Significant rebalancing of Drakes & Undead

[Noyga]

I like the current names for the damages types, because it is quite simple to understand what they do.

-The most unnatural type of damage is currently 'holy', but it is quite easy to understand how it works.'light' could be another name but its doesn't helps better.
- The current most confusing damage is cold. For some usages it makes senses, but when it is used for a curse spell it is more a convention than something else. IMHO cuses spells could be 'fire' as well. That's why Jetryl's idea of 'shadow' makes senses (however the name 'shadow' is quite obscure, at least to me, 'curse' would be better IMHO).
By the way, it's true that it rather pointless to create a new damage type.

So why not give current 'holy' to the Adept line (at least the ranged attack, the melee can stay cold for the Lich IMO) and change the name 'holy' to something more neutral like ''sacred' or magic' or 'curse' or 'energy' ?
It ils true that it would probably power down a little the dark adept line and Undead vs Drake balance would have to be reworked.

Then according to Eleazar, we would have :
blade- 91 units
pierce-77 units
impact- 63 units
fire- 21 units
cold- 11 units (-3 (i count the Lich here too))
sacred- 9 units (+4)

Nevertheless, it is for me a quite unimportant problem, i find current system quite good as it is.

[Jetrel]

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

Because the mainline units are only a small part of wesnoth as a whole.

The big blind spot that you have here is that there are many things which we don't make because we can't, now. Because, as of now, they simply don't function in our game world.

We need this change to allow them to function.

[Noyga]

Could you explain more precisely what kind of things you're talking about (maybe with an example ?)
I have no clue what you're talking about.

[Neoriceisgood]

If I were to make a cold-based faction and nag you people enough to include it, it would solve alot of problems.

[Jetrel]

Could you explain more precisely what kind of things you're talking about (maybe with an example ?)
I have no clue what you're talking about.

Example: Neoriceisgood has made at least one great-looking, new saurian unit. However, having it in the game mandates some sort of chameleon ability, which is why we simply cannot add it in right now. There is no suitable approximation for such an ability- we simply can't add it in, and if we simply gave it something else, we'd soon have people clinging to said "something else" as the correct thing for it to have.


Building a good game can be likened unto building a road. Much of it can be gradual and evolutionary, but certain things mandate non-evolutionary leaps. These are like bridges - you can't use half of a bridge. You need something that spans the entire river.

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.


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.

[Jetrel]

Side note number two:

One thing I'd really like to do, after some brief modularization of our unit handling code, would be to split all the units in the game into factions that could be added and removed. (Not unlike what's been done with the campaigns.)

Following with that, I'd like to add the Sidhe Elves and Chaos faction - especially the latter, since they're already team colored.

With those in game, we'd have more than enough call for differentiated use of both shadow, holy AND cold damage.

[Sangel]

I am a firm believer in splitting "Cold" as a damage type into "Cold" and "Shadow". There are several reasons for this:

• * I think that it will aid in balancing Drakes and Undead, by providing more flexibility.
  * I think that it will offer more flexibility in general for scenario makers.
  * I think that it will create natural, appealing dichotomies. Cold and Fire are opposites - Holy and Unholy (or light and shadow) are opposites.
  * I think that it will not add complexity to the game in an unhelpful fashion; I feel that it is intuitive and easy to understand.

I'd hate to see this become a divisive issue, however. The game isn't spoiled by having this remain the same; I just believe it would be a beneficial change.

[Soliton]

Example: Neoriceisgood has made at least one great-looking, new saurian unit. However, having it in the game mandates some sort of chameleon ability, which is why we simply cannot add it in right now. There is no suitable approximation for such an ability- we simply can't add it in, and if we simply gave it something else, we'd soon have people clinging to said "something else" as the correct thing for it to have.

Did you know that we have a bug tracker that is also for feature requests?

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.

Many of the abilities/weapon specials you list have been discussed here on the forum and have been either rejected (or no one came up with a reasonable way to implement them) or have been forgotten/postponed because apparently no one cared enough to implement them or even make a feature request. (probably partly because no unit would need them or no one knows about those planned units that would need them)
Did you know that we've got a new swarm weapon special and that several other weapon specials/abilities have been reworked?

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.

Again you're being very vague about what bugs you with "the basic game model of wesnoth". What are those "simple extensions" that would fix all our problems? I can only say that I have no clue what you're talking about and it seems to me no one else has either.

Another thing that's unclear to me are those "things" that your proposal will enable us to implement because at the moment "they simply don't function in our game world". This beating about the bush is quite frustrating.
Maybe you should re-iterate your concerns and what solutions you envision. So that the development team as a whole can work towards those goals.
Building a good game in a team with distributed responsibilities requires some sort of coordination so that everyone knows about these "development leaps" you speak of. Maybe you should put a bit more effort into coordination and the development process might get a less frustrating experience for you.

[Sapient]

I think Jetryl is trying to say that having Dark Adepts, Dark Elves, and Chaos units all running around with "cold" damage sounds a bit weird.

I think the easiest way to fix this is change the name cold to shadow. Then make mermen weak to shadow, and nagas weak to fire instead of cold. Muahahaha!

Drakes vs. Undead will definitely need rebalancing as the thread title suggests, either that or come up with some reason why Drakes are weak to shadow (which would be silly).

Now, do elves' sorceresses get shadow damage or keep cold(as Jetryl suggested)? That's the only tough question.

If you want a single extra damage type, I suggest ditching cold for shadow and adding support for a "lightning" type. Then elvish sorceresses could get lightning, and it opens up some more possibilities for drakes with lightning damage, etc.

[Jetrel]

As I've said many times before, the elven sorceress line is getting removed. Those will go into the high elven faction.


Anyways, this kind of mock 'discussion' is precisely the reason I had been keeping my mouth shut, by and large. I'm not going to waste any more time talking, since the audience isn't listening.

Cheers.

[Sapient]

hmmm. I was agreeing with you Jetryl. I apologize for not being aware of your plans for the elvish sorceress, but still maybe take some herbal tea and some deep breaths, man. I'm on your side here.

[Tomsik]

Why not just change name of holy to "energy" (or something like) and give it to adepts(and other guys that would get "shadow" damage)?

[JW]

Because the mainline units are only a small part of wesnoth as a whole.

I am in total agreement.

* I think that it will aid in balancing Drakes and Undead, by providing more flexibility.
* I think that it will offer more flexibility in general for scenario makers.
* I think that it will create natural, appealing dichotomies. Cold and Fire are opposites - Holy and Unholy (or light and shadow) are opposites.
* I think that it will not add complexity to the game in an unhelpful fashion; I feel that it is intuitive and easy to understand.

In total agreement here as well.

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.

I'd be a willing recruit to help you out if you did such a thing.

I'm not going to waste any more time talking, since the audience isn't listening.

I'm listening, Jet.

Basically: There needs to be 8 damage types for the damage types to make sense. I'm almost about to share in Jet's frustration over the unwillingness to change this problem. I see people complain that "Holy" is an odd damage type -a damage type with what, 11 units was it?- and yet it remains and was put in despite there being few unts for it. Why deny Unholy/Spectre/Null/Dark/Shadow the same inclusion? Is there some philosophical reason why an "evil" damage type is being left out of the game? If so, I think that's incredibly silly. If "evil" is left out then "good" could and should be just as easily left out.

If there won't be 8 damage types, make it 6. Remove Holy then I say.

[ivanovic]

The basic thing was that once upon the time it was said that we won't work with oposites concerning attacks. We only have one case where the name suggests the oposite: cold vs. fire. Beside this one there are no oposite attacks. That was made by design, not randomly.
Concerning drakes beeing vulnerable against attacks like "shadow" is easy, just write a race description including something about this:
"The Drakes were once upon the time created out of the power of light in the days when the dragons were the Lords of Wesnoth. In these days the Drakes had to keep the world in balance and protect everything that is good against destruction."
If we had race descriptions we could virtually explain everything. And I think for the current situation cold really is not this bad.

[JW]

The basic thing was that once upon the time it was said that we won't work with oposites concerning attacks. We only have one case where the name suggests the oposite: cold vs. fire. Beside this one there are no oposite attacks.

This is totally untrue. Opposites don't work when it comes to physical damage, that's true, but when it comes to energy damage the opposites are obvious (as you mention: Fire v Cold, though Fire should really be Heat to be linguistically the opposite). This whole "Holy" business just begs for "Unholy."