Do we need another era?

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Quetzalcoatl
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Do we need another era?

Post by Quetzalcoatl »

Wesnoth is a great and very impressing game already and stuff that was designed for single player games and team matches works amazingly well.

Right now we have two eras one Default that ppl usually play and that is used as a reference by most of add-ons / campaigns, and second AoH that is addressed to the folks who need some more thrill. This works great the way it is in most of the cases (team vs, cooperative and campaign games).

However as many of you played 1v1 a lot I bet, you probably noticed that there is a group of players that would like to have some changes in eras we already have for better 1v1 experience, as 1v1 is quite popular and quite specific kind of game. For example you probably saw at least one of the ideas mentioned below discussed in game chat:
- remove leadership
- remove 6mp leaders
- remove mage leaders
- remove lvl 0 units
- removing unit x from faction y
- change attack type/damage of unit x form a to b
- increase / decrease cost of unit x
- give all factions unique leaders
and such...

Well, right now making such changes looks just like a bad idea. There are few reasons for that. First of all (and probably most important): it would break compatibility with stuff that was esigned for other kind of games. That's really bad and makes most of the mentioned changes unacceptable, I think its fairly obvious. Second problem is that removing features available to all players only to please small subset of them is also not a best idea.

While I was thinking about that I came to conclusion that the best solution we can have to solve this issue is to develop new era designed only for 1v1 experience. I'm aware of fact that it wouldn't make anyone happy, but its a chance to win a lot. As we don't need sprites (we can use current ones) we can archive and experiment a lot more than in default era... We can remove units, add units (as lvl 3 have marginal meaning in 1v1 context we can remove all lvl 3 units and have a lot of new sprites to use). It would be probably unbalanced at beginning but if there is a will in community to make it happen I'm sure we can solve them with time (we don't need to have all 6 factions at first release). So what do you think about all of that?

And last and most important thing is to distribute it with Wesnoth otherwise it wouldn't be popular enough to change a lot and ppl would be probably playing 1v1 using default era (so I bet the real question is who would be interested to contribute to this project to make it solid and enough reliable).

Cheers
Q
Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head.
Eskon
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Re: Do we need another era?

Post by Eskon »

It's hard enough to keep the one offical 1vs1 era we have balanced. Another one? With the main differences being... That there is less stuff in it a small subset of players you already mentioned isn't worth accomodating would complain about? Do you honestly think that if you give in to the demands of that small subset of players, there would be no more complaints? Complaints will always exist. This is because you don't have to be smart to complain about something (not being smart makes complaining a lot easier in fact).

That suggestion doesn't solve any problems that actually exist and adds a whole slew of new problems.

If there really were any room for extra eras in mainline Wesnoth, I'd suggest to add (or create) a high-quality user-made era with original concepts and units, such as maybe the Era of Myths, of course only after sufficient polishing and balancing work. I am not aware of any user-made eras, currently, that are even close to mainline quality.
Caphriel
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Re: Do we need another era?

Post by Caphriel »

Do we need another era? Obviously not. Would some people play it if it was made? Probably. Should another era be added to mainline? Not in my opinion.

One of those is already in progress. Most of those ideas strike me as super-awful-bad, though. Removing all level 3 units? What about the units in the relatively quick level lines? Just the other day I saw a relatively close game decided by one player acquiring a royal guard. And yes, it was on normal map settings, 70% experience, etc.

Removing units and changing damage types are pretty big balance changes. If you remove mage leaders, and 6mp leaders, and leadership, what does that leave for the Rebels in terms of leaders? The undead will only have 2 options, too. Removing level 0 units is another hefty balance change.

But overall, I don't see the point of this thread. Are you asking for an era that doesn't exist yet to be mainlined? There's nothing stopping you from making an era like this, but you probably have to balance it first and prove it's good before it has a chance of being considered for mainline. You'll probably have to overcome OAB too.
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Quetzalcoatl
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Re: Do we need another era?

Post by Quetzalcoatl »

Ah maybe I got too excited about that idea and it isn't so great after all :| . Well thought it could be worth discussing...
Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head.
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ParadiseCity
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Re: Do we need another era?

Post by ParadiseCity »

Quetzalcoatl wrote:Ah maybe I got too excited about that idea and it isn't so great after all :| . Well thought it could be worth discussing...
What isn't worth discussing is a change to the default era that does only those things. It would set off game balance and such.

However, what is worth discussing is a different "Competetive Era." It would utilize these changes, and then compensate for them by adding or moding existing units in the default era. Such an era wouldn't (should aim to not) be unbalanced, but would satisfy the needs of players who do not like the aformentioned qualities of normal 1v1 play. Of course it would be UMC, but most new ideas are.

And who knows? It could work well and be ported into mainline or the experimental version if a dev likes.

Personally, I don't feel the need for any drastic changes. But if you feel a need or want for it, I say go for it.
"The harder I work, the more luck I seem to have." -Thomas Jefferson
sLaughter
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Re: Do we need another era?

Post by sLaughter »

I don't think we should dismiss the idea of a competitive multiplayer era. From what I gathered in this thread http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=29756 , balance for multiplayer and campaign/fluff do collide. As well, I believe there are enough campaign players and multiplayer players in the Wesnoth community that both would be served by a slight separation of campaign and multiplayer play.

However, I think the chief risk, so to speak, of setting up a competitive multiplayer era is that there would be too little change to make them... well, different. If I can assume that the people talking about xp caps in the linked thread are representative of a majority opinion (which I can't, but find reasonable nonetheless), it still comes down to me talking about retooling some xp values. Not quite a big deal. Not that it's much of a risk.

On the other hand, I would be interested in seeing what different people come up with as their interpretation of what Wesnoth looks like when geared purely for "competitive" play. I think if we can learn anything from the Team Fortress 2 and Super Smash Bros. communities, it's that people have wildly, weirdly different conceptions of what "comp" should look like. In light of this, I suggest that any modifications made for a Competitive Era start small.
Caphriel
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Re: Do we need another era?

Post by Caphriel »

No RNG, Random faction only, Freelands? :lol2:
To some extent, there's support from a subset of the community for removing the RNG, but the rest of the competitive community would likely regard that as not-Wesnoth. Similarly, there's already evidence that Freelands is dramatically over-represented in competitive play (see the ladder statistics thread.) HMMMM...

I'm mistrustful of the idea of making a competitive gaming mod in general, because it will further fragment the "vanilla" Wesnoth community, which is already divided by ladder/non-ladder. Despite what some players think, not all competitive Wesnoth players are ladder members. Even if the ladder admins decided to use a competitive mod, they can't make it mandatory, so then we'd have ladder/mod, ladder/no-mod, no-ladder/mod, and no-ladder/no-mod groups, which would just make it harder to find games. And that's assuming that only one flavor of competitive gaming mod is produced. More likely, there would be several competing mods.

So even if the mod might improve the game somewhat, by some standards, I oppose trying to "fix" or "improve" Wesnoth for competitive gaming because of the effect it would have on the community.
Side note on mages
In regards to mages, their uniquely high experience to level has often frustrated me, but on the other hand, level 2 mages are some of the most game-influencing units when they show up on the field, so despite what seems like a carry-over from the campaigns, it works just fine.
grrr
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Re: Do we need another era?

Post by grrr »

Caphriel, I think you're just trolling now. Q's proposal had nothing to do with luck or more uniform ladder play. In fact, Q hasn't played ladder for month, and assuming that only the competitive crowd would be interested in an era especially made for MP is pure speculation on your behalf.

Also, this often mentioned community split risk just looks like an argument to prematurely end any discussion about change. People have different preferences, yet we all play the same game and express our ideas in the same forum.

Really, there is no split. Wesnoth MP keeps changing, and you are simply afraid of it.
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Quetzalcoatl
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Re: Do we need another era?

Post by Quetzalcoatl »

So, is anybody interested in developing new alternate competitive era no matter if it will be official or not?
Well if anybody is we can discuss how different from the default one it should be.
Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head.
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Rigor
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Re: Do we need another era?

Post by Rigor »

i also think this is just a so-called http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man as if the communty would split itself like a church XD those worries were non-existent when the non-default eras were invented, right?

my first suggestion in the new era would be to change the footies resistances to -20% arcane, for starters.
Caphriel
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Re: Do we need another era?

Post by Caphriel »

By "community" in my previous post I was referring to the population of the MP server, not the forum/IRC/creative community, which seems to have caused some misunderstanding. My previous post was referring to the two before it, and only those two.

I'll hold off on responding to you, grrr until you've had a chance to confirm what you said in light of those clarifications, since to my understanding your post is that it consisted of defending Q from things I was not saying to him, and dismissing my concern about community fragmentation based on a different understanding of what I meant by community. And a couple ad hominem arguments (accusing me of trolling, dismissing my concerns as "simply being afraid of change"), which I won't respond to anyway :wink:

@Rigor: Trying to conflate my concerns about an era designed to replace default with my lack of concerns about eras that are not similar at all to default is a textbook example of a straw man argument :roll:

The MP server population is clearly and unarguably split every time someone plays new UMC, and remains split as long as they continue playing it instead of playing something that previously existed. I am legitimately concerned that efforts like this will (further) marginalize mainline default, which is the only part of Wesnoth I like to play, and while that may be irrelevant to you, it is of great relevance to me.
Yogibear
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Re: Do we need another era?

Post by Yogibear »

I think the mp community is highly split already:
- rumble players
- survival players
- team players
- mp campaign players
- 30% xp players
- isar's players
- certain language players
- ladder players
- fun / competitive players

Yet, i can't see that it harms the community in any way. Did i miss something?
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Eskon
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Re: Do we need another era?

Post by Eskon »

I'm wondering... What would changing footpad arcane resistance to -20% achieve? Would it make ghosts an effective counter to footpad/ulfserker?
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Pentarctagon
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Re: Do we need another era?

Post by Pentarctagon »

the community isn't really that split. for example, i will play rumbles, survivals, team matches, isars matches, an occasional ladder game, and mp campaigns with a friend or 2 locally.
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Caphriel
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Re: Do we need another era?

Post by Caphriel »

@Yogibear:
Yes, my point :P The answer to your question depends on what you think of as "harms." It certainly doesn't make the community toxic, or (usually) lead to bitter arguments, but it does make it somewhat less likely that there will be people around who play what you want to play. The more similar two choices are, the more they compete for players. The ones you listed are in some cases entirely compatible, and in other cases distinct enough that there's no real competition. An era based around slightly tweaking default would be very similar to default, and therefore compete strongly with it for players.

My point was that I really like default, vanilla Wesnoth, and already have trouble finding people to play against, and therefore oppose this as it would naturally attempt to poach players of default, vanilla Wesnoth. This is especially true with my initial response to this suggestion because the original idea included distributing the new era with Wesnoth.

Am I being unclear here? :(

@Pentactagon: I don't play most of those, so from my perspective, when you're not playing something I play, you've been removed into a separate playerbase and are not part of the pool of available players for me to interact with.

@Eskon: I think that's the idea. I'm not sure how well it would work, because the footpad still dodges well. It would increase the ghost's melee damage by 1 at all times, and its drain by 1 during night and day, but I think they'd still be too expensive to use as an effective counter to footpad/ulf :hmm:
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