Mage Experience

[Glowing Fish]

I did a search for this, but couldn't find anything specifically, although I seem to remember it being brought up at some point.

Why does the Mage require more XP than any other first level unit to level up? Especially when compared to the other units that have magic attacks or level up to have them (Augur, Adept, Shaman). The Shaman has a good reason for having low experience requirements, since it has to be fed kills. But the Augur and the Adept, while having slightly lower damage totals (15 and 20 respectively, versus the Mage's 21) require less XP to advance...significantly so in the case of the Augur.

As a result of this, its fairly common to see Adepts and Augurs level up in multiplayer, but seeing Mages level up seems to be pretty rare.

As far as I understand this, this is is a result of the history of Wesnoth's development. In HttT or TRoW, having Mages with lower XP requirements would probably lead to an army of Great Mages about six scenarios in. But when ported over to multiplayer, it makes them pretty hard to advance.

I am not proposing any changes, just wondering if there is a justification for this that I am not aware of.

[Velensk]

I think it is there to make it hard to get healers in campaigns that allow the player mages. I may be wrong.

[TL]

Well, mages do have generally stronger advancements than augurs or adepts, and they're pretty transformative too. Adepts have one of the smallest increases in their primary attack strength of any unit (by far, if you don't count scouts); augurs can get a decent (but not great) damage boost, but their level 2 advancements are still more fragile than most level 1 units. I think factional balance may come into play here as well. Considering how potent mages are vs. undead to begin with, for example, just imagine if they could level up in only 3 kills...

Meanwhile, the only faction that augurs are really awesome against are drakes themselves, which can retaliate in kind. This makes drake mirrors absolutely insane, but not unfair.

[jb]

It is possible the mage xp requirements will be lowered a bit in the next Dev version, 1.7.x.

[Glowing Fish]

It is possible the mage xp requirements will be lowered a bit in the next Dev version, 1.7.x.

I would actually go along with this, it seems that in multiplayer, mages don't get leveled up. Too frail of a unit to ask that many kills from.

[torsoboy]

It is possible the mage xp requirements will be lowered a bit in the next Dev version, 1.7.x.

The mage seems to be the only unit (that I know of) that can be hired by different factions. Would some differentiation between Loyalist and Rebel mages be in order or is that something out of the question? I found it interesting that almost all D&D character types were somehow represented in Wesnoth, except for the Bard and the Cleric... perhaps some room for change could be found there?

[grrr]

The mage seems to be the only unit (that I know of) that can be hired by different factions. Would some differentiation between Loyalist and Rebel mages be in order or is that something out of the question?

That issue is not new. In fact, it was once considered to remove the White Mage advancement for rebel mages, to emphasize the use of the shaman healers. However, one aspect of having a rebel mage is to introduce different movetypes to that faction. A faction with only one type of movement (and perhaps same amount of movement points for every unit) would be very boring to play with. I think the rebel mage could be removed, if you come up with an interesting replacement. I am not even sure whether the fire dmg type is mandatory.

It would be interesting to see a bard-like unit in Wesnoth, since the cleric is already represented in the MoL, somehow.

Anyway, "drastic" changes like that are highly unlikely for default era, so this discussion is moot.

[Turuk]

Anyway, "drastic" changes like that are highly unlikely for default era, so this discussion is moot

It's not even that for the whole mage debate, but the fact of the matter that there have been multiple threads raised about this in the past, and people still try to pursue the point despite getting the same answers. Torsoboy, just do a search and read the old threads to find out more.

[torsoboy]

Anyway, "drastic" changes like that are highly unlikely for default era, so this discussion is moot

It's not even that for the whole mage debate, but the fact of the matter that there have been multiple threads raised about this in the past, and people still try to pursue the point despite getting the same answers. Torsoboy, just do a search and read the old threads to find out more.

Heh, I did that just now only to read "that it has been discussed before that long ago".

I wonder what ideas have actually produced change in the game lately, if any?

[faring]

http://svn.gna.org/viewcvs/wesnoth/tags ... w=download
here are some of the changes from the ideas

[Turuk]

I wonder what ideas have actually produced change in the game lately, if any?

Well, if you factor out the number of ideas that users propose that have already been mentioned before and have been stated will not be done, you can take away half. Then take away the trivial ideas that would be nice to have in game but developers do not have time to do, and the users never want to step up and work on like they could, you can take away another 25%. The remaining 25% is mostly taken up by ideas that either radically change Wesnoth, are un-KISS to implement, make no sense, or have not been logically thought out with reasons provided for inclusion.

Somewhere in there, there is an occasional 1% that is a good idea. Maybe.

[torsoboy]

It must feel like a permanent Groundhog Day being a moderator on this forum then.

[Turuk]

You know, that's probably the best comparison I've heard about it in a long time.