A mod to make Wesnoth's RNG a little less frustrating

General feedback and discussion of the game.

Moderator: Forum Moderators

SmashingSuccess
Posts: 13
Joined: April 12th, 2018, 5:25 am

Re: A mod to make Wesnoth's RNG a little less frustrating

Post by SmashingSuccess »

This is a large part of the sentiment behind what I am attempting to do by creating a completely separate tactics RPG. By completely removing RNG from the game entirely and using Wesnoth's damage-strikes combat engine as a starting line, it removes a lot of problems that inherently come with Randomness, as mentioned by the OC. No one except statisticians can really deal with a lot of the negative downsides of RNG without issue.

Hell, its one of the reasons I despise games like DotA and Hearthstone, where it feels like some gameplay elements are leaking with excessive amounts of unnecessary randomness.
User avatar
Britannicus
Posts: 57
Joined: June 25th, 2017, 8:04 pm

Re: A mod to make Wesnoth's RNG a little less frustrating

Post by Britannicus »

Wait, how is DotA random? I get Hearthstone, but I thought MOBAs were pretty close to stuff like CS in terms of lack of randomness?
User avatar
Sudipta
Posts: 217
Joined: June 10th, 2015, 6:37 pm
Location: Meditating under a waterfall, Heartfangs, Wesnoth

Re: A mod to make Wesnoth's RNG a little less frustrating

Post by Sudipta »

I have yet to see anyone tryout this new RNG system, play a few scenarios or matches and provide feedback about their game experiences here. Everyone's just going on about mechanics, principles, blah blah, blah. Dave clearly asked for feedback about how the new mods affects battles and said he is not interested in discussions about how it works etc at the moment. Also keep in mind that its just in the intial testing phase... no need to get so worked up guys. It's not gonna change the fate of BfW irreversibly or anything. Chill.

Personally, i am not interested in this new experimental PRNG stuff because i love Wesnoth the way it is. I have never used any mods in my 8 years of playing wesnoth because i feel like it goes against the spirit of the game (go figure what that means :whistle: ) I don't want wesnoth to become a different game, if i want something like Fire emblem, i'd rather play fire emblem instead and leave wesnoth the way it is. But that's just me.

Arguing about RNG is pointless and doesn't lead to anything productive. Instead it would be better for everyone involved, if they either provide some tested game feedbacks on the new alternative prng mod as Dave wants or just ignore this altogether.
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
Playing Wesnoth since 2010, still there is so much left to play
shevegen
Posts: 497
Joined: June 3rd, 2004, 4:35 pm

Re: A mod to make Wesnoth's RNG a little less frustrating

Post by shevegen »

I have not yet tried any mods - just testing wesnoth again after many years.

In general it would be nice if all these modifications and possibilities would also
exist for review, by the user, within the game. Including alternatives to the
default rules set. I have no problem with the default but it is nice to try alternatives.
shevegen
Posts: 497
Joined: June 3rd, 2004, 4:35 pm

Re: A mod to make Wesnoth's RNG a little less frustrating

Post by shevegen »

> Arguing about RNG is pointless and doesn't lead to anything productive. Instead it would be
> better for everyone involved, if they either provide some tested game feedbacks on the new
> alternative prng mod as Dave wants or just ignore this altogether.

I think it is great to have alternatives in general.

An example I want to give is scummvm:

https://www.scummvm.org/

Relevant part:
" Battle to liberate the populace from the threat of the tyrant Lord Xeen, or his cruel master Alamar. Or dare to venture beyond the world of Xeen to the world of Havoc to test your mettle with a new challenge. We're pleased to announce support for the following games:

Might and Magic IV - Clouds of Xeen [...] etc."
It is primarily for old sierra/lucas games but they expanded. Recently they also added support
for the old Might and Magic dos games.

So in some ways, scummvm is a bit of a platform or engine(s) for old games.

Wesnoth could also do something somewhat similar IMO - either with mods or more mods
but also as re-using the engine for other games too that include a tactical component;
turn based strategy games.

Anyone remembers the old DOS games that were tactical and turn-based? Things like
that.

I have no idea if there are enough developers to want to explore this; and of course wesnoth
should also be about the, well, wesnoth-game. But if that can be expanded, why not?

Would seem nice to have not only a game but also a platform for similar games (I only
mean similar, aka tactic/turn based games; scummvm sort of goes a bit further these
days. Guess they have a lot of active developers. I have no idea how many active
developers wesnoth has but the project seems to be doing quite ok, judging at the
quality and improvements made in the last ~5 years or so, which is nice IMO)
name
Posts: 564
Joined: January 6th, 2008, 3:32 am

Re: A mod to make Wesnoth's RNG a little less frustrating

Post by name »

In case it was a bad idea to wait over a decade to say this, I will at least do so now:

I really enjoy Wesnoth's application of random chance. Specifically using a PRNG to simulate the unpredictable elements of low level combat that a commander on a real world battlefield would have to take into account. And for every moment of frustration there is one of awe and relief seeing an ordinary singular unit making such a heroic last stand as to transform the situation into a rout of his several attackers! :)

I hope that in any event, the existing purely random attack rolls will remain a part of the game, always.
User avatar
Artaios
Posts: 2
Joined: September 8th, 2018, 10:32 am

Re: A mod to make Wesnoth's RNG a little less frustrating

Post by Artaios »

So this experimental feature Dave talked about back in May is this new check box we can check when starting a new campaign? I thought that this was mainly a feature that prevented save spamming for people who would abuse it (such as myself). Could someone please explain how this would change the gameplay or how it could possible alleviate the issues some people have with the RNG? I fail to see the connection.
Shiki
Developer
Posts: 344
Joined: July 13th, 2015, 9:53 pm
Location: Germany

Re: A mod to make Wesnoth's RNG a little less frustrating

Post by Shiki »

No, it is in the advanced preferences. The checkbox you talk about is indeed for causing the same results after loading a save.
Try out the dark board theme.
User avatar
Artaios
Posts: 2
Joined: September 8th, 2018, 10:32 am

Re: A mod to make Wesnoth's RNG a little less frustrating

Post by Artaios »

Ah, thanks. I found it. Is discussing the nature of this option still off-limits? I'm guessing the difference is really subtle. I mean, it's either random or it is not. The experimental feature is more skewed towards high percentage attacks hitting and low ones missing?
User avatar
Sapient
Inactive Developer
Posts: 4453
Joined: November 26th, 2005, 7:41 am
Contact:

Re: A mod to make Wesnoth's RNG a little less frustrating

Post by Sapient »

gnombat wrote: May 12th, 2018, 11:33 pm The current mods that modify the RNG are all add-ons, though. I think there's a difference between an add-on that modifies the game and a core preference that changes the game's behavior. In fact, I don't think there have ever been any preferences that actually change the rules of the game (as opposed to merely modifying the user interface) - this would be the first?
Technically it's not the first. There is also the Deterministic mode option, which Dave mentioned in his post.
http://www.wesnoth.org/wiki/User:Sapient... "Looks like your skills saved us again. Uh, well at least, they saved Soarin's apple pie."
User avatar
Eagle_11
Posts: 759
Joined: November 20th, 2013, 12:20 pm

Re: A mod to make Wesnoth's RNG a little less frustrating

Post by Eagle_11 »

in Mp player 1 has this enabled and player 2 doesnt, does it get disabled for both ? if p1 was the host does this setting overrides for p2 joining his game ?
Shiki
Developer
Posts: 344
Joined: July 13th, 2015, 9:53 pm
Location: Germany

Re: A mod to make Wesnoth's RNG a little less frustrating

Post by Shiki »

It's generally disabled in MP.
Try out the dark board theme.
vasya
Multiplayer Moderator
Posts: 73
Joined: August 29th, 2012, 1:53 pm

Re: A mod to make Wesnoth's RNG a little less frustrating

Post by vasya »

Hi. If anything, I've made attempt at playing with RNG fairness myself as well. In contrast to all previous attempts I know of, it doesn't try to change probabilities per se.

Instead it just... multiplies the number of strikes and and the amount of HP by a constant.

The known downside of it is that increasing HP slows down AI (especially for a very high multiplier). Also, poison weapons hit much more often. Some unit-s characteristics are changed as well: thunderer is somewhat less risky now (in situations where you need it, like a last effort at a comeback). Also, Fencer does not stand up to be a very good unit at reliably finishing 1HP unit: most units are reliable in doing that now.

That being said, most games I played so far feel very close to the original wesnoth, just with luck effect reduced N times. And yes, the effect of poison, healing, ally healing, dwarf resting etc is multiplied as well. EDIT: add-on name is LessRandom.

Thoughts?:)
Last edited by vasya on October 6th, 2018, 7:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Eagle_11
Posts: 759
Joined: November 20th, 2013, 12:20 pm

Re: A mod to make Wesnoth's RNG a little less frustrating

Post by Eagle_11 »

Well, i had this idea to get an more fast paced, fluently occuring combat. Basically we reverse all the cth values,

Code: Select all

    #       *   A L T E R E D  CTH   *
	#conversion rates:
	#halving everything
	#90 become 100 ;  10% -> 0%
	#80 become  90 ;  20% -> 10%
	#70 become  85 ;  30% -> 15%
	#60 become  80 ;  40% -> 20%
	#50 become  75 ;  50% -> 25%
	#40 become  70 ;  60% -> 30%
	#30 become  65 ;  70% -> 35%
	#20 become  60 ;  80% -> 40%
	#10 become  55 ;  90% -> 45%
	# 0 become  50 ; 100% -> 50%
an problem is the individual values given inside some of the units wont be get caught modifying only the movetype this way, also that there are macros defining it elseway for some races, that also need to be replaced.

changing the game from this:
units dodge like pros by default with insane dmg bonuses through abilities to help them killing stuff when they score an hit, and god tier cth specs for some units to ensure them hitting almost always as they would have been useless otherwise.
into instead:
units will hit by default with small dmg bonuses that are mostly an fixed value instead an percentile, for those that still are an percentile the damage bonus gets reduced, and there would still exist cth enhancing specs but they work as +amount to the base value instead replacing the inherent cth value of unit's attack they have been given to.
and then we can make use of the unused parry values, adjusting them for each attack to ensure combat still retains some randomity.
look at unit sprite to determine which value will be used.
the unit:
is dual-wielding 10 parry in melee combat
has two-handed weapon 15 parry in melee combat
has small shield 5 parry versus both melee and ranged
has an medium shield 10 parry versus both melee and ranged
has tower shield 20 parry versus ranged and melee
*the shield parry bonus versus ranged apply only if the parrying unit would have an ranged attack itself.
Tad_Carlucci
Inactive Developer
Posts: 503
Joined: April 24th, 2016, 4:18 pm

Re: A mod to make Wesnoth's RNG a little less frustrating

Post by Tad_Carlucci »

That darned randomness. Why can't I just do what the walk-through says, recruit two archers and three swordsman, arrange them as shown in the diagram, and await victory as the orc band marches to its death against my impenetrable defense? /s
I forked real life and now I'm getting merge conflicts.
Post Reply