Noob thoughts/opinions

[Asmodai]

First let me say that the game is OUTSTANDING!

That said I have a few questions, comments, etc. (Note, until Debian is fully restored I'm running the game on an XP box using the 0.5.1 binary and NOT the CVS so I apologize if these things are no longer relevent)

1) I love how the game fosters an emotional attachment between the player and the units. I find myself really caring if one of my units die... especially one that has a fair amount of exp built up. To reinforce this I wholly support the idea of naming units when they level up the first time. Base units would thus remain as is but units that have advanced would have names that could be randomly generated (from a lists based off of race/sex?) and be user editable for those who wish to tweak it.

2) Healers should gain exp for healing. I don't understand why a unit whose purpose seems to be to give life must take it to advance. Am I missing something? I generally screen my Elvish Shaman for example and they rarely advance because while they stand right behind the attackers to heal them they rarely actually engage the enemy (unless the enemy has skirmishers).

3) I think the scout should be an elvish unit that advances to elvish outrider and the horseman should be a human unit that advances to knight->Paladin or dragoon. (actually personally I don't like gunpowder in the game so I wouldn't mind of the dragoon went away or at least it's weapon changed.)

4) I don't think the Gryphon Rider should be a level one unit. I think at the very least it should be level two (and maybe the scout, if moved to the elves, could lead to a choice between outrider or gryphon rider). I wouldn't even be opposed to the idea of moving it to a level 3 unit that outriders advance to. Of course these moves may require a small stat boost but conceptually I think it makes more sense for the Gryphon Riders to be an elite version (i.e. gained through advancement) of some sort of lower level rider.

5) I don't know how far along the Dwarves are in the CVS but I'd like to share my general thoughts: I'd like to see dwarves comparatively slow, with slightly higher hit points at equal levels. I don't want to see them using magic but I think they should have higher resistances (magic, poision, etc.) They should of course get movement and attack/defense bonuses in mountaints and slightly smaller bonuses underground and in hills. I'd like to see Dwarven engineers or at least some sort of siege engines (slow but big bonuses against units in cities/towns). I'd like to see Dwarven ranged attacks based on crossbows instead of bows or magic.

6) I think you should be able to rename the main character. In the Campaign I would like to be able to rename Konrad, likewise it would be nice to rename your leader in multi-player even if the advancing unit renaming isn't implemented.

7) Branching
a - It would be nice if on the bigmap screen we were sometimes offered choices of which mission t do next.
b - It would be nice if the engine supported going to different next missions depending on what happed in the current one. For examples:
If player got Item X then goto A else B.
If ally X died then goto A else B.
If turns ran out but player is still alive goto C.
etc.

It would be nice of the cfg files were xml. I'm sure there were good reasons they are't but the WML is already so close to XML I'd just like to have seen a less app specific format used. This would make it so that people don't have to learn a new format just for the app (even if it is pretty simple) and would allow the use of third party tools for such things as validation of cfg files against DTD or similar, easy transformation (XSLT, CSS ect.) of config files to webpages which could be used not only for the actual website (or user created ones) but also for local help... automatically updating when the config files are updated.

Well I think that's it for now. I love this game and even if not one of these suggestions are taken I'm still going to be playing the heck out of it for the forseeable future. Thanks for all the great work.

[Dave]

Hi Asmodai,

Glad you like the game

Some responses to your comments are below:

1) I love how the game fosters an emotional attachment between the player and the units. I find myself really caring if one of my units die... especially one that has a fair amount of exp built up. To reinforce this I wholly support the idea of naming units when they level up the first time. Base units would thus remain as is but units that have advanced would have names that could be randomly generated (from a lists based off of race/sex?) and be user editable for those who wish to tweak it.

There was auto naming of all units at one point, but the code wasn't very mature, so it's removed at the moment.

I think auto-naming of all units (maybe all level 2+ units) using a Markov chain algorithm, with the option to override names, might be the best idea.

2) Healers should gain exp for healing. I don't understand why a unit whose purpose seems to be to give life must take it to advance.

This has been considered, but the main concern is it'd make it a little easy for them to advance. It will probably be at least tried at some point.

I generally screen my Elvish Shaman for example and they rarely advance because while they stand right behind the attackers to heal them they rarely actually engage the enemy (unless the enemy has skirmishers).

Shaman are a little more powerful in combat in CVS, if that helps any.

4) I don't think the Gryphon Rider should be a level one unit. I think at the very least it should be level two (and maybe the scout, if moved to the elves, could lead to a choice between outrider or gryphon rider). I wouldn't even be opposed to the idea of moving it to a level 3 unit that outriders advance to. Of course these moves may require a small stat boost but conceptually I think it makes more sense for the Gryphon Riders to be an elite version (i.e. gained through advancement) of some sort of lower level rider.

Well, I am interested in making it so that there is a 1st level gryphon unit, but it's something like a "gryphon cadet" -- a rider riding a baby gryphon. Only through advancing does it become a fully mature, powerful gryphon.

I did propose the idea that horse based units would advance into gryphon riders, but people didn't like it.

5) I don't know how far along the Dwarves are in the CVS but I'd like to share my general thoughts: I'd like to see dwarves comparatively slow, with slightly higher hit points at equal levels. I don't want to see them using magic but I think they should have higher resistances (magic, poision, etc.) They should of course get movement and attack/defense bonuses in mountaints and slightly smaller bonuses underground and in hills. I'd like to see Dwarven engineers or at least some sort of siege engines (slow but big bonuses against units in cities/towns). I'd like to see Dwarven ranged attacks based on crossbows instead of bows or magic.

Dwarves are still not very far along. They are slower, and do have more hitpoints though, and have advantages in hills, mountains, and underground. We are still working on their resistance values.

b - It would be nice if the engine supported going to different next missions depending on what happed in the current one. For examples:
If player got Item X then goto A else B.
If ally X died then goto A else B.
If turns ran out but player is still alive goto C.
etc.

Uhh..the engine does support this

It would be nice of the cfg files were xml. I'm sure there were good reasons they are't

The reasons are basically,

- Using XML adds another dependency, and since so many compile problems are related to dependencies, we like to minimize dependencies
- I have used XML profesionally, and I think it's far overhyped. I didn't enjoy using it. When I started developing Wesnoth, I decided to only use technologies that I enjoy using, and thus I did not use XML.
- I think that XML has inconsistencies as to when to use elements and when to use attributes. WML makes it clear.
- WML was never intended to be a fully hierarchical language, it just grew into that.

Thanks for the ideas! Perhaps you should consider obtaining the CVS version and giving further feedback on that. We like to hear ideas from players.

David

[Asmodai]

There was auto naming of all units at one point, but the code wasn't very mature, so it's removed at the moment.

I think auto-naming of all units (maybe all level 2+ units) using a Markov chain algorithm, with the option to override names, might be the best idea.

Wow I looked up the Markov Chain Algorith and that looks awesome. I'm curious though what do you intend to use as the source data? Like will you have it race/gender based for the base set and will it be a user editable list?

This has been considered, but the main concern is it'd make it a little easy for them to advance. It will probably be at least tried at some point.

Well my personal opinion is that each time they heal should be worth about 1/6 of an exp. That way even if they were completely surrounded by wounded units they would still only get one exp a turn. In reality doing that would be next to impossible though so I don't think they'd advance too incredibly fast.

Shaman are a little more powerful in combat in CVS, if that helps any.

Not really. The problem as I see it isnt' that they are poor fighters, I've never even really tried hard to fight with them. The problem is I don't really like the concept of a healer advancing through violence. That gives me another idea... maybe you can give exp for each time they heal, but if that makes them go up too fast you can actually give them NEGATIVE exp for killing? Anyway that just popped into my head so I thought I'd share it.

Well, I am interested in making it so that there is a 1st level gryphon unit, but it's something like a "gryphon cadet" -- a rider riding a baby gryphon. Only through advancing does it become a fully mature, powerful gryphon.

I did propose the idea that horse based units would advance into gryphon riders, but people didn't like it.

As I undertand it the horseman unit is moving to the human units along with the knight and paladin. I totally agree with that move. The problem though is it gives the humans two 1st level horse units (horseman and scout) and the elves don't have any. The scout sounds kind of elfy to me anyway so I like the idea of scout being the base elf rider unit. With the horseman gone the scout would take it's place to lead to the elvish outrider. So maybe the level 2 scout could be a choice between outrider and hippogryph (sp?) rider. Then the gryphon rider could be a level 3 unit. That seems like a logical progression to me as a hyppogryph is sort of a horse/gryphon hybrid. I mentioned this in the IRC channel and fmunoz seemed to like it but said that it might cause problems in the current campaign because the Gryphon units become available at a certain point in the campaign and not before. So that brings me to my next suggestion:

Lets say for the sake of discussion that this change is implemented. So the elves have the scout and it leads to either the elvish outrider or a hippogryph rider and then the hippogryph rider leads to a gryphon rider. To enable the gryphon types to not be available unit a specific mission but the scout be available from the start the engine would have to support unit exclusion in a scenario. So a scenario designer would be able to say that a side has the ability to recruit a scout but then designate the hippogryph rider as a inaccessable unit for that scenario. Scouts that have enough exp to advance would thus automatically advance to outriders since the hippogryph path is unavailable (and thus gryphons). This seems like it would be a useful feature for scenario designers in other cases also.

Uhh..the engine does support this

GREAT! Is it documented somewhere... the only ifdef's (or other conditionals) I've been able to find are based on difficulty level only (for changing starting money and what units a side can build)

The reasons are basically,

- Using XML adds another dependency, and since so many compile problems are related to dependencies, we like to minimize dependencies
- I have used XML profesionally, and I think it's far overhyped. I didn't enjoy using it. When I started developing Wesnoth, I decided to only use technologies that I enjoy using, and thus I did not use XML.
- I think that XML has inconsistencies as to when to use elements and when to use attributes. WML makes it clear.
- WML was never intended to be a fully hierarchical language, it just grew into that.

Well I understand the dependency argument but I would say it's becoming more and more likely that users will already have the XML capability on their system anyway so you won't necessarily be forcing the user to install a bunch of new stuff they wouldn't otherwise have. I believe Gnome and KDE use XML extensively on *nix heck I use Openbox which is supposed to be super lightweight and it's new version 3 uses XML extensively. On the MS side I believe the XML engine comes with all the newer versions of IE. So on this particular point the "overhyped" nature actually works to your advantage.

I do agree though that in general XML is overhyped and overused. I've often found that XML has been used in situations where name=value pairs were all that was required and thus XML was overkill. From your last point above it sounds like that WAS the case initially for Wesnoth. Looking in the cfg files however it clearly has grown into a hierarchical languange. That being the case it actually does appear to have become a valid use for XML. I would hope that just because some people use it inproperly that doesn't turn you away from using it when a situation arises that really caters to it's strengths. Of course the decision is ultimately yours and if you absolutely dispise working with it then so be it.

Whatever your decision is I intend to write a cfg->xml converter, in the process of doing so I hope to get a good enough grasp of the WML to develop a xsd for my newly developed converter. I will then be able to automatically validate my conversions. Then I want to write an XSLT that will transform the resulting xml files into webpages that can be used for a pseudo-help system as well as a potential website. If all this works out then whenever new versions come out I'll just run the converter and the website will automatically be updated with the latest info. Maintanance free documentation. To be honest there is a good chance I'll lose interest before I get all this finished, especially if I'm forced to go it alone but I'm going to at least make the attempt. In an ideal world you'd replace the cfg files with a system similar to this (If I manage to get it done I'll of course be more than willing to give you want I have but I don't know that I'll be able to modify the source code to read the XML files instead of the CFG files. As we all know though this isn't an ideal world and so if you elect to stay with the cfg format then I guess the XML stuff will just be for my own personal use (but I'm still going to give it a try).

Of course right now I've been distracted by the lack of random map generator for those of us Windows users using the binary downloads. Yes I know I can go install perl and run the perl one but since I don't really have any other use for perl on a windows system (as is probably the case for most windows users) and I already have .NET installed I decided to write my own in C# since I've been meaning to learn C# anyway and this made a convenient first project. Not to say anything is wrong with the perl one, I'm sure it's outstanding. I have however intentionally avoided looking at it because I want to get mine done first and then see how similar/different our two approaches are.

Anyway this message is getting huge so I'll end it here. Thanks again for the outstanding game.

[methinks]

Some of my random thoughts:
1. Druid (note: not healer) is very weak fighter but I advance them through a stupid trick: I try to use weak units to attack enemy units and if enemy units happens to have not more than 5-6 HP then I enter my shaman and she does the trick. BTW this is why I think such a difference in EXP between killing a unit and hurting her is... stupid. But it was discussed with no effect before Anywaydruid IS a nice fighter because of it's slowing attack which helps IE with trolls or other idiotic suckers whoe are strong and have way too many attacks. Still I think that there should be EXO fr healing, maybe 1 EXP if druid used all of his healing abilities and 4 EXP when it restored health to full.

2. Gryphon riders can be lvl1 unit as it is the matter of having a gryphon not of being advanced unit. I mean you can become a gryphon riders from beginning, just have to get yourself a gryphon. Maybe stats could be changed a little though.

[miyo]

You can survive with using mostly Shaman/Druids/Shydes... I have playtested that. Optimizing healing and minimizing damage becomes the key to success.

Use the 'search' and look for "Druidish", replays are available. Though you need CVS version of Wesnoth.

Methinks: Yes I know that you are a u$win user and "have to" stick with latest release.

- Miyo

[Asmodai]

Some of my random thoughts:
I mean you can become a gryphon riders from beginning, just have to get yourself a gryphon.

I don't think that's completely true. I mean in the real world there are a lot of people out there that can't ride a horse. You can't make effective cavalry by just giving anyone off the street a horse. I think riding a flying mount, especially an inherently aggressive and wild one like a gryphon (to me taming a gryphon is like taming a lion, they aren't a particularly demesticatable breed) takes even greater skill. Finding a gryphon will likely get you killed but if you in have some sort of special bond with nature (as elves are typically thought to have) perphaps it will let you get on it. Once you get on it though the odds are you're just going to fall off... and at 1000 meters it's a little more serious than falling off a horse (which is already dangerous.) It thus makes sense to me that you'd recruit the people who get to ride a flying mount, from the people who already know how to ride a land based mount, so you have at least some basic skill set in place. Likewise I'm sure gryphons are far less common than horses and I'm sure everyone wants to be a gryphon rider so similar to supply and demand the value of being a gryphon rider elevates to an elite status over being typical cavalry. Finally I think it works out nicely because there really is, in starndard fantasy settings an in between species between horses and gryphons in the hippogryph so it makes and logical progression possible and gives an easy way to add in another pretty standard species of the fantasy genre.

[Asmodai]

You can survive with using mostly Shaman/Druids/Shydes... I have playtested that. Optimizing healing and minimizing damage becomes the key to success.

As I stated when Dave mentioned that the power of the shaman has been increased in CVS the issue has nothing to do with the units combat aptitude. I'm sure you can do just fine using a healing unit as a combat unit, the point I was trying to make is that it creates a philosophical rift if the only means of advancement for these units is inflicting harm on others. One would think that one could become a great healer by healing a lot of people and perfecting your skills in that area without having to inflict harm on anyone. Sure if they needed to they might be able to fight pretty well but the point is they shouldn't HAVE to fight to advance.

Methinks: Yes I know that you are a u$win user and "have to" stick with latest release.

As I noted in my original post I too am a Windows binary user and so don't really have access to the CVS version either but I think my above statements pretty much eliminate the need to watch the reply anyway. The point of discussion here doesn't have anything to do with how adept the healing units are at combat, it's a philosophical one.

[fmunoz]

But a horse doenst magically change into a gryphon in the middle of the battle

[yawningdog]

What about pegasus? It could take them a while to serve as flying mounts (level 1), until they fully developed both their wings and trust on their rider.

Besides, pegasus are elegant and swift, and fit elves better than gryphons, which look meaner and more agressive. Gryphon riders could be a human unit, stronger but slower than their elvish counterparts.

I wouldn't dismiss normal horses or even unicorns for elves, though. And what about some orcish wyrm riders? Other races lack proper flying units.

I'd say the problem with flying mounts is their levels are somewhat "forced"; flying mounted units are powerful, and as such, should start at level 2 and be recruitable without having to go through a previous lesser unit which is hard to device and fit into the game's world. As fmunoz pointed out, a horse rider can't become a gryphon rider from day to night, because horses are horses and gryphons are gryphons, and replacing them in the middle of a battle would feel strange.

There are some units which are few in number and rather unique, and don't fit well the unit progression scheme. For example, where does a Bone Dragon come from? It's just a level 3 unit that should be powerful from the beginning.

Some units, flying mounts being a notory example, should start at higher levels and have a high gold cost. Note I'm not saying all level 2+ units should be recruitable from the start, as the current progression system works well for them, since they have a natural upgrade path.

Summarizing: if a powerful unit doesn't have an evident experience progression, don't force it, just make it recruitable from the beginning (ie: have elvish glade riders (lvl1) who can be upgraded to elvish knights (or any other name you fancy) or outriders, and then pegasus riders (lvl 2) as a totally different unit).

[miyo]

Pegasus could be one possibility... though I am happy with Elves riding with Gryphon.

There has been talk to introduce Elvish Scout (lvl 1) that evolves to Elvish Outrider (lvl 2) and no third level. I don't see unit Elves having knights... knight is human unit.

I don't think every race needs flying unit... orcs and dwarfs don't have healers, humans don't have flying units, etc.

And about philosophy... this is fantasy... we are not restricted by real world philosophies... maybe pacifism just does not exist in Wesnoth. If you are not pacifist I think you can live with healers fighting... if you are pacifist I don't quite understand how you can play the game - you can not complete scenarios without some killing.

Chinese monks, masters of healing and masters of martial arts (including weapons)... maybe Wesnoth follows similar philosophy?

- Miyo

[Dobob]

I don't think every race needs flying unit... orcs and dwarfs don't have healers, humans don't have flying units, etc.

It's true, but all race need at least one unit able to go go through water, to allow some water-heavy multiplayer levels. So mermen should officially put with humen and nagas with orcs.

[Dave]

It's true, but all race need at least one unit able to go go through water, to allow some water-heavy multiplayer levels. So mermen should officially put with humen and nagas with orcs.

We would like to do this. The problem is that at the moment, the AI is rather how do you say? Ahh yes, dumb...it will recruit mermen/naga even if it is landlocked.

For that reason, we are not adding sea-based units to sides in multiplayer until the problem with the AI is resolved.

David

[Asmodai]

But a horse doenst magically change into a gryphon in the middle of the battle

Excellent point! Technically I guess I could argue that other units seem to magically gain equipment and such when they level up if I wanted to press the point but I guess I see your point... you've convinced me. I still don't think Gryphon Riders should be considered 1st level units though,even if there isn't a first level unit that leads to them I think they should be moved to at least second level and perhaps even third. I also still think the scout should be moved to the elves if the horseman is going to be a level 1 human unit. Scout can then lead to elvish outrider (if it's okay that the outrider's bow just magically appears when he levels up that is).

[Asmodai]

Pegasus could be one possibility... though I am happy with Elves riding with Gryphon.

There has been talk to introduce Elvish Scout (lvl 1) that evolves to Elvish Outrider (lvl 2) and no third level. I don't see unit Elves having knights... knight is human unit.

I don't think every race needs flying unit... orcs and dwarfs don't have healers, humans don't have flying units, etc.

I agree 100%

And about philosophy... this is fantasy... we are not restricted by real world philosophies... maybe pacifism just does not exist in Wesnoth. If you are not pacifist I think you can live with healers fighting...

First of all I don't have a problem with healers getting experience from fighting. What I would like to see is them getting some experience for healing also.

if you are pacifist I don't quite understand how you can play the game - you can not complete scenarios without some killing.

Wow, I don't know how you could possibly get this from what I was saying. Talk about taking a statement and then going WAY, WAY out to an extreme. All I requested is that healer units gain some exp for healing. I don't know how you took that to mean I wanted to be able to complete entire scenarios without any unit doing any killing. I'm not even sure where you got the whole pacifist idea from as I certainly didn't mention it. I'm perfectly happy with healers getting exp the same way as everyone else, but I ALSO would like to seem them get some exp when they heal, even if it is a very small amount each time (I used as an example possibly giving 1 exp for every 6 heals.)

[Asmodai]

[quote="Dobob]It's true, but all race need at least one unit able to go go through water, to allow some water-heavy multiplayer levels. So mermen should officially put with humen and nagas with orcs.[/quote]

I'm not sure that's true. I believe Dave mentioned that right now the engine isn't currently aware of any actual relationship between elvish fighters and elvish archers for example, it's only the player and scenario designer that impose that relationship. I think implementing some sort of race concept in the engine is a good idea but I don't think that means you have to try and wedge every unit into one of the main race classifications. I think you can have the race classifications and then some assorted other units. Those units could maybe be subclassied (animals for example?) but don't necessarily have to be. If a scenario designer wants to make a water heavy map then they should just be able to specify that races without water units are allied with some of these water based units for the purpose of the map. I don't think creating a permanent link between a race and some other creature should be done just so they can have a water unit.