Reduce Luck

[enonimous]

Woah there not so fast! Don't lit your torches yet and leave the hayforks in the shed! Keep the lock away and just read this before judging by the topic title.

I've read up on the forums about the fact that most players as well as the developers like the luck-factor, i call it RNG. (the Random Number Generator)
In my opinion, every game needs some RNG. If there is no RNG, then the game will bore extremely fast. (and sometimes you lose to it, but ideally RNG should only be there to make you rethink your strategies and adapt to bad/good luck while already executing that strategy)

But there is a border. One that this game crosses by far in my humble opinion. (let me state here that i have no offense whatsoever and i don't want a flamefest)

I started playing against my friends and practiced some against the computer, figuring out what terrain and what units would be the best choice in a given situation and its balanced nicely as far as i have seen.

So about the border: 70% defense. This has to go, i'll do it myself if you can tell me how to and have my own version of the game, but this is just silly. Im all for resistances and strenghts but fighting a dwarf on a mountain or an elf in a forest is a total nightmare if you don't happen to have a few mages there in time.

My suggestion for the game, again even if i can tweak it only for myself im glad if i could, is to have the maximum chance to miss around 40%. This is what makes a strategy game interesting for me: strategy instead of endless missing strikes that you "carefully planned out".

And about your philosophy in war, that it isnt sure that if you send your men to somewhere that they will come out victorious, i agree with it. But i can hardly believe that in some war you would send units to your opponent when he has a 70% chance of dodging your bullets.

So, TL;DR (Too long, didnt read) / conclusion: I think 70% defense is too much, and i'd like to see this changed or if you people say "NO, get OUT!" please provide me with a way to change the value's myself.

Thank you for your time to read this,
enon.

[Caphriel]

Make a new era that's a clone of the default era, then edit all the unit files to reduce any 70% defense values to 60%, and watch faction balance disappear in a puff of smoke

If your opponent is a faction that has access to 70% defense units, and you expect to see a lot of them, plan accordingly. Bring units with magic attacks/marksmanship, try to keep them away from the terrain they get 70% on, etc. If your opponent puts a dwarf on a mountain or an elf in a forest, go around it, or don't leave any units adjacent to that hex if you can avoid it.

[pauxlo]

There is not much chance Mainline (which means Default Era and most Default campaigns) are being changed for your desire, since default era is supposed to be mostly balanced.

If you change the defenses yourself, you will not be able to play Multiplayer with others (since it will give Out-of-Sync-errors when there are different values).

So, you could create a duplicate of the default era with your values (and upload this on the add-on server so others could have it too - but make sure you change the Unit IDs).

For campaign Play, you can simply modify your files.
But I think they are the same as used for MP, so take care. Maybe wrap the changes in #ifndef MULTIPLAYER ... #endif.


So, about what to change: I think you have to find the right file containing the [movetype] definition used in the [unit_type] of your dwarfs or elves, and then make a copy of this with different [defense] values and another name, and then make new unit types like this:

Code: Select all

  [unit_type]
     id=not_so_good_elven_shaman
     [base_unit]
        # look up the right ID
        id=elven_shaman
     [/base_unit]
     # use your new movement type name here
     movement_type=not_so_good_elven_smallfoot
     # use your own changed unit types here
     advances_to=not_so_good_elven_druid, not_so_good_elven_sorceress
  [/unit_type]

Then make a copy of default [era] which includes your units instead of the default ones.
(For campaign use, you supposedly can simply change the movement_type value in the existing unit_types.)

If you want this balanced, you may to get this nerfed units some other boon (more HP or so) - good luck.

Some WML wizard supposedly could do the whole thing with recruit events and objects instead, requiring less work.

[vcap]

Im all for resistances and strenghts but fighting a dwarf on a mountain or an elf in a forest is a total nightmare if you don't happen to have a few mages there in time.

Well, don't do that then!

[zookeeper]

For multiplayer use:

1. Make a copy of default era.
2. Add start, recruit and post advance events which modify all units' defenses or chances to hit.
3. Done.

[enonimous]

Thanks for the quick replies, ill have a look into the "era" settings and ill try to make my own!

[Glowing Fish]

All of the units that have high terrain defense fall into two categories:

A) "Elusive Foot" units that have a good deal of defense on many terrains. (Such as the footpad, thief and fencer) and
B) Specialty units that enjoy good defense on a specific type of terrain. (Elvish Archer and Shaman lines on forest, Dwarves on mountains)

The thing about elusive foot units is that most have low hitpoints and vulnerabilities. Much of the problem of fighting them is psychological, and there is a term that got coined in the forums for it: "RNG Paranoia Shield". If you look at the expected damage of attacking, say, a Fencer and a Heavy Infantry in a village with a ranged pierce attack, they are probably going to be roughly similar, or the fencer is going to take more damage. (Anyone who wants to work out the math can). The problem is that while you are almost certainly going to do a little bit of damage to the Heavy Infantry unit, but the results of attacking the fencer could be to miss it totally or to kill it one turn. We tend to remember exceptional situations, such as when a fencer avoids eight attacks from two elvish archers (which it has about a 6% chance of doing) rather than the times it takes excepted damage.
It is actually a fairly complicated decision, whether to go to an almost assured, but small amount of damage, or whether to take a risk on not doing any damage at all.

As for units that depend on a certain type of terrain...on a good map, there shouldn't be too many annoying chokepoints. On larger maps, having one or two units in a good defensive position getting lucky becomes less of a problem.

[Velensk]

To reiterate, every faction has a good way of fortbusting on a well designed map (with the exception of knalgans fighting other knalgans).

[Araja]

The thing about elusive foot units is that most have low hitpoints and vulnerabilities. Much of the problem of fighting them is psychological, and there is a term that got coined in the forums for it: "RNG Paranoia Shield".

I believe that may have been me

The thing I find interesting about elusivefoots is how worrying they are to both players. Any player who's been around for awhile will have several tales to tell of how a 70% unit dodged 2-5 units worth of attacks, but they will also remember all those times their elusivefoot was hit by everything and died in a single turn, or was pulverised by a lucky troll/thunderer.

Almost equal to a berserker in total psychological effect, although this is counting fear generated by both enemy and controller

[Yoyobuae]

The game is not only about killing units.

When learning to play Wesnoth, it is easy to miss the real goal of the game. You need to make efficient use of your resources (gold/units) to reduce the resources your opponent has (by killing units/stealing villages) or to kill the opponent's leader.

If one unit is in good terrain and is hard to kill then kill some other unit, or steal villages. In the end it all adds up to give you the advantage.

If in the turn in question you can't accomplish anything worthwhile without sacrificing too much resources, then look for a better opportunity later on.

Also, moving units by itself can confer advantages/disadvantages. These are not affected by luck. A unit sitting in good terrain without anything useful to attack around it becomes a dead weight until it moves. If it moves, it losses it's terrain advantage.

Probably players place way too much importance into the results of individual combat turns, which they can't completely control. But then neglect other very important things (recruit patterns, overall movement of units, etc) that they have complete control of.

[Glowing Fish]

I actually have written a strategy guide on this topic and placed it in "Strategies and Tips"

[Hulavuta]

You're like the first person with an RNG complaint to actually say that 70% defense is too good, compared to the other RNG complainers who always say that even though they had 70% defense, they got hit every single time. (OR a 70% CTH that missed every time)

[Huumy]

My suggestion for the game, again even if i can tweak it only for myself im glad if i could, is to have the maximum chance to miss around 40%. This is what makes a strategy game interesting for me: strategy instead of endless missing strikes that you "carefully planned out".

I guess you don't understand that this change would make the game more about luck?

Tho I'm glad wesnoth can be easily tweaked

[Gambit]

Yes. It's not that 70 is too high and you're supposed to attack them and pray you get super lucky.
It's that 70 is too high and you're supposed to lure them off, use magic, forget about that unit, or take the risk if you're really desperate. Pretty much what vcap said.

Now Locked as the "problem" appears to be solved.