Significant rebalancing of Drakes & Undead

[Jetrel]

What he's basically complaining about is when factions have a certain characteristic which is so skewed that it dominates gameplay. A characteristic so powerful that no one in their right mind would use any strategy except that which exploits this characteristic.

In wesnoth, there really is only one of those, and that is the strange dichotomy between the Undead and the Drakes. Each has an attack which the enemy is extremely vulnerable to. To do anything other than to capitalize on that fact would likely cause you to lose the game, against any competent player. This is a major problem - it limits gameplay options, since you only have one viable recruitment strategy.


My real beef, however, is with the construction of the fantasy world - Drakes and Undead being polar opposites just doesn't make sense. I could see drakes and mermen being polar opposites (e.g. fire and water), but not what we have now. It's bizarre, and uncalled for.

I plan on defusing the whole resistance issue with these guys as follows:
• All undead (with the exception of ghosts and ghouls) would recieve 0% vulnerability to fire. Not 20%, as they have now. Mages would still be useful against them, because their attack would still do full damage.

• The undead would no longer deal cold damage, rather they would deal Shadow damage, which basically everyone would have 0% resistance to (except white magi and necromancers). Cold would be reserved for saurians, and elves (though only in user-made factions).

I suggest our multiplayer balancers think about how to balance this - it should be fairly easy, since these factions will be a lot more normal after this. I'm not going to make this change for about a month or so, but be aware of this - I've talked about this before, and this shouldn't be a surprise.

[Darth Fool]

@jetryl: I agree with these changes.

[Tux2B]

You've just found out a great way to balance this, though I'm wondering what Shadow damage is (maybe I'm just getting confused by English words...)

[Jetrel]

You've just found out a great way to balance this, though I'm wondering what Shadow damage is (maybe I'm just getting confused by English words...)

A non-"Rock-Paper-Scissors" opposite to Holy, essentially. It represents black magic, stripping it of any elemental considerations that skewed its use before.

Holy deals massive damage to the undead, and slightly weak damage to everyone else:
Undead - 200%, living - 80%

Shadow deals full, pervasive damage, regardless of how much armor someone has, or how thick of a fur coat or hard scales they have.
Undead - 100%, living - 100%, Necromancers - 50%


I could also see certain other units, such as silver magi, or highly magical units (not units that use magic, but units that are magical in nature, such as woses) being somewhat resistant to it as well.

This eliminates several problems we have right now. The first is the obvious Undead-Drake business. But also, there's the issue with Mermen; mermen really should be resistant to cold magic, such as that used by saurians or elves (in fact they may well be a prime candidate for wielding it). However, mermen should not have any resistance to the magic of the undead.

Elves, in fact, should also have a slight (20-30)% resistance to cold.

[db0]

A non-"Rock-Paper-Scissors" opposite to Holy, essentially. It represents black magic, stripping it of any elemental considerations that skewed its use before.

Holy deals massive damage to the undead, and slightly weak damage to everyone else:
Undead - 200%, living - 80%

Shadow deals full, pervasive damage, regardless of how much armor someone has, or how thick of a fur coat or hard scales they have.
Undead - 100%, living - 100%, Necromancers - 50%


I could also see certain other units, such as silver magi, or highly magical units (not units that use magic, but units that are magical in nature, such as woses) being somewhat resistant to it as well.

This eliminates several problems we have right now. The first is the obvious Undead-Drake business. But also, there's the issue with Mermen; mermen really should be resistant to cold magic, such as that used by saurians or elves (in fact they may well be a prime candidate for wielding it). However, mermen should not have any resistance to the magic of the undead.

Elves, in fact, should also have a slight (20-30)% resistance to cold.

Sorry to sound like a broken record, but since there seems there are some sweeping changes coming this way, I believe now would be the best time to create guidelines for the game and stick to them.
Faction Focus is one such guideline and there should be another for the types of damage.
We should discuss what each type of damage purpose in the game is. From that then it would be easy to see which units should have it or resistance to it.

As Wesnoth gets bigger and more complex, having a default guideline to fall back onto, will help avoid arguments and streamline future changes.

Here's an example off the top of my head:

Blade: Axes and Swords. Its purpose is to defeat lightly armored units. Usually is has a higher damage output than bludgeoning and piercing weapons but any kind of armor quickly reduces its effectiveness.
Piercing: Used in Archers and spearmen and serves to take down bigger units (higher HP) like Horsemen and Drakes.
Club: Clubs and Maces. Its purpose it to defeat heavily armored units (higher Res to blades)
Holy: Used by very special units and it's purpose is to defeat the Undead.
Shadow: All around magic, designed to corrupt living flesh. No armor can protect against it but arcane wards can lessen its effect (hence resistance of necromancers and magi).

I really can't decide what Fire and Cold wish to accomplish. Are they just flavor so that units like Mages have something to use or do they have a theme that I'm just not seeing?
For example, I don't see why elves should be resistant to cold and what this would accomplish. Is it to fill a weakness of the Rebels against the undead?

If the Fire, Cold and Shadow magic are just there to be the de-facto element of certain factions or races, will it have the same effect or is each designed to work differently? for example:

Fire = Big Damage
Cold = Damage and effects (slow?)
Shadow = Unavoidable damage

For the moment, I just don't see any underlying purpose, just flavor choices.

Drakes use fire because they are Dragons
Saurians use cold because they are cold blooded
Mages use fire, just because.
etc

and this is a trend that permeates the entire game. Gameplay comes after artwork and fluff.
This is the wrong way to achieve balance imho.

[Darth Fool]

I would categorize things the following way, where a X/Y means I don't care which we call it:

blade: generic damage for swords, axes, daggers, and claws. Good against unarmored units. worse against armored units.
pierce: damage that pierces normal armor to get at vital organs. Thus, armor should be much less effective against it.
impact/blunt: damage that is not so much aimed at causing blood loss but rather at breaking bones. more effective against armor than blade, but not as effective as pierce. Very good at skeletons, but bad against larger creatures or soft creatures (gelatinous hexes of the world).
mystical/spectral: replaces holy and cold damage for undead. This is unnatural damage that has at its source magic. Both mage of light and dark adept lines would use this type as well as the cockatrice. If necessary, this could be split into two types, but I think it would be better as one. Generally, only units with magical powers would defend against it(mage, dark adept, cockatrice). Undead might be particularly vulnerable to it as it attacks directly what keeps them animated.
Fire: generic fire damage. good against things that burn(woses, ghosts), not so good against things that don't(skeletons).
cold: generic freezing damage. should probably be associated with a slow-like attack special. generally good against smaller units and creatures that depend upon their heat(spirits of fire if we get them, maybe drakes, maybe not).

[ivanovic]

I don't think adding just another damage type is such a good idea. Some (long) time ago we agreed that we would not stick to having a real oposite to an attack. That is what shadow would be in regard to holy.
I would more or less prefer to reduce the amount of damage types instead of adding new ones. This damage type would basically only add complexity to the game. The question is: Is it really needed? I don't think so. The balancing between drakes and undead looks fine to me at the moment.
Maybe this discussion should take place in IRC and on the ml since there are more devs active and it is easier to get to a consense.

[Soliton]

In wesnoth, there really is only one of those, and that is the strange dichotomy between the Undead and the Drakes. Each has an attack which the enemy is extremely vulnerable to. To do anything other than to capitalize on that fact would likely cause you to lose the game, against any competent player. This is a major problem - it limits gameplay options, since you only have one viable recruitment strategy.

Drakes have plenty of fire attacks available and Saurian Ambushers are good to kill Dark Adepts still.
Undead have some units with cold and one with a piercing attack. Not to forget that drain is especially good vs the low defense of Drakes.

My real beef, however, is with the construction of the fantasy world - Drakes and Undead being polar opposites just doesn't make sense. I could see drakes and mermen being polar opposites (e.g. fire and water), but not what we have now. It's bizarre, and uncalled for.

If your real problem is with the construction of the fantasy world why don't you try to change the background stories instead of the gameplay?

I suggest our multiplayer balancers think about how to balance this - it should be fairly easy, since these factions will be a lot more normal after this.

So now we're going for more blandness again? Funny that you originally posted this in db0's thread.

I'm not going to make this change for about a month or so, but be aware of this - I've talked about this before, and this shouldn't be a surprise.

Thank you for your kind ultimatum. I wonder if you talked about this before in one of those popular idea threads as well, I certainly haven't heard of it until now.

[Eleazar]

Currently, 14 units use a cold-type attack, and all these attacks are magical/spiritual in nature. "Cold" could probably be given a better name, but i don't see why we need a new attack type (shadow or whatever) to take over for cold, and a generic cold attack.

There have been lots of ideas for revised/additional attack types, but very little consensus. I don't see a need for widespread rebalancing merely to accommodate a system of magic that someone prefers, magic can work however we want.

stats:
blade- 91 units
pierce-77 units
impact- 63 units
fire- 21 units
cold- 14 units
holy- 5 units

[Dave]

Currently, 14 units use a cold-type attack, and all these attacks are magical/spiritual in nature. "Cold" could probably be given a better name, but i don't see why we need a new attack type (shadow or whatever) to take over for cold, and a generic cold attack.

I can agree with this. Cold is used so little in a non-magical sense that it makes little sense to me to break it apart.

I like the idea of renaming 'Cold' to 'Shadow' or perhaps 'Fey', but I don't see much good reason to split it.

David

[Cuyo Quiz]

Hear Darth, it is the system EP suggested and that i tested in the previous version. The Adepts used cold in the etst but it wouldn't be much to chamge it to mystical.

[Elvish_Pillager]

I do prefer the name "energy" though - it doesn't seem quite in theme for a generic human Mage to do "Mystical" damage. Or worse, "Spectral" damage.

[db0]

How about Arcane? Although I like Shadow magic, especially if those using it are more prone to corruption of some kind.

[Elvish_Pillager]

How about Arcane?

That doesn't sound like a type of damage. Considering what Arcane actually means, too, that's like calling the type "Weird damage".

[JW]

This whole "there doesn't need to be an opposite for everything" idea...that's all well and good, but don't you think that there *is* an opposite to "holy" damage? It may not be in the game right now, but I believe there is one.

I said my pieces in the other threads, so here's a summary so you don't have to look them up:
Split damage types into 4: Fire, Cold, Energy, and (my preferred name) Null.
UD get Null, all others keep Cold. No one has resistance to Null except UD.
Mages and WM, MOL get Energy attacks. Units like Woses or Drakes that are immense in size would have resistancies, and UD would probably be weak.
UD lose fire penalty but gain Energy penalty. This makes UD/Drakes no longer weak against each other, but keeps them at a relative equal footing in damage against each other. Also, Mages still have their intended effect against UD.