Thoughts on orcish assassin's marksman?

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Scubaforce
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Thoughts on orcish assassin's marksman?

Post by Scubaforce »

I personally like the idea for marksman, but I think its more suited for just the level 2 unit.
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JW
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Re: Thoughts on orcish assassin's marksman?

Post by JW »

Scubaforce wrote:I personally like the idea for marksman, but I think its more suited for just the level 2 unit.
If this is just our personal opinion, this should be in off-topic. If you're trying to make a balancing argument (why it would be in this forum) you'll need some better devevloped logic than that my friend.
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Re: Thoughts on orcish assassin's marksman?

Post by Velensk »

Reguardless of how much more thematic it is on the level two unit, having it on the level one unit is a good addition to multiplayer.
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Re: Thoughts on orcish assassin's marksman?

Post by tsr »

As I have proven before I'm not really a math-person, but I think it's a crap decision to give the assassin/slayer marksman and only for flavor reasons and that you could achieve almost the same effect by changing the attack from 3-3 marksman, poison to 2-4 poison (or even 3-4 poison).

I feel that the bruteishness of the orcs is lessened and that the factions take one small step closer with this change. Please reconsider!

/tsr

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Re: Thoughts on orcish assassin's marksman?

Post by Wintermute »

tsr wrote:As I have proven before I'm not really a math-person, but I think it's a crap decision to give the assassin/slayer marksman and only for flavor reasons and that you could achieve almost the same effect by changing the attack from 3-3 marksman, poison to 2-4 poison (or even 3-4 poison).
The chance for an assassin (before change) to miss 3 times against a dwarf on a mountain is 34.3%. If the assassin had a 2-4 attack the chance of missing all 4 would be 24.01%. With marksman the chance of missing 3 out of 3 attacks is 6.4%.
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Ken_Oh
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Re: Thoughts on orcish assassin's marksman?

Post by Ken_Oh »

I honestly think it's hardly defensible from a flavor standpoint, that an orc can throw a dagger with the same accuracy that an elf can use a bow.

However, it makes perfect sense in gameplay. Every other faction but Knaglans have a level 1 unit with either magical or marksman.
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Re: Thoughts on orcish assassin's marksman?

Post by Wintermute »

Ken_Oh wrote:I honestly think it's hardly defensible from a flavor standpoint, that an orc can throw a dagger with the same accuracy that an elf can use a bow.
I agree to some extent, but I think that the "problem" here, in terms of flavor, comes from the word itself. "marksman" is a word that really makes me think of a bow, so it seems somewhat unnatural to put it on other things. However, I have come to think of marksman (since the time I first started playing) in an abstract sense (it is an abstract game, after all). So to me marksman really means 'good at what they do'. And I think this can easily be seen to fit with assassins. They should be good at poisoning things. I think if a different word were suggested for the ability that properly conveyed this, it might be considered - I have tried but I didn't come up with one. And since everyone knows what marksman does right now, changing words has some downside - so it would have to be really good.
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TL
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Re: Thoughts on orcish assassin's marksman?

Post by TL »

Thinking of marksman in terms of accuracy doesn't really make much sense to begin with. One of the main effects of the marksman special is the ability to negate hard cover, which suggests that it's more about being able to get around obstacles or attack from unusual angles--you can't shoot through solid obstacles just by aiming really well. If anything the glider and assassin have more claim to the marksman special than the elves do, although if you think of the sharpshooters more in terms of stealth and sneak attacks than pure accuracy it makes sense.

This interpretation does raise the question of why ambush and marksman are mutually exclusive branches for the elf archer though. Oh wait! I don't really care about flavor to begin with. Phew!

Back to the original topic: it's hella fun for northies, that's for certain. I am somewhat concerned about how easy assassins are to level up now, especially since their elusivefootitivity (this is totally a word I swear) means their survival is easily subject to extreme luck swings. It remains to be seen if this is actually going to be a problem though. In my opinion a lot of northie fans overused assassins to begin with and their game suffered for it; this might not do any more than make those numbers of assassins viable (if even that), or it could completely overpower them (admittedly unlikely). I haven't had time to get much practical experience in MP on it yet.
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Re: Thoughts on orcish assassin's marksman?

Post by zookeeper »

Wintermute wrote:However, I have come to think of marksman (since the time I first started playing) in an abstract sense (it is an abstract game, after all). So to me marksman really means 'good at what they do'. And I think this can easily be seen to fit with assassins.
I'd consider it pretty silly if they were better at what they do (that is, throwing knives) than for example lvl3 human assassins. Many of the high-level units are supposed to be really good at what they do, whether it's hitting with a sword, shooting with a bow or poking with a spear. I do find it somewhat absurd that a silly expendable half-goblin assassin would be better at what he does than most other units.

More strikes with lower damage? Fine, that'd give the impression of a flurry of crappy little knives, which would fit them great. Marksman gives the impression that they're actually exceptionally accurate with them, which doesn't make much sense.
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Re: Thoughts on orcish assassin's marksman?

Post by Gambit »

According to history channel the word marksman applies to anyone with extremely accurate aim with any ranged weapon.

Throwing knives, mashmellow guns, pencils, pretty much if its not melee and you hit 99 percent of the time you qualify as a "marksman"


however the dictionary meaning is "someone skilled in shooting"
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Re: Thoughts on orcish assassin's marksman?

Post by teg »

Wintermute wrote:The chance for an assassin (before change) to miss 3 times against a dwarf on a mountain is 34.3%. If the assassin had a 2-4 attack the chance of missing all 4 would be 24.01%. With marksman the chance of missing 3 out of 3 attacks is 6.4%.
Maybe a 2/5 attack, the assassin will have a 16.8% to miss all 5 shots, dealing a max 10 damage.
He will not be a marksman (super accurate), but he will still have high chances to poison due to his high speed at throwing knifes.
2/6 gives a 11.8% to miss all but the max damage will become higher.

It is maybe an option in case of a change that will not change the balance a lot (3-3 marksman: 6.4% to miss, 9 max damage compared to 2/5 non marksman: 16.8% to miss, 10 max damage).
Last edited by teg on March 27th, 2009, 3:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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nani
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Re: Thoughts on orcish assassin's marksman?

Post by nani »

Not looking at the exact meaning of marksman, for me it appears to be more reasonable
for an attack type like poison, that does only need one hit to take effect, not to get a marksman-feature.
I'd personally like to avoid a sure shot of such an attack type and thus I pretty much support tsr saying:
tsr wrote:changing the attack from 3-3 marksman, poison to 2-4 poison
Meaning there'd almost be a chance of 1/4 (referring to Wintermute's calculations) for a unit on max defense (70%) not to get poisoned,
which is still pretty low but avoiding the sure shot with a chance of around 1/16 imho.
Furthermore with zookeeper's explanation it'd even make sense.
zookeeper wrote:More strikes with lower damage? Fine, that'd give the impression of a flurry of crappy little knives, which would fit them great. Marksman gives the impression that they're actually exceptionally accurate with them, which doesn't make much sense.
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Re: Thoughts on orcish assassin's marksman?

Post by Gambit »

Marksmen should only need one hit. Especially with poison as nani pointed out. If you lowered the strikes to like 2 perhaps marksman would be more acceptable.

But to have crudload of strikes + 70% chance always to hit, you're talking a unit that could kill another equal unit in one-two attacks.
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Re: Thoughts on orcish assassin's marksman?

Post by zookeeper »

Gambit wrote:But to have crudload of strikes + 70% chance always to hit, you're talking a unit that could kill another equal unit in one-two attacks.
I think you don't have your facts right, sir.
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Re: Thoughts on orcish assassin's marksman?

Post by Gambit »

Probably not. I can't stand dwarves.


Though by "attacks" I did mean the full set of strikes. So

3-5 + marksman times 2 turns.... I could see that killing. maybe 3 turns...
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