Cursing - new type of attack

[mbabuskov]

I have an idea (doesn't everyone?) about a new type of attack in Wesnoth: cursing.

Cursing would be a ranged attack, having zero damage (or 1, if zero is not possible) and would affect units similar to poison (i.e. it remains active until removed). To remove the curse unit would either have to stand next to a healer or have the unit that cursed killed.

Cursed units (those hit by a curse attack) would have all their percentages halved and all the opponent percentages increased by 20%. When unit is cursed, it would simply mean: bad luck.

Cursed attack would be used by some undead units, and maybe some from the living factions. I haven't thought about that yet, this is still the idea that needs working out.

[Wintermute]

Cursed units (those hit by a curse attack) would have all their percentages halved and all the opponent percentages increased by 20%. When unit is cursed, it would simply mean: bad luck.

1) "percentage" is a meaningless word with reference - clearly you do not mean "all their percentages halved", what are you talking about? The unit's defense? Resistance? Percentage of movement points? Percentage of strikes? Damage? Etc...

2) A small increase or decrease in the defense of a unit on one type of terrian with respect to another unit might have a large effect in the game. And example of this would be the elvish fighter having 60% defense in forest (so a 40% chance to be hit), and an elvish archer having 70% defense in forest (so a 30% chance to be hit). That one, small change has a net effect of making elvish fighters expect to take 1/3 more damage when standing in a forest than an archer.

[mbabuskov]

Cursed units (those hit by a curse attack) would have all their percentages halved and all the opponent percentages increased by 20%. When unit is cursed, it would simply mean: bad luck.

1) "percentage" is a meaningless word with reference - clearly you do not mean "all their percentages halved", what are you talking about? The unit's defense?

Yes, the defense. For example, Elf in forest has 70%, while cursed Elf in forest would only have 35%.

Additionally, when this cursed Elf is attacked by (for example) a unit that has 40% on the adjacent grassland tile, that attacker would have 60% defense.

Of course, this can make the curse too much powerful. So maybe only the first component should be used.

[Vendanna]

That curse it in't very strong, its totally out off balance, since a half reduction isn't an 50% increase on damage dealt, is totally doom for certain units.

Aka, a wose wouldn't care about that, and drakes probably will not notice it too much (since they get hit too often) but for thieves and other units with low hps or very vulnerable to damage simply will cease to exist.

Other thing that it crushes is that the chance to hit is always rounded for simplicity, and there isn't any 35% hit ratio so it break some fundamental laws of the game (it isn't bad but would need a reason)

Anyway, I'm all in all for having some more variation on casters apart of the launch fire/arcane/cold ranged magic, so missiles that gives traits or specials like swarm are welcomed.

[Dave]

The overall idea, of a status effect where one must kill the one who caused it to remove it, is quite interesting imo. I think to be fair and balanced, the caster of such a thing (A 'witch doctor'?) would have to be both fairly expensive and fairly fragile.

I think it'd be most interesting as an enemy unit in a campaign.

David

[mbabuskov]

The overall idea, of a status effect where one must kill the one who caused it to remove it, is quite interesting imo. I think to be fair and balanced, the caster of such a thing (A 'witch doctor'?) would have to be both fairly expensive and fairly fragile.

Yes, it could be some kind of witch. Or maybe even some chaotic units like thief as well?

I forgot few more things. The 'cursing' attack should be magical (70% chance always) as basically you cannot prevent someone from shouting a curse (but there's a chance it is not heard in the height of the battle).

And maybe some units should be immune, like mages, undead and palladin.

[F50]

This should not effect defense. CTH should be based *only* upon terrain, as that is an established principle of fighting in Wesnoth. It could also be unbalancing, as elusivefoot units would die instantly. However, I like the general idea. Alternate effects for curse:

1. Unit does half damage (like slow except doesn't effect movement and persists)
2. Unit takes double damage (I like this one more)

In the interest of being simple, only one of these should be used. The idea of ending an effect by killing the cause of the effect is *very* interesting, I like it a lot.

[Aethaeryn]

I think affecting its dodging is too much, but I think you could affect its chance to hit, kind of making it like a longer-effect slow of a different kind...

[Qes]

What about instead of a status effect that affects a unit defensively (cutting in half their defense, for example) it causes a new resulting weapon special on all their attacks? I'm thinking something like the opposite of marksman?

For example:

Witch Doctor (he told me what to do) attacks a Elven Fighter with a curse attack, let's say 10-2 Magical Curse. [ranged]
The Elven Fighter shoots back with his bow.

Each does damage, but not enough to kill the other.

So as long as the unit remains cursed, all attacks the Elven fighter attempts to inflict on others, only have a 40% chance of success (or less) and have the weapon special "cursed" to show this (Curse, and Cursed being the cause and effect). The coding for the ability is already in the game, and it could be made easily to work in these situations (i think).

This would have the added benefit of introducing a secondary "defensive" weapon special that works like slow, but in a different way. Slow affects damage, this would affect likelihood to hit. A reasonable idea.

-Qes

[F50]

I like this as well.

[krotop]

Ok, sorry for the resurrection, but since I coded a curse ability that looks like (someway) to what has been suggested here, I thought it might eventually interest a few people to use it on units of their own.

My poke at it is like that :
1- you have to use the macro ABILITY_CURSE WEAPON and replace WEAPON with the name of the weapon you want to be cursing.
2- you have to put WEAPON_SPECIAL_CURSE in a special tag attributed to the cursing weapon to make the description and name seeable by the user.
3- The mechanic is explicitely described in WEAPON_SPECIAL_CURSE, that is : "The cursed unit gets a 15% defense penalty on every terrain until it is cured by a healer or in a village".

Notes on point 3 : I personnaly find evil to cut by half the defense, this makes units with high defense exceptionnally affected by this status. Also, if you want to change the values because 15% doesn't satisfy you, I must warn you that the code is a bit heavier than most ability and that it will lead to some fastidious check'n replace. Finally, if you change, beware not to exceed 100% chance to hit or the game will plainly crash.

I have tested it enough to be pretty confident with its stability. Enjoy using it.

EDIT : huh... I forgot to say that it was for dev version 1.5 and that it is intended as a weapon special if you didn't get it. The use of ability is here for triggering events and perform the special through direct WML actions. Also, there are a few comments in the code saying this or that part is incomplete : disregard these comments, everything is complete.