Problems with Gold and the Leveling System in BfW?

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chaoticwanderer
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Re: Problems with Gold and the Leveling System in BfW?

Post by chaoticwanderer »

Caphriel wrote:Never mind save loading, did you beat all those campaigns without having to go back and redo a previous scenario, on your first playthrough? Because it sounds like you're entirely ignoring the point of the discussion, in favor of assuming the participants aren't good at Wesnoth :(
I couldn't redo a scenario if I wanted to, because I have a compulsive habit of deleting files I no longer need, whether it's school or wesnoth :) . So I don't keep any old scenario files. I always just crank out the win with what I have. Whenever I get stuck, for some inspiration, I typically check out the walkthroughs or go to the scenario review page and see what others have done. In general, I find that changing my recruit strategy and/or general plan will usually do the trick. Take for example that one scenario in HttT (which I sadly never completed because I accidently deleted my file when clearing out some old replays :cry: ) where you have to survive against the three liches. I got stuck on that one for a while; my initially strategy was to just hole up in my keep and win. That didn't work. After looking at the walkthrough, I found the strategy that worked for me: Move down quickly and take out the southern Lich as quickly as possible and hole up in his keep, making it easier to survive because you've taken one guy out already, and there's more room between you and the other two liches, one of whom has the powerful but slow WC juggernaut. After changing my plan I beat it shortly after.
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Re: Problems with Gold and the Leveling System in BfW?

Post by Jozrael »

From my point of view, the sum response to your complaint is such:

Every campaign should be completable on the easiest difficulty level with zero carryover gold or recruits. If this is not so, that is a balance problem with the easy level of that campaign. Thus, it appears to me that there is a difficulty level that is perfectly suitable for your needs: you should be able to complete it first time through with proper 'strategy'.

I do not demean you with the quotes in the previous sentence, just that your use of the word is somewhat different from my understanding of its use in Wesnoth. When I play a campaign, I see both the placement and choice of attack and retreat within the scenario as much of strategy as gold and experience management. These three are all skills that I value in advancing a campaign.


Now to the next point: obviously, good gold and XP management are huge benefits (or they wouldn't make scenarios completable/easier). Laying aside the point that these then might be -skills- in Wesnoth, might not players who are good at them want a challenge? This is why some harder difficulty levels are difficult to the point that you need both a good XP/Gold management system and previous knowledge of the campaign. This is why when I play campaigns I play through them once on easy (so as to not have to worry about the walls that Caphriel mentioned), and then play through them on the hardest difficulty to challenge myself: I know the 'turns' that are coming, what units might be useful, and I strategize both in scenario and in regards to gold and XP to successfully complete them.
Gestalt
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Re: Problems with Gold and the Leveling System in BfW?

Post by Gestalt »

Jozrael wrote:From my point of view, the sum response to your complaint is such:

Every campaign should be completable on the easiest difficulty level with zero carryover gold or recruits. If this is not so, that is a balance problem with the easy level of that campaign. Thus, it appears to me that there is a difficulty level that is perfectly suitable for your needs: you should be able to complete it first time through with proper 'strategy'.

I do not demean you with the quotes in the previous sentence, just that your use of the word is somewhat different from my understanding of its use in Wesnoth. When I play a campaign, I see both the placement and choice of attack and retreat within the scenario as much of strategy as gold and experience management. These three are all skills that I value in advancing a campaign.


Now to the next point: obviously, good gold and XP management are huge benefits (or they wouldn't make scenarios completable/easier). Laying aside the point that these then might be -skills- in Wesnoth, might not players who are good at them want a challenge? This is why some harder difficulty levels are difficult to the point that you need both a good XP/Gold management system and previous knowledge of the campaign. This is why when I play campaigns I play through them once on easy (so as to not have to worry about the walls that Caphriel mentioned), and then play through them on the hardest difficulty to challenge myself: I know the 'turns' that are coming, what units might be useful, and I strategize both in scenario and in regards to gold and XP to successfully complete them.
My point is that each scenario should be self contained and not depend on gold and level of units from previous scenarios.

Again, this is not an easy/difficulty issue. Rather, it’s an issue of how success is achieved.

OK, so we do have different conceptions of what constitutes strategy. I don’t really have much of a sense of “managing resources” like you say. I mean, capture as many villages as possible, finish the scenario as quickly as possible and try to get as many guys leveled-up as possible. Not really much to that. And if you are able to do this, then you’re in great shape for the next scenario. And when I play campaigns on easy, achieving these goals is rarely a problem. What is a problem, however, and what really lies at the heart of my complaint, is that because of my superior “resource management” on easy I’m able to complete scenarios in spite of any ‘strategy’ I might employ (i.e., because of how many and the level of units I’m able to recruit). As such, my sense of having come up with a good strategy for completing a scenario is compromised and, therefore, so is my enjoyment.

Of course, you encounter the opposite problem when you do campaigns on hard: you can often get through scenarios after hitting on the right strategy (and that’s quite enjoyable!), but invariably you’ll hit that scenario where no matter how fool-proof your strategy is you won’t be able to complete it unless you also have sufficient resources. This forces you to go back and do over earlier scenarios until you complete them with sufficient resources (and that’s not enjoyable!). If I am granted success in an earlier scenario, I’m working under the assumption that I have the resources I need for later scenarios. Otherwise why grant me success?

Your solution of doing campaigns on easy and then difficult seems like a good one, and perhaps it’s a practice I’ll adopt, but by suggesting this practice you’re agreeing with me on what the fundamental problem is: that on higher difficulty levels, precisely because you don’t know what resources will be required several scenarios down the line, you have no barometer for judging whether you’re achieving enough success to complete later scenarios. I mean, if you are telling me I’ve successfully completed a scenario, I’m assuming you are also telling me that I have the resources to complete subsequent scenarios. As you say, by first playing through on easy, you can get some idea of the resources required for each scenario, and then when you play on hard, you can make the appropriate adjustments (i.e., make sure you don’t just beat a scenario but do so in style). But I don’t think this should be required of players. Instead, to my mind, a better solution would be to only let me pass a scenario if I have the minimum resources to complete the next and subsequent scenarios.
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Re: Problems with Gold and the Leveling System in BfW?

Post by Noy »

Again I must strenuously disagree with your conception of what strategy consists of and how it relates to our campaign system. First on leveling units and RPG elements vs Strategic ones. Units that engage in combat typically become more effective if they survive and disseminate their reviews. We see that in the Russian army during the Second World War, or among US army units that engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last decade. They learn, become more effective at their operations. Napoleon's Old Guard was selected from the most effective individual from his prior campaigns. While upgrading in the way its implemented is somewhat an abrupt change, its not without such precedent.

Moreover it is absolutely realistic for battles to be heavily influenced by prior battles. Had Harold Godwinson overcome the Viking King Harald Harada with less casualties at Stamford Bridge in September 1066, he may well have been able to defeat William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings a month later. But he didn't, and his army was weakened when they reached hastings, which contributed to William the Conqueror's subsequent victory. Had Harold could predict that he would have faced William in such a short time after, or the eventual outcome of the battle, he might have not faced Harald or attempted to defeat him faster. Or if Napoleon had been able to decisively defeat Kutzov at Borodino (or brought them into battle earlier), he wouldn't have faced the mauling he did on the Winter March back in 1812.

So what happens in early battles often have a critical determination on subsequent operations. Strategic analysts have a word for operations that may well be a victory in the short run, but ultimately sinks an operation; a pyrrhic victory. So in a campaign your forces get mauled because of your poor performance in a prior operation, thats still your failing as a commander to effectively defeat your prior opponent in a timely fashion. Its not a problem with our game design, as tens of thousands of people have completed the Wesnoth campaign in the past.

And the alternative you propose is problematic. Ignoring all that I've said, lets for a minute say that your idea has merit and we decide to implemented. So now we have to alter every scenario to meet this new system and make pretty significant changes to how campaign operates. It would require new programming to enable resuscitation of fallen soldiers; not an easy task. Or, instead of all of this, you can just simply turn the difficulty down and beat the campaign on easy.

I think you can guess which option we prefer.
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zookeeper
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Re: Problems with Gold and the Leveling System in BfW?

Post by zookeeper »

Gestalt wrote:My point is that each scenario should be self contained and not depend on gold and level of units from previous scenarios.

Again, this is not an easy/difficulty issue. Rather, it’s an issue of how success is achieved.

OK, so we do have different conceptions of what constitutes strategy. I don’t really have much of a sense of “managing resources” like you say. I mean, capture as many villages as possible, finish the scenario as quickly as possible and try to get as many guys leveled-up as possible. Not really much to that. And if you are able to do this, then you’re in great shape for the next scenario. And when I play campaigns on easy, achieving these goals is rarely a problem. What is a problem, however, and what really lies at the heart of my complaint, is that because of my superior “resource management” on easy I’m able to complete scenarios in spite of any ‘strategy’ I might employ (i.e., because of how many and the level of units I’m able to recruit). As such, my sense of having come up with a good strategy for completing a scenario is compromised and, therefore, so is my enjoyment.

Of course, you encounter the opposite problem when you do campaigns on hard: you can often get through scenarios after hitting on the right strategy (and that’s quite enjoyable!), but invariably you’ll hit that scenario where no matter how fool-proof your strategy is you won’t be able to complete it unless you also have sufficient resources. This forces you to go back and do over earlier scenarios until you complete them with sufficient resources (and that’s not enjoyable!). If I am granted success in an earlier scenario, I’m working under the assumption that I have the resources I need for later scenarios. Otherwise why grant me success?

Your solution of doing campaigns on easy and then difficult seems like a good one, and perhaps it’s a practice I’ll adopt, but by suggesting this practice you’re agreeing with me on what the fundamental problem is: that on higher difficulty levels, precisely because you don’t know what resources will be required several scenarios down the line, you have no barometer for judging whether you’re achieving enough success to complete later scenarios. I mean, if you are telling me I’ve successfully completed a scenario, I’m assuming you are also telling me that I have the resources to complete subsequent scenarios. As you say, by first playing through on easy, you can get some idea of the resources required for each scenario, and then when you play on hard, you can make the appropriate adjustments (i.e., make sure you don’t just beat a scenario but do so in style). But I don’t think this should be required of players. Instead, to my mind, a better solution would be to only let me pass a scenario if I have the minimum resources to complete the next and subsequent scenarios.
Of course that'd be nice, but how? Leveling up your units and recalling them later is integral to the campaigns, and a major part of the fun factor, so that's something we just can't remove. There's no algorithm that could determine whether you have the minimum resources necessary or not. The minimum gold for a scenario can't be raised high enough that it could always make up for a total lack of recalls, because then it'd be too easy for most of the players who arrive at that scenario with a "normal" amount of recalls.

If someone came up with a genuinely good solution for compensating the player for missing or lost recalls while also not discouraging the player from leveling up units as much as he can or encouraging them to be careless with their units, or something else that'd fix the problem you're describing without altering the game much for those who like it as it is, then it might be considered for some campaign as an experiment. The thing is that there's hardly been any suggestions on the details short of mostly dismantling the recalling system.

Personally, the idea that seems most feasible to me would be some kind of warning messages popping up every now and then telling the player that they're having a dangerously poor recall list and suggesting that they try to level up more units of this or that type or they might hit a wall later on. However, trying to balance that kind of a recall list evaluator would be a horribly delicate task for campaigns with a very large recruit list, like HttT.
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Re: Problems with Gold and the Leveling System in BfW?

Post by Yoyobuae »

How's this for a "barometer for judging whether you’re achieving enough success": Ranking for each scenario.

The idea is to evaluate the carry-over gold and recalls to come of with a grade of sorts: A, B, C, etc (or some sort of Wesnoth themed medal/award). At the end of each scenario the player gets a report showing his completion rank and possibly a breakdown of the parameters that are evaluated.

The issues lie on which parameters to evaluate. Gold is an obvious candidate, but some method would be necesary to evaluate the recall list. Maybe using WML, thus giving the campaign designer the means to guide players to achieve the required resources before they reach an scenario which will require their use.

Unluckily, this means more work for campaign designers. So maybe simplify to just test a condition and, if met, give the award to player (makes it easier to test the gold/recall with WML).
ninjalj
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Re: Problems with Gold and the Leveling System in BfW?

Post by ninjalj »

Or, instead of a grade system (A, B, C), you could show a graph comparing your performance (gold, recalls) against a typical player. This should be doable if every campaign designer works the way esr does:
esr wrote:The balancing method that seems to work for me is simply to play through the campaign often enough to get a feel for the number of veterans the player will typically have going into each scenario, and then tune the enemy gold so the player can just about beat it reliably at Normal level with those veterans.
http://www.catb.org/~esr/wesnoth/campai ... difficulty
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Re: Problems with Gold and the Leveling System in BfW?

Post by Jozrael »

Gestalt: Unfortunately, a repeat player of a campaign will ALWAYS have a huge advantage over a new player. This is a necessary evil: I and MANY other players CRAVE replayability (I have played some campaigns in excess of 20 times over, because I just simply love the way each scenario feels). But story is important too: and sometimes said stories include surprises (or 'walls'). While we try to avoid 'tomato surprises' as some call them, they're an integral part of many campaigns that would be very difficult to remove.

This is why I recommend the two-pass approach to minimize frustration.
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Re: Problems with Gold and the Leveling System in BfW?

Post by Limabean »

First off, I want to congratulate Gestalt on his calm/respectful reasoning. I was originally skeptical but i can't help agreeing with you.
zookeeper wrote:If someone came up with a genuinely good solution for compensating the player for missing or lost recalls while also not discouraging the player from leveling up units as much as he can or encouraging them to be careless with their units, or something else that'd fix the problem you're describing without altering the game much for those who like it as it is, then it might be considered for some campaign as an experiment. The thing is that there's hardly been any suggestions on the details short of mostly dismantling the recalling system.
I don't see why we can't allow the player to recruit a limited number of the higher level units on the most difficult scenarios only (as OP suggested). It would not really effect the recall system because without exception, recalling would be far more economically efficient.

I'm not going to bother looking up the exact numbers, but I'm certain recruiting a white mage costs a whole lot more than recalling it. Plus you have some extra xp and you know the traits of the recall. Therefore, players will still strive to level as many units as possible because relying on recruiting higher levels will quickly bankrupt you. Another way to prevent lvl 2 spamming, besides economics, would be to treat the recruited lvl 2's as "temporary mercenaries" that disappear from the battlefield and the recall list after the scenario has been won. I think I could figure out the WML for this type of thing, so it can't be too complicated :wink:

This would of course fix the problem of the surprise "wall" in a campaign. If, for example, you are suddenly facing an undead spam for the first time in a campaign and don't have anything to effectively counter them, you could decide to throw away some gold in exchange for a white mage and shock trooper. It would be something a skilled player should try to avoid, but could give you the edge you need to beat a praticularly challenging scenario and save you the frustration of replaying the previous scenario(s).
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Re: Problems with Gold and the Leveling System in BfW?

Post by zookeeper »

Limabean wrote:I don't see why we can't allow the player to recruit a limited number of the higher level units on the most difficult scenarios only (as OP suggested). It would not really effect the recall system because without exception, recalling would be far more economically efficient.

I'm not going to bother looking up the exact numbers, but I'm certain recruiting a white mage costs a whole lot more than recalling it. Plus you have some extra xp and you know the traits of the recall. Therefore, players will still strive to level as many units as possible because relying on recruiting higher levels will quickly bankrupt you. Another way to prevent lvl 2 spamming, besides economics, would be to treat the recruited lvl 2's as "temporary mercenaries" that disappear from the battlefield and the recall list after the scenario has been won. I think I could figure out the WML for this type of thing, so it can't be too complicated :wink:

This would of course fix the problem of the surprise "wall" in a campaign. If, for example, you are suddenly facing an undead spam for the first time in a campaign and don't have anything to effectively counter them, you could decide to throw away some gold in exchange for a white mage and shock trooper. It would be something a skilled player should try to avoid, but could give you the edge you need to beat a praticularly challenging scenario and save you the frustration of replaying the previous scenario(s).
Sure, if you have enough gold to throw away. But if you don't have any white mages, are you likely to have lots more gold than the player who has white mages? Probably not.

Of course, having the option of recruiting those white mages wouldn't make you be any worse off than currently, but I'd expect the lack of suitable recalls to correlate pretty heavily with a lack of gold. Often in those tough scenarios, where you really need those white mages or whatever, you'll be spending all your gold anyway: there's few units that can't easily be substituted with their lower-level equivalents, if you can afford to get more of them. If you can't afford to recruit two regular mages to substitute for a white mage you don't have, you can't really afford to recruit a white mage either.

I'm not saying it's a bad idea, since in some cases it might help, but I'm not very convinced that it's quite enough of a solution either.
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Re: Problems with Gold and the Leveling System in BfW?

Post by Velensk »

Two mages don't substitute for a White Mage in terms of healing ability.

Personally I think it's a good thing that the game requires you to keep your specialists alive if you want to have access to them. For this reason I would have little problem if things like swordsmen or red mages were available for recruit but would be annoyed if they let you recruit units like white mages, elvish captains, or rouges. However I would rather that the system encourages you to protect all valueable units rather than let your replace them with relative ease even if they are standard warriors.

By good play you should be able to create a surplus of leveled up units (in most campaigns, a few like Decent into Darkness don't afford you this luxury) to the point where for most types you can afford to lose them even if they reach level 3. It's the specialists (or merely things that are hard to level such as mages) that you need to put extra effort into protecting. In the case of campaigns like Decent into Darkness the entire challange/point of the campaign is to achieve a sufficent number of leveled units to deal with the last few levels.
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Re: Problems with Gold and the Leveling System in BfW?

Post by starfury »

Gestalt wrote: My point is that each scenario should be self contained and not depend on gold and level of units from previous scenarios.

Again, this is not an easy/difficulty issue. Rather, it’s an issue of how success is achieved.
As you mentioned in a previous post, this is really an issue of taste. People like to be rewarded for performing well, but any system that does so necessarily results in a positive feedback loop. Rewards for performing well (even if the reward is simply having troops that are less beat up) mean that you will have more resources later on, making it easier to do well and earn more rewards. The only solution is, as you suggested, to make each scenario a self-contained or nearly self-contained entity by eliminating or severely limiting carryover between scenarios. While that might make for a more fulfilling experience in individual scenarios, it makes for a much less connected experience across the campaign.
Gestalt wrote: Your solution of doing campaigns on easy and then difficult seems like a good one, and perhaps it’s a practice I’ll adopt, but by suggesting this practice you’re agreeing with me on what the fundamental problem is: that on higher difficulty levels, precisely because you don’t know what resources will be required several scenarios down the line, you have no barometer for judging whether you’re achieving enough success to complete later scenarios. I mean, if you are telling me I’ve successfully completed a scenario, I’m assuming you are also telling me that I have the resources to complete subsequent scenarios. As you say, by first playing through on easy, you can get some idea of the resources required for each scenario, and then when you play on hard, you can make the appropriate adjustments (i.e., make sure you don’t just beat a scenario but do so in style). But I don’t think this should be required of players. Instead, to my mind, a better solution would be to only let me pass a scenario if I have the minimum resources to complete the next and subsequent scenarios.
I think this is a misunderstanding of what the hard difficulty is intended to be. In my understanding*, the hard difficulty is usually intended to be challenging for experienced players that have already completed the campaign, and in that sense is more akin to the unlockable difficulty levels you see in some games. With that in mind, if the minimum amount of resources for scenario completion is designed to accommodate the best Wesnoth players who are familiar with the campaign, average or even good players might still run into a wall.

*disclaimer: I don't play on hard, it's too hard. :)
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Re: Problems with Gold and the Leveling System in BfW?

Post by Gestalt »

I wouldn’t want to see changes instituted that markedly change the game. I do agree that a significant amount of enjoyment comes from leveling up units and seeing your army develop over time. I think this is an integral aspect of the game and to remove it would be to, in some sense, destroy the uniqueness of the Wesnoth experience. But I still believe the game would benefit if there were some way to protect against players hitting that dreaded wall. And, yes, I realize that for some replaying scenarios over and over again is very enjoyable. However, for others, who have limited free time and only turn to BfW as a diversion, the thought of having to mine earlier scenarios for gold and levels for their units just to complete later scenarios is a real turn-off.

So it seems to me we need a solution that accommodates players of both tastes. So what is this solution? Let me try to explain one via illustration. Let’s say we have two players. Player A reaches scenario 5 with two level 3 dwarvish lords and a level 2 white mage. Player B reaches the same scenario with just his main character alive (everyone else was wiped out the last scenario). Now, let’s just say that scenario 5 pretty much requires a couple of powerful units and a white mage. While player A can complete the scenario, player B is screwed. My solution would be to simply make two level 3 dwarvish lords and a level 2 white mage available to be recruited AND to make sure that the player also has enough gold to afford them. This would prevent player B from having to return to repeat earlier scenarios.

OK, I hear a couple of criticisms already:

Criticism 1

But now player A has an unfair advantage: he or she can simply recruit the extra units and therefore may have too powerful of an army.

Response

Ideally, players only would be able to recruit the units IF they did not have them. As I am not familiar with the coding end of things, though, I do not know how difficult this would be to implement. Of course if it’s too difficult, then I guess the whole idea is a nonstarter.

Criticism 2

But you are fundamentally changing the Wesnoth experience; part of the enjoyment comes from building up your own army and carrying it through from one scenario to the next.

Response

I totally agree with you that this is part of the fun, and ideally this is how it should be played. But I would point out that my proposed solution does not change this. Rather, it simply gives the player options. The player can still choose to play through with only the army he or she built up, in effect refusing to recruit these higher level units. But with my proposed solution, if the player does not want to redo earlier scenarios, he or she can choose to take the new veteran units that are being offered and continue onwards. I mean, players already have options: they can play it on different levels of difficulty (easy, medium and hard), they can use the save-load method to make sure valuable units don’t die, and they can redo scenarios so as to make sure they finish each scenario with as powerful an army as possible (thus making each successive scenario easier). So just think of this as yet another option for players, one that makes the game more linear (as opposed to stop-go back to mine earlier scenarios for resources-restart-go forward-stop-go back to mine-etc).

So, in the final analysis, maybe this is the way to think about things: it’s not that one way of playing the game is better than another (that's a matter of taste); rather, it’s about trying to accommodate as many tastes as possible within the framework of the game.
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Re: Problems with Gold and the Leveling System in BfW?

Post by starfury »

Gestalt wrote: Ideally, players only would be able to recruit the units IF they did not have them. As I am not familiar with the coding end of things, though, I do not know how difficult this would be to implement. Of course if it’s too difficult, then I guess the whole idea is a nonstarter.
While this doesn't sound difficult from the coding end, I can't say definitively that it isn't (I'm not familiar with the Wesnoth code). However, the difficult part is in determining what units are "required" to complete a scenario because this is ultimately dependent on the player. A white mage may make a particular scenario much easier, but that doesn't necessarily mean an excellent player can't make do without the white mage.
Gestalt wrote:Rather, it simply gives the player options. The player can still choose to play through with only the army he or she built up, in effect refusing to recruit these higher level units. But with my proposed solution, if the player does not want to redo earlier scenarios, he or she can choose to take the new veteran units that are being offered and continue onwards.
As zookeeper noted, adding the ability to recruit higher level units doesn't really help unless you give out more gold as well, and this part isn't really optional. Changing the minimum starting gold would be more of a global change in the difficulty level.

Now, that being said, I do agree that having to redo several scenarios or restart a campaign after hitting a wall is frustrating. While I'm not sure the developers consider this a problem that needs fixing, I'd like to throw out an idea that is completely option for the player and hopefully requires little or no scenario rebalancing. When a player loses a scenario, give them the option to restart with one of the following:
  • 1. X additional gold, where X can be something like 10% of the minimum starting gold
    2. additional randomly generated level 2 unit in their recall list
    3. same as above
    ...
    n. nothing, I don't need any bonuses
The cons I see for this are that it's more difficult to implement, it's exploitable (repeatedly losing), it can allow access to level 2 units earlier than intended, and it may not help that much (may require losing several times to get enough bonuses).
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Re: Problems with Gold and the Leveling System in BfW?

Post by silene »

starfury wrote:When a player loses a scenario, give them the option to restart with one of the following: ...
The cons I see for this are that it's more difficult to implement, it's exploitable (repeatedly losing), it can allow access to level 2 units earlier than intended, and it may not help that much (may require losing several times to get enough bonuses).
I kind of like this idea (though I won't go out of my way to implement it). By the way, it's not necessarily difficult to implement; a WML designer could already put it into a user-made campaign if wished. I wouldn't call it "exploitable" either. I mean, it would be exploitable if we actually wanted to prevent the users from winning, which is not our goal (at least not mine). To add some incentive for players to try harder, the final score/screen could display the number of times the user benefited from a bonus.
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