New "wild elf" faction

[turin]

Just so you know, you don't have to, and probably shouldn't, use underscores in the unit id= . Spaces are accepted, and preferred.

[Thunderblade]

However the spirits are strong because :
- they have a good melee attack
- they have good resistances
- they ave good defense
- Level 2 & 3 have regenerate with low HP : they regenerate fast to their max HP

I agree with you on your notes. However, I think that the best strategy woulbe be taking off their regeneration and perhaps reducing a little their resistances, HP and movement. This way, they can become more balanced while keeping the Sidhe flavour.*

I´m worried about the AI recruiting these guys all the time because they were never supposed to be backbone units. Not at all - they were tought as that "special feature" that makes this faction unique, but makes also for an interesting supporting unit in specific cases, where the ghosts are direly needed.

The AI would stilll recruit them and no other fighers

Creepy...


A Note:
*When I speak in reducing resistances, I mean getting fire to a negative level (maybe -30%), and all the "material" ones to an "armored" level (something about 30-40%). This would make these undead more "corporeal", in essence, and would explain why they can deal so much damage to enemy troops. However, reducing their damage would also be quite interesting, as it would make players think about using their Requiem attack at higher levels...

[Kestenvarn]

Just tinkering...

I figured the spirits would look something like this.

[Casual User]

Good afternoon!

I can't figure out why the AI keeps recruiting Warrior Spirits (despite being in my department). But, I know how to fix it! By changing the Warrior Spirit's type to mixed fighter, the recruitment patterns seem more reasonable.

I will upload a new version with the changed recruitment pattern a little later. Since I'm doint that anyway, I would like to introduce some of the re-balancing. So, could someone tell me what's been agreed upon ? As far as I can tell, it's been :

-warrior -> 16gp
-wanderer (special resistances)
-warrior spirit -> 16hp, higher xp (and so on for higher levels)

Tell me if there's anything else!

For what it's worth, let me point out that the AI recruiting an unit has nothing to do with how good that unit is. Each unit has a usage tag. The AI has a recruitment pattern established and will generally recruit, in that order, units of that usage if he can afford them. Otherwise, he will pass to the next unit of that usage (the wild elves's recruitment pattern goes fighter,fighter,fighter,scout,mixed fighter,mixed fighter). I think the AI can also detect an excessive amount of a certain type of unit and recruit more counters, but I'm not sure. In MP, the AI is also coded to recruit nothing but scouts at first, which is the reason for the cavalryman, gryphon rider, etc... fests at the beginning of an MP game.

All the best.

P.S. I had nothing to do with coding the Wesnoth AI, so what I said above might be total BS ... but I've observed that the AI generally follows it.

[Casual User]

Well, I've done the update. I can't say the recruitment problem is really fixed, now the AI never recruits raindancers ! Anyway, spirit, warrior and fury recruitment seems okay.

Incidentally, I think the weaknesses we gave the wanderers are way too much. With his 24hp, his weakness to all physical attacks and his okay-but-no-better defense, the wanderer is now ridiculously frail ! His only chance for survival is to flee from combat, and he probably won't live to do that if he's attacked by more than one ennemy, effectively making his skirmishing pointless.

I think it would be better to remove the negative resistances and simply reduce his hp to 22. Or keep the 24hp with a 10% weakness to physical attacks.

Apart from the wanderer's resistances, I didn't change any other movetypes because I felt it would be a change too drastic to do without proper forethought. I did, however, screw around with hps and xp requirements. I think the spirit is quite balanced in the version that's now up on the server.

All the best.

[Noyga]

You could change their role to usage=spirit, or usage=special, or whatever, and add their custom role in the recruitment pattern. Then it wouldn't prevent the AI to recruit some type of units. I already tested in another era, it works.
In fact, i've looked in the source code, only "healer" and "scout" are handled specifically by the AI.
For the other roles, their name could be changed to anything else, this wouldn't affect how the AI would handle them, and you can add custom ones, they would be handled like any other non specific role (like "fighter", "archer" and "mixed fighter").

[Noyga]

I looked in the source code to find why the AI does lie the spirit so much, and i found why.
Well make a score from the average defense (given know terrain), average resistance (given known enemy units) and cost, but doesn't use the unit amount HP and the amount of damage it can do. If the score of the unit is too far from the best unit with the same usage, the unit won't be recruited.
Since the spirit (and every ghost-like unit) have good resistance and good defense values,
the dumb AI like them too much, in most cases they will get a very high score, preventing other unit with the same usage to be recruited.

[Thunderblade]

Well, I've done the update. I can't say the recruitment problem is really fixed, now the AI never recruits raindancers ! Anyway, spirit, warrior and fury recruitment seems okay.

Yes, I've tested them a lot today, and recruitment seems to be OK now! The AI is even understanding how to use furies in an inteligent manner, giving them that "beware, a FURY is coming!" feel!

Incidentally, I think the weaknesses we gave the wanderers are way too much. With his 24hp, his weakness to all physical attacks and his okay-but-no-better defense, the wanderer is now ridiculously frail ! His only chance for survival is to flee from combat, and he probably won't live to do that if he's attacked by more than one ennemy, effectively making his skirmishing pointless.

I think it would be better to remove the negative resistances and simply reduce his hp to 22. Or keep the 24hp with a 10% weakness to physical attacks.

After playing a Drakes x Sidhe gmae and several Rebels x Sidhe, I agree to your point. We could see the Wanderer as a unit between scout and skirmisher, with advantages/disadvantages particular to both of them. Anyway, once more your upgrades have been of great use, Casual User! Maybe we should give this version a try and more testing before changing some of it's actual stats to the previous ones... An interesting change would be to reduce the Wanderer's XP requirements, making it closer to the skirmisher (that levels with just 2 kills). What do you think?

Apart from the wanderer's resistances, I didn't change any other movetypes because I felt it would be a change too drastic to do without proper forethought. I did, however, screw around with hps and xp requirements. I think the spirit is quite balanced in the version that's now up on the server.

I strongly believe that the spirit is completely balanced, now, compensating his high cost with a unit that becomes devastantingly powerful at later levels... It seems that the few changes you've made were enough to make him a very interesting unit, and one I'm really proud of playing with (the ancestor line has been one of the main concepts of this faction, and seeing it work in such a beautiful manner is very nice... thanks, CU!)

[Thunderblade]

I looked in the source code to find why the AI does lie the spirit so much, and i found why.
Well make a score from the average defense (given know terrain), average resistance (given known enemy units) and cost, but doesn't use the unit amount HP and the amount of damage it can do. If the score of the unit is too far from the best unit with the same usage, the unit won't be recruited.
Since the spirit (and every ghost-like unit) have good resistance and good defense values,
the dumb AI like them too much, in most cases they will get a very high score, preventing other unit with the same usage to be recruited.

Hm... that's very interesting!
It also explains it's tendency to rely on heavy infantry and woses...
Anyway, with CU's changes to the Spirit, I believe he's finally balanced. Thanks for your comments, Noyga!

[Thunderblade]

Just tinkering...

I figured the spirits would look something like this.

WOW!

very nice, Kestenvarn! I would suggest a couple of changes, though:
- could you make him a bit darker, using tones closer to gray? that would give him a more sinister feel, closer to death and to the general Sidhe colors
- as his main attack is a blade, we would need him to carry one. Could you please draw that too?

Anyway, your job is great! If you feel like changing it, pelase keep the general feel of this drawing - it's specially interesting, and I feel lots of potential in it.

P.S.: could you give it's advancements a try? I wonder how teh Ancestor and Forefather would look like, in your vision

[Belwar]

there's already too many elven factions as it is the only elven factions that there should be are as follows: High elves; wood elves; and Dark elves, and thats all, because wood elves in a sence are wild elves because they are more at one with nature than the high elves. so this idea is pointless and should not be implemented into wesnoth under any circum stances

[Kestenvarn]

I would suggest a couple of changes, though:
- could you make him a bit darker, using tones closer to gray? that would give him a more sinister feel, closer to death and to the general Sidhe colors
- as his main attack is a blade, we would need him to carry one. Could you please draw that too?

Anyway, your job is great! If you feel like changing it, pelase keep the general feel of this drawing - it's specially interesting, and I feel lots of potential in it.

P.S.: could you give it's advancements a try? I wonder how teh Ancestor and Forefather would look like, in your vision

Sure, I'll try working on them some more tomorrow... almost time for work.

so this idea is pointless

/point Belwar
/laugh

[Beleth]

there's already too many elven factions as it is the only elven factions that there should be are as follows: High elves; wood elves; and Dark elves, and thats all, because wood elves in a sence are wild elves because they are more at one with nature than the high elves. so this idea is pointless and should not be implemented into wesnoth under any circum stances

Um, I'm going to have to disagree with you here. There are 7 human factions in various states of existence. Why can't we have 4 Elven factions? I'm sure that the Elves have a variety of cultures as well as humans.

[Beleth]

so this idea is pointless

/point Belwar
/laugh

Lead by example, Kestenvarn.

[Oreb]

I know were Belwar lives (Next house to Assasin) and i also disagree with Belwar, there should be many varieties of elves