Making Wesnoth less frustrating
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Making Wesnoth less frustrating
Wesnoth is a hard game, and intentionally so. Its game mechanics and rules are often brutally unforgiving.
This is okay: Wesnoth was aimed at people who want 'tough' games. Many people like Wesnoth not inspite of this, but because of it: a game that will brutally punish them for their mistakes, and make them get trampled.
However, the appeal of Wesnoth has broadened to many casual gamers. People who don't want the game to be so very frustrating. I think that we should aim to cater to their needs too, especially if it can be done easily.
I think that the key problem is that the starting conditions of one scenario are so very dependent on performance in previous scenarios. In most similiar games, it's possible to be better or worse off at the start of a certain scenario, but usually the variance isn't large: it'd have been impossible to get to the stage the player is at without acquiring a certain amount of experience and resources.
However, in Wesnoth the situation is different: a player can have had their veteran units slaughtered, and used up all their gold, leaving them starting a difficult scenario with no gold, and only weak units to recruit.
Meanwhile, another player might have 500 gold, and a horde of Paladins and Arch Mages.
The first player has no hope, of course.
Now, we do have a mechanism to control the gold problem: minimum gold. This can be set to control the variance. A scenario designer can say "well, if a player had been playing well to this point, they might have 500 gold, and if they've been playing very well, they'd have 700 gold -- let's put the minimum gold at 400, and that way I know they'll have 400-700 gold at the start of this scenario."
That's much better than having to assume the player has 100-700 gold. (or even 0-700 gold).
This addresses the gold problem, but there's still the units problem. We can't really set a minimum units list so easily, and anyhow, players tend to get attached to their units and don't want to be handed units by the game.
I think the solution is something people have been clamoring for for quite a while now: resurrection. Well, my proposal is something similiar to that, anyhow.
What I think is that on easy levels, units of level 2+ that are 'killed' in a scenario should simply be considered wounded, and forced to withdraw from combat for the remainder of the scenario. Then they can be recalled as normal during the next scenario.
It's a fairly dramatic change, and a huge step away from the brutal, unforgiving approach we've taken thusfar, and I'm sure some 'purists' will hate it. But, people who don't like it don't have to play easy level -- it's meant to be easy, after all, remember?
Possible variations on the idea are to make wounded units sit out a scenario while they recover, or making their stats slightly worse to reflect their injury (kinda like a 'negative trait').
I believe that this change would pretty easily remove much of the frustration that casual players feel about Wesnoth. I don't think it'd make the game a complete 'walkthrough' though -- just not quite so frustrating. And a nice thing about it is it can already be implemented in WML.
David
This is okay: Wesnoth was aimed at people who want 'tough' games. Many people like Wesnoth not inspite of this, but because of it: a game that will brutally punish them for their mistakes, and make them get trampled.
However, the appeal of Wesnoth has broadened to many casual gamers. People who don't want the game to be so very frustrating. I think that we should aim to cater to their needs too, especially if it can be done easily.
I think that the key problem is that the starting conditions of one scenario are so very dependent on performance in previous scenarios. In most similiar games, it's possible to be better or worse off at the start of a certain scenario, but usually the variance isn't large: it'd have been impossible to get to the stage the player is at without acquiring a certain amount of experience and resources.
However, in Wesnoth the situation is different: a player can have had their veteran units slaughtered, and used up all their gold, leaving them starting a difficult scenario with no gold, and only weak units to recruit.
Meanwhile, another player might have 500 gold, and a horde of Paladins and Arch Mages.
The first player has no hope, of course.
Now, we do have a mechanism to control the gold problem: minimum gold. This can be set to control the variance. A scenario designer can say "well, if a player had been playing well to this point, they might have 500 gold, and if they've been playing very well, they'd have 700 gold -- let's put the minimum gold at 400, and that way I know they'll have 400-700 gold at the start of this scenario."
That's much better than having to assume the player has 100-700 gold. (or even 0-700 gold).
This addresses the gold problem, but there's still the units problem. We can't really set a minimum units list so easily, and anyhow, players tend to get attached to their units and don't want to be handed units by the game.
I think the solution is something people have been clamoring for for quite a while now: resurrection. Well, my proposal is something similiar to that, anyhow.
What I think is that on easy levels, units of level 2+ that are 'killed' in a scenario should simply be considered wounded, and forced to withdraw from combat for the remainder of the scenario. Then they can be recalled as normal during the next scenario.
It's a fairly dramatic change, and a huge step away from the brutal, unforgiving approach we've taken thusfar, and I'm sure some 'purists' will hate it. But, people who don't like it don't have to play easy level -- it's meant to be easy, after all, remember?
Possible variations on the idea are to make wounded units sit out a scenario while they recover, or making their stats slightly worse to reflect their injury (kinda like a 'negative trait').
I believe that this change would pretty easily remove much of the frustration that casual players feel about Wesnoth. I don't think it'd make the game a complete 'walkthrough' though -- just not quite so frustrating. And a nice thing about it is it can already be implemented in WML.
David
“At Gambling, the deadly sin is to mistake bad play for bad luck.” -- Ian Fleming
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Breeblebox
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ozymandias
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I believe that your "minimum gold" idea is brilliant, Dave. As an adjustable variable it would allow lower difficulties to be more forgiving, but doesn't gimp the harder difficulties like many proposals do. It also gives scenario designers more power to balance their levels how they choose. I am in full support of this idea.
"Wounded units" doesn't seem so hot. It fundementally changes the design of Wesnoth and, while being an asset for lower difficulties, "gimps" higher difficulties. This, ultimately, changes everything that makes higher difficulties difficult. Every campaign ever made will need a huge amount of rebalancing:
Cannon fodder will become less important as the ranks of Level 2+'s swell.
Actually, cannon fodder WILL be Level 2's... Lancers and units like that will become the units of choice in armies because of their high stats compared to other Level 2's and the ability to suicide and recall them next scenario would make them a highly unbalanced type of unit.
Gold will be unbalanced due to the increased use of recall.
Entire scenarios will need to be rewritten because players can essentially play suicidally and have no fear of losing units permanently (as long as they win the scenario).
Of course these are just the tip of the iceberg. Resurrection, even with some penalty like losing the exp for that level, just redefines the entire game. It's my opinion that this should be left to a fork... I just don't see it fitting into Wesnoth's long established role as a "conservative strategist's game".
"Wounded units" doesn't seem so hot. It fundementally changes the design of Wesnoth and, while being an asset for lower difficulties, "gimps" higher difficulties. This, ultimately, changes everything that makes higher difficulties difficult. Every campaign ever made will need a huge amount of rebalancing:
Cannon fodder will become less important as the ranks of Level 2+'s swell.
Actually, cannon fodder WILL be Level 2's... Lancers and units like that will become the units of choice in armies because of their high stats compared to other Level 2's and the ability to suicide and recall them next scenario would make them a highly unbalanced type of unit.
Gold will be unbalanced due to the increased use of recall.
Entire scenarios will need to be rewritten because players can essentially play suicidally and have no fear of losing units permanently (as long as they win the scenario).
Of course these are just the tip of the iceberg. Resurrection, even with some penalty like losing the exp for that level, just redefines the entire game. It's my opinion that this should be left to a fork... I just don't see it fitting into Wesnoth's long established role as a "conservative strategist's game".
-Gafgarion
"Language is the source of misunderstandings." -Antoine de Saint-ExupéryElvish Pillager wrote:Normal Trolls use clubs, not ostriches.
I think the gold-idea is a MUST to implement. It should be possible to have different min. gold depending on the difficulty degree.
I also think resurrection is a good idea. I see some ways to make it possible without destroying balancing too much:
1) Have it only on easy difficulty and pu the lvl2+ units directly into the normal recall list (20gold needed)
2) Remove all the exp from the new level. So if my unit only needs one exp more to level, but dies it will need the whole exp when i resurrect it.
3) Have different costs depending on difficulty degree. This would need a new menu-object like "Resurrect". It could be that 20gold is needed on easy to resurrect, 30 on medium and 40 (maybe even 50?) on hard. This would keep most of the balancing, because units that are leveld and die are more expensive. This way it would be honord, if you are carefull with these units.
I think it would be best to have a mixture of 2) and 3) on medium and hard, but 1) on easy. This would improve difficulty on easy a lot. Though i do really dislike status changes to the resurrected units. This would have a really bad effect and make it a lot harder to have an idea about the units. Maybe it could also work to take away their "positive abilites" (strong, quick, ....)
Would be nice to see some of this stuff (at least for easy) in 1.0. This could make the game easier for beginners though it keeps it challenging for more experienced guys.
I also think resurrection is a good idea. I see some ways to make it possible without destroying balancing too much:
1) Have it only on easy difficulty and pu the lvl2+ units directly into the normal recall list (20gold needed)
2) Remove all the exp from the new level. So if my unit only needs one exp more to level, but dies it will need the whole exp when i resurrect it.
3) Have different costs depending on difficulty degree. This would need a new menu-object like "Resurrect". It could be that 20gold is needed on easy to resurrect, 30 on medium and 40 (maybe even 50?) on hard. This would keep most of the balancing, because units that are leveld and die are more expensive. This way it would be honord, if you are carefull with these units.
I think it would be best to have a mixture of 2) and 3) on medium and hard, but 1) on easy. This would improve difficulty on easy a lot. Though i do really dislike status changes to the resurrected units. This would have a really bad effect and make it a lot harder to have an idea about the units. Maybe it could also work to take away their "positive abilites" (strong, quick, ....)
Would be nice to see some of this stuff (at least for easy) in 1.0. This could make the game easier for beginners though it keeps it challenging for more experienced guys.
Jump-the-shark alert!
Maybe the campaign writer should just allow for the recruiting of L2 units on easier difficulties during harder levels?
I can think of one campaign where allowing the recruiting of more powerful units + gold bonuses are used to ensure players have enough "teeth" in their army to finish the harder levels.
Besides, who is the game being written for? Did it change recently?
Maybe the campaign writer should just allow for the recruiting of L2 units on easier difficulties during harder levels?
I can think of one campaign where allowing the recruiting of more powerful units + gold bonuses are used to ensure players have enough "teeth" in their army to finish the harder levels.
Besides, who is the game being written for? Did it change recently?
Hope springs eternal.
Wesnoth acronym guide.
Wesnoth acronym guide.
Actually, I would allow to resurrect level 1, but maybe with a warning dialog that it is pointless and just a waste of gold (or alternatively, make resurrecting level 1 almost as cheap as recruiting). For me, I don't only name L2 units, but already look at the auto-generated names of my L1 units, and they keep their names. So even a L1 unit is a personal loss. Or, maybe if names are only generated at L2? Probably that would make it tolerable for me - so I guess my suggestion is somehow pointless, and I just don't play the game like it is supposed to be played. But still.. if there's no compelling reason to forbid level 1 to be wounded, maybe could allow it..hat I think is that on easy levels, units of level 2+ that are 'killed' in a scenario should simply be considered wounded
How I made it in my resurrection patch was, you get 2 WML variables, e.g.:3) Have different costs depending on difficulty degree. This would need a new menu-object like "Resurrect". It could be that 20gold is needed on easy to resurrect, 30 on medium and 40 (maybe even 50?) on hard. This would keep most of the balancing, because units that are leveld and die are more expensive. This way it would be honord, if you are carefull with these units.
resurrection_cost_base = 40
resurrection_cost_percent = 33
That would mean, to resurrect a unit, you pay 40 gold + 33% of the unit's cost.
Not sure the percent of the unit costs is a good idea, but maybe worth thinking about. It makes resurrection more like recruiting than like recalling..
I like the min gold better.
You could even define a rule of thumb for 'easy' scenarios in that it should be possible for a medium-level player to complete it with the min gold and no recalls (a reasonably easy thing to playtest/balance).
Ressurrections should cost 20*level (maybe 25*level, or you would never recruit new horsemen, just ress them). Otherwise any L3 unit I have is going to be going banzai to make life easier for my L1 and L2 units I want to level, and to reduce the maintenance cost - sending all my good troops off to die quickly taking as many as possible with them would be an obvious tactic. Having it only work on easy seems inelegant - but maybe you could double the ress cost on medium and triple it on hard (i.e. make it prohibitively expensive as a tactic, but a possible as a disaster recovery mechanism in the case of extreme bad luck).
Just my initial thoughts.
You could even define a rule of thumb for 'easy' scenarios in that it should be possible for a medium-level player to complete it with the min gold and no recalls (a reasonably easy thing to playtest/balance).
Ressurrections should cost 20*level (maybe 25*level, or you would never recruit new horsemen, just ress them). Otherwise any L3 unit I have is going to be going banzai to make life easier for my L1 and L2 units I want to level, and to reduce the maintenance cost - sending all my good troops off to die quickly taking as many as possible with them would be an obvious tactic. Having it only work on easy seems inelegant - but maybe you could double the ress cost on medium and triple it on hard (i.e. make it prohibitively expensive as a tactic, but a possible as a disaster recovery mechanism in the case of extreme bad luck).
Just my initial thoughts.
It already is.ivanovic wrote:I think the gold-idea is a MUST to implement. It should be possible to have different min. gold depending on the difficulty degree.
Code: Select all
[side]
controller=human
{GOLD 400 100 100}
# other stuff here
[/side]Code: Select all
[side]
controller=human
#ifdef EASY
gold=400
#endif
# other stuff here
[/side]This quote is not attributable to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
I'd like to remark this: IMHO is really important to consider.Gafgarion wrote: Cannon fodder will become less important as the ranks of Level 2+'s swell.
Actually, cannon fodder WILL be Level 2's... Lancers and units like that will become the units of choice in armies because of their high stats compared to other Level 2's and the ability to suicide and recall them next scenario would make them a highly unbalanced type of unit.
Gold will be unbalanced due to the increased use of recall.
Entire scenarios will need to be rewritten because players can essentially play suicidally and have no fear of losing units permanently (as long as they win the scenario).
While I'm absolutely in favor of a generalized peak of inflation in scenarios starting minimum gold (on easy, that is
) I too think that allowing tout-court resurrection is a no-no.At most, I would allow resurrection to a more strict subset of units. Say, only level 3+ units, or even only level 3+ with at least 50 XP gained post-leveling (it would be another use of XP gained after max level: to gain immortality
). Even better, I'd give this kind of "immortality" only to hero-type units: that is, the ones that are automatically recalled at the start of each scenario, that often has personalized dialogues and that usually can't be lost, since you lose entire scenario if they die.If those "heroes" can't be killed anymore, but just "retire" for the current scenario if severely wounded and return in the following, you obtain a HUGE effect in making the scenarios easier. At the beginning, I often losed games because I failed to protect those kind of units, or simply because I overused them.
bye!
--
Fabrizio "Hermooz" Ermini
Fabrizio "Hermooz" Ermini
Re: Making Wesnoth less frustrating
Agreed. More scenario designers need to use it. I don't think it's well known, though, since (as an example) I and silene only really wrapped our heads around it when trying to deal with a request to mention the "100 minimum gold you will get in the next scenario", and it became clear that it was actually a WML key that could be set (with a hardcoded "100" default value if it wasn't set).Dave wrote:Now, we do have a mechanism to control the gold problem: minimum gold.
I like the basic idea, since it should be easy to implement. It would also give a new and more fundamental distinction between difficulty levels, one that is easy to explain.I think the solution is something people have been clamoring for for quite a while now: resurrection.
However, there are two good objections. One is Gafgarion's: it would make reckless play the best strategy for high level units. The other is the large number of existing scenarios that rely on certain units not being killed -- how would it work if it's OK to let your level 3 Elvish Marshal "die" but not level 3 Kalenz? Do we allow Kalenz to be "killed"?
This quote is not attributable to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
Well if instead of deciding that these units have been killed or wounded, maybe have them subdued and captured (like happens to L'isar anyway). Then what you are doing to get them back is paying their ransom...
Not that it's my prefered solution, but if it's going to happen that might be the way to describe it.
Not that it's my prefered solution, but if it's going to happen that might be the way to describe it.
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Darth Fool
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Re: Making Wesnoth less frustrating
Well, count me as one of the purists that thinks this is a bad idea. I think if a higher level unit is required to win a given scenario, that type of unit should be made available to be recruited (at least on easy). For example, if Mages of Light are a necessity to win a scenario, but a poor non-prophetic player has a bunch of silver mages that he has recruitable/resurrectable, it doesn't help him any. I have long appreciated the fact that in Wesnoth, war has consequences and sometimes units die. I really dislike the idea of softening the nature of Wesnoth, both for gameplay and feel reasons. I long for the days when Miyo would have stamped out this proposal with a simple "no."Dave wrote:Wesnoth is a hard game, and intentionally so. Its game mechanics and rules are often brutally unforgiving.
This is okay: Wesnoth was aimed at people who want 'tough' games. Many people like Wesnoth not inspite of this, but because of it: a game that will brutally punish them for their mistakes, and make them get trampled.
However, the appeal of Wesnoth has broadened to many casual gamers. People who don't want the game to be so very frustrating. I think that we should aim to cater to their needs too, especially if it can be done easily.
<snip>
I think the solution is something people have been clamoring for for quite a while now: resurrection. Well, my proposal is something similiar to that, anyhow.
What I think is that on easy levels, units of level 2+ that are 'killed' in a scenario should simply be considered wounded, and forced to withdraw from combat for the remainder of the scenario. Then they can be recalled as normal during the next scenario.
It's a fairly dramatic change, and a huge step away from the brutal, unforgiving approach we've taken thusfar, and I'm sure some 'purists' will hate it. But, people who don't like it don't have to play easy level -- it's meant to be easy, after all, remember?
Possible variations on the idea are to make wounded units sit out a scenario while they recover, or making their stats slightly worse to reflect their injury (kinda like a 'negative trait').
I believe that this change would pretty easily remove much of the frustration that casual players feel about Wesnoth. I don't think it'd make the game a complete 'walkthrough' though -- just not quite so frustrating. And a nice thing about it is it can already be implemented in WML.
David
I will revert to an old proposal that scenarios on easy should be designed so that the computer AI can win, starting with the minimum gold and recruiting but no recalling. I have been planning on going back and redoing the droid walkthrough, so this may be the time to do it in preperation for v1.0. I figure now that I have CVS access I can put the AI changes straight into the scenario file. If I had permission to do so, I'd be happy to rebalance the scenarios (for EASY only!) as I go as well. Assuming that I can get this done, it would mean that novices who get frustrated could always restart a scenario with the AI running it and see what the AI does to get past the scenario, or even decide to carry on afterwards without replaying the scenario themselves.
I don't think resurrection is necessary to make EASY mode easy, nor do I think it is desirable. Frankly, I think it is a cop out from doing real scenario balancing. So, if there are no objections I will go ahead and rebalance easy for HttT. If the other official campaign's developers are amenable to it, I may do those as well.
There's another reason for resurrection though - Wesnoth is not just a TBS game, but has some elements of a RPG. Units even get unique names assigned, have different genders, and in some campaigns even portrait pictures and dialogue. So it shouldn't come as surprise that some players will see them as their heroes and get attached to them. So they will either reload when they die (which is not fun at all), or don't like the game. Of course, just making the game so that as many as possible like it is the wrong thing to do. But Wesnoth already has elements (e.g. also the massive amounts of story accompanying campaigns, even I sometimes start skipping parts) which makes me think it actually aims for just this sort of player.I don't think resurrection is necessary to make EASY mode easy, nor do I think it is desirable.