Not being able to choose leveling type on Multiplayer

ebo · Post by **ebo** » June 7th, 2004, 6:43 pm

When units level by either killing or fighting with enemy units where the enemy unit initiates the combat the user does not get to choose what type of unit to be leveled into. I have attached a save game where I verified this. I am not sure it will help though.

Post by **Dave** » June 7th, 2004, 6:45 pm

Correct. This is a feature. Honest

The reason for this is that we want to make it so that when it is not your turn, it is guaranteed that no interaction is required. Thus, levelling is decided randomly if it happens when it's not your turn.

Otherwise, the game would have to pause and wait for the player to make a selection, when they might be off doing something else, not thinking it's going to be their turn for a while.

David

Post by **Darth Fool** » June 7th, 2004, 6:50 pm

perhaps in such cases leveling up should occur at the begining of the units next turn.

BillG3 · Post by **BillG3** » June 7th, 2004, 7:03 pm

Unfortunately, that would preclude any other unit from attacking the leveling unit until the next turn also.

Post by **Dave** » June 7th, 2004, 8:23 pm

Indeed...you'd usually want the levelling to happen immediately, because otherwise the enemy might attack and kill your 'levelled' unit.

David

BillG3 · Post by **BillG3** » June 9th, 2004, 1:40 pm

I thought of something, just an idea, probably not a great one but interesting.

What if, on leveling, the computer picks the unit branch so that no user intervention is needed. Then, at the beginning of the owner's turn, IF the unit is still alive, he gets the choice of which unit to upgrade to WITHOUT restoring any damage sustained since the unit was already restored to full strength on the original leveling.

For example, in the case of an archer leveling:
- Computer chooses ranger 44 HP, unit sustains 30 damage leaving it with 14 HP, owner reelects marksman 40 HP. Unit would end up with 10 HP (40 - 30).
- Computer chooses marksman 40 HP, unit sustains 30 damage leaving it with 10 HP, owner reelects ranger 44 HP. Unit ends up with 14 HP.

In preceding example, if ranger had sustained 42 HP damage, then either the option to change would not be available or the new unit would be left with 1 HP so as not to be dead.

Thoughts?

AT · Post by AT » June 9th, 2004, 2:32 pm

Might be kinda hard to do, and more trouble than it is worth...

Post by **Dave** » June 9th, 2004, 2:33 pm

Yeah...there are all kinds of solutions we could try, but are any of them really much better than what we have currently, especially considering the effort all alternatives would take?

David

BillG3 · Post by **BillG3** » June 9th, 2004, 5:39 pm

As I said, just a thought. Being a programmer (cobol, no less, and bash scripting), I sort of suspected it might be more trouble than it's worth.

But... Brainstormng is what tends to produce those one or two gems once in a while.

Post by **Darth Fool** » June 9th, 2004, 7:07 pm

Hmm, how about choosing the type that the unit will level into before-hand. So, for example, when you recruit a unit you would get the info on what it levels into as well as a choice between branches if any. You would probably want to be able to change this at any time before the unit actually levels. When the unit does level-up, it levels according to the stored value for its advancement. If it advances during your turn, you can choose what the new advancement path will be. If not, at the beginning of your next turn, you get to choose. As long as you don't have a unit level twice during your opponents turn(!) this would work.

Post by **turin** » June 9th, 2004, 7:08 pm

Too complicated, IMHO. Why not have i give you that option when the unit has a chance of leveling during the opponent's turn? (so when it needs <16 xp, maybe.)

Dobob · Post by **Dobob** » June 9th, 2004, 9:22 pm

Another suggestion :

Add a new menu item to the unit description if the unit can level. In it, give a list of all possible upgrades (and show the unit stats on the left when selectionned), plus a "random" entry if there's more than 1 upgrade. If there's more than upgrade, add a "choose as default" button. Whenever the player click it, the selected upgrade become the default for the selected unit only.

Then, when the unit upgrade during the opponent turn, it does upgrade to the default upgrade (or a random one if "random" is the default). But if it does upgrade during the player turn, he can choose the upgrade.

Since units does not level that quickly, the player would have to select the default upgrade only for those units with ~16xp left to upgrade, which is not too cumbersome.

miyo · Post by **miyo** » June 10th, 2004, 5:57 am

One design choice of Wesnoth is that you don't have to do any selections when it is enemy turn. This allows you to do other things while other players are playing their turn (coding, eating, cleaning, anything).

- Miyo

Post by **Boucman** » June 11th, 2004, 5:37 pm

what is currently happening if one of your unit levels during the oponent's turn ?

Post by **turin** » June 11th, 2004, 5:58 pm

Boucman wrote:what is currently happening if one of your unit levels during the oponent's turn ?

the advancement is chosen randomly. I actually think this is OK; usually you want the unit to level on your turn anyway, so you plan it like that.