Significant rebalancing of Drakes & Undead

[Jetrel]

Since I already have 5 million other projects to do, and since our multiplayer developers don't want to change anything...

I'm not going to do this. Simple as that.

[Tux2B]

And here goes one of the best rebalance solutions since a very long time...

This rebalancing is just needed. As well holy/unholy as drake/undead.

The features Jetryl proposed, new abilities, attacks and changes are, indeed, important and would need time to be done, but not doing them is, IMO, a big mistake (as well as making Jetryl angry, because his departure would be really a bad thing for Wesnoth)

[Sapient]

Goals:

1) On the one hand, a lot of Developers want to avoid stark-opposite damage types. This is a noble goal.

2) On the other hand, the way cold is used by most units who weild it could more accurately be described as shadow.

3) New factions on the horizon need to have (x)-ish damage type, where (x) is a series of adjectives which should be listed here.

Options:

1) An "energy" type would be too generic and all-encompassing. For that reason, it fails goal 3. (Fire, for example, is a type of energy.) I don't think we're ready for dark adepts and white mages to get the same magic type. My vote: not likely.

2) A temporary compromise (before adding new damage types) would be to phase out cold and phase in shadow. This acheives our first goal by eliminating the fire/cold opposites. Shadow is not the opposite of holy, really, its opposite would be "light."

2a) After implementing option 2, we can either stop there or we can ask ourselves which new type, if any, would best fulfill goal 3, providing an (x)-ish damage type without violating goal 1? This is why I mentioned "lightning," it would be a new type that doesn't have a stark-opposite. My vote: calling lightning could be the new elfish magic.

[Ranger M]

3) New factions on the horizon need to have (x)-ish damage type, where (x) is a series of adjectives which should be listed here.

2a) After implementing option 2, we can either stop there or we can ask ourselves which new type, if any, would best fulfill goal 3, providing an (x)-ish damage type without violating goal 1? This is why I mentioned "lightning," it would be a new type that doesn't have a stark-opposite. My vote: calling lightning could be the new elfish magic.

the combination of these two is quite ironic, as the new (reletively, which refers to Goal 3) Wild Elf (which refers to option 2a) faction uses lightening as attack for it's mages (which uses the fire damage type).

more on topic, I would support a more diverse range of attack types, as although people site the need for simplicity as a reason for not having more, It only took me a hour to remember all of them when I first found Wesnoth, and it took me one day to get the feel of what was good against what units (which is fairly intuitive anyway). Adding one or two more wouldn't hurt (which is one of the reasons why I supported Dave's proposed changes to the damage types).

I would however agree that having too many (10 being the absolute limit) would be major overkill, and too complicated to remember.

Of course there is always the ever present re-balancing that would have to be done...

[Sapient]

the combination of these two is quite ironic, as the new (reletively, which refers to Goal 3) Wild Elf (which refers to option 2a) faction uses lightening as attack for it's mages (which uses the fire damage type).

Good, that is exactly the kind of information I was looking for. I think also the Saurian Icecaster could become a Saurian Boltcaster.

I would however agree that having too many (10 being the absolute limit) would be major overkill, and too complicated to remember.

Goal 4) no more than ten damage types?

Of course there is always the ever present re-balancing that would have to be done...

Goal 5) avoid work?

[Darth Fool]

When creating new units and factions, we need not only the graphics to make them, we need the code support to allow them to be unique. We need several new abilities (things like parrying, flanking, hit-and-run, stunning, etc.). I'd remind you that not a single new ability has been created since long before 1.0. We really could use some.

Well, I am in favor of adding new abilities, on condition that the AI can handle them. In fact, I am committed to making the abiltiy system able to be flexible enough to handle most of the suggested abilities that you have mentioned once the AI is in place that can be instructed how to use them at a better than ignore level. Unfortunately, with my laptop dead, I am out of the development cycle until I buy a new computer. This should be happening shortly, maybe even today, although I am not sure how long it will take to ship it. Perhaps I should reorder my priorities and work on the abilites before the AI? And then there is the whole question of getting the terrain engine working. Oh well, it is all moot until my new computer arrives anyways.

That said, there is nothing in the damage system that needs to be changed for user made units to use whatever damage types that they like. I see the issue as being purely a question of what we think is best for the mainline units. In that regard, I don't think that having a damage type that is used by only one unit is a good thing.

[JW]

Okay, silly question then: what is the default resistancy to any damage type not listed in the unit's movetype? Would the attack deal 100% damage?

Also, I see why this is such an irritating argument now. I thin kmany of us, at least I was, arguing that the energy types should be split up to be comprehensible for the user-made factions where the current resistancy setup is rather lacking. Since the current setup is made specifically for the default factions and the default factions only, it is not necessary to even use any of the same damage types when creating new units/factions/eras.

I for one will stop arguing such a change in default, as it is apparently not wanted - even though I still believe it would be a lot more cognitively pleasing. I'll just work on an entire new era then to put my Shifters in an put all these awesome changes in there myself. =)

[Darth Fool]

Okay, silly question then: what is the default resistancy to any damage type not listed in the unit's movetype? Would the attack deal 100% damage?

yes.

[JW]

So howcome in defining movetypes in the main unit.cfg does it list all the 0% resistancies? I'm guessing that this is so that they show up in the unit profile. Would this be correct?

(I'm learning!)

[Sapient]

I see the issue as being purely a question of what we think is best for the mainline units. In that regard, I don't think that having a damage type that is used by only one unit is a good thing.

Forgive me for beating a dead horse here, but yes, I think the main question was mainline units and those that might potentially join the mainline units in meaningful ways.

I was glad to see that some Developers, (Dave and Jetryl), don't think these resistance names are lists set in stone tablets. Neither of them was proposing a damage type used by one unit, either, as far as I can tell Darth.

[Yogibear]

I may be completely wrong with this but reading this thread one thing keeps jumping into my eyes:

1)
At the moment there is two "opposing" damage types, fire and cold.

2)
Those factions that are focused on these damage types (drakes and undead) are creating problems, because they exploit each others weakness and therefore limit gameplay options.

Hmm, maybe this was the reason not to introduce opposite damage types ?

There is something else about this thread and it has to do with the attitude of people arguing.

I return to the same thing I've been saying for the longest time, and which I'm beginning to lose patience about. I am, and have been unsatisfied with the basic game model of wesnoth ever since about version 0.6. I think some simple extensions should be made to it, which would fix almost all of the problems we have. If these are things that really will never change, perhaps I should either fork this game, or finish what I'm working on and made a clean departure. I have limited time in my life, and I'd prefer not to waste it.

@Jetryl
I am going to be very frank here: I suppose you could gather the skills you need to do this by yourself, but you don't have enough time to do so. Therefore you are asking others to help you with it.
It is not that we are not willing to do it, rather time and other tasks that we may find more important simply don't allow at the moment. That is because everyone is working on things he finds important or likes. Meanwhile i think this was a very wise decision Dave made at the beginning of the project (i did not regard it as being that important when i first came here). I would probably have left already if it had not been this way. Even if i am convinced the work is needed i would not feel dragged to code it if it is something i don't enjoy that much.

So your mission is to ask others to help you. But your statements rather sound like you demand it from them. That is what makes people react like they did.

I suggest you to precisely tell us what you want to do and why. I remember a thread in the arts forum about unit animation across several hexes and some limitations in the game engine regarding that. I also remember one of those "where is wesnoth heading?" threads, where you presented some of the ideas you had in mind. I would still have quite some difficulties to find that information, though.

You don't need to tell everything again and again. Maybe you can just provide us with some links where we can read about it.

One last thing: I think it has proven very useful to discuss bigger changes before implementing them. I would hate to see us lose that. I have a bigger change in mind myself (about code internals) and i will present that on the mailing list soon.

I also would be sad to see you go because wesnoth's art level improved a lot and you are one of the main reasons for that. But we can't do everything at once. If you feel you can spend your time better on something else, well, then it is your decision and i am not going to question it.

[Elvish_Pillager]

1) An "energy" type would be too generic and all-encompassing. For that reason, it fails goal 3. (Fire, for example, is a type of energy.) I don't think we're ready for dark adepts and white mages to get the same magic type. My vote: not likely.

Everyone complains about other peoples' spins on my vision, no one complains about my vision.

Namely: "Energy" damage only refers to damage done by smiting an enemy with raw magical energy, and Dark Adepts would only get a minor secondary Energy attack while keeping their cold attack.

[Sapient]

Everyone complains about other peoples' spins on my vision, no one complains about my vision.

Namely: "Energy" damage only refers to damage done by smiting an enemy with raw magical energy, and Dark Adepts would only get a minor secondary Energy attack while keeping their cold attack.

Right, I was referring to Noyga's sacred/magic/curse/energy option, not to your earlier energy proposal.

The word energy is still problematic for reasons I stated, and worst of all, it doesn't even sound cool. Furthermore, your proposal does not solve or even address goal 2. It maintains Goal 1 as-is, but I doubt it would assist Goal 3 either. My vote: irrelevant.

[Cuyo Quiz]

2) On the other hand, the way cold is used by most units who weild it could more accurately be described as shadow.

I call Elves, and i think Mermaids too. To me, nothing brings the word shadow to my mind, and the word dark is brought to my mind only because the descriptions talk about necromancy and such as being "Dark Arts", but i doubt someone would link elven magic to Dark Arts.

I agree Energy doesn't sound good, and consider Mystical to be a good name option, as Darth proposed once. I think Mystical could be a wesnothian way of describing magical attacks that don't seem to be immediately recognizable, and i keep open to name options.

Fire and Cold would be just that, actual fire and heat removal, not some kind of magical energy that makes things burn or get cold IMO. This two could be used to represent the attacks that add or take energy/heat very well. In this light, maybe Cold needs to be renamed if we can find a better word for it (i'm not big on the word entropy, since it means waste more than removal).

[Sapient]

Nope, mermaids do impact magic. And while elves may not practice "Dark Arts," the Dark Elves certainly would. So, I stand by my earlier comment: the way cold is used by most units who weild it could more accurately be described as shadow

This gap in meaning would become even more apparent if demon-like creatures from the Chaos Faction are to be given cold damage. I just don't see the need for a "cold" type in the default eras, except for the sorceress line. And as Darth said himself, one unit does not make a good case for a damage type.