low defense in forests, they don't get defense back now that forests are considered flat/forests [and incidentally, as it's still possible to get pure forests that are not flat/forest you can create idiosyncrasies where cavalry get 30% on some forests and 40% on other people that have low defense in mushroom groves don't get it back when the groves happen to be on hills).

Either way, there is an inconstancy but I prefer the inconsistency which gives map-makers more options.

[Blop]

@ Velensk:
I didn't mean by logic, but by coding. I thought the rule "best defense, worst movement" always applied.

[iceiceice]

tekelili: Well I have not been around nearly as long as you, but I found the behavior of fungus very confusing when I started to play. (Note that, I did not commit this fungus change, that was someone else, but I do think it's a good idea.) Even if double terrains doesn't solve everything, we're not going to get rid of double terrains, and it's better to make everything work the same way to the extent possible.

Also, Fabi and Lordbob (I think that's everyone that worked on it?) added the terrain type indicator icons, so it should help to reduce the confusion as well.

Nan: I don't think the CoB was significantly unbalanced by this change, the fungus hexes are still there and they still slow things at least as much and sometimes more.

Here's (I believe) a complete list of units that have changed in 1.11.16:

Loyalist Cavalry:
Mushroom + Flat: 20 -> 40% defense
Mushroom + Hills: 20 -> 40% defense

Elves (includes scout but not the flying elves):
Mushroom + Cave: 2 mp -> 3mp

Woses:
Mushroom + Cave: 2 mp -> 3mp

Dwarves:
Mushroom + Hills: 40% -> 60% defense
Mushroom + Caves: 40% -> 50% defense

Gryphon:
Mushroom + Flat: 30% -> 50% defense
Mushroom + Hills: 30% -> 50% defense

Mermen:
Mushroom + Flat: 20 -> 30% defense
Mushroom + Hills: 3mp -> 5 mp

Nagas:
Mushroom + Flat: 30% -> 40% defense
Mushroom + Hills: 2mp -> 3mp

Flying Drakes:
Mushroom + Cave: 2mp -> 3mp

Khalifate Foot and Khalifate Armored Foot:
Mushrooms + Hills: 40% -> 60% defense

Khalifate Mounted:
Mushrooms + Flat: 20% -> 40% defense
Mushrooms + Hills: 20% -> 60% defense

Khalifate Armored Mounted:
Mushrooms + Flat: 20% -> 40% defense
Mushrooms + Hills: 20% -> 50% defense



For a fairly "fundamental" change, the consequences of this are remarkably few. Zero changes to human units (except cavalry). Zero changes to undead units. Zero changes to orcs. If you are willing to ignore the cave + mushroom 2mp->3mp change (which is insignificant for current mp balance on current maps, imo) then zero changes to drakes and rebels as well. The only significant changes are to dwarves, cavalry, and khalifate. The big benefit is consistency, and also the availability of new and more interesting dual terrain types to make maps with, like Velensk pointed out.

So, to recap:
- Fungus + Flat didn't change for any units except Loyalist and Khalifate cavalry, and for gryphons and fish slightly.
- Fungus + Hills changed a lot, now dwarves and khalifate (and cavalry) have high defense there. (But IMHO map makers should not have been using this terrain anyways because it was confusing, so it's not bad if we change it to Hills + Flat now, or just leave it if it doesn't make a significant balance impact.)
- Fungus + Cave changed slightly in that, dwarves have slightly better defense, and elves and flying drakes are a bit slower.

So I think it would be mostly all the same balance-wise as before if:
- Loyal and Khalifate Cavalry get max 20% defense on any fungus type
- Gyphon gets max 30%
- Dwarf gets max 40%
- On mp maps change most Hills + Mushroom to Flat + Mushroom (since this is actually a relatively common terrain type)
- On mp maps change Cave + Mushroom to Flat + Mushroom at discretion (this is not too common, but Rebels have gotten slower across the board on this)
- (Possibly consider to give Khalifate foot units max 40% on fungus?)

I would also wonder about the balance of campaigns like Sceptre of Fire, but even in those places its not like there are large patches of Cave + Mushroom that will dramatically slow down elves, that terrain tends to just be scattered here and there.

[Blop]

So this means that mushrooms are treated just like the oasis-tile?

[Horus2]

I'm going to have to disagree with Horus here. The change makes mushroom groves more versatile and a more powerful tool for mapmakers.

Also, what units need more movement to cross hills than mushroom groves? Right now, one of the primary purposes of mushroom groves is that they are one of the few terrains that slows down pretty much everyone.

@Blop perhaps you missed the years and years when cavalry got 30% defense on forests anyway before forests were considered mixed flat/forest. There is an easy logical basis that's pretty intuitive (cavalry have low defense in forests, they don't get defense back now that forests are considered flat/forests [and incidentally, as it's still possible to get pure forests that are not flat/forest you can create idiosyncrasies where cavalry get 30% on some forests and 40% on other people that have low defense in mushroom groves don't get it back when the groves happen to be on hills).

Either way, there is an inconstancy but I prefer the inconsistency which gives map-makers more options.

Ugh, i forgot those times. I consider myself lucky to grow up with forests being strictly forests, so i can consider them being forests on sight. If i would be about to start playing, this mixed flat/forest thing would sure raise some questions in me about the game logic, ableit something that can be answered easily, just like the mushroom, see below. Now that you pointed that out for me, this means that two different kind of inconsistency already exist paralelly in the current version, and developers want to reduce it to one. So be it, let it be this one. Thank you for helping me to grasp what iceiceice wanted to tell about.
However defense values should stay the current way, because if due to community pressure gryphon and horse units keeps the lower defense (they must), why won't the dwarf on mushroom hills have the lower defense? Otherwise that would become a new second inconsistency and that is what causing eyebrows to raise now.
Current in-game percentages for these are not that hard to interpret. This should be the principle describing the current exception:

Mushroom grove and forest are overlay terrains. Overlay terrains are enforcing their lower defense percentage when being mixed.

This is not difficult. Magnitudes better than iceiceice's suggestion of setting exceptions separatedly for half of the affected 12 types of foot and creating extra inconsistency and balance changes simultaneously.


ps: I don't understand how a mushroom version that is not enforcing 30% for gryphons would give more options to mapmakers, or which one did you mean there?

The big benefit is consistency, and also the availability of new and more interesting dual terrain types to make maps with, like Velensk pointed out.

But IMHO map makers should not have been using this (Fungus + Hills) terrain anyways because it was confusing.

That double standard...

[iceiceice]

Mushroom grove and forest are overlay terrains. Overlay terrains are enforcing their lower defense percentage when being mixed.

No... that is emphatically not how it works in general.

The principle is, with a few exceptions:

When a unit encounters a mixed terrain type, it enjoys the *best defense* and *worst movement* of those that it would get on the constituent basic terrain types. (There is no distinction between overlay / nonoverlay types from the player's point of view, that is a technical detail reserved for devs and mapmakers.)

The exceptions are:
- For some unit types, the main example being cavalry, they have a declared *maximum* terrain defense value for certain terrain types (forest). This overrides the *best defense* behavior. Yes it's an unfortunate wrinkle in the principle above, and yes it is unfortunate that it is only explained in the fluff paragraph in the help and not using some fancy gui hint in the terrain table, but some exception like this is *necessary* if we want cavalry to have only 30% defense on forests, and this really isn't such a bad way to do it. I think everyone would agree that it would be good to improve the help display on this point.
- Some terrain types that look mixed aren't really mixed, the main example being water villages and (until now) fungus groves.

There may be other exceptions of course that I'm simply unaware of, but I'm pretty sure the rest are extremely obscure if they exist.

Edit: I guess this mountain village thing tekelili points out is another exception, I'm not sure of the reasoning behind that.

The *possible* new exceptions for units on fungus grove which I suggested above would be to *prevent* any possible balance changes from occurring, not to add more. If we fixed up the help display to display them clearly then I really don't see any reason against it, if we already have such exceptions for cavalry.

But keep in mind also the purpose of adding such exceptions. We're not doing this with the interest of changing current balance, the point is that now many new mixed mushroom grove terrain types are possible and saying "dwarves only get 40% there" or not is going to dramatically affect their character. We get to decide what we want the new terrains to be like, and that decides whether or not we need to remove many current instances of "Hills + Mushroom" to preserve balance.

That double standard...

What double standard?

Before now (but after the introduction of mixed terrain types), if I were a beginner and I looked at a hills + mushroom, what would I think that it is? Naturally, based on my experience with forests and hills, I would think that it's a combination of the two terrains where I will get best defense and worst movement. I wouldn't expect it to be solely mushroom groves, because if that's the case, why didn't the map maker make it just mushroom groves? Would he really go out of his way to put hills under the mushrooms, where they would confuse me, just for artistic purposes?

After 1.11.16, if a map maker puts Hills + Mushroom, he is *intending* for it to be interpreted as hills + mushroom which is exactly what I the beginner would expect. So now, hills + mushroom is an interesting new strategic tool to play with, rather than a trap for beginners. There's no double standard here.

[Dunno]

trolls having fearless but no intelligent

Wow, I've been playing Wesnoth for a while and I never noticed this.

On topic: I for one always loved Wesnoth for being so thoroughly balanced and I can imagine that those "remarkably few" changes can break the whole thing (btw, boosting defence by 20% for an expensive heavy-hitter like gryphon is a huge change). I sure hope developers know what they're doing here.

[iceiceice]

While we are so protective towards newbies, let's not forget that the trait pool of individual units are also nowhere indicated, like that trolls having fearless but no intelligent, etecera etecera. The fungi is a single exception; you encounter it and learn it. The trait pool is something that can be different for every single unit and keeps you in uncertainity for a good while. Can you imagine how many newbies' heart broke because they never got a single intelligent Troll Whelp, that can be leveled into a beast that does double the damage? Well, it seems noone found it worthy to mention in the past... how long since the new trait pool for the troll is in, four years or maybe six? Or there is the Naffat, which cannot get strong trait. Sure, logical, but we heard enough times that WINR.
I have a theory why is it so, why noone complained about the trait system. Because in a game where in the campaigns players encounter potentially deadly tomato surprises on a daily base, we can safely assume that the general population does not mind it. They have a mindset for such occurences.

I have a different theory. My theory is, most people are too lazy to write proper bug reports and feature requests, even for bugs / "issues" that they live with for years. Only a select few are actually interested in helping us to improve the quality of the game.

I have fixed this issue with the help, it seems that there was already code to add the trait entries to the help viewer, and code in the unit types to provide the collection of possible traits, but someone neglected to go the final 9 yards and put a list of links from the units. It took me 45 minutes to read the help code and to code and test the patch, now on master: https://github.com/wesnoth/wesnoth/commit/dc4470d

Edit: screenshot http://i.imgur.com/LIC9He6.png
Edit: Actually I realized the screenshot showed a bug because of some unexpected behavior...
A few commits later, this is what I have: http://imgur.com/a/MGPj3#0

Unlikely that this will be considered as a bug and warrant backporting to 1.12, but maybe it can appear in 1.12.1 or something.