Knights, Paladins, and Muff Malal's Peninsula

[Elvish_Pillager]

The Knight is one of the most powerful units in the game, and this has two issues:

1) The Knight has no upgrade that does not lose something. The paladin loses sword damage, and the grand knight loses speed. In many situations, the Knight is superior to one or both of its upgrades. To fix this problem, I suggest that the Paladin be given a blade attack equivalent to its holy sword.

2) The Knight causes a problem in Muff Malal's Peninsula. Muff Malal isn't very smart, so he sends his host of Vampire Bats to suicide themselves on a Knight before they make any other moves. Then he realizes that he doesn't have enough scouts to capture the peninsula's villages, so he recruits another castlefull, and the process repeats. As long as the Vampire Bats don't get really lucky and many survive, he'll never recruit anything else. (I've attached a replay and a scenario-start save.) This also never happens unless you have a Knight but no Heroes, Captains, Champions, or Marshals in your recall list. I suggest that Knight and Paladin be removed from the [role] tag. (This problem also reflects a broader AI problem, which would not be so easy to solve.)

[Circon]

The Knight is one of the most powerful units in the game, and this has two issues:

1) The Knight has no upgrade that does not lose something. The paladin loses sword damage, and the grand knight loses speed. In many situations, the Knight is superior to one or both of its upgrades. To fix this problem, I suggest that the Paladin be given a blade attack equivalent to its holy sword.

The Paladin does not lose sword damage. It has an 8-5 attack, modified by 20% vs. living. This is the same as the 8-4 attack of the Knight.
You've gained healing, buttkick vs. undead, a better lance attack - the fact that the sword damage didn't increase isn't a big problem. Handle the holy weakness gained by the necromancer -> lich upgrade (alternate branch for necromancer, hint, hint) before that, IMO.

[Invisible Philosopher]

The Paladin does not lose sword damage.

Yes it does. in a normal time of day against living, 30 instead of 32. It also does less damage per hit so it kills the enemy slower, taking more damage. Also:

In many situations, the Knight is superior to one or both of its upgrades

Handle the holy weakness gained by the necromancer -> lich upgrade (alternate branch for necromancer, hint, hint) before that, IMO.

Why before? We should fix things as fast as we can. If that's broken, let's fix it too-- in a different thread.

[Elvish_Pillager]

[sarcasm]

The Paladin does not lose sword damage. It has an 8-5 attack, modified by 20% vs. living. This is the same as the 8-4 attack of the Knight.

It's the same just like the Dwarvish Thunderer's 18-1 stick is the same as the Bowman's 6-3 bow, only it's also the same damage type and does the same amount of damage even during the Daytime, just like the way the Royal Guard has a 15-4 attack.

You've gained healing, buttkick vs. undead, a better lance attack - the fact that the sword damage didn't increase isn't a big problem.

Oh, hooray! I just leveled up and gained a problem! Who cares if it's a small problem, it's a PROBLEM! Yay!

Handle the holy weakness gained by the necromancer -> lich upgrade (alternate branch for necromancer, hint, hint) before that, IMO.

Let's save all the really simple easy tasks until after we do hard, highly disputed ones! That way, we might be able to get out of doing all the easy tasks! Wonderful idea!

[/sarcasm]

[Darth Fool]

The Paladin does not lose sword damage.

Yes it does. in a normal time of day against living, 30 instead of 32. It also does less damage per hit so it kills the enemy slower, taking more damage. Also:

In many situations, the Knight is superior to one or both of its upgrades

Handle the holy weakness gained by the necromancer -> lich upgrade (alternate branch for necromancer, hint, hint) before that, IMO.

Why before? We should fix things as fast as we can. If that's broken, let's fix it too-- in a different thread.

We should definately not delay on fixing one problem until we fix another unless there is a real reason within the software like a coding change that solves the latter will also solve the former. In this case these are wml changes that are independent of each other and should be solved as soon as the developers (not the users) come to a consensus on it.

So that discussion in this thread can stay on topic, please see the thread linked below for a solution to the lich problem or start your own.

http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic. ... highlight=

[turin]

why don't we fix both at the same time?


an 8-5 holy attack translates to a 6-5 (?) attack against living during normal time of day. this is WORSE than an 8-4 attack, since it does less damage. it is also worse in the respect that the pikeman (14-2) upgrading to a 13-4 attack is worse - it loses damage on the first strike, and redistributing it does NOT help matters. it is just as if it lost a strike but gained appropriate damage on its remaining attack. you would never say a thunderer (18-1) is always better than a bowman (6-3), or vice versa.

[Invisible Philosopher]

Alternatively we could make holy damage do normal damage vs. living, and reduce the power of White Mage/Mage of Light (and the new Merfolk versions). A damage type that doesn't normally do normal damage is confusing. To keep them doing the same damage against undead, undead weakness to holy could be increased if necessary.

[Doros]

Alternatively we could make holy damage do normal damage vs. living, and reduce the power of White Mage/Mage of Light (and the new Merfolk versions). A damage type that doesn't normally do normal damage is confusing. To keep them doing the same damage against undead, undead weakness to holy could be increased if necessary.

I don't understand why orcs, goblins, and saurians. It always makes white mages and paladins less appealing to me in HttT, considering most scenarios include orcs or humans.

[turin]

Alternatively we could make holy damage do normal damage vs. living, and reduce the power of White Mage/Mage of Light (and the new Merfolk versions). A damage type that doesn't normally do normal damage is confusing. To keep them doing the same damage against undead, undead weakness to holy could be increased if necessary.

I don't understand why orcs, goblins, and saurians. It always makes white mages and paladins less appealing to me in HttT, considering most scenarios include orcs or humans.

huh? WTF are you talking about?

[Doros]

I don't understand why orcs, goblins, and saurians. It always makes white mages and paladins less appealing to me in HttT, considering most scenarios include orcs or humans.

huh? WTF are you talking about?

ha, there was supposed to be a "are resistant to holy" in there. Sorry. I was agreeing with you.

[Invisible Philosopher]

(Almost) all living creatures resist holy by 20%. Presumably the logic was that it isn't so holy to kill living beings, or that white mages should be less powerful, or something. Those reasons don't excuse the issues of simplicity for the player, though.