Making Wesnoth less frustrating

[shevegen]

I like some changes.
- Money should be saved at 100% not 80%. It troubles me, in reallife I dont understand why I lose a constant ratio of my money. Make it lower if you want, but keep it at 100%.
- Dont implement resurrection. But implement hiring of either mercenaries (better quality units that stay for only one scenario) or either "old veterans" (which means you basically buy better units for more money, thus you could compensate if you lose high quality units)


I would also like to suggest to have starting units that can help. There is one campaign where you get three heavy infantry guys, which you can not lateron recruit at all. I let them walk away from the orcish horde to the top left, and managed to bring them all to third level. This was fun (but to be honest, i dont like them at all anymore. They are very tough but slow, and i really dont like slow units...i think that could be one reason why elves are liked a lot. Speed).

What i mean with starting units - put more units on maps to help people when they play on low. For example, more of those peons (do they have an upkeep? if yes they shouldnt have one, they suck already a lot :> )scattered in villages, or maybe following your hero.
Yes, for some scenarios that does not make any sense, but there are some more scenarios that can need those helper units (and not only peons, other stuff as well).

The 100% gold allows people to recruit more units without 20% getting lost all of a sudden.

Oh and I think that you could give more money to the players. But at the same time, if you run into negative money, random units leave your army - ever heard of someone that fights for money would stay if you dont pay him?
I havent. Except of fanatics or loyalists. Hmm btw more fanatics units like holy crusaders could be fun ..... you dont pay them much but they raze villages hehe and plunder

[scott]

You had me right up until desertion. That would suck.

[Invisible Philosopher]

(b) autosave at the beginning of the turn rather than the end, to encourage the player to experiment with different tactics and strategies {instead of just hope for a more favorable string of blind luck}.

But this requires the player to stop the game in the middle of the AI's turn; otherwise, the autosave will happen again when their turn comes around, overwriting what they would have to load to try a different strategy. This could be solved, perhaps, by having two autosave slots which are alternately saved into.

The 100% gold allows people to recruit more units without 20% getting lost all of a sudden.

It would make the range of possible (or likely) values of money much higher. 80% at the end of each scenario has two important effects:
* Players with more money lose more than players with less money, balancing out the particular amount of money, and, more importantly
* Over several scenarios, with 80% kept, it is impractical to save your money for a much later scenario, throwing off its balance even more from the player who spends all their money at some scenario. Money that you try to save (as would be done mostly by already-experienced players) will decrease over time: 100% -> 80% -> 64% -> 51.2% -> 40.96% ...

But at the same time, if you run into negative money, random units leave your army - ever heard of someone that fights for money would stay if you dont pay him?

You do pay them -- that's why when you're at negative money you can go further into negative money. How you pay them is another matter -- maybe credit, maybe some strange magic -- not that it matters how.

[Elvish_Pillager]

But at the same time, if you run into negative money, random units leave your army - ever heard of someone that fights for money would stay if you dont pay him?

You do pay them -- that's why when you're at negative money you can go further into negative money. How you pay them is another matter -- maybe credit, maybe some strange magic -- not that it matters how.

Even that's not so odd compared to all the free money you can get at the beginning of the next scenario!

[Cuyo Quiz]

Wesnoth has banks...

Wow. I guess they are really advanced.

[Casual User]

Good afternoon!

1. About resurrection: I don't like it, but if it is implemented, I wouldn't really mind. However, I would like it if it were made a separate command, say Shift+r instead of Alt+r. That way, one could avoid using resurrection without having to remember after each scenario which units died in order not to recall them.

2. About reducing xp requirements: It would be a wonderful way to make it easier. In fact, since the ennemy can't recall units, it would be a bonus for the player even if it applied to both him and the ennemy.

3. Usually, the aggravation in Wesnoth is because a single unit loss can doom your army, which can happen if some unit hits four times in a row at 40% chance (which happens way more often than 2,56% of times). A randomness smoother has been suggested, but I don't like it. Instead, how about if, like we have undo, we would have an built-in button 'back up' which would teleport the player to the start of his last turn. Roughly the equivalent of save+reload except faster and with less stigma attached for the player (it can't be cheating if it's included in the game menu...).

4. 90% of times when a player paints himself into a corner during a campaign, it isn't by a pyrrhic victory but rather during a scenario by playing badly. There's no real way to avoid that...

5. And finally, a little idea: instead of a new feature, how about a more in-depth tutorial or help menu. The tutorial right now just teaches you the basics of playing and the help files make absolutely no sense unless you know the game pretty well. How about if a small tutorial campaign was made, with the scenarios being devoted to each faction (say, 1.loyalists, 2.bandits, 3.orcs, ...) which would introduce the player to some of the ways to use the various units, how to protect them, when to use them and when not, etc... Also describe a few basics on the help files. It would definitely be a way to keep people from finding Wesnoth too frustrating...

Thanks for reading, and sorry about the long post.

[Cuyo Quiz]

About 5...

The tours of [add name here], explorer of Wesnoth?

[Invisible Philosopher]

Instead of introducing a new hotkey for one little feature, how about this flexible mechanism:
A hotkey (and menu item I suppose) that triggers certain WML events (e.g. [event] name=hotkey or some better name). This could bring up a menu of options (e.g. which unit to resurrect, if any) or whatever else the designer wants.
examples: an inventory list of things to use, a list of different kinds of commands to do, or an order or diplomacy to give to, perhaps, an allied AI. This could greatly increase the flexibility of Wesnoth (although admittedly, it has high potential to be used for un-"Wesnothish" things).

P.S. it seems like this post, like a lot of others in this thread, is about new ideas, though there isn't really a problem with that (we don't want to ban all creativity outside the Ideas forum! )

[Tomsik]

and add that things to the RMB list

[Easuth]

I think part of the problem of this debate, aside from questions of balancing or the game value of making hard choices, is people are hung up over the term "resurrection". It's not necessary to assume that when a unit loses all HP, it must mean that the unit's heart has ceased to beat, etc. Other games use the concept of "stunned", "critically wounded", or "unconscious" to mean that the unit is out of commission, but not ready for planting. If your side wins, such units can be recovered and given the medicine needed to get them back on their feet. The enemy doesn't have time to deliver killing blows to such unconscious troops while there are still standing opponents left on the field.

I'm not saying that the "resurrection", as it has been called, option should necessarily be used in Wesnoth. I think I might be against it. But let's not get hung up on terms.

[Darth Fool]

I think part of the problem of this debate, aside from questions of balancing or the game value of making hard choices, is people are hung up over the term "resurrection". It's not necessary to assume that when a unit loses all HP, it must mean that the unit's heart has ceased to beat, etc. Other games use the concept of "stunned", "critically wounded", or "unconscious" to mean that the unit is out of commission, but not ready for planting. If your side wins, such units can be recovered and given the medicine needed to get them back on their feet. The enemy doesn't have time to deliver killing blows to such unconscious troops while there are still standing opponents left on the field.

I'm not saying that the "resurrection", as it has been called, option should necessarily be used in Wesnoth. I think I might be against it. But let's not get hung up on terms.

I for one, am against the change in gameplay associated with the idea and do not consider myself, "hung up on terms." I suspect others feel similarly, and so I don't think that your assesment of the problem with this debate is accurate.

[Easuth]

I for one, am against the change in gameplay associated with the idea and do not consider myself, "hung up on terms." I suspect others feel similarly, and so I don't think that your assesment of the problem with this debate is accurate.

Good Lord, I said it was "part of the problem", not "The Problem". I wasn't talking about you. There are those who have posted here who seem to be focused exclusively on this part of the issue.

[Ave]

I don't think any 'softening up' should affect medium or hard levels at all!

Probably the percent of gold lost could be configurable too.
So campaigns on easy level could set it better than 80%.

A few more starting units here and there (also only on easy level) would be good. Even if you just recall the best 2 units for free Probably that is better than giving gold.

[ivanovic]

In the last days i started httt again on easy. It seems to be a lot easier to me now. I did not bother much about losing units and did also not think about much turns too much. Siege of Elensefar was quite easy to win with the changes and in Bay of Pearls the bigger keep is of great help. Because of the biger number of turns allowed it is rather easy to gain some more gold bonus, that makes the later missions a lot easier.
Now I am not so sure, if Resurrection is really needed. In some missions it could maybe be nice, if the player was able to recruit lvl2 units. This would be of a bigger help, i think. I am not sure how easy these missions are with the default gold. I always had a very big bonus after the maps.
I think it would be best, if the scenarion missions were tested with an ai replacing the human. If that ai would win at least 9 times out of 10 times tested, it would be easy enough for difficulty degree "easy". These tests should be made with the default starting params for the mission and NO recallable units. Normally a player will be able to keep at least some units, so that it should really be possible for most players.
A player could also switch into the "droid-mode" so that he can see how the ai would win this map.

[ott]

I think it would be best, if the scenarion missions were tested with an ai replacing the human.

As far as I understand, Darth Fool did exactly this, and then tweaked at least the first several HttT scenarios to ensure the AI could win.