Significant rebalancing of Drakes & Undead

Post by **Neoriceisgood** » March 2nd, 2006, 10:08 pm

Personally I think splitting cold in cold and shadow would allow for a few more unit options and stuff;

Personally if cold wasn't used so much as "evil" magic, I'd know a few new units that could wield it, same goes for shadow.

I'd really like to see them split, having a "blank" magic type like shadow magic would really help in making some new unit designs for the chaos faction, among other things.

Website · Post by **Sapient** » March 2nd, 2006, 10:24 pm

Yes, despite my advocation of eliminating cold, it really would cause a lot of campaign work. (Imagine HttT requiring custom units to define cold resistances!) So maybe my compromise solution would be too troublesome.

Of course, splitting cold and shadow was the first option mentioned in this thread, Option 0, but I didn't even list it because most devs seem to object on the grounds of Goal 1-- avoid adding opposites.

JW · Post by JW » March 3rd, 2006, 5:54 am

Neoriceisgood wrote:Personally I think splitting cold in cold and shadow would allow for a few more unit options and stuff;

Personally if cold wasn't used so much as "evil" magic, I'd know a few new units that could wield it, same goes for shadow.

I'd really like to see them split, having a "blank" magic type like shadow magic would really help in making some new unit designs for the chaos faction, among other things.

My suggestion:
add the new damage type in your units and don't expect them to be playable with the Default factions. I'm currently working on an entirely new resistance naming system for the Shifters and hope to get other user-made factions to follow suit. This would make all user-made factions playable against each other, but unplayable against the Default factions. I don't see this as a problem.

Elvish_Pillager · Post by **Elvish_Pillager** » March 4th, 2006, 11:37 am

Sapient wrote:The word energy is still problematic for reasons I stated,

You said it was problematic because it's too all-encompassing, but it's not. The name of a damage type doesn't have to fit what it does; for example, pierce isn't used for rapiers.

Sapient wrote:and worst of all, it doesn't even sound cool.

"Pierce" doesn't sound cool. "Blade" doesn't sound cool. "Impact" doesn't sound cool. "Fire" doesn't sound cool. "Cold" doesn't sound cool. "Holy" doesn't sound cool. If anything, sounding cool is a reason to reject a type name.

Sapient wrote:Furthermore, your proposal does not solve or even address goal 2.

It does adress goal 2. It defines what the cold damage type is and does, including how Ghosts and Dark Adepts use it.

Sapient wrote:It maintains Goal 1 as-is,

It also decreases the correspondence between Cold and Fire.

Sapient wrote:but I doubt it would assist Goal 3 either.

I really can't tell what goal 3 is about...

Sapient wrote:My vote: irrelevant.

Well, the proposal was not designed to adress your goals - it was for balancing, and to re-engineer the odd "holy" damage type and the relationship between Fire and Undead.

Post by **Noyga** » March 4th, 2006, 12:01 pm

IMHO 'energy' is too generic, could be easily confused with fire, cold, and other types of non physical damages.

-> What i might be working on · Post by **Eleazar** » March 4th, 2006, 12:18 pm

Elvish Pillager wrote:...pierce isn't used for rapiers.

For all mainline units rapiers have been replaced by sabres-- a fencing weapon that does cut with the edge.

Elvish_Pillager · Post by **Elvish_Pillager** » March 4th, 2006, 1:59 pm

: call it "raw energy." No problem with multi-word names, is there?

db0 · Post by **db0** » March 4th, 2006, 3:25 pm

Elvish Pillager wrote:: call it "raw energy." No problem with multi-word names, is there?

What is "raw energy" supposed to be exactly? Afaik, energy comes in forms, thermal, electric, chemical, kinetic etc. You can't have "pure energy" by itself.

Elvish_Pillager · Post by **Elvish_Pillager** » March 4th, 2006, 3:34 pm

db0 wrote:Afaik, energy comes in forms, thermal, electric, chemical, kinetic etc.

Magical.

db0 · Post by **db0** » March 4th, 2006, 4:34 pm

Elvish Pillager wrote:
db0 wrote:Afaik, energy comes in forms, thermal, electric, chemical, kinetic etc.
Magical.

I always thought of magic as the way, not the result.

Elvish_Pillager · Post by **Elvish_Pillager** » March 4th, 2006, 5:26 pm

db0 wrote:I always thought of magic as the way, not the result.

Sometimes that's the case. For instance, the Dark Adept uses magic to drain the heat from its enemies and the Red Mage uses magic to pull fire out of thin air.

However, the Mage is the academic type and hasn't studied combative magic much yet, so the best he can manage is to smite someone directly with his magical energy.

db0 · Post by **db0** » March 4th, 2006, 6:40 pm

I still don't understand. What is this "magical energy" and what does it do to harm?
Does it burn? If so, it is fire
Does it freeze? Is so, it is cold
Does it disintegrate? If so, then it either acceleration of entropy and thus related to time (I always liked time magic. We need some) or uses some chemical like acid.
Does it electrocute? If so, it is electrical
Does it implode or explode the target? Is so, it is kinetic.

It is easy to use vague terms such as "Magic Energy" but I'd prefer something more concrete.

Website · Post by **Sapient** » March 4th, 2006, 7:09 pm

Regarding damage renaming, I think db0 is on the right track with his spirit/void suggestion and custom era creation. Thanks for doing the effort to get a working version started on this, db0.

Another category to add to your list db0--

mental category: psychic damage, or "psy" for short.

db0 · Post by **db0** » March 4th, 2006, 7:18 pm

Sapient wrote:Regarding damage renaming, I think db0 is on the right track with his spirit/void suggestion and custom era creation. Thanks for doing the effort to get a working version started on this, db0.

My pleasure, really

Sapient wrote: Another category to add to your list db0--

mental category: psychic damage, or "psy" for short.

Can you explain what purpose this type of damage will have? I don't have a problem with including it, but I'd like it to have a specific reason to exist mechanics-wise instead of just flavor, after all, damage types do not affect the name the particular attack would have, so if psychic would work as I imagine it would, there is no reason not to use Spirit Damage instead.
Ex. Mental Spike: 10x2 - Spirit - Magic
Btw, I'm still trying to think how Void damage would work in order to be different from both fire and spirit.

PS: If you can, please write your ideas within the rebalancing thread so I can track them more easily. Thanks.

Elvish_Pillager · Post by **Elvish_Pillager** » March 4th, 2006, 10:35 pm

db0 wrote:It is easy to use vague terms such as "Magic Energy" but I'd prefer something more concrete.

Well, no one really knows the details. Apprentices don't find out and more advanced combat mages scorn the practice.

However, what it actually does is something like pouring a lot of excess energy into an area, causing random changes - much like heat, but not so in the sense that firstly, physical heat damage is typically from the surface and so no-one would recognize it as the same force and secondly, this is Wesnoth and nothing in Wesnoth is quite like it is in the real world.